Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029 (18 page)

  "So, what's the plan, hero?" Kane pried, with what would have passed for sarcasm if he hadn't been so serious. 

  "Is that the recycler?" Thorn asked the old man, referring to the loud mechanical hum that filled the air ahead of them; expecting that the General would recognize sound.

  "Could be," he paused in response, "I have no reason to come down here where the staff does their dirty work," he blurted.  Thorn rolled his eyes to Kane's obvious insult of the shelter residents, as if they were merely serfs to the Emperor of Fallhaven.  The two men reached the landing; it opened to a deep chamber of tightly knit pipes and vents.  Stretched along either wall was a metal grill of floor plates, which hovered above a mass of conduit that filled a wide canal.  Here and there, a tangle of pipes wove up from the central canal to their mated sockets in the ducts high overhead. 

  Thorn though he saw something move among the layers of pipes at the far end of the chamber, and motioned for Kane to keep quiet as he ducked down next to the recycler.  The processor was a massive mulching machine.  It appeared to be an enormous rolling pin armed with layers of teeth married to a similar smaller cylinder.  Anything going into it; was guaranteed not to come out in one piece.  The deadly machine was mottled with streaks of rust and swathed with blotted stains from its years of overuse; it was truly a haunting monstrosity of marred and blemished steel.

  An inhuman grunt spurred the men to take cover as they wondered just how they were going to taunt the creature into the crusher.  Recalling that this lumbering beast had been biologically engineered, Thorn began to wonder if there was a remote chance that the creature might be more intelligent than everyone had presumed.  Normally, contaminated individuals had varying degrees of reaction to the virus, though it was usually the astute ones that ended up being the most dangerous and unpredictable.  Some weepers lost all their sensibilities and incapacitated to even turn a simple doorknob.  In most cases, it was usually that short period between initial infection and full turn of the illness that they were the most erratic.

  Thorn chewed on the thought that this oversized mutant might not be as mentally disabled like most weepers tended to be, then they were certainly in for a world of hurt.  They had managed to lure it down to the bottom level through trickery of the speaker system and its attraction to forms of noise; but after getting a glimpse of the true size and weight of this behemoth, Thorn realized that their plan was probably futile.   There was no way they could physically knock it from the platform into the teeth of the recycler; and since the doors to the processor room had been mangled, there was no way to imprison it down here.   They had had to figure some other way to put this thing down.

  "There's a ramp lever on the far side that lowers the rail," Kane whispered to his captor, while pointing at the inset panel to their far right where there was a spacious nook in the block wall, "one of us needs to engage it." 

  Thorn considered Kane's plan for a brief moment, figuring the kinetics were in favor of getting the beast to fall into the loading belt rather than getting it to flip over the safety rail.

  "I'll trigger it; you stay here and keep it in sight," the General suggested.  With a note of hesitation, Thorn let Kane call the shots, since the control board he was pointing to looked more complicated than just a simple switch.  Nodding towards the old man, he signaled him to make his move towards the wall as they crouched below the level of the rail while the creature lurched around the maze of pipes at the far end of the room, grunting in anger over the loud hum of the spinning grinder.

  The giant beast heaved itself onto the center walkway and began making its way towards their position.  Thorn motioned Kane to hurry while he kept his eyes on the approaching monstrosity.  It then occurred to him that something was amiss, regarding what advice the General had so casually mentioned just moments before.  If he had never been down here before, how would Kane know that there was a lever that activated the guardrail in that niche?  Glancing back towards the panel, he saw Kane slip in the alcove and disappear like a proverbial snake in the grass.  Rushing over to the nook, Thorn just caught the panel door closing from a secret door beyond.

  "Bastard!" Thorn blurted as he hit the panel with the butt of his gun in aggravation, regretting his lack of judgment for having trusted Kane in that idle moment.  Thorn shortly came to realize the level of that mistake, as his errant clamor caught the attention of their unwelcome guest lumbering towards him.  The beast pushed its way through the bent pipes that groaned and hissed in its wake, its loud footsteps coming closer to where he hid in the recess.

