“I don't know, madam.”
“Madam?” she laughed lightly. “How quaint. No, I am not your madam. I will be your goddess.” She swayed in the fluid.
“You see, the mine here is only the face of a greater purpose I have birthed.” And I realized that she was experimenting on both aliens and humans to try and create more Fiorjah. It galled me to think of the kind of gene splicing and genetic work that went into trying to turn non-light bearing beings like myself or people like Sworda into beings like her.
“Have you. . .succeeded?”
“I have not. Yet. But we come closer and closer. Dr. Francis Dorn's experiments are becoming more effective all the time. One day, out of all of this new race, a true Fiorjah like myself shall be birthed. A true companion. And in this, a whole race will exist once again.” So the radiation sickness, the cancer rates, the disappearances and deaths of the miners all led to rogue scientists under the influence of this creature; conducting genetic manipulation experiments on humans and aliens. But where did the radon and the strange light phenomenon come in?
“When you, too, are joined with me as the others are, the Fiorjah will spread out through the universe and rule as we were meant to.”
“I don't understand. You take sick humans from the mines and. . .”
“They are not sick, as I see it, only prepared for the tests. Their systems have been exposed to enough radon that they may be able to participate in the genetic tests being done to transform them. You see, I myself and my kind can thrive in radon rich environments without the poisoning that happens to unprepared human genetic material. It is like a food source for me, you see. This is the only mine in which its primary source of mining is actually radon itself. Radon is the transformative substance, the elixir.” I frowned.
“It isn't transformative for us! It's killing humans!”
“The weakest ones, yes. But the ones who are strong, they take on a subtle likeness of the Fiorjah and their genetic material changes., if only a far echo.”
“Our genetic material is being deformed by what you're doing! They're not changing into anything but dead people!” I said, growing angry. The creature regarded me curiously for a few moments.
“Yes, you may do rather well. Fire! I like that. You do not understand yet, so I will forgive your outburst.”
“What do you mean?”
“You will know, in time. I presume you have noticed the people in the tanks on your way in? You cannot help but see them before you come to this room.” I shuttered, those people momentarily forgotten.
“Yes.” I said quietly.
“Then you well know that not all are completely destroyed by the radon.”
“But they look as if they are dying.”
“In order for us to progress and create, there must be destruction. Each death brings us closer to the goal. In each death we learn what works and what does not. It is a problematic thing, I realize. But I will make it work. I need it and the older I get, as time passes by, I need more of it.”
“The radon. What does it do for you?”
“It is an element I need for my power to grow.”
“Was Eraut radon rich?”
“No, it was not. Interestingly enough. Only the highest families could feed upon it. We were the most powerful of the Fiorjah. It was us who ruled even over all the other Fiorjah and the whole world and its moons. One day, I will carry you all out into the universe to explore it with me to the full.”
“I don't think humans need help on that front. We are already in the midst of spreading ourselves throughout the universe without alien help.”
“Oh, but there is so much more to life than existing in such leaden bags of flesh. I will free your kind from the disgusting bags of meat you now exist in and then you become like myself – beautiful.” She cocked her head to one side. “Such impudence. From anyone else I would have killed them. I like you.”
“Will that stop you from changing me?”
“No.” There was silence.
“I have a question Who is. . Ancus? I've heard that name before.” The room slowly darkened and the air became very cool, bluish and purple.
“How do you know that name?” The creature's voice sounded very different, strange. Cold.
“I merely over heard it said. By one of your own species.”
“I am the very last of his line. The last of his essence, of my distant kin. The great one of old.” She now seemed to be staring off into the distance and I couldn't tell what she was talking about. I decided to file this tidbit of information away for later use, if I remembered or recalled it from memory again. I found that though her mood had changed when I mentioned it, I was still alive.
“I-”
“SILENCE, YOU MUCK EATING WORM!” The room turned on with the light and heat of the sun in summer a thousand times. And I was almost seared and blinded. I fell over in pain and submission to the bright and painful light.
“You will speak when spoken to from now on. I have entertained your fraudulent questions long enough, human! As for Ancus, do not speak his hallowed name again. Security! Come, take him and put him with the rest of the specimens for transformation.” She examined me again as I heard footsteps descending upon me suddenly. I reached for my lasgun but it wasn't there. Suddenly I felt other creatures descend on me. “He will be the first one to be given the serum. Tell Dr. Dorn of my desire. He will not be happy but he will comply.” As my sight came back fully, I felt powerful, hard hands grab me and pull me up to my feet. I looked to my sides and found that large security mechs had hold of me. Where they had come from and when I don't know. It was as if they had appeared out of nowhere, out of the walls. I got a good look at them and they looked very different from the other security mechs in the building. These were shaped more like insectoid creatures and I saw others creeping silently along the ceiling and down the walls to join the ones who had me in custody. One deftly relieved me of my bag. There was no way I could fire my vambraser as they had me splayed out as if ready for crucifixion.
“What are you going to do with me?” I panted.
