Necropolis 3 (12 page)

The catwalks and ladders had been, for the most part, demolished, turned into confused heaps of twisted metal. Greg simply stood there and stared, continually turning in slow circles, unable to comprehend the wanton destruction that may very well have left him to die down in the forsaken mines.

Then, after a long moment, his eye caught on a huge piece of machinery, a crane, which looked very out of place underground but was still there nonetheless, had been shifted in all the chaos. The crane itself, painted in thick, industrial-yellow paint and striped with black, had crashed into one of the catwalks.

The catwalk itself looked to be fairly stable. He frowned, an idea formed, and he studied the area harder. He finally decided that there might be some way to do this. He walked over to the crane, started to climb up it, and then stopped, looking down at his bolt gun. It had proved useful, but how could he carry it up? It wouldn't fit in his pocket or on his belt. He couldn't very well hold it with his teeth...

After a long bout of indecision, he finally decided he was going to have to leave the thing behind, which really sucked. There were definitely spiders about. With a huge sigh, Greg set the thing down on the ground, cracked his knuckles, and climbed up the cabin treads of the huge crane. He made his way up them, and got onto the cabin area. The windows were cracked and some of them had broken outright.

Nobody and nothing inside the cabin itself, though. For a moment, Greg had the idea to try and get in there and reposition the crane, but ultimately decided he might just screw himself out of the only method of escape currently available to him. He moved around to the front of the cabin, got onto the crane itself and climbed again.

As he made his way up, Greg realized it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. The crane was at a decent angle, and was designed with natural hand-and-foot holds. He made himself focus on the way ahead.

There were four levels of catwalks, it seemed. The crane's end had managed to smash into the second story. Greg kept going and, before he knew it, he'd reached the top. Carefully, he edged onto the catwalk. It groaned slightly under his weight, making him freeze. After a moment, he decided it appeared stable enough to hold him, at least for now.

He looked around. The catwalk led around the curving wall of the chamber to a ladder that had survived the chaos. That part was easy, at least. He began walking along the platform, moving at a brisk pace, trying to ignore the shifting nature of the metal beneath his feet, the way it groaned and creaked and threatened to collapse.

He reached the ladder without panicking. Greg hurried up it and found himself standing on the third level. Okay...this one would be a little more difficult. The platform he stood on seemed stable enough, so he took a moment to survey the area. No ladders, this time. And there were huge holes in the catwalks, most of them too far to jump. Even if he dared to, they probably wouldn't support such a jump.

As his gaze made a complete circuit of the area, he finally saw one of the platforms had collapsed only partially, creating an impromptu ramp to the fourth story. What was better, behind him, there was only one gap he'd have to jump to get to the ramp. He began moving along the platform, looking down occasionally.

It was hard to believe he'd ascended some thirty or forty feet so far, or maybe higher. He wasn't sure. He came to the gap and hesitated. It was just two feet, maybe two and a half, across. Under normal circumstances, not a problem. Unfortunately, these were anything but. Greg backed up, took a deep breath, and gave himself a running start. He leaped at the last second, sailed through the air and landed with a heavy thud on the other side.

The platform shook violently and groaned in protest against his sudden weight.
This is it
, he thought.
I'm done for.

It held. He laughed nervously and kept moving again, eager to be free of this nightmare. Greg hit the ramp, ascended and came to the final level. He looked around again and saw that the platform ahead of him was broken only in two places, and ultimately led to another intact ladder that led to where the elevator would have taken him, had it worked: another tunnel, high up in the wall, near the ceiling.

“
Yes
,” he whispered, triumph flowed through him.

Too soon, though. The rumbling returned, more powerful than ever. Greg star
ted off, wanting to get to that tunnel before whatever the hell it was that made these miniature earthquakes showed up. By the time he reached the first gap in the metal and jumped over it, he realized that the tremors were only getting worse.

He set off towards the second gap and the ladder, his salvation, when the tremors seemed to reach a climax. They quickly resolved into individual
booms
that he realized were footfalls.

What
was
it? What haunted him?

Greg glanced down into the cavern as he caught dark, titanic movement.

He didn't freeze, he didn't gasp, he didn't close his eyes.

He screamed.

It was the scream of pure panic, the scream of a man who had just been given a brief glimpse of hell and assured he would be there soon.

