A moan came from the ceiling. He snapped his head back, looking up. An oldish woman in a white shirt peered at him from the hole the three men had created. He raised the .45, aimed at her face, and fired. She rocked from the bullet strike; Kevin flung himself to the side, rolling out of the way as blood and corpse fell onto the carpet where he’d been a second earlier.
Tris grabbed his shoulder and hauled him upright, wide-eyed with worry. “You hit?”
“No.” He stared in horror at tooth marks in his boot, and made a meep sound. “Not that I noticed… You can check me thoroughly for scratches later.”
“Not now.” She gave him a hurt look.
“Obviously not now. I ain’t stripping in the middle of an Infected shitstorm.”
“You’re such an asshole.” She thumped him on the arm.
He grinned. “Thanks.”
That got a laugh out of her.
Tris kicked in a door, aimed, and lowered the rifle. “What the hell are we looking for?”
“I have no damn idea.” He pushed a door on the other side open, finding an empty conference room. “You’re the tech person.”
She stormed down the hallway.
He started to follow, but turned back at a loud chorus of screeching moans. Another ten or so Infected spilled down from the second floor, heedlessly flinging themselves headfirst through the hole.
“Tris,” yelled Kevin, as he pumped rounds into the pile of bodies.
She lent a few shots to the purge. Only one of the writhing bodies made it to their feet. Tris’ last shot put a neat red dot in the center of a woman’s forehead and detonated the back of her skull. Blood ran out of her nose in two trails. Once a stunning straight-haired blonde in a pink blouse and black skirt, the Infected stared with a vacant look for a second or two before falling over backward onto the heap of bodies.
Kevin bowed his head, offering a moment of silence for the dead.
“It’s just not right,” whispered Tris. “Those people survived a nuclear war only to die because of the Enclave.”
“Uhh… none of them look old enough to have survived the war.”
“Don’t be an ass.” She kicked a plastic water bottle with an AT&T logo down the hall. “You know what I mean.”
“Think that’s the last of them?” He removed the magazine from the AK and repacked it with loose bullets from his right jacket pocket.
“Didn’t you load another mag?” asked Tris.
“Yeah, but I grabbed another fistful of bullets. If it didn’t weigh sixty pounds, I’d have strapped the whole damn box to my back.”
She moved up to another door. Office. “Damn.”
They picked through a number of offices, conference rooms, and a few large spaces full of cubicles before finding a cafeteria. Tris didn’t even go in, continuing past it down the hall.
“Maybe we need to go upstairs?”
“There’s gotta be a network room somewhere.” Her worry of Infected faded as she stomped along, checking door after door.
More offices.
Kevin followed, as wary as she wasn’t. Twice, he shot shadows, making Tris scream in surprise, but nothing bled.
“Here.” She pointed at a door that wouldn’t open. “This has to be something.”
“Can you open it?”
She pointed at a black plastic box on the wall. “RFID card reader. No physical key.” She threw herself against the door but couldn’t move it. “Probably electromagnetic locks.”
“That’s a good sign, right? Still power in the building.”
“A place like this probably had its own solar farm on the roof for redundancy’s sake.” She gave him a nervous look. “Guess I could go search the dead for a badge that’ll open this.”
“Can’t you fiddle with the wires?”
“No… it’s not directly connected to the lock. This reads a card and sends it off to a computer somewhere, which then sends a separate signal to the lock if the ID checks out.” She stared at the top of the door. “Assuming the security system is still operating.”
“So…”
“I think I’m going to vote brute force here. Back up a bit.” She shuffled about five steps left to create an angle, and aimed at the top of the door.
Kevin obliged, and stuck his fingers in his ears.
She put few shots along the top of the door, and the one on the left swayed forward an inch or so. The bullets had savaged a metal block near the ceiling that sputtered and sparked, and tore a matching plate off the top of the door.
Tris shoved it aside and walked in. “Well… this is something.”
