"Bloody hell!" Swann swore.
"Incredible," Cheng uttered.
"It's disgusting!" Mr Wates countered.
"It's a blasphemy! That's what it is," Dr Ogilvy suddenly piped up. "A blasphemy against nature."
There were a dozen of them altogether. Ulysses doubted that the liquid in these sealed cylindrical glass tanks was water. It was only semi-opaque and had a yellow tinge to it, like urine, allowing them to see what was contained within quite clearly.
Their proportions were roughly those of a man, but these things were very far from being men now. Some sported obvious gills within their swollen necks, ugly goitre-like growths. Others were entirely swollen, with characteristics of puffer-fish, even down to the tiny spines covering their rubbery hide. Yet more had webs of skin between fingers and toes, those same digits unnaturally elongated, whilst in one example the legs had fused together, the malformation of its feet creating an effective fish-tail.
Ulysses found himself wondering how such abominable creations had been achieved, whether by means of splicing vivisectionist surgery - something akin to the revolutionary research undertaken by the late Professor Galapagos - or some unholy cross-breeding programme that didn't even bear thinking about. It was clear that the long-dead occupants of the cylinders, what were in effect giant test-tubes, were the strange aborted experiments of someone's attempts to amalgamate fish with men, although for what sick purpose Ulysses could only guess at.
Looking more closely, he saw a label, discoloured with rust and mould, still stuck to one of the tanks. The thing preserved inside the flooded coffin of chemicals looked like an ungodly amalgam of moray eel, octopus and Homo Sapiens. There was only one word, written in faded and smudged ink, though Ulysses could still make it out: Seziermesser.
"I'll think you'll find," Ulysses said as he edged past the tanks towards what looked like a large chart table on the other side of the laboratory, "that these are the reasons this facility exists." He lifted a piece of paper from the table and, having swept the dust from its surface, peered at the blueprint revealed beneath. "And if you think that's incredible, you haven't seen anything yet."
The rest of the group joined him at the table.
"What is it, sir?" Nimrod asked, his own curiosity piqued. "What have you found?"
"Take a look for yourself."
All eyes fixed on the blueprint unrolled in front of them, gradually making sense of the white lines against the faded blue sheet of the plan.
"Bloody hell."
"Incredible."
"As I said, a blasphemy."
"The Kraken!"
"Indeed, Mr Haugland," Ulysses concurred with the Norwegian, "although according to the maker's designation it's actually Project Leviathan - 001."
There on the paper in front of them, plain for all to see, was what amounted to a technical drawing of the monster that had blighted them, ever since the Neptune's engines had come to a full stop, its ballast tanks flooded and the world's greatest luxury submersible liner had drifted to the bottom of the Pacific. There was no doubt that it was the same monster that had crippled the Neptune, taken Mr Sin and pursued the rest of them as they fled the flooding wreck. There it was, laid out in side elevation, front elevation and in plan view, with attendant measurements, in all its two hundred-foot glory, from the tips of its writhing squid's tentacles, to its fang-filled maw, armoured shell and spine-tipped tail.
Ulysses found himself glancing upwards, into the dusty shadows of the laboratory roof, wondering what had become of the beast, wondering if it was still out there waiting for them. An involuntary sparking tingle of fear crackled down his spinal column.
"Look at this," Wates called from nearby.
Happy at the distraction, Ulysses turned his attention from the schematic to the officer's discovery. On another work table, one cluttered with half-finished, or deconstructed, pieces of machinery - not unlike the guts of a Babbage engine - stood a wooden board on which a frame constructed of metal rods, supported three feet of octopoid-tentacle, stretched out horizontally. The rubbery flesh was intact, preserved no doubt thanks to the addition of some chemical, but more amazing than that was the fact that it had at its core, running the length of the fleshy limb, a flexible metal cable. The end of this internal mechadendrite was hooked up to a large battery also sitting on the table, although one terminal was disconnected.
"What do you make of that?" Wates said.
"I don't know," Ulysses mused, "but I'll warrant it's got something to do with our friend out there."
