Another Force

by D. J. Rockland

  And while this obnoxious doctor might be the smartest guy in the world, Hunter had plenty of people who were smart enough. Hanging on to one arrogant prick of a doctor was not necessary. Once the virus was secure and verified by his own people, Dante would meet with an accident.

  Such a shame, Hunter thought.

  ***

  Dante lowered his log tablet in a quandary. He had just reviewed his chemical and medical cabinet in order to log his count and start his day.

  The count was wrong this morning, however. How was this possible?

  Had he made a mistake?

  No, a mistake was not possible.

  The count was correct last night. He normally performed a single count in the morning, but on a whim he counted before leaving last night. He logged everything in the cabinet and could account for usage during the day, but this morning it was wrong.

  The cabinet was a lead-lined box with double locks and security override. No one just happens into the cabinet, so who else has the double lock combination and security clearance to open it? He knew of individuals who had a piece, but he was the single person who knew all the combinations and could override the security settings.

  I’ll have to report this, Dante thought. His head hung like a whipped puppy. Reporting meant he must leave his lab, and talk to some people, and fill out paperwork.

  “Hell could be no worse,” he said and left the lab for the administration wing. “I’ve told them I need a retinal scanner! I’ve told them that ever since they hired me, but do they listen?”

  He decided to take his secret shortcut through the basement. The private route meant climbing over some old equipment in one corner, but it also took him past the snack room, and he felt an ice cream cone was a suitable reward for the trouble imposed on him today. I’ll get my ice cream first, he thought, and a spring popped into his step.

  Given the lack of personnel assigned to this area and the time of morning, the snack room was empty. Dante was not surprised, and he spent several minutes fishing for correct change and making a selection. Given his lack of choices, he took an inordinately long time to make a selection, but at last a prepackaged, quick-frozen kind of ice cream was plucked by the vending machine’s robotic arm and placed on the discharge tray. Dante snatched it up, and in one motion, whipped the frozen delight free of its paper packaging. Tongue and mouth soon followed the trail his hands had blazed to the treat.

  He walked as he licked his ice cream cone, attempting to prevent the melted streams of ice cream - Dante called them runners - from reaching his hand as they raced down the sides of his simulated waffle cone. There were a lot of runners.

  “Why so many? The temperature must be warmer down here than usual. Why would it be warmer today? The outside temp is minus twelve,” he said, chatting with himself.

  Just then he heard a noise like the background sound of raindrops during a storm. These raindrops were the sounds of someone in distress however, a gurgling guttural moan of sorts. Although the sounds were human, they sounded anything but.

  Dante altered his route toward the noise, stopping to peek around each corner. He felt a sense of trepidation as he placed one soft step carefully in front of the other. He did not believe he was in danger, but he felt the exhilaration of being on the precipice of discovery.

  He was right about the latter assumption and wrong about the former. What he was about to see would put his life in mortal danger, and change its trajectory forever.

  He eased to the next hallway and peered around the corner; he saw nothing. He ducked around the corner and walked toward the first doorway. He was grateful for the soft soled shoes he decided to wear at the last minute this morning.

  As he moved closer, the gurgling and moaning grew louder and more distinct. There were several voices now, all making the same sounds, like a chorus of wraiths.

  Dante paused by the doorway. There was a small window, covered in wire mesh, about three-fourths the way up the door. He took a deep breath, and pushed his head against the wall as he turned to look through the doorway portal. What he saw both amazed and frightened him.

  There were people walking around in a cage, dressed only in loincloths, and covered with sores and torn flesh. Their skin was a pasty white, even gray. They looked ill but not with any disease Dante had ever seen before. Some stood in the center of the cage, while others leaned against the side, banging their heads on the restraint bars, as if in rhythm to some ghoulish beat. He saw gurneys lining the far wall with unconscious people strapped to them.

  Who are these people? Dante thought. Why is no one helping them?

  He had never seen anything like this.

  Dante saw the people in the cage, but he did not see how they got there and moved to the next doorway.

  The two rooms were connected like adjoining labs. He peered, less cautiously this time, into the window. Here he saw people in lab coats moving around. He might have recognized them had he ever taken time to notice any of his coworkers, but as it was, he knew no one. They did appear to belong, however. They were busy scurrying from one bench to another and from one person to another.

  Dante saw a door at the far end of the room and from this door people were being brought in on gurneys one at a time. They were strapped down and already unconscious.

  The people on gurneys were inspected, moved to a second station, and then moved to a third station, where each received an injection. The gurneys were then lined up along the opposite wall. After a time, one of the lab coats took a group of gurneys into the first lab Dante had seen.

  Dante saw there were two hallway doors leading into this lab, and so he moved further down the hallway. He was by now quite comfortable looking in on the operation.

  Through the door’s small window Dante clearly saw the injection being administered. He speculated this might explain some of the items missing from his secure cabinet, and the thought of getting these guys to do the paperwork appealed to him.

  Dante rarely came across a problem he could not quickly solve, so he was glued to this scene. He was like a deer frozen in the middle of the road, staring into oncoming headlights.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Locke?”

  He jumped.

