Chapter 6 – Awakening
Nytus had summoned Sergeant Rozen with a brisk call over the micro-bead. Now Rozen, Nytus and Lander advanced slowly on the door, weapons raised, trying to get a good look at the figure in the storm.
A subtle, ethereal aura, shaped into the outline of a young woman, was walking out there in the dark. Wind and rain and leaves blew around it. Whoever she was, she had no interest in hiding, felt no need to take cover. She walked brazenly out in the open, elegant strides towards the door.
The lightning struck, and even then it took them a moment to realise that they knew her.
"Edora," said Lander, ducking his head to get a good look through the glass.
"... she's alive," breathed Nytus, his mouth hanging open.
Lander and Nytus lowered their guard, their weapons dropping slightly. Rozen's lasgun, however, stayed trained on the figure out in the storm. "Something isn't right," he said, taking two steps forward. Administrator Kress looked on silently, her expression unreadable.
Edora came close to the glass. The subtle aura seemed to be emanating from her. When the lightning flashed again her pale face was clear as day, her expression serene, her beauty astonishing, but something about her was deeply disturbing. There was blood underneath her nose, over her lips, on her chin, and tears of deep crimson streaked down her face. Nytus' breath caught in his chest, a part of him felt compelled to fall to his knees.
"Private Edora, report," said Rozen, touching his micro-bead.
"I don't think she's even wearing it, Sir," Nytus remarked, unable to take his eyes off of her. The civvies watched from behind them with a kind of hushed, fearful reverence.
Private Hein stared through narrowed, restless eyes. He took a step backwards.
Edora was right next to the glass now, her face, so enchanting, so terrible, looking through. Her eyes were wide and beguiling, the blood tracks stained her pale cheeks. She lifted her left hand, and placed it against the glass.
"What is she doing?" Nytus said quietly.
"I wonder if even she knows," Rozen said, a warning in his voice.
There was a moment in which time seemed to stop, and reality seemed to take a breath, and then a force that sent a shockwave through the air and ignited the mind, pulsed from the doorway like an explosion recorded in slow motion. Edora's white-blonde hair spread out and billowed in some ethereal wind as the reinforced glass panel in front of her cracked like a thin sheet of ice, a dazzling glow emanating from the expanding fissures in the pane. A moment later, with an almighty crash, the broken glass flew into the room and scattered like crystalline rain onto the dark metal floor. When Edora stepped through the empty frame the flashing red bulbs above her popped and shattered, scattering more glass around her serene, saintly figure. As her right arm came through the gap behind her, Nytus could see that she was holding her autopistol.
"What is this?" Rozen said, a hint of awe in his voice, his weapon pointed at Edora's chest. Astea Kress stood a short distance behind him, looking at Edora with wide eyes.
Edora had a wicked expression on her face, her blood-stained eyes narrowed as she spoke. More bulbs popped over her head as she approached. The dark corridor seemed to light up with her passing. "I know what you really are," she said with a smile. Her voice was familiar but profoundly changed. It could be both heard and felt. It was quiet as a whisper yet filled the air like a shout. It was as disturbing and as wonderful as the tears of blood that rolled down her cheeks.
Nytus gaped. It was difficult to tell, but Edora seemed to be looking at the sergeant. A sick feeling lurched in Nytus' stomach as he realised that she was slowly raising her pistol.
"Stand down, Private," warned Rozen, his lasgun aimed firmly at her chest. Edora had removed her flak-jacket, her tattoo plain to see on her soaked, pale skin. Lander and Nytus raised their weapons again.
"I can see you," Edora teased as the pistol slowly came up. She advanced in a trance-like state.
"Edora, drop the weapon," Nytus said, the statement was as much a plea as it was an order.
"This is your last chance, Private," Rozen warned, his voice stern and grim.
Edora did not heed him. At was as if she could not see or hear them, as if her eyes and her mind existed somewhere else now. More bulbs popped. She pointed the pistol in Sergeant Rozen's direction. Her tears ran red down her blood-stained face as her trigger finger twitched.
Rozen fired.
One single shot. A dazzling, phosphorescent las-round struck her in the chest with a strange thunk, penetrating through the centre of her tattoo, the neat little wound instantly cauterised by the extreme heat.
When she fell, it felt as if all the remaining light had been drained from the room. Nytus looked at her body for a long time as the reception area hung in still, stunned silence. The sting he felt was more than the gut-wrench of a lost comrade, there was something else, some further heartache, as if a sacred light had gone out. He realised that a tear was rolling down his cheek.
