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The following story is a work of fiction. Apart
from being based on Doom 3,
the work itself has no ties to id Software whatsoever.
No parts of the
story should be used without consent.
by Nick P.
Special thanks to Tim Corwin for helping with
the story and of course, Paul!
Introduction- Welcome to my…
Hell. That was the word that ran through my mind.
And what better word to use? With the towering flames dancing in the background,
the earth dry and cracked and glowing in an unearthly manner. Then add the
thousands of people screaming in absolute terror. There was a heavy, putrid
smell hanging in the air, which was hot and humid. I walked forward wearily,
when something grabbed my shoulder—
And then I realised I wasn’t in hell.
I was at drill hall on Mars. This made no difference to me; my basic idea of
hell was obsessively patriotic idiots smacking bags and training the proper way
to shoot innocent people. But hey, that’s just me. And the hand that grabbed my
shoulder was not encrusted in spikes and satanic symbols, like that of some
demon, but rather the hand of Tim Davis. Staff Sargent Tim Davis, that is. Shit.
At that point, I really wished the hand belonged to a demon. Then I’d have an
excuse to blow him away.
Why? Well, for starters, Tim was the
biggest ass on our Martian dump. He easily fit all of the requirements above.
Also, his superiority in rank to me did not ease the tension. Remember, I told
myself: count to ten, focus on your breathing. Think of pleasant things.
My mind set in a meadow with distant
mountains and furry bunnies, I spun around to face the hell-spawned marine.
“Hey Nik. Where are you heading to?”
he asked me.
I felt that I should answer with my
fist rather than my mouth, but I was in a good mood today. I forced a smile that
was about as real as Michael Jackson’s face. “Oh, you know, I’ve got some duties
to attend to.” Then, mysteriously, I added, “Maybe a promotion.”
The last sentence I said to piss him
off, or at least to make him uncomfortable. In reality, I already knew why I was
going to Commander Briggs office, and it was 2 inches short of a demotion. You
see, there was a little accident a few weeks ago… Nothing spectacular, just a
tiny incident concerning the setting off of fireworks in the air processing
facility. Oh yeah, and there was something about accidentally hitting an
ammunition storage room, too. No big deal.
But enough about my personal toils in
the wild Martian merry-go-round. You have perhaps asked yourself a thousand
times, ‘what the hell is going on?’ Well, you shouldn’t ask yourself cause you
don’t know. Hey, I’m the storyteller here. Anyway, it was the year 2045, and
humankind landed on Mars. Yeah, exciting stuff… if you work at NASA. Humans
strolling around on Mars: big deal. Frankly, I didn’t give a crap about it. They
were going to milk the red planet of its nutrients, meaning that they were going
to use it for mining: lots of good minerals beneath the red dust.
Yes, it was a great human achievement,
and I acknowledged it, I was proud of it. What more was I to do?
I had entered the military. Did I want
to shoot people? Did I want to keep order and peace and to protect the others?
Nah. The thing is, the government pays for your college tuition if you join the
military. I didn’t have enough cash to pay for myself. So I got depressed, went
to a bar, and drank away the money that I did have left. So I was broke.
And these days, when you’re broke, you enlist in the military.
How I ended up a Marine remains a
mystery to me. I think that it involved some drinking again, as well as a few
very persuasive friends that were joining. They probably gave me the classic,
‘let’s join the Marines together’ crap. Before I knew what was going on, I was
doing push-ups in the mud with the drill sergeant’s foot up my ass.
So what does Mars have to do with all
this babble about the military? Well, mining started on Mars and all was good.
But then, as usual, those military idiots put their foot in and said, ‘let’s
built a military base on Mars!’
Of course,
that wasn’t the only thing built on Mars. There were many buildings that I had
no idea what went on inside them and they were unmarked in the directories, most
owned by the UAC, Union Aerospace Corporation. They were top secret and all
information regarding them was classified. I suppose it did make some sense to
build buildings where dangerous secret stuff is tested away from Earth. But it
was the usual military top secret, and I doubt they really did anything
important in there. Probably developing machines that recycle human waste and
pack it into a granola bar.
Now, why you would build a
military base on Mars is an absolute mystery to me. If some war erupted on
Earth, it would take all the guys in that base 6 months just to get there. Maybe
they thought it was just plain cool. I thought it was stupid. Which is exactly
why I got sent to the damned planet. You see, I tend to express my opinions very
openly…
As I said, Mars is 6 months away from
anything interesting; no fighting, no action. Just staring out at the bleak
Martian landscape, day after day, having to put up with chimpanzees such as Tim
Davis and Commander Briggs.
