«Son of a bitch!», the desperate shout of McKinnock, which steers to get away from the vehicle. This one, however, almost foreseeing its move, steers abruptly remaining flanked at a distance of a couple of meters. From the window opening, where Wilford was grabbed, big tentacles pop out. Some of them huddle around the right mirror of McKinnock's truck, others burst through the window, gripping and uprooting the entire door and then throwing it up towards the helicopter.
Redmond reacts promptly, drifting the chopper to the left and avoiding the impact by a whisker.
Meanwhile, other monstrous tentacular appendages grow out towards the cabin of the truck running at the left of Brody's vehicle, while he keeps opening fire undaunted.
McKinnock's voice sounds loud in a scream in the intercom, then Redmond and Ironside see him jump out of the racing truck and roll in the sand for a few meters before stopping.
«My God! Brimley, can you hear me?», says Redmond.
«Affirmative, sir!»
«McKinnock is down. He may still be alive. He's about two hundred meters at 11 o'clock, take him aboard and head right to the base. Got it?»
«Roger that.»
«Redmond do we have weapons on board?», Ironside.
«There should be explosive crates in the rea...»
The phrase goes off in the throat of Redmond, along with his life. A burst fired by Brody strikes right in the cabin, opening a vertical row of holes in the windshield, followed by a red splash. The head of the marine slumps forward as the helicopter starts to turn on itself, out of control.
USA base CNT222
The howling echoes in the base, lasting an incredibly long time. The group of soldiers led by Macready, along with Dr. Ivanov, drop every stealth precaution. The men rush into the gate area. Ivanov is the first to cross the threshold, tailed by the two soldiers. Macready lingers for a while, intent on breaking the optical sensor on each side of the opening with his rifle’s butt. Once sure that the devices can no longer function he presses quickly the emergency closure button.
The gate slides quickly, sealing the first level of the base.
Nothing and no one will ever get out of here...
The group rushes down the stairs, which sink down toward the other basements.
Macready goes first, followed by the Russian, always well guarded by the two soldiers.
«Stay sharp!», the words of the leader as he unlocks the gate that allows access to the second basement floor.
The sliding wall reveals the corridor of the private rooms area. A little further from their position, on their left, they can see the door of Macready's room.
The group moves cautiously, focused on the breach in the wall near the door of the room of Redmond's, a few meters ahead. Macready leads the team with flicks of the hand, getting closer to the opening. The corridor seems fine, apparently intact. At a nod of the Major, Howe moves on, walking for about fifteen meters, then he stops to place a second explosive charge. The man works quickly to set the timer synchronized with the bomb left upstairs.
Macready waits for the soldier to come back and rejoin the group, then he uses his special badge on the lock control, unlocking the door to his room.
The four men step inside the room. The Major's face hardens in an upset grimace at the sight of the devastation in his room. Someone, indeed probably something, was here looking for him. Or for something in his possession as well.
Perhaps my badge...
Or rather my eyes...
At that thought he experiences the uneasy feeling that something is twisting his guts.
A movement on the right, down the room, where it's less lit, alerts the men. Three light beams point in the same direction.
A human figure is lying squatting on the ground, curled up in a corner, with her hands up.
The spotlights shine right into the face of Emily Moore. The woman looks back at them with a face of despair. Her wide open mouth doesn't let out a single moan.
«Hold your fire! Don't shoot!», Macready shouts, while the soldiers move to the room, to better illuminate the scene. «Major, her hand!», one of the soldiers moves his spotlight on the upper limbs of the woman, raised in surrender. Her left hand is swollen and deformed, the fingers twisted and bent in unnatural angles.
Macready steps in, moving his light up to the woman's hands and seeing the vial in her right hand.
He moves slowly his rifle, pointing it at the woman's head.
«Major, please...», it's all she can say, her voice broken by sobs.
«Kill it! Look at her hand, she's one of those creatures!»
Hearing the voice of the Russian, the woman's eyes open wide in terror. She withdraws instinctively. Then she seems to find a glimmer of lucidity. «I've seen him dying... The creature got him... He couldn't have survived!»
Moore turns to Macready. «You must believe me, Major! Ivanov saved my life, I ran away when that being grabbed him.»
Hearing these words the soldiers step slightly away from Ivanov.
«The creature lies», he exclaims, strangely calm. «To deceive humans is what it does best. Look at her hand, it has not yet completed the cloning process.»
«No!», the desperate cry of the woman. «This isn't true. I fell when I fled. I got several fractures to the bones of the hand. I am not one of those creatures, Major, you must believe me!»
Macready alternates quick glances between the woman and the Russian, looking for details that may betray the creature.
The tension creates an oppressive atmosphere.
Both apparently human, both so real, and yet one of them might not be what they say.
The skin of the woman's hand is swollen, covered in blood, glossy, deformed...
The Major takes a step back, moving slowly away from the woman and raising again his assault rifle to take aim at her.
He made his decision.
Her heart seems to stop to the awareness of imminent death.
No, this can't be true...
She closes her eyes awaiting for this nightmare to come to an end.
The seconds seem like hours...
«майор, нет!»
