“Just kill me already, Gabriel. I’m tired. I’ve had enough. Get on with it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” he deadpanned. “You don’t deserve a quick death. You see, you took away everything dear to me. I had a life in there. I had a purpose. You destroyed it. You destroyed it all!” His hand swung out in a fist and connected with the wall. I heard a crack, but Gabriel didn’t flinch. “Hurts, I suppose.” He regarded his hand cooly and continued. “We’re going to start with the mouse. I’ll admit, you had me pinned with the first one. There was no way I was getting close enough to that lab to do a thing to little Odysseus. But Athena? Well, you didn’t exactly leave her closely guarded.”
“What did you do?”
“I left your little warrior goddess a little gift in her bloodstream. It’s so cute, by the way. You humans and your naming, I mean. They’re mice, for fuck’s sake. But you had to go and name them. Always lending greatness to the most insignificant things. But as you said, ‘what did I do?’ Athena’s been implanted with a slow acting poison. She’s been dying since the day you let her out of that cage, Jacob.” He pulled a tablet from his pocket and pulled up the feed from Athena’s camera. “I’d say that her time has just about run out. Let’s watch together, shall we?”
He put one massive arm around my neck, the crook of it resting across the back of my head, and held the tablet in front of me. My captors released their grips and stepped back, presumably to take in the show. On the tablet Athena ran through a grassy field, photographs being transmitted back to the shelter fast enough that it looked like a movie. I couldn’t see much outside of her field of view, but she must have stood on hindquarters because the grass was suddenly replaced with black sky. It looked as if a celestial painter had thrown streaks of white paint across a canvas. Specks of white dotted the edges of the streak, and it occurred to me that I was looking at the Milky Way. It would be beautiful if I didn’t know what was about to happen.
Athena fell back to earth and the camera frame started shaking. I could see the camera’s point of view moving forward as the mouse tried to escape her invisible predator. A few moments later, the camera fell sideways, its mount dead in the dirt. I gritted my teeth and swallowed hard.
“Don’t worry, Jacob.” George replaced the tablet in his pocket and patted me on the head with his free hand. “She wasn’t in pain. I made sure of that. After all, I’m not a monster.”
“The photos.”
“Oh, I’m going to leave those alone. You see, the trick with getting people to do what you want is that you have to make them think that it’s their idea. Deleting the photos would be too obvious of an answer. People would get suspicious, they would demand an investigation, yada yada yada. I don’t have time for that. Your people will wake up in the morning and discover that something killed Athena. Something invisible and unknowable.”
“You think that will foil their plans? For all you know, that will just motivate them to go out and retrieve her body. They’ll assume it was exposure or something else simple that isn’t a threat to humans.” My muscles were aching from being kept in the same position for such a long time. I yearned to move, but Gabriel’s massive arms held me steady.
“That’s where you come in. Welcome to the club, Jacob. You’ll be the principal actor in ensuring that every last human in the shelter returns to the virtual world. Never again will they have to struggle with, well, anything, really.” His colleagues laughed behind me.
“You really have lost it, you know.” I did a mental scan of my body while I spoke, searching for a way to break free. “I’ll never help you, Gabriel. You should just throw me into the furnace now and save yourself the trouble.”
“And have someone discover the bones of the beloved leader?” Gabriel gasped in mock shock, pressing a hand to his chest. “I could never. Once again, investigations. Plus, your grandson would be at my throat in no time flat. That’s one smart kid, Jacob. I’m not sure where he got his brains, but he probably had this figured out a week ago. I see the way he looks at me when we pass in the halls. Too bad he won’t get to use those brains for very much longer.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” The icy terror that gripped me before was gone, the fires of rage replacing it. “You will not touch him.”
Gabriel stepped around me and tapped his chin. “You have to wonder, Jacob, why the Founders were so uptight about chemicals in the shelters. I imagine that they were mostly concerned about one of you trying to off yourself, but what they really should have been concerned with is how many chemicals can be used to kill that aren’t locked up in a cabinet. Luckily for them, I concerned myself with just that. If you do anything, and I mean anything in an attempt to expose me and my comrades, who knows how much of that poison could make it into the food supply? Or the veins of a loved one.” He cast an appraising look down at his stolen body. “Though if it comes to that, I’d much prefer killing them myself. Don’t worry, I’ll take you last. That way you’ll know what it’s like to lose everything before you die.”
My jaw worked, adrenaline coursing through my veins. My instincts screamed at me to leap on him, to punch, and kick, and tear his throat out. The bastard had already threatened my family’s lives once before, and now he was using them as leverage to coerce me. It pained me to admit it, but there was nothing I could do. For now.
“Fuck you.” I spat.
Gabriel laughed. “Now where have I heard that before? It’s just as cute as it was then, Jacob. Now if you’ll be so kind-” My vision disappeared as a black cloth bag was shoved over my head. “My friends will return you to your quarters. Cause them any trouble and they’ll haul you right back to me so I can put this body’s capabilities to good use. You look like you already had someone take a swing at you once today.” He pressed a finger to the lower half of my face, still caked with flecks of blood from Frank’s head bashing against it. I resisted the urge to turn and bite him. “I’d be happy to make that look like a flea bite.”
