“Yeah, and?” I’m guessing there’s more, else why would she look so concerned?
“It’s usually the first of three drugs administered in lethal injection executions.”
“It’s just an anesthetic, though, right?”
Something like panic is tightening my chest, as if my body knows something that my mind hasn’t yet realized.
“Yeah,” she says. “Although at high doses it can slow or even stop the person breathing. In executions, they usually administer a muscle relaxant after the anesthetic, not that it’s necessary because the person is already unconscious. Then they give the third drug, potassium chloride, which stops the heart, causing cardiac arrest and death within minutes. Combined with the general anesthetic, it’s a silent killer — no convulsions, no foaming at the mouth.”
My legs slow on the pedals. My hands, suddenly sweaty, slip on the handlebars.
“And” — she blows out a slow breath before continuing — “the chemical formula for Potassium Chloride is KCl.”
KCl. Kick Crappy lovers.
“The combination of the two drugs would drop a person instantly and kill them in minutes,” she says.
“What are you saying?” I turn around to see her face.
“Face the front!” she orders. “I’m saying that those cartridges are a lethal injection in bullet form. They’re poison.”
I’m gasping now, as if I’ve just sprinted a mile.
“We’ve been shooting them with poison?”
No! Just no. It’s not possible. We haven’t. I haven’t. I couldn’t.
“You’ve been executing them, yes,” says Sofia.
“I don’t believe it! They said we were just shooting them with a dissolving cartridge containing anesthetic, just to get them unconscious, so they could be brought in for treatment.”
“They lied. I’m guessing the only treatment they’d get is incineration.” She pauses, then says, “It’s appalling. They’ve been killing people. This place, man, these people!”
I’ve been killing people. My stomach is cold, my head is dizzy.
“What are you going to do now, Jinx?”
I want to throw up. I want to run away and hide in a dark cupboard somewhere. I want to go break Sarge’s eardrums and kneecaps, to steal a rifle from the armory and put an “anesthetizing” round into Roberta Roth.
But what am I going to do now?
Chapter 16
Dead meat
I’m a killer.
I have killed people.
I have killed people in cold blood. People who were weak and sick and who weren’t attacking me. Who weren’t attacking anyone.
I’ve killed at least half a dozen people in the same way as my father was killed. Shot them in the same way I’ve shot infected rats and dogs. I try to remember the individuals. The woman with the red shoe in the alley — she was my first. The man in the road, with the dreadlocks and bleeding arms — he was my second; the little boy — ah, God, just a kid! — cowering in the shallows of a deserted pond, his shorts stained with the liquefied remains of his insides. There were more, I must remember them. I must never forget.
Am I a murderer?
I hide in my room, gnawing at my damaged nail, my mind swirling with questions.
Quinn called me a killer. Did he suspect all along that this was what our unit was doing? Is that part of why he was so angry when he discovered I was in the sniping unit? On that last night, when he showed me the interrogation footage, he’d said there was more I had to know. Was this what he wanted to tell me? I hadn’t wanted to hear, and he said he needed to get evidence or else I wouldn’t believe. Then the next day all hell broke loose, and he never got a chance to tell me.
Why don’t they just use ordinary special forces snipers? Why have they recruited a bunch of kids to do their dirty work for them?
But I already know the answer.
They used us kids because we could be inserted into parks and streets and neighborhoods without anyone suspecting what we were. Kid snipers? Nobody would believe it. A memory from one of my online history tutorials flashes into my mind, a quote by Hitler, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Killer kids — that was a lie big enough and absurd enough that no one would believe it. And our unit was lied to as well, told over and over that we were helping, that the cartridges contained mere anesthetic, that the M&Ms would be taken in to hospitals for treatment which would give them a dignified death. Dignified!
Roth and Sarge had shown me a biohazard hospital ward where a family was being given a chance to say goodbye to their loved one, had stated that this was what lay in store for all the M&Ms we brought down. Lies! Lies and deceit and euphemisms from day one. Had they even bothered to identify the victims we’d killed, to trace their families and notify them of their relative’s passing?
We could have used the same short-range dart-guns and tranquilizer darts on M&Ms that we used on suspects, only filled with the lethal cocktail, but I reckon they were telling the truth, for once, when they said they didn’t want us getting within attack range of an infected person. They obviously didn’t want to risk their valuable, highly trained and incredibly useful “assets”.
But why did they use the filled cartridges instead of regular live rounds if they intended to kill the M&Ms anyway? I think I know the answer to that question, too. In order to ensure an instantaneous kill, the shooter would need to use a normal to high-caliber round. But any cadet sniper armed with a scoped rifle would see how it ripped flesh open and left a gaping, bleeding wound. No way would they believe they were just darting with a minimally penetrating dissolving round.
Also, members of the public might see things they shouldn’t. There would be blood at the entry site, and possible spatter of infectious blood and body tissue. A round might go through and through, lodging in a nearby wall or hitting someone else, or coming to land where someone could retrieve it and use it as evidence.
If the sniper’s aim was just slightly off, the first shot might not be a kill-shot, and the vic would move, groan, call for help. That wouldn’t fit with the story of instant anesthesia. Bottom-line, it would be clear to the sniper and any witnesses that the M&Ms were being put to death.
