Viral

by S. K. Gregory

  “You think that I need to prove myself? What do you want me to do?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “Kill him,” Mom said, pointing at Wesley.

  “What?” I choked.

  “How many times has he betrayed you, screwed up? He will keep hurting you, you know it’s true.”

  “Right, I’m sure that’s motherly concern and not that you want me to murder someone so that I’ll be completely under your control.”

  “You are meant for great things, Jenna. Don’t let yourself be dragged down by the likes of him.”

  “Thought you said he was a good guy,” I shot back.

  “I said what I had to. He was useful back then, he isn’t now.”

  “And how long will it be until I stop being useful? Are you going to kill me too? I wouldn’t recommend it, Mom. You know what will happen.”

  Mom slapped me hard across the face. “You watch your tone.”

  I glared at her. “Go to hell.”

  “You’ll do what I say, or I’ll kill your father. One word from me and it will be lights out.”

  “Yeah, but then you couldn’t steal all his ideas. We both know that is an empty threat.”

  Mom was on the verge of losing it, I could tell. “Bring Jessica here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to inject her with massive doses of X01 and see what happens.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said. But the truth was, I didn’t know if she was bluffing or not. I didn’t know this woman, not really. She hid this whole other world from us, she might hurt Jessica. Could I risk that?

  She probably isn’t even your sister. Just some actor hired to get sympathy.

  I remembered the blanket at the farmhouse, the one with Jessica embroidered on it. Was that planted there? I remember that it looked old, but that meant nothing. Maybe that is where she got her idea from.

  Why should I kill Wesley to save a stranger? It was insane.

  18

  Jenna

  I can’t do this.

  “Do it, Jenna. Can’t you see it? All the men in your life have been holding you back. Making decisions for you since before you were even born.”

  “You agreed to go along with it.”

  Mom circled me slowly. “If I refused, he would have found someone else. At least if it was me, I could make sure that you were well cared for. And you were. You had a good life before all this. I know that you want control, that you want to make your own decisions. I’m offering that to you. A place here in Chaos and one day, you’ll run it all.”

  Run it all? If I did that, I could decide what they did. With the resources here I could take down Gene-Pharm myself. No more hiding underground, gathering information, watching the time tick by until Gene-Pharm attacked again. What if Dad was too late to stop the next zombie outbreak? Hell, he created the first one. All this death was because of him. But could you do it? Lead a bunch of killers?

  One thing was for sure. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “I need a minute. Leave us alone,” I said.

  Mom arched an eyebrow at me.

  “If you want me to do this, then I do it my way.”

  She nodded and ushered everyone out of the room. When they were gone, I slapped Wesley hard in the face.

  “Wake up!”

  He blinked slowly. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

  “Chaos HQ!”

  His eyes widened. “What? How? We were just at the bunker.”

  “Short answer? You have been dosed with a mind control drug and have been helping Chaos for the last couple of weeks. Also, my mom is the one in charge and she wants me to kill you to prove my loyalty.”

  He sat down heavily on a stool. “Uh…give me a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute. She thinks I’m killing you right now!” There had to be a way out of this.

  “Well we have to get out of here, somehow.”

  “She’s standing on the other side of the only exit. She threatened to kill Dad and apparently, I have a sister that I never knew about. She says she will start experimenting on her if I don’t co-operate.”

  I don’t even think half of what I said went in, Wesley still looked confused. After a moment, he lurched up from the table and looked around the lab. Moving to a fridge in the corner he started searching through the vials.

  “What are you going to do? Give them the flu?” We could try and rush them, but the guards had guns. Could we make a bomb or something from the stuff in here?

  “Got it,” Wesley said, bringing a vial over to me. “Give me your watch.”

  I took it off and handed it to him. “What are you going to do?”

  He opened it up and removed the vial inside, the one that contained the neutraliser. Emptying the contents out, he replaced it with something he had taken from the fridge.

  “Wesley?” I urged, looking at the door, she could walk back in at any minute.

  He started fiddling with the display. “Okay, listen find a syringe and fill it with the content of that bottle,” he said, pointing to the other bottle he had removed.

  I quickly did as he asked. “She has guards, this isn’t going to stop them,” I said.

  “It’s not meant to. You’re going to inject it into me and it will stop my heart.”

  “What? Are you crazy? I’m not doing that!” I tossed the needle onto the bench. He grabbed the syringe and pressed it into my hand.

  “You have to do it.”

  I stared at him; how could he ask me to kill him?

  Five minutes later, I opened the door to the lab and walked out in a daze. “It’s done,” I said to Mom.

  She looked surprised. Signalling to one of her guards, they entered the room to find Wesley’s body on the floor. The guard knelt down to check his pulse. He nodded to Mom.

  “Well, I’m surprised that you actually went through with it. Good job, Jenna.” She spoke to me like she was praising me for doing the dishes or getting an A in English, not murdering my boyfriend.

