Chapter Four: Leaving Hargroove (Part 1)

Teddy Bender sat in an uncomfortable desk chair as he looked at a computer screen. Throughout the entire facility there had been nothing but silence for the last four or five hours, and Teddy’s eyes were getting sore. He needed rest. He closed the floor plans for the facility and turned off the monitor.

From out of nowhere, there was a long and unsettling moan coming from the elevator shaft. Teddy looked, and he could see dust falling off the lights surrounding the elevator door. Suddenly the low moaning stopped, plowing Teddy into silence for a few seconds. Then the button in-between the two doors, the one pointing down, lit up. There was a short period of machinery operating as normal, then the doors made a Bink! noise. Teddy began slowly walking backwards. The elevator right elevator door opened with a hiss and revealed pitch black darkness. From the darkness walked out several army looking people dressed in what looked like green radiation suits.

The one in front took one look at Teddy, then turned back to his crew. Teddy thought he heard some talking, but couldn’t make any words out. The lead man looked back at Teddy, then started mumbling gibberish.

“I can’t understand you, and you have to speak up.” Teddy instructed. The lead started talking gibberish again, but louder this time. Teddy was about to tell him to speak English, but then the lead took out his gun. He pulled the trigger, and Teddy felt a quick prick at his arm.

Then the others in the group swarmed on Teddy, trying to hold him down. Teddy tried to kick, punch and even bite his way out of their grip. Then Teddy felt his body go limp. He fell to the ground, and couldn’t move anything. The others in the group held Teddy’s arms to the ground, even though he couldn’t move, while the lead got a black briefcase from the elevator and brought it over by Teddy. He opened the briefcase and Teddy saw with horror what was in it.

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Teddy jumped out of his makeshift cot, cold sweat pouring off of his forehead in little rivers. He gasped for breath, but couldn’t catch it. Teddy closed his eyes, held what breath he could, and relaxed. Suddenly, breath came back to him as if it had never left, as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled the carbon dioxide.

When he really started waking up, Teddy noticed that his cot was damp with sweat. He still had a layer of sweat, cold as Maine in December, all over his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a nightmare that intense.

A few minutes later Teddy was back up, in front of the computer monitor he had dreamed of, and looking at the floor plans of the facility. This time he was not tired, and he did not shake from exhaustion. But his eyes still hurt.

It appeared that there were three ways out of the facility from this level. The first was, of course, the elevator shaft, which shot straight up the 1650 feet to the surface building. The second was the stairwell. The very same stairwell which had imploded with the explosion, depressurizing level 32-04, and destroying anything and everything on that level, as well as about 500 of the people working down there. The third and final escape was a vertical ventilation shaft, which was originally built for construction of the Hargroove facility, and has since been sealed off. All of this led Teddy to the conclusion that there was no escape from this gigantic grave, and that he would die down here. Alone.

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The sweat was pouring from Teddy’s face as he tried to put out the fire out. The extinguisher was beginning to run low, and the fire wasn’t dying. Soon the extinguisher would be out, and the fire would still be blazing.

The fire sparked just when Teddy realized that the gages were reading too high. The spark had come from a broken wall light, and the tanks had been over-pressured. The oxygen leaking from tanks 2 and 3 ignited a blaze that Teddy had only just begun to imagine could happen. Teddy had been sitting in front of the computer, looking over the statistics of the tanks when they blew.

Now here he was, fighting the blaze with little luck. If Teddy didn’t put it out soon, the air filters would become overwhelmed and he would be left with nothing but poison to breathe. Dying a most horrible death, leaving a body which, he felt, most likely nobody would ever find.

It was just as Teddy was losing hope of extinguishing the fire when he realized that the sprinkler system was disengaged, but still operational. He looked up and saw that there were three sprinklers over the tanks that had burst into flames.

Without wasting a second, Teddy ran back to the terminal he was at and engaged the water pumps and sprinkler system. Amidst the sound of the inferno, there was a loud moan coming from the pipes overhead. For a moment, Teddy thought that the sprinklers might not work; but then water began cascading over the flames.

As the flames sizzled out, Teddy moaned a sigh of relief that was short lived. Although the tanks that blew were auxiliary, they were the last four of the ten that were left. Because the system was an expanded re-breather system, it only used about one tank every five hours, if that. That meant that, including what could be salvaged from the tanks that were only partially ruptured and hadn’t blown, Teddy had about thirty-five hours left to get out.

