by D. S. Murphy
“You got the supplies?” I asked. He gave me a deer-in-headlights look for a moment, but then snapped into action and ran upstairs. He came back holding a bundle of dark clothes and a pair of black boots.
“Sorry,” he said, handing them to me. “I haven’t seen you in that dress since high school. Twenty years ago. You can change in the bathroom.”
The clothes fit so perfectly, I wondered if I’d tried them on myself. The form-fitting, dark material was easy to move in. I checked myself in the mirror and froze when I saw my reflection. The smudged lines of mascara beneath my eyes, the red lipstick. I scrubbed off the makeup with a damp rag, then I joined Tracy in the garage. He pulled out his rack of weapons and handed me a briefcase. I put it on the counter and clicked it open. Inside were a pair of pistols, with short tubes around the barrel of each gun.
“Rapid fire pistols with custom silencers,” Tracy said, strapping dual holsters around my waist and fastening the belt. “Each mag holds thirty bullets. Ultra-light, low-recoil.” He showed me how to change the mags from the backups on my belt. I held the guns loosely in my palms, getting used to the weight.
“Sixty bullets is a lot of ammo,” Tracy said. “If you get in a tight spot, just keep firing until you find a place to hide, then reload. Got it?”
I gulped, but nodded my head with determination. Jake needed me. I couldn’t wimp out now.
“Don’t worry,” Tracy said. “I’ve seen you practicing with these, you’re a natural. Just trust your instincts. Oh, one last thing.”
He pulled out a pair of goggles with green lenses. He tapped a button and there was a small whirring noise.
“Night vision,” he said. “It’ll give you an advantage, against the mods at least.”
“What about the fence?” I asked.
“Leave that to me.”
Seven and a half minutes later, Tracy’s black hummer crashed through the perimeter gates at Zamonta in a shower of sparks, and rolled over the debri like a tank. I followed behind closely, running through the newly-fashioned opening. Guards opened fire on the vehicle before it stopped moving, but with my dark clothes, they didn’t see me until it was too late. I dropped one on the third shot, hitting him somewhere in the torso. The silencer kept my pistol quiet, a suppressed whisper, and a thin trail of white smoke curled from the barrel. Tracy shot the other just as he was lifting his rifle towards me. I ducked behind a pile of rubble, looking for other guards, but the parking lot and field in front of the main building were surprisingly empty.
Tracy got out of the hummer slowly and peaked around the side of the vehicle. He flashed me a thumbs-up sign when he saw me and I walked towards him.
“I guess they weren’t expecting us,” I said.
“Well, they probably know we’re here now,” he said. We hurried forward across the pavement and then the tall grass surrounding the building. The lawn looked like it hadn’t been cut in decades. I slowed suddenly when we saw the dark shape bundled near the entrance. As we approached, I realized it was bodies. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw one of them squirm. I recognized Meredith first, gagged and tied to a dozen other fighters from Defiance. I removed her gag while Tracy untied the knots around her wrists.
“Good of you to join us,” she spat. “A little late to the party, though.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We broke in to get the girls back. It didn’t go well.”
“At night?” I asked. She rolled her eyes at me.
“Late afternoon. We were hoping to be halfway back to Defiance by sundown.”
I nodded, but I was barely listening. I scanned the row of bodies as Tracy cut the ropes, looking for a familiar face.
“Where’s Jake?” I asked finally, fearing the response.
“They took him inside,” Meredith said, standing up and brushing herself off. “Said they were going to feed him to the mods, as payback for killing their friend.”
“Wait, there are mods? Inside the building?” My blood ran cold. Tamara said something about Mr. Peters having a private army of them, but I thought she’d been kidding.
Meredith grabbed a wicked looking blade as long as my arm from one of the guards, and spun it around the back of her hand with a flourish.
“Let’s go get him, and finish what we started,” she said, nodding towards the doorway.
I glanced back at Tracy.
“I’ll wait here, with the others,” he said. “Find Jake. Save the girls. That’s what you’re here for right? Just remember what you’re risking.”
