by J. M. Preiss
“I don’t see it getting in very far. There is going to be some form of automated defense somewhere inside this tube. I doubt they forgot this location in their defensive plans. Far as we know, we’re already being watched and will be cut down the moment we exit this craft.”
“Cheery,” Mason mumbled. “Well, all we have to do is complete this mission, and we are one step closer to completing the overarching objective that has been placed before us. Hopefully, that means we will be one step closer to going home.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jacob said.
“Well, either way,” Mason began, “I want to finish this mission, fix whatever it is Adam thinks we did, and get back to our time. Back to 2150.”
“You-,” Sara began before stopping herself.
Hmm? Jacob narrowed his eyes.
“Nothing. I thought he said something else,” she responded quickly.
“Here,” Jacob said as he handed Mason the drone. He shrugged and filed Sara’s response away for future thinking. For now, he had to worry about the mission at hand.
Mason slotted the explosive device into the drone, and it floated out of his hands to the access ramp at the rear of the dropship. It silently floated in anticipation of beginning its mission.
“Nothing left to do, LT. What say we knock on the door?” Mason rolled his shoulders as he grabbed his rifle.
“Sounds good, Captain,” Jacob responded. “You’re on point for drone control. I’ll take the rear and do visual reecee.”
Mason nodded as he reached for the door release control. Slapping it with his hand, the ramp slowly lowered with a slight shudder at the beginning. There was a barely perceptible grinding sound that the amplified audio receptors picked up as the ramp moved through its track. It softly ground to a halt as it pressed into the ground. There was hard packed snow waiting for them outside of the dropship.
Mason shouldered his rifle and slowly followed the drone out onto the mountainside as it floated towards the access point for their plan. Jacob followed out and spun around as he surveyed the surrounding terrain.
It was cold. There was hard snow beneath their feet, and off in the distance, he could see a glacier that was making its way along the valley floor. Evergreen trees dotted the mountainside below them and the other mountains that were off in the distance. Higher up above them, there was nothing but snowdrifts and rocky crags.
Continuing to move forward, Jacob thought about switching to a thermal view, and the helmet responded in kind.
Handy, he thought.
“Having an AI in your head is good for something as long as we have this helmet,” Sara responded.
Jacob nodded slightly as he swept his view over the terrain once more. When he looked behind himself, he saw nothing where the dropship used to be.
“Active camouflage,” Sara offered without being asked. “It’s still there.”
You are full of surprises.
Turning back around, the only heat signature that Jacob saw was that of Mason. It was a subdued glow that blended in with the stark white terrain unless you were looking for it. The imaging switched from white-hot to black-hot, and Mason became easier to see. Next to him, there was a plume of black coming from the grating.
“Things look clear,” Jacob said. “On your count.”
“Deploying drone,” Mason stated. “Got us a place to sit and wait?”
Mason pulled open the grating, and the drone floated down the shaft, the plume of black swirling around it as it disappeared from view.
Jacob signaled over to an outcropping of rock that was farther up the mountainside. Making their way there, he noticed nothing that would indicate they were being observed by a hostile force, but his vision couldn’t extend to the distant mountains.
“I doubt they would place scouts that far out just to watch their primary facility. They would be focusing on approaches in the sky as well as down in the valley,” chided Sara.
Perhaps, but you can never be too safe when it comes to evasion.
“So what happens when the drone makes it to the objective undetected?” Mason looked over at Jacob. “That means there was no trap and we gave away our element of surprise.”
“Having an explosive device detonate in your primary power section is pretty surprising. I don’t see how that is a poor use of it.”
“We still need to infiltrate the facility, Jacob. How are we going to do that with them on high alert?”
“Walk through the front door.”
“You’re insane,” Sara said.
Mason was quiet for a moment before he shook his head.
“I have to agree with my companion. That is a quick and easy suicide. Maybe even a painful one,” he added.
“While that is a possibility, I doubt it. There will be a response team sent up here. From here, we can ambush them and take out a portion of whatever security team they have. That will allow us to access the entry to the facility when that team responds. If we work fast enough,” Jacob explained, “we won’t have to fight too hard to make it in.”
“I don’t like it,” Mason grumbled. “What if this only causes them to increase the defense at the entry to the facility?”
“That’s a possibility,” Jacob agreed. “They’re only going to have so many available units though. It’s a calculated risk that the majority of those available will not head to the blast location to secure the area.”
“I prefer more absolutes after New York, LT.”
“What happened to him in New York?” Sara had a quizzical tone to her voice.
I’ll have to tell you sometime, Jacob thought in return.
“Can’t argue with that, Mason, but this is all we have. We’re working on reduced intel here.”
Mason grumbled and got closer in to the rock outcropping they were hiding at. His left hand fidgeted on the rifle as he kept sweeping over the landscape before them.
A distant alarm sounded followed shortly by a muffled thump. The ground around the shaft shook slightly before it gave way in a loud rumble. Mason and Jacob shared a look.
