The Last Peak (Book 2): The Darwin Collapse (34 page)

“Are you okay?”

Elio. That’s who this was.

He squeezed her shoulder and forced a smile.

Beth’s conscious thought resurfaced gasping for air like a diver testing, and perhaps sinking just beyond, the limits. “I’m okay.”

“How did you think Theresa was doing?”

Beth bit her tongue again to keep her mind reined in. She coughed to get the air moving in her throat.
 

“She’s not well.”

Elio pivoted on his heel and marched over to the closed door. He banged a fist on it. “Hey! Open the door! Open it!”

Again, no response.

“Elio, come sit with me,” Maria said. She sat in a cushioned chair holding Noor in her arms. The poor girl hadn’t said a word since her dad got left behind. She didn’t speak or cry or do anything more than allow herself to be led around. It was like there was no longer a person inside.

Elio banged on the door again. “We need some fucking help in here! Now, asshole!”

The door flew open sending Elio stumbling backwards.

“No!” Maria shouted, but it was too late.

The guard launched at Elio and smashed a fist into his cheek. Elio’s head snapped around and he crumbled to the floor.

Maria set Noor in the chair and crawled to her son. She screamed as she touched a wound on his cheek. She turned to the guard and hissed like a snake. “You sick animal!”

The guard raised his fist, preparing to do the same to her.

Maria ducked her head and curled her body over to protect her son.

The guard strutted back to the open door. “If I come in again, someone’s getting their jaw broke.” He grinned wickedly like he couldn’t wait to come in again.

Sick animal, indeed.

He deserved to be put down like a rabid dog. If only Beth had a pentobarbital dart available. She’d spike it into his carotid artery and deal with the guilt.

He closed the door and the lock clicked into place.

Beth helped Elio to his feet. She examined the cut and wished she had some medical supplies; anything, really. The wound needed stitches but she had no way of administering that treatment.

He touched his cheek and grimaced. “I’ll be fine. How are we going to get Theresa?”

Beth almost smiled.
 

The boy that had informally joined their household ten days ago was not the young man that faced her now. The affection he had for her daughter hadn’t changed. But the way in which Beth regarded him as a potential suitor had. He had the makings of a good man. A man worthy of her daughter’s future.

If she had a future.

A new voice floated in from outside the door.
 

“Crap! This shirt is ruined! Soda
everywhere
! Here, hold it for me. Oh my! I should’ve worn a bra!”
 

A loud smash and then a thud followed. The lock clicked open. Iridia, wearing nothing up top, poked her head in as the door opened. She grinned. The door opened further to reveal the guard crumpled up on the ground. A large metal vase lay next to him. “Looks like I’ve still got it, even if I haven’t seen my trainer in a million years.”

Beth stared in shock.

“Why is everyone just standing there? I’m here to rescue you,” Iridia said.

No one moved.

“There is a cure for Theresa’s sickness. It’s probably in the lab somewhere.”

Still no one moved.

“I’m waiting,” Iridia said with a tinge of irritation in her voice.
 

Now that made sense.

Beth’s brain clicked into gear. She turned to Elio. “I’ll go. You should stay with your mother and Noor.”

Elio’s brow crinkled together.

“They aren’t in any condition to go. Besides, I’m the best doctor we have.”

Elio’s eyes dropped. “You’re right. You go.” He met her gaze again. “Save her.”

Beth nodded and then turned to Iridia. “Let’s go!”

They had to find the lab.

“Might come in handy,” she said as she picked up the metal vase lying next to the unconscious guard. Though she was sorely tempted to kick him in the groin, she edged around and headed for the elevators.

They entered an elevator. Beth stared at the card reader at a loss.
 

Iridia grinned and pulled a keycard out of her pocket. “I stole it from my dad’s desk. I’m amazing, right? You can say it.”

Beth accepted the offered card and swiped it over the reader.

“Hello, Dr. Reshenko. Where do you wish to go?”

