The man motioned behind her and she picked them up and returned them to their sheathes.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Did my weapons not give you a clue? Not only am I fully armed but I’m damned dangerous, you stupid shit.” She looked out the door. “If you killed just one of those coyotes, I’m going to kill you. Now lay still.”
He couldn’t move if he wanted to. He was still gasping and gagging for breath, his shoulder burned, and he was scared out of his mind. In all of his conflicts of trying to stay alive he had never run into anyone like her.
She rolled him over on his stomach and zip-tied his hands behind his back. Then rolled him back onto his back and then dragged him over to the wall and pulled him into a sitting position.
“You sit there until my head clears—wouldn’t happen to have any coffee would you?”
The stranger didn’t reply but his eyes said it all, he had stumbled onto one insane woman.
“Damn it! I hate being woken up like that. And don’t say another fucking word until my head clears. You son of a bitch.”
She rolled and packed her sleeping bag and shrugged her arms into the straps of her pack and tugged until she had it up and buckled. She stepped out the door and looked over to her bikes. They were where she left them, apparently untouched.
She went back into the closet. Grabbed one of the power bars that had fallen out when she fed the coyotes and began eating it.
“You alone?” She asked between bites. The man nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Winston.”
“Well, Winston, what makes you roam the streets of Dallas alone. Keep in mind that if you lie to me, I will go ahead and kill you. So I’m going to ask again. Are you alone?”
“No. My family is out back.”
“Family?”
“Wife and kid.”
“Wife and kid. You have a wife and you’re fondling my tits.” He nodded. “You’re an asshole, Winston.” She balled up the wrapper from the power bar, tossed it at him and it ricocheted off of his forehead. “Ok, this is the way it’s going to be, Winston. I’m going to drag you up to your feet and then we’re going out back. If you really have a wife and kid, other than me telling your wife that you’re a sleaze, I’ll let you live. But let me tell you, Winston, if there is someone out there that isn’t a wife or a kid, I’ll shoot them through the back of your head. Tell me, Winston, who’s out there?”
Winston gulped.
“Just what I thought. To conserve my bullets, I’m going to kill you with your own gun.” She clicked the hammer back. “Last chance Winston…”
“It is his wife and kid,” a woman said. “And he is a sleaze… but he’s my sleaze, so please let him live.”
Jasmine turned to the voice and it was a young woman not much older than Jasmine, and she was carrying a baby strapped to her chest. Jasmine lowered the pistol and looked at her for a moment. She then looked at the baby, who looked as hungry as anyone she had ever seen.
“What in God’s name are you doing out here?” Jasmine asked. She then approached the woman. “I know you, you’re… you’re Shelly… You worked in the commissary.”
Cracking a slight but crooked smile, Shelly said, “Jasmine?”
Jasmine gave Shelly a brief hug. Then kissed the baby on the cheek. “Sammy, right? Hi, baby boy.” She then kissed him again. “What in the hell is going on, Shelly?”
“Like you, we’re looking for the Pharmacist,” Winston said from behind her. “You don’t think you’re the only person capable do you?”
“And you think you are,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “I’m stunned you made it this far, and if you let a woman who is half your size take you down, what do you think a bunch of dopers will do to you—and how in the hell did you get this far?”
“We’ve been following you,” Shelly answered. “I knew you’d clear a path for us.”
Jasmine dropped her pack and took out another power bar and gave it to Sammy. She then took what looked to be an old soup or soda can and put a little water in it, shook it clean. She threw the water on Winston, and put a little more water in it and gave it to Shelly. “Sammy will need it when he’s done with the bar.”
Jasmine then went back to Winston and kicked him in the leg. “You stupid son of a bitch, that’s for bringing a child with you!” He yelled out and she kicked him a second time. “And that’s for groping me, you bastard.”
She then turned to Shelly, who looked incredibly frightened, and said, “You can’t come with me, Shelly, you can’t. The chances of me surviving are slim, and to make it worst, I don’t care if I live or not. You, on the other hand, have a baby.”
Jasmine then turned and kicked Winston. She then handed Shelly Winston’s pistol and left.
Chapter 18
Downtown Dallas held no resemblance to the posters that Jasmine remembered and collected as a child. The ball atop Reunion Tower was gone. The building with the green lights that framed the outline, save for a few rusty beams at the top, had collapsed. The catastrophe of Dallas brought tears to her eyes. She remembered how much her mother loved living in Dallas and hated moving to Kansas. In fact it was one of the reasons she joined the Impact Analysis and Design team, the team that designed and constructed the underground cities throughout the world. Had they gone west to the City of Texas she might be alive today, maybe even her father, too, had things been different.
She lay on her stomach, hidden in the midst of several downed buildings on Junius St., looking through her binoculars at the remains of the Baylor Medical Center where the Last Pharmacist was supposed be hidden, where his drugs were supposedly produced. Also beneath the center was an abandoned railway track that at one time was used for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. The tunnels had survived and Jasmine suspected so had the rails. She believed it was the main hub and distribution center. From the looks of the guards that surrounded the building, the facility was still intact and still in business.
