O’Neill flinched at the thought of that horrific swarm of wasps. “Well, they’re all lined up and moving in unison now, like a team of good little soldiers.”
Wolf stirred. “Your warrior brothers, after infection, they became violent. Is this not so?”
“Yeah.” Aiden responded with a slow nod of his head. “Paranoid too. Even hallucinating.”
“They exhibit none of those symptoms now.” Wolf mirrored Aiden’s hand-to-neck massage. “They make no attempt to harm each other.”
“The bots could have eaten that part of their brains. Or...perhaps...the rifle blasts destroyed the hemispheres that controls violent behavior,” Aiden finally offered, although the confusion that flickered across his face showed he was clueless about this change in their conduct. “The real question is how they are even...mobile?”
Good question.
O’Neill shoved a hand through his hair and tried to ignore the grisly sight before him. “If the technology used to create the nanobot weapon was based on medical nanotechnology, then the bots must have the information necessary to repair the human body.” He stared at the fragile white spider webbing in several of the squids’ empty eye sockets. “But whatever they’re using to repair the bullet wounds doesn’t look like human flesh.”
“No. It does not.” A shudder rolled down Wolf’s spine.
O’Neill closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, he prayed the dead squids would be stretched out across their gurneys again, as the dead were supposed to be.
But...no such luck.
He grimaced and looked away. “There must be a reason they’ve come back to life...or at least this approximation of life. Have either of you tried to communicate with them?”
“We have not.” With a slow turn of his head, Wolf looked at Aiden. “You knew them...perhaps they will respond to you.”
From the rigidity that gripped Aiden’s body, communicating with his dead teammates was the last thing he wanted to do. “What if using the speaker system gives the nanobots an opportunity to escape?”
“Faith’s shield covers the speaker system. They cannot escape that room through such means.” Wolf sounded sure.
O’Neill wanted to believe that. He really did. But nanobots were microscopic; he wasn’t nearly as certain as Wolf that there wasn’t some gap or weakness in Faith’s shield that would allow the little bastards to sneak out of their prison.
Neither, apparently, was Aiden. The dude’s shoulders bunched as he eased up to the window and reached for the comm button.
“Squirrel?” His voice tight, he held the button down with his index finger, but kept his arm stretched out. “Buddy, can you hear me?”
All five of the things on the other side of the glass stared back. Their silence increased the tension tenfold.
“Squirrel? Grub? Lurch...?’ Aiden’s voice trailed off.
No reaction.
“Squirrel.” Aiden’s voice steadied and sharpened. “Sitrep.”
Nothing.
Aiden let go of the speaker button and stepped back. He looked almost relieved. Talking to his dead teammates must not be on histo-dolist for the day.
“All five of them took rifle blasts to the face. Their tongues, jaws, hell the entire interior of their mouths are probably missing. I doubt they’re capable of speech,” Aiden finally said.His brow furrowed. After hesitation, he stepped up to the glass and gave the pane three quick raps, paused, then followed the first set of taps with three longer ones followed by another series of short knocks.
O’Neill recognized the sequence. Three short…three long…three short…morse code for SOS.
All five of the corpses tilted their heads to the left and lifted their arms, trying to press their hands against the window. Dumbfounded, O’Neill watched their hands disappear up to the wrists.
“What the fuck!” Aiden whispered with a hard step back.
“Faith’s shield is preventing them from touching the glass…” Wolf’s comment came out hoarse and weak.
O’Neill flinched. Wrists with no hands. It looked like a fucking carnival act in there.
Fuck, the freak level just kept climbing.
