by Oliver Tuson
Clarke couldn’t watch any more. He looked away from the burning building towards the school. There, against the fence of the playground were lines of children and teachers stood out in the heavy rain. Faces pressed up to the fence trying to see the action that had saved their lives at the cost of Clarke’s men.
17
Hope
18:45, 15th August 2003
Main Elevator, Hades Facility, Northern Iraq
Clarke let out a sigh as he finished his story. His emotions bubbling below the surface of his usual confident expression. Threatening to overwhelm him at any moment. He couldn’t look any of the men in the eyes. He just looked down. “If I hadn’t left them. We might have overpowered the terrorists. Killed them all. The QRF did make it in time and they would of neutralised the bomber. They appeared between the bomber and the school. They were there in time.” He ran his hands across his face and eyes.
“I left them to die. I left them alone up there. I as good as killed them. Abandoned them.”
The elevator fell silent for a few moments until Sanchez went to speak to his friend. “That's not on you boss. No way is that on you brother.”
“You did the right thing Clarke, I would have done the same, if I was brave enough to do it.” Millerchip started. “What you did saved lives, lots of lives. It was heroic, and a fine display of soldiering. I’m sure those men would agree.” Millerchip looked deeper at Clarke. “It was also was also the mission. To stop the bombing of that school. I’m sure your team would have happily exchanged their lives to achieve it. To save those kids. I know I would.”
Hawkins and Sanchez both silently nodded their agreement with the alpha team leader. The silence dragged on again until Hawkins spoke up. “Shit, I had no idea boss,” he said sheepishly. “That was a fucked up situation to be in. And to be living with it. If I had known, I’d…” Hawkins stopped speaking, lost for words.
“Have stopped being such a dick?” Sanchez said, trying to lighten the mood and deal with the situation. Hawkins flashed red with embarrassment at all the times he had asked Clarke about his past or pushed for answers. Or told people of the rumours he heard on the military grapevine without knowing the facts. The rumours of how Clarke got his men killed.
“Sorry,” was all the young solider could manage. The realisation of his actions hitting him hard.
“That's ok.” Clarke said as he finally looked up at the men. Millerchip looked him in the eyes as he walked over and knelt down beside him. He placed a hand on his shoulder as he spoke.
“Listen, what you did was the right move. Those men would have been proud of you for stopping that lunatic. And me, and am sure everyone else who serves alongside you, respects you as a leader and solider.”
Clarke nodded slightly. “I guess we will never know…”. He was cut off as the lights suddenly came back on and the motors whined to life as the evaluator suddenly started moving again.
“Done it gentleman.” Jaspers voice was quiet, almost apologetic for interrupting the conversation. He had been listening over the lift’s battery-operated intercom that activated in emergencies as he worked on rerouting the power.
“Nice one Jas,” Clarke said, his voice suddenly back to the professional soldier. Almost as if the past few minutes hadn’t taken place. His emotions pushed back down under the surface. He could sense the men in the lift watching him awkwardly, so he kept the conversation going with Jasper to take the attention away from him.
“How did you do it Jas?”
“Not really sure boss. It’s a complex system. The power grid control is like a complicated junction box.” His enthusiasm for these things started to shine through his voice, changing the mood of the room. Clarke smiled slightly, relived Jasper was talking and breaking the silence that was forming in the lift. “But I managed to draw power from some other areas and reroute it to key points. Including your lift.”
“Where did you take the power from?”
“Not sure, it’s all guess work to be honest.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. Either way, well done Jas.”
“No problem boss. Just doing my job.” Jasper said calmly, not enjoying the praise, preferring the quiet life.
“You’re awesome at your job Jas.” Hawkins added with a smile, knowing the solider didn’t want the praise.
“Yeah yeah, just get back to control. Oh, and I’ve got some more good news when you get here.”
The men all looked at each other with intrigue at the comment before Hawkins added “This day had to get better at some point I suppose.”
