Fortress Purgatory (Helltroopers Book 2)

by Isaac Stone

  He saw Barbara Ann as the same beautiful woman with fire red hair they already knew. However, she was riding on the back of something and holding a cup. She lifted the cup to the sky and brought it back down, and then she turned and looked at everyone else. Try as he might, Ash could not get a good look at the beast on which she rode.

  She was in the sky with the setting sun in the background. Now he could get a good look at her face. The red eyes cast a brilliant glow in his face and he tried to look away, but couldn’t. Barbara Ann saluted him with the cup and rose higher into the sky.

  He could see what she rode. It was a dragon. Her legs were wrapped around it and she needed no saddle or stirrup. Barbara Ann was in complete control of the beast. He watched its multiple necks turn and look in several directions. Each neck terminated in a serpentine head that snapped and hissed. The dragon was not the green color he would’ve expected but a red shade that tinted the ground beneath it. Ash counted seven heads and could no longer bear to look at the beast. He turned away.

  Then the light was gone. He opened his eyes and everyone was back in the underground factory. Ash looked up to see where Barbara Ann was and found her in the same place. The others were coping with the intense light that had struck them too.

  “Do you understand now?” she asked them. They continued to stare at her, but no one said a thing.

  “I am the vessel,” Barbara Ann spoke, “For something much bigger than anyone of us. You need to understand this.”

  11

  As they stood there and looked at Barbara Ann, their helmets began to chime with Char’s digital voice.

  “Ash, I regret to inform you sir,” Char said from his box on Theo’s belt, “But the gunship Thelema is under attack.”

  Everyone looked at Ash.

  “As of yet I have not been able to identify the hostiles,” Char continued, “They have successfully removed the corpses of all four assailants the autoguns were able to eliminate while repelling the initial assault.”

  “Please tell me we didn’t make this trip all the way down for nothing,” Jask said to nobody in particular, his expression one of extreme exasperation.

  “How long can you hold out Char?” asked Ash, his tone all business.

  “My ammunition reserves for the autoguns are at sixty percent, based on the rate of expenditure I believe I can maintain a secure perimeter for two more earnest assaults, if they are content to simply probe then I can maintain considerably longer,” Char spoked from his box. “Good thing I transferred the bulk of my files here.”

  “Outstanding!” Costa sputtered. “How the hell are we supposed to get off this damn rock if whoever is out there takes the ship?” Ash could see the anger in the rest of his crew.”

  “There have to be all manner of passages through this place to get us out,” Ash assured his people. “If we lose the gunship and can’t find another boat out of here then we’ll call Royce and make him come get us. So long as we secure Haddo then we can still make this play in our favor.”

  Once again, the door opened to them with little trouble. The team descended down another stairwell to another landing. As usual, Ash reached it before the others and waited for his team to catch up. No vestibule this time, they were right into the floor of another factory.

  Then he smelled something. No alarms went off inside the helm monitor, but it was a distinct odor that made them all nauseous. He turned around and noticed the looks of disgust on the one behind him. Of course, Barbara Ann didn’t seem to be effected at all. She was well designed, he knew, but still, you would expect someone to be repulsed by certain smells.

  “Does anyone recognize that smell?” Ash asked his crew. “Can’t seem to place it myself. Makes my flesh crawl. Char, do you have an ID on it?”

  “Just located the source of those molecules giving you problems,” the box, which dangled from Theo’s belt, told him. “Raw meat. Partially decomposed, but not enough to fill the air with toxic levels of the microbes. I thought you’d be happy to know.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Kris spoke as she placed one hand over her face. “This smell may be more than I can handle.” She looked around at the machinery on the level where they stood.

  Once more, it appeared to be self-functioning. Ash did not see any signs of human monitors at all. The machinery of this factory pumped and sputtered away in perfect synchronization. The floor where they stood was huge. They watched as refrigerated carts rolled by with slices on trays and turned the corner. Just to test one of them, Ash put out his hand in front of a cart. It was on its way down an aisle. It stopped, as it came no more than five feet away, made an adjustment, and then avoided the obstructionist hand with precision. He watched it continue on its way.

  “It is a little bit colder down here than the other levels,” Jack pointed out as he looked at the temperature gauge in his helm. “More of what you’d expect in a refrigeration room. What do they do on this level which requires refrigeration?” He advanced into the lanes in front of them and looked at some of the vats directly across from the stairs.

  “I think it’s some kind of food processing plant,” Kris pointed out. “These appear to be bioengineering vats. The sort of thing that people use on the outer colonies to grow algae as a protein supplement. I’ve seen these things in other places. Don’t like this kind of food myself, but I’m sure they have to grow it somehow. We’re pretty far from any place where they could ship fresh food and expect it to stay intact on delivery.”

  “Which would explain the temperature,” Makulah agreed. “They’d want to keep things from spoiling, so the temperature would be reduced.”

  Ash noticed clear viewports on the side of one of the tanks and decided to have a look. It really didn’t matter. They had to push on.

