Beneath Burning Sands: Burning Sands, #1

TEST BUNKER 1

CHAPTER ONE

Waking from hibernation was like getting a hydrochloric acid drip while a heavyweight boxer worked your gut. At twenty-seven years old, Reggie Katsura Lee—Reginald to his subordinates—had gone through the experience once before and thought he’d discovered the pinnacle of human pain.

It was worse the second time.

He opened his eyes to the expected sight of a gummy, gooey, distorted window into the world outside: the hibernation tank lid. There was nothing to do about that, not until the waking process completed. The tank’s motors whirred and the drainage system gurgled, sucking away the slushy brine he’d floated in for the last month. At the same time, the tank-fluid heaters and his reconstituted, reheated, recirculating blood slowly warmed his body temperature back to normal.

He needed to scream but couldn’t. The hard rubber mask covering his face had yet to pull back and clear his esophagus.

His panic was apparently the signal the system had been waiting for; the mask assembly peeled off, taking a layer of dead skin with it.

Free of the mask, he gasped.

Then his body shook and his guts twisted. He vomited up the fluid filling his stomach. The drainage system slurped up that briny mixture as well without complaint. After a minute, the pumps went silent, and the tank shifted from a horizontal position to a forty-five degree angle, sliding him down to the bottom.

It was colder this time around. He shivered uncontrollably and his teeth chattered. He glanced down to confirm the thermal insulation layer was intact. Blurry vision and all, he could still see it: a second skin—gray, slick, and covered here and there by clumps of a phlegmy, green, cheese-like substance. It reminded Reggie of pictures he’d seen of newborn babies during an advanced biology class his mother had forced him to take in high school.

You need more college prep classes. Your father’s money can only do so much. That had been in her clipped, crisp English. She was third generation Japanese-American and always seemed ashamed of it. Ashamed of being Japanese or American, he could never tell. Her contempt for his father’s Chinese heritage was clearer.

Money solves so many problems, Reggie reminded himself.

The lid popped, and warm, stale air rushed in.

The first time he’d gone under had been for a week in the main research lab of his employer, Frontierza. The air in the lab had been cool and fresh.

But now…

The habitat modules of Test Bunker 1 were just larger versions of that lab. Everything should have been the same.

Everything.

Reggie hissed as he pulled the IV lines from his arms with shaking hands. Dark blood oozed from the puffy wounds left by the needle.

No one could see him. He let a tear track down the tender skin of his face, but his throat was too raw to cry. He lay in the tank for a minute, counting the seconds for distraction, just hoping the pain would pass. When it didn’t, he dug the hooked fingers of his right hand into the insulation layer covering him and began peeling it away.

His fingers were weak, stiff, clumsy.

Finally, the insulation started to dry out and harden. It came away in whole sections—an arm, his chest, his legs. It tore away hair that shouldn’t have had time to re-grow, leaving his flesh tingly and raw. He was sure someone had run a cheese grater over his scrotum.

Panic threatened to settle in, so he took several deep breaths, the way he’d been trained to do. The pain was expected. He’d just forgotten how bad it was. The cold and stiffness was probably the result of not being ready for the pain. That was all.

The sole of his foot scraped across the lip at the bottom of the tank as he took a tentative step out. He immediately collapsed to the warm, white floor tiles. The impact was enough to force a scream through his raw throat. He shifted his legs beneath him, confused by their weakness and the sense of vertigo that had toppled him. It wasn’t just his brain that was having problems.

Something was wrong.

The room was just as he remembered it, although darker than expected. LEDs flickered beneath plastic covers. In the half-light he could make out the details of the commander’s cabin: the frosted plastic of the corner shower; the white, molded plastic of his dresser and desk with built-in terminal; the full-length mirror he’d specifically requested for everyone; and the sturdy, fold-down bunk on the wall opposite the door.

Hatch, he mouthed, correcting himself out of habit. He needed to reinforce to his team that this wasn’t some informal testing environment. Terminology mattered.

The hibernation systems in Test Bunker 1 were meant for astronauts and explorers going on deep space travel, so everything was modeled after the exploration ships: hatches, passageways, cabins, and so on. His cabin in the Command Habitat Module was analogous to the Mission Commander’s cabin in the current sleeper ship design. In the sleeper ship, the module would rest beneath the main hub; in Test Bunker 1, it was fifteen feet beneath the main body of the complex, under the burning sands of the Nevada desert.

