“Excuse me, ma’am, but I’m afraid your clearance doesn’t let you go any further.”
Theo held his mother’s hand tight. The soldier stood in the center of the hallway. He looked big, so much bigger than his father, wearing all sorts of padding. He held a rifle of some kind, something really cool. None of Theo’s army guys had any weapons like that.
He’d have to ask his dad what it was, next time he saw him.
His mother smiled down at him.
“We’re new. Just giving my son a little tour. Show him some more of Mars City. This”—she touched a badge on her lapel—“doesn’t let us go down here?”
Theo felt the soldier’s eyes drift down. “No, ma’am. This is a military wing of the city, and you would need military clearance.”
She nodded. Then she turned to Theo.
“Sorry, Theo. Maybe Daddy can arrange something for us. I’ll talk to him when he gets back tonight.”
Theo wasn’t sure he wanted to go down this way anyway. It didn’t look very interesting. He felt his mom give him a tug, pulling him away. But then—
“Miss, I can’t let you go down there, not alone. But if you want to give the boy a quick look, he can catch a glimpse of where the marines line up before getting assigned, where we get our gear.” The big soldier smiled.He seems to like Mom, Theo thought. “I’ll just walk you down there a bit.”
The soldier smiled down at Theo. And though he didn’t really want to walk down there, he and his mom followed the marine.
Elliot Swann stood by the lab entrance. After watching this experiment, he had a lot of reports to go through. Every aspect of Mars City had to be signed off on by Kelliher—and it was Swann’s job to make sure nothing was missed.
Only another minute or so.
The naked subject in the pod was grinning. Every scientist seemed to have something to do, something to keep their eyes off him.
Maybe,Swann thought,I’m the only person really looking at him. Hope it goes well, you stupid bastard. Just don’t be like the others. Guess he never heard the adage—never volunteer.
Two minutes left. A message on his PDA, from Campbell. “How’d it go?”
Too soon. Swann was about to respond, but then decided to simply wait. In a few minutes he’d have something to send back. Then he could get on with his work.
Rodriguez looked down one of the long empty tunnels of Alpha.
“You think Hayden ordered all this security?”
Maria shook her head. She guessed it had something to do with today’s visitors. She pulled her weapon close, and without even being aware of it at first, tightened her finger around the trigger.
“I’m listening,” said Kane.
Ishii nodded. “What Betruger is doing in there…has nothing to do with teleportation. Not anymore, at least. Not since he discovered what it does, what those machines can do here.”
“Which is?”
Ishii seemed annoyed at the question. “They don’tmove things from one place to another. Not really. No one who has been a test subject has been able to say what happened to them. Not even the ones who came back still looking…human.”
Kane shifted on his feet. This guy was one for the books.
“Betruger knew—heknew —they went somewhere, that by using those pods, he opened a way into those places, that you could—”
Okay,thought Kane,enough of this. In seconds Kelly would be in his ear again, bellowing for him to double-time it back with the scientist. “Sir, we really—”
“He didn’t know that I saw everything from Site 3, what he had learned. About what happened so many years ago here. Heknows what that thing is—the artifact—what he called the Soul Cube. All those living beings long ago, their need to stop it, their terrible sacrifice—”
“Look, Doctor—you’re losing me, and we have to get back, we got to leave—”
Ishii backed up against the panoramic glass window. Kane had no choice but to go grab him and start dragging the man back. But then in his earpiece, he heard a sharp burst of something like static.
High-pitched, as if some radio signal was being stretched and pulled and distorted into an ear-piercing level of volume.
Kane yanked the earpiece out.
Then—
It was almost like standing before an open window.A breeze coming through a window on a summer’s day. Turning, now stronger. The breeze, now the wind of a storm. The steady sound of wind rushing during a summer storm on Earth. Growing. Now a roar.
Kane stood there and felt the amazing blast of what had to be a racing jet of air smashing into the enclosed space of the room.
32
WITH INSTINCTS BORN OF COUNTLESS FIREFIGHTS,dodging bullets, grenades and bombs exploding all around, Kane spun to his right to what, somehow, he had registered as cover. He curled up as tight as possible, head tucked under, arms and hands tucked tight into the body.
The roaring locomotive of air blasted into the room as if it would blow the walls out, and the Martian heat would cook him and Ishii in a matter of moments.
He didn’t look up. But then he heard another noise, a shrill scream, nearly an animal sound. Maybe caused by the sudden vacuum created by the air bellows?
That was followed by an ear-piercing hissing noise, static raised to an unbearable volume, intolerable heights of pitch. Kane quickly covered his ears with his hands. In the motion, his eyes closed.
But they picked up something else now blasting into the room.
A light—deep red, brilliant, the intensity of the sun in the room. He thought,It’s like the world is on fire…
For a moment Kane felt something pulling at his flesh, this new light, this heat, this brilliant red glow somehow tugging on his skin.
But Kane—still protected—hugged closer to the metal barrier that led back to the Convergence Chamber. Behind his tightly closed eyes, he could see the light fade. Then—of course—came the new sound.
The sound that trailed in the wake of this red tide of light.
