by Judd Vowell
The Omega XT at the .50-caliber machine gun in the back of the jeep shot first. The others joined him within seconds, creating a cacophony of rapid-succession gunfire that was deafening. Jacob put his hands to his ears and ducked instinctively, but he knew where all of the bullets were going.
The human herd didn’t have time to react or to run, and it was all over in a minute’s time. “Cease fire!” the voice sounded over the glorified firing squad. The aftermath was hard to see through the haze of machine-gun smoke. But Jacob could soon enough make out the lifeless bodies, some stacked on top of others. Some were missing limbs or separated from their lower half.
“Holy shit!” Jacob yelled out instinctively. “What the hell was that?!?”
The Omega XT standing next to him said plainly, “Clearing a path.” He grabbed the night-vision goggles from Simone. “We put them out of their misery, if you ask me.”
The voice that had directed the massacre gave one last order, to everyone. “Load up. Time’s-a wasting. Got to get moving.”
Simone and Jacob walked back to the middle humvee and climbed into the backseat without words. He laid his head back and closed his eyes. And as the vehicle bounced over the freshly-dead bodies sprawled across the highway, he silently questioned Salvador and his experiment for the very first time.
17.
I t was just before dawn when the convoy entered Sector 3’s grid. Jacob quickly arranged a meeting with its directorship for the afternoon. He and Simone were shown their living quarters in the meantime. The Nashville hotel that would become their temporary home had previously been one of the most notable in the country. It was classic and traditional, with high vaulted ceilings and ornate fixtures throughout. There were large murals painted on the walls of the massive atrium that served as both lobby and late-night social lounge. They depicted scenes of well-known American battles, famous for their heroic history.
Many of the Sector 3 ANTs lived in the hotel, and enough of them worked there to maintain its original intent. Simone and Jacob were led to their rooms by a young man dressed in a suit and tie. He was well-spoken and cheerful. Jacob felt as if the two of them were on some former-life vacation with each other, until they split into their separate rooms. They agreed to rest first, and then meet for lunch before their meeting with the directors.
Jacob took a long hot shower and tried to wash away the memory from the night before on the highway. But it was deeply set in his mind, like a blood stain on a white shirt. As much as he scrubbed the darkness of it out, he couldn’t keep its faded imprint from leaving his mind. He had not talked to Simone for the rest of the trip. He didn’t feel comfortable expressing his opinions in front of the Omega XT in the front seat of their humvee. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but he assumed it was something similar to his own thoughts. Thoughts of astonishment laced with fear. But she was better with emotions, fleshing them out and giving them definition. He spent the hours leading up to lunch analyzing their options for regaining control of the Omega XT, even though he hoped Simone would somehow allay his concerns.
They ate at a restaurant close to the directorship’s headquarters. Soup with fruit and bread. Jacob still found amazement in the food that ANTI- maintained inside the grids. Their meal was delicious and refreshing, and it restored a small bit of Jacob’s faith in Salvador and his grand scheme. After all, there he was in a still-modernized yet self-contained area of the world hundreds of miles from the next one like it, eating a fresh meal and staying in a luxurious hotel and living a civilized life. People were cooking soup and cleaning rooms and working. Not for themselves, but for the society. What Jacob hadn’t considered until last night was, at what cost?
He didn’t hesitate to broach the subject as soon as they sat down at their small corner table. “So, last night, right?” he asked. “That was insane.”
“I know,” Simone replied, examining her meal with a look of hungry excitement. “Hard to see something like that up close.” She stabbed a large piece of watermelon and shoved it into her mouth. It wasn’t the reaction Jacob was expecting.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, “Salvador was telling me the other night about the Omega XT. That they were becoming emboldened, independent. Taking matters into their own hands. And not in a good way. I didn’t like how he was talking about it. He sounded...regretful.”
Simone cocked her head to one side. “Really???” she asked sarcastically. “What did he think was going to happen with the Omega XT? That they were just going to ask the outsiders to stay away from the grids nicely? With a pretty please or something?” She leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “Jacob, what you saw last night is all part of the plan. Most of the people outside of the grids aren’t going to survive the next few years anyway. C’mon – Salvador knows that. And you should, too.”
She was so blatant and defensive about it. She was almost angry at Jacob’s ignorance. He began to think that he needed to harden himself to what they were really doing with ANTI- from here forward. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just the barbaric ways in which they’re going about it. Hell, Simone, they were so disconnected last night. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they damn near enjoyed it.”
“And?” she mumbled as she chewed. She finished her bite and drank from her glass of water.
“And, I’m a little shocked that you’re acting the same,” Jacob said accusingly.
Then he saw a look of realization come into her eyes. “You don’t know who they are, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Omega XT. He didn’t tell you.” She sat back in her chair and threw her hands up in the air. “Of course. You were preoccupied with the Domino Infection. So you don’t know.”
“No, I don’t. And, frankly, maybe it’s better that way.” Jacob’s head was beginning to swim. He hadn’t foreseen Simone’s demeanor, much like he hadn’t with Salvador a few nights earlier.
