LZR-1143: Redemption

by Bryan James

  Ky looked up.

  “That’s just straight cruel, man.”

  I chuckled once, and checked on Rhodes. He was out cold.

  I checked his pulse and breathed easier. Steady and strong. The painkillers must have kicked in.

  “Come on, Romeo. Time to earn your keep.”

  The dog vaulted forward, one paw slightly favored where he had gotten stepped on in the melee outside tearing at a creature’s leg when it got too close to Ky. She had told me about it proudly when handing him a full energy bar—one of the last ones we had.

  My footsteps echoed slightly as the dog ranged ahead, disappearing around the corner as I drew the pistol and held it loosely, removing the safety with a firm flick of the thumb.

  I followed the sound of the dog’s heavy breathing, listening for his footfalls as I turned the corner. The source of the red glow was clear, now. A large red emergency light still glowed fitfully, blinking at odd intervals above another thick door. Several plaques were arrayed around the large entryway, and a thick glass window with a curtain drawn across it on the other side was located to the right. Two overstuffed armchairs sat in front of the door, bracketing a small table strewn with magazines that were old, even when this thing originally hit. Dead plants in the corner shook slightly as Romeo squeezed between the furniture, nose to the ground.

  I approached the door, reading the signage on both sides.

  Access restricted to patients and staff only. Please press buzzer if no attendant is on duty.

  Below that, a more serious warning.

  Patients are advised that in accord with regulations found in 14 CSR 476, no warranty is made regarding treatment results. All undertakings are at the patients’ own risk.

  A poster of a smiling nurse administering an injection to a smiling patient rounded out the creepy feeling.

  Felt like a damn medical creep show down here.

  Romeo was at the door, and raised his uninjured paw to the crack between the door and the frame. Another keypad, identical to the one outside, was blinking slowly.

  A yellow light.

  I grabbed the handle, pulling the door toward me, expecting it to be locked.

  It pulled freely, coming easily outward into the small waiting area.

  Getting creepier.

  I put my ear bud in, and tried out my microphone.

  “Kate, you getting this?”

  It hissed slightly, and I heard the static of a receiver being positioned.

  Then, “Yeah, what’s up.”

  Her voice was soft, but strong.

  “Just wanted company,” I said.

  “You want us to come up?” she asked seriously.

  “No, stay with Rhodes. I don’t think it’s dangerous, just really creepy,” I said, opening the door completely and finding another dark hallway beyond, this one lined with doors on each side. Another red emergency light illuminated the hallway from the other end. Romeo was halfway to the end already.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Flashbacks to Starling Mountain,” I said softly, my gun in front of me, ready to fire as the small pinprick of red from the laser sight danced along the wall. Every door was shut tightly, a small clipboard attached to each, with small, non-descript room numbers centered in the top quarter. A large poster describing common blood diseases was affixed crookedly next to a bulletin board with a single flyer advertising a cat for adoption. The date was six months ago.

  I would welcome the life of the undead if I worked here.

  Romeo stopped at the end of the hall, nose twitching furiously until he turned around and stopped outside the last door on the left. I followed carefully, checking each door cautiously as I passed them.

  The dog simply stopped and sat, head cocked as it stared at the door, which was slightly cracked—a change from the others, which had been sealed solid.

  He looked up at me as I approached, and I turned toward the door, backing away and keeping the gun up.

  “Might have something,” I said softly into the mic. “Stand by.”

  Romeo sensed my impatience, and his red nose shot between the door and the frame, widening the gap until he could squeeze through. The door opened slowly as his cropped tail disappeared into the room. I followed, my boot pushing the door wider, and my eyes squinting in the darkness.

  I scanned the shapes of the room, seeing what I expected. An empty bed, some medical equipment, a small machine on a countertop, a sink, and a narrow, short wardrobe. Romeo was on the other side of the bed, and I passed the closed door of a small bathroom, entering the room and finding him hunched over a small bowl full of what looked like dog food.

