But now Bellos clearly had the upper hand.
The hapless Rachnid was pinned beneath him, flat on its back, squealing insanely as one of the hoods ripped one of its arms clean off. The Rachnid shrieked. Off to one side, the other hood—the injured one—was busy mauling the Rachnid’s guide.
And then Bellos coldly broke the Rachnid’s neck and in an instant the squealing stopped. Then Bellos stood and called the hoods to stand behind him, and pointed his guide’s head toward the dead body on the table.
‘Initialise!’ he said loudly.
A small sphere of brilliant white light appeared above the guide’s head and Selexin was suddenly captivated.
Holly pulled on his arm. ‘Come on, let’s go!’
Selexin ducked back behind the door and the two of them hurried up the stairs.
The first thing that struck Stephen Swain about the lower parking level was its size. It was smaller than the parking floor above it. And it had no exit for cars. You could park down here, but you had to go back up to the floor above to get out.
There were three doors, each set into a different wall. One, leading east, had emblazoned across it, EMERGENCY EXIT. Opposite that door was another that read TO STACK. A third door—an older one—lay on the southern side of the parking lot. A few letters were missing from its nameplate. It simply read: —LER ROOM—NO ENTRY.
And there was a car in this parking lot.
A single, solitary car.
A tiny Honda Civic turned silently into the north-west corner, waiting patiently for its owner to return.
Swain tensed at the sudden thought that perhaps there was someone else inside the library. The owner of the car, somebody they had not seen yet.
No, he told himself. Couldn’t be.
Then he began to think of the other possibilities—like sending the little hatchback blasting through the electrified grille in a fiery blaze of glory, and maybe getting out of the library.
But as he came closer to the little Civic, all his grandiose thoughts faded to nothing.
He sighed.
The car’s owner would not be here.
And the car itself would not be blasting through any electrified grille.
This car wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Swain looked sadly at the two heavy yellow clamps that held the little car firmly to the concrete floor of the parking lot, and then at the painted blue stripe on the concrete beneath it.
The car had been parked in a handicapped zone, and since it didn’t have a sticker on the windshield, the authorities had put the clamps on it.
Swain smiled sadly at the useless car in front of him. At the hospital he’d seen it happen a thousand times, and he always felt that the creeps who parked in the handicapped zones deserved to get clamped.
But now, in the parking lot of the New York State Library, this car offered him absolutely nothing. A gun without any bullets.
It was then that Swain noticed the low hissing noise.
He turned around.
‘You never give up, do you?’ he said aloud.
For there, standing at the base of the DOWN ramp—her tail slinking back and forth behind her, her antennae clocking from side to side, and her four-sided jaw salivating wildly—stood the very first contestant Stephen Swain had met that night.
Reese.
Holly and Selexin clambered up the dark stairwell and stopped once again on the Third Floor landing. From the bowels of the stairwell came another deafening roar.
The Karanadon.
Somewhere down there.
Selexin stopped in front of the closed door to the study hall, remembering the thin shadow he had seen in there before—the shadow of the Codex.
‘The door’s closed,’ Holly whispered.
‘Yes . . .’ Selexin said as if it were quite obvious.
‘Well—’
‘Well what?’
Holly leaned close. ‘Well, we didn’t close it. When we were here before, we just left. We didn’t close the door. Remember?’
Selexin didn’t remember, but at the moment he didn’t care whether the door had been closed or not, they had to go somewhere.
‘You are probably right,’ he said, gripping the door handle. ‘But right now, there is nowhere else to go.’
The little man turned the handle and opened the fire door. He pulled it wide.
And then he fell instantly backwards.
Beside him, Holly turned and vomited explosively.
‘Bring it over! Bring it over!’ Quaid called. It had started to drizzle softly and a light rain now fell on his head. Quaid didn’t even notice it.
The four NSA agents carrying ‘it’ heaved and grunted as they lowered it to the ground beside the electrified grille.
As they did so, Quaid looked down at the silver box with the counters.
The middle counter read: 120485.05.
One hundred and twenty thousand volts. One hundred and twenty thousand volts of pure, borderless electric current. Kind of like an electrified fence, only without the fence.
Quaid turned his attention to the object that the four agents had just put down beside him. ‘It’ was the thick lead casing for Sigma Division’s portable Radiation Storage Unit.
A portable RSU is basically a pressurised vacuum set inside a four-foot-high lead cube. It is used to contain any radioactive object discovered in the field until it can be brought back for study at the huge electromagnetic Radiation Storage Facility in Ohio.
In other words, it was a glorified thermos flask, surrounded by a thick, waist-high lead casing.
Quaid had ordered that the portable RSU in the van be dismantled and the heavy lead casing be brought out.
‘It won’t work,’ Marshall said, looking down at the big lead cube, which now had its top and bottom faces removed.
‘We’ll see,’ Quaid said.
‘That electric field will cut right through it.’
‘Eventually, yes, but maybe not right away.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That means that it might buy us enough time to get a couple of men inside.’
Marshall frowned. ‘I’m not sure . . .’
‘You don’t have to be sure,’ Quaid said roughly. ‘Because you are not the one who’ll be going in.’
