“I think that was idea Major. However it is not in my programming, so I would have to surmise that it would have been one of the doctors. I used scanners and like equipment to make my observations and analyze any samples that are inserted into the scanners.”
“Val, scanning would be preferable to all those cold probing instruments they used on me.”
“I am sorry Major that I did not make myself clear. You see Major Wells, that lab is for autopsies. It was built in case of a stasis chamber failure, someone was to have done an autopsy on you or Captain Parker. Command would want to know what went wrong so we could prevent it from happening to your replacement.”
“Comforting thought.” Gil muttered as he closed the elevator door. After a short ride down he was startled by the opening of the elevator door and grinned nervously that he was still so jumpy. He quickly steered it down the dim corridor to the lab and entered.
Carefully rolling the beast over onto the steel autopsy table…twice, and raising it to full examining height; Gil moved the robot over to one side of the room and walked as he slowly began to realize just how fortunate that he had been to escape from this thing the first time…if that security room hadn’t been there…he shuddered. Finally getting back to the table he looked at the mutilated body.
“Val, you do whatever you have to do and make damned sure that this thing doesn’t get up and walk out of here.”
“I detect no pulse Major.”
“You said it is a new species Val, what makes you thing it ever had a pulse?”
“Most living species have a pulse of some sort Major, logic dictated that something this large would have to have something to pump all this rather thick, viscous fluid through its body. Hence some sort of a pulse.”
“Did you just dis me again Val.”
“Major I do not have ‘dis’ in my data base, so as I do not, I can hardly dis you, nor would I want to, should I have the presence of mind to do so.”
“Ok…uh…yeah…” Gil left the lab in a hurry.
“Are you leaving Major? It is still early in the day.”
“If there is one of these things, then it stands to measure that there could be more. The I-beam that jammed the blast door…as I pulled it out and tossed it back into the shaft, I saw what jammed the elevator, another I-beam. Val…as huge as that mother is, it alone couldn’t pull that beam loose. Something, or a couple of somethings, pulled that side of the elevator shaft apart.”
“I don’t understand Major.”
“If and when that something does come back Val, you’ll understand then.”
Chapter 5.
Gil was gone the rest of the day and either Val would check in with her human charge or he would to see how the autopsy was going, but chat was always brief. Val’s outer communications were down and Gil found out why…
“Val something chewed through damned near every cable running up the elevator shaft. Only the wires that are in the metal conduits are intact…bent to shit, but intact. There isn’t enough wire here to fix your cameras, but I did give you the ability to hear, here at the bottom of the shaft. You might want to check topside just in case the splice got something up there working as well.
“Negative major, nothing topside seems to be operating since your fix.”
Val acknowledged Gil’s message to lock up as he left the shaft and entered the complex. He heard the smooth sliding movement of the blast door as it moved, and the clunk as the locking bolts slid into place. The circuits shut off for the blast door power, the signal for the security room door locking, and finally the last steel security door sliding into place and electronically locking.
“Major…these things do not have the ability to open the doors, their brain pans are not conducive to more than a rudimentary intelligence.”
Gil chuckled as he glanced over his shoulder and sighed now that he was safe.
“Well something disabled the elevator by tearing out the I-beams to stop it from coming all the way down, and something figured out that it couldn’t get through the door so it tried the window. Looking for prey or figuring out how to get it…I’m not taking any chances.”
“I do not understand Major.”
“I have a couple of big honking steel doors between me and the rest of the world and that’s the way I intend to keep it for the present Val…” he yawned “see ya in the morning.”
**************************
When morning finally came around and Gil, still groggy from a night of nightmares, wandered into the small cafeteria on the living quarter’s floor as Val announced that she had been running tests all night and that he should come to the labs.
A quick bite and instant coffee, which he hated, Gil made his way to the lab.
“Gil, I’ve been…”
“Gil? Are you out of military mode Val?”
“Affirmative. Gil, please step over to the examination table.”
He walked over and looked down at the creature that had given him nightmares all night long. Val had used robotic arms to take samples and portable cat scans to analyze it, but she could only ‘see’ using cameras in the room.
“I cannot comprehend this creature Gil. Blood samples are unlike any I have seen. Its blood is mainly based on copper and zinc, instead of iron like Earth life forms. Its skin is as tough as a very thick leather, yet light weight and vital areas are protected by bony plates. These creatures seem to have evolved to do battle, their world must have been an extremely violent one Gil and nearly every indication leads me to believe that these creatures are nocturnal. There are flat organs in and around the eyes for making ultra-high sounds that are similar to those of a bat, however they are extremely more evolved.”
Gil nodded as he studied them up close.
“The eyes are completely white so I’d guess that they are blind as we would see. So with what you said Val, I’m guessing they use some sort of stereoscopic radar.”
