Justin Peacock Words: 21445
Fair Game
by
J.B. Peacock
Final Word
Murphy leaned back in his leather office chair. He stared up at the shifting colors and fractal patterns projected onto his ceiling, then let out a sigh. He rolled a finger across the little wheel switch in the arm of his chair to dim the lights. The sterile white that usually flooded the metal half-dome room turned yellow. Only then could Murphy see the recessed fixtures tucked away around the room and behind the squared lip of trim that ran around the top of the walls.
With the stress of the meeting now done and no others on his docket until tomorrow, the Commander took a few minutes to do nothing. His mind began to wander away from Gaian military politics and off into his imagination. In a few minutes, it turned to sleep.
The Commander jumped at the sound of his door chirping three times sharply. A military visitor. He flicked his finger across the wheel, ramping the lights to full. At the same time, his other hand tapped the button for the fractal projection. Murphy fussed with his shirt and tie until they were acceptably neat and straightened his cap before tapping another button on the glass display inlaid in his desk.
The thin metal plate of the door slid aside without a sound. A tall woman with short cropped brown hair walked in, dressed in the brown and green of the Gaian expeditionary forces. She approached the desk and saluted the Commander.
"Commander Murphy", the woman said, "My name is Major Loren. Is this a good time, sir?"
"Good as any, Major", Commander Murphy said. "How may I help you?"
"Sir, We've just received a black box transmission from the Phobos outpost. The mission was a failure, sir. I watched the recording and prepared a report from everything we know..." The Major looked at the floor as she trailed off.
Murphy gave a smile, which he meant to be somewhat patronizing. "Well, Major Loren. I'm sure you've done a fine job, in accordance with standard protocol. Surely your direct superior would be a better judge of the information's merit? In the future, if you don't mind some professional advice, be sure to finish your sentences when addressing a superior officer. Good afternoon, Major."
"Sir," Major Loren said in a strained tone. Her expression was flat as she looked straight forward and crossed her arms behind her back. "Pardon me, Sir. I chose to bring the information straight to your attention as I believe it is of the most confidential nature, sir."
"Alright, that's better soldier. What is it you believe you saw in that transmission that nobody else, including your commanding officer, should know about?" Murphy, having misread the major before, was now curious about what was going on here.
"Sir, there are a lot of things I don't understand happening on that planet, but the ruins are ours. The squad we sent to Phobos to dig into the old research facility discovered a forgotten installation that was much older still."
"Okay. A long-forgotten military base. That's not all that surprising." Murphy looked the Major in the eye. It wasn't the base that gave her that look. He kept his eyes on hers, meaning to find out. "What did you see, Major?"
"There are monsters, sir. " Her eyes told him this was it, what she was dancing around.
"Monsters, Major?"
"Yes, sir."
Murphy looked away. "At ease, Major." He gestured to one of the chairs she stood by. "Have a seat and let's have your report, please".
"Sir", Major Loren said. She relaxed, nodded quickly then pulled a small black dongle from the inside of her coat. Loren waved it over the panel. A screen slid up from the surface of the desk. "Thank you, sir. Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"Granted."
"Commander, I've never seen anything like this. I've never even heard rumors of anything like this. If I'm right about what this means, I believe certain factions within the Gaian military have been hiding some very unethical research from the rest of the Commonwealth."
"Save the conjecture. I'll draw my own conclusions, Major. Proceed with your report."
A computer generated representation of the planet appeared on the screen. It rotated on its axis in a corner while a bullet point list of the planets statistics scrolled past. The details about the Phobos outpost caught the Commander's attention as the Major began to speak.
"Phobos is the commonwealth's only outpost in the Astra Planeta system, G.G.C. 7, 50, -3. They are currently on priority 5, near-negligible. The administrating officer, Major Eric Hayden, kept his paperwork in order. Our records show nothing out of the ordinary until we got the distress signal six weeks ago."
Murphy folded his fingers together and settled back in his chair. "Alright. Will you pull up Major Hayden's file?"
Major Loren waved a finger over the panels, swiping the information from her tablet to the commander's terminal. Hayden's dossier appeared. He was a serious looking man, not meant for a distant outpost like Phobos, at least by Murphy's measure. Unless he was in some trouble. "Continue, Major Loren." He read up on Hayden while Loren talked.
"The signal we received from Phobos was coded distress. However, the Major's personal report never followed. We dispatched a Special Response ship, who reported a safe landing. I've prepared a stream of the operation from the black box of Captain Sean Graham, the Skald for that mission."
The Commander put up his finger as he finished the paragraph he was reading in Hayden's file. "Thank you, Major." He pressed a button on the panel, bringing the file down to the table. A moment later, the large projected image turned into a soldier's eye view of the outside of Phobos station. The image was still, awaiting the Major's command to begin.
Murphy folded this hands in front of him. He said, "Alright, Major."
Loren began the playback.
Phobos
The outpost was in a state of disrepair beyond Murphy's realm of conception for a Gaian Commonwealth installation. Instinct told him that something was very wrong. He heard his thoughts echoed by Skald Captain Graham, who's black box feed was constantly recorded during the mission.
"Place's an unsettling disaster, sir," Graham said to the man next to him, "be careful, boyos. So far I think Phobos is aptly named. Let's hope we've seen the extent of it."
The squad approached the door. Captain Graham looked around, showing the alkaline white ground. Skeletal black trees towered twenty meters in the distance. They surrounded the installation, suggesting that a clearing was made for the building. After scanning around, Graham's attention returned to the airlock doors of the outpost.
The silhouettes of eight soldiers in armor darkened the twilight gloom of the entryway. Graham stayed back a few steps as the rest of the crew took their positions in the standard entry maneuver. Three went left and three right, a private stuck to Graham. The two teams went down the short hallways and around the thin wall to the lobby of the installation.
Here a pair of staircases led up to the next floor landing, which wrapped the walls. Skylights let in some of the planet's perpetual twilight. The presence of the team caused the recessed lighting to come on. White light flooded the room from a hundred hidden places.
Unlike the exterior of the base, everything inside seemed fine. "What a greeting," Graham said to the team. "Anybody home," he yelled. His voice bounced through the hallways, echoing back.
"Shut the fuck up Graham,” The man next to Graham growled in hushed tones. “You just lost us the element of surprise. One more crack like that and I'm busting you back down to private."
"Copy that, Sergeant.” Graham's tone became somber and quiet. “Sorry fellas, and my deepest apologies to my viewers at home."
"Cut the crap and stay sharp," the Sergeant said. "I want Donovan, Mitchell and O'Connor up top. One room deep, then I want a report. We'll check out the rest of this floor."
The three soldiers marched up the stairs on the left, executed a room entry at the first door, cleared the room and moved on. The two remaining men led the Sergeant down the hallway on the right at the back of the room. Graham followed, with Private Grady in tow.
The corridor lights came on as they swept the hall and the offices around them. Graham looked into every room, each one was neatly kept. Not a pen was out of place. The small team made it to the end of the hallway, marked by the double doors of the research lab. The commanding officer's radio crackled to life. Graham couldn't hear what they said, but the Sergeant ordered the other team to meet them at the lab doors.
The whole team gathered around the steel double doors. The Sergeant listened to the other team's report, then motioned the men to prepare for entry. They split up, three to a side once again. The six men crouched, assault rifles ready. Graham and Grady stayed back to get a full view of the entry.
The Sergeant gave the signal and the doors flew wide open. As soon as the doors opened, the lights came on. Even as the assault teams made their way across the steel grating and down the pair of staircases to the floor of the lab, Graham's eyes moved to the features that separated this lab from every other XR28 research facility.
In the far right corner and along the right wall there were three round holes where the concrete was eaten away. They looked large enough that an adult could walk through them. Graham walked through the doors and out onto the landing.
Now that he could see the whole room, it was clear some sort of struggle went on here. Equipment was tossed around, metal shelving units were dented and toppled. It was clear to anyone looking that this lab was attacked by forces. Presumably having entered through those holes.
The teams swept the floor, checking each room. They met in the disheveled space in the middle. The commanding officer said, “Gannon, McElheny and Donovan, I want a thorough perimeter sweep. O'Connor and Mitchell,” he pointed at the pair of soldiers on his right, “Check those holes. I want to know what's on the other side. Be smart about it. Any sign of trouble and I want you turning tail back here. Plant remote charges when you come, enough to block 'em up if worse comes to worse. Private Grady and I will remain here to secure this room.”
The Sergeant turned to face Graham. The armor faceplate gave him a predatory grimace. The helmet was mantis-like with slanted, black lenses. “Graham, I need you to see what's on these computers. Find out what was going on here that brought on this attack.”
Graham turned to the nearest terminal and sat down. The sound of muffled orders over crackling radio transmissions passed around Graham unnoticed as he dropped to the command line and began probing through the file tree. He dug through the user logs and pulled up frequently used files.
Murphy made the Major stop her report as each new file was displayed. Loren said nothing, letting the commander absorb the information along with Graham. Just as she did when she watched the Skald's recording. Murphy was visibly unsettled as he read the files. A picture was forming in his mind, one of disease in his home.
Then Graham turned to a set of directories on the main laboratory server designated eyes only. He looked at Major Loren and said, “I see why you brought this straight to me, Major. These pages alone indicate research into intelligence computing projects deemed unethical and illegal within the commonwealth. You made the right call.”
Loren's eyebrows pulled tight in a grave expression as she said, “It gets worse, sir.”
She advanced the scene and paused it again when Graham pulled up the lab computer's most recent logs. Among the video clips was a series of recordings made by Major Hayden, the lead scientist of the project. These were dated from the first months of the base's establishment thirty years before to within ten years ago.
“There's twenty years of research,” Graham said, as he played Hayden's first video. “It was the man's life's work... How am I going to skim through this to sort anything out?”
Audio came on and Hayden's face appeared in a small window on the screen. Murphy looked from the picture in Hayden's file to the video Graham watched and nodded.
“This is the private file of Dr. Erasmus Hayden,” Hayden said. He wore a handsome, honest grin. “Today, I begin my research! I've been waiting for this since my thesis.” Murphy thought the doctor's blue eyes showed a keen intelligence behind them, even though the smile touched their corners.
“It doesn't matter that no one will know I got to see it through. The merit is in the research itself. What I'm about to do will change the face of the Commonwealth. Maybe even the galaxy.” He looked away from the camera for a moment, then back. “At least I hope so. We'll see what comes in the long run. Turning this dream into reality is going to take patience. Today is only step one, Set up. Configure the sims, catalog the hardware, feed the wetware, etc. Not much to say beyond that. The end products will be stored alongside this recording. For whom, I can't say. If most anyone finds this research, I'm cooked. See you tomorrow.”
The recording ended and Graham pulled up the next one. It was more of the same. The next day didn't show much new information, so he skipped to the next week.
Hayden appeared again, his complexion paler and there with bags under his eyes. He smiled into the camera. “Today, my future audience, I stand on the threshold of a new frontier. Just three hours ago, we finally integrated the salvaged projects we recovered from the old installation.
Military objective number one satisfied. The new systems accelerated the cortical assignment processes faster than I ever imagined. Some of you may not grasp the significance of this and, since I am a student first, I will provide my posterity with a bit of a background.” He leans in to the desktop camera with a giddy smile, a gleam in his eye. The video recording cuts to a still image of a pad of tissue in a petri dish.
Tiny injectors circled the dish, microscopic chemical dispensers which fed chemicals into the swirling fluid. A thicket of monofilament leads ran from the fleshy gray-pink square to a patchwork rig of hardware and a terminal. Hayden's voice came on to explain the image.
“This is my project. The one that earned me my commission. The experiment that was the subject of my dissertation. I slogged through a mess of Martingales and plethoras of polypeptides, but I programmed a brain.”
The image changed again, back to Hayden's office. Hayden put on a pair of controller lenses and picked up a light pen. He point and swoop with it, activating the the holo display field in the air over his desk, just in front of the camera. The doctor manipulated the control display on the inside of the tinted lenses to bring a high-resolution model of the brain into the view of the camera. Hayden began to draw as he spoke, pulling the camera deep into the neural anatomy of the human brain.
“Well, what I made was mostly a brain. It was basically a brain. It's an electro-chemical computer. The neurochemicals attach to cellular receptors, which vary the resistance at the synapse nodes. The cells then produce chemicals which react to the electrical activity, in ripples, patterns that flood the brain. Sometimes the signal tells the cells to produce somethings else.
Sometimes this results in awakening memories, sometimes feelings, a touch, a smell, rage, death, hope, exhaltation. The signals go out through the network, changing it as they pass, producing more ripples as they touch. 100 to 500 trillion synapses in the brain, exchanging cascades of information between them.
