by Jon McGoran
As I threw myself to the side, the exosuit’s exaggerated movements slammed me against a wall, but probably saved my life. The stalactite came down right where I’d been standing, like a missile, exploding on impact and pelting me with chunks of rock. Another one came down in the middle of the cavern, taking with it a section of ceiling lights, which shattered on the ground. I was wondering if the whole thing was going to come down on top of me, when I heard a thunderous crack—not some distant explosion, but nearby, all around me—and the ceiling over the mine branch entrances split, spilling rock and debris onto the floor and raising a dense, dark cloud of dust that rolled toward me. It was pulsating and undulating, like something out of one of the cheesy horror movies Kevin and I laughed at when we were little.
But I wasn’t laughing now. I was terrified. I got to my feet and moved away from it, watching over my shoulder as the cloud rolled toward me, all the while picturing myself dying alone, underground, in the blackness. The crack in the ceiling widened, releasing more debris.
I reached the elevator door as the dust cloud was about to envelop me. Then the rest of the ceiling lights detached and blinked out, plunging me into absolute blackness, a total absence of light that made my terror complete.
I froze, unsure where to go, knowing the dust was all around me, pressing in against my breathing mask. I heard the light fixtures hit the ground, and I jumped. Other things crashed to the ground, too, and I pictured more needle-sharp stalactites raining down around me.
My face was wet, and I realized I was crying. Buried underground, knowing I was going to die, knowing Rex was going to die and Doc was probably going to die in jail, I felt utter and absolute despair and, for a brief moment, something almost like peace, as I considered giving in to the feeling.
Then, loud and clear, I heard a bright, almost cheerful ding, like on an old-fashioned quiz show when someone got the right answer. For an instant, that’s what I thought it was, and I pictured God as some cruel cosmic game-show host, telling me I got the right answer: dying alone in the darkness underground was exactly what was going to happen.
Then something rumbled behind me and suddenly a glow from behind cast my silhouette in front of me, as a widening rectangle of light penetrated the churning dust and debris.
I turned, half expecting some supreme being beckoning me to the afterlife. Instead, I saw the elevator doors, wide open.
I stumbled inside and reached out to press the CCU-C button for the floor above when more of the ceiling came down, sending the dust cloud tumbling onto the elevator with me.
As the doors began to close, I noticed a sign on the wall, small but emphatic: IN CASE OF FIRE DO NOT USE ELEVATOR.
I took a step back as a handful of fist-sized rocks tumbled through the door, denting the rear wall.
Finally the doors closed, but the elevator didn’t seem to be moving. As the seconds stretched out, I became increasingly concerned that it wouldn’t—that the explosions and shaking had damaged the mechanism. I cursed myself for even hoping that the thing might have still been working.
The doors began to open again, and my hand shot out for the CLOSE DOOR button, desperate to keep out whatever was happening in the chamber. But light streamed in through the opening doors, revealing white floors and white walls.
I realized I was on CCU-C. The exosuit must have corrected for the motion of the elevator, so I hadn’t felt it move.
After so long in the mine, and outdoors before that, it felt strange being in such a relatively clean and orderly environment. But across from me, I could see that the window set in the wall was cracked. And beyond it, a couple of IV stands lay across the floor.
The beds were all empty. This would have been the last stage of the process, before the splintered chimeras were moved down to the mines. I wanted desperately to find Rex, but I was glad I hadn’t found him there.
As the elevator doors started to close, I briefly wondered if I should use the stolen security card to enter the room, or use my exosuit to smash my way in, to see what I could discover beyond the two doors on the other side of all those empty beds. But as desperately as I wanted any information that could exonerate Doc and incriminate Charlesford or Wells, it was all a distant second to finding Rex. And with the mayhem below, I didn’t know how long the elevators would be running. I had to hope the SPLINTR inhaler and the testimony of dozens of altered chimeras—and a handful of captured accessories—would be enough.
I pushed the button for the next level, CCU-B, and when the doors opened again, the floor looked much like the previous level, except there were no beds at all, the window was intact, and the IV stands were all upright.
As I pressed the button for CCU-A, the relief and anxiety I had felt upon not finding Rex on the lower levels returned twice as strong: on one hand, maybe he hadn’t been altered at all; but on the other hand, maybe I’d never find him.
But then the doors opened, and I spotted him right away.
The beds on that level were three-quarters filled with chimeras. Rex was the largest of them, lying halfway down the row to the right. He seemed unconscious—they were all unconscious—but he looked healthy and hale. None of them had that gray tinge. And nothing in the room looked broken or dislodged, as if the tremors from below hadn’t reached this level.
I’d been standing there just a moment, planning my next move, when a door on the far side of the room opened, and a woman in scrubs wheeled in a bed with a chimera strapped to it.
The chimera—a wolf splice by the looks of him—was barely conscious. His eyes were half closed, and his head lolled from side to side as he seemed to be trying to get them to focus.
