El Finito Book 1

by M. E. Thorne

  “Are you feeling better?” Gnasher asked the next morning as we walked, arm-in-arm.

  I gave her a genuine smile and nodded, “I am. Thanks again for talking last night.”

  Gnasher and Gloria had returned late in the evening after I had fallen asleep, their footsteps waking me up. Waiting for Gloria to settle down, I carefully got up and nudged Gnasher, asking for a few minutes. We sat on the far side of the room and ended up talking for several hours.

  “I’m sure it’s all thanks to Spinny,” Gnasher said, looking over her shoulder to wink at her girlfriend. “She’s a genius.”

  Reaching over, she hooked her free arm up with Gloria, who smiled back and blushed.

  “I can not believe what this girl can do with her mouth! When we get back, we can celebrate with an orgy!” Gnasher proudly proclaimed.

  The rest of us collectively groaned.

  We were only on the turnpike for a kilometer or two further before we were forced to detour by a collapse.

  The ceiling had caved in, blocking the entire tunnel. There was no chance of digging our way through. Backtracking, we found an air vent in the ceiling. Spinny climbed up and let down a rope so the rest of us could follow.

  It was slow going. We had to dislodge fans and other blockages to advance, which was difficult and dangerous work. It took us hours to move just a few dozen meters. The air shafts were tight quarters; even Gnasher and Gloria had to crouch to make their way forward.

  Peeking through the first vent we found, we saw that we were over a series of dormitories. We kicked out the grill and dropped down.

  It was clear the dorms had been meant to house a large workforce. White walls, white tiled floors, and vast, arched ceilings made me feel like we were walking through a hospital. Or a tomb.

  We stopped a few times to check out some of the abandoned rooms but found no clue as to who had occupied them or if they had been associated with Nakamura-Ghosi. There were bunk rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and rec centers, all completely cold and lifeless. I found the empty beds, half-finished meals, and bloodstained clothing almost as disconcerting as the complete lack of bodies.

  We had to breach a heavy, steel door to proceed. Since the lock was completely jammed, I was forced to use some of our explosives to blow the hinges. I placed the charges, ushered everyone to hide around a nearby corner, then detonated them.

  The ancient slab of metal fell over with a resounding crash.

  “I hope nobody heard that,” Gloria complained, hands over her ears. Gnasher held the same pose, wincing from the loud noise.

  The hallway beyond was huge, obviously meant to allow a large number of people and vehicles to flow in both directions. Strangely, unlike the turnpike, there were no wrecked cars or skeletal bodies.

  The white, concrete walls were free of graffiti too. Instead, stenciled at regular intervals with bright red paint, were strange, geometric logos; a lily atop of a five-pointed star.

  “That’s the image of Nakamura-Ghosi,” Spinny said, hesitantly running a hand on the wall. “I remember seeing it everywhere when I was growing up.”

  “We’re on the right track then,” Gloria chirped excitedly.

  I peered up and down the hall, looking at my map. We were well beyond anything the Bluehorns’ knew about. “Any idea which way we should go?”

  Assuring the bat-girl she would be safe from mutants and that she could fly back at the earliest sign of danger, Gloria took off in one direction while Gnasher explored the other.

  Spinny and I stayed behind to investigate another man-sized door we had found in the opposing wall, but it was shut tight.

  “I really don’t want to use any more explosives,” I grunted as I tried unsuccessfully to cut the locking bolt.

  Spinny, who had been exploring the ceiling for any vents for ducts we could use, climbed back down. “I don’t think that is the right door anyway. From what I remember, the main doors to the labs were massive, at least twenty meters across. They would bring huge trucks in and out of there all day and all night.”

  I was tempted to ask her more about what life was like back when the corporations had still ruled El Finito, but it didn’t feel like the right time. With the pained expression written across her face, I wasn’t sure it would ever be the right time.

  Gloria flapped over, landing awkwardly, her face flushed with excitement. “I think I found something.”

  Upon hearing her description, I gave a long, low whistle, the signal for everyone to meet back up. Gnasher came loping back, evidently tired and irritated.

  “I didn’t find anything,” she griped. I handed her a water bottle, which she quickly emptied. “Just a bunch of locked doors. Where are all the damn bodies!”

  “In the other direction, apparently,” I responded, still somewhat in shock from what Gloria had described.

  Gloria repeated what she had found as we walked, unbelievable as it was. Even when we arrived I couldn’t fully comprehend it.

  “What the absolute fuck?” Gnasher exclaimed.

