Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

33

AND SO IT WAS DONE. MALCOLM BETRUGERheard the chittering as they emerged, crawling out of the hole that simply grew wider.

It was all sowonderful . A life spent trying to create miracles, and he never dreamed that there was this. This other reality, waiting for someone to just wedge that door open a bit.

As the beings crawled out, they ignored him, like newborn babies, oblivious of their parents. No matter. Betruger could hear the voices in his head all the time. Much of it was incomprehensible, of course. There was so much to learn! But at other times quite clear, telling him to watch the pods, observe as the opening grew larger. He knew it wasn’t just happening here either.

No. Now the planet itself seethed with the power and energy flowing into it. This was simply like a radio receiver, channeling those waves of energy, letting things move from there to here, following the commands as they—

Betruger took a breath.

—as they reclaimed this planet. And it was all only the beginning.

He looked down at his arms. The skin rippled as if waves moved just under the surface, making the skin first bulge a bit, then turn smooth.

Then—what he held in his hands. Almost a gift.

I am ready,Betruger thought,for whatever they wish to do with me.

The lights flickered out in the service tunnel, then—perhaps fed by the emergency backup—they flickered on at what looked like half power.

Sergeant Kelly scrambled to his feet. He looked around at the other marines that had been standing near him, in this corridor away from the large reactor room of Delta.

“Come on, get up! Get the hell up.”

No one moved, so he gave a quick kick to the boots of one of the jarheads. A groan. Though…there was something about the sound.

“Come on. We have to secure this goddamn—”

The marine turned. At first all Kelly could do was look at the private’s hands. Blackened things, as if they had reached into some blisteringly hot oven and yanked out a burning log, fingers curled tightly around it.

But then the face tilted back. Except it wasn’t a face, this thing making a low grunting sound. In place of a human face was a distorted and twisted near-clown image. The mouth slit sideways, as if someone had taken a knife and slashed it to make it open wider. And eyes, vacant dull back pits in yellowish goo.

The hair—what was left of it—had turned white and stringy.

The space marine made another low barking, grunting sound, and started to get up.

Kelly instinctively backed away.

Just as the other two marines also started to move, both in the same condition.

Kelly raised his gun. He was about to say something but he hesitated because—sweet Jesus—it sure looked as though they wouldn’t be able to understand a word he said.

Kane looked around the room. Signs of the shockwave, or whatever had hit the room, dotted the walls and the floor.

But otherwise, everything appeared normal.

Ishii still stood, facing out to the Martian landscape.

Whatever the hell happened, Kane felt he’d best get this runaway scientist back, and then find out what had just happened to make his first full day in Mars City so memorable.

“Doctor, we have to go.”

Ishii started to turn slowly. For a moment Kane didn’t notice anything out of order. The man was backlit by the still-bright Martian midday sun. But when Ishii leaped—leaped—at Kane, he could see that the scientist wasgone, replaced by something that now, apparently, wanted to latch onto Kane.

The doctor’s mouth was open, hands extended.

Kane dodged, but Ishii, moving amazingly quickly now, spun around and with his open jaw, snapped sharply at Kane’s leg. Kane moved his leg out of reach of the man’s snapping mouth. He heard the sickclick as teeth locked together.

Now Ishii, on all fours, tried to scurry toward Kane even as the marine backed away, farther into the shadows of the old Comm Center.

He got a good look at the man’s eyes, and he knew one thing: Ishii was gone, and if this thing was allowed to get a grip on him, it would all end very badly.

He tried some gentle persuasion at first, removing one of his pistols and smacking at the scientist’s head as he tried to crab-claw toward Kane.

The blow made a loud thud and sent the creature rolling to the side. But again—so fast—it popped up, jumping to a standing position, mouth agape. Teeth so clear, and beyond…the tongue…a ragged piece of reddish meat, protruding, tasting the air like a snake.

Ishii pulled back for another leap.

Right onto me,Kane thought.And what, a bite onto my neck, and what then—do I die, or become like him?

Ishii started his leap.

Kane fired. Bullets ripped into Ishii’s chest, and the man fell at Kane’s feet. Then, amazingly, it looked up, started to get up again despite just having taken three rounds of high-powered projectiles to its midsection.

Guess bullets there don’t do any good,Kane thought.Live and learn.

There was nowhere else for him to retreat. The scientist’s eyes looked hungry, eager, sensing that Kane was cornered.

There was a line somewhere, an old play from school, maybe some book—something about eyes being the window to the soul. If that was the case, this thing had no soul.

But those same eyes told Kane what to do.

He blasted the thing square in the head with four rounds. Craterlike holes opened up in the skull, but still it moved, only now those blackened hands reaching for its head as if trying to repair the damage.

Still goddamn moving…

More blasts, until there really wasn’t much of skull there at all, like some kind of humanoid vegetable where the top has been roughly bitten off, leaving only a lifeless trunk.

Until—finally—that trunk fell forward, immobile.

And Kane had a key bit of information. These things could in fact be killed.

Ishii’s PDA lay on the floor.Don’t think he’ll be needing that, Kane thought as he picked it up.

He put his radio back in his ear. It was time to get moving.

Welcome to Mars City, indeed.