Page 57 of Crimson Moon Falling

“We need to split up and clear the facility,” Parker muttered. “Freda, take Bart and head that way. Malcolm, you and Cora take the opposite tunnel. Riley’s with me. Twenty minutes, then we rendezvous back here. We need to check for other soldiers or personnel. Watch out for traps.”

Freda and Bart disappeared down the eastern corridor, their headlamps bobbing in the darkness until they rounded a corner and were gone.

Malcolm gave me a big shit-eating smile. “Stay safe, bonny lass.” Then he and Cora were gone.

The western corridor branched twice. Parker, the hellhounds, and I took the left fork, which sloped gently downward. Parker knelt next to Athena and held up the knit cap he’d taken from the dead soldier.

“Search,” he told her. She tilted her head and took off down the western corridor. We followed them, and the air grew warmer, almost stuffy. A few minutes later, two gunshots went off, then screaming, followed by a wet crunching noise. We moved toward the sound and came upon Athena licking blood off her mouth with an abnormally long tongue. An Apex Mentis soldier in tactical gear lay dead at her feet, the man’s neck ripped out.

By the time we met back at our assigned meeting spot, Malcolm had taken out two other soldiers, but we didn’t find anyone else in the facility. Freda turned to Parker.

“We ran across a storage room full of medical equipment back the way we came. Riley, you need to take a look. We need to start documenting and cataloging what we find.”

The concrete gave way to rough-hewn stone, reinforced with steel supports. This part of the facility predated the Cold War bunker by decades. Parker and I exchanged a glance.

“This looks like mining infrastructure.” I ran my hand along the damp stone. “I think they built the bunker into an existing mine shaft. There are hundreds of thousands of old mine shafts throughout the Western states.”

Parker nodded. “Makes sense. Cheaper than digging from scratch. It’s warm in here.”

My skin tingled, and my body felt antsy and overstimulated. “There are underground springs all over this region. Yellowstone is a hotspot, and the basaltic and rhyolitic magma is highly explosive–”

“Give it to me in English,” Parker interrupted.

“The energy and power in this region make my whole body vibrate. Mangus feels it too. If someone figured out how to artificially create Cog abilities, this would be the ideal place to do it since we power our magic from the molecules in the air.”

Parker’s mouth went tight. “Got it. You okay?”

I held out my hand, which was shaking a little. “Yes, but I feel like I’m overdosing on energy.”

We came to a large cavern with a heavy steel door. The lock had been replaced with a digital keypad mounted beside the handle. Parker pushed the door, and it swung open on well-maintained hinges.

The space beyond was large, maybe forty feet square, its ceiling supported by thick timber beams. Crates lined the walls, stacked three and four high, each stenciled with shipping codes and handling instructions.

I moved to the nearest crate and swept my headlamp across the label, then checked a few others as my stomach dropped. Several crates were stamped with the Apollo Genetics logo.

“These came from ApGen. Centrifuges, PCR machines, sequencing hardware.” I moved down the line, reading labels. “Cell culture incubators. Cryogenic storage units. This is a full molecular biology lab, still in crates.”

“Jesus fuck, I hate it when we’re right. They’re building another Roswell.”

“It’s worse.” I crouched beside another crate, this one already unpacked. A Holter monitor sat nestled in custom foam. Beside it was a modified EKG machine. “They have equipment to monitor and probably increased electrical currents in the body.”

Parker whistled low. “You said Marlowe has Compulsor abilities now. Just what that fucker needs. This equipment is worth a fortune.”

The implant processed the implications with cold, brutal efficiency. Apollo Genetics was retrofitting an abandoned Cold War bunker atop an energy hotspot, beneath a national park. This was the same equipment used to implant shifters and to modify supernaturals into cold, robotic operatives.

I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures and video, methodically documenting each crate, label, and of equipment. Parker moved to the other corner and started doing the same.

“I’ll get the dates and shipping manifests,” he muttered. “You do the scientific shit.”

What else was still out there? We’d found this lab before they could set it up and activate it. Before they could bring in subjects, start cutting people open, and shoving hardware into their spines. I wanted to rage and destroy as fury and horror crawled through me. The implant hissed to life, sending glutamate through my system. My emotions receded and I continued documenting as time passed.

The explosion tore through the facility with the force of a freight train hitting a concrete wall.

The sound hit me first, a concussive blast that rattled my teeth, followed by a wave of pressure that knocked me off my feet. I hit the concrete floor hard, my headlamp flickering, and for a disorienting second, the world was dust and darkness. My ears rang as I sat up and looked around. Something heavy crashed nearby.

Parker was on his feet before I was, squatting beside me. “You hurt?” I shook my head as he hauled me up by my arm. “East corridor,” he barked. “Let’s go.”

We ran. The corridors were choked with dust, our headlamps cutting thin cones through the gloom. The smell hit me first. Cordite, burning plastic, and something sharper, organic, and wrong. My lungs burned.