The locks finally disengaged and let us pass into the blast-proof shell that the high security labs were situated in. It was an eerie sensation walking into a setup that was so familiar that it gave my heart a pang—and that was even before the lights suddenly came on and revealed that they’d even used the same tiles here as in the Green Fields biotech hot labs that Nate and I had ended up destroying. It didn’t have the same layout as the labs here were a good four times larger, but still. This was what I’d trained years for to do—and now it made me want to vomit and run, but not for the reasons similar sentiments had been haunting me the last time I’d donned a positive pressure suit. Back then I’d been afraid because I’d almost accidentally killed myself in the lab. Now it was a deep-seated knowledge that I didn’t belong here anymore—and never would again. Those endless hours on that operating room table had sealed that deal forever. I’d been aware of this, and until now I, quite frankly, hadn’t given a fuck about it. But seeing that door with the changing rooms behind it, and beyond that the room where the suits were kept by the decontamination shower made it impossible to ignore.
And I really didn’t care for how much it hurt.
It was easy to hide my feelings behind the comfort of my usual display of misgivings toward Hamilton as the others swarmed out to secure the wing. There were maintenance rooms, a small break room, and offices to secure, and guards to post outside the security station as well once they realized that our coms didn’t work well inside the cocoon of concrete and steel that was built to ensure that no earthquake or nuclear hit topside would let anything escape down here. Hamilton was busy shooing his people around but Richards was watching me intently—analyzing me, I realized. Just what I needed. Turning my back on him, I caught Nate’s gaze when he returned from securing the offices, and gave him a quick, “this sucks!” hand signal. I’d expected scorn but got a heartfelt, “I know,” from him, judging from how he glared at Hamilton’s back. We all had our burdens to carry—and it was about time I shirked mine.
“Any chance you’ll let me do that on my own?” I asked Hamilton when he returned his attention to me.
Rather than answer me, he nodded at the door to the labs. “Get on with it.”
To the absolute surprise of no one, he and Richards followed me inside while the rest waited in the hallway by the connective corridor where viewing windows let them see into three of the rooms inside the lab. I didn’t bother with being modest or circumspect as I dropped my weapons and pack in one corner of the changing room and set to peeling myself out of my many layers. I didn’t check if either of the two idiots was ogling me, and neither did I care. A tiny part of me was revolting that I didn’t go looking for scrubs to change into; I didn’t intend to strip down to my skin, also not on the way back out. The spacesuit would do its thing, and that was enough—or so I prayed. Stripping down left me in a tank top, thermal leggings, and socks. I couldn’t bring my com unit with me, either, not that it would have done me any good in here. I hated how disconnected from the others that made me feel. That I hadn’t expected, but nothing I could do about that now. I barely checked to see that the men were also down to their long johns before I stalked into the next room, hunting for the positive pressure suits. The bright lights were making my eyes tear up but that wasn’t why I was gnashing my teeth. This was wrong. Just plain wrong.
“I presume you expect me to do all the prep work?” I called out as I grabbed some gloves, absolutely hating how there was no way to make them fit on my hands.
“We’d be much obliged,” Bucky drawled behind me, following me into the prep room. He was carrying a huge steel canister that I hadn’t seen before but must have been hidden in his pack. Richards dragged in a second. I guessed they were for sample storage. Judging from their size, they’d easily hold hundreds of the small tubes currently stored in liquid nitrogen. The very idea how much destruction those could yield made my mouth dry up. I’d never have agreed to help Nate if he’d attempted something like this. Yet here I was, and I wasn’t even going to get a good fuck out of this—but I was sure that, somehow, I’d end up getting screwed.
I didn’t explain—or talk at all—as I meticulously went through the motions of selecting and prepping three of the positive pressure suits. My brain still remembered all the steps but my body had forgotten half of them, and had issues with a few more. It took me a good twenty minutes but Hamilton for once held his tongue, letting me concentrate. I considered sabotaging his suit but wouldn’t put it past him to force me to take that one instead, so I didn’t. Really, if I killed him I wanted it to be with a knife or a gun, not gear failure. Then it was time to don the suits after taping our gloves on—which Red helped me with—and get into the boots. While I waited for the others to be done, I looked at the viewing window, finding Nate waiting right outside, watching me mutely, a look of quiet confidence in his eyes that I knew he wanted me to see. “You got this,” it said. Also, “don’t do anything stupid.” Oh well. Time would tell which of that was good advice.
