[Author's Note: This is a private story for the time being.]
ID: UNKNOWN
Location: UNKNOWN
The passage of an eternity in the mere blink of an eye.
She breathed. The simple act sent an involuntary shudder through her body. The sweet, clean air filled her and she paused a moment before slowly exhaling.
Her dark eyes fluttered open. The blinding haze of colors slowly focused and she could see again.
Grey stone, arches, inscriptions. The only light in the room came from glowing pink crystals set into the walls and ceiling. She slowly pulled herself up off the floor, but her movements were clumsy and sluggish. Her mind was still awash with haze.
This place was a tomb of silence. The walls seemed to absorb any sound she made.
She looked down. She was wearing a white lab coat, slightly torn in a few places and splotched with dust from the floor.
She glanced up with a start. Her mind was beginning to clear, and she realized she couldn't remember... anything. Why was she here? Where was 'here', anyways? And most importantly, who was she?
That realization was the true terror, she thought. Her mind still wasn't right, but she felt, deep within her core, that something about this place was wrong. She had to get out... somehow.
She glanced around, fully aware of her surroundings for the first time. This was definitely not a familiar place, in fact; she would go so far as to call it 'alien'. Yet she realized she was in some kind of large alcove, and there was a hallway right through the archway behind her. The pale pink light left long shadows that made the place look even more alien, and she felt an overwhelming need to escape.
So she ran. She ran down the hallway, into a labyrinth of corridors, turns, and intersections. She chose her direction with a panicky randomness, and the halls seemed to stretch onwards unto eternity. The walls continued to devour the sound of her footfalls, and the pale pink light illuminated things just enough to ensure that every hallway looked the same.
Just when she was about to decide it was endless, she saw a white light down a long corridor to her right. Turning towards it, she ran. The light grew larger until she saw a distinctly metal hatch with white light shining through the window.
Plastered across the hatch were the words DECONTAMINATION CHAMBER.
She engaged the hatch and pulled it open, closing it behind her. She had an idea of what to expect, but was surprised with the thoroughness of the decontamination process. She pulled open the hatch on the other side to be promptly blinded by the comparatively bright white lighting in the hallway. Her eyes adjusted, revealing a plain slate-grey hallway, with a few doors along the sides and what looked like a lift door at the end of the hall.
Then, she noticed a young man wearing a white lab coat identical to hers emerge from one of the doors and turn to look at her. He looked slightly alarmed as he walked towards her.
'Doctor, is everything okay?"
For an instant, confusion crossed her face before she realized the potential danger behind that innocent question.
'Doctor, what's going on?' the man repeated. 'You checked out from the ruins over three hours early.'
Again she felt the twisting of disorientation in her stomach. The man seemed vaguely familiar, but she had no idea of his name or position at this... facility. His white lab coat was identical to hers, equally devoid of any identifying marks or even a nameplate. Yet, aside from him, the hall was silent, and she felt that they were -- for the moment at least -- alone.
She decided to gamble. Moving to walk past him, she calmly said, 'I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I just need to...'
As she passed him, she felt him snatch her wrist and spin her around to face him.
He fixed her with a searching gaze. 'Doctor, what's my name?'
'I, well... uh... Of course I know your name, why wouldn't I?'
'Then what is it?'
She could only respond with a blank stare, and abruptly started moving to force her way past him.
'Damn it, I knew it!' he exclaimed. He reached into his front pocket and drew out a small syringe. 'Now just relax, doctor. Everything's going to be okay.'
The needle moved towards her, and suddenly she felt a vast strength well up inside of her.
'False,' a cold voice that she didn't recognize emanated from her lips.
Then her hands moved, and she was stunned while they leapt forward and deftly grabbed the syringe and the man's hands, and with a strength she didn't know she possessed drove it into his chest.
He stared at her for a moment, and then looked down at his chest in shock.
He muttered a single word, and then collapsed onto the cold steel floor.
The nameless woman stood for a moment in stunned disbelief as she looked at the body in front of her. She wasn’t sure if he was dead or simply unconscious, but he had clearly wanted to do the same to her. The syringe still in her hand gave no clue, as it was unmarked and still contained only a trace of clear liquid. Carefully, she slipped it back into the man’s front pocket.
She walked into the room he had been in originally. It was dark, save for the light of an active console in the corner. She walked over to it, seeing it was still logged-in. She quickly paged through several items that didn’t make much sense to her, until she found the last message that the console had deposited into the system – less than an hour earlier.
- - -
To: Valhalla Command
Comm ID: Specialist Tankersley, Sub-Basement Beta Team
Subject: Finding of Interest
Sirs,
Doctor Lockard and I have been working alone down here for the last two weeks, and I believe we’ve finally come across something worthwhile. This morning, she came back and reported that she’d found something out of the ordinary in a small annex about half a klick into the complex. She wasn’t very specific about what it was, exactly, but she did indicate it was significant. She went back to study it a bit more and will submit a detailed report about it after finishing the last few hours of her shift.
Expect a report from her soon along with my own report when my next shift begins six hours from now.
Tankersley
- - -
Was she this Dr. Lockard? It seemed likely, given how the man she assumed must have been Tankersley had addressed her as “Doctor”. Yet the name meant nothing to her.
She found nothing else of note on the console, but she did find a small handgun in the room. There was nothing else worthwhile in the room, so she proceeded back out into the hall. She entered the room across the hall, and discovered immediately that it was Lockard’s – her? – personal quarters.
The room was spartan in appearance, with little in the way of furniture. A small bed occupied one corner, an inactive console was on the opposite wall, and a small dresser was next to it. She wasn’t able to access the console, but the dresser had a small book in one drawer, along with a small keychain with an ID and several keycards on it. She opened the book, and saw that it was a small journal, filled with notes on a variety of topics. She decided to look through it in more detail later.
The ID, however, was far more interesting. It had a picture of her on it, at least the same person she’d seen in the mirror, and said “Ageira Technologies, Valhalla Division” along the top. At the bottom it clearly said, “Doctor Rebecca Lockard”. It seemed she was, in fact, this Dr. Lockard. Rebecca? Once again the name echoed in her head, without a spark of recognition. She palmed the keychain and went back into the hallway.
The other two doors were locked, with no key in sight, so she proceeded to the end of the hall and called the lift. The lift pinged that it had arrived, but the doors didn’t open. It was then that she saw a place to swipe an ID card, so she swiped the card in her hand and the door opened.
Inside the elevator was a panel with a huge number of choices. She was in Sub-Basement Beta, and there were several other sub-basements, basements, and such. There were even full floors dedicated to living quarters and office space. There didn’t seem to be any kind of ground floor level, but there was a flight deck level, and that seemed the most likely way out the facility.
She still didn't know what was going on, but what she did know was that she needed to leave this place… wherever it was… and soon. Based on the reaction of the only other man she’d seen, she didn’t imagine it would be easy, but she had no interest in hanging around to find out what these people wanted from her.