The Release

by Tom Isbell

  Cat turned to me. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I can’t hear, if that’s what you asked. But yeah, I’m okay.”

  Cat released the Emergency button, and we shuddered upward.

  When the doors rattled open, we pushed the button for the bottom floor and stepped out as quickly as we could. The doors shut behind us and the elevator descended.

  We had made it to the top of the mountain, but one glance told us we’d stepped into a hornet’s nest. Sirens sounded, klaxons clanged, and the glow of an inferno lit the sky. Soldiers ran in every possible direction—some with hoses, some with buckets of water, all with automatic rifles. How could we possibly find Hope in all this chaos?

  Or were we too late? Had she already sacrificed her life to kill Chancellor Maddox? The mere thought of it sent the blood rushing from my head and nearly brought me to my knees.

  50.

  SIRENS WAIL AND SOLDIERS race. The same recorded announcement plays over and over from speakers mounted on tall poles: “Warning: Breach! Warning: Breach!”

  Hope stays hidden, waiting for the right moment to emerge from the shadows. She walks purposefully toward the white tower, head lowered. Two guards stand sentry, looking tense—one involuntary jerk away from pulling triggers.

  When she’s thirty feet from the entrance, Hope pulls back her hood, revealing her charcoaled face. She raises her hands above her head.

  “Don’t shoot,” she says, affecting a thick accent.

  The two soldiers train their rifles on her. Their faces are clouded with indecision. How is it that someone other than a Brown Shirt has managed to gain entry into the Eagle’s Nest?

  “Who are you?” one of them asks, squinting. Hope has positioned herself so the fire is behind her, the backlight obscuring her features.

  “Unarmed,” she says, continuing to glide forward. The trick—as she remembers her father once explaining it—is for the predator to approach without the prey knowing.

  “Don’t come any closer,” one of the guards warns.

  “No gun,” she says, her accent thicker. She waves her empty hands.

  “Okay, but stop right there.”

  Hope takes two more steps and does as he says. She’s twenty feet from them. She’d like to be closer, but she can make this work.

  “No gun,” she repeats. “Unarmed.”

  One of the guards steps forward. When he’s within five feet, he asks, “Who are you? What’re you doing here?”

  “Unarmed. No gun.” Her accent is thicker each time she opens her mouth. She can see down the long, black tunnel of his rifle barrel.

  The Brown Shirt sighs impatiently and takes another step forward, about to frisk her. As his hands reach her waist, Hope lowers her arm and jabs an elbow into his face. Blood spurts from his nose. He tumbles backward. Even before he reaches the ground, she releases a knife hidden on her forearm, clutches the handle, and sends it spinning through the air. It lands squarely in the other guard’s chest. He collapses without firing a shot.

  Hope kneels by the first soldier—who’s squirming, bleeding, crying out in pain—and gives him a swift chop to the neck. He’s out cold. She rushes to the other guard, removes the knife from his chest, and slips through the unguarded entrance.

  The interior is a large, empty atrium, modern and sleek and bathed in white. It reeks of clean. Hope wonders if this was what the world was like pre-Omega.

  A shiny plaque on the wall lists the office numbers of people and departments. Her finger traces down the column until she finds who she’s looking for. She avoids the elevator and scrambles up the staircase to the fifth floor.

  The sirens here are muted, but red emergency lights flash on, off, on, off. There is no sign of personnel, and Hope wonders if they’ve been evacuated. Has she missed her opportunity? Was her fire too effective?

  She makes her way down the hall, stopping when she reaches a sign posted on a door.

  RESEARCH LABORATORY

  There’s another door farther down the hall that seems to open into the same room, and she chooses that one. Less conspicuous. She grabs hold of the doorknob and eases inside. Stainless-steel tables are laid out in a series of precise rows, and gleaming white cabinets line the walls. The counters and tables are covered with all kinds of science equipment: flasks, beakers, burners, tubes.

  There is one person present.

  It’s been weeks since Hope last laid eyes on Dr. Gallingham, but he is exactly how she remembered him, wearing his black suit and dabbing at the corners of his eyes with a damp hanky. Even though his back is to her as he sits hunched over a microscope, she would recognize him anywhere.

  She tiptoes forward, dagger extended. Before she reaches him, his voice calls out, “Well well, look who the cat dragged in.”

  She stops in her tracks. Gallingham pulls back from the microscope, swivels on his stool, and turns to look at her, a smug expression on his face.

  “You forget. You Sisters always did have a distinctive smell. No, not so much a smell—more like a stench.” He motions toward her charcoaled face. “I like what you’ve done with your makeup. Far more flattering. By the way, it’s Hope, isn’t it? Or is it Faith? In any case, the greatest of these—”

  “It’s an old joke.”

  “Old jokes are the best jokes, my dear. Don’t you know that?”

  She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she says, “Tell me about my father.”

  His eyes widen. “That’s why you’re here? We’re about to unleash the next Omega and you want to know about your father?” He sighs. “Like father, like daughter.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “You haven’t lost faith in him, have you? Oh, wait a minute, you already lost Faith.” He snickers.