He stared at the dim LEDs for a few seconds, wondering if there might be a power problem. There had to be. That would be the only reasonable explanation for the strange waking aftereffects. Maybe his blood hadn’t been fully heated after reconstitution. Maybe it had been injected at a higher pressure than expected.

A reactor failure. That would explain a lot.

A piercing jolt stabbed his brain. He closed his eyes and shook his head, wishing the pain away.

Water, he realized. He was dehydrated. There should be a hydration solution somewhere...the memory slithered through his brain like a slug. At the base of the tank was a white plastic bottle with a faint trickle of fluid oozing over the side. He stretched forward and pulled the bottle out of its niche. Oil-slick, orange goo dripped onto his hands; he took a slow pull.

Sickening sweetness and grimace-inducing saltiness wrapped up in a gritty slurry—that was what the biologists and nutritionists had come up with as the ultimate wake-up shake. It was a horrible concoction of essential vitamins, nutrients, minerals, and a fluid that could carry it all and help hold it down.

Reggie nearly spit up what he’d managed to swallow; the anti-nausea component wasn’t quite as effective as advertised.

His stomach protested, but the chemicals eventually shut down the vomit reflex. After a few deep breaths, he finished the bottle off. He sat up and leaned against the tank. And waited. His team would be going through the same thing, most of them for the first time. He’d warned them what it would be like, but...

His stomach lurched again.

He daydreamed about taking his rebuilt Porsche 911 out to Wyoming to test the engine. He tried to remember the last trip to Kandy Kane’s and all the money he’d spent on strippers. They didn’t even pretend to like him—but it was still a vivid memory. Then he visualized his digital assistant screen showing the bonus Frontierza had deposited in the team’s accounts just before hibernation. He imagined getting back to his FlashFit routine and hitting the new targets he’d set for himself, as soon as the shakes and weakness of his muscles wore off.

The headache subsided slightly, then the nausea. His core was still chilled, but it was getting better. After a moment of convincing himself he was ready, he hauled himself back to his feet using the hibernation tank for support.

The room spun and his legs wobbled, but he stayed upright.

He glanced down and let out a yelp.

The weakness of his muscles wasn’t due to the awakening process.

His stomach was a soft, sunken sheet of flesh. The muscles he’d worked so hard to define were gone. The same was true of his thighs. Memories of a pudgy little boy came back. Ridiculed. Harassed. Ostracized. He’d fought so hard to escape that Reggie and to be someone who couldn’t ever have been like that. He was someone respected. A project leader with a team of twenty to see through the most important project Frontierza had ever had...the most important project humans had ever had!

Not real, he muttered. It came out like a weak squeal.

He made his way to the mirror, each step stiff and awkward. He was terrified what he might see after a month in the capsule.

His pecs—never on par with his abs—were soft, flabby. Almost sagging. Other than the puffy wounds from the needles and discoloration up and down his arms, they were unremarkable. There was absolutely no definition. Nothing! There had been an artistry to what he’d done to his forearms and deltoids. The carefully crafted physique that had so completely supplemented the perfect hairstyle to create an image worthy of his Harvard and Stanford pedigree...wiped out. All gone!

He really was doughy Reggie, the son of a failed millionaire, soft and weak as a newborn.

Tears threatened again.

He poked an index finger into his gut; the tip disappeared up to the first joint. Who cared if the security systems caught him blubbering like a baby? Everything was lost now. Everything! His promotion was probably—

He jumped.

A deep, metallic clang hummed through the wall. An echo. Plumbing, or maybe air conditioning.

Then a scraping sound, metal-on-metal. Someone doing maintenance?

The lights went out.

CHAPTER TWO

It had to be the others, Reggie was sure. A prank, maybe a misguided celebration. The hatch would open, and they would shout surprise!. And then they would laugh at him, laugh at what he’d become in hibernation.

The emergency lights kicked on, revealing…nobody.

