Exterminator : The Dark Beneath
26: Betrayal

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

― Malcolm X

12:15, Lab zero restricted Access point

The corridor was filled with heavy armed men, and Mr Rinehart walked between them, checking gear and exchanging a few words as the prepared.

Rinehart was pleased, Mrs Carter had finally given him the go ahead to start searching the mines with his team. The search for the missing specimen was still un=successful, and both Rinehart and Carter were now convinced that their hypothetical spy had released the creature into the mine works through the hidden laboratory’s back entrance.

He looked around at his team and grinned fiercely. No more sitting around guarding nerds and suits, finally he had a hunt. His team were decked out in some of the finest combat gear available. Malik and Strum where both wearing their top of range heavy military Exosuits, their hulking hydraulics and weapon mounts making them tower over the other men, segmented armour covered in digital camouflage. Saul and Argento, his two trackers, both wore sleek padded soft-suits, the dark blue material shifting to match its surroundings, both men armed with multi spectrum scanners sensitive enough to follow almost any organic trail. His remaining two men wore the same mottled grey and green general purpose Exosuits as Rinehart, powered but lacking the need for DNI implants. They were the apex of current military technologies. Each of his six-man squad had picked their own equipment, from flamers and flechette shotguns, to smart rifles. Whatever was down there, they were prepared.

Rinehart turned to their guide, trying to hide his displeasure as he watched Holden squirm in his bulky environmental suit.

“Are you sure you need me to come with you?” the fat man said nervously for the hundredth time, ”I’m sure I can guide you down via the radio!”

“No, Mr Holden,” Rinehart said with forced patience, “I need you to take us down the nearby lift to the lower levels and get us into the old works. As soon as that’s done you can head back to civilization. We’ll check everything on the way there, so you’ll be totally safe with us!”

The technician nodded weakly and moved to stand nervously by the elevator, his foot tapping away and a nervous hum coming through his Com’s. Reinhardt shared a amused look with Saul before slapping the other man on the shoulder.

“All right, gents, time to earn our pay!”

The group moved to the lift and filled in, Holden looking distinctly uncomfortable to be surrounded by so much firepower. The was a rattle as it started to descend, Rinehart wondering for a moment how long it had been since the old mechanisms had been checked.

“So, Mr Holden, this lift is the only way down to our destination”

“Umm, no. In theory there are enough access routes and stairs penetrating around the area to make your way back up, but I hazard they would take several days to traverse, assuming they haven’t collapsed since the plant explosion.” The lift jerked slightly and Holden flinched, ”It’s also worth noting that I’ve never actually used this route, though it’s most likely route our mystery intruder might have used to smuggle out the creature, based on what I could extrapolate from the old plans.”

Reinhart sighed, no stranger to unreliable Intel from his employers. “Alright, in that case men, this lift is our only exit. It may not be perfect, but it’s what we have, so,” he turned to Holden, “once you’ve led us to the entrance, head straight back to the lab and inform Mrs Carter that we’ve begun our search. I want her to get a maintenance team to check this thing over ASAP. It would have been nice to know beforehand that it might be unreliable!”

Holden nodded nervously, his face relaxing as the lift finally reached their stop. The team readied their weapons and swiftly moved out of the lift as soon as the doors opened, weapons raised as with military precision they secured the surrounding room. Malik signalled Rinehart it was clear and the commander moved out into the dark room, the only light coming from the team’s lamps, although all had cutting edge night vision ready to deploy on his signal.

“Where to Mr Holden?” he asked the Tech, gesturing for the nervous man to leave the safety of the lift. The Tech hurried across the room to a heavy looking blast-door set into the wall and brushed of the handle, before turning back to him.

“This should lead you thought to the old mine works, If you open up your firewalls I’ll flick you my mapping software, it should give your pad all the data we have on the local area, but again with all the collapses, I can’t guaranty its accuracy”

Rinehart nodded to Malik and the hugely armoured man stomped forwards and turned the lock, pulling the thick door open and stepping back to allow Saul to wave the scanner around inside.

“Picking up readings boss” the Tracker replied in his strong South African accent” Lot of organics down here”

Reinhardt nodded and his men moved swiftly through the doorway into the mine works, leaving him and Holden alone.

“Right Mr Holden, you head back up the lift but stay close. I want you watching through my camera until the signal degrades. I’d prefer to bring you along but I can’t guarantee your safety down here, not in that flimsy suit!”

Holden nodded with pathetic gratitude and scurried back into the lift, swiftly triggering the doors to shut, speaking just before the doors closed.

“God’s speed Mr Rinehart, I’ll pray for you”

The lift door closed and Rinehart stared at it for a moment before shrugging. He wouldn’t have put the Tech as a religious man given his profession, but you never knew. He turned and moved through the blast door and closed it behind him as the men lined the walls of the wide corridor they found themselves in. Rusting and decaying machinery lined the walls, covered in damp and dust. Rinehart raised his arm to look at the embedded smart pad, quickly replaceing the route Holden had programmed in.

He signalled his men and they began silently to move forwards, heavy boots carefully stepping around the debris to minimise noise, eyes constantly scanning.

“Boss,” Saul whispered his sub dermal throat Mic’, ” I’m picking up motion ahead, looks like we have contact!” The team immediately tensed, and Rinehart silently used hand gestures to order them into position.

