by Isaac Stone
Barbara Ann seemed to enjoy it, but it wasn’t easy to tell from the way she glanced around in her cold green eyes.
“You have no idea what is inside this maze,” she spoke up. “It might appear to be some sort of garden folly, but you don’t know what it contains. So, you remember the tale of the Greek labyrinth?” The rest of the crew shook their heads.
“In ancient Greece, there was a huge underground place similar to this…”she began.
“Then why didn’t they call it a maze?” Theo asked.
“Because a maze has one way in and one way out,” she explained. "A labyrinth has the same way in that you use to leave. It spirals to a center. In this case, it was the bull-headed monster called a Minotaur that ate whoever was sent into the labyrinth. It was used for human sacrifice until the Greek hero Theseus came into it with a king’s daughter and slew the Minotaur.” She was quiet just long enough for the story to sink into their memories.
“So we have to watch out for some man-eating monster?” Jack asked her with a confused look on his face.
“Not necessarily,” she told him. “But why go to all this trouble to design a maze and not put anything in it? If this is part of a VR game, then wouldn’t you expect there to be something inside you should worry about?” Once again, she let it sink in to them.
“So what did they put into this place?” Kris asked her. “Do you have the inside angle on it?” She deactivated the safety on her impact rifle.
“Not that it would do us a lot of good,” Ash pointed out, but we are all carrying,” he spoke. “Or is this a scenario where we can’t kill the monster in real time unless we have a virtual gun?” He looked at Barbara Ann directly in the eyes.
“Nothing inside here can hurt you,” she explained. “But your mind won’t know it. If you encounter a Minotaur and it attacks, you have to respond because if it chomps down on you, you’ll feel teeth. It rips you open, you will feel the pain. Too much pain can kill you. It doesn’t have to let you bleed out; you’ll go into cardiac arrest just the same. So you need to avoid anything scary that’s after you until we get to the other side of the maze.”
“And our guns?” Kris asked her.
“It will ignore them as they aren’t part of the game. The shells will have no effect on whatever you shoot at, except to possibly damage your comrades. The only weapons that work are the VR ones will find inside the game.” It seemed so obvious to hear talk about it.
“Haven’t seen anything we could use so far,” Ash pointed out to his crew. “I guess we need to keep moving. At least the sun is moving in a standard pattern. We can use it to gauge our progress.” He turned and went through one of the openings in the hedge.
They continued to walk down the hedge and followed the same corridor which Ash felt would take them to the exit. However, it soon turned and went back on itself before forming an arch to talk them in the direction they wanted to go.
“If you know anything about these mazes,” Ash informed everyone, you know that all you have to get out is keep one hand on the wall and follow it. Eventually, it will get you of the maze.” He placed one hand to the wall and kept contact with the maze as he walked forward. The rest of the crew followed him and did the same.
“I see it,” Ash told the rest some time later. “We should be at the exit door in five minutes.” He turned the corner and walked through an opening that was very close to the door.
As soon as they turned the corner and saw the door, the crew noticed a sword, a shield and a spear propped against the hedge line. Ash walked over and picked up the sword. It was light but weighted. He felt he spear and noted it was balanced too.
“I guess these are the weapons,” he spoke to the others. “So where do we find the monster?”
There was a loud noise to their immediate right and the shrubs began to shake as if they were in the middle of a thunderstorm. The sky was still clear and no signs of clouds. Ash grabbed his gun and cocked it. Perhaps what was coming through the hedges was VR, but he couldn’t be certain. He looked to Barbara Ann who continued to stare at the commotion.
“I think this is the part where I say ‘looks like it found us’ ”, Kris spoke. She looked at the weapons on the ground and picked one up. “Always wanted to try a real sword.” She held it out at arm’s length and admired the blade.
“Here it comes,” Makulah stated as the hedge line separated and the source of the roar was revealed to them.
It wasn’t a human with a bull’s head. Such would have been an improvement. Whatever it was no longer could be considered human. It was almost seven feet tall and had long tusks that were grafted onto a mouth no longer of any use. It had horns on the head, which appeared to be for effect. The creature was muscled and bare to the torso. Its bloody body, scratched from passage through the hedge line, came through the shrubs and went directly for Barbara Ann.
Kris, her gun still slung over her back, ran at the creature with her sword held high. The beast saw her out of the corner of its eye and slapped her hard. Kris dropped the sword. The impact sent her across the room. She slammed into the ground hard. The helm saved her neck from breaking as she landed headfirst.
Ash decided that the game had played out and raised his impact gun. The monster was almost two feet from Barbara Ann when he pulled the trigger.
The impact gun roared and fired one of the armor breaking shells he’d loaded it with earlier. It struck the monster in the back with the force of cannon ball and tore out the things internal organs as it passed through it. It exploded when it landed behind a hedge. Ash watched a shower of blood spray in the direction of the hedges, but it did not coat them. The monster, almost bisected by the shell, fell in one piece to the ground.
At which point the light went out and the room was plunged into blackness. It stayed that way for two seconds until the lights came back on and illuminated everything.
