In the Heart of Babylon

by S G D Singh

  Terrance looked around the group with apprehension. People were nodding, murmuring words of comfort.

  “But where,” the man blinked in confusion. “Where is Nadifa Duale? Where is his grandmother?”

  “Nadifa didn't make it back from The Resort last night,” Lukango said. “And we don't know where Ayeeyo is. When the tunnel opens, we're going back for them.”

  “Armed with nothing but knives?”

  Kevin, Mike, and Lukango shrugged. Lukango said, “Yeah. With nothing but knives.”

  Terrance saw Hanna then, and he blinked in surprise. His eyes fell on her rifle. “I might be able to do something about that,” he said.

  Terrance stood slowly and started walking from the room, with everyone else close behind. Hanna followed them down a different corridor that could only be described as disgusting, until they entered what was obviously a slaughterhouse. The smell of cattle was fading—or else overpowered by smoke—but there was no mistaking the saws, hooks, and packaging tools. Four recently hosed-down cement stalls stood against one wall, and Hanna saw water puddled around a drain at the center of the room. She thought of all the steaks she'd eaten down at The Resort and felt sick.

  Everyone stood, waiting, until Lukango stepped toward the wall where a line of five metal pipes hung and studied them. “These kill the cows? Why are there five?”

  Terrance shrugged, and Kevin snapped, “Motherfucker, why is there any of this shit?”

  Lukango nodded. “Fair point.”

  Terrance pointed at Hanna's rifle, and Zahi said, “May we?”

  Hanna handed the weapon over, dropping the remaining bullets into Zahi's outstretched palm. The hunting rifle had been nearly useless against the zombies before and would be completely useless soon enough.

  Mr. Jackson lifted down one of the metal pipes, and Hanna saw it was attached to the wall by a metal cord. “Point blank,” he said to Zahi. “Here.”

  Lukango placed the pipe against the cement floor. “If it ricochet—”

  Zahi fired the weapon before he finished, and the cord snapped free. Cement scattered across the wet floor beneath them. Stepping forward without a word, Zahi aimed the rifle at the ground as Lukango hurried to place the next pipe under the barrel. They continued like this until all five poles lay across the damaged floor. Zahi threw the rifle back to Hanna, and Darnell reached to help her catch it.

  Lukango lifted one of the poles off the ground then, turning its weight over in his hands, while Zahi picked up the remaining four.

  “These are essentially modified air guns,” Terrance told them. “Spring compression technology. Instead of releasing pellets, though, they release a single bolt large enough to kill cattle, then bring the attached bolt back as you work the weapon again. It's simple, easy, and effective.” He pulled back on the weapon and it folded in half. Then he slammed it back together again and with a deafening pop, a bolt as wide as Hanna's thumb and twice as long protruded from the wall in front of him. He pulled the weapon apart again, and the bolt flew back into the pipe with a soft click. “The mechanism will become damaged over time without cleaning, so run it under water when you get the chance.”

  A woman coughed, her voice hoarse as she said, “What exactly are you planning on doing down there?” More voices joined hers in protest. “Have you forgotten what happened last time? Have you forgotten your father, Lukango?”

  “If they think we're dead, maybe they'll open the gates,” someone said.

  “And maybe they won't!”

  Everyone began shouting at once, and Hanna wondered if things would be easier if they knew about the zombies. But it wasn't her place to tell them. Biting her tongue, she remained silent, waiting. Panic was probably not the best option right now.

  “Yes, I know what happened in April,” Lukango shouted at them, raising his arms, and everyone fell silent. Hanna looked at his face and knew she didn't want to know what happened in April. “They killed them and they'll do it again if they catch us. But Nadifa and his grandmother are still down there. Maybe some of the others. We don't know where the Klexters are, so it's important for everyone to stay out of sight while a few of us go back.”

  This was met with more protests, which Lukango and the other boys in suits ignored. Zahi stepped forward and guided the woman who couldn't stop coughing to a chair in the corner.

