Fast (43 page)

            Cairns ignored the body and waited.
He got his fresh air, at least.

            As more shafts were checked, a tiny doubt formed in Cairns’s mind.

            ‘They’re not up here,’ reported the last gunman, appearing through the ceiling hatch over the forklift. He looked shiny with sweat. He clambered down with parts of his fatigues smoking. ‘The templates aren’t up there. Just that one body we found.’

            They had found only one dead Marine. Cremated alive.

            As Cairns’s frustration peaked, Bora came over the radio. Bora had taken a team to secure Cairns’s route to the surface with the valuable templates.

            ‘I’ve got them. I’ve got them in visual,’ reported Bora. ‘Sharp’s with them. They’re crossing the communal lounge towards us.’

            Suddenly the hot shafts above Cairns seemed irrelevant. The Marines had somehow escaped up to the habitation level. Bora was up there already. He had them in sight. He had a larger force.
Don’t let me down, Bora.

            Then the firefight broke out. Cairns heard the distant shooting. Bora issued orders over the radio. Cairns allowed himself a small smile. It sounded like a one-sided battle. All the weapon noise came from P190s, not CMAR-17s. The Special Forces were hardly returning fire.

            Abruptly, a span of silence came. The silence stretched. Cairns demanded an update, but Bora didn’t hear or wasn’t replying.

            The next message had Bora demanding an escape route from the cinema!
An escape route from the cinema?
The cinema was right across the other side of the level.

            What had gone wrong? From Bora’s last radio message, Cairns understood they had the Special Forces pinned-down, outgunned and outnumbered. Bora had all the advantages.

           
Something
had happened.
Something
had changed the tide of the skirmish.

            Cairns knew exactly what that something must have been.

            Gould’s creatures.

            The cinema had no second exit, and Cairns heard a distant firefight break out. This firefight sounded very different to the last. It sounded like men fighting desperately for their lives, not springing an ambush. The desperation was clear to every sweat-soaked gunman standing around the forklift. Cairns ignored their alarmed glances.

The cinema was quiet.

            Seconds earlier it roared with the noise of fully automatic gunfire, screaming men, doors crashing and chairs flying.

            Now it was quiet.

            After a full minute of absolute silence came the first sound.

            Footsteps. Boots walking up the aisle.

            Bora emerged warily from the cinema. Seven men and four creatures had entered the cinema.

            Only Bora came out.

            Outside, he drew his father’s hunting knife and started scraping the white jelly off his head. The creature’s abdomen had exploded all over him. He’d almost drowned in the slimy white muck. He ran the razor sharp blade over his scalp, not caring about the chunks of hair that came away. Flicking his wrist dislodged a glob of congealed hair and mucus from the knife. He wiped the weapon carefully on the leg of his fatigues. After checking the clean blade, he returned the knife to its old leather sheath at his hip.

            ‘Son of a bitch…’ he murmured slowly, looking towards the open communal lounge where his near-victory had been transformed into his near-death in a matter of seconds.

            Bora heard a small voice coming from his chest. His radio earpiece still worked apparently. The earpiece had fallen away while he was crawling under the seats. He wiped clean the earpiece and fitted it into his ear.

            ‘Bora – answer me!’ roared Cameron Cairns.

            ‘I’m here,’ Bora replied flatly.

            ‘What’s your status?’ demanded Cairns. ‘What’s happening up there? Have you secured the templates?’

           
All he cares about are his precious templates
, thought Bora. He must have heard the firefight over the radio. He knew we were trapped.

           
‘My entire team was just wiped out in the cinema,’ tested Bora. ‘I assume you heard it all over the radio.’

            ‘I heard,’ remarked Cairns stiffly.
‘You’re the only survivor?’

            ‘Everyone else was torn apart by Gould’s creatures.
We lost the Marines in the communal lounge.’

            ‘Fuck it!’ hissed Cairns.

            Bora was unsure if Cairns’s anger stemmed from losing six men or losing the Marines.
Probably the latter. We’re all expendable after all.

            ‘The templates aren’t in the shafts,’ advised Cairns, slightly calmer now. ‘Vanessa Sharp must still have them.’

            Bora remembered the direction the Marines were moving before his ambush. They weren’t heading for the nearest surface exit, which Bora would have expected. They had risked remaining in the Complex for some other purpose. A purpose important enough to warrant exposing themselves to more attacks from the creatures.

            ‘Send everyone to meet me on the habitation level,’ said Bora. ‘I know what the Marines are looking for. I know where to find them.’

            ‘Are you sure?’

