Doomsday Game, page 3
It opened wide, reptilian jaws, and leapt.
Randall threw himself to one side with a shriek as the Chimera landed close to where he had been standing, a foul stench emerging from deep within its gullet. Then Oskar was there, hissing at the creature, even as it towered above them both.
‘Bad Veronica,’ Oskar shouted at it, his voice full of outrage. ‘Bad Veronica—don’t go sneaking up on Uncle Randall like that!’
‘Goddamn it!’ shouted Randall. ‘Will you please keep the damn things under control!’
‘Keep your panties on,’ Oskar snapped, touching his fingers to the bracelet on his left wrist. Immediately, the Chimera sank down until its huge head rested on its forepaws. ‘She’s not going to hurt you,’ said Oskar, tapping the bracelet and grinning. ‘Not unless I tell her to, anyway.’
Randall’s heart was still beating at a hundred miles an hour. ‘I really thought the damn thing was going to attack me this time!’
Oskar scowled at him. ‘I told you, Randall—you need to take more lessons in how to control them. You’ve seen me do it: being scared of them is just ridiculous once you know how to talk to them.’
‘You know I don’t—’ he paused momentarily, seeing the Chimera’s gaze swivel towards him ‘—like the damn beasts,’ he hissed. ‘And where the hell is the other one!’
‘Betty?’ Oskar glanced around. ‘Somewhere nearby, I guess.’
Randall sometimes thought Oskar had forgotten just how horrifying their first encounters with the two beasts had been. The Chimeras were semi-biological entities native to Delta Twenty-Five, created by whomever—or whatever—had also constructed the vine-drowned city amidst whose ruins they stood. As killing machines, they were enormously efficient: indeed, they had slaughtered a considerable number of people before Oskar had stumbled across the mechanism by which they could be controlled. And ever since Oskar’s dog Lucky had passed away of an aneurysm, the Pathfinder had effectively adopted the two Chimeras as pets.
Enormous, terrifying pets that could turn invisible and rend you limb from limb before you even knew they were there.
‘Let’s just get moving,’ Randall muttered, grabbing up his backpack from where he’d left it hidden in the long grass.
Oskar did the same, and they jogged across the glade. Soft, warm air gusted up from deep inside the tunnel entrance like the breath of some enormous sleeping animal.
* * *
The two Pathfinders kept to one side of the tunnel as they made their way down, and it wasn’t long before Randall’s shoulders ached from the weight of his backpack. The two Chimeras followed behind, and Randall tried hard to forget the close proximity of his throat to their dagger-like fangs.
It took them fifteen minutes to reach the bottom of the sloping tunnel, where it opened out into a cavernous, high-roofed chamber filled with ancient machinery. Some kind of bioluminescent bacteria in the cavern ceiling gave off a faint green glow just barely bright enough to allow the two Pathfinders to navigate. Up ahead, from far across the cavern, they heard the rumble of a truck’s engine.
The chamber was so crowded with engines of unknown purpose that it afforded them plenty of shadowy nooks and crannies in which to hide as they crept closer. A faint vibration through their boot soles suggested the continuing activity of yet more machines, in yet deeper chambers somewhere far beneath them. There were doors which might lead to those lower chambers, except nobody had yet found a way to open them. There had been attempts to cut them open with plasma torches, or even explosives to blow a hole open, but for all their efforts the doors had been barely scratched.
Even so, they could both see one of these doors illuminated by the truck’s twin headlights.
Randall and Oskar jogged through the darkness, taking care not to go crashing into anything as they headed towards the truck. Soon, they could hear voices from just ahead, and slowed down before creeping cautiously forward.
They stepped around the side of some ancient machine and saw three doors in a row set into the cavern wall, each one twice as tall as a man and hexagonal in shape. The doors were coloured the same dull bronze as many of the machines populating the chamber around them.
The truck had been parked in a narrow alleyway formed by the gap between two neighbouring machines. Randall and Oskar watched from nearby in the shadows as three figures disembarked from the truck and walked up to the middle door. Two of them played their torches across the door, illuminating it.
