The Sixth Level (31 page)

Password.

Admin.

Doctor Hunter.

Hunter.

He tried no password. But they all failed.

"Try holy trinity," I whispered.

"What?"

"Holy trinity. That’s what they were called. There were three doctors in charge of this whole thing. People thought they were miracle workers."

Daniel typed in ‘holy trinity’. "Got it."

The main menu popped up on the screen. The laptop must've been in 'sleep' mode because everything that the last person had been doing was still open. All the websites, the documents and email. And that last person was in all probability, Doctor Hunter. I shuddered at the thought that I was using his personal computer, that he had been using it not too long ago.

I couldn’t believe it. Somehow he had survived. I wondered how he got out of the morgue, out of those handcuffs. I wondered if he was here, somewhere. It was such a huge area; he could've been hiding anywhere. He could be hiding over at one of the terminals and we’d have no idea.

Daniel checked through the email first. The way he searched and started looking through email after email suggested he had done this before and was highly trained at finding relevant information, like a human search engine.

"Check this out," he said as he brought up a list of connected emails.

The first one dated back to February 23rd. The day I gave my interview.

The title of the email simply read ‘Test Subject Zero’. There was a video attached. Daniel moved the mouse over the video attachment and clicked on it. The video loaded instantly and to my horror an image of Kim filled the screen.

Jack’s eyes lit up. "What the hell? Is that Kim? Where is she? Is she all right?"

The first thing I noticed was her hair. It was a mess. And her eyes. Her eyes were only half open. Her head was tilted to the side and I couldn't be sure, but it looked like she was drooling. She was sitting behind a table and her arms were down by her side, possibly tied to the chair, or behind her back.

"They must’ve interviewed her in New Zealand," I said.

Daniel pointed at the screen. "I don't think they interviewed her in New Zealand."

There was a little note in the body of email that read: ‘Christmas Island Facility’.

"Where the hell is Christmas Island?" I asked.

"It’s a small island off the coast of Western Australia," Daniel answered. "It’s used as an immigration processing center. It’s on the other side of the country."

"That's a long way from New Zealand."

"You mean they’ve moved Kim to a quarantine facility on the other side of the country?" Jack asked. "Why would they do that?"

Kenji ran his hands through his hair. "I don’t’ think that’s a quarantine facility."

"What else would it be?"

"It's a research facility. Oh, God. There’s more than one site. It wasn’t just Woomera."

"Play the video!" Jack said with a strain in his voice.

Kim had obviously been drugged up. She had been forced into the iron grip of chemical handcuffs. She was definitely drooling.

Maria had to turn away initially. Jack continued to watch. A single tear streaked down his cheek, making a neat line through the layer of dust on his face.

"They must be keeping her sedated," Daniel said.

There was a man's voice from somewhere off screen, behind the camera. It sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it. The voice sounded tired and hoarse. Like whoever was speaking had been up all night yelling at a football match and then singing along at a heavy metal rock concert.

The man behind the camera then lit up a cigarette. We couldn't see but we could hear the flick of a gas lighter as a thin veil of smoke wafted in front of the camera.

Kim slowly lifted her head. Her gaze was slightly to the left of the camera. She mumbled something.

"Kimberly," the man said. "Remember what we said about speaking clearly."

Kim licked her dry lips and swallowed, taking considerable effort to talk. "Can you please... can you please not smoke."

The man took a long, deep drag on his cigarette. He flicked his lighter once, twice. Then he let the flame linger and burn. Kim stared at the orange light with giant black pupils.

"It's Doctor West," I said. "It has to be."

"The doctor we found hiding in the casino?" Jack asked. "The one who wanted me to kill Maria!?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know?"

"It's his voice. The smoking. The lighter. He must’ve been rescued from the casino."

The footage had taken on a weird orange glow from the tiny flame.

"Why don’t they just kill her," Kenji said, absent mindedly. And as soon as he said it he looked at Jack and apologized. "I didn’t mean it like that. I just think… I think it’s strange what they’re doing."

Jack didn’t say anything. He kept watching the footage intently. But I could see his neck and jaw muscles tense up. He was angry.

"Tell me Kim," Doctor West said. "How do you feel this morning?"

Kim mumbled something about how she wanted water. And that she wanted to see me.

Doctor West ignored her requests. "I spoke with Doctor Hunter earlier," he said. "He tells me you're a very lucky girl."

Kim lifted her head slightly. "Lucky?"

"Yes. You will be the very first person to receive the vaccine. Nothing like this has ever been attempted. You will be part of history. You are a very lucky girl indeed."

"I want to see Rebecca! I want to go home."

"Kimberly, we talked about this. This is your home now."

"I want to see Rebecca," she repeated.

"Rebecca is in quarantine. Just the same as you are."

"I don’t care. I want to see her. I’m not infected. I swear."

"I tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you. As soon as we administer the vaccine and as soon as you’re given the all clear, you can see Rebecca. OK?"

Kim seemed to lower her head in defeat.

"Tomorrow you will be given the vaccine," Doctor West said. "Tomorrow you will be part of history."

The footage ended abruptly and we all looked at each other as if to confirm that the footage was real, that it wasn’t a dream.

"Vaccine?" Daniel asked out loud.

"Wait, that’s a good thing right?" I said.

