PART 1
1973
The door will open and something will enter. It is always something ugly. He is grateful for this.
He must kill whatever comes through and he doesn’t want to destroy anything beautiful.
The speaker in his helmet crackles. “Final suit check. Clear left, please.”
The Ageless Man aims his left arm at nothing and presses the trigger button. The weapon strapped to his forearm instantly fires a small explosive round into the far wall. The report echoes through the room, but inside his helmet the Ageless Man does not hear it. Dust and smoke rise from the fist-sized crater left in the concrete.
“Clear right, please.”
He hesitates, then repeats the action for the larger weapon on his right arm. The blast shakes his body. He hates the cannon, never uses it in battle - the painful recoil causes his eyes to water. The barrel is heavy, though, and makes a decent club.
“Gun functions green. Our betters didn’t offer a profile for today’s contestant, say it’s anyone’s guess. Do you have a plan, Mr. Love?”
Plan? The same as always. Whatever comes through the door will charge or try to flee. If it flees he will chase it down. If it charges he will jump and counter-attack from above. He tests the jumpchain, swatting it with the blade of his axe. A shiver twangs up the chain into the darkness above him, 500 feet into the half-mad, half-genius network of pulleys and gears that are his greatest advantage.
“Door opens in five, four…”
The Ageless Man sets his feet. He is already sweating in the heavy battlesuit – thick Kevlar over chainmail - it weighs more than he does. It slows him down and he is not fast to begin with. He thinks the suit makes him look like a deep-sea explorer, the “brass and glass” helmet they make him wear perfects the comparison. He is embarrassed to wear it. The embarrassment mixes with his fear, making him feel weak.
“Three, two…”
The Ageless Man holds a breath and in his pre-fight ritual tries to recall a time before this room, before the door, before the voice in his helmet. As usual, he cannot. This is all he knows.
“One.”
The door opens and the beast comes forth, straight at him. He is stunned for a moment - it has been some time since he has seen one this ugly. The thing towers at twelve feet tall, two powerful legs propelling the misshapen torso at unnatural speed. The legs and body are without skin, exposing the creature’s over-developed muscles to the air. Infection mottles the twitching meat like leopard spots. In the place of arms are six tentacles, each one nearly seven feet long tipped with long, hooked talons that ooze a thick black mucus. Rows of small red eyes run down the top two tentacles, their tiny black irises focused on the Ageless Man. There are no eyes on the head. No ears, no nose. The head is simply a large mouth extending from a short neck, the bare, lipless jaws set with four rows of sharp human incisors. A bifurcated tongue licks the air.
The thing screams as it charges. The sound pierces his armor; he can feel the creature’s suffering on his skin. He can feel its fear. Its hatred.
The Ageless Man raises both arms and fires his weapons, to little effect. The creature is almost on him, so close he can count the teeth. He presses the spring in the heel of his boot activating the jumpchain and is yanked into the air in an instant. The ascent is so violent it feels as if he his being torn in half. He keeps firing as the chain pulls him higher, ignoring the cannon’s painful recoil, which is worse than usual. Everything is worse than usual today. His eyes water, but it doesn’t matter - the twin muzzle flashes make it impossible to see anything. He fires blindly. Screw it, he thinks, maybe I’ll get lucky. Thirty feet in three seconds, the peak of his jump. He can feel the vibrations of the powerful mechanism far above him keeping him aloft, his puppet master working overtime. It must need maintenance, he thinks. The lift took too much out of him, pulled him too hard too fast. He already feels spent. He keeps firing. In two more seconds his guns go quiet, the ammo depleted on both. Arrogant or stupid, he wonders. Either way, a bad mistake.
He can make out the creature below him, still moving, still very much alive. A detail catches his eye: one of the tentacles is clutching something strange. He can’t make out what. Did one of the crew leave something in the room? There would be hell to pay. These beasts are hard enough to kill without giving them tools. At last his eyes clear and the strange object comes into focus…
A human leg. His leg. He reaches down and feels the stump where his left leg was only five seconds ago.
The nausea moves up his body, cold and swift, knotting in his throat – he fights the urge to vomit. He knows he has seconds before he passes out. His left hand punches the chain release and the Ageless Man drops in freefall. He prays his aim is true.
