Jonathan Maberry - The Dragon Factory

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, and ran upward. If I’d had a grenade left I’d have sent it down as a “hello” from Uncle Sam. Pity.

I took the steps two at a time and then came out onto the top level. My flash showed a much more elegant hallway, with brass fittings, expensive art on the walls, and a décor that tended toward style rather than function. Hecate’s office had to be here, but as I shone the light down the hall I could see at least twenty office doors.

My flashlight also swept across the simian faces of a half dozen of the Berserkers.

They saw me and grinned.

And then they rushed me.

The Jakobys

Tuesday, August 31, 3:00 a.m.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 0 minutes E.S.T.

The spiral staircase that rose from the Chamber of Myth to Hecate’s office was one of several bolt-holes she’d built into the architecture. Paris knew about most of them but not all. Paris had been unaware of this one and of one other that took Hecate down to a pneumatic tube in which she could take a capsule from the main building straight to the dock. There was a seaplane and a twenty-eight-foot ZT-280 Checkmate speedboat with 496-horsepower engine and a top speed of 74 miles per hour. A final private stairway led to a small lab she had ordered built during one of Paris’s trips to the South of France. It was in that private lab that Hecate had worked with panther and tiger genomes for some personal gene therapy.

In lighter moods Hecate sometimes castigated herself for wasting the time and resources on the bolt-holes and for the paranoia that led her to create them. Now, as she followed Otto and Cyrus up through the dark, she felt a flush of vindication.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” growled Cyrus from above her.

“You don’t need to see,” she snapped. “Just climb.”

“Wait… the ladder stopped… I can feel a door.”

“That’s it. It opens into a closet in my office.”

One by one they emerged from the spiral staircase into a closet that was as dark as everything else. Hecate felt her way past Otto and Cyrus to the door and let herself into her office. The room felt alien now that there were no points of reference, but she finally located her desk and from there oriented herself to the whole room. A few brief diffused flashes of light backlit the blinds, and Hecate moved to the window and peeked out.

“God! Look at this.”

With the blind lifted even a bit, the flashes of automatic gunfire and explosions gave them enough light to cross the room to join her. They peered out. The lawn below was a battlefield. On one side were at least sixty of the remaining Russians. They had a very secure firing position among a tumble of decorative boulders. Well to their left were the guards from the Dragon Factory-normal humans and the genetically modified Berserkers. Neither of these two forces was firing at the other. Though there had been no opportunity for either Hecate or Cyrus to tell their forces to stand down, that the conflict between the two houses of Jakoby-the Deck and the Dragon Factory-was over, they had somehow worked out a temporary alliance against a common threat. The other side of the lawn was crammed with armed men. It was impossible to pick out any details from that distance, but the precision and tactics they observed told the tale. These were U.S. Special Forces. A lot of them.

Between the two opposing sides lay the burning wreckage of a Black Hawk helicopter. Whether it had been shot down by their own men or had crashed because of systems failure following the EMP was anyone’s guess. The lawn was littered from end to end with bodies.

“This isn’t a fight we can win,” said Hecate.

“Where is the rest of your staff?” Otto asked.

“If they followed procedure then they’re down in the caves below the maintenance level. They are instructed to remain there until they get an all-clear signal.” In the dim light she gave a rueful smile. “Of course, if they made it to the caves and locked themselves in before the EMP, then that could be a problem. The computers control all life support.”

Cyrus turned to his daughter.

“Listen to me, Hecate… I cannot express how deeply your loyalty touches me. I would love to spend years and years working with you, side by side, to help reshape this world as the Extinction Wave cleanses it. But…” He nodded to the battle outside. “I can’t see how we can get away from here.”

“I have a boat. And a seaplane.”

“And we’ve had an EMP,” he reminded her.

Hecate closed her eyes. “Shit.”

“We’re not getting out of here,” said Cyrus. “I think we can all agree on that.”

Otto opened his mouth to say something, then sighed and nodded.

“We can try,” insisted Hecate. “We can’t just roll over and let them win.”

“Win?” said Cyrus with a smile. “What makes you think they can win? The most they can do is kill us.”

“But…”

He fished into his shirt and brought out the trigger device.

“In war people die,” he said. “All that matters is winning. Now, my pet, let’s get that laptop.”

The Dragon Factory

Tuesday, August 31, 3:01 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 32 hours, 59 minutes

I raised my pistol and fired.

All of them were wearing body armor, and they were fast. It was head shots or I was dead. The Berserkers screamed like mountain gorillas-not a human sound at all.

I hit the lead one in the forehead and he pitched back and dragged two others down. I fired three more shots and took down another. Another two shots for a third.

Then they started shooting at me.

I jumped sideways and crashed through an office door, hit the ground, rolled, and came up into a kneeling firing position as they tried to squeeze through the doorway. The window blinds were open, and rippling light from the pitched battle outside gave me enough illumination to see the Berserkers. Their bulk was against them as they fought one another to be the first to get to me. I fired and hit the lead one in the throat, but he opened up with a Škorpion vz. 61 machine pistol that chewed up half the room. He was still firing when he fell down dead.

Another of the Berserkers reached over him and fired. I twisted out of the way of the first round, but the second and third slammed into me and sent me flying. I could actually feel my ribs break. The pain shot through me like lightning as I hit the wall and slid down.

But I used the pain; I let it wipe my mind to clarity. The Berserker stepped into the room and I shot him through the upper lip. The bullet punched through the back of his head and tore the ear off the Berserker behind him. I grinned and fired again. The one with the torn ear raised an arm to fend off the shot, and though the Kevlar deflected the round, I could tell from his howl of pain that the impact broke his arm. I didn’t much care. I put two rounds into him. And fired my last at the remaining Berserker before the slide locked back.

I dropped the magazine and pulled my last one. Just doing that sent daggers of pain through my side. Everything that had happened over the last hour had drained me, and the damaged ribs weren’t going to help. My head pounded from the noise of all the gunfire and I still hadn’t found Grace or the Jakobys.

The last Berserker was wounded, but he was still growling as he hauled on the corpses that choked the doorway. He yelled threats in Afrikaans and English and promised to tear my head off. I think he meant it.

I struggled to my feet and braced my butt against the desk to help steady my aim. The broken ribs were on my right side. My gun arm.