Still Waters

Hank walked his rounds like he did every night. He started in the living areas, kitchen, break rooms, and such. There were a few people in break room C, a pallid man in his mid-fifties with a coffee stain on his lab coat and a stern-looking woman with her salt and pepper hair pulled up into a tight bun, her lab coat was the very picture of tidy. She had been stirring her coffee absentmindedly as she read what he assumed were very important reports on her tablet. Neither had said a word to Hank as he moved through the cavernous break room, though the man had nodded silently to him as he passed. Hank didn’t really fault them; guns made a lot of people nervous and in his time here he had noticed that seemed to go double for the science geeks. The next few floors of his rounds were no more exciting than the first, empty labs and server rooms, followed by the engineering floors. Nothing on them but machine rooms, climate control units, oxygen scrubbers, and massive amounts of plumbing snaking around the place. After that was the part of his rounds Hank dreaded. After that was The Lake.

Officially the bottom floor was designated as the Incubation Chamber, but most of the people in the facility just called it The Lake. The room was almost entirely open, a series of interconnected catwalks spread out over the surface of the water. The whole room had an eerie green cast to it thanks to the lighting requirements for the specimens. One of the scientists had tried to explain it to him once, something about the regular lights interrupting the gestation cycles, but he hadn’t understood the majority of it. The scientists seemed to have no issues walking those catwalks, or at least they never seemed nervous to him, but Hank found the whole floor creepy.

He swiped his ID badge at the door, the light on top flashed green and he heard the mag-bolts in the door release. The door slid open and he stepped through. It was humid in The Lake, Hank always ended up with a fine dew of sweat on his brow by the time he finished this part of his rounds. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim, green lights. Once he could see comfortably again, he moved to the nearest catwalk. The dull clanging of his steps echoed through the room, breaking the tomb-like silence. He paused and looked out over the massive body of liquid; he wasn’t certain it was actual water but based on sheer size it lived up to every ounce of its nickname.

He moved forward out over The Lake. The first section wasn’t so bad, the things they were growing here were at their smallest size, just a gathering of indistinct shapes housed in large clear tubes, each tube was about the size of a large refrigerator, which he would have thought seemed excessive if he hadn’t seen the end product. A shiver ran up his spine at the thought of what lay at the far side of The Lake. He shook his head and chided himself for acting like a small child. Nothing to be afraid of, the specimens were all safely locked within their glass prisons. He drew a deep breath to steady himself and closed his eyes, trying to find his center. He hated being this far underground to begin with, but he could deal with it. The Lake just made his skin crawl. He opened his eyes and stared out over the still waters of The Lake, trying to match its calm.

Once he felt more stable, he continued his patrol of the catwalks. The specimens in the next section were larger, more formed. Some had the appearance of humans, roughly anyways. Many of them were malformed, with too many or too few limbs. Some even had appendages that had no place in human anatomy. He often wished that the waters weren’t so calm, maybe if there was a little turbulence, he wouldn’t have to see them. Some of them had the beginnings of faces. He moved through this section as quickly as he could.

The following section of The Lake housed the older subjects, creatures that had taken their shapes, but still had growing to do. One of the lab coats had once told him it took approximately six months to get most of them to this stage. Something to do with the nutrient rich solutions they floated in and that were fed into them through the myriad tubes inserted into their bodies. He stopped on the catwalk and leaned against the railing. Specimen three-zero-five looked bigger than the last time he saw it, even though it had only been a day since he last patrolled The Lake. It was vaguely humanoid, it had two arms and two legs, but the similarities ended there. It had wings, leathery things sticking out of its back. The hands and feet were reminiscent of a bird of prey’s talons. The head and face were a misshapen amalgam of bird and human, the eyes were set on the sides of the head, which itself tapered to a pointed beak. The beak was hanging open and inside it had teeth, sharp teeth, rows of them. He found that detail morbidly fascinating, enough to push past the anxiety this place elicited in him. “Why the fuck would they give a bird person teeth?” He muttered to himself, not for the first time.

“It wasn’t exactly a choice.” The man behind him had a soft voice, almost like he was accustomed to being shouted down for speaking. Hank was snapped out of his reverie; he turned and faced the man. He was a scientist, the white lab coat made that much obvious. He was short, barely breaking five and a half feet, his brown hair was messy, but not the cool, intentional kind of messy. He was skinny to the point that Hank found himself wondering how he could lift the tablet he was carrying.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Hank said, eyeing the man suspiciously.