"It looks like some kind of cyborganic technology," Dr Ogilvy added, his fascination with the curious object on the table seeming to help him to ignore the symptoms of withdrawal he was suffering.
"And what's that when it's at home?" Haugland asked, peering just as closely at the mecha-tentacle through his round wire-framed glasses.
"The marrying together of a living, breathing organism to either an exo- or endo-skeleton of mechanical components to create something else altogether," the doctor explained.
"Incredible," said Cheng, for a third time, and unseen by anyone else, depressed a button on the baton-like device he had secreted in the pocket of his trousers.
Their cursory investigation of the lab complete, and having found no source of supplies anywhere, Ulysses' company entered another connecting corridor from which branched various other paths through the submarine complex.
The sudden reverberating sound of a crash caught them all by surprise.
"What was that?" Ogilvy said, jerking his head round.
Thanks to the distorting echoes of the place, they could not be certain from which direction the noise had come. Rubber piping and cables hung from the ceiling of the tunnels here, like trailing tree roots piercing an animal's burrow or the mechanised intestines of some cybernetic sea monster.
"Come on," Ulysses said, "we're going to have to split up. It's the only way."
He turned and looked at the agitated faces around him.
"Cheng and Haugland, you go that way," he said, pointing to the tunnel left of where they had joined the junction. "Mr Wates, you take Swann and the good doctor that way," - he pointed right - "while Nimrod and myself will take this passageway," he said, crossing the junction and continuing into the gloom ahead.
Within minutes, servant and master reached another junction within the maze of corridors. Lying on his side on the floor, cursing like a navvy, was Jonah Carcharodon, his wheelchair tipped over beside him.
"Carcharodon!" Ulysses exclaimed, coming to the aid of the invalid. "What happened to you?"
"Damned if I know!" he snarled, verbally turning on his would-be rescuer.
"And where's Miss Celeste?"
"I refer you to my earlier answer."
As Ulysses and Nimrod righted the wheelchair and assisted Carcharodon back into it, the old man - who was obviously shaken, despite the show of bravado - began to prattle away, revealing what had happened prior to his little accident.
"Our party had split up to carry on searching this place. Celeste and myself were coming along this passageway. McCormack was scouting ahead of us. I heard a cry from behind me, and as I struggled to turn round, to find out what was going on, some blighter - some bastard or other - tipped me out of my chair. Who would attack an old man, and an invalid at that? God knows where the others have got to."
"Or Miss Celeste," Ulysses said anxiously. "So where's McCormack now?"
"That bastard? He ran back on hearing Celeste cry out but ran straight past, leaving me like this."
"Which way?"
"That way," Carcharodon said, pointing along another tunnel leading off from the intersection.
His sixth sense screaming danger, Ulysses took off in the same direction, Nimrod close on his heels.
"But what about me?"
"Sorry, sir," Nimrod said with a slight nod of the head as he followed after.
Ulysses and his manservant rounded a bend in the corridor, Carcharodon's indig
nant shouts echoing back to them from the intersection, and passed through another sealable bulkhead door into yet another chamber. His unconscious mind took in the fact that it was another laboratory of some kind, but his conscious mind was focused on the confused sounds of scurrying movement beyond. Slowing his steps he penetrated the half-lit gloom of the lab - passing stacks of more stinking, gunk-filled fish tanks bearing faded and mildewed labels - until he caught sight of a pair of booted feet protruding from behind a tarnished metal gurney. Then, quickening his steps once more, he hastened round the end of the row, past the gurney, to see Captain McCormack lying on the floor of the laboratory, blinking as though in a daze, a hand to the back of his head.
"Quicksilver?" he slurred. "What's going on?" He brought his hand back round in front of his eyes. Ulysses could see that it was sticky with blood. "What happened to me?"
"You've been attacked," Ulysses stated, as the dazed captain seemed to be struggling with the realisation himself. "Where's Miss Celeste?"
"M-Mr Quicksilver? I-Is that you?" came a quavering fluty voice.
