Orpheus

by DeWitt, Dan

  Sister Ann finished, and the circle broke.

  Sam said, "Final equipment check, then we're on."

  Tim, Sam, and Fish paid particular attention to the radio mission crew, as they were the ones with the least firearms experience. They all carried pistols. They were simpler to operate and reload, and they only needed them for defense against the undead, if at all. But the hospital assault team?

  They might be going to war, and they needed the heavy stuff.

  Ethan, the son of a military cop, knew his way around an AR15, and Rachel was a quick study. He had great confidence in her abilities. He just wished she was more of a coward. Her weapon was set, and Ethan turned his attention to his own.

  Magazine, check. Ammunition, check. Sling, tangled, and it bothered him a lot more than it should. He undid the sling totally, straightened it out, and tried to thread it back through the buckle. His fingers were clumsy from nerves, and he missed several times. "Aw, bloody hell," he growled loud enough to be heard.

  Tim stopped dead. "Ethan, say that again."

  "What? 'Bloody Hell'?"

  "Yeah, but say it like you just said it."

  Ethan did his best to recreate it, but he was more curious than angry now.

  "Holy shit," Fish said.

  Sam picked up on it, too. "We're dumb if we can't figure out a way to use that."

  Curiosity gave way to outright confusion. "Use what?"

  Chapter 24: Conflicts

  Orpheus struggled against his bonds, but they were tight and done with great care. The conference room chair that held him was solid, too. He only tried to get free for a few minutes before he gave it up; the only thing more struggles would get him was an undignified position on the floor and probably a head injury to go with it. He assumed that the others were done up in a similar fashion, so he expected no help from them. He hoped that they weren't waiting on a rescue by him, either.

  So he waited for something to change the status quo.

  That something, it turned out, was Anders. He entered the room backwards, obviously struggling with a heavy object. The object was the Scythe agent who'd been brought in with Lena and Trager. Orpheus had no idea who he was or what he'd done, but the fact that Anders had him tied up was enough to count him as an ally. Anders positioned him opposite Orpheus, then left wordlessly. Finally, he returned with Lena, also gagged, and her he put between Orpheus and the agent. He removed their gags and left the room with a "Be right back."

  "You okay?" he asked Lena.

  She opened and closed her jaw, trying to get rid of the sensation of the gag. "Yeah. You?"

  "Never been better."

  "Do we have any chance of breaking out of these things?"

  Holt felt a little ashamed. "These are, um, good chairs. And Anders apparently has his merit badge in knot tying. Unfortunately."

  The door opened and Anders walked in, pistol in hand. "Okay, first things first," he said nonchalantly as he pulled the hammer back. Orpheus thought it was a purely theatrical gesture. "You're a fuckin' traitor." He put the barrel to the Scythe agent's forehead and pulled the trigger. Gore exploded from the back of his head, which snapped back, but he was tied so securely to the chair that he immediately returned to his original position. The acoustics of the conference room magnified the sound of the gunshot, but the other three prisoners barely heard it. It had happened so fast, they didn't react for several seconds.

  Lena was the first to make a sound, and it was less a conscious word than it was air escaping her lungs.

  "Sorry. Orders." Anders said. "Let me just get this out of the way." He placed his pistol on the table, then dragged the dead man, chair and all, backwards five feet, far enough away to allow him to move more freely, but close enough to still allow everyone to see him. "Here's the deal: you're all going to die. How much it hurts is up to you."

  "What do you want?"

  "Something different from each of you. Little lady, we have your data card, but you encrypted it. Normally, we'd sent it to our expert, but that happens to also be you, so tell us how to break it. And you," he moved in close to Holt, "where's the rest of your team, and who were they meeting?"

  "Go fuck yourself."

