Mecha Frontier Chapter 5
The team returned to the main chamber visibly disturbed. The lab wing didn't match the map at all. Tiny details and nearly indiscernible abnormalities nagged them ,tugging at the back of their minds. Wasp had looked through the notebook a second time, hoping that the slow descent into insanity was just as much as a misunderstanding as the errant elevator.
Reaper reported to Ryuki. He was just as confused about the map as they were. "What the hell. Just our luck , these researchers made shoddy maps. Looks like its up to us to map this place out", he exclaimed.
Wasp was tentative. What to do with this journal, a piece of evidence showing a more sinister history of events. The missing elevator was another, along with the expertly printed falsified map. Ryuki saw her milling about aimlessly, seeing a listlessness that only deep concern could bring. "What's bothering you Wasp? You feeling as spooked as the rest of em about this?" he asked.
"Sir, this journal, its seriously bothering me. Something weird was going on here. Who ever was writing in here seemed to be going insane or something. Its just turns into a jumble of words that have no meaning. It sure as hell is written in proper grammar though. I don't like it, sir".
Definitely something was not right, Ryuki thought as he read through the book. There were sparks of genuine insanity, sentences about creeping darkness and solid shadows. One description that caught his attention though seemed even more bizarre. The journal spoke of endless hallways that inched on as one walked. Walls that seemed to contract when no one was looking. Corners that seemed not totally 90 degrees in side a cubical room. The imperceptible breaths that came through the grated floor, like a soft breeze.
He could hear it, the thumping of a heart. No it couldn't be. Nothing like that could travel through thick bulkheads and plating. "Alright lets find a way down. Start breaking walls if you have to. Im going down to that research bay , the rest of you look for any sealed doors".
"Going by yourself? Sir, are you crazy?" Wasp exclaimed. "Don't worry , I'll bring a flamer unit with me. If there are any xenos down there , I will fry them up like a BBQ on a hot winters day" he said.
Karin handed out geo-tags , simple trackers for location detection. "Now these things have a limited range, so drop a retransmitter every hundred meters or so. Any further and you'll be invisible to us. I'll be inside a Zephyr, you now just in case", she said.
"I hope that thing can stop acid blood" Reaper called out.
Rafe left the others to form teams. Why did he decide though to go alone, even he didn't know. There was something drawing him, a call that he couldn't hear. It was in his bones , vibrating through his skull and digging down into his subconscious. The unknown. A place that seemed right until little details showed its strangeness. He wanted to grasp at it, conquer it and finally quell the fear that ran through his mind. Doing it alone , it would be a test of his mettle. But in the back of his mind he screamed out. No, this isn't a smart thing to do at all. No amount of training can prepare for the unknown. Protocols dissolve , strategies falter and all preparations come undone. He pushed himself down the dim hallways, past the leaky pipes and the clouds of steam. Why, he kept asking as his body moved on its own volition.
Death, that was the unknown he was grasping for. He wanted to know it, see it, but didn't make the realization , that Death was what he was looking for. His mind still fought itself as his body pushed forward. The entrance to the bay loomed , its reinforced doors waiting for him in the coldness.
"Alright guys, team up, two per team or whatever. We're gonna go through vents,shafts ,crawlways what have you" ,Ross spoke. As the XO, it was the rare joy to have command of the team. Today though was a bitter moment. Down underground, with the floors still rumbling from the shifting ice, it could be his last chance to command. His body was stiff and tired, his mind slow. His orders were vague. It was the best he could do, with little sleep and lack of rest. Normally it would have been just an annoyance, but the eerie atmosphere laid a heaviness on his shoulders. Anxiety rose from it, with fear along with it. He could see it in the others. They too were dragging their feet and furrowing their brows. The oppressing darkness , the seemingly vast yet cramped corridors and chambers, it all left a sense of foreboding. He wished for a few stims and maybe a cup of coffee to ease his nerves.
The labs were dimly lit. It seemed power was intermittent with the lights flickering. His shadow danced against the floor, shadowy doppelgangers that stretched out towards the walls. Not a single sound other than his own feet tapping the floors , not one squeak of fatigued metal could be heard. Everything was pristine, right down to the shining chrome of the wall lights. This was no abandoned facility. A cleaning crew could have came in while he blinked to clean the place up. It was so new and strange. Even the headquarters were dilapidated compared to the labs.
