Fast (34 page)

            Suddenly Coleman heard the sharp
clinkety-clink-clink
of something metallic bouncing in the shaft ahead. He couldn’t stop moving. Whatever it was, he would just have to deal with it when he found it.

            Please don’t be a grenade.
It didn’t sound like a grenade.

            ‘What the hell is that?’ barked Marlin.

            Coleman looked back. Marlin shone his flashlight back down the shaft.

            Blue smoke billowed around the creature. In moments smoke completely obscured the creature. The thick smoke expanded down the shaft towards Marlin.

            ‘What now?’ whined Forest.

            Marlin’s strong light hardly penetrated the smoke.

            ‘Captain,’ Marlin said. ‘I can’t see jack-shit back here.’

            Coleman searched the intersection ahead. Down every shaft, in all four directions, more blue smoke rapidly expanded towards them.

            ‘I got the same up here,’ commented Coleman. ‘Cairns is using M18 smoke grenades to disorientate us.’

            ‘Disorientate us?’ piped up Forest. ‘I’m already disorientated. Where are we even going?’

            ‘I know exactly where we are,’ reassured Coleman. ‘I’m getting us out. That smoke won’t confuse me.’

            ‘We’ll be blind moving through that smoke,’ hissed King.

            ‘It’s only concentrated in a few places,’ said Coleman. ‘We’ll go through it and come out the other side.’

            Coleman lifted his hand from the shaft. His palm came away sticky. The shaft felt like just-dry paint.

            Vanessa sniffed her fingertips. ‘Surfactant! We’re in it! It’s coated the inside of the shafts. We’re in the hot-zone. If Cairns ignites the shafts, we’re all going to burn.’

            ‘Then we must be getting close,’ said Coleman. ‘We can’t stop now. We have to reach the center of the level. Cairns is probably expecting us to ignite the surfactant with our own gunfire.’

            ‘The middle of the level? That’s right above the surfactant canister,’ warned Vanessa. ‘That area will be an inferno if Cairns lights it.’

            ‘I know,’ barked Coleman. ‘We have to reach the riser. It’s our only chance.’

            Coleman knew the habitation and engineering levels shared a common ventilation system. That meant they were connected by a ‘riser’, a large vertical shaft joining the ventilation networks. He’d spotted the riser before they entered the pool room, so had a fair idea of its location on this level.

            But which is the safest route through the smoke to the riser?

            ‘Everyone keep still,’ ordered Coleman. ‘No one move.’

            Noises echoed down every shaft. Coleman couldn’t tell from which direction the creatures approached. They could be trapped already.

            Which way?

            ‘Captain…,’ hissed Marlin urgently. The smoke engulfed Marlin’ boots and began moving up his legs. ‘I can’t see anything. I don’t know which way the creature’s going. It’s gunna be dirt-naps all round if we don’t make a move soon.”

            Coleman’s situation looked exactly the same, except he had
three
smoke-filled shafts to contend with. Coleman reached under his body armor.

            Wild card time.

            He pulled out the specimen container he’d taken from Vanessa’s lab. He twisted open the lid and shook out the butterflies. The five butterflies fluttered madly around the intersection. Coleman knew the creatures’ pheromones attracted the butterflies. With luck, the insects would identify the most dangerous shafts. They would be his eyes. Coleman twisted in the intersection, trying to track the five butterflies dipping and zipping everywhere.

            ‘Which way are they going?’ he asked urgently.

            ‘Two went west,’ came King’s deep voice.

            ‘I’ve got two more down here,’ added Marlin. ‘They just passed me!’

            Coleman twisted and saw the last butterfly zip down the shaft to the north.

            ‘East!’ said Coleman, plunging headfirst into the smoke cloud. ‘Let’s go!’

            Scrambling blindly through the smoke-choked shaft, he hoped the butterflies hadn’t become dizzy during their ride under his body armor; if he crawled headlong into a creature, it was all-over, red-rover.

            His hand hit something spinning in the shaft, an M18 smoke grenade still spewing thick blue smoke.

            Halfway through the cloud. Keep going.

            Suddenly he emerged into clear shaft. Looking ahead, he felt relieved to see no immediate hostiles. The next intersection lay fifteen meters away.

            I wish I had more butterflies.

            About four more intersections separated them from the riser. Third Unit’s only possible escape route lay northeast of their position. The sound of rampaging creatures came from every direction, making it impossible to discern the safest route. Should he keep leading them east, or cut north now?

            At the intersection, he chose east.

            Halfway down the shaft, he regretted his decision. A creature moved up ahead.

