Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

31

THEO FOLLOWED BESIDE HIS MOTHER, HOLDINGher hand. She had led him back to where the spaceship first had landed, but then she took him down a new hallway.

It wasn’t that much fun at all.

“Where we going?” he finally asked.

“Mars City is big. Can’t see it all in one shot, Theo. But I thought I’d show you where the soldiers stay, the space marines.”

“Why are they called ‘space’ marines?”

He heard his mother laugh. “Because we’re in space.” But then the laugh stopped, and her voice sounded different. “I mean, I guess that’s why.”

Ishii entered the coordinates of the communication target. He had thought to send the message directly to Earth, but who knew what filters the UAC satellite grid used. Could be the message would simply die in space.

But the armada…

They would get everything as they patrolled the space lanes between Mars and Earth.

It took a few moments for the target coordinates to lock. Ishii waited.

And then there was a voice behind him and a hand on his shoulder.

Lost in getting the system up and running, the scientist hadn’t even heard Kane walk into the old Comm Center.

As soon as Kane got there, he heard a voice in his ear. “Kane—Kelly here. Find that damn scientist and get your ass back here.” A snicker. “Unless you need reinforcements.”

Kane didn’t acknowledge Kelly’s barking command.

“Doctor…Dr. Ishii, please step away from the console.”

The scientist turned. Then Kane could see his eyes, wide, bloodshot, like a grunt who’d been in battle for days, no sleep, no food.War eyes, they called them—acquired by humans in battle who begin mutating into killing machines, with only one thought: kill the other guy and keep me the hell alive.

Ishii spoke. “No. You don’t understand. I—I have to do this.”

Kane took another step closer to him. “Doctor, I’ve been ordered to stop you doing…whatever you’re doing, and bring you back.”

Ishii nodded. “Of course. That’s what they would want. But—” The rheumy bloodshot eyes looked up at him. “You have to understand, you see, I know. Iknow what they’re going to do.”

What the hell is he talking about?Kane wondered. So far, Mars City seemed more like an extension of the mental ward back at the new VA, in the hills of Colorado.

He watched Ishii begin to move close to some switches near the side of the console. A microphone—kind of primitive—veered from the center of the control board.He’s about to send a message. How bad could that be?

But Kane couldn’t risk getting into any more trouble.I just want to stay under the damn radar…

Ishii’s fingers moved slowly, as if by stealthily making their way to the “Transmit” buttons, he wouldn’t be seen.

Kane had no choice. He moved quickly to Ishii, his hands closing on the scientist’s wrist. “Step away, Doctor. Just step…away…from the console.”

Ishii turned, and up close, Kane could see the fear in the probably mad scientist’s eyes.This whole place is a loony bin, Kane thought.

“No. You don’t understand. You have to let me—” Ishii still tried to hit some buttons with his free hand. But Kane moved quickly, imprisoning that hand too, and then, just so the scientist got the message, whipping him back, pulling him and the chair back against the wall.

And then—an amazing moment as Kane spun around. He could see…this room, this old Communications Center suddenly had a panoramic window looking out on Mars. There was no Mars City out there, nothing but the reddish ridges, the mountainous areas, burning in the midday sun. A temperature readout by the window told the current temperature: 271 degrees Kelvin.

For the first time an awareness of where he was hit Kane.

But then Ishii struggled against his grip. “Listen, er—“The man’s wild eyes searched Kane’s uniform. “Private Kane, youhave to listen to me!”

“Sure. Then you are coming back with me. Understand?”

The man nodded. Kane released his grip.

“This place…what’s going on here…it’s not what they tell you.” He laughed. “It’s not what they tellanyone. Even the scientists in the lab, even they don’t know. But I do.” His voice rose. “I do.”

Right,thought Kane.Funny thing about delusions.

“And what is that, Dr. Ishii?”

“You’re not going to believe me.”

Good chance of that…“We won’t know until we try.”

