by sara12356
“I love you, Dani Santoro,” he murmured even though she wasn’t around to hear. Standing, he walked across the room to his window, shoving back the drapes to either side. The top three-quarters were unblemished glass, a picture pane designed more for aesthetics than any sort of practicality. But at the bottom, side by side, was a pair of casement windows. Like pop-out quarter windows in older model cars, these were designed to open only as far as the hinge would extend when fully unfolded, roughly six inches. It was a security feature Andrew had seen in both his college dormitory and hotel rooms, designed to prevent people from falling out.
Frowning thoughtfully, he went to the bed and yanked back the bedspread, heaping it in heavy folds on the floor. Working quickly, he stripped the bed sheet and bed spread from the mattress, then returned to the window and glanced down.
What is that, a fifteen foot drop? Sixteen? he wondered, studying the parking lot, the landscaped perimeter between it and the building below. If he estimated the distance from the vertex of his thumb to that of his elbow as one foot, he figured he could measure out the bed linens and cut them into strips to make a crude rope of about the right length to climb from his room to the ground.
If I can get those casement windows open a little more, he thought. Which, thanks to Dani, I just might be able to swing.
He knelt in front of the window. Working quickly, shooting nervous glances over his shoulder toward the door all the while, he used the multi-tool’s screwdriver implements to disassemble the hinge mechanism on one of the casement windows. Once he was able to dislodge it fully from the sill, he could push the panel out wider, giving him another six or seven inches, little more than a foot through which to try and escape.
I can fit, he thought, frowning again as he grabbed hold of the metal window frame and leaned out experimentally, shrugging his shoulders to squeeze through. Barely. This would be a hell of a lot easier if I was Dani’s size. Or Alice’s.
Ducking back inside, he set to work measuring out, then cutting thick strips from the sheet and bedspread, fettering them together in quick but secure double figure-eight, fisherman-style knots until he had a fairly sturdy rope assembled. Next, he shoved the bed, mattress, box springs and all, against the far wall. He secured his makeshift rope to the metal frame with a clove hitch knot. Rather than anchoring it on one of the legs, instead, Andrew tied it around one of the thicker, weight-bearing transverse beams.
Once finished, he stood up and stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
There’s no way in hell this is going to work.
But since the prospect of waiting around to burst into a virulent rash, along with grotesque nodules, was even less appealing than this, he muttered, “Fuck it,” then chucked the free end of the rope out the window, letting it droop almost fully to the ground.
Turning around with his back to the glass, he knelt on all fours, then backed up to the open casement. Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself past the sill, dropping his feet down the exterior wall. Once he’d gone out far enough to be off-balance, he caught the sheet rope in his hands, grimacing at the sound of cheap thread counts snapping with his sudden weight.
Back in his college years, he’d rappelled pretty frequently, one of many outdoor activities he’d enjoyed. While by no means an expert, and of late, fairly rusty at the art, he still felt fairly confident that he could get down from the window. If the line holds, he thought, not possessing this same faith in his rope-making ability.
As he slowly lowered himself down, he tried to balance his weight between his arms, which quickly began to feel the brunt of the strain, and his feet, which he planted against the wall so he could walk, of a sort, down the outside façade. The parking lot below was quiet and still, draped in alternating patches of stark glow and shadows from security lights, and Andrew felt very exposed and vulnerable as he dangled in perfectly plain sight of anyone who might happen to pass by. Once he reached the ground, he managed a shaky, astonished laugh.
Holy shit, I made it!
Then he realized there was no way to hide, disguise or remove the rope from the side of the building. The bright white cotton sheets looked damn near aglow in the proscenium of nearby lights, like a neon sign, a big fat arrow pointing down, declaring, HE WENT THAT-A-WAY.
Shit.
But there was nothing to be done about it, unless he wanted to climb back up the way he’d gone down and somehow try to re-rig a line that would be both secure enough to get him to the ground, but loose enough to come undone once he got there.
Not going to happen.
