9-6-8-2-4
INCORRECT
I grunted and thought of the chorus. 5-7-2-1
INCORRECT
That left one remaining verse. I usually changed the channel before that part came up, which made it a bit difficult to remember. I sang it aloud, hoping my memory served me correctly.
“The numbers at the demon’s door
Three and nine once we pass the gate
Then one and one and one sublime
One last two to seal my fate.”
I worked my fingers over the keys once more. 3-9-1-1-1-2
INCORRECT
Silas turned around and fixed me with an eager glance. He started hopping up and down, gnashing his teeth together. I stared back at the screen. I had to be missing something.
Three and nine once we pass the gate
That might be it. I entered 3-9, held my breath, and hit enter.
SECONDARY PASSWORD
I exhaled and eagerly typed, 1-1-1-2, half expecting the screen to say INCORRECT again.
Instead a different word – a combination of words, actually – appeared.
ACCEPTED: WELCOME TO THE DREDNOT PROJECT
“One last two to seal my fate,” I whispered.
Motors hummed and gears grinded. Silas crept back a step. The diagonal crease in the center of the door became a gap that grew wider with each passing second. It didn’t take long until both halves of the barrier disappeared inside their respective nooks.
A rush of rancid air blew past me, that strange electrical-fire smell. I took Silas by the hand, ushered him behind me for protection, and stepped into the unknown.
49
We entered a huge, circular room, at least fifty feet wide and thirty feet high. The curved walls were lined with banks of computers whose keyboards flashed red, green, blue, and yellow. Arched black panels the size of movie screens hovered above the workstations. The place looked futuristic, yet there was a sneaky undercurrent of ancientness, as well, for no matter how advanced the technology appeared, it also had a certain grunginess that made it look old.
The whine of a generator beneath my feet, combined with the computer console’s constant hum, caused my ears to ring. I covered them and looked around. Two items of interest captured my attention. One was a body, dressed in a gray prison jumpsuit, sprawled beneath one of the consoles so I could only see him from the chest down. But it was the second sight that really grabbed me and made me unconsciously hold my breath.
It was a raised circular platform in the middle of the room that caused this – or rather, what stood atop said platform. I reached behind me and shuffled around the dais while Silas’s little boy fingers clutched at the back of my Paul Nicely jeans. When I looked at his face, I saw that he was as horrified by what stood before us as I was.
The thing standing there was at least eight feet tall and had the torso of a man, sheathed with what appeared to be synthetic skin. The flesh stopped at the shoulders, and between those broad shoulders a head rose up. It was shaped like a lizard’s skull, molded from shiny metal plates, supported by a neck of stainless steel tubes beneath which I could see wires looping in and out. The mouth hung agape on bulky hinges and contained a row of razor-blade teeth. The mechanical skull shimmered beneath the flickering lights. Its eyes, a pair of telescoping lenses, were black. They stared ahead with blank despair, like a statue guarding the remnants of an era that hadn’t passed quickly enough.
Silas jumped in front of me, tearing my attention away from the thing on the platform. He crawled over to the monstrosity, glanced up at it, and then back at me.
“Yup, this is it,” I whispered. “The Dreadnaught. The monster in the dark. The creature Kaiser and Will are so afraid of. The bastard that killed Paul. And it’s a goddamn robot.” I grimaced and paused, then said, “I really hope it stays asleep.”
“Hrm,” muttered Silas. I took that to mean he agreed with me.
I made my way around the platform, examining the thing closer. It really was an amazing construction, even if frighteningly ill-conceived. Its arms were thin and covered with the same leathery flesh as the torso. The wrists were bare, and steel knuckles supported four curved, eight-inch blades. I kept moving around the platform until I reached the back. I saw the wings, which looked like a pterodactyl’s, stretching from the floor to a foot above its head. Then came the curved, mechanical legs, and feet that didn’t look like feet at all but padded, blocky triangles. From there I noticed its back wasn’t covered in any flesh at all, and there was a two-foot hole in its skeleton where the tailbone should have been. From this hole obtruded three cylinders, at least ten inches wide apiece. The cylinders were spotted with air holes. I squinted and pressed closer.
