“No,” I said.
Bunny looked at me in surprise, then at Top, who nodded, and then at Collins.
The hulking figure stepped farther back. His companions clustered around him. They made chittering noises, and God only knows if it was some kind of speech or the screams of the damned. Behind them was the door to the secondary generator. Collins turned, looked at the door and then back at me. His eyes were intense, pleading.
I swallowed a lump the size of a fist.
“Boss,” said Bunny, “if we get them out…maybe something can be done. Maybe there’s some way of reversing this….”
His voice trailed off as the huddled monsters chittered and clicked. It wasn’t words, but it was eloquent enough.
I shook my head.
“But…you know what they want to do,” he pleaded.
Top put his hand on Bunny’s shoulder. “If it was you, farm boy, what would you do?”
I raised my pistol. “Stand aside,” I said to Collins.
After a moment, he and the others moved away.
It took six rounds to blow the lock open.
Smoke hung thick in the air. The klaxons continued to bleat.
“Give us ten minutes,” I said.
Collins stared at me, his eyes unreadable in the green gloom of my night vision. Did he nod? Or was it simply the way his body trembled as he turned and slipped into the generator room? The others followed.
I holstered my gun and looked at Bunny and Top.
We ran like sons of bitches.
Chap. 5
The voice said: “Fail-safe is active. Hard lockdown commencing.”
It was a female voice, very calm. She began counting down from one hundred.
“Top, Bunny…get everyone into the elevators.”
“The generator—” Top said.
“…Eighty-nine, eighty-eight, eighty-seven….”
Halverson said, “The elevator has a separate power source. It’s topside. As long as we get above the three thousand foot line we’ll be fine. Below that charges in the wall will collapse the elevator into the shaft.”
“…eighty, seventy-nine….”
“Get moving!” I ordered, and my men began herding the remaining scientists, support staff, and security personnel into the elevator.
“…sixty-three, sixty-two….”
I lingered in the staff room, watching as Doctor Goldman finished downloading his research files onto a one-terabyte portable drive.
“Is that everything?” I said as he pulled it out of the socket.
“…forty-four, forty-three….”
“Yes, thank God. Everything was in packets for quick hard-dump. We have everything we need to start over.” He moved to the door, but I shifted to block his way.
“Give me the drive,” I said.
“…thirty-six, thirty-five….”
“What the hell are you doing? This is no time for—”
I kicked him in the nuts and snatched the drive out of his hand. Yeah, it was a sneak shot, but who cares? He uttered a thin whistling shriek and grabbed his groin, sinking to his knees in shock and agony.
I set the drive on a counter top.
“…twenty-eight, twenty-seven….”
I drew my sidearm and used the butt to smash the drive to silicon junk. Goldman screamed louder than when I’d kicked him. He made a grab for it, but I batted his hand away.
“What are you doing?” he croaked.
I moved to the doorway. The elevator was a hundred yards down the hall. I could make it at a dead run.
I said, “I’m doing what I believe is in the best interests of the American people.”
He stared at me and opened his mouth to say something, but a sound cut him off. Not the relentless female voice counting down. This was a thin, chittering noise that echoed out of the darkness at the far end of the corridor.
I holstered my gun, turned and ran like hell.
“…thirteen, twelve, eleven….”
“Where’s the doc?” Halverson demanded as I skidded into the elevator car.
“They ambushed us,” I lied. “Came out of nowhere. Now come on, get this damn thing moving!”
Halverson met my eyes for the briefest of moments, and I could see the realization in his eyes. He flicked a look out into the darkness. Maybe he could hear the skittering sounds. Probably not. The alarms were so loud that they even drowned out the sound of the screams.
He slammed the door shut and the car began to rise.
Three seconds later, we heard the bang-bang-bang as the steel doors dropped down and the thermite charges blew, fusing them shut. A moment later, the explosives in the elevator shaft blasted half a million tons of rock into the well of darkness below us. Dust clouds chased us all the way up into the light.
As the car slowed to a stop, I removed my helmet. The helmet cam was gone. I’d taken it off after we’d left Collins and the others outside of the generator room. The video file ended there.
Top, Bunny and I stepped out into the gloom of the building. State Troopers were everywhere, and soon there would be FBI, Marine Corps, and DMS choppers in the air. We didn’t care. The three of us stood there in the darkness and said nothing. I reached into my pocket to touch the helmet cam, and closed my fist around it.
In silence, we left the shadows and walked out into the light.
Material Witness
NOTE: This story takes place several weeks after the events in Patient Zero.
Chap. 1
Echo Team: Case File Report / DMS-ET 82fd1118
Events of August 16 / Prepared August 17; 11:30 a.m.
Team Leader: Captain Joseph Edwin Ledger
Preamble to the official statement of Dr. Rudy Sanchez:
I personally tested Captain Ledger and his men. Blood and urine, a full workup. There is no presence of alcohol or any controlled substance. Standard interview and psychological profiles demonstrate post-traumatic stress and nervous tension typical with recent combat, plus a degree of heightened nervousness that I believe should be ascribed to the unusual nature of the events as described by the members of Echo Team.
From the analysis of a voluntary polygraph test:
All three men were tested separately. I oversaw each test. Each man was given a number of unsequenced control questions as well as the set of questions prepared by Mr. Church. These questions were introduced randomly and without preamble. There is nothing in their responses or on the polygraph tape to suggest that any of them provided false or exaggerated answers. As disturbing and unlikely as it appears, these men believe that they saw and experienced everything exactly as described in Captain Ledger’s after-action report and in the private interviews with Dr. Sanchez, Aunt Sallie, and Mr. Church.
Handwritten note included in Mr. Church’s private copy of Dr. Sanchez’s psychological evaluation of Captain Joseph Edwin Ledger, First Sergeant Bradley Sims and Staff Sergeant Harvey Rabbit. Note reads:
Per your question of earlier today…yes, I am certain that they believe that these events occurred. Please bear in mind the troubled history of that town. It has had far more than its share of troubles for many years. I respectfully but firmly decline your offer to go there and investigate matters for myself. No thank you! — RS