But memories were made of concrete. They could not be erased so easily.
It looked more likely that they would soon be adding more unwanted experiences to their mental résumés. Andy had known this time would eventually come. He and Sun being summoned like this had been inevitable from the moment they’d walked away from Samhain. They were involved in something that was not yet over and perhaps never would be.
The helicopter touched down in a clearing between a circle of Jeffrey pines. The steel skids struck rocky ground and the cockpit bounced briefly before settling down and resting still. The pilot cut the power. The roaring of the propellers became a whimpering whine.
Agent Smith twisted in his chair and nodded at Sun and Andy. “Same drill as before. Get out and somebody will meet you.”
“What about the kid?” Andy asked.
Jerry was still asleep. His mouth agape and drool covering his chin.
“Don’t worry about him,” Agent Smith said. “He’s not your problem.”
Andy and Sun exchanged worried looks.
Jerry stirred, muttered something that sounded like the name ‘Ben’.
Andy took a deep breath and then unbuckled Jerry from his seat. “He’s coming with us.”
Agent Smith shouted. “Hey, you just leave that kid to me. He’s a liability.”
Sun shouted back. “No, he’s not. He’s just a kid, and if we hadn’t brought him into our room then he wouldn’t be involved in any of this. He’s our responsibility.”
“You don’t have a choice in this,” Agent Smith snarled. “I’m not about to allow a foreign citizen to witness what you’re about to see. It’s top secret.”
Andy started to rouse Jerry, shaking him by the shoulders. “He’s coming with us. I’m not about to stand idly by while you ‘disappear’ the kid. He either comes with us or you can just take me straight back to the hotel.”
“Mr and Mrs Dennison. You are going to help us whether you like it or not. You are not in a position to make demands.”
“Maybe not,” said Sun. “But I can assure you that our help will be more useful if it’s voluntary.”
“Yeah,” said Andy. “So perhaps it’s best not to piss us off.”
Jerry opened his eyes and snorted a wad of snot through his sinuses. “Dude, what’s with all the drama? I was having a wicked dream. There were midgets and everything.”
There was a tense silence in the cabin for a few seconds before Agent Smith finally gave up and let out an irritated huff. “Fine, but if that kid even so much as farts without your supervision, he’s going to have to be dealt with. Now get the fuck out of my helicopter.”
“It’s been a pleasure as always,” said Andy, shoving Jerry out of the door and then turning around to help his wife make the three foot drop to the rocky floor.
The clearing was baked, the ground hard and parched. Shadows covered one side of the area while the sun beat down ferociously on the other. There was no wildlife nearby; no birds, no squirrels. Andy craned his neck and looked around. Three hundred and sixty degrees of woodland, not a building nor a soul in sight.
The chopper started back up and quickly jumped back up into the air. It tilted left and then headed right, clearing the treetops by mere inches. Within seconds it was out of sight, the distant humming of its propellers the only evidence that it had ever been there.
“Whoa!” said Jerry, looking up at the sky. “Did they just leave us here? How are we supposed to survive out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Just wait,” said Andy. “We’re not alone.”
“Mr and Mrs Dennison, I presume?”
Andy spun around. Behind them had appeared an older gentleman in military uniform. From the amount of ribbons on the man’s chest, both his rank and experience were distinguished.
Andy walked to meet the figure, aware of the drill after having been through a similar situation before. He held out a hand to shake the man’s hand. “I take it you’re the head honcho.”
“I’m General Franklin Kane. Welcome to Project Monstrum, facility 26. Or, as we here call it, the Spiral.”
Kane offered a bony hand, which Andy shook firmly. It felt like shaking a wispy tree branch.
“So what can of worms are we opening today, General? Sorry if I seem a little hostile, but I’m here to meet Dr Belgium then get the hell out of here and back to sangrias by the pool.”
General Kane frowned. “Dr Belgium? I’m sorry, I’m not sure whom you’re referring to.”
“Dr Frank Belgium. He worked at Samhain under General Race Murdoch.”