Well, I could only manage to grow half a trillion, but I proved the point. I unlocked how to orchestrate them. All those cells performing analog operations simultaneously, keeping some in memory, discarding others. All in real time.”
The image of the brain faded when Hayden drew an X through it. “What mind could write a program for such a machine? How did the computation begin?” He sat in the chair and looked at the camera. He gave a knowing smile, then brought his index finger to his lips. “Shh…,” he said, then winked. The video ended.
Graham twisted around as the Sergeant came up behind him. “Sergeant Cooper, sir. It looks like they were experimenting with artificial intelligence. In my opinion the Major was off 'is gourd. Smiles too much. I've been looking through the logs and don't know much yet, but he said something about salvaging the research of the old installation nearby.”
Cooper nodded, “Keep at it Graham. The first team is on the way back, found an arm. They're bringing in for analysis.” He turned away and spoke over his handheld, “O'Connor and Mitchell return to rendezvous. I want the whole team for this one.”
The pair arrived first, just a minute ahead of the trio. McElheny brought up the severed arm, clad in ripped gray sleeve. The fist was closed around a thick strand of something sticky and fibrous.
“Looks like he's holding a rope made of hair,” said Gannon. She took off her helmet to get a look at it with her naked eyes. She poked the white mass with her index finger, then rubbed the wispy frayed end between her thumb and forefinger. “I think it's silk. A spiderweb?”
“Big ass spider,” said Graham.
“Great,” said Cooper.
So Where Were The Spiders?
“Graham, see what you can make of the silk. Keep sifting through that research. I need as much information as you can get by the next time the teams return,” said Cooper. “I want Donovan, Mitchell, O'Connor and Gannon walking guard duty in pairs. Cover from the entrance to here and drop sentry packs where it makes sense.”
The four soldiers shot to their feet and went about executing their orders. “McElheny, Grady,” Cooper continued, “Rearrange the furniture in here for optimal defensible positions, just in case. Slide some racks in front of those holes for starters. I want all teams back in three hours to eat.”
The team went about their work. Every once in a while, Graham looked up from the screens of lab reports and research notes to see how Grady and McElheny were coming with their project. He could hear the unintelligibly faint murmur of Cooper's voice, composing a report to his superior officers.
Murphy stopped the recording again.
He turned to look at Loren, sitting across the table. “Major, do we have a copy of Cooper's report?”
“No, sir,” the Major replied, “the Skald's black box is the only piece of information we have regarding this incident at Phobos.”
Murphy nodded grimly. His gears were turning, but the Major could not guess what he was thinking. He resumed the playback.
“I've bookmarked the end of this portion, sir,” Major Loren said. “If you advance the feed, it will pick up when the squad meets for rations. Nothing significant happens in the mean time.”
“Thank you for your forethought, Major,” Murphy said and took the Major's advice. The recording jumped to a scene of the squad sitting around on supply crates, eating and discussing their observations about the facility since their last meeting.
Cooper said, “Now that everyone's had a chance to tour the exotic Phobos station, I want candid opinions. We'll start on my left and work around the circle, ending with our most sagacious Specialist Graham.” He smiled at his own cleverness. “Donovan, you're up.”
Donovan wore her hair in a buzz all around. The top was grown out, a swoop on both sides ending in black bangs which hung down to just above her jaw. Her dark hair and pale complexion made the green of her eyes dramatic. Colorful, jagged tattoos swept down her scalp to just below her hairline and came up around her neck from below the collar of her armor. “The place is wrong, sir. I'm looking forward to being gone. Gannon and I saw signs of a false wall in Hayden's office. We made sure to set up a sentry there, in case we get visitors.”
Cooper asked, “What do you mean by signs?”
“There were scrape marks on the floor leading to the wall, then they disappeared. We didn't try to open it. We thought we'd wait to tell you first.”
“Alright, bring up the sentry network on your hand-helds,” the Sergeant said. He went to an equipment case and opened it. Cooper handed Mitchell another of the thin, palm sized computers from among the gear within. “That goes for everyone.”
Each soldier pressed a few buttons on their terminals and brought up the cameras they positioned throughout the installation. When they were through, Copper said, “Alright. O'Connor. You're up.” He turned to look at the man with the knot-work tattooed down his neck.
O'Connor said, “Yes sir. My personal impression is that we should be out of here. A-S-A-F-P. We went deeper into the facility with the second sweep. Everything everywhere, other than in this room, looks untouched. It's like the place is waiting, like the offices are a front for something going on hidden deeper within. You know I'll follow you as long as you want to stay here, Sarge, but I want us gone as soon as we find what we need. Hopefully we won't see any sign of whatever made that silk cord.”
“Sentiments noted, Corporal. We're in agreement,” Cooper said. “We'll withdraw at the earliest possible convenience. All right, Gannon. What have you seen?”
“I'm with O'Connor,” she said. “I don't like this waiting and I want to get out of here. I don't care if I get a minute of sleep, as long as it means we get out of here soon. I'm curious, though. I want to take a couple soldiers to find out what's behind that door. I want to know what they were doing here to make the Gaians interested in this outpost in the first place.” She brushed a wisp of chestnut bangs back behind her ear. They were the longest part of her hair, which was buzzed around the sides and back, leaving her a crown of disheveled spikes.
“Thank you, Corporal. Your suggestion for further recon is denied for the evening. We will scour the rest of the facility at first light. Go, Mitchell.”
Mitchell said, “I don't know what more I have to add to the discussion. Wait… I didn't mention it at first, but when O'Connor and I were rigging the tunnels, I saw some more of that silky stuff. I remember the smell of vinegar in there as well. I just assumed the silky stuff was some kind of fungus or mold giving off that smell. I remember there were these grooves, too. Deep, like someone was dragging a pair of hunting knives in each hand as they wiggled their way down. Aside from that, there was a heap of goo. It's in the tunnel on the right. Again, I assumed it was fungus. The more I think about it… maybe it's more of the leavings of whatever made that silk rope. Also, something else is bothering me about that arm. Where's the rest of the man who's missing it?” Mitchell looked down at the floor and sniffed.
Cooper said, “I want you to go and get that glob from the tunnel before we turn in, Private. Switch your hand-held to bio-lume and record any signs of blood or tissue on the way there and back. Grady and McElheny will help you open the way back up. Let's hear your thoughts, PFC McElheny.”
“Well, sir. I was surprised at how clean it was where we found that arm. There weren't any signs of struggle that I could make out, but I did notice the tissue around the shoulder where the arm was severed looked to be cooked some, like chemical burns. I'll bet the burns have to do with the vinegar smell.”
“I guess we'll find out Private,” Cooper said. “Though if we're lucky, we may not have to. Okay, Grady. What do you have for us?”
“Nothing to report that hasn't been addressed by the others, sir,” said Grady.
“This is your first time out with the squad, so I'll let it slide tonight. However, you're first tomorrow night. I want to hear your thoughts, Grady. Make sure you have some,” Cooper finished. He turned to Graham. “Let's have it, Graham.”
“I haven't been able to find much specific to what kind of research was going on before Hayden got here. His logs and notes might as well be coded, for all the sense I can make of them. He philosophizes and pontificates about intelligence and computing, but I can't find anything on the main lab servers or the private one that sum up what they were into. All I have are hints from research reports.
I detected a smaller network of systems that I can't get access to. They seem to be on a different level of the base. If the main net ever could connect to them, the systems up here can't anymore. I'll have to be in front of those machines to interface with them. Trouble is, I've been racking my brain to think of where they could be in this building, but I can't come up with a physical place where they should be. Now that Donovan mentioned the false wall, my gut's tellin' me that's our ticket.”
Cooper nodded, then asked, “What about the research? Is Hayden talking about spiders? Do we know if the Commonwealth is responsible for what happened here?”
Graham replied, “The only mention of anything about spiders is a four month block of notes related to the synthesis of new artificial polymers based off of studies of spidroin 1 and 2, the main components of spider silk. One describes the alignment and self-assembly process of the proteins in natural subjects, which is as direct a reference to the presence of arachnids in this base as I could find.”
“So that rope of silk we found with the severed arm might be man-made…,” McElheny blurted.
“Cool it, soldier,” Sergeant Cooper said. “Save the comments until Graham's done.”
Graham continued, “I agree with the rest of the squad, the sooner we're out of here the better. I am sure that the answers we need to move on are nowhere in this building, Sarge. We gotta see where those tunnels lead and what that false wall is covering. I need to track down those servers.”
“Agreed,” said Cooper. “Ok, troops. That's it for today. It's time for some R&R. McElheny, you're on first watch. Then Gannon, then Grady. Three hour rotation. Mind those sentries. Mitchell, take Grady and Graham to retrieve your glob from that tunnel.”
The four men broke away. McElheny went off to make his rounds, every few seconds he dragged a finger across the screen of his hand-held, monitoring the feeds from the different sentry packs. Graham followed Grady and Mitchell to the rightmost tunnel. Graham and Grady moved the rack in front of the hole, which was maybe a half-meter in diameter.
Mitchell pulled out his hand-held and tapped a few times at the screen, then looked at the other two. “Be right back guys,” he whispered. Then Mitchell put on his helmet and crawled in.
Graham waited a few seconds to look in after him. Mitchell was making quick progress. Graham could see the flashing red light of the first explosive charge just behind the man in the hole.
“Hey guys,” Mitchell called back. “The scanner is picking up blood soaked into the dirt all the way down the tunnel.” He continued crawling in silence.
A few minutes later, Mitchell returned. He crawled out of the tunnel, brushing dirt off as he stood up. Cooper came up to them without a word and held out his hand. Mitchell was familiar with the drill and gave Cooper the handheld. Then, he pulled a clear bag from his large, right knee pocket.
Within was a gelatinous translucent glob. It fluoresced blue when the light on Mitchell's mask passed over it. Cooper took this as well. He tucked the bag under his arm, then waved for the men to return the rack to its place. When the tunnel was covered once more, he waved them back to the circle of their camp.
They set the bag aside and went to sleep. Graham watched Sergeant Cooper for a moment as he looked over the data in the handheld. Graham rolled over and went to sleep.
Donovan's Wall
The next morning, Cooper heard the reports from the watch. No activity on any shift. “The less we see, the more I become convinced,” Donovan said. “The place is waiting, I can feel it.”
“Waiting for what? We couldn't be in a better place for whatever might be waiting to drop the roof on us,” said Mitchell. “Why didn't they, or it, strike last night?”
“Maybe we're too ready,” said O'Connor. “Like they're waiting for us to let our guard down.”
Gannon said, ”Maybe we're doing exactly what they want?”
“We can guess 'til we're blue in the face,” barked Cooper. “We simply don't know and it's up to us to find out. We'll go ahead as planned. Gannon and O'Connor, you're on sentry patrol. Graham and Grady, stay back. I want you to study that glob in the bag. Use the scanner and whatever else is in this lab. I want to know as much as we can by the end of the day. The rest of us will check out Donovan's false wall. Bring the trap rigs and two more sentries.”
The four soldiers looked through the gear until they found the necessary equipment and went off after the Sergeant. Graham raised the bag up in front of him, then turned to put it between him and an overhead light. The glob was clearly some kind of tissue, a ragged chunk by the look of it. It was less translucent than the jellyfish from home. He could see some veins in the very surface of the blob, but no other complicated anatomy. He turned it a little bit and admired the blue sheen the light gave it.
“Aren't you a beauty. I hope the rest of you is as pleasant,” Graham said under his breath.
He broke out the handheld and activated the scanning function, then passed the beam over the glob in the bag. “Grady,” he shouted as he looked over the readout. “We're going to the lab across the way.”
Graham led Grady into a small laboratory geared for medical, judging by the instruments. Grady said, “You know how to use this stuff?”
Graham scoffed as he set the bag down on a table next to a large molecular scan-modeler. “'course I do.” He reached up to get a large glass petri dish from the cabinet. “We aren't performing DNA therapy or even a bypass surgery. This is just a basic lab exercise.” He washed up and put on gloves, then put the blob in the dish. The dish went into the M.S.M. machine.
Graham took off his gloves, then pressed some buttons on the control panel. “Now we wait.”
In a couple minutes they had a complete model of the blob rendered by the computer. A plethora of information about the sample was presented along side the picture of the finished model on the screen. Graham brought out Mitchell's hand-held and transferred the information generated by the scanner. As it transferred, he paged through some of the results.
“Seems this thing has fibers of platinum built into its tissues,” Graham said. “Nerves, blood vessels, all the cells have it, but only some are hooked up. I've never heard of anything like this, but I pay more attention to tech than bio. Does it mean anything to you?”
