by J. Kowallis
“How?” Ransley narrowed her eyes and stepped closer.
“Well, offices are outstanding targets for simple sabotage. Even in an advanced building like the Chrysalis. It’s susceptible to damage, especially fire . . .”
“. . . which I can help with,” Ransley weakly smiled.
“What about you two?” Israel asked Reggie.
“Nate and I will be waiting in the ducts near the basement lab. They’ve been sealed off since our last entrance, but with the laser cutters you gave us, it won’t be a problem.”
“What about him?” Ransley thumbed toward Israel.
He put his hands in the air defensively. “You heard me. I’m outta this. All I’m doing is providing the ID and ammunition. Outside of that, you people are on your own.”
Carmen didn’t expect anything more of him. She could tell by looking at Ransley that she was furious about that—feeling that Israel was “hiding like a frightened rodent”—but she kept her mouth shut. When no one else chimed in, Carmen continued nervously.
“As we were saying; Ransley can set fires in random areas of the building, and when I’m alone, I can break into the system, and um . . .”
“Stop.” Reggie raised a finger. “Don’t say ‘um.’ Those who are products of the Nexis don’t hesitate in speech or action. It will give you away. They’ll realize something is still wrong with you.”
Carmen was so frustrated about fumbling over her words. Over and over she’d practiced to get it right. She tripped up again and her eyes closed in frustration. Heat flamed on the back of her neck and she started again. “I’ll see if I can get the doctor to believe the healing process took time. I’ll let him know, however, it’s not preventing me from doing my job.”
The other two women exchanged nervous glances with Israel and Reggie tried to smile. “You can do this. Don’t get flustered. Remember why . . . remember why we’re doing this. Why you wanted to do this.”
“I hate what’s happening in there.”
“I know.” Reggie nodded.
“Wait.” Carmen turned to Ransley. “How are you going to convince Roy to go to the basement?”
Ransley slipped a pair of dark sunglasses over her unnatural eyes, flaming red again, and folded her arms. Her face went cold and stiff. “It’ll be easy.”
―
Hundreds of people hurried by them. Each trying to get inside to start the new day. Just like the day before, the sky was overcast, holding in the dank smell of the city. Carmen tried to avoid looking at Ransley walking next to her, but she couldn’t help it. Her mind still felt like sludge, but she knew what they were walking into. Knowing someone was with her made it a little more bearable. Each time their eyes met, Ransley would harshly whisper, “Don’t,” and snap her head back forward, keeping her face stone straight behind dark sunglasses.
The entrance had so many people walking through, the doors never closed. Once through, the crowd parted like ants on different work paths, heading for different security points in the building. Carmen motioned for Ransley to follow and they squeezed through the crowd. They reached the checkpoint and Carmen held out her palm to the projected scanner. Lasers ran up and down her hand, checking her prints. Next, she handed over her employee card and the guard ran it through the system.
“Welcome back to work, Ms. Mata.”
“Thank you.” Carmen held out her arm and the guard placed a pressurized gun into the center of her inner wrist. The gun popped and hissed, and a biodegradable microchip entered her system for the day. “This is a new employee. We’ll be printing her today.”
The guard nodded and beckoned to Ransley with his hand.
“Your wrist, Rebecca,” Carmen prompted her.
If Ransley felt startled at all, she didn’t let it show. She held out her arm and the guard placed the gun to her wrist. The identical pop and hiss of the gun sounded and Ransley stood calmly. When they finished, Carmen acknowledged the guard with a slight nod of her head.
They walked away and Carmen let out a long deep breath, her fingers twitching anxiously.
“Good job, Carmen,” Ransley’s smooth voice said to the side.
“Gracias,” she quivered. “Just be aware. The microchip they gave us has a termination code.”
“Termination code?” Ransley whispered.
Carmen’s chest tightened. “They can kill us with it.”
“Right. So we take it out ASAP.”
“Exactly.”
Once at the tenth of twenty elevators, Carmen pressed the appropriate buttons and the glass door slid closed. The elevator twisted slowly, rising higher up the building, giving them a panoramic view of the building’s interior and the city itself. There were thousands of employees. So many had been programmed and lied to. Carmen felt sick to her stomach thinking of all the lives she’d ruined. She’d thought it was right at the time, though. Didn’t that count for something? Even though she didn’t recognize her disgust for what it was at the time, she’d thought it was right. She could hardly condemn herself for that.
So why did she still hate herself?
Carmen reached forward and stopped the elevator when it approached the fiftieth floor. “You’ll have thirty minutes to create whatever distraction you need before I get to my station and unlock Roy’s quarters. He’s still new, so he can’t come and go as he pleases. He has a strict schedule.”
Ransley nodded and gave a stiff wink to Carmen before the door slid up, and she left Carmen alone. The lights on the elevator consol lit up again and Carmen selected the floor she’d worked on for years. She closed her eyes, riding almost the entire height of the building. When she felt the elevator stop, she opened them again and confidently walked out.
Outside her modifying room stood Dr. Folland. His hands clasped in front of him, and she knew he was waiting specifically for her.
“Good morning, Carmen.” His voice was not the normal tone she’d remembered. Something about it was different; drawn back, deeper.
