The Loki Variation

by James Riley, Sabrina

  “We are being held against our will. Everyone in here is. I don’t think they want to help us at all, the military guys live in the building with electricity and water and all of us are living like dogs out here in this makeshift football field.”

  Ripley snorted, hoping someone would notice her begging so beautifully. Nora did.

  “Sasha, why else would they keep all these people here, though? They have us going out looking for more survivors. I had hardly been here an hour, and they were already putting me on a jeep to find more!” Travis was shoving cold toast into his mouth.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t get a good feeling. I don’t like that they took Lily and Derek and hid them away somewhere, and I don’t like that the people out here with us are treating us like lepers! Shouldn’t there be some kind of planning, something to prepare for the future? There’s nothing, just sending people out to kill the infected and throwing the survivors in a dirty tent.”

  Adam was thinking deeply, Sasha could tell by the wrinkle in his forehead. After a moment, he looked up.

  “What is the plan then? If we are going to get Lily and Derek and Hud and get out of here, how are we going to do it?”

  Sasha remained silent as she tried to puzzle this together in her mind. They hadn’t heard from Hud since yesterday, Derek and Lily were virtually unreachable, and Travis was supposed to be leaving for another scouting trip later on. She felt like everyone was slipping through her fingers.

  “I can try to find out about Derek and Lily, if you want. No one really talks about the offices much, but I can ask the other guys when I am out on the trip.” Travis suggested.

  “That’s really all we can do right now, I think.” Sasha said mournfully. “Try to find out as much as we can, and figure out how to use that information to get Derek and Lily out, then Hud, and get the hell out of here.”

  Travis nodded, finishing up what was left on his plate. Adam set his plate on the ground for Ripley to lap up, which she did graciously.

  For the rest of the morning, until Travis had to leave to meet up with the scouting team, they all tried to keep the conversation away from Derek and Lily. Nora and Sasha sorted through the little bag that Sasha still carried, full of antiseptics and bandages, potable water pills, and quite a few other assorted items she had collected that she thought might one day be useful. She still had the bottle of prescription sedatives that she had stolen from the abandoned house with Nora on the very first day. She rolled the bottle around in her hand for a moment before shoving it back in the bag.

  When Travis left a bit later, Adam and Nora played a few games of tic-tac-toe by scratching with small sticks into the dirt floor of the tent. Sasha was silent, her mind racing at a hundred miles an hour, wondering if she had enough guts to get information from the other survivors here. She hated depending solely on Travis, she couldn’t allow him to be the only chance they had.

  Chapter 57.

  The next time Derek’s eyes fluttered open, Sanjeev was standing next to his bed again. He was drawing blood from Derek’s arm, and apparently had been doing it a lot; there were several vials of Derek’s blood lying on the metal tray next to the bed.

  Derek tried to sit up, but Sanjeev gently pushed him down, asking him to hold on for just a second. He finished drawing the blood to fill the last vial, and then looked at Derek.

  “How are you feeling now?” He asked.

  “Still drugged, and why the hell did you give me more?” Derek was mad, but his voice didn’t sound like it.

  “I apologize. You were getting out of hand, and I didn’t want to put your vitals at risk. Also, the doctor was coming to see what the racket was, and I didn’t want to make him upset either.”

  Derek fought to keep his eyes open.

  “Why would he be upset?”

  “Because you are very special. Your body has the potential to help us stop this outbreak, to cure people, and to continue research on the viral parasites without danger.”

  Derek wondered if he was hallucinating.

  “Continue research? What, killing an entire population of people wasn’t enough for you guys to realize that maybe what you were researching was a bad idea?” Again, his sluggish voice sounded anything but outraged.

  “It’s very important, but I don’t expect you to sympathize. Anyway, I think you will be happy to know that I won’t have to sedate you as much anymore. We are going to begin another phase of testing, to see what is happening with your symptoms, and I need you wide awake and alert for those.” Sanjeev had a smile on his face, it looked as though Sanjeev honestly thought Derek would be pleased with his news.

