“See what he was going for,” Darla ordered and Dean reached down and pulled out a walkie-talkie. She titled her head, “Oh, I see. Calling for back-up?”
The man scoffed. “You won’t get ten feet off of this elevator,” he spat. Then he scanned the faces of Dean and Darla closely. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyes locking into Darla’s. “You’re not Copia residents. Where the hell did you come from?”
“Copia?” Darla scoffed. “That’s what this place is called?”
The man eyed the gun and tired to jerk his hand upward, but Darla’s foot was firm and she pushed harder, until he fell backward to the ground. “You don’t know what you walked into,” he said weakly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go, and then you’ll quietly disappear back up toward the surface. That’s my present for you today…and you have no idea what it’s worth.”
“Oh? You’ll just let us walk out of here? Like it’s no big deal?” Darla dropped down over him and pushed her gun harder into his forehead. “A ploy made by a man who has clearly lost the upper hand,” she added. “I’m looking for some people and maybe you can help me find them.”
“You won’t succeed,” the man said again. “It doesn’t matter if I take you where you want to go or not...you have thirty minutes to get out of here or you’re going to die. And you can take me with you. But this won’t end well. I’m more confident in your failure than anything else right now.”
“Why don’t you humor me,” Darla continued. “Maybe we can start with a name you might know. I’m looking for Ethan King.”
The man laughed and shook his head. “If it’s Ethan you’re after then you’re going to have to shoot me.”
“Why?” Darla asked.
“Ethan’s long gone, lady.”
“He’s gone from Copia?” Dean asked this time, leaning forward. He still held the man’s gun in front of him and the walkie-talkie to his side.
The guy smiled. “Yeah. No Copia for him.”
“Then what about the boy they brought here? The child? Do you know anything about him?” Darla gave his forehead a small tap with her gun. And the man stared at it like it was a fly buzzing around his head.
“You’re after the boy?” He shook his head. “You’re too late, guys. Their ship has sailed. And you should get out of here while you still can.”
“No,” Dean replied and he stepped over and crouched down. “There’s one more. What about Gr—”
The walkie-talkie crackled in Dean’s hand and he looked down at it. A voice called through the box.
“Attention Guard Command Three. Please finish up your sweep and return to the Center for operation King’s Box. I repeat finish up your sweep and report to the lab to be equipped for operation King’s Box.”
“Guard Command Three,” Darla repeated. “That you?”
The man nodded curtly. “Private Ryley at your service, apparently.”
“King’s Box?” Dean held the walkie out. “What’s that?”
Darla interjected before he could answer, “I want to see where Teddy stayed. I want to see...I need to see that he’s not here. Swipe your hand and take me there. Now.”
“Look—”
“Do it,” Darla snapped. She released her foot from his arm and dragged him over to the corner; she placed the gun against the back of his head and then nudged him with her knee. “Do it,” she said again, quieter and more intense.
Without another word, the man swiped his hand and entered a floor number when prompted.
“How do I know you’re not just taking us to a floor to be ambushed?” she asked. “Get in position, Dean. Raise the weapon.” Dean stood front and center, shoving the walkie-talkie into his pants and aiming the guard’s gun out from his body, holding it with both hands.
The guy shook his head. “You don’t,” he answered. “But you’re the one who didn’t walk away when I gave you the chance. So whatever happens now is all on you.”
He took them to a floor that opened up to several hallways. Each hallway was marked as a Pod by labels above the doors. With a gun pushed into his back, Ryley opened up one of the pod doors and led them down to the King apartment. The door was wide open; the remnants of that life remained scattered along the floor: clothes that had been left behind, an abandoned shirt draped over a sofa, scattered pieces of a puzzle. Darla poked at the shirt and noticed it was streaked with dark brown bloodstains. She dropped it back where she found it.
Next, she walked into one of the bedrooms. The beds had been stripped and the room was bare. She stood for several minutes looking around, and then she turned back to the man.
“Where did they go?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Where did all these people go?”
“Away,” he said. The man looked at the guns raised on him. He kept his hands behind his back.
“Where?” she asked.
“Bitch, can’t you say please?”
She stormed over and without hesitation hit him across the head with her gun. He flinched and then straightened up. A trickle of blood formed at his brow line and he let it drip without wiping it away.
“Please,” Darla spat.
Ryley snorted and rolled his eyes. “To the Islands,” he replied slowly. “I can tell you everything...I can tell you everything I know...but you still won’t find them. Security was relaxed today because we are getting ready to leave this place.” He glanced at the clock still ticking on the small apartment’s microwave oven. “Twenty minutes.”
“What happens in twenty minutes?” Dean asked.
Ryley made a clicking sound. “The end,” he said.
“Where are the Islands?” Darla asked, redirecting the conversation back to Teddy.
“No,” Ryley said simply. She raised her gun again, but he just shook his head. “Kill me. I’m not telling you that.”
“But that’s where my child is? On the Islands?”
“Your child?” Ryley raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes. “Well, doesn’t that just add a new dimension,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What does that mean?” Darla asked. She took a step closer. “What do you know about my boy—”
The walkie-talkie crackled again. A female voice came on this time, “We are missing Private Ryley. Private Ryley, we are ten minutes away from needing you at the starting point for our operation. Please report to the lab.” Then walkie-talkie clicked off. Then it clicked on. “This is Blair,” the voice added.
