He fell silent, looking deeply troubled. Greg didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t mind coming back from a sure kill, if it meant getting on with the mission; he’d faced plenty in his time. But if the Brown Coats had that ability, along with all the others…
Greg swallowed the unnerving thought. His voice slightly unsteady, he said, ‘The other question is how he was so… altered, once he was at whichever site inflicted this work on him.’ He pointed to one batch of incisions, then another. ‘None of these are prior wounds from the Balkash mission, and no part of the Project involved this kind of destructive modification. His ARC ability should have allowed him to heal – not without marks, in certain serious cases, but nothing this extensive.’
‘And even assuming he could be revived, after what he endured, why wouldn’t he have recognised you?’ Leah asked. ‘I didn’t know every Golem in each class personally, by the end – but he wouldn’t have attacked you. Not after what you’d both gone through, in that mission and before.’
Cayden paced along the side of the bed, visually probing every inch of Taylor’s form. ‘There has to be another form of control involved, beyond the AllSpec and the surgeries. Maybe some kind of conditioning, related to the cranial implants, although I doubt it; the procedures would be damaging, possibly fatally so, and he’s obviously not lobotomised or dead.’
‘Right.’ Greg touched the IV, then addressed Gaia. ‘What is all this, exactly?’
‘A precautionary detox programme, begun after his arrival,’ Gaia answered. ‘Nothing has appeared on any of the tox tests, although there are plenty of masking agents which would prevent such detection. It would, however, take years to create the proper mixture, without killing the subject or rendering them comatose.’
Detox. The word clicked in Greg’s head. Looking to the others, he saw the same slow, disturbed realisation. ‘What does the detox cover?’ he asked. He moved a step towards the lens. Cold anticipation – and not a little dread – seeped into his veins. ‘Maybe the inhibitors – and boosters and other injections he got, and us, when we joined the Project. The ones that none of us recall ever getting the whole story on? The shots that might have had some other effects, besides vaccinations and “recharging” the ARC – like memory loss and plenty more?’ He made a sharp gesture in Cayden’s direction. ‘A lot more, in certain cases – maybe all?’
Gaia didn’t respond. Leah and Cayden came around the bed, forming up on either side of him. Leah’s look was direct, like his must be. Cayden’s was even more opaque, but with intent, searching eyes; he knew what Greg had been driving at, and wanted the same answer. Greg took another step, and another, until he was directly below the lens. In a polite but iron tone, he said, ‘I think we’ve gotten what answers we can here, for now. Maybe it’s time we got fully reacquainted with the Facility – and find out the rest.’
The lens stared back at him. He stayed mute for a full minute, gaze never wavering. Finally, Gaia spoke. ‘Very well.’
Chapter 23
They entered the elevator, filing in silently one after the other. Instead of starting a descent or rise, a flap popped open beneath the keypad, revealing a small compartment. Inside, a tiny needle jutted from a circular black base. Gaia’s voice came from above. ‘This area of the Facility requires your DNA to unlock the security measures. You recall the aboveground areas well, judging by all the signs. And you recall most of what you’ve seen on this level, and the living and training sections several floors up. Those were the Project’s primary use areas; the limbs and a good part of the brain, so to speak. The heart is where we’re headed now – something you’ve never seen. You may hate what you learn there. My hope is that you’ll come to understand, once you see everything there is to see.’
Not trusting himself to speak, Greg kept quiet. Leah and Cayden made no sound or move, either. Greg faced the controls, and stuck an index finger into the open panel. The needle jerked up, almost too fast to see; he winced as it bit the tip of the extended digit, drawing a large drop of blood. There was a dull chime, and the panel swung closed. Ignoring the still-welling blood, Greg went through the rest of the scanner process.