“I am curious. I want to see how normal human flesh reacts to the divinity serum. I find you impudent, odd and crude but you interest me greatly. Perhaps if it works in you, I will have a true companion I can talk to. So far, Dr. Francis Dorn's experiments have failed, and so have the scientists' whose efforts I employed before him.”
“But I haven't been given the prep drugs yet!” I struggled against the mechs.
“I know. Perhaps the drugs are a hindrance. I am hoping this time will be different. We will see.” Struggling uselessly, I felt a sharp crack on the top of my head and blackness surrounded me.
10
When I came to, I found myself naked and strapped to a hospital bed. Far off in another part of the complex I heard unnerving cries and screams. I cursed myself and Robin and everyone under the sun for my predicament. My wrists and ankles were held under energy bands and each time I moved too far from the bed I was strapped to I felt sharp jabs of heat, like small knives poking my flesh. I heard low, intermittent moaning somewhere in the room. I looked over to my left and I saw who I had been looking for; the man that had been taken from the bullpen. He too was naked and strapped down. Sweat was pouring off him like water. He looked as if he were also bleeding and delirious. I fervently hoped not.
“Hey. Hey!” I whispered. He was breathing but didn't seem to hear or acknowledge my presence.
“Hey!” I said louder. Suddenly his eyes flew open and he turned and looked in my direction. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“What did they do to you?”
“What? Who are you?” He asked weakly.
“I'm investigating this mining company. My name is Bob. I got lost in the wrong section around here.”
“You're still alive? I'm still alive?” He was looking around, his eyes were unfocused and he seemed confused. He shut his eyes again.
“Yes. For now.” I alrea
dy knew what was going to become of us, but to hear that! The man started whimpering to himself as if I weren't there. It seemed he was slipping into a fever.
“I only wanted a job, man. I only wanted to put away some money. I was just looking for a job. What did I do to deserve this?” He began to weep.
“Please! I need you to focus!” I pleaded. “How did you get here?”
“What do you want from me?” he cried. I started to feel panic grow inside. He was getting hysterical. I had to find some way to calm him down.
“Hey, hey, look! Look, I don't mean anything bad, no harm, man, alright? Just calm down.” I thought of what next to say. “I can get us out of here! Don't worry.” I whispered. The man's eyes widened in disbelief.
“The hell you can! You're trussed up just like me!”
“I know, but I'm gonna get us out of here. This looks bad, I know, but I've been in worse scrapes than this and I've escaped. Trust me. I just need to know some things.” I was feeling my way through this one and even though I had no idea how I was going to get out, I wasn't exactly lying. There was still Will, out there somewhere. I hoped the little mech hadn't been caught, probed and dismantled.
“What things?” He seemed to calm down a little.
“How did you come to work here?”
“The same as everyone else. Littel Staffing.”
“Littel Staffing?”
“Yes. I was recruited by a guy who works for them. It's a job placement agency. Why?”
“I'm curious as to how they're getting people to come here. The process and who is involved.”
“Why?”
“Well,” I looked around to make sure no one had come in though I wondered if someone could be listening in on our conversation even now. “I'm on a fact-finding mission. And I'm not the only one who's come here looking around.” I whispered this last part.
“Really?” The man looked at me with hope in his face. No matter what happened now, I was obliged to project confidence after getting his hopes up.
“Anything you can tell me? Just anything, no matter how insignificant?”
“Do you know what is about to happen to us? Do you know what they're doing?” The man asked, the timber of his voice rising. I nodded. He seemed to jump forward, even in his bonds and weakened state.
“What?”
“First, just tell me what you know or experienced. Please. I need to know.” I said trying to remain calm and hoping Will would bring the little recorder mech round before it was caught and destroyed. I really had no idea where it was or whether it would find us. The man sighed, gathering his thoughts. I hated to pressure him after what he'd been through but this was a life or death matter for both of us.
“Well, I first got a job working for a mining company down Earthside. It paid decently. Pretty good, actually. But on the passenger work-carrier that we all rode to and from work there was an ad on the carrier room leader-board saying that you could make twice as much the money working in the lunar mines. And of those, working for the northern lunar mining company Hussa, the money was even more lucrative. It was said you could make three times as much as you could at any other mine this side of the solar system. Of course, quite a few guys that worked in the mines in the south heard about it that way too. That's how we got our jobs.” He paused in fatigue for a while and then continued. I didn't press, I only listened intently. “Sometimes they get your information if you inquire about the ad and then agents from Littel Staffing contact you about working here.”
“Do they place you at any of the other mines here?”
“No. The Littel agents only seem to work for Hussa. Every one of the people I've talked to, my workmates here and others said they had all been contacted or saw the ad and were placed here through Littel Staffing. I heard a woman say one time that Littel Staffing is really a front for Hussa anyway. Not that I would know. I'm just guessing.”
“I'd say that was a good guess. What is it like, working in the mines?”
