by C C Roth
I sized them both up. “You’re not wrong but we have no other option. I could take her out from here with one shot, but everyone will hear it.” I fiddled with Noah’s knife in my pocket and wondered how pissed Mike would be if I made a mess of Grace.
Navin’s eyes were darting back and forth from her to me. “No. Your face is creepy right now. Just stop whatever it is you’re thinking.”
“What? We need to get her out of our way don’t we?”
He was trying desperately to come up with an alternative. “Look, I’m not jumping on some She-Hulk and attacking her, it would be pointless!”
He was right. The image in my head was ridiculous. It would be pointless for us to fight her. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t be totally pointless to try.
Lightbulb.
“Actually, it would be perfect. Go, go!” I said excitedly waving him towards the front of the lobby.
He threw his arms up, exasperated. “What the hell do you mean, ‘go’? Go do what?” His eyes were as big as plates.
“Attack her. It’s perfect!”
His mouth was agape as he looked again at Grace then back at me. “You’re flipping nuts.”
“Go! We don’t have time. I’ll be right behind you.” I ducked back into the bathroom and reemerged seconds later, tiptoeing to the half wall behind the stairs that lead to the upper level.
Navin’s eyes were huge as he stared at me and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
I tried not to giggle as I waved him on again. He was equal parts pissed off and baffled, but he went along with it. Navin slowly wandered over to Grace, his face frozen in a weird mix of disbelief and fear as he looked questioningly back at me again. He stepped in front of her and stood there nervously. She had at least a full foot of height on him and she was solid muscle compared to his lanky build. I laughed a little to myself at the disparity.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked annoyed.
He didn’t respond. Only stared blankly, looking like he was about to sneeze or something.
“What’s wrong with you?” she growled.
I peered from behind the wall trying to stay hidden but not wanting to miss the show either. He looked crazy. He was rubbing his hands nervously together then he took a deep breath and suddenly started bouncing back and forth from one foot to the other. It was a comical dance and so completely out of place.
Grace jumped a little and stared at him, “What the…?”
“I’m sorry about this,” Navin said. As he took another deep breath, he jumped towards her with his arms outstretched. It looked nowhere near menacing at all but more like he was trying to give her a big bear hug.
She bellowed a violent, “agghhhhhhh” as she easily grabbed his small frame and threw him to the ground.
A giant whoosh of air escaped his mouth as his back hit the hard tile floor. Grace stood over him with her gun pointed at his head.
“Have you lost your mind?” she screeched.
Poor Grace never saw me sneaking up from behind until the toilet lid made contact with the back of her skull. The audible thwack of porcelain meeting bone was a little more satisfying than I thought it would be. Her head jerked violently with the hit as her tall frame fell sideways and landed awkwardly next to Navin on the floor.
Timber!
I smiled at him and offered a hand to help pull him up. “Like I said, perfect.”
He shook his head, “Like I said, you’re nuts.”
“Yeah, probably.”
The lower hallway was deserted now as we cautiously began our search of the facility. Grace was unconscious in the bathroom upstairs and going to be super pissed if she ever woke up. I was fairly confident she was still breathing so we needed to haul ass.
“Okay, let’s see if we can find where they took everyone. Hopefully we can get some answers about what exactly is going on.”
“Right. But where do we start?” he asked.
We stood motionless for a moment and strained through the silence to find something that would lead us in the right direction.
“That way,” I said pointing right. “It sounds like there’s some movement back there.”
There were several tall metal doors each with small wall plates next to them labeled Lab 1, Lab 2, and so on. There were no special security measures or guards in sight. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe an intricate cross-grid of heat sensing laser beams floating down the hall? Maybe that would’ve been overkill but I at least expected someone keeping watch. We paused at the second lab and slowly cracked the door open to find a mostly dark room encased in some sort of plastic tent. I couldn’t see any movement inside, so I signaled Navin to come in behind me. It was quiet save for the consistent beeping and whirring of machines. What was this? Along the wall where we entered hung a series of hazmat suits with gloves and boots next to a shower in the corner. I slowly approached the plastic wall in front of us and tried to peer in, but the plastic was thick and there was another layer just inside the first. I could only make out shapes and figured there was a row of beds on each side of the room. Maybe 10 total, each with a person in it hooked up to IV’s and machines. They weren’t moving but I could see the rise and fall of their chests as they breathed. I glanced at Navin then back at the zipper hanging on the plastic door in front of me.
“Yep, this is creepy.” Navin said as he pulled his shirt over his face. “We can’t go in there. They could all be infected.”
I quickly analyzed the scene. “You’re right. There’s nothing we can do here. Let’s keep moving.”
We could hear voices inside the next door. Not loud enough to make out but someone was having a conversation. We silently cracked the door and peered in to see two people in lab coats.
“Yes, but there is a new lot that just came in and we’ll need to get through their history today and assign each of them to a group,” the woman said.
“Ugh, when do we get a break?” the man asked.