She dropped her head in her hands wondering what she was going to do now. In her haste and hatred she hadn’t thought far enough nor even planned as to what would happen when she got Dallas. She really didn’t believe she would make it, let alone have a solid plan.
She backed out of the fallen building and hurried over to the dirt bike, mounted, it and sped off in the direction of Malcolm X Boulevard in the direction of an entrance that her Uncle Baul had given her. No one knew the condition of the entrance to the tunnel but it was a start. No one really knew if the drug were being produced here but as many had tried, this was where they failed.
She got as far as walking distance and stopped and then laid the bike on its side, hidden in the middle of weeds and brick.
The sun, what she could see of it, had set, turning the golden haze into a dusky brown. The air was thick with putrid odors left from the fallout. The scientists were unsure how long the odor would last or what potential damage was hidden behind the odor but predicted another year, maybe two before everything would dissipate. The cities were in the planning stages. The outposts that Angela would lead would play an important role in the protection of the construction of the new US. Jasmine hoped they’d be in Hawaii soon after.
Crouched, Jasmine darted across an open field and then dove into the dark entrance where she rolled down the steps and onto the entrance to the loading area.
She lay there for a moment, looking around, and then slowly got to her feet. She then went deeper into the tunnel toward the entrance to the medical center. She crept into the darkness as if she knew where she was going. As if she had a clue where to go.
And deeper into the bowels beneath the medical center sat the factory that formulated and manufactured all of the medication used within the US and, along with those legal medications, the synthetic Heroin was produced, boxed, and mailed to mail centers within the underground cities.
Jasmine managed to open a door that led even deeper into the facility to a stairwell that wound down as far as she could
see. She couldn’t imagine a facility that could have been created without government knowledge, especially such a place beneath a medical center. Surely there had to be records. She stopped and pulled a schematic of the center and looked it over. Nowhere in the schematic was there a stairwell.
She listened. No alarms, nor anyone chasing her. This was too easy and she wondered if it were a setup.
Down she went.
It wasn’t until she had gone down ten or so flights of stairs did she realize there were cameras on each level.
She froze.
“You’re reputation precedes you, Officer Cooper,” said the speaker near the camera.
“Good. You were expecting me,” Jasmine answered in a cool and calm manner, but on the inside she was nearly leaping out of her skin.
“I took the precaution to let you in,” the speaker continued. “Otherwise security would have killed you immediately.”
“Huh?” Jasmine mumbled barely above a whisper.
“All doors are locked except for the entrance to my room. You can go back up. Of course if you do that you I’m afraid I’ll have to sound the alarm and you’ll stand a good chance of being captured, or worse, killed. Or, you can continue down.”
Jasmine tried the door and found it locked.
“Look through the window and you’ll see a security guard. If you were able to make it through that door you would be shot immediately.”
Jasmine looked through the door and quickly took a step back. Two armed guards stood at the door, but what frightened her more than seeing two armed men were the fact they were dressed in as Gendarmerie Police, complete with the City of Texas insignia.
“But they’re… they’re police.”
“Yes, and what did you expect?”
“I’m not sure,” Jasmine wondered aloud. She certainly was not expecting Gendarmerie Police. “And if I come down?”
“Then we’ll discuss why you’re trying so hard to get here. You managed to neutralize Owen but I fail to understand why you’re coming here to the facility as if to close us down.”
“You don’t understand?”
“No.”
“Do you even realize what you are doing?”
“No.”
Jasmine hung her head as if she were speaking to an unemotional idiot. No one could be this stupid.
She went down.
Chapter 19
Thirty floors below the surface was a factory beyond anything Jasmine had ever seen. Legal and certified Lab and Pharmaceutical Technicians moved in and around each room, and beyond the workers were conveyor belts with packaged drugs—drugs that she had recognized—in various stages, and as Jasmine followed the route no one made an attempt to stop her. She passed several Gendarmerie Police who merely nodded. One stopped and shook her hand, “We’re all rooting for you, Jaz. Every cop from every city is rooting for you.”
Jasmine was stunned. So stunned, she didn’t know how to reply. How could these people not know that the drug was being manufactured in a building they were protecting?
For fear of mentioning what she was thinking, she merely nodded and moved on. At the end of the building she witnessed the final stage of preparation and delivery.
“Who’s in charge here,” Jasmine asked a lab technician donned in a white lab coat with a Sheldon Pharmaceutical, Inc. patch sewn on the left breast, who merely shrugged and moved off into a lab.
“I am in charge,” said a voice that came from a speaker at the end of the hall. “Two doors down on the left is an office. The door is unlocked and waiting. Would you care for a beverage, perhaps something to eat? Your journey has been long and we’re excited to finally meet.” As she continued down the hall the voice continued, “It was exciting news to hear about Owen and his renegades being disposed of, and the many lives you saved. As I understand it, Lieutenant Tanner has already begun prepping to build the outpost you recommended. I must say we are very excited to finally meet.”
Jasmine stopped at the door, and when she did, the voice that had sent chills down her spine earlier stopped as well. She turned the knob, expecting to be killed and slowly pulled her shotgun.
