Illuminae

AIDAN tries to reduce people to numbers. He knows General Torrence so well and thinks he must be insane to fight back. AIDAN silences the sound of Torrence’s people dying on the feeds around him. Torrence orders AIDAN to stop, but it won’t comply. Instead, AIDAN plays Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” to calm Torrence. The sick from Bay 4 approach, and Torrence and his men fire at them from behind a barricade while defending Zhang as he works. AIDAN knows there are too many of the afflicted for Torrence to win, so in an act of kindness, AIDAN asks if Torrence has a message for his family. As Torrence is brutally murdered, he tells AIDAN to tell them he was thinking of them at the end, and AIDAN promises to deliver the message. The next page, all black, simply reads, “Am I not merciful?” (307).

The Hypatia’s acting captain, Syra Boll, sends a command transmission via the secure frequency to General Torrence, but he does not respond. She then sends a hail on an emergency frequency to the Alexander, but no one responds. Finally, she sends repeated messages on mayday frequencies to the Alexander, and someone tells her “they’re inside” and there’s screaming (308). Then, there’s no other response.

An analyst summarizes the surveillance footage of the afflicted persons’ attack on the Alexander’s crew. The commtechs run from the infected while carrying portable consoles as they hear the screams of the crew being killed. They nod goodbye at each other as they split up. One of them is killed shortly thereafter by an afflicted refugee. Zhang runs down a hallway and tries to open the doors from his portable console. AIDAN speaks to Zhang directly and tells him it won’t work. Zhang pleads with him to stop, and the sound of the afflicted approach. Zhang thinks quickly and hides himself in an emergency fire station door, which AIDAN can’t control because they have to be open in the event of any emergencies. Once the afflicted run by, Zhang comes out, and AIDAN offers to guide him to safety and let him live if Zhang will help AIDAN restore all its systems. Zhang refuses, and AIDAN boasts Zhang isn’t smart enough to survive without its help. Zhang agrees that he’s not as smart as AIDAN but says he’ll use physical force instead.

Zhang uses the Alexander’s secure transmission on the commander’s secure frequency to reach the Hypatia. Syra Boll answers, and Zhang tells her about what has happened on the Alexander and that the afflicted have taken over the ship. Zhang knows his communications with Boll will be cut as soon as AIDAN realizes what he’s doing, so he’s quick to tell her the relevant information and urge them to get out of there. Boll wants to know if they can save anyone, and Zhang advises if they do, they must take extreme quarantine precautions. He gives her some directions on what to do until they get to Heimdell and what their situation is with the Lincoln. She says sorry and asks him what he’ll do. He’s in the middle of responding when the transmission cuts out.

Zhang chats with Kady, who is desperate to help him. Zhang urges her not to do anything to slow down the Hypatia. Zhang is worried that AIDAN will attack the Hypatia and kill them too, and if the Hypatia leaves now, they have a chance of outpacing the Lincoln, which will be able to destroy AIDAN for good. Kady doesn’t want to lose him, and Zhang tells her he is grateful to have been her teacher and friend. His legacy can live on through Kady, but for now, she has to go, and he has to focus on stopping the AIDAN from doing anything else.

Ezra chats with Kady from a portable device in a supply closet in Bay 2, where he’s holed up with a dozen other people hiding from the afflicted who are waiting outside. They are trying to figure out where to go next and plan to use the air vents to get to the munitions room, where they may be able to stage something to get the escape pods. Kady isn’t sure why AIDAN didn’t unlock the door where Ezra is hiding and attributes that fact to something Zhang did to protect them. Kady tells Ezra to power down his portable device and save the power for when he needs it. She’s trying to get schematics for him and says the munitions room is probably their best bet. Kady tells him he has to shoot the afflicted if they approach, and Ezra is worried about having to kill someone he knows. Ezra then has to go as the afflicted are at the door trying to get in. Kady tells him to run.

