by J. L. Harden
Kim was acting weird. It was liked she was a different person. It’s like she had been brainwashed. She was speaking extremely fast, like she had drunk a gallon of coffee. Her eyes were wide, taking everything in.
“And Jack is all right?” Maria asked once again, desperate to be completely sure.
“Trust me,” Kim said. “Jack is safe for the moment. And we are safe for the moment. This inner-sanctum is really the only safe area left. You guys should be breathing a very big sigh of relief. It is a genuine miracle that you made it here.”
She stepped forward and hugged us again. “I’m so glad you’re here. Everything is going to be just fine.”
She kept saying this. She kept reassuring us.
And I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel happy. And I should’ve felt happy. I mean, after not knowing if Kim was OK, or if she was hurt, or even alive, not knowing for so long, we had finally found her. She had sacrificed her body for us. She had literally taken a bullet; put her life on the line for us.
She had survived against all odds.
I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been relieved.
But I wasn’t.
I was afraid.
Something was wrong.
I looked at her arm again. The bullet wound was practically gone.
“Can we talk to the General?” Maria asked. “Do you think he’ll help us?”
“So many questions!” Kim said. “One at a time. Yes and yes. Maybe. Truthfully, I’m not sure when we’ll be able to talk to him. You see, we’ve had a rough time these past couple of weeks. And right now, with the containment failure and the outbreak and the Code Black and the Lockdown, it’s really not the best time.”
“Not the best time?” I said.
“Yeah, well, we’ve lost access to the research facility. It’s overrun. To get in there, we’d need to clear it out. By force. To do that, we’d need to use the General’s best men. And I’m not sure he’d be willing to do that at the moment.”
“What?” I asked. “Why not?”
“There have been a few assassination attempts on the General’s life. As a result, he’s surrounded himself with a squad of Special Forces soldiers. Twenty-four seven guard. Tough bastards. Just look at them. You wouldn’t want to mess with these guys.”
“But we need to do this,” I said. “We could make a goddamn cure.”
“I know. I know. I’ll talk to him. And then you can talk to him. And then you listen to him. Make sure you listen. He wants to help. He’s the only one left who’s fighting this war. He’s the only military commander left. Everyone else has abandoned the cause. Retreated. Wrote Australia off as a loss. But not the General. He will fight until his dying breath. And he will win. It’s just that, with everything going on. The Lockdown. The outbreak. Like I said, he’s not himself at the moment. He’s angrier. At himself mostly,” she pointed up to the hanging bodies. “You see? And sometimes his punishments are severe. But he has to make examples. He has to. It’s what great leaders do. It’s what lions do. And I’m sorry you have to see that. But let me explain. They were soldiers, followers who questioned the authority of the General. He had to do it. But he just needs time to get his mind back. To get focused.”
“Get his mind back?” I said. “And what if he doesn’t? What then? If he can’t help us, if Doctor Hunter can’t help us, then we need to get the hell out of here.”
“Nah, you can’t leave. Not yet. And don’t worry. The General will come good. I mean, he is good. He’s just isolated at the moment. He’s been down here in the dark for three months now, you know? But don’t worry, he’ll come out of his shell. This is good news after all. Maria. You don’t know how important you are. It’s a miracle you’re here. Divine intervention. You. You will bring him back.”
She paused, like she was thinking about something, remembering something. “Let’s go and see him,” she said.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked. “Is he… is he dangerous? Has he gone mad?”
“Mad? No. He’s not mad. Dangerous? Yes. He is dangerous. But that’s a good thing. You need to be dangerous in this world. If you’re not dangerous then you’re weak. You’re as good as dead. But he’s not mad or crazy or anything like that. How could you say that? He chose to stay here. Stay behind when everyone else left. The rest of the military has given up but he will not give up. He will not surrender. He will not be defeated. He is stronger than anyone I have ever met.”
Again, I wanted to believe her.
“Come on,” she said. “We can’t stay out in the open. Let’s go.”
Kim turned and walked back through the soldiers. She looked at one of the men and nodded her head and gave a little signal.
The soldiers then stepped forward and handcuffed us. They even cuffed Ben, who had been weirdly quiet this whole time.
They slipped black hoods over our heads, blindfolding us, taking us prisoner.
My pulse began to race. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go down. “Kim! What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s for your own protection.”
Chapter 35
We were led off the pier. Wooden planks under our feet gave way to dirt, gave way to rock.
“Where are you taking us?” Maria asked. “What’s going on?”
“You have to be quiet,” Kim answered. “This place, it’s like a holy, spiritual place. You can’t talk unless you’re spoken too. It’s a rule.”
I was getting more and more worried about Kim. They had done something to her. I was sure of it. They had changed her. And everything she’d told us about the General and everything that crazy soldier had told us, led me to believe that the General had gone bat crap insane. He had people and corpses strung up from the light posts on the pier for crying out loud. If that’s not madness then I don’t know what is. My only hope at that point was that he would recognize how vitally important Maria was. She was absolutely essential to stopping the spread of the Oz virus and saving the world.
