"Why don’t you just go without me. I don’t think I’m going to be able to climb all those stairs, anyhow."
"Don’t worry, Major. You won’t have to. Now keep moving."
Gant pushed open the double doors and led the three up the hall under the glow of track lighting to the four-way intersection where he and Twiste had paused several hours ago. There he heard the entity's kids feasting on Ruthie's corpse, but they did their nasty business behind the door marked for biohazard disposal. He recalled seeing several sets of ghastly fingers poking out from there during the trip in.
Thom lamented his injuries—if it were only his shoulder or only his knee, he might have been in a position to get that gun from Jolly. Perhaps to shoot the entity, perhaps to shoot himself. But with both injuries he knew he simply would stumble and fall. Not even worth the effort.
"Around the corner, Major, and straight on," Briggs commanded from behind. Thom did as instructed, entering the passage where the spinning siren lights sent flashes of yellow and red. It seemed like forever ago that he and his friend had come through this way, passing the observation windows that looked in on dead scientists.
Eventually they exited the Red Lab section, working their way into the antechamber with the plastic chairs, the phony plants, the security counter, and the CONTAINMENT sign that, once again, filled the area with its glow.
At this point, Briggs pointed them along a different path, no longer tracing Gant and Twiste's journey in. The passage they walked grew darker, and Gant wondered what kind of dead-end the entity had in mind until Briggs's voice commanded, "stop."
Major Gant glanced around, his eyes struggling to adjust to the lack of light. He saw something set in the wall: an elevator.
At that instant it seemed to Major Gant as if the entire complex exploded in front of him. A brilliant flash of light erupted as if the sun engulfed the corridor. His arm rose instinctively and shielded his eyes but he could not shut them tight enough to keep out the light.
With the light came a mechanical, churning noise vibrating along the walls and turning the silence of the dungeon into a cacophony of sound.
"Ah, right on time," Briggs’s voice commented.
Thom slowly lowered his arm, then cautiously opened his eyes.
No explosion. No sun. No super-flash of any sort.
Just hall lights. Yet it had been so long since he had seen normal lighting that the fluorescents were like brilliant spotlights overpowering his retina.
The noise also seemed to his ears much more powerful than in reality. He heard the elevator motor coming to life. Yet in the still silence it had seemed a boom.
"What is this?" Gant gasped.
"And so I said, let there be light," Briggs smirked. "They are rolling out the red carpet for me. Like I said, it’s time to go."
32
"So what do we do now?" Corporal Sanchez asked Colonel Thunder.
The two stood outside of the main building on the surface. Liz desperately needed a cigarette but fought off the urge. Sanchez desperately needed direction. Both felt some fresh air might help them better judge the situation.
Liz glanced away from the building. Through the trees she could barely make out spots of color that she knew was a helicopter resting on the landing pad.
Well, we could bug the fuck out and head for the hills to wait for Armageddon.
Somehow she did not think that was what Sanchez wanted to hear.
He asked, "Who can stop this? Is there someone in Washington who can override the general?"
Thunder chuckled. "Override General Harold Borman? Are you kidding? The guy wrote the book on unconventional enemies. He made Red Rock what it is. All he has to say is that you and I are under the influence of whatever is down there and we’d be locked up, or get a bullet in the noggin."
"His face, man," Sanchez recounted their confrontation with Borman. "He was not even there. He was some sort of mannequin or something."
Thunder put a hand on his shoulder and told him, "Yeah, and you lied right to his face. You should’ve dragged him out of there, not me."
"You think?" Sammy was genuinely apologetic. "I don't think he would have cooperated. I thought it was best just to get us out of there."
Again Liz reminded herself that last week this kid had shot to death another colonel.
"This is totally whack," Sanchez said.
Thunder paused and managed a smile.
"Totally whack? What the hell is that?"
Sanchez looked over at her. He was confused and upset and not in the mood for sarcasm. Hell, he probably would not recognize sarcasm if it bit him on the ass, at least not at that moment.
"Okay, look," she said. "We’ve got to handle this, you and I. Who can help us?"
"The chain of command," Sanchez stumbled. "Who’s on top of the general?"
"Forget that," she told him again. "That isn't going to happen. About the only shot there is, is to try and contact Gant's boss at his base—that was a General Friez, I believe. But Borman is his superior officer, so the Pentagon will not let him jump on anything fast and he's probably all the way back in California, where Archangel is based. But this isn’t just a military operation, is it?"
Sanchez failed to grasp her meaning..
"The Tall Company," she explained. "This is their baby, too."
"So?"
"So that Vsalov, he’s down there. Honestly, he strikes me as slime but he's scientist-slime so maybe he'll listen. If we make him see what’s going on, maybe he can stop it."
"Okay, but …" Sanchez started.
"But what?"
"But what if he’s like the general?"
Liz considered, then asked, "Do you know how to fly a helicopter?"
That threw him for a loop.
"What?"
"Never mind. Let’s go."
—
Captain Campion led Wells and Galati along the hall until they were stopped by a series of sounds: gurgling, munching, and snorts. He held up his fist and his comrades dropped into a "hold" position, on one knee and quiet.
