“Well, let’s take a vote then,” Garrett said. “What do you say?” he asked the people behind me.
“Garrett, wait!” I whispered to him. “These people need to know what they’re up against before they take a vote. I’m almost positive that camera only showed so much. Some of them have an idea, I’m sure, but some don’t. They need to know. Tell them—” I was cut off by Garrett.
“Tell them, then! They explicitly chose you as leader. They want to hear from you,” he said.
I nodded. “All right,” I said, as I addressed the entire group. The words came out of my mouth too loud and rushed. I wasn’t a public speaker. I lacked the people skills others had. I didn’t feel adequate for the job bestowed upon me, but someone had to tell them what they were up against. No one else was going to, so I had to. “I need you to understand fully before we have a vote. There are quite a few of us, but there are hundreds of them. If we fight, know that we have very limited resources and there’s a good chance we’ll lose. Losing to Leslie Marshall means imprisonment or death. We’ve seen what he’s capable of. If we run, I don’t know what waits for us out there, where we’ll end up, or how long we’ll be on the run. Plus, we could still be caught by him. What we decide now will haunt us forever, whatever we choose, but once we decide, we need to be all-in together. This can’t be done alone, it has to be all of us.”
Everyone nodded their heads. “Are we ready for the vote, then?” Spencer asked. Heads nodded once again. “All right, all in favor of running and finding a new home, raise your hand.”
People stood still and quiet.
“All in favor of fighting, raise your hand,” he said. In an overwhelming unanimous decision, everyone raised their hand high and proud. The sentiment brought tears to my eyes. We would fight together to stop Leslie’s cruelty and tyranny.
“We’d follow you anywhere, Aella,” Ronald the architect said. “Am I right?” he asked.
Everyone in the cave cheered in agreement. I was awash with joy. I was never born to be a leader, nor was I groomed to be one. I loved all of these people, and that was the reason I would lead them. I only hoped I could be as great a leader as Idris before me.
Grabbing onto Garrett’s arm, I said, “Wait. There’s something we need.”
“The softphone?” he asked.
“Yeah! We’re gonna need it. We need to get in contact with Earth, somehow, and tell them what’s going on, ask for help. And keep Leslie from getting any more help. Money talks, you know,” I said.
“I know, that’s why we have it,” he said. “I knew Leslie would request backup if there was a war. That’s why we nabbed it before we broke you guys out. In fact, we already transmitted the video of everything Leslie has been up to, and what you did.”
“But how? How did you get it? They had that thing guarded like crazy. It went missing quite a while before the explosions. How did you manage that?” I asked.
Garrett looked at me for a moment, then sighed and looked down at his shoes. “It was Smith,” he said.
“What do you mean? He messed up and left it unguarded?” I asked. “How did Smith have anything to do with this?”
“No,” he said, “Smith stole the softphone for us and delivered it.”
“What?” I asked. I was stunned. Smith had turned his back on us, killed our leader by stabbing him in the side with a knife and watched as we nearly died from dehydration under Leslie’s imprisonment. He had made terrible comments about taking me away from Garrett and being on the winning side. Why would he help us? I thought. He wasn’t wrong when he said we were on the losing end. By anyone’s account, we were outnumbered and outgunned. Why would he choose the winning side just to help the others he had betrayed? “How did that happen? Why?”
“He never left our side. Not really. Smith saved us, probably,” Garrett answered. “He caught us one night, sneaking around your house trying to find a way to get you out. He pushed Spencer and me back into the woods, and we thought he’d kill us, but it was something different entirely. He told us about how Leslie had made him a terrible offer back on Earth and told him the whole plan. He told us how he knew we would be outnumbered, and that even if we knew about it, there would be nothing we could do to stop it. Smith told us he took the deal to have the opportunity to be the inside man and help out.”
“I can’t believe that. I can’t. Why did he kill Idris, then? Why did he have to take it that far?” I asked. I was furious on a million levels.
