by Kyle Andrews
The moment of departure grew nearer and nearer, and Libby's palms began to sweat. Everything in her body was telling her that she couldn't do this. She was convinced that she was going to die, but there was no going back. She had no choice but to force those fears and doubts into the back of her mind.
Her goodbye to Rose and joining the rest of her team at the car was all a blur to her. She was sure that Rose must have said something reassuring as they parted ways, but those words were only half-heard and quickly forgotten.
Once she left the Garden, there was no turning back. Now in the middle of the situation, something changed inside of Libby. Her nerves were gone, and while she was convinced that this would be her last night on Earth, at least she didn't feel like throwing up anymore. Her perspective had changed entirely. If she died, she died.
And even if she did die, it would be worth it. She needed to see what was so important to the authorities. She wanted to know what Uly knew in those last moments of his life. Libby had watched him die a hundred times, starting with the moment it happened right in front of her, and then repeating over and over again on TV and in her dreams.
She saw his death and reacted to it in slightly different ways each time, but what she hadn't even considered, until she was walking out of the Garden that night, was that he didn't scream or beg for his life. He was scared, but there was something bigger about that moment, which she couldn't understand. Something he knew that she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried. She needed to find out what that was.
Beyond knowing why Uly died and finding out what the authorities didn't want her to know, Libby had another reason for wanting to find answers. She needed to know that saving her life instead of Collin Powers' was the right call. To know that those people who looked at her with disdain were wrong. She needed to know that the information was worth it, even if she wasn't. His blood was on her hands. She needed a reason why.
As much as she would have loved an entire team of soldiers by her side, ready to shoot their way out of the hospital if necessary, she only had two people. One of them, Simon, was a tech person whose job it was to copy whatever they found onto a flash drive, for further study at a later date. The other man was named Leo. Apparently, he had studied the blueprints of the hospital and knew how to get in and out.
Leo had the look of an officer. Whether he looked more like HAND or police, Libby wasn't really sure. His face didn't reveal much about whatever he was thinking, and he was not a man of many words. Honestly, Libby was pretty sure that he didn't like her very much. He was undoubtedly one of the many Freedom members who would have rather had Collin Powers rescued than her, and now he was in charge of making sure that she didn't have her head blown off, the same way that Uly did.
At the end of the day, it would always come back to Libby being in charge of her own safety. She couldn't depend on anyone to care one way or the other whether she lived or died. To them, she was probably only as important as the flash drive that Simon was carrying. Once they had what they needed, there was a chance that they would leave her stranded and alone. She had to be aware of that possibility. She had to plan for it. The problem was, she was out of her league, and planning wasn't really an option.
Once they'd left the Garden and made their way through the maze of tunnels and hidden passages which led back to the street, Libby took a deep breath of the cool night air. She had been waiting to feel that air on her skin and in her lungs for so long that the reality couldn't have possibly lived up to her imagination. Nothing was over. There was no relief. All she found outside was an old, rusted car, waiting to take them to the hospital.
The drive through the city was strange. Libby had been away from everything she knew for a month, but it felt like a lifetime. The streets she knew looked even more worn down than she remembered. The people looked more broken. Some of them looked like hollow shells, wandering down the sidewalk like zombies.
Maybe she'd seen it before, but she had never truly been willing to see the world for what it was. Or maybe it was because she was off of her supplements and wasn't looking at the world through a medicated haze for the first time in her life. Whatever the reason, it was like a switch had been flipped in her head, and every cracked window was a personal insult.
They came to a stop light and Libby looked down an alley where she saw the shape of a young boy, maybe thirteen years old, scribbling on the wall. As a car passed from the opposite direction, his scribblings were revealed. Two words, written in bold blue letters: FREEDOM PREVAILS.
For some reason, a smile formed on Libby's lips when she saw those words. She felt a tightness in her chest that wasn't painful or alarming. It was something she'd never felt before and she didn't know what name to put to it. The closest she could think of was 'pride.'
But pride in what? This wasn't her cause. She hadn't done anything special. She was just a girl who stumbled into a battle that she never even noticed being fought right outside her front door, every day of her life.
At the very least, the boy's words gave her hope, which she desperately needed. This night was about going back to the place where Uly died, and the closer they got to that place, the more vivid the memory of his death became in her head. The blood. The screams. Even worse, the cheers.
The graffiti reminded Libby of Uly, and the words that he had painted on the wall of another alley. Words which she once thought of as an ugly betrayal: 'WE ARE FREEDOM'. She had hated him for it. Now she was amazed that he'd had the nerve. If anyone caught him, he could have been killed. He knew it, yet he did it anyway. And when he died, he remained proud of his cause.
Libby wasn't quite there yet. She was new and she didn't have any right to feel proud or brave. What she did have was a chance to make things right with Uly, the only way she knew how at this point.
By the time they reached the hospital, Libby was ready. Whatever they told her to do, she would do. Whatever she had to give, she would give.
