‘I see it,’ replied the pilot, flicking off a series of alarm switches. The Pave Hawk wasn’t happy about all the jamming to its navigation and weapon systems.
Coleman checked his wristwatch and smiled. At that exact moment, two Pave Hawks peeled off left and right. The elevator and ventilation plant rooms made ideal infiltration points. One helicopter headed to the west elevator plant room, the other to its eastern equivalent on the right side of the plug. A third bird went humming straight over Coleman’s Pave Hawk towards the northern plant room.
Coleman struggled to keep the growing excitement from his face. A wave of anticipation crested through the helicopter’s passengers, Marines and weapons inspectors both.
It was show time, and his team were taking the front entrance.
#
Gunmen poured from the freight containers, leaping over Ralph’s body. They moved fast, with purpose, securing the storage area, then the freight lift, then the entire south-west quadrant of the basement level.
‘All clear,’ reported the lead gunman, a huge man with the body of a competitive weight-lifter. ‘Zero resistance.’
At that signal, two men stepped from the first container.
They couldn’t have looked more different from one another.
The face on the left was so angular that nervous sweat dripped from the tip of his nose. His brown hair clumped straight back like a rat squirming from a sewer. He looked prematurely aged, with deep lines surrounding his sallow eyes like cracks in a drying saltpan.
Dressed in the same grey military-style fatigues as the gunmen, he was the only person not wearing a headset radio and a grey bullet-proof vest.
This was Francis Gould.
But it was the second man who dominated the scene, diminishing Gould’s presence to an insubstantial shadow.
Turning his head slowly, absorbing the scene from left to right, Cameron Cairns’s rugged features exuded a cold aura of barely-restrained violence.
Cairns’s presence triggered instinctive fear in strangers. When he entered the room, you immediately appreciated your own mortality. When he looked at you with those close set eyes over his big parrot-beaked nose, you just knew he was auditing your heartbeats, deciding if you’d had enough already.
Or that’s how Gould felt. Cairns terrified the living shit out of Gould.
With good reason, Gould told himself. I know what he’s capable of.
As Cairns crossed from the container to the lead gunman, his every fluid gesture demonstrated confident control of his body and surroundings. He clenched and unclenched a grey-stubbled lower jaw that looked strong enough to bite through a steel bar.
‘Lieutenant Bora,’ Cairns said to the lead gunman, his voice a husky growl. ‘The chest.’
Lieutenant Bora signaled two gunmen with a quick hand gesture. The gunmen shouldered their weapons and rushed into the freight container. They returned carrying a heavily-reinforced steel chest between them.
Cairns glanced up at the nearest ceiling vent and then lowered his unsettling gaze back down to Gould. ‘Dr Gould, if you please.’
Gould came forward, almost tripping over his own boots. The long wait in the cramped freight container had sent his legs into severe pins and needles. He looked up at the ceiling vent. I’m actually going to do this. There’s no backing out now. He’ll kill me if I don’t.
Gould withdrew a slim silver canister from a concealed pocket inside his grey oversized military fatigues. It was the size and shape of a big cigar. For a moment he stared at the canister, his thumb stroking the sealed cap.
He pictured the face of Vanessa Sharp in his mind. It proved all the motivation he needed. This is for you, bitch.
In one deft movement, he flicked off the cap and held the canister up to the vent.
After five seconds, he lowered the canister. His hand was shaking. Angry at his own reaction, he threw the expended container across the floor so that it settled against Ralph’s body in an expanding pool of blood. Hate was a powerful emotion.
Gould looked at the chest, at the ruthless men guarding it, at all the heavily-armed men standing around him.
All guarding an empty chest.
But it wouldn’t stay empty for long.
Biological hell had been unleashed.
#
Three levels up from where Gould stood under the ceiling vent, Sasha Kinnane worked in a room filled with butterflies.
Every wall, every bench, every spare space in her laboratory and the corridor outside was filled with boxes of butterflies. The transparent butterfly cubes were stacked to the ceiling.
Sasha was the senior resident entomologist. A butterfly specialist. Right now she sat rigidly forward in her chair, staring with rapt attention at her computer screen, captivated by the bizarre reading from her remote pheromone sensors in the recreational reserve.
Sasha worked directly under a ceiling vent.
Her head snapped up when she heard an incredible rustling sound. She pushed off from the lab bench with one hand so her chair swiveled on the spot. She stopped herself with her foot on the floor when she faced the entire lab.
Her butterflies were going haywire.
What the…?
Every butterfly cube was a violent brown blur of activity. The rustling was the sound of tens of thousands of butterflies all pelting frantically inside their cubes.
Sasha had never seen this before, not in fifteen years of field and lab entomology.
Suddenly she put two and two together.
She snatched up her field pherometer. The device looked like a cross between a metal detector and a small vacuum cleaner.
The readings are off the chart!
It must have been a lot of pheromone. Sasha was perplexed. Nothing in the Complex can produce a pheromone this concentrated. That means it has to be artificial. Is it something from my lab or an external source?
