The Dark Descent

by William Oday

  The hab was barely wider than the door, maybe eight feet across and extended back through several doorways. The entrance opened into a small room that was the kitchen and dining room and a tiny sofa against the nearby wall. Through an open door was the bedroom. And that looked to be it.

  “Come in, come in. Welcome to my summer dacha. I live here while renovating third floor in main hab. The heated marble floors are taking forever to install.”

  Martinez rolled her eyes as she followed Kat inside. I brought up the rear and secured the door behind us.

  A huge black rat scurried out from the kitchen toward us.

  Martinez grimaced and lifted a boot, ready to smash it if it got too close.

  “No!” Kat shouted as she knelt to protect the thing. She picked it up and stroked the scraggly white fur on top of its head. “Einstein is treasured pet.” She held him out to me. “Scout, meet Einstein.”

  I lifted a tentative hand and pet his head. “Uh, hello there.”

  The rat’s whiskers twitched as he sniffed my fingers. Probably had a whole cornucopia of interesting smells from the sanitation sled.

  Martinez shivered with disgust. “Einstein? Because of the fuzzy white hair on his head?”

  “No,” Kat replied. “Because Einstein is smartest rat ever. Smarter than some people.”

  The suggestion of who some meant didn’t go unnoticed.

  Martinez’s posture stiffened at the insult, but I laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her in check. Kat had saved us and there was nothing to be gained by upsetting her.

  Martinez looked around. “I gotta pee. Where’s the john?”

  “Community bathrooms are at end of hall.”

  “You don’t have your own?”

  Kat chuckled. “You look like someone who used to think they had it hard growing up.”

  I wondered how I had it growing up, not out of any desire to compare to this place. Simply to know how it happened. What I was like. Anything, really.

  Someone pounded on the door.

  I yanked our rifles out of the bag and tossed Martinez’s to her. We checked that they were ready to fire. Martinez dropped behind the side of the sofa for cover while I sidled up next to the door. I glanced at her to verify she was good to go.

  She nodded.

  I motioned for Kat to answer it.

  She looked through the peephole, and then stepped back.

  “Open the door! I saw your shadow in the peephole.”

  Kat set Einstein on the floor and waved him away. “Go, hide.”

  He sat back on his haunches, his glistening black marble eyes looking up at her.

  She shooed him away and whispered, “Go. Now!”

  He dropped to all fours and scurried into the bedroom.

  Kat turned back to the door. “Who is it?”

  “You know who it is. Open the door.”

  “I’m just back from shower. Not decent. Come back later.”

  “Open it now or I come back later with a few friends and we bust it down. And then we make a mess of your place for the trouble.”

  Kat sighed and reached for the door.

  I grabbed her wrist to stop her.

  “Who is it?” I whispered.

  “He’s harmless. Thoughtless and rude, but harmless.”

  I didn’t let go.

  “Trust me. It’s better we let him in.”

  I nodded and let go.

  She opened the door and stepped back to allow the man to enter.

  I grabbed him by the collar, yanked him inside, and kicked the door shut. “Lock it.” I kept him off balance by dragging him forward, inserted my foot into his path, and guided him to the floor as he fell. My knee was between his shoulder blades and applying painful pressure before he’d even thought of resisting.

  “Oww, man! Don’t kill the messenger!”

  “What’s your name?” I said, not letting up on the pressure.

  “Caleb!”

  “Why are you here, Caleb?”

  “Get your knee out of my back and I’ll tell you! I can’t breathe!”

  I removed my knee from his spine and flipped him over. The muzzle of the rifle floated inches above his face. “Start talking, Caleb.”

  He tried to wiggle away but I pinned him down with a boot on the crotch.

  “Oww, dude! You’re crushing the family jewels!”

  Kat grunted. “Family curse is more like it. What do you want?”

  He tried to push my boot off, which resulted in me leaning more weight onto it. He groaned. “I have a message from Crypto. He wants to meet your sadist friend, here.”

  “Not possible,” Kat said. “We have plans.”

  The kid grimaced as he struggled to keep my boot from smashing his crotch into paste. “You know how he takes rejection.”

  She sighed. “When?”

  “When does he want anything that he wants? Now. Immediately. Ten minutes ago.”

  Kat turned to me. “Don’t do it. You won’t be safe there.”

  CHOICES:

  1. Decline the meeting.

  2. Accept the meeting.

  The group chose #2 and this is what happened next…

  19

  I didn’t ease up the pressure on Caleb’s groin. Not because the leverage was required. This kid was no threat. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but it felt good letting out a bit of the frustration I’d been feeling since waking up and constantly being in reaction mode.

  It was the lack of control that did it.

  I’d been pinging around responding to every new threat and focusing on staying alive long enough to figure out a few things.

  And that had me decidedly cranky. Cranky enough to give this poor kid a serious case of bruised balls.

  “Who is Crypto?” I asked Kat.

  “He runs the lower levels. Not officially, but everything goes through him one way or another.”

  “What about the Grays? How does he handle them?”

  “They don’t come down here much. Not after what happened the last time they came down to arrest one of Crypto’s men.”

  “What happened?”

