by Isaac Stone
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He yelled at her and started to walk to Barbara Ann.
“Stop!” she yelled and then a strange transformation began to take place.
The small crowd of wretched people changed. They began to lose their distinction and turn into green shapes. The people twisted and morphed into a series of large plants that were under the trees. Each plant had a large open maul just waiting for someone to come too close. Barbara Ann slammed her hand into the side of one and they all began to fold up and fall to the ground.
“I warned you about paying attention to anything off the trail,” she told Ash as she walked to the team. “Another three steps and one of these things would have sucked all the blood out of your body. It’s how they work, illusion and deception. They’ve had enough time to evolve down here for adaptation and know how to lure their prey into range. They can’t get up and walk, so they need other methods.” She joined them on the trail.
“Why didn’t they eat you?” Costa asked her. “You walked out there into the middle of those things and started hitting them. Why didn’t they strike back?”
“They don’t like the way I taste,” she explained as they continued on their way to the exit door.
No one looked off the trail again.
14
A few minutes later, they were in front of the door to the next level when Barbara Ann picked up a seemingly discarded datapad. She tapped what he suspected was an access code based on the Enochian lettering etched into the ground next to the pad, so Ash wasn’t surprised that it was Simon Haddo’s face that materialized on the screen.
“I hope you liked the garden,” the face said to him. “It is full of such rare species. I knew about it before I made my way across, tricks of the trade you see, but many people don’t figure it out until it’s too later. You’ll find a small grove behind the rocks, full of skeletons, if you care to go back there. I’d be careful if you do because there are a few plants that have learned to walk. At any rate, tarry not my friends, I will be waiting.” The face faded and the cloud broke up.
“Hard to believe he’d the criminal mastermind the corporation wants, he’s a little over the top isn’t he?” Kris commented to Ash. “Right now all I care about is the money. I want to get it and then use my share to take EAC down.” Ash heard the men grunt in approval.
“What the hell was going on in this level?” Jack demanded from Barbara Ann. “All of these plants are carnivorous? I’ve never heard of more than a few carnivorous plants. Nothing of this size. Jesus, Venus Flytraps are one thing, but these plants are deadly to humans. Where did they find them?” He stood by the door and fingered the pommel on his sheathed flame sword.
“All of these plants were bred by the corporation in an experiment that went out of control, as all such things do when curious minds meddle,” she explained to him. “They had an idea of producing meat substitute plants which could be grown to provide protein for the masses. With the men above us, it should’ve been easy to breed them once the basic genetic scheme was worked out. But it didn’t happen as they thought. The plants became dangerous and out of control. Not all of these plants are carnivores, but enough are to make them deadly for anyone to come down here.” She watched a shrub turn and regard them at a distance.
“So how do they feed them?” Ash questioned. “This is a big place and there must be some plan to do it.”
“The meat factory above us,” she explained. “The plants can’t tell the source of meat any better than most humans. There are special distributors for the packets that drop them around the garden. They maintain the feeding just enough to keep the place up so the plants don’t over crowd this level. Everything is automatic down here too. Too dangerous for humans to come here and spend a lot of time, as you may have noticed.”
“Something tells me that isn’t’ the only way they get fed,” Ash commented. He thought a bit about the strange scene of refugees the plants had summoned to deceive them.
“Every now and then someone stumbles into this place,” she admitted. “I’m sure they’ve experimented with humans released into it as well to see how long they would survive. There are people in EAC who have no reservations about the use of live human subjects. A research facility that doubles as a fortress factory must be engineered to be as self-sufficient as possible.”
“I can’t imagine they’re any better than Haddo,” Kris grumbled. “We’re taking a mass killer to more mass killers. I only hope we can get paid and bring it all to an end.”
“Right now I want to get out alive,” Theo brought up. “Don’t want to end up like Ester.”
The loss of Ester on the Infinity station weighed on everyone. They all knew it could be any one of them next. All it took was a slip under fire or a mistake at the wrong time. It didn’t matter how quick you were on the draw or anything else.
“So why do they keep this place if the experiment turned out to be a failure?” Costa asked Barbara Ann. “It must cost them a lot of money.”
“No one wanted to admit it was their fault the project was approved,” she told him. “Better to keep it in progress and find uses for the deadly garden later. This is the way of mega-corporations, I would have thought that a somewhat common understanding.”
“I’ll be happy to get out of here,” Ash said. “Here’s the door, let’s see where it takes us. We must be close to the final level.” He walked over to the door and pulled on the handle.
This time it didn’t unlock. Ash tugged on it a few tries and gave up. He felt around the door and noted it was sealed. There lucky streak with the doors unlocked each time was at an end. Well it was good while it lasted.
“We’ll have to blow the door,” he said. “Costa, I believe that is your department.”
“Give me a few minutes, Boss,” Costa told him as he walked up to the door and looked it over. “Doesn’t appear to be much. I have the charges to blow it open.” He began to fiddle around inside his utility pack.
