Generation M (The Toucan Trilogy, Book 3)

by Scott Cramer

  Dawson had brought his burglary tool, a hammer to smash the brewery window, and his digging tools, a knife and two empty soup cans. If the fence were electrified, they’d dig under it.

  The plant came into view. The huge building, surrounded by a large parking area, stretched for nearly half a mile. Tall weeds grew between the parking lot and the perimeter fence. A section of the fence opposite them appeared to be missing. A forest of tall Georgia Pines was beyond the gap.

  Dawson’s blood turned cold. Though a Humvee was parked near the door, a far bigger problem loomed. Last time he was here, the entrance to the plant was through the brewery lobby, which had wall-to-wall windows. Now, a door stood at the base of a windowless, towering, cement wall, and all the windows had been sealed. The plant was a fortress.

  He and Toby crawled up to the fence on their bellies. Dawson gripped his head, unsure of what to do next. His throbbing headache seemed to bludgeon his thoughts into senseless fragments. Test the fence, Dawson somehow remembered.

  He tossed the metal hammer against the wires and no sparks erupted. No sparks. Good. “The fence is safe to touch,” he said.

  “If there’s no electricity, that means the cameras probably aren’t working,” Toby said.

  “You’re right,” Dawson replied.

  The door opened and Lieutenant Mathews exited the building. Carrying an assault rifle, she climbed into the Humvee. Dawson couldn’t escape her.

  “Who’s that?” Toby asked.

  “Our worst nightmare. Lieutenant Mathews.”

  Mathews drove to the gate, got out, unlocked the padlock, and swung it open. After driving through, she closed and locked the gate, and then drove off.

  Head throbbing, Dawson stared into space as a cocktail of rage further jumbled his thoughts. The walls of the plant seemed to grow thicker and taller. Befuddled, he was at a loss about what to do next.

  3.11

  NEW JERSEY – WASHINGTON DC

  The boys, riding abreast, continued their hard push south. They were an army of three. The only kids Jordan spotted were those guarding fields of corn, potatoes, and kale, armed with baseball bats and crowbars.

  The river of tar streaming under his handlebars was hypnotic, and he wondered if they were doing the right thing. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe the adults were planning to help the survivors. The robotic voice on the CDC station was telling the truth.

  Lurking danger snapped him back to the present. They had entered a stretch of swampland with tall elephant grass growing next to the road, an ideal spot for an ambush.

  They made it through ambush alley without incident, and soon crossed into Delaware, a vast, deserted wasteland of concrete and abandoned factories.

  An hour later, they stopped outside Baltimore. They had made it one hundred and eighty miles.

  Jordan shared his concerns. “Maybe the adults are telling the truth for once.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jonzy blurted. “The CDC doesn’t want to help us. There’s only one reason the scientists put their station back on the air: they feel threatened.”

  “By the three of us?” Jordan said with a chuckle.

  “Lieutenant Dawson, Toby, and your sister,” Jonzy said. “They’ve probably already taken over the pill plant. They still need our help. We have to fight back.” A small smile played on Jonzy’s lips. “We have to take over the CDC radio frequency. We’ll own the airwaves. We’ll tell the truth.”

  He pursed his lips, brooding. “The only way to do that is to either get a more powerful transmitter, or a bigger antenna, but the CDC probably has the biggest transmitter made and a very tall antenna. There has to be something we can do.”

  With Jonzy racking his brain and Spike appearing his usual calm self, the three boys gassed up their bikes and headed off for their unannounced rendezvous with the White House Gang.

  Five miles outside of Washington DC, the boys cut pine saplings, stripped off the branches, and tied short lengths of gauze bandages to the ends. They lashed these poles to their backs with rope.

  Flying white flags, they exited Route 195, entered a neighborhood of brick houses, and stopped twenty yards from a barricade made of tires and refrigerators.

  Two guards, both wearing germ masks, were on duty, a boy with dreadlocks, and a girl, who despite the heat and humidity, wore a leather jacket.

  Jordan and Spike dismounted and leaned their white flags against the bikes. Jonzy stayed on his bike, deep in thought. He seemed completely focused on finding a way to broadcast his own message over the CDC radio frequency.

