Brady: I said “keep it tight”. We will have time for this later.
Trees stand where fields of thin grasses were years before. The dense forest within the dome is not exactly what this team had expected to find, but is not completely unexpected either. Fruits dangle from the trees, and bushes covered with brightly covered berries can be seen through the dense brush on each side of the pathway.
Staff Sergeant Brady taps the shoulder of the man standing to his right. After gaining his attention, Brady signals him to take the point position as they continue down the path. Dana Parks, one of the unarmed crew in red walking behind him, breaks the silence.
Parks: Sergeant, is this really necessary?
Brady: Yes, it is.
Parks: I think it is fairly obvious that the only presence here is our own.
Brady: You would think that, wouldn’t you? Parks, fortune favors the bold, but it belongs to those who are well prepared. Always plan for the worst.
Heavy footsteps upon the underbrush give away their position within the dome as sticks break underfoot. Through thick, unbreakable plastic visors, the team looks out into the ominous backdrop that has overtaken the dome. They pause only momentarily before continuing toward the plaza.
A very large crate, being lowered outside next to the dome, dissuades the heavy floodlights above from continuing the campaign to illuminate the dome so thoroughly. The remaining crew outside rush to surround and unpack the large crate.
The silence of the forest within eerily stalks the crew as they try to find the clearing in the brush, leading them into the plaza. The team emerges triumphantly from the forest into the plaza. Flashlights affixed to rifles begin to switch on automatically in the low light. By virtue of these lights alone, the team peers outward toward the surrounding buildings from the center of the plaza.
Two red-clad crewmen set the elongated crate down on the paved surface of the plaza. Terry Murray, the first crewman stands crouched next to the crate. He holds fast to the handle on the front of the crate. The second crewman at the back of the crate, Michael Voss, stands up straight and leans back to realign his back.
Murray: What is in this thing? Have we been hauling dead bodies around in there or something?
Voss: Well, if there are dead bodies in there then we need to be getting paid extra. This crate is insanely heavy, even on Mars this thing is just ridiculous.
Brady: Don’t worry; there aren’t any bodies in it, yet. Right now it is just housing the new distiller for processing the water. The project engineers added this extra measure to protect us from an unknown biological compound that might be in the water.
It seems that Badlands couldn’t figure that out, both their teams went MIA.
Murray: What do you mean when you said that there aren’t any dead bodies in it yet?
Brady: Like I said in the brief, Badlands is going to be a little bit bent when they find out that we are occupying their project domes up here. They will likely retaliate.
Voss: Well, this doesn’t seem like the best place to hide out. A single round through the dome will kill us all.
Brady: Badlands spent a pretty penny getting this place up and running for us. I am sure that they will not jeopardize their investment by destroying it.
Okay, that’s enough standing around. Move this crate over by that utility control building over there.
Turner you’re with me. You two, secure the utility center. Parks and Beck, you had better come with us.
Heavy footsteps once again resound through the plaza, the sound of boots on the masonry echoes off of the walls, amplifying the effect. The cocoon of plant-life, surrounding the plaza on all sides, lends the buildings at the plaza a self-contained feeling. The only way out of the plaza now is via the pathway on which they entered minutes prior.
Parks reluctantly follows Beck as he follows Brady and Turner, while they cautiously approach the control center. Turner reaches for the left side of his helmet, and presses a small button on the side with two fingers.
Turner: Go for Charlie two-six.
Brady turns to cover Turner from the wall of the control center. Turner continues to approach, but is slightly distracted by the incoming radio transmission.
Turner: Solid copy. Charlie two-six, out.
Sir, the reactor outside is up and running. They are connecting the power tether now.
Brady: Thank you Turner.
Power to the control center is suddenly restored. The door control panel, adjacent to the outer control center door, illuminates. Exterior lighting, which is directed inward toward the plaza from the buildings, also follows suit and sluggishly ignites one at a time.
Brady: It appears to be locked Turner.
Turner: Here is your security clearance sir.
Specialist Matt Turner lowers his weapon from the surrounding woods, and drops his gear bag to the deck and retrieves a single small piece of plastic explosive, which he then hands to Brady.
Brady: Stand clear.
A small explosion puts a hole in the door at the locking point. A relatively small explosion frees the door. The outer door swings loosely open. Turner looks to the science team members, who are wearing red suits, and gestures to them to stand back. Parks and Beck, take several steps back as they had been directed. Brady rotates his rifle around on the strap until it sets on his back. He draws his pistol and hand-held flashlight. After pointing them toward the door from the side, he signals Turner to open it.
The door swings out into the plaza after Turner grabs the handle. Brady points his light with his gun into the hallway; the lights within have already switched on automatically. As Brady enters the hallway very deliberately, Turner turns to Parks and Beck, he waves them over. As they join him next to the doorway, he pushes them back against the building with his free arm. The pervasive fog drifts through the plaza, the lights mounted to the buildings within the dome illuminate the small droplets of water drifting through the air. The brightly lit haze above them obscures their view of the rest of the plaza around.
