The Unincorporated War (78 page)

Dante finally managed to get the door open from the observation room. It opened into the hallway that encircled the AARD center. As he turned to get the others out, he saw the thing swirling against the glass partition. Then he watched her begin to ooze between the wall and the partition and slowly begin coalescing in their room. Both the Fords and Sebastian seemed to be struck dumb.

“Move it!” shouted Dante, breaking the Fords out of their daze. They both grabbed Sebastian and shoved him out the door, which Dante sealed as soon as they were through. Seeing that his boss was still in shock, Dante started running toward the checkpoint with the others following closely behind. The wailing sound of the creature echoed through the circular corridor, seeming to be right behind the receding curve and right ahead of the advancing one. This had the unnerving effect of making them want to run faster to escape what was right behind them yet turn on their heels to avoid what might actually be in front of them. Still they somehow managed to make it to the checkpoint. But when they arrived at the only entrance and exit to and from the facility they saw that a decompiler field had blocked it off. Anything going in or out would be destroyed in, ironically, much the same manner as Al’s monstrosity was currently doing to all its victims.

“They have to get that checkpoint open!” shouted Han.

Before anyone could respond, the sound of wailing turned to one of childish delight.

“They
really
have to get this checkpoint open,” shouted Indy.

“It won’t happen,” Dante said. “I’ve reviewed the security procedures for this facility. It’s our worst nightmare … this place is meant to be a box. Nothing in and nothing out until she’s dealt with or …” He hesitated.

“Or what?” yelled Han.

“Or they decompile the whole facility,” answered Dante matter-of-factly.

“Are you telling us we have to kill this thing or our own side will kill us?” gasped Han.

Dante couldn’t help but offer a twisted grin. “Yeah, it’s a bitch, ain’t it?” Just then a young avatar came around the corner in a panic and ran right into Dante, who blocked her from running into the now-deadly checkpoint. They all heard the wailing start again.

“We have to get out of here!” screamed the young technician. “That thing just killed our tactical officer!”

“Who’s that?” ask Indy.

“The one that’s supposed to hunt down and kill anything that escapes containment,” said Dante, sighing.

“Well, ain’t that just fucking dandy.”

Dante had been momentarily distracted by Sebastian. He was standing mute, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Dante suspected that his mentor was experiencing more shock from the loss he’d just witnessed rather than the fear they were all experiencing. Still, it was a lousy time for his code to skip a few lines.

“Containment,” Sebastian whispered.

“We don’t have time to stand here and listen to this guy babble!” shrieked the technician, unaware of who the “guy” she was actually referring to was.

But Dante understood immediately. He was about to explain when they heard another avatar scream his death throes, followed by the data wraith’s joyful gurgle. Dante shook off the horror. “The creature didn’t
escape
containment,” he explained. “She was inside Albert, who was in a
low-security
area. What’s your name?” he asked the technician, more as an order than a request.

“G-Gwenn,” answered the woman, still traumatized.

“OK, Gwenn,” Dante said calmly. “Where’s the
highest
level containment area in this facility?” Since the information was considered classified, Dante had no access to the building’s layout.

Wide-eyed and mute, she pointed down the hallway. “Good, Gwenn. How many access points?”

“Th-three. Three security doors,
sealed
doors.”

“Can you get that field running if we can get in there?”

“Y-y-yes,” she stammered, “if … if I was in there.”

“You get me to the doors, sweetheart,” said Dante, “and I’ll get ’em open. Just stay with me, OK? Stay with me.”

Gwenn nodded and seemed to regain a small mea sure of control. “That way, right?” asked Dante, reaffirming that Gwenn had given him the correct location—there could be no room for error.

Gwenn nodded vigorously.

“This place is a big circle, right?” asked Dante.

Gwenn nodded.

“Then let’s go the other way.”

The group had not gone more than ten feet when they heard the wailing get louder, no longer an echo from everywhere; it was close. And then just as suddenly there the creature was—turning the corner in front of them. They skidded to a halt and ran in the opposite direction, all except for Han, who dived underneath the cloud. She swirled down but missed him. He sprang to his feet and began running in the opposite direction of the group, zigzagging down the corridor in order to buy a few precious seconds.

“Get to the containment area!” he screamed over his shoulder. “I’ll distract it.”
Then he took off with the data wraith following in earsplitting pursuit. Indy, before anyone could stop him, ran in the direction of the data wraith and his brother.

Dante, Gwenn, and Sebastian began running down the hall, but Dante suddenly skidded to a halt. They were in front of an entranceway. It was the room they’d just escaped from.

“Gwenn,” he asked, pointing to the door, “can we get to the containment field through here?”

She nodded.

Dante immediately went to work. The door was easy to open, as he’d been the one who’d reprogrammed it on their first escape. But they still had to get through the glass partition and then into the room where Olivia, Albert, and the technician had only recently been murdered. On the other side of that room was an alternate corridor, explained Gwenn, leading to the maximum-security containment field. Dante made quick work of the glass partition and they soon found themselves in the low containment room. He resealed the partition, then quickly jumped over to the next door and once again began hacking into the code. The task was made more difficult by the death minuet of the wraith as she paved her path of destruction through the facility. Though he kept his focus, Dante was positive he’d never be able to hear a child’s voice—human or avatar—without shuddering for the rest of his life.

