“Just take a picture or two.”
“Where did…”
“It doesn’t matter, but I didn’t steal it if that’s what you’re worried about. Everybody’s been throwing these away since the Chinese put the lights out, but it still has a great camera and the bonus is, I can also listen to music. It’s fully charged so there shouldn’t be any issues battery wise. Don’t lose it though dude! I never thought I’d hear the sweet sounds of Pink Floyd again…”
I didn’t even bother asking Luke who this Pink Floyd girl was, just shook my head at his resourcefulness. For the next half hour, we formulated a plan. Tomorrow I would see Randall about getting access to Sonny and in the meantime, Luke would spend the day gathering what he needed—a butter knife to use as a screwdriver and chalk or string for finding his way back to the dorm. He looked very excited by the prospect of taking some action and it rubbed off on me… being reunited with him made it seem like anything was possible.
We decided that he wouldn’t tell the other boys about the plan until tomorrow night, so there was less chance of someone accidently saying something, or if, God forbid, there was a rat in the ranks. I hadn’t even considered that possibility, but Luke said we had to be wary even though they seemed decent enough kids.
After we had settled on the plan, we went and played pool with the boys. I said my goodnights an hour later.
Back on the lower level, I settled into my bunk in the barracks. It took me a long time to get to sleep, thoughts and possibilities whirred through my brain, keeping me wide awake. I cursed having a nap earlier in the day before finally drifting off sometime after midnight.
5
I awoke to the harsh beeping of reveille, not feeling refreshed at all, and wondered briefly what it would be like to have a sleep in…it seemed a lifetime since I had enjoyed that simple pleasure.
I was partnered with Daniel Bowman for my first patrol. I hadn’t really gotten to know the twenty-two-year-old before. I discovered he was quite friendly and I didn’t sense any of the subtle resentment from him that I’d felt from a few of the soldiers, probably for being an upstart ‘kid’ who fast-tracked into their ranks. His bright blue eyes and soft southern accent led me to believe he would be popular with the opposite sex. As we walked the corridors of the middle level we chatted about our lives before the flu and invasion. He hadn’t been married, but had lost his long-time girlfriend, Brenda. They had been childhood sweethearts. He said what hurt the most was that he had not had the chance to say goodbye.
During our morning patrol, I got to see everyone. First, I saw Indigo and the girls through the glass walls of the cafeteria as they ate breakfast. Indigo gave me a quizzical look when she saw me in uniform and on patrol but followed it up with a quick thumbs up to let me know they were all okay. A little later, I passed Ben, Paul and the others as they filed out to their mining duty after breakfast, and finally Luke, who split from them and sneakily patted his pocket as he passed. It appeared he had pocketed the knife he needed. He was walking a lot more gingerly than he had last night, clutching his side as he walked by. I knew it was just for appearances sake, so I didn’t worry.
“He’s in a lot better condition than he was the last time I saw him, but he still looks pretty sore,” said Bowman. I silently applauded Luke’s acting ability.
“Yeah, might be a while yet before he’s back to normal. So how did the scouting party go last night? Did they get off okay?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yeah, they sure did.”
“How do they get out? Through the ski lodge, or is there another way out?”
“Nope, there is only one way in or out of this cage.”
“So there wasn’t any heat from the Chinese after we were brought in then?”
“No, the lodge is monitored from the control room. We’ve seen a couple of choppers fly over it, but the only real concern at the moment is that they have stationed a small detachment in Lincoln. Shouldn’t be a real problem for us though, the Colonel wouldn’t have sent them out if he thought there was any risk.”
Interesting. I knew there had to have been something like a control room somewhere in the complex, now I knew for sure. It must also be on the lower level where the military were stationed because Bowman said, ‘we’ve seen’.
I thought I knew where it might be. Further along the hallway containing the Colonel’s office and situation room, the passage had hooked to the right. During my training, I had seen officers, including the Colonel, disappearing around that corner several times. The control room had to be there. I decided I would take a little detour when I went down to ask the colonel about a visit to Sonny. I would do it on my morning break and if anyone questioned what I was doing, I would just tell them I had lost my way.
