by LS Hawker
Once Gilby’s hands and feet were free, Elias helped him sit up, and he rolled his shoulders and flexed his feet. Then he reached up and carefully peeled the tape off his face, taking a good bit of his mustache off with it. He let out a burst of air, as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time.
“Give him some water, Berko,” Elias said.
Berko reached into the backpack, pulled out a water bottle, opened it, and handed it over.
“Thank you,” he said in a parched voice, then drank half the bottle in one swig. He wiped his mouth and set down the bottle, and then he sat and stared, his hands pressed between his knees, and rocked.
Jade and Elias shifted their weight from foot to foot, trying to give the guy a little time to get it together. Jade felt embarrassed for him and ashamed that she was embarrassed, because his friend had been killed, and he’d probably thought he would die down here in the dark, alone.
Berko sat down next to him on the bed and put his hand on Gilby’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “We found you. But we need to go, and we need you to come with us. Okay?”
Gilby nodded his head and wiped his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. He cleared his throat and drank more water, then capped it and stood. Then he groaned and pressed his hands into his side.
“Are you all right?” Jade asked.
“My ribs,” Gilby said. “I’ll be okay.”
They filed out of the room and walked toward the hole in the wall.
“Mr. Gilby,” Jade said.
“Call me Harry,” he said.
“Okay. Can you tell us who you are? How you knew about the project?”
“Do you work for the government?” Berko said.
“No,” Gilby said. “I used to work with Martin at a think tank. We studied government systems to come up with solutions for bloated bureaucracies. Over the time I was there, the organization began to split into factions—those who wanted to work within the system, and those who . . . didn’t. Martin and a few others were always pontificating about how they’d run things if they ever got the chance, and I got tired of hearing it. They were laid off—a kind way of putting it.”
They were in front of the hole in the wall now, and everyone paused to listen to Gilby.
“Anyway, our employer kept Martin and his group under surveillance. I know. It’s not exactly legal, but we told the NSA about these folks, but they said they had bigger fish to fry. So we kept tabs on them. We got hold of some of their confidential emails—one of their members pulled a Hillary Clinton and put everything on a private server that was easy to breach. All of you were mentioned and the Clementine Program detailed.”
He turned to Jade. “That’s why I tried to get you to come with me in the grocery store in Miranda. I screwed it up. I’m sorry about that.”
Jade’s air left her. He’d been trying to rescue her from this situation. If she hadn’t fought so hard . . . none of this would have happened. If she’d just gone with Gilby that day, maybe Dan, Connor, and Olivia would still be alive. They wouldn’t now be trapped with little hope of escape. She’d be home with her family now.
“You’re damn right you screwed up,” Jade said, much louder than she’d intended. “Why didn’t you say that? If you’d told me—”
“There wasn’t time.”
“And you nearly killed us when you ran us off the road,” Jade said.
“I know,” Gilby said, his voice rising. “You think I don’t know that? Yes. I screwed it up. But I’m not a spy or secret service agent. I’m a political scientist. I have no real skills.”
Jade let out a massive guffaw at this.
“This is going to sound a little crass,” Berko said. “But why didn’t Martin kill you when he caught you?”
“Because he wanted to use me to root out the rest of our group. He wanted to make sure he knew everyone’s location, so once the ‘revolution’ began he could gather them all together.”
Jade wanted to ask him if they’d tortured him the way they had Dan, but she didn’t want to know. He looked banged up, but not to the extent Dan and Connor had. Her breath caught in her throat, thinking of them. But no time for that now.
“There’s a ladder in there,” Berko said to Gilby. “Do you think you can climb it?”
“I’ll try,” he said. “But I need to use the toilet first. I don’t know how long it’s been.”
“Me too,” Berko said.
Jade walked into the eerie darkness of the women’s restroom alone, found her way into a stall, and took care of business. She set the LED on the counter and washed her hands and face, and searched her pockets for a hair band to tie back her hair but found none. She pressed her tattoo against her heart. “Help me, Mom,” she said. “Help us, God.”
She went back out in the hall where everyone else assembled.
“All right,” Elias said. “Here’s how it’s going to go. I’ll go up first, and then—”
“I think I should go up first,” Gilby said, clearly feeling age made him the natural general of this makeshift platoon. “I’ll lead the way, and then—”
“Excuse me,” Elias said respectfully but firmly. “We’ve already been on the ladder, on the way down to find you.”
“To rescue you,” Jade added. “We’ve spent three months in this place, and we know a little bit more about it than you do.”
“So you know where we are then,” Gilby said.
Jade and Elias exchanged a glance. “Yeah,” Elias said. “In the middle of nowhere.”
“No,” Gilby said. “I mean you know what this is. What this building is and how to get to the surface.”
“What this building is?” Jade echoed.
Gilby looked at each of them. “They built this Compound, this office complex, inside an old Atlas missile silo.”
“Does . . . does that mean they have a . . .” Jade said.
“A nuke?” Berko said.
Gilby shrugged. “Not yet.”
