by Judd Vowell
"I guess I never lost my will to help people. All people. That's what doctors are supposed to do. Regardless of color, creed, or circumstances, our promise is to help. For the past year, I could turn a blind eye to what was happening out in the dark, because I couldn't actually see it. But now I've seen what the darkness has done, Salvador. To all of us."
The doctor’s office door suddenly swung open. Simone stood in the opening, out of breath.
“What is it?” Salvador asked, agitated.
“It’s the girl,” Simone said. “They’ve sent an ambulance after the girl. She’s unconscious again.”
Salvador walked close to Dr. Raj, staring into his face from just a few inches away. “Did you do this?” he asked softly.
Dr. Raj couldn’t keep a smile from forming on his lips. “Compassion comes in many forms, Salvador,” he answered.
Salvador turned to Simone. “To the jail. Now. That girl goes nowhere but back to this hospital. Got it?” Simone nodded and took off. “I hope you didn’t promise anyone the impossible, Raj,” Salvador said. “I’ll kill them all before I let them out of this grid.”
The doctor stared at Salvador without saying anything more. Salvador was serious. His old friend was changing, becoming irrational from a combination of power and paranoia. And Dr. Raj wasn’t sure if he’d bought his new friends any time at all.
30.
T he planned time for the emergency call was 7:45 AM, give or take a minute or two. That meant that Dr. Raj would have to be in the ambulance bay by 7:40. But he wasn’t. Archer and Laz were waiting, dressed in the white paramedic shirts and dark pants that the doctor had provided. Another minute went by, and still no Dr. Raj.
“He should be here by now,” Laz said.
“Like I don’t know that,” Archer replied.
“Well, what are we gonna do if that call comes in and he’s still not here?”
“I don’t know,” Archer said.
“You better know quick,” Laz said, looking at his watch. “It’s 7:42.”
After years of military doctrine, Archer’s brain functioned like a machine. His decisions were typically black or white. He avoided the grays that could slow him down. If a bad choice was made, the consequences could be handled. But there was nothing worse in his mind than indecision.
The call came at 7:44, and Dr. Raj had not arrived. “We got this one,” Archer told the ambulance dispatcher. Then he turned to Laz. “The doc’s on his own, Laz. Let’s go.”
ΔΔΔ
The unencumbered drive from Sector 3’s hospital to its courthouse took Archer and Laz only two minutes. They parked the ambulance at the bottom of the ornate marble steps that led to the old building’s doors. As Laz pushed the medical gurney up the sidewalk that ran alongside the stairs, he said quietly to Archer, “I don’t like this. Dr. Raj should’ve been there.”
“I know,” Archer said. “Just stay aware of your surroundings. This thing’ll all be over in no time.”
They entered the courthouse, where one of their soldier friends was waiting. He showed them to the basement door. “I’ll keep an eye out up here,” he told them. “Make it quick.”
They guided the gurney down the basement steps, the sound of its wheels echoing off the underground chamber’s walls with each bounce and bang. Jacob and their other soldier friend helped them into Jessica’s cell once they got there. Each of the four men grabbed a corner of the sheet she was laying on, then lifted her over to the lowered gurney. While Archer and Laz pretended to check on Jessica’s vitals and prepared her for transport, Jacob reached to the underside of the gurney, where the extra Omega XT uniform had been hidden. He walked to Anna’s cell and unlocked it. This would be the first blatantly suspicious act of the scheme, but it had to be done.
“Here,” he said to her as he handed her the uniform. “Fast.”
She nodded, understanding her part of the plan without further explanation. She hurriedly pulled the uniform over her prisoner’s jumpsuit. Then she placed the standard Omega XT mask and goggles over her face, and finally the helmet. She stepped into the black combat boots and laced them as quickly as she could, her fingers shaking uncontrollably. She could hear herself breathing inside the insulated mask, and it unnerved her. She closed her eyes and focused.
Jacob touched her shoulder, startling her. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Ok, stay right behind me. You’re in the backseat of the humvee when we get there,” he instructed.
