“Doctor Radavich.” The voice of a vatgrown derivative cracked the tense silence, snared Jiri’s stunned eye immediately. The sleek clone crossed the distance between them solidly, firm in every step, eyes hidden under the dark lenses of her wrap-around ocular implants. Her tone was smooth, emotionless. “An automated order has been issued for all personnel in this section to be evacuated to a safe area immediately.”
Tessa exchanged blank glances with Foster. Jiri blinked, mouth trying to find the words, fumbling in the silence.
“What?” He glanced once at Foster, once at Tessa, hesitating. “But we...”
“This way, sir.” The vatgrown urged, half turning toward the door, expecting them to follow. Doctor Foster rolled up his noteputer, stuffed it into his labcoat.
“What’s going on?” Tessa asked. The vatgrown hardly spared her a glance.
“You don’t have sufficient clearance to request that information.”
“But I do.” Foster shot back, gave Tessa the edge of a smile. “What’s the situation?”
“Loss of containment.” Came the hurried response. “Epsilon protocol dictates that all personnel within the sphere of predicted movement be evacuated immediately.”
“Epsilon!?” Jiri asked suddenly, fear creeping into his voice, shining clear in his eyes. “They– they’ve lost it?”
“Lost what?” Tessa broke in, eyes flicking to Jiri’s, flitting back to Foster’s. Jiri swallowed, refused to meet her eyes.
“The Cygnan.” Foster said, voice tired, distant. Tessa paled instantly, opened her mouth to say something, but the two researchers were already speaking again, conferring with the derivative. The Cygnan. One of the Coralate. My god. “We’re ready, but both Doctor Radavich and I will need a full report on the way.” The vatgrown nodded once, gestured, started for the door, both labcoated men following instantly.
“Wait a minute.” Tessa spoke up again, refusing to move. “What Cygnan?” She shook her head, locked eyes with Jiri’s as he turned his frightened gaze back on her. “Jesus, Jiri. Don’t tell me you’ve got a fucking Coralate soldier here, on Erebus.”
Jiri glanced back at Foster, caught the narrow edge of a frown, hesitated, half frightened, half searching for an answer. The vatgrown stood silent, patient, waiting.
“Please.” Tessa glanced at the vatgrown, the two researchers, a quiver building in her voice as memories of Izzy came flooding back, memories of blood, liquid chrome, the rattle and click of blueskins in the darkness. She swallowed, hesitated. “Please tell me that I heard you wrong.”
“We, uh.” Jiri licked his lips fearfully, hesitated again. “Well, you see, it was in containment. . .”
“Containment.” Tessa nodded, licked her lips. “And that makes it okay?” She shook her head, laughed ironically. “You’ve got one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy loose right now in one of humanity’s most cutting edge experimental research facilities, doing only God knows what, and it’s okay, because it was in containment!?”
“It...” He hesitated, held up a finger “Well, I–”
“It’s a sentient being, Radavich!” She shouted back at him. “You don’t see any problems with that? You just–” She made a frustrated gesture, “figured you could lock it up and experiment on it!?”
“Desperate times require, uh, desperate measures.” Jiri said quickly, eyes going to the floor. “T-Try to understand, we know next to nothing about Coralate technology. We were desperate. We are desperate!” He swallowed, glanced up, then glanced away again immediately. “We need any edge we can get over Coralate! To design, much less build a device that allows integration with Coralate technology without the complete and working model to study. . .” He hesitated, searching for the words. “It would be like witchdoctor building plasma gun from nothing but sticks and handful of unused slugs.” Desperation haunted his eyes, left him almost begging. “Now, with all due respect, Major, we must–”
“It’s going to kill a lot of people now that its out.” Tessa said levelly. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Epsilon protocol is in place to prevent just such an occurrence.” Foster spoke up. “Now Major, if you please. You can voice all the objections you wish as we walk.”
“There are a number of security turrets which should pick up Cygnan once it crosses one of the contact points in monitoring grid.” Jiri wrung his hands, looked up, caught the eyes of the vatgrown, swallowed. “The autonomic defenses within base should be enough to handle situation, but we would be safest in facility control center.” He hesitated, gestured. “We can continue exercises once situation is resolved–”
“Yeah.” Tessa cut him off suddenly, swallowed as she looked away. Radavich and Foster watched her carefully, even as she glanced back and breathed a quick sigh, gestured resignedly.
“Fine, yeah, let’s go.”