Red Tide by G. M. Ford

stairs.”
    “Who called Emergency Services?” Sykes wanted to know.
    “The SPD officers,” Gardener said. “While they were satisfying themselves the guy on the stairs was beyond help, they observed a pair of victims at the bottom of the escalator. Apparently there was some visible discharge, so they went downstairs for a look.” He hesitated, looking around the room. “According to the officers…” he started again, “both the northbound and southbound concourses are full of bodies.”
    “How many…” the mayor began.
    “Too many for conventional violence. That’s when they realized they were dealing with something…something unusual.”
    “Jesus,” somebody in the back whispered.
    “They backed off, immediately called Emergency Services and sealed off the tunnel as best they could from that end,” Gardener finished.
    “Good move,” the mayor commented.
    “Good training,” Chief Dobson quickly corrected. “Both men had been through Emergency Incidents Training within the past ninety days.”
    Dobson enjoyed his self-congratulatory moment as they watched the robot round the corner and head toward the escalator at the far end of the frame.
    “Where are they now?” Sykes wanted to know.
    “Up at Harborview,” answered Dobson. “The medics are keeping both the cops and the EMTs in complete isolation until we know what we’re dealing with here.”
    “Far as we know, those four are the only people who’ve actually been inside the station since the incident,” Sykes said.
    Dobson spread his hands as he spoke. “We’re detaining about fifty civilians who were in the area at the time.” He looked over at the mayor. “Fifty very unhappy civilians, I’m given to understand,” he said.
    The guy in the blue blazer spoke up. “Your people did a heck of a job, Chief.” Dobson nodded his appreciation of the compliment…at which point Mike Morningway from Emergency Management piped in. “We immediately called Metro and closed down the tunnel. Got a crew started in sealing off the entrance.”
    Gardener took over again. “We’ve got the tunnel sealed off. Metro reversed the ventilation output from both the University Street Station and the International Street Station, which should keep whatever we’ve got down there pretty much confined to the—”
    “Pretty much?” the mayor interrupted.
    Gardener’s voice tightened. “It’s not a closed system, Mayor. It’s a tunnel. It connects one thing to another. It was never designed to be completely isolated.”
    The robot approached the top of the escalator from an oblique angle. The top of a man’s head was visible…resting on the upper landing. The remainder of the body was hidden behind the silver side of the escalator. The robot stopped.
    “Hutchinson.” Gardener spoke into the phone again.
    “Hamilton,” the voice corrected.
    “Take us around the far side,” Gardener said.
    The robot began to move again. Skirting around the top of the corpse until it was looking at the body from the opposite side. The victim lay splayed across the metal stairs. The powerful mechanism had wedged the body between the rails at an inhuman angle, contorting the spine and preventing the stairway from dumping the lifeless form onto the upper landing. The right side of the man’s face was visible. The sight of his silhouette against the ribbed metal background of the tread stopped their collective breaths.
    His face was beet red and contorted into a grimace which left little doubt as to the painful manner of his passing.
    “What the hell is with his face?” Harlan Sykes muttered, brushing shoulders with the mayor as he leaned closer to the screen.
    The woman from Harborview slid her pastel smock past both the mayor and Sykes and peered down into the screen. She cupped her chin in her hand and narrowed her eyes as she gazed at the image before her. Half a minute passed before she took a step backward and looked over at Gardener.
    “Can you get us a