She brought the car to a crawl. A police cordon stretched across the road ahead. An officer was wearily waving them past.
“Wait up!” said Lucy, sitting up straight.
Her bleary eyes zeroed in on the crime scene. “Take us closer – Karys, tell him we were sent by the department to investigate. Show them your pass,” said Lucy.
Karys relayed the lie to the soldier, who waved them through. “I hope you people have strong stomachs,” he said, as they proceeded past.
A second soldier was roughly escorting a white-armbanded journalist away from the cordon. The reporter glared jealously at Lucy’s group, trying to catch them on camera as they advanced without impediment. Lucy watched in the wing mirror as the soldier tore the reporter’s phone from his hands and stamped on it, crushing the screen beneath the heel of his boot.
If the prison hadn’t been enough, the sight now greeting them tipped Maurice over the edge.
“I’m gonna be sick,” he said, leaning out of the car.
Karys brought them to a halt by the cordon. Lucy’s stomach churned as she climbed out. A policewoman inspecting the site came forwards from the sidewalk. Lucy did a double-take; she wasn’t used to seeing regular law enforcement officers in the city.
Lucy pre-emptively flashed her own Health Department pass, reassuring the policewoman that they weren’t more journalists.
“It’s not the creatures, if that’s what you’re here for,” said the officer, resuming her inspection of the scene.
“Who would do something like this?” said Karys, aghast.
Lucy stared grimly at the bloodied body. It was slumped on the ground, backed up against the glass storefront of an abandoned dry cleaner’s. Blood splattered the glass and the sidewalk beneath it. The person was curled up in a ball. One arm shielded their face, while the other was outstretched. Both of their legs were broken. The skin on their forearm was raw with lesions, which had ruptured across the victim’s dark black skin.
“It’s like I said, no way the creatures did this. Though this is the fifth one in two days. I’m surprised you lot are only looking into it now,” said the policewoman.
Beside her, the sidewalk had been smashed up into pieces. Lucy’s eyes moved from the broken curb, to the victim’s body. Chunks of blood-splattered rubble lay in and around the person’s pulverized flesh. Sprayed onto the glass façade behind the victim was a single word.
SINNER.
***
They parked the department car several blocks away from the sanctuary. Lucy had guided them to a house which had been the site of a previous D4 attack, hoping it would give them a credible alibi, should anyone challenge their movements. She checked anxiously over her shoulder as they hurried towards the blacked-out law office on foot. The plant growth covering it was by now substantial. In the old world, one might have mistaken the myriad of lilac-blues and rusty oranges for a designer living wall.
“Lucy?” began Lopez, greeting her with a soft, wonky smile as they entered the briefing room. “What are you doing back so-” His voice broke off as he spotted Maurice, who waved a cheerful hand.
“Great to see you again, Major. You’re looking, er, really well,” gushed the Canadian, crassly staring at the mottled bleach marks across Lopez’s skin, and his sunken shoulder.
With a roar, Lopez launched himself at the traitor, tackling him to the ground. He laid into Maurice, whaling on him with both fists. The Canadian cowered, crying out to the others for help. Karys tried to intervene but Lucy held her back.
Lopez continued to pummel Maurice, cursing and growling as he unloaded all of his rage and hurt on this deserving enemy. With a yelp, the Canadian rolled over, throwing Lopez off, and kicking him away. Lopez immediately launched himself back at the Canadian, and the pair wrestled across the floor.
Lucy’s face fell. Suddenly, Maurice was on top, and kneeling across Lopez’s torso. The Major grunted and salivated as he tried to strike Maurice, but his sunken left arm was trapped under the Canadian’s legs. With his free hand, he tried to claw at Maurice’s face, but the Canadian batted him away with ease. Maurice let out an astonished, triumphant cry, and raised his fist, taking aim at Lopez’s face.
Lucy kicked Maurice hard in the shoulder, booting him onto his side.
“Enough!” she said, looming over him, glowering. Her boot was raised, ready to stamp on his neck.
