by S. S. Segran
“Look, I’m not gonna pretend that I understood everything you just said, but at this point, I don’t care. I want an end to all this. I want to help end it. Just, please. I feel like I’m going to go out of my mind soon if I don’t do something.”
Victor reached into his pocket. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He pulled out a small smartphone. “Here.”
Kenzo took it from him. “What’s this for?”
“To stay in contact. It’s been reprogrammed to securely call only two people. I’m one, and Tegan is the other. She’s one of the girls who was here. Dark-haired. Also, the phone’s prepaid and set up for automatic reload.”
The boy ogled the device. “You . . . you came prepared.”
“Truth is, I was hoping to bump into you. The girls told me to keep an eye out for you, said your sympathies may not really be with the people running this place. I think their intuition was right. And they asked that I thank you on their behalf for taking the risk in letting them escape.”
Kenzo, stunned, appeared to be at a complete loss for words.
“So,” Victor continued, “if you’re ever on the verge of committing murder, just message me, eh?”
The teenager met the Sentry’s eyes, his own conveying gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Victor tilted his chin toward Kenzo. “I do have an assignment for you, though.”
“An assignment?”
“I need you to get close to the higher-ups in this place. I need you to be my eyes and ears so I know what’s going on.” Victor noticed the boy swallowing hard at his words. He hesitated, then reached out and clasped Kenzo’s arm. “You’ll need to be careful about how and who you approach. But from what I’ve seen, I’m confident in your ability to carry this out safely. You’ve got really good instincts, kid. Trust your gut.”
Kenzo closed his fingers around the phone. “I’ll do it.”
“Good. I’ve surveyed the cell signal in this place. You get the best connectivity at the spot where you found me, near the admin building. Just make sure no one catches you with the phone. Seems like you’ve got a pretty serious Big Brother thing going on down here.”
“Actually, not really. They figured that once our brains are rewired, there wouldn’t be any more attempts to escape. We never had many cameras in the Sanctuary to begin with, but a few new ones were installed after the girls got away, and they’re only in the general area and a few high-value buildings.”
“So you’re free to roam anywhere you want, whenever you want?”
“Yeah, except we can’t go outside. And these kids in here, I used to think that they were drones, but they’re not. Not really. Their beliefs were altered, that’s it. Once indoctrinated into their new cause, they’re gung-ho to do their part as SONEs. Life really isn’t all that bad here. If you’ve been repurposed, that is.”
“We’re gonna have to find a way to reverse the damage that’s been done to these kids, but I’m sorry to say that won’t be for a while. Our resources are limited and the priority right now is to stop this world from falling into an abyss.” Victor looked at his watch. “I really need to get out of here. I’ve got a lead on a location and the sooner I can get there, the better.”
“Where are you going?”
“Kazakhstan. I’ve got seventy-two hours to get there and figure out where the Boss will be.”
Kenzo fell back, laughing hard. “Good luck with that!”
Victor allowed himself to join the laughter a bit. “Yeah, thanks. You wouldn’t happen to know about the Sanctuary there, would you?”
“No, I’m sorry.” The teenager’s mirth subsided and he studied the Sentry for a moment. “You know, you actually look less intimidating when you smile.”
“I’ve been told that.” Victor got off the bed. “I need to get going. Could you point me to the tunnel that the girls used to escape?”
“Heh, you can’t use it. They’ve sealed it up properly.”
Victor stopped short. “Not good. I was counting on that to be open. Are there any other options?”
“I don’t know. They’re not exactly big on posting exit signs down here.”
“Well, I can’t go back the way I came in. It’s been a few hours since the guard’s little accident and he’s probably nursing a headache while someone else took over his post. There’s got to be some other way.”
Both the Sentry and the teenager took in a long breath and exhaled as they pondered. There was a peculiar pause, and then their eyes met in realization. Victor spun around, scanning the room. “There has to be an air circulation system in place down here. Where is it?”
“Circulation system,” Kenzo repeated. “Circulation sys—the huge fans! There’s four of them in the Sanctuary.”
