by Joshua Guess
I should have seen it. Should have been smarter. That way I could have asked questions, maybe gotten the lay of the land out there.
It was also possible they’d been so subtle because my checkup was being recorded. That seemed a likely precaution.
I wracked my brain, frustrated to the edge of craziness as I tried to read between the lines. I gave up sometime in the night, too exhausted to stay awake any longer. There just wasn’t enough information there.
It didn’t seem like I slept at all. One second I was laying there thinking, the next the sound of the door opening brought me fully alert. My heart hammered in my chest, only calming down when I recognized Garcia.
There were no guards bracketing her as there usually were. “I need you to come with me. Right now.”
“Sure, just let me pack up all my—”
She growled. “No time for jokes. Come the fuck on!”
Taken aback, I followed her as she turned on her heel and left the room. The path grew more familiar the further it went, until we stood in front of the same stairs leading to the basement where I’d killed the Reaver. “No. Not again.” I backed away.
She looked at me, confused. Then comprehension dawned. “Oh, I’m an idiot. No worries. There aren’t any Reavers down there. Come on, we’ll be seen.”
She went down the steps and through the door, holding it open for me. My options were limited. I could follow or run. I couldn’t even go back to my cell because the door to that building had a mechanical keypad I didn’t know the combination to. So I went down the steps.
Garcia flipped a switch and brought the dim room, which was lit by red LED bulbs the last time I was here, into full brightness. A pile of equipment sat nestled near the door. There was a cot, bottled water, rations, and to my great surprise, my own personal gear.
Colonel Phillips sat on the cot with his elbows on his knees, hands loosely grasped together. “Hello, Miss Lawson.”
“Uh, hi, I guess? What is this?”
Phillips frowned in a way that struck me as automatic, as if he’d been doing it so often lately it was pure habit. “This is me trying to make things right.” He gestured at the pile of stuff, pulling back the blanket next to him to reveal an array of weapons. “You shouldn’t be here long enough to need the food or the cot unless you want to catch another hour of sleep, but you should gear up. You’re going home today.”
I couldn’t believe it. Not metaphorically. I actually couldn’t believe it. “I gotta say, this is a level of fucking with me no one has ever achieved, and coming from me that’s a hell of a statement.”
“He’s not,” Garcia said. “This is for real. I’m one of the people getting you out.”
“How? No, why? It’s not like you didn’t take me prisoner—again—less than a week ago and make sure I knew I was going to see the inside of a kangaroo court.” I put some venom in the words, because I was done being yanked around and screwed with.
Phillips sighed, and it was a tired sound. “The sergeant here started arguing your case almost before we had you back here after our talk in the field. She’s a smart woman, and a fine soldier, but I wasn’t inclined to listen much until some of my men went against my orders and decided to mete out their own punishment.
“After that nearly everyone you’d helped or spoken to started doing the same thing. Those on the other side began…let’s call it slacking off.”
Garcia grunted. “Disobeying more orders, you mean.”
Phillips nodded curtly. “Yes. Might as well call it what it is. Doctor Barnes made it very clear to me that he and his team will not continue the research if it involves subjects who’ve been coerced.”
And I got it. “Which means you’re not going to find almost anyone.”
He nodded again. “Yeah. The faction of soldiers furious about me putting those four in chains for what they did to you are talking about splitting away from the rest of us. Maybe trying to take command of the fort. Just like I told you: without the mission, we lost unity of purpose. It’s over.”
I studied him. “Would you have carried on if Barnes had agreed to work on prisoners?”
Phillips leaned back, resting against the wall. “I don’t think so. I knew when we started taking people that something like this—someone like you—might pop up. The longer survivors out there stay alive, the better at it they become. It was only a matter of time before some resourceful group did what yours did. Hell, we practically invited it. The death of any soldier under my command is ultimately my responsibility, and I can’t blame you without taking my own share of it.”
“Sorry, not buying it,” I told him. “I mean, yeah, I can see you having a change of heart, but you made your point clear in that field. You might empathize with me, but I don’t see you throwing it all away just to set me free. That’s entirely too convenient.”
“I just told you how things have changed,” Phillips snapped.
Garcia stepped forward, hands raised. “He’s not bullshitting you, hon. The dissent in the ranks is almost open revolt. Too much stress for too long. And you’re operating under a misconception. Setting you free isn’t the point of what we’re doing today. It’s more of an added bonus.”
I groaned. “Jesus, please tell me you’re not starting a war in a few hours.”
Phillips grinned, the expression taking years off his age. “Hell, no. The malcontents are good soldiers, and good soldiers start talking about action by thinking in terms of strategy. Old soldiers start with logistics. While we wait here, others are moving and loading the trucks. The official line is that this is prep work for a long-term mission to return to your home and retrieve our prisoners. Our patrol units are certain they’ve made it back by now since we know they backtracked and retrieved their vehicles.”
“But that’s not what you’re doing,” I said, not asking a question.