  “People died. Some of Crypto’s. Some of Grays. Some innocent people that were in wrong place at wrong time. And most on this level blame Grays.”

  Scout turned to Martinez. “My unit wasn’t on that mission, but everyone knows it didn’t go well.”

  “Now, unspoken truce keeps peace. Gray don’t come here and we don’t give them reason to.”

  “Hey, dude, your boot is still crushing my balls.” Caleb said as he struggled to relieve the pressure.

  I leaned into it as I rested the muzzle of the rifle on his forehead.

  His eyes crossed as both focused on the barrel. His balls suddenly seemed less important because he raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot, man! I’m a nobody! Just a messenger!”

  “You’re going to take me to your boss. I want some answers and he sounds like he has more than most.” I let the weight of the rifle rest on the muzzle, pressing harder into his skull. “And if you make one wrong move, I’m going to kill you.”

  Caleb stared up at my finger around the trigger. “I promise, man! I’ll do anything you say!”

  I shifted my boot off his crotch and moved the rifle to the side. With a wad of his shirt in hand, I yanked him to his feet. The kid needed to get some calories in him. He was too light and too thin for looking like someone who had or was about to leave his teenage years behind.

  “You can’t go,” Kat said. “You promised date. I have cheap but effective moonshine vodka for us. I thought you were man of word. Not like all the rest.”

  She may have been doing her best to manipulate me, but she did look disappointed and that made me feel bad. A little.

  “Look, Kat, I promise you we’ll have that date. I said I’d do it and I will. I just need a raincheck for now.”

  “All men say same thing. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. And then never.” She took a few steps to the kitchen and
pulled a clear bottle out of a cabinet. She poured a few inches of hazy liquid into a glass and then knocked it down in one gulp. She poured another, doing her best to look hurt and mistreated.

  “Don’t pretend to whine. It makes you look weak and I know that’s not true.”

  The glass paused at her mouth and a smile spread across her lips. “I like you, Mr. Scout.” She gulped down the second round. “Don’t worry. There’s always more.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  Wherever there were people with a little bit of time on their hands, there would also be booze and other leisure time pursuits.

  “Martinez, you’re with me,” I said.

  “Uhh, sorry,” Caleb said. “The message didn’t include anything about this girl. It was for you.”

  I shook him by the collar and his head bobbled back and forth. “You need to understand who’s in charge.”

  “I know who’s in charge! Crypto! And he ain’t gonna be happy with her showing up unannounced.”

  “Your boss isn’t my boss,” I said as I shoved him toward the door.

  “He’s not gonna like the guns either. Two strikes out of the gate. Might not be a chance for a third.”

  “We’re taking the rifles.” Martinez said.

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  “It’s your necks,” Caleb said as he shrugged. “Just tell him I told you, okay? So he knows it’s not my fault.”

  I briefly considered Kat’s warning about carrying rifles openly down here. That it would cause trouble one way or another. I didn’t want a firefight to break out in the narrow corridors. They didn’t offer much cover and the chance for collateral damage was high.

  Then again, we were being escorted by Caleb and my guess was that everybody down here knew this Crypto and that this boy was one of his lackeys. If so, that would surround us with an invisible bubble of Don’t mess with us.

  Kat flopped down onto the only chair at the small table in the kitchen. “Thank goodness you’re taking Toothpick Waist.”

  Martinez growled. “Can you cut it with the Toothpick Waist already?” She showed her front and then turned in profile. “Look! Quite a bit wider than a toothpick!”

  “Toothpick Waist has ruffled feathers, Mr. Scout. You need someone like me. Someone who don’t let nothing get to them.”

  I smiled. Not because I agreed but because my preliminary estimation of her had been correct. She was tough as nails and willing to play the game to get what she wanted.

  In other words, she was a good ally to have.

  “I’m not upset!” Martinez protested, a little too passionately to support her assertion. “I’m not.”

  “Can it, Martinez. You’re proving her point.”

  Martinez’s mouth clamped shut and she huffed in silence.

  “Let’s go,” I said as I shoved Caleb toward the door.

  Kat toasted me with another glass of moonshine as I left. “I hope you live to have date, Mr. Scout. I’m beginning to really like you.”

  20

  I figured we’d head back toward the main elevators, but no. We instead continued further into the rat’s warren. I was right about people leaving us alone. Whether it was the rifles, Caleb, or both, people slipped behind hab doors, side corridors, or did about faces and headed in the other direction whenever we drew near.

  The corridors got narrower until it was no more than four feet wide and the narrow doors crowded next to each other so tight they made the cells in the brig look spacious in comparison.

  That we kept going and going wasn’t the only surprising thing about the trip. There was no way this area was constrained to the grounds beneath the White House. That or Caleb had looped us back around at some point and I hadn’t picked up the repetition yet.

  Normally, I would’ve trusted myself to catch the smallest thing. Noticing the little things was part of my makeup. I knew that much. But I wasn’t in the best shape and so the possibility of missing details was there.

  And then the second surprise I mentioned.

  That the bunker ended.

  But kept going.