  Beyond the false door, Kane made his way to the secondary reserve control room that had been his destination the entire time, and entered the security passcode while Thorn had been distracted by the creature.  With a smug grin he plopped into the console chair in the shelter's backup control room, and flipped the power on, bringing up the security cameras in the recycler room outside.  Kane switched on the intercom as the monster heaved its way towards Thorn, who was now trapped in the small alcove on the other side of the door. 

  "I suggest that you release your weapon to my cohort, young man," Kane stated with a grim stare to Haiti over the camera that he brought up on his monitor, which was now connected to the main control room where Beatrice was being held.  Haiti looked a bit shocked for a brief moment, as they were both viewing the same feed from the Recycle chamber where Thorn was but a moment away from imminent death.

  At that point, a shrill tone pierced the air over the line and the enraged beast ceased its rampage and slowly turned deliriously docile.  Kane took his hand off the button on his console and the tone ceased as the creature's mood resumed; and it once again began to advance on Thorn who was aiming his stun gun at the creature.   Once again, Kane activated the tone and the mutant went limp; proving beyond all doubt that he had control over the creature's response. 

  "I wouldn't shoot it if I were you," Kane advised Thorn over the PA system, who nervously twitched his gun, "you can't stop it with that, let alone harm it.  You'll only get yourself killed," he stated firmly with his usual arrogant undertone, "That was a modulating resonance you heard, which is digitally encoded to control these engineered mutations.  It only works for a short while, so I suggest that you do as I say," he warned Haiti, who took but a few seconds to release his console over to Betty's control, having disarmed her captor. 

  "I have his weapon now, General.  Are we activating plan B?" Beatrice inquired. 

  "I believe that would be the best option, considering the current circumstances," he pondered with a raised brow, "this isn't the most optimal timing, but we have no other choice.  Go ahead and release the shaft," Kane ordered. 

  Back in the main control room, Haiti sat in the corner as the old woman held the gun on him while activating the console.  It was now clear to the islander that the secret secondary control room Kane was using had been previously erased from the base schematics, which is why they never noticed it before sending his friend down there.

  It would make sense that an astute mind like Kane's would have a contingency plan in place.  He certainly had enough time down here to arrange one, and had pulled it off right under their noses.  Over the com, Kane ordered Thorn to drop his weapon and to move out towards the door, reminding him that Haiti was now their hostage. Not fully realizing where Caitlin was at in the complex, he had assumed she was with the survivors at the evacuation shaft.

  "Wait a minute woman.  Are you tell'in me that you let all those poor people getting killed when you could've stopped that creature at any time you wanted?" Haiti blurted out in a mixture of astonishment and disgust, while Betty waved her gun at him with one hand while busily enacting a backup protocol on the control console.

  "Shut up!" She snapped back while activating commands on the screen, "...And no, we couldn't access our auxiliary control room which overrides of the system; it only works one way," she stated with a hint of guilt, "the mutations were groomed to respond to an embedded signal while in status, which is far above the capacity of normal human hearing.  There was only one such accelerator beacon that we had in stock, so we decided to keep it secured in the spare chamber."

  "Accelerator beacon?" Haiti blurted aloud, "like some sort'a dog whistle to train them?"

  "Yes, something ...something like that," she babbled back in haste, as she activated the surface lift. 

  A grinding deep within the structure could be felt through their feet as the stairways of the main shaft collapsed into the walls and the doors unlocked to the evacuation chamber.  Survivors who had gathered in the main cafeteria rushed towards the opening gates to a circular cell positioned at its center.  The scared and wounded inhabitants of Fallhaven poured into the chamber, carrying what they could; guided by the old automated system that instructed them to keep calm.  Caitlin, however, was not with their group. 

  General Kane was playing a dangerous game, but his plans for Fallhaven had gone awry.  While they were all imprisoned within the bunker, he alone had maintained power and control.  If everyone was duly released to the surface, there was nothing from keeping these discharged citizens from detaching from his command; since he could not possibly have enough loyal guardsmen that could act as a substitute for these thick shelter walls.  Their freedom was not exactly in his best interests. 