And then I was all out of excuses and tasks to do, and after a last check that my suit was working, feeling the air from the connected hose caress my sweaty body, I disconnected the line and slowly walked into the lab proper, Hamilton and Richards following with their containers.
More than any other part of the facility, I’d memorized the floor plans of the hot lab, so I knew where to turn to. The security feeds hadn’t shown any disturbances inside but I was still surprised that neither of my two burdens chose to bring a gun with them. I felt naked and exposed without a weapon but I knew that in here was likely the safest place on the entire earth—at least as long as I stayed in my suit. That would even withstand the next decontamination cycle easily. The air from the connective hoses tasted as it should—clean with a hint of something chemical—proving that the HVAC system was still doing what it was supposed to do, and likely would do for another year. If I wouldn’t have starved to death within five days or so, I could have stayed in here forever.
We had to make our way through seven rooms until we got to the vault where the storage tanks waited, requiring a code. As in the past, I used Raleigh Miller’s code—my birthday—again feeling weirdly sentimental. That nobody had deactivated it was beyond me. Last time, that had felt like a stroke of luck. Now it made my paranoia surge, the conviction that someone had intended me to use it too strong to ignore. Richards pulled the door open as the display flashed green, and endless rows of nitrogen-filled storage tanks lay before us.
“I presume we get all the serum version numbers I’ve compiled from the notes you gave me?” I asked when Hamilton still hadn’t said a thing.
“We’ll start with that,” he replied. My stomach sank. Of course.
Exhaling loudly, I snatched a hose to connect to my suit so I wouldn’t suffocate or die of heat stroke in here and waddled over to the bench by the door where I found the inventory logs. And my, there was a lot of inventory to go through. And no, they hadn’t filed it alphabetically.
“What’s taking so long?” Hamilton grunted a few minutes later.
“Wanna help? Then shut the fuck up and let me concentrate,” I snapped back, not even bothering with looking up. “You try finding a hundred vials in a haystack of several million.” Of course, just as I turned a laminated page, I found a batch of samples labelled with the serum project variants, and just a little more effort produced the right boxes as well. Then it was just a matter of checking the tank orders, and I made my way over to the first—but gave up after five seconds. “I can’t get this open,” I ground out between gritted teeth. “You want this shit? Then help me.”
Richards joined me, still lugging his container along, setting it on the floor next to the tank I was glaring at. I had to show him how to disengage the lock, and of course he sloshed liquid nitrogen everywhere as he pulled the suspended rack inside the tank out way too fast, not considering that the liquid was also between the boxes inside the racks. Nitrogen evaporated as it hit the mu
ch warmer air inside the room than the tank it had kept cool, clouds of vapor surrounding us. I would have smiled at Richards cursing and trying to avoid the ice-cold liquid hitting his suit, but we really didn’t have time for this. As soon as he stopped dancing around, I reached for the rack and pulled out the fifth box from the top, quickly finding the vials we needed. More nitrogen came sloshing from the tank as Richards let the rack slide inside too fast, drawing another derisive grunt from me. Amateurs.
“We’ll take fucking forever like this,” I complained when I realized I’d have to get back to the inventory log now. “Hamilton, work for your money and find us the next tank and box. Richards, you open the tanks for me but I get the racks out. And keep that container open, the samples won’t thaw that quickly, anyway.”
