The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  “All right, all right!” Cyrus said. A pause, then, “I’ll have to have Tanisha hold the light if I’m going to work with both hands.”

  Tanisha—the other telekinetic. Of all the possible nadaný. Damn! Montero’s files described her power as pretty damn weak, but still … anyone who could move things with her mind had to be considered dangerous.

  “I know all about Tanisha too. Just remember that this pistol has a hair trigger. I’m well aware that Tanisha is telekinetic, and if I feel the slightest pressure on my throat or anywhere on my body, the gun will fire.”

  Cyrus looked off to his right. “Hear that, Tanisha? A hair trigger. So come over here where you can see and help me take care of this.”

  Something about the way he phrased that set off an alarm in Greve but he couldn’t say why. He was in a supremely awkward position: pitch black below except for a tiny sliver of light at the bottom through the opening into the storeroom; equally black above save for Cyrus’s flashlight beam. Reflected light from the beam gleamed off the Luger’s nickel plating, lending it a menacing look. Were they planning something? Whatever, he still held the aces: Fanning and the Luger. All he could do was keep a tight grip on both, and his finger ready on the trigger.

  “Remember … try anything and your friend here suffers.”

  A young woman with a strained face came into view and took the flashlight. She trained the beam on the rim of the cover as Cyrus bent to his task, but her eyes were fixed on the Luger.

  Pretty, isn’t it?

  Then he sensed a vibration in the weapon. What—?

  He chanced a look and it took him a second to realize the safety lever had moved up. Before he could thumb it down again a hand had gripped the short barrel and angled it away from Fanning—Cyrus’s hand. When he released it, the Luger’s entire barrel as well as the front part of its receiver were gone.

  What? How—? Montero’s records flashed through his mind—Cyrus had never been able to disappear metal. And yet now …

  Greve had levered the safety down again by then, so he pulled the trigger. He heard the firing pin click but nothing happened.

  And then something was pushing him backward, like a hundred angry invisible hands shoving him. The small of his back struck the platform’s guardrail. Panicked, he dropped the Luger and grabbed for support but his hands found only empty air.

  With a cry of pure terror he toppled over the rail and tumbled into the midnight darkness of the shaft. Falling headfirst, he rolled in the air and his flailing left arm banged against a ladder rung. His fingers grabbed and missed but found the next one. He clutched at it, felt it slip through his fingers, but then they caught the third one. He grabbed tight and cried out as his shoulder joint separated with a loud, agonizing pop.

  The pain spasmed in his fingers, numbed them. He couldn’t maintain his grip and they slipped free. But at least he’d broken the acceleration of his fall enough for his right hand to grab another rung and hold on to it. His right shoulder wrenched but held together. His feet found a rung below, and he clung there, gasping with relief and repressing moans of pain—he would not moan.

  He heard what was left of his pistol hit the floor with multiple metallic clatters and knew it had smashed to pieces. After a moment he was able to think about something other than the pain in his shoulder and listen to something other than his own breathing.

  A glow from the flashlights at the top of the shaft, disembodied voices echoing down …

  “Tanisha, what did you do?” he heard Fanning say.

  “Saved our asses is what she did,” Cyrus said. “He was gonna shoot you, and us as well, if he could.”

  “But you probably killed him.”

  Tanisha’s voice: “Whoops.”

  Cold-blooded bitch.

  He saw flashlight beams start to pierce the musty air of the shaft. Inevitably, one found him.

  “Christ, there he is!” Cyrus cried.

  “He doesn’t look so hot,” Tanisha said.

  Fanning said, “We’ve got to go down. I need to find Rick and the others.”

  Greve looked down and saw the floor of the shaft, visible in the light from the storeroom. Only twenty feet or so below but looking like a mile or two.

  “Why’s he just hanging there?” Tanisha said.

  “He’s gonna try and block the way,” Cyrus said. “Can you knock him off ?”

  Fanning: “No! We may need him.”

