by Joseph Gatch
“Well, fancy meeting you here,” she said as she looked into his eyes.
Caught off guard, Phineas quickly released her and straightened his coat. “Yes, well, as you can see, while you were playing out there, I discovered the hidden entrance.”
“You fell through the door, you pompous—”
“Same thing,” Phineas cut her off. He shined his light down a corridor. “We only have one way to go now, but at least we won’t be hip deep in sewage.”
Somewhere, up ahead, a piercing scream echoed against the brick tunnels.
“At least,” replied Abigail. Then, with a more commanding tone, “We need to move…now!” She checked her weapon and, with Phineas in tow, ran down the corridor toward the scream.
EPISODE
5
The corridor opened up into a voluminous cavern. A rock-carved stairway led downwards into a lair that was emitting wisps of mist, illuminated with what had to be electric lamps, flickering from lack of care. The thrum of generators somewhere deep within echoed throughout the cavern.
Phineas raised his arm and pulled back his sleeve. The hairs on his forearm stood up and gently swayed in a breeze wafting up from below. “This place is charged…let’s hope there is nothing flammable lying about down here.”
Screams carried up along the walls. The latest victims of the Dolonites were here, that was for sure.
Phineas motioned with his hand towards the stairs. “Ladies first?”
Abigail scoffed and thumped him on the chest. “You’re such a gentleman. Come along, mister chicken.” As they descended the stairs, Abigail looked around, puzzled.
“What is it?” asked Phineas.
“Have you noticed that we have not once seen one of those things down here? Where are their guards? Don’t they worry about being attacked?”
“Are you serious?” asked Phineas. “Are you aware of what these things can do? Bullets do not stop them…many bullets do not stop them. They are juggernauts…no fear, no mercy…they cannot be stopped. Why would something that can’t be stopped need guards?”
“Have we tried cannons? That might stop them.”
“The Dolonites are gone before any cannon can arrive…and would you try hauling a cannon through the sewers? I wouldn’t.”
“Possibly a Tesla rifle could stop them. If you can’t shoot it, you might be able to shock it.”
“Do you have a Tesla rifle?”
Abigail frowned at him. “Well, no, but it is an idea.”
“Which does us no good at the moment.”
“I am just trying to be helpful. No need to be condescending.”
“I am not being condescending…I am being practical. There is no sense in speculating on how to stop them if we do not have those means at our disposal. We must think this through, using what means we have.”
“Which is absolutely nothing,” replied Abigail. “We have a pistol and a rifle, neither of which will have any effect on the beasts, as you have stated before.”
“I never said that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Flustered, Abigail turned and stood right in front of Phineas and pointed her finger at his nose. “You said ‘bullets have no effect on them’.”
“That, I said.” Phineas took her finger and wheeled her around until he was standing in her place. “If you had taken the time to examine the pistol that I gave you, you would have noticed that it was not your standard revolver.” He continued walking down the stairs. “What you do have in your possession is a weapon of my own design. I call it a ‘Discombobulator’. It sends waves of sound which will strike the Dolonites’ helmets and turn them into resonance chambers until they either vomit or are rendered unconscious. Did you really think that I would have brought primitive weapons that I knew would have been ineffective against them? Perish the thought.”
Abigail glared at his back as he descended. “Pompous,” she muttered. “Do we really want to see a vomiting Dolonite?” she called to him.
By the time they reached the bottom of the stairway, they were navigating around piles of rubble.
“It looks like there was a cave-in at one point,” said Phineas. As they proceeded further, it became obvious that was the case. “If memory serves, the city suffered an earthquake about fifteen years ago…about the same time that the Dolonites stopped their activities. It would make sense that the two events were related. I wonder how I missed that.”
“That would mean that they have been digging themselves out for the last fifteen years. How could they be down here all that time and survive? Do they eat? Drink? And what did they use to dig their way out?”
Phineas examined the walls. Thousands, even millions of scratches lined the rock. “From the looks of it, I would say those hooks they use to grab their prey. Like I said, they are tenacious.”
“And now they are out again,” shuddered Abigail.
“Yes,” was all Phineas said, thoughtfully; and as it was, they were the only two willing to do anything about it at the moment.
Cautiously, they entered the lair of the Dolonites. Phineas let out a soft whistle of amazement. Through the mist that swirled lazily throughout the cavern, a bluish grey glow emanated from row upon row of glass canisters twice the size of a man. Tubes, copper wires, and pneumatic pumps were connected to the containers, and occasionally air bubbles rose from the bottom. The first several rows they passed were empty, and some were damaged from rocks that had fallen from the cavern ceiling. After that, they were full…all of them.
Phineas looked closely at the contents in one of the canisters. Through the murky fluid, a humanoid form floated in suspended animation. Grotesque in form, its muscles twisted and bulged, making its body look as if it were made of coiled wire. The face, human, but not, was contorted into a bestial howl, frozen in time. This one appeared to be dead.