The elevator shuddered to life, beginning a descent even slower than the ones they’d taken so far. Greg felt his heart pumping harder, enough to make him feel short of breath. He stayed almost at attention, eyes on the doors – though he couldn’t stop them from making infinitesimal glances in the direction of Gaia’s lens. Anticipation and dread wrestled in his gut. For the first time since they’d entered the place, he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to head back upstairs, take what they’d learned so far to Hiroshi and the rest of the Council, and leave whatever was below them buried, where it—
The elevator stopped with a jolt, so hard and unexpected Greg almost lost his footing. He grabbed the nearest handrail for support, one hand moving from knife to pistol, and back. Leah and Cayden backed against the walls, with similar motions. The doors slid back, revealing a second set: heavy metal slabs, three feet thick at Greg’s guess. A white plaque was pinned to each. The letters, written in blood-red ink, spelled out several curt warnings:
Project Golem Lab Wing
Restricted Area
Visible ID Required At All Times
Lethal Force Authori s ed
‘There is no need to worry about the last two warnings,’ Gaia informed them. ‘All the guards left with the rest of the staff before the Bomb, and the whole sector locked down. There is a backup measure designed to suck all the air out of the room, in the event of a breach, but that is deactivated as well.’
Greg held himself to a nod, not sure how else to reply. Somewhere outside, a buzzer sounded, soft and echoing. With a deep groaning noise, the second set of doors began to slide back. Directly above the doorframe, a yellow alert light was whirling, cutting out when he stepped over the threshold. A short white-walled foyer, almost identical to the one in the ER, sat beyond the elevators. At the other end, two glassed-in booths – bulletproof, Greg could tell from the way they caught the light – flanked a pair of similarly tempered doors, secured by a state-of-the-art biometric lock. The glass was frosted, hiding what lay ahead, with no label or markings of any kind. When Greg leaned out, keeping most of his body in the car, he saw two more booths, next to the elevator, and a fire exit doorway; he wondered if it reached all the way to the surface, or just to the next level. Checking one of the booths, he saw four assault rifles secured to a stand beneath the desks within, and an array of body armour parts, Taser wands, stun grenades and CS canisters. Perfect for any potential breaches – yet somehow he had the feeling that wasn’t their main purpose.
The three Golems went up to the frosted doors. The lock itself was outwardly unexceptional: a concave impression in the shape of a hand, lit blood-red, a dark readout screen, and three small, blinking lights beside it. After glancing at the others, Greg stepped up and placed his hand in the space. The impression changed to a bright green. Half a dozen needles – one each for the palm, the thumb, and four fingers – stabbed out, making him yank away. Before he could do anything else, the lights beside the readout spat out three long rainbow-tinged beams, raking over his entire body. 3–D scan, he realised, right as the beams shut off. ‘Voiceprint required,’ a flat, mechanical voice demanded.
Nonplussed, Greg hesitated. There’d been any number of passwords when he was in the field, but he couldn’t recall ever needing one at the Facility. He looked to Leah and Cayden, only to see the same confusion and uncertainty. Deciding to take a chance, he faced the door again, and spoke the first phrases he’d usually given, when asked for ID on missions. ‘Gregory, G-250/228.’
His voice played back to him from a tiny speaker, shifting in pitch, tone, volume and frequency. Then the readout blinked on, flashing two words in green: Access Granted. There was the clunk of deadbolts retracting, from every side of the doorway. When nothing happened after that, Greg started to reach for the silver door handle, but Leah beat him to it. Grasping it, sh
e tugged, the cords standing out on her neck. The door slid open, slowly. At last, she managed to get it all the way open, and stood beside it, panting a little. Bulletproof and reinforced, Greg observed. Overkill, maybe, with everything else keeping this base hidden and protected, but probably extra peace of mind for D.C. Plenty of other military complexes and secure zones he’d passed through had had similar protections. So why did it feel like he was stepping farther into a prison, rather than a base?
Past the doorway, Greg saw a walkway like the ones upstairs, with a glass barrier between it and the chamber below. Seeing the others’ caution, he took the lead, managing to keep his hands away from his weapons, with an effort. The first thing he noted was the size of the place: close to that of the training and mess areas above them. Unlike them, though, the chamber was white as snow, with heavy support columns snaking up the walls to meet and form an intricate double-helix symbol. A larger version of Gaia’s lens sat in the very centre, like an electric-blue gem.