Hopefully he would understand this.
I had already come to terms with the fact that if I survived this meeting, it would be pure luck. But I knew that my life was not really important.
We came to a stop.
“We’re here,” Kim whispered.
Kim removed our hoods.
“I’m sorry we had to tie you up and blind fold you,” she said. “I’m only doing it because he told me to. He’d get angry otherwise. And we don’t want that.”
The soldiers removed Ben and Doctor Hunter’s hoods as well.
They forced them to their knees at gunpoint.
Kim then stood between Maria and me and took us by the hand. She had led us into another cavern. The natural rock formations made this place look like some sort of ancient temple. Then again, it could’ve been the gates to hell.
Military equipment was scattered around the cave. Ammunition caches. Computer monitors and radar or satellite surveillance equipment. The technology was mixed in with the ancient formations of rock. It appeared that the remaining soldiers and the General had moved their equipment here to this cave. Fallen back to this point when the outbreak had occurred. They were hiding here. Hiding from the infected and from death.
At the far end of the cave was an entire wall of monitors. The wall was at least twenty feet high. It was hard to see from where we stood, but they appeared to show black and white surveillance images of the desert. Perhaps these images were from the drone aircraft, I thought.
I noticed the other walls of the cavern were covered in Aboriginal paintings.
Big bright patterns.
Paintings of giant fish. And crocodiles. And snakes.
Behind us, large steel blast doors slowly began closing. Sliding into place. It was then I noticed a group of people were standing at the rear of the cavern. They were covered head to toe in a kind of white paint. They carried spears. A few seconds later I realized they were a tribe of Aboriginals. I had no idea what th
ey were doing in this place.
“Who are these people?” I asked Kim.
“Shh. The General saved them. Took them in.”
Kim then shook her head, telling me not to speak. She had a look of fear in her eyes. She motioned forward with her head to the wall of monitors at the far end of the cave. Sitting behind a desk, in front of these monitors, was a man.
He was staring up at the images of the desert.
Watching.
It was the General.
He then stood and walked towards us. He was a tall man. He had long legs and freakishly long arms. He was wearing military style cargo pants and military boots. He was shirtless. His upper body was covered in stripes of camouflage paint. His whole body was extremely muscular. He was almost as big as Ben. He had short grey hair and a short grey beard. He was old but he appeared to be in the best shape of his life. Like an Olympic weight lifter or gymnast. He was all muscle. Not an ounce of fat. He was an intimidating man. I could immediately see why people were afraid of him. Why he was the undisputed leader of this Fortress.
He knelt down in front of us on one knee. He placed his hand on the rock floor. “This is their land,” he said, referring to the Aboriginal tribe. “And we have destroyed it. But they can save it. They can teach us how to live again. When there is no society, when there is no power of any kind. They will take us in. All the families and children who survive this war. They will look after us and teach us how to live and be free.”
It was at that moment, Ben decided to speak up. Like I said, he had been weirdly quiet since we had arrived at the pier.
I now know why.
He was waiting for his time to confront the General. He was preparing himself mentally. And now he was ready.
Ben had told me earlier, that the General had taken from him. Taken his freedom.
For this, he wanted revenge.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Ben had come to care about the people down here. The other survivors. The other scavengers. And Ben blamed the General for their deaths.
Ben stood, ignoring the rifles pointed at his head. “What do you know about freedom?” he asked.
The General remained kneeling, his head was lowered. “I know more about freedom than most other living souls.”
Ben snapped the chain of his hand cuffs like a piece of string. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about freedom.”
The general stood to meet the challenge. They were eye to eye. “I know that true peace can only be achieved through war and conflict. True peace is suffering. All life, all existence, is suffering.”
The soldiers closed in on Ben but the general waved them back. They obeyed and lowered their rifles.
Ben raised his fists and threw a series of powerful punches at the General. The General took the body blows while protecting his head.
He then countered, grabbing Ben by the neck and throwing him to the ground.
Kim pulled Maria and me away to a safe distance.
“Your anger has given you strength,” the General said. “It has given you strength for a long time. But it is not enough. It will never be enough.”
Ben jumped to his feet and charged. The General stood firm. The two of them grappled and exchanged blows. The General finally got the upper hand. He flipped Ben over onto his back, slamming him down on the rocks.
“Your anger is mistaken,” the General said. “You think I killed your friends? No. I saved your friends. I saved them from starvation. I saved them from infection.”
Ben slowly got to his knees. The General circled him.
“You murdered them!” Ben said. “You slaughtered them all. You condemned everyone. You had no right. No right.”
The General moved quick, too quick for someone of his age. He stomped down on Ben’s head. He launched his boot into Ben’s ribs. Multiple times.
“I earned the right! And now I live with the burden.”
