The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Made it!” Annie called from above.

  Marie started up.

  Damn, this was taking too long. The Anomaly could be back any minute.

  He put his arm around Laura and drew her down into a crouch.

  “You’re up next.”

  “Uh-uh.” She pointed to Jon and Woolley. “They’re next. I found you and I’m not leaving you. The only way I go ahead of you is just ahead of you.”

  Rick found himself dismayed at her stubbornness but delighted with the sentiment.

  35

  Helpless … Greve had never imagined being so completely helpless. He floated a few feet off the floor, trailing on an invisible leash behind this freak of nature, able to grab hold of nothing that might impede his progress. Nothing but empty air.

  And all around him, flashing red lights and wailing Klaxons, piles of broken furniture hurled from the storeroom, and a headless body sprawled in a huge pool of blood.

  The bunker—he’d come to think of it as his bunker—had devolved into chaos and anarchy.

  He saw his chance as Ellis led him toward the door to the rear section. When they reached it he managed to plant his feet against the jambs. The freak turned and gave him a pitying look. Greve’s ankles suddenly slammed together and he was on the move again. He tried to grab a jamb with his right hand but his fingers couldn’t hold.

  A moan of fear escaped him as he floated toward the still form on the floor near the containment chamber. Thankfully someone had covered her with a lab coat, but she wouldn’t remain hidden for long.

  And then what? He didn’t want to go there but knew he was well on his way and would find out soon enough.

  Suddenly he was falling. The jolt of hitting the floor flat on his back triggered a blast of pain from his shoulder. Groaning, he rolled onto his good side and saw Ellis standing over Iggy’s covered form. Watched him kneel and slowly remove the lab coat. Heard his wail of anguish, and then felt the air slam against him like the shockwave from an explosion.

  He flew through the air, his flight ending in another burst of agony when he slammed against the wall by the door. Things around the room were breaking—anything breakable was shattering, even the bulletproof glass on the containment chamber was webbing with cracks.

  The door … if he could get out the door—

  No. He was moving again, an invisible hand dragging him feet first back toward Ellis and the dead girl. When Greve reached them, Ellis grabbed him by his collar and twisted him around until he was face-to-face with Iggy.

  “Look what you did to her! Look what you did!”

  Staring into her glazed right eye and her empty left socket, lined with clotted blood, Greve inanely thought how this catastrophic exit wound shouldn’t have happened with the hollow-point rounds he’d loaded, but maybe because the back of the eye socket was made of such thin bone …

  “How could you do this?” Ellis screamed.

  What could he say, what could he do?

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

  “Didn’t mean to shoot her in the back of her head? You’re going to tell me that was an accident? Look at her! She’s in shackles! How could she be any kind of threat to you?”

  If you only knew, Greve thought. You have no idea …

  “What am I going to do to you?” Ellis said. He seemed to be talking to himself. “It needs to be vile and nasty but … appropriate.”

  He yanked Greve around onto his back, igniting another blast of pain, and crouched over him.

  “Please …”

  “I know!” His face lit. “Your eye! You ruined Iggy’s, so it’s only fair that I start by ruining—”

  The Anomaly zoomed into the room—where from, Greve had no idea—but instead of passing through, the sphere of flaring blackness began to circle them.

  “What’s that thing up to?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  But Greve had a suspicion the Anomaly was attracted to human agony—why else would it or something very much like it have appeared at the Düsseldorf atrocity? And it might well be hovering here in anticipation of impending agony—Greve’s.

  The very real possibility sent a shudder through him. He didn’t want to die—the thought of that was terrifying enough. But dying in agony …

  “Get outta here!” Ellis shouted.

  Greve could swear he saw the edge of the Anomaly’s sphere flatten for a second as it backed away.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Ellis said, rising and moving toward it. “Get outta here!”

  Kill him! Greve urged. Tear a hole through his heart and let me watch him bleed!

