They’re immobilized,Kane thought. Frozen troops huddled like they were stranded on an iceberg.
Kane touched his earpiece, and immediately heard Kelly’s voice. “Yes?”
“I’m here. It’s a mess.”
“Right. Un-mess it. Get that area secure, Kane.”
“Yup.” He disconnected from Kelly, then walked over to one group of marines. “Okay, listen up. I don’t care whether you’re new here, or you’ve been on Mars for a year, we are going to get this area patrolled.”
They looked at Kane.
“W-wait a minute,” a young guy with wide eyes spoke up. “Who says? We should stay right here. Till some brass tells us.”
Kane took a step toward the jarhead. “I’m telling you what’s going to happen.” Then a look at the others standing around. “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this now, understand? In two-person patrols. Report in every five minutes. Watch each other’s back. And Christ”—he looked at one marine who had only a handgun—“make sure you got some serious firepower. Shotguns, machine guns. You’ll need more than toys to deal with those things.”
Kane waited. They’d either respond to his assuming command, or continue fighting it, whining. Then things might get a little nasty.
But then, one by one, the heads nodded.
“Okay, good. Pair up. Start now. Decide which sector each team will do.”
Kane then moved over to another cluster of marines and delivered the same news. Luckily, they had seen the others follow Kane’s lead, so they fell into line immediately.
They’re all scared,Kane knew. But they each knew that the best way to stay alive was to work together. Just like what was happening now.
He stopped two marines. “You two. I want you to stay on guard here. Just make sure the civilians stay calm. Don’t let anyone back to their offices or rooms until we get an all clear.”
More nods. Kane was thinking,Maybe this mess is all over, when a woman came up to him, sobbing, heaving, grabbing Kane’s arm.
He turned to her. One of the receptionists, looking about as rocked as one can be.
“Yes?”
“My friend, Jane—she works with me. She felt sick, she went to the restroom.”
Kane took a breath. “Alone?”
The woman nodded. “I—I didn’t want to go. I was—”
“And where is that?”
She pointed down to a corridor past reception, heading toward Central Access.
Another breath. “I’ll go check.”
The woman nodded. A bit of a smile. Though Kane doubted he’d be bringing back any good news.
Kane pushed opened the door to the restroom. An overhead light sputtered, now flickering bright, then fading to darkness.
For a moment, he remained at the threshold. He hadn’t survived this day so far by rushing into things before he knew what the hell was happening.
He heard a heaving, wet sound. Deep breaths. Coming from down the end, near the last stall.
The lights sputtered out.
Damn, I better get a headlight. Something I can wear in case this whole place goes dark.
The lights flickered on again, the wet, huffing sound constant. Maybe the receptionist was okay.
“Jane?” he said.
The wet sound stopped. But there was no answer.
Funny about taboos, he thought. This room, forbidden to men. Even now, even today.
Again: “Jane?”
This time the sound continued, and Kane started a slow walk deeper into the room, past stalls where the doors were half open.
When he got near the end, he saw blood stains on the floor. From the woman, from some other unlucky person, or—
The lights flickered out.
He heard movement. And this time, the lights stayed out.
Instinctively, Kane took a small step backward.Something moving.
When the lights came on again, he could see what it was. And it was somethingnew….
The lights strobed, but he saw the four-legged thing in front of him. It had the woman’s neck, now stringy, tight in its bulldoglike jaws, still chewing as its head bobbed up and down, unperturbed by Kane’s presence.
It threw back its jaws, and what was left of the woman’s head went flying into its mammoth maw.
The front of the thing had a carapace with a slight reddish-pink color, unless that was from all the blood.
But the rear—narrow legs made of steel.
Metal legs…
Kane took another step back.The thing is part machine. Part goddamn robot, or—
Kane fired a quick look to his rear. Wouldn’t be too great to be sandwiched between two of these things.
But nothing was behind him. At least not yet.
Kane looked down to the thing’s forepaws, looking like forked hooves ending in sharp, stiletto-like points.
Nice weapon, and the teeth? No animal on Earth had teeth like that…
Another step back.
Weirdly he thought,Nice doggie…
The thing seemed stupid, finishing its meal before concentrating on Kane.
But with a teeth-cleaning swipe of its tongue, it leapt toward Kane. And though he jumped to the right, ramming into a row of sinks, he felt one of those front claws slice into his left thigh.
The pain sent a spike into his brain. A few more jabs like that and he could join the dead girl on the floor.
He pointed his machine gun at the thing, hesitating just a fraction of a second: where to aim?
The head resembled the hard shell of a long-prehistoric deepsea arachnid. The mouth too, and the eyes, maybe the machine legs in the back.
Or, hell, maybeall of it.
An ancient monster.
He started spraying bullets at the thing, the room filling with smoke from the ejected shells. The pink thing opened its mouth—you could fit a bowling ball into the space easily.
Kane just kept firing as if spray-painting the creature with bullets.
And then he noticed—it wasn’t trying to advance.