  Tanisha: “He’s too far. But when we get closer …”

  That was the convincer. Cyrus still had work to do on enlarging the opening in the hatch, which meant Greve had a little time before they could enter the shaft and follow him. He started down.

  Progress was agonizingly slow. His left arm was useless—less than useless, since every twist or jolt of his body sent shots of pain down his arm and into his chest—so he had to rely on his right and his feet.

  As he neared the bottom, he heard the clatter of feet on metal above, which could only mean that Fanning and the nadaný had entered the shaft and were on the platform. And now the scrape of feet on the ladder, the vibrations on the rungs tingling through his good hand. All he wanted to do was to stop and baby that left arm, but he had to keep moving.

  When he reached the floor, he leaned his back against the curved wall of the shaft and tried to maneuver his upper arm back into the shoulder socket. He’d seen it done but couldn’t remember which way to rotate it. He tried outward and inward but all he succeeded in doing was increasing his pain.

  God, the pain—it had his breath hissing in and out between his teeth.

  The flashlights continued to descend from above. And then someone began banging on the storage room door … banging and calling his name.

  Watts? Who the hell was Watts?

  And then a loud, horrified scream—a man’s voice but at a woman’s pitch. What had happened out there? And loud. Had someone opened the door?

  With a sick, crawling sensation in his gut, he realized he was trapped. He couldn’t go up, and someone was at the door to the hallway—maybe more than one someone.

  He resisted an impulse to surrender—to slide down the wall and sit on the floor to await his fate. He might have a chance, and he had to take it, no matter how slim.

  He peeked into the storeroom to check on the door. Still closed. Good. But it had a hole through it—a hole that hadn’t been present earlier. Which meant the Anomaly must have passed through.

  God, what a horrendous mess this had turned out to be. He wished he’d never heard of the Anomaly or melis or the nadaný. He especially wished he hadn’t thought bringing them here was a good idea. His life had turned to shit since their arrival.

  He undid the two lower buttons on his shirt, the ones just above his belt. Gritting his teeth and doing his own version of Lamaze breathing against the pain, he worked the hand, wrist, and lower part of his left forearm inside the shirt so it could function as something of a sling.

  When the spike in pain from the movement quieted, he could say that it didn’t hurt quite so bad now. That was something, at least.

  He left the shaft and slipped into the storeroom. He wished the lights were off. He felt so exposed out here. He was sure he could find a place to hide amid all the clutter …

  34

  Rick reached the angled wallboard and stopped to listen again. Echoed voices and clatter from the darkness beyond, seemingly without the slightest attempt at stealth. And one of those voices …

  Laura?

  He aimed his flash beam inside and saw her stepping off the ladder to join Cyrus and Tanisha on the floor. Marie was descending behind her.

  “Laura! What are you—?”

  Without a word she pushed past the others and slammed into his arms.

  “He told me you were dead!” she said through a sob against his chest.

  Rick had a pretty good idea who “he” was but didn’t want to ruin the moment by asking. Instead he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her agains
t him. If he had his way, he’d never let go, but they had the small matter of the rampant Anomaly to deal with.

  “That, as they say, was an exaggeration. But what are you doing here?”

  “I came to get you.”

  “We thank you for that, but—”

  She leaned back and looked at him with teary eyes. “No. You don’t get it.” She poked her own chest, and then his. “I came to get you.”

  Did that mean what he thought it meant—what he wanted it to mean?

  “You always had me. You know that.”

  “But I didn’t know what I had.”

  “This is all very sweet,” Cy said, “but where are the others? And where’s Agent Greve?”

  Rick tensed. “Greve? You saw him?”

  “A lot more than saw him. Pulled a gun on the doc here, but Tanisha sent him back down the shaft—the express route.”

  “When?”

  “Just a couple of minutes ago. You didn’t pass him?”

  “No. And I’ve been right outside the door.”

  “That means he’s still in there,” Laura said, pointing past Rick to the storeroom. “He must be hiding.”

  Just then Jon and Woolley, who’d been crouching by the door, were pushed into the storeroom, propelled by the arrival of Moe, Annie, and Ellis.

