by Adair, Bobby
Murphy walked to the other side of the little elevator building and looked in the other direction. “I think if those guys are together, it’s because they’re bored of standing around by themselves and looking at the back of the wall.”
Seeing where Murphy was going with that line of thought, I said, “You think something’s not guarded right now.”
Murphy nodded.
We walked side by side across a long, wide piece of empty plaza to a small elevator building that mirrored the one we’d just been hiding behind. The whole plaza was built that way, one half a mirror image of the other.
I glanced back at the smokers more than once. I saw them looking at us in longer and longer glances, but after each glance, they apparently satisfied whatever curiosity or suspicion they had about us and they went back to their conversation and cigarettes. From a distance in the dark, Murphy and I did look like them.
We made a left turn at the elevator building and walked together toward another small house-like structure, the entrance to one of the stairways that led down into the office warrens. It stood on the opposite side of the plaza from where the three guards were killing time. Like its counterpart where the three men loitered, this one was set back into a square concrete alcove, presumably to protect those coming and going, at least momentarily, from any rain that might be falling, with space to open and close umbrellas.
With no more than idle curiosity from the guards, we arrived at the alcove. Hidden from view from nearly every direction, I tried the solid metal door to the stairs while Murphy kept lookout behind us.
Locked.
Damn.
I tried the door again, jiggling it quietly.
Damn.
“Locked?” Murphy asked.
I sighed.
“Try it again,” he said.
Shaking my head, I said, “Why?” I jiggled it again anyway.
“What’s the plan now?” he asked as he peeked out around the wall.
“I—”
The door clicked inside and swung open.
I tripped over my feet while stepping out of the way, and caught myself on the door frame halfway to hitting the ground.
Looking down at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, a guy in a half-assed military uniform stared.
Chapter 28
Pointing, and angrily waggling his finger, the guy in the doorway said, “You dumbasses. Go back to the front wall.” Then his face changed. He knew I didn’t look right, but for some reason he wasn’t making the logical leap to what the color of my skin implied about me. Maybe it was the moonlight that threw him off.
I tried to get my feet beneath me while not knowing what to say back to him.
“Move dumbasses,” he ordered, waggling his finger again. He looked away from me and eyed Murphy as the expression on his face changed. Something was clicking in his brain.
I said, “No habla de Spanish.”
“What?” The guy looked at me again, with his lip cocked up in an Elvis sneer, and he shook his head. “You stupid?”
With his attention focused on stupid me, the guy didn’t see Murphy swing his fist. The punch threw his head back as he crumbled and rolled backwards down the stairs.
I rushed inside, hurrying down the stairs after the tumbling asshole. As the guy hit the first landing, I pounced on top of him, pressing my hand against his mouth and putting my knee over his throat.
The door above clicked shut, and Murphy hustled down the stairs, stopping beside me.
“Nice punch,” I said, looking up. “He’s out.”
Chapter 29
Interrogation seemed like the best option. Why not? We had the guy. We couldn’t leave him in the stairwell. We wanted answers, and he surely knew more about what was going on at the Capitol than we did.
With little effort, Murphy lifted the guy and threw him over his shoulder.
From a tour I’d taken a few years back I knew the annex was full of offices, conference rooms, hearing rooms, and plenty of open spaces where the light flowed in from the skylights above to make the subterranean space more palatable. I’m thinking now that a Capitol tour for a twenty-something guy sounds like a pretty suck way to spend a Saturday. But hey, it was free. Me and my buddies had been drinking since before noon. Damn near anything is entertaining when you’re hammered especially when every ornament and every architectural feature looks like a phallus. Swear to God.
Taking advantage of the perspective, we even took turns posing for photos by a particular design on the terrazzo floor that looked like a giant pink penis. That was funny as hell until a security guard came to investigate.
There. That’s my excuse for voluntarily killing a Saturday in a government building.
Thankfully, I hadn’t been so wasted that I forgot the whole day. Well, parts later that evening never resurfaced in my memory. That’s why I never figured out which one of my buddies barfed on my couch.
As it was, I had a pretty good understanding of the Capitol Annex layout.
I led the way downstairs. Shoes, eyeglasses, and the remnants of cell phones lay scattered on the stairs along with random crap out of a girl’s purse or some guy’s briefcase. It was clear to me the Whites had caught and killed people in the stairwell. The bodies were gone but the evidence remained.
Three stories underground, I opened the stairwell door into darkness. The feeble moonlight coming in through the skylights over the hallway didn’t provide sufficient light. Only the night vision goggles allowed me to see anything clearly.
“Anything out there?” Murphy whispered as he bumped into me from behind.
“Not sure,” I said, scanning the darkness a couple hundred yards to my left where the long wide underground hall terminated at the foot of the Capitol building. To my right, an equal distance away at the bottom of the round atrium, three floors below ground level, sat one of the helicopters. All around on the lowest floor, in the hall and under the balconies, were stacked boxes that had a familiar look.
“You need to see this,” I said, glancing back at Murphy.
He leaned around the edge of the open door. “Anybody down there?”
