Emin turned the pages of her report. “Here’s a question: This is a confidential file, right? So why redact a whole bunch of it?”
Tommy rolled the question over in his mind. “I guess there are parts even Colonel Maxwell wasn’t allowed to see.”
“That’s strange though, don’t you think? As he’s supposed to be the guy in charge of it. Why wouldn’t you want the guy in charge to know everything about it?”
“Unless he did know about it and he’s the one who redacted it.” Guy’s eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror. “I’m just spitballing here.”
“Spitball some more. Why would the colonel want to redact things from his own files?”
Emin leaned forward. “To stop people from seeing it, obviously.”
“Right,” Guy said. “Except he told us to come find it. So why not let us have the whole document?”
“Because he redacted the information before he sent us here after it. So, maybe he was afraid someone was going to find it.”
“Who?”
A name popped into Tommy’s mind, the same way it popped into all the others’.
“The one person he didn’t want to know about it,” Guy said.
Jimmy hopped on his seat. “Santa Claus!”
The exclamation came so out of the blue the others checked their windows before realizing Father Christmas was Jimmy’s response to Guy’s statement. Despite himself, Tommy chuckled. Children were the best at breaking the tension.
“So, if the colonel didn’t want the Architect—” Emin leaned in close to Jimmy. “—of Christmas—to get his hands on this information, then why not destroy it?”
“Because there were things the Architect did already know about it. Its location. How to get inside. But he never fully understood what the Failsafe was.”
A police cruiser burped its usual warning. Its lights danced in syncopated rhythm. Tommy acted fast and turned the car’s engine off. The cruiser’s wheels screeched for grip as they spun uselessly in place before biting and bolting down the road toward them.
“Everyone down!”
They did as he said and flopped down onto the upholstery. The police cruiser screamed, its siren going haywire as it sped down the road toward them. It zipped past and careened around a corner and zoomed down another side street.
Tommy peered over the side at the rapidly disappearing cruiser.
Guy righted himself. “What. . . What just happened?”
Tommy adjusted his rear-view mirror. “They must have gotten a report of suspicious activity.”
“They didn’t see us moving?”
“Neither would you. We were hardly moving.”
Guy pulled himself up to peer out the window. “Tommy? Can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Get us out of here!”
21.
SAM
Sam removed the shard of shattered glass from her foot’s hard skin and tucked it into her uniform’s sleeve lining. Then she hopped in the shower’s hot water and let it wash over her.
Refreshed, Julius escorted her back to her room. It gave Sam the time she needed to think about Greg and what’d happened to him. His escape attempt had been a failure, and they’d severely punished him for it. But they hadn’t killed him. They needed him. For the knowledge in his head. Wasn’t that a lesson to them all? No matter how badly they behaved, no matter how many rules they broke, their captors couldn’t murder them. They needed what they knew.
Hope came in many shapes and sizes. A bloody bludgeon was perhaps one of the strangest, but there it was. The worst they stood to face.
Sam came to a stop outside her room.
Julius slowly reached for the key card in his front jacket pocket. He mumbled something under his voice.
Sam leaned forward, not hearing the words. “Sorry?”
He swiped at the terminal as he repeated the words. The terminal light blinked, serving as punctuation. “Slap me.”
Sam blinked, certain she must have misheard him.
The door hissed. Julius pointed to the open doorway. “Slap me. Now.”
What was a girl to do? Pass up carrying out her greatest desire when invited to do so? She leaped forward and slapped him hard across the face. The smack refracted like a gunshot off the sterile walls and her hand throbbed with rushing anger.
Julius shoved her backward into the room. He stalked her inside.
Sam’s exhilaration inverted. She backtracked and raised her arms in self-defense. “I only did what you said!”
Julius loosened his bludgeon—that supposed harbinger of hope—from its loop and brought it back.
Sam tripped over her own feet, confused at the sudden state of affairs. She fell in a heap on the floor.
Julius swung the bludgeon down, smacking Sam across the fleshy part of her hip.
Sam’s face curled with pain.
Julius brought the bludgeon back and released it, firing off another blow. It bit into Sam’s shoulder.
Sam screamed in pain. . . before realizing the blow hadn’t hurt much at all. She’d felt more pain banging her clumsy leg into the metal frame of her bed. Looking down, she saw why. Julius formed a stance so his leg absorbed the brunt of each blow. What is up with this dude?
“I can’t speak long,” he said, drawing the bludgeon back for another blow. “They’ll grow suspicious. I knew Tommy. Your Tommy.”
Sam choked on her own heart, now lodged firmly in her throat. Another wellspring of questions formed in her mind but she remained silent as another false blow rained down.
“He’s a good man. If he could see you now. . . I promise to get you out of here.”
Sam’s prayers came all at once. “Can I take a friend?”
Another blow. This one struck Sam’s back. “No. Just you. Get out and find Tommy. He will get the others out.”
Julius stepped back, panting with exertion, a thin wisp of sweat on his brow. “Tonight, I’ll get you out of here. Be ready.”
