Lenders

by Johnson, John

  45. A Stinky Plan

  They awoke—back again! Rico noticed that returning to reality had a jarring effect, the quick change of environment, being back in a physical body, it toyed with the mind—like life was the actual dream. It was dissimilar to waking from bed that morning, he thought: the choppy bits of forgettable imagery and broken bubbles that were supposed to be congruent genuine dreams. This awakening had an authentic dream trailing it, pulling at his memories, affecting the composition of his thoughts. It wasn’t a natural dream, perhaps, but maybe it counted as one. It was nevertheless his first in a long time, and with it, he noticed his thoughts became clear, well-focused—as if his mind was an opened can of worms: its escapees were squirming curiously to new places, leaving the constraint that’d once held them into unmovable positions. And he was a little woozy but shook it off and headed to the BROCC. Jim followed, making sure he was okay. After about ten steps with his real feet the weird transitional feeling dissipated.

  Abell and Lia were in the process of logging out and woke up likewise. Abell took a while; he always had to torture the bed a bit longer with his weight. The giant he was, waking and reassembling coherence, reassuming command over his great physical mass, was a sluggish process. Lia knew him well and waited patiently for her lift.

  Everyone was desperate to know. Devon rose from his station and the twins headed over as well. They merged at the HAT as Rico and Jim ascended the curved steps from the sleeping area. It was time to put a plan into action. Rico did have the code, and it was time to use it. Waiting a second for Abell and Lia to arrive, he was ready to disclose the good news and outline the plan.

  “What went wrong? Why did you log out so quickly?”

  “Ted, we were gone for several hours,” Rico replied, “couldn’t you track us?”

  “We had you in at a little over thirty minutes,” Ron said, “then oddly you went off map. A moment later you returned and called the director. And Rico—we almost lost you.” Standing next to him Devon corroborated with a post-bombshell countenance.

  Rico and Jim met each other's gaze. Wordless, with a mutually understood look, they agreed to keep the adventure between themselves for now.

  “Never mind that. Here’s the rundown,” Rico said changing topic. His leadership vivified their attention and he got straight to it. “Yes, Jim and I were successful in retrieving the code and it might just allow us to take back control of our facility—hopefully before David causes chaos or destroys anything. Now, here’s the plan. Ted, I see you took Abell out, excellent thinking. Ron and Abell—I want the both of you to head to the control room. Stop in the hallway before the bend and wait. If all goes well the door to the control room will open momentarily as the system resets, if not this code should work while the system is rebooting, a momentary window. David has to wait for the reboot to complete in order to switch the status back to yellow alert which hard locks the door. It reboots quickly, you’ll have ten seconds at best.” He wrote down the code and handed it to Ron.

  “Why don’t we just try the code on the door?” Ron asked. “It’s a universal access code I assume.”

  “Ron, if David sees us he might start smashing things, and that would be the end for all of us. Besides, with any status lower than green he can quickly override it from the inside. We’ll try this plan, hoping he’s just depressed and confused. A sort of sneak attack. That door opens, you surprise him, and bolt inside like lightning.” Ron and the others nodded. “Abell, charge into that room like a bull and restrain that perfidious rat. Ron, you should know enough about the controls to get things back on track. Now go, grab a flack vest from security supply and get moving.”

  “David was part of the plot to kill Amy,” Jim interrupted bluntly before Abell could roll out. A reminder. And he wanted everyone to know it; they needed to know why, and remember who they were fighting for. He also wanted to further foment Abell’s mood, moreover, the barbarity of his attack on David. He envisioned Abell, with his mighty gorilla-sized hands, lifting skinny David high by the neck, and squeezing; he wished it was himself that would have that opportunity. In his mind he saw the word squeeze, and he dragged it out, squeeeeze, taking a deep slow breath of hatred right alongside it.