It was a spider. A fucking
enormous
spider. It was easily ten, no twenty, times the size of the things he'd run into so far. It was the size of a
small
fucking
house
.

Greg’s logic fought for control, it wasn't a regular spider. No, this one glistened with technology.

It was another Augmented-Undead hybrid.

Erebus had been busy.

His limbs trembled violently. Muttering quietly to himself, Greg made for the second gap, praying to any god that might be listening and willing to lend a hand that the giant spider wouldn't notice him.

It did.

Almost as soon as he got started, it noticed and began climbing the side of the cavern. Greg screamed and ran. He barely remembered to jump in time when he hit the gap. Landing on the other side, he sprinted the last few meters, leaped through the air and landed on the ladder. He scrambled up it as the spider came for him.

The entire area shook, more of the catwalks collapsed down into the cavern. Greg made it up the ladder in record time. He stood in the mouth of the tunnel, mercifully small enough that the spider wouldn't be able to fit into it.

Or could it? He'd seen spiders fit themselves into ridiculous spaces.

It didn't matter.

It was here.

Greg sprinted down the tunnel. One enormous, metal-studded leg came down the tunnel after him. Greg let out a small scream as he looked back and ran faster than he even thought possible.

There was nothing in his head, just the animal need of survival. Something
thudded
behind him. He turned. The leg had reached as far as it was able. A frustrated, furious roar sounded. It was so loud Greg thought he would go deaf.

The leg retreated.

Greg kept running, unable to stop.

Chapter 11

–
The Terror
–

By the time Greg managed to make himself stop running, he was gasping for breath. For what seemed like eternity he'd seen nothing but a pale light and rocky walls. He couldn't stop hearing the sound of the titanic spider coming for him. What made him stop was a break in the tunnel, no longer was it just the curving rock walls ahead of him. There was an opening, an end to the tunnel, and a brighter light streaming in through it.

Greg took a deep breath, held it and then let it out slowly, trying to calm himself. He shook with adrenaline and exhaustion now. He wanted to sleep for a decade. Forcing himself to focus, Greg took in his surroundings as he came to the end of the tunnel. There was a natural opening, ringed by a metal support structure that gleamed a dull silver in the light. Immediately, he realized he'd come to some kind of vehicle repair bay.

The area was huge, the walls, floor, and ceiling retained its natural rock makeup, but there were more signs of civilization here. Besides the huge pieces of machinery, equipment, and vehicles, there were support struts built into the walls and a handful of small buildings clustered to the far right
side of the cavern.

He couldn't hear anything, couldn't smell any more undeath than usual, so Greg set off for the shacks. His weapon was gone, he'd be screwed if he ran into anything hostile. And that fucking
giant spider...

There were three shacks, lined up next to each other in a row. They were all relatively intact, raised slightly off the ground, complete with a short set of stairs, doors, and windows. The first one he tried was a storage room, crammed full of crates. Moving on, Greg opened up the second one, and nearly wept in joy.

A security center. Gun lockers. There were three of them at the back of the room, all were open. Greg's hopes fell as he crossed the room. The light was bad, one of the light-strips was out, the other hung at an awkward angle and flickered, giving the room an ominous, tense feel of subliminal dread.

He let himself feel hope again as he spied something dark and roughly gun-shaped in the bottom of one of the lockers. Something made a noise, out in the main bay, beyond the shack. Greg hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. He'd closed the door behind him, but the window was broken out. He could see nothing.

He returned his attention to the locker, crossed the distance between them and reached down. His fingers wrapped around the grip of a pistol.

“
Thank
god
,” he whispered.

Greg ejected the magazine, found it full and slipped it back in. There was also a holster hanging from a rack within the locker. He didn't plan on putting away his pistol, as it looked like it was the only weapon he was getting, but he'd still have his bolt gun if he'd only had something to hold it beside his hands, so he attached it to his belt.

After making sure the safety was off, Greg reluctantly holstered the pistol and then spent the next few moments searching the area, only managing to turn up another pair of magazines. He pocketed them both and pulled the pistol back out, feeling safer with it in hand. He turned his attention to the bank of monitors taking up most of the far wall. They didn't have much to show, as most of them were dead or stricken with static.

