The Aeschylus

1

Richter stood gazing down at the path around the chasm. There were so many outcroppings, so many caves around its edge, he feared they would never be able to search them all.

“There's no sign of him, sir,” the young sergeant said. “Looks like he vanished.”

“Vanished? Oh no, I think he is here somewhere, Sergeant. The question is, where?”

The light was not making things any easier. It had been growing steadily darker these past few days, and inside of a week, the sky would be as black as the pit.

“My men have all checked in. They have nothing new to report, sir. The prisoners aren't talking either.”

Richter chewed on this. He refused to be a man who saw bad luck at every turn. Those who knew of the disappearance were already distraught, already blaming the things growing out of the deep. But if played correctly, perhaps this could be turned to opportunity.

The man who had disappeared had not been able to produce results, and so perhaps it was time to use a bit of leverage. His hand was being forced, true, but that might not be such a bad thing. He had warned Dietrich that efficiency was of prime concern. Richter himself did not intend to be on the island forever.

Best to make the cut and be done with it.

“Bring me the lieutenant.”

2

Harald was dreaming of the man who would kill him.

He lay rigid on the bunk, sweating. The green army blanket which had been wrapped about him lay discarded on the floor. His eyelids twitched, his mind seeing beyond the room, into…

…into the chasm.

He stood above it, suspended over the void. The blackness spread beneath him, as familiar as an old lover. The rocks around the edges were the same, but the things around them were not. They grew a little more every time Harald dreamed, as if time were passing within his subconscious.

Shapes began to climb over the rocks then, and within seconds, he could see that each shape was — had been — a person. Like the tendrils, they were red instead of black, exposed muscle tissue visible as they crawled to the edge. Even without their skin, he could see faces he knew. He saw his men, his soldiers. He saw his brother Burt and his father. He saw Heinrich, his dead friend from The Adalgisa. The captain looked up at Harald as he crested the edge, and he smiled. It was ghastly: a ghoul's grin to match a ghoul's figure. And then, he pitched himself over. They all pitched themselves over, dropping like rain into the blackness. Their screams thundered through the air, spiraling down into the nothing.

Suddenly they were gone, and Harald was alone over the pit. The quiet was worse than the din.

One more figure appeared then, striding to the lip of the void. When he came to rest, Harald could see that he was whole, not peeled bloody fruit like the others. Then, Harald remembered: it was him, the one who had been haunting his nightmares.

The figure reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. As the figure began to raise his arm, Harald tried to swim through the air. He moved by slow degrees, his arms feeling as if they were mired in fluid. He would never reach the figure in time.

A woman's voice came to him, trickling down from the heavens. She whispered something inaudible, and he yelled back. But she spoke in that same soothing tone, taunting him. She said…

She said…

“What are you doing in my room?”

Harald shot up, nearly knocking Lucja with his head. “Wh… what?”

She stepped back, alarmed.

The lieutenant looked about at his surroundings and then remembered. He had been… had been… “I was looking for your father.”

“Our father?” Lucja asked. Little Zofia stood just behind her, and it was clear she was offering herself as a shield.

“What I mean to say is that your father was not at his post in the laboratory. I came here, thinking he had come home early. When he was not here, I must have dozed.”

“You're just looking for him?”

He stood up and straightened himself, feeling a strand of sleep-strewn hair on his forehead and correcting it. Had he really been so tired as to nod off here in the prisoners' bunker and leave himself so vulnerable? Richter would have his balls if he found out.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I don't know what your father is doing, but he is running out of time. Do you hear me? He is running out of time! You tell him to come see me. It's important.”

Flustered, he brushed past the girls and burst out of the room.

Why did the figure in his dream keep returning, and why did it leave him so distraught? He must have looked a fool. For a time, he had thought that it was Richter who had been haunting his subconscious, and that it was simply his own insecurities getting the best of him. Now, he was not so sure. Admittedly, the figure in the dream looked a lot like the commander, especially the uniform. The the hair was wrong, though. The man in his dream had hair the color of blood.

“Ah, there you are,” Linus Metzger said as Harald walked out of the bunker. “Commander Richter would like to speak with you.”

3

Harald approached the shoreline, his eyes focused on the solitary figure at its edge. He had shaken off the remnants of sleep, but the bad feeling had yet to leave him. There was something portentous in the air, and he couldn't shake the idea that each step was bringing him closer to a terrible end.

