Broken Mirror: Apophis 2029 (27 page)

  "What'z all that for?" he injected with curiosity.

  "Just some tread; I don't want to slip on the last step and make an ass of myself," he smiled back at the dark man, who nodded in return at the sensibility of it.   

  Wrapping a rope around his waist, Roy jerry-rigged a crotch harness like a professional climber and counted out several loose coils of rope.  I was starting to get impressed with Roy's knowledge of preparation and versatility he displayed.  Though Tasha was young, she seemed to agree with his methods.  I got the impression that they were both birds of the same feather.

  Felix and I gritted our teeth as Roy paused for but a moment and took a running leap off the edge of that skinny metal rail.  He landed with a thud on the tip of the rail car, barely catching the edge where the heavy metal wheels were set.  It was a hard landing and we could tell that he had bloodied his hand on the sharp rigid edge.

  Having secured the lead end to the rail post, he noosed the rope tight on the cars rear handrail and tossed the spare yardage back over to our side of the fissure.  It only took a few moments to follow Tasha and her girls lead by tying our packs and gear onto the ropes to be slung over to his side.  It was a practical precaution, so we could avoid have to risk losing our supplies from falling into the pit resulting from something like a sloppy toss from one side to the other.  Let alone, we didn't want any extra weight on our backs while making that kind of leap.  The other girls were slight and athletic, but I was taller than most and not really the acrobatic ninja type as it were.  Admittedly, I was more than a little nervous about making the jump myself. 

  Both Thorn and Ava made it over first with enviable ease.  We were roping up Felix after having secured the meteorite sample to swing it over when we heard a strange rumble that got perceptibly louder from the far end of the tunnel.  Roy took a few steps up to peer into the train car to find Beatrice lying crumpled and unconscious near the front end.  Looking up towards the tunnel, it took him a long moment to decipher the source of the sound and ordered Thorn to either grab binoculars from his pack. 

  Thorn and Ava were busy rifling through the packs when Roy gave a silent stare back at us across the rift as his face lost all color and turned a pale white.  From around the edge of the derailed train car trickled in the forerunners of a stampede of infected.  Their heads were bobbing like a massive tide of diseased flesh.  Roy motioned the others to crouch down and pulled his handgun from his waist, but all the rifles were still bundled up tight with rope from being strung over the chasm just moments before.

  The first few Weepers hadn't seen Roy and the others as they rounded the edge of the rail car and saw us standing on the other side of the rift in complete confusion.  Like idiots, we didn't think to send out a scout and most of our firearms were now bound together and out of reach over on the edge of the train.  Tasha started firing from a backup pistol she carried in her waist belt, which captured the immediate attention of the leading handful of the swarm.  They ran straight for us like mindless dolts, right over the edge and into the chasm as their arms swam in the empty air as they fell into the blackness.  The boy hugged Haiti closely while the creatures charged for us and into the dark fissure below without pause.

  On both sides of the rail car they were funneled at a choke point so the ones behind had no clue what happened to those in advance, and promptly leapt gnarling and screeching as they glared insanely at us with their wild bloodshot eyes.  Those stark few who paused at the rim of the crevasse before them were promptly and unceremoniously nudged into the abyss by those weepers who came running up from behind; being far too occupied with propelling themselves towards the sound of gunfire.

  Some might call it luck, but it was also distressing to watch countless numbers of sick people fall to their deaths without even the mind of knowing what they were doing.  Tasha emptied two full clips before she was out of ammo, and Serena was down to throwing loose stones to try to distract those few left as the mob began to diminish.  The few dozen at the heel lost the momentum to hurl themselves so recklessly over the edge.  The remaining weepers then turned their attention towards our three companions atop the railcar, and began to clamber towards them in their mindless rage. 

  Roy fired, counting his shots, but half of them still missed as the bullets ricocheted off the steel hull of the train while Thorn and Ava scrambled for the packed guns.  Dread filled us when one of the diseased turned their scrutiny towards the rope that stretched across the void to our side and the exposed meteorite pack that hung there in limbo in between.  Where it sat swaying dangerously over the rift, the box with the rock sample was jarred by the blighted creature that was attempting to scale the rope to reach us on the other side.  Both Tasha and Kel grabbed for Haiti's machete to fend it off, only to realize that they took a dangerous risk of cutting the rope and losing their precious package. 

