by Nick Thacker
Rachel’s head hit first, but the impact wasn’t apparently enough to knock her out. Sarah was about to roll off the woman’s body when she felt a solid — and painful — punch to her jaw.
Good aim, she thought. Especially in the dark.
But Sarah wasn’t one to take a punch and ignore it. She knew exactly where the woman’s head was, even in the dark. She pulled her fist back and launched it forward, waiting for the crushing hit to smash Rachel’s face.
Unfortunately, Rachel had anticipated the counterattack and moved her head, allowing Sarah’s clenched fist to land — hard — against the stone floor.
The cracking sound that rocketed up Sarah’s entire arm was only outmatched by the feeling of the blow. Her hand immediately froze in place, her knuckles and wrist shocked from the impact, her brain answering the signals of immense pain by throwing every alarm it had.
She screamed in rage, wrestling around on the floor to try to get a better grip on Rachel, but the woman was gone. She felt around with her good hand, but couldn’t find anything to hold onto. For a brief instant she felt the fear creeping back in, the confusion and chaos of the exploding world around her not justifying the sheer blackness of the space. More gunshots punctuated the air, and Sarah wondered if they were fired out of frustration or if someone could actually see something.
It was disorienting, and Sarah took a second to lay still on the floor, trying to get her bearings once again. She turned her head toward where she thought the staircase ended and saw a gentle greenish glow.
A light.
She watched it dance around for a moment before she realized: it’s a phone. In someone’s pocket.
She had no idea whose pocket the phone was in, so she wasn’t about to try to attack it, but it at least lit up the space enough for her to see her immediate surroundings. Rachel was nowhere to be seen, but there were two soldiers standing nearby, each pointing their weapons the wrong direction — away from the light.
Two more shapes shifted around the blackness of the room’s perimeter, and what looked like three more people jumped and dove across the center, but she couldn’t make out what was what.
Another shot rang out and Sarah saw the room come into view. A wash of light had entered the space from the stairwell — another flashlight or two, both brighter than the one Rachel had been using. She heard the commotion of the new soldiers entering, the pounding footsteps on the stairs telling her they were more booted thugs, armed well and ready for a fight.
We’re outnumbered again, she thought. There has to be something I can —
Suddenly her vision was blocked by a towering figure — nothing but a shadow, as the silhouette once again cast Sarah into darkness.
But she knew the figure — the short, thin shape of the petite woman, who hadn’t seen her and nearly backed up right on top of her.
Sarah stood up quickly and rushed forward, grabbing the woman’s arm and wrenching it behind her back, lifting up and pressing it between the woman’s own shoulder blades, just like she’d learned from the personal defense class she’d audited at her campus, and just like the guard had done to her earlier.
Rachel screamed in pain, writhing and trying to break free, but Sarah worked her other arm — the one with the throbbing, inflamed hand — through Rachel’s side and back up and around her arm, ending up with her wrist pressed against the back of Rachel’s head. Rachel’s right arm was straight up in the air, her left arm twisted behind her back, and while her feet and legs were kicking and thrashing around to try to get into a position to fight back, Sarah wasn’t about to let her go.
She spread her legs a bit so the tops of her feet weren’t in danger of being smashed by the woman’s heels, and she yanked backwards with her upper body, both tightening her grip on Rachel and causing immense pain in her own hand.
Still, she held on.
“Stop!” Sarah yelled. “I’ve got your idiot boss, and I’m going to break her neck if you don’t drop the weapons.”
She didn’t, of course, know how to break the neck of a chicken, much less that of a grown woman. She had a feeling it was a bit trickier than movies and television liked to imply, but she had the basic idea down — wrench the head sideways as hard and fast as possible, popping the spinal cord off of its track and hopefully leaving the victim in a very bad place.
Everyone in the room froze. The five soldiers — the two that had been with her group and the three new ones who were now guarding the only exit back up the stairs — all had their weapons trained on her.
That would have been a good thing, but the rest of her team — her father, Ben, Julie, Mrs. E, and Alex — were all standing between her and the soldiers, directly in the line of fire.
Except…
She flicked her eyes to the right, not wanting to draw attention to where she was focusing, and noticed that there was one more man in the room that she — and apparently everyone else — had failed to take into consideration.
Reggie had been dumped in the corner by Agent Sharpe and Ben when the shooting started, but he was now standing — or leaning — against the back wall near the doorway.
He slid sideways, slowly making his way behind the soldier closest to him. He had no weapon, but Sarah knew he wouldn’t need one. He was angry, in pain, and running on pure adrenaline.
Not a good combo if you're on the other team.
81
Reggie
REGGIE WAS IN A LOT of pain, but his body was refusing to quit. He had pushed himself up carefully, slowly, trying to not draw attention to himself. He had then worked his way down the wall, using the stone surface as a crutch but moving slowly enough that the scratching sound of his clothes on the wall didn’t raise an alarm.
Finally in position, he raised a fist, took a breath, and threw it down.
He crashed it as hard as he could onto the neck of the man not closest to him but in the middle of the line of soldiers blocking the door — the same men who’d tried to enter Room 23 earlier. They’d obviously succeeded, and had now come to find their boss and offer support.
