The platform halted, smooth and silent. Greg climbed off first, and walked to the keypad, his pace quick yet somehow mechanical. Leah and Cayden stepped down onto the loading floor, pistols at their side. He studied their surroundings again as he put his left hand to the scanner. Multi-storey underground location, maglev transport, multi-layered security at start and finish… and all beneath the third-largest base in the country. He closed his hand tighter around the butt of his own weapon. The answers have to be here.
A heavy thunk sounded from the doors. Two more followed, accompanied by a grinding squeal of metal on metal. Deadbolts the size of girders, by the sound. A line of light appeared between the doors, and began to widen, inch by inch, as the gargantuan slabs pulled apart. Tiny sparks and bits of rock flew from the runners in the floor. Leah and Cayden came up next to him. She had her weapon out, though in a more relaxed way. He wore his perpetual taciturn look, and carried nothing, though both hands were set in a ready position.
The doors halted with another screech and clank, leaving a gap just wide enough for an old M1 tank to pass through. Past this opening, a long, bare metal ramp sloped downward maybe a dozen metres, to a second set of doors – plain, blacked-out, likely bulletproof glass this time, with no sign of a lock. This puzzled Greg for a moment, before he turned his eyes up to check for cameras and saw two more frames in the ceiling. Extra blast doors. Not as thick as the first defences, but enough to delay a serious attack in a pinch. He felt a moment’s hesitation. Not fear – more an undefinable unease. I shouldremember this. The inhibitors, surgeries, and all the rest, they couldn’t have erased every memory– could they? He didn’t see how – but he didn’t see any other explanation.
He went first down the ramp, stepping carefully. Print scans or no, they could still trip some security measure, this deep inside a place so secure and buried. Nothing happened. Stopping at the bottom of the ramp, he motioned the others to stay back, and moved to the door, in tiny steps. Bringing the pistol to bear, he put his hand on the door handle, a plain metal rod. It was warm to the touch, another sign of the power and temp control. He took a deep breath, and made his fingers close around it. Conscious of the others’ eyes on him, he flexed his arm, and pulled.
The door slid open – so easily, he had to take a step back, to keep from slipping backward from the momentum. He pulled the door open to its fullest, and pushed once against it to secure the maglock at the corner. Ahead, all he could see was blackness, and the outlines of a staircase directly before him. Were his clinger hood up, he could have used night-vision. Instead, he took another breath, and stepped over the threshold.
A click sounded. Strong light flashed on overhead. Greg whirled around, gun raised, but no shots or other threats came. He spotted another blue lens on the ceiling right above his head; no doubt it served as a motion sensor, along with surveillance. More lights activated, one after the other, stretching in long rows down the ceiling.
He turned, following these – and stopped. Before him, a single chamber was laid out – half a football field, at the very least. He was standing on a wide, stainless steel walkway, running along the walls. with numbered doors of like material every several metres. On the lower floor, a large rectangle of space was occupied by towering computer servers, enclosed by half a dozen holo-screen desk terminals. He spotted more computer equipment against the walls: printers, scanners, and 3-D displays. Additional doors gave onto this space, some of them open; he saw a break area, and a conference room. To even the trained eye, it was no different from any workspace in the world.
This sight wasn’t what had jolted him, however. At the far back of the room, at the walkway level, two large, square windows looked out onto another space beyond – much bigger than the ‘office area’, from the way the light extended. Something about them, the way someone might look standing at them, looking down at what and who was beyond…
He strode toward this view, following the right-hand side of the walkway. When he came to the windows, he stopped again. The gun fell to his side; he had to make a conscious effort not to drop it. The view extended a lot further than he’d thought; a full football field’s worth this time, maybe more. Most of the area closest to the windows was taken up by exercise equipment: mats, treadmills, bikes, elliptical machines, free-weights of every size, even a G-force simulator. Various personal combat gear hung from racks on the walls: padded chest armour, gloves, helmets – and blunted knives, metal and polished wood clubs, staffs, and dummy rifles.
