by Derek Gunn
“The fact remains, though,” Reilly continued as he dragged his eyes back to Regan, “we do have someone who is willing to betray us all for their own gain. And this,” he swept his hand around the room, “only goes to show that, whatever their agenda might be, it has escalated.” There was silence as the committee members considered this.
“It’s worse than that, Father.” Regan suddenly went white again as a thought struck him. “The food storage areas are not easily accessed. Miss Irvine came to me a few weeks ago, worried that if the general populace knew just how bad our stocks were that there might be a panic. She suggested a few changes to the security arrangements. I agreed and they were implemented last week. I had not gotten around to informing the committee as I did not see that it really mattered to us as a group, and we’ve had such a lot on our plates recently.” He paused as he looked around at the others.
“No one here would have known it, but, as of last week, the only people who had access to this area were members of the committee. You may not have seen anything different than before, but there is a guard posted out of sight twenty-four hours a day near the entrance. They are under orders to let no one but authorised personnel into this section and to remain out of sight at all other times. We did not want it to be obvious.” He paused as he looked at the faces of those around him. “Whoever did this has, unwittingly, narrowed the field somewhat. I’m afraid our traitor is standing among us at this very moment.”
Chapter 10
Harris looked out over the room and took a deep breath before beginning.
“Okay, we all know the potential impact of the patrol we hit. Either the thralls now know that we are here in this general area and they sent that last patrol to suck us in or they are testing a theory. Either way, they are beginning to think along the right lines and that’s dangerous. That last patrol nearly took us apart. They were far better trained than we are in tactics and we were lucky to survive.” He paused as he looked out over the faces of the people he had nearly led to their deaths.
“Before this we survived by doing the unexpected and by blind luck, I have to admit. Steele knew what he was doing and always managed to add something to any plans I came up with, but now things have changed. Whoever is leading the thralls knows what he is doing. He might not know exactly where we are, but he is narrowing the options far too quickly for my liking. When that patrol fails to report in they will have narrowed it even further.”
“They might think it was Nero’s forces, Peter,” Denis Johnson spoke from the back of the room.
“They might,” Harris agreed, “but there’s only one way for them to be sure and that’s to send a larger force over the border next time. One which we cannot hope to attack.”
“But if they do that they’ll see that there are no thralls patrolling the border,” Benjamin Franklin interrupted.
“Exactly,” Harris agreed, “and once they do that it won’t be long before they find the others.”
“So what do we do?” Delilah Franklin asked.
“Well, that’s why we’re having this meeting, Delilah,” Harris sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what the best course of action is. If the next patrol is any bigger than the last one then they’ll wipe the floor with us. They’re just too well trained and will be expecting an attack. We can’t let them come across the border either though. The only thing keeping them in their own territory is the fear of reprisal from Nero. Once they discover that he is no longer in control they will sweep through this territory until they come across another vampire colony.”
“We need to divert them somewhere else.” Ricks sounded almost apologetic and he had to repeat himself before everyone heard him.
“Yes,” Harris agreed, “I agree, however, we tried that by attacking further south and they seem to have ignored that.”
“Maybe we just need something bigger to get their attention, then,” Ricks persisted.
“What do you mean, son.” Benjamin turned in his chair and regarded the young boy.
“Well,” Ricks began and then dried up as he saw all their faces suddenly staring at him intently.
“It’s all right, Ricks, no one will laugh. We’re all in this together,” Harris encouraged him.
“I was just thinking that, at the moment, we seem to be their top priority and they’re throwing lots of resources into finding us. If they needed those resources for some other emergency then we might have more time to prepare.”
“Good idea,” Johnson agreed and then sighed. “But we’re high on their list for a good reason; we’re siphoning away their only bargaining chip with the vampires. It would have to be a pretty big distraction. Have you anything in mind specifically?”
“I’m not sure,” Ricks began and then shrugged as if he had just made a decision. “I grew up north of here, close to Fort Wayne in Indiana. We moved down here just before the war. My dad reckoned that it would be too cold with the fuel shortages and all.”
“That’s all very interesting, son, but we really do need to stick to the agenda,” Franklin interrupted, frustration adding an edge to his voice that he did not intend. His face softened almost immediately. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.”
“We’re all on edge.” His sister laid a hand on his arm and then leaned toward Ricks. “Go on, love,” she grinned at the red-faced Ricks. “I’ll keep this angry bear in check for you from now on.”
Ricks glanced around at the others and, seeing encouragement in their faces, he continued. “Well, as I said, we used to live near Fort Wayne, and that was a pretty busy place before the war what with the Nuclear Plant and all.”
“Excuse me, did you just say nuclear plant?” Al Warnback exclaimed in shock. Warnback was one of the men who had joined the group when Ben Franklin and his sister had come across and had proven himself a useful, if somewhat petulant addition to the group. It was obvious that he was here because of Delilah, and that he really hadn’t thought through what he was signing up for when he joined them. “What do you plan on doing, blow up the fucking plant? Jesus, kid, are you crazy?”
