The temperature increased as the whole bunker quaked – a strobe of while light shone, blinding their visions. No sound could be heard or anything seen. The atmosphere became unbalanced as the gravity gave way – their feet burnt hit as scorching sensations travelled up their bodies.
The professor shouted and screamed himself hoarse but neither Tommy nor Esther could hear him until the noise, the light and shaking stopped and they fell to their knees. “This is it friends, this is the last day. We should have listened. We should have listened!” he croaked.
Even if they wanted to reply, they couldn’t – the illuminated glow was seeping through the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was forming in some kind of plasma, it was growing at an alarming rate, it moved over their bodies, feeding, drawing the thoughts from their minds. Their feet too growing hotter and hotter, they had no choice but to scream from the pain – it had eaten into their protective suits, there was to be no escape.
The earth cracked as their flesh peeled from their torsos. The plasma consumed everything in its path. They, the three of them, were no longer. Their whole existence had disintegrated. Which was now sadly true of everyone and everything. All that remained was a reddish brown planet with nothing artificial...sunken ground covered in larva...even the sun and moon had changed their course.
If only they had listened.
Maid Of Metal
by Dave Jeffery
The police car pulled into a parking slot. On the asphalt a stencilled yellow statement said the space was 'Strictly reserved for visitors only'. Two detectives got out, a short man and a tall woman. The man was balding and mopped his high forehead with a checked handkerchief.
“Shit, it's hot,” he said ramming the swatch of fabric into the breast pocket of his crumpled blue suit.
“You sweat when it's two below freezing, Pearson,” his partner said with a grin. She had her dark hair bobbed and the sharp lines framed a face that was pale and smooth as alabaster.
“And you're always a bitch, Wright,” he said a without malice.
“Let it never be said we're nothing if not consistent,” Wright said.
It was the patter of partners; a result of working together for over four years. Sometimes self-efficacy was all they had to get them through cases that would otherwise send them to dark places, never to return.
The detectives approached the squat building ahead. The structure was made from glass and steel. Under the sun it glittered like baubles on a Yuletide pine. Climbing the broad, concrete steps Wright and Pearson were faced with a revolving door, the panes - edged with aluminium - slowly rotating under their own steam. Above the entrance gold lettering - embossed into highly polished steel - announced this was the domain of Phoenix Industries.
The company was renowned for courting prestige and controversy in equal measure; claims of unethical practices often followed in the wake of success. Yet the darker side to the scientific conglomerate had never been proven but suspicion surrounding its ongoing concerns still skulked in the shadow of its success like a sulking child.
Inside, the lobby was spacious yet sparse; a few cream leather sofas and small coffee tables the only occupants outside that of the stark white reception desk and the young, amiable woman standing behind it. The name badge on the woman's grey tunic told Wright that the receptionist was called Lydia Reeve.
“Can I help you?” Reeve said. The smile was almost as vivid as the desk she was standing behind.
“We're here to see a Professor Johnson?” Pearson said. He flashed his ID card. Wright scanned the lobby. Her eyes flitted across the steel slabs of an elevator door opposite her until she settled upon the short run of open stairs next to the reception area where a tall man with a neatly clipped grey and white beard was beginning his descent.
“Is he expecting you?” Reeve said. The smile remained but the tone was flat, guarded.
“It's all right, Miss Reeve,” said the man with the beard. He wore a long white lab coat that swished in time with his steps.
“Professor Johnson?” Wright said. “I'm Detective Wright. This is Detective Pearson. We spoke on earlier the phone?”
“Indeed,” Johnson said offering his hand. They took turns to accept his greeting. “I recall you said it was better to discuss why you called in person. I must say I am intrigued. But I’m a scientist after all; being inquisitive is intrinsic to the job description.”
“Quite a place you have here,” Pearson said as he looking about him.
“Mere fascia,” Johnson said cordially. “The exciting stuff is above us. Shall we?”
Johnson extended his arm inviting the detectives towards the stairs.
“What is it you do here at Phoenix Industries?” Wright said as she mounted the steps.
“Oh, lots of things,” Johnson said. “All covered by our non-disclosure agreements. Unless you have a warrant, of course?” His voice was as smooth as glass and made the rebuff a thing of whimsy.
“As I said earlier, we're just here to follow up on a few leads, professor,” Wright said.
“And we shall co-operate fully with Her Majesty's finest,” he said giving her a disarming smile. “We are both in the same business after all.”
“What do you mean?” Pearson said.
“Science and The Law. We are all compelled by the quest for knowledge supported by empirical evidence are we not?” he said.
“I guess so,” Pearson said with a voice that implied he didn't quite get it.
“No guessing in our game though, detective,” Johnson said. “Only pure hard fact. Science has no truck with supposition.”
They had reached the first floor. A mezzanine area stretched out before them, and here many computer terminals were organised in neat rows. Wright marvelled at the sense of prevalent order; every desk tidy held three black pens and a yellow pencil. There was a stapler and note book placed next to white keyboards and flat screen monitors. It was an OCD wet dream.