I followed Meredith into the building, along with a few of the men that had been captured. A handful of bodies decorated the entranceway—both guards and rebels. Some of Tamara’s forces must have already fought their way inside. I wondered if any of them were still alive. Meredith grabbed a gun from one of the bodies and stuck it in the back of her pants. I saw the men with us do the same before we continued forward.
The main hallway was eerily quiet. The flourescent lights flickered in an uneven strobe, illuminating the grim scene in flashes of light that burned my retinas. Meredith stopped suddenly and cocked her head to the side. As the shuffling footsteps of our group silenced, I could hear screeches deep inside the building. The sound made my skin crawl. How had they gotten in?
“Let’s split up,” she said. “You any good with those?” she asked, pointing her blade towards my pistols. I nodded, even though they still felt clunky in my sweating palms. Meredith motioned for two of the men to go with me, then headed off in the other direction. I felt better with them behind me, even if they were loyal to Tamara.
I moved forward silently, keeping the pistols trained on the patches of darkness. I remembered the basic layout of the building, but now the halls were filled up with tools and supplies. Boxes stacked up against the walls, creating a cavernous maze. We checked each room we passed. One of the men with me had a flashlight. He pointed it into the corners while we covered him. We heard the screeching again, closer this time. Sweat prickled my brow. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and pressed forward.
I recognized the hallway that led to Kyle Peter’s office, and turned down it quickly. Even though it was too small to be hiding Jake or the missing girls, the point of familiarity called me like a beacon. Besides, it might have some clue about who’d taken over after Kyle, or why his death didn’t stop his genetic experiments.
The office smelled like turpentine and sulfur. In the corner were several bubbling vats, with glass beakers and tubes that made it look like a mad scientist’s lair. Unlike the rest of the building, the office was clean and well-maintained. The file cabinet squeaked when I pulled out the drawer. It was crammed full of files and reports, but it looked like math homework way above my level. Whoever used this office was definitely looking for something, but what?
On the way out, a small red frame on the desk caught my eye. My blood ran cold when I took a second glance. It was the picture from winter formal. The one we’d just taken. Chrys and Cody were goofing off, I was smiling shyly and Brett was looking down at me like he was afraid to let me out of his sight. What was this doing here? This was even creepier than the shrine of me at Tracy’s house, or Tom having my picture in the woods. This was personal. Almost intimate.
One of the men cleared his throat behind me. With trembling fingers, I removed the photograph from the frame and crammed it into my pocket. Then I nodded. We backtracked down the hall, then entered a section of the compound I hadn’t been in before. A former cafeteria for staff, from the looks of it. The exterior walls were mostly glass, and long tables had been pushed to the sides to clear the room. Rows of plants blanketed the floor, popping up from hundreds of identical beige flower pots. It was like a giant greenhouse. The plants came up to my waist, bushes with dark green leaves and clusters of purple flowers. Phylia. The earthy, floral scent seemed dangerously out of place. It was too pleasant, too agreeable for this house of death. I felt like I was being lured in deeper by a giant carnivorou
s organism. The branches reached towards me, scratching my arms as I passed.
The screeching was louder here, close by. I sensed a flash of movement in my peripheral vision and spun around, peering blindly into the darkness. I pulled down my night vision goggles and turned them on, then blinked as the dark scene suddenly flared into green light. With my enhanced vision, I could see that the middle of the room was an open courtyard, with glass walls separating it from the inside space.
“Mods!” I shouted, raising my pistols when I saw them. But they weren’t running towards us. As we got closer, I saw that they were cooped up in a narrow cage, inside the inner courtyard. I gasped when I saw the collars they were wearing. Someone was keeping them here, on purpose. Like pets. They screeched, and we were so close now that the sound tore into me like a rusty nail. I reached up to cover my ears with my hands. They were facing away from us, clawing through the bars towards something on the other side of the courtyard.
