I wriggled in Marco’s grasp, desperately trying to dismount.
How long has he been there? Has he been watching me have sex with Marco the whole time?! What must he think of me?!
But of course, I knew exactly what he’d seen: a young, naked woman bouncing up and down enthusiastically on a big Mole cock. I was beyond mortified.
Marco finally understood that I wanted down and helped me to extricate myself and gently eased me to the floor. I was so surprised and distraught that I hadn’t struck on the obvious strategy of pretending that Marco had been ravaging me against my will. Though, if I had pretended that to be the case, I certainly would have regretted besmirching the innocent Mole’s good character.
Instead, I stood staring shamefacedly at the man in the white suit, too humiliated to speak, feeling Marco’s thick semen trickling out of me and running down my leg.
“I can’t believe — you didn’t — ?!” The man’s voice was somewhat muffled by the mask, but his consternation was evident.
“Who are you?” I said, desperately trying to change the subject.
“Oh, this won’t do. This won’t do at all!” said the man, turning and walking quickly away.
I looked up at the Mole, fearing that it would be angry at the interruption, but the creature appeared completely indifferent. Marco didn’t appear to be the least bit surprised by the man’s presence.
“Wait!” I said, calling after the man in the biohazard suit as I ran after him. I could still hear his rubber-soled boots thumping off the floor tile in the room ahead of me. “Who are you? Where are you going?”
I entered the locker room and caught the man looking back at me over his shoulder.
“Don’t follow me!” he said, looking genuinely alarmed.
I looked back over my shoulder, thinking that it was the Mole that he was afraid of, but Marco had only just started to amble after me. The big man-ape clearly didn’t consider the little white man any sort of threat.
“Why not? Where are you going?” I said, perplexed. “You can’t leave me here!” If anyone knew how to get out of the installation, it had to be the little white man. He was obviously some kind of scientist.
The man turned and started to run.
I ran after him, cringing at the slime that was now coating the inside of both of my thighs. I was afraid I would step in it and slip. Why did Marco have to have such a big load?
The man was struggling with a door in the hall outside the change rooms that I hadn’t noticed when Marco and I had come in. He managed to swing it open and slip through, but I dove and caught the handle before he could close it. He yanked on it from the other side, jerking me forward, and I yanked back. He hadn’t expected to encounter so much resistance and the handle slipped from his grasp and he stumbled back. I could just make out his features through the glass in the door and the plastic covering his face. His eyes and mouth were wide open with shock. He appeared to be quite old, at least in his seventies, and had a white beard that retained a few flecks of gray. His eyes were watery and blue.
I hauled the door open and the old man turned and ran.
I followed him into a new hall, which was unlit, save for a few small emergency lights. One of these lights was over a wide metal door. There was a small metal panel beside the door and the man was jabbing his finger repeatedly on one of the buttons. It was an elevator.
“Stay back!” the little white man shouted at me. “I don’t want to use force!”
I slid to a halt on the tiles about three yards away, trying to determine what he was brandishing toward me in his free hand. It took me only a couple of seconds to figure out that he was holding a pen, but it was enough time for the elevator doors to slide open.
The little white man backed into the elevator, still waving the pen like a sword, awkwardly fumbling with the floor buttons with the index finger of his other hand, which was still holding onto the clipboard.
I looked back down the hall toward the door that Marco was only just now making his way through, sauntering at a casual pace.
The man in the suit pushed himself up against the back wall of the elevator and the doors made a sound and started to close.
I made a snap decision and lunged through the doors, slipping between them just as they slammed shut.
24
I heard a growl of rage and surprise in the hall behind me. Two great fists slammed against the elevator doors with a resounding clang, making them vibrate. Then suddenly, the floor was jerking away underneath me and we were going down.
I stood facing the little white man, breathing hard, Mole cum running down my legs.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” said the man, slumping against the wall. He lowered the pen, giving up the pretense that he was armed.
What is an unarmed scientist doing walking around down here by himself? I wondered.
“Who are you?” I said. “What are you doing here? Where are we? What is that thing?” My questions came tumbling out as fast as I could think of them.
The little man in the biohazard suit held up his arms, as if he could push back my questions.
“Calm down,” he said with a frustrated trace of authority. “I’m the one who should be asking you the questions, since you’re the one wandering around a restricted area without proper authorization. The last thing I need is some ignorant young woman attracting the attention of the powers that be and leading them right to me. But I suppose, since you’re here, I might as well tell you. But please: one question at a time.”
I nodded, trying to calm myself, and simultaneously quite embarrassed by my state of undress.
“Who are you?” I said, taking up my first question.
“My name is Albert Hobart,” he said. “Doctor Albert Hobart. I’m in charge — I mean I used to be in charge — of the facility. Before they shut it down.”
I stared at him, aghast.
“You can’t be,” I said. “The installation was shut down in the forties. That would make you like a hundred years old.”
