The Fifteenth Door
the time during her English Lit class in high school when she had to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. She barely made it through the first book, Inferno. Most of the details were lost from her memory, but she recalled that most of that book was about Dante slowly descending through the nine circles of Hell. I wonder if I’m going down my own circles of Hell now.
At least one person she was with might have agreed with her. Dr. Gravin was already panting by the time they exited the first stairwell. “We have to walk through this corridor to reach a set of stairs in a different area of the building,” he said, leaning against a wall for a breather.
“Fine, but remember to avoid the main hallways, okay?” said Jamal.
Dr. Gravin slid down and plopped onto the nearest step. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed the beads of sweat on his forehead. “I don’t know how much longer I can go.”
Jamal wrapped his arms under Dr. Gravin’s armpits and lifted him up to standing. “We don’t have time to rest. Lean on me for support.” The doctor’s breathing intensified.
“Do you think giving him more of the antidote will help?” Jean asked.
Jamal shrugged. “I already gave him the entire vial. We really need to hurry.”
As they walked, an eerie silence hung in the air, devoid of any signs of life. Air-conditioning units whirred at lowered intensity while empty desks were strewn with notepads and piles of documents to be dealt with on another day. The place felt ripe for hunting by some disillusioned office worker.
They reached the next stairwell without incident, although something was bothering Jean, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. The next level they walked through resembled a museum gallery more than an office. The lighting was warmer, and the walls were lined with framed documents filled with unrecognizable writing. In a style reminiscent of the alphabets from Jean’s Asian Cultures course in college, the letters were written in a loopy and cursive manner. Sleek display cases housed strange artifacts with enigmatic markings. She inspected some of them, hoping to innately recognize something within their structures, but nothing came to mind. “Have you seen anything like these before?” she asked Kale, who shook his head in response.
“They’d make me believe in aliens even if I didn’t know everything I do now,” commented Jamal. “Any idea what they’re for, Doc?”
“Those trifles aren’t relevant to my research,” Dr. Gravin huffed before moving on.
Another stairwell descent later, they were in a level occupied by science laboratories filled with equipment that looked nearly as alien as the earlier artifacts had. Something about the return to harsh and cold fluorescent lights helped Jean figure out what was bothering her. This has been way too easy. She drifted toward Jamal as they followed behind Kale and the doctor.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” she whispered to him. “Where are all the people? We should have seen someone by now.”
Jamal locked eyes with Jean, and she could tell he was thinking the same thing. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.
As she walked, the hairs on Jean’s neck prickled. We’ve come too far to turn back now, but… She strained her ears for any unusual sound—the pounding of footsteps, distant conversations, anything.
Many of the labs they walked past contained diagrams of body parts, like something out of a biology book. They appeared human at first, but when Jean took a closer peek, the proportions and features were wrong. The limbs were stretched and fluid, the shapes of the organs weren’t the same, things were in the wrong place—she wished there were some pictures where everything was put together, just so she could get a proper preview of what her father would look like when they saw him.
Jean inhaled deeply to slow her breath. “When did the Sepids come to Earth? And for how long have we known of their existence?” she asked Dr. Gravin.
“We have known about them since the early seventies, not long after the first moon landing. Whether they were here on Earth before that, we don’t know. They won’t say either.”
“I used to think it was strange how the aliens in TV shows could always speak English perfectly after landing here,” remarked Jamal, “but I guess that’s how they are in real life too?”
“Apparently our efforts to decipher their language are making some headway,” said the doctor, “but yes, their grasp of our language is much better than ours of theirs, for the time being. So what little communication we have with them has been in English, unfortunately.”
Jamal furrowed his brows. “What do you mean, unfortunately?”
“Ah, here we are. Give me a moment.”
They had arrived at a door that was thicker and tougher than anything else they had seen inside the building. Made of imposing steel, it looked like something a high-tech bank vault would have. Dr. Gravin again pulled out his card, tapped it on a detector on the side, and entered a passcode into the keypad below it. The door clunked open with a heavy thud.
“Past this door are the specimen containment units,” said Dr. Gravin, again stopping for breath. “If I’m not mistaken, Azon should be in unit number fifteen. This is the most secure area in the facility, for obvious reasons. But contrary to how it may appear, the containment units were designed to be as comfortable and accommodating for the Sepid specimens as we can manage.”
“They’re prisoners in here,” said Jean coldly, looking at the steel door. “It doesn’t matter how accommodating you are if they don’t have their freedom.”
Dr. Gravin’s forehead glistened with beads of sweat as he leaned against the nearest wall and wiped his head with the back of his hand. “It’s really not as bad as it may seem. All their needs are met and they’re protected from organizations that don’t want them here. People who hunt them and would prefer to see them dead.”
Jean rolled her eyes. “Just take us to Azon.”
The doors in the passageway beyond were all made of similarly thick, sturdy steel, and had numbered keypads on them as well. Their footsteps echoed as though they were walking inside a crypt, and the dark surroundings added to the oppressive atmosphere. When they reached the fifteenth door from the entrance, Dr. Gravin stopped in front of the keypad and then glanced in their direction, as though asking for permission.
Jamal said, “Go on, open the door.” Kale simply nodded.
Jean’s pulse soared as she stared at the door. Azon was somewhere behind that impenetrable door. Mere steps away. After all this time, all the revelations and danger, she would finally see her father’s true face.
Dr. Gravin sighed with reluctance, then tapped a passcode on the keypad with shaking fingers. The lock to the door opened with another heavy clunk, and Jean held her breath in anticipation. She exhaled sharply as the door smoothly slid open.
In the center of the room, crouched down on the floor, was a being that looked like a jellyfish, or a cuttlefish, trying to assume the form of a human. His skin was pale and silky and shimmered with a dull sea-green translucence. In the right lighting, his long and thin limbs could be mistaken for tentacles. His elongated frog-like hands were bound in front of him, and the tight cuffs binding them were chained to a link embedded in the concrete floor of the cell. A black cloth bag covered his head, and Jean felt an overwhelming urge to yank it off. She wanted to see his face, no matter how different it might be.
“Azon?” she called out, her voice shaking. She thought she saw the black bag shift in her direction. Her heartbeat racing, Jean moved to enter the room, but the door slid shut before she could. The force was so intense that it knocked her off balance.
Jean was suddenly aware of several heavily booted footsteps rapidly approaching their group. The four of them turned around to find themselves surrounded on both sides of the passageway by a mix of Genesis Sector agents and military-looking troops.
Of course, it was a trap. It had to be. The doctor must have tipped someone off somehow. Perhaps opening the door triggered an alarm? I knew this was way too easy. Urgh! And we walked right into it!
A voice she never wanted to hear again yanked Jean out of her thoughts.
“Miss Anderson, it is so good to see you again. I hope you’ll be more cooperative this time.”
The dark rectangular sunglasses. The impeccably parted hair. The thin line of a mouth. And the golden scythe tie pin, the only glint of color on a harsh black and white suit. It was Agent Smyte, standing at the head of the group of agents blocking them from the way they’d come in.
A lump of thread formed in Jean’s throat. They were trapped, several floors and innumerable feet underground, in a top secret government facility that was more than capable of making them disappear without a trace. She had reached the lowest pits of Hell, just as Dante had in Inferno.
“You led them right into our hands with minimal trouble. I knew I could count on you to deliver, as always.”
Jean thought Agent Smyte was addressing Dr. Gravin. But he wasn’t.
“Well done … Agent Daniels. Well done,” Agent Smyte said, clapping his hands.
Jean gasped as her eyes widened. “Kale?”