"Are you hurt?"
"Smacked my head, maybe twisted my ankle, but," Brandon held one finger aloft. "Listen."
Gant did just that but heard nothing.
"What is it?"
"The gunfire … it's stopped."
Twiste was right. After nearly a minute of weapons fire the battle had faded.
He touched his headset and spoke: "Campion, Franco, report."
Static.
"Anyone, report. This is Gant."
Nothing.
"Maybe we can find the other stairwell and get back up there," Twiste said as he stood.
The idea crossed Thom's mind, but the cold, calculating soldier inside quickly dismissed it. Major Gant saw no alternative. He could not climb up the shaft and, as Campion had said, the only staircase connecting to the level above was a distance away and involved traversing potentially hazardous ground. Besides, his mission parameters dictated that Twiste was the most important human asset on his team.
"Let's move forward. We will have to find a way down to level 8."
"What? Wait a sec, the team is up there."
"We don't know that, Captain," Major Gant said, then started along the corridor toward the red glow in the distance. For some reason he thought it might actually be fires from a high-tech version of Dante's Inferno.
"Hold on a second," Twiste said, taking hold of his arm and stopping his movement. "They can still get down to us, through the shaft."
Thom moved up so close to Twiste that their noses nearly touched. His breath came and went in quick gasps as he said what needed to be said, regardless of how horrible the words tasted.
"Listen to me, Doctor. They could come down that shaft, or whatever attacked them could come down after us. If Campion and Franco are alive, they will complete their mission by making their way to the Red Lab on sublevel 8. It is my intention to do the same, and I will haul you through this nightmare by the collar of your shirt if I have to, but you will move out now."
Gant held his friend’s eyes and did not blink. Twiste matched his stare for a moment, then reluctantly retrieved his bag. Together they moved deeper into the Hell Hole.
Sergeant Ben "Biggy" Franco directed the other members of the team to form a perimeter around the elevator while Gant oversaw Campion and Moss gaining access to the shaft.
Look at them, sticking together: Gant, his best buddy, and his lapdog.
In front of the sergeant stretched an empty hall with doors to either side, most with frosted glass windows, or shattered frosted glass windows.
He knelt behind an overturned desk and kept his gun facing forward. An askew emergency light affixed to a crooked box twenty meters away provided a slice of illumination that cut across the blackness ahead as if a bladed weapon had sliced open the void, allowing light to bleed out.
Franco did not have a good feeling about this mission. While quite capable of moving silently through hostile territory, he was a man built for more direct action, particularly in his upper body. He could bench press more than anyone in the unit—
— including the major's pet, Campion—
— and despite a few extra pounds he had stamina on par with most of the rest of the team.
Except Campion. He'll run circles around you all day long, Biggy. Same with Wells, too, but then again his kind are built for that shit, right?
He removed the black cap covering his head and, again, the amount of perspiration surprised him. His tangled brown hair felt soaked.
Franco surveyed the guards he had dispatched to the perimeter. Wells and Pearson covered the area by the double doors where that pitch black hall elbowed off. Galati stood at the base of the stairs. To Biggy's right, over by the elevator doors, the others worked. Campion had freed a ceiling tile and found a rusting metal folding chair to help him reach a pipe of some kind to use as an anchor for the rope.
What the fuck is taking these idiots so long? It's a goddamn rope, not storming Omaha Beach.
He shook his head in disgust and returned his attention to the empty hall in front of him. Not for the first time, he wondered if anything actually lived down here. The way Gant had briefed the team … the way that wuss Twiste moped around—
— the way he dug for reasons for three guys to opt out of the mission—
— the rigid, almost robot-like stiffness of the garrison at Red Rock all pointed to some high-level threat. Yet so far, nothing. Only a cold, empty, underground office complex that smelled like a retirement home suffering from poor sanitation.
Kind of like the one Mom was in before she died. Half the place smelled like disinfectant, the other half smelled like a pissed bed. Bunch of crazy old folks, some howling for pain medication, which that fucking orderly — the black orderly — never brought on time.
Franco heard Gant say, ""Okay, then. It is my turn to go on point."
As much as that surprised Biggy, it did not surprise him that Gant's two little butt buddies were all like “no, don't go,” and “send Franco down” or whatever.
Gant said, "Just keep Captain Twiste here and the V.A.A.D. components safe. They are your primary concern. I'll go down first. If all is clear, send down Franco's scout team. If there is a problem, start off for the stairs on the far side."
He alternated his attention between the hall ahead and the elevator as Major Gant disappeared over the side. A few second later a horrid squeal — like fingers on a chalkboard — came out of the shaft.
Good going, Major. Way to let everything in this place know where we are.
"We're good," came Gant's voice over the tactical headset, albeit a voice covered in crackling static.
Franco's eyes drifted over to the elevator, waiting for Campion's signal for the advance team to head into the shaft. He hated roping. Back when he was with the Rangers he had slipped when roping out of a Blackhawk and dislocated his shoulder.
Didn't hear the end of that one for months.
To his surprise, Campion directed Twiste toward the rope, going as far as to put a hand on this shoulder and seemingly push him. Franco could not hear whatever it was the two captains discussed, but clearly this was not Gant's plan. Well, at least not as far as Franco had heard.
Nonetheless, he watched in disbelief as Twiste — duffel bag and all — disappeared over the ledge and started down the shaft.
Biggy returned his attention to the hallway ahead.
Whatever it was, it poked out of and then pulled back into one of the open doorways; one of the offices. Franco heard a soft crack, like a footstep on broken glass. In that brief glimpse, his eyes reported something about the size of a child, maybe four feet tall, with what might have been a bipedal, humanoid body, but the lack of light hid any other details.
Instinctively he called out, "Movement!"
Campion: "Biggy! What have you got?"
Franco: "Five meters ahead on the left. In one of those offices."
From behind them, down the hall, came Wells's voice: "Movement behind!"
Galati backed away from the stairwell, shouting, "Multiple targets!"
Sergeant Franco's head swiveled around from Wells, to Galati, to the office door ahead where he had seen movement but saw nothing now.
Major Gant and his pal Twiste got out just in time, didn't they?
Then they came, pouring around the corner guarded by Wells and from the stairwell door from which Sal Galati bid a hasty retreat. A lack of light made their attackers hard to discern, and even when Franco saw what he saw, he did not know what they were.
Shapes. Vaguely humanoid. Like a dozen or so walking — running — shadows. Animals? Machines? His mind did not stop to analyze. Indeed, his thinking process was overwhelmed with a sudden and sharp blast of emotion.