A scream cut off the conversation and both men turned quickly back to the monitor.

Clayton Hunter was sitting up on the steel table: Arms drooping at his side; mouth yawning. Doctor Christmas had backed away until he had met the wall behind him. Nurse Berty was nowhere to be seen.

"What the f*ck... What the f*ck. Get a camera on the floor... Maybe she fainted," Kohlson said.

"Got it," Johns agreed. He stabbed at the keys on his keyboard and a view of the table at an angle appeared. Nurse Bertie's leg could be seen, angled away from the table, skirt hiked high. The camera paused briefly and then the view began to shift as Johns manipulated the camera angle. Her face came into view: Mouth open, blood seeping from one corner.

"Doctor," Kohlson called over the speaker system. Outside the airlocks had clicked on and the air was cycling. Good, he thought, in twenty minutes the Calvary would be here. "Doctor Adams?"

The doctor finally took his eyes off Clayton Hunter and turned toward one of the cameras. On the table Clayton Hunter leaned forward and tumbled off the edge of the table. At the same instant the air purifier quit cycling and three armed men in gas masks stepped into the airlock.

"Jesus," Johns sputtered into his headset microphone, "You guys can't do that shit. That air has to be worked!" Three more men stepped through the lock and the door to the autopsy room opened as well as the door to the control room. A split second later the rifles in their hands began to roar. The sound was louder than Kohlson expected in the enclosed space. He clasped his hands over his ears, but it did little good...