Torment of Tantalus

by Bard Constantine

  Part III: Tantalus

  Chapter 19: Tergiversate

  Nathan sat up with a choking gasp. A fit of coughing followed, inflaming his throat and chest. He rolled over, tumbled, and struck a cool and slick surface. He continued to cough and gag as he curled into a fetal position. He realized he wasn’t dead, that somehow he had inexplicably survived being drowned in a chamber flooded with sticky, viscous fluid. It didn’t make any sense, but he was certain of his hasty hypothesis.

  He was in too much pain to be dead.

  Bright fluorescents clicked on, revealing sterile, starkly white walls and tiled flooring. He slowly staggered to his feet and examined himself. He had been stripped down to clean, new underwear. A pile of garments was neatly stacked on a nearby white bench. He shuffled over, hesitantly looking around.

  Where am I? Is this a prison? Am I being watched?

  His breath caught as he flexed his arms and examined himself. He expected a severe amount of cuts and bruises, but aside from a few fading marks, there wasn’t any real damage.

  The fabric of the black and white jumpsuit was velvety soft but felt flexible and durable. He fingered it as he continued to examine his new surroundings. The bed was streamlined and padded with a thin mattress that appeared to be filled with some sort of gel. Beside it was a transparent end table with a clear pitcher of water on top. He quickly poured a glass and downed it, despite nearly choking.

  Wiping his mouth, he glanced in the corner. A bathroom area was sectioned off, complete with a toilet and shower. He tottered over, raising a hand that direction. There was no longer any blood, any muck stuck to his body. No dirt, no mold, no viscera from the monstrosities he’d killed. He had been washed by his mysterious captors, cleaned of filth and impurities.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He turned the knobs, gasped as the water struck him. It wasn’t enough. He turned the knob further, increasing the heat until it was near-scalding. Gritting his teeth, he ran his hands over his chest and shoulders, scrubbing.

  A sob escaped his lips.

  How can this be real? It’s not real. You’re still out there. Out in the Aberration.

  The faces of the dead swam from his subconscious to greet him. Chen’s severed head staring sightlessly. Lurch, squinting with his face on a monster’s body. Ariki, screaming as he was torn limb from limb. Worst of all was Nathan’s father. His head ruined, smoke billowing from the bloody hollows.

  Nathan’s legs gave out. He wept, shuddering on the shower floor. Water streamed over him, but he would never be clean again. The shame clung to him like a second skin, something he could never be rid of.

  No matter what he did, he would always be filthy.

  A hissing noise. A rush of air. The sound of padded feet approaching. His eyes opened, blurred by the water on his face. Black-clad figures entered the shower, soundless as they hoisted him with gloved hands. Their faces were covered by black fabric, not even their eyes were visible.

  Nathan didn’t care. He couldn’t. He had no idea where he was, no idea what was happening. He sobbed as the dark figures sat him down, sobbed as they dressed in with mute efficiency. With tears streaming down his face, he pleaded with his silent captors.

  “Please…I just want to be clean. You understand that, don’t you? I just want to be clean again…”

  ∞Φ∞

  Years ago he had walked down a claustrophobic hallway, ushered by two burly policemen. He had just killed his father, still had blood on his shirt. The memory was cloudy, just a sketch drawing of a moment that should have been branded into his memory. But he had been dazed, his mind safely secluded in a safe haven where the grisly reality of his actions could not torment him. He walked in between the policemen, a boy with a shuttered mind forming an escape that would become a part of him, an automatic response to anything that evoked fear, sadness, or anger.

  Once again he walked down a narrow hallway, this one illuminated from hidden lights that brightened the ceilings, walls, and floors. The brilliance was a bizarre contrast to the darkness of his silent chaperones. They were clad in stark black from their velvety tunics to their soft-soled boots. Their heads were covered by what appeared to be tight balaclava masks, modified to cover their entire faces. Nathan couldn’t understand how they could manage to see when so obviously blinded.

  They’re not human. Some sort of automatons.

