The Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. - the Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist

by Darren Humphries

  “Like your brother? Did you try to convert him first or was he always so much better than you that it wasn’t worth the effort?” It wasn’t much of a psychological ploy, my opening shot so to speak, so I was surprised when it found a target.

  “Him?” For a second I thought she was going to spit on the floor in the most unladylike manner. “He was as big a fool as the rest of you.”

  “But he still figured you out didn't he, realised what you were doing?” I pressed, just a little bit. “He was just too intelligent for you and decided that he wasn’t going to help. That’s why you had to sic the Siren on him, right, to make sure that he would finish what you got him to start?”

  “A fool he might have been, but he was smart,” she said with an indifference that was chilling. This was, after all, her own brother she was talking about, “and resistant. Then again, he always was something of a rebel, though more by accident than by his own will. When we realised that he was beginning to suspect us, the Siren ensured that he completed his work.”

  “And then you killed him.”

  “I didn’t, but I’m fairly sure that someone has by now.”

  “You did kill Houseman though, didn’t you?” I accused her, trying to keep my emotions under control. Anger (and I was seriously angry, though mostly at myself) would only cloud my judgement and dull my responses. “You wrote the translation yourself, after you killed her.”

  “The sphinxes were supposed to do that, but we overestimated their deadliness,” Miranda stated with no sign of concern or regret. “You were taking too long to figure things out so I needed to prod you in the right direction. The professor probably could have deciphered the message in time, but the others were getting impatient, so whilst you were out running for your life, I finished her off and wrote the translation myself. She was quite wrong about the language, by the way. There are more than three or four people in the world who can speak it. I wasn’t sure about arranging the body the way that I did, with the pen in her hand. I thought it might be a little bit too obvious, too dramatic, but you swallowed it hook, line and sinker as well, just as you swallowed everything right from the start.”

  “Am I to understand that you two are not working together in this after all?” Grayson asked suddenly from his seat. My first reaction was to kill him where he sat, but there was nothing to hand with which too beat him to death. The last thing I needed was him causing a distraction when I might be actually getting somewhere.

  “Oh please!” Miranda snorted, though whether at the ridiculousness of the thought or because he was too stupid to have figured that out yet was not clear. Many things he may have been (and I had certainly accused him of a lot, few of them charitable), but stupid was not one of them. I wondered where he was going with this. If it had been an attempt at distraction then it hadn’t worked because even as she dismissed his words her eyes never left me. I was the threat and her attention never wavered from me. I reassessed her professionalism.

  “Then who are you working for?” Grayson asked and that was typical of the man. I realised that he was trying to get information for the hidden microphones in the room, information that would help the agents assigned to solving our murder case. I wasn't willing to accept that we were dead yet. And there were even bigger issues to deal with.

  “You people are all so obsessed with labels; ‘The Agency’, ‘Children Of Osiris’, ‘Magic Circle’ ... It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. We’re not a club. We don’t have a name. We're just like-minded people brought together in a common cause.”

  “To destroy the Magic Circle,” I summarised.

  “Finally figured it out did you?” She sneered at me again. It was something that she clearly felt very comfortable doing. “Well aren’t you a clever boy?”

  “You’re not Children Of Osiris?” Grayson asked. I took back what I thought about him not being stupid.

  “There is no Children Of Osiris,” I told him and then paused, “Well, there might be, but these people aren’t them. They just used the name, a hidden pyramid and some old legends to make us believe that they were and that their eventual aim was to bring back the Egyptian Gods.”

  “To create a crisis large enough to warrant bringing the Magic Circle together in one place,” he was catching up fast.

  “And destroy them all,” Miranda agreed with so much relish that she almost licked her lips.

  “Impossible,” Grayson declared with absolute certainly. “This building is protected by the best security systems in the world bar none. It’s safer from outside attack than the Pentagon or Number 10 and there is no way for anyone to bring in a weapon large enough to take out the Magic Circle. They’d reduce you to dust before you could even get a shot off at one of them with that thing.”

  “Unless you’re a chemist who can make rock explode,” I explained before Miranda could, but the interruption didn’t faze her at all. She had passed into what she no doubt believed was a state of grace, a calm and control that came only with the acceptance that your life was actually ended, that your martyrdom had actually arrived. With nothing more to lose, there was nothing more to worry about. I, on the other hand, was plenty worried.

  Grayson made the final connection, “The obelisk?”

  “The obelisk,” I confirmed. Hundreds of tonnes of plain rock waiting to be transformed into one huge pointy explosive and completely undetectable to any of the conventional (and some of our distinctly unconventional) weapons scans. We’d even laid on the transport for them.

  “Well I can’t say it hasn’t been fun since I,ve actually really enjoyed making such fools of you,” Miranda said now that the whole plot was out in the open. The time for gloating was over and the time for action had come. “Goodbye.”