            ‘Absolutely positive.’ Bora tugged the radio from his ear. He let the earpiece drop back down to his chest. He’d had enough of listening to Cairns.

            Bora walked straight towards the recreational reserve.

#

Meter for meter, the recreational reserve was the most botanically diverse ecosystem in the northern hemisphere.

            The reserve sheltered under an enormous plexiglass dome. Three hundred meters long, two hundred meters wide, the dome enclosed the ecosystem from the unforgiving conditions of the surrounding desert. The dome was also a pathogen barrier. It protected the outside world from genetic contamination.

            As the reserve expanded northwards under the dome, a continuous succession of habitats blended up a gradual incline. The resulting microclimates allowed vastly different species to flourish in the confined area. At the southernmost end, at the bottom of this incline, the forest floor was level with the pedestrian loop.

            The reserve was the only area in the Complex that spanned two entire levels.

            Coleman scanned the vegetation with a wary eye. Fifth Unit’s blood trail led here.

            The trail had followed the plate glass wall that split the reserve from the pedestrian loop. The two-hundred-meter long wall was formed from twenty-foot-wide panels of interlocking glass. For the staff living on this side of the habitation level - with such a big stretch of the western wall being essentially transparent - it must have been like having a jungle for a back yard.

            Coleman just felt dangerously exposed as he reached the reserve’s service entrance. The service entrance provided the only access point for vehicles. Beyond the entrance, a service road penetrated a further hundred meters into the reserve before branching left and right.

            Coleman knelt at the entrance and peered into the artificial ecosystem. He stared into the
oldest
section of the reserve. This part of the reserve looked prehistoric. Ferns and cycad palms carpeted the ground. Tree ferns framed the entrance. Keeping this section lush, fine mist sprays made it impossible to see very far. Light streaming through the overhead canopy formed eerily-glowing columns through the mist. At the perimeter of his vision Coleman could just distinguish thicker trunks where the dominant plant species became tall hardwoods.

            The tree trunks could as easily have been a line of Cairns’s gunmen waiting in the mist.

            An engraved metal diagram hung eye-level on the glass framing the entrance. It mapped the walking paths crisscrossing the reserve. A suspended walking trail, like a bridge network, also wound through the reserve. Coleman couldn’t see any of it through the mist.

            It’s probably higher up, in the canopy somewhere.

            A sign hung below the diagram.

            This area, the ‘Fern Gully’, according to the sign, represented the lowest point of the reserve. As the reserve climbed away, the trails passed through progressively more evolutionarily-recent plant families.

            The fern gully formed the primitive heart of the reserve.

            ‘I don’t like this,’ complained Forest, peering suspiciously through the mist. ‘We won’t see the creatures coming. This is their natural environment.’

            Coleman suspected the same thing. He pivoted to Vanessa. ‘Is he right? Are we walking into a slaughterhouse here?’

            Vanessa crouched with her palm pressed on the glass. Her right hand absently dropped to her tablet. ‘I don’t think so. The creatures don’t
have
a natural
environment. They wouldn’t be especially attracted to the reserve unless a strong vibration source started inside. In fact, the reserve is probably one of the safest places in the Complex. All that ground cover acts as a natural vibration dampener.’

            ‘Is that why they dragged Fifth Unit here?’ guessed King. ‘To avoid the creatures?’

            ‘Makes sense,’ agreed Forest. ‘But what were they doing in there? Why move Fifth Unit anywhere?’

            Vanessa nodded into the reserve. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

            Coleman scanned the service road for signs of another ambush. Plenty of opportunities existed in this type of environment.

            ‘We need that satellite radio. We need to get in, find the radio, and then get out again. If we encounter hostiles, either type, we’re going to have to run. No shooting.’

            King and Forest nodded gravely as they tightened the quick-release straps that secured their CMAR-17s across their chests.

            The gravel service road crackled under Coleman’s boots as, half crouching, he entered the reserve and cut across to where the spongy leaf litter silenced his footsteps.

            It’s humid in here. Hot.

            Following the service road a little further along uncovered the terrorists’ trail again. They hadn’t been trying to conceal their movements.

           
Coleman guessed why.
They predicted we’d all be dead by now.

            Edging around a moss-encrusted boulder, he got a better view of the intersection ahead. At least six terrorists had dragged three bodies by their ankles up the service road. They had turned left at the intersection. That part of the service road ended at a fenced-off compound. Just three structures. Half a dozen vehicles were parked inside the fence. The wide double gates looked padlocked.

            The trail didn’t lead into the compound. It cut up beside the fence and continued behind the compound.

            Behind the compound, a steep, fern-carpeted slope climbed up to the western edge of the dome.