“Okay.”
“Okay? Just..okay?”
Another thin smile. He was trying to look friendly but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. I wasn’t off the hook yet. “You’re not nearly as isolated as you think, Jacob. I’ve been hearing stories ever since you brought us back to the shelter. As has Mr. Evans. I daresay you’ve become something of a legend with your people. Now I can’t say that I entirely believe or understand the idea that such an advanced being as Gabriel could have taken over someone’s mind. Nor can I really sign on to the idea that no one noticed that George was behaving strangely.” He paused. “Let me go speak to someone for a moment.” Alexander stood and whisked away the curtains, revealing four men, each armed with a shock stick. All four of them gave a brief nod in greeting and lowered the shock sticks, keeping their thumbs on the triggers.
When Alexander returned, I was surprised to see Eliza and Marcus with him. They both ran to me and Marcus caught me up in a strong embrace.
“Jesus Grandpa. What the hell happened?”
Before I could open my mouth, Alexander held up his hand. “I don’t want to march you out of here in handcuffs, Jacob. You’ve done a lot for us and until now I can’t think of a single time you’ve sought to cause harm. That said, the couple of days are going to be rough. I hear you’ve done your job in trying to convince people that we need to leave the shelter. If we’re going to transition out of this place successfully, I need to maintain order.”
“Of course.”
“We will need every able body we’ve got. We still have too many ill. I am to understand that we’ve lost five more in the past four hours.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve had a discussion with Mr. Evans and a few others. For now, we’re going to confine you to your quarters with a round-the-clock guard. I need some assurance from you that we won’t have any more issues. Otherwise I’m going to have to take some more drastic measures that I’d rather not consider. Understood?”
I held my hands, the stabilizing patch Shannon had attached to me protesting as I did so. “You’ll get no further trouble from me.”
Eliza cleared her throat. “Alexander has been kind enough to let the two of us escort you. You’ll be supplied with three square meals a day and an hour of exercise time. They’re also going to let you bathe and shower by request-you’ll be escorted by at least one other person every moment you’re out of your room.”
“No more trips to the infirmary that aren’t absolutely required, either.” Marcus helped me off the bed. “If you need medical care, you can request it from your tablet.”
“Got it.”
Before they left my room, Eliza shooed Marcus outside to talk with me. “What’s the plan, boss?” She had warmed considerably to me since this whole thing began. We weren’t quite friends, but I could count on her as an ally. I had a feeling I was going to need as many as I could get.
“We transition outside.”
“That’s it? You think it’s going to be as peaceful as that?”
I sighed and put my head in my hands. “I don’t know, Eliza. I just murdered a man. I think people are scared, and scared people frequently do stupid things. I tried my best to get them moving I that direction, but I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. In the past two days…it’s been a lot.”
She reached out a hand and gingerly prodded the stabilizing patch on my ribs. I hissed and swatted her hand away. “I guess you have! Touchy, touchy.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Alexander returned, I was surprised to see Eliza and Marcus with him. They both ran to me and Marcus caught me up in a strong embrace.
“Jesus Grandpa. What the hell happened?”
Before I could open my mouth, Alexander held up his hand. “I don’t want to march you out of here in handcuffs, Jacob. You’ve done a lot for us and until now I can’t think of a single time you’ve sought to cause harm. That said, the couple of days are going to be rough. I hear you’ve done your job in trying to convince people that we need to leave the shelter. If we’re going to transition out of this place successfully, I need to maintain order.”
“Of course.”
“We will need every able body we’ve got. We still have too many ill. I am to understand that we’ve lost five more in the past four hours.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve had a discussion with Mr. Evans and a few others. For now, we’re going to confine you to your quarters with a round-the-clock guard. I need some assurance from you that we won’t have any more issues. Otherwise I’m going to have to take some more drastic measures that I’d rather not consider. Understood?”
I held my hands, the stabilizing patch Shannon had attached to me protesting as I did so. “You’ll get no further trouble from me.”
Eliza cleared her throat. “Alexander has been kind enough to let the two of us escort you. You’ll be supplied with three square meals a day and an hour of exercise time. They’re also going to let you bathe and shower by request-you’ll be escorted by at least one other person every moment you’re out of your room.”
“No more trips to the infirmary that aren’t absolutely required, either.” Marcus helped me off the bed. “If you need medical care, you can request it from your tablet.”
“Got it.”
Before they left my room, Eliza shooed Marcus outside to talk with me. “What’s the plan, boss?” She had warmed considerably to me since this whole thing began. We weren’t quite friends, but I could count on her as an ally. I had a feeling I was going to need as many as I could get.
“We transition outside.”
“That’s it? You think it’s going to be as peaceful as that?”
I sighed and put my head in my hands. “I don’t know, Eliza. I just murdered a man. I think people are scared, and scared people frequently do stupid things. I tried my best to get them moving I that direction, but I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. In the past two days…it’s been a lot.”
