Project - 16

by Martyn J. Pass

  “You're lying to me. You see, the problem is you've never been in the real world. Your Dad had the same problem. He lied too but it was written all over his face. You don't know how to lie. You've never lived with anyone but your Dad. You've never had a real job where you had to lie. Or had a family with kids you have to lie to all the time. You're not practised in it like we are.” He cocked the pistol. “So tell me - where is Claudia Riley?”

  The first explosion rocked the shipping crate and sent me sprawling to the floor. Corban fired by accident and the bullet hit the corner of the ceiling and ricocheted off a strut, passing inches away from me and burying itself in one of the ammo boxes. I rolled as the second explosion was heard further away and slammed into the table sending the hardwood top sliding off the boxes and into the Colonel. It punched into his stomach and I followed behind it, smashing a right hook into his jaw. Dazed, he tried to raise the pistol but I grabbed his wrist and yanked it from his hand.

  “Tell them you're fine!” I yelled, ramming the barrel of the gun into his side as the two sentries came in.

  “Sir - are you okay? We're under attack!” said the first as I helped Corban to his feet, the pistol hidden behind him and buried in his side.

  “Yeah, yeah, I just-”

  “He hit his head on the way down. Can you get a medic or something?” I said.

  “Sure, sure.”

  The sentry left leaving the other to guard the Colonel. He tried to mumble something but I jabbed him harder with the pistol.

  “What's happening?” I asked the soldier.

  “There were two explosions - one near the drill and the other near the landing strip. I think someone said the helicopter was on fire. Sir.”

  “Who could it be?” I asked.

  “Don't know yet, sir. I wouldn't want to speculate but we're on full alert. We'll get them. Sir.”

  A third explosion shook the crate and I spun the Colonel round, clearing my aim for the soldier. I put two rounds into his chest and he crumpled to the floor. Corban fell too but it looked like he was finding it hard to stand up anyway.

  I went to my knee and put the pistol under his chin.

  “Why were you hunting Riley?” I asked. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and he looked like he was about to pass out. “Why?”

  “She was... supposed to tell us where they were...”

  “Who? Alex?”

  “Yeah, the fucking AWOL and his girl. The fucking Commie.” Life was coming back to him so I planted my knee in his chest. “She didn't send the message.”

  “What message?”

  “That she'd found the bunker. She was supposed to tell us where to look before you got here.”

  “Why?”

  “They're terrorists, Miller. They're fucking terrorists. The President is dead, most of America is burning. 9/11 looks like a fucking charity fund-raiser compared to what these fuckers have done. Millions dead. More dying and Alex Du-fucking-Pont and the whore started it.”

  “Are they down there? Are they inside this bunker?”

  “They have to be - where else would they be? Once you started walking this way we knew Riley had figured it out.”

  “So you sent a drone to kill us and tie up the loose ends?”

  “Fuck you, Miller. Who the fuck are you anyway, you piece of shit? You're nothing, just a sad, lonely thirty-something who thinks he can burn a few sticks and cook a rabbit and he's God's gift to survival.”

  “Did you send the drone?”

  “You're dam right I did. If she'd followed orders I wouldn't have had to-”

  I pulled the trigger and the back of his head exploded onto the faded steel wall of the container. The bullet passed straight through the brain tissue and stopped in the hardwood table top. I went over to the body of the soldier and unbuckled his belt and holster, putting it on and taking my pack from where the other guard had left it. Then I reloaded the pistol and went to the entrance of the crate, peering round the corner.

  Soldiers were running backwards and forwards trying to put out fires and others were searching the area with great round spotlights, looking for whoever was attacking them. I slipped into the shadows, getting away from the carnage inside the container. People were charging past me as I made my way towards the drill where a great pillar of fire was clawing at the sky as its fuel tank burned. Buckets and hoses were brought and I walked past them all, heading back out the way I came. I was almost there, about to climb the hill when a car came racing down the road, it's headlights blinding me until I stepped out of its way. It screeched to a halt right in front of me.

  “Get in!” cried Riley from the drivers seat. Up close it was a CERV - one of the many discontinued hybrid vehicles I'd heard the students crying about and one I'd tried to get my hands on for years. It had six or seven fuel cans stacked in the back along with Riley's bags.

  I climbed in and she floored it, heading up the hill with the headlights off. When she reached the road I'd gotten my night vision back and I guided her for the next half an hour. We said nothing to each other, only passing directions back and forth until we were sure we'd left any pursuit behind. I didn't think they'd follow us just yet anyway but once we hit a main road I told her she could put her lights back on.

  The open design of the CERV meant that I was soon freezing to death. I dug into my pack for my coat and put it on. Riley remained silent as she drove.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You knew I wouldn't leave you,” she replied. “You knew I'd come for you. Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why'd you do it?”

  “So we'd be even.” She slowed to a stop and left the engine running. Then she turned in her seat and looked at me, fixing me with those blue eyes that nailed me every time.

  “I was in your debt,” she said. “You couldn't live with that.”

  “No. Neither could you.” She nodded. “And I couldn't let him live. Not after he tried to kill you.”

