Just a rat in a cage

"I don't know…"

"What?"

"Doesn't really seem like someone, you know, who'd do something like that…"

"Man, you kiddin' me? As if you haven't watched the reports! He's a psycho!"

"I don't know…"

"Oh please, don't start again…"

"I mean, not that I've met the guy in person... But he doesn't seem so…"

"So what? You can't objectively tell me he doesn't seem completely off the wall."

"I'm not saying that. It's just that I can't believe he's the kind of person who would mercilessly kill all those people."

"Look, I've met him, okay? And wanna know what I think? The guy is mental, completely and utterly mental. And stoned. Remember the 'Dockyard carnage' three years ago? With that mechanical engineer that murdered in cold blood six colleagues before jumping straight in the plasma flux of the ship they were working on? Everybody kept saying he looked absolutely normal then it turns out he was on more drugs than a pharmacy."

"It's not the same…"

"It is. And your man even turned out positive to toxicological analysis. But if you're saying it's not completely his fault you're right. I tell you, too much time in deep space drives you mad. It's the company's fault for letting people work in such conditions for so long… you'd better ask for reassignment before you go on a killing spree, too. Maybe on Earth, or even Mars! We could really use a psychiatrist like you at the medical center. Besides, you can't deny that here is so much nicer than that spaceship of yours. You should come visit me and Suaad next spring, and bring the kids, too. Maya would love to see them, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah… next spring maybe… I have to go back now. That spaceship of mine is leaving in a couple of hours and I still have paperwork left for the patient's transfer."

"Okay, be careful around that guy…"

"Don't worry. Thanks for the lunch."

**   **  **

The corridors of the Martian orbital station were more similar to actual streets than else with cars and trucks flying right under their feet. The base itself was so big and crowded that it gave the feeling of a proper city, possibly the busiest city ever, with the only difference that instead of a blue (or red) sky, the view was always on a glowing red planet and a bottomless sidereal night. There were countless bars, shops, restaurants and five hydroponic gardens and several zero gravity leisure centers, but of course the heart of the structure was the triple space port. The Martian Interplanetary Space Port, commonly called "the M.I.S.P.", the Colonial Defence Force dockyard adminstered by EarthGov, and the immense Mining and Minerary Cargo bay, property of CEC, destination of 90% of the total planet cracking semi-finished product. It was an impressive show whenever a ship returned from a standard three year mission, her storages full to the brim with Osmium, kobalt, silicon. Everybody still spoke about when ten years before the USG Ishimura unloaded a minerary tresure of 3.000.000 tons, marking an all time record.

The Ishimura… right.

As soon as he left the Mt Olympus Café, the doctor found himself fighting his way through a rather large group of people waiting to clear the decontamination procedure before embarking for Earth and its Moon… but it was normal. He was used to this unique metropolis, and its chaotic nature gave him the comforting feeling of a second home. Today however, with the thought of that strange patient stuck in his head every colour seemed to have taken a grimmer shade, even the crowd seemed hostile. It was a natural reaction of the mind to a stressful situation, he was supposed to understand it better than anybody else, yet the walk to the tram had never seemed so long.

Reaching the tram platform the psychiatrist was tempted to admit that probably this was not his luckiest day as small huddle gathered around a couple of extremists menacing to throw themselves on the rails in sign of protest against religious discrimination. Sure that from the look on the watchers' faces it was clear that everybody hoped that they would eventually jump the train. Humans: exibitionists and sadists… probably their race really deserved to be on the verge of extinction. In a moment the security staff of the MISP was already dragging the wannabe martyrs to the brig, much disappointing the bloodthirsty mob, and two more minutes later the intraport tram was there – crawling with more Unitologists.

To tell the truth, Dr Marco Fontane was a Unitologist himself, however far from the fanatism that sadly caracterized the cult to the eyes of an outsider. Menacing to block the tram system of an interplanetary HUB in the name of religious equality, in example, was something that he wouldn't do. Basically because he found it deeply counter-productive in terms of winning the people's favour. The majority of his fellow cult members seemed to be a bunch of indoctrinated idiots following a rare selection of greedy priests, but – Altman  be praised – he certainly wouldn't voice out such a blasphemy. Regardless, he was a true believer… just not a very social one. Besides, pursuing a career in the military was already competitive as it was without adding the religious discrimination factor (no use in denying, Church and Army didn't get along well).

He observed the religious lot for a moment, hoping that they'd get off right there, but wishful thinking never worked so the next best thing was to sit there and wait a few more minutes for the following car. He could always start reviewing the patient's file in the mean time.