It wasn’t quite dead. Reflexes or something kept the tongue moving, an eye twitching. The right leg trembled a bit as if also trying to move.
But Kane realized—it was about as dead as the thing was going to get. And it was beyond hurting anyone else.
He turned and walked out. Best tell everyone to find another restroom to use. At least until that one was cleaned up.
Back at Administration he could see that the civilian workers still clustered together. But now there were marine guards looking alert. In his ear he heard the teams checking in as they reached each juncture of this part of Mars City.
And the reassuring words…
All secure here…
Kane hit his communicator.
“Looking okay here, Sergeant.”
Kelly laughed. “Here too, Kane. Good work. Now maybe someone will tell us what the hell happened.”
Maybe…
“Right, Sergeant. I’m going to check the patrols.”
“Okay, Kane. And when this is over, you and me…we gotta have a talk.”
When it’s over?
And Kane thought—hoped—thatthat time was right now.
He thought about praying.
But he’d given that up a long time ago.
39
HAYDEN LOOKED AT CAMPBELL.
“All secure. Should make your boss happy.”
“That’s your boss too.When he hears it. Does this”—he pointed at the smart board on the right wall—
“thing work at all?”
“Sure.”
Campbell went to the board and touched it, and the board gave off a soft glow. A small menu appeared on the side of the electronic board, but Campbell ignored that.
“So General, let’s see what we’ve been dealing with here. There are these—” Campbell used his finger to quickly sketch what looked like a human soldier.
“What used to be your space marines.”
“Zombies. They’ve started calling them ‘zombies.’”
“Funny. So right, and then there’s the citizen version of the same thing.” Campbell fired Hayden a glance. “Which has the advantage—for us at least—that they don’t carry any weapons.”
Then Campbell drew something long and spindly, giving it pointy ears.
“What the hell is that?” Hayden asked.
“What a few of your people described.”
“Looks like a giant bug or—”
“Yeah. Whatever. General, either way, it’s something that wasn’t here before. It’s not one of your Mars citizens transformed.”
“I guess so, but—”
Campbell turned back to the board and drew something resembling a dog, only with oversized forepaws and a head that seemed fused to its body.
“And this—supposedly a bloody pink in front. Machine legs in the back.”
“Only been two of them seen. They called them ‘pinkies.’”
“Right. Now”—he faced Hayden directly—“now my question. Looking at these, how do we know there aren’tmore things, other things out there?”
Hayden shook his head. “Because we haven’t seen them. We haven’t seen anything else…”
Then Campbell, his eyes still fixed on Hayden, added the unsaid word.
“…yet.”
Swann reached the giant Comm Center and saw that already people had begun moving about normally—as if it was another day at work.
“Excuse me,” he said, grabbing one woman in a white coat moving quickly through the lab, “is this place…operational yet?”
The woman shook her head. Swann noticed her name. E. Tharp.
“Not yet. We’re still running tests, rerouting power from the secondary energy units. But I guess we should be ready to try a deep space transmission soon.”
“We have to do it now.”
The woman smiled. “Oh really? And you are?”
“Elliot Swann, counsel for the UAC and personal representative of Ian Kelliher. A messagemust go out right away.”
As soon as he said the words, Swann realized how pompous they sounded.
But Kelliher’s name seemed to have an effect.
“Well, let me see what I can do. You can take a seat over there, at the main consoles. When the system’s ready, you can broadcast away.”
Swann walked over and sat down, feeling safe for the first time since the incident.
He shook his head.
The incident…
Maria leaned against the wall. Andy Kim came over.
“You did good. Got this place all buttoned down. Bet there’s a promotion in this for you.”
“Good. That’s just what I want. A promotion and another tour of duty up here.” She realized how whiny her words must have sounded. “Everyone getting the bodies removed?”
“Yeah—we gave the job to the newbies. Some of them gagging, throwing up.” Kim nodded. “Pretty damn messy.”
Maria nodded. When would Kelly get someone over here to really take charge?
She thought of Kane. Maybe back in Admin, maybe still fighting his way up from the Mars under-city. A dangerous place and a dangerous time to give a damn about someone.
Kim saw the look on her face.
“You okay?”
Another nod. “I’m just fine,” she lied.
“What was the last message from Betruger?” Campbell asked.
“Said Delta was all okay. The doors locked for security. Nothing more since. Think whatever failures are going on in there are interfering with local communication. We have people on it, though.”
Suddenly Swann’s voice filled the room.
“We’re…all set here. We finally have deep space comm ready.”
Hayden looked at Campbell. “So now, what? We get the fleet to come? Reinforce us? Save our goddamn—”
Campbell held up a hand.
“Good work, counselor. But there’s been a change. Everything seems under control here. So a new message to go out. And then tell them to get busy rerouting the comm system do we can talk from here.”
The hesitation in Swann’s voice was clear.
“A different message?”
Campbell looked at Hayden, and the general shrugged.
