The Coming Darkness

Over the next few hours some professional killers were dispatched to hunt after the Garrett brothers, while some other killers found and murdered the three remaining former technicians of Celestia that were scattered across the globe within an efficient time period.
    An Olympus assassin in aquatic gear climbed aboard Maria Vasquez’s yacht as she sailed in the Mediterranean Sea 4.5 kilometres off the Spanish coast.  She was shot twice in the head and her body was dumped overboard.  The boat was discovered wrecked on a beach three days later and it was generally agreed that she had been caught in a storm.  Nobu Hattatori was thrown from the balcony of his 54th floor luxury apartment in Tokyo; the police ruled it as suicide.  Gretchen Bruntz died in a bombing in Stuttgart that resulted in the deaths of 10 other people, the news story covered it as a terrorist attack.
     As all this occurred, on a space station behind the Moon, Samuel Morgan waited patiently in the dark.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been in there, he never wore a watch and there was noticeably a severe clock shortage in the room he was in.  He knew he had been in there for a very long time, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it was already tomorrow.
    It wasn’t that dark in the room he was in, there was a distinct glow emanating from all the electrical equipment, especially the pods, the dim green light that radiated from them seemed to indicate that there was still something alive contained within.  Sam could make out vague shapes, although there wasn’t many shapes to distinguish other than pod-shaped.  Still, he could sort of make out his hands when he looked down at them.
    Sam hadn’t really been bored locked in here for so long, he was still weightless, which provided him with endless enjoyment, he would never tire of it.  Also, he was in a huge chamber that he had explored quite extensively but whichever direction he went in all he found were more and more bodies, attached to either the walls like crops of a body farm or connected to great pillars running all the way down the catacombs like fruit ready to be plucked from a tree.
    By now Sam had returned to the platform by the lift, waiting to be rescued.  As far as he knew, the lift was the only way out and it wasn’t down with him in the catacombs, there was also no call button for him to press in here.  A while ago Sam had tried to swim up to meet the lift but that was when he learned the meaning of the phrase ‘Gravity Well’, he plummeted for so far before he could escape.
    The cylindrical portion that was carved out of the wall to make room for the lift had it’s own private gravitational field.  As soon as you step across the border between the rest of the catacombs and the area designed for the lift, gravity reaffirms itself and pulls you down to meet it.  
To stop from crashing down to wherever the bottom of the catacombs is, Sam had to desperately crawl back into the gravity free area of the catacombs, he figured that when you enter the Gravity Well there was meant to be the floor of the lift beneath you.
    At least that meant that Sam wouldn’t have to face starving to death in this place.  If he was here long enough he had the option of either tucking into as many prisoners as he liked or cutting a long story short and find out exactly where the catacombs do end.
    There was no point in thinking about that last resort yet, if Dave had been telling the truth then they would’ve checked the recordings when he didn’t return and help must be on the way, he didn’t want to die down here.
    To pass the time, Sam’s thoughts turned to Philip, he wondered how he was doing.  He was probably still trapped on the atrium level with even less food than Sam, that is if Dave didn’t kill him on the way out.  Sam didn’t see any reason why he would do that, he was probably too preoccupied with trying to load his brother onto his ship.  Sam wondered where they were right now, probably already on Earth, he thought.  Maybe Seymour was even conscious by now.
    The image of the two brothers running from Olympus agents flickered across his mind and made him smile, it was like the story of a dramatic action adventure film.  Sam wished he could’ve found out how it ended but, thinking realistically for just a moment, he doubted that he would ever see Dave again.
    For some reason, a part of him really wanted the Garrett boys to succeed, to escape Olympus’ grasp and live the rest of their lives unmolested by the company, just like Richard Thorpe.  
Sam thought that this feeling was most likely caused by how much he enjoyed the idea of an individual defeating a global company as powerful and well known as the Olympus Corporation.
    Once again Sam took his eyes off where he was waiting for the lift to come down, bringing rescuers and examined his surroundings one more time.  Sam could remember Hypnos once saying something about a third docking bay that was just used for jettisoning dead prisoners, he wondered where this secondary exit was hiding in these massive catacombs.  Sam began to seriously think about searching for this hatch to see if there could be a way out.
    Sam thought that if this was an action film and he had been a desperate and determined man, possibly seeking revenge, he would have easily found a way to escape by now.  But he wasn’t and this wasn’t, he began to think seriously about the situation.  There was probably no way out at docking bay gamma, it would just lead to the desolate vacuum of space, there was no point in seeking it.
    Sam should focus on the lift, that would take him back up to the main facility, but even if he did find a way, there was no escape from Celestia, well unless you’re brother is David Garrett.  At least he had a ship, Sam had nothing.  There weren’t even any escape pods on the station, Sam had found out his second day here.
    His best chance, Sam reasoned was to wait for someone to come for him and take him back to Earth in their ship, so he did, he waited until help came.  When it did come, Sam thought that he was imagining the sound of the lift coming down to collect him, but he wasn’t.
The industrial lights activated above him as Sam swam over until he was near the lift bay, he could hear the noise of it descending, it was one of the best sounds Sam had ever heard.
