All Heaven in a Rage
By John Passarella
Restless at the ripe old age of twenty-six, Jimmy Curtis left New Jersey in his 1990 Mustang to see what the rest of the country had to offer. And though he had been born and raised in New Jersey, he’d always seen himself as a west coast kind of guy and hoped to settle down somewhere with a view of the Pacific Ocean, soaking up rays and living the laid back lifestyle he’d come to associate—rightly or wrongly—with Southern California.
Though, if pressed, he would have to admit his recent dumping by Emily Byrnes, his longtime girlfriend, contributed a good deal to his sudden decision to hop on a westbound interstate seeking warmer climes. He and Emily had traveled in the same social circles since high school and constantly bumping into her on the arm of her new guy, the ever-smirking Todd, was just asking for trouble. Which made his choices relatively simple. Go west. Or face the real possibility of jail time after the inevitable round of assault and battery.
So it happened that he was far away from Emily at last, in a gas station mini-mart in Casper Wyoming no less, and short on cash, when he bumped into an old friend from home, Ricardo Segado, who told Jimmy he could get him a job.
“Night shift cleaning crew at a biotech company. About fifteen miles from here,” Rico said.
Jimmy paid for a bag of pretzels and ten dollars in gas. Rico had a whole bag of the six basic snack groups: pretzels, potato chips, candy bars, ice cream, doughnuts and Pepsi. As they stepped outside into the bright sunshine and wide open spaces of Big Sky country, Jimmy asked, “Biotech?”
“You been under a rock, man? Biotech. They do all kinds a weird shit with genetics. Alter living shit, bugs, weeds, bacteria. Real hush, hush. But, all you gotta worry about is keeping the floors clean and the trash cans empty. You want, I can put in a good word with Marcus, my boss.”
“Not like I got a lot of options out here.”
* * *
Jimmy would have missed the private access road if Rico hadn’t advised him to look for the red ribbon tied to the barbed wire fence. He’d been staring at the wide expanse of sagebrush, almost getting hypnotized by mile after mile of the stuff. The sky seemed too vast out here, as if there were no room for the rest of the world, as if nothing else existed or even mattered. When he turned onto the dirt road, a magpie abandoned the fence post.
Looking to the east, he saw the NGen building, like a steel and glass cylinder drilled down in the middle of all the sagebrush. (Rico had explained, “N-G-E-N. Short for Nakamoto Genetics. Nakamoto’s the Japanese-American egghead who started the company. Died about two years ago.”) The NGen tower reflected its surroundings so well it almost seemed camouflaged, like a chameleon, hiding in plain sight. Yet as he neared the main building, he could see a couple of small cinderblock outbuildings. He pulled up to a guard post just outside a perimeter fence. The guard looked like a real hard-ass, with a square jaw, military crew cut and a steel rod where his spine should be. On the right breast pocket of his slate gray uniform was the logo of the corporation, an “N” that was a stylized lightning bolt next to the block letters G-E-N. According to his nametag, the guard’s name was Shockley. “Marcus White’s expecting me,” Jimmy told the man. The guard called ahead before opening the gate. All without saying one word to Jimmy.
* * *
“This building is bigger than it seems,” Marcus White told Jimmy shortly after he started his new job with a handshake. Marcus White was a large, no-nonsense black man who took his responsibilities seriously. Rico mentioned that Marcus had played college ball right up until the third knee operation forced him to give up any dreams of pro glory. He’d earned a degree in business management and eventually started his own cleaning service. “Seven floors here, but only three are above ground. Starting at the top, you got Black level, security personnel only. Next comes the first lab level, Blue. First floor is Green, the Commons, cafeteria, meeting rooms et cetera. You can’t buy stock in NGen yet, but they have investors with deep pockets and the government—” Here Marcus used his two index fingers to outline a pentagon. “— is very interested in what they do.”
“Whatdo they do?”
“Ain’t none of my fucking business what they do,” Marcus replied with a laugh. “All I know is what I hear and, basically, I ain’t supposed to be listening.”
“Gotcha.”
“Good,” Marcus said, as they walked along the first level’s hallway. “Maybe you’ve got a future here, after all.” Jimmy was just looking to earn enough to get him the rest of the way to the west coast, but no need to tell Marcus that. “Underground you got Red, Silver, Gold and Titanium levels,” Marcus continued. “You need security cards and thumb print ID to get in those labs.”
“So how do we clean them?”
“Mostly we don’t. You can get off the elevators on those levels, well, all except Titanium. They put the trash cans out. We sweep and mop outside the labs, even do the windows looking into them. If there’s a big mess needs cleaning, security lets us in.”
“Rico said theyalter living things here.”
“Rico talks too damn much.”
“I didn’t mean to cause—”
Marcus held up a hand. “Forget it. Common knowledge around these parts NGen’s a biotech company. Fortunately, most of the locals have no idea what the hell that means.” He looked around. “Hell, I’m not sureI know what it means.”
They took the elevator up to the Blue level. It was after eight o’clock and only a couple scientists were still working. The labs, partitioned somewhat like pie slices encompassed by the “crust” of the circular corridor, were clearly visible through the glass wall that separated them from the corridor. They were lined with computer screens next to large metallic cubes and gleaming silver contraptions straight from the alien mother-ship. Lastly, Jimmy noticed a row of appliances that looked like dishwashers. Only three people were in the labs, all in the same partition. Young guy in a white lab coat with unruly brown hair, wearing metal-rimmed eyeglasses. Standing near him in an overly familiar way was a young, attractive Japanese woman with a gleaming sheaf of shoulder-length black hair wearing a short, white leather skirt suit. Across the room, scribbling in a journal was a lovely brunette with dark eyes and overly full, almost petulant lips. She too wore a lab coat.
Marcus whispered to him. “Guy’s Scott McCoy, Doctor McCoy to you and don’t bother with any Star Trek jokes. He’s heard them all. Nice enough, though. If I overheard anything—and mind you I don’t eavesdrop—it might be that he’s working on a new type of super wheat. Lady in the lab coat over there is Doctor Sydney Messier but don’t ever call her Syd. In fact, you know what’s good for you, you’ll steer clear of Messier altogether. Got a temper, that one. Rule around here is: ‘Don’t mess with Messier.’”
“What’s she working on?”
“If I was to make a wild guess, I’d say she’s making some sort of new Japanese beetle that eats only weeds. Can’t be sure and I’m not about to ask her.”
“And the Japanese woman?”
“She’s Miyuki Nakamoto.”
