THREE
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29
THEO LOOKED UP AT HIS MOTHER, STANDING BYsome strange machine, just staring at it.
“Mom, when can we go explore?”
For a moment she didn’t turn around, but then she looked back at him. “What? I was—”
“Yousaid we could go exploring. I’ve seen everything in here. It’s boring.”
She smiled. Theo knew his mother wasn’t too happy about coming here. Dad had told them they could have stayed on Earth. But she didn’t want to do that.
At first he was glad. He was going to Mars! He was going to live onMars. But so far, it didn’t look so great. Sure, there were kids in Mars City. They even had some rooms where kids took lessons, like school. And it wasn’t forever. Only a year. Maybe not even that long.
“Right. I was just trying to figure out how this stove works. Too many buttons. It’s so new.”
Theo nodded. “Everything’s new here, Mom.”
“Yes, isn’t it? Okay. Maybe we’ll just have some cereal and then…I’ll try to show you Mars City. They gave me this—”
She held up something small. Theo’s dad had one too. Everyone seemed to have them.Maybe I should have one too, Theo thought. “Good. ’Cause it’s small and boring in here.”
Again a smile from his mother. “Maybe we can get to where your daddy works, okay? First day here, a new assignment. Could be pretty exciting.”
Theo grabbed the remote. A screen flickered to life on the wall. “And where’s that, Mom? Where does he work?”
“A place called Delta Labs.” She turned back to the stove for one more try.
Jonathan Ishii had finally reached the old Comm Center. The few lights he saw on the console showed that the system was still linked to the energy grid. Good. That would mean he wouldn’t have to trek back to Energy Processing and get power rerouted somehow.
While all the time dodging questions…
But was power still flowing to the outside dish? And did he understand this system well enough to get it operational? Already they would know that he was gone from the lab. Maybe they had even tracked him here. Wouldn’t be long before somebody showed up.
He reached under his lab coat and grabbed the gun he had removed from storage.
He sat down at the console and, using everything he had ever learned about the data and communications systems of Mars, started bringing the abandoned Comm Center to life.
The elevator opened, and Kane was greeted by a security guard.
“Help you, Private?”
“I’m looking for someone who’s gone AWOL, a Delta scientist.”
The security guard shook his head. “Another one of those? The nutcases in the white coats.” The guard took a few steps closer. “They’re losing it left and right these days. Place is—”
Close enough that Kane could see that this guard, in his subterranean base, didn’t practice much in the way of dental hygiene…
“—starting to get to them.”
“Yeah. Did you see someone come by?”
The guard shook his head. “No. But—” He laughed, the sound echoing weirdly in the tunnel. “I can’t be fucking everywhere, now can I?”
Yeah…people starting to lose it. And not just the scientists.“Keep your eyes open,” Kane said. Not a request but, an order to the guard, who outranked him.
Then Kane headed around to the left, toward what was labeled Convergence Chamber on his PDA.
“All right, squad. You’re to take positions in Alpha. The general has demanded increased security throughout the Alpha and Delta wings. That means a lot of walking, keeping your eyes open—you know the drill.”
“Sergeant, got any idea why?” Rodriguez laughed at his own question. “What for?”
Maria had to wonder that too. Why today? Some big UAC VIPs here—so maybe it was all for show?
“Rodriguez, I don’t think you have the clearance to even ask that question. Just hit your positions, eyes alert. Got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The squad of space marines started out for Alpha. Maria wondered how Kane was doing.
“Should we go to the lab now?” Swann said.
Campbell turned to him. “I’m not going.”
“But Betruger expects—”
“Screw Betruger. I want to check that the weapons shipment has all been deployed. We didn’t bring that firepower up here so it could sit in metal crates for a month.”
“But won’t Kelliher want you to see what happens today?”
Campbell came close to Swann. “I think he wantsyou to see. And you’d best get a report out fast—good or bad. Me, he’s expecting that I keep things tight as a drum up here. If we shut Betruger down, it won’t be pretty.”
“You won’t need weapons.” Swann made a small nervous laugh. “I mean, just to shut down a lab.”
“Hey, counselor—it’s Mars. Anything can happen.”
Campbell started for the Combat Prep room, leaving Swann alone to head to Delta.
“All right, Private. Just stay still.”
Wegner looked at the medical doctor who plunged a syringe into his bicep. A tube ran from the syringe into a vial. Wegner watched as one vial filled with his blood. The doctor removed that vial, then placed another vial at the end of the tube.
After four vials, Wegner joked, “Hey, Doc, leave some for me, okay?”
The doctor turned to him, not a bit of a smile on his pinched face. “We need these samples for before and after. To monitor any changes.”
Wegner laughed. “The only change I want to monitor is my getting out of here.”
Though he stood naked as people walked back and forth, he didn’t feel self-conscious at all. Giving some of them a thrill, he thought.
They had explained to Wegner that he had to enter the chamber without any clothes. And in moments, he’d appear in the other chamber. Just like magic.
The boss scientist, a squat man with a massive head, walked up. “Is the subject ready?”
