Survival of The Fittest | Book 3 | Final Ride

by Fawkes, K. M.

  “A tech room,” I answered, coming up with it on the fly. “Anything with computers. If we find something like that, I can see whether they have security in place, and what sort of network they’re using. If I can get into that, I can find the exit we need.”

  “If they have a security system, though—”

  I snorted. Amateur. “If they have a security system, I’ll disarm it and create a loop that effectively hides our presence. I’m not worried about that.”

  At that moment, we came to something completely different. A window. Not a window to the outdoors, but a window that looked into a room. A room full of kids who looked terrified. I skidded to a stop and jerked back, beyond the edge of the window, then peeked around, letting only one eye move far enough to be able to see through the glass.

  Yep, the place was full of kids. I was a horrible judge of age, but I was thinking they were all ten or so and under. Old enough to have come to the amusement park for the younger rides. Not old enough to have come here without their parents.

  They were all sitting at desks with what looked like lunch in front of them. Some of them were crying. And I didn’t see a single adult in the room.

  “This just keeps getting creepier,” I said quietly.

  Still, there was nothing I could do about those kids right now. Not until I knew what the situation was. So I dropped to my knees and started crawling, my body secure against the wall under the window. After a pause and a disgusted gasp, I heard Will following along behind me.

  When we got to the other side of the window, we got to our feet and started rushing forward again—but being more careful about sudden windows this time.

  The next room that came up was indeed a tech room. I stopped and stared into it, greedily taking in the five computer monitors, the miles of cables, and the tech equipment that looked like it ranged from cameras to replay machines. It wasn’t super modern, and I’d seen a lot better in other places.

  But it was recent enough that I knew how to use it. And I marked the location in my head. I would want to come back here when I had more time.

  I wanted to get onto those computers and see what I could see.

  Right now, though, I kept moving. We passed another series of garden rooms—and more sorting and warehousing rooms, though no one was in there doing work right now—and then a whole range of what looked like hobby rooms. There were a number of tables and bookshelves that looked like they held books and a bunch of games. A few of the rooms even had TVs.

  Nothing interesting, though. Nothing that looked like it might give us more information about the place itself—or how we were supposed to get the hell out of it.

  Then we came to the end of the hall, and an enormous library.

  And I mean enormous. The thing had to be at least two stories tall, and unlike everything else in the place, it had a roof. A big, arched one, with artwork all over it. The walls were covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with honest-to-God ladders, and the floor was stuffed with comfy-looking couches and chairs, along with tables.

  What, had Adam’s dad been a secret bibliophile? Was this the library he’d built as his getaway? His private space?

  His private space. My mind snagged and caught on the thought, and suddenly I knew exactly where we were. I looked quickly from one end of the room to the other, using every ounce of my self-discipline to keep from reaching out and touching the books, and I finally found it.

  A door.

  I rushed toward it, not bothering to tell Will what I was doing, and reached for the doorknob.

  It wasn’t locked. Like I’d known it wouldn’t be. This place was hidden enough that Adam probably thought no one would ever find it. He wouldn’t even bother to lock the door.

  And when I threw it open, I saw exactly what I’d been hoping for. A private office. A private office that could only belong to one person.

  “Adam’s office,” Will whispered.

  “Exactly,” I said. I took one step forward, then two, and pretty soon I was rushing toward the desk. “Go through everything. Look for anything that might help us get the hell out of here or tell us what this place is.”

  Chapter 9

  We both went into action at the same exact time, going for the things you would have expected us to go for in that situation. The desk. The enormous set of shelves off to the side of the room. I went for the desk while Will went for the shelves, and though we didn’t bother to say anything about it to each other, I knew we were both thinking the exact same thing.

  We didn’t have a lot of time. If there were cameras in this place, they were sure to be trained on this, the most important room in the whole joint. Hell, even if there weren’t cameras in the rest of the bunker, I was betting there were cameras here. Because this was the sort of place in which the narrator of the movie said things like, “And that was where it all went down.” The meetings. The planning. The evil, maniacal laughter as the leaders of the bad guys made decisions that would affect everyone in their power.

  We also both knew, I was sure, that if we were going to find what we were searching for—if we were going to figure out what the hell Adam and his crew of miscreants were up to and how we could get the hell out of there without getting mixed up in it—this was the place we were going to figure it out. It was even better than the tech room with all that gear lying around, if I was being honest.

  I would have to hack those computers to figure out whether I could use them. Here, though, I could just shuffle through the desk of the actual leader and find what he’d left lying around.

  That said, though, when I got to the desk and found a laptop there, it was the first thing I went for. I flipped the thing open, found that it was—unsurprisingly—not protected with a password, and quickly got to the desktop, smiling at how stupid people could be. Either Adam didn’t think anyone in the bunker would be smart (stupid?) enough to try to break into his personal office, or it never occurred to him to wonder whether any of the people he brought in would take offense to the fact that he just thought he could order everyone around… and do something about it.

