by David Coy
“Not necessarily,” Donna said. “The chances are fifty-fifty that we’ll find the right one in the first five.”
John smiled. “Did you do that math on your own?” he asked. “Part of my pharmaceutical training—you know, counting and dividing and all that. It helps to know these things. Look what it’s done for me,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I’ve got a great career with a great future—travel, adventure, the chance to meet new and interesting people—great pay downs—just like they promised in school. All I had to do was learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Fun with numbers—that’s the key. You gotta love ‘em—make ‘em your friends.”
“You’re full of shit,” the speck of light said.
“Yeah, but I can count,” she said.
John noticed something down below. Floor. He was coming to the bottom of the shaft. It now bent at a sharp right angle.
“I’m coming to the bottom,” he said softly. “Get ready to stop.”
“The bottom?” Donna asked.
“Yeah, well, it goes off horizontally.”
“Which way?”
“I don’t know—I’m too turned around.”
“Maybe it’s connected to the others. Maybe it’s one big system.”
“Stop the winch,” John said.
“Winch off,” came the reply.
“I can see down it quite a ways. It’s tall enough to walk in. I’m going down it. Feed out the line.”
“Well, you can’t get lost,” Donna said.
“Right . . .”
“Winch on.”
John walked down the tube, trailing the wire behind him. His light cast a dancing pattern on the brown walls as he went. He went another hundred meters in before he came to an area where several tunnels came together. In the center of the juncture was a large hole, perhaps five meters in diameter. He approached cautiously and looked down.
Ten meters down was the lab floor, now covered with a mix of alien and human machinery.
“Stop winch,” he whispered. “Okay, this is it.”
“What is?” Donna said.
“I’m standing at the big hole over the lab.”
“Told ya,” Donna said.
“Save it.”
He unhooked the wire from the harness and walked slowly around the opening, keeping far back so not to be seen from the lab floor if anyone was looking. The lab seemed completely devoid of activity; and as his confidence grew, he moved up until he was standing on the lip looking down.
“It looks like nobody’s home,” he said.
“You sure?” Donna said.
“As far as I can see. No activity at all.”
“That’s odd,” Donna said.
“Yeah. Odd,” he said. “I’m going down.”
He attached the wire to the harness, sat on the edge of the hole and slowly slid off until he was adrift in the air again. Keeping his eyes on the wire, he spoke into the mouthpiece. “Start winch.”
The wire slid over the surface as he started down—and immediately started to cut, burying itself in the material.
“Stop winch! Stop winch!”
“What is it?” Donna said.
“The wire’s cutting into the wall. It’s gonna bind.”
“Shit,” Habershaw said.
He was dangling from the wire just a meter down from the ceiling, but still hidden by the umbilicals and other biotic structures hanging there. He waved his legs and torqued around a revolution to take a look-see. Still nobody home.
He had two choices. He could winch up right now and probably climb over the lip, aborting the mission. The other option was to make what would likely be a one-way trip down.
Rachel’s oval face and buttery voice filled his head. She was smiling and laughing at something he’d said.
“Winch down,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Habershaw asked.
“Winch down, dammit,” he said.
He started down and watched the wire saw through the surface of the material. A few centimeters in, it seemed to hit a soft, wet substrate that dripped dark fluid down the wire. In a matter of seconds, the wire had sawed a full meter into the ceiling. He cursed quietly. That was that. They’d have no way to climb over the lip with the wire buried like that. And with Rachel’s added weight, going up, the wire could wind up two or three meters farther in.
Just two meters from the floor, his descent slowed to a crawl, and he felt a chattering, a stuttering, along the wire as if it was trying to cut into something very tough and strong.
Less than a meter from the floor, he stopped completely.
“Winch down,” he said.
“It’s winching down.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Winch off,” Habershaw said. “You’re right. The wire’s slack up here.”
“It’s bound up.”
John bounced against the wire, trying to get it to move. No luck. He reached down with his feet and tried to touch the floor. He was still too far. He felt the incredible tightness of the wire, and his fingers worked at the clip. It felt as if the clip and the ring it was attached to were welded together. He reached up, took hold of the wire with both hands and tried to pull himself up. Not a chance—the wire was too goddamned thin. Unless he could get the pressure off it, he’d never get the clip loose. He found the clasp on the harness and tried to release it. His weight had locked it as tight as the wire clip. He pinched it together until his fingers ached. No use. He’d be stranded right there until they found him, hanging helplessly just a half-meter from the floor.
“Damn it!”
“What?” Habershaw said.
“I’m stuck in the air is what.”
“How high off the ground?” Donna asked.
“Let’s just say if I was a little taller, I’d be there.”
“Unhook the harness,” Donna said.
“I tried that. Got a knife?” he said, closing his eyes in regret. With a knife he could have cut the straps. He’d carried a knife of some kind his entire life—until now. His mind raced. There had to be something he could do. This was nuts.
