She kept her eyes on Andy’s, waiting for some sign of reaction. His chest showed him breathing with a steady rise and fall. But she wanted to see the stim do its stuff, have Andy’s eyes pop open, and then a smile and he’d be back.
The plunger was almost fully pressed.
“Damn. Nothing,” she said quietly.
“Give it a second,” Kane added. “Could take time.”
The small syringe was empty, and now she gingerly pulled the needle out as a small pool of blood formed at the opening.
“Need a bandage. I got one in—”
But Kane had anticipated that and handed her one of the small cotton swatches from his pack. Maria took it and pressed it against the opening. Kane stood by with a bit of plastic tape. She took that, sealing the bandage in place.
“Maybe…we should try another. Maybe he’s so far gone it will take two.”
And when she had just about convinced herself that another still had to be tried, Andy’s chest swelled with a big gulp of air. His mouth opened and then, as if someone had thrown a switch, his eyes popped open, darting left and right, as if the last thing he remembered was the imp’s claw hand around his neck, and he expected the creature to be there.
But Maria cleared some hair off his forehead and she smiled. And after the nervous dance of his eyes back and forth, Andy relaxed, the slow realization that he was alive, and that he was safe, hitting his now conscious brain.
And Maria said, “Welcome back.”
Theo hesitated before the open monorail door. Would it close again in a few seconds, and would he travel back to the other place?
Where the spiders waited….
He placed one foot right where the door would slide shut, still undecided.
Then the voice came back: “The monorail is ready for departure. Please hold on.”
And with that, Theo stepped out. As soon as he did, the door whooshed closed behind him. He could hear the voice inside, talking to nobody.
The monorail pulled away, leaving Theo alone, unsure of what his next move would be, beyond not staying in one place for very long.
Andy Kim leaned again the wall, nodding and smiling. “I got to tell you…I thought it was all over. I was”—he looked at Kane—“actually glad that I was blacking out.” Then his eyes looked straight ahead. “I sure didn’t want to be conscious to see what that thing would do to me.”
Kane didn’t know how Maria was trained to deal with combat fatigue of any sort. In truth, he barely knew her. But he could see in Kim the telltale signs of shock. In this unfocused state, Kim wasn’t going to be any good to them at all.
And that was important, because since reaching Maria the question kept dogging him even as he pushed it to the back of his mind: what next?
He would have liked to pull Maria aside, discuss Kim and a potential plan. But the young space marine was already freaked-out enough. He likely didn’t need any secret discussions happening around him. So Kane decided to lay the cards on the table.
“Okay, well, glad you’re alive, Andy. I ran into two of those—”
“Imps,” Maria said. Then she shrugged, as if recognizing it was a pretty feeble name for such a creature.
Kane repeated the name with a smile, “Okay, imps. They’re definitely not, as we say, from here. And I’ve seen two other things, also not zombies.”
Andy said, “Two? I know about that doglike thing with metal hindquarters. That picture got out to all the marines before the comm failure. But there’s another?”
Kane nodded. “That I’ve seen…that I know of. Didn’t grab any pictures of them—too busy blowing them away to play zoologist. Or more appropriately, entomologist. They were spiderlike, size of dogs. The legs were either some hard body material—I dunno—maybe metal legs like the pinky.” He looked at Maria. “We’re calling them ‘trites’ since they looked a bit like mites but were massive.”
“Trites…” Andy repeated.
“Okay, also not much of a name. But I’ll tell you”—he looked down at Andy—“one thing I learned leading grunts into battle is, if you can mock the goddamn enemy, then go ahead and do it. Make them small so it seems like, yeah, you can take them out. You can beat them. So if we’re talking about imps, trites, pinkies…so be it. These creatures don’t need names that actually sound dangerous.”
Maria nodded. “Right. Good idea. Next one we meet we’ll call a ‘clown.’”
Kane laughed. “How many clowns did you kill today.” He turned back to Andy, who, in the pattern of shock, had quickly drifted away.
Kane crouched down. “So, Andy, I’ve been cooking up a little plan. I want to get you out of here. Things are quieter back at Reception. It’s close to transport when help comes—”
Kane knew he wasn’t being completely truthful with Kim. Things had been quieter back there. But now? It was anybody’s guess. And help? Had help been summoned? Not the last time Kane was there. And that was another part of his plan….
But that wasn’t for Andy Kim’s ears.
“So I’m going to have Maria take you back. You can join up with the grunts I left there. There’s a guy, McCullough. Pain in the ass, but he has a good head on his shoulders. No brass around, so I put him in charge.”
Andy nodded, and Kane thought it was all settled.
Maria took some steps so she could look at Kane. “And you? What are you going to do?”
He stood up, hoping that Kim would drift away. While he didn’t walk away from the man, he turned a bit and lowered his voice. “Far as I can tell, all of this is coming from one place, and even being new to this wonderful city, I can tell that’s Delta Lab.”
“And?”
