Chapter 10 - Gestation

 

CHAPTER TEN

“Gestation”

Dr. Holloway woke up before his lover the following morning. He felt absolutely awful; his head pounded, he was covered in sweat, his mouth was dry, he ached all over, his stomach and bowels burned from assumedly all of the low-end white wine Holloway had consumed. He went over to the sink on the other side of the quarters he shared with Dr. Shaw, turned on cold water and rinsed his face two times over before looking at himself in the mirror. He looked about as horrible as he felt, that was true enough; but as he looked at himself, Holloway felt something that was not synonymous with the symptoms of a hangover. He felt an unusual coursing, a sort of warm movement, behind one eye and then the other. Holloway leaned in so that his face was inches from the mirror just above the small, mental sink. He used the pointer fingers on both of his hands to pull apart the top and bottom eyelids of his bloodshot left eye. He leaned in closer… and for one brief moment, Holloway saw it. A hair-sized, worm-like thing slid across his pupil and around his iris before disappearing back into the sea of bloodshot whiteness. Holloway felt unbridled panic seep into every inch of his being. Just as his heart rate began speeding, the intercom on the wall crackled on with the startled voice of Captain Janek.

“Dr. Shaw? Dr. Holloway? You awake?”

Elizabeth Shaw tossed in a mound of sheets momentarily and then sat up in bed. She leaned towards the intercom and pressed the green button.

“Yeah… what’s up?” Shaw acknowledged groggily.

“The storm’s passed, but can’t reach Fifield and Millburn on the com. We’re takin’ a few men down to see if we can rustle ‘em up.”

Dr. Shaw took a moment to notice that Charlie was out of bed, standing dazedly in front of the sink.

“Okay… any idea where they are?” Shaw asked.

“Last time they radioed they were just outside of where ya’ found your head.”

Shaw gave her tired mind a second to digest everything Janek had given her in the last few moments.

“Okay… we’re coming,” she said at last.

Elizabeth Shaw practically launched herself from the small bad and dressed her slender, nude body in a white undershirt and panties underneath of her gray, standard issue unisex Weyland Corporation jumpsuit; which would momentarily be changed out for the full body spandex that accompanied an environmental suit before Shaw headed back out to the blackened alien labyrinth. She turned; suddenly catching a glimpse of the sallow, sickly Charles Holloway.

“Charlie, Jesus… are you okay?”

“Yeah, baby,” Holloway reassured with an unconvincing effort, “I’m just hungover, that’s all.”

Dr. Shaw moved closer and briefly examined him.

“You’re sweating… I think you’ve got a fever.”

“I’m fine, baby – honest.”

Shaw was still not convinced.

“Maybe you should just stay here, Charlie. You really don’t look well.”

“I really want to go. Please, baby. I’m really sorry about drinking last night. I was really upset and I… I was stupid. I’m sorry, Ellie.”

Holloway’s voice sounded somewhat labored. Shaw couldn’t keep staring at Holloway in a mixture of disgust, concern and curiosity. The skin on his right forearm and his lower abdomen appeared to have a series of red abrasions. Shaw immediately worried that she might be suffering the same rashes, but she had looked upon the entire front of her body while she had dressed herself. She had none of the rashes that Holloway possessed. Her next thought was one that was entirely unwelcome; the thought of the blackened rashes upon the flesh of the Engineer head. She told herself it couldn’t possibly be the same thing; Charlie hadn’t touched the head when they first found it in the temple. Charlie hadn’t even been in the lab when the head exploded. If anyone had the most likelihood of being somehow infected by whatever disease the Engineer head had been carrying, it was Shaw. She had examined it, carbon dated it, carried it back to the ship and performed tests on it in the lab.

“It’s all right, Charlie. Fine, let’s just pull ourselves together and do this.”

 

Dr. Shaw and Dr. Holloway were the first to enter the larger of the transport vehicles, followed by the security team Jackson, Vladimir, Wallace, and finally, the co-pilot Chance. Standing outside of the transport was Janek, followed indiscreetly by the android David.

“Ravel, you fix that glitch?” Janek called into his com.

“No, captain,” the co-pilot said from back in the cockpit of the Prometheus, “it must be something in the hardware.”

