Primary Termination

by Vincent Zandri

  Gus orders us to stand back away from the road and to hide ourselves among the pines. He does the same, sticking his head out only far enough to keep an eye on the road and the oncoming traffic.

  “Here it comes,” he says. “Just like clockwork.”

  I make out the sound of a truck engine making its way toward us. With every second that passes, it gets louder and louder. Or perhaps that’s just the adrenaline soaking my brain. When the truck is within twenty feet of our position, Gus and Ben jump out into the road, shoulder their AR-15s, aiming them directly at the driver. The large, white-paneled truck’s brakes lock up, and it comes to a skidding stop only a foot or two from slamming into Gus and Ben. How the two maintain their steadfast position on the road is a mystery to me. Or maybe it has something to do with having steel balls.

  “Get out,” Gus barks at the driver.

  “Got your back,” Ben says. “Watch for weapons.”

  From where I’m standing in the trees, I can see the young driver raise both his hands in surrender. He slowly opens the driver’s side door and steps out of the big van. Gus and Ben approach him, march him around the van to its back bay.

  “Tony and Tanya!” he yells. “Front and center.”

  Stepping out of the trees and onto the road, Tony and I go to the back of the van. Strapping his rifle to his shoulder, Gus then draws his semi-automatic, presses the barrel against the young man’s head.

  “Open the door,” he orders.

  “Do it,” Ben says, the barrel of his AR-15 staring the young man down.

  But young man makes the mistake of hesitating for too long a beat, his eyes just staring at the padlock that secures the door. Gus whacks the back of the young man’s head with the barrel. He seems more stunned than in pain. But it’s enough to break the laundry truck driver out of his spell. The young man pulls the keyring from the carabiner attached to his belt. His hands shaking, he finds the right key and unlocks the lock. He then opens the rollup door revealing maybe a dozen or so large baskets filled with white industrial grade towels.

  “Kids, hop in,” Gus orders.

  Poking the young man’s head once more with the pistol barrel. “You, too,” Gus goes on.

  We climb up and inside. The young man follows.

  “Ben,” Gus says, holding out the duct tape. “Make sure our guest is quite comfortable. Then I want all three of you to bury yourselves inside the first three baskets. Once we back up to the docks, I’ll grab one for myself. Got it?”

  I’ve known Gus for a lot of years. Even though I’ve gone long stretches of time without seeing him, the man who appears before me now is a long stretch from the happy, eager to please barbeque slinger who’s been selling me hotdogs and sausage sandwiches since Tony and I were teenagers. The man before us now is G.I. Joe.

  For a moment, I watch Ben as he professionally hogties the driver. He also gags the young man by wrapping several layers of tape around his head and mouth. He then conceals the driver by hiding him behind the baskets in back. Ben was always one of my favorite writers. But he’s always seemed like a tough guy to me. A man’s man. Seeing him like this, he appears more like a heroic character from one of his thrillers than he does the artist who created them.

  “Hop in a basket, Tan,” Tony insists, as he steps into one of the baskets closest to the van’s passenger side panel.

  “Already on it,” I say.

  I step into the basket beside him and bury myself in the clean towels. Ben chooses the basket directly beside mine. Without a word, he climbs in and makes himself invisible. Seating himself beside the van’s wheel, Gus closes the driver’s side door and proceeds forward.

  “Not a word from anyone, is that understood?”

  Our collective silence is the precise answer Gus is looking for.

  Gus pulls ahead and drives for what seems like a full hour, but what turns out to be just a few minutes. He slows the van and turns left onto what I assume is the super max’s cargo access road. When he stops upon arriving at the guardhouse and the big fence that surly secures it, he rolls down the automatic window. It’s what I’m picturing in my head.

  “Morning, Officer,” he says in the friendly voice I recall from his Gus’s Hotdog Shack days. “Fresh laundry delivery. Not that the inmates inside that Everest cooler deserve it, big fat traitors that they are.”

  He laughs, pretending to be one of those annoying guys who belly laughs at his own witticisms.

  “You’re not the usual dude,” says the guard.

