Sasha’s heart was pounding in her ears, and tears were stinging her eyes. She was looking at everyone else in the tent, pleading with them to help her, but everyone either looked away or glared at her with the same intensity as the dusty-haired man. She was defeated, there was no help here. She took a step backwards and felt someone standing right behind her.
It was Adam. He was standing behind her, looking protective and eyeballing everyone in the tent.
“You’re all cowards.” He looked at the occupants in disgust, and then started backing away, pulling Sasha with him.
Before they made it back to the door, several uniformed officers entered, all wearing plastic smiles and freshly washed hair. The mousiest looking man Sasha had ever seen stood in front of all of the others and began to speak in a voice reminiscent of a politician at his campaign podium. Sasha shuddered.
“Which one of you gentlemen is Brian Tulley?” He said, sweeping the room with his beady eyes.
A stocky man with bright red hair and piercing blue eyes looked around momentarily before he raised his arm.
“Good news, Brian! Due to reports of your hard work and dedication to the survivor’s camp, you’ve been chosen to assist with a special project within the Offices. Can you please come with us now for immediate training?” The plastic smile widened.
Brian stood happily, wiping his hands on his shirt as he approached the mousy officer. They shook hands and with a few approving looks from the other officers, Brian was led out of the mess hall and out of sight towards the only gate.
The event seemed to be a happy one to everyone in the tent. Apparently, this had been the first time someone had been chosen to become an officer. Everything Sasha had just said became even more irrelevant to them than it already was. Dusty-haired man had an ingratiating smirk on his face, and Sasha glowered at him as Adam pulled her out of the tent and back to their own.
Chapter 61.
Derek dreamed. It was the first time he remembered dreaming in weeks, and it was of his mother, and Dan, and Ripley. His high school friends, his old job. He woke up with a feeling of losing them all over again, but glad for the memories.
There was movement in the room. Derek opened his eyes, and saw Sanjeev in Lily’s old room. He was pushing monitoring machines near the replaced bed, which had been made with clean sheets. When Sanjeev turned to plug the machines into an outlet, he saw Derek watching him. He quickly looked away.
Derek noticed that the sticky monitoring pads had been stuck to his body again. The IV tape was on his arm as well, tubes attached to a machine. Derek thought he must have dreamed about Sanjeev too, when he told him it was over. His heart sank.
Then he realized there was no needle at the end of the tubing. It was all for show. The monitors were working, but there were no fluids being pumped into his body, no drugs weakening him, and no genetically altered super bugs being pushed into his veins.
The doors burst open, and the doctor and several uniformed men came in. They were carrying a very weak, very redheaded man, he was barely walking on his own, and his eyes were on the ground. The soldiers dragged him past Derek and towards Lily’s empty room.
Just as they were directly beside Derek’s bed, the man looked up for a second; bright blue eyes swam with sedation. Although the man was too drugged to speak, he seemed to be pleading with Derek. They disappeared behind the curtain that Sanjeev was pulling closed, and Derek was left with more questions than ever.
Why would they bring an uninfected person here? Was he hurt? Had the camp been attacked? Derek laid in silence for what seemed like an eternity, listening hard to the whispering between Sanjeev and the doctor. He continued to listen long after the soldiers left, and long after his stomach began growling for food. He drifted into his own thoughts, memories and flashes of his past playing in his mind like a slow motion montage. Sanjeev eventually emerged and brought Derek a soggy peanut butter sandwich and a cup of cream colored pudding. He did not say a word to Derek, nor did he meet his eyes.
Derek ate the food in silence, and finally fell asleep again. There was nothing more his brain could do to occupy him, now that the drugs were out of his system.
After a fitful but long nap, Derek’s eyes slammed open, and immediately rested on the now open curtain around the room Lily had been in. Only this time, the bed was occupied by a redheaded man who was staring blankly across the room, his head tilted weakly towards Derek. His eyes were now completely black.
Chapter 62.
“Adam, you were great.” Sasha said to Adam as soon as Nora had fallen asleep. They had spent the entire day alone, only eating the few wrapped snacks that Miranda had given them earlier. No one had come to their tent, no one had brought them food. Adam had spent most of the day convincing Sasha that it would do no good to go back and plead with the survivors again.
“They’re brainwashed or something.” He had said.
Sasha had managed to keep Nora occupied by telling her a few stories, but Nora had become even more detached than she normally was, and sitting cross legged next to Ripley, staring at a wall for hours is what she seemed most comfortable doing. That alone made Sasha nervous enough to want to take on all the crazy people in this camp on by herself.
She had racked her brain all day, trying to come up with anything, any plan that would save them. But without a way to get to Hud, Derek, or Lily, and with Travis still gone on the scouting mission, she was helpless. Adam tried to help her, but he was at a loss just as she was.
So they sat quietly for a while once Nora had begun to breathe evenly under the blanket, using Ripley as a pillow. She had tried to think of something to tell him to let him know how grateful she had been for his support in the mess tent that morning.
“Well, it’s true.” Adam responded. “They are all cowards.”
