The Devil’s Noose

by Michael Angel

  “Nick–” she gasped.

  “One second,” he said absently, as he touched the tip of the pipette to the green thread where it lay upon the stone. He thumbed the suction, and with a little thwick, a chunk of the green substance was sucked into the sample jar. “There, that’s done it.”

  As if in response to Navarro’s action, the biofilm on the far wall sent a ripple up along its length. The movement transmitted itself up into the ceiling’s quartz cover. It snaked its way through the crystalline matrix.

  “Get down!” Austen cried.

  “Right,” he agreed. He shifted his weight in order to step down from the slab.

  The remaining biofilm on the stalactite came loose. It touched Navarro’s outstretched hand at the wrist, oozing across it with a disturbing purposefulness. It slipped under and around until it linked up on the opposite side.

  Navarro frowned as he tried to lower his hand and found that he could not.

  “What the hell?” he murmured. He gave an experimental tug.

  The loop of biofilm tightened like a coil of steel wire.

  Fear shot through him like acid in his blood as he felt a mammoth-sized tug in return. Horror followed on its heels as an unseen force dragged the big man forward. His eyes went wide as his feet scrabbled for purchase on the rock. He slid two feet forward. Then another foot.

  “Son of a bitch!” he cried, over and over. “Son of a bitch!”

  Navarro’s vision went red. The readouts on the inside of his helmet went berserk as they helpfully warned of rapid increases in his heartrate and blood pressure. He found a slight bit of purchase with one foot and managed to stop his slide.

  He was rewarded with an even heavier yank that threatened to pull his arm from its socket. For the first time since he’d received the scar that marked his face, Navarro let out a scream of terror. His feet slid forward again. His left hand flailed down by his side, groping until it found the pack’s side pocket and dug inside of it.

  Zhou let out a scream of her own. Yet more tendrils emerged from the rear wall. Ghostly green ectoplasmic fingers reached out, grabbing at the air with murderous intent.

  The biofilm that coiled about the rocks just beyond where they stood began to writhe. Lelache remained frozen at the smaller woman’s side, eyes wide in fear at the approach of a horror she’d never dreamed of.

  Only Austen moved. The underlying tremor in her hands faded away. The memories of death at the hands of the Black Nile virus fell away as she confronted something more immediate. She moved as quickly as the hardsuit would allow. Leaping forward, she managed to grasp the pack slung around Navarro’s shoulder.

  Austen wrapped her fingers deep into the material and dug in her heels. With an ear-jangling scrape, she brought their forward slide to a halt again. Austen glanced around Navarro’s torso. She realized with a shock that he’d been pulled to the very edge of the rock slab.

  Just beyond, the floor of the grotto turned from tumbled rock into gilded dinosaur bone. Each nook and cranny of the bones writhed with menace. Before her eyes, the movements resolved into thin, blue-green tendrils, like innumerable tiny tongues ready to bore into flesh.

  The long-handled scalpel fell into Navarro’s left hand. His breaths billowed like the bellows of a steam engine as he leaned back, throwing his weight against his restraint. The scalpel’s blade gleamed in the glare of his suit lights.

  That same gleam caught Austen’s eyes. She had a horrible flashback to yesterday, when Joe Widerman had been ready to take a scalpel to his own flesh.

  “Nick!” she cried. “Don’t!”

  But Navarro was beyond reason. In desperation, he brought the surgical knife up to his trapped wrist.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Austen knew that she was risking disaster if she let go of Navarro’s pack. Another yank on his wrist at the wrong time, and he’d tumble forward into the mass of tendrils below. It might even pull her down as well.

  A ping rang in her ears. The metal rings that clipped the end of the shoulder strap to the pack’s body flexed and bent.

  In another second, two at most, those rings would fly apart.

  She had no choice.

  She shifted her grip and lunged for Navarro’s left hand. Her fingers latched onto the man’s arm just above the elbow. She used her body weight to pull his arm back, keeping the blade away from both of their suits.