The group moved to the stairs and then up. At the top, the soldier still standing guard reassured them. “All clear,” he said.
“Very good,” Archer said. “To the vehicles. Double-time.”
Archer and Laz trotted on each side of the gurney carrying Jessica toward the ambulance. The others diverted as they left the courthouse, running to the side of the building where their humvee had been parked the night before. Each group loaded themselves into their escape vehicles and began the final part of the mission.
The humvee came around the corner and pulled up next to the ambulance. Archer and Laz were waiting in the ambulance’s cab, with a still unconscious Jessica positioned behind them. Jacob leaned over the humvee’s driver and yelled to Archer. “Where’s Dr. Raj?”
“Don’t know,” Archer answered. “He never showed.”
“Shit,” Jacob said. “So be it. Let’s go.”
As the last phrase was leaving his mouth, Archer saw something in his peripheral vision. A blur of a vehicle speeding toward them. “What the hell…?”
Jacob turned and looked over his shoulder, where he saw a military-style jeep moving at top speed. And then he saw the unmistakable long black hair flowing behind Simone’s head as she stood in the bed of the jeep, directing the vehicle’s gunner to aim his weapon directly at them.
31.
S alvador locked the doctor’s office door behind Simone after she left. Then he pulled a laptop from a bag that was sitting on the office floor.
“Sit down, Raj,” he said firmly. “Let’s watch this unfold together. Let's see just where that compassion of yours takes us.”
Dr. Raj sat in one of the chairs at his desk, and Salvador sat beside him. Salvador set the computer on his desk and opened it. After typing in a password and maneuvering the cursor to a specific application, a virtual bank of security camera feeds appeared on the laptop’s screen. The images were black and white, but clear. Dr. Raj recognized the design of the basement jail immediately.
There was commotion on the screens that showed the areas closest to Anna and Jessica’s cells. Jacob and an Omega XT soldier were fretting over an unconscious Jessica. Dr. Raj knew exactly what was about to happen next.
“The girl doesn’t look too good, Raj,” Salvador said. “I sure hope the paramedics get there in time."
Dr. Raj looked at Salvador with a look of both perception and confusion. He could tell what Salvador was thinking, but he still couldn't fully understand how the ANTI- leader had reached such deplorability. Salvador’s mocking tone had suggested that he knew what was coming, but also that he wanted Jessica to die. It was apparent to Dr. Raj now that he had been naïve about Salvador’s level of paranoia, and all he could do was watch as his co-conspirators walked into their own self-destruction.
Dr. Raj looked back at the laptop’s screen. Archer and Laz appeared on the video feed nearest the basement stairs, leading a gurney to Jessica’s cell.
“And the heroes have arrived,” Salvador said with sarcasm.
After they transferred Jessica to the gurney, Jacob moved to Anna’s cell with an Omega XT uniform, then went inside and gave it to her. Salvador’s eyes squinted as he tried to comprehend what was happening. The ultimate realization that a scheme to escape was in motion, and had been all along, hit him.
“Damn you, Jacob,” he said to the screen. Dr. Raj could see a real moment of disappointment come over Salvador. But it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Salvador reached
into his coat’s interior pocket and retrieved a cell phone. He instructed the phone to call Simone. When she answered, her voice was nearly inaudible, drowned out by the wind and noise generated from her speeding jeep.
“Simone,” he shouted into the phone’s microphone. A muffled “yes” came through its speaker. “It’s a ruse. They’re attempting an escape.”
The words of her full response were broken into fragments, but her last question came through clearly. “What do you want me to do?”
Salvador's response was direct, and it put real fear into Dr. Raj’s soul. “Kill them all,” he said.
And the doctor knew that Simone would try to do just that.
32.
T he first spray of bullets from the jeep’s .50-caliber machine gun cut a line across the passenger side of the humvee. The soldier sitting in the backseat next to Anna was hit twice, in his leg and then his neck. He slumped over into her lap, dying instantly. Another shot narrowly missed Jacob’s head as it entered the window next to him and traveled through the vehicle’s windshield. Other bullets tore through the humvee’s cab and hit the ambulance on the other side.
