The Secret Bunker Trilogy: Part One: Darkness Falls

by Paul Teague

  It’s like this place has wireless electricity. That would explain the lack of plug sockets. I wonder if that’s how it works, this place is certainly techie enough. I’m about to open up the MMS message that Dad sent me, when a familiar face appears on every single terminal in the room. It’s Doctor Pierce. He begins to speak. ‘My name is Doctor Harold Pierce, I have met all of you already but due to the highly confidential nature of this mission ...’ His words are cut off on the terminal at this workstation On all other terminals he is delivering a briefing speech. ‘Firstly, let me start by reassuring you that your loved ones are all completely safe and secure,’ he goes on. But on the screen I’m looking at, he’s saying something very different. It’s like an overlaid message, as if one message is embedded within another.

  ‘Dan,’ he begins in the second message. ‘This is an encrypted message which only you will be able to receive.’

  ‘At present, you are the only person in the bunker who has Purple or Black Zone access.’ ‘That won’t be the case for much longer.’ ‘I don’t have much time to speak, we’re currently on an encrypted delivery system.’ ‘You’ll have worked out already Dan that you and your sister are very special.’

  I begin to talk, but he continues to speak over me. This can’t be a live message, he must have recorded it beforehand.

  ‘Dan, as you’ll see on the main screens, I am currently explaining to the bunker personnel what’s going on outside.’ ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about terraforming, but we’re involved in the highest level project to regenerate the planet.’

  ‘That automated process will begin the second my mission briefing ends, bunker personnel will receive their agendas directly to their personal devices.’

  ‘Dan, I’ve spent more than 20 years personally preparing for this.’ ‘I thought I’d covered every possibility, but I’ve missed something … I can’t believe I didn’t see it.’ I get the feeling that he isn’t here to deliver good news to me. ‘The terraforming has been hi-jacked by a terrorist faction Dan.’

  ‘I don’t know who they are - or where they are - I just don’t understand how they even got access, it should be impossible, it’s all tied into me.’

  He’s clearly flustered and has the look of a genius who’s just been told that his theory is rubbish, even though he knows that it must be correct. ‘If they sabotage the terraforming Dan, they can kill the planet … everything will be dead.’

  ‘It’s the minerals they want - and the gas - they don’t care about what else is left.’ He’s clearly getting quite distressed now. I’m with him on that. ‘I managed to get some people inside the bunker who you can trust Dan - your mum is one of them, and James, her friend.’ ‘You can tell if they’re safe by the devices in their necks.’

  ‘Look closely under their skin, you should see a very faint, blue, pulsating light there. If you do, they’re safe, they’re connected directly with me.’

  He furrows his brow. ‘If they have any other colour device Dan, you mustn’t trust them.’ ‘I have partial control, but the encryptions were hacked when the sirens sounded.’ ‘It’s why the lights were off in the bunker for so long, why the timing was all wrong.’ ‘They hacked in when we were at our most vulnerable - as we handed over from Governmental control to the bunker.’

  ‘Dan, I’ve got to go. Remember, you can access all areas here, but you’ve only got a short head start on them, once the hacking is complete, they’ll have the run of the place.’

  ‘One last thing Dan. They’ll go for the terraforming last of all. First thing they’ll target are the drones.’ The message ended. Just as his final words were delivered on the second presentation that had been continuing on the main screens. ‘ … The Global Consortium thanks you for your service in the Genesis 2 project.’

  Chapter Seven

  Sabotage

  At the very moment that Doctor Pierce finishes his briefing in the Control Room, Amy notices something that she might have missed if it wasn’t for her conversation with James only minutes before. In unison, the minute the screens return to The Global Consortium logo, the necks of the bunker staff glow red. It’s like a lacklustre display of Christmas lights, all of the bulbs a single colour, power barely managing to illuminate the filaments, but definitely there if you know where to look. She turns to James. His neck is fine, still blue. He’d noticed what was happening too, and read her face when she nudged him. ‘You’re fine,’ he acknowledges, checking out her neck. The light was blue.

  Across the room there is a simultaneous ‘beep’ as the bunker staff receive their instructions on their personal devices, just as Doctor Pierce had suggested. There is a sudden air of purpose, as Control Room staff receive their personal mission agendas. The time for acclimatisation is over, Genesis 2 has begun. ‘I need to get back to my station,’ James whispers, ‘I’ll find out what I can.’

  He walks towards the man who had taken up his duties in his absence, somebody he hasn’t noticed here before. The man makes way for him, and seems lost momentarily, like he has no place to go. He is saved by the alarms that began to sound on a console to his left. ‘Statis Room power has been cut, as requested,’ the terminal operator reports to Kate. ‘How long?’ asks Kate.