Randall lifted his binoculars. The torch light was just enough to allow him to get a good look at the third man, who wore a dark-coloured suit of the type favoured by Authority bureaucrats and politicians. Randall immediately recognised him as Preston Merritt. He’d met him just the one time, after Merritt had been made Kip’s second-in-command. He watched as Merritt stepped up close to the door, pressing a hand against it and turning to say something to the two soldiers accompanying him.
‘Got your camera ready?’ Randall whispered to Oskar.
Oskar had crouched down to change lenses and stood up again, placing the camera against his eye. ‘I wonder what they’re up to,’ he muttered as he took several pictures with an infra-red lens. ‘They don’t think they can actually get through that door, do they?’
Randall glanced back towards the truck. Several of the soldiers stood next to it, apparently poring over what could only be a map, spread out over the vehicle’s hood. One of these men then turned to point towards a long line of metal cradles situated not far from the doors. All of the cradles were empty, except for one that held the shattered remains of a Hypersphere.
Randall grinned to himself. Talk about red-handed. If Merritt really believed he could find a way through that door, it was almost certainly because he thought there might be an intact Hypersphere somewhere beyond it.
Oskar lowered his camera as Merritt and his companion quickly returned to the truck. ‘What the hell are they up to?’ he muttered. ‘Ain’t nothing short of a nuke’s going to get through that door, and even then I wouldn’t bet on it.’
Another of the waiting soldiers got into the back of the truck and began tossing out white bundles to one of his compatriots, who passed them out to the rest. Soon, Merritt and all the rest of them were dressed in baggy white costumes with hoods and clear visors. ABC suits, Randall reckoned—the ABC standing for Atomic, Biological and Chemical.
Something sour roiled deep inside Randall’s belly. The soldier with the weirdly modified sniper rifle had hunkered down on top of a nearby machine, while all of the others went and crouched behind the truck, covering their heads with their arms and hands.
‘What’s with those damn suits?’ whispered Oskar. ‘They look like they’re waiting for some kind of nuclear explosion or—’
An idea hit Randall with such force it nearly drove the air from out of his lungs. He grabbed Oskar by the shoulder, dragging him back into the shadows and further from the cavern door.
A roar filled the air loud enough that Randall could feel its pressure beating on his ear drums like an angry husband trying to break down a motel-room door. He opened his mouth and yelled, but his own voice was lost in the chaos. He clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut against overwhelming brightness.
The ground swayed beneath them hard enough Randall thought for a moment the cavern was about to collapse. He coughed hard, his lungs full of smoke and gritty ash that burned. For a moment, he couldn’t see and could hardly hear, although he was vaguely aware of Oskar beside him shouting something that sounded tinny and distant to his ears.
Eventually the light faded, but it was still bright enough that Randall could see his surroundings much more clearly, despite the smoke and debris.
A new light shone in his eyes and he blinked, putting a hand up to shield his face. The light moved away again, and he heard a shout.
Randall blinked, his eyes tearing from the dust, and realised that the light of the explosion had placed him and Oskar in plain view of the men crouched down behind the truck. One of them was shining a torch on them.
Randall still couldn’t hardly think straight, but he had the wherewithal to reach for his pistol.
Several shots echoed across the cavern. Beside him, Oskar staggered backwards, red blossoming on his shirt. His camera went tumbling from his grasp.
One of the shots pinged off a machine next to Randall’s head. Randall froze, his pistol still halfway out of its holster.
Two of Merritt’s men appeared right in front of him and Oskar, shouting something he still couldn’t quite make out. The view he had of the wide bore of their weapons, however, spoke far more eloquently than words ever could. He let the pistol fall to the floor of the cavern.
He glanced down at Oskar. With immeasurable relief, he saw that his friend was still alive, although he clearly had a bad shoulder wound. He was leaning sideways against one of the machines, a hand clamped over the afflicted arm. He looked up at Randall, his face bright with sweat, and gave him a sharp nod.