But they weren’t ready for a pissed-off ex-Army sniper, trained in hand-to-hand combat and in temporarily ignoring significant injuries.
The blow took down the middle man, and the other two soldiers predictably looked over to see what had happened. Reggie, however, was already in motion.
He used the distraction to grab the man’s rifle, then swung it up and fired at the soldier on the far side. The man who was now weaponless dove forward, more scared than upset, hoping to not get a bullet in his back.
Instead, he received a bullet to the skull. Reggie fired the single shot without so much as thinking about collateral damage, knowing that with the light of the downed man’s flashlight illuminating the entire room and his experience with small-arms firepower, he was in no danger of injuring anyone else in the room.
The man fell, his head a bloody mess, right in front of where Sarah was holding Rachel hostage. He fired another shot at the soldier next to Sarah, but missed. The last soldier with a weapon fired back at Reggie, but he had launched himself from his good leg back into the corner, then fired back.
That shot missed as well, but suddenly Ben was towering over the soldier and brought his fist smashing down into the man’s face, sending him wheeling backwards toward the wall. He hit the wall hard, no doubt seeing stars, but Ben wasn’t done.
Reggie watched in awe and satisfaction as Ben plowed his fists into the man’s torso, head, and stomach. Every hit seemed to grow stronger, and Reggie knew he was seeing what happened when Ben got worked up enough to pop.
The man’s bloody, contorted face told Reggie that he was solidly out of the fight, but Ben didn’t let up. He hit the man three times in the face, twice in the nose and once in the man’s left eye. His head fell, and still Ben attacked.
The other soldier standing ran over to fend off the attack, but Agent Sharpe stopped him in his tracks with a quick retort from his own weapon, sending th
e man to the ground.
Ben carried on, the entire front half of his body covered with a slick of blood.
“Ben,” Reggie said. “That’s good.”
Ben ignored him. Nothing but Ben’s own fists were keeping the soldier upright.
“Ben,” Julie said. “Ben!”
Finally, Ben stopped. The man fell to the ground.
Dead.
Reggie heard the heavy breathing of his best friend, the dark crimson covering his face like a mask. He was rocking slowly, heels to toes, working himself down.
“You okay?” Reggie asked.
Ben shook his head.
“Me neither.”
Reggie looked around the room. He looked at Sarah, still standing behind Rachel, the slightly taller woman totally and completely beaten. Her father, Professor Lindgren, was wide-eyed and gawking at Ben, and Agent Sharpe was inspecting the bodies of the fallen soldiers. Julie, Mrs. E, and Alex were —
He noticed Alex for the first time. The kid was hunched over, heaving, his back to the wall opposite Reggie.
“Kid — Alex,” he said. “You okay?”
All eyes turned to Alex.
“Alex?” Sarah asked. She immediately let go of Rachel and rushed over to Alex’s location.
Alexander’s eyes were barely open, and there was a trickle of blood dripping from his mouth onto his lap.
Reggie ran over and pushed the young man’s shoulders back, revealing a heavy stain of blood on his chest.
“No…” Sarah whispered.
“It’s okay,” Reggie said. “He’s going to be —”
He stopped. There was no point in sugarcoating the truth. Sarah knew; they all knew.
Alex knew.
His eyes were screaming, the pain seemingly waiting just behind them to burst forth and come pouring out, but the kid held his composure. His breaths were jagged, and only interrupted by Ben’s heavier and longer exhalations.
“Do you feel okay?” Reggie asked.
“I — I…” Alex tried to speak, but his eyes were growing more intense by the second. Everything in him was willing him to keep it together, to not let the pain win out.
But Reggie knew better. There was no ‘winning’ when it came to a gunshot wound like this. He’d seen lesser injuries take harder men. Alex was not going to live another minute.
“It’s cold,” the kid finally said. “So… cold.”
Reggie nodded. “That’s good. That’s your body protecting you. You’re going to be —” he stopped himself again. No, he thought. No more lies.
“You’re almost done.”
Alex looked up at Reggie, and Reggie felt the tears collecting at the corners of his eyes. This isn’t fair, he thought. He was just a kid.
“I did good. Yeah?” Alex asked.
Reggie and Sarah nodded, and Reggie couldn't help but let two tears fall onto Alex’s hands, which were clasped in front of him on his lap. For his part, the kid was stoic, watching the world close in on him with two wide, yet fearless, eyes.
“I never wanted… I didn’t want —”
Reggie held up a hand. “It’s okay. We know.”
He looked at Sarah, but she wouldn’t return his gaze. Her eyes were riveted on Alex. Her student. Her colleague.
She’s never going to forgive herself, Reggie thought. She’s going to live forever thinking this was her fault.
And he, more than anyone, knew exactly what that felt like.
82
Ben
BEN WASN’T INEXPERIENCED WHEN it came to fistfights. He had been in his fair share of scrapes, on both the losing and winning sides. He’d been beaten, tied to a chair and nearly killed, and run through a gauntlet of pain that he had never known he could survive.