The rifle. It was one of the series of military-issued GN90's. One of the GN90 variants, if he remembered correctly, had a multi-tool for field maintenance in the stock. He unslung the rifle, found the tool’s compartment in the stock and opened it. There was the tool suspended neatly on two clips. He pried it out and unfolded it. It formed into pliers, and at the base of the pliers’ jaws—the blades of wire cutters.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he muttered.
“Say again?” Habershaw said.
“Nothing. Stand by.”
He slung the rifle, positioned his feet so he wouldn’t fall when he hit, put the wire cutters on the wire at the clip and squeezed. The wire separated with a ping and sang sharply as it flew toward the ceiling. He landed just slightly off balance and stumbled backwards against a cart, knocking the contents noisily to the floor.
He looked around, sure that someone, somewhere, must have heard the noise. Nothing. The lab was as quiet as a tomb. He squatted behind a table-like thing and got his bearings.
“I’m down,” he whispered.
“What’s it look like?” Habershaw asked.
“It’s quiet. Empty. I guess no one’s got the nerve to be in here at night. Not that I can blame them. This place is straight out of Hell.”
“Can you see anything that looks like a human medical facility—anything remotely like a clinic?” Donna asked.
“Not yet,” he said. He stood up a little higher and looked. There were clusters of human equipment mixed in throughout the alien stuff. There were tables, carts, racks and benches everywhere. Some of it was hooked up to the alien devices, wired in, probing them—the tools used to cut and probe and examine were now themselves being cut and probed and analyzed by another, equally alien, science.
Against the far wall was a group of two-meter-high partitions formed into a maze of cubicles, clearly human and brightly
lit by a framework of lights suspended from above. His position was slightly higher than the cubes, and looking over the tops, he could see equipment in some of them. As he watched, he saw a brief movement, just a flash of blue in one of the cubes to the right, then nothing.
“I’ve got something here,” he said. “There’s a cluster of open rooms on the other side that might be something. Somebody’s there. I’m heading in that direction.”
He unslung his rifle, cycled the bolt and took the safety off. Staying low, he worked his way toward the cubes. His confidence was up, and he double-timed the distance. He approached at the point where he saw the movement, stopping behind an equipment rack just three meters from the doorway. Giving a final look around, he moved up to the door. Then, clinging close to the wall, he peeked slowly inside.
He saw the feet first, at least three of them at the end of the bed. One foot was gyrating around the ankle, the toes pointed, increasing the impression that he had stumbled on a couple in a sexual embrace. He was about to turn and find another way in when he decided to take a better look.
He blinked to clear his vision because something had to be distorting it.
The thing was tied down with thick straps that formed a net over it. Each strap buckled tight to a steel railing that went around the bed, a square platform a meter off the floor, replete with a soiled white sheet that had shifted and hung down on one side. The entire apparatus was just large enough to contain the organism. As the thing struggled, the hooks holding the straps made slight metallic noises against the railing. Tubes ran into it from bottles above and a variety of wires probing here and there were connected to a rack of monitors and recording devices. He’d listened to Habershaw’s descriptions of the things he and Lavachek had seen dumped into the pit, and in his mind’s eye had seen those creatures as pitiful. The thing on the table wasn’t pitiful—it was abominable, monstrous.
He wanted to move, to run, to distance himself from it. Its form reached deep inside him and twisted. But he felt some pull from it, some strange tugging at his spine, and he moved toward it.
As he got closer, he could see that it was actually three or four human forms blended, molded together as if each were made of soft wax. The joints were smooth where one blended with the next. He got the distinct impression that much of the bones, the supporting structures were missing, giving the creature a squirming, blob-like appearance. It was difficult to distinguish some of the parts, but he could make out a shoulder here or ribs there if he tried. There were breasts and nipples and hands that touched them. Legs wrapped around legs like vines and arms moved over flesh from unnatural locations. The entire organism was covered with sweat that ran around and down muscles in rivulets. As the muscles pulsed and contracted the entire organism seemed to spasm. He could hear the sound of labored breathing and the heavy scent of human musk filled the air. The way the organism moved suggested that some grinding, primal force provoked the motion—but whether the writhing action was the product of sexual desire or the need to escape was unknown.
“Jesus . . .” he said.
“What is it?” Donna asked.
“I’m looking at one of those things Bill talked about. You wouldn’t believe it. The people who did this are mad, crazy.”
He leaned in to get a closer look near the area producing the breathing sounds. There were at least two heads there and two of the mouths were joined as if formed in a mold, locked in an unending kiss. There were eyes open wide and staring with urgency as if the entire organism was in flight from some unseen predator. A set of eyes flashed up at him as he watched, fixed him with the same feverish hunger; the same burning desire.
Suddenly a hand shot out from under the net and grabbed his wrist in a sweat-slickened grip.
“Shit!”
“What’s happening?”
The fingers clutched at his skin, kneaded it urgently. He couldn’t tell if the touch was a plea for help or the result of some appalling desire. He grabbed it with his other hand and wrenched free of it. The arm disappeared like a snake in the folds of wet flesh.