  I moved fast, but the bullet moved much faster. I was thrown hard across the desk by the hammer blow to my chest. Even as I was hurled across the room, the second shot spun Grayson around and tipped his chair over onto its side. A third shot caused the computer on Grayson’s desk to explode in a shower of electronic sparks. I lay very still, watching the fashionable boots that were all I could actually see of Miranda below the desk turn around and walk over to the lift. She had hit us both full on at almost point blank range, but that was no excuse for not coming over and either checking that we were dead or putting another bullet in our heads just to make sure that we were. For once I had no reason to complain about sloppy workmanship. When the lift doors were fully closed again and I heard the sound of its descent, I crawled to the edge of the desk to make sure she was gone. I could barely breathe, certainly not without major pain to every one of my ribs. My grip on consciousness was tenuous at best as the room wavered and wobbled before my eyes for a few moments. Bulletproof charms were expensive and uncomfortable to wear, but they are even more uncomfortable when they actually serve their purpose. The Agency credit card had dealt with the cost issue. I was dealing with the rest.

  I crawled over to Grayson because it was all I could manage at the moment. He was also having trouble breathing, but in his case it was because of the hole that went right through his chest.

  “ID,” he managed to say and I could see the effort cost him a lot when he didn’t have a lot left to spend. “Chute behind desk.”

  So, a captain might be expected to go down with his ship, but at least one Director of the Agency hadn’t intended to go up with his building.

  “I don’t think I should move you,” I suggested and he rolled his eyes.

  “Not me imbecile, you.” He wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t insult me.

  I took the plastic ID tag off his jacket and he grabbed my arm with surprising strength for a man in his condition.

  “Hydra’s teeth,” he hissed in my ear.

  “What?” I tried to ask, but he wasn't going to be answering any more questions from me, or anyone else for that matter. He slumped back and his head hit the floor with a sound that made me wince, but brought no reaction from him. The glassy-eyed stare was enoug
h to tell me that I couldn’t do anything more for him. That wasn’t true for everyone else that was in danger. I regretted having cut off the office so effectively. Miranda had destroyed any chance that I had of lifting the room’s isolation field with her third shot through the computer that controlled it. I tried the phone, but it wasn’t working, of course. The next logical course of action would have been to take the lift to a lower floor and raise the alarm from there, but that was in use and I couldn’t wait for Miranda to get out so that it could come back up for me.

  I went back to Grayson’s desk.

  There was only a single trigger built into the desk’s frame and since the furniture was of such a sparse, modern design it wasn’t hard to find it. As I pressed the small button, a panel fell open in one of the room’s sloping metal pillars with a clang of metal against marble to reveal a chute inside that presumably went all the way down to ground level, or perhaps to the underground car park. I didn’t have time to consider alternatives, so I swung myself over the lip. The chute was a narrow tube with only enough room for one body to pass through and only then if they didn’t hold out their hands at all. It did not look inviting, but I was down to only one option. I slipped into the chute and let myself fall. The angle of descent was so steep that I accelerated to almost terminal velocity very quickly. The not-so-far side of the tube flew past the end of my nose in a blur of riveted sections and small utility lamps. It was only one step removed from freefall and I plummeted towards street level, fervently hoping that the designer hadn’t forgotten some sort of deceleration system at the other end.

  That question was answered as I plunged into a viscous liquid that brought me quickly, and more importantly safely, to a halt. Just as I realised that I was now stuck, unable to move, inside a tube of unbreathable jelly, a panel opposite me popped open and the fluid flooded out onto the street, taking me with it. As I sat, unceremoniously dumped on the pavement, I realised that very few people were looking at me in surprise despite the unusual manner of my arrival. The activation of the escape tube had set off alarms that were sounding inside the building and red lights were flashing on all the doors, which had automatically sealed. Passers-by had very sensibly taken that as a sign to vacate the immediate vicinity.

  I scrambled to my feet, the fluid dripping off me into the large puddle of the stuff that had been released, and then sprinted around the building as fast as my restricted breathing would allow. Adrenaline was being pumped into my system, counteracting the pain in my chest.

  I reached the staff entrance and fumbled Grayson’s ID card through the reader. The door popped open despite the fact that the building was in total lockdown and I darted through it. The moment that I was through, the DNA scanners detected that I was not who the card said that I ought to be and a whole new batch of alarms went off, adding to the cacophony that was already assaulting my ears. Heavy steel doors slammed down behind me, cutting me off from the street with enough force to slice through the average armoured battle tank. The world was plunged into red as the lights cut to a wavelength that better suited the attack dogs that were about to be unleashed. With a semi-automatic machine pistol I might have been able to get half of them before they ripped out my throat with their three rows of genetically-strengthened fangs, but I was armed with only my wits, which would certainly not be up to the challenge.

  Except...

  Grayson had been on the edge of death, knowing that he only had moments to live. Why would he waste them with a pointless curse? He had proven himself far too many times to simply lose it just because he was staring the Grim Reaper in the cowl. What the heck, it was worth a try. At this point anything was worth a try.

  “Hydra’s Teeth.”

  The lights flickered back to normal, the sirens cut out, at least in this area. I could hear them still sounding further off in the building. The dogs were still locked in their cages, though they were howling in frustration. They probably hadn’t been this close to a live kill in months.