The woman in scrubs had fake-looking red hair, and I realized I’d seen her earlier, examining the chimeras. She didn’t seem alarmed in any way, or even aware of the explosions going on below. In fact, she wore that same vaguely disgusted expression as before. Maybe it wasn’t because of the chimeras; maybe that was just how she always looked. But I think that said something, too. She wheeled the bed into the next empty space, a few spots down from Rex. She wasn’t wearing a breathing mask, and neither were any of the chimeras. They were breathing the same air.
As I looked on, she took out a syringe and held it up to tap it. Then she looked past it, right at me.
In this light, and from this distance, I knew she could tell I wasn’t a real exoguard. She glanced at a phone on the wall, but I moved before she did, vaulting across the small vestibule with all the force the exosuit provided. I obliterated the door and crossed the room in three strides, jostling several of the unconscious chimeras as I did.
I got to the phone just before she did, and I slammed my hand against it, spraying us both with bits of plastic and metal. She closed her eyes against the barrage, then opened them to look up at me, clearly terrified.
She still had the syringe in her hand, and I grabbed her wrist with my metal fingers, willing to risk the possibility that the exosuit’s augmented strength would crush her arm to pulp. Apparently the suit had a light touch, so I squeezed a little tighter, making her wince.
“What’s in that syringe?” I asked. Her name tag said DR. REIVIK, and under that, SENIOR MEDICAL STAFF.
“Just a…a sedative,” she said, like she was having trouble breathing.
“Have they been splintered? With the inhalers?”
She gave her head a jittery shake. “No. Not yet.”
I flipped up my breathing mask. “Wake them up,” I said.
Her eyes widened, as if she was suddenly scared of more than just me. “I can’t do that.”
I squeezed harder, making her yelp. “I don’t believe you.”
I felt like I was being watched, and I looked down and saw the chimera she had just wheeled in staring up at us, his eyes in focus now.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Let go.”
I released her wrist and she cradled it in her other arm.
“It can be quite unsettling,” she said. “For the patient. Comi
ng out of it so quickly.”
As she spoke, I heard a dull rumble and the rattle of unseen glass and metal objects vibrating against each other. She looked mildly concerned, and confused, like she didn’t know what it was. But I had some idea. I was pretty sure the situation down in the mine was getting worse.
“Do it.”
She nodded and turned to the door next to the one through which she had entered.
“Wait,” I said, and she stopped, looking back at me over her shoulder. “What is that door?”
“It’s a supply closet,” she said. “That’s where the counter-sedative is. You want me to wake them, right?”
I looked down at the chimera strapped on the gurney. Our eyes met and he gave me a shrug. “What’s your name?” I asked, stepping closer to him and yanking the restraints so they no longer held him to the bed.
“Ben,” he said, sitting up, still woozy as he undid the buckles and removed them.
“Okay,” I told Reivik. “Go ahead.” I wrapped my hand around one of the IV stands next to us and bent it between my metal fingers. “And don’t try anything.”
She turned her bruised wrist away from me, and nodded. As she opened the door, I tensed, ready to spring into action in case it led to a room full of rentacops. But it was a closet, just like she said.
She grabbed a box of glass vials and a fistful of syringes. As she came out with them, I said, “What is that?”
She held up the box. “Flumazenil.” She shrugged. “That’s what we use.”
“What about him?” I said, gesturing toward Ben.
“He doesn’t need anything. He’ll be fine in a minute.”
I nodded and stepped back, bumping into a tray table. I felt big and bulky and clumsy in the small space, at a disadvantage because I didn’t know what she was doing, what Flumazenil was. “Okay.”
“Where are we?” Ben asked me quietly as we watched Reivik put the box of vials and the syringes on another tray table.
“Under the hospital,” I told him.
Reivik picked up a syringe and filled it from the vial.
“What are they doing here?” he asked.
I eyed Reivik coldly and explained as briefly as I could. “They were going to alter your lungs so you could no longer breathe air, only the toxic gases down in the mines, deep underground. They were going to send you down there as slave labor.”
His eyes went from shock, confusion, and disbelief to understanding and rage.
Reivik made a point of not looking at either of us as she crossed to the nearest bed and gently lifted the wrist of the chimera lying there, a dark-haired young woman with a feline face and tufted ears, like a bobcat or a lynx.
She undid the woman’s restraints, then removed the IV and taped a square of gauze where it had been. Reivik’s movements seemed deft and competent, a serious medical professional attending to a patient. It struck me as strangely incongruous, since she was a party to such inhumanity, such cruelty. I reminded myself she was a murderer.
“But you’re getting us out of here?” he said.
“We’re getting out together.”
“Thanks.”
“We’re not out yet.”
Reivik swabbed the girl’s arm with alcohol, stuck in the needle, and pushed down the plunger.
The girl flinched, then went still, then opened her eyes wide and gasped, suddenly wide awake. She looked at Reivik and scrambled away from her, falling off the gurney.
Reivik looked on coldly as Ben slid off his gurney and went to comfort the girl, who moved to the far end of the room and stood with her back to the wall, breathing heavily, freaked out despite Ben’s efforts to reassure her.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Louisa,” she said. “Who are you?”
“I’m here to help,” I told her. “How do you feel?”
She looked to Ben and he nodded. “Okay, I guess,” she said. Her breathing had slowed, almost to normal. “Confused. But…I’m okay. What’s going on?”
