Free Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion by Anthony DeCosmo Page A

from the landing pad.
    “Dr. Nehru?”
    As he answered, “Yes, of course,” Lori realized that no trace of Omar’s Indian accent remained. “What has happened to my wife?”
    The group walked through a side door into a small lobby. Groups of workers and soldiers stood around with their eyes fixed on Omar as if he held a solution to a problem.
    “We’re not sure, exactly, sir,” the Colonel said. “She began acting erratically, first when she disposed of a specimen for no apparent reason. According to the technician who was with her, she appeared to calm down after that and said something about going to her office. An hour later we received a security alert from the primary containment cell block.”
    The Colonel guided them along a corridor. Lori noticed the security cameras and warning signs that suggested they had moved to a more sensitive area of the facility.
    She asked, “The containment blocks?”
    “Yes Ma’am. We’ve got about three dozen specimens contained on the lower levels for biological study and weapons testing.”
    “Yes, yes, but what about Anita? What has happened?”
    They stopped at a freight elevator flanked by a pair of well-armed guards.
    The Colonel said, “She started moving through the cell blocks down there and euthanizing the specimens.”
    “She just started killing off the things?” Lori asked. “For no reason?”
    “Not that we can tell, ma’am.”
    “So what is the problem? She decided to destroy the specimens. Is this such a big deal? Is she not in charge here?” Omar may have lost his ethnic accent but he found another accent, one of defensiveness.
    The doors to the elevator opened. The Colonel motioned them inside and pushed a button for Sub-Level 6.
    He said, “You have to understand, doctor, your wife oversaw most of these things. She knew how hard it was to get them. They were a gold mine of information to her.”
    Lori broke in, “Did anyone try and talk to her?”
    “That’s the problem, ma’am.” The elevator hummed and descended into the bowels of the facility. “Security and some of the techs tried to intercede. She grabbed a pistol from a weapons locker and forced every one out.”
    “No, no, there is a mistake,” Omar said. “Anita is a peaceful woman!”
    The doors to the elevator slid open to a large, white, round room filled with monitors and sealed doors. A group of security guards, workers, and researchers stood in the area like a bunch of high school kids forced outside by a fire alarm.
    The Colonel said, “As far as we can tell she’s exterminated every specimen in one whole cell block. We shut the bulkheads down so she can’t get out. With that gun—well, I didn’t want her to hurt anyone or for us to have to hurt her. Then she asked for you, Dr. Nehru.”
    “For me?”
    “Actually she asked for The Emperor first. We told her he was far away at the front. Then she insisted to see you.”
    They stopped near one of the closed doors. It resembled a submarine bulkhead except larger and painted white.
    “You’re not going in there alone,” Lori jumped.
    “Yes I am.”
     
    The glow of spinning red warning lights bounced across the walls in a slow parade of flashes. Big glass panels—like giant aquariums—lined one wall of the long, wide hall. The other side of that hall contained lockers and monitoring devices and scientific equipment.
    Omar walked through the patches of light and dark created by the lack of main power in that section. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight. To calm his nerves he fumbled for a cigarette which he hurried to light.
    He had toured Red Rock with his wife once before. In his nightmares he often saw an ‘incident’ inside the high-tech dungeon. He thought of Skip Beetles and Crawling Tube worms slipping free of their bonds and running roughshod through the underground levels. In all those nightmares, however, he never imagined his wife to be the monster running loose.
    He passed the first of the