“I’m all for hurrying, too,” Gilda said, “but he’s right.”
“Dude probably doubled his guards by now,” Aaron said. “Besides, what if we get there and her N.S.U. already burned out?”
Cynthia shrugged. “Then they’ll be dead, and we can wake her after.”
“If they don’t blow her head off first,” Nick said matter-of-factly.
“Too bad Isaac took all the other N.S.U.s,” Gilda muttered.
Cynthia grinned back at Gilda and Nick respectively. “You know her systems, and you got the equipment you need to fix or make a new battery pack. Right?”
Gilda nodded. Nick flashed her a thumbs-up without breaking his typing cadence.
“Then start building it,” she said, then grinned at Sean, “and the rest will be on you and me.”
Sean wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. For now, he just held his wounded wife.
*****
Doctor Sitton used to be thrilled to stand in the office of the President. It was the nicest one in the entire mountain complex. Its glossy black floor reflected the glowing blue ceiling panels and the little spotlights all around that matched those of the busy Operations Center outside his door. A giant screen had been mounted next to the stylish mahogany desk that fit his position despite looking nothing like the famed Resolute Desk. Important decisions were made in this office, and the efforts to save all remaining humanity had been spearheaded right here for the last two years.
But today wasn’t a day for excitement.
The Operations Center saw everything under and around the mountain, including the delivery system hitting the mob of reanimates the day prior and that same mob clawing at their Plexiglas cells in her surface laboratory. So, for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why none of those feeds revealed the location of the President that made her wait so long in his office to tell him something this important.
Then he walked in, marching toward his desk like she wasn’t there. He sat down wearily, sighing hard and rubbing his temples.
She made herself stand a little taller, even if she trembled like she did every time she faced him. She was an accomplished scientist and he was a man like any other, but his position was impossible to ignore. Every word from his mouth made great and terrible things happen, which added more weight to every word she gave him. President Ramsey was the only other man in the world who made her tremble like this, even if for a much different reason than the first.
“Please tell me the experiment worked, Doctor,” he said without looking up at her.
Her breath caught in her throat, but she cleared it. “The test subjects haven’t shown any signs of degrading yet, sir, but tomorrow—”
“May already be too late,” he interrupted as his head sunk.
“I’m afraid it gets worse, sir,” she hated to say. “I just heard there’s a TERAN in the—”
“I know.” He looked up at her like he hadn’t slept in days. “I just saw it.”
“Saw it, sir?” she blurted, horrified even more than when she first entered.
The President sank back into his plush executive chair. “In the surface tunnel. Its companions tried to tell me it was safe, but—” He shook his head. “It’s in Denver now.”
She flinched as she quivered, her knees begging to buckle. “But that means—”
“The world truly has gone to Hell.”
She had no idea what to say to that.
The President stood and rounded his desk, stopping before his wall screen with his hands behind his back, staring at the computer-generated borders of the Continental United States. “We’ve been dreaming too long, Doctor. It’s time to get real.”
“Sir?” was all that could come out of her mouth, even though she knew—dreaded—what he was about to say. Please, don’t.
“Focus on the vaccine,” he said grimly. “You’ll have plenty of time to make it work.”
A dark chill ran down her spine. The moment had come at last, and she couldn’t let it stand. “Wait a minute, sir. The delivery system might still work. You can’t abandon it now. Give me two days. Please, sir!”
“We can’t wait anymore,” he said at his screen with sullen finality. “You know what that thing being here means. Make that vaccine work.”
She shuddered, suddenly robbed of the powers of speech. The President of the United States just passed the world’s death sentence, and she couldn’t stop it. All she had the mental capacity to do was leave the President’s office. For all her achievements, she felt completely powerless.
PART THREE
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Exodus 3:8
CHAPTER 27
GAMBLE
Didi looked all around what the Gamesman referred to as “home” and took it in for what it was in so many ways: the end. Then again, she was amazed that she was still conscious, given the fact that her N.S.U. would soon be out of juice. She took comfort in knowing she did all she could for her friends, for life, for her Lord and Savior, and for Their children. She even held out hope she would see Them soon, as she now had four timers on her existence: decay, burnout, battle, and this poison she carried that would melt her at some point. She wanted to take comfort in the look on the Gamesman’s face when it happened, but … well … she was scared.
She knelt in the sand and prayed; for Cody, Rachelle, Isaac, Paula, the Panel, the children, their parents and guardians, and especially Cynthia. That girl was going to need some serious faith to conquer her turmoil. She also prayed that President Ramsey would be a just leader—even with his prejudice against her—so that Cody and Lavon would never be called upon to do anything despicable for president and country like she had witnessed when that major shot down Paula.
She heard laughter, but she continued praying.
“You just keep surprising me,” the Gamesman said while loitering somewhere outside the cage. She didn’t want to let that sadist ruin her mind-to-heart with God, but she couldn’t block out his words. “But, then, I guess it makes sense for the dead to hope for a better existence.”