Just before I was due for my break, Luke passed us in the corridor. This time he was going the opposite way, heading back to the dorm.
“Any chance you could swipe me into my room?” he asked Bowman, wincing as he walked. “I guess I need more bed rest than I thought.”
Again, I silently applauded his smarts in asking Bowman and also for acting weaker than he really was. It meant that suspicions wouldn’t be raised if he spent lots of time ‘in bed’ the next day.
“Sure buddy, do you need me to call Medical or anything?”
“No, it’s okay,” said Luke. “I just need to lie down for a few hours I think.”
“Okay, come on.”
“I’ll go have my morning break then, see you in fifteen,” I said.
“No problem,” said Bowman.
Luke fell in behind Bowman and winked at me as I turned and headed for the lobby.
A few minutes later I was knocking on Randall’s door. He invited me to sit down.
“How is your first morning on patrol?”
“It’s fine sir, makes the time pass quickly. Got to morning break before I knew it.”
“Good, good. Now why are you here instead of having a coffee or something to eat?”
“Well sir, I was wondering if you could talk to the Professor and arrange for me to visit Sonny again? It’s been a few days, and I figure that if they’re going to keep him locked up, the least they can do is let him have regular visitors.”
“Fair call son. I’ll call the Professor shortly and see what I can do. Anything else? I have a lot on my plate this morning.”
“No Sir, that’s all. Thanks.”
I got up and left, pulling the door softly closed behind me. I looked both ways. No one was around. I made my move. I padded down the corridor as silently as I could in my army boots, passing the situation room and moving to the corner.
I paused a few seconds, right near the corner, straining my ears. I could hear two men talking in soft tones, not really loud enough to make out their words though. I took a deep breath and stood up straight before striding around the corner as though I was on my way somewhere.
At the end of the short hallway the two soldiers were suddenly alert. I stopped, feigning confusion. “Oh, that’s not the Colonel’s office… is it?”
“No, turn around and head back around the corner, it’s the second on the right. It’s actually got his name on it… genius…”
“Oh, right sorry,” I said, pretending I didn’t hear his sarcasm.
I turned and headed back to the Midlevel; I’d seen all I needed to see. That guarded door almost definitely led into the control room Bowman had spoken of.
The last few hours of our shift passed without further incident and I headed back down to bottom level with Bowman to hand over to the next patrol. My bonding with Bowman was a happy accident really, but it had an unexpected consequence. He invited me to eat in the cafeteria on the middle level before the first of the dinner shifts came in. Not wanting to appear rude, I said ‘sure’, all the while hoping that he wouldn’t want to hang around in the rec room afterwards.
I arranged to meet him there in a few minutes, explaining that I just had to see the Colonel about a request I had made. He looked curious
but didn’t ask what it was about. John Hurst opened the door to Randall’s office when I knocked. Both men looked serious and the man himself told me without ceremony that the Professor had said no to the request and that I would be informed later when it would be possible to visit Sonny again. I hid my anger.
“Okay, no problem, thanks for looking into it for me.”
That was it then. It just confirmed that the Professor was hiding something, why else would it be such an issue to let Sonny have visitors? I considered a lot of possibilities as I headed back up the elevator to the cafeteria, but first things first, we had to find out what they were doing with him before we could make a plan. If we had evidence that it was something bad, I could maybe go to Randall to plead a case for some sort of intervention.
6
I joined Bowman in the cafeteria. Even though I was a little preoccupied, I must admit he was good company. I tried to remain a little distant and it wasn’t hard (given my mood), hoping he would take the hint and not accompany me to the Rec room afterward. The soldiers had their own small breakout area in bottom level, hopefully he would go down there afterwards, and I could make the excuse that I wanted to see my friends and stay on Midlevel. As much as I liked him, he was a part of the military and I knew I couldn’t trust him entirely at this point.
