Utopia Project: Everyone Must Die
Page 31
“Come on then.” Jess walked out of the bedroom. “Any ideas on where to go?”
Off the cuff, Kid said, “Somewhere close enough to keep an eye on them, but hidden enough so they can’t see us.” He thought this would be a tall order, until his friend responded right away.
“It may not be perfect,” Jess started, “but the marina in Bayville where I bought my last boat had a view of the bridge to Seaside, and a great view of the bay all the way south to the inlet.”
Kid had no desire to weigh his mind down with any more contemplation. “Good enough. Let’s go.”
Forty-five minutes later, Jess pulled up at the Good Luck Point Marina, which occupied a land area that jutted out into the western side of the Barnegat Bay.
801’s wrists were still tied together, so Kid helped him out of the vehicle and then offered a hand to Drex. “I may be old, but I don’t need to be coddled.” He slapped the helping hand away and jumped to the ground. “Thanks anyway though.” Kid loved the old guy’s spirit.
Running around a tall marina building which looked like a large red warehouse, Kid saw a house painted the same color, but it had an affixed sign indicating, ‘Main Office.’ What caught Kid’s eye was the octagonal widow’s walk on the roof above the second story. The house seemed like it belonged on a beach somewhere, not sitting in the middle of a marina surrounded by shrink-wrapped boats.
Stepping onto the front porch of the office, Kid tried to open the front door, but it was locked. He turned around as Jess came jogging over.
“There’s one boat down at the dock. A nice 28-foot Boston Whaler, center console. The key is in it and it has gas,” his friend said.
“Why are we worried about a boat?” Heidi stepped onto the porch.
“In case we need to escape by sea,” he answered, as if it was obvious. “We would just have to bull our way through the ice that is starting to encrust the hull.”
“Stand back.” Kid kicked open the front door. The first floor contained a small waiting area with outdated furniture, three small offices, and one larger room with a conference table. The second floor was comprised of offices and storerooms.
Kid and Jess ran up a spiral staircase in the middle of the second floor that led to a fully enclosed cupola with a 360-degree view. Facing north, they had a perfect view of the Tunney–Mathis Bridge going over to Seaside Heights. To the south, they could see the lighthouse and Barnegat Inlet. “We can see everything except the ships themselves,” Jess noted.
“But all of the pathways between them and this marina are covered.”
When they walked downstairs, everyone was sitting in chairs in the conference room. Seeing Kid, Maria pointed to him and then the chair at the head of the table. “We left that for you. Are you ready to read that diary now?”
Exhaling, he wanted to say, ‘maybe later,’ but he knew he was just delaying the inevitable. He moved slow, but took his seat. The room fell silent and they all stared at him expectantly. Holding up the black covered diary, he pointed to the ‘Sara’ tab with trembling fingers and flipped the book open. The first thing he noticed was that the words had an odd and inconsistent spacing between them, and the sentences did not stay on the pre-printed lines. “What the…” he muttered. He flipped back through some entries and noted that the general’s handwriting was typically quite uniform and neat. He could not understand why this particular entry was not. “Did he write this entry with his eyes closed?”
The words were legible enough, so Kid read it first to himself. A lump came to his throat and he was frozen in time and space.
“Well?” Maria prodded.
He could not believe what he had just read. The implications made him blank out, as if his brain was an overloaded circuit that had just tripped.
“Are you alright?” Heidi rose and put her arm around his rigid body.
“What the hell could it say that’s bothering him so much?” Jess asked. “Heidi, maybe you should read it.”
She turned to Kid, and he robotically handed over the diary. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak at the moment.
Heidi sat back down and read the page aloud, gasping several times. When she finished, the silence in the room was heavy.
“Did I hear that right?” Jess stood up and started pacing. “Heidi, can you read that one more time?”
And she did.
It was Maria who finally uttered what they all seemed to be feeling, “Ho… ly… shit.”
“No way. There is absolutely no way,” Jess stated in disbelief.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Heidi also seemed stunned.
“And what is that exactly?” Drex threw his hands in the air. “Can someone explain what is going on here?”
It was then that Kid found his voice. “The whole fucking game board just changed.”
General Hyland’s diary (page tagged, ‘Sara’):
Sara,
If you are alive to read this then despite all odds, my plan to make adjustments in the satellite computer program and save a few small areas of the world did in fact work. And your grandparents should have survived as well, although your grandmother is likely running out of her Levonesex 212 (remember, that is the medicine she needs to take every day to live) so she needs to be checked on right away.
I am no longer one of them, but they think I am, so I am trapped/stationed on one of the Utopia Project ships, but I am alive.
On our dining room table, you will find my laptop bag. The computer is critical, so grab it and don’t let it out of your sight. In the side pocket of the laptop bag is a long-range military walkie-talkie with five fully charged batteries. Hit the call button on the walkie-talkie (keep it on channel 5), but do not speak! Only try to reach me between 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. eastern standard time and keep trying every night until we get in touch. Save battery power and turn it on between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. ONLY!
