Sicheng reached the door, touching the clammy metal bar with steady fingers and it wouldn't move.
The entrance was locked.
No panic, no worry, he was a shade that no one could see; he'd find another way in.
Sicheng held up a hand, telling Serra to wait, and edged smoothly to his right.
Silent and easy, shadow without form. He reached the corner and slid around, letting his heightened senses continue to feed him information.
No movement in the whispering night, the rough feel of concrete against his left shoulder and hip, the steady pump of exhilaration and fluidity in his muscles.
There was another door, facing the broad, glimmering openness of the sea, cool light matte against metal.
Bullets hit the dirt at his feet. Sicheng spun and leaped backward, flattening himself against the wall as he grabbed for the latch.
Walking from the direction of the boathouse, a line of three and Sicheng tore the door open and jumped behind it, heard the clatter of .22 rounds smash into the metal, stopped inches from his body by the explosive ping-ping-ping that rattled the door.
He held the door open with his foot, took a split-second look around the edge and targeted the flash of light, squeezing the trigger as chips of concrete and dust flew from the wall.
The nine-millimeter jumped, a part of his hand, and he was an animal now, at one with the thundering rounds, the pull of his breath, the awareness of himself both as a man and a bringer of death.
Another look and the line was closer now, the three dark figures taking shape. Sicheng got off another shot, ducked behind the open door and when he looked again, there were only two standing.
Then there was a snap behind him.
Sicheng whirled around and saw them, two of them, ten feet away at the northeast corner of the building.
Both held automatic rifles.
But made no move to fire.
He felt panic then, a screaming, whining beast in his gut that threatened to devour him from the inside out.
Sicheng cursed. The fusillade of the Man-16's was still approaching, but he could see only the creatures that stood there, watching him with blank and rubbery eyes, wobbling on unsteady legs.
The one on the left had only half a face; from the nose down was a liquid, pulpy mass of tissue, chunks of dark wetness hanging from strings of elastic flesh.
The one on the right looked intact at first, if deathly white and dirty until he saw the exploded mass of its belly, the limp, dripping snake of intestine flopped out against his bloody shirt.
...Won't engage until team A finishes.
Sicheng stepped backward into the warm dark of the building, using one distant arm to hold the door open against the pair that still fired.
He leaned out and aimed as carefully as he could manage, squashing the panic as best he could. Neither of the creatures moved to defend themselves, only stood there, teetering on descompose legs, watching him.
Two clean head shots, explosively loud over the continuing rattle of the M-16s. Before they'd even hit the ground, Sicheng heard another nine-millimeter thundering through the darkness, drowning the automatic fire.
Right, Serra.
He shot another glance around the door and saw the crumpling figures of the engaged team a hundred feet away, one of them still firing as it fell, its rattling rifle aimed uselessly at the sky.
Serra crouched out from between the buildings, handgun still pointed at the spasming shooter, her back to Sicheng.
...teams won't engage-
"Don't shoot him! Over here, leave him!"
She turned, a lithe and graceful spin, sprinting to meet him. As.soon as she was through, he pulled the door closed, the crack of the automatic muted to a dull popping sound.
Sicheng sagged against the door as Serra fumbled for the lock, his brain still screaming at him that he'd seen the impossible, that he'd just killed two dead men, that there was nowhere he could put that information that wouldn't drive him insane, can't be, didn't believe it before, didn't know and they were DEAD they were decomposed with million of eyes and they were...
Serra's ragged whisper broke the warm dark, broke through the cycling chain of his spinning, dizzying thoughts.
"Hey, Sicheng... was it good for you?"
He blinked, the words registering slowly.
"Going first, I mean," she added. "Was it everything you hoped it would be?"
He felt a creeping amazement take the place of the whirling, terrible thoughts, the confusion ebbing, the waters of his mind becoming clear again.
"That's not funny," he said.
After a beat, they both started to laugh.
-
The farther away they got from the front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air, for which Sunoo was deeply grateful.
He'd been seconds away from vomiting himself, the smell was that bad- a greasy, oily stench that seemed almost tangible, an entity in itself.