“Ask the armada to assume a near-Mars orbit position but emphasize to them that there is no current need for their help or support, that”—another look at Hayden—“that…everything is under control here.”
“And Mr. Kelliher?”
“I’ll prepare a full report, to be sent once we have the full comm system back up. Understand?”
“Yes. Though—”
“Great. Now send it.”
The radio went quiet.
“Tell me, General—you got any bourbon? Been a mighty long day so far.”
Hayden leaned down to a locked cabinet behind his desk and pulled out a bottle.
Campbell laughed. “Ah, I knew Mars was in good hands…”
Kane looked around. The receptionist still shook and sobbed, sitting at her desk.
But other than that—and the sound of bodies being put into bags designed for waste and zipped up—the chaos, the smell of fear in the air, had faded.
Of course, if he were in charge there’d be more than a couple of things that would worry him.
Team Bravo was all the way over in Alpha. If anything happened there, getting to them would take a while.
Never did like having my troops scattered.
Whoa, he thought.My troops? No way any of these grunts up here were his troops.
Then there was Kelly all the way over by Delta.
All secure, he said, but the lab…still sealed up tight.
Until they got in there and assessed what the hell had happened, what the status was—then Kelly and his marines were effectively pinned. Leaving Kane and the scattered force here.
Technically Hayden was in charge, and he probably would try to find a lieutenant alive somewhere to run operations.
But for now, as if by instinct, they looked at Kane.
At least, Kane thought, it was quiet now.
Quiet…
He saw a scattering of brightly colored chairs over by reception.
He grabbed his shotgun, which had been lying against the wall, and walked over. Now he could feel the intense muscle pain from the insanity of his fights below. Jabs and sparks of pain shooting into him with every step.
The bandage he had put on his leg gash already showed pink through the gauze and tape.
He walked to a chair. Bright orange, and shaped like a melted teacup.
And Private John Kane sat down.
The siege—or whatever it was—was over.
He sat down because there was this secret rule in combat. When the fighting ended—even for a few minutes—always sit down when you can.
’Cause you never know…
AFTERMATH
THE ILLUSION
40
INSIDE DELTA
THE LIGHTS SPUTTERED AGAIN AND THEN STAYEDfull on.
MacDonald looked up, the room, the mayhem, the bodies, the creatures—
(The creatures…)
—now fully lit.
But with that burst of full power, he watched Pod One, which had grown quiet, now suddenly emitting a screeching sound, like massive metallic gears scraping, grinding.
A brilliant red glow began in the pod.
(Which MacDonald knew wasn’t a pod anymore, not a scientific device anymore. It was somethingelse .)
And as that glow bloomed, MacDonald could see, from his fetal position curled up behind an overturned table, a figure begin to appear, then emerge.
He saw Betruger, his skin reflecting the reddish color, or perhaps that glow came from him.
Only now Dr. Malcolm Betruger no longer held something in his hands.
MacDonald risked lifting his head to get a better look.
The object was gone—and now MacDonaldremembered that object. U1—from Site 3. An
unknown object with an unknown purpose. Or what used to be unknown.
Gone somewhere, and now Betruger walked amid the beings in the room, grunting, shuffling, moving aside…making a path for him.
He walked to the sealed doors of Delta Lab.
MacDonald knew what Betruger was about to do. In minutes those doors would open. And what was inside Delta would come out…
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
Ian Kelliher sat at his desk. The reassuring message from the commander of the joint UAC/USA armada did nothing to calm him.
No, not until he knew in detail what had happened on Mars—what may still be happening—he would not be reassured in the slightest. But with deep space communication still—apparently—limited, there wasn’t much he could do.
A holo-screen floated above his desk. Kelliher touched the air and saw the face of a man, an employee of Kelliher’s based here that the precious Dr. Betruger didn’t know about.
And not only didn’t know about, but would be livid if he found about it.
“Yes, Dr. Simonsen?”
“Sir, in light of the issues on Mars, do you want us to put a hold on further experiments?”
The experiments, secret, replicating what Kelliher’s team imagined Betruger to be doing on Mars.
“No. I think we can be properly…cautious. But stopping? I don’t think so, Dr. Simonsen.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The screen vanished from the air.
At least,he thought,everything is now secure on Mars. There will be investigations, reports, maybe even disciplinary action against Betruger or his team. All quite manageable stuff.
He nodded.
Totally manageable…
INFIRMARY STORAGE ROOM, MARS CITY
Theo looked around the room filled with boxes and crates. With symbols and words he didn’t understand.
He had a thought. There’s nowhere safe here. Not in this room, not out there.
Look what happened to his mother. How she got sick. Something bad happening to her.
And the same thing could happen to me!
He heard voices outside the door. They all sounded okay. But what if they weren’t?
The voices came closer.
Theo looked around the room, then up. He saw an opening in the ceiling. Small, but he could fit—he was sure of it. No one would look for him up there. No one could fit in that small space. But where did it lead?
Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire Page 19
