Final Days: Escape

by Jasper T. Scott

  “Kendra?” his voice asked from her right, and she noticed Tom walking from the Saints’ home. She almost turned around and stalked over to the group, but bit her tongue, holding on.

  Before she answered him, she stepped close, grabbing his hand. She checked his pulse, and the rate felt normal. His skin wasn’t sticky, not sweating. She stared at his eyes from a foot away, and didn’t see any signs of the dilation Roland had mentioned. She’d seen enough drugged-out people in her days on the job, from both the captors and victims to read the signs. He was clean.

  “Thank God,” she muttered.

  “What the hell was all that about?” Tom asked, clutching her forearm tightly. He pulled her close and returned the harsh stare, as if he was trying to find out what she was on.

  “Tom, it’s okay. I had to find out.”

  “Find out what?”

  “Can we speak inside?” she asked, nodding toward the building near them.

  He lingered a moment, unspeaking, before gathering his wits. “Yes, of course. Come on.” His gaze darted around camp as he led her into Eden Six.

  It was sterile inside, the smell of hospital chemicals strong. Kendra blinked quickly and walked through the station, confirming no one was there. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. I made a house call on one of the Saints, but I have no patients.” He placed his hands on his hips, wearing his white lab coat. With his dimpled chin, he looked like a superhero ready to change into his tights at the nearest phone booth.

  “You’re going to have one tonight,” she told him.

  “I am? Who?”

  “Andrew.”

  “Is he sick?”

  She nodded. How far could she trust him? She had to test it. “Things are bad here, Tom. We can’t wait this out. Morris is…”

  “Drugging her acolytes?”

  “You knew?” she asked.

  “I could tell what you were checking for outside, and yes, I am a doctor, remember? Hound had an assortment of supplies in Eden Five, along with the camp's controls. Some of them were chemical, and he avoided my queries when I asked about them,” Tom told her.

  “I don’t understand how they work. Is it possible to have a drug that makes you susceptible to bullshit like this?” she asked.

  Tom nodded slowly. “In theory. But the truth is, I have no idea. This is far past my scope, and I have to suspect Hound had some advanced technology in that field. The things I’m able to do, like administering that shot to your torn shoulder, allowed it to heal almost overnight. Imagine what would be possible in a mind-control drug.”

  “Okay, one thing at a time,” she reminded herself. She was surprised Andrew still wanted to stick to the plan, with Val being brainwashed, but he probably knew they could return for her if they found a new place to call home around one of the other ridges surrounding their valley.

  “What was this about Andrew?”

  “He’ll be here soon. Play along. Do you have something that will make him vomit?” Kendra asked.

  “Yes. I could give him some ipecac syrup. That'll clear him out quick, but not instantly.”

  “Okay, find some. He’s on his way,” Kendra said. “We need someone to see it, and then you’re going to quarantine him.”

  “Is that necessary?” he asked, leading her into the corridor to the end of the hall where his supply room sat.

  “He’s not really going to be sick. But you’re going to let him out tomorrow night.”

  He held a vial in his hand as he turned to face her. “Tomorrow night. After curfew?”

  “That’s right.” Kendra crossed her arms and nodded, using her take-charge voice.

  Tom sighed. “Fine. Will you tell me what it's all about?”

  “It might be better if I don’t, given the circumstances. You can feign ignorance,” she told him.

  Someone banged on the door, and Kendra heard Roland’s calls for the doctor. They rushed to the exit, where Andrew was bent over, Roland holding him up as the ex-Marine coughed and groaned loudly. An audience was trickling in, and she spotted Eve among them.

  Tom stepped onto the deck outside the Eden station, speaking calmly to Andrew, asking about his symptoms. Kendra watched as Tom passed him a glass of water with the medicine inside, and saw the grimace as he swallowed it down. Everyone quieted, and Andrew straightened his spine, grabbing on to Roland’s shoulders.

  “Bring him into my office!” Tom shouted, and Roland helped Andrew inside. “No one follow us in. He could be contagious!”

