Romeo Delta 2

by Taylor Rikkinen

  “Erin…” Tom whispered over their private two-way communicator. “Close your eyes.”

  Erin nodded and did as she was instructed as she pretended that she didn’t hear Tom load a bullet into the chamber of his gun. She wanted to press her hands to her ears, but the helmet stifled such actions and it was not long before she heard Tom break the barrier and the yells of a mad man screaming his feral rage. The resounding burst of a single bullet being fired in a nearly echoless chamber filled Erin’s senses and she tried to think of other things, but the sound of a body falling along with a sickly burble of blood, etched itself into her psyche. Tom’s heavy boots fell upon the metal floor as he made his way to the control console and set the system to run on emergency solar power.

  Grudgingly, the air purifier grinded to life and fans began turning after months of disuse. Once a good airflow began to pick up, there was an immediate sound of panicked scuttling in the vents along with what sounded like gravel being forced through the pipes. Hardened grey dust burst out of the vents all around them and soon it lingered in the air like a dangerous fog before finally settling quickly on the ground. Tom stepped out of the control room and asked if she was alright. She nodded quietly while trying to avoid the fresh bloody hand print that had adorned Tom’s enviro suit leg and he brought her into a hug.

  “Hey… We’re going to get through this,” Tom whispered to her. “Step one is complete and we’ve bought ourselves some time. Let’s keep pressing forward. We’re almost there.”

  Chapter 19 – The Crumbling Sky

  Time had slipped away from Erin’s grasp once more and she had become disorientated in the process of drifting from one dream to another. Major Tom was whispering questions to her, but his voice was all wrong again. It lacked all form of fire and passion and though she was confused, she found herself answering the questions all the same. It was like she was forced to go back and relive small parts of her life while fast forwarding to points that had not yet happened. Her mind was full of cobwebs and all she could focus on was the fear she felt as she and Tom made their way back up to Romeo Delta 2 and began hearing things that had not been there before. The vents were back to circulating fresh air about the station, but something had come with that fresh air. Months of moisture and condensation filled the station with a strong humidity and a nearly sudden spike of temperature had turned the environment of Sky Base 10 into that of a sweltering jungle. In the course of a day, Erin and Tom had worked their way back to Romeo Delta 2 through the rubble with fogged helmets and the once stiff and rigid grey dust had returned to a state of feeling like wet clay.

  They were slipping and sliding on uneven footing through the decaying sludge until they saw the familiar glimmer of glowing amber eyes in the darkness. It didn’t take them long to discover that their exit was blocked by hordes of gremlins, some crawling and others walking hunched over, flowing through the jagged opening. Their flashlights were seen and soon there were hungry critters chasing after them and forcing Tom to spend nearly all of the spare ammo that he had acquired. Muzzle flashes seemed to light Erin’s way as she desperately ran through the moist grey dust and stumbled over the bones of the devoured. Fear etched her soul and she forced herself to push through the sickly carnage towards the dark tower at the center of Romeo Delta 2. They burst through the entrance and tried to bar the doors the best they could, but the gremlins clawed and chewed their way through the hasty barricade and filled the main tower of the research building.

  Erin and Tom eventually dodged their way into a large supply closet and barricaded that door as well. Erin thought for certain that they had cornered themselves in a concrete cage, but after three very intense hours of huddling in the darkness and remaining as quiet as humanly possible, the pattering of tiny clawed feet began to die out and soon the tower was quiet. Their enviro suits had begun showing signs of losing power and they were forced to remove their masks as their rebreathers struggled to filter scant amounts of air. Erin was immediately reminded of the foul smell she had experienced when Romeo Delta 2 was originally opened and it sickened her to her core. The unnatural smell of a deathly mold formed by some ungodly process assaulted her very senses and made her choke. She was almost glad to see Tom gagging on the air as well because she was worried that perhaps she was being weak and overreacting. There was some solace to be had in wrapping lengths of torn cloths around their mouths and noses, but not enough to forget the odiously repugnant smell that enveloped Romeo Delta 2.

  It took their combined courage to open the door a fraction of an inch to peer out into the hall, but all they saw was more inky blackness. The power was out in all of Romeo Delta 2 and without the lights it was like trying to see from within a sealed tin can. Tom had been wise enough to bring chemical glow sticks in case of an emergency and though their light was comforting, the yellow hue they emitted was hardly enough to see all that far ahead. The gremlins were lurking around outside and seemed more focused on staying in the streets than crawling in any more confined spaces. Something about turning on the air flow had worked them up and scared them to the point of forming some sort of tribe mentality where they dragged their terrified food into the middle of their newly formed nest and jumped upon the still writhing bodies. Erin and Tom had made their way up to the tenth floor and formed a hasty base in one of the cleaner offices and watched from the window what the gremlins did in the barely discernible dark.

