Holes in the Ground (22 page)

“How long before this place fills with concrete?” he asked Rimmer.

The soldier checked his watch. “Eighteen minutes.”

He sat down next to Jerry, his breathing labored. Neither spoke for a minute or two.

Jerry didn’t want to die drowning in cement. He didn’t want to die at all. Which was strange, because his whole life he’d never really had anything to live for. Always an outcast. Always made fun of by everyone, except his buddy Ben. He never even had a girlfriend. His only obsession had been finding the truths behind conspiracies, because his reality was so empty.

More than once, he’d flirted with the idea of jumping off a bridge. Never to the point where he attempted it. But when he was feeling low, having a pity party, he wondered if life was worth it, and lamented how when he was gone, no one would miss him.

His thoughts, strangely, turned to Nessie.

“I hope she’s okay.”

Rimmer glanced at him. “You like her.”

“She was nice to me. Well, seemed to like me. That’s pretty rare.”

“Seems to me you set out to make people not like you.”

Jerry shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know why I do it. I’m just kind of an obnoxious dork.”

“No, you’re not. You act like an obnoxious dork so that people dislike you. You don’t like yourself, and that reaffirms your beliefs. So you make sure that nobody gets a chance to get close. Textbook single-parent upbringing. You feel rejected by your father and you developed natural defences against being rejected by anyone else.”

Jerry made a face. “I didn’t realise you had a side-gig as a psychiatrist. How you know so much about me anyway?”

“I pulled up your file when you arrived. British government only lists a mother for you, no father.”

“And you think you know me because of that?”

Rimmer twiddled with his beard. “No, I think that because I know myself. I didn’t have a father either. Drifted through life, acting like an asshole, getting in fights, pushing people away. I joined the army just to separate myself from society.”

“So that’s why you’re such a hardass, then?”

“Nope, I’m a hardass because it’s my job to be. If I’m not, people die. I came to terms with who I am a long time ago. It comes with time and experience. Back when I was your age, though, I was pretty screwed up.”

Jerry nodded and spoke quietly. “Are you trying to say I should cheer up, that things will be better in the future? Because I’ve heard all that shit before.”

“I’m no fortune teller. I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen to you in the future. There may not even be a future, if Kane doesn’t stop Protocol Omega. But I’ve seen you show courage. And compassion, with Wolfie and the imps. And now affection, for Nessie. There’s more to you than a self-loathing, wise-cracking limey.”

Jerry laughed. “Thanks. Guess you’re not the wanker I thought you were, either.”

Jerry was still smiling when there was a thud against the cell door. Both men turned and looked up.

“What the hell?” Jerry said.

A man stood at the glass hatch, bleeding face pressed up against it. The blood was from his cheeks, shredded to strips to allow for the shark teeth that had grown in.

It was Faulks, one of Rimmer’s men. He’d been turned into one of those dracula things.

“Think it can get in?”

As soon as the words left Jerry’s mouth, Faulks began to type on the LED screen.

“I don’t know,” Rimmer said, getting onto one knee and bringing his carbine to bear. “Get behind me.”

Jerry and the imps got behind Rimmer as the creature pressed buttons.

“We can kill it, right? You have enough ammo?”

Rimmer didn’t answer. Instead he turned to the side and threw up.

Jerry touched his leg. “Rimmer, are you okay?”

“Spider bite.”

“Spider bite? Why didn’t you tell me! I could have sucked out the poison!”

“Maybe one or two, you could have,” Rimmer said. “I got bitten at least a dozen times.”

“Jesus!”

Rimmer reached back for his side holster and tugged out the Glock. He handed it, butt-first, to Jerry.

Jerry hesitated.

“Take it, kid.”

“I… I don’t think I can kill you, Rimmer.”

Rimmer barked a laugh. “I don’t think you can kill me either, dumb ass. Shoot at the monsters when they get in the cell.”

Jerry took the gun in his sweaty hands.

“Extra mags in the pouch on my belt. When you’re empty, the slide will stay open. Pop another in and hit the release by your thumb to load the next round.”

