Hell Divers II: Ghosts

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “I don’t buy it,” Rodger said. “Evolution—artificial or any other kind—takes a lot of generations just to make one tiny change in the genome. So maybe fifteen human generations since those shit-for-brains at ITC started playing God—or playing Darwin, I should say.”

  “So it would seem,” said Timothy, “if evolution did indeed occur at an even pace.”

  Magnolia gave the hologram a streetwise glare. “What’s he talking about, Rodge?”

  “If I may,” Timothy continued. Apparently noting his audience’s impatience, he added, “I’ll stick to just the main points, I promise.”

  The two divers exchanged a look, and Rodger gave a grudging nod. “Enlighten us, then. You’ve got five minutes.”

  The hologram cleared its throat and spoke in a more professorial tone: “Way back in the late twentieth century, a theory known as punctuated equilibrium was proposed, to account for unexplained gaps in the fossil record. The radical new theory suggested that the plodding pace of evolution is occasionally ‘punctuated’ by rapid flurries of change, giving rise to new species in only an eyeblink of geological time. Hence the absence of fossils to account for their development.

  “Hold up there,” Magnolia drawled. “How ’bout a translation for those of us who speak English?”

  “Bear with me, please,” Timothy said. “It will all make sense very soon. The theory was controversial, to say the least, and after a while, even the founders lost faith in it.”

  “That’s all fascinating, I’m sure,” Rodger said, nodding toward the ghastly creature in the capsule. So how does that get us from humans to that monstrosity in just a couple of centuries?”

  The Timothy hologram gave a tolerant smile. “Well, it turns out that those daring scientists were barking up the right tree after all: punctuated equilibrium does indeed happen—they just never found its triggering mechanism. But ITC’s scientists did find it—in some humble marine invertebrates known as bryozoans, which underwent a burst of evolutionary change back during the age of the dinosaurs, thus proving out the theory.”

  “I hate to break up this thrilling lecture,” Rodger said with a theatrical sigh, “but we’ve got a mission to complete.”

  “Sh-h-h-h!” Magnolia hissed. “This could be important.” She turned to the hologram. “Please don’t mind him. You were saying?”

  Timothy picked up without missing a beat. “So ITC studied the bryozoans’ genome and found the genetic switch in their DNA that made this rapid evolutionary burst possible. Then they went way outside the box, using one of the millions of rapidly evolving viruses in a single cupful of polluted seawater.”

  This is where it gets interesting,” Timothy said. “By splicing a specific strand of the viral RNA with the particular bryozoan DNA sequence, ITC’s scientists gave their modified humans the capacity to evolve rapidly—that is, mutate—to adapt to a hostile environment. But to the geneticists’ astonishment, the spliced-in bryozoan DNA and viral genetic material did something they could never have expected: it allowed the modified humans and domesticated animals to mutate within a single lifetime. Until then, mutations occurred only through sexual reproduction. But all of a sudden, genetic change that should take thousands of generations could occur within a single living creature as it slept in cryo-suspension.”

  “The scientists were playing god,” Rodger said, thunderstruck.

  “Indeed,” Timothy said. “Their genetically modified organisms—people as well as hogs, chickens, and other useful vertebrates—could respond immediately to environmental changes by evolving and mutating within their cryo capsules. Of course, the ITC scientists hedged their bets by leaving a small control group of human and canine capsules largely isolated from the sensors relaying the atmospheric data.”

  “Yeah,” Magnolia said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  She raised her rifle at the glass and had flicked the safety off when a frantic voice came over the comm.

  “Magnolia, Rodger!” Gasp. “Do you copy?”

  It was Weaver, and he sounded as though he was having a hard time breathing.

  “Copy that, Weaver,” Rodger said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m trying to get to the command room at the top of the facility.” Static crackled over the channel as Weaver struggled to get enough air. “Pipe’s gone. I’ve got to find a radio to send an SOS to the Hive. Meet me at the command room.”

  Magnolia looked at Timothy. “How do we get out of this place? We can’t go out the front door.”

  He pointed to the top of the towers. “The Sirens accessed this room through the utility tunnels.”

  Rodger thanked him with a nod as they turned to climb the towers. Timothy was just an AI, but his personality was that of a man, a real survivor from the Old World. Something about leaving him behind, all alone, felt wrong.

  SEVENTEEN

  “You’re never getting—”

  The electromagnetic storm silenced Captain Jordan before he could finish his sentence, but Michael could fill it in: they weren’t ever getting back on the ship again.

  But Michael had more immediate concerns. He had to reach the surface in one piece, then find the Hilltop Bastion and the other divers before it was too late.

  He torpedoed through the black clouds, eyes flitting between Layla and his HUD.

  They were at three thousand feet. The light-blue residue of a lightning streak lingered across his vision. To the east, a hundred feet above him, the light of Layla’s battery unit glimmered. He could hardly see her through the ice crystals that had formed around the edges of his visor, but he saw every inch of the electrical arc that flared across her flight path.

  The bolt seized the air from Michael’s lungs. He resisted the urge to blink, terrified that in the millisecond his eyes were shut, his best friend and lover might tumble away into the darkness.