Behind the desks people in white tunics worked fastidiously, their concentration unrelenting as their unflinching eyes analysed data and projection models on their monitors.
“I think you get better investment than us, though,” Wright said.
“In that you may very well be right,” Johnson said and went to a glass door which had his name engraved into the panel. He opened the door and stepped aside to allow the detectives entry.
The office was bright yet sparse. The main wall was made of tinted glass and overlooked the plaza; Johnson's desk and chair was parked in front of it facing the entrance to the office. There was the faint scent of lavender on the air. Pearson scratched at his nose.
“Please take a seat,” Johnson said as he gestured to a small white sofa leaning against the left wall. Another sat at a right angle into which Johnson nestled.
“Can I get you tea or coffee? Juice perhaps?”
“We're fine,” Wright said. “Thank you.”
“Well,” Johnson said as he reclined into his sofa. “How can I help you?”
Pearson pulled out a note book and opened the cover. From here he retrieved a small photograph which he handed to Johnson.
“Pretty girl,” Johnson said as he looked down at the image a young woman with raven hair. She was petit and had a huge smile. There was a haunting look in her blue eyes made manifest by the dark circles beneath them.
“And a troubled one,” Pearson said. “Her name is Gemma Lorne. She’s a prostitute operating out of the city. Feeding a heroin habit, two kids under five in care. Trying to get ongoing parental access by staying clean. She disappeared a few nights ago whilst on a trick. Her pimp reported her missing this morning.”
“How very noble of him,” Johnson said handing the photograph back to Pearson.
“Gemma hadn't returned his cut of the tips,” Wright said. “That makes this kind of scumbag very noble.”
“Can't say I have knowledge of such things,” Johnson said. He appeared bored.
/>
“Pimp says the last place she went was here,” Pearson said. He scrutinised Johnson's face as he let the statement sink in.
“Gosh,” Johnson said. “And what on earth made him think that?”
“Said he was approached by a young guy in his thirties with Harry Potter glasses, well-spoken, but drunk,” Wright said. “It's alleged the guy said he wanted a girl to attend a private party. Here.”
Johnson considered this for a moment then shook his head.
“This is not a place renowned for parties, detective,” he said.
“The guy told Gemma's pimp that the party was to celebrate a huge scientific breakthrough,” Pearson said. “Handed over a grand. Promised to bring the girl here and return her when the party was done. Pimp insisted on going along to protect his property so was bought off with another grand. He watched the guy drive off with Gemma. And she hasn't been seen since.”
Silence descended and the detectives watched the professor as he crossed his long legs, the material his moleskin trousers hissing at the movement. He got out his phone and dialled a number. After two short rings a small voice buzzed from the receiver.
“Miss Reeve, can you ask Alan in security to provide detectives Wright and Pearson the security footage from our main lobby and all access roads on Tuesday night please?”
There was another buzz-buzz in his ear. Johnson addressed the detectives, “Miss Reeve is asking what time?'
“From midnight onwards,” Pearson said.
Johnson relayed the information to Reeve and then disconnected the call.
“You will be able to collect the footage from reception on your way out,” Johnson said. “I'm sure you will find nothing to suggest the poor girl was ever here. We have strict policies on unauthorised personnel in this building. It is a breach of policy that has an immediate termination of employment clause attached to it. Now then, if there's nothing else?”
The detectives stood and made for the door.
“Thank you, professor,” Wright said. “We'll be in touch.”
“We can only hope that the poor girl turns up safe and sound,” Johnson said. “I'll get someone to see you out.”
Johnson called over one of the workers sitting at a nearby desk on the mezzanine. The man was young and appeared naturally awkward. Johnson gave him instruction and watched pensively as the detectives and their chaperone disappeared down the stairs.
Then Johnson pulled out his phone and went into his office. A voice came to him from the handset.
“O'Neal?” Johnson snapped. “Get your fucking arse to my office. Now!”
Johnson ended the call by throwing the phone across the room where it shattered against the wall.
Outside, on the mezzanine landing, everyone at their desks pretended not to notice.
***
“You got something you want to tell me, Dr O'Neal?”
O'Neal stood before Johnson's desk and picked nervously at the pocket of his white lab coat.
“Professor?”
O'Neal's hand moved from his pockets to the round-rimmed glasses perched on a nose that had been bent by a school yard Neanderthal when he was nine years old. Behind the lenses dark brown eyes blinked like those of an earthquake survivor pulled from the rubble.
“Talk me through Tuesday night,” Johnson said.
O'Neal became animated, his face jigging with excitement.
“Well, as you know sir, Tuesday was when we had the breakthrough on Project Evergreen,” he gushed. “The team is still buzzing from it. Especially now we've moved to Phase Two.”
“Yes,” Johnson said. “Tell me about Tuesday night and its connection to Phase Two.”
At this the elation slid from O'Neal's face and he looked at the ground. He mumbled something.
“What?” Johnson asked.
“The girl,” O'Neal said.
“The prostitute,” Johnson corrected him.
“I was careful,” he blurted.
“The police were just here, you idiot,” Johnson snapped. “You told the whore's handler where you were taking her. How less careful could you have been?”
