“Well, my thinking is that the Irishman and the batling turning up at pretty much the same time is too much to be a coincidence. Lucas even went as far as to admit to knowing Bub. I wonder if Bub knows him.”
Sun chewed her lip. “So, what are you saying?”
Andy rubbed his fingertips together and had one last think about his plan. It was worth a punt, worth the risk. “I say it’s time that Lucas and Bub Jr. meet face to face.”
“So what are we looking for?” Jerry asked.
“Anything to do with the batling,” Nessie said. “Especially anything to do with the origin of its creator.”
“Bub?”
“Yes, although that’s just the name they gave him at the Samhain project. No one knows his real name.”
The library on subbasement 10 was huge, not as big as a public library but vastly larger than a private library had any right to be. The ceilings were high, stacked with books of all sizes. An area of ceiling against the far wall was even higher, perhaps a hundred feet up and rising like a shaft. A draught hurled down from it.
“What’s with this big hole in the ceiling?” Jerry asked.
Nessie glanced up from the book she was studying. “Huh? Oh, yeah. When this facility was expanded to include the subbasements, they didn’t have the technology to pipe oxygen in from the surface all the way down here, so they hollowed out a duct all the way to the surface and just secured it with a grate at the top. When they modernised the facility a few years back, they filled the top of the shaft and turned this space into a library. The shaft still goes up part of the way. I can’t remember how far.”
“They should stick a huge fireman’s pole up there and use it instead of the elevator.”
Nessie giggled. “Yeah, that would definitely be a funner way to get about. Wouldn’t be much fun trying to go up, though.”
Jerry picked up a dusty book the size of a monopoly board and wiped his hand across the surface revealing the title:
Infernas Animas.
“So this ‘Bub’, he was like, what, a demon or something?”
Nessie leafed through the pages of the book she had set down in front of her. “To tell you the truth, no one knows exactly what he is. They dug him up in Panama over a hundred years ago and he slept pretty much the whole time they had him. Then, five-six years ago he wakes up and causes havoc. The Dennisons and one other member of the Samhain team were the only survivors. Up until Bub awoke, the scientists at the facility thought he was the devil himself—Satan.”
Jerry’s eyes went wide. “No shit? You mean the devil and angels exist for real? Man, I would love to see an angel. Bet they’re all badass with flaming swords and stuff.”
“I don’t think he actually
is
Satan, Jerry. The report that the Dennisons gave made it seem more like Bub is some kind of evolutionary origin for all things on earth. I don’t know if I believe it myself, but the reports filed just before the facility exploded suggested that Bub shared DNA on a basic level with all other species on earth. There’s no way to explain that.”
Jerry opened the book in front of him and turned to a random page. On it was an image of a woman being burned in front of a crowd of people. The text was all in foreign, but Jerry could figure out that it was a witch. “But Bub is gone now, he turned into lots of the smaller batlings, right?”
“As far as I know. That batling is pretty much a miniature replica of Bub himself. It would be interesting to know if Bub could reform again if all of the batlings came back together.”
Jerry laughed. “Like some sort of Lego demon or one of those robots in the
Power Rangers
?”
Nessie giggled. “You’re such a nerd.”
Jerry frowned and looked down at his book, turning the pages one after the other without reading any of them. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“No,” said Nessie. “I like it. I think you’re funny.”
Jerry looked up at her. “What, funny in a good way?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“I guess not. So you found anything yet?”
Nessie nodded and motioned for him to take the seat beside her. Jerry did so, his hands trembling as he pulled back the chair.
“This book is all about the Nordic bronze-age. It has a chapter that indexes all the different cave paintings and rock carvings from that time.”
“What time?”
“1700BC to about 500BC. That’s really old, but not as old as you’d think. The earliest forms of civilisations may have started as early as 12,000BC.”
Jerry whistled. “Crikey! So why are you not starting back there, at the beginning?”
“Well, with so much time to cover, I feel it’s best to start with this period and work backwards and forwards based on what I find. If I find mention of Bub, then I’ll go backwards a few centuries and search for something else. If I find nothing then I’ll try something a little more recent. I’m trying to pinpoint Bub’s place in time.”