“They’re just children,” one of the men said, frowning. I looked closer and realized he was right—these mods were smaller than the others I’d seen. I felt sick when I realized what this meant. All mods were created twenty years ago. They’d had time to grow up and reach maturity, in their own way. But these were still young. That meant they’d been created recently. Decades after D-Day. What kind of monster would do that? I tried to see their faces but they were hidden in shadows. I prayed Annabelle wasn’t among them.
We moved to the other side of the room for a better view and I saw that some kind of dark scaffolding had been erected in the courtyard. I gasped when I realized it was supporting a boy with dark brown hair. Soft rays of moonlight from the open ceiling illuminated his face just enough for me to recognize him—Jake, tied to the wooden boards like a sacrificial offering. I searched frantically for a way inside, and had just spotted the glass door on the other side of the courtyard when I heard gunshots. One of the men with me dropped to the ground, a red hole in his forehead. The other darted to the side, then dove behind one of the long tables for cover. Before I had a chance to move, someone grabbed me roughly from behind. I fired off several rounds but I couldn’t get him from this angle. He pulled my arms behind me painfully and ripped the guns from my hands.
“You’re just in time, sweetheart,” Tom’s voice breathed like gravel in my ear. I looked for help behind me, but after a brief exchange of gunfire, my other companion slumped over the front of the table with a red stain on his shirt. Curt sauntered out from behind a pillar, hostering his gun with a smirk.
“Hey Goldilocks,” he said. “Come to watch your boyfriend die?”
Curt picked up a device that looked like a remote control, and looked at Tom with raised eyebrows. When Tom nodded, Curt pointed it at the inner courtyard and pressed a button. The cage popped open, and the mods were free. In seconds, they would rip Jake to shreds, like they’d done to Sam.
I struggled against Tom but his grip only tightened. I huffed with frustration, and pink specs spotted my vision. I tried to blink them away, but the anger in me took control. My blood pumped through my veins with a familiar, yet brand new energy. The pink specs turned into waves, blinding my vision. I closed my eyes and focused on those waves as they crashed into me. Suddenly I remembered a move Meredith had taught me in practice.
I snapped my elbows down sharply, breaking Tom’s grip. Then I jumped and lifted my feet off the ground, pulling him off balance. We tumbled sideways and I dove for my pistol. Tom grabbed my legs and pulled me backwards, wrapping his fingers around my neck. His weight pressed into me painfully, collapsing my lungs.
“The boss didn’t want me to hurt you,” he grunted. “But accidents happen.”
My eyes bulged and I saw spots. My arms flailed out, beating against him weakly as he choked the life out of me. I was going to die here, in the future. Everything I’d done, it was all just a waste of time. Zamonta would win, and civilization would be wiped out. My fingers trailed down Tom’s torso, and I felt something long and hard. Adrenaline surged through me when I realized it was the handle of a hunting knife on his belt. I yanked it out and angled it up towards his body. There was a look of shock on his face as the knife eased into his abdomen. Warm blood spurted out across my hands and arms, as he shuddered and gasped for breath.
I shoved him off me, then rolled sideways towards my pistol, swiping it off the ground. It was a relief to feel the cold metal of the gun in my palm again. I fired a shot wildly towards Curt and saw him duck around the corner. When I looked up again, Jake had managed to get one leg free from his bindings. He gave the closest mod a swift kick to the face that sent it reeling backwards. It shrieked and charged again, raising its meaty hand.
“No!” I shouted, firing towards the glass. The mods flinched at the sound and looked in my direction. I pulled the trigger again and again, hoping to keep their attention on me. The bullets cracked the walls, forming a fractured spiderweb of splintered glass.
“Stop!” Curt yelled. “What are you doing?!”