  “What did you find?” I whispered, kneeling down.

  The hiss of fury as the small shape shot from underneath the bed and into the hallway was the only warning I had. Romeo exploded in a deluge of mindless barking and scrambled against the tiled floor, legs pin wheeling as he shot into the hallway.

  “Mother fu—” I jumped up and ran after the dog.

  The small shape was back at the main door, cornered. It turned around, the fur on its back standing straight up, lips pulled back in a furious snarl. Romeo tore after it, stopping wisely only five feet away, hackles raised, teeth bared.

  It was a damn cat.

  “Romeo, come,” I said wearily, not bothering to yell.

  He backed up, hackles still erect, eyes not leaving the tiny interloper.

  “Now,” I said sternly.

  He gave up the chase, turning his back reluctantly on the fierce adversary and trotting to my side.

  “I heard some noise,” Kate’s voice came through the microphone. “I’m on my way.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, kneeling down to examine the somewhat emaciated but still lively cat, whose orange and black stripes gave it the look of a small tiger. It stared at me with hatred, eyes narrowed and mouth snarling.

  Typical cat.

  “It’s just a cat,” I laughed.

  My sentence was cut short by a booming thunder against the door at the end of the hall, near where the cat had been holed up.

  “Stand by,” I said, standing up and turning back to the door.

  Arms and hands were crashing against the door in a frenzied sequence, and I allowed my head to slump to my chest.

  We were surrounded.

  We were trapped.

  We would die here. No hope. No cure.

  Then, my ears brought me out of the trance.

  The door shook again and I stood up straight.

  It wasn’t the random, hungry staccato of the undead. It was the anxious, frenzied beat of a human.

  A human who was looking for his cat.

  FORTY

  I put my hand on the door, noticing as I did so the heavy push bar on this side, meaning that the door opened out and into the next room or hallway. Since I didn’t know for sure what was on the other side, I didn’t open it immediately.

  The cat remained stationary at the far end of the hall, where I had come in. I pressed the transmit button on the radio.

  “Why don’t you come join me?” I said softly. “Leave Ky with Rhodes. I’ll send Romeo back.”

  “Got it, hold on.”

  “Romeo, find Ky,” I said briefly, and the dog shot past me and down the hall, stopping long enough to pause while Kate made her way toward us. She opened the door, and the dog loped into the hallway, tail wagging slightly in anticipation of seeing Ky.

  “We got company?” she said, voice energized slightly.

  I felt the same way. I had feared we had led ourselves into a tomb by entering the building, and I was hopeful about the people on the other side.

  “Seems that way,” I said, taking the butt of my pistol and rapping it firmly on the metal three times, in an even succession of beats.

  The furious pounding stopped briefly, as if the person on the other side were confused by the response.

  Several long seconds passed.

  Then, five beats, a pause, an
d two more.

  A familiar beat.

  I repeated the same, then tried raising my voice.

  “We’re looking for Doctor Kopland. Can you hear me?”

  A muffled voice sounded through the door, but I couldn’t make out the words. I turned to Kate and tossed her my pistol.

  “Aim low. If they even twitch, take them in the leg. We can’t risk hitting the guy we’re looking for. Ready?”

  She nodded, eyes trained on where the gap between the door and the wall would appear. I took a deep breath and pushed the bar in, allowing the door to swing open slowly as I stepped back.

  At first, the light from the space beyond was blinding and I blinked before making out the face of a young man with a tightly trimmed beard, bright blue eyes, and a dirty brown blazer. His eyes were squinting into the darkness of our hallway, and I spoke quickly.

  “Dr. Kopland?” I asked urgently.

  His face screwed up in confusion, his eyes widening slightly.

  “Yes,” he said doubtfully. “Yes, that’s me. Do I know you?”

  I smiled widely and stepped forward, seeing that he wasn’t armed.

  “Not yet, but you’re about to.”