Sticking to the shadows, he crept to the entrance of the compound building and ducked beneath the concrete overhang. He glanced across the parking lot to the garage, wondering briefly if he should go and get Alice.
No. He shook his head. She’s locked in that closet. No one can get in, so she’s safe for the time being. It’s Dani I need to worry about.
Hunched over the entry key pad, he punched in his pass code, then frowned when the light remained red, the front doors locked.
“Shit,” he said. They’d locked him out of everything. After a moment’s consideration, he laughed. I know Moore’s code.
Feeling triumphantly smug, he punched in one-zero, one-zero.
Nothing happened.
“What the hell?” he said, typing in the numbers again, moving slowly, making sure he pressed each key on the pad firmly inward.
Still no luck. Either Moore had figured out that Andrew was clued in on his personal code, or he’d changed it after discovering that Alice knew it, too. With a groan, he stepped back, shoved his hand through his hair.
Now what? He weighed his options. Alice could crack the door code. She’d figured out her father’s easily enough. But if I get her, then she’s vulnerable again. If she’s with me, she could get caught.
He frowned, studying the key pad.
Daddy always chooses binary numbers, using only zeroes or ones, Alice had told him. He says they’re easier to remember.
She’d said that meant Moore had only eight possible four-digit code combinations to choose from. He’d already found out that the one she’d been using—one-zero, one-zero—no longer worked. Which means there are only seven choices left, Andrew realized.
Standing at the key pad again, he frowned. I can do this, he thought. I’ve got a Master’s degree, for Christ’s sake. I can guess seven goddamn numbers.
His finger hovered uncertainly over the zero, then he began to type. Okay, he told himself. The decimal system is a base-ten, meaning there are ten possible digits that can be combined, zero through nine. Binary’s a base-two system, meaning every single number can be expressed only with the numerals one or zero. When counting with decimals, when you get to nine, you move up to the next place value and start all over again at zero. In binary, you do the same, except it happens when you get to one.
How long ago had he learned this shit? Five years ago? Seven? Ten? He had no idea and struggled to recall. When you get to one, you add a place value in. So zero in decimal is zero in binary. One in decimal is one in binary. Two in decimal is one-zero in binary. Three in decimal is one-one in binary. Four is one-one-zero. Which means…
Which meant there weren’t any four-digit binary numbers until you counted to eight, which in base-two was one-zero, zero-zero.
Andrew punched this into the key pad. The light remained red.
Okay. No problem. Let’s try nine. Which would be… He paused, frowning, trying to remember. One-zero, zero-one.
He typed this in. The light stayed red. The door stayed locked.
“Shit,” he muttered. This is taking too long. Any minute now, someone’s going to walk through the foyer and see me.
Binary ten had been Moore’s previous code—one-zero, one-zero—so Andrew skipped it now and moved on to eleven: one-zero, one-one.
Still no luck.
“Shit!” It was cold outside and he was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sweat pants. Goosebumps had raised al
l along his arms and he shivered, his breath huffing out in a thin, moist haze around his head.
Twelve, then, he thought. Let’s try twelve. If eleven is one-oh, one-one, that means you move up a value, so it’s…
He struggled to think, then jammed his finger into the key pad. One-one, zero-zero.
So convinced that this sequence, too, wouldn’t work, he didn’t even realize at first that it had, that the light had turned green and the snact! he heard was actually the door unlocking. After a moment of bewildered surprise, it sank in and with an incredulous laugh, he grabbed the door handle, swinging it open wide.
He didn’t get more than three steps past the threshold, however, before an alarm claxon began to sound. Shrill and pulsating, it ripped through the interior of the barracks and sent Andrew scrambling for cover, hands clapped to his ears. “Shit!”
He could hear the heavy patter of footsteps, combat boots rushing toward him and down the stairs from the second floor. Shit!
He thought of ducking back outside, then decided against it, running instead down the nearest corridor. The footsteps behind him drew closer now, and panicked, he skidded to a stop at the first door he happened upon. It was locked and he tugged frantically, futilely on the handle for a moment before remembering he’d cracked Moore’s access code.
