Fortress Purgatory (Helltroopers Book 2)

by Isaac Stone

  8

  Barbara Ann was still kneeling in front of Ash when he heard the commotion. She was covered in a layer of sweat, which told Ash she was human enough for him. Actually, she was human enough for many men if what she’d just done was any sign of her capabilities. He’d climaxed once and was already nearing it again.

  Costa had the door open when he realized there was very little light in the room inside. Because he didn’t think of the men who were busy at the tables much of a threat, he’d lowered his impact gun down and slung it over his shoulder. His survival knife was still in a sheath attached to his belt, as was every other weapon he carried on him. Costa liked to be prepared, it had saved his life many times in the past, but right now, he didn’t think any of his equipment was needed.

  “Hello?” he said to the men who were inside the room. From what he could see, they were also gathered around a table.

  This table was dominated by a small board game that resembled chess, but used Egyptian themed game pieces. The board was made of multi-color squares, similar to what he’d seen outside on some of the Enochian symbols painted on the walls. There were four of them and this group appeared to be much older. Most were very thin, undernourished and had long grey beards. One wore some kind of robe; the other three were in threadbare clothes.

  None of them responded to his inquiry. The light from the corridor was so faint they didn’t really notice it as their concentration was on the game board. Costa couldn’t tell what game it was they played, but it appeared to be a variation of chess. One thing he noted was that each set of game pieces was painted a different primary color. The game was deep into progress with pieces all over the table that one or other player had taken.

  The man in the robe reached out a boney claw and picked up a piece, which resembled the Egyptian God of Knowledge and slid it across the board. It collided with a small red cat, which he picked up as he looked at a man seated next to him. He placed it next to the set of game pieces still on the board of the same color.

  “Check,” the man said to him. “I believe mate in two moves unless you can find a way out of it.” He smiled at the man to whom he spoke.

  “Hello!” Costa yelled at them. Now he had their attention.

  Which was unfortunate as the sudden shout caused the man who had his back to him to move suddenly and knock all the game pieces to the floor. They made a rattle as every single one bounced on colliding with each other.

  The man who’d cried “check” screamed and reached under the table. He came up with a sharp knife and began to advance on Costa. If the reasons weren’t so ridiculous, Costa might’ve been scared. As it was, he began to laugh.

  “For a game?” Costa snickered. “You want to kill me over a stupid game?”

  Which was the wrong thing to say as the other men at the table stood up, each with sharp knives in their hands. They began to walk to the door where Costa stood. Each of them had their eyes fixed on him with one purpose in mind.

  When Ash made it out of the room, his lower harness forgotten, thoug his impact gun in his hands, he found Costa holding the door, trying to keep it shut while the men pounded and screamed from the other side. He managed to wedge a tool in the door jam and latch it in place. He stood back and looked at the door as the noise of fists on the door died down.

  For a few brief seconds, it appeared the door was going to hold. The old men behind it who were pounding from the other side lacked the energy to break it open or knock the bolt loose. Costa stood back and reached around to get his impact gun down into a firing position. He really didn’t think the old men could be of much trouble to him.

  He turned at looked at Ash. “Did I interrupt something?” Costa asked him as he tried to hide a smirk. “Look, I know we all have needs, but, boss, really, can’t you find another way to get her to talk?” He looked down at the bulge in Ash’s skintight leggings and almost said something about “glad to see you too”. Almost.

  Almost because the very next second the door blew open and all four of the old men, each with a very sharp knife in their hand, exploded out of the room. Each had eyes blue with rage and focused on Costa. Ash didn’t know what he’d done, but they were out for blood. It wouldn’t have concerned him since Costa was wearing full armor, although his visor was up. Even Costa could’ve protected his face against four crazed lunatics with knives at this point.

  But he saw one of the knife points begin to glow.

  It struck Ash the wielder had a flame knife, the smaller version of the flame sword each of them carried. The knife would burn its way through Costa’s armor in seconds if he didn’t stop the man.

  The old man thrust down at Costa’s left hand and struck the top of it, covered by plate armor, with the knifepoint. The intense heat of the point burnt through the gauntlet and caused the metal to burn as it flamed its way through. Ash heard Costa yell as the point worked its way into his hand.

  Ash had brought his impact gun out with him. He was not sure what took place outside the room where he’d been with Barbara Ann. He heard the noise and realized he didn’t have enough time to get his armor on, but needed to get outside. He’d grabbed the gun from the corner where she’d placed it and kicked the door open.

  Now he leveled the gun right at the crazed man. The other three were almost to Costa and he had to assume they carried flame knives too. He was close and one shell would blow the old man in half and keep him from doing more harm to Costa. Ash brought it up and went to squeeze the trigger.

  He stopped when he felt a sharp pain on his left shoulder. Ash turned to look at Barbara Ann’s face. She had the red wrap around her and dug into the gap between his shoulder armor with her nails. How she knew where to cause the right amount of pain to stop him from shooting didn’t concern him. It was the expression on her face. He looked into her red eyes and saw them glow. Ash froze as Barbara Ann walked around him.