“Related tothe Nakamoto.”
Marcus nodded. “His daughter,” Marcus said. “Young enough to be his granddaughter, though… if he were still alive. She’s had the run of the place for years. Teaches physics.”
“She’s the boss?”
“Oh no, that would be Verner Petersen,” Marcus said. “Benji’s partner. Verner provided most of the initial financing, but let Benji have the glory.”
“Benji?”
“Benjiro Nakamoto,” Marcus said, then sighed. “Sweet old man. Pancreatic cancer got him. So now the creepy old bastard is in charge.”
“What’s Petersen’s problem?”
“Oh, suppose I can’t blame the man too much for hating the world. About thirty years ago, some thugs gang-raped and murdered his wife. Three years back, random shooting, mind you, his son was killed outside his apartment. Then Benji, probably his last real friend in the world, dies from cancer.”
Jimmy shook his head at the litany of horrible circumstances.
“Questions, Mr. Curtis?”
Jimmy decided to change the subject. “What’s all that equipment in there?”
“Computers, mostly,” Marcus said. “Let’s see… They got electron microscopes. Make your regular microscopes look like opera glasses. Blocky things are DNA… sequencers? What the hell do I know?”
Jimmy laughed. “And what about all those—dishwashers?”
“Centrifuges. They put blood in them, in test tubes or whatnot, put it on the spin cycle and shake the shit out of the blood. Separates the components.”
“Red cells from the white?”
Marcus gave him a punch on the shoulder and chuckled. Then his face became dark. “You really want to know what they do here, son? They look inside all of us. Every living thing. Examining the blueprints. People used to say, ‘Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.’ These folks flipped that on its ear. They ain’t building a better mousetrap to get rich, they’re building a better mouse.”
“Why?”
“They want to make everything better than it already is.”
Jimmy grunted. “Didn’t know God made so many mistakes.”
“Me neither, son,” Marcus said. “Now get your ass to work before I forget why I’m paying you.”
* * *
Sydney Messier waited until Marcus took the new guy back in the elevator then heaved a sigh of irritation. “I don’t enjoy being gawked at like some zoo animal.”
“Everyone finds you fascinating, Syd,” Scott McCoy said without looking up at her. He knew her face would flare red at the nickname.
Miyuki nudged him with an elbow and laughed. “You’re terrible, Scott.”
“I don’t need you defending me, Miyuki,” Sydney barked. “Don’t you have some high school papers to grade?”
“Don’t mind her, Snowflake,” Scott said. Ever since he learned thatMiyuki meant snow in Japanese, Scott had referred to her by that term of endearment, dating back to when she was a teenager and he was fresh out of the graduate program at Caltech. She had been annoyed by it back then. Of course, back then she had had a crush on him and he thought he was much too old for her. Now an eight-year age difference didn’t seem all that insurmountable. As a result, the nickname had taken on a tone of genuine affection. “She’s just jealous you have Titanium clearance and she only has her Gold card.”
“I amnot jealous,” Sydney exclaimed in a tone that indicated she was, at the very least, annoyed at Miyuki’s free access to the entire facility. “Why don’t you andSnowflake find a hotel room. Leave the real scientists to their work.”
“Did you hear that? She’s calling me a fraud, Miyuki?”
Loud enough for Sydney to hear, Miyuki said, “You can’t be a fraud, Scott. We play doctor all the time.”
“Nevertheless,” Scott said. “I must report this slanderous breach of professional protocol to dear old Verner. Where is the old bastard, anyway?”
“You mean you didn’t see him taking his groceries down to Titanium?” Sydney asked, without looking up from her own notes.
Scott spoke softly to Miyuki. “What the hell is Verner doing down there? He’s practically lived on Titanium for a year.”
Miyuki shrugged. “That’s his business. Besides, you promised to take me back to your place,” she said, running a finger suggestively down his arm. “To demonstrate your new theater surround sound system.”
“How about a tiny favor first?”
“I am not using my Titanium clearance to spy on Verner.”
“No spying. Just… tell the old bastard I said hello, not to be such a stranger,” Scott said. “And make sure you get a look at what he’s doing down there.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I saw those bags he was carrying,” Scott said. “They were leaking blood.”
“Blood?”
“He’s bringing in raw meat. Lots of it.”
* * *
Marcus White’s cleaning crew was comprised of three men—four if you counted Jimmy—and one stout old woman. Oldest in the group was Sal Oliveri, who looked as if he’d retired from a boring retirement and tended to favor the broom or vacuum cleaner, anything with repetitive motion. He almost, but not quite, lulled himself to sleep with the steady, methodical movements. Matilda Hackett, referred to by one and all as Ma, scrubbed lab sinks, mirrors and bathrooms with equal gusto. Rico generally mopped, ran the floor buffer once or twice a week, emptied trashcans and performed odd jobs. Marcus paired Jimmy with Rico, warning them to stay out of trouble.
Rico pushed a rolling trash bin, while Jimmy darted ahead and grabbed trash cans that had been placed outside secure lab facilities. They were down on Red level, where, Jimmy noticed, the glass windows looking in on the labs were smoked unlike the clear glass up on Blue. A tall, hunched old man came out of one of the labs with a clipboard and a box, muttering to himself as he made his way to the nearest elevator. His suit looked as if it had been slept in three days running, and his jaw bristled with a splotchy gray beard.
A red-faced scientist with a wild, rust-colored beard hurried out of the secured Red lab, throwing his arms out at his sides with an explosive sigh. “Verner! Wait! Just tell me—” He pulled up short as the elevator doors closed on Petersen’s haggard face. “Damn it, that crazy old—” At that moment, Red-beard noticed Jimmy and Rico, shook his head and returned to the secured lab with a swipe of his card and a press of his thumb.
“That was Doctor William Holzworth,” Rico volunteered. “Works with DNA, same as practically everyone here, but I hear he’s cutting edge.”
“And the rumpled geezer?”
“Verner Peterson himself,” Rico said. “Used to be Dapper Dan, though you’d never believe it to look at him now. Gone to seed since Nakamoto died. Spends so many days and nights down on Titanium, might as well sell his house. But I am just the fly on the wall.”
“So, Mr. Fly, what do you think Petersen’s up to down there?”
“Something’s eating him up inside,” Rico said solemnly. “I expect security will find him hanging from a pipe one of these day.”
* * *
They took a break in the cafeteria, where Rico shared some of the many snacks he’d picked up in Casper that day. “Vending machine stuff costs about twice as much. And I am all about fiscal responsibility. So dig in. Next time, you buy.”