As Ben explained the situation, the floor rumbled again. I turned to Reivik and pointed at Rex. “Him next.”
CHAPTER 56
Reivik shrugged and moved over to Rex. I positioned myself on the other side of him. I wanted to tear off the exosuit and hold him, kiss him. I could feel myself trembling, and I was grateful that the suit corrected for it instead of exaggerating it. But I knew I had to focus. Now wasn’t the time to be getting all emotional. Not yet. Instead I made sure Reivik saw it when I unclipped the gun from my hip.
She looked at it, then at me, then at Rex.
“He’s big,” she said. “He might not come out of it so easily.”
“Just don’t screw it up.” I pointed the gun at her.
On the other side of the room, Ben finished explaining the situation to Louisa, whose eyes had cleared and filled with anger.
“You’re making me nervous,” Reivik said, nodding at the gun.
“I’m already nervous,” I replied. “Don’t do anything to make it worse.”
As she undid the restraints and pulled Rex’s IV, I took a step back.
“Is he a friend of yours?” she asked, as she filled the syringe.
I raised the gun higher, so it was pointed at her head. She nodded and slid the needle into Rex’s arm.
A tremble ran through him, just like with Louisa, but nothing happened after that. I looked away from him and glared at Reivik.
“I told you, he’s big,” she said.
I started to say something but she held up a hand to silence me. “Just…give it a second.”
The floor shook again, followed by a rumble, louder than before. I put the gun in my left hand and pulled out the shock baton.
“Just…just wait a minute,” she said. She was scared of me, and I found that both gratifying and chilling. I had never before wanted to be scary.
Then, with a snort and a cough and several blinks, Rex woke up.
Ben was still a little woozy, but by that point Louisa was perfectly fine. I handed her the shock baton and pointed at Reivik. “Don’t let her move a muscle,” I said.
Reivik rolled her eyes, exasperated, but she eyed the baton with trepidation as Louisa took it from me and moved closer, pointing it at Reivik’s midsection.
I wiggled one arm out of the exosuit, and put my bare hand on Rex’s cheek. He was confused and disoriented, but at the touch of my hand he settled down, like he knew right away it was me. Then he looked over and startled at the exosuit, but immediately realized it was me after all, and he smiled, shaking his head.
“Kind of a new look for you,” he said, his voice reverberating through me, touching every nerve.
I laughed, and started to say something equally witty, but I was crying so hard I would have flubbed the delivery.
Rex looked around as the place shook again. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. Then his head snapped back toward me and he clasped a hand to his chest. “Did they…?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, “they didn’t.” I could see the relief in his eyes, and it intensified my own sense of relief. I wanted to hug him and cry and bask in the fact that he was okay. Instead I said, “But we need to get out of here.”
He nodded and I stood back, slipping my arm back into the exosuit.
“Okay,” I said, turning to Reivik. “Do the rest of them. Quick.”
To her credit, she did, one after another, in such rapid succession that the chimera she revived after Rex was still coming out of it by the time she had revived the last of them. Ben and Louisa helped them, reassured them, explaining to them what was going on while I told Rex a slightly fuller version.
He smiled when I was done. “You got them out of the mine? All of them?”
“We got them out, but I don’t know for sure that they got to Centre Hollow. And there was an explosion down there. The mine’s collapsing. I’m worried it’s going to take the hospital with it.”
As if to emphasize the point, the place sho
ok again, this time violently enough that I could feel it even in the exosuit. In the opened closet, several bottles fell off shelves and smashed on the floor. For the first time, I smelled the faintest trace of smoke. I wondered if it was from the mine or if the tremors had caused a fire somewhere in the hospital.
Rex slid off his bed, onto his feet. In the exosuit, I was the same height as him. There was a lot of hardware around my head, but he found an angle that worked and tilted his head just right to kiss me. As handy as it had been, I was getting sick of wearing that damn exosuit.
The building shook again, and we pulled away from each other. “We need to go,” I said, and he nodded.
I went over to Reivik and snatched her ID card from her waist.
“You can’t just leave me here,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You’ve got too many answers to too many questions, and I know too many people who are going to want to talk to you.”
I tied her hands and feet with IV tubing and gagged her with gauze and tape. Then I slung her over my shoulder.
She wiggled and complained, but just for a minute. Then she went quiet, I guess realizing that the alternative was to be stuck down there.
We packed into the elevator and I pressed the top button, for BASEMENT. As we started to rise, my mind was racing. I thought about Sly and Claudia and Devon and the others, hoping they were far from OmniCare and safely in Centre Hollow.
I also thought about all the innocent patients being treated upstairs for normal things, like in any other hospital, oblivious and not complicit in any of this. We needed to tell someone the hospital was in danger.
But then the elevator stopped and the doors opened.
The basement was a pandemonium of red lights flashing and alarms blaring. Smoke hung in the air, along with the smell of chemicals and burned plastic. Water trickled from fire sprinklers in the ceiling, down onto the floor, which was covered with puddles. I looked at my feet and saw the water pouring down into the gap between the elevator and the floor.