“Drive!!!” Jacob screamed before another round of machine-gun fire came at them. The humvee’s driver pushed its gas pedal to the floor, spinning the back wheels with a loud squeal before they grabbed the road and threw the vehicle in motion. Laz did the same with the ambulance. He fell in line with the vehicle in front of him just as another volley of bullets pierced the ambulance’s rear compartment. Archer looked behind him and saw that Jessica was still safely in place and unharmed by the attack.
“Holy shit!” Laz yelled without taking his eyes off the humvee’s back bumper. “Where did that come from?”
“I think we know now why the doc never made it,” Archer said. “They must’ve gotten to him this morning. They’ll be waiting for us at the border, too. We’re gonna have to bust through…” The sound of more gunfire cut him off mid-sentence. “…if we make it there.”
The humvee’s driver stayed with the planned route away from the old courthouse, through the grid, and approaching the border at what Jacob had perceived was its weakest spot. The trek required three turns, and they made them all at full speed. Laz was able to keep up in the ambulance, but it took every bit of his driving skill to do it. Simone’s jeep chased them without reprieve, unleashing an almost constant stream of bullets.
As they angled around the final corner, Jacob saw from the passenger seat that the Omega XT border guards had been alerted. They had positioned two vehicles sideways at the edge of the last intersection, blocking a clear path out of the grid. The soldiers themselves were set up behind the vehicles, their guns drawn and ready to be fired.
“Don’t stop now!” Jacob yelled at the driver, just as the Omega XT’s first bullets began to hit the front of the humvee. Jacob lowered his head in an instinctual reaction. The driver’s foot never let off the gas pedal, even after the bullet that killed him ripped through his forehead. The vehicle lurched left as the driver’s body slumped onto the steering wheel. Without words, Anna and Jacob acted in unison. She reached around the front seat with both of her arms and yanked the driver’s body back toward her. Jacob grabbed the steering wheel once it was uncovered and turned it straight again. They were half a block from the border by then, with nowhere to go but straight through it.
The impact almost tore Jacob’s hands away from the steering wheel, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins gave him the strength to be superhuman, at least for a moment. He held tightly from the passenger seat as they hit the Omega XT’s improvised roadblock in its only vulnerable spot. The two front corners of their humvee collided with the roadblocked vehicles’ front wheels, pushing them aside with such power and ease that Jacob maintained his humvee’s balance just by holding the steering wheel straight. They had cleared an opening for Laz, who drove the ambulance through without hesitation.
Jacob knew that Simone would follow, along with an eventual army of Omega XT soldiers. He needed to get in the driver seat, but he couldn’t do it by himself.
“Can you reach the door handle?” he yelled to Anna.
“Maybe,” she responded. She held the dead soldier’s body with her right arm and stretched for the handle with her left. She managed to grab it with just her forefinger, pulling it with a muscle she didn’t know she had. The door flung open and tried to swing back closed, but Jacob had already pushed the dead soldier into its opening. The body held in a prostrate position for a second, then fell headfirst onto the street. Jacob leapt into the driver seat and pressed the gas pedal back down to the floor.
“Now what?” Anna said from the backseat.
“Now you start shooting back,” he said. He slid the vehicle to the right and abruptly slowed it down, allowing Laz and Archer’s ambulance to pass him. Then he moved in position behind them.
The humvee’s backseat was stocked with weapons. Anna grabbed an automatic assault rifle off the vehicle’s gun rack and used the butt of it to break the back glass. She saw a group of three military jeeps gaining ground behind them. She raised the assault rifle and began to fire defensive bursts at the lead jeep, where she could see Simone’s profile standing next to its gunner. Simone ducked to avoid the return fire, and Anna couldn’t help but smile.