  “And for Piotr.”

  “And for Piotr.”

  She leaned across and I met her, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her as tightly as I could. We stayed like that until all the grief was gone from us, until it was wrung out like a sponge. When we separated she turned and got out, swapping places with me.

  “You know the roads,” she said. “But where are we going? Home?”

  “Nope. To find Alex and Saska.”

  “But they're back there,” she said.

  “No they aren't.” I was grinning now, realising that life seemed to fall into place as long as you were there to see it. “We've already met them and they've already met us.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “You will.”

  12.

  We drove on well into the morning. I was too keyed up to sleep but Riley wrapped herself in her coat and dozed in the passenger seat despite the cold wind howling at us. My nightmare wasn't realised - there were no giant tears in the road for us to fall into and at some point I broke away, making the most of the cross-country abilities of the CERV. We ate up the miles, reaching the bunker at about seven o'clock. I pulled up at the gates, turning off the engine with fuel to spare. Riley sat up and looked around us.

  “Here?” she said. “But you checked this place at the start!”

  “I didn't check hard enough.”

  “What makes you think they're in there?”

  “Something Corban said to me. He didn't know they were down there in the bunker but he was drilling anyway. He must have tracked us to this one originally but hadn't done anything about it. That tells me he'd dismissed this one. Why? Because he already knew about it. He was looking for the one he didn't know about. That was their plan all along - to hide in plain sight.”

  “You're going to look like a complete dick if you're wrong,” she said, getting a lemon sponge MRE from her bag. She passed a chocolate one to me and we sat there eating them cold, washing them down with bottled water.

  “Wh
at did you blow up back there?” I asked.

  “Well, they left a lot of blasting charges unattended and I thought it was only fair to show them how unprofessional that was. So I set some on the drill, the armoury and the toilet block.”

  “The toilet block?”

  “Yeah, why not? I mean - their mouths were like sewers anyway so it was kind of like a metaphor. I was sending them a message.”

  “Do you think they got it?”

  “Probably fucking not.”

  We gathered our gear and pulled some scrim netting over the CERV. Then we walked through the gates and closed them behind us.

  “You really think they're in here?” she asked again.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “On a scale? 10 being very fucking sure.”

  “8.”

  “8?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, at least we're not far from home.”

  “There's always a plus side.”

  I led her to the concrete entrance, down the long hallway and into the lift, pressing the button. The doors slid shut and we felt the lurch in our stomachs as we dropped.

  "It's amazing this stuff still works," she said.

  "They must have got a generator going. Emergency power or something."

  I looked around the inside of the lift, seeing the speaker but nothing that might indicate a camera. I was looking for a box or a round lens - not the small square button above the lift controls. I stared at it until I realised it was the housing for a small dome camera that was rotating inside. I stepped back to allow it to see Riley.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "It's a camera," I said. "Just wait a minute."

  The speaker crackled into life above our heads but this time it squelched like a radio might.

  “Aunt Claudia?” it said.

  “Alex?” cried Riley. "Is that you?"

  There was another squelch, then the lift reached the bottom floor and opened. This time there was no carpeted hallway and no glass screen. There were no corpses either. It was a well lit passageway with black and white checked flooring and cream walls that led to a set of double doors at one end. On the walls were posters warning of biological hazards, the need for cleanliness and a request that all laboratory staff sign up for the Christmas party.

  The doors opened and there was Alex DuPont - tall, young and still in his uniform. Next to him was a young girl who I took to be Saska Ibromavich.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked as Riley threw her arms around him, then proceeded to get him in a head-lock and grind his skull with her knuckles.

  “Looking for your sorry fucking ass!” she cried. “Do you know what we've been through?” They hugged for a moment until Alex let her go. Then he turned and gestured to the girl next to him.

  “Claudia, I want you to meet Saska,” he said. “Saska - this is my bad-ass Aunt Claudia.”

  “A pleasure,” replied Saska. She was pretty and very Russian with short brown hair and sharp green eyes the colour of polished jade. She was wearing a lab coat and running pants and a pair of safety glasses propped on top of her head. She looked nervous but she was making an effort to be friendly. I'd be nervous too if I had so many people hunting me.

  “This is Miller,” said Riley and Alex raised an eyebrow as if my name meant something to him. He extended a hand to me and we shook. His hands were warm, moist, nervous.

  “I saw you the last time you got in the lift. If I'd known-” he said.

  “Don't mention it. You weren't to know,” I replied. “We're here now.”

  “But why? Did Mom send you? I thought you were in Africa?” he said to Riley.

  Saska put a hand on his arm and said, “Alex, maybe we should all go inside. We should reset the lift too."

  They led us through the double doors into a dimly lit control room. Saska pressed a few buttons on a console and the lights in the hallway went out, sending the lift back to the top of the shaft. There were banks of monitors on the wall and I saw the one from the lift interior.

  "Have you had anyone else explore down here?" I asked.

  "Yes," said Saska. "Until we arrived here these cameras only recorded something if they were triggered by the motion sensors. You won't believe it but this facility has its own power plant and god-knows how many gigabytes of data on its internal storage banks. There are recordings right back to before the catastrophe."