Two days before, a shuttle property of CEC ship USG Ishimura was found adrift in military qurantined space. On board was only one passenger, in such a mental and physical distress that the captain immediately contacted his command for further instruction. The medic of the USM Valkirie, the military ship close to retirement that had accidentally found the man, had labeled him as "an extreme case of deep space psychosis, skizophrenia and paranoia" – definitely not the best impression on first contact – but the ship was ordered to dock at the nearest hub to offer him more appropriate medical and psychological treatment. So far so good until few hours later another military ship, the USM Ares, reported back from the Aegis system informing that they had encountered what was undoubtedly the remains of the USG Ishimura. And it got worse.
The famoust planet cracker had crashed its cargo right on top of the mining colony neutralizing all the population of the colony, and the entire crew – 1332 souls – was found dead, totalizing 2289 deaths and thus becoming the biggest disaster in the history of space colonization.

Even in tragedy, the Ishimura was topping records, thought the doctor with inappropriate sarchasm.

From hereon the report started to get odd. First of all, CEC wasn't authorized to operate in the Aegis sector, let alone install a colony on the seventh planet, secondly another CEC ship was discovered in the debries, a small assistance shuttle, the USG Kellion which according to the flight logs had left the martian hub only four days before. And when the misterious man started to talk… well… things got from odd to plain mental. The menu included a main course of crew members turning into monsters and a side serving of ghosts and voices from the dead. However, there was nothing strange in suffering some post traumatic mental distress until the man, who turned out to be a CEC communications engineer, started explaining the way he killed these monsters.

Dismembered with a plasma cutter.

In disbelief, the medic of the rescuing ship ran a test on the blood stains on the man's suit and helmet and to say he was petrified by the results would be a huge understatement. In the end the engineer was covered in 568 individual DNA's… and they were all human.

The doctor had to stop reading as a ring announced the arrival of his tram, but he knew how the story continued.

The man was thought responsible for the murder of his crew mates and the Ishimura massacre and for causing the shipwreck that destroyed the colony.
What bothered him, aside from a gut feeling he couldn't ignore, was how a solitary engineer gone mad had managed to overcome a crew of over a thousand people… unless this was some macabre collective suicide which wasn't an unlikely possibility.

But it seemed that nobody was intrested in finding out what really happened on board the planet cracker and, in fairness, he wasn't sure he wanted to either. Uncovering conspiracies wasn't his job. All he had to do was sign a professional comfinmation of the patient's mental status and escort him to the asylum on The Sprawl where the plurihomicide would spend the rest of his days in a harmless drug induced coma.

There wasn't even the real need to physically meet the engineer but, more out of curiosity than professional integrity, he had wanted to visit the man and now he was no longer certain he could condamn him so lightly, without even a minuscule attempt to understand what was going on in his deranged mind. Couriosity killed the cat, they say…

This man was surely deeply shocked, traumatized and under so many drugs that no human being could ever react normally, and maybe he was even mentally instable, they could say everything and worse about him except that he was a mass murderer. Of this the psychiatrist was most absolutely certain and it would take more than some paraniod blabbering to convince him otherwise. Damn, he spent the past twenty odd years of his life as psychiatric medical officer for the military and he could say he'd seen some perfectly sane individuals go totally off the wall with the right cocktail.

His speculations would have to continue later as the inter-terminal tram finally arrived and God only knew how crowded it was.

There was hardly enough air, everybody squeezed like sardines, footstomping and elbowing their neighbour out of simple survival instinct. Having quite a few extra pounds only added to the discomfort. It was always like that in hubs like Mars, no matter how many trains they added nor how frequently, people would eventually fill every inch of the car. And obviously someone would eventually find their credits stolen. Pickpocketing was another peculiarity of the martian orbital station (though you wouldn't find it advertized on any poster). It was possibly the only place in space where small thiefs would dare robbing a soldier in uniform.

**  **  **

"You're late, Sir."

"Rush hour... Good to see you again, Sergeant."

"Likewise, Doc. Welcome on board the USM Valkirie."

"Where's my patient?"

"Your psycho? Deck 2, third cell… We had to sedate him," the sergeant added after a moment of reticence. "But he should be waking by now. You should have heard him, sir, he was screaming bloody murder. I tell ya, never seen anyone more terrified, sir."

The doctor eyed the taller soldier, suspecting for a moment that he'd seen a hint of fear in the huge man's eyes. He'd known Sgt Riley for years and nothing, nothing had ever frightend him. Although probably it was just an impression. Afterall he'd been reading about murder and ghosts and nightmarish creatures coming out of the walls for the past two days…

The overweight doctor shrugged the unpleasant sensation off his shoulders and cleared his throat before following the soldier into the quarantine area and stopping right in front of the containment cell.

"I can handle this by myself now, thank you Sergeant…"

"I'd feel better if I could come inside with you doc… there's something really wrong with this guy…"

"Leave me alone with the patient," he put an effort to sound more authoritative than he really was. "It's an order."