  A second later the doors slid closed with Roland beside her, and the others were dispersing quickly. Eve stared at her, a gun in her hand, before leaving them alone.

  “Will it work?” Roland whispered, stepping over Andrew’s vomit.

  “It better,” Kendra said.

  They waited a few minutes, and as expected, word spread quickly around camp. Reverend Morris arrived, shoving past Kendra and Roland. She banged on the door, demanding Hartford open up.

  He did seconds later. “This area is not safe. We have a situation, and we can’t be too cautious.”

  Even from here, Kendra heard Andrew’s vomiting, and Morris instinctively distanced herself from the entrance. “Fine, but I expect a full report.” She glared at Kendra before stalking away, Eve trailing after the Saints’ leader.

  SEVEN

  Roland

  It was the quietest hour of the night. Five AM. Roland used to stay up until this late, sometimes even until six, when the sun would rise, alerting him that it was time to find his bed with the blackout curtains. The best forum conversations took place during the hours between dusk and dawn; that went without saying. He missed the talks with his old friends online, the ones who only had an avatar and some stupid name like Mordor111.

  When he wasn’t chasing down leads to track Lewis Hound’s movements online, he’d binge old science fiction anthology shows. His favorite was a black and white one where the hero would wake up to find everyone was a lizard or a robot, except for him. He loved endings you couldn’t see coming, and the irony wasn’t lost on Roland as he stared at the tablet, watching Hound’s camera feed.

  It was a boring episode, but some TV was better than no TV, he mused. He wouldn’t be able to do this every night, not when he actually needed some sleep. As long as they confirmed that Hound was there and what he was doing, they could safely send Andrew off the next night.

  The camera was affixed inside a fern-like plant, and a skinny green piece of it dangled over the lens, covering the corner of the image. He could still see most of the space. Hound stood on a charger in the back of the office, the lights around it glowing a gentle blue.

  All those years of tracking him, and now he was literally watching the reclusive billionaire sleep. Scratch that. He was watching an alien hosted in an android body recharge its batteries. Did Hound’s real mind reside somewhere else? Was he flesh and blood? Roland assumed that if a being was controlling the android, he must be on the planet, or at least in orbit. It was clear the alien tech was impressive, but it seemed to have limits.

  He kept staring at the screen, but the boring image never changed, and Roland’s eyes closed as his cheek landed on the tablet.

  When he awoke, someone was moving nearby; the normal sounds of people rising carried through the room. He blinked quickly, feeling the flat screen under him.

  “Oh, crap,” he muttered, wiping his drool from the tablet. He breathed a sigh of relief. Hound remained in his charging station.

  The pale blue sun was rising, and Roland caught a glimpse of dawn through the window behind Hound’s desk. Something shifted behind it. It was large, shiny, reflecting the grass off its exterior. One of the ships was there.

  He jammed his head out of the sleeping bag, inhaling cool air, and noticed Tony’s bag was empty. With Valeria and her boyfriend having gone to the other side, and Andrew in the infirmary, it was just him and Kendra tonight. It felt strange here, too empty.

  “Ken,” he said, and the FBI a
gent turned toward him.

  She acted half asleep. “Did he move?” Kendra asked.

  Roland shook his head, but leaned toward her. “No, but a ship arrived while he was out. How’s that possible?”

  Kendra sat up and climbed from the sleeping bag. She stretched her shoulders, and interlaced her fingers, holding her arms above her head as she yawned. “He probably programmed it to come. You know he doesn’t want to have it around camp. It worries people.”

  “Yeah, for good reason,” Roland said. He rose, sliding into a fresh uniform folded under his pillow. He jammed the tablet into the front pouch, right in time for the alarm to sound. For a moment he thought they might be coming for him, but it was only the wake-up alarm. Even on another world, people had to be woken up with a raucous noise.

  “Everyone up and at ‘em. This ain’t no Disneyland. Eat and get to work!” one of the guards shouted. Roland recognized him as the bald guy from the other day—Mack.

