Chose

by O M Faure

  And that’s when it happens. Andika points out something to the leader of the guards, he turns to look and she deliberately places her gun at the back of his skull and pulls the trigger. The gunshot echoes in the huge hangar as the man drops to the ground. There’s still a dark smudge on his stubbly cheek but the rest of his face is a mangled mess of flesh and blood.

  I scream and backtrack into Olivia.

  ‘What happe—’ she says, turning toward the sound. She doesn’t have time to finish.

  Andika hears my scream and turns slowly toward Olivia and me, gun aimed at us. My legs move of their own accord, backwards, away from the assassin; I bump into objects and keep backing toward the pyramid’s bulk behind me. Charlie, the young guard, yells, ‘Get out of the way, she’s going to kill you!’

  Andika’s gun moves in a slow arc as her eyes skim reluctantly over Olivia and me and lock instead on the young man who is running over to us, waving his arms.

  Andika fires. The bullet hits Charlie, who stumbles and falls.

  ‘No!’ I yell.

  I can’t see whether he’s hurt or dead. He did this to save me. A lump of guilt and fear lodges itself in my throat.

  ‘Charlie! You fucking bitch!’ The guard’s yells are tinged with rage as he shoots at Andika and ducks behind the barricade.

  Björn fumbles with the extinguisher and lunges forward, bellowing and spraying thick white smoke. Smoke whirls around Andika, as Björn rushes toward her but she stays stock still and shoots, both hands on the grip of her gun.

  She’s aiming for the red cylinder in Björn’s grip, when, with a dull thunk, she makes contact and the canister bucks and jumps in the Scandinavian’s hands, like an out-of-control demon vomiting smoke. A suffocating mist fills the room and everything devolves into blind chaos.

  Screams of pain tear the fog apart and the thuds on the other side of the metal door accelerate, like terrified heartbeats. Choking, I lift the neck of my shirt out of my overalls and cover my nose, as my vision blurs with burning tears.

  Andika races toward the pyramid and takes cover behind one of the workstations as she shoots at the remaining guard. The sound of gunshots is deafening, like explosions bouncing against the walls, mixing with screams.

  Björn is shrieking. He desperately tugs on a bright red piece of shrapnel protruding from his stomach, as viscera slide out of him, like blood-stained eels writhing on the floor. Olivia’s leaning over him and trying to press his intestines back into his abdomen as he screams his head off. The guard who remains on our side of the hangar is still trying to protect the locker-room door. If Andika takes him out, there will be nothing to prevent her from opening that door to our assailants.

  The guard emerges from behind the barricade and with a cry of impotent rage, fires erratically. Somewhere behind me, Andika shoots back in a short, precise burst.

  Something grazes my cheek and my ear starts to burn. I touch my cheek and my fingers come back stained with blood. Shit, I’m in the cross-fire. I drop on to my stomach and cover my head with my arms, gagging on the smoke. As I crawl away from the line of fire, toward the spot where I last saw McArthur, the Asian scientist materializes out of the fog; she’s hiding under a desk, a trickle of blood on her face. She’s praying, eyes closed, face pressed against clasped hands. Blinded by the white smoke, I’m crawling past her when I sense someone running towards us.

  I flinch at the sharp clack of bullets, disturbingly close. The older agent collapses mid-run, a few feet away from me. His head hits the ground with a thud and his breath catches in his throat with a wet rattle. A puddle of blood oozes toward me. The white and gold badge on his shoulder is soaked in it and blood drowns the small embroidered pyramid logo as the man gurgles and tries to cling to my sleeve.

  I clasp my palm against my mouth to hold back a scream and the Asian woman and I crawl around him. Charlie’s still wailing, his shrieks emanating from the dense fog like a gruesome melody against the beat of the metal drums. I recognize the younger agent’s voice: ‘Shut the fuck up, man! Give me your gun!’ But Charlie doesn’t shut up.

  The fog feels alive with threat as Andika circles silently around us, like a shark that could emerge from the mist to pick us off one by one. An exchange of bullets explodes, once more heart-stoppingly close.

  Charlie falls silent.

