How anti-climactic.
It seemed like an awfully complicated test for something as supposedly mindless as a SBHsquad zombie eyed creatures- though perhaps the researchers had been making plans for something else, something intelligent.
It was an unsettling thought, and not one Sungjoon wanted to ponder.
He stood up and turned toward the front of the room and just as the door burst open, Sunoo and Doyoung hurrying in, wearing matching expressions of fear.
"What is it?"
Sunoo held up a book, talking fast. "We found a journal. It says that the strain of the virus used to infect the SBHsquads is in block D, in room 101. Maybe everything's fine, but if Sicheng and Serra touch anything that's been contaminated- "
Hyeopil heard enough and hurried out of the room. They watched him before Sungjoon pursed his lips and looked at the two.
"Let's go."
They turned and Sungjoon strode past them, following the frantic Hyeopil as he was leading them back the way they'd come, his thoughts racing.
They had passed an exit on the far side of the building, he could send Doyoung and Sunoo to the next block over while Hyeopil and him went to D, just as originally planned; only much faster, and now carrying the horrible, heavy fear that two of his people might accidentally uncover the A-Virus.
Sungjoon heard Hyeopil spoke in beside him, voice cold and nervous.
"It won't happen, they'll be careful, the chances of one of them getting a cut and then touching something dangerous in a room that's bound to be marked as some kind of a laboratory... "
Hyeopil reassuring the facts but did nothing to ease his mind.
They hurried toward the exit, a deepening knot of dread settling into the pit of Sungjoon's stomach.
They stood in the bright corridor at the center of D block, silently listening for a sound that would tell them Sungjoon had come.
From their position, they should be able to hear any one of the three external doors being used.
-
After securing the building and finding the
test room, Serra and Sicheng had chocked open all of the passages that led to the block's exits.
Serra checked her watch and then rubbed her eyes, feeling a bit worn out from all of the night's events, and still sickened by what they'd found in room 101.
Even Sicheng seemed unusually subdued, and definitely quieter than normal.
He hadn't cracked a single joke since they'd walked back to begin their wait. Maybe he's
thinking about the gurneys, fixed with bloody restraints. Or the syringes. Or the surgical equipment heaped in the sink.
They'd found the test room first, a large chamber filled with little tables, each marked with numbers between five and eight; Serra had been somewhat disappointed to see that the blue series number seven was just a handful of colored tiles with letters on them, half of them upside down and unreadable.
All the colors corresponded to a rainbow's, though there were two extra violet tiles in the heaped pile.
Since they couldn't risk messing with it until Sungjoon had completed the first test, she'd reluctantly turned away, suggesting that they check out the rest of the block.
They'd gone through a couple of offices, empty, and a cluttered coffee room, where they'd found a box of incredibly moldy donuts and little else.
It had been the chemical lab that had told them the most about what kind of place G. Inc. had created and although Serra didn't believe in ghosts, the room had given her a feeling like nothing she'd ever experienced before; it was haunted, plain and simple, haunted by the misery of fear and the cold, nazi-esque precision of scientists committing atrocities against their fellow man...
"You thinking about that room?" Sicheng asked softly.
Serra nodded, but didn't say anything. Sicheng seemed to sense her unspoken desire not to talk about it, for which she was thankful.
The weight of her good luck charm was the only other comfort she felt at the moment, and she longed to take it out, to feel reassured by memories of her father and successful missions gone by.
Anything to take her mind off the lab room.
The outer door to 101 was clearly marked with a biohazard symbol and they'd briefly discussed not going in at all, Sicheng arguing against entering a possibly contaminated environment.
Serra had pointed out that neither of them had any cuts or abrasions, and that they might find something about the A-Virus to take with them.
The truth was, she couldn't stand to let such an opportunity pass; she wanted to see what was behind the closed door, because it was there.
Because leaving it unopened would get under her skin.
Sicheng had finally agreed and they'd gone in, stepping into a small entryway that was draped with sheets of heavy plastic.
There were shower nozzles overhead and a drain set into the floor; a decon area.
A smaller second door had opened up into the room itself, leading them into a mad scientist's dream.
Glass, crunching underfoot.
A tired smell of anxious sweat beneath the acrid odor of bleach.
Sicheng found the lights and even before the large room snapped into view, Serra felt her heart start to pound.
There was a dark tension that filled the air, a sense of foreboding that radiated from the very walls. It looked like a dozen other lab facilities she'd worked in; counters and shelves, a couple of metal sinks, a large, stainless steel refrigeration unit in one corner with a lock on the handle.