The lift came to a stop as they reached the centre and the doors slid open. As the team exited and made their way towards the control room, far below them, they were unaware of the deadly effects of the power being redirected.
In the large lab were Clarke had been, where the many canisters of stalkers were floating in the thick red liquid, a disaster was forming. One by one the glass tanks were draining. The red fluid being sucked out of the chamber. The creature's bodies floating down until they laid crumpled at the bottom of the tank. Then the stalkers eyes started to blink open. Eight bright red eyes coming to life. Their bodies started twitching as they woke from their deep enforced sleep. One by one they stood up in the tank and gave deathly shrieks as they smashed at the glass until cracks began to form. Cracks that grew out like spiderwebs until eventually they shattered open, allowing the deadly creations to burst out of their laboratory prisons. Their hellish shrieks filling the air as the pack went in search of prey to fill their hunger.
Ten minutes later bravo team were once again reunited in the control room as the airlock door closed behind them. Jasper stepped up and greeted Clarke with a firm handshake and slap on the shoulder. “I thought we lost you boss.” Clarke nodded recalling the close encounters with the hellish creatures. “Yeah, it’s been close. Too close on too many occasions, for us all.”
They all gathered around the table in the centre and placed their weapons on it. Jasper had found a few bottles of water in one of the offices and gave them out. The survivors drinking heavily from them and passing them round the group. “Got any beer instead? It’s been a tough day.” Hawkins said in jest as he fell back into a chair that he dragged in from one of the offices.
“Your right about that brother. A very tough day.” Sanchez said after finishing one of the bottles and putting it down. “No beer, but maybe I can make the day a little better.”
Jasper turned away from the group and eagerly tapped away at the keyboard until the monitors displayed an image of one of the labs down below. In its centre, locked in a large cage was one of the creatures that had ambushed the soldiers outside of the facility in the village of small buildings. Clarke thought back to the devastation the pack of monsters had caused. Emerging to life from the rocks around the buildings, ambushing and killing the soldiers with ease.
Around the cage were various researchers and workers. Jasper pressed a button and the still image turned into a video. The creature suddenly snapped at one of the cage’s handlers, throwing itself at its bars, making the facility’s employee jump back in shock. The researcher shouted abuse at it as the monster shuffled about inside restlessly. Its rocky shell was poking through the cage as it did.
“Jesus… those things from outside?” Hawkins said as he got out of his chair and closer to the monitor.
“What am I looking at Jas?” Clarke said.
“Just wait a second…You’ll see.” The handler, having finished shouting abuse at the creature, cautiously approached the cage again and picked up a small remote. The cage started moving forward. It must have been on wheels, or a motorised platform of some sort, Clarke thought as he watched the cage move along the length of the lab, followed by a group of researchers. Jasper stopped the video.
“Well that was good, what’s on next Jas?” Hawkins mocked. “Jasper ignored him and pressed more buttons on the terminal. Another monitor played, showing the view from a fixed security cam
era, continuing the journey of the cage. It emerged into a corridor with an elevator at the end. Clarke recognised the lab now. He had wondered into earlier and found it empty and closed down. He recalled the email he read about the lab's success. The success that was now being moved into the elevator. The cage fitted perfectly in the space with enough for two workers to stand with it.
Clarke remembered his last time in an elevator with the creations from this place and shuddered. He didn’t envy the men stood by the cage with it. The doors slid shut and Jasper turned it off.
“Jas, this is all very interesting brother, but what's the point?” Hawkins asked, growing bored.
“Just wait, it’s worth it, I promise.”
The monitor went to a camera feed of the research atrium. The elevator doors opening and the cage getting moved out on the centre. The handlers drove it over to the elevator marked ‘Research and Development Area Six' with the remote. A few moments later and the doors slid open and they moved in. Jasper changed the video feed again so they could carry on watching the journey of the cage.
