Helix: Episode 9 (Countervail)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The Purity Guard spotted them immediately.

‘Friendly!’ Olesya yelled in English, raising her arms. It was better than nothing.

Marina had reached the top of the escalator now, her smoke grenade dispersing on the platform below. They were pinched between two attacking forces of Purity Guard with no cover or firepower.

A high-pitched whistle echoed through the vestibule, from behind the soldiers.

‘No enemy!’ Olesya yelled. ‘Stand d—’

They opened fire.

The impact on Olesya’s chest knocked the air from her, rounds striking her Purity armor and hardening her own liquid armor beneath it. She fell to her knees, gasping.

The noise behind the soldiers had become a chorus of louder whistles now, reverberating off the tiled walls, mixing with the deafening crack of gunfire.

The banks of fluorescent ceiling lights flickered.

Xiu collapsed, whether from her afflicted state or from gunfire, Olesya wasn’t sure.

Then the soldiers began to fall too, toppling forward.

Olesya drew her arm up, protecting her head with her liquid armor. Behind her, Marina was aiming over her back. But she didn’t shoot.

Three—now four—soldiers slumped forward, jagged metal protruding from their backs. The whistle became a buzzing roar, almost drowning out the soldiers’ screams.

‘Get down!’ Marina yelled.

Olesya lay flat on the ground, her arms covering her head and her ears ringing from the chaos around her. Marina lay over her.

The vestibule filled with an inhuman, high-pitched shrieking, and there were shouts from the thinning smoke on the platform. In amongst the noise, the sound of soldiers stomping up the escalator from the other side—

Something howled overhead, barely missing them. A soldier slumped over her, rolling onto his side. Something had struck the man and now Olesya could hear him gurgling to his death.

She risked a glance in his direction: blood was running down the sharp, metal edges of an arrowhead drone embedded in his neck.

Up ahead, bodies were strewn across the tiled floor, bloodied and crumpled, while another wave of Purity soldiers was being shredded by a seemingly endless swarm of small, razor-edged drones.

They flew over Olesya’s head and pitched down the escalators, seeking more soldiers. Down below, the sound of screams and bodies hitting the platform.

There was no one left standing in the vestibule, so Olesya wriggled forward, pulling Xiu with her until they were out of sight of the escalators. Marina shuffled along with her, crawling over a dead soldier.

‘Andrey to Olesya, do you read?’

Finally.

She tried to speak, but she could barely draw breath.

Marina responded instead. ‘Marina here,’ she yelled over the noise of the last few arrowheads. ‘Where are you?’

Olesya watched another half dozen shoot past, disappearing down to the platform.

‘We’re just arriving now. Where are you?’

Down on the tracks, another train rumbled into the station. Olesya checked her watch: two green dots blinked almost on top of her own.

‘We’re up the escalator,’ Marina said.

Quickly, Olesya checked her body for injuries. It was difficult to tell what had penetrated her armor, but when she brushed her fingers over her face, neck and hands, she didn’t find anything wet.

She moved to check Xiu: no exit wounds on her back, but when Olesya rolled her over she found not only was the Chinese operative unconscious again, now one side of her face was mottled silver: her malfunctioning camouflage was mimicking the escalators.

Andrey appeared at the top of the escalator, Balerinka aimed into the vestibule. He lowered it when he saw all the soldiers on the floor; most were dead, but some still moaned from their devastating injuries. A moment later, Gleb caught up and moved straight to the motionless Xiu.

‘Is this her?’ he asked.

‘She’s … dying,’ Olesya said. ‘I think we’re too late.’

Kneeling before Xiu, Gleb opened his fist to reveal a syringe filled with white liquid. He removed the cap.

‘What are you doing?’ Olesya asked.

Gleb took Xiu’s arm and pulled up the sleeve of her coat. ‘Purity had the cure for the kill switch all along. Intron made it for them and they tested it on Jay.’ He pushed the needle into Xiu’s arm. ‘It’s an inhibitor that deletes the kill switch virus. That deletes everything.’

Olesya stared at him. ‘She’ll lose her abilities?’

‘A small price to pay.’ Gleb pushed the white liquid into Xiu’s bloodstream, then turned to meet Olesya’s gaze. ‘Now we must pray the symptoms of this kill switch virus don’t kill her first.’