“Jeez,” the man said, rolling his eyes. He looked up, “You heard her. If I don’t show, they’re going to come looking for me.”
“This place is huge,” Dean said. “Why will they look for you here?”
Private Ryley lunged for Dean’s gun, but Dean stepped back in time and Ryley stumbled forward, landing on the carpet. Darla landed a soft kick to his side; he began to cough. He swore at them and kicked his legs.
“You’ll die here,” he said between gasps. “There’s no way out.”
“Where is everyone else?” Dean asked.
“Up,” was all he replied.
“Is there an elevator override?”
He nodded. “I have keys,” he said. Darla kicked him in the ribs again. She felt inside his jacket pocket and tossed out a key ring with six shiny silver keys.
“Tell me what’s happening. What do you mean we’re going to die here? What’s happening?” Darla yelled and she held the gun to him.
“You’re the type of filth we were sworn to keep out,” Ryley said monotonously. “You don’t deserve to live. And if you somehow make it out of here alive, then you won’t make it anywhere near that boy. Or the Kings. Do you hear me?”
“Private Ryley,” the woman’s voice said again on the walkie. “We don’t want to continue without you, but—”
There was a loud beeping, like a fire drill. It filled the apartment. The lights flickered. The woman’s voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie ceased to broadcast. She had been cut-off midsentence. Darla and Dean looked
up, startled by the loud noise.
“All Copia residents please report to The Center for briefing. All Copia residents please report to The Center for a housing briefing.”
“It’s time,” Ryley said. “You’re dead now.” He scrambled up on his feet and attacked Darla, pushed her straight over on to the floor, his hands wrapped around her middle. Darla kept her gun out of reach and attempted to kick him, but her feet missed. Dean looked at them and called out to Darla, but there was no easy shot, they were just a blur of bodies on the ground. He set the walkie-talkie down on the couch and then rushed over to where Darla was losing the fight. With his left hand he tried to yank the man off of Darla, but Ryley was too strong. He had pinned down her arm and he was grasping for the gun. Darla gritted her teeth, veins pulsed in her head, and she screamed.
Noticing her bandages, Ryley took her injured hand and crushed it into the floor, banging her wrist and her hand with methodical maliciousness. She shrieked. Then he stopped slamming her hand and he dug his fingers into her wound and blood seeped through the gauze and down her arm. Darla writhed in pain; her hair fell loose from its ponytail and covered her face, long strands caught in her mouth. Darla’s grip loosened on the gun and she lost control and dropped it to the floor where Ryley was quick to snatch it up. He brought the gun up to her temple without hesitation.
“Sorry,” he said, but his tone was fully victorious.
A blast echoed.
Ryley’s body jerked and went limp and fell down onto Darla. She screamed and pushed him off of her, and his body rolled to the carpet. Blood poured out of the wound in the back of his head, creating a pool underneath him. Darla looked down and realized her clothes were covered in speckles of blood. Her hands were covered in blood. She let out a shaky cry and scrambled backward.
Above them, the siren still beeped and beeped and beeped.
Dean stood frozen. His hand still holding the gun where Ryley’s head used to be.
“Oh, Jesus,” Darla said. “Oh...oh...oh...”
“There was no other way,” Dean whispered. He spun to Darla. “There was no other way.” His eyes were wide and wild.
She nodded. “Yeah. No other way. He was going...to kill me...”
“I killed him,” he said.
“Yeah.” She looked away and wiped her hands on her pants. Ryley’s blood smeared across her palms. “Dean, there was no other way. One more second and I would be dead. You did what you had to do...”
“I killed him,” Dean said again and he dropped the gun to the floor and sunk to the carpet, looking at the man’s lifeless body, the blood still spreading outward across the industrial carpet.
“Let’s go,” Darla said and she took back her gun from Ryley’s hand. It was then she noticed she was shaking. She tried to calm herself, but she couldn’t. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Back up to the surface?” Dean asked.
Darla nodded. “Something bad is going to happen here. Let’s just go. We know the way. Grab his keys and let’s go.”
Reaching down, Dean grabbed the keys. He took the radio, and they started back out down the hall—the incessant beep as the background music to their escape. When they reached the hallway, they opened the door and stumbled forward to the elevators. They pushed the button and waited. It arrived without fanfare.
“Hurry, hurry,” Dean said.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. It took Dean a second to realize that they had not traveled to the floor they had wanted; they had stopped early. Dean pushed the button again and jiggled Ryley’s override keys, but the elevator didn’t budge. He swore and kicked the side, but still it didn’t move.
“Come on,” Darla said and she tugged Dean’s arm and pulled him off the elevator. They rushed out on to the new floor. It looked exactly like the floor they had just come from, like a carnival fun maze. Grabbing a knob, they ran into a new hallway, and it was also identical to the one below. She stepped backward and spun.
There was a second elevator. She pushed the button, but nothing happened.
“Do they know we’re here? Did they stop the elevators?” Dean asked.
