Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall

by Nerys Wheatley

Walker dropped the rifle and reached beneath his jacket, pulling out a knife. Alex grabbed his wrist as the point penetrated his skin. Ignoring the considerable pain, Alex punched Walker in the face. He went limp beneath him.

  “Ouch!” Alex sat up and looked down at his side. Blood was seeping from the small, but very painful, wound in his side. “Why does everyone want to stab me today?”

  The room they’d fallen into was the security office. Above a desk against the far wall, a bank of monitors displayed a constantly changing selection of views of the building and surrounds. On one of the screens he saw the eaters he’d narrowly escaped, still clustered around the bloody, shredded remains of his t-shirt.

  There were lockers against the left hand wall and a cupboard and chest of drawers against the right. Chairs lined the wall next to the cupboard.

  Alex stood and closed the door, then picked up the knife and rifle and gave Walker a quick pat down, removing a pistol from a waist holster. A quick scrabble through the drawers produced a bunch of zip ties.

  Walker had changed from the blue pyjamas he’d been wearing during the show with Boot into his usual black suit and white shirt. Alex wrestled the jacket and shirt off and threw them onto a nearby chair, pausing for a moment to stare at Walker’s bare chest and abs which were huge and appeared to have been sculpted out of granite. He looked down at his own chest. It wasn’t that he was in bad shape. Thanks more to the physique boosting effects of Meir’s than to his sporadic fitness regime, he was fairly well defined in the muscle area. But compared to the man lying unconscious on the floor, he was a stick.

  Walker groaned, his eyes fluttering open. Alex rapidly moved his gaze from his ridiculously large pectorals and heaved him onto his front, grabbing his hands and fastening them together behind his back.

  “Hey!” Walker craned his head around to look up at Alex, struggling against the zip tie on his wrists. “How did you...? Aren’t you dead?” He looked down at himself. “What the hell are you doing? Where’s my shirt?” His eyes went back to Alex who was standing above him, as shirtless as he was. Panic spread across his face. “Um, I respect your choice of lifestyle and everything, but I’m not into guys.”

  On the verge of saying nor was he, Alex had an idea. He stepped towards him, licking his lips. “What’s your first name?”

  Walker tried frantically to squirm across the floor away from him.

  “Oh, come on,” Alex said, smiling, “I just want to know your name.”

  Walker looked up at him, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “B-Benjamin.”

  “Benjamin. I like that name. Can I call you Ben?”

  “Uh...” Walker’s eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape.

  Alex lowered to one knee beside him and stroked a hand up Walker’s huge bicep. “You look like you work out a lot. Like you’re tough. It’s hard to find a man who can take it from a Survivor.”

  Having wriggled up to the wall, Walker tried to push himself through it.

  Alex leaned towards him.

  “No, wait!” Walker yelled desperately. “Your boyfriend’s in the cells. Don’t you want to rescue him?”

  Alex pretended to consider it. “Will it be dangerous? Because things haven’t been going that great between us. He’s so demanding and, to be honest, a bit clingy. The sex is good, but all the complaining gets a bit much. ‘You’re hurting me, Alex’, ‘Not so hard, Alex’...”

  “No no no, not dangerous at all.” A bead of sweat trickled down Walker’s temple. “I can tell you how to get there so no-one will see you. And you can use my keycard. I’ll give you my code. I swear you’ll have him out in no time, without any trouble.”

  Walker gave a smile that looked more like a grimace. Alex was finding it increasingly difficult not to laugh.

  “Well, maybe I should rescue him, for the good times. Let’s start with how many guards there are in the building and how I can permanently disable all the security cameras.”

  Five minutes later, Alex had Walker’s keycard and every security detail for the building that the big man could think of.

  “Thanks, Ben,” Alex said, buttoning up the shirt he’d taken from him. He fixed him with an intense stare. “I’m trusting you now to not try to get free or warn anyone. Because if something goes wrong and I don’t get Micah out, it’s going to be very frustrating for me. And I’m going to have to come back here and take it all out on someone.”

