Subhuman

by Michael McBride

  Richards was in the computer lab, desperately trying to contact the outer world to arrange for emergency medical transport. Last she’d heard, though, his efforts were severely hampered by magnetic interference.

  The door opened again for Roche and Mariah. Their faces were bright red and their eyebrows and bangs frosted with ice. Roche crossed the room and gave Kelly a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

  “There’s no way you could have known what would happen,” he said.

  She nodded for his benefit. While what he said was true in the strictest sense, the fact that she’d recognized that something would happen and had failed to prevent it made her culpable, if only in her own eyes.

  “Ron!” Mariah shouted into a handheld transceiver.

  A crackle of static blared in response. They’d lost contact with the four men who were inside the pyramid when they entered the elevator, undoubtedly as a consequence of the same electromagnetic interference that plagued Richards. All they knew with any certainty was that the men had started up the shaft in the elevator, which was streaking toward them so fast that Kelly was beginning to worry it wouldn’t be able to stop in time.

  The elevator console featured a monitor with two vertical lines and a red beacon that rose upward between them. The numbers beside it rapidly counted down feet beneath the surface. The floor vibrated ever so subtly. Kelly crept closer to the wire cage and stared down into the dark shaft. A faint light materialized from the depths.

  “It’s coming!” she shouted.

  “Is everybody ready?” Jade asked. She took several deep breaths in a visible effort to calm her nerves. “How long will it take to get a helicopter up here?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Connor said.

  “They’ll need to send one for you, too, if you don’t answer my question.”

  “Assuming we’re able to contact someone? Maybe eight hours. Minimum.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “We can get a plane to Troll in maybe half that time, if he’s stable enough to transport, but it will take longer than that to get him there.”

  “You saw them,” Evans said. “They nearly drowned trying to get Rubley to shore. And the way Scott described his condition when they dragged him into the elevator? I’d be surprised if he’s still—”

  “Don’t say it,” Jade said.

  The ground shuddered.

  Kelly made a move to look down the shaft, but Roche held her back.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Kelly leaned around him and caught a fleeting glimpse of the light on top of the car hurtling toward her. The wires sang as the elevator bounced from side to side, hammering the support rigs. Sparks flew from the impact.

  “Get back!” Roche shouted.

  The friction of the wires on the pulleys produced a buzzing sound and a burning smell.

  “There’s no way it’ll stop in time,” Kelly said.

  Roche pushed her away from the cage.

  “Find cover!”

  Kelly whirled and sprinted toward the back of the room. Scaled a massive water pipe that nearly scalded her hands. Heard the screaming sound of shearing metal.

  The elevator launched from the shaft and hit the roof.

  The impact tossed her against the wall. She ricocheted to the ground and cried out when her shoulder struck the concrete. Metallic debris pinged from the pipe and embedded itself in the walls.

  A billowing cloud of smoke enveloped her.

  Kelly coughed and tried to shield her stinging eyes. Rose from behind the pipe and looked around the room. The others moved like specters through the smoke, silhouetted by the flames rising from the shaft.

  One of the cables had torn a hole through the roof, admitting a column of light and snowflakes. The influx of frigid air caused the smoke to churn and cleared a path to the elevator.

  She climbed over the pipe and hopped to the ground, which was carpeted with shrapnel and all kinds of debris. Pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose. Steam whistled from a punctured pipe.

  “Ron!” Mariah screamed, over and over.

  Kelly crept across the room. The outer cage lay in ruins, the posts jutting from the moorings at odd angles. Thick black smoke gushed from the motor, which spat scalding oil and lubricants like sparks from a firecracker. The cold air caught her off guard. It was like walking into a freezer that flung ice crystals at her. Through the overhead gap, she could see the arm of the crane leaning away from the building, out over the nothingness. The cable attached to it was taut. The pulleys and gears that once supported it had been shredded and the girders knocked through the siding.

  The ground bucked, and Kelly stumbled toward the shaft.

  Roche grabbed her arm to steady her and spoke calmly into her ear.

  “I need you to do something very important for me. Do you think you can do that?”

  Kelly could see the elevator maybe fifteen feet down the shaft in a snarl of bent rigging and cables. It had turned at such an angle that it looked almost like a lopsided diamond wedged between the rails. The light from the roof shined directly into her eyes, making it impossible to see how badly injured the men inside were.

  A groan of metal and the car shifted. Fell another five feet.

  The floor shuddered.

  Kelly shrieked in surprise and stepped backward so quickly she nearly tripped over her own feet.

  “Can you do that?” Roche repeated.

  She nodded her head.

  “Listen to me carefully. I need you to get as many people out of here as you can. Tell them to head straight back to the station. Don’t stop in the garage. Just keep going and cross the Skyway.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  She stared at him through the blowing snow and smoke.

  “Don’t do this,” she said.

  “Get going.” He nudged her toward the door. “And don’t look back.”

