Book 3: 3rd World Products, Inc

by Ed Howdershelt

  "Control, can you spare two prisoners? I need both the woman who had the canister and the elevator guard, unconscious for at least an hour each."

  "For what reason?"

  "A distraction to get some careless activity going on either the stairs or the elevator. Some way to get to the next floor unnoticed."

  Wallace came on. “The team medic has some stuff that ought to do that for you, Dragonfly. Where's the canister?"

  "With the woman."

  "Hide it in the room where the woman is now. Medic is on the way."

  When the team medic arrived, two winded blacksuits were dragging the fat guy behind them. The guy had already been dosed with whatever; they propped him on his stool with his rifle next to him.

  "Firing pin removed,” said the medic, then he went to dose the woman.

  Next we positioned the woman to block the elevator doors while one of the guys hid the canister deep between boxes. Once all appeared ready, the black suits ghosted back up the hallway and out of the building. I parked myself where I thought I'd be least likely to be trampled and waited.

  "Update,” said Linda, “The woman is one of the missing lab workers. Looks as if we've found the anthill, Ed."

  "Kewl beenz,” I muttered, and heard Wallace ask, “What? What did he say?"

  It seemed as if I'd been putzing around in the building for hours, but my watch claimed it had only been twenty-seven minutes. Oh, well. No rush. More voices in the stairwell, and one sounded brassy. He was loud enough that I could hear his words.

  "Well, get your ass up there and see!"

  I could hear the guy come bounding up the stairs, but he seemed to get an attack of caution near the door. A key rattled briefly, slipped into the lock, and the knob turned. When the door opened a crack, I saw the guy kneeling behind it, as close to the floor as possible. I heard the key slide out of the lock and jangle briefly. Seeing nothing, he poked his head farther out, saw the guard and the woman, and dashed back down the stairs to report to someone.

  Be nice to have one of those keys. Well, no, not really. Key or cutter, someone would be near the door. Fielding up an ice block to keep the door from latching wouldn't work, either. Someone could notice a door not closing or a wet spot. Better just to try slipping in during high traffic.

  More noise on the stairs. This time four people came cautiously out of the stairwell. Two ran quietly each way along the hall and back and reported all doors closed. I couldn't believe it ... They'd only glanced at each door without testing the knobs. Could be that they knew what was in those rooms. Now, if they'd only send at least two by way of the stairs...

  They did. After the fat guard and the woman had been hauled into the tiny elevator, one of them ordered two others to use the stairs. Those two were unthrilled about that and one actually slammed the door against it's stop as he went past it. I reached to slap the footlatch down over the stop and slipped through the doorway.

  The guy came back up the upper flight of steps as I went down. The guy at the bottom impatiently waited for his compadre with his hand on the second floor door knob. I stepped behind him and very quietly helped him wait.

  When his friend started down after getting the upper door closed, the man in front of me opened the lower door slightly. By the time the other guy was halfway down the lower steps, the door was fully open and I slipped through into the hallway beyond. Someone pushing a metal cart nearly ran into me immediately, and avoiding the cart almost caused me to brush up against someone else who was walking by, but I managed to avoid contact with both of them.

  The place was a beehive. People were coming and going from room to room up and down the halls. Unlike the guys in the stairwells and above, these people all wore tidy white synthetic paper overalls. I worked my way through the traffic to get a look into one of the rooms and saw people reaching into clear plastic boxes that had rubber gloves mounted in arm holes.

  One at a time, canisters would be pushed along a row and into a trough of liquid within one of the plastic enclosures, where rubber-gloved hands would snap-hook the submerged canisters to hoses, then turn a knob on top of the small canister. Twenty seconds or so later, they turned the knob the other way and disconnected the canisters. While I could see by the number of live people around that the system seemed to work, I was exceedingly glad to be inside my five suit.

