by G. R. Carter
Moore shook his head. “Not just Jacksonville, Springfield too. The trucks keep coming through from what the Chief said. We didn’t put the two together. He just figured it was Homeland moving troops around for riots or something.”
Both were lost in thought for a moment.
“Andy, who else knows about all this?”
“I’d guess the Kaplans. Those people have a grapevine—” he stopped and chuckled, “didn’t mean it that way—all over. A lot of their Syn ends up going to St. Louis and Springfield, so their contacts keep them well informed about everything happening.”
Kara thought about Darwin and Erline Kaplan speaking privately. Her stomach churned again, this time because someone she thought she could trust was suddenly suspect. “If you know they’re cooking Syn, why don’t you shut them down?”
“With what?” Andy fired back, his eyes glaring at Kara.
He softened his look and his tone when she winced at his snap. “Sorry, you know it’s a touchy subject. I just don’t have the manpower to go storming into that valley and shooting up the place. Besides, they’ve got the same law firm on retainer that owns the prisons. All I can do is keep them from bothering the locals. Which, for the most part, I've done.”
“What’s next?”
“Next I head back in to Mt. Sterling and figure out what to do with a couple thousand citizens sitting in the dark with nothing to do,” Gray told her. “I think I’ll check on that prison, and Dot Foods too. See if I can make contact with someone.”
“Want Sy to go with you?” she asked.
“He’d better stay here. Looks like you’re going to have a houseful for a while,” Moore said.
“Andy, why don’t you send Margie to stay out here with us? At least until you get things figured out. Her and the kids might like having the company instead of sitting in the dark,” Kara said.
“Thanks, I think I’ll take you up on that. I’ll bring them out here later. Sure it won’t be an imposition?”
“Heck no. Happy to have them. You’re welcome to stay out here, too.”
Moore shook his head. “I’ve got three deputies, total, for this entire county. I figure I’ll be sleeping at the station tonight. Maybe by the time I get back Grapevine’s portal will be reconnected and I can get some news from the outside world.”
Kara nodded. “Just be careful, Andy. Everybody’s really confused right now. Confusion falls into frustration and fright soon enough. You know better than anyone how stupid people get when they’re scared.”
“Thanks for the concern. I’ll watch out,” he assured her.
He walked away with a police officer’s confident strut, but Kara couldn’t help but wonder if it was all an act. No one had ever faced a situation like this, at least not in America. Moore was trying to be strong for her and for everyone else; surely he was scared for his family if not for himself. She had been doing the same during the meeting at the lodge and with her staff, putting on a brave face to keep things together.
Ben Casey once told her trusting no one was the only thing worse than trusting everyone. She was being forced to trust people who she’d known all her life, but never in a true life and death situation. How would they react? She didn’t really want to find out, but what choice did she have? Every local knew where the lodge was, and everyone in the entire county would get word of the meeting and know the Bradshaws had supplies. If the power stayed out and people showed up for help, they’d have hard decisions to make. And if people didn’t like her decisions? She hated even thinking that way, it made her feel dirty. But she had to look out first and foremost for her staff and family.
A certain peace came with having no other choice. She could look herself in the mirror and know she was doing the right thing, the only thing. But with that confidence another emotion crept in, kept at bay until now by the internal conflict she faced. Now she admitted it to herself for the first time—I’m scared.
Western Illinois Correctional Center
The Fifth Day
Rob Wilson was still a hundred yards from the physical plant, cursing his lack of attention to cardio training. His heart pounded, a result of exertion and excitement. He hadn’t been in a situation like this since he was 19, as a private in the Sandbox. The rest of his career had been one training exercise after another, preparing for a day he was supposed to hope never came. But that wasn’t the case; he longed to put his tactical skills into action. To be thrust into a dangerous situation and come out the other side justified and decorated.
The plant was closer now, mostly dark except for the colored light of the solar storms overhead. Wilson could make out two men standing watch. Every few seconds they’d look around, then back to the tank.