The elevator descended and entered another lab. Clarke was amazed at how busy the facility was. Researchers were pacing around. Going about their business with a sense of the everyday. The same everyday expressions office workers have in boring jobs back in England. Some of the staff didn’t even bother to look at the snarling beast in the cage as they moved it through the lab. Almost as if they had seen it all before and had better things to do. Better things to create. And they had, Clarke thought, thinking back to the other creatures they had fought so far in this hell.
The video footage kept changing at Jasper’s command as the cage traveled through the lab and into another area that the cameras couldn’t quite display.
“What's that?” Clarke asked, trying to make out the images. Jasper tapped the monitor. “The blueprints say it's a storage area, but the cameras are not great in there.” He moved the video footage forward until the cage appeared on a camera the far side of the storage zone. A camera with a better view. There was another elevator there. Only this one was massive. Big enough to get shipping containers on it. A cargo lift.
The handlers put the cage on the lift. The beast still frustrated at its enclosed space and trying to snap at them through the bars of the cage. A moment later and the cargo lift door was slid across and the cage was heading up.
“That it?” Hawkins asked, not sure in the point of what he had watched. Jasper nodded as he paused the video. The screen stopping on the cargo lift.
“Yeah, that’s it Hawks.” He said sarcastically to the man before looking at the others. “My logic is that if those are the things that attacked us out there in the village, then they must be created, or breed down here. But they had to get them out there somehow.” He pointed at the paused video. “I think that cargo elevator leads up to the surface.”
He went back to the terminal and pressed a few buttons, whilst the men digested what he was saying. The screen changed to blueprints of the facility. “After I found the blueprints to this place and guided you boys out…” He looked at Hawkins to remind him of how he saved him from a close death in the power room. “I had a better look and found this.” He gestured to the top of the elevator lines on the prints and zoomed in on a flat part at the top marked ‘Helicopter Pad’. The words filling the men with a new sense of hope.
“We must have walked right over it when we approached this hell hole.” Jasper said with a shrug.
Sanchez tapped his finger on the table as if recalling the journey here. “Yeah! Your right! Remember towards the top of the climb. On the final approach. We stopped on that flat patch.” He looked at Hawkins. “Where you were struggling…” He shot a grin at the man as he recalled it.
“Yeah yeah, at least I can out run you.” Hawkins responded thinking of the sprint from the stalkers in the water pump room. Sanchez just grinned as he went on, turning to Clarke. “Remember boss, we stopped and even said how unnatural it was. Shit! We were fucking stood on concealed a helicopter pad. Or the top of the lift? Or maybe both?”
“That's some good camouflage skills. Disguising that.” Clarke added thinking about it.
“Either way,” Jasper went on. “I think that’s our route out of this place. Down through Lab six, through the storage area and into the cargo lift.”
Clarke nodded in agreement at the realisation they might actually survive this horror. They all shared a look of hope between them. At least until Millerchip spoke up. “Straight into the claws of those things. Those Cerberus or Guardians? They are still out there remember. Those things that killed our friends… my men.”
“Not if they are in the village, they didn’t attack us on the way up. We could just sneak back down and out.” Hawkins suggested.
“Remember the dead shepherd and goats? Must have been them. Just luck they didn’t get us on the way up.” Sanchez added. Jasper had his hand raised during the conversation, like a child waiting to answer a question in school classroom.
“Go on.” Clarke said. Jasper took a breath and gave a big grin. “I think I’ve killed them. All of them.” The group stared at him in disbelief. Hawkins laughed at him.
“I think when you were buried under the rocks, one hit you on the head too hard buddy.”
Jasper started playing on the terminal again. “When I was hunting the system’s files for a way out, I found out more information on our rocky friends.” The screen was filled with an image of the predator that had hunted them outside. Next to it was the title.
‘PROJECT CERBERUS: SUBJECT 45, GUARDIAN STRAIN’. “It’s all here. These…” he paused as he tried to find the right words. “Guardians? They are programmed to secure a set perimeter. Killing anyone or anything they find.”
“Fucking guardians, programmed, what the fuck?” Hawkins said as Jasper just went on with his discovery.