Selexin never took his eyes off the doorway. Beside him, Holly was still retching over a puddle of vomit, tears welling in her eyes.
Slowly, clumsily, Selexin got back to his feet, all the while staring wide-eyed up into the doorway.
There, silhouetted grimly by the blazing yellow flames inside the study hall, hanging upside down from the ceiling, drenched in glistening blood, was the horribly mutilated body of New York Police Officer Paul Hawkins.
In the lower parking lot, Swain kept his eyes fixed on Reese’s tail, trying to avoid eye contact with her paralysing antennae.
She moved forward.
Toward him.
Slowly.
Then abruptly her forefoot tripped and she stumbled slightly.
It was only then that Swain remembered where he had last seen Reese. It was back on the First Floor, when the hoods had attacked her, and he and the others had fled for the stairs.
There was no doubt about it. Reese was injured. Battered and bruised from a fight with the hoods that she had only just survived.
Swain looked at himself, covered in the filthy black grime of the elevator shaft and the subway tunnel. He glanced at his wristband.
INITIALISED—3
Another contestant was dead. There were only three of them left now. The Presidian was nearing completion and the remaining contestants were injured and dirty and exhausted. It was now a battle of endurance.
There was a sudden flare of yellow from the right and Swain saw a gas pipe near the ceiling catch fire.
He stole a glance back at Reese—still trudging wearily forward—then at the little Honda Civic next to him—still utterly useless.
Then back up at the gas pipe. At
the soft blue-yellow flame that began to shoot along its length. Swain’s eyes followed the pipe, ahead of the flame. The pipe disappeared into the wall, right above the mysterious door marked —LER ROOM—NO ENTRY.
Then Swain had a sickening thought.
Gas. Gas mains.
‘—LER ROOM.’
Boiler room.
Oh my . . .
The racing blue-yellow flame scooted across the ceiling, following the path of the gas pipe. Then it disappeared into the wall above the door.
A long silence ensued.
The . . .
The explosion was huge. It sounded like a cannon going off as the door to the boiler room blasted outward in a thousand pieces, followed by a billowing cloud of smoke and flames. Swain was thrown backwards onto the bonnet of the Civic.
Quaid wobbled slightly as the ground shook. An explosion somewhere.
‘We have to go in now,’ he said to Marshall.
‘How man—?’
‘As many as we can.’
‘How do you know you’ll get through?’ Marshall asked.
‘How do you know we won’t?’ Quaid said.
Marshall pursed his lips. ‘No-one has ever seen anything like this before . . .’
Quaid just stared at him, waiting for him to make the call.
Then Marshall’s eyes narrowed. ‘Okay, do it.’
Swain rolled off the bonnet of the little Honda to see Reese turn to face the blazing boiler room.
Overhead sprinklers came instantly to life, dousing the whole parking lot with streams of water. It was like standing in a thunderstorm—booming explosions from the boiler room amid the pouring rain of the sprinklers.
Swain brushed the torrents of water from his eyes as he tried to see what Reese was doing. To his right—halfway between Reese and himself—he caught a glimpse of the door on the western wall of the lot, the door he wanted.
The door that read: TO STACK.
‘Ready? Okay, push!’ Quaid yelled.
The NSA team heaved on the big lead casing, pushing it toward the electrified grille of the parking lot.
Quaid had got them to turn the big lead cube onto its side, so that the open ends—the top and bottom—were now pointed sideways, toward the crackling grid of blue electricity.
When the lead cube was a foot away from the blue lightning, Quaid, now dressed in full assault gear—helmet, bulletproof vest—called them to a halt.
Marshall handed him an M-16 assault rifle, equipped with a high-tech-looking underslung unit. It looked like an M-203 grenade launcher, except that it had two sharp silver prongs at its end instead of a wide gunbarrel. It was a Taser Bayonet—a modern version of an ancient weapon. Instead of attaching a long dagger to the end of your rifle, you attached a couple of thousand volts.
‘Some firepower,’ Marshall said.
‘Don’t leave home without it,’ Quaid said, taking the weapon.
Marshall reached into his coat.
‘One more thing,’ he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket. It was the list of times and energy recordings taken from the Eavesdropper satellite. ‘Have you got your copy?’
Quaid patted his back pocket. ‘Don’t you think I know the damn thing off by heart by now? Thirteen surges of energy after we picked up the initial electricity field in the city. That’s the starting point. Thirteen things for us to find.’
‘If you get in,’ Marshall said.
‘Yeah,’ Quaid said grimly, ‘if I get in. You just make sure you’re ready for whatever I bring out.’
‘If we’re not ready, it’ll be because we’re already inside with you.’
‘Good,’ Quaid turned to the agents around him. ‘Okay, boys. Let’s do it.’
The agents began pushing the lead cube toward the wall of criss-crossing blue electricity. Quaid walked slowly behind it, waiting at the open rear end of the cube.
The front end of the cube touched the electricity.
Sparks flew.
Quaid ducked instantly to look through the open rear end of the lead cube. He could see right through it. The electricity wasn’t able to cut through the lead.