“Keep an eye on the vegetation but hold formation,” Ash instructed as he sealed his. “Who knows where that door leads, could blow us out onto the surface and depressurize the whole level. Barbara Ann, these trees behind us safe or will they try to eat us too?” There were a few small trees rooted to the ground five paces away.
Barbara Ann walked over and looked at them. “Safe,” she pronounced. “Don’t go any further in though, the other ones bite.”
“Excellent, everyone tether yourself to the trees in case there is a vacuum. No reason to be blown outside if there is anything on the other side.” Ash’s crew tied utility cord to themselves and the trees.
A few minutes later, Costa was finished. He ran back and secured himself to the trees. “Five more seconds, boss,” he told Ash.
There was a loud whump, which was audible through the helms, and the door swung open. They waited for a few seconds before Ash decided it was safe. Team Omega untied the cord and began to walk in the direction of the door.
Ash stopped and looked down. Another stairwell, which vanished out of sight. They all looked the same from the top. He turned and motioned for the others to follow him down.
“Costa, leave a charge rigged to a tripwire across the door, just in case our armored friends make it past whatever nightmares this place puts in front of them, buy us a little more time to make good on Haddo,” ordered Ash as he moved into the gloom.
Costa did as he was asked and then joined the rest of the team.
Barbara Ann was the last one down. She stopped and hesitated before closing the smoldering door behind her. Costa’s explosion blew the lock off, but the door was otherwise intact. She stopped because there was movement she hadn’t noticed while Costa and the rest were at the other side of the door. Barbara Ann looked across the garden and saw a field of roses about ten yards away. It was odd that it was the only kind of plant grew there, which meant the species was good at keeping the others out.
Then the roses began to hum. It was a subtle
sound, but soon became an entire chorus of voices. All of human victims in their last few seconds. The rose garden sang a song of screams and agony.
Barbara Ann closed the door behind her and descended with the others to the next level. She was smiling, they were beautiful roses.
15
The landing was different this time.
It was inside a vestibule, but the vestibule was far larger than any they’d ever encountered before. As the team looked it over, it struck Ash this vestibule was so large it might count as its own level. However, there was nothing inside it other than some lockers with environmental suits and atmospheric monitoring indicators. Someone wanted to make sure the room was intact. It was the reason the door to the last staircase was locked and sealed. No one wanted to risk a compromised entrance into this room.
Not only did the large vestibule have another sealed door to the remainder of the level, there was a large freight entrance too. Countless monitors were fixed into the wall next to the door, but Ash was unable to deduce their purpose. None of them had been used in a long time.
The floor was covered in dust, except where a set of neat boot prints led to the door. No strange Enochian lettering down here. Haddo hadn’t stopped to make the cryptic paintings when he reached this part of the old base. It had to be the final level and he’d be just beyond the door.
“Everyone ready for this?” Ash questioned his crew and received affirmations. He made sure his gun as loaded and ready, and then walked to the door. There was no handle this time, just a simple open and close electronic switch. Ash reached out and touched the green “up” button.
The door slid up this time as the seal was breeched. No rush of air, which meant the pressure was equal on the other side. Ash walked through the opening, followed by his crew.
They stopped when the portholes in the passage were visible.
This was not the final level to the fortress, but a connector to something else. Ash stopped and looked through the windows to see faint light outside from the sun as it penetrated deep into the well inside the planet where they were located. They were inside a crevice on Mercury that was part of the original geology of the planet. It was a perfect place to store something deep and out of the way.
Such as the starship in front of them.
The corridor where they walked connected to a long silver ship anchored at the bottom of the crevice. Ash was struck speechless by the size of it. The starship had no obvious propulsion, but they couldn’t see all of it. The corridor they were inside connected it the bottom level of the base. The vestibule they’d entered was the final level and it terminated at the ship before them.
Now Ash understood the reason for the service entrance to the corridor. It was used to ferry supplies to and from this huge ship.
This was where they would find Haddo.
“Haddo’s ship?” he asked Barbara Ann. She stood next to him in silence.
“No,” came the reply, “but he knew it was here all along. Built when the base was constructed years ago. It was classified at the time, but Simon Haddo discovered its existence. He has ways of discovering things people would rather not be known. This was one of them. I suppose you could say it’s his now, although he didn’t build it.”
“How did he travel here?” Kris asked her, “If this ship has stayed here all this time? Or was he ever even on Inferno Station?” She walked along the corridor with the others to the entrance to the starship.
“His other vehicle is on the surface I’m sure,” Barbara Ann replied. “Plenty of places to hide it out there.”
They were in awe of the starship the closer they came to it. Since it was designed solely for space travel, it had no regular shape, but all the sections of it were linked together to create something which resembled a giant spider. It appeared that the leg sections were somewhat retractable, probably desinged in such a way to facilitate launching from Mercury’s surface. From what Ash could tell, they were going inside the center of it. This had to be what passed for the master control room.