  Still harnessed to the far side of the lanyard, fat little Felix was being tugged and swayed by the creature who was grasping wildly at the rope for any given handhold, pulling Felix off balance towards the jagged edge of the fissure. I grabbed his arm to help him, but he just turned to me with a look of surrender in his eyes, and pulled away from my embrace to my utter confusion.  Another weeper was clawing for Ava on the edge of the train as she fumbled for a handgun from her pack, only to have it slip off the tilted edge of the train and down into the black pit below.  Seeing she was being overwhelmed and had but scarce few seconds before she would be attacked, Felix did something chancy and outrageous. 

  Pulled towards the edge by the creature jarring the meteorite pack, Felix took a leap off the edge of the rail and mid step on the head of the Weeper hanging in the middle, kicking him squarely in the face, which in turn, launched his bulk towards the creature antagonizing Ava on the other side of the breach.  He grabbed the ghoul by its legs, and with a sincere look of shock upon the creatures crazed and twisted face; they both fell into the depths.  We were all stunned by his desperate stunt and gasped as he dropped beyond sight over the edge.

  It was only a few startled seconds before we heard him kicking and swearing from the bottom of the taut rope, which was still tethered to the handrail of the train.  Freeing his rifle from the bundle, Thorn finally came to bear and took measured shots at the last half dozen weepers trying to mount the train.  The kinetic force of the sniper rifle jolting a few over the edge of the rift.  In the moments that followed, we scrambled to help Felix after clearing the last of the creatures from the broken lip of the fissure.

  "Hey, hold on Felix!" Thorn yelled into the darkness below, while Haiti set the boy aside and helped Serena try to find more rope.  The line began to dance violently as the thin rope scraped dangerously thin on the jagged edge of the fault.  From the shadows below, a horrid face leapt up and clung to the meteorite box hanging on the lanyard.  Out of bullets himself, Roy scrambled for more ammo in his vest.  On the edge, up the line crawled Felix, blood from deep gashes on his neck and back painted his shirt red.  He had a crazed look in his eyes, not from the alien virus, but a personal vendetta against the creature that had condemned him to his fate. 

  Felix ignored Ava reaching out for him and pushed himself off the edge with a thrust of his feet, swinging over to the last weeper clinging on the pack.  The fall down chasm had been cruel, the thin rope snapping him hard with the extra body weight of the infected attacker.  The creature had mauled him to make its way back up the breach in a desperate attempt to save itself.  Felix knew he was dead, but he wasn't going to let this afflicted bastard hurt his friends. The seductive taste of revenge is all he felt in this final moment.

  The thin rope, the fragile box and its delicate and deadly stone fragment, the gnashing and bloodied creature and Felix with all his weight pulled the line taught beyond its capacity.  Strands snapped as the line began to fail and Thorn brought his riflescope to his eye to take aim; but stalled when he suddenly felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

  "You can't risk hitting the container," was all Roy said, and Thorn knew he was right; if he missed and shattered the rock or the capsule, it could infect us all.  With resolve, he lowered the weapon.

  It was all over before we could grasp what had happened.  Felix pulled the quick release on his harness with one hand, and then grasped the creature’s wrists; with one aggressive blow, he head butted it from behind. Stunned by the attack, Felix was able to pry both its hands free from the container and they both fell into the chasm, swallowed by the unforgiving gloom.  A few dull thuds and falling stones were all that followed to tell his untimely end.  Felix was gone.

  Bouncing by a thread on the ripped line was the meteorite container, left barely strapped to the pack by a few frayed cords.  With great care, we strapped it to the end of the train car to secure it.  The container itself was slightly cracked, but not breached.  The men quickly reloaded their firearms and scanned the tunnel for yet another wave, but were instead met by a cold and eerie silence. 

