The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  Lying on the table, she relaxed physically, keeping her self-deceptive psychic mantra going until sleep pressed itself upon her. Her concentration faltered momentarily, allowing the conditioning force to surge upward for an instant, before she drove it back down. The battle raged until her power to project thought from her inner intuitive self collapsed, stripping away her ability to disorient the conditioning.

  She was driven by a wild urge to warn them, to tell them what she'd done. The cold, logical aspect of her mind that was the instrument of the conditioning process knew she'd achieved the unimaginable, she'd broken the conditioning. She had to tell them how she'd done it, so they could improve the process. She knew Christa would also be able to break it. She tried to move, but the overdose of sleeping pills had almost paralyzed her muscles. She tried to speak, but could only muster an inaudible moan.

  The double doors opened as the two orderlies returned and released the wheel brakes on her bed, then carefully wheeled her out of the recovery room and along the hall in the opposite direction from the storeroom where Christa slept peacefully. Through the sleeping pill induced fog, she noticed a robotic janitor swivel as the orderlies wheeled the bed past it, keeping its optical sensor aimed toward her.

  It is watching me! The traitor is watching!

  The orderlies guided the bed away from the robotic janitor, into the ENP lab, where the most advanced version of the particle accelerator stood, with twelve different emitters capable of working in perfect synchronization. The three doctors were busy setting the final parameters on their equipment, paying no attention to Caroline as the orderlies placed the wheeled bed in the required position.

  “Does it matter that she’s face down?” One of the orderlies asked. “Do you want us to flip her over?”

  “No, she’s fine inverted,” Dr Nautern replied without looking up.

  The orderlies departed, while Caroline struggled to speak.

  The anesthetist heard her stifled moan. “She should be out by now. I’ll increase the dosage two milligrams.” A few moments later, she felt the pin prick as the needle penetrated her skin and the anesthetic began to flow.

  Caroline cursed herself for betraying the overwhelming compulsion that dominated her being. She was wracked with the guilt of her treachery. She was consumed with anger at herself for not doing what she knew to be right. The girl Christa, who was her daughter, should have been in her place. There was confusion in her mind as she tried to understand how she could have been disloyal to all she was devoted to. Above all the guilt, all the anger, all the regret, there was fear. She knew each neural patterning was unique, carefully calculated by the base’s super computer. The doctors were about to unleash the patterning required to condition Christa’s mind, not hers. It meant her brain was about to be bombarded with billions of destructive electrons.

  She knew her mind would be utterly destroyed.

  The anesthetic took hold and everything began to fade, ending the internal war of self reproach. The strictures that held her mind relaxed, and for several precious moments, she had clarity and self awareness, feeling the full force of her love for her daughter. She remembered their lives together in every respect, their telepathic merging of minds that brought instant and complete understanding, the happy times. She knew it had been the wave of love she'd felt from Christa in the recovery room that had finally given her the strength to break free, if only for a short time.

  Caroline remembered the realization she'd received from Christa in the recovery room during McNamara’s interrogation; that someone was coming for her daughter, someone who would care for and protect her, someone who would not be stopped. It was the last gift of a mother to her daughter, the gift of time, the time needed for him to come for her. As infinite sleep engulfed her, she had her last free thought.

  Goodbye, my darling.

  Chapter 1 8

  Mitch shivered while Gunter studied the nearest body in the refrigeration room, noting how sections of the exposed brain had been neatly sliced away.

  “It is a brain autopsy,” Gunter concluded.

  Mitch cast a distasteful look at the dozen bodies lying on metal tables, then wiped a small line of frost from the window, and peered outside. The Apaches were now far to the south, dropping the last of their flares as they made their final sweep before landing. He turned and approached Gunter, who was gently probing the brain tissue.

  “Hmm, it is spongier than I thought it would be. See. Try,” Gunter motioned for Mitch to touch it.

  “I’ll pass,” Mitch said, repulsed.

  Gunter looked up surprised. “He is quite dead. He feels nothing.”