  “Tell me about my father,” she says through gritted teeth.

  “It’s so interesting. From names alone, you would think Faith would have been the stronger of the two. It implies a certain power. But Hope … well, that just sounds desperate.”

  Hope steps forward and smacks Gallingham across the face.

  He forces a smile even as a red flush blooms on his cheek.

  “I told you months ago,” he says. “Your father was a doctor. Taught me everything I know. So good with a scalpel. He knew just how to inflict the most pain and yet keep a patient alive. Not an easy balance. You’ve never heard screaming until you watched Dr. Samadi at work.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Why would I lie? I have nothing to hide.”

  “Give me specifics.”

  “About the Butcher of the West? Well, he loved a good torture. Said it made him feel whole. And you don’t just earn a nickname like that for nothing.”

  Hope’s face goes hot. She’s so angry she has difficulty breathing.

  With her free hand, she fumbles inside her coat, removing the piece of paper she took from the folder back in New Washington—the one from the Department of Records. She thrusts the crumpled sheet before Dr. Gallingham’s eyes.

  “What was written there?”

  He squints and leans into the paper. “Looks like someone had a little fun with Wite-Out.”

  “What’d it say? What’d they white out?”

  “How should I know? I’m not a clerk.”

  She places her knife against his neck. “No, but something tells me you know about this.”

  “Wish I could help you. I forget things as the years pass. Old age, you know.”

  “So let’s help you remember.” The knife blade kisses his skin, drawing the first pearls of blood. Gallingham’s expression darkens.

  “Are there personnel files here?” she asks.

  “Here? Of course not. Why would there be?”

  Something in how quickly he answers makes her think otherwise.

  “Where are they?”

  “I just told you—”

  “Where are they?”

  She presses the knife into the fleshy folds of his neck. A drop of blood snakes its way down the bla
de. “I’ll ask you one more time: are there personnel files here or not?”

  He gives the slightest of nods.

  “In this building?”

  Another nod.

  “Take me there.”

  “You can look for yourself,” he snarls. “Or is it that you don’t think you can find it? I guess without your sister, you only do half the thinking.”

  Hope lifts the knife from his neck and swipes the edge across the bottom of his ear. A chunk of flesh plops to the ground.

  “You little bitch!” he cries, reaching for the wound. Blood dribbles between his fingers.

  “Take me there,” she hisses, “or I’ll cut off something other than your ear.”

  Cradling the side of his head, he lurches to his feet. They’re nearly to the door when Hope races back to Gallingham’s work station. There’s something there that interests her. She returns to the doctor, places her knifepoint in his back, and they step into the hall. The doctor is heading to the elevator when Hope stops him.

  “Where’re we going?” she asks.

  “Two floors up.”

  “We take the stairs.”

  “It’s two floors up,” he complains.

  “Stairs.”

  He lets out an exaggerated sigh and they make their way to the stairwell. He’s winded after the first few steps. A slick coating of blood covers his hand and dribbles down his wrist.

  “Quit stalling,” she says.

  They exit through the seventh-floor door, then shuffle down the long hallway until they reach a door marked Records. He waddles to a stop.

  “Can I go now? I need medical attention.”

  “Open it,” she says.

  He jangles the knob. “It’s locked.”

  “Something tells me you have a key.” The knife finds an opening between his ribs.

  The doctor flinches, then reaches for a key card. He swipes it on a panel and the door clicks open. He leads her inside and she flicks on a light.

  The room is massive—far larger than the laboratory downstairs. Nearly as daunting as the Department of Records back in New Washington.

  “Love us or hate us,” Gallingham says smugly, “but you have to admit: we are meticulous record keepers.”

  “As proof of your cruelty?”

  “Proof of how to build a functioning civilization.”

  Hope grunts and looks around. It’s overwhelming, the rows and rows of filing cabinets.

  “Any hints where I should look?” she asks.

  “I’ve never stepped in here before.”

  Hope knows he’s lying, but there’s no point pressing the issue. Her eyes give the room a once-over, landing on a dangling sign marked Personnel.

  Hope throws Gallingham into a chair, where he lands with a heavy plop. “Move and you die,” she says.

  She can hear Brown Shirts running in the hall. There’s not much time.

  Her feet pull her forward. As she nears the cabinets, she can’t help but wonder: Does she really want to do this? Does she really want to discover the truth?

  The S’s are tucked in the far corner of the room. Hope’s fingers tremble as they wade atop the file folders, stopping when they reach the name she’s looking for: Samadi, Uzair. Pinching the thick folder free, she removes it from the cabinet and takes it to a nearby table.

  “Did you find it under S for ‘Sellout’ or T for ‘Traitor’?” Gallingham asks from across the room. He uses his handkerchief to try and stanch the flow of blood. The once-white hanky is now crimson.

  Hope opens the folder and examines its contents, realizing she’s barely breathing.

  It’s all here: her father’s upbringing, the names of his parents and siblings, the marriage to Charlotte Patterson. The next page provides more biography still—the birth of twin girls, the disappearance of the Samadi family, the death of Hope’s mom by “natural causes.” So that’s how the Republic classifies a murder in cold blood.

