Holes in the Ground (20 page)

General Kane cleared his throat and tried to steady his voice when he spoke into the microphone.

“Protocol Omega has been initiated. Repeat, Protocol Omega has been initiated. You have thirty minutes to evacuate the Spiral.” The General blew out a deep breath. “May God help us all.”

“Protocol Omega?” Andy said to Lucas as they stood in the elevator. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I’ve yet to see anything in this place that’s good,” Lucas answered. Sun, still unconscious, was still slung effortlessly over his shoulder.

“That reminds me. There might be a dinosaur on this floor.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“And a griffon,” Andy said.

“Head of an eagle, hindquarters of a lion?”

“That’s the one.”

“Never seen a griffon. What’s it like?”

“Terrifying. There also might be a giant centipede.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Andy shook his head. “What kind of idiots would collect the most dangerous monsters on earth and put them all in one place?”

“The church,” Lucas said. “Poor decisions seem to be part of their long-term plan. I remember back when this whole Deus Manus concept was conceived. A wee bit ill-advised, I’d said at the time. Too many dark things in one place is like spitting in fate’s eye.”

Andy glanced at his companion. “How old did you say you were?”

“I didn’t.” Lucas smiled pleasantly. “But I’ve been around long enough to have seen a great many things.”

“So I’m probably being paranoid thinking this might be the end of the world.”

“The world will go on. As for humanity… well, it isn’t looking too good right now. Always was a pride issue with you people. Thinking you can control everything. I’m no stranger to pride myself. Being confident in your abilities is one thing. Getting cocky is another. When I strolled into this fine establishment last week and saw all the techno-widgets and electronic computer gizmos, I knew it was trouble. Too much reliance on your own fabrications. Could have predicted it even if I hadn’t known it was going to happen.”

“And how did you know it was going to happen?”

“That’s one of my blessings. Or curses, depending on your definition. I get to know in advance all of the terrible things humanity does to itself. The lord has given me a front row seat, in a manner of speaking.”

Andy wanted to broach the subject of the pictures of Lucas he’d seen, where the Manx man was in the company of genocidal leaders. Could that be Lucas’s agenda here? To assist in wiping out a lot of people?

He hoped not. Especially since Lucas had Andy’s wife on his shoulder. So he didn’t mention the photos. But still, he was curious.

Andy chose his words carefully. “If you know about bad things about to happen, why don’t you interfere and stop them?”

“It isn’t my place. Sure, I’ve done my bit here and there. But you people chose free will. It’s not my place to mess with your destiny.”

Sun began to stir on Lucas’s shoulder, and he reached up and gripped her neck. Her eyelids fluttered and closed again.

“What did you just do?” Andy said, unsure if he was more alarmed at Lucas having possibly hurt Sun, or her waking up and going apeshit again.

“Carotid artery. Gave it a squeeze, cut off the blood flow from the heart to the brain. It’s not a long term solution,” Lucas said, his eyes crinkling, “but it works in a pinch.”

They reached the infirmary floor, level 3, and the doors opened. Andy braced himself, but nothing leapt out at them. The hallway was empty, albeit blood-spattered.

“This way,” Andy said, moving cautiously. He led Lucas toward the x-ray room, which was around the corner and several doors down. As he approached the bend, he motioned for Lucas to wait and flattened himself against the wall, craning his neck to peek.

Blocking the x-ray door was a giant scorpion with multiple tails, each ending in a huge stinger. Andy felt his stomach plummet. At first he thought it was fear. But it was accompanied by a whole-body sensation, like there were ants crawling under his skin.

Bub’s mutagen.

It was reprogramming Andy’s DNA to turn him into a demon, like Sun. It hadn’t happened this quickly with her, and Andy could only assume that was because he’d gotten a bigger dose.

“You feeling okay, fella?”

“There’s a four-tailed scorpion the size of a Buick in the hallway, blocking the x-ray room, and I think my cells are mutating.”

“That’s unfortunate. What do you want to do?”

