by Sean Platt
Ana watched Oswald waiting for his response.
The giant nodded. Oswald smiled.
“Don’t you wish you could go back and do the right thing with those men? Kill them before they had a chance to kill the girl?”
Horrance nodded again.
“But you couldn’t. Because you were following orders. Sutherland’s orders. You were trapped. You wanted to do the right thing but your inner Horrance knew that what you were being told to do was wrong. Now’s your chance to do it right the first time. You want to do the right thing, don’t you?”
Horrance nodded . . . then surprised Ana.
“But I can’t. I have to follow my orders. That’s the most right thing.”
“No, Horrance. It isn’t.” Oswald turned from the giant to Ana. “Get up, Ana, and take Calla out of here now. Horrance is going to do the right thing.”
“No,” Horrance said, now furiously shaking his head. “No, don’t do that! You stay.”
Oswald spoke calmly. “Leave this room, Ana. And take Calla with you. Horrance doesn’t want to regret anything later. He wants to do it right the first time—now. Go,” he repeated. “Leave this room, Ana. And take Calla with you.”
Horrance looked confused, turning his eyes from the doctor to the girls, then to the door.
“No!” he yelled again.
“Go, Ana.”
The doctor said it so calmly, Ana could only obey. She stood, trembling, hoping the giant wouldn’t shoot her, then gathered Calla into her arms.
She crossed the room and waited by the door, looking back at Oswald.
The doctor went to the table and picked up a blaster. He held it like it was hot, delicate and high.
“I’m going to give this to Ana so she doesn’t get harmed. It’s for outside this room, to protect herself. She’ll die with no way to protect herself. You don’t want that, Horrance. We want Ana to live. No regrets. No do-overs for later. Let’s do the right thing now, the first time.”
“No.” Horrance looked like he was getting angry. Maybe Oswald was pushing him too far.
“Come on, Horrance. You can do better than this. You are better than this. Ana is going to carry Calla out of here. You’re going to let her because you’re a man who won’t just shoot two innocent girls. They never did anything to you, nor would they do anything to anyone. They are nice people who don’t deserve to die. Especially because you were following orders that you don’t want to take.”
“Don’t go,” Horrance said.
Ana’s heart raced. She still wondered if maybe Oswald was pushing Horrance too far.
She looked down at Calla, paralyzed by the fear of a wrong move claiming the girl’s life as she’d cost Calla’s father’s.
“Go!” Oswald cried out, now like an order.
Ana took the gun, nodded at Oswald, and hit the green button to open the door. Then she carried Calla through it, holding the blaster under Calla, hoping she could aim and fire without dropping one or both.
Still in the room, Horrance ordered them to stop. His bark sounded like a blaster would follow.
She froze. Oswald had been wrong.
But Oswald continued. “You don’t want to shoot them. You’re doing the right thing, Horrance. You don’t want to regret anything later. You don’t want to think about it every night. No regrets to keep you from sleep, Horrance. You can come with us, if you want.”
Just keep walking! Oswald is buying us time. Keep walking.
Ana’s back was still to Horrance as she put one foot in front of the other, hoping that Oswald was right, and that he’d be following shortly.
“You can come with us,” Oswald repeated to the big man.
Ana continued forward, looking down the corpse-riddled hall, strewn with dead men, women, and children. No guards, no lurking zombies, no stray fire behind her.
The coast was clear, but Ana didn’t know where to go.
She needed Oswald.
“Thank you, Horrance, for doing the right thing.” Oswald sounded slightly closer.
She took another step.
“You should come with us,” Oswald suggested again.
“No. Come back right now,” Horrance pleaded, sounding on the verge of tears.
“No,” Oswald said. “You can come with us, Horrance. You don’t have to stay with Sutherland. You can be free. With us. We’ll find the cure. No regrets, Horrance.”
Horrance had nothing left. “Come back” was barely a puff.
“Thank you,” Oswald called, now right behind Ana. She jostled Calla in her arms. The girl was starting to feel twice as heavy and three times as awkward.
Oswald was at Ana’s back. He said, “Thanks for doing the right thing, Horrance. You’re a good man.”
Ana thought she could feel Horrance’s anger dying like wind . . .
Blaster fire scraped frayed nerves and an otherwise silent tunnel. Ana turned to see Oswald standing behind her, a hole through his chest. His eye was open, startled, as he fell to the floor.
Ana looked through the space where Oswald had been and into Horrance’s horrified eyes. He looked down at the gun as if it had fired on its own, then back at Ana, eyes big and sad, face knotted in confusion.
Ana tightened her grip on Calla, then turned and ran. Horrance called “Come back!” three times, louder each time, but the next blast didn’t leave his gun until after she had cleared the hallway.
Ana raced until she found the secret panel that led to the stairwell that led to the room she’d been hiding in with Oswald, Calla, and Elijah just before all hell broke loose.
She hoped Elijah was still in there and hadn’t locked her out. The door opened as she touched the panel to its right. She went inside, immediately pressing the red lock button on the inside panel.
She turned to find Elijah on the ground, curled into a fetal position, shaking. Her heart dropped like a stone.
“Elijah?”