To my never-ending surprise, neither of them even gave a peep of protest. Hamilton was disappointingly quick to find the next tank, and off we went. Dragging the heavy rack out of the tank didn’t agree with my sweaty, aching fingers but even lacking a lot of my former alacrity, I didn’t get nitrogen all over us and had the samples out in a fraction of the time Richards could have managed. Now that we were at the right tanks, it was easier to find the next samples. And the next. Soon, the entire container was full and Richards went to fetch the other one. This wasn’t so bad, I told myself. So far, all of the samples had been serum variants that had been in the documentation. Maybe they’d sent Hamilton on his super-secret side mission to get someone’s handwritten notes of his semi-embarrassing erotica project.
Hamilton sent me over to the next tank, yet rather than tell me the version numbers of the samples, he left it at a snide, “Box four, samples ten to fifteen.” As I balanced the rack on the rim of the tank and pulled the box out, I figured he’d switched to what he thought was a more effective system—until I read the label of the first vial. My stomach knotted up as I realized where I’d last seen it—the invisible ink letter from Nate’s brother. I swallowed thickly and checked the next label—the same series as that one. Those were the trials that had ended in that death match, literally.
“You sure that’s the right box?” I asked, my voice pressed even though I tried to make it sound casual. “Just give me the version numbers.”
Hamilton looked up from the log and stared at me. Even through the visor of his suit, I could see his smirk firmly in place. Oh, he knew what he was asking me to fetch, and it must have become obvious that I knew just the same.
“Just get the samples,” he told me, his tone flat.
I hesitated, wondering what to say, or if it made any sense at all. I considered dropping the samples into the tank, but he’d only have to turn it over to get them out. He was watching me closely now so switching them out wasn’t exactly an option. Richards had noticed my hesitation and was giving me a curious look, not getting my reasoning—so he hadn’t tattled on me. Not that I thought he’d had time enough to read, let alone remember, the numbers. Unless he was a very good actor, that was, which was entirely possible. And why did I even care?
Because it could be me who got that shit injected next. Or Nate. Or someone else I cared about. Hell, I’d even think twice subjecting Hamilton to this, although he kind of had it coming after the shit he’d pulled on Nate.
“Lewis, just do it,” Hamilton told me, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. I looked at the samples, then back up to Hamilton, still undecided. “Or is there any particular reason why you object?”
“Those numbers aren’t on our list,” I offered, the weakest protest ever.
“They are on my list,” he stated, as if that was reason enough.
“They’re not the cure,” I said, trying to reason with him. Why was I even playing this game?
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Put them in the container. We’re running out of time here, and you’re needlessly wasting it.” Again I considered—and when I looked at him once more, Hamilton had a gun pointed at me. So he had come in armed, I just hadn’t noticed it. Swallowing thickly, I stared at the barrel, then back at his face. “I’m not afraid to use it,” he told me in no uncertain terms, and with more than just a hint of glee in his voice. “You became obsolete the moment you got us into this vault. We can grab the rest of the samples and leave without you. Consider it a token of professional courtesy if I don’t put a cap in your crown.” His mirthless grin widened. “Or better yet, just your leg. Cleaning cycles or no, with a ruptured suit and an open wound, chances are very high you’d catch something in here, and you’re terribly afraid of that. And without the ability to run, you’d be dead outside long before you could choke on your bloody vomit. So do yourself a favor and stop screwing around, or I will put a permanent end to it. Put the damn samples into the container.”
I wanted to believe that, deep down, I was still operating by a strong, moral codex, but he was right—and I could tell that he was silently counting down, and maybe even looking forward to shooting me. So I did the only thing I could—and put the samples into the container.
“Sheesh, calm your tits, dickwad,” I mumbled, quite proud that my voice wasn’t shaking. “What’s next?”
He took his time before turning around, his glower definitely on the gloating side. The second his attention strayed from me, I tilted the box, still in my hand, to check the other labels. And there they were, second row from the bottom—the last-mentioned variants that had very reduced drawbacks, most of the advantages, and didn’t come with a homicidal countdown.
My tongue was burning with the words that this was what we needed, what we’d come here for—but again, I reconsidered. I had no idea who would get these samples. Maybe Hamilton would drop all of them off with Raynor; maybe just some and he’d keep those select special few to himself. Richards had the letters, and although the notes in there were vague, I was sure that Raynor would be able to piece the information required together. And Hamilton had stressed in very plain words that my only obligation was to do exactly what he told me to, absolving me of all guilt and responsibility.
