Toxic (82 page)

"T
his female was put to sleep before we left," the Säzkari declared the moment the cryo-coffin was put down.

As a collaborator and expert in reanimation, Elaine had been invited to participate in the experiment. She followed the reptilian in his sometimes awkward way of moving around, as if his size was an annoyance to him.
Or maybe it's Earth's gravity?
she wondered.

"The fluids were extracted, centrifuged and then frozen separately as your medical documentation specifies."

The nurse raised an eyebrow. The alien read human textbooks?

"What did you put in its place?"

The doctor showed her a vial with a bright yellow liquid.

"Cryo-fluid."

"Like glycerol?"

The creature's tongue slid between his lips and vibrated like that of a snake. As a child, she remembered having run into a snake with her dad. Just like that day back then, her hair stood up on her skin.

"Cryo-fluid is made by a Collective research laboratory. I don't know any more than that."

"You injected a human with a substance that you don't know anything about? What type of doctor are you exactly?"

"That's not a question we can discuss and as for the cryo-fluid, you should discuss the details with the emissary. I only know the theory."

What did he mean by that? She shook her head.

The alien pushed the tray, which levitated towards the room beside the laboratory. They didn't need a respirator here at least. One of Richardson's men was waiting for them in front of the rusty doors. The goon handed her a briefcase after letting the reptilian go in.

"Medical materials. It belonged to our doc. He was bitten during a trip to land. We think it might be of use to you."

"Um... Thanks," she smiled, before entering the gloomy room.

She gave herself a moment. The comparison with a coffin came to her mind out of the blue as soon as she set her eyes on the cylinders. Technically, the person inside was dead. Her heart had stopped beating and her body had even been purged of its blood. Not a drop of it was left. If she had to cut into the flesh, would that yellow liquid seep out?

"The procedure is very simple," the unlikely doctor explained. "First, we are going to reheat the pouches of blood products and mix them. Next, we will bring the subject's temperature up, but not too much, just enough for the cryo-fluid to become liquid again."

He interrupted himself to point to the contents of a second trolley. Elaine noticed two glass vials and a machine with tubes. The apparatus was mounted on a sort of three-dimensional screen.

"This device will let us do the pumping. Your part will come only when general blood flow is reestablished."

The nurse remained still, the ridiculous suitcase in hand, in front of the cryo-coffin and the trays levitating around it. The alien didn't seem to need any help. He looked like he dominated the subject in his claws.

"I don't understand. What am I supposed to do?"

"Jave assured me that you were a human Säzkari. Is there a problem?"

"A what?"

"
Knij letop
," the creature then whistled. "Your role will be to make the heart beat again and assure that the product is normal according to your medical criteria."

"The product?"

"The female should see a familiar face when she wakes up. My form risks scaring her to the point that she dies form shock. Permanently this time."

"Oh... First, if you want us to work together, this woman is a patient. Not a product."

Instinct, Masters remembered, was forged during combat. There existed an intuition in everyone, and it was just a question of turning it into a reflex. The clicking noise activated a chain of decisions destined to resolve life or death situations. On Parris Island, the colonel had taught young recruits the art of sharpening their senses with scenarios mixing stress, traps, and confinement in urban or hostile environments.

Tracking a junkie in a house shrouded in darkness was nonetheless a first. When he went to go search for the singer, he felt like something was wrong without being able to explain it. Once he was at the bottom of the stairs, he took the 45 from his belt and stepped over the remains of a dresser. The silent residence blocked out noises coming from outside. Even though nothing indicated danger, his experience and his instinct were shouting the opposite. He made his internal voices shut up and walked along the former entrance hall towards the kitchen. He discovered the package of cereal burst all over the tiles covered in dust and stains. The only set of prints showed Alva's passage. The diva had gone to the French door.

He noticed other prints in the garden dirt. Larger. The colonel went back to the others.

"Where is she?" Bruce said, alarmed, seeing the colonel come back without the singer.

"I have no idea. I have the feeling that something is happening. I don't like it."

From the window of the room, he snuck a glance towards the peaceful street. He didn't see anything abnormal, not a person nor a vehicle. The tops of the trees took on an orange color under the rays of the sun at the end of its daily route. The biologist didn't stop pacing across the room.

"If she's having a crisis, she's probably looking for drugs. The problem is that she won't find any here."

"That's exactly what worries me," Masters said.

The young man looked stressed. "In that state, she can convince herself to do anything."

"We need to find her."

"I agree. You stay with Alison and Dew. I'm going to explore the surroundings. I doubt she would go far in any case."

Bruce nodded. The colonel spoke with the girl and the Asian for a moment. He promised that he would come back as fast as possible and then disappeared down the stairs.

The possibility of a confrontation with an armed group forced them to remain together and to not disperse. The layout of the area didn't make their job any easier. The clusters of popular middle-class American homes were abundant in this suburban area. The fugitives could be hiding in any one of them. Splitting up would be the best way to cover the largest amount of territory in a minimum of time. A risky option.

The good news was that they hadn't found "fresh" corpses in the surroundings. Accompanied by two men, Hector had walked along the ramparts, and had seen the dead wandering around in the stagnant water. He had come back feeling nauseous, but relieved that he hadn't run into the body of one of the members of the group.

