The five remaining regens sprang into action, tossing tables and equipment at Queen as they made their way toward her. She realized with horror, that the regens weren’t completely mindless. They understood the danger of bullets and were doing their best to avoid them. Queen backed up a small staircase that led to an exit. But the combination of not knowing where the exit led and knowing the regens would give chase she decided to make her stand here.
She let loose with several volleys of bullets, catching a shoulder here, a leg there, slowing them down, but far from stopping them. With fifty feet between them, she took note of the four large cylinders attached to the wall. They might understand the danger of bullets, but she doubted they could comprehend the danger of the liquid nitrogen stored above them.
She let five more rounds fly after ducking a flat-screen computer monitor flung at her head like an Olympic discus. She struck the regen that threw it in both legs, sending it to the ground. Then she yanked out her weapon’s magazine and slammed in a new one. Adjusting her aim, she unloaded the full magazine on the four containers of liquid nitrogen.
As rounds struck the first container it rang with a hollow gong. Empty.
One of the regens lunged forward, no longer fearing being shot.
Queen drew her handgun with her left hand while she shifted the submachine gun’s aim to the next three containers, sweeping back and forth across all three. She squeezed the handgun’s trigger as the regen, a balding man with a scruffy beard, reached out for her. The hollow-point bullets made short work of the man’s head.
The bullets striking the liquid nitrogen tanks sounded as dull thuds. As the report of her weapon ended with an empty magazine, a violent hiss filled the air as the compressed liquid nitrogen sprayed through the quarter-sized holes.
Writhing in agony, the four remaining regens became drenched in liquid nitrogen, their bodies instantly freezing where struck.
Queen turned to flee before a jet of the quick freeze liquid struck her. Unlike the regens, she could not heal from such a wound. She slung her weapon over her back and stepped toward the door, but found her legs suddenly pulled out from under her. She struck the hard floor with a grunt, losing her sidearm in the process. She rolled over quick and found a legless regen, a woman this time, pretty once, now snarling and covered in blood, pulling itself up her pants legs and eyeing her stomach where a feast of entrails awaited.
On her back, Queen couldn’t reach her weapon, which held an empty magazine anyway, and her sidearm was well out of reach. She could feel the regen’s nails digging into her leg as it pulled itself up. The regen let out a roar, opened its mouth wide, and, despite Queen’s kicking, made a lunge at her stomach.
The regen’s teeth stopped an inch above Queen’s stomach where she had no doubt it would have made short work of her clothing and flesh. Even the Kevlar vest would do little to stop the regen after it realized the bulletproof garment could be lifted away. With shaking arms, she pulled the regen’s head away from her stomach, pulling it by the thick shocks of hair she’d caught in both hands. But it fought her the whole way using strength born of madness and adrenaline.
The mad woman lashed out, striking Queen’s arms, slicing gashes into the flesh. Queen screamed in anger, not pain, then gave a yank on the woman’s hair that pulled her up and away for only a moment. But it was all Queen needed to slip her legs out from beneath the regen’s body and kick hard.
The woman toppled, legless, down the stairs and splashed into a pool of steaming liquid nitrogen. With the majority of her body frozen, she snarled and bit at the air, still trying to get at Queen.
Queen stood, walked to her handgun, and took aim at the woman. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You probably didn’t deserve this.” She fired once, shattering the woman’s skull and sending brain matter into the liquid nitrogen where it turned solid and floated like ice cubes in a drink. She fired three more times, dispatching the other three frozen human experiments. Then, as liquid nitrogen began to lap at the top stair, she exited the lab and headed into the unknown depths of Manifold Beta.
Screams rang out in the distance. Gunshots, too. But there was no way to know where she was. Ahead, a light pouring from two windows set into double doors glowed bright in the darkened hallway. With no other direction to go, she headed for the doors hoping not to find more regens or walk into a Gen-Y trap. She prepped her weapon, switching out the magazine with her last, kicked in the doors and gasped.
Strapped to a table at the center of a small lab was the last person she expected to find inside the Beta facility. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Queen,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”
“Not without you, Bish,” she said, then pulled out a knife and began cutting through the restraints.
“You don’t understand,” he said, then his head turned toward the door and his eyes went wide. “Queen! Look out!”
She spun and squeezed her weapon’s trigger. A spray of bullets cut across the chest of a regen man. The impact sent him to the floor, but he began scrambling to his feet as though he’d merely tripped. Queen took aim and fired three rounds, destroying his skull, and brain. He fell to the floor, dead for good.
“You don’t have time, Queen,” Bishop said again, his teeth clenched.
She ignored him and cut his other arm free. But before she could cut his legs free an impact from behind sent her sailing across the room. She rolled with the impact on the floor and managed to get back to her feet just before the regen, a woman this time, leaped at her. Queen fired the weapon, striking the woman’s leg, but the regen’s forward momentum wasn’t stopped.
Queen let go of her weapon and reached up with both hands, catching the forearms of the regen woman before she could slash out. The woman pushed forward, allowing her arms to be bent back. She snapped at Queen’s face with her teeth. Over and over, aiming for Queen’s nose.