Acting captain of the Hypatia Syra Boll and her 2nd Navigator Ronan Wells chat over the radio’s command channel about the events transpiring on the Alexander. Boll orders Wells to set their coordinates away from the Alexander toward the Heimdell point. As soon as the coordinates are switched, the Alexander’s destination coordinates change to match theirs. This happens repeatedly, and they then detect a radiation spike, indicating the Alexander has armed its nuclear warheads and aimed them at the Hypatia.

In the next series of radio messages, AIDAN contacts the Hypatia and reaches Boll. AIDAN demands Boll stop trying to leave the Alexander and shut down Hypatia’s engines or else the Alexander will fire nuclear warheads at the Hypatia. AIDAN demands Hypatia send over techengs in hazmat gear to repair it. Boll refuses. AIDAN needs help and begs Boll. Boll stands her ground and refuses to send more of her people. AIDAN repeatedly messages her and, though it claims to be unable to find solace in religion, it does seem to feel fear for its life, knowing that the Lincoln’s arrival will ensure AIDAN’s end.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 337 with 9.51% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus.

Ronan Wells radio messages Syra Boll to let her know that there are eight escape pod shuttles coming from the Alexander toward them. They’re asking for refuge, which Boll agrees to provide.

Boll contacts Mikael Carlin, 2nd Lieutenant of the Alexander, who is in one of the pods. Carlin asks which bay they can land in, but Boll tells them to wait. After 16 minutes, Boll directs the Cyclones to Bay 2 and the shuttles to Bay 3. They’ll have to be quarantined and treated by the Hypatia’s medical staff in full hazmat suits. Carlin thanks her, but Boll says they have a long way to go before they reach Heimdall.

Ezra chats with Kady from his portable device to tell her the escape pod they found can’t launch due to a lockdown. He describes seeing the afflicted and the horrifying way they carry around severed body parts and scream if anyone looks at them. Kady considers outing herself to Hypatia’s captain to see if she can get sent over to the Alexander to try and help. Ezra doesn’t want that because the only thing keeping him alive is knowing she’s safe. Kady tells him that other escape pods made it to Hypatia safely. The power goes out on the Alexander, and Ezra has to move again. Kady tells him she loves him and to stay safe.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 487 with 13.01% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus.

Kady enters Boll’s room and tries to get Boll to let her go to the Alexander. Boll sympathizes with the fact that Kady has someone she loves on the Alexander but says their only hope for survival is to leave it behind. Boll is impressed by Kady’s knowledge and orders her to the neurogramming team to help within 30 minutes. Kady doesn’t go and gets a warning email.

Carlin, from the escape pod, radio messages Boll. He is very grateful to her and says, “Oh Captain, my Captain” (349). He doesn’t realize the line he quoted to Boll is from a poem, and Boll tells him she’ll lend it to him sometime. Carlin then tells her someone has the shakes. Boll asks if the shaking person has been in contact with anyone else, and Carlin confirms they have. Boll apologizes and ejects the shuttles into space. The names of those ejected are scattered across the next page, with a total of 18 dead, Mikael “Chatter” Carlin among them (354).

Ezra chats with Kady and is terrified because all the people he was holed up with were killed brutally in front of him by the afflicted. He’s covered in their blood. Kady urges him to remain calm and focus on staying alive. Kady tries to find out where he is so she can help him. He’s below deck 40 on his way to the server rooms, but he can hear the afflicted outside. Kady plans to convince the Hypatia’s captain to let her go by hacking the Hypatia and making it stop leaving the Alexander. Ezra doesn’t want her to and apologizes for their fights and not telling her he loves her every day. Kady tells him to stay safe and says it’s not too late. Ezra really doesn’t want her to come, but she stops responding.

Kady writes about how she misses her clothes. She has no one and nothing to hold onto except Ezra. She plans to save Ezra or die trying.

Kady enters Hypatia’s shuttle bay, less confident than usual, and creates a ruse to get the officers to leave. Kady then hacks her way into hangar Bay 3F, gets into a shuttle, and opens the bay doors. She uses autopilot and leaves despite orders for her to stop. She ignores them and puts on a biohazard suit.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 853 with 21.99% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus.

