Extinction, p.28
Extinction, page 28
The poor man was in shock. “There’s some kind of emergency up at the labs. Everyone was called up there.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“I don’t know. All these video feeds went dead—no power.”
“Don’t you have emergency generators?” McFaul cried.
“Yes—but they’re not kicking in.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Now the press were streaming in. It was enough to drive you mad.
“I don’t know.”
Jesus, this was going nowhere. He felt gripped with panic. They should have called in the National Guard—in fact, that’s what they needed to do right now. He whipped out his cell phone—no bars. He got back on the radio—how to connect with the governor’s office? The emergency channels were hopeless.
He had to get back upstairs; maybe he could pick up cell reception higher up. He ran out of the room, pushing past the scrum of press, and headed back up to the great hall.
He found it a complete scene of chaos.
Still no bars. With the loss of power, there must have been a loss of cell coverage too.
What to do now? The emergency channels on his radio were still overloaded. He went to 154.905 gigahertz, Colorado State Patrol, and found it was quiet, broadcast an emergency call, waited for a response, broadcast again, tried several other state and county law enforcement frequencies, but could get no response. The problem was, most of the frequencies weren’t monitored, and the working ones were either jammed or down.
And then he paused. Was that smoke he smelled? He looked around wildly. That was smoke. Where was it coming from? He scanned the room, and what he saw chilled him: smoke was issuing from the seams of the main elevator doors, getting thicker even as he stared. There was a fire below, and smoke was coming up the elevator shafts. He spun around and looked toward the shattered windows, and he could see more clouds of smoke billowing up from the outside.
Son of a bitch, the building—the huge wooden lodge—was on fire.
62
Cash stared at the nozzle in horror and tried to cover it with her hands to block the flow of gas, but it was under pressure and would not be stopped. She backed away to avoid breathing it in.
Colcord sat up. “Oh my God,” he said, holding his head. Reno and Romanski were also stirring. They had all been beaten.
Cash took another step back from the nozzle. She recalled from somewhere that carbon monoxide was a heavy gas. It would settle at floor level and fill up the room from there.
“Hey!” she said. “Everyone—stand up. Off the floor, get up on your feet!”
They did so, groaning and stumbling. She then thought, What’s the use? They were dead regardless. There was no way out of this metal box. It was monstrous—their bodies would be arranged in some mine tunnel, and everyone would assume death by carbon monoxide poisoning—a common fatality in mines.
She realized she was hyperventilating. How stupid was that? Were they going to die? Of course they were.
Colcord came over and put his arm around her. “Agent Cash, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you—”
“Don’t say anything,” Cash interrupted. “Not now.”
He shook his head. “Okay.”
“I can’t believe this shit,” said Romanski. “These people—this is what the fucking Nazis did. Eugenics meets the twenty-first century. I’m not ready to die like this.”
Cash swallowed. Neither was she. But only a miracle would save them now.
The light in the ceiling flickered, and a vibration passed through the floor, followed a few seconds later by a rumble, a deep and distant thunder.
And then the light blinked out entirely, plunging the room into absolute blackness.
For a moment, Cash was stunned. The blackness was so absolute it was disorienting. But then she realized the hissing had stopped. A power failure. She took a step forward, and another, and found the steel wall with her outstretched arms. The door to the room would be to her right. She fumbled along the wall until she found the door and then groped down to its handle—and turned it.
The door opened.
“Hey,” she said. “Hey! The door’s unlocked.” Hardly believing it, she pulled the door all the way open—a miracle. An insane miracle. The hallway beyond was also as black as night. She lowered her voice. “Everyone get over here. Quietly.”
A light came on; Romanski’s face appeared in the dimness. She realized: of course, they still had their flashlights.
They gathered around him in a tight group.
Cash whispered, “Emergency power might be coming on any moment. We’ve got to get out of here, move fast and silently, and use only the one five-lumen light. Is everyone okay to move?”
Everyone nodded.
“Sheriff, can you retrace our steps out of here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Let’s all try to remember.” She kicked herself for not paying more attention as they were being led through the maze of hallways; she’d been too traumatized.
She paused. There were sounds coming down the hall, a hubbub of excited voices. She had a sudden fear that it was the guards coming back to check on them, but as the sounds got louder and closer, she realized these were no guards; it was a mingling of yells, clapping, laughter, and whistles. It sounded like a mob.
The power failure that had unlocked their door had, perhaps, released the locks everywhere—including in that hotel-like hallway, freeing all the inmates or whoever they were.
“What’s this?” said Romanski. “What’s going on?”
“The Neanderthals are out of their quarters,” said Cash.
Now they could see the glow of faint, indirect light coming from around the corner as the hubbub of voices came closer—yells, expostulations, whistles—the sounds of a mob growing excited. They were coming their way.
Cash said, “We’d better hide in here until they go past. Understood?”
A murmur of agreement. As the sounds got louder in the hallway, Cash eased the door almost shut. But not all the way. She realized that if emergency power came on, they might get locked in again, the gas resuming—so she propped open the door slightly with her foot, hoping that it wouldn’t be seen.
