Instinct (2010)

by Kay, Ben

  ‘You damn right, Jacobs.’

  ‘Me and Mills didn’t want to do it but Garrett, she said it had to happen. We still told her no and thought she’d agreed, but it turned out she decided to do things her way.’

  ‘Oh yeah? So why you wearing your hazchem suits and masks? On the off-chance?’

  ‘Nope. The plan was to keep anonymous, pretend there was a leak down there and that we were Webster and Carter needing to head out to the storage unit up here for supplies. Then we were going to get Madison to fly us out. Swear to God, casualties were not a part of the plan.’

  A pause to avoid looking gullible, then: ‘So what you want now?’

  ‘The others have been gone a long time. We want to know they’re not dead.’

  A longer pause.

  ‘Taj?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘So, are they dead?’

  ‘Nope. Got readings for them all on my motion sensor. Looks like they all in Bishop’s office, but none dead, ’less you count Harry Merchant. He bought it in Lab 7 a half-hour ago.’

  ‘So why don’t you call down to Bishop?’

  ‘Lost contact twenty minutes back. The Inshield came down, they needed to bring it back up to get the guys out of the elevator. Sounds like things got messed up.’

  ‘With the new wasps?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Mills.

  ‘So what we gonna do?’ asked Jacobs through the door.

  ‘We gonna wait, and you gonna do your waiting outside.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Jacobs and Mills took a walk back to the plane to decide on their next move.

  ‘You know, I say we get the hell out of here.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen, Mills,’ replied Jacobs.

  They climbed up the ramp of the plane to find Madison’s mouth covered in a dark red crust.

  ‘Oh, you’re back then,’ he garbled through blood and missing teeth.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Jacobs.

  ‘You know, whatever shit you pull on me, I ain’t taking him anywhere.’

  ‘Forget it, Madison. We got bigger turds on our plate than your PMS,’ Mills replied.

  ‘What? You lost your buddies in a wasp accident?’

  ‘Hey, Madison, your face looks a little swollen on the right side. Do you want me to even it up on the left or do you want to shut the fuck up?’

  ‘Hey, Mills, untie me and we’ll see who evens things up.’

  ‘How about I don’t and we see what you look like with your airplane rammed up your arse?’

  Mills gripped Madison’s jaw, inflicting obvious pain. Madison responded by spitting a phlegmy gob of blood over Mills’ nose.

  Wiping it off and taking a repulsed look at it, Mills drew back his fist, only to find Jacobs holding his arm with surprising strength.

  ‘Chill the fuck out,’ she hissed into Mills’ ear. ‘What possible situation can you think of where we will not need this man?’

  Trying to maintain some dignity in the face of being humiliated by a woman and a tied-up man, Mills loosed himself from Jacobs’ grip and stomped back down the ramp, repeatedly kicking Madison’s plane on the way.

  ‘Fucking asshole,’ said Madison.

  Jacobs exhaled slowly, shut her eyes and took a seat across the aisle from Madison. They sat in silence for a while, deliberately ignoring each other, until it felt pointless.

  ‘So … are they really fucked down there?’

  ‘Could be,’ she replied quietly.

  ‘If MEROS is screwed, I need to know. If there’s any doubt, then I’m not going anywhere. Whether I’m airlifting corpses, survivors or the whole damn team …’

  ‘Just shut up, Madison,’ said Jacobs wearily.

  ‘Hmmph, you and shitwipe down there go to the same charm school, huh?’

  ‘Look, Taj says they’ve brought the Inshield down. That means things have gone very wrong. He’s heard nothing for twenty minutes. That means things have gone even worse than that. My friends are down there, and there’s nothing I can do to help them, so excuse me if I’m not minding my Ps and Qs. I’m in a bad place, and I need to work out how to leave it.’