  “Layla!” he yelled.

  The maddening reply of static came over the channel. Ignoring the risk of crosswinds throwing him out of his dive, he tilted his helmet up to watch her. She was still plunging fast, which made her difficult to track. And like that, she was gone, vanished in the cloud cover.

  “No,” Michael whimpered, staring at the spot where he had last seen her. “Layla, you can’t …”

  He stared at the darkness, his heart aching. If something had happened to her, it was his fault.

  “Layla!” he shouted. “Layla, can you hear me?”

  He closed his eyes for a full second before snapping them back open to search again. His heart was hammering so violently, it seemed enough to throw him off course.

  A few beats later, a faint glow emerged to the east. In the wake of blue, he saw the outline of a free-falling body, still positioned in a nosedive—something Layla couldn’t do if she were hurt or unconscious.

  Michael exhaled and tilted his visor back toward the fort of black clouds. They weren’t out of this yet.

  The wind howled around him, tugging and lashing from every direction. The numbers on his HUD were going haywire, flickering between two thousand and three thousand feet. He reached for a flare but thought better of it and brought his arm back to his side.

  The sky was still a colossal static generator, and the quickest way through was by splitting it at a terminal velocity. Even without his instruments, he knew that he was moving at around 180 miles an hour.

  Michael tried to calculate his exact speed and altitude based on the last reading. If he was correct, they were close to the edge of the storm. He searched the muddy clouds for the surface. There was no seeing through the black, however, and he risked another sidelong glance to check on Layla.

  Thunder cracked and lightning rippled across the sky to the east—another immense storm brewing. The red zone wasn’t far now, and the Hilltop Bastion was right in the center of it.

  Michael pulled his arms out from his body and fou
ght his way into a stable position. Wind rippled his suit and whistled over his armor as he spread his arms and legs. Looking skyward, he saw Layla doing the same thing.

  The numbers on his HUD came back online, and the comm channel clicked on.

  Michael bumped his chin pad. “Layla, are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, but he could hear the lie.

  “How bad?”

  “It’s nothing, Tin.”

  He could hear the pain in her voice. She was injured, perhaps badly.

  “Just hang on,” he said.

  He forced his gaze away from Layla. The blackness had transformed into a brown and gray wasteland backlit by arcs of lightning. Most of the city had been leveled, but a cluster of gutted scrapers stood at the edge of a small valley. Farther east, about a mile from the devastation, the land seemed to be moving, undulating. He bumped on his night-vision optics and gasped.

  “Tin, is that the ocean?” Layla said over the comms.

  She sounded better, more like her energetic self, but Michael was still worried.

  “I think so,” he said. He wasn’t exactly sure how the ocean was supposed to look in real life, but he knew that it was as gray and dead as everything else in the world below.

  He brought his wrist monitor up and tapped the screen with his finger. “We’re pretty far off course,” he said. “The Hilltop Bastion is two miles west. Pull your chute and follow me.” He reached up and pulled his rip cord. The chute fired, and he felt the familiar sensation of being yanked into the sky by a giant hand. He grabbed the toggles and scanned the city rising up to meet him. Sailing west, he set a course to the Hilltop Bastion.

  There was no sight of the winged Sirens, and he couldn’t hear their otherworldly wailing from the streets below. But they were out there somewhere, watching and waiting for the right opportunity to strike. But the monsters weren’t the only things on the surface tonight. His friends were down there, too.

  He just hoped he wasn’t too late to save them.

  Michael kept his voice low as he bumped his comm to open a channel to the other divers.

  “Apollo One, Angel One, Raptor Two, Raptor Three, does anyone copy?” Michael said.

  Only thunder answered him.

  “This is Commander Everhart, heading west over Charleston toward the Hilltop Bastion. Does anyone copy?”

  “Do you see that?” Layla said.

  Michael scanned the city again before replying.

  “What am I looking for, exactly?”

  “To the east, those scrapers.”

  He blinked off his night-vision goggles. Where there should have been only the dead brown and gray of the surface, Michael saw a faint orange glow. One of the buildings near the shoreline was flashing like a beacon.

  “What the hell is that?” he whispered. It would be naive to think there weren’t other strange creatures down here, but Michael had never seen anything like this on another dive. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. They were too far away to check it out.

  He bumped his optics back on. “Apollo One, do you—”

  Weaver’s rough, uneasy voice broke over the channel. “Michael, is that you?”

  “Yes! I’m here with Layla. Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m underwater and trying to get to …” Weaver’s words were strangled, as if he couldn’t get enough air. “I’m trying to get to the lookout. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Underwater?” Michael asked.

  “We came to save your ass,” Layla cut in.

  Weaver gave a bitter laugh. “You’re too late. This place is crawling with Sirens and—”

  A crosswind rocked Michael, breaking up the transmission. He worked his toggles and fought his way back into position.

  “Come again, Weaver,” Michael said. “Didn’t catch your last.”

  “Magnolia and Rodger are on their way. I think. I haven’t heard from them for a while. This place, this tomb—it’s crawling with monsters. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  Michael almost swallowed his mouth guard. He knew it! Magnolia was still among the living, but if she and Rodger had gone radio silent, it meant they were in trouble.