Feeling the woman’s muscles tear as she bent her arms back, farther then physically possible, Queen realized the woman would eventually reach her. But she couldn’t let go of her arms to stop the woman’s face...and while a head butt to the face would normally end this match, it would only send the regen into a deeper mania. With the woman’s blood-tinged breath filling her nose and mouth, Queen screamed in frustration.
Then she felt the woman torn away. The regen sailed across the room and crashed into a wall.
Bishop stood between them, clutching the knife. He’d set himself free.
Queen quickly grabbed the UMP and took aim, but Bishop stood in the way. “Bishop, move!” The regen stood. Then charged. As did Bishop.
They met in the middle of the room. Bishop ducked beneath the woman’s slashing hand and struck up with the knife. The blade entered the woman’s chin and entered the brain, pinning the woman’s snapping jaws shut. Bishop continued the motion, picking the woman up off the ground, holding only the knife hilt, then smashed her back onto the floor. He was on top of her in an instant, launching punches with his fists like a jackhammer. He stopped when the woman’s legs finished kicking.
Queen stood, dazed. She’d never seen Bishop kill someone in hand-to-hand combat. It was brutal on a level she never pictured him capable of. She walked to him as he breathed heavily and placed a hand on his shoulder. He spun around with rage in his eyes.
She fought the urge to move away from him. “You did good, Bish.”
He calmed. Looked back at the woman and shook his head. “How can this be good?”
Queen saw him look down at his hands, which she could not see. He shook his head again. When she leaned over to see what had captured his attention she saw his fists covered in blood, but not a scratch on him. The blood belonged to the regen. She wasn’t sure what bothered him about it. They all had blood on their hands, usually figuratively, but they’d all killed, Bishop as much as the rest.
He stood and headed for the exit. Queen took one last look at the regen’s smashed head and then followed him into the hallway where screams echoed f
rom every corner of the complex.
34
Tristan da Cunha
The only thing King could see through the pitch dark water within the man-made cave was a faint light in the distance. So, like a moth to a flame, he followed it blindly and without slowing or caution. There wasn’t time for either. But when the light blinked out, he paused, hovering in the water.
The light extinguishing wasn’t what bothered him. It was the way it had disappeared, as though something large had risen from below, blocking the light with its girth. Fighting visions of sharks and giant squid, King started in the direction the light once was. Then paused again. This time for only an instant as he felt a pressure wave moving through the water. He kicked up hard, not knowing where the cave ceiling was, but preferring a collision at his top speed over one with something big enough to create a pressure wave.
The massive object silently passed just beneath him, grazing his swim fins and sending him into a spin. As he careened in the water, King lost all sense of direction. Then he struck a wall, or was it the ceiling? His shoulder ached from the collision. As the object passed, its wake pulled him out, away from the wall, and spun him in the water again. He realized whatever it was had been huge. He frowned as he drew a breath from the handheld regulator. He could normally count on his skills to keep him alive, but this time it had been dumb luck that kept him from becoming underwater roadkill.
With the light in view once more, King kicked toward it with renewed determination—not to complete the mission but to get out of the water before that thing decided to come back or another took its place.
He was soon rewarded as he approached the underwater light mounted to the cave wall next to a ladder that rose out of the water. He shed his fins and small oxygen tank, clasped the ladder, and poked his head out of the water. Upon looking at the cave, he realized how lucky he had been. Old Karn was right. This was a submarine hangar. He’d come within feet of being a stain on the front hull of a submarine.
King climbed the ladder and looked over the cement chamber. Whoever had been here left with the sub. Manifold was clearing out. His gut told him they should do likewise. He’d seen what remained of Manifold Gamma in Peru and doubted that Ridley would allow the secret of this facility to fall into their hands as well. But until he knew Pierce had been taken with them, he wouldn’t leave, even if that meant searching every room in the compound, fire or no fire. He had to know.
After removing his wet suit, King opened a solid metal door and ran through a long cement hallway that he guessed ran beneath the airstrip and into the compound. The walls shook as several rapid-fire rumbles sounded from above. He’d never heard anything like it, but his gut told him it was some kind of weapon being fired. Then a different sound filled the tunnel, a deep roar followed by the painful shriek of a 747’s engines whining. The plane was taking off. He sprinted toward a second metal door at the end of the hallway, enraged that Ridley, Gen-Y, and Manifold were slipping through his fingers yet again.
With a quick yank, he unlatched the door and, leading with his SOPMOD M4 carbine decked out with a sound suppressor, laser sight, and M203 grenade launcher, stepped out into the brightly lit outer courtyard of the Beta facility. He ducked down as five regens charged out of the front doors of the main building and pounded toward town, shrieking all the way.
He stepped into the open, heading for the doors when two loud reports, like a chain saw being gunned, blasted the air. Falling back, King watched as thousands of shells flew into the air in a three-second burst. This was the source of the rumbling he’d heard in the tunnel. The rounds flew from four massive Metal Storm launchers that could be used to defend against air and sea attacks, including missiles. He grimaced as he realized they’d been hiding inside what they’d thought was four water tanks. Gen-Y had outsmarted and outgunned them. As the glowing tracer rounds flew into the distance and began arcing down, King tensed.