Another glass divider – thicker and stronger, suggesting more layers of tempering – split this zone off from the rest of the area. Through this, Greg saw rows of gunmetal-grey tables and benches, perfectly aligned, situated before a short, closed-up kitchen counter in the farthest wall. Several doors led out from this space, all closed. He saw a label on the closest one: Hall 12. He knew that, from somewhere. Was that where his room was, or a way to another spot?
He stepped up to the window, putting his hand to the glass. It felt cold, even through the clinger. I know this place, the back of his mind whispered. He strained to take it all in. Everything was familiar – and yet as new as if he were seeing it for the first time. Images and sensations flashed behind his eyes, like snapshots. Ducking low to avoid a strike from a shaven-headed man in a grey jumpsuit, much like the one he wore – and smelling the hard rubber of the mat when he was slammed down. The greasy taste of powdered eggs and sloppy oatmeal: the same breakfast every morning, without fail. The shrill buzzer that woke him for it, and during random drills, night or day. The ever-present odours: old sweat, antiseptic, deodorant, other cleaning solutions, sometimes shot through with scents from the day’s meals. The eyes always watching: Gaia’s, Caswell’s, the Doctor’s – and others. Ones which he never saw, but knew they were there, behind the glass, or around the next corner, even hovering above him somehow.
He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to call it all back. It was here. All of it. Every day, from the first. So why was it all so strange, so alien? Nothing came, beyond the same fragments. He opened his eyes, and stared at what lay before him, even harder. At the far end of the space, another bank of windows – one-way glass – was set higher in the wall, about the height he was watching from, looking out over both sections. He suspected the spot they were in now had the same shielding, hiding anyone behind from the view of those below. Observation areas – or something different? Was that where the unseen eyes had watched from, his whole time here? He suddenly realised he’d never learned just how big the Facility was: how many floors, how many rooms, how far underground. It made no sense; he’d lived here his whole life. Why can’t I remember?
Leah came close to his side. He looked to her, not saying a word. Her face bore the same mix of wonder, apprehension and uncertainty that must be on his own. Cayden joined them, still showing absolutely nothing – although his stance, and the blade and pistol in hand, said how hunted he felt, and showed how ready he was to fight at the slightest whisper of a threat.
‘I see you remember your old rooms,’ Gaia said, breaking the silence. The sober tone of her – its? – words couldn’t quite hide the maternal pride beneath them.
‘Something like that,’ Greg said. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the puzzlement from his voice. He kept staring, almost fixedly. ‘It’s all there – and not, at the same time.’ He made himself turn aside from the view, and scan the room, until he spotted another blue lens to the group’s right, where another pair of elevator doors stood waiting. ‘And you’re going to fill in the blanks.’ It wasn’t a question, or a statement.
‘Yes,’ Gaia replied. ‘And given what we’re dealing with – perhaps it’d be best if we start with the most recent ones.’ The elevator’s doors slid open before the reply had faded. This time, the three of them headed for it without hesitation.
Chapter 21
The ride down this time was much slower – or so Greg’s ears told him. The elevator car was certainly much wider than the ones abov
eground. Instead of floor buttons, the call panel consisted of a palm, retina, voice and heartbeat monitor; only when one of them – Leah, this time – had stood before these had the car started into motion. Gaia’s blue eye stared down from the ceiling. The bulkiness of the metal door and walls suggested enough shielding to stop a rocket launcher; it was almost like riding in a safe. They certainly looked strong enough that Greg doubted he’d be able to pull or punch them apart, as he had with the vault at Advent Tech. He couldn’t remember ever riding in them – but the same familiarity remained. Maybe that’s what they were built for. So many like us, all in one place, all needing to be kept under wraps until the time came– they’d want the place securable against anything. The idea didn’t anger him; in fact, it gave him a rush, of anticipation and grim eagerness. The cafeteria, the barracks, the gym, the offices were typical of any base, covert or not. Now they were approaching the heart.
