“He has the Doc and Serena to take care of him. He’ll be fine,” Mitchell replied, focusing on the job at hand.
“How do you want to do this?” asked Taz in a low voice, looking at the dozen or so metal doors lining the corridor, which ended in a blank stone wall sixty or so meters away.
The scent of the corridor, bitter and sterile, took him back to his first days on Alamo station, when he’d been a newly-hatched clone. He tried to shrug it off, but it was so disturbing it kept working its way into his mind. Above each door, a lamp cast its stark glow in a semi-circle below. Strange symbols were painted in white on each door, most likely designating what lay behind them.
“Knock them down,” Captain Mitchell ordered. “All of them.”
Taz and Reid lowered their weapons, switching to their sidearms. They took up position on opposite sides, with the captain slowly marching down the middle, covering the doorways further down the corridor as his troops kicked the doors open and quickly cleared the rooms beyond. The first two chambers were covered in dirt and grime, devoid of furnishings but for a water spout embedded in the rear wall and a circular grating in the floor beneath it, presumably holding cells for Kesha Kun’s test subjects. The second two were similar, albeit cleaner.
One of the third pair housed a grotesquely misshapen Telorian, whose once-bright colors had faded to mere muddled hues. The alien squealed loudly as soon as the door flew open, reaching out for the light with disfigured hands. Reid looked at it with pity in his eyes, remembering Oolan, the gentle being who’d operated on his leg. If his tender nature was in any way indicative of his species, then this poor soul had suffered a vile transgression indeed. Reid cringed away as the prisoner stumbled towards him, unsure whether to reach out to help it or take a step back. The malformed Telorian mutely pointed a stubby finger at Reid’s rifle, its hand quivering as if that simple action was more than it could bear.
As it came further out into the light, Reid could see that its left arm had been amputated above the elbow, and that three distinct incisions on its chest and abdomen had been crudely stapled closed and left to fester. Another scar circling around the side of its skull was enough to make him gag. Before he had the chance to be sick, a shot rang through the air.
He spun quickly, only to find himself looking down the smoking barrel of Captain Mitchell’s sidearm.
“When you see someone in that much pain, you end their suffering,” Mitchell told him, his stare cold.
Reid said a silent prayer for the unfortunate soul. It pained him to think of the horrors it had been made to endure at the hands of Kesha Kun’s scientists.
When the sniper tried to kick open the door to the next room, his boot skidded awkwardly off its smooth surface as it refused to open. Clearly it was barred from the other side. No doubt its occupant had heard the sound of gunfire and barricaded the door.
“We’ll leave that one for last,” Mitchell decided, and motioned Taz to position himself outside the next door up.
Having barely recovered from the shock of the Telorian, Reid suddenly heard the sharp cry of a female voice from behind the barricaded door. He shot out the locking mechanism and kicked in the door as quickly as he could.
“Captain!” he shouted.
The dimly-lit lab was cluttered with all manner of consoles and surgical equipment, two operating tables standing in the center. Raven’s terrified figure occupied the one closest to the door, a nightmarish mechanical arm hovering above her. The clatter of a metal tray hitting the floor alerted Reid to the presence of the alien surgeon as knives and surgical implements rattled on the hard floor.
The surgeon’s large black eyes looked at Reid with terror as the spindly figure tried to get behind the second table, raising his elongated hands in surrender. His fingers were at least three times as long as a man’s, and his elongated head swept back from a skeletally flat, nose-less face into a crest of bone.
Reid’s eyes were drawn to the eviscerated Hrūll test subject, the sight wreaking havoc on his already upset stomach.
Captain Mitchell pushed past him as he threw up.
“Get me out of this thing!” Raven yelled, pulling at her restraints.
Mitchell went straight for the surgeon, circling the tables with his sidearm aimed right at the frail humanoid’s face, his knuckles white on its grip.
“On the floor!” he yelled, hoping the alien would understand him. “Now!”
