Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall (20 page)

“No, none whatsoever. Thanks to you, Dave, Pauline and Larry, I’m fine. Oh, and I’m immune now.”

She smiled. “We thought that might happen, but we weren’t certain. Larry will be thrilled. He was dying to know if you are. He was talking about testing it out by injecting you with eater blood. I’m almost sure he was joking though.” She looked back up at Alex. She was so close he could have reached out and touched her without taking a step. “How did you find us?”

He shook himself from his touching related fantasies. “Sorry, what?”

“How did you know we were here?”

“I got your message.” It was getting very difficult to concentrate on the task at hand, that was, rescuing everyone and escaping. More than anything, Alex wanted to kiss her.

“What message?”

His gaze dropped to her lips. They were such an enticing natural shade of dark pink. “On your phone, that you left on Jim’s body.”

Hannah frowned. “I didn’t leave my phone on Jim’s body.”

Her mouth looked so incredibly soft and warm and... wait, what? His eyes snapped back to her eyes. “What do you mean, you didn’t leave your phone on Jim’s body?”

“They took our phones from us. I couldn’t have left it anywhere near him.”

“But...”

The door banged open. Micah’s hand flew to his gun.

“
I
left her phone on Jim’s body, along with the message on it for you to come looking for her.”

Alex whirled around at the sound of the man’s voice. Frobisher and Beardy walked into the room and fanned out to either side of the doorway, as much as they could in the small space. They were both carrying semi-automatic pistols, aiming them almost lazily at him and Micah, although Alex had no doubt that if either of them made a move they would shoot first and ask questions never. Frobisher gave Alex a sneer.

Outside the door were another two black suited behemoths, and between those two behemoths was a gap. Alex’s eyes dropped. At the bottom of the gap, a man appeared in the doorway. A very short man, not much above four feet tall. He was wearing an expensive looking dark blue suit and a derisive smirk.

“Well, obviously I didn’t do it myself,” the short man said, “I wasn’t there. But I gave the order. And in case you’re wondering, we’ve known you were here since you arrived. It was really quite entertaining watching the two of you going to all that trouble to get in. The sheep were especially fun. But if you’d knocked, you could have just walked in.” He glanced up briefly at the man to his left and then leaned forward towards Alex as if he was imparting some great secret . “Frobisher wants to kill you for knocking him on his arse, but don’t worry, he’s completely loyal to me. So as long as you do as you’re told, I won’t let him.” 

Alex moved in front of Hannah while mentally calculating if he could take out all four gorillas at once. “And who are you exactly?”

He knew who the man was, both from Lieutenant Dent’s description and because he exuded the kind of planet-sized ego necessary for causing the death of thousands. But Alex felt an acute need to annoy him in any way he could and he got the feeling being ignorant of his existence was exactly the way to do that.

A flash of anger crossed the short man’s face. “Harvey Boot, Omnav owner and CEO.” The anger was replaced by an expression of pure pride. He spread his arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “This is all mine, if you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence.” His broad Yorkshire accent took the edge off his pomposity, but it was still annoying.

Alex felt a kernel of rage ignite in his chest. “So you’re responsible for everything that’s going on, the outbreak, the weaponisation of Meir’s, the suffering and death of millions?”

Boot grinned. “That would be me. Admittedly, I didn’t intend for the outbreak to happen, but we can’t avoid a little collateral damage. And it’s quite a good field test.”

The kernel of rage experienced a growth spurt into fury so acute Alex was having difficulty not launching himself at Boot and pummelling him into the tiled floor. He couldn’t believe anyone could be so callous. The man was actually
boasting
about slaughtering countless men, women and children.

He ground his teeth, muttering under his breath, “What a dick.”

Boot frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said you’re a
dick
,” he said, raising his voice. “I also get now why you’re doing all this. Overcompensating just a bit, don’t you think?” He looked down and up Boot’s short form. It was a low blow, but he was unbelievably angry.

Boot nodded at Frobisher who stepped forward, drew his hand back, and slammed the butt of his gun into Alex’s cheek, whipping his head around.

Hannah gasped, rushing to his side. “Stop!”

Tasting copper, Alex ran his tongue over the inside of his cheek where his teeth had cut into the soft flesh and looked back at the huge man. He would have taken him down right there, but the other guard had his pistol aimed directly at Hannah. He got a grip on his self control and bit back an angry retort. It wouldn’t help and he didn’t want to get hit again.