There was a wide metal staircase leading down to the chamber floor, behind another secured door. Greg ignored this for the moment, and approached the railing, scanning the chamber. He hadn’t known what to expect when they’d started down – and now that he was here, he wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or suspicious. Two sections of darkened offices – or so he guessed them to be, since they were made of the same misty glass partitions – stretched down the length of the room, their ceilings extended to the walkway. Some were larger than their neighbours, but otherwise the design was uniform. The light from the ceiling bulbs was softer than those upstairs, but not by much; it gave the place a weird mixed feeling of hospital and warehouse. The space between the offices was wide – the size of a soccer field, maybe a little bigger – but completely empty. The white linoleum sparkled in the light, like the cleaners had come through just that morning. When he looked at it from certain angles, he could see the same helix design, patterned in miniature, interlacing style, across the entire floor.
Greg started down the stairs. The sound of his boots echoed through the room, though he was treading as softly as possible. Leah and Cayden came next: she curious, he wary, as before. Greg peered at each of the rooms as he descended. Nothing could be discerned, except for several shadowy shapes that could be desks, or anything else. When he reached the bottom, he looked to the ceiling again. They hadn’t come very much further down from the ER, but he still had no clear idea of the complex’s size. From the support columns, it was possible this area had been the starting point, with the other levels added as the Project got on its feet. But if we were brought to the Project when fresh boots or whatever else we were, they’d want the barracks and everything else ready first– wouldn’t they?
More lights sprang on, in each of the rooms. Though not enough to pierce the cloudy glass, it still allowed Greg to parse out more objects: a desk here, a lamp or chair there. The ones farther away seemed empty, although that meant little; he resolved to check those first. Somewhere, he heard the soft whir of servers starting up, and the beeps and chirps of other equipment.
‘These are the main offices, for administration, and some of the higher-level trainers, like Sergeant Caswell,’ Gaia declared. Greg clenched a fist at this, but otherwise kept his cool. ‘We – the Doctor, and I, and the other high-ranking trainers – were working so often, monitoring your training and other aspects of the Project, they were hardly ever occupied.’
‘We can tell,’ Leah said neutrally. Greg nodded; Cayden, still staring around the room, didn’t show any reaction. Leah motioned to the rest of the rooms. ‘And all that?’
Instead of speaking, Gaia’s light blinked once – Greg was sure of it, this time. One of the doors in the larger, still-dark sections, set centremost in the row, popped open – with a click and rush of purified air. Pressurised, Greg recognised. He couldn’t remember any of the rooms upstairs being so, and none so far on the ‘tour’. He moved to the entry, letting some of his eagerness propel him ahead of the others.
In the first glance, he saw nothing unusual. A standard operating table, the cushion flat and starched white like everything else on the level. An array of wheeled monitor screens set in a semicircle around it. Gleaming white cabinets, holding who knew what. A bank of lights, extending down from the ceiling above the table. All typical OR fare—
He stopped, frowning. Stepping farther into the room, he studied the table more closely. Something was tucked below the mattress at head height, almost hidden from view. He moved up and pulled it free. A grey cloth strap, not much different from a seatbelt, but wide as a man’s hand, and thicker than two fingers. Checking down the table, he found four more, at spots that corresponded to the shoulders, sternum, waist, knees and ankles. He was puzzled. Restraints for uncooperative or unstable patients, or—
He was in another place, lying on his back on a slab of cold metal. His head, arms and legs were held down by cloth straps . He jerked against them, but they didn’t yield. The walls around him were a dazzling pure white, with soft light shining down. He could hear the faint beeping of machines, and thought he could see screens of some sort to either side. Human figures moved in and out of sight – ghostly white suits, without faces. One of them approached from his right, a syringe at the ready –
He gasped, letting the belt fall. The memory receded as fast as it had come, leaving a cold, tingling residue of impact. His knees wobbled for a second, enough for him to grab the bed to keep from toppling. ‘What is it?’ Leah’s voice came to him as though from far away – and then she was right beside him. Her hands gripped his arm and shoulder. ‘Greg? What’s wrong?’
