Six fully armored suits come out of the vault, and they are twice the size of the other people. There are three of them on either side of what looks like a glass coffin. Kat could see there was a small person inside, but couldn’t see a descriptive features beyond that. All of the intruders gather up and head off camera. She hurries over to the controls telling Whisper to figure out where they are and if they are coming her way. Whisper creates a cable going out of her bangle, connecting it to the open port on the console.
After a minute passes Whisper says, “I’m in, the security here is abysmal, someone should really file a complaint.”
“Are they headed this way or aren’t they?” Kat says impatiently, ignoring Whispers comment.
“No, they seem to be headed back to the elevator room. We might want to avoid going that way until they leave.”
“Yea no kidding, you don’t have to tell me that. Just look at what they’ve done so far. I want to be as far away as possible from them as I can get. Now that you’re in there, where’s Hanna?”
“On the other side of that vault door.”
Kat looks up at the monitor and shakes her head. “Great. Is there a way to get there without walking through whoever just tore through here?”
“Yes, this lower facility is just a large square, we can keep headed down the hall and we will end up there. It's a longer walk than going back, but avoiding combat is a good choice.”
“Can you leave part of yourself here and monitor everything?”
“Already ahead of you on that, I’ve established a link. The emergency lights have a wireless signal running through them for the guards. It’s sneaky. You have to know its there to use it. So now that I know, I’m in.”
Kat lets Whisper disconnect physically then started to head down the hall. Her cybernetic eye started to get tactical information sent in from the facility overlaid in her vision. All of the reports coming in were automated. All of the guards were offline or dead along with over half of the prisoners. The warden was listed as offline as well, whatever that meant. The surviving prisoners were fighting each other on the upper levels and the automated lockdown on those floors were keeping them locked in, for now. There were also a few feeds that Whisper rotated across the upper right hand side of her vision. They were almost too small to see what was going on in them, but it was clear who was in them. It was following the intruders.
Whisper says, “You wouldn’t believe some of thing files that I am finding in here. They were doing heavy research on magic and its many applications here. They were using the criminal population as guinea pigs.”
“That’s great Whisper, just don’t take your attention off of anything that might be close to us.”
“Yes, I know. I’m not going to allow my monkey to be harmed if I can help it.”
When Kat finally makes he way around the to the other side of the floor she’s on the vault door comes into view. She immediately has to revise her earlier assessment of the door. It was the second largest she’d ever seen, next to Ryker’s vault door. It was at least fifteen feet thick and it went from floor to ceiling. The camera must have distorted it or the size of the intruders. Kat pushes that thought aside for now. She checks with Whisper if there was anything they could see from the other side. Whisper just tells her it’s on a different connection, and once they get inside she should be able to connect.
She feels like a small child as she huddles next to the door peaking in. Like she is looking around the crack of the door for a boogie monster to pop out. It was actually worse. Another reception area with more bodies, and more blood. This room wasn’t as torn up as the last few, but still had damage. The gray steel walls are all cracked where it looks like multiple circular impacts hit all over. Another wall in the back seems to have been ripped from the metal frame. The bodies are of a pair of female receptionist, and a few men and women in lab coats. She walks past them, trying not to step in the puddles of blood.
The door that was ripped off lead into a room filled with glass tubes to either side of a walkway. Green light floods the liquid from the top and bottom showing people are inside them. Mask are covering their mouths and noses with hoses connect to the mask from the bottom of the tube. Each person she pasts is naked, some are missing limbs, some are nothing more than a skeleton and some splotchy muscles. There are a few that are whole, and she wonders just what is this place.
That’s when she’s sees him. Kat stops dead in her tracks and drops the blaster out of her hands. As she stares past the glass enclosure and sees someone who shouldn’t even exist. Everything on the man is as she remembers it, even the birthmark on his inner thigh that looks like a heart. She can feel her heart racing alongside her mind trying to gather a thought. Rushing over to the control panel next to the tube, she taps the display, powering it on. The name displayed confirms her fears are real.
10
Ryker Mallory is still alive.
His name was right there in a glowing dull orange. It didn’t make any sense. Kat had watched him die, yet there he was in front of her, alive and well. He wasn’t finished healing yet from his death, but he sure hadn’t crossed over either.
Years gone from her life thanks to this douche floating inside his glass tube thing. She didn’t want to kill him at first, just get a little revenge. She wanted to make him, what he made her. That was where she was going to leave it. He didn’t have any plans for leaving it that way and tried to shoot her when she turned her back. That’s when Gravan shot him. In the face. There hasn’t been a time when she’s heard of someone coming back from that, and she wanted to make sure right here and now it stays that way.
Kat asks, “Whisper, is there anyway we can shut this off, or undo whatever this is doing to keep Ryker here alive?”
“Kat is this really the time to be worrying about him?” Whisper asks skeptically.