The door creaked open. Something thumped in the sand near her and the door slammed shut.
“Man of my word, like I said,” he reminded her, which made her think the thump was her sword. At least there was that. Evil or not, she respected anyone who kept their word.
She continued praying while the Gamesman continued blustering.
“The things you and I will do with these games together. I can’t wait to see the size of the pool when you face twenty of your empty-headed kind during my Halloween Bash this weekend. You can do that, can’t you?”
She didn’t stop praying, even if the visual terrified her.
“Of course you can. If the myths are true, you wiped out two gangs in one stadium. Right?”
She would’ve shaken her head if she wasn’t actively showing her devotion to someone better.
“Then there’s my, uh, justice system. I’ve made the lowly masses out there believe in a fair shot at redemption, but with you hacking down opponents like you do—especially the number you did on Rockwell—you may actually scare them enough to keep them on the straight and narrow all together; the ultimate deterrent. Could be bad for business, but good for this city.”
Having had enough of this, she crossed herself and opened her eyes, which she immediately needed to adjust to see the sinister overlord.
“Freaky,” he said, though grinning. “How bad is your vision?”
She picked up her sword and sheathed it as she stood. “I can see a despot just fine,” she said, even though he appeared as little more than a dark block lingering in the gray horizon.
He laughed his ass off. “Oh, baby, I’m going to like you.”
“Tell me something,” she said as she approached, silently lamenting his intelligence to stand away from the cage door. “I couldn’t help noticing the population here. So, do you plan to show me off as the makeup-free monster … or a white girl they want to see ripped apart.”
His pretty grin finally vanished, replaced by a sneer. “You’re awfully brave to say that to this many brothers at once.”
“More like too dead to bullshit. My eyesight’s not all that great, but even I can see there aren’t a lot of my … former kind here. Was that your doing?”
He shrugged. “The brothers had their … agendas; wanted to take out a little aggression on the ones they distrusted the most. Who was I to deny them?”
“Yeah, and what did you do before? Protest rallies?”
“I used to be in government,” he replied proudly, which threw her for a loop. “I had starry-eyed dreams of uniting the races once, but we all know that’s a huge smokescreen. Unity isn’t what people want, no matter what color they are. They want dominance, and they wouldn’t stop at color even if they could wipe out all the others. I’d hoped by letting my jexes have—”
“Cool title, by the way,” she said just to poke the bear a little.
His eyes narrowed at her before she continued. “I let them have their fun to bring order, but you’ve seen the masses out there. All the same shit, even without white around.” He snickered. “With you as my executioner, I guess that makes you my social justice warrior.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen the masses. They have nothing of value.”
He snickered. “Oh, you have no idea. What I’m really building here is a platform for something much bigger, and you are the very thing that’ll make it happen.”
“Not if she dies today,” came from her right before she could ask what he meant, but whoever said it was too far away to see. The high-pitched voice sounded oddly familiar, and was cleared up when six blobs came into view, one with flaming red hair.
The Gamesman’s head tilted slightly. “Who is this threatening my prize?”
“I’m not threatening her,” the slightly clearer Cynthia said as she stopped before the flaky mogul and presented her empty palms. Her baby blue Cardigan and black jeans were a vast improvement over the green bean denim, but they were so baggy on her that she couldn’t possibly sneak anything in. “What I’m talking about can happen any minute unless you let us in the cage to save her.”
The us part threw Didi until she saw—of all people—Nick holding his backpack. She praised God with a big smile.
The Gamesman glared at his jexes like they were idiots. “I hope you searched that.”
“Just a bunch of computer stuff,” one of them said. “Worst thing in there was a hobby knife in a case of little tools.”
The Gamesman nodded and smirked at Cynthia. “Just for laughs, then, how is my champion about to die when she’s already dead?”
“Did you happen to see that big, flashy light above the mountains yesterday?” Cynthia asked.
The Gamesman’s eyes narrowed over his grin. “I did.”
“Well, it happened to be an electromagnetic pulse, which you may know overloads anything with an electronic component in it. Unfortunately for you, Didi happened to be within the blast radius, so the E.M.P. fried the gadget in her head that keeps her like she is. Her friends replaced it, but not the battery pack that makes it run longer, and she may not have much time left.”
Didi was stunned.
The Gamesman glanced at Didi with intrigue. “A gadget, huh? I’d wondered why you were so different. How does it work?” he asked the girl.
Cynthia faced Nick, who glanced around before answering. “It, uh, sends low-volt electricity into her brain, stimulating all her neural passages at once. It doesn’t make her alive; just awake, but by itself only works for a day or so.”
“So, if you don’t let my friend get in there to replace it,” Cynthia finished, “your champion won’t be worth your next bet.”
The despot’s eyes floated around the various faces in view, the rest of him stiff as a post. Then he faced Didi. “Is this true?”
“Hey, who’s perfect?” Didi replied with a shrug, trying not to laugh her ass off.
The Gamesman pursed his lips, regarded the backpack, and tilted his head again. “So, why should I believe you want to help me rather than bust her out of here?”