There was one quick way to find out. Sasha rushed along the nearest workbench and flipped open the lids of six butterfly cubes. The frantic butterflies poured from their confinement.
At the end of the workbench, she searched with her left hand until she found the button for the intercom system. She didn’t take her eyes from the small cloud of butterflies for a second.
‘This is Sasha up in the entomology lab. Ah, you’d better get Vanessa Sharp on the line. I think we have a very big problem up here.’
Every single butterfly had flown straight through the ceiling vent.
#
The fern gully in the recreational reserve was by far the children’s favorite artificial ecosystem. It looked prehistoric, with ferns and mist-jets carpeting the forest floor.
But mostly they liked it because of the helicopter pods. A helicopter pod was a type of seed pod with three little wings. When you twisted the stem between your fingers, it flew like a helicopter. The children ran through the forest, spinning the pods and trying to catch them mid-flight.
All the children except for David and Angie.
David, nine years old, and Angie, ten, stared at what they had found in the recreational reserve.
This was a place where no one came, David had assured his classmate as he led the way through the ferny undergrowth, swinging a short stick to find his helicopter pod.
And then they had found it.
‘Let’s go back,’ Angie said, seeing the rest of their classmates moving away through the trees. Now she could just see the occasional patch of colored clothing between the trees as their classmates left her and David behind. They weren’t supposed to have come this way, but Angie couldn’t let David go on his own. ‘We’re going to get into big trouble if we don’t catch them up.’
David walked around the thing, hitting it with his stupid stick.
Angie once had a boil on her leg that looked like this thing. Except this one had grown from the forest floor, bending aside ferns and pushing away the soil. It was taller than David, who disappeared from sight as he walked behind it.
‘Th
is definitely wasn’t here before,’ David said as he came back around, lifting his knees to negotiate the clustered ferns. ‘This is brand new.’
Angie wished she’d never followed him. David had lived here eleven months, only half as long as herself, but he acted like he owned the place because his mother was Dr Sharp.
‘Don’t touch it,’ pleaded Angie. ‘I don’t like it. We need to get going. If you don’t come right now, I’m going without you.’
David smiled mischievously, all dimples and teeth. He’d had a haircut yesterday. His straight brown hair curved up neatly around his ears. He pressed his palm to the dark dome.
‘I’m goooo-ing,’ warned Angie, taking a few steps.
But David knew she wasn’t going anywhere. At first he was just teasing her, but now, up close, he was genuinely interested in the thing. He pressed down with both hands. The thing yielded under his weight like jelly. He stood on his toes and peered inside.
There! Just under the surface. Movement.
He peered closer, but it was hard to see. Turning his head, ignoring Angie’s shrill protests, David slowly pressed his ear to the surface and listened.
Something snatched his shoulder.
He jumped back, then looked up and saw it was just his teacher, Miss Wright. She must have come back along the track to find them. But she didn’t seem angry with him.
She looked terrified.
David followed her line of sight to where his ear rested a second ago.
Something bulged towards his face.
Miss Wright yanked him away, grabbing Angie as the entire hump violently convulsed. Now David could see clearly. Something was trying to get out. Something was uncoiling inside. No - many things!
‘Run back to the path! Go! Go!’ yelled Miss Wright, pushing the children ahead. ‘Quickly, go!’
The jelly-hump exploded, spraying them with liquid. As they ran through the reserve with ferns snapping at their knees, they heard the emergency evacuation alarm begin.
#
Dana smiled at the tall investor in the crumpled suit asking about terrorism-proof engineering.
Here’s what they really came to hear about.
Counter-terrorism engineering.
It was part of everyday conversation. It was all over the talk-shows. People wanted to feel safe again. Huge amounts of funding would be tied to the first research organization able to provide that security. Terror-proofing was the catchphrase on everyone’s lips.
Dana felt her confidence begin to erode.
Delivering her own spiel was one thing, but counter-terrorism engineering was way outside of her field. Hell, it was an entirely new field! Dana didn’t even have security clearance to visit level three where they conducted the research.
‘Humans have always relied on plants for survival,’ stammered Dana. ‘And yes, we are taking this a step further and using plant genetics to design building materials for uncertain political climates.’
The tall investor interrupted, ‘So how far along are these projects?’
‘We are not a counter-terrorism research organization,’ Dana explained carefully, getting her rhythm back. ‘But in the event of, say, a powerful explosion, our construction materials don’t fragment like conventionally reinforced concrete. Their natural flexibility absorbs energy, dramatically reducing the chance of massive structural failure.’
Dana hoped she sounded tactful.
Something above the investors’ heads caught her attention. A single butterfly fluttered over their heads. Its erratic flight came lower and lower.
She ignored the eye-catching movement and said dramatically, ‘All our technology is exhaustively trialed and incorporated into this Complex before being released to the market. That makes this about the safest place on earth.’
‘When will we see further product releases?’
Dana didn’t see who’d asked the question. A cloud of butterflies now jostled above the investors’ heads.