As they moved quietly through the well-lit hall, he found himself thinking again about Monika Chu,
about the story of the Marburg victims and although there was no proof that she was behind the mass slaughter of the G. Inc. people, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was responsible.
The corridor led them past several open rooms, each as barren and sterile as the building they'd come from.
They passed an exit at the far side of the block, and after another turn in the hall, finally came to a door marked again with the letter A, and below it, 1-4.
There were three triangles beneath the numbers, each a different color; red, green, and blue.
Sungjoon opened the door, revealing a much shorter hall, stark fluorescent light spilling into the stale darkness; there were two doors, one on either side.
Doyoung found the lights and turned them on, and Sunoo saw that there were more of the colored triangles on the door to their right.
The other was blank.
"I'll take the test," Sungjoon said. "Doyoung, you and Sunoo check out the other room, while you Hyeopil... stay here. We'll meet back here."
Hyeopil doesn't like the idea. He shook his head and walked ahead of them. Sunoo was worried as he hold his arm but the older only pray his arm away from his grip.
Sunoo sigh and nodded, saw Doyoung do the same. He looked a little pale, but seemed steady enough, though he dropped his gaze when he noticed Sunoo looking.
He felt a pang of sympathy for him, realizing that he was probably embarrassed for losing his lunch.
They saw Hyeopil opened the unlabeled door and stepped into yet another windowless room, as stuffy and warm as the rest of the building. He grasp the wall until he touched the switch then turned on the lights.
A rather large office lined with bookshelves flickered into view.
A steel desk sat in one corner next to a filing cabinet, the empty drawers standing open. Doyoung sighed.
"Looks like another bust," he said. "You want the desk or shelves?"
Hyeopil walked aimlessly towards the shelves, grasping the objects his hand could touch.
Sunoo smiled and shrugged. "Shelves, I guess."
Doyoung grinned almost shyly. "Just as well. Maybe I can find some breath mints or something in one of the drawers."
Sunoo smiled wider, glad that Doyoung had made the joke. "Save me one. I swallowed it down back there, but it was a close call."
They locked gazes, still smiling and Sunoo felt a tiny shiver of excitement run through him as the
second stretched, lingering a few beats longer than a more casual exchange.
Doyoung looked away first, but his color had returned, his cheeks slightly pinker than before.
Hyeopil glance at them and can sense the cliche moment. He paused for a moment, letting his mind wonder in his past and then the view of Hyunsung came into mind.
He crack a joke and because of that joke, Hyunsung had fallen to him hard.
Hyeopil shook the thoughts away as he continue grasping objects after objects until he felt something. Frowning, he grab the thing and feel it shape as he ran his slender fingers through the object.
His heart take a beat when he realized what is it.
It was a glasses.
Doyoung moved to the desk and Sunoo turned to face a row of books, feeling a little flushed himself. There was a definite attraction there, and it seemed to be mutual and it's only about the worst time and place to consider it, his mind snapped when he saw Hyeopil wiping then wearing the new glasses.
"Secure that shit," he whispered to himself.
The books they about what he might've expected, considering what they knew about the SBHsquads and G. Inc..
Chemistry, biology, a whole set of leather bound texts on behavior modification, several medical journals.
Hyeopil can properly see well with this glasses. He smiled to Sunoo when he caught him staring at him. He turned his attention on searching the books. Opening it and closing it, search another then open, flip a little and close again.
Sunoo watched him intently before deciding to search as well.
Hyeopil took another book and open it- saw a paper, taking it, he read what's written on it.
RADIATION
Electric field and magnetic. Electromagnetic waves.
Alpha, Beta, Neutrons, Electromagnetic waves such as Gamma rays.
UNITS OF IONIZING RADIATION MEASUREMENT
STANDARD UNIT OF RADIATION
1 to 10 mSv, 1.5 mSv, 7 mSv
Adults: 5,000 millirems
He flip the page and found about what he looking for.