  The place reminded Ash of a plant he visited back on the Mars Colony when his mother was still around. He went into school early that day to find they were off on a field trip to see an actual psueduochicken factory outside the settlement. The school even paid for the extra electricity to power the buses that took the children out to the plant.

  One of the teachers told the bored kids on the way out to the plant about how factory farming evolved from the later days of agricultural business on Earth hundreds of years ago. Once upon a time, people and chickens, large flightless birds that were common on Old Earth, lived around each other and mutually benefitted. The humans fed the chickens and had access to their eggs as a source of protein. Eventually, they figured out that the chickens themselves could be used as a source of protein. They bred them for food. Generations passed and chickens were bred for all kinds of food value. Some were large for their meat and some small just for their eggs. Some chickens spent their entire wretched lives in cages and became organic egg machines.

  Eventually, the old humans figured out how to build machines that grew chickens from basic cells. The meat was grown for food. It took a number of years, but the substitute was identical to the original in every way and no one noticed. Now, people ate egg and chicken substitutes especially created for human consumption and no one could tell the difference.

  They spent the day touring the factory and watched chunks of meat sliced off sheets taken from the vats and sent down the line for the shops. The teacher that day told them there were still people in remote parts of the system that farmed the old ways and slaughtered their own animals. This seemed to make all the kids on the tour nauseated, as the only slaughter anyone knew about was the one from the local wars. For some reason it was morally acceptable to mow down your own species, but not another.

  Ash, gun in hand as always, looked the machinery over and watched the excess fluid be pumped out by the captures on the floor. He observed small cybernauts move around the concrete base and clean up anything left over. It was an efficient operation, but one which did not concern him. They need to keep moving and get Haddo. This chase had continued long enough.

  “I think it’s time we move on to the next level,” he to
ld his team. “Char can defend Thelema until he loses signal, let’s hope we find Haddo before that happens.” He slung his gun on its strap over his right shoulder and moved back to the lane between the wall and machines. It was easy enough to avoid the small transporter wagons if you watched your step.

  Then Ash made the mistake of looking into a view plate on the side of one of the tanks.

  12

  It was difficult to see into the large vats, which is where the artificial meat was grown. Inside it was illuminated, but only so much as not to interfere with the growth process. Ash remembered his school troop years ago and the lecture the factory manager gave them about the proper way to handle the “meat” which was grown from basic cells. He let them know that the meat began as chicken embryos, but rabidly changed to their final form as large samples of muscle tissue, which could not survive on its own. When they reached the right size, the mass was removed from the tanks and processed for human consumption. The electric wagons who left the factory every day took the final product to points all over the Mars Colonies.

  Inside the tank he could see the long rows of embryonic growth, all attached to a common umbilical cord that was fed nutrients by the growth system. It was a process that he found fascinating. What he found disgusting was the shape of the embryos.

  Each embryo was very much human. These were in the advance stages, just before they would be ready to turn in to large blocks of meat, which the workers on the upper levels could have for dinner, and an important source of protein.

  The corporation had turned the entire staff and worker contingent on Fortress Purgatory into cannibals.

  There was no way the men who worked up there had any knowledge of what took place down here. He doubted they would have waited so long to revolt if they knew what they were eating, if in fact that labor strike was real and not part of the theatre bizzare that was the legacy of Inferno. Not only had EAC found a method to break them down into meat puppets, but also they were fed on human flesh. It didn’t matter where the original cell came from on these artificial meat stakes. What mattered was the lack of anyone’s knowledge. The corporation had done this and it didn’t matter to them or anyone at the top level.

  Ash heard the others walk up to the viewport and look inside. He overheard gasps as each one of them looked inside and realized what this food-processing center was all about it. The knowledge came quick as all anyone had to do was look inside and it was revealed.

  “Holy shit!” Costa exclaimed. “They’re eating human steaks up there! They can’t know!” He shook while he stared into the viewport.

  “Cannibalism,” Kris gasped aloud. “They’ve turned everyone on this station to cannibalism. Do you think any of them up there know about this place?” She was shaking as well.

  “No they don’t,” Barbara Ann spoke. “If they did, how long do you think the whole operation would have lasted? The corporation brought those people in years ago. They’ve been fed human flesh all this time and don’t know about it.”

  “I say we blow this place up!” Costa shouted, not concerned who could hear him or not. “Let’s do it, Ash! We have enough charges with us. All we have to do is rig them up to these vats and set them off. How many of these vats are there? Six? Ten? We can do it without much trouble. Blow the fuckers to bits and let that corporation know we’re on to what they do down here.” He was still shaking all over.

  The rest of the crew voiced their approval for destroying the cannibal factory. It was willful destruction of corporate property, outside the scope of Omega’s self-defense clause in the merc contract. It wasn’t really a matter for discussion, and Ash knew better than to push his people on this one, not after everything they’d gone through since first taking the Haddo job. Every one of them was ready to pull the switch and destroy the place. Jack had it all figured out in minutes, where they could place the charges, how much explosive it would take and the right shape for maximum effect on a small scale.