Ishii looked away, looked at the open landscape, as if the answer lay somewhere out there. “It happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, maybe millions. It happened right here. And God, sweet God in heaven, it’s going to happen again.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I’m afraid your clearance doesn’t let you go any further.”

Theo held his mother’s hand tight. The soldier stood in the center of the hallway. He looked big, so much bigger than his father, wearing all sorts of padding. He held a rifle of some kind, something really cool. None of Theo’s army guys had any weapons like that.

He’d have to ask his dad what it was, next time he saw him.

His mother smiled down at him.

“We’re new. Just giving my son a little tour. Show him some more of Mars City. This”—she touched a badge on her lapel—“doesn’t let us go down here?”

Theo felt the soldier’s eyes drift down. “No, ma’am. This is a military wing of the city, and you would need military clearance.”

She nodded. Then she turned to Theo.

“Sorry, Theo. Maybe Daddy can arrange something for us. I’ll talk to him when he gets back tonight.”

Theo wasn’t sure he wanted to go down this way anyway. It didn’t look very interesting. He felt his mom give him a tug, pulling him away. But then—

“Miss, I can’t let you go down there, not alone. But if you want to give the boy a quick look, he can catch a glimpse of where the marines line up before getting assigned, where we get our gear.” The big soldier smiled.He seems to like Mom, Theo thought. “I’ll just walk you down there a bit.”

The soldier smiled down at Theo. And though he didn’t really want to walk down there, he and his mom followed the marine.

Elliot Swann stood by the lab entrance. After watching this experiment, he had a lot of reports to go through. Every aspect of Mars City had to be signed off on by Kelliher—and it was Swann’s job to make sure nothing was missed.

Only another minute or so.

The naked subject in the pod was grinning. Every scientist seemed to have something to do, something to keep their eyes off him.

Maybe,Swann thought,I’m the only person really looking at him. Hope it goes well, you stupid bastard. Just don’t be like the others. Guess he never heard the adage—never volunteer.

Two minutes left. A message on his PDA, from Campbell. “How’d it go?”

Too soon. Swann was about to respond, but then decided to simply wait. In a few minutes he’d have something to send back. Then he could get on with his work.

Rodriguez looked down one of the long empty tunnels of Alpha.

“You think Hayden ordered all this security?”

Maria shook her head. She guessed it had something to do with today’s visitors. She pulled her weapon close, and without even being aware of it at first, tightened her finger around the trigger.

“I’m listening,” said Kane.

Ishii nodded. “What Betruger is doing in there…has nothing to do with teleportation. Not anymore, at least. Not since he discovered what it does, what those machines can do here.”

“Which is?”

Ishii seemed annoyed at the question. “They don’tmove things from one place to another. Not really. No one who has been a test subject has been able to say what happened to them. Not even the ones who came back still looking…human.”

Kane shifted on his feet. This guy was one for the books.

“Betruger knew—heknew —they went somewhere, that by using those pods, he opened a way into those places, that you could—”

Okay,thought Kane,enough of this. In seconds Kelly would be in his ear again, bellowing for him to double-time it back with the scientist. “Sir, we really—”

“He didn’t know that I saw everything from Site 3, what he had learned. About what happened so many years ago here. Heknows what that thing is—the artifact—what he called the Soul Cube. All those living beings long ago, their need to stop it, their terrible sacrifice—”

“Look, Doctor—you’re losing me, and we have to get back, we got to leave—”

Ishii backed up against the panoramic glass window. Kane had no choice but to go grab him and start dragging the man back. But then in his earpiece, he heard a sharp burst of something like static.

High-pitched, as if some radio signal was being stretched and pulled and distorted into an ear-piercing level of volume.

Kane yanked the earpiece out.

Then—

It was almost like standing before an open window.A breeze coming through a window on a summer’s day. Turning, now stronger. The breeze, now the wind of a storm. The steady sound of wind rushing during a summer storm on Earth. Growing. Now a roar.

Kane stood there and felt the amazing blast of what had to be a racing jet of air smashing into the enclosed space of the room.