NanoStrike (30 page)

Abdul jumped through the doorway. Adiba pushed Quinn ahead of her. “You next, Mr. Quinn. I’m lighter. I can jump farther.”

He didn’t argue. She was right. He had more than a hundred pounds on her. The liquid pooled in the doorway and that end of the table had sunk eighteen inches. He crouched low then sprang like a frog through the door. He cleared the orange by two feet and grunted as he landed.

Then he heard a fierce, hate-filled scream from behind him that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. He turned in time to see Adiba, balanced on the crooked table, slam into Nazar, who had slunk up behind her.

The nanobots pooling in the doorway prevented Abdul from reaching her. The table jerked and the movement unbalanced Adiba. She grabbed the doorframe for support. Nazar, disoriented by her blow, staggered backward. When he grabbed for her, she pulled away.

Abdul shouted, “Adiba, jump. Now. Leave him. Jump!”

She stood on the sinking, rocking table, her back to them and feet braced wide apart, knuckles white with their grip on the doorframe. Nazar teetered on the far edge, only twelve inches above the orange floor. His arms whirled as he tried to regain his balance.

Nazar pleaded with her. “Help me!”

The table jerked lower, forcing Nazar to step back off the table onto the floor. The liquid sizzled as it welcomed new feedstock. His legs buckled and he stumbled to his knees, screaming as he was eaten alive from the bottom up. Hands high, reaching, he shrieked at Adiba. “Pull me up. Save me!”

She stood above him, unmoving, and watched as the nanobots devoured his legs, then his pelvis. His body stayed erect as it melted into the floor. The screams were terrible, loud, and desperate.

They stopped when the liquid reached his rib cage and the nanobots disassembled his lungs. His mouth, though, remained stretched open and distorted in a silent scream. As his chest disappeared, he put down his hands to steady himself. They too turned to liquid, and finally, his head toppled, and his eyes turned to glass. Only then did Adiba turn away.

Abdul’s eyes locked on the end of the table. The legs sank under the liquid, and orange foam boiled as the nanobots reached the tabletop. The pool of liquid oozed through the doorway, forcing Abdul to retreat until the distance to Adiba had grown to seven feet.

Too far.

Adiba scanned the liquid moat, and her hand came to her mouth. A squeal of fear escaped her fingers. As the nanobots marched up the tabletop toward her, she shuffled her feet away from the end. The stump of the tabletop was a shiny raft in an ocean of orange.

Abdul stared into her eyes, reading the terror but unable to take it away. As the liquid advanced, Adiba stepped along the table and more of her body became hidden by the wall. Soon, only her beautiful face remained visible. One more step and she would be out of sight, just another morsel of feedstock for the rapacious machines. Blood pulsed in Abdul’s ears. His stomach churned. He was going to lose her. He moved as close the edge of the liquid as he dared. He wanted to run across and save her. Maybe if he went fast?

Quinn screamed from behind him. “Move!”

Abdul turned and leaped to the side, flattening against the wall as a golf cart roared past him and skidded to a halt inches from the doorframe. The liquid sizzled as it sucked in the rubber of the tires, and the cart rocked wildly as, one by one, they deflated.

Quinn shouted, “Adiba. Climb in. Hurry!”

She grabbed the roof supports, climbed on the cart’s nose and swung through the open windshield. Once she was onboard, Quinn reversed, but the cart slewed from side to side unable to gain traction. He stopped driving and slammed on the emergency brake.

“Go. Go!” He pointed frantically to the rear. She clambered over the seat, onto the back bumper and leaped into Abdul’s waiting arms.

The golf cart fueled the pool, and the liquid expanded farther into the hallway. For the second time in as many minutes, Abdul thought he might lose someone dear to him. “Hurry, Quinn!”

Quinn followed Adiba’s route. He perched on the rear bumper and stared at the five feet of liquid he had to traverse to reach safety. He crouched low, allowed his body to tip forward, and pushed his legs like pistons, launching himself across the deadly pool. Abdul grabbed the big man’s shirt before he landed and yanked him backward, adding an extra foot to his leap. Abdul thudded to the ground with Quinn full on top. Sparks flickered across his eyes and pain seared through the back of his neck.