“Now that I know you’re safe, and things look a little quiet here, that’s where I’m going to go. The way I figure it, if our menagerie is coming from there, somebody better close the damn gate.”
“Right. Only one thing: you can’t go alone.”
“Hm?”
“You said you had a hard time getting here, whole sections blocked, elevators down, stairways clogged. Do you think you know Mars City well enough to get to Delta on your own?”
Kane waved his PDA at her. “I got maps.”
“Yeah, and you are a smart marine. So you know maps don’t show everything. You need me to get there.”
“I’ll be okay. Maybe hit a few dead ends. Won’t be the first time.”
She reached out and touched his arm. “And there’s this: you came here to see if I was okay, if I needed help. Well, you damn sure know you’ll need help when you get to Delta. The words ‘suicide mission’ seem apt.”
“Possibly.”
“And it might be less of a suicide mission if I go with you.”
“Or maybe we’ll both die.”
She smiled and repeated the same word he had just said to her: “Possibly. But you know I’m right.”
Kane had to admit that she had a strong point. Any other marine he’d order to go with him, bringing as much firepower as possible. Funny how other…factors…can cloud one’s judgment.
He flicked his head toward Kim. “And Andy?”
“You said you know a clear path back to Reception. Hopefully you’ve taken care of all the monsters who have come out to play along that route.”
“Not sure about that.”
“We give Andy another one of your stims. Get him up. And get him moving.”
He looked down at Kim, still leaning against the wall, eyes glazed, staring out at the distance.
“You give him a chance of making it back?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s that—”
Then, in a raspy voice from below Kane: “I can do it.”
He watched Kim press his back against the wall and start to slide up to a standing position. “I can do it. On my own.” On his two feet now, he looked at Kane. “You show me exactly how you got here, and”—he turned to Maria—“you load me up with all the ammo and stim I can handle, and I can do it. McCullough, you say?”<
br />
Andy’s last words seemed designed to convince Maria that he was really all right to handle this.
“Andy, are you sure—?”
Then a smile, warm and so human, and now even Kane believed that the kid could make it back. “I can do it. Kane, you have to take her. Who knows what the hell is going on here, but if it’s going to be stopped, there’s a better chance with two of you.”
Kane nodded. “Yeah. Too right on that. Okay, then I guess we all better get started. Before we break up, we need ammo, all that we can carry. And there’s got to be some grenades around here. Some backup weapons. Any autoload shotguns?”
Maria nodded. “We can get all that pretty near here.”
Andy took a breath. “Then, let’s get that stuff and get going.” He looked back and forth between the two of them. “Enough talking, right?”
Kane nodded. “Right.”
Though he knew that once he and Maria began their trek, he would have to tell her everything he felt about what was happening here. That, and what he planned to do about it. But that was for the two of them. For now he just said,” Lead on.”
And Maria picked up her weapon and led them down a supply corridor to what he hoped would be the largest cache of guns and ammo he had ever seen.
Theo heard little pops and clicks from somewhere on the monorail platform, but that sounded electrical. Nothing out of the ordinary—nothing from the things that used to be human.
He was starving, ravenous; and when he gulped, he could feel how thirsty he was. I need water and food, he thought. I need help. I need somebody to help me.
Of course, calling out wasn’t something he could do. No, not when it was so quiet and his voice would be the only thing here. The only human thing….
Where am I? Theo wondered. Is this a good place, a bad place? Why is it so quiet? The hunger, the thirst, nagging at him.
He had stood there as long as he could. And without knowing where he might be going, he started moving, one step at a time, his destination a complete unknown.
26
BALLARD RESEARCH STATION
JULIE POINTED TO THE SCREEN IN FRONT OF David.
“Okay, this is what I’ve been looking at. This process. We always called it symbiotic, toxin-eating bacteria producing food for the organic host. But now it doesn’t add up.”
David leaned close; the clarity was perfect, with the microcamera’s ability to record in startling 3-D the moment-by-moment process of the formation of that bond between organic and inorganic.
“Can I see it again? Maybe let the image rotate as it goes on? I’d like to see a three-sixty view.”
“Sure. Hold on.”
Julie hit some keys, and the video, enlarged at a magnification of 1200X, began again, this time with the “camera” actually rotating around the molecules as they did their work.
“Hold on. Okay. Stop it there.”
David hesitated for a moment. He tapped the screen to indicate where a new section of bacteria seemed to appear out of nowhere. “Can you enlarge that? Maybe another five hundred times?”
Julie glided a small pointer over the screen, and then she stroked a slide bar to bring the image up to a close-up at the higher power.
“See there?”
“You mean the bacteria first growing, spreading, then—”
“Look. Right there. Looks like it’s planting some kind of hooks into the host material. Doesn’t look very symbiotic to me.”
“You’re right. We missed that. Until we had the molecules at this early stage, the exact nature of the process remained a bit of guesswork. Like physicists’ speculation about what happened in those microseconds before and after the Big Bang.”
“Exactly. But what we have here is the Big Bang equivalent of a totally new form of existence.” He turned and looked at Julie. “And doesn’t something about it bother you?”
