Extinction, page 27
“Good.” She turned to Maximilian. “Take Mr. Barrow back to his quarters. Assign a guard to make sure he remains there for the next hour—and makes no calls.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maximilian took Barrow’s arm. “Sir? This way.”
The billionaire was led off, passive and unprotesting, his shoulders drooping. Cash watched him shuffle off like a browbeaten child. She was incredulous—what a change from the blustery, assertive businessman. It was clear where the real power lay.
Raimundo turned back to the soldiers. “Take them to the CO.”
Cash wondered who the CO was—commanding officer?
“Should we restrain them?” the head soldier asked.
“No restraints. The marks might be noted later. If anyone resists or tries to escape, shoot them.”
“Raimundo,” said Romanski loudly, “why are you breeding Neanderthals up here?”
Raimundo looked at him sharply. “I see you’ve made a clever deduction. Congratulations.” She turned to the guards. “Take them away.”
59
In his personal quarters deep in the Fryingpan Mine complex, Karman finished playing the second violin part of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. He lowered his violin and looked at his pupil, who was lowering her violin as well, looking up at him hopefully, waiting for praise or a kind word.
“That was an improvement,” he said with an encouraging smile. “How did the music make you feel?”
“Good,” she said.
“Did it bring up any particular thoughts or feelings?”
“I felt like I was walking in the mountains.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s perfect.” Karman felt an enormous swelling of pride as he looked into her funny little twelve-year-old face—she had played acceptably, but more importantly, with phrasing and sensitivity to the music. And she managed to stay in tune some of the time. Like walking in the mountains. That was poetry. Neanders understood and loved music as much as Sapiens. And it was amazing how well they responded to the Suzuki method. The fact that they could play a violin at all was quite remarkable, but it was just one more surprise in what had been two decades of surprises, which had shattered every preconception of what Neanders were like or what they could do. Karman had come to prefer their company to Sapiens—Neanders were direct, frank, and ingenuous. They were much less manipulative than humans and were not at all good at lying and cheating. Humans had partly mitigated their violence problem through lying, manipulating, and deceiving their way out of potentially violent situations.
He looked down at her shining, eager face, her straw hair and green eyes, wide mouth and puggy nose. A Sapiens would find her looks off-putting, strange, even ugly, but he didn’t. She was beautiful in her own childlike way. As were they all.
“Shall we try to sight-read a little Vivaldi?” he asked, raising his bow questioningly.
“Yes, Professor.”
“Good. Let’s play the A-minor Concerto, second movement.” He took out the music and set it on the stand, opening it to the page. “Vivaldi wrote this music in a place called Mantua, in Italy, three hundred years ago. It’s a beautiful piece. You’ll love it.”
She nodded, her short bob swaying.
“Now before we begin, let’s look over the music. First, what key is it in?”
She stared at the music notation and touched the key signature with a stubby finger. “One flat.”
“That’s right.”
“F major?”
“Are you sure? Look at the first note.”
“D minor.”
“Excellent! And the tempo marking?”
“Largo.”
“Meaning?”
“Slow.”
“And now, can you read to me the description below the stave?”
“Cantabile e molto sentito.”
Her Italian accent was atrocious, and she stumbled over the words—Neanders were certainly not linguists—but Karman didn’t bother correcting her. That wasn’t the important thing. “What does it mean?” he asked.
A long silence. She scrunched up her face, her nose wrinkling. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know what language it is?”
“Italian.”
“Good! Italian is the language of music. It means ‘singing and with great feeling.’ It was Vivaldi’s way of telling the violinist how to play it. He wants you to think of the violin as an extension of your own body, so that through it, you are singing as if with your own voice and pouring into the violin your own feelings.”
“Yes, Professor.”
“So what we have here is a piece of music that is slow and singing and a little dark and mysterious.”
“Sad?”
“Not sad—no. Not happy either. Something that gives you … a shiver.”
At this, the girl smiled. “A shiver,” she repeated. “I like shivers.”
“Exactly. Now—shall we begin?”
She raised the three-quarter-size violin and tucked it under her chin, poising the bow, her eyes on Karman, waiting for the signal.
Karman nodded and made an exaggerated downward bowing motion, and they began, playing together.
He closed his eyes as they played, his ears listening lovingly to her squeaky, scratchy notes and awkward corrections as the girl struggled with the music, trying to stay in tune—but all the same, it was a remarkable thing, a truly remarkable thing.
A loud knock came at the door.
60
“You’re playing God,” said Colcord, “and you’re going to go down in flames.”
“We aren’t interested in your petty judgments,” said Raimundo. “We’re done with talk.” She turned to the head guard. “The next time a prisoner speaks, shoot him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take them to the CO and be done with it. Now.”
The guards prodded Cash and the others with their rifle tips. “Get going.”
As they were escorted down yet more long hallways—the place seemed endless—Cash tried to assess their chances in a fight. It would clearly be hopeless. There were eight guards, armed to the teeth, versus the four of them, unarmed, and they were deep in the enemy’s terrain. Once again, Cash wondered, who exactly was the CO and what was his role? Was this some kind of military or government operation? They could have turned Barrow, but this Raimundo was as cold as ice. Maybe the CO would be more amenable.
