Dead End

by Howard Odentz

  They were so, so wrong. I was really proud that my hat was thrown in with people like Sanjay and Trudy instead of the other guys.

  The other guys.

  “Hey,” I said to Private Fillerman. Don’t you have to report back to Diana or something?” I shivered even saying that woman’s name out loud. I still couldn’t believe she was so close. If anybody ever deserved to get pushed off the roof of the University library and plummet to the ground like one of those loose bricks that fell every once in a while, she certainly did.

  “They’ll wait,” he said. “It’s a big building. Besides, I don’t think they’re expecting me to find you in here. Maybe they think there are others survivors, but not her precious golden goose.” He glanced over at Trudy and Sanjay, typing away, with their heads down and lots of screens and words popping up on their monitors. “What are they doing, anyway?” he said.

  I thought about lying. I thought about telling him that we were looking for news about the world outside of Western Massachusetts, or anything about Necropoxy, but what was the point? “We’re taking down Diana’s systems,” I said.

  “Tripp,” Prianka hissed.

  “What?” I shrugged. “Sanjay says he’s cool, so he’s cool. We have to start trusting people sooner or later.”

  “Hey, no trust issues here,” Private Fillerman said. “This whole nonsense has been messed up from the beginning.”

  “What clued you in?”

  “Listen,” he said. “The world’s not perfect. It never has been. But taking out billions of people and then picking and choosing who gets to survive just isn’t right.”

  “So why were you on the wrong side?” asked Prianka.

  “My blood was tested years ago when I first joined the army,” he said. “Almost everyone was tested back then. We weren’t told what we were being tested for, but those of us who passed were lumped into units together. After that, I just followed orders.” He shrugged. “Now I’m not following orders anymore.”

  I took Prianka’s hand and squeezed. Then I turned to the private. “If we take out Diana’s network, the sites can’t talk to each other. No communications means this whole mad scientist experiment is over.”

  “Good,” he said. “It needs to be over.”

  “Good,” I said back.

  “Jackpot,” squealed Trudy as she kept typing on the keys like a madwoman.

  “Really?” I said. “It can’t have been that easy.” Neither of them lifted their fingers from the keyboards.

  “No one said this was easy,” she giggled as both their fingers kept flying. “But it’s very, very fun.”

  Truer words were never spoken by a hacker.

  Seconds later they both stopped typing.

  “Password,” said Sanjay. Now there was a word that I knew.

  “You need passwords?” said Private Fillerman. He stepped forward. “I got passwords. I got loads of passwords.”

  “Try MASSHOLE,” a raspy voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw Dorcas standing there, sweaty forehead, tar-stained fingers and all. I practically threw myself into her arms.

  “You made it,” I cried as I held onto her baggy old bones and squeezed.

  “Of course I made it. Nice touch with all the fires across campus,” she said. “I guess you weren’t trying to be subtle.”

  “You know me.” I laughed. “Being subtle isn’t exactly my thing.”

  Bullseye stepped out from behind her. He was holding something in his hands—something that I thought we might need badly enough that I sent him and Dorcas to retrieve it.

  “Ryan,” cried Prianka and grabbed him in a big hug. He let her hold onto him for a few short seconds before squirming away. Then he leveled one of his signature, peeved, Bullseye gazes in my direction.

  “Twenty-two floors, Tripp? Really?” Then he stared at Private Fillerman who only plastered a big, goofy, military grin on his face. Bullseye rolled his eyes and said, “I’m not asking.” Then he flat out ignored him.

  “Quit your yapping, kid,” Dorcas croaked at Bullseye, which only made me realize that they probably bonded on their little side trip just like Dorcas and I had bonded when we went off to Jolly’s Pharmacy a billion years ago. “I can do twenty-two more and have a ciggy to boot.”

  We all laughed, but to be perfectly honest, I had no doubt that she could.

  57

  TWENTY MINUTES later, Jimmy and Trina came out of the stairwell. She was holding his folded-up wheelchair, and he was slick with sweat.

