“Sullivan’s,” Zander said, lacing our fingers together.
“Right. So anyways, the lights started going all kinds of crazy and there was this big flash of white outside. Then everything just went dark. At first, everyone thought it was just a blackout, you know, on accounta’ the flare and all? But then it started gettin’ real hot, real fast,” Ty said, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Yeah, that part we know,” Jake muttered, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.
“That must have been scary,” Riley said, touching his arm.
“Nah, I mean, at least I wasn’t alone like some folks, ya know? It was me and about ten other people and we all took shelter in one of them giant freezers— right alongside the fish sticks and chicken nuggets.” Ty scrunched up his nose. “I tell ya what, that stuff starts to smell real bad when it gets to thawin’ out.”
“I bet,” Christa said, a little too cheerfully.
“Anyhow, once the backup generator went, people lost their cool, no pun intended, and got to bickerin’. Pretty soon ‘bout half our group decided they was gonna make a go at it. We tried to talk’m outta goin’ but they was determined. They busted down the freezer door and—” Ty’s voice hitched. He cleared his throat several times before he spoke again. “Anyways, we were in a real bad way when them army guys showed up, so when they rode on up in there with promises of fresh water, food, and medicine, we thought we was saved.
“Next thing I know, we are bein’ herded into that hospital like cattle and scanned, poked, and just generally roughed up. They said they had to make sure we wasn’t infected; that we were clean, or whatever. Then this dude in a white coat hands me a peanut butter sandwich, a juice box, and a freakin’ wetnap, and they throw me flat on my ass into one of them rooms.”
“And that’s how we met,” Christa giggled, appearing at Ty’s side. She wrapped her little arms around his thick bicep and hugged him. “I was starving and Ty shared his sandwich with me.”
“Wasn’t nothing, sweets,” Ty said, patting her head adoringly. “Hell, the poor thing was nuttin’ but skin and bones. Looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.”
“Yeah, maybe because I hadn’t,” Christa said bitterly. “Those stupid army a-holes locked us up and threw away the key. They’re all, oh here’s a sandwich and a baby wipe. Have a nice life. It was…it was bullshit.”
“Jesus, Christa!” Jake scolded her but I had a hard time not laughing.
“What?” she said, jutting her chin out. “It’s pretty much the end of the stupid world, Jake, so it basically doesn’t matter if I say a bad word at this point. What are you gonna do, tell Mom? Good luck with that one. You kinda have to find her first.”
“Come on now, darlin’,” Ty said, chucking Christa’s impetuous chin. “I know you are worried about your mama, but your brother’s right. A pretty lady like you shouldn’t say such ugly words.”
“M’kay,” Christa blushed, hiding her face behind a curtain of blond curls.
“Ugh,” Jake groaned, rolling his eyes. “Moving on.”
“What I don’t get,” I said, turning on him with fire in my eyes, “is how exactly you two jackasses managed to get caught in the first place, when you were just supposed to be doing surveillance. For that matter, how the hell did you manage to get out of there?”
“She called you a jackass,” Christa laughed. “I like her.”
“We watched them for a long time, Liv, but what we figured out was that the only way we were going to get in there in one piece, was to let ourselves get caught,” Jake ducked closer to Falisha. “So, that’s what we did. We pretended to be lost and let them round us up with the others. They did their poking and prodding and then the idiots went and threw us in the same room as these two. We just got lucky, that’s all.”
“Luck, my left boot strap,” Ty said, his dimples lighting up his face. “Your man, Jake, is a down-right genius. That’s what happened. Hell, he wasn’t in there but three minutes before he starts to work on gettin’ us outta there. He grabbed up a whole slew of chemicals and what-not, and starts mixing them together, mad-scientist style— little of this, pinch of that, and ka-boom, we got us an emergency exit.”