Next Generation Bioweapons:
The Technology Of Genetic Engineering
Applied To Biowarfare And Bioterrorism

Park Daeum, Colonel, SF
April 2010
The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the SF
Counterproliferation Center to provide information and analysis to assist the understanding of the S. national security policy-makers and SF officers to help them better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction.
ARMAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY ORGANIZATION GENETIC ENGINEERING AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Hyeopil know about G. Inc. planning on creating bio-weapons but radiation?
What are they planning to do? Or what Monika trying to create?
He folded the paper and tuck it in his shoulder bag where his gadgets at.
As Doyoung rummaged through the desk behind him, Sunoo ran his hand along the row, pushing the books toward the back of the shelf as he glanced over the titles.
Maybe there was something hidden behind one of them.
"...sociology, Pavlov, psych, psych, pathology... "
He stopped, frowning at a slender black volume tucked between two larger books.
No title.
He pulled it out and felt his heart speed up as he opened the small book, seeing the spidery handwriting on the lined pages. He flipped to the front, saw "Fiona" written in neat letters on the inside cover.
One of the guys on the list, one of the researchers!
"Hey, I found a diary," he said. "It belongs to one of the people from San's list, Fiona."
Doyoung looked up from the desk, his dark eyes flashing. "No shit? Go to the back, what's the last date?"
Sunoo ruffled through the pages to the end, scanning as he went.
"Says July 18... but it doesn't look like he kept it regular. The one before that is July 9... "
"Just read the last entry," Doyoung said. "Maybe it'll tell us what was going on."
Sunoo walked to the desk and leaned against it, clearing his throat. Hyeopil walked past them and out of the room.
Hyeopil let them investigate while he'll get some useful information to destroy the G. Inc. Time is ticking and he needs to move fast or else Monika might release what she've been keeping.
"Juty 18, Saturday. It's been a long and ridiculous day, the end of a long and ridiculous week. I swear, I'm going to beat the crap out of Pio if he calls one more stupid meeting. Today it was whether or not we should add a new scenario into the SBHsquad program, as if we need another one. All he really.wanted was to get it on paper, and the rest of it was his usual bullshit... the importance of teamwork, the.need to share information so we can all 'stay on the right track.' I mean, it's like he can't live with the concept that a weekly might go out without his name on it. And he hasn't done dick since the Nc? disaster, except to try and convince everyone that it was Lai's fault; so much for not speaking ill of the dead. Sanctimonious prick. Dia and I talked over the implants yesterday, that's going well. He's
going to write up the proposal this week, and we're not going to let Pio touch it. With any luck, we'll get a green light by the end of the month. Dia figures the Thailand boys are going to want to run it past ///, though God only knows why; B doesn't give a shit what we're doing out here, he's off being brilliant again. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to his next synthesis; maybe we can work out some of the bugs in the SBHsquads."
"There was a minor scare in D on Wednesday, in 101. Somebody left the refrigerator open, and Jane swears that there are some chemicals missing, though I'm starting to think she miscounted again. Hard to believe she's in charge of the infection process, the woman's a dite and she's sloppy as hell when it comes to maintaining the equipment. I'm surprised she hasn't managed to infect the entire compound. God knows there's enough in there to do it."
"I should probably get over to D myself, make sure everything's ready for tomorrow. Got a new batch shipping in, and Monika Chu actually asked to watch the process; first time she's come out of the lab in weeks, first time she's ever taken an
interest in what the rest of us are doing. I know it's stupid, but I still want her to be impressed; she's as brilliant as her sister, in her own creepy way. I think she even intimidates Pio, and Pio is generally too stupid to scare. More later."
The rest of the pages were blank. Sunoo looked up at Doyoung, not sure what to say, his mind working to glean the relevant bits of information from the rambling tirade.
There was something in there that bothered him, something that he couldn't quite place. Missing chemicals. Infection process. The brilliant, creepy Dr. Monika Chu...
Sunoo no longer had any doubt that Chu had killed the others, but that wasn't what sent his internal alarms jangling. It was-
"Block D," Doyoung said, a look of anxious fear playing across his face. "If we're in A, Serra and Sicheng are in D."