  A precise burst. Another. Followed by the tinkling rain of brass.

  She’s picking us off one by one.

  My stomach drops.

  Only one security guard left now unless she already got to him. I haven’t heard him in a while.

  As we crawl in the general direction of the pyramid, I feel the hair rising on the back of my neck. A red streak on the floor appears through the smoke, so we follow it on our stomach and elbows and after a few minutes we find Olivia bent low, panting as she drags Björn to safety. She’s located McArthur. The elderly woman crouches behind a workstation, shielding the remaining scientist behind her. Olivia drops to her knees and pulls Björn’s head onto her lap. The Scandinavian is whimpering softly, his eyes unfocused. McArthur stares from Olivia to me. Then I see her make her decision.

  She turns toward the huddled scientists and whispers instructions. The man looks startled and whispers protests, gesticulating silently toward the door to the locker room, but McArthur contradicts him and the shocked scientist straightens and nods. He hurries, crouching, to his workstation and does what the Professor asks as his colleague hurries to a nearby station.

  McArthur grabs something that looks like a gun, gestures for me to follow and yanks Olivia off Björn, hauling her by the elbow. Her white overalls are splattered with gore. She lets herself be pulled, dazed. I dash behind them into the glass pyramid, as McArthur closes the door behind us locking the swirling smoke out. I skid to a halt and bend over, clutching my knees, panting.

  ‘You’re going ahead with the mission. We’ll launch the countdown in a few minutes,’ McArthur says.

  ‘What are you talking about? The mission is over, your agents are dead,’ I say.

  ‘We need to get back and help Björn…’

  McArthur lifts Olivia’s chin up. ‘Olivia, look at me. I owe it to your father to at least try to put you out of harm’s way before I engage the emergency protocol.’

  ‘But where can we possibly go? The room’s locked and there’s no way to escape!’ Olivia grabs her temples, her fingers leaving red smears on her pale skin.

  She’s right; there’s obviously no way for us to make it out of this place alive.

  ‘What’s the emergency protocol?’ I ask.

  ‘I must destroy the pyramid as soon as you’re gone. You’re leaving for a year, so if anyone survives this, they’ll rebuild the device before you come back.’

  ‘What? Destroy the… What are you talking about?’ Olivia is clearly panicking, her eyes huge.

  The inside of the pyramid smells peppery and metallic. Outside, the two scientists are arguing. The man is pointing at the unguarded exit when Andika emerges from the fog and shoots him. He collapses.

  We stare at her as she walks toward us, her braid coming undone, dark red spatter all over her face. She calmly replaces the magazine on her gun. We’re in plain view, in the middle of the fucking pyramid. This is it then.

  But as she starts to take aim at us, the older guard, still hiding behind the barricade, shoots her in the shoulder, destabilizing her. Reluctantly, Andika turns away from us to face the gunfire. The young female scientist, huddled under her desk, cradles her keyboard, typing desperately as she sobs.

  ‘Listen, both of you,’ McArthur says, straightening up, ‘there’s no time to explain. The guard won’t be able to hold back the attackers for much longer.’

  McArthur yanks Olivia’s bloodied gloves off. They drop to the ground with a splat; then she pulls back the girl’s sleeve and unceremoniously sticks a microchip gun in her flesh, jabbing her with the sharp end and depressing the trigger.

  Olivia yelps and as soon as McArthur has rem
oved the gun, she slaps her hand on the bleeding wound, breathing fast, visibly shocked.

  My heart beating wildly, fighting to maintain my calm, I offer my forearm to McArthur and she looks into my eyes while she inserts the chip. I can hear the sub-text: you are in charge of the mission now.

  I nod silently in agreement.

  McArthur hurries out of the pyramid, closing the heavy glass door behind her. She throws the microchip implanter to the floor and runs to her workstation giving the Asian woman a few brisk orders but we can’t hear anymore through the thick glass.

  Inside the structure, a light is starting to shine from the floor tiles beneath our feet. As the radiance creeps along the slanted walls, a low hum intensifies and the whole pyramid pulses in response. I watch as McArthur gestures, issuing muffled orders.

