Lockdown (The Fringe #4)

by Tarah Benner

  “Harper already has a cover story,” says Eli. “We told Malcolm she was from Salt Lake City.”

  Owen shoots Eli a dirty look. “Don’t worry. You won’t be going anywhere near Malcolm.”

  “What?”

  “He’d take one look at you and know you were posing as me. Do you have any idea what he’d do to us?”

  “Pssh,” scoffs Eli. “He wouldn’t know.”

  His tone is even, but I can detect the slight undercurrent of panic there. Owen has to lead us back to Malcolm. He’s our only chance of finding the cure.

  “Trust me. He’ll know,” says Owen with an eye roll. “That’s why we’re hitting the road.”

  “Where are we going?” snaps Eli, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

  “Wherever I say we’re going.”

  “No. No way,” says Eli. “We’re not just gonna drive off in the middle of nowhere — not when we have no idea what the radiation is like, or —”

  “What did you think we were going to do, Eli? We can’t go back to town. You and Harper would be shot before you even opened your mouths.”

  “Well, we sure as hell aren’t leaving on some never-ending road trip with you.”

  Owen closes his eyes and rubs his temple in frustration. He never planned on taking us back to town, but Eli isn’t budging.

  “Fine,” he says after a moment. “We’ll go back to town and regroup. Tomorrow, I’ll ask around to find somewhere else that’s safe. Then we’re gonna get the hell out of there.”

  “Okay,” says Eli.

  We don’t look at each other, but I can feel the anxiety coming off him in waves. Owen trying to keep us out of Malcolm’s path isn’t going to work, but we’ll have to deal with that later.

  “So how are we doing this?” I ask.

  “Once it’s dark, Miles is going to turn off the electric fence,” says Eli. “We’ll only have two minutes before the entire system resets. We just need to slip out and try not to get blown up by the mines.”

  “I still have this,” I say, holding up the borrowed interface. “We can use the mine maps.”

  “Good. Once we get past the mines, we’re gonna have to haul ass.”

  “I’ve got a truck hidden in that junkyard about half a mile past the border,” says Owen. “If we can get to it, we should be able to make it to town without getting shot.”

  “Sounds good to me,” says Eli. “Let’s get going.”

  I stick my head out of the tent. By now, the sun has almost disappeared on the horizon. The sky is a dark grayish blue, and I can barely make out the silhouettes of Recon guards pacing along the fence.

  One is standing all alone near the charger box, facing this way. A few people are gathered around the fire talking in hushed voices, but no one is looking in our direction.

  “Let’s go,” I murmur, gripping my rifle tighter to keep it from slipping out of my sweaty hands.

  Without another word, Owen and Eli fall behind me, and I lead us out the back of the tent — straight toward the lone figure near the fence. Both brothers move silently over the sandy dirt, and we quickly disappear into the inky blackness.

  It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, but when they do, I see Miles watching our backs for any sign of trouble.

  When we reach his post, he nods at me and Eli and turns to the large metal box behind him. He spends a few seconds adjusting the switches, and I can tell from his hunched posture that he doesn’t think this is a good idea.

  Finally, he closes the metal door and turns to face us. “It’s done.”

  “All right. Let’s go,” says Owen, looking a little nervous and fidgety.

  “Thanks, man,” says Eli, gripping Miles on the shoulder.

  “Any time.”

  “You sure you won’t come with us?” Eli asks.

  Miles shakes his head. “I can’t leave Brooke.”

  Eli nods and pulls him in for a quick hug.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” says Miles, slapping Eli on the back. “For all our sakes.”

  When Eli pulls back, he slides the rucksack off his shoulders so he can shimmy between the thick wires. Owen is already waiting impatiently on the other side of the fence, looking around for any sign that we were followed. I pass Eli the bag and then slide through myself.

  Staring back at Miles, I get a brief chill of sadness and dread. This could be the last time I see him, too.

  “Watch out for Lenny, will you?” I ask.

