by Mike Kraus
Hours later, Mr. Doe sends a final update to the nanobots, which instantly drop to the floor of their chamber. They tear into the raw materials, shaping and molding them into more of themselves, replicating at an incredible rate. Mr. Doe rolls his chair back from the console and stares at the machines, a look of determination etched across his face. Time is now his only obstacle, and while Mr. Doe is not a patient man, years of experience have helped him to channel his impatience into more productive avenues.
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
9:15 AM, April 11, 2038
The chilled air and grey skies that clung to the makeshift village stood in stark contrast to the warmth inside the greenhouse. Nancy stood in front of low tables with a small hand shovel in one hand and fertilizer in the other, carefully tending to the small plants that were peeking out of the dark, rich soil. She kept her head low and tried to ignore the women who spoke around her, doing her best to imagine that she was in a different place altogether.
Though there was no denying that they were trapped with little possibility of escape, Nancy had admitted to herself on more than one occasion that the people in the village were nothing if not friendly. Obsessed with their leader Samuel, fanatical about their beliefs and possessing a warped view of the world, yes, but still friendly. After the introductions had finished, the villagers had split Nancy and Leonard up, keeping them on opposite ends of the town for the last three days. The only times they were able to see and speak with each other was during meals and at night, a benefit provided to them from the lie Leonard had told Samuel about their marital status.
Separation of the sexes wasn’t abnormal for the villagers themselves. Most of the women focused on tending to the crops, organizing supplies, preparing meals and performing general upkeep on the village. The men were tasked with the more laborious jobs, the primary of which was the completion of the village’s protective wall. While it had looked only partly finished when Leonard and Nancy were taken captive, by the end of their third day, it was virtually complete. Thick wooden poles sharpened into spikes had been driven into the ground, forming a ring around the village that the residents hoped would keep them safe from what Samuel called the “day of reckoning.”
On multiple occasions, Leonard and Nancy had considered trying to convince members of the village that something as simple as a wooden wall would do nothing against the “demons” the villagers feared. Each time they were tempted to say something, though, they would remind themselves that the level of indoctrination in the village was to a point where going against anything Samuel said was tantamount to suicide.
The one issue that overshadowed the fact that they had been kidnapped and were being held prisoner was the disturbing piece of information that Nancy and Leonard learned about the origins of Nancy’s previous kidnappers. Richard and Joshua, the two savage men who had nearly killed her, had been from this village, according to Samuel. Worse yet, one of the two men was still alive, presumably being held in some location inside the village that Nancy hadn’t yet visited. If he recovered enough to venture out and discover Nancy, she didn’t want to think about the potential results of that encounter.
“Lunch!” The voice of the woman who served as the overseer of the workers rang through the greenhouse. Nancy stuck her shovel into the dirt in front of a plant, marking where she had left off for when she returned after the meal. Lunch was always a quick affair in the village, as was breakfast. Dinner was the only relaxed meal of the day, though it was spent with Leonard and Nancy being surrounded by the village at a set of big tables inside one of the larger buildings in the town. Breakfast and lunch were acceptable times to eat privately, but their quickness meant that Nancy and Leonard had little time to speak to each other, let alone plan for their escape.
Moving quickly through the crowd of women milling around outside the greenhouse, Nancy hurried to the dock at the lake to meet Leonard, well aware that her ever-present shadow was still following her. Three days was not nearly long enough for Samuel to trust Leonard and Nancy not to escape, and he was right to do so. Every conversation, no matter how short, was spent sharing information they had gathered throughout their day and finding ways to put it to use in escaping.
So far, Nancy and Leonard had deduced that their armored vehicle, the APC they’d arrived in, was sitting near the edge of town being worked over by two individuals. While he was helping to erect the village’s walls near the building the APC was in, Leonard picked up on several conversations from the two men who were growing frustrated with their attempts to return the APC to working order. While the engine of the APC was still out of commission, the men decided that it was some sort of catastrophic issue, though their lack of knowledge and experience with the vehicle prevented them from making even minor repairs, let alone diagnosing the true problem. Leonard doubted that they had much mechanical experience, and they were more than likely just two poor, random sods whom Samuel had assigned the job to.
The chief frustration, it turned out, was that the radio of the APC wasn’t working, a fact that was apparently foremost on Samuel’s mind more than anyone else’s. Leonard didn’t know why Samuel would want the radio working again so badly, but upon hearing this he couldn’t help smiling to himself as he felt a small object tucked away in his pants pocket.
When their APC had been hit by the rocket-propelled grenade and lurched headlong into a building, Leonard and Nancy had both been thrown about and disoriented so that they could barely see straight. This did not, however, prevent Leonard’s survival instincts from kicking in, and before he was pulled from the APC, he had removed a small chip from the back of the radio. Without the chip, the radio wouldn’t function at all, a fact he had discovered during a particularly bumpy part of his and Nancy’s drive. After bouncing over a large hole in the road, the chip had been dislodged from the back of the radio and fallen to the floor, rendering the device useless. This fact didn’t escape Leonard’s attention as a potential defense in case they lost control of the vehicle, and he had acted quickly enough upon the idea that he was able to stow the chip safely away without being noticed.
