by Michael Todd
Turner handed Brock a form and winked at the commander. “Sir, when you find a badass like Katie, you want to be part of whatever she’s working on. She wouldn’t take us to hell if she thought we wouldn’t come back.”
The commander scowled. “Hey, it’s your flesh that’s gonna melt off, not mine. Just know if you don’t come back, I’m going to be damned pissed. You’re my finest men, and it’s gonna be hard to replace you.”
Brock handed the commander his paper and shook his hand. “Sir, I can almost promise you we will be coming back. We may be beaten up, a little sunburned, and possibly even grumpier than normal, but we’ll be back. Besides, we can’t let these other idiots fight the demons. You won’t have any teams left.”
The commander collected the rest of the forms and sighed, resigned. “Hell, you’re probably damn right.”
Chapter Thirteen
One of the lead Research and Development doctors stood in the center of his messy lab, his bright red hair sticking out in all directions. He turned, hitting his head on one of the lamps and grabbing it to stop it from swinging. At six feet tall when all the other doctors were short, he was at a bit of an architectural disadvantage in the building. He cursed and rubbed the bump on his head.
His assistant stopped in the middle of picking a gadget out of a box and lifted her eyebrow at Doctor Thorough. “What’s wrong? You look more pale than usual.”
“Just trying to run through the list of things I know we’ll need to take with us to hell. This is a bit more confusing than I expected it to be when they tasked me with it.”
Doctor Thorough was a genius, one of the top researchers in the program. His mannerisms, though, weren’t quite up to the neat standards of everyone else. He was very focused on the technical side of things, which was a good thing, but it left him little brainpower to deal with cleaning, people, or anything else that wasn’t research.
His assistant, Alice was all about the work the doctor did on a regular basis but was finding herself a bit out of her element on this latest assignment. “You better get your head straight, and for the tenth time, do not forget the sunscreen. There may not be sun per se, but you burn close to an oven, so hell might crisp you. I don’t want to bring you back here in an urn.”
The doctor was too busy mumbling to himself to pay attention. Alice sighed as she went through one of the boxes. “Sign up for research in the military, they told me. It’ll be a huge bonus on your resumé. Right. See new places and meet new people. New places like, I don’t know, hell. And new people like, I presume, the Devil himself.”
She tossed an empty toolbox into the large metal trash can and picked up a small box with all kinds of wires sticking out from it. There was a dial on top, but she knew better than to mess with one of the doctor’s gadgets without knowing what it was. She put it down in the “I don’t know” pile and grumbled. “Those recruiters were as bad as my friends said they would be.”
The doctor glanced up. “Oh, yeah? How so?”
“Well, I heard the stories about recruiters lying to the low-level bullet sponges. Tell them it’ll be easy, they won’t get deployed, they will have great opportunities outside of the military, and so forth. I thought sitting down with the head of the department for a job-style interview would make me an exception. Nope. They said, ‘Oh, Alice, you don’t have to worry about being on the front line in R&D.’ Pfft. Yeah, right. They should have said, ‘Unless you work for a nutso doctor with just a tad bit too much enthusiasm for science and adventure.’ Then I might have stopped for a minute and really thought about it.”
At that point, Alice was on a rant, and the doctor knew it was no use trying to stop her. She was in one of those moods and had been since the doctor volunteered them to go straight to hell, literally.
She continued. “I mean, what am I supposed to say? The military owns me now. I know it was a volunteer situation, but what kind of pussy would I be if I backed down? A live pussy. That’s right. I should have just said, ‘Nope,’ and turned and walked gracefully from the room. I couldn’t send you in there by yourself, though. You would get mesmerized by some type of lava rocks you’ve never seen before and turn to a cinder in five seconds. You’re brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but you have the curiosity of a cat.”
The doctor chuckled under his breath. Alice clanged a box closed. “Spend my days studying in a library or looking into a microscope in some lab somewhere? Oh, no. How about we take a little field trip to hell?” To emphasize her point, she dropped a large book on her desk, causing several stacks of paper to blow to the floor.
Dr. Thorough pushed his glasses higher on his nose. He sighed and gave her a comforting smile. “If you had looked a little further into the notes of what the other R&D teams have been doing, you would see that some of them are on the front lines all the time. They don’t have a nice office with a perfect set of tools and air conditioning. They fight for their lives every day. Instead of microscopes, their lab techs carry M16’s. The only reason you aren’t there all the time with them is that our theoretical work doesn’t require it. In fact, it’s almost the opposite.”
He picked up some of the papers from the floor and tried not to smile at her pout. “Alice, all these tools and analyzers we’ve been theorizing with should tell us more about the other dimension. All the work we’ve been sweating and pouring our lives into is actually going to get a chance to be tested. That’s more than most theoretical scientists ever get to say. Most of their work is numbers-based and usually isn’t even tested until long after they’ve died. We get to see everything in action live and in person. It’s historic. Really.”
Alice nodded her head with slumped shoulders. “But why us?”
He looked at her strangely. “Who else is going to know if the tools and inventions are working correctly? It’s only the ones who designed them, isn’t it?”
