Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029 (10 page)

  "Holy demon shit," Haiti blurted, "would ya' look at this, man," as he gawked at the indoor jungle around us; though he still took a moment to give a concerned glance back towards the mutant horde rattling the doors from down the hall.

  "I wouldn't worry too much, I bet they avoid this place ...the UV lights hurts their eyes," I mentioned to them both, though, I was not so foolish as not to help our ethnic friend to seal the thick sliding glass doors behind us.  In all aspects, this place was clear of the feces and filth strewn around the weepers den.  The infected shunned this section because of the pain ultraviolet light caused their altered eyes, which was a detrimental side effect of the disease.  We gently brushed the plants out of the way with due reverence as we made our way through the garden, amazed by the stark clash of such exotic species of blooming flora existing so close to the putrid horde of weepers; literally just rooms apart.

  For but a brief moment we all forgot where we were, our eyes wide open in awe as we looked up to see tiny lights drift in the mist between the towering plants and vines.  It was like something out of a fairy tale; and we stood mesmerized by the delicate fireflies drifting in the light breeze from a mechanical fan centered on the dome. 

  "Bioluminescent insects.  Most interesting, I wonder how they got down here?" Thorn inquired, as if grasping an afterthought. 

  Personally, I was captivated, finding this little oasis so deep underground.  It made me even more curious as to where we were and what exactly this facility was supposed to be.  Logically, of course, there was the large fan above, drumming along without pause; using this botanical garden as a source of oxygen to recycle through the facility.  That and the fact there was still electrical power; either somehow connected to those hydrogen generators or possibly combined with an array of active solar panels somewhere topside.

  Before the world turned upside down, I had given some study into greenhouse domes for use on interstellar exploration.  I was one of those nerdy kids who grew up wanting to be a space explorer.  I even put in an application with the space agency for the international manned mission to Mars planned in 2030, which of course got a proverbial boot in the ass just a year too late.  So much for my starry-eyed dreams of being an astronaut.  I had still learned something about indoor solariums and CO² recycling needed for a sealed environment; and this fit the bill perfectly.  Somewhere connected to the ventilation system there was a carbon scrubber, a type of molecular sieve to remove the excess waste gas in this enclosed habitat. 

  Unless there was an automated well, that meant that all of this water had been recycled too. It was too bad this place was infested with the carriers of the virus, otherwise if would have perfect place to call home through the winter, or longer.  The artificial UV light help shed the gloom of being buried underground, I almost didn't want to leave the atrium.

  "Aye, look what we got'z here, man!" Haiti burst out loud from farther down the room through the jungle of brush.  Thorn and I caught up with him as he climbed down off a stainless steel table with a handful of oversized bananas; looking quite happy with himself.  We were astounded as we turned to find oranges and apples; heaps of what appeared to be cherries and plums, their bright colors popping through the foliage.  I was almost as glossy eyed as the men who were picking at the fruit, but it didn't take me but a moment to realize there was something odd and out of place.  Haiti looked at me in astonishment when I slapped the banana he had just peeled out of his hand before he took a bite.

  "Aww, what the shit, woman?" Haiti whined, sounding more than a bit peeved by my personal assault than to his growling stomach.  I also stopped Thorn's hand before he took a chunk out of a plum.  He just gave me a look of annoyance until he saw what I was pointing at on the floor.

  What had struck me as strange was that for this much fruit to be growing here that it would have had to have gone through several cycles of decay and pollination, but there was nothing on the ground in the form of compost to suggest that.  I had also noticed unnatural discolorations on the various fruits upon closer inspection.  My suspicions became clearer after examining what Haiti's squashed fruit revealed; as it lay mashed upon the floor at his feet.  A web of stringy blood red tendrils laced the cores of the yellow fruit, which began to bleed where the haft was broken.  Understandably, Haiti was creeped out by this, giving a visual shiver of disgust.

