Xenofreak Nation

by Melissa Conway

  “Turn off the alarm,” Lupus said, and Padme hit a holokey. The constant ringing ceased. “Now unseal the main tunnel.”

  Padme tapped more keys. She paused to look around her, shaking her head. “I hate to see it all go up in flames,” she said. “But we have ten minutes.”

  Bryn saw several things happening on the holoscreen. In the Warehouse, police had engaged the ARA soldiers. One corridor showed the woman from the animal room pushing what appeared to be a cage on wheels with the help of another white-coated figure. Scott and a young woman were running down another corridor. With a flash of trepidation, Bryn saw Dundee appear, feeling his way along the wall with his hands. From a view of the elevator from the clinic side, a battle had ensued. She said, “Um, we got incoming.”

  Lupus looked at the holoscreen, which now showed one of his men down and the other trying to hold off Kareem and three of his soldiers who’d managed to cross over the void in the elevator floor. One of the ARA guys tossed a grenade, and Lupus’ man ran out of view to escape it. Bryn heard a dull boom and the walls shook. Lupus swore and grasped the rifle slung from his good shoulder. “Get out. Get everyone out.”

  He left, and without further ado, Bryn said to Padme, “I know what you did, and it backfired.”

  Padme stuffed one final item into the gym bag and zipped it up. “Not really. My goal was to get you out of the picture, and look where you are.” She hefted the gym bag.

  “I’m in the same place as you.”

  “Not for long.” Without warning, Padme hurled the gym bag at Bryn. She caught it, but it was heavy and knocked her back, giving Padme enough time to slip out and slam the door. Bryn dropped the bag and tried to turn the handle, but it was a security door and Padme had done something to lock it from the inside.

  Padme had said they had ten minutes before the place went up in flames.

  Bryn was trapped.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Nicola’s bird was not happy and wanted everyone to know it. The alarm had shut off, but that only made the sound of gunfire and explosions more prominent—and the bird’s piercing chirps no longer had competition. As they ran down the corridor, Scott hoped they wouldn’t have to hide from the invaders; if so, the bird would quickly give their location away. On the heels of that thought, they came to a cross section that was filled with smoke. From the sound of it, the ARA had gotten through and were taking, and returning, fire.

  Scott stopped in his tracks and asked Nicola, “Is there another way?”

  She shook her head. “The tunnel is near the control room.”

  Footsteps coming from the direction of the gunfire alerted him. He pushed open one of the hospital double-doors and said, “This way!”

  Nicola preceded him into the dark room, bird screeching madly.

  “Can’t you shut it up?” Through the narrow windows in the doors, Scott saw Kareem appear out of the smoke, headed in their direction.

  “She’s scared!” Nicola said.

  “Shh! Hide!” Scott grabbed the cage and pulled it from her grasp, setting it on a counter near the doors before pushing Nicola into the corner behind a cupboard. He squatted in front of her, looking around for something he could use as a weapon. He had a choice between the books in the knapsack on his back, or one of the glass bottles on a shelf directly across from them. The bottles were filled with a clear liquid, and might just be heavy enough to take someone down if he threw it accurately. He leaned over and snatched one off the shelf before ducking back. The bird shrieked.

  The light in the room brightened briefly and then went dark again. Scott risked a look and saw no one. Presumably, Kareem had glanced in, identified the source of the squawk and moved on.

  “Let’s go. Lupus said we’d better be at the tunnel when the power goes out.” Scott wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but Lupus wasn’t one to issue warnings without merit. He stood and moved out of the way for Nicola. She crawled out from behind the cupboard and then exclaimed, “Gross!”

  Scott shushed her again as she got up and held her hand out. “Is this…blood?”

  It was too dark to tell for certain, but the smudge on her palm did look like blood. He saw something on the floor and with a sudden apprehension bent to pick it up. It was thin and about six inches long. He held it in the light coming through the window. He’d seen Bryn’s quills enough to know which end was the root and which the point. Blood covered the point end, which didn’t mean it wasn’t Bryn’s, but at least the quill hadn’t been yanked from her head.