  She went to the old man who’s raised his flame knife back to make one more plunge and grabbed it out of his hand. As the old man turned to look at her, little Barbara Ann took him by the other shoulder and threw him in the air. He managed to land intact in front of the other men who were headed toward Costa.

  They fell over him and tried to get up. However, once they raised themselves off the ground, all four looked and saw Barbara Ann blocking their path. Behind her was the painful form of Costa who swore in three different languages as he tried to get the compromised gauntlet off his hand. Ash saw it fall to the floor and Costa raise his hand to look at the wound. It was deep, but the heat of the flame knife cauterized the wound. It still hurt like hell.

  “Go back!” Barbara Ann told the old men. “Return to your game or I will rip all of you apart.” Her eyes still glowed an intense shade of crimson.

  The old men stopped and didn’t move. One of them fell to the floor and tried to approach her. She kicked him back with one bare foot and he joined the others in a backwards walk to the door. The old men shut what remained of the door behind them. All was quiet on the other side.

  Costa looked up at Barbara Ann and realized she’d changed. “What happened to the green gown?” he asked her through the pain.

  “I like this one better,” she told him.

  It took a few more minutes to get Kris over to Costa and treat his hand. All of them had some basic first aid training, but she had the most experience, so Ash relied on her. In a few minutes, she’d cleaned the wound and given Costa something for local pain. She bandaged it and they were on their way to the next level. No one had found any trace of Haddo. He had to be further down inside the old fortress.

  It was still an embarrassment for Ash to be caught in such a position. Also, to have Barbara Ann pull his fat out of the fire, even in the situation he found himself. Those old men were terrified of her, which he understood as she sent the one on top of Costa across the floor at them. It was another side of Barbara Ann he hadn’t seen until now. It seemed they would constantly find new things about her.

  O
nce more, they descended down some stairs, these carved into the rock that made up Mercury. From what he could tell, the mineral appeared to be iron, not too surprising when one considered where they were at the present time. Ash had a little bit of trouble understanding why they’d built these lower levels below the base, but it really didn’t matter. They were here and the team needed to go through them.

  The vestibule was covered in the strange Enochian letters. Ash considered having Barbara Ann tell them what it all represented, but didn’t think she would do it. She still had on the red wrap from the bedroom where she’d taken him. Now she was leading the team from one level to the next.

  Try as he might, Ash realized the seduction was all hers. He’d been the passive one this time. For him, women where distractions from the mission and he limited himself to dalliances when he was in port. Barbara Ann’s performance was …phenomenal, to put it bluntly. He needed to focus on where Haddo was located. Still, what she made him do caused his knees to tremble. He needed to focus, dammit!

  She didn’t even bother to hesitate when they reached the door in the vestibule on the next level. Barbara Ann swept to the door and pushed it open as she went into the room in front of it.

  Ash was behind her and made certain he followed her crimson form as she vanished through the entrance. He emerged into the next room to find a larger version of the one where she’d been with him on the previous level.

  It too had side rooms, but these lacked doors. Each room had a window at the top that faced a mirror on the inside. The effect was to allow someone on the outside to watch the action on the inside without the need to get involved. The place was empty, but the mattresses, which lined the floors of the rooms all, had clean sheets.

  He followed her into a large central room where they looked around. Once again, plenty of sheets and mattresses on the floor, even a trapeze that descended from the ceiling, but no trace of anyone. The light was soft and meant to be pleasing. Even the music, which poured through the hidden speakers, was designed to cause a person to relax.

  “Did you notice what’s above us?” Jack said to Ash as he pointed in the direction of the ceiling. Ash looked up to see a second level with a clear view to the activities on the floor below. There were even chairs around for people to sit and a ledge they could lean upon. Plenty of room up there for to watch all manner of activity.

  “Nobody in here either,” Kris said as she looked into an open room off to one side. “Awful big for a shower, guess it is meant to be used by a lot of people.” Theo snickered until Barbara Ann shot him The Look.

  “He’s further down,” she announced and left the large open room. They followed her, with Ash doing his best to make a point of keeping up.

  Again, Barbara Ann was the first through the door, with Ash a step behind her.

  They emerged into a dark room, which reminded him of the VR room back on Inferno Station. They waited for the rest of the crew to catch up with them. Now Barbara Ann’s unemotional look was replaced by one where she appeared to be in intense thought at all times.

  Ash set his jaw and didn’t say a word. This android knew too many things. Indeed, she was special, that was for sure.

  The room began to shift. It was not a substantial shift, only one of appearance. Ash turned from Barbara Ann and saw how it began to blend in with the colors on the walls and turn into a spray of diamonds on ocean surf. Then they were back to a desert setting, as they’d seen on Inferno Station. The room morphed again and the ground began to melt and float up to the ceiling. Nothing appeared stable, but Ash knew it wasn’t real. Odd how the room was able to do it without VR glasses or helmets and that fact made him wonder just how much of what he’d seen in the red room where the android had fellated him was real or VR generated. Did she have some control over the systems she had not yet revealed?

