Abdul tightened his grip on Adiba, who glared at Nazar as he stood at the center of the lab scanning the floor, searching for a pathway to the door.
Everything in lab was tipping, falling, melting, like a waking nightmare. Quinn shouted, “Abdul!” and pointed to the exit. The security guards had gone and closed the door behind them. One of the lab technicians had almost escaped. A pool of orange liquid marked where he had fallen, and it blocked their path to the door. A rapacious monster waited for something or someone to feed on.
Quinn pulled at Abdul’s arm. “The table. Slide the table. We’ll climb along and jump through the doorway.”
The conference table was twenty feet long with a polished oak top. He and Abdul braced against the narrow edge, and Adiba jammed in beside them. They pushed, and the table screeched and jerked across the floor until it reached the door.
Abdul clambered up, slid along, and grabbed the door handle, but they’d overshot and table had jammed the door shut. “Pull back!”
Quinn looked behind. The nanobots fed on chairs, tables and equipment, transforming them into more liquid, adding to the spreading orange pool that moved toward him, an incoming tide pushing up the beach. He grabbed Adiba and threw her onto the table.
The table juddered and tipped as the far end, beneath Abdul, dropped two inches. Adiba lost her balance and Abdul grabbed her just before she toppled off. Her eyes remained fixed on Nazar, who had picked his way across the lab and stood close to the center of the table, focused on the pool of liquid swelling behind Quinn’s feet.
Quinn pulled with every ounce of every muscle in his body. The table moved, but slower with Abdul and Adiba on top.
“Two more inches!” Abdul screamed.
Quinn yanked again. The deadly liquid pooled six inches behind his feet.
Abdul opened the door.
“That’s it. Climb up!”
The table legs nearest the door sunk lower as Adiba grabbed Quinn by the back of his shirt, and he slid and wriggled his belly onto the sloping tabletop, panting and gasping like a landed fish.
Adiba screamed and pointed. “Your shoes!”
Quinn’s legs still hung off the end of the table, and orange liquid dripped from the melting soles and splashed to the floor. “Ahhh!” he screamed. A primal sound, born of terror.
Quinn flipped off his shoes, then tore off his socks, threw them down, and turned on his back with arms and legs held high, like an upturned beetle.
For a few seconds, he stopped breathing and stared at his feet, waiting for them to melt.
Then he shouted in a voice tinged with hysteria. “I’m okay… I’m okay. Let’s go!”
Abdul jumped through the doorway. Adiba pushed Quinn ahead of her. “You next, Mr. Quinn. I’m lighter. I can jump farther.”
He didn’t argue. She was right. He had more than a hundred pounds on her. The liquid pooled in the doorway and that end of the table had sunk eighteen inches. He crouched low then sprang like a frog through the door. He cleared the orange by two feet and grunted as he landed.
Then he heard a fierce, hate-filled scream from behind him that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. He turned in time to see Adiba, balanced on the crooked table, slam into Nazar, who had slunk up behind her.
The nanobots pooling in the doorway prevented Abdul from reaching her. The table jerked and the movement unbalanced Adiba. She grabbed the doorframe for support. Nazar, disoriented by her blow, staggered backward. When he grabbed for her, she pulled away.
Abdul shouted, “Adiba, jump. Now. Leave him. Jump!”
She stood on the sinking, rocking table, her back to them and feet braced wide apart, knuckles white with their grip on the doorframe. Nazar teetered on the far edge, only twelve inches above the orange floor. His arms whirled as he tried to regain his balance.
Nazar pleaded with her. “Help me!”
The table jerked lower, forcing Nazar to step back off the table onto the floor. The liquid sizzled as it welcomed new feedstock. His legs buckled and he stumbled to his knees, screaming as he was eaten alive from the bottom up. Hands high, reaching, he shrieked at Adiba. “Pull me up. Save me!”
She stood above him, unmoving, and watched as the nanobots devoured his legs, then his pelvis. His body stayed erect as it melted into the floor. The screams were terrible, loud, and desperate.
They stopped when the liquid reached his rib cage and the nanobots disassembled his lungs. His mouth, though, remained stretched open and distorted in a silent scream. As his chest disappeared, he put down his hands to steady himself. They too turned to liquid, and finally, his head toppled, and his eyes turned to glass. Only then did Adiba turn away.
Abdul’s eyes locked on the end of the table. The legs sank under the liquid, and orange foam boiled as the nanobots reached the tabletop. The pool of liquid oozed through the doorway, forcing Abdul to retreat until the distance to Adiba had grown to seven feet.
Too far.
Adiba scanned the liquid moat, and her hand came to her mouth. A squeal of fear escaped her fingers. As the nanobots marched up the tabletop toward her, she shuffled her feet away from the end. The stump of the tabletop was a shiny raft in an ocean of orange.
Abdul stared into her eyes, reading the terror but unable to take it away. As the liquid advanced, Adiba stepped along the table and more of her body became hidden by the wall. Soon, only her beautiful face remained visible. One more step and she would be out of sight, just another morsel of feedstock for the rapacious machines. Blood pulsed in Abdul’s ears. His stomach churned. He was going to lose her. He moved as close the edge of the liquid as he dared. He wanted to run across and save her. Maybe if he went fast?
Quinn screamed from behind him. “Move!”
Abdul turned and leaped to the side, flattening against the wall as a golf cart roared past him and skidded to a halt inches from the doorframe. The liquid sizzled as it sucked in the rubber of the tires, and the cart rocked wildly as, one by one, they deflated.
Quinn shouted, “Adiba. Climb in. Hurry!”
She grabbed the roof supports, climbed on the cart’s nose and swung through the open windshield. Once she was onboard, Quinn reversed, but the cart slewed from side to side unable to gain traction. He stopped driving and slammed on the emergency brake.
“Go. Go!” He pointed frantically to the rear. She clambered over the seat, onto the back bumper and leaped into Abdul’s waiting arms.
The golf cart fueled the pool, and the liquid expanded farther into the hallway. For the second time in as many minutes, Abdul thought he might lose someone dear to him. “Hurry, Quinn!”
Quinn followed Adiba’s route. He perched on the rear bumper and stared at the five feet of liquid he had to traverse to reach safety. He crouched low, allowed his body to tip forward, and pushed his legs like pistons, launching himself across the deadly pool. Abdul grabbed the big man’s shirt before he landed and yanked him backward, adding an extra foot to his leap. Abdul thudded to the ground with Quinn full on top. Sparks flickered across his eyes and pain seared through the back of his neck.
Quinn rolled off him and Adiba grabbed Abdul’s cheeks in her hands.
“Abdul, are you okay?”
“I am now.” He studied her face. She had risked her life to watch Nazar die in agony. Abdul tried to read her eyes. Not pity or fear or disgust, but something else. Vindication, perhaps.
“Come on,” Quinn said. “There’s another cart outside. But we have a problem.” He led them down the hallway and they burst through the doors into the open. Abdul didn’t remember ever feeling so grateful to breathe fresh air.