“Leslie picked him out to do the deed, maybe to test his loyalty. I don’t know. What Leslie asked him to do to him, though, was a lot worse than what Smith actually did, I can tell you that. Smith showed Idris mercy, I know that now,” Garrett said, a silent tear falling from his eye. “Smith told us that when he was forced to do it, he knew there was no coming back from it. He knew everyone would hate him, and he wouldn’t be welcomed back into the group. He also knew there would be a rebellion led against him, and he would probably die. He did it anyway. He told us that when he sunk his knife into Idris, he did his best to make it as quick as possible, and that he told Idris he was sorry. Idris probably didn’t understand, but I think if he knew what Smith was doing for our group, he would’ve. Don’t you?”
I wept. The thought of the pain that Smith must have felt broke my heart. Remembering hearing his sobs as he buried the girl that died with us in the apartment all made sense now. He never wanted that, but his hands were tied. His voice echoed in my mind over and over, ‘It’s better if you don’t know.’ I had no idea what he meant at the time, but I understood now. “We have to go get him!” I said. “Garrett, we have to go get him. He deserves to be here with us.”
“Aella, he doesn’t want to. He made his choice. We can’t afford to lose the intel. I asked him to come back with us that night. He’s staying,” he said, a catch in his voice.
“Well, then we’d better make it count.”
When nightfall came, we put the fires out to mask our presence and discussed details about the plan to overthrow Leslie. It was held as a town meeting, where one person would get up and give their ideas and any information they had, and the rest of the group would stand up and give their feelings or opinions on the matter one at a time. It was refreshing to see that even though most of these people were hungry, hot, and frustrated, they could all work together in a civil manner.
My first question came fast. “How did Smith get a gun?” It had been my first thought when I saw it. “Obviously, Leslie gave it to him, but how did it get there? Also, how many are there?”
Spencer looked at me, shocked. “Did you say a gun? When did he have a gun? I didn’t get to see the video footage, what am I missing?”
“Right before Jane set off the bombs and we escaped. Leslie was interrogating people about the softphone. People were upset because he wouldn’t shut up, and they didn’t back down until he ordered Smith to shoot a guy. Smith pulled a hidden pistol and followed orders,” I said. “Although he was refusing to shoot a woman when you guys showed up.ane spoke up, “If he has one, I’m sure there’s more. Right?” she asked one of the guys from the space team.
“Yeah, if they smuggled one on the flight up here, I’m sure there’s more. Kinda hard to pass a pistol through a ‘secure’ entrance unless there’s a flaw in the system or someone on the inside helping you, which obviously he has no problems with,” he said. “We can’t rule out the possibility that there are more, and we also can’t rule out the possibility that there aren’t more coming.”
Everyone took a collective breath of realization. It hadn’t occurred to me that more supplies might already be en route, or more men. I’d been so focused on stopping Leslie’s current issues, I hadn’t thought about the future. It made sense, though. Leslie had the softphone for quite a while. Plenty of time to request more supplies or help. For that matter, he could have pre-arranged all of this on Earth. I was almost positive he didn’t expect the resistance that he found here on Circadia, but he had to have known ther
e would be backlash of some sort.
“It’s okay, though. Leslie will starve himself out. He doesn’t know how to care for the crops like you do, Aella,” Ronald said. “He won’t know how to fend for himself. If we can just wait them out, we’ve already won. And if they don’t starve, then surely when the darkness comes, he’ll freeze to death. No way he can start a fire by himself.”
“That would be great, except for the fact that we taught his crew everything they needed to know about living on Circadia. Not only did we teach them everything, but they’re gonna thrive like we couldn’t because there’s more of them,” Spencer said. “Three hundred men. That’s a lot of laborers working toward one goal, if they can make it happen.”
“So, that’s what we’re hoping for? We’re hoping three hundred people can’t get along to feed themselves? That’s our best tactic?” Jane asked. “Are you fucking serious?”
