Netherstream - Episode 1: Jane Doe (6 page)

I waited several painful moments for the next car. Even though these were express elevators, they seemed slow as shit. It was only a matter of time before the soldiers spotted me and sent up a welcoming party.
Fuck it, this was my only chance.

The general’s screams sent my heart racing. “Just give me a damn elevator!” I punched the button harder.

Suddenly the bell chimed. I raised my M-4, and pointed at the elevator as the doors slid open. Nothing. It was empty.

I rolled the cart inside and pressed two. Almost there, just one floor to go. Across from me, the elevator chimed. “Oh, shit!” I raised my gun and fired. An armed guard jumped out of the elevator and into a hail of bullets. The doors closed before his body hit the floor. Damn, my little secret was out.

Midway down, I pushed the Emergency Stop button. The car jerked to a halt and the alarm sounded, but thankfully the doors remained closed. There was only one way to do this, and it promised to be painful.

I engaged the brakes and crawled on top of the rolling cart. Carefully I rose on one leg, and reached for the ceiling above. Damn, I was too short. I needed a small lift so that I could reach the hatch and pull myself up.

Time was quickly becoming a factor. As I contemplated standing the cart on one end, I realized how stupid I had been. The hotbox.
Use the fucking hotbox!

I eased down, stacked the hotbox on top of the cart, and climbed back up. Although I doubted that the hollow metal box could support a full grown adult, there was no time to argue. Besides, I was tiny, little more than a Happy Meal.

Pain shot through my knee despite the angle or pressure. It was better not to focus on my wound; I’d have to operate on one leg from here on out. I sat on the hotbox, and then pushed myself up. The box wobbled and then steadied, allowing me to reach the hatch and unlock it.

As I lifted the hatch and looked around, the elevator began to move. I fell through and dangled from the side, watching the gun and hotbox crash below me. Someone was recalling the elevator and wanted a word with me. Perhaps a spanking was in order…

I had to get out of here, now. Without a second thought, I pulled myself through as if I were doing a pull-up. I rolled aside, slammed the hatch shut, and then caught my breath. Now for the hard part.

Unbeknownst to many, the hotel had an additional floor. Sort of. The second floor was the banquet level, known for its high ceilings and generous conference rooms. Although the service areas did not appear to boast the same grand space above, it was still there. Someone had gone through the trouble of partitioning off the space and crafting a new level that was isolated from the rest of the hotel.

The original plans called for an audiovisual control room on floor two and a half, but those plans were superseded by a mysterious new upgrade. My friends in Banquets bragged about walking around the elusive floor, but I had a hell of a time finding it. There was no conventional way to get there: no elevator, no stairs, nothing. I searched all over the banquet halls and executive offices for an access point, but to no avail. It did not want to share its secrets with me.

Still, such a search was a futile. Even if I found a secret panel, I didn’t know the passcode. My only hope was to uncover a backdoor, which I would later stumble across by accident.

A cool wind rushed over me. The shaft was dark and dank and smelled like ass, but anything was better than that old dinosaur and the fossil in his pants. Tiny, red lights illuminated the top of each floor, revealing metal rungs off to the side. When the elevator finally came to a stop, I scooted over to the edge, and got up.

About a foot and a half from the car, a service ladder extended up to all sixteen floors. As I debated how best to reach the ladder, bullets tore through the elevator. I sprung forward, snagging a rung with one hand. In a mad dash, I pulled myself up quickly, rung after rung, not relying on my legs whatsoever. The vent was twice the distance away than it should have been, but who was I to complain?
Just get me the fuck out of here!

Bullets flew past me once I reached the lip of the vent. Although it was hard enough to enter with two working legs, I contorted my body to adjust to the odd angle, and slipped inside.

It was pitch dark again, but with so many terrifying nights spent in utter darkness, I’d grown accustomed to the nightmare. Here in the heart of the hotel was my only refuge, and I wasn’t about to let anything impede my journey.

Sweat rolled off my nose, and dripped onto the metal vent. A maze unto itself, the air ducts shot off in various directions. Without proper diagrams and a lot of luck, Leon’s men didn’t have a chance of finding me.

