SUNDERED SKY

Before & After

By Lyubomir Ivanov

(an Oldschool Doomer)

Happy Halloween, fellow Doomers!

This short story was initially meant to be posted on September 30, 2014, which marked 20 years since the first release of Doom 2: Hell on Earth. However, I had to change my plans and postponed the story for Halloween.

I tried to make a more "human" story – focused on the people themselves, their thoughts and emotions. The demonic invasion is just a thing in the background – the people are what really matters here. It's split into two parts – "before" and "after" the invasion.

The story's title is based on the way I imagine the demonic invasion of Earth – with huge burning portals opening in the sky, allowing the infernal fleet to pass. A sundered sky.

As for the technical lingo – let's just say I translated a huge bunch of technical manuals recently, so this stuff is still fresh in my mind :)

- October 31, 2014, 02:07 (yeah, the best time for writing stories is after midnight)

BEFORE

Half past six, yet another boring Friday morning down in the old sinkhole. Dave hated being the first to arrive – he had to be the one to open the hatch and be greeted by a wave of stale air, heavily laden with the stench of rust, mold and sewage. They did their best to get some fresh air into the place in the evening, but in the morning it always stank. They could easily fix the problem with a new set of air filtration units, yet no one really cared about a small waste processing hub – so insignificant that it was built entirely underground, which was the reason for its lovely nickname – the "sinkhole."

As he waited for the suffocating fumes to disperse, Dave engaged in his favorite morning ritual – surveying the horizon. Situated within a large open field, the sinkhole had a pretty good view to the west, where an observer could see the Starport, Earth's largest and busiest; buzzing with activity as shining spaceships took off and landed every half an hour. To the east, he could see the city, waking up for the new day. Dave could even see the lights in some of the windows – people enjoying their first coffee, without having to look forward to spending the whole day underground.

A black dot was steadily approaching Dave. He squinted against it and recognized the outline of Vincent, his colleague. He was a little late today, and the reason for this seemed to be his leg – he was limping. Strange, since he was perfectly fine the previous day.

"Hey, Vince," Dave yelled at the approaching figure, "What's with the funny walk? You've smuggled some booze past security?"

"Ha! You wish," Vince growled, "I tripped over and fell down... again!"

As he approached, Vincent had pulled up his left leg – his knee appeared badly bruised.

"I've always told you the lower walkways were way too dark," Vince continued, "This is probably the fifth time I've had an accident in there."

"And I've always told you that we won't get any replacement parts for those lights," Dave replied, "The mean old sinkhole is not important enough to invest any new parts in it, even something as cheap as lights."

"More like a stinkhole if you ask me," Vince sighed, "Well, then maybe they can give us a pair of those new light-amplification things that the UAC is developing."

"Visors? Yeah, right," Dave was sincerely amused now, "They'd never give their cool high-tech toys to bunch of low-ranking maintenance workers like us. Besides, I think only the military may use such hardware. Anyway, how is your knee? Did you use the stimpack?"

"Hell no," Vince exclaimed, "We have one stimpack for the both of us and we're going to keep it for a real emergency... like, if you hack your leg off."

"I guess you're right – I doubt they'd send us a replacement," Dave shook his head and then continued with a broad smile, "You could have had one of those visors if you had made it into the Space Marine Corp."

"Awww, man, don't even remind me," Vince replied bitterly, "I would have made an excellent marine, but they didn't accept me just because I couldn't pass the stupid physical test. I was just slightly overweight, what's the big deal?"

"Alright, marine," Dave stood and headed towards the hatch, "Time to dive into our favorite hellhole. We have to keep this place from falling apart."

The two men reluctantly approached the opened hatch. Dave smelled the air and frowned, but it was now bearable. To an extent.

They had a whole bunch of leaky pipes and defective valves to take care of, and not a single spare part. As always, they'd have to cannibalize old parts and hope they hold up. The old sinkhole should have been decommissioned a decade ago, but re-routing a whole quadrant of sewage pipelines was too much of a hassle for the UAC. They decided a more practical solution was to keep the place in a barely operational state, with the minimum of expense. All they needed was two fools willing to take the job.

"So, where should we start today?" Vincent murmured. "Shall we fix the cooler intake lines, or maybe tighten up those leaky outflow nozzles?"

"Does it really matter – they will all be faulty again after a few days," Dave sighed, "Let's just make sure we don't blow a gasket because that would flood the entire lower junction. Hopefully, it will be at least a week before the centrifugal pump will need to be dismantled again. I say we clean up the main filters – maybe this will prevent another breakdown of the impeller. At least for the time being..."