As the pursuing jeeps got closer, all three ANTI- gunners opened fire on Jacob and Anna. Their accuracy was hampered by the high speed of the chase, but Anna realized quickly that just one precise shot could end their escape. She had to stop them fast.
She took aim with her assault rifle at the jeep on her left, pointing the weapon at its front driver-side tire. She pulled the trigger twice in succession and sent two volleys of bullets at her target. She watched through her guided scope as the first of her bullets slammed into the jeep’s grille and front headlight. Then she saw the jeep’s front tire explode. Just as she had hoped, the jeep veered sharply toward the other two. It caught the rear half of the lead jeep, spinning Simone and her other passengers out of control. Then it smashed into the third jeep’s side, sending it into the air and flipping it upside down until it came to rest on its roof. The first jeep’s engine compartment burst into flames at impact. Omega XT soldiers leapt from its open doors seconds before the vehicle exploded. Simone’s jeep continued to spin until it careened into the glass front of a former department store and disappeared from Anna’s view. She turned around and leaned into the front seat so that Jacob could hear her. “We’re good,” she said. “For now.”
Jacob looked in his rearview mirror and saw a giant plume of black smoke and nothing more. He sped the humvee up beside the ambulance, where he gave Archer a signal to follow. Then he moved in front of him and set his course for the sanctuary of Camp Overlord.
33.
A s the jailbreak unfolded, Dr. Raj became truly afraid of Salvador, but not for himself. His fear lay with Anna and Jessica, and also with Jacob and the soldiers who were risking their lives to save them. He tried to reserve his fear and hide it from Salvador because his intuition told him that Salvador wanted him to be afraid. And he didn't want to give his old friend the satisfaction.
“This was your idea, Raj,” Salvador said as he closed the laptop. “It’s got your signature all over it. I knew you had a soft spot for the girl when I intervened. But I guess I didn’t know that it would lead you to choose mutiny. You’ve gone too far.”
“It was the only choice I had,” Dr. Raj said.
“No, Raj, it wasn’t. You could have come to me. I respected you.”
“You only respect the revolution, Salvador, and you know it. This could never have been your intention. The death out there and everyone’s apathy toward it. We all knew there would be sacrifice, but it’s become something different. And you have, too.”
Salvador stood and put the laptop back into its case. As he did, he pulled a large knife from one of the case’s side pockets. Then he turned to face Dr. Raj, keeping the knife in his left hand and hidden from t
he doctor’s view. “I don’t know what to do with you, Raj. You’ve put me in a bind.” He walked toward the doctor, extending his empty right hand. “For now, I’ll just say good-bye.”
Dr. Raj stood from his chair and took Salvador’s hand in his, afraid but defiant. Salvador pulled him close, as if to hug him. With his grip firmly in place, he slowly slid the knife into the doctor’s side, just below his ribs. Dr. Raj gasped without sound. His medical expertise told him that the knife’s blade had penetrated his liver and, once Salvador twisted it, done irreparable damage. He knew that he would rapidly bleed from the fresh gash in his body when Salvador pulled the knife out. And he knew that he would die that morning on his office floor.
After a few seconds, Salvador removed the knife's blade slowly, and Dr. Raj fell to the floor. Not yet dead, Dr. Raj watched helplessly as Salvador cleaned the blood from his knife and placed it back into the case. Then Salvador opened the office door and left, and no more words in the doctor’s life were ever said.
As the physical world around him began to fade, Dr. Raj felt peaceful. He had always been ready for death, ready to move into the next stage of existence. His religion had taught him that it was a passage into something greater for his being. And now he could pass into it with a satisfied spirit, because he could suddenly see that his new friends had managed to escape.
34.
T he journey from the Sector 3 grid to Camp Overlord took almost two hours. With the bridge blown out, Jacob led the group north to another highway that would eventually wind back toward the camp, bringing them to it from the east. Jessica began to wake from her Propofol-induced sleep as they drove, and Archer moved into the back of the ambulance to look after her. When she opened her eyes, his unfamiliar face startled her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m one of the good guys now.”