  "That is just wrong!" he ventured to peer at it closer, being careful not to touch the ooze.  It made us wonder to what extent the MN4 pathogen had evolved which could have altered the vegetation and the mutations of the infected we had seen out in the central hall. "Oh no. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong," Haiti repeated again with his offbeat islander accent as he vigorously wiped his hands off on the sides of his pants.  All three of us slipped on our gloves, just as a precaution. 

  The oranges had tiny black spots on their skin, and the apples had a lacing of the same vein like goo around their top stems.  Strangest of all, I found several of the fruits on the various trees were concaved, as if they had buckled into themselves; almost as of they were consumed from within.  As freakish as it was, it appeared as if the fruit spawned, ripened, and after it decayed it was ingested back into the plant from the same stem from which it came; rather than the usual process via the roots.  This was beyond bizarre, it was downright spooky.

  "Well, there goes lunch," Thorn tried to make light of the situation, but Haiti didn't look too amused at the comment.

  "Aye, someone be screw'in with mother nature, man.  It ain't right!" Haiti snapped back.

  "We should check were the ventilation leads," I ventured, "there has to be an exhaust vent to the surface somewhere." 

  Both men agreed with my idea and we headed out the opposite paneled door stationed near an array of active pumps that fed a fine mist of water into the chamber.  Haiti more than ready to get out of there before catching what he amusingly called 'freaky-fruit-itus,' as he so despaired.

  Once we got to the doors, there we found a dull grey and orange sign, the once bright colors long since faded by the exposure to the intense UV lighting.  It listed the emergency pass key for the electronic lock.  Not feeling to confident about the meager barrier we had made with that spare aluminum ladder against the raging horde back in the central mall, we resealed the panel and tripped the lock behind us.  The air here was humid and the round tunnel configured with looping pipes all of which were coated in a thick blackish paint.  A dim blue light lit the way ahead and we noticed a strange aroma of ozone lingering in the air.  At least this area was free of the tell-tale signs of any of the afflicted.

  A vibrant hum of electricity along with a slow steady drumming of pistons echoed down the twisting corridor that soon branched out into several paths.  Color-coded pipes lining the ceiling raced off in different directions of the complex while we argued among ourselves which way we should go.  We figured an engine room was a sure bet, so we followed the cycling clamor until we stumbled into an alcove filled with large metal cylinders.  It took half an hour for us to explore the cold chamber to realize that the array of tubes were feeding liquid nitrogen into sealed cryogenic freezers.

  "You mean there are people inside here?" Thorn inquired while he rapped on one of the large metal barrels with his knuckles.  Its reverberating dull ring failed to satisfy as an answer to his burning curiosity.

  "Likely, or anything else they want to turn into a Popsicle." I responded.  It was one of those popular practices for the uber-wealthy back at the turn of the century, for those people who assumed they were God's gift to a Universe that simply couldn't survive without them and were too arrogant to allow themselves to truly die. 

  It was too bad there weren't any windows installed on the damn things, I wanted to see inside.  Then again, there was the possibility that there were more significant items stored in them, like a selection of plant seeds from across the world to be preserved for future generations, or chromosomes of animals from every imaginable species  ...but most likely they were nothing more than just a bunch of rich-fuck corpse-sicles, which is where I put my best bet.

  We did, however find a console that explained in slight detail the color coding bars across the ceiling that might lead us where we wanted to go.  The Orange color code led from this room all the way back around from where we had emerged from the greenhouse, but the diagram of the White strip was the longest route to the rear of the complex.  It was all very confusing since the chart only showed the pathways but not the exterior walls as a guide to hint how large this facility actually was.  Haiti joked around about pushing a few buttons and turning off a freezer or two, but I advised him that would be unwise, considering we didn't have a clue as to the contents of each pod. 

  "Ah, I iz just playing with you, girl.  No need to get your panties in a twist," he kidded, not realizing I actually preferred not to wear underwear at all; but chose not to correct his attempted jest.

