The Tchacata Machine - Chapter Six

Earth: BRI, Coonswater Facility
August 7, 2017
2:15 AM

The Valley terminal to Au’wm was exactly where Eric had said it would be, but he’d never said that it would be this heavily guarded. Of course it was guarded. Lilun didn’t know what she’d expected. She clenched her jaw as she walked past the rows of cold, black doorways, ominous enough without a row of armed guards standing in front of them.

Even if there were guards, Lilun told herself, there was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to go back home. She wasn’t one of the ones back down in the Hole – the men standing at the gates should know that.

Lilun headed with a brisk skip for the Valley to Au’wm, trying to avoid eye contact. She knew it was a mistake as soon as five of the guards arose and blocked her path, gripping the handguns they wore at their waists. “Clearance pass?” said one of them.

“What?” said Lilun.

“This Valley’s on lockdown until further notice. I need to see a clearance pass if you want to get through.”

Another guard added, “What’s your reason for wanting to go to Au’wm?”

Lilun found herself backing up. “It’s my home,” she said. “My family’s back there.”

“Obviously, dog-face,” one of the guards muttered. Lilun winced, stung.

“Let me see your ID badge,” said the first guard. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the Hole?”

Lilun carefully drew her badge from her coat and handed it to the guard. He took it to the desk beside the terminal and ran the badge under a scanner. All of Lilun’s information appeared on the screen. “It says here you haven’t been back to Au’wm in over three years. Any reason you suddenly want to leave?”

Lilun backed away, shaking her head. “No,” she muttered. “I just…. I miss my family... Never mind.” She turned back towards the hall she’d come in from, slowly at first, then breaking into a run as soon as she was out of the guard’s eyesight.

She stood out, being the only Xzeejee, but she wasn’t the only one running, or the only one on this sublevel who looked completely confused. A line of security guards thundered down the hall, ignoring Lilun and everyone else, heading towards the elevators. Another alarm went off. Somewhere down the hall, a man yelled, “There’s been an attack!”

“From the Xzeejees?” yelled a woman, and several people turned their eyes to Lilun.

“On the surface,” said the man. “We’ve got a building down.”  Lilun followed the sound of the man’s voice and realized she knew him – it was Peter Rutheford, one of the interns at Benson Medical.

“What do you mean, ‘down?’” Lilun yelled.

Peter just shook his head and ran after the guards. As Lilun turned to follow him, someone shoved her against the wall. She found herself staring up at a massive human woman twice her size. “I got her!” the woman yelled. “I got the Xzeejee!”

“You think she did it?” said a skinny man with thick glasses.

“She’s a fuckin’ Xzeejee!” said the woman, shoving Lilu to the floor and kicking her in the ribs. “I’m gonna tell Benson!”

“This isn’t the one who did it.” Lilun froze – Benson had come up from just behind them. The big woman seemed to shrink as Benson helped Lilun, shaking, to her feet. He said, softly, “Are you okay?”

Lilun nodded, terrified. Benson seemed kind right now, but she’d seen what he’d done to her people.

Benson pointed to the woman. “You, head to HR.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Please… I was just –“

“You do not lay a hand on fellow employees for any reason,” said Benson. “We have security guards and lawyers for justice down here. Now get to HR.”

The woman nodded and turned away as tears filled her eyes. A worried-looking man in a lab coat stopped beside Benson, panting, and said, “Do you know how many we lost?”

Another scientist came up beside him. “My brother works up there,” he said. “Has anybody heard from him?”

Within seconds, Lilun and Benson were surrounded by a throng of people demanding to know what was happening topside, and when the Valleys would be opened. There was a lockdown, she realized – not just to Au’wm, but everywhere, including up to the surface. Benson tugged on Lilun’s arm, pulled her through a door to a row of elevators, and locked the door behind them. Benson leaned against the wall and rubbed his fingers over his eyes, sighing. His face was red and sweaty, like he’d just been running. “I’m sorry for what you saw down there,” he said.

Lilun stood across from Benson, trying to look strong. “I’m not.” She paused, waiting for him to look angry. He just looked defeated. “People are dying. Xzeejees… My people. You’re killing them. Why?”

Benson stared at Lilun coldly, his grey eyes reddened and hurt.  “They’re killing themselves,” he said. “We can’t control them. They’re resisting…”

“They shouldn’t be controlled!” said Lilun. “They’re not animals. What happens when my government finds out? Do the Tearils know what you’re doing?”