  “You got to be joking,” I said to Jimmy. His arms were quivering and he had huge pit stains.

  “Why do you think my guns are so loaded?” he said. “Heaving myself up those stairs was nothing.”

  Trina stared at me and smirked. “And they call me stubborn.” Then she saw the soldier and went absolutely rigid.

  I ran forward and grabbed her arm. “It’s okay,” I said. “He’s okay.”

  Still, her eyes bugged out of her head. She looked like she was staring at a ghost.

  “Honest,” said Private Fillerman. “I’m here to help. That Diana lady is crazy. Everyone she works with is crazy.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” I said. “Besides, Sanjay says he’s cool.”

  “Sanjay’s says he’s cool? Really?”

  “And Sanjay has never been wrong,” I reminded her. That shut her up, mostly because she knew I was right. After a moment, she relaxed if only a little. Still, my sister wouldn’t even look Private Fillerman in the face. I guess trusting him was probably like trusting a poxer, but I knew Trina. She’d learn.

  Two hours later Trudy and Sanjay pushed themselves away from the computers they had been abusing and both breathed long, heavy, satisfying sighs.

  “There’s a lot in these files,” Trudy said. “But one thing that isn’t there anymore is their communications capabilities. To tell you the truth, their security wasn’t terribly difficult to get around. They probably didn’t expect a white hat survivor or a mind like Sanjay’s to come knocking at their firewall.”

  “What about all the other information that’s still there?” asked Professor Billings. “Can you wipe it out?”

  “I can’t vouch for backup files, because I’m sure they have them somewhere, but their network can be messed up badly enough that it will take months of work by the right people to fix things. Even then, we can create viruses that will start eating away at everything else.”

  “But they can’t talk to anyone now, right?” I asked.

  “Nope,” said Trudy.

  “Good,” I grimaced then I turned to my friends. Here we were at the end of it all on the twenty-second floor of the University library with Diana and Dr. Marks just a few floors above us. Weeks ago, Trina and I had been hanging out on a Friday night while my parents were out of town for a weekend holiday.

  Prianka was working at the Mug N’ Muffin in the center of Littleham.

  Sanjay was probably having some sort of Indian dinner made by Mrs. Boolah before going to bed in his hyperbaric chamber, which he no longer needed to use.

  Bullseye was out for Chinese with his family, and Jimmy was broadcasting on the radio in the center of Amherst.

  Now all of us were here, tied together, most likely forever, and it was time to end this thing.

  For good.

  “What’s the game plan, boss?” Dorcas said. She stared at me with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Private Fillerman is going to bring us up to Diana and Dr. Marks,” I said. “Just me and Trina.” I waited a long moment. No one said anything.

  Finally Prianka said, “Not a chance.”

  Jimmy was in his chair by now. “Yeah,” he said. “My girl’s not going anywhere without me.”

  Bullseye got all pissy. “I didn’t trave
l all that way as your errand boy with the old lady for nothing,” he almost snarled.

  “Ryan,” snapped Prianka. “That’s rude.”

  “No it ain’t,” chuckled Dorcas. “I told him to call me that.”

  I can’t say I wasn’t a teensy bit hurt. “You never told me to call you ‘Old Lady.’

  Dorcas pulled another cigarette out of her pocket. “Yeah, well. He’s not as much of a smartass as you. He gets points for that.”

  Meanwhile, Sanjay climbed off of his chair, gently stroked Andrew and said, “You’ll need magic.”

  “No,” Prianka said. “Sanjay, it’s too dangerous.”

  Once again, Sanjay the wise, which is what we would all probably start calling him as soon as he was old enough to grow face stubble, said, “You’ll need magic. I have magic.”

  “Magic. Magic,” cawed Andrew with his beady little eyes that made me think that Sanjay might be telling the truth.

  Then Sanjay went back to where he left Poopy Puppy, picked up the doll and turned to face all of us.