“Not yet,” Elias mocked. “There’s no way they could . . .” He trailed off, obviously remembering what SiPraTech had accomplished so far. The supercomputer. The militia. The people they’d killed.
“At any rate,” Gilby said, “I know how to get us out of here. I know how to get to the ventilation tunnels that lead beyond the Compound fence.”
Jade was suddenly grateful to Elias for having the presence of mind to rescue Gilby. Who knew if they’d have ever found their way out otherwise.
“We’d better get going,” Elias said. “So—I’ll go first, then Berko, then Gilby, and Jade brings up the rear. Let’s take it slow and easy up, okay?”
None of them could climb a ladder and hold a light at the same time, so they put their LEDs in the necks of their shirts as Elias had done earlier, so they each emanated a dim glow.
Jade’s breath came fast now, her hands clammy. A light brightened above her, and Elias stood six feet up, shining the light to help Berko start the climb.
Berko reached up and pulled himself up one rung and then another. Elias continued his ascent one-handed to provide light for Gilby and Jade.
When Gilby’s feet hit the rung that was two above Jade’s head, she started up. She could hear his labored breathing above, and wondered if his ribs were broken or just bruised. Either way, all this exertion had to hurt.
“Okay, Elias,” she said. “You can put your light away.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah,” she said.
Their voices echoed in the massive concrete tube.
She listened to Gilby’s tortured breathing, and the climb was perilously slow.
“Come on, guys,” Elias said. “Gotta save the world. Can’t stop now.”
Jade heard a clang and then was almost knocked off the ladder when Gilby’s foot slipped off a rung and kicked her in the face. If she could see, she would have seen stars. She wrapped her arms around the ladder and willed herself not to pass out.
“Did I kick you, Jade?” Gilby said.
“What happened?” Elias said.
“My foot slipped,” Gilby said.
“You okay?” Elias said.
“I’m okay,” Jade said, feeling wetness on her face. He’d kicked her in the stitches and opened up the wound again. It throbbed, and now her right eye stung with blood dripping in it. Desperate to wipe it away, she couldn’t let go of the ladder for fear of losing her grip and falling.
“Rub some dirt on it,” her football teammates would say. “Quit being such a wuss.”
Jade waited until Gilby was three rungs above her to continue.
Berko’s breathing echoed in the silo. “Stop,” he said, swallowing. “I can’t go on.”
“Come on, buddy,” Elias said.
“I can’t hold on,” Berko said. “My hands—they’re—”
“You have to, Berko,” Elias said. “Stay with me, buddy. Come on.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. Do you want out of here? Do you want to go back to Palo Alto so you can kiss the damned ground? Then come on!”
Berko grunted and he continued on.
“Hold up,” Elias said. “I got something here.”
Jade heard his hand slapping concrete and then his light came on.
She took in what he had found. A horizontal tunnel.
“Just a few more, buddy,” Elias said. “Just a few more then solid ground. Hoist yourself up here. Come on.”
There was no guardrail in front of the tunnel, but there was a small narrow catwalk from the ladder leading to it.
Jade squeezed her eyes shut thinking of standing on that catwalk.
Elias made it into the tunnel, then set his light at the edge so the other three could see.
“Come on, Berko,” Elias said. “Give me your hand.”
It seemed to take an eternity for Berko to take his foot off the ladder and step onto the catwalk.
Elias held out his muscled arm, and Berko wrapped his arms around it and let Elias pull him into the tunnel, where he fell over and stayed there.
“Okay, Gilby. Come on.”
He ignored Elias’s outstretched hand and hopped into the tunnel, landing with a muffled grunt.
“Jade,” Elias said. He held his hand out to her and she grabbed it with her left hand, but then she couldn’t make herself let go of the ladder with her right. It had a mind of its own. And suddenly she was back on the balance beam in the Ephesus High School gymnasium in front of dozens of people, unable to let go of the beam after mounting it and start her routine.
“Come on, Jade,” Elias said, pulling on her arm.
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve got you.”
“I’m too big. If I fall, I’ll take you with me.”
“You’re not going to fall,” Elias said, the patience in his voice nearly making her cry. He should just let her fall.
“I can’t.”
“We need to get Berko out of here and get him some medicine, and Gilby’s hurt too. Now, I can’t leave you here, you know that. You need to come on and let’s help our friend, okay?”
And then he yanked on her arm and she lost her grip on the ladder, and her right foot slipped.
Elias pulled her onto the catwalk and then into the tunnel, pulling her backward as if they were swing dancing, and then pulled her to himself where he held on to her.
“I’m sorry,” Elias said in her ear. “Had to be done.”
“I know,” Jade said. “I’m sorry for being such a wuss.”
When he released her he held his light to her face, concern etching his as he examined her wound. He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and shook it out.
“It’s clean,” he said, then wiped away some of the crusted blood.
“Thanks.”
“It’s not bleeding anymore,” he said. “But I think you’re going to need new sutures.”
“I’ll get right on that,” she said.
Gilby stood leaning against the wall, holding his side. The tunnel was about ten feet in diameter, another tube, only horizontal and forty feet long with a door halfway down on the right and one at the end. The tunnel was lined in corrugated metal, with its own LED emergency light, just large enough to walk through.