The car shuddered to a halt. The doors slid open, eerily quiet. A white-panelled room lay on the other side. The smell of antiseptic was strong enough to make Greg want to draw his hood up. Directly across the room was a pair of plain metal doors, sealed shut, with a sign above it in bold red letters Emergency Operations. The only disruptions in the scene were a curving desk of the same colour, set well out of the way against the wall, Gaia’s all-seeing lens above the doors – and a hospital stretcher close to them, the kind with automated linkups that allowed a hospital computer to route critical patients to the right rooms when the staff were swamped. When Greg looked closer, he noticed the stretcher’s cushion seemed damp – and was lightly stained with dirt, and brownish-red spots.
His gun hand snapped up. Leah and Cayden matched his move. ‘Wait,’ Gaia said, still peaceful; she/it might’ve been asking him to pause and tie his boots before running. ‘There’s no threat here, not so long as we’re careful.’
‘Careful about what?’ Leah demanded. ‘What’s down here?’ She pointed her weapon at the stretcher. ‘Who else is here? Are there casualties? Did someone breach the place?’
‘They would have, I’m sure, if they had been aware of it,’ Gaia replied. A short pause. ‘Following your firefight on the Sound, another survivor was brought here for treatment and observation. I have gotten acquainted with it as best I can, and so I think the first order of business is for you to do the same.’
Cayden saw what the voice was driving at first. ‘You’ve got one of them in there,’ he rumbled. ‘One of the Brown Coats.’
Greg tensed again. His gun hand started to rise again, before he stopped it. ‘Yes – although there wasn’t much in the way of clothing, brown or otherwise, when he was found,’ Gaia said, without a trace of humour. ‘That manoeuvre of yours did quite a number on him, and his friends. Enough to kill any ordinary special ops assassin, and to put the three of you out of commission for a while.’
‘That was the plan,’ Greg said tightly. He made himself holster the gun, keeping the other hand close to his knife. ‘I’m assuming he’s in there, confined somehow? Otherwise, he’d probably be tearing his way out looking for us – and you.’
‘Very possibly,’ Gaia said. ‘He is under heavy sedation, however, and is not expected to reawaken for some time. As for confinement – you will see for yourself.’ As though cued, the Operations doors slid open.
Greg took the first step, then another. He drew his knife; guns were more of a risk, with such close quarters. Leah was at his shoulder, Cayden right behind. That alone was more comforting than any weapon. Some of the others in their ‘class,’ to use the Doctor’s term, were repeatedly handpicked for solo missions, but he had always found his best work came from team efforts. It’d better, if this goes sideways.
The doors slid open when he was a foot from them. Inside was what appeared to be a standard ER set-up, not too different from the clinic they’d woken up in. A wide room, enough to easily accommodate eight stretchers, partitioned into smaller sections by cloth curtains – all of which except one were drawn back. Instead of stretchers, however, the spaces were occupied by stationary beds: stiff-looking white pallets, on sculpted metal frames that looked welded to the floor. Steel cabinets and readout screens lined the walls, along with wheeled carts of surgical and emergency gear. Another blue lens overlooked all this from the centre of the ceiling. There was a new smell in the air, partially faded and buried beneath the harsher hospital scents: a sour-sweet odour, as of an overdone pot roast.
Greg looked over everything, knife hand still at the ready. The unsettling familiarity rose again. He’d been here before, or someplace very like it. There had been plenty of checkups, all through his time with the Project, and a lesser number of injuries – like the slow cook of the Balkash mission – that needed ER care. Yet he still couldn’t nail down where, when, or how, beyond the by-now typical fragments.
He halted before the sole curtained section, hefting his knife. Before he could reach for the cloth, Gaia spoke again. ‘He is no threat, not the way he is now. He was in much worse shape on arrival – it is amazing he’s recovered at all, much less so quickly. Although you might not think so, once you see for yourselves.’
