by S. A. Lusher
“Come on,” Keron said, leading them towards the entrance.
Greg checked out his rifle and found it to be in good condition. He glanced back once over his shoulder, at the way they had come, just to be sure. He heard a loud, rapid clicking. Death behind and an unknown ahead.
Great.
One by one, they walked into the tunnel, swallowed by gloom.
CHAPTER 17
–Breaking the Machine–
Greg led the way, walking through a bare stone tunnel that was occasionally sprayed with blood. Sometimes they would pass deep gouge marks in the walls or ground. There were no bodies, though. Greg imagined that the bugs had eaten them, or maybe dragged them away from some worse, darker purpose. He kept his rifle tucked up into his shoulder, finger on the trigger, continually scanning the way ahead of him for new threats or hostiles. It should have been easy, but the tunnel kept curving and his visibility ended about five meters dead ahead constantly. His visor, cracked though it was, still cleaned up the gloom that no doubt saturated the tunnel. There was the occasional light, but none of them were lit.
He could hear the others moving behind him. It felt good to have them there with him. He still missed Kyra and thinking about her hurt in a way nothing else did, but Drake was his friend, and Eve was his friend and his girlfriend, someone he'd really come to trust, and Keron and Morrow were Spec Ops troops, men he felt he could trust to watch his back. How many things had he had to do by himself since waking up on that miserable, rainy mining planet? How many terrors had he faced down? For once, he had a clear goal ahead of him and solid back up behind him. It wasn't going to be easy, not by a long shot, but it no longer felt impossible.
The tunnel came to an end.
Greg led the way out of it and into a place that looked like an awkward amalgamation of nature, Cyr tech and human tech. Most of the floor, ceiling and walls were rough, bare stone. However, stuck along the walls and into the floor were nodes of glistening white tech that shone brilliantly in the dim gray gloom. Then, among that, were awkwardly placed gray and black workstations and terminals and consoles. There were also small stacks of crates, foldout tables and chairs and other bits and pieces of a human outpost.
At first, it seemed abandoned. It looked like the battle had come and gone. There was blood, both red and green, sprayed liberally across the area. Workstations were battered and sparking, what screens still functioned showed flickering displays of static. Here, there were actually bodies, both humans and bugs. Across the way, at the back of the room, was a large, open door that led to a cargo elevator. From the data they'd studied on the way out, Greg knew that the location they were looking for was buried deep underground.
That elevator should take them right to it.
However, as they began moving across the area, a far door opened and about two dozen men in midnight armor walked out. From the way they suddenly reacted to Greg's presence, he had an idea that Rogue Ops had only just gotten the bug problem under control, and had sent ahead a recon force to secure the main entrance once more. Several seconds of pure confusion reigned in the cavern as both sides began opening fire on each other and scrambling for cover. Greg very nearly died as he took a few precious seconds to put down three of the troops, shooting them in the chest or head, then dove for cover himself.
He made it behind one of the workstations, which immediately began to rattle and spark as a hail of gunfire started to rain down on him. Greg took a quick inventory of the others and saw that everyone else had made it behind cover. Good. As they began opening fire as well, the majority of the gunfire started to spread out, not apparently seeking him and him alone out. He took up the opportunity and quickly leaned out.
Snapping the scope up, he zeroed his sights in on a glass faceplate as a Rogue Ops trooper popped up from behind cover to try and get a bead on him. He squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. Twin shots seared across the air between them, hit the glass and shattered it. A spray of blood and glass flew on the air as the man was thrown backwards to the floor. Greg moved smoothly to the next target and repeated the process.
He burned through the magazine, ducking back down three times and putting down another three troopers, then slapped a fresh one in. But he was having a hard time. These guys were good. They kept this going: popping up, shooting, ducking back down, occasionally getting a lucky shot. Finally, three magazines and two grenades later, Greg put down the final Rogue Ops trooper. He waited a few seconds to see if anyone else would show up, but no one did. He and the others emerged from their hiding spaces.
Greg did another headcount and found everyone still alive and kicking. They all quickly made for the elevator, before backup arrived and made the situation that much more complicated. They all stepped into the cargo elevator.
“Hey...it goes down and up,” Morrow said as he studied the control panel.
“First down, then up,” Greg replied.
Morrow hit the button and the doors closed. The lift shot down into the earth, towards their ultimate goal. Greg couldn't help but wonder what might be up there. Perhaps Enzo. Hopefully, at least, a way home. The elevator continued to descend for what felt like far too long. It seemed that they went down at least a mile before it stopped. When it did, it ground to a sudden halt and the doors opened up, revealing another length of stone tunnel. This one, however, had a surprise waiting for them. Although, at first, it didn't seem like one.
Greg stared out a lot of corpses. They were strung out in a line, as though they'd been running from something, running towards the elevator. Something was certainly wrong with the picture, but he couldn't quite figure it at first. Greg stood at the edge of the elevator, the divide between the elevator and the tunnel, staring intently.
“What's the hold up?” Morrow asked unhappily.
