by Drew Brown
“Good. Now, what’s your name?”
“Professor Elwin Samson.”
“Funny name, that. Now, Elwin, what can I say? Where did it start? I guess, what, two and a half, three days ago, we were at the New Millennium Hotel, minding our own business. We woke up and the power was out, and when we ventured from our room, we found dead people all over the place.”
“We are only interested in your dealings with Deacon,” Professor Samson said without emotion.
“Hey, buddy, I’m telling the story. The end of the world is quite a major event, don’t ya think?”
“We are only interested in your dealings with Deacon,” Professor Samson repeated. “Tell us about the time machine.”
“Okay, well, suit yourselves. I wanna get some sleep, anyway. He told me that in a few years, some comet carries this infection that virtually wipes out mankind, and that as a last resort, he came back to our time to warn us to do something ’bout it. He screwed up. He said something ’bout the London containment field being down, and that he brought the infection with him and sent it around the world with the magnetic pulse.”
“The electro-magnetic shock wave,” Professor Samson said, his eyes wide as he scribbled on a piece of paper. “But that is a visual-horizon event only. The London facility is beneath the headquarters. Underground. It could not do what you have described. Or what we have witnessed.”
“I said that, too. Told Deacon he was a loon. But then he said that the infection, the virus-thingy, altered the make-up of the air, and this allowed the shock wave to keep going. He said that once it started, the whole process was self-perpetuating.”
Professor Samson was silent, his eyes closed. When he opened them his lips formed a thin smile. “That side of the research is not my speciality, but I do believe that what you have said is, at least, theoretically possible. He actually got the machine to operate?”
“Yeah, he did. And he intended to put things right. He was coming here to send someone back further, to when the containment fields were working.”
“That’s impossible; our machine is still in development. It is a theory.”
“Yeah, because a theory ruined the world, pal. Deacon said you were closer than you realize. He said it’d only take a few minutes to set you up.”
Around the room some of the scientists gasped and others put down their papers. All of them tensed, staring keenly at Budd.
“I simply cannot believe you.”
“Believe me, smart-ass.”
“Did he give you any clue as to what needs to be done?”
Budd thought back to the cabin, to when Deacon had died. He considered the words the scientist had made him memorize. “Actually, I think he did. Would five Latin words have any significance to you?”
Professor Samson stood up and crossed over to Budd. He handed him a sheet of paper filled with combinations of different symbols, each one either a number or a letter of the alphabet.
“Don’t science bull-crap me,” Budd said, his brow creasing up. “Tell me what I’m looking at?”
Professor Samson smiled and walked to the corner of the room, gesturing for Budd and Juliette to follow. He pushed a green button and the whine of a motor kicking in could be heard on the ceiling. The fabric partition started to part in the middle, slowly revealing a massive glass window that overlooked a laboratory. The room below was large, one hundred and fifty feet square and thirty feet high. It was a vast, man-made cavern buried beneath the frozen surface of the island.
Budd scanned the laboratory. Two of the outside walls were packed with computer terminals and other types of monitoring equipment, while on the right was a bank of what appeared to be generators. There were six in all, lined up next to each other, but Budd had never seen anything like them before; their centers were massive blue coils, which were twice his size and glowed faintly.
“They’re heat-sink electricity providers,” Samson said with an air of pride. “They store the massive amounts of power that are gathered from a rod buried hundreds of meters down in the earth. To run this entire facility takes less than one percent of their output. The surplus is to one day run that,” Samson said, nodding his head towards a glass and steel structure that filled the center of the laboratory.
It was a cube of nearly thirty feet, filled with computer terminals and a raised platform that had eight-foot tall columns rising in its four corners. The structure had ducts coming out of its top, which rose up through the ceiling of the laboratory. The front right-hand corner of the structure had a control panel beside a door, which opened up into a smaller cube. This inner cube, an airlock, had its own ducts to vent it, was seven feet long in all directions, and had another door that opened into the larger section.
“That compartment is sealed from the rest of the installation; no one has been in it for almost two years, not since Deacon made his last trials. Apart from that, it is constantly ready to receive someone from the future in a safe, stable environment.”
Budd eyed the cubic container with interest, remembering that Deacon had told him that his arrival had ended in disaster because the containment-field was down. All Budd could see were sheets of toughened glass between four pillars of steel. “So, what, when Deacon came back, the windows were out?”
“The glass is of little importance, except to protect the thin mesh inside it, which acts as a conductor for a powerful electrical field. That is what costs so much money to run. It draws power at a rate comparable to a small city.”
“No wonder the accountants didn’t like it. How much taxpayer money got poured into this stupid scheme?”
“London drew its power from the national grid, although certain adjustments were carried out to prioritize it. Also, the exterior walls of this facility are threaded with electromagnetic-shielding; it is built into the fabric of the structure.”
“So that’s how you kept the power on here, and haven’t become, well, zombies like the others. The shielding stopped the shock wave.”
“It appears so.”
“Why wasn’t the London machine surrounded with shielding? Wouldn’t it have stopped this whole mess?”
