The 6th Extinction (51 page)

He waited a full minute, then approached cautiously with his dagger. He slipped a screw-top metal water bottle out of his pack.

Cutter Elwes had said he only needed the creature’s blood.

Easy enough
.

He stabbed the beast in the side and collected the black flow into the aluminum container. Once filled up, he secured the cap.

Mission accomplished
.

Now to get out of here.

The pound of running boots reached him, growing louder. He leaned around the dead bulk of the
Volitox
to see Riley returning toward him.

Apparently the young soldier had found his spine after all.

Unfortunately he quickly lost his head.

A rifle shot blasted loudly, and the side of Riley’s face exploded into a mist of blood. His body flew forward, crashing headlong across the cavern floor.

Dylan dropped back behind the carcass of the
Volitox
. His hand found his holstered Howdah, but he had shot his load. He looked across the cavern to where he had set down his assault rifle. If he attempted to reach it, he knew he’d suffer the same fate as Riley.

Whoever was out there was a keen shot.

He could guess who it was, picturing that American, knowing it had to be him.

Not dead yet, are you?

Maybe it was time to change that. He knew his adversary wasn’t as knowledgeable about fighting in the dark as Dylan was. He planned to take advantage of that.

He called out. “It’s high time we talked, mate!”

6:17
P
.
M
.

“About what?” Gray yelled back.

He crouched behind a rocky outcropping about thirty yards from where Dylan Wright hid. He studied the terrain through his night-vision goggles. The body of the soldier lay sprawled on the rock between them. Earlier, he had heard another man scream, followed by a loud splash—then the commando he’d just shot had come running in terror.

By Gray’s count, only one man should be left, the X-Squadron leader.

He kept his rifle fixed on the bulk of the dead beast beached on the riverbank. From the slack tentacle draped over its side, it had to be one of those predatory eels with the bioluminescent lures.

“About a deal,” Wright answered. “The bloke I work for can be very generous.”

“Not interested.”

“Can’t say I didn’t try then.”

Suddenly the world exploded in front of Gray, blinding him. He ripped off his night-vision goggles—just in time to see Dylan click off a flashlight and dash out of hiding. The sudden flare of bright light in the darkness, amplified by the goggles, still left a burn on his retina.

Gunfire erupted from Dylan’s new hiding place.

Gray fell back, realizing his mistake. The bastard had used the darkness against him in order to reach a weapon. But it wasn’t just the gun. A pop of electricity and a short hum erupted into a screaming wail.

An LRAD.

The noise stabbed into his ears, shaking the sutures of his skull. He had no protection against it this time. Vertigo quickly set in. He lifted his rifle and blindly shot in the direction of the sound, but it didn’t stop.

His vision squeezed tighter from the sensory overload.

He was moments from passing out.

6:18
P
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M
.

Positioning the LRAD dish atop a boulder, Dylan kept it pointed toward the location of the American. He then shouldered his assault rifle and shifted sideways, staying clear of the sonic cannon’s blast. Still, some of the infrasound backwash crawled over his skin, raising the hairs on his arms.

He smiled, imagining what the American must be experiencing.

Ready to put an end to this standoff, he took another two steps to the side, almost back to where he hid beside the bulk of the
Volitox
. He sought a clear shot to take out his target.

Another step—and something bit deep into the back of his leg.

He reached to his thigh and yanked off a sausage-sized slug, taking a chunk of skin with it. Teeth gnashed at his fingers, burning his palm with acids. Disgusted and horrified, he tossed the nymph into the river.

He glanced back to the nest. With the LRAD diverted away, the builders of that bone pile must be returning. But for the moment, he saw no movement, no evidence of that missing horde. The nest looked as empty as before.

So where were they?

In his fear, his shoulder brushed against the
Volitox
’s body. He felt a tremor in that dead flesh, as if the beast were suddenly reanimating.

No . . .

He stumbled away, suddenly realizing the truth.

It wasn’t the queen that was stirring.

It was something
inside
her.

Proving this, a fat gray grub squirmed out of a gill slit and dropped heavily to the shore.

Choking on horror, he backpedaled away from the carcass as more nymphs squirmed out of other gills, poured from that gaping maw, or corkscrewed out of nasal folds.

After fleeing the nest earlier, the nymphs must have sought their mother, hiding inside her, fleeing from the sonic assault to a refuge that was safe. The adults were immune to such attacks, likely protected by the bioenergies surging through them, which in turn protected their offspring in times of danger. He knew some species of fish and frogs could carry their young—but no one suspected this trait in the
Volitox
.

Dylan could also guess what had just stirred them up.

I did . . .

He glanced over his shoulder to the LRAD unit. He remembered how agitated the nest had been when his team had first arrived, still disturbed by the infrasonic backwash of the larger dish. When he activated the smaller weapon a moment ago, its echoing infrasound must have agitated the horde hiding inside that lifeless body, angering them.

He knew what was coming, what this activity was building toward.

By now nymphs poured into the river, onto the bank, several bounding with muscular leaps toward him. He dodged and batted at them with his rifle butt until he reached the LRAD.

He snatched the dish off the boulder and swung it to his chest like a shield, turning the sonic cannon toward the horde—and just in time. From river, rock, and flesh, the nymphs boiled toward him, a carnivorous wave of vengeance.

He held his ground, sweeping the sonic cannon before him like a fire hose. The nymphs cringed and squirmed away. Some sought to regain their mother’s refuge, drilling through her dead flesh. Others dove back into the river, splashing heavily to escape the onslaught.