Greg shushed him and studied the corpses. It finally came to him. They didn't seem shredded. About half of them wore body armor, the rest had on just jumpsuits. Body armor or no, if it was the bugs, they should have been absolutely shredded, blood everywhere. There certain was blood, but not enough of it.
Finally, Greg stepped forward, towards the nearest corpse, and knelt to study it. The cause of death became immediately apparent. The man had been shot in the back of the head. In fact, they all had, except for those who had turned to face their murderer. They had been shot in the face. Greg didn't like it. Each man and woman was shot simply once, always in the head. A perfect headshot in a corridor packed with moving bodies.
“Who could or would have done this?” Eve asked as the rest came out to join him.
“I...honestly don't know,” Greg replied. “But dead enemies are good enemies, I suppose.”
“Come on, we need to finish this,” Drake said.
They set off down the corridor, the five of them. Greg, Drake, Eve, Morrow and Keron. They walked until they had come to another cavern. This one was bigger than the one above, a huge stone hollow deep beneath the surface of a distant alien world. Greg emerged from the opening and came to a halt, frowning. Up ahead was a raised platform of Cyr tech. Their destination. All that stood between them and it was a single figure.
The assassin.
The man in white.
Perhaps five meters of space was between them. For a long moment, nobody moved. Greg knew that this man was dangerous and lethal and could have killed them all at once as they'd been walking up the tunnel. It was clearly what he'd done to the others, though Greg was having a hard time figuring out just why he'd done it.
“You're all here,” the assassin said suddenly, quietly. His voice was flat and curiously mute, with a heavy electric filter over it.
“Yes...what happened to them?” Greg replied.
“I wanted you all to myself...Genevieve isn't here? That's a shame. I was hoping to put an end to her personally...”
“Who are you?” Greg asked.
“No one you'd know. Any of you. Just an assassin, who got too good at what he did. Then Rogue Ops found me,
hired me. They promised to make me even better, which I thought impossible. But then they showed me an experimental program...they grafted Cyr technology directly into my body. I didn't even know it was possible.”
“It's not supposed to be possible,” Eve murmured. “It's been tried many times but no one has ever succeeded.”
“They have with me,” the assassin replied. “Now that we're all here, we can end this. I'll kill you, then I'll hunt down your friends and kill them.”
Greg knew then that the battle was going to start, and if they had any hope of winning it, their side needed to act first and fast. He'd been pointing his rifle in the direction of the assassin this entire time, though he'd been careful not to point it directly at him, lest he incur the man's wrath prematurely. Now he took aim and opened fire, squeezing the trigger as rapidly as he could. Around him, he could hear the others doing the same as well.
If it had been anyone else, they would have gone down under a hail of armor-piercing bullets. But this was the man in white. The assassin. Upgraded with Cyr tech. Two of the shots connected, as far as Greg could tell. One of them grazed his arm, another actually clipped his stomach. But that was it. Suddenly, he was moving, faster than seemed possible. He was racing towards them, into the bullet storm, and somehow not getting hit any more than twice. Then he was among them, moving like a thing possessed by a demon.
Greg realized, as the assassin's fist connected with his chestplate and cracked it, the force of the blow picking him up and sending him flying backwards several feet, that the assassin preferred to work up close, personal and with his hands. He hit the ground on his back and slid several feet before scrambling back into a standing position. He narrowly avoided Drake flying at him. Greg suddenly realized, as he went to shoot the assassin, that his rifle had flown from his hands. He pulled his pistol out and tried to take aim.
But the assassin was already moving again. He shouldered Morrow out of the way hard enough to send him sprawling, ducked down and kicked out Eve's legs and then took two quick steps forward and grabbed the end of Greg's pistol. He squeezed the trigger right as the assassin crushed the barrel and the gun exploded in their grasp. At the same time, the assassin punched Greg in the faceplate so hard that it shattered. Greg cried out in pain as he flew backwards again and several bits of glass flew into his face. He could feel blood seeping out.
As he scrambled once more to his feet, Drake rushed past him. Greg stumbled forward, weaponless but determined. Three of them hit him at once. Morrow leaped at him, and the assassin suddenly had a knife in his hand. He buried it in the man's neck and Morrow let out a scream and stumbled away, spurting blood. Drake tossed himself in a tackle at the assassin, who grabbed one of his arms and swung around, tossing him again. That's when Greg made his move. He leaped onto the assassin's back, wrapping both arms around his neck.
The assassin moved to get him off, but suddenly Eve was there with the assassin's bloody knife. While he was distracted trying to get Greg off, she drove the blade into his faceplate, shattering it and puncturing his skull.
The assassin didn't even get a chance to scream. Eve had hit something vital and it was like someone had flipped a switch. He suddenly went limp and fell forward. All three of them hit the stone ground. Greg let go of the man and rolled away, for a moment simply lying there, trying to get his breath back. Then, carefully, slowly, he sat up and disengaged his helmet. He tossed the broken thing away and looked at Eve.
“Hey,” she said, sitting up. They both looked down. The blade's handle stuck out of the assassin's broken faceplate. “Morrow didn't make it,” she said quietly.
“Drake? Keron?” he asked, slowly standing.
