-1-
I’m don't think as I tear down the street and to the alley where I left Dr. Morrissey in the trunk of her blue sports car. I’m afraid one of the guards outside the government buildings is going to stop me, but they don’t. I guess Sara is right, I have a face people trust.
“Meet us in front of the promenade.” Minnie says breathlessly to me over the mic
“On my way,” I say
I fumble with opening the door before
reversing out of the alley. I speed down the main street and towards the promenade where Minnie and I met
Pascal just last night.
It feels like forever ago.
“Morrissey’s in a cab. A yellow taxi with the plates L13H8.” I hear a deep, clean male voice say over the mic. The voice belongs to Saint. This is the first time I’ve ever heard his voice.
I pull up to in front of the funnel cake stand where Minnie, Sara and Jean are looking as casual as can be, huddled together over Sara’s screen.
Minnie traded in the heels and the skirt of her dress for sneakers and shorts.
They push into the car before I even come to a full stop. Sara takes the
passenger seat, frantically hacking
into the taxi’s GPS data with her miniscreen.
“Where are you ?,” she asks into the mic.
Saint gives her a list of numbers in longitude and latitude.
“Make a left here.” Sara orders me and I see Saint standing by a light post. I barely slow down as he ducks in to the backseat.
“Where am I going now ?,” I ask her.
“Just keep going straight, but slow down.”
Sara fumbles with a cord from her pocket and plugs her screen into the car’s data system, the wheel jerks away from me as the car takes the route from the miniscreen, mimicking the path of Morrissey’s taxi cab.
Sara studies the route and traces it with her finger.
“The taxi’s heading for his office..."
“He’s either going to destroy the evidence of what he did or try take it with him,” Jean observes
“What if he’s called in Mjollner reinforcement ?,” Minnie asks.
“It doesn’t matter. They’d never make it here it in time,” Sara assures them. “Look, we didn’t plan for this so just remember, this is a secure building. Don’t trip any alarms and keep quiet. He knows this place better than us, so don’t give him an advantage.”
We leave the lights and crowd of downtown for an office complex in a quiet lush lakeside park. The ExUn skyscraper towers in the glow of lamplight.
“Turn off the headlights and pull the car behind something big.” Sara orders me.
I shut the lights off and pull behind a set of Dumpsters. We watch silently as Morrissey gets out of his cab and briskly walks inside. He is still holding Minnie’s gun in his hand.
“Saint, take care of the cab.” Sara says
Saint is still dressed as a police officer and we watch as he
jogs over and puts his hand on the top of the cab as he leans down to talk to the cab
driver. Within a few minutes, the cab pulls away and we pull up to the front of
the building in its place.
Sara leads the way to the large frosted glass doors and uses a small electronic device to get them to open for her. That’s when I get a feel for the massive size of this building. The atrium itself looks like a football field and the main lobby is so expansive that is tastefully fits a larger than life fountain with a large E and U spouting water
Our collected footsteps echo in the space and Sara pauses to stare at the fountain. She glances over to the building directory and then heads toward it.
“This building has 40 floors of ExUn equipment and offices, let’s split up.”
“You should take the 30th floor, where his office is, it may be where he goes first.” Jean recommends
“No, I’ll start with the basement and work up—“
“The basement ?,” Jean questions. “He wouldn’t—“
“I didn’t ask your opinion, Jean. None of this works if you don’t listen to me,” Sara reminded him. “Just trust me… Saint you start from the top down, Jean you take Alan and do the even floors and Minnie, odd floors.”
“I’m unarmed.” Minnie reminds her.
Sara reaches behind her and hands her a large glock.
“Go. If any of you spot him, tell me.”
I’m unarmed as well, but I keep that fact to myself because I know she won’t give me a gun.
Jean and I start on the second floor and it’s nothing but empty cubicles and corner offices. The entire office is spread before us and if there was someone around we would most definitely have seen them. Jean is uncharacteristically silent and seems to be listening to the air to figure out where Morrissey is hiding.
“Second floor, clear,” Jean says
“First and third too,” Minnie adds.
Jean reaches up to turn his mic off and looks at me.
