Chapter 43
THE REVENANT INSTITUTE
Getting past the outer gate proves easy since they use a code scanner and a fingerprint, both of which Rasmus created from the code Dawid gave us.
Dressed in the green Revenant-badged uniform the cleaning staff wear, Esau and I exit the van in the underground garage and get into the nearest elevator with both of us carrying a rectangular plastic caddy stocked with cleaning gear, spray cans, brushes, and cloths.
This place is swarming, and two more people seems to raise no suspicions.
To me, Esau is out of place, like a tattooed giant among humans, though perhaps tattoos are fine when you’re merely the underlings.
My facial scars are disguised with makeup, and I’ve pulled the shirt collar high.
The rest of my scars are invisible due to the long-sleeved green shirt and long pants.
Still, as planned, I keep my head low, my ugly face difficult to see, and avoid meeting anyone’s gaze.
Five people crowd in with us. They get off at various upper floors, chatting with each other, checking phones. None appear to look at us more than once.
“Level Twelve.” I raise my eyebrow to Esau. Finally, we have the lift to ourselves.
Below Level One are three floors marked, B1, B2, B3, but all are blocked from access by the average employee. These are the floors Dawid thought were of interest to us. The above-ground floors host well-known, public research projects.
“Let’s do it,” he says gruffly. With one smooth motion, from directly underneath he reaches up and sticks a circular label to the overhead camera lens.
I take out the second coded card and swipe, then press for the third level down.
B3. The advantage of Rasmus being able to understand what Dawid gave us is that we know this is the only floor with no access to anyone except Clay Skinner and a small grouping of others, including key scientists and security.
“Cross your fingers.” I murmur. It’s possible they have audio bugs we haven’t found.
Esau nods curtly then removes a pistol from his bucket. I kneel and do the same, check the ammo, the safety. I really hope these are not needed. The chances that we arrive there while anyone else is present are low, except for those scientists.
Get in. Inject the code. Download onto the USB. Take some photos too.
Then we go.
Fifteen minutes, tops, is what we decided would be ideal. And if nothing is down there? Pray there is. In a few seconds we will know.
The elevator floor numbers drop below ground level and keep going, motor humming in the background.
B2 lights up.
I adjust my hand on the pistol, raise it, and aim at the door. Esau copies me.
The elevator opens onto an empty corridor with a ten-foot-high ceiling. We both exit, walking with our guns extended and ready. We considered locking the elevator doors open but that might trigger alarms.
Nothing moves down here, and there is no sound, except for those distant motors and the click and squeak of our boots on the polished gray floor.
The corridor has three doors on the right.
The left side has a glass window further along before it changes back to white wall.
A single white door is visible toward the end of the corridor.
Esau reaches the glass section first and peers in.
“Fucking hell. Bingo,” he whispers. He points in then lowers his gun and stares.
Two rows of glass coffins are lined up before us, oriented so we can see the bodies inside them from head to toe. If they’re frozen, the air must be low humidity as nothing has clung to those transparent curved covers.
“Niamh. It’s her,” he croaks, dropping his pistol to his side. “I was right.” His anguish is plain. His face is stiff, his mouth working as if to express something he has no words for.
I scan the rest of the room. The door is placed where a red rectangular roof and walls box in the row ahead. Perhaps that’s a scanner to check for anything that might mess with however the cryogenics works. I don’t know.
“Come.” Esau beckons me and raises his gun. Composure regained, but I’d hate to get in his way.
We have the right floor, right place, and this, what we are seeing, it will take down the institute and Clay.
“Take it smooth and easy,” I tell his back. “Fifteen minutes and two have gone.”
He nods curtly.
The white door opens like cream sliding on butter. No sound comes from the hinges.
Paired and level with each other, we advance into the room.
Past the red walls of this entry section, there are four coffins in this row and a control area to the right, or I’m assuming it is that.
Ahead of us, the ceiling remains ten feet high, at least, and is festooned with thick cables.
Overhead, in this red section, a gantry is locked to the ceiling, with a forklift-style claw hooked out of way.
Once past the red entry, I relax and lower my gun. I point to the right where a set of screens shows a schematic of each cryo coffin with various data updating constantly.
“That’s a USB port.” I draw out the new card that Rasmus coded and toss it to Esau. He kneels and plugs it in. A box with instruction requests and dropdowns appears on the screen. He manages to click something, making it vanish.
