by J. L. Harden
No answer from Kim.
“Like I said, there is a prison facility down here,” George says. “Two actually. A military prison and a civilian prison. And I am the warden.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Kim whispers. “I was looking for Jack. I was trying to find him. Trying to find out what prison they put him in, what cell.”
George is typing furiously on the keyboard. “And I’m getting the info. I just need time. The General shut down all the servers.”
Kim throws up again, loud and violent and it honestly sounds like she is dying.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Kim? Why are you so sick?”
She wipes her mouth. “I need medicine. NVX. There is some in the sick bay. I know there is. They were using it. Testing it on the prisoners.”
“Testing on prisoners? What are you saying?”
“Please,” she says, “You need to help me. I can get Jack. I can help find Maria. But I need these meds.”
“What meds?” I ask. “What is it? What the hell is NVX?”
But Kim cannot answer me. She is unconscious. I lean forward and check her pulse. It is rapid. It is so fast and so faint, I can barely feel it.
I turn to George. “What is she talking about? What is NVX?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he says. “It’s an experimental nano-virus. They gave it to her. It cured her. And now she is hooked, she is dependent. Now she needs regular injections, or her body will go into withdrawals. Violent withdrawals.”
“Can they be fatal?”
“Yes.”
Withdrawal symptoms. Just like the Evo Agent who shared our shipping container cell. I realize it’s the same thing. I realize that Kim is experiencing what that soldier experienced and that this whole process does not have a happy ending.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” George says. “But she’s probably not going to make it.”
“What?”
“Look at her. This is bad. I’ve seen this before.”
“You’ve seen it?”
He stops typing. “They experimented on the prisoners here. They would give them injections. They would monitor their symptoms. They would run all sorts of tests on them. Physical tests. Mental tests. Everything. And they would also observe what happened when they stopped the injections. Cold turkey so to speak.”
“They did this here? In this prison? And you let them?”
“Like I had a choice. I might be the warden, but this is a military installation. I follow orders just like everybody else. When the military says they are going to use the prisoners, their own employees, their own soldiers as test subjects, I don’t get a say in the matter. And if I did say something, if I showed even the slightest bit of dissent, I would not be here right now.”
“This place is hell,” I say. “You people are sick. You make me sick.”
“I was following orders! There was nothing I could do. It was going to happen no matter what. And it wasn’t even a bad thing. NVX is supposed to help people. It saved Kim’s life for crying out loud.”
“And the side effects?” I ask, cutting him off.
“They’re manageable. It’s no different from any other drug.”
“No different? Have you seen the nano-virus in the real world? Have you seen a nano-swarm?”
George is silent. He might not have seen one, but he’s definitely heard the horror stories.
“Well, have you seen one?” I ask.
“No.”
“It’s a mechanical plague. They eat everything. And I mean everything. They are programmed to hunt and kill. Search and destroy.”
“It does other things,” George says. “It has to. I mean, it saved Kim. It killed the cancer.”
“Exactly. It killed the cancer.”
“Whatever. I don’t have to listen to you give me a lecture on the moral high ground. This shit, all the stuff that happened down here, it was inevitable. There was no stopping it. We can’t go back in time. We can’t change a thing. We just have to suck it up and deal with it. Stop judging me. I had no say in the matter. I’m the warden for crying out loud. I’m not a doctor. I’m not a research scientist. I’m the guy who makes sure this place is safe and secure for the prisoners. I make sure this place runs as smoothly as possible.”
I am angry and I want to punch George in the face or punch the wall. I want to hit someone or something. But I don’t say a thing and I resist the urge to say… “Well, you did a sucky job of running this place because it’s about as safe as a kiddie sized swimming pool full of great white sharks.
But I don’t say this.
George has a point.
The bad men were going to do bad things no matter what. They were going to do evil, stupid, reckless things. There is nothing we can do to change that.
We just have to suck it up and deal with it.
So that’s what I’m going to do.
I am going to suck it up.
I am going to deal with this.
“Do you know where the sick bay is?” I ask George.
“Yeah.”
“Where is it?
He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “It’s between a rock and a hard place.”
Chapter 6
A rock and a hard place.
Here we go.
Time to risk my life.
For food.
For water.
For medicine.
Not that I care about risking my life. Not for Kim.
It’s a worthwhile cause. As worthwhile as any other.
She was, is, my friend. We had been through hell together. Drifted off into the Pacific Ocean together. And I still feel guilty about leaving her behind in that lonely New Zealand quarantine facility. I know it worked out for the best. But I still feel like I abandoned her. I feel like I could’ve done more.
So I’m going to make it up to her.
I’m going to get her goddamn meds and she’s going to be fine and we’re going to help each other get out of this prison.
“I don’t care if it’s between a rock and a hard place,” I say to George. “Just show me where the sick bay is.”
