Blackout b-1

by Robison Wells

  Alec looked at Laura. “Get the radios.”

  She took a deep breath and trekked barefoot over the rocky terrain to find the man and his radio. He was maybe twenty-five feet away, shattered and broken at the base of an uprooted tree.

  She bent down to retrieve the gear, and then trudged back over to the woman, who merely stared at Laura, defeated, as she approached. The ranger was no match for any of them—smaller and lighter, without any combat training and now without even her mace. She didn’t even know who they were. Laura wondered if the woman had made the connection between them and the destroyed dam.

  Laura stood in front of her, looked into the woman’s eyes, and unclipped her radio. “Don’t fight,” Laura said.

  For some reason, Laura hoped this one lived. She looked . . . nice. Besides, forest rangers weren’t really law enforcement, were they? They weren’t the enemy.

  “Please . . .” the woman started, but her voice trailed away into nothing.

  “Now,” Alec said, leaning down to look at the ranger. He touched her name tag. “Ms. Brown. I have some questions for you.”

  TWELVE

  NO ONE WAS TALKING AS the bus pulled onto the highway.

  Jack was laying his head back on the seat, but his eyes were open a thin slit. He didn’t look like he’d last long. Aubrey wished she could sleep. Normally after staying invisible as long as she had that night she’d nap all afternoon or go to bed early. She definitely wouldn’t stay up all night. But her heart wasn’t letting her relax—it was pounding in her chest, adrenaline pulsing through her arms and legs. It was claustrophobic and dark—she didn’t realize how much she relied on her ability to disappear until she felt completely trapped and knew that she couldn’t escape.

  They stopped three times over the next few hours. Each one looked like a roadblock. Soldiers were on the road, fully armed and looking cautious and jumpy. Empty cars were pulled over on the side of the road into a jumble of makeshift parking lots. Beside the third roadblock several of the cars were blackened and burned, and at least one soldier appeared to be injured.

  Their caravan was headed north, Aubrey was sure. She knew the road well enough—another fifty miles and they’d be in Salt Lake. But she didn’t know what that meant.

  The eastern sky was turning a faint gray when they turned off the interstate and headed west. They passed the suburbs of Provo and were once again on narrow country roads that wound over low hills. Little rural towns that she’d never heard of before—Faust and Clover—whizzed past as the sun crested the mountains to the east.

  Finally they arrived at a gate. As she stared into the distance on the other side of the fence, she could see they were being watched. She spotted at least three Humvees, and two things that looked kind of like tanks. A helicopter sounded low in the sky, though she couldn’t tell where it was.

  She elbowed Jack, who startled awake.

  “Hey,” she whispered.

  “Where are we?”

  She pointed to a sign. “Dugway Proving Grounds.”

  He rubbed his face. “Dugway?”

  “You know it?” she asked.

  “Some kind of military test facility. The place is enormous—it’s like a bomb range for the air force.” He glanced around him, trying to get his bearings. “Did I really sleep that long?”

  “Look,” she said, pointing to a wide sign hung on the chain-link fence.

  WARNING: RESTRICTED AREA.

  USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED.

  She balled her hands into fists, and bent her head down to take a few deep, long breaths. She was expecting a hospital. Not a bomb range.

  There were more murmurs around the bus and a soldier at the front stood and faced them. “Almost there, folks. Maybe half an hour now.”

  I should have run, Aubrey thought. What am I doing here?

  The landscape was barren desert. There wasn’t a plant more than two feet tall, and the bus windows were pelted by grains of salty sand. It seemed to get more bleak and desolate with every mile.

  Jack nudged her. “It’ll be okay.”

  She nodded, but didn’t answer. It would be okay for him. He wasn’t a freak.

  The bus crested a hill and the uninhabited desert suddenly transformed into a small valley of bustling activity. There were a handful of permanent structures—some metal warehouses, others squat and cinder block—but the majority of the valley and hills were covered in olive-green tents. Tall chain-link fences with razor wire ran in every direction, separating one building from another and creating restricted pathways.

