-9-
"Okay, here's my theory," Poet said. "When the portal was discovered it was understood there it had some sort of transceiver. For what? We didn't know. Now we see it allows for remote opening of one Ark to permit teleportation. The transceiver was tested for all frequencies that could be generated by man-made devices; somehow it didn't occur that it might possibly receive higher frequencies. In fact, I think it can only be activated by higher frequencies, via transceiver."
"Okay." Genghis nodded. "I get that."
"The field's back on, sir." Smith just reported.
"Obviously," Poet said. "The signal can penetrate through the field, being at a higher frequency and I think it can turn the field on and off according to its convenience."
"But why turn off?"
"For the Ark to operate, all electromagnetic disturbances must be removed. Including high power fields. That's why we could link with our satellite or establish any communication. The problem is, the high frequency signal was scrambling up our connection. We couldn't connect."
"So, basically all our electronic scanners are pretty much moot, right now," Sam said. She grabbed a sponge and began to mop the blood on Phoenix's face. Phoenix flinched from the attention but Sam gently told her this would make things easier.
"For unidentified life signs, yes. It's still able to read our thermal feeds."
"So, we can't be sure of any lurking monsters?" Genghis said.
"Not really."
"Okay," John said. "So that leaves us in a code red."
"Yes."
"And we can't call for backup," Gryffin said, "because we can't establish a link."
"So what can we do? Can we get out of here, to the nearest city and give a call, you think?" Sandman said, sarcastically.
"Well –" Poet made a facial shrug. The idea seemed pretty plausible.
"Don't answer that." Genghis ordered. "We'd be risking a mass invasion to earth if we just run away from this and call for backup."
John rubbed his eyes. Genghis was right. If they left now, which he really wanted to do, these things would follow them all the way.
"So how do we neutralize the threat – without being able to assess it?"
"We could blow up the Ark." Hobbit suggested.
"And wipe out Nevada State in a nuclear explosion?" Sam said. "I don't think so."
"Jeez! It's been nearly thirty-two hours since we've been down here, and we still don't know anything!" Bazooka said.
"How long will that filter hold?" Genghis said, rubbing his eyes.
"I don't know. Right now, we need to find a way to disengage that field; we might make some amount of progress."
"There's another thing, you're not considering. Disengaging the field might make it susceptible to a lower frequency activation of the transceiver." Smith said.
"Not a chance," John said, rubbing his eyes and then looking at Phoenix, whose grey eyes was all that he could see on her slime covered face. "You blew the transceiver up, didn't you?"
There was a knowing smile in her eyes. Genghis looked impressed at Phoenix. She shrugged.
Poet said, "Smart thing too. If it screws up Ark travel, it's better for us. Nothing can get in without manual access."
"But the Ark is still operational?" Genghis said.
Poet nodded.
"And there's always the possible thing you saw in the sewer." Genghis muttered looking at John.
"So you believe me now?"
"Hell Reaper! After what I just saw, I'd believe anything. And there is the chance that there is more than one of those things, down there."
There was a pregnant silence.
"Can we afford to autopsy all the infiltrating creatures?" Sam said, breaking the silence.
"Under the circumstances," Gamgee said, "considering that we're sitting ducks with no communications, and all. It wouldn't be such a bad idea, sir."
Genghis nodded, taking the idea into consideration. "We need to find that damn creature in the sewer and kill it."
They all nodded in unison. Genghis gave an exhausted sigh and then said, "Looks like we can't afford much rest, either."
He looked around at each of them and said, "Bazooka, Hobbit, Gryffin and I will get all the weapons up here; Gamgee, Poet. You two help Dr. Grimm get those freaks into the lab. Phoenix, Reaper. You two are first gonna get cleaned up; make it as quick as possible. After which Phoenix, you and Poet will work on the ark. If those things came now, it means they've been here before and if the Ark is operational, there is a chance they can come again. Reaper, you have some experience in Archaeology, am I correct?"
"Hardly!" John said, "I've been out of –"
"And old dog is better at sniffing out a bone than a deer, Reaper." He cut him off.
"Genghis, I want to help you find that thing down there."
"It's a simple quarantine operation, Reaper. We've done it before, we can do it again. I want you to stick with your sister and help her out. Those freaks may be dead, but I don't trust them. Dr. Grimm?"
Sam raised her head waiting for Genghis' orders.
"My orders were to ensure that any information we assess remained safe and classified. I understand those were your orders too, especially with regards the archaeology section?"
She nodded.
"Safe and classified," Gamgee said. "This was an abandoned base. What could –"
"This didn't strike me, at first, but now I'm beginning to think there is more to this than the HQ lets on. It's possible that they might know something about this base that we don't. Why else send an archaeologist here when it's a simple investigative mission?"
