“With all due respect, I believe I do know what was going on here, but it would certainly be easier if you could fill in a few details. Let’s start with your name.”
The man let out an exasperated snort. “Bhanjee. Dr. Manoj Bhanjee. Chief Geneticist.”
“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
But Bhanjee wasn’t willing to engage in pleasantries. “Look, idiot, I don’t give a flying crap just who you are or how many men you have with you. Unless you’ve got the entire U.S. Army out there, I was about 100 times better off locked in my little hidey-hole back there.”
Something in his tone struck a chord with Riley. The man clearly felt he was safer locked up inside a cell, effectively cornered like a rat in the hole, rather than out here with them. It wasn’t the glowing endorsement Riley’d expected from someone they’d just extricated from the inside of a box.
Apparently the comment hit home with Cade, too. As Riley watched, he pulled the patch off his eye and turned to look at the glass walls around them.
“They’re warded. All of the cells are warded!”
The prisoner glanced at him, his expression changing from anger to curiosity, but when he spoke up his scathing tone hadn’t changed. “Of course the cells are warded. Do you think we’d have tried to contain them with only bullet proof plexiglass?”
Whatever Cade was going to say in response was lost as he whipped his head around to face the entrance they’d passed through more than an hour before. As he turned Riley could see that his good eye, his left, was still closed, which meant whatever he was seeing was coming to him through the ghost-white orb that was all that remained of his right eye.
“Reapers!” he shouted into the radio and a moment later the double doors at the end of the hall burst open as the surviving demons from their earlier battle smashed their way through.
The creatures came on without thought to tactics or strategy and this was just fine with the members of the Echo Team, who wanted nothing more than the chance to avenge Callavechio’s death. Cade’s warning had been enough for Chen and Ortega, positioned about fifteen feet back from the entrance, to prepare themselves for the assault and in seconds the central corridor became a shooting gallery. The demons were constrained by both the bullet proofing of the glass and the warding etched all over its surface, effectively limiting their options. They had no choice but to funnel straight down the hallway toward the two men, which was just what they wanted. Their MP5s roared, the sound echoing in the confined space, and the slugs tore into the flesh of their foes with what to Riley appeared to be reckless abandon.
As the men from First Squad held off the initial assault, Riley and Cade moved into position behind them. On a radioed command from Cade the two men in front went down on one knee, allowing the newcomers, now standing behind them, to open fire also. Riley’s Mossberg thundered in counterpoint to the crack of Cade’s pistol, and both weapons played a syncopated rhythm to their companions.
The demons were, quite literally, cut to pieces by the withering hail of gunfire.
By the time Duncan, Flynn, and Davis had moved into position to back them up, the firefight was over.
In the silence that followed, a muffled cry came from the other end of the hall.
Riley spun around.
Down at the other end, he had the barest glimpse of Dr. Bhanjee being wrapped in inky black wings and they were gone.
The corridor was empty.
Chapter Twenty-Two
With Dr. Bhanjee gone, their chance of learning first-hand just what had happened disappeared with him and a sense of gloom settled about the group. That they could have been so careless as to leave him undefended was troubling, to say the least. Cade knew it was simply a result of having constantly to be on alert, the pressure slowly chipping away at their awareness and control, but that didn’t make things any less disappointing.
With no choice but to continue their search, Cade ordered the team to leave the cell block behind by passing through the door at its other end.
What they found there only added to their growing disquiet about the place.
The room was clearly a laboratory, and a sophisticated one at that. Flynn wasn’t a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but he considered himself an intelligent man and knew the difference between a microscope and an MRI machine. The equipment in this room, however, defied his understanding. Everywhere he looked there was some new contraption measuring heaven knows what.
But what really caught his eye were the two rows of glass tanks in the center of the room and he crossed over to them to have a better look.
They were cylindrical in nature, about eight feet tall, and filled with a thick liquid that was slightly yellow in color. If anything they reminded him of giant specimen jars full of formaldehyde and the comparison was especially apt for in the last tank on the left, the only one containing anything other than the liquid, floated the naked body of a young man.
Stepping closer, Flynn could see that he just might have to rethink that characterization.
The body was clearly humanoid; a torso from which extended two arms and two legs, with a head supported by a neck of the proper proportion. But where there should have been a face there was only a blank expanse of flesh, like a bare canvas before the painter has arrived, and Flynn couldn’t help but stare. No mouth. No nose. No means of air intake. How had it grown to be this big without the ability to breathe?
The body was slowly shifting in the fluid in the tank and Flynn’s attention was drawn to its upper left shoulder as it came into view. From its neckline to the middle of its back the body was covered with a fine goose down-like set of feathers. Even stranger, those feathers quickly changed to a set of iridescent scales that were interwoven with each other and covered the entire rest of the thing’s left side down to a spot behind the left knee.
Just what the hell was this thing?