The rowdy noises came closer, and a reddish light shone through the porthole window. The silhouette of a man—a Neanderthal, with that big, long mouth and no chin—passed by, carrying a burning torch. And then there were others, streaming past, not just men but also women, some with torches, others with flashlights. A few of the women were carrying children and babies. All came streaming past in a hurry, their pale faces grimly set as if with a singular purpose.
63
Marius Karman left his quarters and was on his way to the entrance of the mine when the rumble passed through and the lights flickered and went out. He froze in the darkness, waiting for the backup power to kick in. When nothing happened, he realized this must have been a deliberate act and not just a standard power failure. He also knew that the default position of the locks throughout the complex was set to be unlocked—a precaution to make sure no one would be trapped in case of a fire, cave-in, or other emergency. Which meant, with the failure of backup power, the Neanders would get out and could go anywhere. Especially the defective adults.
That was bad news. The Neanders, who had stolen the explosives—he had recently heard about that—had dynamited the valley’s power grid. Which meant they had a plan. He wasn’t completely sure what that plan was, but he had a pretty good idea. And they also had a leader, equally disturbing, since previously the Neanders had been disorganized and unsystematic. Now they were organized.
It was pitch-black in the hallway, and he had no light. He was alone. He felt in his pockets but of course he had no matches or lighter. But he did have his cell phone. Pulling it out, he checked the battery life—half—and turned on the flashlight.
He stood in the dim corridor, the light barely illuminating ten feet in front, his mind churning through all the possibilities, the likelihoods, exploring the outcomes. Part of him was frightened, part of him was full of sorrow. But another part of him was … gratified. The others had been underestimating the Neanders for so long, denigrating them, dismissing them, treating them like children—it had almost driven him mad. Now they had better take them seriously.
Of course, it was way too late for that to make a difference. What was going to happen now, Karman had no idea. But it was going to be big.
It was quiet in the passageway, off the beaten path between the front labs and the back living quarters. He had some time before the Neanders came this way. They would be roaming. They would be hunting. And they would be killing.
It was clear he needed to get out of the mountain as soon as possible, because the place was now a death trap for Sapiens. The shortest route would be to continue toward the front portal of the Fryingpan Mine, but that’s where he’d be most likely to run into Neanders. Better to go out some back way. In fact, the best way—the way least likely to run into anyone—would be through the Jackman Mine, where—he had just heard from Maximilian—Cash and her team had cut through the steel door blocking the adit that connected Jackman to Fryingpan.
He placed a hand against the cool wall of the tunnel and visualized in his mind the layout of where he was and where he wanted to go. He could find his way if he kept in his head a strict dead reckoning of every step he took.
And so Karman began … straight ahead, seventy-five feet—thirty steps at two-point-two-feet per stride—and then turn right and go another one hundred feet …
64
As the distant rumble and vibration died away, Karla Raimundo froze in the sudden blackness. A moment later, Maximilian’s flashlight turned on, and she reached down and pulled hers from her utility belt and turned it on as well.
“The emergency power will kick in any moment,” said Maximilian, who had rejoined her after taking Barrow to his quarters.
They waited.
“The transition to backup should have been seamless,” said Raimundo. “It should have happened instantly.”
“What are you saying?” Maximilian asked.
“This is no accident,” said Raimundo.
“You think the Neanders cut the power?”
Raimundo looked at him. Could he really be that thick? Now she could hear sounds, faint noise, echoing down from afar in the hallways. The locks were electronic; with the power failure, they had all unlocked. This was never supposed to happen.
“We’ve got to get ourselves to a secure location,” she said to Maximilian.
“Are they out? The bloody Neanders are out?”
“Obviously.”
“What happened to the two independent layers of backup power? It’s supposed to be redundant!”
She didn’t bother answering. Her mind was preoccupied with their present situation. The living quarters where Barrow was holed up—that was the securest place within reach. That’s where they had to go. Not only that, but there were two guards with Barrow, armed with AR-15s. She bitterly regretted deploying the rest of the guards up to the front of the mine or guarding the sequencing labs. She instinctively reached for her comms, but then realized that, without power, the underground comm system with its network of repeaters wouldn’t work.
“We need to get to Barrow’s quarters,” she said, moving into a swift walk. “We’ll be safe there.”
She could hear the growing commotion of the Neanders echoing through the corridors. They were bent on bloody work, no doubt. These were the worst, the error-ridden early failures of the de-extinction process. She had told Karman time and time again to put them into the CO room, which had been built especially for the purpose of putting the misbegotten to sleep. But Karman was sentimental and Barrow was weak, and she had been overruled. She had been dealing with this for ten years. Almost all of Erebus’s problems had been caused by Barrow’s indecision and Karman’s unaccountable affection for the brutes. And this was the result. Worst of all—absolutely the most disastrous decision Karman and Barrow had made—was to educate the Neanders. They were bred for only one purpose: their genes. But no, Karman had insisted on raising them like human children, putting them in classrooms, showing them movies, teaching them how to read and play music and do math and paint and sing and play games—and especially giving them access to computers and technology. None of this would have happened if the Neanders had been kept in happy ignorance and illiteracy. She had argued time and again that Neanders with knowledge would be dangerous, that they’d figure things out and rebel. She’d been overruled every time. And this was the result.
