“Okay, maybe this would be a good time to fill the rest of us non-geeks in,” Madigan snapped as she strode closer, her impatience very evident.
“Yeah. Right.” Vickie chuckled. “This is a…okay, I’ll call it a port to make it simple. One of our very dead friends will have a keycard—or maybe all of them do?—and that there is where I can plug my tablet in.”
“And?” Taylor could understand Kennedy’s impatience.
“Come on, Tay-Tay. It’s my access to at least some of the system. If nothing else, I can get the doors open without it being messy.”
“Fuck. So why didn’t you kick off with that?” Niki snapped. “Right, everyone search the bodies for a keycard. It’ll likely be tucked into the suit somewhere to keep it safe.”
Martin grimaced but dropped to one knee beside the closest corpse and the others moved quickly to start the search.
“That big guy over there looked like the leader—if you could call him that. They weren’t particularly well led, overall.” Jansen moved quickly to one of the bodies that had holed up on the section of wall. He knelt and began to dismantle the armor around the chest. A few minutes later, he whooped in triumph and brandished a small plastic card. “Well shit. This guy had no imagination. He didn’t even try to hide it.”
“From who?” Maxwell asked and laughed. “He needed it where he could get to it easily.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Madigan dragged in a breath. “Give that fucking thing to Vickie and let’s get this show on the road. We can share the idiot stories later.”
Jansen hurried forward and put the card in the hacker’s outstretched hand. She had her tablet poised and ready and pulled a nervous face as she swiped the card. The team gathered around her and someone exhaled a long breath when an indicator light turned green.
“So far…don’t fuck it up, Vickie,” she muttered, shrugged, and shoved the tablet connection into the slot. “Yes! Oh very fucking yes.”
Her fingers moved furiously, her tense demeanor somehow exaggerated by the suit, and as if by general consensus, everyone remained silent while she worked.
“Annnnnd…done. I’ve managed to open the door, but it looks like it cycles so we’d best not waste time.”
“Right.” Taylor all but shoved the others through as the door opened slowly and gestured impatiently to the hacker, who finally unplugged her tablet and followed the team.
“I managed to download schematics that should help us navigate without getting lost,” she told them as the doors closed and a muted click indicated that it had already sealed again. “It's a fucking maze down there. That's all I can do without alerting them to my presence in the system, although I'm sure they’ll find out soon enough. I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. Any questions?"
Sal immediately opened the schematics and looked through them. The shared nature of the file allowed the rest of the team to see him shifting quickly through the different levels and sections of the base. He remained silent and continued until he reached one of the lower areas that had been cut deeper into the ground. This created a single large room that took up the whole of the lowest level and spread farther so it was wider than the rest of the facility with a massive arching roof.
"Okay, I'm no architect," he said thoughtfully and looked at the waiting team members, "but if I built a massive room to house my own personal bite-sized Zoo, that is where I'd put it."
"What will you do when you find it?" Niki asked and checked her weapon yet again as they started toward the doors.
"Wreck that shit," the doctor answered immediately with a small grin. "Burn every trace of it down to the last spore to make sure no part of it will ever get out."
"I like the way you think," Taylor responded grimly. "Vickie, whenever you're ready with the doors, I'm ready to run pest control."
Chapter Twenty-Five
The facility didn't resemble anything the US-based team had encountered before.
"There's something different about this," Vickie commented as they moved deeper inside. "I'm not sure what it is, but it's not like any of the other labs where we’ve had to take care of cryptid fuckers. I simply can't put my finger on it, though."
"Who's we?" Taylor asked. "Isn't this the first time you've come on a mission like this?"
"Sure," she replied. "Physically, that is. But I've been involved with missions before—even if some of them were after the fact—and I've seen the pictures. There's a decided…lack of dead people around here. Well, except for those we left outside."
"Give it a couple of weeks," Niki muttered. "These places have a habit of making a mess of themselves if you give them long enough."
Jacobs chuckled softly. "You'd think they would have learned their lesson from the first time around."
"If there's anything I've learned from looking into what these assholes do behind closed doors," she commented and ran her fingers across the tiled walls, "it's that they'll always put profits above everything else. Including their employees' lives."
Taylor looked around the room. Despite the bantering, Vickie was right. There was something off about the location.
"They aren't finished building it," he muttered and tapped the walls. "Construction is still ongoing."
The others paused and looked around the room. At first glance, it looked like it had for decades. American bases were built to last, after all, but even so, exposed wiring protruded and while some sections were tiled, others were not.
"Who the hell would already start testing Zoo goop at a location that isn't even finished yet?" Madigan asked and scanned the room.
"I guess they were in a hurry," Vickie responded as she turned and hurried toward a small room where a number of servers connected to screens.
"Do you think you can work from here?" Taylor asked. It was better to not make any assumptions about things he didn't understand.