  Someone who was getting out of someone else's way shoved an empty cart sideways, right at me. There was nowhere to go but up. I leaped and grabbed what I instantly recognized as a steam pipe. My five suit kept me from having serious contact burns, but it was like having hot coffee spilled across my palms for several seconds before I could let go and drop to the floor. Thankfully, there was enough noise that nobody noticed the sound of my landing. I sent a cooling field over my hands and almost sighed with relief.

  There's noise and then there's noise, and if you want cover, the noises have to generally match up. I could thump and bang a little bit and it would blend with similar noises of the wheeled carts and closing doors, but I wanted to talk to Control, and there wasn't much talking going on around me. Trying to report, even in a whisper, would be a big risk. On the other hand, Control and company were hearing and seeing everything I did.

  Watching the woman work in a Plexiglass box, I wondered if this was only a prep floor or the place where the bug juice was actually put into pressurized canisters. Or both? My job was now to find the source if I could. I had a feeling that following those submerged hoses would take me there as I looked for a way to create a distraction.

  It occurred to me that if you use an aerosol spray too long, the can will get cold. Same if the can leaks. In that herd of people, there had to be someone who would hear about a cold cylinder and react. I wanted to see exactly how that person would react. I sent a cooling field at the third canister from the end of a row of canisters that had already had the hose treatment.

  A woman was rather nonchalantly grabbing each treated canister in that row and putting it into a box on a cart. When her hand touched the frosty surface of the canister I'd cooled, she froze, as well, then turned her head to look at it. The look became a stare and her eyes got larger as her mouth opened. Her scream was blood curdling.

  The door to that room slammed shut, cutting off my view and a lot of her scream. Hitherto-unnoticed red lights began flashing at each end of the hall. People abandoned their carts and ran for the stairs and elevators. I heard a series of loud snapping noises and realized that they were deadbolts snapping into place up and down the hall.

  The elevator didn't come when it was called. The stairwell doors wouldn't open, nor would the doors of the rooms along the hallway. Men and women trapped in the hallway screamed, shouted, demanded, and beat on the doors, all to no avail.

  The scene reminded me of the Civil Defense training that we'd received in the fifth grade, along with a set of stainless steel dogtags. I'd looked at the tags and known what was real and what wasn't. My father's Army dogtags had been plain old steel, but because we were facing nuclear war ours had been stainless, which melted at a much higher temperature. That word got around, and pretty soon there was a smart ass in every class who'd adlib the ending of every CD lecture to read: 'Put your head between your knees and then kiss your ass good bye!'

  One day a fed-up teacher had told some of the brattier boys that the drill of that day wasn't really a drill; that Russian bombers had been sighted over Louisiana, heading for Dallas, Texas, because of the aircraft plant nearby. The school's hallways had suddenly looked and sounded just like these hallways, only much younger.

  One of the women in the hallway pointed and yelled. The red lights had gone off and the elevator doors opened to disgorge four people in biosuits, complete with air tanks and big pistols. These people made their way to the room where the whole mess had started and one rapped on the door with his pistol.

  A card was pushed under the door and the biosuited guy—who probably couldn't bend over easily—ordered a guy nearby to pick it
up. The guy hesitated, so the biosuit guy pointed that big pistol at the guy's forehead and repeated his order. The guy picked up the card and handed it to the biosuited guy, then frantically wiped his fingers on his paper pants as if that would somehow help.

  Biosuit examined the card carefully, then unlocked the door with a key. Nobody surged forward to face that big gun. In fact, it looked to me as if they were fairly calm in there. During more conversation, the biosuit guy ran his own check on the canister in question and suddenly disconnected his headpiece to take it off.

  "Clear!” he shouted. “Clear! No leak! Everybody back to work!"

  The only real basket case in that room was the woman who'd touched the cold cylinder. I almost felt sorry for her, but only almost. She'd known what she'd been putting in those cylinders. That's why she'd instantly panicked.

  The hubbub around me was enough that I felt I could whisper safely.

  "Control, these second-floor rooms aren't even sealed. They're filling the canisters inside portable, clear plastic hard-drive repair boxes full of a liquid. My fake cylinder leak started a panic, so these people know what the hell they're doing."

