Pandemonium (21 page)

All the paper clips constricting water flow to the gloves were tied to strings taped to a tug-line leading back to the door with the other ropes. Ropes were also tied to the handles of all six ice chests on the floor. They soaked the ends of the tug-line and ropes in trays of saltwater.

“OK,” Geoffrey said.

“All we need is some bait,” Otto said.

They turned to Maxim’s guards.

10:38 P.M.

Maxim’s men arrived, carrying an entire side of beef.

They laid it in the center of the floor inside the antechamber between the ice chests and then departed.

“Well, that should do it,” Geoffrey said.

The two guards holding pistols behind the four scientists watched, fascinated.

Geoffrey and Otto pulled the outer door of the storage room three-quarters shut.

Otto pointed a webcam around the door, and they watched the video feed on a laptop that Dimitri held. Gripping all the tethers they had rigged, Geoffrey yanked the rope that pulled the far hatch open a crack.

Sparks swirled into the room through the far hatch on the monitor.

“Shut it,” Dimitri said.

“Shhh!”
Geoffrey put his hand on Dimitri’s mouth as another burst of glowing bugs flew into the room. He waited just long enough to suggest he was suicidal before yanking the tug-line and the eight surgical gloves inflated with saltwater, spraying through hundreds of pinholes. “OK,” Geoffrey whispered.

Geoffrey and Otto pulled the rope strung around the shelf post and swung the far hatch closed. They gave the line another hard tug, cranking the wheel just enough to latch it. Then they dropped all the other lines inside the room and pulled the near hatch closed.

Just before the door shut, Geoffrey caught a whiff of the Henders warning pheromone, which smelled vaguely like cilantro.… “Good going, guys! I think we got it,” he said.

They waited.

The men used the time to douse themselves with saltwater.

Inside the storage room, the saltwater continued to spray from the glove-nozzles. Otto put the stethoscope to the door. “Pleasure to work with you, MacGyver.” He nodded at Geoffrey. “The room’s buzzing, man!”

“OK, let’s fill those insecticide sprayers with saltwater and get ready to open the door. Saltwater’s not the best repellent, but it’s the next best thing. Maybe we can get the guards to put their guns down and help us, eh, Dimitri?”

Dimitri nodded and spoke to them in rapid Russian.

11:20 P.M.

At last, after a few rehearsals, they opened the hatch.

Geoffrey reached through the crack and took hold of the rope tied to the handle of the nearest ice chest. He and Otto pulled hard on the rope. The guards furiously sprayed salt water through the gap as the chest slid toward the door.

Otto watched the laptop feed coming from the webcam Katsuyuki pointed around the corner. “So far, so good,” Otto said. “They’re staying back!”

As they widened the door, Geoffrey splashed the water inside the ice chest over the doorway. “Pull it up!”

They dragged the ice chest up and over the hatchway, and the others clapped the cover on it as Geoffrey and Otto closed the door.

“We did it,” Dimitri sighed.

After hoisting the ice chest onto a lab counter, they filled plastic water jugs with repellent through the drain, which they filtered through cheesecloth. They emptied the backpack sprayers and refilled them with the repellent-infused mixture.

They proceeded to spray this mixture through the hatch as they opened it to retrieve the other five ice chests.

It worked perfectly until, as they were pulling the last one through, a seven-inch Henders wasp made it through the door, defying the repellent.

“Get it!” Geoffrey yelled, slamming the door shut.

“Kill that freakin’ thing now!” Otto moaned.

It landed on the stomach of the guard next to Geoffrey. Geoffrey punched the guard as hard as he could. The man doubled over, but the five-winged, ten-clawed bug was crushed and fell into the ice chest, bursting a cloud of blue blood.

The other guard grabbed Geoffrey angrily.

“He just saved his life!” Otto shouted.

Dimitri spoke rapidly to them in Russian and the guard backed off.

As they looked into the last ice chest, they were startled to see a number of Henders specimens caught in the water, moving very slowly under the surface. Ants, wasps, and drill-worms sprayed repellent as they died, producing an oily rainbow sheen on the water’s surface.

They filled the rest of the 2.5-gallon jugs from the ice chests, and Geoffrey labeled them with a black felt-tip, when a phone rang. Dimitri answered on the landline phone next to his laptop on the lab counter. “How soon will you be ready?” Dimitri relayed.

