In the Heart of Babylon

by S G D Singh

  Everyone studied the maps.

  “And if they aren't there, we'll all be dead before we know it,” Adam finished cheerfully.

  “You aren't coming,” Hanna said. “Five weapons, five people. Once we secure the room, we'll open it and you can come in.”

  “She still thinks she's in charge,” Mike said. “But yeah, no way, Adam. Forget it.”

  “But what if—”

  “We'll have Darnell,” Luk told him, slapping a soaking wet Darnell on the back with a splat, then double-checking his weapon. “Focus on securing the subway gate if we don't make it back. You never know, help could still show up before the weather changes.” He turned toward the underground building's entrance. “C'mon. We're wasting time.”

  Nadifa, holding the weapon he'd taken from Zahi, followed Hanna, Darnell, and Mike—holding the weapon he'd taken from Kevin—as they left the moonlight and entered the tunnel. Nadifa counted his steps, feeling the change of ground beneath his feet as dirt went to cement. Every sound seemed to echo for a thousand miles. Moving left, they found the door by the faint red glow surrounding the keypad.

  “Speaking of anger,” Hanna whispered as she hit the keys. “Just know this number also happens to be my mother's date of birth. Fun.”

  Before anyone could respond, the door slid silently open. They all stood flat against the wall, holding their breath, but heard and saw zero indication of an alarm. Nadifa glanced at Luk, but the other boy's face was hidden in darkness. He gripped his weapon as Hanna crouched, leading them slowly into the gloom beyond. Luk moved forward next, and Nadifa followed suit. He wondered for the millionth time what his life had come to. Was he really prepared to shoot the first man he saw? In the head? There is no coming back from that.

  There's no coming back from death, either.

  Keeping one hand on Luk's damp shoulder and feeling Darnell's on his own, Nadifa crouch-walked in slow motion through the darkness. The sound of his own breathing was deafening in his ears, and his eyes searched futilely for any light. After seven steps, the five of them turned, then turned again, and there it was. A blue glow in the darkness, shining down on the Klexter's helmets.

  Holy shit, Adam was right. They were robots. Fucking robots had been guarding them all this time. The situation was way creepier in reality than anything Nadifa could've imagined.

  There were four armored figures in front of him, objects in the shape of men but as electronic as his long-lost cell phone, completely still in pod-like structures. The blue light strobed almost imperceptibly, as if some mechanical heart were charging the Klexters for their next mission.

  Lukango gripped his shoulder and jerked his chin. You okay?

  Nadifa nodded. All good.

  A lie. He would not be all good for a very long time.

  Hanna pointed at him, then to a place farther away from the Klexters, then at herself and the others. She raised four fingers, her movements slow, as if she were under water. Stay back. We'll do this.

  Nadifa began to protest, but he took one look at Luk's face and knew better. He stood still as the four of them—Luk, Darnell, Mike, and Hanna—crouched, moving slowly into position in front of the Klexters. Turning in slow motion back to look at him, Luk nodded once, and Nadifa lunged sideways to set off the motion lights.

  He blinked as the room filled with light, nearly stumbling as four weapons discharged rusty bolts into the Klexter's helmets simultaneously, shattering glass and lodging themselves not into brains and bone, but a tangle of metal and wires.

  Sparks flew, spewing fireworks, and gears screamed.

  And one armor-encased arm moved in a blur, catching Hanna by the throat and lifting her off the ground. Nadifa blinked in confusion as his brain caught up. Only three bolts had fired. Her weapon had finally jammed.

  In the second it took for Luk and the others to reload their weapons, the Klexter had already walked from its cubicle, carrying Hanna at arm's length like so much oozing garbage. Nadifa's legs felt glued in place, time standing still as Hanna's legs kicked, her tennis shoes making small squeaking noises on the Klexter's armored chest, her arms flailing against its metal hand like a helpless animal.

  And then Nadifa moved, leaping across the room, his weapon at the Klexter's head, the bolt discharged even as Lukango screamed his name. The robot fell to the floor, twitching, fire spitting from the destroyed hole in its helmet, and Nadifa turned to see Hanna on the ground in Luk's arms, gasping and coughing.