Little more than thin strips of amber LEDs with attached batteries, the lights were good for maybe a few hours. They cast everything in a golden, reassuring glow. But Reggie wasn’t reassured. He moved to his dresser and slid a drawer open quietly. Plastic-wrapped underwear, gym clothes, coveralls, and socks were arrayed inside, all adorned with Frontierza’s logo—a spaceship heading toward a star. He pulled the underwear out first, tore open the wrapper, and tugged the briefs on, wincing at the discomfort of the one size fits all design. The coveralls went on next. He had one sock on when the clanging started again. What was it?

He was only halfway through pulling on the second sock when the scraping returned. What the hell?

The terminal came to a sort of half-life. It was a thin slab of glass with a graceful, arcing base that flattened out and slid into the desktop. The display portion turned black, and a pulsing circle of turquoise filled the center.

System activated, said a tinny voice.

Reggie nearly fell onto his butt. He’d completely forgotten about the automated system: ARDA—Analysis and Research Data Assistant. It had been a last-minute addition to the proof of concept, another prototype. He wasn’t even sure it was truly functional, although he’d become better dealing with the advanced interface than anyone on his team.

He leaned closer to the terminal. Hello?

Voice recognition successful, Arda said. Her voice was clean and precise—sophisticated—like someone with an excellent education and stage experience. Project Director Reginald Katsura Lee.

The clanging from outside nearly drowned out his last name.

Yeah, that’s me. Reggie found sneakers in another drawer and pulled them on. Can you understand me?

Voice distortion compensation and noise cancellation enabled. Comprehension within limits.

Finally something was working right.

There’s, uh... The clanging and scraping was probably nothing, but the power outage could be a serious issue. The lights went out and I came out of hibernation hard. Is something wrong with the reactor?

The reactor has been shut off. The facility is running on battery power.

Um. The sluggishness caused by the hibernation and the metallic banging made it hard to figure out why that was bad. He covered his ears and concentrated. Wait. How long before we get power back online? Battery power can’t keep all the hibernation tanks running forever.

Battery power will expire in fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Fifteen min—

That had to be wrong. Impossible. The batteries were rated for days.

It took hours to bring someone out of hibernation properly. Hours and a lot of power.

There are people still in hibernation. Right? You woke me first. That’s standard—

That is standard protocol.

Right. Well, we can’t wake the others in fifteen minutes.

You have sufficient power to wake eleven other hibernating subjects using the emergency protocols used to wake you. This will consume eighty percent of stored power.

Eleven... Reggie blinked. There are twenty people down here with me.

There are sixteen personnel in Test Bunker One.

Names and titles scrolled down the display.

No, there were... The banging noise grew louder. Hey! Where’s Marissa? Marissa Ortiz? And Susan Tyler? And Dale Robbins?

Someone else was missing; he couldn’t remember who. And he didn’t recognize one of the names.

Arda said, Marissa Ortiz, Susan Tyler, and Perry Goodwin’s hibernation tanks all suffered catastrophic failure. Dale Robbins expired shortly after entering hibernation.

Perry Goodwin. That was his name.

Oh shit!

Expired? Catastrophic failure?

Arda didn’t respond.

This wasn’t happening. He’d selected Marissa and Susan himself, the hottest lab tech and scientist he’d ever seen. And Dale was a real friend and professional, exactly the sort of supportive follower a manager needed to hold a team together, plus, he was as big into FlashFit as Reggie was. Dale had been the only person Reggie could open up to, the only person who understood the crushing pressure that was there every day.

The banging intensified and became rhythmic. He couldn’t think. Could you stop the banging and scraping sounds, please?

Reggie got up and headed for the hatch, leaning against the wall for support.

There is no control over the reported sounds.

What? Reggie glared over his shoulder at the terminal. Why not?

The sounds are from an external source.

External source?

Reggie stopped at the hatch.

Suddenly it dawned on him: This was a test.

He felt stupid, but then he remembered that he’d just come out of a month-long sleep. He grimaced and set a hand on the hatch release bar.

Cancel simulation. Okay?

The clanging stopped, and something heavy rattled and slammed against the wall and floor outside. Whatever had made the noise settled against the hatch with a loud thud.

A distorted roar boomed through the corridor outside.

It reminded Reggie of an enraged gorilla: deep, throaty, bone-jarring.

He pulled his hand away from the release bar and stepped back.

Wh-what was that?

He flashed back to nightmares of facing a test he hadn’t studied for.