What’s with all the butterflies? It wasn’t unusual to see one or two around the place, but never a cloud.
Dana focused back on her job. She was ready for this question. Investors always wanted to know when their money would start bearing fruit.
‘Biology is a complex discipline,’ she started, ‘far more prone to unforeseen variables than the pure math of conventional engineering, so rigorous testing is….’
But no one listened anymore.
Half of them ran for their lives. The ones not running stared past her towards the western fire stairs, their eyes wide, unbelieving.
Dana heard the evacuation alarm. Then she heard the screaming.
She turned and saw. ‘Mother of God….’
#
On the habitation level, in the single-room school for the staff’s younger children, Peter Crane heard the emergency evacuation alarm.
All personnel evacuate immediately, this is not a drill…All personnel evacuate immediately, this is not a drill…
Peter jumped to action. He’d been trained for this. He knew what to do.
‘Pencils down students, we’ll finish the drawings later. No, just leave them on your table and make two lines at the door. Now we are going to walk, not run, to the Evacuation Center. You all know where that is.’
The passageway outside the classroom led south through the administration hub, across the pedestrian loop to the Evacuation Center.
Peter stood in the short corridor just outside the classroom. Ushering out the last child, he heard screaming coming from back inside the hub.
Real screaming.
And then other noises that came straight from hell.
Nina Holland, his teacher’s aide, looked stunned by the sound.
Peter grabbed her arm, pressing his fingers savagely into her muscle. The pain cut through her shock long enough for her to listen.
‘Get the children to the Evacuation Center. For God’s sake go!’
Peter turned as he heard something come scrabbling into the corridor behind him. The creatures that surged into the end of the corridor looked beyond horrific.
‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘Run, Children - EVERYONE RUN NOW!’
Turning to face the things, he heard the clatter of small shoes fleeing down the corridor behind him.
Of all a teacher’s duties, one duty Peter held above all.
He must protect the children.
The school was close to the underground evacuation tunnel. He wouldn’t need to distract the creatures long. In one smooth motion, he unclipped the fire extinguisher from the wall and lifted it above his head like a club. The creatures charged.
Peter Crane’s jaw clenched as he watched them come. He blinked twice and then they were on him.
He held them back nine seconds longer than any single person up to that point.
#
Sprinting up the western stairwell among dozens of screaming and panicking people, Michael Simms struggled to keep his glasses on.
It was absolute chaos. It was a nightmare.
The creatures surged up the fire stairs behind them, tearing another two people from the pushing crowd. Michael saw a woman trip and get yanked through the gap between the metal steps. Her body squished like play-dough through the small gap.
Pain and death flared everywhere.
And butterflies. The stairwell above their heads swarmed with butterflies.
Then people started pushing back down the stairs. Michael saw the creatures coming down the stairwell too!
I’m trapped in between. The creatures tore into the terrified crowd like sharks joining a feeding frenzy.
Michael wasn’t a brave man, but he recognized a royal cluster-fuck when he saw it.
Up or down, it’s all the same. I’m not staying here.
Michael chose up. It proved the last choice he ever made.
#
Captain Coleman leapt down from the helicopter.
He dashed forward to make room for the six Marines jumping down behind him. The we
apons inspectors would stay with the aircraft until he gave the all clear.
Privates Tremaine and Gill ran over from a second Pave Hawk, giving the Okay hand-signal. Their personal radios were as vulnerable to the facility’s jamming hardware as everything else. The C-Guards had directional antenna to reduce friendly jamming inside the Complex, but at best their radios would be unreliable.
Team assembled, Coleman led Third Unit towards the main entrance.
His goal was clear. Third Unit would enter the habitation level via the front entrance, secure the central administration hub, and then sit tight while the weapons inspectors completed their investigation. The inspectors would enter once the labs were secured. The rest of the facility would be encouraged to function as normal.
Across the roof, four other FAST units reached their designated entry points.
Coleman’s was the only team not accessing the facility via the elevator plant rooms. Instead, ahead, a four meter high cement hump curved around the large helicopter pad and framed the main entrance.
Two sliding glass doors nestled right in the center of the hump.
Coleman reached the automatic doors.
The doors parted and released a cool wave of air-conditioned air.
Third Unit jogged through in tight single file formation, passing an unmanned security foyer and continuing down the wide flight of stairs to the open habitation level.
Coleman knew what to expect at the bottom. The habitation level’s layout resembled a big square wheel. In the middle sat the administration hub. Surrounding the hub was the pedestrian loop – mostly open space. Enclosing the pedestrian loop, the outer walls functioned like a shopping plaza dotted with services and amenities. The simple design gave residents plenty of free space.
Coleman reached the bottom of the stairs.
He stopped and stared, absorbing the bloody pandemonium unfolding before him.
‘Holy crap,’ he breathed. His sense of reality derailed at very high speed. What he was seeing couldn’t be real, but judging by the Marines’ stunned swearing behind him, he knew they witnessed the same spectacle.
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