Moving on to the next one, he noticed that it was less developed than the previous one. It still bore some passing resemblance to a man; however, it was already advanced in what he could only describe as a metamorphosis. Phineas peered close to the glass and then quickly jumped back as the creature inside writhed around before going still once again. He realized that he hadn’t uttered a breath and exhaled as the adrenaline sharpened his mind.
Abigail, apparently, suffered the same fate as he. She stood next to him and stared wide-eyed at the creature within. Grasping Phineas’ hand, she looked down the rows of canisters and noticed that the contents in each one moved every so often.
“Phineas,” she whispered, “what are they doing down here?”
The professor followed her gaze and drew a most horrifying conclusion.
“They’re building an army.”
EPISODE
6
“Creating an army!? My God…if they unleashed all of these onto the streets, brought more victims…wait, are you saying that these are the people that they have taken over the years?” Abigail was flabbergasted.
They walked around the containers, examining the subjects suspended in them. Every so often, they would come upon a pile of discarded clothing, torn and covered with dirt and blood.
“This is their fate. Now we know. The taken are transformed into Dolonites,” said Phineas. He touched one of the containers and the being inside reacted by thrashing around. This time, Phineas didn’t flinch. Instead, he dropped to one knee and began examining the pedestal on which the tank rested.
Phineas removed a screwdriver from one of the pockets on his belt and opened a panel on the base of the pedestal. Shining his light inside, he examined the clockwork mechanism, the order of gears, the directions pipes were leading. Mechanisms that he could only dream of were here to study and this had been here for more than thirty years. Whoever had created these must have been a genius in his time. But why down here, and for what purpose? He jammed the screwdriver into the gears and was rewarded with a squeal and a snap as the mechanism shattered. The pneumatic pump on this unit s
topped, and the being inside began thrashing around again, this time more violently.
Phineas stood back and watched, showing no emotion whatsoever. Then, as quickly as it had started, the Dolonite-to-be stopped moving and then floated listlessly in its transparent grave.
“One down and a few hundred more to go,” Abigail said.
“Let’s find William and get out of here,” was all Phineas said in reply.
His mood seemed to have darkened since this discovery, Abigail thought. She had never seen him this serious, even when he was intent on a project in his lab. This was personal to him now. That much was obvious.
They traveled through the maze of tubes expecting to find William suspended like the others; but still, there was no sign of him. Neither was there any sign of the Dolonites themselves. They had expected to meet at least some resistance by now. Then, as if in response to their apprehension, a howl of despair echoed from somewhere in the complex.
“Which way did that come from?” asked Phineas.
Looking around, Abigail couldn’t pinpoint the source. “It’s coming from all around…I don’t know…there is too much of an echo down here.”
“WILLIAM!”
“What are you doing?” hissed Abigail. “They will hear you!”
“And so will he, if he is conscious. Would you rather wander around here until he is wearing one of those suits, hooking you like a slab of meat? WILLIAM! GET OFF THAT LAZY PLUMP RUMP OF YOURS AND TELL US WHERE YOU ARE OFF TO! AND YOU HAD BETTER HAVE MY COIL OR I AM RETRACTING YOUR FEE!”
“You are so tactful.”
“Would you rather him think that he is hallucinating? At least he will know that it is me.”
“Good point. Even hallucinations are not as pompous as you are.”
“There you go calling me that again. I am not pompous, I am…well spoken. WILLIAM…MRS. POPKISS HAS SOME CRULLERS FOR YOU!”
Nothing.
Phineas began running, looking every which way. Abigail raced behind him and then slammed into his back as he stopped suddenly. Without a word, he stalked off to the left and stopped again in front of what looked like a typical street front building.
“This doesn’t seem to belong here,” he said as he tried the door. It swung open partially and then stopped as the door struck something within. He pushed with all his strength and finally had enough room to squeeze through.
Rocks, he found, were the cause of the barricade. The ceiling had collapsed from the weight of rocks falling on the roof of the building. Before the collapse, from what he could see, the front room had served as a parlor just as it would in any normal household. There were paintings on the walls of men and women in various poses, a fireplace was set off to the side, and remnants of chairs and a sofa were crushed under the rubble. A decanter of red wine lay untouched on a table next to a wall.
Phineas picked it up, tasted it, and spit it out. “Past its year.”
They moved onto the next room, a dining room slightly demolished, and then the next, which was a kitchen. The entire back of the building was intact, save for one collapse in a very inconvenient place—right where the occupant had been sitting at the time. A large boulder lay on top of the crushed remnants of a corpse, now nothing but clothes and bones. He had been sitting behind a desk when it happened, and it seemed that fate had chosen the proper time to end his life, for nothing else in the room had been disturbed.
“Pity,” Phineas said. “It looked like a nice chair.”
Files, schematics, papers of all sorts were spread out on the desk and on tables around the room. Along the walls, bookcases contained every sort of scientific journal one could imagine, from mechanics to basic science to advanced eugenics.
