by Ben Wolf
At the table.
Her robotic finger, pointing at the table. The table was Bartholomew’s screen.
And all Justin had to do was touch it with his robotic hand.
“Hey.” Stecker shook Justin by his shoulders. “Mr. Andridge asked you a question.”
Justin refocused on Carl. “Sorry. I missed it.”
Carl smiled at him. Again. “I said, ‘obviously you had a purpose in coming up here. Was there something you wanted to say to us?’”
“Yeah.” Justin nodded. “A few things. First of all, I’m not a spy. I signed up to work for this company as an actual employee. I don’t know the first thing about corporate espionage.”
Carl scoffed.
“Second,” Justin continued, “having been an ACM employee, I can safely say this is a shitty company to work for. I used to have a friend named Keontae. I used to have a right arm. Now I have neither of those things. Thanks, ACM-1134.”
Carl rolled his eyes.
“Third, this mine is unstable, and there’s something weird going on, but it has nothing to do with me. I was just consistently in the wrong places at the wrong times, like I said.” Justin looked at Carl. “Mining equipment doesn’t move on its own. People don’t just disappear in controlled mines. Employees don’t die because of network glitches and bungled medical care. Someone or something is behind all of this.”
“Anything else?” Carl folded his arms across his chest.
“Yeah. One last thing.” Justin looked back at Shannon. “I know you all think I’m crazy, but the ghost is real. I can’t prove it, but I know it exists because of what happened the first time in Sector 6.” Justin looked at Carl again. “Yeah, that’s right. Mark Brown and over a hundred other workers died, yet this mine is still operating because you’re a greedy son-of-a-bitch.”
Carl’s smile deteriorated into a frown. “Alright. That’s enough.”
He motioned toward Stecker, and Justin took his chance. He twisted free and bolted toward Carl. Maybe he’d at least get a head-butt in before Noby took him down.
Stecker shouted, but Justin rounded the table toward Carl Andridge and yelled every last bit of air from his lungs.
As Justin predicted, Noby’s massive arms wrapped around him and slammed him hard against the table. The brunt of the impact hit Justin’s robotic arm, but thanks to its dulled pain sensitivity, only his shoulder connection hurt.
But no head-butt on Carl, either. In fact, Carl hadn’t moved at all. Not even a flinch.
Noby pushed Justin onto his side and pinned him down on the table’s surface. As Stecker and Gerhardt scrambled to help, Justin pressed the fingers of his robotic hand against the table’s surface and prayed for a miracle. His fingers tingled, then the sensation stopped.
Did it work? Justin glanced at the clock again. It read 1611.
Baton in hand, Stecker wrenched him up and drew his baton back, but Carl’s voice stopped him.
“Wait. Now, now, there’s no need for violence. He is more than restrained thanks to Noby and Mr. Gerhardt.” Carl waved them forward. “Bring him upright.”
They did, and Justin stared at Carl, smirking. God, I hope it worked.
“You’ve lost your boutonniere, Mr. Barclay.” Carl motioned toward Justin with his head.
Justin looked down at his lapel. The Nebrandt plant wasn’t there. He looked behind him and saw it lying on the table, somehow not crushed in spite of it all. It sat there, motionless.
“Shame. It’s a nice-looking plant.” Carl picked it up, stepped forward until he stood almost nose-to-nose with Justin, and he reaffixed it to the lapel of Justin’s suit. “I think we’ve heard enough from you, Mr. Barclay. Gerhardt, get him out of here.”
The lights in the office flickered. No one moved.
They flickered again. Then they shut off. A pair of emergency lights mounted to the ceiling clanked on.
Murmurs filled the room. Justin glanced back at Shannon, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was asking Harry something.
Justin’s eyes finally found Etya next. She sat there, grinning at him.
Movement caught his eye. The Nebrandt plant. Its bud blossomed, right there on his lapel, as beautiful as the first one Justin had seen.
“What’s going on?” Carl asked.
