Tourists of the Apocalypse

by WALLER, C. F.

  Since I cannot upload anything from outside the secure system, the code had to be hand-typed. I have worked at Talus since I was twenty-two and I am currently thirty-nine. I have been in Engineering for the last twelve years, and at this desk for ten. I started typing in the encrypted code line by line and saving it to my cloud drive seven long years ago. In between daily work assignments I dedicated maybe three hours a day to this task. I finally finished compiling the code two months ago. It’s sitting like a bullet in the chamber this morning and an orange Begin Assault square flashes next to the cloud icon on my desktop.

  “Time to see if this dog will hunt,” I mumble, pressing a fingertip on the screen.

  The monitor goes blank before returning to the generic sign in screen. It’s not wise to have any screen belonging to Talus giving me updates, thus my desk screen will not advise me of the virus’ progress. Without warning, the florescent lights overhead dim briefly, and then return to their normal illumination.

  “Play ball,” I whisper, feeling empowered.

  The lights do this one more time indicating the upload to the mainframe was successful. Waving my phone over my head, I hold down the power button. After a half minute it vibrates. Lowering the phone, I see the words Connection Established on the screen. I’m lost in thought when another voice breaks the silence.

  “What’s with the lights?” a tall blonde woman buzzes from the doorway to my cube.

  I don’t answer right off, pausing to take in Andrea’s skin tight skirt and equally undersized blouse. Buttons on the shirt are nearly pulled sideways in an attempt to keep her boobs from popping out. She’s only twenty-four, but skyrocketed to the same level as me in under two years. I’d suggest she got here with her wardrobe if she wasn’t the smartest Engineer in the department. I’m just gawking, so she asks again.

  “Lucy, the lights?”

  “Yeah, no idea,” I profess. “Aren’t they sending a client through today?”

  “What day is it?” she ponders aloud, kicking off her high heels and wiggling her toes in the carpet. “These shoes are like standing on razor blades.”

  “It’s Thursday,” I tell her, “the fifteenth.”

  “Yeah, they are,” she nods, affirming my suggestion that the big machines will be running. “But why the power flux?”

  “Maybe they are running up the reactor to clear the chamber.”

  “Yeah, right,” she huffs. “And you’re running in a marathon.”

  I join her in faux laughter. For some reason she thinks we share a kinship allowing her to poke fun at my handicap. What has let lead her to believe this is beyond me. I suspect there’s a cheerleader slash mean girl explanation rooted in her primary school experience somewhere. Today my laughter morphs into the real thing when I think of what will follow this socially embarrassing situation. A visual of her charred high heels lying in a pile of smoldering rubble plays across my mind.

  “Alright,” she declares, slipping her feet back into her shoes. “I have a ton of crap from yesterday to deal with. Are you coming down later for Jensen’s birthday?”

  “Probably,” I waffle, having no intension of attending.

  “Live a little bit Lucy,” she snips. “He ordered an ice cream cake.”

  I nod and she disappears into a cube down the hall. Her chair sits in direct view of the glass walled board room which gives the higher ups a good view of her assets. A virtual genius, yet her main purpose is to fuel the sexual fantasies of some rich married guys. I am not going to miss this place a bit.

  At eleven o’clock sharp, I toss my purse over my shoulder and slide off my chair. Ten minutes ago, half this floor lined up at the lifts for a ride down to the second floor. Apparently ice cream cake is very popular. Un-noticed in the stampede, I trail along behind the herd. Making sure Andrea is well in front of me, I observe my co-workers chatting about workplace drama, math equations and cake. All I hear is wonk, wonk, wonk as I stare distractedly at the trash stuck to the toe of my shoe.

  There are two others in the lift with me, the last load to go down. Sarah, a third year Engineer from my department stands next to me. When the lift hits level three she exits, turning to wait for me to join her. When I don’t, she crosses her arms and looks surprised.

  “No cake?”

  “No,” I sigh, before putting both hands on my stomach. “I’m feeling gross. Going down to Medical to see what they can do.”