“How big are they?”
“Uh . . .” Kenzo stretched his arm over his head. “Like, that tall?”
“About eight feet?”
“Yeah. There are two on the east side and two across on the west end.”
“Worth a shot. Do you know if there’s any air filtration system in the shafts, anything that I’d have to cut my way through? And are the intake and exhaust wells at the surface patrolled?”
Kenzo shrugged. “All I can say is that first you have to get through the fans, and stopping them will attract attention.” His fingers drummed on his thigh. “But the maintenance people do stop them when they check on stuff.”
“We’re not maintenance.”
“No, we’re not. But . . .” A spark appeared in Kenzo’s eyes. He jumped off his bed and ran to the door. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
* * *
No one gave the two men clad in navy blue coveralls and white hardhats a second look as they walked past the poultry farm and around the workshop, out of everyone’s line of sight. When they reached a locked gate erected between the cave wall and a partition, one of the men used a set of bolt cutters to chomp through the padlock.
Victor stuffed the lock into his coveralls, threw the cutters and hardhat into the canvas bag Kenzo had found and stepped through the gate. The teenager followed, looking over his shoulder every other second.
“Relax,” the Sentry muttered. “You’re making me nervous.” He opened a gray control box mounted beside the massive swirling fan. “Huh, there’s a setting to slow the fan down.”
“Great!” Kenzo breathed. “We don’t have to stop it and raise any alarms.”
Victor turned the dial to its lowest setting. The fan slowed but the gap between the moving blades was too small for his liking. He hefted the canvas bag and gauged the rotation of the fan, then threw it. It just barely sailed through an opening and landed with a muted thunk inside the shaft.
“No one thought of using this to escape?” he asked. “Really?”
“It used to be that the priority of the security system was to make sure no one in here gets out,” Kenzo replied. “But now that the indoctrination has proved to be so successful, the focus is on preventing outsiders from getting in. No one here would dream of wanting to escape. The word’s not even in their vocabulary.”
Victor turned to the teenager and shook his hand. “Thanks for your help.” Though he knew the answer, he asked, “I know I gave you an assignment, but you sure you don’t want to come along?”
“As much as I would like to, no. My cousin’s here and I’m not going to leave her behind. Besides, an absent SONE? That’s going to raise a few red flags. And anyway, I think I’ll be more useful to you in here.”
“True,” Victor said, and thought, You’re admirable, kid.
“Oh, remember that when you get out, there could be cameras watching the shaft.”
“Appreciate the heads-up. Take care of yourself. And remember, eyes forward.” Victor paused, then added in a lower voice, “One more thing. If you hear from the Boss again, get ahold of me immediately. Please.”
“Count on it,” Kenzo said; the Sentry saw hope beginning to brighten the boy’s dark eyes.
Facing the spinning fan, Victor timed the rotations, then dove headfirst through the gap. He landed perfectly on the other side, just missing the moving blades. As he gathered his bag, he heard Kenzo’s call quietly: “I never got to ask! What’s your name?”
The Sentry faltered, then said “Victor” and swiftly began making his way up the gentle incline of the circular air shaft.
The shaft ascended to the surface that lay forty feet above the Sanctuary roof. At what Victor estimated was the halfway point, he came face-to-face with his first obstacle, a metal grid that spanned the breadth of the shaft and held activated charcoal filter panels. With a wrench, he removed bolts at the top and bottom of the lowermost panel, allowing the filter to pivot and give him space to wiggle through.
Three feet beyond was a second bank of filters—that’s probably an ULPA; man, they’ve got some serious filtration going on here—which gave him enough room to secure the charcoal filter behind him. He repeated the process with the ULPA filter, breathing a little hard from the effort, and continued upward. The shaft wasn’t completely dark, which meant the surface was near.
Here we go. With a grunt, Victor pulled himself up the final few meters and squinted at the daylight seeping from the surface. What in the . . .
