With a small grimace, Sidney tugged slightly on her right and then left gloves, to confirm they wouldn’t slip. She then, with practiced speed, removed the rock pick and mini sledge from her belt and braced for the approaching crowd of zombies. Due to the tunnel's narrow width, no more than three zombies could approach at a time, and only from one direction. Just as Rilla had said, Sidney was more than capable of exterminating this herd of shuffling emaciated opponents with little difficulty. Sidney's, and by extension the Great Apes as a whole, choice of melee weapons were as perfectly suited for killing a zombie as for their intended purpose of clearing rocks. The sledge was quick to shatter the skull of the shambling corpses, while the pick's smooth point was perfect for penetrating and destroying the zombie's corrupted brain. With so little room for them to fall, she soon needed only her rock pick to strike down the stumbling dead. The fallen pile of corpses had formed an unstable pile that the next approaching zombies had to stop at and attempt to shamble over, reducing the flow of attackers to a mere single file line.
Within minutes, Sidney had turned what had been a ravenous herd of zombies into nothing more than a heap of decaying and wretched flesh, fit only as a meal for the next batch of undead to stumble into the tunnel. Sidney carefully made her way around the repulsive mound of bodies to the grate that the zombies were assaulting when she first arrived. Seeing nothing on the other side that should have held their attention, she looked down and saw a small mouse nibbling the remains of an old sandwich and chuckled lightly to herself. The grate, on the other hand, was nothing to laugh at. The metal had held up astoundingly well over the years and Sidney wondered to herself just how Rilla had gotten past it, as he was over six feet tall and much larger than her.
Set in the center of the circular grate was a door. Not a solid piece of metal, but rather a rectangle cut from the iron lattice, mounted on hinges and locked tight. Just as Sidney was raising her pick to strike the keyhole, a small glint caught her eye. Hanging on a tiny ring from the top of the tunnel was a small key. Clearly made recently, Rilla must have copied the original key, which had probably rusted to almost nothing. With some effort, the key opened the grate, and Sidney carefully replaced the key. Closing the grate behind her, a metallic snap told her the grate had locked itself on closing. She could only press forward, but the thought of turning tail had never crossed her mind.
Sidney's time in the tunnels was brief from that point, running across no more than a single zombie at a time. These brief encounters posed much less danger than a group of zombies to Sidney, whose lifetime in Blood Oak had more than prepared her for the simple task of taking out a lone zombie. Whether she was sinking her pick through their foreheads or using her sledge to merge their heads with the tunnel walls, at most, the single corpses delayed her for little more than seconds at a time. Rilla had been right; this part of the sewer was remarkably free of the undead. After a little more than an hour in the winding and turning tunnels, she found herself at a dead end, with a rusted ladder leading straight up. Stepping onto the rungs as silently as possible, Sidney climbed out of the Tunnels carefully on the surprisingly sturdy ladder towards the glimmer of lights and faint sounds above her. With even more caution than she had used climbing the ladder, Sidney raised the drainage hatch at the top as slowly as she could make her muscles move, in case anyone she couldn’t see was in the room above her.
Peeping through the raised cover, she found that the maintenance closet she had reached was empty. Sidney eased her way through the opening and noiselessly replaced the hatch. The closet was dark, but light streamed in from under the door, allowing for some visibility. The Knights ran a tight ship, and the closet was nearly spotless. Brooms and mops along one wall, a mop bucket in the corner, and a breaker box across from the door. Sidney made a mental note of the breakers, knowing they'd be of use should she need to make a quick escape, but for now her purpose was ahead of her.
"No sounds in the hall, still shouldn’t risk leaving without a plan in place…map, fire escape plan, master key…something's gotta be here…hell, an air vent even."
Looking up, Sidney indeed saw an air vent. While it could take her nearly anywhere in the building, past experience told her that vents were loud, and progress through them would be slow. Checking her watch, she saw the meeting was due to begin in less than an hour, and she still didn’t know where in the Castle the meeting would be. She quickly settled on what she determined was her most viable option, and silently stowed her weapons in her bag. The last thing she needed was her rock pick tapping the metal, announcing her presence as she crept along.
