Instinct (2010) (23 page)

Webster was crushed. He had known Harry seven years, and although their friendship had not been deep, they had been through a lot together. He looked at the
bones and saw beyond them to the man curled up in terror experiencing the horrific end he must have known would come.

Bishop was less affected. He had not seen the violence this time, and he was not to blame. For these reasons, this death had a smaller impact on him, and he was almost ashamed of the relief he felt. He also knew that they had to get back to barracks and decide what to do next.

He listened to the raised voices at the other end of the corridor and wondered how he might keep this quiet. Harry had been the scientists’ first point of contact for anything important, and because they saw Heath so rarely, he was also a conduit for the respect in which they held the great man.

His passing would certainly reduce Bishop’s authority over them, and drain away the remnants of what little morale they had left.

‘I don’t want the scientists told,’ he said quietly.

‘We have to raise the shield,’ said Webster, not directing his words at Bishop. This was a statement and not for discussion.

Bishop needed no persuading. ‘You find a way for us to do that without letting them out, and I’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘We need to try Taj. If there’s a way round the security system, he’ll know it.’ Bishop ran to his office and picked up the phone.

‘Taj. Bishop.’

Taj never used the phone receiver, preferring instead to switch on the speakerphone and leave himself free to walk around his reception area, eating food with both hands or firing paper darts at the ‘O’ of the MEROS sign that hung from the wall opposite his desk. Now he was waving his fat fingers around and expressing himself as if Bishop were in the room with him.

‘Mr Bishop. I’ve been trying to reach you, but your phone’s been tied up. There’s been some stuff happening up here you gotta know about. Garrett and Mills and Jacobs are getting set to hijack the plane, and I think they on their way down to you.’

‘You don’t say,’ Bishop replied.

‘Damn straight. Assholes gassed me. Shook me up pretty good. You ever been CS’d?’

‘Uh, no … look, I’ll see to that. It’s a bit complicated, but I’ll work something out.’

‘I’ve had to open the doors and air this place out. Someone still up here, though. I can hear them outside.’

‘Yes, OK, OK, Taj. Just keep quiet for a moment, I need you to listen very carefully. The Inshield is down and …’

‘The Inshield? What the hell happened?’

‘You don’t want to know, believe me. It’s down, and we’re still going to have to go through with the freezing, but before that, or during that, or I don’t know when, we’re going to have to raise the shield.’

‘Don’t tell me, the three who came down are stuck in the elevator.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well, let me tell you, Mr Bishop, them folks can go fuck ’emselves, ’scuse me for saying.’

‘Yes, Taj. One of them happens to be Andrew, Laura Trent’s son. Another one of them is Carter. Did they gas you?’

‘Not that … uh … I’m not sure, but the kid …’

‘Exactly:
the kid
. So we have to raise the shield.’

‘Yeah, I told them that would be a risk when they installed the security system, but nobody listens to Taj.’

‘Yes, great. Well, here we are. We could simply freeze, wait and leave, but of course we can’t just let them die. At the same time, we can’t lift the glass, otherwise we’ll all be dead. I know it looks impossible, but is there any way you can get the elevator back up there?’

‘The only way is if I have your key card up here, along with mine, to override anything, and I guess that ain’t going to happen.’

‘Is there really nothing?’

‘Well, sir, if you tell me what you want, I can do my best to make it so, but it looks like you’re in what they call a situation down there. I could do what I can to lift the glass, but it doesn’t sound like you want that,
and if I try to get the elevator up here, the security system gets cancelled and the glass goes up.’

‘That’s kind of what I thought.’

‘OK, I’m going to see what I can do, so stay near the phone and I’ll call you back if I’m heading in the right direction.’

‘Done.’

In the rec room of the barracks, Webster was standing in the corner talking to Wainhouse and Laura about trying to raise the shield. On the couches by the opposite wall, the scientists were speculating about the number of dead.

‘Anyone seen Harry lately?’ asked Mike loudly. Laura and Webster turned round too obviously and found themselves staring at Mike and Lisa in a suddenly silent room.

Mike raised his eyebrows.

‘Seriously? Harry’s dead?’