Those words brought him the rest of the way back. Legs steady again, he let go of the bed, and turned around. Cayden and Leah were both in front of him, watching closely. ‘It was here,’ he murmured. ‘The operations, the exams, the ones we’ve all dreamed of in some way – they were here. I never knew what was happening – why it was happening. Every time was the same: one minute I’m somewhere else, on the base or in the Facility – then here.’ He gestured in a half-dreamy way at his chest and arms. ‘I’m always tied down, can’t move an inch. People in white coats and gowns, coming at me with needles – or scalpels.’ His voice faltered. ‘But I wasn’t a recruit, or anything – I was too young to be—’
Leah and Cayden stared at him, unable to speak or react, or not knowing how. Without a look to the Doctor or the others, he strode back out into the main chamber. His mind was churning, still trying to wrap itself around the memory and what it meant. He looked around the space, in short, probing glances. If that was here, then what came next had to be– His eyes fell on the other large ‘office’, in the opposite row. There.
He crossed the space to it in a near-leap. He heard Leah call out to him, and Cayden; none of it registered. He wasted a moment tugging on the door handle before he punched the keypad, crumpling the apparatus with a shower of sparks. An alarm began beeping from the ceiling above him; he ignored it, wrenching at the handle again. This time it yielded, smoothly.
The room inside was less brightly lit than its counterparts, creating an almost relaxing feel. Unlike the chamber, the floor was carpeted in plush dark green. The walls and glass were tinted sky-blue, with a pattern of white fluffy clouds, dotted with images of planes, jets, and all kinds of birds. Bins of kids’ toys and stuffed animals stood in one corner, along with a pair of worn beanbag chairs. A stack of yoga or athletic mats was arranged against the far wall. Five of these were laid out in the centre of the room, forming a neat row right beneath another Gaia lens. Greg went to the closest of these. Kneeling, he felt at its sticky, weave-patterned surface. Near the top, about where the head would rest, there was a sprinkle of brown droplets, almost invisible in the lighting.
‘We came here,’ Leah said. Greg got slowly to his feet, not turning around. She moved beside him, staring at the mats. ‘After the operations.’ She spoke with detached calm. ‘When we were done with… whatever they’d done to us,
and had to recover.’ She looked at her stomach, brushing her hands over each other and her arms. ‘Nothing was different about me, not that I could see. But everything hurt; I couldn’t move, and I was afraid to even breathe. People were crying around me, every time; little kids. Then the men in white came again, for new… work. I always tried to turn away, to get up, to run – but nothing.’
She cut off, edging away from the mats with fear in her eyes. Slowly, it faded, and she looked up at the lens. ‘You sang to us,’ she half-whispered. ‘All the time, while we were lying here. Lullabies, happy songs, to help us sleep or calm down.’ She began to sing herself. ‘Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee… All through the night…’
A shadow fell across them. Jerkily, Greg turned. Cayden was standing in the door, feet on the threshold like he was afraid to come any closer. Gradually, that fear seemed to erode, and he took one step into the room, then another. He went to the wall, raising a slightly quivering hand to stroke at some of the painted images: a biplane, a soaring owl, a fighter jet, a bald eagle. He walked along its length, legs stiff and jerky, brushing fingers over more images, and the stack of mats. Only when he’d made a full circuit of the room did he stop, and look around, taking everything in. A sea of emotion warred over his features: anger, agony, confusion, hatred. What did he endure, in this room and the others? Had he been a recruit like them – if that’s what they’d been?
He brushed at another image, then let his hand fall. As though this were a signal, Cayden’s reverie shattered. He pushed past Greg and Leah, grabbing one of the mats. He took one long look at the dried blood spatter, then stomped up to the Gaia lens; Greg felt the vibration through the floorboards. Eyes burning, he shoved the mat against the blue eye. ‘Explain,’ the older Golem growled.
Discarded Page 29