  “Called in sick,” Gus says. “When I was young, you worked, sick or not.”

  “Not if you’re crapping every ten minutes, you weren’t.”

  “Good point, Officer,” Gus says. “Maybe the usual driver should join the worry-free Everest Primary Membership Program and be done with this working stuff anyway. Seems to be the way things are going. Soon, it’ll be the law. ‘Sides, this truck can drive itself. Don’t need no human doing anything, other than unlocking the cargo bay.”

  Heart pulsing, I’m waiting for the guard to insist on I.D.

  Instead he says, “Get out and open up the back, Old Timer.”

  Oh dear God . . .

  “Certainly,” Gus says, without hesitation.

  He opens the van door and slips out. Sweat builds on my brow, despite my face being buried in towels. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I’m secreting sweat and blood. Palms are damp, my stomach convulsing in violent flips and muscles tying themselves in knots. If the guard inspects the baskets, we’re as good as dead.

  The rear doors open.

  “Have yourself a good look, Officer,” he pleasantly offers. “Help you up if you need it.”

  “Don’t bother straining yourself, Old Timer,” Officer says.

  A long pause ensues while the policeman looks everything over from outside the van. I imagine him pulling a long knife from his utility belt and burying the blade to the hilt into each basket, in search of hidden confederates. At least, that’s how Ben and Tony would most likely write the scene. He’s so close, I can practically hear him breathing and smell his foul breath.

  When he says, “Okay, I’ve seen enough. Close it up. We’re good,” I feel the relief wash over me like a waterfall.

  Gus quickly gets back behind the wheel, slamming the driver’s side door closed.

  “I’ll be outta here in just a few minutes, Officer,” he says. “I wouldn’t even bother with closing the gate.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” the officer says. Then, “Say, Old Timer, why don’t you quit and join the Primary Program? You’re getting too long in the tooth to be doing this shit day in and day out. Pretty soon Everest will have automated everything. Even I’ll be out of a job and happily enrolled in Everest Primary. Plan on moving to Mexico. Then fish and drink the rest of my life away.”

  “I like to work,” Gus says. “Makes me feel like it’s the old days and people need me.”

  “Suit yourself,” the guard says. “I’ll open the gate.”

  The window is rolled back up. I then make out the clatter and clang of metal against metal as the chain link fence is opened. The van pulls ahead.

  “That’s it,” Gus says, “we’re in. Hope nobody’s fallen asleep back there.”

  “We’re all awake, Gus,” Tony says.

  “Even doll face is awake,” Ben says.

  “Heard that,” Tony says.

  “You two oughtta have a write off one of these days and may the best man win,” I say.

  “I’ll take that challenge with both hands tied behind my back,” Ben says.

  “Let’s live through this and you’re on, Colorado boy,” Tony says.

  “Amen, brother,” Ben answers.

  “Okay, no more chatter, kids,” Gus says. “We’re coming up on the docks. I’m gonna back in.”

  He drives forward for about one-hundred yards until he comes to a full stop. He then throws the truck in reverse. While he carefully backs the van up manually, the electronic stacc
ato reverse alarm sounds. When he comes to a dead stop at the dock bumper, the alarm stops.

  “We are right on time,” he says, shutting down the engine.

  He gets out, comes around to the cargo bay, and opens the bay’s overhead door. I then listen to him get back behind the wheel and close the driver’s side door behind him. That’s when he quickly makes his way into the back and into one of the free laundry baskets.

  “Now, we wait for the remote-control dollies,” he says from inside the basket.

  Suddenly, I make out the humming sound of an electric battery-powered motor and rubber wheels running on cement. It’s definitely the remote-control dollies. Thank God for pilotless tech. Tony’s basket is lifted off the van floor and carried away. It takes maybe twenty seconds before the pallet mover comes back and retrieves my basket.

  I feel the mover carry me into the prison. Heart in my throat, I wait for the other two baskets to arrive before I allow myself to breathe. I’m listening to the sounds of the prison laundry. The hiss and clang of steam valves and the spinning of what I can only image are giant dryers and washers. I’m wondering why they don’t wash and dry their own towels on site. Maybe it’s just easier to hire out a service to take care of that portion of the prison’s laundry needs. An Everest validated service, no doubt.

