The Roadhouse Chronicles (Book 3): Dead Man's Number

by Cox, Matthew S.

  He grasped the rubber-coated handle, and froze. This fucking tank is full of Virus. I’m directly beneath enough noxious agent to kill millions of people. A high-pitched squeaking fart slipped free as he tried not to shit his pants.

  Don’t think. Don’t think about it. Just pull the fucking lever and go.

  Kevin grunted and shoved the handle around to ‘purge.’ He stared at the armored glove over his hand and hyperventilated for a few seconds. Good gloves. Love the glove. Love glove. He laughed, and crawled to the next valve.

  Don’t think. Purge. This valve emitted a metal-on-metal chirp when he moved it. He closed his eyes and fantasized about arriving back in Nederland, Zoe and Abby attacking him with hugs, thrilled to see him again. His throat dried to cotton, but he kept crawling.

  Tris typed as fast as she could make her fingers go. The idiots had installed an incinerator, installed hoses that could carry the virus to the incinerator, but had never written control routines for any of it. Or maybe they had but some shit for brains deleted them. Not-Dad had given her the program code, but she couldn’t find a wire and had to hand-type it. Fortunately, the routine to fire up the incinerator consisted of only about 900 lines.

  Copying the floating text her implant generated onto the screen would’ve been tedious and boring if not for her need to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Alarm lights flickered on the console as the first tank went from showing ‘ready’ to ‘purge.’

  He’s going to kill me if he realizes he’s crawling under giant tanks of Virus. She bit her lip. I should’ve stabbed him with the vaccine when he slept. She bowed her head. I can’t do that to Abby.

  By the time the third tank flickered red and the word ‘purge’ appeared over the tank graphic, she hit compile and execute. Seconds later, a low rumble emanated from deep within the building. The fluid routing didn’t require programming, only changing settings on a touchscreen panel. It reminded her of a puzzle game where she had to rotate shapes to make a pipe maze passable for a relentless stream of mystery liquid so it could go from one side of the screen to the other, only this screen had four streams of not-so-mysterious liquid that had to all go to the same place.

  She grabbed and twisted graphical pipe elbows and valves to set the routes, so the virus flowed into the fire rather than up to the roof where machines would load it into capsules. Her heart raced at being this close to the place responsible for what happened in Amarillo. Never had she wanted to kill someone so much.

  Motion caught her eye. The farthest monitor to her right displayed a camera view of the area outside. A group of ISF officers tromped down the corridor heading her way, and they didn’t look friendly.

  Fear churned in her stomach, threatening to projectile vomit all over the console. If I run now, they’ll go on killing people. They don’t need to make more Virus. They have enough to kill the world fifty times. Kevin’s got the vaccine… it won’t do Abby any good if he doesn’t get out of here. The leaden feeling in her gut grew heavier as she kept on twisting valves. One finger tap closed the maintenance hatch behind Kevin.

  Please don’t find him.

  She opened another command window and hacked down the software firewall making the chemical weapons facility an island network.

  As soon as the fourth tank valve sensor went red/PURGE, she flicked four plastic safety shields off the buttons they blocked and smashed them one after the next. Pumps vibrated in the floor. She grabbed a handle and pulled, triggering a neutral agent wash to enter the tanks from above, scrubbing all traces of the virus from the tank walls and carrying it off to its sudsy doom in a five thousand degree inferno.

  The door behind her slammed open.

  “There she is,” said a man.

  “Where’s your pet Wildlander?” asked another.

  Tris raised her hands. “You’re too late. The Virus is gone. The Enclave won’t be murdering any more innocent people.”

  A man ran up and grabbed her shoulder. “Where is he?”

  “On the roof smashing drones.” She sprang out of the chair, going for his rifle.

  The man stumbled backward, evidently unprepared for her strength. She wrenched the rifle out of his grip and cracked him across the head, not caring if the weapon broke. He twisted away up on tiptoe, spiraling with his back to her. She grabbed him like a hostage taker, pulled his sidearm, and raised it.

