Paphos, p.10
Paphos, page 10
A voice boomed ominously, everywhere. They looked up instinctively like primitive man. The language was unrecognizable; he had no idea what any of it meant. Whatever happened in the big room must have triggered these responses. Not sure why his thoughts turned to a self-destruct feature. Too many fiction stories. If he heard a self-destruct timer, he’d kiss Athen and wait for the end.
“Any ideas what that means?” Athen asked.
“I don’t want to know.”
CHAPTER 13
Carolina raced down the ramps, ignoring Orlean’s demands to stop, her feet barely touching the platforms. She was not headed to the elevator; she was looking for her dad as she wound her way down.
A long descending walkway finally became solid ground, and she stayed against the wide, round wall of the testing facility… Carolina shook her head. She didn’t know why she thought it was a testing facility, and she was tired of knowing things she shouldn’t.
An explosion ruptured across the facility from her. The bio-suit continued its rampage, piloted by the parasite. Carolina held her head this time and leaned against the wall, shaking her thoughts clear. She didn’t even know what a bio-suit was.
Pushing its way through the rubble, the creature toppled through easily. It crawled on its six arms through the smoke, looking something like a scorpion, and then stood on its two legs. When the bio-suit stood, it sent Dmitry scrambling; she only saw him because of the movement.
The creature took in its surroundings, focusing on its gaze after Dmitry for a moment, but then it turned to look exactly at her.
She felt one of those foggy memories coming on and shut her eyes. The thing saw her, but she couldn’t run. She couldn’t even open her eyes. The fog subsided, and she was able to open her eyes.
The bio-suit was gone. She spotted it above her, near Orlean and Athen. She wasn’t sure if those two would get away in time, but she wasn’t worried about them. She was looking for her father, who should have been with Dmitry. She shielded her mouth from the dust that was kicked up and walked over to where Dmitry had last been. She continued moving closer, aware of the security protocols engaging. At least they were filtering the air. The announcement boomed its pre-recorded message, ordering everyone inside to remain calm until the authorities had controlled the situation, praising their leader, and trying to reassure everyone that there was nothing to worry about. Obviously not.
“Carolina!”
That was her father’s voice. She found him stuck in the wall.
“You shouldn’t be here, baby girl.”
“I had to find you,” she said, oblivious to the flames engulfing the wall on the far side of the room. Dmitry had abandoned him, a mistake he would pay for dearly. She shook her head; those were not her thoughts.
“You need to get out of here and stay hidden; it isn’t safe. I’ll find a way out.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” she said, covering her mouth. The smoke was thickening.
“Carolina…”
She grabbed his arms and planted her feet on the wall, giving all the leverage and muscle her body had. Between their efforts, the wall started to crackle loose, and Austin wriggled his belt free.
“Damn, that was close. What are you doing?” Austin asked.
Carolina ignored him. She was crawling on hands and knees, her fingers tracing the floor in patterns, looking for something.
“Carolina? Hey!”
The floor had an indent, a marker, to help you orient yourself in a directionless room.
“This way,” she said and pulled his hand.
“But we came down through—”
“Can’t go back.”
He thought she was walking to a dead end until she pressed her hand into a key panel, one he hadn’t seen until she touched it, and the wall recessed. On the other side was a new path, perfectly hidden unless you knew it was there.
“How did you…” His words trailed off. Neither of them wanted to address how she knew things. A platform shattered to the ground, reminding them to make haste. They needed to get out of there. He angled his light down the hidden path before they cautiously entered.
“By the way, I think you saved us both,” he said.
“Dad, your ear is bleeding.”
Austin reached up and winced. “Ahh, it’s nothing. Hey, where are the others? You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I left without them. You were in trouble.”
He wanted to scold her for leaving the others, but saw little point. As long as she survived, he just wanted to get her home. Austin activated his suit radio, listening to the static as it scanned frequencies, trying to locate the others. “Too much interference. These radios are useless,” he groaned, taking a moment to soak in the stream of cooler air.
Carolina hugged him from the side, briefly. He moved to hug her back, but she already disengaged. She wasn’t being herself, which he felt stupid for stating. A wave of guilt for bringing her on this trip hit him again. All I can do is get her home.
“Well, do we know where this will take us?” he asked.
Carolina didn’t answer.
“What do you think, kiddo?”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to think.
In this quiet moment, he decided to keep the silence and let the cool air hit his face. A near-death experience, and now it was just the two of them, and they still weren’t out of danger. After a while, he felt ready, regrouped, and made the suggestion to get moving.
She nodded.
The hallway became shorter, and he had to hunch down. Service hatches above them came periodically; he could see light through them. This hidden pathway had been added late; why else make it so short? Carolina followed behind him without needing to crouch; twelve-year-olds were so lucky. As he crouched, they heard another muffled voice high above them, loud and automated. Austin shook his head. “I still don’t understand what happened. Everything changed so fast. We went from sneaking up on the parasite, to running from some creature the parasite crawled into, to the building trying to seal us inside.”
“It tricked you.”
