Torment of Tantalus

by Bard Constantine

  Dr. Stein sat against the wall inside, tears streaming down his face. He shielded his eyes. “No…I don’t see you. You’re not real…”

  Blackwell ignored him, hurriedly tracing his fingers over the inner wall. Finding a cleverly concealed niche, he pressed it and slid the façade to the side. The sight was a welcome one.

  Guns and ammunition lined the hollow inside. Blackwell handed out rifles and handguns like Santa Clause to eagerly waiting children. The metallic sounds of firearms being loaded drowned out Stein’s pathetic weeping.

  Charlie Foxtrot slammed a magazine into her HK 416. “Now that’s what I’m talking ‘bout. I could kiss you right now, Blackwell. Can’t believe you planned for this.”

  “Not this particularly, but I took the threat as seriously as possible.” He strapped Berettas to both legs. “We always knew infiltration was a credible threat, and we wanted to be prepared. I had a security detail as well, but it looks like they were taken out before we got here.”

  “We’re here now. That a grenade? I’ll take it.”

  He tossed it to her. “Just watch before you throw. This is an enclosed area.”

  “Do I look like an amateur to you?”

  Stein scrubbed a hand across his face. “Mr. Blackwell…it is you. I thought—”

  “Never mind what you thought,” Nathan said. “You need to tell us where the nuclear device is.”

  “Nuke?” Elena was clearly stunned. “Why would there be a nuclear bomb here?”

  “Ask your boss.” Nathan jabbed a finger at Blackwell. “He brought it.”

  Blackwell didn’t even blink. “What do you think I’ve been carrying in my pack? Just be glad I didn’t let Damon handle it.”

  “You were planning to destroy this facility from the start. A rescue mission was never the plan.”

  Nathan’s mouth twisted. “You actually believed him? That would require the ability to care. Blackwell’s never been affected by that particular sentiment.”

  “I think the millions of people saved by this facility’s destruction would agree that the sacrifice of a few staff members just makes numerical sense. So spare me the righteous scorn.” He looked at Dr. Stein. “You were telling us where it is.”

  “Victor took it. It’s either secured in the server room, or the control room. Both have secure vaults where he might have stored the device.”

  “Server room.” Blackwell nodded. “I take it all the data from this expedition has been downloaded and compressed there?”

  “Of course.”

  “Along with pertinent samples ready to go in cold storage?

  Stein gave him a questioning glance. “Yes, but—”

  “Good. I need to collect it on the way out.”

  Michael felt his face flush with heat. “Are we really having this conversation right now? Seriously?”

  “Of course I’m serious, Michael. I don’t expect you to understand, but this is a multi-billion dollar expedition. If you expect me to get all the way here without recouping on my investment, it’s you that needs a reality check.”

  “Forget about him.” Guy slid a Bowie knife into his boot sheath. “He wants to die for his money, he can. You know what we have to do, Michael.”

  “Stop the Aberration.”

  “That’s right.” Guy turned to Stein. “Where’s the Threshold?”

  Stein slid back from Guy’s hard stare. “Center of the facility. It’s been completely reconstructed to act as a gateway. But you’ll never get there. Victor will—”

  “Die,” Guy said. “Or we will. Is the sub still docked here?”

  Stein sagged, eyes distant. “Still here. You won’t make, though. No one has. It’s a trap. A tease, a delusion to tempt us. But no matter how you try to get to it, it’s always just out of reach.”

  Guy ignored him. “Two teams. Blackwell, you take one and get to the server room. Get your precious data, look for your device. I’ll take another and go for the control room. If anyone finds the nuke, set it to blow. We’ll meet at the sub and hope we can get out in time. Everyone grab an earpiece and head out.”

  Stein shook with laughter. “You’ll be monitored. The Gestalt will know your every move…”

  “Then we’ll move quickly. Michael, you’re with me. I’ll take Hayes, too. Blackwell, you take the others.”

  “I know the layout, but you don’t. You’ll get lost.”

  Guy glanced down. “I’ll take Stein, then.”

  Stein’s eyes widened. “What? No. I can’t leave this place. It will have me, control me…”

  Guy pulled his handgun and thrust it in Stein’s face. “Then I put you out of your misery. Be of some use, or bite a bullet. Your choice.”

