by Jack Hunt
“Faux Façade.”
“What?” she replied.
“You know, you think you know what is happening. But you really don’t. Faux Façade. There will always be someone behind the curtain pulling the strings, making society believe one thing, when really the truth is something else. Take you and the Warden for instance. You really think you are in control. Don’t you? Even now.”
She looked at me and I smirked as everything became clearer.
“You have lost me.”
“That’s exactly it.”
An officer pushed me forward, getting irritated by my ongoing rant. We continued on towards the lab. Once we arrived I was strapped to a table and they didn’t waste any time piercing my skin. My eyes glanced up at the clock. It was a little after five. A margarita would have been nice around then. In fact, I was tempted to put in an order but I could see the staff looked rather preoccupied.
“You think I could get a burger, perhaps some fries with a little coleslaw on the side? Being this probably is going to be my last meal.”
Dr. Brenton looked at me and shook her head.
“Well, let’s be honest here, that is what you are about to do, right? Kill me in the process of extracting what you need to develop a cure that you can sell for a tidy bundle?”
She slowed down as if she hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe a smidgen of her humanity had kicked in.
The pause only lasted a few seconds, which meant… no, she was a royal bitch dead set on getting what she wanted.
“Hold up, doc.”
“What is it?”
“Just a rumor. Correct me if I’m wrong but you might want to take a semen sample.”
“What?”
“Well, you know how all the good shit is in a placenta when a woman gives birth. Well, it’s just a rumor but if you are trying to figure out where the cure is, you might want to start by going a little lower.”
She pulled off the table a rather large needle.
“Or… maybe not. Yah, actually I think it was urban legend.”
“Flip him over.”
I saw her snap on some blue rubber gloves as a security guard flipped me over and strapped me in using thick leather buckles.
“Please tell me you are going to use lube. I have a very sensitive heinie.”
She took a scalpel out and slit down the back of my shirt until my skin was exposed.
“Now this might hurt a little.”
I winced feeling the cold, sharp blade dig into my back. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Whatever they were about to do, I would have taken being alien-probed over this any day of the week. I screamed in pain as an intense burning sensation forming in my lower back spread upward. I didn’t know if they were pumping me with the virus or extracting spinal fluid. It hurt in ways that I had never felt pain. Like being punched in the face with a brick and made to swallow a thousand bees, pain coursed through me in brutal waves. Each was worse than the one before. From the small of my back up to the top of my head it felt like I was on fire. My vision blurred fast and I vomited.
“You still think we aren’t in control?” she said arrogantly.
I mumbled something.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Come closer,” I muttered.
She leaned in nearer, tilting her head to one side.
Through gritted teeth I managed to croak, “Oh doctor, you are so hot.”
That’s when the pain really began and my humor left the building faster than Elvis.
Beyond the doors, blood-curdling screams were muffled by the continual sound of fans pumping air into the Hive.
TURNCOAT
BLOOD POOLED BELOW ME.
Like a clock gently ticking, I could hear each droplet hit the ground in steady repetition.
I don’t know how long I was on that table. I lost all sense of time as my body went into shock from the pain. Had there been any anesthetic they didn’t bother to give it. Driven by an all-consuming need for the cure, nothing else mattered. I blacked out multiple times. When I awoke I was alone. I could hear the sound of a siren, my eyes picked up a flashing amber light. I could move my head slightly; at least I think I was able to.
I heard the door open again and fear ran through me cold as I anticipated them continuing their brutality. My eyelids fluttered. I could partially hear the sound of someone’s voice mixed in with the siren wailing.
Someone was at my wrists and feet.
“Johnny. Johnny. Wake up.”
Then I saw Jess in front of me. She was holding my face, gripping it tight. Was this just another hallucination? Was I dead? I didn’t know what was real anymore.
“Give him this,” said a male voice.
Something was placed underneath my nose. I winced at the smell and my eyes snapped open. I started gasping hard.
“Johnny, we’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Jess?” My brain could barely register if what I was seeing was real. There had been moments in the pain I began to hallucinate. I’d seen my father. My brother and Matt.
“Rowan, help me.”
Rowan?
As they began to lift me, I saw Rowan off to my side. Anger flooded through me and I tried to swipe at him but all my strength was depleted. My body was sore, aching and the pain felt as if the skin on my back had been ripped away.
“It’s okay, Johnny. Rowan helped.”
“Bullshit,” I croaked. My throat felt like I had swallowed acid.
“Sorry, man. I had to make them think I was on their side otherwise they wouldn’t have believed me.”
“The fire?”
“I didn’t start that, and you, I don’t know who told them, but it wasn’t me.”
“And Wren?”
“She knew about it.”
My body slumped in their grasp.
I caught a glimpse of my back in the steel walls. It was bloodied but the skin was still there. Had the pain been caused by chemicals pumped in? As they rolled me off the table my legs gave out underneath me.
“We need to go, we don’t have much time.”
They dragged me out of there. A streak of blood trailed behind me.