The surgeon waved his elongated hands in bewilderment, slowly inching its way backwards towards the wall, scanning the room in desperation for a way out.
“Kho hanhomi yama!” it pleaded in a raspy, high-pitched voice.
“On the fucking ground!” Captain Mitchell roared.
“Kho hanhomi yama!” the surgeon shrilled again, throwing its hands up in front of its face, clearly terrified.
Mitchell strode over and grabbed the figure by its spindly neck. It felt so frail, like a twisted doll. He slammed the alien hard into the wall, thrusting the barrel of his gun right into his forehead.
“You sick piece of shit,” he shouted right in its face. “I suggest you pray to whatever abomination of a god it is you worship!”
“Kho hanhomi yama,” was all it could say, almost sobbing now.
Captain Mitchell couldn’t believe that any being, regardless of which hellhole of a planet it originated from, could be as cruel as the inhuman wretch before him. His nostrils flared with rage as he took one last look into its cold reflective eyes. He release his grip on the surgeon’s neck, took half a step back, and pulled the trigger.
The feeble body stood, propped up against the wall, for a few seconds, before it finally slid to the floor to sit at an awkward angle, hunched over its gangly legs, which bent out at an awkward angle.
“Get me out of this thing!” Raven screamed frantically.
Taz came to her aid, using his combat knife to sever through the restraints.
“I bet you’ve never been this happy to see me,” he joked with a grin.
“What was it trying to say?” Reid asked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Who gives a shit?” Mitchell snapped. “Let’s get her the hell out of here.”
* * * * *
Marcus started to come to. He could hear muddled voices as he lay on the cold stone. Something was propped under his head, raising it off the floor. Were they talking about him? His eyes slowly started to open, and he was suddenly aware of a throbbing pain at the back of his skull.
“Marcus,” Serena shrieked, hovering over him affectionately. “Are you ok?”
“He’ll be fine,” Taylor said, taking his pulse. “Just a little bump on the head.”
“Wha… what happened?” he asked in confusion.
“The captain knocked you out. He thought it best, given the circumstances,” the medic revealed laconically.
“How did you do that? I saw it with my own eyes and I still can’t believe it!” Serena gasped, kneeling over Marcus, her long dark hair flowing over Raven’s ill-fitting pauldrons.
“Do what?”
“You tore apart that huge door as if it were nothing!”
“I did?” said Marcus, attempting to sit up.
“Easy there,” Taylor suggested, lighting a cigarette. “You’re likely to have one hell of a headache.”
Before Serena could press Marcus any further, they heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching. Instinctively Taylor went for his carbine, and Marcus dropped a hand to his sidearm, but they were relieved to see the captain and the others returned unscathed. Reid supported Raven, who was still too weak to walk on her own.
“You’re alive!” Serena proclaimed, jumping to her feet in a rush of enthusiasm and running to embrace Raven in an awkward hug.
Raven frowned. She had never been one for showing affection openly, least of all in front of her old squad.
“Is that my armor?” Raven muttered. “I mean… thanks… I guess I owe you pretty big,”
“Actu
ally, you have Marcus to thank,” Captain Mitchell told her. “Without him we wouldn’t even have known where to start looking.”
She gave him what anyone else would have thought a grimace as she looked over to where he lay and bit her lip, but Marcus knew that showing even that much emotion publically was a huge step for Raven, and he smiled in return, unbelievably relieved to have her back.
“We should hurry,” the captain declared. “Doc, help him out. We need to get them onto the tram.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky Jago will have managed to get back to the loading bay,” Serena added, drawing concerned stares from the others, particularly Raven, who looked around, only now realizing that the huge clone wasn’t lurking behind one of the pillars.
Taylor grabbed Marcus by the shoulder, steadying him as he rose to his feat, his head throbbing with pain. The squad got to the tram as quickly as they could, and Serena went to work on the console. The second time around it was far easier than before, and within a matter of seconds the tram was already starting to move, rapidly gaining momentum.