  He’d had no choice but to let her go with Dundee, but that didn’t ease his guilt. If that reptilian bastard had hurt her…but Scott didn’t have time to imagine payback.

  The bird had gone silent, but as soon as Nicola picked up its cage again, it produced another round of skull-splitting shrieks. She set the cage back down and removed her sweater. Once she’d tied it around the cage, the bird quieted down. Scott gave her a thumbs-up, and they cautiously went back into the corridor. In his left hand, he still held the bottle of liquid, just in case.

  The way was clear in both directions. Scott took Nicola’s hand and they began to run. A glance down the corridor where the smoke had cleared showed two bodies lying prone on the floor. They rounded a bend and up ahead, a man in a sling was walking slowly, dragging his hand along the wall.

  “Who’s there?” Dundee called. “Help me!”

  Scott grinned at the sight of his blood-smeared face. Unfortunately, Nicola didn’t find it as amusing. She screamed. Scott started to pull her past him, but Dundee threw his good arm out and attempted to grab her. Scott wanted to punch him in the face, but it was obvious Dundee couldn’t see, and he’d never been one to hit a man when he was down. He got between Dundee and Nicola and took hold of Dundee’s arm.

  “Where’s Bryn?” he asked. “I mean, Porky?”

  “That bitch!” Dundee spat. “Look what she did to me! I’m going to kill her!”

  It was obvious from Dundee’s comment that he didn’t know where Bryn was and the last time he’d seen her, she’d been alive. Whatever he’d done to get a face full of quills, leaving an injured man behind went against everything Scott had been trained for in the Marines. He tugged on Dundee’s arm and said, “Come on. We’ll get you to the tunnel.”

  It was much slower going after that, but eventually they reached the door to the control room. Nicola said, “It’s not far from here.”

  He stopped in front of the camera over the door. “Padme? Are you still in there?”

  No response. All he heard was a kind of banging noise, a muted, rhythmic sound that he dismissed as distant gunfire. They didn’t have time to linger. He guided Dundee down the corridor. Nicola led the way.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  When Scott turned and followed the pretty blonde girl away from the control room door, Bryn stopped banging and screamed at the holomonitor, “No! Scott! I’m here!” It was bad enough he’d been five feet away and couldn’t hear her through the security door, but he was helping her would-be rapist, Dundee.

  Bryn sat in the office chair and pulled it up to Padme’s holo computer, but found the computer locked and password protected. She yanked open the top drawer of the desk and began tossing things out. Pencils, pens, ruler, batteries—no password on a sticky note. She opened the next drawer down and found books and notepads with writing—in Arabic script. The bottom drawer had coffee mugs, dishes, boxes of tea and snack bars. She slammed it shut and looked frantically around the room. Padme was an uncommonly neat person, and the room didn’t have any other cupboards or shelves.

  Her eyes fell on the black gym bag Padme had thrown at her. Padme had been packing to take it with her; it stood to reason that the items in the bag were of value to her, but she’d sacrificed them to get away. Bryn unzipped it and dug through the contents. These were Padme’s personal items, a scarf, sunglasses, books and, “Aha!” It was a holoreader, an older version, but still Internet capable. She turned it on and found that Padme
had password protected it, too. Bryn started to throw it across the room, but the screensaver stopped her. It was a holograph of Scott.

  What had Padme said? That she’d wanted Bryn out of the picture. It hadn’t made sense at the time, and it still didn’t. Even if Padme was madly in love with Scott, Bryn found it hard to believe she would kill for him. But then again, Bryn had met an awful lot of people lately who had contempt for life, especially if that life was not their own.

  Padme also said they had only ten minutes before the place went up in flames. Bryn didn’t know how much time had passed, but it couldn’t be long now before whatever was going to happen…happened. She made another pass around the room. There were no hinges on the door to remove. There was only one vent in the ceiling, but it was way too small. Bryn squinted at the ceiling itself. The rest of the facility had those drop-panel ceilings common in office-buildings, but this room appeared solid all around. The walls were painted cinderblock, but she could see nail pops all in a row down the middle of the ceiling where the sheetrock or drywall had come away from the stud. From the dust on the desk, it must have been recent; maybe due to all the explosions.