“Not really. But, I barely passed the physical sciences,” Grady said. “Why'd they make it illegal? A.I. research, I mean.”
“There was a series of problems. All kinds of things went wrong,” Graham said. “Never managed a good application for what we had, maybe. I'm not sure about the particulars.”
Mitchell's pad confirmed the successful transfer of the information. Graham unhooked it, then pulled another petri dish from the shelves. This one with a shallow layer of nutrient agar on the bottom. He took a small blade from the drawer in the bench and cut a tiny sliver from the bulbous end of the glob. He put it on the petri dish, which he then put in a microscope fitted for the dish.
Graham flipped a switch and a light came on underneath, along with the view screen. The zoomed image showed the cells closest to the agar along the sample's right side. He took out Mitchell's handheld and took a picture of the screen.
“Okay, we'll check on it in a couple hours. Meantime, we'll throw the bag in the freezer. Just in case.” Graham walked to the small cabinet and opened the polished metal door. A fog curled out onto the white lacquered floor. “Good, still frosty.” He put the dish with the blob in the freezer and closed it. “Let's get back to camp.”
When they got back, Graham went through lab records for a few more minutes, until Cooper and the others returned. Cooper arrived first. He pushed a button on his hand-held, “Everybody bring it in, on the double.” He addressed the soldiers in the room. “I'll save the briefing for when we're all here. Graham, what did you find?”
“It's all on the pad, sir.” He passed Cooper the hand-held containing the model. “I've got a sample in a dish to see if it will make a culture. The rest is in deep freeze.”
“Thank you, Specialist.” Cooper took the pad and reviewed the scan while they waited for the two absent guards.
Gannon came in from the front, where she'd been patrolling and monitoring the sentry packs. O'Connor came in from the opposite side, a couple minutes behind her. Cooper stood up as O'Connor hustled in.
“Now that we're all here, I'll fill you in. There was a stairway behind the wall Donovan noticed. We found a blast door at the bottom, of a design not Gaian in origin. We were able to get it open, but did not proceed with the search. I've decided that we're moving on. We'll proceed as a unit.
Graham's analysis of the tissue sample tells us it's fairly standard organic. It should burn from a plasma shot no problem. If we find any hostiles, standard rifles should do the trick.” Cooper looked around at the troops. Graham did as well, each wore an expression of uncertainty.
“I know it's a small comfort,” Cooper said. “That's why we're all going down there together. Let's pack up and move out.”
In a few minutes, the squad was gathered around the stairway. Graham looked to his right. The wall across from the office desk was transparent from this side, giving a slightly tinted view of the landscape surrounding the station.
“The second moon is in eclipse, Graham said to no one in particular. “It'd be gorgeous if it didn't send shivers down my spine.”
Wind kicked up chalk, which flowed over the open ground in low wisps. A forest of gnarled trees ringed the vast clearing, their bare limbs were like black claws reaching up to the bloody, bruised flesh of the sky. High overhead, a halo of golden light crept around the black disc of nothingness that threatened to descend on them.
He shivered and turned back to the stairs. “Not much cheerier out there or in here, is it?”
“Shut it, Graham,” Cooper said. He stepped back as Donovan and McElheny swung the panel out of the wall.
Beyond was a deep cavern. Red lights hung from the rusted frame of a military grade staircase, lighting the grating of the steps and the short walkway halfway down. All Graham could see was the steps, the rest of the cavern was lost in darkness. He flipped on the light at the end of his rifle and scanned the room. The beam played along the limestone floor, but the walls and ceiling were lost beyond its reach. The only feature was the door, a thick metal bulkhead set into a ten foot slope of white stone at the very bottom of the chamber.
They made their way down the stairs. The whole works creaked and swayed under their weight. They didn't speak as they made their way down, there was only the sound of boots on metal until the soldiers gathered around the ancient door.
Cooper gave the signal to Gannon, who spun the wheel and opened the bulkhead. She grunted as she pulled the hatch aside on its hinges. Donovan and Mitchell tossed a pair of spherical A/V drones through. Graham watched their feed on his handheld.
The sensor drones floated down another short set of steps into a dark room. Graham switched the control to low-light vision. The image widened as the orbs drifted apart. The leftmost stopped on one of the many piles of dirt that covered the laminated tile floor, leaving only patches of the green and white checker pattern visible.
When the right drone came to a stop, the machines began to calculate. Graham moved his fingers on the screen to turn the cameras. Measurements of distance scrolled down the right side of the screen as the computers drew wire shapes around the objects in the room.
Graham leaned over to Cooper and whispered, “Looks to be a forty by sixty room. The ceiling is collapsed, burying about the far left third of the room. There's a door on the right of the far wall, personnel sized. Also a double door on the right wall, maybe ten feet down. There's another double door buried under the dirt, maybe five feet left of the personell on the far wall. The hole in the roof looks like it might lead to open air. No signs of life. It looks like there might be buried lab furniture, but the computer doesn't show anything certain. No signs of power, electrical or otherwise.”
Cooper pointed to O'Connor and Mitchell. “Low-light, far wall right side.” They pressed buttons on the sides of their visors, then raised their rifles. The Sergeant stepped silently over to Gannon and McElheny, “Low-light, left side sweep.” They also switched their masks and fell in behind O'Connor and Mitchell.
Cooper motioned to the first pair to go. “Fan out,” he said to the other soldiers. He motioned for Gannon and McElheny to go, then went in himself. Donovan followed, then Grady, then Graham.
The soldiers swept through the room, vigilant and silent. Their knees were bent and their rifles were ready as they moved with purpose to their assigned doors. Graham looked at the walls as the four leading soldiers wound their way around the piles of earth to the double doors. Periodically his head would turn from his path to mark the progress of the others working their way along the walls.
Grady was five feet to his right. Graham saw the younger man go around a pile of filth toward Cooper. As he passed out of sight, Grady whispered, “Hey.”
Graham stopped and slowly turned in his direction. He came around the dirt to find Grady kneeling to look at something on the ground. Graham said,“What?”
Grady looked up, resting and elbow and his rifle on his left thigh. He pointed at a thin membrane of grayish tissue. Graham knelt to look more closely.
He poked it with a gloved finger. It gave easily, but swelled back up almost instantly. The mass moved a little, just a ripple at the edges, then was still. Graham got up and pulled Grady up with him, then pointed at Cooper's back. He went back around the left side of the mound.
Graham looked left as he came around, spotting Gannon and McElheny as they passed by the drone. Gannon bent to pluck it out of the air where it hovered. She put the ball in her pocket, but looked at something on the ground for a few moments longer. “Looks like she's found some as well,” Graham murmured. She stood back up and Graham turned away.
He came to another tall heap of dirt. This one showed the side of a metal bookshelf which provided the pile its structure. Graham went right.
From his left came a rustling noise. Graham turned to see the wall of dirt come alive. Gannon and McElheny stopped and raised their guns. O'Connor and Mitchell started running over from the door nearby. Gannon shouted over the radio, “Sir, something is moving in the dirt pile over here!”
The wall seemed to be shaking apart. Dirt rained down from half a dozen holes as something burrowed toward them. Black mandibles, shaped more like scoops than claws, chewed through the dirt. Following the mandibles into the room were flat white heads. After their heads came a pair of long, spindly limbs, which felt the way for the rest of the body. A handful of eyes sat on the sloped head just above the creatures' mouth. Fat, bone-white, cockroach bodies crept into the room on three pairs of squat insect legs. Dragging behind each one was a tail tipped with a triple barb like a fishing spear.
The scorpion creatures shook the dirt off, their carapaces rattling, as they crawled down the slope to the floor. Some headed for Gannon and McElheny, some for O'Connor and Mitchell. As they got closer, the tails came up ready to strike.
Gannon stepped aside, leaving McElheny enough room to get away from the wall. The creature turned toward her as she raised her gun to her shoulder. McElheny did the same.
She stepped to the side and back, then fired. A white flash filled Graham's vision. The visor slowly compensated, dulling the flash so that he could see Gannon's shadow moving behind it.
“Flares!” Sergeant Cooper shouted over the radio. Five spots of light appeared in the dimness. They swelled until the room was filled with a decent glow. Graham could see the upturned body of Gannon's first attacker five feet in front of her. She was currently backing away from a second, which flailed its long front legs at her. She ducked a stab from its tail and put a shot through the thing's black pearl eyes.
Behind her, closer to the wall, McElheny took a blow from his attacker's front leg and went down. He fired twice and missed the monster's head, but the triple barbed head of its tail exploded into chunks of gray goo on the second shot. The creature crawled over McElheny and opened its mandibles. Fluid sprayed from its mouth onto the soldier's helmet and down into his armor.
“Ugh!” He cried. McElheny grabbed the knife from his belt then drove it home through the creature's mouth. He wiped the gunk from his facemask and flung it to the floor. An instant later the rifle was back up and McElheny put a plasma round through the scorpion's head. He picked up his knife and Graham turned away to look at the other pair closest to the monsters.
Cooper and Grady were already there. O'Connor was lying on the ground nearest them. Graham rushed over to help.
Cooper and Mitchell took turns missing as one of the scorpions dodged aside. Graham rushed past them toward Grady. The private's foe was pressing him back as it stepped around his shots. Grady was to occupied with dodging the tail to aim. Neither saw Graham approach. The technician raised his rifle and blasted the monster in the torso. A chunk blew out of its right side, along with two of its center legs. It turned to face Graham, further exposing its wounded parts. Graham stilled it with another plasma round.
He turned to see Cooper and Mitchell's spider was dead now as well. Cooper hit the radio button on his handheld. He said, “Gannon get over here. O'Connor's in trouble.”
She came back, “Sarge, McElheny has been hit with a liquid of some kind. I think it's digestive fluids. The stuff smells like vinegar. It's eaten through his helmet and it looks like the skin is starting to burn.”
Cooper said, ”Understood. Get over here on the double, Gannon.”
“Yes sir,” she said. A few seconds later she arrived and knelt by O'Connor's lifeless form.
After a quick once over, she looked at Cooper. “He's unconscious. We've got to get him and McElheny back to safety.”
“Agreed,” said Cooper. “Mitchell, go help Gannon get McElheny. Grady, you and I will take O'Connor. Donovan leads us back. Graham, you follow up the rear and cover us.”
The team made its way back to the bulk head. As they were filing out, the caved in mound of dirt began to shake loose again. Graham said, “More of those scorpion things are coming through. Hurry up.” He lined up a shot and stopped one before it could dig itself out.
They had Mitchell through and Grady was starting to lead O'Connor past the bulkhead when the first pair of creatures broke into the room. He took one before it could cross half the distance. The other went unharmed amidst his careful fire and was near enough to lunge its tail at Graham in a split second.
The soldier's honed reflexes saved him. Graham ducked then shot the monster in the head. Two more were right behind it, but Cooper used his right hand to take some pot shots with his rifle as he led the injured soldier through the door. He lamed one of the scorpions, but neither he or Graham managed to kill another of them.
When he was through, Cooper shouted, “Come On!” Graham fired wildly as he backed out. He didn't stop shooting until Donovan slammed the bulkhead shut.
“Alright, lets head back to the lab. Graham, Grady and Donovan; I want you to make sure two more sentry packs are on this door before you come back. Booby trap it, too. I want this room secure.” He took another look at the injured soldiers. “Shit,” he said, “What a disaster.” He waved for the rest of them to start the grueling trek up the stairs, carrying their wounded comrades.
Changes
They could hear the scorpions tapping against the door as they made their way up the rickety staircase. The sentry packs were set by the time the wounded were clear of the stairs. Graham looked back every once in while on his way up, but the big metal door showed no signs of giving any time soon. He Grady and Donovan made their way to the center of operations.
McElheny was sitting on a crate, body swaying slightly as if he were dazed. Gannon hovered in front of him, examining his eyes. In her hand was a bottle of drops, which she set down on the crate next to McElheny among the gauze and other first aid supplies. O'Connor was lying on his back, on the ground to McElheny's left.
Cooper came up to them, but Graham kept walking toward O'Connor. He over heard Sergeant Cooper saying, “Donovan.”
“Sir,” she replied. “The packs are operational and there's no sign they'll get through the door anytime soon.”
Cooper said, “Thank you, Donovan. You and Grady walk the front of the installation. Keep the feeds from the sentries looping on your terminals.”
Donovan said, “Sir?”.
“Yes, Corporal”, he said.
“How are McElheny and O'Connor?”
Graham looked at McElheny for a few seconds. The skin around his eyes was livid purple. Everything between his scalp and chin was beginning to swell, but the eyes were the worst. The rest was normal flesh tone, but populated with corroded marks. The trio walked into Graham's view. Cooper said, “Well, Gannon? How is he?”
