Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

by Matthew Costello

  “The dream of a Mars restored to being a living planet is not too long in the future at all. So join us, as we create the dream that is, and will be, Mars City.”

  Great,Kane thought.Has me all excited. From what he saw, Mars City, so far, appeared to be a series of massive bunkers, tunnels, and corridors sunken into the Martian ground. No playgrounds going up yet.

  He flipped to one of the other vids, “Inside the Hydrocon.”

  “For centuries, people on Earth have waged war over two things vital to human existence—fuel and water. As part of its ongoing commitment to creating safer worlds for everyone, the UAC recently unveiled its development on Mars City of…the Hydrocon. The Hydrocon, though still in early experimental use on Mars, will, in one dramatic move, forever end all shortages of water and fuel.

  “By splitting iron oxide molecules, the Hydrocon produces oxygen and hydrogen cheaply and safely without the need for large amounts of electricity. The hydrogen is then used for—”

  He stopped that one. Unless Kelly had a quiz in his back pocket, he had seen enough for now. He put his PDA on the bunk beside him. He could hear the chatter of other marines. No matter. When you were this exhausted, you could sleep through a circus.

  Betruger lay in bed, too anxious to sleep.Tomorrow, he kept thinking. Not even one more full day.Tomorrow, and everything changes. The suits from Earth, Hayden, the marines here—everything changes for them.

  Sheer adrenaline could keep him going for days. Maybe sleep wasn’t even needed at all anymore. But for this last night…

  He needed to once more shut his eyes. To let the images come, the dreams, the—

  (Instructions.)

  So he paced his breathing. In, and out. Counting each breath. Clearing his mind until, in the quiet of his expansive room, off to the side of Delta, he fell asleep.

  And they were there, waiting. At first, Betruger could just see the cave. No, not a cave. This was the gate, the true entrance, sealed so long ago.

  When he first started having the dreams—what he then called “dreams”—he just thought that the results of the experiments must be getting to him. He was—he admitted in his personal journal—even a bit scared.

  After all, he started walking through that cave, the walls alive, things moving on them, like bloodred vines shifting, changing, coiling—all in response to his steps. Like now. Only now he knew what was ahead, the fear long gone.

  After all,he thought,you can’t be afraid of yourself, can you? That would make no sense at all.

  Into the cave now, the feeling familiar, then the smell. That gust of otherworldly gas, totally unlike any earthly smell. If you didn’t really belong here, you would fall to the ground.

  (Which, of course, was wet, pulsating—not like “ground,” or “earth,” or anything known here. In this world. In this solar system…galaxy…universe…. )

  Fall to the ground, and begin hacking, your insides gurgling, the smell, the gas…turning you inside out.

  But if you belonged here—you could take that deep breath now.

  (As he did. Right now. On this last night.)

  Deep. Hold it. Belonging here. One of them. Until the cave and walls gave way to…another place. What madmen had seen for centuries but no one ever believed was real.

  They awaited him. Welcomed him.

  For Betruger, he was home.

  27

  BY 7 A.M., DELTA LAB ALREADY SEETHED WITHactivity. Well before attempting an experimental transmission, every system in Delta had to be inspected, from the power management to the dataflow integration, to the physical performance of the pods themselves.

  Then there were the secondary devices, machines designed to measure and record exactly what occurred during the test. Dr. Betruger liked things checked, then rechecked, and every result brought to his attention.

  Dr. Jonathan Ishii sat at his desk looking at an array of screens, each chunk of linked data flowing from one screen onto another, as power and transmission strength in the teleport pods flowed from one to the other.

  Everything looked absolutely fine.

  Ishii looked up. Betruger stood off to the side, with three other Delta scientists standing close by. He held his hands behind him, nodding. Like some mad general commanding an armed force all dressed in white.

  How many of the others knew, Ishii wondered. How many of themsuspected?

  Ishii stole glances at the others, all so busy, whipping out PDAs, touching the holo-screens as they appeared in the air, or walking over to one of the workstations. Did any of them know…what really was happening here?