A large concrete slab, held twelve inches above the shaft’s entrance by iron bars no more than six inches apart, blocked his escape. Wire mesh zigzagged between the bars, most likely to keep small animals from wandering into the air duct. Shrubs had been planted around and on top of the slab, allowing it to blend with the landscape.
Victor peered through the foliage, trying to get a feel for his surroundings. Through the greenery, he caught a sharp glint as sunlight hit and reflected off something on a tree. That’s probably a camera, isn’t it? Yeah, looks like it.
Reaching into his bag, he fished out one of his favorite devices. The handheld cutting torch weighed a mere two pounds in his hand and used thermite cartridges to produce a five-thousand-degree Fahrenheit metal vapor jet. He pointed it at one of the iron bars on the side of the slab opposite the camera. The bright stream of superheated vapor sliced through the first bar like a hot knife through butter. He had to cut through the top and bottom of three more bars to create an opening wide enough to squeeze through.
He wormed out and into the shrubs to spy on the camera. There’s no way I can make a break for it without getting caught on tape. But maybe . . .
The Sentry swept up a pile of earth with both hands and focused for a few seconds. Then his hand shot out and energy from his body forcefully whirled the dirt into the air to create a small dust storm that roiled toward the camera. Victor scrambled to his feet and, gripping the canvas bag close, sprinted past the camera and down the hillside. He stumbled and nearly fell more times than he cared to count but didn’t stop until he reached the bottom.
He doubled over to catch his breath, then gazed up the slope. Feeling a small twinge of guilt as he left the site, he gave a curt salute to the poor boy who was forced to remain alone in the Sanctuary.
17
Adrian Black could not believe he’d been dragged to Sausalito for the second time in just a few months. He loathed the artsy atmosphere that dripped from the city’s figurative walls. On the bright side, the Spinnaker was a decent restaurant to dine in, and he was with good company—although even that wasn’t enough to wholly allay him.
“We have a perfectly good saloon at the office and an excellent chef on call,” he grumbled, scowling around the table. “Why come out here?”
Beside him, a short man with black hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and a colorful bowtie that clashed with his gray business suit grinned. “Because despite how lovely the view of San Francisco is from HQ, it’s good to get away from the suffocating boardroom every once in a while.”
“Okay, no, you’re supposed to back me up, Jer.”
Jerry Li’s grin widened. “Alright, how about . . . This celebration is for Luigi, and it’s a big deal, so he gets to choose where we go.”
“Mmh. Makes sense.” Black smirked. “After all, this place is as pretentious as he is.”
Across the table, Luigi Dattalo sputtered a sound that was something between indignation and a laugh. “Sorry you can’t appreciate the finer things in life, knuckle-dragger!” he hooted.
“Gentlemen,” rumbled the last member of the group, a plump man with gray hair, a matching beard and a trace of a German accent. Dr. Albert Bertram hoisted his glass. “The drinks have arrived and I’d like to ask our resolute CEO to make a toast.”
The rest of the group picked up their glasses. Black met Dattalo’s eyes. The Italian looked worn but content, and he flashed Black an amiable smile. Black nodded once, then lifted his voice. “All four of us are here for a reason. We earned the Boss’s trust, which is no small feat. We’re playing our parts to usher in a new world through Phoenix and the Arcane Ventures beneath it. Jerry, our wizard CFO. Al, the best chief science officer Phoenix could have asked for. But today is about Luigi, the head of Quest Defense and, now, the fledgling Quest Aerospace. Congratulations, you lucky dog.”
“Cheers!” Li hailed, and the others echoed him.
“Cheers, friends,” Dattalo murmured.
There was a space of silence as they sipped their beverages, then Bertram clapped Dattalo’s shoulder. “You are a busy fellow with two subsidiaries in your portfolio!”
Dattalo shrugged, glancing down at the table, but he couldn’t hide the upward curve of his mouth. “Quest Aerospace is merely a growing department in my subsidiary.”
“An extremely well-financed one,” Li pointed out, “with fundings that account for more than half of Quest Defense. I’d say that’s a lot more than just a department. Has all the markings of a full-fledged entity.”
