"I would be so happy to be able to share my pride with my old friend Larry Lafayette, who ended so tragically ..."
The old man paused, looking toward the floor, sadness recognizable on his old wrinkled face.
"I'm here!"
They all looked with surprise to where the voice had come from.
The branches of a tree were making noise, while its leaves were being noisily stirred. The people in the room raised their chins and looked upwards at a silhouette, hidden in the middle of a bunch of leaves.
Suddenly Lafayette fell and caught himself on his feet, losing his balance and falling on himself.
"Larry!" exclaimed Hiroto, advancing towards his old friend, still supported by his disciple, Johnny.
"Hiroto ..." answered the elderly black man, getting up with difficulty. The young man helped him to stand up with his free hand, while at the same time supporting his Master.
The old man finally stood up and said, resuming, "I thought my end might be nigh!"
"But ..." intervened Red, who had come closer with her mother. "Who's been ..."
"Shredded in pieces?" interrupted Lafayette, looking sadly at the girl and then at the dismembered remains on the ground, before resuming. "My young assistant, who was unlucky, he was surprised from behind. If I hadn’t been so light and quick to climb to the summit of that tree, I would’ve known the same sad fate. "
"I'm glad you're safe, anyway," said the old Japanese, who had lost his smile, having now his usual, serious face, before adding, "Let's get out of here quickly, but let's stand on our guard. "
While he had just said that, Mei had gone to the closed door.
She turned the handle to open it, but failed. She had forgotten that the door had been locked from outside.
"Who could lock us in here?" Johnny asked suspiciously.
Hiroto pouted, and approaching the door with him, punched the door next to the lock.
It deformed under the shock and the door unlocked, the distorted bolt now visible.
Mei took the handle and turned it again, and the door opened...
... on a wall of flames in the adjacent hallway, flames that made them all back off.
***
Inferno
"Step back!" Hiroto shouted as his daughter complied before hearing his injunction, almost getting her face burned but protecting it from the big flames with an arm, releasiing the door handle.
The impressive flames emitted a loud crackling sound which further stressed the trapped group.
The surprise had made her let go of her naginata, which had fallen to the ground with a loud sound of wood and metal, the sharp blade barely failing to fall on her foot. The high heat made her squint while her face dripped with sweat, and Mei withdrew. Her heart beat hard in her chest as the crackling of the flames became much stronger.
The door opened wide under the pressure of the hot air hitherto contained in the corridor, allowing a torrent of flames to enter.
Red also shrank back in fear, hitting Johnny who was standing right behind her. In doing so he received the back of the girl's head in his face.
"Careful!" shouted the young man, glaring at her as, surprised, she turned back and stared at him. But their attention was once again focused on the flames that began to come in through the entrance and lick the edges of the frame, while pungent smoke was beginning to invade the room. The crackling sound of the flames became deafening.
Hiroto began to cough, Johnny still supporting him, who shouted, "We're doomed!"
It was then that he looked up and, pointing at something, shouted to Lafayette, "Is this a fire sprinkler system?"
"Yes," the old black man replied, frowning. His eyes were starting to turn red because of the heat and smoke. He continued, " I don’t understand why those sprinklers don’t activate."
He glared at the sprinklers and said, "It's as if the smoke detectors have been rendered inoperative."
"So, we're fucking screwed, as I said," Johnny shouted.
He then coughed violently. His friends began to cough too.
"Maybe not," exclaimed Lafayette, who, putting a handkerchief over his face, rushed toward a computer console that the other people hadn’t noticed.
Lafayette tapped angrily on the keyboard before shouting to the others, "Not only do the sprinklers seem to no longer detect smoke, but what's more, my password for controlling them seems to have been erased ... "
Hiroto, near Johnny, coughed again and began to collapse but was held just in time by Johnny, while Lafayette continued, "... But I’ve never told anyone about my secret Superuser password!"
After tapping again on a few computer keyboards, he almost smashed a big green button named ‘Enter’.
A deluge of water fell from the ceiling sprinklers.
Red, Mei, and Johnny shouted in surprise as they felt the cold water fall on them.
Their cries were quickly replaced by laughter.
This refreshment suddenly relieved and reassured everyone in the room. Hiroto said nothing and looked, smiling, at his old friend who returned it to him, while continuing to strum on some keys of the control console, on which the water was streaming. Fortunately, obviously, this electronic equipment was waterproof.
A deafening blast made all of them almost jump, covering the crackling sound of the flames.
The group with the old engineer working on the console saw, through the open door, that it came from the corridor.
The whole wall of flame that occupied it disappeared in a yellowish cloud. They could see that more powerful fire extinguishers were pouring on the dying flames enormous quantities of a gas that formed the cloud.
Seeing the astonished look of his friends, Lafayette shouted happily over the blast, "It's a flame retardant that has been added to the water that gives that color to the stream down the hall. It's as effective as the retardant which was used by Canadairs, the seaplanes in the South of France and Italy, to extinguish forest fires. "
The sprinklers continued spraying the room where they were and the adjacent corridor, for many more seconds, before starting to weaken.
