“It’s a steak, Rhys, and that someone’s a cow. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Are you fucking new or something?”
Rhys looked at it again. “They must have used that to start this hot mess. I bet the steak was infected and someone was tricked into eating it.”
“So what if they were? What does it matter now?” Oscar said. “It’s happened; some scientists played god and it backfired on them. Fuck, it backfired on all of us.”
A look at his watch and Rhys said, “We’re down to nearly two hours left. You’re right; we don’t have time to worry about where it’s come from.”
At the final door, Rhys swiped his card—the card that belonged to him now, and would always belong to him regardless of what Oscar said—through the reader. He stepped through and Oscar limped after him. The tall man needed Rhys more than he needed him now.
“You may not be saying you’re the boss of me, Rhys, but you’re showing it by not giving me that card.”
Rhys ignored Oscar and looked at the two rooms in front of them. For a crude and quick rendering, Vicky’s representation of the corridor was functionally accurate. A set of double doors led to each room—in one of those rooms sat the computer that could free the city.
Each set of doors had large handles that needed to be pulled to be opened. The small windows on the front of each didn’t reveal much of the room beyond. It was a good job, really. If Oscar found out about Rhys’ lie too early…
Rhys throat dried again, but before he could say anything, Oscar barged into him on his way past.
Rhys rubbed his shoulder where Oscar had collided with him and watched him head for the room on the right. The large man pulled the doors wide and marched straight in.
Rhys slowed down as he waited for the doors to close. The second they did, he slid his baseball bat through the two handles. He watched through the small windows as Oscar, oblivious to what he’d just done, spun on the spot to look at the room.
As he walked back to the door, he shook his head at Rhys. “There’s nothing in here.” The doors muffled his voice. “It must be the room next—” When he pushed the doors, they moved only slightly before the aluminium bat snapped tight and rattled against the handles. Oscar looked down and his face fell loose when he saw the bat. His cheeks glowed red and his eyes widened. “What’s going on, Rhys? What are you doing?”
Despite the physical barrier between them, a surge of adrenaline hit Rhys. He shook and stepped back a pace. His voice wavered. “There’s something about you that I don’t trust.”
The larger man turned a deeper shade of red, bit down on his lip, and shoved the doors. The bat snapped tight again. Spittle sprayed the window when he pressed his face into it. “Let me the fuck out of here. I mean it, Rhys.”
Rhys shook his head. “There’s nothing in that room of any use. The only reason I told you there was is because I didn’t trust giving you all of the information. It looks like that was a good idea from the way you just barged through. It’s the room on the left where all the controls are.”
The baseball bat rattled again as Oscar kicked the doors. He stopped to take a deep breath. The action had clearly hurt him. “This isn’t funny, let me the fuck out!”
Rhys shook his head again.
The anger turned into desperation when Oscar threw his arms up in the air. “But I’ve saved your arse so many times. Were it not for me, you’d have been infected a long fucking time ago.”
“You saved me because it gave you what you needed, not because you wanted to save me. Although, I’ve yet to work out what your angle is. Do you want to tell me now, Oscar? If that’s what your name is.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
Rhys didn’t reply.
“Look, I don’t have an angle.”
“Bullshit! You talked about a brother whose name and building number you couldn’t remember.” He pointed at Oscar. “Don’t think I didn’t notice when you gave me a different building number for him the second time around.”
Oscar glared at Rhys.
“You didn’t want to go and see him to give him a heads up on what’s going to happen—that ain’t right. You used Vicky’s name, yet I’ve never mentioned it before. You watched the diseased attack me in the corridor—”
“I intervened.”
“At the last minute. And you fight like a fucking Marine. Something’s going on with you and I have too many things riding on this to let you fuck it all up. Too many people I hold dear are relying on me to get this right.”
Oscar’s eyes narrowed and he lowered his voice. “Maybe you should think twice about who you hold dear.”
“Like who?”
“Like Vicky. What are you doing leaving that lunatic with your child?”
“What the fuck do you know?”
Calmness settled over Oscar’s features. It sent an icy chill through Rhys. “Let me out and I’ll tell you a little story about our friend Vicky. And trust me, Rhys, if she had my child with her, I’d want this information too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rhys turned away from Oscar and went into the room on the left. He’d had enough of the man’s bullshit.
The two rooms had a thick window between them, and although Rhys could still hear Oscar as he walked up to the main control computer, he chose not to look at him.
“You’re making a mistake, Rhys.”
When Rhys touched the screen, it came to life and prompted him to insert a security card.
“Vicky’s bad news; trust me.”
Rhys spun around and stared at the man. About the same width as the brick wall it nestled in, the window between them looked like it could withstand a lot more than even someone as big as Oscar could give it. “That’s the thing, mate. I don’t trust you. That’s our problem, isn’t it?”
Rhys looked at the graphic on the screen that explained the card was being read before he looked across at Oscar again. The man paced like a tormented dog. Rage twisted his features as if his fury intended to writhe free of his body.
A button appeared on the screen that asked Rhys to press it if he wanted to deactivate the defence system. He pressed it. It then gave him three choices—the shutters, the order to incinerate, or both.
