Project 731 (2 page)

Knowing that Silhouette would soon join them and see him in action, Johnson threw himself into the task of clearing rooms. He moved quickly, efficiently, sweeping the many bunkrooms, sometimes finding bodies, sometimes not, but never looking back to see if Silhouette had joined them.

The room at the end of the hall was labeled
Messdeck
, but Johnson barely registered the sign, or that the space beyond would be different from all the rest—until he opened the door and looked inside.

Everything was black.

Green night vision returned, revealing a white-green floor covered with dark stains. But the rest of the large space was impenetrable darkness. “What the—I think my goggles are broken.”

Then the darkness moved, spreading out along the floor. A sound like static filled the air: hundreds of hard, sharp points striking the floor.

“It’s alive,” he said, stepping back, thumbing off the safety on his weapon.

“Hold him,” Silhouette said.

Johnson tried to turn around, but he was stopped by three sets of hands that felt robotic. Impossibly strong. He fought, a scream building in his throat, but Silhouette’s next words shocked his system silent.

“Nighthawk, this is BlackGuard. Come in. Over.”

“We read you BlackGuard. What’s your status? Over.”

Silhouette looked up as Johnson craned his neck back. “Sorry, son, but you were the crappiest soldier we could find that wouldn’t be missed.”

The sentence struck Johnson in the gut, and it was quickly followed by a constricting tightness that had nothing to do with his emotional state. He was locked in a coiled grip that tightened over his midsection. Then, stabbing pain.

Once, twice, three times.

“Dark Matter acquired,” Shadow said.

Gunfire, painfully close, filled the metal hallway with ear-splitting noise, flashing light and the stench of gunpowder. With a shriek, the coiled tightness fell away. But twisting pain blossomed anew, roiling in Johnson’s gut.

“It’s happening fast,” Specter said.

The hallway shook as Obsidian slammed the hatch closed and said, “The lock is broken.”

Specter, the smallest and fastest member of the team, took the door. “I’ll give you a head start and catch up.”

Johnson was propped up. Silhouette pulled a plastic cap off a syringe with his teeth, and jabbed the needle into Johnson’s belly. Johnson’s vision blurred as the pain in his gut intensified. Tightness wrapped him again, but this time it was cold. Freezing. He was turned around and around, wrapped tightly in a translucent blue plastic, each revolution adding to the chill.

They’re freezing me.

“Nighthawk, evac on the aft deck in two mikes. Exfil will be hot. Repeat, exfil will be hot. Over.”

“Copy that,” Nighthawk—whoever that was—replied. “We’ll be waiting. Out.”

Johnson felt himself lifted up. When he saw the hall again, it was from Shadow’s shoulder.

“Let’s move,” Silhouette said. And they did. The journey on Shadow’s shoulder was rough, made worse by the pain in Johnson’s gut, which had slowed some, but nausea was sweeping through him. He left a trail of puke behind them. He watched the puke as the goggles tried to colorize it, and he noticed blinking lights along the walls. Bricks of C4 had been planted on the walls, their detonators blinking readiness.

“On my way,” Specter said through the comm. Ten seconds later, gunfire. Fast and continuous.

Then they were outside. The ship’s exterior was no longer silent and still. The violent chop of rotor blades filled the air with thunder and kicked up mist from the ocean below. Spotlights lit up the deck.

Gunfire grew loud behind them, spilling from the still-open deck hatch. “Almost there,” Specter said. “Very hot.”

Johnson felt himself tossed into the helicopter, his body temperature dropping by the second, robbing consciousness. The pain in his gut was almost gone, along with the rest of his feeling. He watched as the BlackGuard opened fire from inside the chopper, shooting at some unseen enemy. Then, Specter dove inside, held fast by Obsidian. The helicopter rose up and peeled away, giving Johnson a momentary view of the
Darwin
, its upper decks alive with hundreds of moving, unidentifiable black spots.

And then, with a bright flash, the
Darwin
exploded, erased forever. As the roar and pressure wave shook the helicopter, Johnson rolled onto his back and looked up at his teammates. Only Shadow looked back, his squinted eyes revealing a smile. “
Now
you’ve seen scary.”

1

Maine

“Stop moving,” she says.

“I’m itchy,” I tell her.

“You didn’t roll through poison ivy again?”

“Four leaves, shiny green. No way.”

“Poison ivy has three leaves.”

“Shit.”

A faint scratch, barely a whisper, silences us. Collins, whose fiery hair and personality are hidden by full-body camouflage, lowers her goggle-covered face to the ground, blending in with the leaf litter that surrounds and covers us. I lower my head, too, knowing that concealment is the only course of action. If our enemy is within a hundred yards, something as small as passed gas would give our position away.

