Her fingers trembled as she held the forceps, examining the sample.
You got this, Kate.
But in her mind’s eye, she saw Timothy standing over his dad again. That look on his face. The pain no child should have to endure. Losing both parents like this. Growing up alone.
The trembling in her fingers traced down the length of the forceps, and the red webbing nearly slipped out. Holding her breath, she gently deposited the tendril into the cell culture dish. Next, she filled the dish with cell media from one of the bottles in the refrigerator that hadn’t been stolen. Hopefully it would get the tendril to grow, using a pipette.
She continued the process. It was work that any decent lab tech—or even a novice student in biology—could do. Yet now, it felt like the hardest thing she had done in her life.
But Kate worked through the pain and anguish like she always did and managed to set up all the samples. She would let them grow and observe their phenotypical changes and behavior. Once she placed the cell culture dishes back in the incubator, she prepared a microscope slide with another razor thin piece of the webbing.
Kate found it hard to believe that this living material had covered those tunnels like Team Ghost had described. When she’d first heard of it, she had figured it must be some kind of fungus. That would explain how it could evidently grow so fast, especially in an underground environment like that.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
She took the prepared slide over to an inverted light microscope. Peering through the scope’s eyepiece showed her doubts had weight. Most of the tissue seemed to be made of long, striated cells. Clearly mammalian. Between them grew other spidery cells that connected to each other through tendril-like growths that looked suspiciously like dendrites.
If she didn’t know any better, she would say those spidery cells looked like nerves. And all the others around them might be myoblast or fibroblasts—muscle cells or connective tissue cells.
Cells like that didn’t grow outside of an animal or human though. At least not that she knew of. With the Variants, it seemed all the rules of nature had been broken or bent.
The trick was figuring out how the cells grew like that, and if these cells had some kind of secrets that would help them find Dohi or prevent another Turkey River event, then she was determined to uncover them.
She made a note to check her supplies for the antibody kits she would need to perform proper tissue characterization assays on these cells. It might be a few days before she got the proper supplies if she was missing anything.
Team Ghost would need her results to have some idea of what they were dealing with in the tunnels. Dohi likely didn’t have time to wait for robust experiments. Assuming he was still alive.
Whatever clues might be in these samples needed to be found now. There was no time to do every experiment in replicate and put each hypothesis through a battery of tests.
She would have to go with her gut on this one. Move forward with her hypothesis and verify later. So for now, she would operate as if these cells were indeed a mixture of nerve and muscle cells.
But if they were, the question was why?
And, nearly as important, what kind of creature grew these types of cells?
The dark round spots of nuclei inside them were readily apparent and there was no thick, square-like cell well wall holding them together. Definitely not plant or fungus derived like she had originally thought.
As she studied the cells, she noticed something peculiar. Some of the nuclei were actually dividing in front of her eyes. And as they did, so too did the cytoplasm—all the gooey parts inside the cells.
That couldn’t be possible…
She blinked, half-tempted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, taken by exhaustion. Sure enough, when she stared back through the eyepiece, she saw that the cells were in fact dividing.
They weren’t just dividing—they were growing. Odd, considering the slice she’d prepared for the slide wasn’t in perfect physiological conditions like the cell culture dishes in the incubator.
Mammalian cells just didn’t do a good job growing unless they were in the right temperature, humidity, oxygen levels, and nutrients. Yet here these were, not only dividing, but spreading across the slide rapidly.
“This can’t be…” she whispered.
Ellis would have loved seeing this.
She stored the slide in a culture dish and kept it on the table next to the scope, too afraid to simply discard it. Before she threw it out, she made a mental note to douse this thing in acid or burn it, just to make sure it didn’t start growing from a landfill or something. Then she went back to the incubator, pulled out one of the cell culture dishes, and placed it on the microscope’s stage.
She didn’t even have to look through the eyepiece to see that the cells within that dish had already adapted to their environment. The tissue sample pulsed wildly, contracting and expanding randomly throughout the strand.
When viewed through the scope, the images there only confirmed her suspicions. Those cells she thought were myoblasts were moving. Just like cardiomyocytes, the cells that automatically contracted and released to maintain a person’s heartbeat.
What frightened her even more was seeing that as the cells pulsed, they continued to divide. It looked like she was watching a tumor grow in time-lapse images. Only instead of taking weeks or months for the tumor to become malignant and spread, it was happening in seconds.
Kate’s stomach sank as she peeled herself away from the scope. The Variants had tested her knowledge and understanding of biology from the very start. Now it was as if they were toying with her and torturing her with the unknown.
But she would not be tricked.
If these biological samples contained the clues that would stop whatever happened at Outpost Turkey River from spreading, she would crack the code.
— 11 —
Everything hurt.
That was the first thing that made its way into Dohi’s dulled consciousness. Sharp pain radiated through his elbows and throbbed along his spine. His mind seemed to be trapped in a dark pool.
Maybe his body, too.
He couldn’t see anything but black.
Fear joined the pain, and adrenaline churned through his vessels.
The grogginess fogging his mind faded, and he felt his limbs again. Something was dragging him over the ground. The rush of blood helped activate his senses, and the memories flooded him with the events at Outpost Turkey River.
Variants had ambushed him, and he had fallen into a tunnel.
Everything after that was a haze.
There was no easy way to tell how long he’d been out or how far he had been dragged. His headset and night vision goggles were busted to shit. His rifle had been lost in the fray.
Slowly he felt near his hip. At least his M1911 was still in its holster. Thankfully, so was the tactical light on his utility belt. If he stood any chance of escaping, he would need both.
That was going to be very difficult judging from the huge claws wrapped around one of his ankles. While he couldn’t see the beast, he could tell right away this was no ordinary grunt Variant.
At least not judging by the heavy thwack of its footsteps and the bellowing, huffing breaths it let out.
Suddenly the creature let out a high-pitched squeal and a series of clicks.
A Variant answered in the distance.
The abomination dragged him deeper into the tunnel. The squawks and clicking of joints echoed.
Without the luxury of sight, Dohi concentrated on his other senses.
The rotten fruit odor of the creatures overwhelmed him, especially the stink of the monster dragging him along. If he let his fingers relax, tracing along the tunnel floor, he could feel the moist earth and more prominently the stretchy webbing that he’d seen before he’d fallen into the tunnel.
Every time he made contact with the organic material it made the hair on his arm stand straight. The air
itself left a biting, cruel taste on his tongue, making his stomach roil. Almost as if he had taken a long swig of chunky spoiled milk.
He tried to focus on counting the number of Variants but the agonized cries of the other human captives made the task difficult. He guessed there were at least half a dozen grunts marching in front of the monstrous knuckle-dragger pulling him along.
Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way—maybe this was a break and the bastards would take him right to their nest. If he could escape, he would have the location of this lair and the rest of the people from Outpost Turkey River.
But escaping was going to be next to impossible down here.
He went back to using his internal compass to try and track the path just in case he might have an opportunity. The path seemed to wind and curve so much, it was difficult to maintain any semblance of proper orientation.
The longer he was dragged, the worse of a beating he took. His mind struggled to maintain focus, and he couldn’t tell if he’d gone unconscious again or if time passed differently in the inky darkness.
In truth, he had no idea how long he had been down here.
A piercing scream suddenly echoed down the tunnel, followed by the unmistakable splatter of blood. The clamor of squawking Variants exploded through the murk.
Something primal roared in Dohi. Pure instinct, ingrained by years of evolution, prepping him for a flight or fight response.
Another human scream blared, cut short by a tearing sound.
Then a thump. Like a body falling, followed by another, lighter thump. Dohi imagined a headless body hitting the ground and a horde of Variants consuming the meat.
A moment later, the monstrous creature pulling him halted.
Dohi tried hard to control his breathing.
The beast gave him a single tug, inching him forward slightly.
Another human shrieked.
That’s when he made his move.
With all his strength, he yanked his boot free from his captor. The monster was caught off guard and jerked backward as Dohi pulled his M1911 from its holster and with his other hand pulled out his tac light.
He flicked the flashlight on and spun on his captor, bringing the handgun to bear in concert with the light’s beam.
Time seemed to slow.
The tunnel around him was nearly twice as tall as Dohi, and the beast before him took up most of that space. An ape-like face with exaggerated, pointed features rotated in his direction. Huge nostrils flared, and its lips tore back to reveal a set of curved fangs. Large, bat-like ears fanned off the side of its face, and its wide, webbed claws were caked in dirt.
Dohi had expected the creature to stare him down—or maybe, if he was lucky, throw a clawed hand in front of its eyes to shield itself from the sudden blinding light.
But this Alpha didn’t even move away from the beam. It was then he realized its milky white eyes weren’t even looking at him. Suddenly the high-pitched squeals and clicks made sense. The beast was using echolocation, perfectly suited for the tunnel.
Dohi didn’t waste another second and pulled the trigger.
Click.
“Shit,” he muttered.
The beast simply tilted its head, not realizing how lucky it was that his gun hadn’t fired. Muscles rippled down the length of its body, and some kind of viscous goo coated its smooth flesh.
Claws large enough to go straight through Dohi’s chest and out the other side protruded from its fingers. Thin tendrils sprouted from its spine. Each of those fibers seemed to prod at the webbing along the tunnel wall.
The beast released another high-pitched shriek.
Now he was fucked.
Dohi quickly pulled the slide back to chamber a round and pulled the trigger as the beast homed in on him. Two rounds buried in its barreled chest.
He kept the beam aimed on the creature as he fired. Blood and bits of clear goo flecked off in the light.
The other Variants in the tunnel dropped their human captives ahead. In the glow of his beam, he noticed humans stuck in the red webbing. The strange growths seemed to spread out of their open mouths and eyes.