  Before he could ask what I knew would be hundreds of questions, an orange streak shot past my leg and into the air, landing heavily on the doctor’s chest, pushing him back slightly as a smile appeared on his face.

  “Oppenheimer!”

  I glanced at Kate and nodded at her to move forward. She took the time to call Ky and tell her to stay put, before moving toward the doorway.

  “Don’t let the door shut!” The young man admonished, even as he fended off the cat on his chest.

  Kate stopped at the doorframe and looked around, finally settling her eyes on the room to the left where I had found the cat. She grabbed a large wooden desk chair and planted it firmly between the door and the frame.

  “So, Doctor. I—”

  “I’m sorry, please come in. I’m not sure… Well, I can guess, but it seems… Anyway, come.” He spoke hurriedly, and slightly confused before gesturing us to come in, finally managing to dislodge the cat and put it on the ground again.

  “Oppy knocked the block out of the door when he was going in a couple days ago, and he got locked out—and we got locked in. Not that we were going anywhere, but… that’s his room, because of the air and the allergies, and… sorry, I’m rambling.”

  He led us into a brightly lit hallway, walls starkly white washed, thick glass windows interspersed along the passage with large rooms stacked with glassware and other scientific machines and computers. Vacant offices, a small break room, and a small room with regular computers and monitors all lined the hallway as we continued.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, we don’t want to be rude—”

  “Do you want some coffee or tea or something? I think we have some hot chocolate in—”

  “Doctor!” Kate spoke loudly and stopped walking. Her voice brooked no dissent, and it stopped his rambling as he turned and stared, seeming to see us for the first time.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. Welcome to the facility, I assume you are the folks I’ve been waiting for?”

  I nodded as Kate spoke.

  “I’m Dr. Kate Whitmore. This is Mike McKnight. We had an appointment with you that we intend to keep.”

  He stared for several seconds, then smiled slightly.

  “But of course you are. Well, let’s get to it, then.”

  *

  Kopland wasn’t alone. A young woman, an assistant researcher, had also taken refuge in the facility after the events began to unfold. Diana Crawley was barely twenty-two, with large eyes, thick glasses, and hair to her waist held back from her face by a neatly tied string. She wore an old, torn University of Washington sweatshirt over a pair of yoga pants—an outfit I found odd until Kopland explained their unique situation.

  “I was here early that day, already working. Diana was on her way to an early morning class when things got… weird. She decided to stop in and see if anyone was at the lab yet. It was just me and Matt, and she didn’t want to leave until we knew more. I had been working on some research into an Ebola strain that was particularly virulent in low temperatures, which is odd, because…”

  “Doc,” said Diana, chewing absently on the end of a pen as she stared at me. I wasn’t sure if it was the superpowers, the apocalypse, or the former movie stardom, but she wasn’t shy about it.

  “Yes, well,” he shook himself out of the rambling as he flicked the end of the empty vial he was going to use to take a large sample of blood from my arm. The damn needle looked about seven inches thick.

  “Anyway, we watched the television from here, and saw the National Guard arrive, and just… well, we just never left. We don’t keep clothes here, and so you’ll have to excuse us for our appearance.”

  Kate laughed suddenly, and I smiled. I looked down at my blood and gore crusted spec ops suit, and Kate lifted her hands, still covered in fairly fresh blood from the fight outside.

  “We can relate, Doctor.” She said.

  “Shit, lady. Come on, we can get you cleaned up.” Diana rose, nodding her head toward a bathroom at the far side of the room.

  “Diana, start with a hundred cc’s from the Doctor, please,” Kopland said as he inserted the needle into my arm and pressed down with his finger to steady the metal rod.

  I winced.

  “Interesting,” he said, looking up at my face.

  “What’s that?”

  “Pain. I understood that you… I mean, that…”

  “We heal fast and we have enhanced strength, but it still hurts to get injured. Seems as if you should know that.”

