“Sloppy, sloppy.”
What he did not see was Wolf popping open the maintenance hatch in the elevator’s ceiling. Wolf climbed up and into the shaft, followed by Catfish and Sands. Wolf secured one end of a rope and dropped the other through the hatch, to Angel, who secured it to a harness around his waist. He gave Sands a thumbs up. The others likewise signaled their readiness, and Sands said, “Hit it!”
Angel punched the bottom button, and the elevator started down, dropping away as he was pulled by the rope through the hatch and left dangling in the air. Sands grabbed the taught rope and swung Angel over to a foothold. Once he was secure, they all watched as the elevator car sank down into the darkness.
“Let’s see if he takes the bait,” Sands said.
In his lab, Einstein watched the indicator light on his master control panel as it tracked the elevator’s progress, blinking Deck Two, Deck Three, Deck Four…
“Where are you going, little men?”
The indicator blinked past Deck Nine.
“Below decks.” Quickly, Einstein threw a switch, then several others in quick succession. “And there you’ll stay.”
As Sands and his party clung to their handholds, there was the jolt and whine of turbines powering down, and the mechanical clatter of all the ship’s elevators as they started downward, carried to the bottoms of their shafts by their own weight.
Sands spoke into a radio on his shoulder. “Ahmer, you read me?”
“Ahmer here.”
“Einstein bought it.” There was a long pause. “Ahmer?”
“Repeat, please?”
Sands rolled his eyes. “That means it worked.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“Radio silence. We’re going down. Out.”
The elevator shaft had a single ladder that ran from top to bottom, bolted to the interior girders. Angel, already below the others, led the way. Although there was no surveillance within the shaft, its structure was only partially enclosed, leaving the climbers exposed at times to anyone who might be looking. The semidarkness that enveloped the whole ship, darker still in the shaft, worked to their advantage. It was slow going, but they climbed steadily down, one after the other, descending past the stenciled legends that marked each deck, all the way to seven.
Reaching their destination, Angel shifted his feet from the ladder to the narrow ledge at deck level, inching out of the way to make room for Sands and the others. Wolf came last, and he regarded the bulkhead legend 7 VIOLENCE 7 with a mordant smile.
“That’s what you call foreshadowing.”
Sands thumbed the safety on his weapon and threw the bolt. The others followed suit.
“When we go through those doors we’ll be exposed to live surveillance. Let’s hope Einstein is taking a coffee break.”
He gave the signal. Angel jimmied the doors, and they were in.
***
It wasn’t coffee Einstein was having in his quarters adjacent to the Psycho Ward lab, but the Process equivalent of fried chicken. He was packing equipment and personal items into a case, pausing now and again to sample one of the rectangular slabs from a tray on his bed, licking his fingers between each bite and wiping them on his pants.
There was a monitor in his quarters, but he wasn’t watching it. The screen simultaneously showed four images that rotated among the many cameras on Violence Deck. Confident he had stymied the Drone insurgency, and preoccupied with preparations for his own escape, he didn’t notice the images of four armed men flitting across the screen as they made their way out of the elevator shaft to the Deck Seven mezzanine.
As he thumbed through a folder of notes, a poster over his desk caught his eye. It was an old Tastes Like Mom’s ad, depicting a younger and better-groomed Garrick “Buddy” Henderson, bending down to sample a bite proffered by his adorable little mom. Thinking about his mom always brought back happy memories, but he didn’t smile wistfully or hold back a tear or even particularly notice her. He gazed instead at the younger version of himself, mentally comparing the image to the man he was now. It wasn’t just that he was older, or that his milky complexion had turned sallow and pockmarked. The young Buddy Henderson was tall and gangly, his shoulders narrow, his muscles underdeveloped. With his frizz of black hair, thin face, and prominent nose, he looked like some sort of strange, featherless bird. His hair was graying now, and although he no longer consciously cultivated his commercial “brand” of the quirky, bow-tied scientist, it was just as wild. His face had become broader, as had his shoulders, but he wasn’t fat. His arms and legs had become thick with muscle and sinew. He looked at his hands. They had once been the delicate appendages of a sequestered academic, but they were thick and rough now. He picked up a metal drinking cup, the kind that—because of its potential as an improvised weapon—was strictly forbidden among the inmates. It was surprising, even to him, how easily he could crush it.
