Catalyst (Book 1): Downward Cycle

by JK Franks

  “Anything?” asked Todd’s voice in his ear.

  “Negative, no one home," Scott responded softly. He saw candy wrappers and empty water bottles littering the floor. He was beginning to wonder if he had the right room until he saw a pink camo EDC bag lying on the desk with his niece's initials monogrammed on it. Bobby had mentioned giving her one last Christmas. It had been kind of a joke gift although, he saw now, the contents were real and top quality. Kaylie had loved it and only made the addition of having it monogrammed. She’d said it may be for The Big Crunch, but a girl can still be stylish.

  He searched more of the room and found nothing helpful other than a picture of his niece alongside a tall boy in glasses. The picture was recent and looked like it had been taken on campus. Seeing her beautiful face reminded Scott again of how adorable she was. Scott removed it and slipped it in his pocket. Her laptop was open on her desk, but the battery was dead. He pulled open the campus map from his bag and looked for the location of the medical building. Kaylie was not technically pre-med, as that was not an available major at FSU, but her studies were essentially the same. Most medical teaching colleges would accept the certification she was to receive next year. He assumed that, in normal times, she would spend a lot of time in those buildings and the research libraries. Scott heard two quick clicks on his earpiece, which was the signal from Todd that someone was in the area.

  He looked out the window to see a kid with spiky green hair leaning on the rails by the front entrance to the building. Scott couldn’t remember if the dorm was co-ed or not but decided the kid was not a threat. Leaving the building, Scott smelled the overwhelming fragrance of weed. Some things about college never change.

  Walking over to the stoner, he saw Todd also slipping in behind the kid. Scott sized up the meager morsel of modern youth and asked him if he knew Kaylie. The kid replied lazily, “I dunno, man.”

  “Okay. What's with all the guards?” Scott tried.

  Again the kid answered, “I dunno.” His hair was distracting. Scott looked at his acne-pocked cheeks instead.

  “They got the best pot anywhere, though,” Green hair added smirking. The kid stiffened as he finally noticed Todd standing just behind him.

  What would the guards or militia be doing handing out dope to the students?

  “What better way to keep the student population passive and loyal,” Todd said as if reading Scott’s mind.

  Scott showed the kid the picture of Kaylie, and his mostly unfocused eyes finally showed some signs of recognition.

  “Oh yeah, the hotty from twenny-eight.”

  Kaylie was indeed a looker, and he knew the kid remembered her.

  “When did you see her last?” Todd asked.

  “I, uh, I… don’t know, dude,” the kid said. “Seemed like a week ago, maybe…shit, maybe it was yesterday.”

  Todd was in no mood for stalling. He reached out and slapped the kid hard. That pissed him off.

  “Look, dude,” he said as he righted himself, wobbling slightly. “Get the fuck away, man, before I call the grayshirts.” Scott thought back to the Nazi Sympathizers that had gone by a similar name.

  “That would be a very bad idea,” Todd said in a menacing voice, as the barrel of the large STI 1911 pistol appeared at the stoner’s head.

  Despite the haze of drugs, the stoner got much more helpful after that, and after a much more subdued exchange, the kid, whose name was Billy, said that Kaylie was usually either in the gymnasium workout room or the medical building as Scott had expected. They also learned that the building was near where the militia’s base was and where the mess hall was located. “Guns aren’t allowed though…they’ll get you killed – those grayshirt guys don't fuck around.”

  Scott gave the kid a hundred-dollar bill, and Todd told him to vanish. Billy was gone in a flash. Scott and Todd ducked into the shadows to consult the campus map again. The gymnasium and the med building were not far and in the general direction of the giant Doak Campbell Football Stadium. They waited for a patrol of three grayshirts to pass before splitting up and easing down the small hill toward the buildings. Neither of them took notice of the person watching them from the shadows of an adjacent building.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  For what had to be the hundredth time, Scott wondered what in the hell he was doing. Sneaking through an armed campus looking for one student in a population of thousands and…oh yeah, the end of the world was just a few days ago.

