Exterminator : The Dark Beneath

“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised”

-Denis Waitle

21:34, The Geoplant

The lift from the lower Arc to the Geo-plant access corridor ground to a stop and Jack quickly opened the door, moving out into the concrete walled corridor, the lights brightening in response his movement. He waved MUTT forwards before closing the lift and started walking along the corridor, passing the sealed metal doors leading out to the upper mine works.

He glanced over at the MUTT to check the extra gear was fastened securely. Apparently the Geoplant supervisor was getting worked up about his workers’ living conditions, so to calm him down a bit Stevens had suggested loading up Jacks MUTT with extra supplies as a peace offering. Jack was fine with it for the most part; he wasn’t expecting to be down more than a day or two anyway so he had plenty of room to spare, but he didn’t like how Stevens had just strapped extra gear onto his Drone with duct tape once he’d filled its internal ports. It was just... lazy.

Shaking his head at his conceit, Jack used the code Stevens had given him to override the door lock down on the second lift and headed in. He was just about to trigger it when a faint clang echoed down the corridor as a side door near the far lift opened and a figure in a full environmental suit exited from the sealed off area, carrying a two large metal sample cases. Jack couldn’t make out much at the distance, the baggy environmental gear and reflective visor of the bulky headgear that covered its entire shoulders and head prevented any further perusal.

Jack raised his hand and was about to call out an enquiry when the figure raised a smart-pad and caused the other lift to open, before hefting the heavy looking cases and moving inside. Jack relaxed and lowered his hand. Odd as it was for someone who wasn’t an Exterminator to travel around the sealed off areas, if the figure had the right codes to beat the lock-down they were probably permitted to move around down here.

Jack trigged the door, but studied the figure until the lowering door blocked him from view as the lift began to descend. Shrugging away the slight mystery, he winced as another spike of pain flashed behind his eyes. He blinked he raised his arm to study his pad, set behind the hardened clear screen on its wrist compartment.

“SAM, could you get the suit to issue me some mild painkillers from the med pack? My headache is still hanging around, and somehow I expect after seeing Andrews it’s just going to get worse.”

“Of course Jack, preparing now.”

“Any information back from the blood test?”

“No yet, I’ve run the simpler tests available to me. I’m afraid that further investigation would require a medical facility.”

Jack saw the dosage pop up on the clear screen and tapped his acceptance, imagining the suit injecting a small amount to it through the implanted shunts in his wrists. Although SAM could administer certain procedures and medications in cases where the wearer was incapacitated, general medications needed to be signed off by the wearer. The AI was also limited in the drugs it could administer even in case of emergency, nothing that could be harmful in anyway unless in the direst circumstances and, although this limited its efficacy, its programming was designed first and foremost to protect the wearer, even from themselves. It also stopped addicts from self-medicating, which was probably the only reason Twitch hadn’t OD’d in his own armour already.

The lift slowed to a crawl and then stopped, the walls thumping slightly as the clamps engaged to hold it steady as the doors opened causing Jack to sigh at the person waiting for him.

“OK, its blocked at this end” A worker shouted down to Twitch from the walkway above, his orange overalls and face stained with grease from his efforts to close off the steam-pipes vents. “Give it some flame, Twitch.”

Twitch wasn’t his real name. 35 years earlier, his parents, a present middle class couple from Swansea on Earth, had named him Richard Llewellyn Adams after his grandfather, but no one had called him Richard in years. Most just called him Adams or Twitch due to the shakes that wracked his body, the outcome of 20 years of chemical abuse

Adams stepped to the access port of the 2-metre diameter pipe and deployed his lance; suit whirring as he carefully manoeuvred the end of the barrel into the opening of a vent.

“F..f.fire in the hole” He stuttering shouted as he triggered a blast of flame into the shut down pipe. There was a dull whump as the flame expanded inside, and as he glanced up a second later he saw a whips of fire escape the access port above.

After applying a few seconds more of fire he doused the lance and withdrew it, re-holstering it on his back plate after a few shaky tries.

“C..Christ I need a hit,“ he muttered to himself as he pulled a mini-drone from his tool belt and passed it through the hole. “Finish this one and then I can have a hit, just a sm..sm..small one to take the edge off.”

The drone was about the side of a tennis ball, and it kicked into life as soon as it fell into the pipe beyond, tiny ducted fans deploying to bring it to a hover in the humid gas of the pipe, its tiny frame hardened against corrosion being more than sufficient to protect it from the residual heat produced by the lance’s burst.

