by Mark Ayre
“Greek mythology is fascinating,” Pandora continued. “There are many exciting monsters of which you are no doubt familiar—Cerberus, the multi-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades; the sphinx, a creature with a human head, lion’s body and eagle’s wings; the Hydra, with the awesome ability, upon decapitation, to grow two heads from the resulting stump. What you may not know is that each of these creatures and countless more were the progeny of one blissful union.”
By now, the spheres were the size of beach balls, each one multicoloured and rotting. Putrid. The smell was foul.
Pandora continued, “The primal giant serpent, Typhon and the sea creature Echidna.”
From one orb burst a slimy grey and green tentacle; from the other a blood-red hand.
“Typhon and Echidna,” said Pandora. “That is what I will name my children.”
The orbs still grew. They were three-foot tall and almost as wide. Pandora looked at Isla.
“Your grandchildren.”
A second controller was throwing up while Michael had taken to screaming. Steadman still stood but looked ready to collapse any second. He emitted whimpers Isla would never have imagined could come from this powerful bully of a man.
From the first orb, the trailblazing tentacle was joined by nine more, before tens of ant-like legs followed. From beneath the layer of skin emerged a head like no snake, human or creature Isla had ever seen or could ever have imagined. Hundreds of eyes, welts and boils. A gaping mouth within which were visible tens of razor-sharp fangs.
A second and third hand had burst from the second orb. What followed was a face like a fencing mask: featureless; devoid of eyes, mouth, nose. Blood-stained hair topped the head in a matted mess. The three arms were affixed at random points to a muscled purple torso. Twelve huge scorpion-like legs were the last to arrive.
By now, both creatures were the size of men. They did not appear to have stopped growing.
Isla was numb. She could not move nor scream nor cry; nor did she feel fear. As when the body experiences so much pain, it can no longer process it, she was beyond the point of terror and seemed to feel nothing at all.
“Obviously,” said Pandora, smiling. “My children look like neither sea monster nor giant snake. Still, I like the name Typhon—” She turned to the creature from the first orb that, while only just over six feet, seemed to possess over a hundred limbs; a mixture of tentacles, human arms and insect legs. A second head had joined the first. Instead of hundreds of eyes, this head had only one; Instead of a fang-filled mouth, it had something reminiscent of a rhino’s horn, only far longer and sharper.
“My sweet,” said Pandora. “You know what to do.”
Though its legs were of varying sizes, though each seemed to get in the way of the next, though it appeared the monster would struggle to walk, let alone run, it left the room with incredible speed. One second it stood before them, next it was out of the door and gone.
“Echidna,” called Pandora to the second monster which now stood at near eight feet. “I want Michael, Steadman and my mother. The rest are yours.”
There was silence around the room. The four controllers were too terror stunned to speak. They could only stare at the monster which rotated between them, turning that vast, featureless face from one to the next.
Through Isla’s head, unbidden: eenie, meenie miniee, moe.
Echidna stopped. The man she faced seemed to sense what was happening.
“No,” he whispered
Before he could say another word, the monster pounced.
At the lifts, Sandra pressed call, and they waited in silence.
Eve could tell her mother was building to say something. She did not want to get in the way of that. The lift came. They got inside. The closing doors seemed to act as the switch which turned Sandra from mute to chatterbox.
“Do you remember the summer after your seventeenth birthday, Francis’ men caught us in an ambush, drove us into the hills, to that holiday home?”
Eve nodded. “Must have been two months before you—” she gave her mother a pointed look—“died.”
“Right,” said Sandra. Apparently unabashed. “And do you remember what we found in that holiday home?”
“A family. Mum, dad, teenage son and two annoying little girls. Were they twins?”
“If not, they were very close in age.”
Eve noted the panel to her left. One button per floor and a slot awaiting a key card. Eve pointed.
“Do you need to…?”
“In a minute.”
Sandra was staring ahead, not looking at her daughter. Though her mother might not pick up the gesture, Eve nodded.
Sandra said, “They were annoying. I wanted to ignore them but Adam, being Adam, gave them some advice. You remember that?”
“He told them to split up.”
“He wanted to increase the chances at least one of them would survive.”
“Who would have pinned Adam for a mathematician?”
Sandra smiled. She withdrew her key card but did not insert it into the slot.
“They said they would never split. Not a chance because—”
“If they couldn’t be together, there was no point in being alive.”
“That’s right,” said Sandra. “It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Dad really loved his family; he would have given his life to save his children, but that isn’t the point.”
“That’s good.”
“The point,” said Sandra, “Is that it got me thinking about the point.”
Eve looked at her mother, who didn’t look back. That card was still between her fingers. The lift was stationary, the doors closed.
“After I gave birth; after I held you and your brother, all those hate-filled thoughts disappeared, and I could think of nothing but how to keep you safe. You say I never seemed to love you, I was cold, but that was my defence mechanism, I couldn’t drop it. I was sure any day you would be taken from me. I didn’t want to be too connected. It was stupid. All I did was make you feel unwanted.”
