Blocking out the sounds of animal warfare, she heard other noises. Running water, blowing leaves, chirping birds, warbling frogs. It was nature at its most pure, without the constant interference of man.
An idea popped into her brain. It was one she’d been playing with ever since she’d seen the saber. “Maybe we should forget about the where,” she replied tightly. “And start thinking about the when.”
Chapter 19
Bullets ripped through the open entranceway, chewing up tattered plastic sheets, metal desks, and computer monitors. Morgan pressed her back against the wall. Although the thick concrete protected her from harm, she couldn’t help but flinch each time the Lab’s guards opened fire.
Sweat oozed past her eyelashes, turning her vision into a blur of dull, textured colors. Still clutching her rifle in both hands, she wiped her face with the crook of her left arm.
Five hours, she thought. Five hours since Codd and Issova had cracked open the hatch. Five hours since she’d led a small group of scientists into Hatcher’s basement. Five hours since she’d initiated an assault on the Lab’s guard contingent.
She had no desire to kill or be killed. Plus, her side controlled the Warehouse and its small supply of weapons and ammunition. So, she’d implemented a careful attrition strategy, hoping to drain the guards’ resources and force them to surrender. But after five hours and countless bullets, she was starting to rethink things.
What if she’d read the situation wrong? What if the guards were better supplied than her side? What if they were slowly draining her and her fellow scientists of their ammunition and resources?
As the sound of gunfire faded away, Morgan stared at the floor, at the shards of glass and bullet-ridden equipment. The air sizzled with heat and smelled strongly of electricity.
She stood inside the shattered remains of an air shower, which separated the security checkpoint from the Lab. The checkpoint consisted of four metal desks bolted to the floor. The bullet-riddled remains of monitors, iris recognition devices, and other high-tech equipment were strewn between the desks.
On a normal day, Morgan would slip through the hatch and descend the metal ladder to the checkpoint. After clearing security, she’d enter the brightly lit air shower via a heavy glass door. Stainless steel nozzles, lining both sides of the shower as well as the roof, would douse her with high-speed winds. Heavy particles, dust and dirt, would drift downward and be sucked out of the room via vents. Only then could she exit the shower, walk through the entranceway, and enter the much larger Lab.
She peered at her fellow scientists, all eight of them. Three scientists, like her, were situated inside the remains of the air shower. They were hunkered down behind the concrete walls lining either side of the entranceway. The others were farther back, in the checkpoint area, crouched behind pillars, desks, and anything else that could protect them from gunfire.
She waved at the scientists in the checkpoint area. One by one, they darted to the concrete walls, under the protection of cover fire. “We can’t wait any longer,” she whispered. “We have to end this.”
“Agreed.” Amy Carson, an evolutionary geneticist from Toronto, wiped her sweaty hands on her pants before regripping her pistol. “But how?”
“We need to go on the offensive.”
Nervous sighs rang out alongside disgruntled groans.
Morgan held up a hand for silence. “They’re better supplied than we expected,” she said. “For all we know, they’re the ones wearing us down, not the other way around. I say we get in there and force them to surrender. How does that sound?”
“Like a death sentence.” Alexander Gruzinov, a Russian expert in bioinformatics, glanced distastefully at his rifle. “I barely know how to use this thing.”
“Amy and I are experienced shooters. We’ll lay down cover fire while you get into position.”
“What if they don’t surrender?” Theodor Karlfeldt, a Swedish geneticist, arched an eyebrow. “You don’t want us to… you know…?”
“Yes,” Morgan replied. “I do.”
A dark mood spread across the air shower as the others realized what she was asking of them.
Morgan gave each of them a final look. Then she slid along the wall to the entranceway. Carson took up position on the other side.
Morgan snuck a glance at the state-of-the-art Lab. Dozens of stations, some of them occupied by giant silken pods, ringed the room. Large skeletons, arranged on pedestals in museum-like exhibits, were interspersed between the stations. A raised platform, roughly ten feet high, occupied the exact middle of the facility. It was built around a load-bearing pillar, one of many dotting the Lab. This was the command post, used to initiate and monitor experiments. It also served as Hatcher’s communications hub.
Steel filled Morgan’s backbone. Poking her rifle through the entranceway, she squeezed the trigger. The gun reverberated violently in her hands as it spat deadly projectiles into the lab. At the same time, Carson aimed her pistol into the void and squeezed off a couple of well-placed shots.
Crouching down, the other six scientists hustled into the Lab, spreading out and taking cover behind any solid object they could find.
Guards appeared, shifting behind generators, machinery, and the pillars. Despite repeated calls, they showed no interest in surrender.
Soon, guns blazed on both sides. Bodies fell. Gray smoke wafted to the ceiling. Gritting her teeth, Morgan kept up a steady stream of bullets, mowing down guard after guard.
Slowly, the opposing gunfire died out. And two minutes later, Morgan held up a hand. “Ceasefire.”
Carson and the other scientists complied. An eerie silence — punctuated only by shattering glass and crackling electricity, spread over the Lab.
Shifting her gaze, Morgan studied the carnage. It nearly took the air out of her lungs. Three scientists, people she’d worked with for years, lay in heaps upon the floor. Blood poured out of their bodies, mixing with that of the slain guards.
Guilt filled her gloomy soul as she stared at the lost lives, the lost potential. The dead scientists might’ve volunteered their efforts to the battle, but that fact didn’t ease her burden.
She and Carson hurried through the entranceway. Then they circled the room, checking the bodies and searching for holdouts. As she felt for pulses, Morgan’s heart grew heavier and heavier. There were so many faces. Faces of dead guards, faces of dead scientists.
Too many faces.
After circling the room, she returned to the dimly lit platform. Stairs creaked loudly as she mounted a metal staircase. At the top, she stared at familiar desks, covered with sophisticated computers and devices. Then she knelt next to a grizzled, bearded man. She recognized him as one of the Lab’s computer experts. He, along with a small subset of the guard contingent, had been responsible for the Lab’s many systems.
Tentatively, she reached out, checked his pulse. Her heart twitched. He was dead, like all the others.
“Amanda?”
Glancing toward the entranceway, Morgan saw Zlata Issova. “Up here.”
Issova took a few hesitant steps into the Lab with Codd on her heels. Then she halted. Color drained out of her cheeks as she looked at the corpses.
Keeping her eyes off the bodies, Codd walked past Issova, climbed the staircase, and began to check the platform’s equipment.
Morgan watched Issova for a minute. “Zlata?”