  Each corner was guarded by a wooden tower.

  Everything looked new and hastily built, but there was already tumbleweed blown up along the base of the fences.

  Jack thought it would be okay. He didn’t know what he was talking about.

  The convoy drove through one chain-link fence, then maneuvered around a short maze of cement barriers before entering one of the large warehouses.

  A few minutes later there was the sound of engines—other vehicles moving away from them—and then a metallic thud as the warehouse doors closed. The interior was lit with dim floodlights.

  The bus door opened and a soldier who looked older than the others entered. “Welcome to Temporary Quarantine Camp 14. Please exit the bus in an orderly fashion. This can be as simple or as hard as you’d like.”

  Jack gave Aubrey a nervous smile and they slowly made their way to the front of the bus. The soldier there unlatched their handcuffs, though he didn’t remove their ID bracelets.

  Aubrey followed Jack down the stairs and onto the dirt floor of the warehouse.

  A banner hung on the far wall reading “Intake Station 2.” There was a catwalk around the perimeter of the warehouse, almost at the ceiling, and at least twenty armed soldiers stood there, cautiously watching the teens as though they were prison inmates.

  She walked around the bus to where the others were gathering, and noticed that two more buses were behind them, and dozens of other students were there, people she’d never seen before.

  Jack pulled her away from the crowd. There was fear in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you to stay.”

  “Where else would I have gone?” she whispered.

  “Look at this,” Jack said, keeping his voice low. “You’d rather be here?”

  She glanced up at the soldiers—one appeared to be aiming a machine gun right at her. “What else was I supposed to do? Hide in the mountains for a few more weeks, starving and freezing? They’d have found me eventually.”

  “They’re going to find out—” Jack paused.

  Aubrey took a step closer to him. “What about you? You think I should have just left you alone here?”

  He didn’t answer, his frustration plain on his face. She knew that her words didn’t carry much weight. She’d abandoned him plenty of times in the last six months. And besides—what help could she be?

  Jack looked into her eyes, his lips tightly sealed. A loudspeaker squawked as someone prepared to talk.

  Jack leaned close to her, his voice barely audible. “If you want to help me, promise that you will stay safe. Don’t let them find out what you can do. Promise me.”

  Aubrey smiled, and touched his arm. “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.”

  Nicole was moving from Matt over to Aubrey, but before she got a chance to say anything, the loudspeaker blared to life. The voice was older and rough.

  “This is Intake Station Two at the Dugway Assessment Facility. You have been brought here in accordance with Executive Order 16309 and the Emergency Protection Act. This is for your welfare, and is in the best interests of both public health and national security.”

  Nicole exchanged a glance with Aubrey. Aubrey would have expected Nicole to be angry, but instead she looked scared.

  “At the east end of the building you will see a metal door,” the speaker continued. “Please proceed to that door in an orde
rly fashion for identification and your initial assessment. And please note that your cooperation is appreciated and will be rewarded. Thank you.”

  Nicole turned to Aubrey. “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can you escape?”

  Aubrey glanced at Jack. His face was tense and anxious. “Not now,” she said.

  Nicole looked confused. “Why not? They’re going to test us. This has to be about whatever you and Nate are.”

  Aubrey shook her head. She looked at the door; a few students were slowly moving toward it. “Where could I go? The doors are locked.”

  Nicole scowled, and she turned so her back was to Jack. “You could have warned me last night,” she whispered, her voice harsh and low. “After everything I did for you.”

  “I—I’m sorry. I tried.”

  “You were too stupid to even save yourself,” Nicole snapped. “And too selfish to save anyone else.”

  “Selfish?” Aubrey said. “I’ve been your slave for six months.”

  “How is it slavery,” Nicole said, “if you’re getting something out of it? This was a partnership.”

  Jack leaned in close. “Can both of you keep it down?” he said. “Who knows who’s listening?”