“I hope that was it.”
He shrugs. “Probably.”
“Pull it out when we leave.”
“That’s what my last girlfriend said.”
I smile. “Ha.”
As we pass coffin after coffin of frozen people, all with pieces of them missing or gaping wounds, and three coffins containing only assorted limbs, I cannot help but be sad. I’m rocked knowing this was me, too, once.
They may not be able to create me yet, here, in this world, but it will happen. The knowledge has escaped. It’s a Pandoras Box situation. The influence of the Large Hadron Collider is not something I understand, but others will figure it out.
Is this bad?
I don’t think so. Like most things, bad or good depends on the doer.
On the mind inside the doer. Or the brains…
Coffin after coffin after coffin.
The phone I have is unsullied by any other data, according to Rasmus, and should be able to send off what we find, except the internet down here is blocked or something.
We expected this. I snap multiple photos of everything in sight, of every single body.
The USB should have finished uploading and downloading by now.
Get in and get out.
Except Esau is kneeling before Niamh’s coffin with his forehead resting on its side.
Her face is untouched. Like all in here she is naked, and the damage to her is extensive.
Lacerations. What might have been bruising on her thighs and stomach.
Torn neck tissue. A broken arm judging by the angle.
And the other arm is gone at the elbow. If this was from Clay…
I want to kill him twice over. Did he throw her over a cliff?
“Hey, man. You need to get up. Say one last farewell.”
He staggers to his feet, sucks in a breath. “I’m good. I’m ready to leave. When I kill Clay Skinner, it will be elsewhere, so I won’t involve others.”
“Jesus. We will talk later. For now, we will put our feet in front of each other, one by one, and walk.”
“Of course. I plan on surviving so I can fuck him up.” He goes around me and heads for the door aisle that’s two rows over.
I keep my pistol out and jog after the man.
We skid around the end corner where Esau pauses to unplug the USB before we stride for the white door exit.
A sound has me swinging my head toward the elevator.
The doors have opened. Men are running along the floor and shadows flit across the small glass section.
Three men. Not enough, not when they only have pistols like us. Like I do.
I’m almost certain a bullet will go through me and leave me fully capable of doing what must be done—killing them.
“Stay there.” I signal Esau and run toward the white door. As it starts to swing open, I halt and put three shots into it. From the lack of cries, it’s bullet proof.
The first man through will get shot. Esau arrives and stands at my shoulder with his pistol raised. Fuck. I guess expecting him to obey me was stupid.
“Getting out of here might be tough,” I say.
“Doable. That code we injected subjects the elevator control to us only. No one else is coming.”
Fuck yeah. I chuckle. A leg shows in the door gap, but I wait for more. A bigger target, please. Snails, these men are.
The door flies fully open and no one is there in the gap. Above, something clicks three times.
I look up. The gantry claw swings down, rushing at us.
It slams in and knocks me back several feet, swings me high.
Two prongs have punched through my chest and exited out the back.
I clutch at them. The pain tidal waves through me, and my knees fail but the metal holds me in place in mid-air as I spasm.
Someone else is screaming. No, it is me. And it’s Esau too. No. Please no.
Blood has burst over this white floor, splattered the red walls, and it spreads, pools over the floor. It pours out of Esau.
Not me. I seep blood, even where the two-inch thick prongs disappear into my chest and shirt.
In anguish, disbelieving, I watch him take two more strangled breaths then slump over the prong lodged inside his stomach, and then he dies. His arms hang before him, brushing the prongs. Blood drips off his fingers.
I’ve forgotten how to scream. I can only stare, confused and grieving over how this day has turned into an apocalypse.
Though I try to squirm and push, the prongs have been made jagged at the ends like fishhooks, made to not allow the fish to slide off and swim away.
“You did surprise us, Kail. You two were faster than expected. We were barely ready. Still, this was far too easy,” a man drawls, voice packed with a mix of triumph and amusement.
Vision blurring, I look up and sight a man in a neat suit strolling toward us…toward me, there is no us now…from the direction of the white door. A guard carrying a pistol walks beside him.
“Shoot him now, please.”
The guard pulls the trigger, and a dart hits my chest. I stare at it. Really?
“If this fails to work, it will be tricky to restrain you, Kail Stone.” The suit man wobbles in the air and melts sideways.