Deadlocked 8

by A. R. Wise

  We were on the Administrator’s level, beside where the Dawns were kept. I didn’t come down here often, or at least I didn’t used to. Nowadays it felt like I was stuck in this damn cube-hell, like one of the worker drones that died off when we hit the restart button on society.

  This was where the women managed the Dawns. They monitored everything, and communicated with the girls during their exercises and occasionally in their rooms. The majority of contact between the Dawns and their digital reflections in the morning was done via a link with The Electorate, allowing the women that would eventually be transferred into the Dawns a chance to connect. This was part of the extensive process that was required to facilitate a transfer. Other than that, any contact that the Dawns had were with the women that worked on this floor.

  No detail about the Dawns’ lives was considered insignificant. These were the harbingers of a new age, and the historians of the last. In a way, they were the history books we were writing, and would shepherd the new world order. That’s how it had been planned anyhow. But plans change.

  “What wasn’t?” asked Beatrice with an air of consternation. It was as if she was offended that I dared disagree with her.

  “Showing her the picture,” I said. “Might not have been the best thing. Reminds her about what she lost; what we took from her.”

  “What you took from her,” said Beatrice with an accusatory finger pointed at me. “The fact that you and your thugs have murdered three Dawns in such a short period of time is not something we’re going to forget, Jerald.” She said my name with such spite that it caused one of the Administrators standing nearby to glance away in embarrassment.

  Beatrice wasn’t the only member of The Electorate that was here now. After her capture, we feigned that the transfer facility was operational and brought in a few more members of her caliber, all of whom now resided here. Our original plan had been to use their lives, and their Dawns, as leverage in negotiations with The Electorate. While we were prepared for an all-out attack, we preferred to avoid that. Our goal was immunity from the coming plague, in every way imaginable. We wanted the vaccine to the Tempest Strain, and we wanted assurance that wherever we decided to live would be protected from any future aggression. Beatrice and the other captured Electorate were an insurance policy for us.

  Then we found the body of Audrey Winchell, a member of The Electorate and personal friend of Beatrice who had flown to the transfer facility shortly before the start of winter. Her pilot had landed despite there not being a guard to wave them in. He escorted Audrey to the house, but they were attacked and she was killed. He fled, and escaped to relay the experience to his superiors, setting in motion the collapse of our scheme. The Electorate discovered our deception, and realized that we were feeding them false reports.

  We claimed that the facility was secure, and that there was no possibility that the Tempest Strain had been released, but we soon discovered that wasn’t the case. Infected blood had seeped down into a mine shaft, and something living down there had come in contact with it. The new plague was out, and we were forced to admit the truth to The Electorate.

  Covington and I hoped that The Electorate would work with us now that we’d kidnapped a number of their members, and we were right, to an extent. They had to work with us, but we’d lost our advantage now that the Tempest Strain was out. Despite our best efforts to burn the contaminated area, we were still finding infected animals outside of the initial zone. A particularly harsh winter helped stymie the progress of the disease, killing off some animals while forcing others into hibernation, but now that spring was fast approaching we knew that the disease would sweep the land before the onset of summer. A new growing bloom would color this land, and it would be blood red.

  “Let’s talk about this somewhere else,” I said, attempting to get Beatrice to follow me out of the Administrator’s area. She’d been using one of the stations here to connect with her Dawn, and was taking off the various connectors that attached to her and allowed the computer to transfer her image into movements through the digital recreation of Cobra Dawn on the screen.

  “I don’t have much to speak with you about, Jerald.” Again, she fused my name with a heaping helping of spite.

  “I think we should consider what she asked for.”

  “Let me handle Cobra,” said Beatrice with barely a glance of regard in my direction. “I know her better than you or anyone else here. I’ll dangle the picture as a prize, and she’ll do as we ask. I promise.”

  “I’m not talking about the picture. I’m talking about letting another Dawn meet with her.”

  That got her attention. Her brow furrowed as she stared up at me. “Are you daft? The last thing we need to do is put a potential victim in that room with her. What if she takes the girl hostage, or threatens to hurt her?”

  “She won’t. She doesn’t hate the other girls. She hates you.” I said, relishing the fact.

  Beatrice ripped off the second glove and tossed it into her empty chair after standing. She walked away from me, and I grabbed her arm to pull her back.

  “Let me go,” she said as if being assaulted.

  “We’ve got a meeting with General Covington.”

  “No we don’t,” said Beatrice as she tugged her arm free of my grip. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, we do. He wants to talk about Levon, and how long before he’s useless to us.”

  “Useless?” asked Beatrice.

  I redefined my meaning, “Before he dies.”

  This upset her, and I knew it would. For some unfathomable reason, she cared for the man. Or at least she wanted us to think she did. The only thing you could trust about Beatrice Dell was that you couldn’t trust her.

  “Do you think he’s reaching his expiration date?”

  Her choice of words seemed purposefully distant, as if she were trying to convince me that he didn’t matter to her any more than a jug of old milk. It amused me to hear her use such terms; a reminder that her fancy life on that island far off was so dramatically different than the wasteland where I’d suffered these past twenty years. Perhaps she meant for me to feel that sting; a barb to assure me of her continued dominance. I grit my teeth and forced a smile as I nodded.

