Juggernaut

‘I know all about you, Doc. The things you’ve done. I’ve seen pictures. The asylum. You didn’t have a qualm when you sliced up those inmates. Drilled their skulls. Too late in the day to grow a fucking conscience.’

‘You have to listen to me. Try to understand. This virus. This parasite. It’s like nothing on earth. It’s monstrous. I can’t even begin to describe it.

‘The structure is crystalline. Almost metallic. Maybe it’s synthetic. A chimera virus, an artificial construct. Nanobots or recombinant DNA manipulation gone horribly wrong. Or maybe it is something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘It’s not a sudden mutation. It’s a complex form of life. Highly evolved. Supremely adaptive.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘It’s not from Earth.’

‘Listen to yourself,’ said Koell. ‘You had a simple job: locate the virus; bring it back. That’s all you had to do.’

‘I don’t care what happens to me. You can go to hell.’

‘Tell me about the lab.’

‘Fuck you.’

Koell stepped into view. Shirtsleeves and a butcher’s apron. He held a pair of pliers. He hunched over Ignatiev, back to the camera.

A long scream.

Koell stepped away. Ignatiev drooled blood. A front incisor missing.

‘The lab. Is it intact?’

Ignatiev coughed and spat. A weird smile. The knowledge he was minutes from death manifest as a strange euphoria.

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘I’m going to send a retrieval team. A bunch of mercenaries. One of my guys will attempt to secure the virus. So tell him what he needs to know. Talk him through it. How do we get into Lab One? How is it secured?’

‘There is a keypad and swipe-slot, but it won’t work. The lab is in lock-down. I triggered a contamination alert. The doors sealed tight. None of the access codes will register. You’ll have to cut your way inside. Each unit is a double steel shell. Might take a while.’

‘The labs,’ asked Koell. ‘What will we find inside?’

Ignatiev spat more blood.

‘The main power will be off. The labs will be in sleep mode. Essential systems only. Chloride storage batteries will provide a trickle of AC power to keep the freezers operational. You will need to restart the grid. It’s easy enough. There’s a fuse box as you enter Lab One. On your left, at head height. One of those lightning bolt high-voltage stickers on the lid. There is a single breaker inside. You will be able to run at full power for about seventy-two hours before you need to fire up the generator to recharge.’

‘Tell me about Lab One.’

‘We used the first unit as a necropsy room. Specimens were brought for dissection and analysis. That was where most of our work took place once the human field tests began.’

Gaunt examined the lab door. A steel hatch, like the bulkhead door of a ship.

He opened his backpack. He loaded a cartridge into a caulking gun. Demex 400. An extrudable demolition charge used by SWAT breach teams. It oozed from the nozzle like toothpaste. He ran a stripe of explosive down the door seal. He coated the keypad and lock mechanism.

He pressed a detonator into the putty and ran firing cable.

He backed out the cavern, walked down the rail tunnel spooling det cord.

He crouched. He stripped insulation with his teeth.

He touched the wires to a nine-volt battery.

White light.

The blast echoed round the tunnel like thunder.

Gaunt walked back to the cavern. His flashlight beam shafted through smoke and swirling dust. He examined the lab. The door hung open, twisted and burned.

He kissed the crucifix hung round his neck. He cranked the handles and pulled the heavy hatch open. Darkness within. Intense cold. Counters and lockers.

The fuse box. Locked. He smashed it open with the butt of his pistol. Breaker to on. Faint hum. Overhead strip lights flickered to life.

Gaunt switched off his flashlight.

He was in some kind of vestibule, sealed from the rest of lab by a glass partition.

A warning stencilled on the glass:

Contamination alert. A roof beacon washed the room in crimson light.

Gaunt unzipped his jacket and released his body armour. He piled them in the corner.

Breathing equipment hung in a locker. He punched out glass, unhooked an M50 gas mask and pulled it over his face. A pig-snout respirator with twin filters. He tightened straps.

He tugged a pair of Nitrile gloves from a wall dispenser and wriggled them on.

He shouldered his backpack, pulled back the glass partition and entered the lab. The air-handling system created a compressed hush, like the pressurised cabin of a transatlantic jet.

He stood over a zinc autopsy slab. Sluice channel. Plug hole.

The gas mask reflected in mirror-metal. Black rubber. Smoked glass, like the empty eye sockets of a skull.

A freezer. The digital read-out said -70.

Gaunt pulled the latch. The door popped with a hiss. A cascade of broiling nitrogen-smoke. Frosted jars.

Gaunt brushed away ice crystals. Body parts preserved in formaldehyde. Fingers. Teeth. An ear. A scrap of scalp.

Ignatiev lolled in the office chair. He was unconscious. Blood and spit drooled from his mouth.