Vector Borne

by Michael McBride

  The strength in Reaves’s neck gave out and his head struck the ground with a crack that released the taste of copper from his sinuses.

  His eyes rolled up to the rafters.

  The shadows raced to consume him.

  Through the darkness that constricted his vision, he saw Pike’s silhouette looming over him.

  He closed his eyes and bared his teeth against the pain, both what he already had and what was soon to come.

  Eighty-Two

  Bishop had tackled her behind the Trident the moment the first shot had been fired. She had heard two more in rapid succession as she tried to make sense of the chaos around her. These men had appeared from out of nowhere and all hell had broken loose.

  She and Bishop crouched against the submersible, unable to see anything transpiring on the other side. Where could they possibly go? They’d be in the line of fire if they made a break for the ocean, and even if they made it, how far could they hope to get before the shooting commenced? They’d be sitting ducks for any kind of marksman while they struggled against the tall waves in an effort to clear the Huxley and head for open water. And she wasn’t sure if she had enough strength left to make that swim again. She had barely made it to the ship in the first place.

  “Get ready,” Bishop said. “As soon as I pull the chocks, the sub’s going to start to roll. We need to get inside of it as quickly as possible before it starts gaining momentum.”

  “We’ll be totally exposed on top of it.”

  “He’s not going to be expecting it. We’ll catch him off-guard.”

  “He’ll have a clean shot at us.”

  “At least we’ll be moving targets. We can’t just wait for him to take care of the others and come looking for us. We’re dead if we stay here any longer.” He turned to face her. “This is our only chance, Courtney.”

  She only vaguely felt herself nod her understanding. Her hands were shaking so badly that she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to climb the side of the Trident. She imagined herself slipping and falling, watching the submersible roll toward the ocean, leaving her behind to face the wrath of the enraged man with the gun.

  “On my mark,” Bishop said. “Now!”

  He dove forward, grabbed the rope attached to the chocks, and gave it a sharp tug.

  Courtney leapt up onto the fiberglass shell. From the corner of her eye, she saw the chocks tumble away like dice, heard them clatter across the floor. The craft started to roll almost immediately. Her right foot found purchase on the hydraulic assembly of the starboard-side armature. She pushed off and grabbed for the roof.

  A startled shout from the other side.

  She kept climbing, certain she would hear the first report at any second.

  Bishop was to her right, scurrying up the hull in a blur. He reached the rail just as she did. Across the roof, she could see the opposite wall passing…the staircase to the control console…the office with its shattered windows…and in the foreground, Pike sprinting toward them with his pistol aimed right at her face.

  She ducked as a bullet ricocheted from the roof, cracking the fiberglass. The report echoed through the hanger.

  The trolley was picking up speed, but not fast enough. And the impact with the water would slow it down significantly.

  “Keep your head down!” Bishop shouted, even as he swung himself up onto the roof.

  Courtney risked another peek. Bishop reached for the open hatch. He jerked his hand back as another bullet whanged from the shell. She could no longer see Pike on the other side, which could mean only one thing.

  He had closed the distance to the Trident and was scaling the opposite side.

  Bishop wasn’t going to be able to reach the hatch before Pike had him dead to rights. Even if he did, she’d be any easy target trying to follow him.

  To her right, the waves were approaching fast. Her grip wasn’t strong enough to withstand a serious jolt.

  They were never going to make it.

  Eighty-Three

  The moment he heard the clatter of the chocks, he’d known exactly what was happening. He’d forsaken the kill shot at Reaves’s forehead and brayed in rage as he ran after the rolling vessel. He couldn’t allow his only means of escape to sail without him. He’d fired repeatedly at the roof line to keep Bishop and Martin from reaching the hatch. If they managed to get inside, once they hit the water they’d be long gone.

  He needed to gain control of the Trident. He could always swing back and finish them off, but not if he wasn’t the first to get to the hatch.