And somehow, that was the worst that
the environment was so familiar, a place she'd always felt at home.
The few differences were dramatic ones. The room was dominated by a stainless autopsy table, fitted with velcro restraints and there were two additional hospital gurneys next to it, likewise fitted.
As she walked over to look at one of them, she saw the dark, dried stains at either end; the thin pad was soaked with blood from where a man's ankles and wrists would be.
In the back of the room was a cage the size of a large walk-in closet, heavy bars surrounding an unpadded bench.
Next to the cage, several slender poles leaned against the wall, each a meter or so in length and tipped with hypodermic needles. They were the kinds of instruments used to drug wild animals, allowing the person operating them not to get within reach.
Serra looked down at the gurney, lightly touching the long-dried stain, wondering what kind of person could have willingly participated in such an experiment.
The crust of blood was old, powdery, and filled her with thoughts of what the victims must have endured, waiting in the cage, perhaps watching as some gloved madman injected a toxic, mutating virus into a helpless human being.
It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds.
They'd both felt it, both been affected by the realization of what had gone on there...
Serra's right eye itched, distracting her from the terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the present. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again.
It had been only twenty minutes since the
team had split, though it felt longer.
There was a sound of a door opening, followed by Sungjoon's excited shout through the corridor. He'd come in through the west entrance.
"Serra, Sicheng!"
Sicheng grinned at her, and she felt a wave of relief; Sungjoon was okay.
"Here! Keep walking!" Sicheng called back. "Take a right at the tee!"
His footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few seconds, he appeared with Hyeopil behind him at the comer and jogged toward them, his face tight with concern.
"Is everything- " Serra started to ask, but Sungjoon cut her off.
"Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?"
Sicheng frowned, his smile fading. "Yeah, it's back the way you came- "
"Did either of you touch anything? Do you have any cuts, any small wounds that might have come in contact with anything?"
Their confusion must have shown. Before Sungjoon can continue, Hyeopul spoke, looking back and forth between them.
"We- actually... Sunoo found a journal, naming it as the room where they were infecting the SBHsquads."
Sicheng smiled again. "Well, no shit. We figured that much out in about two seconds."
Serra held out her hands, turning them over for Sungjoon to see. "Not a scratch."
Sungjoon exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over that something had happened. We found the researchers in block A; Amazon was right, he killed them... and our SHE has a name now. Sunoo seems certain that it's Monika Chu. She was the one he recognized from San' list, and she has a rather sordid history, he can fill you in when we regroup."
He shook his head, a wavering smile on his lips. "I just- I suppose I let my imagination run wild for a moment."
Sicheng smiled wider. "Jeez, Sungjoon, I had no idea you cared. Or that you thought we'd be stupid enough to stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like this."
Sungjoon laughed, a soft, shaky sound. "Please accept my sincerest apologies."
"Where are Doyoung and Sunoo?" Serra asked.
"Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them safely off to block B before we came here." Hyeopil answered.
"Did you find test seven?" Sungjoon asked.
"This way," Sicheng said, and as they started down the hall, he began to recount their run-in with the SBHsquads.
Serra followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse.
And to top things off, she felt a headache coming on.
She wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing. She never got headaches unless she was coming down with something. The swim in the ocean must have set her up nicely for a cold and from the building throb in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.
She didn't even feel the piercing stare from Hyeopil behind her as if examining her.
-
After Monika instructed Hanbyul and sent him on his way, she'd prepared the syringes and decided on a place to hide.
There was nothing left for her to do but wait.
In spite of her earlier feelings of confidence, she was nervous now, pacing through the lab restlessly.
What if Hanbyul had forgotten how to load a rifle?
What if the enclosure release didn't work, or the intruders had the firepower to stop the Nc127?
She had tried to prepare for every possibility, each plan unfolding into a backup but what if everything failed, if all of them fell through?
"I'll kill them myself, I'll strangle them with my bare hands! They will not stop me from doing what must be done. They can't... not after all I've accomplished, not after everything I've been through to get to where I am!"
For the second time that day, she flashed back to the takeover of the compound; the strange, vivid images of that bright and sunny day less than a month ago.
Instead of blocking the thoughts as she'd done before, she let them come, inviting them in to remind her of what she was capable of doing when the need arose.
She abruptly stopped pacing and moved to a chair, collapsing into it and closing her eyes.