DO NOT go back to the Seaside Heights area for any reason! Stay away from there. If everything goes as I expect it to, after the attack, our base camp will be established on Long Beach Island. That is not set in stone, but I will get to that area one way or another so just remain within 50 miles of Long Beach Island and please, STAY HIDDEN AT ALL TIMES!
For the sake of humanity, and my heart, take care of yourself and survive. I will catch up with you as soon as I can escape myself. I love you and, obviously, have a lot to explain to you.
Love, Dad.
Chapter 36
January 2, 2045
Monday, Late Afternoon
Bayville, New Jersey
Seven days after the event
“The game board changed? What do you mean by that?” Drex asked
“Our survival… was no accident,” Kid clarified.
“So the ‘computer malfunctions’ the girls told us about were not malfunctions after all,” Jess surmised.
“No, and I should have realized that already.”
“How?”
“Look at where Maria said the second ‘malfunction area’ was—the Green Mountains, right around where Sara’s grandparents live in Vermont! Could it be a coincidence that out of the three areas in the entire world that survived, Mr. Hyland’s daughter happens to be in one and his parents in another?”
Drex scratched his beard as he contemplated, “How could this Mr. Hyland gain access to a highly secure weapon like that neutron beam system?”
“He was a United States army general, and I know he was involved in the computer programming for satellites and weapon systems,” Kid noted. “He didn’t talk about it, and neither did his daughter Sara, but she did tell me that much.”
“Did he act alone?” Drex asked. “To pull off something like that, I imagine it had to be a complicated plan, with a lot of moving parts.”
“I don’t know what his plan was, but in his diary entry he told Sara to stay hidden,” Jess said. “I’m sure it threw a wrench into the works when the girls were captured, and again when we rescued them.”
“I think he was doing more than wanting. We were able to run around the ship, in view of cameras, and we never got caught? And the door alarms were delayed when we started the rescue. I thought we were just getting lucky, but now I’ll bet we had help there too, assuming he really is stationed on the ships.”
“He is definitely with them,” Kid stated as he had another recollection. “When I was fighting with Elder-1 on the fire tower, I said the name Hyland and he recognized it right away.”
After a moment of silence, Jess blurted out, “Some things make sense now. There were signs we didn’t pick up on, because at the time we weren’t looking for signs.”
“What are you talking about?” Maria asked.
“Remember the night of the destruction Sara got a crank phone call just a few minutes before it happened? It wasn’t a big deal at the time, but I’ll bet that was part of the plan.”
“In what way?”
“GPS. Her father was calling to pinpoint her exact location, so he could protect her from the beams.”
Maria pinched her brow and then her face relaxed. “Ah, I get it.”
Kid nodded his head in agreement. “And he obviously wanted her at the beach. The ‘gift’ was nothing more than a sham to get her there and keep her there.”
“She was supposed to read the note in the box right away, but…” Heidi started.
“He didn’t anticipate her being flash blinded,” Kid finished, with a solemn voice.
“Exactly,” Heidi echoed. “He should have considered that. It’s not her fault that she didn’t see his note sooner.”
Kid added, “If she had seen his note, we would have headed back to her house right away to get the diary and she never would have been captured in the first place.”
With a voice that seemed to exude more than just sadness and lament, Heidi said, “It certainly would have changed things.”
Shaking her head, Maria pointed out, “We were just at Sara’s house. I wish we knew we needed to grab the laptop bag.” She turned to Kid. “I assume you are going back for it?”
“I’m not in any rush, not with the news I have to give Mr. Hyland.” He stared at the ground for a long minute.
“Is anyone keeping watch upstairs?” Jess asked.
Everyone turned and looked at each other.
“Uh-oh. We’re all down here.” Maria’s lips were tight.
The entire group, save 801 and Drex, climbed up to the cupola. With so many eyes scouting the area in every direction, Kid was confident they would spot anyone approaching.
Rubbing her hands together, Maria proclaimed, “There must be a 30-degree temperature difference between this widow’s walk and the room downstairs.” With an involuntary chill, she added, “That name even sounds cold… widow’s walk.”
“I wish we knew what those bastards are up to out there,” Jess said.
“I guess Mr. Hyland could fill us in,” Heidi noted sourly.
Despite the chill in the air, Kid felt numb. For several minutes he was silent as he stared out the window. He was not consciously thinking of anything, but he could tell that his subconscious was a raging maelstrom. Finally some thoughts began to coalesce. With losing Sara, he had been overwhelmed with grief. Now he was also overwhelmed with guilt as he thought of facing Mr. Hyland. He crossed his arms over his stomach at the sickening thought of telling him that his daughter did survive the cataclysm, but he had lost her after all.
Maria seemed to sense his dismay. “Kid?”
He did not move, but muttered, “Her father set it all up so she would survive. And she did, until I got her killed by trying to rescue her.”
Heidi whipped around and snapped, “Don’t blame yourself.”
“She’s right. It’s not your fault,” Maria agreed as Jess nodded his concurrence.
