Some Fine Day (36 page)

“What do you think happened?”

I shake my head. “No idea. But we need to keep moving. I guess we’ll find out in a minute.”

“But why is the body still here?” Will says. “Why haven’t they shut down the. . . freezy-thing or whatever it is? Why haven’t they replaced the guard?”

He’s right. “I don’t know.”

“Those go to the top?” Will says, pointing to the elevator bank.

“Yep.”

He shuts his eyes for a moment. “I thought I’d never see the surface again,” he says. “I don’t know how you did it. Lived down here.”

“I don’t either. And I’m never coming back,” I say. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” He puts a hand on my arm. “They’re experimenting on toads up there?”

“Yes.”

“With the same drug they gave to me and the others?”

“Yes.”

“What did it do? To the toads, I mean.”

I can’t lie to him. “It made them more violent.”

“So the plan is to go up there, somehow slip past the super-toads and the guards and whoever else, and steal a plane that we then fly straight into a hypercane?”

“Yes.”

“Do you even know how to fly it?”

“I told you, I trained for years on a simulator.”

Will gives me a flat stare. “A simulator.”

“It was very realistic.”

“You know this is insane?”

“I’m aware of that, yes. But nobody does crazy better than us.”

He looks at me, shakes his head.

“We could leave now,” I say, even though it kills me. “Take our chances in the tunnels. Try to get to a different prefecture.”

Will is quiet for a long time and I can tell there’s a fierce internal struggle going on. Considering what happened to his family, I can’t blame him. If I knew there were toads someplace, I’d be running in the opposite direction.

“No,” he says finally. “We go up. I just wanted to know what’s there.”

I nod. “Shoot anyone or anything that moves. They’re not going to know what hit them.”

Will runs over and hits the call buttons on all three elevators. All three are at the surface. A digital display panel shows the center one start to move, slowly at first, then gaining speed.

We watch the elevator descend until it’s a few seconds away. Then we get up and flank the door on either side, weapons ready. I’m shaking so hard from the cold that the barrel is jumping all over the place. Surface security must have watched everything go down on camera. They’ll be expecting us.

The light over the doors flashes and they swish open. It’s empty.

“Another trap?” Will says.

“Maybe. But there’s no other way to the top.”

Tinny music is playing, an ancient pop song I’ve heard before but can’t place.

We step inside and I lean against the wall while Will hits a button that says L1. My stomach lurches as we rocket upward. I slide down to the floor and try not to throw up.

“Raindrops keep falling on my head,” I say after a while.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Are you gonna be OK, Jansin?”

“Yeah.”

Defying expectations, the elevator does not stop midway or explode or fall. Four minutes later, we reach the surface. The doors open. We step outside.

Cool wind whips through my hair and my lungs fill with salt air. We’re standing on a platform in the middle of the ocean. Huge swells lash the steel legs anchoring the structure to the seabed. Squat, windowless buildings occupy most of the space. The rest is devoted to three wind turbines, which must power the station, and an array of meteorological sensors. There’s no one in sight.

We follow a catwalk around the perimeter until we come to a door. It’s slightly ajar. I push the door all the way open with my boot, both hands on the grip of the guard’s pistol. It leads to a hallway that ends in what must be the common room, where the researchers spend their down time. The furniture is worn but comfortable-looking: couch, two armchairs, a pool table, the real kind, with green felt and colored balls. A chalkboard on the wall lists the player rankings: Lewis, , Jiles, Garza, Hamilton, Goodlove.

The place is deserted. It’s chilly too, like no one’s bothered to turn the heat on in days.

Neither of us speaks as we move through a doorway into the medlab, but I know Will feels it too. The
wrongness
. The people here could have been pulled out for a hundred different reasons: contagious illness, bad weather, even unexpected budget cuts. But I keep thinking of that door being ajar. Not the way you leave a multi-million-dollar installation when the evac is orderly.

I share a look with Will and know he’s thinking the same thing.

Where are the toads?

“Over here,” he hisses, pointing to a rectangular Plexiglas window at the far side of the lab.

A large biosafety cabinet blocks my view. When I clear it, every nerve in my body ramps up a notch. Because on the other side is a row of cages. And all the doors are wide open.