  She knew about nail pops because three years ago a strong earthquake out of Quebec surprised New York residents unused to feeling the earth tremble under their feet. At the Vega household, several items had fallen from the mantel and a crack appeared in the drywall of the dining room. Bryn had helped her dad tear it down and put up a new wall. She’d had a sledge hammer and a pry bar then, but there were plenty of objects in the control room suitable for the job.

  She rushed from one piece of equipment to another, selecting something long and heavy—she didn’t know its function—and unplugging it. She climbed up on the desk, ducking down because the ceiling was so low. The nail-pops indicated where the two-by-four stud was, so she aimed for a spot a few inches away. The first blow barely made a dent and she worried the material used to construct the ceiling was tougher than she thought. After a half dozen more hits, though, she’d knocked out a hole as big as her fist. She dropped the makeshift sledgehammer and put her hand through the hole up to her elbow, thrilled when she encountered nothing in the space beyond the ceiling. She reached up with her other hand and curled her fingers around the edge. It was a simple matter of hanging her body weight from the sheetrock to break a large piece off. In less than a minute, she’d made a hole big enough to fit her body through.

  She stuck her head inside and saw the control room framework, silver air ducts, pipes and wiring. Above that was concrete; beyond was nothing but black, but that didn’t stop her from climbing up and crawling along the studs. The light from the control room faded the farther she got. Soon, she felt ahead of her and encountered something different. Instead of two-by-fours, the ceiling consisted of thin metal bars holding up panels. She sat on the last stud and kicked easily through the nearest panel. It fell to the ground, but the space below was black. Bryn turned onto her belly and dropped down, hanging by her hands and swinging before letting go. It was a short drop to the ground. She touched around her: shelves with mystery items on them. She felt her way around the perimeter of the place until her hand encountered a light switch. It was a storage room.

  When the door handle turned under her hand with no resistance, she nearly cried aloud in relief.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Scott expected a crowd of people to be waiting at the tunnel entrance, but the only one there was Padme. She was standing between a plain door and the caged panda.

  “What happened to you?” she asked Dundee.

  “I need to see the doc,” he muttered.

  “Can you see…at all?” She waved a hand in front of his face. Dundee kept his eyes closed, leaned against the wall and didn’t answer.

  “Oh, look!” Nicola said, leaning down to look at the panda. Someone must have sedated the animal, because it was lying on its side, face mashed against the mesh of the cage.

  “It won’t fit,” Padme said. “The tunnel is too narrow for the cage. I let the others go ahead while I figure out how to get the panda out.”

  Dundee slid down the wall in a heap, but turned his face up when Scott asked, “Did Bryn get out?”

  Padme nodded. “Everyone is accounted for, all the patients and staff, except two of the men, Lupus and Dr. Fournier.”

  Nicola gasped. “Where’s my dad?”

  “I spoke to him a few minutes ago. He is on his way.”

  “Lupus’ men are dead,” Scott said. “The ARA are roaming the corridors.”

  “All of you must go,” Padme said. “In minutes, incendiary devices throughout the facility will be ignited.”

  “Did they get all the other animals out?” Nicola asked. Padme nodded again, but Scott knew this time it was a lie. It made him sick to think of all the bioengineered animals burning to death. If he could, he’d save them all, down to the smallest creature. But at least Bryn was okay; and Scott had been charged with Nicola’s safety. He set the jar he’d been carrying down, noting that it was labeled ‘Grease,’ the chemical that burned cool fire. It seemed like forever since he’d been living up above in the Warehouse among the xenos, fighting his way into their good graces. His mission, to find the facility, had been accomplished. All he had to do now was wait for Fournier at the safe end of the tunnel and he could bring the Bestia Butcher to justice.

