The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read, Part 2

by Andy Ritchie

  One thing which does stick in my mind about going down those steps was the noise which the Gao’An man’s head, being dragged along the floor as it was by Tukaal, made as it went down every single step. It was like the sound of an empty coconut being hit with a hammer...it was the same sound as the Researcher’s head made when it hit the concrete after he had been clattered by the bus, and it made me feel really, really sick. All the same, I thought better of asking Tukaal to stop letting it happen.

  At the bottom of the stairs were another two of the heavy metal doors, perpendicular to each other. When we cracked it open, we saw that the door on the left led, as was the case on the other sub-levels, to a corridor, though this particular corridor was by no means as brightly lit as the ones in the levels above us. The door directly ahead of us, however, led out into a wide tunnel which, to our left, stretched away into the gloomy distance as it presumably ran alongside sub-level four and underneath sub-level three, whilst, to our right, its progress was halted after barely ten yards by a pair of enormous grey metal doors that looked as though they weighed a hundred tons.

  I whistled one of those whistles which someone does when they are impressed.

  ‘Jesus Christ, look at the size of those things.’

  ‘They’re blast doors, I think,’ Tukaal replied, his features held in a worried frown.

  ‘Blast doors?’ What do you mean, ‘blast doors’?’

  Blast is not a word I like because it brings forth images of explosions, and explosions bring forth images of death.

  ‘I think these doors are here for the same reason that sub-level five has been built separately from sub-level four, because of the risks associated with what they are doing there.’

  He looked down at the Gao’An man who nodded pathetically.

  ‘Risks?’ What sort of risks?’

  Tukaal ignored my question and, instead, he moved over to the doors and pressed the large green button at the side of them.

  The doors shuddered and groaned for several seconds before they finally began to ease open, as if heavy machinery inside them was coming slowly into life. As they did so, I noticed holes in both the ceiling and the floor of the tunnel around the opening, and I guessed that the door itself contained massive bolts that slid out into these holes when the door was closed, fixing into the very rock that surrounded it.

  Eventually, the doors, which must have been at least two feet thick, swung back completely to reveal...a large, wide tunnel about fifty yards long which led, rather disappointingly, to another massive door. At least this one was red.

  ‘Is there another way into this section of the complex?’ Tukaal asked, having bent down next to the almost delirious Gao’An man.

  ‘Yes...’

  ‘And where does that come out on the surface?’

  The Gao’An man seemed to be struggling to speak, as if his throat was constantly filling with fluid. He swallowed hard after almost every word.

  ‘Some...where...in...Boddam...village...in...one...of...the...houses...’

  ‘And is there anyone working in the complex now?’

  If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that Tukaal was now using SVPT, the Jedi-mind-trick shit...and it was working.

  ‘There...isn’t...they...are...all...off...world...testing...’

  ‘That’s good,’ Tukaal replied, and patted the Gao’An man on the cheek.

  He then got to his feet and began to drag the still leaking and now gurgling Gao’An man as before, making his way hurriedly to the second blast door which he opened in the same way as the first set, enabling us to enter sub-level five.

  *

  This part of the complex was huge and strange...and, fortunately, it was deserted.

  It was, in essence, split into three sections.

  The first part contained the same sort of clinical white RandD décor as the main part of the complex, complete with a massive, hi-tech laboratory equipped with all manner of alien-looking pieces of machinery the purpose of which I could only begin to guess...no, that’s not right, because I was actually so fucking clueless as to what the machines did that I couldn’t even begin to guess, and that’s the truth of it! This part also contained the obligatory offices and kitchen and toilets and stuff like that.

  The second part (which was where Tukaal deposited the Gao’An man)...well...it was like how I would imagine the power station way above us to be, all big bits of industrial machinery, all pipes across the ceiling hissing steam, all big damp puddles on the floor, all large, heavy cables on metal racking. It was clearly some pretty serious shit because Tukaal regarded it all with an expression that was darker and more worried than anything I had seen on his face before. I knew that what we had stumbled upon was something far, far worse than Tukaal had expected. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea how much worse.

  The third and final part of the sub-level five complex looked like yet another hi-tech laboratory, only this one was separated from the rest of the level by a wall of thick glass. I heard Tukaal refer to it as being a ‘clean room’.

  With the Gao’An man propped up in a corner, Tukaal took the Lumix camera out of the duffel bag and began photographing and video-ing absolutely everything. As he video-ed, he provided a running commentary on what he was recording, and I managed to catch words and expressions like:

  ...extremely advanced stage...

  ...hyper-concentration...

  ...why they’ve built it here...

  ...energy enrichment plant...

  ...serious threat...

  None of those words or expressions did anything to lift my mood, which was now awash with deep dread and foreboding.

  Eventually, Tukaal seemed to finish taking photos and shooting video of the second part of the sub-level, so I took the opportunity to ask him what the hell was going on.

  His response was completely unhelpful:

  ‘I’ll explain everything when we get out, Jeth. For now, I’m afraid you’ll just have to be patient.’

  And with that, he simply walked away.

