‘I know,’ said Harrison. ‘That’s why I need you to broadcast the message as a small, repeating data-packet. Then if there’s even the slightest crack in the jamming zone, the message will go out.’
‘The same message as before?’ asked Dana, referring to the message she and Harrison had devised earlier. ‘Uh! I almost forgot – I have this.’
She unclipped a small digital video camera from her belt. ‘One of the visiting investors caught some footage outside the hub.’
A small viewing screen unfolded from the camera. Dana played back seven or eight seconds of crystal clear footage showing the creatures swarming from the west stairwell.
‘That’s excellent,’ said Harrison. ‘Paste some of those pictures into the message.’
Harrison thought for a moment and then made a decision. ‘And Dana. Amend to the end of the message that we suspect the Complex has been compromised by a second hostile force, a human force, that is now controlling the admin hub and other key locations.’
Dana nodded tersely and closed the camera view finder. ‘I can do that.’
‘Great. Get on it. The creatures might not be distracted in the north-west for much longer.’
Dana pointed upwards. ‘You don’t think help is already coming?’
‘I do, but I want them to know what to expect when they arrive.’
The screeching sound echoed down the tunnel again.
Dana tensed. Her face snapped towards Harrison. ‘What was that sound?’
Harrison had told her everything else; he might as well trust her with this too.
‘Not all the creatures have been distracted,’ he confided. ‘They’re searching the containment door for weaknesses. They’re trying to get in here.’
Dana stared at the door with her mouth wide open.
‘Cripes,’ she whispered.
#
The elevator plummeted down the shaft.
Five seconds earlier, Coleman knelt above the carriage. After setting his cutting charge on a four second timer, he jumped to the narrow service ladder recessed into the shaft wall.
The first gunman emerging through the carriage ceiling took the explosion right in the face. Screaming, the blinded gunman clutched his face as the elevator dropped.
Coleman watched for a second, then turned and quickly climbed up the ladder.
When the out-of-control carriage struck the basement, the cataclysmic sound roared up the shaft.
Still climbing, Coleman couldn’t cover his ears. The thunderous noise rammed into his head.
Having already escaped the shaft, the others stared in amazement as he heaved himself onto the engineering level.
‘What did you do?’ asked Vanessa. ‘It sounded like you dropped a bomb down there!’
Coleman glanced down the shaft. ‘Terrorists aren’t the only ones with DEMEX. But I didn’t trap them all. I heard Bora’s voice outside the carriage.’
As if to prove his point, the shaft filled with gunfire. Bullets ricocheted up the shaft as someone, probably Bora, tried to hit any targets still climbing.
Coleman ignored the wild gunfire. Bora couldn’t know what level Third Unit had reached. Return fire would only reveal their position.
Coleman scanned the engineering level.
The open-plan space looked the size of a football field. A ring road circled the area in bright yellow floor-stripes. From six points around the road, side avenues branched into specialist work zones, each with dedicated equipment like the factory floor of an automated car assembly line.
On Coleman’s right, motorized pulleys hung embedded in the ceiling above huge nutrient vats. The vats looked like aboveground swimming pools filled with thick pumpkin soup.
A series of enclosed silver structures hugged the north-west corner. The heavily-reinforced structures were for stress testing new construction materials, Vanessa explained. Extremes of temperature, pressure and corrosives were all provided by a dozen huge gas canisters inside red metal cages.
A village of plastic humidity tents huddled in the center of the level. It resembled a camping trip on the moon. Cloying greenery filled the tents, and hundreds of high-powered lights hung above.
‘This way,’ urged Coleman, absorbing all this on the move. He led them towards the offices hugging the south wall. Strategically, the offices provided the best hard cover on the level.
Vanessa checked her watch.
‘The pumps will be completely destroyed by now,’ she calculated. ‘The creatures are going to come sweeping back through the Complex any time.’
