by Cavan Scott
“One went down,” Garret hissed, the most I’d heard him say. “I know he did.”
The bullets stopped, our assailant waiting for us to make a move. Garret swung around again, squeezing his trigger.
“He’s in the doorway,” he reported, ducking as the guard retaliated.
“The other?” I asked.
“Out of the game.”
“Move in,” Brennan ordered and Garret twisted into the corner, his gun barking. There was a cry and Garret disappeared from sight. Curtis was straight after him, gun raised, and after checking around the corner, Brennan indicated for us to follow.
The first guard was on the floor, a ragged hole in the side of his neck. The second was slouched on the floor, clutching a wound in his shoulder, blood pumping between his gloved fingers.
Fenton took one look at the stricken guard, and put him down.
“What did you do that for?” I snarled. “He could have told us how many men they have left.”
Fenton shrugged. “There’s one less now.”
“Next time you wait for the order,” Brennan berated him as I looked around. Yeah, this was the place, and that was the Ops centre. I crossed to the door, flattening myself against the wood. P99 in one hand, I wrapped my fingers around the door handle. It turned, but was locked.
There was a cry from inside. Short, but distinct, as if someone had clapped a hand over their own mouth to shut themselves up. Brennan motioned for Curtis to bring the battering ram over and the man mountain obliged, hefting the heavy cylinder by himself. This lock offered little in the way of resistance, shattering on first impact, but the door smacked into something. They’d barricaded themselves in. Curtis dropped the battering ram to the side, putting his not insubstantial shoulder to the door. There was a scrape of wood against the floor and the door opened a fraction, enough for Curtis to get his hand into the gap to press against the wall.
Big mistake. Something clanged hard on the back of his hand, and Curtis roared in pain. He yanked his hand back, as Beck raised her gun and fired calmly into the door itself, the wood splintering.
There was a whimper from inside and Beck took her foot to the door. It shifted more and she was in, her gun sweeping up.
I didn’t wait for Brennan to give me permission to squeeze through the gap. On the other side of the door, a Chinese guy cowered beneath a desk. He was shaking where he sat, nostrils flaring, a fire-extinguisher grasped to him like a shield.
“Get out of there,” I ordered, keeping him firmly within my sights as the others followed me in, Garrett shoving the bookcase barricade out of the way.
“D-don’t shoot,” the kid stammered, crawling out from his hiding place, still clinging to the fire-extinguisher like a safety blanket.
“Don’t give us a reason to,” Brennan told him, looking around the messy room. “What’s your name?”
“Lam.”
“Okay, Lam. How many people have you got here? And I’d put that down, by the way.”
Reluctantly, Lam did as he was told, although his eyes flicked to Curtis, who was massaging his bruised hand.
“Fifty-eight,” came the reply. “Well, there was, before...” He glanced at the screens, many of which showed dead and injured guards slumped on the floor.
“Fifty-eight?” Fenton echoed. “All this for fifty-eight people?”
“What do you do here?” Beck demanded.
Lam shrugged. “Research.”
Beck’s grip on her gun tightened. “What kind of research?”
“Medical research,” Lam babbled. “Experiments. I don’t know much about them. I’m only the technician.”
All this time, I had been checking the cameras. The wall was a mass of screens, all showing feeds from around the complex, except for the top row, which were all blank. One of them had a scrap of masking tape beneath it, half pulled off. I reached up and yanked it away. It read Katy. Curious.
“Well?” said Brennan, joining me at the console.
“Your people are in the grounds,” I reported, working the controls to cycle through the external cameras. “Although the buildings are still secure.”
“Not now we’re here,” said Fenton, smirking.
I turned to Lam and pointed at the blank screens. “What should those show?”
“Nothing. We don’t use them.” The reply had come too quickly.
“Is that right?” I showed him the scrap of masking tape. “Who’s Katy?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I’m just here to push the buttons, not ask questions.”
Brennan was flicking through the internal cameras.
“Wait there,” I said, as she brought up images of what looked like hospital beds. “Are those... children?”
“What are these rooms?” Brennan barked, pointing at the screen.
“I told you,” Lam whined. “We... well, the medical team... do research. I really don’t understand what. Diseases and stuff.”
That was worrying.
“What kind of diseases?” Beck asked. I was interested to know myself.
“I don’t know. Viruses. DNA.”
“And those kids?” I said.
He looked even more uncomfortable. “They’re the test subjects.”
Even Fenton was incredulous. “Test subjects? Like guinea pigs? Shit, what have you guys been doing here?”
Lam started to stammer a reply. “I-I—”
“You don’t know,” interrupted Brennan. “We get it, but you must know how to work all this. You’re the technician. You press buttons.”
“Y-yeah, I guess.”
“Then show me how to unlock the doors.”
“I can’t!”
Beck hefted the gun in her hands.
“Some technician.”
“No, you don’t understand. There’s something wrong with the computer. We can’t get access to anything except the cameras.”
