Audrey. Deirdre ignored her and pressed the button again, pressing her ear against the door, hoping to hear the engines turning and lifting the car.
“Mr. Silver’s orders were explicit, Mrs. Light. You are to head upstairs, and upstairs only.”
“I’m leaving with them, Audrey. I need supplies. They’re men.” She jabbed the button again. “They wouldn’t understand.”
“I fetched your supplies and changes of clothing for just that reason, Mrs. Light. Please. Head upstairs.”
Deirdre heard the click and froze before turning slowly.
The gun pointed directly at her chest. Audrey’s grip was firm, confident, her aim steady, her stance that of one well-accustomed to firing the weapon.
Her eyes, normally light and airy, had turned dark. Audrey had killed before.
Deirdre held up her hands, moving slowly from the elevator doors. “You aren’t going to shoot me, Audrey.”
“I’d rather not,” Audrey agreed. “But that choice belongs to you.” She gestured Deirdre toward the stairwell on the opposite side of the room, toward the steps leading up. “Go where you’ve been instructed, Deirdre. And keep your distance from me.”
Deirdre tried not to blink, tried to avoid any threatening moves. Roddy had walked through a situation he’d faced, similar to this, years ago. She tried to remember what he’d done. Her eyes flicked toward her father’s office.
Of course.
“I don’t think so, Audrey.”
Audrey cocked the hammer and aimed the gun once more. “Care to test that theory?”
“I don’t think you’ve considered the ramifications of shooting me, Audrey.” Deirdre kept her hands high, her eyes on Audrey’s face, moving toward her inches at a time. “You do know who my father is, don’t you?”
Audrey snorted. “I know him intimately, Deirdre.” Deirdre fought the urge to gag. “And I’ll remind you that Daddy won’t rescue you from this one. He’s the one who gave the order and provided me the gun.”
“What happens if you shoot me, Audrey?”
She shrugged. “Lots of noise, powdery residue, and a lot of blood over a perfectly good outfit and body.” She motioned with the gun. “You’re getting too close, Deirdre.”
She’d ceased with formalities at this point. “No, Audrey. Think of what happens to you.”
Audrey snorted. “I won’t shoot to kill, Deirdre. You can be carried aboard if necessary. I suspect that husband of yours can handle the weight.” She tilted her head to the side, as if reconsidering her impression of Deirdre’s weight based upon the size of her backside, but said nothing.
“You think that’s the end of it, Audrey?” Deirdre slowed her pace even more. “My father may act like the tough guy, but I’m still his little girl. If he finds me bloodied and incapacitated, he’s not going to forget it. Even if he gave the order… you’re still the one who shot his little girl. How will that affect you? And your… intimate relationship?”
Audrey flinched.
She moved a fraction of an inch, just enough for the barrel to move toward a harmless target.
Deirdre dove at her, reaching for the gun.
She saw nothing but the barrel sweeping back up from the floor, back toward Audrey’s intended target.
Seconds later, the thunderous report of a fired bullet reverberated throughout the penthouse level.
—————
MICAH JAMISON
—————
…the secretive locations of military bases, known to exist in generalities but not specifics, raised safety concerns among military and civilians alive of safety features and precautions available in the event of internal disasters requiring immediate evacuation of the facilities…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 911
HE COULD THINK OF NOTHING BUT ESCAPE.
Behind him, the numbers ticked down, each change sounding a deafening reverberation through his imagination. He’d become only vaguely aware that he gripped something as he raced to and through the door and began to move up the stairs. He’d gotten up a dozen before a voice brought him back to the present.
“General!”
Sheila was petrified, less at the situation—which she didn’t understand—than at his seemingly crazed behavior. He had to make her understand. Quickly.
He stopped and released her arm as he turned to face her. With her on a lower step, their height difference was more greatly exaggerated than usual.
“You left your badge behind!” she snapped, breathless, rubbing her wrist where he’d held her.
“It doesn’t matter. Listen—”
“Doesn’t matter?” she shrieked. “You summoned me out of bed with a text message that left my husband thinking I’m having an affair over the fact that badge had been moved, that you knew that only because that badge is so massively important, and now it doesn’t matter?” She screamed. “It matters a hell of a lot to me now!”
“We don’t have time, Sheila. I have to get to my desk and sound the evacuation before—”
“We can’t get back out of here without your badge, Micah.” She tried to keep the strain from her voice, but succeeded only in getting her voice to a minor squeaking tone. “We need to go back for it.”
The clock in his head told him they had only a minute left before the bomb detonated and all hell broke loose. He looked at Sheila and realized the awful truth. “It’s too late.” His voice barely cracked a whisper. She was the only one he could save now. And he would.
“It’s too late for what?”
He grabbed her arm again. “Run!” He tried to sprint up the steps, pulling her along, but she seized the railing and didn’t let go. “Run now, Clarke! That is an order.”
She started to run, and he could feel the tears at his panicked order before they ever began to fall.
He pulled out his phone. He had no idea if it would work. He worked with good people, the best people, but he wouldn’t let their sacrifice be in vain. If he could stop some portion of this…
He barked commands in an obscure language as he thundered up the steps to unlock the app he’d hoped never to use. And issued the order he’d never wanted to issue.
