The Storm (NUMA Files 10)

Inside the viewing chamber, the effect was enhanced. Mustafa stared at the acrylic wall. A dark, viscous shape, thick like octopus ink, surged forward. It flowed onto the clear surface and spread across it like some kind of film.

Mustafa froze. Alhrama pushed past him and yanked on the locked door handle. “Let me out!” he shouted. “It was Mustafa. I was not part of this!”

A strange scratching sound began to resonate, and the film darkened and thickened in a pattern that Mustafa recognized as fissures. The fissures spread across the acrylic in a branching pattern, growing deeper in two small areas.

The etching noise grew louder and sharper, almost like fingers on a chalkboard. The noise seemed to penetrate Mustafa’s brain. He could see the acrylic vibrating, the water shuddering around it.

The clear wall creaked ominously. Behind him Alhrama continued to yank on the door handle and plead with Jinn to let him free. Mustafa began to shake and fell to his knees.

“No!” he shouted. “No!”

The acrylic wall fractured. It caved in, and water flooded the bay. Mustafa tried to swim through it, but the swarm of silver sand enveloped him, soaking into his clothes, burrowing into his skin, and dragging him down to the bottom of the tank like a fifty-pound anvil.

For a minute he struggled like a speared fish, jerking in spasms, but very quickly he was still, and shortly afterward his blood began to stain the water red. Behind him, drowning in the bay, Alhrama fared no better.

CHAPTER 23

KURT STARED AT THE CARNAGE IN THE TEST ROOM. “SUDdenly, I wish we’d left when you suggested it,” he said to Joe.

From inside the locker room he and Joe had watched the whole thing, and with the water turning crimson, it seemed they’d outstayed their welcome.

They shed their hazmat suits, moved to the rear door, left the locker room via the stairs.

“Hope you left a trail of bread crumbs,” Joe said.

“Just keep moving upward and away from here,” Kurt replied.

They reached the main hall, overlooking the tank room, but neither of them looked back. Halfway down the hall, the sound of gunfire broke out. The first wave sounded deliberate and calm, but then it became sporadic and peppered with shouting. What sounded like return fire was mixed in.

“The mess hall,” Kurt said. “Those other guys we saw must have been working for the two guys who just became microbot food.”

The gunfire continued, growing more intense. “Sounds like a major battle,” Joe said. “Maybe they didn’t all get taken by surprise.”

“Too bad for us,” Kurt said. “Unless we want to join up with the blue team, we need to lay low for a bit.”

Kurt found a door, cracked it open, and looked inside. He saw computers, printers and drafting tables. None of them occupied.

“In here,” he whispered.

They ducked inside. Kurt spun and closed the door. He pressed himself to the wall and found he could see part of the hallway through a narrow crack between the doorjamb and the edge of the door itself.

“See if there’s a back way out,” he said, “or a closet or somewhere else to hide in if we need to.”

Joe began to look around, and Kurt squinted through the narrow fissure. Whatever plan had been arranged to deal with the outsiders seemed to be falling apart. Some of Jinn’s men ran down the hall, wounded. Moments later reinforcements charged up it, and the noise of the battle grew louder, including explosions from stun grenades.

“Nowhere to hide back here,” Joe said. “No back door either.”

Kurt kept his eye on the gap. “Just our luck to show up in time for the family feud.”

“A minute earlier, and we’d have been caught in the fight,” Joe countered.

“But two minutes earlier, and we’d have been through the battle zone and on our way up to the roof, with them fighting behind us to give us cover.”

“You have a point,” Joe said.

Kurt wedged his foot against the base of the door, widening the gap just a bit and allowing him to see more of the hall. The sound of footsteps reached him well before he could see who or what was approaching.

“Company coming,” he whispered.