Ulysses immediately left the captain in Nimrod's more than capable hands and rushed around another stack of algae-streaked tanks to see Miss Celeste stumbling out of the shadows towards him. Her already dishevelled state was considerably worsened by the ugly bruise blossoming on her forehead and the trickle of blood dripping between the fingers of the hand she held to the injury.
"Miss Celeste," Ulysses said, unable to hide the concern in his voice as he hurried to her side. Putting one arm around her waist to support her, he encouraged her to sit down on the seat made by a fallen steel beam.
"Is everyone all right?" Wates asked, entering the lab, followed by Swann and Ogilvy, reluctantly pushing Carcharodon ahead of him.
"Captain McCormack and Miss Celeste have both been attacked," Nimrod stated bluntly.
"And me!" snapped Carcharodon, unhappy at not being the centre of attention. "I was attacked as well."
Ulysses shot the eccentric, self-obsessed billionaire a poisonous look but decided against saying anything.
"Hello? What's going on? Everyone okay?" came Selby's voice as he entered the laboratory, followed by Cheng and Haugland.
Expressions of surprise and half-formed questions were all answered as Ulysses explained to everyone, once again, what had occurred.
"But who would do such a thing?" Haugland asked in disbelief.
"It must be someone who came on board with the rest of us," McCormack said. "Neptune didn't detect any human life-signs on the base before we all got here."
Eyes narrowed and immediately everyone present began reappraising their companions with suspicion.
"Then, if we are in danger, isn't it best we all stick together again from now on?" Ogilvy said.
"Well said, doctor," McCormack concurred. "Come on," he added, struggling to his feet, with Nimrod helping him, "this way."
"Captain, are you sure about this?" Ulysses warned. "Both you and Miss Celeste have suffered injuries and are doubtless also suffering from the effects of shock, isn't that right, Doctor?"
"Um, what? Oh, yes. Shock. Yes. Most definitely."
"The way I see it," McCormack said, wincing and putting his hand to the back of his head again as he attempted to stand upright, "we don't have any choice. If there's a madman on the loose, we need to hook up with the others and warn them."
The party moved on, as briskly as the injured amongst them would allow. Passing another bulkhead door, Ulysses paused to look through the porthole at its centre to see what lay beyond. But all he saw through the thick, green-tinged glass was nothing but the broken shell of another dome and the open ocean beyond. Something had utterly destroyed that part of the facility which lay beyond the door. Suddenly a few inches of reinforced steel didn't seem like very much to be standing between them and the crushing expanse of the mighty Pacific.
Passing into another corridor and from there through another bulkhead door, they entered the central chamber of the main biome - a waft of dry dusty air assailing their nostrils as they did so - only moments before what remained of the other party entered through an identical door on the opposite side of the room.
No pleasantries were exchanged, tired expressions and the briefest exchanges between the groups telling them what they already suspected: the base was deserted, whole swathes of it destroyed altogether. They had been able to find only a few usable medical supplies and a handful of tinned foodstuffs in a wrecked galley. And there was no sign of anyone having been left behind during whatever rushed evacuation had taken place.
Until now.
The explorers were all inextricably drawn towards the bizarre construction at the centre of the chamber, the grim memento of whatever had happened here exerting the pull of morbid fascination upon them.
They had to be in another laboratory. At its centre stood an amazing contraption, like a tiered dais, surrounded by banks of cogitator equipment and with the steel-cradle of a chair-harness at its peak. And strapped into the chair by a cracked leather harness was the body of a man.
It must have been sitting there for a long time in the one moisture-free room in the whole complex, for the body had become mummified naturally, cracked and peeling parchment-dry skin clinging to the angular bones. A curious device was strapped to the man's head. It looked like a metal-banded helmet. Various light-emitting diodes were arrayed upon its outer surface and a number of twisting cables trailed from electrode junctions on the top, connecting it to the chair and, by extension, the banks of machinery around it.