  Caleb turned and we entered the narrowest corridor yet. We had to continue on in single file, with Caleb in the lead, Martinez in the middle, and me in the back. It had no doors. No habs. Just a long, featureless passage that would’ve given anyone with the slightest bit of claustrophobia a panic attack.

  “Uhh, I don’t like this,” Martinez said.

  I agreed.

  This was a shooting alley. No room to maneuver. No room to hide. If an automatic weapon opened fire at the opposite end, we were going to be leaking out of a hundred holes in seconds.

  The corridor widened and we arrived at a heavy steel door.

  A blast door.

  No port hole. No glass. No polycarbonate. Just a slab of ridged metal.

  Martinez smacked the butt of her rifle against it.

  The dull thud confirmed that it was thick. The kind of thick that would be impervious to anything but a direct nuclear strike. A glint of light in the upper corner of the corridor drew my attention. A stubby camera bolted to the ceiling.

  Caleb waved at it. “You know it’s me! Let us in already!”

  We waited.

  My shoulders tensed. My finger drifted closer to the trigger. Something wasn’t right.

  Caleb jumped up and slapped the camera’s clear enclosure. “Open the stupid door already! He’s waiting for us!”

  A disembodied voice responded. Not the female one I’d gotten used to hearing in the elevator and Residence One habs. “Tell them to drop the guns.”

  Caleb gestured back at us. “They can hear you, you idiot! You tell them.”

  “Shut up, you diseased bilge rat. And you two, put the guns on the ground. House rules.”

  “Your boss requested a meeting with me. I’m here as a guest, not a prisoner.”

  “So you’re not going to put them down?” the voice replied.

  I shook my head. “Not going to happen.”

  Something scraped behind us. I spun around with the rifle raised and ready.

  Four barrels on actuating arms lowered through a retracted panel in the ceiling of the corridor. They must’ve used independent targeting systems because two locked on me and two locked on Martinez. The diameter of the barrels was double the size of any normal service rifle. They shot bullets that literally cut people in half.

  A cascade of clicks.

  The safeties was my guess.

  “The boss is going to be upset about you getting turned to mush, but he’d be more unhappy about me letting you in carrying guns.”

  Martinez and I zero’d in on the weapon system. What we hoped to achieve, I didn’t know. We weren’t going to disable it before getting chewed to pieces.

  “So, what’s it gonna be?”

  Caleb shrank into the corner. “Don’t shoot! I’m right behind them, you fat piglicker!”

  The voice laughed. “Getting rid of your empty head is a bonus.”

  I gritted my teeth in frustration. I’d chosen to walk down this corridor. I’d chosen to be put in an indefensible position.

  Was it any big surprise then that I now had no choice but to comply?

  No. But it still made me want to shoot somebody. General Curtis would’ve been good for a start.

  “Martinez, lay your rifle on the ground.”

  “What? No way!”

  “That wasn’t a request. Do it. Now.”

  This Crypto character had information. Information no one else would have.

  How did I know?

  Because he was the boss.

  Information was the thing that separated the muscle from the brain. And I was willing to do almost anything to get that kind of information right now.

  I laid my rifle on the ground and pointed at Martinez to do the same.

  She grumbled but followed my lead.

  I stood with my arms raised. “Alright. We’re doing it your way. We’re not here to fight.”

/>   “That will be for Crypto to decide. And God help you if he decides to.”

  Something inside the door whirred and thunked. It started to slide to the left, retracting into the wall with the screech of metal against inadequately lubricated metal. It opened to reveal two large men wearing all black with submachine guns pointed at us.

  The muscle.

  And lots of it.

  They were mirror images of each other. Short sleeves stretched around bulging biceps. Crew cuts that looked like they were poured from the same mold.

  Caleb sprinted between them and continued on until he disappeared around a curve in the distance.

  “Don’t go for the rifles,” one said.

  “No. Go for them,” the other said. “Please, go for them.” His mouth split into a toothy, leering grin.

  I noticed Martinez’s posture. She was thinking about it.

  “No, Martinez.”

  She sighed with frustration. “Fine. But I won’t forgive you if we end up dead.”

  If we ended up dead, I wasn’t going to be worrying about forgiveness.

  One waved us in. “Let’s go. Crypto’s waiting.”

  The brain.

  We were going to talk with the brain.

  21

  We passed the blast door and it was three feet thick if it was three inches. What was Crypto worried about? Was a nuclear attack down here a legitimate threat?

  It didn’t seem likely.

  Then again, I didn’t know a lot of things right now.

  “What about the rifles?” I asked.

  “Leave them,” the one that seemed to be the leader said.

  “What if they’re not there when we get back?”

  They both laughed.

  I wasn’t sure if they were laughing about the idea of someone stealing them or of us making it out alive.

  One of the men took the lead while the other took up the rear after we passed. The door started closing the instant we cleared the threshold. It scraped closed and thunked shut. The whirring sound of the locks sliding into place.

  Remember that second surprise?

  The end of the bunker that kept going?

  This new passageway was carved through dark gray rock. It wasn’t manufactured like all the levels before. It had been tunneled out with some kind of mechanical tools whose crude imprint remained. Short gouges and smooth surfaces where the rock had cleaved away.