  It was a giant mount of dead flesh. That was the only way I could think of to describe it. Not a bunch of separate bodies, but a single, slimy organism that was bigger than a tank. Its oozy, pustulant body filled the hallway, its flesh gray and black with death.

  “It doesn’t smell,” Gnasher noted absently, still staring. “That’s so weird.”

  The tunnel walls were stained with blood or ichor, I couldn’t tell which. It appeared the thing had died bashing and thrashing itself against a humongous door, which was reduced to a crumpled heap trapped under its mass.

  “That’s the door to the labs,” Spinny said, hand going to her mouth.

  I stepped forward, panning my lantern over the corpse. “Anyone have a clue what the hell that thing was?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I don’t think it’s been dead for long,” I guessed, looking at the mortified flesh. Even with its monstrous appearance, I couldn’t see the usual tunnel scavengers ignoring a free meal like that for long.

  Gloria looked ill. “Maybe it's what ate the second expedition?”

  With nothing else to say, we gave it a wide berth as we stepped through the shattered door and into the laboratories of Nakamura-Ghosi Genetics.

  Traveling through a massive loading bay, the first thing that struck me was that the lights were on. The fact that ventilation was working and cold-air was blowing was the second thing I noticed.

  I held up a palm to a nearby vent, feeling the air against my skin. “How is this possible?”

  “The corporation built this place to last,” Spinny answered. She pointed us through a small, man-sized door.

  We were in some kind of reception area; white carpeting, white-leather couches, alabaster coffee tables, and a reception desk with a blank display screen behind it. A couple of potted plants, still lush and green, stood in the corners. I felt like I had stepped back in time.

  “But it’s been over a hundred years,” I objected.

  Looking down at the coffee table, I saw several magazines spread across its surface. Most featured smiling men and women, the Nakamura-Ghosi logo, and the phrase BUILDING A BETTER TODAY! I picked one up and wasn’t surprised to see the publication date was over a century ago.

  “These facilities feature redundancies atop redundancies,” Spinny maneuvered behind the reception desk and reached under the counter. The door behind her hissed open. “This facility is powered by a cold-fusion reactor and features automated maintenance and repair systems. The engineers who built this place assumed it would need to last a thousand years, war or no war.”

  “Plus this place hasn’t been looted,” Gnasher noted. “Any self-respecting delver would have stripped this place down to the concrete, reactor included. Most of the places we’ve explored before have already been picked over at least once." She hesitantly poked one of the plants, discovering they were made of plastic. “Nobody has been here since the war ended.”

  I tossed away the maga
zine. “Any idea what kind of security we’re going to be facing? The blueprints weren’t very specific.”

  Spinny pointed through the reception door. “That kind.”

  The doorway led to some kind of decontamination area, a small, square room. Nozzles lined the ceiling, and I spotted at least two surveillance cameras tucked into the corners. The far-end of the room was dominated by a hermetically sealed hatch, shut tight.

  My eyes practically lit up when I saw that door. “This is going to be fun.”

  “Should he be grinning like that?” Gloria asked, peering at me over Gnasher’s shoulder.

  “He loves a challenge,” Gnasher replied.

  I barely paid attention to them. During my short career as a delver, I had never run into a door of such marvelous complexity. It was at least half-a-meter thick, made of high-grade steel. Even better, the power was still on, controlling the locking mechanism. I had the opportunity to try some hacking techniques I had only heard about from older members of the guild.

  Locating an electronics junction concealed behind a wall panel, I carefully cut and crimped wires together, hoping to cause a short-circuit. After a few failed attempts, I was rewarded with a shower of hot sparks and the stench of burning plastic.

  “Did you get it?” Gloria asked excitedly.

  “Nope,” Gnasher sighed, heading over to one of the sofas. She sat down and began sharpening her claws against the upholstery. “If you try to rush him it’ll just take longer.”

  Spinny frowned. “Darling, isn’t that kind of uncivilized?”

  Gnasher idly picked a bit of stuffing loose. “We could set this place on fire.”

  “Gnasher!”

  “I got it!” I yelled, nursing a pair of singed fingertips.

  “You got it open?” Gloria fluttered in.

  “No, not yet." I pointed to the panel, “I was able to isolate the circuit controlling the lock. Now I just need to over --”

  “Wake me up when you’re done." The bat-girl gripped onto one of the nozzles and tucked her wings over her face.