  “Testing? Am I cured? When can I leave?” Derek wanted nothing more than to stand up, take out the IV lines, and walk right out and find Sasha.

  “I don’t know. But when we-“

  Sanjeev was interrupted by what sounded like a mechanical scream. He jumped up immediately, leaving Derek behind his curtain, unable to see.

  Derek heard Sanjeev yelling information to the doctor, who was cussing wildly. The mechanical screaming continued, and then Derek heard something he had only ever heard on television shows. A defibrillator. The mechanical scream was a flat line, and Sanjeev and the doctor were trying to save someone.

  Derek concentrated on the sound of the defibrillator, he heard it being used once, twice. More cussing. He couldn’t tell if he was hearing it recharge again, but he kept listening. As he was listening, his mind drifted back to Sasha and Nora, and he remembered Sanjeev saying he would try to get a message to them. He tried to make himself remember to ask him about it later, when they were done saving whoever was in need right now.

  The screaming stopped after a few moments. The remaining silence was almost as loud. He heard the doctor tell Sanjeev that it was no use, she was dead. It saddened Derek to think someone had just passed away. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.

  “Lily, no!”

  Chapter 58.

  Adam stayed with Nora when Sasha couldn’t take it anymore, and went to find someone to talk to. She left the tent on a mission; she wanted to know what the goal of this place was, what they were going to do with Lily and Derek, and find out how to get to Hud.

  She hadn’t walked very far when she saw an open tent. Someone was coming out of it, so she stopped and waited.

  An older man with dust colored hair and a wrinkled face looked at her as he came out of the door flap. Sasha tried to make herself look as harmless and friendly as possible, but the man’s face twisted into a grimace when he saw her.

  He looked back into the tent and mumbled something too quiet for Sasha to hear. Then he turned back around, and walked in the opposite direction of Sasha without giving her a glance. A moment later, Miranda appeared outside the tent.

  “Hi, Sasha. Everything okay? We are about to start on dinner, I can bring you a few plates when it’s done.” Miranda was wringing her hands.

  “No, I think we will eat with everyone else, if that’s okay.” Sasha said.

  “Well, let’s walk back to your tent, and I’ll tell you why it might not be a good idea.” Miranda said, touching Sasha’s elbow as she walked past her. Sasha reluctantly followed.

  When they had made it back to Sasha’s tent, Sasha led Miranda in. Miranda sat on the dirt floor, in front of Nora and smiled at her. Nora just looked at Sasha.

  “What’s going on, Miranda? Does everyone get this lovely welcome treatment when they first get here?” Sasha could hear the sarcasm in her voice.

  “I’m sorry, all of you. But there are some people here who lost everyone, everything they had to this Loki Variation. They hate it, and they hate everything that has to do with it. They think that your two friends should have been killed on sight, and they don’t understand why they weren’t.”

  “Do you understand?” Adam asked.

  “I think I do. It seems that the rumors are that they were different. They had the signs of the parasite, but they were still people. If they are able to find o
ut how to cure this parasite by learning from your friends, then why would they give up the chance.” She shrugged.

  “But most people here, they just want to move on. They got no one left but us, and they want to keep it that way. Letting people with the parasite live is a danger to them, and they don’t care what the reason is.”

  Sasha wanted to go talk to these people, let them know that Derek wouldn’t hurt any of them. She wanted to tell them that Derek wanted to be cured too, and that Lily was really just a little girl who had been through a living hell.

  “We’ve lost everything too, Miranda.” She said, “we are the only family any of us have now, and they have taken Derek and Lily and God knows what they are doing to them! Not only can we not talk to them, we can’t even talk to everyone here because they automatically hate us. Our other friend, Hud, he is working in that building, and we can’t find him and we don’t know how to even start looking. The guards at the front gate look like they would kill us instantly if we tried to leave.”

  Miranda pursed her lips, and nodded.

