Progenitor

by Antony J Woodward

  It sounded like a shit idea but she didn’t have a lot of options. Her eyes rested on the broken lift. It felt like destiny slapping her in the face.

  She took a deep breath and knew she had to get on with it. She slipped around the corner and peeked into the two doorways. They were filled with long white tables and dark navy chairs sculpted out of some hard synthetic material. They looked more like conference rooms than offices, but who was she to judge. She glanced up, the vent mouth was high but within reach if she used a chair and placed it on top of the table. She stepped inside, she’d half expected to find a Tethu cowering a corner but there wasn’t. She grabbed a chair and hoisted it onto the table. She did it as quietly as she could manage but the strange material scraped against the metal table. A little squeak made her heart skip a beat. Nothing followed. She exited the room, entered the one opposite. She placed another chair on the table underneath the vent. She was giving herself options. There was nothing else of note in this room either. The rooms felt so utilitarian, so devoid of personality. It was like a corporate Hell. Monochromatic and bland.

  She hopped off the table and exited into the corridor. She’d already deduced that climbing into the ventilation system while the creature was in it was pure suicide. She needed some way to draw the creature out.

  “Krahm…” she called.

  “…Yes?” Hearing her own voice sound defeated caused a strange reaction, she felt inspired to survive.

  “I’m going to set the emergency sirens off, then I’m going to climb into the vents. When I do, I’ll need you to guide me in the right direction. Can you do that for me?”

  “Why are you setting the alarms off again?”

  “To draw it out, to make the path clear… I can’t risk being in the vents with it…”

  “Ok… I’ll bring up a map,”

  “You need to be quick Krahm, I won’t have much time…”

  She heard movement in one of the other offices but she didn’t care for it. She turned and headed for the stairwell. She was aware of the silence cloaked around her but this time she felt it was just a window of reprieve. It was her moment. She headed up the stairs and turned into the observation deck once more.

  As she slipped through the door and saw the mysterious artefact once more, she felt a familiarity wash over her. This purposeful and strong sense of control was familiar. It felt like she’d slipped into a familiar old coat. Seeing the strange relic reminded her of her old self. The courageous and strong explorer that had been propelled by a thirst for information. The unknown had been her drug of choice and she had eventually overdosed on it. Now she had more unknown than she could ever process.

  She reached the console. Slotted her Hacker onto it.

  She waited for the device to connect.

  She took a breath. As soon as the alarms started she would have to clear this level and get down to one of the offices below. She would have to get in the vents and make her escape. She prayed that Krahm would have the directions ready.

  The icons appeared.

  She hit the ‘wiggly lines’.

  It took a moment to register.

  She closed her eyes and took a moment. She pulled herself together and took a very deep breath. This was it.

  She pushed the icon again.

  The lights flickered and the room plunged into darkness.

  She tore the Hacker from the console and turned 180 degrees. She navigated to the right and reached out for the wall. She felt it with one hand and she began to walk forward. She was walking forward blindly. She reached the door just as the lights flickered back on.

  The sirens began to pound around her and the yellow light began to pulse across the room.

  The door however hadn’t activated.

  “Come on…” she hissed as she waited for it to activate.

  There was clanging somewhere above her. It was barely audible against the sirens.

  The light on the door came back, but it was red.

  Shit.

  The clanging was nearing.

  She was just lifting the hacker to hack the door when the light blinked green and the door slid open. She pushed forward, aware that the Progenmorph was closing in quickly. Her heart had begun ascending her throat once more. She broke into a run and reached the stairwell. She was halfway down the stairs when she was sure she heard the sound of it crashing into the lab. She tore into the corridor and with the sound of her heart thundering in her ears she navigated to the nearest office she’d prepared. She entered it just in time to see a leg disappear into the vent. She immediately turned on the spot and entered the other one. The Tethu had borrowed her idea. She jumped onto the table, clambered onto the chair and threw the Hacker into the vent. She wasn’t so worried about making too much sound as the sirens were still blaring all around. They drowned out a lot of sounds.

  She threw herself at the vent and grabbed the lip. It took a lot of strength but she managed to hoist herself into it.

  “I’m in Krahm!” She shouted, the sirens were blaring in the vents.

  She heard a response but it was drowned out. She felt back and turned the volume all the way up.

  “I need directions Krahm,”

  “I have no idea where you are… But if you keep turning left you should eventually come to a junction that leads to a chute up to the next level…”

  She grabbed the Hacker, wishing it had some sort of clip or strap so she wouldn’t have to carry it by hand. She charged forward, turned left and followed it to the next junction. She was pleased no end that little yellow lights illuminated the vents. She turned left around the next corner and end up at a T-shaped junction. She had left or right. Krahm said left, so she followed his direction.

  She reached the next junction just as the sirens silenced.

  The sudden silence made her skin tingle.

  Somewhere deep in this labyrinth of tunnels Liara could hear movement. She looked both ways and spotted a ladder. It was the chute upwards. She crawled to it.

  She hoisted herself onto the ladder.

  “Are you there?”

  The radio seemed a little loud in the small confines of the chute suddenly but she lacked the spare hand to adjust it.

