"Captain, I am not sure what it is you are hoping to accomplish, but this is counterproductive."
"You know what I'm getting at. You know Borman dropped us down here like we were just another smart bomb sent to hit the target. Yeah, sure, usually it's Friez giving us our marching orders, but if it wasn't Friez or Borman it'd be someone else."
"That is the way the army works, or have you not been in the military for even longer than I? Exactly why should I take issue with that?"
"Because you know better!" Twiste's voice grew a little too loud. The men glanced at the door and paused. When they did not hear any reaction from outside, Brandon Twiste lowered his voice and went on, "You know better. I see it in you, Thomas Gant. You know the games they play, the dark secrets, the cover-ups, and the way they throw men into the meat grinder with no consideration. This was a suicide run, but you didn't even raise your hand to ask a question."
"I believe in the system," Gant said. He remembered what Doreen McCaul had noted of his nature during his visit to The Tall Company with Liz Thunder. "I have faith in the chain of command."
"You don't trust that chain of command, not one bit. You've seen it all; the double crosses, the backstabbing, the political games. You can't possibly have faith in that, you're too smart. So why are you kidding yourself?"
Thom felt his mouth open but he could not find — or dared not give — the answer his friend sought. Instead, he asked, "Why is this so important to you? You are a soldier, too, Doctor. Orders are part of the business."
"Yes, but it's the job of soldiers like us to make it a better business. We've been in this a long time, you and I. One dirty job after another. No breaks. No time off. Hell, I've seen my grandchild once since she was born last year because I spend all my time walking around in the dark for Uncle Sam. We've earned the right to ask the questions and even to refuse orders if we must."
"I cannot do that."
"And that's what I don't understand."
Again, Thom stumbled with his answer, reworked it, and responded with the best defense mechanism he could muster.
"It is not our job to understand; it is our job to complete the mission, Captain. And that is what I intend to do and it is what I expect of you."
Twiste shook his head. "You can say it all you want, but I know you don't believe it."
"Then why are you here? You could have disobeyed orders, skipped out on training, and gone AWOL. Maybe even filed an objection all the way up the chain of command. No one forced you to come."
Twiste hesitated, licked his lips, and said, "You are my commanding officer, and also my friend. I suppose if you're going to be stupid, so am I. Listen, Thom, I've known you for a long time and I know you see a lot more than mission objectives and orders. But for some reason, you've put yourself into a quarantine just like this Hell hole. Do you have a death wish? What is going to get better if Thom Gant isn't around?"
"Do not push me, Doctor," Gant said. Each of his words came out separate and distinct, a sure sign he had reached a tipping point.
"I just want to hear you admit it. To admit you aren't some blind soldier; that you have your doubts, just like me. But for some reason you let yourself be controlled by your programming. Is that safer? Is that easier?"
A noise interrupted their discussion: a sharp tone and a blast of static.
For a moment, both Gant and Twiste thought their tactical headsets had sprung to life again, but this noise came from outside the door. As the static faded, Gant recognized the tone as feedback from a microphone.
"That's the public address system," he said. "For announcements to the personnel down here."
"No one is working down here these days," Twiste pointed out.
A woman broadcast through the halls of sublevel 7. She spoke in a monotone voice, which is why it took Gant a moment to recognize her.
"Thomas Gant … are you listening?"
Jean.
"Who is that?" Twiste asked. "How does she know you?"
The words coming from the address system suggested pleading, but they came out dry and flat, like a first-year drama student reading a script.
"I'm stuck down here, Thom. It's your fault. You have to come and get me."
He felt Brandon's hand on his shoulder as a sign of support and as a prod.
"That is my wife," Gant said. "My wife, Jean."
Brandon Twiste did not reply, probably because his mind was stuck on the same thing as the major's: there was no way Mrs. Gant was down inside the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility. She was, in fact, thousands of miles away.
Tending to her garden.
"Why did you leave me? You always leave me. You're never around. It would be better if you don't come home from this. It would be better for me."
Her voice bounced around the empty corridors of sublevel 7, carrying through the shadows and empty rooms. A message broadcast in a tomb.
"The garden won't grow this year. The soil is barren. It's your fault."
Brandon whispered, "That's not your wife, Thom. I've met Jean. Her voice is more, is more …"
Twiste did not finish his thought but Gant knew what his friend was trying to say: alive. But then again, Brandon had not been around Jean in a couple of years. Things change.
Thom remembered the myriad of accounts detailing mental influences taking hold of base personnel. People tricked into attempting to break quarantine, a young girl driven to self-mutilation.
"It is trying to bait us."
"Fine, okay, I get it," Twiste said. "But how does it know your name, or that you even have a wife? And why use her voice to get to you?"
"As for how, I think that is one of the answers waiting for us in the Red Lab. As to why, it is a sadistic son of a bitch."
Gant remembered Thunder's stories about those mental influences taking hold of the target's mind and controlling them. That was not the case here, however. If this thing could outright control minds, why did it fake his wife's voice? Could it not merely reach out and force Thomas Gant to march into the open?
The woman's voice went on, "You can't hide in the dark from me, Thom. I know you can hear me."
Brandon asked, "But why her? Why your wife?"
He did not reply, but the hesitation in his eyes, the slight bowing of his head gave him away. His body language spoke volumes, giving Twiste the answer he had sought all along.
"I'm sorry," he consoled his friend. "You know that's not Jean, right?"
Gant lifted his head up but did not look at Brandon. He did, however, have something to say.
"No, that is not my wife. But it is good news."
"Good news?"
"It is trying to bait me, which means that no matter how powerful this thing is, no matter if it can read thoughts or play mind games, it does not know where we are. That means we still have at least some element of surprise."
"I suppose we're not going to use that advantage to slink back up and out of here?"
If the entity had tapped his memories and used his wife's voice in an attempt to cower Major Thomas Gant, it had failed miserably. In fact, the idea of such a foul entity even knowing Jean's name only filled him with rage.
His expression grew hard, his eyes focused.
"No, Doctor. We are going to go down to where this thing lives and kill it."
19
Sergeant Ben "Biggy" Franco felt a pain that started at the base of his skull and circled around and through every part of his cranium.
He tried to move his body but his limbs ignored the command.
He opened his eyes and saw only black causing an alarm to scream “I'm blind!” but after a moment he realized that something lay atop his face, meaning the lack of vision had more to do with an obstruction than damage to his optic nerve.