Down

by Brett Battles

  Her brow furrowed. “Don’t give me that crap. I want to talk to McHenry right now. Get him.”

  “Well, um, okay. Sure. Hold on.”

  DREAM SKY

  HARDEN HIT THE hold button.

  Son of a bitch. Given the attitude of the woman on the line, he figured she must’ve been pretty high up. He quickly consulted the base directory and saw that McHenry was Dream Sky’s head of security.

  He thought for a moment and then clicked the line back on. “Director Johnson?”

  “I don’t hear McHenry,” she said.

  “He’s on level ten, supervising the investigation into what happened. It appears to be an electronic issue and is also affecting our internal comm system. I can’t loop him in at the moment, but I’ve sent someone down to retrieve him. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  The woman was silent for a moment. “The second he gets there, have him contact me directly.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I will.”

  The line went dead.

  NB016

  CELESTE STARED ACROSS the room.

  While it made sense that McHenry would be personally investigating what had gone wrong with the alarm, she was extremely skeptical that an electronics failure would cause both a false alarm and a communications glitch. Systems at Project Eden bases were purposely built to work independently.

  And then there was the fact that Dream Sky’s alarm had been triggered on this night of all nights.

  “Ms. Dalton,” she said.

  The operations director turned.

  “I want you to dispatch the Montreal strike team to Dream Sky.”

  Dalton consulted her computer. “I’m sorry. They’ve already been moved to Toronto to deal with the problems there.”

  “Then who’s closest? Boston?”

  Dalton hesitated. “We haven’t been able to establish communications with the Boston team for almost six hours.”

  Celeste felt blood rushing to her head. “Why wasn’t I told this?”

  Another pause. “It was in the report I gave you an hour ago.”

  The report had consisted of several pages on all the areas where there had been trouble. Celeste had tried to read it but stopped when the words had begun to swim.

  “Then what team is closest to Dream Sky?”

  “The only team within a thousand miles that isn’t otherwise engaged or, um, unaccounted for is Commander Vintner’s squad, ma’am.”

  Vintner’s strike team was the one assigned to protect Celeste there at NB016.

  She thought for a moment. There had been no problems here and no signs of impending attacks. And because of NB016’s unique high-rise location, none were likely. If anything came up, the standard assigned security force could handle the situation until Vintner returned.

  “Send them,” she said.

  “But—”

  “I said send them.”

  13

  DREAM SKY

  2:43 AM EST

  RENI PEERED OUT the open elevator onto level one.

  A handful of people stood in the waiting area, looking anxious. She knew several of them from her rounds—medical personnel mostly and a few administrators.

  One of the men recognized her as she stepped out. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  Instead of answering him, she raised her voice and said, “Everyone, please return to your rooms and stay there until you get the all-clear.”

  “But the alarm’s off now,” another person said. “Doesn’t that mean—”

  “It means nothing,” Reni told her. “Now, please, for your own safety, back inside your rooms.”

  “Safety from what?”

  Reni didn’t want to cause a panic but she needed to get them moving. “Outsiders have entered the base,” she said. “We’re dealing with the problem but we need the hallways clear. Go now. Please.”

  Most didn’t need to be told twice, and those who looked like they did were dragged away by their friends.

  She sprinted to the elevator that went up to Transition and entered the waiting car. The ride up took fourteen seconds. As the doors opened, she eased out, her rifle moving in sync with her eyes as she scanned the space. She saw no one but felt an unexpected chill in the air.

  Curious, she moved over to the surface-access ladder and looked up the shaft. The hatch was open, allowing the cold from the surface to drift down. Leaving it like that was completely against regulations. The only time it was to be opened was when people were passing through. No exceptions.

  Gripping her rifle tight, she turned toward the control center door.

  __________

  HARDEN DESPERATELY NEEDED to get ahold of Ash.

  As much as he wanted to believe he’d fooled this Director Johnson, he was sure he hadn’t. Additional trouble was likely to arrive soon.

  He flipped through the security cameras trying to locate the captain. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement on one of the smaller monitors. Looking over, he saw an armed woman sneaking up on a door. It took him a second to realize the door in question was the one directly behind him.

  The missing security guard.

  Crap.

  He grabbed his pistol and turned toward the door just as the woman started to pull it open.

  “Drop it!” he yelled, as her rifle nosed into the room.

  She fired.

  Harden dove to the side and double-tapped his trigger, aiming in the general direction of the door.

  Slipping along the desk, he worked his way to the side until he could see the rest of the room. Once he was sure she hadn’t sneaked in, he looked back at the monitors.

  __________

  RENI HAD NEVER before heard the voice that yelled at her to drop her weapon. Realizing the control center was also in the hands of the infiltrators, she let off a shot and then hurried back to the transition room.

  They’re all over the damn place!