Gannon stood up from her examination of McElheny's burns and faced the Sergeant. “He's temporarily blind. I'll have to run some analysis on the venom, but it looks like there's at least very concentrated acetic acid in it. That's why it smells the way it does. From what McElheny's behavior tells me, it also contains some kind of psychotropic substance. He's not responding to pain, so at least he didn't feel the burns. His chest got it worst. It's pretty strong stuff, but I flushed it and found something to neutralize the reaction with his skin. Now he's just got to heal. I found some meds in the lab that should speed his recovery nicely.”
McElheny sighed with relief. “Thanks, miss. I knew it would be nice out today.” He gave a grin of content relief.
Cooper frowned and put a hand on his shoulder, “You with us McElheny?”
“Oh, yes! You know I've always wanted to go.” His face lit up with delight, then fell into sorrow. “But, I can't afford the ticket. My dad never gave me my allowance.”
Gannon cleared her throat. “That's the dissociative effects of the psychotropic talking.” She fought off a tiny smile that threatened the edges of her mouth.
Cooper gave a short laugh. “He's lit. Gannon, will you secure him until he rides this out?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. Gannon put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Okay, we're gonna get up and turn around. I'll help you, alright?”
“Okay, movin' now...”, McElheny replied in a distant voice.
Gannon helped him to his feet and turned him toward the staircase. Graham watched as they made their way to one of the smaller offices on the second floor. As Gannon helped Mitchell navigate the stairs, Cooper knelt down to look at O'Connor. Graham looked down as well.
Cooper said, “The barbs are gone.” He ran a gloved finger around the rips in the armor chestplate, pushing the fabric aside. A gray fuzz grew over the wounds, but there was no sign of the barbs. “I think they've grown into his chest.”
Graham said, “His breathing looks really shallow.” Graham pressed a few buttons on his handheld to bring up the squad vitals monitor. He tapped on O'Connor's name, filling the screen with an active stream of information from his military implants.
“He's nearly comatose,” Graham said.
“Gannon, report back on the double,” Cooper said to his handheld. “We might be losing O'Connor. ”
Gannon's voice came back over the radio, “On my way, sir.”
Graham helped Cooper get O'Connor's combat armor off. Gannon arrived as Cooper was pulling O'Connor's right arm free of it's sleeve. She examined the wounds.
Cooper told her, “I think the scorpion tail turned into that gray fuzz.”
Gannon cut O'Connor's undershirt down the middle. The flesh all around the wounds was blotched with a pink rash. The wounds themselves were a bright, bloody pink. She scraped a sample of the tissue at the edge of the wound along with some of the gray fibers and took it to the scanner/modeler. Graham trotted to catch up, “I just remembered. I have an experiment to look in on.”
Gannon put the sample in a petri dish and put it in the scanner. Graham went to the incubator case. He opened the door. Every shelf and surface was completely overgrown with gray fungus. Mats of it coated the walls and stalactites of it hung from the roof.
There was a newly forming bulb of bluish gray tissue, about ten centimeters across, in the petri dish where the culture began. Graham leaned forward. The musty fungus smell was nearly strong enough to choke him, but curiosity brought him in closer. The mass quivered and pulsed, swelling larger with each pulse. As he leaned in, he could see faint traces of blue sparks, running through the translucent tissue.
He stared a few seconds, transfixed by it, until Gannon called out. “Graham!” He stood back from the incubator and turned to her. “Yes,” he said.
“I'm all done with the sample. It's a match for the first one you made,” Gannon said. She came over to look at the incubator as she finished speaking.
“What the hell is that?” Gannon whispered. She stared agape at the infested incubator and the pulsing bulb of the tissue in the petri dish.
“Trouble,” Graham said. “No doubt about it.” He turned to look at the incubator, too. “I need Mitchell's handheld.”
Gannon passed it to him.
“Convenient you had that,” Graham said. He keyed in the commands that brought up the recording and scanning functions to document this new addition to the mission report.
“It's the most complete record of the mission so far. Right now, he's not really part of it. I put the data about the venom in there, too.” She brought up her own handheld to record the organisms growth for her medical report. “God, I hope we can find a way to keep that from happening to O'Connor.”
“You think it might try to take him over like this thing?” Graham looked up from his screen to look Gannon in the eye. “Me too. I just didn't want to be the first to say it.”
Gannon replied, “You know what kills fungal infections of the blood?”
Graham said, “Amoxicillin, Tetracycline? Lotrimin?”
She turned to head out of the lab. “I'll have to look into it.”
Graham closed the incubator, to keep the colony from spreading. Then he turned and followed Gannon out. O'Connor was still in bad shape, but he was breathing a little better and his heart rate was up.
The rest of the squad stood around O'Connor. Each staring gravely at the fallen man, looking up at each other every so often.
“I'm here. Let me look at him,” Gannon said. She nudged Cooper and Donovan aside to kneel down by O'Connor. She checked him for responses then set about examining the wounds. She immediately set to work cleaning them.
The rest of the team watched in silence. The fungus seemed to shrink a little as the peroxide bubbled furiously. Gannon flushed them wounds with water then worked with some small tools to see the extent of the damage. After a few minutes she set down the tools and looked at Cooper.
“The fungus is spreading. The edges of the three wounds are disintegrating into fibrous tissues that the fungus is using in its own structure.” She lifted up a bruised flap of skin at the edge of the wound. The tissue was decaying into a gray gel. “His muscles and connective tissues are slowly being changed. I don't know if his organs will be next, but I'm betting he doesn't have much time.” She looked at O'Connor's face, now sunken and pale.
“Quarantine him,” Cooper said. Graham walked up to stand beside him.
“Sergeant Cooper, I looked in on my experiment,” Graham said. Cooper looked at him with a blank expression. “It's growing out of control. There's a bluish mass in the dish where the colony started. The rest of incubator is overgrown with the the black fungus.”
“Did you document it?” Cooper looked strained.
“Yes, sir. It's on Mitchell's pad.” Graham looked away for a moment, then back to Cooper. His tone was urgent, but quiet. “Sir, I say we forget about the server down below and get the hell out of here. McElheny and O'Connor are down. Let's get them back to the shuttle and back aboard the ship where they can get some real help.”
Cooper seemed on the verge of anger, but kept control. “This isn't a democracy, Technician. If we leave now, someone will have to come back. And, we don't know if what got to McElheny and O'Connor can spread. We can't risk taking it back to the ship until we find out more about it. If we stay, and we get to the server, we might find out if it's worth coming back here at all or if the Gaians should just forget about this place. Also, we have to kill the distress signal. So no one else comes here.” Cooper turned to address the squad.
“I know what we've all seen here today is some of the most terrible stuff of our lives. It's beyond imagination, but here it is. In our faces. We don't know what's going to happen to McElheny or O'Connor. Both are alive, O'Connor is unresponsive. There is a swarm of scorpion things below us. Farther below is a computer that has the information we need to call this mission complete. We're down, but far from out. You're all professionals and I know each and every one of us has got the ability. We're warriors. You're here to work your trade. If we stay cold and focus, we'll get this day's work over with. Then we'll get our friends some help, so their wounds won't have been for a screwed up job.”
“That's right! Let's do this. Quick and painless,” said Grady. He put on his game face and hefted his rifle.
Cooper was all business as he started to give his orders. “Gannon, I want you to stay here with the wounded. I want Mitchell to stay and back you up. Mitchell, watch our backs. Keep an eye on those sentries and let us know if anything comes through. Graham, Grady, Donovan and myself will proceed through the tunnels and attempt to enter the facility below from the point of the collapsed roof. Hopefully, it will give is the element of surprise.”
“Terrible idea,” Murphy murmured. In the same instant, he heard Graham mutter the same thing under his breath. But the squad was eager to be done with Phobos.
The four soldiers left the camp and made their way to the tunnels. Cooper followed last, having spent a few moments grabbing two backpacks from among the gear. He gave one to Grady and kept the other. The troops took a moment to adjust their face plates and suits. One after the other. they crawled through the tunnels to the surface.
The Trees
Graham made it out first. He got up and looked around. There was no sign of motion among the fat black trees. He could see maybe thirty meters in any direction before the forest obscured everything. Donovan emerged from the tunnel next and he bent to give her a hand. They pulled Cooper out next. Then, Graham turned around to grab Grady's hand. He helped the private out of the hole and gave his chest a pat, sending chalk dust into the air. Then he started brushing the dust off his own uniform.
Cooper started walking toward the cave in, glancing frequently at his computer's disply. The rest of them followed. Graham looked at his handheld, which showed the wall of the room below about twenty meters in the direction they were heading. The cave-in lay a bit further on, in a thick patch of spindly black trees.
They all kept an eye out as they walked. The sun was still in eclipse. The moon was nearly set, offering nothing against the darkness. Just the barest outer edge of light still crept out. “It looks as if heaven's closed it's eyes to us,” he said. Shadows played in the heights of the skeletal canopy. The sensors in the faceplate read no heat signatures or motion.
“Shut up, Graham,” Mitchell whispered sternly through the radio. “Ugh! That gave me the chills. Christ!”
The team switched their rifles lights on before stepping into the cluster of trees. Cooper looked at Grady, then took off his backpack and set it on the ground. Grady caught the Sergeant's meaning and did the same. Each man pulled out disk shaped objects as big across as their heads.
Cooper held his pad up to one. The display changed to show the device settings. He set the timer for manual detonation and showed the screen to Grady who did the same with his. Grady and Cooper removed a second device each. Graham stole a look in Grady's still lumpy backpack and saw five napalm devices as well as two plasma and two concussion grenades.
With the disks set, they were placed back in their bags. Cooper and Grady took the lead. Donovan and Graham followed to cover them. The team made their way to the sink hole, which was in fact a collapsed ceiling.
One of the black trees was toppled, exposing its roots to the air. The depression in the earth was less than a meter deep and about a half meter across. In the deepest part of the depression, there was a small passage into the room below. Graham could see the scorpion creatures scurrying around. He could hear faint echoes as they kept pounding at the hatch.
Cooper took Grady's pack and whispered in his ear. He pointed at Graham and Donovan, gesturing that they should stand back behind Grady. The Sergeant worked a little with his knife, to clear some roots out of the hole. Then he dropped the bags into the hole and started running toward the other soldiers. They ran with him. Cooper and Grady exchanged a look and hit the detonators.
The earth shook beneath them as they ran. White dust blew out of the hole, followed by thick smoke. Graham yelled in surprise as a tree to his right burst into flames. Cooper called from in front of him. “Shit! That wasn't supposed to happen.”
A tree burst into flame on Graham's right as he passed it, then a trio on his left erupted with fire.
“It's getting hotter! I can feel it through my boots,” Donovan said.
“Back to the lab,” Cooper shouted over the radio. The squad made it out of the trees and ran full speed for the tunnels. Graham saw something move in the shadows at the corner of the station.
“Sir, I'm reading signs of life. Eight feet by fifteen. It's coming toward us from the right. Over there,” Graham shouted as he pointed.
The creature brushed aside the trees as it came into the dim light. Eight eyes sat at the center of the flat, armored plate of its head. From it jutted mandibles large enough to crush any of them. Its two long front legs probed. Static arced where they made contact with the ground or the trees. It chattered, as it crawled over the curved wall. When it was in full view, Graham could see a wiggling, squirming mass on its back. Graham pointed his rifle at it.
As the light from the gun played along the creature's back, Graham saw that it was multitudes of the creature's young. Round jellyfish blobs jostled back and forth against each other on gummy legs until the creature stopped. They scurried down the sides of the giant spider to the ground where they rushed toward the squad.
While most of them charged, a few went for the nearby holes and the labs beyond. “Blow the tunnels,” Cooper called over the radio. Mitchell responded with a word, garbled by the sound of rifle fire as Donovan, Cooper and Grady began firing plasma shots at the oncoming spider things. A fraction of a second later, the tunnels sprayed dirt and clumps of goo into the air.
“Graham! Fire, goddamn it! Kill the big one,” Cooper yelled.
Graham raised his rifle and unloaded at the mother scorpion. Donovan, Mitchell, Cooper and Grady circled around him, focusing their fire on the little creatures that threatened to swarm them. Under Graham's assault, the carapace on the spider's belly burst open. The creature was still. One of the little ones got past the suppressing fire and skittered up Graham's leg to his chest.