  Walker’s head shook side to side so hard Alex feared he’d get whiplash. “I swear I will stay right here and not do anything at all. And even if someone finds me, I won’t say anything, I promise.” He grimace/smiled again.

  “That’s good to hear, Ben.”

  Alex tore a strip of duct tape from a roll he found in the drawer, thankful someone in this place was prepared, and placed it over Walker’s mouth. Then he stood and walked to the door. After a quick glance out to check the foyer was still empty, he blew Walker a kiss, stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Heading back across the foyer, Alex finished buttoning up Walker’s shirt, pulled the fabric away from him and stared down into the gap he’d created. It looked almost big enough to fit another person. What on earth was Walker’s chest measurement? And how much time would Alex need to spend in the gym when this was all over?

  23

  “Psst.”

  Alex stopped, immediately on alert. He looked back along the corridor behind him, but saw nothing.

  “Over here,” a voice hissed.

  A door was slightly ajar. When Alex looked at it, it edged open and Brian peered out. Alex tensed, ready to run or attack.

  “I just want to talk to you,” Brian whispered. “Come in here, away from the cameras.” He opened the door wider.

  Keeping Walker’s rifle trained on him, Alex walked into the room.

  As soon as Brian had shut the door, Alex charged at him, grabbing him by the neck and slamming him up against the wall. He tried to gasp for air, clawing at Alex’s hand around his throat.

  “You hurt Sam,” Alex growled. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t snap your neck right now.”

  Brian’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth to speak, but Alex’s grip was too tight for more than a vague rasp to emerge.

  Alex found himself torn between wanting the man to suffer for what he’d done to Sam and needing to hear what he had to say in case it was important. Having made his decision, he loosened his grip a little. It wasn’t what he’d really wanted to do.

  “I didn’t do it,” Brian gasped. He tried to tug Alex’s hand away. It didn’t budge.

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “I didn’t break his finger. I told him to scream, to pretend I had.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Not all of us agree with Mr. Boot,” Brian said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Brian’s eyes flicked downwards. “Could you let me down?”

  Alex looked at his feet. His toes were barely touching the floor.

  “If you try anything...”

  “I won’t. I want to help.”

  Alex let go and took the pistol from the holster beneath Brian’s jacket. Then he stepped back, levelling the rifle he’d taken from Walker at his chest. “Okay, talk.”

  Brian leaned forward, bracing his hands on his thighs as he gasped for breath. After a few seconds, he straightened and coughed, rubbing his neck. Up close, Alex estimated him to be at least six five, with a build that could almost rival Walker’s.

  He was getting tired of having to look up at everyone around here.

  “Boot is deranged,” Brian said when he could speak again.

  “So why are you still here? Why haven’t you tried to stop him?”

  “I can’t do it on my own and I don’t know who else feels the same way I do. If it got back to Boot that I wasn’t loyal...” He shuddered.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to end up in the labs.”

 
; The sight of the bodies in the morgue drawers came back to Alex. It all made sense, the white eyes, the lack of an apparent cause of death.

  “He used his own people as guinea pigs?”

  Brian looked at the floor for a few moments. “When the outbreak in Sarcester began, there were people here who objected. Some of them got out before Boot locked down the building and surrounded it with his eater army. The ones who didn’t get away and objected were sent to the labs. I don’t know exactly what happened to them there, but they never came back.”

  Alex could guess what happened to them. Boot used them to test the cure he was planning to ultimately use on himself, when it was perfected. He sat on the edge of a desk behind him, keeping the rifle trained on Brian. “How many were there?”

  “I don’t know.” He leaned back against the wall. “Most we just never saw again. A few, the more senior managers...” He stopped, rubbing one hand over his face. “...he forced them to drink eater blood, watched them turn, then sent them out to join the horde. He doesn’t take what he regards as betrayal very well.”