  He nods without hesitation, and I get a pang of fondness when I think of the soft spot Miles developed for Lenny after he took her out on her first deployment.

  “Take care, slugger,” he says, sticking his fist through the wire. “Give ’em hell.”

  “You, too,” I say, bumping my knuckles against his.

  There’s no time for long goodbyes. Owen is already bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for Eli to bring up the mine map.

  When Eli turns on the borrowed interface, I get a jolt of worry that somebody will spot the blue light and release a stream of bullets. But Miles cleared this portion of the fence, and none of the guards moves a muscle.

  Eli leads the way around the mines. I hover just over his shoulder, and Owen stays right behind me. It’s unnerving to watch our single green dot move in between the red ones, but I just step where Eli steps and try not to think about the explosives buried beneath our feet.

  “Did you see that?” Owen asks suddenly.

  Eli and I freeze. He flips off the interface, and I squint out at the horizon. It’s too dark to make out anything, so I’m not sure what Owen could possibly have seen.

  “There’s someone out there,” he murmurs.

  “Are you sure?” Eli hisses.

  “I know what I saw.”

  We’re only about four hundred yards away from the fence, so it seems unlikely that we’d be crossing paths with a drifter already. Still, Owen’s warning keeps me rooted to the spot. I’m staring into the darkness for the threat, my heart hammering wildly in my chest.

  Then, suddenly, I hear a tiny scuff in the sand — as though someone tripped over their own two feet.

  Every nerve in my body stretches to the breaking point, and Eli’s breathing becomes very shallow.

  Straining my ears, I can just make out the faint cadence of footsteps as a couple of people walk toward us.

  Eli doesn’t say a word, but he finds my hand and gives it a quick double squeeze. I take that to mean that we need to move, so I reach behind me to grab Owen’s hand.

  My arm passes through open air.

  Turning, I see Owen just a few feet behind me, pulling a handgun out of his waistband.

  He meets my gaze, and I shake my head. We have to move.

  Then the footsteps stop, and I hear the low murmur of voices.

  Sweat starts to form between Eli’s hand and mine, but I don’t know whose it is. He tugs on my arm to pull me forward, but I dig in my feet.

  “Come on,” he hisses.

  “Wait,” I whisper.

  I want to tell him that Owen has stopped, but I never get the words out. One of the strangers shushes the other, and I hear a familiar voice that sends a flutter of dread through my belly. Bear.

  “Hey!” shouts the other voice. “Who’s there?”

  “Run!” breathes Eli.

  “Owen!” I hiss.

  A few yards away, a flashlight flickers on. The beam whips in our direction and lands on Owen.

  “Drifter!” somebody yells.

  Owen and the private lock eyes, but I’m looking at Bear. He’s just visible in the glow of the private’s flashlight, and he’s holding his rifle on Owen.

  His hands are shaking, and I can see his brain working furiously. He’s too far away to mistake Owen for Eli; all he sees are the drifter clothes and Owen’s gun pointed at the private.

  When he catches sight of Bear, Owen redirects his aim. That second costs him.

  “No!” I shout.

  The pri
vate turns toward the sound of my voice, and Bear shoots.

  Owen yells and staggers back, and suddenly my legs feel as though they weren’t made to support my full weight.

  Owen falls, and the private’s flashlight flickers past us. I know I should run, but I’m still staring at the spot in the darkness where Owen disappeared. Nothing moves, and I don’t hear a sound.

  I stumble toward him — moving back the way we came — but then a search light flickers on above the fence and floods the perimeter in harsh white light.

  I freeze.

  A Recon guard along the fence shouts an order to the other guards on duty, and they crowd the fence, searching the darkness for the source of the gunshots.

  “Drifters in the mines!” the private shouts.

  Then somebody begins to move the search light.

  Before it can land on us, Eli’s hand shoots out and captures my wrist. He tugs me forward, and I trip on the uneven ground.

