Pandemonium

by Warren Fahy

  “That would be nice,” Bear said.

  “I think you may be right,” Galia said. “It would have been to a direct line out of here.”

  “Keep an eye out for it,” Ferrell said.

  “Yeah, we’ll need some other way into the city or this will be a short mission,” Jackson said.

  “Stalin planned to build a ten-kilometer tunnel under the Nevelsky Strait to connect mainland Russia to Sakhalin Island,” Nastia said, chattering anxiously as they crossed the train yard.

  “Yeah?” said Abrams. He was willing to hear anyone other than by-the-book Ferrell right now.

  “Yes,” Nastia said. “Twenty-seven thousand prisoners were sent into the tunnel, but they were too ill-equipped to complete it after thousands of men died trying. Only when Stalin died was the project abandoned, halfway under the Nevelsky Strait.”

  “What nice stories you tell,” Dima said with a laugh as he glanced at her.

  She shrugged. “They’re my specialty.”

  The train yard narrowed to one wide-gauge track and one narrow-gauge track that dipped downhill into a tunnel. The white ceiling was arched with a lining of dingy tiles. Abrams sent Talon-1 about thirty yards ahead and Talon-2 on the other side of the tracks some distance behind them with its night vision camera aimed backwards. They all monitored the rear bot’s display on the visor of their helmet as they moved steadily deeper into the tunnel.

  “In 1947,” Nastia continued, if only to fill the senseless void, “Stalin ordered work on the Death Railway of Abkhazia in northern Siberia. It started and ended in the middle of nowhere and cost forty million rubles. It also cost the slave labor of three hundred fifty thousand, and the lives of at least a hundred thousand more. It was never intended to be used. It was built to kill the men who built it. It stretches six hundred kilometers through frozen tundra and forests and can be reached only by helicopter. But that is nothing compared to the White Sea–Baltic Sea Canal, or the gold mines of Kolyma.…”

  “OK,” Bear said. “Enough.”

  “Yeah, you’re freaking me out now,” Andy agreed.

  “Sorry. Someone else talk, then,” she said. “Please!”

  “How about some silence?” Abrams suggested.

  “That’ll freak me out more,” Andy said.

  “Me, too,” Hender said.

  They pushed on in uncomfortable silence as nobody could think of anything to say. They hurried due west inside a bubble of light as the tunnel felt like an esophagus swallowing them. The hiss of Abrams’s exosuit, the whizz of the ROV motors, and the buzz of the Big Dog’s servos were magnified inside the tunnel.

  Kuzu nudged Hender with an elbow, turning an eye toward him as they each glided on four legs over the ground beside the humans. “Watch them closely, Shenuday,” he said softly in his own language.

  As they pressed into a seemingly endless darkness, the ROV in front of them carved away the stubborn shadow with its headlights.

  “How about another gulag story, Nastia?” Jackson cracked.

  “Stay focused, people!” Ferrell snapped. “Let’s not get sloppy.”

  “No worries, Capitan,” Abrams drawled.

  Nastia noticed a large cement block to the right of the tracks. Above it was a steel hatch in the tunnel wall. “There.” She pointed. “I told you! That door isn’t in the city plan. That must be it!”

  “Yes.” Galia nodded. “I think you’re right.…”

  “If we could get through that door, would it lead to the palace?” Abrams asked.

  “Yes,” Galia said. “Probably.”

  Tusya and Dima climbed onto the landing and tried to crank open the dog wheel on the hatch. “No good,” reported Dima.

  “Let me try.” Abrams jumped to the top of the landing in the exosuit and gripped the wheel on the door with his bionic arms. The pneumatic muscles quaked as he wheeled the crank, but he couldn’t budge the wheel. “No way. It’s jammed solid.”

  “It probably opens only from the inside,” Galia said. “Most of the gates that lead to the palace lock from the inside.”

  “We’ll have to try to blow it open or melt through it with incendiaries,” Jackson said.

  “That’ll be a hell of a job,” Tusya said dubiously, glancing at Dima.

  “Come on,” Ferrell said. “We’ve got a job to do first.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dima said, jumping down from the ledge. Abrams jumped down after him, his heavy suit buzzing as it absorbed the landing.

  They moved on another fifty yards up the tunnel.

