by Doug Solter
“Don’t worry about escape. We have a plan. Sounds like we need to leave immediately before our men are overwhelmed. Thank you, Emma.”
She tilted forward and wrapped her arms around Ryan, placing another kiss on his lips. The boy responded by cradling her lower back with his arms. Emma allowed him this privilege as she pressed her fingers against the inside of his thigh. Ryan opened his legs, expecting something special from her.
And Ryan did get something special.
A karate strike to his walnuts.
Ryan’s voice went up a few octaves as he shrieked. Emma then shoved him into the wall, brought her leg up and pressed her hiking boot against his neck, pinning the boy to the wall. Emma leaned on her heel, making the boy gasp for breath.
“Please drop the gun on the floor. I’m not playing.”
Ryan didn’t at first. But another shove of her boot made the boy comply as his mind starved for oxygen. He dropped the gun.
She removed her leg and Ryan collapsed into the corner of the supply closet, still overwhelmed by the pain between his legs.
Emma picked up the gun and edged towards the door. The only thing she could do was somehow to slip out of the closet and not be seen sneaking out of the control room. Then maybe Emma could make it into the passageway and gain some time to think about what to do next.
Emma calmed herself and opened the door for a peek. From what she could see, Emma had a straight shot across the room to the passageway. She might be able to make it over there undetected if she were quick and lucky.
Emma opened the door and prepared herself to launch forward when…a gun hammer clicked back.
Then another click.
Emma glanced around the door.
The two technicians Ryan had talked to earlier were aiming their guns at her face.
Emma dropped hers.
Chapter 34
Emma’s gun was taken away as the control room technicians chained her back against the iron support beam near the four giant seed vaults. Right back where she started. Ryan waited for them to finish and return to their work stations before he knelt down in front of Emma. Ryan grimaced from the after-effects of the girl’s attack.
Emma smiled to herself.
“Well played,” he said. “For a brief second, I believed you. So disappointing. You would have made an excellent partner.”
“Screw you,” Emma said in a calm voice. She didn’t want to give the guy any satisfaction of seeing her getting emotional about the situation. If this was it for her…if her young life was about to come to an end, Emma wanted to face it like a young woman, not a child.
“You’re an impressive girl. It’s such a waste to leave you here.”
“Ryan? Your compliments sink to the bottom of my stomach. In other words—spare me your pity.”
Pierre came over to Ryan. “I’ve contacted the submarine. Begin the evacuation while I set the charges.”
Ryan helped the technicians pack up their gear as they hustled out of the control room and down the passageway. Pierre radioed his men still fighting in the break room to pull back and evacuate. He then used the laptop on top of the roll-away equipment rack.
Ryan lingered around Emma.
Pierre finished his work and noticed Ryan. “Don’t be gracious and shoot them. Let them burn along with the seeds. The enemies of Venomous deserve no mercy.”
“Of course.” Ryan said. “See you at the submarine. I’ll help these last two men pack.”
Pierre hurried out of the control center.
“A submarine?” Emma asked, her curiosity too strong to stay silent. “How will you pull that off?”
“One thing I must credit Jacqueline for…she was brilliant when it came to planning an operation. It’s an ingenious escape plan. A small submarine through the ice. There’s a flooded cave on one of the lower levels of the facility, where the water purification equipment for the facility’s drinking water is located. Most of the water is frozen on the surface, but the cave itself empties into a Fjord near here. The cave is just big enough for the submarine to pop in and out.”
The last two technicians hustled out of the room.
Ryan kissed Emma on the forehead. He then produced a set of keys out of his pocket and moved behind her. Emma felt the keys being put inside her palm.
“A present for you,” Ryan whispered. “You won’t have enough time to stop the bomb or save your friends. But you might have time to save yourself. I hope you make that choice.” Ryan brushed her blond hair back. “Goodbye, Emma.”
Ryan grabbed his things and ran out of the room.
Emma couldn’t believe he did that. But there it was, the smooth, cold key in her hand.
She had to hurry.
Emma fumbled around with the set of keys, trying to find the keyhole strictly by feel. There it was. She tried the first key. Didn’t fit. She then tried the second one. Too big. The third key slipped into place and she turned it. Emma didn’t hear a click. Did it work? Emma tried pulling her wrists apart and a metal clang echoed as the handcuffs dropped to the floor. Her wrists were free.
Nadia and Miyuki both heard the sound.
“Hurry! We don’t have much time,” Nadia said.
Emma used the set of keys to free the other locks and pulled the chains off her body and ankles. She stumbled over to Nadia with the keys and tried her locks.
None of the keys fit. It was just like Ryan had said.
“These keys won’t unlock you.”
“Try Miyuki’s handcuffs,” Nadia said.
Emma rushed over to Miyuki.
The keys wouldn’t fit hers either.
“Damn it,” Emma said.
Miyuki’s dark eyes softened. “You should run…save yourself.”
Emma knew she was right. But how could she leave her friends here to die? Maybe she could somehow stop the bombs from going off.