“Well, it does take a lot to get stuff into space. After all, breaking the bounds of gravity is an extremely costly proposition.”
“Would be a lot more practical if we worked out of a moon base, I’ll tell you that,” Black joked, then thanked the waiter as hot meals were placed in front of them.
“Yeah,” Dattalo agreed. “Comparatively speaking, though, the other Arcane project at Quest Defense costs significantly less. It helps that the material we’re using wasn’t as troublesome to procure as the damn fenixium we needed for the REAPRs. And it doesn’t hurt that it was already on the black market. The only challenge is the delivery. My people are scrambling to keep everything on schedule for next year.”
Li carefully cut into his steak. “Speaking of the REAPRs . . .”
Black noticed Dattalo bristling slightly before smoothing his hackles. “What can I say?” the Italian told them cheerfully. “Our North American pods were compromised before the project could run its full course. I still think the nanomites did their job well enough regardless. Just look at the news. Many of the global pods remain functional and are causing mayhem, as promised.”
Black pushed his dark hair away from his forehead. “You did well, Luigi, and you deserve the promotion you got.”
Dattalo gave him a grateful look. The men ate in quiet ease for a while before Bertram asked, “How are things topside, Adrian?”
Black allowed himself to feel a little self-satisfied as he answered. “All our lawful operations have never run smoother. See the smile on my face? And we’re actually reporting increase in revenue across all subsidiaries. The coffers are overflowing, we’re doing great financially . . . heh, the irony of it all. Just before the world goes boom, our profits go boom-boom.”
Li groaned laughingly into his plate. “Good God, Adrian.”
Bertram tapped his fork against his lips thoughtfully. “That’s just the way it works, I suppose. Before you can raise a new edifice, you have to raze down the defective structures. But I’ll tell you this: Your stewardship of Phoenix has been nothing short of astounding. Without that, funding the Arcane Ventures to realize the vision of our global undertaking would have been impossible.”
“I appreci
ate that, Al,” Black said. “But you can thank the Boss for the astute investments to begin with.”
Li waved his knife at Dattalo and Bertram. “It just blows my mind what you guys are doing. I know what all these things cost, but the science is still so out there for me. Al, tell me about the virus. The EVO-1 strain.”
Bertram’s normally grouchy exterior cracked as he smiled. “It’s a really simple concept. Stupidly simple, actually. Each one of us has a biological clock built into our cells. All my people and I did was put together a bunch of proteins and gave them the smarts to speed up that clock. Ta da!”
The rest of the men stared at him, unamused. Bertram looked from one to another, then chuckled. “Ah, you want the actual science? Alright. Well, as you know, DNA is the genetic code at the heart of our cells. Each strand of this double helix is capped with telomeres—it’s like the aglet at the end of a shoelace. They protect our chromosomes. Every organ in our body is made of cells, and our cells replenish by copying themselves. Each time it copies itself, the telomeres get shorter but the DNA remains protected. At some point, telomeres get too short to do their job, causing our cells to age. What they are, really, is a kind of aging clock in every cell. So what does EVO-1 do? It eviscerates the telomeres. Without the telomeres, accelerated aging occurs. When cells can no longer reproduce, our tissues degenerate and eventually die.”
Li whistled. “Well, paint me purple and call be Barney. I can’t believe you actually created an organism that does that! And it doesn’t affect the birds and other animals we use as carriers!”
“Technically, a virus isn’t a living organism,” Bertram said. “It’s a string of protein molecules that carry enough genetic information to do its bidding and replicate. And in our case, do it stealthily.”
“And EVO-2?”
“Same bunch of proteins, different set of smarts. This one goes after the fight or flight response in the nervous system; specifically, the amygdala in our brain. The virus manipulates it, which then triggers a neural response in the hypothalamus. This creates a reaction in the pituitary gland and bada-bing, bada-boom, you have a tsunami of adrenaline kicking in. It has a cascading effect on emotional regulation and perception of control. The bleeding that often results is a side effect.”