With a loss of radio communications, Leonard hoped that David, Rachel and Marcus would soon realize that something was wrong. Even if they did figure out what had happened, Leonard knew that they would be unable to help him and Nancy escape. Removing the radio from the equation did help them in another way, by keeping Samuel from gaining access to David, Rachel and Marcus. If the lunatic leader of the village were to learn of the mission Leonard and Nancy were on, Leonard wasn’t certain that they would be allowed to live, let alone have a chance to escape.
Samuel’s fanaticism was proved each day for the last three as he spoke for hours after each evening meal. Topics of his preaching included his lifelong devotion to the belief that the nuclear firestorms were God’s punishment on the world, the “demons” were a cleansing army and that his village was to be the one place left alive after the “day of reckoning.” Unable to steal away from the meetings to discuss matters of escape, Leonard and Nancy turned their attention to the villagers who sat in rapt attention, noting that there was never the slightest murmur of dissent among their ranks.
Already at the dock when Nancy arrived, Leonard sat on the bench, staring out at the small lake and the wooden barricades just beyond. Small platforms had been erected along the length of the wall, and members of the village community had begun to take up positions on them, keeping a watchful eye on the horizon. Though the number of people around their meeting place had grown since their first afternoon there, the dock was still the safest place for Leonard and Nancy to talk without the risk of being overheard.
“Salad again?” Nancy shuddered, but took the proffered plate from Leonard’s outstretched hand and sat down next to him. They both ate in silence for a moment, listening to the wind rush over the water of the lake. Behind them, their guards sat on a sloping hill, halfway between the lake and the town, keeping a close eye on the pair. After he finis
hed chewing, Leonard was the first to start their conversation.
“Anything new today?”
Nancy shook her head and sighed. “Just more of the same. Weeding, watering, planting. It’s enough to drive you insane.” She patted Leonard on the shoulder, noticing him wince slightly. “I know it’s probably not much compared to your job.”
Leonard rubbed his aching shoulder, regretting the excess physical effort he had been putting into helping erect the barricade around the town. Leonard wasn’t averse or unused to physical labor, but his body was feeling the effects of three days of dawn to dusk work, with only short breaks given by the informal overseers who stood watch over the groups of workers. Although Leonard still felt uncomfortable being ordered about, he put all of his effort into this work in an attempt to get on the good side of some of the villagers who labored beside him.
“They’re building the barricade quickly, but it’s not going to do any good. The muties can just jump it and be on them before they have a chance to draw their weapons.” Leonard looked at the sky, watching as a storm rolled in from the distance, sweeping over the plains. “I still haven’t been able to connect with anyone. They’re all friendly and helpful, but when I try to talk to them they just…”
“Lock up?” Nancy had noticed the same thing when she had tried to get the women she was working with to speak with her. Anytime she tried to get them to open up, they simply smiled and either ignored her or changed the conversation back to what they were working on.
“Yeah, exactly. These people are brainwashed, Nancy.” Leonard glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was approaching them on the dock. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think our best chance to get out of here might be to take out Samuel.”
Nancy’s eyes grew wide, but she said nothing as Leonard continued. “The people here are so dependent on him. Maybe if we can get the drop on him, we can use him as leverage. Or just escape in the confusion.”
Nancy was inclined to agree with Leonard’s plan and assessment, except for one detail. “I don’t know, Leonard. Joshua and Richard were both on their own, out from under Samuel’s influence, and they went completely berserk. Imagine what could happen if a handful of these people do the same thing.”
Leonard scratched at his rapidly thickening beard as he considered this new possibility. “They do seem to be mentally unstable. Still, we need to get out of here soon, as in within the next two days if we want to have any hope of staying on schedule. If it comes to it and there’s no other way, we’ll just have to use Samuel.”
A chorus of shouts indicated that the lunch break was over, and Leonard rose along with Nancy. “We’d better get back to it. They’ll probably have us stop early today if it rains. Keep looking for an escape and we’ll talk again after dinner.”
Nancy nodded and gave Leonard a quick hug and they both hurried back to their respective parts of the village, resuming their work. Thunder rumbled in the distance, signaling the first possible rain since the bombs fell. Leonard squinted as a harsh wind blew through the village, shielding his face with his hand as he looked up from a shovel to the sky. Does this really have to keep getting worse?
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden
4:30 AM, April 11, 2038
The sheer amount of rubble surrounding the stairway down into the lab was finally beginning to lessen thanks to David and Rachel’s efforts. After working on and off since the attack by Mr. Doe’s swarm of nanobots, they had made slow but steady progress with clearing a path down into the lab. Their bodies were still in pain and Sam slowly limped around, but Rachel and Marcus were finally starting to feel better as they sat around a small fire in the early morning.