“Sloppy, nervous,” he told his men in a low whisper. “Amateurs.”
They nodded understanding. He thought about running straight at them and demanding they throw their hands up. He couldn’t see the others, but chances were they’d run at the first sound of trouble. Wilson didn’t want any of the trespassers to escape, he wanted to catch them all. This was a chance at a real-life training exercise. If by chance one of them attacked his men, he’d be forced to go live fire.
He gave hand signals to his men, sending two around in a large semicircle to cut off the thieves’ escape. He waited until the time was right, then began crouch-walking towards the plant. He worked to keep his breathing calm. When he was close enough he stopped, waiting on the other man with him to move out about twenty yards to his left. He watched the two thieves standing guard. He was so close now…how could they not see him?
He gathered his courage to spring the trap. Danger didn’t frighten him; it was failure to grab all the bandits, to let any escape, that bothered him.
One last deep breath, and then…
The night sky exploded in a burst of orange. Muzzle flashes lit up the night, the staccato rattle of high-velocity weapons louder than he remembered from the training range. Wilson raised his own weapon but couldn’t see a target. The guard to his left fired into the night, ruining whatever night vision he still had.
“Perkins, stop shooting, you dumbass!” he yelled. “Our men are on the other side!”
More rattles and dirt kicked up all around him. Again Perkins fired, emptying his entire magazine on full auto. A no-win decision awaited Wilson. He could go forward and close with the surprisingly well-armed assailants, or he could try to circle around and join his other two men to cut off the thieves’ escape. There was nothing to do from this side but catch his own men in some sort of crossfire.
Wilson made his decision. “Let’s go!” he yelled and started to run at an angle past the physical plant. More dirt kicked up. Someone could see him even if he couldn’t see them. He heard a scream and whirled back to see Perkins thrashing in the grass. He started to go back, but he ran again, this time a sprint completely devoid of battlefield discipline.
A puff of dirt kicked up in front of him and he panicked. Wilson hit the ground hard in a half-roll. Extra magazines he had in his vest pocket pushed in on the flexible armor, knocking his wind out for a moment. Scared, gasping for breath and furious, he yelled and pulled his trigger. His eyes were half-closed as the rounds reached out towards where he thought the men trying to kill him still stood. All he could really see was the outline of the fuel tank…his aim followed.
A light like the sun blinded Wilson, orange and yellow followed by the white of quickly-bleached retinal pigments. A heat wave scorched his skin and took his breath. His eyes still hadn’t recovered to see a fiery mushroom cloud pushed up to the sky by hundreds of gallons of igniting fuel. He buried his face in the grass and dirt, trying for all the world to crawl underneath. He sobbed uncontrollably flashing back to that night in the Sandbox when his Humvee disintegrated in twisted metal and flesh. He was frozen. He forgot about Perkins, forgot about his other men, forgot about the thieves.
*****
Sergeant Red Morton watched in horror as two-dimensional black-and-whit
e figures opened fire on something outside the view of the screen. Like an old TV show from his youth, he was mesmerized by the action. He saw one man drop, finger on the trigger and still firing his weapon. The flash went from parallel to straight up until the man and the gun finally landed on the ground.
Suddenly the screen went blank in bright white, then black as the interior lights flickered, then flickered again and finally went black as the control room descended into darkness. Morton froze, unsure of what had happened and what to do next. A million thoughts flashed through his mind in the few seconds it took for the battery-operated emergency lights to kick on.
LED bulbs above the doorway and along the hall floor cast enough light for Morton to see the faces of his guards—terrified and confused. There was no training for this. A lack of electricity was simply an impossible scenario, yet here he was, face-to-face with it. He started to head for the warden’s office, to find Lewis and figure out the next steps.
He stopped suddenly…he was the man in charge. He had to make decisions now, every second counted.
