The Gorgon Effect: Minds of Stone: 1

by Cole Anders

  Simon walked out a little way stretching his legs, trying to work some of the stiffness out. He milled around the edge of an open field that would likely soon be growing corn or wheat or who knows what. In every direction, the earth pulled away in a flat featureless horizon. The sky, a pale ghostly blue, was dotted with small puffy clouds that looked like wadded up gauss. One such cloud lazily rolled its way in front of the sun overhead, but it only shaded a few hundred square meters directly around them. Simon reached down and touched the dirt around him, plucking a small weed from the otherwise barren freshly plowed field. He drew it close to his face, examining the fine details on each of its tiny fuzzy leaves. Simon thought that maybe there was some kind of ironic universal truth he was supposed to feel standing there in the middle of nothing, but he didn’t dilute himself into thinking he had any kind of inside track on understanding the nature of things. He was neither the weed nor the farmer, neither insignificant nor all powerful. He was only a man, whose worth was defined by his own accounting of his actions. Simon did feel something about himself though, he’d never shied away from self-examination, he felt like he was being swept up by a great neutral force for change. As his life had been so fundamentally altered not long ago, and so too would he bring change to everyone and everything around him, it ways that could never be understood. He always considered himself a good person, but what did that even mean. Simon thought the definition of good revolved around what layer of your existence you cared the most about. He cared about himself, about Luke his new partner who’d become more than a partner but also a friend in the last few weeks. He cared about the work Firewall was doing, and could certainly feel he was in-line with their ideals. He cared about his country, more than tradition dictated, for the way of life it afforded those living there. He cared about humanity, and the Earth but then again it was all he’d ever known, the only place he could call home. Simon looked at the tiny weed between his fingers and whispered, “But where does it end, where does my loyalty ultimately lay? I don’t think I know.” Simon shrugged and bent back down and carefully returned the weed to the soil, pressing the dirt down around its roots so it could stand up again and then walked back to meet Luke at the car.

  The weed in the field would manage to survive all the cultivation and herbicide the farmer would use that season, eventually germinating and spreading its own seeds out with the wind before finally shriveling in the fall cold and dying.

  Simon reached the car with Luke already sitting in the driver’s seat again head tilted back, eyes closed. He must have managed to go to sleep because he roused with a start when Simon opened the passenger door and got in.

  Pulling himself in, Simon asked. “Want me to drive for a while? I don’t think I’ll have any trouble out here in this flat frying pan of a state.”

  Luke yawned and stretched his arms out past the steering wheel causing his elbow and outstretched fingers to crackle and pop. “Na I’m alright, honestly I relish just having something to do through all this.”

  Simon shrugged. “Suits me, I hate driving actually.”

  Simon pulled his door closed just as Luke started the car up, almost on queue Nerva chimed in through their ear pieces.

  “Luke, you getting a call from Nerva too?” Asked Simon.

  “Ya, Nerva what’s up?” Responded Luke nodding towards Simon at the same time.

  “Gentlemen, there has been a development. The GPS signal I’ve been tracking in their van has disappeared.” Said Nerva, uncharacteristically dispensing with the pleasantries.

  “Like turned off or in a tunnel?” Asked Luke.

  “It’s hard to say for sure, but likely they went to a place where I can’t detect it because the signal faded out over time. As if the van passed into a tunnel, but there are no known structures like that within a hundred miles of their last location. I think we can conclude that either the van has gone into a shielded building or otherwise concealed in a way that hides it from satellite monitoring. Gentlemen I recommend we react to this development because if they’ve destroyed the van and set out on foot or switched to another vehicle, then we need to know about it before they get too far away.”

  Luke locked the car into gear and pulled back into the road heading the way they were, “Where were they last as far as you can tell Nerva? We’re headed there now.”

  Nerva clicked in, this time with just a touch of exacerbation in her voice, “forty-five miles west from your position, just head straight down the road you're on, there are no other cars, police or otherwise between you and where they vanished so get the lead out!”

  Luke flattened the gas and leaned ever so slightly forward, the speedometer crawled up past fifty, then sixty, then eighty on its way to over a hundred before leveling off. Luke glanced over at Simon, “I suppose I could just bury the pedal the whole way there, but that won’t really afford us much more time than we have now, and who knows what kind of situation we’ll find when we get there, I’d rather not overheat or blow sometime and have to run the last ten miles.”

  Simon nodded his head in agreement, “That sounds sensible to me man, I’d rather fly in looking bad ass then roll in after you’ve lost control. Whatever happens I’m ready.”

  Nerva still listening in added, “you should just about get there in under thirty minutes at your current pace, I can’t detect any other vehicles within a reasonable area around where they vanished, so fully expect them to still be there. I’d recommend you drop back down and do the final approach at a normal speed and just do a drive by to not arouse suspicion encase the location is under surveillance.”

  “That works for me Nerva my dear, just tell me when I’m a mile away and we’ll slow it down and just creep up on ‘em.” Said Luke.

