Doom 3™: Maelstrom

Then: a whistling noise, the pitch rising. Maria started to speak: “What the—”

A handgun, spinning through the air, smashed into her head and she went flying to the ground.

Her light rolled from her left hand, and she reached up to her forehead and felt blood. Kane knelt down to her. “Are you—”

And then what looked like the metal leg of a chair came flying through the air. She could see it, and yelled just as it was about to hit Kane. But that split second of warning was enough for Kane to dodge the worst of it. Still, the flying metal bar grazed his head and sent him staggering to the right, nearly into the wall of bodies.

Maria knew that she had only seconds to act, to get back up and find out what was attacking them and stop it.

She rolled onto her knees as what was the rest of the chair smashed down into the space where she had been reclining. Again, mere seconds separated her from a blow that would have killed her.

She wanted her light, but that would have taken precious seconds away from her next moves: getting the machine gun, aiming it forward, while her left hand ripped one of the grenades from her belt.

“You okay?” Kane yelled.

But before she could answer, a high-pitched wailing noise filled the space, a sound that brought tears to her eyes. Then a loud clack-clacking by something on the floor, and Maria waited until whatever was making the sound was finally caught by Kane’s light.

And the horror before her made her gag. She registered its form even as her finger pulled tight.

Like some prehistoric crustacean, or heavily armored spider—only grown to the size of a room. Its legs sliced at the air as they hurried to bring the thing closer.

Maria noticed her bullets ricocheting off those legs, perfectly uselessly.

But atop the carapace, a near-human torso, save for the head with its multiple eyes and the mouth-like opening that issued its shrieking scream like a weapon.

Maria backed up. A quick glance to Kane to see him doing the same. Both had moved into the puddle now, and somewhere the still rational part of Maria’s brain realized why it was wet.

This was the spot where it trapped any who came this way. That was why it was fresh, wet, glistening—

The chair leg rose from the ground before the thing. It began a batonlike twirl, and then started whizzing toward her. Maria leaned right, and the chair leg went careening crazily past her.

A blast, then another. Kane firing his shotgun. And Maria saw a chunk of the thing’s upper torso blow away. But it only seemed to make it scurry closer to them.

Then she remembered what she held in her left hand. A simple thumb movement released the safety and started the timer. More blasts from Kane, closer to the thing’s head this time. One of its pincer legs reared up and then—like some old-fashioned telescope expanding—it uncurled and took a cutting swipe at Kane.

That’s it, she thought. Keep looking at him. She rolled the grenade gently under the thing, not wanting to catch its attention. The spider creature had resurrected the chair and now sent it flying to Kane’s left. When he dodged it, he’d have to move close enough for that pincer to skewer him.

The grenade rolled, and for a second Maria thought it would hit a leg and bounce back, useless. But it went neatly between two of the stamping pincers, under the thing’s body.

Kane dodged the chair and fell into the wall. A front pincer started up.

And then the grenade exploded.

The explosion echoed weirdly in the room. Maria dug out a second grenade, thinking, If one didn’t stop it, then what the hell will another do?

But the explosion blew away some of the legs; one leg came rolling to a stop right before her feet. And the body seemed to split in two as the torso looked down and around as if it something mysterious had suddenly gone wrong.

The spiderlike thing had obviously lost interest in its attack on Kane. But Kane was now close enough to put his shotgun to good use. When the head of the thing looked up after its damage inspection, Kane fired two rounds right at the head, biting off great chunks as if it were some kind of dense fruit.

The torso began a spastic waving and shaking, until—finally—it was motionless.

31

INSIDE MARS

AXELLE—HER HELMET OFF—KEPT SUCKING IN THE tunnel air as if to prove to herself that it was in fact breathable. She detected a smell in the air—something metallic and sour—that made her gag.

But she could breathe it. She was alive, and—

She looked up at the cavern she had just entered, which kept growing wider and wider, so much so that her training in planetary geology told her that such an unsupported opening was—quite frankly—impossible.

And with every step she could see that the walls—all deeply lined with arabesque-like swirls merging into angular grooves and carvings—were beginning to glow even more.

She licked her lips. The taste of the air was even more vile than the smell.

She could see the walls glistening with a sheen of moisture. She stopped and looked back where she had come from, the path looking like an endless, ever narrowing umbilical leading back to what used to be Mars Excavation Site 3.