And speaking of Briggs, I had arrived
at his office. Bright sunshine and daisies! I should’ve drank several beers;
then maybe I wouldn’t have to endure what was about to ensue.
I knocked on
the door. There was an odd scraping sound and a low voice, followed by Commander
Brigg’s familiar diction saying, “Just a minute.”
I shook my head in disgust. I didn’t
even want to know what the hell that was all about. Fortunately, I was spared
from knowing. I guess there is someone up there who likes me.
But down here, on the Martian surface,
it was the other way around.
“Come in,” said Briggs, and so I did.
Briggs was what you’d expect for a
Marine Commander. Old, his face haggard, his hair cut short, he was sitting at
his chair, forcing a rather innocent look upon his otherwise cruel face.
However, I had no time to observe this. I stood at attention, my back straight,
my hand at a salute (that, or shielding my eyes from the bright lights).
“Uh, at ease. Yes, corporal?”
Did he not remember? Maybe I shouldn’t
have come at all. Briggs is rather famous for his memory. The lack of it, I
mean. But I didn’t care anymore, so I continued. “You wanted to see me,
Commander?”
He sat there for a while with a
puzzled look on his face as he tried to recall why. After a long while paused,
he said, “I don’t remember why I wanted you to come here, corporal. Go on,
you’re free to go.”
Feeling as if I might waltz my way out
on my tiptoes in happiness, I headed for the door. Then, something with the
likes as a thunderbolt hit my merriment and it all fell apart. It was Briggs’s
voice:
“Oh yes, now I remember: the whole
fireworks thing.”
Now feeling as if I was heading
towards the Gallows, where a friendly guy in black clothing was preparing a snug
rope just for me, I marched forward. I must have seemed intent on examining my
shoes. For some reason, I didn’t feel it necessary to look up. There was a piece
of gum slapped down on the front end. When did that get there?
“Damn it, Taggart, what the hell were
you thinking? You know that all air is recycled in this place. You also know
that our air has a higher oxygen concentration, meaning that stuff burns…
better. Your silly games burned away one-third of our entire supply! So now, our
machines have to synthesise more air per hour than normal, meaning more money,
meaning millions of dollars wasted away just for a few seconds of joy for you!”
“Well, not just for me. All of my pals
in the 546th squadron seemed rather pleased.” Hastily, I added,
“sir.”
Briggs continued, ignoring my defence.
“And when that one firecracker—”
“You mean the Black Flower 4500
explosive. Those are so hard to find. You should be proud, sir, that through my
business dealings I came across one. And you should be proud to have witnessed
its brilliant explosion—”
“Explosion made brighter when it flew
into that ammunition bunker.’
“Well, it was very impressive.”
Briggs was going red in the face. “We
lost electrical power for four hours and 12 percent of all our ammunition. You
know how much that costs, corporal?”
“Well, I’d like to ask what all that
ammo is for, anyway. All the way out here on Mars, what could attack us? Aliens?
Multidimensional beings? Some unknown creatures spawned in the deep vats where
that slob you feed us is made?” Ah, my imagination. I could’ve gone on in
listing different absurdities that endanger us, but was cut short by the surly
commander.
“I have good news for you, Taggart.”
“You’re gonna shove the remaining ammo
up your ass?”
Briggs trained his eyes as a weapon
upon me. “You’ve got a serious attitude, corporal. I suggest you clean it up
before you end up in this office again. And you should be thanking me, I’m gonna
do you a favour. I’m gonna let you off the hook. Why? This military base, more
than anything else, is a publicity stunt. It is here not for real military
reasons, but to simply stand as testament to human achievement.”
Or human stupidity, I thought.
“It is here to show how mighty our
military is. So, we control the flow of information, and we have managed to keep
that little… accident with the fireworks quiet. I am giving you a second chance,
partly so the reporters don’t get suspicious when they see you flying home. I’m
sure you would spill some precious and secretive info to them.”
“Oh?” I said testily. “Secretive info
like that person trying to keep quiet in the closet?”
This certainly caught the commander
off guard. He wavered, and an odd expression crossed his face. “Leave,” he
growled menacingly.
I shrugged. “Ok.”
“One more thing, Taggart. I
still want you to understand the graveness of the damage you have inflicted.
You’re gonna clean the cafeteria alone, after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for
the next four years. Failure to comply by this will result in you being sent
into solitary confinement. Good night!”
