PART TWO: TO HELL AND BACK
Chapter Four: The Cold Heart of the Crisis
The doors slid back on electric gears, as smooth as butter. They opened up on another world.
Beyond the plastic door lay a brilliant white corridor, lit by bright fluorescents. Lots of similar electronic doors, all keypad locked, were set in the long corridor. My eyes had to adjust to the blinding brightness for a moment. This was no run-down warehouse.
The researcher stepped into the corridor and I followed him. The electronic door slid shut behind us, sealing us in this horrible white nightmare world, all cold plastic and steel.
"Are these the labs?" I asked, glancing around.
The researcher nodded. "A-Wing. The top floor. Goes down another four floors, m-maybe. I've only got clearance for the top two."
"What goes on beneath?"
The researcher shook his head nervously. "I don't know. You never see people enter or leave that place. It's where they manufacture… and… and test."
The look of pale horror that slipped over the researchers pace set a chill up my spine. Before he'd looked panicky and frightened, but for the first time I was seeing real fear. Bad things went on underground. Bad things he wanted no part of it.
"Take me there," I said calmly, hiding my own nervousness.
"I haven't got clearance."
"How can you get it?"
The researcher giggled nervously. "Get it? Clearance for the lower floors? Ha ha. No way, man. That's only for the top researchers. Security down there's far too tight…"
His words broke off nervously. I was pointing my gun at him. "Then you're no use to me."
"No, wait!" he cried. "There… there is a way, I'm sure. You need to…"
His words were cut off by the harsh clack-clack of automatic fire. His eyes flashed up brief panic and then the back of his head was blown off in a cloud of red mist. Blood flew across my chest and the researcher hit the floor face first, the air around his corpse thick with cordite.
I rolled back into a doorway, glancing round at his killers. Three men, all kitted up a lot more than the rest of the security. Black suits, black gas masks, shiny visors. All holding MP5s. Hardcore professionals. These guys weren't messing around.
"The other one," the leader said, lowering his automatic. He's around here. One of the rookies upstairs said he was holding this pansy hostage."
The other two raised their guns and slunk off down the corridor, edgily glancing into every alcove they passed. I raised my gun slightly, fell backwards…
And slipped through the electronic door. It opened silently, spilling me into a silent white room, and closed after me, sealing me inside. The approaching footsteps faded to nothing.
I breathed a sigh of relief and stared around the room. It appeared to be an office. There were several computers set up, all glowing dimly, revealing nothing but screensavers. A large black sign on the wall labelled this as MONITORING STATION THREE. A fan hummed gently in one corner. A set of TVs in the corner beamed back grainy images of white, empty corridors and dim fluorescent lights.
I sat down at a work station, placing my gun on the desk, and idly swung the mouse around in a brief arc. The black screensaver faded and I was facing a web-page with a familiar design. And a familiar logo.
AVAMED, the top of the screen read. Behind it was a logo of a snake, entwined around a syringe. AvaMed. I recognised the name from the newspapers I had read idly on breaks back at the precinct. They were a new pharmaceutical corporation, rapidly climbing up the Dow Jones, and amassing a considerable fortune. Its owner, a young and ambitious entrepreneur called Simon Grant, had made newspaper and magazine front covers as far apart as the financial papers and Cosmopolitan. However, the name had stuck with me for an entirely different reason. Their rise to eminence had come under a lot of scrutiny over the past few months when allegations of illegal drugs testing in Africa had risen to the surface, and the squeaky clean image of New York's finest fast-grower had looked a little more smeary.
But that little problem would look minor compared to the nuclear strike this one would unleash if it ever came out. The page beneath the neat banner was a convoluted list of medical results, tests and failures. I scrolled down the list, almost incapable of comprehending the horror of what I was seeing. Here I was in the cold heart of the crisis. The label at the top of the page read MIASMA C-STRAIN TESTS, and was followed by a whole ream of successes before the grim word FAILURE, after a test carried out just a month ago. I clicked it and was taken to a human profile.
Oh god, I thought, suddenly feeling nauseous. They're testing on humans.
This guy had been giving a strain of the C-Virus, and had died in half an hour. According the to the file, this was too fast, and was deemed a failure. Or, in their words, 'failed to provide the necessary time for virus to spread.'
I returned to the list, scrolling down. So many names. So many lives. God.
The door slid open, so silently that I almost didn't hear it. Cold fear hit me in the chest and I dived beneath the table, grabbing my gun with one hand, clutching the chair with the other.
Conversation. Loud conversation. I peered out from under the desk at the two men walking in the room.