  Alex touched a hand gently to his chest. “Yes, I know.”

  “How did you survive anyway? I watched your boyfriend stab you.”

  “He’s not my... never mind. I’m not really sure about that myself. Why is Boot so scared? What’s going on here?”

  Brian glanced at the door apprehensively, as if his boss could hear him. “When the outbreak got bad in Sarcester, Boot flew there. While he was away, the Omnav governing board had a meeting here. We, those of us wearing these penguin outfits,” he tugged at his jacket lapel, “we don’t technically work for Omnav. We’re Boot’s personal security, we work for him. So none of us were allowed anywhere near that meeting, but when Boot got back and found out about it, he flipped. The next day, none of the board came in for work. I don’t know for sure what happened, but...” He stopped, looking at the door again as he wiped the back of one hand across his forehead. “Most of us are just motivated by the money, and he pays us a lot. I mean, I’d been paying off my student loans for five years and barely made a dent, and then I started working for Boot and I was debt free after a year. All because I grew a few inches more than most other men. But there are a few, like Frobisher, who buy into his whole power trip thing, and there’s not much they wouldn’t do to ride his coattails to the top. So the board members? I doubt they all decided to quit at the same time, if you know what I mean.”

  Alex did know what he meant and he didn’t doubt for a second Boot would do it. He probably wouldn’t even think having the entire board murdered was wrong.

  “So then Boot had complete control,” Brian continued, “but that’s when the barriers fell in Sarcester and I know he wasn’t expecting that. Nor was anyone else. I overheard one of the brainiacs who worked here say the eaters weren’t behaving how they expected them to. Something about them working together much more than they thought they would. The day after the barriers went down, about half the people who worked here didn’t show up. Then Boot told us everyone who was left wouldn’t be allowed to leave. He told us it was for our safety with the eaters coming, but I think it was because he was getting scared he’d be left alone. Why he didn’t just leave, I don’t know.”

  Alex knew. Boot was obsessed with becoming a Survivor. He wouldn’t leave the only chance he had. And with the eaters advancing further every day and every other country zealously guarding their borders and airspaces, where would he go anyway?

  “That was when he started sending anyone who objected to the labs.” Brian shuddered, twisting his hands around each other. “He forced the scientists to infect them so they could test the cures they’d been working on. Then when they’d had enough and refused, he had them infected and put them outside the fence. He had your friends kidnapped and brought here to take their place. When the eaters arrived, he used the bug guns, the pheromone cartridges, to attract them in to surround us.” He looked down at his hands. “You have to believe me, I wanted to stop it, I really did, but Boot is insane. You have no idea. I’d have been killed too, or ended up like those poor people outside the fence.”

  Alex wasn’t sure whether he believed that Brian wanted to stop Boot, but he believed the rest. It was too detailed a story for him to make up. And it all made sense.

  He pushed himself off the desk. “Are Micah, Sam and Claire back in the cells with the others?”

  Brian nodded. “I took them there myself.”

  “Alright, we’ll go there now. If Sam’s okay, then I’ll think about believing you.”

  Brian appeared nervous, which was strange for someone who looked like he crushed boulders with his bare hands for fun. “I can’t be seen with you. There are a couple of cameras in the corridors and one in the cell room.”

  “The cameras are out of action,” Alex said.

  Brian frowned. “How?”

  “I had a chat with your colleague, Ben Walker, in the security office in the foyer. He was very eager to help, once I’d explained the situation to him.”

  “You mean he wanted to help bring down Boot?”

  “Not exactly.”

  After checking the corridor outside was clear, Alex ushered Brian through the door and they made their way to the cells. He kept the rifle trained on Brian in front of him. Alex didn’t want to trust him, but he couldn’t for the life of him think why else he would be helping.

  Unless it was some trick Boot had to get them to... what? He shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

  Although just because he was paranoid, it didn’t mean they weren’t out to get him.