  07:20:09

  Sasha and Geoffrey sat at Maxim’s desk as they watched the monitors on the wall. Sasha noticed something on the monitor showing the inside of the train station. “Look!”

  One of the heavy blast shields that had been lowered against the window was being pushed inward with erratic thrusts.

  Geoffrey switched to the camera over the gate of Sector Seven in front of the station.

  A giant rogue spiger leaned against the station’s window. With the trebuchet-like force of a mantis shrimp’s strike, it smashed its spiked arms through the glass, jolting the steel shutters. “Oh, crap,” Geoffrey sighed.

  Sasha squealed. “It’s a monster!”

  “Yes, sweetie, it is.”

  The view inside the station showed one heavy shutter being wedged as two seven-foot spikes levered it open.

  07:16:21

  Three minutes in, running at full speed, Nell saw the first ghosts gleaming on the roof and walls ahead. Their flesh caught the light of her flashlight like cat’s eyes as she sprinted down the tight corridor, too fast for them to react to her as she passed.

  She saw a lot more ahead.

  07:16:20

  Talon-1’s night vision showed a split in the tunnel on the dog whistle’s screen.

  “There’s a fork up ahead,” Ferrell said.

  They stopped at the fork where the railroad tracks continued to the right with no tracks heading into the tunnel on the left.

  “Which way to Moscow, comrade?” Jackson asked Galia.

  Galia shook his head, mildly annoyed. “I’ve never been here before. I know that one tunnel is a dead end, and the other goes on. Only Maxim knows how far it goes. I suspect it goes far enough.”

  “OK. We’ve got to check both tunnels,” Jackson said. “And we’ll set charges in both.”

  “Right,” Ferrell said. “Let’s go at least a klick down each branch before we set charges. Let’s split up. You guys take the mule and go right. That seems to be the main line. This is probably the dead end. Kuzu, Tusya, and Andy, you come with me. We’ll take Talon-1 with us.” Ferrell took one of the backpacks filled with explosives off the mule, and Talon-1 followed him. “Set the charges to go off in eight hours, then meet back here!”

  “OK,” Abrams said. “Let’s leave a transponder here so we can communicate by radio.”

  “Yeah,” Jackson said, setting down a cylindrical device that popped antennae out, which rotated as he activated it with a button. There was no way communications could penetrate the solid rock walls down here.

  “See you guys.” Nastia waved as they followed Jackson into the tunnel on the right with Hender.

  “Bye, Hender,” Andy said.

  “Bye, Andy! Bye, Kuzu!” Hender said as they separated.

  Kuzu emitted a rumbling bass frequency like a tiger’s purr beside Andy as they headed into the tunnel to the left, following Ferrell and Tusya behind the robot into total darkness.

  07:12:12

  Nell spotted a ghost peeling off the ceiling ahead. It hung down before her, shimmering light in its glistening flesh. She fired the gun at it, almost deafening herself as the sharp reports echoed down the tunnel.

  The ghost dropped before her as another flipped down behind it, also dangling from the ceiling.

  She fired again, jumping over the first ghost and stepping on one of its suction cups, which bit into the heel of her shoe with a crunch. She pulled her foot out of her shoe and lurch
ed forward as she shot two more bullets into the ghost in front of her, aiming at its amorphous head as she felt two punches hit her back. She twisted around to see two thick ropes sticking to her shirt that had been shot from an octopus behind her.

  She fell on her knees before the molluscan predator as its amorphous head dropped down from above and faced her. It reeled in its gooey cables that were wrapped against her right arm, pinning the gun against her chest, and began attaching suction cups to her shoulders. She convulsed in desperation and jammed the glowing hot muzzle of the weapon with her left hand into the slug’s mouth from below, the flashlight illuminating its translucent head. The creature’s entire body recoiled, turning white beneath her, and she pulled out of her shirt, wrenching the gun free as she ran down the tunnel.

  Ahead of her at least three more ghosts hung from the ceiling to intercept her. The closest curled its snail-head toward her and she aimed the gun between its large black eyes. She fired only once to conserve bullets and her ears as she ran forward, cursing herself for not wearing a bra. In fact, she should have worn multiple layers to slough off the mollusks’ sticky webs. Now, they could attach to her bare skin.