  “Jim!” Rico said, then turned to the agitated giant. “Abell, don’t kill him, just restrain him. And both of you, remember not to round the corner or his camera could spot you which would make him suspicious. We don’t want him doing anything crazy—hopefully, he’s just passed out drunk. Sit tight, wait and listen for the door, watch the lights. Jim, you and I will head down to that fusion room. Ted, Devon, Twins, keep things running smoothly here. Okay, good luck everyone, let’s do this.”

  Ted carried Lia to the break room then everyone rushed away following orders. Ten minutes later power flickered in the broadcast room—and the hall, everywhere. A moment later everything went dark, then the emergency lights dully illuminated the interior of the facility.

  “Oh no,” Rico said nervously. “We’re too late. The broadcast room has a backup battery but it’s very old. Our last tests, it only lasted twenty minutes—unless... We got to go back and tell Ted to signal the lenders for emergency log out.”

  Broadcast feed status: high green.

  “No,” Jim said grabbing his arm. “There’s no time Rico. And Ted knows exactly what to do. Let’s just get some lights from the supply room and head down. We need to get that power diverted before it really is too late.”

  “Okay, Jim. You’re right, let’s move.” Rico followed and they rushed to a supply room and grabbed a toolkit. Rico took a crank lantern and Jim took a crank flashlight and a crowbar. Before heading out Rico paused, he had a thought.

  “What now Rico?” Jim asked.

  “I’ll catch up to you Jim I have to alert the town. Remember the code?”

  “No, you said you would.”

  “Ah. Damn—just follow me then,” Rico said, “I have to give the order to get the town to the safe room.”

  Jim tailed him, sprinting. He’d hoped the feed buffer would prevent the need to take extreme measures, but Rico was right, things had gotten out of hand. There would be no buffer after the emergency power was exhausted. It would be an instant red status. All defenses would drop. Calming the lenders for a proper log out would buy them time and make use of the buffer. A topped-off buffer would last up to an hour, plus a diminuendo of the feed due to a gradually depleting buffer would drop defenses slowly, one by one, intelligently, rather than abruptly plunge everything at once. And, many systems could be shut down conserving the emergency power after a complete logout. It would also prevent discombobulation among the lenders in case of the sudden power loss.

  Rushing back through the hallway Rico and Jim reached the facility exit door. The two stepped down onto the cement bay floor turning right to the security office. There was only one person on duty, Ed who was in the middle of eating an early lunch—under a single dim emergency light. He’d swapped gate guard duty with Jose. Most of the town and many off-duty lenders were still likely to be at Jessie’s trial.

  “Shit Ed, don’t you see the fucking lights?” Jim yelled. Startled, Ed fumbled with his food. “I didn’t—”

  “Ed get up now. Get on the line with Rob Price. Give him this code.” Rico wrote a short code on a note pad on Ed’s desk. All board members and security knew—were supposed to anyway, but things had become so lax, safe for years—the town’s emergency codes. It was one nobody wanted to see and carried a few meanings: one, get all citizens into the safe room, and two, all lenders and security are to report for duty—immediately. Important items: seeds, books, the meat synthesizer, even chickens if possible, among other things, are to be saved without wasting too much time. Only one other code succeeded this one, its meaning, far worse: no time for chickens, attack is already under way. Ed’s already bulgy eyes popped out even further when he recognized the code and he jolted spilling his large juice all over his drab blue pants at the crotch. Jim shook his head
impatiently.

  “It’s an emergency Ed so move quickly,” Rico exclaimed in an orotund voice. “We’ve lost the control room and the town could be in serious danger—if we’re lucky we’ll have about an hour before—” He didn’t want to say it. Somehow saying it would make it sound even more eminent. Ed ran over to the phone. “And Ed, the safe room door will have to be opened manually so round up a few strong guys. Now hurry!”

  After departing the security office they rushed back into the facility. Rico secured the door sealing off all inner sectors from the bay area. With flashlights on they ran down the hall and went to the old cafeteria which hadn’t been used in years. Rico used his keys and unlocked the door.

  “It’s somewhere in here. Remember Jim?”

  “Yep, in the back,” Jim replied. He recalled the diagram clearly. He wasn’t great with numbers and calculations like Rico but had made a visual memory of the schematic and knew it was somewhere in the back, possibly near the freezer. “Over here.”

