by James Harden
At the very end of the corridor that contained the holding cells, the corridor that is outside of this very room, is a stairwell that leads down to a double set of security doors. On the other side of the security doors is another long corridor.
It is the access point to the military prison.
I make a mental note that this will probably be our escape route. It is the closest exit point out of this area. The only problem is, I have no idea where it leads to or what is waiting for us down there. The alternative to this option is to get all the way to the subway station. The subway station is the main entry and exit point for this part of the facility. But this is a long way away. And again, we have no idea if the station is overrun. And we have no idea what is lurking in those subway tunnels.
George lays another set of clear blue prints over the existing ones. The clear blue prints show the air vents.
“You need to crawl through the air vents and pass through five junctions,” he says. “Once you are through the fifth junction you should see a grate. You should be able to remove the grate by loosening the screws that hold it in place.”
He hands me a small screw driver.
“This grate should be directly over the sick bay,” he says.
“So all I have to do is open this grate and drop down into the sick bay?”
“Correct.”
“Should I get food or water from the cafeteria?”
“Maybe. If it’s at all possible. But your primary concern should be her meds. I don’t think you’ll have a lot of time to go looking for food or water.”
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there are a lot of infected people on the loose down here.”
“How did so many get loose? How did they get in here?”
“I’m not sure. It’s like this all over the entire facility. All over the Fortress. They started coming in through the subway station. Coming out of the tunnels. Coming out of the dark. So yeah, you need to be quick. You need to be quiet. If they see you, hear you, you’re screwed.”
He keeps reminding me to be quiet. It’s kind of getting on my nerves. I want to tell him this ain’t my first time. But I think better of it. He’s about to become my eyes. My ears.
I do not want to piss him off. I do not want to upset my eyes and ears.
Instead I tell him, “OK, I’ll be quiet. I’m ready.”
I say I’m ready even though I’m not entirely sure that I am. But I don’t have a choice. I need to get Kim’s meds. Whatever the hell they are.
The nano-virus.
NVX.
It’s keeping her alive. The same thing that is going to kill me in approximately fifty-two hours.
The same tiny, microscopic robots. The same nano-bots but with different programming. One is designed to save life. One is designed to kill life.
I shake my head. I ignore my impending death. I need to save my friend.
I convince myself I am ready to do this.
Chapter 8
I climb up into the air vent and slide my way towards the sick bay. I pass through the first junction. And then the second. Each junction is basically an intersection. Air vents lead off in four different directions.
Up.
Down.
Forwards.
Backwards.
I am going forwards. I pass through another intersection and I feel like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs so I don’t get lost. I pass through the fourth junction and I think to myself, the breadcrumbs were eaten by birds. Hansel and Gretel still became lost. Pebbles. I need to leave pebbles as a trail. But I don’t have either. No pebbles. No breadcrumbs. No food. No water. I have almost nothing.
I come to the fifth and final junction and I physically slap myself in the face so I can try and regain some kind of composure and focus. I peer through the grated air vent, down into the sick bay.
George was right; it’s basically a small hospital room. From my vantage point I can’t see much.
There are about six beds.
I strain my ears. Listening for the familiar sound of the infected.
Their moaning, howling scream.
Shuffling feet.
Snapping jaws.
I hear nothing. No sounds.
The room appears to be empty.
But then I look closer. Each bed contains a dead body wrapped up in the bed sheets. Each body has a bullet wound to the head. A small patch of dark blood stains each white bed sheet. This is an ominous warning sign. And I have no choice but to ignore it.
I remove the screw driver from my pocket and attempt to unscrew the grate so I can climb down. It takes a while because my right hand is all cut up, and the screws are screwed in tight and caked in dust, but I eventually loosen them. I slide the grate out of the way and climb down, feet first.
The room looks like any normal hospital room.
There are six beds.
There is monitoring equipment beside the beds.
A few chairs for visitors.
A curtain that can surround the bed for privacy.
A clipboard hooked on to the end of each bed.
I move over and pick up one of the charts.
The chart reads:
Patient has suffered possible exposure to airborne strain of the Oz virus.
Observable symptoms include...
Facial hemorrhaging.
Bloodshot eyes.
Aggression.
Increased strength.
Restraints absolutely necessary.
Patient is unresponsive to questions.
Speech appears to be impaired or completely impossible.
Initial high fever followed by extremely low core body temperature.
No heartbeat.
Symptoms appeared within minutes of patient presenting.
No response to vaccine.
No response to NVX.
Below the notes is a large red X. I can guess what that meant. All the other charts read the same. A few of them simply had a large red X on them. No notes at all. No need for notes. At the far end of the room was a long and narrow walk-in storage area.
“Do you see the storage area?” George asks over the walkie-talkie.