Graham tried to brush it off, but it deformed as his hand touched it, sliding under the motion of his hand. Graham tried to grab it, but it slipped through his fingers. “Ah,” he yelled. He swatted frantically at the gummy proto-spider, but it crawled over his arm and onto his back. Grady and Donovan rushed over to help him out. “Get this thing off me!” Donovan finally got a hold of the glob behind its legs as it crawled up to the back of Graham's neck. She threw it to the ground and stomped it until gray gel blew out around the sides of her boot.
She grunted. “Disgusting little things.”
“Thank you, Donovan. I owe you one.” No doubt Graham would have continued, but he was cut off by Cooper.
“Graham, I'm seeing motion.”
Graham looked at what Cooper was seeing. “The gel bits are moving again,” Graham said.
Little dirty globs rolled together and started to form bigger globs. In a second, there was a handful more critters scurrying through the dirt toward them. Grady and Cooper fired at them, covering the squad's retreat.
Graham's radio crackled. It was Gannon, wondering what was happening. Right after she was done, Mitchell came on wondering the same thing.
“We are currently engaged with the enemy,” Cooper yelled over the gunfire. Donovan and Graham were firing right beside Grady. Cooper stepped back to answer Gannon and Mitchell.
“We'll return once we've cleared the premises. Keep it locked tight 'til then. We are proceeding through the forest to discover alternate means of entry to the buried facility if possible. Maintain radio silence.” He took his thumb off the radio.
The squad fell back. They fired at the ground whenever they saw movement and after an eternity, the movement in the dirt stopped. For the time being, it seemed the scorpions were gone. Cooper waved them back to the hole where he dropped the charges.
Graham looked around at the smoldering trees. The thinnest branches were now ash on the air. He could see plenty were smoking, but none were still ablaze. Cooper waved him over to the hole and Graham peered in.
The room was full of smoke, but still of sight or sound. The air smelled like charred meat and baked earth. He ran a finger over one of the cut roots in the dirt, its tip now cinders. “Temperature reads twenty over expected, but its clear,” Graham said.
“Good. Let's try it,” said Cooper. He led the way and all four soldiers dropped into the giant room. A scorpion rushed them from the far corner, but Cooper and Donovan unloaded on it and it was down in a moment.
Graham's boots crunched through a layer of glaze on the dirt. He bent to pick up a little sheet. “Bone china,” he muttered.
The team made their way to the single doorway, but it was fused to its frame in the explosion. “Let's try the other one,” Grady said. It was nearly blown off its hinges, but some muscles power worked it back enough that the team could proceed single file.
Before they went through, Cooper radioed back to the lab. “Mitchell. We've come through the ceiling of the buried facility. The room is clear. We will now proceed with objective. I need you to secure the bulkhead. We need it ready to open when we come back.”
Mitchell came back over the radio, “Copy that, sir.”
Donovan ducked through the door, followed by Grady, Graham and Cooper. The team stood in a long hallway with three doors on either side. A single door stood at the far end.
Cooper pressed a couple buttons as he looked at his computer. He looked up and said, “That door.” He pointed at the one at the end of the hall.
The team made their way slowly, clearing each side door as they went. There were no signs of life anywhere. When they reached the last door, Cooper told them to hold up.
“Gannon, Mitchell. We're going further into the facility. Radio silence,” Cooper said over the radio. He waited a moment for the response.
One never came. Cooper tried again. “Mitchell, respond.”
He waited a few seconds, then called for Gannon. After a moment the radio came across with static. A word came through. “...oment. Enemy...(static)...hrough. Now secure. O'Conn...(static)...Mac...up. Await further...uctions.”
“You're breaking up, Gannon,” Cooper said. “We're going in to the installation. Maintain radio silence and make sure Mitchell is on the bulkhead.”
“(static)...opy that, Sar...”, was Gannon's response.
Cooper shook his head, then looked back at the squad. He waved them into a crouch. When the soldiers were ready they breached the door. Graham worked at the controls for a few moments, then gave a thumbs up. Mitchell slid the door open. As soon as it was ready, Donovan and Cooper stepped through, with Graham behind and Grady guarding the rear.
Graham crept into dark stairwell. The platform was of the same heavy duty mesh as the staircase that led to the bulkhead above. The walls here were welded metal panels with three inch straps welded between them. Cooper was already descending the mesh steps to the left. As he turned to follow, Graham looked down the shaft.
There were no lights all the way down, but the faceplate made good enough use of the light that Graham could see three flights further, before the stairs were enveloped in total darkness. Graham turned and saw the rest of the squad, who were also trying to fathom the depths. Cooper gave a gesture and they started down again.
In the dark, the view through the faceplate took on a green tint, but it was enough to make out everything in the stairwell. There were no signs of spiders or anything much at all, until Graham spotted a discolored and deformed patch on the metal grate of the landing they were crossing. When he bent closer, it was clear they were looking at the same fungus growing in O'Connor's chest. Graham took out Mitchell's old datapad and added a scan of the decayed metal.
As they descended, the patches became larger and more frequent. After the fifth landing, the stairs were nearly eaten away. The team was forced to make their way carefully, sacrificing their stealth and speed.
They reached the sixth landing. The fungus grew in a thick fuzzy mat up the walls and half covered a door. It was the first they came across in the stairwell and the team took it.
They entered a room with a glass wall on the left. “It's an observation room,” Graham said, looking out on the larger room below. It was totally black, except for the lights on the control panels. Graham walked over to one, switching on the helmet lights. They provided enough glow to read the panel.
Cooper came up behind him. “Can you access the server from here?”
“I don't know,” Graham said. “I'm trying. I don't think so, but I think I can find out where it is.”
“Hurry up,” Cooper said. He walked back to check the stairwell.
After a few moments of looking at the display, Graham went to Cooper. “Sir, there's a lab across the hangar. The computer says it's Hayden's personal suite. It looks like all the labs are on magnetic lockdown. I'll have to turn on the power to disengage the locks.”
“That will tell them we're here,” Cooper replied.
Graham said, “Who's them? The scorpions?”
“I don't think it's just scorpions that are the problem,” Cooper said.
“We haven't seen any sign of them since we came down,” Graham responded. “No more have attacked the facility. I think they may have been a fluke. Creatures in their natural habitat.”
“Nature? I don't know,” Cooper said. “My gut's telling me there's something more to this. The spiders and the fungus are related.”
“Whatever is on that server might tell us how,” Graham said. “All I need to do is get in, copy the data and get out. Then we can get the others and go home.”
“You're right,” Cooper nodded. “Even if more come, they weren't that hard to kill. We're gonna be on the way home in less than an hour.”
“That's the spirit. Now, if someone stays here and works the controls, I think we can turn on the power right when we get there. Then I'll get to the machine, copy the data or just rip it out of there, whichever's fastest. Then I'll get out, we can turn it off and go home.”
“Okay. You, Donovan and I will go. Grady works the controls.” The other two overheard the interaction. They nodded when Cooper looked over at them. Grady stayed in the room, while the others climbed down the crumbling staircase to the bottom floor. They opened the door into cavernous gloom.
Graham looked up. Far in the distance above them, he could see dim flashes of blue against the black. It took some looking and the faceplate had to adjust, but in a few moments the image was clearer. Graham could see a knotted mass of thick black tree roots. They composed the entire ceiling of the chamber and pulses of blue current ran among them as if they were one.
Graham looked away, keeping his eyes on the lab. The three soldiers kept sharp look out for anything. When they made it to the door. Graham radioed to Grady, “Alright, hit the lights.”
A moment later white light filled the room. Graham could see fungal mass covering most of the walls. Below the level of the roots hanging from the ceiling grew fat globs of bluish, gray gel. They ringed the entire chamber, the lowest of them about two meters from the floor, the highest nearly fifty. Each was larger than a man. On the wall above the lab door, a five-lobed mass seethed in its setting of fungal mat.
“I wonder if it knows we're here,” Graham said.
“Hurry Graham,” replied Donovan, “Before that thing comes down on us.”
Graham worked at the keypad. “Ha,” he said. The magnetic locks released and the door slid open. The light came on as he entered. He crossed to the closet and found the server.
He hooked up his hand held and attempted to access the files. “Just like I thought,” Graham said, “It's all here.” In moments he was copying Doctor Hayden's personal research files. “I'll be done in less than two minutes, Sarge,” he said.
Graham heard snapping, popping sounds. He turned around, but saw no sign of Cooper or Donovan near the door. He said, “Hello?” There was no answer.
He poked his head out the door, to find Donovan with a large, black something wrapped around her head. Graham grabbed his knife and started hacking at the root. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cooper suspended by his arms, with a thinner runner covering his mouth. The roots were lively, squirming around each other and unfolding from the knot above to reach down toward the soldiers.
They snapped and popped as they curled around Cooper ever tighter. They started to pull him off the ground as Graham finished hacking through the one that held Donovan. It let go as soon as it was severed. She grabbed her rifle and fired three shots. They all scored the limb wrapped around Cooper's arms. The creeper let go. Cooper pulled his knife with one hand and got a hold on a clump of thin vines with the other. He slashed the knife through the creeper wrapped over his mouth, then wrestled free of the roots and dropped to the ground.
He picked up his rifle, standing ready with Donovan. The roots withdrew, but more were descending toward them. Cooper fired a couple potshots into them as he backed toward the doorway of the lab. The creepers stayed at a distance, winding around themselves like clenched fists then relaxing again.
“Hurry up, Graham,” Cooper yelled.
Graham ran back to the server, to check on his download.
He reported, “Twenty seconds, sir.”
Graham jogged back across to where the others were firing at the arm-thick whips reaching down from the ceiling. The tendrils formed a wriggling wall wall above them, pressing down as one. Graham raised his rifle and tagged one of the tendrils twice. It pulled away, withdrawing into the clump.
Two more reached down through the hole the retreating tendril left. They tried to ensnare him, but Cooper and Gannon shot them before they could. Graham picked off one that threatened to wrap around Donovan's head. She shot one as it grasped at Cooper.
“Into the lab,” Cooper barked. Donovan backed into the room, providing Cooper with a barrage of cover fire, which he took up as she backed in past him. He hit the panel by the door with his fist and the door slid closed.
“Shit,” Cooper shouted, slamming the other gloved fist against the door. He picked up his handheld and thumbed the button. “Grady, we're pinned down by those tentacle things.”
“Copy, Sergeant Cooper. I saw the whole thing. I have an idea”, Grady said.
“Go ahead, Private,” Cooper said.
“I think, once you're ready, I can shoot one of these blue masses. Maybe it will get their attention. Distract the roots from you long enough to make it back here,” Grady explained.
Cooper spoke to the room, thumb away from his handheld, “Any other ideas?”
Neither Graham or Donovan spoke up, so Cooper told Grady, “Sounds good. I'll let you know when we're about to run for it, you concentrate your fire on one of the globs.”
Graham went back to the server and found the transfer was finished. He grabbed his handheld and Mitchell's, set them to synchronize their mission files, then put them in the big pocket on his right leg. “All set,” he told Cooper.
“Okay, Grady,” the Sergeant said over the radio. “Let's get this going.”
Graham watched through the lab window as Grady stepped out around the glass onto a skinny ledge where the wall was attached to the rock face. Grady found a double bulbed mass on the right wall, about half way up and closer to him than the others. Grady leveled his rifle and began to fire bursts of plasma rounds into the jelly. Each shot sprayed gouts of charred and smoking gray-blue bits when it hit. The surface rippled and spasmed.
Cooper yelled, “Now!” He hit the button and the door came open. He was out in the next moment, followed by Donovan, then Graham.
After Grady's fifth burst the tissue began to smolder. Roots from the ceiling came down in a wriggling knot between the private and the mass, but the plasma rounds cut through them. More descended toward him.
Cooper slowed down, raising his rifle to help Grady take some of the creepers out. Donovan waved Graham forward and they ran faster toward the safety of the stairwell while Cooper slowed. He fired three times at the roots, before charging forward again.
More black tendrils descended toward Grady. From Graham's angle it looked like the private was distracted by the ones in front of him. He was oblivious to the tangle descending just behind him. Cooper yelled over the radio, “Grady, cease fire and retreat!” Grady stopped shooting and stepped backward.
Donovan reached the door to the stairs first, Graham was right behind her. He looked back at Cooper, who shouted, “No!”
Graham turned to his right, to see what Cooper was seeing. Grady tried to dodge the black tendrils and misstepped. As he fell, a dozen of them wrapped around him and dragged him up to the ceiling. Graham stepped out of cover and raised his rifle. Cooper began firing at the mass. Graham and Donovan joined, but Grady was gone. More came down, reaching for Cooper now.
Donovan yelled, “Get over here, Cooper!” She fired at the grasping roots and Graham joined in. The Sergeant ran toward them, passed them and ducked into the stairwell. Donovan and Graham were right behind.