Not any longer. Axelle Graulich, lone survivor of the Martian Excavation Team, may have started in an excavation site, but this was someplace else.

Am I still on Mars? she wondered.

Another lick of her lips. She was thirsty, and even though she knew she had air to breathe here, how long before thirst started taking its toll on her. She picked up her PDA. No signal, of course. Nothing but the archived images and maps and information. The thing was useless here.

Still standing, she had the thought that somehow something was waiting for her at whatever the other end of this might be.

OUTSIDE DELTA LAB

Theo heard noises all around him. Screams, human screams, he thought. A terrible howling followed by silence as it ended. Until another screaming voice filled the halls here. And gunshots! So many sounds of bullets and explosions, until they too went quiet.

He mouthed a word, being careful not to say it. He just made the shape with his mouth, a silent puff of air….

Please…

And even though he had been so quiet, just standing there against a wall with bright light, he heard sounds. Steps.

Help is coming, he thought.

But it took only a moment to see how wrong he was.

INSIDE DELTA

MacDonald pressed the keys on his PDA, feverishly getting down everything that he thought he now knew. He understood what had happened. Yes, it was now all so clear. And even though he was curled up behind an overturned lab table, hiding and unable to dictate into the PDA, he could still write.

And then…and then, when a radio signal came back, he could send the message, and let the world know what was really happening here.

And what could happen everywhere…

He paused for a second and tugged at his crotch. Hours ago he had urinated, when the mad parade of things streamed out of the portal, and MacDonald, unable to move, could just barely see them as they emerged to begin their conquest of Mars City.

Because that’s what it was like. He wrote that. An army. Conquest, and an ancient war begun again….

And maybe he alone understood what could be done, what might be done to stop this. If it wasn’t already too late. If it wasn’t already completely hopeless.

The gunfire had subsided from outside Delta Lab. The marines there now were all dead or transformed.

No, he wrote. Recruited. There was something about the human creatures turning into zombies that seemed voluntary. Did they have to…some way, somehow…want to become part of this army of horrors?

So many questions, but he kept tapping the keys, knowing that he might not have much more time to get it all down.

His fingers danced over the tiny keyboard.

Word after word, until:

“Dr. MacDonald. So good of you to remain here. With us.”

And MacDonald looked up to the master in charge of the Delta Labs—Dr. Malcolm Betruger, standing right over him.

BALLARD DEEP OCEAN RESEARCH LAB

David listened as Julie explained her observations to one of the new arrivals, Dr. Ati Watanabe.

“We’ve recorded the process, and it’s been replicated each time. No doubt in my mind….”

Watanabe looked at Julie more than at the 3-D loops on the screen, which showed the bacteria taking command of the tube worm host. Julie’s strong point never was dealing with peers. Watanabe seemed to be evaluating Julie.

“What she means, Dr. Watanabe—” David started to say, to present Julie’s point a bit more politically.

But Julie fired a look at him that said Back off, and she continued.

“Look, I’ve already uploaded the core data to the main server, which you and your team have full clearance to. I have my theories, of course, but maybe you, your team—with the help of Dr. Krasanov—could start taking a look.”

David spotted Watanabe smile. Maybe Julie’s reputation had preceded her.

“Yes. Thank you for all your preliminary work, Dr. Chao.”

Touché, thought David.

“My team will begin examining the data immediately. I’ve already spoken to Dr. Krasanov. Perhaps you would be interested in joining the team? I am sure once we begin examining the nanogenetics of the symbiotic process, we will have our hands full.”

For a second David thought Julie would tell Dr. Watanabe what he could do with his offer of collaboration. But instead she took a breath and smiled.

“I’d be honored.”

“Great,” David said. “Then I will leave you to it. I have another sub arriving within the hour—not sure where I’m going to put everyone.”

David started to walk away, but Julie ran up to him and grabbed his elbow.

“Proud of me?” she asked quietly.

“Hmmm?”

“Wasn’t I polite with Dr. W.?”

“Very.” Then David smiled. “Thanks for that.”

“This is too important, isn’t it, David? For ego. For any of that.”

“Absolutely. I better—”

But she had one more thing to say. “Do you think any of this will make a difference?”

What a question, David thought. They had seen the vids, the creatures, the terror, the mayhem taking place a world away. Could whatever they do down here have any impact, any meaning? He doubted it.

Instead of saying that, he said, “I hope so. And I’m going to run this place like everything we do counts and the clock is ticking.”