  “Where’s Pipe?” Layla asked before Michael could.

  The silence was enough to confirm that Andrew wouldn’t be making the trip home this time.

  Weaver drew a long breath, exhaled, and said, “I’m going to try to reach the command center and send an SOS to the Hive. Look for the windows at the top of the bunker.”

  “No, wait,” Michael said.

  Several seconds of static rushed over the channel.

  “Weaver? Do you copy?”

  “Must have run into trouble,” Layla said.

  “I guess so. Stay close to me.”

  Michael cursed himself for not explaining more in their brief conversation, but there had been no time. The wasteland below was rising fast to meet them.

  He readied to flare his chute as he searched for their target. To the west, a canyon of debris piles led to a dirt hill topped by a squat concrete structure with small windows. That had to be where Weaver was headed.

  “Good luck,” Michael said even though the other diver couldn’t hear him.

  * * * * *

  The corpse of a Siren floated on the surface directly above Weaver. The eyeless face seemed to stare down at him, its wide mouth open in a macabre grin full of bits of its last meal. Andrew’s flesh, likely enough.

  Weaver looked away. He was standing on the pile of human bones, holding his knife and trying to conserve his air. He was running low, way past the allotted thirty minutes, but the corpse and the monsters prowling the poolside weren’t helping him manage his intake.

  He could see their distorted, bony figures through the murky water. They knew he was down here. His conversations with Magnolia and then Michael had sent the beasts into a frenzy, and he had been forced to shut down the channel. Getting out of here wasn’t going to be easy, but a plan was forming. All he needed now was the courage to do what came next. He was down both of his main weapons and he couldn’t risk trying to find them. He also didn’t trust his wet blaster, and his knife wasn’t going to do much against the monsters.

  Instead, he scooped up a jagged femur in one hand and groped for a skull with the other. Each was slick with the same reddish slime that lined the edges of the pool. He didn’t know what it was, but from what he could see, even the Sirens weren’t drinking it.

  Weaver steadied himself on the bone pile and looked back up at the surface. The door was about three hundred feet away. He took a mental picture as two Sirens skittered by. A third stopped to examine the water, dipping a talon beneath the surface and sending a ripple overhead before moving on.

  He waited several minutes before taking another step up on the bone pile. The rush of his heart sounded in his ears. Eighty-nine dives had put him in some rough spots, but this was maybe the worst.

  Drown or be torn to shreds? Neither option had much to recommend it.

  Come on, you old bastard. You can do this.

  With the femur and skull in his hands, he sucked in a long breath. Exhaled. Sucked in another. Exhaled.

  One … two …

  A flash of motion came from the left. A Siren was leaning down toward the water. Weaver lunged, spearing the beast in the face with the sharp end of the femur. It sliced through flesh and hit the skull with a crack that Weaver could hear under the water.

  The creature darted away shrieking.

  This was Weaver’s only chance.

  He shut off his headlamp and climbed up on the bone pile, tripping and sliding, pushing himself up through the bubbly red sludge. As soon as his torso was above the water, he tossed the skull into the air, then stumbled up the last steps onto the floor. He slipped again but righted himself, pryi
ng out the battery unit with his free hand just as he spotted a pair of Sirens making a run for him. Clenching his jaw, he raised his weapon and waited for the beasts to strike.

  The skull bounced off the far wall and clattered onto the floor. Then came the sound of running footfalls changing direction. Shrieks rang out all around him. It seemed the distraction had worked, but he remained frozen, clutching the femur and his battery pack. He held his breath and stared into darkness so deep, he couldn’t even see shapes. Somewhere behind him, wings beat the air. His muscles tensed as he waited to be yanked upward, but the only thing to hit him was a draft of air. The creature sailed overhead toward the skull, its screech morphing into the electronic sound that Weaver hated most.

  He fought the urge to bring his hands to his helmet. The horrid wail transported him back to his childhood, when he would hide under his bunk and hold his ears to block out the emergency siren warning of disaster aboard Ares.

  The wailing, the darkness, and the thought of Andrew’s corpse hanging from the wall was all too much. He couldn’t wait in here an instant longer. He pivoted toward the exit—at least, he thought the exit was this way. With each step, he half expected to splash into another pool of water.

  Holding the bone and his other hand out in front lest he crash into something, he ran on his toes to keep the sound of his boots low. The water-slick soles of his boots made it tricky. Along with being wet, they had collected some of the red gunk from the pool. Each step made a wet squelch that drew the attention of the beasts behind him.

  He flinched as something clanked on the ground in front of him. It was the same sound the skull had made. Could that be possible? Had the beasts thrown it back at him?

  Weaver ran harder. Never mind the noise. Wailing and the skittering of claws over concrete followed him. He had to be near the exit now.

  Another sound joined the racket—the whoosh of wings.

  Run, old man! Run!

  The wingbeats grew louder, reminding him of the turbofans on the Hive. A strong wind nearly knocked him to the floor as the creature sailed overhead. Weaver couldn’t hold out any longer. He jammed the battery unit back in his chest socket and bumped on his night vision.