The Hallucigenia Project

by Darren Kasenkow

  Another sharp cracking noise bristled through the air.

  As steady as he could he turned to look into the void of the ocean that now pressed a galactic collection of tiny bubbles against the glass, each skittering along the smooth surface as though alive and searching for a way in.

  And they may have found one.

  A web like crack had spread from the top left corner and was slowly turning white with stress, and as he covered Bobbie’s head John could see the web continuing to grow. Reality hit home with a vengeance. The window wasn’t going to hold.

  Another violent surge shook with enough force to send the desk scraping along the floor for several feet as the overhead mirrors began to smash apart. Still standing by the sofa Candice cried out as a large shard shattered across her shoulder, sending fresh cuts along her ear to trickle with blood. Instinctively she threw her arms above her head, and as she looked towards John her eyes fixated on the snow white lines rushing across the window pane.

  “Jesus Christ John get away from there!” she yelled while edging her way back to the door.

  John squeezed Bobbie even tighter. His vision began to narrow and sounds became strangely distant as her warning echoed somewhere deep in his mind. A miniscule droplet of water appeared on the wrong side of the glass.

  “Get the door ready!” he screamed while lunging to the side of the desk to create a clear path. For the moment he kept his eyes glued to the window, as though turning away would send it into a violent rage. Each backward step was made all the more difficult as the concrete continued to shift with every rumble.

  The miniscule droplet became a thin stream, and in less than a second the thin stream was pouring through the long white cracks that looked as though they had come alive. It was a hypnotic promise of death, but just as the spell was about to take hold Candice’s scream snapped him from its jaws.

  “Let’s go!”

  He turned and ran faster than he’d ever thought possible. Mirror shards showered down and sliced at his face and arms like demonic insects while all around him concrete whined and groaned. Up ahead he saw Candice jump through the doorway, and as she turned to reach out for him she let out a blood curdling scream.

  The window exploded with a cacophony of destruction and instantly John felt the air pressure suck out of the room. He cried out and surged forward with legs on fire and Bobbie’s claws digging into his skin, and with a desperate gasp he held his breath ready for the drowning that would begin any second.

  The doorway was almost in reach. Water smashed into the back of his thighs and sent him lurching forward, unable to keep balanced because of his arms locked tight around his friend. He stumbled and began to fall, blood pounding his skull with the knowledge he was about to die, when hands suddenly grabbed at his shoulders and yanked him into the corridor.

  With a jolt he slammed down onto his knees as sea water gushed around him. Bobbie clawed up onto his shoulder to escape the torrent while John risked taking a breath, but absolute fear twisted his neck around to see what had followed him. Glittering remnants of the glass dragon rode the ocean as it ferociously charged towards them, a wall of blue green water with the unblinking mission of destroying everything in its path.

  “Help me!” Rebecca yelled at Candice, and together they grabbed the steel door with white knuckled hands and pulled it closed as water exploded around them. Desperate strength and determination slammed the manual locks into place, and the invasive water began to displace down the corridor until it flattened out like a mirage on a hot road.

  If they thought there was a moment of reprieve, they were wrong. The entire bunker began to shake and fracture, accompanied with the roar of a thousand storms that pounded their eardrums without mercy and left Candice’s scream futile and silent. The terror that was seared into her eyes, however, cut through the flickering red lights like a lighthouse in the roughest of weather.

  Chunks of the roof and walls began to splinter and fall, shattering on the ground only to jump and dance with the relentless rumblings. John staggered up from his knees as Candice and Rebecca pushed away from the door. Up ahead a figure emerged with arms outstretched for balance, and as they stumbled forward Aaron raced down the corridor to help drag them away from the falling debris. John found a new appreciation for the title Metal Rebellion as together they fell through the doorway and dived beneath one of the large desks, huddling together as rain made of concrete and sparks fell all around them.

  After a minute swollen with infinite fear had passed, the symphony of a thousand rumbling storms began to ease and the shaking began to settle. Mercy itself became a descending veil of uneasy silence that fell upon the room, broken only by the sound of sizzling electrical components that lay broken and exposed. Aaron crawled out from under the desk and examined the damage.

  “It’s bad,” he muttered to himself, “but it could be worse.”

  Still huddled in the shadows, Rebecca reached out to scratch behind Bobbie’s ear. John was surprised to see the hint of a smile on her face.

  “As far as pushing luck goes I don’t think it gets much closer than that,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” John began, “I just couldn’t…”

  “Don’t sweat it,” she assured him.

  Vanessa stepped up to the desk and helped them to their feet as the room once again came alive with activity. Troy’s body was wrapped in a blanket while other shock faced members began restacking the weapons that had scattered across the ground. Aaron, meanwhile, paced up and down with fire in his eyes and fists clenched tight.

  John cleared a space on the desk and gently set Bobbie down, wondering how many of the nine lives he had left.

  “I hate to ask but what the hell do we do now?” he said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Aaron replied with a look of expectation thrown Rebecca’s way.