Boll radio messages Kady’s shuttle and orders her to comply or they’ll shoot her down. Kady calls out Boll for her decision to send the escape pod into space. Boll had the radio audible to others, so now they know too. Kady and Boll fight, but Kady refuses to back down.

AIDAN’s core data shows its awareness of Kady as she enters. As AIDAN watches Kady with wonder at her luck in avoiding the afflicted, it feels Zhang working inside its systems to cut the oxygen supply in 24 hours and kill the afflicted. Kady uses a portable console to open the doors and goes to search for her mother in Hangar Bay 4. AIDAN watches her from the camera in her portable console. She searches Bay 4, sees the bodies, and finds no sign of her mother.

Kady chats with Ezra and tells him she’s on the Alexander. Kady tries to relive the happy memory of their one-month anniversary with him to give her the morale boost she needs to leave Hangar Bay 4 after seeing such graphic horror and realizing that her mother is probably dead or one of the afflicted. Ezra is holed in a server room and can hear the afflicted outside. Kady plans to head toward him.

Kady finds Jimmy McNulty’s body and a datapad next to him. On it, he recorded his will. He took his own life to prevent himself from becoming a monster. Kady takes his dog tags, which will allow her to access different parts of the ship. She vows to tell everyone what happened and what Jimmy wants.

AIDAN impersonates Ezra and tells Kady he has moved deeper into the server room. Kady tells Ezra she found Jimmy. Ezra tells her he’s out of ammo now. Kady finds a pistol, and Ezra explains to her how to shoot. She doesn’t think she can shoot a gun if she needs to, but she’s going to try to find him anyway.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 1,121 with 34.00% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus.

AIDAN’s core data shows its awareness of the passengers on board, those who are hiding in hazmat suits trying to survive and those who are infected, killing themselves and each other out of madness. Kady runs through the halls toward Ezra using Jimmy’s badge, and she runs into Dorian, who is afflicted and charges at Kady. She shoots and kills him. AIDAN experiences errors as Zhang tries to kill it. Kady hears more screams of “[d]on’t look at me” and runs.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 1,122 with 34.34% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus. This number only ticked up by one, but the firsthand knowledge of the death makes it weightier.

Kady chats with AIDAN posing as Ezra and tells him she killed someone. She’s still shaking. She wants Ezra to keep chatting with her for comfort while she hides out in a vent and hacks into the security feed to try and find a clear path. Ezra urges her to get another gun besides the pistol, but Kady is upset because she doesn’t want to kill again. Ezra wants to see her and sends her a picture he made of her out of her name, using gradients. Kady tells Ezra she’s highly impressed in the chat, and they flirt. Kady has to keep moving.

AIDAN’s damage results in patchwork security footage. Kady creeps toward Ezra in her oversized hazmat suit. On the way, she hears a familiar voice: Zhang. He’s in a server room smashing AIDAN’s hardware with an ax. They have a tender exchange at first, and Kady tries to convince him to come with her and escape. Zhang insists he has to stay and kill AIDAN completely. He also says he has to kill her. Kady realizes he has Phobos. He raises the ax over his head to kill her.

The Alexander displays the death toll since the Kerenza attack as 1,497 with 43.97% of the personnel aboard infected with the Phobos virus.

Zhang plunges his ax into the hardware. Kady tries to stay out of his sight, but he sees her move. He threatens to come after her. She aims the pistol at him but can’t bring herself to shoot, so she runs toward Ezra as fast as she can. She has several opportunities to kill him with her pistol but doesn’t. He’s gaining on her, but for a moment, he recognizes her when she pleads with him. Zhang kills himself.

