Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029 (11 page)

  "Warning," the female voice cautioned, "do not attempt to exit the perimeter until your medical scan has been sanctioned.  Failure to abide by these rules will result in sterilization," their computerized host instructed. 

  At this Thorn looked a little worried as both orbs centered their pinpoint jade lights glowing upon his chest.  From each of the orbs the sleek round barrel of a phase weapon deployed.  It was a commonly known military type weapon that burned through things, armor, buildings, people; literally making a hole through them.  All of us froze in place.  Thorn glanced over to me with a worried look washing across his face, not knowing what to do.

  "Something broke, the scan did not complete!" I screamed out at the computer that controlled the security defenses.  Truly, I didn't know if the damn equipment had kicked out because it couldn't detect an ID chip or had merely short circuited; either way, I couldn't just stand there and watch him get fried.  Regardless, Haiti and I were next in line for the cooking if those security spheres when haywire.  Considering the speed at which they moved, I had no doubt that we would all be cut down before we could make past a few feet to the stairwell.  I thought maybe I could unstrap my rifle, wishing I hadn't slung it over my shoulders during the steep walk down the stairs, but I didn't want to make a foolish move and trip a hostile response from the sentries that would only serve to get us killed.

  "There has been a system malfunction, please stand in single file while the probe reboots, then present your ID signature to the sentry for verification and advance to the blue light," the speaker repeated.  Luckily, as the nozzle flashed to reboot, so did the security spheres, which shut down and retracted back into their cubbyholes in the ceiling.  This pause of relief only lasted a moment as the sentries once again began to reactivate. 

  We didn't stall for a precious moment and jumped for the stairs, only to watch a thick steel grill suddenly slide into place over the exit, blocking our way to the ascending stairwell during the reboot cycle; designed to keep things in or out during the process.  Either way, we were screwed.

  "Hey!  Look over there," Haiti shouted, pointing to a corner of the chamber where a large duct panel had been removed.  A tool of some sort lay next to the grill that had been leaned by its side.  In haste, we scrambled for the only egress as the pair of orbs began to drop, their camera eyes whirring as they initiated their focus onto us once again. 

  Haiti made it through the opening first, as did I while Thorn followed in turn.  I snatched up the strange gadget lying on the floor as we shoved our way into the hole and stuffed it in my pocket. 

  The metal lined tunnel itself was cramped as we crawled our way in to what appeared to be a ventilation shaft.  The duct was fairly clean considering its age and thought I could smell the faint linger of ozone from an ionic filter as we hit a stream of cold air that blew through an adjacent shaft. 

  "Where the fuck does this go, man?" Haiti asked, his whisper echoing down the tight tunnel of gleaming metal. 

  "Anything is better than going back there, pal," Thorn replied, as he wiped away the nervous sweat from his brow.

  "Shhh, you guys," I rose my hand to hush them while holding up my light to see where we were going, "do you hear that?"

  We all fell silent for a brief moment while we detected something rustling in the far distance down the shaft, but just not able to quite make out what the sound was.

  "Ah, that's just the air blowing," Haiti was quick to respond.

"No, no, listen; you hear something?" I inquired again, trying to motion him to be silent, but he kept shuffling around, as did Thorn.  It was aggravating. I was sure I heard something faintly familiar, but they were right about the damn air and it echoing through the vent made everything more or less indiscernible.  Advancing our way further through the pipes, a while later the shaft opened up into a fair sized room.  It was still not quite big enough to stand in, but sufficient for us to stretch our feet and aching backs from all the crawling we had done.  Arguably, we desperately needed the break. 

  Above us, a circular vent sucked air into a vertical shaft that disappeared into the cool darkness; while at our feet a wide tilt in the shaft led us even deeper.  The way above didn't appear to have any hand holds, and not even Haiti wanted to take the chance of trying to jam the vent fan with his machete and chance having its blade snap off and come spinning back at us.  With little debate, we chose the slide downward; it was either that or face an ominous 'sterilization'.