“Yes, it is, he’s supposed to be dead. Gravan and I did this to him. If he comes out of this, I’m sure he will head straight for us with everything he can get his hands on.”
“He’s the least of your worries right now. He’s inside a tube at the bottom of a prison where all the guards were killed. How long do you think he’ll last without someone maintaining this?”
“Well I…”
“Exactly, I don’t want to be down here any longer than I have to, but I’m kind of connected to you. I just got into the servers here, and found Hanna. She’s in the holding cells down this corridor and to the first right. Let’s deal with one thing at a time here Kat. Hanna, escape, then we can worry about Ryker.”
“Alright Whisper, alright. You’re right, lets keep moving and get out of here.”
“That is the first time you’ve told me I’m right. I’m going to have to record that.”
Kat turns to leave, and notices another familiar face she never thought she would see again. The last she saw Gwen Stacy was nothing but a ball of flesh, but there she was, the Solar Queen in one piece again. She didn’t stop but for a second, because Whisper had been right. There is nothing they can do to her right now. In the future they may decided to come after her and Gravan, but that didn’t matter unless she got out of here first. They are stuck twenty stories beneath the surface of a planet inside of some kind of regeneration tube. Kat bends over and picks up her blaster, then turns away from the two most dangerous people she has ever known going after Hanna. Praying that Whisper really is right, and this will be the last time she ever sees them.
Walking through what she started to think as a regeneration room, was creepy. There are noises that make her turn every few feet to see what it was. Clicks, beeps, swooshing, running water, and splashing. With each one she would whip her blaster in that direction and have a laser pointer near the sound. She wonders if the people that worked here felt the same way. Finally reaching the door at the end of the regeneration room, she comes to an open door. This one was opened differently. Skillfully removing the locks by cutting them away, not just raw strength ripping it from t
he wall. The bars locking the thick metal door were cut vertically, but didn’t leave any blade or burn marks. Touching it showed the cut was smoother than her own skin.
Peeking her head inside exposed a room filled with cages, and people that were still alive in them. Alive would be a relative term, Kat thinks. Most she could see were naked or next to. None of them talked or even moved. Each was just blankly staring at their cage door. That is until Kat enters, then their blank eyes lock on and follow her as she makes her way through. Every cage she walked past the men and women inside the cages would never say a word or move. Only stare. There was no fear, or shame, or anything in their blank stares. Kat wanted to get out of that room as quick as possible. The room was at least twice the size of her cargo bay on the Felicity and the cages were stacked on top of themselves so high it was blocking any real sight to give her a feel of the space. So it was only a guess at best.
Whisper says, “Turn right here.”
Kat nearly jumps out of her own skin and screams inside of her head, Whisper what the hell was that!
“What the hell was what?”
Are you trying to give me a heart attack?
“No, I am most certainly not. I am just telling you where to go, like you asked. Hanna is in a room just past this one.”
Kat takes a deep breath trying to steady her nerves but her whole body is still shaking. She turns and follows Whisper’s directions and knows Whisper did that on purpose, even if she would never admit it. It was extremely creepy in there. A trend she was noticing on this little trip of hers. The next place she goes it should be well lit and fun. No more of this dark, silent, bloody mess this rescue has turned into.
The caged people just continue to stare, no emotion passing though their facial features. It took her another five minutes of walking past blank stares to reach a door, which was the first door that she had come to that wasn’t already open. Which would mean it should be clear of the invaders. She hoped.
The door was locked, which was again she guessed, a good thing.
Kat asks, “Hey Whisper can you get this open?”
“Sure, just a moment.”
The cage doors behind her click.
“Uh, Whisper, don’t open those cages.”
“I didn’t. Just give me a minute.”
The man in the cage that just opened turns his gaze to the door, breaking contact with her for the first time. A chill runs down her spine. She didn’t know who or more importantly what that man was and didn’t want to. He moves toward the door, pushing it open. Kat takes a step back into the locked door testing the handle. Which was still locked. The man takes a step out of his cage turning his gaze back to Kat. It was still blank, but she could see a glimmer behind them now as he creeps forward.
Kat says in a worried tone, “Whisper, door please.”
“I am working as fast as I can. This whole floor is labeled wrong and I’m not sure yet if it was on purpose or it if was laziness.”
“I don’t care, just get the door open before that man gets to me.”
The man walks slowly over to her, showing no sign of rushing. Kat notices for the first time his eyes are black. It wasn’t just his iris’ either, it was the whole eye. Two black voids.
Whisper says, “Ok I think this is it.”
The room is filled with one large click sound. The rest of the cage doors squeak open, and the sound of shuffling feet echo around her.
Kat says panicked, “Whisper I don’t think that was it.”
“Meat-minds and their lazy…” Whisper trails off.
Jiggling the handle again only lets Kat know it’s still locked. The man that was first released stops as he gets to almost arms length. His head cocks to the right slightly, then to the left slightly.
