Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

by Matthew Costello

Rodriguez was first to get his gun down. Then Campbell. The guy had his eyes on Maria, which told her a lot.

  She slowly started to lower her weapon.

  The first thing: she saw fear. This guy was completely scared. Whatever he was afraid of had to be worse than taking the man who owned Mars City hostage.

  The second thing: she saw insanity there. Not surprising. You had to be more than crazy to do this. Scared and crazy—not a good combination. But one that—unknown to anyone in this little grouping—she had seen and dealt with before.

  By now they had entered Hangar One. Smaller shuttles sat to the side, while a good-sized shuttle orbiter was only meters away. It would then taxi out of one of the large hangar portals and take off for Kelliher’s UAC transport ship, now orbiting Mars.

  They kept walking.

  The man whispered in Kelliher’s ear, “You’re going…to take me with you, you hear me? On the shuttle. And once there, I’m going back to Earth with you.”

  Kelliher nodded, wondering: Had this nutcase thought throughany of this? Did he really think he could get away with it? And what would happen when he got back to Earth? Ask for a jet waiting, loaded with unmarked bills?

  Or maybe he didn’t care about that. Insane people will do anything.

  The shuttle was now only meters away. Guards and UAC people were all over, but no one would dare be stupid enough to make a move.

  Campbell and Swann followed.

  Kelliher saw that the two escorts—the two marines, now weaponless—kept following. That seemed to catch his captor’s attention, now only meters away from the shuttle gantry.

  “You—you two. Stop right there! What the hell you doing?”

  Maria kept her eyes on the man, his finger tight around the trigger. It wouldn’t take much for that nervous finger to send the UAC head honcho’s brains onto the floor.

  But as she looked at the crazy man—the soldier who was quite clearly terrified—she knew that he didn’t want that. No, all he wanted was to get on the shuttle with Kelliher, to get off this planet, to escape. But if he felt he had a chance, a slim possibility of achieving his goal, he would hold that finger tight and hope to hell he didn’t have to pull it.

  Kelliher muttered to the two men with him. “Don’t you move.” Then to his captor: “It’s all going to be fine, son, just fine—”

  Good,she thought.Kelliher’s trying to reassure him. All will be okay. Everything will work out just the way he hoped it would. Just let him think that…

  One step. Then another. Her movements tiny. But she saw Kelliher’s eyes go to her in horror.No… , those eyes screamed.Don’t do a thing.

  And Maria guessed if it was her brains up for grabs, she might want things to freeze. But events like this only got worse. The guy could panic. Lots of people could get hurt.

  Now, when it was unexpected, it was time to make a move.

  Another step. Her gun not raised, but not thrown to the floor as Rodriguez’s was. She pulled her right hand back, then she turned a bit as if Kelliher’s look had actually had some impact, as if she was going to turn back those few steps and walk back to Rodriguez.

  Her body twisted to the right, arm pulled back, palms open, rising up now until it was at shoulder height. And then she uncoiled her twisting body, let her open palm—now curling, balling—fly.

  If she hit her mark, her hand would catch the soldier on the side of his head. His head would then snap back, and the gun would jerk away from under Kelliher’s chin. If she was wrong…

  Her fist flew into the side of the soldier’s skull. He staggered back, not seeing it come at all. Then the gun moved—just as Maria had known it must.

  His finger probably tightened even as the barrel began to slip.

  There wasn’t time for a second punch from her, not before the barrel began its flight and the man’s finger fully tightened. The explosion of the sidearm suddenly filled the cave of the hangar. Now Maria launched her second blow while trying to see just how badly things had gone.

  Kelliher was kneeling on the floor. The hostage-taker still had his gun. Not good at all.

  The other marines who had been standing nearby started to scramble for their weapons, wasting precious seconds. She kept coming at the guy. A strong shot to his midsection and he lost the ability to breathe. She grabbed his hand, the one holding the gun, tightening on the wrist, which she twisted as if unscrewing a massive cap. The gun fell to the floor.