Maurice raised his arms in surrender and let out a cutesy smile, clearly proud of his underdog victory. Lucy turned to help Lopez, but the Major was already upstanding. He paced up and down the far side of the room with his back to the assembly, nursing his crippled side. She approached him and placed a delicate hand on his back.
“Are you OK?” she whispered.
“Fine,” he grunted, shrugging her off sharply.
“The love story continues,” said Maurice, sitting contently on the ground, and ostentatiously retying his boot laces, as if that were the reason for him being down there.
“Honestly, it’s like you don’t want to live,” snapped Lucy.
“Relax, geez. I’d forgotten how uptight the pair of you are about everything,” said Maurice, dusting himself down.
“Is someone gonna tell me what the hell he’s doing here, walking free?” spat Lopez.
The door opened and Kryz stepped in, fully uniformed.
“Everything OK in here?” said Kryz. “Lucy! Fliss said you had returned. I’m glad to see you. I hoped I would get a chance to thank you in person for what you did for me.”
He seized her hand and shook it enthusiastically.
“Who’s the new guy?” he added, gesturing to Maurice, who had by now picked himself up.
“He’s a traitor,” said Lopez.
“Yes, he’s a piece of shit, but we need him. Besides, he’s one of us now,” said Lucy.
“The hell he is. I’m not lining up to be stabbed in the back a second time,” said Lopez.
“Listen to me, Ed, Kryz. I’ve seen the prison,” said Lucy. “The blood farm. Whatever they’re calling it. The Government’s ramping up production. They’re draining thousands of infecteds like us, and keeping them incarcerated in a state of delirium. The prisoners only partially recover. They’re bled repeatedly until they become unviable and get terminated. And… I think my father-in-law’s in there,” she added.
Her voice quaked as she acknowledged the sentence she’d given Adrian.
“We need to rescue them,” she continued, clearing her throat. “Maurice is our chance to get in. His city’s struck a trade deal with ours – food for blood. The first shipment’s being transferred tomorrow at noon. Our best chance of pulling this off is while Maurice is here, and when no-one at the prison knows what the shipment routine is.”
“For the record, I think this is all super gross, by the way,” said Maurice.
Kryz probed Lucy, Karys, and Maurice on the details. Lopez brooded from the sidelines as the group devised a plan. Maurice was, predictably, in favor of the plan that involved getting out as quickly as possible. Kryz and Lucy overruled him, agreeing that they had one shot at getting access, and they had to use it to liberate as many infecteds as they could from the main prison. The adjacent second site would be handled by a follow-up team.
“So, we hijack the first collection truck and use it to get to the prison. Once we’re inside, we disable the guards, and open the gates to more trucks. I estimate we’ll have ten minutes before the army is mobilized, so we’ll have to be quick,” said Kryz.
“There are only a handful of guards – if we can disable them before they use their radios, we could have longer, maybe even an hour before anyone at control notices. We’ll have to be stealthy – going in as soldiers is our best bet,” said Karys.
“It’s important that the trucks scatter afterwards – we need to dilute the military’s resources as much as possible, to maximize the number of vehicles that reach the gate,” said Lucy.
“There’s no way you can evacuate thousands of people in
ten minutes. You’ll never get them loaded quickly enough,” said Maurice.
“He’s right,” said Lopez, from the far side of the room. “We need to buy more time. We need a diversion.”
***
“You OK?” she said, stepping into Lopez’s room that evening.
It was hardly the Bellagio. As the only person to have suffered such severe disfigurement, Lopez was confined to the sanctuary in a way others weren’t. For his sanity, he’d carved out a small slither of privacy in a stationery cupboard. Lucy found something reassuring about the cozy space. Staplers, pens, toner cartridges and other office goods filled the shelves. They were softly up-lit by a floor lamp positioned next to Lopez’s sleeping bag.
“All G,” he said, crisply, not looking up from his book.
“You can talk to me, you know,” she said, sitting down cross-legged on the mattress.
He snapped the book shut.