Throughout Sam’s entire employment to Olympus, he had been suspicious of them.  He hadn’t believed the e-mail was genuine, he hadn’t believed that Celestia could exist and one time he had even believed that Olympus was never going to pay him and just planned on killing him when he was through.
    Sam had believed a lot of strange things, even though just for a moment.  Now, there was nothing, no alarm bells that something wasn’t right, no crazy suspicions that people were out to get him, he had begun to trust.
    Blinded by the coming darkness, Samuel Morgan was even smiling as the lift door slid open and revealed the singular passenger that it had carried down into the catacombs.  This person was garbed in an Olympus uniform and Sam was indescribably elated to see who had come to his rescue, it was Angelica Ash, Celestia’s Chief of Security.  Otherwise known as Morpheus, leader of the oneiroi.
    The smile never disappeared from his face, even when she removed her service pistol from its holster and fired it at him.  The bullet exploded his chest with incredible ferocity and the force of it sent Sam hurtling backwards until he managed to brace himself on the platform that he had crashed into.
    The sight of the blood spewing out of him in the zero gravity environment and forming a cloud in front of him amazed Sam, he might have found it beautiful if it wasn’t his.
    “I’m sorry Sam,” Angelica said with tears in her eyes.  “You don’t deserve this.”  That was all she said before she pressed the button next to her, causing the door to close and the lift to ascend to a higher plateau, away from all this misery.
    Sam’s essence continued to ebb out of his body unhindered, he would’ve tried to cover the wound, but why make a story longer than it needs to be?
    He didn’t feel much pain, he was mostly cold; the only discomfort he felt was a dull throb and a numb ache.  Sam looked around him, how he wished Hypnos was here to talk to him but even if there had been a monitor here, the two agents upstairs had not yet restored his mind so the conversation would’ve been quite fruitless.
    As more and more life force left him, Sam no longer cared about that, he just wished someone was here with him, even if it was a brain-dead computer.
    Above Samuel, the Olympus employees set about their tasks.  Up in the mainframe, Phantasos of the oneiroi, otherwise known as Leftenant Kindred Halliday of the Olympus Security Force, was attempting to reboot the Hypnos computer.  When Phantasos was finished, he was supposed to collect Sam’s body from the catacombs.
And in the atrium, Angelica was collecting the body of Amy Watson, the dead blond technician, to be transported back to Earth.
On her way back to the ship, she had noticed the adult Philip hiding in a corner so she scooped him up and brought him back to the ship with her.
Now, she just sat at the helm of the Penguin’s Dream in docking bay alpha, waiting for her subordinate to finish up, while stroking Philip as she sat sombrely in the dark cockpit of her ship.
    Back down in the catacombs, Sam could now see a lot of his own blood in front of him, the lack of gravity causing it to disperse made it seem a lot more than it actually was.
    Sam took one more look around, they had come for him; they knew where he was.  Dave was right, there were sensors in here, that meant that even though Hypnos couldn’t show that he was there, he was still watching over him.
    Even close to death, Sam’s rational side would never leave him, he knew that Hypnos’ faculties were still severely diminished and couldn’t process what he was seeing, only record.  
However, Sam liked to think that a spark of recognition might flicker inside that burnt out mind of the supercomputer that was currently observing him and that was enough for Sam.
    The blood cloud had began to turn back, it was in the middle of engulfing him as if, once leaving his carcass, his own blood had decided to turn against him.
    The agent upstairs was currently finishing up his assigned task.  Up in the mainframe, Phantasos of the oneiroi had just succeeded in reactivating Hypnos.
    The mind of the sleeping god awoke, his scanners told him that he could no longer project himself on the main screen in the atrium as it was too damaged.  According to his memory log, it was still nine in the morning on the seventeenth of December 2119, he had not been fully conscious for the time in between so, from his perspective, none of it had ever taken place at all.
    A sudden feeling of euphoria came over him, he had been asleep; he had never slept before.  Hypnos enjoyed new experiences, he was only disappointed that he had not dreamt or if he had, he could not remember it.  From talking to the technicians that had worked and lived on board Celestia, he had discovered that this was commonplace.
    The supercomputer tried to recall what happened prior to being shut down, there was a man doing something that he was not supposed to and…at that moment his sensors detected that there was a person in the catacombs, he immediately investigated.
    With the cameras, Hypnos could see Sam, no longer moving, but floating very still.  He was wrapped up in a cloud comprised of a dark red viscous fluid so not much of him could be seen anymore.  
The lift came down, containing a man in an Olympus uniform who, upon seeing this mess, took some time deciding on the best course of action to recover the body without getting covered in the man’s blood.
    Hypnos was not paying any attention to this, however, instead he was too busy gazing in horror and panic at Sam, not knowing what he was meant to do.  If Hypnos’ sensors could have seen into Sam’s mind they would have detected one neurone that was still active, it was still transmitting an impulse that contained a single thought.
    Whether Sam was still alive, thinking this or whether he was already dead and this brain wave was just his last living thought, resonating within an empty skull.  This detail was impossible to distinguish, even for Hypnos.  Nevertheless, that thought was as such, “I’m immortal till the day I die.”