  Nicole’s eyes were cold and bitter. Aubrey wanted to say something—wanted to scream at her—but Nicole finally turned and began marching quickly toward the door. Matt, who’d been waiting for her, didn’t meet Aubrey’s eyes, but followed in Nicole’s wake.

  Aubrey seethed. Nicole had no right calling anyone selfish.

  “Come on,” Jack said, taking Aubrey by the elbow. She reluctantly followed.

  There were at least thirty teens in front of them in line and another ten or twelve behind.

  “Whatever is happening,” Jack breathed, “you can’t let them know.” His hand found her hand, and she took it out of sheer terror.

  “I won’t,” she said. “Quiet.”

  The line was slow, but steady. Aubrey felt like they were being led to their doom—that something sinister was waiting behind that door. But, when they finally got inside, it was just a generic, boring office. Two soldiers sat behind a desk at the front, and the line wound past them and toward a long table where medics were doing something Aubrey couldn’t see. Ten armed men were watching the line.

  Aubrey reached the first intake worker.

  “Left hand on the desk,” the young soldier said, and pointed to a rectangle that had been drawn on the desk with marker. Aubrey let go of Jack and then laid her palm on the table.

  “State your name,” the soldier said, peering at the bracelet on her wrist.

  “Aubrey Parsons,” she said.

  The soldier turned to the man next to him. “Aubrey Parsons. One-one-seven-W-S-L.”

  There was a brief pause while the man typed on a laptop. “Aubrey Parsons, one-one-seven-W-S-L. Confirmed.”

  The soldier, for the first time, looked her in the eyes. He seemed uncomfortable. “Please proceed to the medics for a cheek swab.”

  “Why?”

  “Testing,” he said. “Please move along.”

  Testing. It could be for anything, she told herself. Any disease. The terrorists could have put anything in the air or the water or the mail or the food. But she’d had half a dozen blood tests in the hospital when she’d gone blind, and no one had found any irregularities.

  Still, visions of vicious experiments filled her brain: Aubrey, lying on an operating table, tubes and needles everywhere. Or running through some scientist’s obstacle course: How long could she stay invisible? How far could she push it?

  Aubrey turned and looked at Jack, who had just been confirmed at the desk. She smiled at him halfheartedly, and then faded out.

  He looked confused, but then Aubrey saw him suppress a worried smile. She turned, watching the faces of the guards, but none of them seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Even if there had only been a few teenagers, the guards would have questioned whether she’d even been there in the first place. In the long line of faces passing in front of them, they didn’t seem to notice her disappearance at all.

  Being more careful than usual, Aubrey gently slid out of line, stepping around the other teenagers and heading toward the medics’ table. There were probably fifteen students between Jack and the medics.

  The procedure seemed simple enough: Aubrey watched a boy arrive, and the medics checked his bracelet. A medic then opened a fresh swab kit—it looked like a thick envelope—and wrote the boy’s name and number on it. The medic removed a long cotton-tipped stick from the kit and swabbed the inside of the boy’s cheek, rubbing hard for a few seconds, and then placed the swab back into the kit and set it in a box behind the table.

  She could switch her swab with someone else’s. It wouldn’t be hard—just go through the line as normal and then disappear when she was done, transferring her swab into a different kit.

  But that was a problem. She didn’t want to get tested—but she didn’t want to just trade swabs. She didn’t want to make someone else end up with her test results. She was tired of making other people pay so she could do whatever she wanted. Sure, she was still being dishonest, but there had to be a way that wouldn’t get someone else hurt.

  She looked back down the line. Another problem with this plan was that she was just guessing about who to switch with. She needed someone healthy—someone who the medics would never question. It couldn’t be Jack; Aubrey didn’t know if the tests could tell if someone was a boy or girl, but it was better to be safe than sorry. It couldn’t be Nicole, either; she had that kidney problem that kept putting her in the hospital.

