TWENTY-THREE
GODDAMMIT, NOT FAST ENOUGH.
In a cloud of dust and rubble, cracked concrete and
plaster, Fossil burst into the hall across from the
elevator like a vision of hell. Its snout and hands were
red, splashes of violent color against its sickly white
skin, its giant, impossible body filling the corridor.
"Clip!" Leon screamed, not taking his gaze from
the looming monster, still a hundred feet in front of
them and not nearly far enough. He drew his empty
H&K and ejected the clip, barely aware that it was
Claire who handed him another as Fossil took a step
toward them...
... and David was firing the M-16, the clatter of
rounds blasting through the long hall, Fossil taking
another huge step forward as Leon slapped the clip
home. John was suddenly next to him, grabbing a rifle
mag from David, Claire on David's other side, all of
them targeting the creature.
Leon found the monster's right eye and squeezed
the trigger, the roar of his nine-millimeter lost in the
combined explosive firepower, all of them firing -
- bambambam, the sounds blending together,
deafening, Fossil tilting its head to one side as if
curious, taking another step into the wall of bullets.
"Fall back!" David shouted, and Leon backed up a
step, horrified by Fossil's lack of wounds. If they were
causing it any pain at all Leon couldn't see it, but it
was all they had. He tried for the eye again...
... and heard Claire screaming something, glanced
away long enough to see that she had a grenade out,
that she was handing it to David.
"Go, go, go!" David shouted, and John grabbed
Leon's arm and they turned and ran, Claire pacing
them, Leon praying that they were far enough away
not to be hit by the shreds of hot metal.
Claire ran, terrified, thinking that she'd never seen
anything like it. A blood-painted fishbelly nightmare,
a curved grin of wickedly sharp teeth and its hands,
the too-long fingers stained red -
- what is it, how is it -
"Fire in the hole!" David screamed, and Claire
pushed off the cement, trying to fly, seeing in that
airborne second Rebecca's pale, strained face, the girl
slumped against the back wall still a hundred feet
away...
... and BOOM, she was flying, John to her right, a
warm body falling against her back - and they all hit
the floor, Claire trying to take it on the shoulder,
landing too heavily on her arm instead.
Ow ow ow!
David had thrown himself against her, either on
purpose or from the blast, and as she sat up, turning,
she saw him grimace in pain. She saw two, three pieces
of dark metal stuck to his back, pinning the black fleece
to his skin, and reached out to help him...
... and saw the monster still standing. Brushing at
its chest and belly, at the blackened patches from the
frag grenade. A few shards had pierced its flesh, but
she thought - it was hard to tell from its silence,
from the way it took another step toward them it
looked seemingly unfazed. It opened its mouth, its
heavy lizard jaws - exposing strings of some unknown
meat stuck between its jagged teeth. Silently, it
took another step forward, grinning its carnivorous
grin, and Claire imagined that she could smell the
bloody meat of its breath, of whatever lay rotting in
its guts...
SNAP OUT OF IT!
She crawled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her
arm, reaching down to grab David's outstretched
hand and pull him up. The second he was on his feet
she pointed her nine-millimeter and started to fire
again, knowing it wasn't enough, not knowing what
else to do.
Four points of injury, all in his upper back, all
burning and sharp. David hissed air between his
teeth, decided the pain bearable, and put it aside until
further notice. The freakish monster wasn't down, it
may have slowed but it wasn't stopping, and they
didn't have anything bigger to throw at it than what
they'd already tried.
Run, we'll have to run...
Even as he thought it, he was opening his mouth to
shout, to be heard over John and Leon and Claire as
they emptied their weapons, the rounds as useless as
the grenade had been.
"John, get Rebecca! Fall back, we can't stop it!"
John was gone, Leon and Claire sidling backwards,
firing just as he was - on the slim chance that it was
doing some damage, that one of the rounds might hit
something that could be hurt.
"David, we could go through the test, reinforced
steel!" John shouted, and David wasn't sure what he
was talking about but he understood "reinforced
steel." It probably wouldn't stop the mutant animal,
but it might slow it down enough for them to regroup,
to work out some plan.
"Do it!" David shouted, and the monster took two,
three strides toward them, apparently no longer interested
in a hesitant approach. At that speed, it would
be on them in scant seconds.
"Run, after John!" He screamed, and gave Leon
and Claire a heartbeat of cover before he turned and
ran after them.
Steel, reinforced steel - A mantra that looped
through his racing thoughts as he sprinted, Claire and
Leon turning the corner, the cement curve whipping
past him as he saw Rebecca and John in the room at
the end of the hall. The room where the madman had
gone.
"David, hit the buttons, close the door!" John
shouted, and David saw the controls, the small lights
above the rounded knobs, and veered toward them,
still at a dead run.
Claire and Leon were inside. David shot his arm
out and slammed his open hand into the largest
button on the panel, hoping he'd chosen the right
one - and he was through, even as a sheet of metal
guillotined the air behind him, close enough for him
to feel it on the back of his neck.
He spun around just in time to see the heavy white
body of the hybrid creature slam into the door, its
chest smashing against the thick, warped window set
into the thick metal. The door shivered in its tracks,
and David could see that it wouldn't stand for long.
Please hold, just for a moment...
