by D C Tullis
Story, my ass. That’s literally what had just happened to me regardless of whether she believes it or not. After we’d been captured by the military personnel of who the hell knows mountain base, they’d separated us all, and brought me down through three levels into an interrogation room. The place was equipped with black mirrors running all around the room until it hit the door. Best guess would be that those “mirrors” were actually one-way windows, but I wasn’t sure. Everything else about the room screamed mental asylum, from the chalk-colored walls to the scratches in the metallic table. The room was giving me a crazy amount of anxiety.
The person they’d tasked with the job of interrogating me was an unnervingly beautiful woman who acted old enough to be my mother, but certainly didn’t look the part. Her shining raven black hair, narrow pale cheeks, and crimson lips didn’t look a day over twenty five. She introduced herself as Dr. Amelia Crowley and claimed that she was there to “help set the story straight.” Considering I didn’t really have any other options, I ended up telling her our entire story, only leaving out the bit about my psychic experience. I didn’t really think something that could get me thrown into, like, Tharkham was worth telling her about. I’m not quite sure why, but something about her prevented me from chilling out. Her eyes looked like they were analyzing every word I spoke. Not just to see if it was true, but to see if I knew too much. Maybe I was just imagining things. Then again, we all definitely did know too much.
“Tell me that bit about the mirror again?” Amelia asked as she gently tapped the edge of her cigarette into the ashtray. “You said that your friend was sucked into it. There was no ritual… or consecration?”
“No. It was the weirdest situation. We were just messing around and then all of sudden there he is with his arm halfway pulled into the fucking thing,” I replied. “Anyway, when can I get my call or see Jason?”
Amelia smiled grimly for a moment before suppressing it. “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been told… but you’re not getting any contact with the outside world for a little while. Not at least until we can verify everything about your story, and deem that you aren’t dangerous either biologically or otherwise by deception. You’ll be spending a fair bit more time here, Ellie O’Connell,” she declared.
My legs started to twitch a bit. Holy shit. They’d never asked for my name, and I wasn’t carrying any kind of I.D. on me. My phone had been dead too when they had taken it. The only option that would have made sense was that they got Jason talking, but I couldn’t really see that. If Jason didn’t want to tell you something, you’d have to beat the information out of him.
“Surprised that we know about you, Ellie O’Connell?” Amelia asked as she studied my face. “We know many things about you and Jason Whitelock and Eastmouth.”
My face was quivering as I spoke, “We?”
“Ahem. That is classified for now, but I imagine I’ll be able to reveal more information shortly. For now, we’re assigning you and Jason a room.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Wait, so what happened to Irithril and Khail?” I asked the woman.
“That I can tell you,” she announced as her smile was withdrawn into a look of purely simulated cordiality. “They were able to contact their consulate which... pulled some strings. They’ll likely be out of here quicker than you two, but we still have quite a bit to ask them.”
“Why can’t we the same treatment? We have rights!” I viciously snapped. I was struggling to contain my anger.
“Not down you here don’t. It’ll do you no good to make a fuss, so I recommend you calm yourself,” Amelia responded. “Regardless, I believe it is best you rest for the night. We can try again at this in the morning. Come this way now.”
Amelia looked into a camera at the top of the white-walled interrogation room and nodded. Moments later the door was opened and two armed soldiers wearing mottled camouflage outfits appeared on the other side. Amelia once again gave them a nod and one of them entered the room.
“Come this way ma’am. I have orders to bring you to your room,” he announced in a raspy, yet still youthful voice.
I didn’t see any particular gain in resisting men with guns so I followed them as one led our path and the other followed behind keeping a close eye on me.
✽✽✽
After a brief walk, we came upon a series of doors. Each had a plate on the wall next to it, describing the room with the floor number 3 and a letter following a dash. As far as I could tell, all of the others room were unoccupied. The room that was chosen for us was 3-C, a bland but liveable hole in the wall. It housed two bunk beds, an archaic wooden chair from a vintage thrift shop, a little oak desk, and a plain blue desk lamp which may or may not have been used in the last ten years.
“We’ll wake you two up in about eight hours. We’ll bring you rations then. Lights…,” the shorter of the two armed guards began to say before Jason cut him off.
“Can I use the restroom?” He asked.
“Seriously, now?” The guard continued.
“Yeah. I drank a lot before coming through the gate. Bladder’s a mess now. You know how it is,” Jason replied.
The guard scoffed and made a motioning sound as Jason followed him out into the hallway and vanished. I tried to ignore the other guard’s semi-flirtatious glances as I eagerly awaited for Jason’s return. After about three minutes he was back, and something seemed different. He seemed a little on edge, but in a positive way. Shit, who was I to talk about on edge anyway. I could have had a panic attack back in the interrogation room.
“Any further interruptions?” The shorter of the two guards asked.
When we did not respond, he did. “Lights out.”
And with that we were plunged into absolute darkness. The soldiers shut the door and seconds later I heard a rather loud electronic locking mechanism click into place. Luckily for us though, after the door was locked the two men left. We finally had a bit of privacy.