“It was pretty awesome,” Falisha said, putting her arm around Jake. “Little man blew the door right off its hinges and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, either.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Because right as Jakes little ghetto grenade goes off, there’s this huge explosion outside,” Falisha said. “After that, we just took advantage of the chaos and slipped out one of the back stairwells. Couple houses down, we find some old bikes hanging in the garage and rode the rims all the way here.”
“Which sucked, by the way,” Christa said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes as she hopped back onto the desk. “And pretty much took forever.”
“Why are you complaining?” Jake said. “You rode pegs the whole way like some kind of princess.”
“Ha! If one of us is a princess, Jake, it’s—.” Christa began.
“Enough, you two,” I said, cutting the argument short.
“I hate to interrupt this glorious episode of family feud,” Eli interrupted. “But perhaps this would be a good time to get everyone’s wounds taken care of?”
“Probably not a bad idea,” I said, gesturing for everyone to follow me back. “Eli, Zander, you guys are up first. The rest of you, I will need some help getting the minor injuries cleaned and dressed.”
For the next hour, I buzzed around the operating suite removing shrapnel and debris from wounds, applying dressings, dosing out antibiotics and absently listening as everyone recounted the adventures that had brought us all back together. Riley’s newer injuries had been superficial, so aside from a nasty headache, the old knee scrapes, and her head-butt injury, she was in pretty good shape relatively speaking. After a quick once-over, she and Falisha played nurse, cleaning and prepping while I rolled around on a wheeled stool, tackling the more serious injuries.
It took three of us to reset Zander’s shoulder. Ty held him down and Jake provided counter weight on his opposite arm while I twisted and pulled, trying to manipulate the shoulder back into its socket. Zander had been impressively brave through the whole process. He only cried out once, as the sickening thunk of his bone popping back in echoed through the small room— then he passed out. I gave him a small dose of morphine for the pain and ibuprofen for the swelling, but longed for the days when ice was still a possibility. I don’t care how fast the two of might heal, pain like that was enough to make anyone cringe.
As it turned out, the wound on Eli’s shoulder was actually a gunshot. Fortunately, it had been a small caliber through-and-through. It had completely missed the bone as well as any major arteries. After some crooked, but functional stitches and a clean dressing, he quickly began regaining color in his face. When all was said and done, I was exhausted but relieved to see everyone on the mend.
“I believe it is your turn,” Eli said, grabbing a tray of gauze and sterile tools. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
“Yeah, I don’t think—,” I said, rising to my feet.
“I get it, you don’t like me,” Eli shrugged. “If I’m being completely honest, I am not exactly your biggest fan either.”
“Awesome,” I said, rolling my eyes as I stepped away from him.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay, just sit down and let me look at those wounds,” he said, pulling me back onto the stool. “You said you had questions, right? This will give us a chance to talk.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I go first.”
“Sure, tit-for-tat then,” Eli said, snapping on a pair of fresh gloves. “Alright, kid. Shoot.”
“What is your connection to Bella, or for that matter, to Gunther?” I asked loudly, drawing everyone else in close enough to listen. “And I suggest you start at the beginning.”
“Damn,” Eli said, setting his gloved hands in his lap. “Straight to it, huh?”
“Answer the question,” Zander said still in a daze from the morphine.
“Yeah, and don’t try to bullshit us, either,” Falisha said, helping him into a nearby chair.
“Very well,” Eli said, shaking his head.
He slid the medical kit closer to his stool, then grabbed a pile of gauze pads and the bottle of peroxide from the metal tray and set to work. He poured some of the liquid onto the raw part of my arm and dabbed at it softly with the material.
“My full name is Doctor Elias J. Given,” Eli said.
Zander and I shared a look. We had seen that name before.
“I have a PhD in Advanced Epidemiology, with a Master’s degree in Microbiology. I was recruited nine years ago by the government, the CDC to be precise, working closely with the World Health Organization. In the beginning, things were simple. I spent my days cataloging ancient bacterial samples, mutated virulent strains, unidentified biological agents, and anything else they threw at me. It was a dream.”