  “Get rid of the body,” Mom said to the guards.

  “Wait! I have a better idea. Why not send a message to Dad? Take his body as it is and leave it outside their building. Let him see that we aren’t messing around.”

  Mom looked positively gleeful. “Perfect.”

  I watched them carry Wesley’s body out of the room, feeling sick. There was no turning back now. I was officially part of Chaos.

  ***

  Jessica

  I watched from the balcony above, as the guards carried a body out of the lab. It was the guy who came in when Jenna did. It looked like he was dead. How did it happen?

  Jenna looked upset, but Angela seemed happy. He was probably working against her. If he’s dead, it’s because he deserves it.

  Angela tried to shield me from what went on here, but I wasn’t stupid. Besides, Grandpa filled me in when he was alive. He explained that dangerous people couldn’t be allowed in the world or they would hurt innocent people.

  Chaos worked hard to help those who couldn’t help themselves, but there were others trying to stop them. Others who wanted innocents to suffer if it meant they made some money in the progress.

  Angela thinks I’m too young to know the truth, that I couldn’t handle it, but I can.

  Jenna is the weak one. She’s the one who was sucked in by our father’s lies.

  I got up from where I was sitting and made my way back to my room. Being here so long, people tended to overlook me. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it meant that I could go where I wanted, listen in on conversations that I wouldn’t normally be allowed to hear.

  Jenna has a lot to learn about us. I hope she’s up to the task.

  19

  Jenna

  Things moved fast at Chaos. They already had a plan to bring Gene-Pharm down. Literally. They were going to destroy the building, killing Breton and destroying the company all at the same time.

  I was invited int
o a meeting in a conference room, with Mom and the people who worked for her. There were six men and one woman in the room. I took a seat to the right of the head of the table. My new role. Mom’s second in command. I wondered if Bishop was happy with that. He sat to her left.

  Mom laid it all out, how we would get in, where we would place the bombs and the aftermath. Meanwhile, I was trying to match the woman before me, up with the one who used to read me bedtime stories. Planting bombs, killing dozens if not hundreds of people? This was what her life was like, this was where she grew up. It was a truly terrible place to be. I could only imagine how Jessica’s mind had been warped by all this.

  I zoned out, staring at the table in front of me.

  “Jenna?”

  My head whipped up. “What?”

  Mom gave me an exasperated look. “You will be going in with me, is that clear?”

  “You want me to go in? I’m like public enemy number one, they would shoot on sight.”

  “We will be in disguise and we will have good IDs, it won’t be an issue.”

  I’m glad she is so confident.

  “Whatever.”

  When the meeting was over, she asked if I wanted to get to know Jessica. I jumped at the chance. I needed to get away from this. And I was curious to know more about my sister. I just hoped she was nothing like Mom.

  Jessica was in her room, eating a sandwich at her desk. It was barely a room, really a converted cell. I wondered if Mom locked her in at night. What was her life like growing up here?

  “Jessica?”

  She glanced up. “Hey.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She nodded. I took a seat on her bed, to the right of the desk. “I thought we could talk. Get to know each other?”

  “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know where to start. Um, what’s life like here?”

  “Good.” Hardly an answer. Good like it’s fine or good like they don’t beat her when she does something wrong.

  “I didn’t know about you. You know that, right? I wasn’t ignoring you or anything.”

  “I know. Angela told me.”

  “You call Mom, Angela?”

  She stared at her plate. “She prefers it that way. She used to tell me stories about you.”

  “I don’t understand why she kept us apart.”

  “She had to. Because of my illness.”

  “What illness?”

  “I was very sick when I was born. They thought I would die which is why I was kept here. Grandpa was here the most. Angela would visit when she could.”

  I noticed a framed photo on her desk of an older man in a suit. He had our eyes. Was that our grandfather? The one I never met?

  Mom told Jessica that she was sick, but it was just another lie. Why? To control her. Stop her from asking questions? Why tell Jessica about me at all?

  “What about now?”

  “Angela found a cure. From your blood, actually. She says that I can go outside someday soon.”

  “You’ve never been outside?” I cried.

  “No, it’s too dangerous for me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to it. I have plenty to keep me occupied.”

  My life may not have been perfect, but at least I wasn’t locked away from the world.

  I got up off the bed and walked around the room. Jessica seemed to be quite the artist, there were sketches and water colors over the walls. Mostly of people’s faces. I imagine they were people who worked here.

  The pink and white patterned blanket on the bed had been crocheted, did she make that too?

  All this time. We could have grown up together. Would we have been friends, or would we have fought all the time?

  Anything would have been better than nothing. I wanted to cry for the life we missed out on, but I made a promise to myself that I would keep a tight lid on my emotions while I was here. I wouldn’t give Mom any more ammunition against me.

  She had been manipulating me for too long.

  “When this is over, I promise we’ll go somewhere nice. Maybe to the beach.”

  “That’s okay, you don’t have to make promises you can’t keep.”