Sandra let out a breath, then brushed away the last comment with a hand.
“Too late now. Doesn’t matter. Point is I wanted to keep you safe, and at first, I thought that meant letting the facility have you. But it got more and more dangerous. One of their tests almost killed Adam.”
“What?” Eve’s eyes widened. Though the tests had happened many years ago, though she knew Adam had not died, her heart raced as though the danger was imminent.
Sandra nodded. “Two years old and they gave him a heart attack. Scared the life out of me. That was when I said: enough. These days, this place is a fortress. Back then, not so much. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to escape. I ran for the hills, found somewhere to hide. You and Adam fell asleep in the same bed and, as I watched you, I promised to do whatever it took to keep you safe. I swore it on my life.”
Eve was back to staring at the lift doors, not looking at her mother.
“Let me guess,” she said. “That changed in that holiday home, with that family.”
“For fifteen years or so, I’d kept my promise,” said Sandra. “It was only when I met that family I started to think—what was the point in living if you had to spend your lives on the run? In a moment, I knew it couldn’t go on. Something had to change.”
“And that something was you coming back here?”
“I told them I’d had enough of running. I offered them the chance to capture the three of us. Said, if they failed to catch their prize, I would reenter the red room.”
“What?”
Eve’s jaw was hanging. She shook the shock and focused on the lift door.
“We escaped,” said Eve. “You must have been devastated.”
Sandra chuckled. “You were supposed to escape.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew they’d never catch you. I had trained you too well. My only fear was that Adam’s sentimentality would trip him up, even when it appeared I h
ad died. Luckily, you kept him on the straight and narrow.”
Only just, Eve recalled. Adam had tried to go back. It had taken all her strength and desperation to remove him from that place. Otherwise, everything could have been so different.
“But why?” said Eve. “You can’t have known you’d survive another go in the red room?”
“I didn’t,” said Sandra. “But you don’t understand what it was like. Every day, hate and self-loathing. The only thing that kept me going was my promise to keep you safe. Meeting the family at that holiday home blew that way. I made a choice. Either I would die and be at peace, or I would survive, and work to save you.”
“You survived,” said Eve. “Obviously.”
“I survived,” confirmed Sandra. “I became a mother again.”
Somehow, it had not occurred to Eve that Sandra’s survival meant another child. Part of her didn’t want to know more. The question came anyway.
“Which one?”
“Lucy. She was born, and I spent twelve years working my way first into and then up the ranks, knowing one day I would be powerful enough to recapture my firstborns and help free you from your misery.”
At last, Sandra took the key card and pushed it into the reader. When the red light went green, she pressed for the lowest floor before withdrawing the card and sliding it away.
“I’ve succeeded, Eve,” she said. “I know none of this makes sense now, but I am one step from the throne, and I can do what I set out to do when I faked my death and abandoned my children. No more running, and you won’t be prisoners, either. It won’t be the perfect life of which you have probably dreamed many times but---”
A bing signalled the end of their short journey and cut Sandra off. For the first time, she looked at Eve.
“We’ll talk more once we have Adam. For now, game face on.”
The lift doors slid open. Sandra stepped out without hesitation.
After a pause, head still reeling, heart thudding with confusion, Eve followed her mother in pursuit of her brother.
They didn’t need their guns. Joel stepped into the open-plan office and knew instantly; his soldiers had lost a battle. A quick review of the bodies revealed no unfriendlies.
“We should get you out of here, sir.”
Joel glared at his bodyguard, then approached the still wide metal doors which would lead him deeper into the facility.
“I’m going nowhere.”
A floor below, they went straight for the control room, encountering no enemies on the way.
“What’s going on?” Joel asked the moment he entered the room.
A few seconds of stuttering preceded an explanation. Adam and Eve had escaped their cells. Delilah and Grendel were loose in the building. They had destroyed the forces sent to capture them with the traitor Omi, a stranger, and three of the red room mothers.
As the story went on, Joel’s fists clenched tighter and tighter, until his skin was so white as to almost be translucent; what little nails he kept had drawn blood from his palm.
“Where are they now?”
The controller pulled up a camera view; Sandra and Eve left a lift on the lowest floor. At the sight of that treacherous snake, Joel’s anger took another step towards fury. He could not wait to kill her.
“We believe Adam is down there too,” the man told Joel.
“I’ve got Delilah and Grendel,” said another controller. “Looks like they’re taking a lift to -4 as well.”
Joel took a deep breath. This simplified the situation at least.
“I want every able-bodied man, woman and shitting child to grab a weapon, and take the nearest lift to -4,” he said. “They are to secure the red room children and kill anyone who stands beside them except Sandra. I want to kill her myself.”
With curt nods, the controllers got on the radios, mustering everyone they could find, directing them per Joel’s instructions.
Gun redrawn, Joel turned for the door.
“Sir,” said his bodyguard. “I’m not sure you should—”
“Shut up.”
Joel had only stepped into the corridor when Steadman phoned.