“Circumstances, sir,” O'Neal said. “It was a set of circumstance; unfortunate but the outcome does give some balance. We have moved to Phase Three and early signs are very promising.”
Johnson's eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“Explain,” he said sitting back in his chair.
***
Pain. Vibrant and all consuming; the absolution matched only by the darkness. But whilst the murk slips away, the agony of awareness is a constant.
Now pain has new companions. Images rise from the muddy gloom that diffuses ebony ink, giving forum to their discordant message.
Here is a child - no more than three years of age - sifting through an overflowing kitchen bin, searching for scraps to eat; there are the thin incessant screams of a baby yearning for its mother's touch. A vortex opens up in the flicker-flash maelstrom, the movie of a life, other frames drop into the spiralling well, a life where the pastime of choice was Chasing Dragons and selling sex to feed the insatiable beast.
The whirlpool spins white and chrome, faces are standing over her as, one by one, men in white coats grunt and groan, a man with a greasy bald head that sparkles under the halogens; another with Harry Potter glasses who comes so hot and fast his colleagues point and laugh, another with a thick beard that tickles her breasts as he gorges on her nipples, and throughout it all there is an olfactory assault as memories of the reek of disinfectant and strawberry scented lubricant assails nasal passages. They satisfy their needs, she does her misplaced duty. And it ends as swiftly as it began. She has more drinks; they're kind of free if she forgets what she has actually just given of herself.
She tries to stand.
Dizziness, now – the first person view of someone high and drunk and unsteady. The scene slides left as legs give out. There are concerned cries from the men but they are made dull by the affects of heroin and alcohol. A million miles away hands go to an abdomen wet and tacky. A head lifts and eyes see, but do not truly register, the bloody metal shaft of a scientific instrument protruding through a stomach that now puddles with deep red blood.
The men are kneeling beside her staring incredulously at the shaft - at the blood - and watch Death’s approaching twilight try to take the light from out of her eyes. Blackness has been the shade of choice for an indeterminable time but now, with the onset of these cavorting images, it is no longer the backdrop to consciousness.
Recognition - realisation - of what has happened and what she has ultimately become arrive on the same train, and the affect is akin to rapture; akin to enlightenment.
Within the murky soup that is an awakening psyche, an emotion surfaces with the urgency of a drowning man.
Rage.
***
To scientists outside Phoenix Industries, the mere existence of Project Evergreen would have been considered with derision. Cryonics was, after all, a fringe science based on the premise of preserving malignant organic material for the sole purpose of reanimating it when futures science had found a cure. The sticking point was that current methods of preservation was yet to find the scientific means to revive the material let alone cure it once the process was complete.
Despite this, Phoenix Industries was not a conglomerate that shied away from the vitriol of the scientific community. After all: the rate of true progress was often hampered by ethics. And if those who scoffed at the concept of cryonics being little more than fringe science, then Phoenix Industries considered ethics with equal scorn. As a company they didn't so much push boundaries, they punched holes in them and crawled into the world they created in the beyond.
And Professor Johnson had no issue with such a notion.
“So,” he said to O’Neal. “Explain.”
“Firstly, for context, I'll state what we already know,” O'Neal said with suppressed enthusiasm. “The cryonics pr
ocess stalls at the point where we introduce cryoprotectants such as Glycerol and Dimethyl Sulfoxide to minimise the damage to organic materials from cryopreservation temperatures of minus one-thirty degrees Celsius. Yet in nature there are multiple examples of organisms that employ the cryonics process via antifreeze proteins in order to survive sub-zero temperatures; the Arctic salamander for example.”
“I pride myself on being a patient man, O'Neal,” Johnson said. “But be warned: I am reaching my limit.”
“Of course, sir,” O'Neal said. “This is where my theory kicked in.”
“Theory?”
“I hypothesised that the very materials we are using to kick start the cryonics process are the very reason it becomes static and thus the science stalls.”
“Is that so?” Johnson said. But O'Neal caught the interest in his boss's voice.
“The clue was quite obvious in the end,” O'Neal said. “The cryonics process works in such creatures because they are still alive. We know that one of the contentions of science and cryonics is the definition of death as a process not a diagnosis. Will the information held within the brain, the very thing that gives a person their identity - their awareness - still be present when the cryopreserved brain is revived? The consensus is that at this point the scientific means is not available so, for many, without concrete proof it remains a philosophical construct at odds with pure science. So why move the boundaries? Why preserve organic material in the hope of resurrecting it when science evolves when you can naturally sustain this material while it still lives? All we do is replicate nature; build upon it. This was my hypothesis. And I have been able to prove it is possible to remove a brain and sustain the identity of the person post-surgery.”
Johnson was staring at him but O'Neal recognised the expression on the professor's face.
“Dr O'Neal?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I think you may have just saved your job,” Johnson said.
***
Johnson and O'Neal walked through the mezzanine section, their muted conversation accompanied by the clicks of multiple keypads as their operators pumped information into hard drives. At the far side of computer area two elevators with doors of stainless steel lay in wait.
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