Kenji spent the next few minutes scanning through the still photos from the security cameras, images rolling past too fast for me to see. The elf tech didn’t seem to share my problem. The scrolling screen was making me dizzy, so I looked away. As soon as I did, Kenji stopped scrolling.
“Wait,” he said to himself. “What’s this?”
I leaned over. “What’s what?”
“Another photo. Is that you?”
I looked closely. “Looks like me; but since I don’t recognize where it was taken, I probably wasn’t there.”
The lights flickered. In the bull pen and on the five floors above it.
I froze. I wasn’t the only one.
“Is that . . . normal, but just really bad timing?” I asked quietly.
We all watched as the lights on each level and catwalk above and surrounding the bull pen, flickered again then came back on, but at less than full power.
“Mr. Hayashi, identify the source of that power fluctuation,” the boss said. She touched what I’d always thought was an oversized pearl earring, and spoke. “Commanders Benoit and Niles, report.”
I looked closer. The “pearl” was held in place by a gold mount, the end of which curled around her earlobe and into her ear. Nice. That had to be the world’s most expensive headset.
While she listened, Kenji’s fingers flew over the keys. “It’s the south tunnel generators, ma’am. But all the readings from the control panels are normal, no fluctuation.”
The boss exhaled on a growl. “Naturally, I just evacuated the maintenance staff,” she muttered.
“I can run diagnostics from here, ma’am,” Kenji offered.
“Do it.”
“By the way, those generators are next to the HVAC control room,” the elf tech told her. “The same place the doppelganger was at approximately nine this morning in the photo I just found.”
Sagadraco nodded as she listened to either Roy or Sandra on the other end.
Kenji leaned toward me. “HVAC is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning,” he whispered to me.
“I know what that is,” I whispered back.
“Just making sure. We’re ten stories underground. Our air comes from the surface and is circulated out through those big-ass exhaust fans outside the north tunnel entrance.”
Ian was intent on the schematics of the south tunnel area that Kenji’s search had called up. “All of which lead to air ducts,” he murmured.
Kenji nodded. “In every room of the complex.”
Vivienne Sagadraco finished speaking into her headset, and turned to me and Ian. “Agent Fraser, you’re about to get your wish, though I think you should be more careful what you wish for. One of Commander Niles’s teams is closest to that location and will be backing you up. However it will be another ten minutes before they can get there. Agent Byrne, arm yourself and your partner and investigate that power fluctuation—and find out why that doppelganger would have been down there.”
16
THE HVAC control room didn’t look anywhere near as important as it sounded. Yes, there were some impressive-looking switches and panels with lots of blinking lights, but all that was behind some seriously thick glass in its own little room. The only things out here with us were pipes, covered cables, metal cabinets, and a whole mess of concrete and steel.
There was no sign that my doppelganger was here or had ever been here.
The toe of my boot kicked something small, sending it bouncing with metallic plinks across the concrete floor, until it hit the far wall.
It was plenty light enough to see, but we’d brought flashlights that felt more like steel clubs and had beams that would probably strike you blind. The flashlight was a heavy and reassuring weight in my hand.
I walked over and shone the beam of my flashlight down on the tiny piece of metal.
Ian glanced up from his inspection of the closest control panel. “What was it?”
It was just a screw.
I aimed my light up and around, searching for what it’d come off of. “Something down here’s lost a screw.”
Ian refrained from commenting.
I located a square of dark in the shadows close to the ceiling. An open air vent. A metal grate hung from the one remaining screw. It looked like there’d been three others that’d fallen out—or had been removed.
I stepped back. Way back.
I spoke without turning. “Houston, we have—”
“I see it,” Ian said quietly, coming up behind me.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m only like five six, so that’s all my doppelganger has to work with heightwise. Kenji didn’t have a picture of her haulin’ a ladder in here, so how would she have—”
“True.” Ian had gone down on one knee to search the floor. He came up with two more screws in the palm of his hand. “But these haven’t been on the floor for long. See how the screws’ heads are dull, but the threads aren’t? These were taken out recently.” He went over to stand in front of the wall just to the right of the open vent. “Put down your flashlight and come here.”
I did.
He squatted down. “Get on my shoulders.”
“What?”