  He was relieved at the notion. It gave him something to consider. Something to calculate. He needed the distraction. It gave his mind a task, something to occupy his attention other than his overwrought emotional state. He glanced at one, then the other. They matched his stride perfectly, whether he sped up or slowed down, always in perfect unison. Yet they never laid a hand on him, and he didn’t see any weapon equipped. He wondered what would happen if he just took off running.

  Then he remembered the way they had carried him as though he were weightless. He wasn’t exactly a large man, but they were obviously much stronger than he was. Probably a lot faster, too. Just because they hadn’t shown any signs of threatening behavior didn’t mean they wouldn’t at a moment’s notice.

  Better to wait it out. See what happens. Maybe they’re escorting me to where everyone else is.

  He cleared his throat. “Where are you taking me?”

  Neither of the shadows even glanced his direction. He guessed as much.

  “Where is this place? Is it the Tantalus? Is Dr. Stein here?”

  Silence.

  “Are you robots?”

  Silence.

  “Can you talk? You can see, obviously. So, can you speak? Is that too much to ask?”

  Silence.

  The hall ended at a door that slid open. The two figures stopped as though some invisible barrier prevented them from continuing on. As if synchronized, they both lifted an arm and pointed toward the room beyond.

  Nathan swallowed. The room was dark as a tomb.

  A disembodied voice warbled from the interior. “Come in, Nathan. We don’t have much time.”

  ∞Φ∞

  Nathan had seen photos of Dr. Franklin Nicolas Stein. They depicted him as short and stocky with disarming features, unusually jolly-looking for a man of such a cavalier repute. That rotund, cheerful man had been replaced by an emaciated waste with the weathered visage of an old owl, complete with large eyes that blinked from behind thin-framed round lasses. His slightly unruly hair and beard were colored more salt than pepper. A rumpled, formerly white lab coat of medium length covered his rudimentary outfit of shirt and slacks. He had the glassy-eyed, slightly manic stare of someone deprived of multiple nights of sleep. That was only the beginning of what worried Nathan.

  The room was a cell. Just four concrete walls and the two chairs they sat in. Dr. Stein had closed the door after Nathan entered, sealing them off from the ghostly guards outside. Unlike the rest of the facility, there was no evidence of any kind of specialized design or technology. The room was entirely bare, devoid of even an electrical outlet. The only source of light was an ordinary bulb handing from the ceiling.

  It’s a dead zone, Nathan realized. A nook built for getting off the grid. It made sense. If the forces behind the Aberrations were truly from another time or dimension as he suspected, there was always the risk that they would infiltrate whatever technology they encountered.

  Dr. Stein blinked. “I’m sorry for the disorienting awaking. I’m sure you have many questions.”

  Nathan paused as his thoughts collided. It was nearly impossible to know what to ask first. He thought of Elena, and it became easy.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “Still in hibernation. I convinced the Gestalt I needed another apprentice, which is the only reason you were awakened. Unfortunately, I was only allowed to wake one of you.”

  Nathan found it hard to concentrate in the stifling atmosphere. He shifted in his chair, trying not to hunch his shoulders from the sense of claustrophobia that pressed down like monster hands on his shoulders. He cleared
his throat. “I’m sorry…what is this? You need an apprentice? For what?”

  Stein reached inside of his coat pocket and produced a small index card. A message was written in bold black marker.

  THEY ARE LISTENING

  He jerked his head toward the door as he continued to speak. “To be my assistant. The others are dead, unfortunately. Tried to escape. That’s the first rule you’ll have to learn. There is no escape.”

  Nathan felt his muscles quiver from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Fight or flight, he realized. The sudden urge to do something, anything to escape the situation.

  Stein held up another card.

  FAKE STONE IN CORNER

  GUN INSIDE

  He pointed that direction. “I think you’ll find that if you do as you’re told, things will be easy for you. Forget what you think you know about the Aberration. Nothing is as you’ve come to understand. But if you agree to assist me with my task of preparing the Threshold, you will be rewarded as I have. Protection, Nathan. Protection from the Cataclysm to come.” He gestured again to the corner. Sweat trickled down his face. His eyes pleaded, begging Nathan to comply.

