14 Surv1v0rs

12

          Jack knew something was wrong when Hal threw open the door to the truck and swung his legs over the side of the seat and just sat there staring at the grave, his helmet tucked under his armpit, his face pale and sickly.  It was a look of suspicion, and it was haunting.
          Thomas came around the other side holding his helmet; his face was less revealing, yet it was silent and somber, like the face of a man about to deliver a death sentence.
          "Looks like another storm," said Hal, looking to the horizon.
          "Where's Rick?" Reeves asked.
          Hal seemed to come to, blinking his eyes.  They were tired, with dilated blood vessels.  
          "Rick?" he said.  "Oh," and he climbed out of the truck, "he decided to stay behind to wait for—"
          "What's going on?" Thomas cut in, as he approached the grave.
          Reeves took a deep breath of the icy air, and turned around to look into the grave, as Thomas and Hal joined him.   "—Bob Marley?" finished Reeves.
          "Damn," breathed Hal.  His upper lip curled downward as he looked into the grave.  "Damn."
          "Who killed him?" asked Thomas.
          "He put a bullet in his own head," said Reeves.  "After he killed Kaiser, of course."  He looked at Hal.  "You knew it was him."
          "Yes," said Hal.  "We knew Bob Marley was the survivor."  He looked up nervously at the surrounding crew members.  It was almost as though it was the first time he was greeting them; he avoided their eyes.
          "If you knew Bob Marley was the survivor," said Karl, "why did you leave Rick behind to wait for him?  You knew he was the monster."
          "Bob?" said Hal, glancing at Karl, and then Reeves nervously.  "No, you have it wrong.  Bob was a hero."
          "I see," said Reeves.  "We were just debating that."
          Now Hal looked up at them, his eyes raking the group of survivors.  It seemed to please him that they all wore their helmets, and his confidence grew.  "He fought the monster inside of him, Reeves.  He did it for us.  He did it for humanity.  And then he decided to come here and—and—" and suddenly he turned nervously to Reeves, as though he couldn't bear the sight of them.  "Mind if I—" he asked, indicating the cigar.
          Reeves handed his cigar to him, and he took off his gloves.  His hands were shaking as he did so, and took the cigar and took a deep drag on it and coughed.  "Might I ask you wh-why he killed himself?" he went on.
          "What's going on?" Dareel said at last.  "What's wrong?"
          "It's just—it's just him killing himself doesn't make sense ... not until he did what he was supposed to do."
          "Which was?" said Reeves.
          "Where's Audrey?" Thomas asked unexpectedly.
          Silence.
          Nervously, Hal turned to look around the circle of survivors.  He hadn't looked at them closely until now.  "Yes—where is she?"
          Jack could feel his mouth turning dry.   "Hal," he said, "what was it that Bob Marley was supposed to do?"
          "Don't you talk to me!" Hal suddenly hissed at him, pointing.  Everyone looked from Hal to Jack.  Hal's eyes were wide with fear now, and he was trembling so much, he dropped the cigar into the grave.
          "Hal," said Reeves, "she was the monster.  And Bob came to kill her.  He also killed Kaiser and Steve.  Isn't that ... isn't that what you were coming .... "  He stopped, looking baffled.  And then a resignation began to sink in as he looked from Hal to Jack and then back to Hal again.
          Hal never lowered his hand; he was still pointing a shaking finger at Jack.  "No, Reeves," he said, as a tear streaked down his cheek.  "Bob didn't come to kill Audrey.  He was supposed to come to kill Jack!"