“Hey Serena,” Reid called from where he’d taken up station at the front of the vehicle. “What does ‘Kho hanhomi yama’ mean?”
“Kho hanhomi yama?” she repeated. “Why do you ask?”
“Just something I heard.”
She withdrew her datapad and began consulting her notes. It didn’t take long. “It means ‘not my choice’.”
“We always have a choice,” Captain Mitchell responded curtly, staring into the dark tunnel before them.
Chapter 49
Mariko stood poised, gazing at her own reflection, as she always did when she rode the elevator. Her skin looked paler than usual. Then again, she had been under an enormous amount of stress of late, what with the coming meeting with the Board. A pair of sentry drones buzzed past beyond the glass, performing routine security checks on the perimeter of the Muromoto Tower.
“Are you nervous, Mariko?” her assistant Adam inquired with genuine concern. “I’m sure they’ll listen to reason. The deadline they set was way too close, especially given-”
“Strange,” Mariko snapped, interrupting him. “I don’t recall requesting your opinion.”
He bit his lip, taking half a step backwards. She’d been irate of late, more so than usual. She only had twenty four hours left before her meeting with the Board of Directors, and Division 6 had still not given her clearance to reveal the nature of Project Isis.
The elevator stopped on the executive floor, ejecting them into an opulent oval foyer. In the center of the naturally-lit space an enormous sculpture made from ferrofluid, slanted at an awkward angle, loomed over the surrounding seating area. As its animated features twisted and turned ever so slowly, wave after wave, it resembled a nightmarish drill bit, rising and falling. A compliment of elongated, curving ottomans with simple black leather cushions atop glass frameworks were arranged along the outer rim of a lowered depression in the floor around the sculpture. The floor itself was a bleached white wood with a matte finish, though the central seating area sported a dark Saxony carpet of impeccable quality. On their left a reception desk with an illuminated glass counter stood vacant. Its occupant, like the rest of the staff, had gone home for the night.
She preferred this time of day, when the lights had been dimmed and the entire floor was silent. She remembered how she had used to come here as a child when her father had been working late. He had always worked late. Now she did as well.
She strode through the hall, past a pair of diamond-shaped sentry drones hovering in mid-air, her assistant rushing to keep up with her. One of the drones approached them briefly and performed a routine scan as they passed, then floated back to join the other.
“If there’s anything I can do to alleviate your concerns-,” Adam began to offer, but was choked off by her cold stare.
“I’m getting tired of your voice. You’re like a pathetic little mongrel, incapable of independent thought,” she belittled him viciously. “In fact, you’re more of a drone than they are,” she spat, gesturing towards the sentries.
He knew better than to respond. Besides, he was used to hearing her outbursts by now. That’s why he cut himself when he was alone, a razor sharp blade drawn across his thigh where no one would see, except for her, during their… sessions.
“Leave me. I’m done with you for the night,” she dismissed him as she neared the bend in the corridor which would take her to her office.
He nodded in compliance and returned to the elevator.
Hers was the largest office in the building, taking up a large portion of the eastern side of the storey and a good section of the floor above as well. She entered the darkened room and walked towards her desk, a simple glass countertop sat on an upturned glass frame decorated with intricate golden filigree. The wall behind her desk was entirely made out of a solid sheet of glass, allowing for a spectacular view of the dusky city below.
As she neared the desk, she squinted, peering through the darkness at her chair, a blocky base with a tall back covered in the finest leather. She froze. There was someone there.
For a moment, she imagined the worst. A member of the Board, come to settle a personal score, or an agent of Division 6, there to extinguish her life now that they had gotten what they needed from her.
Without warning, the standing lamps behind the chair on either side of the desk, towering twice as tall as a man, flickered sharply into life, revealing the figure who had invaded her private domain.