  “Poopy Puppy, too,” he said. “We’re a family. Families stick together.” Then he looked directly at me. “Right, Buddy?”

  Who could argue with that?

  “Right, Buddy,” I said. Then I took a deep breath and shrugged. “Okay then. Let’s all go see a bitter old bat about an apocalypse.”

  58

  PRIVATE FILLERMAN’S gun was at my back when we opened up the big metal door to the roof and Trina and I stepped out onto the gravel surface. Bullseye, Sanjay, Prianka and Jimmy hung just inside the stairwell.

  Trudy and Dorcas stayed back in the computer lab and Professor Billings went down to find my parents and the others to tell them what we were doing.

  Immediately a cold blast of air slapped me in the face. It felt refreshing.

  Even though it was the middle of the night, we could see for miles.

  Stretched out in front of us on campus was a flaming road of burning poxer bits that only kept getting bigger and bigger. Nearly all the tent setups along the pond were burning or burnt. Every moment or two there was a tiny explosion as another poxer reached for the flames, torched itself, and popped.

  Two buildings were burning near the science complex and more little pops of fire could be seen exploding around them.

  If the flames kept going, literally every poxer they touched would be destroyed, leaving only those that were still locked inside buildings behind.

  In front of us, close to the far edge of the rooftop was one of those helicopters that carried only a few people. Its blades weren’t spinning. The pilot was wearing a flight suit without a helmet. He was crouched down next to the cockpit, poking at the ground and probably wondering when he was going to plan his own defection from the ranks of all the other crazies.

  Diana and Dr. Marks stood with their backs to us. They were at the edge of the rooftop, surveying the damage we had rained down upon the University. I doubt they cared. All they cared about was finding me and my sister so they could synthesize what was in our blood to start creating some sort of super immune master race.

  Not a chance.

  We were done playing that game.

  The pilot looked up, locked eyes with us and immediately fumbled for his gun. “Halt,” he cried, as he pointed the blunt muzzle in our direction. “Not another step.”

  Trina and I immediately stuck our hands in the air.

  “Relax, soldier,” Private Fillerman said and poked his head out from behind us. “Look what I found between the stacks.”

  The pilot’s gun lowered. Meanwhile, Diana and Dr. Marks turned around to face us.

  There she was. That wrinkled, old, preppy bag of bones, dressed in khakis, sensible shoes and all. Her half glasses perched on the end of her nose and she had a big grin on her face, which I bet was really hard to do under the best of circumstances. As for Dr. Marks, his flap of greasy hair was whipping in the wind. He looked like he was sporting a rooster comb on top of his smarmy head.

  “Why, Private Fillerman,” Diana oozed in that awful, superior voice of hers that made goosebumps pop out on my arm. “You do surprise, don’t you?”

  “The Light twins,” Dr. Marks hissed. Then, like a total mad scientist out of every mad scientist movie ever, he folded his hands together and breathed out, “Excellent.”

  If he were a cartoon, he’d have a forked tongue and little horns on his head.

  “So now what?” Trina barked out. “You got us, you fossil. So now what?”

  “Oh my,” said Diana. “I guess it’s true what they say about twins.”

  “Yeah?” snarled Trina. “And what do they say?”

  “That you often carry the same bad manners.”

  Meanwhile, Dr. Marks took a step forward. “And what of the others you liberated from our facility?”

  “What of them?” I said, sounding bored rather than scared.

  “Did they survive?”

  I thought about saying ‘yes’ and rubbing it in their faces. Instead, I looked at Trina and silently did that twin thing where she could guess what I was thinking.

  In case anything went south and Trina and I didn’t make it off this rooftop, they didn’t need to know that anyone they experimented on had survived. That would be bad.

  Instead I said, “Just the two of us and our friends.”

  Diana and Dr. Marks obviously missed that ‘friends’ part. Diana was probably so ecstatic to have us in her power-hungry mitts that she totally disregarded my words. Instead she turned to the pilot and said, “Would you be so kind as to call for another helicopter, please. We’ll be enjoying the company of guests.”