A nerdy-looking guy at the table tapped on his handscreen. “N-not sure, sir. Perhaps an outage of some sort, or—”
“Figure it out, Rodney,” Bartholomew Morgan said.
“Do we need to be concerned?” Carl fixed his attention on Rodney. It meant he’d stopped looking at Justin, at least.
“No, no. Certainly not.” The shakiness in Rodney’s voice told Justin otherwise. “I can have us back up momentarily. I think.”
Garth hadn’t been kidding. Once those shields went down, the admin sub-network must’ve crashed almost immediately.
The emergency lights flickered next, then they, too, went dark. Gerhardt released Justin completely, but Stecker still held Justin’s right arm with his left hand. Pale light emanated from the sidearms in Gerhardt and Stecker’s hands.
They each tapped the top of the sidearm, and two beams of orange light cut through the darkness. It wasn’t much, but at least everyone could somewhat see again.
“Everyone, stay calm,” Rodney said above the loudening murmurs. “I’ll have us back online in a jiffy.”
“He’s doing this.” Carl pointed at Justin. “How are you doing this?”
“Don’t look at me.” Justin snickered and smiled as big and bold as Carl ever had. “I’m in the dark, too.”
Carl scowled at him and leaned in close. He hissed, “You impudent bastard. You’ll pay for this. I’m going to wipe your very existence from the galaxy.”
A vertical shaft of green light streamed from the center of the table, and it captured everyone’s attention, Carl’s included. The light spread across the table in every direction, igniting its surface with less-harsh green light.
Another section of green light, wavy and indistinct, formed in the center of the table. It rose up out of the table like a hologram, blurry at first. Then it sharpened into the form of a man wearing mining clothing.
A jagged scar traced down his right cheek.
The ghost had appeared.
23
The room erupted in gasps and shouts, but Justin didn’t contribute to them. He just watched the scene unfold, grinning. It had worked, and he’d been vindicated.
“Shut up!” Carl yelled. After Carl’s second shout, the room quieted down. Carl looked up at the ghost. “Mark?”
The ghost pixelated, and when it sharpened back into clarity, it faced Carl. “Hello, Carl.”
Justin marveled at it. The ghost could speak?
“I thought you were dead,” Carl said.
The ghost didn’t respond. It just glowered down at him.
Carl swallowed noticeably. “Are you dead?”
The ghost grinned, pulling the scar on his cheek into a curved line. “Not as dead as you.”
The ghost vanished.
Justin looked back at Etya. Her smile had faded, and now she stared at the empty air above the table with concern in her human eye.
Movement caught Justin’s eye again. The Nebrandt plant’s petals folded in on themselves and re-formed into a tight bud on his lapel.
What the hell?
An alarm wailed throughout the office, and the only source of light came from the teardrop table which shifted from glowing green to emitting ominous red light.
“What is that alarm?” Carl asked.
“It’s a containment alarm,” Harry said. “Same as in the mine.”
Justin recognized it as well. He’d heard it in his first fateful trip to Sector 6.
Carl turned to Noby. “Get me out of here.”
Noby nodded and drew a chrome sidearm of some sort from inside his suit coat. “Move!”
He pushed through the people, all of whom stood there, chattering and asking questions. Bartholomew M
organ’s office door slid open, and Carl and Noby hurried out.
Justin was no fool. Still cuffed, he rushed out after them, and Etya, Shannon, and Harry followed.
The door began to slide shut again behind them.
“Hold it open!” Bartholomew yelled.
Stecker and Gerhardt grabbed it and forced it back open. Stecker shouted, “Hurry! We can’t hold this for long!”
The privacy setting on the glass lowered, and it became transparent. Justin watched as those remaining in the office crowded the door, desperate to get out. Bartholomew Morgan shoved through them with abandon and worked his way past Stecker and Gerhardt. Rodney Marshall followed him, and then came a man and a woman Justin didn’t recognize.
“It’s gonna close!” Gerhardt released his grip and stepped clear of the door.
With only Stecker holding it, it closed fast, and Stecker barely pulled his fingers clear before it knifed shut.