"Why do they need to keep her drugged up?" Jack asked.

"Come on, Jack,’ I said. "You know what your sister is like. She’s probably giving them hell." I said it in an attempt to cheer him up. I don’t think it worked.

"I thought they needed Maria to create a vaccine," he asked ignoring me.

"The title of the email is ‘Test Subject Zero’," Daniel answered. "That would imply they are testing on her. Maybe they haven’t worked out all the kinks."

"But on the plus side it didn’t look like she was infected with the Oz virus," Maria offered. "So that means they’re helping her right? They’re not gonna hurt her are they?"

Maria was asking these questions out loud to herself. She had started to cry. What she said did sort of make sense. It looked like they were using Kim as a guinea pig for a possible cure. The date on the video footage was the twenty-third of February. That means at the time of the interview she had been in quarantine or wherever she was for over a week. If they had wanted to kill her, they would’ve done it by then.

But still, it was unnerving to see Kim drugged to her eyeballs and drooling and slurring her speech. She had always been so strong, so in control of herself and her actions and her entire life. Now everything was messed up. She was at the mercy of a three desperate mad men. The so called ‘holy trinity’. These people would do anything to stop the truth from getting out, to clean up the mess of apocalyptic proportions they had created.

Daniel said something about how these guys were nothing more than terrorists. He said terrorism is a war waged by the helpless against the innocent.

He was right. I mean, so many innocent people had died. And the people responsible were helpless to stop it or even contain it.

But maybe they could help now. Maybe they were finally on the road to fixing this thing. Regardless of how evil these guys were, or how badly they had messed up I would gladly do whatever they wanted if they could promise to fix this. I would donate my body to science, I would hand over Maria to them right now if they could create a cure from her blood or DNA or whatever.

We were just about to open the rest of the emails. We were hungry for answers, desperate to know that Kim was all right. But Daniel stopped. He looked up from the computer.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Shh."

We all held our breath and strained our ears. Off in the distance we could hear the familiar sound of a light aircraft’s propeller.

"The Predator is back."

Chapter 40

Daniel activated his cloaking device again and grabbed the binoculars.

We ducked behind the tables and chairs of the forward base of operations, hoping the drone wouldn’t see us, praying the cammo net that covered this temporary headquarters would be enough to conceal us and our body heat from the Predator’s infrared sensors.

I
positioned myself under a table near the front of tent so I could see what was going on.

The Predator appeared to be searching the airport again. This time more closely. It was circling the terminals, slowing down to the point where it looked like it might stall and fall out of the sky.

"What's it looking for?" I asked.

"Don't know," Daniel answered.

The drone finished circling the terminals and then moved over to the hangars.

"Why is it circling those hangars?" Maria asked. "What’s over there?"

"Maybe they’ve got some jets stored inside," Kenji offered. "Or maybe they want to see if they can use them?"

"Why did they even abandon the airport in the first place?" Jack asked. "It looks perfectly safe to me."

"Yeah why did they?" Maria said. "Isn’t the airport like, really important? Don’t they need it?"

Daniel ignored the questions. He was focused on the red sky, keeping the binoculars pointed directly at the drone.

Kenji moved up next to me, kneeling in a shooter’s position. "Judging by the bullet shells and the dried blood at the perimeter fence, I’d say there was a huge struggle here. A last stand. If I had to guess, I’d say they military were looking to reclaim it."

The Predator drone banked high and wide, disappearing from view. And just like that it was gone.

"That thing is starting to get annoying," Jack said.

Daniel deactivated his cloaking device. He was about to put the binoculars down but he picked them back up and looked over at the hangars.
 
"Oh no."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Over there!" he pointed.

"What? What the hell is it?"

He didn’t say anything. He just gave me the binoculars. I looked in the direction he was pointing.

Over in the shadows of the hangars, next to the international terminal was a figure.

It was a man.

And he was displaying the familiar movements of someone infected with the Oz virus. He was stumbling forward, his arms were flailing. He then lifted his head. It was as if he looked right at me, right down the lens of the binoculars. And then he started sprinting, coming right for us.

There was no way he could see us, right? He was too far away, wasn’t he?

We all stared at this lone infected man for awhile. We should’ve reacted right away. But it was weirdly hypnotic. It was frightening, yet fascinating. I couldn’t turn away. He was running for us, as fast as he could. His leg looked bent, like it was broken, like his bone was sticking out through his kneecap.

"How do they do it?" Maria asked. "How can they keep going like that?"

"Pain receptors are completely shut down." Kenji said as he stood up, shouldered his rifle and flicked the safety off.

He looked through the scope, measured the distance and sized up his target. It was too far away to shoot from a standing position. He moved over to the corner of a table and rested the barrel of his rifle on it. He looked through the scope again and took aim. He fired a single shot, hitting the infected man, blowing his left arm clean off.

But it kept running towards us.

Kenji took a deep breath, adjusted the sight, fired again. This time he missed completely. He took another deep breath, keeping his composure. He exhaled slowly. He fired, aiming for its legs, blowing apart it's already damaged knee. The infected man fell to the ground.

But the damn thing kept clawing its way forward.

Thankfully it was no longer running at full sprint. Kenji had bought us some time. I was starting to realize that was as good as it was ever going to get. We were never going to be safe here. Not until we were long gone out of the city, out of the country.