Heads shook back and forth.
“What if we scraped rocks?” Mills asked, breaking the silence. “Doesn’t that produce sparks?”
“Only if you’ve got high carbon steel and the right rock.” Toland arched a superior eyebrow. “And this is just a guess, but I’m willing to bet you couldn’t tell flint from slate.”
“No, but I’ve got plenty of time to figure it out,” she replied evenly.
Renjel adopting a calming tone. “Okay, Bailey will work on fire. Now, let’s—”
“Wait.” Mills’ gaze flicked to the side, to a spot just above Renjel’s ear. “Speaking of fire, I think I see one.”
The others turned around and focused their attention on a section of coniferous treetops. Thin wisps of grayish smoke floated above them before disappearing into the stormy sky.
“A campfire.” Elliott smiled broadly. “Thank God.”
“Or a forest fire,” Toland remarked. “If you—”
Mills was first to hear the snarl. Whirling around, she saw a black and orange streak racing up the hillside. She tried to scream, but it struck her side. She twisted, fell to the ground.
The streak continued without pause, racing across the hilltop. Moments later, it smacked into something. Bones cracked. A wail of agony rang out. Then claws sliced into flesh, spilling blood and organs onto the wet grass.
Shaking off the cobwebs, Mills struggled to a sitting position. Ten feet away, she saw the saber, snarling and drooling. It looked taller than she remembered by at least a foot. Meaner, too.
Shifting her gaze, she saw a writhing body underneath its heavy paws. Horror swept through her. No, no, no, she thought, her mind reeling in shock. Not him… not Travis!
Chapter 36
“Well, that was interesting.” Caplan, still shouldering his backpack, hoisted himself out of the shaft. “Let’s never do it again.”
Morgan said nothing. But her look spoke volumes about her inner pain, her deep sadness. With a deep sigh, she turned to the gathered brainiacs, technicians and rangers. “Bonnie and Zlata are dead,” she said. “But mourning will have to wait. We’ve got a full expulsion sequence on our hands. And the 2-Gens are just as brutal as the 1-Gens. Maybe more so.”
Faces tensed up throughout the room.
“What about the Arctodus simus?” Amy Carson nervously licked her lips. “Is it—?”
“It’s loose,” Morgan replied to gasps of horror. “It already killed the Megalonyx jeffersonii.”
“Then I say we kill it.” Carson lifted her pistol for all to see.
A few weak cheers rang out and Morgan waited for them to die down. “You know how hard it is to kill those things,” she said. “Anyway we’ve still got six incubators to go. Better to let them reach expulsion. The 2-Gens will kill each other and we can retake the Lab.”
“What if they don’t?” Carson retorted. “What if the Arctodus simus survives? What if it tries to come up here? With those semi-opposable thumbs, it—”
“We don’t have to worry about that. Fortunately, it’s too big to squeeze into the checkpoint area.” Morgan paused. “Look, we’ve obviously got to get back down there to access the communications systems. But in the meantime, let’s play it safe. Get a team together and watch the shaft. If you see anything, start shooting.”
“What if it keeps coming?"
“Then we’ll close and seal the hatch until we can figure out an alternative plan.”
“Easier said than done.” Gino Suarez, one of Hatcher’s brightest technicians, coughed. “Without power, we can’t seal the locks.”
“And the generators are in the Lab.” Morgan rubbed her temples. “Christ, can this get any worse?”
“I’ve got a team working on it,” Suarez said. “We should be able to whip up a new power source, but it could take a while.”
“Amanda.” Caplan opened his pack. “I know you’re busy, but I really need to—”
She gave him a fierce look. “Be quiet.”
“But—”
“I said, be quiet.”
Caplan glanced at his watch and realized he had more than thirty minutes before the full effects of HA-78 began to kick in. It wasn’t a ton of time, but he could afford a few minutes.
“Okay,” Morgan said after a moment. “Suarez, get me that power source. Amy, guard the shaft but be ready to move into the Heptagon if something goes wrong. Everyone else, get your stuff together. If a 2-Gen somehow breaches the hatch, we may need to move outdoors.”
“What should we do with the prisoners?” a voice called out.
“Keep watching them. And be ready to transport them outside at a moment’s notice.”
“What about Zach?” another voice shouted. “He told us he’s working for James.”
“Let me worry about him.” Her eyes flitted to Caplan. “By the time I’m done, he’ll wish he never came back.”
Chapter 37
“That’s far enough.” Morgan swung a pistol like a whip, cracking it against Caplan’s head. Dazed, he sank to his knees in a small pool of his own blood. “Why’d you come here?”
Caplan winced as the gun barrel dug into the back of his pounding skull. He’d been relieved of his pack and axes. And none of his skills, none of his tricks could help him now. “I missed the hospitality,” he replied.
Morgan jabbed the barrel against his head. “You’ve still got a smart mouth.”
"And you've still got a temper." He scanned the Galley. Thanks to a couple of battery-powered lamps, he could see a salad bar, empty at the moment, to his right. A coffee station, normally manned by a friendly barista, sat to his left. Numerous long tables, surrounded by metal chairs and outfitted with napkin dispensers and bottles of condiments, ran zigzag along the floor.
“Why’d you come here?” she repeated.
“To save you. Or maybe to stop you.” He frowned. “To be honest, it’s kind of confusing.”
The air whistled. The gun cracked against Caplan’s skull for a second time. Clutching his head in pain, he slumped to the ground.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time,” she said. “Why’d you come here?”
“Okay, okay.” He climbed back to his knees. Gently, he rubbed his throbbing scalp. “This morning, a guy came to see me. He said his name was James Corbotch and that he owned the Vallerio. That was news to me.”
She nodded. “That’s because you worked in the Eye. Only people in Research were authorized to know about James.”
“It took some convincing, but I ended up believing him. He said terrorists had seized Hatcher. He wanted my help to take it back.”
“Why you?”
“He needed someone who knew the area.”
“Very good.” She pushed the barrel into the back of his neck. “Now, where’s your back-up?”
He wanted to tell her everything. God, he wanted to. But he hesitated. This wasn’t the same girl he’d flirted with all those months ago. She was different now. Colder, harder. What would she do if she found out Pearson, Corbotch, and Perkins were still alive? Would she send a squad of brainiacs to hunt them down?
Would she kill them?
“They’re dead,” he lied.
“Try again.”
“Okay. They’re dead.” A pause. “How’s that?”
Morgan clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “How’d they die?”
“Helicopter crash.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”