Amoeba (The Experiments) (77 page)

“Find the central nesting location,” Colin explained to Greg. “Set a small nuclear device. The underground volcanic caverns will carry the blast and destroy anything that moves under there.”

Greg shook his head. “The
President still isn’t buying it. He wants proof that they’re nesting there, not that we can destroy the nest, which we’re still not sure we can do.”

“Sure we can.” Colin was confident. “I just told you how.”

Greg tossed his hands in the air, turned, and pointed to the monitor. “Look at our island, Colin. Now it may not look that big, but it is. You want to find the central nesting point, bury a nuke, lay surface fire to destroy the ones on the ground, then detonate the bomb to get the ones underneath. Even if we find the central nesting point, even if we figure a way to drop the nuke in the ground, how the hell are we gonna get close enough to do that? We can’t just put the amoebas on pause, we can’t just tell them freeze while we . . .” Greg’s serious face flashed a smile. “Or . . .” He snapped his finger. “Maybe we can.”

Colin stood up. “Freeze them?”

“Yes.”

“The amoebas.”

“Not just the amoebas.” Greg peered at the screen. “The whole entire island.” Greg began a dash across the control room.

“Where are you going?” Colin called out.

“I’m getting on the phone. I have to get together a top cryogenics team to figure out how we can freeze this body of land.”

Aldo whistled low, turning to Douglass. “I enjoy his enthusiasm
, but I think the guy is off his rocker.”

Greg paused by the door. “Colin, start working on a rescue plan
, especially if we are able to freeze this island.”

“Dr. Haynes.” Colin stopped him. “We have to work on our proof first.”

Greg cringed. “Oh yeah. Proof. We’ll work on that too.” He reached for the door but stopped when a loud explosion blared out nearly cracking the speakers in the room. Greg tossed his hands up. “
Now
the volcano starts to erupt.”

“Dear God!” Aldo stood slowly watching the monitor that showed the volcano.

Lyle’s voice quivered as he called out. “Uh, Dr. Haynes . . . uh . . . come here.”

Greg spun from the door, “What is it
? I don’t need to see the volcano erupt, it’s not important now.”

Colin smiled as Greg stepped closer. “I beg to differ, take a look.”

Aldo pointed to the screen. “Is that black lava?”

With a loud ‘yes’ and a little jump, Greg turned and shook his head to Aldo. “Black lava? No. Central nesting place and proof to save our island? Yes. Those
, Aldo, are amoebas.”

Aldo’s eyes widened as he watched them spew forth with a mighty blow from the volcano, thick and in the air, black, shooting high running down the sides of it, flowing like the lava that was supposed to be there. Quickly he shifted his eyes to Douglass. “Do you think this bodes well for our people?”

Another ‘boom!’ rocked the control building, and everyone stopped what they were doing in the recreation room.

“Oh God, they’re nuking us.!” Richard screamed. “I have to get out of here
!”

“Richard!” Jake called to him as he ran out. “They aren’t . . . fuck him.”

“The volcano,” Stan stated. “She blew.”

“Jake?” Cal spoke softly. “Jake, do you hear that?”

Jake zoomed in. It sounded like rain, thick rain crashing above them. “What the hell?”

Horrified, Billy looked. “Jake, is that
lava? Jake, tell me that’s not lava.”

“It can’t be. We’re too far, the caverns would catch it.” Jake raced from the room
, wincing at the screams of Richard that echoed in the hall. He darted across the hall to a room with a window. “If it was we’d be . . .shit.”

It rained all right, but it was completely black.

“That . . .” Lou pointed, “. . .is not lava.”

“No shit.” Jake glared. “Welcome to round three of . . . shit.” Jake’s eyes bulged. “The amoebas.” He ran from the room. “Richard!” He bolted down the hall at a speed Cal rarely saw him run. “Richard!” Jake turned the bend.

Everyone tried to keep up listening to Jake chasing a screaming Richard.

Jake spotted him at the end of the hall near the entrance. Richard was running. “Richard,
don’t open that . . .”

Richard flew out,
and the glass door slammed behind him.