Managing a bark of humorless laughter at his own stupidity, he hurriedly punched the four digits into the key pad, jerked the door open wide and darted inside. There was a small rectangular window near the top of the door, level with his view, and when a group of soldiers suddenly rushed past, responding to the alarm, Andrew shrank back. He hit something behind him, something heavy, solid and apparently on wheels, because he slapped it with his hand then felt it roll away, sending him staggering backwards, off-balance.
“Shit,” he yelped, then fell to the floor. With a loud thunk, the thing he’d stumbled into—which he now realized was some kind of wheeled storage cart—hit a nearby counter, coming to a listing, inching halt.
“You have activated the Head Start Heart Smart,” a tinny female voice suddenly chirped.
What the hell? Andrew’s gaze darted back to the window, his heart jackhammering. Scrambling to his feet, he rushed to the cart and found a machine, some kind of unfamiliar computer with a small display screen now aglow and alight.
“Please follow the voice prompts provided for correct application and use of this electronic device,” the machine said.
“Shit,” Andrew hissed. There weren’t many buttons to choose from, and he began pushing them all quickly, frantically, shooting alarmed looks over his shoulder toward the door, sure at any moment, a soldier would pop into view, alerted by the clamor.
“If you are near a telephone or have access to a cellular device, please call for emergency service now,” the mechanized woman’s voice said.
“Shut up.” Andrew smacked it, grabbing at some wires dangling from the side, hoping one might be a power cord he could unplug and disable. At the unattached end of each was a small, square-shaped pad, one with a bright red trim, the other bright yellow.
“You have removed the Head Start Heart Smart cartridges. Please review the on-screen diagram for appropriate placement and press the start button to begin the automatic assessment.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” Andrew picked the machine up, turned it this way and that, trying to find the on-off switch. As he looked behind him again, he froze in bright, frightened panic to see a shadow in the doorway, the outline of a head peering up into the window.
Shit!
He scrambled around the side of cart and sat on the floor, holding the machine in his lap. Now the voice was muffled against his stomach, but still audible.
“You have disengaged the automatic assessment function. Please select the joule level you would like to administer,” it mumbled into his shirt.
“Shut up,” Andrew whispered, thumbing buttons, turning the solitary knob, trying anything. On a small LED screen on top of the console, he watched numbers correspondingly fly up and down, from 25 to 10, then back to 50, then 110, then 200. “Shut the fuck up.”
A wild look toward to door revealed a soldier peering through the window, and Andrew could hear the door rattling as he tried vainly to open it. Miraculously, the machine fell silent and stayed that way, the vocal prompts muted. Hugging it against his chest again, just to be sure, Andrew risked another glance at the window. The soldier was gone.
Sitting back, closing his eyes, daring to hope, Andrew waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi
At thirty-Mississippi, he knew the soldier had gone and heaved a sigh of relief. Opening his eyes, he glowered down at the console in his lap. No longer panic-stricken, he realized what it was—a cardiac defibrillator. The irony that he’d damn near suffered a heart attack trying to get it to shut up wasn’t lost upon him.
“Piece of shit,” he muttered, shoving it away from him, sending it sliding across the room, the red and yellow paddles trailing behind like the tails of a kite.
Andrew limped to his feet and looked around, trying to get his bearings. The overhead lights were off, but thin fluorescent tubes mounted beneath periodically positioned overhead cabinets cast dim puddles of pale glow on countertops and the floor. He saw a suite of small examination rooms on one side, rows of supply shelves and medicine cabinets on another
The infirmary.
Though he’d seen Prendick and the haz-mat clad soldiers leaving the infirmary shortly before being locked in his room, and Suzette had said she would bring O’Malley there on the wheeled stretcher, the area was strangely empty and quiet.