‘I know,’ said Coleman. ‘That’s why we’re heading south. These offices are the furthest point in the Complex from the pumps. I’m betting that Cairns has a few contingency plans up his sleeve in case the labs took longer to break into than he’d anticipated.’
Coleman suddenly raised his hand for Third Unit to halt. He pointed towards the west elevator entrance. The elevator was no longer obscured from sight by the humidity tents. The shaft doors gaped wide open, but the carriage was missing. A second later, the carriage passed the open doors heading upwards.
‘Listen to that,’ he said. ‘That’s all the carriages running up and down the shafts.’
‘He’s using the elevators to distract the creatures,’ realized Vanessa. ‘But there’s only three elevator plant rooms. That won’t distract the creatures for more than a few minutes.’
Coleman nodded, getting his first clear view of the freight lift. The freight lift occupied the southwest corner of the Complex. When the large hydraulic platform waited on another level, as now, it appeared that a twenty meter wide chunk of floor was missing.
‘Vanessa, we need an office with a good view of the level.’
‘That shouldn’t be hard,’ she said, leading the way.
Entering the offices behind Vanessa, Coleman immediately saw what she meant. The top half of every office wall was glass. The entire cluster of offices, maybe fifty rooms, offered views of the entire level. The only way to stay out of sight was to duck down.
Vanessa chose a corner office, some kind of records room with a dozen beige filing cabinets lining two walls. She checked three phones on her way, finding none of them let her dial the Evac Center and David.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Coleman. ‘We’ll get to him. Right now the best thing we can do is distract hostile attention away from the Evac Center.’
‘I know,’ said Vanessa. ‘I just want to hear his voice.’
Coleman signaled for the Marines to assume defensive positions.
‘Not as much cover as I’d hoped,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ apologized Vanessa. ‘But they’re soundproof. That should cut down most of our vibrations. Besides, this level is seriously not somewhere you want to be shooting guns. If there is such a place.’
‘Things that go boom?’ tested Coleman.
‘Did you notice those big silver canisters in the red cages?’
‘I saw them, but I couldn’t read their marking.’
‘Some of them contain surfactant gas. We don’t want to damage those. Surfactant gas is very dangerous in confined spaces. It sticks to surfaces on contact. Once ignited, it carpets everything in fire.’
Well, that’s a pleasant image, thought Coleman.
Vanessa settled on the floor with her back against a filing cabinet. She studied her tablet. In seconds she appeared absorbed in the complex codes scrolling down the small screen.
Coleman scanned the engineering level, calculating how long it should take for Cairns’s gunmen to arrive. Cairns had started with at least forty gunmen. A larger force would have been too hard to covertly infiltrate into the Complex. Third Unit hadn’t encountered enough gunmen for the force to be significantly greater than forty. It also seemed logical that Cairns had first infiltrated the basement level, moving upwards behind the wave of creatures killing the staff. At that point, Cairns activated the pump stations to distract the creatures while he tried to steal the templates.
The templates Coleman now held.
If Cairns had around twenty-five gunmen left, and they were working in six man teams like Third Unit had encountered in the pool room, then at least four teams were searching for Third Unit.
By that estimate, one team should already be searching the engineering level. Coleman couldn’t see them. A bad sign. It doesn’t mean the gunmen aren’t here, just that I can’t see them.
‘Stay focused,’ Coleman urged. ‘We should have spotted them by now.’
‘You think they know our position?’ asked Forest.
‘I hope not,’ answered Coleman.
‘Captain,’ hissed Marlin from the doorway. ‘I got visual. Five on the far side of the plastic tents. They must have come up the north stairwell. Wait, they’re climbing into forklifts. Yep, two forklifts.’
Coleman crawled over next to Marlin. He watched the gunmen for a minute. ‘They’re moving the gas canisters with the forklifts. It doesn’t look like they know we’re here.’
‘Where are they moving the canisters?’ asked Vanessa suddenly.