“London was designed in the same fashion. I can only suggest that being so close to the cause meant that the skin-depth was not enough to prevent the energy escaping. Obviously, the shock wave was weaker by the time it reached here and, our shielding was sufficient.”
Are you keeping up? I hate science, too. It doesn’t matter if you’re not…
“You nerds really have built a time-machine.”
“It’s never been tested. In truth, we are not even sure if it would work. The words that Deacon told you may hold the key.”
“How can Latin words be of any help?”
“They represent predetermined calculations for the power-consumption rates, the magnetic-field density, and the molecular-disturbance levels. Understanding them holds the key to being able to use this machine as a gateway to another time,” Professor Samson said. He turned to face Budd and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Did Deacon give you the combination?”
Budd’s tongue skimmed his lips. He was conscious that the other scientists in the room had gathered in a huddle behind him. “Yeah, he did.”
“Tell it to me.”
“Hold on a minute, okay. I can’t quite remember them.”
“Tell me now,” Professor Samson said angrily. His narrow, pale face was twitching around his mouth and eyes.
“Calm it, buddy. I’ve had a hell of a few days.”
“We stand on the verge of saving mankind. We don’t have time to lose.”
“Look, pal, once I’ve remembered it, you’ve got all the time in the world. Now, all you eggheads, give us some space,” he said, motioning for the other scientists to step back.
For a moment, Budd thought they would refuse. Their faces displayed the same angry expression as Professor Samson’s. Then, almost as one, they obeyed his request. He smiled. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I think we c
ould do with some rest. Come on, baby.”
Juliette followed him as he walked across the observation gallery towards the door on the far wall. He collected his shotgun and rucksack from the podium and glanced back over to the glass window. Professor Samson and the other scientists were still standing there, watching them go without saying a word. “What a weird bunch,” he whispered into Juliette’s ear.
“They give me the creeps, Monsieur Ashby.”
“They didn’t get out much before the apocalypse. Dating is gonna be a real pain now.”
Budd pushed open the door to find Tony waiting for them in the corridor. He was leaning against the wall and using his thumbnail to pick his teeth. Gone was his outdoor gear, replaced by a white shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and running shoes. His curly hair was uncombed. “How’d you get on with the nerds?”
“You know how it is, brother,” Budd said when the door closed behind them. “I hold the key to saving the world, but can’t quite remember where I put it. Usual stuff.”
“I don’t know when you’re windin’ me up anymore,” Tony said. “The two of you look tired. You wanna see some bunks?”
“That’d be great.”
Tony led the way down the corridor, his feet tapping against the metal grill of the floor. Over their heads, the soft electric light fittings, which were recessed into the ceiling, hummed at different frequencies.
As Budd walked along, hand in hand with Juliette, he took the opportunity to look through the glass panels into each of the doors they crossed. There were small laboratories, meeting rooms, and stores, as well as the more mundane break rooms and restrooms.
He stopped at an intersection, looking along it to its end. Over a length of three hundred feet it rose steadily, a steep slope, gaining about sixty feet in height until it finally opened into a large void.
“That was the first part of the complex to be completed; it’s actually above ground. They mined the rest from there,” Tony explained. “The crazies spend a lot of time around it trying to get in here. All of the air-processing ducts pass out of the facility that way, so I think they keep themselves warm with the exhausts. It’s why we used the emergency hatch earlier on. You wanna look?”
Budd shook his head. “Nah, there’ll be plenty of time for sightseeing. We ain’t going any place else, are we?”
“I guess not. Well, let me show you to your rooms. I warn you, though, they ain’t nothing fancy.”
“It’s all right,” Budd said with half a smile. “Anything would be better than the last place we stayed.”
55
Budd waved at Tony and then pushed the door shut. He turned around and smiled at Juliette. “What do you think?”
She was sitting on the end of the single bed and looked around the small room. There were no amenities; it was merely a nine-foot square box with a bed, a wardrobe and a narrow door that led into a bathroom that featured a shower, a basin and a chemical toilet. Nevertheless, Juliette smiled. “It is more than I hoped for, Monsieur Ashby.”
“Then you didn’t hope for much,” Budd said. He slid the shotgun from his shoulder and leaned the weapon against the wall beside the door. “I left my spare shells in my jacket,” he said with a hint of worry.
“Why would we need them here?”
“We won’t, I’m sure.”
“Does something concern you, Monsieur Ashby?”
“No,” Budd answered with a shake of his head. “But everyone around here seems a bit… odd.”
“I thought that, too,” Juliette said as she stood up from the bed. “But I am sure it is just us. We are tired, that is all. We should sleep, but first I am going to make sure Becky is okay.”
“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Budd said. He lay down and plumped the pillow as Juliette opened the bedroom door. “I’ll wait for you to come back,” he said.
“I will only be a minute, Monsieur Ashby.”
Budd let his eyes close, trying to hold the image of Juliette’s smiling face in his mind. Before it had even faded at all, he was already asleep.