What the hell are those, I thought, jet engines?
I stepped back and circled back to the front of the beast. At that point I perceived a multitude of tubes attached to the death-bringing machine. These tubes rose to the ceiling, where they disappeared into the dome sagging above our heads. Its feeding tubes, I assumed. Its power source.
My hands went to my hips and I kept on staring, trying to come to grips with what I saw. This abomination had obviously been constructed by human hands, but what purpose did it serve? I remembered the placard above the keyboard. Recon and Elimination. A very succinct, official-sounding, and downright terrifying title. Is this what the world had come to, for men to create tools of war built to terrify, whose weaponry would kill slowly, painfully, atrociously? I was repulsed, and as I stared I couldn’t help but wish for the comparative civility of guns, bombs, and missiles.
My heart sank. “We watched the world crumble around us, and all we could do was help it,” I said.
Silas pressed his head against my stomach. Even in the guise of a human he still had the gift of knowing when I needed comfort.
Turning my attention away from the Dreadnaught’s biomechanical form, I moved toward the other oddity in the room – the dead man whose legs stuck out from under one of the consoles. As I got closer I saw the body wore dust-caked hiking boots. I sniffed the air, searching for the scent of rot, but the only thing I smelled was scorched electronics, which meant this guy had either been dead a long time or was still alive. Silas stayed by my side, staring at the legs as if in a trance, and then moved ahead of me. There was genuine concern in his wobbly, shuffling movements, the same sort of approach he’d used when we happened upon a young bird who fell from its nest in our back yard.
Silas knelt and placed a silky, human hand on one of the legs. I expected whomever it was to jerk up on contact, but the body didn’t move. Silas’s lips furrowed and his nose scrunched. Creased lines of concern traced his forehead.
He glanced up at me, and he was crying.
“What’s wrong, Silas?” I asked.
He waved his hand in a come here gesture. I did as he asked and hunkered down, touching the dirty material covering the body. The material was cold; the leg beneath, hard as a rock. Now up close, I discovered the legs to be unnaturally long. The individual they belonged to had to be seven feet tall, at least. I let my eyes wander up to the similarly long waist, then the chest, which was barely visible in the sparse light that reached the underside of the workstation. I looked at my boy, who was still gaping at me with pleading, despaired eyes. He snatched a handful of the tall man’s pants and gave them a tug.
“Okay,” I said. I placed the knife on the console above, lifted the much-too-heavy legs, and pulled. The body didn’t move. The guy weighed a ton. I gritted my teeth and heaved again, harder this time. Despite my effort, the corpse moved only inches.
Feeling his weight, and with my fingers pressing into at least two inches of filth, I figured the guy must’ve been down here for ten years, maybe more. By that point decomposition should’ve set in. Unless he wore a weighted belt, his mass didn’t make any sense.
Silas hopped behind me and grabbed my waist. I pulled again, and this time he assisted. My knees buckled and my heart rate picked up, but I didn�
�t stop. The body slid across the floor, got stuck, and then slid again. I felt my hands slipping and dug in even more. My fingernails bent backward and a gasp of pain escaped my lips.
Before too long, after a great amount of struggle and sweat, we were able to get the body free. I sensed a small amount of pride that I’d been right about his height – seven feet, minimum. His arms, strangely outstretched in a mock crucifixion pose, were even more exaggerated than the rest of him, almost ape-like. Silas bounded away from me and took position over one of those arms, grinning ear to ear. I smiled and nodded, but that smile only lasted as long as it took me to look from the tip of the dead man’s gloved fingers to the nape of his neck, for the face that stared up at the ceiling wasn’t human, and most assuredly wasn’t dead.