Arda said, The sounds registering on audio sensors are from the external source previously identified. Also, the hatch to the Command Habitat Module has been breeched. It might have fallen into the passageway.

No. Reggie took two steps back from his hatch. "I don’t understand. What’s going on? We’re fifty feet below ground, one hundred miles from the nearest population center, in the heart of the desert. No one could be here. And the power can’t be down. We have the most advanced fusion reactor known to humanity and a field of low-maintenance windmills and solar panels for backup. There are so many redundancies built into everything down here, nothing can fail. This can’t be happening."

Another heavy thud sounded outside.

Not metallic like the first noise. The sound had changed.

Reggie backed away until his butt banged against the hibernation tank.

Arda said, The reactor was taken offline as a security and safety measure. Perimeter security was breached three months ago. Its voice suddenly sounded far too loud. You were awakened fifteen minutes ago, when power from the renewable sources failed.

Reggie turned around and held a finger to his lips. Arda, can you cut your volume by about half, please?

Audio output reduced by fifty percent.

Thank you.

Security breach. Power cut off. Something hacking into the Command Habitat Module.

Reggie edged along the tank, then froze.

The clanging began again, this time much closer.

Someone was in the passageway just outside the hatch to his cabin.

They had to have broken into the Command Habitat Module, which was just him and his management team. Whoever it was had broken in and triggered the reactor shutdown that...

Wait.

Did you say the reactor shut down three months ago?

Eighty-eight days, sixteen hours, and forty—

Eighty-eight days? What the hell? We were only scheduled to be asleep for a month.

The clanging grew louder and Reggie cupped his hands over his ears. For a simulation, the noise was dangerously loud.

He felt legitimately threatened. If his guts hadn’t already been purged during the wake-up, he would probably have crapped himself.

What’s going on, Arda? This doesn’t make any sense!

As stated, security has been breached. You have less than thirteen minutes of power remaining. You can now wake ten people.

Ten? You said eleven.

The simulation he was trapped in was messed up, unfair. It was like that thing they did in that space movie, the simulation with a Japanese name. You couldn’t win it; the test was supposed to evaluate how the participant dealt with losing. Reggie hated it. This was his team, his responsibility.

The clanging stopped.

Something heavy scraped against the Command Module hatch that had fallen from above. Something was moving it.

The simulation was calling for some sort of defense. He needed security, people who could deal with an intruder. He needed to block the hatch to his cabin first. He dug another set of coveralls from the drawer and tore the plastic wrapper open, then hurried to the hatch mechanism and used the coveralls to tie the bar tight against the frame. No sooner had he finished than the bar seemed to move slightly, as if something were testing it. The coverall material strained but held.

He backed away. Uh, Arda, prioritize the list of people to wake based off physical parameters—um, size, then fitness scores. After that, weapons qualifications. After that, sort on...

The clanging began again, now directly against the hatch. It was deafening.

Prioritize technical skills, then military training, then—

The hatch shook.

It was just aluminum, Reggie realized. Not steel. Not some crazy materials like a sleeper space craft would have.

Wake them up! Wake them up! He glared at the terminal. Do you hear me?

The list sorted, and the names at the top began to blink. Reggie’s guts twisted. None of his management team had made the cut.

Once again, he didn’t recognize one of the names: Rios, Christian. Someone he didn’t know had been selected over those he did.

At least two of the security team had been selected.

Reggie wiped a trembling hand over his face. The idea of condemning people to death was sickening. If this was a simulation, he was going to file a complaint.

The banging grew even louder, and the hatch visibly shook in its frame. Reggie was sure his head was going to explode.

Awakening commencing, Arda said.

The awakening process dimmed the emergency lights.

Something big and metallic punched through the hatch with a nightmarish, groaning squeal, twisting the metal at the top into sharp, ugly teeth.

The terrible, animal roar he’d heard earlier filled the cabin through the gash. A shadow on the other side of the hole sniffed wildly at the air. Reggie recoiled. The shadow was big enough to displace the air and had a foul musk, worse than a locker room before cleaning day.

It wasn’t a simulation.

Something really was in the passageway. And it was coming to kill him.

CHAPTER THREE

The dark head of the weapon bashing in the cabin’s hatch twisted against the shiny aluminum. The metal head rocked from side to side, and metal squealed on metal. There was even a metallic scent, as if aluminum particles had been knocked free and suspended in the air.

