Chapter Fifteen
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
This can’t be happening, this can’t be…
Irene stumbles as she jogs down the hall, twisting her foot. She lets out a yelp and curses at her shoes, unhooking them and chucking them to the side.
As she continues her journey, the white lights above her turn red, a soft siren sounds in the distance and when she passes through the main room, metal shutters slide down the windows, blocking out the light, locking her in.
“Irene?” Felix calls from behind her, “You don’t need to be afraid, I’m not going to hurt you.”
She flinches and in that moment, bumps into a pillar, loosing her footing, and falls to the ground.
There had been another man in her life, who’d said those exact same words to her. He had lied.
She quickly gets over the rush of tension and climbs to her feet. Felix and his two imprisoned victims storm into the room, he holds up an open hand and the prisoners obey.
Irene’s eyes grow wide, they obey him?
“What have you done…?” She manages to get out. Her body is pushing tears out through her eyes, closing up her throat, tightening her chest.
She has to consciously take each breath, her legs too weak to support her as she drags herself against the wall to the main lab.
She hears Felix laughing behind her, but it has no warmth to it at all. Cold. Maniacal.
“I - Have - Saved - Humanity!” Felix projects each word, like he’s fighting with his speech. “And you ask me? What - Have - I - Done?” The words break around the cackle he can’t seem to contain.
“You killed them, to make… Weapons.” Irene says, not knowing where the thought came from.
But now, saying it out loud, her mind lays it out for her. Everything she’d been through with him these last few months, looking back now, it was obvious. He wasn’t interested in saving humanity, he’d said himself how much he despises people, he wanted control.
She turns and leans against the door to the main lab, opening it slowly.
“I thought you were different.” She says, “But you’re just the same as those you scorn. No - you’re jealous, you covet their power.”
The laughing stops, his eyes seeing only red, and he charges at her.
Irene steps inside and closes the door, engaging the manual lock, but she can already hear the beeping of the doors keypad on the other side.
She looks around, trying to find something, anything, but the adrenaline, the emotions, the confusion. So many thoughts were fighting for dominance in her mind, blinding her.
There. A bottle with chemical warning symbols all over it. She doesn’t bother to read it, instead she throws it to the ground near the door, which she is sure is starting to open, but not quick enough.
Detecting the toxic hazard, the Lab flairs to life as it seals, preparing to sterilize the environment. Felix slams against the door, magnetically sealed now and outside his control.
Irene wastes no more time, and rushes over to the console. Typing with a fever, she attempts to unlock the building.
“Damn it!” She screams. She was locked out.
Access to the security systems must get restricted during a lock down. There must be a place where Felix can still access it, somewhere in this castle, this prison.
“Irene!” Felix calls through wall, breaking her train of thought. “You don’t have to do this, you can stay here, I can protect you, please.”
She doesn’t respond.
“Irene! For fuck sake answer me!” He screams, as he pounds on the door.
He isn’t going to let her leave. She knows that now.
He’d activated the lock down to keep her in, why? So that she couldn’t tell anyone what happened.
A new resolve ignites in Irene. She would get out, and she would warn the whole damn world about the monster he’s become.
Irene shouts into the room, “Ivor, remove the lock down.”
I’m sorry Mrs Graves, you do not have the authority.
“Can you at least shut down the external defenses?”
I’m sorry Mrs Graves, you do not have the authority.
“Fuck sake Ivor.” She glances around, then back to the console.
“Can you tell me where I can override this bullshit?” She asks, knowing the response she’d get.
I’m sorry Mrs Graves, you do not have the authority.
Irene moves to a console and pulls up the blueprints for the building. She follows the power lines, which all seem to go down, deep into the mountain.
She tries one last thing.
“Ivor, can you make me a cup of tea?”
I’m sorry Mrs Graves, you do not have the authority.
Perfect, Felix must have revoked any ability she had to command Ivor.
Irene realizes she is now completely alone.
A very angry and delusional man is pounding at the door, who has two slaves with the strength to rip her apart many times over, and an all seeing AI who is no longer on her side.
At the very bottom of the diagram the long vertical tunnel opens into a wide, hanger like area. There is a room set into the ceiling where all the power lines run to.
That must be the control center, a building like this needed to have some point where Felix could have manual control if anything went wrong, and somewhere deep in the mountain made sense.
But how to get there? She hadn’t been lower than the third lower floor, in fact she hadn’t even realized there were any floors bellow that.
A buzzing sound indicates that the contamination has been neutralized, the room is about to open up again.