  Scott looked over and could just see Todd working his way around to the opposite side of the building. Todd had found a leaf rake and had put on a ball cap in an effort to look more like a groundskeeper than an interloper. The nondescript building that housed the biological and medical classrooms was not a large structure. Scott walked in the front doors much more confidently than he felt. He began systematically checking the open classrooms down the main hall. He did see some people in the building, but none appeared to be female.

  Most of the doors were locked. He heard the Bluetooth headset click twice, and Todd said, “You might want to take cover. Two armed grayshirts coming in.”

  Scott scrambled to find a suitable place to hide. None of the doors he was near were open, and it seemed like breaking in might be a bit more suspicious than he needed to be right now. Think.

  He grabbed a nearby stack of papers and began rifling through them as he walked as calmly as possible down the next corridor. His heart stopped in mid-beat as he saw the two guards at the other end of the hall. Fortunately, they entered one of the rooms at the other end of the corridor. Scott stepped back into the shadows of a door to observe. He heard sounds of protest and raised voices.

  The two armed men came out of the room with a man in a lab coat. He obviously had no desire to go with them, but he did not actively resist. Scott moved to follow from a discreet distance. As they walked the man down the front steps, his protests got louder. In the daylight, Scott could now see it was not a man in the lab coat; it was a boy. The same boy he’d seen in the picture with Kaylie.

  This kid would probably know where she was. He followed behind the trio. Todd was nowhere to be seen, but he heard the clicks in his ear just as a loud voice came from behind him. “Sir! Can I see your campus ID please?”

  Turning around Scott saw the voice belonged to a young soldier whose rifle he held in the now familiar and menacing low-ready position. Scott’s fake eyeglasses were halfway down his nose, the disheveled stack of papers still clutched to his chest. He stammered something and managed to free one hand, patting his pockets. Scott knew he only had seconds to produce the card.

  “Professor?” another voice asked. Scott glanced to the side and saw a young black student stepping toward them from the corner of the building. “I thought that was you,” he continued. “Hadn’t seen you outside that building since the lights went out.” Scott was confused as the smiling boy continued to walk toward him, speaking to him as if they knew each other well. Scott caught sight of Todd standing off to the side raking leaves. He was still unsure what was going on but finally found his voice.

  Addressing the smartly dressed young man, he said, “Ah …Sorry, yes I had some important work to finish.” The kid held up his ID for the guard and Scott to see. “It’s good to see you, DeVonte," Scott added.

  DeVonte walked over, helped Scott with his falling papers, and whispered, “Just go with it.” DeVonte opened a book he was carrying and said more loudly, “If you have a second, I just don’t get this theorem you covered here.”

  Scott looked at the book with great interest, almost as if his life depended on it… which it probably did. He was aware of the soldier moving off now, apparently having lost interest in the student-teacher exchange. DeVonte told Scott to follow him.

  “Thank you for doing that.”

  “It’s cool,” the kid said, “I could tell it was about to get ugly. Grab your yardman,” he added, nodding toward Todd, “and we can go someplace safer to talk.” So, the kid had had us pegged
from the start.

  Ten minutes later the three of them were crowded into a small antechamber located in the back of what must have once been a small chapel. The rock walls, dark interior and Spartan furnishings looked out of place on the modern campus. The building appeared to be used for storage, and a quick glance could cover the entire building.

  Feeling more confident, Todd relaxed slightly. He had been ready to do whatever was necessary to get Scott away from the guard. When the nice looking dark-skinned youth had calmly eased up near him and said in a low voice, “Relax, man, I got this,” Todd had not known what to expect. Watching the kid work the guard had been a welcome relief in the face of the much more vicious and likely doomed solution he had been planning.

  DeVonte looked at the two guys and smiled a big toothy grin. “I’m guessing you guys don’t belong on this campus. I’m also guessing you’re wondering why in the hell I helped you. Am I right?” Scott and Todd looked at each other with uncertainty.

