For a moment, he hesitates between the rage engulfing him and the only humane feeling left in his heart.
“What is your choice, human? Power or oblivion?”
Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and raises his combat knife. “I yield to your power. Without you, I could not do what I have to do!”
Tarasov yields to rage — and unleashes it upon himself to overcome his own fear and pain.
He dips the blade deep into his wound, cutting it open and removing the stone. His body suddenly becomes aware of its exhaustion and injuries. Crying in pain, he falls onto the slab. With trembling, bloody fingers, he places Nooria’s stone next to the other into the slot.
When the two parts join, the fires blaze up and a deep, humming noise drones from beneath as if the earth itself was sighing in relief.
Pain and fear captivate Tarasov as he realizes that he is in the depths of a labyrinth, armed only with a knife and bearing wounds all over his body.
But his knees do not tremble now. A sudden feeling of freedom invigorates his exhausted limbs as he runs from the chamber and soon he reaches the exit of the shaft. The depth beneath his feet seems bottomless. Seeing no other way of escape, he starts descending the ruined rope ladder. Reaching the end, he looks warily into the abyss.
There’s no other way than into the chasm.
Hoping that his exoskeleton still offers enough impact protection to save him from breaking his bones, he lets himself fall. After what seems an eternity, he hits the ground, the titanium alloy body frame of his armor creaking from the impact. He doesn’t need to check the exoskeleton thoroughly to know that this was the last time it had saved his life.
Getting up, he sees broken planks from the bridge on the rocky ground. Without anything to guide him, Tarasov follows his instincts. He gives a start as the light from his headlamp falls on a corpse.
Such a waste, he thinks.
He closes Zlenko’s lifeless eyes and takes his pistol from its holster. His instincts do not fail him. Not far ahead, the lights of the cage room glow high above. The major recalls that one of the cages was lowered. Hoping that it will offer him a chance to get out from the abyss, he moves forward. It doesn’t occur to him that the cage was not empty when lowered until he hears a howl.
Oh no… this isn’t even remotely fair.
Two red dots emerge in the darkness above. Prepared to be attacked by more than one enemy, Tarasov recoils and desperately looks around to find a position to defend. The dots grow into a pair of luminescent eyes. It is not two mutants but one, the hugest he has ever seen, blocking his way.
He has nowhere to hide, so Tarasov turns around and runs, hoping to find a way out from the cavern where the mutant would be unable to follow. He stumbles and tries to get up but his muscles begin to seize up in terror. It was not a stone that had made him fall. Phosphorescent light glows an arm’s length away from him. He rolls to his side and recoils, still on the ground. The snake is faster. Reaching him, its fang-filled jaws open to tear into him. Then the snake turns its head away. For a moment, the humanoid mutant and the snake face each other… and then the snake strikes down upon the mutant. With lightning-quick reflexes, the enormous hands grasp the scaly body. Panting heavily, Tarasov watches them wrestling for life and death over a prey that would be him. He removes the Jumpy artifact from the container.
I need fire.
Meanwhile it is the roaring humanoid that is gaining the upper hand. The snake’s jaw opens wide in agony from the suffocating stranglehold. Tarasov only has a few moments left before the humanoid turns on him. He throws the artifact to hit the mutants and, aiming as best as he can, plunges the fire-alloyed combat knife into it. He has only one second to be surprised about his own accuracy when the enhanced blade hits the artifact, triggering a thunderous explosion of fire and acid. Blood and shreds of ripped flesh splash around him as he huddles on the ground.
Climbing to his feet, he realizes that the half-ruined exoskeleton, until now perfectly fitting his size, seems to have shrunk, become much too tight in places.
I better get out of here before I become a mutant myself…
For a long moment, he studies the dead, humanoid mutant. Then he pulls the laptop from his backpack, which most probably contains descriptions of experiments leading to the creation of such abominations, and smashes it on the ground. He tears Sakharov’s notes into tiny pieces too.
Removing his knife from the carnage, the major moves on towards the dim blue light coming from the bridge above. To his relief, the cage is there but without any device or switch to operate its elevating mechanism. He starts climbing up the cable, holding himself with all his strength on the slippery, greasy steel and kicks the metal trapdoor open.
Climbing into the long room spanning over the cavernous abyss, he feels as if he has arrived in the safest place on earth… until the sight of the two corpses brings him back to reality.
Both of them deserved a better grave than this.
Tarasov takes one pack of explosives from his backpack and positions it in the middle of the room.
No one will go beyond.
He has climbed only a few steps on the ladder leading into the laboratory level when the detonation occurs, followed by the deafening shriek of metal bending as the bridge implodes into the abyss. The choking dust vomited up by the shock waves still covers him when he gouges out a rock from the wall with his knife and replaces it with another pack of explosives.
The timer is broken. Can’t adjust it to more than ten seconds.
He attempts to climb again, as fast as his exhausted muscles will permit, but the detonation almost throws him out of the shaft. Heat scorches him once more. The shaft collapses, sealing the way to the lower levels.
Where should I place the last charge?
The entry level comes to mind, where the ceiling was close to collapsing under its own weight.
Tarasov runs. He passes by the ruined computer room and climbs the stairs leading to the bunker, driven by a compulsive urge to see the sunlight again. He stumbles. Lying on the ground with his face in the dust, a tempting desire seduces him to remain there and deny his willpower the right to torture his worn-out muscles any longer. For a moment, he wants to allow himself to succumb to his pain and spend his last minute trying to recall the best moments of his life, before the tunnel collapses and buries him forever.
I must stay alive. It’s the big man’s order.
Digging his fingers into the dust, he heaves himself forward and gets to his feet. Out of breath and holding a hand over his bleeding wound, he keeps running.
When he reaches the long shaft leading outside and the passage with the insecure ceiling, he plants his last explosive charge. His movements freeze when he hears an unexpected but familiar noise from above.
Could it be helicopters? Could it be a rescue squad? Could it be that everything gets straight in the end?
By now he is positive that the noise is that of helicopters hovering above. All he has to do is to set the last charge, make the catacombs inaccessible, and depart.
With fingers twitching from exhaustion and impatience, he adjusts the timer and makes a last dash for the exit. When the charge goes off and the tunnel disappears behind him in massive plumes of smoke, he falls to the ground, once more crawling towards the light shining ahead, his fingernails breaking on rocks and stones, until suddenly daylight greets his sore, blinking eyes.