Adams raised his arm and triggered the drones programming on his smart pad, causing it to lower itself the to the bottom of the pipe and deploy its laser grid before slowly moving up to scan every inch of the large pipe, analysing the surface for any trace of organics that might indicate a pest, or its burnt body.

Taking a break from watching the drones ’progress, Adams glanced around for a moment. Seeing no one nearby he hastily triggered his faceplate to rise and drew a e-stick a recessed compartment on his thigh armour and putting it in his mouth, careful not to breathe again until his faceplate was back on and the suit had replaced the foul CO2 heavy air of the plant with breathable atmo. He triggered the E-stick’s vaporiser and took a drag, sighing in appreciation as the nicotine infused mist filled his lungs. Smoking was forbidden under the terms of his parole, even the relatively benign cigarette replacement between his lips, but seeing as he did a lot worse he didn’t really sweat the risk of being spotted. Stevens was way too worried about looking bad in front of his bosses, so as long as he didn’t get caught doing the harder stuff he should be ok.

The e-stick helped fight off the cravings slightly, and he moved back to monitoring the drone. He swore around the e-stick as the results came back negative, meaning that his level had only contained two rats. They were only two stories below the top of the plant but, by their estimates, had only exterminated about 50 of the pests and Marcus fucking Flint insisted at least double that had made it inside.

He and Andrews had started from the bottom of the plant, carefully sealing of vents and access routes and sluicing them with fire to kill the rats or force them upwards. Micro drones went in to flush them out with high-frequency sound or strobe lighting. Occasionally they’d actually had to clamber into larger areas to clear them out. The plant workers had helped, closing off areas or sealing them, but it had been several days of hard, sweaty, backbreaking work. He could smell himself over the aroma of the e-cig, his suits hygiene systems struggling to keep up. The workers had it almost as bad, they had a shower set up in a converted rest room in the top level, but due to the lack of treated water, it was a chemical shower, giving the option of removing smell of sweat and BO only to replace it with their own chemical stink and irritated skin.

The enforced lock down, shitty conditions, and high workload were fraying tempers. As supervisor, Flint had already broken up several minor fights, and things had only become more tense as people realised how many Rats were still missing. Unless they could find and eliminate the majority of the infestation there was a real chance that management would extend the lockdown even further.

A incoming call signal popped up in his hub, causing him to inhale in surprise, almost swallowing his e-stick and triggering a coughing fit. He quickly raised his visor and spat the cig out before lowering it again. He hastily composed himself before answering, a small window poking up in the top left of his HUD showing Andrews’ face, taken from his helmets internal camera.

“Hey twitch,” he said, voice grating” get up topside. Golden boy’s coming down with resupply and to sort this shit out”

“Finally!” Adams exclaimed, ”My suit’s running low or reserve cleaner cells and the lance is almost out of combustibles. You think he has some real food?”

“Why, got the munchies?” Andrews cackled, his harsh voice causing Adams to wince. ”Get your ass up here and we’ll see now, won’t we”

He nodded by and Andrews had already killed the call, so he pulled out a marker and put a X on the pipe, signifying it as cleared, before heading to the stairs for the long trek upwards.

The door of the lift opened and Jack moved out to find Andrews, Twitch, and Supervisor Flint waiting for him, all three men looking dirty and worn, the two exo-suits covered in grime and scratched paint. Flint’s overalls were more brown-red then orange due to rock dust from the walls around them and muck from the water and steam pipes. Beyond them Jack could see the square ring of walkways running around the top level of the plant, several of the side rooms filled with workers sitting or lying on the floor.

“Well well well, look who it is!” Andrews mocked, the big man holding out his arms grandly. “It’s OK everyone, Golden Boy’s here to sort things for us peons.”

“Interesting word use, Andrews,“ Jack replied as he stepped forward. “Got a word of the day calendar pinned in your helmet or something?”

“Have you got the supplies?“ Flint interrupted, glaring at them to head off any further banter.

“Yep, plus I’ve got some good news for you. our glorious overlords have decided to let you start rotating a few men back up to the ARC, as long as you only send a few at a time and make use to secure against any rats getting through”

“You’re kidding me! “Marcus breathed, his tired eyes lighting up “have they lifted the lockdown?”

“No,“ Jack replied apologetically, ”The lock down is still in effect, but it was argued that you should be able to send a 10 of the more exhausted men back without compromising the security and letting Rats through. They’ll be replaced with the workers who were off shift when the lockdown went into effect. With some luck you should be able to cycle the men in groups to give them a day or two’s rest, although the Board are getting impatient for this situation to be over.”