“Ah, General Murdoch. I always heard good things about him. I was saddened to hear of his demise. As for Dr Belgium, I’m afraid you must have been misinformed. He’s not here, nor has he ever been for as long as I have been here. That would be eighteen years, by the way, ever since my predecessor, General Sigurdsson, died of natural causes.”
Andy kicked the dirt. “That son-of-a-bitch!”
“Agent Smith lied to us,” Sun muttered.
“Bloody git!” Jerry added, despite most likely having zero understanding of what they were all talking about.
Kane rubbed his palms together and made a sound like sandpaper rubbing against glass. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on what led you here. I was told only of your past experience and that you were en route. My instructions were to take you down below and provide you full access to the facility.”
Sun and Andy looked at one another. They had been duped into coming here and now they were being offered a royal welcome. Andy couldn’t help but be intrigued by what was likely lurking right beneath their very feet and why the two of them were so important. He also wanted to run screaming into the woods.
“Take us down,” Andy said. “We’ll hear you out, but then we’re leaving.”
Kane shrugged. “It’s not my intention to keep you here against your will. Once I have followed my orders and shown you what you need to see, I will be happy to have you choppered back wherever you like.
Andy felt better to hear that he was not a prisoner. Not that he fully believed it. He nodded to the General. “Lead the way.”
Andy, Sun, and Jerry followed Kane over to a large pile of logs between two leaning Pine trees. Close inspection revealed that they were fake, made of thick, painted plastic and secured to a large metal plate. The plate slid aside automatically as they approached, revealing a murky stairwell leading into the earth. It was like Samhain all over again.
“The Spiral has recently been upgraded,” Kane explained. “But I’m afraid the entrance has seen better days. Mind your step on the way down as some of the steps have warped after so long underground.”
Everybody headed down the staircase. The large metal plate slid closed above them and a line of naked bulbs on the ceiling switched on. Many of the bulbs had blown-out or were flickering.
After a few hundred harsh, concrete steps, the staircase came down to a set of modern aluminium doors. The doors slid apart as the group got closer, revealing the shiny interior of a burnished steel elevator vestibule big enough to hold an SUV.
“The refurbishments start here,” said Kane. “After the Samhain incident a majority of our facilities were revamped and retrofitted with new security protocols. We also have a small contingent of armed security staff so please don’t be alarmed by the sight of weaponry.”
Andy felt simultaneously better and worse. He felt better that the facility was better protected than Samhain had been, but worse that it was yet another facility that needed to be guarded in the first place.
“Needless to say,” Kane said, “but everything you are about to see must be kept in absolute secrecy. Unless you want to be executed for treason, I would keep it to yourself.”
“Erm, I have a question,” Jerry put his hand up. “Technically I’m not American, so treason wouldn’t apply to me.”
Kane’s eyes went wide-eyed. You’re a foreign national? Christ what the hell are they playing at bringing you here?”
“He’s with us,” said Sun. “We’re responsible for him.”
Kane shook his head and sighed. He was alternating between fury and resignation. “Fine, then anything he does will come back on you two.” He turned and looked at Jerry, examining him closely. “As for your question, young man. You are indeed correct, you cannot be charged for treason as you are not a US citizen. Sharing our state secrets would instead result in torture and indefinite incarceration. You will be treated as an enemy combatant.”
Jerry grinned. “Cool. I’m like James Bond.”
Kane went to speak, but Andy cut him off. “Can we get going, please?”
“Of course. Please, step into the elevator.”
The group stepped inside the vaulted cabin. There were no controls on the wall. Kane simply said, ‘Spiral, Level 2’.
The elevator began to descend.
“It automatically detects my security card.” Kane produced a credit card sized piece of plastic from his pocket and showed it to them. Without one of these cards or a visitor’s access fob the elevator will not work. Just one of our many security features.”
“I feel like I’m on an episode of Fringe,” said Jerry. “It’s pretty sweet.”
“Believe me,” said Andy. “The awe wears off quickly in a place like this.”
“Let’s try to stay positive, honey,” Sun said. “We don’t know anything yet.”
The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors immediately opened. What greeted them was like nothing they had ever seen before. It was not at all like what Andy had been expecting. It was nothing like Samhain.
