by Greig Beck
Aimee walked away to look out of the window. “I hate when he does this.”
“He’s gone there, hasn’t he?” Hammerson said. He reached up to press his jaw; his back teeth hurt as though there was some sort of silent vibration or energy wave passing through the room. Then his head started to throb. “Is he doing that?”
“Yes. You better stand back.” Aimee turned. “He’s looking for his father. He has been nearly every night for two years. Now that he knows where to look, he’ll soon know whether Alex is alive or dead.” She looked down at Joshua. “Being in the same room, you better pray Alex isn’t dead.”
Hammerson stared at Joshua, studying him. He knew exactly what Aimee was referring to. The boy had abilities that were off the chart and didn’t even know himself what he was capable of. To Joshua, it was all fun. But to Hammerson and the military research and development labs, the kid was a potential weapon of unimaginable power. One it intended to make use of when and if the opportunity ever presented. This was a field test.
“I … see … him.” Joshua exhaled the words.
Hammerson felt the hairs on his neck rise.
* * *
I’m here.
Alex Hunter was standing in the warm, azure water of his favorite beach. He turned and saw Joshua standing on the shore. Beside him the hulking dog stared with an intensity that bordered on being hypnotic.
“Joshua?” Alex smiled. “Where’ve you been? I thought you were –”
“Looking for you. For years.” The boy didn’t smile. “I don’t have much time.”
For years? Alex wondered at the comment. “But I was just with you on …” He couldn’t remember. And then saw that the boy looked older, taller, and Tor certainly wasn’t the big puppy anymore.
“Where …?” Alex turned about.
“I miss you. Mom misses you. This isn’t real, Dad. Be ready, be ready to fight it. We’re coming for you.” Joshua’s voice faded as he became translucent. “I love you, Dad. I love you … I love … I …”
“Wait.” Alex rushed toward the spot where Joshua had been, plowing through the water, but just when he was about to leave it, something excruciating grabbed him by the back of the neck, and yanked him back. “No-ooo.”
Alex strained with every ounce of strength against whatever was dragging at him, strained harder than he had ever done before. Immediately the water vanished. The sunlight turned to darkness. The sounds of the birds, the lapping waves on the pristine shoreline, receded, and then even the sun’s heat turned to a musty coldness. The pain in his skull was agony and he reached around behind his head and felt the open wound and the cables buried into his flesh there.
“What’s happening?” he asked the darkness.
Years, Joshua had said. Years they had been looking for him.
Where was he? Who had done this?
Deep in the very core of his mind, there was a dry laugh, like from death itself. The Other began to stir.
You let this happen, it whispered. And then the laugh became a deafening roar.
CHAPTER 07
Russian Aerospace Defence Forces, Krasnoznamensk, Russia
Colonel Gorlovka sighed. “We have no choice: we must contact the Americans and seek their assistance. Our base has gone too many days without communication and our satellite sensors picked up seismic disturbances consistent with an explosion.”
Major Alexi Bilov rubbed his chin. “Maybe they already know.”
Gorlovka looked up.
“Maybe they know exactly what has happened. Because maybe they were involved.” Bilov raised bushy eyebrows.
“Involved? What are you saying?” Gorlovka sat back and frowned. “The Americans destroyed our base?” He scoffed. “It’s a mining base.”
“You know it’s more than that.” Bilov continued to stare. “Perhaps the Americans found out.”
Gorlovka folded his arms. “I doubt it.”
“After the events in Crimea, even if they did not know, it is still one possibility that we must take seriously.” Bilov opened his hands wide. “Their sanctions are not crippling our economy as much as they hoped, so perhaps they wished to send us another, more forceful, signal.”
“I don’t think so.” Gorlovka dropped the papers onto his desk. “If true, it would be an act of war. But the Americans would not display that sort of belligerence over a few trade sanctions and harsh words at United Nations Council meetings.”