They went up the stairs and Graham killed the power in the control room. The team made their way all the way up with no further trouble. They were all silent until they reached the long hallway at the top, when Cooper told Mitchell to open the blast door.
Cooper, Donovan and Graham arrived back at camp looking defeated. Gannon said, “Where's Grady?”
Cooper said, “M.I.A. The roots in the ceiling came alive and tried to take us. Grady covered us and they got him instead.”
Gannon frowned, “Roots in the ceiling came alive?”
Cooper nodded. “They came down like octopus tentacles. Wrapped up me and Donovan in an instant. We got clear and managed to stay free of them. Grady wanted to crate a diversion so we could get back to the stairwell. He was standing on this skinny ledge, in front of a big window that overlooks the floor. He slipped and the roots stretched down. They grabbed him, quick as lightning, wrapped around him up and pulled him in where we lost sight of him.”
“Jesus,” Gannon said, “We need to leave.”
“I couldn't agree more. Let's pack up and get to the ship. Gannon, Graham and I will make stretchers for McElheny and O'Connor. I want Mitchell and Donovan on guard duty. Sweep the halls near our escape route, check on the stairs to the blast door. I want everyone ready to scram in fifteen minutes.”
The squad began a flurry of activity as everyone set about their assigned tasks. Donovan and Mitchell double-timed it down the hallway. Cooper followed Gannon to check on McElheny, while Graham got the stretchers together.
Cooper and Gannon returned to camp just after Graham. He was tying the gear to rigs he cobbled together. They spent a moment appreciating Graham's devices.
Graham said, “I found a couple real stretchers in the medical lab. I stuck 'em on hand trucks. Now I'm tying on the gear that's already packed. We can just strap O'Connor and McElheny each to a cart. It should only take one person a piece to roll them to the ship. Might need a hand on rough terrain, but if you give me an hour, I could have better wheels on them.”
Cooper said, “No, I like it. Another hour is not an option. Bring one of your rigs along. We'll get O'Connor taken care of, then we'll get Mack.”
Gannon went with them to check on O'Connor. Graham could hear the man's shallow breathing. His skin was gray and clammy, becoming more translucent. Two blue-gray bulbs were forming in the wound on his torso. Patches of gray fuzz were all over his chest and running down his abdomen and up his neck.
The medic put on a glove and applied a white salve from a metal tin nearby. The bulbs in the wound pulsed rapidly as the cream went on, but the red splotches began to lighten almost instantly. Gannon looked up at Cooper, from where she leaned over O'Connor. “I've let him go without attention too long. I want to stick by him more closely until we get to the ship. Hopefully I can get this fungus under control and heading back the other way.”
“Alright,” Cooper said. “Are you saying you want to be the one to haul him to the ship?”
“Yes,” replied Gannon. “I can handle the trip as long as we're covered.”
“Alright,” Cooper said.
“I think I should haul McElheny, then,” Graham broke in. “That will leave the best shooters to cover us if any more monsters appear.”
“Let's get O'Connor stowed,” Cooper said.
Cooper took hold of O'Connor under the arms and Graham wrapped an arm around each leg. Together, they transferred the big man to the stretcher part of Graham's cart. They strapped him on with cargo webbing and gun straps.
Gannon looked it over and when she was satisfied the patient was secure, she tested how the rig handled. She had a look of concentration on her face as she picked up the handles and rolled it. Leaning was enough get it moving. Suddenly, she smiled. “A rickshaw! That's what it reminds me of. I remember seeing an old encyclopedia with a picture of one. I was having the hardest time remembering the name and I finally picked the word out.”
Cooper said, “Great. The improv' rickshaw works like a dream. Let's get Mitchell and get out of here. We can meet up with Donovan and McElheny on the way out.”
They returned to get the other cart. Gannon set to work on O'Connor while Cooper and Graham went upstairs with it to get Mitchell. When they reached the upper mezzanine, Graham said, “Sir. I can feel the walkway shaking under my feet. It's like the building's humming.” He set the handles of the cart down and punched some buttons on his hand-held.
The display changed to a radiant energy reading, the wave function being generated was a fluctuating rhythm of tall high frequency spikes. They would stretch apart, then crunch together as they rose to fill the screen top to bottom and across it's width.
“Sergeant Cooper,” Graham continued, “It matches the oscillation of our distress beacons, but it's cranked up so high I can't pull any data from it. It just overloads the sensors in the handheld. It's infrasound, not radio or a photon pulse. Whatever is making this noise, it's gotta be enormous.”
Cooper looked back over his shoulder and snapped, “All the more reason to get this done. Let's go, Techician.”
Graham bent down to grab the handles of the rig and jogged along behind Cooper to McElheny's room. The patient was babbling incoherently until Cooper reached under his armpits. His voice was distant as he asked, “Are we going on an adventure?”
“You bet, buddy,” Graham said. He reached down to grab McElheny's legs. The injured soldier counted down. “Three, two, one. Blastoff,” McElheny said.
Graham chuckled as he and Cooper lifted McElheny. Cooper tried to fight it, so the smile that broke through was small and lopsided. They pulled up on one and heaved McElheny onto the stretcher. “Ooof,” said the dazed man. “Oh, I think I'm coming back and I don't want to. My face hurts,” He said. Cooper and Graham exchanged looks. The smile was gone. Graham began strapping McElheny to the rig.
“I'm glad to hear that,” Cooper said. “We missed you, Technician.” Cooper passed Graham the loosed end of a belt he was holding, which Graham took. He tightened it around a point where three other straps met, then cinched it down with a buckle and a couple nylon ties.
“All set, sir,” Graham said to Cooper.
Cooper brought out his radio and spoke into it. “Gannon, get prepped to move. Graham and I are coming down. Mitchell, Donovan. We're headed your way. We'll rendezvous in the hallway.”
Gannon's acknowledgment came over loud and clear. After that, a burst of static came through, but no clear response from Donovan or Mitchell. Cooper grunted after a few seconds of waiting, but only told Graham it was time to move out.
Gannon fell in behind Cooper and Graham, who made a bee line for the door to the lobby. McElheny was speaking in low tones behind Graham, so that most of what he said couldn't be heard. A few yards from the door, he spoke up.
“It's the voice. I thought it was a dream, or a hallucination from the venom. It's not. He's here.” Mitchell's words decayed to incoherency.
Graham asked, “Who's here. Do you mean Hayden?”
“Beneath us,” McElheny said. “The voice says it's all around, but I hear it like it's right below me.”
Cooper opened the doors, then popped his head through. “No sign of Donovan or Mitchell,” he said when he turned back to Gannon and Graham. He raised his radio to his face. “Donovan, do you read me? Over.” He waited a few seconds. “Mitchell, do you copy this? Over.” There was no response.
He said, “Graham, Gannon. I'll lead you to the front doors. You'll wait with O'Connor and Mitchell while I find out what happened to the others. Fast as we can down the hall. Now.” Then Cooper opened the doors, holding them wide on the other side. Graham and Gannon dragged their carts through and kept building up speed as they crossed under the mezzanine and out into the hallway. Cooper slammed the doors behind him and ran after them, his gun raised.
Seething mats of black tendrils grew to cover most of the left side of mezzanine above since the last time Graham saw it. They grew thickest around the entry to the short hallway, a writhing puddle of tar creeping out across to the railing. Thick trunks curled over the rail and down the wall like legs. It was as if the whole mass was making a single, very slow step.
Rifle shots and bursts of light came from the hallway. The sentry turrets at the top of the ancient metal stairs near that side of the mezzanine kicked on. Through the strobing flash Graham saw Donovan shove a limp Mitchell through the doorway with her left hand, then emerge. She was tracking something with the rifle in her right hand.
As Mitchell staggered forward, she brought the other hand up to steady her shot and fired twice. In seemingly the same motion, she brought a grenade out, set it and tossed it underhand. Then she grabbed Mitchell. He stiffened into a quick walk for a few steps, as if he were getting reoriented. If a few steps, they were running.
They raced the explosion and made it to the staircase near the entrance. Graham watched as they hit the top of the stairs. Then Mitchell stumbled.
Donovan ran back up three steps and helped him up. Motion caught Graham's eye and he turned to see a mass of the thick black tendrils filling the hallway. They pressed around themselves, trying to creep out. The grenade went off, illuminating something solid deep in the mass.
Flames licked through the thinner parts of the knotted tendrils, but there seemed to be no effect on the whole mass. Two massive roots, as round as a human torso, smashed through the frame of the entryway to the hall. They flopped over the rail to the lobby floor.
Smoke billowed out and knots of smaller creepers filled the new spaces as chunks of the crumbling wall gave under the pressure of the mass. More massive trunks flopped themselves over the metal banister. It began to curl over, allowing more of the squirming, knotted mass to spill over down to the first level.
“Grady...”, McElheny whispered from the stretcher behind Graham. Donovan yelled something. Graham barely heard.
He asked Cooper, “What did Donovan say?”
Cooper said, “I don't know, I couldn't hear.” He was staring up at the doorway as they jogged. “Let's move.”
Graham turned to run toward the door, with McElheny in tow. Cooper ran to Donovan, taking Mitchell's arm off her shoulder. Graham didn't stop to look back until he was at the airlock door.
“Grady…,” McElheny whispered. “Hayden says he's taken him. I could hear the whisper in my mind. Even through the gunfire. ”
Graham looked back, to see Gannon right behind him. Not far behind Gannon, Donovan covered Cooper and Mitchell's progress as the injured man limped along. Another wave of tendrils poured over the edge from the second level. This time, something was being carried with the creepers.
“It's Grady,” Donovan yelled. “The roots took his body over!”
“My God,” Graham said, as the mass pushed Grady's corpse through the door.
It seemed oddly flat, it was too much like an empty sack to be a real body. The mass wove itself all through Grady. It stitched itself into his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. It grew in fibrous cords through his fingertips and down his arms. It wound around his thighs and down his legs and ran in stranded cords into his boots.
As the corpse was conveyed toward them, the mass tucked itself in. The body's shape began to fill out. The shape became tighter, the skin took on dimension, even some color. It moved Grady's arms, the loose fray of the mass twisting and becoming the muscle. Now it approached, even more like Grady was, floating upright along the mat of vines.
Graham tried the door. It didn't open. He swore and Cooper rushed over. Graham looked back at the mass.
Grady stared at them, his eyes were glossy black. When he reached the end of the mass, runners burst out from the bottom of his boots. It looked as if he crossed the gap between them carried on a cloud of black lightning.
Cooper couldn't get the door open either. He yelled, “Graham, get us around this thing!”
“Sir,” Graham replied. He switched Cooper spots, then raised his handheld and began to work on the lock. From over his shoulder, he heard Cooper say, “Donovan, let's go. We're gonna hold him off while Graham opens the door. Plasma with a phosphorous finale.”
“Got it,” Donovan said, then switched her gun and grenades. “P&P, ready.”
They moved away and in a few moments, Graham heard gunshots. He fiddled with the controls as Cooper shouted orders. Gannon came to check on McElehney as Graham worked. He had the control panel bypassed within twenty seconds. The doors slid open and Graham stood up.
He turned around to see how Cooper and Donovan were doing. Donovan was held up by thick vines circling her abdomen. They flexed and constricted, attempting to snap her spine. Mitchell lifted his rifle and took careful aim. Then he limped forward a few steps and started to fire at the creepers. Cooper focused on the other side.
Graham said, ”Let's go, Gannon. Get ready to start shooting if we need to. Plasma and phosphorous.”
Gannon nodded and they took their rickshaws into the airlock. They made sure that the injured men were tucked away just inside the doors. Then, Graham stepped out, rifle raised.
Grady let go of Donovan. Now he was trying to hit her with whips from his fingers while shielding himself from Mitchell's attack. This left Grady open for Donovan's shots, or Cooper's, whichever he was not defending from. Cooper yelled for them to hit the grenades. Each tossed one at Grady, then ran for the door.
They were only a few feet from the door when the grenades went off. Flashes of white fire made their shapes black in Graham's vision as the soldiers ran into the airlock. They all turned and concentrated their fire.
“Grenades,” Cooper yelled. This time all five soldiers rolled a grenade out the door. Graham hit the panel and the thick airlock door slid shut. He crossed the garage-sized room to open the outside door. As it began to slide open the grenades went off behind the other door.
In five seconds, the doors were open and the soldiers were outside. The doors slid closed once more and they breathed a collective sigh of relief. “There was just the one folks. Let's keep it going,” Cooper said. He helped the more collected Mitchell along. Gannon, Graham and the carts followed behind. Donovan guarded the rear.
