by Hadena James
I dressed as fast as my drugged body would let me, which wasn’t very fast. I fumbled with the pants and the shirt. I even stuck both legs in one leg hole of the pants more than once. I eventually had to sit down to get them on. When I stood up, I realized the shirt was backwards. The V-neck wasn’t up front. I considered turning it around, but it wasn’t worth the effort. I wished I had a sweater or something. The constant air flow made me chilly in the flimsy shirt and pants. At least my socks and shoes had been on and I hadn’t needed to deal with trying to lace up combat boots while waiting for the side effects of the morphine to wear off.
“I feel like I’m in a cult in this outfit,” I told Gabriel knocking on the door to the bathroom before going in. He was standing in the little room, near a wall, not really moving. “You okay?”
“Yes, I talked to Apex. The control room is on the other side of this wall. He said we could get in there using the bathroom, but I haven’t figured out how yet. With your medieval history knowledge, I thought you might have a different perspective on it.”
“What exactly does Medieval Europe have to do with getting through the wall?”
“Castles, secret doors, secret staircases, hidden rooms, those sorts of things.” Gabriel said.
“Ok, this is not a movie and those things rarely existed, if ever, in real life. You can tell if a wall moves by looking at the seams where it should be attached to the other walls, if it isn’t, there’s a good chance it moves.”
“You just said those things rarely existed.”
“They didn’t, at least in medieval times. It was more of an industrial revolution invention, and then they were added to fancy manor homes, because it requires gears and things that didn’t really exist in the middle ages like they did later. Some castles had secret doors with counter weights on pulley systems and things, but that was it.”
“Ok, well we are past the industrial revolution. So, if you hid a secret door in a bathroom to a secret room, how would you make it open?”
“I’m crazy, but I’m not that kind of crazy.” I pointed out.
“I don’t know which version of you I like better. Stoned you or cranky you,” Gabriel said.
“Don’t get used to stoned me.” I told him. “Ok, I’d want it to require something other than leaning on it because people lean on walls all the time.”
“You lean on a lot of bathroom walls?” He asked.
“Not me personally, but I’m sure people do.” I physically pushed past him and went to the wall. There was indeed a tiny seam where it didn’t attach to the other walls. I pushed on it and it moved. There was a click and it rescinded into the wall. Out of sight out of mind.
“Probably not pushing on it,” Gabriel sneered.
“I didn’t expect it to work,” I told him in a bit of shock.
“You’re going to take credit for this, aren’t you?” Gabriel asked.
“Probably not, since when did you care about that kind of stuff?” I asked. “You never care about who gets credit for things.”
“It has been an exceptionally long day,” Gabriel said by way of apology.
“I imagine it has.” I agreed. My day so far had sucked, too, but I had volunteered for it to suck. I had called Raphael and had him meet me. I hadn’t just gone missing from a hotel a few days earlier. Not to mention that Gabriel had been stuck in this tin can underground for a few days all alone except the occasional visit by his cannibalistic twin brother. Long day seemed like an understatement. “I think I just whined to myself in my head.” I told Gabriel admitting my own thoughts.
“It’s been a long day for you too.” He told me. “Yeah, but I woke up knowing it was going to be a long day. Where the hell in Maine are we that our team of saviors is a day or so away? Is there that much uninhabited land in Maine?”
“I think there is.” Gabriel told me.
“Might be why we don’t get more calls to Maine for serial killers.”
“Maybe. Do you understand any of this?” Gabriel asked.
“Not really.” I told him. “I was wondering if we should call Fiona and have her walk us through it.”
“That’s going to be tough.” Gabriel didn’t look at me, instead he stared at a computer playing a slide show of pictures full of happy people, pictures that were obviously not taken recently.
“I’m sure she could walk us through it, even if she isn’t looking at it.”
“Maybe.” Gabriel shrugged. “If she wasn’t on her way to a hospital.”
“Why is she on the way to a hospital?”
“ATV accident.”
“I get the impression you know something that you aren’t telling me.” I said as I clicked the mouse and the computer came to life. There was a whirring sound, like the CD drive was spinning up.
“Yeah, her and Lucas took a tumble. Lucas was not injured, for the most part, but Fiona sustained some injuries.”
“Ok.” I looked at him.
“I’m going to tell you, but first you have to promise not to shoot Malachi.”
“I can’t make that promise.” I told my boss. “The best I can come up with is I won’t kill him if I shoot him.”
“Try to just Taser him.” Gabriel sighed. “Malachi was told they couldn’t get in using ATVs, but in his haste, he decided to try it. Lucas hit some kind of landmine. It threw his machine into the air and when it came down it hit Fiona’s knocking her off and giving her a good gash on the head. Xavier patched her up as best he could, but she still had to be airlifted out. Thankfully, they had just started towards us.”
“So this didn’t happen like ten minutes ago, did it?”
“No, it was part of the reason it took so long to get Xavier on the phone to figure out what was wrong with you.”
“A part of me feels like giving Malachi a SCT unit to lead was a mistake, let alone your SCT unit.”
“He isn’t leading my unit, they are just organizing the search and rescue.”
