Safari: A Technothriller

by Alexander Plansky

  Reluctantly, he wrapped his arms around her legs and heaved upward. Her torso cleared the roof’s edge and she grasped for leverage. Suddenly, she felt a drop of water land on her forearm. Then another. She glanced at the clouds now blowing in directly overhead. Rain was beginning to gently drip down from above. Not good, she thought as she placed her left foot on Andy’s shoulder and pushed herself up further. She brought her right leg up to where the two parts of the roof met and wedged her foot in the vertex as hard as she could to help push the rest of her body up on top of the structure.

  The slant of the overhang wasn’t too steep, so she didn’t have to worry about sliding off, but at the same time she didn’t have a strong hold on anything. The ridge was just a few feet out of reach. Carefully, Sydney got onto her knees and began crawling up towards it. She stretched out her hand and grasped it; it would have to do.

  “Okay,” she called down. “I’m up.”

  “Alright, now what do I do?” Andy shouted. “I’m going to need some help.”

  While keeping her left hand firmly gripped on the ridge, Sydney slid down as far as she could and held out her right hand. “I’m ready.”

  Andy’s right arm made it up the roof, the flashlight grasped in his fingers. His other hand was still holding the support beam. The wind and rain were both picking up now. She could hear the trees rustling nearby as he started to bring his leg up to the vertex between the main roof and the overhang.

  Once in a reasonably secure position, he said, “Take the flashlight.” She grabbed it from his outstretched hand and shoved in the side of her shorts. Then she reached down for him again as he detached his grip from the support beam and swung his left hand around to grab hold of hers.

  She seized his hand just as a massive boom of thunder sounded overhead and his lower body slipped.

  The next thing Sydney knew, most of Andy’s body was dangling in the air and his entire weight pulled on her grip. She could feel her grasp on the ridge straining, the rain now mercilessly pelting at every inch of her body. Water flowed down the roof and fell past Andy to splatter on the patio below. If she lost hold, she knew both of them would be doing the same.

  Her muscles had been hurting already, but with this it was too much. Sydney clenched her teeth and pulled him up with all her might. Andy managed to bring his leg up and let go of her to scramble for the ridge. He nearly slipped once more, but managed to reach the crest a moment later.

  Andy turned to her and laughed. “What the fuck are we doing?” he shouted over the rain.

  “Beats me.”

  “You got the rope still?”

  She gestured her head towards her other shoulder, where the spool was resting.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “We make our way over there along the ridge,” she said, pointing through the torrential downpour towards the main roof itself. There was a flat area at the top where the skylight was positioned above Sans’s quarters.

  Andy started shimmying along the ridge and she followed. Slow and steady, she told herself. There was no rush. She glanced out towards the expanse of the reserve to see if she could spot returning headlights, but she could barely glimpse anything in the storm. There was a streak of lightning through the sky a few miles away and the loud rumble hit them just as Andy climbed up past the crest and onto the top of the main roof.

  He turned around and extended his hand. “We have to be careful of the lightning,” he said, taking her arm and pulling her up. “This is the tallest structure around here.”

  “No,” she said, pointing up the hill to the plateau where the landing strip was. “That is.” A radio communications tower was mostly obscured by the night and rain, but a red light blinked at the top every couple of seconds.

  Crouching, they made their way over to the skylight, which was positioned along the north-south axis of the lodge. Sydney examined it: there were three windows on each side of the triangular prism-like structure, but only the middle appeared to be able to be opened. She pressed her face to the glass and looked down. The room was dark save for one lamp on a stand along the western wall below and to her right.

  Seeing no reason to delay, she grabbed the handle at the base of the central window and pulled it up. It was locked. She saw there was a latch to her right and slid a thin metal bar out of place, then pulled up again. This time the glass pane opened upwards into the rain.

  She handed the rope to Andy and he began to unfurl it and lower one end into the dimly lit chamber. Turning on the flashlight, she watched the rope descend to the floor roughly twelve feet below. “Stop, that’s good enough,” she said, handing the light to him.

  Andy took it and braced his legs against the skylight. Then he leaned back, ready to hold the rope as tightly as he could. He wiped rainwater from his eyes, then gave her a thumbs up.

  Slowly, Sydney slid her legs under the retracted window pane and, tugging on the rope to make sure it was taut, began to lower herself over the edge. This really is a bad idea, she thought as she began climbing down one hand over another. Steady, steady… Her fever was starting to return, the ache in her muscles seeping back through her body. Trying to ignore the pain, she glanced down. The bottom was just seven feet below. I could jump that–

  Then she slipped.

  The dark floor rushed up to meet her. Sydney managed to bend her knees on impact, but it was by no means a controlled landing. She tumbled over and came to rest on her back, the breath suddenly taken from her.

  “Are you alright?” Andy called down through the skylight.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, struggling to get to her feet. She hadn’t hurt herself too badly and nothing was broken, which was good.

  “Can you unlock the door? I’m going to come back down.”

  “Be careful!” she called.

  “Nah, I thought I’d break my neck. Just to see what it’s like.”