She looks over the outline of the massive house, and follows the lines of corridors she does recognize, the stairs she’d descended do indeed go all the way to the lower levels, but next to these is another long vertical tunnel.
“An Elevator?” She says aloud to her self, where had that been hiding?
The door hisses open.
Irene turns and runs for the door on the other side, flinging her arms to the sides to knock over everything and anything she could reach, trying to lock the room down again.
She dives for the door and slides through.
But the lab doesn’t lock down, wither she hadn’t done enough or he’d canceled it, she didn’t know. Nor did she have time to wonder as she gets to her feet and charges down the corridor, taking a right, then a left, trying to lose her pursuers.
She explodes through the Hydroponics lab, continuing to knock stuff over. Something mixes and spills onto a plant and she can hear it physically move, creaking and groaning at sudden rapid growth. In seconds it takes up most of the available space in the room, blocking anyone from passing. It pushes Irene towards the door. Again, no time to wonder.
Out the door, down this corridor. Suddenly the roof above her explodes in a flash of red light.
Irene screams and drops to the ground as rubble pelts her.
“Don’t kill her you idiot!” She hears Felix scream, he’s only at the end of the corridor.
She looks forward and see’s the elevator, and pushes herself to her feet, she winces and gasps. She’d sustained cuts to her feet from somewhere, but the main pain was internal, a broken rib.
She clutches at her side as she pushes on, using the wall to steady herself, leaving a thin trail of blood.
“Irene, stop.” Felix’s voice is practically behind her, deep and full of instruction. “You’re hurt, let me help you.”
She presses the button for the Elevator.
“Irene. Fuck.” He spits and she hears him start to run, and then something else, whizzing through the air.
She doesn’t dare look back, and as soon as the doors were wide enough she slips inside and stabs the door close button a dozen times.
The doors close without resistance. But before they do, she braves a peek through the crack, and saw for just a second, Hob hovering between Felix and the Elevator.
She presses the lowest button on the pad, and the elevator hums to life, descending deep into this mountain of madness, and prays that Felix wouldn’t hurt Hob.
***
Irene gasps and pants, as she rests against the wall of the elevator. How was she still standing?
For some reason, she thinks back on those time when a little tooth ache or a sore foot had prevented her from working, and now that she could do with rest and recuperation, she can’t.
She has to push on, to escape, to warn the government, the military, the world, of what was coming for them.
“Irene. Stop this, please.” Felix’s voice comes through a speaker in the lift and for a moment she thought he had managed to make it inside, and had somehow been hiding out of her vision this whole time. But he hadn’t, she was still alone.
Felix continues, “What is it you want?”
She again says nothing.
“I will catch you, it is inevitable, one way or another.”
“Do you plan to keep me prisoner? Or just kill me?” She sneers.
“I don’t want to kill you, I don’t want to have to chase you around the house, tell me why you’re doing this.” He says.
“Why?” She scoffs, “You’ve stripped those men of all their humanity, removed their free will, put them under your control, you’re not trying to save the world, you’re building an army of zombies.”
“An army that will protect humanity from the aliens.”
She shakes her head, “Seriously? Did you ever stop to think for a second what would have happened, if you’d just done nothing?”
“What do you mean?” Felix says, hesitating.
She sighs, “The future happened, you can’t change it, no matter how hard you try.”
“No!” He screams back at her, “I can, I am changing the future, I am saving the world, I am the hero!”
The elevator comes to a halt and the doors slide open. She rushes out, hobbling on her sore feet, and stops at a railing a few feet from the door.
She is in an enormous cavern like space, the rock walls are lined with wires, metal plating and lights. Looking down, she see’s row upon row of suits, standing in silent attention. The columns extend far into the darkness of the cave.
Irene’s heart breaks, there must be millions of suits down here, maybe billions, how long had he been working on this?
Her feet feel like they’ve sunk into cement, the long moment stretches out as she takes in the massive display. She’d feared the worst, but the evidence lay before her is proof that she had highly underestimated what the worst could mean.
What could she do now?
She could have this place blown up, end his reign of terror before it even begins.
Irene uses the railings to pull her tired and tense body along the walkway. The sound of metal tearing metal pierces the air, she glances behind to see one of the two suits from the test, breaking through the door which led to the stairwell and setting it’s sights on her.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Shit.”
She wills herself to move faster, each step a strugle, and is almost at the door to the room when she glances back. The suit should have caught her by now, but it is only keeping pace with her.
She reaches the door, slams it behind her and locks it. Then she throws herself at the console, typing away, and brings up the system controls.
“Irene.” Felix says over a speaker in the room, “It’s over, I could have that suit flatten the room your in, I could have killed you ten times over already.”