  He saw Betruger turn and look in his direction.

  Ishii reached out and touched a tab to change one of the screens to a master readout of all data being pumped into Delta’s main computer system.See, he hoped the action said,I’m busy, Dr. Betruger. Working hard on the project.

  Ishii kept his eyes glued to the screen now, trying to sense when Betruger took his eyes off him.

  Only hours to the test. He had to go soon—and he’d have it do it in steps. Get out of here. Then he’d have to lose his sentry bot, ditch his ID tag. And slowly, without being seen, make his way out of the Delta wing, to the underground, and out—

  I could die,Ishii thought.

  He’d bring his PDA, of course. With all the material he had stolen from Betruger’s personal files. The material that showed the truth about what was going on here. Teleportation. The ability to move across space instantly, with no real traveling at all. That was the hoax, the promise. Betruger’s lie that everyone—most of them—still believed.

  Ishii took a breath.I’ll stop it, he thought.I can do that. And for a moment, he actually believed it.

  Kane stood in an assembly room, near the marine headquarters, dressed in the standard-issue space marine fatigues—not much different from anything his division wore on Earth. A different insignia on the lapel, a belt designed to hold the PDA, key to communicating and navigating here.

  Only the color of the fatigues revealed that they weren’t in Kansas, or any other place that could be called Earth. Mottled a reddish orange, as if they were going to do operations on the surface of the planet.

  He noticed that some of the older Marines here wore some gun-metal colored fatigues, certainly better suited to the gray environment of the interior. Maybe you had to work your way up to them.

  Sergeant Kelly looked up from his PDA. “All right, newbies, you each get a section to patrol this morning. You get a four-hour cycle, then break for a twenty-minute lunch, then report back here and we’ll see what else we got for you. Some of you may be reassigned to the regular units. But consider this the day that you all get—what the hell—’comfortable’ with Mars City. And Christ, remember that there are a lot of civilians up here, even kids.”

  Kelly shook his head.

  “So any of you that may have seen fighting down below, I want you to forget all that gung-ho crap. Nice steady pace, a big smile to the locals, and nothing to startle anyone. Got it?”

  In unison: “Yes, Sergeant!”

  “Great. And so you assholes get used to using them, I sent your teammate and assignment to your PDA. Have a great fucking morning.”

  Kelly turned on his heels, and Kane took out his PDA and scrolled to the flashing “Assignment” icon.

  A small map appeared showing the underground area, and then a close-up of the energy processing area. Below that, his companion for the patrol.

  Private Tobias Smith.

  And then Smitty was there, grinning from ear to ear. Kane looked at the scrawny private. “Did you ask Kelly—”

  Smitty started to deny Kane’s accusation, but then looked down. “Yeah, I said we hung out. On the transport.”

  “Great,” Kane said. And then, “Come on.”

  Ishii stood up. He walked to the back of Delta, over to a wall of oversized monitors that studied every inch of the lab. All linked to various sensors monitoring temperature and power demands. Ishii made a big deal o
f looking up, then at the readouts, when Betruger appeared at his elbow.

  “All okay, Ishii?”

  “Oh—fine, Dr. Betruger Just making sure my PDA link is working…”

  “Was there a problem?”

  “Er, no. Not at all. But, you know, always good to check and recheck.”

  For a moment Betruger didn’t say anything. “Right.” Another pause. “Ishii, you seem a bit nervous. Are you okay? Anything wrong?”

  As soon as he started to answer, Ishii knew he was answering too quickly. “No, sir. I’m fine. Just, you know, a big test for us.”

  “Right, very big, Ishii. Carry on—but if you notice anything wrong”—he cleared his throat—“anything at all, you will tell me?”

  “Absolutely, Dr, Betruger.”

  And then, like a billowing and icy fog bank, Betruger finally moved on.

  “Man, that was some goddamn breakfast they gave me,” Wegner said to Maria. “You ever see what they feed volunteers?”

  Maria didn’t answer, but Rodriguez did. “Enough food for three guys! Shit, were those real eggs?”