Geoffrey sat on a lab stool, exhausted, looking at Otto and Katsuyuki. “Tell him it’s ready.”

Dimitri relayed the news. “Maxim is very pleased with the progress you have made, Geoffrey.”

Geoffrey nodded. “Awesome.”

Dimitri hung up. “It looks like we’ll be testing your repellent tomorrow. That is, four hours from now.”

“Testing it?” Geoffrey got off the stool, putting his hands on his hips. “What?”

“The power plant,” Dimitri said.

“OK, we have to think about this,” Geoffrey said.

“Let’s get some sleep,” said Dimitri. He motioned toward their dormitory with his eyes, and they all got the message. They went to their quarters, away from the guards.

11:58 P.M.

“We can’t let him turn the power on down here,” Geoffrey whispered.

“Agreed,” Otto said.

“Yes!” Katsuyuki said.

“Hey,” Otto said to Dimitri. “Are you with us?”

“Maxim is insane,” Dimitri agreed. “If I must choose between him or the world, then of course I’m with you.” Dimitri jerked as he noticed something on his laptop, which he had brought in and set next to him on his bed. Dimitri called Geoffrey over. “Look.” He pointed to an e-mail he had just received from Maxim’s address:

Hey guys. I’m here in the palace with Sasha.

Can we help?!

BTW, WE CAN SEE YOU RIGHT NOW!

Wife

“She’s alive!” Geoffrey shouted.

“They must see us through that camera!” Otto pointed at a camera mounted over the hatch.

“They must be in Maxim’s office,” Dimitri said.

They all waved at the camera frantically.

11:59 P.M.

Sasha and Nell looked at a screen behind Maxim’s desk in the conservatory and saw the men waving.

Sasha had shown Nell how the hatch to this room could be locked from the inside, as could all the doors radiating out from this room throughout the city. No one could enter now as they accessed the Undernet.

“Wait—look!” Nell indicated Maxim’s e-mail box as a reply arrived.

How are you? – Husby

“We should go. I’ll erase these messages so Papa doesn’t see them.”

“Wait! Here comes another.”

Are you safe?

“Type
yes,
Sasha!”

“OK.” Sasha sent the reply.

“They’re replying!”

I’ll try to come and get you. Don’t come to us. Bye.
(It’s bad.)

OK, BYE
, Nell typed, and sent.

Sasha deleted the messages and emptied the trash. “Come on. We better go.”

Nell looked back at the monitor on the wall as Geoffrey waved to her.

“Papa comes here sometimes. But not after two
A.M.
, usually. We’ll come back then. OK, Nell?”

“OK…”

MARCH 21

2:28 A.M. MAXIM TIME

Maxim sat in the middle of the thirty-foot crescent of his couch atop the Star Tower, gazing through the glass walls of his penthouse apartment at his subterranean utopia. Life went on below. For the moment, at least, the power lines from the surface had not been cut off. In a few hours now, it would not matter.

The phone rang on the couch beside him. “Yes?” he asked, his thick voice cracking.

“My friend…,” Galia said. “News from above.”

“Just tell me what you have to say, damn it.”

“I can’t—”

“
No!
Tell me!”

“Alexei is dead, Maxim.”

“Don’t say it.… Damn you!”

“Maxim,” Galia implored.

Maxim exhaled his soul as he turned off the phone.

Galia knew then what he must do. He headed for Sector Seven. He was the only one, other than Maxim, with the authority to make the guards let him pass.

2:35 A.M.

Sasha waved Nell on up the winding stairway to the conservatory, which was now dark and empty. The curtain had been drawn over Hell’s Window. They both ran to the wall behind Maxim’s desk on the far side of the room.

Nell and Sasha saw a screen on the wall showing Geoffrey, Otto, Katsuyuki, and Dimitri. They were standing in an observation room of some sort, looking through a wide window.

“Wait a minute…” Nell looked closer at the HD screen. “Can you zoom this view closer and see what they’re looking at through that window, Sasha?”

“Of course!” Sasha clicked the mouse and the camera zoomed in. “You want to see the monsters from Henders Island, right?”

“Yes—what?” Nell turned pale as she looked down at her. “Why did you say that, honey?”

“The creepy-crawlies that Papa bought.”

Nell fell back in Maxim’s chair, the air sucked out of her lungs.

“What’s the matter?” Sasha said.

“What … are you talking about?”

