The octagon box set, p.34
The Octagon Box Set, page 34
part #1 of The Octagon Series
Krell turned into the laboratory corridor. Cables and conduits snaked along the walls on each side as he strode with a new purpose and determination. Despite the late hour his mind was clear and alert. He could see success now. It wasn’t a fleeting glimmer that eventually faded in the dying eyes of his test subjects. The woman was his breakthrough. He was on the verge of greatness and all the power that it would bring.
He came to a gantry platform and descended the metal stairs to the lower levels. At the bottom was an elevator and once inside he pressed the keypad and entered his code. The elevator doors wheezed shut and he began to drop into the bowels of the earth. The elevator eventually stopped at the lowest level. Ahead of him stretched another gantry walkway. There were no other tunnels or platforms. Just a single passage that faded away into the distance, illuminated by dim bunker lights in the low ceiling. No one was allowed down here except himself and one other technician.
Krell's boots rang off the grating. The tunnel ended at a solitary pressurized airlock door. Through habit Krell turned and stared back to where he had come from. In the distance he could make out the elevator doors, open and silent. No matter how many times he had walked this same route, he still felt cautious. What he was doing was taking human biology ahead by thousands of years. Yet others would see it as defying the laws of nature. Tampering with what God intended. They didn’t understand.
Krell entered a code into the keypad. The pressure locks released with a mechanical groan. The titanium door opened to reveal an inner airlock.
Krell entered and the door sealed shut behind him. White clouds of gas gushed up from under the floor engulfing him in decontaminant. The inner airlock door unlocked and Krell stepped into a world where all life comes from death.
9
Martel
“The last time we met you were going to tell me about your homeland. Where you came from.” Karuna sat casually on the edge of a simple examination table, swinging her legs slightly back and forth like a child. Her feet just a few inches off the white tiled floor. The room was sterile with the scent of chemicals and bleach.
Martel was busy inserting the cannula into Karuna’s arm. “You ask too many questions,” he said without looking up. “Now hold still or I’ll stick this into the wrong spot.”
Karuna gave a faint smile. Martel had been her medical physician ever since she had arrived. He had a gentle and caring nature about him that she believed was genuine. Not like the other medical techs who had tended to her inbetween monthly visits with Martel. The others were cold and abrupt, clinical in their manner like she was some sort of experiment. She guessed they were there simply to patch her up, heal wounds and get her back into the training as soon as possible. They had no bedside manner at all. Martel was different. He was responsible for her overall physical development and physiological conditioning. She felt that he was the most honest person she had met since being here. The least person tainted by the ugliness of the place. He reminded her of someone from the outside, from the normal world where people did normal things. Lived normal lives.
Karuna watched him probe and prod her skin, looking for a vein. Her forearm was wrapped with ribbons of new muscle making Martel’s job just that little bit more difficult despite her new vascularity. He had already spent the last hour checking all her metrics, plotting them on his data slate. She had dropped slightly more body fat than he preferred, but packed on more lean muscle without bulking up like some of the other woman Elites she had seen at the last Dominion. They looked more like male bodybuilders, thinking that having more bulky muscle made you stronger, faster, deadlier. But all it did was make them slow and cumbersome, and tire quicker as well. That made her job easier then.
“Good,” he said, as he inserted the needle into the vein and pushed it through the protective sleeve up and under her skin. “You’ve put on more muscle since I last saw you.” Martel applied two strips of tape to hold the cannula wings in place then connected the intravenous line that ran to a stand holding multiple bags of different, colored liquid.
Karuna leant down, examining his handiwork. She liked his gentle hands. Soft, not rough. Patient, not hurried. She especially appreciated the way he would always ask her permission first before he touched her, and how he explained everything to her in language she could understand, not mouthfuls of medical jargon. It was as if he respected her and didn’t treat her like a piece of meat or cattle to be fed and watered.
At first he was stand-offish when she arrived for her first full medical examination after she was evacuated from Exile in the aftermath. The field medics gave her a quick once-over in the air transport, but when she arrived at the main Octagon facility it was Martel who stood waiting in the medical lab. He had been expecting her. Just her. No one else. It was at that precise moment that Karuna knew she was of value to someone. Winning had its merits.
With each successive visit for her weekly checkups, monthly assessments and infusions he began to slowly open up his matter-of-fact exterior. He began talking to her, not at her. His usual blunt ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses were gradually replaced by thoughtful explanations and the occasional smile. He had a vested interest in her wellbeing, in making her physically what she was now. And better.
He was older than her, possibly in his forties, but he stayed in shape and was one of those men who got better with age. Karuna liked older men. They made more sense.
“How did they treat you after the Dominion?” he asked, finally looking up from the stool he sat on between her legs, her arm resting on his hands.
He had the most intense blue eyes she had ever seen. Kindness lay behind them that brimmed with intelligence. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes spoke of a certain wisdom and confidence that came from maturity, not from oldness.
For a moment Karuna seemed to have forgotten the question. Those blue eyes probed her further, expecting an answer.