Jerry nodded. It seemed like finding a needle in a haystack to him, but if it took an age to come up with something useful, then he would be quite happy to sit next to Nessie the whole time. Her reddish hair seemed to sparkle beneath the soft lights of the library and her rosy cheeks radiated warmth. She had a way of making Jerry feel comfortable; probably the first woman that had ever managed to do that, since he wasn’t exactly the smoothest around members of the opposite sex.
“So, what makes you think there’s anything about Bub in the history books? Wouldn’t we all know about him if there was?”
Nessie smiled. “One of the first things you learn when inducted into Deus Manus is that there are certain history books that were written to be read by only a few people. Most of the books in this library were written by hand and reproduced perhaps only a dozen times. Deus Manus probably owns all of the reproductions as well as the originals. What we have in this library is the complete and concise history of the world. What everyone else has is just the cliff notes.”
Jerry looked around at all the dusty tomes that lined the many shelves. “I think you just blew my mind.”
Nessie chuckled. “Well, it’s been a long time since I blew a man’s anything.” As soon as the words left Nessie’s mouth there was a look of horror in her eyes. She placed a hand over her lips and shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that. My god, I’ve been in this hole too long.”
Jerry felt himself blush and tried to will it away. “Hey, erm, don’t worry about it. It was just a joke; a pretty funny one actually.”
Nessie moved her hand away from her mouth and sighed. “Wow, I’m sorry. Still can’t believe I just said that. Anyway, as for finding Bub in history, look what I found.”
Jerry stared at the pages in front of Nessie. On the page was a photograph of a cliff wall. Splashed on it in faded red paint was the image of a winged man with horns and the lower body of a goat. It looked just like the batling, only bigger. All around the winged figure were little people on their knees, worshipping.
“What is this?” Jerry asked.
“This,” said Nessie, “is proof that people once worshipped Bub as a god.”
“What people?”
“The Nordic tribes. We don’t know a lot about them as written sources are lacking, even for us. But we do know that they worshipped two gods—one good and one bad. It could be said that these two gods were actually a duality of one being—a good and bad side of one god. But it could also be that they worshipped the same god we do, a caring god in the heavens, and a second god, an evil god down here on earth.”
“Bub?”
Nessie looked at Jerry and nodded. “Could be. If they really did worship Bub, then we know that he is at least three-thousand years old. Let’s go back further.”
Jerry stood up and went over to one of the bookcases. “What can I get you? Remember that I am here to serve.”
“Ooh, I always wanted my own assistant. Can you get me that big blue book just over there?” She pointed. “It should say
Hadzabe
on the spine. It’s a book on a Stone Age tribe from Tanzania. I want to see if I can find Bub in a different time and location.”
Jerry located the book and brought it over. “You want to find out if Bub got about a bit?”
Nessie laughed. “Yes. It would be good to see just how far his influence stretched, just how many civilisations were touched by him.”
Jerry sat back down at the table and opened the book. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s google this bitch, old school.”
Jerry couldn’t help but smile as he saw out the corner of his eye that Nessie was smiling at him.
“So how are we going to do this?”
Andy looked at his wife and wished he had a clear-cut answer to give to her. They were still sitting at the conference table and had been discussing the plan of getting Lucas and the batling together for the past hour. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I think the best man to ask would be Rimmer.”
Sun nodded. “Let’s get him in here, then.”
Andy leant forward and examined the intercom in the centre of the table. There was a small LCD display and some buttons. After a couple of seconds, Andy worked out how to use the device and put a call through to Rimmer.
“Rimmer. Who’s this?”
“Andy and Sun. We’re still in the conference room. Would you be able to come meet with us?”
A sigh came from the speakers, but Rimmer said, “I’ll be there in five.”
Andy leant back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. He spent a couple minute’s thought on the logistics of what he wanted to achieve.
“Maybe if we can divide one of the cells in two, it would work.”
“How will we move one of them to the other’s cell? We know the batling is dangerous, but Lucas could be too.”