  Simon could hear the electricity in his voice, it was the same when they first arrived at the bank for the stake out, Luke lived for this kind of excitement. As for Simon, the familiar calm began to wash over him, he knew that something would be waiting for them out there, and Nerva despite being a machine, couldn’t hide the emotion in her own voice. Simon wondered if she simulated that human response to make herself more relatable, or if it was a genuine byproduct of true sentience.

  The minutes and miles clicked by in relentless sequence, Simon allowed himself to check his pistol only once, even though the urge to constantly recheck the magazine was palpable. He knew he’d already thoroughly cleaned it and loaded it several times in the last week, and impulsively rechecking it now would only contribute to the electric atmosphere.

  Three miles, where ever it was they vanished, it should have been within site already in wide flat terrain that stretched out before them. Luke did a poorer job controlling his own impulses and queried Nerva for a distance update even though Simon knew he’d been keeping track on the miles on the odometer himself as well.

  “Luke, pull it back, your heart rate has become elevated, I know full well you’re good in a pinch but getting too excited will increase your chances of making a mistake.” Said Nerva.

  “No prob babe, I didn’t realize you could get cabin fever in a car but I sure got it, plus this might be it, the be shakedown on Oculus we’ve all been waiting for, I can tell you with no shame the possibility for revenge has whirled through my head more than once. I got a good feeling we’ve got them by the balls out here.”

  Nerva chimed in, she sounded almost ominous, “One mile gentlemen, get your game faces on, I’ll stay with you in your ear pieces for a while yet. And let you know when you pass where I lost them, it’ll be on the right.

  Mile marker 544 was in the middle of an ocean of hay colored prairie, which was the only landmark to distinguish the spot as they rolled past it. They agreed to do a complete drive by on the first approach and to swing back if nothing presented itself, and nothing did. Simon looked over at Luke after they went by mile marker 544 almost with a look of disappointment and found that Luke was sharing the expression.

  Simon said, “Well what the fuck man? I guess I don’t k
now what I expected, maybe a metal shack at least for them to pull that van into, or the exploded remains maybe, although we hadn’t seen any smoke on the way in. But nothing is not what I expected.”

  Luke pulled their Mustang around in a wide sweeping turn and started back to the mile marker, “It’s worse than I expected, with nothing to react too we don’t know what to expect, we’ll stop and get out and look for some sign they were even here, something doesn’t add up about this.”

  Nerva added, “Your right, something really doesn’t add up about this whole situation so use extreme caution out there guys. By the way, Luke you know we don’t have any field operatives to back you up with, they are all still away.”

  Luke was already pulling off across the road from the mile marker by the time Nerva finished talking, “Got it, we’ll be careful, no engagements unless we’re spotted.”

  Both Simon and Luke jumped out of their seats and creep across the lonesome road toward the marker. The only things Simon could see was endless waist high grass, and the long straight rural highway that likely didn’t get but ten cars a day on it, and the marker sign. Luke caught Simon’s gaze and gestured him to spread out more while he went straight for the marker. Simon eased further down the road a few extra paces and managed to take a few steps into the grass when he heard it.

  The sounds of heavy machinery, cranking gears and a massive whirring piston boomed out all around him. He dropped instinctively to one knee and spun to look toward Luke and the source of the deafening noise. What Simon saw at once completely shocked him and made perfect sense, as there was a large section of grassy field just off the road past the marker that was slowly sinking into the ground with Luke on top of it.

  Dropping to one knee turned out to be the wrong move and Simon strained to raise himself back to his feet and over to the edge of the sinking ground. The ground, along with Luke had already sunk several feet down and was dropping quickly, Luke gestured for Simon to join him down, but it had already dropped far enough that the hop down as going to be excruciating for Simon in his condition. But every second of hesitation added more distance to the drop so Simon shuffled to the edge and unceremoniously dropped down onto the lift trying to favor his uninjured side as best as possible with only partial success. While he managed to keep from re-injuring his right leg, Simon came down hard on his left and twisted his ankle terribly. Collapsing into a roll Simon knew that he’d have a hell of a time just trying to stand back up again.

  Above them, just as the platform they were standing on dropped down below ten feet, a panel came sliding out to reseal the access to the surface.

  With Simon rolling across the ground, Luke called out to Nerva with the few seconds he had left before the overhead hatch closed. “Nerva, I’ve activated some kind of hydraulic lift built into the ground, Simon’s with me but he had to drop down several feet and he may be hurt.”

  To Luke’s surprise, communication was beginning to degrade, “Luke you aren’t comin...ry well anymor...I’m losing all my telemetry on...an’t get through some kind of scattering fie… Luk… the iri… won’t lock onto that positi… sen… a few kilometers awa... STAY PU..”

  Luke went and knelt beside Simon who was starting to try and sit up. “Simon we’ve got a big problem, communication with Nerva is getting jammed, I didn’t think it was possible but it is. And if the ear pieces can be jammed, then the Flapjack might not work here either. How’s your ankle, I thought I heard it pop when you landed?”

  Simon drew himself into a sitting position and pulled his left leg close so he could examine his newly twisted ankle, the pain was starting to subside already, “It’s sprained but I don’t think I tore anything, I should be able to walk it off in a few minutes, help me get up.”