  “Oh, I forget, you wish to be called Dante, like someone from the street. So, Dante, what are you doing here?” His tone was forced but friendly.

  Dante turned to see Hunter standing before him. “I - I am missing some chemical supplies from my secure cabinet, and I am on my way to administration to notify the proper authority and complete my paperwork.”

  Just then Dante’s ice cream fell from his cone and splat on the floor. The sound echoed in the empty hallway. He looked down and saw the runners all over his hand, and the splatter on his pants and shoes. He had forgotten about his ice cream as he witnessed the injection scene unfold before him.

  “Oh my,” Hunter said, “you’ve spilt your ice cream. Let me help you clean it up.”

  “No, no…Everything’s fine. I’ll get some supplies and clean it up.”

  “No, we can’t have you wandering around getting lost can we?”

  “I, uh, I’m not lost.” Dante’s hands trembled and small sweat beads popped out along his hairline.

  “I saw you looking in on our operation here,” Hunter said. “Perhaps you would like to see it from inside?”

  “No,” said Dante, trying to regain control of his emotions. “I need to take care of the ice cream.”

  “No,” Hunter said. “Leave the ice cream. I want you to see inside.”

  Dante was not tall or strong, and Hunter had no trouble dragging him by the arm toward another door further down the hallway. A security guard and a worker dressed in a lab coat joined them.

  “This is where you will be prepared,” Hunter said.

  “Prepared?”

  “Why, yes,” Hunter said, “Did you not recognize the effects of your own serum in the other room?”

  Hunter’s crystal blue eyes bore down on
Dante. Hunter chuckled in a soft tone, which Dante thought sounded like something from an old horror movie.

  But this was not a movie.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Locke,” Hunter said, “and I’ll call you whatever I damn well choose. Don’t you ever forget it.”

  He laughed again and said, “Oh, but forgive my manners, you won’t be remembering anything, will you?”

  Hunter laughed softly as he walked out the door.

  Dante relaxed. He thought something terrible was about to happen to him, and now he scolded himself for being so imperceptive.

  So, it’s just my virus? If that’s all it is, then I’ll be fine, he thought. Provided they haven’t modified it in any way. If they have, then it could be bad, but why would they? Mine was perfect.

  The guard and the lab coat guy grabbed his arms and pulled him to a gurney. They strapped him in, Dante offering little resistance.

  Dante glanced at the door and sneered. “You will see me again, you asshole, and you will remember the name is Dante. I will make you remember!"

  They pinched his restraints tighter.

  His mind whirred through the events of the past several weeks. He considered all he had done and all he would do. Did that self-righteous prick think I would turn a virus over to his incompetent minions and not have an antidote? Asshole! And who better to give an antidote than myself! I am already a carrier of the damn virus, and I have the antibodies! You brainless son-of-a-bitch! You thought you were smarter than me didn’t you? Well, my dear Mr. Hunter - or may I call you Stephen? - my time will come, and you will regret your mistake. I look forward to sucking your pea-brain out with an eyedropper! You gnat-brained asshole.

  His thoughts were so loud in his mind, he believed he heard them. But the room continued as if he were just another body to be injected.

  Then he pointed his face to the ceiling, and yelled, “I’ll be back you asshole!”

  He felt the expected pinch in his neck, and all went black.

  Chapter 28

  Joniver’s breathing was short and rapid. He was scared. His chest felt it would burst with the pounding of his heart, and he heard the whooshing of blood traveling noisily through his veins. He sweated profusely; even the palms of his hands were like small ponds when turned up for inspection.

  I am here for Emily and Olinar, he repeated to himself. Initially he had hoped to prove to everyone and especially to Jacob, he could do it. He wanted to prove he was as tough as Jacob, but no more.

  He was here for himself. He needed to be here. Hunter had used him - or rather, tried to use him - but this was about something more. This was about what was right, what ought to be. And what ought to be was what was true and truth was worth fighting for, even dying for. Joniver knew he did not want to look in the mirror years from now and see someone who had failed, or worse yet, not tried.

  But even the future man in the mirror was not what really pushed him on.

  What drove him was something he could not define. There was something he could not see or explain or fully grasp because it was too big and too heavy for grasping. There was a force outside himself, yet fully a part of him. Something pulling him, which was beyond his strength but pulsing through his now-ripped muscles. There was a cause worth the fight, and it made winning necessary. The possibility of being wrong was inconceivable. This was his life but more.

  I want others to have the possibility of a life I can only imagine, he thought.

  He was driven by all this yet something beyond all this. He could not stop now and allow others to move on, nor could he fall back and rest. This was his fight. Not because he wanted it, or needed it, or was the best for it. The fight was his because it was now and he was now. Now was the time and only he could answer for himself. No one could change this and nothing would stop him. Not even his love for Emily.

  He did, he finally knew, love her. More than anything and more than he ever imagined possible. How odd it was in this setting the realization would finally sink in. At last he saw clearly what had been evident for months. The thought of her calmed him, slowed his breathing and caused the pounding in his chest to lessen. Thinking of her lessened the heartbeat, stopped the sweating and eased his lungs, although thinking of her usually had the opposite effect.

