The boy nodded, and Maria could see that the boy was on the edge, so close to crying. Crying, perhaps screaming.
“Well, we’re going to get you out of here, Theo. Back to where there are people. Lots of people.” Another glance at Maria.
“Wait a minute, Kane. What are you saying?”
Kane continued to crouch close to the boy. “You can take Theo back. While I—“
The boy’s eyes went wide. If he had been about to cry, he now let out a scream instead.
The portal had been quiet. But suddenly, things got busy.
Three zombies, guns molded to their twisted torsos, had stepped into the room. Then something leaped into the room, towering over the zombies. The thing’s helmet-shaped head had eyes that darted left and right, taking in whatever was alive in the room. It made hissing noises that somehow the once-human zombies understood.
Kane pulled Maria and Theo back to the wall, the three of them pressing tight against the far end of Delta.
“Should we shoot?”
“No. They haven’t seen us—yet.”
Two other things crawled out of the portal, legs and arms acting like the appendages of a crab, twin heads, snapping left and right, now answering the hisses and groans of the tall creature that seemed to be directing them.
And then the zombies turned in a line and started heading to where Maria stood with Kane and the boy. The crawling things also scurried, one left, one right.
They were surrounded, and Maria knew there was no way they could survive the attack. The tall creature howled, and its squad of monsters started the attack.
“Now we shoot—” Kane said. Then: “Stay behind me, Theo.”
Side by side, Maria and Kane fired, shotgun blasts merging with machine guns. Too-close quarters and too much movement to use the grenades. But all the shells were not nearly strong enough, the volleys not nearly enough.
In seconds it would be all over.
A cannonlike firing filled the room, the blasts immense, a sound Maria couldn’t identify.
She turned to see two people—men who had come off the transport. And one of them held the biggest damn gun that Maria had ever seen.
She kept firing, but it seemed ineffectual compared to the display of firepower from the massive gun as it literally blew off chunks of the creatures. The tall creature tried to direct its now-beleaguered force to focus their attack on the newcomer.
But it was too late, as the cross fire from Maria and Kane added to the damage inflicted.
It was such an amazing sight, she almost felt like grinning.
Finally, the guy with the big gun targeted the commander of this legion from hell and fed a steady stream of rocket projectiles into the thing’s open, howling maw.
Until the room filled with the smoke of gunpowder and the stench of the things bleeding out on the lab floor. And the skirmish was over.
Then the man with the mighty big fucking gun approached them.
His name was Campbell, the UAC security guy sent up here by Kelliher. And the other man—so scared that he could barely stand—was the lawyer. Could be a lot of lawsuits coming out of this mess.
Kane was finishing briefing them on what MacDonald’s PDA told him had to be done.
“So, someone has to go in there?”
Kane nodded. “Yeah. Me.”
For a moment the two men were eyeball to eyeball. “Maybe I should,” Campbell said. “And bring this.”
“I’m not sure any weapons will make it through—Christ, I don’t know if I will. But I didn’t come this far to have someone else finish the job.”
“Then why not both of us?”
Kane took a breath. “I’m not sure I’ll live walking into this thing. Not sure if any of these”—he held up his two guns—“will get through. And if I don’t make it, that will leave you. Still here, alive with that”—he pointed at the BFG—“to do something.”
Campbell smiled. “Tell you one thing, Lieutenant…”
Lieutenant. Been a while since he heard that….
“…you’ve got balls.”
Kane grinned. “Or maybe I’m just stupid.”
Maria shook her head. “You do take risks….”
Kane turned to her. He was ready to argue with her again, but he could see Maria had her hand on Theo’s shoulder, the boy practically melted into her. Okay, he thought, she knows what to do.
“C-can I go with them?” Swann asked, moving closer to Maria.
Campbell laughed. “No, Counselor. You stay right here with me. It’s a big gun here, but I wouldn’t mind another. Capisce?”
Kane turned and looked at the portal. He brought MacDonald’s PDA up to his face and looked at the image of the Soul Cube. “If there’s a way to bring this back…I will.”
“And I’ll be here making sure nothing is waiting for you when you come out.”
Kane took a breath. “Sounds like a plan. Maria, I’ll see you back at Reception.”
“You better.”
He would have liked to give her a hug, maybe another kiss. But that moment had moved on. It was time for him to enter the portal.
Kane turned away from them. “Best everyone stand back. Not sure what effect my entering may have.”
“Good luck, Kane,” Campbell said.
He hesitated a moment. The glowing swirl before him looked as if it could consume him. All this might be over for him in a matter of seconds. He waded into the center of the vortex, each step feeling leaden. His heart raced, and as his breathing became faster, he smelled the stench coming from the portal, a smell unlike anything he had ever experienced, even after so many years of fighting and bloodshed.
He didn’t let his pace slacken. He hadn’t, of course, admitted to them how scared he was. Perhaps the most frightening moment of his life.
Step after step, until there remained only one more step, into the swirling pool of fiery red and yellow.
He put his boot into the lower end of that swirl, and then he allowed his forward momentum to carry him forward.