He paused to take a deep breath.
"The thing is," Genghis said. "I'm not a conventional soldier; I never was. I'm terrible at following orders, especially when they'll probably get me killed. So, if you find anything, either from those creatures or anything else, Dr. Grimm, you will report it to me. Am I understood?"
Sam nodded. John had to hand it to Genghis. He was a bastard, but a good leader.
"Smith!"
"Yes, sir."
"Once Sandman is ready, he'll come to surveillance. Till then you're on the job. Don't bother wasting time with surface communication; just try to find a way to check that field. Understood?"
"Roger that, sir."
"Once we're done, we'll decide the rotations."
They all nodded before they dispersed.
John went quietly with Phoenix towards the bathrooms. Gryffin had helped them locate some utilities including clean underwear which they had in hand, before he went ahead with Genghis.
As always, Phoenix had slipped into silent mode.
When they reached the men and women section, John stopped and told her. "The water goes to the sewage, right?"
She nodded.
"And we haven't yet checked the plumbing and overhead vents."
She didn't respond.
"I think we should be cautious about this."
The look on her face told him she understood that he was implying that they shouldn't be all that far apart. She nodded and then raised her eyebrows towards the men's door and then the women's door as if to say, 'which one?'
"Hell! I'm not bathing in the women's shower!" John quipped.
Phoenix sneered at him as he pushed the door open and held it for her to go through.
She went past him and turned on the lights. John locked the door and checked the bathrooms once. "It's clear. Smith," he said, into his comm. "I'm turning all gun cams off for a little privacy here."
"Aww, I was hopin' to get Phoenix naked!" Smith joked. "Anyway, roger that."
Phoenix gave one of her standard bleak smiles and shook her head. John grimaced and then said to her, "You take the shower on the extreme left and I'll take the right. That way we'll have our privacy."
She nodded and went towards the cubicle.
"You better check the water, before you step into it." He called after her. She did not turn to acknowledge him. John watched her retreating back as she did so until she disappeared behind the door. He turned towards his cubicle and waited for the sound of her shower to come on before he turned on the water. He arranged his clothes; towel and the soap on the shelf provided for the same and kept his comm, his pistol and rifle over it.
The water seemed clean and his scanner showed no abnormal readings. Finally confident he placed the scanner next to the comm and divested himself of his wet and sticky clothes and stepped in.
Phoenix raised her face to the warm jet, keeping her eyes closed as the warmth seemed into her body. The abrasions on her arms stung as she turned but she ignored the pain. She untied her hair and scrubbed it with some soap, wishing she had a decent shampoo. The only vanity she allowed herself was her hair.
She was not unaware that not far from her the man she was trying to avoid was naked and wet as well.
"Dammit!" She swore loudly, reminding herself that such thoughts were not welcome.
"What happened?" she heard his voice over the comm, through the water, and remembered that the comms were open for their security.
"Nothing, just…er…dropped the soap."
"Okay."
She placed her palms flat on either side of the wall unit and breathed heavily to calm herself. The water was having its soothing effect. Slowly her mind cleared, as her cubicle filled up with steam. She felt her eyes closing – all this relaxing was putting her to sleep. She sat down in the cubicle, under the spray and leaned her head against the opposite wall and closed her eyes. She wasn't going to sleep, she told herself. She'd just rest her eyes a little.
John switched off his shower and grabbed the towel. Through his comm he heard the crackling sound of water coming from Phoenix's side. He peeked out of the cubicle, wrapping the towel around his waist and saw that she hadn't come out.
Women! He thought. No matter what kind they were they'd spend ours pampering themselves.
He decided to get dressed outside the confines of the cubicle seeing that there was no risk of her walking in on him.
Five minutes later John stood dressed in front of the mirror, combing his wet hair with his hands. He frowned, looking through the mirror towards her cubicle. The shower was still on.
"Phoenix?" he said, loud enough for her to hear him from there. "You okay in there?"
No response.
"Phoenix?"
Nothing.
"Phoenix?" He said through the comm. "Are you okay?"
When she didn't answer, John picked up his plasma rifle and charged it, headed cautiously towards her cubicle door.
"Phoenix!" he called louder this time. Through the shaded partitions of the cubicle, in the light he saw a shadow crouched against the door. It did not look like anyone was standing under a shower inside that cubicle.
His heart began to pound.
"PHOENIX!" He slammed his fist on the door. The shadow fell forwards. John stood back and flung his leg on the door, bursting it open.
Steam and a spray of water poured straight into his eyes. John tried to clear his vision when out of nowhere something dark came at his chin. He stepped back as pain shot through his jaw bone and he slipped on the water landing hard on his back.
