by JT Lawrence
But, really, what could it be? It will drive him crazy not knowing. He’d be thinking of this room for the rest of his days, wondering what is inside the bloody coolers. Anyway, it’ll only take a couple of seconds to check it out.
There is a row of brown boxes and a row of red. He walks up to the first row and flicks his flashlight beam over the lids.
Extremely hazardous, it says. Biohazard. It has a 3D tag of a man in a hazmat suit. Danger. Ingozi. Don’t touch.
That old trick.
Seth’s seen that gimmick a hundred times in the black clinics and evil corps he’s exposed. They slap a couple of ‘biohazard’ stickers on anything they don’t want nosy staffers knowing about. Put a half-convincing ‘radioactive’ label on a safe door and you’ll never have to worry about anyone ever breaking in.
Fucking amateurs, he thinks, as he snaps open the catches of the first lid.
Inside the box are neatly filed flexiglass envelopes, all labelled with a numeric code. He lifts a random one out and shines his penlight at its centre. It looks like some kind of print. A round stamp the size of his palm made up of pinpricks of black material with a blank circle inside. Geometric, but certainly organic, like the iris of an eye. He think he recognises the pattern, but he can’t think what it is. There’s something about the network architecture of the thing: the Fibonacci fractals are clear, but why a stamp, and why here, in this box, in this subterranean cavern? He lifts another, then another. They’re almost identical.
Seth peels one of the envelopes apart to get a closer look. The radiating lines and dots are indeed some kind of organic matter. Mycelium? He brings it even closer to his face, and when he does, he knows for sure. He sniffs a bit closer. There’s no mistaking that earthy scent, like rainforest soil, truffle shavings. The circular designs makes sense now: the gills. These are mushroom spore stamps.
Seth doesn’t bother to close the box, just moves on to the next one. Again, similar designs, but slight—evolving—differences in size and density, as if they are working on crisping the subspecies. He figures all the brown boxes contain mushroom spores, so he moves to the other side of the pallets where the red cooler boxes are. They have the same biohazard warnings, and the lids are secured with matching yellow-and-black chevron tape. The lid itself is slightly different too. It has a pattern of tiny holes. Whatever’s inside needs air, and he hesitates to open it. He really shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t even be in here. He needs to find Kate, but it will only take another ten seconds and then he’ll be out.
He puts his ear to the breathing holes. There’s a faint crackling from inside, a susurration. There’s definitely something alive in there. Seth begins peeling the tape off the sides as quickly as he can without making too much noise. He snicks open the catches and lifts the top tentatively, his heart thumping, half expecting something to jump out at him. The rustling is louder now and it smells like old leaves and decay and something else that makes his stomach lurch. The light from his torch illuminates the contents, and Seth flinches and almost drops the lid. Hundreds of beetles scuttle and swarm over each other, their nutty carapaces vibrating, frantic with hunger. Seth is about to close the box when he sees something else in there: a large round shape at the bottom that they’re all flitting over. He wants to look closer but can’t stand putting his face any nearer to the insects. What is it? What has got them so excited? He puts his hands on either side of the container and gives it a good shake, dislodging the beetles from the object, and then immediately wishes he hadn’t. The cooler box is suspended half on, half off the pallet. A severed head stares back at him. Half of the skin has been eaten away, revealing large patches of clean white skullbone. Both eye sockets gape with black vacuums for eyes—tea-coloured teeth grimace.
Seth’s fright makes him fumble with the container and he half-falls, and the box falls with him, spilling the colony on to the concrete screed floor. Sensing a long-awaited freedom, the beetles scatter, and the decomposing skull rolls and knocks into the wall.
Fuck. Shit. And then, totally inappropriately: Own goal.
A beetle bites his hand and Seth shakes it off, stands, and crunches it underfoot. He brushes his body with his fingers, pulling the hungry beetles off his clothes; finds one in his hair and throws it across the room.
