Fast (69 page)

            With water blasting down over her face, she realized it seemed to have worked.

            She carefully found her feet, close enough to reach out and pat the creature’s body. Now wasn’t the time to gloat. Already the creature was starting to move its tentacles.

            Vanessa grabbed the templates and climbed over the workstation and collapsed splash barrier. The creature started thrashing around in the control room behind her, raking its tentacles over every surface as though it were trying to capture everything at once.

            She slowed her movements, stopping completely when her gaze fell on the pool again.

            It’s Forest.

            Forest floated in the middle of the pool, weakly kicking his right leg every few seconds. Just enough to keep his face above water. Every kick sent a grimacing wave of pain across his features. His every breath looked excruciating. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

            Vanessa felt tremendous relief.
He’s alive,
a
nd I’m going to keep him that way.

            She slid on her butt across the wet plexiglass into the pool room. The two other creatures in the room were going crazy under the sprinklers. She didn’t know how long it would be safe to move.
I need to act fast.

            She ran three steps, but slid to a stop when she saw the two remaining creatures react. Both creatures lurched in her direction and then stopped when she stopped.

            They’re learning to see through the vibration blanket. I can’t get any closer to the pool.

           
Her eyes went above the pool to the claw. She backed up slowly, delicately placing every footstep, and lifted the claw control unit off the wall.

            The claw was really just a remote controlled motorized winch that ran along the ceiling. At the moment its hook was fitted with two heavy-duty nylon lifting tethers. There was no actual claw attachment. Nonetheless, as she lowered the claw to the pool’s surface, it felt like one of those arcade games where the kid tries to retrieve the toy with the mechanical claw.

            I can’t pick him up, but if he grabs the tether, I can drag him over to the side and stop him from drowning.

            The nylon tethers dipped into the water. Vanessa played the controls to sweep the tethers over the top of Forest like an angler pulling a lure over a trout.

            Come on, Forest. Grab it.

            Forest saw what she was doing and started timing his kicks and then -

            …
lunge
…

            - with a scream of agony, he reached out and grabbed one tether.

            Vanessa wiped the water from her face on her shirt sleeve. It was hard to see through the pounding sprinklers.
Now what? If I pull him to the side, I still can’t reach him to help. All I’ve done is stop him drowning in the next few minutes. He can hardly move a muscle. He’s not strong enough to hold on while I lift him.

            Then, off to her left, halfway around the room, Sergeant William King staggered through the hatch. He looked almost as bad as Forest, except he was still on his feet. Deep lacerations shredded one side of his face. He clutched his stomach. Blood seeped between his fingers. He spotted Forest in the water holding the tether.

Drenched from head to toe, Coleman stepped around the corner and fired twice. The two terrorists in the corridor collapsed like limp scarecrows.

            That was too close.

            He’d been following them towards the diving arena. At one stage earlier, he was close to taking them out, but then the sprinkler system blasted to life and spoiled his aim. In the drenching downpour it became harder to track the gunmen. They had almost reached the diving arena’s south hatch before Coleman spotted them again. He could hardly see them through the falling water. He risked getting closer, trusting the sprinklers would conceal his approach. The sprinklers worked almost too well. Coleman came upon the men before he realized how close he was getting. The two shapes materialized out of the grey haze as he turned the corner.

            He’d raised his pistol just in time.

            Coleman slipped quickly past the two bodies. The water pelted their lifeless faces. He recognized them as two of the gunmen he had surprised in the lunchroom.
These two were with Cairns. So where is Cairns and Gould?

            Reaching the diving arena, he ducked warily through the south hatch. It took him a moment to absorb the scene. Pelting water from the sprinklers shrouded the entire room. He squinted against the water running into his eyes.

            Holy crap.

            Three
creatures occupied the arena, two near the pool and one in the control room. They were going haywire under the sprinklers. The splash barrier had collapsed completely into the control room.

            Two dead terrorists lay across the room near the north hatchway. Another dead gunman slumped against the wall off to Coleman’s left. Worst of all, and what immediately riveted his attention, was Forest floating nearly submerged in the pool. One glance told him Forest was badly injured. His weak grip on the claw-tether just kept his head above water. Bloody bubbles emerged from the corner of Forest’s mouth as he labored over every breath.

            Off to Coleman’s right, Vanessa held the claw controls.

            Directly across the room, limping with one hand holding his stomach and the other sliding a bloody trail across the wall, King stumbled towards the electric forklift.

            Coleman read the scenario in a heartbeat.

            He read it in every one of King’s painful steps.