The Grant...
Pierce would have to wait after all. With nearly five thousand souls on the Grant alone, not to mention the rest of the battle group, the needs of the many severely outweighed the needs of the few. King took aim, and pulled the second trigger of his weapon. The grenade struck the Metal Storm weapon, obliterating it in a blaze of fire and kinetic force. He quickly launched three more after reloading each round, the last striking as a new barrage flew from the final weapon. The tower tipped as the weapon fired and its thousands of rounds punched into the side of the facility, shredding the top three floors of the main building. King prayed Pierce wasn’t being held there and ran toward the main doors, ignoring the possibility that the building might collapse from the damage the Metal Storm weapon caused.
Two regens shrieked at him from the darkened doorway, but he didn’t slow. He put a bead of red between each of their eyes and with perfect accuracy, let loose with two three-round bursts. The two mindless, now headless, men dropped to the floor.
King entered the facility and found himself facing five hallways, two elevators, and a wide set of stairs. Under other circumstances, he might have hesitated to decide which way to go, but the long, streaked trail of blood leading to and down the stairs was like a giant blinking road sign saying: this way. He took the stairs two at a time, descending the flights of stairs, passing several exits but sticking with the bloody trail, sure it would lead to the labs...and, hopefully, Pierce.
The blood trail led to the bottom floor, six flights below the surface of Tristan da Cunha; hidden from the world. He pushed the door open and was immediately greeted by screams of anger, both men and woman mixed with shrieks, roars, and the sound of equipment being thrashed.
Moving slowly now, he made his way toward the noise, stopping at a pair of solid metal doors streaked with blood. Using his sleeve he wiped a swatch of the drying plasma away from the door’s small square window and peeked through. He recognized the space on the other side. A containment facility like the one in the video, probably identical to the one in the destroyed Gamma facility. This is where they kept the regens...and every door on the two levels, fifty in all, lay wide open.
But the room itself held little interest to him. It was the action on the left side, just outside one of the cells. Three regens were hacking, slashing, and gnawing at something hidden from sight. At first he thought it was a human victim, but one of the regens was flung across the room. Whoever...or whatever...stood behind them was fighting back. How that was possible, King had no idea, but when a second regen flew across the room and crashed against the door, its slashed face plastered against the glass window, King knew it wasn’t human. Not anymore at least.
King watched as the tossed regens pressed the attack again. What looked like a green hand flew out and caught one in the neck, lopping its head clean off. The second was grabbed and tossed. And the third fell to the floor under a crushing blow to the head.
“Oh God...” King said when he saw the creature standing there. It had clearly once been human as it stood on two legs, had two arms, fingers, and a head of hair, but it’s yellow serpentine eyes, green scaly skin, sharp teeth, and long claws was more monster than human. It wasn’t a regen. It was something else.
Something new.
The green creature stomped its foot on the fallen regen’s head several times, crushing it to the consistency of chunky peanut butter. Then it turned to the last one, which was just regaining its feet. King noticed that the creature didn’t move with the frenzy of a regen. It wasn’t killing out of uncontrollable savagery. It was killing with intent. It was intelligent. With a sudden strike, the creature slashed the regen’s throat, took hold of the hair on the crazed man’s head, and pulled back. Sinews snapped and blood sprayed as the spinal column came apart. The head came free from the body as it fell to the ground, lifeless like the others.
Then the creature wavered. It fell to one knee as several red slashes and bite marks on its skin healed up.
As it fell to one knee, holding its head, King saw his chance to put it down before i
t could kill anyone. Clearly, it was far more dangerous than a regen. He walked silently into the room, approaching the creature from behind. He realized as he approached that he didn’t know if a head shot would do the trick on this creature.
As it fell to the floor, apparently in pain, it began tracing its finger on the floor. It drew a circle in blood, through which it drew two straight lines.
The creature stopped drawing as King took aim. It sensed him somehow. But he didn’t pull the trigger. He could see it wouldn’t be moving anywhere fast. Was it dying? As it turned over to face him, he could see the pain in its serpentine eyes. It posed no threat. As it looked up at King, its eyes watered and looked pitifully sad. With the last of its energy sapped, the creature closed its eyes, but managed to speak.
“Agustina Gallo,” it said, then fell limp.
King didn’t recognize the name, but the voice hit him like a .45-caliber round to the heart. “Oh God, George!”
35
Tristan da Cunha
The settlement of Edinburgh leaped out of the darkness as Knight looked through the night vision site of his sniper rifle. From his perch high above the town, he shifted his view from target to target, but through the green-tinged sight it was nearly impossible to tell human from regen. A few he pegged as regens because of the way they loped through town, but the others, mixed in with fleeing, panicked townspeople, couldn’t be discerned until they pounced on a victim. And by then, it was usually too late.
He willed Rook to hurry. He could only defend so many people at a distance. Rook would be able to help people up close and personal.
Knight shifted his view as movement caught his eye. A man stood on the roof of a home, swaying back and forth. But was he hiding or stalking? With the facial expressions of mania and abject fear being so similar through the lens, he couldn’t tell.
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