He let out a sigh of relief—until two blasts of a rifle exploded in the tunnel.

The
first
round severed the power cord to the LRAD.

The
second
took out his right knee.

As the cannon died in his arms, he toppled to his side, landing hard. He twisted to see the American standing near a rock pile, his smoking rifle at his shoulder.

Dylan faced his adversary for the first time.

No, not the first time
, he suddenly realized, remembering that same face staring at him through a window at DARPA headquarters.

“That’s for Dr. Lucius Raffee,” the man said.

6:19
P
.
M
.

Enough . . .

Still dazed and partially deafened from the sonic assault, Gray turned away, leaving Wright bleeding on the cavern floor—but not before he watched several of those carnivorous slugs leap across the rock and strike the man’s chest and belly.

Wright swatted a few from his rib cage, but when he tried to grab the one on his abdomen, his hands were too bloody, his skin smoking from acids. He failed to get a grip in time and the creature drilled inside him, snaking away, like a worm into a diseased apple.

Wright cried out, writhing on the rock.

Satisfied, Gray swung around and hurried back down the tunnel to the entrance of the Coliseum, chased by the man’s screams until they finally went silent. He found Kowalski waiting inside the cab of the larger CAAT. He clambered up the opposite tread and hauled through the passenger door.

“All done?” Kowalski asked, putting the vehicle into gear, the engines growling.

“For now.”

“Been all quiet here . . . except for some cries out there in the dark. I think this place took care of those two deserters for us.”

And Wright, too
.

Gray pointed to the lights glowing up the wall, worried about Jason and the others. He didn’t want to wait a moment longer. “Let’s get to that Back Door.”

6:22
P
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M
.

Jason crouched over the control console of the substation. Stella stood behind him, her arms hugging her chest, her eyes glassy with tears. She would glance often to the window that overlooked the Coliseum.

After Jason had climbed up here, he had told her about her father, about what had happened. She had merely nodded, the news expected but not welcome. She had barely said a word since then.

“Tell me about this code,” he said, trying to get her talking, needing her help for any chance to solve this riddle. “Do you know if the password must be a certain length? Is it case sensitive?”

Jason stared at the access screen to the detonation controls. He had tried hacking his way past this level, but he kept hitting sophisticated firewalls. The security was rock solid. Without Sigma’s decryption software, this was a lost cause.

He needed that code.

Stella finally spoke. “If this system is like the others at the station, the password could be any length. But the sequence must have both upper and lowercase letters and at least one number and symbol.”

That was common protocol.

“Do you know any of your father’s old codes?” he asked. Many people reused the same password for convenience sake.

“No.” Stella moved closer to him. “And my father gave you no clue at all to his password?”

Jason stared into her wounded face. “He was more concerned with
you
. I think he only held out for as long as he did to make sure you were safe.”

A single tear finally fell, rolling down her cheek. It was quickly wiped away. “What if it wasn’t all about
me
, about my safety?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if the password has something to do with me? Maybe that was what my father was trying to communicate to you.”

Jason considered this. Many people picked meaningful people in their lives to base their passwords upon. The professor certainly loved his daughter. “Let’s give it a try.”

Jason typed in
Stella
and tried various common iterations, but with both a number and a symbol required, the possibilities were too broad, too variable. It still could be anything.

He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

“Tell me about your father,” he said. “What sort of man was he?”

A small trickle of confusion entered her voice at this odd question. “He . . . he was smart, loved dogs, was a stickler for details. He believed in order, structure, everything in its place. But when he loved something . . . or someone . . . he did it with all his heart. Never forgetting birthdays or anniversaries, always sending presents.”

These memories slowly warmed the cold grief from her words.

Jason rubbed the scruff on his chin. “If he was that structured, then your father likely wouldn’t have picked something whimsical as his code. It would be something practical, yet personal, to him.” Jason turned to Stella. “Like your birthday.”

“Maybe . . .”

Jason leaned over the keyboard, glancing back at her. He typed as she told him her birthday, using the British order for denoting dates.

17 JANUARY, 1993

He held a finger over the enter button. “This password
does
have an upper and lowercase letter, along with numbers and one symbol.”

Stella’s hand found his, squeezing hopefully.

He hit the button.

The same error message came up.

“That’s not it,” he said.

He had been so sure. It had felt right.

He tried the Americanized version.

JANUARY 17, 1993

Another failure.

A defeated tone returned to Stella’s demeanor. “Maybe we should just give up.”

Jason considered this option. He pictured that tide he had witnessed below, flowing away from that the earlier blast from Wright’s camp. That tidal wave of panic was surely rolling inevitably toward the station.

But maybe I’m wrong . . . maybe one blast wasn’t enough
.

Plus so far, that sonic cannon continued to remain silent.

Surely that was a good sign.

6:23
P
.
M
.

Dylan Wright lay in a bloody pool, racked in pain, barely able to move. He felt the nymphs squirming inside him.

I’ve become their nest
.

Others fed upon his flesh, latched on to his legs, his arms, his face. They wormed under his clothes, burrowed beneath his skin, and explored every orifice.

In his right hand, his three remaining fingers clutched a small device. Shortly after being abandoned, he had pulled it from his belt. He must have passed out for a few minutes, but death would not take him.

Not yet.

Not until I do what I must
.

He moved his thumb to the button of the remote activator for the LRAD 4000X—and pressed it.

Distantly, the world wailed, mourning its own doom.

If I must die this way, then let Hell take the rest of the earth, too
.

6:25
P
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M
.

Gray covered his ears against the sonic assault, staring back the way they had come.