Kevin shook his head to help ease the ringing in his ears while following her into a large room with nine long rows of technology crammed into rack mounts. The floor shifted under their feet, loose tiles in some manner of suspension. A missing panel revealed a two-foot deep space beneath the floor packed full of wires. Small workstation desks ran the length of the left wall, each with a pair of flat panel monitors. Two displayed screen savers of a bouncing AT&T logo, three systems had blue screens full of text, and the remaining seven appeared to be off―or dead.
Kevin glanced right at a poster on the wall. An athletic cartoon man in a toga emblazoned with UNIX rammed a sword through a pudgy man in a shirt-and-tie carrying a briefcase labeled ‘Windows.’
“Huh.” He scratched his head.
“What?” Tris looked up from one of the computers.
He gestured at the poster. “I remember reading something about there being Unix in ancient Rome, but I thought they were the ones who got fat.”
“Eunuchs,” muttered Tris.
“Right. They chop off a guy’s balls to make Unix.”
Her eyebrows formed a flat line across her head. “I have to assume you’re not making a joke you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“You’re right. I’m already lost.”
She poked around the tall equipment cabinets. “Well, I suppose this is telephone stuff… but how the hell. Argh. We’re right here and I still don’t know what to look for.”
“Such as?”
She held her arms out to the sides. “A way to connect to that damn number.”
“What?” He shrugged. “Like a phone?”
Her eyebrows furrowed again, harder.
Kevin grinned. “Like the phones that have been sitting on the desks of every office we kicked in so far?”
“Stop.” She sighed. “Okay, maybe I didn’t want to believe it was that simple and I’d need to crawl hip deep into some ancient mainframe.”
“What’s a mainframe?” Kevin scratched his head.
Tris dragged herself to the closest workstation and put a hand on the phone. “A big computer.” She closed her eyes, took a breath, and lifted the handset to her head. “Shit. Dead.”
“Sorry.”
She moved from desk to desk to the right, testing phones. When she got to a workstation where the blue ball logo bounced around the screen, her eyes shot wide as soon as the phone got close to her ear. Her entire body trembled.
“It… it’s on.”
Kevin leaned close enough to hear an odd noise emanating from the handset. “What the heck is that?”
She hung up, but didn’t let go. “Dial tone.”
15
Contact
Tris stared at her hand, stark white against the black plastic handset. The name ‘Bharat Sivakumar’ scrolled across the top of the phone’s screen, followed by ‘Systems Administrator II.’ Only a few button presses stood between her and finding out if her father had really died years ago, or if another Enclave lie had ruined her life.
Her knees weakened and she slid into the old grey office chair.
Kevin kept glancing back and forth from her to the door, as if he expected a thousand Infected to come rushing in at any moment. His desire to get the hell out of the city as fast as possible showed clear on his face.
I have to do this. She continued hesitating until the random worry about a drone s
trike on Nederland played out in her thoughts. Abby not knowing if she’d gotten sick, then Abby sick, and then having to tell her goodbye…
Tris growled and tore the phone off the handset, punching in 6505550447.
“We’re sorry. You must first dial a one before calling this number,” said a recorded female voice.
Tris slammed the phone down and screamed, “Go fuck yourself!”
“Nathan?” asked Kevin, trying to sound gentle.
“No… no… just a stupid architecture policy.”
“Something wrong with the building?”
Tris slammed her head into the desk. “I can’t. Please stop.”
“What?”
She huffed. “Sometimes you’re cute with that not knowing thing but right now I’m… I can’t.”
He looked genuinely confused. “What?”
“Never mind.” She dialed again, this time adding a leading one.
Ringing emanated from the phone. Her heart rate slowed and her throat tightened.
“It’s… ringing.”
The ringtone played three more times before a sharp click and silence. Her heart sank. Figures. What was I expecting? A phone call fifty years after everything fell apart? As if.
“Damn. It’s dead.”