How convenient.
“So you’re useless?” Fenton sneered.
“Not yet,” I cut in, tapping on the picture of the hospital. “Where is this?”
“Neighbour Three, in the east wing. That’s where all the research takes place.”
“And this is Neighbourhood One, right?” Brennan asked.
Lam nodded. “Support and security.”
“And the rest of your people.”
“Mostly in N-2, in their quarters.”
Now Brennan returned her attention to me. “We can move from building to building through those tunnels?”
“That’s the idea.”
Brennan turned to Lam, looking at the lanyard around his neck. “Will that get us through the doors? I’d like to keep at least some of the locks intact.”
Lam fingered his ID card with shaking hands. “Yeah. There’s a box of them, in that cupboard,” he said, pointing at a metal cabinet across the room.
“Now you’re using your brains,” said Brennan, crossing over to the cupboard. She opened the doors, checking the shelves, Fenton following. Lam saw his chance and ran for the door. Stupid kid. Curtis stepped in front of him and whipped the butt of the rifle across the technician’s head. The kid’s glasses arched across the room as he went down, slapping against the floor to stay still.
Brennan slammed the door of the cupboard. “There are no cards in here. I’m almost impressed.” She walked over to Lam’s prone body and roughly yanked the lanyard over his head. The kid’s head cracked against the floor as she pulled it free. “I’ll take this one. Garret, Curtis; check the guards for passes and then get down to the front doors. Let the others in and then search the building. Your hand okay?”
Curtis nodded, flexing his fingers. “I’ll live.”
“Off you go, then.”
The two grunts left, leaving us with the unconscious technician.
“What about him?” asked Fenton.
Brennan picked up a plastic bag of spare lanyards from the floor. They must have tumbled from the bookcase. “Tie him up. We’ll need someone
to show us how everything works. Beck, you go to N-2. Same thing. Open the doors, but be careful—you’ll have company, by the sounds of it.”
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“Round them up, but don’t stand for any nonsense. We can always give them a choice...”
Fenton looked up from where he was tying Lam’s podgy wrists together. “To stay?”
“If they’re scientists, they could be useful. Besides, I want to understand what they’ve been doing here. We need to know the place is safe.”
This was my chance to join the conversation again. “We should check out that ward, in Neighbourhood Three. I’m no medic, but I might be able to see what they’ve been up to.”
“You read my mind. I’ll come with you. Fenton, you too.”
Joy of joys.
“Is he secure?” Brennan asked.
Fenton stood up to admire his handiwork. The kid’s wrists and ankles were bound together, the knots more impressive that I would have given old rat-face credit for. Just to lower my opinion of him again, Fenton gave Lam an unnecessary boot in the side. “He’ll be fine until we get back.”
“Let’s do this, then.”
We turned to leave, and the walkie-talkie on the desk beneath the screens crackled into life. The voice that followed caused by heart to not so much miss a beat as explode in my chest.
“Control, this is Dr Tomas. Lam, come in.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CURE
“LAM? LAM, ARE you there?”
There was no answer. Did that mean that Neighbourhood One had fallen to the raiders, or that Lam had done a runner? Either was possible, but I couldn’t worry about it now. All that was important was getting the kids down to the bunker.
They were huddled in the corridor between the dorms now, all wide eyes and clasped hands. I’d never had a maternal bone in my body, but my heart went out to them. How could we expect them to cope with all this? We’d had drills, of course, but they never seemed real. Of course they didn’t, locked up in our base, playing games.
No one was playing now.
“Nothing?” asked Eckstein.
I shook my head. “He’s not answering.”
“Do you have a security monitor on this floor?”
Allison pointed down the corridor. “In the far lab, beyond the dorms. There’s a side office.”
“I’ll check,” Eckstein said, clutching his side as he limped away from us. “You get the last kid.”
I bit my lip. Of all the labs, I didn’t want anyone going in there. Something else I didn’t have time to worry about. I turned back to the children, giving them what I hoped was an encouraging look.
“You stay here with Dr Harwood. I’ll fetch Ruth.”
“Yes, Dr Tomas,” they chorused, as one. It was unsettling.
“We’ll be okay, won’t we?” Allison said to them, Dawn cuddling into her side. Of all the subjects, she had been the most scared, barely saying a word since I’d coaxed her out of her room.
I glanced through the window as I walked to Ruth’s door. The girl was sitting on the edge of her bed, her back to me. I slid my card over the reader, paused, and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Ruth called out.
I opened the door and stepped inside, and Ruth looked up at me, her face a blank mask.
“This isn’t a drill, is it, Dr Tomas?”
As direct as ever. “No, Ruth, it’s not. I need you to come with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
That surprised me. Ruth was the oldest, but also one of the most compliant of all the children.
“Trust me, none of us want this, but I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“I’m safe in my room.”
Inside I was screaming, telling her to move.
“Not any more you’re not, sweetheart. Please.”
She frowned.
“You’re never called me that before.”