She leaned forward again. “Listen, Jacob, and listen closely. The men who make up the Omega XT are mercenaries, plain and simple. Their name says everything – ‘End-All Exterminators’ – and they’ve been training for this for years. They were trained to be barbaric, so get used to it. In the end, it’s the only method that will work. We need the world’s population gone, nil, destroyed. The Omega XT exist to ensure that will happen.”
He didn’t understand why she was being so confrontational.
“And one more thing,” she said. “Don’t you dare let Salvador sway you to think he doesn’t know what they are. Or why they’re doing what they’re doing the way they’re doing it. He knows.” She looked down at her plate, thinking for a second. Then, with her gaze still downward, she said, “And if he doesn’t – you, me, the whole damn lot of us – we’re all screwed.”
18.
T he Sector 3 directorship was made up of nine ANTs, as it was in all the grids. There were men and women, and the uneven number meant no decision was ever left in a stalemate. The people who served as directors of Salvador’s grids were his oldest followers. Most of them had been with him for more than two decades, in some form or fashion. Their loyalty to him and to ANTI- was unwavering.
Jacob and Simone met with them in a large conference room that occupied the majority of the bottom floor of the grid’s headquarters. The building was historic, made of red brick and not even ten stories high. It felt archaic compared to their Sector 1 home in Philadelphia. Inside, they were greeted with the typical smiles and courtesies that always precede those kinds of meetings. Jacob’s hatred of small talk was ballooning because of his antagonistic lunch with Simone, but he tried to remain pleasant as the others made their way through the pointless chatter.
Jacob’s mind was roaming through probabilities and possibilities. Why had Salvador led him into thinking he was worried about the Omega XT tactics? Was he setting Jacob up for something? Was it his way of controlling Jacob? Or was all of this Simone? Was she the manipulator? He couldn’t figure it out. The
intricacies of human behavior still eluded him.
He heard Simone’s voice through his fogged thoughts. “Jacob?”
“Yes?” he replied hastily. Jacob shut down the confused portion of his brain. Instead, he focused on the reason he was there, no matter the whys of it all. He would work on that later.
“Are you ready to hear the directors’ report?” Simone asked, with a curious tone. Jacob’s distraction had not gone unnoticed.
“Of course.” He put on his good face and classic charm. “Sorry, everyone. It’s been a long few days.” He turned to Simone and gave her a nudge with his elbow. “Plus, traveling with this one is no picnic.” The room smiled and relieved itself from most of its tension. “Now, please, tell us exactly what’s happening down here.”
◊◊◊
Sector 3’s engineers had first picked up the steady signal three months prior. It was electrical, no doubt, but its location and source of power remained a mystery to them. The one thing that they all seemed to agree upon was the size of it. It was providing for something large. Not city block large, but definitely bigger than what might be supported by a simple generator. This was no house of resourceful outsiders, tapping into some dormant powerline just to see if they could. This was more, and it had them worried.
There were all sorts of theories being thrown about by the directors. Most centered on a formation of rebels somewhere, organizing an attack. “We’ve also intercepted some strange radio transmissions,” one of the directors said. “They don’t make much sense to us, but they seem, at the very least, to be consistent with one another.” Jacob succinctly informed them to shelve their opinions. He and Simone were there to investigate and determine the answer, and they would be in charge of the theories moving forward.
He hated to be short with the directorship, but he couldn’t help it. He was seething throughout their entire presentation, and he was feeling claustrophobic. He was mostly upset with himself for being so trusting. He thought he knew better. But he was also disgusted with the way he had acted so weakly in front of Simone. “Never again,” he told himself.
He and Simone wrapped the meeting once the directors had finished presenting the intelligence they had gathered up to that point. Simone told them that she and Jacob would develop a strategy for analysis of the information and action based upon it. She thanked them for their candor.
Jacob walked briskly out of the headquarters. Simone had to rush to keep up. “Jacob, what are you doing? Those were some of Salvador’s closest friends in there. You need to get your shit together,” she said forcefully as she trailed after him.
Jacob agreed – he did need to get his shit together. And he planned to do exactly that over the next twenty-four hours. He stopped and turned back to her. “I know, Simone. Sorry, I’m just not feeling well. Maybe it was lunch. Or maybe I just need some sleep.” He tried not to betray his anger with everything that was happening, but he also knew how perceptive Simone was. The first thing he needed to do was get away from her. “I think I’ll call it a day. Get some much-needed rest. Can we start fresh in the morning?”
“Yeah, ok,” she said slowly. “In the morning it is.”
Jacob started walking across the street to the hotel, ahead of her. She called after him.
“Hey, Jacob – if for some reason you can’t sleep tonight, you know where to find me.”
He stopped in the middle of the street and looked back over his shoulder at her. She looked small and helpless all of a sudden, the way so many women do when their desire outweighs whatever moral obligations they may carry with them. When, more simply, they are offering. But Simone didn’t have moral obligations. Jacob knew that now. He laughed so that she could see him laugh, but also because he couldn’t help it. No woman had ever outwitted him before. Simone was certainly trying to do just that, and for the moment, she was succeeding.
