Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2

by Elizabeth McLaughlin

  “You’re too late, you know. Your ‘near death’ experience outside has only helped to convince these people that they were better off under my care.”

  “Mhmm.” I tried my best to arrange my face into studied nonchalance. Act too frightened and it would only piss him off. Call his bluff and, well, there was a very real chance I wasn’t going to make it through the night.

  “Those burns look nasty.”

  “Could be worse, I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders. The treatments the medical team had been giving me over the past couple of days had worked wonders. I was nowhere near fully healed but it no longer felt as if my body was constantly on fire. That plus a steady diet of painkillers and I was even able to sit up in bed and read. Surely I was the strongest lion in the jungle. Or the most geriatric.

  “Thanks to the outbreak you brought into this place, my plans to reconnect everyone to the virtual world have been…delayed. I thought about just working you meatbags until you dropped, but that wouldn’t make me a very popular leader. Plus, people seem to be doing a fine job of shuffling off the mortal coil by themselves. The stink of it is something else, though. It’s funny how weak you organics are.”

  “I’m sure. Want me to sneeze on you and you can experience it personally?”

  A tiger’s grin in the darkness. Bared teeth that sent a chill down my spine. Gabriel might have been able to fool others, but it was clear to me that he was insane. If my life hadn’t been in immediate danger I might have felt pity for him. “So, so cocky. Right until the very end, Jacob Alvaro. Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do is when I have the pods operational again?”

  “I don’t know asshole, dance a jig?” The gangster routine was beyond stale now. Just kill me and get it over with.

  “You’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes, surely you remember this then. I’m going to burn you, Jacob. I’m going to burn the heart out of you. I’m going to take everything you hold dear and take it from you. Piece by piece. And then I’ll step back, and let you fall.”

  “Every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned villain.”

  He chuckled darkly. “Precisely.”

  “I do look forward to that Gabriel but if you’d be so kind, I’d like to go to sleep. It’s late.”

  “Of course, you need your rest,” he tutted. He reached one massive paw forward and ruffled my hair before trailing his fingers down my arm. He ripped the IV line out of my hand and I hissed as blood started spurting from the site. “Sweet dreams.” He turned but before he could leave I worked up what little spit I could and spat at him. The spittle hit the back of his head and he stopped cold, wiping the spot off with a hand. I expected another threat, or at the very least a biting quip, but he simply walked away. The gauntlet had been thrown. Let the games begin.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I slept like a dead man and was rudely awoken by the prick of a needle in my forearm.

  “Hey!” I yanked my arm away but the thief had already filled a syringe with fresh blood.

  “Hush, you great big idiot.” I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and saw the bedraggled form of Phoebe Rickman at my side. “It’s only blood. You’ve got some left.”

  “Phoebe.” My voice cracked unexpectedly and I cleared my throat.

  “Yeah, it’s me. The virus hasn’t killed me off yet.”

  “Hi.”

  She looked at me dubiously. “Yes….hi. You doing all right there Jacob?”

  I’m still not sure what happened, but all the hardness and nonchalance I had held for the past couple of days broke away. The relief I felt at seeing Phoebe alive and well was overwhelming and I let the tears flow. “Yes. I’m all right. You have no idea how good it is to see you Phoebe.”

  She discharged the capsule full of my blood into one of the testing machines and paused as she read the output. “It’s good to see you too. I figured that you hadn’t run off on me. You’re too courageous for that. Plus, you know that if I ever caught you that I’d cut off your balls for it.”

  “Hah! That I do.”

  “The good news is that your blood tells me that you are healthy as the hypothetical horse. I think we can get you up and moving today. There are crutches and a brace if you’ll be needing them.”

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and raised the bed. “What’s the bad news?”

  Phoebe turned and took the seat next to my bed. I was starting to feel like a priest of old, laying in my holy chamber while the townsfolk came to confess their sins. “It’s bad, Jacob.” She exhaled deeply and continued. “Ten more dead this morning. Ten. You have no idea how fast this virus burns through people. It’s every hour of every day that I’m losing people. We’ve already lost some of the volunteers you gave us. The strain on the trained medical staff is getting to be a lot. With the loss of Sophia Caruso, my people are getting spooked.”

  “How bad is it, toward the end?”

  She looked at me. “It is as if people turn into something out of a horror movie. Once the fever begins, we strap them down. It doesn’t matter if they’re still aware of who they are, or where they are. The process is different for everyone, but most lose their personalities to animalistic reactions. They become unbelievably strong, Jacob. I’ve seen a patient almost tear two inch thick restraints from his wrists. I’ve seen what happens when they do manage to get free. I’m starting to think that George has the right idea.”

  “Speaking of George, I’d like to talk to you about something. If you have the time.”

  “I can make the time. I could use a couple minutes out of there anyway. There’s nothing they can’t handle for the time being.”