“Called you what?”
“Sweetheart.”
I hadn’t even realised I had. “We need to go, Ruth.”
She nodded, stood and looked around her room, taking it all in, as if it might be the last time she stood there.
There was every possibility.
I held out my hand. “The rest are waiting.”
“The other children?”
“Yes.”
That made up their mind. “Then I must be brave, for them.”
She took my hand and I led her out to the others. “Okay, we’re all here.”
Eckstein’s voice echoed down the corridor. “Dr Tomas?”
Ruth’s hand tightened around my own.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
I couldn’t take her with me. There was no telling what Eckstein had discovered.
“Here, you stay with me,” Allison said, holding out her own hand. “You heard Dr Tomas. She’ll only be a moment. We’ll all look after each other, won’t we?”
More nervously than I would have expected, Ruth let go of my hand and took Allison’s.
I mouthed a thank you and then went to find Eckstein. The guard was in the office Allison had suggested, sitting awkwardly on a chair in front of a monitor.
“How is it?” I asked.
“Not good.” He flicked a switch and showed the atrium of Neighbourhood One. The doors were open and the raiders were swarming in.
I gasped. “There’s so many of them.”
“And that’s not all.”
Another switch and the picture of a tall woman marching towards the front doors of N-2, followed by a colossus carrying what looked like a battering ram on his back.
“They’re everywhere,” he said, cycling through the feeds.
“Here?”
“Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time, see?”
Another image, the tunnels. A smaller woman came into shot now, striding confidently. Beside her was a less impressive man, rail-thin, and behind them...
It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. One minute, I was standing behind Eckstein and the next I was on the floor staring at the screen in disbelief.
“Dr Tomas?” Eckstein was out of his seat, offering his injured hand without thinking.
And all the time I couldn’t take my eyes off the display.
That face, after all these years. He looked older, of course he did, probably older than his years, but there was no mistaking him. His hair had receded slightly, his frame wirier than I remembered, but his eyes... As he passed the camera, he looked up, straight into the lens. Even on the grainy screen, they were so strong. So sure.
Looking straight at me.
And then he was gone.
“Dr Tomas.”
Eckstein’s voice. More demanding, insistent, bringing me out of my fugue.
“Yes, yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m sorry. I... It’s all been a bit much. I’m fine.”
Yes, because repeating it made it true.
He offered his hand again, but I refused, pushing myself up to sway on my feet.
It wasn’t possible, not after all this time.
Eckstein was talking again, although I couldn’t make out the words. I forced myself to concentrate.
“...know what we have to do.”
What the hell was the man talking about?
“The endgame? Ma’am, can you hear me?”
“Yes, of course I can.”
He’d found me. After all these years. When I had given up hope.
“So will you give me the authorisation?”
“Authorisation? For wha—” Then I realised what he had been saying. The endgame. A dead man’s switch. The Cabal’s orders were clear. When all lines of defence have failed, the base would be destroyed by explosives set into the foundations, ready to blow on the authorisation of the base commander, or whoever was left.
I shoo
k my head. “No, not that. Not yet.”
“We have to, doctor. It’s standing orders.”
“Not my orders; besides, we can’t. The computer system is inoperative. There’s no way of setting off the charges.”
“There is, from the bunker. We get the children down there, access the secondary system and then blow these bastards to the skies.”
He grabbed my shoulders now. “A signal will be sent to the Cabal.”
We couldn’t. I couldn’t. Not with him on the base. Not after he’d found me.
“They’ll send a rescue party,” Eckstein continued, desperately trying to make me see. “Take us back to Germany. All your work, it’ll be safe. The children will be—”
“No!”
I didn’t mean to push him that hard, and certainly didn’t expect for him to fall. It must have been his injury, the loss of blood. He’d been unsteady on his feet all the time.
The crack as Eckstein’s head met the table would have turned my stomach if it wasn’t already churning. He crashed to the floor, and moaned, rolling on his front. It was like it was happening to someone else. I watched a hand—my hand—go for the gun in Eckstein’s belt. I pulled it out, grabbing the barrel to pummel the butt into the back of the German’s head. I couldn’t stop myself. It wasn’t real. The crunch of his skull. The blood. The gun falling from my shaking hand as I staggered back.
Eckstein didn’t move.
Why wasn’t he moving?
Oh, God.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
My training kicked in. See if he’s breathing. Check his pulse.
“Leave him.”
I whirled around to find Olive standing in the door. Christ. Where had she come from? Had she seen what I’d done?
Her tidy ponytail had come loose, hair hanging down in front of manic eyes. Eyes I recognised; I see them every time I look in the mirror.
“Jasmine, he’s dead. But no-one will know.”
I retched, turning to vomit in the corner of the room, inches from Eckstein’s corpse.
Olive was by my side, rubbing my back. “That’s it. Let it all out. It’s fine. He deserved it, you know. He probably killed Samuel. Him and Lam. Working together. You never trusted them.”