  We slid in one at a time, with Thorn taking the lead.  He used his boots to try and slow his decent by bracing them against opposite walls, but even that tactic had little effect and the slippery metal skin eventually won the battle over his lack of traction halfway down the chute.  We heard an awkward 'thump' and a moment of silence until he called up to us that it was safe to come down.  Haiti went second, and since I was the most chicken, I went last.

  The bottom of the vent emptied onto a rounded mesh platform that ran the length of an interior circular wall.  Thorn warned us to spread far apart and distribute our weight evenly upon it as he cautiously shined his light in beyond the breach of the barricade.  Haiti and I both gasped as we realized just how deep the chamber below us actually was as our voices echoed off into the enormous pit below.  If the bolts that secured the thin fence to the wall might snap or gave way beneath our feet, we would have long fall down into the dark abyss.

  All we could do was scramble on all fours and make our way to the far side, hoping there was another way out of here.  I had always had a fear of heights, and this situation made me nervous to the pit of my stomach.  Even in the cool flow of air I noticed beads of sweat trickling on my neck and dripping from my chin through the thin metal grate.  Apparently, the slim fence was meant as a debris trap and was never intended to bear the weight of a person. 

  Haiti froze for tense second as a bearing snapped loose beside him and a section of the grate went tumbling end over end as it clattered to the bottom of the enormous shaft.  He laid there stiff as a board in terror as his entire right side hovered over empty space, his eyes slowly turning towards where I had grabbed him by his shirt to keep him from falling.

  "Shitzzz!" Haiti muttered as he took a slow moment to compose himself and slid slowly back onto the supported section, "Thanks..." was all he could muster to say in a low humbled voice, his eyes shifting to me in a mere moment of gratitude.  I could almost hear his heart racing as he edged up ahead towards the relative safety of the wall.  Edging our way across the chamber we found a thin slit built into the cement shaft designating itself as our only option of escape from this witless predicament. 

  The opening was so small that we had to carefully unstrap our gear just to wedge ourselves inside, which was a difficult maneuver considering we had no room to even sit up.  We had to inch our way along on our bellies within the cement shaft until we were sore and exhausted.  It was then we finally noticed we were lying on a panel of smooth metal, which unfortunately had come to an abrupt end.  The air here had a certain pleasant taint to it I didn't readily recognize, yet something old and strangely familiar.  I had some rope in my pack, but it certainly was not long enough to get us down to the bottom of the colossal shaft from this height, let alone would any of us trust tying the end to the thin hanging grate for an anchor.  We were stuck, and there was nowhere else to go.

  "This doesn't make sense," Thorn began to whine with a degree of aggravation while stating the obvious, "why the hell would this slot be built intooooo...." he mumbled aloud; never finishing his sentence as we all went tumbling downward when the metal panel flue beneath us suddenly tilted on its axis secured on the walls at either side.

  It really wasn't a pleasant experience being wedged together by the force of gravity while a gust of thick air suddenly roared through the vent below us.  All three of us were a jumble of limbs and backpacks and gear and guns as we cried out in agony at every jolt on the way down.  I saw a bright silver grate rimmed with light rush up to greet us from below, and just as suddenly shattering into pieces beneath our combined weight when we smashed through it.  This unpleasant joyride was accompanied by a flash of blinding light and a loud crash as our sore bodies came to rest; and we laid there with the wind knocked out of us.  It took a dragging moment to gather our bearings while all three of us were moaning in pain, until we realized one by one that we were no longer alone. 

  Dazed, I looked at the cold white gunk covering my hands, thinking I was somehow grotesquely injured, only to realize it appeared strangely like a crème filled bagel.  Without even thinking, I gave it a lick to see if it was real.  Haiti himself was headlong in a tray of biscuits with a dozen or so little sausages on toothpicks stuck throughout his dreads.  In a nervous jitter, Thorn sat up and hastily brushed off tiny crab cakes covering chest almost as he imagined they were enormous bugs for a brief moment while in stunned disorientation. 

