Beyond Hades: The Prometheus Wars (7 page)

"We were attacked by things. Some like those you've seen, others you can't even imagine. Most of which I'm not at liberty to disclose to you at this time," he added when he saw the question about to emerge from Doctor Harrison. Talbot relaxed back and motioned for him to continue.

"We were gone for a long time. But then again time seems distorted there, and when we made it out only moments had passed, even though it felt like we were in that place for months. The creatures attacked us in ways we were never trained to defend against, and the land itself seemed to suck the confidence from us. It was like we'd entered a place where happiness couldn't exist. A lot of the guys fell apart before we even encountered anything threatening. I don't know if it was just our own fear playing against us, but there were some hugely brave men who went into that place, who crumbled without even seeing conflict. I'll always remember the ground - it was like walking on a huge tongue - and I kept thinking we were inside a massive mouth or something. It's hard to explain. Several other issues emerged, but we managed to overcome these before encountering...
it
."

"What?" asked Talbot.

Captain Benedict swallowed heavily again, memories of the horror threatening to engulf him like a firestorm.

"It started out quite small, and some of the men laughed when they saw it, thinking we'd been worried over your brother's warning for nothing. Once it attacked, however, nobody laughed. I vaguely remember men screaming and blood spraying. But for the most part I was too busy shooting at the damn thing."

Chuck drew a deep, shuddering breath. "It grew as it attacked the men around me - some fifty battle-hardened marines - and none of our weapons had any effect. We might as well have been using paper pellets for all the good they did us."

"What was it?" Talbot asked, his eyes widening.

"It was Cerberus," Chuck replied simply, too simply for something so incredibly powerful. The howls of the beast would haunt him forever.

Thomas had warned them it would be one of their toughest obstacles, but the three-headed puppy which had emerged through the gates as they approached had struck them as clumsy and comical. The three heads had even raised a few jokes, as did the serpentine tail.

"Cerberus," muttered Talbot, pronouncing it with a hard 'C'. "Was it as bad as Thomas thought?"

"Worse. Much worse." The captain shuddered, his voice haunted. "It began by physically tearing the men to shreds, killing half the advance squad in moments."

"How did you escape?" asked Talbot.

Chuck dropped his gaze once more, shame coursing through him. "Your brother saved us."

"Thomas? How?"

The captain shook his head. "Damned if I know. He screamed at us to get out of there, and then started chanting in that strange language. Whatever he was saying, Cerberus was distracted long enough for us to retreat. Only four men made it back to the rift. Your brother wasn't one of them."

"So you left him behind?" demanded Talbot.

"We thought he was with us, sir, I swear it. Nobody realized until we were back at the rift. And then we heard the scream."

"What scream?"

"At first I didn't even recognize it as human, but it was definitely your brother. The ground began to quake, and we escaped back through the rift. It's not something I'm proud of."

Talbot rose ponderously from the table, gazing down at the captain with measured disdain.

"So," he intoned, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion, "my brother is dead because you ran away and abandoned him."

He stalked off toward the front of the cabin, leaving Chuck alone, a hollow burning gnawing within him.

CHAPTER 3

The thermo-carrier began to slow and Talbot snapped to attention. Were they there, or had something else happened? Without windows in the main cabin, it was impossible to see what was going on outside. He felt hesitant to approach the cockpit; he didn't want to pass so many accusing stares again.

"Time to go, sir," said Captain Benedict and Talbot jumped slightly. They hadn't spoken since the captain had told him about his brother, and he felt unsure of how to proceed.

Captain Benedict suffered no such difficulty, it seemed. He casually shouldered his M-16 and motioned for Talbot to follow him. Talbot rose, attempting to conceal his apprehension as they moved toward the rear door, avoiding the glances of the rest of the passengers.

Once the carrier came to a complete stop, Captain Benedict hit a button beside the door, causing it to slide open, a ramp dropping down to seamlessly integrate with the docking platform.

Talbot followed the captain down the ramp, gazing around at their new location. This docking station - once again apparently deep underground -appeared almost identical to the one in Quantico... minus an enormous, rampaging, one-eyed monster from Greek legend. Several squads of troops marched into the immense landing-bay, hastily surrounding Captain Benedict and Talbot. It was only then that Talbot realized no one else was disembarking the thermo-carrier.

"Why isn't anyone else getting off?" he asked the captain.

Captain Benedict looked slightly uncomfortable at the question, but his stride didn't falter. "They're waiting to see if any creatures break through to try and kill you again," he stated mechanically.

Talbot fearfully glanced around the bay, trepidation creeping into his joints, freezing them up, making the simplest of movements near impossible. Nothing moved, apart from the marines forming a protective knot around them.

"Captain Benedict," called one of the marines with a brisk salute. "Sergeant Major William Harris. Welcome to Senegal."

Captain Benedict returned the salute.

Talbot's mind reeled. Senegal? They'd travelled from Virginia to Western Africa, a distance of almost four-thousand miles, in less than four hours! He'd known they were travelling fast, but that was
damn
fast
.

