by EJ Fisch
“Get back to work before I report you,” he ordered gruffly, though his voice was a bit unsteady. “You’re supposed to be making sure nobody gets through here without authorization.”
Ziva glanced at Aroska and then back to the man, who appeared to be a captain judging by the symbols on his sleeve. She made eye contact, unsure for a moment which eye to look at. “And why is that again? We got this assignment late and missed the briefing. Nobody will tell us what’s going on.”
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” he muttered. “Bothum’s got the governor and now the son just showed up. You two are supposed to be keeping an eye out for HSP. Now be glad I’m not reporting you for missing a briefing.”
“Sorry sir,” Aroska said, catching on to Ziva’s charade. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” the man said, turning to go. He waved his hand at their facial tattoos. “And wipe that paint off your faces before Bothum catches you. You know the rules.” He glared at them for a moment and then hobbled away down the hall.
The two of them stood there in stunned silence for several seconds, mulling things over. The presence of this Haphezian – or whatever he was – and the fact that he had passed them –Haphezians – off as guards told Ziva that they were not safe here, for reasons other than wanting to rescue the Tantalis or find Solaris. The guard and the soldiers in the assembly area were a product of something unnatural, and she dreaded to think of what it was.
“What just happened?” Aroska said, staring in the direction the man had gone.
Ziva took him by the arm and dragged him down the hall according to plan. “That confirms that both Jayden and the governor are here,” she said, glancing through the open door of a med room as they went by. “I doubt this guard act will last forever, but if we can pass off as security detail until we find them and your friend—”
“Start checking all these rooms then.” Aroska went to the nearest room and opened the door, poked his head inside, and continued down the hall. “You check everything on that side.”
They worked their way quickly in the direction they had originally mapped out, ducking into rooms and ducking back out, slowing to a more casual pace whenever a doctor or nurse came through. So they continued until they came to a T-intersection where one hall contained more rooms and the other hit a dead end and was lined with unused equipment.
Aroska went to the first door and found it to be locked. There were two more doors beside it, apparently identical small rooms, maybe for examination. He tried the others – the third was open. “Ziva, you’d better come look at this.”
She glanced up and down the hall before crossing to the open door. They were running short on time. She leaned in and took a quick glance around, but what she saw held her there. She took a step inside. The room was perhaps three meters wide and four meters long, and it was pure white. It was unusually cold, more so than the rest of the med center. An extremely bright light shone down on a long, metal examination table in the center of the room. At one end, there were two clasps meant to secure someone’s ankles, with an identical pair near the center for the wrists. Two thick straps dangled off the edge, positioned so that they probably crossed over a person’s chest and forehead. The table glistened as though it had been recently wiped clean and it smelled of disinfectant.
The only other structures in the room were a large monitor, currently powered off, and a large slanted table stocked with various sizes of syringes, all full of different colored liquids. The sight of those items along with what she had already seen in the facility made Ziva shudder.
Aroska was studying the collection of syringes and picked one up to examine it. “Axonyte,” he said, “just like the one that Sardon used on Jayden.” He carefully placed it back on the shelf and took a look at the others. “I couldn’t begin to tell you what the rest of this stuff is.”
“There are no surgical tools in here,” Ziva observed. She reached out to touch a string of sensors that were connected to the monitor and appeared to stretch over to the table. She took note of the labels on some of the buttons and switches on the machine. “This is just for monitoring general wellness and vitals.”
“Then what’s with all of this?” Aroska scoffed, taking a closer look at one of the smaller syringes.
“And what’s with the restraints?”
He turned and began fingering one of the straps. It was adjustable both in length and in position along the table. He sniffed it. His eyes grew wide and he held it out to Ziva. “Smell that?”
Ziva took a whiff. The smell was unmistakable. “Cha’sen.”
-38-
Meanwhile…
Dakiti Medical Research Center
Sardonis
Skeet was worried. Zinni knew thanks to the telltale crease that had formed across the center of his forehead, the same crease that always appeared when he was nervous or had a bad feeling in his gut. Something wasn’t right about this place – she could sense it too – but the fact that Skeet was anxious enough for that crease to appear made her feel worse.
Now, having opened the mysterious door at the end of the hallway, Zinni found herself standing in a room that made her feel very small. It wasn’t that it was an overly large room – in fact, it wasn’t that big at all. The heat and the stench they had picked up earlier were so overpowering that she wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor with her arms over her head.
At first, Zinni wasn’t exactly sure what she was seeing, except for a wide-eyed Skeet and the barrel of her rifle as she swept it around the room. There was a large trap door in the ceiling, some sort of chute that connected to a steep, slick ramp. At the bottom of the ramp, a wide conveyor belt ran on a circuit toward a massive furnace from which flames protruded at intervals. Two pipes rose from the top of the furnace and ran up the far wall, no doubt the source of the smoke outside.
