James Decker - Fallout

I sensed uncertainty.

“Shiliuyuán is, essentially, the research facility where the original experiment took place,” he said. “It is possible my people could duplicate the event. Given what happened the first time such a device was used, though, I doubt any haan would ever attempt it.”

“Let’s hope you’re right, but assume you aren’t,” I said. “We need to make sure.”

“How?” Nix asked.

“I don’t know, but we can’t do anything from here. Come on.”

We headed down the tunnel, following it as fast as we dared in the dark. A few minutes in, lights in wire cages flickered on down the length of the tracks.

“There,” I said, pointing. In the distance, I could make out a train platform that cast a dim glow into the tunnel. The metro had lost power, but at least parts of Xinzhongzi were still lit.

When we reached it, Vamp helped hoist me up and then he and Nix scrambled up after me. We headed down the length of the platform to a set of concrete stairs that led to street level.

From the sidewalk I could see the gonzo church across the street… the entrance to the building was the one brightly lit thing on the whole block it looked like, and it had a sort of human glitz to it. While they’d left the windows blacked out the way the haan liked them, the entrance was a shiny, polished bronze affair at the top of black marble steps. Whatever the building had been before, it hadn’t taken Gohan long to convert it. He must have spent a fortune.

The huge glass doors were flanked on either side by stylish bronze emblems similar to the one on the front of their pamphlets. They foyer was more glossy marble, and a big security desk blocked an elevator lobby at the far end. Over the sidewalk awning, a big sign cast a warm yellow glow like faint firelight, with brushed hanzi announcing THE REUNIFICATION CHURCH OF XINZHONGZI.

Vamp stared, but not at the church. I’d been inside a haan colony before, but Vamp hadn’t. I saw the unease on his face as we stepped out onto the sidewalk, and followed his eyes up to the side of a building across the street where many sets of eyes burned flame red and mellow orange. In the glow, I could make out the movement of haan brains, shifting like jellyfish under their domed skulls. Feet and hands padded across the graviton plating as they crept past dark windows, moving closer to ground level to get a better look.

“I thought the colony wasn’t occupied,” Vamp said.

They were everywhere. In the twilight, the buildings looked as if they were smoldering and their constant movement across the blacked out windows created a hiss of glass-on-glass squeals that rose above the wind. Draping haan clothing flapped in the breeze, and their smell wafted down, filling my nose with the scent of fermented tofu. Above us, a series of little haan constructs, each shining with a single black-light blue bulb, went skittering down the length of a power line, their spindly legs ticking across the plastic shielding like cockroaches.

“It’s okay,” I told Vamp.

“Yeah,” he said. “All right.”

He couldn’t feel them, at least. The flow of haan thoughts had found the mite cluster in my forehead and before we even reached the old, faded crosswalk they were trying to worm their way in all at once. I felt curiosity, mostly… they were interested in us, especially me. I got the sense they’d seen Gohan come and go before, but here were two novel humans, and another haan. A directed wave of interest make the mites tingle, but underneath that I felt a simmering hunger. I’d felt it every feeding time while in the surrogate program, but it was stronger with adults—it felt much more intense—and there were so many of them. An empty, almost painful feeling poured in and made my stomach clench so hard I stumbled.

“Hey,” Vamp said. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” His phone started to buzz; then mine did too. “Shut off your phone. That’s the haan. They’re trying to communicate.”

“They’re trying to brute force the 3i.”

“Yeah, they’ll do that, just block them. Come on, we have to hurry.”

I headed across the street and they followed as I crossed to the entrance to the church and up the fancy steps. A red laser flicked down over us as we approached, and something beeped when it touched Gohan’s ID. The heavy glass doors slid open silently, and we headed in.

The air inside was crisp and cool and with every step the soles of my sneakers squeaked, echoing around the vaulted ceiling above us. When I looked up, I saw the dome was black, with points of light like a planetarium. In the center, bright white lines traced the gonzo overlapping rings symbol. A few paces away, a security guard sat at a large station outfitted with an array of monitors.

Off to the right of the station, in a sitting area, I spotted a familiar figure. A boy, dressed in flowing gonzo robes, sat on a plush, black faux-leather sofa. His knapsack hung from his hands by one strap, dangling between his feet that didn’t even quite touch the floor.

“Alexei,” I called.

He looked up, and his eyes went wide for a second when he saw me rush toward him. I knelt down in front of his chair and hugged him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, but he did hug me back a little. I let him go, and smoothed his hair back.

“Never mind what I’m doing here,” I said. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

His hands wrung at the strap of his knapsack.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said.

“Excuse me,” the guard said. “Can I help you?”

“Gohan invited me here,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “You got a problem with that?”

“If you two were anyone else I’d throw you out, but since Gohan has standing orders not to mess with you then no, I guess I don’t. Except for your friends here.”

“Vamp and Nix are with me.”

“They’re not on the list. The haan can stay in Xinzhongzi if he wants, but he doesn’t just get a free pass. As for you”—he pointed at Vamp—“you’re going to need to leave.”

“Gohan is expecting all of us,” I said.

“He’s not on the list,” he said, drawing his stunner.

I turned, and pulled the gun on him, keeping it pointed at him as I walked him back toward the security desk.

“Sit,” I told him. He did as he was told, sitting back down in his seat as I came around.

As I took his stunner and handed it to Vamp, I pulled up the 3i display and called Dragan.

Dragan, it’s Sam. I found Alexei. Where are you?

I’ve got a vehicle and a couple guys we can trust. We’ll be in the air shortly.

We’re in the church tower lobby. Hang on.

“Where’s the aircar port?” I asked the guard. When he stalled, I poked him with the barrel of my gun. “Where?”

“There’s an underground lot—”

“The one up on the tower.”

“Level ninety, east wing. Follow the signs.”

We’re heading to the aircar port up top—level ninety.

I’ll find it.

Good. Listen—Gohan is planning to try to reproduce the Impact… never mind how, just trust me, it’s not a bluff. He made it sound like the haan have to activate it. If Hangfei blacks out and exposes them, they might panic enough to do it but it sounds like he’s using Xinzhongzi’s power station to charge the machine. If you can take out that station, I think it’s better to risk it before he can get this thing up and running.

Understood.

I’ll message you again when we’re at the aircar port.

I reached down and unclipped the canister of Red Light from the guard’s belt.

“Sorry,” I told him, and sprayed him in the face with it.

The guard’s muscles switched off, and he slid down off the chair to crumple in a heap on the floor behind the desk.