Mount Dragon by Douglas Preston Page A

Carson.
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œGood, because sloppiness is death down here in the Fever Tank. And not just for you. Got that?”
    â€œYes,” Carson repeated. Bitch .
    They continued down the narrow hall. As he followed Brandon-Smith, trying to acclimate himself to the pressure suit, Carson thought he could hear a strange noise in the background: a faint drumming, almost more sensation than sound. He decided it must be the Fever Tank’s generator.
    Brandon-Smith’s great bulk eased sideways through a narrow hatch. In the lab beyond, suited figures were working in front of large Plexiglas-enclosed tables, their hands stretched through rubber holes bored into the cases. They were swabbing petri dishes. The light was painfully bright, throwing every object in the lab into sharp relief. Small waste receptacles with biohazard labels and flash-incineration attachments stood beside each worktable. More ceiling-mounted video cameras swiveled, monitoring the scientists.
    â€œEverybody,” Brandon-Smith’s voice sounded in the intercom. “This is Guy Carson. Burt’s replacement.”
    Visors angled upward as people turned to get a look at him, and a chorus of greetings crackled in Carson’s helmet.
    â€œThis is production,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a statement that invited questions, and Carson didn’t ask any.
    Brandon-Smith led Carson through a warren of other labs, narrow corridors, and air locks, all starkly bathed in the same brilliant light. She’s right , Carson thought, looking around. The place is like a submarine . All available floor space was packed with fabulously expensive equipment: transmission and scanning electron microscopes, autoclaves, incubators, mass spectrometers, even a small cyclotron, all reengineered to allow the scientists to operate them through the bulky bluesuits. The ceilings were low, heavily veined with piping, and painted white like everything else in the Fever Tank. Every ten yards Brandon-Smith halted to hook up to a new air hose, then waited for Carson to do the same. The going was excruciatingly slow.
    â€œMy God,” Carson said. “These safety measures are unbelievable. What have you got in here, anyway?”
    â€œYou name it,” came the response. “Bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, Marburg virus, Hantavirus, Dengue, Ebola, anthrax. Not to mention a few Soviet biological agents. All currently on ice, of course.”
    The cramped spaces, the bulky suit, the stuffy air, all had a disorienting effect on Carson. He found himself gulping in oxygen, fighting down an urge to unzip the suit, give himself breathing room.
    At last they stopped in a small circular hub from which several narrow corridors branched out like the spokes of a wheel. “What’s that?” Carson pointed to a huge manifold over their heads.
    â€œThe air uptake,” Brandon-Smith said, attaching another new hose to her suit. “This is the center of the Fever Tank. The entire facility has negative airflow controls. The air pressure decreases the further in you go. Everything flows to this point, then it’s taken up to the incinerator and recirculated.” She gestured at one of the corridors. “Your lab’s down there. You’ll see it soon enough. I don’t have time to show you everything.”
    â€œAnd down there?” Carson pointed to a narrow tube at their feet containing a shiny metal ladder.
    â€œThere are three levels beneath us. Backup labs, security substation, CRYLOX freezers, generators, the control center.”
    She stepped a few feet down one of the hallways, stopping in front of another door.
    â€œCarson?” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œLast stop. The Zoo. Keep the hell away from the cages. Don’t let them grab you. If they rip a piece off your suit, you’ll never see the light of day. You’ll be locked up in here and left to die.”
    â€œThe