“Oh, they just grunted and said nothing,” she finally replied, shaking off the distraction. After the Dominion and having become an Elite, she was handed over like all the other Elites to an army of medical techs who patched them up, fixed what needed to be fixed and monitored them in the general labs for the standard recovery. That was the protocol. That had been over a week ago and now Karuna was back to her normal visits with Martel.
“Did you see it?” she asked, trying not to sound overly concerned in what he thought of her performance. Trying not to sound childish, like she needed his approval. She didn’t want to bask in any of the glory. What possibly could interest a man like him in such a blood thirsty display?
Martel gave a faint mischievous smile. “No, I didn’t. But I heard you stole the show.”
Karuna suppressed a smile. “You helped me,” she replied, touching his forearm. “These things you do,” she said, waving her other arm at the machines, tubes and monitors.
Martel shook his head. “I play a small role. It was your hard work and dedication that has made you. I just give you a little help along the way.” Martel stood and went to the stand holding the bags of liquid. “I just do what I’m told to do,” he said, coiling and uncoiling the lines in his hands so the liquid fed through them evenly.
She found his humbleness attractive.
The liquids crept along the lines towards her arm, but Karuna felt no concern at all. He had made her stronger. Over the months since Martel had started the infusions she could feel her body changing. Not only outwardly, but on the inside too, like her biology was altering. There were changes to her body that went beyond the countless hours she spent doing weapons drills in the combat halls or working out on the weight machines in the gymnasium. She could feel her body change on the inside.
Before, she would spend hours after her training sessions in the shower under the scolding hot water of the jets, numb with soreness and jittery with how far she had been pushed, feeling like her flesh was slowly being ripped from her bones. But now she could feel her rib cage, her entire torso, hardening like the armorskin she wore. The soreness would last less. She could recover faster. Her stamina had increased so much that she seemed to be able to train, run, and fight longer than before, until fatigue eventually caught up with her.
Karuna watched with mild interest as the colorful liquids turned the clear tubes opaque, speeding along the line towards her arm to disappear under her skin. She shivered slightly and felt a sudden cold like an icicle had pierced her flesh and travelled up her arm.
“You will feel a slight chill with this mix at first. But it will pass,” Martel said, as he returned to her and checked that the cannula needle was seated correctly. “It’s called a surge.” He sat back on the stool, a look of amusement spreading across his face.
“What?” Karuna asked, her brow furrowed with mild concern.
“Nothing. It’s all good. It’s just a sudden rush of cold and you may get the shakes, but it will go. Just relax. The best is yet to come.”
Confused, Karuna tensed. It entered her like a living thing. It was like liquid frost was flowing through her veins and up her arm. Not a painful dull cold, but more like a fresh chill that was revitalizing, tingling, like she was more alive and adept. She could feel the infusion spread to her shoulder then down across her back and spine. Every muscle fiber and nerve-ending resonating as it continued like a surge of electricity going through her body, replenishing and recharging it like it had once been flat and depleted.
“Christ,” she muttered.
Martel smiled. Now the interesting part.
“Oh fuck!” Karuna sat bolt upright and gasped. Her eyes went wide, then slowly glazed over. Her lips parted slightly and she pushed the tip of her tongue forward and rested it between her teeth. Slowly her shoulders relaxed and she slumped back, breathing like she had just discovered air for the first time after a lifetime spent underwater.
10
The Sleeping Eight
The chamber beyond was skinned in semi-darkness punctuated by the faint blue glow emanating from the center of the room. The ceiling soared into the darkness. Above hung tubes of thick, silver flexible conduit. Frosted with ice these spread downwards like some massive root of a tree that fed into the top of a cluster of large vertical stasis pods. Eight pods sat housed in a carousel frame anchored to an elevated steel platform.
Krell climbed a set of stairs and approached the cluster of pods. Slowly he walked a complete circle around them, checking the readout panels on each before moving on to the next, making sure the biometrics were all within limits. It was a ritual he had done a thousand times. Meticulous. Slow. Deliberate.
Pipes and tubes hissed, and gases vented high above him as he continued his inspection. Satisfied, he paused at a folding chart in front of one particular pod. Ice frosted the thick curve of the glass viewing window. Krell ran his gloved hand across it, clearing away a section and revealing a chamber filled with translucent blue liquid. Shards of light glistened and moved across his face as he looked closer at the occupant.
A face, ghostly pale with closed eyelids dusted with ice crystals, framed in cold suspension. A young girl, juvenile, no more that perhaps sixteen, cocooned in the pale amniotic gel. Tubes ran into her arms, groin and thighs. Her nose and mouth was covered by a breathing snorkel. Stepping back, Krell picked up a heavy book from a chair.
The same book, placed on the same chair that sat in the same spot.
The cover was torn and frayed from countless fingers thumbing through the worn pages, yellow and faded with age.
He sat down and carefully he opened the book at his last mark. Krell’s own neat italic script filled the margin. His reflective thoughts carefully recorded alongside the author’s own manic rants. Two disturbed minds separated by a century of time, spilled forth in ink by one and printed text by another. Passages had been underlined. Notes diligently made. Interpretations recorded then expanded upon.