Nodding, I said, “I don’t see any movement, but there’s a light way down there past all the boxes.”
Murphy peeked and then stepped back inside the stairwell, hefting the unconscious dude to keep him from slipping off his shoulder. “How’d they get the helicopter down there?”
I stepped into the stairwell with Murphy, letting the door close quietly behind me. “The only way they could do it is if some pilot with big balls flew down through the circular atrium. Seems kind of crazy but I guess it’s secure.”
“What were those boxes?”
“I think ammo and weapons,” I said. “Those looked like boxes we saw at Camp Mabry in the bunkers. I think they’re using this floor for an ammo dump.”
Murphy pushed the door open and leaned out far enough to get a good look. He came back into the stairwell. “Why store all that ammo here? Why are they setting up house at the Capitol?”
I shrugged. “Why did a bunch of assholes in a helicopter shoot at us and sink our boat? Why did they build a stupid fort around the Capitol building? Fuck, Murphy, I don’t know?”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad.” Murphy pursed his lips and asked, “What’s the plan then? You want me to haul this dumbass back upstairs and ditch him?”
I took a moment to think about it. “Let’s go up a floor. With the helicopter and the ammunition down there, guys are bound to be down here sooner or later. The second floor seems to me like the best place to grab some state senator’s office and have a talk with this guy when he comes around.”
Chapter 30
Bodies, reeking and rotting, were still on the floor on level two. At least what was left of them. The floors were cluttered. I guessed the second level wasn’t being used by anyone. We found an unlocked door, walked right through the outer meeting room and commandeered the inner office.
Using a flashl
ight pointed at the ceiling for illumination, I looked at our prisoner. With all of the network cable Murphy and I could pull from the computers around the office, we had him wrapped tightly in a rolling office chair. He’d come awake as we were tying him up, and he wasn’t happy.
“What’s the deal here?” I asked him.
The guy spit some blood onto the floor and sniffled up some of what had been draining from his nose. He didn’t answer my question. Instead he asked me, in jumbled speech that was hard to follow, “Why you don’t tell me who you are and what the hell you’re up to?”
Murphy moved to punch him in the face but stopped before doing it.
The guy flinched and turned his head.
Murphy chuckled. “You macho boys crack me up.”
“Fuck you,” said the guy.
Murphy punched him in the face.
The guy’s head snapped back and more blood flowed.
I glared at Murphy.
The guy laughed. “The thing I wondered ‘bout you White Skins is…” the guy seemed stuck on finding the next word. “…Do you know? Stupid you are?”
I wanted to hit the guy myself, but I wasn’t sure if he even understood what he was trying to say.
He forced another laugh. “You… must be Einsteins of the White Skin world. You got guns and… shit. You still talk but you have to miss those… days when… you had a whole brain.” He spit some blood at the floor but mostly at me. “C’mon man. I smarter a lot than you. Let… me go. Leave. I forget it too.”
Murphy leaned and half whispered in my ear, “This dude’s an idiot.”
“You know that not hurts, right?” The guy looked at me. “I’m Survivor. Black eyes. No pain.” He grinned through bloody teeth.”
I took the flashlight and shined it into the guy’s eyes. I pulled it away and shined it in again before aiming it away. “Shit, Murphy. Look at this.”
Murphy leaned in close.
I said, “His eyes don’t dilate.” I repeated the experiment.
The guy said, “Survivor. Black eyes. No pain.”
“You had the virus?” I asked.
“Fuck you, dumbass,” he answered.
Murphy balled a fist.
“No pain,” the guy grinned again.
Murphy shrugged and said, “Unless you want me to knock out all of your teeth you’ll quit being an asshole and tell us what we want to know. It might not hurt, but you’ll sure miss the teeth when they’re gone, I guarantee you that much.”
“Not telling,” said the guy.
“Jeez,” I laughed. “You act like you’ve never seen a movie in your life.” I stood up and started to pace. “That’s the way this shit works. We tie you up. You protest. We beat you. You get all macho. We beat you some more. In the end, you tell us what we want to know. That’s just the way it is.” I sat back down in front of him. “It’s not like you’re hiding any government secrets or anything.”
I stared at him for a moment longer and said, “We don’t want to beat you, man. I’m Zed. This is Murphy. You got a name?”
The guy glared at me.
“Dude,” I said, “being an asshole doesn’t get us anywhere. Just tell me your name or I’ll make one up for you.”
He glared some more.
I huffed. “Fine. You’re Marvin. Cool?”
“Marvin?” He got a sour look on his face. “Call Don.”
Murphy asked, “Who’s Don?”
“I Don,” the guy told him.
“Don,” I said. “Look, here’s the deal. It’s not like we’re Russian spies or anything. Some bunch of dipshits in a helicopter shot up our boat. We followed the helicopters down here, and low and behold, we find you. A Slow Burn, I guess.” I pointed at Don. “We’re just trying to find out what’s going on.”
“Slow Burn?” Don asked. “Survivor. I Survivor.”
“Whatever,” I shrugged. “Is that what you call yourself, a Survivor?”
