“Can those cells be opened?” Lily asked.
“That will be a big problem.” Benson replied. “As far as I could see, those goddamn doors are pretty thick and solid. No way could someone pick their locks.”
“Maybe there’s some acid in the hospital that can melt the locks.” Clark suggested.
“Guys…” Trisha called.
“It won’t work.” Benson retorted. “We’re talking about last generation reinforced stainless steel. No acid can corrode the son of a bitch.”
“Guys…” Trisha insisted.
“We need something stronger.” Lily said. “If we could find some explosives…”
“Where the hell are we going to find explosives in here?” Benson spoke.
“GUYS!” Trisha screamed.
Finally, everybody turned to her and noticed she was swirling a set of keys around her dead finger.
“I found those in the pocket of that Secretary guy.” Trisha said. “I almost ate them. Maybe they could do the trick.”
“It’s a chance we have to take.” Benson decided.
“Alright then,” Lily turned to Ike and Ivy “you stay here and set things straight with the locals, release the patients in the hospital.”
“But their minds are still under control.” Ivy reminded her.
“Hopefully not for too long” Lily replied.
The Australian turned to Nancy and asked:
“Do you happen to know if there’s some big dish antenna around here somewhere?”
23rd MOVEMENT
“Yes, Mister Chancellor.” Allison spoke on the phone. “Everyone on the Board of Directors is dead, including Secretary James. Hedgiest is missing.” She paused to listen and then said “I understand the loss is insignificant, but I think it’s convenient to go into Delta Status.” She listened again and spoke “Yes, yes, just in case, nothing more. Better have the pods in stand-by mode and ready to fly.” Another pause and she said “Everything is under control. I keep you posted. Bye.”
Allison finished the call and turned to the engineer sitting by the workstation.
“So, what have you got, Bonnie?” She asked.
“The dish antenna in Brokenville was destroyed. Sergeant Michaels confirmed it from the Hangman Mount top. He said that the ugliest truck he ever saw in his whole life hit and obliterated the antenna.”
“They have a knack for subtlety.” Allison said. “What are the consequences?”
“All communication between the local brains and our mainframe is lost. We can’t reach Brokenville residents anymore. Even the latest instructions we sent to their minds will vanish eventually.”
“So, we need to be in touch with local antennas all the time in order to control the brains.”
“That’s right. Are you going to send more troops there?”
“No. The Chancellor and I agree it’s pointless to waste more manpower and resources with that city. We got others of the kind, just waiting to be activated. The loss is minimal, especially now that Condor City is ours again. Am I right, Bonnie?”
“Yes. I managed to isolate the brain signatures of Condor City’s population by using the town’s geographic coordinates.”
“Great. Looks like Amy and the other kids will be working a few extra hours tonight. I’ve never liked the name Condor City. Guess I’ll change it to Forresterville”
Allison typed on her cell phone.
“General Driscoll?” She spoke. “This is Allison. Get your artillery ready. I’ll be giving you some targets soon, stand-by.” She put the call on hold.
“What’s the artillery for?” Bonnie asked.
“Devasta Land…” Allison murmured.
Lily drove her vehicle fast, heading toward Devasta Land. She did not care to dodge any roadblocks in the way. Her truck proved capable of bursting through piles of cars with zombies falling from them.
“Now I know why the suspension is not good.” Hank said.
“But you got to admit, my roadblocks surely don’t go unnoticed.” Zomboy proudly bragged.
“How did you get so many cars?” Mate asked him. “Do you own a junkyard or something?”
“I got my own collection, yes.” Zomboy replied.
“And you destroy it” said Mate.
“I’ve always thought cars are a terrible investment.” Zomboy spoke. “They depreciate too fast.”
“Especially on top of each other” Mate commented.
Nancy was humming a song. In the wheel, Lily could not help hearing it.
“You also got this song in your head.” The Australian said.
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.
“This tune you’re humming.” Lily replied. “It’s the same song playing on the speakers of my mind for quite a while now.”
“The funny thing is I don’t even know this song.” Nancy said.
“Really?” Mate asked surprised. “It’s Comfortably Numb, by Pink Floyd.”
“I’ve never heard it before.” Nancy spoke.
“How can this be possible?” Mate questioned.
“What?” Lily asked “She not knowing the song, or the fact we got the same tune in our heads, and at the same time?”
“Both.” Clark responded.
“Amy!” Nancy’s eyes shone.
“What about her?” Lily queried.
“They must be using her to manipulate minds.” Nancy responded.
“Can she do that?” Mate asked.
“She has mental powers, yes.” Nancy answered.
“Are you saying Amy is one of the children the Undertakers use to control minds?” Lily queried.
“She has a very powerful brain.” Nancy said. “That’s why they wanted her so bad.”
“How come she’s messing with my head?” Lily asked. “She’s not supposed to have my brain signature.”
“She has mine, but I wasn’t manipulated so far.” Nancy pointed out “With the possible exception of this song.”
