STASIS: Part 3: Restart

by E. W. Osborne

“Obviously,” Neil snorted.

  Maggie gave his knee a whack. “No, I mean before that. He’s been too caught up in this other big project, he didn’t have time for our stuff much anymore.”

  “What’s he working on?”

  “I don’t know. Something super secret. The only thing he’s ever said about it is that Dreamscapes will become obsolete.”

  Kristine paused. “Really?”

  Maggie shrugged, seemingly unimpressed by the claim. Either she didn’t believe Alex or didn’t understand how big that could be.

  “Have you been having trouble getting messages through to him? I tried calling him the other day and it wouldn’t connect.”

  Maggie nodded, eyes dropping with worry. “At least it isn’t just him. I think it’s everywhere that’s having trouble.”

  As they drove deeper into the thick of the forest, the nervous energy inside the car noticeably changed. Neil’s leg bounced as he scanned his surroundings. Maggie’s constant chatter stopped.

  “So, what’s the plan when we get there? We can’t exactly stroll up to the front gate,” said Neil.

  “I can ask them if I can check lost and found,” Maggie suggested.

  “Exactly. Say you lost your bag,” he laughed.

  She jolted upright with a wicked grin on her face. “Or that I lost my fetus,” she giggled. Kristine didn’t feel as though she outwardly reacted to the dark joke, but Maggie apologized anyway. “Sorry. I have a weird sense of humor.”

  Kristine waved it away. “Well, you guys tell me if I’m off base here, but by the sounds of it, we won’t be stopped if we walk up to the fence. I figured we’d get close enough with the car, tuck it away, and go the rest of the way on foot.”

  Neil shifted in such a way she could tell he was trying not to lead her down a certain path. “And then what?”

  “We play it by ear, I suppose. Maybe in the daylight we can pick out new details that I can research later. But if this is really where some of the catatonic people are being kept…” She trailed off, thinking about Dr. Lal’s sudden disappearance. He was a formidable man. If he was being held against his will, those were people she didn’t want to mess with.

  “We’ll be careful,” Maggie reassured her.

  The pair pointed out the entrance to the campground they’d called home as the car flew past. A mile down the road, it turned left, the road a gentle upward slope. The closer they got, the more antsy the two became. When she thought they might fidget out of their own skin, she told the car to pull over into a dirt pull-off meant for day hikers.

  “How far do you think we are?” she asked as she scanned their surroundings. The forest was hot and still, barely a breath of air between the dense growth. At least the trees shaded the sun.

  “There’s an access road over there. It looks like a simple dirt road with a shitty gate, but once you go a little further, it’s paved,” Maggie replied.

  “No signs anywhere?”

  “Nope. They don’t want you to know it’s there.”

  “Then that’s exactly where we go.”

  Everything was exactly as they’d described. Even in the light, the double fences, each topped with razor wire, felt imposing and scary. Maybe it was how out of place they seemed in the beauty of the dense forest. It was as if a malignant tumor had emerged from the ground.

  Neil consulted a paper map he’d tucked into his jacket. He’d already demonstrated the strange effect the area had on their GPS. “We came to the gate from the other side, so if we turn left and follow the fence, it shouldn’t be too far.”

  “I don’t want to get too close,” Maggie said, stopping dead in her tracks.

  “No, of course not. Just close enough we can see without being seen,” Kristine assured her.

  Their conversations were hushed and sparse. Kristine entertained the thought that they were hunters stalking their prey. But in reality, she had to concede they were more like the prey, hoping to skirt the predator’s attention. Fifteen minutes of walking brought them up over a little hill and in view of the gate.

  Neil was the first to crest the ridge and fell to his stomach. Instinctively, Kristine and Maggie followed suit. It was only when they crawled up to join him did they realize his reaction was a little over the top. The gate was easily a hundred yards away and barely visible through the trees. The corner of a gray building was visible through the fence and the dense foliage.

  “Now what?”

  “We have to get closer. Even with my binoculars, I can’t see a lot from here,” Kristine replied.

  Neil tried to sound confident, but came up short. “We’ll use the trees. Stay low.”

  Although not overly bright, Kristine regretted wearing the redish top. She kicked herself for nothing thinking to wear something better suited to the surroundings. It would’ve made creeping up much easier. But they took it slow, sliding from the cover of one tree to the next, using bushes to hide their progress. The guards would’ve had to been looking for them specifically. Even so, they moved through the forest with surprising stealth.

  With nerves pumping her heart, Kristine finally pulled up behind a thick trunk about twenty yards away from the gate. They were close enough to hear the murmur of the guard’s voices but not the specific words. She motioned to the others to stay down. Using slow movements, she pulled out a small pair of binoculars and crouched behind a scraggly bush. Sweat dripped down the nape of her neck into her collar, beads rolling down her sides from her armpits. No breeze broke through the stifling, humid air.

  Three male guards stood at the front gate. They milled around looking bored and relaxed despite their duties requiring a gun on their hip. Kristine scanned every part of their uniforms and found no insignia or company identification. Even their cuffs appeared generic, but it was that plain look that made her think there was more to them than met the eye.

