Fast (30 page)

           
Well, four and a half
, corrected Bora.

            There was no immediate answer from Cairns.

            A tense edge sharpened Cairns’s reply, ‘What’s the Americans’ status now?’

            ‘They’re above me,’ Bora replied. ‘They went up the shaft. They couldn’t have reached any higher than the engineering level.’

            ‘I can see I’ll need to handle this myself,’ snapped Cairns. ‘Meet me on the engineering level in thirty seconds.’

           
Bora bristled.
Just like you handled them in the research labs when they stole the templates from under your nose.

            ‘Copy that,’ replied Bora, swinging himself into the elevator shaft and starting his climb up to the engineering level.

#

Harrison finished his sweep of the evacuation tunnel.

            He’d located the source of the scraping noise.

            It proved all bad news. What he’d discovered was profoundly disturbing. Expected, yes, but no less horrible for being nightmarishly predictable. In the back of his mind, he quashed his gullible hope that the creatures might ignore the evacuees. Out of sight, out of mind?

            No such luck.

            He activated his radio. ‘Sullivan. What’s your status?’

            ‘We’ve sealed everything as best we can,’ replied Sullivan. ‘I hope it’s enough. We don’t have much to work with.’

            ‘I know. Double-check the other teams,’ ordered Harrison. ‘We can’t overlook anything.’

            ‘Understood.’

            Harrison watched the orange light rotating above the containment door. He’d needed to kneel right under that light to discover the source of the noise. Was there something more he should be doing? It was hard to know. The Evac Center was never designed as an impenetrable stronghold. Harrison was doing his best with the resources at hand, but if the creatures made a concerted effort to breach their barricades, he had grave doubts their ramshackle engineering projects would hold for long. The top-deck for instance; it wouldn’t be able to hold the creatures indefinitely.

            And once the creatures were inside, among the evacuees….

            Someone politely cleared their throat behind him. Harrison snapped out his ghastly contemplations and saw it was Dana Lantry.

            ‘Sorry,’ apologized Dana, glancing at his rifle. ‘I didn’t want to startle you.’

            Harrison propped his rifle against the table. ‘No problems. Is everything okay?’

            Dana was the communications expert trying to remotely disable the C-Guard jamming transmitters. She seemed to be on a first name basis with every person in the Center. When Dana was around, Harrison felt like removing his helmet.

            Although she had cute features – large brown eyes, full lips, a slightly unturned nose with a dozen freckles – she was attractive in a way that had nothing to do with her pretty face or curvy figure. This woman would be attractive to any man in any feminine shape.

            Dana looked to have been caught in a business meeting when the evacuation kicked off. A walkie-talkie hung from her dark pinstriped skirt. Blood stains dotted the knee-length skirt where she’d helped in the medical clinic. She wore the sensibly flat shoes of someone who spent their days walking, and a tight, white, crew neck t-shirt that just covered her shoulders. Her bare arms were lightly muscled and evenly tanned. Her auburn hair probably reached down to her shoulders, but right now it was scrunched back in a no-nonsense ponytail.

            In her late-thirties, she struck Harrison as a woman who would be very good at whatever she set her mind. Her British accent wrapped every word in controlled self-assurance, and she had a way of projecting that feeling onto the people around her. Her presence was very centering.

            ‘No luck disabling the C-Guards,’ she reported. ‘This will sound strange, but all our attempts are being stopped at the admin hub.’

            ‘Stopped? You mean purposely blocked?’

            Puzzled, Dana nodded. ‘It must mean that someone’s still alive in there, but why would they stop us calling for help?’

            ‘I don’t know,’ answered Harrison honestly. ‘Could there be another explanation? A system fault or damaged communication lines?’

            Dana’s expression showed she had already explored those possibilities. ‘I tried contacting the hub directly, but they won’t answer. I can’t even access people’s voicemail recordings from our internal phones. That means all internal communication
is being blocked. But who would want to do that? It’s senseless.’

            ‘Maybe not,’ reasoned Harrison. ‘I heard some suspicious gunfire when we first entered the Complex. First I thought it was your security detail, but they aren’t issued with automatic weapons, right?’

            Dana shrugged and raised her right hand with her index finger and thumb stuck out
bang-bang
style. ‘They’ve got, you know, small guns.’

            ‘Like this,’ suggested Harrison, tapping his pistol.

            ‘Yeah.’

            Harrison nodded. ‘I wish they’d had automatic weapons. More of the evacuees would have survived.’

            ‘So who was it?’ asked Dana, intrigued now. ‘You think a staff member smuggled in weapons?’

            ‘I’m not sure. Leave it with me. I need to think about it some more.’

            Harrison left the rest of his thought unsaid. If another hostile force occupied the Complex, he needed to think things through before he alarmed the fragile evacuees further.