Kane was immediately sucked into it with a violent vacuumlike gasp that pulled him from Mars, from this solar system, from this very universe….
37
MARIA WATCHED KANE VANISH AND THEN SHE looked at Campbell, who—she could see—obviously knew better than to say any false words of encouragement. “Okay….” She gave Theo’s shoulder a squeeze. “Guess we’re ready to go, hm?” She looked down at him. Theo didn’t nod, didn’t do anything, just stood there, glued to her side.
“Got your weapons all set? Ammo good?” Campbell asked.
“Fully loaded,” she said. “You guys…do what you can to make sure that Kane gets out of there alive, okay?”
“You got it.”
A last nod, then Maria started out of Delta, holding Theo close.
The force of entering the portal sent Kane flying into what felt at first like empty space. An intense nausea attacked his gut, and he coughed and hacked as his body spun, spitting out remnants of the water he had been drinking.
Instinctively, his hands went to his eyes to protect them from the blinding light. But that left his ears unprotected, and the roaring sound here—wherever “here” was—was similar to the noise that filled Mars City during each of the outbreaks, but louder, more piercing, causing horrible pain to his ears.
What was happening?
There was nothing solid around him, just the light, the noise, the smell, his own wrenching heaving into the air. But then Kane felt himself accelerating, and suddenly the sound lessened, and the smoky swirl of light gave way to something ahead as he was thrown onto hard ground, his hands falling from his eyes, his head smacking hard against the ground.
He was here. The other place.
I’m in hell, Kane thought. Sweet God…I’m in hell.
For a moment Kane stayed prone, looking at the world before him with his now-uncovered eyes.
The walls themselves glistened more like skin than stone. His hands, presse
d tight against the ground, felt some give, as if that “rock” too was actually something else. The smell that had him retching so badly now completely filled this place. And though the roaring noise had subsided, a mix of screams and howling came from everywhere.
He got to his knees, looking for his weapons. Had they somehow been destroyed? But he looked left and saw a pile of weapons…as though everyone else who’d been here had also had them ripped away.
Kane got to his feet and grabbed his shotgun and machine gun, as well as the belt with his remaining grenades. At least he was armed.
Then a single high-pitched shriek filled this area, and the smaller spider-things—the trites—jumped on him, four, five of them, covering him, digging into his flesh. Two had locked on his arms, the legs closing viselike, making it impossible to aim his guns.
One of the trites crawled up his side, and now came close to Kane’s head and neck.
So it ends like this, he thought. A few seconds in hell, and then the bold brave attempt ends.
No way.
He flung himself against one of the walls, feeling the skinlike texture but also making two of the trites squeal with the pressure. His left arm suddenly came free, his hand tight on the gun stock, finger on the trigger.
Had to do this carefully, to make sure he didn’t end up blowing pieces of himself into the air. The first blast sent chunks of the creatures’ flesh spraying all over Kane’s face.
He heard their squeals—perhaps they knew that they had lost the initiative. If there wasn’t one of the big spider creatures around, he might just survive this.
More blasts, until there was just one trite left, on Kane’s leg. He looked at the head protrusion as it tried to gnaw on his skin.
Kane put the gun barrel right up to the thing’s head and fired, sending pieces of it flying all over the room.
As soon as the attack ended, Kane sat down. He had a nasty new gash on his right leg, which, added to his other injuries, was—at the very least—going to make him hobble.
He dug out a small packet of gauze from his side pack. Two more stim injections were there too. He hesitated. That would leave only one, and that one he might need later.
He stuck the gauze on the wound, poured some antibiotic on the bandage, and then quickly taped it up, all the while looking around. The screams that filled this place continued, a mad keening that was the background noise of hell.
And when done, he quickly but painfully stood up. The right leg felt wobbly. I’m falling part, Kane thought.
He leveled his guns so both muzzles pointed dead ahead. After a while he lost any sense of how many things he had fought. He was down to one grenade, and he had reloaded three, maybe four times. His lower right pants leg dripped red, the bandage not doing much of anything.
Still he marched on.
There might come a time, he thought, when he would recollect the horrors he saw. But for now, everything was meant to be seen and forgotten. He just followed the stench, the smells, the constant red light that seemed to creepily caress the skinlike “rock” of the ground, the walls, the ceiling of this subterranean madhouse.
And is there something above this…some world above these caves and tunnels? Or is this the whole world?
Every now and then he talked to himself, especially when he had killed something and had to walk over the oozing remains. Sometimes something simple, like Good-bye. Other times, almost as if angry, Don’t you ever, ever try to kill fucking me…Do you understand? Then, shouting to the endless tunnels and caves: “Do you understand?”
He moved forward mostly on instinct, through the twisting nightmarish landscape. But the sounds, the screams, told him something was ahead.
Then he came to a tunnel opening, an immense one. The jumble of rocks and fire and creatures that filled it seemed to stretch forever.
He saw something that made him recoil, and he felt his eyes tear up. Just maybe, he thought, I can’t take any more.
It was something akin to a corral. Jagged stone and rocks, shaped like rocky spikes, made a huge oval “fence.” The fence surrounded humans, two dozen or so, all ages, all sexes, screaming, shaking.
