Free Radical (39 page)

"Yeah, lets get this over with."

"Okay, I just want to warn you that this is going to be a little weird. Just so you know - the suit is going to adjust to your proportions. Once its done, it will pressurize. Okay?"

"Just tell me which button to push."

She did, and as soon as he hit the switch the suit began to move. There was a loud hiss, and air was ejected from the sides of the PSU. The suit began to get tight.

Deck grunted as the suit collapsed in on him. It became tighter and seemed to thin out. The PSU was pumping all of the free air from inside the suit, causing it to cling to him. The tubes retracted, loosing their slack and tightening against his body.

"Crap this hurts," he grunted. Thankfully, the part around his face was rigid and didn't seem to be shrinking like the rest of the suit.

Rebecca broke in, "It will for a few seconds. Just move around. Bend all of your joints and try to take them through their full range of motion if you want the suit to fit right when this is over."

He did as he was told. The suit was now so tight he could see the individual folds and creases in his clothes underneath. Despite the fact that it was shrinking, the suit seemed to somehow stay smooth and tight on the surface.

When it was over, it looked like someone had just put a coat of black paint over his normal clothes. He could see the spider-web patterns of the tubing within the suit. The main tubes broke off into smaller tubes, which in turn broke off into even smaller tubes to form some sort of circulatory system.

A few seconds later the suit pressurized. Air was injected and the suit expanded away from him. It retained its proportions, but now the it seemed to be riding a millimeter away from his skin on a constant cushion of air. He prodded the rubbery surface, which now moved like some sort of gel.

Deck stretched and performed a few motions of a kata. He was quite mobile now. The suit seemed to thin out at the joints as he bent them, and expand again as the joints straightened. Other than the unwelcome weight on his chest, the suit didn't really interfere with his movements at all.

"Looks like it's working great. I think I can deal with this," he said with a nod of approval.

"Good, but uh - you're not done yet."

"There's more? Come on," he said with some irritation.

"Well, you are protected against extreme temperatures and decompression, but the rest of the suit is needed to navigate in zero gravity."

"I'm not leaving the station, so I shouldn't need that part."

"It also has the power and oxygen supply for the part you're wearing now. The inner suit can only hold about five minutes of atmosphere at a time."

"Fine, what do I need to do?"

The outer suit was bulky and added several pounds onto his frame. It was made up of smaller sectional pieces, like a suit of armor. Each piece needed to have a pair of cables connected to it. One provided the power and data feed, and the other provided the fuel for the maneuvering thrusters that were positioned all over the suit. He left the thrusters themselves off, since he didn't plan on using them.

Every part of the suit had to be plugged into another part, and the chest had to be connected to the inner "shrink wrap" suit. Just putting it on and connecting it took twenty minutes.

Once the suit was assembled, he powered it up. The kinetic assist kicked in, and the weight of the suit was lifted from his shoulders. The suit was now standing by itself, with him inside. As he moved, the suit moved with him.

"Cool," he said after moving around for a few minutes, "How much can it lift?"

"If you stand right, it can lift a half ton, but go easy on it. Heavy lifting will drain the power cells in a hurry," she advised.

The final part was the dome helmet. Once it was in place, Rebecca showed him how to draw in air from the outside, so that he wasn't draining his oxygen reserves until he needed them. The controls for the suit were mounted on the back of his left arm.

"How come nobody ever designs things for left-handed people?," he muttered as he fumbled with the tiny buttons under his twice-gloved right hand.

"I didn't know you were. I could have had you mount the controls on the other arm. Takes about ten minutes."

"Forget that," he said as he worked the controls. "Ok, it's done. The suit is using the external atmosphere instead of the tanks."

"Just don't forget to switch your tanks back on before you enter the grove, or you're dead."

"Right. How bad is this stuff that she's growing? If I'm exposed, how will I know?"

She sighed, "There are several life-forms in there we are concerned about, but the worst is the virus. It looks like some of our biotech guys have managed to piece together the genome, so we know what it is on a genetic level, but that doesn't really give us an explicit picture of what it does. To understand it, we would have to create some in a lab down here and watch it go. That's way too dangerous."

"So what do you know about it?"

"Based on our computer model, it pretty much just eats you. Not very clever, but really effective. It just consumes your cells and replicates. According to the simulation, any form of contact with the virus - even topical - will result in a fatal infection. You'll start with a bad rash, which will then begin to bleed. After that, probably a high fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. By this time the virus has hitched a ride in your bloodstream and spread throughout the body. You would probably start bleeding from your mouth, nose and ears, and finally just bleed through the skin. Most of the biotech guys agree that you would be dead in under twenty-four hours. It would kill even faster if you were exposed via the mucous membranes or by inhalation."

Despite all the awful things he had endured and witnessed, he never lost his ability to be horrified by some new menace. He face twisted in disgust as he pictured the bloody, painful death Rebecca described. "You're sure this suit will keep it out?"

"Well, it can keep out the vacuum of space, and there is nothing in the DNA to suggest the virus can eat plastic, so you should be safe while you're in there. Our main concern is decontamination."

"The place should be pretty well decontaminated once I launch it into space."

"I'm not talking about the grove, I'm talking about you. After you've finished in the grove, you'll need to get any traces of the virus off of your suit before you can open the seal. You'll be covered in the stuff, and you need to make sure it's all dead before you take off the suit."

"So how is that going to work?"

"We have a few options. The best one is if you can get your hands on some Biological Destruction Agents."

"I'm guessing I won't find that in any of the vending machines. Is this something I will find here in the storage area?"

"We hope so. The stuff you're looking for will probably be listed as ITM: Incendiary Toxic Material, or as BLC: Biological Liquidation Compound. Either product will do the job."