George is still sitting behind the computer, tapping away on the keyboard. “I’m trying. I need a minute.”
“I don’t know if we have that long.”
My watch starts beeping, reminding me that time is running out. And Kim coughs. And George is tapping on the keyboard. And my heart thumps in my chest. And my watch beeps.
We don’t have time to waste.
The tapping of the keyboard stops.
“Oh no,” George whispers.
“What is it?”
“He’s here. What is he doing here?”
“Who the hell are you talking about?”
George points at the computer screen. “Look.”
I move behind the desk to see what he is pointing at.
It is the man in the gas mask.
The computer screen is showing security camera footage of the corridors, and a few of the interrogation rooms, and a few of the holding cells. George presses a few keys and types in a few commands. He brings the view of the corridor full screen.
The man in the gas mask is walking down the corridor. He drags and scrapes a machete along the walls of the corridor and along the doors of the holding cells.
“Is he outside?” I ask.
George nods.
“Right outside?”
“Yes.”
The man in the gas mask steps to the door. I see his shadow underneath the door frame. I look back at the CCTV footage. He is just standing there. He is just outside. Right outside.
Looking at the door. Looking through the door.
“Can he get in here?” I ask.
“No. It’s locked. Dead locked. Bolted. He can’t get in.”
The man in the gas mask swings his machete and it sticks into the wooden door.
The noise makes me flinch and I take a very large step back, moving away, moving towa
rds the back of the room.
The man in the gas mask then starts carving something into the door.
Another message.
He moves back.
He looks up at the security camera and he points down the corridor.
“What’s he doing?” I ask. “What is he pointing at?”
“I don’t know,” George answers. “I think he’s pointing at the holding cells.”
He continues carving a message into the door frame.
The noise is incredibly loud and unnerving. The scratching of metal on wood. Fingernails on a chalkboard. It’s like the noise is being amplified into the small space of the office. The noise fills the room.
George stands up, knocking his chair over. “I’ll do it! I swear. I just need time!”
The man in the gas mask finishes up his message. He then disappears back down the corridor and moves out of sight. Like a ghost. But he’s not a ghost.
He is real.
He is a real goddamn psychopath.
He is torturing me.
And us.
He is breaking us down mentally and emotionally.
Waiting for us to crack.
Why? What the hell for?
Who the hell is this guy?
George picks up his chair and sits back down. He buries his head in his hands. For a second, I think he is going to break down right then and there and start crying. But he doesn’t. He keeps it together.
He begins typing again, controlling the security camera in the corridor. He zooms in on the door. Zooms in on the message that the man in the gas mask carved with his machete.
The message reads:
I dreamt of freedom,
and about a world on fire.
The old Empires fall.
“He’s crazy,” I say. “Are you sure he can’t get in here?”
“No. He can’t get in. Not unless he gets an axe or something. Or a machine gun.”
This does not make me feel very safe at all.
“What were you talking about?” I ask. “Were you talking to him? What are you going to do? What needs time?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?”
I was about to grill him, cross examine him, interrogate him and get some goddamn answers, but Kim grabs my leg. Her eyes are barely open. Barely focused. She is so pale. Her lips are cracked and caked in black vomit.
“I need my meds,” she whispers. “I need the nano-virus. NVX. I need it. Or I am going to die.”
Chapter 7
Kim passes back out and I’m pretty sure she’s dying.
“Have you seen anything like this?” I ask George.
“Yeah.”
“This bad?”
He nods.
“How long do we have?”
“Not long. Cardiac arrest will soon follow.”
“What?”
“The heart stops.”
“Goddamn it. OK, we need to move. I need to get these meds.”
George shakes his head. “I don’t think there’s time. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
“Don’t say that. We have to try.”
“It’s too risky. And besides, you’ve seen this before. You know how it goes.”
I pause. I didn’t actually see the Evo Agent die. He was taken away by General Spears. He could’ve died from withdrawing from the nano-virus. Or he could’ve been executed.
My money was on death by execution.
“You have seen this, right?” George asks again.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Sort of. We. Maria and I. We were locked up in a shipping container. The General locked us up.”
George shakes his head. “Crazy son of a bitch. Doesn’t surprise me. General Spears had been doing that more and more frequently. He didn’t trust me or anyone else in the prison system. He didn’t want to have anything on file. He didn’t want anything to be recorded on CCTV. He would use the inner sanctum. He would use the shipping containers. Use them to hold people for as long as he wanted to. It was a form of torture.”
“Torture? You don’t say.” And as soon as the words leave my lips I am surprised at the level of sarcasm. I chalk it up to being starving and dehydrated. And you know, actually being tortured.