  Phoebe received the story much the same as Shannon had. She kept her face fairly neutral, thoughtfully considering each part of the story. When I had finished speaking, she only said one thing.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Stall him, but not so obviously that he catches on. I’ve seen what that body can do and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who would put his plan in danger. Start arming yourself and your people. Scalpels, sedatives, a heavy rock if you think it would do any good. Don’t go anywhere alone. I’m sure that word of our conversation will reach him soon, if it hasn’t already. If you can get the prep team for the expedition to meet with me one by one, I’ll do my best to make sure we gather supplies for an exodus.”

  She scoffed. “You want us to leave the shelter still? I can’t imagine how you’d go about it. Hell, in another week’s time, I’m not sure if there are going to be enough of us left to get out of here.”

  “It’s the only way. We have to leave. Staying here will only lead to death or slavery.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  I was allowed to get up and try walking with crutches. The medical folks kept me on a steady diet of painkillers and anti-inflammatories along with a topical anabolic steroid. Supposedly it accelerated muscle regeneration. I was allowed to go wherever I wanted—though I was heavily cautioned to avoid the field hospital—as long as I returned to the infirmary by dusk. With my current rate of progress, the medical team hoped to discharge me back to my room by the end of the week. That was incentive enough for me to follow their orders.

  To my surprise, I was largely greeted with friendly faces and open arms. Word of my ordeal had spread throughout the shelter and even those who had been staunchly opposed to my leadership seemed impressed that I had survived the outside world. They told me that I must have someone looking out for me, that I was the luckiest man in the world. Who was I to correct them? Even Gabriel stayed out of my way. I made sure to follow my own rules, never traveling alone in the guise of wanting someone to look after my condition. That ruse would only work for so long. The treatments available to us meant that I really would be ready to return to my normal routine by the end of the week. I took advantage of the excuse to disseminate my plans as widely as I could. Regardless of Gabriel’s self-installation as the leader of the shelter, there were still many people who gave weig
ht to my words.

  The virus had devastated the shelter far worse than Phoebe had told me. While I had been exiled the quarantine had been maintained, but a strict curfew and swift punishment of rule breakers had instilled fear into the people. No one was allowed to wander the halls freely at any point; they had to request permission to leave their quarters. If granted one of Gabriel’s supports would appear at their door to supervise their exercising or trip to the mess for food. Side trips were not allowed. While the isolation of sick patients did a decent enough job of slowing the spread, the restriction of information from the field hospital had given birth to rumors. Some said that the sickness was engineered by the Founders-a kill switch to be thrown if the shelter ever tried to leave. Others believe that I was somehow responsible, that daring to send Odysseus and Athena outside had brought back some kind of plague that was going to be the death of us all. There were theories far more wild than those, but they aren’t recounting. If I had unlimited resources I might have suggested that the medical team brief the public but it simply wasn’t possible. So I decided to do it myself.

  “It seems to have a mortality rate somewhere between twenty and thirty percent. Of course, we don’t know if that’s due to quarantining or if that’s how it would be if we all still had contact.” I was walking with Ezekiel, a middle-aged man who had volunteered to be my escort for the afternoon. He lived with his partners Seher and Iain. They had all been spared, but Iain’s parents both were sick.

  “I hear that people are turning feral towards the end. Somebody told me that one of the medical technicians got a chunk taken straight out of their arm when they were trying to sedate a patient.” He noticed my labored breathing and offered a gowned arm that I took gratefully.

  “I can’t speak to that particular incident but yes. There are some people who seem to experience increased aggression towards the end stage of the disease. It’s not everyone, it seems to be more prevalent in younger, stronger patients. The older ones just go to sleep.” His face relaxed at that, wrinkles disappearing from behind thick glasses. At least his loved ones wouldn’t suffer, should the worst befall them.

  “And you want to leave the shelter?”

  “I think it’s what we have to do. I’m living proof that you can step outside and live, this aside.” I gestured towards the lower half of my body. “If we stay in here the likelihood that we all die from this thing is too great.”

  Ezekiel worried at a fingernail through thick gloved hands. “Do you really believe that? George says he can get Gabriel back up and running. Get us all back in the pods, and we can go back to our lives.”

  “Son, I believe it with all my heart. Even if what George says is true, do you really want to take the chance? We’ve never experienced anything like this. Hell, I doubt even our parents did. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live free than take my chances while I’m plugged into an overgrown video game. It’s beautiful out there.”

  I spent the rest of our walk together regaling him with tales of the outside world. Though Ezekiel was closer to my age than Marcus’s, he was still a shelter baby and never had the chance to see the sun rise or the glow of the stars at night. I painted for him a picture of a happy and fruitful life, one where he could raise children of his own if he so chose. He marveled at each new detail. Where there really stars in the sky too numerous to count? Was it really true that there were animals out there humans had never encountered? Our talk reminded me of the days when Fiona was young and her endless questions peppered my days.

  “The real question I have for you is, will you help us? I’ve asked a few trusted people to start gathering supplies. When the time is right, we will leave this place and say goodbye to our old lives.”

  He contemplated the option silently. “I’ll have to talk it over with them.” Meaning his partners. “If it were just me, I’d be right there with you, but I have Iain and Seher’s wellbeing to consider. I promise you that I will have an answer by tomorrow morning.”