“I can’t argue with you on that one. You had to go and teach me the dark arts of theoretical dimensional data acquisition. Now I’m finding a nice vacation to hell as my reward.”
The doctor put down the stack of papers in his hand and walked to Alice. He took her hands in his and looked at her seriously. “I know this is scary stuff, Alice. I do. But think about the reason you began studying all of this in the first place. You’ve dedicated yourself to science. You’re not looking at the stars, but instead, you are focused on saving the entire human race from annihilation by the demons. Be proud that you’re going on this adventure. Be honored, and be brave. If this works, your name will be known around the world, right alongside mine. We will be the most revered scientists in history. We are going to be the first humans to set foot on this new world. Don’t think about it in a biblical sense, think about it in a scientific sense.”
Alice narrowed her eyes. “I suppose you’re right. It would be pretty sweet to end up coming back a hero. When the world is saved, I can move on to any research institute I want to. They’ll let me head up teams. And on top of it, if you eliminate the fear constant, which I have to say is hard to do because the fear is pretty constant right now, it’s pretty exciting. I suspect this is how an astronaut feels before going into space. Only without the visions of demons ripping their limbs off and eating their entrails as an afternoon snack.”
The doctor chuckled and shook his head. “Focus on sorting through the pile of gear over there. Just call things out, and I’ll say ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ If you know already, then put them in the right spots.”
Alice grimaced and dug into the pile. “You know, if I lose a limb, you are totally inventing some incredible replacement for me. I want to be fucking Cable or something.”
Doctor Thorough nodded as he got lost in his own pile of gear. “You got it. Best superhero robot arm ever.”
Alice mumbled to herself as she tossed one of the gadgets in the “go to hell” pile. “Better be the best arm ever.”
She reached into the pile and pulled out a long rod with several wires flopping at the top. She squinted one
eye and then nodded, reaching down and pulling up a large orb that attached. “Low-sensor-radioactive-charging-synthesizer. Yep, that’s going with us.”
She reached down again, coming up with a flat plastic rectangle. Alice looked around for the doctor, but she didn’t see him. “Dr. Thorough, do we need the high-molecular-bandwidth-distribution-and-atom—fuck, what was the last word?”
The doctor’s voice echoed from somewhere in the room. “Don’t remember, and no!” There was a moment of silence, then quick footsteps from the back room. The doctor stuck his head out of the back corner and narrowed his eyes. “Wait. That project weighs nine thousand pounds and is bigger than this room. How would we bring that?”
She looked down at the item in her hand and turned it over, slapping her forehead. “Oh, this is the remote control. How was I supposed to know? That was Trent’s project!”
The doctor’s face fell. “For a top-of-your-class Ph.D., you sure have your share of blonde moments. Let’s try to keep those at a minimum in hell. And if you had tried a little harder to get along with Trent, then maybe you would have remembered that.”
Alice stomped her foot, throwing the remote over her shoulder. “Hey! I can’t help it if he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. I tried to be nice to him, but he always thought he was right, even when I proved he wasn’t. He nearly melted down the entire core of the R-27 Hadron project that we worked nine months on. I don’t control stupid, doctor.”
Doctor Thorough chuckled and picked up a black case, opening it to reveal three glass cylinders of bright green liquid. “There you are, my babies. Alice! I found the demon blood we were experimenting on.”
“Perfect! Don’t drop it. You know what happened last time. They had to rebuild the entire south wing. Thank God, it was closed at the time. It was genius, though, absolutely genius to combine their blood with the molten special metal and hydrochloric acid. You can literally kill them with themselves.”
The doctor shrugged. “Yeah and melt a hole in the Earth to the core.”
Alice waved her hand dismissively. “Meh, that won’t matter in hell. If we get attacked, just have the merc chuck one of those at the demons and throw us through a portal. Bye bye, hell. Hello, Tahiti.”
Thorough closed the case and carefully set it on his desk. “I think I’ll ask them about it for next time. Don’t really want to test the stability on our first trip to hell. Don’t need it blowing up in my hand from the heat, either.”
“Probably a good idea. Save it for the big finale. Make a huge fireworks show out of melting demons.”
“Maybe you should have written movie scripts for a living.”
Alice stood up quickly with excitement. “Look! The atomizer I built when I first started working with you. We got the results for that first specimen that was brought to us. That woman who had the nasty demon that tried to chomp fingers off.”
“Oh, yeah. I forget what happened to that specimen.”
Alice laughed. “She nearly took Trent’s nose off, and he put a bullet in her head.”
Thorough shook his head. “That’s right. I came in to find a pile of dust on the examination table and Trent whistling in the back.”
Alice smiled. “Hey, the best kind of demon is a vaporized one.”
The avalanche skidded down the side of the mountain, taking droves of trees with it. It finally came to a stop at the base, pushing dunes of snow for about two miles. The cracking of the ice didn’t stop, and before long, large chunks were toppling down the mountainside. The echo of the snapping could even be heard two towns away from the mountain and all over the military base.
Hundreds of feet up the side of the rocky terrain, a crack formed in the ice, splintering across to the other side of the large block. It sat for a moment, slowing to a stop until suddenly, a huge fist slammed through it from underneath. The large, long talons stretched wide before slowly receding back down below the surface.