  We repaired the rope and continued to rappel the rest of our crew over to the train, some of us still in a state of lingering shock.  It was a lesson learned that you could never let your guard down.  We were one companion less, and the wiser for it.  Once we got repacked and sheared the rope, we made our way over to the front edge of the car and looked down through the window at the source of all our grief.  There on the floor, Beatrice began to stir, looking a little battered and drained.

  "Ohhh, what happened..." she moaned, mentally taxed from her concussion.  Lucky for her, nothing seemed to be broken; except for any measure of trust, which we might have mistakenly held for the old gal.  She was fortunate that the windows to the car had not broken through, or she would have certainly succumbed as a victim to the infected horde.  One of the boys jimmied the sliding pane open and we all glared down at her with distain while she glanced back up at us meekly.  Up top, we all glanced at one another, wondering which one of us was going to shoot her.

  "Well now, Betty, give us one good reason why we shouldn't just drop you over the edge of this chasm here and call it a day?" Roy muttered to the old woman who was busy collecting her dignity.  At first, she glazed her puppy dog eyes with innocence, trying to garner some sympathy from the lot of us; though she was entirely oblivious to the massacre that we had fought through only moments before, while her sorry ass was unconscious through it all.

  "I don't know what you mean," she began faintly, "I was trying to get the doors back there open and I must have hit some switch that started the train and locked me in; it took off and I couldn't stop it," she blathered as an excuse. 

  We didn't believe a word that came out of her wrinkled lips, of course, even though it was still a viable story.  With that lingering doubt, it would be hard to kick her off the edge of the rift; besides, she might still have information we needed to get into the Lab.  Roy turned away at the mention of her alibi, mumbling to himself with a furled brow.  He and Thorn began to discuss the audacity of her claim out of earshot of Beatrice, who sat in the stalled train with a look of worry creeping upon her wrinkled face. 

  The factors we had to consider that Roy brought up were relevant.  Since it had taken us almost an hour to reach this spot after we had heard the train crash, then it would be logical that the Lab location was still another hour away if that's equally how long it took for the horde of infected to reach us from that origin.  Technically, that chasm would have kept them pretty well contained from the rest of the subway system; but that also could lead us to believe the Laboratory had entirely lost quarantine.  If we ran into the number of weepers that were in that mob again, next time we would not have a convenient ravine to save our asses.

  We needed Beatrice, at least for now.  As much as we wanted to chuck her into the pit, she was the only one among us that knew what to expect when we got there.  At the very least, we had not been on that train when it jumped the rails; more of us might have been dead or broken in ways that would have been disastrous when the infected swarmed upon us. Fate sure works in mysterious ways.

  We had all our weapons loaded and were now carrying backups, as there was really nowhere to run if we got overrun by another wave of infected.  Any retreat back to the fissure would end there, and we had no wish to join Felix at the bottom of that deep shaft.  I was not entirely religious, but caught myself praying under my breath as the next hour dragged on while we helped our injured friends.

  Grudgingly, we had helped Betty out of the train and tried to pry as much information as we could out of her.  She began to clam up more than usual, since she was becoming suspicious that her usefulness was swiftly coming to an end.  She certainly hadn't made any friends with that stunt she pulled by hijacking the train, and without any valuable advice to offer, the old woman knew she would be colored a liability; which was not a pleasant title to have in our current world.  People who proved to be a risk to themselves or fellow companions were either dropped like a stone, or put down like a sick dog.

  Beatrice was wise enough to realize that she wouldn't last long out here on her own.  She had been all too used to the high life as one of the elite, living her preferred status back at Fallhaven.  While she had been there, she didn't have to do a lick of work, just say a word or point her finger to get others to do her bidding for her.  Out here, she was nobody, and Kane was no longer around for her to ride on his coattails.

  I wasn't truly ignorant.  I figured Betty only did what she had too to survive in that given set of circumstances.  I could imagine many would have done far worse.  The fact was though, that she could have done far better.  Unfortunately, people do not usually remember the good things about others, but instead tend to dwell on their faults.  Agreeably, that kind of attitude creates needless drama, but it also is quite effective at distracting others from your own flaws.  More often than naught, humans were apt at being psychologically unbalanced on any given day.