“I, uh, I usually work the day shift.” The man shifted uncomfortably. “The teeth are a result of the DNA splicing.”

“What?”

“We can’t always choose exactly what traits to suppress and what ones to…encourage.” Hank got a look at the man’s name tag then. It read Simms, Nathaniel.

“Interesting. So, what brings you down to The Lake at this hour, Mr. Simms?”

“Oh, I pissed off my supervisor…. she made it VERY clear that I should make myself scarce for the foreseeable future.” Simms gestured further down the path with his tablet. “I gotta go pull a specimen to gather a culture.”

Hank nodded. “Right, I’ll see you around.”

Simms shuffled off down the catwalk, his clanging footfalls receding into the gloom. Hank wiped a few beads of sweat from his brown, checked his watch, and continued his rounds. He would be walking the circuit around these catwalks for at least the next thirty minutes, he hoped the awkward little man would be gone by then. It wasn’t that Hank disliked people necessarily, but he liked solitude a whole lot more.

He was about fifteen minutes further into his rounds when the alarm started blaring. The klaxon was going off in the area Simms had headed towards. Hank ran, his boots pounding the catwalk, the thunderous booming of his footfalls would have seemed deafening in the normal silence of The Lake, but the alarm was drowning out most everything else. As he got closer, he could hear Simms yelling.

“No no no no no!”

Hank picked up the pace. He had Simms in sight within a few more seconds. He was frantically typing on his tablet. The waters in front of him were so full of air bubbles it looked like they were boiling. One of the massive metal arms that were used to move specimen tanks was hanging over the area, it twitched and sparked, the metal clamps opening and closing spasmodically. Hank came to a stop a few feet from Simms. “What the hell happened here?”

“The goddamned arm glitched out and dropped the tank for one-four-seven, it slammed into the railing on the way down.” Simms was speaking rapidly, not looking up from his tablet. “I think it cracked and the control units inside aren’t responding.”

“Not responding? Simms, we need to get out of here before…” He was cut off by a new alarm.

“Warning Unauthorized Decanting Detected” The computerized voice warned them. “Lockdown procedures implemented.”

“Fuck…” Hank grabbed Simms by the arm and started to pull him away. “We’ve got to move Simms.”

“No, if I can get it to respond I can fix this!” Simms struggled to stay put.

“Goddamn it, Simms! It’s decanting and we have about forty more seconds before those doors seal us in, now move!” Hank jerked the smaller man’s arm so hard he almost pulled him off his feet.

They made it about twenty feet before Specimen One-Four-Seven burst out of the water. Hank and Simms were nearly knocked off their feet from the tremors its impact caused. It was roughly bipedal, but its arms were too long, almost like a gorilla and it used them for balance. It was heavily muscled, and its massive claws tore into the steel grating of the catwalk. Its scaly body was dripping with whatever viscous goo filled the containment unit it had just escaped from. Its head had the heavy, almost blocky skulled structure of a gorilla, but it had rows and rows of shark-like teeth. Its black eyes glared at them pitilessly. They were given a particularly good view of Its teeth when it unleashed an eardrum shattering roar. Hank grabbed ahold of Simms once more and dragged him behind him as he ran. They were running out of time.

“Full Lockdown in thirty seconds.” The computer sounded entirely too calm given the situation.

One-Four-Seven charged after them, using all four limbs as a chimp or gorilla would. Hank kept looking behind them and the damned thing was gaining on them, easily. Hank could feel panic beginning to set in, his heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird, and he was sweating freely. He was jerked off of his feet when the creature latched onto Simms and tore him out of Hank’s grip. Hank turned and drew his sidearm. The creature was incredibly fast. Before Hank could draw a bead on it the creature had ripped the small screaming man in half and was biting into the gory remains of his torso. Hank fired repeatedly, several of the rounds hit Simms’s corpse with wet thuds, two more impacted the creature in its right shoulder. Dark blood oozed from the holes that had just been punched into its shoulder.