Phillips seesawed his hand. “Well, we are planning to leave and go to Bastion. That much is true. But rather than grab prisoners and haul them off to a new base with researchers less scrupulous than our own, I thought we might stay a while.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re willing to set up a safe zone?” Then a horrible possibility hit me. “Or, what, you want to just move the research there?”
Phillips slapped a hand on his knee with a harsh crack. “Pay attention, girl. Did I not just say our entire team refuses to do the work without patient consent? I’m telling you I’m taking the loyal with me, today, right out from under the noses of those who are not while selling it to them as the sort of vengeance they want. All while we strip the cupboards and take every machine and piece of research we can load up.”
I shook my head in amazement. “How did you put this together so quickly?”
“He didn’t,” Garcia said. “We’ve had a bunch of different exit plans for a long time. All we had to do was arrange it so the people going with us know when and where to show up. We line up the trucks, open the gate, and leave together. With any luck, no one will be the wiser.”
“You don’t think it’ll be suspicious to your less loyal troops that they’re all being left behind?”
Garcia shook her head. “No, because their commanding officers explained that they’re being left behind for fear they’ll lose their heads in the field and do something stupid.”
“Sure,” I said. “That makes plenty of sense. It’s got the right balance of believable lie and truth. Make ’em think you’re getting your hands dirty because you don’t trust them to do it right. That’s a nice touch. Adds a lot of credibility to it.”
Phillips raised an eyebrow at me. “But?”
“But you’re relying on no one letting something slip, or someone in your camp not being a good enough actor to fool you about how you really feel.”
Phillips sat forward again. “I don’t do this lightly, Miss Lawson. I wouldn’t be leaving these men behind if a large number of them hadn’t been planning to take command away from me. Vi
olently if necessary, and it probably would be. Do you think I haven’t considered these things?”
I shrugged. “No doubt you have. I just don’t think you’ve given them the weight they deserve. I know if I were them, I’d be looking at the sudden shift in policy with a hell of a lot of suspicion. I’d be asking questions.”
Garcia started to speak, but her words were drowned out by a sudden burst of gunfire. She and Phillips shot to their feet. “Gear up. Get yourself ready. Try not to be too smug about whatever is going on out there. Sergeant, stay with her. Someone will give you the signal soon.”
Phillips drew his sidearm and rushed through the door, calm and cool.
Garcia motioned toward the pile of equipment. “Better do what he said. I’d throw some of the extra water and food in the pack if I were you, but changing clothes seems like the minimum.”
“Right,” I said, and rushed to do just that.
I didn’t bother taking off the thin cotton scrubs I was wearing. It would be cold out, and layers are never a bad idea. It felt odd to have real clothes on again, and you wouldn’t expect that after less than a week. Something about wearing institutional clothing nonstop during that time made it feel like much longer.
I was lacing my boots up when I realized the colonel hadn’t looked nervous or worried for even a second. Not when facing me, a person who could spaz out and break his arms with her bare hands. Not when he showed me a bunch of weapons, any of which I might have used against him.
Whatever the world past Zero had done to stress and change his personality—and I suspected it was just as much as any civilian—I couldn’t help admiring his resolve.
I just hoped it would be enough to get me out of this place alive.
25
“That’s the signal,” Garcia said when a rapid series of knocks echoed from the door in a pattern. “Let’s move.”
To her credit, she didn’t stop me at the last second and try to hand over some battlefield wisdom or ask if I was ready for this. She might have, probably would have, if we hadn’t lived in hell for the last six months. I think it’s a shared attitude among everyone who has made it this long that by virtue of survival, we can handle our shit.
My pack was heavy but it the weight was evenly distributed. I wore my boots and the custom black pants I never left Bastion without, along with an armored vest and a balaclava. From a distance no one would be able to identify me, which I found super helpful since a bunch of people wanted to kill me to death.
The cold air slapped the small portion of my face as soon as we stepped outside, but it was nothing compared to the sound. The deep thunder of the guns on the guard emplacements formed a slow counterpoint to the small arms fire rattling off in bursts and single shots. I doubted the pistols Garcia and I held would be of much use if someone decided to use a rifle against us unless we got incredibly lucky, but having the weapon in my hand still made me feel more in control than I had in weeks.
Garcia stopped at a corner, back pressed up against the building. “If something happens, head to the clinic. You’re loading up in the truck with the doctors, okay?”
I nodded. In the sudden chaos, I hadn’t even considered not having her to guide me. Our position at the rear of the buildings facing the main gate gave us a lot of protection from above. Someone would have to be on the narrow slice of wall that allowed them to look down the alley right at us to take a shot. But running between buildings would expose us to any number of shooters if they happened to be looking.
She held up her hand, pointing to the building across the way, then marked off a countdown from three.
We ran as fast as possible, not bothering to look to the side. If someone was lying in wait just to shoot us, knowing about it wasn’t going to help. If anything it might throw us off.
But no one did. We cleared the space in less than a second and hustled off to the next corner to do it all over again.