  Truth of it was, I did not want to think about what I would have done or how I would have personally handled things if I had been in her shoes.  I might have very well made the same mistakes as she had.  It simply was not healthy to dwell in that level of self-judgment in this fucked up world.  There was no point of it really. 

  It wasn't as if we could run to a convenience store anytime and grab a bottle of liquor to drown our sorrows or watch the videos to escape from reality for a little while, as we had all been groomed to do in our past lives.  We had to deal with our shit; and dealing with other people’s shit kind of came with the territory.  Those that weren't flexible in that methodology, usually led very lonely and short lives.  In my own a way, I felt sorry for the old woman.  It wasn't like she had many choices left to change her direction.

  I realized now that Betty had simply been grooming me as part of her personal crew back at the shelter; but she had been kind.  It wasn't like we had any measure of compassion in our world today, and it was far too easy to be baited by even a minute show of decency; even though the ulterior motives could be quite the contrary.  Thinking about it now, I really didn't see much better conduct by most people I knew even before Apophis had struck; which, I admit, was a sad thought.

  There was almost no notice before we hit the end of the line.  Beatrice had informed us we would arrive at the terminal but she had not been very elaborate about what to expect.  What we had all been apprehensive about discussing was that none of us had ever seen a mob of weepers that large and in such concentrations; at least not in nearly the half dozen years since the beginning of the outbreak.

  We had expected to find heaping piles of trash and human feces.  Usually you could tell were a group of infected had nested by the lingering stench of it.  Here at the terminal, there was no evidence that revealed any of the diseased had been loitering in the area.  It was not entirely uncommon for them to cannibalize the weak or injured either, but you would at least find scraps of bones and trash that had been clawed open.  The depot itself was all too spookily clean.  We were all boggled, wondering where had that raging horde had appeared from.

  The end terminal of the rail tunnel did have a strange design to it that still left our questions unanswered.  A large circular steel frame that resembled an old-fashioned bank vault masked one entire wall.  Several parallel stairwells to either side of it led off to a gate on one side, while several steel pockets that fanned around it had us guessing what they might be for.  It was truly a bizarre example of architecture that left us baffled.

  "It might be a heat sink," Haiti said aloud.

  "What?" Roy asked; a bit confused by his flat statement.  Tasha stood beside him and put her hand to her chin as if judging a work of art in a gallery.

  "Yes, I see it.  It could very well be..." she concurred with the island man to our further bewilderment. 

  "I'm sorry, you lost me," Roy snapped back, a little annoyed at the two companions.  Thorn agreed quietly as did I.  The rest of us were getting agitated with Beatrice who was keeping tight-lipped the closer we got to the lab. 

  "What is this," I asked her kindly, trying to get the old woman to cooperate as we motioned to the strange attachments.  We were stuck here on this side of the chasm anyhow if we couldn't find a way in.  I attempted again to be diplomatic, trying to clarify to her that pushing our patience any further wasn't exactly in her best interest at the moment. 

  "That's the entrance vault to the laboratory topside," Betty finally blurted out while waving to the giant circular door, "and that gate leads to the cargo conveyor."
  Her curt comments plainly left us unsatisfied.  Searching the entry to the vault, we found no access lock, though there did seem to be a telltale socket in the cement floor where a control board might have once been; but which had been permanently removed.  Tasha discovered a panel above the conveyor door that was a complete bitch to pry apart; but after half an hour of cussing and brute force, we finally managed to bust it open. 

  Haiti had some limited expertise to bypass the lock on the gated hatch, which swung up to allow us entry.  That was when we were hit by a wave of foul odor that divulged where all those infected had originated from.  Even if the railway had been intact, and Betty had made it down here alone, she would have still been stuck here without us. 

  "It appears as if a redundant electrical systems released this door to the conveyor the same time the rail car was activated on the other end of the line," Roy mentioned as he scanned the circuitry map on the back of the panel we had snapped off.

