by Gentry Race
“She says the Reformers went crazy, like they were being given too much supplement.” Hastings said, reading Vix’s signing.
“What supplements?”
“It’s what we call the Æther supply. To level up, you need to receive more Æther or printing material to manifest at that rate.”
“Listen, Sasha,” Tang said, more annoyed, “we need that seed data now. We don’t have time for this.”
Hastings shot him a cold, weary look, the way only a woman could. He immediately shut his mouth and gestured for her to continue. She walked past him, pushing his extended hand away.
The unbroken cell next to Vix’s was Beightol’s. She looked through the glass and recognized the art and posters he’d hung over his months in the tubular cell. His fascination with an ancient filmmaker made for some of the worst conversations since most people hadn’t heard of the guy. He was an “old soul.” belonging in a different era.
The large, brooding Beightol sat quietly in the back of his cell on the toilet, his pants around his feet, intently reading a book called The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan.
“Well, that’s a sight,” Tang said. “And what the hell is he holding? Is that a real book? Haven’t seen one of those in years.”
“Beightol,” Hastings said and softly knocked on the glass. “You okay?”
His broad head peeked over the book, and he smiled when he saw Hastings’ face. He then finished reading the page from the book, ripped it from its spine, and used it to wipe his ass.
“He always hated that book,” Hastings said to Tang, initiating the suit bonding and knocking another time on the glass. “Beightol, we need your help.”
“Can he at least talk?” Tang asked, keeping a steely eye on Vix as she once again sat down in a yoga pose.
“Barely,” Hastings said, punching numbers into the dial. The door swished opened.
Beightol swirled his large shoulders around like he was stretching the Voxel suit for an Olympic tryout. He eyed every soldier in disgust and gave his chest a single pound. The upper chest ports fired up, and the bright yellow light signaled Hastings that he was ready to voxelize.
“What does you want?” Beightol asked in broken English with a thick Slavic accent. “I can have weapon ready?”
“No,” Hastings said, patting Beightol on his tummy, calming the big brute down. The ports began to dim to a warm orange color. “We need to know what happened here.”
Beightol looked at Vix and smiled, pushing out of his cell to the center of the room where the administration of new grey matter took place. He touched the chair where he’d once sat with his left hand and ran the fingers of his other hand along the back of his thick suit collar.
“Nauts started changing,” Beightol said. “Couldn’t see ’em. Suits like monsters.”
Hastings thought for a moment back to the suits’ origins. If there’d been an amplification in the Æther content, then one could assume the result was “overdose behavior.” However, since the Æther feed was quantum entangled from an unknown source in the universe, it was impossible to say. It also didn’t help that the spliced alien DNA came from bugs that traveled faster than tachyon particles.
Vix was once again meditating on the floor when Hastings knelt and tapped her on the shoulder. She motioned with her arms, hand-signing a question.
“We need to search the area,” Hastings said. “There’s still one more suit unaccounted for.”
“Wait,” Tang said, “what about the seed data? We only have two hours left.”
Hastings walked to Tang and grabbed his chin, squeezing his cheeks and kissing him.
“These are what’s left of the seed data. Each suit acts as a recorder,” Hastings said. “Besides, the HOLEs are inside the icy crust. It would take a bunker-buster-type missile to penetrate this deep inside.”
Tang smiled at his team, trying not to blush.
CRASH!
Hastings instinctively voxelized a helmet in response to the sudden noise. Scanners in her HUD went berserk, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound. She pushed past the group and jogged to the pit where the once-infected man lay scattered in a thousand pieces.
CRASH!
Tang was first to arrive behind her. Within her Voxel suit, she could see a group of people rummaging through the mirrored rooms.
“What is it?” Tang asked.
“We’ve got visitors,” Hastings said. She voxelized long, strap-like cables from each of her ports and latched to the balcony above, pulling herself up like a puppet on marionette strings.
“Sasha,” Tang said, “we don’t have time!”
She stopped herself just over the ledge.
