The Deep Beneath

by Natalie Wright

  “Please, Mr. Sewell, allow us the opportunity to say goodbye in privacy,” said Tex.

  “No can do, 9.”

  “Please.” Tex coughed and his voice was hoarse and barely more than a whisper. “These are the only friends I have ever had. Ever will have. Grant me this one dignity. You, the guards and Alecto will be just outside the door.” Tex forced his head up so that he could look Sewell in the eye. “Please.”

  Sewell shifted nervously. A bead of sweat rolled from his temple down his cheek.

  “Please, Mr. Sewell,” Erika said. She let go of Jack’s hand and reached for Sewell’s. “Give him – and us – the opportunity for the proper goodbye that Commander Sturgis wants us to have.”

  Sewell turned to Erika and searched her face. His eyes darted back and forth from Erika to Tex and then to the guards. Finally he said, “Oh, all right. But five minutes, no more. I’ll probably have hell to pay for this. We’ll be right outside with Alecto, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ian said.

  Sewell dropped Erika’s hand, motioned to the guards, and they left the pool room. As soon as the doors were closed, Tex said, “So you were able to tell them, Jack?”

  “Tell who what?” asked Ian.

  “He doesn’t know yet,” Jack said.

  “Know what? What the hell’s going on?” Ian’s brows were drawn together, his mouth pulled tight with anger and impatience.

  “You may want to sit down for this,” said Erika.

  Ian did not sit.

  “We’re not going home, Ian,” Erika said. Her voice trembled. “She’s going to have us killed.”

  “What? No, she had us sign the agreement. We’re going home, like she said.” Ian’s voice was raised close to an octave and echoed loudly in the nearly empty, cavernous room.

  “Shh, keep your voice down,” Jack said.

  “Why would you tell me this? Was it you?” Ian pointed to Tex. “You’re getting Erika all worried for nothing.”

  “It is true, Ian. I wish it were not,” Tex said.

  “You can’t trust him. He kidnapped us. Got us into all this trouble. And he’s lying to you.”

  Erika grabbed for Ian’s hand, but he pulled it away from her. His eyes were filled with water. “I’m going home, dammit. I’m going home.” Ian walked toward the door.

  “Ian, stop. We’ve only got a few minutes and we have to talk to Tex and try to make a plan. I need you to cowboy up for a minute and stop freaking out. You’ll have time for that later,” said Erika.

  Ian stopped walking away from them, but he did not return to their side either. “This is a government facility. Sturgis is military. Look, Jack, I know you believe in conspiracy crap, but I don’t. My dad was military. They don’t just go around killing innocent teenagers. You guys are letting your imaginations run away with you.”

  “Imaginations? Ian, what the hell do you call all this?” Jack gestured with his arms outward and then pointed them toward Tex. “Are we in a delusion right now?”

  Ian did not answer.

  “I understand your fear, Ian,” Tex said. “And I know that you blame me. As you should. I regret my decision to force the three of you to take me to Sedona. If I could undo it, I would. But there may still be hope for all of us. The greys –”

  “Have they contacted you again?” asked Jack.

  Tex shook his head slowly. It took great effort. “I have tried – to contact –” he rasped.

  “What’s this all about?” Ian asked.

  “When I was at the doc’s office getting the bullet out, Tex and I were able to speak. For a few minutes, anyway. And he told me that he read Sturgis’ mind on the trip back here. That’s how he knew what her true plans are for us. And he also had another communication from the greys. They intend to rescue him. Here. Isn’t that right?” asked Jack.

  Tex nodded.

  “So Tex asked me to tell you guys, but I couldn’t until now. And he said that if the greys come for him, that he’ll try to get them to take us with them. That is, if we’re still alive.”

  Ian walked toward them and laughed. “Us, go with aliens?” He laughed more.

  “Do you think they will be willing to take us too?” asked Erika.

  “Erika! Listen to yourself. How can you consider such a thing? They want to start a war with us, remember? I don’t think they’re going to roll out the red carpet and say, ‘We come in peace’,” said Ian.

  “You’re assuming that Commander Sturgis is a relatively sane person, not a nut-burger. She’s a paranoid loon,” said Erika.

