Fast (11 page)

            ‘
My god
,’ she breathed.

            She should be concerned about the entire population within the Complex, but only one thought gripped her mind.

David
.

Was her son safe or in as much danger as herself? Where these things on every level?

            Please god, let him be safe. Let him be sealed up in the Evacuation Center.

            She needed to find him, and to do that, she needed to survive the next sixty seconds.

Vanessa had been checking all her staff were evacuated when the creatures swarmed into her main lab. Now they were attacking her centrifugal separator. The separator half collapsed and bucked under the assault like a drunken mechanical bull, driving the creatures berserk.

            Vanessa Sharp was five foot nine. Living underground hadn’t quite bleached the tan from her skin. With her dark green eyes and wide smile, the media often described her as attractive. This always surprised her. For the last twelve months, more and more she imagined herself evolving into some kind of permanent underground denizen. A perfect manifestation of Darwin’s law of natural selection, her research and laboratory were the strongest pressures defining her appearance. She kept her brown hair short enough not to interfere with any of the lab’s safety equipment. Her clothes had to be comfortable and practical, yet tight enough not to catch in pieces of moving apparatus. Today she wore white Adidas sneakers, brown cargo pants with big pockets over each thigh, and the lime green Ralph Lauren polo shirt she’d brought from the gift shop. Vanessa was the Head of Genetic Research, and no single person had done more to improve the quality of life for developing countries in the last three years.

            She also liked to swear when the occasion presented.

            ‘Fuuuck,’ she breathed quietly.

            The creatures finally ripped the separator from its power supply. Vanessa reached into her pocket for the small remote control. Glancing down, she thumbed through the remote’s settings until she found what she was after. She hit the activate button.

            The multi-function remote activated the bank of rotary agitators a little way across the lab. The agitators whirred to life and accelerated to full speed.

            The creatures reciprocated, launching themselves at the agitators.

            This had been Vanessa’s survival technique of the last few minutes: activate something to distract the creatures, take a few steps, activate something else, take another few steps….

            Thankfully, the creatures’ choice of target had been immediately apparent.
Vibrations
. The creatures attacked anything that hummed or ticked or spun.

            Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet reached her telephone.

            Vanessa was now two-thirds of the way across the lab. Her primary research area was a massive circular laboratory packed with specialized genetic research equipment. She could monitor and activate most things remotely. More important with every step however, and spaced around the lab, were the exits to her nine sub-labs. This entire network of core labs was interconnected by a system of corridors with descending plexiglass pathogen barriers.

            She knew her life could be seconds from ending, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the creatures. Call it professional curiosity. Like the volcanologist approaching flowing lava. These creatures represented her lava, the dangerous end of her science. The moment she saw them, she knew it was
her
science that had produced these abominations; these were the corrupted results of her stolen research materials.

            The creatures were less than fifteen feet away when she finally heard the feminine voice come over the lab’s audio system:

            This is a level three containment emergency. This laboratory will seal in ten seconds. Nine…eight…seven…

            She could have kissed the owner of that voice. This was her chance. The creatures’ rampage had finally triggered the labs to seal as a safety precaution. Her remote device couldn’t control the plexiglass barriers. The barriers could only be opened from a computer workstation or by one of the manual controls mounted shoulder-high beside every exit. Vanessa had designed it that way.

            Now she needed to get the timing right. She watched the six plexiglass barriers descending around the main lab.

            She took a deep breath. The exit to E-lab was twenty feet away.

            Wait…wait…NOW!

            She took off sprinting towards E-lab.

            …six…five…four…

            The creatures launched straight after her, but she only concentrated on beating the plexiglass. The barrier descended fast.
Maybe too fast?
Getting under the barrier was going to be a very close thing. She decided she’d rather be crushed to death than share the fate of her centrifugal separator.

            …
three…two…one…

            She dropped, hit the floor and slid. Her legs, hips and torso slipped under the gap, but her head didn’t make it. She felt the barrier clip her nose and clamp onto her forehead. The vice-like pressure was excruciating. She twisted her head to the side and heaved against the plexiglass. The bottom edge of the barrier viciously scraped her scalp. Her head squeezed under. The barrier joined the floor as the creature collided into the plexiglass only inches from her face. She scooted away on her butt as the plexiglass bowed towards her. Her head spun from the near-death experience. A small gash cut through her right eyebrow.

            The plexiglass started cracking.

            It won’t hold.

            The creature wedged itself against the barrier and began pushing outwards. Its limbs were twelve hydraulic jacks applying steadily-increasing pressure against the barrier. The one-inch-thick plexiglass functioned as a barrier to micro-organisms, not marauding man-eaters.

