Chapter 19: Control
As Gallo sat watching through the security cameras, he was impressed with the small group's resilience. They had overcome the huntresses that he accidentally overlooked and Bower had managed to purge and reset the reactor. The computer rebooted and all the lights in the security room lit up overhead but he didn't want to leave the terminal because he was still watching Nadia.
Nadia. He had heard them use her name over the camera's microphone. Nadia, it was a perfect name for a perfect queen.
Gallo stood from the computer and strode briskly to the bridge door. Scanning his forearm, the door opened smoothly to the shiny bridge. He made his way over to the main computer terminal and quickly accessed the security cameras and found his queen again just in time to see and hear them cheering.
"I'm not going across this busted bridge again," Bower was telling them, "I'll go forwardly and meet you at the platform."
"We'll meet you there!" Nadia said happily.
Everything was working out perfectly.
"It's as though you finally acknowledge who your true God is!" Gallo declared to the monitor. The time for him to implement the rest of his experiments had come, but first, he had to make sure that his precious Nadia was safe.
Gallo watched as Bower went fore along the platform to the next bridge. He crossed it quickly.
Gallo's attention was drawn to Nadia, "Where are you headed, my pet?" he murmured, locking onto Nadia's position. She had made her way out of the room and was heading starboard to meet up with Bower. There was no way for her to get to the center of the reactor room from the ladder platform. She had to exit the room, head forwardly and then cut back towards port. Gallo watched as she passed through the door then switched cameras, following her path as she hurried down a passage. Mahn and the infidel had lingered behind.
Perfect.
Gallo held his breath with anticipation. Once Nadia had entered into an empty storage room, he locked both exits trapping her inside. "Now I have you! You are mine. my little queen!"
He was shaking with pleasure.
On a separate display, he found an isolated group of hunters and systematically opened all doors that led to the reactor room before them. These hunters should be enough to eliminate the Asian, the infidel and the hero. He should have Nadia all to himself within an hour.
Gallo watched as Nadia pounded the locked door on the inside and Bower was prying at the same door from the outside. Apparently, Bower didn't bother to wait for her on the center platform but had traveled starboard enough to notice her being trapped. They were yelling to each other through the thick door but Gallo was unable to hear the conversation. The camera's microphone within Nadia's work room was damaged. Nothing to worry about. There was no way to open the door once locked.
The other display showed the hunters approaching the reactor room cautiously. They were still a distance from the three unsuspecting men but even if the infidel and the Asian got away, the hero Bower would be trapped and killed. Most likely these loyal idiots would stay and try to help their companion so all of them would die together. Subjects were so easy to manipulate and were so pathetically predictable.
As Gallo watched his master plan unfolding perfectly, his joy was too powerful to contain. He decided to talk to Nadia to make her see. He had to impress her as she had him. Hopefully, the com system on the wall was working in her room.
"Nadia do you copy?"
On the screen, Nadia stopped trying to open the locked door and she glared into the camera. Wow, she was pissed. Gallo giggled excitedly. She began to curse him in German which such vehemence that he was actually taken back. "Now, now," he soothed through the intercom, "Temper, temper."
Nadia pressed the talk button on the intercom, her voice boomed, "Is this your doing, you piece of shit? Did you lock this door?"
"Yes-" he began.
"Unlock it now! You unlock this door right now, goddammit!"
"I locked it to keep you safe."
"Safe?" Nadia's eyes were dangerously wild, "You can shove safe right up your ass! Open this fucking door, now!"
"Is that any way to talk to your king?"
She hesitated.
He could see fear creeping into her eyes; she was starting to understand. "You are to be my queen." he told her forcibly, "You will do my bidding no matter how little or whimsical or humiliating, you will satisfy my every need and my every desire."
"Try and make me." Nadia said it slowly and icily. "I would love to see you try and make me."
"You don't have a choice in the matter."
"I'll cut your balls off and force feed them to you!"
"Ouch!" Gallo laughed wholeheartedly, "I guarantee that you won't get a chance. I control your life, Nadia. I can take it away at any time."
"Fuck you!" Nadia spat.
"Just wait." Gallo entered a false code for a fire alarm located within the work room. As soon as the false alarm was activated, he was given temporary control of that room's life support system. He drained eighty percent of the oxygen from the room and replaced it with carbon dioxide to "put out" the false fire.
Nadia began to cough.
"I can drain the life from your body whenever I want, my pet. You will spend the rest of your life serving me on your knees!"
She tried to respond but was having trouble breathing. She wheezed and coughed. Nadia collapsed to the floor writhing with her effort to breathe.
Bower continued to pry at the outside of the door. He must have called for help because the other two men started forward.
Gallo drained the carbon dioxide from the room and let the oxygen quickly flow back in.
Nadia sucked in deep panicked breaths and got back onto her feet. "Was that meant to scare me?" she screamed hoarsely, "You should have just let me die! I'll never bow to you! Never! I don't fear death, you bastard!"
He laughed at her futile resistance. "We'll soon see just how much death you can handle."
She hesitated again, puzzled.
Nadia's work room contained a small terminal with a display on it. He rerouted the info from bridge's computers to the terminal in her room so that she could see everything that he could via camera. "You will see what happens to those who refuse to cooperate! You will now witness my power!"
Gallo watched her with glee as she viewed the hunters approaching the reactor room. Immediately, she screamed a warning to Bower. "He somehow has hunters coming towards us! Run!"