Richter stood facing the water, his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed lost to his own thoughts, and he didn't turn as the lieutenant approached.

“I've been persuading people a long time,” he said. “You might say I enjoy it. There is a great deal of satisfaction in making a man see your point of view. In this case, we're not even really dealing with men, are we?”

“Sir?”

“Kriege is missing,” the commander said simply. “I have learned that one of the cages in the laboratory was left open. Kaminski believes it possible that he has become, what is the word? Infected with the stuff.”

Harald felt himself flush. Surely nothing had been alive in that cage to do any harm.

“The spores of the fungus are quite contagious, I'm told. While it is possible the man has fled, I deem it unlikely. Kriege is a civilian, but he is of good German stock, and I don't believe he would abandon his duties. I'm inclined to believe Kaminski's theory instead.”

“His theory?”

“He believes that Kriege has become like Smit: that he is no longer thinking as a man thinks.”

“Kaminski doesn't know what the hell he's talking about!”

“Doesn't he?” Richter returned his gaze to the water, following the small chunks of ice floating on the surface. In spite of the heat emanating from the tentacles, winter was almost upon them, and the water was getting colder. “Regardless of what has happened, we no longer have civilian oversight into the laboratory. The time to persuade Kaminski is now. Do you agree?”

“Yes, of course,” Harald heard himself say.

Silence again. Harald found it maddening, which was why, no doubt, the commander employed it.

“Have you read John Watson's theories on behavioral psychology, by chance?”

“Should I have?” Psychology had never been within the realm of his tastes.

“Most of our countrymen prefer Freud, but I don't think we should discount the American psychologists just because they're American. Watson is a white man, if a bit misguided by the misfortune of his birth place. His ideas are quite interesting. He believes that to the true psychologist, one's thoughts, feelings, and emotions are irrelevant. These are things we cannot observe or influence directly. What we can observe, however, is behavior. And so our goal, as men of science, is the prediction and control of behavior. Do you see what I'm getting at, Lieutenant?”

Harald nodded that he did.

“I don't care one bit for Kaminski's feelings, or his happiness, or what he says. What I do care about are his results. I care about his behavior. In order to alter those things, we have to be willing to take the appropriate measures. When we get right down to it, the success of this operation depends on him.”

Behind them, several sets of footsteps came crunching along the rock. Harald turned to see Boris Seiler, Hans Wägner, and a small entourage of soldiers around them. In front, he saw Lucja and Zofia.

Lucja stared at him with fear and sadness and loathing in her eyes. He had tried to warn her though, indeed he had. This was her father's fault. Kaminski was just taking too goddamned long, and now it was too late.

4

Zofia looked at the Bad Man and shivered as he smiled at her. She didn't know how a smile could look scary, but his did.

Beside her, Lucja was running her hands through her hair, trying to keep calm. Her sister had said the Bad Man was just another army man like Mister Dietrich, but Zofia knew better. It was Mister Dietrich who had brought them here, but he was not a Bad Man, not like the other one.

“I understand you all like to go ice fishing,” the man said, talking to the fat soldier and the boy with the glasses. “I thought we could try something like that today. What do you think?”

The boy looked uncertain. “Yes. All right! Commander, sir.”

Seiler, on the other hand, looked withdrawn. She searched for a word and remembered it as humble. He looked humbled, though Zofia didn't know why. Maybe he had done something bad.

“Dig a hole in that ice, there.”

Hans moved to the ice, then pulled a knife and began chipping into it with enthusiasm, his hands practiced and even. As the chips began to fly, Zofia thought about how cold it was, and not for the first time. It was drafty in the bunkers, and they had little in the way of blankets. Their mittens had become worn and ragged, their coats frail. She always got sick in the cold, and without her mother here to make her soup and keep her warm…

“All done,” Hans said, sheathing his knife.

The Bad Man turned to the others. “I'd like one of you to get Doctor Gloeckner and bring him out here. The walk is a little further than I expected. I think we might need a trauma surgeon close at hand.”

Zofia didn't know what a troma surgen was, but it didn't sound good. She remembered the doctor from their arrival, and she didn't like him. He wasn't nice like her doctor back home. He looked like the kind of doctor who would give you foul-tasting medicine and stick you with needles. The thought made her shiver again.

“Zofia! Lucja!”

