The Freezer Page 25

  It was now late afternoon on Friday. I was exhausted—we all were—after our long run back. We also hadn’t slept since Wednesday night.

  But even though we were tired, we had to keep going.

  We didn’t have much time.

  * * *

  Module A had its own emergency air lock, which we used to access the facility. I went first, then Marius, then Sato. Cray still had a weapon, so he remained outside until the rest of us were in. Then he entered.

  Inside, the red lights were noticeably dimmer. The sounds of the melting were louder, with continual creaking and cracking echoing everywhere. It was like being in the bowels of a wooden tall ship on Earth, listening to the hull planks flexing and binding against each other. The deck was tilted at a ten-degree angle; it was very difficult to walk, especially in the higher gravity there.

  The entrance to the experimental lab under the module was closed, so Cray touched the button to open it. The settling of the dome had twisted the metal ladder slightly. I thrust my head down to look around.

  Nothing.

  Once we were all in—which was more difficult than it seemed, because the ladder rungs were at weird angles, and it took a moment longer than normal to get one’s feet settled before each step—we sealed the hatch behind us. No need to let Lefave know where we were. I assumed he was in the clinic awaiting our arrival, but he could have been anywhere really.

  I tightened my grip on my pistol.

  Our helmets were back on our shoulders now. We each had only a few minutes of air left. I had to remember to get some extra bottles as soon as possible. We were also shivering uncontrollably, and being back in that ice cavern had not helped matters.

  The rough ice walls now glistened with water. I could hear it dripping everywhere in there; it pooled on the floor and the consoles. I could also hear the sound of shorting wires as it poured into still-functioning electronic equipment. Smoke hung lazily in the air.

  Straps still pinned the man to the supports in the center of the chamber. He was moaning softly, but didn’t register our appearance.

  I glanced quickly around the periphery of the room...

  And then I saw Dinova.

  She was naked, lying on a procedures table near the cabinets. Each shelf held a variety of canisters filled with nanos.

  Medical nanos...

  She was naked on the procedures table...

  Beside her, Janice Snow was studying a holo projection that displayed medical vitals such as brainwave patterns, heartbeat, blood oxygen, nano comm results. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t make out her words.

  We stalked closer; Cray and I held our pistols before us, trained on Dinova.

  As we edged around the poor creature in the center of the chamber, I saw that Dinova still had her weapon. It was in her right hand, trained on Snow. She was forcing her to do something.

  Marina Dinova, despite her age, had a toned and stunning figure. Goose bumps covered her body from the extreme cold, which had also made her nipples erect and bright red.

  On the deck beside the table were three empty vials. A standard dose of nanos held five hundred thousand in saline solution.

  Snow had injected them into Dinova.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I aimed my weapon at Dinova. “Stop what you’re doing, Doctor.”

  They froze in place and slowly turned their eyes to us. Dinova laughed, but there was something else there. Something superimposed over whatever pleasure she felt at that moment.

  Pain, I realized.

  She was in agony.

  I snapped a look at Snow. “How fast will these nanos work? Did you give her the quick treatment or the slow, methodical one?”

  I recalled how Lefave had first tested his process on one of the captured pilots of the jumpship. The pain had been so intense it had killed her. As a result, Lefave had slowed it to a period of days. It was still agonizing, but not as painful as the full impact of rapid A-delta nerve destruction.

  “The station won’t be here much longer,” Dinova grunted through her clenched teeth. Lines creased her brow. “Guess which treatment.”

  “But the pain will kill you!” Cray cried.

  As he said it, she threw back her head and unleashed a long, piercing howl. I wondered whether she would die right then and there. She lost control of her body and the pistol clattered to the deck. She thrashed on that procedures table now, kicking and screaming.

  Snow bent to retrieve the weapon and then stepped back from the doctor.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  She looked ashamed. “She killed Dyson, she was going to shoot me as well.” Her eyes welled with tears; her arms were limp at her sides. “She’s crazy...”

  “Of that there’s no doubt,” I muttered. Dinova was writhing on the table now, moaning at the searing pain.

  Getting what you deserve, a part of me thought.

  “Did you also inject the nanos to thicken the myelin sheathing?”

  Snow nodded slowly. “And the ones that stimulate the adrenal glands.”

  “How long—how long will the process take?” I had to break the question in two because of a particularly long and horrible scream.

  Cray said, “Hours only. Maybe two. If she survives,” he added. He was watching her with a look of pity on his face. Areas under her skin, in tendrils along her extremities like the fibrous and myriad roots of a plant, seemed to undulate as the medical nanos consumed nerves.

  Damn. My heart thudded. We might be facing two superhumans before the end of the day. “Is there any way to stop this?”

  Silence. And then Marius said, “What about the EM pulse we tried on you earlier?”

  Sato said, “That didn’t work on Tanner.”

  “Because the micro-bomb is shielded. What about these medical nanos?”

  “You’d have to pulse her whole body. If you missed some, they’d just continue the work and get it done. It might take longer but it would still happen.”