Brady hesitantly steps over the threshold of the heavy door with his left foot. The small room has no places to hide, and obviously has no one waiting for him within. Brady steps in with the other foot. He approaches the control panel, and brushes if off. Dust-like particles of glass coat the solid glass control panel; as his finger brushes along the glass, the console powers on.
The main screen overhead illuminates, the fine crystalline particles faintly coat every surface in the control room. While the system starts up, Brady turns to the door controls. The main screen flickers intermittently. Brady begins to read with great interest as a single document becomes prominently displayed on the large screen.
Journal Entry
Doctor William Ghent
Year 17, Day 13
It seems to me that a third mission to the dome is inevitable, it is for this reason that I leave this message to anyone who will read it. None can really understand the true nature of the dome around them. It appears to the untrained eye benign and as an oasis in this wasteland. There are a few things that are critically important to understand, the sooner you know, the better.
In this land of dreams, the dead walk amongst the living. Events from the past are relived, and forgotten memories are disturbed from their slumber in the far reaches of the subconscious mind. One is forced to face and reconcile with regret. We are not alone in our convoluted existence here; we are always under watchful eyes. They watch from the shadows; nothing goes unnoticed. Their true nature is indiscernible; the passion of feeling brings them new life in the mind. From whence they come and to where they go no one can be certain.
They feed on the fear, they revel in our despair. Know one thing, that the only way to stave off this unseen assault on a troubled mind is to fill it with inspiration and hope. Eyes deceive, the mind believes and the body presents the evidence to sustain delusion. Stay the mind and quicken the senses, they may present themselves to you.
This world y
earns to be free of the plague of man; despite what you might see within the dome, this place wants freedom. Those others that inhabit the empty spaces and shadows within have claimed the dome for themselves; they are travelers from another place, same as we are.
The dark planet, hidden from our view, comes periodically to eradicate the life sustained here within the dome. Under the guise of a solar eclipse, the sun’s radiation intensifies from behind the curtain of darkness. The world groans under the intense irradiative sanitation, although the radiation does not seem enough to kill much of the plant life within the dome, it just alters it slightly.
Beware the hiding places; lurking within are beings without form and which may ultimately be proven to be nonexistent; although that which they touch is forever scarred. A troubled mind offers little solace against the onslaught of perceptive deceit. Things aren’t what they seem to be. Beware that which seems to be out of place, be wary of the realization of dreams made real; they will be proven to be hollow and but a simple device for your undoing. Despite what you may see around you, you are completely alone in cause, but never alone in presence. No ally or support can save you from the inevitable break from within. You can no longer trust your confederates, as they are now being entangled in a thick web of paranoia, hallucination and delusion, from which there can be no escape.
No precaution can be taken against that which remains unknown. The knowledge that one cannot understand their foe is a grievous knowledge to bear. It is far worse to know that you cannot know who your foe even is. I would advise that you leave, but this will not prove to be a worthwhile endeavor. Once you step foot on this ground, you cannot be free of that which lives within you. You have now been integrated into their nefarious purpose.
Once venturing deep into the void within the pond, one cannot return to prior circumstances. The world itself changes around you as to reveal its mysteries to you; unfortunately, this has proven to be a difficult thing for me to bear. The mysterious beings that stalk me in my sleep, and in my reality are too much for me to continue to entertain. I shall be leaving to join the rest of my team.
–End Entry–
The two unarmed team-members standing next to Turner look out into the dreadful dark surrounding them. A faint clamoring of thick boots on the ground sounds out from across the plaza.
Parks: Voss?! Murray?! Is that you out there?!
The sound, which has been rushing toward them, now ceases completely. Silence again dominates the arena-shaped plaza. Turner points his rifles out into the dark murky air; the flashlight affixed to his rifle illuminates the air directly in front of the barrel for almost a meter. A stealthy breeze moves into the plaza from the path in the forest.
The fog swirls around in the breeze, as if to protest the forceful disbursement of the passing wind. The air seems to clear up quickly; all traces of the fog disappear up into the air above. The exterior lights again reveal the plaza to be empty and devoid of activity.
Parks: What just happened? Where did the fog get off to?
Beck: Actually, I don’t mind the fog lifting. This place gives me the creeps, just like some modern mausoleum.
Parks: That might be a bit much, don’t you think?
Turner: So, where are the others? They were just supposed to drop the crate off over there, and then join us.
Brady emerges from the control center in a less-casual manner than he disappeared inside in. Brady watches them whilst holstering his side-arm; he then retrieves his rifle and steps out of the control center.
Brady: Why haven’t the others returned?
