Project 731 (10 page)

13

Reynolds was about to give the order to switch to lethal weapons when Talbot shouted “Contact!” and unleashed a torrent of foam that struck the floor, mushroomed out and solidified. But the man had missed the mark, and instead of locking the Tsuchi in place, he provided it with a springboard to launch its attack.

The creature sprang from Nemesis’s tail, where it had been hiding, perfectly camouflaged on the rough, black flesh. Talbot unleashed another stream of foam, this time striking the Tsuchi’s underside, but as the viscous goo expanded, the Tsuchi landed atop Talbot’s face, wrapping its eight legs around his head and squeezing.

Talbot’s muffled screams were punctuated by a loud crack from his jaw. The foam slid into his mouth. Down his throat. And it was expanding. His body twitched and fell back with the Tsuchi frozen in place, unable to escape the foam, but striking him over and over with its stinger-tipped tail. Fortunately, the armor did its job, preventing the stinger from reaching his flesh.

Reynolds dropped his stun gun and drew his KRISS rifle, putting a single round in Talbot’s head, and putting the man out of his misery. Then Reynolds sent a stream of bullets into the Tsuchi’s tail, severing it. The long, whip-like tail fell to the ground, writhing and spinning on for several seconds, before it fell still, like the Tsuchi itself. The creature was locked in place, unable to move its limbs, trapped in the foam. It was still alive—for the moment—which would please Brice, but it was the least of their problems.

“Stay sharp,” Reynolds said. “There are three—”

“Argh!”

The high-pitched shout spun Reynolds around. It was Gilmour, suspended in the air upon what looked like a spear tip emerging from his chest. It had punched a hole through both layers of armor, but that wasn’t the most shocking thing about the scene. The tip of the spear looked like a giant-sized hypodermic needle. The hole at the end was clogged with Gilmour’s guts, but they shot out with a slurp and were followed by a spurt of white fluid. The gore landed at Reynolds’s feet, red flesh mixed with white fluid, all surrounding a writhing, white larva. Then the spear-needle withdrew and stabbed Gilmour twice more while he was held aloft by two, long, spidery arms, tipped with scimitar-sized talons. Each thrust shot a new larva into the air, none remaining inside the body, which Reynolds knew was a good thing. Gilmour’s body was then cast aside, revealing the horror behind him.

At the most basic level, the creature resembled a Tsuchi—eight limbs, a spider’s face and mandibles, and a long, twitching tail. But the comparisons ended there, because this thing was much, much worse. The first, most obvious discrepancy was the size. The armored shell on its back, stretching from head to tail in a series of overlapping armored plates, was the size of a Volkswagen Bug. The creature’s eight eyes glowed bright orange, as did several basketball-sized spots on its underside. Given the evidence of the Tsuchi’s birth, Reynolds understood what the glowing membranes meant. The eight legs, still thin and spindly, were now covered in thick armor, like Nemesis, but with a bluish, almost iridescent hue. In fact, all of the armor had an almost oily quality, as though energy were flowing through it. It was the tail that held Reynolds’s attention the most, now arched up behind the monster’s back, poised to strike.

But the monster didn’t move. It regarded the four remaining men, one after the other.

“Ellis, Cross,” Reynolds said, “hose this thing down when I give the word. McAfee, switch to lethal. Aim for the head. Do
not
hit the orange membranes, or we’re all toast.” He didn’t wait to hear confirmation from the men. They hadn’t run away, which meant they were listening. “Fire!”

Twin streams of foam shot out, striking a few of the Tsuchi’s scythe-like limbs, but not all of them. Spinning sideways, the monster shot one forelimb at Ellis and snapped its tail at Cross. The latter’s shout of surprise was cut short by a loud crack—the giant needle punching through his armor, body, a second layer of armor and finally, the foam’s containment unit. When the tail withdrew, foam sprayed out from the back of the tank, and from the hole in Cross’s chest. As it hardened and expanded, Cross was lifted off the ground like he’d been nailed to some kind of ancient sacrificial altar.