“Alright” Lily decided. “It’s time for you to tell us what Amy’s role is in this play. It seems there’s a lot we don’t know about this girl.”
“Oh yes.” Nancy replied. “For starters, Amy is Shane’s daughter.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bonnie frowned.
“Let me ask you something.” Allison said. “Do we have Lily Master’s and Mate Clarkson’s brain signatures?”
Bonnie typed on her keyboard.
“That’s odd.” The engineer spoke. “I can’t find their brain signatures in the system.”
“Perhaps not so odd” Allison said. “They’ve been to Devasta Land. It can’t be a coincidence. The clandestine broadcasts that keep invading our transmissions, they must be coming from there, too. Something we neglected.”
“But how?”
“My guess is there are pockets of resistance in Devasta Land. Lily found them and they teamed up. Tell me something, Bonnie, could scramblers interfere with the Tornado signal, even if just by accident?”
“They could do that, alright. Scrambling waves can modify the signal physical properties and it won’t have the same effect on humans’ brains.”
“Of course” Allison scratched her chin. “The invaders of our official broadcasts use scramblers to stop us from tracing them. And the scramblers might have worked as a shield. I wouldn’t be any surprised if we didn’t get a single brain signature from anybody in Devasta Land.”
“It’s possible.”
“If we assume the scramblers are in Devasta Land, can you pinpoint them?”
“If they are there, I can find them. All I have to do is access the Big Mambo King and search for specific patterns of electromagnetic emissions within the Devasta Land perimeter.”
“Please do it. Those will be Mister Driscoll’s targets. We have to be precise here. There are still some facilities in Devasta Land we have some use for. In a later time, we’ll send ground troops and helicopters there, to comb the place and get rid of the so annoying resistance.”
�
�Sure thing, Ally.”
“What do you know?” Allison murmured more to herself. “Lily Master. So, it turns out you are the biggest challenge for my administration after all. And you’ll get me promoted, because I’m going to win.”
She turned to her engineer and said:
“Bonnie…”
“Yes, Ally.”
“How long it takes to set up another Tornado signal with amplitude twice as big?”
Several pairs of eyes turned to Nancy almost in unison. Lily opened a soda pop and drank a little.
“I bet you didn’t see that one coming.” Zomboy observed.
“Nope” Lily agreed. “In the very short time we spent together, Amy was always nice to me. Does she know I impaled her mom with my hockey stick and later snatched her heart right out of her chest?”
“She knows.” Nancy answered. “Actually, you were never supposed to have to kill Shane.”
“I don’t understand.” Lily said.
“Are you familiar with the term Delta Status?” Nancy queried.
“Yes.” Lily replied. “Shane said that it happens when a site is no longer viable.”
“That’s correct.” Nancy continued. “When Shane was a baby and her brain was being enhanced, they also planted a directive that told the brain to stop her heart in case of a Delta Status, a little insurance against powerful beings turning rogue. When the walls around the site collapsed, Shane should have died with them. She didn’t know about the directive, of course.”
“And she never knew.” Lily said. “Because she stayed very much alive after the walls went down, planning revenge against her makers and trying to tear me apart limb by limb. In fact, her heart was still beating when I ripped it out of her body.”
“So I heard.” Nancy spoke. “Shane’s brain must have erased the directive somehow.”
“The creation grew beyond the creators’ wildest expectations.” Mate said.
“They seem to have a big problem with that.” Zomboy commented.
“Anyway, Amy never approved her mother’s ways and how she disappointed her grandmother.” Nancy proceeded. “And Amy is not Shane’s only daughter, but she is special because she’s the one who came from Shane’s womb. All other children were artificially inseminated.”
“For someone so worried about overpopulation, Shane surely had a lot of kids.” Mate spoke.
“It’s all part of the project.” Nancy said.
“And Shane was the star right from the very beginning.” Zomboy spoke.
“So you know her.” Lily said.
“Blonde, slender figure, devastatingly beautiful, some homicidal tendencies…” Zomboy continued. “Yes, we’ve met. She was born in Devasta Land, when the place was in its prime, one of the first and most promising products.”
“That’s right.” Nancy confirmed. “Things weren’t supposed to be like this.”
“Tell me about Amy’s grandmother.” Lily requested.
“She lived in times when the greed of men hadn't yet destroyed the world.” Nancy said. “She was the first of her kind.”
“The first of her kind?” Lily queried.
“The first to have the abilities, a power she didn’t ask, a gift she never wanted.”
“A gift that can be inherited” Lily conjectured.
“Yes.” Nancy confirmed. “But her husband died in the Big Fight.”
“The Big Fight?” Mate said. “My history is a little rusty, but I’ve never heard of such thing.”
“That’s because it was a war fought in the backstage of power.” Zomboy answered. “The same old story, a joint venture of multinational companies trying to become the masters of the universe.”
“It figures.” Lily whispered.