  Stein’s hands flew up. “Glad to help.”

  Chapter 23: Daemon

  A massive fly buzzed down the hallway. It flew in agitated circles, smacking against the walls and ceiling before colliding with the floor, where it skittered around as if dazed before righting itself and trying again.

  Elena swallowed hard. “That thing is the size of a horse.”

  It was pale, nearly colorless save for a slight brownish hue, and its large, compound eyes. They were multicolored, electric hues rippling across the surface. It rubbed its forelimbs over its head as though washing itself, all the while buzzing in a timbre so deep the walls vibrated. Elena couldn’t help but notice the stout piercing mouthparts, long and sharp like translucent daggers.

  She remembered being terrified as a child when the movie The Fly played on TV. Even the edited television version was nightmarish, giving her an intense abhorrence for winged insects and Jeff Goldblum. Staring at the disgusting giant bug, she realized how childish her fears were of special effects from a silly movie. The thing in front of them was the real nightmare.

  It continued its cycle of trying to fly, but the hall was too cramped. There was no room for it to go. Once it was grounded again, it resumed the disgusting face-washing motions, glimmering eyes appearing to stare directly at Elena and her squad.

  Charlie Foxtrot stepped up beside Elena. “Okay, time to say bye-bye.” She raised her rifle.

  “Maybe that’s not a good—”

  The shot rang out. The fly’s midsection exploded, painting the walls in red and green spatters. It lay in a sticky mound of its own entrails, writhing in a berserk display of jerking limbs.

  Charlie Foxtrot grinned. “Boom. I hate those things, even when they’re normal size. But there’s always a plan with a gun in your hand.”

  The buzzing noise increased. Elena took a step back, bumping into Nathan. “Are you sure it’s dead?”

  “Dead, dying, whatever.” Charlie Foxtrot shouldered her weapon. “It ain’t doing us no harm, that’s for damn sure.”

  The sound intensified as if to deny her statement. The fly’s body jerked for a few seconds before a massive swarm erupted from its steaming innards. The cloud of buzzing insects flew directly at them.

  Blackwell skidded to a halt. “Run!”

  He turned down the nearest hallway. They followed, tailed by the horde of buzzing horseflies. The group was overrun, attacked by thousands of large, pale biting insects. Elena flailed, swatting the flies that buzzed in her ears and attacked her face and neck. The air was thick with swarming bodies, forcing her to keep her mouth clamped for fear of swallowing. Choking back her screams, she stumbled and nearly fell, colliding with the others. Her stomach clenched, her breath nearly cut off from the paralyzing panic. The things were everywhere. Crawling, biting her bare skin like tiny jabbing needles. She wanted to scream, wanted to escape, do anything to get them off…

  Nozzles hissed from the ceiling, filling the air with gaseous clouds. It coated the flies with white spray, dropping them to the floor in wriggling piles. Elena staggered on, coughing from the dry chemicals that jetted from the fire suppression system. Blackwell’s chest heaved as he leaned against a wall control panel where he had activated the extinguishers. Nathan and Charlie Foxtrot hacked and wheezed, st
umbling forward.

  “Keep…going.” Blackwell motioned with his hand. “Get out of the gas. Server room is this way.”

  They kept moving, racked by coughing fits. Fire burned in Elena’s lungs, every breath a shot of gasoline in the flames. Blackwell staggered to a door, placed his hand on a display, and entered a code. The door hissed open.

  “Need two at the door. Charlie, Nathan—keep watch. Let us know if anything heads this way.”

  “Anything comes this way, it’s dead.” Charlie Foxtrot rubbed her neck, frowned at the blood on her fingers. “I don’t care if I have to shoot every insect one by one.”

  Blackwell motioned to Elena. “Come on.”

  They entered the server room in a blast of welcome cold from the frigid air conditioning. The interior was white from floor to ceiling, with a dozen or more tightly isolated software containers housing stacks of servers blinking with multicolored lights. A couple of refrigerated units were installed to the walls.

  Blackwell dashed to the furthest wall, tapped a sequence on a built-in vault and snatched open the door. The interior was empty.