  “Eli!” I hiss. “We have to go back!”

  “No,” he growls.

  I can’t see his face in the dark, but his voice is filled with fear. Little blue interface lights appear along the fence like a swarm of fireflies as Recon workers rush toward the gate. And a few hundred yards away, the private is still searching for me and Eli.

  Instead of turning back for Owen, Eli takes my arm and yanks me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. It knocks the wind out of me, and it takes me a second to recover.

  “Stop!” I gargle. “We have to save him.”

  Eli doesn’t respond. He just runs.

  I can’t move. I can hardly breathe. Eli’s shoulder is digging into my ribcage, and he hasn’t loosened his death grip on my legs.

  As he runs, the pool of light emanating from the perimeter grows smaller and smaller, but more Recon workers are still rushing out toward the fence to shoot.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the debilitating helplessness washing over me. When I close my eyes, all I can see is the expression on Bear’s face as he pulled the trigger: It’s the look you get when you decide to end another man’s life.

  thirty

  Celdon

  The world runs on computers. And if you understand computers, the world is at your feet.

  With a few junior-level hacks, I can rearrange the schedules of two Operations workers and remotely override the security code on the barricade keeping people out of Health and Rehab.

  Fixing things with Harper and Sawyer isn’t going to be as easy, but I have to start somewhere.

  I’m not sure how far the virus might have spread, so I steal a hazmat suit from Constance’s stash and slip into the medical ward during the evening shift change. The suit is uncomfortable and steamy from my breath, but wearing one was a good call. All the other nurses are wearing them as they pass through the tunnels, and I wonder how many of them are already infected.

  I get a shiver when I imagine our medical ward empty and quiet like the ward at 119, but then I push the thought out of my mind and force my feet to move.

  They caught the virus early. We’re going to survive this.

  That’s what I keep telling myself, at least.

  As I round the corner, I see an entire bank of rooms that’s been sealed off with another plastic barricade. This one doesn’t have a lock.

  I put my hand on the door to push it open when I hear a sharp voice coming through a mic on a hazmat suit. “What are you doing in here?”

  I stop and try to hide my guilty expression as I face an older brunette nurse pushing a lab cart.

  I open my mouth to answer, but no words come out.

  “You aren’t Health and Rehab,” she snaps in an accusatory voice. “You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

  “Celdon Reynolds,” I say, extending a gloved hand and trying on my most winning smile. “Systems. I’m here to update the software on the biomonitors for Progressive Research.”

  “I wasn’t aware of any Systems updates going on today,” she says, taking my hand reluctantly.

  I shrug. “I guess we got our wires crossed. But I’m here on direct orders from Natasha Mayweather.”

  I hold my breath. It was a ballsy move invoking the name of the most powerful woman in Health and Rehab, but miraculously, it works.

  The nurse nods quickly, making her suit squeak. “Right. Well . . . sorry to have bothered you. Just be careful. You’re going into the hot zone. And make sure you check in at the front desk next time.”

  “Will do.”

  She throws me one more suspicious glance, but I counter it with a friendly salute before pushing my way through the plastic barricade. I don’t look back.

  I’m just about to do a silent cheer when my heart falls to my knees. At least twenty rooms in this wing are closed off and occupied, with red caution signs mounted on the doors. This must be where they put the overflow from the isolation zone — all the people who were there when Sawyer was attacked.

  Beyond the normal patient wing, the designated isolation area is completely full. It’s separated from the rest of the medical ward by an airtight door leading to a small chamber and a dark narrow tunnel of hermetically sealed rooms.

  Using my illegal master key, I swipe into the isolation zone. A single emergency light illuminates the end of the passageway, where Sawyer is asleep in the very last room. She’s lying in the bed closest to the door, and another patient — a guy — is spooning her under the covers.

  When I creep into the room, all I can hear is the steady beep of monitors. The screens above the beds show steady heart rates, and I feel as though I might puke when I see that their hearts are actually beating in time.