  ‘A maximum of one hour independent survival for the adults, about 40 minutes for the children.’ Amy hears everything. James walks over to her and whispers hurriedly. ‘They’re killing the civilians in the statis room Amy, they’ve turned off the power supply.’

  ‘Take my E-Pad I’ve mapped in the location.’ ‘When you get there, I’ll send instructions to work around it without detection. I’ll do what I can here while you’re on your way.’

  Amy leaves the Control Room, adrenalin flowing, heart beating furiously. Unknown to her, the man who had been sitting at James’ terminal notices this and follows her, making sure that he is not detected. She is suddenly aware of a feeling that she hasn’t experienced in some time, since those terrible events with James. It is survival instinct. She follows the navigation information on the E-Pad and manages to make her way through the corridors easily enough. James must be monitoring on the cameras. As she approaches the Statis Room door, it slides open without her having to place her hand on the panel.

  James is good, he must have managed to override it. Unfortunately, his actions are detected immediately by Kate. Security just went up to maximum level and anything that is out of the ordinary now gets relayed to her instantly. Inside the Stasis Room, it doesn’t take Amy long to work out what is happening.

  Encased in glass cocoons, she finds her family and other people, some of whom she recognises as the bunker staff that she’d seen on the previous day. To the side of each of the inanimate bodies is what is clearly a lifesigns indicator. The levels on the graphs are going down, bit by bit. Heart rates are slowing. These people are dying. She has to save her family. The Stasis Room door opens.

  With the blue device in her neck currently inoperative, she recognises him straight away, but she can’t place where they have met before. The alarms are sounding in the corridor outside, they must have spotted her. The man in the doorway looks like he is about to speak, but becomes aware that there are heavy footsteps behind him. A security team is following just behind. He takes the gun that he has been hiding within his uniform, points it at Amy and shoots. She falls to the ground.

  As the security team enters the Stasis Room a small pool of blood has begun to form where her body lies still and lifeless.

  Drones

  Kate receives the news that the intruder in the Stasis Room has been dealt with. Unknown to the man called James, she alerts Security to his recent unsanctioned actions. Combined with his unexplained visit to the bunker entrance earlier, he looks like he’s going to mean trouble. They catch him unawares as the security team storms quietly but efficiently into the Control Room and take him away for interrogation.

  With the red devices pulsating furiously in their necks, interrogation will now mean something comple
tely different to what it did only an hour previously. Somebody else is now calling the shots here, internal sabotage will neither go unnoticed nor unpunished. Kate continues to work through the tasks that are being directly transmitted via the device in her neck. By a source unknown.

  As the faint red glow pulsates in her neck, she executes her next task with no emotion or any thought of consequence. ‘Begin Drone activation!’ she commands as the woman in front of her, responsible for carrying out that task, sets to work at her console. ‘Activation sequence has begun, authentication required to process,’ the woman replies. Kate places her hand on a panel at her desk. Her eyes are scanned by a red laser. This is Black Zone security operation. Kate has full access to the bunker. ‘Drone activation underway!’ comes the confirmation from across the control room. ‘Initiate the arming sequence!’ replies Kate.

  Peril

  My mind is racing. First Nat’s reappearance - or should I say ‘resurrection’? Now this message from Doctor Pierce. Dad said to trust him. Doctor Pierce said to trust Mum and James. I need to start tracking people down - and fast! I remember the unfinished video message on my phone, and begin to replay it. I get to the part where it broke off earlier.

  It’s about you, it’s all about you and ...’ It continues: ‘It’s about you, it’s all about you and Nat.’

  ‘It’s because you’re twins, it’s all about you two. Dan … Nat is alive. It’s all connected with your genetic patterns, you have to work together.’ ‘Doctor Pierce says I’m not going to remember recording this afterwards, so it’s in your hands Dan.’ ‘Trust Mum, look for Nat and do everything together.’

  As he said that last word, I could see Doctor Pierce operating some electronic device behind him. His expression turned blank and I heard Doctor Pierce’s voice say ‘Now go back inside,’ as the video came to an abrupt end. ‘Work together’ Everything that won’t work for me in this bunker seems to need something else. Or someone else. The weird buttons in the lift. There are two of them. When Nat was in that machine earlier. As soon as I placed my hand on the pad to try and stop it, it seemed to do the opposite, it actually completed the process.

  I need to get back to that transportation room where I’d left Nat. I run as fast as I can, back to the area where Nat had disappeared. The activation panel is illuminated. Nat must have touched it already. I place my hand on it once again and the orange light surges once again into life.

  End

  Moments after Dan left the Operations Centre, one by one, three of the large screens flickered into life. On one was the face of a woman. There were men’s faces on the other two screens. Each of them looked serious, grave, concerned. Behind them were control rooms, exact replicas of the one only two floors above. Each of the people on the screens was attempting to deliver an urgent message. A message that was unheard by anybody. ‘Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 1, breaking communication protocols to transmit this urgent message.’