            As Vanessa turned and ran, she heard the plexiglass barrier shatter behind her.

#

‘Holy shit!’ yelled King as the helicopter fell.

            Coleman shoved off from beside the locker as the helicopter plummeted. King scrambled to his feet. They sprinted towards the changing rooms.

            Dropping through the air, the seventeen meter long Pave Hawk looked as big as the pool itself.

            The unrolling pool cover never stood a chance. The last moments of its existence just amplified the Pave Hawk’s impact.

            It made a
much
bigger wave.

            Water roared from the pool in every direction. The gunmen sprinting up both sides were smashed sideways. The wave had nowhere to go, so the force pushed their bodies straight up the walls like water sloshing up the sides of a bathtub. The wave thrust the creature through the doorway into the midst of the gunmen.

            Coleman only glimpsed this unexpected and highly-satisfying outcome as he and King tumbled from their feet. He glimpsed King disappearing under the wall of water moments before his own legs swept sideways. A blurred view of the ceiling washed into a world of flailing limbs and muffled sound. The wave caught his body armor, rolling him underwater along the floor. His assault rifle smacked up hard under his chin. Floor tiles flew past his eyes. His body pounded into the floor once, twice, three times, then he realized the last jarring impact was his body hitting the back wall of the pool room.

            He thrust out his arms, but it felt like trying to stand up in a giant washing machine.

            He felt himself getting dragged back towards the pool with the retreating water.

            If he ended up in the pool he was as good as dead!

            Coleman scrabbled with his hands on the tiled bottom but there was nothing to grab. Suddenly his boots hit the steel lid that King had sheltered behind. He lunged out with his left hand and caught the edge of the lid. His body swung around and stretched out underwater, hanging from the lid.

            For a second it took everything he had just to fight the current, but then the flow dropped away and he found himself kneeling in just inches of water.

            Light and sound instantly assaulted his senses. The room was brighter without the Pave Hawk blocking the skylight. The surprised gunmen down the far end were firing into the creature just thrust into their ranks. Two gunmen struggled in the pool.

            Through a confusing haze, a suddenly recognizable face appeared. A huge man stood at the far end of the pool, calmly refitting his radio earpiece. He watched Coleman intently, ignoring the men struggling in the pool. He appeared to have raised himself from the water just moments before Coleman.

            The man carried a P190 Mark 2 strapped across his chest, but he hadn’t fired. Being the first to recover from the wave, he had the advantage over Coleman, but for some reason he hadn’t yet claimed that advantage.

            Bora met Coleman’s gaze. It was a strange moment, almost as though Bora reluctantly congratulated Coleman on the helicopter stunt.

            Bora’s eyes flicked to Coleman’s right.

            It was King, struggling to his feet. King had ridden out the wave by gripping the bottom of the service vent.

            Coleman glanced at King and then back in time to see Bora raising his Mark 2.

            ‘King, run! Go!’ yelled Coleman, already dashing towards his friend. Water spouts exploded around their boots as Bora opened fire.

            The two Marines dove towards the changing room entrance as bullets smacked into the wall behind them. They hit the wet floor side by side and slid straight into the change room.

            Coleman jumped to his feet and counted the shower cubicles as he ran.

            ‘…four, five, six – here!’

            He shouldered open the door and spotted the open access hatch.

            King didn’t need any encouragement; he dove straight through the hole.

            Coleman ducked in after him and then spent a few precious seconds fitting the access panel back into place. Hopefully the gunmen wouldn’t notice the access hatch on their first search of the change rooms. He could already hear them storming the change rooms and kicking open cubicle doors.

            Neither Marine spoke. They didn’t dare draw the gunmen’s attention. King switched on his flashlight. They had standing room only in very narrow passage heading north. The passage was crowded with pipes and ducts. King shuffled side-on down the passage, easing his rifle away from metal pipes as he squeezed and ducked through the obstacles.

            Any sound would give them away. To Coleman, even the water dripping off his soaked fatigues sounded alarmingly loud.

            He glanced nervously backwards every few steps. It wouldn’t take the gunmen long to find their escape route. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but Coleman knew the danger of being caught in this tight passage. He sensed it like an instinctive vulnerability up the middle of his back. They needed to get out of here quickly.

            In the darkness ahead, a block of light appeared. Marlin squatted in the passageway, opening a hatch from inside the wall. He scanned the area beyond and then climbed quietly through the block of light. Forest emerged from the darkness and followed. They kept their actions noiseless. As King crouched through the exit, Coleman heard the gunmen open the access panel behind him.