Ellis fared no better. The sharp talon at the end of the limb hadn’t pierced him, but it slid up and under the man’s armor, yanking him off his feet and into the creature’s talons, even as the tail stabbed through Cross. When both talons dug into Ellis’s shoulders, his body convulsed. Blue sparks leapt out and streaks of electricity sparked between the two points. When he hung limp, the Tsuchi began to chew, dragging Ellis’s body further inside its widening maw with each bite.

It wasn’t until Cross was frozen in hard foam, and Ellis was fully consumed, that McAfee and Reynolds recovered from their shock and opened fire.

The Tsuchi bucked and twisted under the barrage of high caliber rounds, clearly confused about what was happening. But Reynolds could tell they weren’t doing any real damage.

“I’m in my office on the fifth floor, and I hear gunfire,” a voice said in Reynolds’s ear. It was Brice. “Have you killed it?”

While Cross continued to fire, Reynolds reloaded his rifle without looking. “The target Tsuchi is dead.”

“Then why do I hear gunfire?” The scientist sounded irritated, unaware that his research facility was about to go to hell.

“Because the thing reproduced!” Reynolds shouted, backing away and firing as Cross reloaded. The Tsuchi was still twitching from each round, some of them actually punching through its thick, black skin, but most of it ricocheting off its armor plating.

“I told you to shoot your men if—”

“Most of my men are dead,” Reynolds said, his magazine empty again. “The Tsuchi reproduced with Nemesis’s corpse!”

The line fell silent.

“This thing is the size of a truck!” Reynolds opened fire again, stopping when his back struck the far wall. He wasn’t far from the exit.

“But there is just one?” Brice asked. “The Tsuchi reproduce in sets of three.”

Reynolds glanced toward the holes in Nemesis’s dead skin. Three of them. “I’ve seen only one, but there is evidence of three.”

“My god...” Brice said. “I’m coming down.”

“I feel better alread—”

A long, armored tail snaked down from above. Reynolds looked up and saw a second Tsuchi clinging to the wall. He shouted a warning, but it was too late. The spear tip stabbed into McAfee’s back, three times in rapid succession, each time spurting a white blob and writhing larva onto the floor. But the Tsuchi must have seen this and understood the man wasn’t a host for its young, because it lifted McAfee up and shoved him head fist into its open maw, every mandible chomp crackling with electricity. A torrent of blood fell between Reynolds and the exit.

As he considered running through it, a roar, like a high-pitched squeal mixed with a gurgle, echoed through the massive hangar. Reynolds gasped as a third over-sized Tsuchi flew through the air, spinning out of control. It landed inside the jumbled remains of Nemesis Prime.

What the fu—

A shift of movement, so large he nearly missed it, slid across the western side of the building.

It was an arm.

The size of three buses, end to end.

Dropping his useless weapon, Reynolds ran through the curtain of McAfee’s blood. There was nothing he could do to stop what was coming. Nothing any of them could do.

Nemesis was alive.

Even worse, she was awake.

14

I snap awake at the sound of a text message chime. In a daze, I dig my phone out of my pocket, then fail to punch in the unlock code three times, before finally getting it right, looking at the screen and realizing the text wasn’t mine. With a yawn, I look around the interior of the big rental SUV. I’m alone in the back, sprawled out over the seat. Collins and Alessi are in the front. We left Woodstock at the Santa Maria Airport, where a shiny, dark blue, Bell 525 Relentless, one of the world’s most expensive corporate helicopters—sporting a Zoomb logo—awaited him. It didn’t have a mounted gun, like helicopter Betty, but it would get us around in style...if necessary. The helicopter would be used for a quick getaway, but we were hoping to get in and out without being noticed, using fake GOD IDs, also courtesy of Zoomb.