With a newfound feeling for the
military burning in my heart, I left the office.
What had the military done to me? I used to be
civilised and well read. I used to be able to point out all of the faults in the
late 20th century physicist Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity,
and be able to discuss all of the fine points of every single epic, whether it
be Nordic or Greek. I used to be able to list all the Russian Tsars, Japanese
emperors, and English kings in chronological order. I used to play sports, and
do all kinds of stuff. My skill at playing the trombone has yet to be matched by
some prodigy from Julliard, and don’t even get me started on my original
paintings in Abstract expressionism (see, most people throw paint at the canvas.
So I thought, why not throw canvases at the paint?).
And then I joined the military. My IQ
must’ve dropped 20 points and a nickel. Now the only historical figures I knew
were Benito Mussoulini, Michael Jackson, and some poet named Puff Daddy. My
vocabulary must’ve fallen to less than 1000 words. No longer could I savour the
5-star gourmet dishes I used to prepare, no longer would I woo women with my
ability to make 20 minute brownies in just 10. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now
I had to scrub floors and tables clean from the spilled glob that was
tentatively called ‘meatloaf’.
And thank god I hadn’t gone with my
earlier plan to fire ten Black Flower 4500s in the fuel storage facility.
Perhaps you want to know a little
more about the base. It was fairly large, sprawled over a 4-kilometre radius,
though most of it lay underground. The power generators lay in the centre,
alongside the air synthesising machines that we sent to Mars long before we ever
rubbed our fungi-harbouring feet against the red dust. To the south was a rather
Spartan looking complex which was our home abode. It doesn’t look cosy, and
that’s because it isn’t. There were some research facilities to the west of us.
They were said to reach far underground, as much as 10 kilometres, if not more.
But on the surface, they were rather unimpressive black, windowless buildings
looking gloomier than our own facility.
There was some civilian housing on
the other side of the generators, along with a greenhouse. And to the west of
that was the mining complex. They had an airlock among other things, but most of
it was tunnels below ground. And from all of these buildings, belowground
corridors led to the airfield, which was cast a distance away from our outpost.
I had one good friend in the Martian
base: Tyler. I didn’t bother with his last name because it had way too many
letters and way too little syllables. And then there was this other Chinese kid
that always followed us around. I think his name is Zhao, or something like
that. We simply call him Mexican guy because, well, because it’s funny. This
annoys him, but he still laughs with us about it. Anyway, he was there too. He
is always there, whether it is for better or for worse.
I tried to lift my mood, though I
still felt as if I should let my fist do the talking. “Hey Tyler,” I said. “Hi
Mexican guy.”
“I’m not Mexican!” Zhao
replied in thick English, in his usual annoyed tone.
“Yeah, yeah.” Said Tyler
absentmindedly as he turned to me. “Well, what happened?” he asked. “If you
didn’t get punished, I have four more Black Flowers under my bed. We could set
them off tonight.”
I sighed. “I fear not. I won’t be
able to attend. Feel free to fire them yourself, though. Then maybe you can join
me in scrubbing the cafeteria floor.”
We began to walk away.
“So that’s your punishment?”
“Yeah,” I said lowly.
“Look on the bright side: janitors
always get the women. Then again, we barely have any ladies in this dump.” He
glanced up at the ceiling and down at the walls and floor in disgust.
In reality, there were several women
Marines on our base. However, they were not to be messed with. They were like
the Sirens of Greek mythology, luring unsuspecting guys. Many men approach them
and then walk away with broken noses. I think there was one case where it wasn’t
a nose, but an arm. As I said, not to be messed with.
One time, a drunk Tyler, beer at
hand, seemed inclined to joke around with one of our feminine Marines during
their shooting practice. Certainly not the best time or place to do so. Next
thing he knew, the can popped out of his hand and beer went splashing
everywhere. I don’t think he ever cracked another joke about her accuracy.
I sighed, “Hey Pedro,” I turned to
Mexican guy. “I’m feeling a little depressed. How about some Tequila to drown
my sorrows? And then maybe some burritos. I’m hungry.”
“I’m not Mexican.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
It was dinner, and the three of us had secured a
nice round table, away from the others, near one of the large panoramic windows.
It was dark outside, so there was nothing to be seen. Mexican guy came around,
carrying our food and set it in front of us. Now, I think I have already
described the food here several times, so further elaboration is not needed.
