Against Gravity

Exact date unknown: 2088 The Maze

"I know where we are. I swear, I know where this is."

Vernon Lee's face was visible only as a pale, pleading shadow in the terrible darkness of the lower levels. He'd been one of only three to survive Ward Nine.

They had gathered together in huddled groups ever since they had found themselves locked away in freezing dark corridors down in the depths of the Earth. Some, like Kendrick, could see those gathered around them as pale, shadowy outlines. Others whose bio-augmentations had not taken such firm hold on their bodies were still lost in the blackness, clinging quite literally to each other in the vast echoing spaces.

There was no evidence that food or water would ever be forthcoming and, after almost forty-eight hours, people were begi

Kendrick pressed his hands against the cold metal of the shield door and felt something humming under the hard surface – the bright subliminal presence of electricity flowing through circuits. But it seemed faint, as if far away.

"Okay." Kendrick looked over his shoulder at Lee. "So where are we?"

He could just make out Buddy, standing to one side, listening.

"Used to work for a company did contract military work," Lee explained. "We built stuff for them, but only bits of it."

Buddy shifted in the dark. "I don't get it."

"What it is, if someone in the military wants something built top secret, they still have to bring in civilians a lot of the time. They screen you for all kinds of shit, you sign release forms, and they do everything but stick a torch up your ass and take a look." Lee shrugged. "Sometimes that too. But you never see the whole thing – only part of it. Only a few people outside the military ever get to see the project as a whole. Usually whoever's ru

"Just a minute," said Kendrick. "Are you saying you helped build this place?"

"Yes!" said Lee excitedly. "That's exactly what I'm saying. These doors are designed to withstand nuclear blasts," he explained, placing a hand against the same cold metal.

A wall of steel cut across the corridor, completely blocking their access to the upper levels. They were abandoned in what appeared to be literally miles of lightless passageway, but half a dozen huge steel doors blocked any way out for them. "I helped design these things," Lee continued. "I even remember how the corridors are laid out."

Buddy spoke, his voice low and intense. "Can you get us out of here, then?"

Lee shook his head. "No, I can't. All I'm saying is, I know where we are, but that's it. All this stuff – the doors, I mean – the controls are centralized. The only way out would be finding some way of interfering with the electronics, but there's no way to access the mechanisms."

"So what's above us?" asked Buddy. "We're in South America, right? You must know that, at least."

"Venezuela," Lee said decisively. Then he gri

Kendrick shook his head. "I had no idea."

"What does it matter?"

Kendrick turned at the sound of McCowan's voice. Peter emerged out of the gloom, his words sounding harsh in the freezing air. "We're screwed, wherever we are. Knowing exactly where isn't going to make any difference. There've been rumours for, Christ, years, about US control south of Mexico."

"It's true," said Lee. "There's no real government up above there. It's a lawless place now, and the gene-rots hit here even before they hit the States."

Kendrick pulled his hands away from the metal, feeling defeated and depressed. "Which leads me to wonder when they actually built this place," he muttered. "It must have taken a long time, considering the size of it. And in total secrecy, too."

"I'll tell you," said Lee. "I'm talking twenty years ago. I was just a boy, really." He shook his head. "Place hasn't been well maintained."

"You could house an army down here," said McCowan. "The Wards could have been originally intended for treating wounded soldiers."

"Out here, outside the US, they could get away with anything so long as they were sure nobody was watching," Buddy spat, his voice bitter and angry

Telling the time, or even the day, was impossible but Kendrick estimated that they'd been trapped in the darkness for about three days when the voices came.

In the meantime, there had been at least a dozen deaths – some from a lack of medical treatment necessary to keep the weaker Labrats alive, but most of them suicides.

One had hanged herself, knotting one leg of her trousers around her neck after first tying the other end to an overhead pipe. She had stood on the body of her dead lover to reach up to the pipe before pulling her legs up at the knees and somehow, horribly, holding them there until she passed out. As she slumped unconscious, her improvised noose and the force of gravity completed the process of strangulation.

Her lover – they never found out either of their names – had died within hours of arriving in the lower levels from the sudden and explosive growth of his augmentations.

There were other incidents, equally as gruesome and equally depressing.

And then there were the other stories.

One told of the figure glowing with light, lightning spitting from its fingertips as it ran laughing through the most distant corridors, somehow passing through the great shield doors that pe

But then the voices came.

Kendrick had seen speakers slung up high along the corridors at irregular intervals. One day they started crackling with the sound of a familiar voice.

Sieracki?

Kendrick listened with a dawning sense of horror. The worst was yet to come.

"Enter the corridor marked Level 9, South-West," Sieracki ordered them. "The door will open. There is food there, but only for those who survive." Kendrick listened to the shouts of dismay around him in the darkness. "You will have to fight for the right to live. We wish now to test the survival skills of subjects from our different experimental groups."

"I get it." Kendrick turned to McCowan, who stood behind his shoulder. There was a sadness in his voice. "They never intended any of us to get out of here alive."

"It's fucking insane!" Buddy shouted. "I mean, it doesn't make any sense."

"No," said Kendrick. "It makes perfect sense. They made us what we are, and they aren't going to set us loose. Instead of just killing us themselves, they throw us in a hole in the ground and leave us to kill each other. That way they get rid of us, but they also figure out which experimental group has produced the best results. The ones who can survive, that is."

"Maybe it makes sense," McCowan agreed. "But it doesn't mean that's how it's going to work out. People don't need to fight each other when they know they're going to die anyway."

"I don't know." Kendrick shook his head. "If you've been hungry and desperate long enough, I'm not sure what any of us would do. Long as people think there's even the slimmest chance, the faintest hope, they'll fight tooth and claw if given the chance."

"I won't," said Buddy decisively. "I can refuse."

"You can refuse." Kendrick nodded wearily, thinking: And that way you'll die. And the ones who won't refuse will fight, and Sieracki still gets what he wants.