He lifts his axe, ready to bring it down on the monster with all the velocity of his freefall, hoping he hits a weak spot. Four tentacles grab him, stopping him cold in mid-air, too far from the creature’s body for him to strike. That’s it then, he thinks. The bastard got me. The hooked talons easily pierce his armor; black mucus burns his skin as the tentacles begin to squeeze. He can feel his ribs begin to crack, then shatter. The breath leaves him as his lungs collapse. He brings the axe down on the tentacle around his chest but the angle is bad - the carbon blade cuts deeply, but not through. The arms tighten.
The Ageless Man tries to scream as his right leg is torn from his body, but he has no air and produces only a bloody whimper. Surprised he is still conscious, he waits for the rest of his body to be ripped apart.
Instead, the creature pulls him closer.
The impossible mouth draws near with its lipless jaws and rows of tiny human teeth. He wonders how long it will take for the beast to chew him properly. A long time, he imagines. The end is close now, the creature’s breath fogs the helmet’s faceplate. Its stench seeps inside, coloring the air, jolting him awake. The fact of his impending death blossoms in his mind, offering up a sudden, clear vision of his final act. The Ageless Man draws back and with a last summoning of strength brings his helmet down on the grinning jaw-head. Teeth shatter against the metal and glass. The creature stops its shrieking, stunned into silence. He can see the line of narrow red eyes pressed against his side-plate go wide with shock - the bully got its nose broke. The Ageless Man musters a second wave of energy and brings his helmet down again on the bleeding maw. A third time. A fourth. He believes each strike will be his last, but each grows in force. He can feel the beast’s legs weaken, it gives him strength. He commits every fading drop of life that remains inside him into this suicide-assault on the monster’s head, smashing bone, enamel and sick flesh into pulp.
The creature drops to the floor, still clutching the Ageless Man to its chest. He can feel its heart beating deep within the putrid chest, still fast, still strong. He flicks the switch at his belt, triggering the suit’s immolation timer. In a few seconds the armor will go incandescent and burn through the creature’s torso, turning them both into a heap of molten shit. Sometimes it’s the only way to kill these things.
He doesn’t think he’ll die before the heat begins, so the Ageless Man prepares himself for a brief instant of fire-y suffering. He tells himself it could be worse. He’ll be a comet. A heroic star.
His foe has other plans.
In its own dying act of defiance, the creature rips both arms from the man’s shoulders. The creature is weak, so the dismemberment is slow and sloppy. Wings off a fly. Searing, snapping red pain. The Ageless Man screams in agony for what seems an eternity.
At last his suit begins to burn - slowly, all too slowly - building to the heat of a sun, and The Ageless Man returns to ashes.
Dr. Vincent Monroe has presided over forty-odd recompositions now, but it never gets easier for him. For starters, the basic procedure is morbid: collect whatever pieces remain, identify them (if possible), then arrange the pieces in their correct positions relative to the original body (as best you can). The pieces should be cleaned of any major debris and clothing, but not washed. Dirty pieces mend better, for reasons that elude everyone. After the best approximation of human shape has been formed, the body, such as it is, is then buried in four feet of fresh soil. Monroe uses earth from a chicken farm in the Shenandoah Valley, but most types seem to work. Nothing too sandy or rocky. His predecessor brought in dirt from his own backyard. The “body garden” is then sealed from light and view, as observation of any kind will disrupt the process. Inside the door is attached a large brass bell over a century old. A yellow ribbon is tied around the Cherrywood handle, a tradition that predates Monroe by thirty years.
Then comes the waiting, which can last up to six months. According to the records it has never taken longer. The job is done when the bell rings.
It hasn’t rung in three weeks.
So, Dr. Victor Monroe, once brilliant oncologist, now a custodian-priest, waits. The waiting used to be the worst part for him, when his imagination would run wild, spinning his worldview like a top, but after eight years in The Tomb Dr. Monroe has learned the value in doing and thinking as little as possible. He calls it “Long-haul meditation”.
He is reclining in his office chair, an orange corduroy-upholstered nightmare, reading a new copy of The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, comprehending none of it and completely at peace, when his intercom buzzes. That was fast, he thinks.
“DOCTOR?” Private First Class Rudy Borowitz, the 52-year old paper-pusher from Cherry, New Jersey, always spoke too close to the speaker. He tries again. “Doctor?”
“Yes, Rudy, did the bell ring?”
“No, sir, not yet. There’s someone here to see you. A, uh, a visitor.”
“Oh,” asks Monroe, stunned. “Who?” A visitor? Never once in his eight years down here. Whoever this visitor is they will be his first and a lifetime in government tells him that cannot be good. His sense of peace has vanished.