  I kneel down by the edge of the bed to get a closer look at Sawyer, and my stomach drops. She’s got tubes running into her nose, pumping oxygen to her lungs. Shortness of breath is one of the first symptoms of the virus, which means she’s already on the decline.

  I nudge her hand as lightly as I can, and her eyes slowly flutter open. They drift around the room for half a second before landing on me.

  “Shh. It’s okay,” I murmur.

  Now Sawyer is wide awake.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispers.

  “I came to see you.”

  Sawyer is staring at me as though I’ve just grown two heads, which tells me that the virus has not given her selective amnesia as I’d hoped. She’s still pissed at me for my involvement with Constance.

  “Plus Neverland was closed,” I add, trying to defuse the tension. “Thought I’d hit up the medical ward for some pharmaceuticals . . .”

  She doesn’t find that as funny as Harper would, but I let out an uncomfortable laugh anyway. “Kidding.”

  A conflicted expression flashes across Sawyer’s face, but she shifts slightly on the bed so she can extricate herself from loverboy’s death grip. She slowly rises up into a seated position, and I can see that it costs her a lot of effort.

  I look down at the guy with his arm around Sawyer’s waist. He’s kind of a nerdy-looking son of a bitch, but he seems content.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, glancing at the plastic tube dangling from her face.

  “I’m infected,” she says with that irritated tone she reserves just for me.

  “Yeah. I figured that . . . You were on the news, you know. They’re calling you a hero.”

  “Great,” she says. Her voice sounds a little thin, but I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or if she’s out of breath from speaking.

  “Who’s your boy toy?” I ask, nodding to the sleeping guy behind her.

  “Caleb. We work together . . . Well, we did.”

  “Co-workers with benefits?” I waggle my eyebrows approvingly.

  Sawyer’s pale complexion takes on a slight rosy flush, and I resist the urge to give her a shoulder punch.

  “He’s infected, too.”

  “Well, what do you expect? You’ve been swapping spit with the guy . . .”

  Sawyer flashes me a very dirty look, and
I raise my gloved hands in surrender. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “He was with me when I . . . when it happened.” Her eyebrows shoot up. “He punched that psycho Recon guy before he killed himself.”

  “That’s hot.”

  Sawyer nods, but judging by the look on her face, I can tell this guy means more to her than one last lay. The thought gives me a horrible pang of sadness, and I put a hand on her knee.

  “I came here to say I’m sorry,” I murmur.

  “You don’t need to,” she sighs. “I understand why you did it. You wanted to find out about your mom.”

  “That’s not what I’m apologizing for. Although, while I’m at it . . .” I lower my head in shame. “I came here to say that I’m sorry I was such a huge dick to you. I didn’t mean what I said. We are friends . . . and not just because of Harper.”

  Sawyer is quiet for a long moment, and when I look up, she seems to be mulling my words over.

  “You don’t get to do that,” she says finally.

  “Do what?”

  “Be a total asshole and then crawl in here when I’m on my deathbed and ask for forgiveness.”

  “Stop being dramatic,” I snap. “You’re not on your deathbed.”

  Sawyer rolls her eyes, but I’m not having it. “If you can still do that . . .” I nod at Caleb and give a half-hearted hip thrust, “then you’re not on your death bed. Unless your deathbed is a whole lot better than everyone else’s.”

  She rolls her eyes and lets out a snort of laughter.

  “And anyway, I just have bad timing. As soon as I worked up to apologizing, you got infected and stabbed. That’s really not my fault . . .”

  I can tell my words are wearing Sawyer down despite her best efforts. She’s still wounded, but I think we’re going to be okay.

  My smile fades. “How bad is it?”

  “Not too bad,” she lies, glancing up at her monitor. “It’s just hard to breathe. And I have a fever.”

  “Have they . . . have they made any progress with treatment?”

  She sighs. “Progressive Research is working on it, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Best-case scenario, I have four or five days.”