“Sounds like a blast,” I said, impatiently. “What does that have to do with Gunther?”
“I’m getting to that,” he said, mirroring my clipped tone as he pulled a piece of gravel from my bicep. “A couple years into my contract, the CDC transferred me to Florida on special assignment. They named me as primary consultant to the United States military on a project known only to me as E99S. I asked lots of questions, as you can imagine, but you know how these government things go. Everything was on a need to know basis and, according to the military, I didn’t need to know anything that happened beyond the walls of my lab. I was strongly encouraged to mind my own business and to keep my mouth shut.”
“Sounds about right,” Zander said, groaning as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
The swelling had gone down considerably in the last hour, but the morphine was starting to wear off. As glad as I was that Zander would recover fairly quickly, it still killed me to see him hurting. Between his broken ribs and his recently reconnected shoulder, the guy was in a lot of pain.
“Jesus, take it easy,” I hissed, shooting Eli a dirty look as the last of the gravel from my arm clinked down onto the metal instrument tray.
“Yeah, sorry,” he shrugged, not sounding the least bit remorseful. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not used to working with humans.”
“Clearly,” I said, biting my lip as he started scrubbing my open wound. “Get on with it, doc.”
“As I was saying,” Eli continued, barely cognizant of my discomfort. “They didn’t tell me much about the project, but from what I could gather, the whole thing started off as a theoretical doomsday preparation project—a think-tank dedicated entirely to the various ways the world could end. There were contingencies in place for everything from a volcanic eruption to widespread zombie invasions, no joke.”
“Cool,” Jake said, sliding closer.
“Of course, my only function on the E99S project was to identify, catalog, and study any bio-organic samples they brought me. I ran the data for each one, assigned them a threat level determined by the pandemic simulator, and whenever possible, developed an antidote or vaccine. I recognized most of the samples easily; bubonic plague, smallpox, rubella, even anthrax. Pretty mundane stuff, really, For the most part, my days just ran together.”
Bella’s squeaked out a yawn and rolled onto her side as if to agree with Eli’s point.
“But,” Eli pronounced, with renewed energy, “every once in a while they would bring me something new, a bio-genetic puzzle, something I had never seen before. It was very exciting.”
“I could see that,” Jake said. “There is power in discovery.”
“Exactly,” Eli agreed, pointing a bloody glove in Jake’s direction. “As long as I kept my mouth shut, I was given free rein to do my research as I saw fit.”
“Sounds kinda shady, if you ask me,” Ty said, as Christa jumped up onto his back.
“Nobody asked you, Mr. Ed,” Jake muttered, shooting Ty a look.
“It isn’t shady, Tex. That’s just how the world works,” Eli said, securing a bandage around my arm. I made a move to stand, but he quickly tugged me back down onto my stool.
“Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled my foot into his lap. “We are not done here.”
“Just make it quick.” I groaned, looking down at the ground flesh on the side of my leg, “And get to the point.”
“My security clearance was limited only to the lab and surrounding facilities but I had my ways. There was a woman, a beautiful brilliant woman, named Elsa that worked in Research and Development.” Eli paused, staring off for a moment. “Well, I guess you could say we became close.”
“Somehow, there’s always a girl,” Jake said, rolling his eyes.
“Elsa was much higher on the food chain that I was, you see, so she was privy to things I was not. Lots of things, as it turned out,” Eli said, dabbing antibiotic ointment onto the angry red flesh on my calf. “Hey cowboy, hand me that roll of bandages there, would you, please?”
“There y’are,” Ty said, dropping it into Eli’s outstretched hand.
“Thanks,” Eli said, as he tore into the packaging, and tossed it to the floor. “Well, eventually it all became too much for her to bear alone, so she told me everything.”
“Like what,” I asked, refusing to look down at my leg.