He wiped it, caught his breath, and looked around. Rozen stood in silence, still pointing his lasgun, staring at Edora's unmoving form. Administrator Kress approached him from behind, putting a manicured hand on his shoulder. Lander was watching them both, an odd expression on his face. Bota and the others stared in silence, some of them sobbed quietly. Nytus looked for Hein. His eyes moved from the reception desk, to the corners, to the benches, to the huddles of civvies, to the entrances to the North, South and East sectors. There was no sign of him at all.
"Sergeant Rozen," he said, his voice cracking. Rozen did not seem to hear him. His gaze moved slowly from the body of Edora, to the hand of Astea Kress that was placed on his shoulder.
"Sir," Nytus said again, sharply.
"What is it, Nytus?" the sergeant replied.
"Private Hein, Sir," Nytus said, "he seems to have slipped away."
Facility IX – East Sector
Private Hein stalked between the power generators, flashing red lights and shrill alarms accompanying him. He was in the large, dark room with the power generators, where he had seen the machine spirits. He remembered the indistinct forms, the invisible presences. He felt as though they hung in the air now like smoke, like shadows in the periphery of his vision. Sparks and flares of energy flashed like blinking, inhuman eyes.
He marched past the large, thrumming machines and blinking control panels. His footsteps rang on the grating underneath. The flashing red lights cast quick, darting shadows everywhere, highlighting cold, black metal and industrial edges. The heat was making him sweat. His flamer was hot to touch. The tanks on his back were lighter now. He had removed his micro-bead, discarded it on the floor some way back.
He was talking to himself, reciting quick, mumbling statements. "Something in there … something in the core … words I don't remember..."
His thoughts were racing and incoherent. He did not understand his goal. Was he going to try and get through that door? What would he do if he hacked it open or burned his way through? Would he soak the demon with ignited promethium? Draw his pistol and put a bullet through it's head?
Would he try to talk to it? Fall to his knees in front of it?
Things had made more sense when he had that creature in his head. He was more comfortable then, and felt like he had the advantage over the other members of the unit, and that he did not care whether they lived or died. He had felt as though the future was open to him, as if he understood some great scheme to which this facility in the Arrator Hills on the planet Abora was only a single facet of many. Now his mind was in turmoil and he understood nothing. He envied Edora. At least she was smiling when she died.
He thought that, if he got the door to the core open, he might just throw himself into the pitch-black chasm, and find out what was at the bottom.
The sudden sound cut through his thoughts, and he felt clarity for the first time since that moment before Dana Hasken's body started to twist and warp. He stopped dead and pointed his flamer in the direction of the sound, past the tall, vibrating forms of the humming generators. It had sounded like a dumb laugh, cut off by a choke. He had heard something like it before. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes.
Lander and Nytus knelt down next to the body of Mindi Edora. Even in death, her face looked serene, her pretty eyes far, far away. Nytus closed them, and tried to wipe the trails of blood from her face.
"I can't believe she'd survived out there," he said quietly.
"...only to be killed by one of our own..." Lander added acidly, glancing at Rozen, who stood near the reception desk with Adminstrator Kress, trying to reach Private Hein on the micro-bead.
Nytus looked at Lander sternly, hoping to nip any thoughts of descent in the bud before they started. Lander was a good soldier, but he was emotional and overly protective, especially when it came to pretty girls.
"I don't know what happened to her," he said, "but she had changed, Private. Who knows what madness had befallen her. She pulled a loaded gun on the sergeant. If he hadn't dropped her, then I would have done it a moment later."
Lander looked at his colleague, the silent form of Edora between them, glinting shards of glass all around. The wind from the storm outside was howling through where the reinforced glass used to be, bringing wayward drops of rain with it. The edges of the breeze tugged lazily at loose strands of her hair. She was beautiful, even in death.
"I must have had a better angle on it than you, Sir," Lander said, quietly and seriously, "Private Edora wasn't aiming at the sergeant. She was aiming at Administrator Kress, I am sure of it..."
Nytus looked at Lander for a long, searching moment. He saw the sincerity in his eyes. He looked back at the reception desk, and saw the administrator hovering behind Sergeant Rozen. The two of them together had become a common sight.