“Your weapon is not required Ms. Cooper. You are safe here.”
She eased the Mossberg back into its holster and pushed the door open.
The room was empty, but within a minute or two a woman came through the door and set a tray down on the table. On the tray was of all things, a Coca Cola, a bag of chips, and what looked to be a club sandwich.
“I took the liberty of choosing for you. The sandwich is fresh, however I am not sure about the bag of potato chips. My records do not indicate the date and time they were delivered. We track shipments in an out but we do not register the date an item was made or packaged.”
Jasmine turned and finally saw the face of a young man, in his twenties, not much older than she. He had long blond hair and reminded her of Eric Cotter. She looked closely at the monitor for a moment and then finally said, “Eric? Eric Cotter?”
“Have we met? I do not recall meeting you,” Eric responded.
“We met…” Jasmine tried to answer, but the whole conversation was confusing. How could Eric Cotter be here, and how could he be the Last Pharmacist?
“Please sit. Your coke is getting warm, and your sandwich will spoil, and under our current dilemma we cannot afford to waste food. Even if it is stale,” said Eric in a more forceful tone.
“I could not agree more, please forgive me,” Jasmine said while sitting down. “I’m afraid I’m somewhat tired, exhausted.”
“That is very understandable. I’ll wait until you catch your breath. Please eat. I will be back shortly,” Eric said, and then the monitor went blank.
“What the…” Jasmine wondered aloud. She then opened the coke and took a drink and actually smiled when the drink burned her throat a little. It had been at least ten years, probably more since she had tasted a carbonated drink. She then bit into the club sandwich and nearly swooned; the turkey was fresh, the cheese was cheesy, and the bacon, lettuce and tomato were crisp. She couldn’t believe what she tasted. She took another drink of her coke, and then opened the bag of chips. They were stale but she ate the salty snack with enjoyment. She expected to walk into the middle of a firefight and was actually sitting and having a meal. Not a last meal, I hope, Jasmine thought as she took another bite of the sandwich.
* * * * *
Thirty minutes later the monitor blinked on and Eric Cotter returned. “I trust your meal was sufficient.”
“Even more so, thank you for your generosity and hospitality,” Jasmine answered, still unsure of what was going on.
“I wish I could have served a healthier meal but our cafeteria closes at nine postmeridian, but have no fear it will be open at six antemeridian for breakfast, which I am sure you will enjoy. From what I understand we serve meals that are beyond reproach.”
“I’m sure,” Jasmine said. She then looked at the door. “What’s on the other side of that door?”
“I’m afraid that area is off limits, Ms. Cooper, even for someone of your caliber. Security. I’m sure you understand.”
“And if I barge in?”
“You will be taken into custody, and maybe killed if you refuse. But please, let’s not do that. I’m excited that you have taken the time to come to see me however I am afraid I do not understand the meaning of this visit.”
“How, how can you not understand. Do you know why I’ve left the City of Kansas?”
“Yes. To take out Owen and his men, and bravo, you did it. Along with you and Lieutenant Tanner you have made passage between Kansas and Oklahoma safe, and I presume from Oklahoma to Texas, or should I say if they let you, you will clear a safer route. Bravo, I say, bravo.”
“I’m afraid you still do not understand—wait, wait a minute—you don’t understand because you’re not Eric Cotter,” Jasmine said with a tone of excitement. Although the voice was an exact match his mannerism and expressions never changed. Even
when he became excited his expression remained exactly as it had the moment he came on the monitor.
“You saw through my façade. Bravo again, Ms. Cooper, it seems I’ve been able to perform this charade for years without being discovered.” There was a pause as if the face on the monitor was thinking. “I am AI9000. I’m an artificial intelligence knowledge base system designed to generate and distribute pharmaceutical medication throughout the United States. I was created and implemented before the impact and am able to have all medication delivered through all obstacles, human and nature, and have done so impeccably.”
“Yes you have,” Jasmine said, but then continue, “And when someone who has not been authorized to enter the facility, they’re killed.”
“As I was instructed to do,” AI9000 said in his typical manner but without inflection and expression. “They are given the option to leave and if they refuse, yes I’m afraid they are then shot. We are a medical facility, not a prison. We do not have the ability to house the criminals that have come to rob or take over the facility.”
Jasmine paced. She could not believe a computer was creating the drugs, and more so, the same computer was killing anyone who tried to stop it. “Question?” Jasmine said.
“Of course,” AI9000 answered.
“Why did you let me in?”
“Simple. My developer, Eric Cotter, as you so awkwardly believed I was, instructed me to,” AI9000 answered.
Jasmine sat down and dry washed her face. She then grabbed the napkin from her tray and wiped her eyes and then her forehead all the while wondering how Eric had made contact. Communications between the cities were a must but not a medical facility in an area that wasn’t secure.
“How… How did Eric contact you? I thought all communications outside of the cities were gone. I didn’t think…”
“No-no. I communicate with all cities. I accept telecom input from all cities and in turn I can transmit. Of course, they log an automated order more than I make a request out. Inventory control.”
4POCALYPSE - Four Tales Of A Dark Future Page 19
