Necropolis 2

by S. A. Lusher

  “Are my friends alive?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I'll tell you the truth. I don't know. My knowledge is compartmentalized. It's very difficult for me to gain knowledge outside of what I'm allowed to know without attracting considerable attention. This conversation alone is quite difficult.”

  Greg was silent, letting the quiet play out. He took the razor, adjusted the blade and buzzed his head and face. He preferred a stubble length, so that his black hair and facial fuzz were akin to sandpaper. Vanity was a thing he felt was far beyond him, but Greg had the notion that tolerating the person who stared back at him grimly from the mirror would go a long way towards cooling the fires in his brain.

  “What would it entail?”

  “Vents, mostly. Good timing. Some luck,” the voice admitted.

  There was a soft sound behind him. Greg glanced in the small mirror they provided, built into the wall of the shower stall at head-height, and spied a small slot opening at the base of the door. A tray of food slid in and the slot snapped closed.

  Greg finished shaving.

  “So what's the plan?” he asked.

  The voice was gone. Sighing, Greg turned off the shower and toweled off. He climbed into his uniform, gathered up the food, and sat on his bunk. Contemplating, he ate the meal, sipping water from a pouch.

  Escape.

  It sounded good.

  * * * * *

  Greg woke with a start.

  He was lying on the floor of his cell in an uncomfortable position. Memories jostled uncomfortably in his head as he shifted and managed to sit up, propping himself on the heels of his hands.

  Graves sat on his bunk, the door open.

  “What's going on?” He blinked, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. He scooted back until he sat against the nearest wall.

  Graves stared at him, tracking his slow progress with his digitized, crimson-lensed eyes. A curious frown perched on Graves' lips and his scar seemed to shine beneath the lights of the cell. He shifted slightly.

  For a long moment, Graves didn't speak. He just sat there and stared. Greg began to feel that this wasn't an official visit. That Graves was here on his own time, for his own reasons. He tried to remember what had happened, and realized he'd been dropped off some time ago, likely hours, from another lengthy session of tests. They'd taken more blood than they should have, and he hadn't even made it to his bunk before passing out.

  “Your friends are alive, each in their own cell.” Graves finally spoke. “They've been asking about you.”

  Greg took a moment to marshal his thoughts.

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

  It didn't occur to Greg to disbelieve Graves' words. There was some unspoken wavelength between the two of them that had somehow manifested itself over the past however many days Greg had been here.

  “I respect you and...” Here, Graves hesitated. “You interest me,” he admitted.

  “What? How?” This had him genuinely intrigued.

  Grave' shoulders sagged a little. He reached up and ran a finger along his scar, tracing it gently. His crimson eyes never left Greg's.

  “I was born in a shit district of a shit colony on a miserable little rock. I was small, until I hit puberty, then I was huge. People used to fuck with me. I got expelled when I took my revenge and put four kids in the hospital. The Marines found me in prison. I joined up, and found that I was good at hurting people. Took me twenty years to end up here with Dark Ops, Williams, and his cell. I hurt a lot of people along the way.”

  As his head cleared, Greg felt more and more confused. Everything about Graves up to this point had spoken of regimented secrecy, warning Williams when he was going too far with information, keeping Greg in the dark.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Greg shifted into a more comfortable position.

  “Your memory,” Graves replied. “You're all scrubbed clean and brand new. You're empty, but still functional. It's a strange thing, to be that.”

  He was silent for another long moment, still staring at Greg, who began to feel vaguely uncomfortable.

  “Don't ever let anyone pigeonhole you, Bishop. Don't ever let yourself become about something you don't like, or something that's adverse to who you are. You've got this opportunity, this clean slate. I became what I am out of necessity.”

  “Not much opportunity for me here, Graves,” Greg replied evenly.

  Graves simply nodded to this, as though he agreed. Greg felt that there was some kind of subtext going on, some deeper level to this conversation, but he couldn't quite ferret it out. Graves looked like he wanted to say more, but stood abruptly. He moved for the door, but as he reached it, his massive frame filling it, he stopped.