Sasha zoomed in on the view of the window in the lab. “Papa’s monsters. That’s what they’re looking at.”

“Henders—” Nell couldn’t speak as the image expanded on the screen.

Sasha shrugged. “Papa said you’re an expert on Henders Island. That’s why he brought you here.”

Ivan jumped on the arm of the chair and licked Nell’s face.

“Are you OK, Nell?”

2:35 A.M.

The hatch door from the garage burst open and Maxim stepped through, followed by four armed guards. The billionaire strode forward and pointed at Geoffrey, his arm like a rifle. “Get repellent ready. We are starting power right now, Geoffrey. You!” He pointed at Katsuyuki. “Help my men take that downstairs.” He pointed at the five-gallon water bottle on the lab counter, which was filled with live Henders specimens. They had been testing various poisons on the specimens, which had not seemed to be affected by any of the toxic substances they had tried.

“Why?” Katsuyuki asked. “What are you going to do with them?”

Maxim pointed his pistol at Katsuyuki’s head and fired the gun.

The scientist fell to the ground, dead, as the others staggered back in horror.

“You!” Maxim pointed the gun at Otto. “Do it!”

Geoffrey glanced at Otto.

“Maxim!” Dimitri hissed.
“Do not trust them!”

Maxim wheeled and pointed the gun at Dimitri in blind rage before he had processed what Dimitri had said.

Geoffrey reached up and toggled the controls of the camera outside the window.

“Watch out!” Dimitri shouted, pushing Maxim away.

The heavy camera swung down and shattered the glass.

Geoffrey grabbed a scalpel and slashed open one of the plastic jugs of repellent. He pulled Otto’s arm and dumped the repellent out of the jug over both their heads as bugs and rats gushed into the room through the window.

The flood of creatures avoided them as the other men screamed, instantly attracting orgies of feeding predators. Geoffrey grabbed another jug, and Otto snagged one of the backpack sprayers as they both ran toward the door to the garage, ducking behind the 2.5-gallon jugs stacked on the lab counters.

Maxim’s men dragged him through the hatch into the dormitory as he fired his gun at the two scientists, but the bullets struck the water jugs as Geoffrey and Otto slipped through the door and slammed it closed behind them.

As they cranked the wheel, Geoffrey and Otto felt someone on the other side of the door twisting it in the other direction. Geoffrey and Otto heard shouting, and they both bore down, bracing themselves against the wall. They could hear a whine of Henders animals whirring like a jet engine on the other side of the hatch as the pressure resisting them weakened and finally stopped. They turned and plunged down the stairs to the garage.

“Where are we going?” Otto asked.

“Maxim’s car!”

2:38 A.M.

Nell and Sasha saw Maxim point his gun at Katsuyuki. They saw the scientist fall and Sasha screamed.

Then they saw the window shatter silently. Geoffrey and Otto ran out of the camera’s frame to the right. Dimitri and Maxim ran to the left with two of his bodyguards as Maxim fired his gun again. The guards shoved Maxim off the screen as strange animals flew through the broken window. Sasha saw her father and his guards appear in the screen below, inside the room where they had first spotted Geoffrey and the other scientists. A guard sealed the hatch behind them.

On the screen above, the rest of Maxim’s men who had failed to get out of the way of the rushing horde were swarmed. A spiger as big as a deer jumped through the window and spiked the chest of one of the men. The man beside him screamed and was instantly covered by a mass of flying bugs and disk-ants.

In a screen to the right, they saw two more guards running down a flight of stairs, chased by the glowing bugs flowing through the open hatch behind them. In the next screen over, they saw the guards run down the stairs in front of the building to an SUV parked at the curb. Nell and Sasha watched the deluge of animals spread over the screens on the wall. “Oh, no!” Nell shouted, desperately searching the screens for any sign of Geoffrey.

“Papa!” Sasha screamed.

2:39 A.M.

Geoffrey and Otto leaped into Maxim’s limo in the garage. With trembling fingers, Geoffrey pushed the remote door opener on the visor. The door began to open and Geoffrey pressed the gas pedal, launching the limo in reverse and scraping the still-rising door. The heavy car’s tires screeched as he mashed the brakes, shifting, then tearing forward.

“We gotta get to the train station in Sector Seven!” Otto said.

“No. We can’t let anything get to Sector Seven. Not even us! We gotta get to the palace!” Geoffrey shouted. He turned right and approached the gate to Sector Two.