            He changed the subject. ‘How are the evacuees holding up?’

            ‘Pretty much as you’d expect. They’re emotionally shattered. How can anyone be expected to deal with something like this? Humans just aren’t equipped for this kind of… I don’t even know what to call it. A disaster, I suppose.’

            Harrison had a few choice phrases that he thought fitted the situation, but he doubted Dana would appreciate them.

            She crossed her arms over her white t-shirt and bit the side of her lip. She’d been wearing a jacket earlier, but with all the running around she was down to her t-shirt. She stared down the tunnel. The light down the tunnel whirled hypnotic orange patterns over the containment door.

            ‘Even if we all get out alive,’ she started, ‘I expect this is the end for our research. Without Vanessa Sharp there’s no way this place will recover. She was the heart of the organization.’

            Harrison recognized the name. She hadn’t reached the tunnel in time. Her son, and Captain Coleman’s son, was right now back there in the communal lounge showing the other kids his marbles.

            ‘I recognized her name from the television news,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t know her face.’

            Dana smiled to herself. ‘Not surprising. She was a public relations nightmare for me. Always dodging the spotlight, despite her achievements. Everyone else clamored for attention, but she just wanted to be left alone to work. It’s a shame, because you can’t meet Vanessa and not be impressed.’

            Harrison noted the sad pride in Dana’s voice.

            ‘I know someone like that,’ he said. ‘Her ex-husband’s here, you know. Alexander Coleman. He’s my Captain. I left him on the other side of that containment door. His two fire teams are pretty much the reason all these people survived.’

            ‘Fire team?’

            ‘Four Marines working in a team.’

            ‘You mean the soldiers who fought all the creatures outside the admin hub? Those guys were incredible.’

            ‘We’re Marines, not soldiers,’ Harrison corrected softly. ‘And yes, they were the ones. I haven’t told David. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I had to abandon Coleman. He was surrounded. He was….’

            Harrison left the rest unspoken. They both knew what the creatures could do.

            Dana looked sideways at Harrison. ‘Do you think the wrong people made it? Do you think we should be on that side and your Captain and Dr Sharp should be safe on this side?’

            Harrison didn’t have an answer for a moment, but then the truth came easily. ‘Coleman and Vanessa are on
that
side of the door because of who
they are. My Captain drew off the creatures to give the evacuees time to seal the tunnel. I bet your friend did something similar. They wouldn’t be who they are if they didn’t make those kinds of decisions.’

            ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Dana quietly. ‘Vanessa would have been in her labs. She’s always in the labs. Or swimming in the rec pool. She once told me she thinks clearly when she’s swimming. She had the techs waterproof a little tablet computer so she could take notes in the pool or in the shower or anywhere.’

            ‘That’s dedication,’ said Harrison. ‘The Captain’s like that. He has some sort of affinity for patterns. Sounds like they would have made an interesting couple.’

            ‘Patterns?’

            ‘Yeah. He’s one hell of a chess player.’

            They both stared at the orange light turning over the containment door. It felt easier to open up and talk without looking at each other. Looking at each other would reinforce their situation. For a moment talking felt good.

            Harrison asked, ‘Will you tell me the honest truth if I ask you a question?’

            Dana answered quickly. ‘Of course – I mean, I will if I know the answer. I promise.’

            Harrison believed her. He asked his question. ‘Was this Complex making those creatures as some kind of research experiment?’

            ‘No.’ Dana shook her head emphatically. ‘Not under any circumstances. Those monsters are no part of our research. Vanessa followed the Biological Weapons Convention to the letter. You must have heard about her opinion on that kind of stuff. She’d never allow it. They’ve been introduced by someone to sabotage the Complex.’

            Dana turned to Harrison. ‘So you really don’t know anything about them either? I assumed you knew but it was classified and you couldn’t tell me.’

            Harrison raised his eyebrow, surprised that she suspected all along he knew about the creatures. ‘We were anticipating a routine security operation. Our brief was to secure the Complex in a low key infiltration then support the weapons inspectors searching for biological weapons. We never expected any of this. We’d have brought ten times as many Marines had we known what was erupting.’

            ‘And bigger guns, I bet,’ added Dana.

            Harrison wasn’t sure if she was being serious or making a joke. Probably both.

            ‘Come and look at this.’ He crossed the antechamber and opened a tall metal wall panel. Behind the panel sat a stack of five display screens. Each screen showed a schematic map dedicated to a different level in the Complex. All five screens pulsed with flashing red warning lights.

            ‘My god,’ breathed Dana. ‘They’re tearing the place apart.’

            Harrison frowned at the display. ‘They’re concentrated in the north-west. I don’t know why. Something might be attracting them there. That might help us.’

            ‘How so?’ asked Dana, turning from the red glare as Harrison shut the panel.