Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029 (26 page)

  There was a small problem of note.  While hopping across the small grated bridge to the broad sliding doors; as both Roy and Tasha noticed that there were gun turrets embedded in the ceiling to either side of the entry point.  That made us worry; for if we somehow got the power switched on in this section those robotic gun ports would quickly become a serious problem.

  "We should disable them gizmo's while we can," Haiti suggested, and we couldn't fault his logic.

  There were scraps of stone and metallic bars we could jam into the rotational gears to keep the turrets from spinning, but it was Ava who suggested it would be far safer to simply disable them entirely by removing their embedded wiring and visual lenses. 

  Being the smallest of the group, Tasha was the one we slung up by a rope we were able to grapple into the niches along the roof.  They fashioned a pulley made with a few carabiners to hoist her up; while I tried to help Felix and Thorn figure out a way to unlock the door to the blue line.  It was an aggravating search in the dark until we finally stumbled across an lone access panel far around the back side of the hallway that circled the doors.  Betty mentioned that the other locked corridors led to extensive walkways to engineering rooms, but it would be wise not to try to tamper with them and we loathed the idea of making too much noise in these hallways.  Any sound would be amplified and give away our position to any Weepers in the area; also considering that the others were a bit spooked by our stories of the horrifying mutants lurking down these dark halls.

  Both Kel and Ava were helping Tasha with her chore of dismantling the turrets while the other men were keeping watch for trouble.  Betty assisted Thorn and I with opening the access panel that led to a small winding duct beyond.

  "Damn, it's never easy," Thorn sighed, as he and I were a tad too tall to fit into the small vent, but Beatrice was of slight enough stature to give it a try.

  "This looks like it goes into the ventilation and out into the rail line on the other side," she mentioned, "give me your knife and I'll take a look."

  "What do you want my knife for?" Thorn asked while focusing a suspicious glare towards her as he put his guarded hand onto his utility blade.

  "If there's a locked grate on the other end, how do you expect me to pry it open, with my good looks?" Betty snapped back, as we both almost smirked at her wrinkled face. 

  She was worn and tired, and we could tell she was losing her patience at this given moment; but she did have a point.  Going in head first, there would be no way to turn around or attempt to kick open a panel on the opposite end.  With little argument, he handed her his blade and a spare flashlight.  Betty got down on her knees and jimmied her way into the ductwork; she slowly wiggled around a corner until we lost sight of her.  Several minutes passed until we heard her muffled cry that she had found another panel and her weak attempts to get it open. 

  Within the tight vent, Betty had slid her way over to the opposing wall and almost snapped the blade while trying to wrench the locking clip open from the inside.  She finally busted the latch on the panel, which swung open with a creak.  It was dark as death in the tunnel beyond as she crawled out of the duct and back onto her own feet.  The air here was cold and there was a strange stench to it that left her feeling light-headed.   Stumbling backwards over a loose block of concrete, she found herself falling into a pile of splintered muck.

  It took a dizzy moment for her to realize what she was looking at as she held up her hands from the fall; the shredded clothing and broken bones lined with tattered flesh.  Turning her flashlight, she gave a startled scream as the twisted faces of the dead glared at her through rotting sockets.  Dozens of cold grey bodies surrounded her, and for a terrified moment of panic she thought she saw them move.  Having disturbed their embrace, the pile of corpses fell upon her. 

  Grisly arms flopped upon her shoulders and a loose head rolled into her lap as tattered clothing veiled her face.  The old woman jumped in fright to escape their grasp, frantically shining her light around to escape the horror.  It took long moments for her weak heart to settle down from its rapid pulse as she heard Caitlin and Thorn calling at her from the other side of the vent.

  Scanning the area there were corpses everywhere piled up at the end of the tunnel, at their stage of decay it was impossible to tell if they had been survivors or infected.  On a sidetrack sat a rail car in stasis off the lead turnstile.  She found herself on the other side of the broad metal doorway where there stood an identical booth as the one stationed in the main terminal, though this one had a several sets of handles poised within.  With a guess, she gave one a pull.