  “Won’t be long, babe. The LiMM chair can usually kill off the virus, but they keep finding more in him. It’s like his body’s recreating it somehow. And with the levels of poison they’re pumping into him, he can’t last.”

  “He’s tougher than you think,” she said, casting off my concern as if she knew more about a man’s limits than I ever could. Me, a man who’d spent his life fighting one war after another, and had played an integral part in the apocalypse The Electorate had designed. Did she really think she knew more than I did about a man’s will to survive?

  “His body’s falling apart. His joints are already wearing thin. He can barely walk. His white blood cell count is falling. His…”

  “Yes, yes,” said Beatrice as she swiped at the air, shooing me away as if I were merely a fly. “I know all that. There’s more to a man than diagnostics. He’s got some fight left in him.”

  “We’re going to need to infect someone else, and he’s got the only chair here.”

  Beatrice stopped and regarded me as if suddenly prompted to account my worth. “I’m sorry. Are you the one in charge? Are you who will make the decision about who lives and who dies?” She scoffed and turned away, inciting my anger. “I think not.”

  “Come on,” I said louder than I meant to. She had a deft ability to inspire hatred and anger in me that set me closer to the edge than I liked to be. I’d never met a woman more infuriating than Beatrice Dell. “Let’s go see General Covington.”

  “Tell Richard I’m tired,” said Beatrice, acting as if I was asking rather than telling her to come along. “I’ll meet with him in the morning.”

  “This isn’t up for debate, babe,” I was trying to belittle her with the epithet, but I wasn’t as good at pushing her but
tons as she was at pushing mine.

  “Everything’s up for debate, Jerald. Or at least you’d best hope it is. You and your friend are skating on mighty thin ice. Don’t assume you’ve got the upper hand here, because I assure you, you don’t.” Her head wobbled as she wagged her finger at me, like the reproach of a schoolmarm.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” I asked with a jovial tone, as if I was delighted by her antagonism. “If anyone’s on thin ice, it’s you and your idiot friends.”

  Beatrice’s expression turned sympathetic and she moaned as if in sorrow. “I’m sorry, Jerald. I imagine it must be hard for you now that you’ve fallen out of favor. To have stood so high on a pedestal you never knew was rotting beneath you…” She shook her head and made a ‘tsk tsk tsk’ noise before continuing, “You’re barely more than a grunt now, but you just don’t see it, do you?”

  “Don’t try to play me,” I said, doing my best not to give in to the rage she was trying to incite. “Just because Covington’s working with you doesn’t mean he’s given up. We’ve been planning this for years, darling. We’re not going down without a fight.”

  “Who exactly do you think you’re fighting with?” asked Beatrice. She shook her head in disgust and then walked past me as she muttered, “Idiot.” She went to the door and then said, “Come on then. If Richard is so anxious to speak to me, then let’s get it over with. I’m tired and I haven’t had anything to eat in hours. I’m positively famished. Come on, then. Let’s go.”

  Somehow she’d managed to turn the situation around and command me to follow her, as if I were the one delaying here. I bit my lower lip in frustration, and then issued a sharp laugh as I shook my head. There was a wealth of curses I wanted to spew, but I held my tongue and escorted the old bitch through the facility and to the elevator that would take us to the floor where Covington’s chamber was.

  Beatrice continued to chastise me, but I ignored her as best I could. We entered the airlock that preceded Covington’s chamber, and the hiss that escaped the walls silenced Beatrice for a brief moment. The round door of the chamber swiveled open and I made my way thankfully inside.

  Richard was in his chair, an imposing structure that encompassed much of the center of the room. The machines that kept him alive and free of pain were blinking rapidly, as they always did, but he’d silenced their alarms long ago. He wasn’t in danger of dying. Every precaution had been taken to ensure his immortality, and the fluids that flowed in and out of him through the tubes at his side did their part in keeping him as vital as his scarred shell would allow. There was no one I trusted more to keep me alive than this man. He’d certainly done a hell of a job ensuring his own survival.

  “Beatrice, good,” he said, his voice stilted by phlegm. He coughed and white strands of fluid exploded out of his mouth and over his lip, descending his chin before he caught it and wiped it away. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “Richard,” she said with a nod.

  The fact that she addressed the General by his first name was purposefully antagonizing and caused me to tense, but Covington remained unperturbed.

  “How did your meeting with Levon go today?” Covington sat forward and his scaly black skin scratched on the fabric seat. His thin clothes stretched at his neck and he pulled the elastic to make himself more comfortable. I could see how the collar had reddened his throat, and I stepped forward to assist. He waved me away and insisted that he was okay before returning his attention to Beatrice.

  “About as well as always,” she said. “I suspect he still thinks you’re watching him. He still doesn’t trust that the cameras are shut off when we meet. I’m never going to get him to open up to me until he’s sure he’s speaking in anonymity. You can’t blame him for that.”

  Richard nodded, but offered no other response.

  I felt compelled to add a thought, “If we’re so desperate to find out where his friends are, we could torture it out of him.”