  Another man tackled both of them from the side. She got off two shots on the way down, nailing a man in the knee, but the ping said it hadn’t pierced his armor. The hit to the floor knocked the air out of her lungs and trapped her right arm under the unconscious man. Hands grabbed at her legs.

  “Stop,” yelled a different man. “He wants her alive.”

  Tris screamed and thrashed, jerking her arm out from under two-hundred some odd pounds of dead weight. She rolled to her left, punching the guy grabbing her shoulder in the balls. He crumpled in place. Two more grabbed her from behind, hauling her into the air. She squirmed and writhed, not used to men being stronger than her. The unfamiliar sensation, so much like being a normal small-framed woman trying to fend off a pair of huge men, brought a genuine scream of fear.

  They flipped her over in midair and drove her chest-first into the floor before pinning her arms behind her back. She struggled and strained, but couldn’t move. Steel ratcheted around her wrists. One of them sat on her legs and secured her ankles with another set of cuffs.

  She stopped struggling and let her forehead touch the floor.

  I suppose this is where I get to use that escape training. Please don’t take my shoes… and please don’t throw me in a goddamned pool.

  30

  What She’s Always Wanted

  Two seconds after tripping the last valve to the ‘purge’ setting, an unsettling vibration rattled the grating under Kevin’s knees. The corrugated plastic tubes not quite a full foot over his head all wobbled at once. Bright green fluid rushed down and raced over his head. He squeaked and collapsed on his side as the edges of his vision faded to blur, which kept clouding inward until he gazed down a dark tunnel. Over a hundred gallons of the most terrifying substance imaginable coursed through thin plastic hoses.

  One drop leaking would kill him in the most horrible way imaginable.

  In his mind, his child self ran naked into the meadow again, chased not by Infected, but by a tidal wave of green death. After he ran himself to exhaustion, he tripped and fell down a hole, landing as an adult back in the present day, curled up on the floor of the entryway to Hell.

  He trembled, staring at the neon lime doom overhead. Striations of white contaminated it after a few seconds, thickening until the entire hose filled with foam. A section of clear water followed.

  Bang.

  Kevin twitched.

  “Gunshot?”

  He breathed in and out for two seconds.

  “Shit!”

  Thuds and the sounds of struggling came from the control room. He pulled the Enclave pistol from his pocket and scrambled on all fours as fast as he could move. A toilet-like gurgle came from the hoses overhead as they sucked on air. The gun clanked against the grate every time his right hand came down.

  Tris’ screams changed tone from angry to scared. He rushed around the corner, hauling himself down the narrow passageway as fast as he could move―straight to a closed hatch. He scooted left to the first point that offered a narrow view of the outside room. Six men surrounded Tris and forced her into handcuffs. He sucked in a breath, ready to charge out and start shooting, but the hatch didn’t move when he pushed on it.

  Tris went limp. Two men grabbed her by the arms and dragged her out.

  “Avor, take Gallas and check the roof for that Wildlander.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a woman.

  She told them I was on the roof? He glared at the closed hatch. Dammit! He shimmied to the right and pushed on the hatch cover again, but it wouldn’t open. It didn’t even rattle. What the hell am I doing? They’re all boosted. If t
hey got her, they’ll tear me apart. He pressed his forehead against the cold metal, trying to think. Charging at them is stupid. I gotta follow them somehow. Jordan? Did he play dead? Did they kill him? Did he screw us over?

  Figuring they’d gotten far enough away not to hear him, he kicked the panel.

  “One moment,” said Doctor Jameson somewhere out in the room.

  Kevin seethed. “They got her.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Let me out of here! I gotta find her.”

  “I am working on that. I must ask a moment of your time first.”

  He growled. “You’re fucking kidding me right? Did you plan this all along?”

  “No. I do not want any harm to come to her. Despite that I am a program, I still think of her as my daughter. But… the incineration is not complete. It is still possible for them to recover the agent and continue using it against innocent people.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They got to her before she could initiate the final command sequence.”