  The size of the complex was more apparent from this closer position. From behind the closest building, she could see the edges and corners of three others in the distance. She regretted not bringing a pocket drone, ignoring the fact she wouldn’t have had the guts to deploy it.

  A soft rustling from behind pulled her away from the binoculars. Maggie and Neil converged on her from different directions, moving in a low crouch.

  “Anything?” Maggie asked, nodding toward the gate.

  Kristine peered through the binoculars once more, shaking her head. “Nothing yet. They’re the same as how you described, just plain uniforms, nothing indicating who they work for.”

  The trio sat in silence watching the guards pace up and down in front of the gate. One disappeared into the little office for a while, only to reemerge chewing a sandwich. The contrast of their casual nature compared to the obvious fortress they were protecting was strange.

  They took turns looking through the binoculars. After almost a half an hour, Kristine’s ass was starting to tingle and go numb. She didn’t exactly expect a sign hanging out front that said, “Secret Government Facility,” but so far, their scouting mission had been anti-climactic.

  “Maybe we should go back to the car? See if we can’t get in from some other direction?”

  As Kristine mulled this over, one of the guards in the distance gave a shout.

  “Hey!”

  Before she could even look up, the shout was followed by two short pops of a gun. Kristine clawed the binoculars from Maggie’s hands and focused them in time to see the carnage.

  The guard who was in the middle of lunch was now crawling away from the gate, a streak of blood trailing behind him. The other two were struggling, one attempting to pry the gun from the other’s hand. Another shot popped off in the scuffle, firing innocently into the forest in the opposite direction.

  “What happened? Why are they…” Neil asked, daring to stick his head up for the first time.

  “I don’t know! I wasn’t looking,” Maggie replied.

  “Why would they…”

  Kristine watched as the injured guard s
eemed to remember he was also armed. He didn’t have to flee. He could fight. With a grimace, he rolled to his shoulder and reached down to his holster. Even with the gun trained on his coworkers, presumably one of whom who’d shot him, he hesitated.

  The attacking guard broke away with a hard push, giving him just enough clearance to lift his arms. When he raised his weapon to the man’s head, he had no problem jumping into action.

  Pop. Pop. Two shots, point blank, right in the face.

  With a cry of anger and betrayal, the injured guard on the ground squeezed off his own shot, dropping the attacker. The whole event lasted mere seconds.

  The three observers sat in silence, trembling. Kristine’s heightened senses picked up on the scraping sound of the final guard pulling himself back to the gate. The amount of blood pooling around him didn’t look good. In the distance, the hollow pop of guns echoed in the thick air. They looked at each other, questioning.

  “Should we go help him?” Maggie asked, eyes wide.

  “And do what?”

  “I don’t know! But he could be the one that let me in, who saved me.” She craned her neck over the bushes to get a better look at him. A moment later, her cuff let off a loud, quick succession of beeps. She fell back to her knees and attempted to turn it off.

  “What the fuck, Mags!” Neil whispered.

  The guard looked up, hearing the alert. But with more pressing concerns, he ignored the sound and continued to crawl on his stomach back to the gate.

  “You didn’t silence it?”

  Maggie’s expression was a hair away from a child sticking out her tongue. “I did, it’s just this alert supersedes it. It’s an emergency one I set up in case…” Her eyes dropped to the cuff, mouth falling open. “Holy shit…”

  Kristine tried to read over her shoulder, a sinking suspicion squeezing at her stomach. “What is it?”

  “It’s happening everywhere, apparently. New York, Washington… London. The alerts are coming in too fast.”

  Kristine peered over to the guard, conflicting emotions tearing at her. She wanted to go help the man, find out what happened. At the same time, she didn’t want to expose herself. They were in a secure enough position for the time being.

  Other than chastising Maggie for her cuff, he’d remained mostly silent. “A car is coming,” he whispered.

  They pressed lower in the bushes, Kristine with the binoculars to her eyes. The gray car had tinted windows, so it was impossible to tell how many people were inside. She tried to put herself in their position. If she’d come across a scene like that, it would take an act of God to get her out of the vehicle before making sure the coast was clear.

  The car rolled to a stop ten feet away from the injured guard. She held her breath as she watched, inadvertently taking in slow gasps between her lips.

  “What do you…”

  Neil immediately shushed Maggie and clapped a hand over her mouth. Kristine guessed he was feeling the same level of tension she was.

  The door swung open. A man’s leg extended from the darkness, careful to step around the blood with his shiny black shoes. She blinked a few times, sure the pressure and shock of the situation were playing tricks with her vision. It was impossible to deny.

  That’s Jamie. That’s Christopher’s brother.

  It was pure luck that kept her from voicing the realization aloud. Her throat went dry, her tongue thick and heavy in her mouth. Even from a distance, his stride, his dark hair, the way he held himself… it was definitely her future brother-in-law.

  With a leisurely pace, he strolled up to the guard on the ground. He scanned the area once before crouching down beside the man. She zoomed in with her binoculars and watched as the guard gesticulated to the others, miming out the attack with weakened arms. Jamie listened for a moment, nodded, and stood.

  “I need your help,” he called back to the idling car.