He stared at the few that remained live. They showed little more than lonely tunnels and empty caverns. Greg stayed and watched it for a few moments, hoping to catch a glimpse of the enormous metal-studded spider from afar, but the scenes remained unchanged. Sighing, he turned away from the screens.

Something shifted out in the repair bay beyond the glass-ringed window frame. Greg felt a surge of adrenaline shoot into his nervous system. He tried to figure out what it might have been, but it was nothing more than a distant shadow. It was probably a fucking spider, though. Greg moved out of the security center and on to the next shack. This one held an infirmary. His spirits lifted as he looked around the clean, white interior.

“
Hell yes,” he whispered, closing the door behind him.

Some of his wounds had re-opened during all the chaos and he'd managed to gather up a few more since leaving the isolated break room. He locked the door and stripped off his
suit and uniform. Cracking open his medical case, he cleaned and bandage the new wounds, and re-bandaged the old ones.

After a moment's consideration, he decided against injecting himself with more stimulants. He was tired, exhausted even, but he was still mentally alert. After gathering up the medical kit and restoring it with supplies taken from the infirmary, Greg pulled his uniform
and suit back on. When he stepped out of the infirmary, he felt refreshed.

Still tired, still hungry, still hurting.

But better, at least.

Greg hunted through the repair bay, moving along the derelict vehicles. It felt like moving through a graveyard for giant metal bugs. Distantly, he thought he could hear more rumbling, tremors rippling through the rock, but it might have been his imagination. The giant spider had scared him on a deep level.

A terminal waited for him against a far wall amidst a sea of tools, crates, and tables. He booted it up and was happy to discover this one had above emergency power and could give him a more detailed map of the area. He saw that he was in another mining chamber beneath the makeshift headquarters on the surface.

He mapped out the route he needed to take. There were a few tunnels connecting between larger bays and caverns. Beyond the repair bay was a storage bay and if he took the most direct route, it would bring him up to a 'command center', as it was labeled on the map, which he should theoretically be able to get up and out of here.

Greg took one more look around the repair bay, hunting for signs of life, but he saw nothing, except for the shadows, which seemed to move when he wasn't looking at them. He kept his pistol out, made sure again that the safety was off and headed for the main tunnel that would take him directly up to the command center.

Moving at a brisk pace, Greg traversed the tunnel. He found himself thinking of what might happen if he survived
this mess. The galaxy was a brand new place to him. He remembered and knew nothing about it. How many amazing planets were there out there? How many cities and stations and Cyr ruins?

Even if he made it out of this nightmare alive...Dark Ops would still be on his ass. Lynch's plan of getting the dirt of the shady government agency sounded nice on the surface, and he still had his
and Thompson's copies of the data in his pocket, (they and the suit were remarkably resilient), but would the dirt be enough?

Dark Ops was powerful. Very obviously so. How far was their reach? They seemed like the kind of people who could make you disappear, utterly and without question. And how could you possibly be protected from a government agency, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing? Who would protect you? Threatening to go to the media and the general populace was a temporary tactic at best. In the end, Dark Ops would get them.

But actually going through with it was just as bad, if not worse, because then Dark Ops would sure as hell come for them.

So, what to do?

Greg wasn't sure. He didn't want to live life on the run, but what choice did he have? He supposed it didn't really matter right now, since he wouldn't be doing
any
living if he didn't somehow make it out of this system.

The tunnel's end came into sight. Relief flooded through Greg. He was close, so very close to escape. There was an elevator in the command center. It would bring him up to the tunnels that ran just beneath the surface. Hopefully, it was in working order, because if it wasn't, he wasn't sure how the hell he was going to get out of here.

Greg came to the end of the tunnel. He looked around what the computer referred to as the command center. It didn't seem like much of one, although it was the most furnished area so far. There was an actual floor, mostly consisting of plate metal, and rooms had been built along the left and right hand sides of the area.

His attention focused on the lift. It was located at the far wall, built inside a shaft that was cut directly into the rock. As he headed for it, Greg heard a sharp skittering sound. He spun to his left and spied a trio of spiders scurrying towards him. He let out a small cry of surprise and fear, dropped to one knee, brought up the pistol and took aim. He managed to drop the first one with a single shot through the face.

