Synbat

by Bob Mayer

  3:02 A.M.

  "What the hell are you doing up here?" Lewis demanded, staring at the group of men clustered around the manhole. "We're waiting for Mister Riley, sir," Doc Seay replied. "Why aren't you at your positions?" Lewis asked. "Because they were no longer tenable, sir." "What?" Lewis asked incredulously. "They were no longer tenable, sir." Seay looked at his watch. "As a matter of fact, the whole tunnel system is going to become untenable in a few minutes." Lewis stared at Seay and sorted through his military mumble-jumble. His eyes grew wide. "Where's Riley?" He looked around at the gathered figures. "What's he doing?" "He's blowing a hole in the roof of the tunnel where it crosses under the Chicago River," Seay said. Lewis's mouth dropped open as he realized the implications. Seay didn't add that he was getting increasingly worried about Riley and the two women. They were late. * * * *

  3:07 A.M.

  The primary clock flicked to twelve and the electrical impulse fired a charge, which ignited the det cord. The det cord didn't burn -- it exploded, initiating all eight fuses simultaneously. The fuses set off the gasoline-ammonium mixture from bottom to top, causing the force of the explosion to focus on the roof of the freight tunnel. Riley had been quite modest in his claims. A car-sized hole instantly appeared in the roof of the tunnel, the force of the blast easily carrying through the concrete into the soil above. The hole grew smaller and smaller until it punched through into the bottom of the Chicago River. There the force of the man-made explosion finally lost its power to that of Mother Nature. The pressure reversed and the water came in. A dull rumble sounded through the tunnels. Giannini paused; Riley stumbled and almost fell. "What was that?" "You know what it was," Riley said. "How fast will the water come in?" she asked as they continued on. "I don't know." "How far do we have to go?" "I don't know," Riley said. "Just follow the arrows we painted." * * * *

  3:08 A.M.

  "Fuck," Riley cursed as he stumbled and fell, taking Giannini down with him. "I'm feeling light-headed. I think I'm losing too much blood from my shoulder." "Your shoulder?" Giannini asked. She shined the light on him, pulled aside the torn cloth, and gasped as she saw the mangled flesh. Blood had soaked his entire side. As she lowered the light she could see that the dark stain reached all the way to his boots. "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because we didn't have time and I thought I could make it," Riley whispered, closing his eyes and trying to get control of his spinning brain. He'd felt this before, on the chopper flying out of China after being shot. He knew that he was minutes from passing out. "Go on without me," he said. "Bullshit," Giannini replied as she fumbled with his combat vest, looking for a bandage. She found one in his first-aid pouch and pressed it on his shoulder. A hiss of pain escaped his teeth. * * * *

  3:09 A.M.

  Only an occasional car passed over the Kinzie Street bridge at this hour, and in the dark its occupants wouldn't have noticed that in the water to the south of the bridge a whirlpool had formed. Swirling, it sucked down small pieces of debris from the surface of the river and bore them down twenty feet to the hole in the river bottom. The water was gushing into the hole at a rate of more than 100,000 gallons per minute. The freight tunnel under the river was completely flooded and the water was searching outward, north and south, east and west, the level lowering as the number of tunnels increased. But there was no end to the water that could come. All of Lake Michigan waited to flow into the river and then into the tunnels, until every last square foot of space below river level was full. * * * *

  3:10 A.M.

  "Come on, let's go," Giannini urged, pulling on Riley's left arm. He pushed up on his good leg. "All right." The two set off down the tunnel. There was a low, constant roar sounding through its length, yet no water had appeared. Above the roar came another sound -- a riveting howl. "What was that?" Giannini asked. "A Synbat," Riley replied. "Where?" she asked, the flashlight in her free hand jumping about, searching around them. "Not close to us," Riley replied. "I think it got wet feet and is trying to figure out how to get all those little ones out. Let's hope it doesn't succeed." They continued on, Riley closing his mind to everything but taking one step forward, and then another. Giannini's hand was sweaty on the flashlight. She felt uncomfortable not holding her gun, but they needed the light to find their way out. She spotted another of the bright red arrows they'd painted on the wall on the way in. The entrance couldn't be too far now. Another intersection beckoned. She was startled by the roar as the water caught them from behind, knocking them off their feet. Losing her grip on Riley and almost dropping the flashlight, she struggled to her feet against the water swirling about at thigh level. There was no sign of Riley. "Shit!" she cursed as she plunged her hand under the water, feeling around. Nothing. She stuck the flashlight in her belt and used both hands, flailing about in the water, searching. Something brushed her left hand and she grabbed hold. Gripping with both hands, she pulled Riley up, sputtering and hacking. His eyes held no sign of recognition. "Don't lose it on me now," she pleaded. She pulled out the flashlight and pointed the way ahead. The water was dark and oily-looking with floating debris. It wrapped around her upper thighs like a cold, slimy blanket. "Come on!" she exhorted Riley, trying to get him moving. She could feel the water slowly creeping higher as she moved. * * * *

  3:12 A.M.