Did they have a voice scanner type thing? One that would analyze the pitch and cadence of a person’s voice and identify it as uniquely as a fingerprint?

She tried to sound like Anton, which came out horribly.

“Uh, to the lab,” Beth said. “Please?”

“Descending to the basement laboratory. Please stay clear of the doors.” The elevator dinged and the doors slid shut.

Beth’s stomach jumped into her throat, partly from the acceleration as the car started its descent and partly because she couldn’t believe it worked.

The elevator went on for what felt like forever before finally easing to a stop.
 

“Basement Laboratory.” The doors dinged and slid open.
 

A guard sat behind a desk with closed glass doors in the hallway beyond. He stood and circled around to step into their path.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Iridia stomped up and stopped inches from his face. At her height, she looked down a little to meet his gaze. “
Who am I
? Are you shitting me?”

She looked back at Beth like the world had gone crazy, which it had. So Beth wasn’t sure how to respond.

“I am Iridia Reshenko! Your boss’ daughter! Now get out of my way!”

The imperious tone exuded from her like a birthright. It oozed the expectation of obedience.
 

“Sorry, ma’am,” the guard replied. He checked the clipboard in his hands. “It’s just that I don’t see anything about you coming down. And Dr. Reshenko didn’t mention it.”

“My father sent me to retrieve his notes. He is too busy for such trivialities. Now, open the doors!”

The guard flinched like the lash of leather had bitten into his skin.

“Sorry, ma’am, but who is this with you? And why is she carrying a flower vase?”

“My father will have your head! Give me the phone!”

The guard’s eyes opened wide.

“Did you not hear me? Give me the phone!” Iridia’s tone exuded fury and entitlement. It broke the guard’s will. He turned to reach for the phone on his desk.
 

His outstretched hand didn’t arrive at its destination.
 

Beth raised the vase and chopped it down on the back of his head.

The guard crashed to the floor.
 

Iridia hopped around in little circles pumping her hands in the air. “We make a killer team!”

“Keep an eye on the guard. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

Iridia nodded as Beth hurried to the glass doors and pushed. They didn’t budge. She swiped her card over the reader. A red light switched to green.
 

“Welcome, Dr. Reshenko,” the same tastefully feminine voice said.

She pushed on the door and it soundlessly eased open. Must’ve been magnetic.

She ran through a hallway with floor to ceiling glass panels on each side. She passed glass doors all labeled things she didn’t care about.

Spectrometry. Mycology. Other departments.

There!

She spotted what she was looking for.

Patient Wing.

She swiped Anton’s card and entered.

A hallway with doors on the right. Each door had a large observation window in its center.

She peeked into the first window. The room was empty. A sparkling clean white room about ten feet by eight feet with a stainless steel bunk. The next room wasn’t empty.

Beth staggered to a stop and swallowed hard to keep from retching.

A human corpse lay on the floor. A rivulet of congealed blood and feces stretched from between its legs to the drain in the center of the floor. Its face was frozen in hollow-cheeked agony. The lips peeled back to reveal large teeth. Black boils dotted its skin. They left a hundred tiny trails down to the drain. The skin hung flaccidly from the bones like melted candle wax.

The walls were splattered with viscera unfit for closer inspection. A label next to the door read
MT-1 Variant 3A
.

What was MT-1?

Beth choked down the lump in her throat and continued on. The next several doors revealed revolting variations on the same scene and had the same label next to each door.

She kept moving, not lingering as soon as she could be certain the tragedy inside wasn’t her daughter. She looked away and hurried to the next door.
 

She froze.

“Clyde!” she yelled as her heart nearly burst with joy. The little Bili chimp looked to the glass and grinned. His large brown eyes sparkled. He jumped and rolled around, screeching and hooting with pleasure.

Beth swiped the card and barely had the door open before Clyde leaped onto her leg and climbed up into her arms. He nuzzled his moist nose into her neck and cooed like a baby. He was a baby.