  He intercepted the vessel at a sprint and leapt up onto its flank. One solid kick with his right leg and he was over the top, just in time to see Bishop do the same thing from the other side. He was the first to his feet, and in one stride, towered over Bishop as the hanger sped past. Martin cowered beside him where she clung to the rail.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Pike said.

  Bishop looked up at him with an expression of defiance.

  Pike pointed the pistol right between Bishop’s narrowed eyes.

  Eighty-Four

  There was no time to think, only react. Bishop rolled to his right and swung his left leg in a wide arc. His foot connected with Pike’s ankle just solidly enough to knock him off-balance. He scurried behind the open hatch lid and heard bullets sing from the metal. The hatch lid wasn’t nearly large enough to protect him from a second fusillade and he wouldn’t be able to surprise Pike again. He lunged around the hatch and wrapped his arms around Pike’s knees.

  He felt as much as heard a crack on the back of his head and tasted blood in his mouth. The hanger swam around him. His grip around Pike’s legs loosened, but the other man was already falling. They landed squarely on the roof, just as the Trident struck the water.

  It was like hitting a brick wall.

  Bishop made a desperate grab for Pike’s pistol as he careened over the side. His fist closed around the smoldering barrel, which only slid out of his grasp.

  He was weightless for an interminable moment. His right heel whipped past Courtney’s cheek. She relinquished her grip on the submersible and fell away. The hanger floor rushed up to meet him. His shoulder crumpled beneath his weight and his head bounced from the ground.

  His vision wavered as he craned his neck to see the Trident slowly advancing into the ocean, sinking as it went. The cold seawater washed over his legs and waist.

  Pike knelt on the roof, his pistol aimed right at Bishop as he struggled to rise.

  Eighty-Five

  Bradley raised the gun. The butt was still slick with his old friend’s blood. He’d fallen upon Reaves and tried to keep pressure on the wound, but Reaves had brushed his hands aside, nodded toward the gun, and burbled something incoherent through a mouthful of blood. The events had played out so quickly that by the time Bradley had mustered the courage to fire, Bishop had already been thrown from the roof and Pike stood alone, victorious, prepared to put an end to Bishop. All Pike had to do after that was duck down into the personnel sphere and ride the waves to freedom. Reaves would bleed to death in short measure. Bishop would be dead. And he and Dr. Martin would undoubtedly fall prey to the sea when the stern sank, if Pike didn’t return to finish them off first.

  All of this was his fault.

  All of the pain.

  All of the death.

  And soon enough, Tyler Martin’s mutated body would fall into the hands of men who would pay any price to tap into the awesome potential inside of it, men who would be gods, who would use the knowledge not for the benefit of mankind, but for its enslavement.

  He couldn’t allow his dream to become the world’s nightmare.

  His hands shook as he sighted Pike down the barrel. His longtime right hand man, in whom he had entrusted more than just his business secrets and his life. He had considered Pike a friend, a friend with whom he now aligned the barrel of a pistol.

  Pike leaned forward to take the shot at Bishop. The ocean rose halfway up the sides of the
submersible as it rolled toward the sea.

  Bradley swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to watch.

  He squeezed the trigger and the gun bucked in his hands.

  Eighty-Six

  Courtney screamed and dove for Bishop. He was moving too slowly. He’d never get out of the way in time.

  A shot rang out and she threw her body over his. She expected to feel the bullet snap ribs as it tore through her side, pierced her lungs, and pulverized her heart.

  She glanced toward the Trident in time to see Pike stumble backward toward the hatch. His heels went over the lip of the hole.

  Bradley fired again, well wide, just like the first shot.

  Pike pinwheeled his arms for balance. When he was stable, he glanced down to take stock of the rising water and his current situation. The crests of the waves hurled brine against the open hatch lid.

  He looked back at them and seemed to reach a decision.

  “No!” Bishop yelled. He crawled out from beneath her and sprinted toward the wall of the hanger.

