Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle (29 page)

They reached a four-way intersection where the lights ended, leaving the other passages shrouded in shadows. Ahead waited two large doors shut tight. Gant saw a sign posted there, and while it was too dark to read the fine print, he knew that sign marked their final destination: ground zero of the Briggs experiment.

Something moved to their left, just around a corner. Gant shined his tactical light in that direction and it fell—briefly—on a ghastly white face with big black eyes. That face retreated, so he did not fire, but he knew it had not gone far.

Another sound, this time to the right. That passage led to a large door displaying the word "disposal" below a biohazard icon. That door stood open, just a little. The major's tactical light illuminated several pairs of pale hands sporting spindly fingers.

At that point, he knew what was coming before he heard the sounds from behind. He did not bother swiveling his rifle around to see the creatures shadowing them.

The track lights and fluorescents switched off. Lines of red—like fiber-optic wires—turned on and ran the length of the hall, leading to the double doors.

Twiste glanced about nervously and said, "What the hell are those things? Is that what you saw outside the storage room?"

"Yes, I think so. For the most part."

"What do we do now?"

"We have two choices," Major Gant replied. "We could start firing and hope to fight our way out, but I don't think that worked very well for the rest of the team. Or we could accept the invitation and see where it leads. After all," he nodded at the bag Twiste carried, "that’s where we want to be, anyhow."

"I don't like those choices, Thom. Not at all."

"Me neither."

Side by side, they started toward the double doors. As they moved, Gant heard the scampering of feet, the snarls, the snapping of the creatures behind them moving to block that avenue of egress.

Before they reached the doors, Twiste touched Gant's shoulder and said, "Hey, um, Thom, I'm sorry about pushing you back there. You know, in the storage room. I just, well, you're a friend and I think sometimes you need a push."

"You might be right, Doctor. I hope we make it through this and you can push me some more. But for now, let's find out what this is all about."

Gant and Twiste reached the double doors and went inside.
 

Lieutenant Colonel Liz Thunder imagined the nicotine sliding down her windpipe. Then that feeling of calm, of satisfaction, of everything right in the world could move in and take over, chasing away the doubts and second-guessing. By the time she finished what remained of the pack, she felt sure she would not give a damn about the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility and all the problems therein.

Yet she hesitated. Why?

She stood outside in the sunshine for the first time all day. In fact, it felt like several days since she had seen the sun with all the clouds and rain that had blown through.

Still, she did not like the woods, so she remained close to the main entrance, sucking down big gulps of fresh air with the half-pack of Virginia Slims in her hand.

A cadre of unseen birds chirped while the sporadic movement of small animals—probably squirrels or woodchuck—disturbed a branch here, a leaf there.

It had been nearly four hours since the Archangel unit disappeared beyond the great vault door. Four hours since General Borman’s blow torches sealed that door shut, entombing them.

Oh, what's the difference, Liz? You've entombed plenty of people in the past, sealing them away behind a vault door of drugs and "'therapy.” It's all part of this nasty business. Just relax and have a cigarette. You'll feel better in a jiff.

As she wandered along the concrete slab that stretched around the perimeter of the building, she realized how much she had missed the sun. She realized that the fake light from the buzzing fluorescents of the sublevels could never match the real thing.

What are you doing here, Liz?

Now there was one of those questions she tried to avoid. It was right there along with “why did you do that?” and “is this really what you want?” Those were not good questions because she rarely liked the answers.

She gazed at the pack and imagined glowing embers devouring the paper inch by delicious inch, leaving ashes in their wake.

Movement from behind distracted her from the cigarettes' attraction. The main door to the facility opened and Corporal Sanchez emerged without seeing her. He stood and looked toward the sky, closing his eyes and craning his neck as if bathing in the afternoon air. Then he stretched his arms and let slip a quick groan as his tired muscles released.

Liz watched the soldier as he appreciated his own respite from the depths. He seemed to let everything flow away from him, and he did not need a cigarette to do it.

Here was a young man who, not even a week ago, shot to death his commanding officer. Here was a man who worked in one of the most secure areas in the world, where armed guards, containment doors, key card passes, and lethally charged electric fences were a part of everyday life, a life Sanchez spent hundreds of feet below ground a breath away from doomsday.

Yet it took only a moment of fresh air, a moment of sun, to chase it all away.

The result, Liz assumed, of a clear conscience.

Sanchez rolled his neck to work out the stiffness. As he did he caught sight of her. His demeanor changed immediately. His muscles stiffened again and he stood straight.

Liz raised a hand and told him, "Relax, Corporal. It’s nice to get some fresh air, isn’t it?"

"Yeah." Apparently he felt this was too casual and added, "I mean, yes, ma'am."

"I was beginning to wonder if you were ever off duty."

She had told him to relax but there was no mistaking that her presence deprived him of his respite. That made her feel guilty.

"So what did you think of all that this morning?"

He answered, "It’s not my place to think about it, with all respect, ma'am."

"Of course, that would go against General Borman's no-thinking-for-yourself policy, right?"

The young corporal stopped dead in his tracks, perhaps unsure of what he had heard. Maybe he was worried that she was playing one of her psychological tricks on him the way she had the other soldiers on staff, including several who were no longer on staff as a result.

Then something interesting happened. Sanchez squinted his eyes—just a little—and replied in a tone that carried all sorts of connotations, "I wouldn’t know about that, ma'am. General Borman isn’t my boss."

She casually asked, "Oh? Who is your boss?"

