The Extinction Trials(71)

The robots’ legs had no feet, only sharp pincers that stabbed into the concrete. A memory flashed into Owen’s mind. He saw another robot charging toward him, shooting a thick white liquid, a suited figure tackling the robot, and Owen turning and running. That person had saved him. What was their name?

It was all slipping away, little by little.

As that thought gripped Owen, the group of six-legged robots turned and marched out of the loading dock, as though they had decided that he was no threat, that a man slowly losing his memory could do them no harm.

Cara ran to the metal staircase and descended, chasing after the robots. “Come on.”

“Are you crazy?” Owen called to her.

She stopped in her tracks. “They won’t harm us. We need to get underground before the storm comes.”

“How do you know?” Maya asked.

“I just… know. Okay? Come on.”

Owen didn’t see what other choice they had. He caught up to Cara in the street, where she held the monocular to her eye, scanning for the invisible light beacons, the breadcrumbs that would lead them to safety… Owen hoped.

Ahead, the robots were scurrying down the street, pausing only to search cars and duck through doors and broken windows into shops.

Maya was panting as she ran beside Owen. “They’re hunting Will and Alister.”

“Seems so,” Owen said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Something about the whole sequence of events bothered Owen deeply. Cara knew what the robots were. Or she seemed to. Had she seen them before the Fall? She hadn’t mentioned it.

“This way,” Cara shouted from up ahead, apparently unconcerned about being heard.

They turned onto a street that was almost completely blocked with an overturned firetruck and several police cars. Someone had made a barricade here—an attempt to block someone or something from advancing. This city had been a war zone. It was still a war zone.

The shiny robots crawled right over and through the mangled wall of broken vehicles.

Overhead, the sky darkened. Thunder shattered the silence and rumbled, a warning call of the storm closing in.

Cara led them into a building with concrete walls that had been ripped to shreds by bullets and withered by time. She raced through, dodging into hallways and open rooms and finally out the back into a narrow alley filled with papers and trash that was beginning to float with the wind blowing through, like ghosts rising from the dead.

Cara pointed to a brick staircase that led to a pair of double doors at the basement level. “It’s here.”

One of the doors was open.

Was someone already here? Was it Alister and Will? Or someone else?

Beyond the alleyway, a group of the robots strode by, not even pausing to examine Owen and the others.

They descended the stairs and slipped through the doorway into a damp basement with a low ceiling.

On the far wall was a bank of silver metal standing freezers. Owen assumed there must have been a restaurant above. Or a butcher shop.

Cara brought out the monocular, peered through it, then handed it to Owen. He brought it to his eye and scanned the room. To his surprise, the keypad on the freezer on the end was glowing green.

Cara approached it and typed two numbers. The lock instantly clicked, and she swung the massive door open, revealing a decontamination chamber almost exactly like the one from Station 17.

Cara stepped inside, and Owen, Maya, and Blair followed. When the outer door was closed, a mist drifted down from the nozzles overhead, a cool liquid that made Owen shiver. He looked in the alcove and was relieved to see five environmental suits. He checked the closest one. Its oxygen level was 100%. They were one suit short, but they could figure that out later—assuming they could find their other two team members.

A computer voice spoke through the overhead speaker: “Decontamination complete. Welcome to Station 47.”

The inner airlock door popped open, and Cara moved toward it, but Owen caught her arm.

“How did you know the code to the door outside?”

“I guessed.”

“It was a good guess.”

“It was the only guess: the numbers that were broadcast. Forty-seven. I think this Extinction Trials station was also a numbers station.”

They exited the airlock onto a platform with a metal staircase that led down a single flight to a subbasement where a hatch with a wheel waited. It was open, but it was dark beyond.

Owen, Maya, and Cara clicked on their flashlights and descended the damp, rickety staircase.

“Hello!” Owen called out.

No response.

At the hatch, he shined his light into the narrow corridor. There were doors on each side—just like Station 17, except this place wasn’t made of white plastic and steel. It seemed to be an existing structure made of concrete and bricks that had been re-purposed.

“Hello,” Owen shouted, hoping…

Alister’s pained voice grumbled from farther down the corridor. “Shut up! I’m trying to die in peace over here.”

Owen couldn’t help but smile.

Cara took off at once toward him, medkit in hand.

Maya moved to follow her, but Owen held a hand up. “Let’s take it slow. Make sure it’s safe before we follow.” He shrugged. “Just like when we explored Station 17.”