He was shredding a potato chip wrapper with his hands, obviously he needed something to do. Sasha understood that feeling very well.
“There has to be something we can do. How many guys watch the gate at night?” Sasha repeated herself, they had already gone over this. There were at least two, maybe more, and they were armed. Sasha and Adam were not a match for that.
“Too many.” Adam said sadly.
“When is Travis coming back?” She wondered out loud, for about the fiftieth time today.
Adam didn’t respond. He didn’t have an answer.
Another hour of silence broken only every now and then by Sasha asking another pointless question, trying another pointless tactic of escape, until both of them were mentally exhausted. Sasha was just drifting off when she heard a rustle. She jumped awake.
“Hey, it’s me.” Hud’s voice whispered.
“Hud!” Sasha cried and sat upright. She saw Adam jump up as well out of the corner of her eye.
Hud was wearing the uniform of the officers. He looked clean and shaven, and Sasha realized he looked almost nothing like the dirty, intimidating bully she had first met at the base in Jacksonville. She was ecstatic to see him.
“Listen, this place is not what you think it is.” Hud said, looking concerned.
Sasha’s mouth hung open; that was almost verbatim what she was about to say to him. Her speechlessness gave Hud the opportunity he had hoped for. His mouth opened and words came out, all in one long breathless sentence.
“These guys aren’t US military. They’re some kind of corporation. It’s all fake. They put me and a few other military guys to work just to make it look real. They had me doing busy work, unloading food and stuff. Stocking the supply room, inventory. I was ordered to stay inside the Offices, and when I was leaving the shower, trying to figure out a way to get out here to you guys, I did a little recon of my own.”
Sasha and Adam stared open-mouthed in the dim moonlight.
“I found records. These guys are communicating with others, a lot of others, somewhere else. The parasite was contained, it didn’t get everyone. Most of the country is alive and well, and this isn’t a survivor camp, it�
��s a quarantine.” He gritted his teeth on the last word.
Sasha felt as if she had been punched in the chest. Her throat closed and she forced herself to swallow.
“Why?” She choked.
“These people created the parasite. They made the Loki Variation. They killed everyone in the South Eastern United States and some in Mexico and in a few other areas with it on accident when it got out. Now they are trying to fix what they did, but only to continue their research. They want to refine it, make this parasite work for them. Everyone in this camp is going to be a guinea pig for them eventually. This Loki Variation, it isn’t some accident of nature. It’s a goddamned weapon.”
Everyone Sasha had ever loved flashed through her mind. They had died for money. They had died so a corporation could sell a weapon. Adam’s head dropped, and he covered his face in his hands. No one spoke for a moment, there was nothing to say.
When Hud spoke again, his voice was strained and cracking.
“We are getting out of here. Where is Travis?”
“He’s on a scouting mission. We don’t know when he is coming back.” Sasha said, fighting tears.
“Okay. I’m going to find out where they have Derek and Lily. It can’t be too hard to find, that building isn’t that big.” He was thinking out loud. “I’m also going to get copies of the records I found, somehow. We’re getting out of here. We’re going to the West until we find civilization, and we are going to show the world what these people are doing.”
“How?” Sasha was still breathless. She was so relieved that Hud was filling in the planning she had tried to desperately to do today.
“I don’t know yet. I have to get back inside before someone realizes I’m gone. But I will be back tomorrow night, and I will have answers for you.” He was still fighting, trying not to become emotional. Sasha was surprised and humbled by this rare show by Hud, but didn’t have enough time to ponder it. Hud had turned and left the tent already.
Adam and Sasha had nothing else to do but agonize over what they had just learned, and hope with everything they had that Hud could come through.
Chapter 63.
Derek slept for a long time. He thought it must be morning when woke again, although he had no way of knowing.
The hours went by, with Sanjeev avoiding him, but still not drugging him. The Doctor was in and out of the room all day, he seemed completely occupied with the new test subject, and although he checked Derek’s clipboard several times, he seemed to be satisfied with what he read.
Derek wished he knew what it said. He didn’t think he would understand it anyway, but maybe there would be clues; he had no idea what was happening to him now. What had they done to him?
After a bad lunch of canned tuna and warm soda, Derek watched as the Doctor left the room again, and Sanjeev finally hurried over to Derek. He grabbed the clipboard and stood close to the side of Derek’s bed. He looked at the clipboard instead of at Derek while he spoke.
“Listen, I want you to know what’s going on. The parasite that infected you was part of an experiment by the company I was interning for to create a quick, effective way to enhance the US Military’s troops. The idea was to inject them with the parasite, which affected their Adrenal glands in a way I won’t get into, giving them a highly greatened capacity for pain, speed, and strength. We were still testing the latest version, the Loki Variation, when it got out. I don’t know how, but it spread insanely fast, and we had not yet developed a way to turn the parasite off, to bring the troops back to normal.”
Derek listened incredulously, trying to piece it together as Sanjeev explained, but it didn’t make sense in his mind for anyone to create something so horrible for such a dishonorable reason as turning soldiers into monsters.