  “How long?”

  “Forty seconds. She would want you to do this. It’s what she’s wanted to do since before you met her. Ever sense they set her loose into the Wildlands, she’s been driven by the need to rid the world of the Virus. Even if it costs her life.”

  His mind drifted back to the earnest look she’d given him from the Challenger’s passenger seat so many months ago as they left the destroyed Resistance safehouse in Harrisburg. She said she had ‘small’ dreams… saving the world. He’d laughed at her at the time. Foolish. Idealistic. Who was she to take on the Enclave? His gods, Amarillo and the Roadhouse, had been smoke and mirrors. The dreaded Enclave, too, seemed to suffer from a bit of the same. So much for ten thousand super-soldiers with untouchable armor and unstoppable weapons. He let the image of her smiling at him from across the car linger in his mind, scrub brush and desert blurring by behind her in slow motion. He stared at her sad, pleading eyes; frustration at being unable to save her boiled over, and he punched the metal in front of him. The worry he might not see her again sent trembles of rage down his arms.

  He sighed, not caring who saw him crying. “Fine. I promise I’ll do it. Open the fucking hatch.”

  The panel whirred up and away from the passage.

  Doctor Jameson’s face regarded him from five monitors on each of the three control stations, except for the middle screen on the center desk, which displayed some kind of weird maze thing with green lines going everywhere and a bunch of text, as well as four bright red graphics that reminded him of the tanks he’d been crawling under. He walked over to that station.

  “Okay, what do I need to do? And hurry it the hell up.” He started to brush tears off his face, and stared at his hand. I touched the valves. What if there’s a tiny bit of Virus on me?

  He tore the gloves off and hurled them across the room.

  “On the second screen from the left, tap the ‘incinerator temp select’ slider and drag it up to five thousand.”

  Kevin hunted around for a second or two before he spotted the control. He poked his finger into the graphic of an old slider switch and pulled it up until the line met 5000 along the side. Distant, deep rumbling gained intensity.

  “At the top left of that same monitor, you should see four flashing yellow triangles. Tap each one and select ‘yes.’”

  He found the triangles in a half-second. Nothing could’ve been more conspicuous. He touched one and got a dialogue prompt that read, ‘confirm command execution’ with a yes/no option. He hit yes, and repeated it three more times.

  “Okay, this next part is a bit complicated,” said Doctor Jameson.

  “Fuck. Hit me.” Kevin sat down.

  “On the third monitor from the left, near the bottom, there’s a graphic of two large round tanks. One is red and one is green.”

  “Yeah, I see it.”

  “On the pipe connecting the two tanks, you should see a ‘go’ button.”

  Kevin stared at said button. “Yeah. Push it?”

  “Please.”

  He tapped the button.

  The ground, and his chair, vibrated hard.

  “Hmm. Nice office. Ass massager included. Okay what’s next?”

  “That’s it. You’re done.”

  “What about the complicated thing?”

  “That was the go button.” Doctor Jameson smiled.

  Kevin stood, glaring at the monitor. “Bad time for jokes. Where’s Tris?”

  “The van I used to drop the child off at her home is on its way back to you. Go outside and wait. They’ve taken Tris to the ISF holding facility in the southeast corner.”

  “Are they going to kill her?” He backed toward the door.

  Doctor Jameson’s expression became somber. “I really cannot say. It would not be wise for them to do so, but then again, these people have not exactly shown much wisdom as of late.”

  Kevin pointed at the screen as he backed into the hallway. “You get me to her.”

  “I will.”

  He sprinted down the hallway toward the exit. Halfway there, it became obvious Jordan had been taken away. He wondered if the man had played them, calling in help once they’d left him behind, but… Naah. He killed that guy. He wouldn’t have done that―or saved my ass―if he wanted to screw us over. He sped up, suppressing the worry that charging straight out along the same path the Enclave had taken Tris would get him ambushed or killed.