“I don’t think you want to ask for a break. The last lab tech that complained hasn’t come back. They’ll pull you out for a shift change soon enough.”
“What do you mean he didn’t come back?” the guy asked nervously.
“Just that. He didn’t come back.”
It was silent for a beat as he thought this over.
“How many kids have you lost in the past month?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” She was annoyed. “Maybe 50.”
“Wow, that’s awful,” he said.
“Just try not to think about it. You’ve got a job to do. Go to Four and start prepping charts for the new arrivals. I’ll be in shortly.”
The man left through a door at the back of the room and Navin and I moved in just as it clicked closed behind him. The woman turned and gasped when she saw me pointing my gun directly at her chest.
“Please,” she trembled with her hands up.
“What is this place?” I demanded in a whisper.
“I, I…it’s a lab.”
“I can see that. What are you doing here?”
“The virus. Avian-X. We’re trying to stop it.” She fumbled for words for a moment. “No one has been able to survive it and we’re trying to find a vaccine. A way to stop the spread.” She was shaking and her eyes kept darting nervously to our guns.
“Why are you taking children and bringing them here? Why?”
“Please, it’s not me. I’m not taking them. I’m just doing my job. I don’t know what they’ll do to me if I don’t do my job.” A tear ran down her cheek and she was starting to breathe heavily.
“Who is they?”
“You don’t know where you are?”
“I asked you who?” I snapped impatiently.
“Us. Our government, or whoever is left of it. I don’t really know who. They have the guns and the power and what’s left of the military. They’re trying to help. To stop this so we can rebuild and start again.”
“And by help you mean kidnapping and murdering kids?�
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“No. We’re not murdering…”
“I heard you talking. You’ve been through 50 kids in the past month, right? I don’t suppose any of those 50 kids are still alive, are they? Are they?” I didn’t mean to yell but I was getting angry thinking about all the innocent lives this woman had taken.
“Please, you don’t understand. If we don’t sacrifice a few we can’t save the many. What chance do we have as a nation if we can’t beat this virus? It’s not stopping. The spread should have died out by now, but new cases keep popping up in small pockets. We won’t survive another wave of this if they attack again, do you get that? There won’t be anyone left.”
“I get it. You’re killing kids and telling yourself it’s okay because someone wants a cure. Well these kids survived, and they would’ve kept surviving if you hadn’t ripped their lives away from them.”
She was sobbing now, an unimpressive display. My cold friend didn’t care and neither did I. She was a murderer and there was no way around it.
“Get down. Now,” I growled at her.
She knelt on the tile floor. Her shoulders shuddering as she wept. “Please,” she said. “Don’t kill me. I’m trying to save them. As many as I can, I’ve tried to save as many as I can. There are test groups and I’ve lied a bit to save some. I’ve given more a placebo than I should have.” She shook her head. “Please, I’ve tried. I’ve tried.”
Navin was dumfounded but he clearly didn’t want me to kill her. He leaned into me. “We need her. She can take us to the others and get us out of here faster. We have to go.”
No. She needs to die, It said.
My hand trembled a bit as my trigger finger itched for relief. But Mike was nearby, and I knew he wouldn’t like it.
“You’re going to take us to our friends and you’re going to walk us out of here. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Then we’re going to destroy this place. This can’t go on.”
She shook her head. “You can’t”
“Really? I think I can.”
“No, I mean it won’t do any good. It won’t stop them.”
“What do you mean? I’m pretty sure if we burn this lab to the ground that’ll stop them.”
“You don’t get it. This is just a small facility. It’s just one of many across the entire nation. We’re all working together to find a vaccine. The CDC wanted us spread out so if one location is attacked again, it won’t hinder our progress.”
“Progress? You call this progress?” I was enraged. “Our nation is destroyed, people are barely surviving and now you’re murdering your own people in the name of science? In the name of progress?”
“You don’t get it!” she screamed. “We are at war. We could be hit again at any moment. Another viral wave will wipe us out.”
“Yeah, well right now I don’t care about your war. I don’t care about who has power. All I have left is my brother. And if you can’t take me to him then you’re no good to me.”
I stepped closer and let her feel the end of my rifle against her forehead.
“Sam, no,” Navin said as he lowered my arm and stood in front of her. He didn’t wait for my reaction. “Get up, now. Take us to the others and then we’ll go.”
He lifted her to her feet and hooked arms with her, probably thinking their closeness would deter me from her blowing her head off.
Not likely.
“This way,” she said through stifled sobs.
We went out the back door and it swung closed behind us with a depressing thud. Turning right down a separate hallway we passed another lab before we stopped in front of the one marked four.
“What’s in three?” I asked, nodding over my shoulder toward the door ominously covered in plastic.
The doctor looked at me but shook her head. “You can’t go in there. That was the last group of test subjects for the vaccine. They didn’t make it.”
I glared at her and my trigger-finger begged to be set free.
