Holes in the Ground (11 page)

Frank began to move his hands over his body, rubbing in the blood like moisturizing cream.

“You look so so so pretty, Sun.”

Andy stepped away from the glass as the Frank thing began to stroke itself. Sun cleaved onto Andy’s side.

“Let’s get away from it,” Sun whispered.

“NO!” Frank bellowed. He stretched out his arm, and then it bent backwards at the elbow with a sharp
CRACK!

Both Sun and Andy gasped, and as Frank screamed in pain he held up his hand, fingers splayed out, and each digit bent back, as if an invisible hand was breaking them one by one.

Then his leg snapped at the femur, a ninety degree angle that made the bone burst through the skin.

Frank continued to masturbate as his left foot began to twist, crackling like a bag of chips, rotating a full three hundred and sixty degrees until the skin split. His screaming became interspersed with bits of hysterical laughter.

Then his eyes popped out and hung on his cheeks by the stringy optic nerves.

That was their cue to leave.

“You won’t esssssscape me, Dennisonssssssss,”
the demon was back to using its normal voice.
“You won’t essssccccccaaaaaaape.”

“That wasn’t Frank,” Andy told his bride as they hurried down the hall.

“I know.”

“It’s just Bub messing with our heads.”

“I know.”

“I still feel sick.”

“Me, too.”

Then they both bent over and puked breakfast onto the floor.

“What? Is married life
that
bad? There’s still time for a quickie annulment.”

Andy looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a cell occupied by a banana.

“Let’s get out of here,” Andy said.

“Don’t leave,” the banana replied. “We’ll have a bunch of fun. Get it?
Bunch
? That is, until everyone here dies. Want to hear my maniacal laugh? Bwahahahahaha! EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE!!!!”

They took the elevator to level four, and ended up in the conference room.

Sergeant Rimmer was sitting at a long table, watching his computer monitor while texting on his pager. Andy glanced at the screen and saw it showed live security camera feeds from several cells in the Spiral, including Bub’s.

“I saw what that demon just did,” Rimmer said. “You two okay?”

“Yeah,” Andy said, still feeling sick.

“Did you learn anything new?”

“A banana insulted our marriage,” Sun said. “Then told us we’re all going to die.”

“Oh. Mu.” Rimmer shook his head. “He’s some sort of multidimensional being. Supposedly can be everywhere at once, throughout all of spacetime and the multiverse. At least, that’s what he says. He came in with a shipment of fresh produce and started insulting everybody. Teased Nessie to tears. We put him on subbasement 5 because no one likes him. I guess you could say he’s fruit gone bad.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“I don’t think he’s harmed anyone, physically. But some of his jabs are pretty pointed. He’d be really good doing one of those celebrity roasts.”

Andy changed the subject. “Other than General Kane being bitten by the wolf, have there been any other problems at the facility?”

“No. Hasn’t been a serious security breach on my watch for almost five years.”

“How long have you been here?” Andy asked.

“Almost five years.”

“So what did you do before that?”

“I was a Sergeant in the Army Rangers. On the ground during the invasion of Iraq.”

“How did you end up here?”

“Stumbled upon something I shouldn’t have.”

Andy leaned forwards. “Really? Care to share?” He was less interested in the story and more interesting in getting the image of Frank Belgium out of his head.

Rimmer put down his pen and looked up at them. “I suppose I can tell you. Not that I particularly enjoy telling it.”

Sun and Andy said nothing.

So Rimmer continued. “My unit was in the south-western Iraqi desert near Rutba. We were looking for a chemical weapons processing plant that Intel told us was in the area. We had managed to flip a guy in the Republican Guard. He’d explained that Saddam had several WMDs ready to launch the very moment he was declared dead or captured—kind of like a dead man’s switch. One of the Army’s primary objectives was ensuring that this was not true, or neutralising the devices in the case that it was. The plant south of Rutba was our first and only lead. We didn’t want Saddam to know that we were on to his plan, so command sent in three Ranger units. My unit was in the area directly south of Rutba. So far we’d found nothing but desert, but we had an itinerary and we weren’t going to bug-out until we hit every point on our map. But when a sandstorm came in, it ruined our radio equipment and left us all turned around on ourselves. I could have gone north towards the road and called the mission in as a bust, but I made the decision to keep heading south instead. We were in the middle of the desert, a perfect place to hide a facility. Turns out I was right.”

