Forgotten

by Jessica Carbine

  “Yes, but maybe we shou—“ General Ramford began, but he was interrupted by a piercing alarm, louder than anything that had yet gone off. Cassie jumped as she felt a weird pressure coming from her silver watch.

  “General, we have a hit!” A woman's voice said, bursting with enthusiasm. “Coming over the fence by the commissary building!”

  “Okay, Johnson and Peters, send half of your squadrons to the spot in question, but the rest stay put and on the look out! And don’t just trust what you see, trust what you can feel.” Ramford could barely control his excitement.

  Cassie's stomach flipped and the keys slipped through her fingers. She'd been trying key after key in desperation, but now she froze. Had Kyler come for her? If the dream had been from him, her not arriving in the hiding place as scheduled would have alarmed him. She took a deep breath, ignoring her fear and hope.

  She focused quickly as she heard more talking coming through, they were closing in. She knew his only chance was for her to destroy BES. She grasped the keys again, and beginning with the smallest, tried each key. Weapon, I need a weapon, she tried to focus. Her keys weren’t working. There was a little label below the cage that she noticed now, it also said explosives and had several listed, including grenades. This heartened her and she tried to think. She looked at the keys; two of them had electronic chips in them. The first one she tried clicked. She hurriedly opened it, and withdrew two grenades, just in case.

  She turned and saw another cage. It had a small label that said, "Stun gun. Taser. Mace." She tried the same key, it worked. She reached in and pulled out the stun gun. Nervously, she tucked it in the front of her pants, and put a grenade in each side pocket. Then she put the mace in her back pocket. She hurried out, aware that while they knew she was missing, their priorities had changed. Now that the prize was here the bait was hardly worth worrying over. Hopefully that would give her the cover she needed.

  Cassie hurried back to the room. She wasn't sure whether she could just walk in. Will they notice? Is the General in there?

  “We have him!” A voice said excitedly. “I mean, I assume it's him. He just looks like one of our boys. And he refuses to admit otherwise. Our scanners have gone all screwy, but the pressure is coming from the right direction.”

  Time is running out. She tried to ignore the little pricks of pressure coming from her watch; it was distracting and she wasn’t sure how to use it.

  “Excellent work!” Ramford's voice shook with joy. “Bring him to the holding cell interrogation room. Make sure there are at least ten of you surrounding him! And no matter what happens around you, focus on your scanners. They’re the only thing you can be sure of.”

  “Yes sir,” Several voices said, slightly nervous.

  “What's wrong?” Ramford asked sharply.

  “MacPherson seems be seeing his brother...” The voice trailed off, clearly unsure what to do. “And he won’t believe us otherwise.”

  “Stun him! He'll come to when they're separated. I'll meet you down there, and we need at least 10 people around him at all times!” Ramford positively shouted.

  Cassie ducked into the bathroom just in time to watch Ramford leave the BES room with five uniforms following him and hurry down the hall in the opposite direction. She knew she didn't have much time before Kyler would be locked up and there would be no way to escape.

  She cautiously opened the door. There were still three people sitting at desks. Fortunately, they were on the same side of the room, to the right of the machine. Not having enough time to think, she walked in confidently. One operator turned around to give her a cursory glance, and then went back to work. The map on the screen showed one bright, blinking red light surrounded by a dozen green ones. She walked to the front of the room and sat down at a computer to the left of the machine, but where she could reach out and touch it. This thing is all smooth, with no convenient crevices for devices of destruction. She hoped that the ledge on the side would do, anywhere else and it would roll off. Cassie had been hesitant to hurt anyone before, but now she found herself callously making plans. Kyler meant too much to her, and she was surprised to find that she was willing to risk these people’s lives for him. But the alternative was intolerable, so she took a deep breath, and then pulled the pin.

  She ran backward, causing the other three workers to look at her in surprise. She stunned one of them with her gun. He slumped over and fell out of his chair, lying on the ground behind his desk. Cassie hoped that was safe enough. She ran toward the other two, and pulled them down with all her strength to the floor.