  The Professor turns to look back at Olivia, tenderness and desperation etched on her face. And something else too. Maybe guilt. The humming inside the pyramid reaches a higher pitch as the chips in our forearms begin to radiate heat. Olivia cries out, looking at her forearm, and I know why; I can feel the same ember-maggot wriggling its way inside my flesh.

  Suddenly, there’s an explosion and a loud metal shriek. Hands on my ears, I feel the blast reverberating in my chest, and when I open my eyes again, the far door is hanging off its hinges. Andika’s body lies a few feet away from the door, jagged shrapnel protruding from her chest. A man wearing a balaclava and an all-black uniform enters through the gaping hole, but retreats when the security guard fires a volley at him.

  The guard, shielded behind the barricade, shoots again, when a couple of canisters are lobbed into the room. There is a flash of blinding light and my eyes water but I see through the tears that the young scientist has fallen to her knees, holding her ears.

  The frantic banging against the locker room’s doors ends with a crash of clanging metal as that other entrance is breached as well. A dozen men in black fatigues rush in. The muffled sounds and the smoke lend the whole scene an oddly dreamlike quality. The masked men point at the pyramid and rush toward us. Gunfire flickers through the smoke. Bullet holes pierce the structure, as whole glass panels shatter, clinking to the ground like glittering hail.

  I look everywhere for McArthur, hoping to find her alive. She’s on her knees, tears running down her face, tracing streaks of pink through a mask of gray dust. She strains to reach her keyboard and just as she does, a flash of white light brighter than anything I have ever seen rips reality apart.

  15

  DeAnn

  Cambridge, October 31

  * * *

  Writhing on the floor, my body wracked by spasms of excruciating pain, I feel like I’m burning alive. Tears of agony are streaming down my face but I can’t wipe them. Cramps rips through my entire body like an electrocuting current, bending me in an arc, as my shoulders strain to touch the back of my calves. I’m paralyzed.

  My heart beats out of control as my lungs seize. My fingers are bent at odd angles and my tongue is stuck to the top of my palate. Battery acid is running through my veins. The only thing I can do is scream as tears run from the sides of my eyes. Olivia’s face, a few inches from mine, is contorted and feverish as she twists backwards too, squirming in torment.

  Now, the waves of fire come and go, separated by only a few seconds. A few minutes later, the contractions come in shorter and shorter bursts that are more endurable and farther apart. I start to breathe a few heartbeats at a time between the surges of pain.

  Panting, Olivia and I look at each other, braced for more. Her hair is plastered in strands to her forehead. She’s ghostly pale, verging on green. Sweat runs in drops along my temples, down my neck, and every muscle in my body feels bruised.

  Finally, as the pain subsides, we lie still for a long while, whimpering and gulping in the stale air. Then my teeth start to chatter and shivers take over, as the cold envelops my sweat soaked skin. I’m naked. So is Olivia. What on earth?

  ‘Have you ever felt… anything like this?’ Olivia stammers, her voice hoarse.

  ‘No, never.’ My voice sounds strange, lower than usual.

  We’re in a dark hangar and the lights are slowly flickering on with little fizzing sounds. This room looks like it’s been disused for decades. Where are we? What did they do to us? We must have passed out, been abducted and now the people who took over the Cassandra Programme facilities have woken us up by some sort of electrocuting torture. I look for other signs of mistreatment on my body but all I can see are smears of dried-up blood, sweat and dust.

  ‘Look, we’re in a pyramid,’ Olivia says frowning.

  Struggling to sit up, I squint at the dark and now I see it too. It looks like ours but older. The copper has turned green and streaks of grime stain the glass panels. The floor is dusty and the room smells of mold.

  What the hell is this place? A rival organization’s failed pyramid experiment?

  Just as we get off our feet, a siren starts to blare in the huge hangar and flashing lights bathe the room in eerie red. I clamp my hands over my ears and struggle to get up. My knees are unstable but I manage to stay upright. Pushing the dusty glass door open, I step cautiously out of the pyramid, looking around. The siren is even louder here, in the darkened hangar around the glass structure. The strident wailing bores through my skull, rattling my teeth and perforating its way through my palms into my eardrums.