Jack turned to his MUTT. Its sturdy frame looking unbalanced and blocky with several large storage containers strapped to it. “In the mean time, I’ve brought new overalls, more food, and hygiene products, water, and a small purification unit. There’s also 6 atmo tents so your men can spread out into some unsealed rooms.” He turned his head to the two other Exterminators, ”I also brought down resupplies for the suits, more fuel cells, incendiaries, drones and maintenance kits if you’re running low on stuff.”

Marcus nodded and gave a wry smile through the clear plastic of his mask, gesturing for some of his nearby workers to begin unloading the Drone.

“Alright. Andrews, Adams. You two grab what you need and clean yourselves up, grab some food or a nap, whatever. You have 4 hours and then I need you working again. Jack, follow me and I’ll talk you through what we’ve done so far.”

He gestured for him to follow and began to head along the walkway to a cargo elevator, its sides open with waist high guard rails painted in alternating yellow and black warning colours to prevent people falling. He impatiently waited until Jack stepped over the warning lines painted on the walkway and onto the floor of the platform before triggering it to lower, the big lift slowly descending onto the plant.

“We’ve had this locked down for the last few days, your colleagues told me the Rats could climb down the cable. Is that right or were they just messing with me?”

Jack nodded his helmeted head “Yep, that’s true. Those two might be assholes, but they’re not terrible at their jobs.” he said, watching the floors pass by, some with workers sealing off pipes and vents, or running maintenance on the plant systems.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how is the lockdown affecting the plant itself? Surely closing off the vents and shutting stuff down is reducing its output”

“Less then you’d think actually. The geothermal power generation is actually pretty self-sustaining. It’s more or less a sealed unit. Apart from us having to occasionally change the water in the turbines, or clean the blades and pipes. The real problem is the hydrogen production,“ Marcus complained, gesturing to a array of insulated pipes running from the floor of the plant below all the way into the ceiling far above, each a deep red and covered in warning signs for fire and explosions.

“I’ve shut most of the production down, the risk of escaped hydrogen reaching your lance’s flames is too great, but I can’t stop pumping it from the reserves. The ARC needs it too badly.“

The bottom of the Plant was approaching, the top of the main generator dominating the wide floor, its domed shape arching several times the height of nearby workers. The lift slowed and stopped, clamps rising from its rig to hold it steady as they dismounted. Marcus moved over to a group of workers, exchanging a few words before sending them up to the top of the plant via the stairs, a few groans filtering back to Jack as they started walking. Turning back to Jack he asked him to follow and headed into a side room filled with bulky consoles, the tech bulky and obsolete, yet another relic from earlier times.

“We’ve got a problem!” Marcus admitted, turning to face Jack “one that I couldn’t talk about in front of the others.”

Jack looked at him expectantly, but Marcus avoided his gaze, shifting uncomfortably.

“Before the Rats got in, I had a welding team checking the routes into the plant from the mines beyond. One of them was a problem group, a troublemaker called Karl and his friend Clive. They found an open vent into the mines and started to seal it, but Clive got recalled to help in here and Karl stayed to finish it. When I went to inspect it he was gone. Now he’s done this before, sneaking off before his shift is over without reporting it. He’s dating some Exec up ARC who covers for him, So I thought he’d done a bunk. The problem is Clive insists he didn’t head up and no-one saw him reach the lift before lock-down.”

He stopped shifting and looked Jack full in the face.

“ I haven’t managed to confirm if he’s in the ARC, and I’m starting to worry that he didn’t leave. I think something happened to him in the old train station just down from here, maybe he had a accident, maybe he’s trapped in one of the side rooms. Maybe..” He paused and wiped his sweaty brow, leaving a smear of reddish-brown rock dust, ”..maybe he’s dead. I can’t tell any of my guys, they’re stressed enough as it is and it might cause a panic, and I don’t trust your colleagues not to let it slip. I need you to have a look down there. The official reason is to check there aren’t any more rats still hiding in the station.”

Marcus’s shoulders slumped and he turned to gaze down the darkened corridor to the small pool of light around the door at the far end.

“Unofficially, this is personal. If one of my guys is dead down there I need to know”

Jack nodded firmly before striding past Marcus and down the patched bare rock and concrete tunnel, his MUTT clopping faithfully at his heel. He heard Marcus close the door into the old control room behind him, sealing the corridor. He reached its end and turned the blast doors’ locking wheel to open it, before walking out into the dark of the station, the only illumination coming from his helmet and chest lights and a few scattered hand held torches laying haphazardly around the platform, presumably where workers had dropped them in their rush to escape the swarm of rats. The dark space was quiet as a tomb and Jack could almost feel the weight of rock above him. Like so much of the old mine works it was long abandoned, but still held a faint echo of human habitation, as if people could return at any moment.