Despite my subtle attempts to distance myself from him, he didn’t take the hint and asked me if I wanted a game of pool. I couldn’t really say no, what else could I say I was going to do? We went into the rec room while it was still relatively empty and challenged another pair of off- duty soldiers to a game. It turns out we were a pretty lethal pool combination, although it was more through Bowman’s skill than mine.
An hour later, after their meal shift, Luke and the others joined us. I introduced Bowman to everyone. The two soldiers we had been playing had left a few minutes before. I shrugged in response to Luke’s questioning look, trying to indicate subtly that I had been helpless to shake him off.
Luke seemed to understand and stepped up to shake Bowman’s hand. “Bowman, huh? Good strong name, you know what it means?”
“What it means?” asked the Southerner.
“Yeah, most surnames have an origin and back in England it was usually dependent on what occupation a person had. So, if there was a guy named John and he was an archer, he would take on the name John the Bowman or John Bowman.”
“Oh really?”
Ben laughed and clapped Luke on the shoulder. “You will find Luke here full of useless information…interesting, but useless.”
Luke wasn’t finished with his lesson yet and ignored Ben’s friendly jibe. “Yeah, sometimes he was just called Archer, but Bowman was just as popular. Another one was Smith. It’s a shortened form of blacksmith…and then there was Taylor, as in tailor for a clothes maker…”
“Must have been an awful lot of blacksmiths back in the day, cos Smith is pretty damn common now,” I interrupted.
“Yeah and I don’t even want to think about where the name Cockburn came from!”
We all cracked up laughing at Ben’s remark, even Luke, and it brought his history lesson to a quick end. We continued playing pool as Ben and Beau stepped up to take on Bowman and me. I tanked the game this time and retired from the table, hoping Bowman might head off rather than partner someone else. No such luck. He hung around and waited for the next game to finish before asking if I wanted to play again. I told him I’d give it a miss and he partnered up with Toby.
It seemed there was no way I could talk privately with Luke, at least not without the risk of raising suspicion. Luke solved the problem. He announced he was going to the john and nodded surreptitiously to me as he walked by on his way to the men’s room. I waited forty seconds or so before I also followed.
He was at the basin when I came in. “Dude, don’t you have enough friends?” he asked, grinning.
“What can I say,” I shrugged. “I have a magnetic personality. How did you go?”
“Yeah, I have what I need, got some chalk from the blackboard in the cafeteria along with a butter knife. Did you ask about visiting Sonny?”
“Yeah, I went down to see the colonel during my morning break. He was happy to put it to the Professor, but when I went back after the shift, he told me that I’d been refused.”
“That’s it then,” he said grimly. “We can’t delay any longer, right?”
“No, let’s get it done. You sure you’ll be alright to do it?”
“Yes, I’m going to wake Ben up before reveille and he’s going to close and screw in the grill behind me. I’ll make up my bed to look like I’m still asleep.”
“How are you going to get back out when you’re done?”
“Well I haven’t really thought about that. I guess it will be harder. I might have to wait till the others are back from their mining. I shouldn’t be missed though, I spent most of the day in bed after your buddy swiped me in, so it shouldn’t seem unusual tomorrow. By the way, I’ll need the iPhone back for my little stealth mission. It’s going to be dark in there.”
I handed it to him.
“Okay, so while Bowman is on his lunch break I’ll try and swipe into your room and check if you’re back. If not, I’ll try again in the afternoon.”
“Cool, let’s go.”
“Good luck. Remember if it’s too much, just turn around and get back to the room.”
He nodded, and we gave each other a knuckle bump. Luke went out. I followed a few seconds later.
The following morning, I was paired with Bowman again. We passed the others as they headed to breakfast. When Ben walked by I raised my eyebrows, asking the question that I couldn’t speak. Ben nodded with a smile and Luke wasn’t with them, so I assumed that everything had gone according to plan.