  I was sorely tempted to tell him to ‘wait a goddam, fucking minute’ but, once again, something inside me suggested that this would be a good time to bite my tongue...so I did.

  Having dismissed my enquiries with his cryptic response, Tukaal then walked determinedly towards the entrance to the third and final part of the sub-level five complex, the laboratory behind the wall of thick glass.

  The entrance to the lab was through a series of small chambers; the first had a bench, some clothes-hooks and a cabinet full of those all-in-one suits which cover everything except the face (which Tukaal did not bother to put on); the second was some kind of air chamber because when Tukaal entered it, I could hear the sound of motors kicking in and the rush of air through pipework; the third bathed Tukaal in a strange, purple light whilst the fourth and final one didn’t seem to do much at all.

  Once inside, Tukaal moved purposefully around the laboratory, taking pictures and examining equipment. He spent three or four minutes looking intently at what appeared to me to be a giant metal donut, maybe thirty feet in diameter, suspended five feet or so in the air above a metal cage.

  Then, when he was over in the farthest corner, he seemed to stop suddenly, as if startled by something. He then shot me an anxious glance, which I didn’t like the look of at all, whereupon he approached, with movements so slow that he looked like he was in a John Woo film, a very large metal cabinet to which were connected dozens of (what I assumed to be) power cables. He then spent over a minute simply peering through a small glass panel he had opened in the front of it at whatever lay inside.

  From where I was stood, on the other side of the thick glass that partitioned this ‘clean-room’ part of sub-level five from the part with all the hissing steam and dripping water, I could not see what was inside the metal cabinet.

  What I could see, however, was the effect whatever was inside had on Tukaal’s expression, because when he finally did manage to pull himse
lf away and look back across the clean-room towards me, his expression was a sobering mixture of shock, amazement, fear...and sadness.

  Lots of sadness.

  So much, in fact, that I swear I saw, for just a moment, the glint of a tear in his eye.

  And then the sadness was gone, replaced by what I can only describe as a hard, steely rage as Tukaal hurried back across the clean-room, through the entrance chambers and back to where he had left the Gao’An man.

  ‘What stage are you at with your development?’

  The Gao’An man, whose mutilated stumps now seemed to have stopped leaking and were now, instead, covered with what looked to be a thick crust of badly melted cheese, gave a weary gurgle.

  ‘Have you managed to create a Thausman?’

  The Gao’An man shook his head slowly from side to side, though I’m not sure whether that was in response to Tukaal’s question, or simply some sort of involuntary action.

  ‘Who is ‘The One’ that you referred to earlier?’

  The Gao’An man stared at Tukaal for a moment and then, quite bizarrely, began to laugh!

  ‘He’s...he’s...the...one...who’s...going...going...to...’

  ‘Going to what?’ Tukaal pressed.

  The Gao’An man laughed some more...a strange, gurgling laugh.

  Then it stopped and the Gao’An man’s face seem to come alive.

  ‘Please...don’t...kill...me.’

  Tukaal stared implacably at him.

  ‘If...you...let...me...live...get...me...off...world...I’ll...tell...you...what’s...really...going...on...here...the...ape...might...be...interested...’

  He laughed again...and I’m sure I caught Tukaal glancing in my direction, his brow once more deeply furrowed by a frown.

  ‘You’re not...the first...’ the Gao’An man spluttered as Tukaal slowly rose above him.

  ‘...confederation...’ Tukaal slowly took out his PWS.

  ‘...here...this...year...’ Tukaal took aim at the Gao’An man’s chest and the Gao'An man feebly put up his arm in vain attempt to protect himself.

  ‘...others...from...the...Tra’ Tukaal pulled the trigger and the Gao’An man’s chest (and I presume the Gao’An inside) exploded all over the floor and the walls.

  Sickeningly, some of it actually splattered onto my cheek, and I found myself hurriedly rubbing it off onto my sleeve. I didn’t look to see what colour it was and nor did I attempt to see what it smelt like. I decided it was best if I just tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

  After all, there were other, more important things to think about.

  ‘What did he mean, Tukaal, when he said there were others?’

  Once again, Tukaal seemed to choose to ignore my question.

  ‘Come on, Jeth, we need to get back to the control room and download as much info as we can.’

  This time, however, I decided that I wasn’t going to accept being fobbed off.

  ‘Look, are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on, or not?’

  There was angry indignation in my voice, and it drew an immediate response from the alien.

  ‘Yes, I will, but not here and not now. There’s...’

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if he was wrestling with an inner dilemma.

  ‘...major issues to consider here, and I need to be sure I’ve got all the facts.’

  ‘Major issues? What do you mean, ‘major issues’?’

  Tukaal placed a conciliatory hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Please, Jeth, you need to trust me on this. Once I’ve got all the information, once we’ve got out of here and found a place to gather our thoughts, then I’ll tell you everything.’

  I looked at him evenly.

  ‘You’d better.’

  *

  Our return to the control room was as uneventful as our journey to sub-level five, and a lot quieter seeing as we did not have the coconut sound of the Gao’An man’s head to contend with.