"Sure, but…yeah, I was afraid of that. They've isolated their servers into different sections. I guess they were worried about people having access to what they tested in various areas. Taylor, if you can use the fobs I gave you, I'll organize everything they have on their servers and I'll be able to pin down the fuckers who are running this facility."
"I guess that'll be my job," he muttered. "Jansen, Maxwell, and Niki with me. Sal, you and your team will have to take care of the clean-up on your own."
"Exactly like old times." The researcher grinned, bumped his extended fist, and gestured for his team to follow him to the nearest stairwell.
"Vickie," Taylor said once they were on their way, "do you think you'll be okay up here? You have enough firepower to defend yourself if you get into any trouble."
"I'll be fine," she insisted and waved for them to leave. "You guys have work to do. I've already highlighted the locations where you'll need to insert the little fob for me to get access. Get a fucking move on!"
"Everyone is shouting orders at me today," he mumbled under his breath and motioned for Maxwell, Jansen, and Niki to follow him as the hacker sealed herself in the room.
Their first location was still on the first level and they were able to reach it without encountering any further resistance. Taylor already had the fob out and plugged it in immediately.
"Are you getting this, Vick?"
"Yeah…and Vick?"
"I thought that was better than the other nickname I came up with for you."
"You’re setting the bar very low there, Tay-Tay, and besides, Vick brings to mind a certain…quarterback who had issues with animals."
"He set it right after, didn't he?"
"Like that excuses him from doing any of it in the first place? Keep working, Tay-Tay. On the nickname and finding the rest of the server rooms."
"Work, work, work."
He stepped into the stairwell with his rifle aimed down while he checked to make sure no one was defending it before he moved fully through the door. Two stairwells led up and down from the lower levels, and with Sal taking the other
one, they could at least confirm that no one would sneak in behind them.
They reached the next level with no sign of defenses being set up, and all Taylor could think about was where the rest of the security might be. He still couldn't believe they had dealt with the entire defensive team above ground. Those who had been there didn't account for the numbers they had brought in and which he had read about.
"You're worried," Niki commented as they circled into the first of the lower levels and scanned it quickly before they stepped into the hallway.
There wasn't much available in the way of cover, which meant that if a gunfight ensued, they would have to act quickly and with overwhelming force.
"I don't like this," he admitted and swept the hallway ahead of him with his rifle as they continued. "If they're not attacking us by now, it means they've found a position they can and will defend. And I'd put good money on them having teams already mobilizing from the mainland to reinforce them here, so we're on a clock. Vickie, do you have anything on cameras that can tell us what we're looking at?"
"They didn't install a camera system," Vickie grumbled over the comms.
"That's not… are you sure? That doesn't seem likely."
"Well, it's either that or they have the cameras and security running on an isolated…system…"
"You just realized that's a possibility, didn't you?"
"Cut me some slack. I'm out of my element here and their electronic security is beyond belief. Last I heard, Desk was trying to find a way around it from the outside but for now, I’m on my own. Anyway, yeah, I'll look for the security systems but there's only so much I can do from here. You need to connect me to their security servers, so…sooner would be better than later."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that shit."
Taylor paused and glanced up at what looked like a camera mount. It was in a mirrored glass seal, which prevented him from seeing what someone was watching—or if there even were people on the other side.
"Okay," he muttered. "There is a chance they are tracking our movements, so keep your heads on a swivel."
The warning proved unnecessary as a few seconds later, the doors in front of them pulled shut, quickly followed by those behind them. They were effectively sealed into the single hallway they currently traversed.
"I don't want to say this is bad," Niki noted. "But having us trapped in here probably isn't the best thing. They can't attack us, but we can't do anything either. Us hitting them is the idea, isn't it?"
Taylor didn't want to answer, given that he still wasn't sure they couldn't be attacked while in their little trap. Sure enough, as his mind considered the possibilities, something moved in the walls around them.
Niki heard it too. "Okay… I may have spoken too soon."
"You think?"
"What am I looking at?" Kennedy asked.
Sal opened his mouth but nothing came out. He wasn't sure what they were looking at either and he didn't want to make any assumptions.
Davis tapped the glass and shook his head. "Well, this shit is about four inches thick and tempered, so whatever they kept behind here, it wasn't small and they didn't want to risk giving it a way out. Could they have held live Zoo specimens there?"
"Honestly, that makes sense," she conceded. "But if so, why did they put the doors at the back? If they wanted to study the creatures they kept in here, why would they have doors open to an entirely different section of the building?"
"Maybe this is simply to display them," Martin suggested.
"That also makes sense." Sal took his turn to tap the glass. "But that also brings up the question of where the fuck these critters are in the first place."
Madigan scowled. "That is a good point. Do you think they're being used in the defenses?"
He laughed but couldn't put his heart behind it. While part of him was sure no one would be stupid enough to do that, he had been proven wrong in matters of human stupidity before.
"Get down!"
