Laura bolted through the doorway of the cafeteria into the hall, the scientists surging after her. We grabbed our weapons and backpacks and followed them as best we could. Running through the corridors was infuriating because of their segmented nature, each sliding door needing to seal behind us before the one ahead opened.
At last we made it through and up to the comms center. Laura brought up Zach’s image on one of the giant wall monitors. He was standing by the keypad at the front door, peering into the security camera. His bearded face loomed large on the screen, cast green by the camera’s night vision.
“Hello? Are you there, Laura?”
She clicked a button. “I’m here. What’s wrong? You scared us.”
Zach said, “I have a … well, see for yourself.”
He stepped away from the camera, visible in the dawn light. His finger and thumb squeezed a fold in his suit at his thigh. Laura leaned over the console, bringing her face close to the monitor.
Then she jerked in a breath.
When she bowed her head, I saw past her to what she was looking at.
A tear in the fabric of Zach’s suit. He was pinching it closed with his gloved hand. A few loose threads waggled in the air. He stared down at them.
“Shit,” he said.
“Maybe the spores didn’t get through,” Laura said. “Maybe that’s why you haven’t been infected yet. Maybe—”
“No,” he said. “I already feel funny.” He pressed his other hand to the helmet over his forehead. “The leak in the suit—it’s tiny. And I sealed it off pretty quick. I think the spores haven’t built up a high enough concentration in my body yet. But I can feel them in there, working. It’s … interesting.”
His chest heaved a few times.
My mouth was dry. I hadn’t known Dr. Brewer long, but I liked him a lot already. The other scientists were staring through the Lucite entry room at the door beyond. He was right there on the other side.
Zach looked back at us and managed to produce a smile. “When an ant dies, the others take its body and dump it far, far away from the colony to protect the surviving members.” His breathing grew more labored. “In case it was infected.”
“No,” Laura said. “No, no, no. Zach, listen to me. You don’t know you’re infected. The spore concentration could have thinned in the air.” Her hands flew across the keyboards. She brought up a screen on another monitor showing various readings of air particulates.
“Laura, it’s okay. Let’s make this easy now.”
She stared at the readings on the screen, and her shoulders curled, as if she were folding in on herself. None of the rest of us could move.
“Hello?” Zach tapped the camera screen with his finger. “Is anyone there?”
Laura still couldn’t respond, so I stepped forward.
“Yes?” I said.
“Chance?” Zach said. “Kids?”
Patrick and Alex came forward next to me.
“The future rests in your hands.” Zach’s beard shifted, and again he showed a hint of that goofy smile. “I guess it’s always rested in the hands of kids. But you know what I mean.”
“We’ll do our best, sir,” Patrick said.
Zach stared into the lens. “Laura?”
She finally looked up. “I’m here,” she said.
Zach pulled back his shoulders, straightening his spine. “It was a pleasure working with you, Dr. Messing.”
Laura’s voice was raspy. “It was a pleasure working with you, Dr. Brewer.”
Zach gave a nod. “Good luck, doctors.”
Still pinching shut the tear in his suit, he walked over to the nearest golf cart at the edge of the parking lot and climbed on. Then he drove off.
Laura clicked the mouse, and another surveillance angle came up. We watched the golf cart motor across the parking lot. It bumped up onto a grassy slope and headed for the edge of the cliff by where the aerial tram was perched. Halfway across the lawn, Zach shuddered.
A storm of particles released inside his suit, swirling in the glass helmet, turning it into a snow globe. Then he slumped over the wheel.
The golf cart rolled forward off the cliff.
There was no crash, no noise, no nothing.
Laura took a step back from the console and sat down on the floor. Her hands lay loose in her lap.
No one knew what to say.
The scientist standing next to me sobbed a few times and then silenced. Another wandered off and sat on a chair in the corner. Alex chewed her lip. Patrick took his hat off and held it against his chest. He studied the frayed stitching along the band.
Slowly, the scientists started to head back to the lab below.
I was the only one who noticed it.
A dot of movement on the monitor.
No—make that two.
Entering the field of the wide-angle security lens, two forms rushed along the edge of the cliff. One of them carried something swinging at its side.
They passed the spot where Zach had tumbled over the brink and veered toward the building.
Toward us.
As they came closer, I blinked a few times, unsure if I could trust my eyes.
Rocky and JoJo.
“Uh, guys?” I said.
No one turned around.
“Guys!”
At that, several heads snapped to attention. I pointed at the monitor.
Alex said, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Rocky and JoJo were gesticulating at each other and pointing up various paths. They were arguing. Which seemed about right. JoJo swung Bunny’s head by the ears and whapped her brother on the crown.
They finally agreed on which way to go and ran right past our building, vanishing off the edge of the screen. A moment later they came back and stopped in the parking lot, looking around. Looking everywhere, it seemed, but at our building.
Now they sprinted off in opposite directions, neither one correct.
Alex slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.
Patrick said, “Let’s go get ’em.”
He started for the door when JoJo reappeared on the monitor. She pointed at our building and started jumping up and down and shouting. Rocky emerged from one of the trails, and they ran for us.
Now they appeared in the other screen, the one linked to the surveillance cam by the door. JoJo leaned in so close we could see up her nose. Her breath fogged the glass. I could see her hand bobbing as she punched buttons indiscriminately.
All this time Laura hadn’t stirred from her position on the floor. I stepped past her and clicked the button. “JoJo?”
“Chance? Chance! You gotta get out of here. There’s no time. They’re coming.”
“Wait. Who?”
She and Rocky jockeyed for position, and I caught a glimpse between their shoulders.
A Hatchling stood behind them at the edge of the cliff.
We watched with horror.
Another flew up over the brink, landing beside it. And then another.
They’d scaled the cliff face with their claws.
A few more came over the edge, and then we stopped counting.
A wave of orange poured over the lip, sweeping toward us.