Fast

by Shane M Brown

  Tucker had reached the same conclusion. ‘If a biological agent has been released, there’s a strong chance it’s isolated in the Complex. If that’s the case, we don’t have many options.’

  For all Tucker knew, a bio-pathogen released in the Complex had killed everyone in seconds. Sending in more Marines wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t send more people into harm’s way until he knew what was happening.

  #

  Bora rode up the freight lift.

  This was a change of plan.

  As far as plans went, he liked it. It was a simple plan.

  After losing his team in the falling carriage, Bora had climbed the elevator shaft. Reaching the engineering level, he spotted the Marines heading towards the offices. Concealed from view in the dark shaft, he relayed their position to Cairns.

  Cairns outlined his improvised plan with clipped precision.

  Two teams would use forklifts to transfer gas canisters, one large canister to the humidity tents and a load of smaller canisters to the freight lift. The forklift teams gave no indication they knew the Marines’ location. One team would take the second forklift down the freight lift.

  But the forklift wouldn’t come up again.

  Instead, twenty-three gunmen including Bora and Cairns rode back up on the platform.

  They made the swap perfectly. As the forklift rolled off the platform, Bora’s men had rushed into its place. The four gunmen guarding the forklift had stayed on the platform. Now they were all assembled in the corner of the platform out of sight of the Marines.

  Cairns didn’t speak. He hadn’t spoken since joining Bora’s men at the freight lift and outlining his plan in short, terse sentences. He hadn’t even explained why the first forklift maneuvered a massive gas canister around the humidity tents. Bora guessed the forklift was a diversion - a ploy to distract the Marines while Cairns moved his force into attack position.

  A second before the platform reached the engineering level, Bora activated his radio. ‘No matter what happens, don’t fire until we’re right on top of them.’

  He jerked back the cocking mechanism on his submachine gun. Leading the gunmen storm trooper style, he planned to flood the offices with a force large enough to absorb any casualties that four Marines and a scared scientist could deliver.

  He leapt from the platform and ran straight along the offices’ outside wall. The gunmen streamed single file behind him. The doorway to the corner office stood open just twenty meters ahead, then ten, then five meters….

  Bora waited for gunfire to erupt. The Marines still weren’t reacting.

  This is going to be easier than I expected.

  His team would be right on top of the Marines before they suspected any attack.

  He ran in front of the doorway. His surprise appearance flashing across the doorway should have drawn fire from the startled room occupants, giving away their exact location, but no fire came. The second and third gunmen in line charged straight into the room. Bora ducked in behind them, scanned the empty office, and ran straight across the room and into the network of offices beyond.

  He stopped.

  Something’s wrong.

  Gunmen weaved around him and peeled off down every corridor, kicking open office doors and checking every room.

  There’s nowhere to hide. Half this place is glass. So where are they?

  ‘Clear. Clear. Clear,’ came the repeated shouts as Bora’s men checked each room.

  Any second now would be the gunshots.

  Then no one was moving. There was no more shouting or door kicking. The entire area was secure. All Bora’s men turned and looked at Bora though the glass.

  No Marines.

  No Sharp.

  No templates.

  He stood surrounded by twenty gunmen standing in glass-walled rooms. Nothing more.

  ‘They’re here somewhere!’ he roared, turning in a circle. He’d seen them come in here. ‘They’re hiding somewhere. Keep looking. Find them!’

  His men had nowhere else to look, but they tried anyway.

  Cairns strode into the office. He keyed his radio.

  ‘Gould, are you following our little game of hide and seek?’

  ‘Yes…I’m listening,’ came Gould’s careful reply over everyone’s headset. ‘The creatures have just destroyed the last elevator plant room. They’re heading your way.’

  The gunmen stirred.

  Bora raised his hand for everyone to keep quiet. He felt the vibrations of the approaching creatures coming through the floor. Reaching out, he touched a beige filing cabinet. The barely perceptible tremors butterfly-kissed his fingertips. Gould was right. The creatures were coming. They would be here in seconds.

  Just seconds.

  Cairns was smiling.