And these other things walking around it. Guards? Was there any sense to anything he was seeing?
Then, as Kane watched, a headless creature with ragged bony protrusions covering its massive shape came up to the human corral. Kane watched as it speared one of the humans, and then it brought the human, still writhing, close to it and—somehow, some way—an opening appeared, and the human vanished inside the thing.
Kane’s breathing became faster.
He looked to the right. More of the things stood there, perhaps waiting their turn to feed. And he looked at some of those waiting creatures he had fought before, the lumbering thing with tusks waddling around, and also the tall demonlike creatures with guns melded to their shoulders.
Then Kane saw it. On a table, standing there, beside what looked like an empty thronelike stone chair. Guarded, surrounded…
The Soul Cube.
Kane counted seconds in his head. Giving himself moments to think, to plan. But then those moments all vanished when he looked sharply left, then right.
On either side, a floating head, the teeth looking like nails, the eyes milky pools. Guards of a different kind, and they had spotted him. And now they screeched out a warning, and all within the chamber turned and saw him.
38
DEEP INSIDE MARS
DR. AXELLE GRAULICH FELL TO HER KNEES. And for the first time she felt as if she knew what was happening now. After all, she could even hear the voices in her ears. The ancient sibilant sounds, the words that meant nothing.
But coupled with the swirling walls around her, the sounds told her that this place was indeed—now—ancient Mars. Dead for millions of years, maybe more, now somehow alive.
And those who used to inhabit the planet here, who vanished without a trace, were attempting to tell her what was happening.
“Please,” she said, her hands rising up. “Tell me, speak to me.”
The chorus of sounds were unintelligible. Now even the walls, which once sported symbols and marks, pulsed in time with the voices. She knelt there, knowing that they were trying to speak. The lost world of Mars was attempting to communicate.
She closed her eyes, thinking that if there was a way to communicate, a way she could understand, they would find it—and she should kneel in this place, which might not even exist, and wait, and listen.
UAC HEADQUARTERS
Ian Kelliher looked at the golden Labrador retriever circling the pod chamber, confused and scared, instinctively knowing that something was very wrong.
A voice in his ear: “Mr. Kelliher, we’re ready, sir, on your command.”
Kelliher hesitated. For the first time the laboratory here would attempt to replicate what happened on Mars, what Betruger had done. Was it the right thing to do? How could he be sure?
“Mr. Kelliher?”
“Okay. Doctor, whenever you are ready. Begin the transmission.”
Two scientists went to a control station. Other UAC labs and offices around the world monitored the experiment also, getting all the data, ready to analyze every moment of what was about to happen. Will it tell us everything? Kelliher wondered. Or nothing?
One of the vid screens open before Kelliher showed a close-up of the transporter screen. The distance from that to the target pod was the same critical distance as in Betruger’s last, fatal tests. Theoretically, the same thing should happen.
Kelliher shifted in his seat. The screen flashed a new message: BEGINNING TELEPORTATION SEQUENCE. That message flashed for a bit; then it was replaced with:
TRANSMISSION IN 10…9…
Another stray flicker of doubt filled Kelliher’s brain. But at least he could tell himself that now it was too late. No turning back.
…8…7…6…
He thought of his father’s warning. And the fact that Mars had gone off-line again. No comm co
nnection in hours. Was there anything left up there?
…5…4…3…
Then a small PIP opened on the right screen.
An icon showing Mars. Below it the message:
MARS CITY COMMUNICATION RESTORED.
Kelliher leaned forward. Mars back online. He’d hear what happened. And—
He looked at the dog inside the pod, now with both its paws raised up on the smooth, clear wall of the chamber, scratching, maybe moaning.
Mars online, just as this experiment was about to happen.
…2…1…
A voice in his ear from the UAC headquarters’ satellite communications control. “Mr. Kelliher, we have contact, but we’re getting strange power surges all—”
Kelliher started to speak. Not to his Comm Center, but to the scientist deep below the ground. But the countdown had run its course, and it was—of course—too late.
DELTA LAB
“You okay, Swann?” Campbell asked.
Swann nodded. “Just great. Fucking great.”
“Hey, no need for foul language. See, it’s nice and quiet here.”
Swann shook his head. “I wish you had let me go with them, back to Reception.”
“And leave me alone?” Campbell laughed. “You ain’t much help, but I’ll take what I can get. We will be here when Kane comes out.”
“If he’s even still alive; if he can even come back from there.”
Campbell looked away. “We better hope he does. For everyone’s sake. So we just sit here, and—” He stopped. There was a rumbling, almost like that of the tracks of a tank, or an armored vehicle. He looked at Swann, whose face brightened.
“Reinforcements!” Swann said.
Campbell listened. Yes, a lot like the sound of tank treads. But there were other sounds too, enough to make Campbell say: “I don’t think so—”
And they both turned to the entrance to see what was heading into the lab.
Maria had one hand on Theo’s shoulder, and they moved as one, his body joined to hers as they walked down the corridors.
“You okay?” she said.
“Yes.”
Doom 3™: Maelstrom Page 17