Fast

by Shane M Brown

  ‘You’ll think of something,’ came King’s deep voice from behind her. ‘Get going. Save your boy. We’ll be okay.’

  Coleman nodded and moved quickly with Vanessa back towards the water. He hated leaving Forest and King alone in the submerged cave, but they had no choice.

  In seconds they were underwater and swimming again.

  #

  In the Quarantine Center’s antechamber, Corporal Harrison listened to Sullivan’s report about the containment door.

  Sullivan had led the engineering team trying to lock the heavy containment door from inside the tunnel.

  ‘It can’t be done,’ reported Sullivan reluctantly. ‘There’s no way to jam or sabotage the machinery from inside the tunnel. Maybe if we had more tools and a lot more time, but otherwise….’

  ‘What about welding or bracing it shut at the bottom?’ suggested Harrison. He suspected the engineering team had already considered and dismissed this possibility. For someone untrained in structural engineering, it seemed the logical answer, but the engineering team would have been able to assess the idea for flaws in a heartbeat. They were probably already three or four ideas ahead of Harrison’s thinking.

  Sullivan shook his head and glanced down the tunnel again. ‘We used everything we had to reinforce the top-deck.’

  That’s my fault too. Harrison had taken a gamble that they wouldn’t sustain an attack from the direction of the containment door, so had ordered that all their resources be concentrated on sealing the top-deck. His rational was that If they haven’t broken through the containment door yet, it’s unlikely that they can break through at all. In truth, Harrison had prayed that any moment a message from Captain Coleman would announce arriving reinforcements and an immediate evac of the wounded.

  Sullivan must have seen Harrison’s thoughts written across his face. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t have known anyone would open the containment door with the creatures out there.’

  Harrison looked towards Dana, hoping for new information.

  ‘Nothing,’ she reported from the workstation, reading his expression. ‘No signals from anywhere in the Complex.’

  Sullivan kept glancing down the tunnel. He held his rifle as though expecting any moment for the creatures to come swarming into sight. ‘You should hear them out there. I mean…they sound like, Christ, I don’t know. They want to get in here real bad.’

  ‘I can hear them from here,’ confirmed Harrison. ‘They’re building up out there. More and more every minute.’

  They’re going to get in here. That’s a given. So how can we minimize casualties? Harrison’s mind clicked straight over to damage-control mode. The open-plan design of the Quarantine Center was strategically a defensive nightmare. When the containment door opened, heavy casualties would result in a matter of minutes. His first thoughts were for the children. Alex Coleman might be dead, but Harrison would do his best to keep his son alive.

  ‘Which is the most secure room in this Center?’ he asked.

  Dana thought for a moment. ‘The strongest door in here would have to be to the infirmary store room.’

  Sullivan agreed. ‘It’s at the back of the infirmary. But there’s no way even a fraction of us could fit in there.’

  ‘I’m thinking about the children,’ said Harrison. ‘What if we covered the store room’s floor with mattresses from the bunks to dampen vibrations, and then sealed the children in there.’

  Dana added, ‘We could put one of the school teachers in there with them. Someone all the children know.’

  ‘If all the children can fit inside it might buy them some extra time,’ guessed Sullivan. ‘It might be enough.’

  Harrison felt sick at the thought of the creatures reaching the children. Physically nauseated.

  ‘They’ll all fit in there,’ confirmed Dana.

  ‘I’ll get them started,’ said Sullivan, lifting his walkie-talkie to give the instructions. Sullivan stopped as he sensed something different in the room. ‘Wait, do you feel that?’

  Harrison felt it. The stuffiness of the antechamber was dissipating. A cool air draft touched the back of his neck. They hadn’t had fresh air in the Center since receiving instructions from Coleman to shut down every vibration-causing piece of equipment. That included the mechanical ventilation plant.

  ‘That’s the air-conditioning plant coming online,’ realized Harrison. He looked at Dana for an update on the countdown.

  Dana swallowed hard and spoke with empty syllables. ‘We’ve got four minutes until the containment door opens and lets the creatures in here.’