  Jacobs walked out into the clearing and looked at the grass beneath her feet. Somewhere down there, the people she was closest to were scared. Maybe they were trapped somewhere with no way out. They could be in pain. Some of them could be dead. She tried to imagine what it would be like if she were down there with them, if she were fighting for her life, or the lives of the people around her.

  She looked back at Madison, bruised, pissed off and none too bright. Then she turned to Mills, who had gone back to lying on the grass. His tall, blond British arrogance crept right under her skin. The big gap between his talents and his opinion of himself made him halfway between a help and a hindrance. Then there was Taj. He was fine behind a desk, but if things had to get physical, 250 lbs of lazy fat was not what she wanted by her side.

  She made up her mind: whatever the people underground needed to get them out of there, it would be up to her, and she was not going to let them down.

  57

  His fingers wrapped around the door handle, Webster peered through the window panel. The corridor was pitch black, offering no clues to what lay ahead. He looked back to Bishop, who gave his final nod of assent, and pushed the handle down.

  As soon as the metal bar moved, a violent blast of machine-gun fire rang out through the door. Webster dropped to the ground, while the first bullets passed an inch from his hand.

  The others dropped on to their fronts, doing their best to evade something they could not see.

  Sound shot through them, filling the small room with cracking explosions of gunpowder and smaller but closer crunches of bullets on wood.

  Nerves that were already burning were now stretched as tense as piano wire. The fear that came from being under attack was multiplied by not knowing where that attack was coming from.

  Was someone firing at them from behind the door? Who? And why would whoever it was want them dead?

  Then it stopped, just as suddenly as it had begun.

  Everyone was still forcing themselves into a tight ball or flat against the ground. Surely they weren’t safe already?

  It took a few moments for Webster to trust the silence.

  ‘Is everyone OK?’ he asked, easing himself off the floor. The others had been away to the side, giving Webster room, so no one was hurt. They opened their eyes and looked up again.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I forgot we mounted motion-sensor guns in the corridor in case any of them got that far. Turning the handle must have set them off. I guess we need to do something to run the bullets down. Everybody back.’ He pointed to the furthest corner from the door and the others obediently squashed up into it. ‘And brace yourself for some more loud noises.’

  Satisfied that they were out of harm’s way, Webster grabbed the handle one more time, pulled the door open and ducked. Another blast of fire came and went.

  He knew there was still more ammunition, so he sat on the floor throwing protocol manuals into the corridor until the guns stopped shredding them to confetti.

  After three increasingly hard throws got no response, he risked a very careful look through the doorway. Nothing.

  ‘OK, people, I think we’re good to go.’

  Webster moved into the doorway with extreme caution. The guns had definitely stopped firing, so he beckoned the others out of their refuge and sent Carter ahead.

  The corridor smelled stale, but only faintly. It was as if the molecules of death and horror were sleeping but not absent. The light from the office sent a gradually darkening illumination halfway down, enough to show that the space was clean and featureless but giving no indication of where it led. It was utterly silent, until it gave the softest of echoes from the
noise of the boots that now inched across its steel floor.

  Carter’s left hand held a heavy-duty torch, which sent a wide wash of soft light across the span of the corridor ahead. His right hand was wrapped tightly around the stippled grip of his 9mm semi-automatic Glock 17, which had all three safety mechanisms disengaged and a full 19-round magazine locked and loaded. He stepped forward gradually, his senses on red alert, searching the inconsistencies of the torchlight for anything that might require his attention.

  As he passed the spent guns, he stopped sharp and pointed his weapon dead ahead. In the darkness of the hatch window, he could just make out the milky glint of two eyeballs staring back at him.

  He stood tensed, waiting for whatever it was to make a move. The eyes remained static and, in the shadows that surrounded them, he could not make out what they were attached to.

  Taking another step, he blinked, and finally realized he was pointing his gun at a reflection of himself. With a little smile of relief, he lowered his pistol and covered the last few feet of the empty corridor.