  “Everyone out!” Kelly shouted. She grabbed Jade by the arm and Mariah by the back of her jacket.

  A rumbling sound stopped her in her tracks. The entire building shook. She staggered sideways and looked up at the hole in the roof in time to see a wall of white eclipse it as the avalanche buried the building.

  “Go!”

  37

  ROCHE

  Roche leaned out over the shaft and stared down at the elevator. One of the cables had snapped, leaving it dangling by the other, which wasn’t going to be able to support its weight for very long. When it broke, there would be absolutely nothing to prevent the elevator from plummeting straight down to the bottom.

  He took off his jacket, stretched it out in front of him, and jumped before he could talk himself out of it.

  “What are you doing?” Evans shouted.

  Roche caught the cable and nearly swung right off. The metal braids sizzled in his hands, even through the jacket, as he slid into the smoke. He was ten feet down before he finally managed to wrap his legs around it to slow his descent.

  Hot water fired from a ruptured pipe, boring a hole through the ice and producing steam that mingled with the smoke. The flames took root on the roof of the car, spreading outward on the oil from the ruined motor. Lights fizzled and popped. Sparks rained down into the darkness.

  “See if you can find a rope!” he shouted up at Evans.

  Roche buried his face in his shoulder and attempted to get a few deep breaths without inhaling any more of the smoke, which felt like it smoldered in his lungs. He loosened his grip and slid down. Barely managed to stop with the fire licking at the soles of his boots.

  “Careful,” he whispered.

  With as precariously as the elevator was balanced, the addition of his weight could send them all careening to their deaths. His heart was positively pounding when he eased a trembling foot onto the car and risked transferring a small portion of his weight.

  The roof was slick with oil and condensation. He h
ad to brace the outside edge of his foot against the gearbox fitted to the rails. The rack-and-pinion safety devices had been disconnected, effectively removing the teeth of the gears from the rails to allow for maximum acceleration. By doing so they’d eliminated the system of brakes and fail-safes that prevented precisely this scenario.

  Roche blew out his breath and stepped all the way down onto the elevator.

  Metal shrieked. The car lurched, but miraculously held.

  A climbing rope whipped past his ear and struck the roof with a resounding thump. He glanced up to see Evans yanking on it, testing its connection to whatever he’d attached it to.

  The railings framing the roof were slippery, but at least allowed him to grab something other than the cable. He found the hatch to the interior and swung it open. A gout of smoke billowed into his face. He turned away and coughed until he could finally steal a breath.

  Thoom!

  The elevator shook.

  Roche nearly bellowed in frustration when he turned and saw Evans scooting toward him with the rope in his hand.

  “You didn’t think I was going to let you have all the fun without me, did you?”

  “You’re going to get us both killed!”

  “How did you expect to get them up there by yourself, huh? Fly?”

  Roche grimaced. Evans had a point.

  “Stay right where you are,” Roche said. “I’ll go down there and help them up. You get them to the top.”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  Roche sat down, lowered his legs through the hatch, and looked down between his feet. Sparks flickered from the control console, which he could barely see through the roiling smoke.

  No one shouted for help or reached for him through the haze. They must have been overcome by the smoke, which meant that he needed to get them out of there in a hurry.

  “Give me the rope,” Roche said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just give me the blasted rope!”

  Evans kicked the coil toward him.

  “Thank you.”

  Roche wrapped it around his waist and tucked it between his legs. He coiled the proximal end around one forearm, the distal end around the other, and belayed himself through the hole. He twirled as he descended into the car, using his hands as brakes.

  His heels were mere feet from the slanted floor by the time he saw it. The metal was covered with what could only have been blood, which trickled down the slope toward a massive tear in the side. The metal was shredded and curled outward. The bodies of two men were wedged into the hole, their masks broken and their dry suits torn.

  “Jesus,” Roche said.

  He fanned the smoke away from his face in an effort to get a better look, but could see little more than the shadowed forms of the men on the ground.

  A crunching sound.

  The elevator dropped several feet.

  Roche barely hung on.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted up to Evans.

  “What do you see?”

  “Damn it, Cade! This thing won’t support our weight for very much longer!”

  Evans hesitated before reluctantly starting back up the rope.

  Roche slid down the other end and gingerly stepped onto the slick floor. He was unprepared for the sheer volume of blood. He had to stretch his leg to find a patch of bare metal large enough to accommodate his foot and curled his fingers into the metal mesh siding for balance. Drew them away wet and sticky with blood. From this vantage point he could clearly see it dripping from one rung to the next, all the way down to where the two men clogged the hole, the edges of which were bent outward as though something had broken through from the inside.

  “What the hell happened in here?”

  A spattering sound from above him.

  He looked up just as water poured over the edge of the hatch and rained down upon him. It rushed past his feet and threatened to carry him away with it.