“Get Beightol and Vix. Tell them it's time to voxelize.”
Tang shook his head.
Nathan stepped quietly behind the fiery, rainbow-haired girl as she led them deeper under Rockheed and into the HOLEs. What had once been a basic prison layout with hundreds of Reform cells, mess halls, and showers had changed into a labyrinth descending hundreds of feet below the icy tundra. Boxy and yet cylindrical, the network of descending caverns was a series of dark, grated walkways that connected to each other, acting as structural support as well. Even though it was illuminated by light fixtures every twenty feet, it was still dark, overshadowed by the scale of the place.
Nathan looked back at his brother Richter, who was just behind Switch, nudging his gun into his back as a means of encouraging him to follow them. Switch was an interesting fellow. Because he had nowhere else to go, he was stuck with them. Besides, those dreadlock plugs could be useful later on.
“How much farther?” Nathan asked, trying not to look at Fery’s plump behind and tiny waist.
“Sugar, this is just the beginning. Damn scientists built a whole city below the Reform Facility,” Fery said. “It gets a lot deeper from here.”
“I bet that’s not the only thing that gets deep,” TRUDI said.
“Better shut that bitch up,” Fery swore.
“Richter!” Nathan exclaimed. “Turn her off.”
“There’s nothing about you that can turn me off, sir,” TRUDI said.
“Hey,” Richter said in his defense, “I don’t have access to my suit’s features, remember? Besides, you’re the one who programmed the jealousy bit into her. I just wanted sexy.”
“Just…” Nathan said, searching for a solution, “keep moving. We’ll be there soon enough.”
“What part of the Reform Facility is this?” Switch asked.
“Look up, silly,” Fery said, pointing to a large opening that revealed the sky.
“This is one of the rain stacks,” Richter said, “a rain-collecting system to help Rockheed with the terraforming process.”
“Bingo, sugar,” Fery said, her hips swaying even more than usual. “This will lead us to the HOLEs and your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Nathan said.
A few hundred yards below, the group found themselves front and center of a door that was larger than the average man. Nathan couldn’t help but imagine what kinds of strange things were being done down there. He stepped to the handle and pushed down, to no avail.
“It’s locked,” Nathan said.
“Must be the cleanse protocol,” said Richter.
“Absurd,” Switch said from the back. “Nothing is locked in this place when I’m around.”
He accessed the panel next to the door, punching numbers in until it spat out a small port. Switch fingered through each of his dreadlocks, stopping on a thin strand affixed with a golden connector.
“Just need to ‘switch’ the protocol off,” Switch said, smiling.
They entered a large mirrored room with a table at the center. Nathan could see hundreds of images of himself extending into each reflection. The sight reminded him of the Syndicate Event and the time loop he’d experienced with Sasha. There were endless possible realities, but only one was possible to experience. He shook the thought from his head, looking
to his brother for strength.
Richter eyed the room.
“Never seen this place before,” Richter said.
“Of course, you haven’t, sugar,” Fery said, running her fingers across the table. With a short hop, she planted herself on top, looking around in awe, “This is the interrogation room. A lot of nasty things go on in here.”
Fery spread her legs out a bit. Switch’s eyes widened and Nathan was quick to pull her off the table.
“Listen,” Nathan said, “no more games, “How far till we reach the HOLEs?”
WHEEEEEOOOOMP WHEEEEOOOOOMP!
Loud alarms sounded throughout the building, and the lights lowered to a deep red. Nathan reached for his gun, eyeing his brother for support. Switch hid behind Fery while she smiled amongst the chaotic sound. Nathan wondered if anything other than her stepfather scared her.
SMASH!
The mirror split open in a webbed pattern as the head of a soldier pushed through, showing a gaping hole into the room next door. The mangled guard hovered in the air, and Nathan used his disparate eyes to take a quick look. In one eye, he saw nothing but the guard floating in mid-air. In the other, he saw a suited Reform inmate with black techno-organic skin.
“I see it!” Nathan called out.
