by Dan DeWitt
"Preaching to the choir."
Jen sighed and kept looking, and Lena went back to the computer.
"Wait a second." There was a hint of discovery in Jen's voice. "Do you happen to know Janine's last name?"
"Sorry, no. Why?"
"Huh." She didn't elaborate as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed from the address book. She waited a few seconds and hung up. "Not a working number." She tapped the phone against her chin, deep in thought.
"Okay, give," Lena said.
"Nothing, just a hunch." She dialed again. "Hey, Ethan? Quick question. What was the name of your Zero at the movies? The woman? A-ha, got it. Thanks." Jen flipped backwards in the directory until she found what she was looking for. "Elise." She made another call, and said that she got another non-working number. "What are the odds of that?"
"Honestly, if it's an old address book, probably pretty good. It could be from when the guy went to college, for all we know."
"Oh. Ohohohohoh." She flipped back and forth through the address book. "Holy shit, they're sequential."
"What are?"
"The phone numbers."
"Who puts phone numbers into an address book in order? If you had to add a number in the middle ... they're not phone numbers." Lena flipped through the photos on her desk until she found the one that showed the serial number on the chip. She held the photo up so Jen could read the number, although the shaking of her hand was probably making it difficult.
Jen flipped through the book in chunks of pages. She settled on a page, and jammed her finger down several times. "Janine Trotter. What does this mean?"
"It means we're on the right track. I hope."
Jen went through the pages with a renewed purpose. She was on the last few pages. "Do we have a duty roster? Like with everyone that came here?"
"I have a master on my computer. Hold on." She double-clicked on a desktop icon. "What do you need to know?"
"Falcone's first name. I don't know if I want to be right or wrong on this, but is it Anthony?"
Lena nodded, her eyes wide. "Every name in that book is a person who has the chip? Is a potential Zero?" She grabbed the book and put it in front of her keyboard.
"Oh, my God. There have to be hundreds of names in there. We can account for what, a couple dozen during the outbreak?"
"Shit," Lena said as she scanned the list on her screen. "It gets worse."
"What?"
Lena turned the screen around and pointed at the list of names, but Jen was solely focused on the look of horror on her friend's face. "Twenty of these names are in this school right now."
O
Lena and Jen raced at a dead sprint to Orpheus' office while simultaneously trying to raise him on the radio, but they got no answer. Lena called Ethan and tried to explain what they'd found, but his team was engaged with some zombies and she was having a hard time getting him to understand. Tino and German intercepted them in the hallway outside of the office, and the four of them nearly collided.
"Whoa, whoa, easy," German said.
Jen asked, "Where's Orpheus?"
"He's out with Thompson and Hedley. Something about something that Hedley found on his video. He left us to watch over this mostly empty show."
Tino said, "Hold on a sec." He called Orpheus' name over the radio several times, but received no reply. "Shit, I can't get him on the radio."
"Tell us what's going on."
The women shared a look of hesitation. They were about to blow the lid off of something huge, and they weren't sure who they could trust.
Tino sensed this and said, "Okay. Whatever this is, it's urgent, right?"
Jen said, "Yeah."
"Then just tell us only what we absolutely need to know."
Jen looked at Lena, who nodded. Orpheus trusted them to an extent, and that had to count for something. She explained everything as quickly as she could, telling the men about the chip, the address book, and the link to the Zeroes. The facts flowed freely, and before they knew it, they'd told the two men everything that they knew, anyway.
"Shit. Duty roster!" They ran to the gymnasium and looked at the duty roster that was taped to the wall next to the locker rooms.
Jen read the names off of her list and Tino matched them up with their team leaders. German took quick notes and Lena started barking orders into the radio.
"Attention all teams! All stop! All stop! All stop! Acknowledge!"
One by one, the team leaders responded. Lena cut through any formalities. "Listen up, all four of you. Here are some names. I want you to isolate and restrain each of them immediately. No time for explanations, just do it." She looked at the list that German was holding up in front of her face, and read the names as quickly and clearly as possible. "How do you copy?"