“This is bullshit,” he says. “Things didn’t go her way and now she is acting irrationally.”
“Maybe it’s like brute force. Cover all points.”
“No, it’s sloppy. She could have hacked a schematic. There is no one in the basement.”
“Do you think she is up to something ?,” I ask
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, this is ExUn. Maybe it’s something about Saint. She did send him the farthest away from her.”
“Maybe, it doesn’t really matter,” he says. “Sara can do whatever she wants and lie until the sun comes up, but not when it means pissing away this bullshit rookie job.”
“Do you want me to go back to the first floor and make sure Morrissey doesn’t try and leave?,” I ask
“No. What are you going to do ? Let’s just go to the fourth floor.”
The sixth and eighth floors are nearly identical, and I can see Jean getting restless by the time we reach the 20th floor without seeing one person or anything out of place. I am thankful when I hear Saint’s voice.
“I’m on floor 27. Morrissey is locked in a laboratory. Orders?”
There is silence over the mics
“Sara ?,” Jean calls.
More silence. Jean is standing perfectly still and in my head everyone is just as frozen in their places as we are.
“Sara, can I take the hit ?,” Jean asks.
His voice is unsteady.
“Sara ?”
“Repeat,” she responds.
“Saint has eyes on him. He’s locked in a lab. Want me to take the hit ?,”
“Yeah. Go. Tell me the room number and I’ll wire it open and then meet you upstairs.”
“Room number PR2760,” Saint reports
Jean cuts me one of his manic smiles and I follow after him as he storms up to the 27th floor. This floor isn’t offices, but an expansive white tile wing with towering lockers filled with lab equipment. The space is sterile, but the cleanliness is interrupted by dozens of broken beakers leaking a viscous black liquid that spiders across the tile. I see a titanium case left lying open that Morrissey must have been trying to pack before he heard Saint.
We meet Minnie and Saint at the very end of the wing with a silent greeting. They are standing outside a large, metallic door at the end of a hallway. The door looks the size of a garage and I wonder what ExUn keeps in there. There is a blinking red light at the front of the door and Minnie and Saint seemed transfixed by it. For a brief second it flickers yellow, but then nothing.
I hear footsteps behind me and see Sara running up to us frowning.
“You can open the door any day now,” Jean teases
“I did open it.”
She takes out her miniscreen and puts in a series of code and then hits the OPEN button on the door. The light blinks yellow once more, but quickly turns back red and the door remains locked.
Turning towards us, her brow furrows more, she does a scan around the room. I can see the wheels moving and she doesn’t look happy about what she is seeing.
“What is this room number again ?,” she asks
“PR2760,” Saint repeats
“Shit,” she swears under her breath
No one says anything, we all
just stare at her as she stares at the door.
“What ?,” Minnie finally asks
“This isn’t a lab, it’s a fucking panic room. It has a Sterling Sequence lock on it. Once it is sealed the passcode becomes a revolving combination that changes every minute and it’s probably 30 digits at the least.”
“So, run a logic coded program on it. Make the fucking computer figure out the code,” Jean practically yells at her.
“It’ll take 5 years for it to even get close.“ she retorts sharply. “And even then, the damn thing will change in the next minute.”
“Well, he has to come out of there sometime, right ?” Minnie quips, I can tell she is trying to lighten the mood.
Sara throws her an ugly stare.
“ No, what the fuck is wrong with you ? It’s a panic room. It’s built to last everyone in this building 6 months which means he could be in there forever. Just shut up and let me think.”
She paces the floor violently, looking around as if the answer is hiding somewhere. Jean and Minnie exchange partially amused looks and Saint is staring determined at the door, like he is thinking of tearing it down.
Suddenly, Sara stops and turns to us.
“I may not be able to pass the lock into the room, but I can access the computers inside the room. I can tell the computers the room has been compromised and the override should tell it to open the doors. Then we can go inside and find him.”
She doesn’t wait for confirmation before taking out the miniscreen and typing in code. There is a silence and Minnie breaks it with a small giggle.
“Can we all make sure I get my gun back ?,” Minnie reminds us.