50
A pair of glowing blue eyes shone through holes in a plastic mask that was colored with a creamy tone that seemed to mock, instead of imitate, real flesh. The glow of the eyes was faint, yet it had a shimmer, an electric life, that sent miniature fireworks into the air every few seconds. The face possessed a slight bulge for a nose and a barred slit in place of a mouth. I scratched my head in confusion while Silas leapt about in a crazy sort of victory dance.
What the hell is this thing, I wondered. It looked like a cross between C-3PO and a crash test dummy. Its inhuman, expressionless face seemed to convey millennia of pessimism. It was the unnatural smoothness of the plastic that caused this impression, combined with the complete lack of detail in its features – a blend of intricacy and negligence that screamed out in contradiction, a mannequin blessed, at least at some point in the past, with what passed for life.
I pressed against the mannequin man’s side and felt the hard form beneath the jumpsuit. “Hello,” I said, quite loudly. “Anybody home?” The thing didn’t move, but its eyes flashed again with those miniscule sparks. I ran my finger down its arm, removed its glove, and rolled up the shirtsleeve. There was no plastic casing covering the appendage, which was a slim tube of silver metal ending in an elongated, skeletal, robotic hand with four multi-jointed fingers and a similarly lengthy and pliable thumb. I lifted the hand and bent the fingers, hearing springs uncoil inside the joints. The fingers snapped straight when I let go. I took a step back.
I let my eyes wander from the robot on the ground to the one on the platform. They were so different they belonged in opposing realities – one with an eye toward the future, the other to the violent past. Even though I found both creepy, I much preferred the one on the floor.
I circled the prone mannequin man and noticed a fat, black tube attached to the back of its head. The tube disappeared beneath the console from which we’d dragged it. Silas obviously noticed this, too, for he kicked at the tube with his bare foot.
I bent over the masked face and turned its head. More coils and servos whirred. I saw that the plastic mask ended where the ears would’ve been, and the rear of the skull was made of the same smooth, silver metal as the arm. The black tube was fastened with a steel clamp to a stump protruding from the back of the skull. I wiped dust off the clamp, felt static shock prick my fingers, and then wrapped my fist around it and pulled. Silas leaned over and put his hand atop mine – not in an attempt to stop me, I assumed, but in a physical articulation of shared wonder. In that moment I felt his pulse and his warm flesh. I had to fight the urge to neglect our new discovery and hug him.
You must free The One. Those had been Paul’s instructions. It didn’t make sense, but maybe this…thing…was what I had to help.
That’s when the screaming started. It came on suddenly, without warning, an impossibly loud, grating squeal. I fell to the ground, covered my ears, and cried out in pain. The ringing was so loud that whatever sounds escaped my throat I couldn’t hear. It felt like someone had driven a knife into my brain. Silas collapsed on top of me, likewise clutching tight to his young, tender ears. His mouth was open and tears streamed down his cheeks. His body vibrated, just like mine.
I glanced up, fighting the pain while trying futilely to ease Silas, and gazed at the ceiling. A series of pipes descended like spokes. Columns of white smoke erupted from them, filling the upper chamber. The smoke, moving like an ethereal snake, was then sucked through an exhaust hatch located in the center of the dome. It took less than a minute for this to happen, but with the torment of the noise in my ears it seemed like much longer than that.
Finally, mercifully, the screeching stopped. The smoke-cloud left behind a trail of vapor high above us, which eventually zipped up the exhaust hatch, as well. Silas slowed his writhing to a gentle shudder. I took my hands off my still-ringing ears and caressed his back. He whimpered. A thin stream of blood trickled down his earlobe. Judging by the wetness I felt running down my neck, I was sure the same had happened to me.
“You shouldn’t touch things you don’t understand,” I heard a voice say. It was faint, and at first I thought it was my inner monologue berating me. But then the phrase repeated, louder this time, and I realized it came from behind us.
With quickness I didn’t think myself capable of after experiencing such agonizing pain, I leapt to my feet with Silas cradled in my arms.
Much to my surprise, I saw myself.
