Stranger

Thirty-nine

Surviving isn’t just avoiding being swamped by events. It’s about avoiding being swamped by your own emotions to the extent that you can’t function. I watched Michaela snap her runaway emotions into line and return to work at the computer keyboard as if nothing had happened.

“Let’s see what’s really happening in the main bunker.”

“How do you know which one it is out of all those?” I nodded at the bunker directory that listed three hundred facilities like the one we now stood in, either as guests or as prisoners.

“Easy. The bunker reference is printed on everything. It’s even stenciled on the chairs, in case any go missing at stock taking.”

“Thank God for government bureaucracy.”

She tapped in the code, her fingers blurring with speed. “I’m in.”

“Stick to the interior cameras.”

“Here goes.” She picked one at random from the computer screen. Immediately the big booster screen showed the image of a gloomy concrete corridor that could have been anywhere.

“Next,” she said, hitting a key.

“Ah, the torture chamber,” I said as the screen showed the room where we underwent decontamination.

“And just as we thought. Phoenix watched us as we stood there in the dark.”

“Then got his perverse cookies seeing us undress and getting sprayed with disinfectant. I’m really starting to have my doubts about that guy.”

“Me, too.” She accessed the next camera. It showed the kitchen where we’d cooked popcorn. One of the faucets dripped into the sink.

“Can you up the sound?”

“I’ll try… yes. Oh… there’s a volume control, too.” She pointed to a slider switch that popped up on screen.

“Turn it up full.” I watched the dripping faucet in the kitchen as a glistening pearl of water fell into the sink. Using the cursor, Michaela increased the volume. Instantly the drip of water on stainless steel filled the room. It sounded like ball bearings dropping into a metal pail. “So old Phoenix boy could watch and listen to us whenever he wanted. It makes you wonder if he even watched us taking a shower.”

“I guess that’s the least of our problems now. Take a look at that.”

Michaela had accessed another camera. This showed a room that was a duplicate of this one. “That must be the command center across in the main bunker. See the red lights flashing on the screen?”

“An alarm?”

“I guess so.” She shook her head. “The bunker computer’s trying to tell people across there that someone’s trespassing in their backup center in the annex.”

“But where is everyone?”

“I’ll keep trying the cameras… Wait… that looks like their kitchen. Jeez, what a mess.”

The kitchen in the main bunker, just fifty yards or so away from the annex we now stood in, shared the same layout as ours, only it was around twice the size. Used microwave cartons had been carelessly stacked on worktops, chili sauce and dried rice smeared the plastic containers. Around twenty dirty cups littered the table.

Michaela wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. They’re not house proud across there, are they?”

“Maybe you don’t notice after you’ve been sealed away here for months… but wait… can you zoom into the table… those things in the middle? I thought they were plastic spoons. Can you make out what they are?”

“Wait a minute. I have to go back to the main camera menu. Ah, got it. I’ll enlarge the image a hundred percent. Wow.”

I looked at what littered the table. “Those people aren’t relying on caffeine for a high. How many hypodermics do you see?”

“Hell, around a dozen or so. You can even see blood on the needles. I hope those guys haven’t been falling into bad habits and started sharing.”

“So, it has sent them kooky in there. They must have raided the sick bay for the happy potions. Check out all those empty Demerol cartons.”

“Well, I haven’t seen anyone yet.”

“They’re probably sleeping off their narcotics party.”

“And that might explain why no one across there has picked up the intruder alarm.”

“Vigilant bunch, aren’t they?”

Michaela ran through shots from the closed-circuit cameras. Image after image burst on the booster screen. I saw storerooms, bathrooms, corridors, a sickbay (with some naked-looking drug cabinets).

“Say cheese.” Michaela nodded up at the big screen.

There were the two of us, looking at images of ourselves on screen. The next image revealed the recreation room Phoenix had shown us soon after we arrived. Then there had been people playing pool or sitting reading or watching TV. I expected to see at least a couple of dope heads sleeping on couches.

“Hell… they’ve let the place go in the last twentyfour hours.” I looked up at the screen that showed the big room in a generally crappy state. Spent microwave cartons all over the floor. Empty wine bottles strewn across the pool table. There were more hypodermics, along with empty phials on the coffee table. It looked as if someone had thrown a handful of shit at the walls, then smeared it into big looping circles.

I shook my head. “Phoenix has been fooling us again. That place never got into such a state over the last few hours.”

“He must have showed us archive shots from months ago.”

“So what’s his game? Why is he deluding us?”

“Maybe there is no reason. Other than what’s in those phials he’s been injecting into his veins.”

“You mean he’s delusional?”

“Maybe even downright insane.” She shook her head. “Greg, I’m starting to get the feeling that there is no specialized bunker team here.”

“So the guy’s here alone.”

“And probably has been for months. No wonder he has to sweeten his life with all those chemicals. He probably hasn’t talked to another human being since society took a flip. Come to that, he probably hasn’t seen daylight since last year.”

“Jesus.” I felt a prickle of unease. “I think our priority should be to get out of here. If he’s one sick kiddo then he might try playing some of his pervert tricks on us.”

