Chapter 52: MAD SCIENTIST [3]
'Well, here goes nothing,' Logan muttered to Sam as the two of them rose and followed her.
Immediately, the guns, which had been lowered when the guards had recognized Mowen, now snapped up again.
'Hands up!' one of the guards shouted, a swarthy-looking man with a thick black mustache. The three of them complied, though as they walked forward Purna muttered out of the corner of her mouth, 'They better not ask us to give up our weapons.'
Sam wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that statement. Did she mean she would rather go down fighting than be rendered defenseless? He hoped not.
Registering the mistrust on Purna's face, Mowen made a placatory gesture with his hands and said, 'Is OK. Is cool.' He turned to exchange a staccato burst of conversation with the mustached guard and then turned back and said, 'You can put hands down.'
They lowered their hands, but Purna still looked mistrustful, her movements considered and cautious, the muscles in her arms and legs tight with tension. Her eyes darted left and right, taking in every tiny movement of the armed men on the other side of the fence. She reminded Sam of a big cat, a puma or a panther, wary of its human captors, or perhaps even of those trying to give it back its liberty.
The mustached guard gestured with his gun that they should move to the right. Sam wondered why and then saw there was a gate about ten meters in that direction. Beyond the gate, a caged tunnel led to another gate. They were ushered through one at a time, Purna first, then Sam, then Logan. The mustached guard pointed at Purna's gun and said something she didn't understand. She shook her head and turned to Mowen, who was still standing on the other side of the fence.
'Tell him we're not giving up our weapons,' she said. 'They're all we've got out here.'
Obediently Mowen complied, and again a burst of conversation rattled between the two men. Then the mustached guard shrugged, and Mowen turned to Purna.
'He says OK. But you keep them on your back. You not touch them.'
'We won't touch them unless we have to,' muttered Purna.
Logan was the last to be ushered through the caged tunnel. When he realized the guard was locking the gate behind him, he turned to Mowen. 'You not coming with us?'
'I wait here. You honored guests. I … ?' He shrugged and laughed.
'I don't like this,' Purna murmured as the mustached guard indicated they should follow him, and another four flanked them, two on each side. 'Something's happening that we don't know about.'
'Just take it easy,' said Sam. 'If they were gonna do anything bad, they'd have done it by now.'
'Not necessarily,' she replied. 'We're immune, remember. That makes us valuable.'
'Yeah, but they don't know we're immune,' said Logan.
'Don't they?' she muttered darkly.
They were led to a door in the wall of one of the grey buildings, where the mustached guard pressed a button and spoke into a metal grille beside it. After a moment, there was a buzz, and the door clicked open. The mustached guard led them down a bare, narrow corridor, and from there through an interconnected series of functional low-ceilinged rooms. They reminded Logan of the claustrophobic Antarctic base in one of his favorite movies, The Thing.
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