  Again the brief flattening and a backward jump, this time to the doorway.

  Ellis was laughing now, sounding like he’d suffered some sort of psychotic break. “Finally met your match, eh? How does it feel?” His voice rose to a shout. “OUT!”

  The Anomaly was shoved out of the rear section and into the hallway. Ellis followed.

  How … how could this be happening? Greve forced himself to his knees. Ellis overpowering the Anomaly?

  He struggled to his knees, then his feet, and staggered toward the doorway.

  The Anomaly had stopped perhaps twenty feet down the hall. Ellis was shouting something at it but Greve couldn’t make out the words over the honking Klaxons. It appeared they’d reached a standoff.

  Greve realized then that the Anomaly had increased its size, moving beyond soccer ball to beach ball. And now Ellis was backing away.

  The broken furniture in the hallway started to move, sliding toward the Anomaly, then lifting into the air to fly at it. Why was Ellis throwing things at it? What purpose—?

  Instead of disappearing into the Anomaly’s black center, the furniture began to circle it, as if going into orbit. That had never happened before. Whatever they’d thrown at it had always disappeared into the void at its center. But then, it had never been a sphere before.

  The furniture revolved faster and faster, breaking up and splintering into progressively smaller pieces. And Ellis, still backing away from it, kept tossing more and more furniture its way. The first few pieces had been reduced to sawdust by now.

  What was he thinking?

  A broken desk slid along the floor and struck him in the back of his legs, almost knocking him off his feet. He stumbled away from it and let it rise and join what was left of the other orbiting furniture now forming a glowing ring.

  And then Greve knew: Ellis wasn’t hurling the pieces of furniture at the Anomaly, the thing was drawing them to itself.

  Ellis stumbled to the side and gripped a doorframe to one of the rooms as the headless corpse started to slide. He pushed against the closed door but it wouldn’t budge. Greve didn’t remember locking that one. The suction from the Anomaly, maybe? Greve himself was feeling a tug toward the thing. But not suction. Leaning in the doorway, he felt no breeze of air in motion from behind him. Yet the Anomaly was drawing him toward it.

  Hayden appeared at the doorway to the storeroom—the place Greve wanted to be—and seemed transfixed by the sight of the Anomaly. Well, why not? The thing was putting on quite a show.

  Greve watched the headless security man’s body rise toward the Anomaly and go into orbit. It seemed to stretch like an elastic mannequin before being torn into tiny pieces that were further reduced to a red soup that became part of the glowing, spinning ring—now a disk.

  Disk … like an accretion disk …

  No … this wasn’t possible. And yet … that pull didn’t feel like suction. No wind at his back as it pulled at the air. This felt more like gravity … steadily increasing gravity. Unless Greve was going as crazy as Ellis, the Anomaly seemed to have turned into a miniature black hole.

  36

  Damn near killed Rick to allow Woolley and Jon on the ladder before Laura, but she was so stubbornly adamant about not leaving him, she left him no choice. The process was taking so long. Made excellent sense to restrict the ladder load to one person at a time, but no
one was moving fast enough to suit him. Marie had reached the top and now Woolley was on his way. He hadn’t said so, but Woolley appeared scared of heights. At least he climbed like he was. One step up, bring the trailing foot up beside it, another step up, bring the trailing foot up—

  “Move it, Woolley!” Jon yelled. Apparently he was becoming as impatient as Rick. “You climb like a fucking girl!”

  “Hey!” Laura said. “I resent that!”

  “Sorry,” Jon said. “But look at him. You could climb a lot faster than that, I bet.”

  “Damn right I could.”

  Rick knew she was right. He’d seen her climb. She had no fear of heights.

  Gazing up at Woolley’s slow progress, Jon shook his head. “What a pussy.”

  “Do you mind?”

  Rick pulled off his coverall and tossed it on the floor, only to see it drag itself out of the shaft and into the storeroom—and what were those scraping sounds coming from out there? He backed up a step and saw the reason: The furniture had started moving again.