“Get out? How?” She looked ’round. “We’re in a building with walls three feet thick and steel doors without handles.”

“There must be some other way of-”

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think those alarms have got through to someone.”

It was hard to see where the figure came from. Maybe it had been sleeping in an armchair turned away from a camera, but suddenly it came lumbering into view.

“Christ almighty.” The figure-a man, I guess-had a huge mane of black curling hair; its face was painted white and the eyes had been lined with thick black kohl. The whole effect was of some Gothic Egyptian pharaoh who had suddenly quivered back to life. Its eyes were glazed but puzzled-looking, as if that someone had been woken from a deep sleep by an unfamiliar noise.

Michaela nodded at the screen. “If that’s Phoenix he’s going to know where we are soon enough.”

As the figure passed out of sight I said, “Try to get back to the camera in the main operations room. That’s where he’ll be headed.”

“What now?”

“We try to talk to him.”

“From the look of him I don’t think he’s going to be in a sweet mood.”

“We might be able to reason with him.”

“ Might is the key word. He looks pissed to me… got it.” She hit a key. Once more the image of the room that was a duplicate of this one flooded the screen. There were the banks of TV monitors, computers. A vast booster screen filled the end wall.

Michaela let out a breath of air. “Here he comes.”

We watched as the burly bear of a man with the Goth pharaoh face and tumbling black locks lumbered into the room. For a second he stood watching a dozen computer screens all flashing the same red disk. Michaela turned up the volume, and a repetitive pinging sound filled the room. The man ran his hands through his hair in a way that suggested what he was thinking right now was So what the hell’s happening?

He shook his head, no doubt trying to shift a drug-induced purple haze from his head. Then he froze.

“I think that’s the moment of realization,” Michaela murmured.

Suddenly the man turned to look up at where the camera must be fixed to the wall. That white face appeared as a vast skull floating there, with its kohled Egyptian eyes surrounded by a mane of Goth hair. The drowsy expression flashed to one of fury. Clenching his fist, he slammed it down onto a computer monitor. The man’s animal snarl rumbled from the speakers.

The next moment his fingers stabbed keys at one of the computers. That was when the screen behind him flashed into life. It showed Michaela and myself there in the center of the room.

When the man shouted I knew it was Phoenix. Only the softspoken burr had gone now; rage blasted the voice at us. “You were told not to enter rooms that were off limits! You have trespassed on restricted areas!” He glared up at the camera, his huge eyes blazing out at us from the booster screen. “You know what the penalty is for willful destruction of government property? This is a state of national emergency!”

“Phoenix-”

“If you do not return to your rooms immediately I will order in the guard. You will be shot, do you hear that? You will be executed by firing squad for-”

“Phoenix!” Michaela’s clear voice cut across his rant. “Phoenix. There is no guard. You’re alone in there, aren’t you?”

“The bunker personnel are asleep in their quarters. If you don’t leave that room immediately I will wake up the guards. Man, will they be pissed. They’re gonna bayonet you two in the guts. I tell you guys, you are fucking dead. Fucking dead, fucking buried, fucking history, fucking…” His voice rose to a scream.

“Phoenix!” I shouted. “There’s no one else in the bunker with you. You are alone. There are no marines, there are no engineers, no doctors.”

“How do you know that? Hey, how do YOU know!” He paused, suddenly looking edgy, as if a thought had occurred to him. A thought he didn’t like one little bit.

“Hey. Have you two hacked into the computer?”

“We found a code. We’ve been able to access the closed-circuit TV cameras at the other bunkers.”

“Shit!”

“We know that you’ve been feeding us old footage. We know that hornets have overrun the bunkers somehow.”

“Bastards… you interfering bastards…”

“Phoenix, we know that all the personnel in those bunkers are dead. That there is no government any more, or even any kind of emergency military command. It’s all been smashed.”

For a moment he paused, staring up at the camera. A look of horror distorted that weird-looking face. He seemed to be thinking through what I’d just told him.

“Admit it, Phoenix,” I said. “You’re alone in the bunker, aren’t you?”

He chewed his thick red lip, considering. Then: “OK, OK… I wanted to make things look good for you… hell, guys, I just wanted to be nice, OK? This is a shit world now. I just wanted… hell… it makes me feel good to see people enjoying themselves again.”

“What now?”

“Now?” He shrugged. “Stay longer if you want, guys. Enjoy the facilities. Eat as much food as you want. Hey, you can even walk around naked, I don’t mind.”

“I bet he doesn’t,” Michaela muttered under her breath.

“And what I said still goes. Bring your friends into the bunker. We can party, huh? Your tax dollars bought nice things here. You can forget all that crap outside those walls. In here it’s safe, you can relax-”

“Get high on stuff from the drug cupboard?”

He looked stung. “Hey, you’ve been across here? How did you get in?” He looked ’round, as if to see if anything had been disturbed.

I played it cagey. “We’ve seen enough, Phoenix.”

“What have you seen? Did you access the cameras?”

I shrugged, and saw my image shrug on the booster screen behind Phoenix.