Too tired to concern themselves with attracting attention in the city, Marcus and Rachel had taken to building fires over the last few days, both to keep themselves warm and to help light the interior of the pit. None of the creatures had made an appearance, and neither had any of the nanobot swarms. After a few agonizingly slow trips around the city, Rachel and Marcus had finally found a small convenience store with more food and water. Not taking any chances, they had brought the APC with them on each outing and quickly filled it with all of the supplies they found.
With full stomachs and warmth provided by the fire, the remaining issue facing the pair was getting the larger pieces of rubble pulled out of the stairwell. Without tow chains or some other way to attach the largest pieces to the APC, Rachel and Marcus were forced to revert to manual labor to clear a path. Using a pair of sledgehammers they found at a road repair site half a mile from the lab, they worked day and night to break apart the largest pieces of concrete on one side of the stairwell. The work was slow going, especially because of their physical condition, but they made gradual progress, turning the large pieces of rubble into small chunks that could either be stepped over or thrown up out of the stairwell and into the pit.
Work sessions were interrupted by periodic breaks, radio calls and worried conversations with David about the status of Leonard and Nancy. It had been days since they had last heard from them, and the lack of response or check-ins started to make Rachel think that Leonard and Nancy could have fallen prey to the creatures or something worse. After his last conversation with Leonard, David had tracked their APC to a small town in the middle of Iowa, where it was hidden by a cluster of buildings. Satellite imagery showed that the village was full of people frantically working on erecting some type of structure, but David couldn’t get a fine enough resolution on the imager to discern who each person was.
Relaying this information on to Rachel and Marcus, David promised that he would keep a close eye on the village, looking for any clues as to the whereabouts of Leonard and Nancy. Trapped as he was in his lab, he couldn’t help Rachel and Marcus with their excavation work. Instead, he focused on tracking Leonard and Nancy as well as tending to Bertha. In the data passed through the satellites, David noted that storms had started to brew across the globe. While there was no sign of precipitation yet, the storms were massive, covering thousands of square miles and generating intense bursts of lightning. So far, none of the storms were passing close to Washington, but every time David pulled down a new set of images, he feared the worst.
Finally, on the third day after the assault, a breakthrough occurred. After a short rest in the early morning hours, Marcus and Rachel attacked a massive piece of rubble and were surprised when it easily crumbled away under their blows to reveal a dark passageway spiraling downward. Shouting hoarsely, her throat still sore from the nanobot attack, Rachel called Sam over and encouraged him to pass through the narrow hole down into the stairway. His eyes reflected in Rachel’s flashlight when he peered back, and then proceeded to sniff along down the stairs, happily exploring the new area.
After several moments passed, Rachel called Sam back and he dutifully returned, his ears held high and his tongue hanging from his mouth as he panted from the exertion.
“I guess it’s clear down there.” Marcus pulled Sam through the small hole, then stepped back to eye it cautiously. “Though I’m not sure I can fit down there just yet.”
Rachel looked at the sky, gauging the time, and then hefted her sledgehammer on her shoulder. “We’ve still got plenty of daylight left. Let’s widen the hole and go in tonight after we’ve rested up a bit.”
Marcus’s only response was a grunt as he swung his hammer at the rubble, tearing it apart to widen the passageway down into the laboratory complex. Sam sniffed nearby, still panting happily as he watched Marcus and Rachel tear at the hole, their energy renewed by the prospect of being so close to breaking through. Behind them, in the APC, the radio squawked and Rachel dropped her sledgehammer, running for the radio to answer the call.
“This is Rachel.”
“Rachel, David here. I’ve got news for you on Leonard and Nancy. I think they’re still alive.”
“What?” Rachel shouted, exhilarated by the news. “How do you know?”
“It’s no guarantee. I mea
n, it’s barely anything more than we already knew, but I’ve been watching this little town and the work they’ve been doing, and there are two people that just aren’t fitting in. Their clothing color is different and, from what I’ve seen on flyovers, every time they move around they’re being followed by two other people. I’m guessing they’re guards, preventing Leonard and Nancy from leaving the complex.”
Rachel sat in the driver’s seat of the APC, hanging her legs out of the door as she motioned for Marcus to come over and listen in on the conversation.
“Any ideas on getting them out?”
David sighed and didn’t say anything for several seconds. His voice was pained and full of emotion when he finally spoke. “I don’t know. That town is so heavily fortified that two or three of us wouldn’t stand a chance, even if we didn’t have a job to do here.”
“Well we can’t just leave them there.” Marcus sounded tired but resolute as he spoke, looking Rachel in the eyes. “We need to get Bertha out and then one of us will go for them, try to figure out how to get in there or see if we can spring them.”