“Father?” she blurted out, more surprised at the sight of the old man than she would have been by the presence of a professional assassin.
Takahashi leaned back into the chair, his brow heavy, one hand tense on the armrest, the other clutched in a fist before his mouth as if to stop him speaking his mind.
“Daughter,” he mumbled, staring at her with narrowed eyes.
“This isn’t the time,” she said, forcing her muscles to relax. “I have important work to do.”
Takahashi didn’t flinch. He simply sat in her chair and kept his eyes trained on hers.
“Did you hear me? I said-”
“Important work,” he acknowledged quietly, without moving.
“How did you even get past the sentries?”
He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, producing a small remote, the size of a large coin, and laid it on the desktop.
“I never thought I would find myself unwelcome in my own house, Daughter,” he said, emphasizing the last word.
“I should have suspected you’d have a way past their programming,” she smiled slyly, “They are your design after all.”
“When were you going to tell me?” he asked, his composure absolute.
“Tell you what?” she groaned.
“Project Isis,” he said quietly, his eyes still locked with hers, but his stare suddenly flaring with judgment.
She remained silent, although his words had caused her visible distress.
“Tell me about Project Isis!” he roared, his lips quivering, his placid face distorted with anger.
She had never seen her father so enraged. She’d always thought of him as a weak man. Cunning, but essentially weak. The person who sat before her now was nothing like that man, but was suddenly determined, unwavering.
“I… it’s…” she stuttered, retreating before his anger.
He rose defiantly from his seat, circling the desk with a stride that showed nothing of his advancing age, closing the distance between them.
“My own daughter,” he practically spat. “How far you have fallen from grace!”
“Me? Grace?” she shrieked. “You’re one to talk!”
“Tell me now!” he bellowed, standing before her.
“NO!” she raged, slapping him across the chin in a fit of bitter anger and resentment.
“If you will not tell me, then I will rip it from you!” he howled, reaching out and seizing the top of her skull in one frail hand.
I
nstantly, she began to spasm, as if waves of invisible energy were coursing through her veins. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets as she screamed in pain, a pain worse than anything she could have imagined. It was as if her brain was aflame, pain spreading like wildfire throughout her nervous system. Her body hung limply from his commanding grip, an impossible feat considering his brittle old frame.
Behind the veil of pain, her thoughts raced back and forth between memories long past. She saw herself as a child, playing with the robotic tortoise he’d made her for her sixth birthday. She saw a vision of her young teenage self sitting alone in the rain on the steps outside their estate, crying after having slipped and scraped her knee.
Her thoughts quickly skipped ahead to the funeral of her mother, where she stood silently by her father’s side, refusing to take his comforting hand. Then her mind rushed to the day she’d claimed his position as CEO, and the occasion soon afterwards when she’d stood at the top of Muromoto Tower, greeting a blond youth whose bland smile had masked a compelling purpose. The two of them had stood by the edge of the tower, talking plainly of the future of Terra and the role which the Muromoto Group was to play in its course.
“No…” Takahashi begged, as if he could alter the course of time, “Of all things, how could you have been so stupid?”
Her thoughts wound to the orbital space platform, and the Genesis berthed in its docking bay. Takahashi saw Captain Intari and Senator Yoishi standing at the forefront of the assembly. Most importantly, he saw the crowd of scientists swarming around Intari’s battleship, and the new drive technology whose installation was nearing completion.
He released his grip. His daughter’s unconscious body slumped to the floor with a resounding thud.
He turned to face the view of Sol, walking slowly over to the window, where he raised his hand to rest upon the glass, gazing over the city.
“How could I have been so oblivious?” he sighed. “The worst of our fears, now realized.”
He had spent the last few years in apathy, wallowing in quiet surrender, confident in his beliefs that the plans he had set into motion were firmly on course. Now he feared he was too late, that whatever machinations Division 6 had in store for this world would come to pass.
Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin) Page 34