  ‘Gould,’ radioed Cairns calmly. ‘Activate the engineering level ventilation fans, full power.’

  Their radios were quiet for a moment. Bora felt a steady background vibration come online. The fans are starting.

  ‘Okay,’ Gould confirmed eventually. ‘Done that. The fans are operating.’

  Bora looked up to the ceiling where the creatures were now being attracted to the fans’ vibrations. He noticed a wide open ventilation hatch. Under the ceiling hatch was a desk and cupboard.

  They climbed up there. Cairns flushed them up into the ceiling on purpose.

  Cairns had forced the Marines into the labyrinth of ventilation shafts that covered the entire level. Then he ordered Gould to divert the creatures into the same shafts.

  Cairns had planned for Bora to fail.

  Bora had been tricked. Cairns never meant for him to catch the Marines in the offices.

  It hadn’t been a simple plan after all. It just seemed simple because Cairns treated Bora like a simpleton. Bora looked slowly back down from the vent.

  His dark eyes stopped on Cairns.

  The surrounding gunmen watched through the glass walls. All their eyes were on Bora, not Cairns.

  Bora didn’t like being treated like a simpleton. Not by any man.

  Chapter 7

  Coleman crouched in the ventilation shaft intersection.

  The Marines just barely escaped in time.

  The freight lift almost reached the engineering level before Coleman recognized the trap. Cairns knew Third Unit’s location. The forklifts acted as a distraction. A distraction that very nearly worked. Marlin had been the last person climbing into the vent when the gunmen stormed the offices. He had yanked his legs up into the vent barely in time.

  As the terrorists kicked open office doors, Third Unit and Vanessa scrambled single file through the ventilation shafts above their heads. The shafts proved just large enough for the Marines to crawl on their hands and knees while keeping their heads up.

  Now they were stopped at a four-way intersection. In every direction Coleman saw more intersections. The ventilation network covered the entire level in a grid.

  The problem was the fans.

  Another fan blocked their path, a square unit with a hinge on the left and a locking pin on the right so the fan could swing aside for maintenance.

  Coleman stopped with his hand on the locking pin, listening. The shafts echoed and distorted the noise of Third Unit crouching uncomfortably behind him.

  ‘I don’t think they’re coming after us,’ said Forest quietly. ‘We’d be able to hear them by now.’

  Coleman felt less sure. ‘Cairns must realize we’re up here. Why aren’t they following?’

  Every intersection had a slotted vent underfoot. Coleman looked through the slots between his knees. He couldn’t see anything. Just a small patch of the engineering level floor. He repositioned, pressing his cheek to the slots so he could peer through sideways. Now he could see more.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ he said. ‘That can’t be good.’

  ‘What?’ asked Vanessa. ‘What is it?’

  The first forklift was raising a massive gas canister to the ceiling. Coleman tried to identify the large red ‘Hazard
ous Substance’ symbol on the canister’s curved side. The symbol looked unfamiliar, three red squares inside each other.

  He looked up from the vent. ‘They’re pumping gas in here. They’re filling the shafts.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Vanessa insisted, scrambling forward to cram her face against the slots.

  ‘This is bad,’ she agreed.

  She watched for a few more seconds before lifting her head. Red lines marked where her cheek pressed against the slots.

  ‘This is very, very bad,’ she repeated. ‘That’s inflammable surfactant. I recognize the markings. We use the surfactant to fire-stress new building materials. It replicates intense fire conditions. It sticks to everything - walls, ceilings, floors, clothes. Once ignited it rolls over everything like a blanket of fire.’

  ‘Is that enough surfactant to fill the shafts?’ asked Coleman.

  ‘Easily,’ she answered. ‘It’s going to coat everything. Even our skin. If Cairns ignites the shafts, we’ll light up like everything else. If we breathe enough of it, even our lungs will burn.’

  ‘We’ll be crawling candlewicks,’ growled King.

  ‘The gas still has to disperse,’ reasoned Coleman. ‘Maybe we can avoid it if we don’t stay in the shafts too long.’

