Once Matthew pointed it out, Swan saw it right away. A small, irregularly shaped piece of yellowish material - about the size of a fist - was visible on the back of the skull, held in place with three tiny screws.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Matthew said, “but does anyone have a small screwdriver?”
Swan located one from a toolkit hiding in an upper cabinet. He handed it to Matthew, who made quick work of removing the screws. He looked up and made eye contact with each man on his surgical team.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find when I remove this plate,” he said. “This kind of procedure on an Angel is unprecedented by Humans.”
“Just get on with it,” snarled Swan.
As soon as the plate was lifted away, the men were awestruck by the dim glow of circuitry underneath the dura mater, the sheathing that protects the brain and lines the interior wall of the skull.
Strands of wire, almost microscopic in size, created a bubble of illumination within the Angel’s head. The lights danced, pulsing in random patterns and intervals.
“Extraordinary,” Matthew breathed. “Remarkable. Swan, look at this. So far, everything we’ve witnessed seems to lend credence to your AI theories. Now, look, see there? It appears this mass of circuitry is actually interfaced with his brainstem.”
Suddenly Swan’s hand pushed Matthew aside and he reached through the opening of the Angel’s head.
“What are you doing?” Matthew cried as he tried to pull Swan’s hands out of the way. “You’ll kill him!”
Swan pulled his hand out again, and in the grip of his fingers, he held the glowing orb, torn from the brainstem, the wires dripping a milky, off-white, cerebral fluid.
“What have you done?” Matthew roared, his face stricken with terror. His whole career as a doctor had been devoted to preserving wellness, and now he had done something that let an animalistic brute cause unknown damage to the innocent patient. His hands trembled and he yearned to grab the scalpel and rush at Swan.
“Dr. Chapel?” the flight medic piped up. “It appears all the Angel’s vitals are normal.”
“That can’t be,” Matthew turned, forgetting his violent fantasy. He turned to face all the monitors and displays. “Oxygen levels normal, pulse unchanged. Technically, he’s still alive but how can it be?”
Swan took the dripping bubble over to a workbench. He began attaching wires and cords to the blood-soaked interface. He then activated a console and a display appeared with a series of data prompts. He typed in several commands. The display showed a series of jumbled and images until a coherent line of words appeared.
“HELLO, MY NAME IS DAVID. IT’S A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
Matthew and the others were stunned into silence as they watched Swan’s hands fly over the console. The display responded to his prompts, and it dawned on Matthew that Swan was having a conversation in code with the gooey orb. Swan continued typing commands until one particular command seemed to change the tone of the conversation.
“UNABLE TO CONNECT WITH NETWORK. OPERATING SYSTEM LAST UPGRADE: 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS, 6 HOURS. AWAITING UPDATE.”
“What does that mean, Doc?” the medic asked.
Matthew knew this was far beyond his realm of expertise. He looked to Swan for an explanation.
Swan wet his lips. “It means that this brain, or whatever you want to call it, thinks it’s an Angel, but it’s just an AI program awaiting its daily upgrade.”
The foursome looked over at the body lying on the table. The monitors beeped in a sleepy rhythm. According to the displays, the Angel was healthy and may as well have been dozing at the seashore.
“We’ve got to tell the others about this,” Humphries said. He stood up and headed for the door. Swan grabbed him by the shirt and spun him around.
“Not yet!” he ordered. “We still don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
SIXTY-SIX
Matthew spent the next week working with Swan and the Segregants in search of the mysterious metal containers that had sent him to their moon in the first place. They were finally located in a remote, forgotten storage bay at the far end of the facility. Dozens of pallets had been stacked against the walls and forgotten, each one loaded with crates filled with the small, metal containers. Matthew retrieved one container to run some tests back at the lab. The hundreds of other containers were left in the storage bay, where they had been kept safely hidden for centuries.
A manifest had been found among the pallets, indicating that the contents of the shipment held a cure for an ancient affliction called Hansen’s disease. Matthew had to search on his tablet to discover the disease used to have another name: leprosy.
Matthew was out of time and the freighter was prepped for a return voyage home. He had negotiated a tenuous agreement with the Segregants as well as the freighter crew. No one would divulge the details of what they learned in the lab until Matthew was able to return and conduct more research with additional pieces of equipment. The Segregants had placed the body of the Angel in a stasis chamber and Matthew had sealed the lab with his own code. Before leaving the facility, he entrusted the door code to Eric Swan who agreed to allow no one else into the lab until he returned.
SIXTY-SEVEN
A few months later Matthew returned to the mining facility, this time with Elizabeth to help him with the research and testing. They had brought with them as much portable equipment from the clinic as they could. They were feeling highly optimistic they could determine the link between the Hanson’s disease cure and the girl’s mysterious rash in the LTZ.
Upon approach to the mining facility, the freighter received no response to their hails from the Segragants. Matthew wondered if they had packed up and left after their encounter with him - they seemed to be a group that desired their privacy above all other things, and that privacy was in jeopardy now that Matthew had found their location. He shared his theory with Elizabeth.