She hesitated. He knew that Julie was never one to go with instinct. That would have been too classically female. She was all logic, even when it came to their relationship. That may have been the thing that ended it. “I don’t know. I guess you could say that it looks…aggressive?”
“Exactly.”
“But without the bacteria moving and taking over, the host organism couldn’t even exist, not in the hydrothermal vents.”
“True. But at what price? Or to put it another way, who is actually the host, and who the creature? And if we are to actually play with this material, somehow try to master this process for human use…”
“Which won’t be done in the next day, or even week—”
“You can be sure of that. That’s the first thing Kelliher has to hear. But we have to learn everything we can. Quite frankly, watching this…worries me.”
Again Julie was reluctant to express such an un-scientific thought. “I can see that. We have more tests running, with different samples, different conditions, and we—”
The intercom came on. “Dr. Rodriguez, the first visitors are here.”
Visitors—some of the scientists that Kelliher had dispatched here immediately after the first outbreak, ferried here via a transport chopper. The subs and a docking ship waited for them on the surface. And with many more scientists to come.
They’d need briefing assignments, all the formalities of finding a place for them to live and work down here on what might be a total pipe dream.
David would have to show them the images, the vids. That is, if Kelliher hadn’t already sent them some of the material from Mars.
“Company,” he said to Julie. “I best get them sorted. You okay to carry on?”
She nodded. He started to turn to walk away, but Julie, in an almost impulsive gesture, reached out and touched his left forearm.
“David, it’s good that I can go over all this with you. Helps my thinking.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Call me any time, any hour, when you have something.” Then, with her hand still on her arm, he said, “Or even if you don’t.”
She nodded and smiled back.
“I better dash.”
And he hurried up to the entry dock to wait for the first submersibles to arrive.
UAC HEADQUARTERS PALO ALTO
“Would you like an escort down to the labs, Mr. Kelliher?”
The UAC chairman waved away the question from the security officer. He knew his the way around the labs below—after all, he had approved every piece of the design. And he wanted as much time alone with his thoughts as possible.
He kept running his plans through his head, second-guessing the twisted path of thoughts that led him to the conclusions that he had to do…what he was about to do.
Amazing, he thought, the power of fear.
The elevator doors shut smoothly, and the elevator began the long journey belowground to the only other “floor” it went to. The service elevators, of different sizes, went to various access levels above and below the labs.
But for this one, direct from the headquarters building, there was only one stop.
No, he thought, there was no question that he had to do this. Though, God knew, the risks were tremendous. Could this be one roll of the dice too many for the UAC? And how long before the government, as enfeebled and indebted to the UAC as it was, decided that the time had come to sever the relationship?
Sever it, and perhaps even more. Could they attempt to take over the UAC? And how would he, Ian Kelliher, react to that? Or rather, how should he react? If anything, the ineffectiveness of what passed for the United States government was something that drove all of the UAC’s operations.
The elevator slowed. The door opened. And two armed guards, though they certainly knew who was standing in front of them, lowered their weapons to chest height and demanded to see Kelliher’s security pass, to be followed by a retinal scan follow-up.
He walked out of the elevator and handed them his UAC security card.
David Rodriguez watched the screen in the transport area as it signaled
that the sub outside had successfully docked with the Ballard station.
The sub’s airlock opened, and then both computer systems performed a check of air quality and pressure. Then with the slightest whoosh of air, the airlock opened. David took a few steps closer as the first scientists walked off.
Three of them, with more on the way. Drawn from cutting-edge projects in genetic adaptation, molecular biophysics, and other related fields.
Two of them middle-aged, fitting the scientific mold. And one striking redhead.
Dr. Elaina Krasanov, whose plant-specific work in genetic modifications had been touted—in scientific circles at least—as a way to end the food wars that raged all over the earth. Of course, that still wouldn’t deal with the water problem. But supposedly her recent plant modifications could grow in near-desert conditions, absorbing even the scant moisture from the air itself.
All that—and it was hard not to look at her.
The scientists stood there, looking around the transport bay.
David wanted to give this group a quick orientation and get them working as soon as possible.
“Gentlemen…and lady, welcome to the Robert Ballard Deep Ocean Lab. I know you have all been briefed on what we are doing now. And the new urgency of the project.”
The group looked at each other, and David now knew that they had indeed seen the images and vids from Kelliher and had had a thorough briefing on where David and his team were with the project.
“My lead scientist here, Dr. Julie Chao, will see to your formal orientation in the lab. I’m afraid we’ve made no distinct assignments. We prefer that you see all the areas we are working on, then, where you see a fit, you can jump in.”
David smiled, but didn’t see any smiles back. Probably the looseness of the organization was clearly not to their liking.
“Bottom line: if you see an area we are working on where there is a good fit, we’d like…we need you to simply join the team. In some cases, you may actually end up running the team. But with this crisis, such designations don’t matter. Before I take you to the lab, and we begin—any questions?”
Doom 3™: Maelstrom Page 12