  Then, just like that, the machines stop. The entire prison seems to go eerily silent. A commotion on my left. Without having to see him, I know it’s Gus having emerged from his basket like a starling hatching from a white eggshell. He pokes me.

  “Let’s go,” he whispers. “Go, go, go.”

  Slipping my night vision over my eyes, I escape the laundry basket. Ben, Tony, and I follow Gus out of the laundry facility, deeper into the bowels of A-Block. The place is black as night. Guards are shouting to one another.

  “Watch your backs!”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Who turned out the goddamned lights?”

  Gus shoulders his rifle, fires at the first two guards who enter his sites. They drop like stones. In the green-tinted night vision, their blood runs dark green and their eyes reflect their utter shock and terror.

  Inmates cheer and scream. They sense they are about to be rescued.

  Then, two more Everest guards appear near a row of cells on our left. Tony takes aim and shoots. They, too, go down hard onto the concrete floor. Watching all this occur through the green tinted night vision makes it all seem so surreal, like we’re trapped inside an old-fashioned first-person video game or living inside an Everest Virtual Reality game. God, maybe we are.

  We move on through the cell block until we come to the two-story circular common. It’s filled with guards who occupy a circular platform that acts as a perimeter to the glass enclosed monitoring station. Gus, Ben, and Tony open up on the guards, zero hesitation. They fire back at us, blindly. Screaming, shouting, and gunfire fills the facility. The ungodly noise reverberates against the concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. It’s a deafening, chaotic nightmare.

  Tony leans into my ear, barks, “Shoot, Tanya. Shoot! This is the only chance we have of killing these guards and freeing the terminated prisoners.”

  I swallow something cold and bitter tasting. I’ve never killed a man. I’ve never before contemplated such a thing as a possibility. Even if that person were a truly evil one, I never imagined I would find myself in the position of having to kill somebody. But now, I’m raising my weapon, aiming the red laser light at a guard who is presently aiming his own automatic rifle at me . . . in the direction of the source of my laser light. He fires a burst that hits the floor only inches from my feet, spraying chunks of shredded concrete up against my legs, chest and face.

  “Damnit, shoot, Tanya!” Tony shouts again.

  My index finger pressed against the trigger; I see the laser sight reflected off the guard’s face. I slowly press the trigger. The rifle fires and the face disappears. That one single act seems to pop the cherry as it were. Rather, it breaks me out of my deer-caught-in-the-headlights hex. I then take aim at as many Everest Corp. guards as I can, shooting them without hesitation while we continually move forward, never stopping for more than a couple seconds at a time.

  Making our way through C Block leads us to a set of doors that will access the fulfillment center. We hear cheers from the many gray pajama-wearing terminated inmates who have escaped their cells now that the doors have been unlocked due to the electrical outage. Some are making for the doors of the facility, feeling their way through the darkness toward them. It gives me great hope to know they just might escape this place. Maybe some or even all of them will join the Resistance.

  When we come to the double steel doors that access the fulfillment center, Ben raises his right booted foot and kicks them open, so he doesn’t have to lower his weapon. It turns out to be a brilliant maneuver too, since a firing squad of no less than a half dozen guards are waiting for us on the other side. They fire, but the darkness inhibits their accuracy. The four of us take aim and slaughter the guards. Releasing my now empty magazine, I punch a fresh one into the housing, pull back the bolt. I manage to do this without breaking stride, just like I learned on the range. I’m not a trained soldier by any means, but I am definitely getting the hang of this.

  We enter what can only be described as a mammoth warehouse. Hundreds of men and women stand shoulder to shoulder at conveyor belts that deliver one product after the other. From the looks of it, the prisoners are required to box each and every product which are then sent by drone to their respective customers. It appears to be a never-ending stream of products flowing out of the Fulfillment Center.