Carefully and quietly beginning her attempt to reach the air vent access, Sidney found that her small frame and light weight allowed her to easily brace one foot against a wall and the other lightly on top of the circuit box. With her hair just brushing the ceiling, Sidney easily opened the vent and slipped through the opening. After resealing the vent, Sidney pulled herself along the aluminum shaft as slowly as possible, thankful the Knights had maintained the spacious vents well, and making a sound only as she went around corners. Following the loudest source of conversation as her only clue to the meeting, Sidney found herself over an old, large meeting room. From the vent that fed the room fresh air and A/C, Sidney was able to see several people seated around a long mahogany table. She recognized only one person, Nadia Gautreaux, the head of the Knights and the "Mayor of Baton Rouge," as she preferred to call herself. While the title had once been true, there hadn't been any real election since the Infection had swept the globe, or any true form of national, or even local government, facts that Mrs. Gautreaux denied and claimed to be unfounded and false.
Nadia Gautreaux was a dark woman in every way but appearance. Her voice was somber and carried with it an accent from a far off land that few remembered, save those who lived before the Infection. Her silver hair was pulled back into a tight bun that seemed to stretch her face back into a constant look of displeasure, as though constantly standing on a tack. The others at the table tried hard to avoid her gaze, a relic from her time spent behind the Iron Curtain, as they discussed the meeting that was scheduled to start in moments. Sidney took a small PDA from her pocket and placed it over the vent after cycling through its features for audio recording. A small microphone appeared on its screen and Sidney smiled confidently, knowing that no details of the meeting below would be lost to unreliable memory or any other issue.
"Mrs. Gautreaux, the Klan representatives have arrived." said a young girl, no more than 16 years old, who had stepped into the meeting room dressed in a black pencil skirt and white button front shirt.
"Very good Natalie, send them in…and no interruptions once the door closes. If the building isn't burning down, I don’t need to know about it." Gautreaux replied, waving the pale girl away with a slight flick of her wrist, as the Klan entourage entered the room.
"Mrs. Gautreaux! Truly a pleasure it is to see you!" a hooded and masked man exclaimed in an accent that echoed generations of southern life. He entered the room with a sweeping bow, followed by the four members of his entourage. Each wore a black leather jacket, adorned with white shoulder pads. Affixed to the shoulder pads were three hanging strips of tattered white cloth, the ends of which were frayed and bloodied. However the most obvious and prominent feature of these men were the hoods they wore. The white hoods featured elongated and pointed tails, which hung behind the wearer's heads, unlike those of their equally notorious and despised predecessors whose pointed hoods rose defiantly skyward. Within each hood's opening hung another piece of tattered white cloth, which covered the wearer's face like a mask with holes slashed at eye level, allowing their gaze to seep out from the hoods.
"I wish I could say the same to you, masked Mr. Cooper, and please, you know to call me Nadia." Gautreaux happily greeted, standing and shaking the man's hand.
"Cooper?…Once I get what Sims wants, he dies…I will not let him escape again."
"Of course, Nadia, only if you will do me t
he same pleasure. Please call me Daniel. Also, hoods off men. We are among friends and esteemed colleagues." Cooper instructed, removing his hood and mask with the others to reveal a striking man, one whom age had been quite kind to. His once corn colored hair had begun to gray at the edges, and his face was lined, but a youthful vigor in his eyes still lit every inch of his visage. Behind him, each of his guards methodically removed and folded his hood and mask. Sidney waited for each face to be revealed, and as Rilla had predicted, not a woman in bunch.
"Well I guess it's better we didn’t have the regalia in stock. I'd have been found out whether I spoke or not."
"I only wish the city saw you as the friends you call yourselves. It is truly a shame your name carries such poor memories…you have all reformed, yes?" Gautreaux asked with slight trepidation.
