XENA

Rebecca could move pretty quickly when she wanted to. The soldiers should have known that already. But they were all gathered around the tank.

Rebecca was at the cage, unsnicking the lock, and Z1—Xena—was in her arms before anybody realized what she was doing.

“Put the animal down,” Crowe ordered, and he was clearly a man who was used to being obeyed.

Rebecca was a girl who was used to disobeying. “You’ve murdered one innocent creature today; you’re not getting this one too.”

Crowe moved toward her. Manderson and another soldier, Crawford, according to a badge on his helmet, moved slowly in behind her. She edged to her side. “Leave us alone!” she yelled.

“Leave her alone,” Southwell said. “Let her calm down.”

Crowe almost looked as if he were considering that for a moment, then he said, “No, we don’t have the time. I had hoped that they might be useful in understanding Professor Green’s work, but so far they’ve been just an obstruction.”

He spoke to Crawford, behind Rebecca. “Take the animal off her and get all three of them back to Auckland.” He turned to Southwell. “Get them charged with trespass or…something…so your police can keep them out of our hair.”

Crawford nodded and circled around Rebecca to grab Xena. Manderson gripped her shoulders from behind, despite her shaking and struggling. Crawford put his hands under Xena’s arms and began to pull. Rebecca held on tightly, and the chimpanzee, sensing the struggle, hugged her tightly back. Crawford was just trying to pry Rebecca’s hands from around the chimp’s back when Tane hit him broadside.

Fatboy had played rugby league in school and had a pretty tough reputation from years of tackling huge front-row forwards. Tane had never played rugby in his life. But he’d been to plenty of games to watch his brother play, and he hit Crawford in a textbook midriff tackle.

It cut him in half, knocking him to the floor and sliding both of them across the room toward the tables holding the tank. Crawford’s back hit one of the table legs and the whole structure shuddered.

“Look out!” Crowe yelled.

Manderson, with incredible reactions and speed for a big man, was at the side of the tank before there was any danger of it falling, steadying it with two hands.

Crawford leaped up and angrily hauled Tane to his feet, his arm swinging back in a fist. Tane, facing the side of the tank, brought his hands up to protect himself and had just enough time to wonder, Where are the jellyfish? when Southwell said, “Something’s happened in the fog tank, Stony.”

Crawford’s arm remained tense but his eyes were on the tank. Everybody’s eyes were on the tank.

The fog was swirling. Not just quivering a little from the knock to the table leg, but twirling and swirling in broad patterns inside the tank.

“Where are the jellyfish?” Manderson asked in his slow Texan drawl, echoing Tane’s thoughts. His hands were on the glass sides of the tank, but the jellyfish had not attacked.

A young-looking soldier, whose name badge read EVANS, said from the other side of the tank, “There’s something new forming over here.”

The chimpanzee was forgotten, Rebecca was forgotten, and Tane was forgotten. Crawford’s arm dropped as the men crowded around the tank.

Tane moved to where he could see. It was a larger object, not really a definable shape at all, just a mass of a white substance, more visceral than the jellyfish, with a moist, diaphanous surface, like that of a slug.

“The fog is thinning,” Crowe noted. “It is being formed out of the fog.”

Tane watched as the shape grew a fraction of an inch or two in diameter in front of his eyes.

“Why now?” Crowe asked, as if he had been expecting this to happen sooner or later.

“The knock to the tank?” Crawford asked.

“No. Look at the size of it. It’s been forming for quite a while,” Manderson pointed out.

They all watched in silence for a few moments, but the shape grew no farther.

“It’s run out of fog,” Crowe decided after a while. “It needs more fog to grow. But why suddenly now? What has happened to trigger that growth?”

He sounded concerned.

“Do you want to run the same tests?” Crawford asked, glancing at Rebecca and Xena. Rebecca recoiled, taking a few steps backward and twisting Xena around behind her as if to protect her.

“I don’t know,” Crowe murmured, not taking his eyes off the glutinous shape. “Start with the human cell tests.”

Rebecca was ignored and drew closer to the tank again, intrigued, as two of the soldiers put their hands in the thick rubber gloves on the side of the tank. The big white slug quivered, but did not move.

A small petri dish was introduced through an air lock at the end of the tank, and one of the soldiers opened it carefully inside.

The fog was a lot thinner now, and it was easier to see what was going on. Inside the petri dish were a few small objects that took Tane a moment or two to recognize. There were a few hairs, human he realized, and some nail clippings. Evans picked up a hair out of the dish and dropped it carefully onto the white shape.

It touched the surface of the blob and just disappeared. At first Tane thought it had sunk into the material, but then he realized that it hadn’t. It had just “melted” on the surface.

The fingernail clippings followed, with exactly the same effect.

“Test the pH,” Crowe said.

Evans tore open the plastic seal on a small cardboard strip already placed inside the tank and touched it to the surface of the object. After a moment he said, “Neutral. Just slightly alkaline.”

“So it’s not an acid,” Crowe said, deep in thought. “But it dissolves human cells.”

“Like butter on a hot griddle,” Manderson drawled.

Rebecca, Tane, and Fatboy might as well have been invisible, so little attention was paid to them.

The soldier-scientists spent the next hour running batteries of tests on the small white blob, but always, Tane thought, with inconclusive results. At least that was the impression he got from their expressions as they discussed, in highly scientific terms, the results of each test.