  At first, nothing happened; just a familiar click of connections meeting without the electrical power.  Looking closer she saw a key slot and fanned the light around until she found one carcass wearing a uniform.  Timidly searching the corpse, she found an access key hanging from its neck.  With a harsh tug, she removed it; then wiping it off on her shirt she placed it in the slot and activated the core.  With a whir the power pulsed on as sparks flew wildly from the bottom of the panel.  Beatrice had an idea to herself while standing there in the cold dark, perceiving an opportunity to take this last railcar to her freedom and leaving her captors far behind.

  For a brief moment, Thorn and I looked at one another with concern as we heard electricity spark through the wires in the hallway beyond the vent met by a sudden yelp from one of the girls around the corner.  Tasha had dropped to the floor with a thud as the turret she was trying to dismantle spun around with its gun ports open as an automated female voice came over the terminal speakers.

  "This is a restricted area, please present your identification badge for scanning," it repeated in a loop as its turret gears were jammed with its own wire sockets Tasha had just yanked out moments before.  It was lucky that she had done so, as the obstinate machine began to fire its pulse laser after the time elapsed.  Since the turret box was jammed facing one direction, it was unable to deploy the sensor device locked within its housing; regardless of the fact that nobody actually had an ID badge to begin with.  Firing half cocked, the three girls dove for cover as the broken turret began to spray laser fire over their heads while the motorized housing fought the blocked mechanism; until its gears finally locked up and it misfired once within its own shell, whereupon the entire unit exploded in a ball of flame.

  Shrapnel shot through the air as the turret cup bounced to the ground with a clatter.  Kel could be heard cursing as she gripped her bleeding calf from a scrap of metal which had torn through her leg from the blast.  A puff of black smoke issuing from the dead turret now clung to the ceiling like an ominous cloud.  Ava looked just as rattled as Thorn and I turned the corner.  Fortunately, the rest of the crew had been scrounging through the other half of the station landing for another access point during this mishap. 

  We all glanced at one another with apprehension when we heard the rail train on the other side of the thick door hum to life and start off down the tracks in the adjacent tunnel.  Instead of finding a manual handle for the door, apparently that bitch, Beatrice, decided to take off on her own.  Thorn and I felt a twinge of remorse on that ill decision to trust the old hag.

  "What da hell was that all about?" Haiti jibed with his usual accent, just as a familiar female voice chimed to life from the speaker overhead.

  "Redundant security protocol initiated," she whispered calmly, "Back-up ordinance is now online." With that brief notice, the secondary robotic turret dropped down and a single red eye deployed from it and cycled opened while it turned its attention towards the stunned group of friends.

  "This is a restricted area, please present your identification badge for ...krrt!" it began to order as everyone took the first two seconds it was busy blabbering orders by drawing their own firearms and putting several dozen rounds into its exposed wiring harness before the security system could finish issuing its warning.

  We all waited a few seconds in silence to our complete satisfaction that the turret was dead, until everyone lowered their smoking weapons.

  "Where is the old woman?" Roy asked as all gazes fell upon me.  I flashed a pathetic glance to Thorn who gave a nod towards the metal door.

  "I knew we couldn't trust that withering cunt," Serena spat, while we heard the railcar disappear down the tunnel.  Roy stomped back over to the central security booth and threw the switch within.  We all just about jumped out of our pants when a tiny hidden third turret dropped from the ceiling between the pair of crippled security guns.  We lowered our twitching firearms when it just turned out to be a rotating strobe light.

  With the power activated, the sealed panels took several moments to cycle as locking clamps disengaged and the doorway slid open.  Beyond was a single tunnel; a small booth could be seen hugging the wall to our right and a large pile of decaying bodies heaped in the far corner by a small open vent.  Many of the overhead lights were still in working order and lit up into the far distance until they blurred out of sight down the tunnel.  There was something unsaid that was eating away at us this the moment, considering the ruckus we had just made blowing up those turrets and activating the door siren.  If there were any nests of infected within earshot, they would certainly be heading our way.