  “They sure the helltasted like real eggs. They even had yolks.”

  Real eggs, maybe something like real bacon, Maria thought. Exactly like the breakfast they’d give a condemned man. And this guy—Wegner—didn’t see that?Far be it from me, Maria thought,to tell him.

  “Hey,” Rodriguez said, “that’s a pretty damn cool breakfast. And a nice package you get for doing this. Real nice. But aren’t you like even a little bit worried?”

  Moron,Maria thought. Kelly told them specifically to not discuss anything about the experiment. And here was Rodriguez, stirring things up.

  “Nah. Figure each time it gets safer. And I haven’t heard of anyone getting really hurt. Maybe they need some R and R back on Earth. But that’s it, right?”

  Right. And we don’t hear anything about the subjects because that’s how they like it.

  “Guess so,” Rodriguez said. “Still—”

  “Rodriguez, zip it, hm? You’re making my ears hurt.”

  He looked at her, getting a quick eye roll, and even the dense Rodriguez finally got the message. “Yeah, right, sure, Moraetes. You’re the boss.” The sniggering snort:as if!

  That was another thing: There were marine escorts coming soon, assigned to accompany Wegner to Delta. And didn’t that tell the giddy space marine something? Escorts, guards—to make sure he got there? The whole thing was creepy.

  “Come on, Rodriguez. Lucky me—we get to patrol together today.”

  A few hours walking a circuit around Alpha Labs lay ahead.Life on Mars—at its most exciting…

  28

  ISHII WALKED SLOWLY PAST THE WALL OF MONITORS,looking down at his PDA as if checking that it was synced properly.Yes, that’s what I’m doing. Just checking things. But he kept moving, walking close to the main entrance of Delta. Lab assistants and scientists walked back and forth. Ishii reached the Delta reception desk, manned by two women who, for some strange reason, also wore lab coats.

  Two burly marines stood at the main exit, and more marines were posted at the lab’s secondary exits.

  Ishii walked up to the exit. Immediately a sentry bot scurried up and took its place immediately behind him. But at his level of clearance, a sentry bot was entirely optional.

  He scrolled to a window on his PDA and, at the security screen, hit a button to disengage the bot. It immediately scurried back to some distant corner of Reception. The marine stood perfectly still. If they suspected anything, their eyes didn’t show it.

  He started talking into his mouthpiece. “Yes, I’m checking on it now. Don’t worry. All right. I’ll make sure.”

  And, maintaining his stream of meaningless one-sided conversation, he slipped out into the main hallway. One foot in front of the other, he told himself, walking away with enough data to expose everthing that had happened here and—sweet God—everything that was about to happen.

  “MacDonald—where is the subject?”

  Kellyn MacDonald turned away from Pod One, the delivery pod.

  “He’s on his way now.”

  Betruger nodded. “Good. I want things to go smoothly when he’s here.” Betruger raised his voice.

  “Everyone hear that? No sense of alarm, just another day in the lab—okay?”

  MacDonald waited until Betruger moved away, dashing from station to station, radiating plenty of tension. Then MacDonald got up and walked back to the storage chambers in the back.

  He went into one that he knew wasn’t used except for discarded equipment. A bit of privacy. He began to record his special message on his PDA.

  Mars City PDA

  Dr. Kellyn McDonald

  Personal Folder, Security Enabled.

  Checked and Opened_03_13_2145 10:28:19 Sent to: Private

  Recording Begun:

  So, sweet Ann, it’s about to happen again. Everyone knows the danger, knows what has happened. And yet—somehow—we all continue. I have told Kelliher everything, and yet, hestill doesn’t pull the plug. But this time, something worries me even more.

  It’s Betruger himself. Not only does he ignore the results from before. This time, he seems to be hurrying, as if we are all on some deadline. To which I might ask, deadline to what?

  I don’t know what will occur. I don’t know what great threat the experiments may pose—to the lab, to me, to all of Mars City. I have tried to do what I can here. Now, there is nothing else for me.