He turned his head but stopped short of eye contact. That may be a normal guess, or it was more of her unnatural insight, and she didn’t want to talk about that. “I suppose it did… it needed inside that door. We’re such idiots.”
This time, they made eye contact.
“Just a lucky guess,” she said, looking away.
Austin remembered the face she had just made; he had seen it when she was a kid, caught in a lie.
CHAPTER 14
Helena was not brave, nor was she outgoing. She was a girl who protected herself, which was pretty logical in her opinion. Staying alive was as basic as the need to eat or sleep. She even chose the safe career of being an analyst, and look where that got her. She may as well have chosen Arctic Miner.
Helena nursed her hand and consoled herself while waiting in the spot where their elevator had first crashed, the location where they were last together before Dmitry and they split up. That was the plan; she’d stay put and wait until help came. She eventually realized she was holding her knees to her chest, rocking forward and back, like a nervous kid.
She was scared, had every reason to be. She needed the others to show up, but was also ashamed of abandoning them. It was rational, she was just being smart. For one thing, Carolina shouldn’t even be on this planet, and it was not her responsibility. It wasn’t her job to keep someone else’s kid safe. Orlean threw himself in harm’s way for Athen, but that was his choice, a male thing to do for an attractive female. Not Helena, she was far more practical. Everything was wrong about that situation, and any logical person would have done the same thing. She was not brave, but bravery was for fools.
“You’re a real piece of work, Helena,” she scolded herself. It was several minutes before she stood, long after the voice and the lights did their thing, long after she couldn’t hear that monster thrashing. The image of that creature would haunt her.
She wiped her hands on her pants, smearing blood. She had lacerated her left hand trying to climb up the elevator shaft. She gave it a try, fearful that thing was coming for her… but it didn’t, and now she had a wound to treat. She adjusted the hair tie, keeping her skinfolds in place.
No one was coming back. They’d all scattered and separated, and she’d probably have to find them.
She did not like that idea at all.
It would be safe to do a little info gathering. She walked down the hallway and then down the steps, listening to the sputtering flames and the hollow ambiance ahead. Blood dripped from her hand; she tried to tighten her hair-tie again. No matter how she fiddled with her hand, she couldn’t get the wound shut. Stupid hair-tie was a gift from her cousin, ‘for luck’. She returned to her crashed elevator.
No one would come back for her. If they were going to, they would have by now.
Still, she waited another five minutes, just in case.
“Ugh!” she groaned, wondering why she was still sitting there. She started to brush her hair back, spending another minute straightening it. Then she smoothed out her pants and pockets, checking the fastenings on the belt. It hurt her hand, which would need to be looked at better when Dmitry had the chance.
She couldn’t stall any longer.
Another grunt, high-pitched and not sure what sound she’d made before she walked down the hallway and turned the corner down the steps.
Things looked different in the big room this time. A bed of smoke hovered beneath the suspended platforms, the ones she was unwilling to cross. A tired ventilation system worked slowly to channel the haze away. Some of the platforms had snapped and dangled inverted, or were just gone. She didn’t see a way across them now. If Orlean was crippled at the bottom waiting to die, it was his own damn fault.
She could reach one inverted platform, which had come to rest against the wall like a ladder. Down was all she had, just great.
Helena huffed. She didn’t want to climb down. But there was no climbing up, and she’d die waiting. All she had was down. She retreated up the stairs before forcing herself to stop.
“No one is coming, idiot,” she cursed.
She got ready to climb down, sticking a leg over the end, and she panicked as her foot searched for the platform.
Hovering blindly, she finally found a spot to rest her weight on. One down, she could do this. She gripped the dangling chain with her hands and let her other foot join. The make-shift ladder felt sturdy against the side of the wall. She committed herself fully at the end of the stairs and is now suspended on the side of the wall. Her hand oozed, threatening her grip. She resorted to wrapping the inside of her elbow around the side. It was a slow descent, one she pictured Dublin doing with ease, his rippling muscles barely sweating. But Helena was content to take all day if it meant not falling.
The smoke invaded her lungs, but the ventilation system was at least giving some relief. Her mock ladder ended about five feet from the floor. Double-checking there was nothing to twist an ankle on, she hopped down to stable ground. From there, she crawled under one of the security doors that had only shut part of the way. She didn’t see Orlean anywhere, which was good. Though it would have served him right to be suffering after leaving her alone.
Was this the right way? This was the only one so far. All she needed was another elevator or a stairway going up. Surely a place like this would have them; several paths, multiple emergency exits.
A dozen lights flickered to life, and she jumped before realizing it was probably her own presence turning them on. She took in the humid air and exhaled with a groan. It was hotter down here than up by those stairs, and she was dripping with sweat. Minutes passed, and the hallway gave way to a couple more specimen rooms. She would not be looking in them. She continued until stopping at another security door.
“Great,” she mumbled. How many of these cursed things were there? She wasn’t about to walk all the way back for nothing.
“Helena?”
Helena shrieked. “Dmitry? Oh, thank God!”