Then the sprinklers stopped completely.
"No more water in the sprinklers," the agronomist said, frowning at the console.
The silence finally returned, and everyone looked at each other, grimacing.
Everything was blackened around them, and everything still emitted a pungent smell, which made them uncomfortable.
Then it was Hiroto who, no longer wanting to be supported by Johnny, walked towards the open door and the hallway, where the flames had disappeared. He kept coughing from time to time, but he wasn’t the only one. In the corridor, there was a kind of yellowish moss on the floor. They knew that these were the remains of the fire retardant, which had stifled the fire raging in this corridor only a minute earlier. The walls remained hot, and no one had the desire to even touch them.
The whole group walked towards the closed double doors of the entrance of the agro-building.
The surface of the automatic doors was charred, and behind, they vaguely heard a voice and sounds of water. Looking at the floor covered with the same yellow moss, they understood that, as had been the case in the rest of the building, there had been fire retardant sprayed here too, in the entrance hall.
Hiroto approached the double door.
No movement.
The doors didn’t move an inch, despite the old man standing in front of them.
"No reaction, so, are they blocked?" asked the Japanese, joined by Lafayette who looked at the closed doors.
Seeming puzzled for many seconds, he finally said, "The automatic opening mechanism was probably damaged by the fire."
And having said that, he opened a small metal hatch on the blackened surface.
In a grating noise of rust was revealed an intermingling of electric wires of various colors, many of which seemed to have literally melted and fused together because of the heat.
He began to work on the wires and
connectors. Outside could be heard voices covered by a kind of loud roar.
Red smiled as she watched the agronomist at work, recognizing in him what her adoptive grandfather had always said about him: he was a complete professional; not only was he a good farmer, albeit a high-level one, but in addition, he had an in-depth knowledge of the agro-building.
"I’ve nearly made it," the old engineer exclaimed, smiling at them as he joined two strands he had stripped bare.
Suddenly the double automatic doors opened wide, letting through a strong water jet.
Its pressure forcefully pushed back the little colored man, who began to fall back.
Fortunately, Johnny was fast enough to keep the engineer from falling on the floor, but like him and everyone else, he was drenched from head to toe by the jet of water, the roar of which filled the hall deafeningly.
They uttered exclamations of surprise as they struggled not to be overthrown.
Abruptly the fountain stopped as fast as it had begun.
A heavy silence pervaded everything, and Johnny, soaked to the skin in his kimono, shouted, "What a downpour!"
"Looks like there's someone," they heard someone shout, outside.
Johnny and the other drenched members of the group looked at each other, taken aback.
Then, in the footsteps of the old master, who had started walking towards the open entrance, they hesitated at the open entrance, which they passed, reaching at last the outside world. Comforted, Red said to herself, We’re all here, and we came out alive and unscathed… it's a miracle, I cannot believe it…
They were dazzled by an intense light that made them squint and frown...
... to find firefighters who, awestruck, looked at them with astonishment. They still held a fire hose connected to the only fire truck of the Community, a truck whose headlights dazzled them, since the night was well advanced, now.
Beyond the firefighters and their equipment, the survivors saw a crowd of innocent onlookers, who were staring at them.
And facing this crowd, between her and them, the survivors recognized, seen from behind, Joshua Adams.
He was wearing his flawless white suit, standing behind a desk and facing the audience during his speech.
"... and it is with regret that I must tell you that there are a number of individual deaths, because of this terrible fire..."
The old man stopped talking, to look at an assistant discreetly patting his shoulder, and Adams pouted at him.
Then he finally turned to see, dumbfounded, Red and her friends, who were watching him.
"Shit ..." the old Administrator whispered, pulling himself together, especially since the loudspeakers spread out along the buildings had just screamed out loud this last word.
***
Ascertainment
"Son of a bi...!" Johnny screamed, as many 3D cameras pointed at him, filming him as he left the group of his friends, marching firmly toward the old Administrator.
The latter, who had turned to look at them, took a step back when he saw him approaching so aggressively.
This movement made him hit the back of the desk, from which he had addressed the assembled population.
"What do you dare doing, young man?" Adams asked, raising his open hands to the young black man who was getting closer, a gesture meant to show him that he was unarmed.
"You and your accomplices have tried to get us eaten or burnt, scoundrel!" exclaimed Johnny, now less than a few steps away, as he was going to touch the Administrator.
A punch coming from somewhere hit him in the jaw, making his head turn violently because of the shock.
Johnny coped with the blow and kicked one of the Administrator’s two bearded acolytes who had attacked him. He was the taller one, who was always following the old politician everywhere.
Because of the back kick the brute, despite being heavier and more massive than him, recoiled, surprised.
Leaning forward because of the effects of the pain, the colossus scowled at him.