“Like how the government had spent the last few decades building these top secret shelters, or compounds, they called them. She didn’t know where they were located, only that the facilities had originally been designed to house and protect a segment of the human race in the event that an apocalyptic scenario were to occur,” Eli said, throwing his bloody hands wide. “You see, the governments of the world and the science community, in general, have been preparing for this type an event—a killshot event they called it, for almost fifty years.”
“Tyler,” Jake said, his eyes wide. “Oh my god, Tyler was right. He was trying to tell
us—.”
“Stupid bastard,” Eli said, wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “The man was a brilliant scientist, but I guarantee you that little stunt probably got him killed.”
“You knew him?” I asked, my eyes wide. “You knew Dr. Tyler?”
“Knew of him, would be more accurate,” Eli said, shrugging as he set back to work on my leg. “Anyway, about the time you all were heading off to your first day of kindergarten, a group of representatives from all around the world got together, pooled their ideas and their resources, and reinstated the whole bunker project. According to Elsa, each of the designated facilities underwent major renovations and upgrades, including advanced oxygen filtration systems, security upgrades, and bio-organic growth centers.”
“Damn,” Jake said. “That had to cost billions.”
“According to the plans for Compound S, the facility and each of its cohorts, was an entirely self-contained; underground ecosystems, complete with a massive forest and lake, and all manner of animals and insect. If the schematics were accurate, each compound would be equipped with a fully functional, organo-synthetic heliosphere.”
“At the risk of soundin’ dumb,” Ty said. “An organo-what-now?”
“You’re saying they actually managed to simulated a sun?” Jake asked, his eyes wide.
“Holy shit,” Falisha said.
“Holy shit, indeed, young lady,” Eli grinned, but his smile faded and his voice dripped with disdain as he continued. “These brilliant men and women engineered every aspect of the shelter, from the dirt that grew the hybrid plants, to the lottery system that would randomly select its inhabitants. Thanks to science, no stone was left unturned. But, years later when it came time to choose who should run substation S, the powers-that-be elected brawn over brains.”
“E99,” Zander said, putting the pieces together. “So, that’s how you met Gunther.”
“And, subsequently, Miss Isabella, over there,” Eli said, smiling at her fondly. “Gunther was little m
ore than a field medic in the beginning and I was less than pleased to have him dumped in my lap. Despite my reservations, he caught on quickly and became an important member of my team.”
“That doesn’t add up,” I said. “If what you are saying is true, about the facility and all the amazing things it had to offer, why the hell would Gunther and his group want to destroy all that?”
“Ahh, that is the question, isn’t it?” Eli said, flinging my own blood into my face as he talked with his hands.
“Within the E99, there existed a small network of insurgents known as Ghosts. Their leader, a guy they called Harley, had apparently found evidence the project had been corrupted. According to Harley, certain high-ranking government officials had been selling ownership of survival pods to the highest bidder and using the funds to bankroll their own little pet projects.”
“But that means…” Riley said, dropping into a chair.
“It means that anyone willing and able to throw enough money at the right people would be guaranteed a spot in the new world, and anyone who didn’t, well, I’m sure you can do the math,” Eli said.
“That’s sick, dude,” Falisha said, scowling.
“It was what it was,” Eli shrugged. “Anyway, Gunther was a ghost, of course, but Elsa? She was living a double life. I was so distracted by my affection for her that I didn’t see it until it was too late. Every day, she put herself at risk, using her clearance to copy files and steal documents— substation plans, schematics, and the like. She visited me in my lab every day, smiling, flirting, and making plans. But the entire time, she was passing sensitive information to Gunther. She used our relationship as a means of espionage.”
“Ouch,” Ty said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, what happened to her? What happened to Elsa?”
“What the hell do you think happened to her?” Eli burst to his feet, his hands fisted tightly at his sides.
His stool shot across the room, tipping over onto its side as it slammed into the wall. He picked up the metal tray of instruments and bloody gauze, and hurled it across the room. Bella jumped to her feet, positioning herself between me and the source of the noise. Everyone else froze, looking back and forth from me to Eli.
Killshot (Icarus Series Book 1) Page 43