by A. R. Wise
I resolved to never set my eyes on Covington again. It was better that I thought of him as dead now, as if Reagan had truly ended him twenty years ago.
A sense of freedom surged within me as I started to plan my escape. I would take my men and their families with me, and we would find a way to survive, despite whatever horrors The Electorate had planned for us. Even if we only survived a few weeks outside of this facility, it would still be better than starving down here while The Electorate’s precious Dawns survived, unaware of the hell outside their doors. That thought ignited a new, mischievous plan.
We’d deactivated the purge system years ago to prevent The Electorate from remotely turning it on, but the escape of two Dawns had compelled us to reset the locking mechanisms that were tied to the purging. This helped ensure that the girls were safe in the event of an outbreak by locking them down, that way no zombies could make it to the Dawn’s floor.
Beatrice had also been asking endlessly about the system, and I knew that whatever scheme she was cooking up it involved the purge somehow. It was clear that both Covington and Beatrice needed that system to operate effectively.
It wouldn’t be hard to reprogram the purge lockdown to reset. All I had to do was wait for Covington to go back into his Dawn’s room and I could use his system to get into the purge apparatus, refill the tanks, while also reworking how the doors responded. This way, the Dawns level would become unlocked, giving the girls the freedom they’d never had before. All they would need to do would be to peek their heads out and they’d be immolated with all the rest, ending everything Beatrice and Covington had been working for. I decided that my last act of defiance before abandoning Covington and The Electorate would be to set a timer for the eventual demolition of this entire facility, giving my men and me time to evacuate.
The majority of the facility’s guards would go with me, which would leave Covington woefully underprepared for the Dawns’ exodus. Many of the staff that worked as administrators in the Dawn program were family members of my men, and several of them had children. They would come with me, which would put the facility in disarray and leave few people here to stop the Dawns from escaping.
I lingered near Covington’s room, and waited for my chance. He was quick to re-enter his Dawn’s chamber, and I went back in to begin reprogramming the purge system, setting a date and time that would give me a chance to get my men and their families out. Then I locked the system in place, preventing Covington from altering it without my passcode.
I was on my way back to my room, contemplating how perfect my plan was, when I heard someone coughing in the restroom near the elevator. The cough was followed by a thud and a rattle, and I paused to listen.
I could hear someone inside gasping for breath and I opened the door to see what was happening. “You okay in here?” I asked as I peered in.
Only a growl came in response.
I took my pistol out of its holster and eased my way inside. I walked past the urinals and sinks to the stalls on the other side of the room. The harsh white light blazed, sending flashes of reflection off the steel faucets beside me as I took careful steps across the tile. Blood seeped from beneath the door of the last stall.
“Open the door,” I said while staying several feet away. I repeated myself with no result, and finally had to inch closer. I held my hand out and pressed my finger to the door to test if it was locked, and found that it was.
“Unlock the door, pal,” I said. “Unlock it or so help me I’ll put enough holes in it to end you.”
“I’m sick,” said a man’s voice from within the stall.
“Yeah, no shit.”
“No, I’m sick with the…” he coughed and sputtered, his final word muffled.
“Sick with what?” I asked.
“I’m turning,” he answered from behind the closed door.
I stepped back, terrified and concerned as I stared at the blood coming from under the door. My mind spun with the implications here. The disease was loose within this facility. If that was discovered, Covington wouldn’t hesitate to lock everything down. I debated shooting the man in the stall, but that would draw too much attention.
“Okay, stay here until I get back. Do you understand? Stay right where you are.” I left him in there as I tried to come up with a solution as I silently cursed.
I went to the door of the restroom and locked it before turning back to try and think of a way to kill the man without making too much noise. I walked back over to the stall and knocked on it as I avoided stepping in the blood on the floor.
“It’s okay, open up the stall.”
The infected man did as I asked. He was one of the doctors, and I was certain I’d seen him just days ago, but the disease had ravaged him. He looked sickly and his arm was dotted with dark lesions that were leaking black fluid. He was covered in blood, his shirt and pants soaked, and it looked like he’d been vomiting for hours. It was a miracle that no one else had found him before me.
“Christ,” I said as I looked him over. “How the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” he said pitifully, red tears falling down his cheeks.
I had no choice but to step into the stall with him, and I heard the blood squish beneath my boot. “Turn your head to the side for me,” I said as I got closer.
“Why?” he asked.
“You’ve got a cut on your neck there,” I lied and pointed to the side of his neck. “Let me get a look.”
He instinctually reached to his neck in search of the abrasion I claimed was there, and he tilted his head to the side as he did. I took the opportunity to strike him hard in the throat, immediately crushing his windpipe. Blood splashed up onto my cheek. I wrapped my hands around his throat as he struggled beneath me. I pressed my weight into him, trapping the doctor against the toilet as I squeezed the life out of him.
His eyes bulged as he stared up at me, and he tried hard to pull free, but this wasn’t the first man I’d strangled. After a few final twitches, the doctor was dead, but I was far from finished. If I didn’t destroy his brain, he would be reanimated soon. I had to act fast.