  She released the wrist and then sent the same hand, now once again a traditional fist, into the soft side of the soldier’s cheek. A jarring hit that could knock him out, or at the very least send him to the floor in agony.

  He went flying back. The other marines were all over him, almost comical in their overkill. Maria turned.

  Kelliher was bleeding. She saw him look at his wound and then at her, as a medical team arrived.

  General Hayden walked over to Maria. “You’d best report to your quarters, Private. I will call you when I am ready to speak with you.”

  Maria nodded, then, remembering: “Yes, sir.”

  She stepped back. The head of the UAC was bleeding on the hangar floor. Then it dawned on her: she had just played roulette with the life of one of the most powerful men on Earth.

  After saluting, she started walking back to her quarters.

  14

  MARS CITY

  HOURS LATER, PRIVATE MARIA MORAETES STOODoutside General Hayden’s office. Finally, she heard a barely audible signal coming from the headset of Hayden’s adjutant.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll send her right in.” The adjutant looked up. “The general will see you now.”

  Maria nodded. The door slid open, and she walked into the office.

  She took in the details. The room, filled with rich wood, looked like a military officer’s room from another century. A massive wooden desk with claw feet dominated much of the room.

  General Hayden looked down at the desk, then, without giving Maria a glance, he went to his screen. After what seemed an eternity, he looked up at her.

  “I was going to ask you, Private Moraetes, whatever possessed you to do…what you did. But you know what? I’m not really interested.”

  “Sir, I saw Mr. Kelliher in danger and I thought—”

  “Oh,thinking , are we? Didn’t know that privates were expected to actually think. Here’s the news flash—same here as down on Earth. No thinking required. Just follow orders.”

  “The situation…was complicated, sir. And I—”

  “Yeah, complicated. So you take action that could have killed Ian Kelliher. As it was, he took a shot. Delayed his return home. Could have killed him.”

  Maria hesitated a moment She imagined that saying nothing might be the best course. Screw it.

  “He could have beenkilled , sir.”

  “Or we could have defused the situation later. Crazy bastard trying to get off Mars. He could have been talked down, Private. There was no call for your risky move, your potentially deadly actions.”

  Hayden fixed her with his eyes as if daring her to again attempt an explanation. She wanted to ask where the soldier came from. Did the general know what made him act? But she said nothing.

  Then the general pointed at the screen. “But I see here in your personnel record what may have prompted you to do that. God, the flotsam and jetsam we get sent up here. Mars City, home to an amazing array of not-quite marines. Like you. But I see you got a bit of a story here.”

  Maria knew what he was looking at. Buried in her personnel file. And yes, maybe what he saw did have something to do with the action she took.

  “I never hid my past, General. I—”

  His hand shot up.

  “No. And we all know it now. Know it and—“he tapped his skull—“we can remember. You’re one lucky marine, Moraetes. Lucky that Kelliher is alive. Lucky that he doesn’t want your ass for the risk you took.”

  Again Maria thought:I saved him. Ian Kelleher’s brains could be spread all over the hangar
floor. I saved him. But it was useless to say anything.

  “We’re done here, Private. And I do hope that for as long as I am on Mars, and you are, that our paths don’t ever cross again. Dismissed.”

  Maria saluted sharply. Turning on her heels, she walked out of the office, the sliding door whooshing open, then quickly shutting behind her.

  She had hoped that the military would be different. That what happened below, down on Earth, might not happen here. That a new world might mean things might just be less about bullshit, less about lies and covering your ass.

  And now Maria knew that she was wrong. It would be a long two years ahead for her on Mars….

  Dr. Kellyn McDonald walked to one of the side corridors of Delta. This particular corridor, leading to a series of storage areas, required the highest possible security clearance.

  He had heard about the attack that nearly cost Ian Kelliher his life. And MacDonald thought he might have seen the soldier who had snapped, only recently posted to Delta, along with other new space marines. Only this guy happened to see something that he really shouldn’t have.

