by Isaac Stone
His new family owned some kind of greenhouse farming operation and let him work there for a few years. Even after he joined the militias, he went back to help them with the hydroponic harvests and to look after the seed planting. While he was with the militias, Ash was able to use his influence to keep them away from his foster parents’ farms. There were plenty of militias that existed just to fleece the local colonists in the way of “protection” money.
He remembered his friend Mike and his sister Angie with which he lived. It was there parents who took him in after he left the foster homes. Angie was a few years younger than him and made him feel nervous every time they were at the dinner table. Even though Mike’s Baptist parents always led with a group prayer, Angie was sure to give him the “look” with her big brown eyes each night. He didn’t dare to act on it, not with Mike’s father the strong patriarch of the family who kept his children under watch.
Nah, couldn’t be, that was too insane, even for this hellish place. He hoped he was right.
10
“She reminds you of someone?” Barbara Ann said to Ash as she came up behind him.
“Why do you do that?” he asked the android.
“Do what?” she countered. As always, every word said by Barbara Ann was the sound of innocence.
“Sneak up on people. It’s rude.”
“I’m sorry if you find it disturbing, Ash,” she told him. “I was designed for certain things and that was one of them.” She flashed her eyes at him.
“In answer to your question,” he continued, “Yes, she does remind me of someone I left back on Mars. I didn’t even try to find out what happened to her.”
“An old lover?”
“Not quite. The sister of a friend of mine. I did have a thing about her and she returned the interest. Her father made sure his precious angel was under lock and key. After all those crazy wars, there wasn’t a lot of money left over for police or security. The colonists couldn’t afford it. So they took care of their own. Her family seldom let any of the girls out of the compound.”
“How is it you came to know her if she lived a sheltered life?” Barbara Ann had a way of going right to the point at times.
“I lived with her family for a while. My mother ran off when I was barely a teenager and they took me in after I left the foster homes. I had to abide by their rules, but this girl had an interest in me. Her name was Angie and she let me know it from the first day. We didn’t get together often on account of her dad who, as I said, kept her under a close watch, but we had our times together. I ended up joining the militias and did what I could to protect her family. When I was older, I joined the corporate academy and left Mars. I thought about marrying her after I got out, but lost track of things. I don’t know what ever happened to them.”
“And you never tried to find out?” she asked. “How hard could that be?”
“You don’t know much about the Mars Colonies, I can tell. After I left, another civil war broke out and her family’s part of the town burned. I hope they made it out, but I never looked into it. Had my own life to lead, I guess.” Ash stared off into space.
“It appears these capsules do have some way to be identified,” Barbara Ann spoke and broke his daze. “There is a plate on the side of each one that tells a bit about the occupant. I am surprised you did not notice it when we first entered the chamber.” She polished the frost away from the one on it.
Ash looked down and read it. “Angela Diaz. MRS.” There was a series of numbers and codes, which could only mean one thing, a birth date and location. Both matched Angie.
He’d found her, the girl Ash left behind and forgot about years ago.
Ash slowly turned around and looked at Barbara Ann, his fingers flexing around the grip of his impact gun as he brought the barrel of it up under the android’s chin, “I will kill every fucking one of them when this is over,” he hissed at her through his helmet, not daring speak over the team channel. “This is too perfect. The half-assed battle droid, the canine that was all bark and no bite, the lack of perimeter defense grids when we approached, a bounty fortune that was too good to be true, you, and now this? I’m about two seconds away from walking out on this EAC shitshow and blowing your head off. We have plenty of oxygen and more than enough bullets to handle whatever comes at us on the way back to Thelema.”
“You might find that a little hard to do,” Barbara Ann responded with a smile, giving Ash pause and making him wonder if she meant killing her or making it back to the ship.
“We’re going on,” Ash announced to his crew after a moment, removing his weapon from Barbara Ann’s chin and turning back to his people, who were still in the middle of debating whether they wanted to or not.
Team Omega stopped arguing and turned to look at Ash. He was the same tall and imposing man with a powerful gaze, but something had changed about him. Ash stood in place, the closed visor of his helmet seeming suddenly more intimidating. He’d changed in the last few minutes and everyone knew it.
To make a point, Ash slid his illegal plasma pistol from its holster and primed the ammunition canister before putting it back in place. He held the stock of his impact rifle with a tight grip and Ester could see tension from his gloved hands on it. For a brief second, she feared he’d lost his grip on reality. Ash had the look on his face of someone about to charge a line or unleash a full clip of ammunition at a roomful of enemy soldiers.
“You okay, Ash?” Makulah asked him. He too noted the white-hot blaze from his eyes.
“I am fucking fine,” Ash told them. “We need to get Haddo and get out of here. We do the job, we get paid. End of story.”
They were almost to the exit door when Costa stopped and pointed at the walls. “Does anyone find those symbols a little bit strange?” he asked. “I’m seeing them everywhere. Since we first walked into the receiving area, these symbols are popping up on all the walls. Anyone recognize them or what kind of writing this is?” Costa took a step down one of the side rows to look at the strange writing and symbols.