One thing was clear to Tane, though. This substance, whatever it was, was related to the disappearance of all those people on Motukiekie and Whangarei.

A fax machine set up on a table in a corner rang while the tests were going on, and Southwell went to check it. She came back with a concerned look on her face.

“Stony,” she said, “the fog is moving much faster than we thought.”

Crowe looked at the printout, a detailed weather satellite image of the area. His eyes opened wide. “Warkworth! We hadn’t expected it to get that far south for another couple of days. It’s accelerating! At this rate, it’ll be here by tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t get any faster,” Manderson said slowly.

Tane, Rebecca, and Fatboy looked at each other in alarm.

“Had they completed the evacuation?” Crowe asked.

Southwell said, “Yes. Orewa also, and they’re starting to evacuate Torbay, Albany, Greenhithe, and Helensville.”

Those three towns represented the northernmost tip of Auckland. The fog was getting close to the homes of a million people.

“When were these taken?” Crowe asked, scanning the image for a date and time.

“This morning at first light.”

“First light! Get back to the meteorological people. I need to know how far south it’s come since then.” He spun around to Manderson. “Where are the SAS and NZ Army units?”

“Base camp. Silverdale. Just down the road.”

“Pull them back to Albany. We’ll never have time to set up the defensive line at Waiwera before it gets there.”

He looked back at the tank. “Damn! I was hoping for much more time than this. Get the equipment packed up, and get the men ready to evac. That fog is just up the road and heading this way. I don’t want to still be standing around, running tests, when it gets here.”

There was a flurry of activity as the soldiers worked to pack up their equipment, disappearing, probably down to the big black trailer units that Tane had seen parked outside.

Only the main tank remained, and some odds and ends of equipment, lined up by the door, when Crowe looked across at Xena, still perched in Rebecca’s arms. Rebecca was sitting on a chair on the far side of the room having a long conversation with the chimp about the Möbius submarine. Xena seemed interested, interjecting occasionally with screeches and sudden gestures of her own. At one point, she started looking through Rebecca’s hair, apparently looking for nits, but (fortunately) didn’t find any.

Rebecca noticed Crowe’s gaze and instinctively drew away.

“What do you want to do, Skipper?” Crawford said.

“Evacuate the kids back to Auckland. We’ll put the chimp back in her cage and take her with us.”

“Liar,” Rebecca spat, “I know what you’re going to do with her, and you’re not getting her. You’re going to put her in the tank with that white blob to see what it does to her. I’m not going to let you.”

Crowe sighed tiredly. “Sort it out, Mandy.”

The soldiers were all gone now, packing their trailers, except for Manderson and the young man, Evans. The tall Texan didn’t waste time with threats of physical violence. He just reached under a table and brought out his weapon, one of the long, strangely rounded guns they had seen earlier.

“Hand over the animal, ma’am.”

“Shoot me!” Rebecca shot back. “You big brave American GI. Just shoot me!”

“Don’ wanna,” the lanky Texan drawled. “Will if I have to.”

Tane stood and moved next to Rebecca. She glanced at him, appreciating his presence, he thought. He sensed a movement behind him.

“Give me the chimp,” Manderson asked politely.

“Give him the chimp,” Crowe roared suddenly, and Xena screamed.

“Dr. Crowe!” Southwell pleaded.

“Leave her alone,” Tane shouted. “Leave us alone!”

Manderson’s rifle drifted toward Tane. For the first time in his life, Tane stared straight at the small black circle that was the mouth, the end of the barrel of a gun. Just a tiny amount of pressure on the trigger at the other end of the barrel was all it would take. Such a small movement of one finger, and…He shut his eyes.

He opened them again as he felt a hand push him to one side.

Fatboy was an imposing figure for a seventeen-year-old. Tall, strong, toughened by years of rugby league, and the cowboy hat added even more height. The moko seemed suddenly terrifying on the face of the warrior who now stepped in front of Tane. Fatboy’s knees were bent, his back rigid, his chest puffed out. Tane had seen him act tough before, but this was something more. This was something deeper, something ancestral. Fatboy’s eyes burned and his tongue stabbed at the soldiers. He smashed his hands into his chest.

“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!”

Fatboy faced the soldiers and their deadly weapons with the spirits of ancient warriors on his shoulders. Crowe and Manderson froze in the face of such ferocity. They had faced lethal viruses and terrorists with guns, they had faced hell, and they had faced death, but never before had they faced up to Fatboy and his moko.

Xena was still screaming, lips flared, jumping up and down on Rebecca’s lap as Fatboy continued the haka.

“A upa…ne! ka upa…ne! A upane kaupane whiti te ra!”

“Leave us alone!” Tane yelled.

“Stony!” Southwell shouted.

Xena screamed again and broke free of Rebecca’s grasp. She ran across the floor of the room on her hands and feet. Long drapes covered the windows and she lunged at them, tearing at the fabric. She screamed and screeched in alarm.

One of the drapes tore from its hooks, falling away from the window even as the three soldiers froze, listening intently to their earpiece radios.

Tane didn’t need to hear the message to know what was being said. Through the torn drape, fog whirled and swirled around outside the second-story windows of the hotel.

Then came the sound of gunshots.