“And say what? That I’m weak now? That I can’t take down a pathetic, snivelling traitor like Maurice? That I can’t save my own child from the same man who did this to me?” he fumed.
Lucy waited for his breathing to level out. He went back to his book, tearing it open to a different page, where he pretended to read.
“I found Ruth. She’ll be at the gate tomorrow,” said Lucy.
Lopez ignored her. His eyes glared angrily at the paper without moving.
“Kryz said he’s put word out across the other sanctuaries. He reckons it’ll be tight, but we’ll have enough trucks,” said Lucy, tentatively.
Lopez continued to seethe. She reached across and grabbed the book from his hands and slammed it down on the mattress.
“Talk to me,” she demanded.
“I was reading that!” he protested, reaching for it.
“No, you weren’t. But I’d like to know what was going round that angry head of yours, before we risk our lives together tomorrow. I knew this guy once – real good soldier. Didn’t care much for having livewires on his team. I’m starting to see where he was coming from,” said Lucy.
Lopez slumped back against the wall and glared at her.
“You shouldn’t have interfered. That fight was between me and Maurice,” said Lopez.
“Sure. I should’ve stood by and watched him pummel you. That would’ve been a great experience for everyone,” said Lucy.
“It wasn’t your place to–”
“It was my place, Ed. You would’ve done the same for me,” said Lucy.
“And you’d have hated me for it,” he snapped.
“Correct,” said Lucy, with a smile.
Lopez contemplated for a minute, suddenly taking a stern interest in the assortment of staple sizes on the row beside him.
“I get it, OK?” said Lucy, gently extending a hand.
“You don’t get it at all. I used to be worth something, now I’m just… this,” he said, as tears filled his eyes.
“Look around, Ed. You really think you’re the only one who’s upset about the changes happening to them? This building is filled with people going through all kinds of trauma. I know this sounds harsh but you need to get a grip,” said Lucy, firmly.
“Easy for you to say. You were useless before we got sick,” he snapped.
“Excuse me? I saved your ass more times than I needed to, you self-pitying jerk,” said Lucy, angrily.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have bothered!” he fumed.
“Oh, so I should’ve just watched you hang yourself? Has it ever occurred to you that some people might want you to stay alive?” said Lucy.
“What are you talking about?” said Lopez, taken aback.
“In Harvey’s lab – I found you–”
Lucy faltered as the pain of the memory resurfaced sharply. They sat in silence for a moment.
“I don’t remember that,” said Lopez, quietly.
“How can you not?”
“I was hallucinating. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t. I saw the rope burns around my neck when I woke up properly here, but I figured it must’ve been something Harvey did. I never thought I’d be the sort of person who would, you know,” he said.
“You’ll be thrilled to know I tried to finish you off with an overdose,” said Lucy, darkly.
“What?”
“I had them cut you down, and begged Harvey to let you recover, but he refused. He wasn’t willing to stop the experiments. He considered your actions to be a sign of progress; that he should do more. You were trapped in the hallucinatory phase with no prospect of escape. So I did what I thought you wanted. Or at least, I tried,” said Lucy.
“You clearly did a sucky job. Remind me never to hire you as a hitwoman,” said Lopez, gesturing to himself. “But for the record, I appreciate the effort.”
“Don’t screw me around,” said Lucy, bitterly.
“I’m serious,” said Lopez.
“Even though you have no memory of actually wanting to die?” said Lucy.
“I didn’t know what was going on, but I know I was suffering. I remember the pain, even if I don’t recall everything that Harvey did. I’m glad you had my back – even if it was in the lethal injection kinda way.”
“Wow. That is probably the most fucked up thing you’ve ever said,” said Lucy, her lips twitching.
“Worse than that time I tried to apologize?” said Lopez, with a flicker of a smile.
“Way worse! Your apologies were poetry compared to that thank you,” Lucy laughed.
Lopez fixed her with a wonky smile, and wiped a tear from his eye, laughing. His laughter petered out into reflection.