  Simon flipped around into the push-up position and with Luke’s help remounted his legs, the ankle was burning, but could support his weight which was a good start.

  Luke let him go after a few extra moments and Simon said, “So what the hell is this then, some kind of elevator in the middle of a field? And why can’t we hear Nerva anymore either, I thought these earpieces communicated using a bundle of paired atoms or something?”

  Luke looked up just as the overhead hatch slammed shut cutting off the last sliver of sunlight, there were no lights inside the shaft, they both stood there in the pitch black, the huge lift plate groaning and squealing its way down into the Earth.

  Luke spoke calmly. “Simon reach out to me, put your hand on my shoulder so I can tell where you are. We’re in some deep shit here partner. Worst part is we have no way to communicate with Nerva and no way to get any backup. I didn’t think the earpieces or the Flapjack could be blocked, that was kind of the whole point having them, so now I don’t know what to think.”

  Simon drew in a nervous breath. “I thought there was no backup available? I guess David and Calvin could come if things got desperate.”

  “No, actually in the right circumstances Nerva has a selection of combat H.D.R.s she can send. But we can’t use them in places where they can be seen by the public. This is normally the kind of situation we’d use them, but something has jammed the entanglement of the communicators, and the Flapjack too. The only way that could happen is if it was on purpose.” Explained Luke.

  A wave of nausea washed over Simon, between the pain, injuries and the motion of dropping down in total darkness were all too much. “Luke watch out I’m gonna be sick, ugghh.”

  Luke turned away from the sound and bite his lip. The motion of the lift was making him feel queasy as well. He couldn’t tell how fast they we dropping but it was picking up speed.

  Simon leaned back up and settled himself, “Luke we gonna be ready for anything when this lift stops, I can’t imagine we’re going to surprise anyone when this thing reaches the bottom.”

  Luke patted him on the back before returning his hand to Simon’s shoulder, “I agree but we have precious little options for cover or concealment. Let’s just lay down prone in the grass on the floor here, at the very least we’ll have a minimal profile when we drop into the ambush that’ll be waiting for us.”

  Simon groaning, “Up and down, I’m starting to feel like an old man. Luke I just thought of something, you need to cover your eyes, if we get down to the bottom and they try to lamp us, I should be able to fight through it and tell you when you can look again.”

  Luke and Simon dropped down to one knee and stretched out on their stomachs, taking care to avoid the fresh vomit. They both pulled their pistols out and readied them.

  Finally, once Luke was situated he said, “Alright, I’m going to put my hand over my eyes, let’s just hope we’re pointed in the right direction and the exit doesn’t open up behind us.”

  Simon, despite the situation couldn’t help but laugh, “Fuck I didn’t even think of that, wouldn’t that just be the final screw you to this whole thing. This lifting opening up with us facing our deaths feet first.”

  “That’s ok, I’ll just use my echo location to bounce bullets off the wall in front of me to hit our ambushers with perfectly placed ricochets.” Chuckled Luke.

  “Ok good, we have a plan in place, I’m feeling better about this already.” Said Simon.

  Despite the jovial exchange, Simon was scared. He was still rather badly injured and with his other ankle now twisted and throbbing he’d have no chance if they got into a running situation. He hadn’t fired his pistol with his bruised arm yet either, so he knew there was still a possibility that the recoil would make him drop it. But he knew that worrying about it now wasn’t going to do any good. As Simon laid there in the dark, the grass covering the surface of the lift itched his face and he could feel insects crawling around on his arms and face. Likely ants and maybe a few spiders from the grass. Simon brushed at his face twice before dislodging the unseen crawling thing, he felt it smash against his hand.

  Simon blew a puff of air out between his lips, “My skin is crawling with bugs, here we are in the pitch black, riding a giant
lift down into the ground in the middle of nowhere likely to get shot to shit when we reach the bottom and we don’t even know which direction to face, this is the worst situation I’ve ever been in, it’s nuts how bad it got so suddenly.”

  Luke brushed his own arms off, “You know, I’m actually afraid of spiders, or I thought I was, but laying here having who knows what walk all over me, I couldn’t care less. I’m just focused on trying to survive the next few minutes once this elevator stops.”

  Just then, as if on cue, a sliver of deep red light started creeping up in front of them. Simon whispered, barely audible, “Ok here we go, turns out we faced the right direction at least, I can see a red light in the room this lift opens into, just keep your eyes covered just in case.”

  Simon felt Luke nod his head and said nothing more. Before him, a room washed in crimson light pulled up out of the ground like a phantom rising out of a grave. It looked like a long hallway with a pressure door about 50 meters down at the end, the hallway itself was at a slight decline as well. The hallway was empty, it seemed there was no welcoming party after all. As the lift clanked down into the floor and came to a rest strobe lights all along the edge of the exit of the lift began to flash a pale yellow and green light. Simon closed his own eyes and looked down so that he couldn’t see them through his eyelids but whatever they did had surely already had even time to take effect anyway. So he waited for a moment, then two. No strange sensations, no tingling or pain. He creeped open one of his eyes and looked up and saw that they’d stopped. There was no movement, and the only sound was his and Luke's breathing and the machinery down below them somewhere.