  And it scared him enough that his terrified mind cooked up a plan to escape. To get the hell off Mars. Maybe not such a crazy idea, MacDonald thought. Maybe the crazy ones were the people staying here.

  Meters away from the lab doors, a scanner picked up the ID on his lab coat, then confirmed his ID via a thermal scan while he walked slowly down the corridor. The electronic doors opened, carefully sensing that only the person with the proper security walked through. No own would pay much attention to MacDonald coming down here. He could be doing a dozen things—looking for equipment, checking some supplies. There were a dozen storerooms here.

  But his clearance allowed him everywhere. He wanted access only to the storeroom at the far end. Here, he had to manually enter a code—just one more layer of protection.

  He entered a small storage area that faced a massive freezer that filled the room. Not for food. Not for medical equipment. Over one thousand square feet of frozen storage space. And already getting full.

  Cameras all around the room followed his movements. But there would be no alert, no reason for anyone to be concerned. MacDonald had every right to come in here.

  He opened the freezer door. The icy air hit him, chilling him, and gooseflesh rose.

  He saw the rows of shelves, the upper tiers empty, those at the bottom full. Row after row of sealed plastic bags. Body bags—only whatever bodies filled these bags came in all different sizes and shapes.

  MacDonald slid his PDA from his side. He held it close to his lips. “Record,” he said.

  Then he clipped the compact data device to a lapel of his coat. He walked over to one bag and unzipped it. Then another. Another. Until he had a half dozen or more bags unzipped. Even with the cold, there was the smell. He fought against the gag reflex.

  Five below in here, and still the overwhelming smell…

  And with the bags open, he started back, peeling away the plastic openings, exposing what lay beneath. Without taking the bodies completely out, it would be hard to really see them. Hard to really make out what you were looking at. But you could see the arms on one corpse, the spidery arms sprouting from a nearly human torso, human, that is, if you didn’t look at the scrambled eggs of eyes, ears, and teeth that topped them.

  Each one different. Each monstrosity some brand-new combination of horrors.

  He hurried, walking down the row. Just wanting to capture a half-dozen images or so. Send them back to Earth. Keep Kelliher fully informed. He had already seen a lot, but he hadn’t seen these yet…

  The latest test results.Here’s what they looked like.

  He got to the last bag. On this one, the primate-like hands ended in clawlike fingers ringed with teeth. As he stood by that one, one of those arms…moved. Sliding down, away from the body, pointing down. MacDonald jumped back.

  Just happened to slide out of the bag a bit. But now…now he’d have to grab the arm and tuck it back in. He gingerly grabbed the dangling arm just above the wrist, taking care not to let his own fingers touch the claw-fingers. Slowly, carefully, McDonald stuffed it back in the bag. Then he pulled the zipper tight.

  “End,” he whispered to his PDA. Then: “Send encoded. Ian Kelliher.”

  And even deep within this frozen meat-locker of horrors, the file of images was being encrypted, relayed to the new comm center, and beamed to Earth in a totally secure packet that only Kelliher could unpack once he was back on the planet.

  MacDonald turned and walked out of the freezer.

  (Not, though, without a look over his shoulder. All those things so dead—but still he had tolook .)

  He shut the freezer. Still rows of shelves to fill. Rows awaiting the next results, the next outcome of Betruger’s experiments on Mars. It was, after all, why this was being done here. Nobody to see, nobody to ask questions. Kelliher had planned that.

  And as MacDonald reentered the corridor leading back to the main area of Delta, he thought,We’re just getting started here.

  TWO

  2145

  15

  Mars City PDA

  Dr. Kellyn McDonald

  Personal Folder, Security Enabled.

  Checked and Opened_2_05_2145 16:08:19

  Dr. Betruger confirmed what the core scientific team has long suspected. Namely, he will proceed post haste with more experiments using “volunteers.” Though these steps must be approved on some level by the UAC, and hence Ian Kelliher, I will continue to send full documentation and a warning.

