by David Tyne
"I-I didn't mean to... Just let me go! I'll give you anything you want, take it all!!"
As I bent down to check the damage on Grumpy's stomach, I shared a nervous glance with Tomás. This was what I was worried about, whenever I thought about us coming here — I planned for an honest conversation with those in charge. Harry just wanted revenge.
The thug took a step forward, looking particularly powerful with the revolver in his tight grasp. His uniformed victim backed himself up against one of the odd glass compartments, a Lost man banging on the other side trying to get through at him. It didn't seem to phase him, possibly far too familiar with the strength of the glass.
What’s with this setup? No matter how you look at it, this is fucking twisted...
Tearing my eyes away from the edges of the room, I realised that we were in a position to get answers from this man on the inside. I nodded my head at him, questioning the navigator that we were apparently holding at gunpoint.
"Those cells... What are you keeping them for? This doesn't look like a prison."
The Telos employee let out a controlled laugh, timidly staring back into the barrel of the gun. "...You really want to know? You think I want to be in here? With those psychos, watching me all the time?!"
I was about to inquire further, when I realised the man's fear seemed much deeper than simply being held hostage. I applied pressure to Grumpy's wound, trying to stop the bleeding. "They’re insurance... for your co-operation with Telos?"
The man's eyes darted bitterly towards me with a pause, then nodded. "The infected are fitted by regulation for every sub, every Carrier. If we don't follow orders, protocol states that they’ll be automatically released upon mutiny. Do you understand?"
I shook my stiffened head, refusing to accept that Telos had been using psychological warfare on their own deployment crew. "I don’t. Just tell me one thing… Why did they do all of this? Who made that virus?"
Another grim chuckle escaped the navigator's lips. "Hah! Someone's done their homework. I never thought anyone would still be around to notice... but if you think I know that much, you're mistaken, kid. Operatives like us are disposable... It's all we can do to meet deadlines and avoid termination."
Harry waved his gun into the man’s face, his fury taking over. "Are you serious? 'It's all you can do'? Some of my friends are rotting out there, because of the helicopters you sent!! You’ve got no idea what it means to live on the outside, away from the safety of your pathetic sub!"
“Safety? I bloody wish!” The navigator screamed back, his unhinged eyes darting between each of the former officers in the cubicles. “I’ve been stuck in this tin box for weeks, with them. Every second of every day, raping me with those fucking eyes… Do you know what that does to a person?!”
Without warning, I felt a tug at my sleeve from behind. Turning away from the tense situation, a wave of pure terror washed over me as I saw her. "B-Beth?!? What the hell did I tell you?! This is the most dangerous—"
I stopped yelling, when I saw the look on her face. There was a good reason for her being allowed down here. Her expression didn't belong to an eight-year-old; it was stern, only on the verge of staying composed.
Cracks of emotion spilled from her eyes, wrapping her small hands around my waist. She was trying to comfort me, but I already knew.
"M-Mister Daniel? It's... It's Jamie. He didn't make it..."
The room began to spin around, what she said making me feel very disoriented. I had a hard time associating the Jamie she mentioned with our Jamie; the one whom I'd promised to take on a trip to see the rest of the world, once we had finished here.
My eyes widened in horror as I realised they were both the same child... Gone.
Because of them. Because of Telos.
Now was not the time to grieve, as the already-unstable Harry overheard the little girl. No one said anything for a long second, but you could sense the pressurised darkness invading Harry's mind. Predictably so, he pressed his revolver against the forehead of the horrified navigator.
"...Look at what you sick bastards have done. He was just a kid, our Jamie. This is a fucking war now. You’ll die first, and then I'll make sure that each and every motherfucker in your institute follows. Slowly and painfully, just like the population you've turned into goddamn puppets."
"Harry, you can’t—" I yelled after him, but it was too late. The gunshot echoed throughout the entire metal room, causing everyone to clasp their hands over their ears. When I finally looked up, smoke was coming from the end of the revolver, but the navigator was unharmed.
Glancing at Harry, I quickly noticed that there was a chip in the compartment’s glass, only inches to the left of the panicked Telos employee's head.
Harry squinted his eyes, and exhaled coldly. "...Like I’d waste my time." With another shot, the glass shattered around the petrified man. The Lost captive, now free, grasped the navigator from behind and sunk its teeth into his neck.
Blood gushed out as he cried in pain, falling to the floor while the Lost kept on attacking his face ravenously. Harry's own sick idea of justice was watching the employee’s death, by the hands of the monstrosity he himself had allowed Telos to create.
