by Joshua Guess
The finality in the words was a clear dismissal. Kell walked to the door and knocked. The guard escorted him from the room.
As they passed through narrow halls, Kell turned over the new information in his head. Everything he observed here mattered. Everything. From the locks on the filing cabinets in Rawlins's work space to the fact that every guard seemed to be a survivor. The rational part of him usually so interested in solving mysteries had changed gears completely. Now every fact needed to be analyzed and understood for one purpose only:
Taking Rawlins down.
Because whatever the man said, the things Kell had noticed in his office proved the lie. None of them were leaving any way but feet first. Most people wouldn't have been able to tell the neat row of containers held samples of brain tissue, but Kell had. More than forty of them. Living people generally didn't give those sorts of samples.
Twenty
The communal living space was as wide-open as the rest of the building was cramped. One moment Kell was being hustled along the slender hallways, the next he was through a door and standing in a vast room.
The ceiling rose in gentle, sloped angles five stories from the floor, but the additions to the giant space were what kept his attention. Beds were scattered in regular groupings, though here and there makeshift walls marked off private areas. Families, maybe?
A bank of modular bathrooms filled most of the wall opposite the door Kell entered through. The wall to the left sported an open kitchen and long bar made of plywood. There were a fair number of people eating, others going to and from the plastic cubes that were the restrooms, and a few just lounged around.
Kell spotted Mason at the bar and went to join him. Turner and Liam stood behind it, cooking, while Steph stood next to Mason, leaning against the bar while he ate. Kell got the impression she was acting as lookout.
No other prisoners were anywhere close, though a good number were watching with interest as Kell seated himself.
“Hungry?” Liam asked as sat a pan on a small camp stove.
“Starving, yeah,” Kell answered. “What's good?”
In response Liam smiled and pulled a carton of eggs out from under the table. Kell grinned appreciatively. “No bacon, sadly, but they've got some leftover shredded potatoes from this morning if you want hash browns.”
“I'll take anything,” Kell said. “Thanks.”
Liam waved at him with the spatula. “No worries, man. I worked a truck stop Waffle House. This is cake.”
Kell looked up and down the counter behind the bar, which was stocked with a surprising variety of foods, from long-term rations to freshly-canned preserved food. “I wonder if they have any pickles...”
Turner, who was cooking on a separate camp stove, let out a belly laugh. Steph shook her head with a smile. Liam's mouth fell into a surprised little O, and Mason looked supremely proud of himself.
“I told them you'd ask about pickles in the first five minutes,” Mason explained. “Laura mentioned they're your favorite food.”
“There aren't any up here,” Liam said.
“Doesn't mean they don't have 'em,” Turner cut in. “They're easy enough to make and last forever. Saw some cucumbers growing outside, so even if they don't already have some ready, we can make some.”
Mason's smile dimmed somewhat. “I don't plan on us being here that long.”
That brought the conversation to a halt in the same way brick walls stopped cars. It didn't need to be said that being able to leave would require planning and no shortage of violence. They all knew it.
“Did you see what I saw in there?” Kell asked. He didn't aim the question at anyone in particular, but Mason nodded.
“Yeah. Looked like brain samples.”
The other two men cringed, but Steph merely shook her head. “Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Any chance they're from dead people?”
Kell barked a short, quiet laugh with no humor in it. “Oh, I'm absolutely sure they're dead.” He raised a hand to forestall her correction. “Sorry, sorry. I know what you mean, and no. I don't think those people died naturally. What are the chances that dozens of folks here happened to pass away? Has anyone managed to talk to the other prisoners yet?”
Mason shook his head, but Steph said, “Yeah, a little.”
Kell perked up slightly. “Anything we can use?”
“I don't know,” she said. “I was the first one through the little song and dance they did. There were a few people waiting to show me around the common hall, here.” She gestured at the massive room. “Asked them if it was true that people get to leave eventually.”
Mason leaned back on his stool and spun to face her. “Do they?”
“The people here think so,” Steph said, disbelief in her voice. “I don't know how in the world they could, since anyone they let go is another chance someone will come back here and shut this operation down. But they do. The lady I talked to said they get together and see off the folks who're leaving. Watch while they're driven away.”
Mason nodded, absently running his knuckles along one side of his jaw. “Probably have a nearby off site facility. Don't want to spook the prisoners by having someone go into the lab and just never come back.”
“If that's true,” Steph said, “then how do we convince the people here they're in danger?”
“Some of them probably aren't buying it,” Kell said. “I mean, they were kidnapped, after all. That's bound to make some people distrustful despite any reassurances they might get.”
Mason nodded. “He's right. We can't take the time to give this place a serious investigation, not the way we were going to.” He turned to Kell. “I wanted to be subtle about this. Put ideas in the heads of the other prisoners and get them on a slow boil for when we made our move. The longer we wait, the more people will die.”
Mason stopped. “Steph, did anyone mention how often people get driven off?”
Steph shook her head. “I can find out.”
Mason nodded. “Be subtle as you can. Don't raise any suspicions.”