That’s when Miyuki walked in, humming softly. “Hey, guys,” she said, then directly to Jimmy, “Good luck on the new job. Jimmy, right?”
Jimmy stood, nodded. “Thanks, Ms. Nakamoto.”
Miyuki bought two bottled iced teas and left with a wave. After a moment, Jimmy strolled over to the doorway and peered discreetly down the hall before returning to the table.
“She’s taken, lover boy.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I saw her with Doc McCoy up on Blue.”
“Give the man a prize,” Rico said and crammed a ridged potato chip in his mouth.
But Jimmy had watched the lights above the elevator.If McCoy’s up on Blue, why is she going down to Titanium?
* * *
Miyuki just couldn’t barge in on Verner without some excuse. Even with the iced teas, he’d probably see right through her. He was an extremely intelligent man, but intelligence was sometimes a distance cousin to common sense. He’d been unbelievably haggard lately, clearly digging himself an early grave. And she had to find out why.
She swiped her security card to open the door to Titanium, otherwise known as ‘Verner’s Level.’ Miyuki’s father had often gone down to Titanium, mostly to talk over partnership matters with Verner. But with her father gone, Verner seemed to have made Titanium his sanctuary as well as his office.
As the elevator doors opened, Miyuki noticed an appalling stench. Garbage left out too long, overripe with decay. As she stepped into the hallway encircling the Titanium level labs, she noticed the clutter, drifts of crumpled paper on the floor. And the smoked windows to the labs were now covered with long sections of dark, reflective Mylar. But something was wrong down here that went beyond the lack of housekeeping.
Halfway around the tier, exactly opposite the elevator, was a lighted lab. Miyuki swiped her card again, pressed her thumb to the ID panel and waited as the door opened. She saw Verner Petersen leaning against a tall stool, sleeve rolled up, about to inject a hypodermic needle into his bulging vein. “Verner!” she cried. “What’s going on?”
He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed, the needle poised above his vein. “I should have had your clearance revoked, Miyuki. You don’t belong here!”
Verner’s tone would have struck ice-cold fear into any one of NGen’s employees. But Miyuki wasn’t an employee and she’d known him too long to be intimidated by his harsh tone. She placed the bottles of iced tea down on a table to her right and crossed her arms. “If you want me to leave, answer my question.”
“I’m doing what your father should have done years ago,” Verner said. Spittle had formed on his lips. “Preparing for the future.”
She sighed, sympathetic. “Verner, go home. You need rest. I’ll have Marcus’ people tidy up down here.”
“Don’t you dare!” he screamed, enraged. He stalked toward her and, with the dripping needle in his hand, he had achieved sufficient menace to alarm her. She backed up and knocked a metal tray off a counter. Though dark film covered the glass windows to the next lab, Miyuki thought she heard a scraping sound from there.
Verner was waving his hypodermic around in the air like a pistol. “Nobody comes down here till I’m ready! You hear me? Nobody! This is my legacy. Now get out—out!” The needle fell from his trembling hands. He clutched his chest, staggered forward and fell.
As frightened as she was a moment ago, concern took over now. She flipped open a red panel by a light switch and pressed the security alarm. Throughout the building red lights would begin to flash. Up on Black, security would pinpoint the location of the alarm and investigate.
She knelt beside Verner, feeling for a pulse. Footfalls approached. In the adjoining lab, another scraping sound, followed by aTHUMP as something struck the glass, unnerving her. A flush-faced Bill Holzworth charged into the lab.
“Bill, you scared me.”
Although Bill was one of the few scientists with Titanium clearance, it wouldn’t have mattered. The alarm would have instantly deactivated the elevator’s security locks.
“He’s been acting strange,” Bill said. “I was coming down to talk some sense into him when I heard the alarm.”
Miyuki began to administer CPR. Despite the college course, this was the first time she’d ever been in a real life-and-death emergency and worried she was doing it improperly. As she pressed down on Verner’s sternum she asked, “Strange how?”
Bill paced nervously, not sure how to help. He grabbed Verner’s heavy journal from the countertop, flipped through it without really seeing it. She glanced at him and realized he was afraid of what he might find in it. “It’s just that—lately he’s been calling the failsafe protocols a bunch of ‘sissy shit’ saying ‘why is mankind so damn worried, terrified of the challenge, threatened by our own creations?’ I jokingly answered, ‘Maybe we’re afraid we’ll piss off God one of these days.’ Well, Verner became livid. ‘As scientists,’ he said, ‘we don’t have the luxury of worrying about God.’ Then he muttered something strange, like maybe humans aren’t meant to survive what was coming. Apocalyptic shit. Oh, Jesus—” Bill looked up from the journal to Miyuki, with genuine fright in his eyes.
“What?” Miyuki asked. “Why did he come to you?”
“He wanted all my files relating to the genetic solvent.”
“Genetic solvent?”
Bill was close to panic. “We named it after the ‘universal solvent’ which was another name for the mythological Philosopher’s Stone. Medieval alchemists believed it could transmute base metals into gold. Look, I can’t talk about this stuff, it’s classified up to my fucking eyeballs.”
“Bill!” Miyuki yelled. She pinched Verner’s nostrils shut and breathed into his mouth. A horrible odor seemed to waft out of him.
Bill noticed the syringe and picked it up. “What’s this?”
“He was about to inject himself with it,” she said, pointing. “And I have a feeling it’s not an HMO-approved prescription.”
Bill shook his head. “No. If he’s done what’s in his journal—”
A loudthump against the covered glass.
They looked at each other. Miyuki had almost convinced herself, in her heightened state of fear, that she’d imagined the sound. But now Bill had heard it as well, which made it all the more frightening. “What the hell—?” Bill ripped off the dark plastic film, but the glass was smoked and only a vague shape was visible beyond the glass, something long and serpentine, waving in the air hypnotically. “My God! Look at it!”
Miyuki looked all right, but she remained kneeling on the floor, administering CPR and that was probably what saved her life. Bill flipped a light switch, to illuminate the connecting lab. Immediately, something shrieked, a prolonged earsplitting sound.
Bill stared, frozen and whispered one word, his last, “Fuck…”
The glass shattered as a long tentacle, tipped with a wedge-shaped club made of bone or something harder, shot into the lab with the force of a battering ram, just missing Bill’s head. The underside of the clubbed end sported a fishhook-shaped claw. Then the tentacle withdrew in a blur and the hooked claw dug into the side of Bill’s neck, spinning him completely around. Reflexively, his hands jerked up to his neck, but before they had traveled that brief distance, his decapitated head was sailing across the lab, shattering several flasks lined up on the countertop. His body fell over, blood gushing from the stump of his neck.