“Oh shit,” Will says with feeling.

Oh shit is right.

I think back to the report I found on Nix. It said the study population consisted of sixteen adults and nine juveniles. Twenty-five altogether.

“We need to find that plane,” I whisper. “And wherever they keep the weapons.”

It would be nice to have something better than a pistol.

“They’re loose.” Will is standing stock still. He’s barely even breathing. “Oh my God, they’re loose.”

My skin crawls as I look at that row of empty cages. I’ve never seen a toad. Which makes it worse. Because it gives my imagination free rein to conjure up some pretty awful things.

We just stand there, listening for a minute. It’s deathly quiet.

“OK,” I whisper, eyes whipping from the doorway ahead of us to the ones on either side. “If you were a toad and you escaped somehow, you wouldn’t stick around, right? You’d get the hell out of here as fast as you could.”

Will doesn’t answer. He’s just staring at the cages like a mouse looking into the eyes of a cobra.

“I’m a crack shot,” I say. “I placed third in the marksmanship competition at my school two years in a row. And I swear to God, if any of those things are still here, I will fill them with lead. You have my promise, OK?”

He nods, without taking his eyes off the cages.

“Good. But like I said, there aren’t any here because they jumped back into the ocean. And they did us a big favor and took out the guards before they left. So really, we should be thanking them. Now let’s do what we came to do so we can get the hell out of here too.”

I tug his hand and he drags his eyes to mine. They have some of that blankness he had at the Helix, like he’s not entirely sure who I am, and it scares me.

“It’s over, Will. Whatever happened is over. So here’s the plan. We secure this place first, see if anyone’s left, then we get to the plane. Can you manage that?”

“Yeah,” he mutters.

We go back into the common room, locking doors behind us as we go. Now that he’s moving, Will seems to snap out of it a little. He’s paying attention, at least, and helping me check any possible hiding places. Now I’m noticing blood spatter, not a lot but enough. Something bad went down here. That must have been what triggered the tube’s defenses. I’d assumed it was an attack from below. Maybe even an accident. But the crisis was
up here
. I wonder why they didn’t summon help, and get my answer when we reach the com center. All the equipment is smashed to bits. It was a deliberate act, and more worrisome than anything else. It means they’re smart.

We clear the cafeteria and start on the individual sleeping quarters. Will instinctively understands how to operate as a two-person team, covering me as I enter the rooms one by one and communicating mostly in hand gestures. I’d said that whatever happened was over, and we don’t find anything to contradict that, but neither of us is eager to make a lot of noise either. Just in case.

We don’t find any weapons, but we don’t find bodies either, and I have to wonder where they are. Would the toads have taken them? I know nothing about how their minds work, what drives them, so all my training on enemy psychology is worthless. There were guards here too, for a resident staff of twelve. Where the hell is everyone?

We’re in the sixth room when I notice a white lab coat hanging from a hook with the name Goodlove sewn on a tag at the collar. Rafiq’s mole.

“Hurry up,” Will mouths as I cross the room to the dresser and open the top drawer. I don’t know what I expect to find, maybe some magical microchip with all the data from Nix, but I have to look. What I get is undies, the no-nonsense granny kind that come up to your bellybutton. I’m turning to leave when something under the bed brushes my foot.

I leap back and start squeezing the trigger when I realize that it’s a human hand.

The bed’s a lightweight army cot, so rather than get down on the floor I just lift the whole thing up. There’s a middle-aged guy underneath in a T-shirt and drawstring pajama pants. He’s balding, with brown skin and a close-shaved beard. The shirt is badly charred across the chest indicating that he took a hit from laser fire. There was no blood trail because the burns cauterized.

I meet Will’s eyes and we switch places without speaking. I have some rudimentary training in field medicine, but this is his area of expertise. He finds a pulse, careful not to touch the burns, and nods. Still alive. We quickly check the remaining quarters, which are all empty, and then put the guy on a blanket and drag him back to the medlab.

“The wounds are scabbing over, so they’re more than a day old, probably two,” Will says as he breaks the lock on a drug cabinet and scans the contents. Now that he has someone to doctor, his confidence is returning. No more blankness. Just his efficient physic face. “Whatever happened wasn’t recent.”