‘They’re positioning one near the humidity domes,’ said Coleman.
‘They’re bringing the other one this way!’ said Marlin.
Vanessa scuttled over to watch the forklift bringing the second load of gas canisters. One gunman drove the machine while four others guarded his progress. Surrounding the vehicle in a diamond formation, the four guards had weapons up and ready as they scanned in every direction. The forklift operator steered straight towards the offices.
Suddenly the forklift turned towards the freight lift.
Coleman released his breath. The four guards passed within thirty feet of Third Unit’s position.
‘It’s going down the freight lift,’ whispered Marlin, relieved.
Coleman could hardly hear the electric forklift as it disappeared from sight around the corner of the offices.
‘I’ve got something,’ exclaimed Vanessa, looking above the small screen. ‘I’ve decoded part of Gould’s genetic blueprint of the creatures.’
“Is there anything we can use?’ asked Coleman, waving down the volume of her voice.
Vanessa’s eyes flicked over the tiny screen. “He’s got genetic material here from forty-six different carnivorous plants. We have hundreds in our database. He’s taken some shortcuts, though. Many of his traits are still linked to other traits. Like here, the creatures’ reproductive traits are still active in a dozen places. He didn’t have time to isolate them….’
She scrolled further ahead. ‘His code shows the creatures emerge with a need to build up resources for the reproductive stage of their lifecycle.’
‘What resources?’ asked Coleman.
Vanessa scanned the code again. ‘Nitrogen. They’re born starving for nitrogen. They also need proteins, amino acids, trace metal elements. But mostly lots of nitrogen.’
‘Where would they get that?’
Vanessa looked up from the screen. ‘Blood. They would get those things from human blood.’
#
Gould’s face hurt like blazes.
With shaking fingers he squeezed the tube of antiseptic gel. Wincing, he tried his best to apply the cool blue gel to his weeping burns. It proved difficult without a mirror, but the lightning bolts of pain provided a pretty clear indication of where Cairns had joined-the-dots on his face with the blowtorch.
He didn’t expect any assistance from the gunmen in the comms room. Two sat at computer terminals, ignoring him completely as they tracked the radio messages of the teams working around the Complex.
Three others watched him impassively, their cold eyes revealing nothing.
The burns zigzagged twice across Gould’s left cheek, up through his left eyebrow, and then down across the corner of his mouth and under his jaw. Cairns had really gone to town. Ironically, Gould’s own agonized thrashing had defined the blowtorch’s path across his features.
What was I supposed to do, sit still and let him burn my face off?
Finished with the gel, Gould broke off another brittle chunk of burned hair. He examined the blackened fragment for a second.
Cairns, you bastard. You’ll pay for this.
All the hair from his left temple was singed away. That burnt hair reek permeated his clothes. He couldn’t escape the dreadful smell.
Gould let his gaze slide around the room, a habit acquired during his visits to Vanessa Sharp’s labs. He had never let his eyes rest in Sharp’s labs, never let himself be seen paying special attention to any one piece of equipment, but he absorbed every detail.
When he worked in this Complex, gathering information, Gould trained his eyes to reveal nothing.
He spent his nights rehearsing answers to questions. What was he doing here? Why was he looking at that? He found himself disappointed if the anticipated question was never posed. The majority of scientists here were dullards, but a few were dangerously unpredictable. Vanessa Sharp was one. Unfortunately she was also the most influential. She had single-handedly rejected most of his proposed research. Her formal reason never varied from, ‘Potential Military Application’, but Gould knew it ran deeper. Vanessa Sharp disliked Gould the moment they met. She constantly acted guarded and careful in his presence.
Not careful enough though.
And after all Gould’s planning and hard work, Cairns expected him to just hand over Sharp’s research data? Not likely. Even if he could access the data, he’d never do it. Once the terrorists possessed Sharp’s research, they no longer needed Gould.
He’d be killed. Cairns wouldn’t do the killing himself. He would delegate the undignified task to Lieutenant Bora.