The laptop. Emma ran over to the roll-away equipment rack. “Can you hack into their system?”
“I can try,” Nadia said.
Emma brought over the laptop with its long Ethernet cable connected to the other computers. It barely reached. Emma laid the computer on the floor.
Nadia squinted. “I can’t see it down there.”
Emma searched the room and found a chair. She brought it over and placed the laptop on top. “How’s that?”
“Much better.” Nadia studied the screen for a moment. “This program controls the AirTech climate control systems in all those facilities Jacqueline talked about. It’s on a five-minute timer. Emma? Click on the next menu for me.”
Emma double-clicked.
Nadia studied it closely. “These systems are programmed to spray fuel through the irrigation system and ignite it throughout all the food production plants and storage facilities. Let’s see if we can shut it down. Emma? I need you to be my hands. Click on the C-drive.” Nadia guided Emma through the laptop as she tried to make changes to the computer program. An error message flashed on the screen…
Changes require administrator password
“I don’t have enough time to hack their password,” Nadia sighed.
“Can you kill the program?” Miyuki asked.
Nadia examined the screen and shook her head. “Not without triggering the backup programs inside the other computers. Venomous has them programmed to execute their commands automatically if they lose communication with this laptop.”
“What? You mean there’s no cancel button?” Emma asked.
“Once this program is activated, it won’t stop until the countdown runs out.”
“So pulling USB cable is no good either?” Miyuki asked.
Nadia shook her head.
“How much time is left?” Miyuki asked.
“About three minutes,” Emma said, her voice wavering. “What can we do? There has to be something. Think.”
“I don’t have access to their network. That password is the only way to get in using this…laptop—” Nadia trailed off, her mind turning
gears.
“Did you think of something?” Emma asked.
“The back door I put in still might be in the Raymond Foods mainframe. Open the internet browser.”
Emma’s fingers hurried with clicks and swishes across the mouse pad. Nadia told her a web address to go to. She gave Emma the password and username to get in. The internet page loaded. Graphics came up saying, Welcome Nadia! A bunny rabbit hopped over to bring flowers.
“Seriously?” Emma chuckled.
“Oh…just double-click on the bunny.”
Emma did what Nadia asked. The webpage blinked a couple times and suddenly they had access to another program. The Raymond Foods logo was in the corner of the page.
“Yes!” Nadia became excited. “Through Jacqueline’s work computer, I now have access to their network.”
“Now what?” Emma asked. “Can we shut down the other computers?”
“Wait. Oh that should work! All we need to do is give a command to all the network computers to reboot themselves using their last restore point. Hopefully that should bypass the Venomous program that was installed later.”
“How much time do we have?” Miyuki asked.
“Two minutes.” Emma said.
“Since we have access to the emergency systems, let’s trigger the fire alarms to get people out of the buildings just in case.” Nadia issued more instructions to Emma as she went in and out of various menus, each one controlling a different group of facilities under each company. The Lester-Sumner Food Corporation in Australia. Raymond Foods in America, Europe, and Africa. Kyo-Shun Foods in China. Ganchi Farms in Mumbai, India. And finally Ovechkin-Komstat in the Ukraine.
A series of similar messages ran down the screen…
Rebooting system to last restore point.
“Go back to the countdown screen,” Nadia said.
Emma clicked out of a few menus and brought up the event timer. The numbers counted down to forty-five seconds.
“Look!” Nadia pointed at the screen. “All the facilities are now grayed out. This computer can’t send out any commands to the climate control systems.”
“What about the explosives here?” Miyuki asked.
Nadia’s happiness disappeared. “We saved the world. But not us. This laptop doesn’t trigger the local explosives. It only starts the clock inside that equipment rack.”
Emma cursed as she raced over to the rack. “What should I do? Is there some wire I can pull?”
“Rip open the box and look,” Miyuki said. “See where the wires are all bunched up.”
“Thirty seconds,” Nadia said.
Emma felt around the box, looking for a way inside. Her fingers touched some metal clasps. She pulled up on the clasps and the panel popped out. She tossed it and searched inside the small equipment rack. A jumble of wires ran up through the bottom of the box into some kind of junction box.
Emma searched around for something to pry open the junction box with. She ran all over the control room like a crazy girl and found zilch.
“There’s a screwdriver on that table!” Miyuki said, jerking her head towards it.
“Twenty seconds.”
Emma flew over to the table, grabbed the screwdriver, and ran back to the rack. She jammed the end of the screwdriver around the edge of the metal panel protecting the junction box and tried to pry it off using all her strength.
“Fifteen seconds.”
The square panel popped off, exposing three skinny little wires.
“Is the red wire good or bad?” Emma asked.
“Red wires are bad,” Nadia said.
“But that could be the one she needs to cut,” Miyuki said.
“Blue? Is blue the one I should cut? Or how about this yellow one?”
Miyuki and Nadia looked at each other.
Emma realized they had no idea. She examined the three wires. Cutting the wrong one would splatter them across the rocks and bury them here for hundreds of years. Cutting the right one would…
The yellow wire. Emma always did like yellow.