The van pulled around to the side of the building. In the past, there was a parking garage beneath the hospital, but like most parking garages, most of that space had been turned into extra offices or storage. According to the blueprints, there were still two levels accessible by car, for deliveries and VIP emergencies, but there was a gate which would prevent any unauthorized vehicles from entering the garage.
The car stopped in a spot where little light was shining and nobody would see the faces of those getting out. It quickly pulled away once Libby, Simon and Leo were out and on their way.
In the shadows, Libby could hear people laughing, moaning, or mumbling to each other. She didn't know who they were or what they were saying, and she never found out before Leo put a hand on her shoulder and urged her to walk.
“This isn't the place you want to stand around. Secret mission or not,” he told her in a hushed voice as they made their way through the darkness, toward a door that would lead them around the parking garage gate.
The door was made of heavy metal, rusted in many spots. It had an electric key code lock, which would have made Libby turn around if she were on her own. Even picking a good old fashioned deadbolt would be impossible for her. But she imagined that Simon had tricks up his sleeve when it came to cracking the code on an electronic lock. She expected him to pry off the lock casing and then connect his old—highly modified—smartphone to the lock with a couple of wires that would clip on effortlessly. Then maybe he would use a specially designed app to crack the code and grant them access.
Instead, he just punched in the code and opened the door. As he held it open for Libby, he shrugged at her. It was as though he knew that she was expecting more and he was sorry to disappoint.
The inside of the parking garage was dark, lit only by a few dim emergency lights on the walls. The brighter lights would undoubtedly be turned on if a VIP were coming into the hospital, but the garage was locked for the night. The darkness was just fine with Libby. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to see the three of them sneakin
g in.
“This way,” Leo said to her and Simon as he led the way.
As they walked, Libby moved close to Simon and asked, “You knew the code? Does that mean that you have people on the inside?”
Simon looked at her and just smiled diplomatically. They obviously did have hospital employees on their side, but he was not going to give her any information that might be revealed to HAND if she were captured.
It was nice to know that Aaron was planning ahead, ordering people not to tell her too much, as though it were a foregone conclusion that she was going to be tortured.
She wanted to get angry about that. She would have loved to be able to rip into poor Simon or Aaron, but the truth was that it made sense. She expected to be captured or killed herself, so why should anyone else think any differently?
“So, did he order you to just not tell me any of the vital information, or to avoid talking to me entirely?” she asked Simon.
“Sorry,” he said, nervously. “I'm not a very social person. Especially when I'm nervous.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I think it's just me that people want to kill,” she joked.
With a chuckle, Simon said, “That actually does make me feel a little bit better.”
“Glad I could help.”
In the car, Libby couldn't tell how short Simon was. Having spent most of her time around men like Sim, Uly and Justin, she was used to having guys tower over her. Simon was a little bit shorter than she was. He didn't look fragile or sickly, but he was thin. His dirty-blond hair was cut short, possibly to hide a receding hairline, and he had a beard that was trimmed to the same length.
He wore glasses as well, which made,Libby start to wonder if the beard and glasses were meant to hide his face from the cameras. Was Simon a wanted man? It would make sense, since anyone who chose not to accept their assignment from the government was technically breaking the law.
They reached an old elevator and Leo stopped. He pressed the button to call the car, but the elevator wasn't working. He seemed to have expected that result, and quickly moved toward a nearby door, saying, “Stairs it is.”
He opened the door to the stairwell and looked inside before gesturing for Libby and Simon to enter before him. He then closed the door gently behind him and led the way as they climbed upward.
Over the previous month, Libby had come to hate stairwells. She felt trapped in them, expecting people to attack her from both sides, but she had to push those feelings aside. There was no other choice.
This stairwell was only slightly more well lit than the garage. Libby put her hand on the rail as they climbed, but it moved under her touch, making her feel even more unstable than she did without holding on.
There were two nurses, smoking cigarettes and talking with each other as Libby's team reached the second floor. They were resting their feet and trying to shut out their work for as long as they possibly could, making smalltalk about TV shows. When Leo approached them, Libby expected questions and calls for security, but the two nurses simply moved their legs so that the group could slip by. They didn't think twice about the three people who were making their way up from the parking garage—probably because this was the second floor and they didn't know anything about the group coming from the garage. As far as they knew, Libby and the others had just come from the first floor, same as anyone else.
She had to relax. She needed to stop anticipating the fight ahead and focus on what was happening right in front of her, because at the moment, Libby was her own worst enemy. Her worried expression could have been the very thing that drew attention to her.
She kept her head down. No matter how much work Rose had put into Libby's new look, the best way to avoid being recognized by the cameras was to avoid being seen by the cameras in the first place. Plus, by keeping her head down, she was avoiding eye contact with anyone. She could remain in her own bubble, shutting out some of the world around her.