“What’s going on?” I mumbled incoherently. I was still trying to make sense of what was happening. Neither of them answered me. I gathered they couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. What I thought was clear was coming out as the garbled mutterings of someone still in the grip of postop surgery. I felt nauseated and the world around me was spinning. My mind was trying to get a firm hold on reality but like a kid on a merry-go-round it wouldn’t stop. I lurched forward and vomited all over the ground. Jess hopped back to avoid the brown splatter.
“In here,” Rowan said, kicking a door.
We entered what looked like an engineering room. It had a decaying tiled floor that once may have been white. There were lots of thick pipes covered in insulation, steam hissing out of a vent and grime sticking to walls. The steady drum of boots running by our door and men barking orders sounded as if the Hive was under attack. That was followed by gunfire, lots of rounds going off.
“You stay here with him.”
“Rowan,” Jess said.
“I have to make sure my sister is okay. I’ll be back.”
He placed a handgun in my palm. “I hope you can shoot.”
With that he turned, peered out the door then disappeared. My mind was telling me to get up but my body wouldn’t have it. It was worn, and still suffering from shock.
“What the hell did they do to you?”
I coughed hard until I thought I was going to hurl up a lung. “I think they were going to stuff me with candy and beat me like a piñata,” I muttered.
She gave a weak smile but worry quickly smothered it.
“Is it bad?” I asked.
“If it is, I can’t see.”
She turned me slightly and I groaned in agony.
“There are two incisions along your spine.”
Whatever the
y had done, it hadn’t affected my ability to walk. Though I think I had lost a lot of blood. We tucked in behind a large warm pipe. I could hear water flushing through it. The ground was vibrating from boots. The walls shook for a few seconds.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“The resistance came in.”
I groaned. “I knew they were insane.”
The door cracked open and then closed again. Were they searching for us? I checked the ammo in the magazine, and pushed it back into place. Every movement was painful. My body was screaming on so many levels for morphine. Again the door cracked open though this time someone came in. When he came around the corner and saw us, his weapon came up, but it was too late, Jess shot the guy in the head. She then pulled his body out of the way so no one else would see it. The door opened a third time; both of us lifted our guns this time preparing to come face-to-face with another security guy. Thankfully, it was Rowan.
“Whoa, whoa!” He tossed his hands up.
“I thought you were another one of them,” Jess said.
“Listen, can you walk?”
I stared at him, wondering if he was joking.
“Help me get him up?”
“Did you see Wren?” Jess asked. He shook his head. “It’s crazy out there. It’s a full-out war.”
“What the hell…”
“The place is under attack both by the resistance and Vinny’s men.”
“Working together?”
“Seems so.”
“Are there enough of them?”
“I hope so,” he replied.
Rowan took one of my arms and wrapped it around his neck. Carefully he lifted me up. I cried out in pain as his arm pressed against the wounds.
“We aren’t going to be able to move him.”
“Just do it.”
From the waist down I had clothes on, the rest was gone. Rowan again lifted me and I let out a cry but told him to keep going. Stumbling out of the room we began making our way towards an exit point that he said led to one of the choppers that had come in.
“What happened to the other?”
“It was shot down.”
“Why are you taking me out? I thought you were going to take this place.”
“We are but there’s no guarantee right now. We’re going to get you to safety.”
“Fuck that, I’m staying.”
“Johnny, you are going to sit this one out,” Jess shouted.
When Rowan kicked open an emergency door, light blinded my eyes. Gunfire echoed at an ear-piercing level. My pain came and went in waves. One moment I thought I could walk by myself and then next I found myself clinging to Jess as my nerve endings exploded in agony.
Outside, security on the walls were firing both inside and outside the compound. Bullets ricocheted off metal as they dragged my limp body towards an idling chopper. Sitting on the chopper holding a machine gun was Baja, he was hooting and hollering like a banshee.
“Have some of that, ass wipe.”
He caught sight of me.
“Holy shit, you look a little worse for wear.”
The laid me out on the chopper. Jess hopped in and Rowan banged the side.
“Take it up.”
The pilot nodded and Rowan moved back. Baja continued his assault. Bullets snapped and pinged as he mowed down a line of security guards firing our way. Before we had managed to get even a few feet off the ground, the rotor was hit. There was a high-pitched whirling sound followed by us banking sharply to the left, which made me slip towards the opening. Jess was hanging on for dear life while Baja was screaming like he’d seen a mouse. Meanwhile I slipped back and felt her hand grab my wrist. That girl had some strength. Then we were spinning around a few feet in the air before we came down hard and the earth spat large chunks of dirt up. Had we been any higher we would have all died.
I groaned in agony and blinked hard. Jess was unconscious. A sudden explosion, and flames flickered above us. I could feel the heat as they licked over the edge of the opening.
“Baja.”
Baja was still awake but dazed by the drop. I didn’t even check to see if the pilot was still alive, he wasn’t moving. I crawled up to Jess and tried to wake her.
“I need your help.”
“What?”
Blood trickled from the top of his forehead. He turned and slapped the pilot.