So he hadn’t gone into the fight ignorant. He knew his capabilities, his strengths, and his weak spots. He knew that if he could get a good, solid blow to the man’s face he would then be able to follow it up with a few more shots to the man’s sides, a strategy that had proved to be a winning one in the past.
What he didn't expect was to be as fast as he had been. Ben was a large man, strong and surefooted, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time in the gym or working out.
That is, until he’d met Reggie.
Reggie had created a training program for him and Julie at their Alaska cabin and CSO headquarters, and Ben had followed it, begrudgingly but thoroughly.
He’d changed his diet, strengthened his core, and gotten faster on his feet. He hadn’t really had a chance to use the new skills until now.
So he’d surprised himself by how quickly he’d rendered his opponent obsolete, but he’d further surprised himself by how taking out the opposition did nothing for his temper.
He hadn’t been satisfied when he’d felt the man’s nose give way, when he’d seen the eyes become bloodshot and puffy, when he’d felt the wheezing sigh of failure escape the man’s lips.
He hadn’t been satisfied, and he had been far from tired, so he’d kept fighting. Toward the end he was fighting nothing more than a punching bag, a floppy, heavy bag of flesh that was offering no more resistance than a water balloon.
Only when he’d heard Julie’s voice did he stop.
And only then did he realize he was the last one fighting. There was no one else to take down, no one else to neutralize.
He took a few deep, heavy breaths, then walked over to the rest of the group. They were standing around Alex, who was hunched over on the floor, bleeding from a nasty-looking chest wound.
Ben watched Reggie’s and Sarah’s face, knowing that the prognosis for the young man was not good.
Reggie wasn’t a medic, but he had field training and plenty of experience. That he wasn’t doing anything to stop the bleeding or cover the wound was telling.
Ben turned to Rachel Rascher, the woman behind all of this, and started toward her.
She backed up, pressing her back to the wall, her hands in the air. “Stop,” she said. “Wait, I —”
“You did this,” Ben said. His voice was a mix of rage and pure adrenaline, low and groveling. “You caused all of this.”
“I — I was only trying to —”
“You’re a Nazi,” he said. “But you didn’t even have a government or a Nazi regime backing you up. You had to rely on a handful of insane scientists, convincing them of their purity. You lied to them, and you lied to yourself.”
“No,” she said. “I did not lie to myself.”
“Then you are delusional. This ‘world’ you’re trying to create, it’s never going to exist. Don’t you understand that now? You’re not ‘pure.’ Your employees aren’t, and neither are the poor souls who ‘passed’ your test.”
She sniffed, the fire still in her eyes. “It’s real,” she said. “It works. The original compound — it kills people who are impure. It saves those who are not.”
Sarah strode over. “It’s genetics,” she said. All eyes turned to her. “And very simple genetics, at that.”
Ben and Rachel Rascher frowned.
“Sickle-cell anemia,” she continued. “It’s a disease that is nearly 100% unique to people of African descent. And Tay-Sachs disease mostly affects Eastern Europeans or Jewish people.”
Ben nodded along, but addressed Rachel. “So your fancy magic pixie dust is just a poison that kills most of the people it comes into contact with, but there’s a handful of people out there with a natural-born immunity.”
Rachel sneered. “The pure, original race of —”
“No,” Ben said. “Just no.”
“It’s a natural accident,” Sarah said. “It’s not a magical elixir that reads genetic code.”
You just don’t understand,” Rachel said. “You can’t understand. This place — all of it — it’s real. You don’t —”
Ben stepped closer to her. “I understand enough to see that what you’re trying to do here is hopeless. You failed, Rascher. And you’re going to answer for that failure.”
She shook he
r head. “I won’t.”
“You will.”
He stepped forward, fist raised.
“You wouldn’t hit a —”
He brought his fist forward with a heavy smack, landing it just behind her left eye, in front of her ear. She fell forward, cracking the back of her head against the wall, then her face against the stone floor. Ben stepped back a single pace, allowing her to hit the ground without his feet offering her head any sort of eased landing.
“Pick her up,” he said, to no one in particular. “We’re getting out of here.”
There was a mess to clean up, both literally and figuratively. The CSO had inadvertently stumbled upon one of the biggest coverups in history, and there was plenty of work to do to understand this place, its purpose, and its creators.
And there was plenty of time to do that.
For now, he had to get his team out of this dungeon before they found themselves locked in. They could clean up the mess later, when they’d all had time to debrief, decompress, and simply rest.
There would be time to understand what had taken place here, what Rachel Rascher and her team had been trying to accomplish.
There would be time for all of that. But right now, Ben’s job was to get everyone to safety.
Reggie was limping with an arm around Sharpe’s shoulder, while Julie and Mrs. E were carrying Alex’s weight between them. Ben knew the kid wasn’t going to make it, but he was glad to see the group’s refusal to leave him behind.
Sarah was helping her father, who was clearly shaken up and barely able to walk.
Together, the group ascended the stairs to the main hallway, then walked through the pitch-black darkness toward the bright, open hole that led into Room 23.
83
Ben
THEY WALKED SLOWLY, AS there were two injured members of the group, Rachel Rascher and Reggie, and one who hadn’t made it, Alex.
