Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029

by Michel Savage

  "This is a restricted area, please present your identification badge for scanning," it repeated in a loop as its turret gears were jammed with its own wire sockets Tasha had just yanked out moments before. It was lucky that she had done so, as the obstinate machine began to fire its pulse laser after the time elapsed. Since the turret box was jammed facing one direction, it was unable to deploy the sensor device locked within its housing; regardless of the fact that nobody actually had an ID badge to begin with. Firing half cocked, the three girls dove for cover as the broken turret began to spray laser fire over their heads while the motorized housing fought the blocked mechanism; until its gears finally locked up and it misfired once within its own shell, whereupon the entire unit exploded in a ball of flame.

  Shrapnel shot through the air as the turret cup bounced to the ground with a clatter. Kel could be heard cursing as she gripped her bleeding calf from a scrap of metal which had torn through her leg from the blast. A puff of black smoke issuing from the dead turret now clung to the ceiling like an ominous cloud. Ava looked just as rattled as Thorn and I turned the corner. Fortunately, the rest of the crew had been scrounging through the other half of the station landing for another access point during this mishap.

  We all glanced at one another with apprehension when we heard the rail train on the other side of the thick door hum to life and start off down the tracks in the adjacent tunnel. Instead of finding a manual handle for the door, apparently that bitch, Beatrice, decided to take off on her own. Thorn and I felt a twinge of remorse on that ill decision to trust the old hag.

  "What da hell was that all about?" Haiti jibed with his usual accent, just as a familiar female voice chimed to life from the speaker overhead.

  "Redundant security protocol initiated," she whispered calmly, "Back-up ordinance is now online." With that brief notice, the secondary robotic turret dropped down and a single red eye deployed from it and cycled opened while it turned its attention towards the stunned group of friends.

  "This is a restricted area, please present your identification badge for ...krrt!" it began to order as everyone took the first two seconds it was busy blabbering orders by drawing their own firearms and putting several dozen rounds into its exposed wiring harness before the security system could finish issuing its warning.

  We all waited a few seconds in silence to our complete satisfaction that the turret was dead, until everyone lowered their smoking weapons.

  "Where is the old woman?" Roy asked as all gazes fell upon me. I flashed a pathetic glance to Thorn who gave a nod towards the metal door.

  "I knew we couldn't trust that withering cunt," Serena spat, while we heard the railcar disappear down the tunnel. Roy stomped back over to the central security booth and threw the switch within. We all just about jumped out of our pants when a tiny hidden third turret dropped from the ceiling between the pair of crippled security guns. We lowered our twitching firearms when it just turned out to be a rotating strobe light.

  With the power activated, the sealed panels took several moments to cycle as locking clamps disengaged and the doorway slid open. Beyond was a single tunnel; a small booth could be seen hugging the wall to our right and a large pile of decaying bodies heaped in the far corner by a small open vent. Many of the overhead lights were still in working order and lit up into the far distance until they blurred out of sight down the tunnel. There was something unsaid that was eating away at us this the moment, considering the ruckus we had just made blowing up those turrets and activating the door siren. If there were any nests of infected within earshot, they would certainly be heading our way.

  "Well, it looks like we're walking," Roy moaned, as we headed off down the rail shaft at a quickened pace.

  It took but a moment to bandage Kel's leg, but the wound slowed her down noticeably. That pile of bodies at the end of the tunnel worried me, not knowing if they had already been dead and dumped there like so much trash, or if they had been survivors who had tried to escape and left trapped and abandoned. The truth was, a whole lot of shit had gone down in past several years that would never be answered, nor would anyone be held accountable for. It made me worry about what direction the human race was going. Would we rebuild a better world, or just end up repeating the same mistakes all over again that led us to where we were now?

  It was a damn long walk down that musty tunnel as our boots kicked up dust and our broken stride echoed off the walls. We kept our pace up and an ear out for anything unusual, and were finally greeted with loud hollow 'bang' that streamed from the far end of the shaft. We quickened our pace towards the sound.