  She whipped her binoculars over so quickly, she flew past the vehicle.

  “There’s someone else,” Maggie whispered.

  By the time Kristine refocused on the car, the passenger had emerged. With trembling hands, she struggled to keep her focus steady. A tiny squeak escaped from her throat, the only sound betraying her shock.

  Why is Christopher here? What is he doing with Jamie… here?

  “Are you okay?” Neil asked.

  Kristine couldn’t even bring herself to nod. She clung to that pair of binoculars like it was a life preserver. A part of her mind shifted, splintered, perhaps as a way to make sense of the bizarre situation. It was delusional to think, but she felt as though the binoculars were projecting a false scene. If she pulled them away and looked with her bare eyes, there was no way she’d see her fiancé and his brother standing over two dead bodies. The problem was, she didn’t want to break that lie by moving.

  Jamie leaned close to Christopher, speaking in his ear. He seemed wholly unconcerned about the injured guard’s safety. Kristine nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he again knelt at his side, searching for what she thought would be his cuff or a radio. Instead, he pulled the gun from the weak man’s side, stood, and shot him in the head.

  Christopher screamed, his shout covering her own yelp of surprise. It was a tiny blessing to see he was as horrified as she was, though that emotion would be short-lived.

  Bile filled her mouth as she watched Jamie bark orders into his cuff. Shortly after, he gestured to the bodies. He and Christopher pulled them to the side of the road as casually as moving a fallen branch.

  A general alarm whirred to life from inside the compound. Kristine pulled the binoculars away for the first time, surprised to find tears wetting her cheeks. Neil noticed her reaction and placed a comforting, if not confused, hand on her forearm. From a distance, she watched the two men climb back into their car and roll through the unattended gate.

  Despite the cascading waves of emotions slamming against her, she realized this was their chance. The gate was unattended. Whatever facility this was, whatever reasons her Christopher might have being there, they had to move. Pushing all the other questions she had to the side, she turned to Maggie.

  “You said this isn’t isolated?”

  The girl was as white as a sheet. “It’s everywhere.”

  Kristine nodded once. She knew it was incredibly dangerous, to both her and the baby she was lucky enough to still be carrying, but this story had just gotten personal. “Go back to the car. If things get sketchy, get yourselves back home.”

  “You’re going in there?” Maggie balked.

  “I have to assume if the guards killed each other, it must be happening in there. Confusion is a good cover.” She shifted to her feet but remained crouched, the thought of popping out into the open still terrifying.

  “I’m coming with you,” Neil said, matching her posture.

  “I’m not expecting you to.”

  “I want to,” he insisted.

  They both looked to Maggie expectantly. She wiped her face with the palm of her hand and shook her head, looking at the building to their right as if it were a mountain she didn’t want to climb.

  “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “I guess I’m coming too.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Near Poughkeepsie, NY

  Neil couldn’t shake the feeling he was caught in a Dreamscape. Like most people, he’d experimented with the action and adventure genre. Movies were one thing, but when you were the actual gun-wielding hero saving the day, it felt amazing. As they half-jogged to the entrance, he had to keep reminding himself that this was real life. This was actually happening. The bodies he was running toward were very real and very dead.

  He forced himself to look up and away from the corpses, but it didn’t stop the thick scent of blood from filling his nostrils. The humid, heavy air seemed to be soaked with it.

  Inexplicably, they paused at the gate rather than running straight through it. The sense of protection it gave outweighed the danger of entering.

  “I
can’t believe we’re going back in,” Maggie said, shaking her head.

  He had to agree. When they finally made their escape in the cloak of darkness, he thought that’d be the last time he’d set foot in this facility. Even when he fantasized about going back to help that girl, he never truly believed it could happen.

  Everything that had brought him back to this place and to this point was either a turn of horrible fate, or the best luck. It wouldn’t be long before he discovered which it would be.

  Neil took a deep breath and tried to get control of his nerves. “We can go back in the way we came. I remember the way.” Maggie seemed scared but ready. Kristine, on the other hand, was impossible to read. She angrily wiped at the tears rolling down her face. Her expression was one he’d never seen before. “Are you okay?”

  She blinked away from the path leading up to the buildings, the one the car had just disappeared down. “Is it that direction?”

  Neil nodded, wishing his answer was different. Something didn’t feel right about her reaction, but he didn’t exactly have time to figure it out.

  “Then let’s go,” she replied firmly.

  With Neil taking the lead, they pinged from one tree to the next, trying to remain hidden as they moved. Only a few moments into their climb up the hill, a swarm of people flowed from every exit around them. Like an anthill emptying, people fled in every direction. When it became clear no one was paying any attention to them, they gave up trying to sneak around in favor of a more direct route.

  “Get to the wall!” Kristine yelled.

  A fresh batch of screams tore through the grounds, spreading panic like a lightning-fast disease. Those already fleeing scattered further. As they ran toward a building dozens were running from, it took everything in him to resist the sense of wrongness. It felt like he was running through a murky sludge rather than air. His legs wouldn’t move as fast as he needed them to, the wall of the building seeming to retreat rather than grow closer. A relief like no other flooded through him as they finally slammed against the rough cement.