“Why ? You look like a sexy badass with that Baretta,” Jean tells her
She holds the large gun out and points it at Jean with her legs spread and a coy look in her eye.
“Really ? Now am I, sexy badass or sexy badass adorable sidekick ?,” she asks
“The jury’s out until you paint it pink,” he responds
And they both laugh.
Their odd joking is interrupted by the muffled sound of a computer voice.
“Panic Room 2760 has been compromised. Please evacuate compound.”
“Panic Room 2760 has been compromised. Please evacuate compound.”
“Panic Room 2760 has been compromised. Please evacuate compound.”
At that, the doors to the panic room fly open, Sara disables the voice and slowly beckons us inside the panic room. It looks like a cave made of carpeted walls and steel. It's dark and the only light is from the blinking white emergency lights. In the silence I hear Morrissey's desperate footsteps, but they are going away from us. Instead of coming out, he is going deeper into the panic room.
“Where is he going ?,” Minnie asks.
“Sara do you feel that ?,” Jean asks
“What ?,”
“It’s warm in here. I mean it’s fucking warm.”
Her eyes squint.
“God damnit, I am so over this bullshit. Rayne better spill after all this bullshit,” she hisses and then turns back to us. “The panic room must lead out of the building-”
“Yeah.” Jean cuts her off. “ But Ft. Perch is temperature controlled, so I the panic room leads outside the barrier. It’s why it is so hot-”
“No shit. Come on, we have to get him before he leaves the city.” she breaths and takes off running.
Saint easily takes her lead and sprints at a ridiculous speed down the corridor
until he is out of sight. Jean and
Minnie keep pace a few steps behind w Sara, but I am falling behind. Minnie falls back and
takes my hand pushing me forward. The panic room gives way to a hallway that
seems never ending.
The further we go, the more I start to feel it. The stiff heat of the desert outside of the dome waves over me. Fear begins to overtake me too. Fear and concern.
We don’t have a car or food or IDs. What if we can’t get back inside Ft. Perch after the kill ? Will there be anyone out there to help ? The nearest city is miles away.
I am out of breath and panting when I see moonlight light ahead and I can hear Morrissey, pleading and begging. As we round the corner there is a large, lighted hatch opening to the outside.
-2-
There is sand everywhere.
My vision It is all but obscured by the sand blowing and dusting up against the hatch. We step outside into the blistering heat where I can make out Saint, holding up Morrissey with his arms twisted behind his back. I notice Minnie’s small pistol is lying abandoned in the sand a few feet away.
When Morrissey sees all of us approaching, he stops his begging. In that moment he seems to have resigned himself to his death because he just laughs through gasping breaths.
A wind picks up, the ash and sand start to whirl up and create a particle barrier between he and I, his eyes water and turn red from the bits that settle in his eyes , but with my lenses in I can just brush the particles away.
“I know who you are…who you work for,” he spits at Sara. “Am I such a threat that the Shy Cartel sends 5 people to kill me ?”
Jean looks to Sara who nods at him as he steps toward Morrissey
Morrissey’s breaths calm, he seems relaxed and I think it’s
because he sees Jean isn’t carrying a gun. I divert my eyes and get a glimpse
of the dome, up close it looks somewhat unnatural, I can't even tell how it's anchored to the ground. It’s hard to grasp that it expands to cover the entire city.
“Fucking bullshit cartel, tell your boss he needs to wake up,” Morrissey continues. “It’s a new age and people don’t need an expensive drug that can kill them when all they want is a good time. I have no loyalities I’m sure we can work--”
“Shut the fuck up.” Jean says darkly, backhanding Morrissey so hard his nose drips blood.
“First, you tell us if there are anymore drugs so we can dispose of them,” Jean demands.
“You’re just going to kill me. I’m not telling you shit.” He responds.
“Fine,” Jean agrees and pulls out a knife.
“STOP!”
Only it isn’t Morrissey shouting.
It’s Sara
Jean turns to her and looks like he is about to argue, but she speaks first.
“Step away from him, Jean.”
He looks at her hard.
“Now,” she says and he does.
“We have your wife,” Sara says standing next to Morrissey. “She’s in the trunk of her own damn car. If you ever want to see her again, you better answer my questions. Honestly. Understand ?”