  "It's just a guess, but this section of the structure seems to be all basic power and maintenance.  Communications and living quarters appear to be divided among the other two sections," I pointed out on the pie chart diagram, which was so boringly basic it was pathetic.  "This white bar leads down and over several floors, so it looks like it might take us closer to the communications area on this grid," I offered.

  "Better a guess to go by than nothing," Thorn admitted as he patted me on the back in a friendly way, which I honestly didn't mind his affection.  He wasn't bad looking, but I did giggle to myself for a second when I remembered what Serena had said, about his name being 'Jebediah' or some-such.  He turned to me as I smirked, "What is it?" he asked seriously.

  "Oh, uh, nothing, just a sore throat," I caught myself while grabbing my canteen for a sip and a fake cough.  I kind of liked Thorn, and didn't want him to think I was laughing at him.  From that point, I knew I had to cook up a way to find out what his real name was; at a later time of course.

  We gathered our things and made off back down the hall to follow the white marker that trailed the top of the interlocking corridors; unfortunately none of us had noticed the beading of moisture collecting on one of the specimen pods that Haiti had accidentally disengaged when he was goofing around at the controls just moments before.  Neither did we see the silent pulsing red light switch on the console indicating one of the pods had begun to thaw as we shuffled out the door.

  Following the designated route, we made our way through several sets of connecting hallways that led us deeper into the complex, always checking every turn in case there were more infected in the area.  We came across a few rooms filled with shattered debris, but nothing more so obvious than simply having been looted in haste.  Farther down we found a stairwell that descended around a vertical shaft that we had presumed had held an elevator platform; but there were no call buttons that we could find anywhere among each level as we made our way downward into the abyss.  At the bottom landing the throbbing sound of machinery shook the walls with its faint rhythmic heartbeat.

  The room opened up into an open gallery where we finally found the elevator platform we had suspected the shaft led to.  Understandably, the three of us were a little disgruntled as using the lift would have saved us a lot of time and grief hiking those stairs all the way down here; however, it didn't take us too long thereafter to discover that its controls had been sabotaged.

  "Aye, someone broke the damn lift on purpose, man; what gives?" Haiti blurted with mild annoyance as he pulled out cut wires from the buttons under the panel.  There was no quick way to repair it.  Just as we gathered to look over his shoulder and inspect the damage, two orbs emerged from the ceiling in front of the outline of a huge interlocking metal door.  Each of the orbs had one camera eye which hung by a mechanical arm.  From around us, the same pleasant female voice we heard back in the reception area of the transport came over a hidden speaker within the room.

  "A code white emergency has been initiated.  Please stand in single file and present your ID signature to the sentry for verification then advance to the blue light.  You may only proceed after your medical scan has been sanctioned.  Failure to abide by these rules will result in sterilization," the disembodied voice warned.  Her choice of her words is what got us ruffled.

  "Sterilization...?" I blubbered aloud, not really liking the sound of that.  Haiti too, had wide eyes with sudden worry, and was backing his way towards the stairs.  As he did so, a pair of green aiming lasers from the orbs fixed on him, as if a warning to stop his progress.  Thorn came forward, looking around the floor, hoping to find what the recorded voice had meant by its reference to the blue light.  Startling him for a second, directly from above a silver nozzle ejected from the ceiling and a bluish holographic cone that beamed out directly down onto the floor, creating a cylinder just large enough for a single person to stand in.  He shrugged as he looked at me when one of the orbs lasers moved from Haiti to Thorns chest and down to the center of the blue beam as if to guide him. 

  Thorn carefully stepped forward while the light washed over his body as specs of dust in the air glittering in shades of indigo around him.  Some sort of analysis scan began to flash up and down the hologram exterior until just as suddenly, it sputtered out.  The mechanism lost all power; the nozzle above sparked for a moment in argument then died altogether with a low whine.  Thorn just stood there baffled.  The security orbs, however, were still fully functional.