  “I have rations to last until next April,” Terrance said, getting everyone's sudden undivided attention. “I don't need them anymore, so we should build our strength up while we wait.” He turned, crossing the room to a rusted door in the far corner of the room. The mere idea of food was nearly enough to have Hanna running after the others, and it was too much for the crowd to resist. They followed, albeit reluctantly, turning to look back at the young people who remained.

  Lukango pulled his weapon apart easily, nodding in approval as a bolt hit the wall. Zahi handed two of the guns to Darnell and Kevin before turning to Hanna. “You serious about going back down there?” she asked, shoving the fourth and final gun toward her.

  Hanna said nothing as she took the weapon, meeting Zahi's intense gaze. The metal was rough to the touch, the weapon heavier than it looked, but it was easy to pull apart, requiring hardly any strength at all. Hanna was careful to aim it at the wall as she slammed the two sections back together, feeling the power of the weapon as the bolt smashed into the wall, and back again.

  Terrance returned, looking exhausted. “Is it true?” he asked, keeping his voice down. “Did people die last night at the banquet?”

  “Well… ” Mike said. “Yes and no.”

  “It's what you might call an un-dead situation,” said Kevin.

  Terrance looked confused, but didn't ask questions.

  “How many kills until these air guns malfunction?” Hanna asked, studying her weapon, but he ignored her, turning to straighten the saws on the table.

  “Hey, Military Man,” Mike said, waving his empty hands. “You got more of those weapons in the back or what?”

  Malik nodded in agreement, glancing at Hanna's weapon with a frown. “Yeah, man,” he said, turning to Lukango. “You can't leave us here.”

  “We need you to stay. We have three hours once that subway gate opens,” Lukango told them. “The five of us will go in, get out whoever we can get out, and make it back to the gate by eleven. You guys need to be here and help everyone stay out of sight. We don't know shit about shit, okay? Just stay put and stay away from the gates until we get back.”

  “This is some messed up shit,” Mike said. “You trust Zahi and some random white chick to watch your back, and we gotta stay here?”

  Zahi's eyes flashed, but she said nothing.

  “There are only five weapons, Mike, what the fuck do you want me to do?” Lukango sighed. “They know that place better than the rest of us. And you saw how she shoots for yourself.” He nodded toward Hanna, and she blinked in surprise.

  “Darnell just got here two days ago!”

  “And he was accepted into MIT three days ago! He has a better chance of figuring out these crazy cracker's high-tech shit than the rest of us, you saw what he did down there with that door.”

  Darnell looked down at his shoes, embarrassed by the attention.

  “Let it go,” Malik told Mike, twirling his butcher knife once. He glared at Hanna's weapon, pointing a finger at her. “You. Get my brothers and sister killed, and you best not come back here, understood?”

  Hanna didn't expect to come back. There had to be a way to destroy the whole fucking place, and she planned on finding it. She held out her rifle with its remaining two rounds to Mike, who raised an eyebrow at her. “For the Klexters,” she said. “You have the element of surprise. If you can get—”

  “You're still not in charge,” he said, crossing his arms. “Damn. So young and already a premeditated murderer. And they call us thugs. Shit… ”

  “Just take it,” Zahi told him. “She's right. You have knives, but these will give you a chance from a dis
tance.”

  “And stay out of sight,” Lukango finished. “Let Terrance look around. He's supposed to be alive.”

  The old man nodded, his misery apparent once again.

  “Let's go,” Kevin said, turning to leave. “If we miss the gate opening, no one's going anywhere.”

  Adam moved surprisingly fast through the wide vents, pulling himself along on his mechanical arms, and Nadifa worried the sound of scraping metal and moving gears would attract every infected person in the entire resort.

  “Two lefts,” he whispered, struggling to keep up and read the map in the terrible lighting provided by random grills in the ventilation. “And then a right.”