“We’re fighting a losing battle,” Garrett said. “There’s no way we can out-man or out-gun Leslie and his crew. No way.”
“Yes. There is,” said a deep voice from the shadows of the cave. Smith stepped forward to reveal himself. The crowd gossiped quietly, and my breath caught a bit as well. His right eye was blackened like someone had hit him, and his voice was rough. “You guys are scientists. We are scientists. I know I’m not one of you, not anymore, but I’m on your team. You are outgunned and outmanned. You can’t beat Leslie with brute force, but you can damn sure outsmart him. Tenfold. That’s what we’re gonna do. That’s what you’re gonna do.”
Chapter Five
“How are we supposed to do that?” asked Garrett. His scowl obvious. “What could we possibly do to end this?”
“Well, it depends,” Smith said thoughtfully. “Do you want to kill everyone, or just stop what he’s doing?”
I spoke up on behalf of everyone in the room. “We want to kill Leslie. The rest will fall in line. Don’t you think?” My glare at Smith felt powerful and strong. He was our ally, but he had still betrayed us. We deserved to be the deciding voice, especially on that matter.
“Yeah, I do. But, my question is, does everyone here agree with that?” Smith asked.
The crowd shifted and swayed as they whispered in each other’s ears. I didn’t understand what they could possibly be discussing. I wanted Leslie dead more than anything in the universe. I just wanted our planet back. I didn’t comprehend until a woman stepped forward from the crowd and spoke.
“There are some of us who want them all dead. They should all pay for what they’ve done,” she said. Her chin raised after she finished, her face steely and cold.
“You mean the soldiers?” I asked.
“Everyone who came here after us,” she replied. “The soldiers, the civilians that accompanied Leslie up here, everyone. Everyone after us.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. I couldn’t believe the hatred she’d spewed. Leslie took everything from us, so I understood wanting him dead. The soldiers, yeah, they’d helped. The civilians? They had paid to come here, leaving everyone else on Earth behind to suffer a terrible fate, but had they really intended to cause us harm? Did eight hundred people really deserve to die? “Why do you want to sentence eight hundred people to death?”
“What gives you the right to sentence one man to death?” another asked. “I don’t even think it’s right to kill Leslie, but you don’t understand their position on the matter? I don’t agree with killing Leslie, but I also understand there’s no other way. I get it. Do you not see their point of view, too?”
My head started spinning. It was apparent no one agreed on what we should do. I was at a loss, and now questioned everything I thought to be right. Why did I think I had the right to decide one man’s fate? Why did that one man think he had the right to decide mine? I took a step back and held my head high. “I think we all can agree, this is too big an issue for one man or even a few to decide. Let’s vote. Whoever has the majority will decide the plan. It seems dark and grotesque to vote on people’s lives, but this is what it’s come to. Once the voting is done, everyone has to be all in. No negotiating. This man is right,” I said as I extended my hand to him. “We should all be able to empathize with each other’s points of view at some level at this point. We’ve been through some shit, right? Now, let’s vote. All in favor of executing Leslie, raise your hand.”
I watched as quite a few hands went in the air, while some teetered on their decisions.
“All in favor of executing Leslie and his crew, raise your hand.”
Quite a few more hands raised, some the same people.
“All in favor of executing everyone who landed on Circadia after us, raise your hand.”
Plenty of hands raised.
“What’s the count?” I asked Garrett.
“Leslie and his crew have to go,” He whispered back in my ear.
I nodded silently and took it all in. “All right. You guys have voted. Leslie and everyone in his crew have been sentenced to death, in all our eyes. Right?”
The crowd nodded their agreement, every nod sincere.
“I’ve gotta tell you guys, I’d do anything for any one of you. If I had to wage a war with anyone, it’d be you guys, hands down,” I said. They all laughed. “So, let’s get started on the plans. Let’s break up into four groups of around twenty people. That seems like a fair amount of people to carry out operations on small infantries of Leslie’s army. Once your group has a plan, bring it to me. Everything needs to be coordinated together. No one goes into anything alone." We discussed who would go with who until everyone was sorted. "Let’s do this!” I clapped my hands, and everyone sought out their groups using their expertise in the deciding factor for teams.