“Then why haven’t you?” She yells, continuing her work.
“Because… I love you.” Felix says.
“Seriously?” She can’t hold back the laughter, “That ship sailed a long time ago, you really are insane if you think I’m going to stay here!”
She presses a button, and the lights go out. They return a moment later, a message on the screen indicates that the house is rebooting itself. She grabs a chair and tucks herself to the side of the door which explodes inwards.
The suit steps inside and scans the room, Irene comes up from behind and swings the chair at it, knocking it over, she turns and runs.
She can hear the suit getting back to it’s feet and stomping after her. She reaches the elevator door and stabs the button, over and over again.
Then the whole mountain shakes, as if struck by an earthquake. Irene is thrown away from the elevator, and has to grab hold of the railing to stop from sliding through and down to her death on the cave floor below.
She glances back and see’s the suit had been hit by a piece of falling rock, and remains stationary as the Nanites repair the damage.
The elevator tings open and she drags herself inside, adrenaline pushing her through the pain she feels all over, and punches the top most button.
Through the gap between the closing doors, she can see the suit light back up, before charging towards her. The doors close.
The doors buckle as the half-man, half-machine, slams into the other side. The elevator shakes for a moment, then it hums to life as it rises.
She gasps for air, feeling the pain all over once again. She checks her feet, dirty and covered in wet blood, but as she reaches down the world around her shakes and a deep explosion echoes far above.
She clings to the sides as the elevator continues to rise, despite the tremors.
Another explosion, then another. Then the elevator dies, total darkness enveloping her.
She scrambles for the control panel which had just been in front of her, yet it still takes her almost a minute to find it. She hits every button she can feel but nothing responds.
With only the sense of touch to guide, her she finds the doors and tries to wedge them open. They move, just an inch, but enough to see that only a cliff wall is waiting on the other side.
Attention.
A robotic voice speaks, but not like Ivor’s, this one was feminine.
Attention, this elevator has ceased functions, emergency override engaged. Reason: Life form on-board.
The elevator shudders, then drops.
Irene is flung towards the ceiling, but it slows before she collides with it, then it moves away. Irene crashes into the floor and her arm snaps, which she concurs with a shriek.
“My arm, you bastard.” She cries.
The back up system will take you to the nearest floor, please exit as quick as you can, there is only enough power to sustain operation for ten seconds.
“Ten seconds are you fucking kidding me?” Irene curses, getting to her feet as the elevator crawls upwards, like literally crawls. The box room sways and she can hear something digging into the rocks outside.
Another explosion rocks her back on her ass, but this one isn’t too bad, and the elevator continues without issue.
A moment later it comes to a rest, and the doors slide open, though only half way. Irene starts to stand when a metal hand punches through the elevator floor, knocking her over. She wastes no time and kicks herself out, sliding onto the concrete corridor.
The head of the suit rises through the hole in the elevator floor, it’s arm clawing like a reanimated corpse breaching topside.
But then the emergency system runs out, and the elevator, along with the suit, vanishes. There is silence for a moment, before the two hit the ground far below, and a warm wave of light erupts through the shaft.
Irene checks her surroundings as she tears her skirt to make a sling for her arm, which she stops doing, because she’d been using both hands to rip it.
Her left arm, the one she’d landed on… Is no longer broken.
“Felix you asshole.” She breathes as she gets to her feet, realizing her side hadn’t hurt for a few minutes either.
Irene feels dirty, Felix must have slipped the super healing Nanites into her system. She did not want them, especially not now.
She knew the Nanites had the power to do almost anything they wanted to, they could paralyze her, take control of her body, what ever they felt like.
Or whatever Felix commands them to do.
Irene pushes the though away as she keeps moving along the corridor. Her anxiety keeps her eyes tasked with exploring every shadow, expecting an ambush any second.
It dawns on her that she hasn’t heard from Felix since she’d restarted the system. Then there were the explosions, Bart probably sent his troops in the moment the shields were down.
She reaches the stairs, and with renewed energy, runs up them two at a time.
***
Irene eases the stair well door open, the hallway beyond is dark, there are lights on but smoke fills the air, thick and black. She uses this cover to slip out, keeping low. With one hand pressing against the wall, she follows it to the main entrance. Climbing over ruble as she goes. With every step, the sound of gunfire grows ever louder.
When Irene turns the corner, the smoke clears, escaping up into the air outside, the sight causing her to stop. The whole front section of the building is gone, blown inwards.