Tonight it was supposed to be ravioli, though the brown mass strongly reminded
me of the meatloaf. Whatever. The nutrient rich, vitamin enhanced glob was still
edible.
We ate in silence for a little bit.
I moved my fork through the ‘ravioli’ and smirked at the wet, sloppy sound it
made. Adding some hot sauce sent by my friends and family on Earth did not do
much good. “I can’t take this any longer,” I finally said.
“Join the club. Mexican guy and I
here are the presidents.”
“I’m not Mexican.”
“Well,” I said thoughtfully. “We can
resign. But I don’t think Briggs will be real happy. He doesn’t want anyone
leaving the squadron, and I think he wants to keep this up until we are liable
for Social Security aid, if you know what I mean.”
Tyler shrugged. “There are other
ways to leave this rock. You could get court martialed, if you really, really
tried. I guess those fireworks weren’t enough. But if you do something stupid
enough, Briggs will be forced to fly back to Earth.”
“Well, what would you do if you got
to go back to Earth, Tyler?”
Talk about a primeval conversation!
He looked at the ceiling dreamily.
“I’d live big, live exciting. I’m tired of this boring… place. You know, scale
some mountain, throw all these big parties, flush the money away like Zhao here
after four burritos and a can of lax.” Mexican guy seemed offended, but Tyler
continued onward. “Maybe buy me a nice little aircar, drive around on weekends.
Something expensive, maybe Italian. What about you?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. It’s a little late to
have the military pay for my college education, isn’t it? How many years have I
wasted away here? I think I’d get on to the life I wanted before I joined the
Marines. And what about you Mexican guy? Wait, you’ll stuff yourself with tacos,
right?”
“I’m not Mexican, I’m Chinese!!!
“Yeah, and I’m Hindu.”
The cafeteria was beginning to
empty, meaning that dinner was over. And it was now that I would proudly serve
the Marines, mop and bucket at hand, sweeping broadly across the floor. “You
guys go on,” I said. “I’ve gotta clean the floor, remember?”
And so they left.
Where to get the mop? I realised
that Briggs hadn’t specified anything. Oh well, I thought. I’ll just go on.
Maybe Briggs already forgot. But then, upon exiting the room, I noticed a neat
little mop and bucket propped against the wall. With a groan followed by some
words I don’t feel like repeating here, I picked up the mop and began to sweep.
Now, you really don’t notice how big
a room is until you are the one who actually has to clean it. The floor
stretched out before me, and all of the filth on it seemed to jump out.
I sighed, but tried to lift my
spirits, singing ‘Straight Through the Heart’ as I moved about the floor. I had
just reached the solo of the song, wielding the broom as a guitar, when the
lights went out.
At first I thought this was the
doing of some joker. Marines were playful types, and I thought that some guy
thought it was funny to turn out the lights on me. What a dry sense of humour.
Hoping to get back at the culprit, I
vividly described where and how far I was gonna stick the broom when I found
him, when I walked out and realised something. It wasn’t just the cafeteria
where the lights had gone away; it was the entire building, if not the entire
human outpost on the planet.
Well, ok. This has happened before,
power outages, though not common, do happen. This was usually when some
maintenance was taking place in the power generators. Still, daytime was the
time to do things of this sort.
Feeling a little uneasy as to this
unusual occurrence, I dashed back the large panoramic window.
Now, I’ll tell you: I’m not the
panicky type. I don’t clutch my face and scream when I can’t find my uniform nor
do I put my head down and sob when I am called to Briggs’ office. The only
reason I felt such worry was because I had been on Mars for god knows how long
and I hadn’t seen any action. The most excitement in my day comes when I go to
the bathroom and read up the latest magazines. That, and the whole fireworks
thing.
I glanced out the window. Normally,
off to one side you’d be able to see parts of the warehouse depot. However, the
lights were off there too. This only added to my worrisome streak. We had
separate power generators, and the technicians would never shut both off at the
same time.
The only light was starlight,
seeping through the windows.
At that point I thought it best to
haul ass and find the others. Only then did the feeling of aloneness strike
through me, and I knew I had to leave the abandoned mess hall. In my hurry, I
tripped over a table and did a somersault in the air worthy of an Olympic silver
medal. My landing, however, was not as graceful. A loud crack announced that I
had broken something. Hopefully it wasn’t a leg.
I continued onward, more wearily,
limping. But then something stopped me cold in my tracks, and it wasn’t the warm
blood that oozed from my busted eyebrow. It was a human scream, and it came from
beyond the hall.
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