            This was no echo.

            Coleman stopped short and thrust his flashlight forward. Third Unit and Vanessa’s labored breathing filled the shaft behind him. His light wobbled. His arm shook from exertion. He forced his arm to hold the light steadily down the shaft.

            At the intersection twenty meters ahead, he caught a flash of movement.

            A butterfly fluttered around the intersection, dipping and zipping through Coleman’s light.

            What did that mean? Was one of his released butterflies crossing their path again?

            Damn!

            ‘Nobody move,’ he warned. ‘They’re already in front of us. We need to get back to the last intersection and cut north again.’

            He gingerly turned in the shaft. The butterfly intersection, now behind him, suddenly filled with a creature’s obscene bulk.

            ‘Stop, Stop,’ he hissed. ‘No one move.’

            He cursed himself for not cutting north at the previous intersection. His mistake cost them.

            Some pattern genius you are.

            ‘Holy crap!’ yelled King.

            From the back of the line now, with a creature behind him, Coleman looked forward between the heads and shoulders in front.

            Another creature exploded from the smoke ahead.

            Holy crap, indeed.

            They now had hostiles at both ends.

            Trailing wisps of smoke, one creature charged straight at Marlin. Between Marlin and the hostile lay the last intersection they’d crossed, the intersection where Coleman had made the wrong choice. It was the only exit from this piece of shaft. But even if they all started crawling at full speed this very second, they couldn’t
all
beat the creature through the intersection.

            Maybe the first person would reach the intersection, maybe Marlin could, but none of the others would make it. Anyone caught before the intersection would be minced between two creatures.

            Only one solution existed.

            In a second, Marlin saw it too.

            Marlin charged at the creature.

            He moved so fast that his knees didn’t touch the shaft. His boot toes jammed into the bottom corners. His palms slapped hand-over-hand forwards, keeping his body’s momentum pounding towards the creature.

            He raced the creature towards the intersection.

            He’s not going to make it. He’s not fast enough.

            The intersection was too small for both of them.

            But Coleman had underestimated how
fast
Marlin could move. Marlin beat the creature by half a second. Barbed limbs thrashed into the intersection as Marlin dove into the side shaft.

            A tentacle caught his boot.

            The creature dragged him halfway back into the intersection.

            ‘Marlin - NO!’ yelled King. ‘Get out of there!’

            Marlin spun onto his back and wildly bicycle-kicked the thrashing limbs.

            King aimed his CMAR-17 down the shaft. ‘I’m coming, Marlin! I’m coming, baby!’

            ‘King - NO!’ yelled Forest, lunging for the weapon. ‘The surfactant will blow!’

            ‘Too bad!’ yelled King, dropping his finger to the trigger.

            ‘Hold your fire,’ ordered Coleman.

            King fired anyway. The single shot smacked squarely into the creature.

            As the creature reeled from the impact, Marlin kicked with his other boot to dislodge the snagged tentacle. In two fast kicks, he came free.

            The creature hauled its head into the intersection.

            Marlin kicked out with both feet together. His boot heels smashed into the creature’s head. Using the momentum from his kick, Marlin launched himself further down the shaft.

            Coleman heard Marlin plunge wildly down the south tunnel, away from the creature. Behind Coleman, the second creature headed south too. With all the fans gone, Marlin’s vibrations must have been drawing every creature in the vicinity.

            ‘That idiot,’ moaned King when he heard Marlin pounding away south. ‘He’s going the wrong way.’

            ‘No, he’s not,’ snapped Forest, grabbing King before he could follow. ‘He’s drawing the creatures away. He’s clearing our route to the riser.’

            ‘Screw that!’ barked King. ‘Screw the riser.’

            ‘Let’s go,’ said Coleman from behind. ‘Get moving. That’s an order, Sergeant King.’

            King accommodated this time.

            Third Unit and Vanessa backtracked to the last intersection, turned right, then crossed another four intersections before they reached the riser.

            ‘Up the shaft,’ urged Coleman. ‘Hurry.’

            The riser was the same dimensions as all the other shafts, only it went straight up. Shallow maintenance handholds were recessed ladder-like up one side. Coleman heard the
hissssss
of the surfactant being released into the vents nearby. First Forest, then King and Vanessa scaled the riser. At the top, twenty meters up, Coleman lifted his head over the edge. His guess about the riser proved correct.

            He’d briefly glimpsed this structure before entering the pool room. Third Unit hunkered down in a steel, boxy intersection about eight meters across, a meter high, with a dozen shafts radiating outwards.