  07:12:10

  Hender accompanied the others down what appeared to be the main train tunnel heading west from the underground city. Talon-2 rolled thirty-five yards ahead of them. After about two hundred yards, the grade leveled off and went downhill.

  “Dead end!” Dima said, watching the ROV’s camera feed.

  The others soon saw the ROV light up a concrete wall ahead. As they approached, they saw a memorial inscribed in the wall. Nastia translated it for them:

  MAY THE 109 HEROES OF THE

  REVOLUTION WHO DIED HERE

  REST IN PEACE.

  Jackson smirked. “I hate to think how many that translates to in real numbers.”

  Nastia chuckled dryly. “You’re catching on.”

  “Well, it looks like they did our job for us,” Jackson said.

  “Ne gruzís’,” Dima said.

  “Da.” Nastia nodded.

  Abrams radioed the other team: “Hey, guys! We hit a dead end. We’re going to head back. We’ll rendezvous at the fork. Over?”

  07:07:23

  “Right, thanks,” Ferrell acknowledged, turning off the receiver on his helmet radio. “I guess this is the main line,” he said, glancing at the others. He gestured one hand forward, erratically, Kuzu noted. “We’ll pick a spot half a klick farther down the tunnel to set the charges. Let’s try to find a curve first to shelter us from the blast. All right?” Ferrell looked intently at Kuzu.

  Kuzu realized the human must be referring to him. “Yes,” he said. “OK, Ferrell.”

  Tusya looked at Kuzu and then smirked. “All right,” he said.

  Andy followed alongside Kuzu down the tunnel, which seemed to go straight as an arrow into infinity. Talon-1 rolled fifty yards ahead of them, shining its lights until it came to a jog where the tunnel was slightly misaligned with an opposing tunnel, as though they had met from different directions. Though there were no train tracks in the tunnel they had come through, there were tracks in the tunnel that joined from the other direction, stretching off like laser beams into the darkness.

  “This must be it,” Tusya said. “This must be the main line!”

  Ferrell checked out Talon-1’s camera feed on his visor. The rails headed down more steeply up ahead. He stopped and radioed the others, glancing at Andy and Kuzu. “OK, we’re going to set the charges,” he said.

  “Need any help?” came Jackson’s voice on his helmet radio.

  “No sweat,” Ferrell said. “We’ll be done in a bit. Just wanted to reach minimum safe distance so the boom doesn’t collapse our egress.”

  “Roger that,” Jackson said. “We should be at the fork in five minutes. See you there.”

  Andy took off his helmet next to Ferrell, breathing heavily. His scraggly blond hair was damp and drooping with sweat. He looked at Ferrell defiantly. “We should be safe enough here to take our helmets off, I think,” he said. “OK? God, I just need to take a breath.”

  Tusya and Ferrell both followed suit, setting their helmets down as they opened their backpacks and a case filled with sixteen cubes of M183 explosive. They proceeded to set all sixteen charges in an arch spaced over the ceiling and down each wall. Kuzu assisted them with his twelve-foot reach, memorizing each of Ferrell’s actions as he selected wires and detonators and connected them to the explosives. Then Kuzu noticed Ferrell set the countdown for twenty minutes.

  “Hey,” Andy said. “Why’d you set it for only twenty minutes?”

  Ferrell casually put a pistol to Tusya’s head and pulled the trigger twice, destroying the man’s brain.

  Kuzu vanished.

  “What are you doing?” Andy screamed.

  Ferrell turned the gun to Andy.

  “Oh, you fucking asshole!”

  Ferrell shot two bullets through the marine biologist’s forehead. Andy fell to the floor, dead.

  Kuzu hissed, invisible, as he clung to the ceiling.

  Ferrell wheeled, pointing the gun where Kuzu had been, and he registered surprise as the sel seemed to have disappeared.

  Pressed against the arched ceiling, the sel’s fur camouflaged him against the tiles. He saw strange creatures clinging to the ceiling nearby and another that peeled off the wall behind Ferrell. The creature hung down like a giant tongue behind the human, shaping itself to the contours of the soldier’s body without touching him.

  Ferrell looked up and seemed to make out Kuzu on the ceiling. He raised his gun just as the animal closed over his back, arms, legs, and head simultaneously, immobilizing him.

