“No… why?” asked Chad. Aries pointed at a public transportation bus that was almost off the ramp. “What good is that?”
“You underestimate the power of a bus,” said Aries. He rushed to the side of the bus and managed to get the driver to open up. As he explained the situation people immediately got out of the bus and the driver let Aries take over. “Chad, help me get those barrels into the bus,” Aries said. “We have clearance to move on!”
As Chad saw this scene unfold in front of his eyes there was a sense of impending danger and doom that built up around it. This was probably one of the worst ideas he had seen put into action, but putting everything into the balance he saw no reason why he should not help load the barrels and push through with whatever was about to unfold.
Chapter 24
Knock Knock
Jean was panicking. The pounding kept going non-stop, and while she assumed that the furniture would hold, it would not do so forever. Furthermore she still had no way to get out of the room, and without cameras to see the outside she had no way of knowing what her potential escape routes were in case she wanted to rush out through the main door.
And she still was not seeing any signs of rescue from anyone she had contacted. It was at that time she felt the most useless. For all her effort in being a role model throughout her life she was about to meet her demise at the hands of a crazed terrorist, for no other reason than having interrogated him, or at least she assumed that would be the case.
--
-There is a signal.
The voice of the Mastermind rang immediately inside Steve’s head and with it came the sound of a phone. As he heard this, he assumed it was his device or a phone nearby, but seeing that nothing around him was producing that noise, he inquired about this.
-The Collective has seen this signal and is preventing it from arriving to the woman we are trying to trap. We will lead you to it so that you can talk.
Not fully understanding what the Mastermind meant, Steve simply heard it as if a call had dropped into his mind. He was in a small white room where he could interact with a phone on his hand that looked like an old rotary phone.
“Jean, what took you so long?” asked a male voice on the other side. Steve, not knowing what to do, simply answered back.
“What do you mean?” asked Steve in return, but his voice had become distorted, more feminine. He recognized it as the voice from that woman who had tried to question him outside the apartment.
“I have been trying to reach you for a while now and I can’t get an answer from you,” said the person on the other end, who then continued with an onslaught of words. “I just got a call from my boss telling me that some big names are asking about some incident going on at the airport. What is this all about?“
For a moment Steve panicked. How they had been found out was a mystery to him, but this was the final signal that he had to act as fast as possible and get off the ground before the cavalry arrived.
“I’m… not sure what they are talking about. I am sitting here in the waiting room and everything looks normal,” said Steve. The sound of people, machinery, and other noises that could be found in the airport came to life.
“Then what the hell are they talking about? I have people busting me all over, telling me to get in contact with you and then you take forever to pick up. Do you have any idea--?”
Steve did not have time to hear this person complain and yell at him.
“I was in the bathroom, and reception is bad over there. Do you have anything else you need to ask?” inquired Steve. Then a slight moment of silence was followed by a short answer.
“No, just get your ass here and we’ll talk about what happened over in Dallas,” the voice ended and with it, the call, the noise, and the white room. Steve was back again at the airport, surrounded by his minions, which he had come to nickname ‘moldies’.
“What the hell was that?” asked Steve as he noticed his own voice had come back and he was in the airport. He slapped himself a couple of times and took some deep breaths.
-The Collective learns and with it, we become more powerful. We can do this and more.
Steve was amazed by this incredible power and laughed at the top of his lungs as he clapped in amusement.
--
Jean had made sure that her barricade was as reinforced as possible. She had pulled everything she could and placed it against the main door, even managing to get a bolted table off from the floor as part of the shift-make defense.
Since her phone was still not getting any signal, she dialed her boss at the CDC and was surprised at how fast he picked up.
“This is Howard,” replied a male voice on the other side. She was relieved that it was him who had picked up.
“It’s Jean. I know we had a rough day today, but I--” said Jean, who was interrupted by Howard.
“Jean, we just spoke about two minutes ago. Whatever is it that you want to tell me, you can do it once you bring your ass down here so that we can discuss your termination,” said Howard. While she had been already told this was bound to happen, she did not want to be reminded of it.
But then it clicked oddly that he said they had just spoken.
“Wait… when did we speak? I don’t have my cellphone with me and--” said Jean before being interrupted again by Howard.
“What the hell are you talking about? We just talked like two minutes ago. You said you were at the airport and that you were waiting for your plane,” said Howard, but Jean could not understand when or how this had happened.
“Listen, please. I cannot make any phone calls from my cell phone. I think I was intercepted,” said Jean, who was somewhat surprised she had been allowed to finish. “Something is going on at the airport.”
“You just told me nothing was--” said Howard. Jean quickly interrupted as she had enough of this.
