Vampire Beach Hunted (17 page)

Jason took off the clean suit and put on the guard’s uniform. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

‘You need the crossbow,’ Zach said, handing it to him.

Jason took it reluctantly. He’d been shot with a crossbow. He didn’t really want to touch one, ever. But Zach was right. He needed it to look like a real guard.

‘Everybody look beat,’ Jason instructed the vampires. ‘As if you’re prisoners and you’re totally unable to escape from us.’

‘No problem,’ Christopher said, leaning on Van Dyke for support. Though he was looking a little stronger, he was still a long way off full strength. But then, he wasn’t a Malibu vampire.

‘They have motorized supply carts,’ Jason remembered. ‘If we pass one, our fake Mr Norton can commandeer it to carry the disabled prisoner.’

‘Will do,’ Adam promised.

Just as Jason reached for the door handle, something vibrated against his side. He jumped, startled. It took him a moment to realize it was his cell phone. He’d been so consumed by events down here in the complex that he’d practically forgotten about the world outside.

He pulled out the phone and checked the ID. ‘It’s Sienna,’ he told the others, hitting the ‘Talk’ button. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked her.

‘Yes. Are you?’ The sound of her husky voice instantly made him feel better.

‘We’re having some trouble. This thing is bigger than we realized,’ he told her.

‘I know. Jason, the DeVere lab analyzed those red pills. You won’t believe it—’

‘They give humans vampire strength and vampire powers,’ Jason said. ‘I know. I’ve seen them in action.’

‘Oh.’ Sienna sounded confused.

‘They work really well,’ Jason told her. ‘They let the head of this operation shape shift to look like Adam. He set us all up.’

‘
What?
’ Sienna cried.

‘Don’t worry, the real Adam is here,’ Jason assured her, smiling at Adam as he spoke. But Adam wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at something on the inside of the door. Staring intently.

‘Hang on,’ Jason told Sienna. ‘What’s up, Adam?’

‘This is a floor plan. Evacuation routes and alarm system status and all that,’ Adam said. ‘Look at it.’

Jason did. Zach looked over his shoulder. The thing was like a big computerized map of the complex, with temperature readings, blinking lights to indicate working alarms, and information readouts on laboratory conditions in all the rooms.

‘This lab must be the nerve center,’ Zach said. ‘From here, you can see what’s going on everywhere else and keep track of all the experiments.’

‘Which is pretty damn cool,’ Adam said. ‘But that’s not what I’m interested in. Look. This is the warehouse,’ Adam pointed to it on the floor plan, ‘so these must be the hallways we’re in right now. They’re like tunnels that burrow under the hill.’

Jason nodded.

‘This place is huge,’ Zach said. ‘These tunnels – hallways, whatever – seem to go on forever.’

‘No, they have an end,’ Adam replied. ‘Right here, in this building.’ He pointed to one end of the floor plan, as far from their location as could be.

Jason frowned. ‘A building? But the warehouse was in the middle of nowhere.’

‘The tunnels go on for miles,’ Zach said. ‘And they go under the hills. That building, on the outside, is nowhere near the warehouse. They’re just connected underground.’

‘Connected
secretly
,’ Adam added.

‘Where is that building?’ Zach asked.

But Jason had a sick feeling that he already knew the answer. ‘It’s on Mulholland Highway,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the headquarters of Medi-Life.’

Eighteen

‘
OH, MY GOD
,’ Adam said. ‘You’re right.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Sienna simultaneously gasped over the phone. ‘Medi-Life?’

‘They’re behind this whole thing,’ Jason told her. ‘Remember the HemoCorp pen you found? Well, their logo is all over the place here. And HemoCorp is owned by Medi-Life.’

‘Jason,’ Sienna said. ‘This is really, really bad.’

‘I know. They’ve got so much money that this place is rigged like a maximum-security prison. It’s going to be hard to get out,’ Jason said.

‘No, I mean it’s bad because of the red pills,’ Sienna explained. ‘If it’s Medi-Life developing this drug . . . well, it means they’re planning to distribute it somehow. I bet the military would pay big bucks for a pill that turned regular people into super-soldiers.’

‘Not to mention what people would pay on the black market,’ Jason muttered. ‘Mr Norton, the big cheese, is already talking about the billions of dollars he’s going to make.’

‘That’s not the worst of it,’ Sienna went on. ‘The DeVere researchers said the pills are unstable. The formula breaks down unpredictably, and the side effects on any humans taking them could be fatal.’