No reply.

‘I’ll take that as a yes. Who else?’

Wainhouse, Laura and Webster moved towards the others. With Bishop in his office, Webster could do what he felt was right, and that meant honesty.

‘Roach, Martin, Heath and Van Arenn all died trying to contain the new wasps.’

George’s brow furrowed into a series of fat hillocks. ‘But if Heath and Harry are gone, who’s going to …’ He looked at Laura and his question was answered.

‘But you’re just a civilian. No offence, but if you haven’t been down here before, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

‘I’m taking a crash course,’ Laura said.

This exchange was cut short by Bishop, who clipped into the rec room at a run. He failed to sense the mood and was speaking almost as fast as he was walking.‘People, we have a situation beyond the one we all thought we were in. As you may have seen, Carter, Garrett and Dr Trent’s son, Andrew, are trapped in the elevator, which is going to mean there is some difficulty in implementing the final parts of the security plan. That problem, coupled with what we suspect about the glass in the shield, means that we need ideas, suggestions that can get …’

Mike jumped in. ‘Maybe Harry could help. Or Roach and Martin. Let’s get them to give us a hand.’ Bishop looked to Webster.

‘They guessed. I confirmed it,’ he explained.

‘Fine. I’ll assume you’re all up to speed then. As the person in charge, I do of course take full responsibility for what has happened here over the last couple of weeks. I accept that blame will be apportioned and certain processes will have to be put in motion. But, for now, we just need to make sure everyone who is still alive gets out of here in that state. I’d appreciate it if we could put other things aside for the immediate future and concentrate on what really needs our attention.’ He looked at them as a group, challenging them to stand up to him.

No one did.

‘OK, this is going to be easier. These panels are held in with screws, and I just happen to know that one of us has a screwdriver on them.’ Carter grinned at Andrew, who gave a puzzled look in return. ‘Your Swiss Army knife, please, Andrew.’ Andrew smiled as the penny dropped and reached into his pocket for the red hunk of metal. Pulling out the correct blade, he handed it over to Carter, who made a show of admiring it.

‘Well, maybe it’s lucky you came along after all,’ he said.

As Carter attacked the steel squares, Garrett moved out of his way. She couldn’t help looking at the wasps that were still trying to get through the window to the right of the elevator.

It was difficult to see clearly, but their efforts were definitely having some effect: the Perspex was now riven with streaks that made it look like some real damage was being done.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she muttered. ‘They are some mean-looking fuckers.’

Andrew followed her gaze. He found the insects hypnotic, especially the rhythmic way their mandibles came together as they scratched against the windows. Along with their acidic saliva, a fine spray of venom
accompanied each tap of stinger on Perspex, warping the transparency. There was something disturbingly organized about what they were doing, as if they were certain of the ultimate consequence.

Andrew was brought back to what was happening in the elevator by Carter’s voice.

‘OK, last screw and …’ The second panel fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft with a ripple of clangs, revealing white polycarbonide, the same material that all the MEROS walls were made from. He knocked on it with his screwdriver and got a dull tap in return. It seemed thicker than the lab walls but, with no concrete around it, the wasps’ arrival on the other side would be a matter of when, not if.

The phone rang. As Bishop ran to his office and grabbed the receiver, Webster came out to check what was happening in the lift.

Carter showed them the plastic wall.

‘Shit,’ said Webster, trying to keep his voice down so that Laura wouldn’t come out.

He looked across to the window of the holding bay. A wasp was poking its antenna through the Perspex.

‘Hey, Mr Bishop, sir. I’m just calling to say that I’ve checked out the security system, and it’s bad news. Whoever installed it made sure nothing goes in or out until it’s all squared away safe.’

‘Thanks, Taj. Don’t move one inch from that phone, understand?’ Bishop hung up and raced back to the rec room.

All eyes turned to him. ‘OK, we can’t lift the elevator without lifting the glass, so we’re going to have to bite the bullet and freeze the other side.’

‘Mr Bishop, if you think I’m going to stand aside while you kill my son …’

‘Hey, hey, hey … just calm down, Dr Trent. Nobody said anything about that. We’re going to work out how to get them out of there without them or us coming to any harm.’