After around thirty seconds of violent seizing, it was clear that the man was already dead. With two final shots, Harry dispatched the Lost and planted a bullet in the navigator's head as he turned briskly towards me.
"...We're done here."
We were nowhere near done. The opposing wall suddenly lit up with a ferocious glare, signalling that it wasn't in fact a wall, but a massive monitor’s screen.
The image shown appeared to be streamed live, from a camera lodged within a black helicopter's control panel. The steering wheel was visible along with the wispy clouds in the sky; in front of it all, sat a lone blonde-haired woman.
"T-N-137, do you copy? We can't maintain contact for long, is there any news on the Burkley situation?"
Beth froze for a second, absolutely mesmerized by the official-looking woman’s voice. The Telos employee seemed to be gawking straight back at the child. Wait, can she actually see us?
The blonde child let out a sudden yelp, placing her hand over her mouth as tears flowed once more.
"...A… A-Auntie Lizzie?!"
All of our eyes snapped to Beth, thinking we’d misheard. The woman adjusted the monitor on her side, apparently not believing what she was seeing either.
"...Little Bethany?! Is that really you, you're alive?! What on earth— Wait, where's Leo? How's my sister, is your mum okay?!" Almost accepting the nature of the call as normal, Beth responded with a bouncing shake of the head.
"It's just me now... but it's fine!! Mister Daniel and the rest are looking after me! How are you, Auntie Lizzie?"
The blonde woman on the screen wiped away a single tear, incredibly relieved that her niece was alive and well.
"L-Listen, we're running out of time. I'm talking to this 'Mister Daniel' now, yes? They could cut me off at any second, so pay close attention to what I have to say — I was going to wait to do this, but now that they know I've contacted family, they'll be coming for me anyway. Oh God, there's so much to say. Let me think..."
I glanced at Beth, who was as unassuming as ever, despite the million-in-one chance of even receiving this transmission. She seemed surprised to find that she still had family left in this world.
As for the rest of us... We didn't know what to think. Could we trust what this woman had to say? After all, she was transmitting from an enemy Carrier. My inner turmoil froze when she started speaking again.
"Telos is indeed responsible for the Shezmu virus. I joined their ranks as a means to expose them two years ago for their unethical research, but... I was too late. I'm confessing this on an open channel, because there is no use in me working from the inside any longer. Anyone listening, I urge you to break the shackles they hold over you, and join me in making this institute pay for its crimes against humanity."
I took a step forward, not believing what I was seeing. Is she addressing every Telos operative in the country right now?!
The woman continued to talk about justice for the victims and test subjects, and the possibilities of administering a cure before returning focus to our group.
"Bethany... I'm so very sorry that you've been left all alone. I will come and find you. As for this 'Daniel', I can only assume that the reason you are inside Telos-Naval-137 is because you understand what they have done to the world. Stay alive until we meet again... I have intel that can change—"
The signal was cut off there, and the screen was replaced with a warning message. "Nooo!! Wait!! Auntie Lizzie!!!" Beth screamed, wrestling against Tomás as he attempted to keep her under control.
The image now alerted us that 'Security Protocol 214 has been activated', but I wasn't in the mood to be cautious. I kicked one of the swivel chairs towards the screen in frustration, shattering the monitor and sending sparks flying as the room descended into chaos around me.
Each of the glass compartments clicked open, and the Lost came hurtling out in our direction. Taken by surprise, Tomás threw his guitar case against the ones from the left while Harry clobbered his empty revolver over the heads of those coming from the right.
After only a couple of seconds, it was clear that we wouldn't be able to take all of them on in such a narrow room.
Telos had indeed been watching, and decided to activate the 'insurance' that the navigator had told us about.
I dragged Grumpy along the floor, who was clearly too weak to turn himself around. As the Lost closed in, I felt him grasp my wrist as Tomás and Harry led Beth along the corridor to safety.
"...Go."
I held onto my nameless friend, kicking the Lost back in an attempt to buy us some more time. "W-What are you talking about?! We can still—"
"No. I... I can feel it. I'm gone, but... I want to thank you, for... for believing.” His eyes closed once, batting in slow motion. “For believing that I could be more, than just an O-Saint. Please, go... I can stop them for a couple of seconds."
I shook my head violently, but it didn't matter. He yanked my hand away, and the Lost dug into his bloodied stomach to feast on his exposed organs. All the while, he looked into my eyes as though it dulled the pain.
After much resistance, I turned away to hide the grief of losing two of my friends in one fell swoop.