Miyuki screamed, her CPR forgotten as the corpse knocked over the tall stool with a crash that was all but entirely muffled by the thrashing of the creature in the next room. Glass rained down on her as panel after panel of windows shattered under the impact of the flailing tentacle.
The light, Miyuki thought.It’s doesn’t like the light.
Unfortunately, she would have to climb over both corpses and dodge the lethal, flailing tentacle to even get near the light switch. Even so, she was about to make the attempt when a second tentacle, identical to the first, whipped into her lab. And the unbearable shrieking continued.
Finally, the security team arrived. Hands grabbed her under her arms and pulled her from the lab. “Take the elevator out of here, Miss Nakamoto,” Tony DiMartino, chief of security, ordered. He was staring not at her, but at the whipping tentacles. “Please. For your own safety.”
“It hates the lights. It killed Bill—and Verner, I think he’s dead.”
Only one other guard, Chris Spor, had accompanied Tony. Security had access to Titanium but they knew better than to mob the labs without just cause. Moreover, Verner had angled all the security cameras away from the labs years ago. Chris Spor eased into the room, staying back as far from the shattered windows as possible, but he was still not beyond the reach of those hideous tentacles.
“Chris, get Petersen out of here,” Tony instructed. “I’ll go for the lights.”
As good as his word, Tony darted toward the switch panel and flipped off the lights. Darkness shrouded the adjoining lab. The shrieking immediately stopped. Chris pulled Verner’s body out of the lab. Tony backed away from the switch panel. “Well, whatever it is, that seems to have—”
A tentacle shot out of the darkness and slammed its blunt end into Tony’s chest. He was propelled backward, almost flipped over the counter as he gasped for air. The other tentacle whistled out of the dark and twisted, hook flashing outward. Still breathless, Tony reached for the automatic at his side. But the claw ripped upward, tearing into his abdomen and snagging on the inside of his sternum. The gun slipped out of his nerveless hand as he was hoisted into the air and slammed upward into the fluorescent lighting before being pulled back toward the creature’s lab. But his body smashed against the vertical brace that had separated two window panels. The other tentacle whipped around and sliced through Tony’s middle. Each pulled him toward the darkness, from either side of the brace, slamming him into it several times before, finally, he split down the middle, one half speared on the end of each tentacle.
* * *
Jimmy held the crumpled up ball of paper over his head and said, “Curtis goes for three at the buzzer to win the game.” On tiptoes, he tossed the paper ball across the cafeteria, dropping it right in the center of the trash can. “The crowd roars.”
“I just emptied that trash can,” Rico said.
“Spoilsport,” Jimmy commented, then noticed the flashing red emergency light out in the corridor. “What’s up with that?”
“Don’t know. Can’t be good.”
Jimmy walked into the hall, saw the Messier woman run into the nearest of the two elevators, going down. Jimmy ran to the other elevator and pressed on the down button.
“Jimmy, I’m pretty damn sure a flashing red light means we evacuate.”
“Where’s the fun in that, Rico?” Jimmy asked as the elevatorpinged and opened before him. “Besides, I think young Miss Nakamoto, not to mention Dr. Messier, may be in trouble down on Titanium. Coming?”
“Aw, shit!” Rico said and followed him into the elevator.
* * *
In the event of an alarm, everyone was supposed to evacuate the building. Including Sydney Messier. But she was senior scientist in the facility at the moment and security personnel might need her expertise. Besides, now was her chance to find out what Verner had been up to the last couple years. With an alarm in progress, she had free access to Titanium, same as little Ms. Snowflake.
* * *
Miyuki screamed. Chris ran into the lab and fired several shots into the darkness. With his chief dead, he wasn’t worried about any wild shots. He emptied his entire clip into the darkness, but each shot only seemed to enrage the beast. He slapped in another clip and chambered a round, but instead of firing the gun, he pulled his squawking radio from his belt and held down the transmit button. “Big trouble on Titanium. Something’s on the loose. It killed Tony. Over.”
“Get everyone off that level, Chris! We’ll seal it up.”
Miyuki saw Petersen’s journal lying on the lab floor where Bill had dropped it. She didn’t wait for permission. She crouched low, ducked into the lab and snagged the journal.
“Miss Nakamoto?” Chris yelled, but she was already on her way out.
Tentacles flashed out of the dark lab again, this time bracing themselves, one against the ceiling and another against the counter. Claws scrabbled and an armor-platedthing slowly came into view.
Miyuki gasped when she saw the armor-plated creature laboriously climbing into Verner’s lab. At the moment, the tentacles were occupied leveraging the bulk of the creature over the windowsill, but something flashed behind it—a tail. It whipped forward, like a scorpion’s tail, but the end was flattened, paddle-like and bristling with long quills. A dozen or so of the quills hissed through the air, pelting the wall and far window. They slid down each surface, trailing a sticky substance. Chris cried out and Miyuki saw that he’d caught two long quills in his face. He had enough sense to pluck them out immediately, but theneedled area was already inflamed.
“Let’s go,” Miyuki said, fearing the worst. At least he hadn’t taken the full barrage of quills. With its armor plating, the creature had the bulk of a compact car, and it had almost climbed over the counter. Something else caught Miyuki’s attention. She looked down at Verner’s body and saw that his exposed flesh was sweating a black fluid. “Look,” she said, pointing.
Chris spared a moment to glance at the corpse of NGen’s president and, as strange as the black stain was, it paled in comparison to the creature that was about to enter the lab they had just vacated. Together they ran down the curving hall. Both sets of elevator doors were just ahead, lights already on. Reinforcements coming down? The nearest elevatorpinged and the doors opened. Dr. Sydney Messier stepped out. “What’s going on?”
“Sydney, we have to get out of here!” Miyuki said. “Right now!”
“Go ahead, I need to see what all the fuss—” Sydney looked past them, back the way they had come. Banging and crashing sounds echoed down the circular hallway.
Chris Spor staggered and fell against the side of the elevator. “I’m getting…numb.”
“Must be some sort of neurotoxin or paralyzing agent,” Miyuki guessed, but she was out of her league.
“What are you talking—? Where’s Petersen?” Sydney asked.