  Hope zips through the file—page after page of biographical information. It’s far more than what she found in New Washington.

  It’s the final document that grabs her attention most—the Letter of Agreement between Dr. Uzair Samadi and Dr. Joseph Gallingham, signed by Chancellor Cynthia Maddox. A carbon copy of the document she saw back in New Washington.

  Hope is both eager and afraid to read it. She forces herself to examine it slowly.

  It lists Dr. Uzair Samadi’s title as research scientist, and when she comes to the space marked Duties—the space blotted out in the New Washington version—she sees writing. Typed words. No mysterious Wite-Out blurring the letters.

  But instead of listing his job, it gives a short series of directions. “Refuses to cooperate. Relieve of all duties, then confiscate the twin daughters and terminate at will.”

  Hope’s breath leaves her. It’s a death order. But what’s just as powerful is what isn’t there—no mention of her father’s experimenting on others or developing chemical weapons.

  She flips frantically through the pages.

  “I don’t get it,” she says. “This says he was a scientist, but nothing about what he actually did.”

  Even with the blood dripping down his hand and wrist, Dr. Gallingham manages to shrug innocently.

  “You know something,” Hope goes on. “What is it?”

  “Who says I know anything?” A smile oozes across his face. “I’m just a scientist like your father was. Making the Republic a better place for the next generation.”

  “But you know details. You wouldn’t be so smug, otherwise.”

  “Smug? Moi?”

  Hope lunges for him, grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a shake. “Tell me what you know! What does it mean when it says ‘Refuses to cooperate’?”

  “It means exactly what it says. He refused to cooperate.”

  “In what way exactly?”

  Instead of answering, Gallingham begins to hum.

  “Tell me!”

  Dr. Gallingham stops long enough to meet her eyes. “You’re so smart,” he whispers. “What do you think it means?”

  Hope stares at him … and then her eyes go wide and her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she says, her legs suddenly weak.

  “You believed it, didn’t you? This whole time.”

  “Oh my God …”

  “Everyone did. It was our only way of ensuring that no one would let him into their homes. He would be an outcast for the rest of his life. Call someone by a name and people believe it, especially if they hear it over and over again. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, as long as you say it with conviction. I learned that from the politicians.”

  “How could you?”

  “We had no choice. Your father left us, and with everything he knew about our chemical weapons program, we couldn’t let him get away with that. So we had to make him the enemy. We fabricated that whole Butcher of the West stuff … and people believed it. You believed it.”

  More than anything, Hope wants to cover her ears, to block out everything Gallingham is saying. Because everything he’s saying is true. She genuinely believed her father was collaborating with the enemy. All this time, she’s been duped.

  “You had no right,” she says.

  “We had every right. Your father put his own self-interest above the good of the Republic. In my book, that’s the definition of a traitor. He deserved everything we said about him, whether it was true or not. And if you believed it, well, shame on you.”

  Hope feels light-headed, dizzy. The world is spinning and she stumbles away. To think she could have doubted her father, the man who rescued her after her mother’s murder, who took care of her and Faith for ten years while on the run. How could she have turned on his memory like that?

  Dr. Gallingham is still talking.

  “… hated for your mother to suffer like that, but she brought that on herself, didn’t she?”

  Hope looks at him blankly. “My mother?” she repeats.

  “Why sh
e chose your father for a husband, I’ll never know.” He begins to hum again. “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Hope’s mother’s favorite hymn.

  Hope stares at him a moment … and then something clicks. “You knew her,” she says without breath.

  Gallingham’s eyes flick away.

  “You knew my mother. Liked my mother.”

  “Frankly, I don’t know why she chose him. I had more job security, better prospects, a better salary, even before Omega.”

  “You killed my parents for personal reasons.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “You killed my parents because you were jealous?”

  “She rejected me! Spurned my advances. Said she wanted nothing to do with me. Well, fine. If that’s your choice, then get ready to pay the consequences.”

  Hope can’t believe it. All these years of running from the Brown Shirts was in large part because her mother had the good sense to turn down Dr. Gallingham?

  “Yes, we made up those lies about your father. And what was remarkable was how easy it was to get inside your head. We’d started the rumor years earlier, of course, ever since Dr. Samadi left us, and when we captured you and your sister, I didn’t think for a second you’d buy it. But you did. All of it. Just shows how little faith you had in him. Pun intended.”

  Hope can’t hear any more. She has had enough of Dr. Gallingham, his lies, his smug behavior. She draws her knife and takes a step forward, ready to end his life once and for all. No more will he inflict his sordid practices on the rest of the world.

  A click of metal stops her cold. In the doctor’s non-bloody hand is a pistol … trained on Hope.

  “In the future, you should really check your prisoner for weapons. That is to say, if you had a future.”

  Hope can’t believe it. How could she have been so stupid? How? How?

  “Yes, it’s loaded,” Gallingham goes on. “And yes, I intend to use it. Finish off all the Samadis once and for all.”

  Hope’s shoulders sag at her own stupidity, even as a part of her can’t help but feel she deserves this. It’s what she gets for doubting her father in the first place.