‘We’d better hurry,’ said Webster. ‘The walls of the elevator shaft are polycarbonide. We might have as little as twenty minutes before the wasps get in there. And they look like they’re making some progress on the window of the holding bay.’

Lisa spoke first. ‘We must have all kinds of insecticides and weapons to disable or kill these wasps. Why do we have to freeze the whole place?’

‘Believe me, Miss Keller, if there was another way to deal with
these
wasps, then we would have found it by now,’ said Bishop. ‘Forget what you’ve been working on – these specimens are something else entirely, so any solution involving their control by conventional means is not useful. We intend to freeze them, because we know they are susceptible to the cold, and that’s more than we can definitely say about any other methods of control.’

‘If freezing works, why didn’t you freeze them before, when, I assume, they were in a more controlled environment?’ asked Takeshi.

‘They were frozen to a certain degree that we, uh, thought was sufficient to kill them, but it turned out we only stunned them. Then we were presented with a series of, uh, unforeseen difficulties which made the completion of the task through the use of cold impossible.’

Wainhouse was steaming. ‘Yeah, they turned Van Arenn into a main course, and nearly did the same to Garrett. Then they ate through the wall into the cleaning cavities, and now we’re sitting here waiting to do something we should have done days ago, if some people hadn’t been family-sized assholes about it in the first fucking place.’

‘Thank you, Captain Wainhouse. Yes, tragic circumstances have surrounded the engineering of these particular specimens, tragic circumstances that were unavoidable …’

‘Bull
shit
, Mr Bishop, sir.’

‘Please! Can we just concentrate on finding a solution!’ pleaded Laura. ‘We’re running out of time.’

Wainhouse folded his arms and looked at the floor.

‘If you didn’t reduce the temperature, how did you freeze the wasps before?’ asked Takeshi.

‘A canister of liquid nitrogen was attached to the wall near the nest.’

‘Why not freeze them again?’

‘OK, I thought I’d been clear about this, but I’ll say it one more time for anyone who wasn’t listening. The elevator is in the area that will be subject to freezing.’

‘Yes, I understand that, but surely the wasps will react more to the level of cold than any human. It’s part of their genetic make-up, and they’re far smaller than even the boy. You could freeze the area to some degree, incapacitate the wasps, get everyone out of the elevator before they are affected, then replace the shield. Then you would be able to freeze the wasps’ area to whatever extent you wished.’

Bishop thought for a moment, then met the expectant eyes of Laura, who obviously considered this to be a better solution than she had thought possible.

‘Thank you, Takeshi,’ said Bishop. ‘That could be just what we need to do. However, there are two potential difficulties. First, I don’t know if the security system is flexible enough for us to turn it on and off like that, but I can find that out right away. And second, we don’t want a repeat of what happened when we tried to use a lower measure of cold on these wasps before. They insulated themselves and secreted some of their number away from the frozen part of the lab.’

‘But if you freeze the entire area, then they can’t do that again, can they, Mr Bishop?’ asked Laura.

‘No, for sure, but they can protect themselves by insulating each other. The question is, can we bring the temperature down far enough to really knock the wasps out? And can we be sure that degree of cold will not harm anyone in the elevator?’

‘But we’re talking about seconds here.’

‘I know, Dr Trent, but we’re also talking about introducing a sizable element of risk to the situation. Of course, I will do whatever it takes to save the three lives in that elevator but, under the circumstances, I don’t know if it’s really right to impose such jeopardy on these people.’

‘So you’d be fine with it as long as everyone else is?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘OK.’ Laura took a moment, then stood in front of the others. Trying to look everyone in the eye, she spoke clearly but with obvious emotion.

‘You have just heard about the situation we are in. Although I’m aware you don’t know my son, if any of you are parents, I guess you’ll have some idea of what I’m going through. A few days ago, he was kidnapped, to blackmail me into coming here. I had no idea where he was, and I … can’t explain how awful that was. I lost my husband two years ago, so Andrew is all I have left. When I thought he was missing, maybe even dead, well …’