When she’d finally managed to take everything in, Zinni wanted to vomit. Moving along the conveyor belt, limp like rags, were bodies – five cold, shriveled, naked bodies of Haphezian men and women. The belt stopped as each of them reached the furnace. They fell in one at a time, incinerated instantly by the raging flames. Remaining ashes were dumped through an opening in the bottom of the furnace and onto a smaller conveyor that ran out of the room.
Three things hit her at the same time: anger at what she was seeing, the fact that they still had a job to do, and also the question of whether they had been led here on purpose and had walked straight into a trap. Jayden had left Haphez in such a foul mood – would he really betray them and work with Bothum to lure them in? Zinni dismissed the thought as absurd. The young man may have been angry, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that he had principles. She was losing her focus and letting her mind jump to conclusions – still, something told her that they had been led here just as much as they had come on their own.
“Z, you will not believe what we just found,” Skeet said, covering his nose as another body fell into the furnace.
“We’ve made an interesting discovery ourselves,” Ziva’s voice came over the comm channel. “Let’s hear your story.”
“We’ve got bodies.”
“Lots of them,” Zinni added as three more slid down the chute. “Haphezian bodies, Ziva.”
She could hear both Ziva and Aroska curse and begin speaking to one another, but she also heard a gentle clink, like a small metallic object colliding with a larger piece of metal. She directed her attention to a wide grate that had been positioned under the furnace’s trap door. The ashes sifted through it onto the small conveyor belt while larger remains, bone fragments and such, were caught on the grate. Something glinted in the light of the fire as another batch of ashes was dumped.
“Skeet, look at this,” Zinni whispered, cautiously moving down beside the furnace. She reached in slowly, careful not to touch the scorching metal and brushed away the ashes. The object was still warm in her hand as she pulled it out and turned it over. It was the all-too-familia
r round tag, complete with the thin chain, that she had seen so many people wearing every day back home. Shocked, Zinni squatted down and got as close to the grate as the intense heat would allow. Even with the rest of the disgusting clutter that had accumulated, she could count at least seven other Haphezian military IDs, charred and softened from their trip through the furnace.
Fighting the tremble that threatened to take control of her hands, Zinni reached in again and took hold of the two nearest tags. “I recognize these names,” she said, scratching some of the black crust from them. “They’re on the Grand Army’s killed-in-action list, but their bodies were never found.”
“Okay Ziva, looks like some of these people are – were GA and presumed dead,” Skeet reported. “I mean, now they are dead, but—” Zinni could tell he was trying hard to stay focused.
“They were presumed KIA, but it looks like they’ve been here the whole time,” she finished for Skeet. “Are we dealing with some sort of cover up?”
“Think the director will have a change of heart now?” Skeet said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“I’m not sure,” Ziva replied. “Even if he doesn’t send reinforcements, it’s a safe bet the GA will. The military won’t take kindly to their people being held in a place like this. Brief Adin; have him contact the base on Na and coordinate a ground assault with whoever’s in charge over there. Looks like our plans have changed a bit.”
“What about Jayden and the governor?”
“We have confirmation that they’re both here. We’ve also been passed off as guards. I’m not sure if I even want to know how – maybe we just look like Solaris insurgents from home – but if it makes the extraction any easier, I’ll live with it. I assume they’ll catch on at some point so we have to work fast. It would be good to be walking out of here before the military arrives. Now get out of there – I think I’m starting to get an idea of what’s going on around here and it sounds like down there is the last place you want to be.”
Zinni didn’t need to be told. “Roger that,” she said, pocketing the three tags she was holding. Too eager to get out, she took Skeet by the arm and headed for the access staircase that came down beside the chute. “Let’s do this, brother.”
-39-
Holding room
Dakiti Medical Research Center
Sardonis
Saun studied the tip of her finger, or more accurately, the tiny transmitter on her fingertip that she had just found embedded in Jayden Saiffe’s scalp. This was the little device that would lead Aroska to her so she could follow through on her promise to Bothum and get a new life. It hurt to breathe even now as she sat waiting for the young man to wake up. Bothum had disappeared to prepare for the “guests,” leaving her to babysit. She was almost glad to stay – the pain in her chest was becoming so severe that any exertion at all was almost unbearable.
The door opened and Saun gasped, feeling like she’d just inhaled a rock. Captain Atu burst in, glancing at her with his eerie lazy eye. “Bothum wanted to see me,” he stuttered, studying Jayden curiously.
“He’s not here,” Saun replied sternly. In all honesty, she felt sorry for these rejects that made up part of Dakiti’s security population. It wasn’t their fault that they were the way they were. Bothum had realized this and mercifully agreed to give them positions in the staff so they would feel like they belonged in the world. “He said to give you this.” She handed Atu the data pad that Bothum had left with her.
The captain took it and looked at the two pictures that were displayed on the screen. One was Aroska’s HSP identification photo, and the other was a still of Ziva Payvan that had been transmitted by the drone before it had been destroyed the day before.
“Spread those around to the rest of security. Bothum wants to know the second they arrive.”
Atu’s eyebrows were furrowed, giving Saun the impression that he was thinking as hard as he was capable of. “They’re already here,” he said, much too matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“I saw them, maybe ten minutes ago.”