“What about us?” Liam asked, Turner nodding as the younger man spoke. “What should we try to find out?”
“Nothing direct,” Mason said. “One person asking questions, even carefully, is enough risk. I want you two to listen. Liam, since you're a decent cook, I'm willing to bet these people will be thrilled to let you make meals for them. Turner can help serve.”
Liam frowned. “That's it? Just make meals and listen?”
“That's brilliant,” Kell said, impressed. “Think about it, man. People sit down for lunch and what do they do? They talk about shared interests, whatever is going on in their lives. Putting yourselves here is perfect. You'll probably hear more in one meal than the rest of us could find out in a day.”
Mason nodded. “I'd rather not risk more lives than necessary. We'll need a week at minimum to even have a chance at getting out of here by ourselves. It'll take that long to figure out guard patterns, how well-armed they are, what the emergency procedures are, and the other hundred pieces of information we're going to need.”
“What if they're killing people faster than that?” Steph asked.
“That's not something we can control,” Mason said. The words had the barest edge to them. Not angry, but certainly hard. Kell understood the sharpness; Mason didn't like the idea of sitting by while innocents died.
Steph surprised Kell by nodding sadly. “You mean we can't move before we know enough to have a decent shot at escape, right?”
“Yeah,” Mason said, deflating a little. “We're not going to have a chance in hell without a lot more information.” He glanced at Kell. “Can we talk in private for a few minutes?”
Kell nodded. The others made to leave, but Mason waved them back.
“We'll walk. You guys can stay here.”
They moved off at a slow walk around the perimeter of the vast room. Kell stared at the peaked ceiling, trying to put a finger on where he'd seen something like it before. He
must have muttered something about it, because Mason actually answered.
“It was a church,” he said. “This used to be the nave. The main gathering hall,” Mason added when Kell blinked at the word. “Brain like yours, how can you not know what a nave is?”
“Eh,” Kell said dismissively. “Never had much interest in church. Or architecture, for that matter. There are lots of things I'm ignorant about.”
Mason smiled, shaking his head. “You can tell me what genes control my eye color, but...”
“What was it you wanted to talk about that the others couldn't hear?” Kell asked just a little too politely.
“Ah,” Mason said, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Well, there's a chance one of us might have to escape early.”
Kell's mouth dropped open. “What? Why? Won't that screw up, you know, everything we just talked about?”
Mason raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Quietly, dude. Quietly.”
Fighting the urge to strangle Mason for the apparently infinite well of calm he was able to draw on, Kell took a deep breath. “Okay, explain.”
“I think there's a better than even chance that Kincaid might have come after us,” Mason said, then tilted his head in thought. “Probably sent someone after us, actually. It's what I would have done.”
Kell considered what he knew of Kincaid and decided it wasn't an entirely insane idea. “Anything more than logic or intuition, or whatever?”
“Not really,” Mason said. “But it wouldn't have been hard. Emily is a damn good scout and part of her job is being able to follow at a distance without being seen. While we were still close to Trenton, the secondary roads were shit. We were moving really slowly. She'd have had all the time in the world to zero in on us and watch us get taken. From there all she would've grabbed the bike we left behind and kept far enough back to avoid being seen.”
Kell let the scenario play out in his head, and tried to imagine Emily not doing just that. He failed.
“Yeah,” Mason said, correctly judging Kell's expression. “I've been considering it since we left. The only thing aside from knowing she could easily do it that makes me think she did was something I heard just before they brought us inside this place. It was a bird call, so faint I thought I might have imagined it.”
Kell glanced at him. “One the scouts use?”
Mason shook his head. “No. One I use. My little group taught the scouts our calls, and this one was from a Kurdish Wheatear. It's not a native species, and it's one we use.”
“What does the call mean?” Kell asked.
“That help is on the way,” Mason explained. “Really, it's meant to mean 'I'm here', but in this context I think they're the same thing. If she came alone, then we've probably got time. Emily—or whoever it might have been, assuming I wasn't hearing things—will have to leave to go get help.”
Kell sighed. “If she had a partner or a group, then they're probably going to move a little faster.”
“Yep,” Mason said. “Which means a worst case-scenario of acting without full information. If it comes to that, you'll be the one escaping.”
“Why me?” Kell asked, confused. “My arm is still barely usable.”
Mason's look was so matter-of-fact, so suddenly and completely bluff, that Kell felt a wash of fear run down his spine. “You're the asset here, Kell. You're the one who matters. If one person has to get out of here alive, it's you. If I can't get a message to whoever might be waiting to spring us from this place, then someone has to get to them to tell them to wait for our signal. If that happens, it's going to be you.”
“Do you think you can get me out without getting yourself killed?” Kell asked.
Mason's eyes darkened. “Sure,” he said, utterly confident. “It'll just mean killing a lot of other people to do it.”
After a few seconds to let the words sink in, Mason clapped him on the back. “Don't worry over it, though. It's possible I was hearing some local bird with a similar call. None of our people are stupid. There's every chance they'll watch us to make sure they aren't screwing up our own plans.”
