by Jack Wallen
“Richard’s right,” Jamal interrupted Morgan’s discourse. “It’s time we take back the power.”
I interlaced my fingers with Jamal’s and looked deep into the void of his eyes. “That’s fine, J-Mart. But I think it best if you let me or Richard do the talking.”
Jamal melted in my hands. “You’re right, B. I’d probably go beast mode on the bitch.”
“And not one of us would blame you,” Gerrand added. “However, Bethany is only partially right. I believe I should take point on this one.”
We all agreed and left Jamal to his mad, mad science.
Back in the war room, Rizzo rocked Jacob, Echo was listening intently to the clicks and pops spilling from the speakers, and Raneesha rested her head on a pillow of her folded arms.
“What’s going on?” Echo asked excitedly.
Gerrand nodded at the bank of radios. “Would you mind terribly to turn that bloody noise off, dear?”
Echo nodded and did as asked.
“Raneesha,” Gerrand stated firmly. “We need to speak with you.”
The woman slowly sat up, shaking her head and wiping any residual saliva from the corners of her mouth. “Yeah? I’m all ears.”
“What is your agenda?” Gerrand asked.
Raneesha shook her head and blinked nervously. “I don’t understand.”
I’d worked far too many social engineering schemes not to recognize the patterns associated with lying. She couldn’t hide a single unspoken truth from me. I turned my attention to Gerrand. When he glanced back, I shook my head.
Gerrand returned his focus on the woman. “We know you’re one of the Thelemites.”
The accusation stood Raneesha up straight and rigid.
“There it is,” I whispered. My words caught Raneesha’s attention. She shot a cold glare my way. I returned the ice-gaze ten-fold. “Better the devil you know,” I added.
“I will ask you again,” Gerrand said with his usual British calm. “What is your agenda?”
“Do what thou wilt—”
“Shall be the whole of the law,” Richard completed the mantra. “I’ve read Crowley’s book. In fact, I studied his work during my time in university. Did you know it is rumored the man was a spy for the British Intelligence Agency?” Gerrand laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a real kick in the teeth? To think the man to which you attribute your very way of life was actually part of the system so many of you rebel against. That’s the stuff of Bond films, don’t you think?”
Raneesha drew in a deep breath and nearly sucked her cheeks together with anger.
“Let me put this to you in words you can fully comprehend…” Richard continued his impersonation of a bad-ass. I was sold on the act and fairly certain everyone else in the room was, as well. “We’re going to hold you hostage until we have the Alpha cure in our hands. If that cure isn’t delivered, I guess you’ll be spending the rest of your life inside the walls of this house.”
“You won’t do it,” Raneesha responded.
Gerrand chuckled, the sound of his laughter out of character from his normal, stoic self. “Oh, my dear, dear woman. How wrongly you have judged me.” Richard leaned in until his nose was inches from Raneesha’s. For the longest time, he didn’t speak, didn’t blink…didn’t so much as move. When Richard did finally open his mouth, the words spilled out in a calculated and devilish rhythm. “Do not pretend to know what I would and would not do. I’ve done things… things that would treat you to a never-ending stream of nightmares.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Maybe I should have introduced myself to you first. My name is Richard Gerrand. Does that ring familiar with you?”
Raneesha shook her head. “Should it? Are you famous?”
Gerrand sighed. “Fame is irrelevant now. Nevertheless, the virus that has crippled humanity? You know of it? The very thing that opened the floodgates to death and chaos? That was my doing…my fifteen minutes of fame. If I may be so bold as to say…I could do much, much worse.”
A cold and deadly chill raced up my spine and settled in for a rest at the juncture between sanity and madness. I really didn’t need or want the reminder of Gerrand’s past. Somehow, I’d managed to tuck that bit away for safekeeping. He’s on our side now, I reminded myself in the vacuum of silence.
“Care to speak a bit of truth now?” Gerrand’s question snatched me from my reverie. “Before I declare your DNA no longer off limits?”