  “Sorry about this,” she said and then a shockwave of air slammed into her.

  Chapter 15: Gone By

  Cassie pulled herself off the ground gingerly. She had braced herself, but the blast had still shocked her body, forcing her into the two people under her, and pushing them all into the floor. The first thing she was sensible of was screaming in her ear. She couldn’t understand anything because everyone was talking at once. The second thing she felt was pain in her whole body. Third, she noticed the alarm was no longer sounding. And finally, she remembered the two people beneath her. Neither of them moved, but she could see their chests rising and falling, so she hopefully assumed they would make it. She turned in concern to the third soldier in the room. He had been pushed a few feet from the force of the blast. His arm hung disjointedly at his side, and he had a few pieces of shrapnel in his sleeve and hand, but they weren’t big and she prayed those were small injuries that he could heal from quickly.

  Gingerly, she approached the scanner. One entire side was massacred, and the other looked pretty bad. She didn’t think there was any way of repairing it, but just in case, she took her second grenade out, placed it in the middle of the rubble, pulled the pin and ran from the room. The second explosion astonished everyone. The sudden silence across the base was unnerving. Cassie couldn’t remember, maybe they had reacted the same way after the first blast. She was hurrying down the hall in the direction the General had taken when she heard his voice.

  “I need to know what is going on! Where are those blasts coming from? Does anyone know?” He asked furiously.

  Several squadron leaders reported in the negative.

  “Brown? Crispin?” And then he said a very bad word, indeed. “Johnson, I need someone to get up to the BES! NOW!”

  “Johnson, do you still have him?”

  “Yes, sir. He tried to get away during the blasts, but he didn’t get past us.”

  Cassie, afraid of whoever was about to appear in the hall, pushed into the first door she came to. Fortunately, it was empty. Not long after, a troop of footsteps passed her door. She glanced around the room as she waited for the hall to clear. It was a large room. It looked like it was for instruction or performance: the floor sloped up with stadium seating.

  The room looked familiar somehow, but Cassie couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t the room so much as the shape and position of the door… the map! She’d seen this same room on the map on her floor while they were taking her to the General, next to the elevators. Then she realized the obvious. She’d been in a holding cell originally, and the General had left to take an elevator down there. She had to get down there to find Kyler. If he just knew that he was free to confuse everyone, they might be able to escape. Just as she was about to leave the room, more conversation over her radio distracted her.

  “Uh, sir?” A voice said tentatively.

  “What?” General barked back.

  “It’s, well it’s destroyed, sir,” The voice said, as though afraid of the reaction. Cassie grinned. They also understood his fanaticism.

  There was silence for a few seconds, and Cassie took the opportunity to carefully leave the room and hurry to the elevators. An electronic sign above the doors told her that one of the elevators was on B3, and the other was on her floor, so she decided to try B3, and she hopped into the other elevator.

  “How bad is it?” The General asked in a quietly furious voi
ce.

  “Uhh, um… well…” The soldier seemed at a loss for words. “I believe both blasts hit it.”

  General Ramford swore again. And again.

  The elevator required a key to get to B3. If only I could thank Lt. Berg personally for her key ring! Cassie thought, grinning. She pulled the keys out yet again and tried several of the smaller ones before finding one that fit. Cassie desperately hoped that she was in the right building. She thought back to the map above BES... it had looked like the blinking red light was in this building, but she couldn’t be sure. Her glance had been too quick; her focus had been on destroying the only thing that could stop Kyler. And she had. But she was terrified that it might be too late. What if they already had him locked up?

  “Johnson, no further trouble?” The General’s voice came over huffing, like he was running.

  “No, sir!”

  “Good, where are you?”

  “Interrogation room 5.”

  “On my way!”

  The doors of the elevator opened, Cassie peeked her head out, and then walked out with confidence. There were two guards by the doors. Cassie tried her hardest to appear to be one of them.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” One of them asked her forcefully.

