Holes in the Ground (45 page)

“No, it’s my backup.”

“Well, what about that other knife, strapped to your thigh. Can I have that one?”

“No that’s my backup to my backup.”

Jerry sighed. “What is this place anyway? A giant sand pit?”

“It used to house a nest of scorpions. We sent them to down to Albuquerque.”

“Albuquerque?”

“They’re working with DARPA to develop high-tech armour systems made from chitin. They requisitioned any creatures that have natural armour capabilities.”

Jerry watched as the basilisk moved away from the glass hatch, probably to find easier prey. “Why do you guys move the creatures around so often? Isn’t it risky?”

“Yes,” Rimmer said. “But it’s necessary.”

“Why?”

“To prevent power struggles.”

Jerry stood up on the sand and found a place to sit on a nearby boulder. “Power struggles?”

“Yes. There are a lot of internal politics at play in Deus Manus. There was a time when the facilities with the more dangerous prisoners would take liberties over the others. During the Cold War we discovered the Moscow facility was working with Soviets to try and train the inhabitants of their facilities. They were trying to tame an army of monsters to do their bidding. They were getting results as well.”

“Shit, that’s pretty crazy. What happened in the end?”

“When it came to the attention of the Deus Manus senior council, the decision was made to destroy the Moscow facility. An operative was sent in undercover and the self-destruct sequence was initiated. The Moscow facility is no more and the Soviets are gone. Since then, prisoners are regularly exchanged and the council keeps a tighter leash on its various facilities.”

Jerry went up to the hatch and peered outside. All of the guards were now probably dead; the spiders feasting on their flesh. The basilisk was slithering up and down the corridor while various other beasts mingled around the cellblock.

“What’s going to happen now? Jerry asked. “We can’t get out of here, can we?”

Rimmer was sat on another of the boulders and was checking his large pistol. “Not unless someone lets us out from the other side. Hopefully Kane will send down a team to clear the floor. If not…”

“Then they’ll do that concrete thing and fill the entire floor in.”

“Pretty much. Let me try the radio. I’ll see where things lie.”

Rimmer clicked on his radio and clasped the talk button. It crackled for a moment and then Rimmer spoke.

“Sergeant Rimmer requesting a status update. Rimmer, requesting a status update. Subbasement team 1 is down. I am currently pinned down in cell 1; multiple hostiles. Civilian present. Requesting immediate rescue.”

“Negative,” came the reply.

Rimmer cleared his throat. “General Kane. What is the status of the facility?”

“FUBAR. Every single cell has been opened. All prisoners are loose. Situation is non-salvageable. Evacuation window is one hour. Over and out.”

The radio went dead.

“General Kane… General Kane, please respond. General Kane…” Rimmer threw his radio into the sand. “Damn it!”

Jerry turned away from the glass. “What is it?”

“Kane cut my radio. The facility is being evacuated.”

“Great,” said Jerry. “Are they coming to get us?”

Rimmer shook his head. “No. Only levels 1-4 will be evacuated. All of the subbasements will be destroyed.”

Jerry grabbed his head with both hands. “What? How do you know that?”

“Because Kane said the evacuation window was one hour. When that hour is up, anyone left inside will be dead.”

“That psycho fuck.”

Rimmer shook his head and shrugged. “Kane has no choice. The facility has been taken.”

“Well, then let’s take it back.”

Rimmer laughed. “With what? You, me, and my Desert Eagle?”

“You have some men still alive on subbasement 10 with the Dennisons. Andy and Sun have lived through this type of thing before. We need to get to them.”

“How? We’re trapped in this cell.”

“Then we need to find a way out,” said Jerry. “And fast!”

“Either that,” said Rimmer. “Or we die in less than one hour.”

Dr Gorman sat in her lab and stared at the screen in disbelief. All of her lab assistants had hurried into the conference room to lend assistance, but she had stayed right where she was.

She had known from the start that letting outsiders into the Spiral had been a terrible idea and now her assertions were bearing fruit. Her biggest mistake was allowing herself to be swayed by Kane and his talk of future rewards.

Rewards will mean nothing after this. We’ll be dishonoured for allowing the facility to be so badly compromised. That fool. Kane’s lack of precaution will be the death of my career.

Again she began to regret her past choices, the ones which had led her there.

After losing her mother—her only surviving relative—to stage 4 cancer, Thandi had been intent on becoming a medical researcher. She longed to add her name alongside
Pasteur
and
Jenner
, and other great minds who had improved the health of the entire world. She wanted to make sure that no other young girls lost their mothers like she did.