  He urged a protesting Dundee to his feet as Padme opened the door. Inside was a broom closet. He wasn’t surprised when Padme kicked the bottom corner of the back wall and a secret door opened. Mouse had been right: Fournier had tunnels in all his buildings.

  Nicola took her birdcage in one hand and helped Dundee into the tunnel with the other, saying, “You poor man. Daddy will fix you up soon.”

  Scott started to follow, but Padme stopped him and said softly, “I meant what I said. When we get topside, will you help me cut a deal?”

  “You know I’ll do what I can.”

  He looked over her head and saw Lupus just as she placed her hand on his cheek. It must have looked like a lover’s caress to Lupus, because anger narrowed his eyes to threatening slits. He didn’t act on it, however, because he wasn’t alone. Kareem Williams held Lupus, and now Scott and Padme as well, at gunpoint.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  All the corridors looked alike. Bryn tried to remember from the monitors where she might be, but she hadn’t gotten a good idea of the floor plan even from the control room. Everywhere she turned she saw evidence of the fight between the ARA and the xenos. There were bullet-holes and blown out walls and…dead men. She ran down each corridor and stopped before she got to each intersection to look and make sure she wasn’t about to run into anyone. The place seemed deserted. She couldn’t go out the way she came, so her only hope was to find the escape tunnel and hope it was still open.

  She reached a corner with an official-looking wooden door and tried the handle. It didn’t turn, but whoever had come through it last hadn’t shut it properly and it opened. Inside was a typical reception area. She heard a noise further in, behind another door. Was this where the tunnel was? The clock was ticking; she didn’t have time to dawdle in uncertainty. She ran through the reception area and the empty office beyond. The rooms ended in what she instantly recognized as the bedroom of Dr. Fournier. There was no mistaking the shelves full of preserved body parts, lovingly displayed and lighted like precious works of art.

  Bryn put the back of her hand to her mouth and looked away. The noise she’d heard was clearer now—an angry shout for help coming from what looked like a closet. She hurried over and looked in; a secret door at the back of the closet gaped ajar. The tunnel went straight down a set of metal stairs. Somewhere below, a light appeared, disappeared and appeared again.

  “Padme!” A man yelled. “Lupus!”

  The cry for help wasn’t the motivating factor that spurred Bryn to take the vertical stairs two at a time; this was the escape tunnel, and she was thrilled to have found it. The walls were damp
and close. At the bottom she had to duck down, just like at Bluto’s, only here, the dirt walls weren’t reinforced with concrete, they were shored up with the occasional wooden four-by-four. After walking only ten feet, she saw the problem: a cave-in had trapped someone. The grenade explosions must have made the dirt walls unstable. Out of a pile of rocks and earth protruded a head and shoulder. The man waved the flashlight in his one free hand and shouted, “Help!”

  “I’m here,” Bryn said.

  The man tilted the flashlight in her direction and tried to look over his shoulder at her. Even filthy and badly lit, Bryn recognized him. She’d seen Dr. Fournier’s holograph enough times during her recovery to know him anywhere.

  “Get me out of here!” he bellowed.

  She started to mindlessly obey, but stopped. “No. Maybe this is a fitting end for you.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Someone who hates you with all her heart.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll die together then,” he said. “Because you won’t be getting out any other way.”

  Bryn bit her lip. He had a very valid point. There wasn’t enough room for her to crawl along the pile of rubble and over his head, even if he didn’t grab hold of her to prevent her leaving. She would have to help him, but there was one thing she could get out of him in exchange first: information.

  In all the fantasies she’d had about confronting him, her main concern had been to find out why he’d ruined her life. She thought about asking him ‘why?’ now and realized the point was moot. His motivation, however complex and revealing, was unimportant. He was a screwed up individual who liked to hurt people, period.

  She thought about clarifying her father’s role in all of this, but knew that too, was unimportant. He and Fournier obviously had history. They schemed together to do this for their own, possibly very different, reasons. If she got out of this alive, she wanted to give Scott something back for all he’d done for her. She wanted to make her part in this insanity mean something.