            King planned to distract the creatures with the forklift, giving Vanessa a chance to pull Forest to safety. The plan was flawed, but King didn’t look to be thinking clearly. He was just trading his own life for Forest’s. Anytime now the sprinkler system could shut down, and then their situation would get even worse.

            King pulled himself up into the forklift’s yellow protective cage. He yanked the door shut. After a breathless moment where Coleman seemed to feel every individual water drop striking his face, the forklift shuddered forward and accelerated hard across the arena, starting a big lap around the pool.

            King’s plan worked. The creatures reacted immediately. They swarmed up and over the forklift, obscuring Coleman’s view of King struggling at the controls.

            Coleman dashed to the pool. He dropped and slid on his knees to a stop beside Forest. He reached into the pool and grabbed Forest’s fatigues. ‘It’s okay, Forest. I’ve gotcha, baby. I’m pulling you up. You’re gunna be fine.’

            Coleman pulled Forest from the pool as smoothly as he could. Forest screamed with his eyes, but kept his teeth locked together. Blood ran everywhere.

            Coleman knelt over his friend and looked for bullet wounds.
If he’s taken any hits from the super-bullets….

            Coleman didn’t finish the thought. He looked into Forest’s face. Forest struggled to breathe. He couldn’t even speak. Blood bubbled from his nose now too.

           
He’s hurt bad. He’s got internal injuries.

            Water ran off Coleman’s face and dripped into Forest’s. King passed behind them in the forklift.

            Spinning on his knees, Coleman tried to see how King could possibly expect to escape that rolling deathtrap in one piece.

            Three creatures swarmed all over the forklift, tearing away anything not bolted down. They would start on the protective cage any second. The forklift wobbled valiantly ahead, struggling to maintain its speed, rocking side-to-side under the creature’s frenetic onslaught.

           
But not for much longer
, thought Coleman as a hydraulic pipe tore free from the forklift. Green hydraulic fluid jetted from the ruptured pipe.

            The forklift skewed to one side, veering towards the pool. King hit the brakes, but it was already too late. The fork shot out over the edge of the pool. First the left front wheel, then the undercarriage scraped over the edge.

            The forklift jerked to a stop, teetering over the water. King threw his weight against the door, but it only came open wide enough for his head and left arm to emerge. He struggled against the door, squirming his massive torso through the tight aperture. His body protruded halfway out when the forklift began tipping into the pool.

            ‘King! Get out of there!’ Coleman hollered across the pool.

            The forklift toppled straight into the water with King stuck halfway out of the cage.

            Coleman was up and running before he knew what he was doing. He sprinted around the pool and past the demolished scuba trolley, scooping up a heavy-duty steel trolley shelf that had landed near the pool. It was the only heavy object in his path.

            Gripping the shelf at either end, he launched himself into the pool headfirst.

            He hit the water just seconds behind the forklift. The shelf dragged Coleman straight down through the clear blue water. The forklift tumbled through the water ahead, trailing a dozen streams of turbulent bubbles. Coleman saw King’s struggling shape still trying to escape. He angled the shelf to pull him into the bubbling wake of the forklift.

It’s not fast enough.

He wasn’t gaining on the forklift’s descent. He wasn’t going to catch the yellow tumbling mantrap.

            In seconds his lungs were burning, his head spinning, his ears throbbing from the sudden pressure change, but he held onto the heavy shelf and kept going down, down, down. He needed to pinch his nose to equalize his ears, but he didn’t dare let go of the shelf. It was the only way he could match the descent of the sinking forklift.

            He wasn’t coming up without King. He’d made that decision the moment he hit the water.

            In the last of the fading light, he saw something break away from the forklift.

            Please let that be King!

            It was King. But King wasn’t swimming. He just floated in the water column, turning limply in the turbulence from the forklift’s rapid descent.

           
He’s passed out. He used the last of his energy to escape the cage.

            Twisting the shelf into an even tighter angle, Coleman let his body cruise down towards King. As he reached his friend, he dropped the shelf and caught the back of King’s fatigues.

            King was a limp weight. Drowning, but not yet dead.

            But now neither of them had an air source and they were a long way from the surface.

            Coleman remembered the oxygen bottle in his fatigues pocket. He had used the bottle to escape the underlab with the templates.
It should have a few good breaths left in it.

            He fumbled the bottle from his pocket. Twisting the small air valve, he tilted the mask to make an air pocket, then pressed his face into the pocket.

            The oxygen rushed into his lungs, pushing back the haze of a fast-approaching blackout. The oxygen also fed the part of his brain proposing a fundamentally important question.