by Nick Thacker
The attackers stopped firing, backing away from the room as the smoke cleared enough to see. Reggie was there at the door already, chasing them into the hallway.
"Reggie!" Adam shouted. "Get back in --"
The shots sent Reggie flying backwards and into the wall outside the hospital room, and one of the stray rounds found and shattered a window that hadn't been damaged by the explosion. They didn't stop when Reggie was down. Adam looked away as the execution continued. They were on autopilot, as if they didn't know they'd already killed the man.
Bethany was next, but she had a different strategy. Adam watched her sneak around to the side of the doorway, waiting for a moment to strike.
One of the attackers stepped into her line of sight and she took the shot. It was a clean kill, and she didn't waste ammunition. Instead, she lined up the next shot and took it.
...And missed. The man outside the room had seen his partner go down, and he ducked behind a door as the burst of gunfire sprinkled around it. He didn't move, but Adam could see from the bullet holes on the door that he hadn't been hit.
"Get the kids!" Bethany yelled. Before he could stop her she ran into the hallway, waiting for the man to reveal himself. Jeff followed closely behind her, now limping and bleeding from the shoulder, but holding a rifle with his good arm. Adam took a few breaths, looking around the room. Kate was lying on the floor unconscious, her arm stretched out in front of her and her head resting on her shoulder. The twins were next to her, wide-eyed but fine. He stood, glancing back to the bed.
Sarah had been hit. A pool of blood covered her hospital gown, and the machines hooked up to her were blank, except for one. A heart monitor told him the news as insensitively as it was designed to: A single green line stretched from one side of the screen to the other.
"No," he whimpered. "Sarah..." He dropped to his knees, ignoring the pain as they slammed against the cold tile. He was hyperventilating again, choking back tears yet screaming silently at the same time. He rocked, forward and backwards, staring. Staring at his dead daughter.
There were more gunshots, but he ignored them. He didn't even turn to look at who might be shooting. Let them come, he thought. Let them take me.
The fight was over for him. There was nothing in the world that could pull him away now.
Bethany tried, and succeeded. As he kneeled there in front of the hospital bed, the woman's thick arms wrapped around him pulled him back. He tried to fight it, but his strength was gone. He had no energy left, so he let her take him away. She dragged him out to the hall, where he saw the second attacker dead on the ground, another circle of blood --
Dead like Sarah.
Bethany pulled him farther into the hall and dropped him onto Jeff's waiting shoulder and turned back to the room. The man had taken a beating, but he didn't complain as Adam's weight landed on his good side. He trudged forward, limping toward the end of the hallway. Bethany returned to the hallway, carrying Kate in her arms like she was a doll, the twins solemnly walking beside her.
Adam watched it all with dead eyes, eyes that no longer cared about anything they took in. He didn't cry, didn't speak, and he certainly didn't look at the twins. The failure he felt didn't replace the fear.
It joined it.
He was a broken man, convicted, walking the distance from his jail cell to his demise.
The deceptively-cheerful daylight streamed in from the cracks around the double doors, and as Jeff pushed them open and let in the entire scene, Adam felt the anger from the beauty. The drastic change from the dim sterility of the hospital's interior fought with the glorious backdrop of freedom. He felt the anticipation in Jeff and Bethany, but couldn't match it. Wouldn't match it. He refused to participate, instead letting his dead eyes take in the helicopter as it chopped at the air waiting for its passengers.
He took in the Hummer parked close to the helicopter, painted to match some landscape that didn't exist in Colorado Springs, sitting empty except for just a driver. The driver was looking at Adam, squinting, either from the brightness of the sunlight or for some other reason. Adam recognized him from somewhere. The man was overweight, not pudgy but thick, like Bethany.
He took in the dead bodies, a massacre of black-clad military police, civilians, and unrecognizable pieces. There was a larger fight here than what we ran through.
He was glad it was over.
TWELVE
Kate and the twins were strapped in to the seats, helped by Bethany and an older gentleman who'd stepped out of the helicopter when they'd burst from the doors of the hospital.
Jeff was standing to the side of the Hummer, Adam still leaning against him. He was sure he could stand, but there was nothing driving him. Nothing tugged at him to fight anymore, and apparently that included something as simple as "standing up."