At that the marine gave a doubtful nod and unlocked the door, stepping to the side to let his superior officer into the cell. "I'll be right here, in case he tries anything funny…"

The doctor hinted a smile at the soldier and stepped inside. Regretting, as the door hissed shut behind him, having ordered Sgt Riley to wait outside.
The Valkirie was an old, dignified lady, but it wasn't really equipped to deal with special cases. The cell was just the ordinary empty brig with a narrow cot against the wall opposite to the door. The patient was sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room, staring blankly in front of him, apparently unaware of the doctor's presence. The light veil on his eyes was a clear sign that the narcotics hadn't worn out yet. For safety reasons the man had been restrained into a straightjacket, but from the abundance of graffity on the wall it was evident that this must have been a very recent precaution.

"You did all of this?" he asked more to himself than to the patient, mildly disturbed by all the symbols carved into the walls. In his long career he'd seen several mental cases of people carving their dementia with their very nails, but there was something special about this particular engineer.

"Do you know what this means…?" He pointed at one of the many phrases littering the wall. He'd never been a very good observant – his work demanded too much of his time to truthfully follow Altman's teaching – but without doubt he recognized in that crazed scribble, Unitology symbols.
The more he looked at the man's face, the colder he felt. The patient kept his stare locked onto the opposite corner of the room, hardly ever blinking. Instinctively affected by the sheer terror in the man's eyes, the doctor moved away from where the other was looking and rubbed his hands together. He mentally scolded himself: he wasn't acting professional, not at all.

"I apologize for my rudeness, I didn't even introduce myself… I'm doctor Fontane, nice to meet you…" he brought himself to sit on the floor against the cot. "…would you mind telling me your name?"

The other man kept ignoring him, whether deliberately or not, he couldn't tell.

"I'm only here to help you," he sighted, regaining some courage. "You have some very serious charges on you, my friend… If, as I believe, you're innocent, you have to give me a hand in proving it, do you understand?" This was starting to get frustrating. "This may be your only chance, we don't have much time… are you even listening?"

But the man didn't make a single move to acknowledge the doctor's presence. Afterall, in his state, it didn't really make a difference if he were to spend his life in a prison cell on Mars or in a stasis pod at the Sprawl. He was  too far gone anyway. It was a shame. He felt so utterly powerless. If they only gave him some more time maybe…

"Make us whole…"

"What…?" The low voice startled him out of his thoughts.

"It means, make us whole."

The psychiatrist looked at the other man in disbelief. "And what else does it say…?" he asked temptatively.

"Reborn… as one…"

Without realizing it, a shiver ran down the Unitologist's spine. "Who wants to be reborn…?"

"… she told me to make us whole…"

Maybe there was a chance, afterall… "And… who is she?"

"Nicole. Nicole… is dead. No. Nicole is… not Nicole. They want to be reborn..."

"Who are they?"

"They are… the Marker."

The doctor's eyes spread wide. It couldn't be. This man had come into contact with the glorious Marker. This just couldn't be true. His gaze scanned the walls over a confused figure he thought he'd recognized a moment earlier. "A Marker… like this?"

The madman nodded, falling silent once again. And from the looks of it, it didn't look like he would say anything else for the moment. But it didn't matter, not anymore. This man had come in contact with the divine Marker, and he would not let those blind, faithless bureaucrats send him into stasis for the time being. The Church had to know. This man was a saint!

The door behind him slid open, startling him momentarily.

"Is our patient ready for transfer, Dr Fontane?"

He squeezed his eyes to make out the features of the newcomer: his suit and RIG said medical division, but all about his demeanor screamed EarthGov intelligence.

"I think we should reconsider the transfer, doctor... – he read the tag on the white suit – doctor Edgars. This man might have been in cont-"

"We've been monitoring your conversation with the patient, Doctor. You need not to worry, he will be well taken care of on Titan. Now step aside."

"But…" something just didn't click. He had the worst feelings about his patient's fate. Whatever these people had on their mind, he would have bet it was all but in the man's best interest.

As if reading his mind, the other continued.  "Do not worry: on Titan we have the most advanced technology to treat deep space psychosys. He is in good hands." He turned to the two marines who were waiting by the open door. "Escort our guest to the USM Invicta."

The doctor could only watch as, complying to their orders, the two soldiers scooped the man from the floor and carried him away. He felt like he should have done something, the he should have stopped them… but he was no hero, and just stood still.

He shot a worried glance at the door, noticing that his old friend, Sgt Riley, was no longer there, an odd feeling creeping up his spine.

"Thank you very much for your cooperation, Dr Fontane. Have a nice day."
He didn't even reply as Dr Edgars left the room, followed by his escort, and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding only once the creepy individual was completely out of sight.

**  **  **

No one really bothered much when Deck 2 of the Valkirie reported a decompression malfunction that afternoon. She was an old ship, she should have decommissioned the previous year but with the shortage of resources they thought she could hold toghether another trip or two. It was a most unfortunate accident that Dr Marco Fontana had been on that very Deck and in that very sector, the moment the pressurized panel gave away. The USM Valkirie was immediately sent into dry docking, but alas… accidents happen.