It was an invitation that they could not refuse.
Alex saw through Ari’s cordial façade. Just like he patronized the citizens of the UAA with feigned interest in their well-being, he did the same for them. He also knew whether they provided him with the cure or not, they would all meet the same fate: execution.
Instead of provoking him, Alex decided to play along with his game. “Other than these gravity accelerators restraining us to the chairs,” he said, “I couldn’t have asked to stay at a more beautiful place than here at Tabas.”
Ari prided himself in the opulence that he created. Alex’s words only proved to stroke his growing ego.
Guri turned his head side-to-side and began to panic. “I don’t want to stay!” he moaned through the tears. “I don’t want to stay. Let me go!”
“I cannot take this any longer!” Masika shouted. In a rage of anger, she grabbed Guri by the mouth and shoved a small, black pill into it. He attempted to spit it out but Masika’s tight grip upon his jaw would not allow for such an action.
Guri’s eyes suddenly went blank as his body began to tremble.
“What did you give him?!” William shouted.
Guri’s entire body suddenly turned a sullen color of gray while his hair fell from his head in one clump.
“Why?” Ari asked. Masika had obviously overstepped her authority and taken a unilateral and rash action.
Before Ari could scold Masika further, Guri turned completely black. Both eyeballs fell to his lap, accompanied soon by bits of skin and muscle. Within a minute all that was left of Guri had been gravitationally plastered against the chair. The sight of a smoldering pile of black flesh, bones, and clothes proved too much for William to handle.
“You monster!” he shouted. “You killed Guri!” He tuned to Alex. “She killed Guri!”
Alex kept a stoic face, not giving any of them the satisfaction of an emotional response. Though surprised, he had no delusion both he and William may soon meet the same fate.
“Take them away,” Ari shouted. “Now!” He turned to Masika in anger. She seemed invigorated by the whole incident and did not care about her husband’s disapproval. This was the fate she wished for every Westerner and capitalist.
“They killed Guri!” William continued shouting as he and Alex were briskly escorted out of the room. “Those sons of bitches!” his faint voice echoed from afar.
SattAr stared at Ari in disbelief that his wife killed one of the men who possibly could have provided them with the cure. How naive it was to believe that Alex, alone, held the answer.
Before SattAr could comment, Ari looked him in the eye and with a boisterous voice bellowed, “You have a problem soldier?”
SattAr’s expression did not change. He didn’t fear the Malik.
“This is war,” Ari smugly continued, “and if you cannot stomach the casualties, you are in the wrong profession.”
As Ari and his wife began to exit the room, he turned back to SattAr who remained motionless and said, “I’ll give them exactly 24 hours, and if Alex doesn’t provide us with the cure, I want him and his friend immediately terminated.”
Chapter 39
Samantha still could not believe Commander Gorman had ordered an air raid on Neurono-Tek. It seemed like such a ludicrous action. Although she did sympathize with him about the casualties, razing her company to the ground was obviously not a viable option.
The entire state relied on Neurono-Tek’s hospital, and their country—if not the world—depended on their cutting-edge research. Only a few institutions like theirs remained in the United States. A country that once boasted a few hundred of such facilities now only had a meager three to continue vital research. Losing one of them now would not be an acceptable option.
Samantha attempted to contact Commander Gorman a few more times to plead her case. Only his assistant responded to her requests and proved just as stubborn as his superior.
“All you need to do is spray the entire area with metaldehyde,” she pleaded with them. “It’s lethal to the bugs and harmless to humans.”
She soon realized she could give Commander Gorman the solution to world peace and the meaning of life but he would still insist on an air strike.
Samantha slammed her hands against the console. Frustration mounted. Stuck alone in the bunker, attempting to find the cure for The Disease, and now trying to avoid annihilation overwhelmed her. She could multitask, but this was ridiculous.
She also grew worried that Alex had not returned her communications. She knew something must be wrong, and she felt helpless to do anything about it.
A loud siren began to blow around Neurono-Tek’s perimeter. Samantha didn’t even need to listen to the audio on the video screens to hear the earsplitting noise.
Though she could not view them, she knew the military had surrounded Neurono-Tek with a five-mile DO NOT ENTER perimeter. The area had been cordoned off for the air strike and now the siren indicated its imminent commencement.
Samantha knew staying would be suicide, but like a captain of a sinking ship she refused to vacate the premises. She would rather die a martyr than a quitter.
Experiments still ran in the autopsy room. She intended to work until the final minute, hoping her last effort might bring them closer to a cure. All her results streamed directly to the NIH. Hopefully they could pursue the research further despite their meager scientific capabilities.
The NIH, Samantha thought. That may be the answer!
She suddenly realized that despite losing most of its once coveted research capacity, the governmental organization still remained politically influential. If she could somehow obtain their help, maybe the entire air strike could be averted.
“Get me Dr. Howard at the NIH immediately,” she shouted in the tele-communicator on her console.
It did not matter that it was now 2:00 A.M. At this point, she’d wake up the President of the United States if she needed to.