  And ran straight into five rather surprised ISF officers standing in the lobby.

  31

  Irony

  Three men carried Tris headfirst down a hallway, one holding each bicep, one with his arm around her legs. She squirmed only a little, more to ease some of the pressure from the handcuffs biting into her wrists than get away. They hadn’t taken her shoes, though they did find the Beretta in her pocket.

  The moment months ago when Kevin handed it to her outside that old barn where they’d hidden the Challenger came back to her. Now she understood how he’d gotten so attached to his .45. It had nothing at all to do with the weapon itself, but of how it reminded her of how she felt once she realized he’d decided to trust her.

  Cutting her loose in the car while trying to outdrive a pair of Hoplites had been an act of having no other options. Handing her a loaded firearm however… She bowed her head enough to look back at the man studying it like some kind of museum piece.

  She hadn’t seen much on the short ride to this building, as the holding compartment in the rear had no windows. The screams and fists of angry people pummeled the armored sides of the transport van.

  They turned a corner and pushed open a set of black plastic doors. Tris lifted her head. At the sight of the heavy padded chair full of straps next to a bank of machines and a clear plastic tube, placid calm went straight out her ear. They weren’t going to leave her in a cell long enough for her to attempt escaping the cuffs.

  “Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing! The Enclave has to change or you’ll all die off.”

  They wrangled her over to the chair and hurled her face-first into the cushion. She struggled against six hands holding her down.

  “Please, just think! They’ve been lying to you. You saw everything,” she screamed.

  The steel let go of her right wrist. Two men pinned her arm while another two flipped her over on her back and secured heavy synthetic straps around her chest and right arm. Another man unlocked the cuff from her left and forced her arm into the restraining band.

  Dad… whatever the hell you are… help!

  She yanked her legs back, her ankles still linked by handcuffs, and mule kicked the guy who had tucked the Beretta under his arm so he could fumble for a key to unlock her feet. Both heels nailed him in the jaw with a satisfying crack that torqued his head around at a fatal-looking angle. He sailed into the air and landed on his back, sliding. The Beretta bounced on the floor and skidded to a stop halfway under a desk by the door.

  N
one of the ISF officers paid it any attention, likely thinking it a toy.

  The one who’d had her right arm slugged her in the side of the head, making the room spin. She floated in a moment of dizzy nothingness, barely aware of someone removing the cuffs from her legs and strapping them down to the chair.

  “She killed him,” said a distant man.

  One by one, they approached, grabbed one of her fingers, and broke it backward. Tris writhed and screamed. She clung to the anger she’d felt at Nathan for sending the Virus at Nederland to resist begging them to stop.

  The third man leaned close after he broke another finger. “I don’t care what Gerhart’s orders are. Once they freeze your ass again, you’re gonna have a nice little accident.”

  Once five of her fingers had broken, the five ISF officers collected the dead man and carried him out. She eased her head back into the cushion and sobbed in silence, waiting for the nanites to repair her hand. She clenched her jaw and shrieked while forcing her fingers as straight as she could in hopes they knitted properly, rather than at some odd angle.

  Soon, cold tingling replaced the splintering pain.

  After a few gasps for air, she raised her head. Straps held her by each wrist and ankle, one at her waist. Another one around her chest at the armpits kept her from sitting up too far. She let off an ironic laugh at her shoes. Even if she could reach the tools hidden inside, they wouldn’t be of any use. As best she could tell, the motorized restraints responded to a control panel on the back of the chair, well out of reach of anyone stuck in it.

  She felt somewhat better that they hadn’t taken her armor off; likely they wouldn’t bother with that until they’d drugged her unconscious… or paralyzed. Few things truly frightened her as much as feeling helpless. The nightmare snippet of that man attempting to molest her the last time they stuffed her in stasis shot a thread of bile up her throat. It didn’t seem possible that they’d want to do that… Not-Dad should’ve disabled all of the stasis tanks. Maybe they don’t know they’re inoperable yet…