Hostile Territory

by Tom Andry

  Probably vats of acid or tanks full of sharks.

  I crossed to the stairway, "This way."

  "Wait," Gale objected, "we aren't going to try to head back to the surface?"

  I shook my head, "I'm betting all of that is locked down anyhow. We were lucky to get this far. No, we're heading down."

  "Why? I don't..."

  "Shh..."

  Gale's expression transformed to annoyance. She hated it when I shushed her. Heck, come to think about it, I don't know anyone that liked to be shushed. I made a mental note to use that more when talking to supers.

  "Do that again, and I'll make sure you breathe all the available helium around you whenever I'm around."

  I smiled, "Hey, maybe I could do voiceovers for cartoons!"

  Gale shook her head, "Shut up, Bob."

  I turned and headed down the stairs, calling back, "Down. We're headed down."

  Every few floors or so, we'd hit a larger room. Again we'd see the hallways. Near the openings were a few doors. In the guise of being exploratory, I took a breather. Behind each of the doors were huge rooms full of food, mechanical parts, fabric (an alarming amount of spandex in my opinion), and more.

  "Storage, mostly," Gale explained. She pointed above one of the doors. There was a stenciled number painted above the frame, "It's all cataloged." She motioned to the ceiling, "See that central tube? There is a transport system that uses it. You can plug in the room number and it'll..." She faded off, eyes distant.

  "What?" My senses suddenly alert. I tried to slow my breathing, to concentrate. But I didn't hear anything.

  "Do you smell that?" Gale didn't seem to be sniffing. She must be using her power in some way.

  "No. Nothing."

  Gale pushed me gently to the side and walked toward each of the hallway openings. After a moment in each, she came back to the center of the room. Lastly, she headed toward the stairway down.

  "Here. It's coming from..." she paused again. "Stay close, Bob." She extended her hand.

  I looked at her hand like it was a candy bar that had been dropped in mud. I really wanted to take it, but I wasn't sure how the people around me would react. Did she really want me to hold her hand? What was she trying to tell me?

  She shook her hand and then turned and whispered at me, "Come on, Bob. Something is wrong."

  I swallowed and stepped forward, taking her hand. It was warm. She was always warm. It was part of her power. She could control the temperature of the air around her. I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten so much. The texture of her hand, the way her knuckles were slightly larger than you'd expect from the hand-to-hand training, the bronzed skin from all the time flying around under the sun. It was like putting on an old shoe I hadn't worn in years - both comfortable and new. I found myself reaching for her ring. I used to center the diamond. The ring, of course, wasn't there.

  Gale pulled me close and kept me there. "Stop rubbing my hand; you're distracting me."

  I stopped my thumb from caressing the back of her hand, "Sorry. Old habits."

  "Shh..." she responded, concentrating on the bottom of the stairs.

  The air around us grew heavy. I'd experienced this before. She used to practice putting fields of good air around things and people. We'd spray perfume or maybe a bit of smoke and see if she could keep it out. Whatever was in the air, she was afraid of it.

  Finally, she nodded and headed down the stairs. She kept the pressure on my hand and arm so that I was practically hip to hip with her. We walked down slowly. I never noticed any smell of any kind. Gale, however, was as tense as I'd ever seen her. Step after step, we descended. I wanted to talk, to quip, to tell a fart joke. Anything to break the tension. But Gale rarely took anything this seriously unless it was important.

  We reached the next landing and stopped as we exited the stairway. Gale turned her head as if to listen. We took a few small steps forward and stopped.

  I couldn't take it anymore, "What is it?" I whispered.

  She shook her head, but didn't respond. She glanced down both the hallways. I did the same. They looked the same as all the others. Except...

  "That one is blocked," I, again, whispered.

  Gale nodded, her face a mask of granite. Just barely within the range of my vision, a cave-in had blocked off the hallway. Probably one hundred feet away. Maybe closer.

  "This one too."

  I turned. Gale was right. I hadn't noticed it at first, but part of the suspended portion of the hallway was missing.