An audio-only response sounded from the console. No visual image accompanied this communication.
“Hello?” said the half-asleep voice.
“Yes,” Samantha said matter-of-factly over the siren’s annoying blare in the background. “This is Dr. Samantha Mancini with Neurono-Tek, and I need your help immediately.”
Dr. Howard’s voice instantly became clearer. “How can I help?”
He had been well aware of the circumstances at Neurono-Tek. Though the media had withheld part of the information, he knew the complex had been locked down due to a possible terrorist-type attack.
Samantha quickly briefed him of the circumstances. If this communication were not coming from a secure line with confirmation of its destination, he would have thought the whole thing a joke. He was not laughing.
The consequences of destroying Neurono-Tek at this juncture of The Disease, along with the present problems caused by the vastly depleted medical system, would be catastrophic.
Dr. Howard ran the scenario over in his head multiple times, deliberating over any option he had available.
“I can call the congressmen I know on Capitol Hill right away,” he finally said, “but it could take hours if not days to stop an air strike. And you obviously don’t have that kind of time.”
“Don’t remind me,” Samantha responded.
“The only way I could possibly stop an attack on Neurono-Tek on a more immediate basis is if there were a potential biohazard that would be released into the environment as a result of the air strike,” he went on to think aloud. “But from what you tell me there isn’t.”
“Did I mention that I have isolated the pathogen behind The Disease and that an air strike could disseminate it over a hundred mile radius?”
“You should have said that in the first place!” he responded almost in a panicked tone.
She would have, but she had just made it up when Dr. Howard told her what he needed to hear. She had not isolated the pathogen and even if she did, it would be instantly vaporized in the bombin
g. Though not a poker player, she was betting the house on a pair of twos.
“This would be catastrophic!” Dr. Howard went on to say. “I have to stop this strike if it means intercepting the planes myself!”
She could hear him shuffling papers in the background and awakening his wife from sleep. “I’m getting on this right away. You have my word, Dr. Mancini. I will do everything I can for you!”
The communication ended.
I hope this works.
Samantha cautiously watched the screens, hoping no bombs or missiles would suddenly reign down upon the complex. She had no idea how soon the attack would begin but had a bad feeling it must be coming soon. Commander Gorman did not seem to be a patient man. If it were entirely up to him, Neurono-Tek would have been turned to rubble an hour ago.
Chapter 40
“I can’t believe she killed Guri,” William reiterated ad nauseam while pacing the room. He turned to Alex. “Did you see that? His body… it just turned to black mush. Have you ever seen such a crazy thing?”
Unfortunately for Alex, he’d had the misfortune of witnessing it twice in just over a week.
He tried to ignore both William and his remorse over Guri’s demise as he searched the room for some means of escape. Though they were given a meager 24 hours to produce the cure, he had no intentions of complying.
While being escorted from their interrogation, he assumed they were headed for a dark and Spartan confinement. Instead, their accommodations turned out to be as luxurious as the grand ballroom where they had just been.
The opulence of the entire palace, including this room, was not lost on either Alex or William. They had never before seen such lavish décor. It made King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles look like a pauper’s cottage. Obviously no expense had been spared in the construction. If only the citizens of the UAA knew where their hard-earned money had been spent, they would be disgusted.
“Why’d they put us here anyway?” William went on to ask in the midst of his lamenting. “I thought they would just torture us on the spot to get all the information they wanted.”
Like William, he didn’t understand why they didn’t just finish their interrogation back in the ballroom or why Ari Lesmana granted them a full day to produce the cure. Was there something more urgent or pertinent at the present time that made the cure a second thought?
William momentarily suspended his rant after discovering a well-stocked refrigerator filled with food and an assortment of beverages. After taking out a few sandwiches, an entire chocolate cake, and a two-liter bottle of soda, he mumbled, “I just need a little something to calm my nerves.”
Alex further searched the room, looking for any way out. He knew a breakout would prove difficult as most likely the entire place had been bugged. With surveillance equipment now the size of a pinhead, a hidden camera could be located anywhere.
We have to find a way to get out of here!
Alex bent down and pulled an infrared disrupter out from the side of his shoe. Though stripped of all his gadgets, the UAA had overlooked both his sneakers and contact lenses as a source of any suspicious contraband. Their carelessness could prove to be his salvation.
William’s eyes widened with anticipation. He knew Alex must have concocted some plan for their escape and wanted to draw attention from the obvious surveillance back to himself instead of his friend. “They killed Guri,” he continued to moan almost theatrically with a mouth full of cake.
Alex surreptitiously then began to reconfigure the infrared disrupter while pantomiming that he had been simply tying his shoes. He looked cautiously at the door, almost expecting a few UAA guards to storm in and beat him into submission.
Luckily, his actions produced no such response as William’s lamenting most likely gleaned all their attention. Alex stood and stretched his back as if nothing had occurred. “Let’s make our escape,” he said aloud.