  Cassie, praying they wouldn’t know the truth, answered. “Interrogation room 5. I was sent down by Johnson.”

  The guards glanced at each other, then looked her up and down. The smaller of the two motioned for her to pass.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Cassie hurried past them in the direction motioned.

  “Hey! Aren’t you going the wrong way?”

  Cassie turned around; the beefy guard was smiling at her.

  “Oh, yeah! Of course. Things are just pretty crazy...” She trailed off and gave them a weak smile. They seemed to buy it. Both smiled back at her. But when she past them walking the other direction, they followed her.

  She continued on. Concerned, but determined. It didn’t matter if they suspected her, as long as she could let Kyler know that their scanner was broken, and that they had no way of tracing him.

  She walked down the hall until it came to a “T”. Then she slowed up a bit, letting them catch up to her. They started to turn left, so she followed. The smaller one picked up his pace until he was several steps ahead of them. He came to a door, unlocked it and held it open for her. Hesitating, she could see over his shoulder the sign to the left of the door was labeled, “Interrogation Ro—” He smiled at her charmingly. She quickly walked in, expecting to shout out as soon as possible.

  But there was no one there. The door slammed behind her. Cassie whirled around.

  “Sir! We have the female, too!” She heard the beefy guard ecstatically say through her earpiece.

  “Oh no!” Cassie moaned. They locked her in. She went to the little window in the door, trying to look out, but she couldn’t see anything. “Curses,” She told herself. She had seen the room number, but obviously not all of it.

  “What!?” The General sounded shocked, not delighted.

  “One of ours came down to Sublevel 3, saying Colonel Johnson had sent her to go to the interrogation!” He sounded giddy. “But I can confidently say she is not in our squadron.”

  “Are you sure?” Ramford sounded uncertain. Like this was too much good news to take in.

  “Positive, sir. We would have remembered her.”

  “And I didn’t send anyone, sir.” Johnson also sounded happy. “Good work boys!”

  “Aw, crap,” Cassie said aloud. Of all people, she’d run into Johnson’s men.

  “Well,” General Ramford sounded like he was fumbling. “Where is she?”

  “IR 23, sir.”

  “Great! Peters, send five of your men down to that room to wait at the door. Do not open it for any reason! I’m going to speak with Kyler first. See if I can’t reason with him,” Ramford said gleefully. “If anyone tries to leave either room 23 or 5, stun them! I don’t care if it looks like me or the President! The only people allowed to leave will use the words ‘candied apple.’ Understood? Alright, I’m going in.”

  The sound cut off. Cassie plunked herself heavily into the interrogator’s seat. They did already have Kyler. And now she was locked up again. Who knows how long it would be before they opened the door. The worst part was she had none of the abilities they feared in her. It was a shame: she knew the password! At least she heard official orders. But how did they turn the sound on and off on these things. She felt her pockets, but didn’t notice anything. She looked at her watch carefully. It was the first time she had. It wasn’t much of a watch. The face looked like a grid, and there were only two buttons on the sides. She examined these carefully. They had little plastic symbols next to them. One was an on/off sign. She turned it on and little lights came up on the watch, though nothing on the grid. The other had a little microphone next to it. That had to be it. This didn’t help her, but had given her something to do. She passionately wished that the General’s button would get hit by something. Or just switch on by itself…

  “—ly Kyler. We know it’s you. Stop this ridiculous nonsense!” The General’s voice said suddenly.

  Cassie jumped. How strange.

  “Sir! I’m not Kyler! I’m Private Dwight Ganeiri!” A panicked voice said.

  “This charade won’t do you any good, Kyler. You were surrounded. We know who you are.” Ramford sounded uncharacteristically patient. Cassie wondered why no one warned Ramford that he was on the speaker. But it occurred to her that they wanted to listen in almost as badly as she did.