“Dr. Folland,” she replied steadily as she could.
“We were told you’d arrived, and I wanted to talk with you the moment you arrived. Can we step into your room and have a private word?”
She wanted to look around, to see who else would be near her, but of course . . . Ransley wasn’t there. Without moving her head, she agreed. “Yes, sir.”
The room was as she’d remembered it. At least, how she thought she remembered it; so few things—a blank desk, a control glove and a large area for the screen to appear. Her cold padded chair sat empty in front of her station and the doctor motioned for her to sit. She pulled it out and sat down. The door closed behind him and Dr. Folland folded his arms squinting at her.
“We hear you were injured, Carmen.”
“Yes, doctor.”
He shook his head. “How?”
She’d rehearsed it so many times with Reggie. There was so much she couldn’t remember from that day; most of the details still a blur to her, but she knew what to tell him. “During the commotion of the break-in, I attempted to aid the subject, but in the fighting, I was tossed against the wall and my head received significant trauma.”
“Roy says after they took you, they just . . . dumped you in a trash receptacle.”
Carmen nodded. “I was unconscious. Dead weight.”
“Why didn’t you come to medical to have Public Trauma workers help you?”
“In truth, Dr. Folland, I was hurt, but not incompetent. Although I knew my injury would cause my work to be imperfect and sloppy at best, I also thought I’d be fine. I returned to my home where I slept for a few days and dressed my wound.”
The doctor took a deep breath. “You had sufficient medical supplies at your residence? How is that possible?”
“I always make sure to keep a high supply. With my security clearance in the past, it was legal. I also felt it was wise.”
“Roy told us when he visited your home, he found fresh bloodied bandages and cloths. Why were you still bleedin
g out that much?”
Carmen swallowed. She hadn’t bled at all. Just a crack to her head. Not even the skin broke. Of course, those cloths were Ransley’s from the night Roy had beaten her.
“The bleeding was severe. I must not have injected myself with enough reparative. The wounds had reopened a few days later, but with a secondary reparative shot to the injured site, my skin and tissue healed, allowing me to rest and heal.”
Dr. Folland took a couple steps to the right and then stopped to look at her again. “Why didn’t you contact us to let us know?”
“The trauma for the injury impaired the clarity of my thoughts, doctor. I apologize. This will never happen again. Should I have a personal leave for health reasons, I’ll go . . . I’ll go through Medical in the future.” Her breath caught in her throat and she could hear her heart beating wildly. She’d fumbled.
He watched her reaction closely, never taking his eyes off her. “How are you feeling now, Carmen?”
“I’m returning to normal, sir, but at times I still feel shaken.”
He slowly started to nod and his features softened. “That’s to be expected with a head injury. However, I hope you’ll understand you’ll be watched closely over the next few weeks. We want to make sure you can still do your job with perfection, as you’ve done in the past. That’s most important to us.”
“Yes, sir. I understand completely.”
He nodded once more and Carmen saw his electronic eye blink on its own. “Then, let’s start you out on your first task for the day. We’re going to move you to ISA, but not before we complete a full evaluation.”
Carmen’s heart stopped. They were reassigning her. No, they couldn’t. She needed full access to the system. “Doctor?”
“You were injured, Carmen. You said so yourself you still feel shaken at times. And if we’re both going to be honest, I don’t trust you. You’ll be working in ISA for a time before we can approve you for subject modification again. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, but I feel my knowledge and talents would be better used where I am most beneficial. I’ve been gone for a long time, and in that period, I can assume the line of subjects needing modification has backed up quite a lot.”
“Carmen, we . . .”
“Please, doctor,” she interrupted him. She hadn’t meant to, but it had just come out. She couldn’t go to ISA. There was no internal system access to those employees.
Dr. Folland took a deep breath. “You’re right, we’re behind. But I’m afraid we can’t allow it. Not now.” He stepped toward the door and pressed the pad. “Come with me.”
She nodded, trying not to let the panic show in her face. “Yes, sir.”
The doctor followed her out and then kept near her side, leading her to the elevator. She had to do something. Ransley relied on her, the whole plan did. Her breathing intensified and she knew Doctor Folland could hear it. She looked over at him and he eyed her.
“Carmen? Is something wrong?” His voice dropped low. Dangerous. She could feel it.
“Y-yes,” she stammered and hit the pad. Sliding her finger back up, the elevator reversed direction. “I can’t go with you.”
From inside her jacket, she reached for the handheld power-gun Nate had given her. She turned to fire on Folland. The doctor jerked forward, his head driving toward her. The crack of his head on hers sent shocks through her brain. The gun clamored to the elevator floor. She reached for her head, the throb. The pain.
“So you lied about a head injury?” He paused the elevator’s movements. “Have you been working with them the whole time? Helped them into the city?” The doctor leaned down to pick up the gun. Carmen shot her foot out, kicking him in the chest. His body battered into the clear elevator wall. The gun wedged under his leg and Carmen leaned to grab it. The doctor kicked her in return, sending the gun two feet to the left.
“Who are they, Carmen? Your criminal friends.”