  Pike lowered his legs into the personnel sphere, braced his hands on the rim of the hatch, and started down the rungs.

  Bradley fired again. The report left her ears ringing. Above the tinny sound she heard Bishop rummaging through the contents of the overturned tool cabinet. He darted from her peripheral vision with a crowbar raised high over his head.

  Pike locked eyes with her.

  A smile split his face as he reached back for the hatch door and prepared to seal himself inside.

  His smile never faltered as a silver shape reared up behind him from inside the sphere.

  Eighty-Seven

  Bishop sprinted into the waves, the crowbar poised in striking position. He couldn’t let Pike pass the edge of the stern or they would never be able to catch him. Their only chance of escaping this island with their lives would be gone. Bradley fired wildly over his shoulder at the craft, which was now nearly submerged in the waves. If he allowed Pike to close the hatch, there would be no opening it again. The weight of the water would seal it like a tomb.

  Pike leered down at him with an expression of pure triumph on his face, an expression that told Bishop everything he needed to know. Pike wasn’t immediately heading toward open water. Once he was clear of the ship, he intended to make sure that no one else survived.

  The water churning up into the air in front of his knees nearly obscured his view of the silver form that rose up over Pike. There was a sudden flash of movement and Pike’s hideous smile twisted into a contortion of sheer agony. His eyes widened in terror. He reached for his throat, but not quickly enough. A mouth overflowing with hooked teeth opened over Pike’s shoulder and latched onto the side of his neck. Blood burst from their union. A lone arterial spurt escaped the creature’s mouth before it adjusted its grip and shook Pike’s head from side to side.

  Dear God.

  The hatch door had been closed when they arrived. He remembered stepping down from the platform onto it. The swaying cables…they hadn’t been blown by the wind, had they?

  The creature had slipped into the submersible when they’d turned their backs on it, where it had waited for Courtney and him to climb in so it could tear them apart. It had known that the Trident was the only way off this island, and it had simply staked out the hanger and waited for them to come to it.

  But he and Courtney had seen its corpse back at the mission. There was no doubt that it had been dead, which could only mean one thing.

  There were two of them.

  He recalled the footage of Tyler’s graduate assistant hitting the emergency button and dragging Tyler through the smoke behind the isolation shield. Lanky, long-legged Devin...

  If Lurch had been the first creature, then he knew exactly who they were up against now.

  Bishop plunged into the ocean and stroked toward the Trident.

  Pike swatted at the creature with his free hand to no avail. By the time he maneuvered the pistol to point back over his shoulder, it was already too late. The creature wrenched its head, with Pike’s right along with it, to the side, and the shot clanged harmlessly from the hatch.

  Bishop grabbed onto the tail of the submersible and dragged himself aboard. The water threatened to pull him right back down. Waves crested the personnel sphere and washed over the roof. He could hear it pouring inside and onto the cushioned pit at the bottom.

  Pike opened his mouth to scream, but only a mouthful of blood came out. He pinched his eyes tightly closed in pain, unlike the creature’s, which stared right at Bishop.

  Never in his worst dreams had he seen such a frightening sight.

  The creature’s eyes had wide, vertical slits, reminiscent of a cat’s. The slits were limned blue, like oblong black moons eclipsing twin cobalt suns, from which stray rays marbled the rest of the ebon sclera. He had seen these eyes many times before, but never on a man.

  They were the eyes of a great white shark.

  It opened its mouth and Pike dropped down into the sphere. Bishop heard the body crumple to the padding inside, felt the submersible shake. The creature turned its full attention on him. Its teeth shimmered crimson. Chunks of flesh were stuck to its gray gums. Its gills fanned open at the base of its mandible.

  Bishop crawled toward it as the waves crashed against the submersible. His heart rate accelerated. He moved from one slippery handhold to the next.