  “Thanks,” she finally managed, rolling off Luk but falling back when she tried to stand. “Sorry I landed on you.”

  “He didn't kill that thing for you,” Luk growled, straightening his destroyed suit with a scowl.

  “Yes, I did,” Nadifa told Hanna, grinning when she sobbed and laughed at the same time.

  “Fuck.” Darnell wiped a hand across his face, dropping his weapon with a clang. “We're lucky that thing was still booting up, or we'd all be dead right now.”

  Mike looked around the room, which was more like a warehouse, whistling. Nadifa followed his gaze to see row after row of MREs, blankets, uniforms of every Resort profession, and at least six vehicles parked in a row.

  “Somebody go get Adam so he can turn that fucking gate off,” Luk said. “I want to go home.”

  Nadifa found Adam waiting outside the room with Kevin, Malik, Zahi, and Ayeeyo.

  “She wouldn't stay put,” Zahi told him, jerking her chin at her grandmother. “Something about not standing by while her favorite grandchild risks his life. I'm not sure, my Somali is rusty.”

  “You aren't too old for a beating,” Ayeeyo told her, and Zahi grinned, wrapping Nadifa in a bone-crushing hug before rushing past him inside.

  “Holy shit!” she exclaimed a moment later.

  “Cash!” Mike bellowed from behind a shelf of boxes marked MISCELLANEOUS, and Nadifa followed the sound to where Mike stood in front of a shelf stacked with bricks of twenty-dollar bills.

  “Wow,” Kevin breathed.

  “It's no forty acres and a mule,” said Mike. “But it's a start.”

  “Where's the power coming from?” Adam's gaze scanned the room, his brow creased in concentration. “There's gotta be generators or something. But generators require some kind of fuel to run. Which requires someone—or something—replenishing said fuel.”

  “Explains the power outages down at The Resort,” Hanna's voice called from somewhere farther in the room.

  Kevin was still studying the money. “We divide this up equally, take these vehicles to the nearest car dealership or rental place—”

  “We have no identification, much less credit cards,” Luk said, joining them. “How the fuck we supposed to rent cars?”

  “Hey!” Hanna called, and her tone stopped them all cold. “You guys need to see this.”

  Nadifa wasn't sure he could handle another shock, but his feet followed Luk and Darnell anyway.

  “Well, I guess the problem of identification is solved,” Mike said, and Kevin muttered something as they stared at case after case of driver's licenses lining the wall like trophies, hundreds of them. And that didn't even include the kids.

  “These go back twelve years,” Hanna said. Her frown was murderous, and Nadifa's skin crawled. He knew she would not be forgiving her father for anything anytime soon.

  “Get them down,” Luk said, reaching for a case himself and opening it. Pulling a uniform off the nearest shelf, he ripped it from its bag, dropped the green cloth to the floor, and began carefully detaching each identification and placing it in the empty bag with care, his jaw set.

  “Find one that looks like yourself first,” Ayeeyo told him, including the rest of them in her stern gaze as they froze. “And over twenty-five so you can get vehicles. We will not risk capture again.”

  Luk grimaced, but nodded, obediently turning to search the licenses. No one moved to help him, waiting instead until he held up a handful that Nadifa presumed matched them close enough.

  “Small used-car de
alerships let people buy cars with cash,” Darnell said.

  “On it,” Adam called, his metal hands already flying over the keys of a military-looking laptop he'd found somewhere, searching, finding their location, the surrounding area, and Nadifa turned away, his stomach twisting. Thinking of the outside world—his beloved country—a place that had given his family refuge. As glad as he was to get out, to get back home, Nadifa wasn't sure he wanted to know where this place was.

  Ayeeyo and Zahi collected as much food as they could carry between them and left the room, Zahi kicking one of the Klexters on her way out. The rest of the group finished collecting the IDs and returned to staring at the stacks of cash and food.

  Nadifa surveyed the shelves of food and felt rage rising within him once again. They had been left here to die. To burn like nothing more than hunks of beef, or to starve once the weather changed. They'd been swept aside without a second thought, experiments of a finished season while Dr. Kaiser waited for fresh specimens to arrive in the spring.