  They crawled for another ten minutes, the sound of their breathing, Adam's arms, and Nadifa's own pounding heart filling his ears. They heard scattered gunshots and occasional screams in the distance, and once close enough that Nadifa startled, hitting his head on the vent above him. He tried not to think about his grandmother being attacked by the infected. Or tortured by crazed scientists. Or…

  His only weapons were two knives, tied to his legs with strips of material from his discarded suit jacket. He was definitely not skilled enough to use these effectively, and Nadifa was willing to bet a twenty-course meal that the crazy doctor asshole was surrounded by armed guards.

  “It should be right up here,” he whispered to Adam, and the other boy slowed his movements, falling completely silent as he crawled to the next opening in the ventilation pipe. He leaned to look into the room below, and Nadifa shimmied until he lay alongside Adam, peering through the screen himself.

  He felt the blood leave his face and barely had time to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. What he saw just a few feet from his face, was like a scene from a horror movie no one would ever have the stomach to make, let alone watch.

  In the center of a room, surrounded by shelves filled with vials, books, and jars, partially-dissected infected human beings lay shackled to steel tables. Their bodies were pulled apart, held open with clamps to expose their beating hearts and glistening organs. Their bleeding eyes rolled wide, unseeing, their torn mouths open in silent screams.

  A man—the one with the sunken eyes who'd argued with Hanna's father at dinner the night before—wandered among the tables as if he strolled through a bakery display, trying to decide which dessert to try first. He held a ledger open at his chest, making occasional notes Nadifa could almost read. He was talking, but Nadifa couldn't see if the man was alone with his victims—dictating—or if he spoke to an enraptured-into-silence audience of henchmen and assistants who stood beyond his limited line of sight.

  Nadifa craned precariously forward, trying to see more of the room, and regretted this immediately. Shackled to the last three tables lay three of the missing prisoners, a kid named Martin and two women who'd been missing for weeks. He tried to remember their names, but couldn't.

  The three didn't appear to be infected. They could still get them out. But then again, Jamal had seemed fine at first after he was bitten.

  “Did you know,” the doctor said to one of the infected men struggling on a table, interrupting Nadifa's panicked thoughts. “Ninety percent of humans will die of stupidity. This is why my work is so vital. We must do our part to prevent this rise—this tsunami—of the idiot masses.” He turned to the next victim, a woman with red hair who looked almost completely decomposed, although she was still able to lift her head toward the doctor as he leaned over her and snap her teeth. “The good news is,” he smiled, making a note in his ledger, “the more we do for our cause, the less people believe we do it.” He turned to a blond man with half his forehead missing, the remains of his brain glistening within his cracked-open skull. “This is a glorious day for our great race, wouldn't you agree? Yes. With this gift, given to us by Almighty God Himself, we can now move forward with our natural selection doctrine at an accelerated rate that is beyond thrilling. There is nothing we cannot achieve.”

  He studied each patient closely as he continued down the line, making notes and nodding, talking to them as if they understood, as if they were eager and willing participants in their torture. At the last table in the corner, he stopped to lean over the face of the infected man, then turned away with a laugh as the man convulsed in his struggle to bite.

  Nadifa flinched back as he recognized him. Mitch, the man who sat at the head of the table at the first dinner the night before. Hanna and Adam's father.

  Nadifa looked across the grate and saw Adam had gone impossibly pale.

  “Breathe,” Nadifa whispered, gripping the boy's shoulder, and Adam nodded fast three times, closing his eyes as his chest rose and fell beneath the buckles and gears that secured his arms. “That's not him, okay? That's not your father. He's gone, Adam. He's gone.”

  Adam closed his eyes for a long minute, and then Nadifa whispered, “You good?”

  Adam raised a metal thumb, but he still looked like he might throw up.

  Nadifa turned back to the vent's grill and found the doctor directly below them at a standing desk, now obviously speaking into a recording device as he made more notes in his ledger.

