43
Ianto punched in an access code — 667 — and a heavy steel door slid away to reveal a vast room filled with specimen tanks. The tanks are made of circular plexi and reach from floor to ceiling. There are literally hundreds of them, and with no clear way through the room, they form a grotesque kind of maze.
"OK, creepy now" Kew hissed to Mickey who nodded with silent disgust, some of the aliens on display recognisable from his time with the Doctor. Each tank is filled with a viscous liquid and some new exciting monstrosity. Animals spliced together. Skeletons that look barely human. Some that clearly aren't.
Kitty wandered through the room. She sees human bodies stripped of their skin, just the bare musculature on show. Mesmerized by the freak show, she doesn't realize that she is being slowly separated from the others. This room does indeed function like a maze, and she is becoming lost.
Ianto looked up from his PDA to scan the room, making a small noise as he noticed her gone then watched Frank swing in the direction he knows he has gone.
She has stopped in front of one tank. It contains a strange four legged creature with no eyes and a grotesque long tongue. Perhaps this was humanoid once, but that was a long time ago. She stared at it, unsure if it was evolution or alien. The liquid the dead Creature was kept in is being constantly circulated, and the movement made the three foot long tongue sway, as though it were licking the plexi glass. Up close, the pink fleshy tongue is covered in a thousand tiny barbs. She was sickened but also mesmerised.
Kitty looked away from the tank and realized that the rest of the team disappeared. She is alone in this grotesque maze. Where literally anything could be hiding. She suddenly sensed movement. Something refracted through the curved glass of a specimen tank, Something horrifying and she squeaked as Frank stepped around the glass to glower at her.
With nervous snorts of laughter she let him lead her back to the group where Ianto was slowly shaking his head.
Ianto was operating three plasma screen laptops simultaneously, running multiple bypasses on the control room computers. Jack was indicating a thick vault door at the end of the steel corridor. Above the door sat an infra red camera with a Weapons Cluster built around it "High explosive, armour piercing, C.S. gas, this baby has it all. Every five seconds the camera pans the corridor, the Weapons Cluster following the sweep, prepared to annihilate anything that crosses its path."
In the steel corridor, the Weapons Cluster powers down.
"Thank fuck!" Mickey snorted. "Can I keep that?"
Jack led the team towards the vault door. They advanced cautiously, still wary of any potential traps, Jack stood before the vault door. This thing looked like it could withstand an atomic bomb, he placed a tiny electronic box over the vault's locking mechanism.
Ianto fired up three computers. Kitty watched as thousands of letters and numbers scroll across the three plasma screens. On the first computer, the possibilities quickly reduce, and then settle on a simple code: RQ KR 4 WQ QB 4 WQ QB 5 – UNLOCK. After a moment the second screen reads : WQ KB 8 WQ QB 8 RK K 2 – UNLOCK. Then the third and final screen: WK KB 5 RQ K WQ QR 6 – UNLOCK.
Ianto sat back, satisfied.
The vault door reverberated as its giant locking mechanisms came undone. Thirty inches of steel plate swing aside to reveal a high domed chamber bathed in red light.
The team were just about to enter the inner chamber when without warning, a thick blast door suddenly SLAMS down. It separated the Team from the control room, cutting off their escape route.
From within the chamber came a sudden movement. A horizontal beam of red light. Travelling down the corridor at high speed. Jack dragged Mickey beside him to the ground as the wire thin beam of light passed overhead, yelling at them all to hit the deck as Ianto watched outside.
The thin line of laser light streaked back towards them. This time it is just above ankle level, like a trip wire. Kev tried to jump over it, but the laser adjusts, suddenly raising in height. He was caught off guard and screamed as he was sliced neatly in two. He stayed standing for a couple of seconds. Just long enough to see the horror of his own body falling apart ... was not about to happen then he looked over at the Captain who was shrieking with laughter on the floor, pointing at him as he tried to talk through the choking laughter.
"You bastard!" Mickey snorted then started to laugh as well "OK. You did warm me he was a funny bastard. Shit, really? Resident Evil? Shit, I gotta try to remember some of that movie if he has set up fake booby traps like this. Shit, thought I was done for!"
"Why I loved him" Jack said as he got to his feet and wiped his eyes "A right old shit. But so damned funny."
"Cariad? Finished?"
"Yes Holdfast, let's move on."