Most hospitals vented this pipe to the outside, but Kendall had already investigated and found that Cutter in his hubris had not bothered to do so.
Kendall leaned out the MRI room and checked on the situation in the main lab. Mateo was alone now, staring straight back at him. It looked like Ashuu had already left.
Kendall met the native’s gaze, then pounded the button.
He dove out the door and flew headlong, sliding across the floor on his belly.
Behind him, a frigid blast exploded with tremendous force as the helium liquid expanded eight-hundred-fold, pushing oxygen ahead of that wave. Windows blew out into the main lab, smashing into Mateo’s face. A chunk of magnet whistled past and struck a row of oxygen tanks in the next room. They exploded, ignited from a spark, and rolled into a fireball, challenging the freezing white cloud of helium erupting out that shattered window.
It was more of a detonation than he had been expecting.
He pushed to his knees, then gained his footing. He stumbled for the exit, choosing to climb out the observation window versus using the air lock.
I think I already broke containment here.
He saw Mateo crumpled on the floor, his face burned by the fireball, his hair singed away. Kendall had to step over him to get past the window, prepared to climb to the main villa above, to find a phone.
Something snagged his leg.
He glanced down to find fingers clamped to his ankle.
Mateo lunged up, his eyes shining out of his blackened flesh.
Kendall tried to escape, but Mateo lifted a broken glass cylinder and plunged it into his side.
30
“Nymph nest ahead,” Christchurch announced, swinging his DSR rifle and pointing its IR beam along the riverbank.
Dylan called a halt and examined the site with a pair of night-vision binoculars. Twenty yards ahead, a small pool jutted from the main waterway, formed by a dam, not unlike what a pack of beavers might build.
Only this dam was made of bones.
The mud-packed mound of broken skulls, ribs, and other decaying remains rose waist-high, spreading in a curve, dividing the shallow pool from the river. Squirming in that pool and scrabbling over that abattoir were hundreds of gray muscular slugs that ranged from the size of fat thumbs to as long as his forearm. A few scrabbled on the neighboring bank, rooting through the mosses and algal beds.
He watched one of the older nymphs — as they were euphemistically called — bunch itself and leap from the rocky bank, fly across the pool, and dive into an opening in its foul dike, vanishing into its depths.
Dylan shuddered.
The nest was clearly still agitated from the sonic blast that had ended a minute or so ago. Though this tunnel was behind the LRAD, the backwash and echoing acoustics still extended somewhat in this direction. The low-frequency infrasonics had set Dylan’s teeth on edge, like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“We’ll move up another ten yards and set up the LRAD,” Dylan ordered.
“So close?” Riley asked.
Normally Dylan wouldn’t tolerate anyone questioning an order, but in this case, he didn’t blame his young teammate. Dylan hated these vile little hunters with a passion. They were an abomination.
But right now he needed one.
“Move up,” he said.
They crept slowly, careful with each step. Nymphs were known to attack en masse. To rile one of these nests was like stirring up an anthill. The term used by the researchers was a boil-out—when the entire lair burst forth in response to a threat. It was one of the most terrifying sights he’d ever seen, a carnivorous explosion that could reach tens of yards through the air.
So he understood Riley’s concern.
Still, Dylan was a skilled hunter. He led the way himself, picking a silent path. Finally he lifted a fist and motioned for Christchurch and Riley to move to his right side and prepare the portable LRAD.
They worked as an experienced team. Christchurch lifted the dish high, letting Riley hook up the power cables. Once this was done, Riley took a step behind his teammate’s shoulder, cradling the battery pack.
Dylan pointed to the nest, then gave a thumbs-up.
Riley hit the switch. The LRAD hummed for a second, then screamed at the nest like a banshee in heat. The reaction was instantaneous. While not as dramatic as a full boil-out, it was still a sight to behold, something out of the deepest circle of hell. Hundreds of gray bodies squirmed, bounded, and flew out of their nest, pouring into the main river. Those in the pools or along the banks followed their foul brothers, fleeing from the noise as if blasted by a leaf blower.
Dylan waited for a count of three, then made a cutting motion across his neck.
Riley flipped the battery off and Christchurch lowered the dish.
Dylan rushed forward toward the pond, his scrotum still tightening at the thought of getting near that rotting nest. He searched the pool, but he found what he wanted near the edge of the bone pile.
A single slug squirmed leadenly, stunned by the assault.
Dylan snatched it up in a gloved hand, careful of its circular maw of needle-sharp teeth. He hung it upside down, knowing that the glands rimming its mouth were full of flesh-burning acids, capable of dissolving through his glove to his skin.
With his bait in hand, he hurried to the river’s edge. The nymph was already reviving, pushing out little appendages from its muscular segments, like legs on a centipede.
As it began to squirm more violently, he slipped out his dagger, slit the creature’s belly open, and held out the gutted carcass.
Black blood flowed into the river.
He waited until the nymph stopped writhing, then draped the body on the bank near the water’s edge. He bent down and tied a length of fishing line around its midsection — then took ten fast steps backward.
Once in position, Dylan signaled his teammates to move to his right side and switch the LRAD back on, to keep it pointed at the bone pile. While he lay in wait, he didn’t want those other nymphs to come flooding back to the nest. Unlike the nymphs, what he sought to lure here was deaf to these sonic discharges.
He crouched to one knee, slipped the assault rifle from his shoulder, and placed it at his toes. To hunt this prey, he preferred another weapon.
He pulled out the Howdah pistol from its holster. He’d already chambered the .557 cartridges, one in each of the double barrels. Though the gun was over a century old — used to hunt rhinos and tigers by his ancestors — he maintained it in perfectly good working condition, expecting it still to be firing another century from now when his great-grandson eventually wielded it.
But he wasn’t hunting something as meek as a lion here.
Faster than he expected, his prey arrived. The only warning was a V-shaped eddy in the water, sweeping toward the shore. Then from the river, a scintillating globe rose to the surface, borne aloft on a muscular tentacle. The toxic orb swirled in bioluminescent shades: brilliant blues, electric greens, blood reds.
It was easy to see how these deadly lures might dazzle and attract the denizens of this dark world, but Dylan ignored the display and used a thumb to draw back the hammer of one barrel.
The sphere lowered to the rocky bank, searching the shoreline blindly until discovering the slug’s body. Nymphs were the offspring of Volitox ignis, an immature stage of this monstrous adult hunter.