G-157

by K. M. Malloy

  A handsome young blond smiled back at him from the right of the ID number.

  Gamma 285837-8.

  Culver, Troy Allen.

  Age: 17

  Aire’s own boyfriend was stalking her.

  The surveillance system was still booting all working cameras as Jackson logged the boy’s number into the chip tracking system he’d designed.

  Grid G, Row Seven, Block 8, Map Mark 328

  “Impossible,” he whispered, and ran it again.

  Grid G, Row Seven, Block 8, Map Mark 328

  The boy was in Aire’s bedroom. Jackson shook his head. The boy was fast, but there was no way he could have run two miles from town to her bedroom in under three minutes. Unless…

  Jackson pulled up the activity from Troy’s chip over the last week.

  No movement.

  The second monitor beeped, signaling that the security system had fully uploaded. He quickly found Aire on the basketball courts. It took a little longer for him to find Troy. He spotted the movement a half a block away. Troy had leaned down to squat behind someone’s back porch.

  His chip remained stable in Aire’s room.

  “I’ll be God damned.” Somehow, Gamma 285837-8 had removed his chip a week ago, put it in Aire’s dresser, and the security team had never picked up on it.

  “Un-fucking-believable,” he said, shaking his head.

  A light flashing in quadrant six caught his eye. He looked at the little brick house on the screen. A figure moved across the living room window, creating a hunched shadow in the curtains as the old woman stared out. Jackson’s skin grew cold as he watched the figure pace across the window, her footsteps becoming faster and faster.

  A red blinking light appeared on the screen with her stats and picture ID.

  “Shit,” he whispered.

  The chip system was designed to alert security team when a unit’s level became too stress elevated. Jackson himself had created the chip reactor system to alert the security team of the malfunctioned units when the surveillance team who used to watch the monitors would need to be cut due to the country’s budget crisis. Since the start of the experiment there were occasional malfunctions. Some units couldn’t handle the constant neurochemical stimulation from the chip and would exhibit psychotic episodes of violence or erratic movements. The security team would then enter the population, and remove the unit for disposal for the safety of the others. Major Jenkins, or Mayor Jenkins, as the population knew him, then informed the population that the individual had been recruited by the army for his or her “moxy” or “special talents”. The population easily accepted this explanation due to their lifelong conditioning, and became proud of the family members they had lost.

  Now the very system he had created was working against him.

  The quiet bonk-bonk-bonk of the alarm could be heard through his office walls. The security team was already suited up and taking action in John’s Town, and the alert system in the military van was directing them to secure the old woman. Aire would be in the team’s direct line of sight on the path to quadrant four.

  “Move, Aire,” Jackson urged. “They’ll pick you off right then and there if you don’t move.”

  The girl continued to weep on the bleachers.

  ***

  Thursday May 6, 2010

  2:50 a.m.

  Population: 196

  Aire was unaware of the time as she wept. It felt good to cry over everything at once, to get it out of her system and be done with it. She cried until the tears slowed and the sobs eased until she sat quiet in the night.

  Her body calm, emotions numb, Aire wiped her eyes and glanced at her watch. She stood up and brushed the dirt off her jeans, her thin legs carrying her quickly down the bleachers and across the park.

  The meeting rock was still a bit of a walk away. Her footsteps quickened as she trumped across the grass. She passed the soccer field, to the motocross track. The events of that day so long ago blazed in her mind. She remembered her fear at seeing that the jump was too short, her terror as Gary came crashing down on Troy. She remembered running across the track to him, how she had to force her stomach to be calm at the sight of all the blood. That’s when all the madness began. After Gary had caused the crash, the strange happenings began to surface just days later.

  She hated him then, and she hated herself as heat throbbed in her cheeks. If he wouldn’t have been so stupid, had just taken a second to estimate the jump none of this would have happened. That was her theory, anyway. She didn’t know what it was, but somehow Gary had picked up some kind of infection during the crash, something that plagued the mind and drove it to insanity, and he had spread it to the others. It was the only reasonable explanation for everything. He was the source of it all, so maybe if she could convince him to leave with her to go to one of the hospitals in Parker, they could do some tests and find out what was wrong with him. Then they could both return to John’s Town with a cure.

  Her quick stride turned to an angry march, her storming steps elevating the rage as she reached the edge of the pond. Why didn’t he do something about his illness earlier? Why hadn’t he gotten help when he knew there was something wrong with him rather than stay around and spread whatever the sickness was to the others?

  She wanted to scream, to kick something, to punch Gary until he begged for mercy. Her fingers grabbed hold of huge tussles of her own hair, and she pulled down hard on it as she paced by the massive gray boulder she’d gone fishing at with Troy by the water’s edge.

  She looked out across the water, squinted her eyes into the woods to see if Gary was coming. Nothing was in the distance. She turned to look across the track, past the park, where she saw pair of yellow headlights coming up the road from the north.