  “There’s a guy out there with no head!” Annie said, looking sick.

  “Hey, the invisible girl!” Jon said.

  “No head?” Laura gave Rick a please-don’t-tell-me-you’re-responsible look. “What—?”

  Just then the Anomaly emerged from the wall of the shaft, dissolved a section of the steel ladder, and just missed Marie and Cyrus. As it sailed toward Tanisha she reflexively put out her hand to fend it off. It passed through her hand, leaving behind a spurting stump.

  “Oh, my God!” Laura cried, leaping forward as Tanisha screamed. “Oh, my God!”

  As she grabbed Tanisha’s truncated wrist, the Anomaly entered the opposite wall, then emerged into the storeroom to chew a hole through whatever stood in its way before exiting through the far wall.

  Rick rushed to help Laura as she squeezed Tanisha’s arm.

  “What in God’s name was that?” she said as the spurting slowed. “Rick, what is going on here?”

  “I’ll explain up top. Right now, what do we do about Tanisha?”

  “You take over here. Press right there over the radial artery—that’s the main spurter.” She called over her shoulder, “Anyone have a shoelace? Please somebody have a shoelace!”

  Tanisha’s face had gone sallow and her knees were buckling. Rick got his free arm around her waist to keep her from falling.

  Annie pushed forward with a sneaker in one hand as she pulled the lace free with the other.

  “Got one here!”

  Laura snatched it from her and tied it around Tanisha’s wrist.

  “Okay, let it go and see if this worked.”

  Rick loosened his grip on the wrist. Blood started to dribble but nothing more.

  Laura inspected it and nodded. “That’ll do for now. She needs a hospital ASAP.”

  “I’ll take her up,” Cy said.

  With Rick’s help, he slung the semiconscious young woman over his shoulder.

  “Good thing she’s skinny,” he said and started to climb.

  “Watch out for that missing rung,” Rick said, then turned to the rest. “All right, everybody. We’ve got to get out of here. Immediately. As in now. That thing is honeycombing the place. It could all start coming down on us.”

  Woolley started for the ladder. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Rick shoved him back. “Women first.” He pointed Laura toward the ladder.

  “Uh-uh,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “I busted my butt to find you. I’m not leaving till you leave.”

  “But—”

  Laura pushed Annie toward the ladder. “You’re next.” As Annie started to climb, she pointed to Marie. “Keep your flash on Cyrus and Tanisha until they reach the top. Then start up. We don’t want too many on the ladder at once. If that goes, we’re all stuck.” She peered out into the storeroom. “We’re missing Iggy.”

  Rick sighed. “Yeah, about Iggy …”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no! That thing that just—?”

  He shook his head. “Greve. Killed her. Murdered her.”

  Laura closed her eyes and leaned against him. “Oh, no. That sweet, innocent girl. Where is she? We have to bring her with us.”

  “Uh-uh,” Rick said. “We’re not going back there. The only place we’re going is up and out. Iggy can’t be hurt anymore, but I can’t say that for the rest of us.”

  “Did anyone else not make it?”

  “Two people you didn’t know, neither of whom deserved to die.”

  “And what about her?” Laura said, looking past him into the storeroom. “Who’s she?”

  She meant Moe.

  “Name’s Maureen LaVelle. You might know her as Doctor Emily Jacobi.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  “That’s what Iggy said, and she didn’t deny it.” He signaled to her. “Come on, Moe. You follow Marie, then the men will start.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Ellis said. “I’m not leaving till I find Greve. Got a bone to pick with that sonovabitch. A whole lotta bones. Anybody have an idea where I can find him?”

  “He’s got to be hiding right here,” Laura said, waving toward the storeroom. “Tanisha knocked him off the ladder and Rick didn’t see him leave, so …”

  “In this mess?” Ellis said, taking in the jumble.

  “Could be,” Rick said. “But it might take half the night to find him, and the whole place could be flattened by then.”

  “Maybe,” Ellis said. “Then again, maybe not.”