  ‘We’re receiving data that indicates armed drones are being activated in your Quadrant.’ ‘This is a Tier 10 alert … they’re targeting the remaining three bunkers!’

  As the urgent message was broadcast to the empty room, two levels up a woman lay bleeding in the Stasis Room. Shot by a man who was being congratulated by the security team at this very moment. The only man who could help her was being escorted under heavily armed guard to an interrogation room. A room which he was unlikely to exit alive. Around her were the dying bodies of her family, deprived of life by the glass coffins which were meant to protect them.

  In the Control Room on the floor below, a woman named Kate had just given the instruction to arm a thousand drones. Their targets were the other three bunkers which had been secretly built to act as joint guardians of the earth whilst the terraforming took place. The Earth is in peril, its cries for help go unheard. But on the lowest level on this bunker a twelve year boy has just placed his hand on a panel.

  The machine whirs into life, recognising his genetic pattern, bright orange lights circle the platform and a figure appears as if from nowhere. It is a girl, about twelve years old, and she knows the boy. She steps off the platform and grabs him urgently by the hand. It is the first time they have been together since they were violently parted three years ago. ‘Come with me!’ she says, ‘I’ve figured out how to stop it!’

  The Secret Bunker Trilogy continues in Part 2: The Four Quadrants

  Preview of The Secret Bunker Trilogy Part 2: The Four Quadrants …

  Targeted

  This floor is bigger than all the rest. It must be the size of 20 football pitches, it is a vast underground hangar. There will be one of these in each of the bunkers, the underground control centres which form the four Quadrants of The Global Consortium.

  The drones are like nothing he’s ever seen before. They’re smaller than the military drones that he’s watched in awe on the TV news programmes, but they look immediately more sinister and deadly. There are hundreds of them here, like bats in a cave, still and silent. In an instant, the drones activate one-by-one. Red lights, like the eyes of a viper, illuminate in the darkness. When all of the drones appear to be activated, a bright shield of light sweeps across the full width of the far wall. It is a sight to behold and in any other circumstances it would be considered a spectacle of great visual beauty.

  There is a deep rumble at the far side of the hangar and slowly, surely and deliberately its vast iron sides open up to reveal a dense blackness beyond. One by one the drones launch into the darkness outside and as they enter that bleak nothingness they appear to have been swallowed up by some malevolent force. But it is not the darkness itself that is evil, it is these drones which make their individual journeys within it.

  Unseen by any human eye, they launch one by one, each with a deadly mission, a dedicated target. The red lights on each drone are not the eyes of a viper, though they may just as well be. Instead they indicate that these drones are armed, they have become a powerful weapon of destruction. Each one is intent on its deadly mission. To completely annihilate the other three bunkers which lie beyond in the remaining quadrants.

  Lab Rat

  The girl is restrained on a cold, metal operating table. She is no more than twelve years of age. Unable to move even her fingers, let alone her arms, legs or head. She has been like this for over 24 hours now, given neither food nor water. Four small needles have been inserted at angles into the base of her spine. Once every hour for the past 24 hours a mechanised delivery system has injected four different liquids directly into her spinal chord. She hasn’t been told why she’s here or why they have chosen her for these experiments. There are no others like her, she is all alone in this nightmare. Another hour is up. The machine whirs into life once again, and the serums are injected into her one by one. It is the final liquid which she dreads most, the one that results in agonising pain which lasts nearly the full hour until the next injection is administered.

  She lets out a scream of pain, which echoes down an empty corridor. The only person who’s aware of what is going on here is the man who sits at his desk monitoring the results of this experiment diligently.

  His office is plain and undecorated, there are no family photographs or pictures on the walls here. The only sign of who is he is and what he might be are displayed on the badge which is attached to his white lab coat. It reads ‘Dr H. Pierce’

  Activated

  It was never intended that this fighting force should ever see the light of day. Specially selected more than 15 years earlier they’d been chosen as part of a series of initial experiments specifically for this purpose.

  Tested under the most extreme conditions, each cryogenically frozen body in this room had been included on the basis of their consistent responses in a series of demanding and punishing simulations. Unknown to them, they had been frozen here since the tests ended, waiting for the time when their unique services might be required. That time was now.

  The entire population of the earth was in imminent dan
ger from terrorist sabotage, their deadly aim to extinguish all life on the planet and extract its rich mineral deposits for sale to the highest bidder. As the power surged through their cryogenic caskets and the blood began to flow once more through their male and female bodies, the awakening cohorts could never have guessed at the battle that lie before them. Not only to preserve their own lives, but to protect the lives of every remaining human being on the planet.

  Read the 2nd part of The Secret Bunker Trilogy called ‘The Four Quadrants’ … scheduled release is October 2014.

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