Julie gave his arm another gentle squeeze. “Good.”

And she turned and walked away as David hurried to the sub bay, and the next batch of the UAC’s finest scientists.

UAC HEADQUARTERS

Ian Kelliher would have liked nothing more than a few fingers of scotch. He would have liked to feel that hit, and let some of the roiling emotions and fears that held him tight, like a hand squeezing, all fade away.

He knew that was out of the question. There will be time for that after this ends. If this ends, he thought.

He had all three screens in his office up and on, all showing images from the UAC subterranean lab.

“Karla, don’t let anything interrupt me, unless you hear directly from Hayden or Campbell on Mars. I assume we’re still getting nothing from there?”

“Yes, sir. Still quiet. Mr. Kelliher, no interruption even for a message from Captain Hakala, sir? He’s due to check in with you in the next half hour.”

“No. No one else. I will let you know when you can let any contacts through.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then Kelliher shut off the voice link to his assistant. Now she would be cut off until he wanted to speak to her again. At the same time, Kelliher hit a button on his desk, and he could hear through an earpiece the sounds from the lab deep below the headquarters building. His chief there, Dr. Adoni, raced between the two portals, mirror images of the portals found on Mars.

“Silvio, how do things progress?”

The scientist stopped in his tracks and put a finger up to his earpiece.

“Fine, sir. I think we are ready. I have my team recording everything; we even injected some micro-monitors into the subject’s bloodstream to measure blood flow, cellular response, and—”

“Very good, Doctor. Can you begin?”

Kelliher could see that the man wasn’t too pleased. Kelliher knew that Adoni had long viewed the live experiments on Mars as great risks, even with animal subjects. Now they had led to an outbreak on Mars that no one understood at all. And yet they were about to do the same thing here.

Kelliher knew it was risky. But he had no choice. All of Mars, all the investments, the plans, the hopes for a different future for humanity, could vanish. Replaced with—what?—a siege from somewhere unknown.

No choice, Kelliher told himself. He must do whatever he could to find out what happened, to stop it. The risk was immense. But so was the danger of doing nothing.

He took a breath.

“Then, Silvio, if all is ready. Let’s do this….”

32

MARS CITY

JACK CAMPBELL HAD PRACTICED WITH THE BFG-9000 only one time, at the Colorado base that was home to the Mars transports. The gun could be tricky to get into firing position, he knew. The weight, and the momentum of all that weight, meant one had to move slowly.

And due to its massive firepower, the safety system involved a three-step process to ready the gun for actual firing. The auto ammo loader had to be engaged, and then the basic trigger release thrown. But then finally the targeting display, which could—if the shooter wanted—lock on a target’s unique heat signature, had to be manually engaged.

Then there was the matter of balance. The thing was heavy from end to end, and only if one had a lot of muscle strength could it be held in position while firing. Not a gun for underachievers, Campbell had thought as he used it to blow up target buildings and vehicles on the aboveground range in Colorado. No point in issuing a lot of the oversized guns, since how many people could operate them?

He could, though. And whatever lay ahead was about to find that out as well.

Campbell walked past the marines in Reception, all simply standing around. They looked like they were waiting for doom to arrive.

“Look lively,” he barked to the room. “Who the hell’s in charge here?”

A private came forward.

Did any officers survive the shock waves? Campbell wondered.

“I’m McCullough. A guy named Kane told me to keep things…under control.”

Kane. So that bastard was still alive. Not surprising. A lot of grunts and private contractors like Campbell admired what Kane did to save his troops. Of course, he got shafted for that. In the corps, an order is an order.

“Okay, McCullough. But these other guys, they look like they’re ready to collapse from boredom. Get them to check perimeters. Goddamn it—you don’t want something creeping up on you, right?”

McCullough grinned. “You got that right. Hey, are you military?”

Campbell shook his head. “Back in the day. Once. Now just a private contractor for the UAC.”

He noticed McCullough eyeing the gun.

“Got any more of”—he pointed at the BFG—“those?”

Now Campbell grinned. “I wish. Just got this—”

And then the earpiece in both men’s ears belched out static, followed by voices. They stood there and listened, their eyes on each other. The radio was up again. And now they could at last hear the horror, loud and clear.

Kane’s earpiece came to life, and he saw Maria turn at the same moment. Except—instead of one voice—it seemed as if a dozen different radio streams were competing for the same bandwidth.