Dr. Hobart shook his head inside the mask, making an odd crinkling sound.
“The top level, the floor you came in on, might have been shut down in the forties, but they left the research lab open right up until nineteen eighty four.”
“That’s still ... over thirty years!” I said, incredulous. “What are you still doing here?”
“I can’t answer that,” he said, shaking his head again. “At least, not easily.”
The elevator shook and rattled ominously, the overhead light momentarily dimming.
“What is this place anyway? I was told that the government built it to store radioactive waste but there are all these halls and doors and rooms that look like classrooms and rooms that look like hospital rooms—”
The doctor interrupted me with a wave of his hands.
“Part of the facility was to be used for storing waste. But the part you’re in now was built as a prototype for a community class bomb shelter. It was added after they canceled work on the storage facility. The government didn’t want all the money they’d invested in the basic infrastructure going to waste, so they just kept digging. This place was designed to support up to five thousand personnel.”
The elevator lurched to a sudden stop, the pulleys squeaking to a halt. There was a moment of utter stillness and then the doors rumbled open.
I turned and looked through the doors onto another hall. This one was much like the one above, though narrower and somewhat better lit. The floor was covered with blue tiles, many of them cracked and chipped, and the walls were two-toned dark and pale blue. A number of red circles and squiggly lines had been painted here as well. The doctor held out his hand, encouraging me to take the lead.
“After you...” his voice trailed off expectantly.
“Robyn.”
I hesitated at the threshold and then grabbed the doctor by the arm and pulled him out into the hall with me, determined not to be left alone in yet another completely unfa
miliar environment.
The doctor stumbled out after me and then shook himself free. The elevator doors rumbled shut behind us.
“Is that really necessary?” I said, pointing at Dr. Hobart’s suit. The soldiers had been wearing gas masks as well. “Am I going to get cancer from walking around in here like this?” I waved my hand up and down my naked torso.
Dr. Hobart’s eyes lingered somewhat overlong on my breasts but he shook his head quite emphatically.
“I’m allergic to the spores,” he said. “But they’re perfectly harmless. If it makes you feel better, I’ll take it off.” He didn’t wait for my reply but quickly popped some buttons and unzipped the mask, pulling it up over his head. The wispy white hairs stood out in all directions like a little cloud floating over the dome of his skull.
“Spores?” I said, watching him try to pat down his hair. “You mean all that gray mold up above?”
He nodded. “You’ve seen it? Yes, of course you have. It won’t hurt you. Unless you develop an allergy, like I have. It’s an undocumented species. I’m the only scientist in the world who’s studied it. It grows underground. The Moles brought it with them when they came up from below.”
“The Moles!” I shouted. How could I have forgotten the most important question of all?! “What are they? I’ve never seen anything like them!”
The doctor sighed and seemed to shrink in on himself. “The Moles,” he repeated in a quieter voice. “The Moles are the whole reason I’m here.”
He paused and looked at me, his eyes watery, and the wrinkled skin of his cheek quivering.
“Come with me,” he said. “It’s easier just to show you.”
I followed the doctor as he led me down the hall. We passed a couple of solid metal doors, but the paint was so badly peeled that it was no longer possible to make out the numbers that had been stenciled onto them. A sudden gust of warm air spewed out from a vent placed high in the wall, along with a small cloud of dust. The doctor immediately began coughing and quickly replaced the mask over his head.
“Damn spores,” he muttered.
I held my hand up to the vent and felt the tiny little dust motes tickling my fingers. When I looked at my hand, a fine layer of gray particles was covering it.
“Where does the heat come from?” I said. “And the electricity?”
“Geothermal,” said the doctor, waving me after him. “The vault is entirely self-sufficient. Water, heat, power. There’s even a greenhouse, of sorts, but it’s ... ah ... overgrown. The animal pens had to be abandoned. That’s what originally attracted the attention of the Moles. Once a month I go to the surface for supplies.”
“You mean there’s an exit?” I said, grabbing him by the arm and jerking him to a stop. That explained how Marco had gotten his hands on a box of Froot Loops.
“Yes, of course. You don’t think I could have survived down here all this time alone, completely cut off from humanity, do you?”
“You just said the vault was self-sufficient.”
The doctor scowled and pulled his arm free. “Well it was designed to be. It is for the most part. But it was never fully completed, so I still need to go topside from time to time. If only to save my sanity.” He muttered the last part under his breath.
“Where are we going?” I said, following him as he resumed his progress.
“To my lab. I’ll explain everything there.”
“And maybe lend me a lab coat or something?” I ventured hopefully.
The doctor cast another furtive glance at my naked body and then quickly averted his eyes. “Yes. And some clothes. I might even have something that fits.”
I noticed more of the strange red markings on the walls.
“What about these?” I said, pointing. “They’re everywhere down here. I assume the Moles make them.”
The doctor squinted where I was pointing and nodded.