Faking pain, Sam leaned back against the wall.
Julius backed out of the room. “And don’t you ever strike me again.”
The door slid shut on his amused smile. Sam lay motionless on the floor. One moment she was worried about the beating her research mate had received for attempting his escape, and the next, an escape attempt fell into her lap. She didn’t know whether to feel fortunate or not. She buried her mouth in her hands and wailed with relief.
The guard was busting her out of there. But what if it was a test? What if it was all a trick? Was the Architect playing with her, testing to see if she was loyal to the research they were doing? She didn’t want to end up in the same condition as Greg.
The truth was, it was only a matter of time before she outlived her usefulness and was led to the grave or incinerator.
She had to attempt an escape, even if it did end in failure.
* * *
Sam assembled her impromptu escape device, a bizarre-looking tool in the shape of a corkscrew. Crude, a sharp implement protruded from each angle—out either end of her fist and through the gap between her fingers. She could impale with a punch or thrust on either axis. She hoped to God she would never have to use it.
She stood in the middle of her cell, bouncing on the balls of her feet practicing with it. The problem with Julius was he hadn’t given her any specific instructions. No locations, no times, no concrete plans. Only hope. But perhaps that was all she needed. Hope and trust she might escape this infernal place.
Then came the familiar tapping through the soles of her feet. She pressed her hand to the wall; her gateway to another world.
“How are you doing in there?” Felix said.
“Not bad. You?”
“Can’t complain. Actually, I can. It’s the same dull day, repeated again and again.”
“Groundhog Day has nothing on us, does it?”
“Ain’t that the truth. So, how’s the big group project going?”
“It’s hard to tel
l. I can only speak about myself. I’m making good progress, but I’m not sure what effect I’m having on the whole thing.”
“You’re not working together?”
“Only superficially.”
“Still, better than working in a room by yourself.”
“Yes. In some ways. One of the other scientists tried to escape. He failed.”
“I’m not surprised. We’re locked up tighter than a nun’s ass.”
“This morning, I turned up, and he wasn’t there. Then suddenly, the doors opened and a pair of guards dragged him in. They beat him.”
“To teach you all a lesson. Don’t try to escape.”
Sam licked her lips, mouth very dry. “So long as we’re prisoners here, people will try to escape. It’s human nature.”
“Until you realize the truth. There is no escape, no matter how hard you try, there’s no way out.”
Sam tapped faster than usual. “Perhaps there is a way out. Only, we can’t see it.”
“Hope is the true dead-end in this place.”
“Then why stay alive? Why bother doing research?”
“For the same reason we didn’t slit our wrists on the outside. Because we must. It’s written in our DNA. If we didn’t do science, what are we? What would we do?”
It was a fair question, one to which Sam didn’t have an answer. Science was who she was. She couldn’t imagine giving it up.
For the rest of the night, she waited and waited and waited. No matter how much time she threw at it, Julius didn’t show up.
* * *
“Get up,” a deep voice said. “Now.”
Sam started awake, powered by her lethargy. She squinted at the blurry hunched figure standing over her. “I wondered. . . when you would come. . .”
“It’s mornin’ ain’t it?”
A boot stabbed her in the ribs, jerking her from her sleep.
Irritating, Sam shoved the boot aside and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She stretched and got to her feet, jerking at a sharp sensation in the small of her back. “I think I slept funny.”
“You think I care? I said get up.”
The man irked her. First, he told her he would bust her out of there, then he turns up in the morning giving her grief with no explanation for making her stay up all night waiting for him. It was too much.
A shot of adrenaline hit her system. She shot up onto her feet and jabbed a finger at the man’s chest. “Listen you—”
The man’s stern eyes glared at her between his ugly cauliflower ears. “I’m listening.”
Sam’s insides turned to water. “Where’s Julius? My regular guard?”
The new guard handed her a fresh pair of slippers. “He’s taken leave. Get out. Now.”
Sam slipped the slippers on, suddenly feeling very awake. She approached the shut door, the red light blazing, taunting. There is no green light out of here.
The Cauliflower sneered. “You normally leave your bed unmade like that?”
“Normally. Yeah.”
The Cauliflower didn’t take a step toward the door. Instead, he took one to the side, out of the way so she could make her bed.
Sam shot a befuddled look at the Cauliflower and flapped the plain white cover over the cheap foam mattress. “Better?”
The Cauliflower gave half a nod, then led her to the door. He swiped his key card and the day truly began.
Sam checked up and down the corridor. With her guard so drastically and suddenly changed, she expected everything else to be different too. The walls to be purple, or something. They were the same supposedly calming shade of taupe every government building was coated with.
Sam couldn’t wait to get to her workstation. An area of safety, under her control. She glanced back at the door right before it slid shut. She caught Cauliflower’s murderous glare before he was blocked from sight, from her world.
Did Cauliflower blame her for what happened to his comrade? He must know she had no influence over the guards. He must know Julius made the decision to help her himself.
She turned to her desk and shook her head. None of this made any sense.
