They gave Annie dry clothes and let her clean up a bit. They asked if she wanted anything to eat or drink, and she troubled them for a mug of tea and some toast. She was hungrier than that, but her stomach was twitching something fierce. They parked her at a table at the front of a small briefing room with raindrops smacking at its darkening window and left her sitting there some fifteen minutes. Then a skinny tall fella named Montgomery, who wore a sergeant's stripes on his arms, came in, sat himself down, and talked to her while she finished her tea (which was a damn sight better than any coffee you'd come by, this side of the Atlantic, even at an American-run outfit). He asked her about Infinity; he asked her about Wally and Red.

"And you wanna be damn careful when you go pick 'em up." Annie looked into the tea remaining in her mug. "Red-- Corporal Jeffries, he got himself infected."

"You have infection at Infinity, Dr. Main?"

"Nope. No. Somebody planted something in the damn truck. Corporal Jeffries cut himself on it."

"You're saying someone tried to kill you."

"That is exactly what I'm sayin'. They killed Wally-- Corporals Wallace and Jeffries. Son, does Major McCloud know I'm here?"

"He knows."

Annie raised her eyes. Montgomery looked back at her politely. His face gave away about as much as a concrete block.

"Somethin' you're not tellin' me, Sergeant Montgomery?"

He ventured a smile. She could tell: he was a fella who smiled plenty and who thought his smile'd make people like him. She wanted to hit him for it.

"When we've corroborated your story, Dr. Main, we'll let you know."

"That's not what I asked."

Sergeant Montgomery unfolded his lanky self from the chair he'd been sitting on. "You look exhausted, ma'am. I'll ask the warrant officer to find you a place to rest."

"Do I look in need of a restin' place, Sergeant?"

He came that close to touching her shoulder before she glared him off.

"This way, Doctor."


After dinner, a plate of stew in whose mustering the gorilla-like Corporal Wallace surely had no hand, Selena waited through the rest of the rainy evening. She waited past midnight. She wanted to sleep. That was stupid: she had a list of wants, and sleep happened just to be one of them. Seeing Jim come through the door of her room intact and healthy was another one; seeing Hannah safe was another still. Seeing Mr. Burns with little bloody pockets where his front teeth had been: that one drifted on the line between "want" and "fantasy."

At least she wasn't being watched. Her soldierly escort had deposited her back in her quarters and left her to herself. Thinking it silly but likely a last, best chance, she showered quickly, dried herself, re-dressed. Then she waited. To stay alert, to stay more focused than afraid, she stretched, did push-ups, moved through a bit of yoga.

She listened, too, as best she could. All she heard came early on. Motion in the hall. Boots were softer-soled these days, so she heard no film-style foleyed footsteps. What she caught was the rattling of hardware on belts and weapons, the creak of leather, a jangling of keys. All toward and at Hannah's room. If she doubted that, she heard also Hannah saying, "'Night, then"-- and was glad when she only imagined the end-tag: "-- arseholes." She heard nothing from as far down as Jim's quarters.

One a.m. came and went.


When Piotr was just about an hour past being sore enough to contemplate leaving the rafters to stretch, he heard a car motor outside, heard car doors open and thump closed. Three men entered the hangar through the gap between the main doors and walked down to the Super Lynx. Two of them wore light jackets; the third wore a black raincoat over a dark suit. Piotr huddled into the steel V in which he'd perched himself and looked most carefully at the third, tried to gather what detail he could at such a distance and in diminished light. Tall, lean, likely powerfully built. Dark hair, receding hairline. He and the other two looked about-- likely, absolutely, for a body or bodies. When they found only Andrej, they didn't seem distressed, though the jacketed pair kept a ginger distance between themselves and the corpse. The man in the raincoat swept the area with his eyes; for a moment he cocked his head and went very still, as though he were listening intently.

"Let's go," he said, finally. "Nothin' here but ghosts, boys." American. Of course. He led the other two out.