51
It wasn’t exactly a perfect match, but the face of the man in the long white coat was close enough to mine that it took my breath away. He stood on the other side of the Dreadnaught’s platform, beside a hatch in the floor that was now in the process of closing. Our noses were the same shape, though his was larger, and our cheeks were both high and bony. His chin was slightly less defined than mine and his forehead held similar deep creases. The biggest difference between us was the hair – his straight and sandy-blonde, long enough to touch his shoulders, with mine being shorter, darker, and wavier.
“Hello, Ken,” he said, breaking the silence between us. “I’m glad to see you made it.”
“Paul,” I whispered. I couldn’t understand why he was standing in front of me instead of rotting in the ground somewhere. My mind thrown for a loop, I simply said, “What’s going on?”
Silas, for his part, said nothing. He sat at my feet, his pain apparently forgotten, and gawked.
Paul offered me a joyless grin, reached inside his coat, and pulled out a cane. It was a long, black cylinder with a transparent tip. He used it to brace himself as he approached me. We stared at each other from opposing sides of the prone mannequin man. Silas growled. I patted him on his head and he stopped.
Paul pointed his cane at my boy. “Keep that one under control,” he said, and then pointed at the robot. “And don’t touch that again.” His voice was just as joyless as his expression.
I tilted my head and frowned. As Wendy could attest to, I hated being reprimanded. I swallowed hard. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked with a grunt. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
Paul laughed, again joyless. “Stories of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Who said that? Shakespeare?”
“Mark Twain,” I corrected him. I didn’t like his pretentious tone.
He shrugged. “Oh well. Way before my time.”
My anger grew. “Paul, answer the question. Don’t give me some smart-ass reply.”
He stepped back as if offended and tried to stare me down. That’s when I noticed another difference between us. His eyes were green. Mine were brown.
“I guess you got my letter,” he said matter-of-factly, still not answering.
I nodded and twirled my finger to say, get on with it.
His eyes dropped to the floor. “It pains me a bit that you’re here, actually,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d follow the instructions.” His grin turned into a sickening grimace. “But I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you. You can’t help but do what you’re told. We’re a lot alike in that way.”
“Cut the crap, dude,” I said, bluntly. “Tell me what I need to know.”
Paul sighed and tapped his cane on the floor. Silas flinched when he did so, but s
tayed put. My look-alike seemed to notice this and gave me a small nod of approval.
“I’m sorry for misleading you, Ken,” he said. Despite his words, I sensed no sincerity in his mannerisms. “Some things had to be done. There was no other choice.” He cleared his throat, and his next words rang out with authenticity. “Although I never once lied to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You said that if I read that letter, you were dead or captured. That’s not a lie?”
“Not in the slightest,” he replied. “Every word was true.”
“But you’re certainly not dead, and you don’t look to be anyone’s prisoner.”
“Ah, but appearances can be deceiving, my friend.”
“Explain.”
“No.”
“Asshole. Lying asshole.”
Paul seemed to grow angry. His cheeks flushed red and his voice chortled as if he had a bubble of spit in his throat that he couldn’t get rid of. He jabbed his cane against the floor. “There were things that had to be said,” he exclaimed. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come! Don’t you see that?”
“See what?” I asked. “I don’t know anything, man. All I do know is what you told me. So tell me – are you The One, or is he?” I pointed toward the sleeping robot at our feet.
“No,” he said. “Well, yes. I don’t know. I just wrote what the Oracle told me to. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because what I need you for is quite simple.”
“And what’s that?”
He moved much faster than I could’ve anticipated given his frail appearance. In one gesture he brought the cane up over his right shoulder, stepped over the robot corpse, and took a swing at me. The cane’s hard shaft struck the side of my face and my vision exploded with fireworks. I teetered to the side and tripped over Silas. My hip – the same one I’d injured earlier – slammed into the computer console on my way down. I heard Silas let out a helpless, surprised yelp, and then I hit the ground. My entire being cried out in pain.
Silas: A Supernatural Thriller Page 20