  “Nothing here. The bomb must be in the control room.” He pulled out the only thing inside the safe: a thick key hanging from a beaded chain.

  Elena edged toward the door. “Okay. If we head that way now, we can still help Guy and the others.”

  He turned to a computer. “And we will. Just a second.”

  “What are you doing?”

  He never looked up, fingers flying across the keyboard. “What does it look like? Finding the route to the submarine. It’s still docked below, just have to get to it.” He dangled the key he extracted from the vault. “This is our out. It turns on the fusion generator to the sub.” He hung the chain around his neck.

  She walked over. “That’s not all you’re doing.”

  He spared her a quick glare. “Of course not. I’m downloading pertinent data to the sub’s computers. This mission is a wash. The data is the only thing I’ll be able to salvage.” Not bothering to pause, he dashed to the lab refrigerator and rummaged inside. After a quick search he extracted a carrying case the size of a laptop bag. Opening it, he glanced over the samples inside.

  Elena shook her head. “Well, at least you got what you came for, right?”

  He glanced up with a wry smile. “Did you ever think this data might be needed, Private? That this Aberration may just be a sign of things to come? How can we fight it if we don’t have the latest, most detailed information? Stein is the only person to have studied this energy at its source, uninhibited. What he’s compiled is immeasurable in its value. Consider that while you’re looking to be judge and jury.”

  Elena felt a stab of guilt. “I…hadn’t considered it from that perspective.”

  “Few do. But someone has to keep their eye on the ball.” He straightened, snapping the case shut. Glancing at the computer, he nodded. “It’s done.”

  Charlie Foxtrot yelled from outside the door. “Something’s out here.”

  Blackwell pulled a Berretta from the holster and nodded to Elena.

  Humidity slapped her in the face when she dashed out the door. The eerie mist stubbornly clung to the floor and vined across the walls. Dim red pulsed from the emergency lights, coloring the fog in shades of pink. Charlie Foxtrot and Nathan stood a few steps away, facing off against something in the shrouded distance.

  A figure was barely visible, moving with a sinuous, catlike stride. Its voice carried down the halls, singing in a warbled pitch.

  “Ten little Injuns standing in a line. One was decapitated, then there were nine.”

  The voice was instantly familiar. Charlie Foxtrot lowered her rifle with a bewildered expression.

  “Damon?”

  The figure swayed back and forth as if dancing. He continued his singing.

  “Nine little Injuns swinging on a gate. One got his arm ripped off, then there were eight.”

  Blackwell raised his handgun. “Damon’s dead. We saw it.”

  “Yeah, and we all drowned.” Charlie Foxtrot stepped closer. “Stop playing, Damon. What happened to you?”

  “Eight little Injuns happy under heaven. A jellyfish stung one, then there were seven.” Damon was almost visible, but there was something wrong with his profile. The way he moved was off as well. It was too nimble, nearly animalistic. And there was something about the words to his song…

  “He’s talking about the way everyone died!” Elena raised her G36, lining Damon in the sights. “He wasn’t even there when Ariki was killed. He couldn’t know unless—”

  “It’s not him. Kill it. Kill it!” Blackwell opened fire. Elena and Nathan were right behind, followed by Charlie Foxtrot. The sound was deafening as the hall flickered with muzzle flashes.

  Damon was quicksilver, a motion blur of fluid movement. He sprang from floor to wall to ceiling, revolving like a figure skater. None of the rounds found their mark. Elena finally got a good look at him when he landed. He was a scorched sculpture of an unfinished human being; just skeletal muscle and sinew enveloped by a film of metallic membrane. One arm was a squid-like tentacle that he flailed like a whip. It wrapped around her rifle, constricted, and snatched the weapon from her hands. It flew backward, lost in the mist.

  He streaked forward.

  Charlie Foxtrot cursed, trying to negotiate the close quarter fighting. A vicious kick to her abdomen sent her skidding across the floor. Blackwell managed to fire twice before he was throttled, hoisted off his feet, and slammed to the ground with bone-splintering force. Damon spun in the same flow of movement, snatching Nathan’s arm and shoving upward before the intended shots fired. Bullets harmlessly punctured the ceiling. Damon smashed his head into Nathan’s face with a metallic crunch, collapsing him to the floor as if his bones had melted.