  Beatrice gasped with a combination of annoyance and disgust, but I didn’t care what she thought of my tactics. Covington was the only person I reported to, and the only one that mattered.

  Unfortunately, he seemed to share Beatrice’s disdain for my methods. “No, Jerald. No. He’s too important to risk that on, and too close to dead as it is. I don’t have any doubt that he’d be happy to die before telling us a damn thing.”

  “Has The Electorate’s stance changed at all?” asked Beatrice.

  “Not yet,” said Covington.

  “Assholes.” I couldn’t help but snarl as I said it.

  Covington shifted in his seat and then shook his head. “No. They’re being smart.”

  I was stunned. “Smart?”

  “Yes, Jerald.” An edge of annoyance was apparent in his response. “They’re being smart. They’ve got the upper hand here.”

  “You’re not seriously considering their offer,” I said, hoping that he wouldn’t say that he was.

  “Ideally not,” said Covington. “But we need to be realistic here. This area’s about to be swarmed with infected, and we’re going to be woefully underprepared for it. We can’t leave, and if we stay we’ll run out of supplies in a matter of months. If you’ve got any suggestions, I’d be happy to entertain them.”

  I was dumbfounded and underprepared as Covington and Beatrice stared my way. I stuttered as I answered, “We could… We should think about… Why not evacuate some of the men? Tell them what’s happening and send them west, over the mountains.”

  “No,” said Covington fast, as if this was an option he was tired of shooting down. “There would be panic. It’s took risky.”

  “Risky? How is The Electorate’s plan any safer?”

  Beatrice took the opportunity to side with Covington, making me their adversary, “It’s safer because we can keep Richard, the Dawns, and The Electorate alive. That’s what you need to focus on, Jerald. You need to stop fighting us on this.”

  “I’m not going to stop fighting for the lives of my men,” I said in exasperation. “General, that’s the whole reason we started this. That’s the whole reason we fought against The Electorate’s plan.”

  “I know that, Jerald,” said Covington, showing signs of weariness. “Believe me, if we could’ve had it any other way…” He took a deep breath and the machines that sat beside him fluttered like an old world Christmas display. “The simple fact is, either we develop a vaccine or we have to cut loose the majority of our crew. But we have to keep things running smoothly as long as possible before we do it. No one can know what’s coming. They can’t be told about the infection. Business as usual.”

  “But we’re going to halt patrols, right?” I asked in hope that they would allow at least that.

  “No, of course not,” said Beatrice before she looked over at Covington in search of approval. “You should cycle them longer, of course, but don’t pull them entirely. If you do, they’ll wonder why. No. Continue sending them out, search for Levon’s friends, and bring anyone you find back here. That’s the best chance we have of finding them.”

  “But then we risk them bringing back the infection,” I said. “And it won’t take long before one of them spots an infected animal. If that happens, then all bets are off.”

  “You must be scanning the groups before they return already, right?” asked Beatrice.

  “Yes,” I said, although it felt like I was being backed into a corner.

  “And they file a report, right?” Her demeaning line of questioning struck at my anger as if it were a taut piano wire stretched thin inside of me.

  “Yes.”

  “Then if they report any strange sightings you can terminate them.” She snickered as she looked at Covington and added, “It’s really quite simple, Jerald.”

  “It’s simple?” My voice thundered in Covington’s chamber and I realized that her slow, steady attack had finally worn me down. I struggled to calm down as I asked, “It’s simple to kill men that have pledged their lives to me?”
<
br />   Her response was as cold and calculating as a snake in a biblical tale, “It’s simple if you focus on the endgame, Mr. Scott.”

  Her use of my surname was as demeaning as any other time she’d addressed me. This time, instead of using my first name, she used my last without addressing me with military formality, as if accentuating the loss of any rank I’d formerly enjoyed. I clenched my fist, but avoided any actual physical retaliation.

  “The endgame?” I spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, Jerald,” said Covington in agreement with the bitch. “Our survival. We gambled, and while we haven’t lost yet, we need to prepare for that possibility. If we do as The Electorate asks, within a year we won’t just be alive, we’ll be alive in paradise, safe from this hell.”

  Beatrice stood beside him, her arm draped around the back of his chair as the crippled, shriveled, burned man sat arched and feeble, his fingers trembling from the exhaustion of merely speaking to us. The snake was winning.

  “Unless we find that kid, or the assassin. Right?”

  “Even then,” said Beatrice, “we’re running out of time. If I were you, I’d get out in the field myself and see what I could dig up.”

  “If you were me?” I asked with a chortle and a nod. I could feel my cheeks and ears burning red.

  She smiled as she nodded, and she never looked more wicked.

  “General, can I speak with you in private?” I asked.

  He only took a moment to consider the request before saying, “Not now, Jerald, please. I’m tired. I need to rest a while.”

  “Come on, Jerald,” said Beatrice as she walked towards me. “Let’s leave Richard be.” She tried to take my arm, but I pulled away. She went to the door and activated it, causing the spiral to swivel open and then she offered the yawning corridor beyond like some elderly model on a game show. I stormed past.

  9 – Unlikely Partners