by Paul Teague
Chapter Sixteen
Intrigued
Kate had found the boy’s presence to be interesting - intriguing even. Initial briefings at the training sessions had indicated that all personnel would gather in the bunker by 3pm at the latest on the designated day. They would not know who they’d be stationed with until the sirens alerted and the bunker doors closed. At that point, all designated staff were to make their way to the Holding Area on Level 1 - and wait - for half an hour. At this stage, there would be a mixture of mission critical staff and the few civilians who were in the bunker, or had made their way down to it, at the time the alarms sounded.
Civilians were not to be given any explanation of what was happening during transmogrification. Once clearance was given to exit the Holding Area, bunker staff were to make themselves known to civilians and accompany them immediately to the MedLab. There they must be processed for stasis and BioFiltration. There would probably be concern, anxiety and some resistance, but it was important that all civilians were contained. Bunker staff must change into the uniforms provided in the dormitory areas and immediately head to their stations. Different uniforms to mark different roles within the bunker. Standard security checks must be made.
Bunker personnel should await further instructions, but in the meantime, they should familiarise themselves with other personnel and the bunker facility. Everything would be as-per training simulations.
Full mission clarity would be communicated at 20:00 on Day 2. Everything, so far, had been exactly according to training and instructions. With the exception of a 24 hour technical technical hitch with lighting and some small timing issues during transmogrification, the timescale seems to have been largely as described. With the exception of this boy. And his family. Kate had expected a few bunker staff from the cottage to be processed for BioFiltration and stasis. That couldn’t be avoided without raising any concerns elsewhere. But nobody else was supposed to be in the bunker when the sirens went off. Certainly not full families. It should have been authorised bunker personnel only - and a handful of regular staff from the cottage. This boy had full clearance to Red and Green Zones. He had unlimited access to the bunker.
He was listed on the biometrics database. That is uniquely matched to each individual, you can’t cheat it or pretend that you’re somebody else. There’s something unusual about this boy, something that she knew that she’d need to watch. Somehow he was deeply connected with what’s about to happen, but she didn’t know how. She had no power or ability to block him in any way, because he’d got full clearance to be here. No, it wasn’t a coincidence or freak event that led to this boy being in the bunker when the darkness fell. Somebody wanted him there.
Interruption
One thing I know for sure is that this man, whatever he is doing, is heading towards the blast doors that bridge the bunker and the outside world. And the other thing I know for certain is that my mum is outside those doors somewhere. All of a sudden what lies on Levels 3 and 4 doesn’t seem quite so important. This man must be going to try and find Mum. So why isn’t he with a security team?
When I was retrieved from the long corridor, three people in hazard suits came out to get me. They were armed too. I’m not sure what resistance they thought I was going put up, they could have got me to do anything they wanted to at that moment in time. No need to wave a ray gun at me - just lead me to a plate of food. And I’m intrigued by these glowing lights in their necks. They may be something as simple as a monitoring device - or some way of establishing status, rank or bunker access rights. Knowing how and why these bunker people are different may help me to navigate this place better. I’m definitely going to mention it to Kate later.
Still hiding in the shadows, I follow him up the long corridor, until he reaches the blast doors. The darkness outside doesn’t penetrate here of course. The lack of light that I had to tolerate in this area earlier was simply the blackness of an underground tunnel with no lighting and no windows. If he’s going to open that door, I’m not quite sure what to expect. Kate said that whatever is out there is not hazardous. And it doesn’t seem to do anything to me, who knows why that is? Maybe eating too many burgers does give you superpowers after all? But then anybody between the ages of nine and eighteen would be safe from this thing. I very much doubt that the world is about to be saved by burger eating kids.
I decide to move a little further back, just in case. I’m excited though, a chance to move beyond the doors means that I could be reunited with Mum. She’ll probably have to go in one of those pod things, but if I can see that Mum is okay, that’s one less thing to worry about. The biggest thing as far as I’m concerned. The man seems to know what he’s doing at the blast doors. These people may not know exactly what’s going on, and it may be true that they have never operated within this bunker before. What is very obvious though, is that these people have been trained well. They know the layout and the kit very well, looking at the complexity of the panel that he’s just opened, I wouldn’t know where to begin. He presses some buttons at the console to the side of the blast doors. I feel embarrassed for a moment as that’s pretty well where I must have taken a pee while I was all alone in the corridor. Nice one Dan! You take a pee right next to the hidden panel which might have helped your mum find safety inside the bunker. And I hope that nobody was monitoring these cameras at the time, with any luck they were all in the Holding Area while I was answering the call of nature all over what is basically the front door handle.
I stop dwelling on my shame when I see what happens when the man presses the configurations of buttons. What I can only describe as a fluorescent curtain of shimmering, green light covers the entire area of the blast doors. It’s pretty amazing actually, I’m almost tempted to make the sort of noises that you hear at a firework display. ‘Ooooooooooooooo!’ And its partner in crime, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’. Perhaps not the best use of the English language, but I’m stunned at the beauty of what I’m seeing to be completely honest with you.