Only two people remained inside the office: Bartholomew’s pretty secretary and Oafy from HR.
They pounded on the glass and opened their mouths, begging to be released, but the privacy glass consumed all of the sound.
“Hold on, Vanessa!” Bartholomew pressed up against the glass. “We’ll get you both out of there.”
The secretary, Vanessa, started to cry, and Oafy’s bun of graying red hair bobbed as she smacked her palms against the glass.
Everyone else just watched.
“What are you waiting for?” Bartholomew yanked Gerhardt forward. “Break them out!”
“Yes, sir.” He raised his sidearm and aimed at the glass.
“Wait!” Harry pointed to something behind them. “Is that what I think it is?”
Gerhardt didn’t fire.
Justin squinted. With the office lit only by the red light from the conference table, he barely made out the heavy, dark plumes sinking into the office from a vent in the ceiling. They billowed onto Bartholomew’s desk and filled the back half of the office.
“That’s phichaloride gas,” Harry said. “If you break the glass, it’ll get out here.”
“We can’t just let them die!” Bartholomew snapped.
“Take me to the lift, now,” Carl said to Noby, who complied.
The two women pounded on the glass, more frantic, but everyone else gave it a wide berth. Oafy grabbed one of the conference chairs. She mouthed, “Move,” and Vanessa stepped aside.
Oafy flung the chair at the door, but it bounced off, ineffective. Even if she’d thrown it harder, it never would’ve broken through.
They began pounding again, and tears streamed down their faces. The gas crept closer.
“There has to be something we can do!” Bartholomew put his hands up against the glass where his secretary held hers.
“Not without letting all the gas out of here,” Stecker said.
“I can’t just watch them die.” Bartholomew pounded his fist against the glass as the gas overtook his secretary and Oafy.
They grasped at their throats and coughed and choked, their terrified faces highlighted by the harsh red light.
Justin had been there. He’d almost died the same way. He remembered the burning in his lungs, the weakening of his muscles, and the awful stench of the gas. It was horrible.
And he’d caused this. He’d transferred the code. He’d pulled the trigger and allowed the ghost to wreak havoc. These women would die because of him. Justin shuddered at the thought, and his stomach swirled with bile and guilt.
“Why isn’t this lift functioning?” Carl yelled. “IT, get over here and fix this lift!”
“Yes, of course.” Rodney hurried over and began working on the dead control panel.
The secretary who’d greeted Justin and Stecker when they’d come off the lift was gone. Justin didn’t see her anywhere. If the lift wasn’t working, she must’ve taken the stairs.
“Vanessa?” Bartholomew lowered to his knees and traced his hand along the glass with hers as she, too, sank. “No…”
The gas enveloped them completely, and they disappeared.
Stecker reached down and touched Bartholomew’s shoulder. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
“I’m sorry.” Rodney looked at Carl. “I—I don’t think I can reactivate the lift.”
“Keep trying,” Carl demanded.
Something clinked behind Justin, and the tension on his wrists went slack. He brought them forward and found himself uncuffed. The handcuffs lay behind his boots.
He looked back and saw Etya retract her robotic arm. She’d freed him, somehow.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
She nodded.
“Stairs, boss.” Noby started to usher Carl toward them.
“Wait.” Stecker pointed toward the office. “I saw something move inside. They may still be alive.”
Bartholomew looked up, and so did Carl. Everyone turned toward the office.
A bloody mass slammed into the glass near Bartholomew’s face.
He recoiled with a shout and staggered up to his feet along with Stecker. “Oh my God!”
The mass materialized into a vaguely human form. It pressed against the glass with elongated fingers, each tipped with pointed bones protruding from its ravaged gray skin. Some of its clothing remained on, but it was shredded and clung to its wretched body.
Its face appeared from the gas next. Its jaw hung six inches lower than a human jaw ought to, and blackened, human-like teeth lined the inside of its mouth. Blood and drool oozed from its gray lips, and sporadic patches of blonde hair framed its jagged cheekbones. Its nose had melded with the rest of its face, and it stared at them with tiny black eyes.