The creature lurched into view, propelling itself on six legs ending in long, viciously hooked claws. As its tentacles waved overhead, its quill-laden tail bobbed up and down with a metronomic regularity. Miyuki could see its face now, also covered with overlapping plates, an exoskeleton. Recessed coal black eyes and long jaws, designed for crushing. As its clawed feet became accustomed to the smooth tile floor, the creature picked up speed and moved toward them at an alarming rate.
“What on earth?” Sydney asked, more awed than fearful.
“Sydney, get in the elevator,” Miyuki commanded. “Now!”
On wobbly legs, Chris stepped into the elevator and propped himself up against the side of the car, his thumb pressed to theopen button. “Hurry,” he said, his lips numb. “We have to seal this level.”
Miyuki backed into the elevator.
Ping!
The other elevator door opened and Jimmy and Rico stepped out into the hallway. Rico saw Sydney first. “Hey, Doc Messier, what—the fuck!” He turned around and shoved Jimmy back toward the elevator as the doors were closing. Jimmy banged into the door and fell, but the resistance caused the doors to open completely again. Jimmy heard loud scrabbling but hadn’t gotten a good look at what was causing the commotion.
“Sydney!” Somebody screamed. Miyuki.
Rico grabbed Jimmy’s hand and helped pull him to his feet. Something whistled nearby. Rico yelped. A dozen long quills had pierced his face and neck.
Sydney moaned, looked down at herself and saw a half dozen quills. One below her collarbone, two in her hand, a couple in her chest, one in her thigh. She was too stunned to move or listen, so Miyuki yanked her into the elevator, pressed theclose button then began to pluck the quills out.
“Am I going to die?”
Miyuki shook her head. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Dizzy, Rico staggered away from the elevator. Jimmy leapt out to grab him just as a long shape—a tentacle!—shot past him and smashed into Rico’s back. Rico crumpled, motionless and quiet, his face a pincushion for the creature’s quills. A second tentacle snapped toward Jimmy’s head and barely missed him. He dropped to the ground as the underside claw lashed at his throat, again just missing.
The creature was already over Rico’s prone body. Its crushing maw ripped into Rico’s abdomen, pulling up ropy intestines covered in blood. Praying that Rico had been killed by the crushing blow to his spine, Jimmy backed up, slowly and held down the elevator button. Fortunately, the car hadn’t left the floor and opened almost immediately. Jimmy fell back through the widening gap of the doors, his last sight the creature’s gore-drenched jaws cracking open Rico’s ribcage.
* * *
Chris fumbled with his radio. He squeezed the transmit button and said, “We’re clear. Seal the level. Shut down ventilation. Over.”
“What about the cleaning guys?” Sydney asked in a sleepy voice. She was sitting on the floor of the elevator car, lethargic.
Chris shook his head.If they haven’t made it back into the elevator by now, they’re already dead.
The radio squawked. “Level sealed. Ventilation down.”
* * *
The creature only fed for a few moments before turning its attention to the sealed doors of the first elevator car. Its tentacles swung high over head, building momentum before they slammed into the middle of the doors. Eventually it worked both claws into the crevice and pried it open, peeling the metal back as if it were strips of aluminum.
* * *
The screeching was horrendous.
“What was that?” Miyuki asked.
Loud rhythmic pounding, getting closer.
Sydney’s head lolled to the side. Chris looked as if he were about to nod off. The radio in his hand squawked again. “Breach on Titanium. It’s in the elevator shaft!”
But that isn’t the worst part,Miyuki thought. “It’s climbing up after us.”
A moment later, the elevator car was struck forcefully from below, the floor buckled right between Miyuki and Sydney. Another blow and the metal floor tore open.Ping! They were at Green. A third blow and a tentacle came up from below, whipping around in the confines of the car. Miyuki screamed.
The doors opened slowly.
She grabbed Chris, who was closer, and pulled him through the door. The hook on the underside of the tentacle slashed, just missing her calf. Despite the flailing tentacle, Miyuki reached back into the elevator for Sydney. However, Sydney was too weak to stand. She simply reached out with her arms. The blunt end of the tentacle slammed her head against the wall, crushing her skull. The tentacle looped around her legs and pulled her down, through the jagged opening in the floor, tearing flesh, crunching bone. Miyuki gagged and backed out of the elevator. Mercifully, the elevator doors closed.
* * *
Jimmy was shaking by the time his elevator reached Green. He’d heard the crashing and rending sounds and knew the creature had been clawing its way up the elevator shaft. When the screaming began, he knew it had breached the other car. When the doors opened, he nearly jumped out into the corridor. Miyuki was there, helping a groggy security guard back to his feet. A distraught Dr. Scott McCoy ran up to them from one direction. Marcus, Ma, and Sal hurried toward them from the other.
“Miyuki!” Scott asked. “What happened?”
A resounding clang echoed from within the elevator shaft.
“Verner created something, a—a monster,” Miyuki said, shaken. She handed the journal to him. “He’s dead now, heart attack. Look at this and tell me what that thing is. It killed Bill and our security chief, Sydney and...” She looked at Jimmy, who nodded. “Rico, too.”
Chris Spor’s radio squawked. “Chris, we’re coming down. Get everyone out of there. Over.”
By way of response, Chris’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the floor, unconscious. Miyuki dropped to her knees, checked for and found a pulse. “Quills injected some kind of venom or paralyzing agent into his face,” she explained. “He’s alive…for now.”
Scott flipped through the journal, murmured, “Holzworth’s genetic solvent, DNA splicing of… oh, God, no failsafe! What the hell was he thinking?”
“Failsafe?” Jimmy asked.
“Everything we create or synthesize—we build in faults, expirations, weaknesses. At the microbe level—hell, at the molecular level—we want controlled propagation. Easy ways to terminate a mutation that could potentially run amok. And we assumeeverything can potentially run amok. So we add a failsafe, maybe more than one, in everything. Light, heat, oxygen, time, whatever. Verner, apparently, didn’t want his creations…handicapped. Survival of the fittest, even if it meant unchecked extinctions. This is criminal—it’s terrorism at the ecosystem level!”
Another crash from within the elevator shaft.
“What exactly has Petersen done?” Marcus asked, his unblinking gaze on the sealed elevator doors.
“I can’t even discuss it,” Scott said. “It’s highly classified.”
“Genetic solvents,” Jimmy guessed.
“How did you—of course, I mentioned Bill’s—” Scott seemed flustered. “Well, technically it’s Gold clearance soI’m not even supposed to know. Maybe I don’t know everything. So here goes. Layman’s version. Bill Holzworth developed a simplified method to…mix and match—kind of an erector set of DNA—taking features from completely unrelated species and melding them, modifying them, improving them. One from column A, one from column B et cetera.”
