Chapter 1
The metal crate shook as the creature within tried to tear its way out. Claws, that had dulled from the beast’s constant attempts to scratch itself free, sometimes found small gaps and they poked out in a vain attempt to reach for those who had imprisoned it.
Every so often a fanged mouth would appear near the largest holes and the hot breath from the animal would condense in air as it snarled in bestial rage.
The crate currently occupied one half of a lift descending into the earth. It was not heading straight down like a normal lift. It was the width of a tennis court and headed deeper within a steep angular shaft. Ropes and weights didn’t lower it from the surface, instead gears and spokes rumbled beneath the platform, driving it underground.
In the other half of the small descending space, a squad of men in urban camo gear pointed guns towards the crate. Some of the weapons had large gas canisters where their stocks should have been, the others were sharp edged means of death, with curled magazines.
Every man cocked his gun, and their tense muscles relaxed when they all heard the reassuring mechanical action that meant their weapons were ready to defend them.
While most of the soldiers jumped at each attempt by the creature to escape and raised their guns, their superior officer, kept his eyes forward and continued to stand straight and tall, with his arms clasped behind his back.
Unlike his subordinates he wore his olive coloured, army dress uniform, which was immaculately ironed and full of award ribbons. An unsheathed sword beneath a crown insignia marked him as a General. He puffed out his chest, putting the ribbons front and centre. He was a tall, powerfully built man. No hair at all peaked out from underneath the cap he wore and aged, green, blurry tattoos curled out from under his collar and up his neck. Wrap-around sunglasses obscured his eyes.
He was flanked by a captain and a sergeant who were wearing ordinary camo gear.
The captain had a certain rat like quality to him. He had a pointed face and narrow eyes as well as large front teeth. His small eyes darted around and he was hunched over. You could imagine him starting to eat a biscuit with both hands, holding it up to his mouth and gnawing at it.
However, the man merely yawned, in full view of his commanding officer.
The Sergeant stood with his back straight and muscles tense, as stiffly as it was possible for a human being to do so, as if he was on a parade ground. He had an otherwise handsome face, spoiled by an expression of complete and utter boredom. He stared straight ahead with a glazed look over his bright green eyes. The noise of the beast in the nearby cage failed to illicit a reaction.
“Use the tranquiliser guns only, we need it alive,” The General said to his jumpy soldiers.
“Yes sir,” they all mumbled.
The lift ‘pinged’ its arrival at the desired floor.
The doors retracted, revealing a corridor of concrete, bathed only in the light from the lift.
General Reynolds turned his head slightly and looked at the lift’s screen, it said 25 UGND, 25 floors beneath the surface.
He held out his hand and the sergeant handed him a small torch from one of his pockets.
General Reynolds flicked it on and played the light over the walls until the beam found a junction box on the wall. The Sergeant then stepped past his superior officer, opened the box. Inside was a rusted lever and with grunt of effort the Non-com raised it upwards.
Long florescent lights flickered into life, clinking like breaking glass as the power came on. They were dull at first, but soon they brightened up as electricity long since absent from their wires flowed throughout the complex.
Corridors of dirty grey concrete were illuminated in yellow light. They wound through the earth several hundred meters underground, their floors thick with dust.
Radiation signs hung on the walls, equipment was exposed, not hidden behind decoration, and numbers indicated each place of significance.
Stencilled on the wall right outside the lift wer white bold letters that said ARMY, and next to that was a faded logo of a lion standing on a crown bisected by two swords. The General had a similar enamelled badge on his peaked cap. Next to the emblem were the letters AWE surrounded by atomic symbol.
The General smiled and nodded in approval at the décor which was familiar to him. Then he sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. He smelt mould and rust the signs of dilapidation. The signs on the walls were either peeling off or hanging on rusted screws. The pipes were corroded and various wet patches were everywhere on the walls, ceilings and floor. The General’s shoulders sagged a little.
“What a dump,” the Captain commented. “The air tastes like an unclean fridge.”
“Make sure the ventilation systems are repaired at once,” the General ordered.
“Maybe we should set up operations somewhere else?” the captain proffered.
“This is the best we can do as a base - for now,” the General said, scowling at the decaying decoration that was all around him. “Soon we will obtain more funding, and then everything will change,” he continued, and walked away from the lift and down the various corridors, his shoes splattering in the shallow green puddles dotted around as he went.