Aside from knowing the path, one’s weight came into play. There was no way that these passages could support a two hundred-pound man. They even protested as I made my way through the metal coils.
Please, follow me. I dare you.

Left, right, left, and then sharply around the bend. It all came with relative ease despite my bum knee. After one last abrupt turn, I came to a wooden ladder and climbed up.

Suddenly two hands grabbed me, and pulled me off to the side. Impossible! How did they get ahead of me? Without thinking, I seized her neck, devouring her sweet essence until her body went limp.

What in the hell had I just done? I backed up and continued up the ladder, the pain subsiding with each step. Finally I came to the hole and squeezed through, brushing up against the underside of the tile floor.

Slowly I lifted the tile, and peeked inside. A grid of fluorescent lights and desk lamps illuminated the control room. The room was silent except for the low hum of fans from the computers. “Hello?”

I rose out of the floor without flinching, and set the tile back into place.

“Welcome back,” came a computerized voice.

I jumped, and then slowly exhaled. I hated it when he did that. “Tell me, am I the only one on this floor?”

“Correct. No one else is inside the perimeter,” he replied.

“And what about outside?”

“Deceased female, 141 pounds.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Margaret Smith.”

“No!” I wiped the blood from my chin and stared at my hands. Slowly it dawned on me that I was now standing without any pain. “Retrieve her body and go into lockdown.”

“Are you sure? The chamber cannot be unsealed for 48 hours.”

“Do it,” I said.

“Engaging. Lockdown commencing in 10…9…8…”

It felt as if the entire floor was about to launch into the sky. The lights flickered and walls rumbled. I was about to go nuclear on their sorry asses.

“7…6…5…4…”

I glanced at the monitors and noticed the soldiers looking around. They, too, could hear the change in the hotel. “Don’t worry. You’ll see me soon enough,” I promised.

“3…2…1…Lockdown…”

Suddenly the ceiling above shifted. Plates of reinforced steel slid over top of it, sealing it shut. Subtle shifts echoed through the chamber as the principle walls were bolstered and locked down. The floor beneath me was the last to be secured, cutting off all connection to the outside world.

“Lockdown complete,” the computer reassured me.

I stepped into the bathroom and stared at my pale face and crimson hair. My eyes were scorching, as if on fire. I washed the blood from my mouth, and laid down on one of the beds. I was in the box now. Nothing could get in or out.

“Bittersweet Symphony. The Verve,” I murmured.

“Autoloop?” the computer asked.

“Yes.” The angelic sound of violins echoed through the box, carrying me off to sleep as I pondered the cruel irony of this fading world.

♦ ♦ ♦

Abruptly I woke, as if torn from a dream. “How long have I been asleep?” I asked.

“Two hours, twenty-six minutes,” the computer replied. “Would you like a supplement?”

“A supplement? What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Valis.”

The computer’s response caught me off guard. Valis? What the hell was he talking about?

“I examined your knee while you were asleep. No structural damage detected. I also performed surgery on your ear. It looks like you have already healed.”

“How did you do that?” I ran my fingers over my ear.

“I have my ways.”

I got up and walked out of the bedroom. The floor was huge, over 4,000 square feet in all. Two master bedrooms were stationed at opposite ends of the hall, each with their own bathrooms and walk-in closets. A small office was attached to the control room, which connected to the server room, wiring closets and a workshop with additional storage. The kitchen hosted his and her pantries, a walk-in refrigerator and a deep freeze. There was also an abbreviated fitness center with a built-in Jacuzzi, dining hall, game room, small library, lab, an additional kitchenette and even a bar. Then there was the most disturbing room of all: a funeral parlor with three black coffins stacked vertically.

Whoever had designed this place knew of the impending holocaust and planned for mankind’s eventual demise. It was hardly a panic room, though; it was a military-grade piece of real estate sunk into the heart of the hotel to observe and experiment on the general public as one saw fit. There was enough food here to last years, and considering how little I ate, perhaps decades. The steel coffin of dreams had its own generator with multiple emergency backup units. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who had ever used it, and its supplies were filled to the brim.