How can’t I blame myself? Kid thought, as anger and regret swelled within him. He clenched his fingers in a tight fist. “I should have reached out and caught the bolt that hit Sara with my hand.”
“Come on now,” Maria huffed and exhaled. “How could you know it was going to hit her? It almost didn’t. As a matter of fact, it barely touched her.”
As he stared out the window, with dusk encroaching, he thought he could see the glow of the three vessel’s lights above the buildings to the east. Somewhere out there was General Hyland. Kid knew he would have a day of reckoning. “I have to face him.”
“Why?” Heidi asked as she walked over to him.
“I let him down.”
“But…: she started, and abruptly closed her mouth.
“Only now do I know why he was so insistent about it,” he continued. A minute later he finally turned to them. “The night of the destruction, after we had dinner, I made him a promise, and I failed to keep it.”
December 26, 2044
Monday, Early Evening
Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst
(Fort Dix Army Base), New Jersey
The evening of the event
After Sara and Kid had dinner with General Hyland, Brian arrived to pick them up.
Sara was trying to wrap a black scarf around her neck, but it got snagged on her necklace. Taking off her American Indian arrowhead shaped locket, she remarked, “I hate taking this off because it is from you Kid, but it always gets caught in my scarf.” She opened the gold locket, kissed her finger and touched the picture of Kid inside. After closing it, she said, “Let me drop this on my dresser and I’m ready to go.” She then ran to her room.
Coming back up the hall, she said, “And Dad, before you even ask- I have the gift box to open at 11:03 p.m., and yes, I will make sure my phone is on at all times.” She kissed his cheek as she passed. “Love you.”
“Perfect. Love you too.” He turned to watch her go.
Kid followed her out, and bumped into her as she stopped on the top step. She exhaled and a heavy fog rolled from her lips. She pulled back her hair and put on a hunter-green and black checkered knit hat. She shook her head and let her brunette hair flow down the front of her coat. Putting on her thick black winter gloves, she walked down the steps.
Kid turned and waved to the general. “See you later.”
“Bye now,” he responded, and then called out as he came to the doorway. “And Kid…”
“Yes?” he asked as he turned back.
“Promise me you’ll take care of my little girl.”
Sara had just reached the sidewalk and called out, “19, and still his little girl!”
Kid made eye contact with the general and said confidently, “I will. I promise.”
The general met his gaze, gave a quick head nod and closed the door to the world, but not fast enough. Something disturbing had shone in the general’s eyes, so much so that Kid hesitated at the top of the steps. His momentary trance was broken as a snowball hit him in the chest, while Sara laughed and ran away.
But Kid’s feeling of unease would linger for the next several hours. Long after the group had set up under Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, it would culminate in a sudden realization.
The air at the ocean is never still.
January 2, 2045
Monday, Evening
Bayville, New Jersey
Seven days after the event
As darkness fell on the New Jersey coast, everyone was sitting in the conference room of the marina’s office building except for Jess, who was upstairs on lookout duty. Heidi tapped her foot impatiently. How can I get Maria alone?
801 got up and announced that he had to go to the bathroom. He stood waiting for an escort. Heidi had found it odd that one of 801’s nuances, presumably from his conditioning, was that he was uncomfortable going to the bathroom alone. The guys had to take turns being his escort. This time 801’s quirk provided Heidi with the opportunity
she had been waiting for.
Kid stood up. “I got it.” He pulled out his flashlight and said, “Come on 801.”
As soon as Kid left the room, Heidi got up and sat next to Maria. Leaning close she whispered, “Check this out.”
Pulling General Hyland’s diary out of her coat pocket, Heidi opened to the passage written for Sara. She held the book at an angle so the swaying candle light could creep across the page. Pointing to the paragraph about using a walkie-talkie to make contact between specific hours, she said, “Maybe we should reach out to Mr. Hyland.”
“What?” Maria hissed, a little louder than a whisper.
Drex glanced up at them from across the room. Heidi waved her hand at him. “Just ignore us. Girl talk.”
Maria clarified, “I know Kid. For him, this will be a matter of principle, and he may not be ready to do it yet, but he will be seriously pissed if someone else calls Mr. Hyland.”
“Maybe so, but he thinks that he let Mr. Hyland down and that Sara’s death was his fault. I would rather Kid be mad at me than to take responsibility for something that really wasn’t his fault. Mr. Hyland will never forgive him, or worse,” Heidi concluded. She did not want Kid to fall on the sword and take the blame for Sara. Mr. Hyland would then hold him responsible and drive the sword even deeper, if not use it to behead him. She could not let Kid be harmed that way. She needed to shield him.
Heidi stared as she waited for a response.
Maria sighed. “Well, I admit he’s blaming himself when it wasn’t his fault,” she conceded. “He is not seeing clearly right now.”
“That’s what worries me! And that’s why tomorrow we should break away and go to Mr. Hyland’s house and get the laptop bag with the walkie-talkie. What do you say?” She was going to find a way out there one way or another.
Maria hesitated. “I don’t know…” she started, but footsteps sounded in the hall.