The Sound
The squad headed out through the black trees, the carts rolling easily on the white alkali hard pan. The sky was dimming, the sun was a silver bowl holding the dark shadow of the moon just over the horizon. Graham said, “Another eclipse...figures.”
It wasn't long before Graham heard a noise behind them and turned. The airlock door was sliding open. He shouted a warning to Cooper.
Cooper shouted, “Copy that, Graham! Double time, team!”
Graham looked back over his shoulder again. Grady was standing out in front of the facility. He sent his creepers running across the surface and into the dirt after them. When the creepers reached the trees, they began to shake. It was like a wave coming toward them.
As it passed around them, the limbs of the trees rattled together like dry bones. The silver sunlight cast a miasma of shadows all over, that sliced and twisted everything Graham saw. Graham pressed on, looking down at his handheld to see how far the ship was. One kilometer to the northwest. Only a hundred and sixty more meters of trees, then they would be free of the forest.
Graham was starting to breath hard. He could hear the rest of the squad over the helmet radio, they were all doing the same. The going was slow as Gannon and Graham maneuvered the carts around the trees. Donovan, Mitchell and Cooper were covering the others, scanning the trees all around. The trees continued to shake, now so violently that the ground resonated under their boots.
One of the larger trees far in the distance to the left toppled in a huge cloud of dust. Something large and round rose up to replace it. Graham looked toward it and said, “Sir, something came up from the ground. It's obscured by the dust. My eleven o'clock.”
“Copy, Graham,” came Cooper's response. “We've got a few more problems at our six.”
Graham kept his eye on the thing in the distance. It dipped out of sight for a moment, but Graham thought he could see something moving. It was long and low, going quickly through the dust. Graham asked, “What kind of problems, sir?”
There was no response other than rifle shots. First one began firing a short burst, then two others joined in. Graham picked up his rifle and turned around. He was face to face with Cooper. The Sargent was red faced as he yelled, “Don't stop running! Get to the ship!”
Donovan and Mitchell were firing at three of the scorpion creatures, each the size of a small cargo van. The crust of ground was caved in ten feet behind the creatures. Farther off and to the right, Grady rode the mass of creepers slowly toward them.
Graham dropped the rifle, which dangled from the strap around his chest. He picked up the handles of the cart and started to run again. He looked to check on Gannon, who was running toward the fallen tree. Graham saw motion near the ground ahead of her.
“Gannon,” Graham yelled over the radio, “Turn right! There's a large hole ahead and I think something crawled out! Veer right.
She turned and dodged the hole. The cart behind her bounced and nearly toppled, but she leaned over the opposite way and kept pulling. It jarred down and O'Connor began to squirm. “Looks like O'Connor is moving around,” Graham said over the radio.
Gannon said, “Yes. He's not in his right mind. I have more trouble than that. There's definitely something moving around out here. I'm pretty sure it knows I'm here. Requesting assistance! Ah!”
The shadows in a cluster of black trees broke into pieces and skittered around Gannon, trying to harry her. It was getting darker very fast now and from where Graham was watching there wasn't much he could see.
Cooper said, “We've neutralized our targets. Heading to you, Gannon. Graham, keep on toward the ship.”
The three gunners came around Graham's left side and ran toward Gannon. She was defending herself as well as she could, but there were too many of the creatures. She started spraying them randomly with rifle bursts.
“Gannon! Keep it level,” Cooper said. “Back away from them, we're just a couple seconds away from you.”
O'Connor was thrashing around. It didn't look like the straps were holding him. As Graham ran by, he saw Gannon trip as she backed over a root. She managed to take three of the six that were hounding her, but she was distracted by O'Connor and tumbled into the dirt and lumpy roots. O'Connor freed himself. As he stood up a mat of fuzzy tissue sloughed off his chest and fell to the ground at his feet. This staggered him, but he reached down and grabbed one of the creatures by the tail. He raised it like a battle ax and swiped across the other two scorpions, saving Gannon.
As the swing came to an end, plasma shots sprayed him in the chest. One hit the scorpion he was holding and its body exploded. Gannon and Mitchell gasped. O'Connor fell, his chest smoldering, his hands still clutching the monster's tail. Cooper and company ran up. They finished the other two scorpions. Then, Graham could see no more. He turned his attention to the way ahead.
Full dark was nearly upon them. The last rays of twilight were creeping over the horizon. The moon still eclipsed the sun, which nearly managed to creep out from the moon's shadow before nightfall, but not quite. Graham looked around at the quivering treetops.
He said, “I think I'm seeing something moving in the trees, sarge.”
Cooper responded, “We're not too far behind you Graham, slow it down a bit if you want us to lead.”
He did, but rifle fire erupted from behind him. “Get to the ship,” Cooper yelled, “It's Grady, shit. He's caught up with us and has more of the scorpions with him. Gannon! Graham! Get out of here!”
Graham ran and the sun sank lower. Grenades and rifle shots exploded behind him. Big things moved above him, but Graham ran on.
He reached a run of flat ground and risked a quick tap on the handheld strapped to his left forearm. It displayed the vital signs of the rest of the team. Mitchell was tachycardic. Donovan and Cooper were alright, but maximally stressed. Gannon and Graham looked little better. McElheny was looking alright, even and stable.
Graham said, “Mitchell, you hanging in there?” There was no response.
The dim light still revealed the outline of the ship, way out across the empty plain. The patch of trees would thin out in a few meters. Then there were a few meters of bare ground, then the welcoming lights of the ship.
A few feet away, on his left, there was movement among the roots. On his right, Graham saw a blue glow, which quickly disappeared. A few seconds later, there was another on his left, about halfway up a tree trunk.
This one he saw more clearly than the last. It was a round blob of jelly, similar to the ones that grew from O'Connor's wound and from the walls of the hangar far below. Unlike the others, this one scurried around the tree on four pudgy legs.
Another crawled over the roots toward him. The pulsing bulb of its body jiggled as it rolled up to stand on the foremost two legs. The surface of its bulbous part split, revealing two large, black eyes and a grin of razor teeth that spread across the whole thing. It hissed and raised the back two legs. It held them up like the arms of a boxer, just before the first punch.
Graham laughed at the preposterous thing, which seemed more cute than threatening. He kicked out as he walked by, sending a chunk of goo with one of the black eyes sailing into the thicket. The rest of the creature fell over. Vital fluids ran from the hole.
In moments, more appeared. Adrenaline kicked in and Graham ran. The protospiders scuttled down the trees. They scuttled across the roots toward him as Graham ran by. Full dark fell and they began to glow. Graham looked around. Everywhere, little blue lights were running toward him. They flooded the ground between him and the rest of the squad.
When Graham was close enough the ship's proximity sensors triggered the bay doors. The ramp opened slowly, the white light from within gradually flooded the darkness. Graham looked left and behind him. There was Gannon, breathing hard, hauling the rig of gear. Graham slowed and she seemed to understand why.
Gannon ran past him and dropped the rickshaw. She fell in beside Graham in a shooting stance, then opened up on the protospiders. A swath opened up with her rapid plasma shots. Graham fired right along with her.
The spiders came faster, piling up on each other. Gannon took out a grenade and cried, “Napalm!”
Graham stopped firing. She tossed it and a second later flaming fuel blew out in a six foot radius across the spiders. More caught fire as they crawled across the already flaming heaps, but the fire seemed to stall them.
Graham said, “You lovely woman!. Now's our time!” Tired as he was he sprinted toward the ship, trailing the cart behind him.
He closed the distance to the ship before the ramp was all the way down. The door was open enough that the small turrets just inside the entryway started tracking the baby scorpions. Short bursts cracked out whenever one came too close.
Graham had time to put down the cart and raise his rifle before Gannon arrived. When she did, they fired at the approaching monsters. Together with the ships automated defenses, they held the spiders at bay until Cooper and Donovan could get there.
Graham glanced down at his handheld. Cooper was down now, but not dead.
“Gannon,” Graham said, “Cooper and Mitchell are down. Donovan's still fighting, but she'll stay with them until she goes down, too. Grady was there. I think we should go get them with the ship.”
Gannon nodded, but kept firing as she moved toward McElheny. “Cover me,” she said. Then she dropped her rifle, letting it hang. She picked up the handles of the cart to drag it into the ship as Graham covered her.
The creatures were coming faster than the turrets and Graham's rifle could keep up with. He backed into the ship and hit the controls. The ramp began to raise. Graham fired the rifle until the hole was just small enough, then dropped a pair of grenades. As the door closed, Graham could hear the explosions. He ran to the pilot deck and told Gannon, “Strap in, we're up and out.” He punched some buttons. Out the window, the ground fell away as the ship rose into the dark.
The ship skimmed over the treetops to the rest of the crew's position. Donovan and Cooper were still shooting as they moved toward the ship. Five scorpions the size of heavy tanks stomped toward them. Each of the giants was covered in a pile of glowing blue young. Graham could see that the blue swarm was retreating from where the ship took off and headed toward the survivors.
“I have to do something,” Graham said.
He ran back to the controls and armed the weapons. Graham turned on the turrets mounted under the front of the craft. They fired at the smaller critters automatically. With the small guns set, Graham switched the fire controls to the main plasma cannons.
He hit a couple of the largest scorpions, but the young crawled away from the smoldering bodies of the larger ones. The display showed video feed of the jelly-like things coming together in masses among the flood. They piled on top of each other, balling up like fists. Five of them drew up yards apart and began to roll over the swarm on ground.
Graham couldn't target them, he would have to fly lower or reverse to get a decent angle. He thumbed his radio and said, “Donovan, I can't get a good shot at the masses coming your way. I'm going to lower the ramp and we'll drop a cargo net. Gannon, send down the net.”
Graham heard the steps as Gannon ran to the control panel. The boom started to extend. “The net's bunched up”, she said a few moments later. Meanwhile, Graham flipped through the screens of the ships computer. “Oh, wait. There it goes,” Gannon said over the radio, “I'm starting to lower it.”
The screen filled with a camera's view of the cargo net lowering. Graham cried, “Hurry up! Stupid machine!”
Donovan hunched over, struggling to drag Cooper within distance. He covered her, though his legs were a mess, and kept the spiders off them until Donovan dragged him over. Shots came from somewhere off camera. They tagged a few that Cooper wasn't able to get, suggesting that Mitchell was still capable of firing his rifle.
Donovan started firing an instant after she stopped dragging Cooper. Her voice came over the com line, “I gotta go back for Mitchell!”
She ran quickly off camera. “Don't do it, Donovan. Just get on the ship,” Graham yelled.
“I have a plan,” Donovan replied.
The control panel showed that the net was all the way down. Graham watched Cooper crawl into the cargo net, still firing. Most of the rounds missed, but he got a few more spiders. As he got himself settled, Donovan came back on screen, dragging Mitchell. He fired away as Donovan hauled him along under cover fire from Cooper and the automatic turrets.
“Bring up the net,” Cooper shouted. Donovan rolled Mitchell onto the net. Then she began to fire with one hand as she grabbed hold of the net with the other. Cooper braced himself as the tension on the net started to shift everything to the center, threatening to mash the soldiers against each other.
All three fired as the wave of blue spiders reached them. Two of the rolling masses of protospiders swelled up high, trying to reach the ascending soldiers. With a grimace of pain, Cooper reached for his grenades. He armed them, then dropped them.
Graham tapped the thrusters, propelling the ship straight upward. Two blossoms of fire erupted below the net. Mitchell and Donovan began dropping the last of their grenades as well.
The net rose, the ship rose and fire erupted in smaller bursts as they put more distance between themselves and the ground. However, the trees stayed with them. “The trees are following us,” Cooper yelled. Mitchell and Donovan started firing at the branches, but they started grasping at the net and soon worked their way trough the mesh.
Donovan and Cooper pulled out their knives to cut the tendrils, trying to free the net. The engines whined under the strain and the winch attached to the net started to heat up, according to the readout.
“Gannon,” Graham called back to the cargo bay, “what are you seeing back there?”
The smoke cleared and the field below was visible through the camera once more. There was Grady, held up by the mass of alien vegetation. His arms were raised, as if he commanded the reaching trees. “I have a visual on Grady,” Graham exclaimed.
Cooper's voice came across, panting. “Can you target him? Blast him with everything we've got. We aren't going anywhere with the net wrapped up like it is. Give the engines a rest Graham.”
Gannon said, “I'm worried about the winch. The machinery is humming pretty bad back here. Also, the gear on McElheny's cart looks to be contaminated. I'm seeing a lot of gray fuzz spreading overeverything.”
“Great! We never should have come to this rock,” Graham shouted over the radio. The stress made his voice come out high and nasal.