  Aubrey scanned the waiting people. Four down was a girl who seemed to be perfect. Tall, slender. She was wearing shorts and her legs looked like those of a runner. Aubrey stepped closer to the girl. Her teeth were straight, she wasn’t wearing contact lenses, and her skin was smooth. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was the best that Aubrey could do.

  The girl got to the table.

  “Hand on the table,” the medic said. “What’s your name?”

  “Kristy Smith.”

  Another medic confirmed it in his laptop—checking her bracelet number against the master list—and then the first set to work swabbing her cheek. He rubbed the cotton inside her mouth for a moment, and then set the swab back into the kit. Aubrey moved quickly, snatching it away immediately and tucking it into her jacket pocket. Then, she gently bumped the kit off the edge of the table.

  The medic swore and bent over to get the kit. He was down under the table for a few minutes searching, and Aubrey snuck back into line. Jack had left a space between him and the boy in front, and Aubrey was able to slip in and reappear.

  “Oh,” he whispered, smiling. “Hi.”

  She turned and motioned for him to be quiet. Ahead of them, the medic was swabbing Kristy Smith’s mouth a second time.

  Minutes later Aubrey and Jack reached the medic’s table, and she went through all of the motions as usual, a surge of adrenaline going through her body as she realized that it all might work.

  The medic finished rubbing her cheek and then placed her swab in the kit, closed it, and set it in the box behind him.

  As soon as she was away from the table she vanished again, running behind the table and switching out Kristy Smith’s stolen swab with her own. Aubrey was able to make it back to Jack just as he was leaving the testing room.

  “How are you?” he said, reaching forward to touch her arm.

  “Good,” she said. “I hope.”

  User: SusieMusie

  Mood: Tired

  I feel like I have a train running through my head. I should never drink. But isn’t Saturday for drinking? Erica says so but I’m the one stuck in the passenger seat while she goes from party to party, getting plastered. Sara isn’t any better. I need new friends.

  THIRTEEN

  LAURA CLIMBED OUT OF THE torn hole in her tent and peered into the morning li
ght. It was an hour or two past sunrise, but despite all the events of yesterday—and despite having marched five miles into the forest with Ranger Brown over her shoulder—Laura hadn’t been able to sleep.

  The sky was cloudy. Rain would be coming soon, probably before noon, which would help in their coming hike. Assuming that the country could spare any manpower, low clouds and heavy rain would hamper any kind of helicopter search.

  So much for lying low. Now they’d need to get back off this mountain somehow. There were targets to the east—Alec had been excited about the power plants that dotted this part of the state—but escape might be their first priority.

  Standing now, Laura stretched and took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air. Dan was the only member of the group who didn’t have to wear a thick coat in these Wyoming mountains. Something about his abilities gave him a constant feeling of being overheated. Maybe he should have been wearing a coat anyway—maybe it was all in his head—but you couldn’t convince him of that. He said the cold air actually felt good to him. Laura was already shivering as she bent down and got her coat—a puffy purple one she’d stolen from the backseat of a car last week.

  Ranger Brown was still where Laura had dropped her, in an uncomfortable slump beside a large granite boulder. She was bound with duct tape at her ankles and knees, and her hands were taped behind her back. As Laura approached, she could see a glimmer of light reflecting off Brown’s eyes. She was awake.

  “Don’t worry,” Laura said, watching the woman. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The ranger’s gaze was fixed on Laura, but she didn’t try to move or struggle. Alec had removed Brown’s shoes, throwing them into a nearby creek. He’d said it would be harder for Brown to run that way, though the amount of tape binding her ankles made the bare feet unnecessary. Now, the poor woman just looked cold.

  Laura knelt down beside her, the ranger’s terrified eyes watching Laura’s every movement. With her left hand she reached out and grasped one of Brown’s feet. Brown twitched at the touch, pulling back instinctively, but Laura held tight and the resistance faded. Brown’s skin was icy and rough. Laura reached one hand into the pocket of her coat and retrieved a pair of her own wool socks, and then proceeded to pull them onto Brown’s feet.