“Horrible. Sometimes there's no air to breathe. No clean air, ever. You have to buy and bring in your own air tanks. Like in the old days before modern space suits. The bio-dome is never regulated properly for air quality or temperature. They claim it's too expensive so we work in extreme conditions at all times. Sometimes it's unbearably hot if the bio-dome is working but most of the time it's almost unbearably cold because it's not working at all. We have work spacesuits to wear, but those are cheap. Sometimes the suits will tear or the helmets will crack during work and the worker dies from exposure to the elements. It's a truly horrific thing to see. You never want to see a guy dying right before your eyes when there's nothing you can do to save him. They give us nothing to help with the situation and medical personnel aren't stationed close enough to deal with the situation. Only after the fact. By then, you're dead. People die in there and you are required to climb on top of them and keep working while their bodies are eventually dragged out by security mechs. When they get around to it. We all signed a waiver to keep quiet about the conditions, but nobody ever thought it would be this bad. I've seen too many men and women die right before my eyes because of the conditions, or from accidents due to bad equipment and negligence on the part of the company. Two men had to work with faulty equipment a few weeks ago and they died of extreme cold and asphyxiation. Now, you gonna tell me what's going on? Why are we trapped down here in a lab room?” The man was growing afraid. And so was I. My mind raced on what to do. If only that little recorder mech would show up!
“I wonder if you've seen anything strange, besides the usual horrors. I ask because before I was brought here I found a. . .a lair,” I said.
“A what?”
“A lair. Someone here is doing genetic experiments on humans. On the injured. I saw rows and rows of experimental tanks with people. . .transformed. There's more than meets the eye to this place. These are experiments gone awry. Something sinister is happening here. The mining company itself is a cover up for genetic experiments being conducted on humans.” I left out the alien part. No need to give him more horrors on top of those he'd already seen. The man studied me for a while before he spoke again. His eyes widened in surprise, then he frowned.
”So maybe I'm not crazy after all. The security personnel and office personnel call it “lunar aural hallucinations” whenever miners complain of seeing them. It's supposed to be this phenomenon suffered by lunar miners, specifically. They say it's a side effect of the cancer drugs they give us. We say it's an effect of the working conditions and exposure to dangerous gases.”
“So you must have realized that something weird was going on after you got here. I witnessed you and another woman being taken from the mines and you both clearly did not want to go, even though it was evident that you were either sick or badly injured. The security mechs grabbed you up as if you were criminals going to a prison cell. Now, why would a man have to be knocked out and carried off for medical help? Something bothered you about the place, right?”
“Well, yes. I just didn't know what it was. I saw. . . things. I wasn't the only one.”
“What things?”
“Just, I don't know. Strange lights. Creatures. At first the lights and gases would become greatly active. We would hear of outside reports of the lunar lights looking unusual. Then. . .there were reports of people who would creep about and hang out around the mines. People. . . or beings, that looked humanoid. You know there's a sickness miner's get, right?”
“Lung cancer.”
“Well, besides that. The hallucinations I told you about.”
“Right.”
“Yeah, well the equipment and the pills they give us are supposed to guard against cancer and radiation poisoning but apparently it happens to some people anyway. And those pills they give us look different from what we received from the other mining companies.”
“They give you red pills?”
“Yeah. All miners at Hussa get these red pills. Supposed to help protect against the high lev
els of radon. Anyway, most people wrote off the sightings of these weird looking beings as hallucinations affecting the mind from not being protected. Shoddy uniforms and equipment and stuff like that being the reason. Sounded like a good explanation so I thought no more on it. But one time, I saw something. I'm not sure how to describe it, except that I thought I was losing my mind.”
“You saw someone in the mines?”
“Yes, deep underground. We had tunneled down very far that day. The lunar lights were especially active that day too. Out of the lunar cloud, I saw it wandering around down in a cave ahead of us. I don't think the other guys saw it. I turned and blinked and it was gone. I never said a word to anyone. And it wasn't the first time I'd seen something like that either. I don't think it was human.”
“And they blame it on the side effects of the pills? It isn't the pills and no, you're not crazy. There is something foul going on around here. Most likely you saw one of the workers who had been taken, experimented on and released. They eventually die, either during experimentation or sometime afterward. The changes they go through are catastrophic on the mind and the body. I suppose the people who are released are the so-called successful ones.” I wasn't a scientist, but I didn't need to be one to understand that. He shuddered.
“Why did they bring us here? To this room?” His voice deepened nearly an octave lower, in despair.
“The people who fall sick from the working conditions are then picked up and used for the genetic experiments. Their bodies have been prepared from their over-exposure to radon. There's a specific reason why conditions here are so bad. Someone here wants to create a super race. Problem is, I've seen the results. Most of these changelings are kept in vertical tanks. It isn't working. I suspect those pills are for another reason entirely. ”
“What?”
“I think they are drugs that prepare future patients to undergo the experimental treatments. Probably more reliable than just the exposure from the working conditions.”
Mission: Lights of Langrenus Page 9