“Even programmed to bring what they find to a set location. To cover up the kills. The perfect security system for this place. Or any military base on foreign soil for that matter.”
“Explains why we found all the bodies in that one building.” Millerchip added softly, thinking of the pile of bodies that were in the hut. The deathly pile of blood and flesh that would be in his memory forever.
Clark thought back to the email. “I read about these things down in the labs. It was their first success in this place. Their first weapon. I read how they want to trail it in other military bases.”
“Wait, who’s military bases?” Hawkins asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. At least not yet.” Clarke replied not wanting to have that conversation just yet. Only having suspicions to go on. Although deep down he was sure he knew the answers.
“But I’m going to find out.” Millerchip added, his voice full of revenge for his men.
“But why? Why did those Guardians kill those people? If that was where all the staff were living. Why did they kill them all?” Hawkins added trying to find the answers.
“Unless they went wrong? Or unless…” Jasper stopped talking for a second. Just paused whilst thinking. “Remember what Ahmed said? He said they would be cleaning up? Destroying evidence? Maybe that's what they did? Let those guard dogs lose until no one is left to talk.” The group stared at the monitor for a few minutes. No one talking. All thinking over the implications of the discovery.
“You said you killed them?” Millerchip finally asked.
“This control room operates the security for the facility. One of the programmes is called Perimeter Drone Security. I worked back through the system. Originally the patrol zone was set all around the facility, starting past the edge of the village. A few days back, the area was reset, to include the village. I think the drones refer to those things, the guardians.”
“So, they did kill their own people? Covering up this place?” Hawkins stated. Jasper nodded. “Yeah looks that way. But, more importantly there was a shutdown command. Like a self-destruct. So, I activated it.” He shrugged. “No
way to be sure, but remembering how those other creatures died in the village after the countdown, the kill command should do it. Maybe it’s poison capsule on remote or timer that gets embedded in them. Or some other fucked up thing these scientists thought of. But explains why the stalkers died as they did.” He looked around at the men with a smile. “But I’m confident we will be safe.”
“Good work Jas.” Clarke added whilst Hawkins slapped him on the shoulder with a massive grin. “Jas single handedly wiped out Project Cerberus! We should call you Hercules from now on!” Sanchez said, recalling how the legend told of how Hercules killed the demon that guarded the gates of hell. He burst into laughter at his own joke and the relief the group felt at having a workable escape plan again.
“Remote controlled monsters. You gotta give it to them, they were good at what they were doing here.” Millerchip added solemnly.
“Fucking lunatics more like,” Hawkins added.
“Either way, we are getting out of here now.” Clarke added. He looked at Millerchip’s arm, still bleeding through the bandage. Then to the woman still unconscious on the desk. “Millerchip, I suggest you stay here with her. Keep us covered on the cameras and operate the lifts.” He went to protest but Clarke kept going. “I’ll take Bravo, secure the route and make sure the exit is safe. It’ll be a lot easier with someone watching our backs. And without carrying her.” He motioned towards the sleeping woman. “If all goes to plan, and Jas is right. We can move back up to you and collect her then exfiltrate this nightmare.”
Millerchip considered the plan. He knew it was the right option and surrendered to the thought quickly, becoming use to being a burden with his injuries. “Ok” he finally said flatly.
“Jas, give me a quick lesson on these camera controls then.” Whilst Jasper walked him through the terminal operation, the rest of bravo checked their equipment and shared out their remaining ammo evenly. It dawned on them that they were an assault rifle short. Clarke’s having been pulled from him when he fell from the tunnel. “Here boss, take mine.” Sanchez went to offer his M4 but Clarke raised his hand in protest. “Keep it. You boys are more valuable than me.” He pulled out his Browning pistol from his holster. “Just give me spare magazines. Each solider pulled out a magazine each and handed it Clarke. “Take these too.” The team handed him the last remaining grenades. “Sweet. We are good to go then.”