The soldiers he left in his wake started unloading the crate holding the beast and other boxes stacked inside the lift.
“The animals will be sealed on this level, and the other vital areas must be secured against our young guests before they arrive.” The General held his hand up and a group of soldiers carrying a crate stopped beside him and stood to attention. The General opened the crate and examined what was inside. It was filled with dark Styrofoam, which supported and protected several bands of metal. Those on the left had blue flashing lights embedded in them, those on the right red. “Remove Prospero and secure it in my office, Barrier however must be ready to be transported whenever a new a student is found.”
“Sure,” the rat faced officer said, who then motioned to the other soldiers to continue doing their jobs.
“Thank you for these,” the general said to the captain.
“It’s better you handle them rather than the organisation I represent,” the captain said.
“This place needs a lot of work in order for it to meet our needs. Research areas and dorms need to be built, and we only have a small window of opportunity to get ready for the operation,” the General said. “We’ve been given three months, I will use these collars effectively my students will prove themselves.”
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” the captain replied, staring deeper into the general’s eyes, almost past them right into his very mind.
The General cleared his throat and turned away from the captain and his entourage strolled through the base. He poked his head into every room, and either nodded or shook his head at what he saw.
The biggest room he entered was taller than it was wide, and cylindrical. The General stood at the base of the room and looked upwards. The top was not lit, however there was slit in the roof in the shape of a cross, small slithers of light poked through. It was at least 600 hundred metres above his head. A droplet of water fell the length of the room and hit the floor by the polished shoes of the General. He looked down and examined his shoes, and the scorched floor, which was charred black and covered in soot.
The falling water made the room sound like a cave, he heard flapping and squeaking high above him.
“How did you find this place?” the captain asked.
“I was made redundant years ago, after the fall of the wall,” The General replied, “One of my first postings. Of course, it was in better condition in those days.”
“Hidden and ignored?” the captain asked.
“Hidden and forgotten, the sergeant made sure of that, I’m the only who remembers it now.”
The General took one last look upwards, then left the room continuing to move from room to room inspecting the old facility.
One room he entered was filled with large microscopes, a hospital bed, with several soft chairs and computers still covered in dust sheets.
A man with curly black hair was typing at one of the computers through the dust sheets. His fingers moved fast and frantically across the keyboard.
The General entered the room and stopped silently, but when the sergeant clicked his heels together as he stood to attention, the man, who was wearing a lab coat, jerked around and backed away.
He clutched his heart and fell back towards the computer mashing the keyboard and writing gibberish.
“General Reynolds,” he said, breathing heavily, “I thought you were one of the animals.”
“The animals aren’t wearing shoes Professor Hawthorne,” The General said.
“I was just writing you an e-mail about them. I cannot work on this level,” the man stated.
“Professor, I want you to study both our young guests and the animals you requested, this space is a large work area, close to all of them.”
“I cannot work on the same level as a lion,” the man said. “Or a Hydra.” The man added and his face paled at the mention of such a creature.
“The Hydra is secure and can’t hurt you unless you hurt it.”
“You want me to experiment on it, don’t you? It’s going to see me as a threat, you know it will,” the professor warned.
The General waved his hand, as if swatting an imaginary fly. “The sergeant will help you break its defences then you sedate it, I don’t see the problem.”
“What about the lion? I’m mostly all alone on this level. What do I do if it breaks free, I’m not feeding it.”
“Professor the science I’m giving you an opportunity to do is ground-breaking, and I’m spending a lot of money on it. I want results fast, and proximity will help that goal.”
“I don’t want to be down here,” the man said.
“You’re safe professor.”
“If the wimp wants to work one floor up, we should move him, can’t have him having a heart attack at every little sound while he’s supposed to be working,” the captain said.
The General sighed.
“Let’s talk about more important things,” he said.
The scientist shook his finger at the General, “Yes, yes you’ve denied my request for a phycologist to be present,” and he pointed at his computer screen currently showing his inbox.
“There is no one I can give security clearance to,” the General replied.
“I need to know what their mental state is, any psychological conditions they may have. It will affect their abilities.”
“You’re smart, you can work those things out yourself,” the captain remarked and yawned.
“I’m a biology professor, specialising in many fields. But if you want this done properly, I need a phycologist,” the professor reiterated, keeping his eyes locked on the General and not even glancing towards the captain.
