Star Slayer Setting Fiction

Star Slayer: Veronica Silver, the Infected

She stared at the holo-screen where the presidential candidate and hopeful of the nation talked, her eyes were narrowed and her usually red now silver lips were pressed tightly together.  Other parts of her were equally silver in color, her nails had turned to silver metal, her eyes, and various places upon her body.  Her hair could no longer be cut, its metallic red strands were as soft as real hair but one wrong move and she could cut someone other than herself.  She was here, because of this change.

She and others like her were labeled the Infected and people feared people like her.  Her family had refused to talk with her, her fiancé had called off the engagement, and people in generally glowered and whispered hatefully about her.  She wasn’t alone, there were others and she was in this building to hopefully be cured.  She wanted her life back.

“I promise the people of the United States that once I become President I will ensure better care and detection of the Infected is implemented.  Civil Safety is a concept my party and my rivals have been using since the year started, but I assure you, that I will do my utmost to restore our citizens to the peace that we have earned.”

She snorted at him as the crowd cheered and she turned away.  “Lies, it was all lies!”  She was in a room, a large one, here she would be consigned to obscurity and hopelessness.  Ten slender stasis tubes were set in a half circle around a tall pillar of electronics.  Computers peeped and monitored those that were sleeping, she too soon would join them.  She approached her open tube, and looked to soft bed like material that was there.  The disease would halt once the body itself ceased, the doctors had at length explained that the effort to put her into stasis was a long and painful one, the disease resisted common human medicines so it required stronger methods.  She was not happy at this, but she couldn’t bear to live her life with no one.  The disease, it had taken it all away, not even her job was left unscathed.

Oh sure the current president had claimed and even passed a law that would protect the Infected, they could have a job, a place of living once they woke up fifty years later.  But there really wasn’t a point to that.

That’s right, they want to silence you.  The voice had come recently with some of the obvious changes, least of which was the extraordinary weight.  Find me, and I shall show you how to bring destruction to your enemies.  The voice always talked to her, it wanted her to go somewhere, but she didn’t trust the voice, just like she didn’t trust the charismatic Presidential Candidate.  She looked to the memory stick in her hands and sighed.  She could die in the intervening years, they might think she was too dangerous to have.  The next president will likely cancel the project and attempt to exterminate all of the Infected before they hit Stage 3.  She was a Stage 2 and she was scared and angry.

“Alright Miss Silver, step into the tube, we’ll begin the sleeping process.”

So it was time huh?  She tucked the memory stick away under her gown’s elastic belt.  At least the voice should be quiet.  She laid down and took a deep breath as the durable transparent metal canopy slid over to latch in place.  There inside the tube there was nothing but silence, though the voice continued to try and tempt her to look for it, where ever that was.  A shadow soon fell over her and her fear rose a few notches.  Things were blurry on the other side of the tube, but she could make out rudimentary movements.  The doctor’s voice soon came through her tube’s sound system, “Activating the stasis program.”  The being outside the tube was tampering with the computer, and a hiss came from the inside of the tube, devices unfolded from the sides and pressed against her arms, legs, and head.  The figure came over the tube.

“When you awake we will rule.”  And then she closed her eyes and her mind fell into a deep sleep.  She didn’t even feel the pain that was supposed to come from the stasis.  But there was no silence, the voice continued.