The place was deserted, except for the small
team of scientists that roamed the debris and walked tightly together, as if
they were a single entity. They approached a square, where two members of the
team that had guns stepped forward and escorted the others inside a big hole on
the floor. There was glass everywhere and the stairs to go down where missing
some of the steps. Everyone was very careful not to fall. When they reached the
bottom, they reunited again. One of them, a woman, lit up a screen where she
had a map of the place.
-
There.
She pointed at a hallway and they all began to
walk a little bit more relaxed, although some of their breathing equipment
started making wheezing sounds. Yes, they had masks and tanks on their backs
because the air had been deemed unbreathable. This was the consequence of the
bombardment the city had gone through many years ago, during the Dark Wars.
These battles and skirmishes had attempted to destroy every single trace of
civilization in the world but it had been stopped just in time for that not to
happen. Unfortunately, not every place in the world had been spared and cities
such as this one lay empty and in ruin.
The team followed Calista, the woman with the
map, through the hallway. They did steadily but not in a run, but fast anyway.
They saw rooms in darkness but didn’t enter any of them. After many other dark
hallways and a few stairs, they reached a long corridor, lit by the sunlit
coming from the outside.
-
This is it. The rooms by this
corridor.
They entered a door to the left and they all
did the same expression of amazement. The room seemed to be stuck in time as
all the pieces where still exactly where they had always been. Their state,
besides some dust, was just perfect so Calista and her time started unpacking
everything they had brought with them. There were bags and plastic and some
boxes. There was also a rod that could be extended and had wheels, to help with
the transportation of the objects. In a little while, they had all the small
objects wrapped in plastic and into small boxes. They did the same thing with
two other rooms until the two armed men told them they should here if they
wanted to leave the city before dark.
The team was too amazed with everything to
worry about time. Shiny little objects, aged thousands of years, where now in
their hands. They had been ordered only to grab the smaller things, the ones
that came from far away countries now to far to reach. The Hive needed every
single thing to be rescued in order to preserve it forever in the fortress in
the mountains. Cities like this one were toxic and people would not be able to
live there for many decades or more if they weather kept being as unpredictable
as always. They had actually decided to go for the objects during summer, as
the other seasons were very unpredictable. In summer the only danger was the
heat but the city was now covered in clouds so that wasn’t much a thing to
worry.
The rooms they were going through had objects
brought fro m the Middle East, some parts of Africa and Asia. They had been
taken away from tribes and other cultures so many years ago. Violence had made
many museums great at some point in their history. And now, many of the
cultures that had done those pieces of art had been dead for some time. One of
the helpers was not only amazed by the small sculptures but by the paintings.
Some were European and others where from across the Atlantic. Walking away from
the others, he stared at an especially vivid portrait of a young woman, who
seemed to be looking straight at him. Then, the eye moved and a whistle was
heard.
Calista’s assistant fell dead to the floor,
bleeding heavily on the marble floor. The armed men told everyone to stay down
but there was no use as they now so what the dead man had seen before dying:
the eyes of the young woman where not there anymore and there was a hole in her
mouth. Someone behind the wall had shot the assistant. But who was it? Then,
more whistles were heard. The person that was shooting was using silencer. The
armed men made everyone crawl out of the room and stay down as they stayed by
the door and shot down some of the paintings with their guns. The whistles
stopped but then, they heard steps moving away. Whoever it was, he or she was
escaping.
They all ran towards the sound and Calista
took out her map and checked the corridors. There were no secrete passageways
on the map but there was a service door by the next couple of stairs. She
yelled this to the armed men and they ran for the door. They did so just in
time, as a shadow stepped out of it and they shot it down. Calista screamed.
She realized it was a bad idea to kill someone who had probably survived the
nuclear holocaust. Although, the person might not be right of the head. A medic
they had brought with them came fast and checked to body. The person was dead.
The men pulled the body towards the corridor and then, not only Calista but
everyone screamed in horror.
The creature had been a human. That was
obvious because of his body but his face… He was gravely disfigured. Everyone’s
breathing machines were working at full, as terror had required much more
oxygen for them to breath. Calista and the doctor grew closer to the creature
to check on the details of their attacker. He had a gun with a silencer on his
belt and some other gadgets that they didn’t know what they were for. He also
had a handful of keys in a chain. He was wearing normal clothes, although he
was visible bleeding from open wounds on his legs and arms.
His face was striking because there were no
eyes there anymore. He had a mouth but the body seemed to have grown over it,
making it small and disgusting, oozing some foul odor now he was dead. Then,
they all pulled back. His hand had moved. In a second, one of the armed men
show the creature several times on the chest. When he was finished, everyone
looked at him, as if he was mad but he said he had seen some of the movies in
the archive and dead always return before they really die. Calista smiled and
stood up. She asked the doctor to do every analysis he could in a short time as
they were leaving soon.
An hour later, they had put several small
boxes in three large boxes that they carried on the wheeled rod. When they
reached the pint where they had entered the museum, the armed guys grabbed one
end of the rod and three of the assistants grabbed the other end. They were
careful not to fall down with it but that plan failed when several creatures
appeared on top of them, looking down through the hole on the ground. The
doctor and Calista replaced the armed men on the rod as these started shooting
at every single creature they saw. They were all like the one they had gunned
down inside: no eyes, some extra limbs, no mouth, … All mutated from the
nuclear blast. These people had survived only to be transformed into something
less than the most despised animal.
The team finally reached the top and was able
to create a circle. The men gave everyone a gun so they had even more chances
to get out alive. The hovercraft that had left them there could not land so
near the museum so they had to make a run for the nearest bridge. After passing
it, they could as the pilot to bomb the bridge to prevent the mutants from
crossing. One of the armed men called the craft as they ran with difficulty,
both carrying the boxes and running and shooting at every disfigured face they
saw. Then, they saw the hovercraft above them but this distraction cost the arm
of one man, as one of the creatures grabbed him and broke it with ease. The
wheeled rod fell on the ground and they had to put it up fast, kicking and
shooting like crazy.
No one knew how they really did it, but they
ran across the bridge followed closely by the mutants, that moved incredibly
fast. Of the armed men asked the pilots to shoot a missile at the bridge to blow
it up. He did exactly that rocks flew
all over, making everyone fall to the ground. The hovercraft landed in front of
them and opened the ramp. Shooting some mutants that had been on their side
when the bridge exploded, they almost dragged the boxes into the craft and left
fast. The machine went fast into the clouds and far from the city. Inside, they
realized the assistant whose arm had been broken, was bleeding too much. The
doctor tried to stabilize him went they realized his breathing apparatus had
been broken in the run. They were both put in quarantine in a small room as
they flew back to the Hive.
Calista fell onto a seat and took off her
mask. She was able to breath in calm, at last. She saw the clouds through the
windows and asked herself if the mission had been worth it, if they the dead
assistant had died for nothing and if both quarantined men were going to be ok.
And then she fell asleep, never answering these questions.
