Twiste said, "This level may be big, but eventually they’ll get around again and by then they might start opening doors. I suppose sitting tight and hoping for a rescue team isn't a great plan?"
Gant answered, "I wonder how many of those first-entry teams barricaded themselves in rooms like this, hoping Borman would send in the cavalry. Speaking of which, I wonder what we have here."
He scanned the large room with the light attached to his MP5's barrel and found row upon row of Metro shelves stacked with boxes and barrels and cans.
Twiste followed the beam of light, saying, "Looks like a storage area."
"Most of sublevel seven was devoted to long-term survival," Gant explained. "That and facilities management. This place was originally built for government bigwigs to ride out a nuclear winter."
"Then it was turned into a research facility?"
"As far as I know, yes," Thom answered as he stood and examined the boxes on the nearest shelves. Many of the containers sported older Civil Defense logos, but many more wore the mark of FEMA. "They installed Red Labs on the level below us. It looks like they kept the survival gear intact — these are long-term provisions."
Thom walked deeper into the chamber. After a few steps he saw that most of the containers in the warehouse had been pulled down, torn open, and devoured.
"These things — or at least someone — has been living off the stuff down here. That means they either have to eat, or something else down here does."
Twiste took hold of the shelving above his head and used it as leverage to stand.
Gant asked, "You getting better?"
"Yeah, yeah. But the ankle still hurts, the inside of my mouth is still bleeding, and I feel like I just fell down an elevator shaft. Oh wait, I was pushed down an elevator shaft."
Gant ignored the humor although he appreciated the attempt.
"There cannot be enough stuff down here to keep people fed for over twenty years," Thom said and, with Twiste a step behind, they surveyed the rows of mostly consumed provisions.
Wrappers, empty cans, torn bags, and busted boxes littered the space between the aisles. The two were very careful not to accidentally send a parcel flying with an inadvertent step; they did not want to make any noise.
Thom’s light fell upon a jumbled pile of something that looked out of place. His light illuminated a mass of fabric … and boots … and helmets … and body armor … and gas masks — all in bad condition, all stained with dried blood; the leftovers from previous battles in the bowels of Red Rock.
"Oh Jeez," Twiste grimaced.
Thom shook his head and felt a surge of pity as well as camaraderie with whoever had worn that gear into this place. He wondered if his black BDUs would be added to the pile before the day was done.
"So what is it you think you saw, Thom?"
Gant knew what he meant and struggled to find the words. Then his training kicked in: boil everything down to facts.
"Four to five feet tall, bipedal, pale skin over a humanoid skeleton. They walked with an ape-like gait, they seemed more like animals of some kind, despite their appearance."
His training switched off with the definition complete and he told Twiste, "If we get close enough to one, perhaps you can tell me. You are, after all, the science officer."
Twiste leaned against a gigantic barrel of salt or, rather, a gigantic barrel that once held salt.
"I'll pass on a closer inspection until you get one back to the containment cells at Darwin."
"Where is that curiosity now, Doctor?" Gant managed a smile.
"I, um, have decided to follow your example, Major. No questions asked, just a job to do, and my job is to activate the V.A.A.D. in the primary lab. Well, now that I think about it that's FUBAR, too."
Gant corrected, "Not at all. We still have a mission to accomplish. I think finishing our job is the only chance we have of getting out of here alive."
"I think you’ve probably noticed that I don’t have the V.A.A.D. Captain Campion has that. I just have the batteries."
"We do not know what happened to Campion. If he is dead, we might be able to backtrack and find it. If he is alive, he is right now seeking out an alternative route to the Red Lab to accomplish all goals."
Twiste said, "You’re an optimist," and both of them heard the heavy dose of sarcasm in his voice. Gant knew he was no such thing, and he knew that his friend Brandon Twiste knew it, too.
Gant reached the back wall of the room and found the same things over and over again: the remnants of a large stockpile of supplies and scattered piles of gear that belonged to the soldiers and hazmat teams who had come this way before.
Twiste caught up to him, followed the glow of his flashlight as it cast over a ripped backpack, and asked, "Could those things be people? Jesus, Thom, the personnel who were trapped in here when containment was initiated?"
He considered and answered, "I saw three of them. One might once have been a soldier based on what he was wearing, but he did not walk like a normal man. He was not in good condition. As for the other two, no, I cannot see how. I do not even believe they were human."
"But they could have survived down here. Someone was eating these supplies."
"That's twenty years. And these supplies have been pretty well picked through."
"But there's power down here and obviously water recycling. The basics are here."
"Yes," Gant agreed, "but all of that machinery would require maintenance, spare parts — expertise from outside the quarantine zone. This is a contained environment, Doctor, not a natural environment. The materials in this room would provide some sustainability, but I cannot believe those supplies could last for decades."
Twiste, however, did not appear to hear the last part of Gant's sentence. Even in the near-darkness Thom saw Brandon's eyes grow wide and his head cock to the side. He recognized the expression. Brandon might well have shouted “eureka” at that moment except, well, whatever epiphany hit home, the look in his friend's eyes suggested the revelation would not be pleasant.
"What is it?"
"You are absolutely right, Thom. Nothing could survive down here that long, not entirely on its own. Forget the food. Forget water. Maybe, if you stretched your imagination, you could believe there was enough in the stores to keep a small number alive for a long while. But none of that matters."
"What is it you are trying to say?"
"Take a deep breath."
Thom did. He smelled an odor probably attributable to the scattered bits of foodstuffs that rotted and decayed over the years. But nothing—
He stopped, and it hit him like sledgehammer.
"Yes, that's right, you understand, don't you?" Twiste limped closer to Gant. "And right now, you're starting to feel like a real idiot. Looks like the machine does smash a cog or two now and then."
Gant's lips clamped shut tight.
Twiste went on, "It's the air."
"There are most likely oxygen scrubbers down here. Submarines produce their own oxygen; no doubt a facility such as this would—"
"Submarines pull air out of the saltwater around them. There’s none of that here, and unless we find a storage room the size of the Superdome filled with oxygen canisters, then the only way air gets down here is because General Borman lets it get down here. Nothing can live in a vacuum, Thom. Why didn't the General cut off the oxygen supply?"
"How, exactly, am I supposed to know that?"
"Because you should have asked the question! You don't just line up, take your orders, and march off."
Major Gant returned to the door at the front of the room. Twiste followed as fast as he could on his bum ankle.
"Don't walk away from me. I'm talking to you."