The captain communicated with his team with hand signals: an open palm, a thumb to his chest, two fingers walking on air, two fingers pointing at his eyes.
They nodded in understanding and waited as Campion crept forward to a bend in the hall. It was dark—everything was dark down there—but there were some emergency lights on and his eyes had adjusted enough that he could see around the corner.
He was on one end of a four-way intersection. Straight ahead across a perpendicular passage was slightly ajar door with a biohazard symbol and the word "disposal" written underneath. The sounds came from that room.
A few paces closer, another corridor illuminated by red track lighting led to the main lab; the target area.
The V.A.A.D. must be activated in the laboratory!
Would whatever lurked inside that biohazard disposal room come out and interfere with reaching the lab? Obviously he could not be sure, but he had no alternative; the device needed to be activated, the mission must be completed.
He waved to his two comrades to join him. He had a plan, but they might not like it.
—
Liz and Sanchez moved fast through the underground halls. The colonel worried that Borman was not going to forget about their little incident, and given his unpredictable mental state, that could mean anything.
They made a series of sharp turns through the maze until they came to a rather wide, well-lit, and carpeted corridor marking the VIP residential section. It was one of the few areas that remained relatively well kept. No chipped paint here, no burned-out bulbs.
"There," Sanchez pointed. "He’s in 22."
Liz knocked on the wooden door.
"Dr. Vsalov? Are you in there?"
"Um … Colonel … I think the general has finished polishing his boots."
She saw what Corporal Sanchez saw: a pair of military policemen marching down the hall in their direction. Both carried M16s. Both stared
at Colonel Thunder.
She knocked on the door much harder, causing her knuckles to actually crack.
"Dr. Vsalov, it’s Colonel Thunder. This is very important."
No voice came from within, but a sound akin to something large falling over, maybe a lamp or a chair overturned, reached their ears.
"Something’s wrong in there," she said to Sanchez and put her shoulder against the door.
"Halt," a freckle-faced soldier in fatigues yelled. His partner—a black soldier with a scar on his cheek—pulled the charging handle on his weapon.
It was quite possible, Liz figured, that the two MPs were under the influence of whatever haunted the complex. If so, instead of arresting her they might simply shoot to kill. The next few seconds were critical.
She turned toward them, ignoring the sound of another something big smashing over inside Vsalov’s quarters.
"Don’t you throw orders at me," she said, using her best commander’s voice. "Any orders here will be given by me."
Sanchez echoed, "Stand down, soldier."
"Orders from General Borman," the freckled kid addressed Thunder. "You are to be arrested and removed from this facility, with force if necessary."
Again a loud noise, this time smashing against the door and grabbing everyone's attention. Liz utilized the distraction and lunged at the scarred soldier, using her left hand to force his barrel up and her right to reach for the sidearm holstered on his hip.
The freckled MP turned on her with his own gun, but Sanchez managed to shove that barrel up, too.
The soldier Liz grappled with regained enough control of his rifle to drive the butt into her gut. She stumbled backwards into the wall.
The scarred MP then turned to help his friend, once more using the butt of his M16, forcing Sanchez to relinquish his grip on the other soldier. In the process the freckled kid discharged a round into the ceiling, sending a sonic shockwave up and down the hall. The loud bang in such close quarters caused everyone's ears to ring.
The door to Dr. Vsalov’s quarters swung open and out came something that was mad and ravenous and inhuman despite its human form. It reached for the freckled-faced soldier with both hands, grabbing his rifle and forcing another accidental discharge, this time into the floor.
Its hands occupied, the attacker lunged with its next weapon: its teeth. Its mouth cupped the soldier's throat and bit hard. A fountain of blood erupted and ruined the blue carpet.
"Jesus fucking Christ," the black soldier cried and came to his partner's aid with a rifle butt to the attacker’s head.
It did not budge.
The freckle-faced soldier tried to cry out, but blood filled his throat and bubbled over his gaping lips. Sanchez threw his arms up and under the thing’s shoulders and tried to pry it loose.
Liz realized that the thing that had burst from the VIP quarters was Vsalov. Except Vsalov had undergone a few changes.
His cheeks had been scratched into a tangled mess of shredded skin, blood, and exposed jaw. His hair—or at least the hair that had not been pulled free of his scalp—was matted in blood from a head injury that might have been from slamming his skull against the wall repeatedly. His oversized clothes were torn and covered with red.
Something had taken hold of Vsalov, driven him insane to the point of self-mutilation, and filled what remained with a monster of rage and insanity.
Finally Sanchez wrested Vsalov from his death bite and, together, they stumbled backwards into the apartment, falling over an overturned chair just inside the doorway.
Sanchez fell with what had once been Vsalov on top of him, albeit still in a half nelson.
The black soldier took a step inside the door and leveled his rifle at the monster. Liz hurriedly slapped the barrel away, sending two 5.56 rounds into the wall.
"You want to kill them both? Sanchez, get it off of you."
"I—I can’t—"
But he did. He rolled and let go, then rolled the other direction.
The beastly thing crawled toward Sanchez. The corporal cried out as he tried to stumble to his feet.