With the specially designed cartridges, on the other hand, there would be no twitching or moaning, no ballistic or biological evidence left on the scene, no sign that a sick civilian had just been executed by a black ops asset. The poison bullets would leave minimal blood, penetrate only shallowly, and immediately bring down the targets. The victims, dammit! I will no longer think of innocent people as targets, tangos, mooks. They are people, human beings.
Another horrible thought occurs. How can I be sure that we haven’t been killing the terrorist suspects, too? The footage of the interrogation proves that at least one survived the takedown long enough to be tortured, but there’s no proof that they all did. Those “tranq-darts” could just as easily be filled with the same lethal cocktail as the special bullets.
I feel like a scared little girl. How have I gone from computer-gaming kid to executioner in three months?
Quinn was right. I wish with every fiber of my being that he was here. I could fall into his arms and tell him everything. Maybe he would forgive me, tell me he still loved me, and reassure me that things will work out. Right now, I’d even settle for a hug from my mother. My mother! I’m supposed to be going home for a visit tomorrow. How will I get through the rest of today and tonight without revealing what I know?
What am I going to do? The question keeps firing in my brain, and I can think of no good plan.
Should I tell someone? I care for the guys in my unit — it’s unthinkable to let them continue killing, blindly ignorant of what they’re actually doing. And yet, I don’t know how they might react if I tell them. I remember the first time I met Bruce on the transport into PlayState. When our Hummer was accosted by an M&M in the final stages of the disease, Bruce had said that victims l
ike him should be put down, in the same way as rabid animals were. Would he have changed his mind in the last months? Unlikely. But how would he feel if he found out that he had been turned into a killer without his knowledge or consent?
Bottom line, I’m still not sure that I can trust the guys. If any of them are rats for Roth, I’ll be screwed. And if they aren’t, then by telling them I’ll be putting them in jeopardy. What Sofia and I now know is enough to get a person permanently detained, perhaps even taken out. On our sort of missions, a friendly-fire “accident” could happen all too easily.
It would be unforgivably dangerous to tell Mom or Robin, too. Oh God, what am I going to do?
I still don’t know by that afternoon’s combat skills session. I’m so distracted that I take a real beating. I’m lifted up, thrown down, and flung around like a rag doll. When I get the crap knocked out of me for the umpteenth time, Charlie says, “What is the matter with you, kiddo? Where’s your head at? Come into an armed fight so unfocused in the real world out there, you’ll be dead meat.”
Dead. The word ricochets around my brain. I remember another victim, a large woman with rolls of fat under the neck and blood streaming from her eyes, banging her head over and over again on the rusted wreck of an old Chevy pickup.
“Cadet James!”
Charlie has me by the shoulders and is shaking me gently. There is real concern in her eyes as she looks into mine. The rest of the unit has stopped their fighting and are staring at me. I mustn’t raise suspicion. If I behave oddly, it will get reported. They might check the surveillance footage, see I’ve been in the vicinity of Sofia and perhaps start investigating her.
I lift a hand to my head. “I’ve got a terrible headache, Charlie. I banged my head hard in yesterday’s session, and it still hurts.”
“You, cadet, are craptastically feeble. We can’t lay a hand on you without you bleeding or aching or coming apart at the seams.”
“Sorry,” I say lamely.
Unexpectedly, she gives me a quick, consoling hug, and for a moment I hover on the brink of tears. Then she lets me go with an order to “Go and sit on the bench there, see what you can learn by observing us.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I park my butt on the bench, rest my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, and stare in their direction. But I’m not watching. I’m thinking.
After my capture and torture, I decided to come back to ASTA and find out more about what they were up to. Well, I can put a check in the block next to that item on my to-do list. I wanted to get back into the system and work from within to bring them down. That’s no longer possible. Somehow, sometime, they’ll discover what I know. I’ll slip up and make some comment that will give me away, I’ll pull a face when the boys get sent out on an M&M mission, or recoil and refuse when one day they try to send me again.
Now I want out of here, as soon as possible. I’ve got to escape and do everything I can to expose the system that turned me into a murderer. I want to fight Sarge and Roth and whoever they’re serving, fight them properly, directly, and honestly from within the heart of the rebels.
And if there’s a way to reunite with Quinn, to convince him I’m on his side, then I’m going to find it and do that, too.
Chapter 17
Keeping secrets
That night I take a turn past the rec room, where Dasha, one of the intel recruits, hangs out every evening selling prepaid cash cards. Using my credit card, into which my allowance and cadet stipend are paid, I buy as many as I think I can without raising an alert on my account. Dasha’s got her bootleg business down to a fine art. Using apps on her phone, she processes my purchase across three different business fronts: Book Bazaar, Unlimited Airtime, and Candy-Apple Treats.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she says, handing over the loaded cards. With these, I’ll be able to pay for what I need without leaving an online trace.
Back in my room, I tuck them into a side-zipper of my already stuffed bag. I’ve packed most of my belongings, but not all — just in case. I don’t want to tip off any prying eyes that I’m planning to leave for good.
