Robin Cook - Host

“I ain’t going in there, no way,” Michael said.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Lynn said. She was now frantically using the screwdriver to scribe the periphery of the lattice. A moment later she was able to break it free from the wall. “Finally,” she voiced. She leaned the screen against the wall to the side of the opening and put down the screwdriver.

“How do you know you won’t get lost?” Michael said.

“Easy,” Lynn said. “We’ll follow the airflow. The good thing is that the ducts have to get larger and not smaller.”

“How come you picked this room out of all the rooms we passed?”

“I knew a pharmacy would be kept cooler than other rooms, meaning bigger ducts. And we are in luck. I don’t see any video cameras in here.”

With mounting panic, Michael glanced up at the ceiling. She was right. There were no cameras. Then he bent down and stared into the duct. Compared with this dark, narrow duct, dealing with the conveyor system had been a comparative picnic. Considering his size, he wasn’t sure he’d even fit.

“We got to do this, bro,” Lynn said. “It might take us a while, and I hope you are not claustrophobic. You want to go first or second? Whoever goes second has to try to reposition the grille.”

“You first,” Michael said.

“Okay,” Lynn said, trying to bolster her courage. Despite what she had said to Michael, she had serious misgivings about what they were about to do. At the same time she knew they had to either try it or give up. And with the enormity of what they had discovered on their visit, she wasn’t eager to put herself and Michael into the hands of Sidereal Pharmaceuticals or Middleton Healthcare.

Taking a deep breath, Lynn stretched out her arms in front of her and then, using her feet, pushed herself headfirst into the duct. By slithering like a snake, she found moving on the metal surface was actually easier than she had envisioned. She’d gone six or seven feet into the steadily growing darkness when she heard the metal grate hit against its housing. She sensed Michael was not behind her. Without being able to turn around or even see behind her with ease, she called out to Michael. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m replacing the grille,” he called to her. “You go get the Marines. I’ll duke it out here. Who knows? Maybe they won’t find me, at least right off.”

“Michael!” Lynn yelled loud enough to hurt her ears in the confines of the duct. “That’s not fair. You tricked me!”

“For good reason,” Michael said. “If they found this grille detached, they would know what we were up to. This way you have a fighting chance, not that I envy you. Go to it, girl!”

“Michael,” Lynn yelled again, but with a bit less volume. “Don’t do this! We are a team. Those were your words.”

“Sorry,” Michael said. “The ball’s through the hoop and the game’s over. Good luck!”

“Michael, please!” Lynn yelled, but he didn’t answer. “Michael, are you still there?” Silence reigned.

“Holy shit,” Lynn murmured. For a moment she debated trying to back up and see if she could kick the grate off. The reality was that she didn’t think she could. Instead, after taking another breath, she began crawling forward, going deeper into the confined, utter darkness.

Thursday, April 9, 3:24 A.M.

Benton Rhodes clicked off his smartphone and slipped it into his pocket. He had been playing Angry Birds to entertain himself but he had run out of patience. He checked the time. More than two hours had passed since the security team had gone after the students. Although they had quickly cornered and tranquilized one of them after a relatively short chase, the other was irritatingly still at large.

“That’s it,” Benton said. He pushed back his chair and stood up to stretch. He, Fyodor, and Misha were still in the control center. Viktor had been busy supervising the Shapiro staff to get the automation equipment on floors four through six that had been shut down back online.

Fyodor and Misha turned to look at him. They, too, had been killing time. Everybody was tired and on edge.

“I think we should go ahead with the mock surgery on the male,” Benton said. “There is no reason to wait to find the female, and Dr. Phillips has been ready for almost an hour.”

“Fine with us,” Fyodor said.

“When do you think you’ll find the female?” Benton asked. He couldn’t keep derision from his voice.

“It should be soon,” Fyodor said. “We have brought in more personnel, and we are going to be systematic about it, starting from the sixth floor and working down. Frankly we are surprised she has eluded us this long. Obviously she’s found somewhere to hide. We didn’t expect that they would split up.”

“Can one of you get me to the patient viewing room A?”

“Of course,” Fyodor said.

Thursday, April 9, 4:35 A.M.

Lynn could tell she was nearing the end of what had been an arduous journey, both physically and psychologically. The first hour had been the hardest, as the size of the duct remained small. She had come to multiple junctions, some of which were hard for her to negotiate. At times she had to squeeze forward on her side and bend at the waist to get around sharp corners. As difficult as it was in places where she had to negotiate what seemed initially like insurmountable barriers, she seriously questioned whether she would be able to back up. A few times she used the flashlight app on her phone to help, but otherwise she remained in absolute darkness. Purposefully, she mostly kept her eyes tightly closed. With them open, she felt more claustrophobic and frightened. She was thankful there was a constant and gradually increasing breeze moving through the duct, assuring her she was moving in the right direction, particularly at junctions. The draft also kept her from feeling suffocated in the tight space. As difficult a time as she was having, she tried not to think about Michael and what he might be facing.

After the first hour of worming her way deeper and deeper into the system, the dimensions of the duct increased in a progressive, incremental fashion. Eventually she was able to make significant headway when the duct became large enough for her to crawl on all fours, as she and Michael had done in the conveyor tunnel. When the duct angled downward, she adopted a sitting position to slide down on her backside, as if she were on a slide in a children’s playground. But out of fear that she might collide with something at the bottom, she inched along, keeping her feet pressed against the sides.

Once the duct again became flat and she could walk bent over at the waist, she made better time. To help orient herself, she ran her hands lightly along the metal sides. As she continued forward, she became more and more aware that the noise level and the turbulence of the moving air were increasing. She guessed they were coming from fans, which she assumed had to be large and powerful to move so much air over so great a distance. It dawned on her that she was getting close, and she began to worry that in the dark she might stumble into one of them.

Such concerns forced her to turn on her flashlight app before proceeding, yet she soon realized that using such a bright light would quickly exhaust her phone’s battery. Instead of the flashlight app, she just used the light from the screen, which was more than adequate. The only problem was that the phone kept turning off.

A hundred feet farther on, the duct suddenly enlarged significantly, and ten feet beyond that, the passageway was completely blocked by a large dark gray filter screen. From the noise and vibration, Lynn could tell that the fan or fans were just on the other side.