  He got to the far door, switched off his torch and peered through to the Abdomen. It was too dark to discern anything except for several hazy pools of faint blue light. He watched for a minute to see if there was any movement, but the vast blackness was perfectly still. He flicked the drop safety on his Glock and headed back to get the others.

  He called to them as early as possible, just to make sure they didn’t think his footsteps were anything to be afraid of.

  ‘Hey, guys. Only me. Just Carter,’ he said, emerging into the light of Bishop’s office.

  ‘Nothing to report. Not in the corridor, anyway. I had a look through to the Abdomen, but there were just some faint blue lights. Nothing moving.’

  ‘If the blue lights are on, then the generator is still working,’ said Bishop.

  ‘What generator would still be working after ten years?’ asked George.

  ‘It’s self-sustaining. Perpetual electricity. It’s a version of the Elsasser model with a 24k gold conductor. It worked perfectly until we had to abandon, but I had no idea it would still be operating now.’

  ‘Is that good?’ asked Garrett.

  ‘Could go either way.’

  ‘Anyway, if that’s where we’re heading, it looks about as safe as it’s going to look,’ Carter said.

  ‘OK, people,’ said Webster, ‘we need to take whatever weapons we can carry and get going.’

  Garrett went in first, leading a line of eleven people through the corridor. When she got to the end, she looked back at Webster, the light from the office casting everyone into silhouettes.

  ‘Whenever you’re ready, Major.’

  Stomachs writhed like bags of snakes and legs weakened as Webster shut the door behind them.

  ‘OK, Garrett. Open it up.’

  There was a central wheel on the door, which she took in both hands. Expecting resistance, she used her full strength to power through the grinding dryness. After some effort, the bolt slid aside. They were now just one hard pull away from entry.

  ‘OK, Major,’ she said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘I’m opening the door.’

  She eased it back an inch at a time, listening for signs of what lay beyond.

  The first thing to hit them was the heat. The Abdomen’s thermostat was connected to the generator, and the accumulation of warmth had given it the feeling of a jungle in August, a physical wall of sultry moisture almost pushing them backwards.

  Next was the smell. Combined with the tangible humidity, no one had ever taken in an odour quite like it, and for that they were glad. It was a fusty combination of excretion, decaying flesh, dirt and bacteria.

  Mike, Lisa and Bishop retched.

  When they had recovered, Webster signalled to Garrett, and she pulled the door wide open.

  It was time to go in.

  58

  Mills and Jacobs stood at the bottom of the Spartan’s loading ramp.

  ‘We need to speak to Taj again, find out what’s going on down there. And let’s untie him,’ Jacobs said, gesturing towards Madison.

  ‘Untie him?’ asked Mills.

  ‘About fucking time,’ said Madison.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Mills, this has gone far enough. He’s done nothing wrong, and we’re going to need all the help we can get.’

  ‘But he’s going to …’

  ‘Kick your fucking ass. That’s right, Mills.’

  ‘Madison, if you want to kick his ass, you can stay tied up. We need you, and you’ll need both of us. Keep it calm till we’re out of here or stay where you are.’

  Madison scowled. ‘I can play nice.’

  ‘Mills?’ Jacob asked like a kindergarten teacher.

  ‘One move and I’ll put a hole in your spine,’ said Mills, with all the menace he could muster.

  They set Madison free and walked towards the MEROS entrance, which was still firmly shut.

  ‘Taj?’

  ‘Jacobs.’

  ‘OK, we can carry on talking like this but, instead, you could just let us in. Something has gone wrong, and the four of us need to do what we can to sort it out.’ There was a pause while they waited for Taj to react, then the external security door slid open to reveal a suspicious face leaning over the desk.

  ‘You’d better not try any shit.’

  ‘OK, Taj, just so you know, we tried shit before because we wanted to get out of here. Now we want to get back in, and you’re the only person who can help us. No more shit will be tried.’