She recoiled from me and quickly unlocked the door to lab room four. We entered a nearly identical room to the one we’d just left except this one had been emptied out of equipment to make room for the new test subjects. All the kids from our train were there. The lab assistant was holding a clipboard, standing over a girl as he took notes. She was seated on the tile floor as they all were, in three rows. Only one soldier remained at the front of the room. He was one of the men who’d allowed us to come in from the train.
Bet he’s about to feel pretty dumb.
Mike saw us walk in and he jumped up, drawing his gun on the soldier as I moved in with my aim up. The man started for his own gun but quickly put his hands up as he realized his defeat. The lab assistant yelped and helped himself to a seat on the floor as I walked past him. He apparently did not have the hero gene.
I leaned in to Mike and kept my aim on the soldier. “Let’s get out of here. There aren’t enough military to take us out, but I don’t want to wait for more to show up.”
“Absolutely. What is this place? Did you find out? Why are they asking us these questions?” Mike asked.
“Well it’s not a training facility and it’s definitely not a Safe Haven checkpoint intent on relocating us.” I glanced at the girl from the train. “They’re using us as test subjects for a vaccine they haven’t found yet. They’re killing us.”
“What? Why would they…? That doesn’t make any sense!” Mike was visibly worked up to hear the truth and a few of the kids from our group started crying, grieving their own loved ones they now knew to be lost.
Mike turned to the doctor. “Why would you infect perfectly healthy kids with the virus when there is a whole population of sick people out there?”
“I, I…” she was shaking for fear of saying the wrong thing. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve just been doing as I’m told. If I do my job then my family gets to stay in the Safe Zone. Please.”
“Answer him.”
“We have to administer the vaccine on healthy test subjects, before they’re sick. It doesn’t work any other way. We can’t cure the virus, but we might be able to prevent it if we can develop a vaccine. We might be able to save the people we have left.”
Mike looked from her to me and back again, his jaw clenched. “Why children?” he asked glaring at her.
“Please, please just let me go—"
“Tell us why!” I roared at her and she cowered again.
“Younger subjects are stronger and more likely to survive. They’re also easier to move. Easier to—"
“To manipulate? To kidnap? To dispose of?” My cold friend was raging as we stepped closer and closer to Dr. Death. It wanted blood.
Suddenly the naïve blonde girl jumped up. “Are there any alive still? The ones that came here before us, are they all dead?” She sounded desperate. “My sister, is she still here?”
I looked at the doctor, but she didn’t know what to say. “She asked you a question, lady.” I raised my rifle again and she began to stammer a bit.
“She, she could be. I tried to save as many as I could. But you can’t test a vaccine on someone who isn’t sick.”
“Where are they? What did you do with them? The ones you didn’t kill.”
“They’re here. Some of them are still here. Some will be sent to other facilities. Some will be recruited.”
“Recruited? What does that mean, recruited for what?”
“We need to rebuild what’s left of our military if we’re going to defend ourselves. Think of it like a draft.”
“A draft? Are you serious?” My tone was stabbing and she could feel it.
“Look. It’s not me. I just work here. I’m only doing what I’m told. This is your country trying to protect whatever it has left.”
“No. This is a small group of idiots telling a bigger group of idiots what to do. The problem is you’re listening,” I said.
My pretend hostages were still sitting tied up on the floor and their faces
said it all, they were defeated. I supposed some of them had been hoping this would all turn out okay. That maybe this really was just some ass-backward way to move people to a Safe Zone. These kids deserved better than this from their country. We all did.
“Navin, get their hands free. We’re leaving. And we’re taking everyone we can.”
Mike kept his gun trained on the soldier, who had remained silent up to that point, as Navin moved about the room cutting everyone’s zip ties.
I threw my attention back on the doctor. “Where are they being held?”
“They’re in the basement. One floor down. It’s just a storage room that they’ve converted into sleeping quarters. The ones that made it are there.”
“Is it guarded?”
“No. Like I said, we’re just one of many small labs. All of the larger facilities have the most personnel. We’re not even supposed to have this many test subjects here but there was a problem with the transport last week and so we had to keep everyone. They’ll be getting picked up in a day or so. No guards but the door is locked. They get pulled out every couple of hours for a bathroom break.”
“Who’s got the key?” Mike asked.
The doctor nodded her head at the man on his knees in front of Mike. The whole room looked at him in unison. Eighteen sets of eyes sizing him up, wondering what he was going to do.
“Well?” I asked impatiently.
“I can’t give you that key. I am a staff sergeant in the United States Army and I will not hand over that key to a bunch of kids. It doesn’t matter if I don’t agree with what my government is doing here. It is not my place to question. Only to follow orders. I will not be the man that surrendered government property to a troop of stupid kids.”
All eyes switched to me. “No problem.” Before I knew what I’d done, my gun tore a hole in his leg and he collapsed in pain on the floor.
“Mike is going to check your pockets. If you move, I’m going to kill you. I might kill you anyway for wasting my time but if you hurt my brother, I will kill you sooner. Got it?”
Mike stared at me bug-eyed, but I nodded him on. He crouched over the injured soldier and came up with a small golden key, unremarkable in every way.