Another part of Talbot's brain wondered how the United States Government had managed to build a base like this, a structure so immense, virtually replicating the underground station at Quantico, beneath the surface of a foreign nation. Politics aside, something serious had to be going on for nations to cooperate on this level, either that, or both countries stood to gain financially from what was going on.

The idea tasted bitter in Talbot's mind, probably because it had an element of truth to it. He'd heard somewhere that Senegal had one of the fastest growing economies in the world following a major change back in the late nineties. Perhaps an unexpected boost in monetary funds from the United States in order to allow the access to create Base Bravo? He would only ever be able to speculate, but such a thing gnawed at him, making Talbot uneasy.

"How is the situation here, Sergeant Major?" asked the captain.

"Better than what we heard you guys have been through, although there has been increased activity from beyond the rift. Things slowed down after Thomas...." He glanced at Talbot who returned the man's stare evenly until the Sergeant Major dropped his gaze. Something wasn't right here; these people seemed to be hiding more than just the nature of Thomas's death.

Talbot and Captain Benedict were escorted through the doors at the end of the docking bay and into a control room. A very serious marine with three stars on his lapels approached them and Captain Benedict snapped to attention, saluting briskly.

"Lieutenant General Walsh," he said as the man returned his salute. "Let me introduce you to Doctor Talbot Harrison." He indicated Talbot who stepped forward hesitantly and extended his hand.

The Lieutenant General merely glanced at the proffered hand, not moving to shake it, and Talbot slowly lowered it.

"I expect all hell will soon break loose in my base, now you're here." The Lieutenant General's eyes narrowed. "I hope you're worth it."

Turning to Captain Benedict, he said, "Welcome to Base Bravo, Captain, we have been updated on what happened at Alpha."

"Did they control the situation sir?"

"No. The cyclops unintentionally released several other captive beasts during its rampage. We lost all communication about an hour ago."

"Damn," muttered Captain Benedict.

"General Sharpe and several key personnel were able to escape. He sent word he'll meet up with you later."

"Yes sir. The general gave me orders to bring the doctor to meet with Professor Weinstein," said Captain Benedict.

"Of course he did," grunted the lieutenant general. "That nut just keeps getting worse each day. Don't expect too much coherence from him, Captain. He's so far gone I don't think he'll ever return to the realm of sanity."

"Yes sir. Is he in the labs?"

"Of course," said the lieutenant general. "He never leaves them these days, crazy egghead that he is. I'm sure he and the Doctor here will get along famously. Dismissed."

Captain Benedict saluted once more before turning and motioning for Talbot to follow him again. As they moved through the room toward the elevator, Talbot felt several sets of eyes staring at him, his ears pricking at the murmuring of secrets. The words of the thermo-carrier controller came back to him -
"We know who you are, Doctor Harrison. Everyone here does. At this point in time you're quite possibly the most important person on the planet."

- and he felt the momentous pressure of expectation bearing down upon him like a collapsing mountain.

These people counted on him to be some sort of miracle worker. But if Thomas couldn't fix this thing, how the hell was
he
supposed to? Talbot was an archaeologist, not some Indiana Jones-styled adventure seeker.

Indiana Jones was an archaeologist
. He pushed the thought away.

The elevator doors opened and he and Benedict stepped inside. The captain chose a button, and the elevator swiftly dropped.

They seemed to descend forever. Since the entire episode had begun that morning, Talbot had constantly been dropping deeper into the Earth. Maybe it was some giant cosmic metaphor for where he would end up.

Hell.

Tartarus.

Captain Benedict held the impression the place they'd gone with his brother was Hades. He hadn't even known what Tartarus was, and Talbot hadn't corrected him. The soldiers would only have been briefed on things they needed to know, and if Thomas hadn't informed them, then neither would Talbot. But he knew the truth; General Sharpe had told him where the rift led. Tartarus held the evil creations from Greek mythology, condemned to dwell there for eternity by the gods. Talbot wished it were Hades they were talking about; it inspired slightly less mind-numbing terror.

Slightly.

Whether you wanted to call it Tartarus or Hell, in Talbot's mind both places were identical. Each served as a final destination for creatures which had transgressed during their mortal existence. True, Tartarus's mythical beasts belonged nowhere near the Biblical Hell, but the concept was identical: a place for evil to reside when it left the world of men. If such a realm truly existed, as these people believed, what kinds of horrors were yet to emerge?

The elevator stopped and the men stepped into a bright corridor. Glass walls stretched on either side of the walkway and Talbot glimpsed scientists within open laboratories frenetically scribbling away at pages, studying creatures similar to those on the thermo-carrier, peering at their monitors in hopes some answer might leap out and grab them by the proverbial testicles.

Captain Benedict led Talbot to the far end of the glass hall. He swiped his security card, and the two entered. Across the room, staring intensely into an electron microscope and chatting riotously to himself, was a wild-haired man of around fifty years of age. Talbot paused. The man's instability suggested someone pushed far beyond the bounds of normal sanity, plunged into the fractal existence of lunacy.