A bright and sunny day...
Once she'd realized what had to be done, she'd planned it for over two weeks, working over each detail tirelessly until she'd been satisfied that every variable had been addressed.
She'd spent time reading about the SBHsquads and going through the master logs, memorizing the routine of the facility.
She'd watched the habits of his colleagues, learned their schedules until she could have recited them backward. She'd stared for hours at the sketches she'd made of each building, walking through them in her mind a thousand times.
After careful consideration, she chose a date and several days before, she'd slipped into the SBHsquad processing room and stolen several small vials of extremely powerful medication.
Kylosynthesine, Mamesidine, Tralphenide; animal tranquilizers and a synthesized narcotic, some of G. Inc.'s finest work.
It had only taken her an afternoon to get the mix the way she'd wanted it, just as she'd hoped.
Then she'd waited, much as she was waiting now.
The day before her plan was to unfold, she'd watched a SBHsquad processing and then asked Hanbyul to come to the lab after dinner to privately discuss some thoughts she'd had on intensifying the suggestibility factor.
Hanbyul had been only too happy to accept, had listened eagerly to Chu's description of the strain she'd already created, couched in hypothetical terms, of course and after a nice, hot cup of laced coffee, Hanbyul had become the first to experience Monika's miracle.
Monika smiled, remembering those initial glorious moments, the very first and truly the most important; test of the strain's effectiveness.
She had told Hanbyul that the only voice he could hear was that of Monika Chu, that all others would be meaningless babble and the suggestion had taken as easy as that.
In the early hours of that fateful morning, she'd played a tape of one of Hanbyul's own lectures for the compli-lant doctor and the doctor had heard nothing but gibberish.
If it had failed, Monika would have aborted the takeover, no one the wiser. She had an unfortunate accident in mind if the strain hadn't worked the way it was supposed to; Habyul's body would have been found the next day, washed up on the rocky beach.
But the incredible success of her creation had proved beyond doubt that it was meant to be, that she really had no choice but to continue and so, the kitchen.
The drops of sedative in the coffee cups, on the pas tries, injected so carefully into the fruit and dissolved into the milk, the juices of the nineteen men and women who lived and worked in Dobong Cove, only one regularly skipped breakfast and didn't drink coffee, Cheng Fie, the ridiculous young woman who worked with the A-Virus; Monika had sent Hanbyul to slit her throat as she lay sleeping, before the sun came up... and it was a bright and sunny day, cloudless and clear as they gobbled their breakfasts and swallowed their coffee, walking out into the cool morning air, collapsing to the ground, many of them not
making it out of the cafeteria before they stumbled and fell, a few crying out that they'd been poisoned as the words failed them and the drugs sent them to sleep.
Monika frowned, trying to remember what had happened next. She'd selected Eunsuk, unable to resist the petty pleasure of showing the good doctor what she'd created. Then Mingyu, although she hadn't given the gift to Mingyu until later, keeping him sedated.
She knew the facts: Eunsuk and Hanbyul had disposed of the workers and piled them in block A.
Dia Amazon had managed to keep himself hidden for a time, but had been found by the SBHsquads later that evening. Monika had eaten a late supper and gone to bed, waking up early to move papers and software to the lab.
These were facts, things that she knew but for some reason, the reality had blurred and she
couldn't actually remember what she had seen, what had transpired for her the rest of that day.
Monika searched through her thoughts, concentrating, but could only find the same hazy and uncertain images: a blinding midday sun, bathing the sleeping bodies in red.
The scream of a gull over the cove, relentless
and wild, calling to the hot wind. A coppery smell of dirt and, and blood on her hands, on the scalpel that glittered wet and sharp and plunged into soft, yielding flesh of faces and bellies and eyes and later, the thundering crash of waves in the dark and the spool of fishing line and Amazon, waving...
Her eyes snapped open and the nightmare was over. Shaken, Monika looked around at the cool, soft light of the laboratory.
She must have dozed off for a moment, must have. Yes, that was it. She'd fallen asleep and had a terrible dream.
She looked at the clock, saw that only a few moments had passed since she'd sent the two doctors out.
She felt a rush of relief, realizing that she hadn't been asleep for very long but as the relief ebbed, she felt the nervousness slip back into her body, jittering and pulsing anxiety about the intruders that had come to her facility.
"They won't stop me. It's mine."
Monika tood up and started to pace restlessly, back and forth, waiting.