I walked into the control room and sat behind one of the workstations. The word ‘Activated’ flashed on the monitor. “What’s been activated?” I asked.

“You have, Valis,” the computer replied.

The joke was beginning to wear thin. “Show me the lobby.”

“Please enter your passcode.”

Fuck. It never asked me this before. “I don’t know it.” I crossed my arms.

“Sorry, that’s not correct. Perhaps this will jog your memory.”

Suddenly a glass vial shot through a network of tubes above the workstations and rose out of an opening in the desk. A red fluid bubbled inside the cylinder like champagne.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

“Yes, Valis. It’s your supplement.”

There was that strange name again. He was beginning to get on my nerves. I took the vial and stared at the crimson cocktail. “What does it contain?”

“All of the nutrients that your body needs,” the computer assured me.

“It looks like blood.”

“It is blood. Now drink up, Valis.”

“Hell no!” I put the vial back. Although I had rinsed with water, I could not expel the delicious taste from my mouth. For a moment I dwelled on the unfortunate incident, a new hunger rising from the depths of my being. “I must be losing my mind.” I tried to walk away, but could not. I fumbled with the capsule, accidentally dropping it. The glass vial shattered, staining the white tile floor.

I gazed at the pool of blood and glass, unable to take my eyes off it. The hunger inside me was undeniable. The room went black, the next few moments burned from my soul. As I shook it off, I found myself licking the blood off the floor.

“Drink up, Valis,” the computer repeated.

A second vial emerged from the desk. Without hesitation, I grabbed the capsule and drank greedily. The room spun, and a sweet sensation washed over me. I snapped my head back and let the tragedy unfold. “Thank you, Dvarium. Thank you for making me…remember…”

“Passcode accepted,” his voice rang through my ears.

The whir of fans accelerated, sparks of electricity racing through circuits and systems that had been offline since the world had been unmade. A ten-by-four grid of razor-thin monitors slid down from the ceiling, filling in the space above the workstations, and completing the control room.

“Has anyone used this station since my last visit?” I asked.

“Just you, Valis. No communications have been issued or received in the past 37 days. I’ve intercepted plenty of chatter, though,” Dvarium replied.

“Has it been catalogued?”

“Of course. A complete inventory is available on the Z drive.”

“Good. Is there anything else that I should be aware of?”

“Only that the neighbors don’t like to play nice.”

Suddenly an explosion ripped through the hotel.

“What the hell was that?” I gazed at the monitor before me. Soldiers ran down the smoke-filled hallway, tripping over pieces of their fallen comrades. Amidst the chaos, pulsing lights moved about the murky haze.

“A countermeasure has been triggered in room 1446. Emergency systems have been activated to subdue the fire,” said the computer. “It appears that they were looking for you.”

“Is that so?” I watched the soldiers sprint towards the elevators on the fourth and seventh floors.

“You’re quite popular these days, but they will not find you. Not even if they burn down the hotel.”

Dvarium was right, of course. The box could seal itself shut, and had its own internal oxygen supply when things went south. There was enough oxygen to last months, and the inside vegetation extended it further.

As for room 1446, Ryan and I booby-trapped the hotel in case of a hostile takeover. We selected the rooms at random, and both of us knew to stay away from the fourteenth floor altogether. They were wise to call off the sweep; plenty of bad intentions lingered to annihilate the remnants of their pathetic squad. It was Ryan’s parting gift before I buried him, but that was before I knew about the steel core and its autonomous systems.

Ryan Dalton was a former marine and veteran of Operation Desert Storm. He was no more than five and a half feet tall, slightly shorter than me, and ripped from head-to-toe. Although he was a guest, he knew more about the hotel than most of the employees. He taught me how to fix all the major systems, and set traps to eradicate the vermin that plagued our hotel. He was the last human I spoke to until these losers showed up.

“How many are left?” I asked.

“Ten, including one on the roof by the light combat helicopter. My sensors detected an additional signature, but it seems to have been an anomaly,” Dvarium reported.