“I was on the project for a long time, and when I tried to leave, I was forced to continue. I was kidnapped on a helicopter, and I have been told that my family is being held captive until the project is finished. I haven’t been able to contact them. I was brought here to continue research, to try and use what little resources we had, which was people like you, to try and make a countermeasure, a cure. Not that there is really anyone left to cure around here, but so that this company can continue trying to sell it to the military. If the US isn’t interested, some other country will be, and these guys have all the money and time they need to play with it. As the only ones with any information about the outbreak, they pretty much have the government wrapped around their little finger.”
Sanjeev took a deep breath. Derek realized that he was probably the only person aside from the uniformed employees that had been told any of this. He willed himself to remember everything.
“These guys aren’t going to let you out of their sight, you are the only one who has survived this far with these results after being infected, and whatever it is about it that made that happen is what they want. I shouldn’t have let them know how well you responded, I didn’t know what else to do. But they do know, and they aren’t going to let you go for anything.” He shook his head.
“So, I can’t figure out how to get you out of here, but you need to help your friends. Everyone in this camp is a future test subject, like him.” He nodded towards the redhead.
“Find Hud.” Derek answered immediately. “He’ll help us, find him.”
“Who?” Sanjeev implored.
“Chris Hudson, my friend. He was in the Navy. They had him working for them when we got here. Look for the scorpion tattoo on the back of his neck.”
Suddenly, the door opened, and the Doctor returned, looking preoccupied with papers in his hands. He glanced over at Sanjeev and Derek, and Sanjeev was already writing something on the clipboard, pretending to check the readouts on the machines.
Derek caught on quickly and played along, letting his head roll to the side as if he were sedated. As the Doctor turned his back on them to set his papers on the desk, Sanjeev moved away from Derek. He turned to look at Derek as he walked away, and nodded slightly. Derek breathed again.
Chapter 64.
Her head felt as heavy as a boulder. Sasha’s night had been long and she didn’t think she had slept for more than 20 minutes in a row. Her few dreams had been awful and she was trying to forget them.
Adam was up as well, and he was pacing the tent. Nora was awake, eating the last of a small box of crackers, staring at the wall again.
“Now what?” Sasha said, before she even lifted her head.
“We wait.” Adam answered without turning.
When Sasha went to take Ripley out back, she found another pile of wrapped snacks outside the tent. When she took Nora to the portable restrooms, she heard vehicles pulling around the road, but didn’t get a chance to see what was going on. And when Adam came back from relieving himself, he said that something was going on, but he didn’t know what.
A few minutes later, the door flaps burst open and Travis came in.
He looked tired and pale, but he seemed happy to have something to tell them.
“I think I got it figured out.” He started.
Sasha and Adam let him continue.
“I heard a few of the other guys talking about how they had heard that there are more survivors out there. Lots more. I think the Officers are communicating with them.” He said excitedly.
Sasha and Adam remained silent. Sasha knew she didn’t want to be the one to tell Travis what really was going on, and she knew Adam didn’t either. Travis continued.
“So I was thinking, why wouldn’t they come for us? And the only reason I can think of is cause of those offices. They have to be doing something in there that they don’t want the rest of the survivors to know about. You know?” Travis was frowning, he had really spent a lot of time thinking about this.
“Travis, sit down. We have a lot to tell you.” Sasha said.
After explaining it all to Travis, and watching his expressions go through the same process that theirs had the night before when Hud had explained it to them, they gave him time
to understand it all while they ate. Travis was supposed to be helping with the unpacking of the goods that the scouting mission had turned up, and helping to resupply the weapons and ammo for the next one. He wanted to stay with Sasha and Adam, but Sasha convinced him to go, so no attention was drawn to them when Hud was supposed to be sneaking into the camp tonight.
Sasha tried to stay awake to wait for Hud, but she found herself sleepier than ever, and her eyelids ignored her orders to stay open. She even had a hard time opening them again when Hud came back that night. He had to shake her awake, and then sat down to explain to her and Adam what had transpired.
“I found Derek. They are holding him for testing, a man named Sanjeev found me and told me that Derek is special, and that these people want him so they can continue working on the parasite. He’s a scientist or something, but he wanted me to warn you that we are all in trouble.”
Sasha’s eyes began to tear up. Derek was alive and someone was on their side.
“I also got these.” He shoved a fistful of crumpled papers towards Sasha. She opened them to look at them, but her mind was still on Derek. She assumed she was looking at the documentation Hud had talked about, that proved the intentions of whoever this company was and what had caused so many needless deaths. She folded them and stuffed them in her pocket.
“What about Lily?” Adam suddenly asked.
Hud shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”
Sasha let a sob escape, but quickly corrected herself. Adam pursed his lips.
“What now?” Sasha whispered.
“I’m getting him out. I just need to find a way to distract the guards, but there are so many, I don’t know how that is possible.” He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the ground.
Every possibility of distraction was discussed. There was virtually nothing they could do that would give Hud the opportunity to get back into the offices and break Derek out without being easily overtaken by the uniformed men who were stationed at multiple points, inside and outside the Offices.
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