Toxic (74 page)

"I don't think it will be easy to convince him to sacrifice his position in the Combinate and condemn himself through this. You heard him; we have opposing opinions."

"I thought I understood him," the nurse hesitated. "But... you're the from the same species, right?"

"A long time ago, Jave thought he would be able to change the Collective from the inside, and that he just had to get an influential enough position to twist people to his ways and start positive changes."

"What happened?"

"The same thing that happens every time a sentient being climbs up the ladder of power. He lost sight of his objectives and let himself be corrupted."

"If it reassures you, the same bullshit happens here. I don't know if I should be happy deep down."

Jool watched her. It made her uncomfortable. She shivered and crossed her arms against her chest like a sweater.

"I followed the story of what happened to you closely. Jave saved you three times, isn't that right?"

"Yeah... he's a real guardian angel."

All of a sudden, Jool opened his hand. The communication ball levitated above his leather skin.

Elaine's eyes opened side. She waved her hands in front of her. "Me, No.. no. I refuse."

"I'm not going to explain myself, but I think that your fate is important to you. Only you are able to convince him to give his support."

"No, I don't think so. Even if he does respond."

The alien expressed his objection with a hot sigh through his nasal vents.

"You're
going
to talk to him."

"I'll try, but under one condition."

"I'm listening."

"That we send an expedition to bring back my friends."

The tunnel was never-ending.

Masters granted himself a short minute of rest before getting back on his way. He turned the handle of his flashlight and pointed the beam behind him. In the middle of the broken bottles, the white of eyes gave off a shocking contrast effect. They looked like prisoners in the middle of an escape.

"Is everyone behind me?"

"When will we get to the end?" Alison asked in a timid voice.

"I don't know," the colonel admitted. "But don't worry, we'll find the exit."

It was better to keep going and to not let anyone think about their dramatic situation.

"Let's get going!"

Masters crawled as fast as possible to gain a bit of a lead. Bruce's dad had built this place. According to the young man, his paranoia had rotted his life until his suicide via the click of a trigger. This type of person devised plans within plans, no matter how drastic. On paper, this tunnel was absurd. The panic room would have been enough to protect the occupants until the arrival of the police. however, that was a scenario only relevant when those services still worked, he told himself.

The marine stopped all of a sudden. A glow reflected off the humid wall. He smiled, before reaching deception a few meters further along. The circle of an intense white blinded him, but when his pupils closed to adjust to the excess light, what he saw dampened his hopes.

"Son of a bitch!"

"What?" Alva said.

Masters let out a series of swear words. "There are bars. We're blocked."

In a state of panic, the diva threw herself towards him. He had to stop her before she started to scream. It was too late.

"No, no, no!"

He hugged her to him. Her hallucinating eyes didn't look away from the light, sign of their liberation.

"Alva, look at me. We're going to find a solution."

"No... We're going to die here like fucking rats!"

"We're going to get out of here, Alva...!"

She tried to get away, but in such a small place, it basically consisted in a competition of elbows. Despite the repeated blows to his side, the colonel held out.

"It's his fault!" she screamed. "His fault! He brought us here," she said, referring to Bruce.

"I want to go back to Hector! The boat... The coke! I need it."

A crisis, he had once heard on the TV, is like a leak in a water pipe under pressure. The words shot out in torrents and the violence expressed itself without limits. He was unable to stop the wave of words.

Alison plugged her ears. The insults rained down and luckily enough, the lack of space stopped her from moving around too much. Masters closed his arms around the singer's shoulders and tried his best to stop her from hurting herself.

The crisis didn't last long. Helpless, Alva started to sob, which put an end to her show.

"Calm down; that's good. It will all be over soon."

A noise attracted his attention. The soldier put a mud-encrusted hand to the singer's lips. In the tunnel, everyone obeyed his orders and went completely silent.

The sound became clearer, like the lapping of water. Alva's eyes rolled around in her lack of understanding.

"Keep quiet, for the love of God," Masters whispered to her, before removing his hand.

He immediately realized where the tunnel led: to the moat that encircled the property. As for what was stirring around in the bottom... Masters looked at the group. The white orbs of Bruce's eyes disappeared when he closed them. Masters turned the flashlight off, putting a hand to his lips.

The foreseeable grunt then came. The tattered torso of an individual appeared against the background light. It passed with a disheartening slowness behind the bars. Alva let out a hiccup of surprise. The L-D stopped. Its mouth oozed a brownish liquid with a flatulent rumbling noise. The drool dripped down its flayed chin and fell on its t-shirt, the original color of which was impossible to determine. The infected creature turned around suddenly, without an apparent reason.

"No, not that," Masters thought.

"B
oss!"

An excited voice meant good news, Dan thought. Finally.

At the moment, he was smoking the butt of a Cuban cigar, a pleasure on the verge of going out.

"Yeah?" he said, spitting a piece of tobacco on the patio covered with corpses on which hordes of flies were feasting.