‘Where?” Richter asked, ducking down just under the broken glass. Nathan shot at the man, but missed. Richter stood up and continuously bucked shots into the next room. The hologram vanished in a flash.
“He’s gone,” Nathan said, gesturing for Richter to follow him. “This way.”
Nathan ran to the door. Switch and Fery were already gone. He’d figured as much. Deep down he’d known they were only looking after number one, just like how it used to be.
Nathan closed his good eye, focusing on the hallway ahead, and spotted a creature in another room, waiting for them and huffing like it was winded from its jump.
“Up ahead, Richter,” Nathan yelled at him. “Get ready.”
“You guys need help?” a familiar female voice said from behind them.
Nathan turned his head and saw a hard-angled suit contoured with neon running lights and glowing portholes—the Voxel suit from the holoscreen he’d seen before. He narrowed his “bad” eye to get a better look at the person in front of him: Sasha Hastings.
She appeared as a sleek—albeit blocky—mass, and two long blades extended from her forearm past her waist. Despite that, her face looked the same as when he’d last seen her, with her fair complexion and red fiery hair pulled back into a knot. She smiled at Richter, immediately recognizing his rank with Rockheed.
“Get down!” Hastings called out. A helmet unfolded from the large collar around her neck and a range-like weapon printed in small, blocky masses, as if out of thin air. She aimed it at the door with intent. Nathan couldn’t believe his eyes, seeing weaponry nanoprinting firsthand.
WHAAM!
The door burst open, and Nathan could see a man lunging toward Hastings as she shot round after round but missed. She couldn’t see him, so Nathan was quick to help guide her arm as she shot. An arrow-like bolt slammed into the now visible man’s stomach. The oozing port of the man’s techno-organic mouth dripped liquid all over Hastings’ suit, and Nathan could see the tech begin to smolder from the acid-like saliva.
BEEP!
Fery stood no more than a few feet behind them. In her hand she held what looked like a laser displacement gun, and she smiled when she heard the sound that indicated it had finished charging. Nathan grabbed the weapon from Fery and tried to find any part of the wounded man he could blow away without hurting Hastings, but all he could do was watch her wrestle with the man until she finally managed to kick him away. Nathan was quick to see his shot and blasted the corner just as the injured man rounded it.
Hastings folded the ranged weapon back into the arm of her suit, as well as folding her helmet back into the collar at her neck. She voxelized a small screen that showed the wounded man making his way down the vertical corridor.
Nathan extended his hand to help her up. “I came to save you.”
“I don’t need saving,” Hastings fired back.
8
Nathan, Hastings, and Richter stood beside what used to be an elevator shaft but was now only a large, gaping hole. The elevator carriage, just behind them, was smashed into the wall, showing how much strength the injured man had.
Nathan’s eye caught the visual of a strong stench radiating off the man and intermingling with the residual smoke from the shaft.
“He’s afraid,” Nathan said.
“How do you know?” Hastings asked as she stepped to the entryway, pushing torn metal and widening the hole with ease.
“I can see it. Must be a chemical they emit when they’re scared,” Nathan explained as he tried to get a better look at the exosuit Hastings wore. “It could signal more of them to come when they’re being harmed.”
Vix and Beightol were the first to arrive to help, each one clad in their Voxel suits just like Hastings. Sasha plunged her arm out and into the ruined elevator shaft. She closed her eyes and the forearm of the suit unfolded again, this time from the bottom and top, revealing sharp grappling hooks of some kind. With a slight squint from Hastings, the hooks shot out at the same time, sinking one each into the ceiling and floor of the shaft and pulling the cable taut.
“Jesus,” Richter said, “you got a whole team down here?”
Hastings pulled her arm away, disconnecting the device. Nathan was intrigued. The response of the suit was fascinating. He’d never seen pieces detach from exosuits before.
“So that’s the suit you’ve been working on?” Nathan asked.
Hastings ignored both questions. “Beightol, Vix, relieve Richter and his friend from guard duty.”