  She could stay and fight it out, but whoever was in the control center had probably already called for backup. Her job now was to warn the Project that Dream Sky had been taken.

  The chill cut through her thin T-shirt as she climbed the ladder to the hut. When she reached town, she could break into a store or home and find something warm to wear. Until then, she’d have to deal with it.

  Out of habit, she almost closed the hatch behind her, but decided to leave it open so even more cold would enter the base.

  From the outside, the door of the hut could only be opened by someone in the control center. From inside, however, all it took was a thumb scan on the tiny screen designed to look like part of the doorjamb.

  She opened the door and, teeth chattering, headed to town without looking back.

  __________

  THE FIRST ROOM on level eight that Ash and his search partner Sandra entered was a large one, twice as long as it was wide. It had to be, to accommodate the twenty occupied hospital beds that filled it.

  “Good lord,” Sandra said, shocked.

  Though Ash had been prepared to find something like this, seeing all those people—those “protectees”—was unnerving.

  “Stay by the door,” he said. “I’ll check.”

  He hurried through the room, looking under the beds to make sure no one was hiding. The only people present were the patients.

  The majority of the protectees in the room were men, but it was one of the six women whom Ash recognized. She was some kind of environmental specialist, if he remembered correctly. He’d seen her on several talk shows and on the news testifying before Congress. He couldn’t remember her name—Laura or Lorraine, something like that. If he hadn’t believed Wicks’s story before, there could be no denying it now.

  “What’s going on here?” Sandra asked when Ash returned. “Are they sick?”

  “No,” he told her.

  “Then who are they?”

  “The people we’re here to help.”

  She looked at him, not fully understanding.

  “I’ll tell
everyone later. Right now we have more work to do.”

  As they exited the room, the alarm started again. No lights, though, just the siren. It only lasted five seconds before cutting out. Thirty seconds later, the quick burst was repeated.

  Ash and Sandra moved to the next door and entered. The room was identical to the one they’d just left. The only exception was that standing next to one of the patients was a woman in blue scrubs, checking one of the monitors.

  She didn’t look up until Ash and Sandra were only a few beds away. Her expression was at first surprised and then confused.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “If you’re not medical staff, you shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Step away from the bed,” Ash said.

  “Excuse me?”

  He raised his pistol. “Away from the bed. Now.”

  “What’s going on? Who are you?”

  “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  They heard another five seconds of alarm.

  The woman looked at the ceiling as if she could see the sound, and then at Ash, her eyes widening. Stepping away from the bed, she raised her arms. “Please, I won’t make any trouble.”

  “Good,” Ash said.

  Sandra grabbed the woman’s hands and zip-tied them together.

  “What are you doing?” the woman asked.

  “Making sure you stick to your word,” Sandra said.

  “My colleague will escort you someplace where you can wait with your friends,” Ash said. “Before you go, though, I have a question. Is there a phone in the room?”

  “Phone?” she asked, as if she didn’t understand the word.

  “Internal. You know, room to room.”

  “Um, over there. On the wall near the door.”

  “And how would I go about calling security?”

  __________

  USING THE EXTENSION number the woman had given him, Ash called the control room. Harden answered before the first ring finished.

  “Harden? It’s Ash.”

  “Hallelujah, it worked!”

  “Thought you were trying to get my attention. What’s going on?”

  Harden related the conversation he’d had with someone called Director Johnson, and his doubts that she’d believed his story.

  “A woman?” Ash asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Ash thought it had to be the same Director Johnson they had overheard speaking with the Dutchman named van Assen, the same woman they suspected was part of the new Project Eden directorate.

  “Just giving you the heads-up.”

  “I appreciate it. Go up top and let base know we might have visitors.”

  “Okay. Oh, Captain, one more thing. I found our missing security guard.”

  “You did?”

  “She tried to get in here a few minutes ago, but I scared her off.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Watched her climb up through the hut and run off toward town.”

  “Did she have a radio?” Ash asked.

  “No radio that I saw, but she is armed.”

  “All right. Thanks.” Ash hung up and flipped on his comm. “Listen up, everyone. There’s a good chance our presence is now known to those outside the base, so we need to pick up the pace. Let’s get this floor cleared in the next five minutes.”

  Sandra returned as Ash stepped out into the hallway.

  “How many have we found so far?” he asked.

  “There were four others in the holding room. And I saw someone heading there with two more as I left. Seven so far, it looks like.”

  “Good,” he said. “I need to talk to Chloe, so I’d like it if you could hook up with one of the other groups until I get back.”

  “Um, sure,” she said, and then hesitated as if she wanted to say more.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I thought I, um, recognized some of the patients.”

  “You probably did.”

  “They’re not dying, are they?”

  “That’s the last thing the Project would want.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You going to be all right?”

  A nod first, then, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be okay.”

  “Good, then we’ve got work to do.”

  He gave her his best reassuring smile and took off for the elevator.