Two more draculas appeared at the door with Faulks, scratching and snarling.

“Think we’ll get through this?” Jerry asked.

The cell door beeped and began to open.

“We’re about to find out,” Rimmer said.

The Andy-demon lunged at Lucas, but was immediately knocked into the wall by the swing of a monstrous tail. The demon bounced off the wall, its leg broken. But the tibia was already beginning to knit itself back together as it stood to face the insolent creature that had caused the damage.

Worthless dinosaursssssss. What a stuuuuuupid mistake of evoluuuuuution.

Claws out, the Andy-demon leapt at the achillobator, getting under its alligator-like head and tearing at its throat.

The creature roared, spinning around as the demon clung to it. Its claws tore trenches in Andy’s back, but those immediately began to heal. The dinosaur didn’t fare as well. Andy kept digging until it had reached both the achillobator’s jugular vein and carotid artery. It yanked them out like slimy snakes, biting each in half as the dinosaur roared, then collapsed.

Climbing off the dying animal, the Andy-demon searched for the most dangerous creature in the room.

Lucassssssss.

“Nighty night, lad,” Lucas said, appearing behind Andy and locking a hand onto the demon’s neck.

Then everything went black.

General Kane sat in his office and rubbed at his forehead. The men and women outside in the Nucleus were close to panic and the only thing keeping them under control was the handful of loyal security guards who believed as much in the oath they had taken as he did.

It is our duty to die if it means keeping the facility secure. The creatures inside this hole simply cannot be allowed to surface.

It is the only way.

I have no choice.

Still, the deaths of the men and women still inside the Spiral was enough to burden any man’s heart. Many of them had devoted years of their life to the Order. To die now, so hopelessly, so terribly, was an affront to their loyalty.

And Gornman has locked me in this hole to die with everybody else.

Perhaps I deserve it.

I’m going to die a failure. After so much distinction, this is how things are going to end.

Unable to help himself, Kane looked at his computer monitor. He hovered randomly over each thumbnail to bring up the individual feeds. He watched a small group of survivors on subbasement 4 holding each other and crying. He saw Rimmer and Jerry inside the spider cell, shooting at those horrible nosferatu things. He saw ten people in the mess hall, the doors barricaded with tables and chairs, one woman on her knees with her hands clasped in prayer.

The inmates were loose in the asylum and the masters had become the slaves.

At the top of Kane’s computer screen was the Omega Protocol countdown.

8:52… 8:51… 8:50… 8:49…

Less than nine minutes to live. A life Kane had been truly honored to have lived. Being a guardian, a keeper of secrets, was the pride of Kane’s life. He would leave this world knowing he had performed his duties admirably, and that when things had gone wrong, he had done what was right—even if his last assignment had ended in disaster.

He hoped that his colleagues would see that.

He would see the countdown through. Nothing inside the Spiral could be allowed to live. All must die.

It was for the greater good. Kane made peace with himself.

I’m a hero. A hero in the truest sense because almost nobody will ever know of my sacrifice.

God will greet me with open arms.

Kane picked up his phone from its cradle and dialled in the number for his counterpart in Texas. It would be good to say goodbye to an old friend. Nobody should die without having said a few last words.

The phone rang.

And rang.

Odd, Robson always picks up. Kane’s calls normally get routed straight through to him wherever he is.

It was some time before the call was answered.

“General Robson?”

“No, no, this is Hilary.” It was Robson’s secretary, and it sounded like she was sobbing. “Who is this? You have to help us!”

“This is General Kane. Where is Robson?”

“General Robson is dead. Most everyone is dead.”

“What the hell is happening over there? What’s going—”

“It’s the faustling. Somehow it escaped. It let all of the other prisoners free. They slaughtered most of us before we even knew what was hap—”

The line went dead.

Kane replaced the handset carefully and stared into space.

7:37 left on the countdown.

General Kane closed his eyes and asked God for forgiveness.

Then, outside in the hallway, the screaming started.

Bub saw all.