  “Been hearing voices in here?” he asked softly.

  “Don't know what you mean,” Greg replied.

  Graves nodded as if satisfied with this answer. “Don't trust the voices, Bishop.”

  He moved once more, and stopped, again. This time, he turned around and stared deliberately at Greg. “If you somehow make it out of this cell...don't think for a second that I won't come after you like a fucking archangel.”

  To this, Greg had nothing to say, so he simply nodded. Graves turned and left, closing and securing the door behind him. Greg stared at the door for a long time, waiting for something, though he wasn't sure what.

  Several minutes later, overhead, the voice spoke. “Are you ready to hear my plan, Greg?”

  Chapter 03

  –Breakout–

  They woke Greg up sometime the next day and led him through the hallways. He found himself considering Graves' curious words, and his chilling promise. It wouldn't be long now before Greg found out what he was made of, if he had what it took to survive this mess he'd gotten himself into. Occasionally, his thoughts strayed to Kyra and the others, but mainly Kyra. Having been inside her, he now felt a connection to her that was stronger than ever. Maybe he was stupid for thinking so, but it was the truth to him.

  They took him through the stark, sterile corridors to the medical bay, laid him on a table, and hooked him up. The pair of med-techs were experts at what they did, calm and professional. Despite this, the process still took several minutes. Every movement was slow and methodical, every strip with a wire dangling from it pressed and smoothed against Greg's skin. He had time, just a bit, to think about how this was all going to go.

  He'd spoken with the operator who was helping him at length last night. The plan was daring, insane, and immoral. It was also his only option. Greg had spent quite a while examining the plan after as he lay awake in his bunk. Was there any other way off this ship? Was there any alternative to what he was about to do? After several hours, Greg decided that no, there wasn't.

  Short of just waiting it out and hoping for an opportunity to arise, anyway. No, he needed to act, and the operator, Thomas, was willing to help in return for getting him off the ship as well. Greg was still considering that part of the pact, his thoughts drifting back to the unnamed tech who had offered similar help back on Dis.

  He knew for damn sure that he was getting his squad out.

  It was something Thomas had said that had really decided Greg.

  “These people...they're terrible, Greg. Beyond reconciliation.”

  “How terrible?”

  “If you can imagine it, they're capable of it. In fact, they've likely done it.”

  Greg could imagine many horrible things, he discovered. On top of that, he could easily envision Williams happily presiding over such wretched acts. He knew that today was the day, because Thomas had come through on his promise, and Graves was not there to escort him. Instead, he'd been escorted by a beefy, though thoroughly less intimidating, soldier in black armor. That same soldier was now standing in the corridor, by the open door.

  Greg glanced up at a camera overhead. If Thomas came through, then this was going to be quite intriguing. If n
ot, well...it was going to get very ugly, very fast. Greg realized they'd finished attaching the strips.

  Now, they were preparing to draw his blood.

  It was now or never.

  The needle came closer, the masked men moving with no hurry. They'd done this before and received no complaint, no resistance. This time was different. In a blur, Greg batted the hand holding the needle away and drove his fist into the faceplate of the med-tech holding it. The faceplate cracked and the man stumbled backwards with a surprised grunt. Already spinning around, Greg spied the second medic standing there agape...but only for a second. He moved, going for what Greg imagined was a sedative.

  The med-tech was fast, but Greg was faster. He leaped up off the table, tearing off several of the strips they'd attached to him, and came up behind the man, wrapping his arm around the med-tech's neck. Yanking him back out of reach of any instruments, Greg piled on the pressure, twisting until he heard a sharp snap.

  The med-tech stopped resisting at once and became dead weight. Greg let go and stepped back, watching the corpse hit the floor, momentarily dislocated from the world. He'd killed men before, since he'd awoken to this strange new world of shadowy organizations and inhuman monsters, but never so close, never with his bare hands.