  “You’re right! We did, and I don’t know what happened. One second we’re all around him, someone who looked like one of us, and we were walking here to the interrogation room, and the next—” He stopped, as though unsure of how to continue.

  “Yes?”

  “The next I was handcuffed walking with the others. There was a scuffle, and they shoved me into the middle, telling me to not try anything. I can only guess that I look different to you guys now!” He said, whining.

  “So, tell me something then, ‘Dwight’. Why does our scanner say that you are the source of certain unusual brain waves?” Ramford asked pleasantly. Cassie gripped the sides of her chair angrily at the lie. If only he knew the machine wasn’t functional!

  “What? I don’t know!” He answered panicky again.

  It was strange to Cassie. She didn’t picture Kyler freaking out. She imagined that he would remain calm and clear-headed.

  “Sir, you have to believe me! Have my blood taken and tested far away from here!” The prisoner pleaded.

  “We will, only if we have to, Kyler. You may be thinking that Halle will be able to save you by changing it, but it’s too late for that.”

  “No, really! I’m—”

  “We have her, too, Kyler. We caught her coming down here trying to save you. There’s no way out of this. And so, for her sake, as well as Cassie’s, please drop this absurd story.”

  “Cassie’s?” He sounded puzzled.

  “Yes, for Cassie. Pleasant girl, I can see why you like her. And very pretty,” He paused for effect. “I’d like to release her, but I’ll keep her here as long as is needed to keep you in line.”

  “Who is Cassie, sir? Oh! The girl? I don’t care about the girl! Let her be locked up as long as you like!” Cassie thought that was putting it on a little thick for Kyler. Unless… maybe it wasn’t Kyler? Maybe his story was true. But where would that put Kyler?

  Looking for me? She thought hopefully. Kyler had no earpiece to tell him anything, though. Well, at least she assumed he didn’t. But if he did wouldn’t he already be outside her door. She turned around with optimism. No one was at the window.

  “Where is Cassie?” The man being interrogated asked irrelevantly, in a calmer tone, raising Cassie’s suspicion again. Why would Private Dwight Ganeiri ask?

  “Far away, Kyler. Forget about seeing her for a while. If you behave, you will be reunited.”

  “I
’M NOT KYLER! AND I DON’T CARE WHERE CASSIE IS!” The prisoner screamed at the General. Cassie sat in her chair shocked, listening to the silence for a few moments. That couldn’t possibly be Kyler, could it?

  “I’ll be back in a few days,” Ramford said disgustedly. “Everyone out but him.”

  Cassie could hear the sound of footsteps, a murmured “Candied Apple,” and then a door close.

  “Get a doctor in here to start taking DNA samples for research. And make sure he uses a password pre-established to get back out.” He sighed. “We need both of them to stay in their rooms until we can get BES up and running.”

  “Sir,” Peter’s voice came through. “I can tell you that is not going to be easy. We’re going to need to get the backup equipment set up and hooked up to the satellite feeds. I don’t think we could possibly get it done in under four days.”

  “Four days, then. We still have access to the satellites, and now that we have the targets, we won’t lose that access any time soon. While I question the other one, please let both of our Senate contacts know that we have them. They can get started on a request for funds.” Apparently, he didn’t intend to leave his microphone on, and everyone heard him say, in a softer voice, “Halle next.”

  Cassie braced herself for the discovery. She just hoped that no one would recognize her as the grenade-wielding destroyer of his precious scanner. She heard footsteps, but stayed in the interrogator’s chair. He knows I’ve rebelled. Let him see that I intend to be difficult. After all, he kept me locked up for two months! And after acting all pleasant.

  She heard the guards outside her door given the same instructions as the ones for Kyler’s room. Then the door opened.

  Chapter 16: Reunion

  Cassie’s mouth set firmly. The General came through the door with one soldier.

  “Hello Halle. You, at least, aren’t pretending,” The General said as he walked around her to sit in the seat across the table.

  “Excuse me?” Cassie said in surprise.