Nick and Jon shared a quick glance then made their way forward, stepping over the woman whose brains were scattered over the floor and the wall. Her hands were still arched in claws. The man had fallen backward, blood seeping from the back of his head. The broken ankle was a compound fracture. White bone stuck out from the gray sock and the foot, connected only by skin, lay flat on the ground.
Pick up his pass.
Nick bent to unclip the pass from the pocket of the white lab coat. For a second, Nick studied the small sharp hologram of a successful middle-aged researcher with a kind smile. His eyes flicked to the still-grimacing face of the dead man. If he hadn’t been looking at the dead man and the hologram at the same time, he’d never have believed they were the same person.
Hurry.
Nick had to tuck away the utter dread he felt and concentrate on the mission. Of all the horrors of war he’d seen, this was undoubtedly the worst. Perfectly normal lab drones who’d suddenly turned ferociously feral.
He waved his hand forward and then right and he and Jon started forward at a trot, both of them sniffing the air. Something was burning. They started running. Being trapped underground in a fire was a nightmare. It had already happened to Nick in Cambridge and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
They turned the corner to the right and saw a long corridor with a wall at the end. No doors. No elevator. Thank God at least it was free of bodies. They picked up their pace and just as Nick was thinking of slowing down to see if the badge would open something—
Hold the pass up—
The door at the back of the corridor opened up with the sucking sound of a seal being broken. A wind at his back cooled the sweat from his body. This part of the building had negative pressure. A lab dealing with hazardous material.
This is it. I’m going ahead. . .
Nick felt Elle’s presence as a faint glow in his head, growing fainter. He didn’t have time to worry about that though because he was looking at a series of transparent boxes. No, he thought, the hairs on the back of his head rising. Cages. Transparent cages.
For humans.
Ten of them, seven empty.
All around, monitors and holograms and equipment he had no name for. The room had the ozone smell of electricity and there was a faint hum of working equipment.
Suddenly, Jon took off, walking fast down an aisle, looking sharply into each cage.
The first cage had a tall dark-haired man in it who studied them, then opened his mouth. He was shouting, banging his fist against the cage, but there was no noise. He pointed desperately at a console in the middle of the room and Nick went over to stand in front of it. The man made an O with his fingers.
A button.
Nick looked down, frowning. There were five buttons. Black, white, red, yellow, blue. He looked up at the man who mouthed red and he pushed the red button. With a hiss, the doors opened and three figures stepped out of their cages.
“Sophie!” Jon shouted. “Sophie Daniels! Where is she?”
“Sorry, man.” The tall dark-haired man shook his head. “They took her away and she hasn’t come back.”
Jon’s face was frightening, bright blue eyes like shards of ice.
One of the women—short, with frizzy red hair—spoke up. “Are you here to rescue us? Because we really need rescuing. And something really creepy is happening inside the building. If you’re here to rescue us we need to go, right now.”
“Not without Sophie,” Jon said, mouth a grim white line.
Nick held up a hand. “Elle sends us.” There was a low murmur among the prisoners. “We’ve got a van outside if we can find our way to it.”
“Where?” the other man asked. He looked about twelve, with blond dreadlocks, but he must have been at least eighteen. Elle said everyone had had to sign an informed consent release.
“On Bush, between Sansome and Battery.”
“I know a secondary way out,” the kid said. “It’ll take us right there.”
They all looked up as the lights flickered, went out for two seconds then came back on. They were dimmer now. The building was on the generator.
“Dudes,” said the kid, young face utterly serious, “we gotta go.”
“Not without Sophie,” Jon said, face set, nostrils flaring.
Honey? Could use a little help here.
Checking.
Nick took Jon by the arm and tugged him toward a corner. “Elle is looking for her. But if she’s not here, we gotta go, like the kid said.”
Jon huffed out a loud breath, like a bull. He angrily shrugged off Nick’s hand. “Okay,” he said through gritted teeth.