He recovered quickly and found himself staring into the double barrel of a shot gun, held by one hand and Phoenix standing over him, her eyes shining as she held a badly wrapped towel in place with her other hand.
"What. The. FUCK. Do. You. THINK. You're. DOING?" She bit each word out in an unmistakable tone of danger.
John heaved as he sat up and shouted. "What the fuck did you think you were doing? I was practically yelling for you!"
Her eyes narrowed and John thrust her shotgun out of his view and made to sit up, but it came back and the barrel was pressed against his mouth. He glared at Phoenix.
"I didn't hear, you call." She said in a suspicious tone.
"Yeah! I figured! Fuck! You scared the life out of me, you bitch! You didn't answer, goddamn it! What the hell were you doing? Why couldn't you hear me, are you deaf or something?"
The gun was retracted and she jerked it to safety using her one hand and she said, sarcastically, "Maybe I am."
John rose angrily. "Then you don't deserve to be in the marines, soldier."
"Sod off." She said calmly. "Now get out of my face so I can get dressed."
John could have struck her for her goddamn callousness. He would have done it, too, had she not pulled back into the cubicle and slammed the door in his face. When he stood there for two minutes staring at the door and her silhouette moving within, turning off the shower and obviously drying herself off, he realized he was panting.
"So what the fuck were you doing in there, huh? Sleeping?" he barked.
She didn't answer, John didn't care and he just kept his eyes glued to the movement of the shadow.
John pounded his fist into the door, in frustration and said, "I'm not moving from here until you are out, so you can forget trying to ignore me."
There was no answer.
John pounded his fist on it again, gritting his teeth, more to remove the tension within him, rather than anything else.
The third time he slammed his fist against the door, it was met with no resistance in as she had opened the door and something was flung sharply onto his face. John felt her get past him as he pulled out whatever it was and found it was her soiled uniform.
Muttering curses he threw it away and went towards the mirror where she was toweling her hair, staring coldly at the reflection as she did so. He met her gaze through the mirror and said, "Phoenix! I don't get it! I was shouting enough for a goddamn sloth wake up."
She didn't answer him again, but her eyes averted. John watched as she toweled her hair quickly. The warmth of the shower had brought some colour to her skin. She was wearing a black tank and she looked pink and almost childish. She chucked the towel aside and combed her fingers through her auburn hair which looked almost brown when wet. John sighed and leaned against the wall, watching her absently. He noticed that her hair was curly and when they were relaxed about her face she that scar didn't stand out so much. He hated to admit it, but she looked pleasant.
"Do you mind?" she asked, finally.
John snapped out of his absent thinking and realized he had been staring at her the whole time she arranged herself.
"Yeah, I do. I'm not letting you out of my sight."
"Look!" she said, in annoyance. "I might have dozed off okay! I'm fucking sorry, if that makes you feel any better."
She leaned to pick up the jacket placed on the other side and John saw that there was tattoo on her right shoulder. A fiery bird with its talons hovering over a pit of flames.
A phoenix.
John felt something click in his mind, but he ignored it when he irritation took over. "Phoenix, you don't goddamn understand, do you?"
"No, Reaper!" She shouted, putting on her jacket. "I understand perfectly well, but I'm not superhuman, so stop faffing and cut me some fucking slack! And stop staring at me like some peeved goddamn….husband!"
She stormed past him and he yelled after her, "Oh yeah! Well guess what? That's three sentences more than you've spoken in the last thirty six hours!"
When he reached the lab, he found a huge, ugly beast lying on the floor, with a triumphant Genghis standing over it. Hobbit was whimpering as he held a deep wound on his arm which Gamgee was trying to patch.
"Nice work, Genghis." John said, moving around the creature.
"We think, this was the only one there," Genghis said. "Thing is – I don't know how we missed it in the second sweep, so we could have missed something now too."
John nodded. "Where's Bazooka?"
"Hobbit's suggested something, before he got his arm nearly ripped off, of course. Smith, the others are on the job. Their modifying the nano walls from the armory to guard as many entrances to sewers as possibles."
"The advantage to this base is," Gamgee said as he swatted Hobbit to keep him still as he sutured his wound. "There are access strips to each of the sewer vents – so our chances of being secure are better."
Hobbit yelped as Gamgee dabbed something on his wound. "Stop crying like a girl, Hobbit!"
"The only girl on this mission is Phoenix, goddammit!" Hobbit shouted and then yelped again.
"Yeah, well she's got better pain tolerance so shut the fuck up!"
"Sergeant." It was Poet. "The defragmenter identified a hidden series of logs in the Ark's database."
"Defragmenter?" Sam voiced John's query.
"That little black device he carries?" Genghis said. "It reads all computer information down to its numerical coding. It's a pain in the ass, and if you're no good at math, it can confuse all the shit in your brain. Go on, Poet."