“Door.” Jake’s warning hand dropped and so did his head when he saw Richard step from the protective awning of the entrance way out into the rain of amoebas. No time for screaming, Richard disappeared under a black blanket. Shaking his head and letting out a slow breath, Jake turned around to everyone that had raced forward.

“Jake?” Stan questioned. “Did Richard . . .”

“Yeah. Lets’
uh . . . let’s do a double check right now of all ventilation, and pump the AC up full blast. Take no chances.” Jake looked over his shoulder at the amoebas landing like piling snow. Taken aback a little by what he was witnessing, Jake said no more and moved down the hall.

Barb’s mouth dropped open, staring at the monitor screens. Her eyes kept blinking in disbelief. “Where the hell did it go?”

“There.” Lyle zoomed in. “You can see a speck of a window.”

“Oh my God.” Barb watched the monitor that showed a shot of the outside of the two story control building. The black ground literally moved, and like snowflakes trickling down, the amoebas still fell from the sky.

“We’ve got more time.” Greg raced excitedly in, skipping down the last two steps and running to the monitoring table. “The
President is fine with our nesting theory, and we’ve bought more time to go ahead without . . .” Greg looked up at the screen that everyone watched and saw the magnitude of the amoeba. “Whoa. Anyhow. Cryogenics team is working on it. We’re under way.”

“How much time did they buy us?” Colin asked.

“He didn’t say. Why?”

“Take a look at thermal graphics.” Colin handed Greg two photos. “It appears what blasted from our little Mt. Vesuvius may only be the beginning. We have more.”

Greg’s eyes lowered to the pictures and peered at the darkened areas Colin had circled. More nesting areas. “I’m not worried about that.” Greg handed them back. “We’ll get them.” He cleared his throat. “Excuse me.” After turning around, Greg rolled his eyes and walked back out of the room.

Billy had long since resolved himself that he would have to face it. And since that resolution, jealousy was a rarity. But not as he sat on the floor, playing with the words he tried to edit. He wore headphones and played them loudly, trying to block out the conversation that floated his way. And Billy wished he could keep his eyes from floating up. He tried his hardest, but he couldn’t help but keep looking over to the corner where Cal and Jake were. And every time he looked, a spark of jealousy hit him. They shared an intimate moment. And it wasn’t as if he never saw them kiss or hug, he had. That never bothered him. What he witnessed right then did. No touching between them, not much. Jake’s hand resting on her leg, Cal on her back, him on his side. The book in Jake’s hand leaned in toward Cal’s stomach. And to Billy it had to be the most intimate moment he had ever witnessed between them. It showed another side to Jake, and the reason, Billy thought, for his jealousy. His staring was an intrusion, whether he was spotted or not, and Billy tried his hardest not to intrude. So he poured himself into his work, and turned up the volume on his headphones

Jake’s voice was soft, almost soothing, as he read. “
If I could speak in any language in heaven or earth but didn’t love, then I would only be making meaningless noise, like a gong or a symbol. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all of the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn’t love, what good would I be? If I had the gift of faith so I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anyone. If I gave everything I had to the poor, and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love, I would be of no value whatsoever.
” Jake closed the book. “And that’s it. Get some sleep. You have to relieve me for watch early.”

“Jake, I love when you read to me. You do it so well. The babies like it too.” She rubbed her stomach.

“I’m glad.” Jake kissed Cal, then leaned down and kissed her stomach. He looked at her with a smile. “Since you sat real nice and listened to the bible tonight, tomorrow . . .” Jake winked, “. . .Clive Barker.”

“Oh
, good.” Cal adjusted down. “I promise. No nightmares.”

“Yeah, right.” He pulled the blanket up over her. “I’ll be right here.”

“You always are.” Cal lifted her pillow, moved it to Jake’s lap as he leaned against the wall, and laid her head on the pillow. “Night, Jake.”

“Night
, Cal.” Jake’s hand rested on her face, playing a little with her hair. Lifting it, moving it, but never taking his eyes off his focus, his peripheral vision of the area surrounding him and Cal. And even though the amoebas literally fell from the sky outside invading the island’s space, Jake was going to make sure with everything he had that nothing even remotely came inside and invaded his and Cal’s space.