Bilov straightened. “Unless they found out that we are periodically scrambling the communication and monitoring frequencies of their lunar base.”
Gorlovka folded his arms. “And even then, the response would not be proportionate.”
“But the base has gone dark for no reason. Like I said, it is only one possibility. And I agree with you. But others higher up do not. They have decided to proceed with the usual maintenance and resupply vessel. But there will be little cargo and instead we will send several investigative specialists to determine exactly what has happened.” He smiled knowingly. “In addition, we will be sending security personnel to ensure our examination is uninterrupted and all avenues explored.”
“Security personnel – Special Forces?” Gorlovka’s eyebrows rose.
Bilov shrugged and his smile widened. “Our project must be protected and sensitive materials and research samples are to be retrieved at any cost.”
Gorlovka nodded. “When do they leave?”
“We’ve moved the schedule up. They leave tonight.” Bilov got to his feet and saluted.
Gorlovka’s mouth turned down. “Better them than us.” He saluted with two fingers. “I wish you, and them, good luck.”
* * *
Olga lay back and tried to rest but her head throbbed mercilessly. There was also a dark depression settling over her and she hated the way there seemed to be missing memories, even missing thoughts and ideas, as though the throbbing was a sledgehammer destroying her mind one brain cell at a time.
And there were the voices in her head that she recognized as belonging to her friends and co-workers from the base. Not furtive whispering, but screaming as though trapped in torment. They were the voices of the damned and they would drive her mad.
Olga had that washed-out feeling one got when they had just fought off a severe fever – everything ached. Still, she had waved away painkillers as she didn’t want to be any more mentally fragmented than she already was, and simply asked for some clothing. She was a tall woman and they found her some suitable coveralls, and she now sat cradling a glass of rehydrated orange juice, her focus turned inward.
She felt scared, confused, and trapped, but had nowhere else to go. For now she was safe, but depending on what happened over the next few hours, that might all change.
Olga sipped the juice, not tasting it, but accepting that at least it didn’t leave grit on her tongue like the Russian rehydrated juices. She knew she had two choices: keep her mouth shut and protect Russian interests, or tell the Americans everything and perhaps keep them, and herself, alive.
But even when she wanted to tell them what little she remembered, the throbbing grew more painful as if the horrible memories in her mind were wrapped in barbed wire. Something was stopping them surfacing, keeping her mind feeling crowded and fuzzy. Concussion, she guessed.
The door slid open and a stocky, serious-looking middle-aged man entered with Mia, and a couple of others she assumed were base security. The man’s gaze was unwavering and impatient, and it fixed on Olga. He smiled, but there was no warmth in it.
“My name is Captain Thomas Briggs, the base commander.” He grabbed a chair, carried it closer, turned it backward and then sat down in front of Olga. “And Ms. Olga Sobakin, you are a guest and are not going to attack any of my people again. Is that clear?”
Olga nodded. “I’m sorry.” She barely remembered doing it now.
Briggs grunted his acknowledgment. “But what you are going to do is tell me everything you know about your base, what happened there, and why my
team is now not responding.” His gaze was intense. “And also, why us going there panics you so much.”
Olga knew the Americans would never leave their people out on the lunar surface, even if they became contaminated. That meant no matter what state they were in they would be retrieved. She had no choice. They needed to know. Needed to know what they were up against, and in all likelihood would soon be facing.
She looked at their expectant faces. She didn’t have to tell the full truth. Her twin priorities now were to warn them, and protect Russia.
Olga exhaled in a long sigh and concentrated as she forced her mind to take her back to the beginning. A small needle of pain started in the center of her head, but she ignored it and pressed on. And as she did it was like a film rolling in her mind, with her set apart and watching as a spectator this time while all her lost friends screamed out for her to save them.
“We were just doing what we were here to do: mine KREEP.”
“Creep?” Mia asked.
“A mineral blend of potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus, right?” Briggs replied.