Kate was awake but dazed, and the twins were taking turns asking her questions. Adam couldn't hear any of it over the din of the rotor wash, but he felt a creeping smile as he watched his family, now safe.
Then he pushed the smile back down, remembering the events from five minutes ago.
Sarah.
Sarah was gone, wiped away from this life and now waiting for him somewhere beyond it. He longed for it, for her, but was torn between the feeling of dedication to his remaining family and being with the one he'd lost.
The one they'd taken from him.
His knees weakened again, but Jeff yanked him to his feet before he could fall. Anger pulsed inside of him, pressing against his forehead, but Jeff spoke before he could. "You need to rest, Adam," he said. "We all do. Get in the Hummer, and --"
"I'm not leaving them," he said.
"You are, and that's an order. They're going to be fine. The chopper and our ride are going to rendezvous back at base, over at Garden of the Gods. There's a compound out there, with more of us."
Adam listened to the man as he let Jeff help him into the back of the Hummer. He was surprised at his own willingness to comply, but more surprised at the man's mention of "us."
"Who's 'us?'" he asked.
"Lucid," Jeff said. "We aren't affected by this... thing... whatever it is that's affecting them."
Adam looked at him. "You know about it?"
"What, the Suppressed? Hell, we've known about it for a year. People acting weird, doing stupid stuff like they're in a daze. Whatever it is, it isn't affecting us."
Lucid. Adam mulled this over as the driver turned to look at him. "Hey, sorry for kicking your ass back on the mountain. You and that other guy were just out there, and we didn't..." he looked away, at the helicopter, and then back at Adam. "Sorry."
Adam nodded, remembering Ethan. He was hurting then but had nearly forgotten about it. It all came back now, but he just kept nodding.
He was still nodding when the Hummer pulled away from its parking spot next to the helicopter. Adam saw a flash out of the corner of his eye, then heard the sound of guns.
More fighting.
He ducked, Jeff doing the same next to him in the seat of the Hummer, and he heard the driver peel out on the tarmac of the large helicopter pad. They turned sharply, and Adam felt the vials of blood clinking against each other in his pocket. He fished them out and held them, protecting them. Thinking again about that plan, he stuck them inside the seat pocket of the driver's seat in front of him.
They're all I have left of her.
The bullets hit something on the side of the Hummer but it didn't do enough damage to stop their retreat. Adam peeked up and looked out through the window.
As tendrils of smoke curled along the ground and wafted into the air, Adam saw a glint of sunlight from a large, imposing object across the courtyard. It looked like an armored sphere, with a highly-polished glass canopy. Within, Adam saw a man seated and glaring at him. As the sphere glided by some unseen propulsion, hovering along just off of the ground. Mounted to its sides were two large turrets--gatling barrels that spun rapidly, cooling themselves with the motion of the air.
&nb
sp; The man within the sphere seemed stiff, as if he were strapped in place. Even his head was stationary. And as the sphere moved, there was no corresponding movement from within. It was as if the machine responded to the man's thoughts--as an extension of his will. A few more rounds fired as the barrels spun, and Adam ducked to the sound of slugs hitting the Humvee.
"Stop the vehicle," he heard a voice call out from the sphere. It was distorted somewhat by the electronics, but it sounded familiar. Adam had spoken with the man behind that voice before, back at the water treatment facility.
David Priseman.
"I will not hesitate to end this now, but I would prefer we handle this in a way that does not result in more bloodshed."
Adam felt a rage boiling up inside of him. He suddenly forgot about Sarah, the egregious loss sinking back into a darker corner of his mind, and a feeling of pure, unadulterated rage appearing on the surface in its stead. He felt himself grabbing for Jeff's rifle, sitting on the seat between them, and he reached his other hand for the door.
"Give me Adam Bolland and we are done here," David said, his voice reverberating from the loudspeaker.
Adam could still hear the helicopter's rotors and wondered if it had taken off yet. Get out of here, he willed. He flicked the lock on the door of the Hummer and clicked back the handle. The door cracked open without a sound; no ding or alert sounded in the vehicle.
In one quick motion he kicked open the door and rolled out onto the tarmac. The heat of the asphalt and concrete shocked his skin, but he didn't waste time thinking about it. He brought the rifle up and aimed it directly at the glass canopy of the hovering sphere. He fired.