I readjust my headphones in my ears and turn the volume up slightly. “Yeah, I see it.”
“The NVX injection pens should be in there. They usually come in packs of three.”
“Got it.”
This is where I will find the meds. The shelves line the walls of the walk-in storage area. They contain all the necessary medical supplies anyone could ever want.
Bandages.
Surgical tools.
Hypodermic needles.
But I can’t see any boxes or vials labeled NVX. No injecting pens.
At the end of the narrow walk-in storage area is a glass door. It leads to a secured, sealed off section.
The glass door has a keypad security lock.
I am about to ask George if he knows about the sealed off room. If he knows the access code, but then I see something that should definitely not be in a medical supply room.
It is a machete.
It is covered in blood and small chips of bone and small slivers of flesh and ligament and clumps of hair.
Before I can figure out what the hell this means, I hear a groan coming from back out in the sick bay. I hear the howling scream. I hear running footsteps.
I turn around, picking up the machete in the same movement. The infected person is almost on top of me. His arms are stretched out, reaching for me. I swing the machete in a wild, swooping arc. And when I swing the machete I close my eyes.
I don’t know why I close my eyes.
The machete is sharp and heavy and it doesn’t quite fully decapitate the infected man, but it does the next best thing. It slices through the top half of its head. It slices clean through. It does this easily. Like a hot knife through butter. It was the weirdest sensation. And to be honest I kind of feel like trying it again. But I’m not go
ing to get the chance.
As I swung the machete and half-decapitated the infected man, I let go of the handle and the machete went flying out into the sick bay.
I don’t know why I let go.
Maybe because I wasn’t ready for the attack. Maybe because the blade was surprisingly heavy. Or maybe because I didn’t expect it to slice through so easily. But yeah, I let go of the blade and it went flying back into the hospital room and landed under one of the beds.
And then I see another infected person.
The reason I didn’t see them initially is because they were standing behind one of the curtains in the corner of the room.
They were just standing there. Motionless.
Dead.
But alive.
And now they have sprung into action.
There was fresh meat on offer. A fresh host.
The infected person is walking towards me. They are still caught up in the curtain. They are almost tangled up.
But they continue walking forward. Coming for me. And they eventually walk through the curtain and it falls away. And then I see this infected person is wearing a white lab coat, and I think that maybe they used to be the doctor to these patients and maybe he was the one who wrote all those notes and all those large red X’s.
Once he sees me, he charges.
I have no time to run out of the storage room to retrieve the blade.
So I back further into the storeroom.
I have nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
No escape.
I place my hands on the shelves on each side of the narrow storeroom and lift my legs up to kick the charging zombie. I make contact with its chest and it goes flying back. The thing quickly gets to its feet, and I wonder for how long I can keep doing that.
Long enough for George to show up?
Would he even show up?
The infected man is already charging again.
I raise my legs and kick him back. My legs feel heavy. I am already beginning to tire.
This is not good.
My hand reaches for the walkie-talkie. “George!”
Static. No response.
“George. I need help.”
Maybe I can kick the infected man back further and further.
Make a run for the machete.
Get my hands on a weapon.
And I’m still trying to figure out what the hell that machete is even doing here? And before I can answer my own question, the man in the gas mask appears and grabs the former doctor by his coat and pulls him to the ground. He pins the man down and picks up his machete. He decapitates the infected man and kicks the head away, under one of the beds.
After the last kick I performed, I fell back.
I am sitting, sprawled on my ass. And now I am paralyzed.
I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
The man in the gas mask steps forward. Stands over me. He raises his machete, his blood covered sword. He smashes the security camera that was located in the corner of the storeroom, just above the entry.
And then he stares at me.
He stares at me with those black tinted goggles, those black lifeless eyes.
He looks like a monster. An alien. Something inhuman.
Chapter 9
The man in the gas mask has me cornered again and I think he just saved my life and I have no idea why.
His shirtless body makes me feel sick. It is mutilated. It is covered in scars. Blood has dripped down his neck and shoulders from where he stitched the gas mask into his scalp.
Why doesn’t he just kill me?
“You are looking for NVX,” he says. “For Kimberly Richards. Test Subject Zero.”
When he speaks his voice is altered through the air filters of the mask. The sound, the voice terrifies me. And for a second I am speechless.
“Yes,” I finally answer. “How... how do you know that?”
He ignores my question. “Do you know why we called her Test Subject Zero?”
We?
I shake my head. I have no idea what he is talking about. And I am still too scared to get up or move or fight back.
I am too confused.
He doesn’t look like he is going to harm me.
“She is called TS Zero because it was unplanned. It was a kind of accident. A fortunate accident. And she was the first. The very first person to receive the new nano-virus. Much like the mythical Oz virus patient zero that we could never find. And never will find.”