I kept firing until the glass shattered. Sensing freedom, the mods charged towards us. Curt got off a few rounds before they ripped into him. His screaming echoed in the open space, but I ignored it. Time slowed down as I concentrated on the remaining creatures. Mod after mod dropped as my bullets met their marks. There were so many of them, it was hard to miss. The last one was smaller than the others. She was mostly bald, with clumps of blonde hair stuck to her wrinkled scalp. Unlike the mods I’d seen on the outside, who were covered in ancient scraps of clothing, she was wearing a simple white blouse and pants that almost looked like hospital clothes. If not for her snarl as she lunged at me, and the way her blue eyes practically glowed in the dim light, I’d have thought she was a cancer patient in a children’s ward. I hesitated just long enough for her razor-sharp claws to slash into my forearm. The pain made my muscles contract, and my index finger pulled the trigger before I knew what was happening. Three bullets ripped through her skull, sending a spray of blood out the back of her head. I felt wetness on my cheek and reached up to pull a tiny piece of brain matter from under my eye.
Suddenly I felt light-headed and swayed on my feet. I looked down and saw three deep gashes on my forearm. Blood trickled out of them in streams, staining my boots. I turned my arm, watching the blood flow out of me in stunned surprise. Then I remembered why I was here. Jake. I tore a piece of fabric from one of the fallen mods and wrapped it around my wrist and arm tightly, tying a knot as best I could with my left hand and my teeth. It throbbed painfully, but at least it stopped the blood from dripping.
I stepped through the broken glass towards Jake. His face was swollen from punches and the leg he’d gotten free was so mangled it was practically a chew toy—but he was alive. I untied his arms, then draped his arm around my shoulder for support.
“I was wondering when you would pop up,” he said, flashing me a pained smile.
“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” I said. “You good? There’s something else I have to do.”
He nodded and I set him against the wall, making sure he was stable before turning back into the middle of the room. Tom was laying in a pool of blood, wheezing for air.
“Who are you working for?” I demanded.
“Bite me,” he leered.
I put my boot against his abdomen and pressed slightly. His eyes popped open and he groaned.
“I told you, I work for Mr. Peters.”
“That’s impossible,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because,” I said, leaning closer and lowering my voice to a whisper, “I killed him.”
Tom shuddered again, then his eyes rolled back in his head. He’d lost too much blood already.
“We’ve got to go,” Jake called softly. I glanced back at him and realized how much pain he must be in. I wondered how much damage the mods had done before I stopped them. I supported his weight and together we hurried towards the exit. A whirring sound caught my attention and I looked up to see a
camera pointed at me. I couldn’t help but wonder who was on the other side. If not Kyle, who was still running Zamonta? Who had created the mods? Why was any of this still here?
In the hall I heard footsteps and turned, pointing the gun in front of me. I winced, feeling a sharp pain from the gashes on my arm. Sweat beaded my brow as I tried to keep my hand steady.
“Easy with that, tiger,” Meredith said. She was holding hands with Annabelle, and dozens of kids streamed behind them. Annabelle ran towards Jake and hugged him. He grinned with relief, even though I could tell he was biting his teeth from the pain of his injuries.
Then together, we raced towards the exit. I could almost taste the fresh air when I felt Jake slow down. He was looking towards a desk against the wall. Underneath it was a box that looked familiar—like the ones I’d seen in Defiance.
“Shit,” Jake said. “The bombs.”
“Forget it,” Meredith said. “We have what we came for. Let’s just get out of here.”
“We have to end this,”Jake said. “Or they’ll just regroup and come at us harder. We’ll never get a chance like this again.”
“So how do we turn them on?” I asked.
“We can’t. Not from here. They’re remote triggered. My trigger was taken when I got captured, by that dark-haired guy with the mercs.”
“You mean Tom,” I asked.
“Where is he now?” Meredith asked.
“Downstairs,” I answered. “Dead.”
“At least he’ll be easy to find,” Meredith smirked.
There was a long pause as we all looked towards the door. We were so close to freedom. Jake could barely walk, and the girls would need Meredith in case there were more mods outside the building.
“I’ll go,” I said.
Jake looked like he wanted to object, but he stayed silent.
“It’s a little black device,” he said finally. “With a trigger and an antena.”