  He chuckled, self-deprecatingly shaking his head. Oily, long hair framed his thin face over his beard. His bright eyes seemed genuinely amused.

  “Well, we’ve had some issues with communication, and they didn’t have a full file on you and your friend the last time we spoke so…”

  He squinted as he trailed off, finger pressing against my skin again as he drew the needle out, vial full of thick red blood. He reached for a band-aid and I smiled.

  “Uh, Doc?”

  He looked at me blankly for a minute, then removed his hand from my skin, where he had been holding his finger, likely by mere muscle memory, to stem any bleeding.

  The skin was unbroken.

  “Oh, yes. Well.” He stared for a minute, then pulled the vial from the plunger and put a small sticker on it.

  “So, Doc, what happened here? How’d your comms get knocked out? And how the hell did you get locked in?”

  “Matt,” said Diana from the doorway, where she was following Kate back in the room, an empty vial in her hand. Kopland nodded gravely, moving to a small desk, getting more engrossed in his work as he began writing quickly in a logbook. Diana took a needle and plunger from the cabinet above Kate’s head and motioned to a chair.

  “Matt?” Kate asked.

  “That’s how the communications went down,” clarified Kopland. “As to the lockdown, we can only postulate, but we’re fairly certain. There’s a security office in the hospital that controls entry for the main building and several of the other outbuildings around here that are connected to the building. They do infectious disease work here, and there’s a doomsday sort of switch for use in extreme circumstances. Normally, the doors are designed to be released during an emergency to allow people to get out. But this protocol locks the doors to keep people in. All external doors go into lockdown, and all internal doors only open from the outside in, not the other way around.”

  “So someone initiated it?”

  “We heard an argument and a fight over the intercom two days after the disease had started to take hold. The television was reporting on the National Guard outside getting pressed by sick people and those things, almost to a breaking point. People inside were riled up, people were dying and getting put down—or biting others. It was stressful inside. In the end, it was two guards, both low lev
el guys, I recognized them both. Someone was leaning on the transmit key or something. One guy was trying to activate the doors, keep everyone in. His family had been attacked, and he thought that if they kept all the infected in the hospital, the disease wouldn’t spread. He was sick in the head. Not right. The other guy tried to keep him from doing it. There was a fight, a gunshot, then silence. Then, all the doors slammed shut, and the shit hit the fan.” She approached Kate, asking her to pull back her sleeve.

  “And Matt?” I asked, glancing at Kopland, who was still hunched over a small booklet.

  “Matt was with us here for the first day. He came in to work, despite getting mugged earlier in the morning. Well, he said it was a mugging, but he admitted they didn’t try to take anything.”

  “Ah,” I said and Kate nodded. “So he was infected. But how…”

  “How’d that affect us getting our equipment knocked out, and getting locked in here? Good question.”

  Kopland looked up, face drawn.

  “I’m afraid that was my fault. When he turned, we didn’t know what to do. We initially locked him in an exam room after he… woke up. When it was clear he was violent—remember, we hadn’t been outside for any of this, just seen it on the television—we had no choice. We didn’t—we couldn’t—kill him.”

  Diana pulled the needle from Kate’s arm and Kate didn’t flinch, just rolling her sleeve down as the woman dislodged the vial from the plunger.

  “Yeah, well. We didn’t do a great job of locking the door. Someone forgot that the internal locks would disengage when the power flickered, so when we switched from mains to jenny power a few weeks ago, he got loose. I woke up and found him wandering the halls. We tried to push him back into the exam room, but we pushed him into the office with the radio and government equipment instead. We ended up killing him with a metal trashcan to the noggin. But he fell on the equipment. And that was that.”

  “So, welcome, at long last,” said Kopland, rising and moving to some laboratory equipment at the side of the room.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I said. “Listen, we have a friend who broke his arm. Bad compound fracture.”

  “Can we use your facilities to fix him up?” Kate asked, watching as Diana stared at me again, tapping the vial of blood against her palm absently.