She looked over her shoulder and saw her papa coming through the gates. He was walking quickly, but when he saw the group, he began to run. Her heart leapt. Her papa would protect her like he always did.

“Now, let's do some ice fishing! Do you have the Model-24 I requested? I would like you to drop it in, please.”

“Sir?” Metzger asked. He had remained quiet during the exchange, but he stepped forward presently, head cocked.

“Stand down, Sergeant,” the Bad Man said.

“But this behavior—”

“This behavior was not kept in check. Since it is here, we might as well take advantage of it. I'm not asking him to do anything that has not been done before. Now stand down.”

The young man spread his arms and air-pushed the small crowd back. The boy with the glasses reached into his coat and pulled out a long wooden stick with a ball on the end. Zofia had seen one before and knew they were dangerous. Very dangerous.

“Oh my god,” Lucja whispered.

Hans twisted the ball, then yanked the string beneath. Satisfied that he was in the right, he dropped the thing into the hole and backed away.

“Lucja!” her papa yelled. “Zofia!” He was close now, tripping over the rocks and stumbling.

Then suddenly, the grenade went off, showering the group with freezing ice shrapnel and cold, liquid mist. Lucja squeezed Zofia's face into her chest, stifling her. Had she been able to see the result, however, she would have seen a hole in the ice the size of a bathtub.

The Bad Man clapped, laughing that horrible laugh of his. “Quickly. Bring her to me.”

“Her?” the boy asked.

“Yes! Give her to me. Give her to me now!”

Before Zofia could look up, a pair of hands yanked her away from her sister and hoisted her into the air. As if in a nightmare, she felt herself being raised up, fingernails scraping and chewing into her skin. She was so stunned, so deafened, that she didn't even think to cry out. She could only flail. She had a sudden image of her father holding her as she walked the tightrope. In that instant, she suddenly understood she wasn't a real circus performer. In that instant, she knew it was her father who held in her place, and it was her father who kept her safe. Without him, she would fall.

“Zofia!” he screamed.

“Go ahead,” Richter said.

And then, the boy tossed her into the water, her head smacking into the ice chunks left in the wake of the explosion. The last thing she heard before going under was the sound of her sister screaming, and Mister Lieutenant saying, quite calmly, “Good God, man, is that necessary?”

5

“Strip her out of those clothes,” Doctor Gloeckner said.

Dominik looked at him, feeling tears run down his cheeks, but he did as he was bidden. She was inside now, next to the heat stove in the prisoners' bunker, and she was conscious. But just barely.

“Papa,” she whispered.

“Be quiet now, darling. Don't speak.”

He pulled off her sweater and shirt, then her pants and undergarments, and covered her with a towel and a blanket. He squeezed the water out of her hair, knowing that it hurt her and being unable to help it. She was freezing in his hands, her skin blue. Lucja was kneeling at his side and had a hold of her arms, rubbing them.

“We need to warm her!” Dominik shouted. “We need fire!”

Gloeckner only looked at him. “You don't want to warm her too quickly. Keep the blanket on her. Lay beside her if you wish, but don't bring her any closer to the stove. Trust me.”

“Trust you?”

And suddenly, Dominik was on his feet, grabbing the other man around the throat. He slammed the little man into the concrete wall. “You bastard! Do you know what you've done? All of you!”

The doctor's eyes bulged. Dominik's only thought was to choke the life from all of them, starting with the idiot doctor.

“Papa!” Lucja yelled.

Another man appeared behind him, pulling his arms away.

“Take it easy,” Jan said. “See to the girl.”

The tall man released Dominik's arms, and he felt a sob escape his throat, bursting from him like a sneeze. He snorted, choking it back before it could overpower him.

“I brought more blankets.” Ari stepped into the room, his eyes puffy and his hair in tangles. When Dominik had brought his little girl in, Ari had been the first to act. He was more in his right mind than Dominik, but he was just as distressed. They'd been together for months now (had it been months?), and Zofia had started to call him Uncle Ari. Imagine that. “Ettore gave me these.”

“Check the stove, Gloeckner,” Dominik growled. “Make sure it's as hot as it can get.”

Warily, but without delay, Gloeckner did.

“What about me?” Lucja asked.

“Just help me keep her warm.”

Wrapping her arms about the pile of blankets, Lucja laid on the bed next to her sister. Dominik could see she had her own bruises peppering her arms. He had seen how violently Zofia had been yanked from her, how violently they restrained her as she tried to stop them.