Riley walked up as Flynn stood there, staring. “Now that’s an ugly son of a gun.”
Flynn nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He normally would have been the first to make some light-hearted wisecrack, especially in a tense situation like this, but this thing in front of him was just so inherently...wrong...that he couldn’t find it in himself to do so.
Riley must have sensed his mood, for he turned serious suddenly. “Once, a number of years ago, I had the opportunity to enter a section of the archives I’d never been admitted to before.”
Flynn didn’t need to ask just which archives Riley was referring to. For a Templar, there was only one, the Archives, the great collection of information and artifacts that the Order had been gathering and cataloging for centuries.
“If memory serves, it was just after I’d transferred into Echo. We were facing a rash of attacks by some unknown cryptid and managed to get some fairly decent casts made from the bite marks of one of the victims. Cade sent me down to the vaults to see if I could match any of them with the various specimens that had been collected over the years, particularly the ones that had been catalogued at the turn of the century.”
Riley turned to face him and in his eyes Flynn could see a reflection of the horror he’d seen that day. “I’ll tell you something. What I saw down in that vault, what we as an Order actively collect and store for future studies, make this oddity seem tame in comparison. The world’s one strange place, there’s no question of that.”
As if to punctuate his statement, the thing in the tank suddenly jerked as if awakening abruptly from a long sleep and its hands slapped palm down against the glass. In the center of each palm was an eye of jet black that stared out at them. After a moment, one of them winked.
The shock of realizing that the thing was not only alive but was also intelligent washed over Riley like ice water and Flynn turned away, more profoundly disturbed than at any other time since entering the complex. Whatever it was that they had been doing here there was no longer any question in his mind that it had been a renegade operation, that th
e Church never would have condoned it had they known what was happening.
From where he stood Flynn could see eight cubicles against the right wall, the first seven of which contained desktop computers and keyboards, the eighth a large network printer. He headed in that direction.
Riley let him go, more than likely knowing he needed time to think.
Flynn stopped at the first workstation and nudged its mouse. The screen powered up as a result, showing the usual Windows login, confirming his unspoken hunch that the PCs had all powered off and then up again when the electricity went out and the generator started up. Now if he could only get one to work...
On a whim, he tried the administrative password and login that every commercially bought PC is shipped with and was shocked when the machine booted up for him.
Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought. Vargas might have brought in some top-of-the-line scientists for whatever they were doing here, but they apparently knew next to nothing about computer security.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t that easy and his grin of success soon faded.
Sitting down to try and access some of the information on the computer, he discovered the various menu trees and file folders had been individually secured with passwords of their own. He could get into the computer, but not into any of the files that were stored on it. He tried various screen commands and work-arounds that he knew, but the computer stubbornly refused to give up its secrets. The desk itself was clear of any paper or notebooks, so no help there.
He moved on to the next PC and booted it up, only to discover the same problem. One by one, he found them all inaccessible. He knew he could eventually break the security system and access the data, but he knew didn’t have the time for such a prolonged process right now.
Giving up, he moved to rejoin his companions. As he walked by the final cubicle, the blinking red light on the network printer caught his eye. Paper jamb, he thought, stepping past.
Paper jamb.
He turned back to the printer and pulled out the paper drawer. It was empty. Which meant whatever had been printing might still be in the printer’s memory...
Flynn began hunting in the drawers around the printer looking for paper, and quickly refilled the receptacle beneath the printer when he found it. With a quick prayer to St. Michael, patron saint of knights and soldiers, he pushed the reset button on the printer and waited.
Thirty seconds later he pumped his arm in the air in victory as pages of text began to pour out of the device.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There were eighteen pages in all, each covered with single-spaced type. Close examination showed them to be selected passages from an individual’s personal journal. A glance at the content made it obvious that the journal belonged to one of the scientists, though no names or identifying information was given about either the author or the project in question. The notes themselves chronicled certain events over the course of six weeks earlier that summer. Certain sections hinted at the larger picture, but without the complete journal they were left with more questions than answers.
Several of the entries were particularly intriguing, like the one from May 23rd.
The process seems to have taken hold, but only time will tell if it will last. Barajas and Orlander are working on a means of increasing the speed of the developmental cycle, but they’ve practically had to start from scratch due to the nature of the specimen and I, for one, am not confident that they can pull it off. We shall see.
Early June held another tantalizing glimpse.
June 14 – Unlike the earlier failures, this time the growth rate seems to be holding steady at +3.68. We’ve had four days without an adjustment and it looks like it has finally become stable. At this rate the specimen should be fully grown in just a matter of weeks, rather than the eight months it had taken with the first attempt. I take back what I said; Orlander is a genius!