  "Could this have been how Ted cut the power to the City?"

  Gale shook her head again, "No. At least, I don't think so. The City was designed with multiple redundant systems. I wouldn't think something like one line being cut could shut the City down like this."

  I nodded. It made sense. The cables running over our heads and around the walls looked no different from the others we'd seen. But still. Someone had closed off this section for a reason.

  I pulled Gale toward one of the hallways. She resisted at first, but then followed. I approached one of the doors and put my hand on the knob. I glanced at Gale. She nodded. I could feel the sheath of air around us grow a bit harder. If there had been any outside sounds, those probably would have been deadened too.

  I turned the knob. It didn't resist. I paused for moment, readying myself to jump out of the way if something came hurtling out at me.

  Gale put a hand on my forearm, whispering "Maybe I should go first."

  I scowled, playfully, "Hey, I survived The Raven...twice. You think I can't handle a door?"

  "Depends on the door."

  I turned back to the door. Hard or soft? That was always the question in situations like this. Hard is good for when there is a need for a dramatic or sudden entrance. Soft is good for stealth and traps. I'd always been of the opinion that soft was better. Too many supers, and tippys for that matter, liked to booby trap doors. Yank them open, and get an explosion or shotgun shell to the chest. With slow, you could look out for such things.

  I pushed the door slowly. No light inside the room. That was in line with the other rooms we'd explored earlier. As soon as the door was open enough, I stuck my fingers in and felt around the knob. I didn't feel any strings or anything. I pushed it a bit more. Now I could see in. Still no evidence of traps. That didn't mean there weren't any. Just that I couldn't find them.

  I took a breath and pushed the door all the way, cringing as I did so. Nothing. No explosion or blast. No trapdoor under us (not that Gale would have let us drop). I opened my eyes.

  "What is this place?" I whispered.

  Gale stepped forward and into the room, "I...I don't know."

  It was as if someone had taken my high school chemistry class and transferred it to this room. There were long tables, big enough for five or six people to work around, in neat rows. Each had multiple outlets for gas and power; even a few Bunsen burners were lying around. The walls were lined with frosted glass cabinets that were full of hazy shapes of a multitude of colors and sizes. The rear wall was covered with stainless steel refrigeration or freezer units. The room was huge. I did a quick estimation of the number of tables. At least twenty. Maybe more.

  The only really outstanding feature of the room was the center. A cylindrical piece of equipment reached from floor to ceiling. It had multiple viewing stations looking like something scavenged off a submarine. The entire unit was easily five feet in diameter. Gale took a step toward it.

  I pulled back on her arm, "No way. We are not going to poke that thing."

  She grimaced at me, "I wasn't going to poke it; I was just going to..."

  I pulled her harder toward the door, "You were just going to poke it. Or look at it. Or see if there was a button on it you could push. No way, Gale."

  "What?" she smiled sardonically, "Are you afraid?"

  "Hey," I whispered emphatically, "I'm not the one with powers. And the way I've lived as long as I have is because I don't come across some piece of equipment that looks all
high tech and probably full of zombies and think, 'yeah, I'm going to go see what that does.'" I pulled her again, "No, Wendi. We are NOT going to poke that thing."

  She looked back toward the room, "Well, okay. I guess we can have Doe take a look at it."

  "See!" I tried to keep my voice down. Who knew? It could've been sound activated. I grabbed the door and closed it as quietly as I could. "That's the most sense you've made. You've got a super genius on staff. Let him take care of it." I looked around, "Power's out and it hasn't exploded? Do. Not. Poke. It."

  Gale waved her free hand at me, "Fine. Point made. Can we move on?"

  I snarled at her. She shook her head and tried not to laugh. Together, we moved across the hall and tried another door. It was the same. This one didn't have the cylinder in the center of the room, but instead had what looked to be a huge cage full of animals. Except we didn't recognize any of them. This time Gale insisted we go in. I was sure we'd find an empty cage with a door ajar, but we didn't. The animals were some sort of hybrids. Like someone had put together a deck of cards with animal parts in them and dealt each one out. Some were cute, most were terrifying, but all of them looked deadly.