The thought of, ‘three million dollars and I still have to pay for my coffee’ kept racing through Aldo’s mind as he placed his quarters in the vending machine. He pressed the ‘freshly brewed’ button and awaited his cup of coffee. Watching it fill, he watched something else, Caruso, Lou’s investor. Caruso rubbed his eyes over and over, exhaling deeply.

“Headache?” Aldo asked pulling the cup from the tray.

“No.” Caruso shook his head as he sat at the table. “Stress.”

“Have a drink.”

“I have. Many. It isn’t helping.”

“Can I?”

“Um . . . no.” Caruso tapped his fingers on the table. “I spoke to my wife in Switzerland. She . . . she didn’t know about any of it.”

“Well
, we sent them into seclusion before it was announced. Did you tell her?”

“No.” Caruso shook his head. There was something drastic about it. “I thought it best to keep her in the dark. Besides
, if I told her, she would know I knew ahead of time. And if she knows that, she’ll know as investors we are partly to blame.”

“Oh that’s bullshit.”Aldo waved his hand at Caruso, then sipped his coffee with a gasping cringe.

“Is it?” Caruso looked at Aldo. “We push and push for them to provide us with entertainment. Good entertainment. Haynes tried and it went out of control. We, Aldo, we investors, could very well be responsible for helping to end this world, believe it or not.”

And Aldo chose ‘not’. He passed off what Caruso said as someone who was having a long day. He
, himself, had often rambled nonsense when he was upset. And seeing Caruso was clearly upset, Aldo left the vending lounge, shrugging of the paranoid delusions of Caruso, and sipped on his coffee the whole entire time.

They kissed, intensely and deep, like they hadn’t done in weeks. And pretty much Cal and Jake hadn’t. They bumped into things during their entanglement in that closet. Jake hands gripping Cal’s face, pulling her into him. Heavy breaths and moans emanated from every wide sweep of the mouths, hunger bites, and pulling of lips.

“Cal.” Her name seeped from Jake’s lips as his hands helped her lift her shirt. He took advantage of the kissing separation to remove his shirt as well. He pulled her back into him gasping at the feel of her skin against his. “I miss being with you like this so much.”

Cal felt his lips move to her neck. “God, when you’re like this you turn me on.”

“Everything.” Jake brought his mouth close to hers and he smiled. “Turns you on.” He began to kiss her again undoing the button and zipper to his pants. He brought Cal back to him, embracing her as he turned his body leaning against the storage boxes there.

Cal removed her lips from his. “And you love it.”

“Oh yeah.” Jake slid down some when he felt the lead. Cal’s lips hit his chest and his arms extended out, gripping the sides of the boxes. He arched back his neck and rolled his eyes when he felt her sexual teasing, the gliding of her lips to his stomach, the light scratching of her fingernails against his sides as she grabbed for his pants. When he felt the cooler air hit him with the lowering of his pants, Jake flung his head forward and dropped to his knees to join Cal on the floor. So badly he wanted to hold her and make love to her. And with that desire and wanting, he brought his lips against Cal’s.

“Jake!” Stan’s calling of his name and pounding on the door stopped them.

Jake shifted his eyes. “Is someone dying
, Stan?”

“No. The uh . . . the
President would like to know if you can take a moment to talk to him.”

Jake kissed Cal. “Tell the
President. . .” He bit his bottom lip. “Tell him my hands are into something very delicate right now.” Jake and Cal kissed again.

“Jake.” Stan had griping to his tone. “I cannot believe you are blowing off the
President like this. The world is in disarray and you’re fooling around in a closet.”

“Stan, this whole building will end up being in disarray if I don’t take this moment with my wife. Leave.”

“Fine. I’m telling.”

Jake chuckled and imitated Stan. “Fine I’m telling.” He moved to kiss Cal again.

“Jake, is it really a good career move for you to be blowing off the President?”

“No more worse of a move th
an if I speak to someone and
think
he’s the President. It’s a mental endurance thing here, Cal. If it is the President, he’ll understand I’m trained not to believe it is. Now can we get back to more pressing matters at hand?”

“Absolutely.”

With an ornery, short chuckle, kissing Cal, Jake pulled her completely down to the floor.