The Deep Beneath (22 page)

“I want to dry that hair of yours, 9. Get all the extra moisture out. The heat lamp isn’t quite doing the job.” Dr. Dolan plugged the hairdryer into a plug on Tex’s examination table and turned it on.

The sound was loud and unpleasant to Tex’s sensitive ears. But the loud whir of its motor would likely mask their conversation.

Dr. Dolan laid the dryer down on the blankets on the table and walked back to Jack. As he passed Tex, he whispered in his ear, “Go ahead and talk to him.”

Tex approached Jack slowly. Each step toward Jack was a choice to help the humans he’d met in the desert. And with each step he weighed whether he should bother with them. After all, they were not his responsibility.

But as he pondered his choice, his mind rested on the image of Erika’s lifeless body that he had plucked from Sturgis’ mind. The image made him agitated and his body tense with anger. He disliked the feeling.

He would help Jack, if he could, because helping Jack meant helping Erika. And if Erika escaped the underground abomination that was A.H.D.N.A., Tex’s mind would be free of the agitation he experienced when he pictured her dead.

Tex approached Jack and whispered in his ear. “Commander Sturgis does not intend to free you.”

Jack’s eyes got wide. He looked up into Tex’s eyes and appeared to search for something there. Tex did not know if Jack found what he was looking for, but he slowly nodded. “I was afraid of that,” he whispered. “But how do you know for sure?”

Tex moved his mouth closer to Jack’s ear. “I read her thoughts while we were en route to A.H.D.N.A. She does not intend to allow the three of you to return to your homes. She will, eventually, order all three of you to be terminated.”

Dr. Dolan banged around in his drawers and cabinets. He had the water running, presumably washing instruments. The clatter and running water further masked their conversation.

Jack motioned with his hand for Tex to bring his ear to Jack’s lips. “Why’d she bring me here to get fixed up if she’s just going to turn around and have one of her gorilla squad pop me?”

“I do not know,” he said quietly. He leaned in toward Jack again. “But I do know what her true intentions are. And you must get yourself, Ian and Erika out of this facility or the three of you will die.”

Dr. Dolan pushed a tray table on wheels toward them. The metal instruments clanged together as he pushed it, and one of the wheels squeaked.

“But how do we do that?” Jack whispered. “They’ve got Erika and Ian in prison cells, locked up tight. And that’s where I’m headed once the doc here is finished with me.”

Dolan wiped Jack’s arm with an alcohol swab and, without forewarning, plunged a needle into his shoulder. Jack winced and pulled in a sharp breath. “Numbing,” Dr. Dolan said after the fact.

Dr. Dolan waited a few minutes before he sliced into Jack’s flesh. “Hold this here.” He handed a roll of cotton gauze to Tex and indicated that he should hold it under the incision to catch the blood. Dr. Dolan picked up a pair of forceps and dug into Jack’s muscle. He wrestled the bullet out, held the bloody casing in the air and nodded at it as though pleased with his work. “Got it,” he said.

Tex ignored the bullet and the look of anguish on Jack’s face. He leaned in very close, his lips mere centimeters from Jack’s ear. “The greys will come for me. They will retrieve me from this facility. If you want to live, then you must come with me when I leave with the greys. And if you want Erika to live, you will convince her to do the same.”

Tex pulled away from Jack so he could see his expression.

Jack’s grimace of pain gave way to a look of surprise. He said nothing and again searched Tex’s face. He motioned for Tex to bring his ear back to Jack’s mouth. “Here? The aliens?”

Tex nodded.

“And you want me and Erika –”

“And Ian,” Tex said.

“You want us to come with you in an alien spaceship and fly off into the galaxy to some unknown planet?”

Tex nodded again. The plan had bubbled up and out of him before he had given it any thought. Jack’s voice sounded doubtful, and it caused Tex to also question its potential success. If the aliens were, as Sturgis said, planning to declare war on humans, then would they not kill his human friends rather than welcome them? But if they stayed at A.H.D.N.A., they would certainly be killed. In the calculation of risk, Tex determined that the humans should choose possible death over certain death.