Her baby.

The one that lived.

She placed him on her back. He wrapped his long arms around her neck and held on as easily as a creature does that has evolved for such behavior.

She’d found one baby, but that still left another to be found.

Beth rushed by an empty room. The wing only had three more doors before it ended. Doubt twisted in her gut. Maybe this wasn’t the right place.
She was about to pass the next door when the figure inside moved. It was an elderly man wearing a filthy medical gown. He lay on the ground touching a lower lip that appeared more detached than attached. An empty wheelchair sat next to the bunk.

What misery must he have endured?

What torture at the hands of that madman Anton?

Her heart ached for the injustice, the misery. She had just about decided to check on him when a scream froze her heart.

She recognized the voice.

Theresa.

She bolted past another door with an unspeakable scene inside and arrived at the last door.

Theresa was there, huddled in the corner, shaking and screaming.
 

Beth swiped the card and rushed to Theresa’s side and took her daughter’s face in her hands.
 

Theresa’s eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Her skin was dotted with bruises. One arm a network of black veins.
 

“Baby,” Beth cried out. “Oh my baby!” She stroked her hair. “It’s okay, honey. I’m here. It’s okay.”

She said it but knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t okay. The infection was getting worse. How long did Theresa have left? She had to find the serum!

Beth tried to help Theresa stand but she couldn’t. The wheelchair. She sprinted back to the cell with it and the old man. She swiped the door open and grabbed the wheelchair.
 

“I’ll come back for you if I can,” she said as she wheeled it out into the hall. The elderly man didn’t react.
 

She helped Theresa up into the chair and then wheeled her down the hall. She passed the open door with the old man and said a silent prayer for his future as she went.
 

An intercom hidden somewhere in the ceiling crackled to life. “Deltas have entered the building. Deltas have entered the building.”

Oh no.

Beth crashed through the door to the patient wing and back into the main corridor. She raced along and found a glass door that looked promising. Unlike all the departments she’d run across thus far, this glass was tinted black and so concealed the interior.
 

Immunology.

She swiped through, rounded a corner, and then skidded to a stop.

A large lab of sparkling white and steel. An advanced array of imaging equipment occupied the surfaces of numerous tables. It wasn’t the hi-tech look of the place that stopped her cold.

It was the large fluid-filled, clear glass cylinders lining the far wall that did. Each held the preserved corpse of a primate.
 

A knot choked Beth’s throat closed.

She recognized them. Each and every one.

The missing Bili chimpanzees. The ones her boss Diana had lied about saying they’d been transferred away to non-existent, third world country zoos. Lies. All lies.

She scanned down the line and almost broke down when she saw the last one. A sob spasmed in her chest but couldn’t escape the blockage in her throat.
 

Jane.

Clyde’s mother that had died on the operating table even as Beth saved one of her babies by emergency Cesarean section.

Her dear Jane.
 

Frozen in fluid. Her arms floating with empty eyes staring out at nothing. The incision through her abdomen still present.

Theresa coughed and a tendril of blood spilled out onto her shirt.
 

Black despair tried to pull Beth under. It dragged at her feet, demanding she surrender to the suffering.

But she didn’t.
 

Because Theresa needed her.

And she’d suffer a million times over for one of her children.

Beth turned away from the display tanks. She would accept that pain, deal with it, but not right now. She ran to a line of small refrigerators along the wall to the right. The first couple didn’t contain anything that might be helpful.
 

But the third one did.

She pulled out a rack of four vials. The front of the rack had a printed sticker attached.

MT-1 Antiviral Doses.

This had to be it!

She pocketed the vials and looked around. She found a nearby cabinet of medical supplies and tore through it until she found a sealed bag containing a sterilized syringe. She ripped it open and loaded the dose.

She hurried back to Theresa and lifted the arm of her daughter’s shirt. She poked the needle in and injected the dose. Theresa didn’t react.

Beth withdrew the needle and tossed the syringe on a counter.