  "Aye, dis here transportation is all automated, man," Haiti agreed as he peered over Roy's shoulder. 

  "Personally, I would rather go in through the front door," Serena commented while holding her nose, trying to pinch off the reeking stench drifting from the interior.  After conferring with Beatrice, it became painfully clear that there was no other way in.  This facility had been specifically designed to allow for secured entry, and it was obvious the back door had been locked down tight.  We had not other choice, and would have to gain access through the cargo port.

  The interior of the cargo bin was awash in red light from the numerous emergency beacons lining the hall within.  A number of us tied on bandanas to ward off the horrid smell wafting through the corridor.  A wide conveyor belt led the way inward, and apparently, this system could accommodate large amounts of cargo containers for transport from the terminal floor to whatever loading bay they had at the end of this line.  In all honestly, we were not exactly comfortable entering such a confined space that had only one known exit.

  The hard red light made it difficult to distinguish outlines at any given distance, and if this is where the infected had came from there were likely more wandering within.  Turning on our white flashlights would only manage to draw attention and make us walking targets.  None of us wanted to be boxed in or find ourselves surrounded in such tight quarters. 

  Betty wasn't much help at this point; as the cargo conveyor was just a glorified baggage trolley and claimed she didn't have a clue where it went.  Roy was getting aggravated with the old woman when she attempted to be elusive about the layout of the complex beyond the large bulkhead doors in the depot.  It had been nearly a decade since she had been locked away in the confines of Fallhaven, so he tried not to get too pissed about it when she said she couldn't quite remember. 

  Thorn didn't know whether to believe her either; and truth be said, neither did I.  Beatrice had made a life of being a manipulator, after all.  Sometimes I found myself feeling ashamed for the way we were treating her; but then I had to wonder if she was just putting on an act and playing me to feel that way whenever she glanced my way with a doleful look in her eyes.  It kept eating away at the back of my mind though; wondering how had she been familiar with this Lab if it was a classified military facility?

  Maybe she had just been on some tour of the entire system as a presentation to the egocentric elite who had given themselves a free pass for their god given right to survive above all others, which was at the expense of the lower class citizens who had actually paid for this complex network.  Whenever I thought about that, it made me angry. 

  Tasha was finally getting to complete the mission her father never finished, by delivering the meteor sample.  We all wanted to know if it truly contained some type of biometric information that could be used to create a vaccine and help find a cure.  It wasn't as if we had anywhere else to go.  After Apophis had struck Earth, the following haze of wars and riots that erupted from the event had destroyed what was left of our supposedly civilized world.  When the MN4 virus reared its ugly head, nations were already locked in bitter conflict as they began to blame one another as if it were an intentional act of aggression spurned by one country or another. 

  Tensions rose while treaties dissolved and international borders became a wild free-for-all while soldiers of every flag shot each other as the disease spread its poison across the globe.  Unfortunately, a huge amount of resources and healthy lives were wasted while the human race was trying to kill one another instead of helping the sick and working together towards a cure; until it was far too late. Those countries and governments that were too busy accusing one another for the fallout quickly dwindled away into silence as their populations succumbed to the malady.   Now the meek ruled the earth in the form of weepers. 

  Here I was with a bunch of other ruffians, risking our lives to bring a little chunk of rock from space to an over bloated military lab in the middle of nowhere; and without a real fucking clue as to why.  It was all too depressing when I let myself dwell on it.  Daily life had gotten so desperate that nothing made sense anymore; it was so sad that it was almost laughable.

  The conveyor aisle was mostly clear of debris until we hit a laser wall.  Several horizontal green laser beams fanned from one side of the wall, and we had to cautiously test it with an object it might burn through.  We were relieved to discover it wasn't a high energy security barrier at all, but some type of advanced scanning device for incoming containers. 

  However, the second we broke the beam a horn sounded and we all froze in place.  Moments later, the noise of machinery whirred and the conveyor we were standing on began to lurch forward.  Even thought it was a gentle tilt, Kel almost lost her footing because of her injured leg.  The rest of us readied our weapons as we were transported through the conveyor system.