Reaching the elevator, she realized that, of course, it wouldn’t work without power, and so she diverted to the nearby stairwell, heading down to the living quarters. The high-security locked doors of the stairwell were also unlocked—everything was unlocked.
Maximilian followed in silence. The growing commotion of the Neanders now seemed to be spreading. The sounds were coming from everywhere and nowhere at once as the brutes, elated no doubt with their freedom, fanned out. What were they doing? She didn’t need to guess: they were looking for humans.
The stairwell came out to the lower level where the high-security door protecting this level was also unlocked. The weakness of the system, so dependent on power for security, surprised and enraged her. She had no idea that such a thing could happen, that a mere power failure disabled all the locks. More incompetence from some low-level engineer.
This lower level was off-limits to the Neanders, and indeed, it had been kept secret from them. It was the Sapiens level, the executive offices and living quarters, gym, and dining room. The elegance of the hallways on the Sapiens level—the beautiful wallpaper, the antique sconces, and hall tables with fresh flowers, all of which Barrow insisted upon—did not reassure her in the slightest. On the contrary, when the Neanders discovered this, it would not only confirm that this was where the Sapiens were, but it would also enrage them. This would be the level they would search first, and thoroughly.
She wondered briefly how in the world the Neanders knew to disable the backup generators. How did they even know where they were? They were clever, those brutes.
A final turn brought them to the steel door to Barrow’s quarters. It was closed. Raimundo knocked and called out—she didn’t want to be shot full of holes by some trigger-happy guard. “Mr. Barrow? It’s Karla Raimundo. Open up.”
She heard the rattle of something, and the door was opened by one of the guards. They came in, and the guard shut the door and replaced a jerry-rigged bar across it.
“Where’s Mr. Barrow?” she asked the guard.
“He’s in the back library, ma’am,” he said.
She and Maximilian hustled back through the darkened residence. It was a masterpiece of sleek minimalism, titanium and polished wood surfaces everywhere, almost no furniture, gleaming stone floors. They passed through a foyer, a hall, and through a titanium archway into the library. Barrow, sitting by a gas fire burning through spheres of glass, jumped up and came over. The other guard was there, standing at attention.
“Thank God you’ve come,” he said. “The Neanders blew up—”
“We know,” said Raimundo. “The Neanders are out; the cell doors are open. They’re overrunning the place.”
“What do we do?” Barrow shrilled.
“We stay here,” she said calmly. “Leaving is not an option. The Neanders are spreading out, and we don’t know where they are.”
“Will we be safe?”
Raimundo felt as if she were reassuring a child. “There’s only one door, it’s steel, and it’s barricaded. We’ve got two armed men. The Neanders have got nothing but torches, knives, and spears. So yes, I think we’ll be safe.”
“Maximilian?” Barrow asked, turning to the security director. “Is this what you think? That we should stay here?”
“I agree with Karla. We need to hunker down. I don’t see another option.”
“What’s happening outside? At the lodge?”
Maximilian shook his head. “I don’t know. All comms are down. When I left, the press was still there, and McFaul was trying to get them out.”
“The goddamned idiot,” said Barrow, “inviting the press in like that.” He passed a trembling hand over his head of white hair. “What do you think the Neanders are going to do?”
Raimundo said, “Let’s just focus on what we need to do. We need to reinforce that door.” She didn’t add her next thought: that the Neanders would certainly be looking for them. They would be a target, if not the prime target.
“Very good, then,” said Barrow. “Go reinforce that door. Maximilian, you go with her, make sure it’s rock solid.”
Raimundo turned and left, with Maximilian following. She went back through the residence to the entry door, which she carefully examined with her flashlight. The door was steel, and it opened inward. The door was set into a steel doorframe. While it was unlocked, the guards had barred it with a piece of angle-iron wedged into both sides of the doorframe.
“This isn’t strong enough,” she said. “We need a second bar across this, one that’s more solid.”
She examined the doorframe more closely. They would need to cut slots or holes in it to add another bar. “Are there tools or a workshop in the residence?” she asked the guard.
“Yes, ma’am, there’s a workshop.”
“There wouldn’t be an acetylene torch, by any chance?”
“No. There’s an arc welder.”
That would be useless without power. “How about a power drill that runs off a battery?”
“I believe there’s one there, ma’am.”
“Bring it up with some metal drill bits. And get me a stronger bar to put across here—like a metal pipe or something.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The guard disappeared. Raimundo pressed her ear to the door. Were the Neanders in the lower level yet? All was silent. Maybe they wouldn’t find it. But no, she told herself, that was wishful thinking. They would explore every nook and cranny of the tunnels, they would find the staircase to the lower level, and they would search it. And then they would find their way out of the mines as the previous escapees had. They would get out into the world—and God knew what havoc they’d wreak.