  Roche scooted toward the men. The smoke was so thick he could barely see them. He worked his hand through a crack in the broken mask of the nearest man and under his jaw line. Felt for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  The second man was pinned underneath the first, his hand supinated on the slick floor. Roche pressed his fingers against the exposed wrist, but he didn’t have a pulse, either.

  Thupp!

  A massive drift of snow struck the roof. Slush fell through the opening and slid down the floor toward him.

  Roche crawled back to the rope, grabbed it as tightly as he could, and groaned with the effort of climbing. Braced his elbows to either side of the hatch and drew his body onto the roof. The entire building shook and nearly knocked him back into the car.

  “Hurry up!” Evans shouted. He leaned over the edge of the shaft beside the rope and reached for him. “Remember what they said about these buildings breaking apart?”

  The cable tore through the roof and the snow overhead, offering a glimpse of the crane falling away from the building.

  The elevator abruptly rose underneath him, tearing through the rails and raising him toward Evans so fast that he barely had time to grab the rope. The cable tore straight down through the rear wall of the building and jerked the elevator sideways.

  Roche pulled himself over the railing and jumped onto the side as the car tumbled upward. Wrapped the rope around his wrist. Ran straight up the car even as it grew steeper and steeper ahead of him.

  Pipes ruptured below him and fired pressurized streams of scalding water in every direction. The entire world turned to steam.

  Evans vanished below him as the elevator cleared the shaft and accelerated sideways toward the wall of the structure, through which Roche saw open air and recognized exactly what was about to happen.

  He leaped from the elevator and careened through the air. Hit something hard. Inverted. Covered his head with his arms a split second before he hit the ground. Pushed himself up to all fours.

  The elevator bounded across the concrete and struck the wall with a thunderous crash. The entire building leaned. The floor canted downward.

  “Oh, no.”

  Roche propelled himself from the ground and into a sprint. Evans was five strides ahead of him and halfway to the door.

  Metal screamed as the car tore through the wall.

  The floor tilted even more.

  Roche shouted and ran for everything he was worth, leaping massive pipes and dodging projectiles as everything that wasn’t bolted to the structure tumbled down the rapidly steepening slope.

  Evans blew through the doorway a heartbeat before Roche, who realized with a start that the pressurized door at the end of the corridor to the garage was closed.

  A rush of air at his back. The ground swung outward so quickly that he hit the wall and collapsed to his knees. He scrambled for balance and lunged toward the far end of the passage.

  The pressure lock disengaged, the alarm blared, and the door slid back into the wall.

  Kelly stood in the doorway, screaming words Roche couldn’t hear over the deafening sound of the building behind him breaking away from the mountain.

  Evans dove across the threshold ahead of Roche, who watched the seal around the corridor pull away from the garage as he passed beneath it. He landed on top of Evans and hurriedly turned around.

  The corridor whipped out over the nothingness and flipped away from the building, which cartwheeled down the slope and struck the ice cap with an impact that shook the entire mountain.

  Roche stood and approached the open doorway, beyond which snowflakes whipped past on the gusting wind. The power station’s anchors had torn through the granite on their way out, exposing jagged chunks of rock that nearly concealed the useless elevator shaft. Tangles of metal stood from the snow all the way down the hillside to where the prefabricated structure was flattened and impaled upon one of the cranes.

  He pressed the button to close the hydraulic door and collapsed to his knees.

  38

  EVANS


  The standby generator only produced enough energy to power critical functions and the emergency lighting that cast a dim red pall over the entire station. It was housed in the engineering residential wing, at the point farthest from the now-historical power station, and had suddenly become the only thing standing between them and slowly freezing to death, which meant that maintaining it was now the sole priority of the two remaining engineers, Rob Devlin and Lukas Proctor.

  The other eleven of them gathered in the uppermost level of the central complex, where the skylights provided at least a hint of normalcy. Mariah had cried herself out and sat in the corner of the library, staring blankly into the room and holding a mug of tea she had yet to bring to her lips. Friden was still down in his lab, despite the situation, which left the botanist Bell to keep Mariah company, although, truth be told, he was really in no better shape than she was. Joachim Wolski, who was in charge of inventory, ordering, and laundry, was sprawled against the wall, an empty bottle of vodka cradled to his chest and nearly concealed by his long black beard. Anya was kind enough to push a cart of drinks and snacks across the foyer to them every so often, before returning to the computer lab, where she and the others did their best to remain calm while trying to figure out what to do next, which was easier said than done considering they’d just lost nearly a quarter of their number.

  Evans sat on a table at the back of the room, near the door to the server room. He needed space to think. This entire scenario—from the activation of the pyramid to the loss of the power station—was overwhelming, but what troubled him most was how four men had boarded the elevator and only two of them had reached the surface, and they’d been dead on arrival. Even if what Roche said about the hole in the side of the elevator was true, that didn’t explain how two full-grown men could fall out of it, whether accidentally or not, nor did it offer a hint as to how the other men had died.