I said nothing and walked from the room, frogmarched by Gabriel’s companions. When we reached the door to my quarters, they pressed me against the wall. I felt the cool kiss of a gun against the nape of my neck. Gabriel had obviously been up to more than I thought. Neither person spoke, but the message was clear enough. If I moved or took off the hood before their footsteps had faded away, they would shoot me. I nodded my understanding, and they took off.
I opened my door and sat on my bed, intending to retrieve my first aid kit to set my nose. Instead, it was as if a rock was lifted from my shoulders. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I didn’t try to hold them back as I sobbed. A keening wail broke free from my throat and I grabbed a pillow to muffle the noise. How stupid I was. Everything I had worked so hard to achieve was pointless. Yet again, the certainty that I had any control over my fate had fallen to a goddamned machine. It was too much. Too fucking pointless.
I don’t know for how long I cried. Silent screams of pain wracked my body as anger and sadness overtook me and I felt my jaw pop when the muscles couldn’t take the strain anymore. My bloodied nose made it even harder to breathe, and dry heaves eventually forced me to steady my breath. I grabbed a waste container and vomited up what little dinner remained in my stomach. It felt like being stabbed. I rolled my eyes before my body forced another agonizing gagging fit. I was getting a little too used to that feeling.
When it felt like the storm had finally passed, I reached for a towel and my hand mirror. My face was a mess. My nose sat crooked unnaturally. I would have to set it. Below the nose my face ran red with streaks of blood mixed with vomit. My eyes were set deep in their sockets, dark bruising underlining the fact that I hadn’t rested or slept in far too long. I used the towel to wipe the fetid liquid off my skin as carefully as I could. Once I was clean enough, I grasped the end of my swollen nose and counted to three. The feeling of the cartilage sliding back into place was unpleasant, but not terribly painful. I covered the area with medical tape and that w
as that. It wouldn’t heal completely straight, but having an attractive visage was hardly my top concern these days.
Exhaustion setting in, I double checked the locking mechanism on my door and left the rest for the morning. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Chapter Seven
My head was pounding. Without opening my eyes, I reached for the first aid kit and tried to feel around for a packet of painkiller gel until I realized that it wasn’t my head. Someone was bashing their fists against the door hard enough for me to feel the vibration from my bed. I exhaled and pushed myself up slowly.
“Wait a goddamned minute!” I shouted at my human alarm clock. My real clock displayed that it was half-past five in the morning. I blinked, hard. I had only gotten something like three hours’ sleep. Whoever was knocking on my door had better have a damned good reason for it.
“Jacob, come quick! There’s a problem with Athena!” I recognized the voice as one of the younger members of the expedition team. Some kid named Thomas, or something. I punched the door switch and leaned against the frame. Thomas reeled back at the sight of my injuries. “What…?”
“Come on, kid. I’ve had a rough night. What’s going on with Athena.” I knew perfectly damn well what was wrong, but I had to play my part well in this farce.
“Her camera’s stuck. It’s like she’s not moving at all. Just grass.”
I sighed. “Okay. Show me what’s going on.”
The exploration team was clustered around a terminal. From a distance, I could see the same view I had left last night. Athena’s camera lay on its side, the lens pointing blindly forward in the grass. Every couple of seconds I could see black specks flit across the camera. Flies. I guess that was proof that more than one form of life survived in the new world. I waited for one of the team to point out the obvious, but it seemed like they were all too stunned to speak.
“She must have died during the night,” I offered.
“So it would seem.” Jason rubbed his hand down his face and stretched his chin. “Do we have any data on what happened?”
“No, sir.” Thomas tapped at his tablet a few times. “The tracking chip only shows us where she went. I wish we had thought to monitor her vital signs before we sent her out.”
“It never occurred to us that she would just… drop dead.” Jason pressed fingers to his temples. “If she was going to be killed by anything, we assumed it would be a predator and the camera could tell us what happened. Goddamnit.”
“Regardless of what happened, it is what it is.” I arranged my face into a mask of determination. “We’ll take what images we have and analyze them. If you feel it best, we will arrange a brief service for the mouse.” It was curious how easy it was for me to distance myself from the situation, survival instinct forcing a script not of my own making from my lips. “You’ll break the news gently, and quietly. We mustn’t cause too much of a disturbance. This doesn’t change the plan. We will move forward as intended.”
“What about-?” Nicole spoke, but I put up a hand to silence her.
“That’s all. I have duties to attend to. Please excuse me.” Though outwardly I was stonefaced, anxiety frayed at the edges of my mind. If the jubilation of Athena’s release was any sign, the news of her death would blow a hole in the morale of the people. On top of the covert campaign George had been running, I had the sinking feeling that I was about to get my ass handed to me. My mind raced through a way to ward off the coming storm, but it was rapidly becoming clear to me I was going to have to go through it.
As I walked through the halls, I felt the eyes of everyone I passed on me. Some of their gazes reflected puzzlement, others outright anger. Clearly the knowledge that Athena was dead was far more widespread than I assumed. First on my list was to stop by the infirmary. That was the wrong decision. A small group of onlookers milled around in front of the infirmary doors, their voices joining in an amalgamation of concern and anger. I ducked my head and tried to sneak by unnoticed, but no such luck.