“You found the chemical plant?” Sun asked.

“I thought so at the time. My unit came upon a group of single-story buildings surrounded by a half dozen 3-tonners—big trucks. There was no natural cover so we dropped down low and approached from two sides. We were sure we were about to strike a mighty blow for America.” Rimmer blinked slowly as the story seemed to play out in his mind. “They opened fire on us before we even got halfway. I didn’t realise at the time, but the area was covered by thermal imaging and radar. They saw us coming a mile away. By the time I even knew what was happening, my entire unit had been slaughtered and I’d taken a bullet in the neck. I thought I was done for, even started to pray. Bleeding out into the sand, I thought about all the wives and families of the men I’d just led to their deaths. I was angry, ashamed, and a whole bunch of other screwed-up emotions beginning with A. Even though I was dying, I wanted to get up and scream, to fight for my men. But every time I tried, my body would not move. Last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was two men running towards me. Neither of them were Iraqi soldiers.”

“So what happened?” Andy asked. “Who were they?”

“Deus Manus. I’d stumbled upon the Iraqi chapter of the Order. They called their facility
Jahannam.
”

Andy translated the word in his head. “
Jahannam?
The Islamic concept of Hell?”

Rimmer nodded. “They brought me underground and locked me in a cell, vetted me for almost six months. Ran psych tests on me, background checks, the works. Checked up on every person I knew. After enough time had passed, the US government listed me as KIA—as well as all of the men in my unit, whose bodies they had relocated a hundred-miles north of where they actually died. That’s when Deus Manus inducted me. I trained for a few years at the Iraqi facility and eventually transferred here, back home. This was my first major gig and I’ve been here ever since.”

“You ever regret being here?”

Rimmer sniffed. “I regret
how
I got here, on the backs of my dead squad mates, but I don’t regret being here now. It’s important work. The things we keep down here are dangerous. After what happened in Samhain you both obviously understand that.”

Andy and Sun said nothing. Rimmer’s pager on his belt beeped, and he checked it.

“A pager?” Andy said, trying to alleviate some of the tension. “With all of this tech, isn’t that old school?”

“Radio waves don’t travel far in the Spiral. We’re not sure why. Being underground is part of it, and there’s a lot of interference from all the equipment, but the prevailing idea is that some of these creatures produce radio waves themselves, and block our transmissions. Standard AM and FM bands don’t work. Cell phones don’t work. The pagers work via an ad-hoc WLAN. We can text each other, small amounts of data at a time, and even then the texts can get delayed.”

“Sounds… inconvenient.”

“Do you really mean inconvenient? Or dangerous?”

“Dangerous,” Andy admitted.

“Each floor has an intercom phone, so I can stay in touch with my men that way in case of an emergency. So far that’s been all we’ve needed.”

So far
, Andy thought.

General Kane appeared from one of the side offices. He quickly took a seat at the table with them. “Any issues, Sergeant?”

“None at all, sir. All systems optimal. Outside perimeters clear. We’re all alone out here as usual, sir.”

“Very good.”

Rimmer took his bundle of papers and left.

“Now then.” Kane turned to face the Dennison-Joneses. “Did you find anything out about our guests?”

“No specifics.” Sun crossed her arms. “But it’s obvious that the batling is part of some kind of larger plan. If we’re to believe the things it was saying to us, mankind should be preparing for some kind of war.”

Kane huffed. “Against a handful of flying goat men? I’ve faced off against far worse.”

“How many batlings are being held in Deus Manus facilities, General?” Sun asked. “Assuming you talked to the President.”

“I did, and he gave you clearance. By last count, we have eighteen batlings. The one here is the largest.”

“And were they all caught in close proximity to the facilities?”

“Yes.”

“So they were trying to get caught.”

“That is certainly one interpretation. But they’re all locked up. This isn’t Samhain. Samhain’s main purpose was research. Here our main goal is containment. Nothing has ever escaped a Deus Manus facility.”