She formed a helmet that quickly covered her head and then slid down the newly nanoprinted cable into the dark, smoke-filled abyss.
Nathan gripped his side pistol tight, pointing it back at the soldiers. He knew he had no chance against the tech he’d just seen Hastings use, but he had to at least try.
“Alright, time to dance,” Nathan said, gesturing for his brother to slide down the cables. “You first, Richter.”
Beightol took a broader stance, voxelizing a large cannon on his arm. Vix unsheathed two long blades and took guard.
“Don’t,” Fery said, interrupting from the side hallway. She stepped lightly toward Beightol. “They’re gonna drop a bomb on us, sugar.”
Beightol cocked his head in confusion while he looked at Vix.
“Listen, I know Hastings asked you to relieve us of duty, but you have to listen to me. They’re going to drop a nuke on this place in less than…?”
Nathan turned to Richter for the time. He read his indicator.
“Fifty-six minutes,” Richter said.
Vix gave a look to Beightol and nodded her head in acceptance.
Richter jumped onto the cable and slid into the abyss below.
Nathan then jumped for the cable, wrapping his legs and hands around the cold steel. The smell was more intense as he made his way nearly two stories down the shaft. Lowering himself to the bottom, Nathan was surprised to see a wholly functional operations facility that was lit up with paneling and large displays. First off, Nathan recognized the standard charts for calculating satellite orbits and what was left of the government's satellites, but the opposite side of the room was filled with rows of plants—what looked like corn and wheat. Nathan could neither believe the size of the room nor the nature of its contents. It was like a militarized farm.
“This is the grain,” Richter said.
“What grain?” Nathan asked.
Richter was silent.
Nathan looked for Hastings, but she was nowhere to be seen. He glanced at the long corridors that spread out from the central room in five directions, each hallway color-coded in a dominant hue, and chalked up the predictable layout to government design that was then offered out to the lowest bidder. Humans could be so
drab, he thought. This facility could be anywhere.
Suddenly, Nathan’s eye went fuzzy, so he looked closer at the bright red hallway and saw a small trail of blood that nearly blended into the walls surrounding it. Switch was kneeling on the ground, trying to access a door of some sort with a dreadlock plug in his hair.
“Switch!” Nathan called out, now pointing the gun at him. “Get your ass over here.”
Switch stopped what he was doing, only offering a few twitches of his shoulder to indicate his irritation with getting caught.
“What are you doing?” Richter asked.
“Just trying to get out of here,” Switch said.
Nathan was smarter than that. He wouldn’t put it past Switch to be up to something more nefarious than escaping, especially given the top-secret nature of the room’s content.
Nathan focused his vision, concentrating on the visuals.
BOOM!
“Richter, that way,” Nathan called out.
“Ya think?” Richter joked.
Nathan and Richter ran down the hallway and rounded the corner to see Hastings trying to pry open large doors at least two feet thick. She was impatient, manifesting a larger battery of smaller rockets and detonating them at pointblank range. Nathan and Richter dove for cover.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Her feet only slid back a few inches from the blasts she was sending. Fully formed rockets could now be seen on Hastings’ back as she let each one smash into the door and explode.
Nathan called out to Hastings. “Cut the fireworks display! We’ve got less than an hour before we’re buried down here! Let Switch try to bypass the panel.”
Hastings’ helmet folded, and a worried look blanketed her face. She folded the missile battery back into her arm. “These blasted doors are meant to lock in a nuclear attack. There’s no getting through them.”
“What’s in there?” Nathan asked.
Hastings was silent, but Nathan read the stenciled name above the door—DISASTER ROOM.
“What the hell is a Disaster Room?” Nathan asked.
Hastings was still silent, plotting her next move. Switch grabbed his tablet from a console, ran to the door, and brushed his fingers along the paneling. He then dropped to his knees and opened a hidden panel. Pulling electrodes from the handheld device, he inserted them into the wall and they all waited as he ran program after program.