  What was that all about, he wondered and smiled. There is nothing he would not do for Emily.

  Emily would have begged him not to go, but if he had stayed, he knew, it would not be because she asked, but because he was not willing to go. Staying would not be love for her, but rather his own selfishness and cowardice.

  He would not be a coward - not anymore. The dying man with a then-beautiful sword laying on a dirty street flashed across his mind.

  Joniver moved on, weapon in hand, eyes sharp and prepared. This was now his fight, and he would fight, not to protect or defend, but to try and make the world right - maybe for the first time. He didn’t know if it had ever been right, but he would try and make it right now. What he wanted, what they all wanted, was real, unfiltered and honest, not the left overs of someone’s truth.

  Making the world right. Is it worth this?

  They moved slowly through the empty streets. Joniver’s eyes scanned back and forth, as he had been trained. Looking for movement of any kind, he walked cautiously in an almost hunchback pose, with awkward-looking long and carefully placed steps. He still did not see the purpose in this procedure, but in order to be here he had to agree to the training. So here he was, taking exaggerated, long steps through dark streets littered with glass, metal, paper and human waste. The street was an ugly and putrid place, but Joniver knew he was where he needed to be.

  All at once, Dunston threw his arm out and the team stopped. He pointed slowly to a wall blocking the street up ahead. Initially Joniver saw nothing unusual; it was yet another wall - another obstacle - they would have to climb. As he looked at the wall closely, he saw why Dunston stopped them. This was not an ordinary wall. This was a wall built with bodies - human bodies.

  The bodies were dimly lit, but still much brighter than anything else in the area. This display was framed as if intended to be an attraction at a fair or merchandise spread at a market center. The wall had been constructed by piling one body on top of another like bricks stacked in arrangement for a building. The bodies were several layers deep, and over ten meters high. Some kind of mortar-like substance had been poured in between the cadavers from above, and it now dripped from the ends of lifeless fingers, boots, noses and severed limbs. As it flowed across the lifeless forms, it pooled on the ground and in crevices created by the irregularities of the imperfect building material of human remains. Wherever it pooled, it smoked, then burst into flame. Thus the cremation of the nameless group took shape. This was recent construction.

  Joniver’s mouth gaped and his eyes alternatively opened wide and then squinted. These people had not received even the respect normally accorded a pauper’s death. Their eyes - those that could be seen - lay open and strained, filled with terror, longing and pleading. Tormented expressions were frozen on the faces. Joniver now knew where the stench originated. The overpowering smell of rotting, burning corpses and human excrement mingled with the refuse of the alley to create an acrid, penetrating cloud of vapor that hung in the air like a ghost floating in and around their company. The scene was unbearable. Joniver wanted to melt in on himself.

  He smelled something else. A smell that he had never experienced before - at least not like this. He smelled fear. He sensed it from the human wall ahead and even among his compatriots. He felt it pouring from his own pores. The stench was palpable.

  The sight and smells were as grotesque as anything Joniver had ever experienced. His legs wobbled, and he wanted to stop. He did not want to stop and go back, or stop and rest, or stop to get his bearings. He wanted to simply stop. Just stop. Stop living, stop breathing, stop smelling. Most of all, stop feeling. His head reeled. So jumbled and fragmented were his thoughts he was unable to take stock of his own emotions
. Was this happening? His mind spun like a dry leaf caught in a whirlwind.

  What was he supposed to do with this? Things kept whirling. No one should ever be treated like this, and no one should ever have to see or experience something like this. What would be next?

  Joniver could hardly think of himself. His mind flooded with fear and pain. Who could do this and what cause, what feeling, or what force would drive one human being to treat another this way?

  Unless they were not human.

  The thought jolted him. Could this be their own fate in the next few hours? His fingers tingled, and he felt his limbs weaken. His eyes, barely seeing anything at all in the dim light, felt like narrowing slits. The sights and sensations were more than he could bear, and his stomach churned. His throat felt like a ball was rising through his neck that would explode in his head and blow out his ears. His blood pulsed in his skull, and he could hear each cell running wildly through his arteries and veins.

  Dunston turned and looked grimly at the group. “This is a trap,” he whispered softly, moving backwards with the exaggerated steps.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” someone snorted.

  No sooner had the words left the lips, Dunston’s hand moved as swift as Joniver had ever seen anyone react. Dunston’s thumb and fore finger clinched around the man’s throat just under his jaw bone. Dunston actually lifted the man off the ground, his legs thrashing like a buck caught in a noose. Dunston’s grip kept the man, named Colton, from making a sound, but by design, was not enough to choke him.

  The sight, and sudden but silent commotion jolted Joniver back to the moment, as the whole unit moved toward the two men. Jacob grabbed Dunston by the arm, looked him in the eye and slowly shook his head. Even in the dimly lit alleyway, Dunston could see his look well enough. Haltingly he lowered the man to the ground and released his grip. Colton fell like a crumpled heap of laundry blown by a Summer breeze.

  “Don’t ever snap at me like that again,” Dunston said, in a muffled and coarse voice.