The ping of the bullets was the only sign that Adam's shots had found their mark. Everything else stopped around him and he stared into the eyes of the man inside the machine. There were no cracks or divots in the glass. The machine didn't even waver.
"Adam, you and I are not enemies," David said.
Adam aimed again, but the driver of the Hummer had other plans. Before Adam could fire another round the Hummer lurched forward and smashed into the front of the machine. The impact knocked the sphere backwards and into the side of the building as Adam fell to the side to get out of the way.
He was in the grass now, next to the tarmac, and the cool earth felt surreal and oddly nice on his face. It was somehow comforting. He wanted to stay there, to just roll over and die, but the rage was still inside of him. He slid onto a knee and aimed down the sights. Finding two black-clad people aiming back at him, he pulled the trigger twice. One of the soldiers went down and the other dove for cover.
He aimed again, and the Hummer raced forward again. The sphere had moved away from the building about five feet, causing it to bounce like a ping pong ball between the building and the Hummer's front bumper when the driver hit it the second time.
The man inside was yelling, but Adam couldn't tell if it was words or just screams. The helicopter lifted off of the ground and hovered, waiting.
"What are you doing?" he yelled at the helicopter, not expecting to be heard. "Get out of here!"
"Hey!" a voice cried from below him.
Adam looked down and saw Jeff through the open window of the Hummer. "Get over here, now!"
Adam ran to the Hummer as the driver backed it up closer to Adam. He jumped in just as a line of troops came around the corner of the hospital. He slammed the door shut but aimed the gun out the window, waiting for the Hummer to turn and give him a clean shot.
"You're not thinking about firing that in here, are you?" the driver asked.
Adam didn't answer, and Jeff pulled the weapon from his hands and stared at him. "He's not," Jeff said. "And if you ever take my weapon again I swear to God I'll beat you to death with it."
Adam nodded. Jeff looked down at the back of the driver's seat and saw the vials Adam had stashed in the pocket. "What're those?" he growled.
Adam shook his head. "Not now."
Jeff wasn't pleased. "What are they? Are they important?"
Adam wasn't sure how to respond, so he gave a half-answer. "We need to get them to Denver. I know someone there."
Jeff was about to say something when the Hummer screeched and turned again, picking up speed as it drove toward the far side of the helicopter pad. Adam watched out the open window as the soldiers fired at the helicopter, still hovering. It was higher now, but not high enough.
Adam traced the arc of the small dot through the air as it left the soldier's hand. He stared, helplessly, as the grenade landed and bounced three times, still rolling when it slid beneath the helicopter and detonated.
The force of the detonation flared upward and lifted the helicopter even higher in the air, but the tail snapped, falling to the ground in a smoldering heap of twisted metal, and body of the helicopter started spinning.
Adam was in a daze, helpless. He could only watch as the giant beast of a machine spun three complete circles in the air, still being hit with light gunfire, and slammed back to Earth. The vehicle splintered, fire and metal and fuel spraying out every direction as it made impact.
"No!" Adam screamed, and found himself being held tight by Jeff, who had an iron grip on Adam's arms.
He felt the heat of the explosion on his face but didn't register it.
Kate, and the twins...
For the second time today, Adam watched as his very life was sucked out of his soul. Small explosions were still emanating form the helicopter as pockets of fuel made contact with streaks of open flame.
The sphere and its occupant were now on the other side of the wreckage, without a line of sight for whatever weapons he'd had on board. The helicopter smoked and burned on the tarmac.
The driver raced away from the scene, ignoring Adam's screams and pleas from the back seat, begging him to turn around.
They left the hospital in the distance, smoke still billowing out above the horizon, and the Hummer turned onto the highway. The three occupants were silent as they drove, Jeff looking out the side window and Adam staring straight ahead, at the back of the heavyset driver's head.
His life was over.
If he had any strength left in him he would have grabbed Jeff's gun again, placed it to his head, and pulled the trigger.
As the Hummer jolted down the road, and as the driver dodged UVFs and any other vehicles they appeared here and there, Adam could only think of smoke and flame. The smell of ash. The smell of blood.
He reached out and took one of the vials and held it tight in his hand, bringing it close to his chest.
It was all he had left--a few slider vials of blood, the only thing left of his family. It was all he had left.
But it was not the last blood he would have on his hands.
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