I naturally fit into a group that consisted of our nutritionist, Spencer—the livestock specialist, Sierra—the transportation engineer I met while detained, the entire chem team, the physician’s team, and Smith. Immediately, our thoughts seemed to coincide on a plan. We had no weapons. We had no manpower, at least not like Leslie’s army had. All we had was our intelligence and nature. So, we decided to use biological warfare. It sounded harsh, but it was what we had to work with. Biology and nature, weaponized. Easy to distribute, hard to fight, and little risk for us.
We intended to use every single person in the group as a resource to put our plan into action. Smith and the physician’s team were familiar with contagious and infectious diseases. Spencer knew what diseases would spare the animals, and our transportation engineer could devise a way to deliver the concoction. The nutritionist, the chem team, and I created a plan to destroy the crops while keeping everyone in our group fed and safe.
Figuring out how to keep anyone other than Leslie and his crew living in the encampment was going to be near impossible, so we would have to find a way to get them out if they chose. We knew some would want to stay and some would want to leave. We determined as a group that any who wanted to stay with Leslie would suffer the same fate as him.
“Smallpox is our only option,” Spencer said. “It’s the only disease that won’t affect the livestock. It only chooses human hosts.”
“Where the hell are we supposed to get smallpox?” I asked. “Seriously. Wasn’t the last case in the seventies?”
Dr. Mayhew cut in, “Yes, the last case was in Somalia in 1977. Since then the WHO has deemed it eradicated globally, and has stopped vaccinating for smallpox. It would be very difficult to duplicate.”
“Well, that’s it then. If we can’t duplicate it or even have something to work from, it’s out,” Smith said. “I can’t create a virus out of thin air.”
“No one said you had to,” said Dr. Mayhew. “I just said it would be difficult to duplicate. I have the virus.”
“What?” Spencer asked. “What do you mean you have the virus?”
“Yeah...what?” I asked.
“The CDC got wind of Grow. They were one of two organizations to house tiny amounts of the virus to study in case of another outbreak. They also house
d the few vaccinations left in the world. It’s been a while since anyone contracted smallpox, like Aella said, but they were worried with heightened tension between nations that they would be reduced to biological terrorism,” Dr. Mayhew said. “Obviously, it went a lot farther than that pretty quickly since they nuked the entire world, but this was going to be a close second. The CDC shipped it up here with me, secretly, to keep anyone from getting their hands on it down there. They said the numbers here outweighed the loss they would experience there.”
We all sat in shocked silence as we looked back and forth at each other.
“I can work with that,” Smith said. “What kind of mortality rate are we looking at, here?”
“I’m not sure which strain I have, honestly. They were supposed to send me with both variola major and minor, but I only have one labeled ‘variola.’ Variola major has a thirty percent mortality rate, whereas variola minor has a less than one percent mortality rate. Big differences when you’re trying to wipe out a small army,” Doctor Mayhew said. “But even if it just makes them sick for a while, maybe it will give the other teams a shot.”
“I don’t even know how the virus is transmitted,” Sierra said. “I know I’m supposed to deliver this thing to them, but how do I do that?”
“It’s spread via droplet, so we would almost need a solution to spray over them, or via contaminated clothing or blankets,” Doc said. “We are going to have to create a contaminated solution, and either infect the blankets or create a way to administer the droplets to everyone.” He sat quiet, then looked at Smith. “He’s probably our best bet to deliver the virus. He can get close to these people where we can’t. When we started this, I figured Sierra could deliver it on some kind of drone apparatus, but it may be better to have someone inside do it.”
“No," I said, "he’ll get sick, too.”
“Aella, it’s okay. It’s the only way,” Smith said. “This is why I did it. I want to help.”
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