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Teddy frowned as he saw the structural plans for the dis-used ventilation shaft. It was going to be a straight climb for about 27 levels, thats about 162 floors that are ten feet high. Thats always assuming that the ventilation shaft hadn’t caved in all together. I’m really gonna have to struggle to get out of here. Teddy thought.

There was an annoying beeping coming from the security center. A static hiss began flowing from the room, and Teddy ran in. He flipped a button and the beeping stopped. Frantically, Teddy began looking for a transmitting button, but there was none. The static continued for a couple of minutes, then stopped suddenly, as if it were crushed out of existence.

Teddy’s head lowered, and he sighed deeply. He knew he couldn’t take the radio with him through the ventilation shaft, that he would be making the trip with a Argonix 9200, a prototype notebook computer sent to Hargroove to use in cancer testing, whatever food he could find (three cans of beef stew, three cans of Spam, a pack of gum, a box of toaster pastries, and two bags of chips), five water bottles filled with water from Hargroove’s reserve spring (completely uncontaminated), and a can opener for the beef stew.

He knew that this journey through the facility would probably be the last thing he ever attempts to do in his life, but it was his only hope.

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Jennifer Armstrong got up slowly. The room she is in is a clean but barren jail cell. Jennifer shook her head hard and rubbed her eyes. She felt as if she had slept for a year and had just now awoke, sporting a marvelous headache. As she opened her eyes, she winced at the pain from the light. The bars six feet from her head were a polished steel, and she could see a small reflection of herself in them.

As painlessly as she could, Jennifer edged her way off of the cot she was on, and made her way over to the aluminum sink. In the mirror above it she could see herself. Her blonde hair flowed down to her shoulders and stopped. The bags under her eyes were a deep blue; almost black. She rubbed her eyes again, then turned on the sink below here and, using her hands as cups, doused her face in cold water.

After drying her face off with a towel she found on top of the toilet tank next to her, Jennifer went to the bars and looked out at where she was. A long dark corridor stretched far away in both directions.

“Hello?” she loudly asked to the dark hallway, “Is anybody there?”

No reply.

“Is anybody there?” Jennifer shouts down the hallway, “Hello!?”

“You don’t need to shout” a man tells her solemnly from above. Jennifer looks up, noticing that there is a second level to the hallway, and a man looking down upon her.

“Where am I? Who are you?” she asks.

“Me? I’m Briggs, your personal guard. This place here is the Orad Military Contingence Structure. The safest place in the world, now.”

“Why am I in this holding cell? And what do you mean “now”. What’s happened?” Jennifer inquires desperately.

“You’re in that cell for our protection. You could be infected, but Doc Seer should be here soon to brief you on everything that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours.”

“What do you mean infected? Infected with what? What the hell is going on!?”

“I told you, Doc Seer will come by later to brief you on what’s happened. For now I suggest you eat something; there’s food underneath your cot. Don’t eat the cheese.” and with that Briggs turned around and walked away.

Jennifer turned and walked to her cot, kneeling and pulling out a rectangular cardboard box about a foot high. In it were some bottles of water (Arctic Springs, too!), some M.R.E.’s and a couple of packs of beef jerky.

“Great.” Jennifer says solemnly to herself.

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Alice was the best thing to ever happen to Teddy. Her brown hair fluttered in the wind, the sun glimmering off of it. The beach was only one more mile away, and Teddy was on top of the world. His sunglasses reflected the bright sun as he took a drink of his Coke. Their Jaguar sounded like a swarm off bees headed for a fun day at the beach.

Teddy looked over at Alice, and smiled warmly. She returned the smile, leaning over to kiss him. Their lips pecked, then Teddy turned his head back to the road. It was clear sailing all the way there. Alice slides as close as she can get to Teddy, and leans her head on his shoulder. He smiles, then reaches his right arm over her shoulder and holds her while he drives.

“I love you, sweety.” Teddy says to Alice.

“I love you too, hun.” Alice returns, smiling. She reaches her head around to his and kisses him softly. He returns the kiss, as he always does, then smiles cunningly. After two years of dating he was going to pop the question tonight. He had the ring, a thin band ring with a nice diamond on top, stowed away in his towel bag in the trunk.