  And dead. They were all dead.

  Gale and I left without a word. When I shut the door, Gale turned to me, her eyes wet behind her mask.

  "What's going on, Bob? What is this place?"

  I shook my head, "I don't know. It doesn't make sense. It looks like a lab...a huge one, but how? It isn't protected from the stairs at all. Anyone could walk down here. How could it be secret?"

  Gale shook her head, "It couldn't. It can't. We'd know. There is no way we could have something this big under our noses. We just..." her voice faded out.

  We'd stopped whispering. With the dead animals and the lack of sound anywhere, it didn't seem necessary. Gale, probably reflexively, kept the air around us tight. We continued exploring the rooms. One after the other. Labs. Tables, cabinets, refrigerators, weird devices in the center of each room. It was eerie. I could see the confusion on Gale's face.

  And fear. She was afraid.

  I wanted to welcome her to my world. Hell, to the tippy world. We were used to it. We were constantly kept in the dark by the supers. In a state of perpetual fear. But I couldn't. Maybe some other day. But not here, not now.

  We'd started skimming the rooms. We found one that was full of supplies and discarded equipment. A few with rows and rows of shelves filled with everything from electronics to jars filled with specimens submerged in liquid. There was one room with massive machines with huge plates and cutting jaws surrounded by hydraulic pistons. I wasn't sure what they might be used for. I thought I even spied a laser.

  I pushed open one door and glanced inside. It was dark, but I could see the tables. "Another lab." I shook my head, "We should keep going. This is getting us nowhere."

  Gale's eyes were wide, her eyemask stretching to accommodate. The air around us doubled in density and I had to gasp for a breath. Gale frowned an apology and the air started to flow a little more freely. She stepped past me and into the room.

  "It's here. This is where it is from."

  "It? What 'it'?"

  Gale pushed the door fully open.

  I was right; it was a lab. Just like the others. But for one difference. It was full of bodies. Men and women in white lab coats stacked floor to ceiling. Dozens of them.

  "My God," I whispered.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  Floor to ceiling was not an overstatement. The bodies were stacked like macabre bricks, arms and legs dangling from the wall of bodies. If the room was the same size as the others, and I had no reason to believe it wasn't, the wall was at least two layers thick. Maybe three. Given the size of the labs we'd seen, it was easily the entire complement of staff.

  In the red light, I expected them to start moaning, standing, and shuffling toward us mumbling, "Brainssssss..."

  I swallowed. Gale hadn't moved. Her grip on my hand was slowly tightening and I could feel the heat and humidity in the air around us. I heard a drop hit the ground. Another. I looked down.

  Tears. She was crying.

  "Gale?"

  Gale spun, her eyes wet and fiery behind her eyemask, "Under my nose, Bob! Under my goddamn, nose!" she screeched through clenched teeth.

  I stepped past her, her hand forgotten in mine. The bodies were all dressed the same. Lab coats and the sort of pants that doctors wear. I looked around, taking in the bodies as impassively as I could. It was such a surreal scene that, with the red lights and all, I didn't have the sense of revulsion I should have. Like most people, I'd seen my fair share of dead bodies in my line of work but this... This was different. I'd never seen anything on this scale. It was...unreal.

  "I don't see any injuries. Nothing to suggest what killed them." From the doorway, I continued to study the wall of bodies. Gale wasn't allowing me any closer, not that I was trying very hard. "No wounds, burns...anything. What do you think?"

  "I think Ted better not be behind this. That you've been right about him all this time. Because, if it is him..."

  I swallowed back my shock and revulsion. I needed to focus. Try to see past the horror. I scanned the macabre pile trying to find any clues. Any linkages.

  "Come on, Gale. Look at them." I pulled on her hand. "Just...what do you think? Gas?"

