He closed his eyes and breathed her scent in, sucking whatever he could from beneath the edges of his mask. When he reopened them, he was met with the stubborn woman who held her ground.
“You’re a chemist,” he said. “You took samples of the water, right?” When she nodded he continued. “Did you find or see anything unusual?”
Stryker watched as Norah looked away from him, her brow furrowed with thought and the tense muscles that were poised to block his exit loosen. Her lips pushed out into a pout that he wished he could kiss off of her face.
“All of it was usual,” she eventually replied. “Microorganisms and bacteria that we found native to the planet. Things we expected to find that we were able to confirm in the EonMed database and cross analyze with other organisms. It was all standard.”
“Did you or anyone else drink the water on Axone?”
“Everything was used, recycled, and purified from water sources on Earth, Kepler, and Gliese.” Norah gripped her stomach. “I ingested some when I nearly drowned during the crash.” Her eyes went wide with fear.
“Even the water left within the sprinkler system?”
“I–I don’t know. It never went off before then.”
Stryker dropped his arm and pulled her into him. “Norah, you’re fine. The meds I gave you could kill a roach. I checked your lab results just in case. The shriekers couldn’t leave the water for any length of time.”
“I realize that.”
“Ever hear of Cholera orNaegleria fowleri?They are all ancient water-borne microbes found on Earth before humans eradicated them.”
“I accounted for all the bacteria, Stryker, everything the other scientists and I did was within extra-planetary protocol. We grew the strains in petri dishes and ran a multitude of tests with lab-grown human skin, we tested it under dozens of variables. We had one of the best xeno-virology experts in the universe,” she argued. “We discovered several possible diseases but nothing, nothing that could or would explain what happened to Robert…”
Stryker ran his hands up her stiff back and cupped her face, peering down into her wide, unsettling eyes; dark orbs that could have been black holes for all he knew. “Imagine if some of those bacteria were human-sized,” he whispered. He didn’t want to scare her, but he had seen it before. He had seen so much in his travels. “You can’t account for human error.”
“And the timing?” she wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
He shrugged, “There was a lot of water in the air. Someone got something bad in their system, it would have dehydrated them first, taking on excess water while it festered and grew throughout their body. The storm came in, your team had to evacuate, I would assume it would have been stressful. It thrived, might have been passed on by sharing a drink or a kiss, or sex. It ate out the insides and absorbed the water from the air, fled into the rising water within the swampy jungle. It could have remained dormant until the storm. The event was a catalyst.”
“How do you know all of this, or any of this? We were together almost the whole time. What if it really was ghouls after us?”
“You should become a monster hunter,” he said again without meaning to. Stryker locked back onto his ship, perturbed that so many functions were offline or broken. Something twisted in his gut. Impatience fueled him. He stared into Norah’s eyes.There are too many things I need to do.She needed him.I want to consume you.His ship needed him. His beast wanted to emerge and strike out.
Everything should have been on its way to being perfect but instead, it seemed the devil himself fought him at every turn. And there was no religion when it came to him and the other Cyborgs. They believed in nothing but the technology rooted through every fiber of their bodies and each other.
He found himself lost in her eyes and unwillingly pulled himself from their depths. “It’s how diseases react. It’s how I would react if I were a disease,” Stryker answered honestly. “Humans are great receptacles. Not only that, you and your team were non-native beings that were vulnerable where the rest of that world could’ve been immune.” He tugged on her hair. “I need to board my ship. There’s something wrong.”
Norah released his wrists and stepped back, only to follow behind him to the hatch that joined their ships.
“And you’re sure I’m okay?”
Stryker didn’t stop. “The meds I gave you in the vehicle would’ve killed off anything. They’re still in your system.” He placed his hand on the console outside the door and triggered viral sanitation measures to start after they left, even though he intended to blow it up afterward. “Even if I’m wrong about everything and those creatures were smart enough to infiltrate and take down your co-workers, would you really risk everything to find out?”
A minute passed before she answered. “I don’t know.”
“Keep behind me, babe.”
“That bad?”
He glanced back at her. “Yeah.”
Chapter Eighteen:
***
Stryker turned away from her and did something to the controls on the hatch. She placed her hand on top of the gun hanging off her new belt. It was the only thing that held the billowing lab coat close to her skin.
Keep behind me, babe, he said.Norah took a step back.I’ll keep back thirty feet behind you.She turned to look at the empty passageway behind her and shivered.Maybe just ten feet.