I slide back on my ass. “What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell are you? How do you know this?”
“The NVX injecting pens are locked up. They are locked up in that room. To access that room you need to enter a code into that keypad. He did not give you the code did he?”
“Who?”
I ask this question because I am not thinking straight because I am scared and confused.
The man in the gas mask clicks his fingers together and says, “Focus.”
He kneels down next to me. He looks at me and it terrifies me because I can’t see his eyes.
I can’t see his face.
He looks like a monster. He is a monster.
He says, “George Walters. The prison administrator. The warden. He did not give you the access code.”
“No. He didn’t.”
“Do you know why?”
He forgot.
No.
He didn’t forget.
He wanted to kill me.
He sent me to my death.
He has access to the cameras. He knew there was an infected person in here.
“He knew there was an infected man in here,” I finally say. “He knew they were loose.”
“Yes. There are three.”
“Three?”
I tense up and my head snaps in the direction of the hospital room. I am expecting to see another infected man charging at us. Another doctor. A patient. A soldier. A prisoner.
But the room is empty.
“It is trapped in the bathroom,” the man in the gas mask says. “We are safe for the moment. Now do you know why George Walters sent you here? Alone? No access code?”
I nod my head. And I slowly come to the realization that people are capable of great evil things and the Oz virus is not the only thing I have to fear and fight and survive.
And I am angry with myself because I had learnt this lesson on the streets of Sydney. Courtesy of the military. I had learnt this lesson in the town of Hope. Courtesy of Father Damon. But it would appear I need a refresher. It would appear I need to learn this lesson again.
And again.
And again.
Until it costs me my life.
“He wanted to kill me,” I whisper.
“Yes. He sent you to your death.”
“Why are you helping me? What the hell are you doing? Who the hell are you? What the hell are you?”
The man in the gas mask moves over to the keypad and enters a code. The glass door opens with a hiss. He retrieves one NVX injecting pen and hands it to me.
“Who am I? I am the world’s savior. I am your savior. I have followed you. I have seen what you are capable of. You will not die alone. You will not die in vain.”
“Why don’t you just kill me?”
“You are too strong to go quietly. You will die. But it will be a good death. It will be remembered. People will talk about it. For a long time. And then they will see.”
He kneels down next to me again and grabs my wrist. My watch. “I chose you. Do you not see? You are chosen. You are worthy. You took down a nano-virus swarm. You have survived the inferno of this plague. You took a stand against me. You stood up. Toe to toe. Face to face. You shot me. You shot to kill. It was perfect.”
As he grabs my wrist, I don’t fight back or tense up. I do absolutely nothing.
But I answer him, and I say, “No. It wasn’t perfect. Not at all. I missed. I failed. I should’ve finished you off. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
“We? No. I don’t want that. I don’t want what you want. You’re crazy. You’re insane.”
“You do want it. You do not want to go back. And you know we cannot go back. And right now, you want to kill George Walters. The warden.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to kill him.”
“Yes, you do. And you need to kill him. And you understand this simple fact. Kill or be killed. You understand better than anyone. You are stronger and getting stronger. And only the strong deserve to survive. This is why Maria cannot be allowed to live. Not when she has the power to save the weak. I cannot let that happen. You cannot let that happen.”
I am still shaking my head. And my whole body is shaking. “You’re a madman. Where is Maria? What have you done with her? Where have you taken her? Why don’t you just kill me? Just do it. Get it over with!”
“I have taken Maria to the Control Center. From there I will show the world. I will set them free. They will no longer live in denial.”
A public execution.
Maria is going to be executed in public.
“And no,” he continues. “I will not just kill you. You are too strong for that. You are too... worthy. And you must see what I have planned for the world. Do you not want to see it? Do you not want to see what I am going to do? What I have in store for the world? I want you to see it. I will burn it down. I will burn it all down. And before you die, before the nano-virus consumes you from the inside, you can watch the flames. You can watch a world on fire. And from this purging fire we will start a new world. A better world. A stronger world. Is this not what you want?”
“You’re insane. And I want... I want to kill you. I want to stop you. I need to stop you.”
“Exactly. You want to kill me. You want to end it. Death is the only way. When you started on this journey you were innocent. And you thought you could save everyone. You thought you could save me. You thought you could save the big man. You thought you could save all you friends and all those nearest and dearest to you.”
“Stop talking.”
“That was so long ago,” he says.
“Stop it.”
“And now? Now you will do whatever it takes. You have killed. And you will kill again. You will kill anyone who gets in your way. Anyone who threatens you and your friends. This is pure. This is perfect. This is the genius of the Oz virus. It changes you. It changes us. For the better. It wipes out and kills the weak. But you are strong. You are one of the strongest.”