“Those prisoners came from your government,” said Benson, “and the Tearils aren’t the friends you think they are. You need to understand…” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you. I can’t just tell you everything. There’s history here, going back thousands of years, and it’s all coming to a head right now…” He went to one of the elevators and pressed the ‘down’ button. “My father just died,” he said. “It was my fault, all my fault, and now everything is in my hands…. It all belongs to me… And I have to be a good man… A man of God…”

“What are you talking about?” said Lilun.

Benson groaned. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he said. “I don’t. I don’t want anything bad to happen to anybody…”

Lilun started to edge away. Benson had his back turned as he waited for the elevator. The door only locked one way – if she was fast, she could make it to some Valley terminal, somewhere, even if it wasn’t the one back home…

“I need you to help me,” said Benson. “It would be good for your health.” Lilun understood the gravity of this statement. “I’ll tell you all about the project,” he said. “Everything you need to know. You’ll understand why we brought them down there. I’ll tell you right now – whatever harm we do to them, the technology we’re working on right now will be enough to bring them to better health than they ever had before. Every disease that ever wracked your planet, we could cure it – you’d be a heroine.”

Lilun fell against the door and spilled into the hallway. It was more congested than ever, and when she ducked her head down and pulled back her ears, she could hide between the masses of churning bodies. Behind her, she heard Benson burst through the door after her only to be immediately swallowed by a dozen confused, worried people wondering what had just exploded.

There wasn’t a spare second. Benson would tell them she’d done it, and then there would be no escape. Lilun dove into a stairwell and scaled the stairs, panting, until she came to sublevel 6B - the primary research station for Western dynamics. The entrances to Au’wm and Tearis would be guarded, but nobody in their right mind would think to get out through an unstable Valley. Lilun sometimes took specimens from this sublevel and came here often enough to know which Valleys to avoid, and which ones might be safe enough at least to hide in for a while.

The Valley terminal on sublevel 6B was completely empty. All the researchers were on other floors, it seemed, trying to find out what was happening. Lilun found the map of the Valleys posted on one of the terminal walls and found the most promising listing: “TE-?-COON43-A – DARK.” Lilun understood the code: the Valley led to Tearis, an unknown location, and one of the tunnels in Coonswater town on earth. “DARK” meant that Lilun would be walking blind, but with potentially the entire BRI trying to find her, she knew that darkness could mean safety.

Lilun walked down the empty terminal until she found the Valley she was looking for. She hesitated as she approached it – “DARK” was right. It was the darkest tunnel she’d ever seen - the Valley seemed to pool out of its own tunnel, sucking out the light from the terminal hallway. Her fur stood on end as she stepped into the darkness, and all the familiar scents of the BRI were snuffed out like a candle. That was the way the West was – empty.

A line of metal railing had been installed along the wall to Lilun’s left. Lilun clutched it, taking one blind step and then another. She looked back over her shoulder, but even after a few steps, she couldn’t see the light from the terminal behind her. She wanted to go back. She couldn’t go back. She thought about what Benson had said to her while he’d waited for the elevator, the redness in his eyes, the way he’d seemed on the verge of crying or passing out. He was out of his mind, but the entire organization, with all its sublevels and facilities and divisions and thousands and thousands of employees, followed him doggedly. They were doing something to the Xzeejees, whatever it was, something bad, and Lilun was a Xzeejee… She couldn’t go back.

Lilun kept moving forward, but the tunnel seemed to go on forever. She hadn’t thought to look at the map to see how long it was. Stupid. Lilun paused, trying to will herself to go forward. She had to go forward… but she could go forever, and not reach an end for days…

Something made a noise. Nothing big – maybe just a single footstep.

Sometimes, people who went to study the West never came back. Sometimes their mummified bodies would turn up months later, in places that everyone swore they’d already looked. Sometimes they’d turn up in pieces. Usually, they’d just disappear, maybe lost, maybe worse.

Lilun froze, every hair on her body standing up, listening. Nothing moved. She waited, trying not to breathe, ears perked. Still nothing. She waited for several long minutes and then, slowly, began to back up.

From three feet in front of her, Lilun heard a low, gravelly man’s voice: “Nuh-uh, you ain’t going nowhere.” And from the blackness, something came charging at her. Lilun sprinted through the darkness, one finger anchored to the railing until she felt something, someone jumping onto her back and tackling her to the ground.