“Jacob! What’s going on in there? Why won’t anyone let us in?” A voice from the crowd rose above all the others.
“Jacob! Why is Frank Garvey sitting by his wife’s bedside and why the hell is she on a ventilator?”
“Have you heard the mouse died? I saw it on someone’s tablet this morning.”
I shut my eyes, my hand on the doorknob. Answering them would only provoke their anger further. As tempting as it was to stick around and defend myself, no good would come of it. I turned the knob sharply and pushed the door open. The moment I stepped into the infirmary, Shannon ran up to me, a mask in hand.
“Stay back, Jacob.”
“Fuck, Shannon. What the hell happened overnight?” Allison was still on the ventilator, her breath rising and falling with mechanical precision. Frank was sitting by her side, his hand clasped around hers and her eyes fixed on her still form. He was clad in surgical personal protective equipment, looking for all the world more like a statue than a man fearing for his wife’s life. Allison looked like she was dead. Had it not been for the beeping of the machines, I would have believed it. Shannon motioned me away from the grieving man into the infirmary’s office.
“She’s got some kind of virus, Jacob. Something bad. She had another attack during the night. Thanks to the ventilator, we were able to sedate her right away and regulate her breathing, but her system is struggling. We’ve been waiting on you before telling anyone anything, but if the size of that crowd outside is any indication, I’d say that word has gotten out.”
“How bad is the virus?” If the virus was spread through close contact, who knew how many were already infected?
“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s bad. The doctors are trying to figure out what exactly it is, but what we do know is that it is at least spread by droplets. That means any body fluids that are thrown into the air will carry a viral load more than big enough to infect.”
“Like sweat. Or spit.” I felt the color draining out of my face. My eyes flicked back and forth as I tried to figure out how many people had come in contact with Allison over the last couple of days. How many people those people had come into contact with. If this was so severe it was possible we would lose the entire shelter before we even set foot outside.
“Precisely. At the request of the doctors, I’d like to do a quick exam on you.” She retrieved a thermometer and stethoscope from a drawer.
The thought hit me like a hammer blow. “Daisy.” Oh, god.
“What about her?”
“Her fever.”
Shannon paused, the diagnostic tools forgotten on the desk in front of her. “Yes. I know. So do the doctors.”
“You’ve got to tell them,” I breathed.
“No, right now I have to examine you. Look Jacob, I know that this is a lot for you but you have to understand where I’m coming from right now, okay? Right now it is my sworn duty to see that the leader of the shelter isn’t about to drop dead. I’ll figure out how to tell a mother her daughter is probably going to suffocate later.”
My heart ached for the young woman. She had clearly done so much to assume this kind of responsibility since she came back to the real world. Instead of rewarding her, circumstance had presented her with a nightmare far worse than the one before.
“I’m so sorry, Shannon.”
She shook her head. “Shut up, Jacob. Shirt off.” I jumped a little as she pressed the cold disk of the stethoscope against my ribcage and my back. “Deep breaths.” When she was satisfied that my heart was strong and my breaths clear, she uncapped the disposable thermometer and stuck it underneath my tongue. It was an odd moment of calm. Shannon waited until the thermometer beeped and took it out of my mouth. “98.6. You’re fine. Get out of here.”
“What’ll I tell everyone?”
She sighed and closed her eyes. It was obvious that she hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past few days, if any at all. Black bruises underlined her eyes and her hair was disheveled. I co
uld not fathom what hell she was going through. “I don’t know Jacob, tell them whatever the hell you want. I’m too busy trying to keep that woman alive.”
“Fair enough. Thank you, Shannon.”
The moment I left the infirmary, the mob set themselves on me anew. They demanded an explanation. They wanted to know why they hadn’t been told earlier that something serious had happened to Allison. They accused me of covering up Athena’s death. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, the very next words were overshadowed by someone trying to fill it for me. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly enough to make the group jump.
“I understand that you have a lot of questions.” I motioned the crowd to stand away from me and finally felt like I had some room to breathe again. “I’m just finding out the facts of what’s going on myself, so I beg your patience as the situation may change. Yes, Allison Garvey has fallen quite ill, as is obvious to you. She is suffering from an illness, the nature of which we know very little about.” The crowd burst into chatter again, and I yelled for quiet. “We ask that anyone who exhibits symptoms of a respiratory illness to present themselves to Shannon and the fine physicians we have here as soon as possible. Symptoms we are looking for include fever, cough, any difficulty breathing, and exhaustion. I will work closely with several others to establish a quarantine for anyone exhibiting these symptoms. As for the second mouse…”
The crowd had gone completely silent, their eyes boring into me as I spoke. I felt the impulse to turn tail and run back into the infirmary, but stayed put. “As for Athena, I can confirm that her current camera transmissions suggest that she passed in the night. We are carefully reviewing the camera footage as I speak to determine her cause of death. There is no evidence as of now to suggest that it was due to an environmental problem.” More shouts and yelling from the crowd. See, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth, Jacob. I thought to myself.
Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 Page 5