She had left the intercom microphone on.
Gallo could hear Bower's muffled voice through the door, "I'm not leaving you."
So pathetically predictable.
"Bower, please." She begged. "Don't do this. The hunters can't get to me in this room. I'm perfectly safe here. You're the one in danger, now go! Run! Please!"
The hero ignored her and kept trying to get the door opened.
Nadia wailed, "Damn you! Run! Don't die for me, Bower! I'll never forgive you!"
"I'm not leaving you," he repeated resolutely.
Meanwhile, the Asian and the infidel had made there way to the opposite door to Nadia's room and were trying to get her out as well.
So easy to manipulate.
"Watch as your friends die." he told her through the com unit. "Watch as they are killed and eaten like cattle."
With terrified, tear filled eyes, Nadia watched helplessly as the hunters were nearing the reactor room. They had picked up their pace since they could hear all the shouting and banging as her three companions tried to free her. One of the hunters clacked its teeth together loudly, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat. The echolocation would help the hunters find their prey quickly.
Even through the microphones, Gallo could hear and almost feel the hunter's sound waves.
The men heard it too. Instead of retreating, they doubled their efforts to open Nadia's door. The infidel and the Asian breached the opposite door with a crowbar. They could only get the door pried open a few inches but they were making progress.
Gallo could see the hunters entering the reactor room. They were very close.
Nadia was still yelling at the men to run.
The Asian and the infidel left the crowbar jammed into the door and started to move aft.
Gallo watched them in amazement.
Instead of escaping, they continued aft as if to intercept the hunters. He laughed aloud at their foolishness. There was almost a dozen hunters in the group that was approaching. These men were heading to certain death.
"Come around to this door!" Nadia yelled to Bower through the door. Gallo could hear her through the com unit on the wall. "They almost had it open. Opposite side of the room. You'll have to come around."
"Okay. I'll have you out soon."
Bower made his way around through a few passages towards the opposite door.
Meanwhile, Gallo watched the Asian and the infidel get to the platform across the bridge. The hunters were entering the room from the bottom level, a full fifty feet below the group. The Asian and the infidel were watching them. They were talking quietly, plotting something. They were speaking too low for the reactor room camera to pick up what they were saying.
Were they deciding to sacrifice themselves? Did they think they could save the hero and Nadia? Were they going to have the hunters chase them and lead them away from their companions? How revolting. How utterly pathetic.
"I'm going to enjoy watching your friends ripped to shreds," he told Nadia through the com unit. "They don't deserve to live. Filthy, disgusting, dirty pieces of waste. I'm going to keep their heads as trophies!"
Everyone watched either firsthand or via camera as the hunters fanned out, trying to locate their prey. They kept clacking their teeth using the echolocation but for some reason they were having trouble pinpointing the men. Gallo wondered if it was the sheer vastness of the reactor room. Perhaps the steam was interfering with the sound waves. Whatever the cause, the hunters were staying at the entrance of the room seemingly confused.
What the hell is going on?
"No matter!" Gallo screamed at the monitor as if were conspiring against him, "You think I'm defenseless? You think I am powerless? You think you're going to hide from my trap and just skip out of the room unnoticed? Witness my power!"
Using the room controls, Gallo accessed the lights for the reactor level and turned them on. The Asian and the infidel were immediately illuminated by bright lights. The hunters spotted them and Gallo heard the sweet sound of the hunters shrieking in excitement. They spread out, some of them leaping onto the platform ladders and climbing up at several different points. Still others rushed back out of the room the climb the aft stairwells to the upper level.
"Run! Flee before my minions!" Gallo cackled at the monitor as he watched the Asian and the infidel frozen like deer in the headlights.
Neither of them ran.
Gallo stopped laughing.
The Asian drew his weapons. The infidel crossed the fore bridge and then ran to the port side platform where the group had climbed down. There was a narrow heavy duty door along the wall. He saw Leland crouch by it, using the shadows and the steam to conceal himself. He was watching the Asian closely.
What the fuck do they think they're doing?
They were definitely plotting something. Gallo was desperate to figure out their plan. He was running out of time. The hunters were reaching the platform.
The hunter that was climbing closest to the Asian didn't stand a chance. He split its skull before it could climb out of the ladder cage. It's body fell fifty feet and crashed onto the bottom deck with a sickening thud.
Two hunters climbed up ladders on the forward side of the room. They must have heard the pair struggling to get Nadia's door opened. Both hunters shrieked triumphantly and bolted forward. Bower was as good as dead.
"Watch your precious hero die right in front of you," Gallo told Nadia through the com unit.
"Here! All of you! Here!" The Asian bellowed like a madman. The two hunters that were heading fore stopped in their tracks as did the others that had reached the platform at various places in the room. All eyes were on the Asian.
No way.
"I have killed many of your kind! Come and get me!"
No!
The infidel quietly swung the door open and stood behind it revealing the empty passage beyond.
Impossible! You filthy humans! You rotten pieces of shit! No! No! No!
Gallo was so furious he was at a loss for words. All he could do was tremble with rage, swallow hard and make angry choking sounds in his throat as the Asian ran through the door followed by all of the hunters. Not one hunter remained in the reactor room. The infidel quietly closed the door behind them and locked it.
You rotten bastards! Oh you fucking rotten bastards!