He turned and headed back to the closest inventory computer. He hooked the sword through one of the tool hooks on the belt of the suit, and carried Fletch. He had to walk carefully until he was used to the extra bulk of the suit. It carried its own weight, but he was still several centimeters taller and wider while he was wearing it. "What will this stuff do?"

"The ITM will burn the virus off, and the BLC will liquidate it."

"How does that work?"

She shook her head, "I don't know, all I have are my notes here." She waved a file folder up in front of the camera. The point is, either agent will kill the virus on exposure. They are designed to completely kill organic material to the point where even the DNA is gone. Both of these chemicals are way more deadly than the virus itself - the first one would kill you in under a minute, the second would probably kill in seconds. These are industrial-grade BDA - Biological Destruction Agents. They are designed to destroy biological material. They are usually used to get rid of stuff created for experimental purposes in a lab. After you're done playing with some bio-toxin, you can't just throw it away, you have to kill it. That's what this stuff is for."

"Wait. You want me to get the deadly virus off of my suit by covering myself in something even more deadly? What do I do once I'm covered with these industrial-grade cooties?"

"That is what is so cool about these BDAs - they are short-acting. As soon as they connect with the air, they begin to break down. After about five minutes, it should be safe to take off the suit."

He was going to get his suit covered in flesh eating organisms, and was going to get that off by covering himself in flesh melting poison. Over the years he'd done a lot of gross and hazardous stuff to get the job done. He'd hidden in dumpsters, entered insect-infested crawlspaces, and even waded through a sewer once. He liked to think of himself as a fairly bold person, but this was crazy. He found the best way to deal with it was to avoid thinking about it. "I'm searching the database for it now," he said.

"If they don't have any, or you can't get to it, then we will have to settle for plan B, which is decompression."

"What do you mean?," he asked warily.

"If you can't get your hands on any BDA, you can use some blasting gel to decompress the grove, which would 
probably
 kill all of the virus."

"Probably?"

"Just find some BDA and you won't have to worry about it."

It took him twenty minutes to locate some of the stuff. With the suit, he was easily able to shuffle the crates around and retrieve the one he wanted. He tore off the various seals with danger and chemical hazard icons, and hacked the crate open with his sword. He had to be careful in opening it, since he didn't want to accidentally rupture the contents and send deadly skin-melting (or whatever it did) toxins into the air.

The ITM came in an assortment of egg-shaped glass containers. The glass was clear, aside from the tiny print that covered its surface. Rebecca instructed him to take two of the largest, which were about half the diameter of a chicken egg.

"They are tougher than they look," She reassured him, "These things usually go into some sort of reinforced container with the material to be destroyed, and are broken open by a machine. You will really have to hit them hard to break them open."

That was easy for her to say. She wasn't the one holding them in her hand. Deck treated them like what they were: glass eggs. He gently slipped them into a pouch on the arm of the EVA suit and zipped it shut.

The executive level was just as he had left it. The EVA suit was still using external atmosphere, and he could smell the heavy, damp air as it rolled into the elevator. There was a pungent, mold-like quality to it that made him sick.

At first, the outer elevator door wouldn't open all the way, preventing him from exiting. The huge holes ripped in the door had caused the surface to bend, making it unable to slide. With the help of the powered suit, he was able to force them open.

As he stepped into the lobby, a door opened and a hulking security bot marched into the room. Deck was already holding his weapon up. He brought the barrel around and clamped down on the trigger.

The bot was shredded before it had time to turn to face him. The huge metal body twitched as the steel shards exploded and fragmented inside its chassis. Even after it stopped moving, Deck held down the trigger until it had toppled over. For almost ten seconds the room was filled with the high-pitched scream of his weapon and the impacts of metal tearing metal at high velocity.

He assumed this was the bot that had punched the holes in the elevator earlier, and he wasn't taking any chances with something like that.

The air was again filled with the smell of scorched circuitry and melting plastic. Smoke drifted from the cratered and perforated metallic carcass.

He consulted his map and headed north. The groves connected to the outside edge of the level, at the four compass points.

The level had been engineered to look like traditional executive areas. Everywhere was plastic that had been molded to look like marble, granite, and wood. Many areas were even carpeted. There were no windows, and the seams created by airlocks were tastefully hidden. Drapes and paintings had been hung to hide protruding pieces of the infrastructure. There was nothing to remind you that you were even in space.

He came to the security station, and found it was guarded by a pair of cyborgs. He identified them around the corner, and managed to retreat before they spotted him.

He paused. He was feeling ready to kick some ass with his powered EVA suit and Fletch, but he didn't want to tip his hand to Shodan. He would need to get into the security station once he was finished in the grove, in order to launch it. However, if he struck now, She might guess what he was doing, and launch it herself.

He doubled back to the lobby and turned east. He would go to the eastern edge of the level and head counter-clockwise around the perimeter. That would allow him to go around the security station without attracting attention. Once he'd done his job in the northern grove, he expected Shodan was going to know what he was up to. When he left the grove, he was going to have to come out shooting.

The air seemed to cling to him inside of the EVA suit. The choking humidity was oppressive. He adjusted the internal temperature downward a few degrees. There was a soft hiss as his internal ventilation pumped air over the inside of the dome helmet, to prevent condensation.

The east grove was quiet. The entrance was a pair of four-meter tall airlock doors that led into the dimly lit area of green vegetation and faux-stone sidewalks. He could see the neatly arranged park benches and what he assumed were imitation trees.

It reminded him of the empty park in front of the TriOptimum building. "Wooden" fences and rows of small shrubbery divided the space into discreet sections so that people could read or talk in relative privacy. The windows were narrow rectangles about two meters tall and about the width of someone's hand, offering a tiny slice of the outside view. A layer of thick green carpet served as a halfhearted reminder of grass.