  “Big day today. If Tony’s with you, try to play it cool. Don’t give anything away. We don’t know how far gone the kids are at this point,” Kendra told him as they moved to the exit, walking past cramped rows of the other colonists.

  “Good luck,” he told Kendra as they left their sleeping quarters.

  “Thanks.” Kendra glanced at the sky, as if expecting Hound’s ship to be in the air, but it was quiet. Sunny again.

  “Good thing we have gruel to look forward to,” Roland mumbled, and together, they moved toward the mess hall.

  * * *

  Kendra

  Kendra spent the entire day working with Evan in the new fields, tilling the dirt by hand and sweating in the midday heat. Keller was watering the other field, an entire two hundred yards away, and she caught him glancing in her direction a few times. She needed to tell him to lay off, or he might draw some attention.

  Andrew hadn’t been sure about bringing Keller in on the plan, but there were too many moving pieces to do it alone. With the kids out of the loop, they needed Eric’s help, and he'd be more than happy to assist by any means possible.

  Evan was a good man and a better ally, but she’d purposefully left him out of this one. He’d be better suited to the next step, which would be accessing the hidden weapons cache and either breaking the others out of camp or taking it back, depending on what Andrew found at Hound’s underground lair.

  “You know they have machines to do this, right?” Evan asked her.

  “Then they wouldn’t get to watch us squirm all day long.” Kendra glanced around the fields, seeing big lumpy-faced John on his patrol. He grabbed a woman’s rake and shoved her to the ground before continuing on. She’d seen a million men like him in her time chasing down criminals. He was the dumb brute that bullied people smarter and kinder than him. The second he latched onto someone with a little power, he thrived. She couldn’t wait to put a bullet…

  “Kendra? You coming?” Evan asked, and she realized she was standing and staring. “He’s a mean one.”

  “That he is.” She peered over her shoulder, and then at the sun. It was almost time. “Evan. If anything happens to me, believe that there might be hope after all. See my sister, Carrie, okay?”

  “Don’t talk like that… why would anything happen?” he asked when the shed at the far end of the field exploded, shaking the ground even this far out.

  She didn’t answer Evan, only took off running—not toward the shed like everyone else, but for the field Keller had just been watering. By the time she reached it, the two guards were behind the shed, shouting for Eric to hose it off and douse the spreading flames. Eric purposefully fell to the ground, dragging the extended hose behind him.

  Kendra was out of breath when she hit the edge of the crop. She concentrated, pacing off the location where she’d buried the gun. The soil was wet here, and her feet squished into it, splattering as she took one-yard steps. When she was confident she’d counted right, she took one last glimpse around before crouching and digging into the soil. She tried to avoid stomping the budding spinach plants around her. A foot lower, she found nothing but more soil.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. This had to be the spot. She tried another foot away with the same results, and by the time the shed was steaming with water vapor, she’d all but given up.

  It had to be here. Unless… someone had moved it. She kept digging. Just as she was about to stop and return to Evan’s side, she felt it. Cool metal in her palm. Keeping her gaze on her surroundings, she wiped it off on the bottom of her pant leg and unzipped her jumpsuit, jamming it in the back of her underwear. She hoped it wouldn’t fall out.

  Kendra moved fast, walking the narrow path in the grass between the two gardens. Most of the commotion was over at the shed, and a few people were clapping Keller on the shoulder, claiming him a hero. If they only knew he’d set a small explosive on a jerry can that very morning, they wouldn’t be cheering for him.

  She smiled along with the others, but didn’t slow. She passed Eden Eleven, staring toward the Saints’ residences as she walked. It felt like Eden Six was miles away, even though it was only around four hundred yards. The gun jostled in the cheap elastic strap, and she tried to remember if she’d checked the safety. It had been too long since Kendra had handled a weapon. She was growing sloppy.