Answering, Joel said, “You are exempt from my commands. Has the latest trial taken place?”
“It has, and it was a rousing success.”
The voice was silky and alluring; it belonged not to Steadman but an unknown woman.
“Who is this?”
“Pandora, the final product of the red room. Born mere minutes ago and you should see me now. I’ve grown into a beautiful young woman if I do say so myself. My growth spared my lucky mother the nappy changes, terrible twos and the horrors of adolescence.”
“Why are you ringing me from Steadman’s phone?” asked Joel.
“I’ve not had time to arrange my own, duh.” Pandora chuckled. The contemptuous laugh had Joel ready to explode.
“I don’t have time for this.”
“You must come to the red room,” said Pandora. “I need to see you.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I am merely telling you what you should do. My siblings can wait, as can auntie Sandra. You must come here now, though, if you are to fulfil your destiny.”
Joel stared ahead, into nothing. He remembered his thoughts in the car on the way here.
“What do you mean my destiny?”
“You wanted to change the world, didn’t you?” asked Pandora. “Well… you’re about to.”
Rachel led the way. Hot on her heels, Ursula did the talking.
“It’s simple, we get to the bottom floor and rescue Cassandra, Noah and Tameka. Then we work our way up, getting the twins as we go, destroying every damn item that has value to the organisation. We see any of their staff; we kill them, no questions asked.”
As though to test her conviction, three guards appeared. Without hesitation, Rachel and Ursula raised their shotguns and let loose. In the narrow space, even without aiming, two of the agents were cut down in an instant, the third winged. Despite this setback, she raised her gun, only to falter at the sight of Graham, shooting down the hall like a rocket, jaw open wide.
While Graham devoured the corpse, Rachel approached and called the nearest lift. As they waited, Delilah pulled Hattie close. When Omi had offered them the chance to flee, Hattie had been unsure, but Delilah was determined. They needed to see this through together. They needed to help Ursula and Rachel. Hattie felt empathy for her fellow mothers and their children but struggled to see past her fear for her daughter. The look on Omi’s face suggested he felt much the same way.
The lift came, Ursula called her son and, somehow, they all crammed in. In silence, they travelled to -4 and spilled out.
All was not quiet. Feet moved, guards appeared almost at once—five of them; one each for Doc, Omi, Ursula, Rachel and Graham. Gunfire rang through the corridors. The enemy died before they knew what was happening.
“Come on,” said Ursula. “Cassandra first.”
On the floor, the radio of one of the felled agents crackled. The group paused; it was Rachel who swept down to collect.
“Direct order from Joel; all available personal must arm themselves and head to floor -4. Repeat, all personal to floor -4. Red room children and Sandra must be apprehended. Terminate anyone who stands with the prisoners.”
Ursula turned off the radio. For a moment, there was silence.
Then Doc let out a breath.
“Well,” he said. “That’s us buggered then.”
Saskia had been a lover of pyjamas. Her favourite set comprised short shorts patterned with grinning sharks and a top emblazoned with a teddy holding a hand-grenade. It took extreme temperatures in either direction to persuade her to wear anything else. Thus, when she stood, Adam was unsurprised to learn she had insisted upon bringing them to the cage in which the organisation had left her to rot after faking her death.
He had a million questions. He could not help but cross the room and pull
Saskia into his arms. For as long as he could hold her close, they kissed. Eventually, the building storm of questions became too much, pushing the pair apart. Even then, Adam’s first words were a statement.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
She stroked his cheek. Smiled. For a few moments, Adam wondered if she might be mute. It was apparent the Saskia who had appeared before him in his cell had been some form of apparition. Her speech then was not proof that the organisation had not torn the tongue from the real Saskia’s mouth. The kiss, on the other hand, was.
At last, she did speak. It was not the words Adam had hoped to hear.
“We don’t have long.”
Adam glanced to the door. His hands were still on Saskia’s hips. When he turned away, he kissed her again and shook his head.
“Anyone comes in; I’ll kill them to give us seconds longer together. I’ll kill everyone in this building anyway, for what they’ve done to you.” He examined the room. “It’s not even a nice cell.”
“Not as nice as yours anyway.”
“Have you been here since I lost you?”
“I’ve been here a lifetime.”
A churning began in Adam’s stomach. Again he examined the cell, bereft of anything but the bed on which she had lain. A day in here might feel like a year. By that maths, her eight-year stint would have seemed like nearly three millennia. A lifetime? Try forty.
“They’ll pay for what they’ve done to you.”
Saskia shook her head; took Adam’s hands in her own.
“No fury or punishment you could enact on our imprisoners will be so dire as the fate they may suffer before night’s end. Forget them. Focus your energy on the preservation, not the destruction of life.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“No, and that’s okay. We haven’t much time. For now, you must listen; later, you will understand.”
“I don’t—”
She silenced him with a kiss. When they seperated, she put her finger to his lips.
“Listen,” she said. “I cannot see the future as can Cassandra—”
“Who’s Cassandra?”