“Which would go faster if there was a folder marked Disable Defense systems.” I sighed myself.
“What is that noise?” Gabriel asked me. I could very faintly hear it. It was a strange wheezing sound. I couldn’t pinpoint a location for it though, it seemed to be everywhere around us.
“I haven’t a clue.” I told him looking around, wondering if there was something in the room with us. There weren’t any food or water dishes, which made it unlikely that an animal was living in the room. Also, there wasn’t any mess, no droppings or urine puddles on the floor and it didn’t smell like an animal had been in there. It smelled like sweat, dust, and stale air.
Gabriel suddenly drew his gun and fired a shot at the ceiling.
The sound was deafening in the small metal room. Luckily the bullet lodged in the air vent cover instead of bouncing around the room. I tried not to frown at him as he attempted to talk to me. However, all I could hear was a high-pitched noise, like a siren, in my ears. I couldn’t read his lips very well as he spoke and eventually I shook my head and turned my attention back to the computer, sure he’d explain why he had fired his gun in a metal box as soon as I could hear again.
To my horror, I realized the computer wasn’t exactly a Windows interface. I didn’t have a name for the system I was working with, but there was no search function and no helpful little File Explorer folder at the bottom of the screen. It kept asking me for a DOS command. I entered “Shut Down Perimeter Defense Systems” and it told me I was wrong and to try something else. Only I didn’t have anything else to try. Computers as a general rule weren’t my specialty. Technology was moving faster than I could adapt. It had been with reluctance that I had upgraded to a smart phone. My laptop was great for gaming and probably other things, but I used it to play video games, not cool modern video games, but games like Zoo Tycoon 2 and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I also kept a diary of every case we worked. Not the official record but my own observations. Michael had set it up, so the document could be updated from my phone and tablet if I was on the roa
d with the unit. That was the extent of my technical skill. I hadn’t intended for it to happen, it just had. Once I had been savvy with a computer, but those had been the days when DOS commands were fairly routine and writing a paper required some finesse.
The blinking cursor made me feel a touch of panic. If we could disable most of the perimeter defenses, then it might not take very long for our group to show up to get us and take Raphael into custody. Which gave rise to a disturbing thought that made me glad I wasn’t capable of feeling true guilt, or I would be feeling guilty about sending Gabriel’s twin brother to the Fortress because I didn’t think he would live very long once he was in custody. He was too involved for him to be safe in the hands of anyone.
The only way they would feel safe is with Raphael dead. I didn’t know if Gabriel had thought of that yet, but I refused to point it out to him. Siblings have bonds, even I wasn’t immune to them. Sometimes those bonds were healthy and fine, and life went on with the siblings encouraging each other to be and do better. Sometimes they weren’t, like Raphael’s desire to kill Gabriel. Oddly, even knowing that Raphael was determined to see him dead, Gabriel seemed to think his brother wasn’t the enemy. It made me feel a little sad to know that the brotherly love was unrequited. Gabriel deserved some happiness in his life. It hadn’t been great leading up to this point, a highlight reel would have included things like the births of his children, but otherwise, Gabriel had led a pretty grim life, just like the rest of us.
Like me, he had survived his first encounter with a serial killer despite the odds being stacked against him. It was this similar background that made it easy for me to give the reins over to him. It reassured me that he knew what he was doing and wanted all of us to survive.
I eventually got the DOS directory open, but that didn’t really help me with the commands. We were going to need Fiona. Or Vladik. Nadine might have been able to kill a microwave from thirty paces, but Vladik was a bit of a savant when it came to computers. It had been this skill that had made him useful as an intelligence agent. Nadine thought her brother had sat behind a computer, which was partially true, he had been used mostly as a remote hacker to steal information from terrorist organizations and what not. What she didn’t know was sometimes doing something remotely wasn’t the best way in, and when those sorts of situations arose, Vlad had field survival skills to go with his computer skill set. The Daniels’ family was full of spies, literally. Ivan and Nadine were the only two without backgrounds in intelligence and espionage. However, one could argue that point with regards to Nadine. She just didn’t do it for a flag or money, she did it to make the world a little safer from those she deemed a threat to it.
“Call Vlad and see if he can help us,” I told Gabriel once most of the ringing was gone from my ears. Gabriel handed me his cell phone. I dialed Vlad’s number and had a very brief chat with him. It would have been longer, but Gabriel pulled out his gun and fired it again.
“Vlad said he’d work on hacking the system and then I had to hang up on him because I couldn’t hear him. I texted him immediately to let him know we were okay and that I had heard the hacking part.
Gabriel fired three more shots. However, I was able to cover my ears beforehand. It was still head splittingly loud in the metal room. All his shots were lodging in the vent face. The cover had enough space, give, and strength to capture the bullets and hold them tightly between the slots on it.
“What are you doing?” I asked him as he put his hand gun away and I ignored my urge to smack his arm really hard with the back of my hand.
“There’s someone or something in the vent up there.” Gabriel pointed.