Then, suddenly, he returned. Piotr, his body weight nearly committed to a downswing, barely caught himself in time. In the light from the floods above the outer doors, the man in the coat was the apex of a long triangular shadow. He again looked around the hangar; this time, he raised his eyes higher. Piotr forced himself to relax against the girders. The man looked right at him-- Piotr willed himself deathly still-- but saw, seemingly, only shadows and darkness. He again turned and left.

A car door slammed; a motor started. Tires burred off across the wet blacktop. Piotr released his breath.

Down he clambered, stiffly, from the rafters. He left the hangar by way of one of the human-sized side doors and cut over to the mechanics' shed. On the way, he took Andrej's flask from his leg pocket. He swished vodka in his mouth, spit it out sloppily, let it dribble onto his chin. He saw headlights too high to be the headlights of a car and staggered toward them, waving. The last shuttle of the evening. He'd take a chance on the assumption that the sinister goings-on at Infinity were more the doing of the raincoated man and his cronies at Western Star than of the American army-- certainly of an American army bus driver. He stumbled up the metal step into the bus, and the driver said, "Lucky you, buddy."

Piotr looked down the bus, across rows of black padded seats. He and the driver were alone.

"Am wanting sleep," he mumbled.

"Am wanting a trip to the brig, more likely." The driver shut the door. "Sit yourself down."

Piotr lurched, sat heavily in the first seat opposite the driver.

He kept his head low and lolling while they drove to the main building. The driver would find it understandable, given Piotr's spirituous odor; more than that, anyone who might be out and about would have a hard time identifying the shuttle's one passenger. The bus trundled to the east side of the building and stopped near a loading dock beyond the workingmen's entrance. The driver shut down the engine, stood, pocketed the ignition key.

"'Fraid this is it, pal. Front door's locked, after hours. We gotta go in the freight entrance. Come on."

He shook Piotr's shoulder. Piotr heaved himself up and out the door, nearly fell down the shuttle's steps. The driver caught him, got his shoulder under Piotr's right arm, and hoisted him up the stairs to the freight doors. They passed through unchallenged.

"Why no guard?" Piotr slurred, staggering. They were moving through a warehousing area down an aisle wide enough for a forklift, industrial steel shelving on either side, lightbulbs glowing from steel cages suspended from the ceiling. No one was about. Nor could he hear anyone talking.

"What for?" The driver shrugged, shifting Piotr's bulk. "Christ, buddy, you made of lead--? Guys at the perimeter see everything coming in. Anyway, the zombies are all dead now. Dead-dead. Didn't they tell you that in Vodkaville?"

"What for is 'Vodkaville'?"

The driver chuckled, lugging. "That, my friend, is your home town--"

He doubled over around Piotr's fist. Piotr straightened, straightened the driver, and drove his knuckles into the man's face. The driver's head snapped back and rebounded limply, and he and his cargo changed roles. Piotr dragged the man well down a dark aisle and took the bus key from him. He returned to the main aisle, continued forward toward a far set of steel doors with the word EXIT signed in glowing red above them.

Before he left the warehouse, he scanned the room's front wall, found a map showing the building's fire exits. YOU ARE HERE: a red dot on the chart's right side. A crosshatched smattering of offices, areas of cubes, a large open square where the mess was. The dorms ahead and to the left, on the building's north side. Piotr broke the map from its frame, folded it, put it in his pocket.

He passed unchallenged through the main building, through the halls leading to the mess, the dorm area. Part of it was his attitude. When you are in an unfriendly place, his father had told him, keep quiet. Keep quiet, move quickly and confidently, and anywhere you are, you will look as though you belong. The other part of it was the hour. Very simply, there were few people about.

Not that he was completely without suspicions. At an ordinary base, devoid of conspiracy, an alert might have issued for his apprehension. But, he suspected, Infinity was following the dark agenda of the man in the black raincoat; since the man and his two followers were not in evidence, Piotr was free to move as he pleased. He hadn't the time to question his temporary-- for it couldn't last, not when the bus driver regained his senses and raised the alarm-- good fortune.