"Sarge, you're not going to believe this. The logs are superimposed on the existing logs. It's a very neat trick; separate logs are never created because of a program. It's like two logs stuck so close on top of each other that any ordinary decoding device would not read it. I wouldn't have discovered it…if it weren't for…"
He broke off.
"Weren't for, what?" John said.
"My optimers. I could see a penumbra around each digit. Kinda like butter-paper tracings over the actual image."
"Poet, pretend for a minute I don't read the ultimate geek manual for quantum physic dummies and rephrase everything you said!"
"That does not matter, Sarge, the point here is, according to Phoenix, this program has been put in here."
"What do you mean?"
"She says this program was once some sort of virus that was very popular. It entered pretty much like a Trojan horse. It would overwrite your files but never actually erase your data. It was only if you were using those files that you'd know the virus was there. No one is using these logs, Sarge. If someone put in this program, no one would come to know."
"Wait a minute," John said. "How did that get there?"
"That's the thing. The odds of this particular program being transmitted from outside the planet to our computers would be very slim. I don't think Martians know how to use our computers, besides the Ark log database was created by us. I don't think they have any use for the logs.
"Or any reason to hide their visits." John said pensively.
"Also we tracked this program to the mainframe. I'd bet you fifty bucks that there are a lot of hidden files on all computers."
"Fuck!" Genghis swore. "Someone's being using this facility!"
"Or accessing it through a network."
"Sam," John said. "Did you get anything on the infiltrators?"
"I didn't get a chance." She shook her head. "We had just brought the last of them in here when Genghis came with this thing. I'll start up just as soon as –"
"No," Genghis said. "We're going to get some rest. All of us. If we're going to beat whatever it is that's trying to get to this side, we'll need to be at a hundred percent functionality."
"Can we risk it?" John said. Though he didn't approve of spending unnecessary time here, he felt the exhaustion of two sleepless nights setting in. The incident with Phoenix in the showers, told him the others needed it more than he did.
"We stick together and keep alert, we'll be fine. No one sleeps alone. Phoenix, you're bunking with Dr. Grimm, o'Riley's you two together, Sandman with me, Reaper, you're with Smith, and Poet with Hobbit, Bazooka you get the first watch. It's now 0100, we're all up and ready by 0600. Understood?"
---
"John!" Sam called after him as he stalked towards the bunkers. He stopped and waited her to catch up with him. "What happened?" she asked him. "I heard you two arguing over the comms."
She was talking about Phoenix. Remembering their spat gave a sour taste in his mouth.
"Mind your own goddamn business!" He mumbled as he walked past her towards the bunkers. John slammed open his door and tossed his gun angrily on the bed. Smith wasn't there yet. He stood furiously and allowed himself to calm down before he sat. He sighed as he pulled off his tee and sat on the bunker.
He didn't know what it was about Phoenix that got under his skin; he kept telling himself that it was her odd behavior but he knew it was something more than that.
Breathing heavily he wiped his face with a towel. The only image in front of his head was her scarred pale face and those grey eyes.
"Maybe you like her?"
Samantha intruded into his thoughts just as she intruded into his quarters.
"Of all the places to match make, this hell hole is what you find?" John quipped.
"I'm not saying you like her that way…though the way you keep staring at her…" She had a look of mock pensiveness. John playfully flung a pillow at her.
"Hey!" She caught it. "It's not me! I'll believe anything you say, brother!"
"I am not attracted to her."
Sam shook her head. "I guess she's no man's type, huh?"
"Look it's not because of the scar or anything, jeez! Women!"
"Did I say anything?"
"Face it, Sam, looks aside, she isn't exactly the most sociable person on the planet, here!"
"My lips are sealed, John. I didn't say anything." Sam broke into a knowing smile.
"Oh yeah?" John grinned. "Wipe that stupid smile off your face, or I'll do it for you."
Sam chuckled. "Admit it, John. She impressed you. Whether you like her or not, it's been a long time since anyone…" At the look on John's face, she stressed. "Man or woman, who's been able to do that. Anyway, I'm beat. " Sam headed for the door. "I'll catch some beauty sleep and maybe write a letter or something."
John nodded at her as she left before falling on the bed.
Sam was right. He had better accept the fact that he did like Phoenix, even though her cold demeanor annoyed the hell out him. She was a fantastic soldier.
He sighed again and closed his eyes. He had better work on his denial of the facts, he told himself before he found himself in too deep. The last time he had refused to accept the fact that he could actually be impressed by anyone – especially a girl he ended up falling for her and nearly violating his protocol. That Donovan kid – she got under his skin too – just like Phoenix.
John's eyes snapped open.
Donovan.
"FUCK!"