“Execute thorough self-destruct sequence on Bunker 24601.”
“Confirmed.” The app had checked his identification through voice identifications in a fraction of a second. It was still more time than he had. He pocketed the phone and accelerated.
“Micah!” Sheila screamed. She’d never called him that before. “Why… you’re going to kill them all!”
How to explain that they were dead, that his order would save them pain, that the self-destruct command represented the only opportunity to save thousands of lives left to them?
He ran back down the steps to her, bent down, and scooped her over his shoulder.
Then he sprinted up the stairs, past the landing to their offices, toward the opening to daylight far above.
She kicked her legs at him and pounded on his back with her fists. It didn’t hurt, but it hampered his progress. “Put me down, you murderer!” she screamed. “Those people are my friends!”
“Mine, too.” He shouted back.
“Then why did you order their deaths?” Her voice had lost all its usual calm. Every word was a scream masked with tears.
He opened his mouth to try to ask for patience as he tried to run both of them to the exit above and their sole chance at safety.
One hundred feet below, the timer on the bomb planted by Wesley Cardinal finished its countdown and he felt the reverberations of the explosion in the stairwell.
He lost his balance and fell backward.
—————
WESLEY CARDINAL
—————
…housed large pools of computing and data storage equipment in rooms designed to maximize air flow and combat the natural heat… physical access to the equipment severely restricted to prevent tampering and accidental loss of information…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 1,995
THE REVERBERATIONS OF THE CLOSING DOOR still echoed in the room as he began working the bonds loose. It didn’t take much time or effort, and he realized they’d not really meant for him to stay in that chair forever. Just long enough for them to leave and lock the door behind them.
He patted himself down seconds later after freeing his hands. Damn. He’d not been imagining things. They’d taken his badge, which might enable him to open the door, and his phone, which might enable him to call someone. He bent down, then sat back up as the cumulative injuries left him lightheaded. He took a few deep breaths before bending down to work his legs free. He stood up twenty seconds later and the room swirled, and he staggered into a nearby desk. A wave of nausea hit, and he vomited into an empty wastebasket nearby. He glanced around and found a small refrigerator in the corner. He swayed on his feet, gradually regaining his balance as he worked his way to the refrigerator. He found several bottles of water. He used the first swallow to swish the vomit taste from his mouth, then drank the rest greedily. He opened a second bottle and splashed the water on his face, shocking himself alert, before draining the remainder. He left both bottles on the floor, feeling guilty at the littering.
If he couldn’t locate an immediate means of escape, he’d have plenty of time here to tidy up later.
He needed to escape. He needed to get back outside. He needed to find out the topic for the next podcast from the Voice…
The Voice?
“I’m trapped!” he shouted. “Can you help me?”
The Voice had initiated their first conversation, making Wesley aware of the disembodied voice delivered into his head via a speaker implanted there in a medical procedure Wesley didn’t remember. The Voice could hear what Wesley heard through his ears but not his thoughts, and could only “see” what Wesley described aloud.
He found the conversations uncomfortable, and not simply because each conversation left him with at minimum a dull headache. He generally was asked to do some task for the Voice, to act as the hands the Voice couldn’t provide, and in general he did so willingly, seeing in the Voice a similar soul on matters of exposing the truths of the Western Alliance government and the controlling megacorps. Disagreement was rare given the Voice’s ability to silence dissent with a high pitched shrieking sound that drove Wesley to do as commanded to end the torment. For those reasons, he’d never tried to initiate a conversation with the Voice.
Not until now. The Voice surely belonged to a real person somewhere outside this room, and that meant the Voice might be able to aid Wesley’s efforts at escape.
He heard a scratching sound inside his head. And then: Wesley, where are you?
“I’m…” How to explain it? “I’m in the prison at my place of work. It’s… I think it’s an old data center room. They knocked me around after I attacked that demon woman, tied me up in here, and took my phone and badge. I’m trapped.”
Describe the room, Wesley, and explain why it is you’re unable to escape.
Straight to the point as always. “The room was built with the best security in this place because it once held all of the most critical data and computing equipment. They built a new room to handle the growth and turned this into the brig. The door is six or eight inches thick and made of solid Diasteel. You can’t break through that. If you have a badge I think you can swipe it and it might let you out. Without one, you have to figure out how to cut a hole through that door.”
Are there any tools in the room you might utilize, Wesley?
He looked around. “No, not really. Just the tile gripper thingy.”
Tile gripper thingy, Wesley?
He sighed. “All of the electrical equipment got very hot. They built a metal lattice about three feet off the main floor and covered it with heavy tiles in a grid. They ran cold air beneath the floor to reduce the temperature in the room and put all of the cabling there as well. The tiles fit the grid perfectly, so you can’t lift one with your hands alone if you need to check something underneath. The tool has suction grips you can use to lift the tiles. But that’s not going to help me break a hole through a Diasteel door.”