“There has to be some way of moving the occupants. I mean, how do they get them in here in the first place? You heard it yourself that they move specimens between facilities from time to time.”
“We blitz the cell with sleeping gas,” said Rimmer, entering the room. “Then we head in as quickly as we can and secure the prisoner inside a titanium cargo crate. In this case we may be able to use simple handcuffs and drag the inmate down the corridor.”
Andy frowned at Rimmer. “You heard what we were talking about?”
Rimmer pointed to the intercom. “I was listening on the intercom. I can access it remotely.”
“You should be working for the NSA,” said Andy. “You’re wasted here.”
Rimmer deadpanned. “The NSA couldn’t afford me.”
“So,” Sun said. “You think it can be done? Moving Lucas and the batling together?”
Rimmer pulled at his raggedy beard. “Seems like a stupid idea to me, but you’re the eggheads. I’m obliged to facilitate whatever you think is best—within reason.”
“Is there a way to divide one of the cells?” Andy asked.
“Maybe. The cells on this level aren’t very big, but we may be able to rig something up. Leave it with me for a few hours and I’ll get something sorted.”
“Thanks, Rimmer. I appreciate it.”
“You two just be careful. One thing I’ve learned, being down here, is that these creatures will take any chance they get to escape. You better clear things with Dr Gorman, too. She’ll make a fuss if you don’t.”
Andy rolled his eyes. “Great. I’ve been looking forward to working with her. She seems like such a charmer.”
Rimmer deadpanned again, but the corners of his mouth twitched as if fighting a smile. “Dr Gorman is a brilliant lady. I imagine having her level of intellect can be a burden at times.”
Andy nodded. He was aware that being a genius could be at the detriment to other mental functions—most notably, social skills. He himself had struggled to maintain relationships in his formative years due to his intelligence and had seen first-hand, with the likes of his former colleague, Dr Belgium, that the smartest people were usually the most awkward.
“I’ll meet up with you folks later,” Rimmer said, and then left the room.
Andy looked at Sun and gave her a forlorn smile. “Shall we go deal with Gorman now or later?”
“Let’s get it over with.”
They headed away from the conference table towards the back of the room, over to the door that read:
LABS 1-4
. Andy pushed open the door and held it for his wife. Sun stepped through and looked around.
“Sure puts Samhain to shame,” she said.
Andy stepped inside and took it all in. They were standing in a clinical white corridor that had several glass cubicles on either side: small examination rooms and offices mostly. Up ahead was a vast laboratory. All four of its walls were glass and the equipment inside was cutting-edge. Andy could not even imagine what most of it was for. Standing inside the lab, wearing her lab coat was Dr Gorman. When she saw them approaching, the aggravation was clear on her face.
But then she smiled and waved at them.
Andy and Sun exchanged confused glances. “Perhaps she’s chilled out about us being here,” Sun suggested.
Gorman gave them a hand signal that suggested she would be ‘two minutes’ and then started to pull off her rubber gloves, depositing them in a waste-disposal tub. Thirty seconds later she was opening the door to the lab and stepping out.
“Mr and Mrs Dennison. Welcome to the labs. This is our level-1 lab. You can perform the more benign experiments here such as cultures and DNA sequencing. The other labs are more secure. That’s where we do our more sensitive experiments.”
“I’d be lost in any of them,” said Andy. “I don’t know how you make sense of it all.”
Gorman smiled. “I would say the same about you and languages, Mr Dennison.”
“Please, call me Andy.”
“Okay, Andy.”
“So what are you doing?” asked Sun. “Found anything interesting?”
Gorman frowned. “As you no doubt found with Bub, the batling seems to share DNA with just about every other species I can name. I performed an x-ray on a tissue sample we got from the batling and observed degradation under even the mildest doses of radiation, so that seems to be a weakness. In other words, I haven’t yet discovered anything that you didn’t already know when you got here.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll find something,” said Sun. “You not mind us being here now?”
Dr Gorman looked down at her shoes like a scolded child. “I’m afraid I was a little immature before. You must understand that working down here, so far from civilisation, one tends to become stuck in their ways.”