“Look, Howard, I don’t know what is going on, and this is very hard to explain. Something happened here at the airport and a maniac is running the show. He has people under control and is trying to get into the room,” said Jean, who pulled the phone as close to the banging door and barricade as she could. “That sound is from people trying to get into a security room I am currently stuck in.”
“Holy…” said Howard. There was silence. For a moment he was not sure if this was a really bad prank or if Jean had gone completely crazy, but there was a lot of pressure from above to investigate what had happened in Dallas. Cheryl had found something very alarming during a request investigation she had performed at Jean’s request.
To say that he was pissed and unamused at this was to underrate how he felt about being stepped over by some minion that worked in the field, still worse when he even had politicians calling him to put a lid on everything and find a way to get this resolved as quickly as possible.
With what Jean had just said, there was a slight suspicion that none of this was going to happen. He was already thinking about what he would have to write on his resignation letter.
“Jean--” said Howard, who was surprisingly interrupted again.
“Howard, please. I need help. This maniac is going to introduce a biological weapon into the United States. We need to stop him right here and now. We need people to come in and stop him. Maybe the Army is already coming,” said Jean. Howard immediately jumped in at that point and told her she was crazy, but Jean insisted she had gotten a connection to pull a favor for her.
Howard definitely would have to start writing that damn resignation letter as soon as possible.
But at that point he also had a sudden change of heart. If he was going down, he might as well do it with guns blazing.
“All right, Jean. Look, I will get the rapid response team from Dallas into the airport, but listen to me carefully,” said Howard. Jean was all ears for the man that could be her probable salvation.
“Whatever happens, even if this is a real threat to American soil from a terrorist, you will still be terminated, no matter what
. If I am going down, you are coming with me,” said Howard. Jean felt cold go down her spine. She had never heard Howard make those kinds of threats to anyone or make a comment like that in all the time she had been working at the CDC, and from the looks of it, this was serious enough that Howard was going to be fired.
“Yes, I understand. Can you please have people come over now?” asked Jean. With a heavy sigh, Howard agreed that he would be contacting the team again and would mobilize them, but could not guarantee that they would be arriving there immediately. “Can you do something about it?” Jean wanted to know.
“Sure, I will do something about it,” said Howard, followed by the sound of him tapping furiously on his computer. “I am also going there. Let us save ourselves the hassle of getting back and doing all the formalities. If this is going down, I will be there to terminate you personally and have the damn benefit of having told you that you are God damn out of your mind.”
“Howard, this is serious. I am in real danger. A lunatic is trying to get planes off the ground to infect people with a--” said Jean, but Howard came in hard back onto her.
“I heard you the first and the thirtieth God damn time, Jean. I also heard enough from my bosses and Cheryl that this is some damn black mold that you were researching in the first place which I specifically told you not to, but you took your damn initiative and got me into a world of shit,” said Howard. He took a moment to breathe and continued with his full blow attack. “I have had it with you. I have given you a chance to be here and to work, to be part of the team, but I have yet to see you become part of the team. Most people don’t like you here and neither do I. You meddle into affairs that matter little and you blow them out of proportion.”
“Out of proportion? I have worked diligently and with a purpose for the benefit of everyone. I have given it my all, and to be told that I am not part of the team is hurtful,” said Jean. Her mind had completely blocked the outside noise or the attempts to get inside into the security room to the point where it had slowed down. “I give it all daily and I do not ask for much in return. I only want to help.”
“And you rarely help, you know. It is always a hunch or an idea that’s in your mind and you take it too far. We work based on what we can prove and what the government tells us to do,” said Howard angrily as he was looking for the shortest route to the airport so that he could end this madness.
“We do what is best for the general public--” said Jean. Another lash from Howard came in shortly to interrupt her.
“No, you do not do what is best for the general public. You think you are doing some good to the general public, but that is not how this works. We work based on what we are ordered to do and what we are paid to do. With little budget left for us every year, your nonsense is about to bring the hammer down on me very hard,” said Howard, now with a general idea on what he had to put down in his own resignation letter. He would write it on his way to the airport and polish it so that he could still save some face and potentially get another job elsewhere.
“How can you care so little? Where is your moral compass?” asked Jean at the edge of tears. There was laughter coming from the other end, which infuriated her. “What is so funny?”
“You do not understand how this works, do you? After I have told you countless times, yet you still ignore the fact that we have little say on what happens. It is not our final call to say if something is right or not. We only do what we are told and pretend to work on the rest because we are a political tool that is losing its edge and purpose,” said Howard. He too sounded a bit disillusioned by this statement, but he had become accustomed to it, the more he worked with the political machine and became aware of how things moved around. His obvious brown-nosing with his superiors and some gambling in the political arena had paid off, but at a very high cost.
He still had a moral compass, but he had to ignore it in order to function. This he had explained to some of his peers and even had insinuated it to Jean, but she did not want to believe it.