  Someone shouted and banged on metal. It jarred Greg from his brief reflection and he spun, seeing that Thomas had come through with his promise. Well, one of his promises. The single door to the squalid medical bay had slid shut and sealed against unwanted visitors.

  Time to go.

  Movement behind him. The first man struggled to recover. Greg saw blood inside the faceplate and realized he must've hit it harder than he thought. Moving quickly, adrenaline, need for survival, and maybe a bit of revenge fueled him then. He saw a scalpel on a nearby countertop, grabbed it, and jabbed it roughly into the neck of the surviving med-tech. The man let out a feeble cry, clawing weakly at the scalpel.

  Greg drove it deeper and shoved the man onto the deck, blood spraying his hand. He turned and knelt by the second man, ignoring the guard on the other side of the door, still beating his fists against the metal in mute frustration. He pulled off the helmet, prepared to grab the communications unit inside, and hesitated. A pair of pale, empty blue eyes stared up at him. A narrow ribbon of deep red blood ran from a slack mouth. When Greg had killed this man, he'd been faceless, silent, a robot, hidden behind his mask.

  Seeing his face rendered him human. Greg shivered.

  “What's taking so long?” Thomas' soft, yet urgent voice questioned.

  “Just give me a fucking minute,” Greg snapped.

  “We don't have a minute. They're overriding the lockout.”

  Greg tore the comms unit loose from the helmet and fitted it snugly into his ear. He glanced up at the overhead camera, where Thomas looked down on him and talked to him. He resisted the urge to flip it off once more.

  “Good.” Thomas' voice now came only from the comms unit. “Now climb. Do you see the vent cover?”

  Greg saw it. Unlike the vent in his cell, the rest of the ship was equipped with normal and accessible ventilation grates. He hopped up on a nearby counter and briefly considered taking a weapon of some kind, then figured he'd just end up stabbing himself while he was crawling through the vents. He grabbed the grate, hit the access button and hauled himself inside. As soon as his feet cleared the hole, Thomas remotely closed the vent behind him.

  “Where am I going?” Greg asked.

  This was all part of the plan Thomas had spent an hour laying out last night. There were many details, and Greg had done his best to remember it all, but here and now in a red-lit vent with two deaths behind him and men out for his blood, he found that the adrenaline coursing through his veins was drowning out his memories.

  “Straight ahead for fifty meters. Don't worry, I'll guide you. We need to do this right, and we need to do it fast. If we don't, if this attempt fails, there will be no others, and it will be hell for you and I, my friend,” Thomas replied.

  Greg said nothing, instead he crawled on his hands and knees. The vents were, he found, big enough for a man. It seemed that Dark Ops had opted to put access to a great deal of secondary sub-systems tucked away in the ventilation shafts. Every now and then he passed little tool kits mounted on the walls, like metal and plastic mollusks. Greg passed them without a second glance, hurrying towards his destination.

  Occasionally, he'd pass another vent. They usually showed vacant corridors or empty medical bays, but sometimes he heard terse voices. Somewhere, an alarm cycled continuously. Greg paused once, right as he neared the end of his fifty-meter crawl, he heard an upset voice close by. He realized that one of the grates, built into the ceiling of the vent overhead, gave access to a floor in someone's office.

  “Yes, I know that, but-”

  “Don't argue with me. Find him. Where is he?” Williams' terse voice commanded.

  “We don't know yet, sensors are fucking up, sir. We can't get a lock on him.”

  “Why hadn't the tracking chip been implanted in him yet? Never mind. Find him. He's more than likely in the vents. It's the only way out of that room and he obviously didn't leave through the door. Oh, and check the bodies, make sure it's not him pretending to be dead, hiding inside one of those suits.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Greg felt a chill pass through him. That would have been a genius move, he realized. He could've shoved one of the corpses up into the vent, dressed in the med-tech's get up, pretend to be dead. They'd have carried him right out...