  The girl produced a long, curved sword, which Jordan thought had probably come from a museum, perhaps once the property of a Civil War general or a Samurai.

  “That’s close enough,” she warned.

  “We want to see Bombie, Single Cell, and Low,” Jordan said. “I know them.”

  The girl scoffed. “Get lost.”

  Jordan took a step forward. “I have news about the Pig and about what the adults are doing to us.”

  The girl waved the sword. “Single Cell and Bombie don’t care about your news. They died from the Pig.”

  Jordan’s blood chilled. He remembered Low as being the toughest of the three leaders.

  “Then I want to talk to Low.” His voice trembled.

  The girl pulled a gun from behind her back and aimed it at him. “I said get lost.”

  Spike stepped next to Jordan.

  “Wait ‘til she finds out you didn’t let us through.” Spike cracked a smile and kept walking. “We’ll sell our information to someone else.”

  His tone was calm as the girl held the gun at arm’s length, aiming it at his chest. Spike shrugged, turned, and headed for his bike.

  “Wait,” the girl barked. To Dreadlocks, she said, “Contact Low.”

  “Low hates being bothered.”

  “Do it,” she snapped. “What’s your name?”

  “We’re friends of Captain Jenny,” Jordan said.

  Dreadlocks stepped away and spoke into a walkie-talkie, listened, spoke again, and then listened some more. He walked over to the girl and whispered in her ear.

  She returned the pistol to her waistband behind her back, and Dreadlocks approached them. “Follow me.”

  The boys rode behind Dreadlocks, who pedaled a BMX bike. They passed massive government buildings made of marble and granite, and then arrived at The White House. In front of the mansion, what had once been a great expanse of manicured lawns and rose gardens was now a field of tall grass and weeds.

  Dreadlocks led them through a heavily guarded gate and down a long driveway. They parked by the white columns and followed Dreadlocks inside.

  Incredibly, the White House had air-conditioning. Boxes lined the walls, two and three deep. Every box had the same logo: USDA FOOD.

  They walked down a corridor, dodging kids on skateboards who all wore germ masks, and they passed paintings of former presidents. Jordan wondered what had become of the President and her husband right after the night of the purple moon.

  At the end of the corridor, Dreadlocks swung open a door and said, “The Oval Office.”

  Jordan recognized Low from the red dreads that fell well below her shoulders. She and an opponent, both wearing germ masks, played Ping-Pong on a shiny wooden desk, with a row of food cans serving as the net.

  Low set down her paddle and walked up to them. She studied Jordan. “Yeah, I remember you. How’s Jenny?”

  Jordan told her what had happened to Lucky Me — the pirate attack and the ship catching fire and sinking. “I was the only survivor,” he told her.

  “I hope you got the pirates and made ‘em suffer.” Low’s eyes, uncovered by her mask, burned with rage.

  Jordan had tracked the pirates and come within seconds of cutting the throat of the twelve-year-old boy who had murdered his crewmates, but he had let the boy live, learning something important in that moment: he was not a cold-blooded killer.

  “Yeah, I got ‘em,” he
told Low and then launched into the story of the adults, Jonzy’s escape from Colony East, the epidemic, and the reason they were going to Atlanta. Something about the trip to Atlanta rattled the hardened gang leader. He gave her a pill.

  “What do you want from me?” Low asked.

  “Food, fuel, and healthy kids to ride with us.” Jordan’s voice was steady, his tone firm.

  Low chuckled coldly. “The Grits will never let you pass through their turf. Because you were a friend of Captain Jenny, I’ll give you food, gas, and weapons, but I’m not sacrificing any of my gang.”

  “I need something else!” Jonzy interrupted. His eyes widened and his face glowed through the grit and grime of the road. “I need a radio station that’s near railroad tracks.”

  3.12

  ALPHARETTA

  Drowning in doubt, Dawson got to his knees and gazed at the pill plant through the fence.

  “What should we do?” he asked in a shaky voice.

  Toby jerked his head and stared at him in shock.

