The Cerberus Protocol (Hellstalkers Science Fiction Horror Series)

by Joseph Nassise

  Word of Memphis’s arrival was swiftly relayed to the right individual after he produced his credentials. By the time Memphis managed to pass through the security at the gate and into the complex proper, he found a master sergeant named Mathers waiting for him on the other side.

  “If you’ll follow me, Captain Stone,” Mathers said, and then he led him to where a HMMWV was parked a few yards away.

  “What’s happening, Gunny?” Memphis asked as he climbed inside and then waited for the other man to do the same.

  Mathers shrugged. “Not sure, sir. Above my pay grade.” He started the vehicle and quickly pulled out, heading down the main causeway, past the dome of the Center for Science and Innovation and toward the primary control facilities at the far side of the campus. The billowing cloud of smoke that Memphis had seen on the television was dissipating, but the thick scent of something burning still filled the air.

  Mathers glanced over at Memphis as he drove, as if sizing him up. Memphis apparently met whatever criteria Mathers was looking for because after a moment the other man continued.

  “The official line is that there’s been a mechanical problem that forced an early shutdown of the Collider test. Unofficially, rumor has it that there’s been a major screw-up somewhere inside the Collider complex and a team is being assembled to go down and take a look.”

  “And what does the rumor mill have to say about who the lucky s.o.b. is that gets to leads this team?”

  Mathers laughed. “That s.o.b. would be you, sir,” he said.

  With Dr. Reese’s words of warning echoing in the back of his mind, Memphis didn’t find it half as amusing as Mathers did.

  They crossed the campus and parked in front of a series of non-descript buildings. Mathers led him inside and then down a succession of hallways that all looked the same. At last they came to a door marked Central Control. The master sergeant knocked once, then entered without waiting for a response.

  Memphis followed.

  Inside, he found himself in a large, circular control center. Technicians sat in front of a dazzling display of computer monitors, the heart and soul of the Collider project. It was from this room, Memphis knew, that the Collider’s eight accelerators, as well as the cryogenics and technical details were controlled.

  Right now, however, no one was controlling much of anything it seemed. Every single monitor that he could see was filled with nothing but static, like a television tuned to a non-existent station. Technical staff stood together in small pockets throughout the room, arguing and gesturing toward the inoperable equipment nearby as they tried to find answers to questions they weren’t even sure were the right ones to begin with.

  “This way, sir,” Mathers said, as he led Memphis through the midst of the arguing technicians and scientists toward a conference room on the far side of the center. Inside, Memphis could see his new commander, Colonel Warren, and several other officers talking animatedly with a few other individuals. Given the motley way in which several of them were dressed, Memphis could only imagine that they were part of CERN’s scientific staff. Last but not least, he noted a group of soldiers seated in folding chairs at the back of the room. They wore a variety of uniforms; with the military presence coming from more than a dozen nations, you were as likely to serve beside one of your own as you were someone from the other side of the world.

  This time Mathers didn’t bother knocking but walked right in.

  “Captain Stone, sir,” Mathers said to Warren and then withdrew to join the other enlisted men toward the rear.

  Stone had only known Warren a few days, but it was already clear to him that the colonel was the kind of no nonsense officer that took pride in getting things done no matter what the odds. He was in his early fifties, but had the build and stamina of a much younger man. Right now he was talking to a tall, wiry-haired individual in a white lab coat. Memphis recognized the man as Dr. Pierre Marsan, the acting head of the LHC project. Warren continued listening to whatever it was that Marsan was saying, but nodded in Memphis’s direction just the same.

  As Memphis moved toward him, he was intercepted by Collins, the colonel’s aide.

  “I’ve got your gear right here, Captain,” Collins said, handing him a duffel bag. Memphis didn’t need to look inside it to know what it contained; every man on the team had to have a ready bag containing his combat equipment packed and waiting for moments just like this.

  “My gear? What do I...”

  Before Collins could answer, Colonel Warren called the meeting together.

  “All right, settle down people, and let’s get this show on the road before we have an even bigger clusterfuck to deal with.”

  Warren waved his hand at Dr. Marsan. “Tell them what’s happening, Doctor,” he said, before taking a seat at the table a few chairs down from Memphis.

  Marsan absently rubbed a hand across the lower half of his face for a moment, then seemed to get his thoughts together and looked up at the group assembled before him. He took in the handful of scientists and officers seated at the table near him without reaction, but his expression grew a little more guarded when his gaze fell on the soldiers seated at the back of the room. Memphis had the distinct impression that Marsan was worried more over their presence than whatever had happened in the tunnels beneath their feet. Before Memphis could figure it out, however, Marsan began speaking.

  “A little over thirty minutes ago we lost all contact with our people inside the Collider complex. Intercom systems, surveillance cameras, even the telephone lines went dead at the exact same moment.”

  He paused, as if debating how much to say, and then went on. “At the same time, just before our monitoring equipment went dark, a massive eruption of energy was reported in cavern #4, which houses the LHCb and its control arrays. The release of that energy translated into the shockwave that we all experienced seconds later. At the moment we have no explanation for either event.”