“For the first few days we were locked up,” I continue. “We shared the shipping container with a soldier. He called himself an Evo Agent. And he was struggling. He was displaying all the same symptoms as Kim is. The black vomit is the most… distinctive one. He told us that they had been given nano-virus injections. And that he needed regular injections. Monthly. Or he’d go into withdrawal. But I don’t know what actually became of him. He was taken away. I’m guessing he was executed. Apparently the Evo Agent had been sent here by the company to kill the General. At least, that’s what General Spears thought.”
“The company?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure what the General meant by that.”
And I think to myself that maybe General Spears was talking about YoshidaCorp. But I don’t know for sure, and there is no way to find out, so I push the thought out of my mind.
“So this soldier, this EVO Agent,” George says, “He was suffering from the same withdrawal symptoms as Kim?”
“Yeah. Exactly the same.”
“Then he was a dead man either way. And I know you don’t want to hear it, but Kim is probably not going to make it. She…”
“You’re right,” I say, cutting him off. “I don’t want to hear it. I know it doesn’t look good for her. I know it’s a long shot. But I’m not going to stand here and do nothing. I’m not going to stand here and watch her die. We can’t leave her behind because I won’t leave her behind. And to be totally honest, if we want any chance of getting out of here alive, we need her. We need her up and functioning and moving. So I’m going to get the NVX and she’s going to make it and she’s going to be fine and that’s all there is to it.”
George nods his head and slowly comes to the understanding that I am going to go through with this with or without his help. “The sick bay is tough to get to,” he says.
“I don’t care. Just show me where it is.”
“And I should stay here,” he adds. “I can guide you. I’ll man the CCTV. I’ll be your eyes and ears.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“I mean, I would go. But I’m better off here. I’m more useful to you if I stay here. Do you know how to work this security system?”
It was a ridiculous question. Of course I had no idea how to work the security system.
“No, of course not,” I say. “It’s fine. You don’t have to make excuses. You don’t have to justify not coming. I’m prepared to do this. I want to do this.”
He moves over to the book shelf and retrieves two walkie-talkies.
He turns one on and a blast of loud static erupts from the small speaker.
“Turn that thing off,” I say.
He doesn’t turn it off, but he does turn the volume way down. “We need these to communicate.”
He handed me one of the radios.
“Won’t this be too loud?” I ask. “The static, the noise will attract the infected in no time.”
He gave me a pair of head phones. “Plug these into the walkie-talkie. That’ll take care of the noise. I'll do the talking. You just listen. Only talk back if you need to. Make sure you whisper. Remember, you can't let them hear you. You can’t let them see you. You need to be invisible.”
And I say, “You don’t need to remind me.”
He grabs the blueprints and rolls them out so they are flat on the table. “These blueprints are online. But since everything was shut down, and the passwords were all changed, I haven’t been able to access anything.”
“Thank god for backups and hard copies,” I say.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
He keeps the blueprints spread out on the table and uses his walkie-talkie as a paper weight to keep them flat. “We are here,” he says, pointing. “The sick bay
is here.”
“Is the sick bay near the interrogation rooms? Is it near that crowd of infected people?”
“It’s relatively close. But it’s completely separated. You should be safe from them.”
“Should?”
“I can’t guarantee it. I told you. Rock and a hard place.”
Great, I think to myself as I begin to freak out. “It’s fine,” I say, playing it cool. “Where’s the NVX stored?”
“So the sick bay is basically a small hospital room,” George says. “There should be about six beds.”
I study the blue prints. We are near the holding cells and the admin offices. Next along are the interrogation rooms. Then the sick bay. Next to the sick bay is a small cafeteria. Each different area is separated by heavy duty security doors.
At the very end of the corridor that contained the holding cells, the corridor that is outside of this very room, is a stairwell that leads down to a double set of security doors. On the other side of the security doors is another long corridor.
It is the access point to the military prison.
I make a mental note that this will probably be our escape route. It is the closest exit point out of this area. The only problem is, I have no idea where it leads to or what is waiting for us down there. The alternative to this option is to get all the way to the subway station. The subway station is the main entry and exit point for this part of the facility. But this is a long way away. And again, we have no idea if the station is overrun. And we have no idea what is lurking in those subway tunnels.
George lays another set of clear blue prints over the existing ones. The clear blue prints show the air vents.
“You need to crawl through the air vents and pass through five junctions,” he says. “Once you are through the fifth junction you should see a grate. You should be able to remove the grate by loosening the screws that hold it in place.”
He hands me a small screw driver.
“This grate should be directly over the sick bay,” he says.
“So all I have to do is open this grate and drop down into the sick bay?”
“Correct.”
“Should I get food or water from the cafeteria?”
“Maybe. If it’s at all possible. But your primary concern should be her meds. I don’t think you’ll have a lot of time to go looking for food or water.”