Seth has seen enough, and he moves to leave the room. He tries to close the door behind him to keep the bugs contained, but the smartlock isn’t working. When he hears footsteps coming in his direction, he pushes himself up against a wall, out of sight. It’s a trio of prison guards; they must have heard the box hitting the floor. He holds his breath as they rush past him, torches blazing, into the biohazard room. Their boots crush the early insect escapees.
“The fuck?” says one.
“We’re not supposed to be in here,” says the other.
“Holy shit. This is not good.”
Seth folds around the corner they’ve just rushed past. He breathes as quietly as he can.
The first guard talks into his mandible: “We need a clean-up in the bio section.”
There is static.
“Hello?”
“Jesus, Samuel. You really think they care about some bugs right now?”
“I can’t get through to Gaelyn.”
“There’s no one at the desk, you idiot. We have two hundred convicted murderers and paedos and no way to keep them down here. Do you think they’re gonna send a fucking janitor? Wake the fuck up!”
“I just …” Samuel says, “The signs, you know. The hazard warnings. I just think we have to contain this somehow or there’ll be trouble.”
“You’re as thick as pig shit, Sam. You know that?”
“Sam’s got a point,” says the third man. “Remember when we lived in the barracks for training?”
“Not you too. What the fuck are you two on about? We’ve got a catastrophic security breach here. We’re probably going to be lynched by the mob before cereal time and you two are worried about some fucking bugs.”
“I just mean, remember the roaches there? One day there was one and the next day there were a hundred. These things know how to breed.”
He’s got a point. Seth’s pretty sure the flesh-eating insects are laying eggs in invisible crevices as they speak. He shudders. Samuel’s right. This does not bode well.
“You two are un-fucking-believable. Hurry up, we need to get to the convicts.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man shakes his head and he walks towards the residence, away from Seth, muttering under his breath. “Trust my luck to get stuck with these morons on fucking D-Day. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-fucking-dumb.”
“I just really think, Sir—” says Samuel.
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” the man explodes. “Fine! Fine, Pig Shit! You stay here and clean up this mess, and when you’re done you can join the grown-ups in the residence, okay?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The two guards march off, and the man in charge smacks the wall for good measure, in case his yelling did not adequately convey his frustration.
Samuel takes his automatic rifle off his back and plants it down against the wall. Maybe Seth has overestimated his intelligence after all. The man steps back inside the biohazard room and by the sounds of things, begins to swat the bugs with an unseen tool.
As soon as the two guards are far enough gone, Seth sneaks towards the gun and nabs it, then steals away. Kate is close; he can feel her through the warm walls. Seth clasps the weapon to his torso.
Thank you, Pig Shit.
Chapter 70
Grey Skull
Zack’s appearance is so shocking that Kate has to look twice to make sure it’s him. His body is strong, firm with the kind of muscle you get from hard labour, not like the bicep-kissers in coolvests you see all over your adstream. But his face … is a grey skull. Bone ash. What have they done to him? The years in here have stripped him of his spark.
“Zack?” She’s still uncertain.
“You’ve co
me,” he says, as if in a trance.
“I told you she’d come,” says Bernard. “Even though she took her sweet time.”
“What now?” says Zack.
“Don’t look at me.” Bernard motions at Kate. “She’s the one who’s supposed to be setting you free.”
“I don’t know how to get out of here,” says Kate.
“Yes, but you have that,” says Bernard, gesturing at the green pixel on her chest. “And that’s our ticket. Guards can’t touch customers, and that means if you protect Zack, they can’t stop us from leaving.”
Kate looks down at the green dot. “That’s all it’ll take? A pixel?”
Well, a pixel and an apocalypse.
“There’s no way to escape without it. Zack would be shot on his first step out of here. They would have put a bullet in me, too. The order was to wait for you, and we did.”
Bernard gestures that they should follow her.
Kate sees through the guard’s brusqueness. She can see by the way the woman looks at Zack—what is left of Zack—that she very much cares if he stays alive. They follow her out the door and turn right into the passage.