His face softens at the mention of his wife and he nods noncommittally.
“Did you ever know a Derek Grace ?,” she asks
He pauses.
“I’m not going to wait.”
“N-no.” he responds. “I’m sorry….did he w-w-work for Externus--,”
“No. He worked for Tempus.”
I know every name he has ever heard is going through his head, but he ultimately shakes his head. He seems to be in so much anguish, he is just one wrong answer away from his death.
I can relate.
“I’m sorry. No. Please don’t kill Hannah, she’s good, she’s innoce--”
“Shut up. Listen to me,” Sara snaps. “ If you ever sell another drug to anyone I will personally come back here and cut your throat, understand ? If you are smart you and your wife will disappear. Understand ?”
He nods enthusiastically now.
This is when I see the flash, but I don’t process it. None of us do.
“No!,” Jean shouts at her. “What the fuck ? What about Rayne ? What about how this motherfucker put his hands on Minnow ?”
“I will handle Rayne,” she responds and turns back to Morrissey. “Go back inside, and leave this building. Don’t look back, don’t touch the drugs, we will get those. Your car is outside, your wife is passed out in the trunk, get in your car and disappear. Now.”
He nods and Saint releases him to the ground. Morrissey takes off at a frantic speed back inside.
“What the fuck was that, Sara ?,” Jean all but shouts.
“ I don't have to explain anything to you. I had to know if he knew Derek and I’m not going back on my word-”
“Your word ?,” Jean throws back at her. “You think Rayne is going to give a fuck about your word when he finds out we failed?,”
“Jean, honesty is all we have left in this life and if I
said I wouldn’t kill him I won’t."
“Honesty is all we have left ? Bullshit ! Are we going to be honest with Rayne ?”
“Let me worry about him.” She snaps and walks towards the door. Jean follows swiftly behind, clearly not done with the argument. Saint and I are frozen in place watching this argument unravel. Minnie is happily skipping over to pick up her gun where Morrissey dropped it. She scoops up some of the sand and throws it in the air like we are at the beach.
“Why the hell would he know Derek ?,” Jean demands
“I don’t know. It was a hunch, god dammnit,Jea-,”
She is cut off by the ground vibrating beneath her feet. It’s
a slight rumble and then a violent tremor ripping past us. We are brought to
our knees and I get a mouthful of sand. When I look up, I see the panic room hatch is flashing red around the edges and delivering an "Emergency Lock In" message.
“Run!” Sara shouts as the hatch begins to close.
She and Jean are the closest and just step in, Saint and I run
and slip underneath just in time, but Minnie is farther away where her gun lay. She starts to
run, but the friction of the sand seems to be slowing her down. Saint grabs the
hatch to try and keep it up, but I see it cut into his hands. I wonder if the
door is motion sensitive and needs to feel body warmth to stay open.
I get on my knees underneath the hatch and I can feel it touching my back as I will it to stay up. It seems to be sensing me, because it pauses when it's milliseconds from cutting into my back. It's all the time we need, as Minnie slides in with seconds to spare and I get a sensation as a new heat grazes my face. The door seals us in blackness and we sprint down the hall through the panic room and back into the ExUn building.
Once we are in the lab again, Sara immediately begins packing up all of the drugs into the orange and silver ExUn equipment bags that are next to all the work stations.
“Earthquake ?,” Minnie asks
“We are on a fault line.” Jean observes grabbing some of the contraband pill bottles.
“I don’t think so,” Sara says. "Alan, help me get these drugs, we need to get out of here.
I comply, grabbing one of the empty duffels and Minnie reaches for a bag too
“Not you.” Sara snaps at her.“I don’t trust you around this shit. Go steal us a car.”
“Uh, bitch.” Minnie mumbles, but walks out anyway.
“What are we going to do with all these ?,” Jean asks with a full bag over his shoulder.
“Burn them ?,” Sara suggests. “Rayne won’t want them, you know he is set in his ways.”
In less than five minutes we exit the the lab, each with a bag over our shoulder and head to the lobby. For the first time I feel relieved. I didn't have to kill anyone, I didn't have to clean up a dead body.