Ricks stopped as if struck and went bright red.
Sandra Harrington gasped, ignoring Warnback’s outburst. “I had forgotten about the plants. Jesus, are they still running?”
“They must be or we’d have seen a few mushroom clouds on the horizon by now.” Johnson rubbed his chin. “But who’s looking after them now? Shit, if we survive the fucking serum, are we all going to die in a nuclear winter when the plants blow from neglect?”
Harris put his hand up to halt any further conversation. He did not know the area particularly well and had not known that there was a nuclear plant so close to them. He knew, of course, that the thralls still had power, but he hadn’t really considered where it was coming from. God, there was just so much to consider and he felt more and more inadequate as time went by. “Ricks,” he began, “was that your plan, to blow the plant?”
“Of course not,” Ricks said under his breath, “if the Dade plant went up it would kill us all.”
“Even this far south?” Johnson asked in shock.
“Most of the country’s nuclear plants are in the east of the country. With the exception of a few in Southern California and Arizona, the western states are nuclear free. We happen to be in the worst possible place if they start to blow.”
“Shit.”
“Shit indeed.”
“How likely is it that they would blow?”
“Well,” Ricks considered his response before answering. “The plants are built to run pretty much self contained, but they do need maintenance, and if the thralls don’t have the right people looking after them, then who knows? I do know that the reactor heads in the Dade plant were scheduled for replacement just before the war, so it’s only a matter of time before erosion takes its toll.”
“But if the thralls have the right people in there, it should be okay, right?” Warnback asked eagerly.
“The Dade facility was forced to close
for three years due to safety concerns a while ago.” Ricks replied.
“But they fixed it, right?” Warnback insisted.
“Not according to a veteran NRC structural engineer who stated at the hearing that there were not enough safety procedures in place at the plant.”
“Jesus!”
“The NRC reduced the plants safety rating because of the report,” Ricks continued, warming to his subject.
“But they let it reopen?” Harris asked.
“Yes, they did. The plant also uses a complicated system using feedwater pumps to cool the reactor which is much slower than the NRC normally advises. A number of experts have gone on record stating that this cooling system would not be good enough to cool the core in an emergency. Dade is the only plant in the country with an inferior cooling system.” Ricks sighed.
“Lucky us,” Johnson cursed. “How come you know so much about this?”
“My dad,” Ricks dropped his eyes for a moment as he thought about his missing parents and Delilah squeezed his hand encouragingly. “My dad,” he continued, “was heavily involved in campaigning against the re-licensing of the plant so you kind of pick these things up.”
“Just how bad would it be if the plant blew?” Sandra asked, still shocked at how precarious their existence was.
“Well,” Ricks shrugged, “there’s a huge amount of stats on both sides of the argument about what would actually happen and how far the radiation would spread. To understand the full impact, it’s important to understand a bit about radiation.” Ricks looked around and saw that everyone was listening intently to him so he continued. “If the Dade plant went up the initial explosion wouldn’t kill us all the way down here but the fallout would pollute the whole area, air, water and livestock.”
“But surely these things are planned for?”
“Yes, and in most cases, a disaster at a plant might not actually cause a leak into the environment. These plants are designed to prevent a meltdown from happening and, even if they did happen, to contain it. But in our case, we’re relying on safety features that are flawed and on personnel who might not be there anymore. The biggest problems we would have are the after-effects and the radiation clouds.”
“How bad would that be?” Sandra asked in a whisper.
“Well, that’s where the NRC and my dad disagreed. Dade stores its waste at Palisades, on Lake Michigan near South Haven. There are 30 concrete and steel silos containing irradiated nuclear fuel rods. There was a court case around their placement so close to the lake as the silos were not considered earthquake proof, but he lost that argument. Whether an earthquake would have damaged them or not, a core meltdown would be more than sufficient. Each silo contains up to 320 times the long-lasting radioactivity released by the Hiroshima bomb.”
“Oh my God.”
“We can’t really deal with this at the moment,” Harris broke the silence that had fallen over the room like a blanket. “If blowing the plant wasn’t your intention, and I think we can all agree that that would be bad, why bring up the plant at all?”
“The plant still generates waste, even if they have it running at the lowest output, and that waste has to be transported from the plant to the Palisades for storage. We could hit the convoy.”
“But wouldn’t the fallout kill us as well?” Johnson asked, shocked at the suggestion.
“No, not if we’re careful. We could hit the convoy and then plant timed explosives to go off when we’re clear.”
“But surely the convoy will be heavily armed, won’t it?”
“Why would it be?” Ricks shrugged. “I mean, who would be mad enough to blow up nuclear waste?”
Silence fell once again over the room.
“Well, you did say bigger than us,” Ricks offered and grinned. “The thralls would have to divert a lot of resources to clean up the spill or risk the radiation spreading. They would also lose the use of the power plant and that would leave them, literally, in the dark.”
“How bad would such a spill be?” Sandra asked.