“I am,” he said. “We all Survivors.”
“Cool,” I said. “Why aren’t you white like us?” I asked.
Don looked me up and down, “You a White Skin.”
I laughed.
Murphy grabbed his crotch and said, “I’ve got your White Skin.”
Still laughing, I looked over at Murphy. “I thought it was a mocha frost tea bag.”
Murphy found that pretty funny.
I turned back to Don. We needed to get serious again. I said, “You got the virus. That’s why you have the dilated eyes and you don’t feel much pain. But it didn’t affect your pigment.”
Don shook his head.
“So you’re saying any Survivors that lose their pigment are White Skins?” I asked. “Even if they’re still just as smart as you? You know, just so I understand.”
Shaking his head and letting his anger show, Don said, “All White Skins is stupid. Cannibals. White Skins is White Skins.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s the difference between you and me besides skin color. We both survived.”
Don pulled a face and said, “You stupid. You cannibal. No White Skin smart.”
“What about us?” I asked.
That seemed to confuse Don. “You first White Skins I seen could talk. Some talk nonsense. Some we train. Like dogs. Not smart.”
I stepped back and paced around a bit.
Murphy sat on a desktop and looked at me. “I think he’s lying.”
“No lie,” said Don.
I looked at Murphy and said, “Yeah. I hate to agree with Don, but I don’t think he’s bright enough to lie.”
“Unless that’s the lie,” said Murphy, “the act that the virus made him stupid.” Murphy looked at the door and then looked back at me. “We should get out of here. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
I slowly shook my head. I needed to learn more about what was going on. If Don was telling the truth. Hell, Don had to be telling at least a partial truth. He was clearly a survivor of the virus, but in a form we’d never seen before. I asked, “Where did you live when the virus hit?”
Don pursed his lips, reluctant to answer.
“Do you think it matters?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, here’s what I think.”
Murphy started laughing again. “Oh no, it’s Professor Zed time.” He yawned and looked at Don. “You should have talked.”
“Whatever.” I shot Murphy a withering look. Back to Don, I said, “You guys had to have gotten all these helicopters from Fort Hood. You can pretend that’s a secret if you want. It doesn’t matter to me. My point was that in Austin, we haven’t seen any like you.” I put a finger on Don’s chest. “I’m wondering if in different parts of the state if… I don’t know…” I thought about it for a minute. “Why would people up where you’re from survive in a different way than we did down here?”
“I Survivor,” said Don. “You Meat.”
Chapter 31
Further interrogation of Don turned out to be a waste of time. He didn’t tell us anything that we couldn’t figure out for ourselves by just sitting on a side street and watching the Capitol grounds. When my patience ran out, Murphy was kind enough to punch Don on the side of the head hard enough to knock him out again, sending him and the chair crashing to the floor.
We left him in the back office with the doors closed, lying on the floor still tied to the chair. I figured if he wound up stuck in there for a couple of days, eventually somebody walking in the hall might hear him holler. If not, well, I figured he would eventually work his way out of his binds.
At least that’s how I rationalized it. I didn’t want to think we’d left him to die of thirst while tied to a chair in a remote part of the Capitol.
Murphy said we should either kill Don or get off the Capitol grounds the way we came in. Any other plan, according to him, was stupid.
Nevertheless, Murphy reluctantly followed me down the hall on the second subterranean level, moving quietly toward the main buil
ding.
The clomping of boots coming down the stairs out of the Capitol alerted us to stop and squat in the deep shadows near the walls.
We waited and listened.
The boots came closer. They were on the level below us and had we looked over the balcony, we would have been able to watch them pass right below. That wasn’t necessary, as they were talking as they walked, making their position easy to track just by the sound.
“Justice Baird said six—bring six,” one guy told the other as they passed below.
“We never take them out at night,” said the other guy. “Did he say why?”
The first guy laughed bitterly. “You wanna ask Justice Baird why?”
“No,” the second guy muttered. “Where we supposed to take ‘em?”
The first guy said, “Out front. He wants ‘em to haul some of those deer blinds to the front wall so we can put more guns out there tonight.”
“They’re not that heavy,” said the second guy. “We could haul ‘em ourselves.”
“Why?” The first guy laughed. “We got White Skin labor. Why not use it?”
“They die when we work ‘em too hard,” said the second guy.
Laughing as they walked out of earshot, the first guy said, “We can get more.”
Murphy and I stayed put and silent while we waited for the two to pass through some doors down past the helicopter. Once they were inside, we hurried off.
At the end of the hall at the main stairway leading up into the Capitol building, we stopped.
“Which way, Batman?”
I huffed. “Stop calling me Batman.”
“You don’t like Null Spot.”
I pointed upstairs. “I think we should stay off the main floor.”
“Why are you so interested in scoping these dudes out?” Murphy asked. “Are we thinking about joining these yahoos? Because if that’s your plan, that’s one thing. If not, well you know what I think.”
I pointed back up the long hall we’d just come down. “You think those guys are talking about Slow Burns like Russell used to be?”