Dohi had no time to make sense of the horrific scene. The Variants charged around the Alpha.
One of the monsters flung itself into the air, claws outstretched.
Dohi fired twice into the creature’s center mass, sending it sliding across the tunnel floor. Two more trampled over their dead comrade, and Dohi took them out in quick succession and then put a round in the Alpha’s skull, sending it hunching against a wall.
He quickly pushed himself up and limped away, changing his magazine while he moved. Every step hurt, each tremor rocking through his bruised bones.
Palming in the mag, he turned and raised the gun and light at the pursuing Variants. He squared off another shot that slammed into the head of the lead monster.
Two more darted past and he took them both down with shots to their T sections. The giant Alpha roared behind them and then lumbered forward on all fours, using its wide claws to help propel itself forward like a gorilla.
Dohi sent another shot straight through the chest of the last grunt Variant. The beast crumpled, tumbling headfirst into the webbing. The Alpha careened forward stomping the dead into the mud while letting out another piercing screech.
The long fibrous growths tracing along the red webbing tensed.
Dohi could almost feel the air explode with electricity.
He pulled the trigger again, sending a bullet punching into the Alpha’s chest that resulted in a raucous roar. It seemed to absorb the impact.
Another trigger squeeze and the slide locked.
The pistol was empty, and he was out of magazines. He had lost his buck knife in the fall with his rifle. All he had to defend himself with were his hands.
Those fight-or-flight instincts kicked in again.
This time he chose the latter of the two.
Dohi ran using his light to guide him through the tunnel. Webbing snagged at his boots and shoulders, and he broke through the sticky vine-like growths. The earthen corridors branched. He took random turns, no idea where he was headed.
Grunts and squeals resounded through the tunnel as the beast used echolocation to track him. But even when Dohi was far out of what he judged as the beast’s effective sonar range, the monster still pursued.
That left only a few other possibilities. Scent being one of them, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the webbing also had something to do with it being able to track him.
He pictured those fibrous growths sprouting from the Alpha’s spine and tracing the webbing. Running wasn’t going to help him escape either of those things.
He stopped around another bend and placed his hand between the gaps in the webbing. Easily his fingers pressed through the muddy soil.
Maybe…
He turned around and stretched the webbing over himself. Then he slowly squirmed backward into the mud. With his hands, he smeared it over his body in cold, wet globs. As best he could, he dug out a shallow cavity in the wall.
The stomping of the Alpha grew closer. Squeals erupting down the tunnel.
Mud slopped around Dohi’s shoulders, and he squeezed it over his helmet, into his hair, and over his cheeks.
Another high-pitched shriek echoed down the tunnel.
He flicked off his flashlight and stuffed it into his pocket. He was almost certain the Alpha couldn’t see, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
The ground trembled.
The beast wasn’t far.
Dohi sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes. The tunnels were already steeped in darkness, but he couldn’t help the natural instinct to make every bit of him disappear in that mud under the web.
The clicking grew louder. The beast couldn’t have been more than a yard or more away now. Massive feet slopped along the muck, and a rolling growl sounded.
Dohi could smell rancid breath, but he kept his mouth clamped shut, the air still i
n his lungs.
A sniffing followed the growl.
It knows I’m here. It knows.
Another whoosh of rank breath rushed past Dohi’s mud-covered face.
The creature was right in front of him.
Was it toying with him?
His lungs burned, but he held the same breath inside. If he let it out, the beast would tear out his guts.
As the seconds passed his heart thumped harder.
Could it hear that?
The creature growled again.
Then it stomped away, taking off down the passage the way they had come. Dohi waited a few more moments before slowly letting out a breath. He gulped down a mouthful of the tunnel air. Musty and rotten as it was, air had never tasted sweeter.
He stayed in the mud behind the webbing until those clicks and squeals finally went silent. After another fifteen minutes had passed, he emerged from the mud and squeezed back through the gaps in the webbing. He pulled his fingers over his face and through his goatee, flaking the mud away.
With nothing but a flashlight to find his way out of here, he set off, knowing what he had seen had to be relayed to command before another outpost was attacked.
The very future of the country could rest on his escape.
***
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees the day after Team Ghost lost Dohi. They remained at Outpost Turkey River where they had received a resupply in the evac that had taken Cedric Long to command for questioning, and the samples Fitz collected for Kate.
Fitz wasn’t leaving until they had recovered Dohi. Every passing hour, he knew the chances of finding him alive were shrinking.
But Dohi was the best tracker on Team Ghost, a veritable bloodhound. If anyone could survive underground in the Variant infested superhighway it was Dohi.
Fitz checked his team as they continued the search for their lost brother.
Mendez was on point. Lincoln had rearguard, his gaze roving the skeletal trees. Fitz and Rico were between them. Ace wore a large black backpack that held a rugged computer system and battery connected to the long gray tubular instrument he carried.
Extinction Shadow Page 14