The NSA agents kept pushing until the cube was half inside, half outside the blue wall of light.
The lead was still holding.
They now had a tunnel through which Quaid could crawl through the electrified wall.
Gun in hand, Quaid dived inside the cube—and for a moment, disappeared from sight—and then he emerged on the other side of the electric grid, thumbs up.
‘All right,’ he called back. ‘Send the others through.’
The rest of the NSA entry team—all of them armed with Taser-equipped M-16s—were lined up behind the cube.
The first agent in the line, a young Latin-American named Martinez, immediately dived head-first into the cube.
There came a sudden gut-wrenching crack! just as Martinez’s legs disappeared inside the tunnel.
‘Quickly, move! Before she goes!’ Marshall yelled.
And then, without warning, the thick lead cube snapped like a twig under the weight of the surging electric wall just as Martinez emerged from the other side, his gun hand trailing behind him. The cube collapsed instantly, cut clean across its middle—likewise Martinez’s M-16, which was sheared right through its trigger guard, the lethal electricity missing the young commando’s fingers by millimetres.
The wall was back in place.
Quaid and Martinez were cut off.
‘You guys all right?’ Marshall asked through the grille.
‘One gun down, but we’re okay,’ Quaid said, handing Martinez his own SIG-Sauer pistol, to replace the younger man’s ruined M-16. ‘Guess we’re on our own from here. Be back soon.’
Quaid and Martinez hustled off into the parking lot, heading toward the DOWN ramp.
Marshall watched them go. When finally they were gone, his face creased into a smile.
They were inside the library.
Yes.
Swain stood in the corner of the lower parking lot, drenched in the pouring rain. On the other side of the floor, billowing flames lashed out from the boiler room, impervious to the relentless downpour of the ceiling sprinklers.
Reese continued to limp toward him.
Somehow, she seemed determined to reach him despite the protests of her aching body; consumed by an obsession that would not rest until Stephen Swain was dead.
Swain began to think. He couldn’t kill Reese, she was just too big, too strong. And even if she was injured, she would still rip him apart in a fight.
How do you do it? he thought. How do you kill a thing like that?
Easy. You don’t.
You just keep running.
Swain took a step backwards and felt his legs touch the little Honda.
He was in the corner.
Wonderful.
He stepped out along the wall of the parking lot, away from the car, toward the door leading to the Stack.
Reese moved quickly, paralleling the move, cutting off his escape.
Swain stopped about ten feet from the Honda, his back to the wall. He could feel the thick spray of the sprinklers hammering down against his head.
He looked at his feet, at the thick pool of water that seemed to be growing around him. It wasn’t even a centimetre deep, but it stretched nearly all the way across the vast concrete floor, constantly expanding as the overhead sprinklers supplied it with a constant rain of water.
He was standing in it. Reese was, too.
His eyes followed the path of the spreading pool of water.
The pool seemed to be branching out in every direction, even over toward the eastern wall, toward the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT.
The Emergency Exit.
Swain’s mind began to race.
The Emergency Exit would have to be an exterior door, a door leading directly outside.
And if it was, then . . .
He froze in horror. Reese still stood opposite him. The expanding p
ool of water crept slowly toward the Emergency Exit.
If it was an exterior door, then it would be electrified.
And if the pool of water reached it . . .
‘Oh dear,’ Swain said aloud as he looked at the water in which he was standing. ‘Oh dear . . .’
Run! his mind screamed. Where? Any—
‘Don’t move!’ a voice shouted.
Swain’s head jerked upright.
Reese snapped around.
Two men stood at the base of the ramp in the centre of the parking lot.
It was Harold Quaid of the National Security Agency and another agent, both dressed in SWAT gear. Quaid held a strange-looking M-16 assault rifle in his hands. The other agent held a silver semi-automatic pistol.
Swain froze.
He glanced over at the Emergency Exit—at the sprinklers on the ceiling that showed no sign of stopping—at the growing pool of water that continued to edge closer to the door.
It was three feet away.
He must have made to move because Quaid called again. ‘I mean it! Don’t move!’
Swain stood stock still.
The water edged closer to the door.
Reese scuttled off to Swain’s left, away from Quaid.
Quaid and his partner edged out from the ramp, their respective guns up, eyeing Reese, eyeing Swain. They stepped out into the water.
The spreading pool was now two feet from the door.
Rain from the sprinklers kept falling.
Swain wanted to run—
‘Just stay there!’ Quaid barked, aiming his gun threateningly at Swain. ‘I’m coming over!’
One foot . . .
The water was almost at the door . . .
Screw it, Swain thought. Either way, I’m going to die.
‘Don’t move—’ Quaid yelled as Swain broke into a run, racing for the Civic in the corner, every step splashing in the water.
Gunfire erupted.
Swain sprinted along the concrete wall, inches ahead of a line of bulletholes.
I’m not going to make it, he thought as heavy drops from the sprinklers pounded against his face. Not going to make—
He dived for the car.
The water touched the door.
Swain landed on the bonnet of the little Honda with a loud thud and covered his head with his hands. At the same moment, Quaid’s gunfire ceased.