"You okay?"
"Thom? Either we're all about to die, or it looks like you saved the day."
"Me? No, I was just a spectator. I think we can thank Sergeant Franco. He sort of ended the stalemate."
Corporal Sanchez hurried over.
"Ma'am, what do you want me to do?"
Gant answered for her, "I still have men down there. Corporal, send an armed detachment in. You won't find much in the way of resistance. And send medics."
Of course Sanchez did not take orders from Major Gant. He looked to Thunder, who waved her arm and echoed, "Open this place up, Sammy. Send them in. Medics, too."
He moved to carry out her instructions.
"Thom, it was controlling Borman. I think it set this whole thing up from the beginning. What was it?"
"It?" Gant said. "That's not exactly right, Colonel. There was a monster down there, but it was just a man."
She sat up, with one hand still held to her head. A group of soldiers hurried by with M16s, flashlights, and rescue gear.
"What was in my head?" she asked. "That wasn't a man. Some kind of glow. Energy … something."
"If you ask me, I believe that was a being, Liz, composed of pure thought. Something amazing that Briggs captured and perverted."
"Pure thought? So it was inside my head."
"What did you see?"
Colonel Thunder did not answer right away. Gant figured she had seen something similar to his vision; something personal.
"I saw … things I would like to change."
Gant slid over and propped himself against the wall a few feet from the pulverized hand of General Borman.
"I think … I think it was a trip wire. Set there for us to find."
"A trip wire?"
He explained, "Remember what McCaul said. Maybe it was God’s original thought that ignited the Big Bang. What if that creature … what if it was hidden at the molecular level … that original thought. Hidden for us to find the day our science got smart enough to start ripping apart the building blocks of our universe."
"What do you mean? I’m not sure I—"
"To make sure that our humanity was not outpaced by our science. It was left hidden there for us to find. Except the man who found it was a monster."
"So then, why did it leave?"
He told her, "I think we probably scared the hell out of it."
Liz joined him against the side wall. A medic handed her a chemical ice pack, which she twisted until the contents mixed to radiate cold. She then held it to her head. It felt as if she had bumped the side on the way to the floor.
She asked, "So what now?"
Thom Gant thought about the image of Jean disappearing in a storm of leaves. He saw her tending the garden.
"I suppose that is up to us."
39
Benjamin Franco hated hospitals. As a kid, a stomach flu had put him in one the night before Christmas. That sucked. As a teenager a bout of alcohol poisoning had put him in another. That had sucked even more, particularly given that his father promised that, when he got home, he would beat him so bad they would have to take him right back to the emergency room.
He did not mind this time. He was alone in a room with the lights on; he insisted the lights remain on. He had spent enough time in the dark.
The doctors told him he would be here for a while before returning to California. He had already undergone one surgery for his shoulder and expected to undergo another soon, as well as surgery on his leg to help repair the muscle down there.
With time, his body should make a full recovery.
The door opened and in limped Major Gant with the aid of a cane, his left arm in a sling. He was dressed in casual civilian clothes, of course. The people of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, had no idea how many military soldiers and scientists swarmed the state. They probably never would.
"Sergeant, how are you feeling?"
Try as he might, Franco could not look Gant in the eye. The last time he had looked at him it had been down the barrel of a gun, with intent to kill.
"Okay, Chief. I guess. Still really sore."
"You had a hell of an infection," Gant said as he stood next to the bed. "The doctors say the infection was worse than the gunshot."
"Yeah, um, that's why they've got all this shit here," Franco referred to the plethora of lines running into his body, delivering antibiotics by the truckload.
Neither man said anything for several long seconds. Franco still could not bring himself to face the major.
"It's not your fault, Sergeant," Gant finally said, resting a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Yeah, well, tell that to Pearson's parents, or Moss's girlfriend."
"You did not kill them. Ronald Briggs killed them."
Of course Franco understood that. Briggs had used his power to show each of the men in the unit what they feared or what they hated; whatever would motivate them to turn on one another. Campion saw German soldiers. Wells saw spiders. So what did Biggy Franco see?
Gant went on. "You saved the day. A bullet in your shoulder, a severely injured leg. Based on what the doctors said, I am surprised you managed to move, let alone crawl all the way back to the vault. You are a determined individual, Sergeant. I will not forget that."
Neither will I, Major. I won't forget how I planned to murder you. We can talk about infections and mental influences all day, but in the end I drew a bead on your head and if not for something jumping on my back, you would be dead. And why? Because I’m a racist son of a bitch, and don't think that thing down there didn't know it. It's no accident that Pearson and Moss are dead because of me.
Franco kept his eyes averted as he asked, "What about the other guys?"
"Everyone else headed back to California. Galati and Wells had a tough time of it, and so did Campion, but they are fine. No one had it as rough as you did, Sergeant."
Again, silence.
"I have a few things to take care of before I go back to work. But I want you to know, Ben, that you did good down there. In the end, you saved everyone's ass."
The sergeant coughed and mumbled, "Thank you, sir."
"Well, I will see you again in a few weeks. Get better, Sergeant."
Major Gant turned and hobbled out. The door eased shut behind him.
Franco put a hand over his eyes, turned on his side, and cried.
40
Colonel Liz Thunder walked out from the formerly quarantined levels of the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility. Behind her, portable units augmented the lights of the lower levels, brightening everything down there, chasing away the shadows.
A man dressed in all the trappings of a two-star general waited for her in the vault room. He even wore his hat tight on his head, nearly covering his eyes. She wondered how he could see from beneath the brim of that hat; she could barely make out any features between his thin mustache and the cap. Did he even have eyes?
"Colonel Thunder?"
"General Friez, I presume?"
"Yes, Colonel. I am taking control of this facility to supervise final cleanup."
"Not much left. Over the last few days we've scoured the place for any remaining hostiles, what Major Gant indicated were Briggs's children. What we found we bagged and tagged per your orders. I assume they are being shipped to Darwin?"
"That is classified, Colonel."
"Of course it is."
Friez walked around her and peered into the area beyond the threshold. He saw bright lights shining on debris, dust, and the broken remains of the old vestibule.
"Not sure what all the fuss was about," he said. "Place doesn't look scary to me."
"Not now that we turned on all the lights. It was easy for the bad things to hide in the dark. To hide behind the closed door."
Friez turned and faced her with something more important on his mind.