Fast (70 page)

            How am I going to get King back to the surface?

            Then he felt something wrap around his neck. He lurched away, turning to see how close the creature was, but it wasn’t a creature. It was the thick nylon tether from the claw.

           
Vanessa, you are magnificent!

            Coleman remembered the underwater video feeds continuously playing in the dive room. She must have been monitoring Coleman’s descent using the video feeds, and following his path with the claw.

            Coleman grabbed a firm hold on King’s wrist, wrapped his other arm around the tether, and immediately felt the life-saving jerk of Vanessa reeling them back towards the surface.

#

Vanessa’s eyes were glued to the monitor.

            The screen was mounted in the north-east corner of the pool room.

            It was the monitor she had used to track Alex’s descent into the aquifer. Standing with the templates on the floor between her ankles, she now used it to track his and King’s progress to the surface on the claw. On the screen, the Marines looked like two action toys being lifted by a piece of string.

            She was so focused on the screen that she didn’t notice the men enter the pool room. The first she knew about it was the stunning pistol-whip to the back of her skull.

            She toppled forward. The claw controls spilled from her hands. As she hit the floor, she realized someone had snuck up and struck her from behind.

            She didn’t know what to go after first, the claw controls or the templates. And the pain in the back of her head felt like someone had smacked her with a house brick. Lurching forwards on her knees, she grabbed the claw controls and then spun towards her attacker.

           
Attackers
, she corrected in her mind as she restarted the claw’s progress up through the aquifer. She needed to keep the control toggled upwards for the claw to stay in motion. She didn’t have time for any of this! She needed to get up to the habitation level to help David and the others!

            The men standing over her, even with water pouring from their features, were instantly recognizable.

            Cameron Cairns and Francis Gould.

            Cairns bent and picked up the templates. Vanessa watched his hand curl around the handle of the case. It seemed absolutely ludicrous that everything Third Unit had fought for could be taken away by that one simple gesture. And it
was
a simple gesture, an unchallenged gesture, because in his other hand, Cairns held a Berretta pistol pointed at her face.

            Cairns’s gaze fell to the claw controls. His eyes swept across the pool. He looked up to the monitor showing the underwater feed.

            Vanessa kept her thumb on the button raising the claw, waiting for Cairns to look down from the screen and kick the controls from her hands.

            Instead, Cairns handed Gould the pistol.

            ‘Watch her,’ said Cairns. ‘Let her finish what she’s started.’

            Gould waved the pistol at the claw controls. ‘Keep going, pull them up.’

#

The claw suddenly stopped pulling Coleman and King.

            What’s going on? Why has she stopped?

            With a yank that almost broke Coleman grip, the claw began pulling again. Coleman looked up, trying to see if anything had snagged the claw, but all he could see was an expanding rectangle of light growing rapidly larger as the claw drew them back to the pool surface.

            Coleman’s lungs begged for air, but he could let go of neither King nor the claw to use the air bottle.

            Almost there, almost there, almost there….

            His face broke the surface and he sucked in a massive breath. At the same time, Vanessa maneuvered the claw to drag Coleman and King to the far edge.

            Coleman used the tether to haul himself and King from the pool. At the side of the pool, kneeling over his unconscious friend, he checked King’s pulse. His hands felt numb from gripping the tether. He couldn’t feel a thing, let alone any weak pulse that King might still possess.

            Coleman pinched King’s nose, cupped his chin, and tilted his head back. He delivered five fast mouth-to-mouth breaths.

            Nothing.

            ‘Don’t you
dare
lie down and die on me!’ Coleman yelled in King’s face. ‘Don’t you dare!’

            Coleman leant forward and delivered another five quick breaths. He moved over King’s sternum and started pulmonary resuscitation.

            Almost immediately King’s body shuddered. He stuttered out a mouthful of water and began breathing weakly. He didn’t regain consciousness, but Coleman didn’t give a damn.

            He’s alive, and that’s enough.

            Looking up, glancing first towards Forest, Coleman saw Vanessa kneeling with her hands on her head and a pistol pressed savagely into her temple.

            Francis Gould was holding the pistol to her head.

            Vanessa stared directly at something, someone, behind Coleman.

            Still on his knees, exhausted, Coleman turned slowly to his right and found Cameron Cairns standing beside him. Cairns held the templates. He nodded down at King.

            ‘I thought he was dead for sure,’ smirked Cairns. ‘You just never give up, Marine. You could be a god-damn Olympian.’

            Instinctively, Coleman lurched out with his right hand for the templates. Cairns idly swung the templates from Coleman’s reach.

            Coleman saw the lightning-fast kick coming, but he couldn’t dodge the attack from down on his knees. Cairns’s boot landed squarely, rocking Coleman’s head savagely backwards.