She can see the fighting now. Felix is crouching behind a fallen pillar, shooting over it at the advancing lines of soldiers. The other suit from their experiment is hovering back and forth, avoiding shots while returning deadly energy blasts which evaporate it’s targets.
A mix of wonder and fear brews in her stomach and mind, feeling sick. These highly advanced soldiers, trained for years and augmented with the best tech and gear, are like flies to just one of these suits. Her mind whirls at the destruction a whole army of them could easily achieve.
Survival instincts kick in, and with everyone distracted, she slips down what’s left of the stairs and uses the rubble to conceal her escape.
Irene clears the building, passing to the side of another line of soldiers and runs across the open platform, towards the massive hover jet parked at the other end.
As she nears it Johnathan leaps out and runs over to her.
“Irene, you’re alive!” He cries, embracing her and lifting her a little off the ground. “When you never came out…”
“I’m fine, but listen, we need to warn people.”
“We will, come on.” Johnathan says as he slides an arm around her shoulders, guiding her towards the jet. She can see Bart in the cockpit, he nods and speaks into his headset.
The shooting behind her stops and she turns to see the soldiers retreating back to the jet. Three break off and surround Irene and Johnathan, hastening their departure.
“So I guess this is goodbye?” Felix calls out.
The group turn as one. Felix walks slowly out of the smoke, taking his glasses off and cleaning them. His clothes have been torn to shreds, hanging off him in burnt pieces, but his body is unharmed.
“What the hell is he?” One of the soldiers hisses.
“It’s the Nanites,” Irene says, she shrugs off Johnathan's arm, and shouts back to Felix, “Get your fucking robots out of my system!”
Felix scoffs, and says, smiling, “This is the thanks I get, after all I’ve done for you… I was only trying to keep you safe.”
He turns to the Suit standing at his side and says something to it.
The soldiers grab Irene and lift her into the Jet, which she struggles against, but powerless to stop them.
“Target is secure.” One of the soldiers says into his headset.
The Jet powers up with a loud thrum, over which she hears Felix shout to her.
“Fine! Leave! I don’t need you or anybody! I’ll be better off on my own.”
Then he turns, and marches back into the house. Irene’s heart sinks as the doors of the Jet slide close.
“Bart, I need to talk to Bart.” Irene demands of the soldiers around her.
“Irene, relax, everything’s going to be fine now.” Johnathan tries to soothe her but she moves away from him. Bart appears in the entrance to the cockpit and speaks.
“Dr Graves, you certainly like to keep things to the last-“
“I don’t have time for that.” Irene shouts, cutting him off. “You need to get any and every military unit left in service and send them to bomb the fuck out of this island.”
Bart’s eyes narrow, and he grunts before speaking, “I expected as much.” He sighs, “But I’m sure he’ll hurt himself long be-“
“You’re not listening,” she says, “That suit that was next to him, it has a human inside.”
“Of course it does.” He says, “How-“
“But he’s not human, not anymore. His free will has been taken away and he’s at the mercy of Felix’s commands.”
“Why in gods name would he do that?” Johnathan asks.
“It wasn’t the plan…” Irene says, though now she isn’t too sure how true that statement was. “The suits were supposed to protect the user and keep them alive to ride out the hazardous environment.”
“He can control people?” Bart asks, catching up.
She nods, “That’s not the worst part, he has thousands, if not millions of these suits built down in the depths of the mountain, if they get out… He would have an army the likes of which this world has never seen, all at his complete an unquestionable command.” She stresses the last words, pushing herself closer.
Bart’s face desaturates before her eyes, though he remains calm. Without a word he turns and heads back to the front.
Irene turns to Johnathan.
“I’m sorry.” She says.
He hushes her, “It’s fine now.” He sighs, holding her close, then he looks up at the cockpit.
“Bart? See if you can’t get Felix on the line.” Johnathan shouts.
***
Felix stops short of the building and turns to watch the Jet rise into the air and shoot off towards the main land.
“I’ll miss you.” He says to the departing craft.
Felix turns to the suit, “Well, I guess it’s left to us to save the world. Clear the ruble over the south door will you?” At his command the suit moves to do his bidding.
It effortlessly removes the debris and he goes inside, his soldier following behind him. The pair move through the broken building, smoke and dust still hung around in the hallways, so he has the suit take the lead through the thicker parts.
They reach the stairs and start their descent into it’s depths. Rubble made the going slow, the suit having to help Felix when they’d reached the floor which housed their botanical lab.
The door to this level had burst open, and the stairs were covered in thick, moving vines which Felix did not want to come into contact with. After a few more floors the damage has reduced.