  ‘Look,’ said Forest, pointing past Coleman’s shoulder. ‘The fans.’

  Coleman heard a low hum. A cool air current touched his neck. He looked over his shoulder. The fan blades were a blur.

  ‘They’re spreading the gas,’ said Marlin. ‘We gotta get out of here.’

  Vanessa pressed her fingertips to the shaft and shook her head. ‘The fans are dispersing the surfactant, but that’s not why Cairns turned them on.’

  ‘Then why -’ Coleman took a moment to interpret her worried expression. Then he felt the vibrations under his knees.

  ‘The creatures….’

  The fans vibrated through the entire ventilation network.

  ‘They’re gunna swarm through here like an ant farm!’ said King. ‘We’re totally screwed if we stay up here.’

  Coleman knew Third Unit couldn’t outrun the creatures through the shafts. ‘Vanessa, how long before the creatures reach us?’

  She stared quietly back at him. ‘They’re already here.’

  Coleman heard it too.

  The first creature crashed into a fan unit twenty meters behind Marlin. In seconds, the same sound came from every direction. The entire shaft shook under Coleman’s knees.

  ‘Holy shit!’ shouted Marlin as the creature ripped out the fan unit. ‘Move-move-move! It’s right behind me. GO!’

  Third Unit crowded across the tight intersection towards Coleman.

  Behind Marlin, sparks showered over the creature from the fan unit. Sparks illuminating a ghastly picture of thrashing thorn-lined tentacles.

  ‘They’re after the fans!’ yelled Vanessa desperately.

  Third Unit were between the creature and the next fan. More creatures already blocked the passages east and west.

  That just left north.

  Coleman spun and jerked up the fan’s locking pin.

  In one movement, he rammed aside the fan with his shoulder and scrambled through. Vanessa and Third Unit crowded through after him.

  ‘The pin! Put back the pin!’ yelled Forest as Marlin squirmed last past the fan.

  The creature barreled down the shaft towards Marlin. Its body nearly filled the shaft. Marlin slammed the fan unit shut right in the creature’s mouth. He stabbed the pin down through the boxy locking mechanism, jerking his hands clear as the creature’s mouth smashed into the fan.

  ‘Go! Go! Go!’ yelled Marlin, throwing himself backwards. The fan screeeeched in its metal fixtures.

  Coleman raced through the shaft on his hands and knees. Boots, knees, shoulders, helmets - everything bashed and crashed as they scrambled madly for the next intersection. Coleman prayed the fans dulled the creatures’ senses, because Third Unit made a tremendous racket fleeing headlong down the shaft.

  ‘It’s past the fan,’ yelled Marlin from the back. ‘It’s coming!’

  Still crawling full speed, Coleman glanced back at the creature behind Marlin.

  It’s too fast.

  The next intersection lay ten meters away. They needed to pass that intersection before another creature headed them off. Getting trapped between two creatures promised certain death.

  Reaching the intersection, Coleman didn’t stop. He heard another creature approaching from the west. Another fan blocked their path north.

  Instead of jerking up the locking pin and slamming aside the fan, he turned in the intersection and crawled east.

  ‘Leave the fan,’ he yelled, racing wildly down the east shaft.

  Third Unit all cut to the right behind Coleman, a crazy centipede with Coleman at the head.

  Marlin was the unfortunate tail. ‘It’s at the fan!’ he shouted. ‘Hurry up, keep going!’

  The creature began demolishing the fan. Coleman heard the screech of metal fixtures being torn apart. That should buy us a few seconds.

  But they couldn’t stop moving. After the fans, Third Unit was the next loudest source of vibrations.

  Suddenly Coleman heard the sharp clinkety-clink-clink of something metallic bouncing in the shaft ahead. He couldn’t stop moving. Whatever it was, he would just have to deal with it when he found it.

  Please don’t be a grenade. It didn’t sound like a grenade.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ barked Marlin.

  Coleman looked back. Marlin shone his flashlight back down the shaft.

  Blue smoke billowed around the creature. In moments smoke completely obscured the creature. The thick smoke expanded down the shaft towards Marlin.