  She dropped down and hid behind the boulder. She listened to the engine growl as it drove down the highway, watched as it turned onto Bourbon to enter the heart of John’s Town.

  Crouching onto all fours, Aire crawled across the grass towards the city, careful to stay low in the shadows. The truck lights turned off and it began to slow, prowling the streets like a panther in the darkness. It found its prey and stopped in front of a small house with a rocking chair on the whitewashed front porch. A coldness crept through her bones when she recognized it as Mrs. Amos’s house.

  She watched three men in Army fatigues get out of the camouflage truck. The door opened to Mrs. Amos’s house, and the old woman shot forward, her wrinkled hands curling into claws raised above her head. A wretched, animal like wail erupted from her lungs as she lunged at the men.

  One of them outstretched his arm as he walked up the stoop towards her, and Aire heard a small pop. Mrs. Amos collapsed on her front porch near the old rocking chair, twitching for a moment before going limp.

  The shortest man in the group crouched next to the old woman and put his fingers to her neck. He shook his head. Another quiet pop echoed off buildings. This time the short man looked up to the other and nodded. The other two men reached down, and began to grab at Mrs. Amos’s limbs.

  Her mouth in a wide O, Aire watched with stunned eyes as they carried the old woman’s body down the steps towards the truck. Rage ignited within when they threw the old woman into the back like the trash crew chucking bags of garbage along the side of the road into the trash wagon. Satisfied with their work, the men climbed into the truck, and continued down Bourbon.

  She sat behind the rock and watched the truck create a cloud of dust as it drove through downtown and onto Buffalo Trail towards the residential houses. What could the military want with an arthritic old woman? Surely she couldn’t be of much use to them. It was another lie, she thought. Mrs. Amos hadn’t been recruited. No one had been recruited. They were dead. Every single person they had been told was recruited by the military had been murdered.

  It was an extermination. The military knew about the virus and was ridding the town of the infected. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to come back to anyone she knew. If Gary di
dn’t come to Parker with her, she’d go there alone, tonight. Parker was three times the size of John’s Town. There had to be someone who could help them there.

  The billboards could be a problem. They’d stopped Troy from leaving that night, but maybe since Gary was sick they wouldn’t affect him. Her plan was to cut through the woods, far away from the roads. The distance could cut the effects from the billboards (if there were any) and they’d be safer in the cover of the tree line. Parker was just over twenty miles away. It would be faster to take a motorcycle, but the noise of the engine could warrant unwanted attention. It would take them a day, maybe a little more to reach Parker on foot. She hoped she hadn’t acted too late.

  Aire glanced at her watch. Where was Gary, anyway?

  ***

  Thursday May 6, 2010

  3:02 a.m.

  Central Control, Security wing

  Jackson breathed in a sigh of relief as he watched Aire head towards the pond just before the security truck broke across the tree line. Relief was short lived. It tore at his heart to watch the old woman be tranquilized and thrown into the truck. Hundreds of people had died because he hadn’t been smart enough to crack the virus. It was too late for them.

  He watched the girl for a few minutes more, just as he had nearly every day for the last thirteen years. She’d been in diapers then, just two years younger than Sandra. She’d grown on him, become his own in a way. He’d smiled at Jenkins reports on her strong will and stubborn ways. She was so much like Sandra.

  Turning off the monitor, Jackson went back into his office. A virus code that could not be cracked had taken the lives of hundreds of innocent people, but it had shown him a thing or two. If some kid in Manhattan could design something so intricate, so could he.

  ***

  Thursday May 6, 2010

  4:13 a.m.

  Population: 194

  She’d waited almost an hour for Gary to show, but he never came. He’d made it clear he had no intentions of helping her in any way. This would be a journey she’d have to do alone. For a moment she almost began the trek when her watch struck four, but thought better of it and went into the old woman’s house for supplies instead.

  She’d drank almost a full pot of coffee and her hands shook from the caffeine and fear of the impending voyage. Aire found an old child’s back pack in Mrs. Amos’s hall closet. The name Chris was scrawled across the top with a backwards R. She loaded the pack with a few cans of food and several water bottles. After all, Mrs. Amos and Chris had no need for these things now. They were dead. So many were dead.

  Throwing the pack over her shoulder, Aire took one last look at the clock before closing the front door behind her.

  The sun wasn’t set to rise for another hour, and the cover of darkness was still thick enough that she could venture through the woods without detection. The Coconino forest was said to be thicker the farther west it was travelled, and she hoped at least that much was true as she circled the lake and began her venture into the forest, the lump in her stomach growing heavier with each step.

  Chapter Thirty

  Thursday May 6, 2010

  4:35 a.m.

  Population: 193

  It was hot inside the canvas covered humvee. The full body suit made him sweat in places he didn’t know he could sweat from. The thick material clung to his sticky skin, making his movements heavy and exaggerated. He felt trapped within the suit that made it difficult to bend at the joints, and Jackson found the only way to be semi comfortable in the cramped truck was to slide his rear to the edge of the bench seat and stick his legs out as far as he could without playing footsies with the marine across from him.