  “Yes, I’m heading up…”

  She began ascending. The sounds of her climbing echoed around her ears, she was all too aware of making so much noise but she couldn’t help it. She just hoped it was distorted in the tunnels.

  “Take the second exit, don’t climb all the way to the top. You’ll not manage to get past the cooling fan…”

  She had already passed one exit. She hoisted herself into the second one.

  “Done,” she barked.

  “Take a left, then another left…”

  She did. There was no rumbling around her but she wasn’t reassured by that fact.

  “Take a left, you should be at a grate. This is the elevator shaft…”

  She turned left only there was no grate. There was just a neat square opening.

  “There’s no grate, it’s open…”

  “Is it?” Krahm’s surprise was a little disconcerting, she couldn’t deny it.

  A distant shriek echoed nearby.

  She looked to her right, the tunnel was clear. A quick and awkward glance back told her the same. It was back in the vents.

  “Can you reach the ropes?”

  “Ropes? What ropes?”

  “Shit… The lift, it should’ve…” panic was beginning to rise over the radio.

  She peered into the elevator shaft. She could see a pair of ropes but they were out of reach.

  “I see them, I see them. But they’re too far away…”

  “Ok ok, I’ve got a new idea. Head towards the cooling fan,”

  “I thought you said I couldn’t get past it?”

  “I’ve managed to hack into the system, I can turn it off for a few seconds…”

  “Which way…?”

  “Head right from where you are… Follow the breeze,”
>
  That heart-stopping shriek echoed underneath her. It echoed in the shafts like a fractured collection of echoes. She headed right, not stopping to consider how underwhelming Krahm’s instructions was. She reached the next junction and hesitated. She was just going to ask Krahm when she became aware of a dull slicing of air and a faint breeze from her left. She headed towards it and emerged, after several more turns, underneath a giant fan.

  The giant blades sliced through the air with a rhythmic throb.

  “Now…” Krahm radioed through.

  The fan began to slow down.

  A shriek echoed around her. She stole her moment, grabbing the giant blade when it had suitably slowed and stalled it. She hoisted herself onto the rung and wrested herself up and out of the fan.

  “Quick Liara, it’ll suck you back in if you don’t get away…”

  Liara had a decent grasp of the physics of fans, so Krahm’s warnings served only to prompt her along. She clambered through the chute. Behind her the fan began to slowly pick up face.

  “Head up! Head up!”

  She took the next opportunity upwards, hauling herself up into another chute.

  The screams of the awful creature seemed to be reverberating nearby but she wasn’t sure if that was just the acoustics playing a wicked trick on her.

  She charged forward, slamming her hands and knees down hard with every inch. This was not the time for soft motion, this was anything but the time for that.

  “Up again Liara, you need to find the access panel…”

  As if on cue it appeared overhead. She recognised the grey metal. She clambered awkwardly to her feet and groped for the catch. She touched it. It slid open. The next room was small, a little pocket of space.

  “Now Liara, nearby there should be a control panel with three cranks. It’ll be yellow and black,”

  She searched the cramped room for it. There was pipes with red valves, small pipes with electrical panels and then, against the furthest wall from her, the yellow and black control panel. She rushed for it.

  “Turn the cranks clockwise… all the way,”

  She did so. They were stiff but yielded. The ceiling above her head slowly opened and revealed a room bathed in bright blue light. Around her she could hear metal scraping together and dull booms as mechanisms locked into place.

  “Get into the Observatory and nearby there should be a little panel. You need to lift the panel off and access the control…”

  Liara could hear the sound of water gushing, she assumed it was from the pipes. She threw herself up, not caring for what was in the room. She frantically found the panel, a little black and silver panel no bigger than her hand. She dug a finger into the lip and tore it off. She did so with a little too much force and it clattered away.

  “Press the big red button!”

  She didn’t press it. She punched it.

  A new alert tone began to emit from the panel. It was abrasive and like a squawk. She gritted her teeth. The compartment she’d just hoisted herself out of began to seal shut.

  After a few seconds it sealed airtight. The seal was white, made of a very thick and durable steel. The floor she was sprawled on breathlessly was just as white. She flopped onto her back. Her eyes closed and she felt the adrenaline zoom around her body.

  The tone began to beep, a countdown of sorts.

  Then it finished beeping.

  There was a faint sort of whoosh and then nothing.

  It was done.

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  Liara took the moment to catch her breath. She needed it. Her heart was practically hammering its way out of her chest. It hurt with every thump. Wasn’t that a film? Something erupting out of the chest? Sometimes her memories from Earth were a little hazy and she could just remember the vaguest of snippets.

  She took a deep breath and held it. She needed to regulate and normalise. Having another panic attack, or hyperventilating, would do her no good.

  An urge to cough rose and she flipped onto her side quickly.

  The hacking wet cough was as violent as earlier. Cough after cough that tore her throat, strained her lungs and made the blood vessels in her temples threaten to burst. She coughed and spluttered, trying to draw breaths between these violent compressions on her chest.

  After a few moments it passed and she was left with a strange taste in her mouth. She spat.