She glanced at Colcord and got an answering look in return.
The guard contingent, led by Raimundo, escorted them down a series of hallways and corridors. At one point, Cash heard the faint sounds of a violin, but that faded away. Through a locked door, they entered an attractive, hotel-like corridor with carpeting, pleasing wallpaper, and light fixtures. Doors lined either side: thick glass doors. As they walked through, Neanderthals came to the glass to watch them go past—all were adults, dressed in the same preppy L.L.Bean clothing. They pressed their faces and hands against the glass, and some of them looked misshapen and freakish, with distorted features and twisted bodies. Those with their faces against the glass started making sounds with their lips—buzzing, razzing sounds, ugly sounds, or they licked the glass with grotesque tongues. Others drummed softly on the glass, staring with bug eyes, their mouths twisted, like inmates in an asylum. It was like an asylum, except that through the glass, Cash could see clean, hotel-like living quarters. It didn’t look like quarters designed to house prisoners, but these Neanderthals were clearly locked in. The experience was unnerving and disturbing—who were these people? Some of them were not normal even by Neanderthal standards. They were freakish, abnormal in body and mind.
At the end of the “hotel” hall, they came to another locked door. The lead guard punched a code into a keypad and opened it. They were prodded at gunpoint into another dingy corridor, concrete and cinder block, which made a turn and dead-ended in a steel door with a glass porthole. That door was opened with another keypad.
“Inside,” the lead guard said.
They were herded into the room. It was small and empty, with a drain in the middle and a light set into the ceiling.
“What is this?” said Colcord. “Where’s the CO?”
“Get them in the back of the room,” Raimundo said to the guards. “Push them back and get out.”
The guards jabbed at them with their rifles. “Get back. Back.”
Cash shoved a rifle to one side. “What’s this bullshit? You said we were going to the CO.”
Raimundo issued a harsh laugh.
Romanski said, pointing to a nozzle in the wall: “CO. CO. Carbon monoxide. That’s what this is. A fucking gas chamber. They’re gonna make it look like we died of gas poisoning in the mines.”
Cash took this in with an electric shock. She exchanged a glance with Colcord and saw the same idea in his eyes: it was now or never. She charged Raimundo, slamming into her and taking her down hard. Colcord simultaneously took a swing at the lead guard and grappled with him. Cash landed on top of Raimundo and wrapped her hands around her throat, seeing the look of terror in the woman’s eyes. But someone smashed Cash across the back of the head, and she saw a burst of stars and everything went far away. She felt herself being dragged, heard distant voices and a loud clang, and then swam back into consciousness. Colcord was lying beside her, his face bloody, nose crooked, blood pouring out—broken. Romanski and Reno were also on the floor, beaten but alive. It was over almost as soon as it had begun.
Cash struggled to get up. The steel door with the porthole was shut. She staggered to her feet, fighting a wave of dizziness, and dragged herself over to it, turning the handle, but it was locked. She looked through the porthole. The hallway was empty. Everyone had gone.
She pounded on the door and yelled, the solid steel muffling her blows. She threw herself against the door, but it yielded not at all. Her head pounded and swam from the sudden effort, and she had to steady herself by leaning against the wall. She looked around the room, but it was bare and the walls and floor were made from smooth, welded stainless steel plates, with just the one light inset into the ceiling, a drain in the floor, and the nozzle in the far wall, up high.
They were going to be gassed in there. Gassed with carbon monoxide.
And even as she realized that, she heard a hiss from the nozzle and felt a stream of air issue from it—cool, colorless, and strangely fresh-smelling.
61
Wallace McFaul watched the press gathered at the glass wall, wondering where Maximilian and most of his guards had suddenly rushed off to—leaving him shorthanded to deal with this shit. And where was Cash and that sheriff when he needed them most? He had been calling her regularly on the radio and cell phone, but she must still be up in the mine, gathering evidence with Romanski. She’d been up there for hours. What was so important that she had to leave the main investigation on such a minor errand? Had something happened to her? If he didn’t hear from her in two more hours—by six p.m.—he’d send some people up there to investigate.
The eager throng of reporters crowded at the glass wall. The video media was particularly excited—this was hot footage. Erebus had always been restrictive with footage of their creatures, building up a sense of mystique.
He stared out at the huge animals gathering at the lake with a sour, aggrieved feeling. The woolly mammoths were gigantic, but they weren’t even the most spectacular of the animals on display down there. There was one animal waddling along with huge claws, which he thought must be a giant ground sloth. And then out came a rhinoceros that was staggeringly huge, twenty feet tall, looming above the tops of trees it just walked over, flattening them as if they were sticks, the ground trembling with every step it took. The sun had just set, leaving the surrounding peaks painted in red, filling the valley with a soft warm light. Hard to believe such a place could be the scene of murder and cannibalism. But this had to stop. They had to leave. They’d promised.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the media!” he yelled, wading in among them. “May I have your attention, please!”
Now that they knew he had nothing new to report, they ignored him completely.
“Ladies and gentlemen!”