Quinn rolled off him and Adiba grabbed Abdul’s cheeks in her hands.

“Abdul, are you okay?”

“I am now.” He studied her face. She had risked her life to watch Nazar die in agony. Abdul tried to read her eyes. Not pity or fear or disgust, but something else. Vindication, perhaps.

“Come on,” Quinn said. “There’s another cart outside. But we have a problem.” He led them down the hallway and they burst through the doors into the open. Abdul didn’t remember ever feeling so grateful to breathe fresh air.

Chapter 38

A two-seater golf buggy sat near the entrance. The larger one they had used earlier was three hundred feet away, next to the helicopter, and the two security guards stood beside it. Quinn jumped into the cart and shouted, “Adiba, get in. Abdul, hang on the back.” He slammed his foot on the accelerator and Abdul grabbed the cart’s roof supports just in time.

Quinn screamed at the cart, “Come on! Come on!”

The guards were in front of the cockpit, waving their arms at Sam. Quinn was still two hundred feet away when they climbed into the chopper and Sam fired up the engine.

Abdul, standing on the rear bumper so his head poked over the cart roof, waved his free hand, screaming, “Wait! Wait for us!”

Sam, head lowered, eyes on the controls, focused on his takeoff procedure. The rotors began their first lazy turns. Quinn pulled the Glock from his jacket and fired into the air. Sam had his headphones on, and didn’t react, but the guards’ heads snapped around. They stared at Quinn, but made no attempt to signal the pilot.

Quinn muttered under his breath, “Motherfuckers.”

The rotors gathered speed. Quinn drove straight up to the front of the helicopter’s glass bubble, slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and screamed when his bare feet hit the hot concrete. He adopted a shooting stance, legs braced, Glock held two-handed and pointing directly at Sam’s face. The pilot lifted his head, and his eyes went wide. The machine rocked as the blades took its weight. The downdraft thrashed Quinn’s face with sand and grit. He didn’t falter. He didn’t blink.

“Down.” He mouthed the word at the pilot and insinuated with the barrel of the gun. The guard riding shotgun was screaming at Sam. The machine lifted off the ground, three feet, four, five. Quinn shifted his aim and fired a single shot into the upper part of the chopper’s glass bubble. The guards ducked and a two-foot diameter star appeared in the cockpit glass. He moved the gun back in line with the pilot’s face.

“Down! Now!” He knew Sam couldn’t hear, but Quinn’s message was clear. If he and his friends didn’t get away on the chopper, no one would. Sam shouted into his mic, and the guard in the passenger seat shook his head and screamed back at him.

The machine began to descend. Quinn, with a slow, exaggerated nodding of his head, indicated his approval, but he kept the gun locked on the pilot’s face.

“Abdul,” he shouted, eyes still fixed on the cockpit. “Tell that fat-fuck guard in front to get out.”

Abdul jumped from the back of the cart, ran to the helicopter, and yanked open the door.

There was a gunshot, and Abdul dropped like a rock. The guard swung his pistol toward the front. Quinn put four slugs into him before the man’s gun was halfway through its arc: two in the chest and two in the head. The plastic bubble splintered into huge, crazy spider webs where the bullets penetrated, then the screen turned red, as blood exploded from the guard’s face.

“Abdul!” Adiba ran past Quinn and dropped to her knees, covering her fallen sweetheart—a lioness protecting her cub. Quinn raced around her to get eyes on the second guard. A hand reached out from the rear seat and threw a gun to the ground.

“Get out!” Quinn screamed.

The guard did, with hands held high, and eyes wide and terrified. Quinn checked him for a backup weapon, he didn’t have one; he wasn’t a threat.

Quinn glanced in the cockpit. Sam was covered in enough blood to give concern until Quinn noticed two thin slits in Sam’s cheek. Plastic shards from the cockpit windshield had struck his face, but the cuts seemed superficial. The pilot kept his hands above his head. Quinn glanced at the dead guard slumped in the passenger seat. No threat there. Quinn holstered his Glock, knelt, and put a hand on Abdul’s neck—strong pulse.

