Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

29

THEO LOOKED UP AT HIS MOTHER, STANDING BYsome strange machine, just staring at it.

“Mom, when can we go explore?”

For a moment she didn’t turn around, but then she looked back at him. “What? I was—”

“Yousaid we could go exploring. I’ve seen everything in here. It’s boring.”

She smiled. Theo knew his mother wasn’t too happy about coming here. Dad had told them they could have stayed on Earth. But she didn’t want to do that.

At first he was glad. He was going to Mars! He was going to live onMars. But so far, it didn’t look so great. Sure, there were kids in Mars City. They even had some rooms where kids took lessons, like school. And it wasn’t forever. Only a year. Maybe not even that long.

“Right. I was just trying to figure out how this stove works. Too many buttons. It’s so new.”

Theo nodded. “Everything’s new here, Mom.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Okay. Maybe we’ll just have some cereal and then…I’ll try to show you Mars City. They gave me this—”

She held up something small. Theo’s dad had one too. Everyone seemed to have them.Maybe I should have one too, Theo thought. “Good. ’Cause it’s small and boring in here.”

Again a smile from his mother. “Maybe we can get to where your daddy works, okay? First day here, a new assignment. Could be pretty exciting.”

Theo grabbed the remote. A screen flickered to life on the wall. “And where’s that, Mom? Where does he work?”

“A place called Delta Labs.” She turned back to the stove for one more try.

Jonathan Ishii had finally reached the old Comm Center. The few lights he saw on the console showed that the system was still linked to the energy grid. Good. That would mean he wouldn’t have to trek back to Energy Processing and get power rerouted somehow.

While all the time dodging questions…

But was power still flowing to the outside dish? And did he understand this system well enough to get it operational? Already they would know that he was gone from the lab. Maybe they had even tracked him here. Wouldn’t be long before somebody showed up.

He reached under his lab coat and grabbed the gun he had removed from storage.

He sat down at the console and, using everything he had ever learned about the data and communications systems of Mars, started bringing the abandoned Comm Center to life.

The elevator opened, and Kane was greeted by a security guard.

“Help you, Private?”

“I’m looking for someone who’s gone AWOL, a Delta scientist.”

The security guard shook his head. “Another one of those? The nutcases in the white coats.” The guard took a few steps closer. “They’re losing it left and right these days. Place is—”

Close enough that Kane could see that this guard, in his subterranean base, didn’t practice much in the way of dental hygiene…

“—starting to get to them.”

“Yeah. Did you see someone come by?”

The guard shook his head. “No. But—” He laughed, the sound echoing weirdly in the tunnel. “I can’t be fucking everywhere, now can I?”

Yeah…people starting to lose it. And not just the scientists.“Keep your eyes open,” Kane said. Not a request but, an order to the guard, who outranked him.

Then Kane headed around to the left, toward what was labeled Convergence Chamber on his PDA.

“All right, squad. You’re to take positions in Alpha. The general has demanded increased security throughout the Alpha and Delta wings. That means a lot of walking, keeping your eyes open—you know the drill.”

“Sergeant, got any idea why?” Rodriguez laughed at his own question. “What for?”

Maria had to wonder that too. Why today? Some big UAC VIPs here—so maybe it was all for show?

“Rodriguez, I don’t think you have the clearance to even ask that question. Just hit your positions, eyes alert. Got it?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The squad of space marines started out for Alpha. Maria wondered how Kane was doing.

“Should we go to the lab now?” Swann said.

Campbell turned to him. “I’m not going.”

“But Betruger expects—”

“Screw Betruger. I want to check that the weapons shipment has all been deployed. We didn’t bring that firepower up here so it could sit in metal crates for a month.”

“But won’t Kelliher want you to see what happens today?”

Campbell came close to Swann. “I think he wantsyou to see. And you’d best get a report out fast—good or bad. Me, he’s expecting that I keep things tight as a drum up here. If we shut Betruger down, it won’t be pretty.”

“You won’t need weapons.” Swann made a small nervous laugh. “I mean, just to shut down a lab.”

“Hey, counselor—it’s Mars. Anything can happen.”

Campbell started for the Combat Prep room, leaving Swann alone to head to Delta.

“All right, Private. Just stay still.”

Wegner looked at the medical doctor who plunged a syringe into his bicep. A tube ran from the syringe into a vial. Wegner watched as one vial filled with his blood. The doctor removed that vial, then placed another vial at the end of the tube.

After four vials, Wegner joked, “Hey, Doc, leave some for me, okay?”

The doctor turned to him, not a bit of a smile on his pinched face. “We need these samples for before and after. To monitor any changes.”

Wegner laughed. “The only change I want to monitor is my getting out of here.”

Though he stood naked as people walked back and forth, he didn’t feel self-conscious at all. Giving some of them a thrill, he thought.

They had explained to Wegner that he had to enter the chamber without any clothes. And in moments, he’d appear in the other chamber. Just like magic.

The boss scientist, a squat man with a massive head, walked up. “Is the subject ready?”

The doctor taking blood turned around, quick to respond.He barks, and they jump. Just like the freakin’ military. “Yes, Dr. Betruger.”

Then the one called Betruger turned to someone at his elbow, trailing close behind him. “MacDonald, prepare the pod chambers. All Delta science teams to their stations. We begin exactly at noon.”

Another man in a white coat came and took Wegner’s arm and began leading him to one of the large nearby chambers. The stone floor felt cold under his bare feet.

Betruger watched the lab in motion, everyone hurrying now. Like ants, scurrying, racing around, all imagining that this was really another experiment.

Ah, the things they didn’t know. The things that they would soon realize.

Though there was this one concern: Ishii. What had his data chief seen? What had he been able to figure out? Whatever he tried to tell them, they would probably write off Dr. Ishii as only another nut, someone else who has mysteriously gone mad in Mars City.

Did the scientist really expect to escape, leave, or—

Betruger’s eyes darted right and left, looking at the swirl of activity in Delta, but as if trying to look inside his own head, into his mind filled with secrets.

What could Ishii be doing? What could he know?

Betruger didn’t like not having the answers. But soon none of it would matter.

He turned to Pod One. One of the assistants had opened the door while the medical supervisor, the mealy-mouthed Leprine, carefully guided the subject into the pod. The man grinned as people watched him enter, then walk to the center of the pod. Betruger looked around. He had invited Swann to come. Less an invitation, and more of an order.

Betruger touched his earpiece. “Hayden,” he said quietly.

Then after the chirp of a signal, he heard the general’s voice. “What is it?”

“Where is Swann? He should be here.”

“He should be there any minute, Doctor.”

Betruger hit his earpiece again, killing the connection. Then, standing there, he whispered, so low that even someone standing next to him wouldn’t hear what sounded like words…

(Though they would see the lips move, slowly, as if mumbling.)

“Astaroth ag-ignome…pendar…my’el R’yleh…”

Repeating the words, the sounds, over and over—inaudible, he knew, except to those for whom they were intended.