Several of the entries were similar. All of them referred to the experiment in evasive terms, as if even the writer was afraid to name just what it was that they were doing, though Flynn suspected he might be putting his own subconscious spin on things. Page after page of growth rates and maturation cycles, or starts and stops as the various attempts petered out or took different tracks than had been expected. More than once the writer cursed the failures. Blame was tossed about with abandon, as if everyone but the writer was responsible for the latest setback or failure and in the process Flynn learned several of the names of the scientists. The reconstruction team would at least have a place to start in identifying the dead.
The tenor of the journal changed with the last few entries. Apparently the subject of the experiment was not cooperating in the way they’d expected.
July 6th - Questions are now going unanswered. Subject B exhibiting the petulance of a teenager, refusing to do the simple tasks or carry out the smallest requests. His demands continue and this has some of us worried. Vargas intends to continue with the stated protocol.
July 9th - Violence for the first time today. Jackson’s arm was broken when the evening meal was being delivered. Vargas has ordered Subject B to be isolated for a period of forty-eight hours. I’m certain it’s a mistake.
And then nothing more.
The ambiguousness of the notes was further proof that they had lost a valuable resource when Dr. Bhanjee disappeared. He could have cleared up any number of their questions, Flynn was sure of it.
He brought the notes over to Cade and let him know how he’d come to possess them. The Knight Commander ordered him to strip the hard drives out of a few of the PCs; they’d take them back with them and see what they could uncover with the right time and a tech team.
When Flynn was finished, they left the creche room behind, this time with Riley on point. For the next twenty minutes they passed through several corridors filled with a series of additional labs, but nothing of interest was uncovered in any of them, and Riley began to feel like they were simply spinning their wheels on this level as they cleared room after room without further clues. He was getting ready to call a short break when an odd thumping noise reached his ears from just around the next corner. Hearing it, Riley gave the signal and stopped. Behind him the others did the same.
Cade came up the line and settled against the wall next to Riley. “What have we got?”
The master sergeant inclined his head toward the bend in the corridor ahead. “Listen.”
After a moment, the sound came again and this time Cade heard it, too. “Any ideas?” he asked.
“Not a one.”
“Then that doesn’t leave us much choice, now does it?” Cade turned and signaled to the others that they were to stay in place while he and Riley checked things out.
They advanced carefully toward the bend in the corridor ahead of them. When they reached it, Riley removed a small mirror from a pocket of his fatigues and held it out at an angle before him so that he could see around the corner without exposing himself. He took a long look and then pulled his hand back.
Passing the mirror to Cade, he said, “You’d better take a look. It’s Bhanjee.”
They switched positions, Cade extending the mirror around the corner, just as Riley had. With it he could see that the hallway continued for another twenty feet before ending at a reinforced pressure door. Attached to that door was the stripped body of a man. He was arrayed against it in a classic crucifixion pose, with his arms stretched out on both sides and his feet placed atop one another. Even from this distance Cade could see the large spikes that had been driven through his limbs to hold him in place, one in each arm just above the elbow and another through his feet. The odd thumping sounds were a result of his hands flapping like trapped birds against the door as he twitched in pain.
His head was hanging downward, giving Cade only a partial glimpse of his face, but even in the small surface of the mirror Cade could see that it was, indeed, the missing Dr. Bhanjee.
Taking his attention away from the scientis
t, Cade angled the mirror first in one direction and then the other. By doing so he could see that there were no other entrances into the corridor, so they couldn’t be flanked if they moved forward. An attack through the ceiling seemed unlikely, as did one coming up through the floor. Which meant that there were only two directions that they had to worry about; back down the hallway behind them or through the door to which Dr. Bhanjee was nailed.
He turned to Riley. “Feels more like a warning than a trap.”
“Agreed.”
Cade gave it a bit more thought and then apparently made a decision. “All right, let’s see if we can get the poor bastard down.”
Riley listened in as Cade called Flynn over the tactical net and gave orders for the rest of the team to move up to their present position. In a low voice, he explained that First Squad would be in charge of keeping them safe while the members of the command unit would see what they could do about getting Dr. Bhanjee free. Chen was ordered to guard the approach down the corridor, in case anything tried to come up behind them. Ortega and Davis were assigned the task of keeping their eye on the door ahead of them, so that they wouldn’t be surprised by anything coming from that direction. Riley and Cade would remove the spikes from the doctor’s arms and legs while the other two men supported his body in order to keep him from falling once he was free.
Hearing the plan, Riley felt a great deal of sympathy for the obnoxious scientist. The next several moments were going to be very hard for Dr. Bhanjee.
Once everyone understood their respective roles, Cade gave the order and the team moved into action like the well-oiled mechanism that they were. Those assigned to provide cover swiftly took their positions, while Riley, Flynn, Cade and Duncan moved in on the good doctor.
He must have heard them coming for the flapping of his hands increased in tempo, slapping against the door like fish in a net, and he twisted his head from side to side in unconscious denial of what he thought was coming. A panicked whining came from him, increasing in volume as their footfalls grew closer.
Angels Scream (Echo Team Book 2) Page 13