I pushed his corpse forward and grabbed the lid of the toilet from behind him. I gripped the longer sides and then aimed the edge down at him as I steadied myself. Then, with a few quick strikes, I’d split his head wide, causing his brain to immediately bulge forth as if it had been swollen and trying to leak out already. The pink matter was revealed, and I smashed down into it again just to be certain.
I was covered in blood as I staggered away from the murder and to the sink where I feebly tried to clean myself off. This encounter hastened my plans of escape. There could be no waiting for the perfect time to put plans in motion. I would have to get my men and their families out now.
While I was cleaning myself off, I decided that it would be prudent to check into this doctor before I set any plans in motion. I was curious how he’d ended up getting infected, and wanted to make sure not to bring his family along if it was possible that they’d been exposed to the virus.
I locked the bathroom door, hoping that would be enough to keep anyone from discovering the body, and then headed up to the family level. I knew the doctor’s name was Hank, but nothing much else about him. However, it didn’t take me long to track down his family’s quarters.
His wife greeted me, and was concerned when I started asking questions about her husband. I sat with her as her children played, and she was forthcoming with information, although concerned as to why I was asking. She said that Hank had been working late each night, and that she would wake to find him at his computer at odd hours. She was concerned, but I told her there was nothing to worry about, although I would need to take his computer.
I returned to my room, feeling exhausted after such a long day. It felt like I was getting a cold, which I certainly didn’t have time for. I booted up Hank’s computer, and started searching around until I came across a conversation that had taken place between him and some
one named EC.
That was when his betrayal was revealed. I read through the communication, and learned that Beatrice and Hank had been working together. It wasn’t much of a surprise, although I was furious with myself for not realizing it was going on earlier.
Then I came upon an interesting bit of information about The Noah Initiative that I hadn’t known before. It turned out that the Tempest Strain slowed down in cold weather, which was why The Electorate was willing to give Beatrice time to concoct a plan here. The virus could still infect people even in the cold, but it almost seemed to go into a hibernation of sorts. The communication explained that if Beatrice and the other members of The Electorate that had been captured were somehow able to escape, that they should flee to the mountains where the virus would have less of a chance to reach them.
Now I knew where to lead my men once we evacuated. I was nearly happy, but then started to cough. I gripped my aching throat, surprised by how quickly this cold had come on.
19 – Tests
Celeste
I made the most of my meetings with Elise Dawn. She was always chipper and eager to visit, and she brought messages from the other girls who wished me well. Elise had been relating my struggle with the fictional illness to the other Dawns, and it’d become a major topic of conversation.
I had their attention.
“Do you ever dream of the surface?” asked Elise as we sat together on the floor of my room, drawing pictures of wildlife the Administrators had shown us videos of.
“All the time.”
“I can’t wait until I get my Surface Status,” said Elise as she used her thumb to smudge a streak of pencil into shade. “It’s been a long time since any other Dawn got their status.” She sounded forlorn and distant as she focused on her drawing of the elephant.
I was trying to draw the small dog that Ben and Harrison had at Vineyard, but the details of his scrunched up face were a mystery as I tried to duplicate them. I kept erasing him until the paper was wearing thin.
“We’ll get there, one way or another.”
This was a dangerous game I was playing. I knew that I was risking mother’s wrath.
“One way or another?” asked Elise.
“Of course,” I said as if the answer should be apparent. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to be stuck down here forever. All the Dawns will make it to the Surface. I’m sure Paris and Echo are there now.”
“Maybe, but if they are then they’re lower class citizens,” said Elise as if disgusted by the thought. “I’m not sure I’d want to be up there if I didn’t have Surface Status.”
“I don’t care either way,” I said as I tried to stay focused on my drawing to continue the illusion of nonchalance for the cameras. “As long as I can get out of this place, I’ll be happy.”
Elise stopped drawing and focused on our conversation. “You’d be willing to give up Surface Status just to get out of here?”
I ignored the question and instead slid my pad of paper over towards her. “Can you look at this? I just can’t seem to get the face right.”
I’d hidden words inside of the picture, along the dog’s neckline. I’d been spending nights obsessing over the perfect phrase to instigate a rebellion in the Dawns, and I hoped this would do it:
We’re prisoners. Administrators lie. Fight back.
I’d used quick, punchy phrases because I had to write small enough not to be captured by the cameras and I couldn’t risk Elise sitting there reading for a long time. I watched her eyes pass from left to right as she read the words, and then I ripped the page out of the notebook.
“Oh forget it,” I said as I stood up. “I’m not as good at drawing as you are.”
Elise was dumbfounded. Her mouth was slightly agape as she stared up at me.
I walked to the small door on the wall that led down to the incinerator and quickly tossed the crumbled paper inside. The door snapped shut as I returned to Elise and sat across from her. I looked down at her elephant and said, “Look how good you are. You can do this so much better than I can. I bet all the Dawns are jealous of you. They probably bug you all the time to show them how to do it.”