As they drew closer, he punched a trio of holes through the second one. It collapsed. The third was quicker, more dexterous. It leaped through the air at him. Greg dropped, watching it sail over him. He scrambled to his feet, wheeled on the blackened thing, preparing for another go.

He put four shots into it and released the breath he'd been holding. Looking around, Greg saw that he was alone again. Good. He set off towards the lift. His footsteps echoed ominously across the cavern, loud and lonely.

The first thing that tipped him off to the notion that something was wrong was the fact that the terminal next to the elevator was dark and dead. Picking up the pace, Greg was crestfallen as he came to stand before the lift, finding it lifeless and inert. The lift was in its nest at the bottom of the shaft, it just wasn't going anywhere.

“
Fuck
!” Greg shrieked.

As the echoes of that single word faded away, Greg was shocked by the sudden outburst. He didn't feel all that angry, that stressed out. He'd nearly lost his shit for a second there, realizing that he was
that
close to emptying his pistol into the console. His hands shook. Greg let out an uneasy, shuddering laugh and tried to relax.

Maybe he was more stressed out than he realized. Calming himself, Greg studied the lift, the terminal, the area around it. Finally, his eyes caught on something: a thick, black power cable, running from the terminal to a narrow rock tunnel nearby. Okay, okay...he'd done this before, he could do it again.

Greg began following the cable, peering long into the tunnel, which had no light of its own. He sighed and licked his lips nervously. Once more into the dark, it seemed. This time, however, he at least had a flashlight. He flicked on the muzzle-mounted light and pointed the pale beam into the tunnel. It didn't look much more inviting.

At least there was nothing moving. He set off down the tunnel, moving at a slow, easy pace, studying the cable. After a moment, he felt extremely grateful for that, otherwise he wouldn't have noticed the gash in the cable. Greg stopped and studied it. After a moment, he decided he would have to find a way to fix this.

He kept going, following the cable to its end, finding a few other gashes. Finally, he found another generator room. The generator itself had power, it just wasn't going anywhere. After a few moments, he managed to find a repair kit. He was nearly out of the room when he remembered he should probably kill the power, or it might kill him. Returning to the room, he shut down the generator, once more plunged into darkness.

Moving swiftly, he returned to the first of three gashes he had seen and cracked open the repair kit. Powell had done this enough times in front of him that Greg felt he at least had some semblance of an idea of what to do. The procedure was simple. He pulled out a thick patch meant for such a job, pulled the front half off so that the adhesive side was exposed and slapped it over the gash. Then he smoothed it out.

It looked good, he decided after inspecting it in the pale flashlight beam for a moment. Not a long-term solution, but it would hold for now. He hurried down the tunnel and repeated the procedure twice. After snapping close the kit, Greg returned to the generator room and fired it up. This time, light filled the tunnel.

He let out a sigh of relief and made his way back to the central chamber. The coast was still clear and, better yet, the terminal was lit up. Greg hurried over to the lift. He was almost home free. Slipping in, he stared happily at the lit control panel and pressed the up button. With a grinding noise and a jolt, the lift sprang to life.

Greg laughed as the tension flowed out of him. He was out of here. He could get back up to the surface and back to business.

A tremor tore through the area.

Raw terror seized Greg.

More tremors came, powerful and awful, knocking over huge pieces of machinery and causing large chunks of rock to collapse from the ceiling.

“No...” Greg moaned.

From the largest tunnel came the titanic, Augmented spider, squeezing itself into the main chamber. It spied Greg with its cluster of neon-lit eyes and let out a horrible shriek of triumph. Then it started across the chamber.

Greg stabbed at the up button in vain, willing the lift to go faster. It remained on course at a steady, intolerable pace.

The spider reached the wall and climbed up with absurd ease. Greg looked down at the pistol in his hand, he looked at the spider coming for him. A plan flashed through his mind. He hastily reloaded, he'd want a full magazine for this. The spider was nearly upon him. Greg prepared himself for death, but hoped for life.

The spider's main body came into view. It had oriented itself so that its legs were on either side of the lift and its head and body were directly in front of him. The thing bore down on him with all the reality of a demon let loose from Hell. Neon eyes glared at him. Greg raised the pistol, took aim. He held his breath.