  “Yes,” Scott said, “I’m looking for my niece, and I know that boy they were taking away would have an idea of where she is and if she’s okay.”

  “Who is your niece?” DeVonte asked. Scott showed him the picture he had in his pocket.

  “Kaylie Montgomery. You know her?”

  “I seen her round. She’s a nice girl, but we aren’t really friends or nothing. Think we had a few classes together a while back.” He paused before continuing. “I watched you two sneak in the campus and then question that doper outside the dorm. You gonna get caught by these militia guys if you keep it up. They ain't stupid. They give these kids free dope so they’ll rat out anyone they see breaking the rules. If that happens and they find you, yo’ asses’ll be disappeared, you know what I mean?”

  DeVonte spent the next several minutes telling them what he knew. The grayshirts had shown up the day after the power went out. While they said they were there for added security, the heavy-handed tactics appeared to suggest otherwise. No one was allowed on campus without an ID, and no one was allowed to leave either. The rumor was that the large stadium had been turned into a stockade for troublemakers. DeVonte said fewer and fewer students were around now. His dorm was nearly empty. No one had any idea what was going on, or where students were going if they weren’t allowed to leave, but they were all scared.

  “So why did you help us?” Scott asked.

  “I watched you guys. You worked as a team, an’ your friend here’s obviously ex-military. I thought you might have a plan to get us all out. Maybe you could help me get off campus. Most of us’re thinkin’ these military dudes are terrorist. They cut the power supply to the school, then took over. Like in a movie, you know? But then I saw the lights in the sky like we were in the Arctic or somethin’ and the lights off everywhere else too. Are they off everywhere?”

  Todd and Scott nodded, “Sorry, but yes they are. A massive solar flare took down the grid,” Todd said, speaking for the first time. He continued, “Do you still think the military guys…. the grayshirts are bad guys? Have they hurt any of you?”

  “No…no one’s been obviously hurt, but these guys are rough. No bullshit, you know. Anyone gives them crap, starts trouble or farts in the wrong direction—they just come up missin’.”

  “Like Kaylie’s friend?” Scott asked.

  "Yeah, probly, but that was a little unusual. Normally they take you when no one can see, like at night. Seemed they had somethin’ different in mind for that guy.”

  Todd looked at Scott. “We still don’t know if the grayshirts are a threat. They could be protecting the school. Special ops training isn’t big on being polite. In almost any urban combat situation, they would first want to subdue any possible internal troublemakers, so they could then focus on external threats.” Looking at the kid, he said, “DeVonte, thanks again for all your help out there—and the info. I need to know if you’ve seen any larger weapons, like tanks or artillery. Do you know how many soldiers there are? And any idea if they’re Army or Navy?”

  The bright-eyed kid smiled again. “Nah, I haven't seen nothin’ like that, but they keep an entire section of the campus blocked off. The old practice fields, the parking lots for the stadium and all the stuff on that side are all off limits. You can’t even get close enough to see over there. They could have a platoon and shit, who knows how much hardware. What I do know, though, is it seems all the soldiers come to the mess hall to eat. The ones in charge and the ones who walk the patrols. I managed to volunteer myself to help on the serving line.

  “Thought maybe I could learn more about what was happenin’ and maybe get a little extra food to eat. What I gathered from all that was there are ‘round 450 troops now. They work in two shifts, so about 200 or 250 are guarding the campus at any one time. I got no idea who they are…like I said, we all was thinkin’ they might be some kind of terrorist group. Even in their small talk, they don’t let anything like that slip out. I was listenin’ close as I cleaned tables and such. These people are always on point. They don’t slip up, not ever.”

  Scott looked at Todd and asked him if he had any idea who they were. Todd shook his head no. “The MultiCam appeared similar to a pattern of arctic assault gear some Navy seals have, but the weapons and vehicles seem to suggest Army special ops. The tactics and discipline are definitely special ops, but elite soldiers aren’t normally used in a pacification mode like this. It's a big fucking question mark at this point,” sighed an obviously frustrated Todd.