‘Well, I wish they were fatal sooner,’ Jason said. ‘I’d really like it if Norton toppled over right about now.’

‘Jason, you guys have to get out of there,’ Sienna said.

‘I’m on it!’ Jason replied, then a thought struck him. ‘I wonder if they’re storing the drug here or someplace else . . .’

‘What’s going on?’ Zach demanded.

Jason quickly filled him in on Sienna’s discovery. ‘Even if we get out of here alive, we’ll be leaving these goons with stockpiles of a dangerous drug,’ Jason concluded.

‘But if we could get rid of it, we’d be setting their research back by months!’ Adam put in.

Jason turned to Christopher. ‘Did you hear anything about the pills? Where they might be keeping them?’

‘No. Sorry.’ Christopher shook his head.

‘Jason,’ Sienna said. ‘The researchers here say it’s easy to destroy the drug . . .’

‘Excellent! But, how?’ Jason asked.

He heard Sienna talking to someone on her end of the phone. ‘They say it’s very delicate,’ she finally told him. ‘The active ingredient needs to be kept at around room temperature. If you can expose the pills to warm temperatures, the active ingredient will break down, and the drugs will be ruined.’

‘OK, so we just have to turn up the heat,’ Jason said. ‘But I still don’t know how to find it.’

‘I do,’ Adam put in.

Jason looked at his best friend quizzically.

‘Temperature readings.’ Adam pointed to the computerized floor plan.

‘Yes! Find someplace that’s cold,’ Jason told him. ‘And that looks big enough to store a bunch of medicine.’

‘Belle and I are going to head over to the warehouse right now,’ Sienna said. ‘It sounds like you guys need help.’

‘No!’ Jason cried. He turned away while Adam and Zach studied the floor plan. ‘Don’t go to the warehouse. They’ll be waiting for you and they’ll grab you both.’

‘OK, then, where should we meet you?’

Jason thought about it. ‘At the Medi-Life headquarters. This whole place is a big, secret lab. I doubt the regular people who work in the Medi-Life building know anything about it. So if we can get there, we might be able to get out. Can Belle’s car take all of us?’

‘Yeah, we took her parents’ Escalade,’ Sienna said, confusion in her voice. ‘But I don’t understand. You’re just going to walk out the front door?’

‘If the plan works, yes. A very public exit could be our only chance.’ Jason took a deep breath. ‘Be careful. I love you.’

‘You too.’ Sienna’s voice shook a little. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Jason muttered as he stuck his phone back in his pocket.

‘We got it,’ Adam reported. ‘There’s a room two hallways from here. It’s the only room on the whole corridor, and the temperature is a steady thirty degrees.’

‘Refrigerated.’ Jason grinned. ‘Is it on our way to the Medi-Life building?’

‘Yup.’ Adam pulled open the door. ‘Let’s go.’

The hallway was empty when they stepped out, but Jason could hear voices calling to one another from somewhere nearby. ‘This way – fast.’ He gestured to the right, where the hall intersected another hall.

But the vampires couldn’t go very fast. Christopher had to be supported by both Van Dyke and Brad in order to even walk.

‘We need to find carts,’ Jason told Adam.

‘I’m on it.’ Adam turned onto the next hall and spotted a maintenance man. ‘You!’ he yelled. ‘Two carts, pronto. I need them for the prisoners.’

The maintenance guy jumped, then turned and raced down the hall. ‘Right away, Mr Norton!’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Stay here and wait for the carts,’ Jason told his friends. ‘I’m going to find that storage room and turn up the heat.’

He jogged away from the group and turned back onto the original hallway. The room they’d seen on the floor plan was two corridors up. Jason slowed as he passed a man in a lab suit rushing the other way, then sped up again until he reached the second corridor.

This place was deserted. The corridor was short, a dead end. And sure enough, there was only one door. Jason pulled Bill Baldwin’s ID out of his pocket. ‘Tell me you had drug access, Bill,’ he whispered. Holding his breath, he swiped the card. The door clicked open.

A rush of relief flooded Jason, and he smiled. Inside, the room was cold and dark, and Jason could sense that it was a big place. Luckily, the temperature controls were right inside the doorway, protected by a plastic covering.

‘Finally, something that’s easy,’ Jason murmured. He smashed the plastic with his fist, then hit the red ‘Up’ arrow to raise the temperature. He pushed it to the maximum: eighty degrees. Then he hit ‘Enter’.