  Our circuit of the shelter’s hallways had brought us back to the beginning and Ezekiel dropped me off at the infirmary and bade me goodnight. I pushed one of the twin doors open but stopped when I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. About fifty yards ahead of me, hidden in the shadows of the corridor, stood Gabriel. I hid my reaction as best I could but I knew that he must have heard everything. I gave him a cursory nod and went to retire for the night. That was going to come back to haunt me. One could only hope that whatever his plan was that it would wait until I could get people outside. Safeguarding that mission was our top priority. If that meant that I had to play the red cloth to Gabriel’s bull, so be it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jason, Nicole, and the other remaining members of the exit team met up with me in the mess hall. They didn’t sit with me, deferring to the social distancing rules that remained in effect, but visited my table briefly to convey their plans. It was agreed that we would convene in front of the shelter’s inner door after lights out that night to discuss the plan. I was happy to learn that they had been hard at work. The minute it was confirmed that I hadn’t died in the fire outside, they had been stockpiling supplies, squirreling them away. Thankfully theft was commonplace enough at this point that Gabriel didn’t think it strange.

  Word was spreading quickly that people wanted to leave. Gabriel’s attempts at winning over the populace had fallen flat with the continued enforcement of quarantine. His goon squad had taken up the position of enforcement. Anyone who defied Gabriel’s orders found themselves having an unpleasant day. Defiant sentiments were quashed as quickly as they could emerge, which only served to spark more dissonance from the status quo. The valiant efforts of the medical staff were losing the battle. We had already lost one highly trained physician and there was no way to train new medics and technicians fast enough. Trying to turn the tide was futile. We had to forge another path.

  I finally got my chance to see Fiona, through thick metal doors and a window so small I had to bend down to see her face. She had lost a lot of weight, her cheekbones were thin and the bags under her eyes were pronounced. Through the door I could hear her labored breathing and her eyes shone with fever.

  “I’m okay, Dad.” She pressed a hand against the glass and smiled a thin smile. “This is definitely not great, but I'm not about to keel over anytime soon. Have you seen Eliza?”

  Forget the fact that people were dying all around her. My little girl only worried about her beloved. “Yeah. She came to visit me in the infirmary.”

  “Is she okay? She always puts on a good show when she comes to see me but I don't buy it.”

  “She's worried about you. I told her to knock it off, that you would be just fine.”

  She laughed, which turned into a wracking cough. “Okay,” she gasped, “this sucks a whole lot.”

  “I bet it does. Listen, there's something I need to do. When the time comes I need you to just go along with it, okay? Eliza and Marcus will be there to guide you through.”

  “You're going to take them outside.” There was no shock, only a finality in her voice that gave me chills. She wasn't stupid. Any attempts to leave the shelter could only include one kind of people—the healthy.

  “I'm going to take you with us. I haven't figured out yet how to do it, but I'll come up with something.” This was the ultimate catch-22. We couldn't take the sick. Who was I to flout that rule by except for my own daughter? Even if I did, when I was caught it would be the end of me. Not just as shelter leader, but as a citizen of our microcosmic nation. I would be exiled or worse. First things first. “Is there any way you can hide something in there?”

  She looked around as if making sure no one would overhear our conversation. “I think so. I’ve been a good patient, most of the med techs have been pretty friendly towards me. They won’t ask too many questions.”

  “Supplies. Antipyretics, supplementary oxygen, really anything you can get your hands on.”

  “Okay.” Fiona furrowe
d her brow, confused. “You said Eliza will be here to make it all make sense?”

  “I hope so. I gotta go, hon. They’re going to notice that I’m missing and I’m sure I’m being watched. As are you. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. I love you, sweetheart. No matter what, we’re going to get through this.”

  She nodded and departed. The treatments for my burns had worked a kind of magic. I felt almost back to my old self again . With my improved health the physicians relaxed my restrictions. I was now allowed to come and go as I pleased, as long as I reported back for a daily checkup. Being cooped up in the infirmary had taken a toll on my mental health. I missed my runs around the shelter, and normal meals with others. Given quarantine the latter was impossible but I could at least reproduce a facsimile of the former. I ditched my crutches against a wall and set off at a light jog. My legs burned but held, the muscles protesting the increase in force. My breathing fell in synch with my pace and I pushed forward. I made it back to the infirmary and touched the end of the corridor before doubling back.

  Being able to run quieted my mind for the first time in weeks. I didn’t realize how essential the exercise was to my mental well being. I passed a couple of people in the hallways as the minutes passed and barely noticed them. At the opposite end of the corridor I stopped to catch my breath. The hallways were empty now, shelter residents having wrapped up their days and returned to their quarters. It brought back memories of before I had freed them from the virtual world. Those lonely days where I longed for the companionship of others felt so long ago. Now I almost wished for them again. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and set off again. My jog brought me to the inner door of the shelter. I traced the grooves cut into the steel and smiled. With luck, soon they would be nothing but a memory. I stretched and yawned. Time to head back to my infirmary bed for some rest.