A bead of sweat collected on Raneesha’s brow. She was about to break. In three…two…one…
“What do you need me to do?”
Boom.
Gerrand for the win.
“Is there a way to communicate with your leader?”
Raneesha tossed a hollow gaze at Gerrand for a moment and then reached into one of her vest pockets. When her hand returned, an old-school flip-phone rested in her palm. “I thought you said Dane was dead.”
“Until you see or hear him, the man is both alive and dead.” Gerrand grabbed the phone from Raneesha with a tilted smile on his lips. “Shall we find out?” Richard flipped the phone open. “Speed dial?”
Raneesha nodded. “Press and hold the one button.”
Gerrand did as told and then lifted the phone to his ear. After a moment, he spoke…his voice smooth as French silk. “No, but your lovely compatriot is very near. Who I am doesn’t matter just yet. What you are going to do, in order to have your dearest Raneesha returned to you, does.” Gerrand held the phone up toward Raneesha. “He needs to hear your voice. Say something nice. Give him a compliment; I hear men like that sort of thing.”
Raneesha flared her nostrils and said, “Do what thou…oh, to hell with it…baby, they’ve—”
Gerrand returned the phone to his ear and held up a hand to silence the rambling woman. “Satisfied? Good. Let me explain to you how this works. I know you plan on making a bid for the Alpha cure from the Zero Day Collective. You’re going to do everything in your power to make that purchase, and then you and I will make a trade—the cure for Raneesha. If you don’t agree to this deal, you will never see your lovely woman again. What say you…Dane?”
Gerrand shot me a glance and a wink. I hesitantly nodded. Honestly, I wasn’t okay with taking a hostage. Karma was sure to pimp-slap me later for this action. Truth be told, however, we had to do anything necessary to give humanity a leg up. If that meant holding an innocent woman against her will…
Innocent? Who was I kidding? This woman was directly involved with nearly killing Jamal. Fuck her.
And like that, I felt the last vestiges of innocence sucked from my soul. The apocalypse won that little battle; but it would not win the war.
“Trust me, Dane,” Gerrand continued, “I am not a man you should be trifling with.”
Gerrand stepped out of the room for a moment. When he returned, he held the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and a hypodermic in each hand. “Let me describe for you what is happening. In my left hand I hold a syringe that contains a rather nasty strain of the Mengele Virus. In my right hand I hold another syringe, inside of which is a little cocktail I call Fry. It is the original cure for the Mengele Virus. If injected in an infected human at the right time, it can cure them. Injected at the wrong time, well, let’s just say the outcome isn’t quite so lovely. Have you ever watched the movie Scanners? No? Too bad. It’s a delightful little horror flick from the eighties in which, with the help of mind control, people are able to make heads explode. Multiply that by a factor of ten and you get Fry. Should you not agree to my offer, I will first inject Raneesha with the syringe in my left hand and then I’ll wait a little too long to inject her with what I hold in my right hand. I’m fairly certain that is math even a Thelemite can handle. So…what do you say? Want to see your lovely Raneesha in one piece, or shall I ship her back to you in a bucket?”
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Raneesha cried out. “He’s serious, Dane! Don’t let me die like this.”
Gerrand nodded and tossed an affirmati
ve look my way. When he hung up, he placed the syringes on the table and pocketed the phone. He then picked up one of the needles, turned it toward him, opened his mouth, and sent the clear liquid into his gaping maw. “Just water.” He winked and continued. “However, I do have the real thing…and I am not afraid to use it.
“Josh,” Richard called out.
“Right here.” The burly man entered, sporting an apron and holding a frying pan.
“Keep an eye on this woman. Do not let her leave your sight.”
Josh dropped the pan onto the table with a clang. “Be my pleasure.”
“Bethany, follow me.” Gerrand made a dramatic exit and led me back to his room. Once inside, he shut the door behind us and cleared his throat. “Dane agreed. However…” A pause filled the room with massive doubt. I pulled a desk chair to me and sat, arms folded over my chest. Gerrand took a seat at the foot of his bed. “I don’t trust them. My guess is that the Thelemites will do everything they can to purchase the Alpha cure—”
“How do you know that?” I interrupted, crossing my arms.