Ethan was the first to respond. "I have a few unhappy guys here, but we're set." The other three chimed in with something similar.
"Okay, good," Lena said. "I want you to rendezvous with Zulu 2 ASAFP," she looked at her map to find a suitable location, and gave them the coordinates. "I need to talk to the four of you."
She got three affirmative responses. "Okay, so that's thirteen that are out. What's that leave here, eight?"
"Yes," Tino said. "Four are posted, and Germ already instructed them to lock themselves in the nearest guard shack or room. The other four, I have no idea where they might be. And they have no radios. Same goes for the twenty or so personnel not on your list."
"Cam's phone went straight to voicemail," Jen said.
"Goddammit," Lena said. "Okay, we’ve got to find him somehow. Let's get Jameson in the air. Maybe one of the guards can give us a general direction that they went."
"I'm on it," German said. "You want me to go with him?"
Lena froze for a moment. It had just hit her that they were looking to her for orders. It was a disconcerting feeling, but she shook it off. She'd have time to doubt herself later. "That's a good idea. Extra set of eyes. If you find Cam, get him back here right away. I don't care if you abandon the Jeep and fly them back."
"You got it." German trotted away and spoke into his radio, "Jameson, what's your location?"
"Tino, stay with us. Organize the guards and post at least two of them on each Zero. Bring the rest in here, because we might have to search the school." She continued speaking as she broke into a jog and her companions followed. "We have to get to my office. We can do an all call via the PA system. There isn't a square inch in this place that it doesn't reach."
They made it to her office. They had to wait for her to unlock the door, then they were in. Lena wasted no time and grabbed the microphone for the PA. The microphone itself had to be twenty years old, but it worked perfectly and there was no reason to replace it. She pressed and held the "speak" button, but stopped mid-sentence. "Did that come through, you guys?"
"I didn't hear anything," German said.
Jen concurred.
Lena tried again. Still nothing. "Come on, not now, you piece of shit!" She depressed the button with greater force this time, knowing full well that it wouldn't make a difference. She wanted to actually solve the problem, so she looked under the desk. The plug for the PA system lay on the floor under the outlet. That wasn't odd. She'd unplugged it with her foot before. She pulled a plug out of the socket and plugged the PA back in. She tested it quickly then launched into her transmission. She'd already figured out the perfect cover, she just hoped that no one outside spoke to anyone inside for a while. "Attention all personnel within the school, this is a Code Grey exercise. Isolate yourselves within the nearest lockable room until further notice. The following four personnel, call in with your location for further instructions." Lena let out a big sigh and slumped in her chair. "Hopefully, that'll work and not arouse too much suspicion. We've never actually run that exercise before." Lena saw her friend standing motionless, a cord in hand. "Jen, what is it?"
"You tell me. I just thought it was weird that you'd have to unplug something to plug the P
A back in. I assumed that you unplugged it by accident."
"Yeah, that is weird."
"So what is this?" Jen ran her hand lightly along the power cord and traced it back to its source. It terminated behind a stack of banker's boxes.
Tino reached down and produced a rectangular box about the size of a briefcase. "Man, this is heavier than it looks."
"Is that the safe from Vincent's place?"
"I think so," Jen said.
"But I never got a chance to even try to crack it."
"Well," Tino said as he thumped the safe down on the table. "Someone did. Look here." The power cord ran inside the safe to whatever it was powering. The safe had been altered to allow the cord to run through even when the lid was closed. Otherwise, it would have been severed. "And that's just half of the set." He held up a heavier gauge cable this time. It ran from the safe to the wall where it joined with a similar cable. Once reunited, the cables ran under conduit all the way to the ceiling, where it disappeared.
"That's the radio antenna. Someone spliced into it." Lena said.
"I don't like this," Jen said.
"Me, neither," Tino agreed and pulled out his sidearm. "Someone's fucking with the program."