  But right now, the inmates aren’t boxing anything. They are standing in stunned silence as we make our way through a second set of open doors and enter into the center of the building. No teams of guards are there to greet us, which comes as a pleasant surprise.

  “Michael Smart!” Gus Truman shouts. “Michael Smart if you are here, come to the sound of my voice.” Then, “Mr. and Mrs. Bradly Teal! If you are here, come immediately to the sound of my voice.”

  “I’m Sarah!” a woman shouts.

  It’s my mother. My eyes fill with tears and it makes seeing through the green tinted night vision all the more difficult. But I don’t care. It’s my mother and I know for certain now that she is alive.

  “I’m Brad Teal!” Dad shouts.

  He, too, is alive.

  “Oh thank you, Lord,” I whisper to myself.

  “Mike Smart here!” shouts Tony’s brother.

  “Mike!” Tony barks. “I’m here, man! Come to me, little brother!”

  Footsteps pounding the concrete. Then, three individuals approaching us.

  It seems to take forever, but when my parents finally arrive, I say, “Mom, Dad, it’s me.”

  My dad’s face is one of complete surprise.

  “Is that you, Scout?”

  “It’s me!”

  “Oh my God, Tanya,” my mother cries, while breaking out in tears. “How is this possible?”

  “Mike,” Tony says, taking his brother in his arms. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

  Gus and Ben turn to us.

  “No time for reunion celebration,” Gus points out.

  “He’s right, Tanya and Tony,” Ben adds. “We’ve got less than a minute until those lights go back on and every surviving guard is on us like flies on horseshit.”

  Gus points at a pair of double doors located at the far end of the warehouse.

  “That’s our exit, people,” he says. “Tanya and Tony, you hold on to your loved ones. You’re their seeing-eye dogs. Now, move.”

  We don’t walk our way to the exit. We run. Sprint is more like it. A gunshot rings out. Then two more. The rounds ricochet against the mechanical delivery system, along with the chains and cable pulleys that feed the horizontal conveyor belts.

  “They’re shooting at us!” my mother screams.

  “Just keep going, Mom!” I bark. “We’re a
lmost home.”

  We come to the door. Gus tries to open it. But it’s locked.

  “Stand back!” he orders.

  Aiming his AR-15 for the doorknob, he fires a three-round burst. The knob, and the lock it houses, explodes. That’s when Ben raises his right foot and kicks the damaged door. It flies open. We exit the warehouse and free our eyes from the night vision devices. Ben gazes at his watch.

  “We got about thirty seconds to get ourselves to the laundry truck and out of this prison,” he informs. “Hope everyone has good legs.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Teal,” Mike says, his eyes wide. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “No time for catching up,” Ben interjects. “Let’s go now.”

  “Just lead the way,” my father insists.

  In the light of the new day, I am finally getting my first good look at my folks. They look thinner, and their skin is pale, like they haven’t seen the outdoors since Everest abducted them. But I’m just glad they’re alive. Glad Mike is alive, too.

  “Move everyone,” Gus insists. “Follow me.”

  He begins running the length of the warehouse until he comes to the round common area in the center of the cell blocks. The doors on the common area have been busted wide open. Scores of inmates are pouring out. Gangs of the inmates are beating the Everest Guards. Some are using their bare hands; others have stolen the guard’s weapons. As we make our way past the common area to A-block, I can’t help but spot the six or seven Everest guards with their backs pressed against the concrete wall while three inmates aim automatic rifles at them.

  “Ready, aim, fire!” one of the three shouts.

  Rapid fire shots ring out and the six guards drop like sacks of old bones.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” my mother shouts.

  “Don’t look at it, Mom!” I shout.

  We turn the corner on A-block and face the loading docks and the van. Gus goes to the driver’s side door, opens it, tosses his AR-15 inside.

  “Ben,” he says, “you load everyone in.”

  “Copy that, Jefe,” Ben says. Then, taking his place at the back of the van, “Everyone in now.”

  My father is the first in. He extends his hand to my mother and he pulls her up. Next one in is Mike. Then, I hop up, followed by Tony and finally Ben. Just before closing the door, we can see a sea of inmates rushing toward us.