For the first time since they had arrived, Dominik felt his mind begin to fray. They had taken his wife from him. Now, they had almost taken his daughter. If they succeeded, what would he do? What would he do?

He had wanted to trust Dietrich, as foolish as that sounded. He had wanted to trust the mission. He had wanted to believe that eventually, they would be freed. In such a wondrous place, so far from civilization, so far from the madness strangling his home, he had wanted to believe they could survive. But even the lieutenant was powerless to stop his superiors. He was merely the mouthpiece, and men like Richter were the mind.

Curling up beside his girls, Dominik laid on the bed. He waited, hoping and praying Zofia would be all right.

6

Several hours later, Dominik found himself staring at the laboratory cages. Even with his daughter, they had made him come. “Just for an hour,” Richter's man had said. “Try to do something useful.”

An hour away from his little girl… as if he could even begin to think of anything else.

“Useful,” he whispered. “I will show you something useful.”

And before he knew it, he was smashing the glass, shattering cage after cage with a wrench. Let them free, he thought. You want something useful? Let's see how useful you find this.

He didn't know how long it would take for the tentacles to grow out into the lab. He didn't know how long before the place was ruined. But he knew one thing, and that was he never wanted to do anything for his captors again. If they had hoped to motivate him, they had failed. He would destroy this place, because it was the only thing he could do.

Moments later, he dropped the wrench, unable to finish the job. The world about him felt unbearably heavy, and he could do nothing for a time but close his eyes. When he opened them, Ari was there. The man had come to the lab looking for his friend, and here he was. Dominik threw his arms around him, and for a long moment, they comforted one another.

At last, Dominik looked up. “We're never getting out of here, Ari. I was wrong to say we should play along. I was wrong to think they would ever honor what they told us. God help me Ari, I was wrong.”

“You did what you thought was right. So did I. The question is, what are we going to do now?”

As Dominik looked up, he saw something on the other man's face he'd never seen before, not in all the time he'd known him. He saw Ari's tears were not those of sadness, but of anger.

“We have to get out,” his friend whispered.

“We have to get out.”

“How?”

There were no windows in the laboratory, but Dominik could feel his gaze being pulled in the direction of the crater. He could feel it calling to him, its voice whispering in his mind.

A way to control it. That's what they wanted.

“Well,” he said to Ari. “I say we give them what they want.”

7

The twilight grew deeper as Zofia progressed further and further down. Lucja passed out next to her sister, her sleep filled with restless dreams. Zofia herself slept in silence. She remembered nothing of the morning, knowing only that she was prey and all the world around her was her predator. She didn't recognize who it was that held onto her skin or the voices of the men coming in and out of the room. She only knew she wanted to sleep, and when she slept, she wanted to remember her mother. Magdelena had always told her sleep was the magic cure, and that when she woke, she would feel better. But that was not true this day. Each time Zofia wakened, the pain in her head was worse. At one point, she thought she heard her father's voice and lifted the blankets to see if it was him. But she saw only monsters in the room and descended back under the covers, sobbing. When the monsters were gone, she slept again. Even in sleep, she could feel the pain in her chest, the raggedness of her breath. That made her dream of a rhyme she used to say playing Klasy when she was a kid. That had been two years ago. Throw the rock, jump the stone, fall on your bottom, the next one goes! She was not good at jumping on one leg like the other kids, but she'd made it through the game once, jumping on all the squares on one foot and laughing when her friends applauded. The game had been fun even if she wasn't good at it, even if she had been out of breath at the end. Her mother had been so proud of her when she did. She wished she could go back and try it again. She wished her mother were here now to hold her and sing to her and to tell her everything was all right. At least she felt warm in the bed now, just like when her mother used to pick her up from the crib and hold her. She still remembered that. Why didn't more kids remember that? That had been the best, safest feeling in the world, being carried in those arms. Under the blankets, she crawled until she found a shape and pretended it was her mother. She curled up to it, letting one thumb slip into her mouth. She didn't suck her thumb any more, not really (that was for babies), but it felt good to do. She let herself curl up and squeeze that shape, remembering the soft features of her mother and what it felt like to be snuggled around her.

It was there that she died, squeezing her sister's arm, oblivious to the tears of her father and the men clustered around him in the confines of the bunker. It was some hours later, in the middle of the night, before they discovered she had stopped breathing.