The boy looked up, eyes like two marbles on fire, face caked with early forming scabs, saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth.
Elijah leapt at Ana, almost hissing. She had forgotten he wasn’t immune.
She cried out, turning herself around and dropping on top of Calla to form a barrier between her and the boy. The gun clanged to the ground.
Elijah rolled right off her back and fell to the floor.
Ana gently laid Calla down. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Elijah spring up.
Shit!
The gun was three feet away, Elijah five feet past that.
Whatever human part of him that had yet to surrender to the monster must’ve recognized Ana’s intention to get the blaster.
He ran toward her.
Without time to think, she dug her foot into the floor and propelled herself straight at the infected boy. Seconds away from his wide-open mouth, she brought up both her hands, grabbed his shoulders, and used his weight against him, spinning the almost-zombie aside as she fell to the ground atop the blaster.
Ana grabbed it.
He lunged at her.
She brought the gun up and fired, hitting Elijah’s gut and slicing him in two. His torso sailed past Ana, his legs fell in a bloody tangled heap.
Ana fell back against the ground, sighing in relief. As she did, the boy’s head and arms twitched, and blood poured from his severed trunk, the hot stench of putrid guts souring the room.
Ana’s stomach spilled onto the floor.
She cried out as the vomit left her body. She turned and crawled over to Calla, pulled her body into her chest, and held the girl, still sobbing.
Sutherland’s voice came over the intercom.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
CHAPTER 52—KELLER
After breaching the station’s entrance, Keller and Kern stood frozen at the end of a large hallway staring at a holocaust of ripped bodies, corpses melted by blaster fire, blood and guts painting walls. Keller fought hard to control the vomit climbing his throat.
&n
bsp; Infected men, women, and children, maimed but not yet dead, stared up at them, attempting to reach out for a meal or help.
“My God,” Kern said, a rare moment of shock registering through the hardened soldier’s shell.
Keller flashed back to carnage from the bombing that had killed his eight-year-old son, Joshua, along with 16 others at the parade, detonated by Underground cowards. Keller remembered staring down at his son’s dead, open eyes after shrapnel had ripped through his skull. No matter how hard Keller had stared and sworn that his son was alive, he hadn’t been able to change the truth that Joshua had not stared back.
Keller had done more than his fair share of despicable things in service to The State, but he’d never slaughtered innocents, or women and children.
Sutherland was the worst kind of coward and had to be stopped.
Keller considered putting these poor people out of their misery but couldn’t waste time or ammunition, not yet knowing what might be waiting in the station’s bowels.
A second hunter orb entered the hallway, and Keller instructed it to go forward and find Sutherland while the first held guard behind them. The machine floated further down the hallway and started to shoot. Keller had instructed it to open fire upon the infected, zombies, and any attackers. He hoped that any station survivors didn’t mistake orbs for enemies and mistakenly shoot at them.
Keller and Kern trailed the path of carnage behind the orb. They stepped into a brightly colored area and saw more half-disintegrated bodies but no sign of Sutherland or his men.
A voice crackled throughout the room from unseen speakers.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“This fucker is taunting us?” Kern looked at Keller incredulously. “Let’s go—”
An explosion rocked the hallway behind them.
Keller spun to see their guard orb fall to the ground, now a chunk of molten metal. A large man in stolen City Watch gear stood holding a hefty Spinner 1220, the massive gun’s coils spinning in bright red as it charged, readying 40 rapid-burst blasts to send their way.
The man’s eyes were wild behind his helmet’s clear glass, his grin manic. He was in kill mode, eager to add bodies to the count.
Both Kern and Keller fired their blaster rifles as the man unleashed his weapon’s fury.
Kern vanished in a cloud of ash as Sutherland’s man turned the Spinner toward Keller.
Keller kept firing. His first two shots had missed.
Another miss meant death.
His third and fourth hit, blasting the man in the chest and sending him back. As he fell, his Spinner fired wildly into walls, the ceiling, and very nearly Keller, who dove to the ground. The Spinner stopped and its red lights faded.
Keller looked over at Kern’s remainders scattered in ashes across the charred ground—a man reduced to nothing in a flare.
There was no time for mourning. Nor would a soldier like Kern care for the waste. He would be given a hero’s funeral even if Keller couldn’t tell the man’s family or anyone in City 1 how he died—or have a body to show for it. That’s what happened in an unsanctioned battle hunting a terrorist that The State refused to acknowledge.
Keller got up and grabbed the heavy gun. Seconds later, the remaining orb raced back into the hallway, eager to show him something. City Watcher Reynolds was on-screen back at City 6—one of the few people Keller trusted with this off-book mission.
“Sir, there’s something you need to know.”
“What is it?”
“The orb has picked up a reading nearby.”
“What?” Keller wished Reynolds would get to the point before another of Sutherland’s men sneaked up on him. If they were all packing Spinners, he wouldn’t be so lucky a second time.
“The orb is picking up signs of Ana Lovecraft.”
“Where?” Keller asked, heart racing.
The map showed her two halls over and one level down. It showed a thermal video of a girl lit red, pacing. Two shapes were on the floor, also red. Actually, three—one looked like a person torn in half. Did she kill them?