  “It’s not what he feels I’m worried about.” Mitch glanced from the array of bodies to the microscopes and assorted analytical equipment neatly aligned along work benches fixed to the opposite wall. “What’s your best guess?”

  “They could be the failures, the people who did not survive the conditioning process.” Gunter moved slowly from body to body, inspecting each. “And the autopsies are trying to find out why.” He paused at the body of a woman with a shaved head and an intact skull. “Hmm, this is unusual.”

  Mitch followed Gunter’s focus to a metallic plate that was molded over the top of the woman’s head, reaching down the rear of her skull. The top of the plate was covered with thousands of tiny metal needle points.

  Gunter tested the plate. “It seems to be attached to her skull. She might be new, waiting for her autopsy to begin.” He moved to another table where a young man’s body lay face up, with most of his forehead bone structure removed. There were six small holes in the man's shaved skull and a large circular cavity in the center, all filled with a clear plastic substance sealing the brain safely inside. “This one appears to have had his metal plate removed and the holes filled.”

  Mitch saw the six circular marks on the young man’s head, then glanced back at the woman with the metal plate still attached to her head. “It's the same as the Chimp Room in the Newton Institute! Only down here, they’re doing it to human beings.”

  Gunter checked several more tables. “They have all had metal plates fitted to their heads. Most are removed now.”

  Mitch looked confused. “I don’t get it. They’ve got mind control technology, why do this? Wiring human brains is a lot cruder than controlling them with ENP.”

  “There may be something else, something we have not yet seen. More than just conditioning.”

  “Whatever it is, we’ve got to find Christa before they bolt one of those things on her head,” Mitch said, examining the interior metal door. It was lined with rubber insulation, like the exterior door, but had a metallic lever in its center to lock it in place. He leant on the handle, feeling it give slowly as the thermal seal loosened, followed by a soft hiss of escaping air, indicating the refrigeration room's air pressure was slightly higher than ambient pressure to reduce the risk of contamination. Mitch pushed the door open and stepped through into a darkened, empty laboratory. Long, low tables ran parallel through the center of the room, some with computer terminals, others with instruments and machines of unknown purpose. Gunter resealed the door behind them, while Mitch moved between the tables toward the far door. He was halfway across the lab when movement to his left caught his eye. He froze, slowly drawing his gun, signaling Gunter silently.

  A small shape passed through the shadows, under a table and stopped. Mitch edged sideways, to get a clear view as it moved again, this time into the aisle he was standing in. It was a squat robotic janitor, with all its cleaning tools retracted. The robot turned on the spot until its optic sensor faced Mitch, then it whirred slowly toward him, stopping six feet away as the lights came on, giving the robot a clear view of him.

  “Now what?” Mitch muttered.

  Gunter circled around one of the lab tables to the aisle the robot was standing in and approached from the rear for a closer look. “It may be confused. It is probably programmed to expect the room to be empty this time of night.” />
  Mitch stepped sideways, moving around a lab table into the next aisle. The robotic janitor electrically hummed its way under the table into the next aisle, blocking Mitch.

  “Yeah? Then why did it do that?”

  “Step past it,” Gunter suggested.

  Mitch advanced toward the robotic janitor. Just before he passed it, a telescopic arm fitted with a window cleaner extended, barring his way. Mitch looked down at the machine skeptically. “If this thing is supposed to be a guard, it’s the dumbest looking guard I’ve ever seen. Maybe I should just shoot it!” he said, pointing his gun at the robot.

  “Not yet,” Gunter said, now studying the robot with growing interest.

  Mitch relaxed, lowering the gun. “Consider yourself one very lucky vacuum cleaner.” He stepped over the thin metal arm and moved toward the door.

  The robotic janitor retracted its arm and buzzed quickly under several tables, down an aisle, arriving at the lab exit ahead of Mitch and Gunter. It turned to face them, extending telescopic arms left and right.

  “Am I imagining it,” Mitch said, “Or is that sorry excuse for a pooper scooper telling us not to go through that door?”