Sanchez looked at her as if he were explaining the concept of a round Earth to a four-year-old child. Liz actually felt a pang of embarrassment that she had asked such a stupid question.

"That would be
you,
colonel."

"Oh, well, yeah, sure. In name only."

"Ma’am, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the army, it’s that there’s a chain of command. That chain is written in black and white. According to that chain, you are in charge of Red Rock. It's your responsibility. The general, well, he's really just a VIP guest. Unless, of course, he relieves you of command. But that's a lot of paperwork and would require a detailed explanation for the record."

She smiled nervously and tried to joke, "I guess that makes me the fall-girl."

Sanchez shot fast, "Only if you let it, ma'am."

That gave her pause. She cast her eyes away from Sanchez and away from that ugly building and off toward the trees, where a soft breeze caused branches to sway.

"Thank you, Corporal."

"If you need anything from me, just say the word, Colonel."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, although she had no idea what she could do, particularly considering Borman had already put a gun to her head.

Sanchez nodded and returned inside. Liz felt the pack of cigarettes in her hand.

Just as the door shut behind Sanchez, it opened again and out walked Vsalov of The Tall Company. To Liz's eyes, the older man appeared sickly, thanks to his drawn face and black hair that had not spent time with a comb in days. He wore a light blue sport jacket drooped over his sagging shoulders.

Vsalov produced his own cigarette pack, wiggled a finger in it, found nothing, and tossed it into a nearby bush. He searched his pockets and found another pack, this one already opened but far from empty.

She watched his hands shake as he lit his smoke with a big silver lighter and sucked in the nicotine like a heroin addict finding a fix after hours of withdrawal.

Liz recognized him. It had not been that long ago that she had done the same—tried to drown out the guilty conscience or the bad feelings or the nerves with a smoke or two. Or three. Or two packs a day.

He finally took notice of her and flashed a flirtatious smile that seemed born of some slimy male instinct, but it quickly morphed into something like a scowl. Obviously General Borman had told Vsalov of her trip to The Tall Company and her questions. No doubt Vsalov had lost interest in her curves and could see her only as a fly in their ointment.

Seeing Vsalov, however, reminded Liz that she still waited for a return call from Dr. Doreen McCaul. In fact, she felt it might be a good idea to go inside and try her again. While she appreciated the sunshine, Vsalov had brought his own clouds.
 

Major Thom Gant reached for the handle of one of the two big, thick-hinged doors leading into the primary Red Lab. His fingers grasped the metal carefully, as if he served on the bomb-disposal squad opening a suspicious briefcase.

He paused.

Had he heard …?

Yes, the sound grew louder.

He looked at Twiste, whose eyes grew wide in astonishment.

Music.

Quiet but building, giving Gant the feeling of standing outside the high school gymnasium while the prom took place inside.

He pressed down on right door's latch, Twiste did the same on the left, and they opened the double doors in unison.

Of all the scenarios, of all the nightmares, of everything he had expected to find at the bottom of the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility, he could not have imagined this.

It was a square room with an eight-foot ceiling comprised of protective tiles resembling sound proofing. Lights hung from various angles along the walls, some rotating like dance floor spotlights in a glowing spectrum of colors including white, blue, and red pointed haphazardly about the otherwise dark chamber, creating cones of light between the shadows.

To the left along the wall just visible in a flash of blue he saw wire shelving. To the right in a flash of bright white he spotted a pair of small doors, either exits or closets.

The music was the Glenn Miller Band’s
In the Mood
, playing from a large console radio located across the room under the radiance of a dedicated beam of light. The thing looked quite out of place, particularly because it rested atop a shiny metal cart meant for the best research equipment 1992 could offer.

The radio—an RCA model circa 1937 or so—was a behemoth of a thing, encased almost entirely in a finished wood frame. The monolithic fascia was broken only by the speaker mesh that stretched across the midsection running vertically down from an ancient horizontal tuner with two big round knobs.

Party trimmings hung from the ceiling and walls, including streamers, balloons, and a banner that might have said "welcome home" or "congratulations," but for some reason the lettering would not come into focus for Thom's eyes.

It appeared that the Red Lab was one big party, complete with dancers. Two of them, in fact. A man and a woman twirled in the shadows, keeping their features hidden, although Gant seemed to think they wore a tux and a gown, but, as with the banner, his eyes could not quite draw the entire picture.

Indeed, the couple and the party seemed a surreal canvas of impressionist art: a picture drawn from the memory of a glance.

Gant and Twiste stepped inside the room, but only a step; each still held his respective door open.

The Major listened to the music, he watched the dancers strut and shimmy on the far side of the chamber, and he kept his finger on the trigger of his MP5.

He tried to focus on the details. The streamers were like painted shadows; he wondered if they were really there. If he got close enough, he thought he could make them disappear with a wave of his hand, like chasing vapors or smoke.

He looked to the dancers. They felt more real, yet there was something ethereal about them, too. No matter where they moved they kept to the dark spots between the gyrating spotlights.

Were they people, or marionettes?

Unsure if he could trust his eyes, Thom turned to his other senses. His nose offered a blend of smells that told of age and neglect: dust and odors of decay. Despite its visual appearance, this place remained old, musty, and isolated.

His ears heard the music, but there was something not right. As the banners and dancers did to his eyes, the music felt out of focus to his ears.

The big radio dominated the room like the altar at the heart of a church, on full display with a spotlight of its own, boldly broadcasting the big band sound. Yet it, too, posed questions for the eye. Was it really there?