Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

14

MARS CITY

HOURS LATER, PRIVATE MARIA MORAETES STOODoutside General Hayden’s office. Finally, she heard a barely audible signal coming from the headset of Hayden’s adjutant.

“Yes, sir. I’ll send her right in.” The adjutant looked up. “The general will see you now.”

Maria nodded. The door slid open, and she walked into the office.

She took in the details. The room, filled with rich wood, looked like a military officer’s room from another century. A massive wooden desk with claw feet dominated much of the room.

General Hayden looked down at the desk, then, without giving Maria a glance, he went to his screen. After what seemed an eternity, he looked up at her.

“I was going to ask you, Private Moraetes, whatever possessed you to do…what you did. But you know what? I’m not really interested.”

“Sir, I saw Mr. Kelliher in danger and I thought—”

“Oh,thinking , are we? Didn’t know that privates were expected to actually think. Here’s the news flash—same here as down on Earth. No thinking required. Just follow orders.”

“The situation…was complicated, sir. And I—”

“Yeah, complicated. So you take action that could have killed Ian Kelliher. As it was, he took a shot. Delayed his return home. Could have killed him.”

Maria hesitated a moment She imagined that saying nothing might be the best course. Screw it.

“He could have beenkilled , sir.”

“Or we could have defused the situation later. Crazy bastard trying to get off Mars. He could have been talked down, Private. There was no call for your risky move, your potentially deadly actions.”

Hayden fixed her with his eyes as if daring her to again attempt an explanation. She wanted to ask where the soldier came from. Did the general know what made him act? But she said nothing.

Then the general pointed at the screen. “But I see here in your personnel record what may have prompted you to do that. God, the flotsam and jetsam we get sent up here. Mars City, home to an amazing array of not-quite marines. Like you. But I see you got a bit of a story here.”

Maria knew what he was looking at. Buried in her personnel file. And yes, maybe what he saw did have something to do with the action she took.

“I never hid my past, General. I—”

His hand shot up.

“No. And we all know it now. Know it and—“he tapped his skull—“we can remember. You’re one lucky marine, Moraetes. Lucky that Kelliher is alive. Lucky that he doesn’t want your ass for the risk you took.”

Again Maria thought:I saved him. Ian Kelleher’s brains could be spread all over the hangar floor. I saved him. But it was useless to say anything.

“We’re done here, Private. And I do hope that for as long as I am on Mars, and you are, that our paths don’t ever cross again. Dismissed.”

Maria saluted sharply. Turning on her heels, she walked out of the office, the sliding door whooshing open, then quickly shutting behind her.

She had hoped that the military would be different. That what happened below, down on Earth, might not happen here. That a new world might mean things might just be less about bullshit, less about lies and covering your ass.

And now Maria knew that she was wrong. It would be a long two years ahead for her on Mars….

Dr. Kellyn McDonald walked to one of the side corridors of Delta. This particular corridor, leading to a series of storage areas, required the highest possible security clearance.

He had heard about the attack that nearly cost Ian Kelliher his life. And MacDonald thought he might have seen the soldier who had snapped, only recently posted to Delta, along with other new space marines. Only this guy happened to see something that he really shouldn’t have.

And it scared him enough that his terrified mind cooked up a plan to escape. To get the hell off Mars. Maybe not such a crazy idea, MacDonald thought. Maybe the crazy ones were the people staying here.

Meters away from the lab doors, a scanner picked up the ID on his lab coat, then confirmed his ID via a thermal scan while he walked slowly down the corridor. The electronic doors opened, carefully sensing that only the person with the proper security walked through. No own would pay much attention to MacDonald coming down here. He could be doing a dozen things—looking for equipment, checking some supplies. There were a dozen storerooms here.

But his clearance allowed him everywhere. He wanted access only to the storeroom at the far end. Here, he had to manually enter a code—just one more layer of protection.

He entered a small storage area that faced a massive freezer that filled the room. Not for food. Not for medical equipment. Over one thousand square feet of frozen storage space. And already getting full.

Cameras all around the room followed his movements. But there would be no alert, no reason for anyone to be concerned. MacDonald had every right to come in here.

He opened the freezer door. The icy air hit him, chilling him, and gooseflesh rose.

He saw the rows of shelves, the upper tiers empty, those at the bottom full. Row after row of sealed plastic bags. Body bags—only whatever bodies filled these bags came in all different sizes and shapes.

MacDonald slid his PDA from his side. He held it close to his lips. “Record,” he said.

Then he clipped the compact data device to a lapel of his coat. He walked over to one bag and unzipped it. Then another. Another. Until he had a half dozen or more bags unzipped. Even with the cold, there was the smell. He fought against the gag reflex.

Five below in here, and still the overwhelming smell…

And with the bags open, he started back, peeling away the plastic openings, exposing what lay beneath. Without taking the bodies completely out, it would be hard to really see them. Hard to really make out what you were looking at. But you could see the arms on one corpse, the spidery arms sprouting from a nearly human torso, human, that is, if you didn’t look at the scrambled eggs of eyes, ears, and teeth that topped them.

Each one different. Each monstrosity some brand-new combination of horrors.

He hurried, walking down the row. Just wanting to capture a half-dozen images or so. Send them back to Earth. Keep Kelliher fully informed. He had already seen a lot, but he hadn’t seen these yet…

The latest test results.Here’s what they looked like.

He got to the last bag. On this one, the primate-like hands ended in clawlike fingers ringed with teeth. As he stood by that one, one of those arms…moved. Sliding down, away from the body, pointing down. MacDonald jumped back.

Just happened to slide out of the bag a bit. But now…now he’d have to grab the arm and tuck it back in. He gingerly grabbed the dangling arm just above the wrist, taking care not to let his own fingers touch the claw-fingers. Slowly, carefully, McDonald stuffed it back in the bag. Then he pulled the zipper tight.

“End,” he whispered to his PDA. Then: “Send encoded. Ian Kelliher.”

And even deep within this frozen meat-locker of horrors, the file of images was being encrypted, relayed to the new comm center, and beamed to Earth in a totally secure packet that only Kelliher could unpack once he was back on the planet.

MacDonald turned and walked out of the freezer.

(Not, though, without a look over his shoulder. All those things so dead—but still he had tolook .)

He shut the freezer. Still rows of shelves to fill. Rows awaiting the next results, the next outcome of Betruger’s experiments on Mars. It was, after all, why this was being done here. Nobody to see, nobody to ask questions. Kelliher had planned that.

And as MacDonald reentered the corridor leading back to the main area of Delta, he thought,We’re just getting started here.