There was a good five meters between them when there was a popping sound. A pop, a hiss, and then a groan came from somewhere in between them. They quickly shifted to look for where the sound came from and saw a section of rock lift up and away. A man in the armoring that Mason and Jacob were used to scrambled out with another two on his heels. They went a few meters before they stopped and looked around at the mess in front of them. The mountain around where the shaft had been was completely destroyed, rubble the only thing remaining. They seemed to be having a conversation based on their body language and how they were looking around. None of them were armed.
“Take them,” Jacob said.
Shouldering their rifles, they both took aim. The targeting reticule burned brightly in Jacob’s eyes. With his rifle shouldered, he swept it up and to the man standing on the left. Taking aim squarely in the man’s back, he depressed the trigger.
A loud shriek erupted as a bolt of searing hot plasma leapt forth from the barrel of the rifle. Faster than the blink of an eye, it slammed into the middle of the man’s back, blasting the armor into a shower of molten metal. As the man pitched forward from the severity of the shot, Mason squeezed his trigger. Another blast of plasma shot forth and caught the other man in the upper back, vaporizing everything there.
The third man, the one farthest away, began to spin around, but Jacob pressed his trigger once more, and a new bolt of plasma from his rifle landed underneath the man’s left arm. He kept spinning, uncontrolled, and crumpled to the ground.
“Nasty weapons,” Mason said somberly.
Jacob kept to a crouch and ran over to the men. Quickly checking them for signs of life, he ran back to Mason.
“Effective.”
Mason shook his head and motioned to the still open access in the outcropping. Taking up position on either side of the doorway, they slowly looked in. Inside, they saw a simple corridor illuminated by red emergen
cy lighting. The alarm was loudly blaring from somewhere they were unable to see. With a quick motion to enter and cover, Jacob whipped through the doorway and cleared the small room that was on the other side. Mason followed behind him shortly, his rifle trained down the corridor.
“Clear,” Jacob said.
“Clear,” Mason responded. “Ready to continue.”
“You’ve got point, Captain.”
Mason grunted as he started moving down the corridor, his rifle sweeping left and right. Jacob followed at a safe distance behind so he could still bring his rifle to bear on any hostile target that presented itself. When they came to an adjoining corridor, Mason motioned to the other side. Jacob responded by moving to the position opposite of Mason so they could look down either path in the new corridor. Leaning around the corners, they cleared both before leaning back.
“New paths. Which way?” Mason kept looking down his side moment to moment.
“These corridors are not on the facility map that we were provided,” Sara said.
Noted, Jacob thought in response.
“We need to find an access lift,” Jacob said. “Once we reach that, we can travel deeper in the facility and reach our objective. Keep pushing forward. We’ll turn when we don’t have a choice.”
Are you mapping our progress?
“Constantly. I’m also using some of the sensor suite to figure out the layout ahead of us. I’ll overlay it on your HUD on the left,” Sara responded. Her tone was business-like and to the point.
“Oscar mike,” Mason said as he shot across the corridor.
Jacob moved forward as well as Mason headed deeper into the facility. As they moved, they began to see rooms on either side of the corridor, empty rooms that looked to be housing of some sort.
“Apparently people live here,” Mason said after ducking his head in to one of the open rooms.
“They’re bound to have a barracks of some sort,” Jacob said.
“No,” Mason began, “they actually live here. Looks like an apartment in there.”
“Guess this is a long term facility. People must be stationed here for a long period of time. Military base,” Jacob stated as he looked in a room on his side of the corridor. “Sounds like there are more people here than first believed.”
“If there are more people here, things are not looking in our favor,” Mason stated. “I don’t like dwindling odds.”
“I don’t know of anybody that does, but odds never did mean much to me when I had a mission to complete.”
With a sigh, Mason continued down the corridor. He mumbled something about the insanity of the Special Forces.
The upper corridor, what they thought was the upper corridor, was completely devoid of life. The three men were the only people that they encountered on their way to the lift system for the facility. As they reached it, the alarm stopped blaring.
“Ominous,” Mason said into the silence. “Think this thing is still working?”
“It should have its own power supply,” was Jacob’s response. “They’ll have stairs as well, but they need some kind of rapid response ability. It’ll probably be locked down however.”
“Put your hand over the panel,” Sara said.
Why? Jacob asked.
“Just do it.”
Jacob moved over and placed his hand on the panel.
“What are you doing?” Mason asked. “Oh, wait, companion just told me what you’re doing. Handy.”
“Accessing control system,” Sara stated in a monotone voice. “Primary facility computer still online. Lift locked down. Accessing lift protocol. Encountering firewall defenses. Countering.”
“Little faster, please?” Mason asked as he swept his rifle around the entrances to the area. “This place is a little too open for my liking.”
With a click and a hiss, the lift doors opened and silently slid apart.
“Lift system unlocked,” Sara said. “This lift system has access to the majority of the facility; however, there appear to be sections that can only be accessed from a secure lift system even deeper. We’ll have to go to another level before we can access that system.”