It was hopeless. Should he start issuing citations? That would backfire, negate all his efforts at cultivation. It was enraging. He pulled out his radio and called for Graves, the leader of the SWAT team. She came on immediately.
“Graves here.”
“Lieutenant, I need some muscle up here in the lodge, main hall. The media were supposed to leave at four, but they won’t go.”
“Copy that. But we’ve only got six guys patrolling the lodge perimeter. Okay to reduce that to four, send you two?”
“Send me three.”
“Copy that. Sending up three guys.”
He hung up. The DPD guys would show he meant business, get those press bastards out.
He heard a deep voice behind him. “You in charge here?”
He spun around. A man in a blue suit, with a white beard and red face, came up behind him, breathing hard and swaying on his feet. He looked vaguely familiar.
“Who are you?”
“Gunnerson,” the man said. “Father of the victim. Those bastards guarding my room seem to have vanished.”
The billionaire. “Yes, Mr. Gunnerson, I’m so sorry for your loss—”
“Cut the crap and tell me what’s going on.”
And he was drunk, McFaul realized as a wave of whiskey-laden breath washed over him. “Mr. Gunnerson, we’re making excellent, excellent progress on the case—”
“I already heard your bullshit on TV,” he said. “You got any of those murdering sons of bitches yet?”
“We’re on their trail, got them on the run.” He didn’t say anything about pulling the search teams out of the valley or the stolen dynamite. “I expect to wrap up in twenty-four hours.”
The man staggered closer and pressed a finger to McFaul’s chest. “Lemme tell you—”
McFaul brushed the hand away; he wasn’t going to put up with being touched, even by this man. “Sir, stand back, please.”
“Stand back?” he said loudly. And now, McFaul saw some media people nearby were turning, their attention attracted by Gunnerson’s loud voice.
“It’s Gunnerson!” one of them suddenly exclaimed, hustling over with a microphone. “Mr. Gunnerson, I’m from KBUT in Laramie—”
“Get that fucking thing out of my face!”
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Could we ask a few questions?”
Now everyone was converging on them. “Mr. Gunnerson—so sorry—I’d like to ask you—”
They were surrounded by an excited mob, mics thrust in their direction.
“Hey, hey, give the man some space!” McFaul cried as Gunnerson shoved a cameraperson who had stepped too close.
“Mr. Gunnerson! Mr. Gunnerson!”
There was a sudden flash of light beyond the windows, almost immediately followed by a terrific boom. The entire wall of glass shattered and dropped like a curtain, and the building rocked violently on its foundations. McFaul was thrown off-balance by the shock wave, and Gunnerson went down like a sack of cement, amid gasps and cries from the crowd.
A moment later, the lights flickered and went out, leaving the great hall in a twilight gloom, except for the lights of the cameras on battery power, which danced and staggered around as their operators recovered from the explosion.
McFaul was frozen on the spot with horror. The killers, the crazies, had blown something up—sounded like it came from down the valley, near the Mammoth Gates.
Gunnerson clawed himself up from the floor with an incoherent roar, and the media crowded around both him and Gunnerson, cameras running, yelling out questions, already recovered and thrilled to be on the spot of the disaster.
McFaul pulled out his radio, calling Maximilian. He could hear Gunnerson yelling. The press were jostling and bombarding him with questions.
“What happened?”
“Was that an explosion?”
“What blew up?”
“Who did it?”
The emergency channel was overloaded with chatter. He tried Graves; that channel too was jammed. Where the hell were his three guys?
“What’s your comment?” they were shouting and crowding into him. “What’s happened?” The shouting went on and on, question after question. The press were in a frenzy, going to milk the disaster for all it was worth.
“I don’t know what happened!” McFaul cried, switching through the emergency channels. “We’re on it. We’re addressing it!”
“How? What are you doing? What blew up?”
He backed away from them, calling Cash on the emergency channels, and then he tried Maximilian and Graves again, but all the channels were either jammed with traffic or were down, just static. Where was everybody? Where had Maximilian taken the guards? Where were his three SWAT guys? He could hear Gunnerson cursing and hollering at the media—and of course they were getting it all on tape, loving every minute, surrounding and tormenting him as if he were a circus bear.
McFaul felt overwhelmed, gripped by a rising panic. Where was the security that was supposedly protecting the lodge?
He saw, as if in answer to his wishes, four security guards running across the room, carrying their radios. He shouted at them, “You, hey! Stop!”
But they ignored him, racing past and into the staff area. McFaul shoved a reporter out of the way and followed at a jog. He would go down to the security area and rouse those people and find out what happened and get some coordination going.
He held the key card he’d been given to the security door entrance, but nothing happened. Of course—there was no power. He pushed open the door—it had unlocked—turned and shut it in the face of the surging press. He tried to hold it shut, but the damn reporters pushed it open anyway.
“This is a restricted area!” he shouted and was ignored as they streamed in.
Fuck it. He turned and headed down the hall, down the emergency stairs, and entered the security area. He was astonished: it was almost empty. Where had everyone gone?
“You!” He seized a young man sitting at a video screen. “What’s going on? Where is everybody?”