Turner: I have been waiting for them, the dense fog just lifted.
Brady: We need to find them. First, Beck and Parks, you need to secure yourselves inside the control center. There is a heavy door inside.
Parks and Beck reluctantly walk into the hallway behind Brady. He turns his attention off the plaza around them only long enough to ensure that the other two had secured themselves.
Brady: Cover me from here.
Turner nods quickly and pulls his rifle tight into his shoulder as he surveys the rooftops and any other opening that he can see. Brady crouches and sprints across the plaza, staying low to the ground. From the security of the wall outside the laboratory, Brady pulls his rifle up and signals to Turner with his other hand.
Turner rushes up alongside his superior. Turner moves along the wall just behind Brady. At the back corner of the lab, Brady carefully surveys the alley-way between the storage facility and the back of the lab. No movement in the foliage at the back of the alley provides him enough confidence to signal Turner to move up. Both men move from the corner of the lab to the corner of the storage building. Turner keeps close to Brady’s back as they walk slowly along the wall.
Several paces before Brady reaches the corner of the storage building, the other two blue-clad members of the security team appear. The first steps back, out of Brady’s way as he rounds the corner. The long crate sits neatly on the ground adjacent to the utility doorway. The gloomy unknown is barely visible through the small crack of the door as it lay slightly ajar.
Brady: Where are the other two?
No verbal response is given back over the radio to Brady. He nods to Turner, and Turner points his rifle at the two dumbfounded men. Their rifles are gone, and their side-arms are missing from their holsters. Turner gestures to them to sit on the ground.
Brady pulls the rifle tightly into his shoulder and places his finger close to the trigger. He steps side-ways until he rests his other shoulder against the building, next to the doorway. A quick moment later, the door is forced inward rapidly. Brady and Turner rush into the utility control building. The rubber tip of Turner’s boot kicks something out of the way; he looks down at the floor in front of him. His rifle-mounted flashlight casts the object into clear view; it rests upon the floor about a meter in front of his clumsy foot.
A single boot lay on its side upon the floor. The heavily constructed boot is not housing a foot; it lay completely abandoned on the floor. Brady looks away from the focus of his mounted light long enough to notice the odd item lying in the middle of the floor. Brady resumes the task of checking the corners and dark places around the entrance.
Turner: Sir, look at this!
Brady: Is that blood?! Where is it going?
The two men slowly draw the light from their flashlights up along the floor to the back corner. Four thin trails of blood lead to the back corner; they seem to have been scraped onto the floor by fingertips, as if to resist being dragged. Brady takes a step closer to the end of the foreword corner, where the trail seems to end. His thick boot crushes particles of plastic on the floor as he rests his weight forward, the breaking plastic groans under the weight as it breaks into smaller pieces.
Brady: That would be an unbreakable visor.
Turner points his light into a corner of the floor lying just behind the door; the opened door obscures much of the shattered helmet from view.
Brady: What happened here? What is even capable of doing this?
Turner pulls his rifle back into his shoulder, and returns his focus to the small tunnel of light in the direction of his barrel. His other hand relaxes, and then grips the barrel tightly. Turner steps along the pathway, adjacent to the scrape marks on the floor. Brady walks next to him, he focuses his attention down the various rows of machinery as they slowly make their way to the back corner.
Turner rotates his view down the last narrow corridor. His head cocks forward and his eyes squint, almost as if a problem with his vision might explain what he is staring at. Brady joins the focus of his attention with that of Turner’s.
Turner: How do you suppose he got in there?
Brady: How do you suppose we will get him out?
The illumination emitted from their lights portrays a terrifying sight as it pours into one of the large, clear water storage containers mounted along the back wall. Oddly, the water within appears to be frozen solid; stranger yet, is the crewman f
rozen in the middle of the ice block. The ice block is located in a large clear container without any access doors, and only small pipes leading to and from it. While they stand, staring into the large block of ice, the outside of the container begins to frost up in the humid air.
Brady: Call it in!
Turner: Yes sir.
Turner cautiously backs into the corner next to Brady and presses his fingers to his helmet again. This time, he doesn’t blink as he watches the shadows in the back of the room.
Brady continues to focus the light on the frozen storage container; the ice-crystals seem to solidify in front of his very eyes as he watches. Brady becomes entranced in the reflecting light as it reflects off of the ice-filled container in front of him. In the back of his conscious mind, he listens to Turner as he transmits the distress call sign, “Pegasus”. What he had earlier dismissed as a simple issue of toxic water now begins to resound within Brady as something entirely different.
Brady: Turner, we are falling back to the control center.
Turner: Yes sir!
From overhead, the two can be seen cautiously exiting the utility control center. The two men, once seated outside the utility control center have now vanished. Brady and Turner begin to sprint across the plaza.
Deeper Into the Void Page 25
