"I think Ruthie can shoot as well as Roberts."
Ruthie raised the pistol …
… "So, then I said to her — what’s wrong, man?"
Van Buren’s tale of his hottest date since high school was interrupted as the only one listening to him — Roberts — got up from his seat in the rec room. But it was not his standing that interrupted Van Buren. It was the way Roberts's little-boy face went completely blank.
"Hey, man, you listening?"
Roberts did not answer. He looked across the otherwise empty break room at nothing.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
The best pistol shooter in the Archangel team slowly, mechanically, raised his right hand and, like a little kid playing cowboys and Indians, mimicked a gun with his thumb and forefinger …
… and fired without seeming to aim or think about her actions. The bullet flew true and perfect; the thunderclap of the discharge filled the room.
Major Thom Gant crumpled from the impact, leaning to his left then falling to the floor. He grabbed at his knee even before the electric pain reached his brain.
The entity that looked like Dr. Ronald Briggs stood still and remained indifferent, but almost immediately after the bullet fired, the ugly and feeble Andrew hovered over Gant and screamed like anger incarnate.
"YOU FUCKING COLORED JUNGLE BUNNY, HOW FUCKING DARE YOU SPEAK TO YOUR GOD LIKE THAT? I’LL RIP YOUR NIGGER TONGUE OUT, YOU CHRIST-FORSAKEN SONOFAWHORE!"
Gant rolled into a fetus-like defensive position with both hands grasping his left knee. Andrew — seemingly filled with rage — kicked Gant in the stomach and head.
Twiste limped forward as if to intervene, but God waved one of Briggs’s fingers with the not-so-subtle suggestion that Twiste keep to himself. Brandon became keenly aware that Ruthie still held a loaded pistol aimed in his direction and that Jolly had taken several steps closer to the action. He stood in arm's reach, watching and breathing out what sounded like a chuckle.
Andrew’s rage faded fast. One instant he kicked Gant’s curled body, the next he stood calm and emotionless above the prone soldier before retreating to Ruth's side.
God said, "I told you, you would kneel before me."
Fortunately for Thom, as fierce as Andrew's rage was, the man's emaciated form could not deliver severe blows, causing nothing more than bruises and a few contusions. However, his knee ached badly and blood oozed from the wound.
The thing resembling Ronald Briggs turned away and walked across the room as if granting permission for Twiste to help the major, which he did.
"How bad?"
Gant concentrated and controlled his breathing as best he could. His first words were little more than sobs, but they slowly took form as he repeated them.
"B-bad … need dressing now."
Twiste looked about and found the first aid kit attached to the utility belt Gant still wore. He opened it and found wrapping for the wound.
Gant removed his hands long enough for Twiste to begin bandaging the injury, which was really a blob of blood pouring from a hole above Gant's kneecap. Still, he just wrapped and wrapped, hoping pressure might ease the flow.
"There's not much I can do," Doctor Twiste explained. "I don't see an exit wound, so it's probably lodged in there. A lot of blood, but I think we can at least slow it down with what we've got. Still, you're going to need a surgeon."
Twiste stood and looked at the entity calling itself God and pleaded, "Can you heal him? If you are God, can you not heal him?"
The entity seemed surprised by the request. It paused, considered, then answered, "I shall not."
"Why? God is supposed to be merciful."
"I showed mercy. Had I so chosen, that bullet would have pierced his skull. He will have this wound to remind him to speak to me with more respect."
Gant grabbed at Twiste’s arm. There was an anger on the major’s face; a determined anger feeding off pain.
"I … can … still … stand …"
Gant stood as straight as he dared, yet still needed an arm slung around Twiste’s waist to maintain his balance, a tough act considering that man's own bad ankle.
"I can still stand and you are still stuck down here. You can shoot a bullet through my head, but it does not change the fact that you are a caged rat."
Briggs answered, "You believe a tiny little door can keep Me in here?" He waved his human arms to indicate the laboratory around him and all the halls and corridors comprising the Hell Hole. "The locked vault door, the sentries and cameras and barbed wire — they do not exist to keep me in; they are here to keep the outside out. You think that everything is as it seems, but none of it is true."
"I don't believe you. You have nothing to offer but mind games."
"You hate your own life, Major Gant, so much that you would try to coerce me into killing you quickly. No, you will live long enough to see the extent of my power when I emerge into this world in full. I will have use for you at that moment. You will live until I am finished with you."
Briggs took a step closer to Gant and narrowed his human-looking eyes at the soldier.
"When I am done with you, I will make you fall to your knees and put a bullet in your brain from a gun in your own hand."
The entity turned his back on the two and looked at Jolly. The former-soldier-turned-attack-dog moved, and while he held the HK MP5 aggressively, the muscular monster did not require a firearm to control the two weakened prisoners.
Jolly grunted something like a chuckle and pointed to an open door along one of the inside walls. Twiste supported much of Gant’s weight, despite his ankle, as they followed the giant's direction to a room that had once been an office but was occupied now by only a small battery-powered lamp atop a desk.
Gant and Twiste collapsed inside and the door shut behind them, followed by the unmistakable sound of a bolt catching.
"So now we know who the man behind the curtain is," Twiste said as he examined Gant's bandages. "And Briggs went looking for God."
"He was trying to find the God particle. He tore the fabric of space, whatever that means. I guess—oh shit, this hurts."
"Yeah, right, with that laser array. But he ended up finding some sort of creature. A creature that seems to be able to get in and out of people’s minds."
Gant grimaced as he moved to lean against one of the cold walls of the small office. The glow from the lamp offered a circle of light in the center, only shadows around the edges.
"There have been stories — reports — of crazy shit going on upstairs ever since this all started. People at the base doing some insane stuff, like shooting each other and trying to break containment and just generally going haywire. The shrinks who checked it out came back saying there were ‘influences’ in this place. That’s why all the guards and techs who work here go through some big-time mental training from PsyOps."
"Shrinks?" Twiste asked. "You mean like Lieutenant Colonel Thunder?"
"She is new to this place, but I did sense a tone in your voice. You said not to trust her. Why is that? Have you worked with her before?"
"No, not directly. I can't be 100 percent sure, but I recall her being mixed up in some nasty experiments a few years ago. I had to review some medical files as part of an investigation into a project that went wrong. Like everything else we deal with, I was shown only small pieces of the bigger picture."
"And?"
"It all revolved around psychopharmacology."
Grant grunted from the pain, struggled to control it. After a moment he said, "If you could translate that into English, Doctor."
"Drugs that target the thinking process, mental states, moods, and sensations. Very much like recreational drugs. All I know is that she was knee-deep in some project that went FUBAR, the shit hit the fan, and she ended up on the hot seat. And now here she is, back in action on the most screwed-up base in all the military. Not sure that’s a coincidence."