“Security is paramount professor.”
“Can’t the sergeant erase memories? Bring me a phycologist who is good and then we get rid of him when I have what I need?”
The General looked at the captain, who shrugged, “it could work,” the captain responded.
“Then we’ll bring one in.” The General then looked long and hard at the scientist. “I’m surprised you suggested this Hawthorne, and you objected to so many of my methods when I first recruited you.”
The scientist looked away then went back to his computer.
“I’ve learned so much,” he said. “We’ve only just cracked open the nucleus of this cell, we’re about to take out and decode a DNA chain of possibilities.”
“Which is what I want. Now enough e-mails and get your lab in working order.”
The General turned away and left the room as did the sergeant and finally the captain, who smirked at the scientist, who flinched, before following his superior officer.
“Captain, go back to our list of phycologists and find the best, then hire them,” the General said.
“What do we tell them?” the captain asked.
“Tell them everything we will need them to understand the assignment in order to do a good job, the sergeant will take it from their minds in any case,” the General said.
Soldiers joined them and gave the General paper work to peruse.
Aarrrrgh someone yelled out, the screaming knifing through the ait raising the hair on the backs of everyone’s necks. Everyone turned at once towards the noise.
The cry was full of pain and terror.
“W – wh – what was that?” Professor Hawthorne cried out from his room.
As the primal noise tingled everyone’s spines, heavy footfalls could be heard thundering their way down the corridors of the base.
“What is…?” the General began to ask his soldiers.
He and everyone else was then shocked into silent horror, apart from the Sergeant who didn’t even flinch, when a full-grown male lion bounded around a nearby corner. It stopped when it saw the General and his soldiers, and bared its long sharp teeth.
The lion shook its mane of dirty brown hair and opened its mouth wide to roar at the soldiers. In the narrow confines of the corridors it looked far bigger than an ordinary lion.
After he managed to find his voice the General was able to stammer “Ser – Sergeant…”
“Kill it,” the Captain barked.
The Sergeant stepped forward as all the other soldiers backed up behind him. The lion charged straight at the nom-con. It was a terrifying sight, usually glimpsed behind thick glass at a zoo, not from ten metres away. Its claws and mouth were covered in blood and its yellow eyes gleamed, locked onto the soldier standing in its way. Massive muscles rippled under the golden fur as it ran.
In comparison the Sergeant was Bambi.
The soldier stepped forward with his right foot leading then raised his hands.
The lion reacted in the most astonishing manner. One moment its evil eyes were wide as it closed on the sergeant and its jaws were opening wider. Then it suddenly dug its heels into the concrete floor throwing up dust and leaving ten scratch marks in its wake. The beast actually yelped and tripped over itself, slamming its head into stone. It folded up and fell at the sergeant’s feet.
The animal raised its head and stared into the eyes of the sergeant, who merely cocked his head to one side.
The lion appeared to gasp, blood flowed from its nose, as something unseen was exchanged between beast and man.
Its massive lungs let out one final long breath of air, then its body sagged and its flickering tail dropped to the floor.
The Sergeant then stepped out of his stance and stood to attention, without showing any pride or satisfaction, and most surprisingly of all no fear.More soldiers came from around the same corner the lion had come from with their guns raised and aimed at the lion’s corpse.
“I’m moving my stuff,” Professor Hawthorne said, when he saw the dead big cat.
“Sir, we’re sorry the cage broke and the lion killed Lieutenant Williams,” one of the soldiers reported.
The General stepped up to the sergeant’s side and looked down at the animal, “What a shame…” he uttered.
Everyone was silent at this tragic news.
“….we needed this creature,” he finished. He glanced at the sergeant who was motionless beside him then turned his attention to the Captain. “Captain take the Sergeant with you and talk to our benefactor Chancellor Clarke, he is objecting to some of my demands,” The General said as the soldiers started dragging the lion away.
“If he is uncooperative?” the Captain asked.
The General turned his head briefly to the Sergeant, then back to the Captain, “have Russell talk to him instead, remind him what will happen to his family if he fails to deliver.”
“Yes sir.” The Captain said and smiled. “I hope he is uncooperative.”
“Clarke could ruin everything if he grows a backbone and refuses us, his objections cannot be aired to the rest of the Cabinet. Silence him, and we can achieve things the current government couldn’t even dream of.