“Why else would they have come nosing around here? The Zero Day Collective will show no interest in baubles, trinkets, and change. It seems the Thelemites have realized the ZDC will want currency worthy of the apocalypse.”
I leaned back in the chair. “And that would be?”
“You.”
I could have guessed that answer. The ZDC had been chasing me down since the death of Jacob Plummer. My guess was they wouldn’t rest until I was, once again, strapped to an operating table, ready for a round or two of slice and dice.
“What are you saying?” I dared ask.
“When the ZDC denies the Thelemites’ bid for the cure, Dane will add our location to sweeten the pot.”
A rush of hot breath was instantly stolen from my lungs. “Then why in the hell did you—”
Gerrand silenced me. “Because I plan on forcing Dane’s hand. The Thelemites will fight at our side when the ZDC arrives so we can take them down.”
“How do you know that?”
Richard’s stare iced over. “Because Dane wants Raneesha back.”
The realization of Gerrand’s was a slower burn that I cared to endure. When it finally dawned on me what he had up his sleeve, I wanted to both hug and slap the man.
“I want to state, for the record, I’m not okay holding that woman captive.”
Richard placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Absolutely no harm will come to her. That is a promise I will keep. I’ve done monstrous things, but I am not a monster.”
“So the plan is to get the cure from Dane and not follow through with our end of the bargain until the ZDC have been taken down…with the help of the Crowley groupies?”
Gerrand laughed unexpectedly. “I’m sorry…I realize it’s not funny.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” I responded through an explosion of my own belly laughs.
The door to Gerrand’s room burst open. Jamal leaned in and said, out of breath, “I’ve located them.”
“Who?” Richard and I both asked.
“The—whatever they are—Genesis Cradle; the source of the clicks and pops.”
Gerrand stood. “Where are they?”
Jamal stepped into the room and shut the door. He whispered, “Scattered over the area, but some are close…very close.”
Richard looked between me and Jamal. “We need to send a crew out, right away. One of those bastards has to be brought in…otherwise, having the Alpha cure will do us no good.” Gerrand pondered his next thought for a quick moment. “I suggest sending out Josh and Morgan for this task.”
“I don’t want them going at this by themselves,” I responded.
Gerrand shook his head. “You and Jamal just returned. You’re not one hundred percent. Neither one of you would be any help in your current state. Besides, we have no idea what we’re up against with those things. For all we know, they could be the next evolution of Screamers.”
I leaned in and whispered, “Those two just got married. I’m not about to send a couple who should be on their honeymoon to wage battle against an undead unknown. I’m sorry…it’s not going to happen.”
Gerrand nodded. The three of us fell into a motionless silence. Our numbers were too small to go to war at the moment. If we had the Thelemites on our side already or a Zombie Response Team unit nearby, things would be different. That, unfortunately, was not the case; Morgan had given me no indication there was a ZRT cavalry within the vicinity.
I felt useless. These people looked to me as their leader, and right now…I was lost. More than anything, I wanted to go fetal under a blanket for a year, or stuff my face with four pounds of dark chocolate and guzzle a box or two of wine.
“What I wouldn’t do for a first world problem about now,” Jamal mumbled. “Or a rousing Call of Duty session, where I could lure my opponent into a dark alley and…BAM!”
Gerrand and I both jumped at Jamal’s outburst. My heart settled back into its regularly scheduled rhythm and an idea burst into my conscious thought like middle-out compression through a gigahertz system bus. When I faced Jamal, he read my eyes.
“Son of a bitch, she’s got it,” Jamal said with a smile.
“She’s got what?” Gerrand asked, his voice layered with concern.
“The solution. That’s Bethany’s solution face.”
I nodded. “Jamal, I need you to figure out a way to communicate with the Chatterers.”