As he contemplated the collapsed aluminum cylinder in his hand, an image on the monitor behind him went bright white with the flare of a thermite charge. Cerberus, who had been dozing in a corner, perked up, its eyes watching the flare go dim. Four dark figures appeared in the waning glow, threw back the blown hatch, and scrambled through before the image cycled to another view of the deck.
Cerberus whined and barked, but by the time Einstein turned to look, he saw nothing on the monitor but four images of stillness, cycling through their regular rotation.
“Now, now,” he said, tossing slabs of artificial chicken across the room to three eager mouths. “Hasn’t Daddy taught you not to beg?”
***
The flare from the thermite charge Wolf used to breach the entrance to the Psycho Ward was so bright it dazzled them even with shielded eyes. The open hatch gaped like the black mouth of a bottomless pit, but they couldn’t stand in the open waiting for their eyes to adjust, and they didn’t want to risk drawing attention to themselves by using their torches. Sands forged ahead.
Once they were in, it only took a moment before their eyes recovered and details of the chamber began to emerge. The overhead lights were off, but running lights along the floor glowed dimly, showing the way between two long rows of cages. The only other light came from the series of green LEDs that indicated each cage was secure.
Most of the cages were small ones in stacks, populated with rats and monkeys, but there were larger cages as well, with chimpanzees and even pigs. Except for the rustle of movement and a wheezing pant somewhere down the line, the chamber was completely quiet. Sands wondered if most of the animals weren’t dead.
“Cristo!” Angel crossed himself and kissed the gold crucifix that hung from his neck. “I thought this kind of animal experiment shit was against the law.”
The others gave Angel a look that made him wish he had kept quiet. Sands signaled them forward.
As they progressed down the line it became apparent these were no ordinary animals and they had been subjected to no ordinary experiments. In the shadows the men could make out misshapen creatures, some with too many legs, some with too few, some with strange growths and artificial appendages. They averted their eyes, focusing on the twin lines of running lights that would lead them out.
Someone said, “We’re gonna burn this motherfucker to the ground when we get through.”
The next hatch they came to was shut but unsecured. A quick scan showed no alarms, and Sands clicked the latch and eased it open. All clear. They couldn’t get through fast enough.
The second chamber was much like the first, but the cages were larger and they were all filled with men.
“Guinea pigs,” Sands breathed.
“You say something?”
Sands answered Catfish with a gesture forward.
Like the men in the cages they had encountered on their way to rescue Wolf, these men were no ordinary prisoners; they were experimental subjects. But whatever experiments they were undergoing, these men must have been further along in the process. Their shapes and faces were distort
ed, as if they all suffered from some form of gigantism. Most looked human enough, but Sands caught glimpses of some grotesques that would have put Bloodyface to shame. They muttered, they keened, they screamed. But no one talked. Not words.
Sands, Catfish, and Angel tried not to make eye contact, tried not to even look. But Wolf would not turn away. This could have been his future.
“We open these cages, something tells me we won’t be greeted as liberators.”
The keening and wailing from the Psychs was getting louder, as if the presence of outsiders agitated them. Sands double-timed it, but this only seemed to agitate them more. They came to the next hatch, also latched but unsealed, and wasted no time in getting through and closing it behind them.
They were in the lab now. The overhead lights were dimmed as if on reserve power, and the place glowed in a twilight of video monitors, electronic displays, and LEDs. The first thing Sands noticed were the three autopsy tables. Fortunately, each of them was unoccupied, the stainless steel clean and gleaming.
Catfish pointed to an area on the right. “Look there. Looks like his command center.”