  “What are you doing?” Navarro puffed, as he fought to keep his balance, “This…thing has me…”

  “I know!” she shot back. “You slash at it from this angle, you’ll cut the flexible piece between your forearm plate and the hand. Breach your suit, and it’s all over.”

  Navarro went even paler behind his face mask, his features leached of all color. “Can’t…just…”

  “Give me the knife,” she said.

  He opened his left hand and the scalpel dropped into her palm.

  “Try to hold still,” she instructed him.

  Austen stepped on Navarro’s outstretched knee. That boosted her enough to get up by his right arm. His trapped hand bent back painfully as he fought. A vicious-looking band of green dug deep into the flexible fabric at the wrist.

  Another powerful tug almost sent them tumbling forward. Navarro let out a grunt of pain. A glance down confirmed that his toes were already dangling off the edge.

  Austen reached over his trapped wrist and found where the loop stretched up into the crystal ceiling. With a curse, she swiped the scalpel across the back of his hand where the hardsuit’s plate covered it. The blade passed over the loop of green, the surgical steel neatly slicing through it.

  Navarro lost his balance. He windmilled his arms and fell backwards. Austen went over with him, desperately tossing away the scalpel as she did so. The two landed with a matching crunch on the ground.

  Her head rang as her helmet rapped against the rocks. She saw stars and came close to blacking out. Her legs felt a jolt and a twinge as the big man’s bulk landed atop them, but the hardsuit took most of the blow. She groped for purchase, her fingers latching on to something that fell into her hand.

  Something grabbed her under her arms, tugging her backwards. She fought it for a moment, her fears of the clutching tendrils below dominating her mind. Amy Zhou’s voice brought her back to reality.

  “Stop it! We’re trying to get you out of danger!”

  She stopped struggling as the younger woman clutched one shoulder, dragging her back a few feet. Lelache had a grip on her other shoulder and was following suit. Navarro limped along next to them, favoring his right arm.

  In a few seconds, the vision of the grotto’s riches and the nightmare it held within vanished behind the slight rise of the earth.

  Austen climbed shakily to her feet, head still reeling. Navarro cautiously flexed his right arm, grimacing as he did so.

  “I owe you one,” he gasped, his breath still coming in exhausted heaves. “My arm…it smarts, but nothing’s broken or torn inside.”

  “Let’s see the wrist.”

  He turned his hand over, wincing with pain as he did so. Austen looked at the flexible joint as best she could under the suit lights. The fabric looked badly abraded, but it was still intact.

  “Seems okay,” she said, relieved. “Just try not to move it any more until we get to the decon showers.”

  “Right.” Navarro held the limb stiffly as his side. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here while we can.”

  No one objected.

  They made their way back to the first pressure door. Together, Lelache and Zhou managed to turn the stubborn wheel lock to close off the gas-filled cavern behind them.

  Navarro stood up straight as he cursed, “Dammit! The sample I took, I lost it!”

  “You did, but I happened to grab it,” Austen said quickly. She held up the sampling tool that had fallen or rolled into her hand. A splotch of green-blue practically filled the sample jar. “More luck than anything, but I’ll take it.”

 
“Thank God. I wouldn’t go back down there for anything. Not unless I had a flamethrower in my hand. Then again, that’s out too. Anything that could combust would blow up this entire cavern.”

  “You would also wipe out an invaluable species as yet unknown to science,” Lelache pointed out, as Austen sealed the entire sample tool in three layers of plastic biohazard bags before putting it into the pack on the big man’s shoulder. “That would have been the true disaster.”

  “Invaluable?” Navarro scoffed. “If by ‘invaluable’, you mean ‘dangerous as hell’.”

  “The universe is stingy with uniqueness,” Lelache said coolly. “This organism is much more creative and adaptive than anything I’ve seen. It may react as a ‘colonial’ animal, much like some kinds of jellyfish, or deep-sea siphonophores.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Once I got Zhou to stop screaming like a petite fille, it left us alone,” Lelache replied. “The tendrils squirming towards us diminished in activity. It focused all of its attention on where you were resisting it.”