“You know Bub can alter his own DNA and shapeshift?”

“I read the Samhain file, Ms. Dennison-Jones. What happened to you both at Samhain has frightened you. General Race’s incompetence has rattled your faith in the ability of the human race to defend itself. We are top of the food chain for a reason, and nothing will knock us off that pedestal.”

Andy rolled his chin against his chest and sighed as his neck cracked. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his arguments rational rather than idealist like Kane’s.

“First off,” Andy said. “There was nothing incompetent about General Race. Second, Bub, and that batling in particular, are like nothing else in this facility. He might just hold the secret to life itself. We had a theory that…” Andy sighed. He didn’t want to waste his breath getting into theories which held no proof. He suddenly wished he hadn’t spoken.

Kane folded his arms. “A theory that
what?”

“That Bub created life on this earth.”

Kane stared at them. He didn’t blink, he didn’t react. After several uncomfortable seconds had passed, he simply got up and walked away, shaking his head the whole time.

Sun and Andy looked at each other.

“Guess he must be a creationist,” said Sun.

“I get the impression that having faith in God is a pre-requisite to be inducted into Deus Manus. Even Rimmer mentioned something about praying.”

“What about Dr. Chandelling, Dr. Gornman? Surely as people of science, what they have seen here must have made them question the existence of God.”

Andy shrugged. “Maybe. Or perhaps it made them believe in Him even more.”

Sun huffed and reached across the table to hold Andy’s hand. “So what’s the plan, hubby?”

“I don’t know. But I have an idea.”

Sun raised an eyebrow. “Torture Bub with radiation until he talks?”

“Even if we got permission, I don’t think I could stomach that. And we both know the only reliable information extracted via torture exists in the realms of TV show like
24;
and I’m no Jack Bauer. But Bub isn’t the only one here who knows something.”

“The Manx man.”

“I say it’s time that Lucas and Bub Jr. meet face to face.”

Fatal Autonomy
had been a rerun, the one where they chased a serial killer known as the Gingerbread Man and the annoying fat female cop kept bursting into tears. Instead of watching it, Jerry and Nessie hit the library for research.

“So what are we looking for?” Jerry asked.

“Anything to do with the batling. Especially anything to do with the origin of its creator.”

“Bub?”

“Yes, although that’s just the name they gave him at the Samhain project. No one knows his real name.”

The library on subbasement 5 was huge, not as big as a public library but vastly larger than a private library had any right to be. The ceilings were high, stacked with books of all sizes. Jerry picked up a dusty tome the size of a monopoly board and wiped his hand across the surface revealing the title:
Infernas Animas.

“So this ‘Bub’? He was like, what, a demon or something?”

Nessie leafed through the pages of the book she’d set down in front of her. “To tell you the truth, no one knows exactly what he is. They dug him up in Panama over a hundred years ago and he slept pretty much the whole time they had him at Samhain. Then, five, six years ago or so, he wakes up and wreaks havoc. The Dennison-Joneses and one other member of the Samhain team were the only survivors. Up until Bub awoke, the scientists at the facility thought he was the devil himself—Satan.”

Jerry’s eyes went wide. “No shit? You mean the devil and angels exist for real? Man, I would love to see an angel. Bet they’re all badass with flaming swords and stuff.”

“I don’t think he actually
is
Satan, Jerry. The reports made it seem more like Bub is some kind of evolutionary origin for all things on earth. I don’t know if I believe it myself, but they suggest Bub shared DNA on a basic level with all other species on earth. So either all life in the entire universe is carbon based, uses the same five nucleobases, and requires liquid water to survive, or Bub is terrestrial.”

“Meaning Bub came from earth?”

“Or life on earth came from Bub. Some samples taken from Bub predate life on earth.”

Jerry opened the book in front of him and turned to a random page. On it was an image of a woman being burned in front of a crowd of people. The text was all in a foreign language, but Jerry could figure out that it was a witch. “But Bub is gone now, he turned into lots of the smaller batlings, right?”

“As far as I know. That batling is pretty much a miniature replica of Bub himself. It would be interesting to know if Bub could reform again if all of the batlings came back together.”