“Hey, Jason,” I called from the top bunk.
I was greeted with a loud, “Shush! I’m trying to hear if they’re listening in.”
After about two minutes of silence, Jason declared, “I’m coming up!”
And he did. He maneuvered up the bunk bed like a monkey and laid down next to me. He was still dirty from our voyage.
“You aren’t going to believe it,” he announced in a hushed voice.
“What?” I asked him.
“I have my phone and it still has a twenty five percent charge,” he replied.
“Wait… how?” I asked again. “They took away all of my shit. My wallet, my watch, my phone, my armor, my sense of dignity… everything.”
“Before they took me to the interrogation chamber and strip searched me…,” Jason paused and cringed visibly at the memory. “I was able to use the restroom and hide my phone in a toilet tank. Good thing it’s waterproof.”
“Ew,” I promptly replied.
“Well yeah, I guess it is kinda gross, but at least we have a phone now,” Jason said.
“You’re right, that is good, but do you even have any service down here?” I asked him.
“Yeah.. well… about that. Unfortunately we don’t, but on the bright side, at least we have something that might help us get out of here,” he responded.
“Whatever, J. I’m gonna try to grab some sleep. You’re welcome to stay up here though,” I added.
“I’d like that,” Jason said as he pulled the covers over him and huddled up closer to me for warmth.
I kind of expected it to be harder to pass out due to us being locked up in a strange military base, but after all we’d experienced on Aos - both of us were out cold in seconds.
✽✽✽
We awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of the electronic lock on our door being tampered with. After about thirty seconds the noise ceased, and we heard nothing but the air releasing from the heating ducts for another five minutes. Jason pulled out his phone. The ti
me read 2:41 a.m in gleaming white numbers across the top.
“What the hell?” he asked. “What was that noise?”
I pulled a little bit away from his warm body and thought aloud. “Maybe this is morning to them?”
“I doubt it,” he replied. “They’d just have unlocked the door and ordered us out. That didn’t sound like a keycard though. It sounded like someone was tampering with the circuitry.”
“But… like why?” I stuttered.
“That’s actually a pretty good question. I really don’t know why, but it doesn’t sound like there’s anyone out there anymore so I’m gonna take a peek,” Jason excitedly declared.
This whole, I guess ‘day’, had been weird, but I was too tired to question how strange the noises truly were.
Jason removed himself from the second story of the bunk bed and slowly shimmied his way down onto the icy cement floor. With carefully placed steps he made his way to the door of our room and wrapped his fingers around the handle. Miraculously, the door opened. Someone had unlocked it.
“Holy shit. This is our chance Ellie. Someone unlocked the door for us,” Jason exclaimed.
“Are you sure this isn’t an ambush?” I asked him. I wasn’t sure why, whatever government organization held us, would do something of the sort, but it seemed a lot more likely than some mysterious stranger letting us go. The whole scenario just felt fishy.
Jason paused to think for a moment as he weighed the odds and possibilities before speaking, “See, we don’t know entirely where we are, if these government spooks really have Earth’s best interests at heart, or even if they’ll ever intend to let us go… I know you want to go home and so do I, so let’s give it a shot.”
His words failed to completely calm me, but I knew that as long as I was with Jason I wouldn’t give up. He was right. It was worth a try.
“Fuck it, J,” I replied. “I need a warm shower, and a pair of checkered sweatpants. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
With that, his face burst into a devious smile and he put his finger to his lips. He opened the door and we stepped out into the nearly completely dark metallic hallways. Dripping pipes and red lighting ran through every crevice of the mountain base. It was quite eerie to be up at night.
On his first step out of the room, Jason nearly tripped. He stumbled for a moment, threw his arms wildly in the air in an effort to steady himself, and then caught his balance.
“What the hell?” He asked as he peered down.
“Salutations, humans,” announced an artificial voice coming from the area by Jason’s feet.
We both jumped back on queue and nearly collided with each other. What had been blocking our path, and was concealed in the darkness of the barely lighted corridor, was IMRA. I’d honestly completely forgotten about her, but here she was. I guess Jason had never removed her from his bag. She looked a little different now. Well, only one part really. She’d somehow found a radio speaker and was utilizing it with the help of several circuits now jutting out from underneath her.
“IMRA? Wha… how… I’m so confused right now. How did you find us and unlock the door?” Jason asked the metallic cube.
“Allow me to demonstrate something,” IMRA said before sprouting four legs made entirely of unearthly wiring. “I possess several abilities you humans are unaware of. The legs you now see being the first. Yet, there is more that I can do. I am able to directly communicate with nearly any system of electronics - ancient or modern. From there, I merely overload any security it has built in and begin a hostile takeover. I can utilize any number of backdoors, trojans, rootkits, etc... or merely brute force over time.”
“Okay... so... for one, why the fuck did you not tell us this? And also, you still didn’t answer Jason’s question, IMRA,” I chimed in.