"See if you can open that thing," Lena said. "I have an idea how I can get a hold of Cam. If he's following the protocol he set up ... and he's in his car ... he should have it tuned to Radio Lena." She grabbed a different microphone and used her computer to interrupt the automated broadcast. "This is a special message for Captain Cameron Holt. Please call in to the station as soon as possible. Your radio is malfunctioning. Again, this is a special message." She was interrupted by a screaming guitar riff playing a few feet from her head. She turned around and shot daggers at Tino. "Holy fucking cow, is your ringer loud enough?"
"Sorry, sorry," Tino said as he answered his cell phone. "It's Germ."
Lena tried to shake the annoyance and turned back to the radio mic. She depressed the button once more and opened her mouth to speak, but no words would form. Her brain made a million connections at once.
The ringer.
The song.
The indie band that was just way too young for him.
She abandoned her message without resuming the music. Anyone who was tuned in would hear nothing but silence. Lena grabbed the thick personnel file. Cameron Holt had a similar copy. She tossed folders aside until she found what she was looking for.
She hoped more than anything that she was wrong.
One look at the file told her that she wasn't. She said Jen's name, but it came out as a whisper. Jen was still trying to get the safe open and didn't hear it. Lena repeated it, louder this time.
Jen finally heard her. "What's going on?"
"Cut it, cut it." She turned to face Jen in full. The other woman was confused. "Cut the damn antenna!"
Jen didn't hesitate. She unsheathed the knife that she had dangling by her side and sawed through the antenna in a matter of seconds. The antenna dropped to the floor, leaving only a few inches of frayed wire protruding from the safe. "Why'd I do that?"
Tino, who up until that point had his eye on the corridor and his hand on his weapon, turned to ask the same thing.
"He has a kid." Lena raked her palms from her forehead to the back of her head, pulling the hair tight, all stress. "I mean, I knew that he had a son, but oh, my God."
O
German ran to the pad and met Jameson. No matter how fast he (or anyone) ever got to the helipad, Jameson had always been there waiting and looking as if he'd been there for an hour. German wouldn't have been surprised if Jameson just slept in the damn thing.
But this time was a little different. Instead of leaning against the helicopter or lounging on a nearby Adirondack chair looking bored, as he usually did, Jameson was in the pilot's seat, helmet on. The helicopter was already powered up and ready for takeoff.
This time, Jameson had a personal stake in this. A friend might need his help.
German didn't waste any time with small talk. He hopped into the co-pilot's seat and donned his headset. They were airborne before he had his seatbelt completely fastened, and when Jameson banked German nearly fell out of his seat.
"They were last seen heading north," Jameson said without preamble. "So I'm going to rule out everything on the other side of the school."
"North is a pretty broad direction. Any idea how you're going to find them?"
"Not yet. Keep your eyes peeled while I search. It may feel like I'm just doing it randomly, but I have a method. Think of a hunter tracking something through the forest. I have to find the trail first."
"Copy that. You need anything else?"
Jameson turned to look at his passenger. "You carrying?"
"Of course." The question sunk in a few seconds later. "You think it'll come to that?"
Jameson chuckled. German didn't know how that laugh would sound on the ground. For all he knew, it could've been the nicest, warmest, goddamn charmingest laugh this side of the Mississippi. But over the radio, it was frightening. "Kid, you make as many combat runs as I have, you always think it'll come down to that. In this place, I'm surprised that the shit didn't hit the fan before this." He threw a thumb over his shoulder. "See that box back there?"
German looked behind him. It was a simple steamer trunk, the kind that people lugged aboard ocean liners in the 1920's. "Yeah."
"That's my fun box, if things get ugly."
German nodded. He genuinely understood, even though he hadn't seen actual combat prior to joining OSI. He'd had a gun pulled on him a few times, and had to kill one of the guys. He didn't feel bad about it ... the guy had killed his own wife ... but it had jaded him instantly. Now he thought that trouble was always around the corner, even though it had never come. He resisted the urge to unholster his sidearm and check it. He knew that it was as he always carried it: loaded, round chambered, safety off.