  “That UFO crashed in what, like ’47? If the greys haven’t started something by now, they’re not going to,” said Jack.

  “Yeah, it was all probably Cold War paranoid ‘red scare’ bullshit that started this whole thing. She’s lying about a war just to fuel her creepy empire down here, and she’s lying about sending us home too. Why would you believe her?” asked Erika.

  “Why would you believe him?” Ian said. He pointed to Tex.

  Erika’s voice settled back to its normal level. “I don’t know. I just do. I guess if I have to pick sides, I’ll side with Tex and grey aliens I’ve never met than with psycho bitch and the government that would put her in charge of anything. And if I’m going to die, maybe I’d rather die in space than in this freakin’ cave.”

  Ian stood with his arms crossed across his chest. His face was red with anger and his jaw set in defiance.

  “It may be a moot argument,” Tex said. “I cannot communicate further with the greys. They may be unable to find me let alone rescue us.”

  “Maybe they can sense you somehow, like pick up on your brainwaves or something, even if you can’t talk to them,” Erika said.

  Her words brought a feeling of hope and relief over Tex. He looked up at her through his blanket and forced his mouth to smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Your words encourage me.” He reached his hand up through the blanket and hoped that she would take it and not recoil from him. Erika did not recoil.

  Her hand was about the same size as his though not quite so thin. Erika’s skin was soft and dry. As he held her hand in his, he could feel her pulse quicken in her veins. Tex looked up into Erika’s eyes. Her pupils were dilated. Her normally brown eyes looked nearly black, though not quite so dark as his.

  You do not fear me, Erika Holt. In fact, you may well be as curious about me as I am about you.

  Jack shifted on his feet. Erika withdrew her hand from Tex’s.

  “I don’t agree with you on this,” said Ian.

  “Well, it may not matter what we think,” said Jack.

  “Why is that?” asked Erika.

  “Because we’re assuming that the greys really are coming for Tex and that they’ll be able to find him and that they’d be willing to take us too. A lot of ifs.”

  “And you’re assuming that Commander Sturgis plans to kill us,” said Ian.

  They had argued themselves into an impasse.

  “Our time runs short, so I will make this suggestion. If you see an opportunity to escape this place, take it. You have known Commander Sturgis for a very short time, Ian. But I have known her the whole of my life. You may feel that you can trust her, but I know that you cannot. No one can. I suggest that you do not leave your fate up to her if you have a choice in the matter.”

  Ian did not respond, but his face was less pinched than it was before. It seemed to Tex that perhaps Ian would consider what he had said.

  Erika knelt once more in front of Tex. She reached her hand to his and touched it through his blanket.

  “This may well be goodbye, Tex. If we do make it out of here, I’ll want to forget any of this happened to me. To go on with life as usual. But I know I won’t be able to. I’ll never forget you.”

  Tex looked into Erika’s eyes and there was a sparkle of light in her left eye. A tear. It did not fall, and Tex was glad of it. The single drop of water glistened at the corner of her eye, reflecting back to him an image of himself w
ith an image of Erika in his own eye. It was as if he had a camera that had taken a picture of the scene, of the two of them together. And he forced his mind to remember the image, as it may be the last he would ever have of him and Erika together.

  “I shall never forget you either, Erika Holt.”

  21

  MARCH TO THE END

  Soldiers marched the three back to their cells at gunpoint. Alecto and Sewell walked behind them silently until they reached the thick steel doors that led to the hall containing their cells.

  As soon as the metal door clanged closed behind Erika, any shred of hope that Ian was right – that Sturgis would not murder three teenagers just to keep her hybrids secret – was gone. They weren’t going home. I really am going to die. Erika did not cry because she knew if she started, she would never stop. She did not scream because she knew that no one could hear her.

  Instead she paced like a caged cat. When she tired of pacing, she lay on the hard bed. Bored with staring at the single bulb above her, she jogged in place then did push-ups. I’m not going to go batty. I won’t let her do that to me. The phrase became a mantra in her mind as she tolerated another day in her tin can. A day that felt like a week.