“Put your legs over here”—he tapped each side of his chest—“and sit on my shoulders. I’ll stand up and you shine your light in there.”
“And a bomb blows up in my face.”
“There’s not a bomb in there.”
“But up in the bull pen, you said—”
“This vent would be a bad place for a bomb. If your doppelganger was carrying around explosives or gas, she wouldn’t waste them in there. So far, she hasn’t been stupid. Come on. We’re wasting time. Lean forward, brace your hands against the wall, and climb on.”
I got behind him, put one leg over his shoulder and hesitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um . . . if I put my other leg over, what’s going to keep me from falling over backward?”
“Me.” He clamped his big hand over my shin, essentially anchoring my leg from the knee down against his chest. He was right; my leg wasn’t going anywhere. “Now put your other leg over and sit up straight—and stay still. I’ll do the rest.”
“Uh . . . I don’t think the wall’s gonna work for my hands, could we—”
Ian’s sharp exhale told me he’d lost his patience when I’d lost my coordination.
“It’s not my fault I’ve never done this before.”
“Just grab my head.”
“Your what?”
“My head. Wrap your hands around the top of my head.”
I did as instructed.
“Not my eyes, my head!”
I moved my hands up and put my other leg over his shoulder. Ian grabbed my leg and started to stand.
I squeaked as I felt myself start to topple over. Ian’s grip tightened on my legs, and I clutched a double handful of his hair. I steadied myself, my hands not doing a very good job of holding on to the top of Ian’s head.
I didn’t dare to breathe, let alone move. “You need longer hair.”
He ignored me. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Ian stood. I stayed on. It was nothing short of a miracle.
To my relief, he stopped about three feet away from the wall, and my head was perfectly aligned with the opening.
“Here.” Ian handed me his flashlight.
I took it and aimed the beam straight ahead, illuminating the shaft.
There was definitely something in there, in some kind of pile. I couldn’t quite make out what they were, but since the pile wasn’t moving . . .
“Move a little closer.”
Ian did.
I couldn’t tell how many there were, but they were brown, each about the size and shape of a baked potato. I looked closer.
They weren’t bombs or nerve gas canisters.
They were eggs.
And they had hatched.
“Bad news,” I said. “You were right. It’s not a bomb.”
“Well, what is it?”
“They. It’s a ‘they.’ About ten, I don’t know, maybe twelve . . . eggs.”
“Eggs?”
“Eggs. Hatched eggs.”
“What kind?”
“Nothing I’ve ever seen before.” I had a sudden urge to run and keep running. “Let me down. Let me down now.”
Quicker than I could react, Ian released my legs, reached behind his head, grabbed me around the waist, swung me down, and had me tucked tightly under his arm. His other hand held his gun.
I scanned the floor directly below me and didn’t dare move. “Where is it?” I hissed in a whisper. “Do you see anything?”
“Not yet.”
I had no idea why we were whispering. If there was something down here with us, they knew we were here. As long as I was tucked up under Ian’s arm like a sack of chicken feed, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. Though I was grateful to have my feet off the floor. I had to stifle the urge to twist around and climb Ian like a tree.
“Put me down.”
He did.
I’d dropped my flashlight and it’d rolled into the corner, stopping at the base of some kind of metal cabinet. I ran after it, and reached down to snatch it off the concrete floor. If there was ever a time I wanted a steel club, it was right—
I yelped and yanked my hand back, scrambling backward, tripping over my own legs in the process.
The back of my hand was bleeding from a two-inch gash. Must have raked my hand on the base of the cabinet yanking it . . .
A raspy hiss came from the shadowy corner . . .
. . . and from the air vent opening.
Ian put himself between me and whatever they were. “Get to the door. Get out.”
I hesitated.
“Move!”
The things came at us, and Ian opened fire.
A creature launched itself out of the open air vent and into the tangle of pipes that ran above our heads. I only got a glimpse. It was about a foot tall, with pale mottled skin slick and glistening, with spindly and impossibly long arms and legs. Another one leapt effortlessly to the top of the cabinet. It perched there, its yellow eyes glittering in the shadows. The thing rolled its bald head on ropy shoulders as if stretching, its mouth yawning open to reveal multiple rows of needle teeth, flexing its thin, spidery fingers, claws curved to razor points. Claws that were red with my blood.