  Rico followed cranking his lantern a few times and it grew brighter. The cafeteria had been abandoned, but left clean, chairs on table-tops. It was eerie and dark, a large pie-slice shape of a room with at least twenty dust coated tables under mix-and-match chairs. It had a cafeteria style kitchen that looked like it’d been pieced together—albeit efficiently—with mostly stainless counters, but also whatever else could be found at the time, long ago. They went to the back and looked around. Nothing in the kitchen. It must be inside the freezer, Jim thought. He heaved on the old freezer door but the rubber seal stuck like glue. Together they pulled and the rubber ripped, half of it snaked to the floor dangling. A draft equalized itself between the two rooms releasing—hack, gag—the smell was so horrible it stopped all thought processes and keeled them over at the door.

  “Fuck. Oh, gawd—” Jim said dragging out his last word in a hacking manner. The smell was nauseating.

  Jim pulled up his cotton shirt easily enough but Rico’s button shirt wouldn’t stretch upward so he grabbed an old towel from the kitchen. It had too much dust and sucking it in made him gag spastically. So he tossed it and did his best to block the stench with a hand. Neither attempt helped, much; they had to move forward, just deal with it. Jim went inside first holding his flashlight forward.

  The place hadn’t seen light in at least a decade, and there was surely no sign of any door or entranceway, just a smelly old walk-in freezer with rotten food scattered everywhere. It had two five-foot wide isles between a large center shelf and went back about twenty feet. Doing their best to function with the smell of rotten cabbage, maggot-meat, and an organic tear-gas derivative, they treaded forward going separate ways.

  “Why was all this left here?” Jim pondered out loud, moving boxes of rotten food to get further inside.

  “It—” Rico nearly vomited while trying to respond. He’d just moved a box of lettuce and the bottom fell through. Illuminating the spectacle was his second mistake. It was a moldy science experiment gone nuclear: purple and green hairy orbs, alive and well, and as terrible to the eyes as the smell was to the nose. He turned away dry heaving; his breakfast pulled and pushed on the bars of his stomach like a prisoner trying to escape a flooding cell. Enough was enough; he removed his white shirt and wrapped his face, then put his brown vest back on. Muffled, he responded, “We spent some time in the safe room, before you came. They really hit us hard—the power was off too long, it all went bad.”

  “Felix?” Jim said, stopping to face Rico through a gap in the middle shelf.

  Rico nodded. He knew his father’s death had made a huge impact on him and his future. He’d been set to start as a lender, but after the attack could never quite control his anxiety after logging in. After a pause he continued, “The rescue ship dropped supplies and with them we were able to get the restaurants in town working. There were other priorities. So, we removed what appliances we could, sealed it off and forgot about it. From then forward, we kept the town in the dark about what goes on here, and made very strict rules. Just like this mess we’re in now—you think you can trust everyone, but there’s always that one. Never fails.”

  “Darkness,” Jim said. He had a flicker of an idea and clicked off his flashlight.

  “What?”

  “Turn off your light,” he said. Rico clicked off his lantern. The room was pitch black—except for a sliver of light in the back right corner.

  “Look, there!” Jim exclaimed. He thought he’d seen a glimmer. Lights off confirmed it, yes!

  “I see it,” Rico said excitedly. Jim clicked his light on so they could get closer without tripping on petrified food. In spots their feet stuck to the floor because of spills. A sliver of light went from floor to ceiling vertically in the back corner.

  “Let’s move this shelf Rico.” Together they carefully slid the heavy shelf aside, trying not to spill anymore of the perished or living perishables. Across the sticky floor it rolled easier than they thought, luckily it had wheels. Flicking the light on and off they inspected the trace of light coming from behind the wall; it wasn’t a wall at all.

  “You found it Jim!”