Bowing his head he says only one word, never taking his eyes off Kat, and it sounds as if he is struggling greatly to get it out, “Job.”
Kat tries to make her body melt into the door and nearby wall but it wasn’t working. She heard what he said but didn’t care, she just wanted him to leave her alone. Of all things to be killed by in a prison filled with mages.
Whisper says, “Why are you so fidgety right now?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe the half-alive man in front of me or the hundred or so that are walking toward me.”
“Is that what you’ve been so worried about?”
Kat screams, “Yes, now hurry!”
“They‘re like zombies, but they’re harmless. Well, until you tell them to hunt something. Then their relentless. The Guild calls them husks and uses them for menial labor.”
“You mean to build stuff?”
Kat looks back at the man husk. He hasn’t moved or said anything else. Other than the black eyes he looked normal. A bit hunched over, but normal.
Whisper says, “Yes, build stuff, farming, mining, and manufacturing. All of it. It lets mages be mages. Everyone in the guild signs their bodies over to be used in such a way, some even are allowed to stay with the family, although most don’t.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have had a few days worth of free time since hacking into those Guild warships. I downloaded everything that was classified and higher for reading material. There are some really interesting things going on in this lab. It was one of the reasons that I was happy to come with you. I did want to see the dead meat-bags. Maybe I can have you like this when you go as my personal walker.”
That was a thought that Kat didn’t want to dwell on, but she instantly got a mental image of herself as one of these husks. It was in a growing list of things she couldn’t undo or unsee.
Kat asks, “So they’re harmless?”
“Yes. Just give them a command, and they will follow it until you give a new one.”
“Why would they follow what I tell them to do?”
“Because you’re the living human that released them from the cage. They are taught to only take orders from the cage opener.”
Kat turns to the man saying, “Open this door.”
He struggles to say, “Open…Door…”
The husk man walks up to Kat as she steps aside from the door. He grabs handle with more care than Kat believed he would and tried to open the door, receiving the same result. His head turns to the panel on the right side of the door, where he proceeds to hit a few buttons. The door clicks, and he opens it for her, turning his head back in her direction but not looking directly into her eyes.
He says, “Job?” In the same way he did before, struggling to make the sounds.
Twenty or thirty others had reached the door by the time it opened, and they all looked the same way, their heads with a slight tilt toward the ground and awaiting an order.
Whisper says, “Well are you going to give them another order or aren’t you?”
Kat still hadn’t come up with an escape plan, but it might have just been made for her.
She says, “I want anyone other than me and anyone that I am with to be put into cells. Clear all of the floors for me, then patrol around waiting for my order.”
The only affirmation she got was the sound and echo of over a hundred husks turning and shuffling out of the room. Kat still can’t believe the truth of this. How could the Guild do things like this to people? Living or dead a person is still a person. This felt like just another reason to hate the Guild, the Earth Empire isn’t perfect but she’s reasonably sure they would never do anything like this to the dead. Probably.
She shakes the idea from her head, she didn’t have time to contemplate the morality of the Empire right now. Hanna was supposed to be behind this door, and then they could get out of there. There was a small desk with a single chair in a rectangle room. The desk had a display screen scrolling through the guard’s daily duties. Behind the desk was another hallway but this one had a purple glow. Steel guardrails line the walkway with the only light coming from the cages. Instead of bars or walls or doors, the prisoners were in cages of light.
Men and women
of all shapes and sizes behind purple light. There is a metal floor for each, holding the toilet and bed, but that was it. As Kat enters everyone turns toward her. There is almost a feeling of deja-vu but sees a few of them are trying to say something. The only thing she hears the soft hum of the cages.
Kat asks, “Whisper where’s Hanna?”
“Last row, three up. There should be a lift at the end of each row.”
She runs to the last row and finds the controls for the lift which she takes three up. Hanna was a tall woman, standing almost a head taller than Kat. Her eyes were a bright brown with a hint of copper, matching her hair, which framed her face in curls. She was a beautiful woman even while wearing the same white jumpsuit Kat had gotten rid of. Her pictures didn’t do her justice. She was standing at the edge of the cage, almost as if she was waiting for Kat to get their. Kat hits the cage release button on the controls and as Hanna steps onto the lift she hugs Kat.
She says, “I wasn’t expecting to meet you like this Katrice, but thank God you're here.”
“I was hoping for somewhere a little cooler than Ragnarok myself. You know with less skin blistering heat.”
Hanna laughs, “Isn’t that all too true.” She pauses and makes a serious face before asking, “How’s Jack?”
“Alive, barely. He was given mage root but we had enough antidote for him to live.”
Hanna lets out a sigh of relief. “What about the spheres?”
“We got them, but it almost cost us getting off that planet alive. What are they anyway and why were they so important you would like yourself get captured?”
Nightmares & Dreams: A Science Fantasy Space Western: Eydulan Series Book 2 Page 10