Some notations made as recently as yesterday. Others made decades ago when Krell was in his youth.
As he sat, buried under hundreds of feet of soil, rock and steel, his ludus asleep above him, and with the precious book in his hands, he felt the absolute clarity of purpose. Krell looked up at the sleeping eight and began to read aloud under the dim blue light that came from the pods.
“The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable.”
11
Home
The infusion was searching her body. The iciness now replaced with slippery warmth that filled her totally. Where it found fatigue, it spread vitality. Where it found weakness, it smothered with strength. Where it discovered residual pain, soreness and aches, it soothed with pleasure.
Karuna pushed herself back on the thin mattress of the examination table, rested her back against the wall and closed her eyes. Her face a picture of contentment.
“What is this?” she asked, her voice drowsy but not tired. Far from it. Her whole body felt alive like it was being reborn, but better than before.
“It’s a new mix. Do you like it?” Martel asked, watching her reaction intently.
Karuna didn’t seem to hear the question, but she could hear every little sound in the room with such clarity. The hum of the machines, their circuits switching. The ventilation from above as cool air slid through the vent blades. The breathing of Martel as he sat on the stool in front of her. His heart beating rhythmically in his chest. She could hear everything.
“It feels like the most fun you can have with all your clothes on,” she replied, drifting.
“That’s not the answer I was looking for.”
“I don’t care. Just as long as it doesn’t kill me.” Karuna’s eyelids fluttered wide open. Her pupils fully dilated. Her stared at Martel. “You said you were going to tell me about where you came from. Your home. It’s your accent. I can tell. You have been here for a while, but you’re not from here.”
Scrolling down his data slate Martel checked that all her vitals were still within the limits. Her heartbeat had slowed, but that was to be expected. He looked up at Karuna. Those huge emerald eyes were still focused on him. Unblinking. Uncompromising. He expected nothing less from her. He shrugged.
He'd lived in England in some place called Surrey, a place that Karuna had never heard of, in a small village where everyone knew your name and where the pace of life was more relaxed. It was peaceful, tranquil and far enough away from London. He explained that he was the typical local doctor tending to nothing too dramatic. A broken leg from a farmer who had fallen from his tractor was probably as bad as it got. He lived in a quaint thatched cottage where ivy grew along stone-stacked walls that lined narrow laneways and was surrounded by rolling hills of green, dotted with sheep.
Karuna listened, relaxed but enthralled, trying to picture this quaint village from a faraway place. A place so different to where she once lived, and worlds apart from where she was now.
Martel explained that he lived alone and had no children. Things were getting worse in Europe with the refugee crisis. Each evening he would watch the news and see footage of riots in Greece, Italy and France. Places Karuna vaguely recognized but had never actually seen. Huge refugee camps, the size of cities, which had been setup decades ago, were now overflowing with the tide of migrants. Hundreds of thousands of second generation refugees were living in squalid conditions where crime and evil bred like wildfire. The authorities couldn't reverse the influx that happened so many years ago. They thought they were being humanitarian by helping people fleeing from war, persecution and torture. But by throwing their borders open to so many, they let in something else. Something evil and sinister.
The first dirty bomb detonated in central London. The radioactive material dispersed quickly through the financial district killing tens of thousands of people. The reign of terror had begun. Then came a wave of coordinated conventional bombs that went off across the entire country, from north to south. They went after key infrastructure first in a planned and calculated attack. Power stations. Military bases. Airports. Electricity grids. Communications networks. Underground internet cabling. They all went down in one day. The entire United Kingdom plunged into one huge electronic black hole.
“What about the army? Law enforcement?” Karuna asked. “Surely they could have responded and quelled the uprising.”
Martel checked the flow on the lines into her arm, poured himself a coffee, then sat down again on the stool. “It wasn’t an uprising. It was an invasion that had been decades in the making. Right under everyone’s noses and yet the governments couldn’t see it. When they realized what was happening, it was too late,” Martel said, taking a sip, thankful for the surge of caffeine at this late hour.
Martel explained that terrorist groups had embedded so-called “sleeper cells” all throughout England over the last twenty years. Their members had posed as legitimate refugees during the early intakes decades ago. They then slowly infiltrated roles and positions within key sites in the country. The army. Telecommunications. Utilities. Power. Transport. Food manufacturing. Then they waited. And waited. And when the time was right, they struck.
“The army was full of their soldiers and sympathizers. We had trained and equipped them. We showed them how to fight and defeat their enemies in their own countries and then they turned on us. They repaid our stupidity and trust with the bloodshed of our own people.”
Martel explained that there was some big tunnel that went under the sea that linked his country to Europe. A group of fanatical suicide bombers drove their cars into the tunnel one day and detonated high explosives that were hidden in the chassis of each car, collapsing the tunnel and flooding it completely. “Thousands drowned that day,” he said. “I remembered, watching horrified, the first news reports. The channel was full of so many dead bodies, just floating. Men. Women. Even school children that were returning from an excursion to Paris.” Martel went very still, anger smoldering behind his eyes as he relived the images.