“Sit in a corner and cry.” It was as true a statement as Andy had ever spoken. “I’m not the hero type, Lucas. I’m not brave. I’m not courageous. I’m a nerd who likes languages. This was supposed to be my honeymoon. Now my wife is a demon, I’m becoming one as well, we’re surrounded by monsters, and it’s Protocol Omega, which I somehow doubt is an ice cream party.”

“Ahh, ice cream. That’s a plus.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your species. You have a terrific capacity for effing things up. For hurting one another. For making the world a worse place. But then you invent something like ice cream. That makes up for a lot. Makes you worth rooting for.”

Andy sighed. He didn’t need any of Lucas’s non-sequitors thinly disguised as insight. What he needed was to get past the giant scorpion and into the x-ray room.

“Now despair,” Lucas continued. “That’s the opposite of ice cream, isn’t it? Doom and gloom and
woe is me
. To turn away from all that is good in life to dwell on the bad.”

“Are you trying to tell me something, or are you just rambling?”

“Do you believe in fate, Andrew?”

“No.”

“What if I told you that fate was a future you didn’t work hard enough to change?”

“I’d tell you that no one would ever hire you as a motivational speaker.”

“Four tailed scorpion, is it? What’s the worst that can happen if you face it?”

“It stings me, then eats me.”

“And if you don’t?”

“I mutate into one of Bub’s slaves.”

“So pick your poison, lad. The fate of humanity depends on it, and your wife is getting a wee bit heavy.”

“What does that have to do with ice cream?”

“Nothing.”

Andy looked around for a weapon, his eyes gravitating toward a turned-over medical cart. Scattered across the floor was various first aid equipment.

“Do you have a lighter?” Andy asked Lucas, knowing the answer would be no.

Surprisingly, Lucas reached into his pocket and threw Andy a matchbook. It had a red cover with the words
THE TRUMPET
printed on it.

“Got it from a pub when the world ended,” Lucas said. “Long story.”

Andy opened the book and saw a single match remained. He set the book on the floor, found some latex gloves, and put on two of them. He stuffed a third with petroleum jelly and cotton balls, squishing them together, and topping it off with a few splashes of rubbing alcohol. Then he spilled more rubbing alcohol onto the tile floor and picked up the matchbook.

“Fingers crossed,” he said.

Andy held his breath and struck the match, dropping it onto the spill. It ignited the tile floor, and he quickly dunked his loaded latex glove in the flame, setting it ablaze and then turning the corner to face the scorpion.

The creature immediately noticed Andy and began to race toward him. Andy swung the glove and tossed it directly at the scorpion’s six eyes.

The homemade napalm splashed against the scorpion, the flames sticking to it like glue. The creature tried to put the fire out with its tails, flailing wildly and giving itself multiple stings in the thorax.

“Evolution didn’t bless that one with much of a brain,” Lucas said.

“C’mon!” Andy yelled, leading Lucas past the burning arachnid and into the x-ray room, his relief short-lived when he discovered what was waiting for them inside.

Achillobator.

They’d run into a room containing a man-eating dinosaur.

“What’s Protocol Omega?” Jerry asked Rimmer, after hearing General Kane say it on the loudspeaker.

“They’re evacuating.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

Rimmer set the timer on his watch. “In less than thirty minutes the Spiral is going to fill up with quick-setting concrete.”

Jerry made a face. “I don’t want to be stuck in concrete until I starve to death. That sounds terrible.”

“Then consider yourself lucky,” Rimmer said. “Because you’ll suck it into your lungs and drown long before that happens.”

Something dashed past the cell door, making Jerry stake a startled step backward. Then he crept forward, cautiously, and put his cheek against the Plexiglas to peer down the hallway.

The yeti was being attacked by two of those dracula things. It swung a mighty claw and lopped off one of their heads, but the other jumped onto its back and began biting and slashing. Then another dracula ran past and joined the fray, but it was—

“That monster is wearing one of your commando uniforms.”

Rimmer came up and looked for himself. “It’s Gordon. He’s turned into one of those creatures.”

“Can this get any bloody worse?’ Jerry asked, shaking his head and walking deeper into the cell, parking his butt on a large pile of hay. This seemed to agitate the imps, because they began to hop up and down, squealing and clicking.