Then a fellow student raped her at a party and her plans fell apart.

As did her entire world.

In the hazy, semi-lucid days that followed, Thandi stopped socialising completely, frightened of every stranger’s glance in her direction. She confined herself to her room and her books. She stopped going to class, choosing to get work brought back via a friend. For days on end she locked herself in her dormitory and became more and more withdrawn. Until she reached a point where things could not continue.

Somehow she survived the third-story fall to the concrete below, a broken hip being the only immediate consequence.

The lasting consequences were far more severe. She was placed into mandatory care; her studies critically suffering as a result. Now she lacked even the hope of a brighter future.

Deus Manus had reached out to her in hospital. They’d been watching her progress for a while, impressed by her medical acumen. In her vulnerable state of mind, their offer to take her out of the world and allow her to devote herself to science had been a way out of her nightmare. She readily accepted their offer to join.

Two days later, the boy who had raped her was hit by a garbage truck and killed. Six months later, she graduated College with full honours. A day after that, a black SUV pulled up outside her dorm and took her away forever. She had been at the Spiral ever since.

And now it looks like I might die here.

From inside her lab, Thandi could see that all ten cellblocks had been breached. How such a thing was even possible, she did not know, but she knew what Kane’s response would be. Any minute now, the corridors would flood with cement, sealing everyone to their doom.

And what will I have left behind? Nothing, that’s what. I thought Deus Manus was saving my life, but really they took it away. I never found a cure for cancer, I never had a real friend, I never loved a man… I’ll never have children.

I’ve wasted my life.

No more.

I will make Deus Manus pay.

Dr Gorman logged on to her computer and got to work. After so many years at the Spiral, she knew the computers almost better than anyone. The only person who knew more about the IT systems was Dr Chandelling.

And now he’s lost his mind.

Which makes me the master of this facility.

***

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 45 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 has most definitely happened.

I still don’t even know what went wrong.

All I know is that it started with the Dennisons.

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 will 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 already.”

“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 Gorman on subbasement 10 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. “Dr Gorman and Dr Chandelling were both here when the new systems were installed. They know it better than anybody else here.”

“Are you saying that my subordinates have more control over this facility than I do? That, right now, Dr Gorman is in charge?”

Linden leaned back in his chair and sighed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

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

• • •

Dr Gorman grinned. The job was done. Nobody was going to leave her to die in a hole without her taking them with her. Despite her grim fate, she felt better knowing that her final act had been one of strength and control. She would be abused by no one, lest they suffer the dire consequences.

The man who had raped her had learned that lesson when the garbage truck had hit him. She suspected Deus Manus had been behind it, which meant he had died as a direct result of what he had done to her. Karma had been at work that day, and it would wield its sharp-edged sword again today.

For now, she would join up with the others in the conference room. At least she had the opportunity to not die alone.

And at least I will get to see the deaths of the people responsible for this catastrophe. The Dennisons are going to pay…

“What are you doing?” Jerry asked Rimmer.

The sergeant was fiddling with the back of his radio with a combat blade he had produced from a scabbard on his belt.

“I’m trying to get inside the radio. All of the units have a regulator chip inside them. It allows us to deactivate them remotely should one go missing. It’s a security feature and Kane just activated the chip in this one. If I can remove the chip, I should be able to get it working again. I might be able to contact my men.”

“And get us the fuck out of here?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Can I help?”

Rimmer pressed the tip of his knife into an exposed screw and began turning. “It should only take a minute. Best thing you can do is step away from the door. No point attracting any of those things.”

Jerry nodded and stepped away from the hatch. He went and sat back on his boulder and twiddled his thumbs.

“I really screwed up my life these past few months.”

Rimmer laughed. “None of that is going to matter if those things get inside here.”

“It’s not even that which bothers me. I’ve been expecting to die since the day I got brought down here and, surprisingly, I’ve been okay with that. What upsets me is that I won’t get to make certain things right.”

Rimmer was still unscrewing the radio unit, but he glanced upwards. “The person you stole from in the UK?”

“No, fuck him. I have a brother. I messed things up with him. I would have liked to have said sorry.”

“You may get a chance yet. Take it from someone who has faced certain death before and lived to tell the tale. Sometimes the heat of the moment stops us looking forward.”

“So you think we’ll get out of this alive.”

Rimmer shook his head. “No.”

“Oh.”

“Doesn’t mean we’re going to stop trying. Worst thing a man can do is lie down and accept death. God gave us life. It’s our duty to preserve it.”