He turned, saw Leon at the smaller hatch on the
south wall, saw the horror in his eyes, the color
leached from his face, his trembling hand on the
door's lever.
"Locked," he said, and outside, the monster
smashed into the door again.
Reston heard the noise when he was trying to figure
out how to climb into the Avi kennel. The pen was
about twelve feet off the ground, an open hole in the
wall, and there was no ladder; the closest tree was a
good seven feet away, impossible - but his only other
way out of the test was the way he'd come, and he
didn't dare go back out into the main hall. He'd about
made up his mind to attempt climbing the tree to try
the jump when the rending crashes had seeped into
the room from Phase Two.
Reston walked toward the connecting door, curious
in spite of his fear. The phases were heavily soundproofed;
a noise like that could only be from a bomb,
or a wrecking crew...
... which means bomb. They've planted explosives
after all, the monsters.
Reston waited by the door for a moment, but didn't
hear anything else. The lone Dac let out a cry from
somewhere across the chamber, the fight apparently
taken out of it with the loss of its siblings; it hadn't
tried to attack.
Explosives...
Phase Two was directly behind control, a doublethick
wall between them, which had to mean that
the renegades had blown up the control center, the
most important - and most expensive - room in the
Planet. They couldn't have chosen a better target;
the facility was practically worthless with control
destroyed.
But perhaps they've given me another way out...
Reston wasn't going to make any bets as to whether
or not the barbarous mercenaries had finally gone,
leaving the broken remains of the Planet behind -
- but if they have...
If they had, he'd be able to walk out. Maybe just
walk away and not just from the Planet, but from
White Umbrella. He was reasonably certain that
Jackson would kill him for what had happened...
... but not if Reston disappeared.
A few hundred thousand to Hawkinson, a ride to a
safe place...
It could work, if he timed it right, if he changed his
name and identity and went far, far away. It would
work.
Nodding to himself, he cracked open the door to
Two, not sure what to expect, but it was still a
surprise to see the massive, gaping holes in two of the
desert's walls and the cement and wood and steel
blown to pieces; each ragged opening was at least ten
feet across, perhaps twenty feet high. He didn't see
smoke anywhere, but imagined that the saboteurs had
used some high-tech compound, some material that
scum like that always seemed to have access to.
The heat was still high, and the lights were blazing,
but it was definitely cooler with the new ventilation
and though he stood for long seconds listening, he
didn't hear a sound that might indicate their presence.
Unless it was some kind of trap...
Reston shook his head, amused by his own paranoia.
Now that he'd decided to be free, to leave
behind the ruins of his life, he felt a kind of elation.
A sense of new possibilities, even of rebirth. They were
gone, their mission accomplished, the Planet wasted.
Reston walked across the hot sands, stepping over
the pieces of Scorp scattered about, finally climbing
the shifting dune to peer into the hole.
My God, they managed to get everything, didn't
they?
The destruction was nearly total, the gaping hole
almost exactly where the monitor wall had been.
Thick shards of glass, bits of wire and circuitry, a
faint scent of ozone - that was all that was left of the
brilliantly designed video-retrieval system. Four of
the leather chairs had been knocked off their welded
mounts, the one-of-a-kind marble table had actually
cracked in two - and in the northeast corner of the
room there was another giant, ragged hole surrounded
by debris.
And through that hole. . .
Reston could actually see the elevator. The working,
running elevator, the lights engaged, the platform
recalled.
Was it a trap? It seemed too good to be true, but
then he heard a distant pounding, somewhere off by
the cell block, and thought that luck was finally with
him; the employees had left, the sound could only be
the blasted ex-S.T.A.R.S. team. Far enough away that
he'd be halfway to the surface before they could make
it back.
Reston grinned, amazed that it would end like this;
it seemed so anticlimactic somehow, so mundane . . .
. . . and am I complaining? No, no complaints. Not
from me.
Reston stepped through the hole, moving carefully
to avoid the sharp glass.
The battle with the food animals had made it
hungry, had made it crave; that there was a strong
wall in Fossil's way made it only more eager to eat, to
fulfill its purpose. It pounded at the strong obstacle,
feeling the matter shift, becoming less rigid,
and although it wouldn't take much more to get
at the animals, Fossil suddenly smelled new food.
Back the way it had come, food, open and exposed,
nothing between it and Fossil.
It would come back after it had eaten. Fossil turned
away and ran, hungry and wanting, determined to eat
before the food could move away.
As soon as Fossil turned and ran, John started to
kick at the steel door, realizing that it was their only
chance. The incredible beating that the monster had
given it made it easy, the thick metal half off its tracks
already.
Claire and Leon started kicking. In seconds, they'd
knocked it far enough from the metal indentation that
it fell off, clattering to the floor - and seconds after
that, they were running, running for the elevator,
David carrying Rebecca and all of them silent. Fossil
would be back, they all knew it, and they didn't stand
a chance against it.
"NO! NO! NO!"
A man, screaming, and as John rounded the corner,
he saw that it was Reston, saw him sprinting down the
long corridor, Fossil closing fast.
They ran, John wondering how long it would take
the monster to eat an entire human. And as they
reached the elevator, leapt through the doors, Leon
pulling the gate down...
... they all heard the wailing scream rise to an
inhuman pitch - and then cut off sharply, stopped by
a heavy wet crunch.
The elevator started to rise.
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