Hayes set the lid to the side, then began pulling the packages out and handing them to Brandon. By the time they finished emptying the cylinder, the area around the hole was littered with bags. Hayes started going through them one by one, separating them into two groups.
When he finished, he pointed at the bags to his right and said, “Those go back in. Can you take care of that?”
“Of course,” Brandon said.
While he put the unwanted bags back in the storage cylinder, Hayes opened the others. The first contained a standard hiking backpack, while in the second was a smaller bag, not too dissimilar from the book backpack Brandon had used for school. Hayes began filling each with contents removed from the other bags — food, bottles of water, clothing, two sleeping bags, and a few things Brandon couldn’t identify.
“Shall I put the top back on?” Brandon asked when he was finished.
Hayes shook his head. “We need to put all the empty bags in first.”
Brandon collected the bags and stuffed them down the hole.
Once that was done, Hayes said, “You’ll take the small pack.”
The bag looked full, and had one of the sleeping bags strapped to the bottom.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t make it too heavy.”
“I’m not worried,” Brandon said.
“All right. One more check around to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything, then—”
A low, rhythmic noise echoed softly down the hill. Both Hayes and Brandon cocked their heads.
“One of the helicopters,” Brandon said.
Hayes looked around, his gaze settling on the half-full storage cylinder.
“Get in!”
“What?”
“Get in! Now. We don’t have time to talk about it.”
“You said they might have a thermal scanner. Won’t they be able to see us?”
“Not through the lid and the ground.”
Brandon looked at the hole, then at Hayes. “But…we both can’t fit.”
“I’ll get rid of them, and come back for you.”
“No!”
“If you don’t get in, you’ll get us both killed.”
The whirling of the helicopter rotors was growing louder.
“Now!” Hayes shouted.
Brandon jerked back in surprise, then climbed into the hole.
“Here,” Hayes said, shoving the small backpack in with him. “I’m going to leave the screw top off, and just pull the plate over.”
“But…but…”
“It’s going to be all right,” Hayes said, grabbing the metal plate and tipping it back over.
As it was closing down on him, Brandon said, “How long will I have to—”
“It’s going to be fine.”
The plate fell the rest of the way to the ground, plunging Brandon into darkness. He could hear scrapes on the other side as Hayes covered the plate with the loose ground they’d scraped off. For several seconds all was quiet.
Then the helicopter roared overhead.
4
THE MOMENT THE bullet left his gun, Daniel Ash started running toward the front of the room. His aim had been true. The slug slammed into Olivia Silva, spinning her off the chair.
But had it been in time?
He paid no attention to the huddled group of men on the floor, or their dead colleague who lay nearby. His focus was completely on Olivia, and the computer she had been using.
She was now on the ground, clutching her blood-soaked shoulder. Through clenched teeth, she said, “Very good, Captain Ash. I’m impressed.” She sneered. “But not as impressed as I could have been.”
Ash looked at the computer. On the screen, in deceptively small letters, was the simple phrase:
ACTIVATION COMPLETE
Dammit!
He blinked, but the words remained the same. His bullet may have hit its mark, but it had not stopped Olivia from transmitting the go code that would commence the release of the virus on the world.
Project Eden’s restart of humanity had begun.
He looked down at her. “You’ve got to stop it!”
“Stop it? Even…if I could, why would I?”
He whirled around and glared at the group of men, the leaders of Project Eden. “Deactivate it!”
No one moved.
He rushed forward, pointing his gun from one man to the next. “Turn it off. Stop it. Now!”
“We can’t,” one of the men said.
Ash turned to him and put the muzzle of the pistol against the guy’s forehead. “Turn it off!”
“Can’t be done. Once activated, it can’t be stopped.”
“Bullshit! You’ve got to have some sort of override.”
“Ash!”
He looked up. Chloe was standing in the doorway at the back of the room.
“We’ve only got a few more minutes!” she yelled. “We’ve got to go!”
Before punching in the go code for the virus, Olivia had begun the self-destruct sequence for the Project Eden facility known as Bluebird. From that moment, they’d had fifteen minutes to exit the building. Half that time was already gone.
“Olivia activated the virus!” he told her.
Chloe’s eyes widened in horror.
Ash looked back at the men on the floor. “Override it!”
“There is no override,” another man said defiantly. He was the one who’d been sitting at the computer when Ash, Olivia, and the others had barged in and taken over, the man who was supposed to have activated the release. “What’s done is done. Welcome to the new world, Captain Ash.”
“Ash, we’ve got to go!” Chloe said.
Ash ran back to the computer, hoping there was something—anything—that might indicate the men were wrong. But there was nothing on the screen other than:
ACTIVATION COMPLETE
Sitting beside the keyboard was the open envelope Olivia had taken from the man who’d been at the computer. Next to it was the piece of paper that had been inside. Ash snatched it up. There were only five characters on it:
EXIT 9
The activation code, he realized. He started to throw it down, then stopped himself. What if…?
“Ash! Come on!” Chloe called.
He typed in E-X–I-T-9, and hit ENTER. Nothing happened.
He tried the code backwards, 9-T-I–X-E, knowing it was a long shot at best. Nothing again.
“Ash!”
He glanced toward Chloe. She was frantically waving at him to join her.
“Give me a second!” he yelled, then input EXIT 9 again.
ACTIVATION COMPLETE
He tried once more.
ACTIVATION COMPLETE
Someone tugged at his arm.
“Ash,” Chloe said from beside him. “We’re out of time. We need to leave now!”
“We’ve got to stop this!”
“We can’t stop it! We tried, but we can’t. Do you want to die here, too? Because that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t move now.”
He balled his hands into fists as he stared down at the computer, more frustrated than he’d ever been in his life.
This time, when Chloe grabbed his arm and pulled, he didn’t fight her.
“Sorry to ruin your…day, Captain Ash,” Olivia called after him.
He twisted out of Chloe’s grasp and stepped toward Olivia.
“What are you doing?” Chloe asked.
“She started this,” he said. “She’s coming with us. She needs to answer for what she’s done.”
Before he could grab Olivia, Chloe yanked him to a stop. “Are you kidding me? She’s going to die here when the building goes up. That’s about the best solution we can get. Come on!”