It took them twenty minutes to reach the bottom floor, he was glad to have installed them as an emergency exit. With the elevator out, they were now the only way in and out of his factory.
The double doors open into a massive cavern filled with whirring machinery, like a factory. There is a steel walkway bellow their feet and following this leads them to the control station.
As he passes the Elevator shaft, the sound of shifting metal on metal screeches for his attention. He turns to look and see’s the other suit attempting to pull itself free from the wreckage. Felix ignores it and heads inside.
He starts up the computers and checks over the progress. Nearly 2 billion suits were ready to launch, another billion built but were still updating to the most recent version. There was one last thing he could do to speed up the process.
He looks at his hand.
“Ivor, it’s time.”
Initiating Noob Protocol.
He feels a slight tingle as the Nanites leave his system. They would gather with every other Nanite which now existed in the area. The Nanite speaker had said there were many others who had descended from his originals, but who had left the collective.
This protocol would summon every single last one, so that they could all sync up together, and be able to populate the billions of suits bellow.
“I had better not get a cut now,” Felix says to himself as he types into the computer. “Well Ivor, how do I look for my big speech?”
Dreadful. If I’m being honest sir
“Well put a filter over me to clean me up and lets be done with this.”
A red light blinks on and his face appears on all the screens around him.
“People of the world, don’t be alarmed, I am appearing on every screen in the world. I, Dr Felix Eisenmann, will be sending out a hazard suit for everyone who was not chosen by the Government to live, and with it you will survive these coming years.”
Felix nods and Ivor turns off the camera.
“Start launching as soon as the first suits are ready.” He says.
Yes sir. Also Dr Frakes is attempting to contact you.
“Of course he is, put him through” Felix says with a throw away tone.
“Felix?” Only Johnathan’s voice comes through the connection.
“What do you want?” Felix sneers.
“Irene’s told us what you’re planning, you need to stop this before you get everyone killed!”
Felix laughs, “Fuck you and the high horse you rode in on, you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself. I’ve seen the files, I’ve monitored your Arks, and do you know what I see? A bunch of scared, selfish pigs, pretending to save the world to distract everyone while they fuck off, leaving us all to die!
“The Arks will never fly, they’re glorified bomb shelters and that is giving them credit.”
“We haven’t got time for your antics Dr Eisenmann.” Bart retorts.
“Oh I know, you’ve got to get all your besties off the planet, the one YOU helped fuck over. I don’t understand why you’re even bothered, you were fine knowing that everyone was just going to die.
“The Arks will save people.” Jonathan says.
“Locking everyone up to rot in your garbage dump and fucking off, is a funny way of saving them.” Felix is yelling now.
“What do you mean?” Irene’s voice is quiet but can be heard over their radio. Johnathan ignores her.
“Better than enslaving the world.” He retorts.
“I’m saving them from themselves.” Felix growls.
“We have,” The captain interrupts, “the DNA of nearly everyone on this planet, we can start the whole thing over again if we really wanted to-“
“Your just selfish.” Felix yells.
“Your just jealous.” Says Johnathan, “You knew as well as us that our days were numbered, and you couldn’t come up with a better plan.” He sighs over the radio, “We can’t fix what’s been done, but… if at least 160 of us manage to survive, the minimum threshold for our species to start again, on another planet.”
“What? Like some barren rock in Alpha Centauri?” Felix chides.
“The World Government and I have developed twenty six interstellar ships with the sole purpose of repopulating on potential planets. Most of those are already traveling the stars. Do you really believe those suits are going to protect you from the end of the world?” Johnathan sneers.
“Yes,” Felix says, “They can and they will.”
“No. Felix they’re not ready.” Irene shouts in the background.
“Irene, relax,” Johnathan says, quieter, having turned from the microphone, “nothing this loser can ever make is going to withstand the environment in a few days,” He says, “They’ll never be ready.”
“No, Its not that.” She says. “He’s right, they will survive, but… they’re not human anymore.”
“You’re mad Eisenmann.” Bart yells, “I have a good mind to come back and arrest you right now.”
“What you going to do? Bring me along with you? Wont that be saving my life?” Felix says, grinning like the mad man he’d been called.
“Death it is then” Bart says.
Felix smiles wide. “Come and fucking kill me if you think your brave enough, if your fast enough, for soon I will have an army of cyborgs at my bidding, and the you will have to answer to my law.”
The communication cuts off from the other end.
Felix leans forward and brings up a map of the surrounding area. The jet is represented by a glowing dot, and he watches as it moves in a circle, heading back towards his island.
“Ivor, as soon as the suits are ready send them out.” He shouts, heading back for the stairs.