  "Can you get to the first floor, Ed?"

  "Maybe. Seen enough here, anyway. Moving on."

  "Copy that."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  They were trying to coax the freaked-out woman out of her foetal position without much luck, but they were hauling her out of the workroom and into the hall and blocking my path. The biosuit guy lost his patience and said, "On your feet, you dumb bitch!" as he put the pistol to her head and pulled the hammer back. That must have been the most wrong thing he could have done.

  The woman unfolded slowly, then managed to get to her feet. I know cold rage when I see it. She had it. The overconfident asshole turned to tell someone that the guy didn't know shit about handling stupid, cowardly women. The 'stupid, cowardly woman's' head came up under the guy's chin as her heel stamped down on his arch. She grabbed the gun from his hand, turned it around, and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened the first time. She fumbled with the gun for a moment and I heard something snap softly, then she pulled the trigger again. And again. And again, until the gun was empty, and then she stood staring down at the guy she'd shot.

  Two of the other biosuited guys forced their way through the hall to the doorway. They saw the woman standing over the big guy with the big gun in her little hands and each of them put two rounds in her.

  I would bet that few acts much stupider than shooting that skinny little woman with those big-assed guns have ever been performed by humans.

  One of the four rounds that tore completely through her hit one of the plastic cases and splattered it and its liquid contents all over the work area. Another round kicked up a puff of plaster as it made a hole in the wall behind her. Another round tore into the man behind and slightly to one side of her, tossing him to the floor, and yet another round—the most damaging bullet of all—hit one of the filled cylinders. It knocked the cylinder flying across the room, where the cylinder slammed against a metal rack and skittered along the floor of aisleway like a crazed rat trying to escape.

  I had to assume that the cylinder had begun spewing the moment the bullet had hit it, because more than half a dozen people froze in shock when they saw it and a few began screaming. The biosuited guys looked their direction, then turned and ran, presumably for wherever they'd left their headgear.

  Then the real pandemonium began. I ran down the hall to the end and tucked myself into a corner with two metal carts in front of me as absolute hell broke loose in that corridor. Gunshots. Lots of gunshots, fast and furious.

  "Control!” I whispered harshly, “Some dumbshit just shot the hysterical woman and hit a full canister behind her. If you have people on the roof, get them off it now! Repeat, get clear now! The second floor is contaminated. I think this whole goddamned building is history."

  Linda's cool voice asked, “What's your status, Ed?"

  "No sweat. I'm okay. Get everybody away from the building."

  "Is that the truth, Ed? You're okay?"

  "Yeah, it's the truth, Linda. All I have to do now is stay the hell out of everybody's way. I've barricaded myself in at the end of the East hall."

  "Can you get back up here?” asked Wallace.

  "Nope. Not a chance, not right now. You can expect some company soon, though, when they bust open the stairwell doors. Just assume that anyone from inside the building is sick, guys. It's that bad down here."

  Somebody on a flitter said, “Oh, Jesus,” in that resigned way that means, “Kiss your ass goodbye."

  I said, “Don't tell me your flitter is on the roof, Wallace. Don't. I'll have to kill somebody before the disease does."

  "Not ours, Ed. The other team."

  "Well, get them the hell off the roof! The stuff hasn't left the second floor yet!"

  "We can't take that chance, Ed."

  "Goddamnit, Wallace! I'm in the middle of it down here! I know what I'm talking about! The stair doors are...” A gun sounded and the big white fire door to the stairs was torn open. “Oh, shit. Forget that, they just got a fire door open. No, wait! Wallace! Linda! Use that flitter as an isolation booth and get the team off the roof anyway. Talk to Stephie about what can be done with their fields, but lift that goddamn flitter now!"

  Steph broke in with, “I'm lifting the flitter now, Ed. Be careful down there, please."

  I said, “Will do, ma'am,” as Linda said, “Steph, put that flitter down!"

  "No, Linda. You're following inappropriate protocols. That flitter is now an isolation booth, as Ed said. It is totally secured."