  "Dis is a long fuck'in tunnel..." Haiti heaved with a labored breath. We all concurred that we needed a break soon, especially Serena and Kel who weren't in the best condition to keep up at this clip.

  Felix had taken the meteorite pack in effort to assist Kel from injuring her leg with the load. The bleak overhead lights gave an eerie glow to the hot mist floating high overhead and the condensation that streaked the walls glittered with an unearthly tinge. It was possibly my nerves, but something felt terribly wrong down here; giving us all an unshakable sense of unease. After what seemed like an hour, we finally noticed a faint blue glow up ahead with errant sparks lighting up the tunnel walls. It wasn't until we reached the last few dozen yards that we realized what we were looking at.

  "Holy shit!" Felix uttered, as the rest of us gaped at the cluttered destruction before us. A railcar with bold white lettering spelling out the word 'Razorback' hand painted along its side had jumped its tracks and crashed into the middle of the tunnel, its bottom wheels facing us. We could not approach it due to a deep rift splitting the tunnel where the rails had snapped off halfway over the chasm. The lights were still on inside the rail car, and a few of us thought we could see a shadow moving within. Roy took a closer look at the edge.

  "What could cause this, an earthquake?" Thorn inquired under his breath in wonder. The break in the cement foundation cleaved straight through, perpendicular from one side to the other; and would have been entirely impassible by foot. The distance between the broken rails and the back end of the train car would be barely reachable with a running jump, but not for someone who was injured. Even then, one slip on that skinny smooth metal bar hanging over that dark rift, and down you go.

  "Blast marks," Killroy answered, "there, and there," he pointed out to either side, "I would assume that they attempted down here what they did topside to the mountain tunnel," he declared, which was conclusive to the previous events Tasha told us about.

  "It makes sense," Ava answered, nodding to Tasha, "they blew the pass to blockade access to the Lab. We should have guessed they would have cut this one off too."

  "How are we going to make it over?" Felix asked, nodding towards the two injured girls and the child.

  "Risky fuck'in jump..." Serena added as she looked down into the chasm, calculating the odds as she kicked a small chunk of broken concrete over the edge. It clattered several moments later, still falling, "...it's a long fuck'in way down too," she added with the same color, not really caring about her foul language in the presence of a child. With all modesty, Serena wasn't exactly what you would call the motherly type.

  "Looks like they just wanted to blow the rail, but there was a natural fault or cavern below this section and the whole damn thing caved in," Roy noted, "hand over some of those bandages," he motioned to Thorn, who was carrying their medical supplies. Not knowing what he had in mind, we watched as the old soldier gingerly tested the longest rail over the chasm and straddled it to wrap adhesive bandages across the length of its end. After a moment, Tasha seemed to recognize what he was doing, but Haiti hadn't caught on quite yet.

  "What'z all that for?" he injected with curiosity.

  "Just some tread; I don't want to slip on the last step and make an ass of myself," he smiled back at the dark man, who nodded in return at the sensibility of it.

  Wrapping a rope around his waist, Roy jerry-rigged a crotch
harness like a professional climber and counted out several loose coils of rope. I was starting to get impressed with Roy's knowledge of preparation and versatility he displayed. Though Tasha was young, she seemed to agree with his methods. I got the impression that they were both birds of the same feather.

  Felix and I gritted our teeth as Roy paused for but a moment and took a running leap off the edge of that skinny metal rail. He landed with a thud on the tip of the rail car, barely catching the edge where the heavy metal wheels were set. It was a hard landing and we could tell that he had bloodied his hand on the sharp rigid edge.

  Having secured the lead end to the rail post, he noosed the rope tight on the cars rear handrail and tossed the spare yardage back over to our side of the fissure. It only took a few moments to follow Tasha and her girls lead by tying our packs and gear onto the ropes to be slung over to his side. It was a practical precaution, so we could avoid have to risk losing our supplies from falling into the pit resulting from something like a sloppy toss from one side to the other. Let alone, we didn't want any extra weight on our backs while making that kind of leap. The other girls were slight and athletic, but I was taller than most and not really the acrobatic ninja type as it were. Admittedly, I was more than a little nervous about making the jump myself.