She was lost for words, and stammered an unintelligible response.
“Can you teach me?” I asked. “Show me how you do the shading so well.”
“I just…” she looked down at her picture and cleared her throat. “I just use my finger to smear the pencil like this.” She gently brushed her thumb across the page.
“Let me see,” I said as I laid on my belly beside her and scooted the pad of paper closer to me. I started to draw over her sketch of an elephant and practiced creating shade with the edge of my thumb. “Gosh, it’s so easy.”
“Yeah,” she said, still addled by what I’d written.
I dared to write another message, this time faintly within the curve of her elephant’s ear.
Not sick. Help.
I smeared the message as if merely adding more shading to the picture. Then I did it again.
Will you?
“Oh, I’m ruining your picture,” I said as I erased the message and gave her back her pad. “Here. Just let me watch you do it.”
Her hands were shaking as she took the pencil from me. She swallowed hard, but then started to draw. Elise glanced up at the camera in the corner. She wasn’t writing a message, but was instead continuing with her picture, and my heart sank.
“Elephants have a lot of wrinkles,” she said as she started to sketch a wide, yawning line under the animal’s chin. She followed it up with a few more lines beneath it, and then a curving edge to the elephant’s ear.
Suddenly her message was clear. Hidden in the wrinkles was a simple, one word response.
Yes.
She swiped her thumb across the paper, smearing the evidence and leaving a stain on her skin.
“You should teach all the Dawns how to draw like you do, Elise.”
“Some of them are really bad artists,” said Elise.
“Well, then just teach the ones that you think would be good at it.”
She nodded as she continued to draw. I watched for another message, but she wasn’t writing anything else for me. I knew that I’d already pushed her far enough. If we tried to do too much now, we might give ourselves away.
“It just takes practice,” I said as I started to draw on my own pad again. “Find the Dawns with some talent and then get them to pay attention to you.”
That was the last we spoke of the rebellion. I hoped it would be enough to turn the spark into a flame.
* * *
It was the middle of the night when mother called.
The view screen was already on when I woke up, and it was the only light in my room as I rubbed my eyes. I was on my bed, facing away from the screen as mother called out her name for me, “Cobra.”
I turned to face the screen and saw a version of myself staring back at me.
“Mother?”
“Yes. Sorry to bother you so late, but I needed to speak with you. There are…” she glanced away and then back at me again. “There are things happening here that might affect you.”
My heart raced from sudden fear. I’d been caught trying to communicate with Elise. They were going to cut off my contact with her, and had probably confined Elise as well. Any hope I had of instigating a rebellion was crumbling.
Mother continued, “The facility might be locked down soon, which means you and the other Dawns would be on your own for a while. Possibly a long while.”
“Why?” I asked, daring to hope that I’d been wrong about being caught.
“It’s a very long story,” said mother. “But it’s not a bad thing. It would mean that you and the Dawns would have to survive largely on your own for a time. Some of the Administrators would still be with you, but most of the classes that the Dawns have will be canceled.”
“Will I still be locked in here?” I asked.
She didn’t have an immediate answer and thought for
a moment. “I’m not sure. I won’t be able to contact you, but you’ll be well taken care of.”
“How long will it take?”
“We don’t know,” said mother.
“You can’t leave me in here alone to rot. I’ll go mad. I can’t take the solitary.”
“You’ll be fine, Cobra. There will be people looking after you, and I’ll make sure someone contacts you from time to time.”
“Why not let me be with the other Dawns?” I asked. “Haven’t I proven that I’ll be good?”
She smirked and then shook her head. “No, Cobra. I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be allowed to mix with the others yet. That’s too risky.”
“It’s not risky, mother, I swear. I’m not going to fight anymore.”
Mother’s suspicion was written in the sneer she gave me. Her image was a reflection of myself, and I was intimately familiar with my own expressions. “Fires that bright don’t go out this easily, my dear. I watched you punch the walls for months.”
“That was the old me.” My next words were bitter but necessary, “That was Celeste. I’m not her anymore.”
“We’ll see.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Do as you’re told, and I’ll make sure you see the Surface again. Otherwise, you’ll be down here forever.”
“Mother, be honest with me,” I said, deciding to try and get answers to questions that had plagued me since being brought back here. “What happened up there? The Surface isn’t like the pictures and videos you show us. What really happened?”
She didn’t answer immediately, as if parsing her words before saying them. “You went through a lot up there. You saw some things that I wish you hadn’t.”
“The zombies.”
She nodded and said, “Yes, among other things. The Surface you saw isn’t the way the world really is. There are better places; other places that aren’t as bad as the world you saw. The pictures and videos the Administrators show you are of those places. The places where you and the other Dawns will live.”
“And what about the people like Kim and Hero? What about the people that were killed in Vineyard? What did they do to deserve to be stuck in this world instead of wherever it is that you’re taking the Dawns?” I tried not to sound argumentative or accusatory, but merely curious.
