by Nick Thacker
“Dragonstone is the organization behind these attacks.”
“Wait, are you serious? There’s a company behind this?”
The man nodded. “Remember, a company is made up of people, maybe one person. Someone — whoever is pulling the strings up there — is behind it. I am just following the breadcrumbs.”
Ben thought for a moment. “How’d you know where to start? How did you even find out this information?”
“The smaller companies, like this hospital, have to file public financial statements. They’re obviously convoluted and circuitous enough to be nothing short of useless, but it at least gave me a glimpse into what other companies were behind them. I had enough prior knowledge about all of this to know where to start looking.”
“What do you mean?” Ben asked. “Wait, before you answer that, help me get to Julie. She’ll need to hear this.”
The man nodded, then held out his hand. “I’m glad I found you, son. You two can help stop this thing.”
Ben reached out to shake the man’s hand, then pulled it back. The rash.
The janitor, Roger, laughed and grabbed Ben’s hand anyway. “Don’t worry about that. Doesn’t matter anymore. Nice to meet you.”
Ben frowned, but shook his hand. “Good to meet you as well, uh… Roger.”
The man laughed. “Ha! I forgot I had this on.” He released Ben’s hand and flicked at the small patch on his overalls. “I had to sort of go ‘undercover’ a bit when I started here. You can call me Malcolm.”
“Malcolm?”
“Dr. Malcolm Fischer.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
MALCOLM PROVED TO BE AN important asset. There was a crawlspace-like attic above the corridor Julie was being kept, supported by a metal catwalk. Used for electrical conduit, plumbing for the upper floors, and the modernized HVAC system, it was primarily intended to house cables and pipes, not people. When Malcolm showed Ben the small space he wanted them to squeeze into, Ben thought he was joking.
“You can’t be serious.”
“If I can do it, you can,” was Malcolm’s reply.
Ben wasn’t claustrophobic, but this was cutting it close. The space measured about a foot tall by three feet wide. Enough for a dog or small animal to pass through easily, but a large male human? It would be tight.
“I’ll go first, you follow behind. There will be an air vent directly above her room, but we’ll need to reopen it. The CDC crew that was in here sealed up all the airflow points and redirected them so they could keep everything contained.”
“Right.” Ben was still eyeing the small crawlspace. “Lead the way.”
Malcolm squeezed himself up and into the space, surprising Ben with the older man’s strength and speed. He followed behind, catching a face full of shoe rubber when he entered the shaft.
“Might want to wait until I get a little bit ahead.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Ben said.
They slid slowly through the shaft, crawling over lines of electrical and networking cables, PVC pipes, and other forgotten infrastructure. It was hot inside the tunnel, and they quickly worked up a sweat. “How much longer?” Ben asked.
“About ten minutes. It’s slow going, but we can pop in and out of her room without anyone knowing. Worth it.”
Ben agreed, but he still wished it was a little more comfortable in the shaft.
Finally Malcolm stopped. “I’m over the grate. I’m going to start unscrewing the paneling, but I need you to hold it up. We can’t let it fall on her.”
Ben followed his instruction and slid up next to Malcolm’s legs. The man’s upper body was contorted and twisted back around, allowing him the freedom to work a small screwdriver while giving Ben room to squeeze up next to him.
“One more minute,” he said.
Ben felt the grate pop with the last screw and held it in place. It was heavier than he’d realized, but it didn’t fall. Together, the two men turned the grate on its side and pulled it up through the ceiling. When it had cleared the hole, Malcolm pushed it up above his prone body, farther into the shaft.
A cool wash of air hit Ben, and he breathed it in. It made his skin itch, especially the area around his neckline, chest, and arms, where the rash covered his skin. The feeling caused a sense of urgency in him as he once again remembered the gravity of their situation. He popped his head through the open hole in the ceiling and looked into the room.
Julie.
She was there, eyes closed, on a bed in the center of the room. A few IV lines ran into her arms, and Ben could see the purplish rash on her skin, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. No one else was in the room.
He sighed in relief and looked back up at Malcolm. “You go first, since you can get down on your feet. Give me a hand when you’re down there.”
Malcolm nodded and swung his feet down and through the hole. He dropped gracefully from the ceiling catwalk and into the room. “Ready,” he called up.
Ben dropped through the hole until he felt pressure on his feet. He lowered himself slowly, letting Malcolm help him down. When his feet hit the hospital room floor, Julie’s eyes fluttered open.
“Ben?”
“Julie! Hey, how are you feeling?” He rushed to her side.
“I — I’m good, I think,” she said. “A little groggy, but I’m okay. It’s mostly the drugs. The rash — is it gone?”
Ben looked at her. She had been changed into a light blue hospital gown and placed under a bed sheet, but her neck and arms were outside the blanket. The rash was now purple, deepening into the start of boils and blisters just under the surface of her skin.
“Uh, yeah. You look great,” he said, smiling.
“Shut up. You’re a jerk,” she said. Her voice was shaky, but she seemed to be more alert. “Get me out of here.”