Where did everybody go? Andrew crept forward, curious and cautious. He picked his way across the infirmary, slipping in and among more carts and tables along the way. Once he reached the examination rooms, he walked slowly down the row, pushing each door open and peering inside, flipping light switches on each in turn and frowning to find everything vacant.
That doesn’t make any sense, he thought. Suzette wouldn’t have ordered O’Malley back to his room. He was way too bad off. She’d have kept him here, where she could keep an eye on him, give him medical attention.
Andrew stopped all at once, a peculiar, creeping chill stealing down the back of his neck. You don’t need medical attention when you’re dead.
“Shit,” he whispered, because he’d reached the end of the line, literally. The last examination room was empty. There was no one in the infirmary.
He heard a loud clatter from behind him, the tinkling crash of broken glass as something large and heavy fell to the floor. Andrew whirled, eyes flown wide.
There was no further sound except the rush of his own frightened breathing. Not at first, anyway. Then he heard something moving through the shattered remnants of glass. Out of his view around the nearest wall dividing the main infirmary from the exam rooms, it sounded distinctively like someone walking, or shuffling, more specifically, a heavy, clumsy, dragging sound.
That soldier is back. He must’ve gone to get the pass code, then come back.
“Shit.” Andrew cut his eyes around quickly, catching sight of an empty IV stand in one of the exam rooms. Leaning across the threshold, he grabbed it. Twisting the chrome shaft between his palms, he unscrewed it, leaving the plastic base behind. Warily, keeping the metal rod poised in his hands, he crept back toward the main area once more.
He didn’t hear footsteps anymore, but a new sound had taken their place—a gurgling sound, soft and thick, like someone trying to breathe through a lungful of oatmeal. It reminded him of the way O’Malley had sounded earlier that night, congested, nearly sodden. Maybe this guy’s sick, too, he thought, visions of ebola and anthrax dancing in his head. Maybe there’s been some kind of breach in Moore’s lab, that’s what the alarm’s about. There’s some kind of outbreak they’re trying to contain.
As he inched forward, ahead of him, he could see the expansive main room coming more and more into view. Scattered pieces of broken glass, hu
ndreds of shards, glittered in the faint light, winking like stars. One of the fluorescents from somewhere out of view had started blinking on and off as if on the verge of burning out, a strobe-like effect bouncing off the floor tiles and walls.
Then he heard something else, a quick, staccato-like flurry of sounds, sharp inhalations that made him think of a dog trying to scent the wind.
Sniffing, he thought. No—smelling. Like something’s out there and it smells me.
He’d reached the doorway, but didn’t venture past. Instead, he pressed himself back against the wall. He could feel fear-infused adrenaline coursing through him, causing his arms to tremble, his palms to sweat, slick against the chrome IV stand.
He heard another shambling step, a coarse dragging sound, the muffled tinkling of glass crunching under foot. He leaned forward enough to still have the cover and protection of the doorway, but peek into the room beyond. Though he couldn’t look back in the direction of the sound, ahead of him, he could see another wheeled cart. Waist-high and square shaped, its sides were made of polished steel, and though its reflective quality was anything but mirror-perfect, through it, he caught sight of a figure outlined in silhouette against the backdrop of the flashing, pulsating light.
Shit. Andrew drew back, pressing into the wall again. It was the soldier he’d seen looking through the window in the door. It had to be. Who else could it be? he thought. I don’t think anyone was here when I first got inside. I didn’t see anyone. And who’d be sitting in the infirmary in the dark, all alone?
If it was the same soldier who’d peered in through the window, then he didn’t know Andrew was there. Not with any certainty.
Which means I can get the jump on him. Andrew adjusted his grip on the IV pole, readying himself. One end of it tapered down to a threaded, three-inch long prong where it had screwed into the base and the other forked in a T, twin hooks where bags of intravenous fluid or medicine could be attached. Andrew raised this end back in his hands, ready to swing around like a Louisville Slugger and drive it squarely into the soldier’s head. He took a deep breath, let it loose, then leapt from around the doorway.