Kevin walked over and grasped her shoulder.
“Tris,” said a voice from the phone, laced with age, confidence, and… familiarity.
Her mouth hung open.
“What?” asked Kevin.
“D-Dad?” rasped Tris. “Are you really there?”
“It is good to hear your voice, Sprite.”
She leaned into Kevin, shaking and crying. “Dad…”
“I’m sure you have many questions. I have so much I need to tell you, but right now there is not time.”
“They told me you were dead.” She sniffled.
“I need your help, Sprite. I’ll explain everything as soon as it’s possible. I cannot stop the Virus without your help.”
She scowled at the bouncing blue AT&T logo on the monitor. “I’ve been down that road before.” A crash of inadequacy clenched her gut. She had the cure. She failed. “I… want you to be real too much. How do I know this isn’t Nathan messing with me?”
“That is an entirely reasonable worry given what has happened to you.”
His voice seemed to flow out of the phone, warming her body as it saturated her muscles. The safety and comfort conveyed by his firm, but placid, tone brought her back to being little again, fiddling with some half-built toy robot while he sat behind her. Her need to have this be real made her wary.
“I… can’t believe you’d wait so long to tell me you didn’t die. I want to believe you, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“Much about the Enclave defies what you have been led to believe,” said Dad. “I promise you that I am no deception from that fool Savros.”
“Who?” asked Tris.
“Nathan.” Contempt rang clear in her father’s voice. “I am sorry, but I could not do anything to stop his plan to send you out to the resistance. I had hoped that either you or Doctor Andrews would find the cipher in the data.”
She looked up at Kevin, asking with her gaze if she should believe it. Not being able to read her mind, he kept squeezing her shoulder and offering a comforting presence. “So you think I’m going to take on the Enclave alone somehow?” Tris poked the speakerphone button.
“Of course not.” His voice made her picture that knowing smile he always had. “I’m not asking you to do anything alone, but at this point in time, you are the only one capable of putting an end to their campaign of atrocities.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
Her father’s scratchy chuckle crackled in her ear. “You’re sitting by one of perhaps a dozen still-working telephones in the world talking to a man you’ve thought dead for a long time. What is there to doubt?”
She frowned. “Everything.”
“I am counting on you, Sprite. You had always been a timid sort of person. I apologize for the overlay, but it was necessary.”
“Overlay?” She leaned at the phone. “What do you mean? What did you do to me?”
“Do not alarm yourself. It is a mild memory overlay responsible for your confidence and belief that you can in fact stop the Virus.”
She slammed her fist on the desk, making the phone jump and a penholder fall over. “No wonder. You don’t know how sick I’ve been over this for days. I’m looking after a child now, and we left her behind to do this. Argh!” My father wouldn’t do that to me. “The father I remember wouldn’t have forced me to do anything.”
“I didn’t force you to be here. I only made it easier for you to fight past your doubt and fear. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t believe the Enclave needed to be stopped.”
Kevin stood beside her chair and pulled her against him. She leaned her head against his side.
“So,” said Kevin, “you programmed her to want to come out here?”
“You’re overstating the effect of the memory web. This line is not going to last much longer. The systems have not been maintained. Tris, you are the only one capable of helping me. You may resent the means by which you have come to be on this phone call, but I assure you that you can be the catalyst that ends the threat of the Virus.”
She fumed. “This is such a trap.”
“If the Enclave wanted to capture you, there are far simpler ways to go about it than a message hidden deep in mp3 files sending you to find a working telephone. Do you not think they’d have rolled over Nederland to get to you?”
She cringed. “Can I stop them from repeating Amarillo?”
“I am confident you can stop them, period. However, I need you to come to where I am. There is little time. Three blocks to the west and one north, you will find a Starbucks store. Please… go there.”
“Hey, Dad type person,” said Kevin. “Why Tris? Why only her? She’s not some kind of super-advanced android is she?”