  Looking out through the tiny dirty window, Scott could see more people moving outside now. “DeVonte, do you have any idea where we should look for Kaylie? Do you think she was one of those…” He could barely say the word, "one of those—taken?” The idea of her being out of their reach in a military prison camp terrified Scott. They couldn’t fight through a full battalion of elite soldiers to find her. How would he tell his brother he couldn't get to her?

  “Yeah, I know where she is,” the kid answered with a grin. Todd and Scott both stared at him.

  “I saw her head out just before you guys showed up. She had on tight yoga pants and sneakers. Dat girl be bangin’ in that outfit man…Sorry. I mean she’s uh, hard to miss. Pretty sure she was heading down to the gym. She works out a lot, ‘specially with most of the classes canceled,” DeVonte said to both men’s great relief.

  Scott grinned, “I am really glad we met you, man. By the way, my name’s Scott. The big yardman here is Todd.” They all shook hands. Scott had instantly liked the young man and certainly owed him even more now.

  The gym was just down the hill, in the same direction most of the people outside seemed to be heading. Looking out, DeVonte said, “The mess hall is down there too, and it’s about lunch time. Probably be best if I check out the gym to see if I can find her."

  “We can’t ask you to do that,” Scott said, “Any ideas on how we could get in?”

  “That’s going to be risky, man…the big guy here really stands out. You might pass, but that other guard spotted you pretty quick. Let me think…” He seemed to ponder several options then said, “Follow me.”

  The three men went to the front of the building. A small space held a work desk. “One of the school’s food service contractors uses this office sometimes,” DeVonte said. Rummaging through the desk drawers, he came up with two campus ID badges. The plastic badges had no picture on them but had the word contractor stamped on it with a number. He handed one to Scott and the other to Todd. “Grab a clipboard and lose those bags. I’ll go down first. You two watch where I go, and then follow. Don’t get lost—you have to look like you go there all the time.” They nodded. “When I get to the side door of the gym, I’ll give you a signal. Get in, find the girl, and send her out to me. You’ll get made if they see you mingling with students. She and I will come back here and wait on you two. Make a check on the vending machines, and then slowly swing back this way.”

  Getting into the gym went as planned. The kid was a natural and seemed to blend into every situa
tion. He chatted with friends, ignored the occasional guard, and always seemed to know where the two guys were behind him. As Scott and Todd slipped inside the side door of the gymnasium, they did a discreet perimeter sweep. They didn’t see any of the grayshirts, but they also didn’t find Kaylie either.

  They checked the weight rooms, the main gymnasium and even took a quick peek in the showers. Scott went up to the indoor walking track where he thought he saw a girl about her size. Getting to the carpeted oval mezzanine, though, he saw no sign of anyone. He was about to head back down when he heard a small soft voice.

  “Uncle Scott?”

  He snapped his head around, still seeing no one. He whispered "Kaylie?” No response. He tried again and was about to look elsewhere when he saw a small hand appear from behind a column. He had not noticed the hidden space behind the support beams, but as he walked in that direction, he first saw long chestnut hair and then his brother's daughter stepping out from behind it. Kaylie gave the briefest hint of a squeal as she ran grinning into her uncle’s arms.

  “When did you get here? Are Mom and Dad okay? Do you know…” Her questions came in a rapid-fire torrent, and Scott put up his hand to quiet her. He pulled her into a tight embrace, tears appearing in both their smiling faces. Kaylie was drenched in sweat from what must have been a vigorous workout, and Scott was trembling slightly as he held her.

  “They’re fine. We can talk about the rest later,” Scott said. “Right now, we just need to get somewhere safe.” Kaylie nodded, and Scott told her the plan. She knew who DeVonte was, and after a quick introduction to a grinning Todd, she grabbed her stuff and walked out the side door to meet up with their new friend.