He fought with everything he had left, reaching for the surface with his one working hand, his lungs screaming and spasming in his chest. He could see light above him, and knew there were only another thirty centimetres to go, another fifteen, another two, just one more.
Pete shoved himself up with all his strength, with everything he had left.
He didn’t make it.
Darkness crowded in, and everything went black.
The staff of University College Hospital were used to seeing things that were unusual; their accident and emergency department served a large section of Central London, and regularly received more than three hundred patients a day, with everything from broken fingers and infected insect bites to heart attacks and gunshot wounds. But none of the staff had ever seen anything quite as strange as the convoy of black vans that pulled up outside the hospital’s side entrance, and the men and women who climbed out of them.
Jamie Carpenter stepped out of the second van, his visor down over his face. Qiang appeared beside him, followed by an Operator that neither of them were familiar with: an American in her early twenties by the name of Laura O’Malley, who had been temporarily added to their squad after Lizzy Ellison had been selected for the first round of PROMETHEUS. O’Malley had not said much on the drive down to London, but she seemed calm and composed, and the fact that Larissa had selected her from the ranks of NS9 meant that Jamie was not worried. If anything, he was more worried about his own mental state than hers; he had tried to push the Zero Hour briefing out of his mind, to focus on the task at hand rather than replay his awful, awkward conversation with Matt over and over again, but was struggling to do so.
I still can’t believe he would use me like that, or lie to my face so casually, or line his friends and colleagues up to be bitten by Valentin. I can’t believe any of it.
He surveyed the scene as the other two vans discharged their passengers, ordering himself to concentrate. There would be time to deal with Matt later; right now, there was work to do.
The side street was long and narrow, running between the hospital and one of the many red-brick buildings that made up University College London. Ambulance bays were marked out on the ground in straight yellow lines, and a wide glass entrance was set back from the sloping kerb, beneath a wide canopy. Standing in front of the doors was a man in a white coat; he was holding a clipboard and looking at the vans with a mixture of curiosity and obvious unease.
From the lead van, Jamie saw three more Operators step down on to the road. One of them was Jack Williams, who was technically in charge of this Operation, and the others were the usual members of his squad; neither Ben Harris nor Kim Caldwell had been lucky – or unlucky – enough to be selected for PROMETHEUS.
A member of the Lazarus Project that Jamie didn’t know climbed out of the third van, alongside the same member of the Loop’s medical staff who had looked after him when he went through the turn himself. The man held a large plastic box in his hands, stamped on all sides with HAZARDOUS MATERIAL warnings; he carried it carefully across to where Jamie was standing, and forced a thin smile.
Jack Williams arrived beside them, raised his visor, and turned to the man standing in the hospital doorway.
“Doctor Walder?”
“That’s right,” said the man.
“Good to meet you,” said Jack. “You’ll pardon me if my colleagues and I don’t introduce ourselves, but this is Doctor Bartholomew of our Department’s medical team, and Professor Van Eich of our Science Division. He was part of the team that developed the cure.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” said Walder. “You can go inside.”
“Thank you,” said Bartholomew, and walked towards the entrance, holding the box out before him as though it might explode if not handled with the utmost care. Van Eich followed him, leaving Walder with a small, confused smile on his face.
“This is crazy,” he said. “We’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Nobody has,” said Jack. “Do you have everything you need, Doctor?”
Walder nodded. “We’ve set up like we were told,” he said. “We’ve padded three sealable rooms, we’ve got beds for a hundred and fifty vampires, and the eighth and ninth floors have been placed into isolation.”
“Great,” said Jack. “Both Bartholomew and Van Eich have radios. They have orders to call us if anything goes wrong.”
“You’ll be down here?”
“Correct,” said Jack. “Our understanding is that this is where the action is likely to be.”
Walder frowned momentarily, then smiled. “You haven’t been to the front yet, have you?”
“Not yet,” said Jack. “Why?”
“You’ll see,” said Walder. “We’ll call if we need you. Be careful.”
He strode into the hospital, leaving the six Operators standing on the tarmac.
“What did he mean, be careful?” asked Qiang.
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Let’s find out.”
“OK,” said Jamie. “I get it now.”
The six Operators were standing on the steps in front of the hospital’s main entrance. The area below them, a wide section of Euston Road, had been encircled and sectioned off by a perimeter of metal crowd-control barriers, which wound back and forth on themselves in long snaking lines. Every centimetre of space inside the barriers was full of vampires; the queue stretched along the front of the hospital, doubled back along its width eight times, and disappeared round the corner on to Gower Street. Qiang had done a rough headcount, and had told them there were at least four hundred men and women already waiting in line.
This is crazy, thought Jamie. I never expected there to be anything like this many. And I know we only brought a hundred and fifty doses of the cure.
Beyond the queuing vampires, penned inside a second grid of barriers and separated by a wall of uniformed Metropolitan police officers, two large crowds surged and shouted and sang. The smell of alcohol was thick in the air, and though the mood seemed to be largely jovial at present, there was an undercurrent of menace that Jamie didn’t like. The police were clearly aware of it too; the aggression with which they were pushing people back from the barriers was visibly increasing.
The group on the left was waving signs and boards that made their position abundantly clear; Jamie could see one that read VAMPIRES ARE NOT A DISEASE and another announcing that HUMAN BEINGS DON’T NEED TO BE CURED. On the other side of the line of police, the signs sent a very different message; NO AMNESTY FOR VAMP KILLERS said one, NO CURE FOR EVIL another. The two groups were chanting and screaming insults at each other; Jamie watched them with a tight knot of tension in his stomach, aware that the faces in both crowds of protesters were becoming angrier with each passing minute.
This is going to boil over, he thought. This is going to end with somebody getting hurt.
“What do you reckon?” asked Jack.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Let’s see what happens when we start letting people in.”
Jack nodded. “And when we start turning people away.”
Jamie grimaced. “Shit. Right.”
Jack turned to face the rest of the Operators. “Qiang, O’Malley, take position at the far end of the access road,” he said. “Only ambulances come in and out, clear?”
The two Operators nodded, and jogged back towards the corner of the building.
“Harris, Caldwell, I want the two of you working the queue,” continued Jack. “Make sure the police understand what they’re dealing with. Jamie and I will monitor from up here. Remember that we’re here to help this run smoothly, not exacerbate the situation. Understood?”