So we wait in silence. I can hear Collins breathing through the earbuds that let us communicate over distances without having to shout. While the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves seeps through my facemask, I picture our future together. It’s totally inappropriate, both because I’m kind of in the middle of something and because my face is in the dirt, but I find it hard not to think about. I picture her in a wedding dress, red hair in curls, orange-brown eyes blazing. My mind’s eye travels south to her...
No
, I think. The wedding dress I’ve conjured is far too revealing, so I mentally censor the image to something more conservative. These camo fatigues are a little tight, and I don’t want to relive the last day I ever wore sweat pants in high school.

“Pervert,” Collins whispers.

“What?” I say, too loud. “How did— Get out of my head, woman.”

“You’re adjusting,” she says.

I freeze. Without realizing, I’ve reached down and shifted my boxer briefs. I generally prefer straight boxers, but that’s not always comfortable when in the field. A good sprint can leave a guy feeling like Sugar Ray Leonard discovered a new punching bag.

“What was I wearing this time?” she asks. “Bikini? Lingerie?”

I turn toward her, seeing only the side of her facedown head. “First, kudos on the confidence. How do you know I wasn’t thinking about a Kardashian?”

“You sound too nervous for that.”

“Too nervous? I’m not nervous at all.”
Shit, shit, shitty-shit, shit.
I can’t tell her the truth. We’ve been together for two years now. She knows how I feel, but she was married once before. The man abused her. Hardened her. I need to make sure that the idea of marriage hasn’t been ruined for her. Ted Watson and Anne Cooper, our co-workers at the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center – Paranormal division, FC-P for short, were married six months ago, before the birth of their son. Collins was a bridesmaid, but I couldn’t read how she felt about the situation. I might need to come right out and ask her, but that will kind of ruin the surprise...which I haven’t planned yet. To lead her away from the truth, I need to give her something embarrassing, something to justify the nerves she’s detecting.

I sit up, revealing myself to the enemy. “Uhura.”

Collins sits up beside me. “What?”

“Uhura. I was picturing you as Uhura.”

Collins lifts her facemask so I can see her squinting eyes.

I take her silence for not understanding, despite the fact that I know her fantasies probably involve Jean-Luc Picard. “Star Trek... Communications officer. Tight red uniform. Short skirt. Speaks Klingon.”

“Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam.”

I have no idea what she said, but Collins’s Klingon sounds flawless.

I lift my mask away, smiling wide. “Oh my god. Where were you during my teenage years?”

A thud reveals the arrival of our enemy. I turn to the new arrival and casually say, “Oh, hey Lilly,” before giving Collins my full attention again. “Seriously, you know Klingon?”

Collins acknowledges Lilly with a wave, but otherwise ignores the girl, which is impressive, since the now six-foot-tall cat-woman with bright yellow eyes, black fur-covered body and long twitching tail is still amazing to witness—even after we’ve known her for a year.

“I had Watson teach me a few phrases. Thought you’d like it.”

“Thought right,” I say. “Bonus points for Collins.” I pantomime a scrolling scoreboard, complete with ticking sound effects.

The ridiculous conversation has the desired effect.

“You guys will never beat me if you don’t take this seriously,” Lilly says.

“We’re playing capture the flag,” I say. “It’s hard to take seriously. Not all of us are kids.”

Lilly’s pupils narrow and lock on me. Predatory. Intimidating.

I smile.

She stomps her foot. “I am
not
a kid.”

“You’re what, six years old?”

“I age differently than...humans...than regular people.”

I’m pushing the conversation into dangerous territory here. Lilly’s teenage self-esteem issues, unlike most, are rooted firmly in reality. While other teenagers feel like freaks, Lilly pretty much is one—at least to the outside world. To us, she’s family, and a part of the team.

“That doesn’t mean you mature any faster,” I say.

Lilly pulls back. Sucks in a breath. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

I grin. “You do?”

“I know that Dad is hiding beside you.” I turn to the long lump next to me, the camouflage fabric of Mark Hawkins’s fatigues hidden beneath the leaves. Lilly reaches out and taps my head, and then Collins’s. We’re officially captured.

“Okay, Dad,” she says to the stationary lump. “You can come out.”

I still get all choked up when this girl, who looks every bit the killer, speaks in such kindhearted tones, and gives those she loves honorary familial titles. We’re all uncles and aunts these days.

Hawkins doesn’t budge. Lilly nudges his still form with her sleek, black-furred foot, the retractable claws currently hidden. The leaves fall away, revealing an empty boot and pant leg.

“Oh my god,” I say in my very best sarcastic tone. “What did you do? You vaporized him!”

Lilly is too smart to fall for the continued distraction. She knows she’s been had, and like a true competitor, she’s once again on the hunt. Finding Hawkins proves easy. Even I can hear him running through the woods, which means one thing.