I’m not sure Alessi’s allocation of Zoomb resources could possibly go unnoticed, especially while she is ‘on leave,’ so I’m sure there are unsaid strings attached, or an alternate agenda, but right now I don’t care. The FC-P—my family—is under threat because of these guys, and I’m going to do what I can to turn that around. For the moment, I’ll play the role of Faust.

I blink my eyes open wider and sit up. We pass a sign for Vandenberg Air Force Base. I could have very easily requisitioned a flight directly to Lompoc, landing minutes away from our destination, but there is no doubt our arrival would have been noticed. Alessi’s thumbs tap out a message on her phone. Collins sits behind the wheel.

“Welcome back,” Collins says.

I slept on the flight across the country, my third in far too few hours, and I never really woke up as we transferred to the vehicle. “What are the odds that these phony keycards will get us into GOD’s cafe? They must have great coffee, right?”

“Look to your right,” Collins says.

I turn my head and find a cup of coffee, steam slipping through the hole in its plastic cap, sitting in a cup holder. “We stopped?”

“You slept through it.” Collins glances back at me. “Pushing yourself too hard.”

“Don’t really have a choice,” I say, raising the coffee cup as though making a toast and taking a sip. The warm liquid seems to spread out through my body, waking my mind, and reminding me how much I already ache. Ignoring the pain, I lean forward and peek over the seat.

“That Endo?” I ask Alessi.

She hits ‘send’ on her message and angles the screen so I can’t see it.

“No? Maybe your BFF?” I get no response. “But that can’t be right. I don’t have a text.”

The slightest hint of a smile shows I’m getting through. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

Her phone chimes again, and like a trained monkey, I put my hand on my pants pocket, about to remove my phone. Ignoring the fact that I’m already halfway to being mind controlled by electronics, I lean forward, trying to read what’s on Alessi’s screen. But she hides it from me again. What she fails to hide is the surprise on her face.

“What is it?” I ask.

“We need to go in,” she says.

Collins shakes her head. “We’re not ready.”

And she’s right. The plan was to hit a hotel, take showers, dress like science-nerds and try to blend in with the research personnel. Easy for me, the balding white male, and Alessi, the serious Japanese woman—we fall within the stereotype. Collins on the other hand...she’d stand out and be noticed, no matter how nerdy she dressed. Her disguise was an expensive power suit, the kind someone with authority might wear—the kind that science-nerds avoid eye contact with and security guards ogle. But if we go in now, dressed in T-shirts, jeans and a lone, red beanie cap, we’ll stand out for our casualness.

“There isn’t time,” Alessi says. “And they’ll be distracted.”

“With what?” I ask, sensing an answer that’s going to make my ass pucker.

“A Tsuchi is loose,” she says. “But it’s not in the main building. It’s in Building-K.”

“Annnd what is Building-K?” I ask.

“I haven’t been told,” she says so quickly it sounds like the truth. “All I know is that it’s big.”

“How big?” I ask, puckering in progress.

Alessi looks back at me, understanding my fears, and the true nature of the question. “Big enough.”

“Great.”

“Turn here,” Alessi says to Collins, and I sit back. I don’t like this, running into the unknown, led by someone I don’t trust, who is, in turn, led by someone I want to kick in the nuts most of the time, a man whose...obsession has mirrored my own on occasion.

While Alessi gives Collins directions to the GOD facility, I put on a pair of fake glasses and remove my beanie cap. At the very least, I’ll look like a scientist rushing back to work late in the day, perhaps called in because of the emergency situation.

We pull up to the gate five minutes later. The gate house is two stories tall, with windows surrounding each of the two floors. Beyond the gate is a tall building, not quite a skyscraper, but dwarfed by what looks like a hangar for the world’s largest plane. Technically, this land is still part of the Air Force Base, which stretches along the coast to the Space Launch Complex, built in the 1950s for ballistic missile testing and later converted to a space launching facility. So something like a giant hangar would go overlooked in this area. It’s just one of many strange looking Air Force buildings. But this one contains a loose Tsuchi, and hopefully nothing else.