  “It appears that our magnificent bacteria,” he said, “when not fed, begins to deteriorate at room temperature in a matter of hours, requiring freezing temperatures to survive. Extensive research remains to be done on the specifics of its life cycle, of course, but it is my firm belief that this bacteria can be isolated and controlled. Rapid infections—easily contained—can be deployed to select areas. The raw sample simply terminates life, as we saw with previous subjects, providing a valuable yet limited means of cleansing. The innovations that appeared after the bacteria was mixed with other, more complex preservative substances, however, offer true weaponization opportunities. The implications are simply limitless, gentlemen. This creature is truly astounding.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, face twisted in concentration, and Nadifa flinched back as the doctor's eyes seemed to meet his own. “We will need to name it, and I want to take this opportunity to put forth the name of the late great Mitch Taylor, who sacrificed so much to see this momentous day come to pass.” Here, the doctor took a moment to smirk at what remained of Adam and Hanna's father. The infected man continued to snap his teeth in the doctor's direction, his body pulling against his restraints.

  “Those who retrieved the sample from the glacier deserve credit as well, perhaps monetary compensation and eventual historical acknowledgment for their efforts toward our great cause, although the men themselves will, of course, never know of this.”

  He made a few more notes, then continued. “Last night's experiment was less-than-perfect, to be sure. The fault of inept men who have been dealt with accordingly, rest assured. I will include a detailed report of the tragedy here. However, I want it noted once again for the record that Mitch Taylor was voted in under my strong objections. It was Taylor who hired these meddlesome, incognizant men. It was Taylor who gave them full power to interfere with my projects. And this, gentlemen! This is the result! More than fifty dead!” The doctor cleared his throat, trembling, his face a deep shade of red. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Again, I am willing to take full responsibility for this tragedy in the end. We learned much from it, and it could, in any case and all truthfulness, not be avoided, being pre-ordained by God Himself.”

  At this, the doctor looked around the room with a wide smile that sent a chill through Nadifa.

  “We have much to learn still,” he said, his eyes shining with excitement, “and rest assured, we will continue with our research tirelessly, introducing the bacteria to a variety of substances until we perfect this remarkable life form's efficiency and reach the highest possible level of control over it. Updates of our progress will be available to you going forward, but until my research is complete, the disclosure of further details as to the exact nature of the bacteria will be withheld, for obvious security reasons. Please expect my proposal for funds on your desks by Mon
day morning, and in the meantime rest well, gentlemen, knowing that our mission is blessed and cannot fail now. Divine victory will be ours—is ours.”

  Nadifa watched the doctor place the recorder on the desk and make one final note before closing the ledger. Straightening his lab coat, he turned to the shelf behind him and opened a drawer with care. When he turned, Nadifa felt his blood go cold. The time for indecisively sitting and watching was over.

  The doctor held a syringe filled with yellow liquid. And he was carrying it toward Martin.

  The kid watched the doctor, with wide eyes, and the two women began to tremble as tears streamed from their eyes. None of them bothered to beg, defenseless within their restraints.

  Nadifa was blinded by rage. Who was this man, and what right did he have to reduce another human being to helplessness? The injustice of the entire situation was too much to bear. Too much for anyone to have to bear. No human being had the right to subjugate another, to humiliate another. How dare this man operate such a facility in the land of the free? How dare any of them force people to endure even more humiliation, after countless generations of oppression? Stolen. Tortured, brutalized, criminalized. Kept down on their knees with their heads hung, without the choice to die on their feet.

  No. Fuck no.

  Hadn't Nadifa promised he would never stand by while another innocent person died?

  Nadifa hit the vent's grill with both fists, screaming his determination into the room as he rolled forward, his breath leaving him as his back hit the desk with a resounding crash. He rolled to his feet, one of his knives in his hand, and lunged for the doctor, who'd spun to face him, the deadly syringe held in front of him like a shield.

  “What is this?” The doctor's smile was the definition of contemptuous. “A rescue attempt?”

  Nadifa caught a shadow passing by the window to the hallway behind Dr. Kaiser, and then the door opened silently. Ayeeyo slipped silently into the room. Nadifa nearly dropped his knife at the sight of her, alive and apparently unharmed. It was a reaction that might've gotten one of them killed, but the doctor's attention was diverted by a second body falling onto the desk from the ceiling.