“Depends on the weather,” Ricks pursed his lower lip. “It would probably be pretty localised, say around a thirty mile radius. But, with the current crazy weather patterns, the potential for it to spread would be bad enough so that they’d have to throw a lot of resources at the clean-up. The alternative would be to risk turning their only power source into a health hazard for a few hundred years. Either way, it should take the pressure off us for a while.”
Chapter 11
Von Kruger stormed into the room, trying to hide his delight as the vampires and thralls already there jumped in fear. He was not in a particularly bad mood but it was good to keep them on their toes. He was still wary of using thralls though, but there was just no way he could leave himself completely unguarded during the day. He kept them on a very tight leash, though, and bit them each morning to make sure that whatever elements that were passed between a vampire and their thrall remained fresh in these thralls.
Unfortunately, he had no idea if this made any difference to the level of loyalty they felt, but he had to do something. It had worked up till now, so there must be something in it.
“Report,” he barked at the first thrall he saw and settled into his chair as the thrall stumbled through his report.
“Master, we have discovered over two hundred facilities that match your criteria. I have discounted those that are at the farthest reaches of your Kingdom as the distances are just too great to be practical. We can look at these later, if needed, but for now there are seventy registered underground facilities that are most likely to be used as a practical base.”
Von Kruger mulled the number around his head. It wasn’t as bad as he had expected, but it was still too many. There was no way he could afford the resources needed to search each one and guard his borders as well as his internal bases. They had ignored anything shallower than twenty feet as they knew for a fact that a vampire’s senses could detect anything less than that. But there must be something else they could do to bring the number down.
“Fifty two are military facilities, fourteen corporate and three privately owned,” the thrall Captain continued and brought him out of his thoughts. “I have rated them by size and matched them on the map against the known areas of attack, though we are very light on such information as previous attacks were against outposts where humans were being held and these…”
“Yes,” Von Kruger snapped, “let me guess, the thrall commanders were less than honest in reporting their failings against such attacks.”
The thrall decided not to comment and instead continued with his report. “With the intelligence we do have I have indicated the most likely sites in red.”
“Have patrols gone out?”
“Eh, no, Master, I did no presume to…” the thrall’s face drained and he opened his mouth and then closed it with no further sound emerging.
Von Kruger, in a rare moment of empathy, merely snapped at one of his Lieutenants. “Get this information out to the patrols and get them to tear these sites apart.” The Lieutenant nodded and disappeared. “Is there anything else we can do to speed this up?” he snapped at the thrall beside him.
“Well,” the thrall began and then shut up as he thought about what he was about to say.
“I will most certainly rip you to shreds if you do not speak, Captain, you can be assured of that.” Von Kruger’s tone was cold and flat but the menace behind the words was all too apparent. “At least, if you speak your mind, there is a chance I will let you live.”
The thrall Captain gulped and went even paler than before. “I was about to suggest, Master, that if you opened a dialogue with this thrall leader, Carter, you might be able to use their intelligence on the attacks they know about and narrow the field even further.”
Von Kruger felt his anger rise and he could feel the saliva spurt into his mouth as he thought about tearing the thrall’s throat to pieces, but he forced his temper down. The thrall was right, and he needed l
oyal thralls at this time, especially clever ones. There was no way he could spare enough vampires to search all these sites, anyway, so he had to do something.
“All right,” Von Kruger agreed, “send out a summons,” he paused as he reconsidered – there was no point starting off on the wrong footing. “Make that a request,” he amended, “for a meeting.” Von Kruger spat the last word out as if it were a curse. He could not believe that he was going to speak to a thrall as an equal and beg an alliance. It galled him to even think it, but he had to get that intelligence. Once he found these humans he could then turn his full attention to this thrall upstart and his fate would be spoken about in hushed tones down through the centuries as an example to others as to the price of disloyalty.
The woman sat immobile on the cold ground, in complete contrast to the crowds around her who wandered restlessly and aimlessly or merely stood and shouted abuse or cried and pleaded to their captors. She concentrated her attention elsewhere. Despite the confusion and despair of those around her, no one walked through her field of vision or tried to talk to her. Even in their agitated states they could sense her concentration and she was left alone.
There were over a thousand people packed into the cage, and all of them had, by now, flushed the serum from their systems. Not all, though, were happy about finally being able to think again. To some it brought with it the full impact of their desperate situation and despair ran through the caged humans like a wave that seemed to grow in strength as if it were a disembodied parasite, feeding off their raw emotions. There were others who just fell to their knees and sobbed, others still who merely stood, almost returning to the catatonic state the serum had forced upon them for the last two years.
And, finally, there were those who raged and threw themselves at the walls, or each other, as they sought something, anything, that they could vent their frustration on. Some few, and they were mostly lost among the sheer numbers in the cage, retained their cool and began to look about them, to take note of their surroundings and began to plan their next moves. They stayed purposely hidden among the others, out of sight of the thrall guards during the day, and especially from the vampires at night.