  Mentally, I saluted Grayson, though I didn’t have the time to do it properly and he presumably didn’t give a damn. Miranda still had a head start on me, though I must have gotten to the ground floor faster than she did. My only advantage was that I knew the place better than she did even though she had doubtlessly studied any available blueprints. Beyond the security desk I got an idea of just how far ahead of me she was. There were bodies. Several of them. Most were splashed with crimson and only one of them was moving.

  “Mettles?” Though I really didn’t have the time, I knelt down to check out the security chief. He was in a bad way. Much of his shoulder had been shattered and a second wound was staining the abdomen of his uniform shirt.

  “Mister Ward,” he responded through pain-gritted teeth. “I’m sorry, she took us by surprise.”

  “Yeah, she’s good at that,” I told him though it was small comfort.

  “We weren’t expecting someone inside the building and especially not someone who looks like she does.”

  “You just lie still Mettles,” I told him, holding him down as he tried to rise.

  “Oh this isn’t going to kill me sir,” he assured me, “though I’m going to feel pretty rough in the morning.”

  The infantry troops were definitely a different breed.

  “There’s weapons behind the desk. She took some, but I don’t think she could’ve carried them all.”

  “Thanks, but they won’t be any use where I’m going. You make sure that you’re alive when I get back, or I shall be very annoyed with you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to annoy you sir,” he said as I lay his head gently back onto the floor.

  I tried the phone on the desk, but it wasn’t working. When I bugger up communications I apparently do a thorough job.

  The route from the staff entrance to the main research labs was down two levels and across virtually half the building. There was only one laboratory that would be large enough to accommodate an entire obelisk and whilst I knew where that was, she was going to have to look for it. She might have been familiar with floor plans of the building, almost certainly was, but floor plans have a way of not quite reflecting the current reality, especially after a building has been up and running for a few years. The plan had clearly been for her to make her way straight there, but she hadn’t counted on Mettles and his willingness to challenge people who shouldn’t be where they are. Having to fight her way through the building wasn’t something that she could have foreseen, but she had adapted quickly.

  I went straight for the stairwell. Sliding down the handrails was almost as fast as taking the lift even without factoring in having to wait for it to arrive, though it did risk taking all the skin of the palms of my hands. I didn’t have to worry about her finding me as I exited back into the main building because Research and Development was based on the second sub-basement and I’d gone one lower than that, to my own office level. The room I was looking for was only a few feet away from the stairwell and was emblazoned with a big skull and crossbones symbol under which was a sign that warned:

  THIS IS YOU IF YOU ARE NOT AUTHORISED

  I wasn’t authorised, but at this point it wasn’t going to make much difference. Grayson’s ID card opened the door, but it locked itself firmly and automatically behind me. The Generator Room was the largest single space in the whole building, including the lobby that filled half of the ground floor. Inside it were huge machines using natural gravitational, magnetic, tidal and geothermal forces to generate the huge power requirements of the building, most specifically the power for the cells one floor down. Those forces were being twisted and manipulated in the room in ways I couldn’t have understood even if I’d been interested enough to listen to any of the convoluted explanations required, but the orientation tour that every employee received was very clear on one thing about the Generator Room – to go into it without proper protection was to be dead very quickly. There wasn’t time for me to fully suit up, so I grabbed the fire, pressure and static el
ectricity-retardant upper body of the suit and threw it over my head. I then slipped through into the main room. Through the small and heavily tinted faceplate, I could see the row upon row of huge machines under harsh white lighting. I could feel the hum and thrum of their operation resonating through my chest, but the heavy cloth covering dulled the sound. Everything looked disappointingly normal with no deadly threat in evidence.

  I started forward and ran down the central aisle. This formed a straight line right through the heart of the Generator Room to the only other door on this level right on the far side. At the very centre of the room there was a staircase fashioned out of the most inert material known to man that led up to the floor above. That was my destination. One level up, the corridors snaked like a labyrinth around the several oddly-shaped labs and testing areas that had been designed for very specific purposes and so needed very specific dimensions. I could cover the ground in a straight line down here in half the time it would have taken up there. I had covered half the distance before I realised why the warnings against coming into the room were so stark. One of the machines that I was passing suddenly discharged directly into the ground I had been standing on. Had I not been running at full speed (or at least as quickly as I could with the heavy suit over my head), the arcing energy would have welded me directly into the floor’s surface. As it was I was hurled forward by the force of the discharge and slid another hundred feet before I came to rest. I stumbled to my feet, tasting the acidic aftertaste of the discharge and then grabbed the nearest handrail in panic. Somehow I had been hurled up to the room’s ceiling and was in danger of falling to my death. Except that I wasn’t in any danger at all. I was still on the floor, but the floor now appeared to be the ceiling with the giant machines hanging on as much as I was. That couldn’t be. The effects of the enormous energies being channelled through the machines were distorting the space around them, or more likely were distorting my perception of them. Since I wasn’t hanging from the handrail as I ought to be if gravity had been constant, I let go and didn’t plunge to a pulpy death, for which I was grateful.