  The marines naked faces looked bored and groggy. A couple drooling mouths hung open in slumber as the men tried to catch a quick nap before reaching their destination. He was grateful for the quiet ride. It gave him time to think, time to plan. He’d have to act quickly when they reached the city limits. A second too slow and the whole thing was done for.

  It had taken quick thinking and a sly tongue for him to even be on this mission. He’d earned his computer programming degree while serving in the U.S. Air Force, and his previous combat training had been the only reason why Manning had approved him to go along for the ride. Money was tight, the facility understaffed even with contributions from the Blue Lion Group. Why wouldn’t he want to add another man trained in combat to the undermanned mission, Jackson had argued.

  He also suspected it had something to do with the initial security breach. The world outside was getting smarter, so much so that a nineteen-year-old on the east coast had created such a powerful computer virus that even one of the best experts in the country hadn’t been able to wipe it out after almost a month.

  “This is the exact technology we need to study,” Jackson had argued. “This virus is so complex, so unique. What would happen if something like this got out when they begin implanting the entire country with the chip?” Manning had agreed, and so had the board of directors at the Blue Lion.

  Now he was sweating his balls off next to the two marines on his team as the truck jostled and jounced over the dirt road into the mad house. He and two other soldiers had blue bandannas tied around their arms to signify their team and mission of flagging down any uninfected units with tranquilizer darts to bring back to the lab for additional testing. That would give him almost forty units to experiment with as he tested the virus in pursuit of finding a means to eradicate it. That’s what he’d told Manning, anyway.

  Jenkins sat next to him, an orange bandanna tied to his arm with special orders to terminate the Wild Card. He kept his eyes to the floor as the truck jolted across the ruts and bumps in the road, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Jackson made a conscious effort to keep his face lax and devoid of any emotion. The moment was coming, and he couldn’t risk being sent back before he got to Aire first.

  The red team, an assassination team of twenty, travelled in the humvees behind them. All infected units would be pegged with the lethal red darts, their bodies brought back to the lab dead on arrival. There their chips would be removed for further observation and their bodies sent to the burner for disposal.

  Jackson looked out of the back of the truck as it separated from the other four humvees behind them heading further south. Red team would create a semicircle around the south east end of the population, driving any uninfected to the center of town while terminating those who were unsalvageable. His team and Jenkins would set up in the center of town as the uninfected were sure to run to City Hall for help. He crossed his fingers the girl wouldn’t be far from their station, and began to pray.

  ***

  Thursday May 6, 2010

  4:35 a.m.

  Population: 192

  She wiped the sweat from her face as she continued her trek towards Parker. She’d been walking for only a half an hour or so, but already the woods were becoming unfamiliar. The trees were becoming more dense in this unknown part of the forest just as she’d hoped, sometimes so thick she had to squeeze through the tightly placed trunks.

  An anxious knot caught in her stomach, and every step increased her fear of setting out alone. She paid conscious attention to the feeling, afraid she too may be suffering the same symptoms as the others as she wandered farther away from John’s Town. She sang songs to herself to quelch the fear, but every little sound made her jump.

  She came upon a sparse patch in the woods, the trees here becoming younger and more evenly spaced. She stopped when she heard the faint sounds of running motors. It didn’t seem plausible that so many vehicles suddenly decided to drive into John’s Town. Aire told herself it was in her mind, auditory hallucinations brought on by her fear and paranoia. It’s probably just one Army truck, she told herself, it only sounds like ten because you have the jitters. The rest of the noise was just the chugging of motorcycle engines of the residents as they got up and began to go to work and run errands. The illusion was there because the trees were thick and distorted
the sound.

  “Just distorted sound,” she whispered.

  From the moment she’d left her house, Aire felt something wasn’t right, that something was more unright than the madness plaguing the city. That feeling she had chalked up to being nervous about meeting Gary. But when she’d entered the woods after leaving Mrs. Amos’s house, the feeling seemed to intensify. That, she decided, was caused by having seen the woman murdered and stolen away under the cover of darkness. It’s something more though, a voice whispered within, it’s something much more.

  The sound of motors began to fade. She shook her head and continued her journey, her thoughts mangled within her mind. Once the sound of the motors passed she could hear rushing water ahead. It had to be Christopher Creek, but she couldn’t be positive. She’d never been this far upstream to tell if Christopher Creek was its own entity, or if it was fed by other meandering streams running down from the mountains. Or was it Cienga Creek? Wasn’t that close by?

  Focus, she reminded herself.

  She turned her mind back to her emotions, trying to sort through why she had such a sick feeling in her gut. She’d been stressed about the happenings in town, about Troy. Most of all she had been afraid to have the meeting with Gary. Not because she was fully afraid of him, cautious was a better word to describe her feelings about him. She was fully afraid to find out the answer to the horrors of the small town, afraid that whatever was causing all this was an inescapable fate she couldn’t change no matter how hard she tried.