Bowman and I patrolled the corridors mostly in silence, making small talk occasionally. The patrol itself was boring, but our talk was lively. I asked him if he’d ever encountered any trouble.
“To be honest, nothing really bad. Just a few fights. Really, it’s to be expected I guess. I think everyone in here would be suffering a little claustrophobia. I can’t wait to be sent out on a scouting party again, it would be awesome just to look up and not see a white fucking ceiling.”
I guess I hadn’t been there long enough at the time, but right then I thought to myself that the Facility wouldn’t have been such a bad place if the girls weren’t segregated and Sonny was free. It could…should have worked, but Leahy had screwed it up with whatever social or scientific experiments he was conducting and the heavy handedness with which he ruled the facility.
On our third pass of the dorm, I couldn’t resist looking through the small viewing window in the door. Luke’s bunk definitely looked occupied and the form under the blanket looked realistic. I even noticed red hair peeking out from his blanket. How the hell had he managed that? It looked so realistic in fact that for a moment, even I wondered if he had aborted his mission and had slept in. No, if he had Ben would have given me a shake of the head when we had passed each other. Where had he got the red hair? He must have cut it off; it was the only explanation.
I moved on quickly but noticed Bowman also take a peek after I had vacated the window. “Do you want to check on your friend?”
“No,” my heart was beating fast as I thought furiously. “He just gave me the thumbs up and rolled back over. Pretty sure he just needs rest.” I kept walking and prayed that Bowman would follow. After a few long and anxious seconds, he did.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the soldier caught up and asked me if I’d ever been shot.
7
The rest of the day dragged. Even though I was distracted, I managed to keep chatting with Bowman while fretting about Luke and wondering how he was progressing. Every time we passed the dorm, I half expected to hear noises from the ceiling, but however he was faring, he seemed to be doing it quietly
I also mulled over other problems. What would we actually do once we found out what was happening
with Sonny? I knew we had to wait for Luke’s report, but obviously if it looked like they were about to start or were already experimenting on him, we would have to move quickly. Then if we were able to beak him out, how viable was it to leave the security and comfort of Drake Mountain without getting apprehended or worse?
Somehow, I didn’t think that we would be allowed to voluntarily leave and if push came to shove, how would we fight our way out? Would all of our group even want to? As nasty as things might be under the surface in Drake Mountain, out there it would be a lot more dangerous.
The more I thought about it, the worse my mood became. I just didn’t see a way past the problems we had. Eventually Bowman took the hint and stopped trying to make conversation, and we patrolled in silence.
Two hours before the end of the shift, Bowman left me and took his break, heading into the cafeteria. Once I was around the corner I sped up, only just resisting the urge to run as I headed to the Dorm. I thought I had roughly fifteen minutes to play with. In fact, it turned out to be a lot less.
I swiped myself in and ran to the grill, grabbing a chair on the way. Even standing on the chair, the grill of the vent was still a bit higher than face level.
“Luke,” I called. Nothing. What is taking him so long?
I called once more and when I didn’t get a response I stepped down from the chair. I started to panic. I had finally begun to think things might be going our way, but Luke had been gone for hours now. What if he’d been discovered and locked up like Sonny? I went to the shape under the blankets of Luke’s bunk and felt it just in case he was under there. He wasn’t. Anxiety and frustration erupted in me and I kicked out blindly at the chair that I had just placed back under the table. It flew into the wall under the vent.
It was then I heard a cluttering sliding sound from the vent.
“Luke?!”
I dashed over and grabbed the upended chair and positioned it under the vent. I climbed up and strained to see into the duct. I could hear panting and scraping and a few seconds later I saw the pale face of my friend under a sheen of dirt and sweat pressed up against the grill. His appearance shocked me, his long curly hair had been hacked off crudely. For a moment I was puzzled then I remembered the hair on his pillow mock-up.
Fight Like Hell [America Falls Series | Books 1-6] Page 38