  Adam looked up from the laptop. “Just leave me here with Hanna,” he told Kevin, his gaze darting to Nadifa and Luk. “Eat something. I'll get that fence turned off.”

  “I'll help,” Darnell said.

  Luk nodded at Kevin, motioning for Nadifa and Mike to help him carry more food out to the others, and as they left the room, they heard Darnell beginning a lecture on physics.

  Outside, Nadifa looked up at the star-studded sky. He studied the moon, serene and distant, and breathed a deep sigh of relief, letting the fresh air wash away his rage and bring a prayer of thanks in its place. Hadn't the people who ran this place received punishment enough? Even as he appreciated the beauty of a summer night, weren't they stumbling in the darkness, their minds gone, ravenous for human blood, starving as more of them became infected? Turned to nothing more than decaying monsters?

  Nadifa shuddered. Aren't we all nothing but decaying monsters ourselves?

  Lukango slapped him on the back, piling a dry uniform into his already-full hands. “Cheer up, man,” he said. “It's over.”

  Nadifa followed the sound of voices interspersed with warm laughter—a sound so foreign in this hell he'd almost forgotten it—until he came to the clearing by the stream. He dropped the packets of food into the growing heap at the crowd's center before making his way beyond the tree line to change.

  “What do you miss most?” Kevin's voice called out in the darkness.

  “My girl,” Mike answered without hesitation. “And music. God, I miss music. Also, vegetables.”

  “Vegetables?”

  “Yeah, fucking vegetables, okay? Ever had a home-grown tomato?”

  “Tomatoes are fruit.”

  “Fruit, vegetables—I miss them all,” Mike said. “Not cherries though. Once I get out of here, I'm not eating another fucking cherry as long as I live.”

  “Cherries lower the risk of heart disease,” Nadifa called, smiling. “And colon cancer. They improve memory and even help you sleep. Cherries are amazing.”

  “Amazing or not, I'm done. Cherries can kiss my ass.”

  “What do you miss most, Nadifa?” Kevin called. “Besides your holistic dictionary, obviously.”

  Nadifa buttoned his pants, thinking. “Besides the rest of my family,” he said finally. “I miss my bed. And my bathroom.”

  “Ain't that the goddam truth,” Kevin said.

  “What about you?” Nadifa asked, following them back out into the clearing. The dry clothes warmed his skin and as Nadifa drank soup from the packet, he felt himself growing sleepy.

  “I miss—” And he stopped.

  The orchard had gone completely silent. The three of them looked at each other and Nadifa laughed for the first time in months.

  The electricity in the fence had turned off.

  Hanna looked up at the clock high on the wall of the prison's tunnel entrance. 4:00. Four hours until the subway gate opened. She was tempted to check if the zombies were there already, waiting on the other side of the bars. Hanna was sure she could hear their wet gurgling moans and shuffling feet.

  The cash in the Klexter warehouse had been too much to actually count out, so they'd decided to divide it by inches, giving each person—even Hanna and Adam, despite Hanna's objections—about three inches of twenty-dollar bills, or what Darnell estimated to be about twenty thousand dollars. They added another twenty thousand per vehicle for travel expenses.

  An hour ago, Lukango, Nadifa, Mike, and Kevin drove four vans out of the tunnel and into the clearing in front of the gate. The sound of their engines drew everyone out of the cherry orchard.

  “Here's the plan,” Lukango told the gathered crowd, holding up the new maps Adam had printed. “We divide into four groups. We follow four different paths to a couple of Walmarts, a Target twenty miles north, and a TJ Maxx thirty miles west. A single designated shopper will buy clothes for the rest of the passengers. We avoid attention. We don't want any pasty passerby mistaking us for loitering gang members and calling the cops on us for existing, understood?” He was met with glances, nods of agreement. Hanna heard one woman say Damn right we don't.