She clasped a hand over her heart and stared up at him. He doesn’t believe me? He said he…
Kevin winked at her.
“My daughter is quite human. Please… hurry.”
The line clicked off.
“You said you didn’t doubt m―”
He leaned down and kissed her. “I don’t. Wanted to see what he’d say. Well… what now?”
That unwavering confidence telling her she had to (and could) put an end to the Virus remained, though she bristled at it. Was that how she had such trust in the vaccine, or such guilt at failing a mission that never had a chance to succeed? The overlay wouldn’t tell the difference because I didn’t know the difference. All the tragedy and shame associated with the blown-out resistance base in Harrisburg dissipated. I wasn’t feeling guilty over failing to bring the cure… it was this that I’d been expected to do. She clenched her fists in her lap. Knowing the urge pulling her to fight the Enclave originated from a memory implant didn’t make it any weaker.
“Are you okay?” Kevin rubbed her back.
“When I was a kid, I used to be such a little wimp. I was afraid of the dark, afraid of loud noises, monsters under the bed, monsters in the closet… I hated being alone and I hated being in crowds. At night, I’d hide in my room and cling to this little doll I used to have. I remember in first grade, this other girl, Raina, kept taking my lunch pack. She didn’t hit me or demand it or anything… she’d walk right up and take it because I didn’t do anything about it. I got a little braver as I got older. After my father disappeared, I kinda rebelled… but I was still a mouse.”
“You’re no mouse.” He kissed her.
“Well, deep down I am. Somehow those people—my adoptive parents… the way they denied that Dad ever existed pissed me off. I rebelled at that and when the social management office announced my pairing with Dovarin, I had enough of a backbone to say no. I hadn’t been alone with that bastard for more than a half hour when he hit me for not being submissive enough.
He left no doubt where I stood. I belonged to him. Fuck that.” She grumbled. “I think… I believe that voice on the phone. The overlay isn’t making me want to do anything I don’t already want to do; it’s taking away the fear of doing something stupid and reckless that a normal person would have.”
“Oh, so it’s turned you into me?” He flashed that rogue’s grin again.
Nathan wanted to kill me before I got him noticed by the Council. Now he’s going to want to make me suffer. He’s gonna send Virus to Nederland. She balled her hands into fists, shaking with anger and the desire to tear his balls off. She glared at the memory of his arrogant smile on the monitor at Harrisburg, seconds before he armed the explosive she’d had in her gut.
Oh, I want to rip that arrogant smirk right off his face.
“So…” He pulled her up into an embrace. “What do you want?”
She eyed the door. “I’m in the mood for coffee.”
16
Dark Roast
Bodies in the corridor forced Kevin around the long way. Rather than step through a pile of Infected corpses along an approximate hundred-yard path to the lobby, he went three times that distance around the rectangular building. A few times, thuds and dragging scrapes on the ceiling caused him to freeze and glance up.
Keeping as quiet as possible, he walked past another corridor full of offices and hooked a right at the end. The air grew thicker and more foul the farther down he went, until the passage dead-ended at a pair of double doors labeled ‘Fitness Center.’
Kevin shrugged and pushed the doors open. The next thing he knew, he sprawled on all fours gazing at a splatter of vomit between his hands.
“Oh, god.” Tris gagged. She stumbled to the right, leaned against the wall, and also threw up.
“Wub?” He raised his head, bile trailing from his lower lip, and stared aghast at an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The acrid sting of chlorine and corpse assaulted his eyeballs.
The water had taken on the thickness of dark raspberry jam, filled with the bloated remains of over a hundred Infected. Gas-filled bellies broke the fetid surface here and there amid the occasional detached limb. Such stench rolled out of the room when the doors opened that his mind had refused to process it on a conscious level, instead ejecting the contents of his stomach in seconds, before he even realized he’d smelled anything.
The Roadhouse Chronicles (Book 3): Dead Man's Number Page 21