Epitaph Road (22 page)

“What's
wrong
with her?” Tia wailed.

“I'll tell you,” Dr. Nuyen said. “On the way
out
.”

Dr. Nuyen dragged us away, and a blood-chilling moment later we were running out the door and down the corridor, Tia crying and me sick. And scared. What had happened to Sunday? What was happening outside?

We reached the hub just as the hatch opened and someone started down. I looked up. It was Wapner. We accelerated, angling down the C hallway. Smoke hung in the air. Debris covered the floor. And I realized where we were heading: the hidden exit to the tunnel that ran to Dr. Nuyen's forest phone booth. I slowed down long enough to scoop up a long piece of twisted metal framework.

When we got to the end wall, I waved the strip of metal in front of the lens, hoping the explosions hadn't wrecked the mechanism.

They hadn't. The overhead door opened, the ladder began to drop. Slowly. Too slowly.

“Margaret!”
It was Wapner, hurrying down the hallway. “What happened here?” he shouted.

“Get back, you monster!” Dr. Nuyen yelled. “I have a gun, and I'll use it!”

I'd seen no gun, but something in her voice made me believe she had one. Wapner hesitated, long enough for Dr. Nuyen to boost Tia onto the descending ladder and make sure she started up. I was next. I scrambled on and up, pushing Tia ahead of me. Before my head reached the ceiling, I looked back and saw Wapner start toward us again, then stop as Dr. Nuyen reached in her backpack for that gun.

I kept moving. I heard our rescuer behind me. Tia leaped onto the floor above us and I rolled after her and stumbled to my feet. The light was feeble here, but I could make out a square of rough wood flooring and two lamps marking the perimeter of the little room we were in and the entrance to a narrow tunnel.

Dr. Nuyen popped through the opening. She punched a button and the ladder began to move up.

“Go!” she ordered, and we did, racing for the tunnel with her on our tail.

“What about
Sunday
?” Tia cried over her shoulder.

But before Dr. Nuyen could respond, my talkaloud crackled to life. “Dr. Wapner!” an unfamiliar male voice said. “Nash here. Dr. Nuyen's trashed the computers. She's left with all the backup data on Formula V.”

“What?”

We kept running. Overhead bulbs gave us just enough light to avoid tripping. Jagged watermelon-sized rocks lay on the rough floor of the tunnel, forcing us to weave and jump, splashing up cold water from dark puddles. I glanced back, but the curve of the tunnel prevented me from seeing the door. Or anybody climbing through it. Dr. Nuyen had fallen behind. She seemed to be struggling.

“Status on Formula T data?” Wapner demanded over the talkaloud.

“Secure,” Nash said. “We have the backup.”

“Take the data,” Wapner ordered. “Head for the A exit with the other men ASAP. I'll meet you there.” His voice came in bursts, as if he was moving now.

“The women?” Nash said.

“Confined, Jimmy?” Wapner said. “Exposed?”

“Yessir,” Jimmy's voice answered. “Except for the two on the run.”

“They're with the boy,” Wapner said.
The boy. Me.
“Who's near the C egress?” he added.

“Through the trees, two minutes by foot.” Gunny's voice.

“Get there in
one
minute,” Wapner said. “When Dr. Nuyen and the brats emerge —
if
they emerge — take the data. But no prisoners.”
No prisoners.
My brain sent a message to my legs: faster,
faster.

A pause on Gunny's end. The faint sound of a long breath. Then more purposeful breathing. He was heading somewhere. “Will do.”

“You're in the control room, Jimmy?” Wapner said.

“For now. But I ain't waitin' forever.”

“What's going on in the sky?” Wapner said.

“Cameras vertical. Nothin' yet.”

“Monitor for thirty more seconds. Then join us at the exit.”

We kept running while I tried to breathe, while I attempted to digest everything I'd heard. For a long moment all I heard were our footfalls.

I lifted my talkaloud and pressed a button. “Dad?”

Nothing.

Where was he?

“Dad?”

Nothing. Tia reached back and took my hand. We dodged and jumped together, with Dr. Nuyen farther back now.

“Choppers!” Jimmy roared. “Three of 'em. A hundred yards up and dropping. Directly over the building.”

“Riflemen nearby?” Wapner asked.

No response.

“Shoot them down!” Wapner ordered.

“They're dumping something!” Jimmy said. “Cylinders!”

“Pan down!” Wapner said.

“They're hitting!” Jimmy said. “Shattering. All over the building. Right above the corridors. They've pinpointed the airways!”

“I'm sure they have,” Wapner said. I heard other voices in the background now, excited male voices. He was with Nash and the other men. I pictured them climbing the other ladder, escaping into the other tunnel.

“Dad!”

Nothing.

A big saw-toothed rock loomed up ahead, right in the center of our path. Tia and I skirted it on either side.

But a long moment later there was a cry from behind us.

We stumbled to a stop and looked back. Dr. Nuyen was down, writhing on the floor. She was holding her leg.

We raced back to her and knelt down. The rocky floor stabbed at my knees but I barely noticed. Even though she was wearing long pants, I could see there was something wrong. Her lower leg was angled, and when Tia pushed up the pant leg, blood flowed everywhere. A sharp spear of white bone protruded from the skin.

“You have to go,” Dr. Nuyen said, trying to breathe.

“We'll carry you,” Tia said.

“There's no time.”

I helped her to a sitting position. I couldn't look at her leg. Even in the gloomy light, her face was already pale.

“Sunday,” Tia said. “What happened to
Sunday
?”

“Elisha — the Biblical Elisha — had
two
bears,” Dr. Nuyen said, and for a second I was sure she'd gone delirious from shock.
Two bears?