And as this new screaming, roaring noise cut so easily through the covering made by his hands pressed tight, Kane noticed his hands shaking.
His knees tucked close, shaking also.
And he knew that in all the battles he’d been in, in all the times he had faced death, it never, ever, felt quite as bad as this.
Maria looked at Rodriguez, his goofy mouth open, looking down the hallway. Her hair blew off her forehead, her cheek.
She thought of something then: funny thing—the breeze a fist made as it sailed close by your face, close enough to generate that little wind, and then goes flying safely by…a miss.
A miss. Because you ducked. You weaved. You bobbed. The thought clarified.
You moved.
And she saw an alcove leading to an Alpha Lab storage area. Narrow, dark, but away from this now growing roar of wind, this roar clearing the way for something else to come.
Theo let his mother’s hand go. Maybe it was the funny wind.
The soldier had stopped. He started to turn. His mother stood there. Her hand reached out, looking for Theo’s hand.
Theo went to grab that hand, latch on, hold on, hold it tight—
When whatever came into the tunnel threw Theo back. Pushed him back hard, then smacked him down onto the floor. He screamed. He did what every kid does. He called for his mother.
“Mom! Mommy!”
But still this wind kept pushing him, like a playground bully, pushing, sweeping him away, until Theo felt himself fly up as if he was paper, now thrown against a wall, then down another corridor.
And then there was nothing.
Swann flew back against the door.
Both pods now glowed an incredible red, like massive flames erupting from the floor. Did the pods even still exist? Each one shot out jagged spears of reddish lights, in every direction, penetrating the walls of the lab, shooting every which way.
In that moment Swann knew he was alive because of where he stood. And as long
as one of those spears didn’t hit him, those sharp points of fiery red light shooting all over, then he was fine.
He laughed. A weird feeling.
When so many fell around him, tumbling to the ground, the light skewering right through them. Scientists who only seconds ago were walking around checking everything, now lay writhing on the ground.
Because—and this was the sick thing—those spears rocketing out of the twin pods, when they hit something alive—they didn’t just move through them. No, like hooking a human worm, they jabbed into the person on the floor, legs kicking, head arching up and then smacking down to the floor. Toying. Playing.
Swann shook his head.No. Not playing with them. Doing something else.
He turned right. One person stood nearby, unaffected as the rolling spears flew into and out of the lab. Betruger. Standing there. His skin seemed red, then, for a second, rippling. He held something in his hands. Like a shield, filled with curves and protrusions.
What the hell is that?
Until finally Swann looked at the pod to the right. Where the volunteer had been standing only seconds ago, smiling, all thumbs-up and okay.
He was still there. Sort of. Only now what had once been his naked chest was this gaping hole. A hole that seemed to pulse and grow larger as the spears shot out. And out of that hole, things came out.
Swann looked at one. Something with a head, a big smiley face of teeth, and snakelike legs somehow helping it move.
He looked away.
Because more things came out, different things, things that Swann didn’t want to see. He knew he was shaking, heaving and crying as he stood there, somehow miraculously alive.
But another glance at the fireworks explosion that was Delta Lab…
Scientists, once speared, shot through with the electric red bolts, now…yes…standing up, slowly getting to their feet, slowly, studiously. (This was new to them, after all.) They werealive.
But then one of them nearby turned to Swann, and he knew that wasn’t quite right. Not alive in the way they were only seconds ago.
The nearby one, whose loopy jaw now seemed to be able to open double-wide, tilted its head, seeing Swann.
Noticing him. Swann’s right hand felt the edge of the open lab exit.
He turned, not even able to worry that there might be something there, right there outside, waiting for him to spin around and turn and try to get out of the lab.
And Swann started running as fast as he could, unaware that as he ran, his screams resounded throughout the corridor.
33
AND SO IT WAS DONE. MALCOLM BETRUGERheard the chittering as they emerged, crawling out of the hole that simply grew wider.
It was all sowonderful . A life spent trying to create miracles, and he never dreamed that there was this. This other reality, waiting for someone to just wedge that door open a bit.
As the beings crawled out, they ignored him, like newborn babies, oblivious of their parents. No matter. Betruger could hear the voices in his head all the time. Much of it was incomprehensible, of course. There was so much to learn! But at other times quite clear, telling him to watch the pods, observe as the opening grew larger. He knew it wasn’t just happening here either.
No. Now the planet itself seethed with the power and energy flowing into it. This was simply like a radio receiver, channeling those waves of energy, letting things move from there to here, following the commands as they—
Betruger took a breath.
—as they reclaimed this planet. And it was all only the beginning.
He looked down at his arms. The skin rippled as if waves moved just under the surface, making the skin first bulge a bit, then turn smooth.
Then—what he held in his hands. Almost a gift.
I am ready,Betruger thought,for whatever they wish to do with me.
The lights flickered out in the service tunnel, then—perhaps fed by the emergency backup—they flickered on at what looked like half power.
Sergeant Kelly scrambled to his feet. He looked around at the other marines that had been standing near him, in this corridor away from the large reactor room of Delta.
“Come on, get up! Get the hell up.”