  Gale turned, her eyes dry, but hard, "Maybe. There is something wrong with the air. I sensed it below. But I couldn't tell you if it was the decay or some poison. It's just...wrong."

  I nodded. Gale's power was considerable, but just because she could control the wind and air didn't mean she could analyze it. She was playing it safe and I was glad. If there was some sort of gas...she could filter it out if she knew what it was. Or, more specifically, how it felt to her power.

  "Do you notice anything odd about the bodies?" I turned to Gale, desperate to get her emotions in check.

  "Other than they are dead?" She demanded.

  I resisted the urge to shush her. Instead, I whispered my next response, rather than speaking quietly like we had been doing, "Look at them. How they are dressed."

  She blinked away her anger and actually looked at the bodies. Together we walked into the room. I glanced back at the door behind us.

  "Um...just in case? Keep an eye on that door. I don't want to be locked in here with them."

  Gale glanced back at the door and nodded. She knew that I meant for her to use her power to block any attempt to close the door. She turned back to the bodies.

  "They are all dressed the same."

  "Yes," I prompted, "and..."

  Gale's eyes flicked from body to body, "You're right about the wounds. I don't see any. Maybe a broken bone or two, but that could have been from moving them in here."

  I nodded. They couldn't have been killed here. Not the way they were stacked up.

  "They are all wearing goggles of some kind."

  "What?" I stepped forward. I hadn't noticed, but she was right. Many of the goggles had been knocked free, but there were enough with them still strapped to their heads that it was clearly a pattern.

  "You think this is what you saw earlier." Gale paused, "God, was that only earlier today? How is that possible?"

  I nodded, "Yeah. I must have caught sight of one of these people. And that means..."

  "They were alive only a few hours ago!" Gale whispered excitedly.

  "Well, I wouldn't go that far. At best you could say that at least one of them was alive. But it could have been exactly what you said - someone in a lab coat that allowed my mind to fill in the blanks. But, that wasn't what I was trying to point out."

  Gale looked back at the bodies, her head shaking from side to side. "I don't see anything else."

  "Well, there is a lot to see that you probably are assuming I already know. There are men and women. I couldn't say it was an equal distribution, but enough that it should be noted. There is no evidence of resistance. Their hands are clean and
there are only superficial wounds on their bodies." I pointed at a figure, "See there? That gash on his head? No blood. That happened after he died." I straightened up, "But it is their faces you should be looking at."

  Gale continued to shake her head for a moment, "I don't know, Bob, what? They all look normal to me."

  I laughed at the slip of the tongue. "Normal. Exactly."

  Gale's eyes widened and she looked back at the bodies, "Tippys? All of them?"

  It was my turn to shake my head, "I don't think so. See that guy? He looks like he may be a super. A few others as well. Supers, whether you and your friends like to admit it or not, have a 'look'. It is most noticeable in the bone structure, but it invariably leads to a person that is, on average, more attractive than the average tippy. Sure, some tippys are every bit as attractive as supers, but most supers are much more attractive than most tippys."

  Gale scoffed at the familiar argument, "You love to say that, but I still say it is because we spend most of our days exercising and tippys don't."

  "Start paying us for wearing spandex and acting like assholes and we'll trim up too."

  Gale rolled her eyes, "Stop it, Bob." She turned back to the bodies, "So, what does this mean?"

  I started moving toward the door, Gale's hand warm in mine, "Well, playing devil's advocate...if this is Ted, and I'm not saying it is, when he cut the power, it started a chain reaction. It was the switch that started his endgame. Whoever these poor souls were, working down here, they had outlived their usefulness. So they were disposed of."

  We exited the room and I closed the door quietly, noting the room number. I lowered my voice to a whisper, "Ted gets caught. We confront him. He triggers the power outage. One of his super friends or maybe a force of henchmen stack up the bodies, and he is, most likely, on his way out."

  Gale whispered back, "You think?"

  "Doesn't matter who it is. They have to know that these bodies aren't going to be hidden for long. They are likely actively hiding this area. They've got to be on their way out and expect all this to be uncovered soon after."