Shoulder wounds weren’t necessarily fatal, but the sooner Oskar got attended to, the better.
One of the soldiers kicked Randall’s pistol out of reach. The light had faded to a dull red, and the air still tasted of burning smoke and ash. After-images danced across his vision, but rapidly faded.
He looked back over at the hexagonal door. To his amazement, the machinery that had been closest to it had been destroyed. The door was still largely intact, but now, he saw, a huge crack had opened in it, growing from a narrow line near its top to a gap wide enough at its base that a man could easily pass through it. After another moment he also realised the dull heat he could feel down one side was coming from the door, although its temperature seemed to be dropping.
How, he wondered, could a sniper rifle do something everyone thought was impossible?
One of the figures in white stepped towards them and the soldiers moved out of the way. Randall saw through the clear plastic visor that it was Preston Merritt. He stared at Randall for several moments until recognition sparked in his eyes.
‘Randall Pimms,’ he said, his voice slightly muffled by his hood. He peered down at Oskar. ‘And you must be…Oskar Boche?’
Oskar didn’t say a word. Merritt nodded and shifted his gaze back to Randall. ‘You’re Pathfinders, right? I think we met one time. Now how about you tell me what the hell you’re doing creeping around down here like a couple of spies?’
‘None of your damn business,’ Randall spat. ‘And I ain’t saying one more thing until you do something to help Oskar. There was no reason for you to shoot at us.’
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ Oskar grunted. ‘This place is off-limits to everyone.’
‘Then I guess neither of you are supposed to be here either, are you?’ said Merritt.
‘Sir?’ said one of the soldiers. ‘They had this with them.’ He passed Oskar’s camera to Merritt, who studied it for a moment before handing it back to the soldier.
‘Destroy it,’ he told the soldier. ‘And make sure you also destroy any memory cards inside it.’
The soldier fiddled with the camera until a memory card popped out of a slot. He snapped the card in two, then dropped the camera on the ground before smashing it with the butt of his rifle.
‘The only reason for you to be sneaking around down here,’ said Randall, ‘is if you’re looking for a Hypersphere.’
‘And only a lunatic would go looking for one,’ added Oskar, strain showing in his voice. ‘We’ve seen what happens when a Hypersphere gets used. This happens,’ he said, indicating the chamber around them with his chin. ‘Or didn’t you ever wonder what happened to the people that built all this?’
‘I wonder if either of you,’ asked Merritt, ‘are aware of the accident that took place at Miss Orlova’s stage-building facility?’
Randall frowned. ‘Sure we heard. What about it?’
‘I hear Miss Orlova’s recovering in hospital,’ said Merritt, ‘but nearly a quarter of her facility was destroyed. It’s set the Authority’s evacuation program back by years. I know what the Hypersphere can do if it’s mishandled, but that doesn’t mean the same thing would happen if we found another one. And under the circumstances, we badly need one, or a lot of people are going to die.’
‘If you manage to find one,’ Oskar grunted, ‘dying is the one thing that’s guaranteed to happen.’
‘For God’s sake, help him!’ Randall shouted. ‘He could bleed to death if that bullet hit an artery.’
Merritt put up a finger to shush him. ‘You’ve visited my home alternate, haven’t you, Mister Boche?’
‘Once,’ Oskar admitted. ‘It’s been a few years.’
‘America—our America, on our alternate—is facing a new ice age. Whole cities have already been ground to dust. The projections of the number of fatalities if we don’t act decisively and quickly to evacuate our civilian population to a new alternate are staggering. Tell me, Mister Boche, if you could get your hands on a device that could solve all your problems in an instant, wouldn’t you be just a little bit tempted?’
Oskar said nothing. Randall had the sense he was breathing with difficulty. He opened his mouth to say something more, then noticed that Oskar’s right hand was draped over his other arm in such a way that it touched the bracelet on his left wrist, his fingers moving in barely discernible but long-practiced patterns.
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ said Randall, his voice flat and dismissive. ‘And neither would anyone else with a shred of goddamn sanity. Why waste time, Merritt? We know you’re going to kill us.’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Merritt. ‘Fortunately, there are alternatives.’