But she went on, rapid-fire. “Their Formula T — the one the men worked on — isn't a treatment for males already exposed to Elisha. It
is
Elisha.” Her voice was weak, but there was weight behind each word.

“But for
females
.” Quick breaths, shallow.

I
couldn't
breathe.

“They want to decimate the world's female population. They have to be stopped.
You
have to stop them.”

“You didn't know?” I said.

“None of us imagined this. Me. Rebecca Mack. Your mother.” Strangled breathing attempt. “If we had any idea, Formula T would have been our priority. I would have gone after it harder. Or we would have just buried this place.

“Just after you left me at the computer, I stumbled across the truth,” she wheezed. “And equally terrifying news: they'd moved from lab animals to human subjects.”

“Sunday?”
Tia said.

“Sunday. Before her, Kate, Team V's little Fratheist lab assistant. Wapner said she'd had a death in the family.” She shook her head. “He was right.” Her eyes closed. “Now they've exposed the others on Team V.”

Below her ankle, her shoe and the ground surrounding it were soaked with blood. I remembered the far left door in security, the light in the little window. I pictured Kate the Fratheist lab assistant dying behind the door.

And Sunday.

The doctor opened her eyes. “Once you get out of here you'll find a fail-safe box on the closest large fir.” Deep breath this time. “Both combinations are 8667. You have to push the button.
Fast.
No second thoughts. No hesitation.”

She struggled out of her backpack and handed it to me. “The vaccine data is in there. Get it to your mother. Wapner has the Formula T data — and probably the concoction itself — and he's racing for the other exit.” She took a shallow labored breath. “It's up to you to make sure he doesn't leave the tunnel.” She squeezed my hand.

Tia and I lurched to our feet and took off. I didn't want to look back.

“Tell Merri I love her!” Dr. Nuyen said faintly. Then she urgently added something that sounded like “alone but merry.” The confusing meaningless words were the last ones I heard from her.

Running hard, I fingered my talkaloud. “Dad!” I said. “Dad! If you're anywhere near the tunnel A exit, you can't let Wapner and his guys out. They've got an Elisha formula for females. They killed Sunday with it
. They killed Sunday!
” I hurdled a big rock and stumbled but managed to stay on my feet and keep up with Tia. “But if you're in the tunnel, you have to get out.
You have to!
”

No answer. Where was he? My chest ached, I was exhausted, but I tried to stay focused. I didn't want to end up like Dr. Nuyen.

“No worries, Kellen.” Dad. Dad's unreasonably calm voice on my talkaloud. “I'm safe. You find a safe spot, too.”

“Where are you?”

“We'll talk soon.”

Nothing more. But I felt recharged.

“Planes!” Gunny's voice over the talkaloud this time, excited. “Crop dusters! A whole flock of 'em! Coming in low! Trailing spray!”

Panic raised his pitch. “Overhead!
Overhead
now!
Shit coming down!
” The high-pitched thunder of propeller aircraft poured out of the talkaloud and faded away.

What was waiting for us outside? Elisha's Bear thick in the air, almost for certain. And Gunny, with his orders to take no prisoners. But in here there was no safety, either. If we didn't blow up this place, Wapner would.

And for Tia, there was no dilemma. Her only good choice was outside, where she didn't have to worry about Elisha. Yet.

Just Gunny.

We flew out of a curve. In the dim distance loomed a dirt-and-rock wall, fronted by a ladder.

“Almost there,” Tia said. Two words, but I heard relief, hope, fear, sadness.

I felt crowded in by those emotions, too, but shoving them all aside was this big bullying feeling of inadequacy. I was a kid. I hadn't signed on for this junior assassin stuff. Knowing the consequences — death and destruction, never mind that the bad guys, mostly, would be the ones getting buried — how was I going to push that button?

I tried to ignore the feelings — all of them. We kept racing along. My talkaloud stayed quiet. When we reached the ladder, Tia spotted a control box and flipped a switch. Overhead, a door slid away, revealing a tangle of evergreen boughs rising into a dusky sky. I half expected to see Gunny's face peering over the edge, but no one was there.

Tia started up the ladder with me nudging her along. On the way I checked Dr. Nuyen's backpack: a couple of sealed metal containers, several data storage chips in plastic sleeves.

And no gun.

We reached the top of the ladder and stepped into the real world. A small clearing surrounded the exit door. I could hear aircraft not far off. Although the fresh air smelled wonderful and my lungs felt starved for oxygen, I was reluctant to take a deep breath.

Fifteen feet away stood a thick-trunked fir tree, and mounted on it was a metal box identical to the one at the cave. We hurried over, Tia reciting the combination out loud. But it was etched in my brain. I'd seen it in headlines and epitaphs. I'd seen it in my grandfather's. The date Elisha's Bear first charged out of the woods.

Heart pounding, I was about to touch in the combination on a pad of numbers when I heard a familiar voice. “Kids.”

Gunny. He was standing on the other side of the shadowy clearing, a rifle dangling at his side, pointed at the forest floor.

I held my breath.

“Hurry,”
he said. “You gotta nail those guys.” I breathed. I punched numbers. The door opened. Aside from a small screen displaying another selection of numbers, the only prominent feature inside the box was a green button.

“I'll keep my distance,” Gunny said as I pressed the combination again. “No telling who has what now.”

I touched the last number.
ARMED
, the screen said. Then,
ONCE BUTTON IS DEPRESSED
,
YOU WILL HAVE ELEVEN
(11)
SECONDS TO CLEAR THE AREA
.

I hesitated. I didn't know why. I was a coward. I was a human being. I was a guy.