“He’s got the flag,” Collins says, sounding a little stunned. Despite her surprise, Hawkins was the logical choice for flag retrieval. He’s a first class tracker, trained by Howie Goodtracks, his unofficial adoptive father, who also happens to be a Ute Indian. After learning the trade from Goodtracks, Hawkins became a Yellowstone Park Ranger, specializing in finding lost, and sometimes dead, hikers, climbers and vacationers. An encounter with a grizzly bear ended that career, along with the bear’s life.

We’ve run through this simple exercise twenty times. At first, we were cocky. How could Lilly stop the whole group of us, in the woods, by herself? But she has—every single time. We’ve never even spotted her flag. Whether she catches us all, or simply steals our flag out from under our noses, we’ve never stood a chance. But this time...

I stand up, cup my hands to my mouth and shout, “Run, Mark! She’s coming!”

Lilly hisses at me and then she’s off and running, a black blur between the trees, and then in them, leaping from trunk to trunk, branch to branch.

Collins stands up and brushes herself off. “You know he’s screwed, right?”

“Nah,” I say, feeling less hopeful than I sound. “Hawkins is like a jackrabbit, and he’s got a head start.” I catch a glimpse of Lilly soaring between two-hundred-foot pine trees in the distance. “Yeah, he’s screwed. Let’s go watch.”

We run down the wooded hill toward the field at the bottom. Mark is making the same run, maybe a quarter mile to the west. If we hurry, we might reach the field in time to see him get tackled. Moving in a straight line, we reach the field and stop, watching the tree line to our right for any sign of Hawkins or Lilly.
Did she catch him already?

A line of flags running through the middle of the field delineates the two sides. If Mark crosses the line, we win, and we seriously need to, otherwise all the sage wisdom and experience we have to offer Lilly will fall on deaf ears. She needs to know she’s not invincible. So far, all we’ve managed to accomplish is the opposite.

I walk out into the field, watching the line of tall pines for any sign of movement. All I see are puffs of yellow pollen being swept into the air on the breeze. Normally, in an open space like this, I’d be worried about someone spotting Lilly. In public, she wears a pretty badass looking suit—think Snake Eyes but with a woman’s figure, and no swords—she doesn’t need them. But the federal government, at the President’s insistence, was inclined to give the FC-P one hundred acres of land in Willowdale, Maine, where Collins served as Sheriff for a time, and where Nemesis was created in a secret lab disguised as an abandoned Nike missile site. The lab, leveled after Nemesis’s escape, is now hidden at the core of a massive, fenced-in preserve. We have fresh
No Trespassing
signs threatening prosecution, and the latest in high tech monitoring, which Watson can watch from the Crow’s Nest (the FC-P’s headquarters) back in Beverly, Massachusetts.

“See anything?” I ask.

Collins starts to reply in the negative, but she stops short and points. “There.”

Hawkins is distant. Small. His head barely visible above the tall, yellow grass, despite his height. He’s wearing just a T-shirt and shorts, which is supposed to be my uniform, and he’s running in a sprint, like Tom Cruise in...well, in every Tom Cruise movie ever made. His arms, rising and falling, are a blur.

As Collins and I jog toward the action, I let myself think,
he’s going to make it
, but I quickly follow that thought with, “Holy fuuuu.” I never finish the expletive. I’m too stunned.

Lilly explodes from a tree in a cloud of yellow pollen. She’s at least seventy-five feet up, and arcing downward toward Hawkins, who is oblivious to her aerial approach. I nearly shout a warning, but I realize Lilly would disqualify the win,
if
we won.

“Just a little closer,” Collins says, and I smile. She hated this at first, but once Lilly started getting cocky, she’s been on board.

For a moment, I think Lilly is going to land on top of him, but she lands right in front of him in a crouch, her back turned. Hawkins doesn’t miss a beat, diving over Lilly and rolling back to his feet. He doesn’t bother running now. It would be a wasted effort. He’ll be tagged in less than a second.

Lilly strikes, reaching out for Mark’s back.

But he manages one last move before Lilly tags him. He throws the flag, which is wrapped around its metal post. It tumbles through the air, landing just short of the dividing line.

Lilly thrusts her hands in the air. “Yes!”

Collins and I stop nearby, close enough to watch what happens next.

After a few seconds of victory dance, Lilly notices her three silent observers, stops and misreads the situation. Again. “Sorry,” she says. “That was over the top.”

“Bonus points for apologizing, but...” I point to the flag.

Lilly’s head snaps around, just as a blond head of hair, perfectly hidden in the yellow grass, rises up to reveal the lithe Dr. Avril Joliet. As a biologist and oceanographer, she lends her scientific prowess to the team. But to Lilly, she’s ‘Mom.’ Like Lilly, she’s prone to impulsivity and is widely considered the reason we lost the first five capture-the-flag matches, but over time, Joliet learned how to operate on a team. And as she casually bends over from her position behind the dividing line to pick up the flag, she delivers us our first win.