“Present,” Drake groaned. “Think I broke my arm, though.”
“Here, but my ribs are broken,” Keron replied.
“Join the club,” Greg muttered. Eve limped over to him, reached up and pulled one of the glass bits out of his face. “Ow!”
“Hold still,” Eve replied.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I'm fine. I think one of my legs might be broken, but I'll be fine. Hold still.”
She went back to pulling glass out of his face. Keron was making his way over to the raised platform in the middle. “I'll take care of this,” he said. “Make sure no one else shows up.”
Drake stood guard while Eve finished pulling the glass out of his face and applied some quick medical aid, over his weak protests that she should get off her leg. Keron finished it up. He punched in the sequence and, as he started making his way back, the entire cavern began to rumble and shake. The group quickly retreated back to the elevator and Greg punched the up button. The elevator shot upwards as the rumbling continued.
For a long moment, it seemed like a close thing. Everyone tensed as the tremors increased and the lights in the elevator dimmed noticeably. Then, right as it seemed something was going to give, the rumbling subsided and then died away completely. Greg let out a long sigh of relief. The elevator continued upwards and onwards.
“Now what?” Eve asked.
“Now we go to the top...and see if anyone is up there,” Drake replied.
* * * * *
The elevator doors opened onto a familiar scene.
Greg slowly stepped out, everything in his body hurting. He'd come to a large, square, open area. The floor was studded with workstations, terminals and power conduits. The far wall was made completely of glass, giving an epic view of the surrounding wilderness. Judging by how far the elevator had gone up, they were probably about half a mile up. This Rogue Ops base was built into the side of the mountaintop.
Bodies were strewn everywhere.
At the center of all this was a raised platform, not unlike the one they'd just left, downstairs. Greg moved past the corpses. A single man sat on the raised platform, surrounded by consoles and screens that were all shut down.
“You've ruined it,” he said quietly.
Greg studied the man as they approached him and fanned out, covering him. He was definitely older, his signs of age obvious, though Greg imagined that was from stress and strain more than anything. He was tall, pale and thin, his build wiry and sparse. He looked like a thinker. His dark hair was a mess, sticking off in various directions, matted with blood. In fact, there was a lot of blood on him, though none of it seemed to be his.
“Did you seriously expect us to just...let you do this?” he replied.
“Yes,” the man snarled, sitting up unexpectedly. “We were doing the work that was required. This needs to be done, and now it's all gone to hell.” There was fire in his voice, righteous anger and fury, but also a great lethargy. He reached up and rubbed at his temples. He seemed utterly unconcerned that there were four guns trained on him at the moment.
“You are trying to open a portal and let a fucking alien horror into our galaxy. Why do you think this is even close to a good idea!?” Greg cried, unable to keep control now. “I mean, seriously, what part of you thought this was worth doing!?”
“I can't expect you to understand, any of you,” he muttered miserably. Finally, his hand fell away from his face and he looked Greg in the eyes. There was a light in his eyes, though it wasn't the normal light technology granted. There was something different about it, something malignant. It turned his eyes a sharp red. “You don't know who I am, do you?” he asked, as if suddenly, finally realizing that Greg was standing in front of him.
“No,” Greg replied.
He sighed. “I'm the Head Director. I was in charge of the largest cell of Dark Operations and I was fed data from all the other cells. In every way, I was the overseer. It became obvious to me that...what we were doing wasn't working. When the Systems War hit, no one really seemed to realize just how close we were to total chaos. If I hadn't done what I'd done, assembled the plan that eliminated the opposition, made them fall apart...then the rebels and the GA would have torn the galaxy apart fighting over it. In the end, no one would have won, and the great human rac
e would have been left to wander eternally in the darkness.
“I knew I couldn't let that happen. I started looking for a way to enforce control. If one person were in charge, it would keep us from extinction. Obviously, whoever did this would need power. I started using the various cells to find anything and everything that might give me that power. The Necro Virus, the ancient gods on Lindholm, the mutants on Syberia, all of them meant to be tools that were ultimately useless when I discovered the truth...the data we recovered from Arctica put us on the trail of the ultimate power...”
“The inter-dimensional beings,” Drake said, his voice low and angry.
“Yes. I was going to summon one and control it. The Cyr figured it out. Using their technology, we could summon and then snare it, and use that vast power to control humanity, keep us from extinction and bring us to new levels of technology and existence...and you fucked it up all up!” the Head Director screamed, suddenly furious again.
“There's no possible way you can actually think that you can control it. I mean, even assuming you could control the one, what's to stop more from coming out?”
The man shook his head. He was beyond arguing now. “Just get it over with...nothing matters now. It was going to rule us...” he whispered. “It talks to me. Even now, I can still hear it. It could have saved us all.”
“You're talking to it...right now?” Eve asked.
“I can hear it...can't you?”
For the first time, Greg spied something on the console next to him. A small sphere with a smooth black surface. It seemed...heavy, somehow, as though it was warping reality itself simply by being there, like a black hole. The Head Director reached out and ran a hand over it. “Its voice is so soothing,” he murmured. “Like a god.”