  This new series of experiments is alarming for a number of reasons. First, the so-called test results from this past year’s work remain largely unexplained. There have been theories, such as spontaneous genetic mutation and even one concept dubbed “telemetric gene modification.” But still, no one knows what happened.

  And everyone saw what happened to the first human subject. We all watched as a human subject, a marine, stepped into the large chamber, prepared to travel through space, to a distance 20 meters away. Betruger argued that the series of successful teleports of inanimate objects, as well as a few somewhat successful animal “ports,” all argued for a human test.

  But even those few successful animal subjects later developed difficulties and behavioral changes that remain unexplained. I plan on continuing to record the results of all these new experiments here. I will also inform Kelliher of each step—though I fear he knows, and approves—and my role as his eyes and ears is a false one.

  If these steps do not alarm him—if this work doesn’t horrify him—then nothing will.

  My wife pleads for me to return, this time for good. She may be right. But I have to wonder: would I even be allowed to leave?

  Folder Closed and Locked_2_05_2145 16:08:19

  16

  THE NEW PENTAGON VICINITY OF LARAMIE, WYOMING—3287 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE

  THE GUARD UNDID THE CUFFS HOLDING JOHNKane’s wrists together. Kane squinted as bright shafts of manufactured sunlight streamed down the hallway from massive phony windows.

  His cell had only one small square backlit by a single bright bulb. But this part of the New Pentagon looked as though it was bathed in tropical sunlight, instead of buried deep below the rocky ground.

  After the destruction of the old Pentagon in 2078, this new building was designed, as everyone knew, with some key advantages. First, it was located somewhere in Wyoming. The government confirmed that it had been built near Laramie, although layers of secrecy apparently covered all the workers and contractors who built it.

  But no matter if any enemy located it. The New Pentagon was buried so deep, under so much mountainous rock, that it would be impervious to any attack. Or so the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense believed.

  When the cuffs were off, a marine captain walked up to Kane. “My name is Captain Ferrita. I will be representing you in the proceedings.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Kane had be
en stripped of all rank. He knew he was no longer a lieutenant, but was he even a private? Was he still even in the marines?

  He also now knew the punishment for what he had done. When the country was on a permanent war footing, any disobedience of any order in combat could be penalized by death. It was what Kane expected. And after months sitting in the cell below, he might even be ready for that. Otherwise—in this place—madness loomed.

  “You are to say nothing unless directly addressed. Charges will be read. The court-martial counsel will consult with the trial board. They may wish to speak with me if there is a possibility of a lesser charge.”

  “Lesser charge?”

  “Yes. A charge less than treason. A situation where you might not face execution.”

  “How…hopeful?”

  “Look, Kane. I don’t know whether you want to live or not. In fact, to be honest, I don’t even care. You are quite clearly guilty. But on the off chance—”

  The captain looked Kane in the eyes, and Kane could see that though the man was nearly a foot shorter, there was some steel there. This military lawyer had seen some things. He didn’t blink easily…

  “—that youdo want to live, do exactly what I say. Understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Then let’s go in.”

  They took their seats at a polished metal desk that reflected the bright overhead lights. Kane could see the brass sitting in the front, on a raised dais. Two men, one woman, all marines. Turning right, Kane could also see the prosecutor, a thin, reedy-looking marine lawyer who looked like he wouldn’t know which end of a gun to point.

  The woman—her nameplate said Colonel Thompson—spoke first. “Captain Ferrita, has your client been fully briefed on the charges and possible outcomes he faces?”

  Ferrita stood up. “Yes, Colonel. And we hope to make a case today that the circumstances that Lieutenant Kane faced—”

  A general at the end, General Schine, jumped in. “FormerLieutenant Kane, Captain. Your client has, under military law, been stripped of his rank.”