He waited, and heard no response. A tremor of panic ran through him. Had he lost the Voice? Did that mean his chance of escape, already slim, had plunged to zero? He felt a cool trickle of sweat run down his forehead, chilled by the conditioned air, and ran his sleeve to clear it away.
Wesley, is there a computer terminal nearby?
Relief. “Yes, but it won’t let me send a message to anyone, if that’s what—”
Go to the terminal, Wesley. You must enter the following command.
He blinked. What kind of escape plan was that? He’d privately hoped that, after all of his efforts, the Voice might reward him with something more tangible, like a massive force of Eastern troops overrunning the Bunker to set him free.
But… a command typed at a computer terminal?
He sighed and sat down. Perhaps he’d be advised to type “unlock brig door” to effect his escape. “Okay, I’m ready.”
He typed in the command as dictated, reading it back to the Voice to ensure accuracy, and then executed the command.
He heard no door locks disengage. Instead, a video feed appeared on his screen.
It was a grainy, black and white image of a large room dominated in the center by a circular tank. The top of the tank was clear, providing a view inside. Within the tank… He squinted, but the image wasn’t perfectly clear.
But something about the material inside that tank stirred a memory within him.
Movement on the screen pulled his attention from the dark substance in the tank.
He saw them then, two of the three people he most hated in the world. General Micah Jamison and Sheila Clarke scanned the interior of the tank, looks of frantic worry on their faces, as if trying to find something amid the ooze on the floor of the tank. He took some pleasure at their discomfort, but his eyes moved back to the substance.
Why did it look familiar?
Do you recognize it yet, Wesley? The material in the tank?
He shrugged, though he knew the gesture went unseen. “Should I?”
The pressure built inside his head. The pain didn’t resemble the deep agony inflicted by the shrieking sound. But he wrapped his arms around his head nonetheless. The pain felt ominous, as if some dreaded discovery lay just on the other side, and he hoped he might push that knowledge aside by gripping his own skull.
Images filled his mind.
The flow increased, like a water hose released of kinks. The memories long dormant resurfaced. He saw the experiments, saw the results, remembered his horror and revulsion at his participation and his contribution. He remembered the pain when they’d drilled the hole into his head, his screams… and he remembered the fog he’d lived in since that day.
His eyes refocused. He no longer noticed Jamison and Clarke. He saw nothing but the material inside.
He sucked in a deep breath as another memory, a more recent memory, returned. He remembered where he’d been overnight, what he’d done. And now he understood the ramifications of his then-unknowing actions.
“Why?” His voice was a whisper, his knuckles white as he gripped the desk with incredible ferocity. “Why do you make me remember now?”
The laugh was harsh. Wesley, it would do us no good for you to remember when you’d have the ability to interrupt our plans. You’ve provided a useful set of hands to set our plans in motion, and for that, we thank you. But you have no place in the world we’re building, and your usefulness has come to an end. Farewell, Wesley Cardinal.
The click signaling the end of communications with the Voice was deeper now, and he knew he’d never hear that Voice again.
He looked at the image on the screen, watching as the General seized Clarke’s arm and hauled her from the room. The General had been there. He knew. If he was running…
Wesley gulped. He knew he had mere minutes t
o escape this prison, or he’d suffer a death too awful to imagine.
Just as the Voice had planned.
—————
RODDY LIGHT
—————
…documented proof purported to show at least three different occasions when Silver was spotted in two far-flung locations without adequate time to make the journey, fueling rumors of some advanced travel technology withheld from the general public…
The History of the Western Alliance, page 890
OSWALD SILVER WAS A MAN who seemed younger than his actual years, Roddy decided. His hair retained its deep brown color throughout his shoulder-length mane, marred only by the appearance of a trace bit of gray. His skin remained flawless, a fact Roddy found disturbing. Given the number of lives he’d ordered terminated—and there were many Roddy suspected but hadn’t proved—he ought to show wrinkles out of a pure sense of guilt. Silver didn’t experience the emotions of normal men, however.
That lack of emotion enabled the man to smirk and order his son-in-law and daughter to avoid intimate relations while in close quarters with him—and do so with a smirk—before sending his daughter from the room with an exhortation to head straight to their departure point.
Silver waited until the door clicked shut behind Deirdre before spinning upon Roddy once more.
“Long trip this time, Light. Destination will be revealed once we’re underway. Ensure the tanks are topped off, and full spare tanks brought aboard.”
Roddy tried to avoid a sigh.
Silver had shown himself to be deeply paranoid, trusting no one with information until the last possible moment. Roddy bore responsibility for seeing the tycoon safely to and from travel destinations, and yet Silver refused to provide the final destination until departure. Roddy had come to know the man deeply enough to recognize it was a sign of that paranoia. If Roddy knew the destination before departure, he might tip off Silver’s many enemies—as if Roddy knew who those enemies were and was on speaking terms—or he might be kidnapped and forced to reveal that destination under torture. Silver would ensure such torture could never reveal his final destination as Roddy wouldn’t know. With nothing to reveal, Roddy’s hypothetical torture would eventually end in death, but Oswald’s travel destinations would remain secret.
The Ravagers Box Set: Episodes 1-3 Page 12