  #

  Gould caught sight of Cairns climbing the stairwell above him.

  Cairns had the templates. Gould had the pistol.

  The math seems easy enough.

  Cairns pushed through the stairwell door to the antechamber where he’d used explosives to breach the research labs.

  Why come back here? This is where we tried to steal the templates from in the first place. What the hell’s he doing? Does he realize I’m following him?

  Suspicious of a trap, Gould gripped the pistol in two hands and side-stepped through the ajar fire door. Cairns strode away from the door, unaware of Gould’s presence. The fire door squeaked slightly when Gould’s shoulder brushed past it.

  Cairns stopped.

  Gould kept the pistol aimed squarely at Cairns. Cairns turned slowly on the spot, his expression openly bored.

  ‘Surprised to see me, Cairns?’

  ‘Not particularly. You’re like a rash that keeps coming back. Just when you think it’s gone, it pops up somewhere else.’

  ‘Give me the templates.’

  Cairns looked down at the templates in his right hand. He leveled a deadly stare back up at Gould. ‘Ask me nicely.’

  Gould raised his eyebrow. ‘Ask you nicely? Nicely? How about I blow your head off and just take them?’

  Cairns shook his head. ‘You won’t. You want to tell me something. You’ve been itching to do it all day. I’ve seen it trying to eat its way out of your eyes.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have burnt me.’

  ‘You’re right. I should have just killed you, because you’ve been useless to me ever since.’

  Gould realized that he did have something to say. Why else haven’t I shot him already? ‘Okay, Cairns. I hate you. I’ve hated your guts from the first day I met you. You’re an animal, and you don’t deserve those templates. You’re not worthy of them.’

  For the first time, Gould’s comments seemed to have stirred something deep inside Cairns. Cairns growled back, ‘And you are worthy? Worthiness and honor aren’t luxuries that men like you and I are allowed to enjoy. Once you kill an innocent person, those words become arbitrary.’

  Gould suddenly realized something. I’m going to shoot him. I am actually going to kill this man with this gun.

  In a way, Gould felt like he would be killing everything that he had done wrong. Wiping the slate clean. Strangely, a sense of calmness washed over him as he realized he could do it. He could easily do it. Some part of Gould’s thoughts must have shown through his body language, perhaps his finger on the trigger or the brace of his shoulder, because Cairns suddenly stiffened.

  ‘You know, Dr Gould, I do believe that you actually plan to kill me. I thought you only killed by proxy. It’s not a big step, I suppose. You’ll be an expert in no time.’

  ‘I’ve never killed anyone in my life. That’s your specialty, not mine.’

  ‘Take a look around,’ scoffed Cairns, raising his free hand and indicating the entire Complex. ‘Somebody has to take responsibility at some stage. I know how your mind works. You think you’re just a link in a chain that is swinging out of your control. It’s everybody else who is evil and doing these things. But let me assure you that you’ve managed to kill almost every person in this entire place. Your creatures are slaughtering anything with a pulse. Just the way you designed them.’

  ‘It’s the way I was to
ld to design them,’ shrieked Gould, the pistol shaking in his grip.

  ‘Your bloody creatures killed half of my men. Your work is a failure. What good is a berserk weapon running out of control? You don’t deserve these templates.’

  ‘Don’t blame your failure on me!’ yelled Gould. ‘Those Marines have been kicking your ass all day. U.S. military must be completely surrounding this place by now. Our pick-up isn’t going to arrive. You’ve left it too late to pull out. Your arrogance and overconfidence has killed us all. We should have pulled out when we had the chance.’

  Gould suddenly calmed down as he saw a new option. ‘It seems to me that I’ve been on the wrong side. In fact, it seems to me now that I was forced to help you.’ Gould tilted his head to show off the weeping burns on his face. ‘And this proves that I was forced against my will. Now give me those templates.’

  Cairns stepped forward and passed Gould the templates.