  “That is exactly what it is telling us.”

  “Maybe the floor's wet and it doesn’t want us leaving foot prints?”

  Gunter looked around the lab. There was another door further to the left. “Maybe it wants us to go through that door.”

  Mitch looked irritated. “You’re joking, right? You want us to do what a vacuum cleaner tells us to do?”

  “It turned on the lights, but there is no alarm. I say we see what is on the other side of that door.”

  “Okay, but if it’s a broom closet, the vacuum cleaner dies.”

  Mitch followed Gunter to the door, which was secured by an electronic lock. Gunter glanced at the keypad, produced his crowbar and prepared to jimmy the door open. The robotic janitor zipped up behind them, extended a telescopic arm fitted with a claw, and locked on the crow bar. It attempted to retract its arm, but Gunter would not release the crowbar.

  “All right, that’s it,” Mitch said, taking aim on the robot. “Consider yourself superseded!”

  “Wait,” Gunter said, releasing the crow bar.

  The little robot pulled the crowbar to its metal skin, then the numbers on the keypad beside the door glowed rapidly in sequence as the combination was processed by remote control and the door bolt clicked open.

  “Mouse must be running the internal systems,” Gunter guessed. “He’s probably got a map of the base.”

  Mitch relaxed. “Right.” He patted the little robot on the head. “Forget that crack about pooper scooper.”

  They stepped through into a small room with a metal chair placed in the center and a door on the far side of the room. Arm and leg clamps were fixed to the chair and many sensor attachments hung from wires leading up into the ceiling. Computers and monitors lined one wall and a large display screen filled the wall in front of the chair.

  “Looks like an electric chair,” Mitch muttered, then glanced at the display screen, “With cable TV.”

  “It is a testing station,” Gunter reported after studying the equipment, “Perhaps for the head plates we saw in the autopsy room.”

  The door behind them swung shut, followed immediately by the sound of the bolt locking. Mitch spun around, realizing the robotic janitor had not followed them into the room. “Uh-oh!”

  Gunter tried the door, then the second exit on the other side of the room. He shook his head, both metal doors were firmly bolted shut. He examined the metal work of the doors and their frames, then sighed. “Titanium and steel. No way we can force either one, even if we had the crowbar.” Gunter nodded meaningfully to the door, indicating the robotic janitor had stolen it.

  “Like rats in a trap,” Mitch declared, “Tricked by a lying little vacuum cleaner!”

  * * * *

  They searched the testing room for nearly a hour, but found no avenue of escape. The metal doors were impenetrable and the electronic locks could not be deactivated without sensitive computer equipment.

  Mitch sat on the metal chair in the center of the room with a sense of defeat, mixed with confusion. “Why don’t they come?”

  “Perhaps they know we cannot escape and are waiting until morning.”

  The click of the door lock sliding open echoed into the chamber, followed by the buzz of the robotic janitor's small electric motor, pushing against the door. Mitch pulled the door open, and the little robot skidded into the room, towing a wheeled bed behind it, with Mouse asleep on top. When the robot had pulled the bed fully into the room, Mitch partly closed the door, leaving it wedged open with his binoculars. The robot’s claw arm released the bed, then the robot sped across the floor to the second door.

  Gunter pressed his fingers to Mouse’s neck searching for a pulse. “He is alive.”

  “And Mouse isn’t controlling R2-D2 over there,” Mitch said warily.

  “He is drugged, but not deeply.” Gunter gently slapped Mouse’s cheek several times. “Mouse, can you hear me? Wake up.”

  Mouse emitted a barely perceptible groan as his eyelids twitched, but remained closed.

  “Nice hair cut,” Mitch said dryly, indicating Mouse’s shaved head.

  A click sounded as the electronic lock securing the second door released, then the robotic janitor began pushing the door, trying to open it.

  “Looks like the vacuum cleaner wants us to go through there,” Mitch said scooping up his binoculars and hurrying to the second door, as the first door locked behind them. “Out of the way hoover-droid,” he said, pushing the second door open to reveal a short dark passage opening into a large cavernous room beyond. “Wheel sleeping beauty in here.”