Gould shivered as he remembered Bora. The huge, quiet man represented an unknown quantity. His strange behavior disquieted Gould. He just didn’t look around himself enough, and Gould got the clear impression that Bora didn’t need to look around to monitor his surroundings. Bora always stood in the strangest places, always with one or two fingers resting lightly against a desk or a chair or a door jamb.
Very strange.
Cairns was an evil bastard, that was a given, but Bora was something else. Equally as dangerous, but different.
Gould’s eye’s stopped on the huge digital screen showing the damaged systems blossoming around the Complex. We’re in deep trouble now. The creatures are destroying everything.
‘Cairns said to make me useful,’ Gould reminded the gunmen at the computer terminals. He pointed at the screen. ‘Your problems are getting more complicated by the second. I know these systems better than anyone else here. I know how best to distract the creatures.’ And I don’t trust you with my life.
The gunmen at the door nodded confirmation of Cairns’s instruction. Another relinquished his chair at the terminal for Gould. The gunman looked relieved to have passed on the responsibility.
These guys are realizing they’re out of their depth.
Gould raised the mechanical services schematic. He studied the elevator plant rooms. The first plant room appeared already out of action. Two others flashed orange warning signs. The creatures worked faster now. Their nitrogen cravings were becoming more urgent. They were frantic for fresh blood.
Nobody understood the creatures like Gould. Nor did they understand the power they had just relinquished by giving him the seat at the terminal. With the operation spiraling out of control, whoever could influence the creatures had the greatest chance of survival, and the greatest weapon. A weapon that Gould could just as easily turn on Cairns and Bora. He’d just have to do it carefully.
Now we’ll see who gets burned.
He looked around at the gunmen with their machine guns. Guns won’t help them now. They have no idea of the scale of forces they are trying to control.
If any of them got out alive it would be a miracle.
#
Tucker knew something was wrong inside the Complex.
He trusted his gut instinct.
No message had arrived from the Mar
ines or weapon inspectors. The electronic jamming hardware hadn’t been disengaged.
Frowning into his interlocked fingers, he needed more options. ‘What about the Coronado’s Electronic Counter-counter Measures?’
Chief Warrant Officer Daniels stood in front of the Knowledge Wall. The wall displayed a satellite image of the Complex. Flashing icons highlighted the C-Guard jamming transmitters. They looked tiny compared to the scale of the Complex. Daniels zoomed in.
‘If there were fewer C-Guards we might get a message through using frequency hopping or our broad spectrum capabilities, but we’re dealing with more than a dozen units surrounding the Complex. Plus every unit is programmable and directional, so they’re blocking multiple frequency bands in overlapping directional spreads. You name it, they’ve got a blanket over it.’
Daniels clicked a remote control. A layer superimposed over the image to represent the blackout zone. ‘The way things stand, we can only get a message through if their hardware is turned off from the inside.’
‘What about a surgical strike from the air?’ suggested Captain Boundary. ‘The Pave Hawks could turn back and take down the C-Guards. They could stand-off and use the fifty mills on the antennae.’
‘Okay,’ reasoned Tucker, trying to think laterally. “Suppose we do that. What if the weapon inspectors have left the jammers operating intentionally? What if they are trying to stop something being broadcast from the Complex? For all we know, the hardware might be serving its desired purpose. If we take out that hardware, we’re leaving that place wide open. We recommended that equipment for a very good reason in the first place.’
‘We never anticipated it would be used against us,’ said Daniels.
‘I think we’re avoiding the main question,’ added Tucker. ‘What kind of a scenario could take out fifty Marines in such a short time frame?’
After a few moments reflection, Captain Boundary articulated what they had all been thinking. ‘Someone could have panicked and released a pathogen. An airborne pathogen could have incapacitated the entire Complex in a few minutes. The Marines might have walked right into it. It could be one of the weapons we’re looking for.’
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