  I watched the exchange with interest but didn’t say anything.

  “It’s worth a shot though,” Marius continued. “It might stop the process and save her life.”

  “So Tanner can have her executed later?” Cray snarled. “She’s a murderer.”

  Marius looked shocked. “I’m a doctor, dammit. It’s my job to save lives.” He gestured at Dinova, who lay gasping for breath. “Here’s one for me to save. I have to try.”

  He also had been her friend for at least two years now, despite her considerable flaws. It was difficult for him to turn his back on her.

  “He’s right,” I muttered. “We can’t just watch her die. Or worse, let her become like Lefave. We’ll take her to the clinic right now. Use the EM pulse, try to save her.”

  Sato and Snow looked at me like I was mad.

  * * *

  We needed a distraction of some sort. I believed that Lefave was in—or near—the clinic, waiting for us after our lengthy trip outside. He was going to attempt an ambush. We had to draw him away from there so the doctors could try to save Dinova’s life.

  Cray clearly didn’t understand why we were doing it. Why save a murderer? I did agree with him. However...

  Despite my desire for revenge for what she had done to Shaheen, I did understand her motivation. She hated the Council. She hated Lefave. She wanted to make him pay.

  But a part of me also realized there were other reasons she had wanted the process performed on her.

  There were viewports that looked out at the ice of Europa in every module. I planned to take an icetrack outside in an attempt to lure Lefave from The Freezer. Once I managed that, the others would try to save Dinova’s life.

  So I could take her to CCF HQ, charged with murder.

 
It seemed ludicrous, but that was protocol in Homicide Section. Others didn’t follow it as strictly as me, but unless there was no other choice in the matter, that was what I would try. And besides, we needed the meds for radiation sickness. I couldn’t let it overwhelm me again, and someone had to get in the clinic to get them.

  I instructed the others to wait in the ice cavern below Module A.

  Dinova’s moans followed me as I climbed the ladder.

  * * *

  In level one of Module A, I crouched behind a console in Lefave’s workspace and listened to the chaos around me. My weapon was tight in my hand. The sounds of melting ice, running water inside the facility and the creaking station echoed everywhere. The tilt continued to increase, and it was growing difficult to move around. Eventually it would be more a matter of stumbling in the direction you wanted and hoping you got there safely.

  I wondered absently if Lefave had heard Dinova’s screams. Before, we’d heard the cries from the man already imprisoned in their secret lab and thought them simply cracking ice. Would the director recognize these as being from a different victim?

  Lefave. What was going on in his head right then? Where did he hope to go, exactly? Was it possible he had a secret way off this moon, or some other method to contact help that we didn’t know about? He couldn’t just hope to destroy the station and then magically walk away, healthy and unscathed.

  Then again, crazed minds don’t make a lot of sense. I’d seen a lot of them in my time.

  The vehicle berth housed two icetracks, both currently disabled. I didn’t know where Dinova had left hers; it wasn’t outside Module A at least.

  I moved slowly down the travel tube, sheathed in darkness, expecting to find Lefave around the next corner. My breath misted the air around me. My body was sweaty from the long trek back from the crater, and I knew that my body temperature would quickly lower and cause hypothermia. I needed warm, dry clothing, but looking at the escalating disaster around me, I doubted that would happen anytime soon. I just had to bear it.

  The situation was growing more dangerous by the second.

  Inhuman psychopath determined to kill us all? Check.

  Micro-bomb implant on the verge of exploding? Check.

  Isolated facility on unstable ice with an ocean of water underneath? Check.

  A second psychopath currently in the making? Check.

  And, I thought sourly, another plot which I had only recently realized. There was more subterfuge going on than I had originally suspected.

  I finally reached the hatch to Module D. I peered through the viewport but couldn’t see anything. It was dark in there, only lit with the dim red emergency lights, and long shadows stitched across the deck and equipment within.

  I held my breath and pushed the hatch release button.

  It ground aside, driven by weak batteries, and I stepped in, weapon at the ready.

  Nothing.

  Dinova’s icetrack was there, but she had not plugged it into its recharging station. The journey outside had nearly drained its power, so I marched to one of the disabled ones. It only took a moment to reconnect the cables—using the ones from Dinova’s icetrack—and a minute later I was outside the station and turning north, toward Module C, the clinic. I had grabbed another bottle of oxygen and connected it to my vacsuit. This one would give me six more hours, but I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

  I might not live another two out in that radiation.

  I brought the icetrack to a gliding halt, stepped off, and approached the module slowly. There was a mist rising from the surface near the steel shell. Sublimation in process. It was darker on the ice—Jupiter was rapidly falling into shadow—but the glow from my helmet lamp lit the mist clearly. Pressing my visor against a viewport, I looked in but couldn’t make much out. More shadows. Vague shapes of procedures tables and the equipment on the deck that had hid the hatch to the chimp pen.

  Pulling my fist back, I swallowed, understanding what I was about to unleash. But I had to do it.

  I hit the viewport. Then I did it again, and again.