“You are alone?” he asked, taking a step towards her and placing his hand on her shoulder. “Now, how did you do that to yourself?” he asked, scooping up her hand.
“I… I was trying to climb up the elevator shaft.”
Dmitry examined the cut. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at her in a way that prompted her to continue. “They ran off, and before I could catch up, that thing came out of nowhere and…” she trailed off.
“Have you seen Austin?”
“I thought he was with you?” she replied.
“He was,” Dmitry said, smiling and looking at her. “But… we were split up, too. I’m glad you’re here. You can help me get this door open.”
He had an intensity that evaporated.
“Open it? How?”
He smirked. “We’ll have to use our brains,” he said, digging into a panel. A glut of sagging, thick wires flopped out of the wall. “Electricity is a natural phenomenon with consistent laws, though I’ve never seen it used like this.”
Helena took a step back, even though Dmitry’s gloves shielded him from electrocution. He tugged a glowing tube aside and pushed it to the corner. “That’s not electricity, not sure what it is.” He clipped two prongs into a wire and measured the readings on his pocket device before removing the prongs and trying another. He tested several wires this way, waiting for one to do something.
“How are we going to find the others?”
“Well, I imagine they are trying to find a way out too, so we’ll either bump into them here or when we all make it topside,” Dmitry said.
“We aren’t going to look for them?”
“We’ll look for them while we look for a way out.”
The security door jolted. “Ah, there you are.” Dmitry twisted a dial on his kit and fiddled with the buttons, watching the door’s reaction as it stuttered. “Hmm. It doesn’t want to be overridden,” he said, applying more focus to his efforts. “You didn’t tell me how you got separated from Orlean.”
“Well… He ran…”
With a hydraulic gasp, the security door vanished into the ceiling, along with what sounded like other doors further away. Dmitry held a satisfied smile. “Shall we?”
Helena nodded.
He led her down the new hallway, and she traveled uncomfortably close to him.
“Do you think there’s an elevator this way?” she asked.
He replied with silence.
“I’m sorry, I’m just nervous.” Helena seemed compelled to make conversation. “But I bet there is one, an elevator, maybe. I’m sorry.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets to keep from talking.
Eventually, they came to an intersecting hallway, branching to the left and right, with an ominous red door in front of them. She agonized over the thought of further exploration. She didn’t want anything new; she just wanted out of here.
“This looks important. Check that side for a switch or a panel. I’ll check this side.”
She was quick to do what he asked. “Dmitry?”
“Helena, it isn’t complicated, just look for a button.”
“I heard something,” she said.
Dmitry stopped to listen, taking a good ten seconds to do so. “This place makes noise sometimes. What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a button on her si de of the door.
Helena smiled sheepishly.
Dmitry feigned a return smile.
Helena nodded and pushed the button. The door regressed into the wall, and stale air flooded the hallway. Inside was an ornate pathway, long and curved, with doors lining the interior.
It didn’t feel like a way out.
CHAPTER 15
For a man with two degrees in experimental technology, Orlean should not be struggling this hard. All he wanted to do was remove the ceiling tile above him, and it was doing everything in its power to resist him. And Athen was watching him fail.
Dublin would have removed the ceiling tile by now. Big, strong, dumb Dublin, with two arms. He wished Athen had something to look at other than him.
“Open, damn you!” Orlean cursed, yanking the wrench with one arm until it slipped and clattered to the floor. The skin of his palm throbbed. He climbed down for the fourth, no fifth time now, and retrieved the wrench. When he climbed back up, he noticed a slight adjustment had been made in the ceiling tile.
“Hahaa!” Orlean cheered.
“You made a dent!” Athen clapped on his behalf.
“Pftt,” Orlean huffed. He buried the tip of the wrench in the space he made and turned. Finally, the ceiling tile dropped to the floor.
“I never doubted you,” she smiled.
Her personality wavered between sleepy and drunk, which would be fine if he could stop staring at her chest. Her sweat-matted hair and bloody leg just made her more exotic and vulnerable. Focus, man. “Sure you didn’t,” he smiled, hoisting the small cutter.
The intestine of wires and tubes he had exposed offered a new glimpse inside alien technology. He saw two cables that conspicuously looked like the hydraulics needed to operate the doors. “Here goes nothing.”
A slice through the cable sent high-pressured gook spraying at him. He staggered and fell gracelessly. Athen slid up next to him.
“Oh, Orlean, you aren’t supposed to hurt yourself,” she said. He was surprised to feel her fingers run through his hair. He must have jumped a little; Athen recoiled her hand.
“You don’t have to stop,” he said.
Athen limped over to where Orlean had dropped the wrench. He wiped the hydraulic fluid from his face. “Try the door now,” she said.
Orlean stood. He had her hands running through his hair, and he totally blew it. He thought about falling down again, to see if it’d work twice. Instead, he walked over to the door, catching the wrench she tossed to him with a smile, wearing the rest of the black gook that had sprayed him. He angled the wrench at the base of the door and lifted; a gurgling backflow of pressure leaked as the door regressed. “Oh no,” he said, casually falling right next to her.