Jack looked as if he was processing what Tex had said. He chuckled softly and shook his head while a small smile spread across his lips. Tex waited for Jack to speak the words that would fill in the blanks of Jack’s body language.

Finally Jack whispered, “Sorry, Tex, but no way is anyone getting into this place. Not even your aliens. We’re how many stories underground? What’re they going to do – fly a spaceship underground? And if they could create a portal here, they would have already done it, like you said.”

“I do not know how they will achieve this, but I know what they told me. I am to be retrieved. And when they come for me, I will speak to them on your behalf. I will ask them to retrieve the three of you as well.”

Jack’s smile disappeared. He winced again as Dr. Dolan stuck a needle into his shoulder and stitched the incision back together. “Sounds like you’re saying we may not have a choice.”

Tex nodded.

“I don’t know if I’ll even see Ian or Erika again,” Jack said. A tear came to his eye and he wiped it with the hand of the arm not being stitched up. “But if I do see them, I’ll tell them what you said. I’ll do everything I can to get her out of here.” Jack put his hand on Tex’s shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

Tex’s initial instinct was to flinch away from Jack’s touch. But the warmth of Jack’s hand felt good on his naked shoulder. He decided not to move away from the touch. “What are you thanking me for?”

“For letting me know. It’s a long shot, but it may be our only hope of getting out of this alive. And you didn’t have to tell me. You could have just let us get killed.”

Tex did not know what to say in response, so he nodded. “Do not let on to Commander Sturgis that you know any of this. You must maintain my secrecy and the element of surprise.”

Jack nodded.

Dr. Dolan cut the thread he had used to stitch up the hole he’d made in Jack’s shoulder. Dolan was not a skilled seamster. The stitches in Jack’s shoulder were pulled tightly enough and would allow the incision to heal, but they were uneven and would leave an ugly scar. Tex chided himself for his petty feeling of happiness that Jack’s body would be marred and perhaps less attractive to Erika.

“You’ll be okay.” Dr. Dolan put a large square of gauze over the stitch job and taped it down with clear plastic tape. “You can put your shirt back on.”

A card swiped in the card reader on the other side of the metal doors. For a split second, Tex considered killing whoever entered that door and anyone else that stood between himself and Erika. But beyond Dr. Dolan’s heat lamps and wicking blankets lay hallways filled with moist air and rooms that were like backwater swamps. Even if he was able to terminate the guards that came through the door, as soon as he left Dr. Dolan’s medical facilities he would quickly lose strength. He’d never make it.

Tex used his preternatural speed to return to his examination table. He picked up the dryer and pretended to dry his already waterless hair.

“Commander Sturgis says to tell you that 9 is more than dry enough.”

Tex turned off the dryer without being asked. He had no further need of the annoying whirr of the small machine.

The two soldiers stomped over to where Jack was finishing putting his shirt on. “This one ready to go, Doc?” one of them asked.

“Um, yes. All sewed up. Be careful with that suture, young man. It will be tender for a week or so.”

I doubt he will be alive that long unless the greys arrive soon.

“Got it. Thanks, Doc,” Jack said. His voice was jovial and without a hint of the sadness, anger and regret that Tex thought he should have if he believed he was going to die.

Jack stood and began walking with the guards. He turned back to Tex. “Nice to see you again, Tex. Hope I’ll see you again. Soon.” Jack winked one eye as he spoke.

Tex wished he understood what Jack had intended to convey to him by blinking one eye. “Nice to see you again too, Jack Wilson.”

Jack left the room with the guards. The doors closed tightly behind Jack, and Tex found himself once more sealed off from contact with the only friends he had ever known. If they were to be saved from the fate Commander Sturgis had planned for them, Tex would need to be the one to do the saving.

But first he needed to save himself. And that would prove to be a difficult task to accomplish once they took him back to the mire he called home.

Erika occasionally yelled for Jack and Ian, but the only answer was her own echo. The single overhead light turned off automatically, her only indication that it must be night. Alone, in a dark more complete than she’d ever known, she had no choice but to sleep.