They were in an empty white room that extended the length of the level. Ash could see in the distance the original door they’d used to come inside and the nearest one that led to the next level.
Kris picked herself up off the ground and rubbed her neck. Costa helped her and checked her for broken bones. She appeared to be in good shape, but sometimes injuries didn’t show up right away.
The monster, or what was left of it, lay face down on the floor. Its internal organs were splattered across the floor in a rainbow of blood and body fluids. Ash walked over and looked down. At least the creature wasn’t moving.
“I thought you said that thing wasn’t real,” Ash grumbled at Barbara Ann. “It was real enough to take a round from my gun.”
“The entire room was a VR chamber,” she told him. “I’ve never seen such a creature. It seems almost genetically modified to mimic a VR antagonist,” She walked over to the body and looked at it.
On the back was tattooed the same strange “angelic” symbols Ash had seen all through this place and Inferno Station.
“Same signs we’ve seen before,” he pointed out to her. “You think Haddo had anything to do with this? I’ve seen these marks ever since we began to follow him.”
“I don’t think so,” she told him. “Haddo is on the move. He wouldn’t have time to stay in one place and create something on this level.” He looked at the tattoo inscription and tried not to say anything.
“It went right for you,” Jack pointed out. “I think somebody wants you dead.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said and followed Ash down the staircase to the next level.
10
The following level was a full production factory.
They came down the stairs and didn’t see any kind of vestibule after reaching the landing. Ash merely pushed the door open and entered into the next level of the old fortress.
He waited for the others to catch up as he stood there and watched the injection machines make small granular objects and push them down a conveyor belt. This was a much more efficient operation than the place upstairs at
the first level. He looked across the factory floor and saw ten human operators who watched the machines stack up the objects into boxes at the end. In the distance was a large gate that went across a lift elevator. The lift door was open and an automated loading machine was busy stacking up more boxes inside it.
“This place is clean,” Theo noted. “I hardly see anyone down here.” He turned and watched an automated tow motor pull a skid of boxes across the floor.
“What do they make down here?” Costa asked aloud. He craned his neck to see the boxes on the skid as they rolled past.
“Slip stones,” Barbara Ann told him. “It’s the premium power supply used inside the power packs that the corporation is trying to push across the system. The basic form is completed here and they take it somewhere else to charge it. The corporation has huge plans for these things. Right now, it’s only the final stage that is labor intensive. That will change when they solve their production issues.”
Ash began to walk around the factory floor with several of the other crew with him. There was something sinister about the place, in spite of the clean floors and fresh paint on the walls. The slip stones were headed down the line into some kind of chamber. He couldn’t see what took place inside it, but there was more of the angelic writing on it.
“So what are we looking for down here?” Kris said to him as he moved around the factory floor. “Other than Haddo and I don’t think this is where we’ll find him.” She walked slowly next to Ash and tried to spot the few humans who worked in the factory.
Costa walked with them and kept glancing back at Barbara Ann. “That damn thing scares the shit out of me,” he told Ash. “I’m not talking about the way she knows things. It’s the way she looks at you at the right time and seems to understand what button to push, especially when she gets you alone,” He tried not to look back at her.
“There is something about her,” Ash admitted, silently wondering if Costa had been treated to the same experience he’d had with the android, “I’m not even sure if she’s a synth at this point.”
“Claims to be a homunculus,” Kris added. “Whatever that actually is.” She glanced back at Barbara Ann.
“I’m not really certain,” Ash replied. They were almost to the chamber the slip stones entered as part of their production. Ash glanced around and didn’t see one single security camera.
“Who ever built this place must have a lot of confidence in their security system,” he spoke. “I would think there would be surveillance cameras everywhere, but not a one.” He stood right outside the chamber and began to look it over.
It was a box no more than six by six feet in height, width and length. It was black in color and no electrical outlets or pipes fed into it. There was a small port, covered by cut sheets of black plastic where the slip stones entered and exited the other side. They didn’t move in a hurry, Ash doubted the device processed more than two slip stones per minute. He didn’t even notice a change on them when they exited.
Then Ash noticed the tablets on each side of the device.
They were of several prime colors and seemed to be divided into squares. Within the squares, the colors were broken down four ways, with a small square in the center. Each triangle in the square had a different symbol painted on it. Ash was certain these tablets where the same ones he’d seen earlier inside the station. There were more of the cryptic Enochian letters over each one too. Whatever the device accomplished had to do with the same symbols and letters he’s seen on Inferno Station and now the fortress.
“What the hell are these things?” Costa asked, as he looked the tablets over.
“The universal tablets of the angels,” Barbara Ann spoke. “All these letters are in Enochian, the language spoken by the angels before Adam. The same language discovered by John Dee and Edward Kelly and used to find the great revelations of the apocalypse.” She’d come up behind; they hadn’t even heard her.
“You do that do often,” Kris snapped at her. “You’re starting to make us nervous.”