They moved in for a closer look. They saw the bank of video monitors, the big captain’s chair that swiveled amongst an array of controls.
“This is it, all right,” Wolf said. “Looks like he’s got control of the whole ship, right here at his fingertips.”
He punched a button. “Deck Nine.” The monitors depicted a multitude of views of Treachery Deck. He punched another, with the same result. “Deck Eight.” The images were all quiet, everyone in their cells. “Let’s see how the Vestibule looks.” He punched another button, but this time all the screens came up blank, except two. One was of the exterior of the Vestibule, which the Drones had not blacked out, since it was their eyes on their own immediate vicinity.
“Not bad,” Catfish observed. “Looks like we just about got them all. But what’s that one there?”
The image was of Hari, staring intently into the camera, his face bathed in a warm glow. The glow subsided, and he pulled back a door, reached in, and came back with a bowl of noodles.
“Microwave. Sneaky bastards put a camera in the microwave.”
Angel caught Sands staring into space.
“What is it, Sands?”
Sands was looking past the bank of monitors to the balcony from which Einstein would observe the battles in the Arena. He had always seemed to take a special interest in Sands’ battles. How many times had Sands looked up from the Arena floor to see Einstein staring down on him? He tried to remember the number of kills the emcee had credited him for. He didn’t like to keep track himself.
“Sands?”
“Mm?” Sands snapped out of his reverie. “Nothing. Let’s move on.”
Wolf caught Sands by the sleeve. “Sands, we’ve got what we need right here. If we keep Einstein out, he can’t do shit. Two men oughta be able to hold him off. The other two can go disarm the bomb.”
Sands thought about it, but it was no go. “First of all, we don’t know what Einstein can do. Second, we’re not splitting up until we find him.”
Wolf checked his watch. Or Desmond’s watch, since that’s who he had taken it from. “We’re cutting it close, Cap.”
“We’d better move then.”
They made their way back past the autopsy tables, coming to a series of what looked like incubators, each containing a different human organ, some floating in amber-colored baths, others suspended among a tangle of tubes that appeared to be filled with blood and other organic liquids.
Sands stopped cold before an incubator that contained a suspended human head. It stood mounted on a stainless steel rod that must have been fixed to the spine, the cranium held upright by a crown of smaller rods bolted to the forehead and back. A webwork of tubes large and small fed into the neck, cycling blood and lymph in a pulsing flow like a slow heartbeat. The eyes were closed, the flesh as ruddy as if alive.
“Fergus.”
Angel crossed himself again.
“You know him, Sands?”
“Yeah. Lucky bastard got paroled to Limbo Deck.”
“Guess he didn’t make it.”
Sands was a praying man, of sorts, but he wasn’t the type to offer up pleas for the souls of the departed. He stared at Fergus’ dead face with little feeling but queasiness.
But then Fergus stared back. His eyes snapped open and fixed on Sands like a man startled out of sleep. His mouth worked in silent speech.
Everyone—that is, everyone but Wolf—jumped back in startled fright. Sands jumped back so suddenly he knocked over a standing rack of biometric monitors. It hit the floor with a crash.
In Einstein’s quarters, the head of a Chihuahua perked up at the sound, muffled by bulkheads but still distinct. Two giant mastiffs followed. The Chihuahua growled.
“What is it, Cerberus?” Einstein thought he had heard something too. He put aside his packing and turned his attention to the surveillance monitor.
In the lab, Sands and his crew had come to the hatch that led to Einstein’s living quarters. It was a large, metal door—large enough for a seven-foot-tall man to step though without stooping—with a single lever to open it.
Wolf tried the latch. “This one’s sealed.”
On the door frame next to the lever was a red button, under which was the single word “OPEN.”
“Should we try the button?” Angel asked.
Catfish replied, “So Einstein can buzz us in?”
“Better blow it.”