Sun worried about her husband. She knew that beneath his veneer of calm cynicism, Andy was terrified. How could he not be? After what had happened the last time they’d been underground courtesy of the Government, it was a wonder he had even managed to remain sane. The same was true of her, of course. Despite the contentment she had found in Andy’s arms and the outright joy that her engagement and recent marriage had brought, she was still deeply damaged. She often lay awake in bed, knowing that Andy, too, was probably feigning sleep beside her. She would think about the terrors they had seen together and knew that if sleep eventually did find her it would be draped in a shroud of nightmares.
And now it seemed as though her nightmares were about to receive a follow up.
When the elevator doors opened, Sun’s apprehension was alleviated somewhat. Samhain had been a decrepit tomb wedged beneath the desert, but what she was looking at now was an entirely different animal.
“Welcome to Spiral level 2,” said General Kane. He stepped out in front of them and gestured like a magician revealing some great illusion. “Or as we like to call this area, the Nucleus.”
Sun stepped out of the elevator and glanced around, tilting her head in all directions. The vaulted ceilings were a hundred-feet high above an area the size of a football field. Glass partitions separated numerous banks of blinking computers and expensive modern desks. There were so many people milling about the area that it could have passed for the call centre of some mundane corporation.
“This is where 80% of the facility’s staff operate,” said Kane. “From here we can control security, communication, and all other aspects of the day-to-day running of the site. Our entire network is powered by one of the United States’ most powerful super computers and protected by the most sophisticated firewalls in existence. It makes NASA’s systems seem like Atari.”
“I bet you get some killer frame rates on
Call of Duty
,” muttered Jerry.
“Okay,” said Andy. “This is all very impressive. Which begs two questions: why all the overkill? And what are we doing here?”
Kane lifted his chin and smiled. “Your expertise, as always, is very useful to us. Your grasp of languages, both ancient and modern, is something that could help us with our current projects. Likewise, Sun, your medical training and veterinary skills are something that could perhaps lend itself to seeing something that our resident staff have not. Your joint experiences of similar…
projects
, could also be enlightening.”
Sun sighed. She was getting tired of the General’s vagueness. “Look, just get to the point, please. Show us what you need to so that my husband and I can get back to our honeymoon. Whatever you need us for, we’re not interested. We’ve already been lied to in order to get us here, so any goodwill you may have had has dried up.”
Andy cleared his throat. “Yeah, what she said.”
Kane nodded, puffed up his narrow chest. “Indeed. Then I suggest we get to it. Follow me back to the elevator, if you will, and I’ll ‘get to the point’ as you have put it.”
Sun folded her arms. “Good.”
The group re-entered the elevator and this time Kane gave a different command: “Subbasement 1.”
The elevator began to descend.
“We’re heading another three hundred feet down,” said Kane. “It will take a few minutes. In the meantime let me explain that this facility is not like one you may have seen before. Samhain was built in 1906 by President Roosevelt and was built to contain a single subject. This facility is far older and far grander in its purpose.”
“How much older?” Sun asked.
“The site’s footprint has changed dozens of times since its initial construction. It has expanded, been dug down deeper, reinforced. The very first facility here was above ground and much smaller. To answer your question, this site has been in operation in some form or another since 1812.”
“Bullshit!” said Andy.
“Not at all. The facility was commissioned by the founding fathers themselves, amongst many other powerful individuals of the time—most notably the Masons and the Catholic church.”
“Okay,” said Sun. “You’re starting to get a little Dan Brown on us now. You expect us to believe that there’s some sort of conspiracy dating back almost all the way to the birth of our nation? I don’t buy it.”
Kane laughed. “A conspiracy? Perhaps. But for the greater good most certainly. As for it dating back to the birth of our nation, I’m afraid that things go back much further than that.”
Sun frowned. She rubbed at her arms and felt goose bumps. The air in the elevator chilled as they cut deeper into the earth. “How much further?” she asked.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened.
“We’re here,” said Kane, stepping out into the corridor and gesturing to a huge painting on the wall in front of them. The focus of the picture was a saintly figure in wonderful, golden robes.