“Let’s hide until we know,” Darla commanded and she raced back down the hallway. Slowing down their pace until they realized that the hallway was a dead-end. Darla turned to walk back toward the elevator.
“What the hell is this place?” Dean called, out of breath.
Darla slid to the floor and tucked her knees up tight.
The radio crackled and Dean jumped.
A man’s voice came on this time. “Blair, do you copy?”
“I’m here,” the woman said.
“We have activity in a Clearance Level 1 area.”
The girl they called Blair got back on the radio. “Could it be Private Ryley?”
“Could be. I just wanted you to know. Elevator analysis says someone went to Floor B. We set the elevator shut-down sequence after that, so I have no idea where the person could be now.”
“That’s the Kings’ and Salvants’ floor? Which pod door was triggered?”
“Pod 6, Ma’am.”
The radio went quiet. Darla could hear her own labored breathing. She closed her eyes and banged her head three times against the wall behind her: soft, but angry thuds. Dean took his hand and rested it on top of her head.
“Stop,” he whispered. “They don’t know about us.”
“Can you check it out?” Blair asked on the radio.
The guy clicked back on. “Ms. Truman, Ma’am, we’re all set here. All residents of Copia are accounted for in the Center. We’re on time for our operation.”
“But...if it was Ryley,” she said.
“We don’t have an extra person to supply you for checking it out. But if you want to look yourself, Ma’am, we have ten minutes before evacuation.”
There was a pause. Then the girl said, “I’ll go to Pod 6. I’ll take my dad’s direct elevator. Turn back on the power and I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
“Copy that.” The radio broadcast was cut.
Darla exhaled and she rocked forward and stood up quickly. With determination she moved back down the hall. “We have to get to the top...now,” she said and she jogged back the way they came. Their elevator was still waiting for them and they jiggled the override keys; the doors shut, and this time the elevator began to climb. They moved steadily upward. Back to the floor where they first found Ryley, back to the hallway that led to their escape.
Dean put a comforting arm around Darla’s shoulders and embraced her.
She let out a small sob and then she looked to the ceiling, attempting to regain control. “We failed,” she said. “He’s not here. He’s not even here.”
“We didn’t fail,” Dean answered. “Teddy’s alive...” he paused, overcome with emotion. “We know he’s okay. And we’ll find him...that’s not a failure...”
“We’re leaving here without him. That, to me, is a failure.”
“The Islands. We’ll find him...you hear me...we will find him...”
“This was a shitshow. How can we take on an even bigger place with more security...especially after they see what we did?” Darla asked, her eyes wide.
Dean shrugged. “We just will.”
The radio crackled again.
A man said, “We are in place. All guards are ready. Officer Dylan...can you confirm you have eyes on Grant?”
The name caused Darla’s veins to run cold, and she spun and pointed at the radio. Dean held the walkie-talkie out like it had suddenly turned scalding hot and he stared at it. He thrust it out at her and shook it, wordlessly.
“I can confirm,” came a voice. “Grant is visible.”
“Oh my God,” Dean breathed.
Darla smiled and cried and jumped. Her hair flew and she clapped with wild excitement. “It’s him! Dean, oh, Dean!” She wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged him tightly.
“Shhhh,” Dean said and he put the radio to his ear, Darla leane
d close, her arms around him.
“Good. Keep an eye on him,” the man on the radio said.
“Where are they?” Darla asked. “Oh, Dean! He’s here...” and she broke into an uninhibited grin.
From somewhere else underground within the giant metal dome, the man on the walkie-talkie said, “With eyes on Grant...and Copia secluded, I believe we are go. All officers...that is a confirmed launch. Launch. Launch.”
“We head to the tunnel,” Dean said. “There’s only one exit. We wait there until we know what’s going on.”
Darla nodded. She looked at the array of buttons; the only one lit was the one for the top level. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Grant was here. Somewhere in this crazy subterranean city, Dean’s son was alive and well.
After a brief radio silence, they heard Blair’s screams wail at them through the speaker. “Help! Help! Can anyone hear me?” Her voice was shaky, like she was running.
“Sorry, Blair....can’t really discuss now...in the middle...” a rushed voice replied.
“Can you confirm we are all accounted for?” Blair screamed. “Confirm! Confirm!”
“I can confirm,” came the man’s voice. “All Copia. All guards. Grant. And your damn dog. Get up here, Blair. Five minutes.”
“Then we have intruders. I repeat. I repeat. We have intruders. Private Ryley’s been shot. We are not alone down here!”
Chapter Twenty
Grant was lonely without Lucy. The System was practically barren, and he found himself wandering the evacuated halls, drifting in and out of abandoned rooms, and examining the articles left behind as an archeologist would study the artifacts at an excavation site. It was a hobby he adopted in the absence of any other way to while away the hours waiting for the plane to Copia to arrive.
His other option was spending his time with Noah, the pimply hyena-esque parasite who hovered around Grant like they had been friends the entire time. Escaping Noah had become an art form, and Grant had taken to spending time with his roommate Dylan and the other guards left behind to watch over the Copia residents and get the System ready for its final days.
The Virulent Chronicles Box Set Page 96