  “So, it was responding to our struggles, like a spider would to a fly caught in its web,” Austen concluded. “And if we’re talking about stimulus, then it must’ve initially reacted to our lights. Maybe the vibration from our suits.”

  “Well, it’s a lot stronger than any jellyfish,” Navarro said firmly. “It had a goddamn strong grip.”

  “Also, most jellies don’t kill scores of people exposed to it. Lelache may be right about how unique this thing might be. A primitive, unicellular life form that can move…and grip? And react like it has some type of neural net?

  “Less discussion in the dark,” Zhou urged. “More walking to the elevator.”

  “Right,” Austen said. “Let’s get going before that thing decides to find a new way to get to us.”

  They set out for the surface, dust rising around them as their footsteps echoed against the high ceiling. The lighter mist of the middle cavern swirled around them.

  Amy Zhou wasn’t the only member of the party to cast a fearful glance back towards the door they’d left sealed behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Navarro didn’t speak until the elevator rattled closed and the car began to ascend. He looked out over the gravel-strewn industrial landscape. Bleak grays shaded into violets and blacks as the sun moved towards the midafternoon and left more of the main shaft in shadow.

  “Interesting,” he said quietly. “I never thought desolation could look so good.”

  No one disagreed with him. After the blackness and terror of the deep mine, the sight of the sky was invigorating. Even muted sunlight warmed the insides like nothing else.

  Little more was said as they made their way to the decon showers. Purple spray turned into sparkling white foam that cascaded down the sides of their hardsuits. Lelache confirmed the integrity of Navarro’s suit while Austen deconned the rest of the gear. She sent the little sample jar over to the lab in Module D via a closed-atmosphere conveyor belt that led between the last three trailers.

  A half-hour later found Navarro in the dining area, happily de-gowned and chowing down on the contents of a freshly warmed MRE. Much as with the mine vista after the darkness of the caverns, he didn’t think that beef stew or creamed corn could taste like a gourmet meal. He was in a surprisingly good mood as he went into the makeshift command center to check on his team’s progress.

  The module’s interior had been transformed into a rat’s nest of cables. Some ran from a bank of laptops and servers along the wall, while others linked up to the dish on the roof. Redhawk sat in front of the screens, his fingers dancing along the keyboard. October stood behind him, arms crossed and expression set deep in thought.

  A coffeemaker burbled away on a corner table. Navarro paused to pour himself a cup and took a slurp of the bitter liquid before joining his seconds. Redhawk finished his last line of inputs and spared a glance up at his commander.

  “Afternoon, Lieutenant,” he said, as he pushed away from the desk.

  “Not anymore,” Navarro replied, without heat. “At least since we left the Corps.”

  “Apologies. Two years, and the habit’s still hard to break.” Redhawk shook his head.

  While Navarro was the commander, soldiers in the private sector held no formal rank. Much like private consultants in the civilian world, expertise often trumped other considerations. Though unlikely, if a mission involved only electronic surveillance, Redhawk could’ve ended up as the lead officer instead.

  “No problem,” Navarro assured him. He looked to both of his seconds. “Give me a SITREP.”

  Redhawk looked to October first. As usual, the situation reports worked from ground-level on up. The big man sidled over to a map of the Karakul compound that had been pinned to the leather-brown wall.

  “Squads are in place here, and here,” the big man rumbled, as he pointed to two specific points on the map. “Mendez and Gorecki. The first two are building fire positions. Up by airport and along main road.”

  Navarro nodded. He noted that the two locations were set up to protect the potential choke points he’d spotted along the road. October had anticipated his commander’s concerns once again.

  “What about Davis’ squad? They taking point?”

  “I send them on recon path. Around airstrip and then back.” He noted Navarro’s questioning look. “A little dangerous, yes. Need to show Kazakhs here our teeth.”

  “They’re watching us,” Redhawk put in. “And I wanted to watch them watching us. Get to see a few more of their cards.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Navarro agreed. “What do you two think?”