But.
It was that very moral objection that had, time and again, gotten me into shit often deeper than I could shovel. It made me care about what happened to the traders; to the women Taggard and his boys raped and killed. It was the reason why we weren’t safely tucked away from everything somewhere up in Canada or Alaska, or happily dozing under some palm trees on some tropical island only accessible by boat—the perfect post-apocalyptic fortress. This was the very last chance of anyone to get their hands on these samples, I was very aware of that. Already, the liquid nitrogen in some of the tanks was close to no longer covering the top boxes, meaning that the tanks that automatically topped up the liquid were running on empty. A few months—heck, maybe a few weeks might be enough—and the samples would thaw, their contents forever lost to the world. That was the real reason for the timing of the mission—Raynor must have realized this was about to happen any day now. Yes, the labs were built to last forever, the ventilation system and electricity to run it guaranteed for three years or more, but nobody had expected that the easiest component, the cheap chemical that would keep it all at a balmy -320 Fahrenheit, wouldn’t regularly be topped up. It wasn’t even a huge security risk as the vials would do their thing to contain the material inside as it slowly degraded, and anything that might leak out or otherwise escape would get sucked or washed away—destroying it for good. The containers we were dropping the samples in were likely kept at equally low temperatures with some kind of cooling system that would keep them safe for the month or so until they could be submerged in nitrogen once more. Even the thawed, degraded material, if fresh enough, would be good enough if processed by the right people—but not once it was destroyed for good.
I couldn’t let this go to waste, even if it ended up in the wrong hands. I simply couldn’t.
“There are some more samples in this box you should take with you,” I told Hamilton, briefly glancing at Richards but mostly focusing on the other man. “I found some mention of them i
n Dr. Andrada’s notes. This is as close to the cure as she and Raleigh Miller got.”
Hamilton paused, and I could practically see the gears in his head grinding. Turning around to face me, he didn’t look very happy.
“And you forgot to mention that until now because…?”
“I didn’t forget. I lied when I said I didn’t find anything.” I wondered if he’d shoot me now after all—or threaten me into revealing every last thought I’d ever kept from him. Not that we had that amount of time, but I was sure the idea of beating me to a bloody pulp was an appealing concept. The positive pressure suit killed all body language that I might have exhibited but I did my best to appear calm and collected, even if I was far from it as I challenged him with my gaze. “You claim we’re here to find the cure? Well, that’s the closest we’ll get. Unless you’re ready to ‘fess up that it’s not even a minor objective, take these samples as well. Everything you had me grab is in there in redundancy, even if you have every single sample space planned out, we can easily make room for five more vials.” There were more in there but that would suffice.
Hamilton considered, his hand close to where he’d put the gun down next to the inventory log. “Do it,” he said after giving himself a visible jerk. “And hurry. We still have more samples to find.”
I forced myself to stop thinking after that, going through the motions as quickly and efficiently as possible. It didn’t matter what I did or said anymore—the best and worst I could have done was already behind me. Short of grabbing the gun from Hamilton and shooting him—and likely Richards as well—there wasn’t anything I could do now. I considered that for a few moments, weighing my options and chances of success. Could I do it? The answer was yes, even if it left a bad taste in my mouth. Neither of them was an innocent bystander, and if the last year had taught me anything it was that I could reason everything away if it led to my survival. It was kind of a greater good thing, too, although I really wasn’t convinced anything connected to this would do anything good either way. I could claim it was an accident. It wasn’t like anyone would be able to simply check on the bodies if I claimed we’d gotten attacked. Sure, there were the cameras, but Cole struck me as one of the people who might fold and follow Nate’s leadership if he acted quickly enough—and he would, the second he realized what I’d done. We would still complete the mission, just minus a few vials that nobody except Hamilton had known to get, anyway. Right now was the only chance I’d get—as soon as we were outside the decontamination shower, we were back to the old rules.
Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus Page 20