Alice returned her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes, savoring the time she was spending with the love of her life. They had met at a restaurant in the south of France two years ago. They were both on vacation, and she had been working as a waitress part-time as payment for room and board. She was working the bar area and was serving Teddy his coffee when she accidently spilled it on him. They were both embarrassed, and Teddy asked her if she would join him for a coffee later that night. She accepted, and as far as she knew, it was the best decision she had ever made in her life.

“Last stop, the beach!” Teddy exclaimed as he parked roadside next to the beach. Alice got out, and stretched as Teddy popped the trunk and got the towel bag. Hand in hand, the two walked to the beach. The sound of the water was soothing, almost like a waterfall. It was getting louder too. Now it was too loud. Alm

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ost deafening. Teddy drifted back into reality, grasping for that dream back, as if it were the life in his body retreating to the dark depths of nothingness.

Soon, Teddy was fully awake, holding his ears at the deafening sound of water falling. He got up and walked down the debris filled hallway. This one was much different from the ones in level 27-03. This one was lined with dead bodies. Some bodies Teddy recognized, although most were distorted beyond recognition.

When he reached the ventilation shaft door (which he had to pry open from a small lift within the shaft) he went out onto the lift and looked down, where the sound was coming from. He lips turned to a grimace as he saw that the shaft had now developed it’s own waterfall. The grimace soon turned to a smile, then a grin, then into hysterical laughter.

The water pump must’ve ruptured when he’d activated the sprinkler system. The tanks sprung a leak, which developed into a small hole, which developed into a massive hole, which flooded a level, which created a waterfall that is sure to fall for hundreds of feet. It was all cause and effect.

When Teddy had gotten control of himself, he strode back to his backpack, and picked it up, leaving the two empty cans of beef stew to eventually fester from the gravy left on the sides. While back on his way to the V-Shaft, as Teddy was calling it, something hit him that he hadn’t though about before. Most of the faces of the dead bodies were disgustingly distorted beyond recognition. Why?

That question bugged him as he sat down on the lift, pressing the up button, and pulling out his laptop. He remotely accessed the back-up servers and tried to find some test subject that maybe caused this if it were to get into the air system. Nothing.

The lift, while being a wonderful convenience, was unbearably slow. It crawled it’s way at about a level a minute. This ride would take some time, but it was going to be done. Teddy was lucky that the lift was even still operational. He frowned, knowing that there was really nothing more he could do right now. After considering eating, Teddy put the laptop back in his bag and leaned against the control stand of the lift, drifting into a doze, and dreaming about that day at the beach with Alice.

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Doc Seer was a short, balding man with grey hair. He wore small, circular glasses and a grey lab coat with the word “Orad” on it. Slowly, he pulled up a stool to the front of Jennifer’s holding cell. She was sitting on a bunk, waiting for him to speak. He looked at her waiting face, and frowned.

“You’re infected,” he said. He found his eyes gazing downward, below her face, but then he picked them up, knowing better.

“What the hell does that mean? Infected with what?” Jennifer asked diligently.

“A mutagenic toxin known as GAT-10. Nothing to worry about so far, as it should be dissipating from your blood stream. The only problem is that you may have spread it.”

“Where did I get it in my bloodstream from?”

“We believe that it may have been present in the facility you had come from when we recovered you.”

“Why did you “recover” me? What has happened?”

Seer’s frown turned to a deep grimace. He didn’t like what he was about to say, but it had to be said. “A nuclear catastrophe has occured. From what the briefing we received said, Zuphicoup declared war for no real reason, and was some how able to gain control of Russia’s nuclear stockpile. Every major city has received severe destruction on a catastrophic level. Thanks to adequate shielding and advanced technology, most underground facilities are able to withstand the blasts, as well as the radiation. Even E.M.P., as you can plainly see,” the lights in the building were still on, and Jennifer thought she could hear a radio in the background, “We picked you up in the upper levels of a medical facility outside of Nightfall, Nevada while searching for survivors. When the transistor picked up on your GAT-10, we took you under and brought you here, where we learned it wasn’t radiation that caused the interference, but a mild side-effect of the toxin. Your brain was functioning on such high levels that it was actually emitting waves of energy up to 900mhz. Luckily you stopped after about an hour of that, and now the toxin is dissipating from your system, and soon we will let you out of the cell. That’s all you need to know for now, as I have to get back to my work. I suggest you get something to eat, it will help your body work the toxin out. But you probably shouldn’t eat the cheese.”