“This isn’t the way we came in,” says Kate.
“We’re going out the back,” says Bernard.
They hurry along what seems like a Möbius strip, and Kate feels as lost as ever, but then she hears people, faint at first, then louder. Excited gabble, like bubbles in the air.
Kate grabs Bernard’s arm. “We can’t go that way. There’re people there.”
“It’s the only way.” Bernard pulls her baton off her utility belt.
They get closer to the clamour. Kate’s adrenaline is now flashing neon yellow at her, and her instinct is to run in the opposite direction. The image of the small damp cell drives her forward.
“Watch out,” says Bernard. “The other pods aren’t as well behaved as the one you’ve seen.”
“Not as heavily medicated, you mean,” says Kate.
Bernard looks at her. “Yes.”
They all slow down as they approach the residence.
“Be as quiet as you can.” Bernard switches off her torch and Kate follows suit. They slip into the dark common room where a crowd of excited men are chattering like monkeys. They have two flashlights between them—where did they get them?—and they’re hopping and kicking something in the middle of the room. Cursing. It’s a guard. No, two guards, curled up on the floor in an attempt to protect themselves from the blows.
Kate tries to ignore the terror that slams into her chest. The darkness takes on a sinister quality and the air curdles around her. She tries not to breathe too hard but her anxiety is crushing her lungs.
They flatten themselves against the wall as much as they are able, and slowly move around the room to get to the door on the other side. Smoothly and quickly they go, averting their faces, hoping the men will be too distracted by the guards to notice them sliding along the walls in the dark. Kate can’t help but glance at the men, shadow rubbernecking, horrified by the naked violence in stuttering monochrome. An action scene in an old movie—an avant-garde stage play.
Kate, Zack and Bernard are just a few footsteps from the door when there is a loud “Hey!” and a man with a bulging face is looking right at Kate, caught in the scattered light.
“Run!” shouts Bernard.
They launch forward, but stumble in the dark. Kate falls hard on the concrete floor. A hand reaches out and grabs her leg.
Kate screams and kicks at him. Her adrenaline is like a current zipping up inside her body.
“Help us!” yells one of the prisoners. “Get us out of here! We’ll die if you leave us here!”
She kicks the man in the face but he just shouts, firms his grip, and pulls her along the floor towards the centre of the room. She lashes out, but he’s much stronger than her. Bernard appears and strikes him on the head with her baton and he lets go and rolls away, but then another prisoner takes his place and grabs Kate around the hips. She yells and punches him in the face, struggling against him while Bernard lands as many blows as she can on the other approaching men and their greedy hands. Kate’s fear is smothering her; she chokes on bile as she kicks and screams and is dragged further into the mob. Zack is fumbling with something in his uniform pocket while men shove and punch him. He’s not even fighting back. It’s as if he’s gone inside himself, some protective measure to block what is happening.
Fight! Kate wants to yell at him. Fight! But all he does is look down and fumble.
Kate screams and scrabbles, trying to get away. Her elbow fizzes with bright blue pain as she flails against them. Her voice is fading, her muscles trembling from fear and fatigue.
This is not how I die.
She lands a well-placed kick to a man’s jaw, and he lets her go. Another grabs her, an insane leer on his pale face. She tries to kick him, too, but he catches her foot and twists it, and she yells as the pain jolts up her leg.
Bernard is using her strong arms to hand off attackers and strike down anyone in her way. She whacks the man whose hands are wrapped around Kate’s pelvis, whacks him so hard on the temple Kate hears a crack, and he falls away without further resistance, leaving a comet of red on her chest.
“Help us!” they keep saying. “Get us out of here!” they shout as they attack.