“What’s this?” Berko said. “Where does this go?”
There were steel crossbeams, and it was all painted white. “I know where we are,” Elias said in an awed voice.
“That’s right,” Gilby said. He guided them toward the door on the right.
Elias glanced back at Jade and Berko, his face eerie in the dim light, and then watched Gilby pull on the door handle.
To Jade’s surprise, it opened. Gilby disappeared inside then stuck his head back out. “Want to see?”
Jade wasn’t sure she did. But Elias went inside, so Berko followed and then Jade.
Elias and Gilby held out their lights. Inside the large room, the walls were lined floor to ceiling with metal shelves. And on those shelves was the most extensive collection of weapons Jade had ever seen in real life.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They all stared in awe at the dozens of rocket launchers, hundreds of grenades, assault rifles, boxes of ammunition, C4, gas masks, mortars, bombs, and other items Jade couldn’t identify.
If she’d had any doubts about SiPraTech’s intentions, this room wiped them all out. They were preparing for more than a cyber-attack.
“We need to take some of this with us,” Elias said. He reached toward an AR-15 but Jade grabbed his arm.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
Elias shook her off but she stepped in front of him.
“No,” she said. She shook her head.
Elias looked at Berko, who also shook his head.
“How are we supposed to defend ourselves?” Elias said.
“Elias,” Gilby said. “We need to leave everything as is. This is evidence. We need to get the ATF and the FBI out here. You do not want to be caught with an assault rifle.”
Jade could see Elias was wrestling with himself.
“Please, Elias,” Jade said. “Let’s go. We need to stay focused.”
Gilby pulled out his smartphone and snapped photos all around the room.
Elias dropped his arms to his sides. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Jade took his hand and pulled him out of the room. Berko joined them, waiting for Gilby to finish documenting their find.
A few minutes later, Gilby exited, closed the door, and stuck his phone back in his pocket. He led them to the door at the end of the tunnel and opened it.
Beyond the door, a walkway led to a balcony of sorts, and he walked out onto it. He switched on his LED and held it out in front of him.
“Where are we?” Berko said.
“It’s the launch silo,” Elias said.
Jade walked through the door and gazed down the length of two stories, into darkness. “Wow,” she said.
“If we can climb down that ladder below us,” Gilby said, pointing, “we should hit one of the ventilation tunnels. During launch, that’s where the gases escape so the silo doesn’t blow up.”
“We’re not complete morons,” Jade said.
“Sorry,” Gilby said. “I know that.”
“Another damned ladder,” Berko said.
“The tunnels shouldn’t be too far down,” Gilby said.
“Just a little more and we’re out of here,” Elias said to Berko. “Okay?”
“I’m ready,” Berko said. “Let’s go.”
Elias turned, got down on his stomach on the balcony, and held his light out.
“The ladder is to the left of us,” he said. “Me first, then Berko, Gilby, then Jade.”
Payback time. Of course she’d never kick Gilby in the face. If she did, his head would come clean off, make a racket on the way down, and give them all away. Jade nearly giggled, hysteria sweeping over her.
She was glad to be above everyone else, and took care going down. Her arms wer
e sore and shaking from exertion and then being yanked on by Elias.
“There it is,” Elias said below her.
This time Jade made it into the tunnel without Elias’s help. She feared he’d dislocate her elbow this time.
This tunnel sloped steeply upward. How far? Impossible to tell. And how long had they been underground?
She pulled out her phone and was surprised to see it was seven forty-five. She assumed it was p.m., but who knew how long they’d been doing what they were doing?
“What time does the sun usually go down?” Jade asked. “About eight o’clock? We should wait until about eight fifteen to make sure we come out after dark. I don’t want to be surprised by a bullet in my back.”
They sat down on the slope.
Everyone waited silently, wondering what would happen. On autopilot, the enormity of what had taken place and what was before them had kept exhaustion at bay.
When it was eight fifteen by Jade’s phone, they started the climb up the tunnel. Luckily, it was lined with corrugated metal too, so the going was easier than she thought it would be.
Berko fell and slid a ways before Elias went and got him, and piggybacked him the rest of the way. What would they do without Elias? They’d still be in the hallway across from the lab, most likely.
And then they were out, out in the sultry Kansas prairie evening, and Jade understood what Berko meant about wanting to kiss the ground in Palo Alto. Elias gently put Berko down, where he lay in the prairie grass, and Gilby sat next to him, his breathing ragged. They were now about thirty yards beyond the fence and a hundred yards from the Compound, which was entirely dark.
Elias pulled his phone out.
“Shit,” he said. “With the power out, I’m sure the cell jammer is disabled, but I still don’t have a signal. Does anybody?”
“I’ve got one,” Berko said. He handed his phone to Elias.
“Who are you going to call?” Jade asked Elias.
“The police,” Elias said.
“And tell them what?” Jade said. “We’re wasting time. We need to get as far from this place as possible as soon as possible. We need to get the AIP from my folks’ house and block Clementine from being uploaded.”