  Seay took one more look at his watch and slung his M16 over his shoulder. "Let's go," he ordered, swinging his feet into the hole leading down. The rest of ODA 682 followed without question, leaving Colonel Lewis and his DIA men to contemplate the dark opening. Seay clambered down to the sewer and quickly made his way to the opening leading to the freight tunnels. Shining his light down, he could see water in the chamber below. "Trovinsky, you come with me. The rest of you stay up here and be prepared to do some hauling to get us back up." The other five members of the team formed a human anchor point for the rope as Seay and then Trovinsky rappeled down. The water was waist high when their feet finally found purchase on the floor. Seay immediately headed to the left, due north, pushing his way through the water. * * * *

  3:16 A.M.

  The water was up to Giannini's chest, and they were barely making progress. Riley was a sodden weight on her arm, his legs moving slowly under the water. He'd bled through the bandage she'd put on his shoulder, and blood floated out behind them on the scummy water. "Go on without me," he whispered. "So, there's life in there after all" was her only comment. "You aren't going to make it with me, and you don't have much time," Riley insisted. "It isn't much farther," she grunted, leaning forward into the water. "I wish you hadn't been so good at your demolition job," she added. "A smaller hole might have done just as well." "Haven't heard the Synbats since that howl," Riley muttered weakly. "I think we got them." "I think we got _us_," Giannini retorted. A swell of water broke against her face and she sputtered as some got into her mouth. "Shit, do you have any idea what kind of crud is in the Chicago River? If we don't drown we'll die of hepatitis." They reached another intersection. She stopped for a second, leaning Riley against the cable pylons on the side, and stepped up on one of the pipes, peering ahead. No sign of where they were. The arrows were all underwater by now. She had no idea which way to go. She reached down and grabbed the back of Riley's vest to keep his head above water. He was losing consciousness. She took another step up on the stanchion holding the cables in place. The water was five and a half feet deep, leaving only a foot and a half of space below the concave ceiling. "Come on, Riley. Don't give up on me now." She felt the strain on her arm as the water tried to drag away his body. "Give me a little help here, bud," she exhorted. Riley's good hand reached under the water and gripped her belt, fingers curling up. "That's it," Giannini said as she looked anxiously about. "That's it." She slid her feet along the pipes, another foot closer to the exit, however far away it was. A light flickered to her left. "Down here!" she screamed, firing her revolver into the water for emphasis. Two men, only their heads visible above the water, turned the nearest corner. "We'll get you!" Doc Seay called out as he led
the way. He swam up and grabbed hold of Riley. "He's hurt bad," Giannini gasped. "Let's get out of here," Seay yelled. Trovinsky gave a hand to the exhausted woman. Seay hooked his arm under Riley's chin and breaststroked his way back to the opening, only one turn away, where the rope was waiting. * * * *

  6:34 A.M.

  Three stories down and two blocks east of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, in a side tunnel of the freight system, the bodies of eleven baby Synbats and an adult with an injured eye floated listlessly in the pitch black waters. Under the Mercantile Exchange itself, a boarded-up entryway for the freight system was the watery grave of the one uninjured adult. She'd made it there, hours previously, fighting the water, a baby cradled under each arm. Her hands were bloody where she'd pried at the boards closing off the tunnel from the building's subbasement. Her left arm was jammed into the small opening she'd created, fixed there by the pressure of a jet of dank water pouring into the hole. She'd squeezed the two babies through the hole before succumbing to the water. As the morning wore on in buildings throughout the Loop, people were slowly discovering the rising tide of river water in the basements. The water rose over the power cables, and electricity started going out; by midmorning the power company was forced to shut off service to the entire area affected by the flood. No one knew where all the water had come from, until someone noticed the whirlpool in the Chicago River just south of the Kinzie Street bridge. Even then, no one was sure how the water was getting from there into the buildings.