Again, the hand blasted through the ice, sending chunks flying every which way. The balled fist swung from side to side, pushing the ice out and over the edges of the mountain. The beast rumbled angrily inside, working as hard as he could to get himself free of his icy coffin. What was stirring below had awoken, and his bright red eyes beamed up through the shattered ice.
“Everyone got everything they’re going to need?” Brock asked, pulling the straps to his rucksack tighter.
One of the guys looked up, holding a picture in his hand. “They’re going to store the rest of this, right? And if something happens to us, they’ll send it to our families?”
Brock shrugged. “I’m assuming so, but I don’t know what the deal with this assignment is. It might be a disavow kind of assignment if we don’t come back. Most likely, it’ll be one of those ‘Died in a training accident,’ things. Yes, I think your family will get your stuff.”
Turner tossed a magazine into the trash. “Just in case. I don’t need my mom seeing my wrinkled-ass 1983 copy of Playboy. Might make her upset.”
The other guys laughed, and Brock shook his head. “Listen, guys, this is no different than before. We get to work alongside Katie, and you know she’s going to watch out for us. Now come on, we got to get out to the pads so when the choppers arrive, we can get the hell out of this jungle.”
They all finished packing up their things and headed outside, carrying only what they would need for the mission. They lined up near the helipads to wait, the choppers not quite there yet. Several of the guys in their unit walked to shake their hands.
“Good luck, guys,” one of them volunteered.
“Seriously, let’s end this bullshit. And if you see Lucifer, tell him I’ll see his ass soon, and I’m gonna have words.” Brock chuckled and slapped the guy’s hand.
The last guy in their unit nodded his head. “Give them hell…in hell. Shit, that’s redundant.”
Chapter Fourteen
Katie tapped her fingers against the arm of her seat. She looked out the window at the base approaching in the distance. She was in the middle of Colorado, the mountains looming in the background. It was gorgeous and definitely looked a lot colder than it was in New York.
Pandora was excited to get on the ground. I’m freaking starving. Let’s get this over with, so I can dive into some donuts.
Katie smiled. We have a lot of work on our hands, so just chill out, okay? You’ll get your food, I promise.
Better. Oh, look, an old ass base. Great.
Katie leaned forward for a better look. Coming up beneath them were two massive hangars. They were large enough to hold old blimps and had concrete buildings on each side. Katie knew those buildings led to the underground area of the base. Katie had gotten very used to underground bases and had come to like them better than most.
In the distance, dozens of heavy large electrical lines swooped down from tall poles about half a mile away all the way to the base. She wondered what all of them were for since her last base hadn’t had anything quite that extensive. At the same time, they didn’t have military money to work with, either.
Pandora was not at all in the mood for what they were planning. You know, this is a decent idea. I’m not going to say it’s not.
But?
But what I really want right now is an Italian dinner, a tight dress by an Italian designer, and an evening in a nightclub with a bunch of Italian men.
Katie rolled her eyes. Work and then play, Pandora.
You were all about play a few days ago.
I was all about sleep. That’s different.
They both involve lots of time in bed. Katie could almost hear Pandora’s grin.
Work now. Bedroom activities later.
Ugh, I feel like I’ve done enough work in my life.
The plane began making its descent, hitting the runway gently and quickly coming to a stop near one of the large hangar bays. She grabbed her bags and exited the plane. The place was quite a bit louder than she’d thought it would be. Shirtless men were maneuvering all aro
und her, cleaning and prepping the base again. Katie lifted an eyebrow as two of them walked by. I think I found you the hot men you wanted.
That one kind of looks Italian. Do you think he can make me lasagna?
I’ll just grab a radio and bam! Club on the go.
Pandora sniffed. Although I prefer the ones who wear cologne and buy me drinks, these specimens will do.
One of them walked up to Katie, wiping his forehead on his T-shirt—that was in his hand. Steam rose off his skin, and Katie just stood there staring. He nodded toward the plane, oblivious. “We’ll get you unloaded and put your stuff in the secure hangar bay. If you head to the main building, they’re waiting to take you to your room.”
“Thanks. And nice uniform, by the way.”
Katie left him grinning on the tarmac. Pandora whistled loudly. Look at you getting all sassy pants hours before you voluntarily roll into hell. I guess you are feeling yourself today, sister.
Katie laughed. I guess I am.
They headed across the base and to the main building. One of the staff, a woman this time, was waiting to show Katie to her bunk. Pandora didn’t like the sound of “bunk.” It better be nicer than a fucking cot. I’m a queen.
Katie rolled her eyes. You used to be a queen. Now you’re a demon living inside a volleyball player. Plus, you’re on our side.
Don’t say that too loud. You’ll ruin my reputation.
The soldier led them into the underground base. They walked behind her hurrying to keep up. The base seemed to be all empty rooms and dimly lit halls. Wires snaked along the walls. Some were attached, and others just dangled from the ceiling. They passed by a large room full of computers and monitors, but none of the lights were on inside. A thick coating of dust covered almost everything in the room. Katie wrinkled her nose. This was probably mothballed decades ago.