I turn my attention back to the guard house. Currently, there is no one standing by the security window. We stop in front of the gate. No one home.

“Should we drive through?” Collins asks.

“They’re in there,” Alessi says. “They’re distracted, but blasting through the gate will definitely get their attention, in the wrong way. Honk like you’re agitated. Like you’ve been waiting for a while.”

Collins lays on the horn, letting out one long blast, followed by a barrage of irritating shorter honks.

The man who comes to the window is wearing black fatigues, like he’s ready for action. A handgun is holstered on his hip. He’s already shaking his head as he approaches and opens the sliding window. “We’re locked down. No one gets in.”

“But—”

“You can either wait, or come back tomorrow,” the man says, indifferent to Collins’s feminine wiles.

As the guard starts closing his window, I roll mine down and fix him with a squinty-eyed stare. “Why do you think we’re here? Hmm?”

The man pauses, glancing at me. I’m not sure if it’s the words I’m saying or the annoying nasal voice I’m using, but he looks irritated already. Irritated, but listening.

“Do you think we’d come back this late in the day just for fun? For kicks? I was sitting down for dinner! What’s your name?” It’s the kind of question only people who believe they can get you in trouble will ask. It does the job.

The window slides back open. “Why, exactly, are you here...sir?”

“You and I both know that Dark Matter has gotten loose.” My knowledge of what’s going on inside along with my use of GOD slang quickly piques the man’s attention. “I was summoned to help eliminate the problem.”

“I’m sorry, sir. But I’m not sure how you could help eliminate the threat.” He’s not being sarcastic. The question is honest, which means he’s still on the hook.

“Euthanasia,” I say. “Killing things is my specialty. The sooner you allow us access, the sooner I will be able to put your infected compatriots out of their misery.”

This last line appeals to the man’s fears, both for himself and any friends he might have actively dealing with the escaped Tsuchi. Also, I got to use the word ‘compatriots’ in a sentence, which is a first.

The guard looks back over his shoulder, then toward the facility and finally back to the SUV. He reaches out his hand. “IDs.”

He takes the photo IDs, checks the pictures while bending down to look at us each in turn. Then he scans them one at a time. With each digital beep from the computer, I expect an alarm to go off, but nothing happens. The man hands the IDs back to Collins and asks me, “How serious is it?”

“Deadly serious, I’m afraid,” I say, and then I dig for information. “As you’d expect any breach inside Building-K to be.”

The man shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know.”

The gate lifts away and we pull through, speeding down the straight drive and arriving in a wide, half-full parking lot. I can see action by the massive Building-K—a lot of security, but they’re not really moving. More like waiting. But definitely distracted.

We park close to the fifteen-story main building’s front door. It’s a bleak government building, square with tinted windows. There are three sets of double doors leading in. Alessi takes point, entering through the center doors like she owns the place. Inside are three card terminals and a windowed security booth. The guard inside looks surprised to see us, but he says nothing. When I see the metal detectors ahead, I glance at Alessi, trying to hide my worry while at the same time conveying it to her. She gives a subtle shake of her head that says, “Don’t worry about it.” We head toward the card scanners, swipe through them one at a time, and push through the turnstiles and metal detectors with no problem.

But how?
I wonder.
Our weapons should have set off the alarms.

Then I notice what looks like a car alarm remote in Alessi’s hand. She takes her finger off a button, gives me a slight grin and pushes the elevator call button on the far wall. We stand silently before the polished marble wall, waiting for the elevator. When it dings and opens, a lone man is standing on the other side, skinny, white, blond and balding, except that unlike me, he’s trying to hide it with a poor comb-over rather than a hat.

The man looks confused by our presence, looking first at Alessi, then to Collins with widening eyes and finally to me, with a gasp. This man knows exactly who I am, Clark Kent disguise or not, and he opens his mouth to shout for help.