  “You sick?”

  “Nothing like that,” I shrug, patting my stomach again. “Girl trouble.”

  She starts to nod and then looks confused. I can see she’s waffling between my being either pregnant or on my period. This amuses me as it had not occurred to me that pregnant was a reasonable excuse. I sort of assumed everyone thought I was either a lesbian or too grossly un-touchable to sleep with. Sarah apparently holds me in somewhat higher esteem.

  “Time of the month,” I explain, almost sorry I didn’t say otherwise.

  “Bad?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You going to be alright?” she begs in a concerned tone, one hand on the doorframe to keep the doors open.

  “Yeah, enjoy your cake.”

  The mention of desserts seems to redirect her attention. After reflexively licking her lips, she scurries down the hall. The doors slide shut, cutting off my view of her. Other than their own children, women are most defensive about menstrual issues. At least there is cake on her last day. Everyone’s last day actually.

  There are four floors listed, but beneath those are levels shown as B1 and B2. These are basement levels accessible only by Reactor Personnel or Catch Teams. Of course, I do not have clearance for the lower levels. Pulling my phone, I open an interface with numbered counters. The numbers race, but then slam to a stop with the same twelve-digit number on both counters. The lift jerks as it starts down. That’s right, I am the boss of you now.

  When the doors open, I am hit with humid air. It’s much warmer here in the bowels of the building as opposed to the over-cooled hamster cages above. The linoleum tiles are a red and white checkerboard pattern. Below them, on B2 sits the Inversion Reactor, the very thing generating all this heat. Of course it doesn’t so much reside on a floor as sit in a half-mile deep crater under the building’s foundation. There are tunnels one hundred sixty feet in diameter that run as far as five miles away from this installation. Some suck in cold air, while others pour scalding hot humid smog into the sky. Both types are hidden in huge smoke stacks next to other Talus facilities in this complex. Do the employees at the wind turbine plant wonder why they have to wear radiation badges?

  It’s a ghost town on this level today. Running up the reactor to power their little secret will flood this area with all sorts of crap that turns perfectly happy sperm into roadkill. I imagine that goes for eggs as well, but lucky for me I am not in need of mine. Management clears this level hours before the science nerds upstairs power up anything. For the time being, I have the place to myself.

  A sign indicates the Catch Room is to the right. Unable to carry even the slightest extra burden in this heat, I drop my purse to the floor and drag it by the strap. I have to unclip one side and then pull it down the hall as if I were dragging a corpse in the moonlight. Sweat pours off my forehead dripping into my eyes.

  Two large double doors sit at the end of the hall. My phone takes longer than I expect to open them. These are radiation containment doors, and there must be at least a dozen protocols to shut down before they pop open with a hiss. Cool air rolls out hitting my smiling face.

  I drag my bag through the doors which seal behind me with a whoosh of air. The wall tiles here are all white. The floor is now some sort of marble, also solid white. The lights are blueish, as opposed to florescent. They are probably halogens, although I don’t know for sure. Nothing about this area is in the mainframe. No plans, no lists, no operating procedures. The only information I have to go on is from Waylon.

  “So far that info looks pretty good,” I huff thro
ugh drying sweat.

  Waylon used to be on the Catch Team. Two years ago he was diagnosed with a nasty case of pancreatic cancer. This is not an uncommon outcome for someone working in this area, but traumatic for Waylon none the less. Having no family left him at a loose end, thus he demanded to stay working. They transferred him to the third floor doing basically nothing, thereby avoiding a lawsuit. Having learned that the mainframe didn’t have the specs for the lower levels, I took a flyer on Waylon. I started taking my coffee down on three and though twice my age, he wasn’t shy around the office cripple. Once I verified that he could tell me about this area, I entered into a Tier 1 relationship. This highest and most uncomfortable level is defined by me as I let them touch me and try not to cry. I was lucky as Waylon couldn’t preform in his late stage condition, but I spent more than a few nights at his place wishing for death.