He set the controls to auto and went back to the cargo bay. There, he found Gannon, running back and forth from the overheating winch to the medical bay. Graham looked in the observation window to see McElheny babbling soundlessly and thrashing against his restraints.
“Take care of Mack! I'll deal with the net,” Graham said.
He walked to the crates of gear, and began tossing them aside until he found one labeled “C.R.” He opened the case and found a winch. Graham put it on the floor, then went to a sentry turret case. He pulled out the sturdy tripod. Graham went back to the C.R. crate and pulled out a rivet gun.
With three quick blasts from the gun, he bolted the legs of the tripod to the deck. After the tripod was secure, he attached the winch to it with a couple more rivets. Graham grabbed the locking hook attached to the winch cable and slapped it around the cable running through the boom. When he flipped his improvised rig on, the other winch began to wind more easily. The net's cable slipped slowly through the hook of the other as the other winch pulled on the cable from the side.
Gannon screamed and Graham looked up. McElheny had her by the throat, a syringe dangled limply from his neck. Graham grabbed a rifle from the rack on the wall and ran to help her. He glanced at the cart which was swiftly being covered by a mat of gray mycelium.
When Graham rounded the corner into the medical bay, McElheny was talking, “...Wants us! Wants bring us along. Upward. Must keep the pieces together. He wants it all, wants us back! He's calling me to join him and my bones want it! My body is already his and he is clawing at my mind. I don't want to resist anymore. Oh, it hurts!”
Gannon choked out his name, “..cElheny… Let… me… heck... help! Trying… to… to save you!” Her face was turning red and looking swollen by the blood pressure. Graham saw the syringe in McElheny's neck. He moved for it and got his fingers around it before McElheny noticed.
McElheny dropped Gannon, who gasped and swallowed the air, her face quickly returning to normal color. Graham squeezed the plunger before McElheny flung him away. He slammed into a cabinet, rattling its contents.
“Graham!” It was Cooper on the radio. McElheny picked Graham up by his shoulders, then shook him like a wet winter coat. Cooper continued, “Graham, we're free! On our way up, nice work.”
Graham wriggled around and got his rifle between him and McElheny. Using it like a crowbar, he tried to lever the butt of the gun so that the barrel pointed straight into McElheny's chest, but the man was too strong. Gannon struggled to her feet in the corner of his vision as he tried to wrestle McElheny away.
She went to a drawer nearby and started opening packages. Graham shoved hard and finally got McElheny's hand off him. It was enough of a chance for him to level the gun at McElheny and take a shot.
Gannon came up behind McElheny and raised her fists. Each one clutched a handful of syringes. She slammed them into the man's meaty shoulders, near the neck and slapped at them to depress the plungers.
McElheny spun around on her and roared an inhuman sound. He swung his arm across his body and slapped her head backhand. She went down in a heap. Her attacker stepped toward her, but Graham turned his rifle on McElheny and fired three shots.
Chunks of the man's abdomen fell away. They lay smoldering on the deck, amalgamate mats of human tissue and alien fungus. When McElheny turned toward him, Graham could see the bulbs of blue-gray pulsing in the man's body cavity in place of the organs that once were there. They swelled to fill the empty space as McElheny shambled toward him.
Graham backed out of the medical bay to the cargo hold. The top of the net was clearing the bay door, but the second winch was now causing the cable running through the boom arm to bind up. Donovan was reaching up through the top of the net, trying to detach the second hook. Graham ran over and turned it off.
“Behind you,” Donovan shouted. The net was still a few feet out. The boom was retracting. There was nothing the squad could do but wait the eternal moments it took to get them into the cargo hold.
McElheny picked Graham up in a bear hug, then walked toward the heap of fungus covered gear that once was his stretcher. McElheny tossed a couple of crates aside and wrecked the cart to get to the server from the ancient base.
With the server under one arm and Graham clamped under the other, McElheny stomped to the bay door. The survivors from the surface were finally in the cargo bay. Donovan worked to get the net open as Cooper fired a couple of rifle rounds into the approaching McElheny. The man never slowed.
Donovan made it out of the net and to the controls. She hit the button to close the ramp. Gannon dove for her rifle, then fired at McElheny's back. He dropped Graham to the ground, shoved the server into Graham's arms, then kicked Graham over the edge.
Graham screamed as he watched the ship fall away. In a few seconds, he crashed into the fat limbs of a waiting tree. The wind was knocked out of him. The grasping branches wrapped around him. The treetops all around began to withdraw. Graham watched as shots flew out of the cargo bay until the door was closed. A moment later, without a word over the radio, the ship began to turn. The main engines kicked on. In moments, the ship was headed out of the atmosphere with a bubble of glowing gases spread across the hull.
The One You Serve
The branches wrapped tighter, holding the server tighter to Graham as they drew him down to the surface. The fuzzy server began to squirm against his chest. “Great! They left without me!” Graham shouted over his radio, ”You bastards! You goddamn bastards!” The radio was dead.
Eventually, when Graham was just five feet over the alkali dust, the tension in his bonds subsided. The server was lifted away. The limbs set him down, standing on the surface of Phobos. Graham turned around, rapidly looking every direction. He saw Grady in the distance, but the scorpion creatures were gone. Creepers preceded Grady's approach, scrabbling through the dust to draw him along.
Grady was smiling as he made his slow approach. A human shape came from around a near tree, yards closer than Grady. It came closer and Graham could see it was what was left of O'Connor, animated by the creepers just like Grady was.
Graham ran. He took off in the most opposite direction to both men that he could find. He made it past a few trees, but the ground began to shake. Everything vibrated with a sound like laughter, as if Phobos itself were laughing.
Graham ran too near a looming tree. It leaned a large branch over as Graham turned his head to look behind him. His head stopped, but his feet kept going. Suddenly, he was on the ground. Chunks of earth around him fell away. Leaving black holes. Soon, blue globs scuttled out of them on their jelly legs to cover him. Then there was only blackness and silence.
It was that way for a long time before Graham could see again. His eyes opened and he was stuck to the side of a large chamber. Both his hands and his legs were held to the wall by black roots. Everywhere he looked, they were there, covering every inch of the large room. It dawned on him that he was in the hangar where they lost Grady.
A familiar voice spoke through his helmet. “Ah, you're awake. Good.”
Realization struck him and Graham said, “Hayden? Where did you come from?”
It replied, “I never left. Nor am I Hayden. Maybe once upon a time.”
Graham asked, “If you aren't Hayden, who are you? Are you Grady. Or O'Connor?”
“They are here as well, but I am more than him. Or them. Or it…,” the voice giggled. Then it was silent.
“You were here watching us the whole time? Why didn't you stop us before we came in?”
“Later,” The voice said. “I like your mind. You're curious and sharp. I find kinship in you. More than with the others. I felt it in the way you searched out the information you were looking for. Just so. I'm intrigued and... well, I want to show you something.”
There was more laughter. When the voice was finished, the room was ripped apart by deafening explosions. A line of them stretched across the length of the floor. The massive wall across the room from him fell away in pieces and blackness showed between them as they slowly drifted apart. In the blackness, there were little silver points of varying sizes.
“Stars…,” Graham said. He gasped as realization dawned on him. “You blew up Phobos….”
The voice laughed again as the chunks of the decimated room floated away. The tendrils holding him gripped tighter. He shouted against the pain as they broke through his uniform. When they contacted his skin, images replaced what he was seeing. Somehow, they were being projected straight into his brain.
Graham saw the doctor. He was in the lab where Graham found the server, leaning over one of the pulsing jelly blobs. It was wired to a bank of machinery. Nearby on the cluttered table were jars containing small scorpion creatures, specimens of fungus and a few of the baby blue protospiders.
Half a dozen displays scrolled varieties of information about the subject. Hayden sliced off a piece of the blob and held it between his thumb and forefinger. He turned it, admiring the blue glint in the light. “Here we go,” he said. Then he popped it in his mouth and began to chew. He swallowed and immediately took up a glass of water. He downed half of it. “Gah! Blech,” he said after he drank.
Graham saw the stars again and said, “So, you came to this willingly?”
“Mmm, yes. It was terrible the first time, but it showed me things. After the third time, it began to communicate with me. Much as I'm communicating with you now. Be quiet, I have something else to show you.“
The vision of space was replaced with the inside of the ship, looking at the rear bay door. Holes and scorch marks peppered its surface. Cooper and Mitchell lay inside the cargo net to the right. Neither was moving. The scene turned to the right, to reveal Donovan laying on the floor near the tripod. McElheny walked past the medical bay, where Gannon lay unconscious. He walked up the stairs to the flight deck.
He looked out the window and saw Phobos in its changed shape. It was getting smaller quickly, but the bulk of it was gone. It was clear that the alkali surface and the trees were only camouflage. The true substance was twisting, black and crawling with spiders.
A massive blue gray bulb pulsed where it sat at the top of the mass. Beneath it was a spinning toroid with four spokes that connected it to the helix body of the station. At the bottom of the station was another toroid, rotating the opposite direction. Runners of fuzzy flesh covered the whole thing, obscuring the details of it.
The view left McElheny. It was as if a disembodied thing transferred itself through the window of the ship and out into the vacuum. It began to race across the emptiness, the stars blurring in the distance as whatever was seeing them raced toward Phobos.
It came on faster until it neared the spinning torus at the top of the station. As it neared, the vision filled with the black mass of the creepers. As the torus turned, Graham appeared. A small man-shaped thing was stuck in the mass. The disembodied eyes he was seeing through came closer, straight for Graham's helmet. Then the vision returned to Graham's eyes.
Graham retched, but his breathing steadied as his sight returned. “You killed them all.”
Hayden replied, as if speaking to a child, “No, they are with us as well. Soon all will be one. It's the nature of the thing. As I've come to understand it. It's where we came from, Graham. It wants us all back, to gain what it can from what we've learned, since we separated from it.”
Graham said, “So you didn't create this thing? This artificial intelligence.”
“Oh, no,” Hayden chuckled. “No, I learned in short order that the dreams of creating a greater intelligence are beyond the reach of the Gaians. In fact, the pursuit itself is something of a misunderstanding. You see, we never create intelligence. We only borrow it from something else. It's all one thing, you see. It's the same already. I was forced to ask myself what to do after I realized that. I decided it was still important to bridge the gap.”
“So, you ate it?”
“In simple terms, yes. To be more accurate, I joined it. I came to it of my own will and it shared many things with me,” Hayden's voice said.
“You've got some pretty interesting tricks up your sleeve, but I don't see how it's better,” Graham said. He began to struggle against the creepers holding him.
“You'll see better from the inside,” replied Hayden.
Graham said, “I think you should leave this all behind. Have Mitchell bring the ship back and let's get out of here. I'm sure the Commonwealth would love to see what you've discovered.”
Hayden's tone was adamant, “No. They are the past. It's time for something new. Don't you see I'm talking about life not bound by distance in space? Not separate across even lightyears.”
“Doctor, you've gone mad.”
“I'm losing my patience with you, Graham. I'm a little disappointed. I think it's time you fully understood.” With that, the communication ceased.
Graham began to scream in pain. He looked right and left, to see that the roots were driving into his skin beneath the uniform. His vision went gray at the edges and the screams stopped.
Then there was blackness as the feed ended.
Major Loren stopped the playback and looked at Murphy. He folded his hands, not revealing how disturbed he was by the recording.
He asked, “Do we know where the ship is?”
“No sir,” replied Loren. “They didn't report in to the nearest base.”
“I suppose Mitchell's handheld was still in Graham's pocket. That means this is the only information we have on the mission.”
“Yes, I believe so, Commander Murphy.”
“We'll have to go back to Phobos, Major. Please come back in three hours. I have a meeting soon, but I will have orders for you then. I want you to lead this up.” When he finished, Murphy stood and offered his hand to the Major.
She stood up and shook it, her expression blank.
He shook her hand and said, “You did the right thing, Major. Thank you for trusting me with this.”
Their hands dropped to their sides. Murphy continued, “You're being promoted to Lt. Colonel for this assignment. I need you to go find that ship. Get the best people you know. I want dossiers for your team when you come back.”
“Yes, sir,” Loren's eyes said she was pleased, even though she gave the smart salute of a professional soldier. “Thank you, sir,” she said, then turned to leave.
Just as she was stepping out of the office, Murphy added, “No one else, Major. I mean it.” He added this last part wearing an expression that sent chills up her spine. She decided to head straight for her quarters. She said nothing at all to anyone on the way there.
Murphy watched the silent walk she made to her room on his security feed, nodded, then picked up the secure line. With the handset cradled in his shoulder, he typed furiously away on his computer. He was worried, but was never a man to let that keep him from action. Action was demanded, with as fast a response as he could muster.
###