“This is about to get very interesting, Jacob,” he whispered to himself as he turned his head back around and walked away.
◊◊◊
Jacob slept restfully through the night, having come up with a way to deal with both Salvador and Simone on a personal level before he shut his eyes. He knew that he had been too gullible with both of them. And even though he still didn’t know either of their intentions, he had decided to be more alert and aware of their possible manipulations. To watch and listen closely to every word and gesture. He should have known that to Salvador he was merely a valuable tool in his worldwide workshop. From that night on, he did. Jacob still believed in the grand ANTI- experiment, but he recreated the protective barrier around himself that had disappeared long ago. Against Salvador, Simone, and anyone else. He had forgotten that lesson he had learned so early in life: there’s no one in this world worth trusting.
He knocked on Simone’s door at 6 AM. “Get up, Simone, time for breakfast!” he gleefully shouted through the door to her. “I hope you didn’t wait up on me last night. See you downstairs.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but instead went to the elevator smiling.
The old Jacob was back, and the game was on.
19.
J acob and Simone spent the better part of a week analyzing the electronic signal and studying the geography and population of Sector 3. He confirmed the strength and consistency of the signal, but he couldn’t decipher the exact location. One of many limitations that they were experiencing in that sector was the lack of sourcing technology to pinpoint distant electrical outputs. Jacob was able to eliminate certain directions: north-northeast, east, and south-southeast. But that still left a significant amount of ground to cover.
The geography within fifty miles of the remaining directions was rugged, but generally flat. It consisted of dense woods throughout and the occasional gentle rise and fall of a nearby mountain range’s foothill. The city’s outskirts spread for approximately five miles outside of the grid, just at the limit of Salvador’s tolerance for ANT exploration. Past that was the unknown. The people of the region were not unlike most in the country, but the area was more rural than most places. And one thing that jumped out at Jacob from the statistics: the prevalence of gun-owners. It was higher than the other sectors. He jotted down a note on that.
Once they had exhausted their research efforts on those fronts, they began the interviews. The interviews occupied another week of time, but thankfully led to a breakthrough of sorts. Jacob and Simone talked with each of the directors separately, the engineers who had been receiving and recording the signals and transmissions, and the Omega XT members stationed around the borders. Jacob let Simone control the interrogations. It was her specialty, after all. She was imposing, but delicate. Her techniques for getting information were honed and practiced. There was no wasted time during an interrogation. Even her compliments and niceties were intended to glean intelligence. And all of that with the people on her own side. Jacob hated to think what she might be like with a known enemy.
The most in-depth questioning took place with the Omega XT that made up the excursion team for that grid. They were the ones who had been outside the borders to restock supplies, and they were the ones who may have observed something, even if they didn’t know it.
Excursion teams were required by one of the few ANTI- sector rules to stay within a five-mile radius of the grid. It went along with Salvador’s reasoning behind his nixing Jacob and Simone’s manned surveillance ideas before they came up with the drone program: ANTI- couldn’t give the outsiders hope by letting them see ANTs roaming around in vehicles. If a few witnessed it, it would have to be, but within five miles only. Anything more was unacceptable.
Simone didn’t have any luck with the excursionists until she questioned the last one of them. He wasn’t talkative at first, much like the rest, so she had to work to get anything out of him. But once she knew that he had seen something unusual, she started pushing.
“I’ve asked everyone on your team these same questions,” Simone started. “Standard stuff, just making sure we’ve got everything
we need to move forward. Please, answer the questions with as much detail as you can. How long have you been going outside of the grid on supply missions?”
“Seven months,” he answered dryly.
“And how often?”
“Every other week.”
“And is the team always made up of the same group of men?”
“Of course. If something works, why change it?” It was more than a simplified answer. Simone noticed it immediately.
“Right. So, on the excursions, do you go in a different direction each time?”
“Typically, yes. We’re always looking for fresh resources.”
“Some of the grids have started farms outside of their borders to replenish their food. You guys doing that?” she asked.
“No.”
“So then, your team is pretty important around here, huh?”
“Just doing what’s required.”
She was trying to boost his ego, just enough to open him up if he’d allow. It hadn’t worked with the other Omega XT, but she was persistent in her ways. Plus she saw a crack in this one – time to start pulling it apart.
“Have you ever had to do anything to protect this place? To preserve the integrity of the grid?” She was leading him now, but he didn’t know it.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Aw, c’mon. It’s been over a year since you started taking care of these people. And you’re saying that there’s nothing worth telling me? I don’t believe it.”
He hesitated. It was difficult to read the emotions of the Omega XT because they never removed their masks. It was part of their mystique to be anonymous, and it was certainly making Simone’s job harder. But she and Jacob both noticed a relaxing of this one’s shoulders. They could almost see a smile on his hidden face.