Saun leaped to her feet, hands curled into fists. “You didn’t tell anyone?”
“I thought they were ours!” Atu protested. “Look at me! Look at you! How do you expect me to tell the difference?”
Trying to control her breathing, Saun studied Jayden for a moment. Satisfied that he wouldn’t be going anywhere, she turned to the door, shooting Atu an accusatory glare. “Come with me,” she ordered.
-40-
Sublevels
Dakiti Medical Research Center
Sardonis
Aroska and Ziva made their way down another hallway as briskly as possible without outright running. She was against the opposite wall and several strides ahead of him. He dared not question her lead, but all he could think about was finding Saun and the fact that they had very little time. Try as he might, somehow Aroska couldn’t bring himself to believe that looking for her was even in Ziva’s agenda. The way she’d talked about Saun earlier had got him thinking. “For all we know, she could be the Solaris informant.” He didn’t want to believe that she had anything to do with this, but even if she did, he wasn’t going to just leave her here.
“It’s nearly time to split up,” Ziva said, almost in a whisper.
Aroska made no move to respond. His mind was on Saun and how he was going to go about rescuing her once he was on his own. It felt wrong to just call her a friend; whatever the two of them shared, it surpassed even his longtime friendship with Adin. She was different than any woman he’d ever been with – which was saying something – but he wasn’t sure if he could confidently say he loved her just yet. Either way, he cared about her more than anything and was ready to do whatever it took to get her out.
“You afraid?” Ziva said, the same question he’d asked her during the flight.
He smirked and parroted the response she’d given him. “No. You?”
She might have chuckled – he couldn’t tell.
They arrived at the entrance to the old bunker, where the hallway had turned into yet another T-intersection. That’s what the underground levels of the building seemed to consist of: a maze of intersecting corridors, identical corners, and closed doors, all built around the bunker that had been part of the original Dakiti military base. A person could get lost far too easily.
Ziva stopped and took a look in either direction down the hallway. “This is it. You go right, I’ll go left. If you find anything, let me know so we’re not running in circles. You get in there and get back to the sewer entrance as soon as possible.”
She turned abruptly and strode away, holding her rifle a bit higher and a bit tighter than she had been. In a way, Aroska felt empowered knowing that the seemingly invincible Ziva Payvan was even having some reservations about this mission, but it also made him feel more uneasy than he otherwise would have been.
He began to walk in the opposite direction, listening both in front and behind him for any sign of danger. They’d ended up passing two other pairs of guards, neither of which had paid any special attention to them and both of which had also had eerily Haphezian characteristics. He may have looked like them at first glance, but he doubted the “face paint” was going to fly much longer. He brushed his fingers across the dotted gesh punti on his face, wondering if he should find some way to cover them up.
Aroska could now hear hushed voices ahead and to his left where yet another hallway ran perpendicular to the one in which he now stood. He slowed his pace and listened. The language was clearly Sardon, but one of the voices sounded uncannily familiar. He rounded the corner, glancing briefly to his right, and found himself face-to-face with Saun. She was standing maybe three meters in front of him, speaking to the strange Haphezian man with the lazy eye that he and Ziva had encountered earlier.
He found that his finger had moved unconsciously to the trigger of his rifle. “Saun?”
The realization that something was wrong hit him just as something
hard and heavy struck the back of his head.
-41-
Military bunker
Dakiti Medical Research Center
Sardonis
As far as Ziva could tell, she was moving in a very wide and very deformed circle back toward the balcony from which they had observed the soldiers drilling. Dakiti’s underground levels, perhaps with the exception of the one Skeet and Zinni had stumbled upon, were far more extensive than the tall structure above them and stretched throughout the majority of the compound. They had a general idea of Jayden’s location – he was somewhere under the main building, but Zinni could only track him to within eight meters. It would be difficult to even tell which floor he was on, let alone what room he was in. With an eight meter radius, his signal could be picked up from up to three floors away. Ziva hoped that wherever he was, the governor was with him, allowing them to knock out two birds with one stone.
“Got anything, Zinni?” Ziva spoke into her earpiece as she passed a nurses’ station. Several Sardon women sat there monitoring a vast array of screens. They all glanced up as she came by, though one in particular seemed to take more interest than the others. Ziva picked up her pace a bit.
“I’ve got a strong signal,” Zinni replied after several seconds of silence that made Ziva’s skin crawl. “We’re right below you now. He must be down here somewhere.”
“When you find something—”
“—you’ll be the first to know.”
The hallway widened significantly ahead and gave way to a set of clear double doors bordered by black and yellow stripes and blinking orange lights. Beyond them, the room or hall – whatever it was – was dark, lit only with columns of phosphorescent blue light. There was an identification scanner outside the doors, restricting further access, but a doctor in a long, white lab coat was coming toward her from within. Ziva slowed to a more casual pace and began going through her uniform as if searching for her access key. Immersed in his data pad, the doctor scanned his own key and came through, nodding her way as he passed. She slipped through the open door.