The Void - 09 by Greig Beck

Author:Greig Beck [Beck, Greig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2018-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

“Jesus!” Chief science officer Jim Teacher jumped about a foot out of his seat as the klaxon horn sounded.

“Fire drill … now?” he asked his empty office. He grabbed at his phone, calling through to security. He sniffed, not smelling smoke. There’d still be an evacuation, he bet.

Security came back to him quickly.

“Where is it?” Jim asked.

“Alarm initiation point is lab-45, sir.” Jim overheard them conducting a background discussion for a few moments before they came back on the line. “Doesn’t seem to be any thermal warnings, so maybe it’s chemical spill. We’re still calling an evacuation to be safe and heading down now. The fire department has been notified.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.” Jim hung up. Lab-45 – that was where Harry and Sarah were working. He headed for the door.

Under the relentless, blaring alarms, people were filing out to their designated assembly areas, and Jim worked his way back through the tide of people. Lab-45 was an underground unit and in a module separated by several hundred yards of white corridor – good for security and for fighting fires, but bad if you needed to get to it in a hurry.

Jim sprinted now, the horn obliterating all other background noises. He shouldered open the double white doors to the laboratory complex and entered the outer offices. It was now deserted and he slowed to a jog as he counted down the labs getting to 45. Finding it, he entered the outer control room and walked toward the large double-layered, toughened glass of the window. Jim stepped up close.

There was smoke but no fire, nor was there any sign of Harry or Sarah. The once pristine and sterile white room was putrid. He stepped closer and squinted. What he had assumed was smoke seemed to be some sort of speckled, particulate gas, heavier near the floor.

Jim grimaced; revoltingly, there did look to have been some sort of explosion within the hermetically sealed room. The floor and walls were lumped with a greenish-brown matter, and there were even strands of it hanging from the ceiling. He quickly checked a live CCTV feed from the airlock between the rooms and finding that also empty, he pressed the intercom.

“Harry? Sarah?”

He frowned, trying to see around the streaks running down the window and let his eyes run over the room’s interior. He pressed the open mic again.

“Harry, where the hell are you, buddy?”

He pressed himself up closer to the window spotting something. “There you are.”

On the floor in the corner, there were two tangled hazardous material suits but strangely deflated looking. They took ’em off? Why?

Jim moved along the edge of the window, trying to see into every nook and cranny. There was really nowhere for anyone to hide, unless they had forced themselves into one of the small cabinets, which would be impossible for someone like Harry, who was stick-thin but six-three.

Both the inner and outer airlock doors were still sealed, and he damn well didn’t pass them on the way down here.

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