Olga nodded. “Yes. On this dig, we were at 800 feet down when Pieter, our senior geologist, saw that the samples taken were beginning to change structure. The composition went from dust to something like clay, and the mineral substrate became a little more complex. He was confident that we would soon strike a rich vein.” Olga stared straight ahead, trance-like, as she smoothly blended fact with fiction. “But then we broke through into the void, a cave.”
“Did you just say there were caves down there?” Briggs asked.
She nodded. “We thought it was a good sign, that maybe there had been enough water there at one time to dissolve the rock.” She shrugged. “Why not, there certainly wasn’t any volcanic activity to create lava tubes or any other sort of erosional feature. We didn’t even know if they were natural or not.” She smiled ruefully.
Mia frowned. “What do you mean, not natural? If they weren’t natural, then what?”
Olga looked at her. “We sent a probe down into one of them. It was deep, and seemed excavated.” She bobbed her head. “But not by machinery, more sort of organic, like it had been burrowed out. Our geologists had never seen anything like it before.” She looked from Mia to Briggs. “So, our base commander authorized a team to investigate. A group of four: two geologists, one biologist, and myself.”
Her mouth turned down at the corners as she felt the pang of the harsh memories surging back, and with them, terror bloomed in her chest. She pushed that down as she fashioned her own version of events.
“It was Churnov who found the artifact. We didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a mineral composition we recognized, or anything resembling a natural geological formation.” Olga laughed darkly. “We stupidly brought it back to the base for further analysis.”
“When was that?” Briggs asked.
Olga looked confused. “I don’t know. What day is it now?”
“It’s Tuesday, March twenty-one.”
Olga nodded. “Then it was two weeks ago.” She reached a hand up to wipe blurring vision.
Mia lay a hand on Olga’s forearm, and Olga took it and held it, and then went on with her story. “People, my friends, went missing. Slowly at first. Alekseev, one of the junior geologists, simply vanished. Impossible in a base our size, we thought. We even searched outside, and back down in the mine. But all we found was torn clothing and this black mess in his sleeping quarters.”
Mia turned to their doctor. “Like we found in Olga’s helmet.”
Doctor Pandewahanna just stared at Olga.
Olga nodded slowly. “It got everywhere after a while. On everything.” She looked up at Briggs, who seemed spellbound. “Do you know what we found out that mess was?”
Briggs shook his head. “Why don’t you tell us?”
Olga smiled coldly back at him. “It was human proteins, like in blood, mixed with digestive enzymes, and dissolved calcium. Exactly what might be excreted –”
“Excreted?” Mia’s face screwed up.
“Yes, excreted, like shit.” Olga’s stared at the floor. “We didn’t know it then, but it was probably all that remained of Alekseev.” She squeezed Mia’s hand.
There was silence for a few moments, as everyone took in what she was telling them.
Finally, Briggs sat forward. “Ms. Sobakin, let’s go back a few steps. What was the artifact you found? Describe it.”
Olga nodded, and gave herself a few moments to create the scene. “It just looked like a large lump of resin or amber but smoothed over. Maybe it was an egg, or maybe it was a kokon, uh …”
“Cocoon?” Mia suggested.
“Yes, cocoon,” Olga agreed. “But there was something inside it. No one saw it happen, but we found the object broken open. Whatever emerged, we never found it. The next day, like I told you, Alekseev disappeared. We searched everywhere.” She made a small sound in her throat. “Then after several more days, more people vanished – four by then – among a team of twenty-two that is a big proportion to simply vanish into thin air. Fear set in, of course. People became distrustful of each other.”
“Wait a minute, are you saying there was something alive beneath the moon’s surface?” Doctor Pandewahanna asked. “That’s impossible.”
“Maybe, or maybe the thing arrived here millions of years ago, and had been buried, or buried itself, in those labyrinths. Waiting … waiting for us.”
“Shit,” Mia breathed.