  Taj looked at them all warily, especially Mills. ‘Haughty-ass motherfucker,’ were the words he had used to describe the Englishman to Garrett just a week earlier. ‘Acts like his shit come out in a goddamn Tiffany box.’

  Madison and Jacobs were fine by him; they weren’t exactly his best friends, but he had no problem with them.

  ‘Yeah, well, dunno how much help I’m gonna be. Inshield ain’t comin’ up, so the elevator ain’t gonna be movin’. If the elevator ain’t movin’ and I can’t raise ’em on the intercom, we shit out of choices.’

  ‘Has there been any more movement down there?’ asked Jacobs.

  ‘A bunch. Beats me where they gone, though. I’m getting readings a long way out the back of Bishop’s office. Also got a bunch right outside it. Those ones ain’t moved for a while, though.’

  ‘So now your motion sensor has broken down,’ sighed Mills.

  ‘Could be. Could be there’s another way out.’

  ‘But there’s nothing …’

  Jacobs interrupted Mills before he riled Taj.

  ‘Can we just get the facts straight? They lowered the Inshield, which means something big went wrong, and the elevator got stuck down there with Carter, Garrett and Andrew.’

  ‘Right. Then they started the freeze, to kill everything behind the glass so they could get the wasps dead or stunned or some shit, make ’em harmless at least. Then they was getting me to raise the shield so the guys in the elevator could get out before they froze too much, then they was going to lower the shield again to keep the wasps dyin’. That was the plan. I got to raise the shield part way, then I thought Bishop was telling me to lower it, but he was spooked by something big time and that was the last I heard.’

  ‘So they’re fucked,’ said Mills. ‘They’re all dead.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Jacobs.

  ‘No, and I don’t know Garrett’s a dyke but, looking at the evidence, I can take a pretty good guess.’

  ‘So you saying we should just leave them there? Let me fly you guys to Bermuda to chill?’ asked Madison.

  ‘No, I’m saying we might as well act like they’re all dead, because it sounds close on 100 per cent they are.’

  ‘Taj, have you got any contact with them? Access to security cameras, phone records, anything that can tell us what’s happening down there?’


  ‘Nothin’ but the motion sensors. They got a half-mile range through anything. So, like I said: buncha readings out the back of Bishop’s office and a lot right outside the door. Those ones ain’t human, though.’

  ‘Wasps?’

  ‘Most likely.’

  ‘And have the motion sensors ever been wrong before?’

  ‘Not these new ones. Installed three months ago and state of the art. ’Less something gone haywire, Bishop’s office got a back door.’

  ‘I’ve been in Bishop’s office, but I never saw another door,’ said Jacobs.

  ‘Me neither,’ added Mills.

  ‘Well, me neither, too,’ said Taj, attempting to imitate Mills’ English accent. ‘But I tell you, if there’s something back there, it’s big. I’m getting multiple readings some hundred yards from the office.’

  Jacobs thought for a moment. As hope went, it was a match flame in a tornado, but that was better than nothing.

  ‘You got a plan of this place?’ she said at last.

  59

  Standing in the Abdomen was a uniquely terrifying experience. As far as they could see, there was a long, dense darkness lit only sporadically by the faint glow of the blue lights. The illumination was too weak to give any idea of what the room actually looked like, other than its dimensions, so all they knew was that they were somewhere very big and very dark.

  Given what Bishop and Webster had told them about what may or may not lie within these walls, this cavernous unknown multiplied the fear that hung over them like cold mist. The words had taken on a reality that brought the potential for death much closer.

  At the head of the group, Garrett’s torch provided some much-needed clarity, but it also created a series of leaping shadows, exacerbating the tension, which was already wound tight enough to snap.

  The heat had covered everyone in a slick of perspiration that made hands slippery, while the crawling of sweat drops was often mistaken for the touch of an unseen creature. Panicked hands rose to cheeks and foreheads, ready to swat away wings, legs or antennae which turned out not to exist.