Randall exchanged a look with Oskar. ‘Such as?’
Merritt shrugged. ‘It’s true I can’t let you go back to that island,’ he said, ‘but there’s no reason I can see why you shouldn’t work for me instead.’
Randall couldn’t help but laugh. ‘And why the hell would we do that? Don’t you think Kip and the rest of them would get to wondering what happened to us if we never went back there?’
Merritt shrugged. ‘He won’t be around for much longer, and neither will your Pathfinder friends.’ He looked between the two of them. ‘This way, you don’t end up the same way they will.’
Oskar’s fingers stopped moving for a second. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’
Merritt looked down at him. ‘For one, that precious island of yours is soon going to become just as uninhabitable as the rest of the alternate it belongs to. And there are plans to shut the Pathfinder Project down, probably within weeks.’
Randall stared at him, stunned.
‘No way,’ said Oskar, his voice full of scorn despite his injury. ‘Kip wouldn’t keep something like that back from us.’
‘How many curfews have you had in the last six months?’ asked Merritt. ‘It’s getting like you have to go into hiding every time it rains. It’s as good as uninhabitable already, and the fact is you’re all excess to requirements now Orlova’s given us the means to build our own transfer stages.’ He nodded towards the half-cracked door, which no longer glowed with heat. ‘But I know how skilled you people are in environments like this. You help me find a working Hypersphere, and the both of you can name your price.’
‘No,’ Oskar muttered.
Randall shook his head. ‘Same goes for me.’
Merritt stared down at them with undisguised contempt.
‘Sir?’ A soldier came running over from where some of them had been investigating the door. ‘The door’s not hot any more—in fact, it’s already cool to the touch. Private Ross just walked through the crack and took a look around. It seems like there’s more machinery back there, same as here.’
Merritt glanced towards the cracked door. ‘Remarkable.’ He turned back to Oskar and Randall. ‘I think maybe the two of you need a little more time to think about what you’re saying.’ He pointed to two soldiers in turn. ‘Marcus, Grant. Stay here and keep an eye on them until we get back. We’re going to do a quick reconnoitre and see what we can find.’
Merritt and the rest of the soldiers left the truck where it was and headed towards the cracked door. ‘Hey!’ Randall yelled after them. ‘What about Oskar? He’s in bad shape!’
Merritt stopped and turned. ‘That’s up to you,’ he called back. ‘Have you changed your minds?’
Randall said nothing, his face full of barely withheld fury.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Merritt, turning away again.
Merritt and the soldiers accompanying him had to squeeze through the crack in the door one after the other, leaving Randall and Oskar alone with their two guards.
‘So what’s with that fancy gun you used on the door?’ Randall asked one of them.
‘How about you shut up?’ the soldier replied. ‘Wouldn’t upset me at all to put a bullet in both your heads.’
‘That,’ mumbled Oskar, ‘would be an awesomely bad idea, asshole.’
The second soldier frowned at him. ‘Say what?’
‘All that noise you and your buddies made,’ Oskar explained. ‘I’m thinking you woke something up.’
‘What the fuck is he talking about?’ said the first soldier.
‘There’s more down here than a bunch of artefacts,’ said Oskar. ‘There’s something alive, and it eats people.’
The second soldier scowled. ‘Bullshit.’
‘You must have heard the stories,’ Oskar continued. He coughed, then winced at the pain in his shoulder. ‘People torn limb from limb. One time, something on this alternate killed a whole bunch of people over at Site A. When their relief came through, they found nothing but blood and guts scattered all over the place like they’d been butchered by something insane.’
‘If there was anything like that,’ said the second soldier, ‘we’d have known about it already.’
‘Hey, Marcus,’ said the first soldier. ‘I did hear a story about something like that.’
Marcus glared at him. ‘Are you just completely fucking stupid?’
‘I’m just saying,’ said Oskar, ‘because I’m sure I heard something moving around while me and Randall were keeping an eye on you folks.’