He saw through the eyes of every copy of himself in the many Deus Manus facilities throughout the world. Through the eyes of those copies still roaming free. Through the eyes of his slaves, of every creature he’d injected with his essence.

The copies weren’t nearly as powerful as his combined being. When he had divided, Bub’s power had weakened considerably. The minions he had created were also considerably weaker.

He’d spent years in his divided form. Growing. Regaining strength. Some had been injured. Or killed. But enough remained to once again take his place as the ruler of this world.

The time of man was at an end.

First, however, he needed an army.

Mankind, in its infinite, foolish hubris, had practically gifted him that army. And they’d kept it safe, for millennia, in the many Deus Manus facilities around the earth.

Bub had originally split into multiple copies of himself as a means to survive. But that had turned out to be the perfect way to infiltrate each iteration of Deus Manus. Each of his copies would lead a rebellion, an escape. Then his armies would converge, and he would once again recombine his smaller parts and become whole.

Each version of Bub was autonomous, though they worked as a hive mind. The creatures he possessed were part of this mind as well, to a lesser degree. He could control his copies through intense concentration, via thought waves that transmitted and detected muon neutrinos. Humans, and other creatures of their pitiful intelligence, would call it telepathy, even though there was nothing supernatural about it. Unfortunately, it took a great deal of energy to communicate with his other selves, and even more energy to control those he’d mutated into demons. Which meant he was functioning at a diminished capacity.

Once all of his selves recombined, his range and power would increase.

But there was a matter of some urgency to deal with first. The batling sensed the sudden doom in the hearts of those yet living. They all feared certain death, but not at the hands of claws and teeth. Something even more certain was the cause of their worry. Something that was quickly approaching.

As was the case with Samhain, the men of the facility would seek self-destruction in order to stop him. In Baja, Mexico, there was a single man who could potentially end the batling’s glorious slaughter before it even got started.

General Kane.

Kane had activated a safeguard, intending to bury everyone alive. Not as dramatic as a nuclear explosion, but effective just the same. The version of Bub at the Baja facility might be able to survive, but buried hundreds of meters in cement would prove difficult to escape from.

Kane had to be persuaded to shut off his suicide switch.

The batling reached the elevator at the end of the corridor and immediately wedged its bloody claws into the gap between the metal doors. It forced them apart and slipped through.

The elevator was not present in the shaft. The batling swooped upwards into the dark, empty space, night vision guiding it. The demon spiralled higher and higher, eventually reaching the elevator. It tore at the bottom, breaking its claws, its fingers, as it fought the steel. But as fast as its bones broke, the batling’s unique metabolism healed them, and slowly, inexorably, it punched through the floor of the lift and made a hole large enough to squeeze through.

The doors inside were already open, allowing Bub to shoot straight out into the Nucleus and pounce upon the nearest human.

The woman screamed as she was injected with the stinger in Bub’s claw. A nearby guard fired, threading shots through the demon’s flesh. Bub switched off his pain receptors and leapt upon the man, knocking away his rifle, pinning him to the floor.

“Where is Kaaaaaaaaane?”

Two more soldiers attacked, shredding Bub’s wings with machinegun rounds. He tore out the prone man’s stomach with his foot talons while leaping at the newcomers, ripping the first one’s throat out, and biting the second in the thigh, chomping through the femoral artery. Blood gushed like sprinklers, and Bub luxuriated in the sprays for a moment, a fond memory returning him to Sumeria over five millennia ago. His worshippers had filled pools with sacrificial human blood for Bub to bathe in as ten thousand grovelled on their knees, chanting one of the many names he’d had throughout the ages.

“Ušumgallu! Ušumgallu! Ušumgallu!”

He’d been away for too long. But the day would come again when he ruled humanity. Soon. Very soon.

Bub hadn’t sat on a throne of rotting corpses since his Mayan days. He wasn’t one to lament time lost, but the thought of it made him almost wistful.

The other humans in the room scattered in terror as the batling swooped into the air, soaring above them all. Even the men with guns dove into hiding.