They left the stairwell and walked into a hallway, which was even more packed with patients than the last time she was in the hospital, with her mother and Uly. People were on gurneys in the hallway. Others were sleeping on the floor, or in folding chairs. This was the flu that was going around. Everyone in the city seemed to be getting it. The news was playing it off as a thwarted epidemic, but they were lying. This was worse than Libby ever expected. She couldn't help but stop and stare at the seemingly endless number of patients that were waiting to be treated.
Leo put his hand on her arm and said, “This way.”
They walked down the hall, toward the profiling room. As they went, Libby looked from person to person. Most of them had masks covering the lower halves of their faces, but Libby studied their eyes carefully, looking for anyone familiar. Looking for Amanda.
Simon tapped her shoulder. When Libby turned around, he handed her a mask, just like the masks that everyone else was wearing. It was smart. A simple way to avoid being recognized while blending in perfectly.
As Libby put the mask on her face, someone bumped into her by mistake and quickly offered an, “I'm sorry.”
When she recovered her balance, Libby turned and found herself face to face with Zuxu—the hospital case worker whom Libby had met on the day her mother was diagnosed with cancer and her cousin was shot dead. She was the one who sent Libby and Uly to be scanned in the first place. She was the one who assured Libby that her mother would be taken care of.
Seeing Zuxu made Libby freeze. She felt as though the game was over and she would be recognized for sure, but of course Zuxu wouldn't recognize her with the mask on. Even without the mask, she would probably not remember Libby.
That woman might have known where Amanda was. She could have had the answer to a question that Libby had been asking herself every day for a month, and rather than ask her that question, Libby had to keep walking. She had to sacrifice that chance for answers, for the greater good—whatever that meant.
She followed Leo down the hall, with Simon following closely behind her. Undoubtedly, they'd been instructed to keep her in their sights and not let her wander off. It was comforting in a way, to know that she wouldn't vanish into the crowd of sick people, never to be heard from again. It was nice to know that someone was watching her back.
She recognized the nurse's station where she last saw Uly. The last time she saw that station, she and Uly were the only ones in the area, waiting for a nurse to come back. Now, it was surrounded by sick patients, waiting for someone to take care of them. She kept her eyes on the spot where she had last seen Uly, replaying their fight in her mind. Libby walked away mad that day, and Uly died thinking that she hated him.
The sad part was, she did hate him. At least, in that moment. Now she just wished that she could go back and listen when he tried to speak to her. She should have given him a chance.
Not far from the nurse's station was the profiling room. Leo stopped walking just before they reached the door and turned to face Libby. When she met his eyes, her mind was brought back to the present, and the mission at hand.
“Talk to me so it doesn't look like I'm casing the place,” he told her.
“Talk about what?” she asked.
“Doesn't matter. Just talk.”
“This place gives me the creeps. All these sick people,” she said, looking around once again. “Are they going to die?”
“It's possible. There's not enough medication to go around.”
“How will the hospital decide who gets it and who doesn't?”
Leo cocked his head slightly and said, “I guess they'll try to decide who's most valuable to society. Old people will die. Maybe the very young. Anyone disabled.”
“Maybe I shouldn't have asked,” Libby replied, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach.
“It's clear. Let's go,” Leo said, as though he hadn't even been listening the conversation that he'd been taking part in. He turned toward the profiling room and opened the door.
Libby entered the room first. It was dark, s
o she couldn't see very much, but as soon as the others were inside, Simon turned on the light and Libby's heart sank.
The room was empty.
10
She pulled the mask off of her face, hoping that it would make it easier to breathe, but she still felt as though there was a heavy weight on her chest.
“It was here,” Libby said, to herself more than to the others. She'd never actually been in that room or seen the equipment, but its absence still struck her like a slap to the face. “This was the room that they wanted us in. This is where the equipment is supposed to be. I'm sure of it.”
Leo and Simon were walking around the room, looking in cabinets. They didn't find anything. On the walls, Libby could see monitor mounts still in place, without any monitors attached. She knew that this was the room where the profiling scanner was supposed to be, but it was gone. She had no clue what they were supposed to do next.
She turned to Leo and waited for him to tell her what to do. Simon appeared to be doing the same thing, but Leo's face was like stone. Libby couldn't read his emotions at all. She couldn't even tell if he was thinking up a new plan or if he was waiting for someone else to come up with an idea.
At long last, Leo walked to the door and looked through its small window, into the hall. He stood there, watching for a minute or two before saying, “This isn't good.”
Libby's eyes went to Simon, trying to tell if that was the most uselessly obvious statement ever spoken, or if she was missing something. It was a relief to see a look of disbelief wash over Simon's face.
Simon took a deep breath and asked Leo, “What do we do?”
Still looking through the window, Leo said, “Wait here.”
He then opened the door and slipped out of the room turning off the light as he went.
Simon found a metal folding chair and sat down, while Libby walked to the door and looked through the window.
“You should stay back. You don't want to be seen,” Simon warned her.