It made sense. It was perfectly logical. Kincaid, however, had shown Kell that he willing to do whatever he thought necessary to keep his word. That meant making sure Kell got home safely.
“We should probably hurry,” Kell said. “Just to be safe.”
Twenty-One
It has often been said that on your first day in the prison yard, you should find the biggest, scariest guy you can and fight them to show you're not afraid. Kell took the lesson to heart and did exactly that, except with gardening.
The fenced area was much larger than it appeared from the parking lot. The fence wasn't constrained by forgotten concepts like property rights and wandered at odd angles to encompass as much usable land as possible. Up close it became obvious that the conversion of the church happened after The Fall, as sections of fence right next to each other varied in age from basically new to old, bent, and rusted.
An astounding variety of foods were grown within the enclosure. Potatoes were given the most space, but everything from tomatoes to chili peppers flourished. One tiny corner had a well-stocked cannery with three workers dedicated to preserving food, while another area in a far opposite corner was curtained off.
Kell pointed at the closed area with his chin, then asked the woman he was working next to about it. “Sheila, what is that over there?”
Sheila, a sturdy woman in her early forties, stopped and brushed a damp strand of short blonde hair off her forehead with the back of one hand. “Oh, that? It's where the hunters clean their kills. We turn about three quarters of the meat into jerky.”
“Why is it surrounded in curtains?” Kell asked.
Sheila made a sour face. “Some people don't care for the sight. Also, that's the only place in the fence with a gate going out, and the guards don't want people knowing when it's open.”
“Sure, sure,” Kell said casually. Mason would be interested to know that, assuming the man hadn't already sussed it out.
Despite circumstances, Kell found himself enjoying the work. He wasn't ideal for the more delicate work of picking ripe veggies using his non-dominant hand, so he focused on helping with the potatoes. Each plant was being slowly built up within cylinders made of chicken wire. On a large scale it wasn't worth the effort, but with this many workers per plant the system kept everyone well fed.
Instead of just letting the plant grow and then harvesting, they let it mature just enough that adding a layer of soil wouldn't hurt it. The plant would have whatever the floral equivalent of an oh-shit moment was and realize it was now partially buried. It would root into the new soil and grow above it, creating another layer of edible tubers in the newly added layer of soil. All around Kell were yard-tall tubes of potato plants, each packed full of living spuds waiting to be pulled from the soil.
In an idle moment he tried to figure out how much food was there, but eventually gave up. There were too many distractions. Too much raw, new data to process.
There wasn't one item in itself Kell found to be a revelation. Rather, the observation of many small facts led to a growing sense of awe tinged with concern about how the facility was run. While it had some obvious touches of survivor culture such as using salvaged materials, there were other things that reeked of a larger infrastructure investment.
For example, there was electricity. It was provided by a combination of solar panels, small wind turbines, and a handful of generators all feeding a massive bank of batteries. The batteries he hadn't seen but took on faith. The rest he saw with his own eyes, and the sight put him on edge.
His own compound had a similar setup. There, the solar arrays were cadged together from panels they had retrieved from every available source. Some were new, taken from stockpiles left at installation companies. Others, like the fence here, ran the gamut from ancient to barely used. The wind turbines back home were all hand-made. It wasn't that difficult once you had the materials, plans
, and tools.
Every panel and turbine here was identical and fairly new. There were a lot of them. Kell knew where his own people got the fuel for their vehicles and generators—several survivor communities with access to huge stockpiles of crude oil made refining that oil a profitable form of trade—but had no idea where the people who ran this facility got the fuel for their generators. As far as Kell knew, every source of new fuel was in on the trade with the communities his people were allied with.
“Son, are you okay?” Sheila asked, gently poking Kell's arm. “You drifted off there for a few seconds.”
Kell smiled, hoping it came out as genuine rather than the forced mask it was. “Yeah, sorry. This is all so new...”
Sheila smiled back at him. “Don't worry yourself too much,” she said in a voice so motherly that Kell flashed back to his own childhood for a second. “Everyone's nerves are raw the first few days, new arrivals and old guard alike.”
“Really?” Kell asked, genuinely curious. “Why would the rest of you be nervous?”
Sheila glanced at him in another motherly way, this time clearly expressing that she knew he was smarter than this and was slightly disappointed. Weirdly, it made Kell miss his own parents. “We're not idiots, son. People don't usually come here because they're asked nicely. Some of them aren't willing to be peaceful about it.” Her eyes hardened at the corners. “We had a fella brought in here at the end of winter who played it calm until he was put into the common room. Killed four of us and two guards before they brought him down. Couldn't handle being a prisoner.” She bent back to her work. “Your friend with the scars, I thought he might be like that. Glad to see I was wrong.”
Kell had a hard time imagining Mason losing control that way, though it was easy to envision his reaction to being captured without someone like Kell to act as a governor on his behavior. Kell thought that Mason's need to keep him safe was probably the only thing preventing the man from turning the guard quarters into a slaughterhouse. That he would do it silently and with exceptional skill and care was immaterial.