Somehow, with just a few words, Jameson had made him even more paranoid.
At least they had the Fun Box to fall back on.
They didn't speak much for the next ninety minutes while Jameson conducted his search. German was going cross-eyed from looking at the tops of so many goddamn trees, and was blinking a mile a minute to try to readjust his eyes. "You see anything yet?" German knew it was a stupid question, but he needed to do something to break up the monotony.
To Jameson's credit, he answered the question with no ballbusting. "Fuck no. The roads aren't giving me anything. It's not like there's even a trail of corpses to follow, because this whole area's clear. And we're not exactly silent running here. If he needed a lift, he could flag us down ten different ways."
German chewed on that for a moment. "What if he can't?"
"What do you mean? If he's unconscious or something?"
"No, he's travelling with two other people. What are the odds of all three of them being out of it and unable to set off a flare or start a fire or something? For starters, every one of those Jeeps has a top end emergency kit in it."
Jameson stared at his passenger, and seemed to have an epiphany. "Unless they're in a hot zone."
German nodded. "Unless they're in a hot zone. But why?"
"If he went in a hot zone with two civilians in tow and no backup, he has his reasons. What worries me is why he's suddenly off the grid."
German felt the helicopter come to a gentle stop and looked out his window. Jameson had them hovering almost directly above the river.
"This is as good a place as any to change the search," the pilot said. "So which way?"
German tried to think like Orpheus, but could only think about the man's luck, instead.
His luck was fucking terrible.
"Which way has the most zombies?"
Jameson didn't hesitate. "That way, on the way to town. No question."
"Well, if history's any indicator, that's where he'll be."
"For what it's worth," Jameson said as he adjusted their heading, "your logic regarding Orpheus
is spot on." He elected to follow the river's course. "If they're in a boat, they'll stick out like a sore thumb." What he didn't say was that if his friend was in the river, they'd never see him anyway.
That doesn't feel right, Jameson thought. Just doesn't feel like his time yet.
He followed the gentle curves of the water, keeping an eye on the left bank while German did the same on the right. Even if he'd been unfamiliar with the island, he would know that they were getting closer to the population center because of the unmistakable increasing frequency of the housing and vehicles (abandoned as they were).
"Uh, do you see that?"
"See what?"
"That." German pointed a finger dramatically upriver at a large object at the base of a bridge. "That's not what I think it is, is it?"
Jameson's heart sank a little. He was pretty sure what German was seeing, and flew in for a closer look. His worst fears were confirmed when he saw the vehicle. It pointed straight down and was submerged up to the rear wheels.
"Goddammit," German muttered. "That's his Jeep. The lightbar's a dead giveaway."
"Fuck me," Jameson looked for something, anything to tell him that his friend had walked away. "You see any signs of life?"
"No," German said flatly. "Get me down there for a closer look." He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door, but not before getting a solid grip on the frame. "Real low."
Kid's got guts, Jameson thought as he guided the helicopter within eight feet of the rear of the Jeep. The downdraft from the rotors made large ripples in the water and made the Jeep shift slightly from side to side. "We're rock steady, pal."
"Okay," German responded, still hesitant. "Okay." He kicked out the rope ladder, the majority of which fell into the water and disappeared. He made the sign of the cross and descended two rungs before letting go and dropping easily onto the Jeep's rear window. The impact made the Jeep sway more, but he kept his feet under him. Jameson pulled up and away, and the downdraft mercifully disappeared.
Before he did anything else, German looked around and made sure that he was alone. He didn't see any zombies on either bank, and he would have plenty of time to get back on the chopper in case some did show up. He thought that he saw something near the tree line that could've been a person, but after seeing no movement he dismissed it as a rock. He regretted not having binoculars with him. "Hey, get eyes on that formation near the trees," he told Jameson.