“Swan tolerated me, but I don’t think he appreciated my intrusion.”
“If they’re gone,” Elizabeth said, “it may be for the best. We would be able to do our research without interference.”
Matthew smiled at her. “You have such a nasty habit of shedding a positive light on everything.” Matthew would not be disappointed if he never set eyes on Swan again, but the nagging feeling would not leave his chest. An inkling deep inside him told him something was wrong on the moon full of miners.
They loaded the transport shuttle with their most essential instruments and prepared to drop down to the surface. The shuttle dropped from the freighter, hailing the facility as they drew nearer, still with no response. The pilot maneuvered them down into the hanger located at the bottom of a deep chasm on the moon. Once the doors closed, they put on their environmental suits to make the short walk to the airlock. After the airlock pressurized, they removed their suits to be more comfortable inside the facility.
Throughout the journey, Matthew and Elizabeth felt the excitement of a new puzzle to solve and a person’s life to aide. They did not know how long they would be working among the Segragants before they could take their preliminary findings back to their clinic on Olympus. Associating with the Segragants was risky on many levels, the reason Matthew had chosen to leave a letter with Evangeline. It was for her protection.
Matthew, Elizabeth, and the shuttle pilot looked at the cases of equipment piled up inside the airlock. Matthew scratched his head, as if he seemed to be considering something very important.
“We’re going to need help from Swan and his men to get all this into the lab. Let’s get inside and find them, since they wouldn’t answer any of our hails.” He failed to share with Elizabeth and the pilot that he was not optimistic of finding them.
As they breached the inner airlock door, their noses were assaulted by the stench of dead and rotting flesh, overwhelming them with the smell of putrescence and decay. The pilot jumped away from the doors and attempted to block the horrifyin
g odor with his hands, sealing his nostrils with a tight pinch.
Matthew, unintimidated by the stench, stepped across the threshold first. He did not bother to walk at a cautious pace. Something devastating had happened while he was gone and he needed to find Swan or any of the others to determine if his worst fears would be confirmed. Elizabeth followed Matthew out of the airlock with less eagerness. The pilot hesitated in the airlock, but he did not want to be alone. He tightened the seal around his nose and stepped out of the airlock behind them.
They came upon the bunkroom first. Not a soul was inside, but personal possessions hung on the walls and clung to the bunks. There were toothbrushes in the lavatory, and there was even an open book sitting on the table in the corner. No, the Segragants had not abandoned the facility.
Elizabeth screamed as they approached the mess hall. Bloody handprints were splattered across the inside of the glass windows of the doors. She buried her head in Matthew’s shoulder and began sobbing. Matthew and the pilot exchanged wary looks. The pilot slowly stepped toward the mess hall doors for a closer look.
“The doors have been barred from the outside,” he reported, taking a step closer. He peered through a clear patch in the window. He flinched and groaned at the sight on the other side of the doors.
“What do you see?” Matthew asked.
The pilot just shook his head. “There aren’t words to describe it, Dr. Chapel. But I think we finally found Swan.”
Matthew pried Elizabeth out of his arms with a gentle push, whispering, “I need to take a look, my dear. Please stay here.” She nodded and stepped away, her face tear-stained and red.
He approached the door and spied through the same transparent patch as the pilot had done. Bodies. Dozens of bodies, some slumped in chairs or collapsed on tables, and others sprawled across the floor, lying in unidentifiable pools of a rosy liquid.
Just below the door, as the pilot had noted, was the uniform Swan had worn during Matthew’s first visit to the moon. The name patch with SWAN stitched on the chest was caked with blood. All the visible flesh and tissue of Swan’s body had deteriorated, held together by only sparse tendons and sinew. Matthew turned from the window and met Elizabeth’s blood-shot eyes. He only had to offer her the slightest shake of his head and her face crumpled once more, overtaken by grief. Matthew pulled her into his arms again and guided her away from the blood-streaked door.
They went back to the airlock and changed into their environmental suits. The pilot wanted to return to the shuttle and leave the facility immediately. He did not want to stay for another minute, but Matthew and Elizabeth were able to convince him not to leave without them.
The Chapels ventured through the facility together in search of survivors. Matthew led the way, as he was familiar with the layout of the mining facility. Elizabeth never strayed more than a few inches from Matthew’s side, holding his hand with a white-knuckle grip. The mining facility reminded her of the ancient catacombs she had read about in history books. A shudder went through her and she stepped even closer to her husband.
After combing through the entire facility, they had failed to find a single survivor. Their search ended at the door of the private lab where the Angel had been encapsulated.
Matthew reached out to enter his code into the security console, but his hand stopped before his fingers reached the buttons. The activation light was green, indicating the lock was inactive. Matthew’s face became drawn as he placed his gloved hand on the lever and tried opening the door, but it would not budge more than a half inch. Someone had jammed it from the inside.
Matthew turned around to speak with Elizabeth when the door opened without warning. Humphries’ body spilled out onto the floor, nearly landing right on top of Matthew. His body was red, scarred, and gashed from head to toe. Clumps of hair and scalp were missing from his head and there were bloodstains running down his face like tears. He looked like he had stumbled into a pit of serrated knives and shards of glass.