"Nadia, I promise you that when our leader reformed the Klan in twenty fifteen, it was complete rebirth. Gone are the days where a white hood meant discrimination and hate. We stand for the lasting preservation of pure humanity, all races and creeds. It is truly a shame that the people still see us as bogeymen who are here to take them in the night or burn crosses on their lawns, and not as the slayers of all that is an abomination unto life." Cooper elegantly waxed, with many a flourish of his hands.
"Excellent. Some of my associates were worried that perhaps your past may affect our future. Now that that business is over, we may truly get down to 'brass tacks' as they say." Gautreaux explained with a chuckle. Apparently she had made a joke, as the five Klansmen and Nadia's two aides all roared with laughter for more than a half minute.
"Of course…I do trust that the room is secure? No nosey Nellies hiding under the table?" Cooper asked with a downward tilt of his head.
"Uh oh." Sidney prepared to back up.
"Well, I never! Frankly, Daniel, I'm offended you'd even consider it. We have guards at every entrance: doors, windows, skylights, air vents, even the old tunnel entrance has been sealed off, its key destroyed. Not even a mouse could enter without our knowing it." Gautreaux responded, some color rising in her alabaster cheeks.
"Nadia, I am truly sorry. You know nothing I say is meant to offend you, but we cannot be too cautious with these matters." Cooper apologized, with yet more gesturing.
"All is forgiven Daniel, all is forgiven. Now, the reason I requested you here is to cement a more lasting, ah…bond between our two families. Nothing official to the public, not as it stands. Unfortunately, your organization has a bit of a perceived stain on its reputation, and we cannot be seen openly supporting one another." Gautreaux stated, choosing her words with extreme care.
"What exactly do you propose Nadia?" Cooper asked, leaning over the table, eyebrows lost in the fringes of gray amidst his otherwise golden hair.
"Our plans require that the River Center be free of its current occupants. If you can accomplish removing this blight from the River Center, your success will surely begin to wash the stain from your record. After that is done, we may discuss further methods of joining our organizations." Gautreaux explained, drawing whispers amongst the Klansmen.
"You want us to…clear the Hive? Nadia, we may make our bread and butter on the deaths of the undead, but…this is a matter in which we cannot promise success. While more docile than those corpses of the college campus, Hivemind is no lame duck Zero. I have seen with my own two eyes his ability, not to mention his four protective and stalwart guardsmen. What do you even want the Hive for, dare I ask?" Cooper asked, clearly considering all options and strategies in his head.
"First and foremost, the River Center is an ideal staging ground for planning the commandeering of the massive casino gambling ship that Mark Tyler recovered from New Orleans. It seems that every bullet case the people of this city call 'money' eventually makes its way onto his boat. That kind of revenue, if in our hands, would be more than enough to take back the rest of our great city. Tell me, have you ever been on the ship, or as Tyler has renamed it, the Life Raft?" Gautreaux asked, looking straight at Cooper.
"Of course I have. What about it is so enticing to you?" Cooper responded, beginning to piece together her plan.
"After everything the Infection has done to our fair city, after the death, the decay, the rioting and the revolts, that ship remains. If it weren't for that blasted currency of bullet cases instead of dollar bills, I would have no reason to believe I hadn't travelled back in time on that ship to before all this chaos started. That ship is completely self-sufficient; Tyler hasn’t bought any supplies for it since he first docked sixteen years ago. If we could have command of that ship, and all the cases people lost gambling there went to us, towards taking our city back? We could have the city back in months," Gautreaux seemed to fantasize as Cooper's eyes began to sparkle. "Also, I miss the theatre in the River Center. It has been ages since I have seen a musical or heard the symphony." Nadia answered, with flamboyant gestures of her own.
"Not to offend, Nadia, but what prevents the very Castle in which we currently sit from serving as that staging ground? We are but a stone's throw from the Hive as we speak." Cooper inquired, still pondering the situation.
"Don't you think I've tried? I tried marching an army of two hundred armed and capable men from here, down the River Road to the ship. I kept them as far from the River Center as I could, and still the zombies streamed out of the River Center and swarmed us in droves. I lost more men in minutes to those 'docile' creatures than I did in a year to every other harm combined. Don't even suggest we blow the damn thing up. None of my men have succeeded in their missions against the zombies in the River Center. If I am to capture the Life Raft from Tyler, the 'Hive' must be eliminated as a threat first. The 'Hivemind,' as you call him, has made it very clear he intends not to give up his fortress, but you will seize it from him." Gautreaux instructed, the bright fire in her eyes, visible even to Sidney from her vantage point in the air vent.