  “I just want to flip the detonator myself,” was all he could say.

  “You know they are doing this in other locations,” Kris pointed out. “Think about all those frozen bodies we found on Inferno. It would be easy to run them through an operation like the one this. Plenty of places could pull it off. It’s not a question of if they are doing it right now, but where they’re carrying it out.” She brought her gun up and sighted on one of the tanks.

  “At ease,” Ash cautioned. “I’ve got my own reasons for seeing this place and everything it represents destroyed, but we need to save our charges. So far, there’s been nothing that blocked our way, but it won’t continue for much longer. I’m sure they have something planned for us when we reach the bottom.”

  Ash swept his hand at the whole factory before them, knowing he’d have to spin this flawlessly to get the team to calm down and back off. “Besides,” he said, “We don’t know what would happen if we pulled the switch on this place. We have no real idea where this thing is located. How do we know an explosion won’t blow open a pocket to the outside? What if they can’t seal it off fast enough? Everyone could be dead in minutes. If we are blown outside from the plant, that is the end for the mission, capturing Haddo and our reward money. Let’s wait until we get him back and collect the money. Then we can fund an expose about this operation. We do this and we are out of the game, that’s assuming we even survive. We play it safe, get paid, then we still have moves we can make.”

  The words seemed to calm everyone down, but Ash could see they were still outraged. It wasn’t the worst thing they’d discovered about the corporation. The revelation that Inferno Station was a massive torture chamber was bad enough, but this place seemed to strike a deep note with everyone. The corporation had turned the exploited workers on the surface into cannibals and they were outraged.

  “You have no idea what EAC is capable of doing,” Barbara Ann spoke up. “What you have seen is a small part of the things they’ve planned for the human race. This isn’t a matter of people who want to enrich themselves; this is what happens when people are possessed by beings who want to see humanity enslaved at best, destroyed at worst. They have sold their souls to something much worse than the Devil. At least there was only one Satan in the mythologies of Old Earth. There are an infinite number of creatures on the other side that wish to see this universe under their dominion.” She let her statement have its effect and the crew turned around to face her again.

  “So where do you stand in the middle of all this?” Theo asked her. “I haven’t heard you voice any support to either side, science or supernatural, and yeah I guess I’ll admit it does seem like we’ve had a helping of both in the last month. We’re down here in the middle of a cannibal factory and you speak in circles once more. I think you know a lot more about what’s happening out there than you let on to any of us. So what do we need to know about right now to get Haddo and bring this whole nightmare edifice to an end?”

  “The most important thing ladies and gentlemen,” Char interrupted in his digitized voice. “Is that we have been compromised.” She waited for someone to ask the obvious.

  “Compromised?” Kris demanded.

  “A sizeable force of heavily armed and armored individuals with a professional mercenary grade tactical capability,” Char explained. “Right about the time we were investigating the vats several probing assaults were mounted against Thelema. I apologize for being silent during the exchange, my processing power is strained as you might recall, considering my confinement in this mobile unit. Unfortunatley I have been forced by circumstance to initiate the self-destruct sequence, so the gunship will be slag in roughly nine seconds. The remainder of the hostiles, number unknown, were painted by Thelema’s motion tracker before it was disabled and it appears they were entering the fortress.”

  “And when do we meet our executioners?” Ash demanded too. This was no longer a game to him.

  “In about five minutes,” Barbara Ann spoke, seizing everyone’s attention, “More ho
stiles were released on the level above us. They will come out the stairwell you so recently used to get down here. Up until now, they were content to send them out one at a time. The thing in the VR maze was a random one. They didn’t expect it would cause you any trouble, but they wanted to find out. The next group were built and grown to kill armored combatants. They’re armored as well, but don’t have much in the way of reasoning. All they want to do is kill anything that resembles a human.”

  They heard the sound of the door opening and thud on the floor as many boots began to hit the landing. It was accompanied by the sound of squeals and howls in the distance. Maye these two forces could just kill each other and save Team Omega the trouble. Everyone looked to Ash for guidance. There was only one thing he knew to do. Thank the gods the exit door was right in front of them.

  “Costa! Jack!” Ash shouted, “You two take the tanks to the left, everyone else behind the one to the right! They have to come through this gap to get to us. I’m going to hold the center and get a peek at what is headed down the lane!” Ash slammed his visor down and dropped to one knee in the middle with his impact gun out. The stock felt good on his shoulder.

  “What about Barbara Ann?” Kris transmitted over the radio, “Where do you want her to go?”

  “She can stay in positon,” Ash sent back. “Barbara Ann handles herself just fine.” He wanted to ask her if she could provide any help, but right now, it didn’t seem to be such a good idea.

  The sounds increased in volume, which his earphones let him know right away. They were from an animal source, but he couldn’t tell which one. It reminded him of old videos he’d watched from the days before humanity left Old Earth, before most of the wildlife was destroyed in one way or another. The squeals merged with roars and multiplied as they came closer. The distance gauge in his helm showed Ash something on the way in mass formation and it closed rank. But it couldn’t tell him what it was.