There had been two cycles of light then dark.
So much for home by dinner.
A guard had brought a change of clothes the first day along with a tray of what appeared to be the food that Tex had told them about. She was glad to get out of the mud-caked, bloodstained clothes. Erika slipped on the hospital-blue elastic-waisted pants and white T-shirt.
Just like Tex wears.
She forced herself to eat the apple and nutrition bar she’d been given. It was like eating gritty cardboard, but she forced herself to choke it down. A guard had brought the same meal twice a day since. It filled her up but did nothing to stop her cravings for pizza and a milkshake.

Erika killed the time by running in place, doing jumping jacks and what few calisthenics she remembered from PE class. She sweat herself silly until her body finally gave in to exhaustion. She’d been resting fitfully on her cot when the metal door clanged open. She jumped up from the bed, her heart racing.

Just outside the door was one of the nameless soldiers clad from head to toe in the ubiquitous black and carrying an AK-47.
Why do they carry guns? What do they think, that I made a homemade rifle from pieces of my cot?

He glared at her. “Let’s go.” He motioned with his gun for her to come out of the cell.

As much as Erika hated the small, dank room, her legs didn’t want to move into the unknown. She stood frozen, her heart thumping away in her chest.

“Come on. Don’t make me use force to get you out of there.”

Erika’s feet were leaden, but she finally got them to move gingerly to the hall. She hoped to see Jack and Ian, but the gloomy corridor was empty. The guard shoved the nose of the rifle into her back as a warning to move along.

They marched down the long, grey noiseless hallway without speaking. The guard used his ID to open large metal doors. Once they left the prison wing, they entered a hall that looked like an old hospital or maybe a university. It was clinical and brightly lit by overhead fluorescent lighting. The silence was eerie.

He didn’t bother to blindfold me.
She wanted to ask the guard about it and nearly did, but she pulled the words in at the last second. She was afraid of the answer.

They walked by many rooms on either side of the corridor, all with metal doors without windows. A few rooms had hazardous material and warning signs on the doors, but most were simply grey metal with no indication of the work being done inside.
They could be doing anything in there
.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, they arrived at an open door. The room had a large metal table surrounded by empty metal chairs. The walls were the same grey concrete as the rest of A.H.D.N.A. The room was well lit with overhead fluorescents, which made it slightly more appealing than the prison cell she’d just come from. The only color in the room was supplied by a stack of canary yellow notepads on a black table in the corner.

“Take a seat,” the soldier said.

She wanted to stand just because he said to sit. A small rebellion but the only one she could proffer. But it was stupid and she knew it.
Follow along, Erika. Stay cool
. So she sat.

The soldier closed the door behind him, and Erika was left alone. She immediately assessed the possibility of escape. There was only one door and it was the one through which she’d come.
Would they leave me unguarded?
There was only one way to find out.

Erika went to the door and pressed her ear against it. She couldn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a man on the other side. The doors were thick and solid metal. Erika looked for a door handle, but there was only smooth steel where a handle should have been. Erika ran her fingers over the metal, searching for a way to open the door. But all she found was a card reader panel on the wall.
Locked in.

She walked the perimeter of the room. The walls were concrete block and, of course, not a window. The ceiling was formed concrete. There was conduit, but it was small, not nearly large enough for her to fit through. There were no vents, no openings of any kind. An impenetrable fortress. One way in. No way out.

Erika flopped herself back into the cold metal chair. The only sound in the room was the
tick
,
tick
,
tick
of a clock on the wall. The clock said it was 9:00, and since her light had been on, she knew it was morning. The incessant tick of the clock drove Erika mad. Or maybe it was two days alone in the near dark.
Or my complete lack of control over my life now
. Whatever the cause, Erika felt like she was going loco.

She tapped her fingers and her leg bounced up and down. She’d already chewed her fingernails down to nubs, but she gave one a chew anyway.

The quiet was broken by the sound of the door opening. The sudden noise made her jump.

Ian straggled in looking like puke. His dark brown hair was greasy and stuck down to his head. Ian was meticulous about his appearance and would never be seen with dirty hair. His face was unshaven, and a dark patch of hair covered his chin and upper lip. The greasy hair was bad, but he pulled off the unshaven look. Ian’s eyes were rimmed with red and shot through with blood.
He hasn’t slept much
. Erika was glad there wasn’t a mirror in the room so Ian couldn’t see himself.