Three rays of light move in unison to the breach in the wall, which opens on Redmond's room. The voice that comes from the opening immediately reveals the identity of the one who spoke.
From the shadow of the opening emerges a perfect copy of Alexander Ivanov.
Moore lets out a cry of terror seeing the Russian, which enters the room with slow and calculated movements. He stands straight with his hands up.
«Major, don't do that!», the newcomer hastens to reiterate, this time using a language understood by all the soldiers.
The atmosphere is very tense, the soldiers move slowly while the beams of the spotlights bounce between the two Ivanov and Moore, who looks at the scene astonished. A few minutes ago they could still have some doubts, but now they are aware that here with them, in the room, there is a creature that has perfectly replicated a human being in every detail.
«Don't move, keep your hands in plain sight!», Macready shouts aiming from one to the other of the two Russian scientists.
It can't be...
There must be some difference, a detail that can betray it...
They are stalled.
«Fifteen minutes, sir.»
Howe's voice urging to move.
It's the woman speaking, addressing to Macready, but without taking her eyes off the first Ivanov, the one that came with the group of soldiers. Her voice is shaky and uncertain.
«During the first attack, the lights went out, we ran away in the dark. Ivanov has saved my life, and as we ran he wounded his hand with a sharp glass. The cut can't have healed already, this should prove that it's human, but I myself have seen him grabbed by one of the creatures who attacked us after a while!»
Macready's spotlight lights up the hands up of the second Ivanov, the one just arrived. On the palm of one of them a dark cut is clearly visible. The man looks at M
acready, but he speaks to the woman.
«The creature grabbed me, it's true... but even if its touch burned the skin on my neck, it could not assimilate me, because of the poison of which I spoke. The explosion that broke the glass and which enabled you to escape caused it to lose its grip on me. Then I ran after you, but I could only see you plunge into the elevator. I had to use the explosives I had left to block the passage to the creature. Then I hid, waiting, until the cabin came back to the floor. Perhaps the mechanism has failed, or perhaps something has taken control of it. The elevator brought me to the third level, where I discovered that the way was blocked by rubble. I could see through a small breach a team of men in bio-hazard suits, like the one we met on the first floor. They were fighting against one of the creatures. Only two of them were still alive. I could not do anything, I was stuck. I stood in the elevator cabin until it moved up, allowing me to reach the second floor. Those beings are everywhere now, and...», he nods at the other Ivanov, «...this is one of them.»
He catches his breath after speaking in a rush, telling his latest adventures, and meanwhile he shows the military his wounded palm. A dark cut, crescent-shaped, is clearly visible.
Macready turns the spotlight on the first Ivanov, the one they found on the top floor. «Put your hands in plain view, I want to see.»
The man obeys, and a moan escapes Moore's throat when the light shine on the palms showing intact hands.
«The creatures communicate telepathically with each other», the first Ivanov bursts nervously. «They can weave the stories they want, supporting each other in order to appear more convincing. Don't be fooled, Major, destroy them both before they jump on us.»
Macready turns to him, the eyes of the scientist lit by the spotlights under the soldiers' rifles. He is strangely calm, his face shows no trace of the despair shown when they found him, only a few minutes before.
«If I was one of those things, why would I have showed up to keep you from shooting at her?». The second Ivanov speaks, nodding to the woman. «I would've remained in the shadows, waiting for the best time to kill you one by one».
«These are just lies! Don't let your guard down!», the other Ivanov interrupts him. «It's clear that he and the woman are acting together to fool you. If you kill me, there will be one fewer human, and you'll only be three against two of those things. Burn them now that you have a chance.»
The soldiers don't seem to believe any of their versions. Their guns aim with uncertainty to both versions of Ivanov.
«I can prove my humanity». The words of the second Ivanov break the long lasting tense moments.
The looks are for him.
«I told you how the creature isn't able to replicate parts that don't belong to the body, such as dentures or missing limbs...»
The scientist that came from Redmond's room fixes his gaze on that of his clone, watching it impassively. «In 1991 I lost half a leg, due to the explosion of a pressurized gas container... That's why I have a bio-mechanical implant.»
That said, Ivanov makes as to crouch, squatting on the ground to lift slowly the fabric of his pants.
Right at that moment, a muffled sound, followed by a low hissing, resonates in the room. Macready turns towards the source of the noise, pointing the rifle.
The body of the first Ivanov is shaken by an unnatural tremor, and one of his arms is stretched out sideways. Where his left hand should be, a long reddish tentacle sprouts out and pierces Leoni just at the base of his throat. The marine struggles for breath, his fingers sink into the mutating meat that begins to wind on his neck, merging with it like molten wax. Macready and Howe raise their weapons at the creature, but this, with a sudden gesture of its sprawling arm, throws the body of the pierced soldier in their direction, centering Howe, who is knocked to the floor.
Macready manages to step aside, then he opens fire with short bursts addressed to the creature, whose head elongates, stretching in a second tentacle swirling with violence and raising chaos in the room.