  As Gould took them, Cairns snapped out his left hand and caught Gould’s pistol. The maneuver was so hypnotically smooth that Gould felt like a stupid amateur.

  Now both men were locked together, face-to-face, holding the pistol on one side and the templates on the other.

  Gould tried twisting the pistol barrel towards Cairns, but Cairns easily resisted. The pistol stayed riveted in place.

  Cairns’s expression hadn’t changed at all. He said, ‘You should stick to being a scientist and leave the killing to the professionals.’

  In one motion, Cairns let go of the templates and drew a short punch dagger from the small of his back.

  Gould noted the dagger’s shape as it sped towards his chest. He just had time to notice the blade protruding from between Cairns’s knuckles like a simple corkscrew. There was no time to do anything else.

  The blade slammed home into his chest and buried up to Cairns’s knuckles.

  Gould looked up from the four inches of steel that had just disappeared into his chest.

  Funny, it doesn’t hurt.

  Cairns whispered, ‘You haven’t earned the right to take these templates from me. Let me tell you. Only one other man in this Complex has earned the right to even try, and you’re not him.’

  Cairns twisted the dagger like he was uncorking a wine bottle. Some part of Gould’s mind hit the pain switch. All the postponed pain arrived at once as his body caught up with his injuries. Blossoming agony stifled his scream. He just blinked in breathless astonishment as Cairns twisted the dagger a full half circle in his chest.

  Cairns released the dagger still buried in Gould’s heart.

  As Gould fell back, Cairns yanked the templates from his failing grasp.

  #

  Coleman and Vanessa emerged in the pool room, shed the dive gear and ran.

  They slogged through the flooded offices. They reached the west stairwell and raced up the stairs.

  In the stairwell, Coleman ran in front and took two stairs at a time. They rushed towards the habitation level where Vanessa could synthesize the pheromone.

  Swinging around the research level landing, Coleman glanced through the ajar fire door.

  Gould lay sprawled in a pool of blood. Coleman stopped, panting, and shoved the fire door fully open. A punch dagger stood out from Gould’s chest.

  ‘He’s just bled out,’ puffed Coleman, stumbling into the antechamber.

  ‘He was following Cairns,’ wheezed Vanessa between breaths. ‘I made him think Cairns abandoned him.’

  Coleman tracked the wet shape of boot prints from Gould’s body. The prints led towards the section of demolished wall where Cairns had first breached the research level. ‘Looks like he found him. Cairns went back into your research labs.’

  ‘Go,’ urged Vanessa, waving towards the labs, her breathing slightly better. ‘Cairns can’t leave this Complex with the templates.’

  Coleman turned his back on Cairns and the lab. ‘David’s more important. I don’t care about anything else now.’

  Vanessa shook her head. ‘He’ll never be safe while Cairns is alive. I can reach the entomology lab on my own. It’s not far. You can’t help me anyway. There’s nothing you could do. You need to stop Cairns.’

  Coleman shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving you. We’ll go together - ’

  ‘Alex! Just trust me and go. I saved you back there in the pool room, and I can do this! For once in our lives just listen to me! I’m telling you to do your job. Be a Marine!’

  Shocked, Coleman nodded. ‘Save our boy.’

  But Vanessa was already sprinting up the fire stairs.

  Good luck, thought Coleman. I hope we’re doing the right thing.

  He turned and followed Cairns’s wet bootprints down the decontamination corridor and through the scattered debris from the demolished wall. This was where King had been stunned by the explosion and then dragged to safety by Marlin. The prints disappeared a few meters after entering I-lab, but Coleman remembered the layout of the labs perfectly.

  He’s heading back towards the main lab. What does he want in there?

  Coleman slowed and approached cautiously when he spotted movement in the main lab. It was Cairns. The templates rested on the floor near his boots. Cairns hunkered over something on the floor. As Cairns rose, Coleman saw the small charge of plastic explosives.

  It seemed too small an explosive charge to seriously damage the labs.

  Coleman drew his colt and sighted on Cairns’s back.