“What the hell?” Gerhardt gawked at it.
“Is that…” Harry swallowed. “Is that Vanessa?”
To Justin’s left, the woman whose name he didn’t know vomited.
Justin couldn’t blame her. That’s what he would’ve become if the ghost hadn’t rescued him from Sector 6.
Another form emerged from within the gas, equally revolting. Justin recognized right away that it was Oafy. It, too, pressed up against the glass, leaving streaks of blood wherever it touched. Sick, twisted, mutated. Not human anymore. Not even close.
The swirling in Justin’s stomach sped up, and he wanted to retch. He had trusted Etya and Garth, and this was the result? They had used him, plain and simple. He looked at Etya.
The horror written on the human half of her face matched that of everyone else around the office. There was no dishonesty or treachery in her expression. She hadn’t known this would happen either.
Perhaps she hadn’t exploited Justin after all.
“Transmogrification,” the guy in the lab coat said. “We always knew the gas had mutagenic properties, but this…”
“Stay back,” Stecker waved them away, still facing the office.
“We’re fine. That’s safety glass,” Gerhardt said.
The first thing slammed against the glass again, and this time, a network of cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact.
“Fuck!” Gerhardt jumped back and raised his repeater.
Profanity erupted from everyone else, and they scampered backward, too.
“Run!” Stecker yelled.
Carl and Noby led the way, past the office and toward the stairwell, with Justin, Etya, and the rest close behind. Gerhardt and Stecker brought up the rear.
As Justin entered the stairwell behind Noby, the distinct crash of shattering glass hit his ears. My God, what have I done?
He didn’t waste time looking back. He charged down the stairs behind Carl and Noby, hoping those things couldn’t follow.
“Which floor?” Carl called.
“Main floor!” Someone shouted from above Justin—maybe Harry. “We have to warn the others!”
When they reached the main floor, Carl and Noby kept going down. Justin hesitated at the door. Do I follow them, or do I go to the main floor?
“Where are they going?” Shannon ask
ed from behind him.
“It does not matter.” Etya pushed past Justin, yanked the door open, and headed out of the stairwell.
Justin followed Etya, and Shannon and Harry followed him.
They found themselves in another dark space, illuminated only by flashing amber lights, flickering blue lights mounted to the ceiling, and red light from the various screens throughout the office. A block of cubicles stood between them and the far exit, and small offices, all with their doors shut, lined the room’s perimeter.
No one else was in there. Like the secretary on the executive floor, they’d probably fled once the alarms started to sound.
“Come.” Etya led them across the office toward the exit.
Justin stole a glance backward and saw Bartholomew, Rodney, and the woman and the man he didn’t know following Shannon and Harry. No sign of Carl or Noby. No sign of Stecker or Gerhardt.
The door to the stairwell latched shut.
Then it burst open, and Noby barreled into the offices with Carl behind him and Gerhardt and Stecker following.
“Keep going!” Carl yelled.
“The doors aren’t holding them either!” Gerhardt shouted.
Not good. Justin ran to catch up with Etya. Was the ghost doing all of this?
When they reached the exit, they congregated in the small waiting area while Etya tried to open the door. It beeped in the negative, and she pounded the door with her robot arm. “It is locked. It refuses to respond to my commands.”
“Here.” Rodney raised his identity card. “I have a master override code. As long as the panel is on, we should be able to use it.”
“Guys?” the other man pointed toward the offices around the perimeter.
Justin looked.
All the office doors opened at once. Plumes of black gas billowed out, and a dozen gray, misshapen human forms emerged from within the offices. They barreled toward the group.
“Shoot them!” Carl hollered.
Noby, Gerhardt, and Stecker raised their sidearms and fired a barrage of plasma at them.
Justin and Harry grabbed a couch from the waiting area and shoved it forward to create a barrier, then Justin grabbed the small Plastrex end table that had sat next to the waiting area couch. He held it up with its legs extended out as a makeshift weapon, or perhaps a shield, in case one of them got past the shots, and he crouched down against the wall on his right side.