Where there's enough of the A-Virus to infect the entire compound. Where the infection process took place.
"We should tell Sungjoon," Sunoo said, and Doyoung nodded, both of them moving quickly for the door, Sunoo hoping desperately that Sicheng and Serra wouldn't find room 101 and that if they did, they wouldn't touch anything that could hurt them.
-
The test room was big, three of the walls lined with open-ended cubicles. Once Hyeopil had turned on the lights, he saw that the tests were clearly numbered and color-coded, the symbols painted on the cement floor in front of each one.
All of the red series was on his left, closest to the door.
He saw brightly colored blocks and simple
shapes on the tables in each cubicle as he walked past, heading for the back of the room.
The green series lined the wall opposite, though he ignored it entirely. The back wall was marked with blue triangles,.the number four test in the far right corner.
As he neared the back of the room, he heard a faint hum of power coming from the blue test area. There was a small computer on the table in number two, a keyboard and headset in three.
As promised, the series was activated though what they were connected to, he couldn't imagine.
Hyeopil can't magine and don't really care. Once they solve these little puzzles, they'll find whatever's been hidden for them and get out, away from this cemetery. It can't happen soon enough.
He had seen all he wanted to see of Dobong Cove. The corpses in the front hall had been bad, but it was the thoughts that they'd inspired that troubled him, made him so suddenly eager to get his team out.
The SBHsquads were dangerous and deadly, the monster in the cove's waters had been horrible but somewhere in the facility lurked a monster of a different kind entirely, one that had murdered his own people and then stacked them like kindling in a dark place.
"What did you find?"
He turned and saw Sungjoon by the door frame. He walked towards him and said, "That kind of insanity chilled me far worse than the immoral greed of G. Inc., and I was afraid of what kind of a person Dr. Monika Chu is and can do to handful of soldiers trying to stop her... "
It creeps Sungjoon a little but shook the chills away as he spoke. "We'll find the material, probably notes on G. Inc., perhaps on the virus itself and then break for the fence, get well away from this madness- "
"-let the Feds handle the rest. If they're smart, they'll blow up the entire compound and gather the information from the ashes." Hyeopil trailed off and stopped in front of the last cubicle, returning his attention to the task at hand. Sungjoon come to join him.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, but the set up of test number four surprised them nonetheless.
A table and chair, utilitarian gray metal.
On the table was a pad of paper, a pencil, and an inexpensive chess set, all of the.pieces in place.
As he stepped into the cubicle, he saw that there was a metal plaque set into the surface of the table, a string of numbers etched into the steel.
Sungjoon sat in the chair, peering down at the numbers.
9-22-3//14-26-9-16-8//7-19-22//8-11-12-7
He frowned, looking up at the chess set and then back at the numbers. There was nothing else to look at; that was it.
He quickly sorted through the clues of Amazon's message, wondering which was supposed to be the answer. Was it, the letters and numbers
reverse, or don't count?
"Since there didn't seem to be anything relating to time or a rainbow, it had to be one of the two." Hyeopil said, standing beside him.
"If the lines are in the same order as the tests, this is the letter and number reversal. But what letters, there aren't any- " Sungjoon cut short when he saw Hyeopil smiled suddenly, shaking his head.
"The numbers on the plaque didn't go any higher than 26; it was a code, and a fairly simple one." he said and picked up the pencil and quickly jotted down the letters of the alphabet, then numbered them backward; A was 26, B, 25, all the way back to Zed, 1.
Glancing back and forth between the plaque and the paper, he wrote down the numbers and then started to decipher the message.
R... then X... and M... S...
The final letter was a T, and he stared down at the sentence, then at the chess board. It seemed that somebody had a sense of humor.
"Rex marks the spot. Rex is the latin for king and since white always goes first, so... "
Hyeopil reached out and touched the white king. As soon as his finger contacted the piece, it swiveled in place, turning around to face the back of the board.
At the same time, there was a soft, musical tone from overhead.
Both looked up and saw a tiny speaker set into the ceiling.
Nothing else happened, no flashing lights or secret passageways opening up behind the wall.
Apparently, he passed.