She reached out a hand and gingerly prodded the stabilizing patch on my ribs. I hissed and swatted her hand away. “I guess you have! Touchy, touchy. Listen, I’m busy making sure that my wife doesn’t drop dead from this sickness that has killed something like a hundred and fifty people so far. We are family and I give a shit about whether or not you live or die but do not fuck with me, old man. You might have done us a favor by killing that piece of shit but you have no idea what’s happening now. People are panicking.”
“I imagine they are.”
She tightened her hands into fists. “Jacob, I’m going to say this as politely as I can. I need you to shut the fuck up right now. It is by the grace of my love for your daughter that I am resisting the impulse to knock your teeth out this very moment.”
“Fuck off, Eliza.” I snarled. She stood and stormed out of the room. I exhaled deeply. “Fuck!” I slammed my fist into the wall. White hot pain shot through my arm and tears welled up in my eyes. It was like a dam broke in my mind. All the pain, fear, anger, and shame that I had managed to tamp down over the months came vomiting out of me in a rush. I gave up any pretense of decorum and cried freely, letting an unearthly howl still from my lungs. Some dim echo of my brain registered that the guard standing in front of my door could hear my grief. I didn’t care. There was no honor in putting up a facade of composure anymore.
Hours passed as I lay on my bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling. The confinement didn’t set well with me. Quarantining during the virus I could understand, but this was imprisonment. Knowing that I would not be allowed to leave this room without permission was brushing up against some childhood fears of confinement. When I couldn’t sit still anymore I found another way to fill the time. Packing. There was an extremely limited amount of my possessions that I would be allowed to take with me once I was expelled from the shelter and I had a feeling that Alexander Fang wasn’t about to let me dither about when the time came. The process was more difficult than I had anti
cipated. Suddenly it was as if every little trinket or tool held some kind of sentimental meaning to me. A sketch of some plants that Fiona had drawn up as a teenager, a toy cat that Marcus had designed and then printed, and a note from my late wife. All of these made the box. So too did a square of my standard-issue blanket. It felt a little silly, but I had spent my entire adult life sleeping in this bed. Fought Gabriel’s machines, come to snuff my life out to enslave an entire population. In a strange way, that blanket was a symbol of everywhere I had been. How far I had come.
I was brought two more square meals before I was let out for my exercise time. The guard who greeted me was a young woman who had at least six inches in height on me.
“Sir, my name is Olivia. I’m here to accompany you on your run. I am to understand that you’d prefer to run circuits of the shelter?”
“Actually, I’d like to run outside, if that’s agreeable to you. You’d be amazed at how the fresh air invigorates you.” Olivia chewed her bottom lip nervously.
“You’ve been out there, right?”
I laughed. “I should say I have. I promise there isn’t a big bad monster waiting out there to eat you. At least, I think you could take it on.” Olivia laughed. “Let’s grab ourselves a shock stick for you. I promise I’ll keep to a large stick.” She agreed and led me outside.
Being outside again was like hooking up a battery to my body and my mind. Running outside was hugely improved by the addition of shoes and proper clothing. Olivia ran parallel to me about a dozen feet away, shock stick appearing and disappearing as her arms pumped with her stride. I purposefully altered our path so that we would pass by the stream. It was a great plan-as we approached the banks of the small body of water I spotted the pale bodies of the crabs, returned to the stream after I stopped stomping around their territory. I pointed them out to Olivia who stopped dead and stared.
“Come on, I’ll show you what they are.” I creeped towards the stream and snatched up a crab. It waved its claws wildly as it tried to break free. Olivia bent down to peer at it and yelped as it took a swipe at her nose with a sharp pincer.
“What the hell is that thing?!”
“It’s called a crab and I promise you it’s less scary than you think.”
“It looks like an alien!” I laughed. To a shelter-born kid I’m certain it did look like an alien. I’m sure I wondered the same thing when I was little.
“In many ways I’m sure we look like aliens to it. The pinches don’t hurt that badly and they taste extremely good when roasted over a fire.” Olivia quirked an eyebrow at me.
“You...eat these things?”
“Oh yes. As frequently as I can. You’re one of the shelter born- you didn’t grow up on food that wasn’t printed. Mind you, I barely remember the stuff myself, but some part of me does. I almost died of happiness when I ate one again.”
“Huh. What else do you remember from outside?” She motioned for the two of us to sit. When I hesitated she waved my concern away. “Never mind the time. I’ll let them know that you and I are taking a little field trip. Not planning on bolting, are you?”
I snorted. “Even if I was, do you think that I would make it more than twenty feet before you caught me?”
“No, sir!” She threw back her head and laughed, but I took note that she put the shock stick within arms reach. I set the captive crustacean back on the ground and it sprinted for the water with nary a look back at the human invaders. I sighed and laid back in the grass. The wetness from the morning dew had long since evaporated, leaving behind a soft bed of grass. Puffs of cloud floated by above us, the wind bringing the smell of the earth to my nostrils.
“I remember going to the beach. It’s an area of sand where the ocean meets the land. I remember cookouts and camping. I remember looking at the stars with my father and somehow believing that by the time I was old I might be living up there. At least, that was the plan.”
Olivia lay down beside me. “What are those?” she asked, pointing to the clouds. “I’ve seen them in media, and obviously in the simulation.”