  Several of those assembled began talking at once and Marsan was forced to hold up his hands in an effort to regain control. “One at a time, please, one at a time.”

  He pointed to one of Trent’s senior staff. “Yes?”

  “It’s been more than a half hour since the event. Surely anyone who was capable of doing so would have evacuated the facility by now.”

  Marsan shook his head. “The blast wave unseated the vault door that secures this section of the complex from the lower floors below. It also appears to have damaged the power supply to the door controls. At this point we’ve been unable to open them through manual means.”

  One of the consulting scientists spoke up. “I’m guessing you had a standard evacuation plan in place in case of emergency. What were your people instructed to do in the event that the door became inoperable?”

  “Stay put, actually. The facility itself has several different independent power supplies and more than enough air to sustain anyone inside for several days. It was decided long ago that the staff personnel would be safer staying in their assigned sectors until someone could reach them from the outside than having them moving through the Collider tunnel and possibly encountering worse conditions.”

  Memphis raised his hand, then spoke up when called upon by Marsan. “Have we received any indication of what conditions are like beyond that blast door?”

  “None. With both the primary and secondary systems inoperable, we don’t have any idea what’s happening down there and we won’t until we get that door open.”

  “Which is where we come in,” Colonel Warren said. “Dr. Marsan and his staff have requested our assistance in getting his people out of there. We’re sending a team down to determine what happened. Captain Stone,” he indicated Stone with a wave of his hand, “will be in charge of the unit, supported by Lieutenant Chadbourne and Gunnery Sergeant Mathers.”

  Warren stood, looked his people over and then addressed the man at the front of the room. “Thank you, Dr. Marsan. We’ll take it from here. If you and your people wouldn’t mind
waiting outside. . .?”

  The scientists filtered out one by one. Warren waited until the door had closed firmly behind them and then faced his men once more.

  “Your mission will be to enter the facility and determine exactly what happened down there. If you locate any survivors, evacuate them to the surface where and when possible.” Warren paused, and then, “Given the size of that shockwave, I’m not anticipating any, to be frank, but there’s always the possibility of a miracle, I guess.”

  Warren’s tone made it abundantly clear just what he really thought of that possibility.

  He glanced down at his watch and frowned. “I’ve got a conference with the Joint Chiefs in a few minutes, so I’m going to leave you in the able hands of Major Cartwright. Major?”

  An officer Memphis hadn’t noticed before stepped up from the back of the room and took over the meeting as Warren and his aides shuffled out. From his uniform, Memphis could see that the man was a member of the Special Air Service, or SAS, Britain’s version of the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force. With him was a younger man in a technician’s uniform.

  “This,” Cartwright said, indicating the technician as they stepped up to the front of the room, “is Terrence Jackson. He is our liaison from the technical staff and will explain the layout of the facility, as well as give us some idea of what we can anticipate once we’re beyond the blast door. Please direct your questions to him.”

  Jackson stepped up, blathered for a moment about how he was happy to help and then faced them all with an expression that reminded Memphis of a lamb led to the slaughter.

  Welcome to the lions’ den, Memphis thought with a grin.

  Something had been bothering him throughout the briefing and he figured now was a good a time as any to bring it up. “Let me ask you this, Jackson,” he began.

  “Yes?”

  Memphis hesitated. How did he say this without looking like a complete idiot?

  “The news has been full of arguments for and against the Collider. One of the most prominent objections is that the device will form a black hole. What are the chances that that’s actually what has happened?”

  With the ice broken, Jackson seemed to relax a little as he worked to answer Memphis’s question.

  “What do you know about particle physics?” he asked.

  Memphis shrugged. “Probably about as much as you know about small unit assault tactics.”

  The other man laughed. “The simpler version, then.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Memphis said, “as long as it’s in plain English and doesn’t involve anything more complicated than fifth grade arithmetic.”

  His comment brought a wave of laughter from the rest of the men in the room and that boosted Memphis’s own confidence. After all, he was very shortly going to be leading these men into a lions’ den of their own. It would be nice for them to consider him worthy of leadership.

  “Right,” said Jackson.

  He picked up a computer tablet from the table in front of him and began drawing. As he did so, the image was projected on the big screen at the front of the room for all to see.

  “The physical layout of the Collider project looks something like this.”

  On the screen an inverted figure eight appeared, with the small loop at the bottom with a much larger circle above it. Memphis had seen that very shape while coming in for a landing a few days before; the long circular tunnel straddling the border of France and Switzerland as it ran along the shore of Lake Geneva and through the Jura Mountains was easily visible from the air.

  “But the real heart of the complex lies underground, in a series of interconnected tunnels.”

  A similar image appeared below the original, connected to the one above it by four elevator shafts. Jackson drew a large oval at the base of each elevator shaft, representing the workspaces where the major control areas were located. The shafts themselves were marked as being anywhere from fifty to one hundred and fifty meters below the surface.