“That is what I have come up with Gil. Using their eyes like ours, they should be able to see depth and identify objects against other flat objects, but to what degree I cannot tell you. There seems to be some sort of bony shielding that I would theorize that the eyes can be retracted into during a fight. Perhaps they might be able to see through the holes in the bone and through their skin at extremely close ranges, however I do believe that they may not be able to see objects through something as simple as glass or even thin cardboard. If they did not see you go behind something, they would never know you were there.”
“Well that could be a weakness that we can use.” he poked the leathery skin on its head “If this one exists, then I’d have to assume that others exist as well.” he began to pace the small floor in the lab. “You know Val, this could be why the skeleton crew left the complex. Maybe this thing, maybe more like it, attacked the supply convoy and the crew went out to help…or maybe find more supplies and they themselves were attacked.”
“Gil that would imply many of these things could exist as there was never another crew that came to investigate the cessation of communications from our complex. There are other complexes that were working on Project Zed, at times I was told that we had…”
“Ok Val, I understand…” Gil stopped pacing and the color drained from his face “so this could well be worldwide, how?”
“I have no idea major. This is an assumption based on the fact that no one else has arrived here in such a long time span.”
“Major? Val?”
“I detect another anomaly and am hearing scraping sounds in the elevator shaft Major, I am now on high military alert. As it…correction Major…they not at the bottom yet, I cannot determine as to their numbers, but I would estimate at least three by the sounds.” As Gil began to move toward the door of the lab, Val added “Major?”
“Yes Val.”
“The small camera you placed in the shaft is detecting faint auras of blue and violet…yes I can see one blue shimmering form and two of the violet moving quickly toward the bottom.
That was unexpected…”
“Val?”
“One of the violet forms just jumped at least twenty feet to the floor and yes Major, it is one of these creatures, smaller, but other than the color and size; the same. You will have to go to the control room for me to show them to…cancel that Major; one of them just took out the camera. I believe that it used whatever vision you care to call it, to see when I adjusted the lens. No, wait…I believe that they are detecting the minute amounts of electrical current, one of them tried to take out my sensor array but of course they are embedded into the walls and are difficult to reach with their massive claws.”
“How accurate are your sensors Val? I mean can you tell the positions of the creatures?”
“My sensors detect movement and I can extrapolate relative positions by cross referencing the signals. The sensors I am now hooked into were mainly used to detect when the elevator was down and if anything fell within the shaft so it could be repaired before it jammed the elevator. Security used the cameras for everything else and there are no more cameras…or electronics other than my sensors. Major, my sensors were attacked again to no avail. I compute that these beasts are detecting the electronic signature but can only do so at very close range, perhaps this is also how they detect one another at close range.”
Gil nodded as he dashed out of the lab and shouted to the nearest camera “Could be Val, maybe that aura they give off has some sort of bio-electric signature.” he gasped as he stopped long enough to hit the elevator switch to the control room…and the hallway beyond to the security room. “Anything with an electrical flow could be detected by these things…I will remember that for sure.” he paused his thoughts as he ran and then it hit him “Christ people have bio-electric signatures as well, do you think they can detect us?” Of course Val couldn’t answer because she didn’t have any idea, and Gil didn’t need to know, he figured he was screwed if he went out…which was something he hadn’t planned on until it became completely necessary.
Breathing hard from his dash to the elevators, Gil ran through the control room and down the long hallway to the steel door.
“The blast doors are intact Major.” Gil smiled that Val was already ahead of him. He opened the inner door and slid it shut. He stopped momentarily to look at the huge bullet-proof window and the fist sized hole through it before opening the security door and going in; he did not want to be trapped inside here again.
“Val…tell me instantly when those things get to the center of the shaft.”
“Major, I am detecting a sound…it seems to be a strange clicking and the creatures are heading toward the center of the shaft.”
“I hooked up the broken locking mechanism from the elevator’s gate and put it on the middle of the floor…just in case more came.”
“I do not understand Major, why would you do th… Major they are in the middle of the shaft.”
Gil pressed another button and there was a pause, and then a crash loud enough that could be heard and felt through the many feet of concrete and steel.
“Major, it would seem that the elevator has fallen on top of the creatures. I detect no movement, I detect no sounds.”
Gil slowly locked up the security room door as the inner door slid opened. He turned and closed it and locked it. “God I love it when my warped mind actually does something right.”
“Major…Gil, no threats are detected. Did you destroy the elevator?”
Gil smiled “Affirmative Val.”
“But Gil, it is two hundred and twenty four feet to the surface and the only way up is the maintenance ladder.”
“Yeah, I know, but I had to think of some way to take out intruders so I could eventually reach the surface. I figured that if one of these things came around I could blow the cables and drop the elevator on it,” he grinned “that’s what I was doing last night after I dropped off the creature. Val, it was sort of fight creatures down here and ride up from where they had jammed the elevator, or remove the I-beam, disconnect the gravity brakes and drop the damned thing on the monsters.”
“So you climb up now?”