  "You're a tough guy, Holt, and I'm not a professional interrogator. I doubt I know enough to cause you all the right pain in all the right places to get you to break, so I'm not going to bother trying." He pulled a clear plastic bag out of his pocket and unceremoniously slipped it over Lena's head. He grabbed a handful of it and twisted it around his fist, cinching it tight around her neck. She didn't react right away; she'd just taken a breath. Her eyes, however, showed sheer terror. "Her, on the other hand..."

  "Whoa, waitwaitwait..."

  "Sure. Tell me where you were going."

  "Anders!"

  "Where?" He checked his watch. "It's been just over twenty seconds. She's in shape; she might have another forty-five seconds or so before she really starts to struggle. Unless something like this happens." He cinched his other hand around her neck and shook her violently back and forth. The panic overcame her and she used up her oxygen. She gasped and the plastic bag imploded around her head and filled her mouth.

  "Stop!" Holt was pleading.

  Anders whipped the bag off of Lena's head. She pitched forward and made hacking noises as she tried to fill her lungs with air again.

  "Tell 007 here how that felt, sweetheart. When you can, of course."

  "Jesus, Lena, I'm so sorry," Orpheus said.

  She started to speak, cleared her throat, and tried again. "S'okay, I can take it."

  "Wow," Anders said. "You're just a little pistol, ain'tcha? Why didn't we ever date?"

  "Because you're a pig."

  "There is that. How do we crack the file?"

  "That would defeat the point of me encrypting it."

  Holt said, "Lena, I don't know what to do." My son or this girl? How's that a choice?

  "You shut up. We're dead anyway."

  Orpheus' mouth twitched with anger. Part of him wasn't even there; he was thinking of Jackie. He saw flashes of her face when Lena was struggling for breath. It was horrible. "I can't let you go through that again."

  "Don't you dare say ANYTHING! Not after all I had to go through to prot-" Her tirade went silent as soon as Anders slipped the bag back over her head. This time, she was caught unaware and the bag tightened into a second layer of skin almost immediately. She whipped her head back and forth, trying to make him lose his grip, but he held fast.

  Orpheus strained against his bonds with every muscle in his body, but he couldn't get loose. "Oh, I'm gonna fuckin' kill you! You hear me? YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!"

  "Yeah, yeah. Her first, though. You're obviously not going to talk."

  Holt watched helplessly as Lena's struggles became weaker. Her eyes started to go glassy, and the heaving in her chest stopped.

  "Couple more seconds now..."

  Holt was crying now. All that she had done for him, all the risks that she'd took to find his son, and he couldn't even comfort her with a touch. Everyone. I've failed everyone. He just wanted it all to end now. He wouldn't even fight it.

  "Hey, Anders," said a voice from the radio. "I never knew that you have a brother. Check that...had a brother named Trent. Cute fireman outfits, though."

  Anders' jaw went slack, as did his grip on the bag. He yelled something incoherent and ran out of the room; the air in his wake ruffled the bag further, allowing a slight trickle of air through. Adrenaline surged in Holt's body, and he used everything he had to move his chair close enough to hers that he could lean over and snap the bag off of her head with his teeth. He spit it out and whispered, "Come on, Lena, breathe, breathe..."

  He was rewarded with a barely perceptible but unmistakable sound of a raspy breath. "Good girl, good girl, keep it up..."

  He watched her for several minutes. Her breathing became more regular, and her eyes finally fluttered open. She had a brief coughing fit. "Ow...that really sucked..."

>   "It was no fun to watch, either."

  "We..." More coughing. "We have to help Martin."

  "Just take it easy. The oxygen will get to your brain soon enough."

  She laughed, and it turned into another, more prolonged coughing fit. "I'm serious."

  "We'll discuss it in a minute. I'm pretty sure that help's on the way."

  * * *

  Sister Ann sat behind the wheel of the van, and the three of them went over the plan for what seemed like the hundredth time. "If we're lucky, we'll only have to deal with a few zombies. That'll make it easier, but the plan doesn't change. Ethan said that his jump-starter thingie is in his back seat. Let's assume that the impact threw it onto the floor, though. I back up, you two get ready to open a door, I park, Jason gets ready to go, and Harold and I cover you. We're all in agreement that they don't climb very well, so you should have the bed to yourself. We'll only have one chance at this."