“When she was young, Granma Sarah fought the Big Fight together with another woman, a warrior like you.” Nancy continued. “But they couldn’t stop the powerful ones, and Sarah lost her beloved husband. But she met another man, an idealist like her, or so she thought. They got married and had Shane, the new hope of a better world.”
“Better for whom?” Lily queried.
“That’s a good point.” Nancy admitted. “Sarah found out too late that her second husband had always been the biggest power among the powerful ones. He deceived her because he knew her capabilities and everything their daughter could be. And Shane was enhanced to follow his steps and the nefarious project went on.”
“But then, Amy happened.” Lily guessed.
“Exactly!” Nancy confirmed. “She’s the real hope who came from the false promise.”
“Who’s Amy’s father?” Mate asked. “I’m curious to know who could have possibly put up with Shane.”
Nancy smiled.
“I’ve always wondered that myself.” She replied. “To be honest, I don’t know.”
“But you do know a lot of things.” Lily pointed out. “How come?”
“Grandmother Sarah hired my services when little Amy was still in Shane’s womb.” Nancy replied. “I’ve been Amy’s babysitter since she took her first glance at this crazy world. Shane and the others didn’t like the idea of a black woman taking care of such precious child, but Sarah wouldn’t have it any other way, her last act of rebellion against the system she hated and ultimately swallowed her in.”
“What happened to Grandma Sarah?” Mate asked.
“She passed away.” Nancy whispered. “Doctors said it was a heart attack, but I know she died of a broken heart for all deceits from those she once trusted the most.”
“What about Moses, the baby we rescued with you?” Lily asked. “What’s the story on him and those babies in boxes you mentioned?”
“Oh, that’s more of a corporate thing.” Nancy answered. “They have centers disguised as cities, but Brokenville is an accumulator, so to speak. People are tested in there and other villages a few miles away. Samples are collected and they all end up in Brokenville somehow, same as the people they test. The impure ones are led to take poison and die.”
“What do they consider impure?” Mate queried.
“Do I really have to tell you this?” Nancy retorted. “Everybody whose genes carry the burden of anything black, Latino, Semite, Asian, so on and so forth.”
“What happens to the so called pure?” Lily asked.
“They stay alive to procreate.” Nancy replied. “Pure sperms are collected and inseminated into pure women. The resulting babies are sent in boxes to more sophisticated labs, for extrasensory perception research and brain enhancement.”
“To create more Shanes that can also grow out of control.” Mate spoke.
“That’s right.” Nancy agreed. “And you found us in one of those trips.”
“And I assume Amy’s granddaddy is still alive.” Lily said.
“He’s the one calling the shots.” Nancy confirmed.
Nancy took a deep breath and said:
“So, that’s it. Grandma Sarah’s great ideals were all flushed down the toilet and the greed of man triumphed. The meek shall not inherit the Earth.”
“The meek never actually had a chance.” Mate said.
“I’m still a bit concerned about Amy messing with our minds.” Lily spoke.
“I’ve known Amy all her life.” Nancy said. “She would never do anything to harm me, or you.”
“But she did plant the same song in our heads.” Lily pointed out. “Why?”
“I don’t think she knows the song.” Nancy said. “She must have found it in your mind. Amy is trying to tell us something.”
In Brokenville, people started to leave their houses in a slow pace. They looked confused, but not scared.
“What the heck happened in here?” Major asked.
“What happened is that you’re free.” Ike replied. “No more suicides, no more doctors sticking tubes up men’s asses and drill bits down women’s pussies.”
“But, what are we going to do?” Major queried.
“You figure something out.” Ivy answered. “You and your fami
ly survived the plague and this place, so you can take it from there. Lead these folks to a fairer way of life.”
“I am the neighborhood leader anyway.” Major pointed out.
“Now, you’re also the mayor then.” Ike said.
“Whoa!” Major spoke. “Let’s take one step at a time, young man.”
“The first step should be doing some cleaning in here.” Ivy suggested.
“We do have a cleaning staff.” Major recalled. “Is this city safe against, you know, dead people?”
“The gates are closed.” Ivy responded. “But I strongly advise you to place sentries along the walls and check everybody trying to get in. Don’t allow any men in suits in here, alive or dead.”
“Sometimes, the livings are the ones we should worry about the most.” Ike said.
“That much I learnt, son.” Major replied.
He walked to the middle of the street.
“Attention, residents of Brokenville!” Major screamed to the crowd standing on the sidewalks in front of their homes.
The population slowly turned eyes to face him.
“Please, follow me to the big square.” Major requested. “But don’t worry. Nobody is taking no poison anymore.”
“And I think you should change the name of this city to Repairedville.” Ike suggested.
And to the field the population went.
“In the words of the corniest action hero, our work here is finished.” Ivy said.
“Not quite.” Ike answered.
“What do you mean? Let’s go get Jill and figure what we’re going to do next.”
Apocalily Series (Book 2): The Almighty Lady of Tomorrow Page 22