The man presses a few more buttons, makes some gestures across another screen, then places his hand on what is quite obviously an identification panel. ‘More Biometrics, probably,’ I think to myself. There’s Chemistry, Biology and Physics taught at school, and for all the science in this place, much of it seems to rely on Biology. I wonder if whoever built this place flunked Chemistry and Physics.
The effect of a positive identification is instant. The huge, iron doors begin to creak into life. They are starting to move slowly. He’s opening the doors to the area where I last saw Mum. The doors are heavy and very slow to move. I can see nothing beyond them. As a small crack appears between the doors, there is just complete blackness outside. The fluorescent curtain which the man has activated in front of the doors appears to act as a barrier between what is inside the bunker and what is outside.
That’s all very well, but he appears to be getting ready to step outside. Why would he do that if he’ll be caught by whatever it is the darkness does to us? He’s not even wearing one of those biohazard suits for protection. Maybe that’s what the blue device in his neck does, perhaps it protects him from the darkness? My heart is racing now as the tension builds towards me finally being reunited with Mum. As the gap in the bunker doors begins to widen before me, an alert sounds out on the bunkers announcement system. It’s Kate’s voice and she sounds very serious. More serious than I’ve heard her before. ‘Dan, I need to see you in the control room immediately,’ she says, ‘We’ve found your mum.’ ‘It’s not good news I’m afraid.’
Split Second Decision
It’s in moments of extreme stress that we find out who we really are. In the comfort of an office or a classroom, we’re very happy to discuss what we may - or may not - do in certain hypothetical situations. But until you face that fear, that crisis, that emergency situation, you never know exactly what you’ll do. Heroes and cowards are defined in a split second. The mission objective for Zero-97/4 and Zero-98/4 is to enter the facility under the
cover of darkness and to retrieve a set of files which were securely stored there.
They are to be completely unaware of location, so they believe that they are transported there via military aircraft, but completely unaware of their final destination. At the beginning and the end of the mission they are placed into an artificially induced sleep, to sustain the deception. Routine security, she understood, and probably why she had to sign that E-Notice document. If they were conscious of the journey duration, they may be able to guess location, or at the very least, in which continent they were based.
Her 22 year old self is extremely excited by this prospect. Two years spent working in shops, a sudden and compelling ambition to join the Army to get some excitement, and barely out of basic training, she had been selected for this mission. Less than a year ago she’d been adjusting wrinkled dresses on clothes hangers and refunding customers who’d been kidding themselves by buying a size too small. Now she was getting a bit of excitement at last, this is why she’d joined the Army. Once sleep has been artificially induced, the mission begins. The man and woman don’t know where they are. As if woken suddenly from sleep, they are outside the base which formed part of their mission briefing. They do not stop to question or hesitate, they recognise what this and they know what to do.
They switch on their steath-shields, hi-tech body armour which will enable them to avoid detection. They have five minutes to cut through the wire, stay out of sight, find the office, retrieve the documents. Adrenalin rushes through their bodies like somebody just switched on a gushing tap. He takes out some cutters, she holds the wire with something that flashes when the two things make contact. This is a deadly, electrified fence and the tool she is using renders it powerless as he creates a hole large enough for them both to scramble though.
There are no searchlights in this camp, although it is lit, surveillance is via body heat. A rat scuttles across the courtyard and a blue laser appears from nowhere and annihilates the creature before it even has time to register what has happened. The man and the woman know this is what they must face, their stealth-shields will keep them safe from this hazard. All is exactly as it was in training. But this simulation is not being run to see how they react when faced with a series of predictable events. It is being run to see how they cope in the face of enormous stress, in exceptional circumstances and in situations which they couldn’t possibly imagine. The simulation departs from the training. In an instant, the stealth-suits deactivate, as if there has been a sudden, massive equipment failure.
The blue lasers start to flash immediately on sensing the body heat, and he escapes by a millimetre as he ducks in behind her through the door of the main office block. As they enter the door, the space disorientates, like somebody just picked up the entire block of buildings and spun it round. They can hear alert sirens sounding outside, and the approaching footsteps of armed guards. This is not how it was in the briefing. Security is supposed to be automated. Predictable. Beatable. In an instant they are in panic, confused and dazed by what is going on. Bullets start to fly down the corridor, their adrenalin levels are soaring. They barely know each other, but they must suddenly become each other’s most trusted companion to survive this. She longs momentarily for the safe life that she left behind. They communicate in single words and hurried gestures. They are trapped and surrounded, with no chance of success in this mission.
The layout is nothing like it was in the briefing, what happened here, this is wrong, everything is in the wrong location here and their protective gear isn’t working. It’s like everything that they knew about this mission suddenly became scrambled. The 1% risk figure given by the ‘suits’ seems laughable now. There is only one place that they can go, they have been cornered in the corridor and they are being forced into this room. This is where they will surely die.
They enter the room, push a filing cabinet across the door and turn around to look for cover. They are confronted with a bank of screens on which are live feeds of family members. Her mum, playing bingo. His wife, talking to somebody in their corner shop. Her dad, sitting in the car outside the bingo hall, waiting to pick her up. His mum and dad, viewed through their open curtains, watching TV in their lounge. His brother, playing squash with a friend. Instantly familiar scenes, the people they love most in their lives and a very clear and sudden threat. Each of the people has a targeting graphic projected onto their head.