The General jammed his knee down onto Ben’s throat, choking him. He then began to punch Ben in the head and face repeatedly. “This is true strength. This is true power. And you will never know it, you will never taste it.”
I wanted to run over and help, but Kim held me back. It was probably for the best. I would not have stood a chance.
The General towered over Ben and everyone else in the room. His body was covered in sweat, his muscles were straining.
He pointed to his soldiers. “Take him to the labyrinth.”
Ben tried to stand. He was heavily concussed. His face was bleeding, his right eye was swollen and closing over. But he was still ready to fight.
The soldiers stepped forward. They each raised their weapons.
Taser guns.
Ben was tasered at least six or seven times.
He screamed in pain and his body tensed up and convulsed as thousands of volts of electricity shot right through him.
“In the labyrinth,” General Spears said. “You will suffer. There is not a thing on this earth that you fear. But perhaps, down there, you will learn fear.”
And just like that Ben was gone. Tasered and taken away.
Chapter 36
I began to shake. Fear and adrenalin took a firm grip of my whole body.
“I learnt strength a long time ago,” the General said. “I learnt it from the rocks. And the mountains. The old things. I learnt it from these people,” he said, motioning to the tribe of Aboriginals. “A true strength. A man like that could never know what true strength is.”
I wanted to ask him where they were taking Ben. But I couldn’t speak. I was too scared.
“We are miles below the earth’s surface,” he continued. “And yet the indigenous inhabitants of this land found this cave, this cavern. They are nothing more than hunter-gatherers. Nomadic tribes. They are primitive and yet advanced and balanced. They had achieved an equilibrium with this world that can only be described as utopian. When they found this place, long ago, they were scared. They were alone. They were blind. But their fear did not stop them. It did not cripple them. They persisted. And they were rewarded with this, this inner-sanctum. This temple. These cave paintings are over forty thousand years old. They tell a story. The land. The dreamtime. The spirit world. The physical world. Everything in harmony. Everything.”
The General knelt down again. On both knees. On the rocks. He placed his hands in his lap, like he was meditating. He began to breathe deeply.
“No one knew about this place,” he said. “It had been long forgotten. When we built this facility, we had no obligation to tell anyone. No obligation to save it. But who could destroy this? Who in their right mind would destroy this shrine? It is history. A testament to the spirit and the strength of man’s potential. To ignore fear, to persist in the face of absolute darkness. This is what we must do. We are facing absolute darkness and we must endure. We must persist.”
Kim was still standing between Maria and me. She was still holding both of our hands. I think she was doing this to make it absolutely clear that we were with her, that we were not trespassing.
After the General’s speech about the Aboriginal tribe I wanted to speak out, tell him that we had delivered Maria Marsh. She was immune. Stop wasting time. We’re on the same side. Let’s get to work.
I actually opened my mouth.
But Kim squeezed my hand. It was a subtle gesture that told me not to speak out of line.
Weirdly, the General hadn’t looked at us yet. He hadn’t made eye contact.
But he kept talking.
“The original idea and design of this facility came from Albert Einstein. He knew the destructive effects of nuclear war. He knew better than anyone. Nuclear winters. Long term and short term. In every simulation, Australia is spared the worst. Construction began after World War Two. Expanded during the Cold War. This is the result of combined resources. Years and decade’s worth of construction and human endurance.”
He paused. Thinking. He finally looked at us. “Are you soldiers?”
I looked at
Kim. She nodded to say it was all right to speak. “Are we soldiers?” I said. “No? We’re just regular people. We’re just survivors.”
“You look like soldiers. The way you walk, your eyes. Your hands. You can tell. Your shoulders and your neck. Do you know what I mean?”
I had no idea what he meant. And I had no idea what to say. Neither did Maria.
“Where did you take Ben?” I asked.
The General stared at me for a long time.
After a while he said, “He was taken to the prison. He was locked up. Descent will not be tolerated.”
I swallowed some excess saliva. An awkward silence followed.
“The company wants me dead,” he continued. “They have sent people to kill me. Assassins. The so called, Evo Agents.”
“We’re here to help,” I said.
“Evo Agents are supposed to represent the next phase of the evolution of the soldier,” he said, ignoring me. “A super soldier. They have sent them here to kill me. The company and the military have cut me off. I’m no longer part of their plans. Can you believe that? They threw me to the wolves. They sent me down here. And now they’re cutting me off. I should’ve expected it though. I had meetings with the Joint Chiefs. The CIA, the NSA. Spy masters. All of them. And all they do is lie. To each other. To themselves. Lie and deceive. Do you know what it’s like to be in a room full of liars and conmen?”
He lowered his head and took another deep breath. “Which one of you is Maria?”
“I am, sir,” Maria answered quickly.
He pointed his finger at Maria. Again, he stared and stared at her for a long time. It was incredibly unnerving and intimidating. “I want a no bullshit answer,” he said. “Are you immune to the Oz virus?”