  “There are a lot of players in the game on this level,” Barbara Ann said to them, “but they won’t reveal themselves.”

  9

  The level was not stable.

  It began to shift and churn. Even the ground beneath Team Omega’s feet swelled and merged. The only thing consistent was their sensation of gravity. Lower than Earth Standard, the crew still felt they stood in place and didn’t have to worry about falling over. Ash closed his eyes, opened them, and saw a woman of brilliant colors who floated near him. He’d never seen colors so intense before and wondered how the room reproduced them.

  “What is this place?” Kris asked to his right. She turned and looked all around her as the colors swirled and formed a constant series of geometric shapes.

  “It’s another game,” Barbara Ann spoke to them. “Don’t you realize it? Nothing is at it seems in this room. We’re in a huge level where there are plenty of spaces to create the VR world you see before you.” She seemed to be the only one who truly understood the nature of where they were at the present.

  Ash couldn’t understand how this was accomplished. VR took a lot of power and connections. To achieve this much of a scenario, would require the output of a nuclear reactor to cope with the ever-changing mathematics. Even this close to the sun, he doubted the people who built the level could afford such energy. It seemed an enormous expense for something only a few people at a time could use. Who would pay for such power demands?

  The vision before him changed again and he saw another fancy bedroom, but this time with many people inside it. It had to be the one he and Barbara Ann used on the level above. Now it was filled to capacity as countless people moved over each other on the bed and carpeted floor. He stood there and watched all known variations of sexual pleasure carried out. The orgy was in progress and no one seemed to notice an armored man with a gun who watched. Scratch that, there were sexual combinations in progress he’d never heard about until this very moment. And still no one noticed him.

  Kris felt at peace, oddly enough, and looked down to see her suit armor gone. She was back home on a beach and stood in the path of the sunset. Then she felt hands all over her and saw it was Theo, Jack and Makulah. She felt waves of pleasure over her body as they gave her the attention she’d craved from them for such a long time. Why had she not let them know before now? Then she remembered how insecure men could be outside her own little town. It still astonished her that men on the outside felt they had the right to request encounters with whatever woman they fancied. It was never a problem in the village where she grew up; as there were always the elders to ensure the young men had older women to instruct them when they came of age.

  The colors and sensations shifted again and the atmosphere around them began to congeal to something that resembled a scene on Earth. Kris felt the armor back on her body and Ash watched the orgy fade out as the new setting focused before him. Now he faced a long row of green hedges and saw grass beneath his boots.

  The sun was overhead and they were surrounded by a corridor made from hedges. Kris appeared to be a little bit embarrassed. The men tried to avoid eye contact with her. Ash walked over and looked at the hedging in front of him. He touched a branch.

  “Privet,” he announced. “Used to be an invasive species a long time ago. Grew too fast and threatened to choke everything out. They used it a lot for hedge fences several hundred years ago.” He let the branch drop, as Ash realized it was a product of a VR program.

  “So how do we get out of this place?” Costa asked him. “All I see is a long row of hedges. Nice that we have a sun for a change, fake as it might be, but where is the other door? Or do we find Haddo in this place?” He took a few steps back to see if the door was visible to the previous level. It wasn’t.

  “My guess is that we follow it out,” Ash spoke up. “Walk down the hedge and see where it takes us. This place isn’t so big that we’ll be lost in it.” He began to walk the other direction.

  “We could always cut through the hedge,” Jack suggested. He stopped and tried to peer through the line.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Barbara Ann told him. She seemed very s
erious, although her eyes were green again.

  “Why not?” Jack demanded. “It’s just an illusion, right?”

  “You violate the terms of the game, you pay the penalty.”

  “What is the penalty?”

  “Do you need to know? Haven’t you seen enough already?”

  He swore and followed Ash. Soon the rest of them were walking along in the cool grass behind him. They all had the visors open by now and felt a gentle breezed on their faces.

  It took Ash a good fifteen minutes of walking to figure out what the level was designed to accomplish. It hit him the second time they came to a fork in the path of the hedge corridor. He had to make up his mind about which direction to go. He remembered reading about this sort of thing years ago.

  “We’re inside a maze,” he told them. “We have to work our way through it to get out and to the next level. I don’t think Haddo is here, but he’s had to do the same thing as us to get through it.” The moment he spoke they emerged at a junction of five corridors which had a fountain in the middle.” The crew stopped to watch the water flow for a few minutes.

  “You have to admit, this isn’t the worst place we could have ended up,” Jack pointed out to the crew as they looked at the fountain. “Whoever designed this place came up with a good idea for a scenario. So what do we do, just follow the maze until we find a way out of here to the next level?” He stood in place and watched the water flow over the fountain and into the troth below it.

  “I’m not sure,” Ash replied. “We didn’t even need to use VR helmets here, so I assume this is one of the newer systems they’ve come up with over the past few years. A little bit like the VR conference system on the ship, just on a huge and elaborate scale. Could be micro-emitters they’re pumping into the atmosphere,” His eyes followed a butterfly as it fluttered along the flowers at the base near the fountain. They’d done a real good job on this place, he had to admit.