Rozen looked back at them, his grim voice carried across the room, over the alarms. "I can't reach Private Hein," he said, "and we need him and his flamer if we're going to hold this position. Private Lander, head into the East sector and bring him back."
Lander's expression darkened.
"Yes, Sir," he said as he stood up and hefted the heavy stubber. He gave Nytus a final, meaningful look before he walked away.
Hein stepped around a generator and let off a quick, searching burst of flame.
"Show yourself, little bastards," he growled, his beady eyes, barely visible behind his dark protective goggles, scoured the area for the scuttling shape he'd just seen. "Scared of 'ol Abel Hein, are ya?" he continued, speaking to the dark corners and the heated metal walkways and railings where the promethium burned, "can't come out and face me? Well that's alright, I'll burn this place to the ground if I have to."
A coughing, choking laugh echoed behind him. He spun around and held the trigger, dousing the area that the sound had come from with a cone of seeking flame. The flames engulfed a pipe that emerged from one of the monstrous generators. It shuddered in the heat, and then a metal cap popped off as a spout of fire bloomed out of it like a firecracker. Control panels bleeped, warning sounds blared, pipes hissed and clattered, red bulbs flashed and strobed.
Hein didn't care. These creatures were taunting him, hiding from him. The flamer gave him power, and he intended to use it. He ground his teeth together, madness in his eyes.
He sent another spout of flame along a metallic walkway. The fire blazed and spread, filling the crawlspace beneath the grating, illuminating the shuddering machinery either side, filling the air with cloying, black smoke. The room was shaking, gradually becoming saturated with Hein's flames. The demons laughed at him.
Lander ventured only two steps into the chaotic mix of noise and lights and heat that was the generator room. Fires burned and smoke billowed. The place looked fit to blow.
He called Hein's name into the mayhem. He let his heavy stubber hang loosely from its straps, and raised the autopistol that was holstered in his belt.
"Hein!" he called again, "you'll blow us all to hell! Get out of there!"
When Private Hein emerged into view from behind one of the creaking generators, he was wielding the dangerous, scorched-metal form of the flamer. His eyes darted around like frightened prey. Behind him, where chemical fires burned in the darkness and sparks flew, figures loomed. Dark things silhouetted against the flames, looming in the smoke. Forms that changed and twisted, limbs grew and then folded, faces and eyes could not be seen.
Lander raised the autopistol.
"Lander..." Hein muttered, his voice barely audible over the sounds of the generators. He pulled his goggles up over his head.
"Hein," was all that Lander said back to him. He rose the autopistol, pointed at the figures in the flames. Hein glared at him for a long moment, and Lander noticed something about his eyes. Inside them, the orange tongues of flame flickered. One was dark, the other a vivid, electric blue. Lander paused, pursed his lips, and lifted the pistol. Hein watched him, confused, then slowly looked behind him. His oddly coloured eyes widened as he saw the shapes that now surrounded him. Strange, preposterous laughter came out of the flames. Lander backed away, his weapon raised, pointed into the room.
The generator room was unstable. He couldn't fire. He backed up and into the darker, cooler corridor that led back to reception. He turned and walked back, a grim expression on his face. In his mind's eye he saw the figures in the flames, the expression on Hein's face. The colours of his eyes. He pressed the button on his micro-bead. It seemed to still be working.
"Hein is dead," he said calmly, "structural integrity of the generator room is compromised. There are … creatures in there. I'm coming back."
Private Abel Hein blinked as he turned to watch Lander's mighty frame disappear into the darkness, then he returned his attentions to the matter at hand. Leering, lolling, fang-filled faces stared through flames and smoke. Their jet black eyes stared with an uncaring, alien intelligence that sickened him to the soul. Forms changed and twisted. Failing generators hummed and vibrated dangerously. Choked laughter rose from the smoke.
Within the orange flames of the burning fuel, a familiar, blue flame started to bloom.
Hein spat a furious curse as he pressed the trigger, moving in a frantic circle as he did so, drenching each form that moved with liquid fire. The generator room vibrated and hissed. Warning lights flared.
"You won't get me you bastards, not like you did Dana, I'd rather burn!"
A chuckling horror lurched at him through the flames, touched him with a writhing claw surrounded with blue fire. Hein howled as he felt the pain of shifting bones and twisting veins. A gut-wrenching horror rose from his stomach like bile as he felt himself change, but through force of will he kept his finger on the trigger.
A deafening boom and a searing wall of fire proved to be his mercy.