“This is impossible, Howard. How are we going to help people, then, if there is a political interest in between?” asked Jean. Howard had the answer, but he was tired of going around with this.
“Jean, look, this is not the time or the place to have this discussion. I will have someone there as soon as possible and see what else I can do. We will have our final discussion once I am there and then we will do whatever other formalities we have to do. No more talking about this until we are face to face,” said Howard. Without notice, he ended the call. There Jean felt the most useless so far to have tried to discuss something with Howard and listen to his insistence that her job was just to follow orders and shut up about it.
Slowly she slumped down on the floor and began to cry. Her heart and mind were racing so fast that she did not care about what happened anymore. If this was going to be the end, then she would go out fighting and with dignity by doing her best.
Only then she did realize that the noise had completely come to an end--the banging and whatever effort was being made into pushing the barricade. This alarmed her and she immediately tried to find a way to sneak out, but she had done a far better job on the barricade than she had imagined.
Either that or whoever was pushing through was not intending to get in but to trap her under whatever weight the barricade and the bulk of the people working for this maniac could put into it. It was then that she knew the end was about to come to her.
Chapter 25
Unusual Allies
Chad and Aries had rapidly managed to load the chlorine dioxide into the bus. With the help of some onlookers they moved the large barrels faster. Without giving them more insight as to what their purpose was, they prepared to move onwards.
“So what is the deal now, Aries?” asked Chad as he saw Aries finishing up tying the barrels on the wheelchair section and made sure they would not be moving around. “Do we just rush through traffic a la speed?”
“None of that,” answered Aries as he went back to the driver and thanked him again for everything that he had done so far and how he was helping his country. With the little speech done, he went to the driver’s seat and made sure everything was in order. “Ready?”
“Yeah, but I asked, though, what is the deal now?” asked Chad as he prepared himself for the horror that would unfold next.
“We drive through the highway and get to the airport, trying to brake as little as possible,” said Aries. He made some final checks on the bus and proceeded to turn the engine on again and prepare himself for the ride of his life. “Are you tied up?” he asked Chad.
With this warning, Chad made sure to find the closest seat to Aries and tried to buckle up the best he could. As Aries pressed the pedal he honked, warning the rest of the drivers of his intentions.
The bus driver had also taken additional precautions so they could leave the ramp, as well as some of the passengers on the bus. By moving as far to the edge as they could, they began to open up a pathway for the bus, which let them reach the main highway and then the service lane through which they rushed towards the airport.
“This is first-class, isn’t it?” asked Aries as he continued pushing through the service lane as far as he could. Once he reached the end of the section, he could push through. He had to push through toward his left and reach the openings between the protective divisions marking the sections of the highway.
“Are you mad? You are going against traffic if you are heading over there!” said Chad, impressed by the driving skill of Aries and how he somehow managed to open up a way through the traffic and how people immediately moved away from the bus.
“Bitch, I’m a bus,” said Aries while laughing and skillfully turning the wheel. "Get on my level."
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” asked Chad.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are getting where we need to be and we are about to hit the other side of the road. Are you sure you are tied up?” asked Aries. To
Chad this meant that the risk would only keep increasinge as they continued to move through with this crusade. He tried but failed to find anything else that he would tie himself to and decided to forget all about it. As long as Aries did not do anything too crass he assumed, maybe wrongly, that he would be fine.
“Forget it,. Just do what you need to do,” said Chad trying to reassure Aries that he needed to continue pushing through.
For a moment Chad felt something vibrating in his left pocket. He had confused it with the heavy vibration from the bus and the effort he was making at trying to get through traffic and was ignoring it until he remembered it was his phone.
Picking it up, he saw the number belonged to Cheryl. He put on his Bluetooth earpiece and answered.
“Hello, Cheryl?” asked Chad.
“What’s all that noise?” asked Cheryl, and Aries honked a couple of times trying to get some drivers to move.
“Hey, you! Yes, you, move out of the damn way. This is a national emergency!” yelled Aries at the top of his lungs. The drivers were looking confused at a civilian bus being moved by a man wearing a military uniform. That could only mean that something was indeed happening, good or bad, it did not matter, but if someone yelled it was a national emergency they were not about to fight about it. “Chad, we are about to hit the other side. Make sure the barrels are not going crazy back there!”
“Sure, sure,” said Chad as he looked at the barrels slightly moving around. He put the phone in his pocket again and continued the conversation as he went back to fix the barrels in place. “Sorry, we changed transportation and are rushing through traffic,” he said.
Cheryl was somewhat surprised by this statement, but she was somewhat alleviated that Chad was making more progress than she had achieved thus far. Speaking to the CDC had not been particularly pleasing, but at least she had made some progress and had guaranteed that the Dallas Rapid Response Team would be moving to the airport.
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