  Either he thought his power was absolute, or he was too dumb to think about that sort of thing at all. Both were stupid attitudes. And it didn’t really matter which one it was. Both were giving me easy access to his personal laptop, and that was all that really mattered to me.

  Unfortunately, he was also evidently the sort of person who kept everything he’d ever done on his desktop. There were at least a hundred icons for different things, the screen so cluttered with them that for a moment, I had trouble separating them at all.

  “Oh my God,” I groaned. “Fucking amateur.”

  “What?” Will asked, popping out from behind the shelves he’d been searching.

  I cast him a quick glance. “The front of the shelves not interesting enough for you?”

  He shrugged in response. “I figured that if he was looking to hide anything, he’d probably choose behind the shelves rather than at the front.”

  “You crook,” I said with a snort. “Only a thief would think about something like that.”

  He grinned and I slid my gaze back to the desktop in front of me, realizing suddenly that we didn’t have time to be sitting here bantering like we were on some sort of first date or something. A first date that also involved breaking and entering, with the intent to steal whatever we could find.

  I mean, it sounded like a fun first date. But that definitely wasn’t what we were doing.

  I was scanning the icons one by one, looking for anything that seemed like it might hold… I don’t know, a plan or something, when Will suddenly gasped.

  I looked up to see him popping back out from behind the shelves once again, and this time he was wearing an expression that looked a whole lot more triumphant than before. In his hand, he held what appeared to be an old, leather-bound volume.

  “Journal,” he snapped. “Get over here. I’m betting you’re a faster reader than I am, Hacker Girl. I need
your eyes.”

  I slammed the laptop shut and jumped up without a second glance at that desktop. I hadn’t seen anything convenient labeled ‘The Master Plan,’ anyhow. As far as I could see, if Will had found an actual journal—actually written by Adam—then it was our best lead.

  And he was definitely right about me being a faster reader. I’d trained myself young to get through text as quickly as possible, partially because it was absolutely necessary to do the work I did quickly, rather than dawdling. So I knew how to read quickly. And I knew how to make sure the information stuck in my brain. Even if I didn’t bother thinking about it in the moment.

  Seconds later we were on the couch of the office, sitting so close that I could feel every inch of his leg up against mine. I let myself appreciate that for a split second—I mean, I am a woman, after all—and then I yanked the journal out of his hands and flipped it to the first page. Will leaned his head toward mine and within moments we were mirroring that pose we’d taken with Zach in the hallway earlier, looking, no doubt, like co-conspirators who were absolutely up to no good.

  If anyone had walked in on us, they would have known immediately that we were doing something we definitely shouldn’t have been doing.

  “Go throw the bolt on the door,” I told him quickly. “We don’t want anyone showing up unannounced.”

  He didn’t comment, which made me think he’d probably had the same thought in the back of his head somewhere. Instead, he jumped to his feet and dashed for the door. And in the meantime, I started reading.

  The journal was definitely written by hand, and it didn’t take a big leap to figure out that it did indeed belong to Adam. The fact that the first entry was about him being kicked out of the marines for mental instability—a dishonorable discharge, no less—was the first clue.

  The fact that he actually signed every entry was the second.

  It was done, too, in an almost childish sort of scrawl, each letter formed carefully and in a too-big sort of fashion, which made the writing distracting… but also easily readable. No chicken scratch here, thank God. I hoped it would help us get through it quickly.

  By the time Will returned to his position next to me on the couch, I’d already gotten through the first entry.

  “What did it say?” he asked.

  I took a split second to turn on the ‘deciphering’ aspect of my speed reading, to go through the text I’d just taken in, and shook my head.

  “He was dishonorably discharged for mental instability. Apparently he got in a lot of fights with his fellow soldiers and his CO eventually decided that he was just more trouble than he was worth. The fact that he stabbed a guy might have had something to do with it, too.”

  “Already a killer,” Will muttered.

  “Guy didn’t die, but it was enough to get him kicked out,” I said. “Lots of complaining about how unfair it all was. Lots of blaming everyone else. Sounds to me like we have a classic narcissist on our hands. All the godly delusions, none of the responsibility. He wants to be the big man. Just doesn’t want to have to do what it takes to get there. No wonder his dad didn’t like him.”

  More quick reading—with me going through at about double Will’s pace and stopping to explain what I’d downloaded when he fell too far behind—confirmed Zach’s additional stories about how Adam had always wanted to be involved with the amusement park, and had thought it horribly unfair that his dad had kept him out of it. Lots of jealousy about a sister—I wondered if she was dead already, and potentially at Adam’s hand, and decided that either way, she wasn’t my problem—and some assistant that his dad had liked more than him. And a lot of ideological bullshit. Lots of Adam thinking that he was somehow important in a Bigger Than Life sort of way.

  And finally, the full descent into madness, where he started talking about someone being after him. Someone big and important. Someone with big weapons who would do anything to make sure he kept his mouth shut. About what, I didn’t know. This didn’t seem like the kind of guy who had access to any actually important secrets. He certainly didn’t have access to money or power.