  ‘What now?’ whined Forest.

  Marlin’s strong light hardly penetrated the smoke.

  ‘Captain,’ Marlin said. ‘I can’t see jack-shit back here.’

  Coleman searched the intersection ahead. Down every shaft, in all four directions, more blue smoke rapidly expanded towards them.

  ‘I got the same up here,’ commented Coleman. ‘Cairns is using M18 smoke grenades to disorientate us.’

  ‘Disorientate us?’ piped up Forest. ‘I’m already disorientated. Where are we even going?’

  ‘I know exactly where we are,’ reassured Coleman. ‘I’m getting us out. That smoke won’t confuse me.’

  ‘We’ll be blind moving through that smoke,’ hissed King.

  ‘It’s only concentrated in a few places,’ said Coleman. ‘We’ll go through it and come out the other side.’

  Coleman lifted his hand from the shaft. His palm came away sticky. The shaft felt like just-dry paint.

  Vanessa sniffed her fingertips. ‘Surfactant! We’re in it! It’s coated the inside of the shafts. We’re in the hot-zone. If Cairns ignites the shafts, we’re all going to burn.’

  ‘Then we must be getting close,’ said Coleman. ‘We can’t stop now. We have to reach the center of the level. Cairns is probably expecting us to ignite the surfactant with our own gunfire.’

  ‘The middle of the level? That’s right above the surfactant canister,’ warned Vanessa. ‘That area will be an inferno if Cairns lights it.’

  ‘I know,’ barked Coleman. ‘We have to reach the riser. It’s our only chance.’

  Coleman knew the habitation and engineering levels shared a common ventilation system. That meant they were connected by a ‘riser’, a large vertical shaft joining the ventilation networks. He’d spotted the riser before they entered the pool room, so had a fair idea of its location on this level.

  But which is the safest route through the smoke to the riser?

  ‘Everyone keep still,’ ordered Coleman. ‘No one move.’

  Noises echoed down every shaft. Coleman couldn’t tell from which direction the creatures approached. They could be trapped already.

  Which way?

  ‘Captain…,’ hissed Marlin urgently. The smoke engulfed Marlin’ boots and began movin
g up his legs. ‘I can’t see anything. I don’t know which way the creature’s going. It’s gunna be dirt-naps all round if we don’t make a move soon.”

  Coleman’s situation looked exactly the same, except he had three smoke-filled shafts to contend with. Coleman reached under his body armor.

  Wild card time.

  He pulled out the specimen container he’d taken from Vanessa’s lab. He twisted open the lid and shook out the butterflies. The five butterflies fluttered madly around the intersection. Coleman knew the creatures’ pheromones attracted the butterflies. With luck, the insects would identify the most dangerous shafts. They would be his eyes. Coleman twisted in the intersection, trying to track the five butterflies dipping and zipping everywhere.

  ‘Which way are they going?’ he asked urgently.

  ‘Two went west,’ came King’s deep voice.

  ‘I’ve got two more down here,’ added Marlin. ‘They just passed me!’

  Coleman twisted and saw the last butterfly zip down the shaft to the north.

  ‘East!’ said Coleman, plunging headfirst into the smoke cloud. ‘Let’s go!’

  Scrambling blindly through the smoke-choked shaft, he hoped the butterflies hadn’t become dizzy during their ride under his body armor; if he crawled headlong into a creature, it was all-over, red-rover.

  His hand hit something spinning in the shaft, an M18 smoke grenade still spewing thick blue smoke.

  Halfway through the cloud. Keep going.

  Suddenly he emerged into clear shaft. Looking ahead, he felt relieved to see no immediate hostiles. The next intersection lay fifteen meters away.

  I wish I had more butterflies.

  About four more intersections separated them from the riser. Third Unit’s only possible escape route lay northeast of their position. The sound of rampaging creatures came from every direction, making it impossible to discern the safest route. Should he keep leading them east, or cut north now?

  At the intersection, he chose east.

  Halfway down the shaft, he regretted his decision. A creature moved up ahead.

  This was no echo.