It was a singularly interesting experience to be able to watch a grown woman discover the planet for the first time. No doubt Olivia was highly educated but out here she was full of childlike curiosity. I cracked a thin stone on the bed of the stream and showed her the layers of rock that had formed it over the millennia. We went over how to braid grass together to form basic shapes and I described to her how it was possible to weave baskets and containers. I even found a minuscule fish making its way upstream and caught it for her, its silver scales glinting in the sun. I took care to throw it back in the water before it suffocated and we watched as the fish continued its journey upstream. Unfortunately we didn’t have time for much else as Olivia’s tablet crackled to life and she was instructed to bring me back into my de facto cell.
“Thank you for showing me all of that,” she said as she opened the door to my quarters for me.
“Thank you for listening! It’s not often that an old man like me gets to pass on his knowledge to someone new. Perhaps when we leave I can draft you to spread the word and teach other people about the surface.”
A small smile. “I’d like that.” I bade her goodnight and shut the door behind me. I was struck with a sudden urge to record the day. After I had finished dictating a journal entry into my tablet, I scrounged through my belongings until I found a paper and pencil. Precious things, even now. Grabbing a binder to use as a hard surface, I sat cross legged on my bed and started to sketch. There was a lot of cursing as my hands awkwardly remembered how to use the pencil properly, but in the end I was left with a small but accurate sketch of the fish. Such a tiny creature became a beacon of hope for me. If something like that fish could make it all the way up that stream, perhaps so too could we. Humanity had survived more than a hundred thousand years on the Earth. We were tenacious. We would endure.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The math was simple. We had roughly four hundred sick; two hundred of whom were being tended to in the field hospital. Rather than risk a rapid exodus of the shelter, we came together to formulate a transitional period. Anyone who was healthy and able-bodied would start construction of basic facilities outside. Unfortunately for them—and me—that meant living outside. I was looking forward to eating succulent crab meat again but not everyone was so enthusiastic about trading their warm, dry beds for tents. However, when we pointed out that the option was roughing it or risking getting sick, most changed their minds right away. Those who were to leave were given twenty-four hours to get their affairs in order and allowed a single duffle bag each for personal possessions. Their rooms would then be converted over to space for the sick, if needed. Now that I knew other people were joining me, being outside felt less like a punishment and more of a move towards the future. I missed my family fiercely, and though most saw my killing of Gabriel as justified, news of their health and wellbeing trickled out slowly.
By the time evening fell on the first night we had set up a hundred tents. We had three twenty man teams take up a watch in shifts of four hours each. I didn’t bother to tell the watchmen about the cat-thing. We would work on fabricating weapons in the next couple of days. For now, I would settle with instructing them to report any movement. Terrifying them wouldn’t do any good. The night passed without incident. Few, if any of the hundred slept. They were too busy going through the same revelations I had. Groups and families stood in front of their tents or lay on the grass staring at the stars. The few of us who weren’t shelter born wore contented smiles on their faces. If it all went to hell after this I could take comfort in knowing that they had seen the sun and stars again. The only real problem we experienced was two people who fell ill sometime overnight. They were taken back to their quarters for monitoring.
Day two was focused on the continued supplying of the camp. Basic medical supplies, emergency food rations, and personal items were brought up. Now that I was staying outdoors of my own accord, the entrance to
the shelter looked like the opening to a dark cavern. It was almost a surprise every time we unlocked that inner door to find a functioning civilization. The most exciting thing that happened that day was the discovery of a new species of bug. Unlike the larger insects I had managed to spear with my knife for dinner, these ones were smaller and more tenacious. Apparently they had been attracted towards the shelter by the introduction of new food scraps. I can’t imagine who did that. In my defense, I was too busy trying not to die to worry about my trash.
Our new entomological friends appeared to have a taste for human flesh in addition to their attempts to infest every food container we had. We decided to leave any food, no matter how well sealed, in a steel locker kept in a communal space. There would be no food allowed in tents. This was not a difficult rule to enforce. Even the smallest crumb could bring a swarm of bugs upon a family’s dwelling. It took hours to clear them all out and kill them. The lucky folks who managed to squish or stab them inadvertently provided us with another source of food. Stuck on to the end of a sharpened stick the bugs made for tasty, crunch morsels of protein that one could eat like popcorn. I missed the creature comforts of my old life but damn, if this wasn’t a decent change of pace.
It was better than I could have ever hoped for. If there was one thing that I wanted for Fiona and her family, it was for them to be able to live out their lives in the same world I had grown up in. The world had changed, of course, but knowing that my great-grandchildren might grow up on terra firma was a dream come true.
Even more heartening was setting new faces appear everyday that included people who had been afflicted by the sickness. The medical team had come to the conclusion that anyone who had been ill was safe to return to the general population after a two-week quarantine. The recovered were instructed to monitor any symptoms and informed that they may be required to return to isolation at any time. We assigned them the lightest tasks possible and they could take a break whenever they wished. I think people were just happy to see their loved ones again. Taking on the extra responsibilities was a small price to pay.
Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 Page 17