“Everyone had dinner already?” It was the best thing she could come up with.
They all nodded. She turned to Mick. “Any suggestions on the watch postings? I don’t have any experience with that sort of thing.”
“We did it in the service all the time,” said Mick.
“What branch?”
Mick looked at Kendall. “Excuse me?”
“I asked you what branch were you in?”
Mick peered at Kendall for another minute. “Air Force.”
“A pilot?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“We don’t have time for twenty questions, Kendall,” said Wilkins. “We’ve got stuff to do.”
“Just trying to get acquainted with our newest comrade is all.”
“The meet-and-greet was last night after you went to bed. Sorry you missed the fun.” Wilkins turned to Nung. “Can you and Darren take care of getting the lights ready?”
Nung nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Okay,” said Mick. “Here’s how we’ll do it: I’ll grab the first watch with Wilkins. That’s nine to eleven. Nung and Darren are eleven to one. Havel and Kendall get one to three. Wilkins and I will come back on at three and go until dawn.”
Julia eyed him. “Excuse me.”
He looked at her. “Yes?”
“My name wasn’t on that list.”
Mick chewed his lip. “Uh…yeah. Well, it’s just that if anything happens, I’m not so sure-”
“That a woman can handle herself?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It just so happens that I can hold my own against anyone here. Don’t exclude me from the watch just because you might think otherwise.”
Mick looked like he was about to say something but then thought better of it. He sighed instead. “Fine. You and I will take the three until dawn shift. That okay with you?”
“Yes.” Julia quelled the rising heat in her face and pretended to concentrate on the floorplan diagram on the table. It showed the layout of the facility. “Where are the lights going?”
Mick came over and pointed. “Corridors. Here. And here. By the greenhouse door. I want a pair of them aiming up at the ceiling.” He looked up at Nung and Darren. “I’ll go down with you and show you how I want them aimed.”
Wilkins peered over his shoulder. “Seems like a plan.”
“Best one we can come up with right,” said Mick. “Barring a sudden windfall of weapons and reinforcements.”
“You talk like a soldier.”
Mick turned. Kendall faced him again. Mick’s face got hard again, but then a small grin played across it. “Aren’t you tired?”
“You’re evasive as hell, too.”
“What I am,” said Mick, “is annoyed. Stop treating me like a suspect. I’m one of you.”
Kendall grinned. “That I doubt very much. But whatever. Havel and I have an early night. I’m off to bed.”
“We sleep two to a room tonight,” said Julia. “Like Mick said, it’s not safe going anywhere alone.”
“And if I have to take a dump will Havel wipe my ass for me, too?”
“That’s up to Havel. But I don’t think you’re his type.” Julia smiled.
Kendall frowned. “Ridiculous. We should have gone home yesterday when we had the chance. And now we’re here playing soldiers with something we have no clue about. We could all die here.”
No one said anything. Kendall seemed satisfied with the effects of his words and turned. “Good night everyone.” He looked at Havel. “Coming?”
Havel looked at the rest of them and grimaced. Then he left the room.
Everyone sighed at once. Julia kept her head down. Wilkins filled his coffee mug. “That guy is the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever known.”
“Seemed pretty gung-ho on you Mick,” said Darren.
“Maybe he’s a pacifist,” offered Nung.
“Maybe he’s just an asshole,” said Julia. Everyone laughed. Except for Mick. They looked at him but he was in mid-sip. When he finally set his mug down, his face was grim.
“Maybe Kendall had better hope that whatever took Vikorsky doesn’t figure out a new way in. And grab him.”
“Yeah, that’d be a shame,” said Wilkins.
But they all knew it was true.
6
In the early pre-dawn hours, the entire facility felt as still as a morgue. The air hung heavy with the vague smell of moist lead. Julia shivered slightly from her vantagepoint at the end of the long hallway.
Across from her, Mick’s eyes never left the doorway to the greenhouse.
She watched him, aware that there seemed no ebb in the intensity of his gaze. Despite the fact that he’d had the least amount of sleep tonight, he seemed primed.
Ready.
“Mick?”
He never took his eyes off the doorway. “Yeah?”
“What do you think we’re dealing with?”
He waited a long few seconds before answering. “I don’t know.”
She frowned. Was he telling the truth? Part of her suspected that maybe he knew something more than he was willing to acknowledge. Part of him seemed deeply troubled by the events, but another part seemed comfortable with the idea — the notion — that something was hunting them.
But why?
“What kind of an animal could survive down here? How could they live in this environment?”
“Maybe it’s not an animal at all.”
“Well, it couldn’t be a person. There are no other facilities within a thousand miles of this one.”
He glanced her way, but only for the briefest second. “Julia, do you truly believe that we are masters of this planet? That we know everything there is to know about our home?”
She paused. “We haven’t fully explored the oceans yet.”
He nodded. “Nor have we explored all the regions we claim to have, either. There are still frontiers out there. Places we know little about. And those frontiers sometimes border other frontiers. Frontiers we might only visit in the depths of our worst nightmares.”
“What are you saying, Mick?”
“Just this: don’t discount anything. Keep yourself open to every possibility. Only when you do, will you be able to see things as they really are.”
She nodded and went back to watching the doorway. They’d left the door open so the humidity had spilled out into the hallway. A cool sweat draped over Julia and she simultaneously felt too warm and too cool.
Keep open to every possibility. Mick’s words echoed inside her head like some sort of warning. But wasn’t that why Julia was here in the first place? Hadn’t she kept herself open and found her way to heading up a research team on the last great continent?
And right now, keeping herself open to possibilities didn’t really seem like the greatest idea, either. After all, she might be exposing her team to annihilation if they couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening down here.
“What do you think happened to the others?”
Her voice sounded loud in the hallway. Mick didn’t seem affected by it, though. He simply shrugged. “Probably dead.”
The finality of his statement shocked her. Again she found herself wondering how he could be so detached. So stalwart and unaffected by the implications of what he’d said.
“Who are you?”
He glanced at her again. This time, a small grin crept across his face. “I’m a friend, Julia. That’s all you need to know.”
“I’ve got the feeling that there’s more going on here than I know about.”
“What’s going on here is some type of creature is hunting humans.” Mick gestured to the doorway. “Worse, we’re virtually defenseless here. We’ve got no weapons.”
Julia frowned. “We’ve got the spotlights.”
“Yeah.”
“How come we didn’t switch them on?”
“Because if we did, then whatever this thing is wouldn’t want to come in here.”
“You want it in here?”
“Yes.”
“What on earth for?”
“So we can figure out what it is we’re fighting. When it comes, we’ll hit it with the lights and test out that theory that it’s vulnerable to bright light.”
“What if it’s not?”
Mick grinned. “Then we’re in serious trouble.”
How could he think this was funny? Julia shook her head and wished she could be back in the warmth and comfort of her home. Back in the real world where the only dangers she could remember involved homicides and drug dealers and car wrecks.