Instinct (2010)

by Kay, Ben

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down there. Even if you could get through the CS, you can’t get your mom out without us. You need our IDs to get back inside the building.’

  Andrew kicked Garrett hard in the shin.

  ‘Kid, I’m being nice here, but you do that once more, you’re going over my knee.’

  Andrew stopped and stood huffing hard like a little bull.

  Carter spoke up: ‘Come on, guys, what the hell are you thinking? Garrett, I know you’re sore about what happened to Van Arenn, but come on. Whatever beef you’ve got with Bishop, you can’t just leave the others down there. If they’re all screwed, then we have to help them get out, not run away like pussies. You know that.’

  ‘We can’t go back, Carter,’ said Mills, sensing a worrying vulnerability in Garrett and Jacobs’ silence.

  ‘Mills, everyone already knows you’re a weak bitch. You can go whenever you’re ready. It’s these two I’m trying to make see sense.’

  Garrett ignored Mills. She wanted Carter to confirm that she was doing the right thing. If he wouldn’t do that, she wanted him to point her in the right direction. ‘We can’t go back down there now,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Bishop will shut the place down and won’t let us back up. We’ll be fucked.’

  ‘Why? He won’t know what’s happened up here. Taj is still throwing up in the bushes. You can go down there and get his mom, then persuade anyone else you find to come up here. That’s got to be a better situation than what you’ve got now.’

  ‘Yeah, Carter, but that’s why we didn’t handle it that way in the first place: the persuading’s going to take time and maybe get Bishop smelling a rat.’

  ‘Come on, Garrett, you’re better than that. We can see what five minutes gets us,’ reasoned Carter. Mills sighed. Garrett was obviously leaning towards giving this a go.

  ‘Please, Miss Garrett,’ begged Andrew.

  37

  ‘Who is it?’ snapped Bishop.

  His door eased open to reveal Takeshi, whose usual quiet deference doubled in the face of Bishop’s short temper.

  ‘Um … it’s the back of the holding area, sir.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘One of the motors has slipped a cog again.’

  Bishop tried to look up through half a mile of dirt to the sky. ‘Is there anything else, Lord? Busted latrine, maybe?’

  He got up and followed Takeshi out of the office.

  ‘Has the temperature dropped much?’ asked Bishop impatiently.

  ‘Not yet. We just heard the noise from behind the wall; a kind of tapping.’

  ‘Tapping?’

  ‘Yes. It sounds similar to the problem we had a few months ago, where it started slowly but broke down completely within a few hours. The difference this time is that the tapping is coming from two separate areas. That was why we thought we should inform you as soon as possible.’

  ‘Right.’

  They reached the holding bay, where Susan had managed to find the panel, and was now trying to prise it open with a screwdriver. She looked round at Bishop and spoke quite innocently, her delicate smile accentuating the feeling that this wasn’t really anything to worry about.

  ‘Hi, Mr Bishop. The noise was loudest over here, but it stopped a couple of minutes ago and started again over there, so I’m sure it’s just a loose connection in the heating duct or something like that.’

  Bishop looked to where Susan was pointing. ‘That’s not where the heating system is located. Was it coming from anywhere else?’

  ‘Around that corner.’ She gestured in rough circles towards the point where two walls met the ceiling. ‘I listened close, and there’s really two different noises: kind of a dull hum, like the heating has gone or something, then when you listen closer at the corner, it’s more of a scraping. We didn’t think there was a room behind here, so at first we were kind of confused, but I guess there’s all sorts of pipes and things that keep a place like this going.’

  Bishop moved to the corner to listen.

  ‘Like I said, the noise has stopped, so maybe it’s just fixed itself already.’ Takeshi noticed Bishop’s concern, but Susan just carried on filling the air with words.

  ‘Because, you know, if there’s something up with the heating, then the wasps and experiments and all that might be in trouble. That’s why we thought it best to come and tell you what’s going on. We don’t want the wasps dying on us, do we?’ A dark look from Bishop silenced her.

  Three ears strained towards the wall.

  ‘I still can’t hear anything,’ said Bishop.

  ‘Like I said, it might be all right now,’ added Susan.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do until we confirm what has been heard,’ said Bishop.

  ‘But even then what do we do? Should we get someone to fix it?’ asked Susan.

  ‘No, Miss Myers, I’ll deal with it from here.’

  There was an unpleasant pause, sharply concluded by a quick pitter-patter from the far end of the wall.

  ‘Did anyone just hear that?’ asked Bishop. A second later his question became redundant as the pitter-patter was replaced by a hard, muffled thrumming. Bishop dashed across to the noise and stood a few inches from the wall. He didn’t have to listen closely; the sound was loud and distinct, and could certainly be a malfunction in any part of the machinery.

  Then silence.

  38

  Webster had taken Laura to the canteen, partly for privacy and partly to get himself a bowl of cereal. Shovelling it into his mouth, he looked at her as if to ask why she wasn’t already speaking.

  ‘There’s something in Dr Heath’s notebook that I think we all need to know about.’ She indicated the relevant pages.