“What’s your problem?” Jerry asked them.

That’s when he noticed the hay beneath him begin to squirm. He immediately scrambled away, and saw he’d sat upon some sort of round, grayish object roughly half a meter in width.

It looked like—

“An egg,” Jerry said.

His guess was confirmed a moment later, when spiders began to pour out of it.

Kane sent another load of office workers up to the surface in the elevator and waited for it to come back down. A helicopter was en route to airlift everybody down to Albuquerque. As the head of the facility, Kane would not leave until the very last moment. He checked his watch: only twenty-six minutes left.

It was regrettable that not everyone could be evacuated. The fact that Sergeant Rimmer and a majority of the staff on other levels were beyond rescue was upsetting, but there was no viable way to help them. The risk was too great. Everyone at the Spiral knew that their lives would be deemed expendable should the worst happen. And the worst was certainly happening.

The elevator returned to the floor and Kane sent another load of people inside. “As soon as you exit the facility,” he told them, “remain in the clearing and await extraction.”

A security guard came up beside Kane. “I’ve swept the floor and checked in with Conway and Hartfield on levels 3 and 4. They have another twenty ready to go as soon as the elevator is free.”

Kane glanced around at the panicked faces in the Nucleus. “How many left on this floor?”

“A dozen. One more load after this one and we should be fully evacuated on this floor.”

Kane nodded. “Then I will relocate to level 4 and work on getting everybody out of there next.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll let Conway know.”

Kane watched the last people pile into the elevator and waited for the doors to close.

Yet they remained open.

Kane strode over to them. He glanced at the employees inside. “Has anyone commanded the elevator to stay open?

People shook their heads.

Kane huffed. “Doors close… Doors close… Surface level.”

The doors remained open.

Kane grabbed a hold of one of the doors and yanked, but it held in place firmly.

Kane raised his voice into a shout. “ELEVATOR CLOSE DOORS NOW.”

The elevator did nothing.

Kane grabbed his nearest man, a tall security guard with a fuzzy blonde moustache. “Linden, run a diagnostic on the elevator. Why aren’t the doors closing?”

Linden ran over to the nearest computer station and began typing away. After a few moments, his brow wrinkled in confusion and he glanced at Kane uncertainly.

“What is it?” Kane demanded.

“The elevator has been placed into maintenance mode. All functions are on hold until it’s released.”

“Then release it.”

“I can’t, sir. The access to the elevator’s commands has been locked. I can’t get into the menus.”

Kane marched over to the computer. “Stand aside.” He typed in his own login details and went into the elevator’s control systems. As soon as he tried to enter the base menus he was met with the message:
ACCESS DENIED. FULL SYSTEM LOCK DOWN INITIATED. CONSULT ADMINISTRATOR
.

Kane thumped his fist down on the keyboard, dislodging the
Ctrl
chiclet. “I am the administrator, you son of a bitch.”

“Let me try something, sir.” The security guard logged back into the system and ran a few commands. After a moment he straightened up from the keyboard and once again creased his brow in confusion. “It seems that Dr. Gornman initiated the lock down. She’s reset access privileges so that no one can override her commands.”

“How could she do that?”

The security guard shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The realization hit Kane like a slap to the face. He thought back to when the elevators were installed, and remembered giving Gornman administrative privileges to them during a counselling session. She’d expressed concern that if anything happened to Kane, the elevators could trap those who worked at the Spiral. He’d shared the operation control to make sure they’d function if there was an emergency and he became incapacitated.

But instead, Dr. Gornman had used that knowledge to shut the elevators off.

Kane shook his head and gritted his teeth. “What the hell is that woman doing? She’s going to kill us all.”

Dr. Gornman stared at the monitor, drinking in Kane’s anguished expression.

“Who’s in charge now, General?”

The idiot would have no choice. He’d have to revoke Protocol Omega, or else kill himself and everyone in the Spiral.

Gornman watched him go to the nearest hallway phone, and she picked up when he called.

“We’re evacuating,” Kane said. “What did you do to the elevators?”