“Adiba, get up. Let me get a look at him.” She remained draped across the boy’s chest. Quinn grabbed the back of her blouse and lifted her like a puppy. “You’re gonna smother him!”

He flipped Abdul over. Head, chest, belly, all okay. The heaviest blood soaked through his shirt—left forearm.

“Thank God.” Quinn turned to the chopper and shouted, “Sam, you got a medical kit onboard?” Sam, hands up, and cans on, didn’t hear. Quinn signaled to Sam to take off his headset.

“Bring your medical kit.”

Sam killed the engine and climbed from the helicopter. He unclipped a box from beneath his seat and carried it to Abdul. Adiba cradled his head, rocking him and wailing. Quinn moved to help, but Sam put up his hand.

“I got it,” he said. He slit Abdul’s shirtsleeve with surgical scissors. Quinn glanced at the wound—a through-and-through.

“Make it fast. We need to get outta here.” Sam nodded, not looking up.

Quinn pulled the dead guard out of the passenger seat, dragged him clear of the chopper, and dumped him on the hot concrete. “Fuckin’ idiot,” he said under his breath.

He glanced at the building. The door they’d come from had enlarged to a gaping irregular opening. Orange liquid pooled in front and at the edge of the concrete walkway circling the building.

Orange lines ran vertically up the side of the building as if a cage were painted over the walls. Chunks of concrete fell from between the lines. The building was disintegrating from the bottom up.

Sam had strapped a pressure bandage on Abdul’s arm. He sat up and leaned against Adiba while she patted his forehead with a wad of gauze.

“You okay?” Quinn asked him.

“Yeah, fine.”

“Sam, let’s go,” Quinn said. “You!” he shouted to the guard who was on his knees, ten feet from Abdul. He’d been throwing up. “What’s your name?”

“Joseph . . . Joseph Dephard.”

“Help them up, then get in back.”

“Yes, sir.” He helped load Abdul into the middle seat. Adiba sat next to him, Joseph behind. Quinn took shotgun. Sam was spraying the inside cockpit glass with Windex and cleaning the blood.

“Abdul, what do you make of that?” Quinn pointed toward the building. Huge semicircular holes had appeared where the concrete, starved of its support beams, had fallen in.

“On the flight over, David told me the nanobots can convert any carbon-based material. That’s why the conversion chambers are lined with special concrete. This building’s framework must have been built with some kind of carbon fiber, or perhaps steel with carbon reinforcement. They’re eating it from the inside out.”

“So once they’ve eaten all the carbon, what then?”

“Dunno. David told me in the refinery they set the nanobots to self-destruct when the ethanol reaches an optimum concentration. I asked him the same question—what if there’s not enough carbon to reach the stop-level. He said there’s also a termination time set. Who knows what he programmed into these nanobots? If he even did. Maybe they’ll stay active.”

A shudder ran through Quinn at the thought of the episode in the lab. “That was the scariest shit I’ve ever seen. People eaten alive, and so fast! I’m sure glad I’m old-fashioned.”

“What do you mean?” Abdul said.

“Well, who else do you know wears elastic-sided, slip-on shoes?” Quinn lifted his bare foot and wiggled his toes. Even Adiba managed a laugh.

“That’ll do,” Sam said. He’d cleaned one-third of the screen. He fired up the engine and they lifted off. As they did, a huge chunk from the upper part of the building crashed down and a plume of dust exploded into the air.

“Sam, get the hell out of here before those bugs splash on us and eat the damned helicopter.”

Chapter 39

Sam angled the blades forward and they headed east, toward the gleaming domes of the refinery. Once he was a thousand feet up, Sam brought the chopper around in a smooth curve, circling the building from which they had so narrowly escaped.

Holes gaped in the roof, and orange liquid covered every exposed area of the floor. A black-tarred pole next to the building tumbled like a felled tree and crashed toward the east, pulled by the lines it supported.

“What’s that?” Quinn said, pointing at the pole.

Sam said, “Transmission line. They’re off-grid. Power comes from generators at the main plant.”