  “I know it’s gotta be hard. We don’t get to talk to the officers much ourselves, they only come out when they need something, or when there is an attack. We basically handle everything that goes on in here, the scouts bring us the food, water, and other stuff, and we’ve made a home here. I think you will be fine here too, it’s just gonna take some time.” Miranda was using a soothing voice, one that a mother would use on a child, and it was aggravating Sasha.

  “I don’t want to be fine here. This isn’t my home. I want to find my friends and leave.” She snapped.

  Miranda looked a little taken aback, and she sat with her mouth open for a second. Adam tried to mediate.

  “I think what she means is that we feel like we would be better off on our own. How do we go about getting our friends back so we can leave? It sounds like that would suit everyone here just fine, anyway.”

  Miranda looked back and forth from Sasha to Adam, seeing the stark contrast in attitude in them, but both with the same goal. One she couldn’t help them with.

  “You can’t leave. That’s part of the rule, once someone has been taken inside this fence, they stay. Those aren’t our rules, those are the Officer’s rules, and no one has really tried to leave. Why would anyone want to? Food, water, shelter, it’s more than what can be offered out there.” Miranda was genuinely confused.

  Sasha wasn’t calming down.

  “We can find food, water, and shelter on our own, together. That’s more than I have here.” Her eyes were blazing.

  “Sasha, I wish I could understand, but I have seen the end of the world. Everything has changed. This is it. You need to be realistic. I don’t know what else to say, but I do think I should give you some time to calm down. I’ll be back later with your dinner.” She stood as she was talking, and without looking at any of them, walked out of the tent.

  Chapter 59.

  Sanjeev was ignoring Derek’s questions, and the Doctor was ushering a few men in uniforms who were rolling the bed containing Lily’s body away. Derek noticed how tiny Lily looked, her frame was doll-like lying on the bed, and Derek swallowed a lump rising in his throat. He swore out loud, his voice cracking.

  Quietly, Sanjeev was sitting at a stool near a large desk, writing furiously on a clipboard. He flinched when Derek yelled, but didn’t look towards him. The uniformed men exited the room, the Doctor following them, barking orders about containment protocols and proper disposing of the body.

  Derek’s sadness and guilt over Lily’s death was transforming into rage with every passing second. He gritted his teeth, and called for Sanjeev again. Again, Sanjeev acted as though Derek was not there. His temper was slow to rise, and hard to ignite, but he could feel it welling up. Everything he had done to protect his friends, all the hope that had gone into finding the other survivors, and this is what it had given him. Isolation. He was helpless, confined to a bed and drugged, tested, being poked and prodded like some kind of guinea pig. They had tested Lily to death literally. Derek pushed himself up on the bed and swung his legs over the side.

  Enough. Derek heard the word in his mind, it was his anger propelling him to take action. He was strong, way stronger than Sanjeev. He was going to get out of here, find Sasha, Nora, all of them, and they were going to escape. His bare feet touched the cold concrete floor.

  “Derek.” Sanjeev’s voice filtered into Derek’s head. He ignored it. He lifted himself off of the mattress, onto his shaking legs. He hadn’t stood on his own in God knows how long. His few bathroom breaks had been humiliatingly scheduled and monitored by Sanjeev, and it usually involved a very long, slow wheelchair ride to the nearby restroom, Sanjeev wheeling machinery and cords behind Derek.

  The memory of the forced dependency just irked Derek even more, and he began pulling at the tube attached to his arm. The tape stung as it pulled away from his skin, but he yanked it off and dropped it, looking in Sanjeev’s direction in defiance. Sanjeev was making his way over.

  Derek pulled off sticky monitors from under his hospital gown, ripping out hair and making his eyes water. His hands were shaking, and it was starting to feel as though he was trying to lift an entire semi truck by himself. His legs shuddered under his weight, threatening to buckle.

  “Derek, don’t.” Sanjeev was closing in, one arm extended towards Derek, as if he would push him back onto the bed. Derek swung at him, rage flooding his veins and taking over his thought process.