  But that didn’t keep him from believing that he had something, I supposed. And it certainly didn’t keep him from believing that someone out there—some big, bad Boogeyman—wanted whatever it was he had in his head.

  We got to the end without any true answer, though—probably because the attack had actually happened and he’d jumped into action rather than sitting around writing about it—and Will and I looked up at each other, our faces covered with suspicion.

  “So, he thinks he’s more than he is, and he’s definitely all about acting on that,” I said, connecting the dots. “He was mad at his dad that he didn’t get to be part of the amusement park, and though he never got to actually have it out with his dad, he must have run here the moment it looked like something was wrong.”

  “Because he knew about the bunker,” Will said, picking up the story. “He must have known that this place would offer safety, if nothing else. He didn’t like his dad—hated him, even, maybe—but when it all went right to shit, he came running back home. Or at least the closest thing to it.”

  “And then he—and his best friend, and maybe some others—get here and find his dad dead and a load of people in the bunker,” I continued. “And suddenly…”

  “Suddenly he has his admirers,” Will finished. “He has his captives. And when life hands him a bunch of military gear and absolute power, along with ready-made guards in the shape of the friends he brought with him, he decides to start collecting more of them.”

  We looked at each other silently, and I didn’t know what Will was thinking, but the conclusion was obvious to me. This guy was absolutely insane. And my goal had changed from getting Will and me out of there… to getting the entire population out. Because no one was going to be safe here with him. He was building an army, and God only knew what he thought he was going to do with them. God knew how many of them he was willing to sacrifice for his own mad goals.

  We couldn’t leave them all to his mercies.

  I was just opening my mouth to say so when a gunshot exploded through the room and the door flew into a million splinters. I ducked right into Will’s lap, instinct taking over, and when I looked up again, my muscles already tensed to run, I saw a guy in full military gear pointing a gun right at us.

  Shit. I’d known we didn’t have much time. But I’d thought we had more than that.

  Chapter 10

  Look, the guy had a gun aimed right for us, and even I—the girl who didn’t really know that much about physical weapons like guns, but specialized in electronic weapons like viruses—could tell that the gun was more serious than the average pistol a girl might have tucked into her purse. The thing looked like a machine gun and definitely required two hands rather than one, and as far as I was concerned, that made it even more deadly.

  Will seemed to agree, as he immediately stood up from the couch and put his hands in the air.

  I mimicked his actions… and kept my mouth shut. Because I’m self-aware enough to know that every so often, speaking actually gets me into more trouble than I would have been in before. Yeah, yeah, I can’t control my urge to speak and get smart. So sue me.

  At least I knew to keep it quiet right now.

  Besides, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have many questions left to ask. That journal had answered quite a bit for me, including who Adam was and why he was doing what he was doing. No, I didn’t know—yet—what his ultimate goal was or how exactly he planned to use the people in this bunker, but I figured if he was stupid enough to have one journal, chances were good he was stupid enough to have another.

  I just had to find it.

  And that thought process meant that I didn’t think it was at all necessary to start asking this guy with the gun about what was going on.

  The guy in question didn’t speak, either—he just motioned jerkily for us to get out of the room and proceed in front of him. Will and I st
arted moving slowly toward the doorway, our eyes on the guard, our feet crunching across what was left of the door itself. It was really too bad he’d destroyed the door, I thought, as it had been a pretty one, all embossed wood and brass plating.

  Still, not my problem. I wasn’t going to concern myself about the fate of the door when we had more important things to worry about.

  We marched past the guard, our hands in the sky and our spines stiff and straight, and then followed his muttered directions to take us back through the larger library—still breathtaking, and I still wished I could spend a moment in there going through the books—and then back into the hallway from which we’d come.

  “Left,” he snapped.

  I didn’t think that telling him I knew exactly how we’d gotten there and how we were supposed to get back was a good idea. So I didn’t. I did start to fool around with the question of how he’d found us, though—and so much more quickly than I’d expected. Sure, there were no ceilings on almost the entire place, and it could have been something as simple as someone finding their way up to that observation platform, seeing us up to no good, and coming down after us… but I didn’t think so. We’d very carefully gone to a back corner of the bunker, away from the more populated areas, and we’d done it when the rest of the population seemed to be in the midst of their daily chores, or whatever they called them.

  We hadn’t been hidden. But we also hadn’t been obvious. Anyone watching from the platform above should have had their eyes on the bigger source of action, so the chances of them coincidentally seeing us in a different part of the bunker just didn’t feel right. I also didn’t think that Adam and his friends had the bandwidth to figure out that anyone might try to undermine them—which meant they wouldn’t have been suspiciously looking for just that sort of thing.

  My instincts were telling me that that wasn’t it.

  So what, then? Were there cameras on the place? Was someone sitting in that tech room at all times of the day, looking at various feeds from around the bunker? Or were they just watching Adam’s office, on the off chance that something happened there?