Cynthia looked at Didi with a soft smile. “She helped me when she didn’t have to. I owe her.”
Didi smiled, her head tingling with gratitude.
“Besides,” Cynthia said to the Gamesman, “I can’t rescue her if she tries to eat me. Can I?”
The Gamesman laughed while his jexes looked at him like he was cracked. He ended it with a villainous little chuckle and waved Cynthia and Nick at the cage door. “Make it happen.”
Nick took the backpack from a guard and led Cynthia into the cage past the jex who opened the door. “Lie down,” he said.
Didi nodded, removed her jacket and shirt, and lay on her back. The jaded redhead’s jaw dropped at the site of her patchwork body, eyes filled with dread and pity.
“Sorry, brother,” someone beyond the cage said, “but we just got word that some maniac’s driving through a bunch of stands out … there.” The jex gaped at Didi with the widest eyes.
“Then grab some men and deal with it,” he growled.
The poor guy ran off like a whipped puppy. Several jexes followed.
The Gamesman noticed everyone gawking at him, then pointed at Nick. “What are you waiting for? Fix my champion!”
Nick knelt by Didi’s side, opened the bag, and displayed the components that—under the circumstances—would sustain Didi until NORAD’s zombie poison melted her or whatever. He gingerly pulled her Velcro chest flap open.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “I can’t feel it anyway.”
The Pashtun smirked. “It’s not propriety; I just don’t want to pull any wires loose.”
She grasped the middle of the flap and ripped it open for him. “I’m not that complicated.”
He scoffed as he removed the polyurethane filling out her form and handed the sheets off to Cynthia, who got a little chuckle out of Didi’s quip. He reached around the bellows device she used to make her lungs work, sinking so deeply she wondered just how far he was reaching. Then she heard a thunk; her kill switch turning off.
“I’m-a be sick,” one of the jexes said. Weakling.
Nick carefully pulled out the galvanized steel casing that held her extra juice box. He unlatched the lid and shook his head at the burnt microchips. “Should’ve gone with fiber optic.”
“Hey, it worked,” Didi snapped, feeling as if she was being judged harshly. “Can you fix it?”
“I already did,” he replied while cutting her wires and unsheathing the tips of with his hobby knife. “Your new one will last at least twice as long. It’ll just take a few minutes to install.”
Didi laughed despite being a little offended. “Well, no big. I’m not going any—”
*****
Didi went still, her eyes blank and her mouth affixed in the position of her last syllable. Then her head faintly jerked.
Cynthia frowned until she realized the N.S.U. had just failed. She cursed.
“What? Don’t you know what you’re doing?” the Gamesman asked like she was a child.
“The N.S.U. is out,” Nick shouted as the zombie’s open maw curled into a hungry sneer. “I need help holding her down while I install the new battery pack.”
Nobody outside the gate did anything while Nick frantically yanked out the old battery pack and tossed it aside.
“Hurry up,” Cynthia urged him as Didi growled at and reached for her. She jumped on Didi’s arm, pinning it with her knees and the other with her hands, all while arching her back upward to keep her abs from getting bitten. She was also glad she hadn’t blossomed much.
Nick quickly threw his knees onto Didi’s other arm, gi
ving Cynthia the help to get away from the Death Doll’s jaws. “We need help in here,” he shouted out the cage.
Again, the jexes gawked anxiously at their curious boss.
She clapped her hand onto Didi’s forehead and pinned the head down, but the zombie’s legs started thrashing about. “Get in here, you assholes,” she screamed while spreading herself out to pin both an arm and a leg.
Nick pulled the new battery unit out of his bag as five jexes jumped on each of the zombie’s limbs; the fifth held down Didi’s flailing head with massive hands that could probably crush it.
Cynthia watched Nick pull small wires from the new battery pack and cut out splicing sheaths.
The jex at Didi’s head screamed as he backed away with one of his thumbs missing, the stump spurting out blood. The jexes at her feet took him out of the cage while she chewed with relief.
A few seconds later, those bloody jaws snapped at Cynthia again. “Hurry up,” she urged Nick as she jumped on Didi’s legs.
“I am,” he grunted while carefully splicing the battery pack wires with the ones in Didi’s case, pausing only when a gunshot startled him.
Cynthia didn’t bother to look at who got shot; it was obvious. Instead, she watched Nick finish mending the wires, which he quickly wrapped in electrical tape. He shoved that into the casing and secured the lid with its locking hasps. Then he flipped the red-tipped switch on the side.
Didi kept grunting mindlessly, her bloody jaws still snapping for another bite of anyone.
Nick tried the switch a few more times, but nothing changed. He cursed.
“What happened?” Cynthia asked.
“It should’ve worked,” Nick said as he dug further up into Didi’s body. “It’s all good up to the neck. It might be somewhere in her head. Stand her up.”
Cynthia got out of the way, but the two jexes hesitantly looked to their master.
Exodus Page 24