It was stuck!

The weapon was a crude axe. A huge, crude axe. Dulled from repeated use, maybe against metal hatches throughout the complex.

But what mattered was the weapon seemed stuck. He had a chance. He glanced around the cabin, hoping to spot a weapon. A knife, a gun, a bazooka...something!

What he had was a hibernation tank in the cabin center, a shower and toilet against the western wall, a desk and mirror against the eastern wall, and a bunk and dresser drawers against the southern wall. The dresser drawers held his clothing and personal possessions.

No weapons.

Bestial grunting and snorting leaked through the hole. Once again, Reggie thought of a gorilla. He held his breath, hoping the thing would lose interest.

Instead, the axe head twisted in the hole. A jagged piece of aluminum fell from the hatch with a crack. The weapon started to come free.

The grunting and snorting intensified. Then the axe head pulled free with a wrenching of metal.

And then the banging began again.

The whole cabin seemed to shudder from the blows. Whatever was on the other side of the hatch was going to break in and try to kill him.

Reggie dropped to his knees and searched the drawers, hoping for a pleasant surprise, something like a shotgun or a laser sword. The drawers held nothing more dangerous than the dirty clothes he’d bagged up before going into hibernation.

He glanced at the terminal. Do we have any weapons inside the complex?

Frontierza stored no weapons within Test Bunker 1. The purpose of the research was to test—

A no is fine, thanks. Reggie got to his feet.

No weapons. He was screwed.

The axe head got stuck again, and an eerie quiet settled over the cabin. Reggie sighed in relief.

The dim lighting made it impossible to pick out details in the passageway through the opening torn in the hatch, but he could see something moving beyond the axe head.

Black hair rushed by the hole, and then an eye peered into the cabin.

Shit! Reggie stepped back.

The eye was big—bigger than a human eye—and bloodshot. The eye moved, was replaced by a large human nose, which made loud sniffing sounds.

Reggie fought down a whimpering, gurgling sound deep in his throat. He fought back panic.

Panic was surrender. Panic was death.

The mirror! If he shattered it, he might get lucky and get a decent-sized shard. Wrap it with sheets from the plastic packets beneath the bed, and he might be able to get a stab at the thing before the glass cut his hands to shreds. But that wouldn’t kill something as big as it seemed to be, even if it was human. He needed something that could get to its guts or heart or brain.

The thing went back to work twisting the axe loose, and after a minute of high-pitched metal-on-metal scraping, the weapon came free once more.

And then came the banging.

It was more like a terrible sundering of metal now, all squeals and grinding and groaning. Another piece of metal—this one as big as a slice of New York pizza—curled up and fell to the floor.

The thing stuck its entire face against the hole, dark eyes rolling, broad nose sniffing, thick lips peeling back to reveal large teeth. The face was human, or nearly so, with a broad forehead, wide, protruding cheekbones and a heavy beard and mustache. Its skin was somewhat coppery in the amber LED light.

A giant ape-man, or a caveman.

The black eyes met Reggie’s, and the dark lips twisted into a triumphant smile.

Reggie shook his head. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

The axe rattled to the passageway floor. Thick, knotty fingers tested the hatch, grabbing at the mangled aluminum. Finally, the thing pulled.

The hatch groaned but held. The fingers slipped back out, and the axe scraped over the floor.

The banging resumed.

It won’t hold long.

Now he understood what had happened to the people who had died. Catastrophic failure of the hibernation tanks. Of course. Something that could hack through an aluminum hatch could tear apart one of the tanks. Easily.

Reggie sucked in air. He turned to the terminal. How long before the others are awake?

Seven minutes and forty-five seconds remain in the awakening process.

You said when those were done, we’d have power left over.

The awakening process will consume eighty percent—

Yeah, that’s it. Reggie dropped to all fours and crawled to the tank. He was still weak. I want you to re-route power to my cabin.

You wish to abort the awakening process?

No. Reggie tried to pry the hibernation tank’s base plate away, but it was put together too well to get even a fingernail underneath.

Not made in China, his mother would have observed, coldly.

Reggie leaned back onto his elbows and kicked the plate. It buckled near the seam. He stuck