“The interrogation can wait. This can’t. You need to see what I found on his hard drive.” Cap’s voice was tight enough to give Wolf pause.
“You accessed it?”
“I did. And we’ve got a problem. A big one.” Cap’s voice was clipped. “You’d need to see this. ASAP.”
The tension in Capland’s voice brought Wolf out of his chair. Cap was never tense. Indeed, he was almost robotic, immune to anxiety and fear. His closed nature was part of what made him such a good warrior. This reaction was new. And worrisome.
He turned to Brickenhouse, who was reaching for a vial on the top shelf of the cart. But before the doctor picked up the vial, his hand hesitated and then retreated.
“Betanee.I need to speak with you.” His head turned to the door and his long silver braid swayed against his lean back. “Outside.”
Wolf studied the physician’s troubled eyes. “When I return. Hold off on the drug for now.”
Nantz relaxed at the order. Aiden scowled.
“What the fuck bro?” Aiden snapped, following Wolf to the door.
Wolf paused with his fingers touching the doorknob. “Cap found something on Nantz’s hard drive. Says we need to see it. ASAP.”
Aiden scoffed. “And that’s more important than finally getting our answers from this asshole?” He thrust his thumb over his shoulder.
“Apparently....” Wolf turned to glance at hisjavaaneeover his shoulder.
Scowling, Aiden shoved his fingers through his hair, leaving it spiky, a silent expression of frustration. He turned to glare at Nantz, who was looking tenser than ever. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’ll be back.”
“Did Capland say what he found?” Aiden asked, following Wolf out the door.
“He did not.” Wolf’s gaze touched on the warriors to the right and left of the door. “Guard Brickenhouse. If the prisoner requests to relieve himself, double the guard.”
Capland’s computer lab was down the hallway from the war room, which was across headquarters from the interrogation chambers. Intelligence reports were part of mission briefs, which required Cap’s presence. Having the computer/intelligence specialist close to the war room simplified matters. However, the distance between interrogation and Capland’s lab made for a five-minute hike.
Wolf hadn’t spent much time in Capland’s domain. Unlike Samuel, a technological mind was not among his gifts. Since Samuel understood computer interfaces and programmer lingo, hisCaetaneehad always deciphered the tech department’s jargon. Then passed the information on to Wolf in the most basic of terms.
The memory launched a wave of loss. HisCaetanee’sabsence, both physical and mental, gnawed at him. He doubted he’d ever grow accustomed to the empty spaces Samuel had occupied.
Wolf paused in the entrance to the computer lab, surveying the orderly shelves and tables strewn about the room. The tables held an assortment of computer equipment: monitors, terminals, the occasional laptop. More monitors and terminals filled the steel shelves that ringed the walls. Power cords hung from brackets on the shelving. Everything was organized, neatly labeled, and easy to get to.
“Over here.” Capland looked up from where he sat hunched over a laptop on a stainless-steel table. As Wolf and Aiden approached, he rolled his chair back and to the side.
“I found this among Nantz’s files when I broke into the drive.” Cap’s face was tight as he nudged the laptop around until it faced Wolf, and by extension, Aiden. “This file accesses a live camera feed. But there are hours upon hours of recorded footage in other files.”
Wolf leaned in for a closer look. The window showed a bunch of people amid the bright chrome of a lab. He looked from person to person on the screen. A couple of them were clothed. But most of them were not. He leaned in even closer, staring at one woman—her head, from ear to neck, was missing. Yet....she was standing.
His breath left him in a hiss. Not people then. The naked ones at least were among the dead, yet undead. He tapped the imageof the woman with the missing chunks in her head. “Can you zoom in on this one?”
The image enlarged. White spiderwebbing crisscrossed through the missing sections of her skull. It looked like the same strange substance knitting together the dead SEALs in the isolation chamber.
The unclothed in this room were obviously dead and reanimated, like Shadow Mountain’s guests in isolation.
He turned his attention to the clothed people. There were three of them, all wearing white lab coats over slacks. He tapped the screen again, indicating a blonde woman in a dirty lab coat. “Zoom in on this one.”
Once the blonde was enlarged, he could see the rise and fall of her chest. She was breathing. But...there was a whole host of things wrong about her. For one, none of the reanimated dead were interested in her. Nor did she show signs of physical trauma. No bruising, No cuts. No obvious broken bones. Indeed, there were no obvious injuries at all.
She didn’t act normal either. The way she stood and stared reminded him of the mercenaries on the Harbinger. Plus, she showed no reaction to the dead creatures surrounding her.
“Zoom out,” Wolf said slowly.
As the camera’s view expanded out, two more clothed people came into view. Like the blonde, these two showed signs of life as well. The rise and fall of their chests, the lack of grievous injuries, no evidence of spiderwebbing. But they too just stood and stared. They did not attempt to avoid the undead.