Phineas scanned the volumes and pulled out one in particular by Darwin. “Let’s hear it for unnatural selection.” He tossed it in the bin and moved to the schematics, which showed the layout of the cavern, the inner workings of the vats containing the Dolonites, and the master system of the entire operation.
“Ahem,” said Abigail. “Were we not looking for William?”
“Yes, but this is everything. Whoever that is lying on the floor over there was the mastermind behind the whole thing…the father of the Dolonites, if you will. I need to see this.”
“Then, if it is all the same to you, I will continue the search.”
“What? Alone? You can’t.”
“Why not? Think about it. Have they ever attacked and taken a woman?”
Phineas thought about it. “No, you are right. The only time a woman was attacked was when she tried to save a man, and then she was just tossed aside like a doll.”
“Then it would stand to reason that I, going alone, would stand a better chance of getting past them than if I were with you, correct? Maybe it will be better if I search alone. Find what you need here and I will come for you when I have found him.”
“Very well. It is against my better judgment, but I think you may be right. Just be careful.”
“I will.” Abigail looked back at Phineas, who was already sorting through the treasure trove of information like a whirlwind. A man obsessed, but not with her, unfortunately. Maybe when this was all over she would have him to herself but, somehow, she knew that he would always choose concrete science over ethereal love. It was just his way…something that he could show on a schematic and stand firm behind.
Phineas watched Abigail out of the corner of his eye as she left. Part of him wanted to go with her, to find his friend and get the hell out of this nightmare, but part of him needed to stay and find the answers that he had longed to find since that fateful day. When this was over, he thought, maybe then it would be a good time to move forward in his life…but not now. Now he needed to be focused, not just for himself, but for everyone, every child, who saw a loved one dragged off in the middle of the night, shattering their lives forever.
Opening the center drawer of the desk, Phineas pulled out a yellowed envelope with an odd seal on it. He opened it and pulled out a letter dated from 1854.
The letterhead stated: From the Desk of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.
EPISODE
7
Abraham Lincoln: the last man to be elected President of the United States…and the first to be declared Emperor Elect of the United States. Said to have gone mad after his wife was assassinated while at the theatre, he lobbied that threats from within were as grave as the threats from without. With the rising tensions between the superpowers, and proof of espionage and sabotage of technological advances, Lincoln took the idea from Napoleon Bonaparte that the nation needed a stable long-lasting leadership and, with Congress’ support, created the American Empire.
Already stretching through Mexico after the Mexican-American War, and later through parts of Canada, the Empire kept its policy of not allowing invaders to keep any lands they attempted to claim if the Empire had already conquered them. The same policy, already used by the English, created an ongoing race, involving skirmishes between nations, in order to gain some of the most strategic footholds around the world.
The letter Phineas held in his hands was penned by that very same man who had started the paranoia which laid the foundation for the new American Empire.
‘Doctor Heisenberger,’ it read, ‘I have reviewed the proposal for your “Monster Soldier” and have decided that your program would be of benefit to this great Empire of ours. Funds and all necessary materials will be at your disposal. Proceed with the utmost haste. The wolves are at our door. Let us send them something more vicious. Sincerely, Abraham Lincoln.’
A monster soldier. Phineas dug through the desk until he found what he was looking for: the doctor’s private journal. Scanning through it, he found the first entry regarding the monster soldier.
‘I have set forth a proposal to the President. The man is mad enough that he might just approve of it. I received word of his desire to create soldiers to set upon our enemies once war is declared, soldiers who would be unstoppabl
e and who will strike fear into the very hearts of our enemies’ people. My eugenics experiments would greatly benefit from the money involved and the fool would provide me with the materials necessary…’
‘…I have been selected and approved to proceed with my project. Little do they know, this is the beginning of their end…’
‘…work has begun in an underground facility. I have convinced the President, now Emperor, of the need for secrecy should enemies of the States try to stop us. Workers have been assigned to me and they will build my new lair to my specifications…’
‘…the complex is finished. The workers have concealed the entrance in the sewers where we may come and go in secrecy. Before they could leave, I threw them a party and the fools were rendered unconscious with a bit of tainted alcohol. Those who built my lair will become the first inhabitants as my slave army. No one will know where I am…’
‘Success…one month to transform an ordinary man into a controllable monstrous killing machine. The process, unfortunately, has rendered them unable to breathe normal air. A gaseous form of the chemical bath in which they are cultivated is required for them to survive. Environmental suits, like those of sea divers, must also cover their bodies at all times. They are slow, but magnificently strong. I have sent them out to garner more test subjects. Soon, my army will grow and all will be helpless to stop me. I will be Emperor soon.’
‘…The city is already cowering in terror and I have yet to begin my conquest. I have been sending them out only at night to increase the fear in the populace. Incubation time has been reduced to twenty days. Some subjects have retained a fragment of intelligence. They have shown a level of thought that the others do not possess. They should make excellent lieutenants for the rest.’