  Her saliva was tainted pink.

  Coughing up blood was not a good sign.

  She sighed.

  Just what she needed.

  Slowly she pulled herself upright and took stock of the room she was in.

  She was blown away by the sight. The walls were glass; rounded and curved like an aquarium. Spanning in almost every direction around her, on the other side of the glass, was water. Vivid blue water, a brilliant sort of blue. It was somewhat murky and cloudy, it was very much like the oceans of Earth. How deep below the surface was she though?

  She was underwater. All this time she’d been underwater. That explained why there was no windows on the research pod. She gawped in amazement at the ocean on all sides.

  She couldn’t believe it. She had just assumed she was in space, it had never occurred to her she was several leagues under the sea.

  In the centre of the room was a wrought iron stair case, a spiral staircase crafted from thin black elegant metal. It was beautiful and strange. Everything alien she’d encountered this far had been practical, functional to the nth degree. This, this was decorative.

  Behind her stood a black column that seemed to be attached to the building in design, it had a single door. By the small little control panel next to it Liara had deduced it was an elevator.

  “Liara?” Krahm’s call was apprehensive.

  “…I’m here…” Liara replied. Her chest felt a little tight and her breathing felt a little abrasive in her lungs. Idly she neared the ocean view. The water was so incredibly blue, so rich and vibrant despite being murky and gritty.

  “Are you okay? Was you coughing?”

  Coughing felt like an understatement. The imagery of coughing your lungs up crossed her mind.

  “…Yeah,” it felt like such a mundane answer yet she was appreciative of it. Her conversations with Krahm had been very intense up to now.

  “…Was there blood?”

  Liara’s interest snagged. It was the tone that did it, like Krahm was fearing a worst case scenario. Was he about to piss on her parade after jettisoning that goddamned monster to the bottom of the ocean? It would just be her luck.

  “…There was a little,”

  Krahm didn’t respond.

  Liara sighed to herself. Her sense of accomplishment was deflating faster than a punctured balloon.

  “…What is it?” she probed reluctantly.

  “…The process didn’t complete,” Krahm sounded solemn.

  “The process?”

  “The rejuvenation,”

  “Rejuvenation…” She repeated to herself. That explained her ‘resurrection’ from the brink of death. “Why?”

  Krahm stalled. She heard a sharp intake of breath and then a silence.

  “Why did you bring me back?” She cut to the chase.

  “It’s complicated…”

  “It’s complicated?! Are you seriously throwing that at me?!”

  “Look, I’ll tell you everything when you get topside. I promise,”

  “You told me that before…”

  “I mean it…I promise,”

  Liara felt a knot develop in her chest. She felt like she was being conned.

  “I’m sorry Liara, I promise I’ll tell you everything when you get topside,”

  She felt the urge to argue but she resisted. It was apparent that Krahm wouldn’t tell her yet. She groped for the disk drive lodged in her suit. Liara suspected this drive was a hardcopy of the Tethu’s research data, this would be useful. Krahm obviously wanted it, so come the right moment Liara planned to use it as leverage.

  “Where exactly am I
?”

  “You’re on… you would call it a Spire,”

  “But where?”

  “Our home planet…”

  “You brought me to your home planet…” Liara noted aloud. She was surprised. She felt new questions arise about the planet, but ultimately she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to ask them.

  “How do I get topside?” she added when Krahm didn’t add anything to the conversation.

  “You’ll need to head up. From the retail levels you should be able to find a direct route to the surface,”

  “Why can’t I just use the lift?” She glanced over her shoulder.

  “Erm… that lift was in the research pod,”

  Oh. That was a damned good reason.

  A shadow caught her attention from the corner of her eye. She glanced and caught sight of a Tethu. One of the researchers? It was swimming upwards several metres from the window.

  Liara watched it kick its powerful legs and strongly ascend through the water. How deep were they? The idea suddenly reoccurred to Liara. She had no idea how far below surface they was. She couldn’t see the surface, so they must be incredibly deep. Could the Tethu breathe underwater?

  A dark shape far off in the gloom slowly appeared.

  What was that?

  As the mysterious object slowly neared it grew larger and larger. The Tethu hadn’t noticed, it was too busy scanning the spire looking for an access point.

  The unfamiliar black shape took a sudden downwards turn and disappeared into the gloom of the ocean. The Tethu kept swimming.

  “I’ll head up,” she announced.

  Just as she stepped back from the window a giant creature burst up against the window. It moved too fast for Liara to fully identify but she was sure she’d seen a fin. She jumped but instantly sprang back up against the glass. The blur of motion struck the Tethu and rebounded away from the spire. Where the Tethu had been; only a single little chunk of foot remained. Liara’s eyes slowly widened in alarm as she saw the mysterious shape morph into a familiar one. As the creature turned to the side it revealed itself to be a distant impression of a shark. It looked like a Great White shark on steroids. It was astonishingly large, surely twice the size of a blue whale. It was muscular and its skin was jet black. Its mouth was filled with row upon row of jagged cruel teeth. It circled once and then disappeared back into the gloom.