  Knowing all eyes now watched her with anticipation, Rebecca took slow, deliberate steps to the entrance and leaned back against the door so that she faced the room. All traces of fear seemed to have disappeared, her expression a mixture of disbelief and ruthless determination.

  “We knew the moment would come, hoped it wouldn’t be so soon, but now it’s here.” The words came softly at first, but it didn’t take long before growing louder and more confident. “It’s safe to see the world above us has been changed forever. Reality as we know it has been put to bed, and from here on in we’ll be heading into uncharted territory.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re here for?” Aaron asked.

  “You’re right. Each and every one of us stands here as the life blood of The Hallucigenia Project, and the time of reckoning has arrived. You asked what we do now?” She stepped from the door and pushed her shoulders back with pride. “Well here’s your answer. Hendrix and I are going to make sure communications are back up and running and then crunch the data to get an idea of how bad the planet came out of this. You guys and girls,” she pointed at the Metal Rebellion members, “are going to strap up and sync with the Abyss Jumpers. The line’s been crossed now so defence isn’t the concern, offense is.”

  “The forces working against us know that these impacts bring with them a small window of opportunity,” Hendrix joined in from his place across the room. “How small the window is I can’t be sure, but it’s safe to assume it can be measured in hours not days.”

  “You mean the window for Talitha?” John guessed.

  “Exactly,” Rebecca confirmed. “This is it. This is what it’s all about. It’s time to launch into space.”

  “But Klementina’s in trouble,” Aaron said with worry. “If we can’t get a comms link through to them, getting Talitha to the rocket might not be so fucking easy.”

  “I agree.” Rebecca shuffled forward and rested a hand on the side of his face. “God only knows what’s up there on the surface, but you’re going to be the first one to find out.”

  Chapter 38

  Samael knew in his heart that it was true, that the morning sunr
ise had been the absolute brightest and most spectacular he had ever seen and ever would see. His view from the top of the mountains meant he had the ability to enjoy the distant horizon in all directions, and the sight that had flashed before his eyes was everything he had dreamed it would be. That it had happened so very quickly was the only fault in the soul churning splendour.

  The orange of the sun had just begun to appear, a sliver of light ready to banish the darkness for another cycle in a constantly balanced battle. Then he had watched with a quickening heart as a small red dot appeared between the horizon and the moon, and the dot had grown bigger and brighter until the sky became a giant flash of red just fractions of a second before impact. Although he had tried so hard to override his senses there was no stopping his eyes from slamming shut to avoid melting his retinas, and when a thermally hot wind began to scream across the ocean and land he had savoured a large smell of the burning air before heading down the concrete steps into the safety of the mountain.

  The second impact had been some minutes later and, judging by the delay of the shockwave, took place a great distance away. By that stage he was seated behind his desk, watching the room shake and shudder as he had sipped at the stinging liquid from the pine cone to see the sounds and smell the colours. And that’s where he was now, leaning back in his chair as the rumbling of the mountain began to settle and the chemistry of his brain returned to baseline. Hanging on the rocky wall behind him the skin of Boucher no longer wriggled and danced as though it were reanimated, instead now nothing more than putrid meat beginning to rot.

  Samael was excited. He had been waiting for this moment for the longest of times, or more to the point the collective unconscious wrapped tight in his DNA had been waiting. Aeons of molecular steps to bring together blood and electricity and mind and thought and now the moment to take control had arrived, and with it the chance to flip the game board upside down. Yes, with the Earth bruised and battered and the skies charcoal with choking smoke and fire, it was a glorious morning.

  The moment of joyous reflection was broken as Roman marched into the room with an entourage of ultra alert military personnel fanned close behind. All eyes were quick to spot what was left of Boucher hanging on the wall, but if the vision triggered any sort of emotion there was little in the way of any kind of tell.

  “There’s no way of knowing for sure,” Roman’s voice bellowed as he stepped up to the desk, “but all indications are that the heavens are quiet again. As for the launch, two supply tanks were ruptured and are being welded and refuelled as we speak. You’ll be ready to go in under three hours.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Samael remarked. “What you choose to call the heavens I call power.”

  “We can call it whatever you like, but right now there’s no way of punching through. Even once the tanks are ready we’ll have to wait for the winds to subside. Our geologists are confident in a three hour deadline.” Roman maintained a steady and confident voice, but there was no hiding the shock creasing the edges of his eyes. “Communications have been knocked out but that’s no surprise, work’s already underway.”

  “They already have their instructions,” Samael replied. “Take control of the infrastructure, eliminate any resistance and turn to ash any attempts to break orbit. Quite simple really.” He pushed down on the cane to rise from the chair. “Once the dust has settled the military will control what’s left of the global cities, and I’ll control the military. For now though I think it’s time to prepare. As for the skin and bones of the girl, I’ll bathe in her blood one way or the other.”

  “They’ll find her,” Roman assured him. “The time for hiding’s over and the project has no choice but to show their hand.”