“Julie, we can’t. I’m sorry — you’re not strong enough…”
“Knock it off. Look at you. If you can get in here, I can get back out.” She sat up a little and started pulling at the IV lines in her arms. “What are these, anyway?”
Malcolm stepped forward. “Most likely they’re delivering the drugs that are keeping you mildly sedated,” he said. “They probably aren’t doing much to you right now, other than keeping the pain at bay and slowing your blood a little.”
She frowned, trying to remember where she’d seen him.
“Dear me, they’ve definitely been keeping you quite sedated.” He reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder. “My name is Dr. Malcolm Fischer, remember? We met when you were brought here.”
She nodded, slowly.
“I met your friend here a few moments ago in a janitor’s closet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Finally came out of the closet, eh, Ben?”
“Really? Right now?”
She laughed, turning again to the IV lines. “Well I appreciate your grand plan to come see me, but you honestly thought you’d just waltz in here, say ‘hi,’ then leave?”
He was stumped. What was his plan?
“I’ve got a better idea,” she continued. “You two get me out of this hospital, take me somewhere we can talk, and you,” she pointed at Malcolm, “tell me what you know.”
Malcolm smiled. “I like a girl with spunk.” He nudged Ben and winked. “Sounds like a plan.”
Julie pulled out the two needles from her arm and sat up higher in the bed. Ben hoisted Malcolm up and into the ceiling vent hole, and turned to help Julie. She was standing now, gaining her balance. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes looked like she hadn’t slept in ages. She ran a hand through her hair in vain, then gave up and turned back to Ben.
She stepped in front of him, her bare feet lining up directly in front of his shoes. Standing there with no shoes on, a head shorter than Ben, wearing only a hospital gown, he noticed just how small she seemed. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes.
“What are you waiting for, ranger?” she asked. “Let’s do this.”
She grabbed his ha
nds and placed them on her sides. He felt his face flush, and he swallowed.
“What? Stop freaking out. It’s just like your middle school dance, except now you’ve got to lift me up in the air.” She paused, cocking her head to the side. “You have been to a dance before, right?”
He swallowed again.
“What is your deal?”
“Yeah, what’s the hold up down there?” Malcolm called from the ceiling.
“You — you’re just, uh, kinda…”
She grinned. “Kinda what, Ben?”
“Kinda naked, I guess…”
She blinked, bit her lower lip and stared at him, letting him stew in his own embarrassment for a few seconds.
He tightened his grip on her sides, preparing to launch her upwards, and…
She leaned forward and kissed him. Long and slow, the type of kiss he’d never experienced.
His ears suddenly felt hot. She pulled her head back slightly but slid her body closer to his. Then she leaned in, close to his hot ears, and whispered.
“Does that help a little?”
He swallowed for a third time, unable to make words. He nodded once.
“Good. Thanks for coming to get me.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
AS BEN SLID HIS RIGHT foot through the hole in the ceiling and reached to replace the air vent panel, he heard someone open the door to Julie’s room.
“Uh oh, guys,” he said to Malcolm and Julie in front of him in the small shaft, “we’ve got trouble.”
Suddenly, a shout rang from the room below them. “Code zero! We’ve got a breach in the quarantined sector!”
Ben didn’t speak paramedic, but it didn’t take much to crack that code. He started to call ahead to the other two to hurry, but a new problem faced him when he looked up.
There’s no way we’ll make it.
Even if they could somehow shimmy quickly through the tight space, the hospital staff and whatever other government officials were here would only have to wait for them at the other end.
They needed another plan.
“Malcolm, can we get out of this shaft any other way?”
“Sure, but we’ll have to unscrew the grate again, like we did for Julie’s room.”
Ben considered it.
“Do it at the next one you find. They’ll figure out pretty quickly what we did to get in and out of that room, and we need to get out of here some other way.”
Malcolm didn’t stop moving forward until he’d reached a ceiling grate over another hospital room. Julie slid up next to him to help, but when Malcolm had unscrewed two of the four screws holding the grate in place, he changed his mind.
“Slide back a little. I’m going to do this the fast way.” He slid forward, over the grate, letting his shoes come to rest directly over it. He lifted his foot as high as it would go in the small space and slammed it down.
Ben could see the grate twist and fall through the hole, one of the remaining screws having popped under the force. The fourth and final screw was all that was holding the grate in place, but Malcolm bent it out of the way and hopped down into the room.
Julie and Ben followed.
“They’re going to search each room, but they’ll probably be slow since they need to put on the suits and keep things contained,” Julie said. “They won’t take that chance.”
The two men nodded and looked around. They were in another hospital room, as small as Julie’s, but this one had two beds — both empty. Apparently ‘quarantine containment’ didn’t mean the same thing as ‘luxury quarters’ to the hospital staff.
Ben rushed to the door and opened it a crack. “There’s no one in the hall yet. That doctor who ratted us out must be back in the main lobby already.”
“They’ll be coming in, though,” Malcolm said. “Let’s at least get out of this room.”