Olga continued. “We searched the lunar surface, thinking maybe people had left the base. We even thought maybe they had defected to your base.” She sighed. “We didn’t know what was happening, but no one trusted anyone anymore. It got strange. No one wanted to be left alone with anyone else.”
Her focus turned inward as her memories played back in her mind. “Then came the incident that saved me.” She smiled sadly. “And doomed everyone else.”
Olga felt a pang in her chest, and the needle of pain in her head blossomed into a full-blown migraine. She couldn’t help her face crumpling and let out a deep sob, as this part of her story was real.
Doctor Pandewahanna put a hand on her shoulder then turned to Beverley and nodded. The assistant held out the glass of water.
“You can rest now, if you’d like,” Sharma said softly.
“The hell she can,” Briggs shot back. “We need to hear this, right now.”
“Yes, I need to tell it.” Olga waved the water away and sniffed wetly, then wiped her nose with a forearm, leaving a dark glistening streak there. “It all went bad when I went to see my friend, Annika.”
Olga saw Mia lean forward, hanging on her every word. The young American woman still held her hand.
* * *
Vladimir Lenin Base – twenty-four hours earlier
Olga headed down to see her friend, Annika Asmerov, who worked in engineering, and noticed that her workshop door was shut. It was odd, as Annika never shut her door because she said it made the already bad ventilation worse.
Perhaps, Olga thought, with everyone being on edge, security was more important than fresh air.
She knocked, and after a few moments opened the door and went inside. It was empty, and Annika’s chair was tipped on its side.
“Annika?”
Olga waited a few seconds but there was no answer. The familiar black mess was all over the bench top, floor, and chair.
She turned slowly. The workrooms, like all rooms on the mining base station, weren’t large, as lunar real estate was far too valuable. Plus, it cost additional energy to light it, temperature control it, and fill it with breathable air.
Olga swallowed dryly, suddenly feeling nervous. She decided she would catch up with Annika later and was heading for the door when there came a small noise.
She paused and tilted her head. The noise had sounded like the mewling of a small kitten. She waited, concentrating, but now all she could hear was the soft breath of the air-conditioning
unit.
She was about to turn away when it sounded again. She was sure it came from the far corner where there was nothing but a clothing cabinet for lab gear. The cabinet door was open just a crack.
The soft mewling came once more, a whine or feeble cry. Exactly as she had thought before: like newborn kittens.
She crossed to the cabinet, and a few feet from the door she reached out. But for some reason the hair on her neck prickled, and she felt a flutter of primal fear in the pit of her stomach. Warning lights were flashing in her mind, and she didn’t know why.
“Annika,” she whispered, almost afraid of making too much noise.
Her hand was still outstretched and up close now she heard the mewling and a faint wet sliding and popping sound. Olga drew in a deep breath as well as her courage and lunged forward, dragging the door open.
The shock was so great she felt as though a wave of ice water had washed over her and she coughed and gagged at the same time.
It was Annika, impossibly folded and stuffed in the corner cabinet, and caught up in black cords. They looped around her waist, arms and neck, and pierced her clothing.
Olga felt she had been punched in the stomach. She couldn’t breathe. The cords were burrowing into Annika’s mouth, nose, ears, even the corners of her eyes.
Olga could only watch as those pulsating coils inserted themselves into her friend, strangling her. Stalks grew revoltingly from her friend’s skin, and on their ends, bulbs swelled and popped open.
The final mind-tearing image was of Annika’s eye rolling toward her, and in its tear-filled gaze there was fear, and pain, and –
Olga remembered falling back, and then nothing until she was in the corridor, screaming for help. She only stopped to punch the fire alarm button and sprint on again, with the klaxon blaring and lights spinning overhead adding to her sense of looming insanity.
She sprinted along the corridor to the base meeting room, yelling things that didn’t make sense even to her, making people stream out of their workplaces, worried about her as well as the alarms blaring. Some began to follow her.