He let the MUTT step through after him before shutting the door behind it. No point tempting fate and letting more Rats through. He turned and walked forwards until he hit the edge of the platform, jumping down a metre and a half with a thump and whine of servos, to stand on the tracks, loose rock crunching under his boots. He looked in both directions but found that even his powerful lamps couldn’t stretch from the centre of the station to its ends.

“Marcus could have told me which end of the tunnel the hole was,” he muttered, shrugging and picking a direction at random before setting off along the tracks. Reaching one end of the station he discovered that it was blocked, the tracks disappearing under the metal cover to lead further into the mines. Calling up a map he traced its path through his HD, from under the ARC and out into the south west of the Arc valley floor. The huge tunnel cap itself was secure, metal stanchions and concrete segments sealing it off from just about anything less than a demolition charge. The metal access door at the side was also secure, with no sign of damage or wielding on it or on the access duct cut into the wall beside it.

“Ok,other end I guess. Figures.“ he complained to himself as he turned and tracked back through the darkness to the far end almost half a kilometre away, his MUTT trotting behind him with its LED running lights shining blue in the darkness to illuminate a small patch of the area around it. As he walked he had the oddest sensation of eyes on him. Stopping and turning to play his light over the far platform, he played his light over its floor, small fragments of rock and debris casting shadows on the wall beyond due to the relative height difference between the rail bed and the platform. He looked around for a few moments but couldn’t spot anything, so he turned back and resumed his march.

“SAM, turn on the active radar for me would you, I’m getting a funny feeling in here”

“OK Jack, the radar is active. I must point out however that your ‘feelings’ are more likely to be due to the slight temperature you are running. I suggest seeing a medical technician on your return to the ARC.”

“Ok mum!“ he muttered, his walk coming to a halt as the other closed off tunnel came into view. Almost immediately he could see the damage to the maintenance access corridor’s ductwork, fresh meshing wielded over its dark metal. He knelt down and inspected its edges, noting scratches around the new weld. He frowned and touched the metal gently with his armoured fingers. It was hardened alloy steel, not the toughest or hardest material available, but pretty resilient. Yet somehow something had apparently scratched it with relative ease. He had a healthy respect for the Rats, but this was..odd.

“SAM, crank up the multi-spectrum scanners and run them over the duct cover. Try and extrapolate these scratches for me and assess for claw spacing and pressure readings”

Small ports opened around the main headlamp on his helmet, over the forehead, and a series of small lasers rapidly scrolled over the plate, reading depth differences to a micrometre. A dull red 3D image rapidly appeared in the top left of his HUD, filling in line by line until the whole object was present. Next SAM ran image recognition to highlight potential scratches in bright blue, turning the image into a crazed mess of lines and scratches, before dismissing repeats of the same pattern to give him 8 sets of distinct claw spacing.

“Analysis complete” SAM said ” I could discover 8 different sets of claw marks on the visible cover, although it could be noted that it is possible further marks are hidden under the meshing. From my analysis the claw marks range in average claw spread and length from 2-5 cm, significantly larger the average for a Rat. Indications also suggest beyond normal strength, deduced from the level of damage inflicted on the highly resistant properties of the material used.”

“Great, Rats on ’roids,” Jack muttered, ”maybe they and Andrews can swap gym stories!”

He stood and moved over to the maintenance door, reaching to the wheel and trying to turn it. Metal creaked and groaned as the long unused mechanism refused to turn. Jack stopped and stepped back.

“Well, no one’s been through there recently. I could force it but an unaided human couldn’t. So if not through here, where could our absent worker have gotten to?”

He looked around before studying the far platform, noting the recessed and blocked off doorways into the rooms beyond, mesh and panelling blocking off all the nearby entrances but one.

“Bingo”

He strode over to the edge of the rail track and jumped back onto the platform with ease, a faint boom echoing around the void as he landed. He made his way over to the partially open doorway and played his headlights through into the corridor beyond, instantly picking up faint scuffmarks in the dust and grime.

His radar pinged, startling him as a clatter of rock on rock came from his left further along the platform, causing him to spin rapidly round with a curse, his lights catching a flash of motion as something scurried over the edge of the platform and onto the platform.