  She rolled her eyes and extended her middle finger upwards.

  “Love you too,” he called. The window was slammed shut back into place and he disappeared from view.

  Sydney exhaled and looked around. In the dim glow of the lamp, she could just make out that the walls had neat wood furnishings. There was a large window at the far end and she could make out some kind of bedframe and a desk back there too. She had no clue where the light-switch was though; Andy had taken the flashlight.

  She wondered if he was still on the roof or if he had gotten back to the balcony safely yet. Lowering oneself down was easier than climbing up, but it was still, quite literally, a slippery slope.

  Sydney put a hand to her head. She was burning up again and the painkillers didn’t seem to be working anymore. In a daze, she stumbled backwards, knowing the door had to be behind her somewhere. She just needed to undo the lock, let Andy in, and then they could start to figure out what the hell was going–

  Lightning flashed directly above the lodge. In a fleeting burst of brightness, the room revealed itself to her. But the only thing she could focus on us for that brief instant was the head mounted on the wall across from her.

  She glimpsed a hideously terrifying face, viciously sharp teeth, and crimson pupils forever locked in a death glare into the void.

  Then the darkness returned as thunder shook the building and reverberated through her bones.

  MONSTERS

  Sydney covered her mouth, stumbling back through the blackness. Her eyes remained fixated on the point where she had seen the dead creature until she suddenly hit a wall. No, that was a handle she felt against her back. It was the door.

  Pain shot through her body. Her forehead felt as if it was about to burst into flame. And now her mouth suddenly hurt too, an ache slithering into each of her teeth. Her back pressed against the entrance, she slid down to the floor and took her head into her hands, trying to focus. The lamp seemed so far away and she was lost over here, in the dark, surrounded by the faces of things she couldn’t see.

  She remembered a time in third grade, w
hen several girls had locked her in a dark closet and told her monsters were going to eat her. Of course, she was long over that, but seeing the sharp teeth and red eyes had awakened an old fear. Keep it together, it’s dead. But something Chang had told her tugged at that back of her mind. This was a trophy room, which meant there was surely more than one of those things in here.

  Huddled against the wood and drenched from the rain, Sydney tried not to think of the monsters or her headache or her muscles or her teeth and took several deep breaths. She started shivering and realized she needed to dry off or she’d probably get pneumonia. Add that to my list of problems, she thought.

  Surely Andy was supposed to be here by now. Had he fallen? Was he okay? How long did she have to wait before going out to find him? She wondered if she should run back to her room quickly anyway, just to grab more painkillers. No, she could overdose. But she knew she wouldn’t be much use helping Andy if she could barely think straight–

  There was a knock, startling her out of her reverie. Then she realized it was someone rapping on the door, right behind her. “Sydney, it’s me,” she heard Andy whisper.

  “Hold on,” she muttered, getting to her feet. She blindly felt around in the dark for the handle. Then she groped beneath it for the lock, found it, and turned it sideways. There was a click and she stepped back as Andy quickly opened the door and swung through.

  “Any trouble?” she asked as he shut and locked it behind him.

  “No,” he said, turning on the flashlight and illuminating the space between them. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine, but I need to show you something.”

  He stared closer at her through the light. “Sydney, what’s wrong with your eyes?”

  “Nothing,” she said, irritated. “Give me the flashlight.” She grabbed it out of his hands before he could, then slowly moved the beam across the far wall.

  “What is–?”

  “Just wait,” she said. He went quiet and the only sounds she could hear were the raindrops on the skylight and her slow, deep breaths. As the beam slowly worked its way up the wall towards where she knew it was, she could feel her heart beating faster in her chest. You’ve already seen it, she told herself. You know it’s there.

  The light moved over the hunting trophy. Everything above the base of the creature’s neck was mounted to a wooden plaque. The head was massive, seemingly bigger than a lion’s but sharing the same mane around its collar. Its face wasn’t regal or majestic however; instead, it featured the brutishness of an ugly hyena with a dark, dog-like snout. Still, she realized, there was a distinct lion-ish feel to its appearance that she couldn’t quite place. Its jaws were agape, displaying fangs like daggers. They were unlike any teeth she had seen in an animal before; the canines had to be at least four inches long. Even without the initial shock of seeing it for the first time, she still found it plenty disturbing.

  Andy stepped closer. “I take back what I said earlier. This place is fucked.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume this is what killed the elephant and the wildebeest.”

  “And Jones,” he added. She remembered what Sans had said about finding his remains and looked at the teeth. It sent a shiver down her spine. “What the hell is that thing?” Andy asked.

  “It must be some kind of transgenic hybrid,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “And he created it for what? To hunt for sport?”

  “I think so.” She shone the beam around the room. There were other creatures similar to that one, although not all of them had manes. She guessed they were male and female, which made sense if these things had lion genes.

  “Why would they let us out in the day with these things around?”

  “I think they’re nocturnal. It must be why Sans only hunts them at night.”

  “You think this was the secret project Jones was talking about?”