  Webster squinted. ‘iaaP function was established by transformation to insert nopaline or octopine Ti plasmids … Sorry, Dr Trent, I’m going to need a translation.’

  ‘Dr Heath has located and developed a gene that is necessary for indoleacetic-acid production. Under the right conditions, that would stimulate growth, which explains the increase in the wasps’ size, but it might also have developed their internal acidity.’

  ‘OK, now tell me why that’s such a big problem.’

  ‘Well, I assume you know how wasps make their nests, by breaking down materials, usually wood-pulp, but in practice whatever they can find. They chew these materials into a mush using their saliva. The increased acidity means they have a greater ability to do this.’

  ‘Sure. We saw them using whatever was in there to build that nest. Weren’t they having a go at the desk?’

  ‘From what I’ve read in this notebook, that may very well be possible.’

  ‘So synthetic substances aren’t beyond them,’ Webster reflected, without realizing the import of what he was saying.

  ‘Major Webster, what are the walls of this facility made of?’

  He almost said ‘plastic’. Instead, he thought better of it and spent a moment considering what Laura had said.

  ‘I understand from your silence that you know what I’m getting at. The next question is how thick are they and what is behind them?’

  ‘Uh, it varies,’ said Webster, collecting his thoughts. ‘Some of ’em are pretty solid, but the dividing walls aren’t more than a couple of inches.’

  He and Laura shared a look of grave concern.

  39

  Bishop pressed his ear to the cold, white plastic veneer.

  ‘I think I can … yes, I can hear a kind of scraping noise. Getting louder and …’

  As he spoke, the part of the wall against which he was holding his earhole disappeared in the shear of a grinding mandible.

  A split second later, the gap was filled with the dull, hard tip of a gigantic wasp antenna. It probed its way clumsily into Bishop’s ear like a blind man’s finger. He gasped loudly and scrambled halfway across the roo
m, scraping his earhole with a fingernail as if trying to remove something that was still there.

  Susan let out a thin, hideous scream that compounded the fear now filling the room like freezing fog.

  ‘Get out of here and lock the door. We need containment!’ Bishop shouted to Takeshi. ‘And calm her down. The whole place will go crazy if they hear that.’

  Takeshi didn’t move. He was staring at the antenna, imagining the creature it belonged to. It was in his nature to react with considered calm and thoughtful logic; these circumstances were blowing a hole through that.

  Susan continued screaming and ran for the door, her face spread wide in shock.

  Bishop saw the situation slipping from his grasp. Her panic would cause the rest of MEROS to explode with terror.

  Takeshi staggered backwards, collapsing on to the floor, trying to regain his thoughts. Sounds were coming from his mouth that were not words so much as grunted syllables. He got up and staggered towards the exit.

  As Susan disappeared into the corridor, George Estrada ran into the lab with a look of petrified confusion on his face.

  He caught Bishop’s eye and gabbled his words. ‘Sir, I–I thought you should know, there … there’s a strange noise coming from behind the walls of our lab. It, uh, could be the heating, sir, and we thought …’

  Bishop moved towards him, revealing the antenna.

  George almost jumped in shock. ‘Chingada Madre! What the fuck is that?’

  40

  A burning shriek pierced Laura and Webster’s conversation like a hot needle. Clattering the chairs aside, they ran into the corridor to find Takeshi leaning against a wall trying to control his shaking legs.

  George was slamming shut the door to the holding bay, while Susan had stopped screaming and was now jabbering incoherently at Webster in an attempt to explain what she had seen.

  Bishop was on the other side of the corridor, stabbing numbers into a panel on the wall.

  ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Webster.

  George pointed to the back of the lab, where Webster and Laura could clearly see the head of one of Heath’s wasps poking through a hole in the wall.

  ‘Check the other labs!’ yelled Bishop. ‘I’m bringing the Inshield down!’

  41

  On the plane, Garrett, Jacobs and Carter were having a hard time convincing Andrew that he didn’t need to re-enter the complex with them.

  ‘Look, I need to know my mum’s safe, so I’m coming too.’

  ‘Not if we say you’re not, little guy,’ scoffed Jacobs.

  ‘Seriously, this gas mask wouldn’t even fit you,’ said Carter.

  ‘And we need to move quickly. It’ll give us the best chance of getting your mom out,’ added Garrett.

  ‘Nope. Don’t trust you. I’m coming. Besides, the mask does work. I’m only just shorter than her.’ He zipped up the hazchem suit and mask and, sure enough, they fitted.

  ‘The name’s Jacobs.’

  A quiet good for you came from Andrew’s mask.

  ‘Mills, can you keep an eye on the kid until we get back?’ said Jacobs, zipping up her own suit and covering her face with her mask.

  ‘Why the fuck are we still having this conversation? We could be halfway to the Dominican Republic by now. We’re giving a shit about the wrong things.’

  ‘Great,’ said Garrett, ‘so the quicker you agree to look after the kid, the quicker we get the fuck in and out.’

  ‘OK,’ conceded Mills, ‘just hurry it up.’

  Carter and Garrett headed down the ramp towards the MEROS entrance, where Taj was recovering from the CS gas.