Terrifying sounds come from the monstrosity, not attributable to anything known. The bullets don't seem to have any effect other than to shake the body of the monster, opening wounds from where new tentacles sprout out. Its clothes are torn off under the push of the internal pressure, while the legs split longitudinally, turning into a multitude of appendices that crawl quickly on the ground.
«Come with me! Quick!»
Alexander Ivanov, the one who emerged from the breach in the wall just in time to save the life of Moore, approaches the woman, holding out his hand to pull her to him and making her raise from her squatting position. Then he heads toward the opening in the wall.
Macready lingers, continuing to empty another magazine on the creature, in a futile attempt to save the life of Howe. The soldier is on the ground, one of his legs is clearly broken at the knee. The marine shouts desperately, as he tries to ignore the pain and reach his gun, fallen slightly over. The body of Leoni, whose skull has disappeared into the mass of reddish tentacles attached to the creature, is shaken, while his limbs stretch and bend like being broken, shaping in no time in the appearance of monstrous paws. The being that until recently looked like Alexander Ivanov moves like a hideous octopus, crawling on the floor and ignoring the blows of Macready's rifle who dig deep wounds in its body. The beast moves to the soldier lying on the ground. Howe manages to reach the gun, finally getting hold of it, and then he turns around, but the creature is now too close. The last thing he can see is a mass of red tentacles that literally submerge him. Then the excruciating burning, as he perceives the feeling of a myriad of hot needles that burrow into his flesh.
«Come on, there's nothing you can do to help him!»
Only then, when the woman's voice reaches him, Macready realizes that someone is tugging him from behind, pulling him towards the opening of the wall.
Following Moore, the Major crouches to cross the breach, just in time to avoid a whitish mucus splash spit by the monster.
Ivanov, Moore and Macready come out of Redmond's room, rushing to the gate. Something violently impacts on the door of Macready's room, when they step by, the door seems to bend, deformed by internal pressure.
Quickly the three reach the safety gate. Here Macready breaks the retinal scanner too, then he rushes outside to push the button for the emergency closure.
The Major checks the timer on his watch: 10 minutes.
Algerian desert
Military convoy
The two military trucks still proceed side by side in their mad rush among the sand dunes. A soldier, in the truck formerly driven by McKinnock, tries to climb over the tailgate to jump out of the vehicle. The man stands for a few seconds astride on the gate, turning several times to look behind him, to the inside of the truck. When he seems to make his decision he jumps out of the vehicle but, before he touches the ground, several tentacles sprawl lightning fast in the air, bolting around his neck and one arm. The soldier remains intertwined in a death grip and is dragged on the ground. The man kicks and squirms. He struggles desperately to save his life against the fleshy mass that is choking him. Soon also his free hand is enveloped by the creature. The truck keeps running on and the man is dragged on the ground, which quickly deprives him of the protection afforded by the suit and the boots. In a short time the work of the creature and the friction on the ground starts to wreak havoc to his body, spreading a red trail that winds like a snake in the desert dust.
On board of the helicopter it's unleashed chaos. Ironside tries everything possible to regain control of the aircraft. He is a former soldier who knows how to pilot that model but it's been a long time since his last ride. In addition, the lifeless body of Redmond blocks the cloche. The intercom spreads the terrifying sounds coming from the driver of the only truck still running, mixed with the desperate shouts of the soldiers trapped inside.
McKinnock's truck, now at the mercy of the creature, steers right, ramming the other vehicle. Pushed away by the hit, another burst explod
ed by Brody misses the helicopter by a whisker.
The two vehicles run side by side for a few dozen meters when they impact violently against a squat dune. The vehicles shoot up into the sky for a few moments, then they ruin precipitously on the other side.
The clash is tremendous, and they overturn several times.
Meanwhile, the helicopter is spinning on itself and in the cabin the alarm signal resonates accompanied by the light flashes of a red emergency lamp.
«We're going down!», yells Matt Serum from one of the benches in the belly of the aircraft.
One of the marines comes forward unsteadily, he open his arms to steady himself on the bulkheads.
Giving proof of determination, poise and uncommon strength, he manages to stay up and at the same time he releases the body of Redmond from the safety straps. He lifts the corpse and moves it on the floor behind him. He nimbly climbs over the pilot's seat and takes his place, holding the cloche and quickly changing some switches.
The helicopter stabilizes quickly; the man seems to know what he does. Ironside gives him a look of understanding and gratitude.
He is the man who was watching him earlier.
USA base CNT222
Macready, Moore and Ivanov rush quickly through the last flight of stairs to get to the gate marked with number 3. The sequence of gestures to open the passage repeats, while the two scientists stay a few meters back. Moore is holding the explosive vial in her right hand, ready to throw it.
«What's that?», Macready asks, nodding to the vial.
«It's a raw incendiary bomb. There was not enough space to use it, it would have burned one of us.»
The last words of the woman muffle while the gate opens to a hallway similar to the one upstairs. Here too, obvious signs of destruction. Along one wall three deep gashes run along the surface, they run parallel and fade after a few meters into a large splash of dark blood.
«I must get to the armory. You stay here. If I won't be back within five minutes... run! There is an opening at the top of the stairs. It will take you outside.»
Cellular Activity- The Djinn Page 22