No chance these are just lids. Has to be some sort of built-in life support system. She thought back to the computer components back in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor behind her. Nothing was what it seemed here.
“How many are there, do you think?” Hammet asked.
“One hundred and fifty-five,” Yana replied. She shrugged. “I started counting as soon as we walked in.”
Two sets of stairs gave them access to the sea of stasis pods. One flight went left, and the other went right. The steps were taller and deeper than they should have been. It made sense since they weren’t designed for people.
They were designed for aliens.
She shook her head and took the left-hand stairs, carefully descending them with Yana and Hammet in tow. Zahra should have been more cautious, but she couldn’t help it.
She headed straight for the nearest stasis pod. Inside was a nude, humanoid body floating in shimmering golden ooze. Its body rippled with muscle, and its face… its face was remarkably human. Long hair billowed around it. He was handsome, too. Zahra knew it was a him because of the being’s impressive manhood.
But these aren’t men, Zahra reminded herself. Still, the resemblance was uncanny.
She recalled several books and movies about human beings from the future traveling back in time to start over. Is that who these “people” were? Zahra didn’t know what to believe. For now, she was sticking with their original belief that they were beings from across the cosmos.
They were aliens.
“Oh, hello,” Yana said, leaning close to the lid. “And what’s your name? Let me guess: Dix E. Normous?”
“Look at this one.” They turned and found Hammet standing in front of an open pod. The domed lid was flipped back, and the body was gone. “Doesn’t look forced open.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Yana said, kneeling to inspect the lid.
“One got loose?” Zahra asked. She shouldered her rifle and looked around. “That’s not creepy or anything.”
“Relax,” Yana said.
“Please don’t tell me to relax, okay?” Zahra snapped. “Look where we are!”
Yana held up her hands in a calming gesture. “Fair enough… But I believe our missing alien is the specimen from your journal.” She stepped away. “Let’s all put on our B-movie sci-fi thinking caps, shall we?” Zahra was going to argue that they didn’t have time for it, but she was too tired to butt in. “This ship crashes sometime in the past, thousands of years ago, perhaps. After it does, one of our intergalactic adult entertainment stars awakens only to discover that they are permanently locked in ice.”
“Maybe they rotated shifts taking care of one another?” Hammet suggested.
“Sure,” Zahra replied, relaxing some, “that’s another possibility. Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable leaving the fate of my race to a computer.”
“If that were true, then how’d they get stuck here in the first place?” Yana asked.
Hmmm. Good point.
“I guess there could be more bodies in the bridge,” Hammet said, looking around, “if this thing even has a bridge.”
“As far as the creature’s fate…” Yana said.
“ could have died of natural causes,” Zahra replied, going through her list of possibilities. “I mean, it’s not like it had enemies down here.” She squinted in thought. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Hammet asked.
“Unless these guys landed sometime in the 1930s. What if the Sixth Seal made it down here, and our friend was still alive? They may have captured it and experimented on it. That’s how they got its DNA.”
Yana tipped her head back up toward the overlook. “There’s a lot more papers up there. Maybe these Sixth Seal assholes can tell us exactly what happened.”
Chapter 54
Zahra
Zahra and Yana started up the right-hand stairs, but Hammet did not. Both women noticed his immobility and paused their ascent.
“Find something else?” Zahra asked.
“I did,” he clicked on a flashlight and pointed it into the shadows beneath the room’s observation deck. “Come. Look for yourself.”
Zahra and Yana did just that. They joined Hammet and added their own lights. Stacked in the dark recess beneath the deck were the bodies of six lab coat-wearing men. And like the sailors aboard the U-boat, these men had also been executed.
“See the single headshots?” Zahra asked. “Looks like our American friend went John Wick on these guys, too. I bet everyone intimately involved with Project Fleshgod died here. Well, everyone except Mengele.”
“This was why he was here — all of this,” Hammet said, staring at the corpses as he spoke. “He would have found all of this too incredible not to be involved. Mengele focused heavily on human experimentation, as you know. This would have been the logical next step for him post-wartime.”
“And yet,” Yana said, “somehow, the Angel of Death still made it to South America.”
“Yes, he did. I bet he used the same underground ratline history says he used to escape Germany, but he came here first before continuing to Argentina.”
“I thought he went to Brazil?” Zahra asked.
“Not right away, no,” Hammet replied. “That’s where he supposedly died, though.”
“I bet the asshole restarted his work when he left this place,” Yana said. Zahra and Hammet stared at her. “What? Why wouldn’t he? He was obviously obsessed!”
“If that is true, that would be unfortunate,” Hammet said softly, stepping away.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Zahra said, also leaving the scientists’ bodies. “So, Mengele’s people were in charge of Fleshgod.”
“And based on the documents I found in the South Wing,” Yana said, following them closely, “Black Sunset would have been the Soviet Union’s baby. Their history suggests as much, too.” Zahra and Hammet mounted the first step back up to the overlook and the workstation but stopped and faced her. “My people once used plague-infested corpses as bioweapons against the Swiss in the 1700s, and the USSR became incredibly advanced in that field until the government collapsed in the 1990s. It’s reasonable to assume that they’d be the ones leading the biowarfare division.”
Zahra stared through Yana, thinking. “I bet the U.S. bankrolled much of this and helped out where they could with supplies and research.”
“Like the bombers,” Yana added.
“Yeah, like the bombers.” She let out a long breath. “Just think about it. They gave four of their famed B-29s to the Sixth Seal. Imagine what it would have been like seeing the same planes that dropped nukes on Japan flying over Manhattan or D.C., or Berlin and Moscow?” She shivered. “Makes me sick.”
“Makes us all sick, Zahra,” Yana said. The Russian sounded defeated.
“So,” Hammet said, moving them along, “not only does the Underworld need to be destroyed, but so does all of this, yes?”
Zahra’s reply came without thought. “Absolutely.”
Yana sighed. “Regrettably, yes. You’re both correct.” They began their climb. “Too bad this was discovered by the Nazis instead of someone else.”
Zahra chuckled. “You think that would have made a difference?”
“You don’t?” Yana asked.
“No,” Hammet replied. “Someone else would have tried to use this for their own means, I guarantee it.”
Yana shook her head. “Stupid humans.”
Zahra playfully elbowed Yana and slipped into a horrible British accent. “Savages, the lot of ’em.”
Hammet wasn’t having as much fun as they were. He spun on them as he reached the top. “Excuse me, ladies, but we have a lot of work to still do.”