A siren sounded. Loud, like an air-raid siren. The former prisoners looked at them, faces pale, pinched, anxious. Nick understood completely. They had a stab at evading being treated like rats and then killed and they were being forced to wait. The red-headed woman let out a sob, then stifled it.
Honey?
She’s not here, Nick.
“Gone.” Nick met Jon’s eyes. “She’s not here. Elle looked for her but she’s gone.”
Jon stood, practically vibrating with tension, punched the side of a piece of equipment and turned to the prisoners. “Do we need to take anything?”
The dark-haired man thought, then shook his head. “If anything, you should download the data from the server. But that would take at least half an hour.”
“No.” Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Not half an hour.” He placed his top secret 100 terabyte flash drive into the side of a processer and switched it on. The sirens were booming now and the smell of smoke rose in the air. He pulled the drive out. “Done.”
“Wow.” The kid’s eyes rounded. “How did you do that? I mean—”
You have to get everyone out now. Follow Les, the young kid. He knows how to get out. Go now!
“That’s it, let’s go.” Nick started herding them toward the door, Jon standing guard. He had his rifle up, shouldered, the scope down, out of the way. The scope was a Warren 509 and could pick out rocks on the moon, but was worse than useless in close quarters.
Trying one last time to—
The voice in his head disappeared. Elle, whose soft presence inside him had been so incredibly reassuring, had winked out, leaving emptiness, coldness. Desolation.
Jon stuck his head out in the corridor, then motioned everyone to get out.
Nick stood there, like a moron. There was nothing to tap to get her back online, nothing to switch back on. Elle had disappeared and he didn’t have a fucking clue how to get her back. He missed her desperately and recognized now how much it meant to him to have her inside him.
One thing was for sure—he wasn’t moving from where he was without her.
A click, then Catherine’s voice. She sounded rushed and there were beeping machine sounds in the background. “Nick?” She was trying to sound calm but panic was riding her. “Nick, Elle’s vital signs are gone.”
He tapped his ear. “What?” he screamed. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”
Her voice was steadier. She’d put them all on the same channel and Jon turned his head to him, eyes wide in alarm. Yeah. Jon understood.
“I’m not getting any vital signs. Heart, brain, lungs. Stopped. Can you feel her?” Catherine asked. “Is she still there with you?”
“No!” No, no he couldn’t feel her. No, she wasn’t here with him. All he felt was cold isolation, not that warm connection that had accompanied him into the building, like gentle hands caressing him. Nothing—just blankness.
Fuck!
He turned around in despair. There was nowhere to look for her, nothing he could do to find her. Her body was two hundred miles away and her spirit was . . . where?
He turned and turned with nowhere to go, sweat breaking out all over his body, heart pounding beneath his rib cage. He must
have looked like a madman, but he didn’t give a shit.
“Hey man, let’s go,” Jon shouted over the alarm. He was outside the door, the prisoners uneasily congregated around him. “She’s not here, we’re wasting time.”
The emergency lights flickered and went off, casting them into utter darkness for a couple of seconds. When they came back on they were even dimmer than before. Backup power was fading fast. And the smell of smoke was stronger by the minute.
Mac’s voice came on. “I’ve got what looks like fire on the eleventh and tenth floors. Fire engines are coming down Market. People are staggering out of the main entrance. We’ve got to go. That includes you, Ross.”
No, that didn’t include him. Damned, if he was going anywhere without Elle. Except Elle was back in Haven—
He heard a dull thump in his ear. “I’m defibrillating her, Nick.” Another thump. “But it’s not working. The EKG spiked but is flat again.”
“Try again,” he snarled and he heard another thump.
Silence for what felt like five centuries but was probably only five seconds.
Then Catherine came back on. “She’s dying, Nick. There’s nothing I can do.” Catherine’s voice was sorrowful. He could hear the steady hum of machinery that should be beating, together with her heart.