According to his map, according to his memory of the previous morning, the dorm hall lay just ahead, around a right turning. He eased to the corner, looked cautiously around it. A single soldier, standing at the second of three doors on the right. The first door, nearest Piotr, was open; the room within was dark, the corridor without only dimly lit. Piotr stepped around the corner. He kept close to the wall, moved from a walk to a rush. He caught the barrel of the soldier's rifle as the man turned; the man began to exclaim something; Piotr's right elbow slammed across his jaw, and he shut up and dropped. Once again, Piotr struck him, this time with his fist, where the man's jaw met his neck. The soldier went absolutely limp. Piotr took his rifle.

Hannah's room, 116, was the second of the three on the corridor's right side. The door was locked. Piotr knocked, said quietly: "Hannah--?"

A pause. Then, right through the panel, inches away: "Piotr--?"

"Stand back, please."


At two-forty-five, noises from the corridor. Selena, seated on the edge of the bed, hadn't been dozing, but the stillness had become nearly hypnotic. The sounds, certainly controlled, certainly discreet, were as sharp as gunshots. She started, rose. From the corridor, to the left, a choked shout, a thumping. A pause. Then a tight splintering sound. Selena eased up beside the door.

"Selena--?"

"That you, Hannah--?"

"Step aside, yeah?"

Selena stepped away from the door. With a blunt crack, the door swung in after her. Hannah, it seemed, had undergone a drastic change. She was now a he; the now-a-he Hannah who stood in the doorway to Selena's room was tall and broad and and dressed in a pilot's dark green flight suit. Hannah the original looked out from around her new self, who looked not unlike Piotr, and said, "Come on. We're rescuin' you."

Selena looked from her to Piotr. "Where's Jim?"

"He's not in his room--" Hannah said. She looked at Piotr; the big Russian glanced away, checked the corridor, left and right.

"What-- you thought he was in here?" Selena asked.

"Makes sense, don't it? You two are practically--"

"Right. Yeah." Selena's cheeks went warm. "Sorry, Hannah, but tonight we're not." She joined Piotr at the door, looked out. "They questioned us downstairs. Maybe he's still there."

"Could you find your way?"

"Yes."

"Show me." He took from his pocket the purloined facility map, unfolded it for her. Selena leaned in close, traced the route with her finger. "Here." To their right, across the hall, fire stairs. To their left, down the corridor and around a corner: the elevators. The isolation labs were three floors down, just off the elevator bank.

Piotr considered. He looked at Hannah and Selena. Selena could swear he was hiding a smile, one small but definite. "Here is what we will do."


On sub-level three, the doors of the nearer elevator slid open. The soldier on guard at that end of the laboratory hall turned, looked. In the metallic harsh light of the elevator car stood a teenaged girl. Her face was covered in blood.

"Help me--" she said.

She toppled, fell half into the corridor. Her legs remained in the car. Startled, the soldier went to her, unslung his rifle from his shoulder, knelt at her side. He didn't notice that the elevator doors failed to close.

He did notice, a moment later, the gun barrel touching his cheek.

"Surprise," said a woman's voice. Before he could knock away the hand with the gun, before he could raise up his rifle, something struck the side of his head. His brain canceled the rest of his evening's duty; his body hit the floor.


In the well of the fire stairs on sub-level three, clutching the rifle he'd taken from the soldier in the dorm corridor, Piotr waited. Through the mesh-reinforced window in the stairwell door, he looked across the night-lit corridor at a soldier standing guard outside a gray metal door. The corridor was otherwise empty; Piotr assumed the door led to the isolation lab and to Jim.

Long seconds later-- a minute, maybe less-- the soldier turned his head to the left, as though he heard something. Sounds, perhaps, from around the corner, from the direction of the elevator bank. He moved away from the metal door.