Humanity had always had great expectation for the future – everyone eagerly waited for the time when clean and bright cities would replace the cold concrete and rusty metal of the past. Reality, as always, delivered a rude awakening – progress came at a cost. There seemed to be more backbreaking work and toil for everyone, regardless of all the marvelous technological advancements. The spaceport and all the amazing new factories surely looked pretty, yet there always were little muddy holes filled with rust and soot. Humanity had reached for the stars, and yet was still unable to escape from its dirty roots.

Dave and Vincent sat down to enjoy a few precious minutes of rest. Their work was going better than expected, and perhaps they could go home earlier this day. Staying overtime had become a tradition at this point and the breakdowns seemed to multiply, regardless of how much effort they put into fixing them.

"It's all about these secret projects on Mars and its moons." Vincent was (yet again) sharing his insights gleaned from the stories he had read on the info-net. "Whatever they are doing there is so important and expensive that every single penny that can be spared is redirected there. We are not the only ones in a constant state of shortage. Many other facilities have the same problem, even the ones that are bigger and more important than the sinkhole. Their entire attention is turned towards this project."

Dave frowned and shook his head. "Why so surprised? Whatever they are doing up there turns out a tidy profit, and the stuff we do down here does not. The only reason they haven' shut us down yet is because keeping this place running is marginally more profitable than building it anew. It's all about balancing the books – and those little digits behind the decimal point are more important than both of us."

A moment of silence. They were both aware that the UAC had grown into the largest and most influential corporate entity in existence. Such was their power that they could literally determine the very fate of humanity, whether it was going to be am idyllic utopia or Armageddon. It was not an exaggeration to say that the planet had become a chessboard and UAC were now in charge of the pieces.

"Oh, you can say that again," Vince continued, "The research they are conducting is something so profound tat it could redefine our very understanding of the universe."

"Another of your conspiracy theories?" Dave asked with a wry smile.

"Not just a theory, my friend," Vincent objected, "I know a guy who works up there – at the Deimos base. He has been at the "anomaly" facility (whatever that is) and he says they have literally torn a hole into reality and are looking beyond the boundaries of the known universe."

"Yeah," Dave interjected sarcastically, "And I suppose your source wears a long white beard and a red suit."

"I'm not fooling around, man," Vince felt somewhat insulted, "This guy is dead serious and I know I can trust him. He was going to tell me more, yet he has been suspiciously silent over the last few days. In fact, I've heard no one is able to contact Deimos for the last 24 hours."

"Oh, I suppose it just vanished!" Dave suggested.

"Funny that you say it," replied Vincent, "My cousin Ian is an amateur astronomer. He called me last night, and as we talked about our plans to fix his old car, he mentioned that he couldn't see Deimos for some reason. And that's exactly what I said – hey, maybe it disappeared. It was meant to be a joke, of course."

Dave looked at his watch and frowned – this was exactly the sight he hated the most. The time to get back to work.

"This is all very interesting and I really enjoy chatting with you, old buddy," he started, "Yet the clock says I have a date with a faulty oil separator cartridge and you know how messy it can get. As for you, you shouldn't strain your leg too much – perhaps you can take a look at the settling pool. Just sit down comfortably and check the pressure gauges. They must be accurate, you know, unless we want to blow ourselves up."

His colleague simply smiled and saluted. The two men grabbed their toolboxes and were just about to head towards the sinkhole's central chamber when they felt a strange tremor. Dave stared into Vincent for a few seconds. An earthquake?

Another tremor was felt, and this time it was stronger. A strange noise was heard from outside – it sounded just like a series of explosions.

"Wh-wh-what was that?" Vincent stuttered.

"I'll go check it out, you stay put," Dave whispered, "I've seen what a stray spark could do at the old refueling base and it's not a pretty sight. This stuff burns like hellfire. I'll be right back."

Vince was about to protest, but then he realised his injured leg would slow him down too much. Dave climbed quickly to the entrance hatch and slowly lifted it just a few inches up. Vince could see a strange red light seeping through the opening, as if a giant fire was burning in the sky.

"No... no... it can't be!" Dave gasped.

"What is it? What do you see?" Vincent yelled.

Dave simply shook his head and remained silent. He lifted the hatch just a little more and stared horrified at whatever was going on outside. The red light was now stronger and more ominous.

"Come on, man, talk to me," Vincent insisted, "What do you see? What is going on?"