The window that separated Rhys and Oscar made a bass boom as Oscar banged against it. “You need to turn the order to incinerate off.” With wide eyes, Oscar jabbed his finger in the direction of the computer. “I’m being serious, Rhys, turn it off.”
“So that’s your angle is it? Why the fuck would I turn the order to incinerate off?”
“Because you may not get off this island in time if you don’t.”
“I’ll get out in time. Besides, if this island doesn’t burn, then the virus could spread.”
A press of the button and Rhys listened to thousands of clicks throughout the city as the shutters lifted. It sounded like huge dominos falling as the hard snaps rang out one after the other in quick succession. Anxiety tightened Rhys’ chest. What the fuck would the city be like when he went back outside?
Once the sound had died down, Rhys did a quick scan of the room. A white lab coat had been tossed over the back of a chair. Rhys took it and walked back out into the corridor.
Without a look at Oscar, Rhys proceeded to thread the thick garment through the two handles above his baseball bat.
He tied the two ends of the coat together and slipped his bat free before he tested the door. It held. When he looked back up at Oscar, his stomach pulled tight and his jaw fell loose. “Fuck.”
The taller man stood on the other side of the doors with a deep frown on his face and a gun in his grip. He had it pointed directly at Rhys. He spoke slowly when he said, “Open the fucking door, now.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Every muscle in Rhys’ body fell limp as he stared at the gun. He moved his jaw several times before he got the words out. “How did you get a gun into the city? Where the fuck did you hide it?”
Oscar t
hrew his head back and laughed so hard it echoed in the small room. When he looked back at Rhys all of the humour had left his face. A sneer of derision lifted his top lip. The thick doors muffled his voice. “You don’t think they can actually tell when people are using or carrying guns, do you?” A shake of his head and he snorted a humourless laugh. “You poor deluded man.”
Panicked breaths ran through Rhys and he held back his reply.
“All I had to do was strap the thing to my back so no one could see it. The scanners are a lie they tell to stupid people. If enough idiots believe it, it becomes a fact. That’s how the truth works, isn’t it? But your government’s built on lies, so maybe there’s so many you just don’t see them anymore. It’s the great illusion that is democracy. They fill your head full of bullshit to keep you compliant. That way they never have to take responsibility for being the ones imposing the constraints on you. They blame their actions on terrorism, or the potential threat of war. They lead you a merry dance based on the things you fear most. If you see enough people killed by lunatics, you’ll give up almost anything to remain safe. All the while, they create the illusion of choice and keep the framework big enough that you don’t realise it’s a complex web that you’re trapped within.”
“What are you, some kind of conspiracy nut?”
For a second, Oscar lowered his gun and looked genuinely sad. “I almost feel sorry for you, Rhys. I live in a system that’s far from perfect, but at least I know who’s fucking me up the arse. The system you live within is a convoluted mess of lies that tries to pass itself off as something democratic. But it’s all bullshit. We’re both slaves to those in power.”
Rhys didn’t reply.
“Anyway, back to the matter in hand,” Oscar said as he jabbed himself in the temple with the index finger of his left hand. “Think about it, Rhys; how can someone scan for the production of weapons? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I dunno… I just thought—”
“But you didn’t think, did you? You accepted what you were told like a good little sheep. You’re a fucking moron.”
Stillness settled over Rhys, and he looked straight at Oscar. “I’m not the one trapped in a room.”
“No, but you are the one with a gun pointed at your face.”
Rhys looked down to the left. With enough speed, he could dive out of the way. The small windows restricted Oscar’s aim. He needed to react before Oscar shot. “You know what?” Rhys said as he shifted to the left, “I only locked you in that room because I had my doubts. I wasn’t sure about you, and if you’d have kept your head, I would have unlocked the doors and we’d be on our way now. But you’ve shown your true colours.”
“Are you forgetting that I’m the one holding the gun?”
“That may be true, but let’s say you shoot me, what then?” Rhys walked over to the room on the left and pulled the door open. When he glanced to his right through the window that separated the two rooms, he saw Oscar had followed him with the aim of his gun. After he’d taken another lab coat from the floor, Rhys stepped back outside the room.
While he tied the handles of the room on the left as tight as the handles on Oscar’s room, he said, “The only way out of either of these rooms is through one of these sets of doors. The windows are too small for you to climb through, so you need me. Shoot me and you ain’t going anywhere, sunshine.”
Although his shoulders sagged, Oscar kept his gun raised. “It looks like we have a stalemate then.”
“How’s that?” Rhys said.
“Well, if I shoot you, I’m fucked. If you leave, you’re going to get a bullet in your back. It seems that the only way out of this is if you set me free and we go our separate ways.”
“And you expect me to trust a man who’s pointing a gun at me, do you? A lunatic who’s going against his heritage and siding with a bunch of paranoid nutters in The East.”
“Take a look around, Rhys; it was your government who made this weapon, not mine. All we’re doing is making sure it never gets over to us by setting it free over here.”
“So you killed the policemen outside the city?”
“Me? No. My colleagues? Yes. We needed to make sure the virus got out. They would have contained it before it had gotten off the bridge otherwise.”