“Please don’t think of doing anything with that pistol,” Boot said to Micah, whose hand was resting almost casually on the gun still in its holster. “I can assure you my security guards are highly trained and very dedicated to the task of protecting me. At least two of you would be either seriously injured or dead before you’d even got it out. And I really don’t want to lose this opportunity.” A gleeful smile stretched his face. “Can you imagine how thrilled I was when the opportunity fell into my lap to lure here not only a Survivor, but also the first, and so far only, person to be cured of our new strain of the virus?” He spread his hands out in a ridiculously smug gesture. “It’s a sign from the universe.”

“How did you know we were coming?” Micah said.

“The security cameras in the Sarcester facility. They’re quite subtly placed. You can’t see them unless you know where to look. We didn’t want the scientist’s work to be tainted by the knowledge they were being watched, but at the same time we couldn’t leave them unsupervised. I have learned it is a sad fact of life that, no matter how generously you reward your employees and how well they are treated, they can sometimes show a shocking level of disloyalty.”

Alex saw the eyes of Beardy dart to Boot and away again, his Adam’s apple bobbing ever so slightly.

Oblivious, Boot turned away, speaking as he left. “Escort Ms. Sanderson back to her work, disarm our two guests and take them to the cells. Oh, but get them cleaned up first. I can barely breathe in here.”

The two guards ungently divested Alex and Micah of their weapons once Boot was gone. Hannah reached out to Alex, but Frobisher stepped between them. She flashed him a look of such intense vitriol that he immediately snatched back the hand with which he had been about to take her arm. Instead, he motioned for her to leave with his gun. The huge guard towered more than a foot above her, and yet she faced him down as if he was a bug.

Hannah flashed Alex a smile that, in his mind at least, said that once she had got her hands on a scalpel and emasculated the brainless ogre, she was going to find him and kiss him senseless. Then she allowed herself to be escorted back to the lab.

Alex couldn’t help smiling as he listened to her tirade of observations on Frobisher’s lack of mental acuity, his mother’s low standards in choice of conjugal partners, and his questionable lineage, species-wise.

His chest swelled with pride. She was definitely the woman with whom he wanted to spend his foreseeable future.

Alex and Micah were escorted to shower off the eau de sheep, given grey sweat pants and t-shirts to wear, then taken to a windowless room not unlike the eater prison in the lab in Sarcester. Except this one was bigger, with more cells.

The six foot square cells along one wall had been equipped with folding beds and Alex and Micah were placed in two of these, adjoining each other. One of the guards pressed a couple of buttons on a panel on the wall and the doors slid shut, bolts sliding home with a click into the metal lock mechanism moulded to the two inch thick clear polycarbonate cell wall.

As soon as the latest colossus in a black suit had gone, Alex began to kick repeatedly at the door as hard as he could. After a couple of minutes his leg was aching and the door was as fixed and solid as it had been before he started.

“Will you give it a rest?” Micah said from his bed. “These cells are designed for eaters.”

“Yeah, but eaters generally aren’t as motivated as I am. How can you just lie there?”

Micah closed his eyes. “I’m saving my energy for beating a few steroidal gorillas when we get out of here.”

Alex gave the door a couple more heavy, but pointless, kicks then dropped onto his bed with a sigh, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring down at the floor. “What are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to wait patiently until someone lets down their guard, then we’re going to do what we came here to do. They can’t keep us here forever.”

“No, they can kill us. And I’m not good at waiting patiently.” Alex would have got up and paced, but it wasn’t easy in a six foot square cell.

“I’d never have guessed. Anyway, they’re not going to kill us, at least not yet. Boot was practically salivating at the two of us being here. I’m not ashamed to admit how creeped out I was. I wonder what he’s up to anyway. And why are the guards all so big? You’d have thought he wouldn’t have wanted to accentuate his shortcomings.” He chuckled. “Shortcomings. I didn’t even do that on purpose.”

“You realise you’re mocking someone’s physical impairment?”

“Would you prefer I mocked the fact that he’s a deranged psychopath who has killed thousands, if not millions?”

“Good point. Mock away.”

They were left with nothing to do but wait. At some point Micah drifted off to sleep, but Alex was too on edge to do anything but think. He tried to focus on escaping, but his brain, traitor that it was, kept thinking about everything else. His thoughts cycled through Hannah, Boot, Hannah, hoping Sam and Claire were safe, wondering what Boot intended to do with them, and Hannah. She seemed to have got prettier in the few days since he’d last seen her. Was that physically possible?