“A Mrs. Temple. Eudora Temple,” comes the reply.
He doesn’t know the name. “She has the proper credentials?” Idiot question, he thinks. They’re a mile underground.
“Yes.”
“Then I guess…send her in.” He hopes she is wearing nice perfume. It’s gotten too stuffy down here, he thinks, and tries to remember if he has any candles stashed in his desk. No time for that, though…
One look at Eudora Temple tells Monroe she is the more accomplished between the two of them despite being fifteen years his junior. A young black woman, glowing with confidence. My God, he thinks, the things she must have suffered to be sanding here like this. He’s not even fifty, but if this was his replacement, so be it. This young lady is probably as ready as anyone can be for what she is about to learn about the world.
“I apologize for Rudy,” offers Monroe.
“I beg your pardon?”
“He called you a Mrs., but my guess is you’re a doctor, isn’t that right?”
“It is, yes,” she answers, caught slightly off-guard. “I have Ph.D.’s in bioengineering and neuropharmacology. I told the Private as much, but I guess he didn’t hear me.” If the snub from PFC. Borowitz bothered her she doesn’t show it. Eudora looks around for seat, finding none. Monroe presses the intercom.
“Rudy, could you bring Doctor Temple a chair, please?” He smiles at her. “Not a surplus of worldly gentlemen down here in the dark. We’ve grown a bit fungal in our manners, I’m afraid. Your perfume is lovely, by the way. Hibiscus?”
Eudora Temple places a file on Monroe’s desk. “Dr. Monroe, I’ve been assigned to study - to oversee the study - of the regeneration cycle of the, um, of the government’s ward.”
“The ward?”
“Yes, the ward,” she says, holding eye contact with Monroe. She senses the impending mockery and heads it off with a practiced combination of dexterity and force. “He isn’t a prisoner, is he?”
Monroe sits back in his chair, already conceding. “No, not as such.”
“He isn’t really a volunteer, either, though.”
“Definitely not a volunteer.“
“And calling him ‘the subject’ seems pejorative…”
“We call him Ray or Raymond or Mr. Love, you know, like the wrestler.”
“The wrestler?”
“Raymond Love, semi-famous wrestler back in the 20’s. Happened before I got here, so that’s all I know about it. I think he chose it himself, but…”
“But that’s not his real name, of course,” says Eudora, trying to confirm that she has not in fact been thrown to a pack of morons.
“He calls himself The Ageless Man.”
The door opens and Rudy enters dragging behind him one of the small government issue chairs seemingly designed for maximum discomfort. He sets it down and leaves without a word, never making eye-contact with Eudora. She had noticed his burn-scarred face earlier and thought she had adequately hidden her repulsion, but now she wasn’t so sure. When the door closes she sits.
Monroe can tell she is used to government chairs. “Long time in the government?”
“They paid for my education, so after school I honored my commitment. I was five years at NASA.”
“NASA, huh? Peachy gig, lucky you. May I ask doing what?”
“Researching the effects of prolonged space flight on human physiology.”
Monroe leans back in his prized chair, letting the old springs screech long and loudly. He wonders just how badly they misinformed this woman, or if someone is playing a joke on her, or maybe on him. “He’s not an alien, you know.”
“I know that!” Her response is a hair too defensive, so she repeats herself in a softer tone. “I know that.”
“That’s good,” he smiles, genuinely relieved. “It’s good you know that. I didn’t mean to offend…”
“I’ve been fully briefed, Dr. Monroe.”
“It’s weird down here,” Monroe says without warning or irony.
“Obviously.”
Monroe leans forward. “No, I mean beyond the briefing. It’s weird down here, and after a while it makes you weird.”
“Fungal.”
“Precisely.” Monroe pauses. He’s saying too much, too soon. He doesn’t know if this is a new employee, the new boss, or his replacement. What he does know is that there is no bright career waiting for him after his service in The Tomb is concluded. The best he can hope for will be a small practice in some quaint fart of a town between Montana and Maine, somewhere with bad winters and hick neighbors…
Eudora reads the concern in Monroe’s silence and decides to save the poor man from his thoughts. “Dr. Monroe, I’m not here to take your job. My responsibilities will run parallel to your own.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You maintain while I study.”
“Uh-huh. Study…”
“Yes.”
Monroe’s eyes fix on Eudora. He speaks with a gravity that conflicts with the simplicity of his statement. “We should take a tour.”
For the first time, Eudora shifts in the uncomfortable chair.