Rhys’ temperature lifted and he shook as he shouted, “The virus reached my son’s school.”
A slight frown creased Oscar’s features but he didn’t reply.
After a deep breath, Rhys’ rage settled a little. “And that’s why you don’t want the island to incinerate?”
“Naturally. We’re turning your own weapon against you. You may as well say goodbye to your boy. You may as well say goodbye to everything.”
Heat washed over Rhys and sweat stood out on the back of his neck.
“Anyway,” Oscar said, “even if you do get out of the city—which I don’t think you will—you’re all fucked. The only way to survive what’s going to happen over the next few days is to get out of the UK. The airports will be locked down before you get there and no one will be giving you a lift; you’re not important enough. Face it, you’re all fucked.”
“You’re full of shit, Oscar. You’re desperate; that’s where this is coming from. You’ll say whatever you can to get out of that room. You’ve failed. This island will burn with you on it.”
Although he pretended to be calm, Rhys noticed how the gun in Oscar’s hand shook. “None of it matters anymore, Rhys. As you’ve seen with your own eyes, the virus is already out. And even if you manage to stop most of it from getting out of the city, your country’s already fallen. You saw the helicopter, didn’t you?”
The image of the naked man flooded back to Rhys… the way the diseased tore into him and how he turned in just a few seconds. The dark memory scrambled his thoughts. He shook his head to clear it. “What about that helicopter? What do you know?”
“You saw them picking up the diseased, yeah?”
Rhys stared at Oscar and didn’t reply.
“They’re taking them out into the UK and dropping them at random points; they have been for the past few hours. A few of our choppers have headed over to France to start the virus in mainland Europe. It’s going to spread whether you like it or not, and at some point you’re going to see your little boy eaten alive. Or worse, he’s going to see you eaten alive and will be left all alone. You never know; maybe cannibals will get to him before the diseased do.” A wide smile stretched across Oscar’s broad face when he said, “Maybe paedophiles.”
A mixture of grief and fear wobbled Rhys’ words. “I trusted you. I helped you get here.”
“Shut up, Rhys, you delusional idiot. You wouldn’t have made it here if it weren’t for me. Regardless of how bad my leg is, you needed me as much as I did you.”
A shake of his head and Rhys shifted to the left a little more. It narrowed Oscar’s angle. “I’m not letting you out.”
“Let me out of here or I will shoot you.”
“No. I can’t… not now.” Another step to the left.
The gun shook worse than before in Oscar’s grip.
When Rhys saw Oscar’s finger tighten, he dove to the floor.
The loud bang of the gun seemed to shake the very walls of the building.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rhys’ ears rang as he lay on the floor. The sudden movement had triggered the pain at the base of his back from the bike crash. A dull throb resided around his coccyx; however, the searing agony of a hot bullet in his body seemed absent. He moved slowly, as if he’d been shot anyway. The shock had hit him hard. He then looked up at Oscar.
The large man worked his jaw in large circles. His ears clearly hurt. But more importantly, Rhys saw the grey splash on the unbroken window in front of him.
Rhys stood up, picked up his baseball bat, and stared into Oscar’s cold glare. He laughed, “The glass, it’s bulletproof. Ha, who’s the fucking idiot now?” He pointed at the big man. “You’re fucked in there, Oscar
, and there’s fuck all you can do about it. Although you should consider yourself lucky—burning’s too good for you. I can think of many more ways to kill you that would be far more appropriate. Terrorists should have their balls removed without anaesthetic just for starters.”
“Terrorist? You were the ones who created this cursed virus. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for your vile government.”
Two slow steps forward and Rhys had closed the distance between them. The stained pane of bulletproof glass separated them.
In a blink, Oscar raised his gun again and cracked off another bullet at the window.
A flash exploded between them and Rhys recoiled from the loud bang.
The splash on the window, although darker, remained as just surface-level damage.
Before Rhys could say anything else, Oscar screamed and kicked the doors. Veins stood out on the man’s thick neck as he savagely beat the barrier that kept him contained.
Each blow moved the doors ever so slightly before they returned to where they were. The lab coat’s tight knot held them better than the baseball bat ever could. “There’s no way you’re getting out, Oscar. Face it, pal, you’ve lost.”
Red-faced and wide-eyed, Oscar turned to the large window that separated the two rooms and shot it—a loud bang, a grey splash, but still no broken glass.
When Oscar lifted the office chair in the room, Rhys laughed at him.
Oscar threw it against the window and the thing bounced off it with a loud crash. When it came back at him, Oscar had to jump out of the way before it clattered on the floor.
Rhys watched the big man as he stood lame on the other side of the glass. “It looks like you’ve run out of options. Not so confident now, are you?”
So close to the window his breath turned it misty, Oscar watched Rhys for a moment. “You were quick to realise that the story about my brother was bullshit. I do have a brother, but he lives in Kent and doesn’t have Down’s. I imagine he’ll be vomiting up his own blood before the week’s out… if he even lasts that long.” A grin stretched across his face. “You’ll see the same happen to your boy soon, and when you do, think of me saying ‘I told you so’.”
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