Mark Anson - Below Mercury

So this was how they did it, she thought, this was how the Company had killed all the—

Her eyes flew wide.

She grabbed her comlink, and pressed the emergency broadcast key.

‘Crawford, Bergman – please respond. Abrams, Elliott, if you can hear me, respond. If anyone can hear this message, please respond!’ Clare’s face contorted into a mask of despair, as she realised all of them were out there, in the mine, in the emptiness and the quiet.

She repeated the message again after a few seconds, but her voice had faded to a whisper. She could feel her legs giving way, and she backed up against the wall and slid down to the floor, the comlink falling from her shaking fingers.

‘I should have trusted him,’ she said to herself. ‘Why didn’t I listen to him, when he warned me? And now he’s – he’s dead, and all the others. Oh, Matt, why didn’t I trust you …’ her voice tailed off, and she turned to face Wilson, her face stricken.

‘I don’t understand – what’s happened?’ Wilson’s eyes frantically searched her face.

She didn’t answer at first; she just looked at him, shaking her head. After a few moments, she spoke again, her voice unsteady.

‘The Company did it, when the mine stopped making money. It wasn’t profitable any more, so they just – opened the main doors and let the air out.’

She took a gulping breath.

‘They opened all the doors in the mine, to kill everyone they could, and sent the robots to finish off the survivors. That’s why they didn’t want anyone coming back here. We were never meant to have got this far, we were meant to have been – to have been killed in the crash.’

Wilson was shaking his head in disbelief as he listened. His eyes were wide with fright.

‘And Helligan, and Helligan – he gave us the commands – and Matt tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t – fucking – listen!’ She pounded on the floor with her clenched fists as she yelled out the words.

‘I don’t believe it. They couldn’t – why would they kill all those people, they could just have—’

‘Because it saved them money!’ Clare shouted, ‘they could just leave them here instead of ferrying them back home!’

Wilson’s face was aghast as Clare’s words sank in. The open hangar doors, the gun battle in the control centre, the smashed radios, the sabotage to the ship, and finally this last, desperate attempt to kill them all. She was right; it all fit together, like a bloodstained jigsaw.

‘No,’ he said, but it was just a whisper.

Clare nodded vigorously, her eyes squeezed shut, but she couldn’t stop the hot tears that welled up.

Wilson looked at his captain, unsure what to say or do, as the sobs took her, and the tears started to roll down her dust-streaked face.

Deep in the mine, Matt and Bergman ran along the 400 level, back towards the shaft station at the bottom of the main intake shaft. To Matt, it felt like he was running in the slow motion of a nightmare, trying to get back up to the control centre.

The main lighting in the passage came on suddenly, dazzlingly bright after the long darkness of the mine.

Unable to see for a moment, Matt tripped and sprawled headlong in the dust of the passage. Bergman stopped and helped Matt up, squinting against the harsh white light.

‘Main power. That means the reactor’s coming up.’ Bergman’s voice showed his concern. ‘What do you think it’s been programmed to do?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Come on, we’ve got to stop them.’

They started running down the passage again, past the dead mining robot, and through the pressure doors. The haulage way stretched away in front of them, almost a kilometre to go before the shaft station.

They were about halfway to the next pressure door, when the lighting in the passage dimmed.

‘Oh, shit, what’s that?’ Matt gasped.

A moment later, a string of red warning lights in the passage came on, each beacon a spinning fan of red rays, receding into the distance. The unmistakable sound of a pressure alarm klaxon echoed down the passage, and both men skidded to a halt.

‘The hangar doors. They’re opening the hangar doors!’ yelled Matt, his eyes wide, ‘We’ve got to get behind a pressure door!’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Bergman looked ahead and back. They were between two doors. Which one was closer? Forward or back?

‘This way!’ he yelled, sprinting back up the passage, ‘Run!’

They ran, and behind them, a faint noise began, just a whisper at first, but rising rapidly to an approaching roar, like a train coming up the passage behind them. The pressure wave was heading towards them, racing up the passage.

Barely ten metres from the pressure door, the roar of escaping air exploded over them, filling the passage with the howling of a hurricane. They fought to run, then walk, then just stop themselves from being blown over by the force of the gale that tried to push them back towards the shaft. Matt fell onto all fours, and crawled forward.

‘Get to the side!’ Bergman yelled. He was already at the left-hand wall, hugging the sides, where the wind was less powerful. The passage filled with dust and debris, making it hard to see. Matt crawled to the side and stood up, hanging onto the wall with his fingers.

They forged ahead, one step at a time, their eyes screwed up tight against the stinging dust that whipped into their faces.

Bergman, the more powerful of the two, reached the doorframe first, and hauled himself through. Behind him, Matt was struggling to move forward against the howling wind, and he could feel his strength going; any moment, and the wind would have him. It buffeted him against the wall, trying to shake him loose.

Was this not his dream, where he was trapped in the mine? Any minute now it would go cold, icy cold, and the ghosts would start flying past.

A hand grabbed his wrist, and pulled him forward, and through the frame of the pressure door. A moment later, the noise of the wind increased to a jet engine scream, as the twin halves of the door came together, constricting the air into a narrowing gap. Then the doors slammed shut, and the gale faded.

Bergman coughed in the thick dust that filled the air around them.

‘Thanks,’ Matt gasped. He collapsed in a heap by the door frame, and both of them looked up at the door controls. The readout showed the rapidly falling pressure on the other side.

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ Bergman muttered, as the pressure fell away, and with it, their hopes of escape.

They watched in despair, as the pressure decayed to zero.

‘That’s it,’ Matt said flatly, after a minute. ‘Nothing on the other side. Oh shit, what about the others …’ He looked up at Bergman, who shook his head.

‘Not unless they got behind a pressure door in time. I don’t think they’ll have—’

Bergman stopped, and looked round.

‘What’s up?’ Matt demanded.

‘Can’t you hear it?’

Matt heard it then, the rising whine of a heavy-duty power pack starting up.

Both men turned round to look at the mining robot slumped in the passage behind them, close to the pressure door. An LED blinked on its rear panel, and as they watched, more lit up.

Matt struggled to his feet, just as the body of the robot stirred in the dust. With a grinding, grating noise, its head moved, and the circles of LEDs round its eyes lit up red as its vision flickered into life.

The head looked up, and swung round to face them. They were so close to the robot that they could see the camera lenses widening behind the clear glass as its gaze locked onto them.

Matt and Bergman backed away slowly, then broke and ran.