“So I climb up now,” Gil chuckled “but will do so safely. You see Val, I did take the ladder up to the top level and attached a cable on the jammed inner door in the guard building…you know the first security check point before entering the elevator. It was as I suspected, opened and probably left opened by the crew that left. One of those things must have slammed their weight against it and it was jammed open when it bent slightly. I bolted a cable, using just one bolt, to a stranded cable and tossed it down, tied it off to the top of the elevator, and hoped that the falling elevator will wrench the jammed door closed. I figured the cable would snap once the steel door slammed closed, thus stopping anymore creatures from coming in. When I’m ready to leave, I can blast a hole in the wall if I have to…if I jammed the door closed too tightly.” he chuckled slightly thinking that he might have just sealed himself into the small upper level near the shaft entrance. However sealing himself in was just that one more added bit of security that he needed at the moment.
“Clever Gil, however have you given any thought to how you will handle these things should you decide to leave?”
“Decide to leave? Val, there is barely any food left. The two meals I ate were scrounged MREs that tasted stale. Don’t know how soldiers can eat those things.”
“I would think that being able to eat something is better than not Gil.”
“I guess.” he looked at his watch “I tossed what MREs I found into a backpack, took two automatic pistols and a M-16, some ammo, and filled bottles with water and carried them into the security room last night before hitting the sack. Val I’ll miss chatting with you, but I do have to leave. I didn’t get to see a lot from the open door topside, dark hallway and all, but things didn’t look too bad…” he grinned “but to be honest I mainly got my ass back down as fast as I could.”
“Understandable Gil. I too found our conversations interesting and I believe the term is I wish you well in your search for whatever is going on.”
“Thank you Val.”
“I would suggest that you start at either sub-command outside of Houston, or main command in Florida. The Houston command seems to have had some sort of complex being built out in the desert, but there is not a lot of information on that subject.”
Gil took a few deep breaths and returned to the security room.
“Val you are interfaced to the main control and can monitor all airwaves and communications. I can’t talk to you, or you to me without a large transmitter, but I will give you a call once I hit either complex. I will remember to check that desert thing if I can find some reference to it. He flipped a switch and the huge blast door swung open. “I have to leave now before any more of those things find us. I’ve put security into your control permanently, close the blast door.”
“Are you sure Major?”
“Major? Are…”
“No Major, I detect nothing in the shaft, but you put me in control of the security of the complex, I am now in military mode…I will try to attempt some kind of contact with the complexes, if I can navigate around the security protocols…fare-well Major.”
The huge door silently swung shut and with a slight hiss sealed. Gil knew most of the lighting in the shaft had been broken or went out when the cables had been chewed through. He had managed to connect some to one junction box and with a wary glance up grasped the first rung.
“Well here goes nothing.”
With his backpack being so heavy, Gil had tied it to a rope and climbed about fifty feet and stopped to wrap a leg around one rung as he pulled it up and hooked it to another rung as he cursed the fact that he had made it so heavy. Another fifty feet and repeat, but the fifth time he was up and in the top of the shaft. He didn’t have to pry open the elevator gate as the creatures had taken care of that. After pulling up his backpack, Gil walked around the corner of the security check point room to see his plan worked…too we
ll.
The steel door had closed…and pulled the entire frame from the wall and as he stepped over the door and into the main rooms where security stayed while on duty, he gasped in horror…and gagged at the stench. All around the large room were small human body parts and a lot of dried blood. There were piles of putrid smelling black substance, Gil squatted down, and just as quickly stood.
“Jesus…it’s shit!” he held his nose and fought the urge to gag as he staggered toward the door.
The door to the outside was open and seemed undamaged and if Val was correct about these creatures, if he closed it. Assuming that ‘they’ most likely would leave the complex untouched without detecting a way in. Finally before him was the opened gate in the high chain link fencing.
“Christ! That had to be it…those things used the shack for a place to stay during the day, Val said she thought they were nocturnal.”
Gil unplugged the cable from the gate’s motor and closed it manually. Usually there were several security vehicles and a couple of personal cars sitting outside of the fenced area, but now there were none. “Well this is sure obvious,” Gil snorted “the main crew left and the skeleton crew is back there on the floor.” He made sure both his pistols were easily pulled from their holsters and grunted as he tightened the straps on his backpack. Again he cussed himself for being so thorough, the backpack had to have weighed about seventy pounds.
“Guess I won’t be out-running anything with this thing on.” he racked the first round into his M-16 “If I can’t flee, I fight.” Then he remembered the size of the creature below and loosened the straps a bit so he could slide out of them a bit easier.
“Ok…flee it is.” Then the horrible fact hit him “Oh crap…I wonder how fast those things can run?”
Chapter 6.
Sue Little never had been much of anything since she ran away from home at the age of seventeen, but living the life that she had caused her parents to renounce her. Everything from drugs to a couple charges of prostitution finally made her realize that she had lost control of her life. Finally winding up in her sixth court ordered rehab, she slipped out and vanished into the lonely night.
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