  I drag my purse across the marble grunting all the way. There is another huge set of double doors with a sign reading Catch Room Actual. Just before the big doors is a smaller single door. It’s white, probably metal, but not steel. The plaque reads Clean-up.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I exhale deeply, popping the door with my phone.

  The room is small, akin to a walk in closet. A dustpan and broom hang on the wall. Two mop buckets on wheels fill one corner. I am shocked to see a lightbulb hanging from a wire above. It looks out of place in the middle of this bastion of technology. I tug on the string, and the one very bright bulb sprinkles the room with light. The bulb sways back and forth throwing shadows around. We have one like it at home in the barn.

  “There’s no place like home. No place like home. No place like home,” I recite, dropping my weighty purse.

  The Catch Room doors open by themselves on motors. There is an Observation Room just inside on the left. It’s a narrow room the looks into the Catch Room. There is some sort of plate glass window running the length on one side. There is an elevator door on the back of the room. Waylon told me that this elevator goes directly to the secretive 5th floor.

  I limp into the control room and find two rolling office chairs facing the windows. I drop into one then look into the Catch Room. It’s a hexagon, all tiled in white with the exception of the last row of tile before the walls. This row is brick red and frames the room. I’d guess fifty feet across and at least ten feet high. There’s one huge light hanging in the center than reminds me of the lights on a pole like dentists have.

  Taking the office chair with me, I exit the control room and roll out into the Catch area. In the center, I turn slowly in the chair, making sure Waylon’s intel was correct. One side has the observation glass, but the next wall over has a clock embedded in it. It’s digital, showing the time in bright green numbers. Just to the right of the clock is a brick red medicine cabinet. The cabinet is bolted to the wall, a white cross painted across the doors. A key pad and card slider grace one side.

  The clock reads eleven forty-five, but that’s not what time it really is. When I hit send this morning, taking over the mainframe, all the clocks in the building started running faster. Even people’s phones followed suit. Everyone thinks its noon, but it’s actually almost thirty minutes earlier than that. It’s about to get crowded in here.

  Pushing myself backward in the chair, I glide out of the room. While I roll back to the Clean-up closet I use my phone to shut all the doors and dim the lights. I can’t quite stop in time and run into the door with a thud. The clock on my phone now reads eleven fifty-nine.

  “Let the games begin,” I whisper, slipping into the Clean-up room.

  To be safe, I override the door so that it can’t be opened. I don’t need a guy looking for a roll of paper towels finding me. In the lab coat pocket is a magnetic strip with tape on the back. I peel the paper off and apply it to the door frame. Once it’s secure I stick my phone to it. Eye level with me sitting on the chair, I can see the phone with my hands free.

  There is a red number readout running on top. It’s counting down forty-five minutes. In the middle section are boxes with video feeds. My phone is jacked into all of the surveillance cameras. From the direction of the lift, the double doors open and three men in yellow radiation suits march my way. I had thought they would come down in the lift in the Observation Room. They glide right by the camera and I can just make them out through the glass when they reach the Observation Room. The men will sit here for thirty minutes in case the Fail Safe shows up.

  “Alright Lucy,” I whisper. “A hundred lines on the list and I am only on number fifty. Keep your eye on the ball.”

  In my purse is a headband with a small light mounted onto it. Slipping it on my head, the tiny light focuses its glare on my lap. There is also a razor knife in the bag and I push out the triangular blade and begin cutting. I push the blade into my slacks halfway up my thigh and then work my way around. I struggle to lift the artificial limb high enough to cut around the back, but manage it with some grunting. When the pant leg is free, it slides down my prosthetic, landing around the ballet flats. I repeat this process with the other leg, leaving me in rough cut shorts.

  The top of my artificial legs is a cone that fits snugly over my thighs. Bouncing a bit in the chair, I manage to push the right leg off. This leaves the thigh covered in a white sock. It’s warm in here, but what’s left of my leg is always hot and sweaty. I peel the sock off, exhaling in relief.