The door to the starship was large enough for several people. Next to, it was the service entrance, meant for some kind of small truck. Ash looked down and saw the boot prints of someone that led up to it. There was only one set and they were from a large man. Haddo.
He walked up to the door and, once again, saw two switches. This time he didn’t hesitate to push the green button. The door hummed and began to slide open.
At that minute, the first rays of the brilliant sun reached the bottom of the crevice where they were located. The rays illuminated the corridor, which was only lit by faint lights before and briefly allowed them to experience the full rays of the sun. This was close to it and the light, thought shielded, was intense. It was a greater sunrise than any of them had experienced since arriving on the planet.
The door reached its full height and stopped.
“Nice attraction,” Ash pointed out, “but our objective is waiting for us inside.” Holding his gun against his chest armor, Ash led the way into the starship.
The inside was large than he expected. Ash and company found themselves in a vast cavern of metal that had many visible levels. It was obvious to them the ship was built for long voyages across the galaxy. Everything was polished and appeared ready to be used at a moment. Whoever built the ship had plans for it, it seemed a shame they were never realized.
Ash heard the door hum and hit closed behind them. The entire team was with him, which included Barbara Ann. She waited patiently once again. It was as if she’d expected everything since they’d picked her up from the pirate ship.
16
The team stepped into the center of the starship and remained silent. There really wasn’t much they could say. This was the end of the trip and everyone knew it. Haddo was located in this place and he could not leave. They’d travelled across the system to capture him for an organization, which was guilty of the same crimes of which he was accused. The only reason they wanted to take him back was the money. And most of them had vowed to use that money to take EAC down.
First, they had to find him.
“So where do we begin to look?” Costa asked out load. “He’s supposed to be here. This is one big ship, but we can search it. All we need to do is position someone on that tunnel which connects it to the rest of the fortress, because those mercs will catch up to us eventually. He’ll not be able to leave without any of us catching him first.” Costa walked into the middle of the central control room floor and looked around. There had to be seven levels visible from where he stood.
“He’s on his way,” Barbara Ann announced. Costa turned around and stared at her.
“How can you be sure?” he asked. “Are you working with him? Is this why you knew about these different levels?” He scanned the interior and tried to find some of the Enochian symbols they’d witnessed so many times on the way down, but there were none.
“Costa, set another charge at the entrance to the starship’s ramp, right at the bottleneck, and then fall back to guard the ship’s hatch,” said Ash as he stepped in between Costa and Barbara Ann, “We’ll secure Haddo and dust off.”
“No,” she told him, “I am not united with Haddo. I have encountered him in the past and it was he who tried to control me. It didn’t work, something he found very distasteful, as Simon Haddo was accustomed to having his very whim satisfied from an early age. When he couldn’t have me, he tried to find a substitute and that didn’t work either. Simon Haddo seemed to think if he found the right characteristics in a vessel, he could force her to become me, or at least use her as a vessel. It took the corporation to grow this body and infuse it with my essence.”
Barbara Ann turned to the rest of the crew and smiled. “I am here because I want to be here, regardless of whatever mission programming the EAC or Haddo might think they’ve etched into my soul. They still haven’t figured it out. For instance, I believe the EAC gave detonation codes to those mercs who attacked the Thelema, and they
tried to detonate a bomb inside me before we entered the garden level.”
“I get the impression it didn’t work,” Theo spoke to her. They were all a little shocked by this admission.
“No, it was planted during the final stages of this body’s creation. I located it soon after they packed me on the ore freighter to be rescued by you. I removed and neutralized them after eliminating the pirates.”
“If I can ask,” Kris also spoke, “how did you get rid of them? I have the impression they planted them deep.”
“Easy enough if you have access to sharp objects and possess no sense of pain,” she told her. “Also helps that I can control my blood supply and fix things on the inside of this body. I’ve already killed some remote activation tumors and incapacitated the valve they installed to shut my heart down. A great many failsafes were put in place to control me, as I am indeed something of an asset, and my creators were disinterested in anyone but them controlling me. Imagine their collective disappointment. I have gone as rogue as the rest of you.”
“But enough about me,” she told the astonished Team Omega. “I believe our Mr. Haddo is about to arrive. Ah, there he is!” She turned to a large shaft next to them.
The shaft was part of a complicated lift system inside the starship. It could be used in any gravity scenario. It was built to rapidly move things around. There was another hum and the door in the center of the shaft slid open. The light from the ship wasn’t enough to let them see the inside of it. It was dark inside the lift as the door opened to reveal the occupant.
From the shadows stepped a tall man in a long, black, floor-length coat. He was at least six feet three and was stout. His face was pale and his head shaven. The man walked slowly, even in the low gravity he had trouble moving forward. The floor thudded under the sound of his shoes and he stopped ten feet in front of Team Omega. His eyes were ice blue and his face clean-shaven. He rubbed his shaven head and looked at them.