The doctor taking blood turned around, quick to respond.He barks, and they jump. Just like the freakin’ military. “Yes, Dr. Betruger.”
Then the one called Betruger turned to someone at his elbow, trailing close behind him. “MacDonald, prepare the pod chambers. All Delta science teams to their stations. We begin exactly at noon.”
Another man in a white coat came and took Wegner’s arm and began leading him to one of the large nearby chambers. The stone floor felt cold under his bare feet.
Betruger watched the lab in motion, everyone hurrying now. Like ants, scurrying, racing around, all imagining that this was really another experiment.
Ah, the things they didn’t know. The things that they would soon realize.
Though there was this one concern: Ishii. What had his data chief seen? What had he been able to figure out? Whatever he tried to tell them, they would probably write off Dr. Ishii as only another nut, someone else who has mysteriously gone mad in Mars City.
Did the scientist really expect to escape, leave, or—
Betruger’s eyes darted right and left, looking at the swirl of activity in Delta, but as if trying to look inside his own head, into his mind filled with secrets.
What could Ishii be doing? What could he know?
Betruger didn’t like not having the answers. But soon none of it would matter.
He turned to Pod One. One of the assistants had opened the door while the medical supervisor, the mealy-mouthed Leprine, carefully guided the subject into the pod. The man grinned as people watched him enter, then walk to the center of the pod. Betruger looked around. He had invited Swann to come. Less an invitation, and more of an order.
Betruger touched his earpiece. “Hayden,” he said quietly.
Then after the chirp of a signal, he heard the general’s voice. “What is it?”
“Where is Swann? He should be here.”
“He should be there any minute, Doctor.”
Betruger
hit his earpiece again, killing the connection. Then, standing there, he whispered, so low that even someone standing next to him wouldn’t hear what sounded like words…
(Though they would see the lips move, slowly, as if mumbling.)
“Astaroth ag-ignome…pendar…my’el R’yleh…”
Repeating the words, the sounds, over and over—inaudible, he knew, except to those for whom they were intended.
30
THEO’S MOTHER SAT DOWN FACING HIM. “THERE,”she said smiling. “I figured out how to work it. Some nice hot cereal.”
Theo looked down at the bowl. Little clouds of steam rose from the bowl.
He looked back at his mother. “What is this stuff?”
She shrugged. “Hot cereal. Just like we have back home…” Then she hurried to add words. “On Earth.”
Another look down at the bowl. “It doesn’t look like the cereal on Earth.” A deep sniff. “Or smell like it.”
His mom rolled her eyes. “Just eat it, Theo, okay?”
“And then we can explore?”
“Yes—and then you and me…explore this place.”
The panels in front of Dr. Ishii came alive. One large screen showed that now he had a direct signal to the large dish outside.
But that didn’t mean that a message here would get out.
Ishii looked at the clock above the control board. How much time did he have to do this?
And then—
(Oh God, oh God, oh God…)
Would they believe him? A screen to his right changed. Words.
“DST Activated and Ready.”
The old Comm Center was online, separate from the main controls of Mars City. Ready for deep space transmission.
Ishii reached for the controls.
Kane moved quickly. Something about this place down here made him feel that time might be of the essence. Not just a crap mission Kelly dumped on him. Something to remind Kane of his status here. And with that, a feeling that he best be careful.
He was tempted to break into a jog, curving around the massive Convergence Chamber, when someone stepped out of the shadows.
“Hey, marine—where the hellyou goin’? Nothing down here.”
Kane stopped. The man’s nameplate said “C. Rodgers.”
“You see someone come by here?” Kane said.
“Me, no. Just got here. They like this thing checked every eight hours. Always the same. Don’t know why we check it.”
The guy sounded spaced. Could they get drugs down here, stuff to drink? Why not—you could probably get it anywhere.
Kane took a step closer to the man. “One of the scientists. He could have come this way. See anyone?”
Rodgers shook his head. “Just you.” Rodgers laughed. “And to be honest…I’m not even seeing you too well.”
Kane started moving again.
“What are we supposed to do here?” Rodriguez said.
Maria looked at him. “Look like you’re guarding something.”
Rodriguez looked around Alpha Lab. “Man, this place is big. What the hell they do here?”
Maria ignored the question. But she had to admit, this was strange, all the marine squads now posted throughout Mars City.
She looked at her PDA, wishing she’d been paired up with someone else,anyone else.
Campbell made sure the door to the weapons room just off Combat Prep was closed tight and locked behind him. He went to the gleaming silver crate. Unlike the other crates that had arrived in the transport, this one featured an electronic lock. No one was getting a look inside the crate, past the reinforced titanium shell, without the code.
Campbell entered a series of six numbers. The red readout changed to green, and he heard a series of loud metallic clicks.
He waited, then started to open the crate, undoing the latches that girded the top of the crate. Not an easy task. It took his full strength.
And there, inside, the prize. The secret.
Up, up, until the crate was fully open. A second case lay beneath, but this one was constructed of molded plastic compound designed to cushion what was inside.