  "What if it's dead? It's been weeks."

  "He said that there's a built-in car charger. Worse comes to worst, we drive around for a while to get it charged."

  "Got it." Harold practiced his aim in the back of the van. "You hear that, Jay? You have nothing to worry about."

  Jason, on the other hand, sat cross-legged in the center of the floor and resumed his meditation. "I trust you. Both of you. But I don't plan on taking long enough for you to have to fire a shot."

  Sister Ann took the turn onto Main Street. Two things stood out: Ethan's truck was exactly where he said it was, and it was mostly obscured by the dozens of zombies who'd found no excuse to wander too far away. "That may not be a particularly realistic goal, Jason." The two men joined her at the front and saw what she saw.

  "Damn."

  Jason steeled himself for his mission. "This doesn't change anything. In and out. What did Mickey say? 'I got this, kid'."

  "So macho," Harold teased, but the deep note of worry in his voice was impossible to miss. "By the time you get back, you'll have a beard."

  The van was close enough to start drawing attention. The crowd of zombies thickened as Ann stopped the van and put it in reverse. A beeping noise immediately sounded, and the zombies went from interested to a frenzy. "These things sure don't like beeping," Harold said, thinking of the Count back at the school. He walked to the back and put his hand on the latch.

  Jason joined him in the back, and hopped side to side and shook his arms out like he was getting ready for a prize fight.

  "Get ready. A little closer, Sister. Closer...slower...closer..." When he judged the distance to be right, he flung open the door and held it perpendicular to the bed of Ethan's disabled truck. "Another foot!"

  Ann gave it a little gas, and the door crumpled a bit as it was wedged between the two vehicles. Ann parked and ran to the back as Harold slammed the other door into the truck, creating a safe corridor for Jason to get into the truck bed.

  The diminutive man yelled, "Hero time!" by way of battle cry, and leapt lithely into the bed. To no one's surprise, the zombies immediately converged on the bed from all sides. Countless arms grabbed at him, but Ethan had a big truck. Jason stayed in the center and none of them could get a good grip. The fingertips that occasionally brushed against his legs were creepy, but not quite life-threatening. There was a two-inch gap in the sliding windows, so he stuck his fingers between and opened them wide enough for him to slip through. This was the reason why he was chosen for this part; he was the only one of the three who could fit through the rear window and still manage to get out again. He wiggled through the window and saw the jumpstarter.

  Of course it was on the floor. He unconsciously kicked his legs to give himself a few more inches, and knew that he'd messed up as soon as a hand locked around his ankle and began to pull him out. He yelled, but that threat was over even before the last syllable left his lips. Bullets cut the threat down. They had his back, as he'd known they would.

  "Jason!"

  "I'm okay! A couple seconds!" He stretched and got one fingertip on the handle. He flicked the handle close enough to grab it. He wriggled backwards, jumpstarter in hand. He was nearly free when an enterprising zombie found the door that Ethan had left open in his flight. It jumped into the front seat and came at him through the gap. Jason didn't have time to think. He swung the jumpstarter up and connected with the thing's jaw, a solid uppercut that knocked a few teeth out, but, more importantly, bought him a few seconds. He freed himself from the window as his backup sent a volley of shots into either phalanx of zombies. He took two big steps and launched himself feet-first into the van, his arms locked tight around his prize. His feet skidded and went out from under him, causing him to land on his back with a thud, but he barely felt it.

  Harold covered their escape as Ann peeled out and indiscriminately knocked undead aside. Harold closed the undamaged door and then the damaged one. The latter wouldn't latch properly, but he secured it with a bungee cord. When that was done, his sole concern was for his boyfriend. "Ohmygod, are you okay?"