After an hour, the door to the cell room opened and two guards walked in. One of them was Brian who they’d seen when they first got over the fence. Alex wasn’t sure if he’d seen the other before. All the huge men were starting to look the same. Maybe they really did look the same. Maybe somewhere in the building there was a laboratory churning out clones in black suits.

In the cell next to Alex, Micah sat up.

“You, white-eye, up,” clone number one grunted to Alex.

Alex remained seated on the edge of his bed. “Was that meant to be a sentence? Would you like to try again?”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Brian’s face and was gone. He stepped towards Alex’s cell and held out a matching set of handcuffs and ankle shackles. “I have to put these on you so you can be safely moved. Please don’t make it any harder than it has to be.”

“On who?”

The other guard strode up to Micah’s cell and held the barrel of his pistol against the surface, aiming straight at Micah. “Any more questions?”

It was possible the cells were bullet proof, but Alex wasn’t sure enough to risk Micah’s life. He stood, trying to convey with his expression that, while he was at this moment cooperating, there would come a time in the very near future when he wouldn’t, and when that time came, the guard should be very, very afraid.

By the smug look on the guard’s face, Alex suspected he may not have understood all the subtle nuances of his non-verbal threat.

Brian put the handcuffs on him first, followed by the ankle shackles. A brief and surprising moment of panic struck Alex as he flashed back to being shackled to a hospital bed, surrounded by bars and about to turn into his worst nightmare. He drew in a slow breath, carefully smothering the memory.

“Where are you taking him?” Micah demanded as Alex shuffled from his cell, his stride severely limited by the chain linking his ankles.

“Don’t worry,” the guard said, smirking, “we’ll bring your boyfriend back in one piece. Probably.”

“Come on, Baxter,” Brian said. “We don’t want to keep Boot waiting.”

Micah stepped up to the cell wall while Baxter’s head was turned away, standing so close that when he turned back he jumped a little.

“In the last two weeks, we have seen our home destroyed and our friends and families killed. We have fought our way through hordes of eaters so big they make your little group out there look like a tea party. We have been through hell and we have survived. You have no idea how angry I am. So believe me when I tell you that if you harm him in any way whatsoever, I will tear you apart. You will suffer so much, you’ll wish you’d been thrown to the eaters instead.” Micah’s voice was calm, but Alex could hear the rage simmering beneath the surface. He was suddenly relieved he was on his side.

Baxter backed away from the cell then shook his head, forced out an unconvincing laugh, and walked from the room ahead of Brian and Alex.

They took Alex to a lift and rode to the top floor, stepping out into luxury. With hardwood floors, tasteful artwork on the grey-brown walls and subtle ambient lighting, it looked more like an art gallery than an office building. He shuffled to the end of the hallway where a set of large double doors took up the whole width of the wall.

Brian led him into a plush office where the harassed woman in the blue suit they’d seen earlier sat behind a huge desk. Beyond her was another set of double doors. The woman still looked harassed. Alex got the impression it was her default state.

Without speaking to them, she tapped an earpiece and waited for a few seconds. “They’re here, sir... yes, sir.” She tapped the earpiece again. “Go on in.”

The room they entered was huge, spanning the corner of one end of the building with floor to ceiling windows on two sides. A collection of painfully modern sofas, the kind designed for style over comfort, clustered around a five foot wide coffee table before one massive window to Alex’s left. To his right was a long, glass topped conference table with chairs to seat twenty or more people. In front of him, a polished dark wood desk, possibly mahogany and at least ten feet wide, was framed by the second window.

Harvey Boot, Omnav CEO and all around bastard, approached them from a bar set into the wall to the left of the door. His face stretched into a smile.

“Welcome, Detective MacCallum. How nice to see, but not smell, you.”

He nodded towards a black leather and chrome chair by the desk and Brian led Alex to it, attaching the shackles to a bar running beneath the chair. Alex tried shifting his weight to one side. The chair was fixed to the floor.

After making certain he was secure, Brian returned to the door, where Baxter was waiting.

“Thank you, Brian,” Boot said.

“Yes, sir.” He walked out the door.

Baxter took the door handle and started to pull it closed.

“Oh, and Matthew?” Boot said.

Baxter stopped. “Yes, sir?”

“If I ever hear you use the term ‘white-eye’ again, you will no longer be welcome in my employ.”

A look of utter panic gripped Baxter’s features. “Uh, yes sir. I’m very sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t.” Boot turned away and Baxter rapidly pulled the door shut.