  A scaled claw emerged from the hole and gripped the edge of the opening. In one sinewy movement, its shoulders were all the way out of the orifice.

  Bishop lunged forward and swung the crowbar at its head.

  The creature easily avoided his best effort. It ducked down into the sphere, like a serpent recoiling after a strike.

  He wouldn’t get a second shot at this.

  Bishop dove toward the hatch before the creature could emerge again. He grabbed the lid and slammed it closed. It connected with the crown of the creature’s head and nearly popped back open again. He threw his weight on top of it and started cranking the wheel to lock it in place. The ocean rose over the wheel and sprayed him in the face, yet he continued turning it until it was sealed.

  The entire submersible rocked as the creature hurled itself against the hatch and the sides of the sphere. He could even hear the thrashing and banging sounds from beneath the waterline.

  He fed the crowbar through the gaps in the steel wheel and wedged it in place.

  The Trident continued to rock underneath him until the sea reached his waist and he was forced to stand. Inexorably, it continued its descent until it reached the end of the track. The sub bucked beneath him as the trolley met with the bumpers. Under normal conditions, this was the point where the Trident would be rigged to the A-frame, lifted out over the precipice, and lowered into the ocean. Instead, its momentum carried it forward and it slid off of the trolley. It tipped nose-down and dropped out from under his feet.

  Bishop barely had time to draw a breath before he splashed into the ocean. The draft of the submersible pulled him down, but he kicked against it until he broke the surface. He coughed and spit out a lungful of saltwater. The rain-dimpled waves lifted him high and dropped him back down. He treaded water as he stared to the west, waiting for what he knew would happen next.

  The smoke crawled over the sea like a fog. The ash formed a greasy film on the surface.

  He could hear Courtney calling for him over the shrieking wind, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

  Not yet.

  He felt it streaking toward the surface, a massive body displacing water as it fired up from the abyss. The Trident burst from the ocean, throwing up a wall of water. It submerged again before settling in to ride the waves, nearly completely underwater, save for the very uppermost portion of its spine. It had taken on so much water during the launch that it couldn’t fully breach the surface, although he could see just enough of it to allow himself to breathe a sigh of relief.

  The hatch was still closed and the c
rowbar was wedged just as he had left it.

  He could hear the creature pounding inside as he turned and swam back toward the Huxley.

  They weren’t safe yet.

  There was one more thing he needed to do.

  And he needed to do it quickly.

  Eighty-Eight

  Bradley kept pressure on Reaves’s abdominal wound. The bleeding had slowed significantly, but that didn’t mean that they were anywhere close to out of the woods yet. It was a through-and-through shot, which meant that at least he didn’t have to contend with the bullet. He’d cleaned it up and irrigated it as well as he could. The bullet had entered through the external oblique muscle and exited just lateral to the psoas muscle. Based on the trajectory, he was reasonably confident that it had missed all of the vital organs, but that didn’t mean that it hadn’t nicked a vessel or shredded the bowels. Beyond the blood loss, sepsis was a very real threat. Without antibiotics and fresh water to cleanse the wound, he was merely stalling the inevitable. He needed to get Reaves to a hospital, and the sooner the better. If they were able to do so, there was a good chance that Reaves would survive.

  A part of him missed this. The actual physical treatment of patients, the ability to make a difference with his own two hands. He had abandoned the healing arts to pursue the greater good, and his fortune, so long ago now that he barely remembered what it was like to be an actual physician in practice, not just in name. The pharmaceuticals that his empire produced had saved countless lives and enhanced the overall health of millions, and yet somehow it just wasn’t the same as getting in there and treating the sick and the injured on a more intimate level.

  None of that mattered now. This tragedy would undoubtedly bankrupt GeNext, absolve him of his personal wealth, and possibly land him in prison, depending upon how everything played out once a thorough investigation of the events on this island was completed. He could always pay for the findings to be in his favor, but right now he was so tired…too tired to even contemplate the future.