  “No handle,” he said feeling around. Closely, they inspected the area for clues and soon enough found the entire seam—only a few millimeters thick—and a large rectangle bar cleverly disguised as molding around the ceiling. In comparison to the rest of the trim that encircled the freezer Jim noticed it looked different directly above the door. He tried pulling it, sliding it. Nothing. He used his crowbar and the molding broke away. Beneath it were latches. He took the one on the right and Rico the left. It was stuck, didn’t budge, so he tapped the latch with his crowbar and it made a cracking sound through the side of the door all the way to the floor. He went over to struggling Rico and took care of his latch too. Crack. And more light flooded in through the vertical seems, as well the top. Next he pushed on the sides of the door, kicked the bottom; damn. And he got impatient. “Stand back Rico.” Jim took a few steps back then barreled forward delivering his whole body into it. The wall gave way from the top. Whoosh, air whispered in. It was hinged on the bottom! Together they pushed the top and the wall fell slowly. They jumped on and rode it down to a dusty metal floor. They entered a cube-shaped room not much bigger than the eight by eight foot drop-down door itself. It had a single dim emergency light and another deeply inset door; aside it was a keypad. The walls looked as impenetrable as those of a bank vault; Jim thought of his post-war home.

  “If it wasn’t for this cracked seal,” Rico said kneeling down, examining the door. “Finding this could’ve been a lot more difficult.” The crumbling seal had let a hint of light seep into the freezer. He noticed another similar door on the right and went over to inspect it. He blew the dust to expose a seam and worked his way up. “This place is full of secrets,” he said, seeming a tad more curious than usual. “We must be right behind the control room and I’ll bet this door goes to the back of its supply room. Would be a hell of a shortcut.” He turned to Jim excitedly.

  Jim tried his crowbar on the inner latches but they didn’t budge. With a flattened a smile he said, “No such luck. Latches on the inside, look, same as this one, looks exactly the same. It probably has to be unlatched from the other side first. No time to mess around Rico. Enter the code, we have to hurry.”

  “Right.” He shook off his newfound wonder and rushed over to the keypad. The panel appeared lifeless but he blew off the dust and entered the code anyway. Nothing happened. They waited a little longer, still, nothing. He tried it again.

  The look on Jim’s face: anger, disappointment, and he thought of Felix. The whole thing really was just fantastical dream created by Rico and his own pent-up mind: life in the boring control room, logging in after such a long time, an imagination finally liberated, and a map with less boundaries and rules—that’s all. Fuck! “We’ve just fooled ourselves,” Jim said. “Now we’re all doomed. Felix wasn’t your father, the entire thing was all in our minds—your mind mostly.
This proves it—that damn code is made up. We fucked up royally and now the entire town is going to pay the price. Special fucking map, jeez.” Jim vented; like his old self, full of anger.

  But Rico wasn’t totally convinced. It had felt so real to him, and now he was somewhat entranced by a newfound curiosity. It was there like a feather falling onto him, gently teasing his mind. He barely heard Jim’s frustrations. He looked up, and around, thinking, curiously, abstractly. Then, coming back, noticing Jim’s ongoing rant, a faint sliver of doubt crept into his mind. His subconscious hadn’t completely turned a deaf ear to the idea, as terrible as it would be. It leaked into his thoughts, and for a fraction of a second he thought, Maybe Jim is right. He looked around with diluted hope. He knows the dream world better than anyone. Maybe we did fool our— And then he spotted it.

  “Wait Jim, look here!” Rico announced squashing Jim’s tirade. A steel tube ran along the edge of the dusty old box of a room. Rico noticed it led to the base of the steel freezer door: a switch! “It makes sense. Jim, help me lift. Basic security, the builders didn’t want both doors to be open at the same time.” They heaved.

  “This thing made of lead?” Jim strained. Veins popped and their faces flushed red but after the halfway point it got easier. It clicked shut and there were inner locks. The locks slid the opposite way. “I bet these locks prevent the outside locks from moving. Smart builders.”

  After sliding both locks the keypad illuminated. And although they’d gotten used to it, the putrid smell dissipated with the freezer sealed off. Untainted, they could now enjoy the dusty stale air.