  Angling my head to point the light, I pick some dry skin off one of the scars that fan out from the uneven lump located where my femur ends. The scars are thick and sometimes itchy. I rubbed lotion on them this morning to alleviate this for the most part. I should get working on the now free prosthetic, but the air on my stump feels good, so I remove the other stocking before starting. Once free of them both, I balance carefully and begin taking my legs apart.

  “Some assembly required,” I mutter, keeping one eye on the camera feed.

  The legs have one long tube a little over two centimeters in diameter. I use a sturdy allen wrench with a tee grip handle to remove this. Inside the long tube are nine shotgun shells. There is a slightly narrower tube that will become the barrel of the gun and I free that now, carefully setting the loose pieces on a stack of boxes next to the door. The other leg has the same tube of shells as the first. This mounts on a spring loaded turnkey, allowing the user to spin it into position once the previous tubes shells are spent. The plastic foot sections split into two and become the stock and butt of the firearm. A series of tiny socket-wrenches and nut drivers litter my makeshift workstation provided by a cardboard box by the time I am finished.

  “Not bad,” I remark, pointing the gun at the ceiling and looking down the barrel.

  It appears to be a standard shotgun, although it has a rather Frankenstein look to it. The colors are off as well, since it’s constructed out of white plastic and grey aluminum. Only the barrel section is dark steel, the rest is lightweight scraps. The long tube of shells has a twin suspended above it. A thumb catch forces the tube to spin out and replaces it with the tube overhead. It’s rather like an old .45 revolver with only two chambers. This gives the user eighteen shots.

  “More than necessary,” I estimate, setting butt down on the floor and leaning the business end on a hanging mop.

  Checking a hijacked video feed from a camera inside, I see the men are still in the Observation Room. One sits, while the other two lean on the wall. When the Fail Safe fails to flash into existence they should go. Unaware that the clocks are wrong, the guest of honor will arrive fifteen minutes later. If all goes according to plan, only I will be here to greet him.

  Six minutes pass and the men break off their discussion, pile into the lift and disappear to the fifth floor. The lights go out leaving the camera feed nothing but darkness.

  “Showtime,” I grunt, pushing the door open and peeling my phone off the magnetic strip.

  Hooking my purse over the back of the chair, I put the gun in my lap and roll into the passageway. The metal double doors of th
e Catch Room open slowly as the lights flicker back on. Now legless, I put my back to my destination and use the gun to push the chair backward. This is a tiresome rowing process and sweat returns to my forehead. Several minutes pass before I glide through the metals doors. Pointing my phone at the digital clock on the wall, it suddenly switches from a clock to the countdown. Large green numbers flicker on the easy-to-read wall mount.

  -00:13:56

  When the clock hits zero, it will count up for another forty-five minutes. That’s the width and breadth of the window. Mr. Fail Safe will have that long to recover and get to the fifth floor. After that, we all just sit around and wait for the fireworks.

  With this room now more or less cut off from the rest of the building, I paddle over to the medicine cabinet. My phone pops the lock, leaving me staring at an arsenal of medical devices and supplies. I run the mental list through my head and start tossing things onto the floor. Scalpels, scissors, bandages, syringes and vials of various drugs spill out onto the white tiles. A bit too high for me to reach, the compression bandages and aerosol cans full of BIC taunt me from the top shelf. I use the gun to poke at them until they topple out, bouncing off my head as they fall.

  “Nice,” I grumble, shaking my head.

  On the left outside of the cabinet is a portable defibrillator unit. Rather than fight with it, I whack it with the butt of the gun, dropping it to the floor. Turning slowly in the chair, I mumble to myself, taking inventory of the items strewn there. When satisfied that nothing has been missed, I set the gun against the wall and stare down at the floor. Pulling up on the handle under the seat, I lower the chair as far as it will go and slip off, hitting the floor hard from two feet off the tiles.

  Still wearing my lab jacket, I push myself back against the wall. Taking a moment to shake off the jarring fall, I riffle through the tiny boxes on the floor. Inside one are glass vials containing bright red cigarettes. When I hold one up to the light and shake it, a wooden match can be seen tucked away under the smoke.