“Those were the last avatars left,” Gwenn said nervously, referring to the most recent death wails, “besides us.”

“We’ll live,” said Sebastian to no one in particular.

“Sir,” said Dante without stopping his work on the door. “Are you alright?”

“No,” Sebastian said wearily, but it was obvious to Dante that his boss was coming out of shock. “How long,” continued Sebastian, “until you’re through this door?”

The door swooshed open. “Not too long,” Dante said with an irascible grin.

As they began to make their way into the long corridor that led to the containment area there was a sudden and furious pounding on the outside door of the observation room.

“Quickly,” ordered Sebastian, “the code to the glass partition and antechamber.”

“Are you sure, sir?” asked Dante.

“Yes.”

The codes were transferred immediately.

Sebastian looked gravely upon his young assistant. “Now go.”

Dante wasted no time and took off down the hall at a clip. Sebastian then doubled back and headed toward the sound.

“Don’t open it!” Gwenn screamed, now immobile in terror. “It’s the creature!”

“That creature does many things,” Sebastian said evenly as he first opened up the glass partition and then walked through the antechamber toward the door, “but it can’t knock.” He punched up the code to the access panel, the wall opened up, and Han tumbled through into Sebastian’s arms. He immediately resealed the entrance behind him and began dragging Han back into the low-level containment room, making sure to seal the glass door behind them as well. As Sebastian approached Gwenn she looked past his torso and screamed. Part of him envied Gwenn’s ability to feel that intensely. When he looked over his shoulder he could see the wraith’s vaporous tendrils seeping through the first door. He didn’t really feel anything. He simply pushed Gwenn into the corridor, ordering her to run to Dante. As Sebastian turned to close the access between the low-level containment room and the corridor he saw the creature was already fully in the antechamber and moving to the glass partition herself. He closed and sealed the last access point to the corridor and began dragging Han down the hall with him.

Han was stumbling and it was slow going. “Stay with me, Han,” ordered Sebastian. “What happened out there?”

“That thing got me,” muttered Han. “It felt like I was floating in acid … burned and dissolved my mind at the same time. I know I was only in it for a second or two, but it felt like hours. Then someone slammed into me, knocked me out of the cloud. He screamed at me to find you, sir. After that I just remember running down the corridor endlessly until I got to a door that seemed familiar and started pounding on it. You know the rest.”

They came to a halt at the end of the corridor in front of another large set of doors. Dante had removed the access panel and was once again feverishly working on ripping through the code.

“Was it Indy who slammed into you?” asked Sebastian.

“Indy?”

“Your
brother
,” said Sebastian.

“I have a brother?” The confusion in Han’s face was genuine. But then snippets of memory left shattered and scattered all through his program started to process. “I think I had a brother. Was that him? Was that his name?” There was an angry urgency to Han’s questions. But before he could say anything else, Gwenn gasped and pointed down the corridor. The wraith was seeping through the last door into the hall.

“Gwenn, look at me,” said Sebastian. She could not take her eyes off of the mist, now almost fully through the far door. “Gwenn!” Sebastian grabbed her jaw and forcibly turned her face to look directly at him. “Listen to me.” When he saw her focus on him he continued. “You know who I am now, yes?”

Gwenn nodded her head.

“I’ve been around a long time, Gwenn, and plan to be around for a lot longer.”

Gwenn nodded again.

“So listen to me: That door’s going to open and when it does you have to concentrate on
one
thing and one thing only—getting the field running.
Do you understand?
”

Gwenn nodded.

“Repeat.”

“Uh, the field,” she said, trying to look out the corner of her eye at the creature now beginning to float down the corridor, her wailing cry echoing and growing louder.

Sebastian kept Gwenn looking at him. “What about the field, Gwenn?”

“F-f-forget everything; j-j-just get the field up and running.” Her mind seemed to clear. “But it will take a minute for the field to form.”

“Don’t worry about that,” reassured Sebastian. “Just tell me
where
it’ll form.” The wailing was almost deafening and the creature was halfway to them and picking up speed.

“The middle of the room!” screamed Gwenn. “The very middle of the room!”

“Got it!” yelled Dante.

His shout of triumph was followed by the swift sound of the doors receding into the wall. As they all rushed in, Gwenn immediately jumped into the control booth on the left side of the bare, circular chamber. Dante, Sebastian, and Han moved toward the center of the capacious chamber.

They didn’t have time to close the door; the data wraith was right behind them. As they all three got to the center of the room Han body-checked Sebastian and then just as quickly shoved Dante in the same direction.

“Keep out of the center!” Han yelled, and then turned his fury toward the wraith. “Hey, crybaby,” he taunted, “you already had a sip of me; why not have the whole fucking bottle!”

By the time Sebastian got to his feet Dante was shoving him farther back against the far wall. Dante sensed that Sebastian was about to say or try something, but it was too late—the data wraith enveloped Han, enjoying her meal as she went from her now all-too-familiar wail to sighs of contentment.

When she was done she rose up off the ground, swirling into a volatile diaphanous mist. She seemed to hesitate for a moment as if deciding which avatar to gorge on next: the furiously working Gwenn or one of the two avatars pressed up against the far wall. The wraith started to wail and move toward Dante and Sebastian. Dante felt a moment of primordial terror—something he’d never really felt until that very moment.