It was a kind of alphabet and writing, but not one any of the crew had ever seen. Costa walked all the way down and looked at them closely. It was painted on the wall with care. Someone wanted to make sure these didn’t fade or get smudged. He traced one finger around the writing and stopped when he came to a pattern of multicolored squares next to it. There were sixty-four squares in the pattern, the same as on a chessboard.
“This had to have some kind of purpose,” he called out to the rest of the crew. “Doesn’t look like any language I’ve ever seen. Anyone of the rest of you ever see letters or symbols like this?”
“It’s an angelic language,” Barbara Ann called out from the rear. “From the sixteenth century.”
“Quit with the vague talk,” Ash, not in a good mood, snapped at her. “I’m sick and tired of the slow play, just tell us straight.” The metal capsules sickened him and he was ready to blast everything apart.
“In the sixteenth century,” she began, “a mathematician and astrologer named Dr. John Dee came up with a way to communicate with angels. He was a learned man and in charge of intelligence gathering at the Court of Queen Elizabeth of England. Working with a rogue named Edward Kelly; he claimed the angels had given him a system of writing and divination which he could use to find out the mysteries of the universe.”
“And this concerns us how?” Ash snapped at her again. Ester became worried he was about to explode.
“These letters you see,” the android explained, “are written in the same language he was given by the angels. The symbols, which are all over this station, are from the ones given to him by them. He came up with an entire model of the universe based on what he was given.”
“Somehow I guess all this information never did anyone much good,” Jack said to her. “Or we’d be using angelic engines instead of electrical ones.” Even he was irritated at this useless bit of information.
“Nobody really knows,” she explained. �
�All of Dee’s records were found in a chest a hundred years after he died. There may have been more notes that we don’t have. The symbols I’ve seen so far are the ones on record. You can check them against most of the civilian search databases. As to the usefulness of it all, Dee’s scryer, Kelly, began to have trouble with the angels when they wanted hard locations of treasure and information on foreign powers. The angels wouldn’t give it to them.”
“So what you are saying,” Ester worded, “is that someone believes these symbols can be used to do what they want? What are they trying to do down here, summon up the Devil?”
“You can’t do that with angelic powers,” Barbara Ann continued in her soothing voice. “They won’t respond that way. You can get try and get some information out of them with a crystal for gazing, but you’d need a large table with other symbols on it. That is the way of Enochian Magic.”
“Great,” Makulah announced, “We’re in a torture dungeon decorated by angels. I suppose there are good angels and bad ones too. Why do I have a funny feeling all these names are for bad angels.”
Barbara Ann paused to look at them. “The worst names you can imagine,” she said. “And some names no one has ever used before. It would appear the people who built this place have access to the lost notebooks of Dr. John Dee. The ones everyone thought were destroyed.”
“Enough with the symbols people,” Ash shouted. “We are here to get Haddo and get paid. We’re going all the way to the bottom and frag everything between us and our payday. Let them have their station for now, let’s do the job.”
And then I’m going to blow up every one of those offices myself, he thought.
“So let’s get moving, we’ve stayed still way too long,” he ordered. “Costa, get your ass back here and take point.”
Costa, who wasn’t used to this side of Ash, turned to the team leader and started to say something. He never got the chance because a loud noise came out of the previous entrance they’d used.
It was the sound of combined voices crying out at the same time. A continuous horde of men who babbled on about interest rates and variable adjustment plans all merged as one dense cloud. The noise blended together and became a rumble as it came closer to the landing. They all turned to face it as Costa ran to join the others.
Hordes of shuffling creatures who had once been men poured out of the elevator and stairwell. Most of them still wore business suits and ties. Some carried briefcases, others gripped laptop computers to their chests. Their eyes were bland and showed no sign of life. In some cases, cords trailed behind them as they dangled out of the computers the beasts carried. They continued to howl about monetary rates and cash flows as the horde shuffled forward.
Some of them were missing arms; a few had only part of their heads. All of the horde appeared to be in an advance state of decay and had trouble moving. They continued to howl and scream about balance sheets and profit-loss statements as the mob surged forward. There had to be at least several dozen of them and even more were coming down the staircase from the rear. The way they flexed their claws and gnashed their teeth betrayed a kind of hunger, a promise of violence if the creatures reached Team Omega.
“Cut em down!” bellowed Ash as he thumbed off the safety of his impact rifle and squeezed the trigger. His burst of fire send rounds through several of the creatures, the projectiles ripping out huge holes as they went. Two of the enemies dropped to the floor with gaping wounds in their heads, while three others staggered onwards for a few more sickening moments before collapsing. The rest of the team followed their leader and cut loose with their own rifles, the combined sound of their weapons filling the room with peals of thunder.