“Yes, that’s their work. It’s not blood, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s red ochre. They mix it with their spit. That’s what gives it its strange color and texture.”
“What do they mean?” I said, pausing to examine an elaborate arrangement of ovals and lines.
The doctor shrugged. “I have no idea, really. It doesn’t seem to be a language of any sort. There isn’t any consistency between the symbols. They appear to be impressionistic. An expression of mood, more than anything.”
“How do the Moles see?”
“That’s a very fine question, and one that’s given me a good deal of thought. They appear to detect heat, mostly; and yet somehow they can still see well enough to use symbols and recognize faces. I don’t quite know how it works. In all likelihood, their human vision has merely adapted to utilize those frequencies more useful to them in their subterranean environment. A shifting along the spectrum, if you will. They seem very fond of the color red.”
We resumed walking.
“But it’s quite clear to me that they use echolocation as well,” the doctor continued. “Seeing sound waves, you could say, though it’s not quite as sophisticated as a bat’s. They emit a high-pitched squeak, but it’s subvocal, so you can’t hear it when they’re doing it. Between their hearing and thermal vision, they see about as well in absolute darkness as a human can in broad daylight. Ah, here we are.”
We stopped in front of a pair of doors with wire-reinforced glass windows. There was a light on in the hall on the other side of the door and the intensity of the white fluorescent bulbs glaring off the white paint on the cinder block walls and the white vinyl floor tiles was almost blinding after the relative gloom of the hall.
Doctor Hobart groped in a large pocket and withdrew a key ring. He tried to flip through the keys but they kept slipping from his gloved fingers. He grunted and removed his glove and found the right key and unlocked the door.
“Almost there,” he said, smiling.
It was the first time I’d seen him smile.
He opened the door and waved me through. I stepped inside and he followed, shutting the door behind him and locking it. There was another door just inside the double doors. It was painted gray and I could just make out the word “Lab” stenciled in black paint.
The doctor led me past the door, and past another pair of double doors, to the end of the hall and a second set of double doors. These doors were solid, without windows. The words: “Observation Chamber” were painted on them in large, white letters. The doctor jingled through his keys, found a different key and unlocked the door.
He opened the door and held out his hand. “Ladies first,” he said.
The room on the other side was in darkness save for a faint glow of light that appeared to be shining from the wall to the left of the door. I could only make out what appeared to be a number of large metal cages standing in rows.
“What’s inside?” I said timidly.
“You are,” said the doctor.
A sudden blow on my back propelled me into the room. I stumbled, just barely keeping my balance, and the door slammed shut behind me. There was a metallic click.
Aargh! That sonuvabitch!
I turned and lunged at the door, grabbing the handle. I twisted the knob, but it was locked. I pounded on the door with my fists.
“Open this door!” I shouted.
“I’m very sorry, Robyn, but I can’t do that right now,” the doctor shouted back at me through the door. “Please forgive me. I’ll explain everything to you very soon.”
I heard a sound behind me and turned with a start, scanning the room. My heart was thumping rapidly in my chest. It was too dark to see anything; only the first few feet of the observation chamber were illuminated.
Where is the light coming from?
I dashed around the corner of the alcove into the main part of the room and saw a large, brightly lit window filling the near wall. On the other side of the window was what appeared to be a laboratory. Shelves and cabinets lined the walls, and a number of tables and chairs filled the main part of the room.
The tables and shelves were lined with old fashioned microscopes, racks of test tubes, Bunsen burners, and other scientific equipment, though there were a number of conspicuously modern pieces as well. In one corner of the room, pressed almost up to the window, was a mattress covered with a jumble of blankets and a pillow. A door opened in the far corner of the room and Dr. Hobart appeared. I watched as he shut the door behind him and began walking in my direction.
I slammed the palm of my hand against the glass with a dull thump, making it vibrate.
“Let me out of here, you bastard!”
Dr. Hobart removed his mask and set it down on one of the tables and began to remove his biohazard suit.
I slapped the window with both hands. “You can’t do this!” I shouted.
The doctor stepped out of his suit and stood in a white long sleeve sweatshirt and long johns.
I turned and looked for something to throw at the window to break it. There was a cage nearby, big enough to hold a large dog and about as tall as myself, but it looked too heavy to pick up. I was so angry I grabbed the cage anyway and tried to pull it. It was bolted to the floor.
“You won’t be able to break the window,” said the doctor. His voice was coming through a speaker mounted on the wall over the window. “They’re bulletproof. Even the Moles can’t break them.”
I heard a grunt emanating from the darkness at the back of the room and froze in place, a sick knot forming in my stomach.
The doctor walked over to a set of switches and flipped one. The lights suddenly came on overhead and the room was engulfed in light.
I gasped.
Four large, gray shapes were ambling toward me, walking on their front knuckles.
Tamed by the Vault Dwellers Page 9