“All officers: Code One, assemble in the control room!” he shouted. He grabbed the intercom to repeat the order. It was dead. He ran to the balcony overlooking the cafeteria. Between the moonlight, the solar storms and the faint glow of the emergency lights, he could see inmates milling around, some laughing, some just standing like zombies. The Syn should be kicking in by now, making most of them passive.
He gathered himself and calmed his voice. “Attention, everyone,” he shouted over the noise of six hundred startled people. “Just relax, it’s a temporary glitch. We’ll have the lights back on in a second,” he lied again. Deception was getting too easy. “In the meantime, I need all guards to come up here and give me a hand getting a couple of things done.” He was praying that would give the ten Eels downstairs the chance to extricate themselves from the crowd. The tactical suits would stay charged for a while and give them the advantage. Still, he had no idea what would happen if the whole cafeteria plunged into chaos.
His only relief was that most of the guards were in the armory, processing area, or storage level when the power was cut. His lockdown and suit up order arrived just in time to get most of them to relative safety before the generator failed. He watched the ten Eels form up and move to the exit door, manned on the other side by McCoy and three other fully-suited and charged guards. The door slid open, the ten hustled through, and the door slammed back shut in a blink.
Relieved an order had finally gone right, he scrambled halfway down the stairs and stopped. The guards were assembling in the large open loading area just below. “I need a head count. COU leaders, gather your teams, I want names of the missing ASAP!”
He stopped McCoy as he passed by to join his team. “I want you to go to the armory, find out how many weapons we have available. Rifles, shotguns, pistols…anything that can stop someone in their tracks.”
McCoy clearly had questions but didn’t waste time asking. He simply nodded and headed in that direction.
Morton looked over the crowd of guards, suited in their armor and double-checking one another. “Team leaders, what’s your count?”
Each reported in on the ten men and women assigned to their group. In the end, Morton counted eleven missing, still on the other side of the doors.
“Okay, team leaders meet me in the control room, let’s go. Anybody from the Ready Response Team still here?” Two men raised their hand. “McCoy is doing a quick inventory in the armory, I want you to give him a hand. Identify all weapons we have available. Go now.”
“Uh, Sarge?” one of the response team members spoke up. “Shouldn’t we go out and look for Wilson and the rest of our squad?”
“Sorry, guys, I don’t think that’s possible. If they’re able, they’ll make it back to the door. I’ve got eleven men and women on the other side of that door to worry about first.” He thought about how the words sounded. He’d already made the decision that Wilson and his men were dead outside. He wasn’t going to waste assets finding corpses in the dark when he had a chance to save those potentially alive. He already knew that decision would linger in his soul until his own death.
He went up to the control room with the team leaders, walking as close to the balcony as possible without being seen by those down below. He didn’t turn to them right away, terror trying to freeze his mind. He wasn’t trained for something like this. He carried out orders, he didn’t make the plans.
His mind slammed repeatedly against a dead end. How could he possible wade into the middle of two thousand inmates and rescue his guards? He didn’t even know where they were in the multi-wing three-story labyrinth. Was it worth risking the lives of men and women already safe?
Of course it was. No self-respecting Eel would leave another behind in the middle of the Zoo.
Morton steeled himself. “I’m only going to take volunteers,” he said, still looking out into the darkened cafeteria. The light of the solar storms filtered through the roof, casting moving shadows. Noise was building from the people packed in below. Every second cost him a chance to get his people back. He needed to get this moving.
“Probably the question is who you’ll be leaving behind, Sarge,” Troy Watson said. He was the squad leader with the most seniority; they’d served together for twenty years. He was a good man, in Morton’s opinion. Cautious to a fault at times, though that certainly wasn’t the worst personality trait in their line of work.
He nodded with the warmth pride brought. “I'm thinking a team of twenty. Figure we have about an hour of good charge on the tactical suits and batons.”
“If we don’t have to engage, that is,” Watson said.