  Erika considered her options and found that she didn’t have any. None except the remote possibility that Tex’s alien cousins were in fact mounting a hybrid rescue mission. If they came for him, perhaps it would be an opportunity for escape. Erika tucked the idea neatly into the back pocket of her mind and waited, though for what she did not know.

  She had fallen into a restless sleep and was jarred awake by the sound of the clanking of her metal door. Still groggy, her first thought was that maybe it was Tex rescuing her. The idea of escape primed her adrenalin pump and she was instantly awake, her heart thumping in her chest, her eyes wide and alert. But Sergeant Freeman’s wide silhouette was in the doorway, not Tex. The heat of her adrenalin rush was replaced with the cold ice of dread in her veins. Freeman had two other guards behind him, all wielding guns.

  “Get up. We’re moving out,” Freeman said.

  As Erika walked into the hallway, she saw that they had already rounded up Jack and Ian. The three exchanged glances but didn’t speak. She hadn’t thought either of them could look worse, but somehow they managed it. Erika wondered if she looked as rode hard and put away wet as they did. They look as hopeless as I feel.

  Once again they shuffled down the long, grey corridor. Erika tried to think positively. She tried to focus on school and how close she was to graduation. She thought about her mom and how maybe she would finally sober up once and for all. But mostly she thought about Jack and Ian. About how she wished that they’d never gone out to the desert that night. I should have gone to the stupid party. If she hadn’t insisted they avoid the crowd, Ian and Jack wouldn’t be in danger. It seems like ages ago.

  Erika’s mind was plagued with regrets and might-have-beens. I haven’t even started to live yet. The heat of salty tears came to her eyes, but she forced them back inside. What are you crying about? You don’t even know where they’re taking you. Stop psyching yourself out.

  They passed through two sets of doors opened only by magnetic key. Before long they were back in the heart of the A.H.D.N.A. facility. They passed door after closed door. She could have passed right by Tex’s room and not even known it.

  They walked past the room where they had met with Sturgis. Erika didn’t know whether that was a good sign or a bad one. Are we being taken to the elevators? Or a firing squad?

  When they came to a junction of three hallways, the guards led them through doors to the left. It was not the way they had come when they entered the facility. So much for going to the elevators. Erika’s stomach flip-flopped and churned.

  Freeman used his card then his thumbprint to open the large, double metal doors. They were nudged into a long, wide dimly lit hallway that felt like a sauna.

  Tex. They were being led into the wing that housed Tex. But why?

  They walked down the hallway about fifty yards, and the guards stopped in front of a nondescript door that looked like all the others in the hall. It had only a number, H-OP-100 on a metal plate above the door. Freeman again had to use his magnetic card to gain entry.

  The door opened and they were ushered into what looked like a hospital operating room. There was no one inside. There was an operating table with a very bright light overhead and a smaller table on wheels next to it containing cotton balls, three vials of liquid and hypodermic needles. Three vials. Three needles. And three of them.

  Were they going to be experimented on? Now you’re thinking like Jack, paranoid from too many sci-fi movies. Or were they going to be knocked out so they would not be able to see the location of the facility in the daylight? No, they could just blindfold us like they did before.

  A side door opened that led to a small office. A man came through the door dressed in a white lab coat over his street clothes. He was an older man, at least sixty. His dark hair was heavily peppered with grey and needed to be cut. It was scraggly and hung down to his collar though he was mostly bald in front. He hadn’t shaved for days, but the man did not wear the look well like Ian did. The dark hair on his chin was patchy and sprinkled with white. Even from across the room Erika could see that his thick glasses were smudged. And she could smell him from across the room too. Dude smells like he hasn’t showered since 1990. If the man in the lab coat was the doctor that Jack had seen, then she could see why Jack had said it was more like going to the vet’s office.

  “Where’s Sturgis?” the man asked. His tone was impatient.

  “She said she’s got more important things to attend to. Said you’ve got your orders, Dr. Dolan. And she wants us here to make sure you do what needs to be done.”

  “Typical. It’s easy to sign death orders when you’re not the one who has to carry them out. More important things? She’s probably hiding in her office filing her nails. God forbid she’d soil herself with the dirty work.”