  The robotic janitor scooted ahead into the darkness, while Mitch held the door open for Gunter, who guided the bed through the metal door frame and down the lightless passage. When Mitch followed, he noted uncomfortably how the door automatically locked behind them, sealing off their escape route. At the end of the corridor, Gunter stopped to stare off to the left, mesmerized.

  “What is it?” Mitch asked, hurrying forward to the edge of the passage, bringing his gun up level.

  An immense reinforced glass wall spanned almost the width of the facility and rose several stories above them. In front of the glass wall was a single control console thirty feet wide, with chairs for six operators. Beyond the glass window was a tank of vast proportions that stretched back toward the southern wall of the building. It was filled with a clear liquid, the surface of which was lost from sight far above. Immersed in the liquid and supported by a multilayered superstructure were rows and rows of unconscious, naked men and woman. Each person was fitted with a metal skull cap, that was in turn connected by wires to a bulbous black node above their heads. Water tight masks were attached to their faces, providing a carefully regulated air supply, and other plumbing was attached to meet the needs of bodily waste. Tubes intravenously fed nutrients into the arms of the comatose population to maintain body mass.

  Suspended between the rows of nodes were underwater lights, illuminating the submerged complex, strangely silhouetting the black nodes and naked bodies. Black cables carrying power and data links formed an elaborate web between the nodes and the superstructure, while an intricate pattern of black metal supports and straps secured the bodies in place. The nodes themselves were suspended from the superstructure, which was built of black metal girders assembled into a multilayered grid.

  Mitch and Gunter walked past the control console toward the giant glass wall, at once both repulsed and hypnotized. It was then they realized the immersion tank reached some way below ground level and that there were four distinct horizontal layers to the nodal superstructure.

  “There must be hundreds of them,” Mitch murmured barely above a whisper.

  “Fascinating,” Gunter said with more curiosity than revulsion.

  “They’re alive in there,” Mitch reali
zed, seeing the slight movement of chests as shallow breathing mechanically inhaled air into lungs. “What do you think it is?”

  “I have no idea.” Gunter put his hand on the glass, testing it. “The glass is warm, which means the liquid is warm, perhaps a degree or two above body temperature. That would prevent hypothermia.”

  Mitch felt something pull on the leg of his pants and looked down to see the robotic janitor’s claw trying to pull him away from the glass.

  “What now?” He muttered as he allowed the robot to turn him slowly around to see a large display screen on the wall opposite the tank. Words glowed to life on the screen:

  HELLO JOHN MITCHELL. I AM HERE. EB.

  “Gunter! EB's in there! He’s one of them!”

  Gunter followed Mitch’s gaze to the big screen, then stared back into the tank to the hundreds of unconscious people attached to the nodes. A moment later, the words on the big screen changed again.

  USE CONSOLE FOUR TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME.

  Mitch hurried to the fourth workstation. It was equipped with a keyboard, screen and several banks of illuminated buttons with cryptic symbols. On the console's screen were the same words as on the big screen. Mitch typed: How can we get you out?

  OUT OF WHERE?

  “Maybe he does not realize where he is,” Gunter said while reading over Mitch’s shoulder. “He may have only partial consciousness, induced by that metal device attached to the head.”

  Behind them, they heard a clatter of wheels as the bed Mouse was on toppled over. He'd tried to rise, but had only succeeded in tumbling off the bed. Now he struggled to rouse himself like a punch drunk fighter, managing to do no more than writhe helplessly on the floor. Gunter lifted him to a sitting position and studied his face, trying to assess his health.

  “Where am . . . G? . . .” Mouse mumbled incoherently, barely able open his eyes,.

  Gunter carried him to the command console, and placed him gently in a chair beside it. Mouse flopped back, blinking, eyes unfocused, too weak to control his arms and legs beyond simple uncoordinated movements. “He is coming out of it.”