In the lobby Minnie is pacing back and forth nervously.
“No…something is going on, I have no idea what…I..”
Sara walks to the door and Jean and I follow. The formerly quiet office complex is rabid with life. There are lights everywhere, cops, ambulances, the city’s holoscreens are blinking a bright white and there is a man on the loudspeaker.
“Shit, it this us ?,” Jean asks
“No. Listen,” Minnie says
Jean opens the door and we can hear the loudspeaker.
“CITIZENS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. PLEASE SEEK COVER. CODE RED.”
“Code red ? What the hell is that ?,” Jean asks.
“It’s not us, I’ll tell you that much.” Sara says turning to us. “This job is over. We’re civilians now.”
She opens the door and beckons us to follow her outside.
“What about the drugs ?,” Jean asks
“Follow my lead.”
She goes to one of the trashcans and stuffs the bag inside, the rest of us follow and before she puts the lid back on she drops a small transmitter inside.
“I’ll send a signal and blow it up later, when it’s a little less crowded.”
As we get closer to the chaos I start to see more citizens, families and people dressed in their pajamas are being escorted around, some with suitcases rolling after them. I hear a quiet boom in the background like thunder and then another tremor.
WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, CITIZENS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. PLEASE SEEK COVER. CODE RED.
The lights suddenly stop flashing and a loud alarm blares, Minnie puts her hands over her ears and in the distance I hear kids crying. The people start to move faster and there are shouts from the officers. A uniformed woman comes toward us and is shouting something we can’t hear until she is practically in front of us.
“ Get in the caravan. You need to get to the shelter!” the cop screams pointing to a bright purple double decker bus in the distance
She is looking at all of us, but we are watching Sara. She matches eyes with the officer, but doesn’t ask any questions. She just nods and starts in a brisk walk towards the buses, we follow and push our way up the second story. We are packed in with hundreds of people, none of whom seem to know exactly what is going on except that we are going to a shelter. The bus starts almost immediately and from my spot I see the entire city is in panic and evacuation mode. Police are knocking on doors and ordering people to get on the bus behind ours.
After less than a mile the double decker pulls up to massive shopping mall where everyone storms off.
Just as I set foot on the pavement , I feel the ground vibrate again and fall to my knees. I look up to see the over capacity bus behind us loses control and crashes right into the side of the mall. There are some screams, but the police immediately storm the crash site and force people onto their feet and into the mall entrance.
Sara is compliant and silent as the police herd us into the basement of the mall, down 3 flights of stairs. There are live bodies everywhere and we are crushed by the mass of people. Minnie clasps Jean and I’s hand and holds us together as we get meshed in with the crowd. I glimpse at Sara who seems concerned, but also at a loss.
Whatever this is, it isn’t the same kind of threat I experienced while at the resort. People are freaked and this doesn’t feel as fun as before. I see people are actually crying and a few are demanding to know what is going on, and who we are under attack by and also what the fuck is going on.
-3-
“This is bad.” Jean whispers, “This is bad.”
I don’t know who he is talking to since barely anyone can hear him.
A wall in the back flickers a brilliant white, and it reminds me of the flash I saw outside.
Oh, fuck, the flash.
The wall turns into a screen and displays a large image of Julian Walker, Secretary of Public Safety. He looks haggard, his hair is combed flat and product-less. He is wearing only a wrinkled gray shirt in a poorly lit office.
“Citizens of the Republic and by extension, Fort Perch. I have no room for formalities. It is no doubt you have been affected by the events of tonight and I know many of you are still very confused. My intention and the intention of my office is to clear that up as best we can right now.
To do that, it is the decision of this office to broadcast live footage from events barely an hour ago this evening. What I’m about to show you is somewhat graphic so please be advised.”
The screen goes dark and a countdown starts. There is nothing but dread making a well in the pit of my stomach. For the first time in a while, I am legitimacy scared.
Once it reaches zero, the screen flickers to a scene of the
Border, I see the rows of stations where the enlistees stand guard. It has been
a common scene on the megascreens when advertisements for Border Patrol began.
