Spores (6 page)
“Are you sure they were dead?”
“Of course I’m sure Major, their heads were almost vaporised, those men were definitely dead.”
“Well that’s a new one. I suppose I’d better inform the good Colonel of this new development. So how many of their personnel are still unaccounted for?”
“The second team, there were just two of them. They are due to report back in about ten minutes. My men are already in position”
Tyler nodded, “Is everything else completed?”
“Yes, all communication has been severed, our prizes are safely stored away and the remainder are in the process of being neutralised.”
“Good job, as per usual Jackson. Your attention to detail is remarkable.”
Was that supposed to be a compliment? It was a bit too fucking late for him to start kissing Jackson’s arse, the bastard had already mucked his copybook, it was way too late to try and make amends.
Tyler turned around and walked towards the lift. “I don’t trust those technicians.”
That was probably the only opinion he shared with Jackson; as far as he was concerned they were closer to the animals they experimented on then proper humans.
“If I had my way, Jackson I’d have them all neutralised. Considering that it was probably some scientist who caused all this to happen in the first place.”
Major Tyler sighed as he reached the lift doors. “Personally, I think they are all pissing in the wind. The species is fucked, out only hope is to start again.”
He pressed the call button.
“It’s something I’m looking forward to,” said Jackson.
The door opened and he ushered the Sergeant inside.
“I’m glad you’ve reminded me, there is something I wanted to discuss with you. Your reputation concerning your treatment of the opposite sex is well known, Sergeant Jackson, so consider this to be your only warning. You will treat your new partner with the tenderness and respect she deserves; otherwise I’ll make sure that you regret the day that I walked into your life.”
Jackson kept his face straight while the lift doors closed, trying to keep his raging temper in check. Oh that was the last straw. That bastard was going to meet his maker very soon.
Chapter Five
Amber threw herself back on the bare mattress and thrust her bruised knuckles up into her armpit. After fifteen minutes of constant door battering, she reached the conclusion that nobody was coming to help her. She’d continued to bang upon that door even when all the others had given up. She couldn’t understand where all the other people were, the soldiers couldn’t have locked all them up as well.
Her logical and analytical mind went on vacation when that soldier marched her through the deserted corridors and thrust her into this room and bolted the door on the outside.
The pale blue metal door became that Jackson bastard. She punched and screamed and Amber remembered head butting it on one occasion. She planned to repeat the same actions on that ugly man with the piercing blue eyes and the stupid moustache when he eventually showed up.
She sat up and inspected her hand then gazed over at the undamaged door and sighed heavily. “Well then, you big bag of overwrought emotions, you’ve had your turn.”
Amber got to her feet and looked around her new prison, “I think it’s time to let the old logic back inside my head.”
As logic had calmly informed her; if those soldiers did appear and she was still in here, then that would be it, the next thing she’d see would be the evil face of Jackson pointing to a map of Scotland before pointing to his crotch. Amber shuddered.
“Oh hell, talk about a fate worse than death.”
Her eyes darted from wall to wall, there were no windows, no air vents, no nothing, those unwanted emotions threatened to make an uninvited comeback as she came to the conclusion that poor Amber was going nowhere.
Were the other girls close by? They couldn’t be that far away, this level was the only place in the Institute that had secure rooms, she hoped they had more luck in escaping than she had. Amber leaned against the door, refusing to sit back on the bed, sitting down would be a sure sign of defeat and despite the odds; she hadn’t yet reached that point.
Amber slowly walked over to the corner of the room, thinking hard. There must be something that she had missed, something obvious, it was only a storage room, not a prison cell.
Her eyes jerked over to that door. Amber heard something clang against one of the other doors further down the corridor, maybe one of the other girls got lucky and found something, a tool or weapon in their own prison. Oh God, what if the soldiers were coming back? Maybe the sound she heard was a key being thrust into the lock.
Amber heard the sound again, it was much closer and now it was right above her head.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered looking up. “A drop ceiling, a bloody drop ceiling,”
She’d just spent the last fifteen minutes ruining her hand on a metal door when there was a perfectly good escape route just two feet above her.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
Amber watched one of the polystyrene tiles slide across before a friendly face poked through the hole.
“You ain’t stupid lass,” said Patsy. “You just haven’t seen as many movies as me.”
Amber scrambled onto the bed, she stood on the headboard and grabbed Patsy’s outstretched arm. Her friend pulled her through the hole and into the recess.
“Your elfin qualities have definitely been an advantage here, Amber. It would have been a struggle if you had tried to rescue me.”
Amber watched her replace the tile, “So which movie was it this time?”
“Aliens of course,” she replied. “Vasquez had just welded the door shut yet those pesky xenomorphs still kept coming. When the motion sensors showed the terrified marines the aliens had got into the room, all eyes automatically went up,” she grinned, “yes that’s right, they even have drop ceilings in the far future.”
It surprised Amber just how dark it was up here, she thought that the thousands of tiny holes in the tiles beneath them would have given them some light.
“You’d best follow my lead, Amber. We’re both balancing on top of a wall partition here, deviation to either side would mean dropping through the tiles, and that’s not recommended!”
The absence of light made it a little difficult to keep her balance; she had to use her fingers to probe for the edges of the tile connecters before she could move forward. Perhaps it wasn’t a good time to mention to Patsy that she had a fear of the dark, despite being relieved to be out of that cramped room, Amber was now wishing she had stayed there. She paused and took a deep breath.
“Amber, are you alright?”
She nodded then felt foolish for doing so, how was Patsy going to see her doing that? “I’m okay,” she said, a little shocked that her voice sounded so normal. “Must be just delayed shock or something, you know?”