“Nothing. It’s all right. Nothing.”
The thought that Rachel might be part of that appalling mix made him weak with fear, and he looked for some evidence of her in it. He looked at the eyes again, searched them for some sign but saw nothing recognizable.
He looked again at hands, then feet, then mouths and limbs, looking for some pattern, some signature of her unique design in that fleshy amalgam.
Finally, satisfied that none of his lover’s anatomy had contributed to the thing, he left it there to breathe and writhe.
He moved to the next room. There was another of the organisms on a similar raised platform. But this one was different. Where the other one was intensely alive, squirming and wriggling with seeming abandon, this one barely moved at all. The limbs flailed in slow motion as if it were a toy that had run down. It was disconnected from the equipment around it.
“This place is a nightmare,” he said into the mouthpiece. “They’ve got these things all over the place. They must piece them together using the Verdian technology, then move them in here to watch how they do. They’re experimenting.”
“Experimenting at what?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. This is some very sick shit, Donna.”
When he walked into the next room, the rifle in his hands came up instinctively to point at the blue robe in front of him. The man was turned away from him, but he could tell from the bent posture and the hearing prosthetics behind the ears that it was Jacob. He was standing next to a sheet-covered body on a gurney. John almost smiled. He had the main sonofabitch right at the end of his rifle.
“The one you just saw didn’t work out so well,” Jacob said, not turning. “Most of them don’t. But we’ve had some near-successes. I think you saw one of those as well.”
“Is that what you call them? Successes?”
“Who’s there?” Donna said into John’s ear.
“The Grand Poobah,” John said.
“I suppose he can hear me,” she said.
“Yes, I can,” Jacob said.
“Kiss my ass then,” she said loudly. “Shoot him, John.”
Jacob’s head rose up slowly and turned away from the sound.
John stepped around the gurney, keeping the rifle trained on the blue-robed figure. When he came around far enough, he could see that it was Rachel under the sheet. The sheet had been pulled down, exposing her thighs. She was unconscious, and a single tube ran into her arm from a bottle suspended above. The cuts on her face and chest were gone, and her skin shone as if it had been polished. She’d never looked more beautiful. The sight of Jacob’s long and gnarled hand on her smooth belly filled him with rage. “Get your hand off her,” he demanded.
Jacob’s sagging eyes met his and the hand slowly drifted off her, trailing long fingers like dry roots.
“I know this woman,” Jacob said.
“You should,” John said. “She saved your sorry ass. If it wasn’t for her, you’d be dead.”
“God moved her hand,” Jacob intoned.
“Huh?”
“God moved in her, and she obeyed. Glory to God.”
“God had nothing to do with it.”
“Shoot him, John,” Donna said.
“God’s hand guides all things great and small,” Jacob said. “His will is the force of the universe—His glory is the light and the way.”
“Is that why you’re making these, these—things—for the glory of God?”
“It is better to marry than to burn with lust. It is better to cleave to your wife than to think wicked thoughts.”
“What does that mean?”
“God has shown me the way.”
“You’re nuts—move away from her.”
“You should shoot him right now,” Donna’s voice said, “and do us all a favor. Kill it before it breeds.”
“What?”
“Kill it before it . . .”
; “I heard you,” John said as the thought sank in.
John looked into the drooping, slack-jawed face before him and was stunned by the profound perversion behind those black eyes.
“Is that why you come down here—clear the place out—at night—to mate with these things?”
“Aw, Christ,” Donna groaned in John’s ear. “Shoot it!”
“Go forth and multiply,” Jacob said and swallowed with his mouth open. “This is God’s command.” He reached up and his long fingers untied the clasp at his neck.
He pulled the robe off his shoulders and let it drop. Standing there naked, he stretched his arms out. The sight filled John with a quick squirt of nausea.
“What are you doing?” John asked.
“What’s he doing?” Donna asked.
“He took off his robe. This bastard is nuts.”
“Shoot it!”
Staring at John with a glazed expression, Jacob started to climb onto the narrow gurney—and mount Rachel. The look on his face was a sick mix of sulking fear and daring, and reminded John of a dog with its tail tucked between its legs, eyes wide, smelling a shameful spot. “Get off her!” he yelled.
Jacob continued to position himself, bringing his other scrawny leg up on the gurney.
John raised the rifle to his shoulder and put the sights in the center of Jacob’s chest.
He fired.
The bullet put a single dark hole in the grayish skin and a spray of red splattered the equipment behind him.
“Yes!” Donna’s voice said.
Jacob fell slowly off the gurney and crumpled onto the floor, one hand clinging to a shiny cross-member.
“Is it dead?” Donna asked. “Is it dead?”
John moved up to get a closer look. Jacob was lying face up with his eyes open and his mouth agape, looking not too different than he did when he was alive. A little pool of dark blood had formed under him, staining the robe. John reached down and felt for a pulse in the flaccid neck. The flesh was still and lifeless. “I’d say he’s dead,” he said.