“Hold on,” Kane said. “We should listen.”

They stood there, close to Delta now, and listened….

“They’re gone, shit—all wiped out. Is anyone there, God, is anyone the hell hearing this…?”

It jumped to another voice.

“…stopped here. Both ends, but we’re bottled up, man. Reinforcements urgently…”

Another skip, another voice. Female this time, calm and cool.

“…any unit getting this—you must reset your frequencies. Repeat, reset…”

Then gone. And then another, once close.

“…Kelly, he’s leading them! Christ, he’s actually helping them. You gotta come here, you gotta…”

“Should we—”

Kane held up a hand. This jumble of voices was giving him a picture of what surrounded them. It said that there were some space marines alive, still in place, still—technically—functional. But it also told him that more marines had joined the others—whatever hellish army now roamed Mars City.

Maria nodded. Another voice. Quiet, plaintive in its repetition…

“…is Elliot Swann, personal representative of UAC head Ian Kelliher. I am by the comm station. If I don’t hear from anyone, I will alert the Armada that an immediate evac is needed. Repeat, this is…”

The signal faded. And then there was nothing.

“Radio dead?” Kane asked.

But Maria walked over to him and touched his earpiece. He heard a pinging noise.

“There. I just reset your radio. I guess when they came back online the system hadn’t put them back in their various channels. So, now we have communication—that is, if there’s anyone left to communicate with.” She looked at him.

“Is there anyone we should talk to?”

Maria shook her head. “I think once we use our radios, then we’re walking targets.”

“Agreed. If we need to, we know they work. Let’s keep going.”

Swann…

Campbell stopped. If there was one thing Campbell knew, it was that calling for a rescue by the Armada was the completely wrong thing. If the big ships came, they might be able to take out a lot of the creatures.

But would those troops be affected, if this was an infection? Could there be any guarantees that it was safe?

No, Campbell thought. This is our problem until it’s solved.

He touched his earpiece. It squeaked, and then he cycled to the last radio signature.

“Swann, it’s Campbell.”

“Jack! Jeezus, Jack—what’s happening?”

“Look, things are getting…under control.”

“What? Do you hear what everyone is saying? It’s insanity here, Jack. I’m going to send the signal to the Armada. Hayden would want that.”

“No, Swann. I just came from Hayden. His link to the Comm Center is still down, but he doesn’t want anyone coming here. Not now, not yet.”

Swann was a good counselor, Campbell guessed. But this took him way over his head. He could imagine Swann curled up at the far end of the complex, itching to bring down fresh squads of marines and be rescued. Those marines by now would have seen images of what they were to face, each one thinking: I didn’t sign on for this.

“Look, Elliot, I—”

Then: movement at the far end. Two…three figures. Could be marines, Campbell thought, but not from the way they walked. One stepped into a pool of light, and Campbell could see that it used to be a marine. Even had a helmet on. Tattered uniform, a hook for an arm or maybe just a piece of bone that somehow kept growing. It also held a chain gun and was starting to aim.

“Hold on, Swann.”

As good a time as any to test the BFG. The targeting display could cover all three of them, or it could be narrowed to hit each one with pinpoint accuracy. Since it fired a few rounds every second, Campbell opted for the latter.

The first blast blew the head off the first marine zombie. The other two started hurrying toward Campbell as best they could, each armed, one with a machine gun, another with what looked like a shotgun.

“Bye,” Campbell said, and he filled their bodies with so many blasts that it sent them flying backward onto the ground, chewed into pieces.

“Quite a weapon…” Campbell said.

“What?” Swann said, still panicked. “What the hell just happened?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry. I know where you are. I’ll get there and we can decide what to do together. You got that, Swann?…Swann, do you goddamn hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t do a thing. We’ll see what’s happening and act together. Just like Kelliher would want us to do. Got it?”

“Yes.”

Campbell took a breath. He hoped that he had put a new fear into Swann’s head—a fear that he would get his ass kicked if he did anything at the comm station.

“Great. And meanwhile, don’t use your personal radio again until I contact you. Starting…now.”

No answer. Which was good.

Campbell looked at his PDA. He was close to the Comm Center. He guessed there might be a bigger need for this gun at Delta, but for now getting Swann on board with the program outweighed that.

More lives would be lost. This peach of day isn’t over yet, Campbell thought.

He started down the hallway, ready to march over the dead marines turned into a bloody mess.