“Five seconds!”
Emma pulled the yellow wire and braced for the explosion.
Nothing happened.
She glanced at Miyuki and Nadia.
They both smiled.
Emma flopped down on the ground in total relief. Her lungs drew in as much air as they could hold.
A loud clatter of footsteps echoed down the passageway as Olivia appeared around the corner with a gun in hand. She lowered it and smiled when Olivia saw her friends. But the girl tensed up at the sight of all the explosives rigged around the control center. “I need that flipping bomb squad up here now!”
A squad of Norwegian soldiers dressed in padded bomb gear, ran around the corner and descended around the small equipment rack.
One of the bomb techs pushed Emma away. “We’ve got this, young lady.”
“But I pulled the—”
The techs ignored Emma as they analyzed the bomb mechanism and wiring. Talking among themselves in rushed, excited voices. Soon, the leader of the squad ripped off a layer of padding on his clothes.
“Stand down,” he said. “This bomb has already been disarmed.”
Emma stood up and raised her chin with pride. “I was going to say…it was the yellow wire.”
Chapter 35
Grandma’s garden became chilly as the clouds rolled in from the bay and shut out the afternoon sun. The woman wrapped herself in a Navajo Indian blanket and relaxed on one of the canvas lawn chairs reading Robert Frost as she burned more sage in a clay pot.
Emma watched Grandma through the French doors in the kitchen.
“Just go ask her, love.” Olivia said.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Emma said. “My grandma despises everything about The Authority and she doesn’t trust Grandma Laura…I mean, Mrs B.”
“Grandma Laura?” Miyuki asked.
“You’re related?” Nadia asked.
“Hold on,” Olivia said. “You’re messing with us, right?”
Emma hesitated. “You guys can’t tell anyone. Seriously. I don’t think Mrs. B wants you to know.”
“You’re flipping serious? You and Mrs. B are relatives?”
“Tell us everything!” Miyuki said.
“To be honest…even I don’t know the whole story yet so stay tuned for further updates.” Emma turned her attention back to Grandma and scoffed. “I can’t do this now.”
On the other side of the glass, Snoopy ran up to the French doors and barked at Emma. His tail wagged with excitement.
“Puppy!” Miyuki said as she waved.
Outside, Grandma leaned forward in her chair to look. She smiled and slipped a bookmark into her novel.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Thanks puppy.” She opened the French doors and stepped out into the garden. The chill in the air made Emma wrap her arms around her mid-section before making herself comfortable on a lawn chair next to Grandma.
“It’s cool today,” Grandma said. “You’ll need a blanket if you want to stay out here.”
“It’s fine,” Emma said. “Can I talk to you?”
Grandma placed her book on a side table and folded her arms across her chest. She raised her eyebrows to imply that she was ready.
“Think I understand now why my mother and dad joined The Authority. It felt…good to stop the bad guys. When Dad met Mom, didn’t he believe in what The Authority was doing? If Dad was as high in the organization as Grandma Laura said he was, it must have meant very much to him, didn’t it?”
Grandma hesitated. “It did…until your mother’s death broke him. Like your death would break me.”
Emma saw it in her eyes. Her grandmother’s worst fear. “Life isn’t a guarantee is it? I could be driving to school one day. Flying on a plane. Standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. Death is everywhere. I can’t let it stop me from doing what I want to be doing.”
“You should be a vet like you wanted. A person who saves living creatures, not destr
oys them.”
“I want to be a spy. Like mom was.”
Grandma’s wrinkled hands played with the ends of the Navajo blanket. “Is this goodbye, young one?”
“What? No way. I’m staying here with you and going to public school, just like you wanted. I talked it over with Grandma Laura and she agreed.” Emma got up from her chair and sat next to Grandma, wrapping herself inside the same blanket, leaning against her like she did when Emma was young. Grandma’s hand brushed back Emma’s hair as the two just sat there a moment. Enjoying each other’s company.
“Why are those girls here?” Grandma finally asked.
“Grandma Laura would like you to take them in.”
Grandma chuckled. “Of course she does. What does she think this place is? A youth hostel?”
“These three girls are my friends and they’re far away from their families. They need a home and we have plenty of room here. I think it’s a great idea.”
“Let me take a stab at this. If I don’t take these girls in, Laura will insist on keeping you away from me?”
“Nope. It’s a request, not a threat,” Emma said. “And I’m making the request because they’re awesome girls. Seriously, you would like them, Grandma”
“If I allow them to live here, then I would be contributing to Laura’s fascist organization.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh my God. You’re so stubborn. They’re not fascists. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve never trusted them, Emma. Even when your father was a member. I never trusted them.”
“Do you trust me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“So when it comes to my friends, you know I’m telling you the truth. This isn’t for Grandma Laura. This is for me.”
Grandma sighed and thought about it. “For you, huh?”
Emma flashed her the cutest little-girl-like smile ever. “Please?”
Grandma didn’t answer.
“I can’t do any of this without you.”