“Like mythological creatures,” Miyuki said. “A centaur was half man, half horse. A chimera was a lion’s head on a goat’s body with a serpent’s tail.”
“Chimera is a blanket term for all of them.” Scott flipped through the pages again, shaking his head. “It looks as if Verner wanted to make something deadly and indestructible. Everything’s been mutated, but it looks like at least a dozen different types of creatures—armor plating and exoskeleton—venoms, poisons… rhino, armadillo, scorpion, squid, various insects. It would be quicker to name what he didn’t include in his monstrosity.”
“A Frankenstein monster for the new millennium,” Jimmy said.
The elevator doors buckled outward with something wedged in the gap between them.
* * *
Steve Palasch and Mike Hueter were the only remaining security guards on duty inside NGen at the late hour. Mike was senior man, so he took the lead. His priorities were clear: evacuate the ‘civilians’ then terminate the creature. After it had lumbered into the hallway, in view of the security cameras, they had gotten a good look at it, whatever the hell it was. They had handguns, but other than that, their firepower was limited.Fire power? Yes! Flamethrowers were stowed in locked closets on every level. Fire could effectively wipe out anymistakes . A “mistake” was Benjiro Nakamoto’s euphemism for anything that escaped laboratory confinement. But nobody had ever planned for amistake the size of a Chevette.
Guns in hand, they burst through the stairwell doors onto Green.
That was when Ma Hackett screamed. In a moment, they saw why. Tentacles were prying open the far set of elevator doors. Doc McCoy and the new cleaning crew guy were dragging an unconscious Chris out of range. Everyone else was backing away, horrified, too stunned to just get the hell out of the building. All except for Sal Oliveri, who stood in front of the elevator using his broom handle to jab at the thing. Marcus was yelling at Sal to “get the hell away.”
Sal turned to Marcus. “I get it, you see. Drop it down the shaft. Boom! Kill the fucker!”
A tentacle slid free of the door edge and wrapped around the mop handle, tugging it toward the door. Sal stumbled forward and slammed into the partially open doors as that same tentacle released the mop handle, curled up between his spindly legs and wrapped around his neck. It yanked back, snapping his neck as it flipped him ass over ankles, then tugged him through the narrow gap. It must have dropped him down the shaft, because the tentacle returned almost immediately to work on the doors again.
“Steve, get a flamethrower,” Mike said. “We’ll scorch the son of a bitch. Once it’s down the shaft, we’ll set off the ring charges on Titanium.” As Steve ran down the hallway toward the nearest security closet, keys jangling, Mike squared himself to the front of the elevator…and saw the bulk of the creature rising beyond the door. It must have torn out the entire floor of the elevator car. No other way it could squeeze inside the car. It had three leg pairs, all ferociously clawed, and it was attempting to wedge them into the gap. If it brought the claws into play, that would free up the tentacles. Mike fired several rounds through the gap in the door, aiming for what looked like the head. The bullets seemed to ricochet off the armor plating, barely scratching its hide.
“Somebody take the stairs down to Red. Press upand down. That will move both cars down. Press the buttons, then come right back—” A freed tentacle shot out, cleanly impaling Mike’s abdomen. It whipped him to the left, then the right, finally tossing him free of the gore-drenched underside claw.
* * *
After more than eight decades of life as an ordinary human being, Verner Petersen began his second glorious life. Designed solely to protect hiscorpse from carnivores and scavengers, the foul black secretion that had oozed from Verner’s pores paralleled a more dramatic change inside his body. A change that not only reanimated him, but would change him forever. For over a year, his bloodstream had been swimming withhibernating nanoprobes— manmade molecular devices—ready to rewrite his own genetic code if not for the daily injections he administered to himself. These injections amounted to a molecular dead-man’s switch consisting of a short-lived neutralizing batch of nanoprobes. These neutralizers lost their potency after a day and, if not replenished by another batch, the hibernating nanoprobes would activate and the changes to his genetic makeup would begin. If he were placed on life support machines, the changes would begin in a day. However, the nanoprobes were also programmed to come out of hibernation the moment his heart stopped beating, the moment his blood stopped flowing.
At death, the changes had begun.
Verner Petersen was something different now. Immune to disease and decay, able to recover from the most severe injury, immortal for all intents and purposes. Yet all that hadn’t been enough to satisfy him. He wished to strike terror into the hearts of common man as he became the Adam of the next stage of human evolution. He would be the first of a new race, one that would make what currently passed for humankind as obsolete as Neanderthal man at the dawn of the Cro-Magnons.
His bones had been reconstructed to be stronger than human bones, resistant to fractures and breaks; his musculature would now put the abilities of any Olympian athlete to shame. His skin was capable of changing color and texture to camouflage his body against almost any surrounding. He now had night vision and the ability to see well beyond the visiblehuman spectrum. All his other senses were likewise enhanced.
The new Verner leapt to his feet and surveyed his surroundings. Soon, he realized they had shut down the ventilation system. He stripped off his clothes, allowing his new skin to mirror the gleaming silver tones of the surrounding corridor, and strode toward the stairwell.
* * *
Steve Palasch cinched the flamethrower backpack. Both fuel and gas propellant tanks were full, but that only meant thirty seconds at full burn. As he approached the elevator doors, he switched on the ignition device at the end of the discharge tube and got apilot flame started. Finger on the trigger, he said, “Time to roast some monster ass.”
* * *
Scott McCoy took to the stairs, descending one level to Red, where he emerged near the elevator doors and pressed both thedown andup buttons. Theoretically that should send both cars down to Red. One would arrive intact. The other, if it arrived at all, would be carrying Verner’s monstrosity. He watched the lights. The near car had begun to descend. Then he heard a horrible screeching of metal. The light above the far car remained frozen at Green. “No damn luck,” he muttered and returned to the stairwell.
Almost immediately, he saw sudden movement on the stairs, below him. A shape rippling along, not quite invisible but playing tricks on the eye. Scott started to back away, up the stairs, keeping his gaze on the stairs below. When he saw it again he realized it was man-shaped and camouflaged.
It sprang up in front of him, powerful hands around his throat, slamming him into the wall. Even as his vision dimmed, he saw enough of the facial features to realize it was Petersen. Verner had, against all common sense, remade himself. Inhumanly strong now, Verner easily hoisted Scott over his head. “Help!” Scott yelled, knowing it was too late, even before Verner hurled him over the stairwell railing to plummet to his death, four stories below.