  She began working at one of the terminals, searching for a recording from the past.

  "This one," she said, pointing to the screen. "He's the one we're hiding from." We looked at the image of a man in DPM, riding the lift down with two other soldiers. It was easy to identify Corban.

  "That's Colonel Corban!" said Riley. "How long ago was this taken?"

  "Last year," said Alex.

  "It's like you said, Miller. He'd already checked this one." I nodded.

  "So he's been hunting us down?" asked Alex. "This is starting to make sense."

  Saska motioned us on. "Come, we can talk inside."

  We walked into a dimly lit laboratory neatly lined with row after row of test benches, work stations and glass and stainless steel cabinets. It stank of disinfectant and chemicals but as we walked across to the other side I could see another set of doors - thin plastic sheet ones - which led to a recreation room. Alex pulled the plastic aside and offered us a seat on one of the big red settees. There was a lamp stand in the corner and piles of books and magazines and it looked like this was where they spent a lot of their down time. There were dirty pots and cutlery on the stained black coffee table, unfinished sandwiches and half-drunk cups of coffee which they both began to clear away self-consciously.

  “Sorry, we weren't expecting guests,” said Alex, stacking plates in his arms. Saska gathered cups with a sheepish smile. Riley sank into the cushions and let her head flop back on the rest, closing her eyes. I was still strung out a little and I knew that I couldn't sleep until we'd established just what the hell was going on. I had a pretty good idea but I still needed to confirm or deny Piotr's concerns that he'd shared with me earlier. I felt like that conversation had been in another life, another time.

  “I'll make some coffee,” said Saska, but when she saw Riley's pack for the first time she gasped and muttered something in Russian.

  “It was Piotr's,” I said in her own language. “He died helping us find you.”

  "He died? But how?"

  "Corban sent a jet to drop napalm on us. Riley and I managed to escape the blast but Piotr died saving me."

  “What was he doing here?” she replied. “He was meant to be back home!”

  “Your Father sent him to find you. He was worried about you.”

  She slumped into an easy chair opposite me and so I rooted in my pack for the journal in its little plastic bag. Alex looked bewildered as he tried to comfort her, unable to understand a word we were saying.

  “Why is she so upset?” he cried. "What does the bag mean?"

  “Her Father sent a friend of ours to find her and take her home. This is his pack. He was killed by Corban,” I said.

  I felt weary now. I just wanted to get out of there and find a corner to lie down in, to drift into a long slumber far away from all the draining emotion around me. I had a feeling it'd be a while before that happened. Saska was crying openly now, clutching Piotr's pack to her chest as she rocked back and forth in Alex's arms. When she began to calm down, I offered her the journal.

  “I'm sure he wanted you to read this and hopefully pass it on to his family back home,” I said, handing it to her.

  “That bastard, Corban-" said Alex.

  “He's dead now. Miller killed him,” said Riley.

  "Good," he said. "But it isn't over yet. They'll still come after us."

  “Alex - what the hell are they after?” I asked.

  He sighed and gently pulled away from Saska as she began to gather h
erself together again. She apologised to me in Russian and left the room, taking Piotr's things with her. I heard another door down the hallway open and close.

  “In a nutshell? They want what's in the lab's vaults. They want the antidote to a disease that's already wiped out most of America. They want what me and Saska discovered down here silenced - namely that the US created this 'thing' as a weapon and then leaked it by accident when a plane carrying samples exploded mid-flight"

  “I saw the images of Chicago. That wasn't a virus,” said Riley.

  "That's the thing - the virus doesn't kill people. It's more subtle than that. Saska could give you all the science but quite simply it causes a kind of depression that cannot be treated with conventional anti-depressants. The disease takes about eight weeks to fully react with the infected person but by then they're considering suicide. By the end they've probably made it happen.”

  "But the riots?" said Riley. "The fighting, the chaos..."

  "The symptoms seem to show themselves differently depending on the victim. Some people lose the will to get out of bed, others funnel it into rage, anger, fear, horror. I've been watching some of the videos coming out of the States and I've seen people so scared they're just firing off guns into crowds, others so angry that they're murdering the Police men trying to control the situation."

  "So it's all true then. There's no hope for the people back home?"

  “The hope was hidden until now, hidden until we uncovered it,” said Alex. “And discovered that the cure was down here, in a vault and the bastards back home want it for themselves. They've no intention of helping the rest of the world - only covering up their mistakes and making sure they are the ones still standing at the end."

  "You can't mean the whole Government wants this?" said Riley.

  "There is no Government now. There's only those who have taken the power on themselves, those like Corban who only want to gain from other people's suffering."

  “How did you find all this out?” I asked.

  “I was given the job of cataloguing old paper files whilst serving aboard ship and I came across a bizarre reference to Project 16 and how it'd been shelved a long time ago. I was bored - ship life does that to you - so I had a bit of fun with it, checking signatures and names against those on record. I didn't intend to find anything, maybe I was just seeing how far I could go before someone noticed. The next thing I new I had an email from a girl saying she'd noticed my searches and expressed her own interest in the project.”