  Nathan crept over to the corner. The concrete block flooring looked solid enough, but when he pressed down on the corner block, it slid upward. The interior was hollow, revealing a small handgun and a pair of two-way radios. He extracted the gun and looked at Stein, who held up another card.

  KILL THE GUARDS

  Nathan’s heart pounded so hard it nearly hurt. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  Stein shook his head. “Not if you want to live.”

  Nathan nodded, taking a series of deep breaths. The gun trembled in his hand. Steeling himself, he kicked open the door, aiming at the guard to the right. Pulled the trigger.

  Two shots in rapid succession. The sounds exploded in the hallway, unnaturally loud. The black-clad figure jerked back and fell without a sound. Nathan turned to the left. Blurred movement. A gloved hand caught his wrist, wrenched with unexpected strength. Nathan nearly screamed as pain lanced across his arm. He twisted his body with the movement, flung his other arm across the masked face of the guard, caught him by the chin and shoved backward. For a few desperate seconds they shuffled and slid across the glossy tiles.

  Can’t lose. Can’t die.

  He recalled his father insisting he take wrestling class in high school, where he was subjected to humiliating pin-downs that usually ended up with his face in another boy’s armpit or crushed between a pair of muscular, unrelenting legs. His only saving grace was the inside trip move, something he eventually mastered.

  Thought became action as he feinted a slip, then wrapped his leg behind the guard’s when he tried to adjust. Using the guard’s motion against him, Nathan slammed him to the floor. Leaping back, he aimed and fired two more shots. The guard convulsed and went slack. Nathan dripped with sweat, chest heaving, legs shuddering.

  “The head.” Stein’s face was plastered against the small window in the door. His voice emitted from an intercom box beside the door. “It’s the only way to be sure.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t want their systems rerouted. Do it, quickly. No point being squeamish now.”

  Nathan saw his father’s head lurch back, exploding in a spray of red. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “Can’t. They’re dead, anyway. They can’t bother us.”

  “They’re not human, Nathan. Not anymore. If you don’t finish them, they’ll finish us.”

  “You do it, then.”

  “I can’t step out this room. It will have control of me, then. You’re wasting time as it is. Contingencies are already being activated. Victor will be here soon. Do it. Finish them!”

  Nathan’s muscles stiffened. He fired a shot into the guard’s head. It snapped back in response, without the gruesome spatter Nathan expected. Only a smoking cavity was visible.

  “I told you. Now, the other one.”

  Nathan turned to Stein after finishing them. “What the hell is going on? Why can’t you come out of there?”

  Stein’s eyes flicked back and forth. “I…can’t. The Gestalt can sense my presence. Get into my head. Make me do…things.”

  “The Gestalt? You’ve made contact with something from the Other side? Who?”

  “It’s not an individual. It’s a collective consciousness, the hive mind of the dying universe from the Other side. I call it the Gestalt.”

  “Gestalt.” Nathan felt a conflicting mixture of fascination and terror. “As in an organized whole operating as more than a sum of parts.”

  Stein nodded. “The totality of the cognizant fragments of the Neuroverse compressed into a singular actuality. The Gestalt formed itself for the collective to operate in unison. It’s taken over the facility and its personnel to complete the repair of the Threshold. One it’s finished, it will reopen and allow the intact psionic energy of the Neuroverse to pass through uninhibited. That energy will look for hosts to inhabit in order to survive.”

  Nathan wiped sweat from his face. “You mean us. Our minds overran and assimilated by theirs.”

  “Two opposing forces can’t inhabit the same space. It’s simple physics. Theirs is the more powerful force, allowing them to force us out. Complete and systematic appropriation. Humanity will become extinct, replaced by some hybrid form of being.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  A thin drawer slid from the doorway. Inside was one of the two-way radios.