  Despite the noise and flashing red lights, there is no immediate danger, so I go back inside the pyramid and pull Olivia up roughly by the arm.

  She gets up slowly, looking wobbly. ‘Don’t worry about me, give me a second. Is McArthur OK?’

  I can barely hear her above the alarm. ‘Olivia… come on, get it together. We’re not in Kansas anymore.’

  She looks at me, uncomprehendingly.

  ‘What do you mean? We’re not in Cambridge? How did we get here? Who took our clothes?’

  I pull her out of the pyramid and walk over to the hangar’s only exit, a small locked entrance on the far side with an intercom next to it. A few minutes later, the siren stops and then the sound of running footsteps and jingling keys reach us as doors are slammed somewhere close by.

  Standing in front of the exit, I adopt a fighting stance, feet shoulder-width apart and glance at Olivia; she’s hiding her breasts with one arm as she bends over to conceal herself.

  ‘Olivia, you need to pull your shit together, STAT!’

  What was I thinking? She’s gonna be no help at all in a fight, of course but anything’s better than trying to take on an unknown number of assailants on my own.

  I sigh, turn to the door and roll my neck from side to side, but still the door doesn’t open.

  A loud crackle on the intercom makes us both cringe.

  ‘Identify yourselves!’ we hear through the static. I walk over to the intercom by the door and press the button.

  ‘Who are you? Let us out of here.’

  ‘How did you get in there? This area is highly restricted. How did you breach our security?’

  That guy doesn’t seem to know anything. Maybe we can take advantage.

  ‘We didn’t break in.’ I hesitate. ‘We’re Programme agents.’

  Olivia looks at me, her eyebrows raised.

  There’s a long silence on the other side of the intercom.

  ‘Name, identification number and… date of birth?’ says the voice.

  ‘DeAnn Carpenter, ID number 2016M317, date of birth 16 September 1973.’

  ‘Olivia Sagewright, ID number 2016L318, date of birth 20 July 1974.’

  All is quiet on the other side.

  The silence goes on for more than five minutes and my stomach starts to roil; I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, unable to stop looking at the locked door. He didn’t buy it. It was the wrong thing to say. The Programme facility has just been taken over by the military or by the Helenus. What if they’re the same people on the other side of that door and are about to kill us? We have no idea where we are. W
e’re not trained agents; we know jack shit about the situation. Olivia and I look at each other, her eyes are wide and she’s worrying her lower lip.

  He didn’t buy it. I start running my fingers along the door, looking for hinges or a release mechanism of some kind.

  Olivia must have come to similar conclusions as me because she starts walking around the pyramid, buck naked, frantically looking for another exit. But there isn’t any and there are no windows.

  Soon she’s back next to me, scrutinizing the closed door, her chin dimpled with repressed tears. I wish I had a weapon of any kind or even shoes, so I could run at least.

  There is a commotion on the other side of the door. Then the lock clicks and the reinforced steel bars inside it clank and groan as the door swings open slowly. A guard comes into view; he pushes the door wide toward us and then jumps back to point his gun at us. His too-thin frame is drowned by his uniform. I don’t recognize the insignia. Both of his hands are gripping the handle and shaking, as he backs away from the door. Pale faced, eyes wide, he’s staring at our naked bodies and looks like he wants to apologize as his tongue moves nervously on his lips, revealing crowded teeth under a scraggly moustache. He releases his double-handed grip on the gun to wipe his forehead with his sleeve, then tugs on a strange plastic collar around his throat that seems to be uncomfortably tight. His uniform looks really odd too. The jacket is short, the bottom half way too tight. He rubs his palm on the pants, then puts his hand back on the grip.

  ‘Sorry, could you – please, may I ask you to – keep your hands where I can see them?’ he stammers.

  I raise my hands up and look behind him. If he’s alone I can take him. He doesn’t look like he knows how to use his gun and he’s so scrawny, I could probably overpower him. But before I can try, Olivia steps forward with a watery smile, one arm extended in greeting, the other across her breasts, hiding them as best she can.