  “Must be,” she said, sweeping the light towards the back of the room. She started towards the desk, which was against the western wall. There were several neatly arranged stacks of paper and a large touchscreen monitor. A sleek LED desk lamp was positioned on one side; she turned it on and handed the flashlight to Andy.

  Moving to the computer, she touched the power button on the side and watched it quickly boot up. She had been hoping there’d be no password since only Sans had access to the room, but that proved to be wishful thinking the second she got to the log-in page.

  “Shit, any idea what his password might be?”

  Andy was shining the flashlight around the room, still examining the mounted heads. Then he came upon something else and stopped. “Sydney, look.”

  She turned around. On each side of Sans’s bed were dozens of framed photographs of Sans and a woman. She realized that must’ve been his wife, Jane. She walked closer to the wall, taking them all in. Each of the photographs was labeled. There the two of them were on the Serengeti, SCUBA diving in the Seychelles, at the summit of Kilimanjaro. They looked so happy together. Sydney peered closer to look at Jane. With jet black hair and emerald eyes, she was several inches shorter than Sans, but her posture and smile suggested more confidence. Sans looked very happy in each of the images, standing beside her or with his arm around her waist.

  As she gazed at their wedding photo, a thought suddenly popped into her mind. She turned back to the computer. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?” Andy said, following her.

  “I read somewhere that people who have lost loved ones tend to use their names as passwords.” She quickly typed “janesans” into the log-in bar and the words “Incorrect Password” came up. Frowning, Sydney tried “JaneSans”, “Janesans,” and “janeSans”. The last one worked.

  She was in. The desktop background was a magnificent Serengeti sunset. Clicking on the file explorer icon on the bottom taskbar, Sydney went into Documents and found a folder labeled “SansCorp”. Opening it, she was presented with several more subfolders.

  Admin

  Facilities

  HR

  Operations

  Research

  “Do you think it would be under Operations or Research?” she asked.

  “Try Research,” he said.

  She clicked it open and found another set of files, this one much longer. She found herself scrolling down through a vast list of topics ranging from research papers to animal test subject BAM and SAM files.

  “What’s that?” Andy said over her shoulder, pointing to one. She tilted her head, making sure she was reading it correctly.

  It said: “Interns”.

  She tapped it open. Inside were four different PDF documents, each with their names. She tapped open the one labeled “Marlowe, Sydney” and started scrolling through the pages.

  “Hey, here’s my work history, all of my medical records, and…a psychological profile? He even has stuff on my family here too!” she said.

  “What the hell does he need this stuff for?” Andy said, leaning closer.

  From across the room, there was the sound of a doorknob being jiggled. Then someone banged on the door.

  “Hey!” called a voice. “Who the hell is in there?”

  GETAWAY

  Standing at the computer, Sydney froze. The knocking came again, this time louder.

  “We know you’re in there and there’s no other way out,” the voice said. They sounded distinctly South African.

  “Now what?” she hissed to Andy.

  He spun around wildly, shining the flashlight all around the room. “I don’t see any other exit. Wait.” He pointed to the window. “We could climb down.”

  “Are you crazy?” she said.

  “You just broke into a madman’s office by climbing through a skylight.”

  “Did you bring the rope?”

  He showed it to her slung over his shoulder. “I don’t think there’s time though,” he said, running to the window and starting to open it. The sounds of pouring rain filled the room. Andy motioned for her to go first.
Sydney ran over to the sill, sliding her leg over and out into the deluge outside. She groaned, not excited about getting soaked again.

  Still, as she lifted her other leg up and turned over onto her stomach to slowly lower herself into the rain, she knew she had no choice. She was dangling above the rear entrance to the lodge. She was about fifteen feet up.

  Her upper torso was still on the window sill. She looked at Andy. “We should use the rope.”

  “No time,” he said, pointing to the door. The banging was getting louder. “We gotta move.”

  Sydney’s headache was only getting worse and for some reason her teeth were killing her too. She grunted and let herself down as far as she could, her fingers clenching the edge of the window.

  Then she dropped.

  This time, she expected the fall and sufficiently braced herself for the impact. The landing still jolted her, however, and it took her a moment to regain her bearings. Andy dropped down quickly after and grabbed her arm.

  “Run!” he said as they took off towards the treeline.

  She glanced back to see a silhouetted figure reach the second-story window and point after them. “They’re heading for the forest!” she could hear them call.

  She and Andy followed the path into the dark cluster of trees. It was pitch black here as Andy led her off the path. She heard Andy trip, but he appeared to get back up quickly. She stumbled forward blindly, keeping her arms out to make sure she didn’t run into a tree. She brushed past several trunks and noticed the terrain getting steeper beneath her feet. They were heading up the hill.

  They continued like that for a minute or so before she stopped to catch her breath. It felt as if her heart was in her throat, and despite taking multiple deep breaths, she didn’t feel her exhaustion lightening. The rain continued to pelt her skin.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  “Over here.” He sounded about six or seven feet away.

  She started towards him, putting one foot before the other, but suddenly lost her balance on the uneven ground and fell down the hill. She tumbled several feet and came to a halt. Everything hurt, but she couldn’t tell if it was inside or out.