It felt good to lash out at something, and the entire team fired with enthusiasm at the oncoming horde. In seconds the chamber was littered with bodies, though more kept coming, and those who hadn’t been shot in the head began either struggling to their feet or crawling upon shattered limbs towards the team. As Ash and then one by one the rest of the team had to stop shooting to reload, even more enemies poured into the room. They might slaughter many of them, but it was beginning to become clear to Ash that eventually the sheer numbers of the enemy would overrun the team’s position. He had a feeling that hand to hand combat against these things would cost the lives of at least some of his team as multitudes of the creatures dragged them to the ground.
“I think this is what became of all those finance people,” announced Char helpfully. “The place employed hundreds, so this may the first wave.”
“Let’s go!” Ash shouted, “Tactical retreat down those stairs, controlled bursts!” He turned to Barbara Ann. “You too synth!” He began to push everyone in the direction of the exit, pausing to turn and fire every few seconds, pushing back against the mob one dropped body at a time.
Team Omega didn’t need any further motivation. In seconds, they were running down the stairs as the sound of the horde came closer. Makulah jumped over two steps at a time to get to the bottom. Five minutes later, they were in place at the landing.
Ash turned to look up the stairs. There was a door to close it off, but he didn’t know the code to activate it. “Char,” he called out to the AI, “can you get this damn door shut so we don’t have to deal with the living dead bank officers?” He unslung his impact gun and aimed it up the stairs.
“Not easy, but I’ll try,” the AI called back. “You’ll have to hold them off until I do.”
“Everyone!” Ash called out, “Get up to the line!” The members of his crew moved into position to cover the staircase.
Down the staircase came the mob of inhuman bankers and finance officers, screaming about toxic derivatives as the surged forward. Ash turned and saw the door hadn’t begin to slide yet, which meant Char might not be able to close it. There was only one thing left to do.
“Open fire!” he yelled. “Sight on the heads!” Something told him it was the only way to stop the horde.
They opened up with their impact guns, shooting directly into the horde as it came down the stairs. The staircase became coated with blood and body fluid as the crazed finance officers refused to stop their descent and were blasted apart. Their seemed to be no mind behind what they did as they continued to advance. The sounds of the gunfire echoed through the level they were inside, but Ash didn’t have time to see what lay on the other side. He was too concerned with stopping the advance.
Slowly the door began to close. It was a huge plate on a system of rollers and took its time to move. The team ran to one side of it and fired through the opening to the staircase as it decreased in size. The horde of financiers tried to fight their way to them as the door worked its way shut. The last thing the door did was slice off the arms of three bankers who tried to get around it. Their arms fell to the floor as the door sealed itself with a rush of air.
“Sorry it took me a while to find the codes to close that door,” Char explained from his box. “The AI’s encryption was significant, and I was only able to gain access to station systems for the briefest of moments before it locked me out again.”
Ash and the rest of his crew continued to stare at the door. It was thick and made from plated iridium, so there was no possibility the horde would break through. At least not right away. They could hear them pounding at it, but the door should hold.
“So how the hell are we getting back now?” Makulah asked. “They’ve got our rear blocked. If we find our target and haul him back, they’ll still be there on the other side.”
“We’ll worry about that when we have him,” Ash said, “Besides I think they were released in order to push us downwards. We are being watched, maybe the station’s AI or something.”
“Check out what’s on the floor, Jack pointed down. Everyone looked in the direction he’d indicated.
Three severed arms were jerking around by themselves. They resembled headless snakes.
“I didn’t’ think severed arms acted that way,” Ester pointed out.
“Not
hing makes sense about this place,” Costa stated. “Where the hell do you get a mob of insane bankers like we just blew to bits?”
Ash didn’t want to think about any of it. All he could fixate on was to find Haddo. Once he had him, Ash would have the excuse he needed to get into the ECA corporate offices. Every new horror down here just fed his growing outrage and made his need for retribution all the more powerful. They were all going to be better off dead.
11
Omega’s armored suits were forced to work overtime as Ash turned around to see a wall of fire spring up from the floor. Previously, there had been nothing in the room that would attract their attention. When they first descended the stairs, in the escape from the horde of crazed finance officers, Ash thought the room was unused. It was dark and nothing seemed to be inside it. He thanked the lucky stars for a room where nothing threatened them. At the time, he was concerned about the fiends behind them, so the room didn’t get much attention.
Team Omega didn’t turn around until the door sealed the mob away from them. They watched the severed arms twitch for a few minutes, then turned to see what the latest level had in store for the crew.
At which point the flames began to spring up everywhere. It was as if they’d walked into an oven, which Ash felt was its purpose. The suit armor saved them again.
“Get your guns in their hazard sheaths!” Ash ordered everyone. It was to the credit of the company that built the armor that the suits were able to switch from heat to cooling when the flames sprang up from the floor, not to mention the thin bags into which the impact rifles could be places quickly to seal them off from hazardous environments that could damage their functionality.
“Temperature is rising, boss,” Costa pointed out. “I see a door on the other side. We might want to be there before we’re all turned into steaks in an oven.” He backed up as another flame jet sprang out of the floor.