  They spent days gathering every scrap of preserved food they could find in the main research tower of Romeo Delta 2 and Erin had found a way to route the power from the Kyva Corp vending machines and siphon it to charge their depleted energy cells. Kyva Corp loved making money and all of their money-making machines had micro fusion core batteries installed in them that would last for years. It took two full days to charge their enviro suits and flashlights back to working order and it was a relief to put the masks back on and breathe clean air again, but they were still trapped and had to formulate a desperate plan. It was in the darkness of that office that Tom hit Erin with a harsh reality. If he didn’t make it, then Erin would have to be the one to plunge Sky Base 10 into Dusk and in order to do that, she needed to know how. Tom spent many tense evenings explaining the process to Erin until she was able to recite it from memory without fail.

  “Good, you’ve got it,” he said warmly. “Now it’s time to get out of here and make a mad dash towards Sky Command.”

  “How will we get past the gremlins?” she asked worriedly. “They’ve gotten to the point where they no longer whisper for help. Something’s got them agitated and I wish I knew what.”

  “I don’t know either, but I think I found a way to get past them without being seen,” he whispered. “Romeo Delta 1 through 7 are connected in a circle around the center of the station and in the very center of all of them is Sky Command. I was looking at the old maps of the service tunnels and it seems like we simply need to head down beneath the streets and find an access ladder.”

  “That’s it?” Erin asked incredulously. “We just head down into the basement?”

  “Yeah,” Tom nodded. “You don’t like it?”

  “Of course I don’t,” Erin said in a whisper that nearly went too high. “A dark confined space with little chance of escape. It’s suicide.”

  “It’s the only chance we’ve got,” Tom said stoically. “We can try and run past the gremlins, but you and I both know that one or both of us will be dragged into that festering body pit. So, our options are either stay here until we are eventually found and devoured, or take a risk and go into the basement so we can crawl beneath the streets. We’re so close and… I can’t do this without you… I need you by my side.”

  Erin eventually agreed, like she always did when it came to Major Tom, and soon they found themselves pushing rotten corpses out of the way of emergency doors that had once been electronically sealed. The grey dust was in the tower, but not like it was out in the streets. There were only dry patches here and there along the walls where
it had tried to grow and failed. The main cause of death seemed to be nothing more than abandonment and fear within a hyperbaric tower full of frantic researchers trying to escape. Romeo Delta 2 had sealed itself after the meltdown, but once the emergency power had run out, nearly every emergency shutter had released its magnetic lock and opened.

  Deeper into the abyss they went and with each careful step downward the cooler the environment became. Their helmets stopped fogging up as much and it was clear that the jungle-like conditions were not nearly as bad as they had been above the streets. After crawling for hours and trying to make some sense of their location, they eventually found the access ladder that Tom had hoped they would come across and started their descent. The closer they got to Sky Command, the less damage and mayhem there was. They were both foolish enough to believe that their luck had finally turned around for the better, but when they got to the bulkhead door of Sky Command a few days later, it was clear that something was amiss. As they entered, they could see that Sky Command was still somewhat intact, but a clear firefight had broken out recently and the bodies of uniformed operators lined their stations without a hint of decay.

  “What the hell?” Erin whispered to Tom. “Was the control room active this whole time?”

  “It looks like it,” Tom said with a careful glance around.

  “I don’t get it,” Erin admitted. “How were we losing gravity and air purification for months if all the master overrides were accessible from here?”

  “Because they let it happen,” Tom said with his first true show of anger. “Those maniacs finally did it…”

  “What are you talking about?” Erin asked in confusion.

  Tom let out a sigh and removed his helmet. “Look, Erin… There’s something I need to tell you. I haven’t been completely honest with you about some things and…”

  A shot rang out and Tom hit the ground like a ragdoll as blood poured from his chest and pooled around him. It took a few moments for Erin to process what she had witnessed before her very eyes and she eventually fell to her knees and screamed as a security crew rushed into the room. She barely noticed them surrounding her as she lifted Tom’s head to rest it in her lap and stroke his hair.

  “Tom! Tom! Wake up. Please wake up. I need you!” she begged.

  “Scan her!” a security officer commanded.

  Erin felt someone take her arm and something sharp slide into her skin to take a sample. A few seconds later a device beeped and a bullet sunk into her enviro suit and pierced her lung right next to her heart. She struggled to breathe as her airway filled with blood and within fractions of a second she realized that she was drowning and about to die. She slumped over on the floor still holding Tom in her arms and trying to cough out the suffocating life essence. Blood spattered the inside of her helmet as she struggled to stay alive, but soon her eyes began to roll back into her head and she began to fade away into the darkness. The last thing she saw was the Kyva Corp insignia on the shoulder of one of the security guards and then she was gone, to join her husband Rodger in the void of nothingness.