* * *
Before Steve returned to the elevator, the armor-plated creature had managed to wedge its body through the wrecked doors. Two sets of clawed feet were scrabbling for purchase on the smooth floor even as its ass end hung over the elevator shaft. Both tentacles whipped around, slamming through glass windows and pounding into the walls. The tail snapped forward, hurling paralyzing quills across the hallway.
Steve maneuvered himself into position, risking a glance at the others. Chris was awake again, but groggy, Miyuki kneeling beside him. Marcus and the new cleaning guy, Jimmy Curtis, stood before Matilda. They all wanted to help but looked ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. He called out, “When I get this thing to fall down the shaft, I need someone on Black to blow the ring charges for Titanium.”
“What’s he talking about?” Jimmy asked.
“I know,” Miyuki said. Benji Nakamoto had worried about something getting loose, escaping the facility’s control. So he had had explosive charges placed strategically on each level. Her father used to say that fire held the power of creation and destruction.Just look at the stars . Problem was, the ring charges were considered a desperate measure of last resort and would, conceivably—although the engineers argued endlessly over this conclusion—create an implosion that would collapse the building. The other risk was an explosive chain reaction through all the levels. “I can take you.”
“Then let’s go,” Jimmy said, grabbing a bottle of lye-based cleanser out of one of the cleaning carts.Wasn’t exactly a gun, he thought,but it’s good to improvise.
A groggy Chris Spor passed his automatic to Miyuki. “Can’t trust my aim,” he explained.
That’s when they heard Scott McCoy’s cry for help.
“My God! Scott!” Miyuki wailed. “No!”
She ran toward the elevator and the emergency stairway beyond, just as another volley of poisoned quills ricocheted off the walls. Jimmy and Marcus both reacted to her sudden move. While Jimmy dove forward in what amounted to an open-field tackle to pull her down, Marcus ran to intercept her. Instead, he was intercepted by two quills, both in his brawny forearm. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he said, yanking them out immediately.
“Marcus, get everyone out before that shit knocks you on your ass,” Jimmy urged.
Marcus hesitated, unwilling to leave. Miyuki had tears in her eyes. “Go! When the ring charges blow this whole building will collapse.”
Marcus nodded, grabbed Ma by the arm. She, in turn, helped Chris to his feet. Together they hurried toward the exit. Miyuki nodded to Steve, who let loose a stream of fire, right in the creature’s face. Its armor plating refused to burn, but the intense heat made the creature shriek. In seconds, the fire alarm and the sprinkler system both activated.
* * *
With Jimmy leading the way, he and Miyuki darted behind Steve around the creature and through the stairwell door. A moment after the door clicked shut, Miyuki heard the impact that sent Jimmy sprawling across the landing but not what actually hit him. She brought Chris’s gun to bear, noticed a rippling in the air before her, like shimmering heat waves… or a man sculpted from translucent glass.
“Miyuki, you should have stayed out of this,” said a cavernous voice.
“Verner?” She recalled the odious black ooze, flowing from the pores of his corpse. Yet somehow, he was still alive.
“I should thank you, for you are the midwife to my rebirth.”
The movement—the bending of light—approached her and all she could think about was Verner in the stairwell and— “Scott? You murdered Scott!”
“Unfortunately—” That’s all he said before she emptied the gun into him, a series of deafening explosions in the stairwell. Each bullet knocked him back a step, he even stumbled a bit, but in the end, the bullets caused minimal damage. “You’ll need a few armor-piercing rounds to do the job properly,” he said, a thrill in his voice. “But you won’t get that chance. Good-bye, Miyuki.”
Verner swatted the gun out of her hands.
“Yo, Doc Frankenstein,” Jimmy called from the side.
“Ah, the grunt who bears glorious witness to the rebirth—”
Jimmy waited until the translucent face swiveled toward him, then shook the uncapped bottle of lye-based cleanser into the glassy eyes. Verner screamed, clawing at his own face. While he was distracted, Jimmy slammed into him and almost dislocated his shoulder.The new Verner is as sturdy as an oak, Jimmy thought,but without roots. He grabbed him behind the legs, below the knees, and flipped him backward. Verner fell four stories and struck the bottom of the stairwell with the solidity of stone.
Miyuki seemed stunned.Still coping with Verner murdering her boyfriend, Jimmy thought. He grabbed her arm. “That fall won’t stop Super Verner for long.”
Miyuki nodded. “Right. The ring charges.”
She led the way up to Black, the security level. Beyond the encircling corridor it was one big open room, the walls lined with banks of security monitors. “Over here,” Miyuki said. With a swipe of her card and a press of her thumb, she caused a long silver panel cover to retract into a dark housing, revealing two identical sets of toggle switches spaced about seven feet apart, a large red knob set halfway between them. Miyuki lifted a protective flap and pressed the red button. A klaxon sounded. Throughout the facility, emergency lights would now be flashing a warning:evacuate. Inside the security room, the warning message was more subdued but no less dire:armed.
“Another failsafe,” Miyuki said. “It takes two to detonate ring charges. That’s why the switch sets are so far apart. We must press both switches for Titanium level simultaneously or nothing happens. Press the button marked ‘T’ on my signal.”
“How will you know?”
“Watch monitor Green Three,” she said, nodding toward the display.
The monitor’s camera was trained on Green level’s elevator.
* * *
The flamethrower had maybe one good sustained burst left before the fuel tank ran dry. Steve had forced the creature back without inflicting much damage on its armored hide. Its middle pair of clawed feet struggled for balance at the edge of the elevator shaft. It was now or never. Steve took several strides forward to inflict maximum damage and, in so doing, placed himself within range of the lethal tentacles.
The sprinklers continued to spray, the creature to roar, while the fire alarm wailed and now, added to the din, was a new sound, the ring charge detonation klaxon. If Steve survived, he imagined he would forever hear a ringing in his ears. Before the creature could attack, Steve squeezed the trigger and held it down, unleashing a torrent of flames in its face.
The middle set of clawed feet slipped off the edge and the creature was teetering on the manmade precipice of the elevator shaft. The flames died out, the fuel tank empty even though the gas propellant continued to hiss. Still, the creature hung on. For the moment, it was too preoccupied maintaining its balance to attack him. But only for a moment.
Steve unbuckled the flamethrower harness and brought it around before him, a makeshift shield. As the creature struggled for a hold on the doorframe, Steve charged. “Die, you mutated fucker!”