"With the promise that this task will bring our associations closer, and increase our cases, equipment, recruits and the like, I will…discuss this with our leader. I do have one question though. Tyler has always seemed that he would die fighting to keep the Life Raft independent. That ship is his baby. What if he won't give it up?" Cooper asked, a smirk having returned to his impressively white toothed smile.
"We take it by force. The same goes for every other building in my city. I'll take it back brick by brick and bone by bone if I must, but damn it, I will have my city back! The Capitol, the Petroleum Refinery, the LSU campus, it will all be united once more!" Gautreaux half shouted, eyes fiery with passion.
"And that, Nadia, is why I love you. Now, is there other business or shall we be on our way? We are expected back by sundown, you see." Cooper clapped as he laughed to himself.
"Oh yes, one tiny little thing. There is a small contingent of Great Apes attempting to set up a listening post about a block from the Chase building. Nothing too elaborate, just some surveillance and bugging equipment. It shouldn't be too much work for a few of your boys. Please see about wiping it out sometime in this next week, if possible." Nadia requested, rising to shake hands once more with Cooper.
"Of course Nadia, we will send a squad Friday. It has been an absolute pleasure, and I will see about getting an answer to your request within the week. Boys, we must be off." Cooper instructed, leaving with a sweeping bow after they all donned their hoods.
Once the Klansmen exited, Sidney collected her PDA and watched as Nadia rose and quickly left the room. With her work done, Sidney began to silently make her way through the vents, desperate to catch up with Cooper. She would not let him get away again. As she was already in the second floor ducts, Sidney continued towards the roof, determined to spot the Klan's route from the parapets of the castle.
"They wouldn’t go down River Road, not after that meeting. They'd be too scared to pass the Hive, too scared of Hivemind…but they aren't an army, just five guys…looked unarmed too. Hivemind may be a Zero, but he's not so ruthless that he would attack u
narmed men…is he? More than likely they’ll take North Boulevard…unless they aren't going back to headquarters, they could have a Safehouse in town…why wouldn’t they? Their leader wouldn't wait for them just anywhere would he? Shit, wasting time in these vents…"
With less effort towards silence than when she entered, Sidney leapt from the air duct out into the setting sunlight. The one guard stationed on the roof was caught unaware and went out like a light after Sidney delivered him a swift rap to the head. She dashed from corner to corner of the roof, scanning the streets for Cooper. As she stared up North Blvd., she saw them. They were taking the long way back into The Breakers, the district where the Klan had made their headquarters, to avoid passing by the Hive. Taking a quick check of her braces, Sidney leapt from the top of the castle and landed with a light thud on the lower roof. With a roll at the connection, she continued forward and jumped over the edge, landing catlike in the outstretched limbs of an old oak.
"For the sins I have commit/Seven throats I must now slit"
Sidney descended the tree in three quick foothold leaps and dashed off across the Castle lawns, cutting through an old courtyard to get to St. Louis Street where she'd seen the party turn off. Within minutes, Sidney had overtaken the Klan party and was able to climb into an oak tree whose branches overhung the road. Lying in wait for the group to pass her, Sidney gripped her pick and took the only can of teargas she had from her pack. As the party passed her, she donned her small vulture-made gas mask and dropped the canister into the middle of the small party. Catlike, Sidney dropped into the midst of the disoriented and confused Klansmen and began to fell them swiftly. While others, like Rilla, cared little for more humane methods, Sidney was not one to deal death so flippantly. Sidney’s decisive blows were dealt out more surgically than savagely, so that each Klansman simply drew a last breath, then not another. For them it would be the beginning of a long and never ending sleep. Yet, as she rounded on Cooper to finish the job, she was met with an unexpected sight.
Alive and Fighting: Every Sin a Saint Page 2