“Mr Rinehart,“ Holden’s voice came through the Com, ”I still have contact so I’ll guide you from here. Just think of me as the angel on your shoulder”

Rinehart frowned and keyed his Com’s. ” All right, Mr Holden, but I ask that you only speak if necessary, we need to focus down here.”

Saul directed them along the corridor and into a stairwell, the grilled metal steps covered in filth and damp as water trickled from the nearby wall.

“This should lead you down to the next level,” Holden commented” into the next circle of hell as it were. Do you ever think about hell Mr Rinehart?”

Rinehart frowned by a signal from Saul directed his attention through a wide doorway ahead of them, the metal portal open to reveal a large cavern inside, and he directed the team inside, even as Holden continued talking.

“If hell was a actual place, hidden in the depths of the of the earth, does that mean we left hell behind when we moved to the stars, and If we lost hell, what happened to heaven and God?”

“Mr Holden, this is not the time!” Rinehart snapped, moving through the doorway. The room inside was huge, filled with more decaying machinery, pumping stations from the look of them, which had long since ceased to function, allowing a small stream to flow through the cavern and on into the waiting darkness. Saul gestured to something sat near the doorway and Rinehart moved forwards to see a dull grey box sat on the floor, its sides unstained by the filth around it and its design quite different.

“Boss,” Saul whispered, “the box is definitely giving off a lot of volatile organics, the reader said pheromones or something but I’m having problems with the screen.” Rinehart frowned and signalled his men to set a perimeter, his years of experience telling him something was wrong.

“Holden, are you seeing this box. Is this the specimen case?”

“No Mr Rinehart, it’s a pheromone dispenser. They’re used to modify animal behaviour by secreting pheromones to calm the creature. It’s really very usefully to avoid ending up as something’s lunch. Its yet another way scientists play God, in fact many of them see science as God”

“Mr Holden, can you please be quiet!” he snapped, glancing around. This wasn’t right, something in the back of his mind was screaming trap. ”Everyone, we’re falling back to the lift”

He turned, checking his wrist map when suddenly the display shuddered, lines of code running along its face until, with a whine, the screen faded to black. Muttered curses around group told him his men had found the same.

“I’m sorry Mr Rinehart, but I’m afraid your mapping software is quite useless now.” Holden’s voice said softly in his Com, the man sounding sad.” I’m afraid I can’t let you return to ruin God’s work!”

“Holden, what the hell have you done” Rinehart whispered viciously as he backed to the wall, his men falling around. Malik shouted and pointed over into the darkness and Rinehart stared, his eyes just about picking up pinpoints of light gathering around them.

“Night-vision!” he ordered, as Holden spoke again.

“We made Science God, Mr Rinehart, and left the devils on earth. But I found the light again, and if science took our fear of hell away, I see it as only fitting that science bring devils to punish our arrogance!”

Rinehart triggered his visor into night vision, revealing the cavern in shades of grey. It also revealed a swarming mass of scuttling things ahead of him. Without a word his men opened fire, pouring metal and fire into the charging swarm, pulping and burning black scales bodies as the streamed towards them, the muzzle flashes lighting up the cavern around them. But Reinhardt could already see it wasn’t going to be enough, the sheer weight of numbers was absorbing the damage, bringing the swarm close and closer. He shouted for his men to move to the doorway, but the creatures reached them first.

High above Holden listened to the shouts and screams of the doomed men and shook his head. The mercenaries might actually be able to escape this wave of his pets, but without maps the chances of them replaceing the lift were tiny. But the prudent man takes few chances. He entered a command on his Com, triggering a small but powerful explosive on the lift cable and brakes, blasting them to atoms and letting the car plummet the 50 stories down into the darkness, blocking the only route back up for the men below.

Holden walked back through the hidden door and into the lab, closing it securely and entering a code that caused the opening 5 tonnes of reinforced tungsten alloy set into rebar concrete walls. Even if the mercenaries did somehow ascend the blocked shaft nothing they had on them would be sufficient to penetrate it.

He stripped off the environmental suit and reviewed his preparations. It was amazing how easily you could get through a secure computer’s security when people gave you the keys, and a few thousand lines of code brought off a black market hacker could open any number of doors for you. Erasing his activities had been surprisingly simple, and Carter and Holmes’ paranoia about corporate espionage had steered suspicion away from him with hardly any prompting, when in fact their own hubris had helped him. As part of the project he’d been granted high level access to a number of systems to help him facility obtaining resources for the lab off record, and with his electronic box of tricks it had helped him bypass layers of security he wouldn’t have been able to touch on his own. Over the last few weeks he’d been busy planting malicious code in various key systems, each designed to lay dormant until triggered, where upon they would interfere in a number of ARC systems.

But his preparations ran beyond the electronic. He’d secretly placed pheromone dispensers like the one below all throughout the lower levels of the under works and the ARC, at first to keep his pets away from him so he could work, but now timed signals would be changing the cocktail, turning each box into a magnet for his little avengers, drawing them up from the depths to the shining Babylon above, filled with food and prey.

Soon the whole ARC would feel the touch of his holy avengers as punishment for their pride and arrogance, and the survivors would have to turn to the Almighty for salvation.