Jamal’s face went instantly slack. “How? It’s not even a recognized language. I may have mastered Klingon in a week; but it would take me years to decipher that code. Ghe”or mIw pagh.”
I ignored Jamal’s Klingon outburst. “You don’t have to actually speak with them. What I need you to do is speak at them…make them believe there is another one of their kind.”
Jamal leaned forward. “I’m listening.”
“If you can somehow re-create an effective facsimile of that language, it might draw one or more of them near enough that we can capture it without having to travel far.”
“But—” Gerrand started.
I halted his but in its tracks. “Jamal already proved the communication can be tracked. There’s no reason to think those bastards don’t have that same ability. Besides, if we try it and it fails, then we’ll send Josh and Morgan out on a hunt.”
It took a moment, but eventually Gerrand and Jamal succumbed to—at least—the novelty of my idea.
“I can cobble together a bash script that can check for patterns in the live stream, dump those snippets into smaller sound files, and then piece them together to create a burst of communication. We can then feed that file back into the radio and hope like hell the Chatterers take the bait.”
Gerrand nodded. “I think we have a plan. I also think we should prep Josh and Morgan, on the off-chance this plan of your fails. We don’t want to waste any time.”
“Fine,” I capitulated. “I’ll leave it up to you to be the bearer of bad tidings to the newlyweds.”
Gerrand sighed. “You’re so kind, Bethany.”
“I do my best,” I said with a wink, and followed Jamal out of the room.
We scooped up a laptop and made our way back into the war room. Josh was seated across the table from Raneesha, staring like a hardened jailer. Jamal went to work, first filling Rizzo in on the plan. He guided her through the setup of his make-shift recording studio and began capturing the Chatterer feed. The sound spilled from the speakers like the original score to Hell. Jamal sported a pair of Deadmau5-level headphones, doing his best DJ impersonation. I found the man smoldering hot at the moment—uber intellect meets smooth operating hipness. It had been a very long time since I wanted to crash his party.
As much as my libido begged for it to happen…now was not the time.
I auto-oppressed my hormones.
Damn the apocalypse.
Richard entered the room and asked for Josh to follow him. I stole a glance at Raneesha
. She shook her head and wiped at the initial rush of tears flowing down her cheeks. “I didn’t want any of this,” she whispered.
“No one did,” I answered.
“Not the apocalypse. That came out wrong. Thelema…the whole cult following. That wasn’t planned. Dane and I were both tenured professors in the department of African American studies. Our lives were perfect. We lived in an idyllic college town and had as much job security as could be afforded anyone in the country. Dane was working on a book, and I was about to do a stint abroad teaching at Cambridge. Then the virus hit. Somehow we wound up part of a group that decided it was time to shirk the moral compass of society and hand the power back to the individual. Turns out one of that group had been a big fan of Crowley’s and started, for lack of a better phrase, spreading the word. Dane and I got caught up in it all and, before we knew it, were shouting Do what thou wilt to the heavens. The group ran with it…much farther than we’d imagined. Eventually there was too much momentum and it all snowballed out of control. Once we realized we were a part of something that could protect us from the blinding entropy engulfing the planet, there was no choice.”
The ice broke and water gushed from below. Raneesha wasn’t some brainwashed lunatic; she was like every human on the planet…desperate to survive.
I reached my hand across the table. She met mine halfway and we sat, fingers entwined, for a long, meaningful moment.
“Will you work with us, Raneesha? We have a plan that could rid the world of some very bad men and women.”
Hesitation blinked across the woman’s eyes. Instead of pushing further, I waited for her to come to me. The silence stretched out, too long and too thin. Still I waited. This moment was far too important to pass over.
“Yes,” Raneesha said softly. “Provisionally.”
How could I not have seen that one coming? Given the circumstances, I couldn’t blame the woman for having demands. “I’m listening.”
“If we help you, you have to promise to leave New Salt Lake City. Dane has decided this little walled-off paradise is to be his kingdom and there is absolutely no way of changing his mind. I’m certain the only way I could get him to agree with your request is if you are willing to climb over the wall and never return.”