  Lukango raised his voice to continue. “Once we've all changed into real clothes, we travel to the different used car dealerships, marked on your maps. Don't purchase more than one car at a time, and buy only cheap and nondescript models. Then park these vans somewhere they won't be noticed for a couple of days, and leave them with the keys in the ignitions. Split up and travel to the next dealerships on your map—and keep going until there are no more than two people to a car, okay? Only once you've done this do you check into a motel, eat real food, and get yourselves back home. Bring enough MREs to last the rest of the day.”

  “Man, this is some fucked up shit,” Kevin said. “First we get kidnapped, and now we gotta act like criminals, sneaking around?”

  “Good point,” Darnell said. “Who wants to volunteer to drive one of these Klan cars to the police station in Middle-of-Nowhere-Redneck-Farm-Country and tell the cops all about a secret underground slave/death camp?”

  No one said anything. The woman who was always coughing, coughed.

  “That's what I thought,” Lukango said.

  “So we just go home and say nothing about all this?” a middle-aged woman with a large gap in her teeth asked. “Brothers and sisters need to be warned.”

  Darnell began handing out IDs and maps.

  “Included in your info packets,” he said, “you will find an address. It's mine. Civil rights lawyers live here. Once you get home, mail the identification to them, and they will know what to do.”

  Hanna said, “If there's anything they can do, considering that everyone involved is—” she caught the warning look from Lukango, still determined to keep the zombie outbreak from upsetting those who didn't know, “uh… that everyone involved will go into hiding the second they realize something's gone very wrong.”

  Hanna noticed more than one glare from the silent crowd. Those who'd stayed behind didn't trust her. Fair enough.

  “Do we want to know where these IDs came from?” someone asked.

  “No,” Lukango said. “No, you do not.”

  “When do we leave?” a man with a gray Afro asked. “I don't see this motherfucking gate opening.”

  “As soon as everyone's routes are decided.” Lukango held the van keys up, smiling with a warmth Hanna knew with certainty would never be directed at her. “Who's driving first?”

  Everyone began talking at once, breaking into groups that would take them in the general directions of their homes—or nearest relative or farthest hospital, in the case of those who'd been kept with Adam. Hanna let herself consider for the first time where she might go if she survived this nightmare. Mexico, maybe. Colombia? Not a resort, obviously. Adam could work on making himself robot legs, which he hadn't shut up about since examining the destroyed Klexter two hours ago. Hanna could get a job somewhere and practice living without money. She spoke zero Spanish, but she co
uld learn. She would learn so well, she'd forget English. Just drive south and forget the first seventeen years of her life ever happened.

  That would be nice. But Dr. Kaiser's screams filled her mind, and the dream of Mexico evaporated like dust in the wind. You'll have to forget when you're dead.

  The clearing began emptying out as everyone—prisoners and lab patients alike—settled into vehicles, and two immediately took off, impatient to leave this nightmare behind. A third stood, mostly full, its passengers waiting. Now only those who knew about the outbreak remained standing outside.

  As the time moved closer to 8:00, Hanna realized she wouldn't breathe easily until everyone had left, and she'd turned the electric fence back on to contain anything that might make it through the tunnel.

  Nadifa and his family were standing beside the third van in deep conversation. Actually, it looked like they were arguing, if Hanna knew anything about body language. Eventually, the older woman broke away and came over to her.

  “My grandson is stubborn,” she said.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “He says he's staying here until it's safe to leave the infected.”

  Hanna looked at Nadifa, who met her gaze across the open space with a confident smile. His grandmother looked at the weapon Hanna held, then met her eyes, her expression stern.

  “You,” she said. “Do not let bad things happen to my Nadifa. He still has his heart.” Not like you was left unsaid, but Hanna heard it.

  A missing heart is required to do terrible necessary things. “I won't,” she said.

  The older woman held Hanna's gaze for a long moment. “If he is not home in three days' time. I will come looking.”

  Hanna nodded. It would only take a few minutes to know if they could close the subway gate permanently. Or not. And if they failed? Well, Hanna could only hope that in three days there wouldn't be enough left of them for the FBI to identify or anyone else to weaponize.

  The older woman called something to Lukango in Somali and climbed into the van, slamming the door before Nadifa could speak to her. Hesitating, Zahi jogged to Hanna's side.