“I’m counting on the Syn having kicked in already. Hoping between food and their medication, the sharks will be kicked back.”
“And the third shift? They won’t have food or Syn yet. They’ll be cranky.”
Morton sighed. Watson was right. Since the power went out in the middle of the second supper shift, the third group would be waiting. “Nothing to be done for it now. Another reason we need to go right away. Every second we waste we’re closer to Syn withdrawal.”
“How many Eels do we have to pick from?”
“We had seventy here tonight. Fifty-nine are already assembled. I’ll want two of you with me,” Morton said before Watson tried to cut him off. “I’m going, Troy. I’m not going to sit back here and ask you guys to do this without me. Besides, I need to get an idea of what we’re facing out there.”
Watson looked determined to argue. Morton stayed firm. “We’re going hats and bats, Troy. Probably the worst thing we’ve ever faced. I’m leading this, and you’re staying here as ranking officer while I’m gone.”
Before Watson could object, Morton was past him and back down to the assembly area. He asked for volunteers. He was proud, but not surprised, when everyone raised their hands. He picked twenty men, split them into fives, and ordered a weapons and suit check.
When everything was ready, Morton pulled Watson to the side. “The men in the holding cells were selected by their tribes as troublemakers. I don’t need to tell you to be extra careful, but be extra careful.”
Morton chose his next words carefully. “You’ve probably noticed you’ve got most of our lower-tier Eels here, too. I think we’ve got some Synners on staff, though I can’t prove it. The union has offered to help anyone with problems, but with the medical privacy laws there wasn’t much we could do.”
Watson nodded. “I know, Sarge. I’ll keep an eye on them. Just get our people back safe. That includes you.”
They shook hands and Morton walked to the heavy steel door leading out into the back maintenance hallway. Going through the cafeteria would be no good; this was the most direct path into the holding areas and the front office. “Stay together, keep your discipline, focus on breathing,” Morton said and lowered the face shield on his helmet.
He waved two men forward to operate the latch, nodded and simply sa
id, “Breach.”
The door slid open to a darkened hallway, illuminated only by the soft glow of battery operated emergency lights. He began to take quick, measured strides. His heart nearly stopped as three men jumped out from one of the doorways before they made it halfway down the first hallway. Instinctively Morton raised his baton. Twenty people in motion pushed at his back, nearly causing him to stumble. “Halt!” he yelled, as much to his men as to the three unidentified threats.
The three were now running towards him at a spring. “Sarge! Sarge! It’s us!” The light was just enough for him to recognize them as three of his eleven missing Eels. They made the distance in an instant, losing all discipline and almost hugging Morton. He barely stopped them before his suit could discharge the current into their bodies.
“Alright, alright, settle down,” Morton ordered them. “What are you doing down here? Why didn’t you come to the assembly area?”
One of the three, a recent hire named Santos, answered in a nervous stream of sounds. “We were getting third shift ready to move down to the cafeteria when the lights went out. Holy Moses, I ain’t never been so terrified. We didn’t have our suits, just our batons. One of the guys, he ain’t with us now, he’s still back there—man, he just panicked and started running for the gate room. But he couldn’t get in because the facial recognition didn’t work—the thumbprints didn’t work neither, you know? So he just starts banging on the door, trying to get in.”
“Wasn’t anyone in the gate room?”
“Yeah, but it all happened so fast. They were just staring at him through the glass. Then the dude freaks, starts running back down the hall past the cells. One of the sharks just reached out and clotheslined him. Dropped him straight down. He hit his head on the concrete, out cold. Saw blood coming from the back of his head,” Santos said.
He was panting, and he bent over to catch his breath. He stood back up with his hands on his head and continued. “Anyways, man, that shark, I think it was one of Little Adolph’s boys, he grabs Hodges’ keys. Yeah, that was the guy, Hodges, and just unlocks his cell door. I ain’t never seen that before! We just always used the thumbprints, you know? I never even thought about these keys, doing it manual.”