“No!” he screamed. Panic pounded in every cell. He’d never known panic like this. He didn’t know what the fuck to do. He’d been trained, and trained hard, to face any kind of danger. Bad guys with guns, ambushes, firefights—you name it, he knew what to do. But what the hell to do now, with a dying Elle two hundred miles away and a missing Elle right here—he had no clue. He met Jon’s eyes. “I can’t leave her. I can’t. Get out of here.”
“Dude?” The young kid stepped forward. He pitched his voice so it could be heard over the sirens. “You’re looking for Elle Connolly? Right?”
Nick jerked his head up and down. His throat was clamped shut.
“She could astrally project. That’s an electromagnetic phenomenon. There’s a Faraday cage four doors down. It says Lab Four on the door. Maybe—”
“Nick.” Catherine’s voice choked. “Oh, Nick I am so very sorry. She’s gone. Elle’s gone.”
“And we have to go too.” Mac’s hard voice didn’t betray anything, just resolute purpose. “You have a mission, soldier. Get out. Now.”
“No!” Nick screamed again and for the very first time in his life, he disobeyed direct orders. He waved at Jon. “Get these people out and into the van! I’ll be right behind you.”
Elle wasn’t gone. Elle couldn’t be gone. He’d just found her, after losing her for ten years. This wasn’t happening. He was going to hop into the van with the former prisoners and Jon and Mac, and they were going to drive as fast as the van could carry them to Mount Blue and away from this place with the stench of human sacrifice.
And Elle would be waiting for him, just as she’d be waiting for him every single day for the rest of their lives. She’d welcome the kid, the dark-haired man, the woman with the frizzy hair to Haven, and they’d stay. Of course they’d stay. They were renegades and they had special powers, so they would fit right in, particularly with Catherine and Elle around. Woo-woo stuff was the staff of life on Haven now. There would be kids born who could levitate and travel in time and heal, and their kid would be one of them.
Because he and Elle were going to have kids, no question. He’d never wanted children. Why bring a kid into the world? The world was broken and there was no fixing it. Except—Elle wasn’t broken and neither was he. Their kids would be strong and talented and smart.
And he wanted them. He wanted it all. He wanted the fights they’d have and he wanted the makeup sex. He wanted to watch Elle bloom with his child as Catherine was blooming with Mac’s child. They were creating something in Haven. Nick had no idea what, he was a soldier for Christ’s sake. What did he know? But Catherine knew and Elle sure knew. He wanted to be there and he wanted her by his side.
She wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t let her be.
Jon was herding the fugitives down the corridor to the right and he looked back at Nick. What Jon was doing was a two-man job. It should have been one man taking point, the other watching everyone’s six. It was almost impossible for Jon to do it alone. Their eyes met and Nick couldn’t see any censure in Jon’s gaze. He was doing what he had to do so Nick could do what he had to do.
Teamwork.
That’s what he had with Elle, goddammit. They were a team, a couple. The two of them belonged together. Always had, always would. Nick’s vision blurred and he swiped at his eyes. Goddamned smoke.
He took off in the opposite direction.
“Nick!” Mac roared. He was watching their movements on his handheld and he saw Nick move in the opposite direction from Jon. “You head back right this second!”
Nick turned the sound down.
He pelted down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him. It wasn’t the thought of Mac waiting or Jon and the fugitives that drove him. It was the thought that maybe just maybe he could save Elle. Crazy as that sounded. There was a 99 percent chance it wouldn’t work, but that was better than 100 percent. Because 100 percent meant Elle was lost to him forever—and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept that.
Lab 1, Lab 2, Lab 3 . . . Lab 4— There it was! He was running so fast he skidded as he turned into the laboratory, frantically looking for a Faraday cage. He hadn’t paid much attention in high school physics and though he’d caught up in the military, he knew he’d never seen one.
The lab was huge and filled with equipment. He raged his way to the end wall, smashing equipment out of his way with his rifle butt without finding anything that even vaguely resembled a cage. He slid to a stop at the far wall, chest heaving, vision blurred looking around wildly.