  I could tell the others were on edge by the time I finally got the door open. Gnasher had utterly shredded one of the sofas and had moved on to slowly stripping the upholstery from an overstuffed chair. Spinny wandered aimlessly, browsing through the various magazines and frowning at their contents, her legs ticking a nervous staccato against the floor.

  We hadn’t heard anything from the rival diggers, but we knew they were out there. Even the joy of cracking a never-before-seen door couldn’t completely edge out the anxiety I felt.

  The door popped open with little fanfare, just a small blast of steam that managed to send Gloria panicking out of her nap.

  Beyond was another hallway, antiseptic white, with tiled floors and walls. I could see even more security cameras dotted the ceiling. It felt like a cross between a hospital and a high-security prison. I had an uncomfortable flashback to a movie I’d seen, where the hero had to escape an evil insane asylum.

  “I really hope there aren’t murderous, automated security-robots, are there?” I asked, remembering the evil automatons who had tried to kill the movie’s star.

  “No, I never saw anything like that,” Spinny hesitantly walked along the hall, hands trailing on the tiles. “Supposedly during the war, one of the corporations managed to infect their rival’s automated security with a virus. When their troops attacked, the robots turned against their owners. Nakamura-Ghosi depended on human troops and security personnel. They were paranoid, cruel, and efficient.”

  Gnasher came up and hugged her. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “No,” she breathed out deeply, then squared her shoulders. “This is a terrible place, no matter how clean and perfect it looks. Let’s make something good out of this though." She pointed down the hall. “The main labs are this way, follow me.”

  We didn’t encounter any combat droids, but we did almost trip over a fleet of cleaning bots that scrambled in our wake. They were small, round machines that barely measured a foot in height.

  Picking one up, Gnasher found the base was dominated by a circular brush with a vacuum in the middle. As soon as it left the ground, it released several manipulator arms and tried to right itself.

  “We should get one of these for the house,” she said as she tossed the little robot back down.

  It gave an angry squawk, tucked in its arms, and immediately returned to cleaning up the footprints we were leaving behind.

  The rooms leading off the hall were just as clean and spotless as the rest of the complex; white desks, white computer terminals, white conference room furniture. It all gave me eye strain to look at. Glass dividers, painted with the corporate logo, broke up the rooms into discrete workspaces.

  There wasn’t a speck of dirt, dust, or anything not perfectly lined up and in place. Even the chairs were perfectly squared up with the desks and tables. The ridiculous number of robotic cleaners is starting to make sense.

  There wasn’t a coffee ring or loose paperclip to be found.

  Gloria kicked over a wastepaper basket, which was automatically straightened by a robot. “Were all the corporations this obsessed with cleanliness?”

  “They were obsessed with their image,” Spinny answered.

  Gnasher and I paused every few minutes to rifle through desks, drawers, and storage closets, but we found nothing exceptional. There were only old pens that had long dried up, memo pads, and bundles of staples. The computer terminals refused to turn on. Gnasher tried to grab one, but she found it was bolted to the desk. A bot came up and squealed at her till she gave up.

  “You won’t find anything valuable here,” Spinny said as she directed us further into the labs. “The corporation kept all their valuables securely locked away.”

  “Those computers are valuable." Gnasher sulked, kicking away another droid that had been trying to vacuum her foot.

  “Not compared to the research material and knowledge locked within these walls,” Spinny told her.

  We encountered another sealed door at the end of the hall. Unlike the one in the reception area, this one was easy to bypass since it was much thinner. I used a plasma cutter to slice out the locking mechanism, then a crowbar to slide it back on its track.

  “No fancy hacking?” Gloria looked somewhat disappointed.

  “No need,” I said. “Delving is all about efficiency. The more time you spend getting through a barrier or obstacle, the less time you have for looting and getting back home.”

  Inside was some kind of research room. Unlike the other areas we’d seen before, it was clear the robots had been barred from fully cleaning the place up. The floors were spotless, but the workbenches were a disorganized mess, covered in papers, tablet computers, sample containers, lab equipment, and other bits of scientific paraphernalia.

  For the first time since entering Nakamura-Ghosi Genetics, I felt like we were somewhere people had actually existed and worked.

  Gnasher, Spinny, and I started going through the materials as quickly as possible. Most of the papers were handwritten notes, mathematical calculations, or chemical formulas that made zero sense to any of us. The handwriting was a mix of tight, block script, inane doodles, and incomprehensible signs and symbols, all writing by different people. We grabbed them all to bring back, along with the tablet computers.

  Gnasher waved one around, trying to get it to turn on. “I think they’re all busted.”