“But,” William sputtered as bits of food shot out of his mouth as if originating from a Gatling gun. “But… but I thought we were supposed to keep quiet.”
“We’re fine for now. I set the infrared disrupter to scramble all sound communications. The UAA will think there’s a glitch in their surveillance system, and by the time they determine the truth, hopefully we’ll be gone.
“So what’s the plan?” William asked enthusiastically while shoveling even more food into his mouth.
“That’s as far as I got.”
William stopped chewing. His cheeks were out like that of a chipmunk and the optimistic smile on his face turned into a look of despair.
Alex held up his hand. “Hold on there, big guy. It’s not like I don’t have any ideas. First, let’s assess what we know about this room.”
“O.K.,” William quickly responded, trying to help. “It has a well-stocked refrigerator and the toilet doesn’t appear to clog easily.”
“In addition to that,” Alex went on to say, “this room appears to be designed for the safety of the individuals inside of it and not as a holding cell of any sort.” He pointed to the windows. “They’re bulletproof. I inspected them carefully and if you look at them at an angle, the glass is layered between polycarbonate, thermoplastic sheets. And the ornate wooden door holding us in here is obviously a façade. Did you notice how it moved on rollers? I bet it has a solid iron interior.”
He turned and looked around the room. “I would also suspect this whole room is lined with a few inches worth of iron.”
“I don’t know about you,” William countered, “but it doesn’t make me feel too safe right about now. How are we going to break through solid iron? That magnet thing of yours surely isn’t going to do the trick, and they took all of your other gadgets.”
“Except my contacts,” Alex slyly responded.
William chewed his food slowly, trying his best not to look too unimpressed. “O.K. then,” he added sarcastically. “I guess we’ll use your 20/20 vision to rocket us out of here.”
“That’s Plan B,” Alex jested. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been able to access the entire specs of this palace and am looking at the architectural layout of this specific room right now.”
“But how’d you do that? Shouldn’t the specs be classified or something? What did you have to break into to get that?”
Alex shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing. The layout is public knowledge.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It should,” Alex scoffed. “Did you think a megalomaniac like Ari Lesmana would keep the design of this architectural masterpiece a secret? No,” he said, answering
his own question, “of course not. He wants the world to know all about his magnificent creation, even if it compromises this palace’s security.”
“Thank God that moron let those top secret specs get posted or we’d be in even more trouble.”
Alex walked around the room, acting as if he were simply admiring the artwork along the walls. He needed to keep the ruse going so that the UAA security would not grow suspicious.
There were a few ways to escape, but as Alex ran through the room’s design he determined that each would be a major undertaking and raise suspicion almost immediately. Plus, they didn’t have the tools for such projects, nor did they have the privacy to accomplish anything unnoticed.
Stumped!
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Alex said.
“Don’t forget about the courtesy flushes,” William responded. “I’ll have to also use it again pretty soon.”
“You got it,” he said, not wanting to waste any time explaining. Alex desired not to relieve himself but to instead look for a way to escape.
Something about the bathroom’s architectural design had caught his attention. It appeared as if it were not originally meant to be attached to the main room and had been added almost as an afterthought.
The décor of the bathroom immediately struck Alex as being out of place. With a marbled floor, a large Jacuzzi, and sauna, it seemed as if thi
s room had been originally part of an indoor spa and was converted to a bathroom.
There was also a slight step down when entering the room. It would not have seemed unusual unless one were looking for nuances of incongruity.
Now this is a throne room.
Alex went over to a white marble-lined sink and washed his face. After turning off the gold-plated faucet, he dried off with one of the towels embroidered with the UAA falcon. He looked into the mirror as if examining a mole or an unsightly hair. However, this ruse was meant only to provide him with a further opportunity to highlight the specs of this room on his contact lens.
Unfortunately, the entire bathroom also boasted solid iron walls beneath its elegant outer façade. It would take a high-powered laser or small explosion to even make a dent in them. Alcatraz seemed less impenetrable at this point.
Alex took one final look around the area and began to exit. Upon leaving, he noted a small closet that appeared to lie just between the two rooms. Because the bathroom and main room were adjoined at an angle, there was a small, triangular space between the two where a closet stood.
It appeared the architect didn’t want to waste any space and used this extra room to create this closet.
That’s it, Alex thought. That’s how we’re going to get out!
“William!” Alex yelled. “Stop eating and come into the bathroom.”
Unfortunately, that was like telling a herd of cattle to stop charging.
William downed the rest of the sandwich and he walked nonchalantly over to meet his friend.
“I found a way to get out of here,” Alex said with his hand over his mouth as if wiping his face—just in case the UAA guards could read lips. “Follow me.”
Alex led them over to the sauna. It was a large glass-encased room with wooden benches surrounding a central pit filled with heated rocks. He opened the door. “After you.”
“Don’t I get a towel or something?”
“Just act natural,” Alex responded. He thought a second, knowing what natural meant to William. “Just act normal and sit over there on one of the benches.”
The New Reality Page 25