* * *
“We have a new test subject today,” Lester said with all the energy of a preschool teacher. “I don’t want you to treat him any differently to the other subjects.”
Sam rolled her eyes. As if they would treat one zombie any differently to another. They were all the same slobbering mangy creatures. She cast a disinterested glance in the cage’s direction and turned back to her terminal. She tapped a few buttons before something registered and her finger froze in mid-air.
Her heart skipped a beat—and not the good kind. Her mouth felt dry and she lacked the will to blink her eyes. She turned on the spot as if she were attached to the revolving disc of an LP player. She raised her eyes to the rotten test subjects in their shiny cages.
The latest addition wore the same clean uniform of every undead they brought into the lab and a lost, loose-jawed expression of a cow chewing cud. He looked so different now the spark of life was stripped from his face.
Sam recalled the expression on the Cauliflower’s face when he’d deposited her here. She’d taken it to be a look of anger at her, but it hadn’t been anger at all. It’d been horror, and it hadn’t been directed at her, but the figure that occupied the third cage. Sam’s old guard, Julius.
Sam tore her eyes from the fallen guard and focused on her work. If they knew about her guard, his intentions in rescuing her, why hadn’t they come for her too? Because they believed—rightly—that she had no part in his decision-making process. Maybe they didn’t even know she knew about the attempted jailbreak.
The tears in zombie Julius’ face showed he had not been taken easily. He might have told them who he planned to rescue, or he might not. It was impossible to know. They’d tortured him, set a zombie—or even a gang of them—on him. Sam hadn’t been taken, so he must have kept their secret to himself.
Sam wanted to crawl up into a ball somewhere and cry, to grieve for the man who’d unwittingly given his life for her. And for what? To become a test subject and operated on? Sam shook her head to dispel the tears forming behind her eyes. She buried herself in the logic of her experiments, systematically moving from one process to another.
Greg made no attempt to speak with her. For that, she was grateful. He remained locked inside himself, the same way she now found herself. In the pit of her gut, a seed of anger splintered its rough shell casing and took root.
She was determined more than ever to leave this place, and by God, she refused to fail in her mission.
22.
HAWK
Hawk collapsed, and the restraints took his weight. He was exhausted. He wasn’t the only one. Dr. Archer panted, beads of sweat running down her face. She hadn’t been the one on the receiving end of the torture routine. She’d only been the one administering it.
“Things will go much easier if you comply,” she said.
She’d like that all right. It’d make things easier for herself. Well, he had no intention of making things easier for her. Quite the contrary. His purpose in life was to make the process as difficult as possible for the good doctor. And to think I considered undressing you. Well, no more!
Joe had performed admirably. During Hawk’s weaker moments, he’d given in to the doctor’s demands. Before Joe could carry out the order, Hawk sent another, blocking the first.
These scientists might be a bunch of nerds but they certainly knew their business. It’d taken ragheads three days to break through his first level of defense. It’d taken the good doctor just three hours.
He knew with ice-cold certainty he couldn’t do this much longer. Irritating Dr. Archer was one thing. It was temporary and would not lead to anything lasting.
His real mission was to escape this place.
The doctor stopped at the door. “See you tomorrow, Hawk.”
The door hissed shut behind her and the red light glared brightly.
>
Escape, he told himself. The sooner the better.
23.
TOMMY
Pa-arp!
Another bout of flatulence from a police cruiser. This one was staring right at them from the dark pit of a back alley.
Tommy slammed the Humvee into first and meshed the gas pedal with the floor. “Hold on, everyone. This might get a little bumpy.”
It was only thanks to the fact they were driving a Humvee that the police car veered to one side, avoiding a direct impact. Tommy pulled into an alleyway—barely large enough for the Humvee to squeeze through. The police cruiser followed hot on his tail.
Tommy slammed on the brakes. They barely felt the cruiser as it smashed into the Humvee’s bull bars. Tommy pulled away, leaving a cruiser a broken shell in its wake. He pulled out of the alley and swung left, almost colliding with a car heading in the opposite direction. Tommy pulled a hard right, riding the curb of a tight corner. Despite the speed, the Humvee cornered like it was on rails.
Another pair of police lights flashed up ahead. Someone must have issued orders for them to hold their positions as they didn’t move another inch.
“What are they doing?” Guy shouted. “It must be a trap!”
“Or they want us to get the hell out of their town. I know I’d want the same if I were them.”
Tommy wasn’t about to give them an easy ride. But still, the situation didn’t sit well with Tommy.
“You might be right, Guy,” he said. “We have to burn it.”
“Burn the car? But we’re in it!”
“Burn the file!”
Guy shared a look with Emin. “Have you lost your mind? We need it to tell us what we’re supposed to do!”
“It’s already told us everything it’s going to tell us. The location and the entrance. That there’s a base and a key.”
“What key?” Guy tore the file open to locate it. “I didn’t see a key!”
Tommy pulled a chain out from around his neck. Attached to it was a bizarre-looking key. It was cylindrical, intricately carved with vines around the outside.
Death Squad (Book 3): Zombie Nation Page 13