  Both Thorn and Ava made it over first with enviable ease. We were roping up Felix after having secured the meteorite sample to swing it over when we heard a strange rumble that got perceptibly louder from the far end of the tunnel. Roy took a few steps up to peer into the train car to find Beatrice lying crumpled and unconscious near the front end. Looking up towards the tunnel, it took him a long moment to decipher the source of the sound and ordered Thorn to either grab binoculars from his pack.

  Thorn and Ava were busy rifling through the packs when Roy gave a silent stare back at us across the rift as his face lost all color and turned a pale white. From around the edge of the derailed train car trickled in the forerunners of a stampede of infected. Their heads were bobbing like a massive tide of diseased flesh. Roy motioned the others to crouch down and pulled his handgun from his waist, but all the rifles were still bundled up tight with rope from being strung over the chasm just moments before.

  The first few Weepers hadn't seen Roy and the others as they rounded the edge of the rail car and saw us standing on the other side of the rift in complete confusion. Like idiots, we didn't think to send out a scout and most of our firearms were now bound together and out of reach over on the edge of the train. Tasha started firing from a backup pistol she carried in her waist belt, which captured the immediate attention of the leading handful of the swarm. They ran straight for us like mindless dolts, right over the edge and into the chasm as their arms swam in the empty air as they fell into the blackness. The boy hugged Haiti closely while the creatures charged for us and into the dark fissure below without pause.

  On both sides of the rail car they were funneled at a choke point so the ones behind had no clue what happened to those in advance, and promptly leapt gnarling and screeching as they glared insanely at us with their wild bloodshot eyes. Those stark few who paused at the rim of the crevasse before them were promptly and unceremoniously nudged into the abyss by those weepers who came running up from behind; being far too occupied with propelling themselves towards the sound of gunfire.

  Some might call it luck, but it was also distressing to watch countless numbers of sick people fall to their deaths without even the mind of knowing what they were doing. Tasha emptied two full clips before she was out of ammo, and Serena was down to throwing loose stones to try to distract those few left as the mob began to diminish. The few dozen at the heel lost the momentum to hurl themselves so recklessly over the edge. The remaining weepers then turned their attention towards our three companions atop the railcar, and began to clamber towards them in their mindless rage.

  Roy fired, counting his shots, but half of them still missed as the bullets ricocheted off the steel hull of the train while Thorn and Ava scrambled for the packed guns. Dread filled us when one of the diseased turned their scrutiny towards the rope that stretched across the void to our side and the exposed meteorite pack that hung there in limbo in between. Where it sat swaying dangerously over the rift, the box with the rock sample was jarred by the blighted creature that was attempting to scale the rope to reach us on the other side. Both Tasha and Kel grabbed for Haiti's machete to fend it off, only to realize that they took a dangerous risk of cutting the rope and losing their precious package.

  Still harnessed to the far side of the lanyard, fat little Felix was being tugged and swayed by the creature who was grasping wildly at the rope for any given handhold, pulling Felix off balance towards the jagged edge of the fissure. I grabbed his arm to help him, but he just turned to me with a look of surrender in his eyes, and pulled away from my embrace to my utter confusion. Another weeper was clawing for Ava on the edge of the train as she fumbled for a handgun from her pack, only to have it slip off the tilted edge of the train and down into the black pit below. Seeing she was being overwhelmed and had but scarce few seconds before she would be attacked, Felix did something chancy and outrageous.

  Pulled towards the edge by the creature jarring the meteorite pack, Felix took a leap off the edge of the rail and mid step on the head of the Weeper hanging in the middle, kicking him squarely in the face, which in turn, launched his bulk towards the creature antagonizing Ava on the other side of the breach. He grabbed the ghoul by its legs, and with a sincere look of shock upon the creatures crazed and twisted face; they both fell into the depths. We were all stunned by his desperate stunt and gasped as he dropped beyond sight over the edge.