  Wallace came on and said, “Stephanie, this is your only warning. Set that flitter down or we'll open fire."

  I almost laughed, but I wasn't ready to be found by the ravening horde in the hallway. Linda told Wallace to stand down, but he wasn't in the mood to listen.

  "Wallace,” I said, “Where did I shoot to test the Beretta?"

  He seemed not to have heard me over his own shouting at Stephie, then he and Linda got into a shouting match.

  "All right!” she said. “Okay! Shoot at a flitter full of our own people, Emory! Shoot until you realize ... Oh, hell, never mind. Just do it. Steph, he doesn't know. Let him wear out his goddamned trigger finger if he wants to."

  "Yes, Linda. In that case, Captain Wallace, you may fire when ready. Please make sure that you don't miss me and hit a building, sir."

  I did laugh that time, as did Linda, but I kept my snickers lower than the noise level in the hallway. A moment later, Steph again invited Wallace to fire at her.

  "No,” he said. “I have three old hands laughing at me in a situation like this, so I know I have my head up my ass about something."

  Linda asked, “Three? Who's the third?"

  "Stephanie, of course. Ed, how are things down in hell?"

  The gun in the stairwell fired again, then again. Tough lock or a bad shot? Or maybe just two doors at about the same time?

  "Well, things are kind of hellish, Cap. About the same as before, though, I'd guess. It sounds as if they got to the first floor. Maybe the third, too. You might want to hang a flitter over the roof for them to shoot at, guys. Just to catch the ammo. What are they doing about containment at ground level?"

  "The cops have orders to shoot anyone trying to escape the building, Ed. Before they get outside. They know the situation."

  "Well, tell the cops to shoot anyone who appears at a window, too, even though they might not be able to get through the field. If the stuff's as thick as water, someone could accidentally bodysurf away from the building from a window, I think. It would occur to me to try that, anyway."

  "Copy that."

  'Copy that.’ How often had I heard that reply over the years? Never in a situation this bad, though. How many people were there in Grand Forks? For that matter, how many of them would run like hell when they saw others dying and carry the disease to other ci
ties?

  A woman only a few feet away wailed and beat on one of the carts in futile frustration. I sighed at the thought of watching a hallway full of people such as her die, but I was wearing my five suit and a recording probe. Barring something stupid happening, I'd be able to walk out of there and go home later.

  "Later, Control. I'm going for a walk and put together a sitrep. Moving on."

  "Copy that,” said Linda. She'd heard my tone. “Sorry, Ed,” she added.

  "Yeah. Later."

  Wandering down the hall to the elevator, I saw what had happened to the guys in biosuits. Not pretty. People had resented those bright yellow protective outfits worn only by the privileged very few. The people who had attacked them hadn't fared well, either. Bullet-riddled bodies lay all around the biosuit guys as if from a scene in some perverse parody of the battle for the Alamo.

  It seemed likely to me that those with guns would probably shoot at anything abnormal, so I refrained from carrying the Beretta in my hand, where it could be seen, and simply moved very quietly. I went down the fire stairs when they'd cleared a bit, picking my way carefully past people who seemed not to give a damn that something somehow felt, but unseen, had gone past them.

  Maybe some of them thought that I was an angel of death and were glad to see me pass them by. All they really knew was that to go downstairs was to die and to go up was to die more slowly. Helluva choice, that.

  I began to encounter posters on the stairwell walls with slogans and pictures that seemed to try to combine some sick variant of white power “Christianity” with a virulent anti-Amaran message. The only difference I could see from the time before the Amarans was the group's late willingness to accept contributions and assistances even from the “mud races” and just about anyone else, including the Jews.

  I let the probe have a good look at each poster in turn, ending the show with, “Damn. The only thing that could get these people to stop killing each other and work together was the thought of killing someone else they all hated more. It's hard to see this and not think 'good riddance'. Wonder why they didn't have these posters all over the place upstairs, too? Those people would surely have needed this shit as badly as the front office staff, don't you think?"