In the morning, when I’m due to go home, Bruce and Cameron are sent out on an M&M mission. I want to scream the truth, but I tell them nothing about what they’re about to do.
I give Cameron a hug and tell him, “Stay safe.”
“Good luck,” he says. Cameron always knows more than I think he does.
Bruce wants a hug, too. It’s tighter and lasts longer than I’m comfortable with, but hugging him doesn’t bug me like it used to. Is that because I’ve changed, or because he has?
“See you on Monday afternoon,” Bruce says.
“See you,” I say.
Our house has a porch, but no one is waiting to greet me when the ASTA transport drops me off. My welcome will be on the other side of the domestic decon unit. A dark-brown sedan is parked a little way down and over the road from our house, under an oak tree. It’s hard to make out because of the dappled shade, but I think there’s a figure sitting in the driver’s seat. Sofia warned me that a spook has been assigned to keep tabs on my movements during my weekend away from the compound, so I guess this is him. Also, according to her, my internet activity and phone calls are being monitored, but no direct audio surveillance has been ordered. They consider me low risk, but still want to keep an eye on me.
I push into the decon unit and, sure enough, Mom is on the other side of the tinted glass door, her face shifting from joy at seeing me, to concern when she spots the bruises, to anxiety when it looks like I’ll come into the house without going through the full decontamination process.
She holds a dressing gown open to receive me and gestures to the disposal bin whose contents Robin has to regularly toss, along with all our bio-waste, into the household incinerator in our basement. She wants me to toss what I’m wearing before I come into her sanitized domain. Why not? If things go according to plan, I won’t be needing them again. I peel off my black jumpsuit and the latex gloves and face mask I donned before leaving ASTA and stuff them into the bin, but I shove my running shoes onto the high mesh shelf directly below the disinfecting UV lights. Then, just to please Mom, I strap on a pair of protective goggles and press the GO-button on the decon bath.
For fifteen seconds, I have to stand still in my underwear while I’m sprayed with a disinfectant mist and bathed in low-intensity UV light. Then the door pops open.
“Goggles on the rack,” says Mom, wrapping me in the gown.
I replace them in the decon unit. As the door swings shut, the unit goes hot-box, flooding the cubicle with sterilizing ozone and strong UV light.
“Hey, Jinxy,” says Robin, giving me a quick hug.
“Hands,” says Mom, pushing Robin aside. I stretch out my hands and she sprays them with sanitizer.
“Open wide.”
I open my mouth and stick out my tongue so Mom can spritz my throat with oral disinfectant. This is all unnecessary — I know that now, but she doesn’t, and it’s easier not to argue. Besides, I have no intention of endangering what remains of my family by telling them the truth about how rat fever is, and isn’t, spread. Or by telling them what happened to me. Mom would have a freak-out of tsunamic proportions and would probably try to report what happened to me and what I discovered to the authorities. And no way can I risk that — I have no idea how deep the rot goes, what government agencies might be involved in the plot to keep us all ignorant of the truth.
“There,” says Mom, finally satisfied that she has done what she can to rid me of any microscopic cooties. “Now I can give you a proper welcome!”
She hugs me tight, and I wince at the pressure on my bruises and arm sores, one of which I think might be infected. Then she stands back to examine me.
“Lord above, Jinxy! What has happened to you?” She can see only the scabbed cut and fading bruises on my face, and the stitches in my stubbly strip of scalp, but it’s enough to alarm her.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “We’ve been training in hand-to-hand combat, and I got a bit banged up, is all. Those boys in my unit are strong.”
Robin, who saw my wince over Mom’s shoulder and now watches how I tug the sleeves of my gown down over my wrists, tilts his head and gives me an “Oh, yeah?” look.
I ignore him.
“But what about your head!” Mom protests.
I duck as she tries to touch the stitches. I had tried to hide them by combing my hair over, but the strands hooked and tugged at the stitches, and it was just too uncomfortable.
“It’s nothing, just a little accident. None of my brains spilled out, promise. Hey, are those brownies I smell?”
“I made them especially for you!” says Mom, happily distracted. “Come into the kitchen and tell me everything.”
I follow her into the kitchen and spend the next while telling her everything about nothing, snowing her with details about how our daily intake of food and fluids is scanned at the cafeteria “register” and analyzed to check we’re getting enough nutrition, what my utilitarian quarters look like, how I can outshoot all the boys on the shooting range, and reassuring her that my unit is making a real difference in the war against the rats.
I don’t tell her that we also shoot humans, let alone that we kill them.
She’s busy bustling about, and I don’t think she notices how I jump when she bangs a pot, or how the bzzzt of the blender makes me wince and swallow hard.
After we’ve caught up and I’ve guzzled two glasses of ice-cold milk and three brownies, I leave her to preparing lunch — she’s making my favorite, chili. Upstairs I change into my jeans and a long-sleeved T. It’s a hot August day, and I’d rather be wearing shorts and a tank, but I need to cover as much skin as possible.
Robin comes into my room and flops on my bed.
“Time to dish the dirt, Jinxy.”
“What?”
The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel Page 30