  And Williams would have seen right through it.

  Williams was a genius, Greg realized. He started moving again, when whoever was overhead left.

  “Take a left. Continue another thirty meters. You'll find an access ladder at the end. Climb it all the way to the top,” Thomas advised.

  Greg obeyed, moving as fast as the vent allowed. He felt in a state of shock, which barred all thought. He could only act, only do. Perhaps it was for the best. Shuffling along, he paused as he reached grates or heard voices, intent on remaining undiscovered. His hands ached for a weapon of some kind, preferably a pistol or a rifle, but even a combat knife would have sufficed. He reached the ladder.

  Greg managed to fit himself into the narrow shaft and started the climb. Glancing up, he saw it was a good three stories. Moving at a swift, though careful pace, Greg pressed on, eager to be free of these ventilation shafts.

  “So, I remember that the endgame here is to hit the button, throw the security network out of alignment, which will allow you to open up all the cages and throw the ship into chaos, but then what?” Greg whispered.

  “You get a gun, find your friends, find me, get us to a ship with faster-than-light capability and blow this joint.” Thomas' blunt reply sounded in his ear.

  “And then? What, will Dark Ops just stop coming after us because we escaped their clutches this time?”

  “...we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Greg sighed and kept going. Of course, no one had any real answers. All they could do for now was react to the situation at hand. How many more bridges would Greg have to cross? What happened when he came to one he couldn't?

  Cresting the ladder, Greg found himself in a narrow, tall antechamber, a crossroads of ventilation shafts. Eight separate vents led away from the room, two of them only accessible via more ladders.

  “Now where?” he asked.

  Thomas gave him quick instructions. He kept going, sweating now, his focus honed to a fine point, barring anything but action. The eternal walls of the vent and the soft whoosh of oxygen encompassed his world.

  He arrived where he needed to be.

  “Here,” Thomas whispered. “Stop here. That vent grate to your left. No one should be in that room.”

  Greg glanced through the fine mesh grill and found himself staring into a huge room paneled in glistening white tiles. He frowned. The deck seemed an alarming distance beneath him, too much of a fall. Non
etheless, the grate opened and he poked his head out. A catwalk ringed the interior of the room, functioning as an impromptu second story. Lowering himself onto it, Greg heard the vent close behind him.

  He glanced around, studying the room. It looked like an angular beehive, or an elongated diamond. The walls were made of sterile white tiling that seemed suggestive of high technology rather than a medical ward. Greg wasn't sure how he made the distinction. Everything appeared centered on a single object, a large piece of glossy equipment, slick black metal that stood out in stark contrast to everything else.

  “What is that?” Greg whispered, staring down at it.

  There was nothing else in the room, except a door and a few more vent grates.

  “That's the security mainframe.” Thomas spoke in his ear.

  Greg hesitated. This seemed wrong somehow. He'd never seen a security mainframe before, but something in his head told him that this wasn't one. Then something else said that he was just a soldier, who has memory problems and to move his ass. He hurried over to a single ladder and scuttled down it, dropping the last few rungs, and landing with a grunt on the slick, reflective floor. He stared at the device.

  It was taller than he was, perhaps ten feet high or so. Its elongated diamond shape appeared to reflect the room that housed it. Its surfaces were flat and smooth, broken only by an occasional screen and keypad coated in non-stain plastics, or strange light strips. The strips flashed in sync with each other, all pulsing the same color.

  Right now, the lights were blue. As Greg approached, the lights shifted, fading from blue to neon green, then to a deep shade of indigo.

  “What do I do?” he asked, his voice soft and quiet.

  Whispering seemed appropriate, for some reason.

  “Continue walking around the device. Good, good...okay, stop. That panel there. The keypad. Yes, that one. There's a sequence of keys you must hit. You must hit them perfectly in order and then the security net will drop and I'll be able to help us a lot more,” Thomas said.