“Ah, yes, well… the situation never really called for it, I suppose. As to answer your other question, well… I was locked away in some closet. That was where they placed the equipment you and the others were transporting. I was uncertain of what they would do with me in their possession, so I began to scan the room for an escape. It was littered with unusable junk, yet I was lucky enough to find a radio. I merely… absorbed its uses into my own and began my hunt for you two. There was a surveillance room at the end of my hallway, and with a little bit of force I was able to locate you two on the displays. Not to worry though, the human who had been observing you will be unconscious for several hours,” IMRA spoke.
“Cameras? That almost completely slipped my mind. Damn, without IMRA here they probably would have found my phone,” Jason said.
“Are you implying that you are grateful for my action, human?” IMRA asked Jason.
“Yes… absolutely,” Jason replied.
“Your gratitude has been accepted, human. However, I recommend that we vacate from this location as quickly as possible,” IMRA suggested.
“That sounds like a very good idea, guys,” I added. “C’mon.”
After a little bit of additional debate with IMRA, Jason fit the cube and its speaker into his pants right side pocket. It was a tight fit, but eventually the cube went in. We then left our room and began to creep our way to the end of the hall. There, etched in bright red markings by the stairwell, was the fire escape plan.
Jason traced over it with his right index finger before he turned back to me and announced his plan, “Okay so if we take these stairs up three levels we’ll end up on the ground floor. From there we have to avoid any potential guards and make our way into this… loading bay. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to hitch a ride on a truck and get the hell out of here! It’ll be just like something out of Metal Gear Solid!”
“You’re such a nerd,” I whispered in a hushed, yet playful tone.
“Oh, come on… you’re the last person who can tease me like that,” he replied.
I stuck out my tongue at him.
I intended to continue my display of childish behavior before IMRA cut me off, “Two lifeforms incoming.”
“Shit,” I declared. I didn’t know if the people coming were aware of our imprisonment, but I did know that if they found two teenagers wandering the halls at this time of night then we would be in deep shit anyway.
I frantically pushed Jason down the hall about five feet and leapt behind a corner as two middle aged patrol men emerged from the stairwell. They seemed wrapped up in a heated discussion of whether another soldier had actually “gotten lucky” at the bar they had visited the weekend prior. It didn’t seem right to interrupt their conversation, so we sunk into the deepest possible shadow, around the corner, that we could find and hid within it. They walked right past us, completely oblivious to the fact that there were two escaped “travellers”, as Amelia had put it, only a handful of feet away from them. The flickering fluorescent lights often appeared to produce eerie shadows on the walls so even if they did see us within their peripheral vision, they likely thought nothing of it.
Once they had continued down the hallway far enough that we had lost sight of them, we entered through the stairwell and began our trek up through the levels. Each was definitely larger than the floors of your average apartment building. This made each floor that was left behind seem like a small trek on its own, especially as we had to be extra careful to hide if another patrol came up or went down the stairs. We were lucky enough to not encounter any as we made our way to the first floor, but my nerves were in a tangled mess when we finally got there. If I hadn’t just escaped several Eldritch ambushes and a nest of giant alien spiders then this would have definitely been the most on edge I’d ever been.
As we finally closed the stairwell door behind us and drowned within the abundance of light, I glanced over to Jason’s face and saw something truly strange. He didn’t look even the slightest bit scared. Every crease and line that made up his youthful face totally brimmed with confidence. Maybe he was trying to keep me from feeling scared, or maybe after our trip through the mirror he’d aged a hefty number of years. Who know
s, maybe I had too… what a trippy thought.
The ground level hallways appeared far more hospitable yet dangerous for us than the metal tunnels that lay below. The white hall lights illuminated many of the areas that looked as if they could make an okay hiding spot. They shined on the eggshell white walls almost as brightly as daylight. Navigating through here would be a pain in the ass.
We gradually crept through the path of hallways whenever an employee in a lab coat or a guard wearing a military uniform left our line of sight. We snuck into open rooms, hid beneath ragged seating areas, and little stretches of the large pipes that ran along the walls. It was almost like watching two cartoon mice sneak through a labyrinth while dodging mouse traps, hungry cats, and electric shocks at every turn. Except, those mice always ended up coming out okay. I wasn’t so sure that we would.
After about fifteen minutes of ducking, dodging, and diving, we found our way to our destination. It was a large metallic doorway painted over in a shade of ugly gray paint. The words “Loading Bay” were printed in bold white lettering.
“Dude, we actually fucking made it,” I called barely spitting out my words straight.
“Yeah. Okay, come on! We’ve gotta find our escape ticket. Before they notice that two of their residents aren’t in their quarters,” Jason replied.
Beyond the doorway sat a massive unnaturally carved space that proved we were truly in a mountain. The walls were entirely made of rock that had once existed as the core of the mountain’s insides. Now, it had been cut out to store a countless number of containers and trucks ready to transport a numerous array of items. Shelves ran up and down the walls, all packed to the brim with crates, and six trucks sat patiently waiting for their release into the open air. It was entirely devoid of life save for a few truck drivers drinking coffee around a large table in the center of the room, a few men in hardhats lifting crates into trucks, and two particularly brutish looking guards standing in front of the exit gate.
We moved to a row of crates stacked three levels high and began to plan our escape even further.