  Contemplating that, he made an executive decision and prompted a fallback program set on a timer before exiting the secondary control room, one that was untraceable to the main control chamber where Beatrice was.  He detached the accelerator beacon from the console.  It was a small cylinder with a battery drive which he could hold in one hand; knowing he had only moments to get back outside the vault door.  He could see Thorn waiting for him at the stairwell entrance on the security feed.

  With a new wave of confidence, Kane released the panel hatch and picked up the gun were Thorn had laid it down.  The mutant stirred briefly after the tone had ceased blaring over the intercom, but resumed its tone from the General's hand as he held it aloft like a singing torch towards the monstrosity.  The mutant quaked in response, reacting as if it had been drugged.  Kane kept the pistol pointed at Thorn, while glancing behind him with his beacon held back in the other direction to keep the creature at bay.  It was the briefest of moments that it took Caity to step in from behind Thorn, the sleek centurion rifle in hand, aiming it at Kane, who reacted by wavering his paltry gun at them both.

  "Don't do it," Caitlin warned, the ion blaster warm in her hands, energy pulsing through it barrel.  Kane, though, had no intention of relinquishing himself to his captors again.  He shot a bolt of electricity towards them from the stun pistol, missing as he stumbled on the grating beneath his feet.  In response, Caitlin pulled the trigger on her weapon.

  A blue beam of light lanced out like a glowing string of death, cutting through the rail by his side.  Kane jerked away as the laser grazed the beacon in his hand, sending shards of sparks flying from its battery.  Caitlin was surprised by the sudden weight of the rifle while firing, which had activated an internal gyroscope comprised of spinning magnets, pulling her aim low.  The weapon itself became heavy when fired, which was far from expected. 

  Having nearly been seared in half from the laser; the beacon bounced to the ground and off the grate floor as Kane stumbled back dangerously close to the spinning claws of the recycler while he watched the sonic beacon dance its way into the spinning blades until it was finally crushed between its metal teeth.  The old man caught his wits and stared at the last sparking bits of the beacon mashed within the gears of the machine, realizing all too late what consequence that would spell.  Caitlin and Thorn looked on in dread as a large shadow loomed over Kane from behind as he turned.  The behemoth was a twisted horror of tormented flesh, infused with a vicious alien virus and equally perverse human engineering.  Its touch, its taint, its very presence meant death; and Kane's dulled eyes were aware he had been a party to its creation.

  The hybrid creature snarled, its disfigured eyes devoid of any discernable emotion as Kane raised his gun in pitiful defense only to have his wrist grasped by the creature
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s thick misshapen hand and ripped his arm off at the elbow.  Sinew snapped as strings of flesh resisted.  White glossy bone spattered with blood as the severed arm twitched, firing the pistol repeatedly.  Kane fell back, the grinding teeth of the recycler beckoning to call his fate.  The mutant threw aside the twitching arm as if in disgust and roared at the old man who cringed beneath its glare. 

  A thin shaft of blue sunlight bit through the air and sheared through its chest, causing it to stagger as if experiencing pain for the first time and wondering what it was.  With pleading eyes, Kane turned towards the two companions, while Thorn bolted forward and grabbed him up.  The three of them rushed up the stairwell as the creature howled from below.  

  "We must hurry," Kane whispered feebly from the loss of blood as Thorn took a stark moment to bind the stump with a strip of cloth.  Not sure if the creature was merely angry or mortally wounded, they heeded Kane's advice and made their way towards the evacuation chamber on the level above with the rest of the evacuees.

  Through the blood-spattered halls, it became ever clear that those injured and wounded by the mutant's attack had begun to turn, which was an infection rate far accelerated that either of them had ever witnessed.  Those few maimed citizens who hadn't been initially killed in the rampage, began to snarl like animals as their red eyes welled with blood.  Dragging along the impaired General between them, they had finally reached the cafeteria only to find its disheveled remnants entirely empty, all the Fallhaven citizens had already made their way to the escape lift.  A communications terminal on the wall suddenly blipped on with Beatrice looking quite pale as she saw Kane drenched in his own blood.  She put down the gun she held on Haiti, and her demeanor changed to submission.