  And again.

  If the bastard was in there, it would attract his attention.

  My comm beeped.

  Bingo.

  “Looking for me, Tanner?” a voice rumbled in my helmet.

  Oh, shit.

  I spun and nearly slipped. I fell backward, but the dome itself kept me from hitting the ice.

  His white vacsuit was difficult to see in that environment...he must have been outside the station when I’d emerged from the vehicle berth. Vacsuit sealant caked his burned sleeve. Pressurized aerosol cans kept in most air locks spray the stringy binding material, which hardens in seconds. It’s flexible and highly adhesive when wet. The stuff is meant for most tears, even large ones. There was also some on his thigh, which I had managed to graze from a distance earlier.

  My finger twitched on the trigger and a pulse of energy shot straight for him. He dodged, however, and I shot again.

  This one also missed. He was simply too fast. It was hard to tell, because I had fired while falling backward.

  The dome was slick and I began to slide downward. As I stepped back to stay upright, my right boot suddenly sank into the ice. The area immediately surrounding the facility was now honeycombed with vapor pockets and was extremely unstable.

  And The Freezer was perched on top of this...

  I tried to compensate by leaning to the right, and I suddenly fell.

  My leg was now closed in ice right to the knee. I was on my ass, half against the dome, and the hand that gripped the pistol had hit the ice as well in the attempt to maintain my balance.

  Lefave let out a peal of laughter. It was high-pitched and sustained; it sounded like something you might hear at a funhouse.

  He had truly gone over the edge.

  I quickly keyed the others, making sure to keep my signal from Lefave. “He’s out here,” I said in a calm tone. I was trying to be reassuring.

  “Got you,” Cray said in response. “Don’t try to engage him.”

  Too late, I thought.

  I switched frequencies and said to Lefave, “What are your plans, Director?”

  “To destroy this base and all of you here, of course.”

  “And then what? Just leave as though nothing happened?”

  He hesitated, as if this hadn’t occurred to him. Then, “Yes.”

  “How are you planning on getting out of here? There’s no communications and no ships.”

  He paused for another heartbeat and then shrieked, “That’s none of your fucking business!”

  “You’ve lost your mind, Director. There’s no reason to kill us. Your research was successful. You can give it to the CCF...just wait for them to arrive.”

  “You think they’ll forgive me for using it on myself?” he sneered. “Not likely!”

  My plan to stall him while I got to my feet was obvious, and a second later he darted toward me. I raised my weapon, but just as I was about to squeeze the trigger again, hopefully for a mortal shot, he raised his foot and kicked my hand.

  Hard.

  I wanted to scream in agony but I choked it off. My weapon sailed away into the distance.

  In a flash I realized that I was only seconds from death. I had to do something, and fast.

  Yanking my foot from the hole in the ice, I stumbled to the side just as Lefave threw a punch. It was fast, fueled by adrenaline, and it slammed the skin of the dome. He pulled his fist back and we both stared at the dent he’d made in the steel hull.

  He’d probably broken a few bones in his hand, but of course, he didn’t feel a thing.

  He turned to me, his face hard with rage.

  I scrabbled back on the ice, my legs churning for traction, and then finally kicked my
self up.

  And while doing so, something occurred to me.

  I let Lefave move toward me slowly, and then as he darted in for the kill, I jumped to the side and turned my boot toward him.

  I still wore the crampons.

  Sharp, long spikes to provide more traction on ice.

  And quite capable of piercing a vacsuit.

  In fact, it caused a long rip. I may have even drawn some blood. The crampons slid across his abdomen and tore the suit near his kidney.

  And once again, his suit vented air.

  He quickly jumped back—so fast it was almost a blur—and I turned to my pistol, stark black against the ice. There it was, twenty meters away, and I made a mad, desperate run for it.

  Glancing behind me, I saw Lefave scrabbling at his thigh pocket. He had a container of sealant there, and he frantically sprayed it over the new rip in his suit.

  It would buy me time, but only about twenty seconds.

  It was enough.

  I dove the last few meters and slid toward the weapon. Grabbing it, I spun to my back, aimed between my knees, and fired at where Lefave had stood only seconds earlier—

  Gone.

  I searched the ice frantically. He could have jumped anywhere. God knew he was strong enough.

  But I couldn’t find him. I pushed myself up and began a furious dash to the icetrack. I had to lure him from the dome, to allow the others safe access to get the medication and prevent the procedure from working on Dinova.

  We simply could not let another one of them walk freely around this place.

  Pushing the icetrack’s throttle to max, I raced away, shooting up a tail of ice particles.

  I shot a look behind me; Lefave was on the ice in a full sprint. It was difficult in that gravity, but he was somehow moving like a rocket, just as he had when he destroyed the travel tube that led to the living dome. He’d take two steps on the ice, bend his knees, and push himself toward me. Then another two and a jump...then again...

  He was skimming across the ice now, barely touching it, and was catching up.

  Holy Christ he was catching up to me.

  My speed was eighty kilometers per hour.