  “Incompetence has let her upload already,” Samael fired back, “and that means terminating her biology is only half the battle. You may know the intricacies and strategies of war, but they’ll give you no guidance in the new realm.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s the strategies on the ground, the strategies I’ve helped put in place that will give the new realm a chance to exist in the first place.”

  Samael smiled and pointed his cane across the desk. “Intoxication quickens the mouth, and power is oh so intoxicating. Cherish your thoughts for all they’re worth but question their origin only if you dare. Right now I don’t give a fuck either way.” The cane thumped down onto the ground and he moved quickly towards the now very much on edge entourage. “I have a long overdue meeting to attend.”

  Roman nodded with respectful agreement and led the charge out of the room and into the rock and steel cavern, with heavily armed personnel forming a defensive perimeter around Samael that carefully followed his every step. In the distance, just beyond the entrance to the cocooned hole in the mountain, there could be seen sudden flashes of red and deep blue to break open the dark. Whipping winds rushed inside and raced along the walls like a thousand wounded animals crying for one final breath, while on the ground hurried feet kicked away endless rocks that had broken free. It wasn’t the entrance they were headed for though, it was the cold dark heart of the mountain that had been torn open with machines and lined with metal veins for reasons that defied a single lifespan.

  They wound along the curved gantry and came to a circular steel door that Roman threw his shoulder against to open. One by one they filed through, the tunnel stretching out before them and lit with a hundred or more torches staked into the wall that hissed and fluttered as though desperate to be allowed to die and succumb to the darkness. Way up ahead a red glow awaited, endearing the travelling party with the vivid impression that hell lay both behind them and before them. One member of the party, of course, wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  The animal like cries of the wind were left behind and soon they stepped out onto yet another gantry, this one running along the length of the circumference of a circular cavern that reached straight up through the mountain into the sky. For now though an enormous metal hatch kept hidden any glimpses of atmospheric mayhem, but what straddled the area beneath more than made up for the loss.

  Three long, enormous rockets pressed into each other like huddled metal gods, reflective grey skins capturing the countless spotlights strapped along the railing. From one of the cylinders came a shower of sparks as a small team welded along tiny seams several floors higher than the gantry. Nestled atop the rockets like an understated crown with tiny glass portals for jewels was the command capsule. The single platform elevator to travel to the top of the rockets lay dormant on the other side of the nightmarish rocky hole of the mountain, guarded with black uniformed soldiers patiently awaiting the arrival of the entourage.

  Still surrounded with readied weapons Samael savoured the stale air while surveying his ride. The engineering was hardly cutting edge technology, but then fancy wasn’t always best. What he needed was pure brute force to punch through the shaken atmosphere, and brute force was what towered beside him in a temporary but dangerous slumber.

  Several feet from the elevator platform the entourage came to a sudden halt, leaving Roman and Samael to bridge the gap. The black uniformed soldiers eyed them both with curious respect.

  “The repairs shouldn’t be too much longer,” an unshaven soldier confirmed.

  “We’re not here about the repairs,” Roman replied, “we’re here to begin the boarding process.”

  “But the tanks…” the soldier began.

  “The tanks will be sparks in the dark soon enough,” Samael smiled. “What I want is to make myself comfortable. It’s not so much impatience as it is preparation.” He winked at the soldier. “And who wouldn’t want to play with a toy like this?”

  “Okay,” the soldier nodded. “That jacket’s not going to do you any good though. We’ve got your suit here ready.”

  Samael narrowed his eyes and licked at the edges of his lips. “I don’t care if this whole fucking mountain crumbles into the sea, but when I get back I don’t want to see so much as a
scratch on this jacket.”

  As he stepped forward Roman ushered the soldiers back behind him, leaving Samael to step onto the elevator platform alone. All eyes fell upon him as he slowly removed his jacket and clothes until he stood in the shadows of the rockets naked and exposed. Nobody was prepared for what they saw.

  From neck to ankles every inch of his skin was a mesh of scarred carved lines thick and thin, the desecration of his flesh made complete with dark black ink producing countless geometric shapes and strange spirals that looked as though they had been scrawled with a burning tree branch. He could sense the astonishment from the frozen observers but it was hardly worth acknowledging. The trip was as close as it had ever been, and easing into the spacesuit was like sliding into a new skin made just for him.

  “The only way is up as they say,” he laughed while unscrewing the chrome pinecone from the tip of his cane.

  “What about the others?” Roman asked.

  “Send them up for some light conversation while things are readied.”

  “But they’ve been in isolation for weeks now so shouldn’t we at least try a debriefing?”

  “Not necessary,” Samael replied as he pushed the button to begin his ascent “they know what’s required of them.”

  Roman sighed a little too loudly and turned to his team.

  “They were coming out sooner or later. Time to round them up so we can get this area locked down, and don’t go making any stupid mistakes.”

  From his rising platform Samael watched the entourage below retrace their steps along the gantry and wondered how many would survive. Realizing he didn’t care, he turned to admire the metal trapped power just inches from his face and felt a cold rush of excitement. The chance to snatch back wings that were once his was almost upon him.