  Ellis?

  Rick had assumed he’d taken Greve to the rear section where Iggy lay. Was he back already? And if so, what was he doing with the furniture?

  The mattress Greve had hidden behind started sliding then flew toward the doorway, slapped flat against frame, then bent and disappeared through. A bent desk chair wheeled out after it.

  From his vantage point, Rick could see only a sliver of the hallway, but it looked different. Something about the light. The red emergency lights still flashed, but a strange glow, steadier, brighter, was blotting them out.

  “Rick?” Laura said behind him. “What—”

  “Stay back, okay? Something weird going on.”

  “ ‘Weird’? You mean weirder, don’t you? And weirder is a good reason to get back here with me.”

  He started edging toward the door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Dammit, Rick, you should know by now that you move away from weird, not toward it.”

  Good advice, but he wanted—needed—just a peek. It might be important to know.

  “Half a minute, Laura.”

  The new light was originating down the hall, from near the midpoint. Rick felt a definite tug toward the hallway, almost as if the floor had tilted that way. Nearing the door, he saw Watts’s headless corpse begin to move, leaving a large red smear as it slid away from its pool of blood. Then it lifted off the floor and glided out of sight.

  At the door, Rick steadied himself against the jamb, peeked around, and froze.

  “What on—?”

  He’d been about to ask what on Earth, but clearly this was not of Earth. It resembled the Anomaly but was big and ringed with a glowing disk of fire—or, rather, superheated matter.

  Watts’s corpse seemed to stretch to an impossible length as it neared the Anomaly, then it came apart and melted into the glowing, whirling disk. Rick searched for Stoney’s corpse beyond the apparition but couldn’t find it. Already sucked into the disk, probably.

  Movement two doors down caught his attention and he spotted Ellis clinging to a doorframe, trying to keep from following Watts. Rick shouted his name a number of times but Ellis didn’t seem to hear. Being that close to the Anomaly had either mesmerized him or affected his hearing.

  The Anomaly … what had changed it? He stared at the deep, empty blackness of its core, and couldn’t help remembering Düsseldorf and how he’d been living in the best of all possible lives in the best of all possible worlds until he was assigned to Düsseldorf, and how this thing had appeared and wandered through the killing ground, and that slammed home the memory of how he’d been powerless to help those mutilated children, how he’d come to the devastating realization that the best—the only succor he could offer was the oblivion of death.

  And that same oblivion was now being offered by the Void at the core of the Anomaly. Why not? Why not accept the offer? Embrace the Void. No memories of Düsseldorf in there, no nightmares of eyeless faces and tongueless mouths screaming in silent terror, no—

  Whoa-whoa-whoa!

  What was going on here? The Anomaly was not only devouring everything in sight, it was sucking off the will to live, making death and the Void look endlessly attractive. More than attractive—the next logical step.

  Groaning, he pushed away from the doorway and staggered back toward Laura and the escape shaft. Perhaps the Void ruled, perhaps it was inevitable and unavoidable and all that. But not yet. Not quite yet.

  And not without a fight.

  37

  Ellis clung to the doorjamb. He’d tried to force his way into the room but the draw from the Anomaly proved too strong; the door wouldn’t budge. And as for making his way back to the rear section—no way was that in the cards. So he stayed where he was and watched the flying headless dead guy dissolve into the disk around the new and improved Anomaly.

  New and improved … did I do that? Had his gift done that?

  He’d used it against the Anomaly, to shove—slug it, actually. Seeing Iggy like that, he’d been pissed beyond thinking, beyond sanity. He’d needed to break something, hit something, and the Anomaly had shown up at just the wrong time. He’d felt so great when he whacked it and dented it and made it back up—top of the world. He forgot now how many times he’d bashed it, but then it had stopped retreating and turned into this … whatever this was.