He kicked her again, sending her body to the side. Her hand, inches from the gun, flashed out and grasped it. She whirled on him, holding the weapon aimed at his chest.
“They aren’t criminals.” Her head ached. “You are.”
Three shots left the gun. Three shots pelted his body. The shoulder. The stomach. The chest. Doctor Folland’s body slid to the ground, the smell of electricity and burned flesh filled the elevator. Carmen slid her finger up the panel again and the elevator continued to move.
What had she done? Dr. Folland was dead. Her superior. She’d killed him.
Deep breaths filled her lungs. She tried to calm herself. When the door slid open again on the thirteenth floor, she looked around, relieved to see the hallway was empty. She grabbed the doctor’s body, dragging him toward her room. He was heavy. Between her quivering hands and the weight, it took longer than she thought to pull him inside. His body slid down to the left after she leaned it up against the wall. She propped him back up again.
Carmen turned around, hoping she still remembered how to do this. She slipped the glove onto her trembling hand and only slightly hesitated when Dr. Folland’s corpse fully slid to the side and hit the floor.
Her hand shook as she reached over to open the file. She stopped, hesitant. What if she got it wrong? She raised her hand, and surprisingly, like second nature, she brought up the building scans of the Chrysalis. The alarm systems showed red on the forty-ninth floor where Ransley would have been. A red alert had been notified on that floor. Fire. She outstretched her fingertips, zooming in on the next floor and moved the hallway to the side. It was like flipping the pages of a book.
When she got to Roy’s quarters, she moved her arms in front of her like a breaststroke, pushing the walls apart and pulled herself in on the security pad. She hacked into the access code and the door turned green in front of her. She waited to see if it would open fully. Sure enough, the door opened on its own, letting her know Ransley had gone through.
Next, she collapsed the view on the fire floor and went to the elevator controls. With the fires raging in the building, elevators would automatically be shut down. Her hands flew, trying to find the right security files. When she finally reset the elevator controls, she closed all files, and deleted her history.
Carmen closed down the files, spun around in her chair, and grabbed the pen out of Dr. Folland’s coat pocket. He always used a vintage fountain pen. With the ink cartridge removed, she took a deep breath before piercing her skin with the sharp point of the pen and digging in for the tracker.
Blood trailed over her wrist, dripping to the floor. When she found the small object, only the size of a grain of rice, she dropped it on the floor and left the room.
Work on her floor was still relatively calm. No one must have known about the fires yet. When she pressed the security pad for the elevator, holding her crimson-stained wrist, it opened smoothly for her and she stepped in. It effortlessly turned and slid down its tube all the way to the basement floor. The moment it opened to let her out, the employee at the front desk stood, accompanied by a Public Four guard.
“I’m here to check on the progress of a subject file,” Carmen stated as she approached, hiding her wrists behind her.
“Place your hand here,” the employee stated. She paused, realizing she couldn’t.
“Ms. Mata?”
What was she going to do? She had blood trailing down her wrist, and blood on her opposite hand.
Suddenly, the guard began to convulse. His gun dropped to the ground, and his body became rigid and twisted. Carmen spun around at the crashing bang of a steel panel hitting the floor behind her. Reggie dropped from the air vent, still looking at the guard as she approached. A power-gunshot exited the vent and it struck the employee in the arm before he had a chance to reach for the alarm. Nate dropped to the floor, holding a power-gun in his hands and Carmen ushered them into the pod area.
The sound of Nate’s shot had alerted the other guards from within and people began to run for cover. Shots rained down on th
e three of them. Carmen grabbed for her ears, screaming. She knew this was coming, but she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready. There was so much noise. The gunfire. Bodies fell around them. There was so much fighting. Carmen screamed again when another guard body slammed to the floor in front of her, seizing and shaking in pain.
When Reggie grabbed at her arm, the touch made her jump, and she could barely make out what she said.
“Come on, Car . . . go! Ransley . . . be coming!”
Carmen shook her head in protest. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to go home. She couldn’t do this. Please, let her go home!
“Come on!” Reggie yelled again, pulling on Carmen’s arm.
Her legs shook fiercely to the point she couldn’t stand on them. She fell to the ground, holding her head again.
Reggie squatted down next to her and placed her hands on each side of Carmen’s face. “Carmen, you can do this. You know you can. I know you can. We can’t finish this without you. We’ll be all right, but you have to come now!”
Carmen’s gaze flickered to the men Nate shot at from behind a table turned on its side, each falling to the ground. She looked back to Reggie and nodded. Her arms shook, but she used Reggie’s steady body to pull herself up. The two women ducked into a side pod room and Nate followed them.
“Shut the door! Shut the door!” Carmen yelled.
“We can’t! We have to wait for Ransley and Roy,” Reggie called back between Nate’s shots and glancing out into the hallway.
“Where are they, Reg?! They’re supposed to be here by now!”
“They’re coming!” she yelled back at Nate. “She needs a few more seconds!”
―RANSLEY―
The glass doors of the elevator slide down behind me and I turn around to watch the platform rise up the tube with Carmen inside. I hold my breath, hoping she can keep her mind together enough to get us through this. Reggie has more confidence in Carmen than I do. I hope it’s justified.