After a close examination of the premises, new decisions had to be made. Therefore, Jon had gathered the small troop. The leader of the expedition spread an old road map across the rusted hood of the pickup.

"We're here. If we trust the tire tracks, we can assume that they have a vehicle, which makes the perimeter quite a bit bigger. Since we have three cars, we're going to have to split into three."

The Colombian listened to his logical and sensible speech. Up until a certain point.

First, there was that rope tied around a tree with an L-D with a crushed skull and a 45 casing nearby. Combined with that, the presence of numerous tracks that all went in one direction meant...

Hector interrupted the presentation.

"I want to explore the area.
ࠅs posible, eso?
" he said, pointing to the map.

The men exchanged suspicious looks.

"It's close to here. No need for a vehicle. We could go there on foot," the Colombian added.

"OK, but I'm not leaving you alone. Hanson, you go with him."

The man, a beefy guy with a Midwest accent, nodded.

"Each group explores its area and we meet back up here," Jon pointed with his index finger. "In one hour. If you're late, we'll assume that you ran into trouble. Don't look for it, understood?"

At the end of the briefing, Jon gave each team a mechanical timer.

Ten minutes later, Hector stood in front of the tree with the rope wrapped around it, which had allowed someone to climb out of the moat. Or many people. His new friend seemed more interested in the show at the bottom of the sludge. He leaned over with a disgusted look on his face.

"If your friends were in there..." he started. "I doubt they got out."

He spat. The loogie splattered onto a bald head. The shattered mouth grunted in the direction of the man who had just provoked it, thus alerting its fellow creatures. Fingers scratched on the bricks and arms stretched towards the sky.

Hanson gave them the finger.

"Keep it up, you fuckers. Yell some more."

"They were here," Hector said.

Without waiting for his partner, he started along the path, which wound towards a former parking lot. They found themselves in front of a weapon from the Middle Ages.

"Where the fuck did this thing come from?" Hanson commented.

The more they moved, the more the evidence accumulated. The Colombian made a summary of events. Someone had used this machine to catapult
los muertos
into the property, forcing his friends to flee.

"Let's keep going," he said.

Following their tracks, Hector followed the trail up until a neighboring subdivision. Hanson covered him, his machine gun displayed. He seemed more like the type to shoot first and ask questions later.

After crossing the garden, the two men came to a cul-de-sac partially plunged in darkness.

"
Ya va a ser noche.
"

Hanson looked around him with worry.

"We have to be quick and think about getting back to the meeting point."

"
Sí
."

Hector crouched down. His hands touched a crack where vegetation was growing, taking advantage of the small holes to proliferate. Life continued despite everything. His fingers caressed young sprouts with tiny green leaves.

"Nobody's here," Hanson said.

A gunshot contradicted him all of a sudden. The two of them turned in the direction of its origin, then the Colombian hurried that way. His partner stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Softly now. There's only two of us. There might be a lot of them."

"My friends are in trouble. I can't leave them."

Hector plowed through a garden. He came out on the neighboring street, which he followed, jogging and searching the corners of the surroundings. He knew that she wasn't Marisol, but they looked so much like each other.

The singer's silhouette appeared around the corner with people around her. Hector and Hanson hid behind the bushes. From their position, their view stretched until the beginning of a lawn, on top of which they made out a two-floor house. Alva was in the background, sitting on the sidewalk. Two steps in front of her, he spotted a man with an M16 and another wearing a hood. The Colombian's forehead wrinkled. "I've already seen these guys," he mumbled.

"And the girl?"

"Alva. She was with us."

"Something seems weird with her."

Slouched over, she seemed... high. The men weren't even watching her.

Masters came out of the house, his hands on his head. A man who looked like a butcher threatened him with a gun. Then the Asian and the girl came, which gave him back his smile: they were all alive.

"It looks like your friends are in trouble."

Hector watched the armed men take his friends towards a truck. He risked losing them again. Four men, he counted, this might be doable. All of a sudden, he gave his gun to Hanson.

"I'm going there."

"Are you crazy? If you show up, they will shoot you. We'd be best to go back to the others and come back. They're only four and we're twelve."

"
No.
I can't let them leave. It'll be too late when I come back. We need to get the Asian back."

"It's not a good idea, man. Jon will be furious."

"Believe me, this is no worse than negotiating with
narcos
or DEA agents. This is what I want you to do," Hector started.

"
¡Hola!
"

As soon as she heard his voice, her heart stopped beating. Alva turned around. It was him. Hector. Her eyes lit up and she wanted to run towards the Colombian to hug him. The barrel between her shoulder blades stopped her. With a forceful gesture, she was pushed against the trailer.

"You don't move!" her captor said.

The trafficker moved towards them, his arms raised. His sudden appearance had unsettled everyone. Masters' face froze and Dan and the hooded man moved between them immediately, threatening him with their guns.

"I'm unarmed," Hector declared.

Alva thought that he must be crazy to show up like that. What did he have in mind? She exchanged glances with the colonel, who was surely asking the same question.

"Stay where you are," Dan yelled.

"I'm Hector."

"I don't care. Get out of here."

"Sorry to interrupt you. What you're doing with these people is none of my business."

"Exactly," Dan answered. "None of your business."

The singer frowned. What was he playing at?

"I've been watching you for a while and I though you could help me. You have weapons and - he turned towards the truck in the middle of the road - a means of transportation."