  “I will keep it. I mean it.”

  She gave me a small smile, but I could see she didn’t believe me. How many times had Mom lied to her?

  “I’m not like her, Jessica. Trust me.”

  I would never be like her.

  Returning upstairs, I walked the halls, my mind completely shut down. None of this seemed real. I wondered what would happen if I walked out the front door. Would Mom stop me? Have me shot? She would never let me run back to Dad.

  I looked up to see her watching me from above. She had me right where she wanted me. Or she thought she did.

  20

  Jenna

  I can’t believe we’re going to walk straight into Gene-Pharm through the front door.

  We were going to get caught. Mom was a few steps ahead of me, her own ID at the ready. I glanced at mine. It said my name was Shannon Mercer and that I was a lab technician. My hair was hidden under a black wig and I was wearing glasses. If they ran a scan of my face, this was never going to work. I would be shot on sight.

  Just keep it together. This may be your only chance to bring Gene-Pharm down.

  I waited in a queue; Mom was three places in front of me. We couldn’t speak to each other until this was over.

  When I reached the front, I handed over the ID. The guard who took it, barely glanced at it. “Level 6,” he said, after checking my job title.

  “T-thanks,” I stuttered, taking the card back.

  “This place isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, mistaking my fear for first day nerves. He seemed nice, maybe only in his late twenties. What would happen to him when the bomb went off?

  I forced a smile before hurrying to the elevators. Mom was already waiting, although we stood apart and didn’t acknowledge each other. Is it too late to just walk out of here?

  I glanced at her, worried that any minute someone would spot us and we would be arrested. If I ran, she would assume I had chosen Dad, she might kill me. I wouldn’t put anything past her.

  We weren’t the only members of Chaos to enter the building. Right now, several more members were in the basement, setting up charges. We had twenty minutes to get it done and get out.

  We got on the elevator, along with two other employees. I stared straight ahead, trying my best to act like I belonged.

  I adjusted the pin on my shirt. A small, round smiling face. It was something Dad gave me weeks ago; it was really a camera. I planned on using it to record what happened here today. If I could capture something incriminating, then at least people would know that Gene-Pharm were the bad guys. That there was a reason for this.

  Maybe someone will find the footage after we all get blown up.

  Obviously, the plan was to be well clear of the building by the time it blew, but how often did any plan I was a part of go right?

  The two men got off, leaving me and Mom in the elevator.

  “You good?” she asked, her lips barely moving.

  “Hm-hmm.”

  “It’ll all be over soon.”

  The elevator arrived at my floor and I stepped off. Mom was going several floors above to set her charges. I had to set mine in a maintenance room. The idea was to bring the building down completely. Nothing but rubble would remain.

  Trying to act natural, I walked along the hallway avoiding making eye contact with anyone. I moved slowly, even with a ticking clock, I couldn’t bring myself to complete the job quicker because doing it meant killing every person I was passing in this hall.

  The charges were in the pocket of my lab coat. I caught sight of my reflection in one of the office windows. I kind of looked like Dad. If things had been different, I could have ended up working here like him. I wondered what he was doing. What he thought about the gift that had been left on his
doorstep. Did he hate me?

  Don’t think about it. Get the job done and get out.

  The maintenance room was where Mom said it was. As I approached it, someone stepped out in front of me, from one of the offices.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to step around him.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  I fumbled with my ID, keeping my gaze low. I handed it over to him. Part of me almost wished I would be caught.

  He paused for a second before saying, “I don’t think this is correct. Is it? Miss Deluise.”

  Raising my eyes, I came face to face with Matthew Breton. Oh shit.

  I shoved him hard, ready to run, but he recovered faster than I thought he would, grabbing the back of my coat and swinging me into the office door. It opened and I crashed to the floor.

  Getting to my feet, I backed away from him. I was in a conference room; Breton was blocking the only way out.

  “Sort of a dumb move, coming here. You were at my house too.”

  “Just thought I’d stop by and say hi,” I said.

  He took a step toward me and I pushed one of the chairs between us. He stopped walking and laughed. “That won’t do much good against this.” He removed a gun from his belt.

  I am not going to survive another bullet. I don’t even have the device Dad gave me.

  “Wait! Just wait. I’m not alone,” I said, trying to stall him until I could figure a way out of this.

  “I know. Saw your Mom come in too. It really has turned into a family affair. Is dear old Dad here too?”

  “There’s a bomb in the building.”

  He stopped smiling. “Tom is a white hat. He would never blow up a building.”

  “Dad isn’t here. Did you ever meet my Mom? She’s the leader of Chaos.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s the truth. If you don’t let me leave, she’ll blow this place to bits.”

  “And what will that achieve?”

  “It’ll stop you from experimenting on the zombies. Trying to make them smarter, wasn’t it? I know all about your missions, sending soldiers in to see how the zombies responded to them. You want to make your own dutiful soldiers who can’t be killed.”