  “Run. When the guards went down, contingency plans went into action. Victor is being awakened. You have to stop him, or he’ll kill us.”

  Nathan clipped the radio to his side and slipped the accompanying earpiece in his ear. “Where? How do I stop him?”

  Stein’s voice buzzed from the earphone. “Just run. To the right, down the hall, last door to the left.”

  Nathan ran. The wide stretch of brightly lit hallway was mocking with its emptiness. The only sounds were his harsh breathing and the squeak of his soles across the polished tiles. At any second something could emerge from one of the doors, something terrible and twisted…

  He slid to the last door and shoved his way inside.

  The laboratory was designed in streamlined fashion: clean lines, minimalist glass and chrome furniture. As with the rest of the building, it was lit to the maximum luminosity. That only made the specimens on display more macabre.

  Several cadavers were under glass in various stages of dissection. Nathan recognized a smaller version of the giant spider creatures. The body was the size of a large dog, and was even more repulsive up close, like some alien experiment in fusing insect and human parts. Other grotesqueries and anatomical samples were encased in jars and coffers, spread across several counters and tabletops.

  Several chambers the size of bathtubs were built into the nearest wall, sealed off by frosted glass. Silhouettes of indistinct figures were barely visible inside.

  Nathan’s heart leaped in his throat when Dr. Stein’s voice broke the silence.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to keep talking to me, Nathan. I can’t see what you see.”

  “Okay.”

  “The last stasis pod to your left. Is it open?”

  Nathan looked that direction. The pod in question was larger than the others.

  “No. It’s closed.”

  “Thank God.” The relief was evident in Stein’s shaky exhalation. “Listen—you have to shut it down. Shut them all down, it’ll be faster.”

  Nathan felt as crushing sense of dread. “Won’t that…kill whoever’s inside?”

  “Remember the guards you took out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what those chambers are for. My co-workers and the security team—they didn’t have a choice. I was a part of it. Part of the deception. The Gestalt…you don’t understand what it is. What it can make you do. Just…look—we don’t have the time. They’re gone, get it? No longer human. Shuttin
g this down is a mercy. But the last chamber is holding Victor. He’s a monstrosity. He’s the hand of the Gestalt. He made me do things, understand? You have to take him out or we’re dead.”

  Nathan exhaled a trembling breath. “Okay. What do I do?”

  “Manual override. The lever right beside Victor’s pod. Quickly.”

  Nathan approached the chamber with his heart hammering against his chest. Dead things watched with sightless eyes when he placed his hand on the lever emerging from the wall.

  Nathan’s breath caught in his throat when light bloomed in Victor’s chamber.

  The creature inside blinked, slowly turning to look at Nathan. His dull, watery eyes gazed with brute dispassion, inhuman intelligence sparking in his stare. Nathan felt the rising panic in a rush of frantic palpitations and shortness of breath, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the gruesome thing.

  Long, lank strands of black hair fell lifelessly to Victor’s bony shoulders. His face was painfully gaunt, looking more a corpse than a living thing. Thin, nearly transparent skin riddled with blue veins stretched over emaciated, sinewy muscle. It opened its mouth and a rattling sound escaped, like bones in a meat grinder. The malformed, blackened lips worked, trying to form words as if language were a thing just realized.

  Nathan’s words tripped over his tongue, which suddenly felt dry and swollen. “He’s…he’s awake.”

  “Pull the override. Now!”

  Nathan yanked the lever down. The light in the chamber winked off. Victor’s shadowy outline was barely visible. His eyes were pale, glowing orbs that stared at Nathan through the glass. The chamber rocked from the creature’s movements.

  “He’s moving. Like he’s trying to get out.”

  “Gas him. Blue button on the chamber console.”

  Nathan slammed his hand on the button. Jets hissed as gas flooded the chamber, shrouding the creature in a cloud of billowing white. His muted howls quickly faded, along with his frantic efforts at escaping the pod.

  “Did it work?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”