                                        * * *

          "There's been some sort of mistake," said Jack.
          "After the crash, Bob ... well he lived alone in the cave," started Thomas, as Hal stood staring at Jack from across the grave.  "He kept a log."
          "He had his suspicions," continued Hal, and he began to walk slowly around the grave, his boots making soft impressions in the loose dirt.  "He said he as good as knew who the infected survivor was ... and that his mission wasn't over.  He had to stop him ... stop it."
          Everyone turned to look at Jack again.
          Jack stood very still, but his heart was pounding.  His breath was beginning to fog his visor.
          "You never found him at the cave because he'd come here."
          "How did he know?" said Reeves.
          Hal did not respond.  He was looking at Jack as though he were trying to see the truth through his visor.
          "Hal, how did he know?"
          "After he'd dealt with Neal, he turned to find Jack there in the corridor ... the contaminated corridor.  I'm talking about on the Andromeda.  Anyway, he told Jack he was contaminated ... and locked it to keep him from leaving.  But Jack—you figured out a way to get out, didn't you?  DIDN'T YOU!" Hal shouted.  He was addressing Jack directly now as he approached him.  He stopped a few feet away and looked him in the face through the visor.  "You were too much of a coward to tell everyone you'd been contaminated that day we were in the cave, weren't you?  You bastard.  You—creature."
          "If that happened, I didn't remember," said Jack.
          "You didn't remember," said Hal.  "A very good excuse."  He was using sarcasm, of course.
          "Also, a plausible one," said Michael.  "Jack had a concussion.  It is entirely possible he couldn't remember what transpired—"
          "Don't you get it?  Amnesia is part of the monster's symptoms," said Thomas.
          Suddenly, Reeves stepped over the grave, knocking dirt onto Bob Marley's serene face, pushed past Hal, and came face-to-face with Jack.  "Take off the helmet."
          "What?"
          "Take off the goddamn helmet!"
          Slowly, Jack unfastened his oxygen hoses, then released the seal on his helmet before pulling it off.  He took a step backward when he saw Reeves's fierce eyes staring into his.
          "Look at me, Jack," said Reeves.
          He couldn't make eye contact with him.  It felt wrong.
          "Goddammit, I said look at me!"  He was gritting his teeth now.
          Finally, his eyes met Reeves's.
          He paused a long time; Jack could see his chest rising and falling where he had unzipped his suit.  He knew somewhere beneath the suit was Kaiser's gun.
          "Were you infected, Jack?"
          "No," he breathed.  "No, I wasn't.  I was—I mean I can't remember what happened, but—"
          "But what?"
          "I'm not infected.  You know I'm not," he gushed.  "I mean, we both heard him say it."
          "That's right," said Reeves.  He continued to stare at him.
          Silence.
          Finally, Reeves turned around.  "I was there," he said, addressing the circle of survivors.  "I was there with Jack when Bob Marley told us who the infected person was.  I was there."  He turned to look at Hal.  "Were you there, Hal?"
          "No," said Hal.
          "Did he tell you that Jack was infected?"
          "No," said Hal.
          "Then go to hell," said Reeves, shoving him aside, and stepped over the edge of the grave to the other side.  "I was there.  I heard it with my own goddamn ears, Hal.  I heard it, Thomas!"
          No one spoke.
          Reeves looked down into the grave where the cigar lay on Bob Marley's chest and kicked dirt onto it to put it out.
          "So, what the real question is," said Dareel, "was Bob Marley the monster when he said Audrey was infected—"
          "—Or was he the monster when he named Jack?" finished Karl.
          Hal looked at Reeves.  "Now that's—that's a conundrum."
          "What?" said Connor, who'd been mostly quiet.  "This is frickin crazy.  Get me off this planet, please!"
          "What it means," said Hal, "is that Bob was trying to throw us off the scent of the one who was truly infected."
          "But we don't know what his state of mind was," added Michael.
          "I believe what he said in his log," said Hal.  "I don't think his intentions were for us to find it."
          "How can you be sure?" said Reeves.  "He knew we'd gone to the crash site."
          "He didn't know at the time he'd created it," said Thomas.  "It's crazy to think he traveled all the way back to keep his log.  You see, when he wrote it, he was himself.  It had to be the truth."
          "And I say he was Bob Marley when he shot himself," said Marcus.  "I mean ... he killed himself to stop it from taking him over."
          "Except we're forgetting one little thing," said Michael.  "Kaiser mentioned its proclivity to sacrifice itself.  I mean, it's capable of feeding itself to others so that other parts of it can stay alive."
          "In this case, that was what he was doing when he shot himself.  He killed himself so that we'd believe him—it—all to protect Jack!" Thomas cried, pointing at Jack.
          "He also said something else in his log," said Hal.  "Bob explained that even in the most advanced stages of Neal's infection, he didn't even know he was it.  I mean, he believed he was human all the way up to the final stages.  Its mind, its actions—they were completely shut off from him.  He'd do things he didn't know he was doing—and he couldn't remember doing it afterward.  This is the best disguise, because it hides itself even from the very person it has infected.  If one of us is infected, we might not even know it.  It hides from our mind, our memories ... even our very own conscience."
          Jack felt something ticking in his head, and a strange high-pitched ringing in his ears.  His breaths came so quickly now he thought he would hyperventilate.  He could not think.
          And then he recalled something of the dream he had had that night the safe was opened.
          How is the Gardall coming?  How is the Gardall?"  "I'm trying."  "No, you are not trying.  You do not want-want? to open it.  You fear-fear? what you will find inside.  If you open-open? the Gardall.  You will open you-you?"   
          Dreams, he thought.  It's in my dreams.  
          He remembered.  He remembered getting up in a daze, and sleepwalking into the plant, marching up the stairs to the office.  He remembered cutting through the safe, all the while muttering in his sleep ....
          He felt he was looking down on himself from above, seeing the panic metastasizing in everyone, seeing them slowly start to turn inward and look into themselves to see the hideous creature growing inside them all.  What was it that he would find inside the Gardall?   What was it that he was too afraid to see?  Why didn't he want to open the safe?
          I'll find who we are.
          And I'll also find who I am.
          I am you, Bob Marley had said to him.  I am you.
          We are one.
          He could not do it.  He could not sacrifice all their lives just for his own.  He just couldn't.  He couldn't hide anymore.  He couldn't hide from Bob Marley, now laying in the dirt before him.  Now in death, he could still haunt him with those eerie, inexplicable words.
         I am you.
          Bob was not dead.  He could never die.
          What am I talking about?
          Not him.
          It.
          He is it.
          I am it.
          Jack lifted his foot, and set it forward in the soft powdery dirt.  More of it fell into the grave, partially covering Bob Marley's face.  Now only one dead eye stared back at him.
          I am you.
          He was talking to him from beyond the grave with that one mesmerizingly dead eye.
          Please, oh God.
          His legs wobbled beneath him as he stared down at the cold face with the dead eye gaping at him.  The dead, accusing eye of Bob Marley.  He felt a cold sweat break out, and it ran along his forearms, making the hairs stick to his suit.  He thought he would stumble forward and fall into the grave.  Or maybe he'd vomit into the grave.  He didn't know which would be worse.
          "It's me."
          "That's bull and you know it," Dareel was saying to Reeves.
          "It's me," Jack said louder.
          "There's no way to find out, is there?" cried Michael.  "I mean we can stand around and speculate—"
          "I AM THE MONSTER!" Jack suddenly shouted.