The
Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland
Monday, August 30, 5:01
A.M.
Time Remaining on the
Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 59 minutes
Grace Courtland lay naked in my arms. She
was gasping as hard as I was. Our bodies were bathed in sweat. The
mattress was halfway off the bed and we lay with our heads angled
downward to the floor. The sheets were soaked and knotted around
us. Somehow we’d lost all of my pillows and the lamp was broken,
but the bulb was still lit and it threw light and shadows all over
the place.
“Good God.,” she said
hoarsely.
I was incapable of articulate
speech.
Grace propped herself on one elbow. One side
of her face was as bright as a flame from the shadeless lightbulb,
the other side completely in shadow. She looked at me for a long
time without speaking. I closed my eyes. Finally she bent and
kissed my chest, my throat, my lips. Very softly, like a
ghost.
“Joe,” she said quietly. “Joe. are you
awake?”
“Yes.”
“Was it terrible?”
I knew what she meant. After I’d
interrogated Carteret and brought him back to the computer room, we
heard more gunfire and the whump of explosions. I handcuffed
Carteret, and Top, Bunny, and I rushed out to investigate. What we
found was indeed terrible. The remaining staff members of the Hive
had fled to the far side of the compound. A guard sergeant named
Hans Brucker herded them all into a secure room, telling them all
that they could seal it and that they’d be safe until Otto sent a
rescue team. Once they were all inside, Brucker and two other
guards had opened up with machine guns and threw in half a dozen
grenades before slamming the doors. There were no survivors. No one
who could talk, no one who could help us.
Brucker then shot the two other guards and
put his pistol in his mouth and blew the back of his own head
off.
It was insane.
It was also confusing, because Brucker was
clearly the man who had led the unicorn hunt. Despite what Church
had thought, it wasn’t Haeckel. When I told Church this via
commlink he ordered me to scan the man’s
fingerprints.
They matched Haeckel.
No one had figured that out
yet.
Shortly after that the Brits arrived and we
headed back to the states with what records we had, with SAM, and
with Carteret. The remaining six tiger-hounds were gunned down by
soldiers from the Ark Royal. The New Men were gathered up and
brought aboard the carrier, but they were so terrified that several
of them collapsed. One died of a heart attack. The ship’s doctor
ultimately had to sedate them all, and the incident left the crew
of the Ark Royal badly shaken.
Everyone else at the Hive was
dead.
It had been terrible
indeed.
“It was bad,” I said.
“There are so many monsters. and we keep
hunting them down.” She laid her cheek against mine. “What if we
can’t beat them this time?”
“We will.”
“What if we can’t? What if we fail?” Her
voice was small in the semi-darkness. “What if we
fall?”
“If you fall, I’ll be there to pick you up.
If I fall, you’ll be there for me. That’s the way this
works.”
“And if we both fall?”
“Then someone else will have to step in and
step up.”
She was silent a long time. It was a
pointless conversation and we both knew it. The kind of convoluted
puzzle that the mind plays with in the dark, when pretenses and
defenses are down. There was no one else on earth with whom Grace
Courtland could ever have had this conversation. Same with me.
There are some things too deep, too personal, to even share with
Rudy.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her
tight.
“One way or another, Grace,” I said, “we’ll
get through it. With what we got from Carteret and the files we
brought back from the Hive, Bug thinks that he’ll crack this in no
time. Maybe even by morning. And then we’ll strap on the tarnished
armor, take up our battered old broadswords, give a hearty
‘tallyho’ and head off to slay some dragons.”
“Monsters,” she corrected.
“Monsters,” I agreed.
We lay there on the slanting mattress, the
sweat of passion cooling on our naked skin, and listened to the
sound of our breathing becoming slower and slower. I reached over
and pulled the plug on the lamp and we were instantly cocooned in
velvety darkness. We lay like that for a long time. I thought Grace
had drifted off to sleep when she whispered to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I turned my head toward her even though she
was invisible in the darkness. “Sorry? For what?”
She didn’t answer at first. Then, “I love
you, Joe.”
Before I could answer her hand found my
mouth and she pressed a finger to my lips.
“Please,” she said, “please don’t say
anything.”
But I did say something.
I said, “I love you,
Grace.”
We said nothing else. The meaning and the
price of those words were too apparent, and they filled the
darkness around us and the darkness in our hearts. The battlefield
is no place to fall in love. It makes you vulnerable; it tilts back
your head and bares your throat. It didn’t need to be
said.
I just hoped-perhaps prayed-that the
monsters didn’t hear our whispered words.