“Buddy, you okay?”
Then we both noticed the helicopter had landed on a pole, it had come through and penetrated the pilot and gone out the other side. He was killed instantly. Baja reached over and grabbed Jess. Both of us climbed our way up. The rotor was still spinning but the blades had been sheared clean off. I didn’t jump, we rolled out, bringing Jess down with us. Meanwhile all around us soldiers were fighting against the resistance. It was complete chaos and anarchy. One moment you would see someone shooting, the next they would be lying on the floor with a bullet in their head or choking on blood.
I might not have minded if I had any strength in my body. The damage they had done to my body had depleted me. All I could feel was pain. I tried to push it from my mind but it was brutal and relentless. I crawled over to a jeep and found cover behind it. Baja peered around the side every few seconds and would take shots.
“You think you can drive?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I replied back.
He grabbed a hold of my shoulder. “Nothing is broken, right?”
I shrugged, as I had no fucking clue. “I guess not,” I muttered.
He fired a few more times at two security guards that were gunning for the Starwoods Jeep. They dropped like flies. Some of the security weren’t killed with head shots. It wouldn’t be long before they would turn and then this whole place would become a Z fiesta.
“You can move your arms, yes?”
They weren’t affected though every movement would send a shot of pain through me.
“What do you want?”
He threw his assault rifle down and hauled Jess up over his shoulder and tossed her in the rear seat. Positioned in the middle, attached to the roll cage on the black assault jeep was a machine gun.
“Dude, this is a real bad time to play the all-American hero.”
“You want to sit here until they pick us off?”
I gazed around and could see security and resistance taking potshots at each other. Vinny and his men had finally breached the entrance. In the distance I saw Wren, Rowan, and Annora fighting hand-to-hand with Tanner, and some others.
Man up, grow some balls, and finish this. I heard both my father’s and Dax’s voice in that moment. Again, I wasn’t sure if it was just my mind concocting past memories but I felt a surge of adrenaline kick in.
“Let’s do this. Help me up.”
“Help you? Shit, do you want me to hold your dick?” he said. He never was one for sympathy. Baja smiled and grabbed an arm around me and dragged me over to the front of the vehicle. He tossed me inside like a bag of potatoes and fell on top. Another shot of pain.
“You want to get off me.”
“Sorry, I was just getting cozy for a moment.”
He grinned and jumped up in the back. I fumbled with the keys and struggled to turn over the ignition. My body was practically leaning against the steering wheel. Every time I tried to pull myself up I slumped back down again.
“This ain’t working, bud.”
“Shit.”
Baja took a hold of that gun and unleashed a flurry of bullets in a sweeping pattern in front of him. I think I even saw some of the resistance dive for cover. When that fucker got on a gun, you got out of the way. I always imagined if he was in a war, they would have the highest casualty rate from friendly fire they had ever seen. To him it was like playing a game of Medal of Honor. He didn’t care back then who he shot. Most of the time his own teammates would chase after him because he had shot them in previous rounds. I would hear him cackling over the headphones while our team of about twelve would be getting shot by
him. He said he did it to liven shit up. Nothing livened shit up more than having your own teammate shoot you.
Baja reached down and yanked me up into a seated position.
“There, you pussy. Now put your fucking foot down and let’s circle these mofos.”
I hoped the windshield was bulletproof. I had to use both feet to press down on the accelerator, that’s how weak I was feeling. I slammed back into my seat as the jeep shot forward.
“Say hello to my little friend,” Baja roared as he released a flurry of bullets in every direction. I pitied whomever he didn’t recognize as the resistance. I was pretty sure when they did the final body count they would find some that he had killed by accident.
“Dude, where the hell are we going?” I hollered loudly.
“Fuck knows, you’re the driver,” he said before cackling like a madman. The jeep soared forward out of control. Soldiers vaulted out of the way, screaming and shooting, only to be cut down by Baja.
“Hey, Johnny, below you.”
“What?”
“Below. Passenger seat.”
On the floor of the passenger seat was a green metal box that had the words U.S. Army on the side. I wasn’t going to reach for it. I could barely keep my hands on the steering wheel.
Baja slipped down and grabbed the box up. Inside were grenades.
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” he said, pulling one out, ripping the pin and tossing it. A sudden explosion and he was like a kid on fireworks night. Now maybe we might have inflicted more damage except a bullet hit me in the arm.
With the pain so unbearable I lost control of the vehicle. It surged forward until it collided with the main building. My head struck the wheel hard. It was in that moment I blacked out.
* * *
I’m not sure how long I sat in the jeep slumped over until someone pulled me from it. I just remember waking up in a bed far from the noise of gunfire.
I heard the faintest sound of chatter off to my right. As my eyes adjusted to the world around me, I realized I was in a bedroom. Jess, Wren, and a few of the others were off to the side. The first thing that struck me as odd was the room was gorgeous. It had a curved window with a bench and white fluffed-up pillows. Off to my right was built-in cabinetry with steel accents. This was definitely not the underground, the island, or anywhere remotely unpleasant.
