Patient Zero

Chapter 12: 'Humanity' (2345 words)

Vievel sat up in bed, displacing the blankets slung over his feet with the sudden motion. They fell into a bundle at the base of his bed, beside Calito, the human who had somehow tricked his way onto the Aaelfir ship; Vievel couldn't decide whether to scream for help or to ignore the human and hope he was dreaming. His head leaning both ways simultaneously, Vievel grabbed the remainder of his blankets and pulled them over his head.

"Kid, you okay?"

Nope, still there. Vievel let the thick fabric-weave blankets slip from his head and fall into his lap. The room was small, no bigger than a deep storage cabinet, or the bed itself, and the human sitting beside him took up a great deal of the space. He was still dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing in the amethyst cell when the two of them had been aboard the Dwurkn ship; dark linen trousers, with a series of bandages and wrappings tightly coiled from around his lower abdomen all the way up to his right shoulder.

"How'd you get the blood out?" Vievel asked. The wrappings were almost the same; save for they were clean.

"Wished it real hard," Calito said, a wry smile on his lips. His patchwork brown long-coat was slung around his shoulders, but neither of his arms were inside it. Instead, he was wearing it like a cloak of sorts, to shield his bare skin from the ever-present slight chill of the starship. The human looked directly at Vievel, showing off his ragged facial scar, bright yellow right-eye, and left-side eye-patch.

"Mind if I smoke?" Calito said. He produced a twice-wrapped roll-up from his pocket, the cigarette brimming with whatever green-leaf humans smoked. He moved to light it without waiting for Vievel's approval.

"Actually-" Vievel held a hand up to stay Calito from lighting the roll-up. "-my bunk, the quarters keep a record of particles and the air composition so-" he said. It wasn't one of his favourite safety features of the Ulmadr quarters, but it was extremely helpful in early detection of breaches.

"Best not," Calito said. "Gotcha". He closed his hand around the roll-up. When he opened it again the cigarette was gone.

Where did it-

"One-second kid". Calito's single eye had glazed over, an eerie glassy film obscuring his pupil. Vievel leant forward for a moment and then turned around, looking for whatever the human was looking at. His stare passed right through Vievel, as though he was fixating on something he couldn't see.

"Done," Calito said.

"Done?" Vievel was about to question the human further until a light erupted in the palm of Calito's hand. The human brought his thumb and forefinger together and the cigarette, the same cigarette, formed out of the nothing between them. At first slowly, a few particles collecting together as a golden light pulsed dully around them, and then suddenly, with the entire cigarette bursting to life before Vievel's eyes.

"Good looking out," Calito said. "I shoulda thought to think of that". He chuckled. "Air records, what a world".

"Andlátta!" Vievel swore. "What did you-how did you-"

"Easy kid, save the babbling." Calito put the roll-up to his lips and drew in heavily. "Just my nanobytes," he said, breathing out.

Just nanobytes. All the while Vievel had known humans had a physical advantage over the Aælfir, but he'd at least thought his people had a technological advantage, hard-won from their salvaging. Now he saw the truth of it. They were like dust to the humans. It was at that moment Vievel decided, damn everything else; he had to tell his father what had happened. The safety of everyone he knew was at stake. He'd brought a monster into his house.

"C-cool trick," Vievel stammered. "Nanobots you say?"

"Nanobytes," Calito said, holding his cigarette close to his chest. "Bots and bits are just a part of the swarm, the byte is the swarm itself". As Vievel held his breath Calito nodded at his roll-up. "Don't worry, air filter ain't going to record anything but what it's expecting for now. I fixed it".