  As he stepped to the left side of the doorway, a chair began to move. It dragged along the floor for a foot or two, then rose and flew through the door to clatter on the hallway floor outside.

  “Holy shit!” Woolley said, backing against the wall. “You see that, Jon? You see that?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.” He looked at Rick with a befuddled expression. “First an invisible girl, now this? What the fuck?”

  Rick shook his head. “You want an explanation, don’t look at me.”

  Cy and Tanisha had made it to the top, so Marie started up. She had her foot on the first rung when Annie called down from halfway up.

  “Hey, this ladder’s pretty shaky. Maybe we should stick to one at a time. I’ll move as fast as I can.”

  Rick didn’t like the delay but better to play it careful. If the ladder came loose from the wall, they were sunk. One of the women was already topside and another on her way. That left Marie and Laura. He wouldn’t breathe easy until she was up there with the rest.

  His shoe kicked something metallic as he turned toward her.

  “Could you shine your light on the floor?”

  The beam of Laura’s flash picked up parts of a pistol. Rick recognized the nickel plating as belonging to Greve’s Luger. At least he wasn’t armed.

  And out in the storeroom, the contents continued to sail through the door—some smoothly, some banging against the jambs on their way.

  As a mattress rose and sailed through the air, Ellis shouted, “There you are, you mother—”

  “I’m hurt! I’m hurt!” Greve cried as he crouch-cowered against the far wall. That mattress had probably seemed like an excellent hiding place when he’d crawled under it.

  Rick could see how his left arm was tucked inside his shirt and how his upper arm hung limply from the shoulder. Dislocated for sure.

  The soles of Greve’s shoes were scraping along the floor as he pressed back against the wall, pressed like he thought he could push through it.

  “Listen!” he cried. “I’m sorry about the shocks!”

  “Shocks?” Ellis said. “You think I give a shit about you giving me a lousy bunch of shocks?” His voice rose to a
scream. “YOU KILLED IGGY!”

  With those words Greve rose into the air with a cry of terror and slammed against the wall.

  “They’re lying!” he said through a groan when he’d caught his breath. “I didn’t kill her! Why would I kill her? I brought her here to study her!”

  “And you studied her and found out she had no power so you disposed of her!”

  “No-no! She had an amazing power! The most dangerous power of all!”

  Ellis looked at Rick. “What’s he talking about?”

  Well, why not? Rick thought. “No one could lie in front of Iggy. And Greve here admitted to something he couldn’t allow anyone to know. So he murdered her in cold blood.”

  “Is that true?” Laura said, her expression horrified.

  Rick nodded. “Right in front of Moe and me in the rear section.”

  Ellis was shaking with barely controlled fury. “You murdered my girl?”

  “His girl?” Marie whispered from the ladder. “But she wasn’t—”

  Rick raised a hand and lowered his own voice. “He’s rolling. Don’t rain on his parade.”

  He’d felt the impact of Ellis’s enhanced power and wanted to spare Marie and Laura the experience.

  Legs kicking and good arm flailing, Greve rose into the air. He rotated to a horizontal position, supine, and gave up struggling as he began to float feet first toward the doorway.

  For no good reason, an errant line from T. S. Elliot popped into his head: “Like a patient etherized upon a table.”

  Ellis was saying, “You and I are going for a little walk, you sonovabitch. I’m gonna see what you did to my girl. And then … and then I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  “Hey, that’s the boss,” Woolley said. “Shouldn’t we—?”

  Jon waved him to silence. “You do what you want. I’m staying right here until it’s my time to go up the ladder. I didn’t sign on for this kind of crazy shit.” He looked at Rick. “How am I going to tell anybody about this?”

  “I’m pretty sure if the government has its way, you won’t be allowed to say a word.”

  Rick couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for Greve as he disappeared through the doorway. He’d been lord of the manor down here, doing anything he damned well pleased. But killing Iggy like that … Rick didn’t know what Ellis would do to him, but he didn’t see how it could be worse than the guy who instigated the Düsseldorf atrocity deserved.