As to the purpose of such a device, Ulysses had no idea. As to how the mummified corpse had met its end, however, there seemed little doubt. The dead man had been shot, at close range. A clean bullet hole was preserved within the middle of his forehead, the results of the exit wound splattered across the back of the chair, eggshell shards of skull littering the dais beneath. The hollows of the dead man's eyes appeared to be staring at the small bubble of reinforced glass and steel at the apex of the dome, sightless sockets staring out at the miasmal abyss beyond.
"Oh my God," Crichton began, an expression of appalled horror on his face. He reached for his hip flask, to take another swig, only it wasn't there. He fumbled for it in his pocket, but it was gone, doubtless left somewhere as he and the rest of his party explored the facility.
Turning his attention from the macabre figure locked within the even more curious clinical chair-construct, Ulysses assessed the reaction of his fellow survivors.
To his mind there was something extreme about Crichton's meeting with the corpse. Surely he had witnessed much worse during their encounters with the Kraken and their flight from the Neptune? A nagging suspicion began to form at the back of his mind, struggling to take cohesive form.
All eyes were on the chair and the body bound within it. But where most gazed in morbid fascination or dumbfounded bewilderment, there was something else in the eyes of some of the more senior members of the party, specifically Carcharodon, Lady Denning, Major Horsley and of course Professor Crichton; something like recognition.
The only person not looking at the chair and its victim was Carcharodon's PA. Instead she had crouched down and was picking something up from the floor of the chamber, a floppy fabric thing, a child's crudely sewn rag-doll. Miss Celeste was turning the toy over in her hands in stunned silence.
"Oh, God forgive me," Crichton mumbled, his legs giving way, falling to his knees before the construction, unable to tear his eyes from the corpse bound within it.
"What is it, professor?" Ulysses challenged. "Do you know this man?"
"God forgive us all!" Crichton screamed.
"Do you know what happened here?" Captain McCormack uttered in startled surprise. "Is there something you're not telling us?"
"Major. Lady Denning," Ulysses tried. He couldn't quite believe what he was saying, even as he said it - how could it be possible after all? - but it seemed the only logical explanation. "Have you been here before?
"
"Don't be ridiculous, man!" Carcharodon railed, turning on him again. "How could any of us have been here before? Quicksilver, you're a fool and a nincompoop if you believe that. It's an utterly preposterous suggestion!"
But the professor remained on his knees, tears splashing onto the metal plates before him, making tiny mortar-blasts in the dry, dead dust.
A scream rang out through the open door by which the rest of the party had entered the laboratory chamber, that sent a shiver of fear and excitement through Ulysses' body.
"Constance!" he exclaimed, already moving. "But of course, they were still left behind. The only safety here is safety in numbers."
"The attacker!" another voice added.
Faltering steps became great bounding strides as Ulysses ran from the chamber. Others joined him in pursuit, a cacophony of clanging footfalls rebounding from the steel-plated tunnel walls. And the screams kept coming.
Ulysses was the first to enter the dive chamber, joined soon after by Nimrod, Captain McCormack, Cheng, Swann and Clements. He stumbled to a halt in appalled horror as he took in the scene before him.
Constance was standing only a few feet from a secured airlock door, her hands to her face, screaming in abject horror. John Schafer beat at the door with his fists, bellowing in anger as he tried to open it again. On the other side of the glass the face of Miss Birkin filled the porthole, locked into an expression of unutterable terror.
Ulysses rushed to his young friend's side, Nimrod following in his stead, all three of them attempting to force the door as a dull, droning siren began to blare from speakers somewhere within the chamber.
"It's no good!" shouted Selby.
"What do you mean?" Ulysses asked, voice tensing as he strained to get a purchase on the rim of the airlock hatch with his fingers and somehow prise it open.
"You're wasting your time," the Neptune's chief engineer said coldly. "Once an airlock's activated, the fail-safes make sure that the protocols cannot be overridden."
"What? It's been activated?" Ulysses turned his attention back to the door and the terrified old woman trapped in the airlock, her face bathed in the pulsing orange glow of an amber warning lamp.
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