  Mills grabbed Andrew, who put up quite a struggle as he was bound hand and foot and stuffed down between two of the rows of seats. Jacobs watched this for a moment then hurried after Carter and Garrett.

  With a gun to his head, Taj opened the security doors to allow the three soldiers into the elevator. This was going to have to be fast and safe.

  As the lift began its long descent, Carter and Garrett pulled off their gas masks and checked their weapons to make sure they were locked and loaded. They knew the chances of using them were remote, but they wanted to know the option was there if things got desperate.

  ‘Hey, Jacobs, we’re past the CS now. Aren’t you hot in that thing?’ Carter asked. Jacobs shrugged then dropped her weapon as if she was confused by the weight of it. That’s when Carter noticed her fingernails.

  ‘What the hell?’ he said, whipping back the mask to reveal Andrew’s determined face.

  42

  Webster bolted down the corridor. Only three more of the labs were in regular use, and two of them didn’t have their lights on. Lisa Keller and Mike Irwin were already on their way out of the last one, looking for what had sparked off the commotion. Webster pushed them clear, locked the door and signalled to Bishop.

  He punched the final number into the touch pad and watched as panels running the length of the corridor’s ceiling opened and plates of sapphire glass began gradually to slide their way towards the floor.

  ‘What’s that?’ Laura asked Webster.

  ‘The Inshield. It’s a last-resort fallback that seals off all the labs and this side of the complex from here to the elevator. It protects us from the wasps. We freeze the other side and get out when they’re dead. Until then, nothing comes in or goes out.’

  ‘But Andrew’s outside.’

  ‘Sorry. The guys will take care of him, but we’re going to be locked down here for a few hours at least.’

  With a low, ominous clang, the shield locked into the floor at the other end of the corridor. The noise made Laura turn.

  In the lab behind her, a torch beam was waving frantically through the darkness. A moment later, the light switch was turned on. Harry was standing under the flickering bulbs which were coming to life in Lab 7. He turned off the torch and stood staring at the shield like it was his own gravestone.

  ‘Major,’ Laura said, tugging on Webster’s sleeve.

  He looked up to see what she was pointing at and felt an icy wash pass through him.

  He turned his gaze to the corridor. None of the other scientists had noticed that Harry was behind the glass.

  ‘Everyone in the canteen, now!’ he yelled.

  43

  ‘You best stay the hell in this elevator while we get your mom out,’ Garrett warned Andrew as they continued to plummet.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ replied Andrew, knowing he didn’t have to do anything he was told. While they looked for their friends, he was going to find his mum.

  The elevator slowed. It had to decelerate so much, Carter and Garrett knew they still had a good twenty seconds to prepare.

  ‘OK, Garrett. We’ve got to grab whoever we can and get them into the elevator before Bishop stops us. We see him, I sit on his ass till you get the others, and then I let him go.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘And get his mom early. We don’t want him going out on his own.’Andrew pretended he hadn’t heard and stood facing the doors. Carter moved him to the back of the elevator and stood poised next to Garrett.

  They had travelled in the lift often enough to know how fast the doors opened, so they readied themselves for the exact moment they would be able to spring out.

  The elevator slowed to a stop. There was a beat to wait, then the doors shhsssssshhed apart fast.

  Carter and Garrett jumped forward, spotting the glass at the last fraction of a second. Turning sideways, they just managed to skid to a stop and avoid running into it face first.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ asked Garrett

  ‘The Inshield.’ Carter sounded worried. ‘It’s the security system that comes down if any of the wasps escape. It means nothing can get to the surface, including this elevator, until everything’s guaranteed safe.’

  ‘The wasps are out?’ gasped Andrew.

  ‘Maybe. The
re could be other reasons for it. We need to see what we can find out before we think about panicking,’ said Carter.

  ‘Should we try the phone?’ asked Garrett.

  ‘It goes up to Taj. Somehow I don’t think he’s going to be much help right now.’

  ‘So we’ve got to stay in the elevator until they sort things out? Could be worse.’

  Carter was silent. He didn’t mind delivering bad news to Garrett – she could take it – but he didn’t need Andrew to be more scared than he already was.

  He looked around the small space they filled and realized they would both know sooner or later, so he might as well say it now.

  ‘Yeah, well, the real problem comes in stage two.’

  ‘What happens then?’ asked Garrett.

  ‘Everything this side of the glass freezes.’

  44

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Bishop. The scientists were safely out of the way in the canteen, so he went to find out what had spooked Webster.

  A flick of the head in Harry’s direction was all it took.

  ‘Oh, good God,’ said Bishop quietly. ‘Do what you can. I’m going to call Paine.’

  Laura looked expectantly at Webster, but he could only shake his head.

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ Laura said.

  Webster remained silent.

  ‘But it won’t be long before Heath’s wasps try to get into this lab.’

  ‘We’ll deal with that when it happens.’

  In the lab, Harry looked at the gene sequencers and took notes of the latest readings, jotting them down on a clipboard.

  As he walked towards the last one, he suddenly froze.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Laura. She and Webster watched as Harry turned round very slowly to face the back wall. His brow lowered in concern as he walked cagily towards it.