Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [122]
Backtracking, now that their path through the rec room had been cut off, looking for any way forward. Any way backward. Any way at all. “Hell of a big virus,” Lopez said again. “Looked more like a giant angry testicle to me.”
No one laughed. “Not a virus, no. More of an . . . infestation.” Smith was hunched over, hadn’t stopped cradling his stomach. “It came with the Covenant prisoners and just spread. The more bodies they took over, the more—”
“Taking over bodies?!” MacCraw near tripped at the words.
“It was a Flood infection form that took your friend,” Smith said. He had an enormous shiner swelling his cheek that made his words come out a little soft. “They get under the skin. It will take him over and assimilate him entirely. It’ll wipe his memories but retain his knowledge. Then the Flood will control his body—all of his body, down to the cellular level. Then mutate—like you saw with those bodies—to make a better weapon of him.”
Lopez hastened her steps, hearing the words “retain his knowledge.”
Smith couldn’t seem to stop now that he’d started, like it was a relief to talk to someone about it. “A form infected by Flood is difficult to stop. They don’t register pain, don’t require all organs functioning, are fueled by such rage that even when disabled they are extremely dangerous. Mindless as animals. Less than animals. Destroy the core, the head, or the infection form.”
Or, maybe, Smith was spreading a different kind of infection. That information had to be classified, and now they’d heard it. Lopez had to fight the urge to tell him to shut up now.
But he was done. “Stop here.” Smith put a hand up against a wall that looked no different from anything else and flinched when Lopez reached for him.
“Concealed door,” he said, coughing. “There’s a scanner at eye level here. There’s no other way out, Sergeant.” When she hesitated, added: “All passages are blocked.”
“So helpful all of a sudden,” Lopez said dryly.
Smith shrugged. “The sooner you get to the bridge, the sooner I get off this ship.” Smith pressed his hand to the wall.
The wall sank back, slid aside, revealing another black box of a room.
“It leads to the labs,” Smith said. “We can get through from there.” He didn’t look happy about that.
A crash and roar bounced up the corridor. Somewhere close, something was trampling a barricade. A tremor through her kids. A shudder they couldn’t hide.
“Mahmoud?” Lopez said out the side of her mouth, shining her flashlight down one way, as Percy looked the other.
“I’m looking, I’m looking.” He scrolled too fast through their schematic. “Okay here. It looks like ventilation shafts. Leading . . . yeah, there are a couple of other access points, we can get to the bridge through here. Theoretically. Maybe even back to the hangar.”
Another crash, more final, and then the thunder of heavy footsteps. Just around the corner. Okay, boys, time to go.
Lopez shoved MacCraw into the room, catching Percy’s harness and dragging him back in as Smith scanned his hand again and sealed the door.
“Quiet,” Smith murmured. “It may go straight past us.”
Lopez held her breath, and counted rosary beads in her mind, in time to the thumpthump-thumpthump of uneven running, drawing closer, closer, flying right past.
Waited until the sound died away, until it had been silent for some time, before exhaling.
“Your friend is looking for you,” Smith said with a kind of gallows humor, cringing when Lopez raised her hand. He hadn’t earned the right to joke with them.
“Another black bloody box,” she muttered. “What’s the point of a black box you can’t see out of? Masterminds at work.”
“Masterminds at work, sir.”
She ignored the ONI agent. Let him waste energy on sarcasm. “Ready?” A round of nods. “Smith, the door, and keep your mouth shut.”
Whatever