Greg hesitated a moment longer, then drew the curtain aside, pulling it all the way to the wall. Leah couldn’t quite hide a gag: a major display of revulsion. Cayden didn’t, although there was a momentarily greater tint of grey in his features. Greg just stared, somewhere between fascinated and repulsed. He hadn’t known exactly what he’d see, although the smell should have given him some hint – should have being the key term. This, though… He knew the inhibitors were almost gone by now; the medics at the Sanctuary were reasonably sure of that. Right then, though, he was grateful for any that might be keeping his reactions muted.
The man on the bed before them lay on his back, naked. The slow, minute rise and fall of his chest was the only movement he made. His head might once have been covered in blonde hair, before it was burned almost completely away, and the remainder shaved off in a haphazard style. He was shackled at the arms, ankles and legs; the cuffs looked wide and strong enough to restrain an elephant. An IV and several readout leads were plugged into and patched onto his left arm and upper chest.
Except for this, and most of his face, seemingly every inch of the man was covered in lines of mottled, red-white scar tissue. Much tinier scars, the size of a paper clip or smaller, dotted the edges of his long, angular features, suggesting plastic surgery, or a much gentler form of whatever kind had been worked on the rest of him. Greg hadn’t noticed them before; now, up close, he saw how they made the man’s visage look older, more worn. It was definitely one of the team from the attack at Caswell’s airfield – the one he’d nearly killed. He studied the face, more closely, then shook his head. Nothing about it clicked, despite the nagging in his mind.
He looked over the rest of the prisoner. The cleanest, thinnest cuts connected and spread out across his chest and stomach, traced over and along his collar and shoulders, and extended down his arms to his wrists and the backs of his hands. The most obvious and gruesome looked irregularly placed, or so Greg could tell, dotting the man’s scalp, biceps, and forearms, and more below his rib cage and along his waistline. A large, circular scar covered most of his throat. More incisions lanced down his thighs and lower legs, bunching up around the knees and pelvic area, and even reaching to the base of his toes. And there were probably even more such mutilations all over his back, and his calves and the backs of his knees. Nobody could take so much surgery – if that was what it was – and live. Maybe not even us. Yet these creatures could, somehow.
He stepped up to the side of the bed, beside the sleeping man’s shoulder. He reached for the man’s left arm, then stopped, looking at Leah and Cayden. They nodded, shifting to defensive stances. Hiding a shudder – another first, for him – he grasped the man’s wrist, and lifted it higher, bending in for a better look. Up close, the incisions were older and more precise than they looked; done with surgical tools, not hacksaws, and quite some t
ime ago.
He peered closer at the sleeping man’s chest and shoulders, confirming his theory. Every one of them was precisely situated over a critical muscle, organ, or bone. The work wasn’t reparative, then, or done for torture or someone’s sick pleasure. Although a true surgeon wouldn’t have left the incisions to heal so haphazardly, risking more infection or worse scarring; even ones without access to the reparative effects of ARC had others to at least minimise the latter. Someone with skills and the right tools had done this; someone who didn’t care what the effects were, only the results.
He straightened, and looked up to the lens. ‘You said he recovered. How, exactly?’ He paused, a heartbeat’s worth. ‘Like us?’
‘Not quite in the same manner or speed – but yes,’ Gaia replied. ‘He was found almost a mile south of where the three of you washed up, still unconscious. Given his associates still being at large, and the slow healing consistent with ARC noted in his case, it was decided to bring him here for containment as well as treatment.’
‘Decided by whom?’ Leah demanded.
Instead of answering, Gaia continued, in a kind of litany. ‘Severe burns over close to fifty per cent of his body, most of them third-degree, along with additional lacerations and multiple broken bones from what’s believed to be debris from the two boats involved.’ The voice turned reproachful at that for an instant, before going on. ‘The cuts and breaks were healing even as he was discovered; the burns took longer, but were gone by the time clean-up and initial analysis were finished. He remained unconscious through this, and the ride back to the Facility; perhaps a natural, built-in response to the pain he had to be feeling, as the wounds and burns closed.’ A significant pause. ‘Similar reactions were noted in other Golems, after excessive trauma. Based on this, and preliminary facial reconstruction, I think the four of you may already be acquainted.’
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