Find out anything else?
“No. The system is on its own network shard. I’m unable to access deeper levels of the network without computer access.”
“We need to find a security location or a room with primary computers,” Jacob told Mason. “I’m getting a foreboding feeling this facility is a lot more than we were told. A lot more.”
“Corridors we didn’t expect? Apartments located in the facility? What gives you that idea?” Mason rolled his shoulders. “Let’s go deeper. We’re bound to find a computer with network access there.”
They both stepped into the lift and turned to look at the interior controls. There had to be a few hundred options available from the control system. There were at least as many options as a habitation complex.
“Uh,” Mason trailed off.
“Level 85,” Sara said.
Jacob shrugged and input their destination on the control panel. The lift started to descend deeper in the mountain
What’s on 85?
“That will give us computer network access.”
“Things really don’t seem right, Jacob,” Mason said with concern in his voice. “Nothing has seemed right since that damn project was activated. Maybe we weren’t supposed to do what we did. Some things are best left alone.”
“The decision was made,” Jacob said as he shook his head. “Now we need to live with it and figure out what the mess has become. I don’t know just how much Halcyon has to really do with it, but it does seem to be the connecting theme. I’d like to know what was in those boxes that turned to dust.”
“That’s only one of the questions that I have. What concerns me most, however, is how things are oddly familiar right now. Why is there a hab built in this mountain? We know it’s a hab, the pieces fit together when you think about it, but why here? What’s so special about this? When they were building the habs, they built them at the cities with fusion reactors. Surely they wouldn’t deem it useful to build one here inside a mountain.” Mason sighed.
“Yeah,” Jacob nodded. “I’m unaware of any being built underground. We had facilities that were built underground, army bases and the like, but never a hab. What makes this one so special?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Sara said.
Can you access the suit communication system so we both can hear you?
“Better?” she asked.
“Who’s that? Has somebody broken in on our communication frequency?”
“Unlikely,” Sara said. “No, I’m Jacob’s companion. I’m Sara.”
Mason was silent for a moment.
“I can do that as well,” said another female voice. “Hello, Jacob. I’m Chelsea.”
“That’s the name he picked for you?” Sara asked.
“I like it,” Chelsea said. “Seems a bit child-like, but I like the younger aspect of it.”
Sara harrumphed.
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what are your collective thoughts?” Jacob asked.
“We’ve been keeping contact over the suit network. We’re in agreement that things are odd,” Sara started.
“Nothing is adding up from what we learned in our programming sequence. It would seem that our creators didn’t want us to have the full story. Maybe it’s their way of keeping information from you,” Chelsea finished.
“They do seem to want us at disadvantage,” Mason said. “We need to find a way to alter that. We need to know what is really going on.”
“We need to know who we’re working for,” Jacob added. “We were sent here by Adam. We met him on our initial mission from Einstein. Already having had two people giving us orders, I’d like to know if a third was added.”
“Or is Adam just playing mind games with us,” Mason interjected. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have followed us back here from the future. He did kill
Hector just to make a point.”
“He did,” Jacob agreed. “Maybe this is what we were meant to find. Maybe this is where the program began.”
“Program?” Chelsea asked. “What program are you talking about?”
“The eugenics program,” Mason answered. “That’s why we were sent back to this time. We’re supposed to find it and stop it from happening. We were told that’s the only way to return things to how they are supposed to be.”
“And how are they supposed to be now?” Jacob asked. “As far as we know, stopping the program could completely change history. I don’t buy us not having an impact anymore. Time didn’t heal itself after we left. Doctor Jenkins was wrong. Everything is wrong. We need to get new information so we can start making corrections.”
“Wait,” Sara and Chelsea said in unison. “You’re time travelers?”
Chapter VII
Mason guffawed. “You’re telling me that the two of you weren’t briefed on where we are from?”
“Not as such, no,” Chelsea replied. “We were just given our basic programming, brought up to speed on the state of things that are pertinent to us, and briefed on the current mission at hand.”
“As we established,” Sara piped up, “Our briefing was incomplete.”
“Incomplete,” Jacob said. “The question is, to what ends.”
“I don’t follow,” Mason shook his head. “Why would they not have the full picture? Surely they should know what is going on here.”
“We don’t. The instant we entered the facility, our intel went bad,” Sara answered.
“Well, who programmed you?” Jacob asked.
Both companions were silent.
“It seems that our benefactor still wants us in the dark,” Mason mumbled. “Look, who cares who programmed them? Things changed when we stepped off that dropship, changed for the worse. We went from having a bit of an inkling of what was going on to absolutely nothing. I don’t understand, Jacob, and I don’t give a damn if it isn’t required. None of this is making sense.”
“No,” Jacob sighed. “I guess it isn’t. I would say that I can only hope to get a grasp of what is going on, but hope is a luxury I cannot afford. We need facts. For those facts, we need to access a networked computer terminal.”