“Ok,” I nodded wondering if he had finally cracked. However, we hadn’t really searched the upstairs area that well. It was possible that someone could have crawled up there to hide from us. That would explain the sweat smell that circled through the air since I didn’t think it was coming from Gabriel or myself. To double check I leaned in and sniffed him and then sniffed me. I had fresh clothes on, even if I had been hot earlier.
“Did you just sniff me?” Gabriel asked.
“I smell sweat. I thought it might be us. I noticed it when we first came in, but if there is someone else here, possibly hiding from us in the vents, it might be them.” I looked over at it. There wasn’t a chair, desk, or counter close to the area under the vent. Which meant if someone had just shimmied up there, they would have had a workout and they would have to be tall.
“Raphael?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t think the area between the floors is wide enough.” I commented. However, this had been above our heads and theoretically Raphael was trapped in a room below us. I wasn’t willing to bet my life on it though. The duct work was flush with the wall, meaning it was concealed somewhere else. Also, while I had found a room with computers, I hadn’t found the filtration system, which meant the bunker had more secrets than I knew about. I turned on my heel and started towards the movable wall. If it was Raphael, I didn’t want to be somewhere he could sneak in behind me. For that matter, I didn’t want to be anywhere that someone could sneak in behind me. I touched Gabriel’s arm as I exited. He followed by stepping backwards, unwilling to take his eyes off the vent cover. As we shut the door, even I expected to see the vent cover move. Gabriel had his gun trained on the vent in the bathroom as I opened the door to exit that room and checked out the living area.
It was empty. I announced that, and Gabriel followed me.
“What exactly did you see?” I asked Gabriel once we were both in the living area. Here the vents were on the floors and above our heads, one taking air in, the other expelling it. The duct work would probably be long, wide, nearly flat ducts that were too small for a person to crawl through. I was convinced some of the duct work was on the walls outside the metal box, insulated with earth.
“Movement.” Gabriel told me. If the majority of the duct work was outside the bunker, it was possible some enterprising animal had managed to get into the ducts, maybe. I wasn’t certain it would work since the air filtration system seemed to be moving air at a good pace. I could feel it coming in and going, a gentle breeze, not like someone had the fan turned on but like the fan was always turned on. It made sense, recycled air under pressure was more likely to create blood clots. Also, regardless of the fact that most of the air was recycled, it couldn’t all be recycled which meant there had to be a vent outside the bunker, a way to pull air into the filtration system. This was a likely spot for a woodland creature to create its own entrance into the air system, but I still wasn’t sure what kind of system it was using, meaning there could be serious fan blades that were capable of cutting up a critter in the system and creating enough of a suction to keep it from living very long once it was inside.
The thought bothered me for two reasons; the first was that no one would want a small critter in their ventilation system if there was some sort of plague outside because many animals could carry zoonotic diseases that infected people. The second reason it bothered me was that most animals didn’t sweat, not like people. Humans, horses, and primates were about the only creatures that produced high amounts of sweat. Most animals were like dogs and thermoregulated their body temperatures through other means, like panting. And I had only ever smelled sweat on horses and humans, then again, I didn’t spend a lot of time around primates other than humans, of course, a gorilla sweating in an air duct in a bunker in Maine seemed as unlikely as a horse doing it. Also, the vent Gabriel had shot at had been an intake vent, which should have meant if there was something in there, I shouldn’t have been able to smell it at all. That didn’t explain the fact that I had smelled sweat and we had heard a noise that seemed unidentifiable.
“Do you want to go down and check to see if your brother is still in his room?” I asked.
“No.” Gabriel was searching the bedroom on this floor and making a pile on the bed. He came out with a stack of stuff and put it on the couch. Even I realized Raphael had been liv
ing in the place. It smelled like his cologne which made my nose burn ever so slightly. His clothes really smelled like him. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what Gabriel was planning.
Most people believe washing your clothes removes a person’s scent, but it actually adds to it. Most of us buy the same laundry soap, fabric softener, and bleach every time we get low. These agents went into building our scent profiles just as much as our cologne, body wash, and sweat. I had never met two people that smelled the same and I could tell when someone close to me changed the scent of their laundry soap or body soap or shampoo or just decided to take a shower and not use soap if I was with them immediately after they did it. It was one of the quirks I had that Nyleena hated. It was also why I didn’t hang out with many women, women were more likely to be annoyed by my overly developed sense of smell, and women were more likely to change the items that went into scent profiles and their own body changed them from time to time. I would have made an excellent perfumist but considering a lot of scents triggered migraines for me, that job had never been an option.
The stack of stuff was mostly clothes; socks, hoodies, long sleeve flannel shirts, and a pair of sweat pants. This was all fine and dandy, but Raphael was probably two feet taller than I was. Everything was going to be incredibly long on me. The shirts were probably going to go to my knees and the sweat pants would have to be cut off, because even with the elastic bands around the ankles, they were not going to stay up, not even with my tall boots on.
I put on a long sleeve shirt over the loose shirt I was wearing and didn’t bother to button it. He might have been skinnier than me, but size was about more than girth, weight and height played a factor. I slipped the hoody over the long sleeve shirt and found the large pocket in the front and stuck my hands in it.