The creature let out a rage filled bellow and threw the two pieces of Simms to either side, they splashed into The Lake, crimson stains snaking out into the water. One-Four-Seven launched itself forward, one clawed hand flashing out at Hank. He dodged backwards, a fraction of a second too late. The claws dug into his side, pain flaring to life, his body's own warning system. As if he needed that right now. He pulled the trigger two more times as the impact of the hit threw him into the railing. The creature roared out in pain again. Hank thought he must have hit it again, he also thought he was bleeding profusely and his ribs on the other side now felt like they were cracked at best. He pushed himself to his feet, his breath was coming raggedly. His injuries were starting to feel more and more serious by the second. He looked up and saw the creature holding one hand to its face and snarling.

Hank took a few steps back. The clock was counting down and he still had quite a way to run. The creature’s head jerked up and he could see that his blind firing had gouged a large rent into the right side of its face. It snarled and let out another bellow, gathering itself up for another lunge. Hank fired at it again, three more rounds, and then the firearm clicked empty. Then he took off running, as fast as his injuries would allow. He could hear One-Four-Seven howling in pain and rage, he must have hit something sensitive this time.

“Full Lockdown in twenty seconds.” Hank was beginning to wish the computer would shut the fuck up.

Hank was beginning to feel faint; he wasn’t sure if it was from blood loss or if one of his ribs had punctured a lung. It could be both, he was having trouble breathing, but he did know for sure that if he didn’t get out that door before the countdown finished, he was fucked. After lockdown came decontamination. There was another roar behind him and then the catwalk began to shake violently. Hank reached into his belt and pulled out a fresh magazine. He ejected the empty and let it fall to the ground, if it got to the point where he needed to refill an empty magazine it wouldn’t matter anymore. He’d be dead for sure. He slammed the full magazine in and spun around.

One-Four-Seven was hot on his heels, its terrible maw stretched open as it roared. Hank fired three rounds, trying to aim for its head but the catwalk was shaking too much. One round went wide, missing it altogether. The other two buried themselves in the beast’s bicep. It latched onto the railing next to it and wrenched it free with a shriek of steel struggling to maintain integrity. The creature hurled the mangled chunk of railing at Hank.

He tried to dive out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The metal slammed into his shoulder, there was a sharp, intense pain and then everything below the shoulder went numb, Hank cried out as he slammed into the catwalk. His gun clattering to the ground next to him. The creature dove at him. Hank rolled onto his broken shoulder, trying to get his good hand to the gun. The pain made his vision dim for a second, then he felt the solid grip of the gun in his palm. He raised the gun and fired at the creature again, it howled and swung itself over the side to get away from the pain. Hank heard it splash into The Lake. He pushed himself to his feet, he was having trouble standing, but when he looked up he could see an exit door.

“Full Lockdown in ten seconds.” The computer called out in its frustrating monotone.

Hank moved as fast as he could. There was movement in the water to his right. He pushed himself to move faster, he was having a much harder time breathing now and he coughed up blood. His vision was blurring. He guessed he had to be within thirty feet of the door now. Then one massive hand reached up from the water and One-Four-Seven vaulted onto the catwalk. It snarled and shambled towards him; Hank had the feeling it wanted to savor this kill after all the pain he had inflicted on it. It snorted and slammed both fists into the catwalk, causing the steel grate to bend.

“Full Lockdown in five seconds.”

Now or never, Hank thought. He raised his gun, held the creature's face in his sights. It moved forward and let out a roar. When it opened its mouth wide Hank fired. He emptied the magazine into the beast’s mouth. It had already started its lunge towards him and the momentum carried it forward. Even after the back of its head had disintegrated into a red mist. He tried to get out of the way, but there wasn’t enough room on the catwalk and the massive corpse landed on top of his legs, pinning him to the catwalk.

“No, goddamn it!” Hank screamed. “I killed it!”

“Full Lockdown initiated.”

Hank snarled as he heard the maglocks slam closed, he struggled to free himself. “Cancel the fucking decontamination! I killed the fucking thing!”

“Decontamination commencing.” The computer announced.

Hank watched as the room began to fill with a fine mist. He had been fully briefed on this process. The room would fill with an aerosolized accelerant and then it would be ignited. Everything not safely ensconced in The Lake would be incinerated. He was about to begin yelling for them to stop the system from setting fire to the whole floor when he looked down and saw the reason they couldn’t.

One-Four-seven’s skull was knitting itself back together. He could see flesh beginning to reform. The creature began to twitch on top of him as life returned to it. He heard the snap of the ignition system and closed his eyes. He was just glad; the fire would be quicker than being eaten alive. The last thing he felt was the heat wash over him.

“Decontamination in progress.”