  In that second, it struck me that was the familiar scent of baked food I had smelled before, wafting its way up the exhaust vent of the air circulation system.  It all made sense now; well, except for the dozens of people staring at us around the large room in utter silence with their mouths agape.

  I couldn't think of anything to say in our defense for crashing their party, so I just gave a short wave and said 'Hello' in an tone of embarrassment as chunks of whipped crème flopped off my hand and into my lap.  Several men in grey vestments rushed forward as a taller man with sandy grey hair nudged his way through the crowd before us.  The wrinkles on his face didn't detract from the stone-like glare beneath his dark eyes.  He wore an audaciously decorated white coat covered with a ludicrous amount of medals, making it look like it came from a costume shop more so than anything formally military. 

  "I believe you three weren't invited," he declared in a staunched tone with a heavy hint of accusation seeping into his words, and then promptly motioned to the guards in grey to cart us away to the murmur of the crowd around us. As we were hauled away by force, Thorn attempted a brief struggle, only to get himself zapped with a stun baton as a reward for his defiance.  We were dragged out of a large hall that had been decorated into a hack attempt to resemble a ballroom, with each of the patrons present dressed in quite lavish if not entirely ridiculous garb.  Many of the onlookers peered over one others shoulders just to get a look at us while they stared in disbelief.  One thing was for sure; this was certainly a different world than the one we had left above.

  I was hastily dumped into a small room as the door locked behind me, without a clue as to what had happened to Thorn or Haiti.  Still in a state of confusion, I didn't have to wait very long until a older lady with wispy white hair stepped through my door with a cloth in her hands.  She gave me a quick look up and down and handed me the towel.

  "Here you go, dear.  Clean yourself up," she said kindly, "that was a rough spill you took there.  Are you alright; nothing broken?" 

  "Sorry about ...all that," I hesitated in reply, "we had no idea were we were or that anyone was down here," I mumbled as my shaken excuse while I checked my bruises from the fall.  Lucky for us they weren't serving shish kabobs and hot oil fondue on that banquet table we had fallen onto. 

  "You will have to forgive the General, he is a bit eccentric and a little overzealous at times, considering we haven't had guests in a such a long while," she offered as an apology, "the guards didn't rough you up too much I hope?"

  "No, I'm fine, Ma'am." I muttered politely.

  "Ma'am?  Oh, my, you are the proper one," the old lady smiled, "you can call me Beatrice, dear," she offered as she led me by the shoulder over to a seat in an adjacent room after waving her hand over a sensor board on the wall.  The chamber beyond was lavish to say the least.  Old style wood furniture decorated the area along with plush deep red velvet cushions.  It was quite old fashioned, much like my host whose hair was neatly tied up into a bun.

  "I was wondering about my friends..." I began to ask, but Beatrice quickly cut me off.

  "They will be fine dear.  The men were taken to a different section of the facility," she stated shortly, "but luckily for you, Kane left you in my company."

  "Kane?" I inquired in my confusion to her reference.

  "Oh, yes, General Kane; but he prefers his military title above personal mentions," she grinned as walked over and poured a hot cup of liquid from a dispenser set in the wall, giving it to me as she took a plate of breaded cookies from a shelf next to it.  The aroma wafting from the steam was fantastic, finally recognizing the almost forgotten scent of orange tea.  My mouth watered, I hadn't had hot tea in as long as ...well, as long as I could remember.  I politely took a few of the spiced breads offered, trying not too appear too much like a ravenous animal while I devoured them in short order.  Beatrice just sat there and looked at me for a few silent moments with what appeared as a measure of sympathy in her eyes.

  "What is this place?" I finally had the gumption to ask as I wiped the crumbs from the corner of my mouth.

  "You mean this facility?" she raised her hands and gestured over to a framed poster on the wall that had been used as an advertisement of some sort in the distant past, "It is, well, it was a fallout shelter of sorts; known as Fallhaven, but we just call 'Haven' for short," she answered while a notable darker look in her aging eyes flashed over her face for a brief second as she turned back to me, "And where do you come from, dear...?" she inquired, as to my own name.