A quick assessment of the scene shows that these are live feeds, of family members and they appear to have some form of weaponry aimed at them. A sixth screen that had been blank suddenly lights up. It is a live feed of themselves standing where they are right now. They are under immense pressure, bullets are being fired outside the door, armed guards are beginning to hammer outside on the fortified windows and their loved ones seem to be in imminent danger. They are completely disoriented, under very real threat and their environment just turned on a knife edge in a matter of seconds. It is in times of massive stress that character is defined. A voice booms from the speaker. They recognise what is being said, but the voice sounds unearthly, like nothing they have ever heard before.
‘You must chose,’ it demands, ‘If you are not dead in ten seconds, they will die.’ As if to confirm the seriousness of this threat, a laser flashes from a gun that had been concealed in the ceiling, hitting the ground that separates them. Guns are sounding outside, a counter times down the seconds on the screen, the violent sounds of hammering on the windows surrounds them and there on the five screens are the people that they most love, targeted by a force unknown but very real.
‘You must chose,’ demands the voice once again, ‘If you are not dead in five seconds, they will die.’ The man and the woman look at each other and in an instant, without speaking, they know what they must do. The lasers power up, they must choose now, the timer is at three seconds. They raise their guns and simultaneously they shoot. Her bullet hits him in the head. His bullet hits her in the stomach. As they fall to the ground, the laser shoots into the spaces that they had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. The targets are removed from the figures on the other five screens, which then close down. The targets on the screens go about their lives totally unaware that they were moments away from a sudden and violent death. The first window is broken and the filing cabinet is finally pushed aside as armed guards flood into the room. The decision has been made. The two intruders lie in pools of their own blood. They just became Dr Pierce’s 0.01%.
Chapter Seventeen
Deception
I don’t hesitate when I hear Kate’s plea for me to head for the Control Room. In spite of what I’m seeing play out before me in front of the blast doors, I know that I must drop everything to respond to this summons. I’m presently not on any surveillance cameras, so I’d better appear pretty quickly or they’re going to wonder where I am. I run along the corridor making sure that I don’t draw the attention of the man at the entrance. Whatever he’s doing, it will have to remain a secret to me for now. Like so many other things in this place. I check the surveillance cameras and fortunately the first one to be active is just next to the bathroom area.
I sneak through the door quietly, open my trousers and flies, then rush out again, like I’ve been in the loo all this time and I’m just rushing out. I make a big deal of fastening my trousers and zip in front of the first active camera. A bit of over-acting never did anybody any harm. I didn’t want that guy in the entrance to be rumbled, whatever it is that he’s up to can only benefit Mum. Unless Kate really does have some bad news for me about her. I’m about to find out, I’ve taken the lift to Level 2 and I’ve finally arrived at the Control Room. At Kate’s request, I haven’t been in here yet, so I’m interested to get a glimpse of this Red Zone area. I half expect the BioMetrics pad not to allow me access, but the doors open and once again I am allowed access without challenge.
What an amazing place. The museum-like control room of the previous day had been quite comical to me. Old shop mannequins dr
essed in dusty uniforms had been placed around massive maps on walls, dodgy old equipment and wooden desks which looked like they’d come out of a Victorian classroom. It was amazing to think in the Cold War bunker that such ridiculous looking technology would have been used in the aftermath of something that had pretty well destroyed the entire world. Like somebody had spent all the money on the amazing nuclear missiles and had forgotten to put some cash by so that they could mop up the fallout and recreate a new world out of the people who hadn’t been burned to a crisp.
But this control room is quite remarkable. It’s as if somebody has gathered the coolest tech that you could possibly imagine - and even some that it might be a stretch to imagine - and placed it all in this room. Knowing the Government, they’d spend all that money on the equipment and forget to install the wi-fi. All over the Control Room there are uniformed bunker staff, sitting at brightly lit consoles, performing all manner of complex looking operations.
Kate is there to meet me and can see the look of obvious awe on my face. ‘This is amazing Kate,’ I exclaim, forgetting momentarily why I am here. ‘What’s the news on Mum?’ I ask, recovering from the visual assault of such a mass of wonderful technology. ‘Well Dan, we have managed to locate your mother in the area beyond the bunker,’ she began. ‘Nothing I don’t know already,’ I think to myself. ‘She was located in the upper area of the cottage,’ continues Kate, with a look of complete earnestness. Okay, now you’ve got my attention. Last time I saw Mum, she was just outside the bunker doors. ‘We have this visual verification Dan,’ she carries on, moving towards a screen to her right. Kate moves the screen in my direction so that I can see it clearly. ‘Using special cameras, we are able to see through the darkness into the areas immediately around the bunker,’ she explains. ‘Your mother is currently in stasis in the cottage above us in the bunker. She’s completely unharmed and her life signs are all normal.’ She has my complete and utter attention now.