  All of it happened in the few seconds it took for Elena to draw her handgun. She pointed, fired point blank, but somehow Damon wasn’t there. He whipped back and forth as her rounds hit nothing but air. A thick tentacle encircled her shoulder and wrapped around her neck, soft as jelly yet strong as steel. The stinging fumes of ammonia made her eyes water.

  His other hand seized her wrist. Everything blurred, then pain exploded when her head rebounded off the wall. Damon thrust his face inches from hers, more a skull than a human head. It was as if all humanity had been scorched away, revealing what had been there all along. His eyeballs practically danced in their sockets, his teeth clamped in a hideous grin, sharp and gleaming like newly polished razors.

  “That all you got, Private? I thought you wanted to see some real action.” His tongue flicked out, black and wriggling. “Don’t disappoint me, Ruiz. Get…into…the game.”

  She shrieked, using her free hand to jab fingers in his eyes. The tentacle loosened when he fell back, hissing. With her gun hand free, she pointed it and fired. The shots struck this time, rupturing his gleaming skin and punching him backward. His gaze remained locked on her, arms outstretched, smile fixed as though the bullets were paintballs.

  Charlie Foxtrot regained her equilibrium, opening fire from the side. She roared as her rifle blazed. The rounds struck Damon across the chest and abdomen at point blank range. Inky blood sprayed as he jerked back in a spasmodic display of flailing limbs. He scrabbled on the floor like an overturned insect, ear-splitting shrieks ripping from his throat before being silenced by another barrage of shots, this time directly to the head.

  Charlie Foxtrot gave the body a disgusted kick. “Never liked yo punk ass, anyhow.” She glanced at Elena. “You okay?”

  Elena winced, touching the back of her head. “I’ll live.”

  Blackwell was still unconscious, prone on the floor with his hand gripping the sample case. His handgun had skidded a few feet away. Elena briefly checked on him before kneeling beside Nathan, who groaned as he tried to sit up. Blood slicked across his face from a broken nose, and judging by his look of complete disorientation, he was probably concussed.

  “Hey. Are yo
u all right? Can you move?”

  He blinked and gave a dizzy shake of his head, lips moving as though trying to form words. “Not…dead.”

  “I know you’re not dead. Can you move?”

  He shook his head again. “Not…me. Him.” A gurgling noise became audible just as he pointed a trembling finger.

  A familiar voice warbled a singsong tune. “Seven little Injuns chopping up sticks. One was reborn, then there were six.”

  She whirled around, gun raised, but unable to shoot. Damon had a long, slick tentacle twined around Charlie Foxtrot, trapping her arms at her sides as her feet dangled above the floor. He leered, holding her up as if offering a trophy. Black fluid wept from his wounds and pooled at his gnarled feet. He seemed oblivious to injuries that should have been mortal. The holes puckered into scar tissue and the skin calcified, turning stony and knotted with protrusions in mere seconds.

  He head was misshapen mass of rocky carapace and leathery skin. His mouth dribbled, voice thick and garbled. “I don’t think you understand the concept of survival at all, Private Ruiz. Case in point: you can shoot me again, try to make sure I stay dead this time. But if you do, ol’ Chuck here will catch a case of friendly fire. You know what you have to do. But do you have the guts to take the shot?”

  She circled, trying to get a clean look. But he matched her stride perfectly, always holding Charlie Foxtrot in the path of her aim. Charlie Foxtrot’s eyes were wide with outrage, her words muffled behind the tentacle wrapped around her mouth. Elena knew the words she would yell if she could.

  Take the shot. Do it.

  “You don’t have it in you, do you?” Damon’s needle-sharp teeth flashed in a grin. He dangled Charlie Foxtrot in front of Elena like a wanted toy to a baby sister. “Maybe I should make it easy for you.” The tentacle tightened, pulling Charlie Foxtrot to him. He traced a clawed finger across her cheek. Charlie Foxtrot’s eyes furiously pleaded with Elena.

  Don’t be a pussy. Take this bastard out!