  "Well, it looks like we're walking," Roy moaned, as we headed off down the rail shaft at a quickened pace. 

  It took but a moment to bandage Kel's leg, but the wound slowed her down noticeably.  That pile of bodies at the end of the tunnel worried me, not knowing if they had already been dead and dumped there like so much trash, or if they had been survivors who had tried to escape and left trapped and abandoned.  The truth was, a whole lot of shit had gone down in past several years that would never be answered, nor would anyone be held accountable for.  It made me worry about what direction the human race was going.  Would we rebuild a better world, or just end up repeating the same mistakes all over again that led us to where we were now? 

  It was a damn long walk down that musty tunnel as our boots kicked up dust and our broken stride echoed off the walls.  We kept our pace up and an ear out for anything unusual, and were finally greeted with loud hollow 'bang' that streamed from the far end of the shaft.  We quickened our pace towards the sound.

  "Dis is a long fuck'in tunnel..." Haiti heaved with a labored breath.  We all concurred that we needed a break soon, especially Serena and Kel who weren't in the best condition to keep up at this clip.  

  Felix had taken the meteorite pack in effort to assist Kel from injuring her leg with the load.  The bleak overhead lights gave an eerie glow to the hot mist floating high overhead and the condensation that streaked the walls glittered with an unearthly tinge.  It was possibly my nerves, but something felt terribly wrong down here; giving us all an unshakable sense of unease.  After what seemed like an hour, we finally noticed a faint blue glow up ahead with errant sparks lighting up the tunnel walls.  It wasn't until we reached the last few dozen yards that we realized what we were looking at.

  "Holy shit!" Felix uttered, as the rest of us gaped at the cluttered destruction before us.  A railcar with bold white lettering spelling out the word 'Razorback' hand painted along its side had jumped its tracks and crashed into the middle of the tunnel, its bottom wheels facing us.  We could not approach it due to a deep rift splitting the tunnel where the rails had snapped off halfway over the chasm.  The lights were still on inside the rail car, and a few of us thought we could see a shadow moving within.  Roy took a closer look at the edge.

  "What could cause this, an earthquake?" Thorn inquired under his breath in wonder.  The break in the cement foundation cleaved straight through, perpendicular from one side to the other; and would have been entirely impassible by foot.  The distance between the broken rails and the back end of the train car would be barely reachable with a running jump, but not for someone who was injured.   Even then, one slip on that skinny smooth metal bar hanging over that dark rift, and down you go.

  "Blast marks," Killroy answered, "there, and there," he pointed out to either side, "I would assume that they attempted down here what they did topside to the mountain tunnel," he declared, which was conclusive to the previous events Tasha told us about. 

  "It makes sense," Ava answered, nodding to Tasha, "they blew the pass to blockade access to the Lab.  We should have guessed they would have cut this one off too."

  "How are we going to make it over?" Felix asked, nodding towards the two injured girls and the child.

  "Risky fuck'in jump..." Serena added as she looked down into the chasm, calculating the odds as she kicked a small chunk of broken concrete over the edge.  It clattered several moments later, still falling, "...it's a long fuck'in way down too," she added with the same color, not really caring about her foul language in the presence of a child.  With all modesty, Serena wasn't exactly what you would call the motherly type.

  "Looks like they just wanted to blow the rail, but there was a natural fault or cavern below this section and the whole damn thing caved in," Roy noted, "hand over some of those bandages," he motioned to Thorn, who was carrying their medical supplies.  Not knowing what he had in mind, we watched as the old soldier gingerly tested the longest rail over the chasm and straddled it to wrap adhesive bandages across the length of its end.  After a moment, Tasha seemed to recognize what he was doing, but Haiti hadn't caught on quite yet.