“Phew…” He playacted a big OK-so-you’ve-found-me-out shrug. “So what’s your reaction?”

“We’re hardly going to sit here in judgment,” I said. “What you do across there is your own business.”

“Yeah, got to pass these long hours somehow, haven’t I?” He smiled now, relaxing. “So just leave those rooms alone. That’s my only condition. Then bring your people here and we can really…” He made a show of flicking his hair back with those white, spidery hands of his. “We can really let our hair down- right, guys?”

Michaela nudged me with her elbow. Then hissed so he wouldn’t hear. “It’s not the drugs he was worried about. He’s hiding something else.” Then, in a louder voice, she spoke to Phoenix. “Things must have been tough on your own.”

“Oh, I spent a lot of time alone as a kid.”

“Oh?”

“I stayed in my room and listened to music. Other kids always thought I looked weird…” He flicked back his hair again and jutted out his face so it filled the screen. “I can’t imagine why, can you?” He laughed at his own sense of humor. “I mean, what’s wrong with a guy wanting to look different from the rest of the herd?”

“Nothing, Phoenix.”

“You’ve heard that old Kinks song with the lyric that goes: ‘I’m not like everybody else.’ ”

“I’ve heard it, Phoenix. Neat song.”

“That’s my anthem… the soundtrack to my life, if you will.”

“Individuality is fine.” Michaela smiled, then talked to him in a friendly, chatty way. “What kind of party have you planned when we bring our friends here?”

“Hey, whatever you want. I’ve got some stuff in here that makes you feel as if you’re vacationing in the Milky Way. If you want to get horny I’ve got pills that get you as horny as a timber wolf in the rutting season. You get me?”

“Sure.”

“All I require from you guys is to keep out of that room. There’s sensitive equipment in there. It’s easily damaged.”

“Why worry about that, Phoenix? From what we saw, it’s redundant now. There’s no government to sue us for trespass.”

“I know, guys, but… well, you know how it is? I kind of feel responsible after all this time.”

She hissed again. “He is hiding something… watch him, watch him,” she warned in that low whisper so he wouldn’t hear. “He’s trying something.”

I looked up at the screen. Phoenix had backed toward a desk, where he sat down beside a computer. Almost idly, as if toying with the keyboard, he slowly tapped the keys with one finger.

Michaela sang out: “He’s shutting us down!”

“Phoenix,” I shouted, “what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing really, guys. But running two communications centers really shoots away the juice. I’m just conserving fuel. Don’t worry, it’s cool. Go back to the lounge and we’ll chat there. Help yourselves to some-”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Michaela punched keys. “What are you hiding across there?”

“Shit, nothing. Now get out of that room!” Panicky, he turned ’round to begin hitting the computer keys, his face locked onto the screen, watching the cursor fly through the menus.

Michaela’s fingers sped faster across the keyboard, hitting camera code after camera code. Once more images flew across the booster screen.

“It’s only going to take him a few seconds,” she said.“He’ll be able to shut down this backup system from across there.”

“Can we do the same to him first?”

“If I knew how, maybe.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to access as many of the closed-circuit cameras as I can before he switches us off…” Her eyes flicked across the images now racing across the booster screen. “Didn’t you sense it? When he realized we were talking about his drug habit he was relieved. There’s something else across there that he doesn’t want us- there! I’m into a new batch of cameras. Keep your eyes on the booster screen.”

Images tumbled one after another. I saw shots of corridors, stairwells, doorways, locker rooms, laundry rooms, bedrooms, a boardroom, the sick bay again, with the empty drug cartons, a shot of Phoenix hitting computer keys with all the force of a maniac. He roared, “Get outta there! Get out! Get out!”

Another image flooded the screen. This showed a corridor lit with weak ceiling lights. Michaela struck another key. Now the booster screen showed a room that seemed to be underwater. Through the murk I could make out the line of a closed door, then a bathtub.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said at last. “You must have two camera shots overlapping each other.”

“No, that’s not possible.”

I stared at the bathroom, wondering if it had filled with mist or smoke. The whole thing had a pinkish tint. And were those objects hanging there, as if suspended by invisible wires from the ceiling?

“I’ll zoom in.” Michaela hit a key.

The lens homed in on one of the hanging objects. Something dark and roughly round in shape filled the booster screen. It could have been a sick-looking planet hanging in space with frayed material floating from it disgustingly, while the surface had been deformed by lumps and swellings.

Then the object rotated upward.

“Oh, my God!”

Michaela’s scream jabbed my ear. I started back, too, my throat muscles contracting because there, filling the screen seven feet high, hung a vast misshapen face. Rattails of hair swirled in the liquid that supported the head.

Then the eyes opened. Two colossal circular eyes that were disks of sticky whiteness. From them two pupils stared out fiercely. The mouth yawned open with all the ferocity of a shark’s. And from the mouth came a sound that was part moan, part roar, part warning.

This was the secret Phoenix had been hiding.

“My God, it’s in the bunker.” I backed away from the screen as if tumors erupted from it. “It’s a hive.”