What’s that? Is the story over? Did we live happily ever after at the Northern Camp for the rest of our days, safe and sound from the nasty Time-Travelling Space Mutant Zombies?
What do you think?
And if we did, why the hell would I be stuck here talking to you?
No, if things had ever looked up, they were ’bout to look back down, very, very fast…
56
Budd awoke with a start to find that the electric light in the bedroom had changed from yellow-white to bright red. A siren wailed in the corridor. Juliette stirred in the same moment and sat up from where she’d been curled against his chest, sleeping with her left arm draped across him.
I didn’t remember Juliette returning from her visit to see Snot-nose, which made me wonder how long I’d been asleep. Minutes or hours, I didn’t have a clue. Not that it mattered, because I obviously hadn’t slept long enough.
The world was still out to get me…
“Monsieur Ashby, what is happening?” Juliette asked, the fright in her voice edging away the remnants of her slumber. Her gray fleece and leather jacket were folded up at the foot of the bed. She grabbed the jacket and slipped it over her red T-shirt.
Budd was equally startled. “Is it morning already?” he said, unable to suppress the sarcasm from his voice. He sat up and swung his legs from the bed, meaning to pick up his shotgun. He stopped suddenly. “What are you doing in here, Snot-nose?”
Standing in front of the closed door, her face blank and expressionless, Becky said nothing in reply.
Juliette jumped from the bed and took the little girl in her arms. “She must be frightened.”
Budd coiled the shotgun’s strap around his wrist and held the weapon at his side. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry ’bout, it’s probably just a test,” he said, reaching for the handle and pulling open the door.
The sound of gunfire spilled into the room.
“Okay, well, still no need to panic. Let’s just check this out,” he said, stepping outside. He raised the shotgun. The walkway was lined with red lights and the siren screamed from speakers hidden in the walls. He looked up and down the long corridor. There was no one around.
A door opened across the hallway.
Budd instinctively aimed the shotgun towards it. Father McGee’s bushy hair appeared and his eyes widened at the sight of the dark barrels. “What’s happening, my son?”
“Not sure, pops. Where are the others?”
“I believe Jack and Miss Annabel are next door,” the elderly priest said, pointing to his left.
As if on cue, the door opened inwards and Jack emerged, the top half of his body naked except for a large gold chain around his neck. He had obviously been in bed as well, as his pants were unzipped and threatened to fall down.
Jack didn’t look like he’d been sleeping. Not the whole time, anyway…
“What the fuck is going on now?”
“Why do people keep asking me that? What do I look like, the fountain of knowledge?”
“You said we’d be safe here.”
“Safer than outside, yeah,” Budd said, raising his left eyebrow. “But why I bothered to help you get here is beyond me.”
Jack started to voice a response, but was silenced by another eruption of gunfire from the direction of the laboratory.
Tony came running around the corridor’s curve. He was dressed in his outside gear but had no goggles and the hood of his blue jacket was folded down. “C’mon, the crazies have breached the top entrance,” he shouted, waving his silver Colt King Cobra.
Budd grabbed Juliette’s hand. She still had hold of Becky, who was resting her head on her shoulder, and so he dragged them both towards Tony.
Father McGee, once more in his black and white priest’s garb, followed behind, while Jack and Annabel brought up the rear, the latter only wearing an oversized white T-shirt above a pair of red panties. Jack’s hands were tight around his
MP-5’s grips.
Tony waited, looking back the way he’d come. “We’re evacuating to the labs,” he said as Budd reached him, immediately turning around and jogging off.
“What happened?” Budd asked, hurrying to keep up.
“They ambushed a group of us that were out on recon. Those bastards can think. They tricked us.”
I had nothing to say.
Instead, I turned to Juliette. There was no mistaking the fear in her eyes. But then, between you and me, I was pretty scared myself.
You see, as far as I could tell, there was nowhere left to run…
The sound of gunfire became steadier as they progressed down the passageway. When they finally reached the intersection with the hallway that rose up to the room built above ground, Budd could see the muzzle flashes reflected on the opposite wall.
The gunmen were close.
Tony increased his pace, running by the opening without looking up at it. Budd, however, could not resist the urge to look.
He saw the backs of four men wearing the uniform-issue blue ski jackets. They were standing only a half-dozen feet from the intersection, firing pistols and revolvers at a mass of fast-movers that were swarming down the slope.
Only sixty feet stood between the monsters and their prey.
Budd squeezed Juliette’s hand tighter and felt his legs surge with fresh speed: he knew what was about to happen.
There was a flurry of gunfire, followed by shouts of panic.
He didn’t look back.
57
The sound of boots pounding upon the metal floor filled the corridor, louder even than the wailing siren. Budd’s legs ached and his chest heaved, and the shotgun felt like it was getting heavier.
Still, he knew he could not slow down, and he refused even to glance over his shoulder to see what was behind him; he had Juliette’s hand, and that was all that mattered. He kept running, on and on, down the empty corridor, until finally they rounded a corner and could see the laboratory’s observation room.