  Dawson, unable to meet the boy’s gaze, dropped his chin to his chest.

  “First, we should get our asses on the other side of the fence,” Toby said and started up the fence. He stopped at the top. “C’mon, Lieutenant. Move it!”

  Dawson stood and looked up. The fence appeared too high to climb. What a time for a dizzy spell. He positioned his left foot on the lowest strand of wire and then grabbed a strand higher up with his right hand. He stepped on the next lowest strand with his right foot and pulled himself up. One step at a time. He could handle that. When he reached the top, he swung one leg over, then the other, and slowly worked his way down.

  “Jump,” Toby said.

  Dawson let go and landed beside the boy.

  Toby jogged toward the plant, and Dawson followed him.

  Toby pulled the handle of the door, and not surprisingly, discovered it was locked.

  He stared up. “It would take a long piece of rope to reach the roof.”

  Dawson nodded in agreement.

  “If we had dynamite,” Toby continued, “we could blow the door, but we don’t have dynamite.”

  Dawson lamented that they had no explosives.

  The boy walked in a circle, thinking. “We could smash into the door with the car. That might work! But we’d never make it through the gate.”

  Dawson eyed the gate, which was secured with a padlock. Toby was right. A Humvee could smash through it, but not the car that had brought them here.

  “Follow me,” Toby said.

  They walked around the perimeter of the building. Impenetrable steel doors blocked entry from the opposite end, and all the walls were high and windowless. Dawson had no idea what to do.

  “We could wait here, hope that an adult comes, and ambush them,” Toby said. “But we might be waiting a long time.”

  “That’s right,” Dawson said, knowing the situation was urgent. They couldn’t afford to wait.

  Toby rubbed his chin and exclaimed, “That’s it.” He pointed to the water tower. “What’s in there?”

  Dawson shrugged. “At one point, water, though it’s probably empty.”

  “What’s beer made out of?”

  “Hops.”

  Toby threw up his hands, frustrated that his student was failing the quiz. “Water! Lieutenant, this was a brewery before it was a pill plant. They must have made bad batches of beer. I’m guessing they didn’t flush thousands of gallons down the toilet. There must be underground pipes. Big pipes.”

  “Yes, there must be a connection to the local sewage system!”

  “Mark, look at me!” Toby grabbed his arm. “We can do this! You worked here, right? Do you remember anything?”

  Dawson nodded. “There are floor grates inside the plant. We should look for a manhole cover, or a storm grate.”

  “Where would it be?”

  Dawson paced. “I bet it would be on the property.”

  Toby nodded. “Let’s split up and look for it. I’ll take this side, you go over there.”

  Dawson’s head was still throbbing as he jogged along the perimeter of the property, looking for a metal plate or grate hidden in the tall weeds, but his headache was nothing, a mild annoyance. More and more, he was feeling like himself. Losing confidence had been terrifying. He thought his head injury in the plane crash could be the cause, but he knew that paralyzing doubt could strike anyone down. He remembered his father describing a panic attack he had experienced during a drill on the battleship he’d commanded.

  “I was lucky to have a strong second-in-command,” his father had said, asking him never to repeat the story to anyone because it would have ended his father’s career in the Navy.

  Dawson was lucky to have Toby.

  A hundred meters away, Toby waved his arms and shouted that he had found something. Five minutes later, they were standing beside a circular, steel cover. Dawson pried the heavy lid up with the claw of his hammer, and together, they flipped it aside.

  A ladder descended into the darkness. Dawson gave Toby a flashlight and gestured for him to go first, shining his light as Toby climbed down the ladder.

  A cylindrical pipe, twice Dawson’s height, extended both directions from the base of the ladder. His pulse quickened, seeing that the pipe led to the plant.

  “The beautiful smell of beer,” Dawson said. “It reminds me of shore leave.”

  The odor permeated the tunnel.

  “My father used to make me cook dinner for him,” Toby said as they headed toward the plant, dancing their flashlights on the pipe walls. “I’d have to go get him at the tavern. That’s what it reminds me of. Walking home with him, drunk and angry, wondering if he’d throw a punch.”