His full weight slammed into the creature, the metal tanks of the flamethrower smashing into its crushing jaws, forcing the head back, disrupting the creature’s center of gravity just enough to shift it over the shaft. With a screech of metal and a shrapnel-like explosion of shattered floor tiles the creature fell back, its own immense weight pulling it down through the shredded floor of the elevator car. Whipping its tentacles as it roared in fury, the creature plummeted four stories. Steve fell right behind it.
* * *
In the security room, Miyuki and Jimmy watched helplessly as Steve hurled himself at the flailing creature, hitting it with enough force to knock it down the shaft. But his own momentum carried him over the threshold as well. He vanished in the darkness, beyond range of the security camera. “Ah, shit!” Jimmy said, slamming his fist down on the console.
“Focus!” Miyuki urged. “On my mark.” While the fall would kill Steve, the creature would survive.God forbid Steve sacrificed himself in vain, she thought. “Now!”
They both switched the T toggle switch simultaneously.
Nothing happened…
…for two long seconds.
A whole row of monitors flashed white for a split-second—Jimmy guessed they were fed by cameras on Titanium—before going black. Next came the roar of the explosion, followed by the concussion, felt all through the NGen facility. Monitors cracked, showering the room with sparks. Ceramic mugs fell and shattered on the floor, splashing coffee. Then the floor began to vibrate.
“We’ve lost structural integrity,” Miyuki said. “We should get out now before the walls come down around us.”
Jimmy hesitated. “It wasn’t enough, was it?”
Miyuki bit her lip. “You have something in mind?”
“We need a knockout punch. Let’s drop this whole building on it… and on Doc Frankenstein while we’re at it.”
Miyuki agreed with his assessment, but knew they would probably die as well if they blew any more levels. Just by standing around discussing it, they were pushing their luck. “The delay! We can set a sixty second delay, blow the rest one after another.”
“Could we have done that the first time?”
“No,” Miyuki argued. “We needed that first blast immediately, to stun the creature. Let’s blow the whole damn thing!”
“Sixty seconds?” Jimmy asked. Then he grinned. “Not like we got a lot of options here.”
She smiled bravely. “Let’s be straight about this.” She had to shout to be heard above the competing alarms. “I turn the red dial a full revolution counterclockwise, the timer starts immediately, the clock is ticking. Then we hit the underground level switches in order, working our way up, Gold then Silver then Red. That’s how they’ll blow, at seven-second intervals. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Here we go,” Miyuki said and spun the dial. Above it, an LED panel lit up and began the countdown: 59, 58… She resumed her position. “Gold—on my mark. Go! Silver—Go! Red—Go! Now let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Jimmy couldn’t have said it better himself. They burst out of the security room, across the corridor and through the stairwell doorway, racing down the steps. Where the stairs had buckled under the stress, Miyuki tripped and fell, twisting her ankle. Jimmy caught himself with the railing, helped Miyuki to her feet and together they continued their reckless descent.
* * *
Verner Petersen awoke still blind in both eyes, but the nanoprobes in his bloodstream had already begun repairs on his body and on his corneas. Everything was still a dark, hazy gray but he could make out the shapes of the steps and the railing.
Then Titanium exploded, practically in his face. The stairwell door was blown off its hinges and he was struck by a torrent of fire and jagged debris. Again, his nanoprobes went to work, repairing his unconscious form. But these injuries were much more serious and would require a couple hours to repair, maybe even days to regenerate the severed arm.
* * *
“I heard something,” Miyuki yelled at Jimmy as they ran along Green’s corridor. She stopped. “It sounded like someone calling for help. There!” Miyuki ran back toward the shattered doors of Green’s elevator.
“Wait,” Jimmy said, stepping in front of her and looking down the shaft.
One arm strap of the flamethrower pack was caught on a jagged crook of metal. Hanging from the other arm strap was Steve Palasch. “What the hell took you so long?”
“Grab my hand,” Jimmy said, bracing himself against the side of the doorframe. As soon as Steve reached up and clutched his hand, Jimmy pulled with all his strength. Steve found footholds and scrambled up out of the shaft.
BOOOM!Gold level exploded.
With its structural integrity already shot to hell, the building shook violently. Glass exploded out of frames, fluorescent lights popped and went black, metal creaked and wide fissures formed and raced along the walls, dropping chunks of marble. The whole facility seemed to be listing toward one side, pitching Jimmy and Steve toward the open elevator shaft.
Miyuki grabbed Jimmy by the back of his belt, providing just enough counter weight for them to regain their balance. “Run!” she yelled, even as Silver detonated.
Fire roared up the elevator shaft, as if hell were claiming higher ground out here in the Wyoming countryside. All the lights blew out, leaving only scattered flames in the darkness to light their way out of Green level. Debris crashed around them, although the sprinklers finally shut off, their feed line ruptured somewhere back in the building. Beneath the high-pitched wail of fire alarms and klaxons was the deep, ominous rumble of the building collapsing.
Jimmy supported Miyuki as she hobbled on a sore ankle and Steve seemed to be leaking dangerous amounts of blood from several nasty gashes in his arms and legs. Three abreast, they reached the exit just as Red level exploded. The floor beneath them seemed to rise at least a foot in the air before it caved in. All three stumbled out into the night, to a parking lot littered with shattered glass from the broken windows above.
Though he hadn’t bothered to render any sort of assistance inside the NGen building after the alarms had sounded, Shockley, the security gate guard, was now officiously ordering everyone to “Get back! Stay back!” If not for the police cars and fire trucks racing up the access road, strafing the night sky with red, Jimmy would have kicked the craven bastard in the nuts.
Jimmy, Miyuki and Steve ignored him and made their way over to the other survivors. Looking exhausted, Chris Spor sat on the front bumper of a security car, while Ma held onto Marcus, almost propping him up.
With a bittersweet smile directed at Marcus, Miyuki squeezed Steve’s hand then leaned over and kissed Jimmy Curtis lightly on the cheek. “Not bad for your first day.”
“No offense, Marcus,” Jimmy said with a shake of his head. “But I quit.”
Jimmy glanced back at the NGen building, which was doing an over-the-top impression of the leaning tower of Pisa. But not for long. Less than an hour later, while Miyuki was making arrangements to have the building demolished, it collapsed under its own weight, forever crushing all its secrets.
* * *
Just before dawn, Jimmy pulled his Mustang onto the side of the road. Less than fifty yards away he saw at least a dozen white-tailed deer moving quietly through the grass. On the other side of the road, hypnotically still, stood three moose, one rack of antlers more impressive than the next.
He watched them for the longest time and couldn’t see one mistake.