Black Mountain

FORTY-FOUR

Hammerson stumbled along the snow-crusted road, limping from the wound in his leg that had burst open again. He felt like shit. His ribs and sternum were cracked, and he’d rigged a makeshift sling for his damaged arm.

He heard a powerful vehicle slowing behind him, and turned to see a big SUV with tinted windows filling the road. It went past, but pulled over just in front of him, and the front passenger door was pushed open with a boot. As he came level with the cabin, he looked in and couldn’t help his mouth falling open.

He shook his head and grinned. ‘You just made my fucking day.’

Casey Franks sat there covered in blood, her armour-plated suit shredded in a dozen places.

Hammerson’s grin widened. ‘And I thought I was in bad shape.’

Franks raised her eyebrows and her battered face pulled up in a lopsided smile. ‘Don’t ask. I’m just writing it off as another bad date night, okay?’

Beside her, the driver gave Hammerson a small salute. Seemed Sam’s taxi had waited for him, after all. Hammerson burst out laughing and climbed into the cabin. He grimaced as the warmth of the interior prickled his skin and brought feeling back to the open wounds over his face and body. He turned to see Matt Kearns and Sarah Sommer in the back, looking like they were about to nod off.

The driver leaned around Franks. ‘Destination, sir?’

Hammerson pointed forward. ‘Into town for our passengers, I reckon.’ He turned in his seat. ‘That okay for you two?’

Matt nodded and held up the tooth. ‘Gigantopithecus schroderi… for Charles.’

You folks ain’t gonna like the redecorating Hunter’s done to that cave, Hammerson thought.

He sat back and spoke again to the driver. ‘Take us on to Raleigh — get the medic team to meet us and we’ll jump from there.’

When Matt and Sarah had climbed out, Franks moved to the back seat where she stretched out as best she could. She angled her head to look at Hammerson.

‘Survivors?’ she asked.

Hammerson shook his head. ‘A few, besides Kearns and Sommer. Captain Senesh… and probably Hunter, still up there somewhere.’

Franks puckered her lips in thought. ‘Kearns and the Sommer woman — can we trust them? And Senesh —’

‘You forget about Senesh,’ Hammerson cut in, and saw Franks’s eyes narrow. ‘That’s an order, soldier. If I know Mossad, a chopper’s gonna drop outta the sky any moment to take her back to Israel.’

Franks shrugged and stared up at the roof for a second or two.

Hammerson pulled in a ragged breath. ‘As for Kearns and Sarah Sommer — well, I want him brought into the fold. We can use that guy. Sommer… not so sure. I don’t know her, or how she’ll hold up. We’ll put her under 24/7 surveillance for the next ninety days… just to make sure she doesn’t feel the need to open up to anyone.’

Franks nodded her approval. ‘So, where to now, boss? Try to pick up Hunter’s trail?’

‘Nope. Hunter’s rebuilding his memory. I reckon he’ll come back in himself eventually. We just need to make sure he doesn’t detonate along the way. We’ll keep our ears to the ground for anything that sounds like our man — bar fights where one guy cleans up the place, or a mugger winds up looking like he’s been hit by a truck. We need to keep an eye on Connecticut too — sooner or later he might go looking for a friendly face to fill in some more blanks for him. There’s a certain petrobiologist we both know who can do that.’

Franks turned and frowned. ‘Great. Aimee thinks he’s a corpse. When she finds out he’s not…’

Hammerson shifted in his seat. ‘Yup, and that’s why I think we better keep an eye out. Some people don’t react too well to seeing the dead raised up.’

‘Ain’t that the truth.’ Franks lay back.

‘But right now,’ Hammerson said, ‘we’re heading into town for a hot shower and a drink… and to organise some cleaners for that mess up on the mountain.’

He closed his eyes, and in another few seconds was asleep.

Captain Robert Graham sat immobile, his steepled fingers touching his lips, as he watched the three flat lines on his monitor. Communication with his men had ceased, and his final subject’s heart monitor had stopped hours ago.

He spun in his chair to face his assistant, Lieutenant Alan Marshal, and smiled grimly. ‘Success.’

Marshal frowned. ‘Huh? They’re all dead. Either defeated by the primary Arcadian subject, or they literally burned themselves down.’ He pointed at rows of figures on the screen. ‘Look at their final core temperatures — 140 degrees. They must have been boiling their brains.’

Graham shook his head. ‘They functioned. They carried out their orders. They just came up against a better model… for now. As far as Wozyniak is concerned, the field test was a complete success. I’m recommending that we pursue the ARC-044 batch thread. It proves we can reproduce the basics of the design.’ He shrugged. ‘We just need to do some further tweaking.’

Spinning back to his screen, he looked at the flat pulse lines once more and nodded. ‘A success. And now we have the original Arcadian subject wandering around in our backyard — perfect, really. Somehow that man’s physiology is able to balance the enormous physical output and the psychosis and still manage the stresses to his core temperature. Now we just have to find him again.’

Marshal opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to speak.

‘So, we need better base material,’ Graham said, facing him again. ‘And that’s where you come in.’

Graham got to his feet, clasped his assistant’s shoulder and steered him into the laboratory.

‘Ready the next batch of… volunteers, Lieutenant.’