  It was only a few startled seconds before we heard him kicking and swearing from the bottom of the taut rope, which was still tethered to the handrail of the train. Freeing his rifle from the bundle, Thorn finally came to bear and took measured shots at the last half dozen weepers trying to mount the train. The kinetic force of the sniper rifle jolting a few over the edge of the rift. In the moments that followed, we scrambled to help Felix after clearing the last of the creatures from the broken lip of the fissure.

  "Hey, hold on Felix!" Thorn yelled into the darkness below, while Haiti set the boy aside and helped Serena try to find more rope. The line began to dance violently as the thin rope scraped dangerously thin on the jagged edge of the fault. From the shadows below, a horrid face leapt up and clung to the meteorite box hanging on the lanyard. Out of bullets himself, Roy scrambled for more ammo in his vest. On the edge, up the line crawled Felix, blood from deep gashes on his neck and back painted his shirt red. He had a crazed look in his eyes, not from the alien virus, but a personal vendetta against the creature that had condemned him to his fate.

  Felix ignored Ava reaching out for him and pushed himself off the edge with a thrust of his feet, swinging over to the last weeper clinging on the pack. The fall down chasm had been cruel, the thin rope snapping him hard with the extra body weight of the infected attacker. The creature had mauled him to make its way back up the breach in a desperate attempt to save itself. Felix knew he was dead, but he wasn't going to let this afflicted bastard hurt his friends. The seductive taste of revenge is all he felt in this final moment.

  The thin rope, the fragile box and its delicate and deadly stone fragment, the gnashing and bloodied creature and Felix with all his weight pulled the line taught beyond its capacity. Strands snapped as the line began to fail and Thorn brought his riflescope to his eye to take aim; but stalled when he suddenly felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

  "You can't risk hitting the container," was all Roy said, and Thorn knew he was right; if he missed and shattered the rock or the capsule, it could infect us all. With resolve, he lowered the weapon.

  It was all over before we could grasp what had happened. Felix pulled the quick release on his harness with one hand, and then grasped the creature’s wrists; with one aggressive blow, he head butted it from behind. Stunned by the attack,
Felix was able to pry both its hands free from the container and they both fell into the chasm, swallowed by the unforgiving gloom. A few dull thuds and falling stones were all that followed to tell his untimely end. Felix was gone.

  Bouncing by a thread on the ripped line was the meteorite container, left barely strapped to the pack by a few frayed cords. With great care, we strapped it to the end of the train car to secure it. The container itself was slightly cracked, but not breached. The men quickly reloaded their firearms and scanned the tunnel for yet another wave, but were instead met by a cold and eerie silence.

  We repaired the rope and continued to rappel the rest of our crew over to the train, some of us still in a state of lingering shock. It was a lesson learned that you could never let your guard down. We were one companion less, and the wiser for it. Once we got repacked and sheared the rope, we made our way over to the front edge of the car and looked down through the window at the source of all our grief. There on the floor, Beatrice began to stir, looking a little battered and drained.

  "Ohhh, what happened..." she moaned, mentally taxed from her concussion. Lucky for her, nothing seemed to be broken; except for any measure of trust, which we might have mistakenly held for the old gal. She was fortunate that the windows to the car had not broken through, or she would have certainly succumbed as a victim to the infected horde. One of the boys jimmied the sliding pane open and we all glared down at her with distain while she glanced back up at us meekly. Up top, we all glanced at one another, wondering which one of us was going to shoot her.

  Failsafe

  "Well now, Betty, give us one good reason why we shouldn't just drop you over the edge of this chasm here and call it a day?" Roy muttered to the old woman who was busy collecting her dignity. At first, she glazed her puppy dog eyes with innocence, trying to garner some sympathy from the lot of us; though she was entirely oblivious to the massacre that we had fought through only moments before, while her sorry ass was unconscious through it all.