“I’m worried, Lucy,” he said, gripping the bedding tightly. “If I can’t kick one traitor’s ass, how am I going to save my kid? Am I even capable?”
“You can still shoot, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what’s the problem? You’re an experienced soldier, and a strong tactician. That’s the person I want by my side tomorrow,” said Lucy.
He looked down and nodded gratefully.
“I’m worried too,” she said, hugging her sides. “I have no idea what state my father-in-law will be in tomorrow. If he doesn’t make it, I’ll never forgive myself,” said Lucy.
“Then we’ll make sure we get him out,” said Lopez.
He tilted his head sincerely.
“Thanks,” said Lucy.
She felt deeply conflicted about accepting his help. It felt so disrespectful to Dan’s memory, but she had no choice.
“Will you stay a while? I could really use the company,” said Lopez, quietly. “I miss my kid. And my old kids. I can’t explain it, other than… well, it hurts like nothing else in the world.”
Lucy shifted closer and put an arm around him. “I promise we’ll get your child back. We’ve got a plan, and it’s going to work.”
NINE
Jailbreak
__________________________________________
Lucy gripped the steering wheel of the truck and anxiously checked her wristwatch. Maurice was two minutes late.
“He’s not coming,” snapped Lopez. “I told you we couldn’t trust him.”
Lopez wore large tinted glasses, masking his purple-inflected eye. Fliss had tracked down some bronze-colored concealer from an abandoned drugstore and covered his bleached skin very effectively. Only his shoulder and curled fingers would give anyone reason to doubt him, and so long as he stayed with the truck, he could mask those easily.
“If he doesn’t come, we’re going straight to the hospital,’ added Lopez, agitating further.
“You know we can’t do that. This has to happen first, it’s time-critical,” said Lucy.
Adrian’s image flashed across her guilt-ridden mind. She pictured him being dragged to a blood-letting chamber. She shuddered and drummed the dashboard. The other trucks were due imminently, and they needed Maurice for access. Theirs had to be the first to arrive, otherwise the plan would be exposed. She couldn’t think about the hospital yet.
It was too much. She shifted in her seat, surveying the deserted road.
News scrolled across the billboard overhead. … Government says mass troop recall is ‘just a precaution’ · President dismisses existence of a ‘buffer zone’ · Secretary of Health hails ‘no touch rule’ as great success…
She flicked on the radio.
“Stay focused,” said Lopez.
“It might be useful,” insisted Lucy, batting his hand away from the dial.
…are claiming the leaked document shows the Government is anticipating a significant attack on the city. It’s unclear what’s driving the mass migration of the creatures, but the document suggests DC is going to be hit. This makes this morning’s revelations all the more damning, as we learned of the President’s plan to use several districts as sacrificial ‘buffer zones’, to slow down the creatures’ advance, while the military concentrates on protecting key political assets. Yet again, this Government is putting its own agenda above the safety of the people it serves. We’re calling on all citizens to take to the streets right now. It’s make or bre-
Lopez flicked the radio off, and pointed to the mirror. A figure was running towards them.
“Sorry,” gasped Maurice, wheezing for breath.
He opened the door and hauled himself up into the cockpit, forcing Lopez to budge up into the middle seat.
“Where are the other trucks?” said Lucy.
“They’ve been held up by the protests downtown. We have to start without them,” said Maurice, stroking his slick hair back into place.
“No way. Too risky,” said Lopez.
“Not sure we’ve got a choice there, big guy,” said Maurice, tapping his watch, as the hands nudged towards midday.
“Negative. We’re laying low. Await backup,” said Lopez.
A van pulled up at the intersection ahead of them. Lucy squinted. Something didn’t look right. No-one waited at signals during the daytime – especially not on backwater streets like these. Why was the driver being so squeaky clean? Was he worried someone might pull him over?
“Hey, you seeing this guy?” said Lucy, nudging Lopez.
She squinted at the other driver carefully. He looked edgy. His brow was sweaty. Was he infected?
Convulsive Box Set Page 78