            Coleman saw the bright flash of stars as he crashed senselessly backwards.

#

Vanessa saw Cairns kick Alex hard in the face.

            He hit the floor and didn’t move.

            Cairns reached out and caught the tether. He pulled the tether down and squatted, blocking her view.

            What’s he doing to Alex?

            The answer came in one word. Cairns stood and pointed to the claw controls. ‘Up.’

            Gould thumbed the controls, raising the claw and dragging Alex up into the air by the tether wrapped around his neck.

            They’re hanging him! They’re killing Alex!

            Alex immediately started thrashing on the end of the tether. Cairns signaled Gould to stop raising the claw when Alex’s boots kicked the air four foot from the pool room floor. Cairns turned his back on Alex’s struggles, job finished, and picked up the templates.

            For a moment, Cairns stared at Gould and Vanessa as though reaching a decision. He turned and left them.

            Gould glanced uncertainly towards Cairns’s retreating back. Cairns disappeared through the north hatchway.

            All Vanessa could think about was Alex dangling on the end of the claw, his struggles growing weaker every second.
Do something. If you’re such a genius, stand up and solve this problem.

            She rose to her feet, keeping her eyes locked on Gould’s. Vanessa had never experienced hatred in her life like she felt right now for Francis Gould. She had never thought she would feel this way about another human being, but right now she truly wanted to kill this man. Gould retreated a step, reading her expression, obviously suspecting that she might try to overcome him physically. The overwhelmed look on Gould’s face gave her an idea.

            He’s paranoid. That’s what has kept him alive up until now. That’s what made him such a good spy.

            Gould’s index finger tightened on the trigger.

            ‘Wait,’ urged Vanessa quietly, raising one hand and pointing to the hatch where Cairns had just exited. ‘He’s left you. Think about that. Why would he do that?’

            ‘It’s another one of his stupid head games,’ spat Gould. ‘He’s leaving me to kill you. He doesn’t think I can do it.’

            ‘You’re wrong,’ she said, holding her palms upwards to gauge the sprinkler pressure. ‘The sprinklers are stopping. If you shoot me, you’ll be the only source of vibrations left. He’s leaving us here as a distraction for the creatures while he escapes. He’s sacrificing you to increase his own chances.’

            Gould’s face clouded for a second. ‘We’ve already started a bigger distraction. It should be taking full affect right now. That’s where all the creatures are going.’

            David! He means the Evacuation Center.

            Vanessa chocked down the anger that made her want to leap at Gould and tear his face off.

She raised her eyebrow skeptically. ‘Right, the Evacuation Center. Are you willing to bet your life that every single creature in the Complex is distracted? If you pull that trigger, you’re going to find out. Why else did Cairns give you that pistol and leave you behind? Because he trusts you? No way. Because he knows it will be the end for both of us. If you shoot me, you’ll be killing yourself too.’

            Gould started nervously glancing over his shoulder.

            Vanessa pressed on, raising her voice, seeing that Alex’s boots had almost stopped kicking. ‘We’ve got about fifteen seconds until these sprinklers cut out. Then you and I are both fair game to the creatures. I bet that right now Cairns is heading somewhere safe.’

            Gould wiped water from his eyes, then turned and ran.

            The moment Gould turned, Vanessa lunged for the control box. She lowered Alex to the floor and then dashed over to unwind the tether from his neck.

            His face flushed bright red. It took him a few seconds of giant gasping breaths before he could even try to sit up.

            ‘Wait a second,’ urged Vanessa. ‘You almost suffocated. Just take it easy a second.’

            He forced himself up and started staggering towards Forest. His voice was a painful-sounding croak. ‘We need to move Forest and King somewhere safe.’

            Vanessa thought for a moment. ‘I know a place. It’s close. Let’s get them onto the diving platform.’

            As Alex dragged first Forest and then King over to the platform, Vanessa checked the diving equipment and found two full-face masks still attached to buoyancy vests and air tanks. She glanced at the air pressure gauges. Both tanks were nearly empty, but they would do for the short trip she had in mind. The important thing was that both sets had a full-face enclosed regulator for breathing.

            When she carried the equipment back, Forest was moaning and King was starting to come around.

            ‘That’s not enough dive sets,’ said Alex. ‘And these two can’t dive. They can’t even stand up.’

            ‘They’re not going to dive,’ said Vanessa, rushing back across the room for more equipment. ‘We’ll be towing them. Remember when I told you that we had accidents in the aquifer before? These are rescue dive-sets for recovering unconscious divers. We’ll strap the full-face masks onto them and then we’ll breathe using the secondary air regulators. These straps go around their shoulders. We’re not going far.’