Suddenly like a wave each station is firing at something in the distance.
That’s when the camera zooms beyond the station, beyond the boundaries of the border to the distance, where I can make out the outline of something walking towards the border.
As the walking objects get closer, I can make out a neat row of 8 feet tall, man-shaped robotic creatures moving in an solitary choreography.
“The fuck….” Jean breathes, echoeing my own thoughts.
I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m sure they are weapons or drones, but they are bipedal , with human like bodies and have the faint suggestion of faces. Each of the drones holds in front of them large balloon shapes objects.
Bullets are flying as Border Patrol orders the drones to stop and cease their activity until they speak to Julian Walker. The drones don’t stop though, they deflect and ricochet all of bullets and march right through the Border Patrol. The Patrol begins to erect the gates, but the drones have already made it pass before they can even get one up.
I think the drones must be coming for the Sprawl, but instead they all stop just short of Border Patrol defense line, barely 10 feet into the border.
After a beat, the drones do what I can only describe as kneel. All of them, in unison. They just pause, the metallic bodies glinting in the sun. A caravan of patrol officers are riding up to inspect one of the drones when we hear the whine.
It seems we all work it out at once because I start to hear random sharp intakes of breath.
The drones are holding bombs, and in a snap the bombs detonate with a bright flash. The heat explodes from the center, tearing the ground apart and in an instant the entire landscape is charred and it all ceases to exist. The Border is gone.
Parts, metal and flesh, fly around and the camera goes out for a second before flickering back on. The lens is covered in a thin layer of blood, but we can see a few people still limping around. They are burned badly and most of them just fall to the ground convulsing in screams, their skin…bubbling.
People who weren’t crying before start to. Hundreds of men and women went to join the Border Patrol and none of them signed up for that.
The footage is shown twice more from all angles before Julian is back on screen. He is wearing a jacket now.
“This is the only footage we have right now. The nuclear bombs had a predicted 100 mile radius, damage is still being surveyed. We have made contact with the East and been told that there will be no second attack. However, what they have not told us is why this attack on our citizens occurred.”
Jean is holding on to Minnie so tight and her head is buried in his chest. He kisses the top of her head and in his own eyes is the first genuine emotion I have ever seen from him. All of these people are feeling this attack, there are no jokes or laughter like before.
And I still feel numb to it. I’m still just a visitor with no place or connections here.
I don’t know the exact math of the Republic, but I can guess that Fort Perch is a little over 200 miles from The Border. And that being inside the dome barrier of Fort Perch is what is protecting us from feeling any effects of the bombs. But I wonder about everyone else.
I think of the Sprawl, if it survived. It was probably on the perimeter of the blast radius.
I think of Mojave, did the blast make it that far ?
The Valley ? It’s probably decimated.
Despite the obvious outrage, it is mostly silent with the television turned off. Silent except for the screaming, that is; The crying and screaming of a woman somewhere in the back of the crowd, who is trying to get out of the basement. She sounds desperate and crazy, which I guess is expected in these kinds of situations.
I hear her banging and scratching on the door and the police mobilize to restrain her. I think they are going to attack her.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! LET ME OUT !” she cries through sloppy breaths, “I need to get my son !”
The woman is Sara.
The doors don’t open for her and the police officers seem to know she won’t go down without a fight and leave her alone. After only one glance, Jean glides through the crowd and gently pulls her back from the door.
Sara is a passionate woman in her hate and malice, but she is also passionate in her sadness. Her entire body is shaking and I can see her trying to fight the instinct to hold on to someone.
“I have to see him. Oh, god. oh, god. Luce…my baby….I left him.” Her voice is hoarse and Jean holds her.
“I’m sure Rayne--”
“What if he snuck out and got caught in the….Oh, god. I…left him… he wanted to come…he…He would have been safe here.” She continues, sobbing into Jean’s chest and Minnie places a gentle hand on her back.
Jean isn’t telling her it’s okay, but when the screens starts to replay the clip he muffles her ears with his hands so she doesn’t have to hear the death toll or see the footage again.
I just stand and stare and don’t do anything, because even I know there is nothing in the world to protect her or any of us.