  But he didn’t connect. His arm flailed sadly, weakly, and came to rest back down at his side. His legs finally had enough, and his knees went weak. He was headed for the hard, cold ground. He didn’t even try to put his arms out to catch himself, he didn’t care anymore. He had once been strong enough to protect the ones he loved, now he couldn’t even stand to find them.

  A pair of arms caught him just before he hit the ground, and slowly lowered him to a sitting position. Derek kept his head lowered, he didn’t think he could take any more degradation. He waited for something to happen.

  Instead, he heard silence. He raised his eyes to see Sanjeev on one knee in front of him, watching Derek intently.

  “Please, Sanjeev.” Those were all the words he could say, he didn’t even know what he was asking for.

  However, Sanjeev seemed to know.

  “It’s over. I’m not doing any more tests. I’m not sedating you anymore.” He looked around nervously, obviously expecting the Doctor and his uniformed men to reappear.

  Derek eyed him for a moment, and realized Sanjeev was talking as much to himself as he was to Derek.

  “I didn’t sign up for this. Why am I doing this?” He was running his hand through messy black hair, and rubbing his eyes under his glasses.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen now, to either of us. But I can’t do this anymore.”

  Derek and Sanjeev sat in silence for a few more minutes. Sanjeev helped Derek stand and get back in the bed, but he didn’t reattach the IV and he turned off the shrieking monitoring machines instead of reapplying the wires.

  Derek closed his eyes and listened to his heart. It was not pounding anymore.

  Chapter 60.

  Another night of restless sleeping had left Sasha feeling even more confrontational. They had been served a cold dinner by Miranda, and she had been less than cordial. The night had passed in silence. Neither Hud nor Travis had come by, and there was no news about Derek or Lily.

  After letting Ripley out behind the tent, and checking on Nora to make sure she was sleeping deeply, Sasha left the tent with her jaw set, heading towards the mess tent.

  As she walked up, she noticed the dusty-haired man glaring at her from a plastic table just inside the pulled back door flaps. She raised her head a little bit and continued inside. There was a handful of people gathered already this morning, and Miranda and a few others were already starting to set up the tables with food. Miranda froze as Sasha sauntered in.

  “Hi, Miranda.” Sa
sha said, keeping her eyes on the dusty-haired man. Miranda didn’t answer. Sasha took this as her cue and stood in the middle of the tent, making sure all eyes were on her, and spoke loud and clear.

  “Hello. I’m Sasha, and I want you all to know that there is nothing to fear from me or my friends. We have gone through the same things you have, and I think we can all help each other.” She paused, looking for any kind of response. Nothing.

  “Look, you aren’t being treated fairly. This…camp…it’s nothing more than a football field that they threw a fence around.” She pointed towards the offices. “They sleep in comfort, with hot showers and electricity while you sleep on the dirt and wash up with bowls of water.”

  This tactic didn’t seem to be having the effect she wanted either. She wasn’t surprised that it was the dusty-haired man that spoke up, in a gravelly, angry voice.

  “But we ain’t running from those monsters no more, and we ain’t havin’ to hide and pray that we make it through the night. We been doin’ just fine, and we don’t need no little girl tryin’ to rustle up some sympathy for her monster friends.” He let that sink in.

  “You’re not doing just fine! What about all the kids here? What about their future? What about the rest of the country, the world?! Are you just going to let these…people…run your lives and theirs from here on out?!” Her voice was wavering, it was exactly not what she wanted.

  “Listen, girl. You’d be smart to shut your mouth and go back to your tent. There’s a delicate balance we got here and you are rockin’ the boat. Those soldiers is all we have. It’s dangerous to try and piss them off and we won’t put up with it.” He growled.

  “Please, just listen. There are more of us than there are of them!” She was about to continue, but the man stood up, and took one step towards her. Sasha fought herself not to step backwards from him.

  “I said that was enough. You’re putting us all at risk with your diseased friends and now with your crazy talking. If I hear one more word about it from you, I’ll shut your mouth for you.”