  They didn’t see anyone else on the way. Maybe now everyone was safely locked up again, or in his case, dead, the guards had been allowed to return to bed.

  Alex made Brian enter the room ahead of him. To his relief, everyone was there. Sam and Claire were sharing a cell, huddled together. Hannah was curled in the corner of her bed, sobbing quietly. Alex’s heart ached for her pain while at the same time dancing for joy that she was upset at his ‘death’. The doctors looked in various states of dejection.

  Micah was standing, his eyes on the door. As soon as Alex walked in behind Brian, his face broke into a grin so big it looked like his cheeks were trying to touch the ceiling. For a moment, Alex forgot to be angry at him for the whole knife in the chest thing and he smiled back.

  “Alex?” Sam was staring at him, his mouth hanging open. His face was starting to swell where Chester had hit him.

  The others looked up. There were a couple of seconds of shocked silence. Then everyone spoke at once.

  Alex held up the hand not clutching the gun and they quietened enough for him to speak. “Before I answer any questions, Sam, how is your finger?”

  Sam smiled. “Oh, it’s fine. See?” He held up both hands and wiggled all ten digits. “Brian told me to pretend he’d broken it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Pauline said.

  Sam shrugged. “Micah told me about the camera. I didn’t want anyone to see and get Brian into trouble.” He pointed at his bruised face. “The punch was real though.”

  “Do you believe me now?” Brian said.

  Alex lowered the rifle. After a moment’s hesitation, he handed Brian’s pistol back to him. “Get the doors. We need to get out of here before anyone comes to check why the cameras aren’t working.”

  Brian went to the panel to open the cells. As soon as she was free, Hannah ran to Alex and threw her arms around him. While he loved the hug, he couldn’t stop his grunt of pain.

  She gasped and stepped back, to his disappointment. “I thought you were dead,” she said, her eyes shimmering with tears.

  “Yeah, well, I did get stabbed.” He unbuttoned the shirt to reveal the wound in his chest. It was still oozing blood.

  There were gasps as they all gathered around him.

  “I need a first aid kit,” Hannah said, suddenly all business. “Brian?”

  “On it.” He went to the door, checked the corridor,
and slipped out.

  Alex hoped he didn’t come back with a dozen of his massive, heavily armed guard buddies, but he couldn’t do anything about that now. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen.

  Hannah led Alex into her cell and stripped the sheet from her bed. They sat down and she began to carefully clean the blood from around the wound. He would have been lying if he’d said it wasn’t causing him a lot of pain, but the fact that it involved Hannah touching his bare chest was proving an effective distraction.

  Micah sat on the other end of the bed, still grinning.

  “What are you smiling for?” Alex said. “You stabbed me.”

  “You told me to.”

  “But I didn’t think you’d actually do it. I thought you’d find a way to save both of us that didn’t involve plunging a knife into my chest. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  Micah’s expression became indignant. “That wasn’t luck. I stabbed you where the blade would hit your ribs and kept my thumb on the retract button so it would depress back into the handle. And even if I’d made an error and it passed between your ribs, I made sure it would go in without hitting any major organs, like I told you I could.”

  “When did you tell me that?”

  “After we found Gaz and the others dead in that house. Don’t you remember?”

  Alex shook his head.

  Micah frowned. “So you thought I’d tried to kill you?”

  “It did cross my mind when you thrust a very sharp knife into my chest, yes.”

  Micah bit his lip and grimaced, looking apologetic. “Oh. Sorry about that.” He frowned. “Hang on, if you thought I’d really stabbed you, what did you think the kiss was for?”

  “What was the kiss for?” Alex said, relieved he wasn’t the one to have to bring the awkward subject up.

  “So I could put my hand on your chest and feel for your ribs and the right place to put the spiker and be close enough to make sure it went in properly. If I hadn’t pretended I wanted to kiss you, Boot would have got suspicious.”

  Alex let out a mental sigh of relief. “Oh. Well. That’s good to know.”