Janek grunted aloud in slight disdain. The synthetic approached the captain in the moment of opportunity.

“What glitch, captain?”

Janek turned to David in an uncaring manner.

“One of them probes picked up a life form, but then it goes away. It pops up every hour or so for a few minutes and then… it’s gone again.” Janek explained.

David responded as equally careless as his mechanical emotions would allow. What Janek was suggesting could mean a discovery far greater than the ampule containing the false blood of the Deacon. It was imperative that David go and find this probe.

“I can find the probe for you and fix it if you like?”

Janek shrugged and looked away.

“Knock yourself out. Take one of the buggies.”

The captain walked into the large transport and left David there; smiling in ominous silence. The android rushed to acquire one of the single-occupant buggies back in the loading bay. The main transport would depart many minutes before David would, but his vehicle was much quicker. David would arrive at the Engineer temple many minutes before the rest of the team. With luck, the android would already be back on the Prometheus by the time the expedition team returned with whatever became of the unfortunate Charles Holloway.

 

“Millburn!?”

“Fifield!?”

The team walked carefully through the dark; pointing their beams of white light this way and that. Each took turns calling out, though Shaw and Janek did the majority of the work. Each person that is, except Dr. Holloway, who walked as though all of the energy had been sapped from his body. Janek was first to enter the mural room; he looked in surprise at the humongous sculpture of the hairless head of the Chosen One.

“Everyone split up! Dr. Shaw, do we have any idea what is oozing out of these vases?” Janek’s usual blasé demeanor had been put aside for the moment in lieu of a tone of concern that bordered on anger.

“No. They weren’t like this the last time we came.” Shaw responded.

“Hey! Captain!” Jackson called in in clear alarm.

Janek and Vladimir rushed over to Jackson; who was standing next to one of the larger black pools and a dead man in an environmental suit. The glass of the helmet had been smashed and a few locks of curly, ooze-splattered hair hung out of the broken glass.

“What you got, Jackson?” Janek asked before arriving at the side of the mercenary.

“It’s Millburn, Captain.” Vladimir responded for Jackson.

“Don’t touch him!” Janek barked. “Where’s Fifield?!”

Suddenly, a loud disturbance was heard from behind the group that had gathered; the sound of an environmental suit tumbling to the ground. The entire team turned to see Dr. Holloway collapsed on his left side, struggling to get up.

“Charlie?”

“I’m fine baby… I just tripped.”

Shaw ran to assist Holloway in regaining his feet. Only then did she see his face up close. His skin was a deep yellow that began to split open here and there. His veins had become far more visible… he looked like a horrifying, waxen mockery of Charles Holloway.

“Oh my God… you’re sick!” Shaw nearly burst into tears; keeping herself in one piece for the sake of her ill lover.

“Ellie, honey… I need you to look at me. You know infections… what do you see?”

“This is not good, baby,” Shaw had no reassurances for Holloway; who clearly sought one in his desperate state.

“Ellie, what do you see?!” Holloway was begging now.

“Janek! We need to go! Now!” Dr. Shaw called loudly to the Captain of the Prometheus.

More of the lights fell on the gruesome-looking Holloway. Dr. Shaw’s cries were not responded to.

“Janek!” Shaw yelled.

“What’s going on over there?”

“Charlie is sick! It’s not good!” Her voice trembled.  “Help me with him!”

“I’m okay!”

Holloway barely had the capability to verbally downplay his illness. He knew he was going to die from whatever was happening to him. Janek and one of the members of Jackson’s security team lifted Holloway to his feet and began dragging him slowly along.

“Prometheus – come in!” Janek said with authority into his com.

There was no answer. Each second felt like a lifetime.

“Prometheus! Is anyone there?!”

A voice that Janek did not expect finally responded. His skin and hair still had her scent upon them from their recent intimate encounter. Had the situation at hand of been far less dire in nature, Janek might have smirked at the sound of her voice. But there was no time for that; a man’s life was at stake now.

“This is Vickers.”

“I need a medical team standing by the airlock! Full quarantine failsafe! Holloway… is sick!”

“Sick with WHAT?” Vickers demanded.

“Just do it!” Dr. Shaw yelled through her panicked breathing.