On the fourth such trip, we ran into a bad guy. I only processed what was happening after the fact, as I had no way of knowing who was friend or foe. The fact that he’d come around the corner with a rifle moving in a sweeping motion wasn’t quite enough for me. Garcia, however, knew her business. She dropped to one knee, presumably to give me a clear field of fire, and put two in his chest.
The shots staggered the soldier, his finger reflexively squeezing the trigger. I heard the burst pass close enough by my ear for the wind of the bullets to drift across my face. Garcia raised her pistol and fired again, her third shot exploding his jaw and putting him on the ground.
She holstered her pistol and took his M4 and spare magazines. If she felt regret, she didn’t show it. I had a feeling it would hit her later. That was how it was for me every single time.
The soldier wasn’t dead. His face was a ghastly, ruined mess, but as I walked by his hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. I bit back a shocked scream and wrenched free, trying not to hear the wet choking sounds echoing from his throat or see the fine mist of blood exhaled with them.
Fact: just before dawn is one of the worst periods of visibility. The overcast morning was still a good distance from full dawn, making everything the same dim and washed-out gray. Night would have given us a lot of cover, but people with good night vision can spot moving shadows and differences at a distance if they practice it. As far back as we were, the fuzziness where the predawn light and shadows met would make us damned hard to spot.
That’s what I kept telling myself.
The fort was big, but not mind-bogglingly so. The rough circle was about five hundred feet across, and even with my pack and other gear I could have run it in no time. The buildings clustered mostly on the back half, forming a crescent shape within the walls, and we had to make it from one side to the other. Taking the time to stop between jaunts across alleyways ate up seconds, and every pause meant a brighter sky.
Whether fortune or good planning, we didn’t run into any more enemies. The gunfire echoing around the fort trailed off in fits and bursts as we pushed on. When we finally made it to the clinic, the emergency door was just barely cracked open and held there by a slender piece of wood. Inside I found a very different place than my last visit.
Doctors and a few soldiers raced around carrying boxes, all of them moving toward the front office. I assumed one of the trucks waited there, though how the colonel expected to explain away moving all this stuff and these people for a combat operation, I didn’t know. I must have muttered the thought out loud, because Garcia answered.
“We told them we were moving them to a temporary backup location since your people had compromised this place. The colonel said he was sure they’d come back, and in greater numbers.”
The last line was delivered in a slightly nasal British accent. “Did you just…Obi-Wan me?”
Garcia winked.
I couldn’t help smiling. “Bitch, you better not make Star Wars references around my boyfriend. I will cut you.”
“No promises,” Garcia said. “Come on, let’s grab a box or two and help if we can.”
Turned out we could help. The front of the building was covered by the ass end of a truck, only the module sitting on the flatbed wasn’t like anything I’d seen here so far. No cages or cargo containers, but instead what looked like a trailer for a semi truck if the designer was paranoid and on PCP. I couldn’t imagine we’d get very much mileage from our fuel; the thing was a giant armored box. The ramp extending from the back came with armored wings that unfolded with it to cover its sides.
Two soldiers stood in the gaps between the ramp and the front of the building, covering us with rifles and their own bodies as we rapidly tossed everything possible up to the people stacking them in the trailer.
Garcia stepped to the side so as not to block the flow of traffic and spoke in a low voice to the guard on the right. “What’s going on out there?”
The man had a clear view of the courtyard and gave a small shake of his head. “Colonel’s out there right now. Has a bunch o
f them covered. We’ll be able to move, but looks like they’re blocking two and three. If he tries to retreat and load up, he’s gonna get shot at. All of our guys will.”
Garcia cursed.
I chewed my lip as I thought. “So our option is to leave them behind and take advantage of the stalemate they’re in, or hope they do something about it and get away?”
Garcia nodded. “We’re under orders to get this particular vehicle out of here no matter what. We’re not to engage for any reason beyond that purpose.”
“Well, fuck,” I said. “There’s nothing we can do?”
Garcia gave me the ol’ side-eye. “No. If we start shooting, things will go to hell. We salvage everything we can and hope they do the same.”
“I’m sure we could think of something,” I said hopefully.
“No, ma’am,” the guard said. “No disrespect intended, but there’s nothing we could come up with they haven’t already thought of. That’s why the colonel compartmentalized every part of this plan. So each truck could get by on its own if necessary. I know you’re used to dealing with things on your own, but this kind of thing is what we do. Please don’t do anything rash.”
He said it calmly. Rationally. His voice didn’t crack or waver, and his tone was mild. It was a reasonable argument, one I couldn’t find a flaw in. And he did it while providing cover and never letting his darting eyes move from their watchful position at the end of a gun. Soldiers, man. I might not be a specialist in any one area myself, but I could see the appeal.
“Okay, then,” I said. It sounded lame to my ears, but his slight nod seemed relieved.
I went back to work. It was the only thing I could do to feel useful. I asked some questions as I grabbed boxes and handed them off. I learned the logic of how to pack and move something as complicated and full of vital stuff as a lab. The most important items went in first. The idea was to organize it so you could end your loading early and have a good chance of getting away with as much of what you needed as possible.