His long experience around Madigan was sufficient to know she didn't toss those orders around randomly and for no reason. He had already flung himself prone before she finished saying it, and the team followed quickly. Less than a quarter of a second later, a rocket streaked over their head and drove into one of the glass cages.
Most of the explosive force was absorbed by the thick, shatterproof glass, but it still didn't stop them from being showered by shards from the sections that did break.
Sal pushed himself to his feet using his extra limbs. A group had organized themselves at the end of the corridor and used the cages as cover, which protected them against being gunned down by the return fire the Heavy Metal team now leveled at them.
"Push them back!" he shouted.
Madigan realized that the order was meant for her and she marched toward them, using both her shoulder-mounted weapons. It didn't stop their retaliatory fire, but there was no way they could have stopped the team from closing the distance.
He focused on the three who stood on the left side. They wore heavy suits, and while they were more than effective, they were also a little hampered in the close quarters.
Madigan and their teammates would have to deal with the other seven on their own.
Sal powered himself forward and fired around the corner a couple of times with the extra limbs on his suit before he took control of his weapon back. He let the suit move him as the enemy aimed for where they assumed his center of mass would be as he advanced on them.
Matt Davis had a good idea of how the suits were built—or, rather, he knew more than most about how to disable them—and Sal had paid attention to what he had to say. Most needed vents to operate, which were the most vulnerable places in the armor if you could get in close enough and behind them.
In his case, moving around them was made a little easier as the suit assisted his vault over the other mercs where they were crammed too closely together. This allowed him to open fire on two at the same time. He targeted the cooling vents immediately and used his knife to disable the third.
It wasn't a clean strike but it did the trick, and smoke began to issue from inside the suits almost immediately. The damage wasn’t severe enough that they were unable to move—the suits had a handful of different vents that could keep the machinery cool—but it ended up being a problem for whoever was inside as the noxious and toxic gasses could kill them in minutes.
Ten seconds passed before the pilots evacuated, coughing and hacking while tears streamed from their eyes.
Someone would correct the vulnerability soon and he didn't want to be caught in it himself, but while it was there, he would use and abuse it.
"If I let you fuckers go," he asked with his weapons aimed at the three men, "will you go topside and stay out of this whole debacle, or will you cause trouble and end up like…those guys?"
He nodded his head toward the group who were in the process of being eliminated by Madigan, Davis, and Martin.
The three mercs exchanged a glance and raised their hands in surrender.
"We don't want any trouble," one of them said with a French accent.
"Any more trouble, anyway," an American amended.
Sal smiled but kept his weapons trained on them. "Awesome. Get the fuck out of here and don't stop running until you see blue skies. Go!"
They didn't need to be told twice, turned immediately on their heels, and sprinted in the direction from which Sal and the others had come.
"Do you think that was a good idea?" Madigan asked while her weapons reloaded and cooled for a few seconds.
"I don't know why but killing humans still feels wrong for me," he admitted and walked away from the still-smoking suits. "I can do that shit if I need to and there was a time when it didn’t worry me so much. But given the option, I’d prefer to let the humans get away—at least in this kind of situation, where they probably don’t know what the fuck is going on. They weren’t actively trying to kill me so it seemed like a good idea."
Madigan s
mirked and patted him lightly on the head. "I keep forgetting how naïve you can be. It's adorable."
"Shut up."
"It's true!"
"I said shut up!"
Taylor narrowed his eyes as sections of the wall began to slide apart and open what looked like a series of tunnels into the structure itself. It revealed how much work had been put into the facility.
"What the hell am I looking at?" he asked.
"Remember how this was supposed to be a nuclear base?" Vickie replied over the comms. "Those were designed as vents for the rockets in the event that something needed to be launched. When that was scrapped, they started…building around that, I guess. I told you guys. This place is a fucking…maze…"
"What?"
"I've managed to get eyes in the area. I'm working on opening the doors again, but…it looks like you're about to have company."
"What kind of company?" Niki asked.
A low, rumbling, rolling hiss issued from inside the tunnel.
"Never mind." Taylor growled belligerently. "Get away from the hole and give me a shooting pattern. I want to put as many holes in whatever comes out as possible, got it?"
There weren't many opportunities for a choke like this in the Zoo or even hunting cryptids. Hell, humans usually had enough sense to avoid these kinds of situations, but from what he could hear barreling down the tunnel, whatever approached was more than willing to risk it.
The hissing grew louder. He could see the shadows of something moving toward them. It was big and moved fast—a little too fast, he realized suddenly.
"Oh, you have to be kidding me," he whispered. "Change of plans—we'll need explosives instead!"
Chapter Twenty-Six
He wasn’t sure why he hadn't recognized the sound. It had been a frequent flier in his nightmares, one of the few monsters he genuinely dreaded facing in the Zoo.
It wasn't the creature that made the hissing noise but the carapaces gliding and scraping over the walls. With its tremendous size moving through the narrow tunnels, it would grind against the wall no matter how well it could move.
Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Page 22