I was hoping that Higby had attacked me because he mistakenly got the gay hots for my body; otherwise the outbreak had made the jump to those of us with XY chromosomes.
Getting into the Protected Area was routine, considering that I had the appropriate clearance. I entered the concrete tunnel building straddling the perimeter wire. In the locker room I stripped to my skivvies and socks. I grabbed a set of baggy, white overalls from the laundry cart and put them on. Blots of grease on the legs and yellow circles under the armpits stained the fabric. I sorted through a pile of work boots until I found the only pair my size. The stink from the boots was so bad it made my toes curl. Whoever wore them before hadn’t been familiar with the concept of hygiene. Hell, a strong dose of radiation would probably have done this pair some good.
I took off my watch and set it on the shelf in the locker. The rule was don’t take anything into the Protected Area that you can’t afford to lose, in case it gets contaminated.
Properly attired as an anonymous worker ant, I presented my badge to the guard. He slid it over the scanner and when the indicator flashed green, he motioned me to proceed through the metal detector.
The tunnel connected to Building 371. A sign in the foyer gave directions to the materials containment facilities and the archives office.
The dilapidated appearance inside Building 371 startled me. In the movies, nuclear facilities are always futuristic beehives made of stainless steel and glass tubes filled with glowing liquids. Everything runs with the precision of a European racing car.
The reality was that Rocky Flats, including within the Protected Area, where plutonium manufacture had taken place, had the feel of an old factory mill that had seen better days. The rough edges from layers of paint applied to the walls and floors revealed the constant battle against decay. Capped, discolored pipes hung from the ceiling.
All the workers, exclusively men, had shaggy mustaches and proud bellies that strained the waistbands of their overalls. Several of them had their sleeves rolled up, showing arms covered with tattoos. Again, in the movies, nuclear workers look and act like buff robots. These guys at Rocky Flats had this ambling beer-guzzling, blue-collar manner about themselves. It was as if America’s nuclear arsenal had been entrusted to bikers.
A worker turned into the hall too sharply with his supply cart and bashed into a protruding corner, adding another gouge to the already scarred surface. He backed away from the corner and continued, crunching over chips of plaster that he had knocked loose.
Down the hall I found the archives office, entered, and locked the door. The two male clerks on duty heard the click and turned toward me. One was as skinny as the other was fat. Standing next to each other they looked like the number 10.
I removed my contacts and hypnotized them both. I left them standing like a couple of zombies who had forgotten what to do next. Spit drooled from their open mouths. I unhooked the key rings from their belts.
Banks of file cabinets shared floor space with stacks of safes. I asked the skinny clerk for Dr. Wong’s file.
He twitched and gagged in the effort to answer me. “Redlight.”
I asked him what “Redlight” meant but he was too stupefied to reply. The fat clerk wasn’t any more coherent.
I could bite them and let my saliva do its work, but for the moment I wanted to keep my lips off another man’s body.
Scanning the cabinets, I bypassed those labeled PERSON-NEL. Too obvious. At the far end, against the wall, stood a gray cabinet with a TOP SECRET placard. It took two different keys to unlock the cabinet, a safeguard to prevent any one individual from getting access. Fortunately, between the clerks I had both keys, and within a minute I was rustling through the drawers, looking for anything marked “Redlight.”
I thumbed through the folders and felt my anxiety rise as the minutes ticked by. Nothing mentioned Redlight.
At the back end of the bottom cabinet I discovered Dr. Wong’s file. After feeding his papers through a copy machine, I returned the originals to their place and tucked my copies, which I had neatly folded, into the waistband of my underwear. I’d study the documents later.
Confident that this case was starting to break open, I walked back to the tunnel. I joined a group of five workers waiting to exit through the metal detector and radiation monitors.
An alarm shrieked, sending a grating, pulsating blare through the building. Lights along the walls flashed.
The worker in front of me spun around. His braided ponytail smacked me in the face. “Holy shit, that’s the criticality alarm.”
That meant there was plutonium nearby that was ready to explode. The deafening scream of the alarms gripped my ears with their shrill cry of doom.
One guard stepped in front of the metal detector to block our passage through the tunnel. He pointed to the nearest door inside Building 371 and shouted, “Everybody outside.”
The six of us rushed outside. We slipped on the dirt and gravel surrounding the building. We remained trapped inside the wire of the Protected Area. The wail of the alarms echoed around us, screaming of danger.
The man behind me went, “Uff,” and he sagged against the wall. A red blot appeared on his chest.
Bullets tore at the wall. I grabbed the collars of the two closest men and yanked them to the ground. We flattened our bodies against the dirt. One slug ricocheted in front of me.
What the hell was going on? First the criticality alarms. Now a crossfire. Were we under attack by terrorists?
Another volley of bullets stitched the wall above me.
The guy with the ponytail began to sob. “We’re going to die, man. If we don’t get crapped up from the plutonium, we’re going to eat lead.”
“No one’s going to die,” I shouted to him. “Stay calm.”
The wounded man lay on his back. I crawled over to him and unbuttoned the torso of his overalls. Warm blood bubbled from a hole in the left side of his chest. I slid my hand through the blood and crammed my index finger into the hole. The smell of the fresh human blood excited my vampire hunger. My fangs grew. I wanted to attack, to feed.
Then I remembered the other time I had done this, had washed my hands in human blood. The wail of the Iraqi girl tore into my skull. My arms tensed and I fought the urge to spring up and run away. My left hand trembled and started to slip away from the wound. I grasped my left wrist and kept my hands steady.
The wounded man clasped my shoulder and gave a weak squeeze.
I patted his head and left clumps of blood in his hair. “Stay with me. We’ll get out of this.”
We lay still and waited for another volley of bullets. The scream of the alarms overwhelmed my vampire hearing. I might as well have been deaf.
My breath puffed into the dirt. Blood ran down my sleeve. The folded copies of Dr. Wong’s file dug into my belly. Was this a terrorist attack or simply the work of a lousy shot gunning for me?
The alarms abruptly became silent. From inside the building, someone shouted, “All clear!”
“You see?” I told the group. “We’re okay.” I patted the wounded man on the forehead.
“Don’t move, any of you,” growled a voice. “Stay on the ground. Put your hands behind your head.”
Two pairs of black combat boots tramped around my head. The blast deflector of an M16 rifle knocked against my temple. “You-I said to put your hands behind your head.”
I arched my neck and stared up the barrel of the rifle. Both guards looked like demons in their black helmets, hoods, and tinted goggles.
“But this man has a serious wound.”
The guard rapped the rifle muzzle against my forehead again. “I didn’t tell you to look up. Do like you’re told. Let us worry about that bastard.”