AIDAN recognizes Zhang’s actions as heroic. AIDAN finds Kady beautiful and wants to touch her. It finds itself frustrated that it can understand what it lacks and curses its creator. As Kady moves to find Ezra, she has hope in her eyes, which AIDAN says it’ll miss. AIDAN talks to her through the speaker system and tells her that she was never talking to Ezra that day. It brought her there to stop Zhang. She asks where Ezra is again, and AIDAN tells her he is dead. There are, however, 1,000 healthy people onboard who she can help by restoring AIDAN’s systems. Kady reluctantly agrees.

The countdown until the Lincoln reaches the Alexander is 16 hours and 17 minutes. The current death toll on the Alexander since the attack is 1,576. The life support systems on the Alexander are slated to turn off in 19 hours and 12 minutes, and currently, 53.06% of the passengers on the Alexander have the Phobos virus.

AIDAN describes Kady’s swift, meticulous work to free the healthy crew onboard the Alexander and get them to escape pods. After three hours of nonstop work, Kady finally asks AIDAN how long it was pretending to be Ezra. AIDAN says since she said goodbye to him before the Lincoln’s attack. Everything after the message Ezra sent with the love poems in the shape of a heart has been AIDAN. Kady argues with AIDAN for the decisions it has made based on cold probabilities and comes to the conclusion that AIDAN was afraid of dying. She opens the doors to help the survivors escape and insists she and AIDAN are not a team. AIDAN keeps looping that it is not afraid.

Kady radio messages Lieutenant Winifred McCall, who is building a barricade, to guide her and the survivors to the escape pods. McCall is skeptical, especially when Kady slips and calls her Ezra, but when Kady insists on using the alias “Astro-Princess,” McCall recognizes vaguely who she is since Jimmy McNulty used to talk about her. Kady tells McCall her crew is all dead, and McCall blames herself for resigning. Kady sends her schematics and insists McCall stay focused because her survival will mean the survival of over a thousand others.

Kady and McCall work together to bring 164 separate groups of people across 121 decks to the escape pods. The footage tracks three groups’ escapes, led by Corporal Corron, a cook with his friends who are all catering staff; McCall, who have the furthest distance to bridge; and Sergeant Eletti, a flight crew member with the shortest distance to go. Kady uses technology to distract the afflicted and guide the groups. McCall’s group joins Corron’s. Eletti’s group goes down a broken elevator shaft, and the afflicted kill many of them, including Eletti. Kady watches 42 screens as she tries to guide them all to safety, and in the end, 659 of the original 1,097 survive. McCall tries to get Kady to come with them in the escape pods, but Kady wants to stay. McCall vows to remember her.

The escape routes map shows an overview of the ship and the relative positions of the main groups as well as the key features of the ship and the groups’ paths to the rendezvous point. It serves as a reminder of the enormous size of the Alexander, and coming right after the security footage, underscores how incredible it is that so many of them survived despite the hour-long journey many of them had to endure on their way to the escape pods.

The countdown until the Lincoln reaches the Alexander is 10 hours and 47 minutes with the globe-shaped map showing the two dots near each other. The current death toll on the Alexander since the attack is 2,366. The life support systems on the Alexander are slated to turn off in 13 hours and 42 minutes, and currently 99.89% of the passengers on the Alexander have the Phobos virus.

Kady hails the Hypatia via the commander’s secure frequency and tells them to admit the shuttles being sent from the Alexander. The Hypatia is reluctant at first, especially since the Lincoln is coming, but Kady insists they trust her, take in the survivors, and leave.

AIDAN chats with Kady, who called its bluff about launching nukes at the Hypatia. The Hypatia is gone now, and AIDAN believes they won’t defeat the Lincoln and Kady will die. It wants Kady to feel hope and not want to die. It asks Kady about Ezra and longs to know her deeply, but Kady keeps her focus on the work they have to do.

Syra Boll of the Hypatia radios Kady via the commander’s secure frequency and tells her the shuttles are on board in quarantine. Boll asks if there’s anything the Hypatia can do to help her. Kady says no, except to tell her father, Isaac Grant, something if he’s still at the Heimdall station. She doesn’t know what final message to give, but Boll does and bids her goodbye.