It wasn't the goons, as I'd feared. There were two men, one in a shirt and tie, pulling on an expensive looking black jacket. He was wide, balding, red-faced and grinning maniacally. His partner was a skinny man with a face like a weasel, donning a stripy white shirt with a red tie and braces, topped with a dirty white lab coat.
"Okay, O'Connor," the big man said, shrugging on the jacket. "Tell them to go ahead with the transport of the C-Strain. I think it's ready for field testing."
He chuckled heartily. His friend laughed nervously, but I got the feeling he wasn't getting the joke.
"It hasn't passed lab testing yet," O'Connor replied. He was a quiet man, and he sounded scared. And sad. "And what about the intruder? The base isn't secure. We need more time before releasing it."
"There is no more time," the larger man snapped. "It all goes down tonight. The men have already loaded the B-Strain."
"Sir, with all due respect…"
The larger man threw an arm around the smaller. "Listen, O'Connor. Calm down. Smile." He slapped his friend's cheek chummily. O'Connor jumped. "This night will make us all very rich men. We are guaranteeing AvaMed's future here. Cheer up."
O'Connor sighed, pushed away and walked to the work desk. He began to furiously rub his glasses with a corner of his lab coat. "Guaranteeing AvaMed's future? If we release this virus the way it is now, it'll all go horribly wrong. It won't spread. We'll succeed in nothing but getting caught. And then what? Plus, we have no idea if this intruder has seen anything. Couple of the grunts just radioed me to tell me he's somewhere in the base."
"The intruder isn't a factor," the larger man said, suddenly sounding serious. "Now stop panicking. I'm calling the boss in ten minutes to tell him we've sent out the trucks. And I don't want to disappoint him. Make sure it happens, O'Connor."
The door slid open again, then shut. I heard a chair squeak back, and O'Connor sigh as he fell into it. My heart began to pound hard. Clutching the gun, I carefully slid out of my hiding place.
By the time O'Connor looked up, he was staring into the barrel of my pistol.
"Oh god," he gasped. "Please don't kill me."
"Maybe you can do me a favour, then," I said, slamming off the safety catch. "What's your position?"
O'Connor sighed again, and removed his glasses. He breathed on the lens and began to rub it on his lab coat again. "Chief researcher," he replied, almost embarrassed. "King of the whole damn madhouse here."
"Do you have access to the lower floors?" I asked him.
He nodded. "Although I wouldn't bother if I were you. They're sending the last vials of the virus out tonight, and then they're blowing the place up, and wiping out the evidence."
I frowned, lowering the gun. I didn't think he was a threat any more. "Then it's true?" I said grimly. "They're making Miasma here?"
O'Connor nodded gravely. "Unfortunately, yes. Well, they were. I've been working here for a year now."
"Why? Why are they stopping?"
"We had one last order, to load the last of the new strain on those black trucks outside. No-one knows where they're going, but rumour has it they're headed for every major city in America, laden down with the new improved virus. Some even think a few are headed for JFK, and sending vials out to London, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow…"
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. The words were travelling through treacle. "Who's orders?"
"Again, no-one knows. The boss has got some mysterious contact who sent us the order last year. Then they built this place, and promoted me to chief researcher. Ten years of Harvard Med and I thought I'd be helping people, not killing them… god."
His eyes were misting over now. I could see pregnant tears swell up in the corners of his naked eyes. He slid the glasses back on.
"Listen, I need your pass," I said, as sympathetically as I could manage. "Someone has to stop this."
"You know it'll be suicide, don't you?"
I shrugged. "Same old shit. Just hand over the card."
O'Connor reached into a coat pocket and handed me over a small white laminated pass-card with his name and face on it. "The code for the lower floors is 2201-161. Slip it in the slot, type in the code, and you're done. But then, of course, you've got to take on half the army down there. It's maximum security. Especially with Max Luther down there."
"Luther?" I asked, walking to the door.
"The asshole I came in with. The boss' man down here, head of the project. He's triggering the base destruction down there, and probably chumming up to all the guys he's about to kill."
I turned to face O'Connor, and he suddenly looked very old. "What about you?" I asked him. "Where are you going to go?"
O'Connor shrugged and smiled a weak, watery smile. He looked almost content. "I'm staying. I called my wife ten minutes ago." He laughed sadly. "Hell… maybe it's all we deserve now, huh? We did some bad things down there. Really bad things. Maybe it's for the best if they blow this place up and forget about it."
I nodded and stepped up to the door, trying to arrange my thoughts, knowing just one thing – that whatever answers I sought were down underground.
"One more thing," O'Connor cried after me. He was still smiling. "Good luck."
And as I watched, he slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out an ancient-looking standard black handgun. He stared at it blankly as I left, and as I stepped through the door raised it to his head.
The shot was silenced by the door as it slid shut.
To be continued…