  Jason allowed himself to get manhandled to his feet and be swallowed in a bear hug before his laughter took over. "Man, I'm all shaky! That was awesome!"

  "They were trying to eat you!"

  "I know! That's what made it so awesome! That's living!"

  Ann giggled a bit and said, "Don't lose that enthusiasm yet. We still have a job to do."

  "Bring it on! WHOO!"

  "I don't even know who you are right now." He took the jumpstarter from Jason and hit the switch. A single red light came on, indicating that it still held a charge, if only a weak one. He uncoiled the 12V cord and plugged it into the van's lighter. Lights all the way to green came to life. "We're in business."

  From the floor, Jason said, "Thank goodness, I had to bash one of those things with it, and I was scared that I broke it."

  "You did great." He sat down next to Jason. "Are you okay?"

  Jason put his head on Harold's shoulder. "Surprisingly, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I was scared shitless. I am scared shitless. But I was doing something. Something important. And that helped me forget my fear for a little bit." He spoke a little louder. "You guys really protected me. Thank you."

  Sister Ann said, "I'm determined to protect you two, no matter what." She didn't add, I've done a bang-up job so far. Some shepherd. "No matter what."

  * * *

  Had a brother.

  The words pumped through his brain and drove him into a searing rage.

  Cute fireman outfits.

  The picture by his bed. Him and his little brother, Trent, at Halloween when they were still in single digits. It was their mother's favorite picture, and it had become his favorite picture, if only by default.

  They were in his room.

  He ran with his pistol in hand, finger around the trigger, ready to kill whoever was stupid enough to violate his privacy. And if they were telling the truth about his brother, they could only hope that he'd kill them that fast.

  He'd sent Trent to spy on the group of survivors in the church. He was to relay information and, eventually, make it so they were eliminated. Dr. Vincent only allowed one wild card, and that was Cameron fucking Holt, the man who'd taken glory that wasn't supposed to be his. When Trent reported that Holt's kid had joined up with that group of survivors, Anders felt like he'd won the lottery. He could do his job and eliminate the survivors, and also get rid of Holt's only reason to go on. When the time was right, Anders planned on revealing that everything Holt had done in his son's name had been completely and utterly useless. Then he'd kill him...after he'd given it some time to sink in, of course.

  Now one of his trained Scalpel monkeys was in his room, talking about his brother like he was dead.

  That was ballsy.

  He got to his room. His door was ajar, and he peeked in. He didn't see anybody through the crack, and he confirmed the emptiness of the room with a cursory check. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the framed photo of him and his brother was now on the bed. He s
uddenly wished that he hadn't finished off the chick. He felt a new wave of inspiration wash over him. There were always other options, provided he could control himself and keep from killing Holt long enough.

  "Find it yet?" came from the radio.

  He was sure now that the voice belonged to that coon Sam. "Listen up, you motherfucker, if you hurt my brother I'll hang you from the highest tree I can find."

  "Charming." Sam sounded bored. "I have someone who wants to talk to you."

  "Ricky."

  No.

  "I'm coming for you, Ricky." The voice was scratchy from all the screaming and threats, but it was unmistakable. "Say your prayers."

  "Holt, you're about to join your little girlfriend."

  There was a long pause. "Doubt it. I'll be gone by the time you get here. But I'll see you real soon."

  He was right. He was four floors and several corridors away. He wouldn't make it, unless... "All Scythe members! Get to the conference rooms, and go hot!" He was screaming now, spittle flying from his lips. "Now, you lazy fucks! And somebody tell Vincent!"

  He took the stairs three at a time, completely unaware that five people a floor above were going to beat all of them there.

  * * *

  After they'd broken into Anders' room and Sam had made his first transmission, they'd retreated into an unused room and waited for him to show up. They heard him thundering down the stairs long before he made an appearance. After he'd passed them and disappeared into his room, the new-look Scalpel team stole into the stairwell and headed up two floors, a distance that they all agreed would give them a good head start if Anders did what they wanted him to do.