David Koepp - Cold Storage

Afull hazmat suit weighs about ten pounds, the oxygen tank and breathing apparatus another twenty-one, and the T-41 unit Teacake had strapped to his back was nearly sixty. That meant every step he took, he was moving an additional ninety pounds over his own body weight, give or take. His shoulders ached almost right away as the straps bit into them through the suit, his thighs started to burn after the first dozen steps, and by the time they reached the front door of the building the sweat was running down his neck and into the suit. Naomi had less weight on her back, but the burden of being the sole lookout and guard, coupled with the amount of effort it took to keep turning from side to side in the bulky suit, meant she was expending as much effort as he was. The gun in her hand felt like a stone.

They’d gotten into the suits quickly enough, with Roberto’s help. The idea of climbing back down the ladder in the bulky things was harder to imagine, but they tried not to think too far ahead. Roberto secured the suits around their wrists, ankles, faces, necks, and waists, and showed them how to use the two-way radios in their headsets. He flirted briefly with the notion that he could somehow Bluetooth his cell phone into their headsets but gave up on the idea. There wasn’t much he could have done to help them from this point anyway. He’d shown them both how to arm and activate the T-41, which was fairly straightforward. It had been designed for soldiers in the field to operate under pressure, and simplicity was at its core. That, and fissile fuel that could sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

There was no third suit for Roberto. Teacake had asked why he’d brought two in the first place, and Roberto had just looked at him blankly. “For the same reason I brought two of everything else. What if one breaks?” Roberto would never understand some people.

With that he wished them luck, told them to hurry, and sent them on their way into the building. He watched them walk toward the front doors the way a parent watches his kid walk into a freshman dorm for the first time, thinking of a thousand things he should have said, a million pieces of advice he could have given, and knowing it was too late for all of that. Roberto knew he should be the one wearing the pack. He knew it should be him carrying it down to sub-level 4 himself and, if necessary, waiting there with it to ensure successful detonation, the way he and Trini and Gordon had planned and discussed thirty years ago. And he also knew with complete certainty that he couldn’t. Accepting that reality and trusting two twentysomethings he’d met fifteen minutes ago was the most difficult decision he’d ever made in his life. But he’d had no choice.

Of course, he’d left himself a failsafe. A contingency for the contingency. He hadn’t shared that part with Teacake and Naomi. They had plenty of information already, more than they could probably handle, and the rest would be revealed at the exact moment they needed to know it.

He watched them open the doors and walk into the building, then turned his attention to the parking area in front. Next order of business: make sure nobody goes anywhere. He pulled the Ka-Bar from the sleeve on his thigh and started with Teacake’s Honda Civic, parked on the far right side. He drove the blade deep into the edge of the back right tire and jerked it forward six inches. A puncture would take too long to drain the air and was no guarantee the car couldn’t limp out of the parking lot, but a slash did the job immediately. The tire deflated, and he moved on to the other rear wheel and did the same thing. The car’s chassis dropped a few inches. Anybody who tried to drive it now would be on the rims by the time they turned around, and the axle would snap before they got up the driveway.

The Harleys were easier; he only had to stab and slash one tire on each bike. They maybe could have limped out of the lot with a flat rear, but a flat front would break the fork. Nobody was driving out of this place unless they took his Mazda, and you can have my minivan keys when you pry them from my cold, dead hand.

He’d slashed four of the bikes and had three to go when his cell phone rang. He touched the Bluetooth in his ear to answer.

“You have incoming,” Abigail said.

Roberto straightened sharply and looked around. “Where?”

“Around the corner of the building. Ten seconds. Male, moving fast, major heat signature.”

Roberto turned, taking a few quick steps to his left, toward the front door, far enough to clear the sight line between him and the eastern edge of the building. He pulled the machine pistol from a holster on his hip and flipped the safety off with his right thumb. With his left hand he reached up and pulled down his thermal imaging goggles, which activated with a hum and a whir, showing the landscape in vivid purple-and-orange-tinted images. He didn’t need the goggles for light; there was plenty to see by, and more streamed around the corner of the building as the motion sensor lights went on, triggered by whoever was running toward him.

What Roberto needed was heat detection. When he’d first put on the goggles and looked at the hillside, the bits of fungus scattered there had glowed a warm red, and traces of that same red were visible in the open trunk of Mike’s abandoned car. There was live growth in those areas, and the chemical reactions of the growing fungus gave off heat. If he could see the heat, he could avoid contact with the fungus and could get a quick read on whether a human being was infected. It would be pleasant to avoid killing innocent people. If possible.

Roberto’s eyes stung at a sudden blast of harsh yellow inside the goggles, every last cone in his retinas getting a wake-up call at the exact same moment. He hadn’t fully adjusted when the figure came barreling around the corner of the building, looking less like a human being through the goggles than a blazing, burning, white-hot chunk of melted iron.

That answered the infection question.

“Get this shit off me!” the figure screamed.

Roberto didn’t pause to wonder how the man in motorcycle leathers had come to be completely covered front and back in mutating fungus yet still remain in possession of his faculties. He just aimed the machine pistol, pulled the trigger, and put five rounds in the center of Dr. Steven Friedman’s chest.

A Heckler & Koch machine pistol has a short-recoil action, meaning the barrel moves back sharply, rotates the link, and causes the rear of the tube to tip down and disengage from the slide. It’s a hard, jerking motion, and its effect on the shooter is usually mitigated by putting a stabilizing hand on the front handle. Because he’d had so little reaction time and he needed his left hand to pull down and activate the goggles, Roberto had been forced to fire the gun with one hand. That in itself was no big deal, all it meant was that his right elbow needed to be snugged up against his right hip to reduce uncontrolled movement. He’d made that firing maneuver dozens of times in the field and at the range.

But he’d never done it at the age of sixty-eight.

His body absorbed the first three recoils without incident, but on the fourth one his back rebelled. The spasm was sudden and fierce, the low back tissues seizing up and sending a red alert throughout his nervous system. The recoil from the fifth shot, which Roberto’s brain had already ordered before he could countermand it and remove his finger from the trigger, finished the job.

A blinding pain lit itself on fire in his back and lower extremities, and Roberto’s legs went out from under him. He collapsed, hitting the ground just a second after Dr. Friedman did, the difference being that the dentist’s problems were over for good and Roberto’s were just beginning. He landed on his side and rolled helplessly onto his back, staring up at the stars overhead. He knew immediately, the way you know, that he hadn’t just pulled something, he’d torn it in half. Could be ligaments, could be tendons, or maybe he’d ruptured a disk. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter.