Willow leaned toward him and felt his mouth meet hers. His words had put her at ease, at once comforting her and strengthening her. Part of her felt like she could understand what he meant. Though she had never gone through anything even close to what he had experienced, she had felt for many years like she was largely living the same day again and again. Her life was boring, predicted, measured. There was never anything about it that changed how she saw a single thing about the world. Then Gannon came. Suddenly life was different, and she saw a future that was nothing like the one that she had once envisioned. That thrilled her, and she couldn’t wait to see what more that it might hold for her. He needed to get through this first and she knew that she would be right there beside him.
****
Now that Willow had mentioned that she had seen a sign for the factory, Aubrey felt like she couldn’t take her eyes off of the trees and posts that were sweeping past as she drove down the road. The screen in her dashboard told her that they were drawing close, and the further that they went, the deeper into the woods that they seemed to be traveling. She hadn’t expected that. When she thought of a factory, especially one that was supposedly as large and complex as the one once owned by the Orion Corporation, her mind immediately went to the massive cement industrial parks that were scattered near the abandoned cities and razed villages that were the last lingering testaments to the decades that had passed. She wouldn’t have imagined that they would have headed in what felt like the completely opposite direction. Rather than moving out of the wooded area, they were going further into it, telling her that this factory was isolated, making it much harder for anyone to truly know what had been happening inside of it and when it might have gone from active and productive to dark.
She saw the glimpse of an old sign on a tree several rows back in the woods and assumed that it was another advertisement for the factory. It struck her as odd to still see them. If this factory had been closed for so long, why were the signs still there? The closer that they drew to the factory, the more that Aubrey thought of how she was linked to all of this and what it could mean. She was still reeling from the discovery of her patient file from more than a century before and the revelation that she had visited the doctor at the University medical ward four times. At least, she could only assume that it had been four times. That missing page from her file seemed to taunt her from the back of her mind. She didn’t understand what it could mean. The file indicated that she had been to the doctor three times in a row, one day after the other, but that she visited a different doctor each time. Never had the doctor recorded anything that might indicate that she was sick or that she needed some type of treatment or medical support. The page that was missing could tell her so much more. Did she visit for a fourth time? If so, when? Was it the next day? If that was the case, did she see one of the doctors who she had already seen, or was it a fourth doctor from the ward?
The fact that the page had been broken out of the file could have meant so much. Beyond not knowing what was on the page, they didn’t know who had broken that page out or why. What could it possibly hold that would make someone want to break it out? Was that something that happened back when the file was created, or more recently, a part of the odd reality that her file had been saved along with only a few others in the abandoned medical ward?
Her thoughts had kept her so distracted that Aubrey didn’t realize that the road that they had been following had widened out slightly and turned into what had once been a smoothly paved access road. Just ahead of them she could see a tall, aged fence, and beyond it, the broken, weathered carcass of the old factory.
Behind her Aubrey heard Ilya let out a long breath. She wanted to do something to make the woman feel better. She couldn’t imagine what she was going through in that moment. Though Aubrey still thought that the idea of Ilya coming with them, as emotionally volatile and physically dangerous this place was, especially for a pregnant woman who had to contend with the memories of being captured right in this place, she knew that it was a decision that Ilya had to make on her own. There was something still waiting here in this factory that she hadn’t achieved the first time that she was there, and even if she wasn’t yet ready to tell the rest of them what that was, this was something that she needed to do for her own heart and peace of mind.
Aubrey slowed the van as they approached the fence. The parking lot that had once belong to the factory was beyond the fence, but there was a section of grass to the side of the road that looked tamped down as if people had driven up onto it multiple times before. She pulled into it and stopped the van. For a moment they all sat in their places, not moving, not speaking. They had set out on this journey with the prospect of going to the factory and uncovering whatever they might find there seeming almost abstract, but now it was right in front of them. Each might hold their own reason for being there, but they were united here, doing this together. Finally, they all climbed out of the van and stood together looking up at the factory.
“There’s a gate over there,” Jonah pointed out.
They jogged over to the fence, but before they even got to it Aubrey could see that they wouldn’t be able to get inside that way. The fence was nearly bent under the weight of several different locking systems. The technology was old and outdated, the units bent, broken, and covered in the signatures and symbols of those who had come this way before. Surrounding all of the outmoded technology was a chain, wrapped several times around the fence to connect the two sides, and secured with a heavy padlock. It was such simple and old-fashioned, yet it seemed to have outlived the other options. As she looked closer, however, Aubrey noticed something strange about the lock. She reached out and touched it, lifting it into her palm so that she could get a better look at it.
“This lock is new,” she said.
“What?” Jonah asked, stepping up beside her.
She held up the lock toward him, inviting him to look closer so that he could see the same details that she did.
“It’s new,” she said. “There are a few scratches on it like it’s been unlocked, but it hasn’t been here for very long. Nothing like any of these other locking systems.”
“Why would they do that?” Willow asked.
“Who?” Gannon asked.
“The people who own this factory,” she explained. “Why would they bother to put a new lock on the gate?”
“I’m guessing that they replace the lock occasionally to make sure that it stays effective,” Jonah suggested.
“Exactly,” Willow said. “Why bother? I mean, look at these other locking systems. It’s obvious that when this factory was in use, they went to pretty great lengths to make sure that this fence stayed secure and that no one got inside. They traded out this system regularly to keep it that way.”
“But they didn’t remove the outdated systems?”
“They might not have felt like they needed to. Even if the original system wasn’t working as well or they found one that they thought would work better maybe they believed that adding it on top would only increase the effectiveness. Whatever the reason for them doing that, now they have just a chain with a lock. Why even bother putting this on here? Why bother replacing the lock so often? If they are just going to leave the rest of the factory to fall apart, why are they making the effort to keep it locked and replace the lock so often?”
Aubrey didn’t have an answer. It didn’t make sense. The factory itself appeared to be moments away from collapse after years of neglect, yet the gate was locked with a lock that couldn’t be more than a couple of months old. She turned toward Ilya.
“Was this lock here when you came?” she asked. “Or a lock like it?”
“I don’t know,” Ilya said. “I didn’t come in this way.”
“How did you come in?”
“Through the back. There’s a gap in the fence that is pretty easy to get through.”
“A gap?” Aubrey asked. “The gate is padlocked, but there is a gap in the back of the fence?
”
Ilya looked at her with a blank expression as if she had no answers for her and didn’t have the patience or energy to try to craft one.
The group exchanged glances and then started around the perimeter of the fence toward the back where Ilya directed them. The fenced-in grounds were huge, and Aubrey wished there had been a way for them to bring the van with them rather than walking through the high grass and thick brush that had grown up around the fence. Eventually, though, they made their way around the back of the factory and Ilya led them to a section of the fence that appeared weaker than the rest. She reached forward and took hold of several of the chain-links. With a single tug she pulled the section out of the way. Though the gap wasn’t very large, it was big enough that they could climb through it if they crouched and maneuvered their way carefully. Jonah went first, and Mordecai took hold of the fence, gesturing for Ilya to go next. Aubrey placed her hand on Ilya’s back to help keep her balanced as she made her way through, and then stepped back to let Willow and Gannon in. Finally, it was her turn and she bent down to step through the fence, wincing as one of the broken pieces of metal scraped across the skin of her arm. It wasn’t a deep injury, but one that made her skin crawl.
Moments later Mordecai had stepped through the fence and tucked the loose piece back into place. They all stood together, looking up at the factory. They had come this far. They were within the boundaries of the factory. Now all that was left was to find their way inside.
To be continued…
The Alien's Needs (Uoria Mates V Book 5) Page 14