Piotr opened the stairwell door, quietly crossed the corridor. He slipped in behind the soldier, close to the wall; right at the corner, just as the man was looking around, just as he saw the two women, one a blonde, bloody-faced girl, one full-grown, mocha-skinned and lovely, disarming his fellow guard, just as he brought his rifle to bear, Piotr swung his rifle-butt into the back of the man's head. He caught the soldier's rifle as the man fell.

Selena looked over as the soldier crumpled. Piotr gave her a thumbs-up, knelt, found keys clipped to the soldier's belt. He backtracked to the metal door and looked through the reinforced window at the top. The lights were out. In the square of light from the door window, he saw--

A body, hanging. Midway into the room. Olive-trousered legs, bottomed with boots, dangling just about level with his chest.

"Good God--"

He fumbled with the keys, unlocked the door. He groped for the light switch, flicked it. Nothing. He stepped into the dark room.

From where she knelt securing the second guard, Selena heard Piotr's exclamation, saw him leave the corridor. Something knotted hard in her chest; she rose, made for the lab.

A flash of motion from behind the open door. A figure ghost-pale, moving in very smoothly, very quickly, behind Piotr. A glimpse of something long and metallic, a wire-muscled arm going up--

"Jim--!" she hissed.

From his response, she knew he heard the sound but not his name, not her voice. He translated his motion, turned on her. His hand holding the long metal something went up and back. Then he hesitated. He was dressed only in his boxers; his skin was grayish-white in the dim light. His face was angelic and terrible. She'd seen him like this once before; she hated to the core of her being anything that could put that dead cold light in his eyes.

She looked now through that light and said again, gently: "Jim."

Very quietly, as though he were waking from a nap, he said, "Selena--?" He lowered the chair leg. That's what it was. He must have been all evening working it free. He smiled a little, reached for her. She came closer and pressed her cheek against his palm. "Thought I was comin' for you."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Change of plans."

A clattering inside the lab. Piotr appeared at the door, looking relieved and a little confused and holding a pair of trousers and a sweater. When he saw Jim, he smiled. "Jim, you are not hanged. I am glad."

Jim scowled. "Top of the class, were yeh?" Piotr frowned slightly, ostensibly without offense; he went to the soldier lying unconscious outside the dark isolation lab, hauled him inside. Jim watched. He asked Selena: "What's he doin' here?"

Hannah approached, carrying the rifle from the soldier at the elevator. "He's helpin' us escape," she said.

Jim turned to her, and his eyes went wide. "Fuck--!"

"Wha'--? Oh." She touched her index finger to her gory cheek, licked her fingertip, grinned. "Ketchup, innit? From the mess."

"They do not call it that for nothing." Piotr brushed past Jim, winked at Hannah. He handed her a rag or a handkerchief. She beamed. From "smitten" to "decapitated," thought Selena. She thought also of helping Piotr closet the second soldier, but Piotr already was bumping past Jim with his unconscious army cargo. When he emerged from the lab, after he closed and locked the door, Hannah passed him the rifle, smiling, bright-eyed.

Incredulously, Jim asked: "Hannah, what are you doing?"

"He broke us out, Jim." Selena fixed her eyes on him. "I don't know what you're thinking. Tell me--"

"I'm thinkin' he brought us here. I'm thinkin' he set us up, and I'm thinkin' he'll do it again."

Piotr met his eyes calmly. "We have no time for this. They have killed my co-pilot; we are in danger. We must leave." He offered Jim the second rifle. "Take it, if it will make you feel better."

Jim looked at the gun, looked away. "No, thanks."

"Then we go. Come."

He nodded toward the stairs. Selena ran her hand down Jim's arm, gently tugged his hand. He met her eyes; she glanced downward, smiled wryly.

"You want to put your trousers on, Tarzan?"