No one moved, so he gave a quick kick to the boots of one of the jarheads. A groan. Though…there was something about the sound.
“Come on. We have to secure this goddamn—”
The marine turned. At first all Kelly could do was look at the private’s hands. Blackened things, as if they had reached into some blisteringly hot oven and yanked out a burning log, fingers curled tightly around it.
But then the face tilted back. Except it wasn’t a face, this thing making a low grunting sound. In place of a human face was a distorted and twisted near-clown image. The mouth slit sideways, as if someone had taken a knife and slashed it to make it open wider. And eyes, vacant dull back pits in yellowish goo.
The hair—what was left of it—had turned white and stringy.
The space marine made another low barking, grunting sound, and started to get up.
Kelly instinctively backed away.
Just as the other two marines also started to move, both in the same condition.
Kelly raised his gun. He was about to say something but he hesitated because—sweet Jesus—it sure looked as though they wouldn’t be able to understand a word he said.
Kane looked around the room. Signs of the shockwave, or whatever had hit the room, dotted the walls and the floor.
But otherwise, everything appeared normal.
Ishii still stood, facing out to the Martian landscape.
Whatever the hell happened, Kane felt he’d best get this runaway scientist back, and then find out what had just happened to make his first full day in Mars City so memorable.
“Doctor, we have to go.”
Ishii started to turn slowly. For a moment Kane didn’t notice anything out of order. The man was backlit by the still-bright Martian midday sun. But when Ishii leaped—leaped—at Kane, he could see that the scientist wasgone, replaced by something that now, apparently, wanted to latch onto Kane.
The doctor’s mouth was open, hands extended.
Kane dodged, but Ishii, moving amazingly quickly now, spun around and with his open jaw, snapped sharply at Kane’s leg. Kane moved his leg out of reach of the man’s snapping mouth. He heard the sickclick as teeth locked together.
Now Ishii, on all fours, tried to scurry toward Kane even as the marine backed away, farther into the shadows of the old Comm Center.
He got a good look at the man’s eyes, and he knew one thing: Ishii was gone, and if this thing was allowed to get a grip on him, it would all end very badly.
He tried some gentle persuasion at first, removing one of his pistols and smacking at the scientist’s head as he tried to crab-claw toward Kane.
The blow made a loud thud and sent the creature rolling to the side. But again—so fast—it popped up, jumping to a standing position, mouth agape. Teeth so clear, and beyond…the tongue…a ragged piece of reddish meat, protruding, tasting the air like a snake.
Ishii pulled back for another leap.
Right onto me,Kane thought.And what, a bite onto my neck, and what then—do I die, or become like him?
Ishii started his leap.
Kane fired. Bullets ripped into Ishii’s chest, and the man fell at Kane’s feet. Then, amazingly, it looked up, started to get up again despite just having taken three rounds of high-powered projectiles to its midsection.
Guess bullets there don’t do any good,Kane thought.Live and learn.
There was nowhere else for him to retreat. The scientist’s eyes looked hungry, eager, sensing that Kane was cornered.
There was a line somewhere, an old play from school, maybe some book—something about eyes being the window to the soul. If that was the case, this thing had no soul.
But those same eyes told Kane what to do.
He blasted the thing square in the head with four rounds. Craterli
ke holes opened up in the skull, but still it moved, only now those blackened hands reaching for its head as if trying to repair the damage.
Still goddamn moving…
More blasts, until there really wasn’t much of skull there at all, like some kind of humanoid vegetable where the top has been roughly bitten off, leaving only a lifeless trunk.
Until—finally—that trunk fell forward, immobile.
And Kane had a key bit of information. These things could in fact be killed.
Ishii’s PDA lay on the floor.Don’t think he’ll be needing that, Kane thought as he picked it up.
He put his radio back in his ear. It was time to get moving.
Welcome to Mars City, indeed.
34
THE EARPIECE SQUAWKED TO LIFE AGAIN. ANOTHERscreech, a burst of static, then a voice…
A human voice. And as Kane moved through the underground corridors, he was glad to hear it.
“Kane? Kane, you down there?”
“Yes, Sergeant. I’m down here.”
Kane kept up his pace, rounding the curve of the Convergence Chamber. A blast of gunfire, yells in his ear that drowned out Kelly’s voice.
“Try that again, Sergeant.”
“The condition, damn it. What’s your—”
More gunfire. Kane knew that Kelly was near Delta, an area that Kane hadn’t seen on the grand tour. And things didn’t sound good…
“I’m alive. Not too sure about anyone else down there. Not—”
He came out to the intersection leading to the elevator out of this maze. He saw the worker who had greeted him earlier.
One arm looked blown away, replaced by a tweedy stump. An eye dangled out of its socket, hanging by threads. Enough to kill any human.
And like Ishii, he now started moving to attack, its jaws chomping at the air as if getting ready to chow down on a nice juicy steak.
Kane stopped. “Fuck…”
Now, both guns out, he began blasting. By instinct, he targeted the heart, but when that didn’t slow the worker, he raised both guns, their arcs nearly convergent, aimed at the maintenance worker’s head.
Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire Page 16