  Right over the heart. Pull the trigger and watch him tumble….

  But he didn’t fire. If he shot Cairns, the body might fall into the explosives. From this distance, Coleman had no idea how the charge was rigged. A booby-trapped device could explode on contact. The explosives rested right beside the templates.

  I need to get the templates away from the explosives first.

  Moving slowly, he approached Cairns from behind. If Cairns moved left or right even slightly, even one small step, Coleman intended to put a bullet in his brain. This was definitely not a man to underestimate. The first clean chance Coleman got, he needed to finish it.

  But Cairns didn’t move. He just stood over the explosive like he sensed Coleman’s presence behind him.

  ‘I wouldn’t pull that trigger if I were you,’ Cairns advised sternly.

  He knows I’m here. He knows I’ve got a weapon pointed at his back.I’m sure I didn’t make any sound. Then Coleman remembered his first impression when he entered these labs. With stainless steel surfaces everywhere, the place looked futuristic. Stainless steel offered a lot of reflective surfaces.

  Coleman cursed himself when he looked past Cairns and saw his own reflection in a set of cupboards across the lab. They stood directly in Cairns’s line of sight.

  Sometimes, thought Coleman, it’s the simple thing that mess you up.

  Cairns turned on the spot. ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Captain America.’

  Coleman came closer, aiming at Cairns’s forehead, moving to a distance where he couldn’t possibly miss and to where he could eyeball the trigger arrangement on the explosives. From ten feet away, he glanced down and saw Cairns had a timer on the explosives.

  Coleman said, ‘We both know that you’ve sent all the creatures to kill the civilians in the Quarantine Center. I can’t see one good reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger right now.’

  Which is what I’m going to do. I still have time to help Vanessa.

  It was then that Coleman smelled the gas.

  #

  Sasha Kinnane’s pheromone lab was a mess.

  The room was filled with butterfly boxes. Half the boxes lay smashed apart, no doubt during the first few minutes of the crisis when the creatures seemed to be everywhere. Thankfully, the lab equipment all looked intact.

  It appeared Sasha had managed to escape her labs in one piece. She would have been one of the first people to notice something strange was happening when the pheromone levels in the Complex suddenly spiked through all her remote sensors. Linking her tablet to the worksta
tion, Vanessa noticed where Sasha had been examining some hugely anomalous pheromone readings just before she evacuated. It was exactly the software Vanessa needed to synthesize the pheromone.

  The computer program waited ready to operate.

  Lucky break.

  She set her fingers on the keyboard, cleared her mind, and started typing.

  She needed to integrate the pheromone model from her tablet into the software to make the complex molecule a reality.

  What she constructed onscreen represented the missing piece of a biological jigsaw puzzle. The way she had explained the solution to Coleman had been a gross over-simplification, but still very much the truth at the heart of the problem. Sex was the key. All living things were profoundly affected by their need to reproduce. These creatures were no different. And the genetic patterns allowing the creatures to grow the physiology of movement had also ensured that fragments of the anatomy of reproduction were present. Remnant, perhaps, but nonetheless active. In this case, from the parent genetic code, the creatures were covered in surface receptors acutely sensitive to sex pheromones. When the plants sensed the pheromone in nature, they stopped moving in order to increase their chances of cross fertilization with a nearby partner plant.

  It was the plant world’s equivalent of foreplay.

  Gould’s work removed the creatures’ ability to produce the pheromone, but he couldn’t isolate the genetic code that grew the plants’ receptor cells. The creatures could receive, but not send the signal.

  So if Vanessa could get the pheromone into physical contact with the creatures, get even the tiniest amount touching their surface, then she would effectively be hitting their ‘off’ switch.

  Despite herself, she grew excited as the solution took shape on the screen. This was what she lived for. ‘Mending broken ecology’, was the term she used in research papers. Vanessa was attempting to mend in minutes what nature had taken thousands of years to perfect. She knew the rules better than anyone, and in her mind, the end of the puzzle suddenly fitted together with perfect clarity.