  “There are currently seven major experiments that make up the Collider project overall, but we’re going to focus on only four of them at the moment.” He wrote in the names of the experiments above the ovals; ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, and LHCb.

  He looked up and caught Memphis’s gaze. “In order to answer your question, I think it’s important to understand exactly what the Collider does and does not do.”

  Memphis nodded for him to continue.

  “The media likes to say that we’re moving all this tremendous energy around at nearly the speed of light, but that’s not entirely correct.

  “You see, the accelerator is really a succession of machines that take simple protons and move them around at increasingly higher energies. Each machine injects the particle beam into the next device. Now it’s important to remember that no particle can move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, but there is no limit to the amount of energy a particle can attain at the same time.”

  He looked around at them to be certain they were all still with him.

  “Instead of going faster, the particle simply gets heavier. The heavier it is, the more energy it produces. What the media doesn’t realize is that the amount of energy we are talking about is relatively insignificant. When the particles are moving at their top speed, they are averaging about seven teravolts, or ten to the twelfth power, of energy. That might sound like a lot, but comparatively speaking, that’s about the amount of energy produced by mosquitoes’ wings. It is only the fact that we produce that energy in a space many thousands of times smaller than normal that makes it worth studying.”

  “So to answer your question, if the LHC did actually create a black hole, it would be one with such a low threshold of energy that it wouldn’t be able to generate a gravitational force strong enough to pull in surrounding matter and would therefore be harmless.”

  That was a lot of effort to say no, Memphis thought, yet it didn’t reassure him as much as he’d hoped.

  “So what are we liable to be facing in there?” he asked.

  “The most likely dangers are man-made. For instance, the vacuum tubes that carry the protons along the twenty-seven kilometer tunnel are cooled with liquid helium to -271 degrees Celsius. That’s colder than deep space. And the pressure inside the pipes is about ten times lower than the pressure on the surface of the Moon, so any damage to the equipment will result in potential hazards for you and your men.”

  Jackson shrugged. “Combine that with the damage caused by shockwave and you’ve got more than enough to worry about without all the shit the media is spewing to its gullible audience.”

  Memphis couldn’t argue with that. There was no doubt that they were walking into something that was every bit, if not more, hazardous than a combat zone.

  He had every intention of getting to the bottom of things quickly and with a minimum of injuries.

  It was really too bad the universe didn’t see things in the same light.

  Chapter Three

  The twisted steel bars by the entrance of the underground complex testified to the amount of force and energy they had recently encountered. Memphis regarded their bulging misshapen features and wondered what the interior of the lab would look like. Almost absentmindedly, he ran one hand over the barrel of the M4 that was strapped to him and indexed his finger along the trigger guard. His heart still thundered in his chest, but he wouldn’t let any of the team see his fear.

  “Open it.”

  A young sergeant from the Canadian armed forces ran up to the steel blast doors that led to the elevator shaft and attached a small box to the side of the control display. While he connected leads into the wiring, Memphis approached the doors and let one of his hands glide over the surface. He could feel small bulges in the metal; bulges he felt certain hadn’t been there before the incident. But what had caused them? The small bumps gave the distinct appearance of something on the other side — from the interior of the lab — trying to pound their way out.

  He frowned
. Perhaps a huge piece of metal on the other side had collapsed against the door?

  They were planning to use elevator shaft three, the one outside the massive cavern that had been labeled CMS on Jackson’s impromptu map. Its official name was the Compact Muon Solenoid, Memphis knew, but he didn’t really care about that. All he cared about was the fact that the CMS cavern was the next one in line to the LHC cavern and this particular location had been deemed the best and safest means of entering the facility.

  “Ready, sir.”

  Memphis stepped back and brought his M4 up into low-ready, its barrel resting just off the horizon in front of him. If something attacked, he could snap it up, acquire his sight picture, and squeeze off three rounds - all in the space of a second.

  The soldiers around him did the same. Memphis took a breath and steadied himself. Hopefully, they’d only have to greet a gaggle of terrified scientists. He almost smirked, imagining them to be like little kids who fool around with a chemistry set at Christmas only to get a face full of sulfur when something went wrong.

  “All right, Sergeant. Open it up.”

  A team spent the past hour working on the door’s systems. Now the sergeant pushed a single button and Memphis heard a series of beeps. Then, from beyond the doors, came the unmistakable hiss of hydraulic pressure as the two-ton steel blast doors slowly started moving on their hinges. Before him, they parted like a gaping maw. And darkness bled out from within.

  Memphis clicked the radio that enabled him to speak with the control room. “It’s dark. Did they lose their backup power?”

  “We’ll have to assume they did,” came Colonel Warren’s reply. “You guys have night vision. Use it.”

  Memphis nodded and snapped down the night vision goggles. Instantly, the entire scene went luminescent green. “Switch to NVGs,” he said to his team.

  Peering straight ahead into the darkness, Memphis saw very little. Even the night vision seemed to have trouble penetrating the abyss before him.