  October pursed his lips. “Is strange. Little things I see. Makes me wonder about them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sloppy uniforms. Sloppy patrols. Two, four, five. Weapons properly maintained, but in wrong configurations.”

  “That could be the result of the Soviet Army leaving Kazakhstan to its own devices. The standards could slip when you go to more of a state-militia kind of force.”

  “Could be. But discipline is habit. Like calling you ‘Lieutenant’. Not so easy to forget.”

  “All seven drones are up,” Redhawk added, “so we’re sealed as tight as a drum in here. But I’m getting a lot of that same vibe as October. This place is run with a very weak hand. Could be Votorov’s style. Or level of ability. After all, this mine can’t be a plum army post.”

  “Tell me what you’re seeing,” Navarro said.

  Redhawk tapped a few keys. More monitors winked on to one side. He nodded towards them as he spoke.

  “The Kazakhs are watching my drones with binoculars, or high-powered rifle scopes. All standard Soviet-era issue, from what I can tell. Our local detachment here is armed with a bunch of light antipersonnel weaponry, also Soviet-era standard. No tanks, artillery, or anything heavier than an RPG-7.”

  “Nothing heavier than a rocket-propelled grenade launcher? That’s good for us, at least. So long as they keep the Ozrabeks away, we can’t be shelled.”

  “What they do have, they’re keeping in readiness. That’s to be expected if the rebels aren’t far away. And yet there’s that persistent sloppiness that’s keeping October on edge. Check this out.”

  Redhawk tapped a few more keys. He zoomed in on a video recording marked DOPEY at the top of the screen. He played a ten-second sequence in a loop a few times.

  Navarro watched as Votorov and Chelovik left one building and walked to another. Along the way, the officers passed two sets of guards. One pair did not react at all. The other moved to make a half-hearted salute of sorts, and that was a second or two late.

  “Definite lack of discipline,” Navarro noted. “Votorov’s tolerating a lot of slack, that’s for sure. But does it mean anything?”

  “It troubles me,” October admitted. “I do not know why. Yet. I will think more on it.”

  A chime came from a speaker as Austen’s voice came on the over
head.

  “Nick, we could use your presence in Module C.”

  “Got it, I’ll be right there,” he called back. Navarro took a breath before adding, “Both of you, let me know if see anything else…irregular.”

  “Will do,” Redhawk said, and October nodded agreement.

  “One more thing. October, I want you to change the patrol limits. No one is to come within twenty meters of the infirmary building or these trailers without clearing it with either of you. Alter the drone paths to cover these spots. I want to keep our men as far away from this lab as possible. They’ve got a very strange bug in the lab, and I don’t want it getting lucky.”

  Redhawk gave him a look. “They did find it, then? And it’s a dangerous one?”

  “You could say that. It didn’t infect me,” Navarro rubbed his still-aching arm as he spoke. “Though it did try to drag me off and take my hand off at the wrist.”

  Navarro’s seconds stared as their commander turned and walked off.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Upon arriving, Navarro immediately noticed that an impromptu conference had formed in the meeting area. Preble sat at one end of the table, resting a hand on his cane. His other hand quavered as if working an invisible drum set at his side. Zhao sat next to him, studiously ignoring it.

  Austen and Blaine took turns typing in commands at a keyboard they’d placed at the other end of the table. Lelache prowled the perimeter like a predatory cat, her eyes not missing a thing as the other two worked in tandem.

  A wall-mounted monitor linked to a camera pointed at a petri dish located inside one of Module D’s secured biosafety cabinets. The dish contained the biofilm sample. The slime’s color shifted from cobalt blue to mint green, and then back again. He shuddered as a thread of the substance tried to edge its way up the side of the acrylic container.

  “I need to show the clip recorded from my hardsuit camera,” Austen said, as the view of the organism vanished, to be replaced by a still of the grotto. “I’ve brightened it and used a software stabilizer. Hopefully that helps.”