And an alarm went off.

‘Damn it!’ Jason looked up – red lights were flashing over the doorway, and bells were clanging through the hallway, echoing up and down the other corridors.

Jason slammed the door, then grabbed the crossbow bolt from his weapon and stabbed it into the sensor pad, scratching and tearing at it until there was no way anybody could use it to unlock the door and turn down the thermostat.

Then he ran. Back to the main corridor, down to the first intersection, and over to his friends. They had two motorized carts and were just settling Christopher onto the back of one of them.

‘Something you want to tell us?’ Adam asked as Jason ran up.

‘Yeah. It’s time to go.’ Jason jumped onto the cart with Christopher and Van Dyke, spun the little wheel, and hit the gas. The thing shot off down the hall. Adam leapt behind the wheel of the second cart while Zach and Brad jumped into the back.

The maintenance man watched, baffled, as Adam sped away with a wave.

Jason reached the end of the hallway and took a right, keeping an image of the floor plans in his mind. ‘This corridor should lead us straight to the Medi-Life building,’ he told the vampires, hitting the gas until they were at maximum speed.

‘When?’ Van Dyke asked, peering ahead. The hallway vanished into the distance, no end in sight.

‘I don’t know. I think it’s a couple of miles,’ Jason said.

He heard Adam’s cart behind him, picking up speed. After a minute or two, the sounds of the alarm behind them began to fade. There were no more doors, just smooth white walls. This section was clearly just a connector to the main building, not part of the HemoCorp complex anymore.

‘We might make it,’ Jason said. ‘This might actually work!’

Just then, two guards appeared about fifty yards ahead, standing at attention.

‘Oh, no,’ Adam moaned. ‘A security checkpoint! Meaning, that’s two guys who could potentially go Bruce Banner on our asses. Look sharp, folks.’

Jason slammed on the brakes, squealing to a stop just a few feet from the men.

Adam’s cart crashed into his, pushing him further toward them.

The guards both lifted their crossbows. ‘This hallway is off limits,’ one of them growled. ‘Orders from Mr Norton.’

Adam jumped off his cart, walked right up to the bigger guy and swatted the crossbow out of the way. ‘We’ve got a situation in the complex,’ he said. ‘Don’t you hear the alarms? Get back there and check it out while I escort the test subjects to a secure area.’

The two guards stared at him for a second as the alarms blared dimly in the distance.

‘Go!’ Adam yelled.

They took off at a run down the long white corridor. Jason grinned at Adam, raising his eyebrows.

‘I could get used to being in charge,’ Adam joked, climbing back on to his cart. ‘For anyone who wasn’t paying attention, I was channeling James Caan from
Godfather
one, just without the hammy New York accent. But even
you
guys must have known that, right?’ Adam read the look on all their faces. He sighed. ‘Not the right time, I guess.’

Jason hit the gas again, and they sped on.

‘I see something,’ Van Dyke said a minute later.

Jason squinted into the whiteness. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. There was something silver up ahead.

After another minute it became clear: silver doors. Silver
elevator
doors.

‘We’re here,’ Adam cheered from the other cart. ‘The corridor ends at the elevators. They must lead up to the main Medi-Life building.’

They pulled the carts to a stop, and Jason jumped off and hit the ‘Up’ button on the elevators. The others helped Christopher off the cart, practically lifting him into the air and setting him on his feet. Jason bit his lip. The guy was in really bad shape.

Sienna and Belle are coming with a car
, he thought.
Let’s just hope they get here in time.

With a soft buzz, the elevator arrived. Jason half-expected Norton to jump out of the opening doors, but nothing happened. It was just a regular elevator. They all piled in, and Jason pushed the button that said ‘Lobby’.

The elevator shot up with a
whoosh
. . . and kept on going.

‘How far underground are we?’ Zach asked.

Adam shrugged. ‘If the tunnel goes through the hills, there’s no telling how deep it is. The Medi-Life building is at the top of the hill.’

Finally, the doors opened and they all stepped out into a huge marble lobby. The ceiling over the lobby was made of glass, letting in the pale light of early morning. Jason blinked, staring up at the blue California sky. Had they really been down in the HemoCorp complex all night?

‘This is surreal,’ Brad muttered, glancing around at the corporate lobby. Sunlight glinted off a waterfall along the back wall, the smell of fresh coffee wafted over from a fully stocked breakfast stand, and polished-looking workers were making their way in for the day.