“Can you get him talking?” I ask.

“I’ll try. He’s in shock.”

“Will you be OK here if I clear the rest of the station?”

“Just lock the door behind you,” he says, setting Jake’s laser weapon next to a sink. “And be careful.”

“Always,” I say.

The rest consists of a dining hall and galley kitchen, storage areas, and a co-ed bathroom with three shower stalls. The kitchen is well-stocked with food and water, which I intend to take when we get out of here. Who knows what Iceland is like now? I want to imagine that it’s lush and green, like the valley that used to mesmerize me on the train, but it could be barren. We need to be prepared for anything.

I’m in the bathroom, about to kick open the last opaque shower door, when my butt starts vibrating and I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s the phone Rafiq gave to Will.

“Jansin?” a woman’s voice says. The connection isn’t great – understandably, since it’s being relayed six thousand feet down and eight hundred miles south – but I can hear her.

“Who is this?”

“Dr Aviva Sorin. I treated you yesterday.”

“How do you have this number?”

“Rafiq gave it to me.”

“He’s dead.”

“No, I’m with him now. I came back to check on you and found him outside. There was substantial blood loss, but he’s resting comfortably now.”

It sounds so like my fantasy that Rafiq made it somehow that I’m instantly suspicious.

“Why should I believe you?”

“You can speak to him yourself. Not too long, please. He’s still quite weak.”

There’s a pause. Then Rafiq comes on the line.

“Are you there?” he asks. His voice is hoarse, but I’d recognize it anywhere.

“I’m here.” I smile for the first time in what feels like weeks. “And so are you. I can’t believe it.”

“I almost wasn’t. Aviva is a miracle worker, apparently. Are you topside?”

“Yes, but there’s a complication. The toads broke free somehow, probably in the last forty-eight, and everyone’s gone. Communications are down.”

“Good God. I wondered why I couldn’t reach my source.” He’s quiet for a moment. “The station sends reports on a weekly basis. It’s likely no one back in Raven Rock knows yet. And it doesn’t change the basic picture. I still need that data.”

“We found one survivor. Will’s working on him now. But it’s not Goodlove, unless Goodlove has exotic taste in undergarments.”

“What?”

“It’s a man. Just tell me how to send it, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Use the phone. It has a 42-qubit memory that could handle a thousand times what they’ve got.” He coughs painfully. “Promise me, Jansin. Don’t leave without finding it. If you do, they’ll just mop up and start again.”

“I know that, and I won’t. What about Samer?”

“He’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry.” And I am. He seemed like a decent person. They’ve murdered a cop, and I hope Nu London brings a world of pain down on them for it. “I have to go now, Rafiq. This place isn’t safe. If you don’t get a transmission within the hour, something went wrong. Don’t forget the others I told you about.”

Every instinct is screaming at me to run to that plane and take off before it’s too late, but I remember Fatima bringing me the strappy dress and just can’t do it. If Rafiq can do something to help them, we have to try. Besides, I have a personal bone to pick with Dr Rebekah Carlsson.

“Take care of yourself,” I say.

“You too, Jansin. And you’ll be glad to know you’re mother’s been released. They got what they wanted.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” I say, and something tight inside me lets go a little bit. We both know that what they wanted was her connection with Rafiq, but there’s no bitterness in his voice. He made his choice that night when I called him from our kitchen, and Will would be dead if he had chosen differently. Will would be dead, and Samer would be alive. “Goodbye, Rafiq.”

I end the call and go back to the medlab. Will has cut off the guy’s shirt and smeared him with antiseptic burn cream. He also put some on his own arm where the agent sprayed him with Chemnite.

“I just talked to Rafiq,” I say. “He’s alive.”

“Seriously?” Will’s eyes search mine. “How is that possible?”

“Aviva found him before he bled out. Got him out of there somehow. They killed Samer. I don’t know where Rafiq is now, but he says he can still move the data on Nix if we deliver it. He’ll nail them to the wall, Will. He’s got the connections. But I can’t get into the databanks on my own. Can you wake your patient up?”