"What did you dare to say to me, young man?" asked Adams, who, standing at his desk, was mockingly watching the confrontation.
"I spoke my mind, you tried to trap us in the agro-building!" the young man shouted angrily, coming up to his old interlocutor.
The brute suddenly leapt toward him but, well on guard this time, Johnny avoided a big blow by stooping...
... to be hit by a punch in the face from another bearded leather minion, finer than the other one.
Receiving now and then various blows from the Administrator's two henchmen, Johnny began to find himself overwhelmed, trying to retaliate against the two men who both, clearly, had a military background.
A new violent and swift punch from the newcomer almost knocked Johnny out, who suddenly found himself forcibly held by the brute, who was now behind him.
Unable to get rid of the embrace of the colossus, the young man received a roundhouse kick at the lower abdomen, which made him bend in pain.
Held standing by the strong man’s arms, he could not do anything now to protect himself against a new kick, that this time was going to hit one of his temples.
A kick which ended in a vacuum when the thinnest henchman’s supporting leg was hit.
This made it bend and then fall to the ground.
Falling into the dust, the man, anger on his face, realized that it was Hiroto who had just made him fall.
The old Japanese was quietly watching him, with a mixture of coldness and hardness.
The big brute who was holding Johnny violently pushed him, projecting him like a ball on the old master.
The latter dodged easily, while his young pupil fell headlong in the dust, near the other henchman, who was trying to get up.
The big brute shrieked like a wild beast, rushing like a mad bull at Hiroto.
The colossus found nothing but vacuum, just like poor Johnny, who had bitten the dust. A leg well placed on the path of the great man in leather and he ended up losing his balance.
It made him roll and roll as he slumped heavily in the dust.
Hiroto sensed something behind him.
Turning around he intercepted just in time a stab coming from behind.
The Japanese caught and twisted the other henchman’s wrist who was holding a dagger.
The man who had tried to stab him so treacherously nonetheless resisted the pain of the twist... he was obviously used to the pain, which did not prevent him from throwing a punch.
This new attack was intercepted in the same way as the dagger by the old man, who now twisted the two arms of Adams's henchman.
Hiroto dropped the wrists of the man he was facing all at once, stepping back sharply.
Thus, he avoided a kick at his groin by the man wearing dark leather.
Grimacing with pain and rage the henchman leapt, his dagger in his hand, toward the old Japanese who was waiting for him firmly...
... and the hired man then stopped immediately.
He now remained motionless, his head raised.
Beneath his chin, there was the long sword blade of Mei's naginata, which threatened at the slightest of his movements to cause him a fine wound in his throat.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please, calm down!"
It was Joshua Adams’s recognizable and obsequious voice.
A camera, which had filmed the scene, turned to the obese Administrator who, coming down from the small platform in front of his desk, put a white heeled shoe on the dusty floor. This detail was remarked by Red, who, sniffing with disgust, saw the old man put his second foot on the ground.
He walked in a theatrical way towards Johnny, before adding in a softer voice, "Let's get it right, you’re not allowed, young man, to tell such gratuitous accusations of me, or threaten me or some people who are part of the Community’s security staff."
"Your security staff?" exclaimed Red, glaring at him, and then she continued, "These two men are clearly more mercenaries than anything else, and they almost killed my friend Jo
hnny!"
"Let’s not exaggerate, it was just a virile brawl between them and your adoptive grandfather and your friend ... In any case, do not use threats and don’t bring serious charges without evidence, or then I will prosecute you, and trust me, you’ll regret!"
These words silenced Red and her companions, including Johnny, who, standing near her, looked at the Administrator with as much hatred as her.
They said nothing because Adams was known to have a whole cohort of appointed attorneys at his disposal. Many people, in the past, had tried to alert the Community about anomalies occurring around his activities, but they found themselves prosecuted and sentenced to pay damages. And inside the Community, these were not paid with money, but with precious resources necessary for survival.
Sadly, the old man was too powerful to be worried ...
The old man lifted his empty hands toward her, his palms open, as a way of establishing peace, before resuming, "For the moment, the only thing our fellow citizens want to know, is the state of the agro-building, our main food source."
Red and her friends looked at each other in disbelief, not quite understanding what the old politician’s point was... did he want to know the level of damage in the agro-building, or was it just a veiled indictment?
Before any of them could answer, their attention was drawn to firefighters who, the fire hose restarted, were approaching the entrance behind them. The survivors moved aside, so as not to interfere with the security operations.
"So?" Adams asked, with a vaguely patronizing note in his voice.
"So, there was a fire in there, plus an attack of the living dead," said Lafayette, the agricultural engineer, with a dry voice.
"Zombies?" Adams said, expressing astonishment, before resuming, "So, that's where they went! I was told that many of the test subjects of our official physiologist and biologist had escaped the quarantine building, and..."
"You mean Doctor Mengele’s guinea-pigs," said Johnny, seething, having now completely regained consciousness.
Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2 Page 17