  __________

  ROBERT AND ESTELLA moved quickly through the room, looking for anyone from Project Eden, but those in the hospital beds were the only ones there. This was the fourth room they’d checked, each basically the same, only the number of beds and the faces of those lying in them changed.

  He could tell seeing so many unconscious people was taking its toll on Estella. Her face was drawn and her eyes wet.

  After they cleared the room, he said, “Let’s move on to the next.”

  She nodded without saying anything. She’d been silent during the last three rooms.

  He took her hand and gently squeezed. For a moment she acted like she didn’t even realize he was there, and then she leaned against him as if suddenly exhausted.

  As they reentered the hallway, they heard Renee say, “There you are.” She ran to them, worry in her eyes. “I need you to come with me.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Something’s wrong with Chloe.”

  Renee led them to the open area at the center of the floor, then took one of the other halls back toward the outside. A quarter of the way down, she stopped in front of one of the rooms.

  “She’s in there.”

  “Is she hurt?” he asked.

  “No. Well, I don’t know. She’s been acting kind of strange. Quiet. Distant. And then when we went in here, she just stopped.”

  “Stopped what?” Estella asked.

  Renee shrugged. “Everything.”

  Robert opened the door and stepped inside.

  This room was different from the hospital-like wards they’d been searching, both in size and content. It was about the size of a manager’s office back at the Isabella Island Resort, and instead of a hospital bed, there was something that looked very much like a dentist’s chair in the center, but one considerably more advanced than any Robert had ever seen. Surrounding it were adjustable lights and instrument trays. Along the walls were cabinets and several pieces of equipment Robert couldn’t identify.

  The one thing he expected to find was missing.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  Renee and Estella rushed in.

  “But…she was right there,” Renee said, pointing at a spot next to one of the instrument trays.

  “Doing what?” Estella asked.

  “Just staring at the chair. I tried to talk to her, but it was like I wasn’t even here.”

  “How long have you been gone?” he asked.

  “Two minutes at the most.”

  “Maybe she started searching again,” Estella said.

  “Well, she couldn’t have gone far,” Robert said. “I’ll go toward the perimeter corridor. You two go toward the center. If you find her, call me on the radio. Just say you need to see me for a moment. I don’t want everyone getting worried.”

  As Robert worked his way to the outer rim, he made quick checks at every room he passed, discovering more wards filled with occupied beds, but no Chloe.

  When he reached the outer hallway, he found himself near the elevator area they were using as a meeting point to bring captured Project members. Kayoko Hannigan, another Isabella Island survivor, was leaning against the wall, waiting for the next prisoner to arrive.

  “Have you seen Chloe?” Robert asked as he jogged over to her.

  “She was just here.” Kayoko nodded toward the elevator. “She headed up.”

  “Did she say where?”

  “Nah. She didn’t say anything. Looked like she was in a hurry, though. I assumed she was going to scout the next floor.”

  Robert ran over to the elevators. The indicators showed one car was on eight and the other all the way up at five. />
  Perhaps Chloe had gone to check in with the other group. As he thought this, the indicator for the car on eight switched to the number nine.

  Robert took a step away from the door, anticipating Chloe’s return.

  But when it opened, it wasn’t Chloe who exited.

  “Captain Ash,” Robert said, surprised.

  “I need to talk to Chloe,” Ash said. “Do you know if she’s nearby?”

  Robert glanced at the other elevator indicator, still displaying the number five.

  “No, sir. I don’t think she is.”

  14

  DREAM SKY

  2:48 AM EST

  THE PAST THAT had been trickling back to Chloe soon turned into a flood.

  The cracks had started even before she’d entered Dream Sky, when she realized this wasn’t her first time here. But it was the chair in the ninth-level procedure room that had busted the dam.

  In a flash she saw herself as a child, growing up in a loving home. She’d been an honor student at her high school and in the top five percent of her class at MIT, where she earned a master’s in engineering. How had she forgotten that?

  A boy had been her downfall. His name…Adam Lester, that was it. He was in her same major but was also part of something else, something outside the university. A secret project, he’d told her, something that would change the world.

  Yes, it was all coming back now. All the bad choices.

  The room on the ninth level only looked like the one she’d been in. Hers was on five. Without thinking twice, she headed quickly to the outer loop, entered an empty elevator, and pushed the number five.

  “Come, just one meeting,” Adam had cajoled her. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  She had almost skipped out when she was told she’d have to sign a nondisclosure form before she’d even heard a single word, but there was Adam again, drawing her in and getting her to put pen to paper.

  The presentation had intrigued her enough to return again. And in subsequent meetings, she’d become fascinated by the building projects the organization was undertaking—large facilities constructed to ward against worldwide disasters, she was told. The presenters had explained that the Project was secretly backed by multiple governments, and it was hoped the facilities would never be used but it was better to be prepared than not.