  Yeah. No.

  The pilot immediately turned and heaved himself into the cockpit.

  “We’re not going anywhere with you,” I told her. “Not now and not ever.”

  Dr. Marks glared at me with his nasty, beady, greasy, little eyes. “Diana,” he said. “We don’t need his tongue, do we? I would so love to cut it out of his head.”

  “Come now, Dr. Marks.”

  But he wouldn’t shut up. “This boy. This child, has caused us no end of trouble,” he seethed. “I say let’s take the girl and throw him off the roof.”

  Trina literally burst out laughing. “Yeah. You and whose army?”

  Diana narrowed her gaze at Trina. “If you haven’t discovered it already, the army is on our side, dear.”

  Just then, the pilot stuck his head out of the cockpit. “Ms. Radcliffe?” he said with just a bit of a waver in his voice. “Dr. Marks?”

  “What is it?” Diana snapped at him in such a bloated, self-important tone, that it was no wonder Private Fillerman wanted no part of her.

  “I can’t raise anyone on the com,” he said. “All I’m getting on every channel is some sort of feedback loop.”

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Marks barked at him. “Try again.”

  “I did, sir,” said the pilot. “All I keep hearing is the same word, over and over again.”

  “What word?” said Diana, sounding ever so slightly annoyed.

  The pilot look a little confused. He picked up his headset once more time and listened to it. Then he seemed to fumble with his radio. “Bad . . . er . . . something,” he said as kept listening. “It sounds like, uh, bad-her-shan.’”

  I snorted.

  Meanwhile, the muzzle of Private Fillerman’s gun left my back. He stepped to one side, still pointing the gun, but this time it was leveled at the pilot.

  “Whatcha . . . whatcha doing?” said the pilot, all flustered and confused.

  “I’m doing the right thing,” said Private Fillerman. “Why don’t you step out of the cockpit like a good soldier and do the right thing, too, okay?”

  Of course, like probably
every other soldier still alive and blindly doing the bidding of those in charge, he easily gave up. “No arguments here,” he said. “I’m a little done, anyway.”

  Meanwhile, Dr. Marks literally stamped his feet like a two-year-old on the verge of having an epic tantrum.

  “You’re a dead man, Fillerman,” he barked at our deserter soldier, but by that time my arms had plain gotten tired and I lowered them. Diana flinched, before plastering that superior look on her superior face again.

  “Thanks,” I said to Private Fillerman. He just grinned and nodded his head. Then both Trina and I walked right across the rooftop, taking our time, as Diana and Dr. Marks got bigger and bigger until we were directly in front of them.

  “Which army did you say you were in charge of?” Trina asked. I knew she enjoyed every word.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Diana hissed as the four of us stood face to face.

  “Winning,” I said.

  “You’ll never win,” she snarled. “We are strong. We are many. You can’t fight us.”

  “Wanna bet?” Trina said, then flat out decked her like she was in a girl fight in the woods behind Littleham High School and she was going for a dirty shot. Diana dropped like a rock. “We’ve already won, you dinosaur.”

  Dr. Marks’s eyes flew open wide. He immediately got to his knees in front of both of us. I guess he remembered the superior beat down my dad gave him back at the McDuffy Estate, which still left his face a little discolored. I’m sure he didn’t want a repeat performance.

  Behind us, the metal door to the roof banged open, and out poured Prianka, Sanjay, Jimmy and Bullseye. They trotted up to us as Private Fillerman continued to hold his gun on the pilot.

  A little trickle of blood dripped out of the corner of Diana’s mouth. She reached up and dabbed at it with her fingers. I have to say, the color looked great on her.

  “Now?” asked Bullseye. He was holding the thing I had sent him to get with both hands.

  “You . . . you’re going to kill us?” cried Dr. Marks as he stared at the giant bazooka that Bullseye and Dorcas had traveled back up to the Peace Pagoda to get. We had left it taped to a golden statue in the woods when Prianka had gotten shot.