  And now it would kill him.

  Yeah, no way could he survive this, not with the pull of the Anomaly steadily growing in strength. He’d long sensed death waiting for him, anxious for him. Always knew he’d never reach a ripe old age, but he’d hoped to hit forty, at least. Hit forty and he could consider himself a bona fide Old Fart. He’d flip the Universe the bird and dare it to do whatever it pleased with what was left of his future. He’d already won.

  His future … a future with Iggy hadn’t been totally impossible but, when he got down to it, he’d never believed they had a chance. The deck had been stacked against the two of them getting together and staying that way. And now Greve had taken that future completely off the table.

  Ellis forced his gaze from the Anomaly’s empty center and looked back at Greve, cowering in the doorway of the rear section. Their eyes met and Greve smiled. Fucking flashed his death’s-head grin at him

  You think you’re getting out of this, Greve? Fuhgeddaboudit. See that blackness at your pal’s center? That’s where you’re headed—where we’re all headed. It’s had our names since the day we were born, and now it’s come calling. Time to go, Greve. Your time’s up.

  And so is mine.

  He turned back toward the Anomaly.

  You want me, mofo? We both knew sooner or later you was gonna get me, so why don’t I make this easy on both of us? I ain’t gonna fight. You don’t gotta strong-arm me. As a matter of fact, I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do: I’ll come to you.

  He was almost looking forward to this now.

  He flipped Greve the bird, then stepped away from the doorway and spread his arms.

  This is how it’s done.

  His feet dragged as he was pulled toward the disk. He lifted into the air and pain like he’d never known ripped through him as his cells began to tear one from the other. But he wouldn’t scream.

  This is how you die, mofo.

  38

  Clinging to his doorway down the hall, Greve looked at Ellis, his expression fierce and yet questioning.

  Wondering if you caused this, freak? Well, who else are you going to blame? You did it, asshole. No one else. Greve forced a grin. Yes, you did it. And now you pay the price.

  But why had it happened? And how had he done it? Using his power against the Anomaly? Had that triggered the change—sending it into defensive mode? Or was this aggressor mode?

  Either way, it seemed intent on gobbling up everything in sight.

  Greve saw a change come over Ellis’s face. The anger and puzzlement morphing to … what? Acceptance?

  Nodding to himself, Ell
is raised his middle finger to Greve, then stepped out of the doorway. He spread his arms as if welcoming what was about to happen, and then he began to move, sliding at first and then rising and flying headfirst toward the Anomaly. His body seemed to stretch like taffy as it approached the accretion disk, and then it dissolved and joined the glowing swirl.

  Ellis Reise was gone.

  Suddenly particle beams—narrow shafts of light, intolerably white and intolerably bright—shot upward and downward from the Anomaly’s poles, piercing the ceiling and the floor. The light struck him almost a physical blow. With his good arm he began to swing the door shut to block it out, but it was pulled from his grasp to slam into the jambs with a force that shook the wall.

  Greve lowered himself to sitting with his back against the wall beside the door. How was he going to get out of this? He knew the answer: He wasn’t.

  He couldn’t bear that thought. He’d always arranged his life so that he’d be in charge, he’d call the shots. But this … he had to accept that he was helpless against the Anomaly and what it had become. Its imperturbability and incomprehensibility left him weak and numb.

  His fate was out of his hands. He had no hope of defeating or escaping it. His only chance at survival was the Anomaly’s seeming capriciousness. It had turned into a black hole for no discernible reason—maybe Ellis had triggered it, maybe not. Through that same capriciousness it might return to one of its former states. Maybe the passive form that had spent decades sealed in the containment chamber. Even the randomly destructive floating sphere would be preferable to what it had now become.

  The only thing he could do was huddle here and do nothing … wait and see what would happen. Maybe he’d be lucky. Maybe—

  With an awful screech the metal door twisted and folded before ripping from its hinges and disappearing through the frame.