There must have been a camera in the cell room. It was the only way he could have known what Baxter had said in there. Alex made a mental note to think before he spoke while they were being held captive.

“Would you like something to drink?” Boot said, walking to the bar and disappearing behind it. Glass clinked.

“No, thank you.”

Alex tugged at his cuffs experimentally, although he could tell by the feel and thickness of the metal that they were eater cuffs, designed to withstand his strength. He leaned forward to get a closer look at the chains binding his legs.

“They’re reinforced titanium,” Boot said, emerging from behind the bar. “Light, but very strong. Even you wouldn’t be able to break one single link.”

Alex sat back in the chair. “Keep a lot of Survivors captive, do you?”

“Actually, you’re the first.” Boot wandered to the desk and leaned against it, taking a sip from the glass he held. “I’d really rather you were here voluntarily, but I don’t think I can trust you to stay by choice, so needs must.”

Alex affected an innocent look. “How do you know you can’t trust me? You haven’t given me a chance.”

Boot laughed. It was deep and rich and thoroughly disturbing. “Very good, but I think I’ll err on the side of caution for now. Worthy as my cause is, I am willing to concede it may take some time to convince you to join me.”

It took some effort to keep the shock from Alex’s face. Boot wanted him to
join
him? But maybe this could work in their favour. “If your cause is worthy, then tell me what you’re doing here. Maybe I’ll agree.”

Boot drained his glass, staring at Alex over the rim. “I’d like to think that could be true, but I’m not a fool, Alexander. But I don’t deny your cooperation is something I would welcome. I find Survivors,” he hissed in a breath through his teeth as his eyes bored into Alex, “utterly compelling.” He placed his glass down on the desk. “Tell me, how strong are you anyway?”

Alex shrugged, trying to affect nonchalance while discomfort was crawling up his spine like a thousand tiny spiders. “No idea.”

“Oh come on, you must have tried it, just out of curiosity. Seen how much you can bench press?”

Alex had, at the beginning. He’d managed five reps at six hundred kilograms before the gym employees became so freaked out they’d politely asked him to leave.

“Nope, never tried.”

Boot shrugged. “Never mind. I’ll ask Dr. Vincent to devise a series of tests to determine your maximum strength and compare it to mine when I’ve changed.”

Alex frowned, confused. “How would your strength be comparable to mine?”

Boot smiled before turning away and walking to the window beyond the desk. “Alexander, I’m going to tell you a story. The story of my life.”

Alex stifled a sigh. Apparently it wasn’t enough to chain him up; Boot wanted to torture him too.

“My mother was a great woman. She could have been like everyone else and only seen the disadvantage in my size when I was growing up, but she didn’t. She saw my potential for greatness, and she instilled in me the drive to achieve that greatness. She recognised that I deserved to be more than those around me. I miss her very much, but her legacy lives on in me.

“So I studied and worked hard and clawed my way up, over those who were less than I was, until I was CEO of Omnav. And I took it to heights unimagined by the owners. But they were too small minded to see the full potential I did, so I gained control and pushed us further.

“But even that wasn’t enough. I felt unfulfilled, but I couldn’t understand why. And then I realised, it wasn’t Omnav that would fulfil my own potential, it was me.
I
needed to be more than merely human. And I saw the opportunity in people like you, Alexander.” He turned back from the window and walked back to Alex. “Do you have any idea what you are? You are the next stage in the evolution of man, the ultimate in physical perfection! I believe we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what the Meir’s virus can achieve in the human body. So I funded research and experimentation, and when the government failed to have the vision I do, I built a whole laboratory under their noses.

“At first, the research focused on altering the virus to make the body stronger without the drive to eat human flesh, thus removing the need for full infection. But that proved impossible. So then my scientists changed their focus to making the cure more reliable, one hundred percent effective. A lucky by-product of this was the potential to create stronger soldiers. But soldiers are problematic in that they have morals, free will. But then it came to me, why not use eaters instead? They don’t think, they don’t have feelings, they don’t have any moral code. If they could be controlled, they would make the perfect army. I have bidders lined up for when the process is finally perfected. I’ll be the richest person on the planet.

“But of course, all that is simply an extremely lucrative sideline to the main goal of perfecting the human body. And I am happy to say we are almost there. When we have the cure perfected and one hundred percent effective, I will be able to experience the pinnacle of human development. I will become a Survivor, like you.”

In the silence that followed, Alex levered his jaw from his lap. “So all this is because you
want
to be a Survivor?”