Keller couldn’t be certain it was Ana pacing but couldn’t imagine the girl had found someone to remove her ID chip.
“Why is she here?” Keller asked, confused, as if Reynolds might have an answer.
“I have no idea, Sir. I thought she was dead.”
Reynolds wasn’t among the few who knew of The Network’s duplicity: faking Ana and Liam’s deaths on instruction of The State.
“No,” Keller said. “She’s very much alive. Are you getting a reading for Liam Harrow or anyone else from City 6?”
“No, Sir.”
Keller stared at the short video of Ana’s frame stalking back and forth.
“Is she infected?” Keller asked.
“It’s hard to tell. Her movements aren’t erratic. But she may not be showing signs yet.”
Or she’s immune? Keller wondered.
“What do you want to do, Sir?”
“Follow me,” Keller said to the orb as he headed down the hall holding the Spinner with both hands, eager to unleash its lethal blast on Sutherland.
Ana would have to wait.
CHAPTER 53—ANA LOVECRAFT
Ana paced as she waited for Sutherland’s voice to come back and taunt her.
She looked down at Calla, still on the floor, motionless but breathing. She couldn’t allow that bastard to hurt her.
He’d killed Egan. He was responsible for Oswald’s death. And he’d been responsible for her father’s, even if it was Keller who had murdered him in front of the world. It was all she could do not to charge out the door, find the bastard, and take him out herself. But there was no one else left to protect Calla.
And there was no way Ana could leave the girl lying on the floor, even if the room was hidden. Someone would find her, either Sutherland’s thugs or one of the infected.
Or, if Ana died, nobody would find Calla, and she’d never wake up.
Don’t think like that.
She’s going to live!
Perhaps not so strangely, her almost maternal instincts toward Calla made her think of her other “family,” and Ana wondered how Liam and Katrina were doing. Had they found Adam? Or had they failed and were they already dead?
There had been so much death in the past two years. First her mother, then nearly everyone she came into contact with. It was so hard to believe that just two years ago, her greatest concern had been taking another aptitude test so she could stop sewing buttons. And while Ana had loved her family, she’d still taken them for granted, thinking they’d always be there.
She thought how she used to chase Adam around the house tickling him until he was screaming for help. Then Mom would come and tickle her, and Father would come and tickle Mom, until they were all in a pile, laughing, red-faced and out of breath on the floor.
That was all gone.
She couldn’t continue alone.
Ana was a fugitive from her State, no City would have her. She was enemies with Sutherland, and who knew how far that animosity stretched in The Barrens? How many camps would consider her an enemy?
She could maybe return to Paradise, but she’d been kicked out of there right after her bite.
She was a girl without a home, friends, or family.
Alone in hell.
Stop it! You don’t know that Adam’s dead. He, Liam, and Katrina could come back at any minute. Stop it!
Would Father do this?
Or would he suck it up and do what had to be done?
She sank to the ground, putting Calla’s head in her lap, running her hands through the girl’s hair to hopefully coax her awake and give Ana something to believe in.
Startled by a knock on the door, she reached for her blaster, slipping a finger through its trigger but still holding Calla’s head in her lap.
Go away! Nobody’s here!
A man’s voice spoke. “Ana, open up.”
She set Calla’s head gentl
y on the ground and stood, gripping her blaster with two hands, aiming at the door, not saying a word.
It didn’t sound like Sutherland, but it also didn’t sound like anyone she knew. But she also couldn’t think of who knew she might be in here. She didn’t think it sounded like Oswald, even if he were somehow alive. Maybe Father Truth?
“Ana, I’m here to help.” The voice returned, coming through a speaker, likely in a chem suit helmet, so altered a bit. It was familiar but not enough to place it—too deep to be Sutherland, though it could’ve been one of his men trying to coax her out.
She stood her ground, silent.
“Stand back, Ana, I’m going to open this door. Don’t shoot, or you will be killed. Along with your friend.”
That voice, so familiar . . .
Ana backed against the wall and crept toward the corner, standing at an angle from the entrance. She crouched low, assuming that whoever came in would be looking straight ahead and shooting high.
She might have the advantage.
She trained her gun on the door, hands shaking.
If she screwed this up, she and Calla would pay.
“I’m coming in, Ana. Three . . . two . . . one.”
The door clicked—how did he unlock it from the outside?—and slid open.
Ana aimed the blaster, ready, hoping she wasn’t about to fire on a friend.
A hunter orb hovered into the room, cannon glowing blue, a voice commanding from the speaker, “Put the gun down or you will die.”
A hunter orb?
City Watch?
Or maybe one of Egan’s?
She’d seen at least two orbs since her arrival, plus the one Elijah had taken when he and his crew saved her, Liam, and Katrina.
Its screen was dark as it hovered before her. She could fire and maybe even hit it but not before it killed her. Hunter orbs in close quarters were hard to take advantage of, and Ana didn’t know if it was friend or foe.
“Put the gun down!” the voice repeated.
The same voice, from outside the door at an angle she couldn’t see, said, “Listen to the orb, Ana.”
“OK.” Ana put her gun down.
The orb said, “The room is clear.”