  Tell Patrick that I think of him tons. But please, don’t say that I will see him soon. Not until we know that is a real possibility. And trust me, after this I will be doing what I can to leave this planet forever. Of course, Ann, I miss you terribly. To talk to, to be with, to be there for each other. In some ways, I’ve been negligent, haven’t I? Perhaps like every other scientist in history, lost to their world of ideas and experiments.

  I’d best end this. You never know who might come back here. But know that I think of you. And I will contact you when this hellish day is over.

  Recording Ended:

  Folder Closed and Locked___10:37:28

  MacDonald quickly walked out of the storage room. Because of his special security clearance with Kelliher, he was able to send encrypted voice messages that Comm did not screen. They would note that he had sent a message, but that was all.

  And when MacDonald rejoined his team, the test subject was already there.

  “Okay,” Kane said. “We turn around here.”

  Smitty looked down at his PDA. “You sure? It looks like—”

  But Kane had already turned on his heel, completing the mindless loop he had been assigned by Kelly. Maybe doing time in some serious brig might have been better than this, he thought.

  Betruger stopped and looked around the room.

  He saw MacDonald walk out the rear area.What is he doing there?

  Then he looked over at the entrance and saw his medical team talking to the subject. The man wore a broad grin.

  Look how happy he is, dreaming of all the perks to come.But something was wrong. Another look around. Where thehell was Ishii?

  “MacDonald!” Betruger yelled. The scientist hurried over. “Have you seen Ishii?”

  Betruger watched as the other scientist stopped and looked around. Ishii was gone, just as the preparations for the experiment would intensify. Another glance, seeing Ishii’s station abandoned. Then Batruger thought:Could Dr. Ishii have decoded some of the material from Site 3? Could he suspect what this is really about? No matter. But then, where was he off to? What was he doing?

  “Ishii. Any idea where he is?”

  MacDonald shook his head. “No, I—”

  But Betruger already had General Hayden in his ear. “General, one of my people has left Delta. I want him found and returned immediately.”

  Betruger didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he walked over to the subject. And as he did, he forced himself to smile. Wouldn’t do to alarm the man….

&nb
sp; Kane saw Kelly waiting for him at Marine Combat Prep, with a few other marines standing around.

  “Kane, I have a new job for you.” Kelly grinned at the others. “You like to rescue, hmm?”

  Kane just kept looking at Kelly. He heard a snigger from behind.Easy, he told himself. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “One of the white coats from Delta has gone AWOL. Left Delta apparently.”

  “So—aren’t they free to come and go?”

  Kelly grinned. “Sure they are. Whaddya think, this is a prison? Let’s say…they’re just worried about him. Sometimes the pressure, you know, gets to them, or some kind of bullshit. So I want you to go find him and bring him back.”

  “Does he have one of those”—Kane looked down at a security bot standing ready—“tailing him?”

  “No such luck. At his level, he can override the bot. But no matter, his PDA is telling us where he’s headed. So you got to follow the signal. I’ve had Command link your PDA to his. So—get the hell going.”

  “Me too, Sarge?” Smitty asked.

  Kelly shook his head. “No. Don’t want to make a big deal of this. So you stay here. And don’t call me Sarge again, if you like staying alive. It’s Sergeant.” Then back to Kane: “You just go get the scientist on your own. And remember—don’t hurt the bastard.”

  “Where is he headed?”

  Kelly shook his head. “That’s the weird thing, Kane. He’s in the old underground wing. Leads just about nowhere—except to an abandoned EVA port and the old comm wing.”

  Kane looked at his PDA. And he could see that he had, along with full schematics of Mars City, a new map showing a blip tracking the scientist as he made his way underground.

  Kane looked up. “Sergeant—maybe a better weapon?”

  Kelly shook his head. “Nah, you got two good USSM sidearms, with plenty of clips. And if you use them, then you will have—guess what?—fucked up again. Now move it.”

  There was more laughter from the marines standing around as John Kane began his solo trek to the underbelly of Mars City.