“A few more feet, Amber and we’ll be home and dry.”
A rectangle of white light appeared in the floor a few feet from Patsy. It was the most beautiful sight Amber had ever seen.
“It’s doubtful they’ll look for us in here.” she said before dropping through the gap.
Amber reached the hole and peered down, away from her friend’s upturned face, she saw dozens of narrow metal tables, three at the far side of the room were occupied. They were right above the mortuary.
“Come on Lass, those poor sods on the gurneys ain’t gonna harm you.”
“Do you think they’ll look for us?”
“Oh yeah, you can guarantee that one.” She replied, helping her down.
“Have you ever spoken to Janice Lockwood?”
It took Amber awhile to place the name; the image of a dark haired woman with sharp features swam up from her subconscious. “Yeah, a bit loud, always obsessing about her nails.”
“Well she was in the room next to you, she crapped herself when I lifted one of the tiles. Can you believe that the silly cow wanted to stay?”
Amber wasn’t all that surprised, she may have a mouth on her like the Mersey tunnel but underneath that noise lay a very insecure woman. Janice lost her husband in an accident a couple of weeks before Patsy turned up. The poor woman had initially gone to pieces. Perhaps having a big, strong soldier boy was what she really wanted.
“Janice called me quite a few nasty names, you can bet a pound to a penny that the vindictive cow will tell them exactly where we went.”
“Oh shit,” Amber watched one of the tiles further down lift up and a young man with hard little eyes stared directly at her. She jumped down and looked at her friend in terror, “It’s too late, they know!”
Patsy’s eyes darted around the room then raced for the door with Amber close behind. She pulled open the door then to Amber’s astonishment, Patsy ran over to a pile of white sheets lying in the corner of an aluminium worktop.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” hissed Amber. She could hear the heavy thuds above them getting closer. Patsy placed her index finger over her lips; she threw her a sheet then pointed to one of the empty trolleys.
“You have got to be fucking kidding!”
Patsy shook her head and ran past her, jumped on the first trolley and pulled the sheet over her body; Amber glanced up before following her actions. As she pulled the cold plastic sheet over her head, she heard the first soldier drop into the room followed by the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
Her pounding heart crashed against her ribs. So much for that bastard Colonel’s rousing speech about females being like precious flowers. Another set of boots hit the tiled floor; at any second now, that sheet would be pulled off her face and the last thing she’d ever see would be those soldier’s piggy little eyes before he pulled the trigger. Oh God, why didn’t they just bleeding run while they’d had the chance?
The cold sheet made her nose itch; Amber was going to sneeze at any moment. Those soldiers, they hadn’t said a single word since they’d dropped down. Were they keeping silent so they could listen to any sound that could betray their presence?
She heard a cupboard door opening. Oh God, they were! The soldiers were searching the fucking room.
Amber tried to block out that itchy feeling and concentrated on slowing her breathing down. She strained her ears, listening to them throwing the contents of that cupboard across the floor.
“I’ve found some!”
Amber jumped; it was the first time either of them had spoken. The rustle of the plastic sheeting as she moved sounded thunderous to her ears.
“How many are there?” replied the other soldier.
She recognised that voice: it belonged to that arsehole who’d thrown her into that bloody room. According to the patch on the front of his uniform, he was called Hayder. What the hell were they doing? Then again, who cared, it was obvious that they weren’t searching for her or Patsy.
“It’s a full box,”
The excitement in that man’s voice was almost palatable.
“Brilliant,” replied Hayder. “A good start to our collection. Okay Pembroke, I reckon those women will have headed for the medical section.”
“But that’s three levels down, they won’t have gotten that far.”
“Fuck the girls!” Snapped Hayder.
Pembroke chuckled, “I intend to when we get to Scotland.”
Hayder sighed. “Stop thinking with your cock for a second will you? This is the first time that we’ve been let off the leash since the Birmingham disaster. They’re taking us to the middle of fucking nowhere, we ain’t going to be shagging 24/7 you know.”
“Well I’m going to try, buddy.”
“Good for you Pembroke, then what happens when you get bored of boning your woman? We need luxuries, man. Those pills in your grimy paws will be worth a fortune.”
Amber wondered if the Colonel knew that his great plan had already gone to shit.
“Look Pembroke, one of those tarts belongs to Jackson. After how that bastard treated us in London; I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. Let him look for his own woman.”
“Good point, let’s go shopping then.”
Amber waited for a few seconds after the door had shut before breathing out. “Patsy?” she whispered. “Have they gone?”
She blinked as the plastic sheet was ripped off her.
“Yes, they’ve gone,” replied her friend.
Patsy wondered over to the now closed door and peered through the glass, Amber eased her body off the metal trolley, hoping never to go through anything like that again.
“What do you think they took?”
Patsy shrugged, “Who knows or cares?” she walked down the side of the room, closing the blinds as she went.
“What are you doing? What if they come back?”
Her friend shook her head, “Why would they? Do you think they were going to climb back up there or something? Look, we need to get out of the Institute.”
Amber couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “What the hell for? All we have to do is lie low for a couple of hours; those soldiers will be gone by then.”
Patsy looked at her watch, “Your Miles would have understood that movie reference you know.”
The colour drained from Amber’s face. Patsy nodded to herself, “You’ve forgotten about him haven’t you.”
“But the Colonel said he was sending some of his soldiers out to bring them back!”
“And you believed him? We’ve already witnessed the actions of his heroic men.” She walked back over to the windows and peered through one of the blinds. “Here’s a question for you then. Where the hell is everybody, eh? Here’s another one, how will the rest of the people here react when they are told that the soldiers are stealing their women?”