  Erika’s hope sank to the bottom of her feet like the Titanic sinking in the cold ocean waters. All remaining heat drained from her face and bile rose in her gullet. She looked over at Jack and his face was pale, his eyes wide. Ian looked grim, just as you’d expect a man to look who’d been sentenced to death.

  “Sir, I would take care with my mouth if I were you,” said Freeman.

  “Why? Oh, are you warning me that the place is bugged? So what if it is. She won’t get rid of me like she did Randall. Then she’d have nobody left to take care of her untidy business.” Dr. Dolan stood between Erika and Freeman. “Let her fire me. I don’t know why I stay anyway.”

  “Why do you stay?” Erika said. She hadn’t intended to say it out loud, but the question came blurting out. I’m already going to die. What do I have to lose? “You don’t have to do this. You can make a decision to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing.”

  “Look, shut it, okay. Orders are orders, and the doc here don’t got no say in this,” said Freeman. He sounded as though he was losing any patience he had.

  “Erika,” Ian said. His voice was full of warning.

  “What? He says he’s got nothing to lose by speaking up. Well, the way I see it, I have even less to lose. What are they going to do if they don’t like what I say? Kill me?”

  “Erika! Shut up,” Ian hissed. He shot a glare at her.

  “She’s right, you know, on all accounts,” Dr. Dolan said. “Why do I stay? Maybe because I’ve done so many wrong things that I don’t know how to do the right thing anymore. After all I’ve seen and done, I don’t belong up there.” The doctor pointed up to the ceiling with his finger. “I’m a real life Dr. Frankenstein. Like him, I’ve helped to create monsters down here. And I’ve killed monsters too, when asked to. I belong in hell, Miss Holt, so I stay down here, in a hell on earth. My soul, I fear, is already given to the devil.”

  “Dr. Dolan, I can’t believe you’re going through with this,” said Jack. His face was fu
ll of astonishment.

  Dr. Dolan looked at him sternly. It seemed to Erika that something passed between them, but she didn’t know what. Maybe Jack felt betrayed by the doctor since only a few days ago the man had removed a bullet from his shoulder and stitched him up.

  “As sorry of a soul as I am, like all men, I have in me an incurable instinct for survival. It is, without a doubt, an imperative that I must follow through with this task to which I have been assigned or I, too, shall be eliminated like my good friend Dr. William Randall. Here one day, gone the next.” He said the last almost wistfully, and his eyes misted for a moment. He took his glasses off, wiped his bloodshot eyes, put his glasses back on and smoothed back his thin, greasy hair.

  As Dr. Dolan spoke, Erika slowly and gingerly felt behind her. There was the table filled with the supplies for the doctor’s death operation. She leaned her body backward ever so slightly, all the while keeping her eyes on Freeman and Dr. Dolan. Her fingers touched something sharp and she nearly pricked her finger. The syringe.

  Freeman moved forward and waved his gun at Dr. Dolan. “Come on, Doc. Get on with it. We got better things to do.” The other two guards stood behind him, their bodies nearly blocked from sight by Freeman’s hulking frame.

  “I’m sure you do,” Dr. Dolan said. The doctor coughed to clear his throat. “I apologize to each of you. I’m sure that you all had promising futures. But let’s not make this more difficult for any of us than it has to be. I promise it will not hurt. You will drift off to sleep only you will never awake. Perhaps you’ll go on to a beautiful place filled with angels and the sweet music of a harp.”

  “I hate harp music,” said Erika. She wrapped the finger of her right hand around the hypodermic needle filled with the deadly fluid intended for one of them.

  Dr. Dolan moved closer to Erika, now just a few feet from her. His body blocked her view of Freeman and the other guards. “Please do not fight this,” he said, but he nodded his head as he said it.

  He’s telling me to fight him. Erika had been unsure about what to do with the needle in her hand, and fear had immobilized her. But maybe Dolan was on their side. The adrenalin was back and it kicked her fear to the curb. Erika kneed the doctor in the groin, doubling him over. “Hold him, Jack,” she yelled.