But in that musk of washed walls and floors, the unsettling thought that time had ceased to move forward popped into his mind. The walls seemed to contract as he walked down to the other end. No , it was just in his mind. Nothing changed , but why was he short of breath? Something was unsettling. In all the normalcy , it just didn't look real. He touched the cold walls with his palms. His hands left moisture prints. Condensation collected and mildew spread along the wall. No longer pristine. The low light had obscured the dirt and grime that built up. His chem-light wasn't strong enough and with batteries rationed so tightly his flashlight went without power.
Tracing the moisture with his finger, he walked to the adjacent wall . The cold wall warmed as his finger slid across it. He looked, the faint outline of a door way , bounded by droplets of water. Behind the wall was warm air. This had to be the elevator. He set off on a jog back to the main chamber.
Dizzy and Wasp had made it to where Barry and Ross had found the generator room. Inside they found the still cooling plant, its fiery core burning bright. Instrumentation still hummed with electricity and displays lit with scrolling graphs and charts. Apart from the dull glow of the core, everything seemed alright. They searched the panels, opened logbooks and manuals. Nothing of interest. No hidden doors to elevators and no creeping xenos either.
Back in the utility tunnel, they saw a flashing red light at the other end. It was attached to a pull out panel, a keypad with card reader which seemed to control a heavy door. A few attempts at the panel proved useless. With nothing else to see they headed back to the others.
Barry and Ross rummaged through the crew quarters. Other than hastily tossed clothing, there was nothing out of the ordinary. In the med-bay, a journal showed logs dating back to only a few days prior. Descriptions of sundry complaints and simple ailments abound the pages. The emergency kits were still stacked neatly next the unlocked medicine locker. They cracked the locker open to find most of the anesthetics missing. Even the anesthetic gas tanks were gone. There was no sign of any recent patient though. The beds were tidy and stacks of clean linen were present in the bedding closet. All the pain killers were oddly untouched.
"You would think that people would hit the stims when slag is about to hit the fan. The place is clean like my granny's kitchen. What the frak?" Barry exclaimed. His first instinct would have been to drown himself in pain killers, just in case death looked especially gruesome.
Ross wondered too why only the anesthetics were taken. There wasn't much any could do when they went under. Maybe someone really wanted to end it all as painlessly as possible. But that would mean there were bodies. What bays they could reach were empty. It looked as if people had just got up and left. Not one bit of this made any sense.
"I really hope this wasn't some kind of cult ritual. You know what happens when people get isolated. They start going crazy, start doing weird stuff to themselves. And not the fun weird stuff. The disturbing ,vivisection kind of stuff", Barry whispered. They both finished their check of the med-bay."Ok, we might as well take the useful supplies with us, antibiotics , nanostickies , stims, whatever we can carry back. Then we'll keep looking through the rooms. Maybe we'll find some freeze dried food if we're lucky" Ross spoke.
Reaper fiddled with the micro-drones, setting them up for autonomous recon. The little bugs could fly for hours on their power cells. The problem though was that their communication was spotty when out of line of sight. The only way to make them useful was to piggyback off the repeaters. The coverage wasn't enough to get into the nooks and crannies, but just enough to get into places the others hadn't visited.
Tiny laser imagers mounted to the thorax would scan the hallways, creating a map of the complex. Reaper had programmed a set waypoint for each to follow so that they wouldn't become haplessly lost.
With the bugs in his hand, he tossed them up. The drones soared through the air before flying under their own power, flitting about like bee's. Each went its separate way , their blinking bodies disappearing into the darkness.
Rafe arrived around the same time that Dizzy and Wasp to hear their exasperated description of an all too secret door. The fact that it was near the power generator must have had some unknown significance with the mysterious power drain. But what surprised him the most was that the drain was still occuring.
"All power seemed normal, in the green. I thought you guys shut that thing down?" Dizzy said. It should have been, the generator itself was offline. That passage , the locked door, they had to have something to do with this.
"Thats some strange news" Rafe said , quite the understatement. "I think I found where the elevator is. Its a big one. And its hidden behind a solid steel wall". He watched the others contort their faces in surprise, scratching their heads in confusion.
"Yeah, it looks like we've got two things to do, breach the wall and unlock the door. We're gonna be blind , no situational awareness, no intel. These two paths are completely unheralded. Prepare yourselves. Mentally , the most".