“Fuck me!“ he cursed, adrenalin pumping from the sudden shock, “you little shit, scared the crap out of me!” He shook his head. Something about this station was creeping him out badly if a rat could spook him.

“I’ll come and deal with you later!“ he promised the darkness, before turning and pulling down the remains of the mesh and metal blocking the doorway, strong steel wire parting like wet paper under the strength of his gauntlets. All the mesh was doing now was impeding his progress, anything smaller could already move through the wide hole in the bottom.

Throwing it to the onto the platform he stepped into the narrow corridor, glancing to each side as his shoulder pads scraped along a cluster of pipe as he slowly walked down it towards a junction ahead. Another ping came from his radar, tracking motion in the station behind him and appearing in the small 3d tracking map of his surroundings in the bottom right of his HUD.

“SAM, get the MUTT to keep scanning and alert me if the contacts increase!”

He reached the junction and turned to his right, finding a abandoned cafeteria, dust covering metal benches and serving stations at the back. The darkness weighted heavily in the room, the powerful beams of his lights cutting through it but seeming to fade quickly towards the edge of the beam, casting objects in strange half light. For a moment he thought the lights might be malfunctioning. He called up a diagnostic but found they were working fine.

“Get a hold of yourself Jack!“ he commanded, unaware that he was whispering, “You’ve been down way deeper in more dangerous areas so why are you freaking out?”

He moved into the room, checking behind the counters on the far wall and under the benches, but found no sign of recent human presence. He moved out of the room, subconsciously keeping the wall on the right slightly behind him.

“Anything more from the MUTT’s sensors?“ he whispered, even thought he knew his radar would alert him if anything moved.

“No Jack, the contact appears to be hidden by the edge of the rail tunnel. Would you like the MUTT to investigate?”

“No!...I mean not right now. I’d rather have him watching my back. This place is getting to me!”

He gazed past the junction to the opposite room, noting fallen shelving and boxes covering the floor, blocking his vision of the floor further in. He was just about to step inside when he noted a strange discolouring on the floor, as if a liquid had spilt across a section and dried to leave a thin flaky crust. He knelt down on the carved red and orange of the rock floor and gently ran his armoured fingers over it, loosening a few flakes to pick up and study.

“SAM, run the multi specs over this and get me a basic composition.”

The lasers whirled to life, bombarding the residue with visible, infra and ultraviolet light and recording the backscatter for analysis.

“Sample contains traces of organic material and Iron consistent with Haemoglobin, most likely from..”

“Blood!” Jack interrupted, his pulse racing, “A lot of it”

Still crouching, he played his helmet light over the nearby boxes until he caught a glimpse of colour, a faint dab of orange in the darkness. He cautiously leaned forwards to grip it and pulled. It was a ragged swathe of cloth. It emerged from behind a box, tattered and torn but for some reason oddly familiar and heavy. Growing impatient he yanked it round the corner, dislodging something that skittered to his feet. He looked down, his mind struggling at first to match mutilated object to what it was. A partially crushed human skull, flesh gouged from its surface apart from small scraps of scalp and its top removed to a show hollow cavity of bone where the brain should have sat.

He leapt backwards, striking the stone for the doorway and chipping a large chunk off as it hit his armoured shoulder. He span around, rapidly casting his head beams around him, making the shadows dance in his haste.

“Fuck, FUCK!” he yelled, “What the fuck is going on!”

He ran out of the corridor, his shoulders and arms smashing the constricting pipe work out of his way without and emerging into the dark of the station. He spun around, trying to look everywhere for danger.

“SAM, open a channel to Marcus, I found his man but he’s dead. Something killed him!”

He ran to the edge of the platform and jumped down onto the rails with a boom, head swivelling but finding nothing around him.

“Jack, I’m picking up signals from the Geoplant but there is an abnormally high level of electrostatic interference in the air which is disrupting communications!”

“Try and cut through it SAM, We need to contact the ARC!“ he panted as he sprang up the other side and headed for the door to the plant, MUTT cantering along behind him “There’s no way this is normal Rats!”

He spun the door wheel to open it, his back itching as he imagined eyes watching him from the darkness. As soon as it was open he ran through, grabbing one of the MUTTS back handholds and wrenching the Drone Through, heedless of its weight in his haste to close the portal. He spun the wheel again to lock it and raced through the corridor, boots slamming into the hard rock floor. Reaching the far door he opened it and shot through into the lower levels, sprinting past shocked workers and up the stairs to the upper levels, desperate to find Marcus before it was too late.