Vickers stared in decisive thought at what would need to be done. Just then, the android David’s signal resurfaced after he had cut his communication off entirely. The com was open, but David’s video feed was still off.

“I can’t see you, but I know you can hear me.”

David’s buggy came to a sliding stop just before the loading ramp; which had remained down since the start of the day’s expedition.

“Yes, Miss Vickers - reporting in.” The android allowed with the usual mechanical smugness.

“Get up here and close the door behind you! These idiots are about to infect my ship!”

David smiled at the insignificance of Meredith Vickers as he carefully rolled his buggy up the loading ramp and into the hangar. He didn’t have to ask Vickers to elaborate on the situation. David knew the rescue team would return with a severely sickened Charles Holloway. He made his way to the med lab.

“I’m suiting up,” Vickers said as she closed the com on the bridge of the Prometheus.

 

Less than twenty minutes after David’s lone arrival, the main transport arrived to find its entrance barred by a closed door. The team piled out; the mess that they had become.

“Prometheus! Get that God damn door open!” Janek called into his com desperately.

No response.

“Vickers! Get that door open! That is an order!”

The next voice to call out was the garbled, tortured voice of Dr. Holloway.

“Look at me! It’s too late, okay? I’m sick!”

“No it’s not! Come on!” Elizabeth Shaw denied him.

“Airlock crew, this is Captain Janek! If you can hear me, open that door!”

The mercenary Sheppard moved quickly towards the panel on the opposite side of the loading bay door and went for the ‘open’ button, when the assertive voice of Vickers froze him in his steps.

“HOLD THAT DOOR!”

A blonde woman wearing a full environmental suit stepped into the loading bay and walked over to one of the portable flame throwers.

“OPEN IT!”

The ramp folded out and Vickers stepped out to meet the team.

“What the hell is this?”

It was a stupid thing for the seasoned Captain to say. Deep inside, Janek knew that this was the only likely outcome. He wasn’t going to save Holloway… and he knew what Vickers was going to have to do.

“He is not coming on my ship,” Vickers pointed the incendiary weapon in Holloway’s direction.

“Vickers… this is a sick man!” Janek argued; perhaps just to save face, perhaps because he didn’t know what else to say.

Holloway fell to the ground and began thrashing and screaming. The skin on his face bubbled into a mess of black rashes.

“I can see that! That’s why he’s NOT coming on my ship!” Vickers remained stern and calm in the moment.

“Please, don’t kill him! We can still help him!” Dr. Shaw interjected desperately.

“Help yourself! Everybody but Holloway get back on the ship, now!”

Jackson and Wallace rushed past their employer. They had done what they could to get Dr. Holloway back… none of this was their problem now. Dr. Holloway wasn’t part of their little team.

“We can contain him! Put him in a med pod!” Dr. Shaw begged and reasoned.

Holloway pulled himself to his feel; looking his girlfriend in the eyes and smiling through the excruciating, rapid mutations. His features were almost entirely unrecognizable now.

“Ellie, it’s okay baby… I love … you…”

 Dr. Holloway took one slow step towards Vickers. She tensed; readying the flame thrower to do what needed to be done.

“Vickers, do it, please…”

“Charlie, no!”

Captain Janek grabbed Elizabeth Shaw and began dragging her away from her boyfriend.

“STAY BACK!” Vickers screamed at Holloway as his steps continued in her direction.

“Do … it…”

A torrent of fire spewed forth that lasted seven seconds; Charles Holloway was engulfed in flames. He fell to the ground face first… but he did not scream in the usual sort of agony that came with burning alive; for Charles Holloway’s pain had ended now. Or at the very least, the pain of being incinerated was less terrible than the pain of the alien pathogen. Once Holloway had fallen, Vickers bathed the unmoving man in a second torrent of consuming fire. Janek was barely able to restrain the understandably distraught Dr. Shaw from running to her burning boyfriend. Meredith Vickers turned and walked up the loading ramp. After a few more moments of screaming and struggling against the muscular Captain of the Prometheus, Elizabeth Shaw collapsed from utter, traumatic exhaustion. Captain Janek picked up the unconscious woman and made his way to the med lab.