  Kuzu looked into Ferrell’s eyes as the human shrieked, dropping his weapon as the strange creature overpowered him from behind. The beaklike mouth of the slimy animal clamped into the soldier’s neck with scissorlike blades, and the man’s scream was cut off as the dog whistle fell from around his neck, its chain severed, bouncing off one of the railroad tracks below. Ferrell’s eyes looked back at Kuzu as his face drooped and the transparent creature flushed bloodred on his back.

  Kuzu’s eyes jerked in different directions. He suddenly noticed other glowing animals stuck to the ceiling around him. He leaped down as jetting ropes just missed him and looked off into the tunnel that stretched miles into the unknown—all the way to one of the humans’ cities, they thought, and possibly to many more. He reached down to the detonator, and Kuzu switched off the timer.

  Then he grabbed the dog whistle lying between the railroad ties and galloped back on five legs up the tunnel as Talon-1 followed him.

  06:52:59

  The others waited at the fork. They thought they heard the faint echoes of shouts and gunshots before they reached the branch but could not make radio contact.

  “Ferrell, how’s it going, copy?” Jackson repeated through his helmet radio, but still no answer. “I repeat, how’s it going, man?”

  “Look!” Abrams said.

  Out of the darkness, a point of light now raced toward them.

  “Andy!” yelled Hender, his voice reverberating in the throat of the tunnel like a shrill clarinet.

  Hearing nothing back, the others yelled, too. Then they saw Talon-1 approaching. The ROV came within twenty yards of them before they saw Kuzu, emerging behind the robot, alone.

  “What happened?” Jackson said. “Where are the others?”

  “Animals attacked,” said the sel.

  “No way,” Bear said.

  “From Henders Island?” Abrams asked.

  Kuzu shook his head.

  “Where are the others?” Dima said.

  “Where is Andy?” Hender asked.

  Kuzu looked at Hender with both of his large eyes. “Dead.”

  Hender pulled back as if he had been physically struck.

  “Bombs all set, Jackson,” Kuzu said, eyeing the big soldier with one eye.

  “Bullshit!” Bear yelled. “You killed them!”r />
  “What the hell—?” Jackson paused as they saw something hurtling toward them in the tunnel.

  A shocking specter shambled out of the shadow into the light. They trained their weapons on the approaching figure, which ran toward them like a glowing dog. As the creature came closer, they caught flashes of Craigon Ferrell’s face pointing at them. They saw his body running on all fours, his head raised with open mouth and eyes. His body, gripped by a glowing mass, lunged forward.

  “God almighty,” Jackson said, backing up.

  “A ghost!” Galia cried.

  Suddenly, with a smacking sound, Ferrell’s head fell forward limply and they could see the slug’s head in its place with a pouting, bloody mouth and wide sullen eyes glaring at them.

  Dima and Jackson shot a barrage of gunfire at the apparition, which finally crumpled on the floor of the tunnel before them.

  Bear examined the remains. “Are you sure this ain’t from Henders Island?”

  “No,” Hender said, shivering. “It’s not!”

  The others looked at the pulverized carnivore that was still squirming on Ferrell’s back, jerking the human’s arms and legs randomly.

  “It must be some kind of mollusk,” Nastia said, her eyes and mouth wide as she crouched to look in morbid curiosity at the flinching flesh of the creature.

  “Many in tunnel.” Kuzu pointed behind.

  “But the charges are set, right, Kuzu?” Jackson said.

  “Yes, Jackson,” Kuzu said. “Charges are set.”

  “Damn, one of those ugly bastards is above us right now!” Jackson’s flashlight exposed several ghost octopuses converging on the ceiling over them.

  “Yes.” Kuzu pointed.

  “God, let’s go, man!” Abrams backed away as the others scattered.

  They rushed back up the tunnel toward the station.

  As they ran with the mechanical mule loping alongside the tracks, they passed the hatch that they couldn’t open earlier. The lights of Talon-1 shone ahead on a huge creature barreling toward them from the direction of the train station, rapidly growing larger and glowing vivid colors. Abrams ignited a magnesium flare and took aim, hurling it forty yards down the tunnel, illuminating the beast in a blaze of light.