  The medical bay stood there, pristine in the sunlight, and she bent down beside the ramp to the entrance, as if tying her shoelace. Her hand dipped into the jumpsuit, and she scanned the area while fiddling with her shoe as she gripped the gun, tugging it free.

  She casually placed it under the ramp and rose, dusting her pants off afterwards.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” The voice made her skin crawl.

  “I’m…” She didn’t need to turn to know John was aiming a gun at her. The air was thick with tension as she did, raising her hands. “I’m here to check on Andrew.”

  “Your boy toy is in quarantine. Didn’t you hear?” John asked, a grim smirk across his face. “I heard he might not make it.” He took a step toward her, and she fought every urge to use her training to disarm him and end this threat.

  “John, what are you doing?” Another voice, this one coming from none other than Reverend Shelley Morris. “Is that any way to treat one of our flock?”

  “Mary, she’s not one of us…” John stammered, lowering the gun.

  “She is only confused, John.” Morris’ gaze stuck on Kendra’s, as if locking wills with her. Kendra wished for the millionth time that they’d left her on the hospital rooftop in Eureka.

  “I saw her leaving the scene after the fire. I bet she caused it,” John said.

  “I wasn’t even near it. I was working, and when I saw everyone taking a break, I wanted to check on Andy,” she said as innocently as she could.

  “Return to work, Kendra. Perhaps you’d like to come over for dinner tonight? See how Tony and Val are doing?” Morris’ smile was predatory, and Kendra almost noticed a slur to her voice.

  “Maybe I’ll see you there,” she lied, walking away from the Saints and toward the gardens. A minute later she turned back, her heart pounding in her chest, to see if they were near the gun, but they were both gone. One less thing to worry about.

  She’d managed to do it. The rest was up to Andrew.

  EIGHT

  Andrew

  Andrew lay on a bunk in an examination room that had obviously been repurposed from one of Eden’s old crew quarters. He stared up at the room’s only source of illumination, a flat white light fixture flush against the ceiling. The bulkheads, deck, and ceiling were all bare, utilitarian grays. A rolling cart full of medical equipment sat beside him, beeping and humming as it monitored his vitals wirelessly via a band on his wrist. The door to a bathroom lay open to his left, a blank viewscreen visible on the wall at the foot of the double bunk where he lay.

  There was no way for him to tell the time, or to count how many hours had passed. Thomas Hartford had locked him in here soon after his quarantine had be
gun. He’d spent the hours since then contemplating what he had to do, and warring with himself over making a suicidal attack on the Saints’ residences and busting his daughter out of there now. Of course, he assumed it would never work. He had to stick to the plan. Once they knew where to run to, they could use Roland’s stash of guns to rescue Val and Tony. At least then they would stand a fighting chance when the time came to make their escape.

  Andrew’s skin crawled and his guts churned as he thought about leaving Val in the reverend’s care for the night. He didn’t know what had happened to her since she’d failed to show for dinner in the mess hall. What if they’d hurt her? What if she wasn’t drugged as Roland suggested, but actually a hostage being held against her will?

  Andrew’s hands balled into fists, fingernails biting into his palms. Panic surged inside him, and his entire being ached for the sweet release of a drink. Better yet, a whole bottle. A cold sweat bathed him, and soon he was shaking with impotent rage and the urgent need to do something. His heart raced, his chest hurt, and his breath came in short, shallow gasps. A feeling of impending doom and hopelessness crashed over him like a wave, and soon he was drowning in it.

  The feelings were all too familiar. He’d been helpless to save his buddies in Afghanistan, and he was helpless to save his daughter now. Hank, Mac, and Reese had died in that Humvee, just as Roland, Kendra, and Val would die too.

  He gave those thoughts a violent mental shove, pushing through the feelings with gritted teeth. No. He refused to give into this. They were going to make it. All of them.

  The panic attack gradually faded, and rationality came swirling in. Just in time.

  A knock came at the door, and it slid open with a swish. Thomas Hartford entered, smiling tightly at him and moving fast. “It’s time to go,” he whispered, looking pale and shaky.