"Come take a look at what we just found," his henchman said.

Dan let himself be led towards the hallway and then to a sort of laundry room that they had first checked out without interest. Apparently, that had been a mistake.

Crouching in the middle of the debris, his other man was examining the wall, passing his hand over the same place repeatedly.

"I can feel a different shape. In my opinion, this is an opening and there's something behind this panel."

In turn, Dan considered the situation. He could see a clear line and touching it, a slight difference in texture.

"A hatch. Those bastards locked themselves up in there."

The first man came back with a hammer and started immediately to try to get it open, hitting it with all of his force. After five minutes and dripping with sweat, he stopped hammering.

"Fuck, what is this thing? It's tougher than reinforced concrete."

"A safe room," his associate responded. "Rich people built them to hide from robbers."

The Reverend arrived. He handed a plastic block to Dan.

"I doubt that it can hold up to this," he predicted.

"We risk killing them," his lieutenant objected.

"You can't make omelets without breaking eggs, as you know. And anyway, that's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I want them dead."

I
n the end, Naakrit had assigned two soldiers to the security of the emissary and the Säzkari. A reptilian taken away from his position as Dubai headquarters guard and an insectoid from the space station. The troopers were spread across the four corners of the Earth and even further. The tamers gathered around the eighth planet mobilized the Primark's attention. Dividing enemy forces was a military strategy and a mantra of experts.

With the mercenaries occupied, Jave got to carrying out new experiments in peace.

His rootlets shivered when he got out of the T-J, which had landed in the middle of an arena hundreds of octains old, according to the information provided by the tera-servers. Here, games to amuse the masses were played. The quirks of humans rivaled those of many races in the Collective, he told himself, looking over the site. The antique remains had suffered less from the invasion than from recent leveling work. With the help of robots, the soldiers had shaved off and leveled the central zone in an oval shape to clear the place for the field work facilities.

The emissary headed towards the northern facade of the building, which had four floors. The first three were held up by columns of different styles and the fourth was a wall dotted with windows. It was true, he thought; there existed a human signature, an architectural code.

When the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall. And when Rome falls, the world will end
, he read through the visor of his light armor.

The Säzkari arrived at the base of the ramp with the two soldiers. The trio had taken possession of the site during the night.

"It's quite the monument," he shared.

"It was used for sacrifices. Individuals thrown to the mercy of savage beasts."

The doctor responded with the equivalent of sarcasm.

"A temporary activity, I think. Except that they are delivered to my scalpels. But in any case, I must seem like an animal from their point of view. So, the comparison is relevant."

The mercenaries had unloaded the materials not far from the structure of metal sheets, which made up the landing platform for the Tracker-Jumpers and a trio of drones. For the moment, the latter were flying over the surroundings looking for prey. According to the scanners, a few groups of healthy humans were hiding in the ruins of the city or on neighboring hills. Several unmoving bodies already took up one of the dissection tables installed under a long tent protected by a small dome.

The Lynian followed the practitioner towards the translucent wall. They de-phased a portion of the energy field and then crossed it to reach their quarters. The Säzkari consulted his flexible screen while carrying out a visual inspection of the first specimen. It was female.

"Captured and brought here by one of the drones this morning. We can't get a fresher product than this. She is currently asleep, and all her vital functions are still working. Weight, around zero point octo-five units, height: one point..."

The reptilian listed off her main characteristics, which the Lynian compared to Elaine. They were similar. A strange floating sensation took over his thoughts. Then, the doctor grabbed a pistol-syringe from the tray scattered with surgical instruments.

"This solution is going to stop the cardiac pump. Are you ready?"

The emissary bowed slightly.

"OK. I'll proceed."

The Säzkari placed the barrel against her skin and the laser needle delivered its content directly into the bloodstream. They waited a few moments before the screen announced the complete stoppage of cardiac function which meant, in human language, that the female had just died.

"Let's see if we can get her back."

He made two incisions, the first in the crotch area and the other at the base of her neck. Red drops pearled up on her white skin. The Säzkari immediately hooked her up to the tubes connected to a pump placed on a second tray. Jave watched a recipient drain of its cryo-fluid and the neighboring one fill with a carmine liquid.

"What goes in and what comes out has to have the exact same color. Otherwise, that means that there's still blood in the body. The circulatory system has to be completely purged. The secret is in the degree of the purity of the cryo-fluid."

"I imagine that this will take a while. Call me when you finish."

The Lynian left the tent.

Beyond the dome, a drone came hurtling into view at a low altitude. The device disappeared behind the northern fa袤e of the Coliseum. Once, this place had been the center of an empire, the home of a pre-tech civilization of which this monument constituted an eminent symbol. The end of this world was close, but maybe this testimony to the past would survive, he encouraged himself.

The communication sphere started to buzz. The Lynian crossed the wall of the containment field and headed towards an overturned column away from the facilities.