  Odd, isn’t it, that I should be so...flippant about the Gao’An man — after all, I’d actually watched it suffer dreadfully, to the point where it became nothing but a babbling wreck...and then I watched it be killed...no, I watched it be executed. Coldly.

  Maybe that was why I thought so little about the Gao’An and the fate that had befallen it; because I was thinking so much about Tukaal, not only what he may or may not be thinking, but also the way he had acted, ever since we had come down into the complex. At times, the way he had spoken, the things he had done...well, there was a ruthlessness there that sent shivers down my spine, a propensity to act violently and seemingly without emotion that suggested more a cold-blooded killer than it did an intergalactic diplomat.

  These thoughts continued to dog me once we returned to the control room and Tukaal, for the umpteenth time, began to busy himself around the console. While he did this, I explored the offices at the back of the control room to see if they provided any interesting clues, but as I did not really know what it was I was looking for in the first place, I returned empty-handed.

  That was when I noticed that Tukaal had taken the modified bit of his neural net, the one with the space for the power cell to connect to it, out of the duffel bag and was connecting it up to the console.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘There is an absolutely massive amount of data that I need to copy,’ Tukaal replied, not looking up from what he was doing.

  ‘I thought you’d already downloaded everything onto that SICPad thing of yours.’

  ‘The SICPad is full. There’s additional data I need to get.’

  Still he didn’t look up from what he was doing.

  ‘But if you power that thing up,’ I said, still nervously, ‘won’t THEY know where we are?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Tukaal replied, ‘but I don’t think so. There is so much raw energy in this place, be it emotional or electrical, I doubt this will even register. Besides, it’s possible that THEY don’t even know about this place.’

  I wasn’t convinced on either count and nor, I suspect, was Tukaal.

  I know I said ‘Okay, it’s your call’, but I was still not happy at the idea of firing up the one thing which we both knew THEY could track. To me, it looked like an unnecessary risk to take.

  After about three minutes, everything was ready and Tukaal made to press a button (or an icon, maybe) that would start the whole process off.

  But then he hesitated.

  I looked fearfully at the power cell.

  Thankfully, it was not yet glowing green, which I assume meant it was not yet working...which I assume meant that the alarm bells and the sirens would not be going off at THEIR headquarters...!

  ‘On reflection, and just in case THEY somehow manage to trace the signal from the power cell, I think we need to be ready to move quickly once the download is complete.’

  ‘And how long will the download take?’

  ‘Seeing as I’ve hard-wired the net right into their system, no more than two minutes.’

  And with that, he tapped the button (or icon) on the neural net thing and it started to glow.

  Two minutes.

  One hundred and twenty seconds.

  Each second a laboured tick, followed by an even more laboured tock.

  All at once, time seemed to be going really, really slowly and every moment we waited I could imagine THEM and what THEY would suddenly be doing:

  The little blip on one of THEIR computer screens.

  The excited shouts.

  The barked orders.

  The whirl of helicopter blades.

  The cocking of machine guns.

  The checking of equipment.

  The landing in the grounds of the power station above us.

  The opening of the door at the top of the stairwell.

  The cautious but speedy descent.

  The efficient opening of the door to sub-level three.

  The soundless advance along the corridor to the control room door.


  The final silent hand-signals between battle-hardened troops...

  ‘There, that’s it.’

  Tukaal quickly unhooked his neural net-thing and disconnected the power cell. He then thrust them into the duffel bag before heading for the door.

  But it was the wrong door.

  ‘Whoa, where are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh,’ Tukaal replied with a smile, ‘Did I not tell you? I’ve discovered another way out, one that doesn’t require us to ascend all those steps and then squeeze our way back through that conduit. Coming?’

  And with that, he had already opened the other control room door and set off at a sprint along the corridor.

  I had little choice but to follow him.

  *

  The return to the camper van was, in comparison to much that has happened to me over the last week or so, spectacularly uneventful.

  In his examination of the schematics of the process, Tukaal had confirmed that the large service road we had seen leading through sub-level four to sub-level five was the same road that was accessed through the tunnel entrance in the sub-station basement.

  It was high and wide and obviously used to transport heavy equipment in and out of the complex. It also did not follow a direct line between the sub-station and the power station because, Tukaal suspected, if it did so the gradient would simply be too steep. As it was, it seemed to snake back a forth for what seemed like a dozen times before, on rounding yet another corner, we found ourselves looking up towards the strangely welcome sight of the sub-station basement.

  However, on reaching the basement, we did not instantly retrace our steps to the doorway on the upper level. Instead, Tukaal consulted his SICPad and, after a few moments, decided that he would look to see if it were possible to get us out without going back through the foul-smelling culvert.

  That was why, having made our way up to the access door beside the large roller-shutter door at the top of the ramp and eased it slightly open, I found myself enjoying the sensation of a slight breeze on my face, and the smell of semi-fresh air, whilst Tukaal took a half a minute or so to disable the cameras that monitored the access gate and site roadway.