“Too often?” Barbara Ann repeated. “Isn’t’ that what he told you?” She smiled at Kris.
“What are you talking about?” Kris demanded. This wasn’t funny.
“The man you were seeing at the last port,” she told her. “You wanted to spank him every time the two of you got together and it scared him. Which is a real shame because only you can give him what he really needs? Do you know he wants you to pierce the head of his…?”
“Shut up!” Kris snapped again. “I don’t know where you come by these things, but you have no right to talk about my personal life around these people.” She glared at Barbara Ann.
“Really?” the android said to her. “I don’t know what the problem is. You are all very close. You secretly get a rush from changing your clothes around the men. Deep down inside you want to sleep with every one of them don’t you? One each night until you could find out which one fills you the best. After all, you all are joint stockholders in the company. Why shouldn’t you have access to all these hot young men?”
“One more time and I will personally make you eat one of these rocks!” Kris growled at her. “You think because you’re not human you can get away talking like that to me?”
“Oh, no, I haven’t even begun.”
That did it. Before Ash could say a thing, Kris took a swing at Barbara Ann. With her glove on it would’ve had done some damage. Had it connected.
Kris’ fist swooshed through empty air. She pulled her punch back and blinked. Barbara Ann was nowhere to be found. She turned around and looked for her.
“Trying to find me?” a voice on top of the strange chamber cried out. They all turned and looked to see Barbara Ann standing on top of it. She jumped down and gently landed in front of them.
“That won’t do you any good,” she told Kris. “Or anyone else for that matter. You can’t possibly harm me. Well, perhaps you can, but I don’t know of any way to do it. Sorry I know so much about your life, dear, but I can’t help myself. I pick these things up once I’m around people for any length of time. I thought by now you would understand it, but I see it’s taking a while to catch on. Would you like to try again?”
By now the rest of the crew were around Ash and the other two. Barbara Ann faced all of them and she could see the anger and rage in their eyes. What Ash couldn’t understand was her refusal to do anything or take responsibility over what she needed to do. By now, she had to understand how angry they all were. If this went on for much longer, he didn’t think it would be possible to hold them back.
He saw Jack turn and look across the factory floor. “Check out the elevator,” he pointed out to them. “Something tells me that elevator goes all the way to the factory floor at the top. We could leave this place any time we wanted to, couldn’t we?”
In truth, Ash had no clue where the elevator would end up. Somehow it seemed no to be a good idea to take it to the factory floor where a riot had broken out not long ago. The last thing he wanted to encounter was those angry strikers again. They still thought Team Omega was part of the strikebreaker contingent that the corporation tried to use several times in the past. Which made Ash shudder to consdier what had happened to all of the other supposed security forces in the station. Everything else seemed to be in working order and proceeding according to whatever design the madmen of EAC had devised, and yet not a single combatant had challenged the advance of Team Omega. No security staffers anywhere, no signs of conflict, and that was beginning to twist Ash right in the guts.
“I don’t think that is a great idea,” Ash finally spoke up. “We have no clue if it goes all the way up or even where it ends. You want to be trapped in that thing and isolated? Sounds like a death sentence to me.” He turned and looked across the factory, but saw no one.
“Why not?” Jack demanded. “What are the chances we’ll be any better off where we are? Our good friend here, whom we know nothing about, seems to have the background on everyone. In addition, she know
s what is going on inside this whole factory and station. We haven’t seen any sign of Haddo, other than those art projects, and we keep going lower and lower. Ash, I’ve never questioned your judgement before, but I have this feeling we are being set up.”
“Just what are you?” Kris demanded from Barbara Ann. “Some kind of weapon the corporation built to take care of Haddo? You speak in circles and expect us to know everything you mention. Why shouldn’t we just go back and forget about this mission and all the money? I don’t see any of use allowed to go free after what we know. I’m ready to go hide somewhere and forget this ever happened.”
“How long do you think you’d live?” Barbara Ann asked her. “How long do you think you’d breathe air once the corporation decided to track you down? Think they want all of you dead? Trust me, dear; everyone would be dead a long time ago if the corporation didn’t have uses for Team Omega. You think they’d have let you leave that station after what you saw? At least you understand how bloodthirsty that bunch can be when they really want something. Right now they don’t have what they want and need you to get it.”
“We know you’re not human,” Theo said to her. “Any time you want to tell us what you are, we can continue down to the next level. Right now, I only want to grab Haddo and get out. I’ll sort it all out when we get his creepy ass back to the corporation and worry about it then. This arguing is pointless. We’re all going to end up dead and no one the richer.” Theo tugged on his gun strap.
Ash watched Barbara Ann’s eyes flash red. He knew by now this was not the best sign, but what it portended, he could not know. The best thing to do would be stand back and let it take place. He hoped that they would all be alive.
From all around Barbara Ann a light began to shine. The light seemed to come from behind her and created an outline of her hair against the factory. Ash and everyone else tried to shield their eyes from the glow. It was beyond intense. He covered his eyes, but the vision did not go away. All he could do was take it in the vision.