They followed Malcolm out into the hall. As Ben stepped out of the room, he saw the double doors at the end of the long hallway spring open, followed by three men in containment suits and two others behind them, wearing tighter, clear protective suits over their normal clothes.
But it wasn’t the suits that Ben noticed first.
It was the guns the three men were holding.
“Stop, or we’ll shoot!” one of the men yelled. Julie immediately turned and ran the other direction. Malcolm and Ben had no choice but to follow. Ben waited for bullets to slam into their backs, but they didn’t come. Instead, he heard their footsteps as they started to run, and their conversation.
“Sir, should we engage?” one of the men asked.
“Negative. Only if there’s danger of a breach,” another answered.
They ran toward the single door at the opposite end of the hallway, and Malcolm pressed the horizontal bar to open it. It pushed in, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Of course it’s locked,” he said, cursing.
“In here!” Julie shouted from the right. Ben turned to see where she was and found her inside a large office room, full of cubicles and computer stations. The men followed her in, and she closed the door behind them. “It’s an office, but it was cleared out when they quarantined the hallway. There’s another entrance a little ways back, so we’ll need to block that door, too.”
She ran to the other end of the room and looked at the door. Ben came over to help, and together they slid some of the tall filing cabinets against the door. Malcolm did the same at the door through which they’d entered, and then converged again at the middle of the room.
“And what’s on the other side of this door?” Malcolm asked, motioning toward a third door that looked like it led outside.
“No idea,” Julie said, “but it’s not good news. If it leads outside…”
“Can’t we just open it and see?” Ben asked. He walked to the door, pushed the horizontal bar on the front of it, and found it to be locked. “Well, there goes that option.”
“It doesn’t matter, now,” Julie said. “That door, and the one at the end of the hallway, leads outside.” She pointed at the lit exit sign hanging above the door. “That means we’ve defaulted to another protocol.” She slumped down into an office chair that had rolled into the gap between two cubicles.
“‘Another protocol?’” Ben said. “What does that mean?”
“It means those guys are going to start shooting as soon as they get these doors open.”
As if on cue, a pounding bounced through the small office.
“They’re here,” Malcolm said.
“Why will they start shooting, Julie?” Ben tried to get her to explain what she was talking about. “You heard it, right? He asked if they should engage, and the other guy said ‘no.’”
“Because, they’re operating under distress protocol for containment breach situations in the event of a possible outbreak.”
Both men stared blankly back at her.
“That means they’re operating according to CDC Threat Assessment standards. If there’s a possible breach in a contained facility — like this one — they move to contain the threat. If they can’t, or they believe the threat to be ‘imminently plausible,’ as it’s written, they move to eliminate the threat. Since these doors lead outside, they’ll move to close down our escape routes.”
Ben still didn’t understand.
Malcolm picked up the thread. “It’s a utilitarian decision.”
“Exactly,” Julie said. She was no longer paying much attention to the conversation, instead focusing on the barriers between them and the men with guns.
“A what?” Ben asked.
Malcolm answered. “It means we’re now the threat, Ben. They’re going to try to prevent as many long-term casualties as possible…”
“…By eliminating the threat,” Ben finished.
“Yep,” Julie said. “It’s in the playbook. We’ve got the virus running through us. Keep the total death count to a minimum, you know?”
It was a tough reality, but it made sense. Ben nodded, suddenly takin
g a serious interest in their defensible position. “Do we have anything in here we can use as a weapon?” He looked around, but couldn’t find anything worth trying. Computer mice, keyboards, monitors…
“Okay,” Ben said to the others. “They’ll probably split up — five in all, three armed. So expect one, maybe two guys with guns to come through each door.”
The pounding continued, now coming from behind each of the two hallway doors. Ben stationed himself against one door, with Malcolm and Julie behind the other. Julie reached up and flicked a light switch on the wall next to her, plunging the room into near darkness. He watched as his door pushed in a little more each time the man pounded into it.
With a final crash, the man fell forward into the office room, his body almost completely covered by the hazmat suit.
That’s my edge, he thought. The man’s suit covered his head as well as his body, blocking most of his peripheral vision.
Ben maneuvered around the filing cabinets, stopping when he was almost behind the opening door. The man entered the room and brought his gun up, searching for a target…
…Just as Ben smashed the door forward as hard as he could with a solid kick. The door rocketed toward the man and caught him in the back and head. The man yelped and flew forward, dropping his gun and falling to the floor.
A second armed man entered the room behind his comrade, but Ben had already moved around him. The man stood up just as Ben pointed his gun at him.
“Stay there, sir. I will shoot you.”
The man’s eyes were visible through the suit, and Ben focused on them. He steeled himself, not daring to flinch. The man finally relented, dropping his gun on the floor and raising his hands above his head. Ben heard another crash behind him — the third gunman had broken into the room.
The man in front of Ben flicked his eyes up and away from Ben, then back.
Shit.
Ben anticipated the shots, not a moment too soon. He dove toward the unarmed man in front of him and fell to the side, just as two shots rang out behind him.
“Ben!” he heard Julie yell from the other side of the room.