He popped two latches and opened that.
And there it was. What the weapons team back at UAC dubbed the BFG. Almost too much gun for one person to hold, even someone with the upper-body strength of Campbell.
He was tempted to take it out, but someone without clearance could walk in here.
It was, quite simply, a thing of beauty. Enough firepower so that one person could hold back a small army. Campbell shut the plastic cover, then slowly, carefully, the metallic crate top, which automatically locked.
A small army.
Who knows,he thought.Stranger things have happened.
Swann walked into the lab. The volunteer stood naked in one of the pods, his eyes watching the scientists moving around.
Betruger looked over at Swann, but then went back to talking to his scientific team, moving between monitors and control panels.Maybe I cut it a little close, Swann thought.
He looked at a massive digital clock, counting down to the thousandth of a second. Just about five minutes to go, assuming they stuck to the exact timetable for the experiment.
31
THEO FOLLOWED BESIDE HIS MOTHER, HOLDINGher hand. She had led him back to where the spaceship first had landed, but then she took him down a new hallway.
It wasn’t that much fun at all.
“Where we going?” he finally asked.
“Mars City is big. Can’t see it all in one shot, Theo. But I thought I’d show you where the soldiers stay, the space marines.”
“Why are they called ‘space’ marines?”
He heard his mother laugh. “Because we’re in space.” But then the laugh stopped, and her voice sounded different. “I mean, I guess that’s why.”
Ishii entered the coordinates of the communication target. He had thought to send the message directly to Earth, but who knew what filters the UAC satellite grid used. Could be the message would simply die in space.
But the armada…
They would get everything as they patrolled the space lanes between Mars and Earth.
It took a few moments for the target coordinates to lock. Ishii waited.
And then there was a voice behind him and a hand on his shoulder.
Lost in getting the system up and running, the scientist hadn’t even heard Kane walk into the old Comm Center.
As soon as Kane got there, he heard a voice in his ear. “Kane—Kelly here. Find that damn scientist and get your ass back here.” A snicker. “Unless you need reinforcements.”
Kane didn’t acknowledge Kelly’s barking command.
“Doctor…Dr. Ishii, please step away from the console.”
The scientist turned. Then Kane could see his eyes, wide, bloodshot, like a grunt who’d been in battle for days, no sleep, no food.War eyes, they called them—acquired by humans in battle who begin mutating into killing machines, with only one thought: kill the other guy and keep me the hell alive.
Ishii spoke. “No. You don’t understand. I—I have to do this.”
Kane took another step closer to him. “Doctor, I’ve been ordered to stop you doing…whatever you’re doing, and bring you back.”
Ishii nodded. “Of course. That’s what they would want. But—” The rheumy bloodshot eyes looked up at him. “You have to understand, you see, I know. Iknow what they’re going to do.”
What the hell is he talking about?Kane wondered. So far, Mars City seemed more like an extension of the mental ward back at the new VA, in the hills of Colorado.
He watched Ishii begin to move close to some switches near the side of the console. A microphone—kind of primitive—veered from the center of the control board.He’s about to send a message. How bad could that be?
But Kane couldn’t risk getting into any more trouble.I just want to stay under the damn radar…
Ishii’s fingers moved slowly, as if by stealthily making their way to the “Tr
ansmit” buttons, he wouldn’t be seen.
Kane had no choice. He moved quickly to Ishii, his hands closing on the scientist’s wrist. “Step away, Doctor. Just step…away…from the console.”
Ishii turned, and up close, Kane could see the fear in the probably mad scientist’s eyes.This whole place is a loony bin, Kane thought.
“No. You don’t understand. You have to let me—” Ishii still tried to hit some buttons with his free hand. But Kane moved quickly, imprisoning that hand too, and then, just so the scientist got the message, whipping him back, pulling him and the chair back against the wall.
And then—an amazing moment as Kane spun around. He could see…this room, this old Communications Center suddenly had a panoramic window looking out on Mars. There was no Mars City out there, nothing but the reddish ridges, the mountainous areas, burning in the midday sun. A temperature readout by the window told the current temperature: 271 degrees Kelvin.
For the first time an awareness of where he was hit Kane.
But then Ishii struggled against his grip. “Listen, er—“The man’s wild eyes searched Kane’s uniform. “Private Kane, youhave to listen to me!”
“Sure. Then you are coming back with me. Understand?”
The man nodded. Kane released his grip.
“This place…what’s going on here…it’s not what they tell you.” He laughed. “It’s not what they tellanyone. Even the scientists in the lab, even they don’t know. But I do.” His voice rose. “I do.”
Right,thought Kane.Funny thing about delusions.
“And what is that, Dr. Ishii?”
“You’re not going to believe me.”
Good chance of that…“We won’t know until we try.”
Ishii looked away, looked at the open landscape, as if the answer lay somewhere out there. “It happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe millions. It happened right here. And God, sweet God in heaven, it’s going to happen again.”
Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire Page 15