He recognized one piece of equipment in ten. Everything here was Geekland stuff, hard metallic shells hiding mysterious workings inside and— Oh shit-oh shit-oh shit . . . He didn’t know what he was looking for.
In a rage, Nick kicked over some free-standing pieces, watching them shatter, bits of Plexiglas tinkling to the floor, dials rolling—and there it was. He stood, panting, looking at a metallic cage. A Faraday cage, it had to be. He stared at it like a dumb beast, tears and sweat dripping down his face—he had to shake himself into action because every second counted.
Go-Go-GO! Pulling a grenade out of his combat vest, he tossed it at the metal cage and ducked down behind a big piece of equipment with two huge centrifuges on top. After a second that felt like a century, the grenade exploded, spewing metal shards everywhere, some embedding themselves into the wall behind him.
Nick rose out of his crouch to look at the smoking mess, ready to scrabble around in the debris looking for something that would lead him to Elle, when he heard Catherine’s gasp in the ear bud.
“Oh my God! She’s just opened her eyes! Nick! Elle’s opened her eyes, now she’s closed them again, but the EKG is showing a heartbeat! Oh my God, she’s alive!”
“Get your ass out here NOW!” Mac was screaming in the ear bud as Nick shot out the door into the corridor. Oh yeah—getting out now! And with Elle alive back in Haven, getting back there as fast as humanly possible.
He leaped over the bodies in the corridor, taking the emergency stairs up to the first floor in case the elevator wasn’t working due to the fire and, slamming the panic handle on the fire door, ran down the corridor that would take him to the side exit.
He had tunnel vision. Not good. They were trained to avoid it because it could spell death. Just seeing right what was ahead of you without opening the senses completely was bad. But his head was taken up with getting out to Mac, getting the hell out of San Francisco and getting back to Haven—and as always when a soldier isn’t paying attention, shit happened.
A body slammed into him from the side. A nightmare, with sound effects
. And, he saw in a second, a fucking woman. Makeup smeared all over her face, a bib of blood down her once-white lab coat, snarling and growling, low terrifying animal noises. It took Nick one unforgivable second to flash onto the fact that, yes, this was a woman, but yes, she was fucking trying to kill him.
In that second, around 120 pounds of snarling female slammed him to the ground and she started trying her best to bite his face off. Before her mouth, tinted red by lipstick and blood, could reach his face, he shot an elbow to her nose and shoved her off. Whatever it was she was on, it was a painkiller because anyone else would have been doubled over in pain. Her nose was smashed flat against her blood-spattered face. But, no, she scrabbled for purchase, lifted up, and launched herself at him.
Jesus.
Nick sidestepped and did the only thing he could—he slid his stunner out of his holster, flipped it to a stun level just short of lethal, and zapped her. She thudded to the floor.
“Nick!” Mac screamed.
“Coming, boss.” Nick tried to keep his voice steady but he was unnerved. He shot through the big lobby, leaping over dead bodies, and out the big glass doors. “Had some problems, but it’s—” He skidded to a stop and looked past the corner, out to Market Street.
Market was a scene of utter chaos. Two overturned cars just outside the new headquarters of the Bank of China lay crushed like beetles. Two bodies were sprawled in the street, but the injuries weren’t due to a car crash. One body had a missing arm, torn off not sheared off, the missing limb two feet away. The other body—Jesus. Nick looked away. Half its face had been mauled, as if the man had encountered a bear.
No bears on Market in downtown San Francisco.
A fire was burning the Facebook building, flames distorting the Plexiglas structure. People were exiting screaming from the building. Four men were tearing each other to pieces on a nearby corner.
Someone grabbed Nick’s arm, hard, and he was thrown into the van. Jon. The instant the door closed shut Mac took off.
Nick turned a blank face to Mac and Jon. “What the hell is going on?”
Mac didn’t answer. He was too busy slaloming between car wrecks and the few cars that were on the road. The traffic lights were out.
I Dream of Danger Page 28