The heartache beat my chest into submission during my escape, and although it may have been due to the lack of sleep from the past few nights, I just couldn't see our lives returning to normal after this excruciating day.
As I climbed the cold-steel ladders of the Telos sub, I was terrified of the new dimensions that now defined our ruined world. Where we would go on from here, was anyone’s guess.
My deceased friend's voice rung in my ears, his final words urging me forwards onto whatever path I would take.
"...Give 'em hell, Daniel. Give 'em hell."
?? | Dying To Meet You
Obscured in the centre of the velvet-red study, ash fell from the hidden man's cigar as he briefly pondered the implications of the display in front of him.
Above the roaring fireplace rested an incredibly-large television, developed by one of his many subsidiaries to show fiscal or financial information. He rather enjoyed going over his expenses with a nice cold glass of scotch, but today, there had been trouble.
"Father! How I've missed you!!" A long-haired blonde girl came skipping into the room, with no regard whatsoever for the tense emergency at hand. Bursting in after her, two suited men gasped for breath as their chase for the escapee ended.
Both of them quickly recognised the identity of the man in the centre, and with a panicked apology, the employees backed out of the windowless room before they could be 'terminated'. Wrapping her arms around her father's neck supportively, she hummed melodically against him over the armchair.
The man didn't like to appear affected by the girl's presence, but in this situation, he couldn't help but give a sly grin. "...So, you escaped again, did you?"
The nineteen-year-old, who was dressed only in pink pyjamas, hopped over the arm of the chair and set herself down at her father's feet like an infant before criticizing him.
"...You really should learn by now. You can't keep me locked up, unless you invest in guards that don't break quite as easily."
Accepting that she wouldn't leave without a fight, the man allowed her to join him in analysing the data that had been sent to him through a contact in the United Kingdom. On the screen, he first watched a blonde official in one of his company's helicopters, announcing her betrayal in a rather public manner.
He drew a breath from his cigar while his daughter crossed her arms in deep thought. It was a rare circumstance, for her to weigh in on her father’s business.
"...Another one? You can't have all of these rogue operatives running around. Especially if they know too much about our other 'projects'." The man stayed silent, and moved onto the next clip.
He was almost taken aback, at the nature of what he was observing. A little girl and four men, one of them critically wounded, held a submarine navigator at gunpoint before leaving him to be eaten alive by a host infected with the Shezmu virus.
After they apparently had a conversation with the blonde woman he'd seen before, one of the young men cast a chair flying into the camera, ending the transmission. Clicking on his remote, the man rewound the video by a couple of seconds to see the chair suspended in mid-air, along with the furious boy's determined expression.
The wise man extinguished his cigar with slight frustration. "Insects. Not worth my time… Miss Boudica, though? She could be a problem, if left unchecked."
He knew very well that his company was unstoppable, after releasing their virus across the globe. They owned what was left of the world’s nations, and soon they would collect enough data to exact his dream. His resulting goal, which he had fuelled with his own blood, sweat and tears since the institute’s foundation.
His daughter stood to her feet, giving an impressed nod at the angered boy still hovering on the screen above the roasting fireplace. "He’s a cute one... You're not going to kill him, are you?"
Getting up to leave the room, the boss of the company shrugged with a smile."...Why should I concern myself? I can't save him, if he intends to jump right into the hornet's nest. That vessel was merely one of thousands, an insignificant loss."
Left on her own, the blonde girl gazed back up at the boy, perplexed by his will to live in such a hopeless environment. The more she peered into his life, his friends, his face... She felt herself becoming more and more detached from her life in this prison of a home.
Pressing play, she watched their entire struggle over and over again until the final scene came, when the gunshot victim on the floor gave his final words. The camera had already been wrecked by the chair, but through the lines of static, she could just barely make him out.
She placed her hands on the mantelpiece, and propped herself up so that her face was parallel to the determined boy's, desperately trying to save his comrade.
Before he left the submarine camera's view, she gave the image a quick peck on the cheek, smiling mischievously. The words blared throughout the submarine and her father's study.
"Give 'em hell, Daniel."
"Daniel?" The girl repeated, kicking her heels against the floor. Almost immediately, she began plotting her escape from her tyrannical father's institute.
"...I'll be seeing you soon, Daniel."
Author’s Note
Thank you very much for supporting the second installment of this series! I hope you’re enjoying the new direction that our story is taking, and are excited for the third book, ‘Only The Lost’!
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If you wish to contact me directly, you can do s
o at [email protected], or through @TyroTyne on Twitter. Until next time, fellow Lost survivor!