Mike Stackpole - Ghost Book One - The Earth Transformed

“Looks like I’m going to be the first guy in the world to take revenge on the guy that killed him — twice.”

Vargas cleared his throat. “You got a whole village out there wants this guy. And they got a lot more bodies to avenge than you do.”

“Well, they can get in line.”

Angie raised a hand. “Hey. We can fight over who gets to kill him later. We still gotta find him first. Now let’s go.”

As soon as we exited the dissection lab, an elevator door opened up on the far wall of the corridor we were in. We all stopped and pointed our weapons at it, but it was empty and the door remained open.

Kate cocked her head. “Does that look like an invitation to you?”

“Or a death trap,” growled Vargas.

Nobody was moving.

I sighed and stepped forward. “Fine, fine. Let the clone do it. He’s the only one with death experience on his resume.”

“Ghost, wait.”

I looked back. Angie was giving me a weird look.

“What?” I asked. “I’m expendable. You said so yourself.”

“But you’re not. Not anymore. You’re the last one of you left.”

I stopped and turned around. “Wait. So now that you know the “original” me is dead, you’re going to change your mind about “now” me?”

She chewed her lip. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Ace was about as happy about that as you’d expect. I didn’t blame him.

“Listen, Angie,” I said. “I can see you’re having trouble making up your mind, so I’ll do it for you. I’m gonna get on the elevator and go see what’s what. If I come back, you can play eenie–meenie–mynie–mo with me and Ace to your heart’s content. If I don’t, I… I wish you all the best. I really—”

“Nobody’s getting on that elevator,” said Vargas. “We’d be like sheep walking into a slaughterhouse, and the rangers don’t breed no sheep. Not even cloned ones.” He motioned us on down the corridor. “Now come on. We’ll find another way, and for fuck’s sake keep the goddamn soap opera to yourselves. Some of us have sensitive stomachs.”

After following the corridor around a few more corners and searching a few more spotless and shiny rooms, we entered a room unlike any of the others. For one thing, it had a slanted ceiling like in the attic of a house with a pitched roof. For another thing, it was dirty. There was a fine layer of grit on the floor, the exposed steel beams of that slanted ceiling were spotted with rust, and the whole place smelled like raw, freshly–turned earth. There were also pipes and valves running under the beams, lockers, and benches along the walls, and machines that might have been air–conditioners or heaters cluttering up the floor. Strangest of all there was a door in the slanted ceiling — a heavy, air–lock–looking beast with steps leading up to it. The dirt on the floor was thickest under it.

“So,” said Angie, drawing in the dirt with her toe, “does it go outside?”

“Let’s find out,” said Hell Razor, and pushed a button near the door.

“Guns up!” barked Vargas.

We aimed our guns at the door and it began to groan and hiss like a waking monster. Finally, with a gasp of escaping pressure, a seal broke and it raised up and split in the middle to swing wide open onto what did indeed appear to be the night–time sky.

My first thought was, “It was mid–afternoon when we entered the facility. Have we really been down here that long?” My second thought was, “Holy fucking hell, I’m choking to death!”

All around me the others were choking and retching just like I was. It was like there wasn’t enough air, and at the same time like there was too much of something else, something sharp and stinging. It smelled like cat piss and hot rocks. My eyes teared up.

“Close the door!” Vargas shouted. “Close the fucking door!”

Hell Razor jammed his finger down on the button again, but nothing happened. The door didn’t even groan.

“Fuck! Back into the hall! Quick!”

Thrasher led the way, slamming into the hall door with a heavy shoulder. It didn’t budge. He tried the door handle. Nothing. It just rattled uselessly.

With a grunt he stepped back and kicked the lock with a sasquatch–sized boot. The door boomed like it had been hit with a mortar round, but it still didn’t move.

“Here!” shouted Kate.

We all looked around. She was at one of the lockers, holding a gas mask of some kind. She threw it to Vargas, then tore open another locker. The rest of us followed suit, charging over and pulling out masks in a panicked frenzy.

I tugged one over my head, tightened the straps, and inhaled. It was like trying to breathe through a plastic bag, and the “not enough air” sensation hardly went away at all. Really the only difference was that that burning and the cat–piss smell was gone. Mostly.

“What the fuck,” snarled Hell Razor. “Do these things even fucking work?”

“I still can’t breathe,” said Athalia. “What is—?”

A metallic voice interrupted her. It was coming from a speaker bolted to the ceiling beams. There was a camera next to it. “Welcome to the next world, volunteers. And thank you for participating. Please step through the slanted door to begin the test.”

We all looked up.

“Who the fuck is that?” said Hell Razor.

“Finster?” called Angie. “Is that you?”

Vargas stepped toward the camera. “Let us out of here, asswipe!”

“The exit is beyond the slanted door,” said the metallic voice. “Find it and you are free.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shouted. “We’re all gonna choke to death before we get five feet!”

“You will not,” said the voice. “The air you are breathing has considerably less oxygen than you are used to, but now that you are wearing the masks, the toxins that otherwise would have killed you have been filtered out. You may pass out if you exert yourselves too much, but you will not die. Not from lack of oxygen.”

“So what is this?” asked Angie, sucking in a big breath. “We’re rats in some maze you made up, looking for the cheese?”

“No no. Not at all. You’re not the rats.” A laugh came over the speakers. It sounded even more metallic than the voice. “You are the cheese.”

Everybody looked at the open door all at the same time. Suddenly the darkness beyond seemed to be staring at us.

“Indeed,” continued the voice. “It would make things more even if you were to keep moving, please. I have had such difficulty getting the parameters of this test balanced correctly. It has been frustrating.”

The voice was right. We were bottled up in a dead end. There was no way out except the door ahead of us, and anything that blocked it could box us in easy as pie. We’d be fish in a barrel. Around me, the others were coming to the same conclusion.

“Right,” said Vargas. “Out we go. Eyes in every direction, and stick together.”

We formed up in a rough circle with Kate in the center and walked up the stairs and out the door into…

I honestly couldn’t tell what it was at first. It looked like we had stepped out into a walled–in nature preserve on the night–time surface of another planet. The moon and stars glowed red above us in a purple sky while all around us were strange plants and stranger animal shapes slinking through the shadows cast by massive red rock outcroppings. There was also a high brick wall at the top of the hill behind us, and the door we had come out of was built into the side of that hill, which was actually a room with a slanted ceiling. Made me wonder if all the hills and outcroppings around us were fake too. And of course we couldn’t be outside, could we? The air outside wasn’t poisonous, and this was.