  The light cast on Toby’s face showed him reliving the pain and anger.

  Dawson reached out and rested his hand on Toby’s shoulder, keeping it there as they continued.

  When they were clearly below the plant, they came to a ladder that ascended to a steel grate.

  “After you, Lieutenant,” Toby said.

  Dawson scaled the rungs and tried to push aside the grate, but it only moved a fraction of an inch.

  Toby climbed up the opposite side of the ladder, and they pushed together, raising it about half an inch.

  The grate thudded back in place.

  “Are we going to let this thing stand in our way?” Toby asked.

  “Hell no, Cadet.”

  Toby grinned and asked for the hammer. “When you raise it, I’ll insert the hammer. Then we’ll use the hammer as a lever.”

  Dawson pushed up for all he was worth, and Toby inserted the claw.

  “When I jack it up, put your fist in the gap,” Toby barked.

  “Aye aye,” Dawson said.

  Toby pulled down on the hammer’s handle. When the grate rose, Dawson inserted his fist, thumb side up, into the gap. Toby released the hammer and Dawson’s hand bones held firm.

  After discussing the next step together, Toby inserted the hammer sideways into the gap and hung from the handle, allowing Dawson to insert a second fist on top of the first.

  “Do or die time,” Toby said. “I’m going up a rung to push with my back. As soon as it moves, you have to do the same.”

  Toby positioned his shoulder against the metal plate and grunted as he drove upward with his legs. The pressure lessened on Dawson’s double-fist tower, and the moment his hands were free, he climbed a rung and applied his shoulder to the effort. He drove upward with his legs until his thigh and lower back muscles trembled and were on the verge of exploding in spasms. Both he and Toby grunted and cried out. Muscles in his back seized, shooting an icy bolt of paralysis between his shoulder blades. Dawson willed his quads, calf muscles, and toes to contract and push harder. The grate started to rise, and he gripped the ledge with both hands and pulled, hoisting himself up another rung.

  “Go,” Dawson shouted when the gap had widened enough for Toby to slip through.

  Dawson screamed from the incre
ased load as Toby scrambled from the ladder and into the plant. If he let go now, the grate would cut the boy in half.

  Once Toby could stand, he braced his feet against something and leaned forward, arms extended, and pushed the grate. Dawson felt the slow release of pressure, and when he saw Toby visibly shaking, he called on his leg muscles to complete one more task. He stepped up and propelled himself forward through the gap as Toby started to collapse. Dawson pulled his foot out of the way just as the grate crashed back into place.

  With “what if” scenarios snaking through his brain, Dawson put his arm around Toby as they both trembled and caught their breath.

  “Why did you say Mathews was our worst nightmare?” Toby asked.

  “She’s a cold-blooded killer. When Jonzy and I were about to leave the colony, she surprised us in the Red Zone. Admiral Samuels showed up, and she shot and killed him.”

  “You never told us that,” Toby said.

  “I didn’t want to think about it, I guess.”

  Toby hung his head. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

  Dawson’s jaw dropped. “For what?”

  “Acting like a jerk. I guess I’ve never liked adults, or trusted them.”

  “I always knew you had to earn someone’s trust, but I guess I never realized how hard it was to do,” Dawson replied. “Barking orders is easy.”

  They sat in the stillness. The plant felt like a living entity that held them in her palm of silence.

  “You’re all right, as far as adults go,” Toby offered.

  The boy said it jokingly, but Dawson heard the undertone of hurt. He stood, gripped Toby’s hand, and helped him to his feet. “If you were my son, I’d be the proudest father in the world.”

  Toby shifted uncomfortably, and then he dragged his sleeve across his eyes. A small smile played on his lips, brightening his mask of determination.

  “Lieutenant, are you ready to kick some scientist butt?”

  Dawson pulled his shoulders back. “I can’t wait.”

  He led Toby toward a room that housed the plant’s generators. While the outside of the building had undergone serious renovations, the interior was as he remembered it. The flashlight’s beams revealed gleaming, high-tech machinery, robotic arms, and miles of piping and wires. The large copper fermentation vats were at the other end of the plant.