  She floated there for a long time, perhaps several hundred years in the dying light of her mind and memories were beginning to fade as well as fears and happiness. She was becoming tranquil once more and falling into a void of dreamless subconscious. It felt welcoming in a way because it was so far away from the terror and heartache she felt. It was a safe space of ignorance where all outside input failed to penetrate. She could pretend that Rodger was there holding her once more and she could pretend that Sky Base 10 and Romeo Delta 2 had merely been fragments of a distant nightmare she no longer had to endure. She could hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil. It was safe and death had been like a coddling mother embracing a scared child. She clung tightly to that comfort as a soft spoken voice soothed what remained of her mind and told her to sleep. She nearly listened to it, but there was a stronger voice on the edge of her mind that beckoned her attention. It was Tom’s voice begging her to wake up, so she began drifting towards it.

  She was surprised to find herself mentally snagged back to the other voice telling her to sleep. It had once been pleasant and goading, but it quickly became forceful and demanding. It scared her and she tried to get away from it, but it pulled at her like the gremlins in the dark and she could feel it in the center of her mind. It had been there for a long time quietly telling her what to do and she needed to get it out. It was trying to control her and she refused to be controlled by such a horrible little creature living inside of her. She fought and drifted her way back towards Tom’s voice as the thing inside her head began to snarl and snap in anger. It was trying to change her from the inside out and she was reminded of her friend Dale and how he had refused to let it take control of him. She would do the same as one of her favorite rangers and resist assimilation at all costs. She would never become a gremlin and gnaw at the flesh of her friends. By a sheer force of will, she suppressed the urges to remain safe and subservient and burst forth back into the land of the living as herself and not one of the evil little creatures that haunted the nightmares of so many.

  She inhaled a deep breath and nearly shot up from where she laid, but Tom held her down and told her to be still. She was terrified and looking around while trying to understand what was going on and that is when she noticed that the bulkhead door had been sealed from within and the Kyva Corp security team was trying to hack the electronics to get back in. Tom had tricked them by playing dead and locking them out once they were gone, but soon his deception would become a reality as his blood continued to pour out of him swiftly. He was on the verge of death and instead of trying to save himself, he chose to save her by using crude methods to drain her lung of blood and restart her heart. A small thin tube had been driven into her chest to relieve the fluid that had been building up and she could breathe again. She tried to help Tom as he grew more and more pale, but he shook his head and pushed her away.

  “We don’t have time for that,” he said through struggled gasps. “They’ll be through that door soon. Lower the security protocols and start the orbital drop and get us onto Dusk. I’ll hold them off if they break through the door. It’s our only chance to survive!”

  Chapter 20 – Back to Reality

  Erin felt swarmed with confusion as the world around her became hazy and unhinged. She was in two places at once, one place being Sky Base 10 while ducking out of the way of bullets as she engaged the dismantling process, and the other place being a hospital bed where she was foaming at the mouth as she overdosed and had a seizer. Her heart was racing and getting ready to explode in her chest as three forms of terror surrounded her. The security team had managed to break open the bulkhead door and Tom gave them the fight of their life as she went to work. She was caught in the middle of a firefight as the station began to rumble to life and break apart, while also seeing gremlins flood into Sky Command through the vents and tear apart the Kyva Corp security team with an unhindered savagery. She was confused as to why the gremlins would decide to show up at such a specific time, but the thought quickly left her mind as they finished ripping apart the security team and dashed after Tom. He fought and shouted against them, but he was swept up by a pack of them and dragged off into the dark corridors as he screamed and hopelessly grabbed for anything to hold onto.

  Erin tried to run after him, but the gravity shut off and she was left disorientated and floating as the station went into an emergency lockdown mode. Anything that could shut, did and blast doors slammed into the floor all around her. She was trapped in Sky Command with a sea of floating viscera surrounding her and her heart would not stop hammering in her chest. Breathing had become difficult while two realities became the same. She had dislocated her thumb again and was ripping off the straps that held her down. She needed to turn her head and vomit so she could breathe again, but Doctor Singh was holding her down and calling for Joe. Erin tried to form words, but it felt as though her brain was bleeding and taking with it all of
the thoughts from her mind. She was suffocating and she was going to die again. She needed to calm down and still her heart before it burst, so she balled up her fist and punched Doctor Singh with everything she had.

  Once the doctor was off her, she dislocated her other thumb and got her second hand free as she went into a panicked frenzy to remove herself from the bed. She was in such an agitated state that she forgot that her legs were missing and when she swung herself off the bed she hit the tiled floor with a painful crack. As she shouted in pain, her airway became clear and she spilled the contents of her mostly empty stomach across the floor to her great relief. She heard the airlock open and feet running into the room and once again there were guns pointed at the head of a burned legless cripple struggling to stay alive.

  She heard Doctor Singh’s dull voice speaking calmly and Joe’s panicked voice responding, but the words were lost to her. She was just happy to breathe again and so she closed her eyes and tried to shut out the world as she laid in her own filth. She barely noticed a boot kick her in the ribs or the taser prongs bury into her back. She barely noticed anything and it was because her heart had finally stopped once more and she was drifting into a timeless infinity once again. It was happening so frequently that the dying fragments of her mind found it somewhat humorous. The thing in her head that wanted her to perform strange tasks had died with her once more and she was given peace. She had silently won over and over against that gremlin in her head, and she would not be controlled even in death.