Wolf nodded his assent to Sands and applied thermite to the latch and hinges. “Fire in the hole,” he announced as everyone took cover. “Five, four, three, two…”
The images on Einstein’s monitor cycled through to the lab just in time to catch the thermite charge. As the men on the monitor converged on the compromised hatch, Cerberus leapt to its four feet, its massive chest contracting in sharp spasms as its three grafted-on heads barked warning.
Einstein pointed in the direction of the lab. “Cerberus, to the lab. Attack!”
The creature galloped away, its slavering mastiff heads emitting low growls, its Chihuahua head yipping madly.
In the lab, the hatch was compromised but still firmly in place. Sands gripped the latch as Angel and Catfish positioned pry-bars on either side.
“On three. One, two—”
The lights went out.
Catfish said, “Uh-oh.” With his ear almost to the bulkhead, he thought he heard the sound of something approaching on the other side.
“Pull it,” Sands ordered. “Now!”
“Sands, wait—”
The hatch burst open. Cerberus charged through, bowling over the three men at the door. Sands was pinned beneath the heavy slab of metal, pummeled as feet seemed to jump up and down upon it with the intent of pounding him through the deck. He heard the snaps and snarls of a wolf pack. He heard shouts and screams. Something bit him above the ankle with such force he could feel the teeth through his body armor. He struggled free, lashing out at the beast with his knife, but he only struck metal. Someone got off some shots. There was a yelp, and the beast was gone.
“What the holy fuck was that!” Angel was on his hands and knees, panting, a tendril of blood making its way down one arm.
Catfish sat flat on his backside, his smoking bullpup propped in his lap. “I think I hit it. I couldn’t hardly see.”
Sands struggled to his feet, his one leg throbbing. He turned his torch on it. He could see where the teeth had pierced the armor, but he didn’t see any blood. Probably he had a bruise, nothing more.
“Where’s Wolf?”
Sands swept the darkness with his flash. A glimpse of red. “Wolf!”
They scrambled over to him. He was on his back, his hands to his neck, thick gouts of blood flowing over his fingers. Catfish snagged a roll of gauze from a cabinet. Sands took hold of Wolf’s wrists and, looking him in the eye, eased his hands away.
“Easy, Bro, easy.”
Resisting at first, Wolf let his hands fall away. A long, jagged wound exposed the white of his trachea. His torn jugular pulsed red. Sands took the gauze and tried to stanch the bleeding, packing the wound as fast as he could. Catfish took one of Wolf’s hands, Angel the other, as Sands continued to press the wound, but the blood was coming too fast. Wolf looked at each of his three comrades and tried to speak, but only bubbles of blood came to his lips.
“We’re here, Bro,” Angel told him, chafing his hand. “We’re here.”
Wolf squeezed once, and his hand went limp.
Catfish passed his hand over Wolf’s eyes, pressing the lids closed.
The men bowed their heads in grief, but there was no time to mourn. A thunderous buzzer sounded in staccato bursts. They gaped at each other, knowing it could only mean one thing—the Psycho Ward cells were opening en masse.
“Let’s go,” Sands said quietly. He and Angel rose and began their retreat, but Catfish lingered. The Psychs were already at the lab entrance. “Catfish! Let’s go!”
Catfish laid a hand on Wolf’s shoulder. “We’ll be back for you, Brother.”
-17-
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—Winston Churchill
“Go! Go! Go!”
The Psychs were through the hatch. As Catfish set out at a dead run, Sands pitched a flash-bang over his head, bouncing it into the middle of the pack. It slowed them, but they kept coming. He waited at the hatch into the main quarters for Catfish to get through, and slid two more flash-bangs across the deck into their midst. The Psychs wailed in confusion and anger. Some blindly thrashed about the lab, sending incubators flying. Others seemed hardly fazed.
Sands signaled Angel and Catfish forward. He pulled the broken hatch back against the portal to slow the Psychs down, but it was wasted effort. Looking back as he ran, he saw that they scarcely missed a step as they tossed it aside. There was a shout from Angel.
Inferno 2033 Book Two: Perdition Page 10