  * * *

  *Epilogue* _Wednesday, 15 April_ _Fort Campbell, Kentucky_ _9:00 A.M._ Riley looked up as the door to his room opened and Detective Giannini walked in. "Well, this is a surprise," he grinned, glad to see her, especially after all the official visitors he'd had over the last few days. "A good surprise or a bad one?" she asked as she came up to him. "A good one." She glanced at the newspapers lying on the table next to his bed. "You been keeping up with the story?" Riley had been following the daily developments of the Chicago Flood from his hospital bed. He'd noted that the first diver sent down to check things out had been an ex-Navy SEAL. He wasn't surprised when the official statement was issued: Although there was no definitive answer, the flood must have been caused by fatigue in the roof of the freight tunnel where it went under the river. And he certainly wasn't surprised when the president declared downtown Chicago a disaster area and the Army Corps of Engineers moved in to clean up the mess. He had little doubt that someone from General Trollers's staff was intimately involved in that effort, and that when bodies were discovered -- human or Synbat -- they would be whisked away quickly. He'd faced some hard questioning from one of Trollers's stooges after the rescue. Lewis had been relieved of his post and had disappeared. They interrogated Riley about the explosion at Biotech, but he had professed ignorance, and the matter had been dropped. The prevailing theme seemed to be that there was enough mess to clean up without having to dig for more. In any case, too many people at Fort Campbell and in Riley's chain of command knew what had happened for Trollers to make an overt effort to punish Riley. "Yeah, sounds like a three-ring circus," he commented. Giannini sat down in a chair facing the bed. "I drove down -- left last night. My boss thought it would be good if I disappeared for a while, so he put me on paid admin leave. I wanted to see how you were doing." "I'm all right. I think they're keeping me in here for the same reason your boss put you on leave. My shoulder will take a while to heal, but everything else is functioning well." "The feds questioned me for a while, but the emphasis was mainly on threats about my future if I ever let out what had really happened." Giannini leaned forward. "I heard rumors they've found some bodies down there, but the army's taken over everything." Riley nodded. "They'll keep it covered up." "Yeah." There was a long pause, then Riley looked over at Giannini. "Hey, listen -- " he hesitated. "What?" Giannini asked. Riley fidgeted in the bed. "Well, I just wanted to say thanks for all you did." "You mean saving your life?" Giannini asked with a smile. "Well, yeah, there's that," Riley admitted. "Yeah, there's that," Giannini mimicked, then she turned serious. "Think we got them all? There's been no reports of anything unusual on the streets." Riley had been thinking about little else for the past forty-eight hours. "If some of the young ones escaped, you'll be hearing about it real soon." "Unless the engineers drain the tunnels real quick and the Synbats go back underground," Giannini noted. Riley shook his head. "You can bet the army will take its time getting the water out." Giannini slumped back in the chair. "They're estimating that the loss to businesses in the Loop is going to run into the hundreds of millions." "I don't think Trollers is very much worried about that." "I just can't believe something like this can be covered up," Giannini said. "You can always go to the press," Riley remarked. "Yeah, and get my head handed to me. I'm not as dumb as I look." "I don't think you look very dumb," Riley said. Giannini sighed. "I guess all we can do is wait and see what turns up." A long silence ensued. Riley tried to sit and Giannini hopped up to help him, putting a couple of pillows behind his back. "Thanks," Riley said. He ran his good hand along the splints holding his broken fingers. "Hey, listen..." "Yeah," Giannini said. He fidgeted for a moment longer, then looked up and met her steady gaze. "It sounds kind of stupid, but I don't even know your first name." Giannini smiled and settled back into her chair. "It's Donna." * * * *

  Chicago

  _10:20 P.M._ Holly slunk under the fence surrounding the construction site for a new skyscraper that was to grace the Loop. She moved toward the pile of metal rods and assorted lumber that she was making her new home when she suddenly froze, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She recognized the scent immediately, and her eyes strained to pierce the darkness and find the source. Moving slowly, belly low to the ground, she made her way forward, the faint smell growing stronger. Something scuttled around in the opening between two trailers. Holly froze and waited. It moved again -- now there were two. They were a foot and a half high, and moved with jerky movements. One of them turned toward her and grimaced, displaying fangs that already were larger than Holly's. The two began moving toward her, separating to trap her between them. Holly's tail twitched and she half-turned to run. Then she stopped. This time she wouldn't run. She exploded out of her stance and charged, taking the young Synbat on the left completely by surprise. Her teeth closed on its neck and she furiously shook the hapless creature until its spine snapped. The other Synbat ran. Holly dropped the first one, the body sliding onto the ground like a rag doll, and went after the second. It hit the fence and scooted under, Holly less than five feet behind. It headed for the park, but Holly caught it halfway down the street and took it down from behind, teeth clamping down on the back of its neck. As the small hands pounded at her side, she let go briefly, but chomped down again, this time with a death grip. In thirty seconds the last Synbat was dead. Holly placed a paw on its chest and raised her bloody muzzle to the moon.

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