"Umm--"

A flying rustle of cloth. Jim's pants, tossed, caught Jim in the head. Deadpan, Piotr said, "Hurry, yes?"


They retraced Piotr's entrance path. Dim unpeopled corridors, the warehouse, the bus driver lying still where Piotr had left him. The bus parked at the loading dock. Piotr ushered them aboard, started the engine. Still unpursued, they rumbled in the dark and rain across the tarmac to the hangar into which Piotr and Andrej had walked the day before, two days or a hundred days before, after they'd landed.

Jim followed Piotr and Hannah and Selena through the gap between the main doors. Piotr headed for a chopper in white and royal blue parked at the forefront of the hangar. Jim's stomach tightened.

"And we can't make off with a lorry why--?" he said.

"This will clear the gate. A truck will not. And a truck will not take us as far as the Shetlands." Piotr, stepping between the chopper's skids, looked at him reassuringly. "Help me with the tow cart, please."

Jim exchanged glances with Selena. "We're goin' to the Shetlands, then," he said.

"Would've been my first guess, actually."

He smiled at her as he followed Piotr to the skids. "Oh, off wit' yeh."

Through the pre-flight prep, and still they went unnoticed. Piotr and Jim hauled the Bell on the battery-powered tow cart to the very front of the hangar, heaved wide the big double doors, disengaged the chopper's skids. Piotr swung into the cockpit, seated himself, donned a radio headset; Jim steered the cart clear. Just before he and Hannah and Selena boarded, he saw lights through the rain, in the direction of the main building. Approaching.

"Here they come," he called to Piotr.

"Get aboard."

A click as Piotr flipped the starter, a rising whine from the twin turbines. Jim followed Selena into the seatless passenger compartment. The rotors began to spin, chopped with rising speed at the rainy air. Jim looked back out of the side door. "Hannah--?"

Selena tapped his arm, pointed forward. Hannah had taken the co-pilot's seat, to Piotr's left. She was wearing a headset matching his, and she was watching intently what the young Russian was doing with the helicopter's controls. Jim frowned wryly at Selena; she met his frown with a wry smile. He slid the door shut as the chopper became light on its skids.

The first of the headlights became personnel carriers. Soldiers scuttled out and down, took up positions. Jim seated himself beside Selena, saw through the windscreen muzzle flashes not nearly far enough away. Something thunked into the fuselage. The engines pitched higher, and they bolted forward and up into the black sky. A steep ascent, an angling turn, and the Bell tipped its nose slightly downward and sailed north.

Better than the first flight, Jim thought, if only because he couldn't see where they were going. Wipers swept water from the windscreen, but Piotr was mainly watching the instruments, his eyes methodically traveling across and between a twin row of dials on the chopper's dash. Minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. This flight was smoother, too, than the first one had been. Less of a sense that they were hacking their way through the air, less vibration and noise from this helicopter than from the one in which they'd flown from Cumbria. Just as Selena leaned slightly into him, just as Jim himself began to relax, Piotr spoke sharply into his headset.

Jim sat forward, catching Piotr's expression if not his words. The Russian scowled, listened, spoke again. One more time after that. Over the engines, only bits of the exchange, only words: "Leeds." "Lynx." "Negative."

Piotr stopped speaking, paused. The Bell flew on. Hannah looked across at him sharply, her eyes wide. Jim, Selena close beside him, leaned between them. "What's goin' on?" he shouted.

"Leeds has sent two AH-7s after us," Piotr replied. "Attack choppers. They wish us to re-route to the base at Dishforth. I have forwarded our refusal."

"Attack choppers," said Jim. "You mean with missiles and such."

"I have told them that you are civilians and that we are unarmed. They will not fire."

"And if they do--?" Selena asked.

Piotr hesitated. Hannah said, "We take evasive action, right?"

Piotr kept his eyes on the windscreen, on the instrument panel. "This is not a movie, Hannah. We cannot outrun them; we cannot outfly their weapons. If they fire, we will die."