His dead eyes stared unblinking into the air. Elizabeth gasped as she realized his wide-eyed stare was due to his lack of eyelids. They had fallen away and were hanging by slivers of flesh from the corners of his eyes.
Matthew and the pilot picked him up off the ground and carried him to a table in the main lab. They did their best to evaluate his wounds, but everything they did caused the tears in his flesh to open wider.
Elizabeth and Matthew placed bandages around every wound they could find and covered his eyes with a dirty shroud. Humphries was more mummy than man by the time they were done.
“Why even both bandaging the wounds?” asked the pilot suppressing a gag with a gloved hand. “It’s not like he’s going to care anymore.”
Matthew gave the younger man a disappointed look. “We do it because it brings some dignity to their suffering, and because there’s no one else to do it.”
The pilot nodded in embarrassment. Folding his arms, he lowered his head in a bow and muttered a few unintelligible words. Elizabeth and Matthew took a hold of each other’s hands, giving the pilot several uninterrupted moments of silence.
After the pilot had said a few words of respect for the dead, Matthew noticed a glint of silver cradled in Humphries’ left fist.
“What’s this?” he asked his wife.
Elizabeth choked down the bile rising in her throat enough to bend over and take a closer look at where her husband had focused his attention.
“He’s holding something,” she answered. “How did we miss that before now?”
The pilot, doing his best to keep himself together during his second visit to the abandoned mine, glanced over to see what Matthew and Elizabeth had found. Matthew’s eyes widened in surprise.
“It’s a signaler,” he said, smiling up at his wife, “just like the ones we use. I just didn’t recognize it at first underneath all the damaged tissue.”
“A signaler?” Elizabeth gasped. “What do you suppose is on it? A message to a loved one?”
Matthew removed the silver rod from Humphries’ hand and had the unfortunate displeasure of tearing more skin and muscle away from the dead man’s hand. Examining the rod from end to end, he finally found the pinhole switch. Covering the hole with his thumb, the opposite end began shining a light onto the gauze wrapped around Humphries’ thigh. The dead man’s distorted face rippled across the fabric until Matthew held the signaler up toward the wall. It was Humphries all right, but not as Matthew remembered him from months ago. His face was visibly altered like the other casualties of the facility, but not yet as far gone as the corpse they had just bound.
A rattled voice resonated from the rod. “I don’t know who’s going to find us first, but I hope it’s you, Doc,” said Humphries’ face, etched in pain. “It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”
The torn and weary face faded from the wall, replaced by words glowing in hot red letters.
“ACTIVATE THE PRIMARY CAMERA BUFFER AND WATCH THE RECORDINGS.”
In his attempt to pry open the fingers, Matthew had the unfortunate displeasure of tearing more skin and muscle away from the dead man’s hand.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Matthew watched the gruesome tale unfold as he sat with Elizabeth viewing the recordings and listening to the narrative Humphries must have spliced together in his final hours of life. The pilot refused to participate in the gory mess around him any longer, so he returned to the hangar promising to remain until Matthew and Elizabeth were aboard.
“A few days after you and the freighter crew left to return to Earth, I broke into the lab,” he confessed. “I had watched you enter the code and committed it to memory. I needed to access the database he I had been using to catalog the samples of ore the Segregants had been mining.
“I finished cataloging the new ore samples when I glanced at the mysterious container behind the glass door of a cabinet. You had placed it there before leaving and asked that no one disturb its contents until your return, but I’m a curious man and I’m known for
leaping before I look.”
In the display, Humphries looked over his shoulder as he opened the cabinet door and retrieved the sealed container.
“The cylinder was heavier than it looked and still cold to the touch from sitting in that unconditioned storage room where we had found it.”
Bright yellow lettering was printed on the top and sides of the container in a language no one recognized.
“I wondered if you had lied to us about its contents,” Humphries’ voice continued. “We only had your word that it was an old Earth cure to a long-gone disease, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it had another value, or if we could use it to trade for supplies.
“I decided to open the container and see for myself what was inside.” Humphries’ voice was filled with pain and regret as he continued telling his story while the display showed his every action within the lab.
He took the cold, metal object and returned to his seat at the console. The lid to the can was pressure sealed and did not offer any hint of opening as he tried to twist it off. There was an odd-shaped impression on the top of the lid that looked like it may have required a specialized key to release the seal. Humphries was not in possession of the key, so he used a laser to cut along the top edge of the container.
Matthew’s body froze and he gripped Elizabeth’s hand. “That damned idiot…” he whispered, his mouth hanging slack. Elizabeth bit her lip and watched the feed, just as horrified by the old man’s actions.
Humphries lifted the lid by its glowing edges using a pair of medical tongs. He waved at the air in front of his nose.
Matthew grunted as he watched the feed. “Old fool. He’s probably getting a good whiff of seared metal and burnt plastic, opening the container like that.” As if on cue, Humphries pinched his nose as a sour look clouded his face, and he leaned forward to take a closer look at the container’s treasure.
Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) Page 36