BLAM.
A single report rang out and a bullet from the M16 found its mark in Vsalov’s back. He stopped moving … for a moment. A long enough moment for Sanchez to gain his balance and stand.
Vsalov—or the creature that had been Vsalov—stood and gaped hungrily at the three.
"What are you waiting for?" Liz asked the soldier. "Waste that thing."
The soldier squeezed the trigger on his rifle and a three-round burst hit the monster square in the chest. More blood fell on the remains of the leisure suit.
Vsalov stumbled, but did not fall.
"Full fucking auto," Liz commanded.
The soldier complied and thumbed the selector switch on his rifle. This time one continuous stream of fire flowed from the rifle. It shook in the MP's arms and many rounds went wild but many more hit the target. Wounds erupted all over the former man's body, causing him to jerk and jump as if a thousand volts of electricity had zapped his flesh. For a moment it looked as if the living corpse of Dr. Vsalov did some hellish dance, then it dropped as the last round left the soldier’s magazine.
Liz turned and went into the hall. She knelt next to the freckle-faced kid. He tried to speak but the only thing that came out was more blood.
Then he stopped.
She held a hand to his wrist, searching for a pulse, and found none. With a sigh, Liz, gently shut the boy’s eyelids to give the illusion of peace. But there was no peace here. Liz remembered evaluating this soldier. His name was Henson—or Hanson—something like that.
"Colonel, look at this," Sanchez called.
Thunder returned to inside the living quarters. Vsalov’s body lay still. The MP was not convinced; he had reloaded and kept his rifle aimed squarely at the motionless thing. All thoughts of making an arrest appeared to have left his mind.
"What have you got?"
Sanchez held up a scrap of paper, one of dozens of scraps of paper littering the room.
"Instructions," he told her in a very shaky voice. "Looks like instructions to operate something called a V.A.A.D.—whatever that is. Tough to read, though."
"What is that thing?" The soldier asked, but he did not take his eyes off of it. "I mean, what the freak is that thing?"
"It’s Dr. Vsalov," she told him.
"That’s not human," the soldier said. "That’s no person at all."
"It was," she answered, then looked at the scraps of paper again and when she saw what was on those scraps of paper she added, "It was a person, until something fried his brain dragging all of this out."
"What does it mean, Colonel?" Sanchez asked.
"It’s the thought that counts," she mused aloud a moment before realization hit hard. "Oh God, it means we’re running out of time."
33
"Hold at this intersection," Campion ordered in a soft whisper as the crunching, gurgling, groaning, and slurping sounds emanated from behind the biohazard door. "If whatever is in there comes out, retreat back the way we came and draw it off so I can work in the lab."
"So, we should be bait?" Wells asked.
"Yes, sorry, that's the idea."
"Well," Galati said, "I sure hope whatever it is prefers dark meat."
Jupiter Wells turned and faced his friend with wide, pissed off eyes, but when he saw the smirk he nearly burst out laughing.
"You're an asshole, Sal. A real friggin' asshole."
"I know."
"And you didn't call that pool shot you lying bastard."
"I know," Sal surprisingly admitted. "But you're not getting that ten spot back."
"Hold here," Campion repeated and took the duffel bag in one hand while balancing his laser-equipped HK MP5 in the other. "I'll be back when the job is done."
Before he took a step, however, the environment underwent a significant change. First came what sounded like a series of heavy bolts slamming open or shut; then the lights flickered; then
the hallway went from a dirty dark to a brilliant white light.
All three were forced to shield their eyes from this eruption of illumination. It had been nearly an entire day since they had been subjected to normal lighting; so long that now "normal" light levels felt like blinding lasers.
"Jesus … friggin’ … damn …" Wells muttered.
"Full power? How the hell are the lights still working down here?" Galati struggled to avoid shouting.
Wells added, "and who’s the fucking brain surgeon who turned them on?"
Campion’s eyesight slowly adjusted and he answered, "It doesn’t change anything. Nothing has changed."
The Captain, in his mind, knew otherwise—things had just become much more urgent. He could feel the energy in the air. Not the energy that powered the lights but the energy of the entire situation.
It was time to finish the mission. It was time to bring it to a conclusion.
What came after that conclusion was foggy and uncertain to Captain Campion and felt wholly unimportant.
Finish the mission.
—
Liz led Sanchez through the maze, past her office, and along the corridor on their way to the large secure elevator. She vaguely remembered the security tapes of Colonel Haas—her predecessor—and his deliberate and focused gait as he moved under the influences of some unseen force.
She wondered if it might be her, not Borman, who was being controlled. Could something be forcing her mind to make connections and draw conclusions that were not so?
Haas had apparently heard his daughter calling to him from the quarantine zone. Now what did she hear? Her own suspicions? A magnification of the distrust she felt for the shadowy elements of the U.S. military establishment and the people—like Borman—who served it?
People like me.
She realized that Sanchez had slowed, not from fatigue but as something caught his attention. He tilted his head and cocked an ear to the air.
"What is it? We have to keep moving," Liz asked and commanded in the same breath, but Sanchez did not listen.
Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle Page 28