Kate’s able to get to her knees but is pulled back by her hair, and she roars as she turns to elbow the man in the groin, and he sinks to the floor. Another man climbs on top of Kate, then another, and she’s flattened against the hard ground, smacking the side of her head on the way down. She can’t find the oxygen she needs to stay conscious. Static blows into her brain and threatens to close her eyes. Her whole body throbs navy. Despite the close moaning and babbling, Kate hears Bernard yelling and whipping the prisoners with her baton. Kate’s eyes are closed now but she imagines the woman as twice her normal size, roaring and smashing the men in her way like Godzilla. Kate’s consciousness is streaming out of her but if she passes out now she’s dead. Not only dead, but worse: because she can feel the men’s hands all over her, grabbing for her breasts, her stomach, between her legs, pulling her hair and fingers and lips as if they mean to dismember her. They are wild dogs ready to carry off parts of her, and when one prisoner digs his nails in behind her ear and tries to peel it off, it gives Kate the furious energy to buck and shove the heel of her hand hard up into his nose. The cartilage gives way with a crunch and he hoses her with his hot, sick blood.
Her terror feeds her energy.
“This is not how I die!” she shouts, and jumps up and kicks the next man high in the chest, sending him lurching backwards, then knees the next attacker in the groin. Another man, about to jump on her, is side-swiped by Bernard’s baton, as is the next, and then there is finally some space to make an escape out of the room.
“Zack!” shouts Kate.
Still Zack fumbles.
For fuck’s sake!
Bernard moves to grab his arm, to yank him out of the room, when a convict shocks her with a punch to her jawbone, then wrestles the baton out of her hand and cracks Bernard on the back of the head with it. Her body hits the floor with a hefty smack.
The man is about to kick Bernard’s bleeding head when Kate punches him as hard as she can in his stomach, cracking her knuckles. He exhales hard, but doesn’t move. He sets his sights on Kate. Shaking out her stinging hand, she steadies her stance, ready to defend herself, but her confidence drains out of her as more men come, and more men, and Kate gets the idea that no matter how hard she fights, they’ll just keep coming at her. Multiplying like Agent Smiths over and over again until there are hundreds of them and nothing left of her.
Chapter 71
Darkmeat Venus Flytrap
Kate’s heart is wild. She manages to floor one of the men with a well-timed kick to the groin, and smashes another convict’s nose, temporarily blinding him. She has to keep on fighting, but there’s just one of her and seemingly dozens of them. Th
e prisoners move together now as one, wanting to swallow her up: a darkmeat venus fly trap. Kate’s muscles are burnt out, she has no more energy to fight them off. She loses a sleeve to the mob, then feels them tugging at the naked arm as if to pop it from its socket. They descend on her. Kate’s voice is hoarse but she screams anyway, a ragged moan that is lost in the chaos of bodies. Bernard bleeds black on black.
Kate trains her eyes on flashes of Zack, who finally stops fidgeting with his uniform pocket and pulls out a piece of sharp glinting metal. He starts swiping at the men and they cry out in surprise and pain as he slashes their throats and arms and anything else he can reach. They spin away from him, spraying blood, and he cuts and cuts as if he is mowing down a field of weeds. The floor is slippery with the warm artery oil. The men over Kate disappear one by one. Finally, the stragglers, not fancying their odds of survival, back away and leak into adjacent rooms. Kate is coughing up vomit. Her face is wet with tears, although she doesn’t remember crying.
Zack puts the cut-throat razor back in his pocket, and levers Kate off the ground. He’s shiny with sweat and other fluids. Bernard has surfaced, shaking her head, dizzy, unsure on her feet. She finds her steel baton and hugs it to her stomach. They run out of the residents’ room and along a passage, turn left and then right. As they run, Bernard trails her hand along the wall, inspecting it as she goes. Suddenly she stops and her hand wraps around the edge of a camouflaged door.
“Here.” Bernard unhooks the catch and slides it open, revealing a doorway to a dark tunnel. The air flowing out is cool and scented with soil. They climb through, and Bernard slides the door closed after them. Despite the steep slope they quicken their pace and leave the heat of the silo core behind. The secret subway has rails on the ground, like a makeshift mining shaft.