by Alan Janney
“Good! I like reinforcements.”
Samantha growled, “Not me.”
“Puck, how many other Infected are there? Outside of Los Angles, I mean. What’s our total number?”
“Outside of Los Angeles, there are five others. Used to be six, but she died on a mountain recently.”
“Who are they?”
“Code names are Australia, Russia, Zealot, China and Pacific. That’s all I can tell you.”
“I hate them all,” Samantha said. “I bet Carter called in Australia…didn’t he.”
“You know it, homie. Australia’ll be here in a few days.”
Samantha said a very bad word.
PuckDaddy directed us to a sprawling pink hospital on Vermont Avenue. We braked in the rear parking lot, near a loading bay. The silence of the place was deafening. I hated this; neither of us had ever been here and we had no plan, like walking into a skirmish blindfolded.
My body was thickening due to the stress. My cells carried a disease that interacted strongly with adrenaline, doing bizarre stuff like strengthening my heart, broadening shoulders, and hardening skin. Muscles bulged and the fibers began fast-twitch firing like pistons. The synapses in my brain revved up, like I could control time.
The overall effect was intoxicating, as if I’d never been alive until now. My senses were heightened and all the incoming stimuli was rich and potent. I could punch through walls, flip cars, leap houses, and I ached to do it all.
“Talk to me, Puck.” Samantha looked awesome when she dressed for combat: thin neoprene gloves, tight black leggings, steel-toed boots, and her snug black shooting jacket. Night-vision goggles were perched on her head, and pistols were slung in two brown leather shoulder holsters.
“This place is disgusting. The building is so old,” Puck whined. “I can’t be very elegant in my assistance.”
“Get us a room number.” She double checked magazines and chambers on all weapons, including the pistol at the small of her back.
My weapon was my arm. I had purchased heavy, metal ballbearings a few months ago; I could throw steel faster and more accurately than a major league pitcher. Her weapons were cooler than mine, but mine wouldn’t kill people. I hoped.
“The kid’s in Neurology. Take the stairs located just inside the loading dock. Head to the third floor. Room 312.”
“What about meds? I want him sedated.”
“He’s hooked up to a bag of ketamine, according to records. There might be another bag in his room or the nurses’ station. I don’t know how this works. I’m not a doctor, I’m a hacker.”
“Outlaw, you’re still wearing your motorcycle helmet,” Samantha observed.
“You think I should ditch the helmet? Go with the mask?”
“No,” she frowned. “Neither. Both are too recognizable.”
“Gear, you don’t care if people see your face. I do. I still have a life. I covet my anonymity.”
“Then wear the Outlaw mask,” she sighed.
“Puck agrees!” he shouted
“Yeah, it’s sexier,” she shrugged. “Plus everyone knows you’re alive now. No sense hiding. And Puck can delete video if we need.”
I left the helmet with my bike and we trotted up the concrete stairwell to the third floor. The hospital’s administration wing was asleep and we slipped through like ghosts. I was twirling steel in my hand like Baoding relaxation balls, but it wasn’t helping.
We pushed through double-doors to the Patient Care area. This part of the hospital was alive. Sleepy, but alive. The lights were on, machines beeped, and distant voices murmured down the pink and blue hallway. An elderly man in a hospital gown saw us and gasped. He stumbled back into his room.
We stuck out. Infected often do. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. The abnormally erect posture? Powerful upper body? Hyper alertness? Less civilian, more warrior. The battle gear didn’t help. We might as well be lions stalking the corridors.
“Hang a right. He’s at the end of the adjoining hall,” Puck said. His voice was hushed, which was silly, but I understood. Every sound we made felt amplified.
“Gear, you go,” I said. “You’re not wearing the ridiculous attention-getting mask.”
“Roger.”
She went, moving quick and graceful, like a ballet dancer packing heat. The elderly gentleman snuck a peek at me around his doorframe. I smiled. He couldn’t see that. Duh. I was wearing a mask. But the Outlaw doesn’t wave.
Thirty seconds later, on my bluetooth headset, “Empty. No one here.”
“Patient is gone?”
“Affirmative.”
“Puck,” I said, “He’s been transferred?”
“Not according to his medical records.”
“Samantha, impersonate a police officer. You kinda look like one. Ask where the patient was moved to.”
“Roger that.”
Puck murmured, “Love when she talks like that. So hot.”
I waited. Old guy peeked at me again. Puck was clicking. All was quiet.
“Something’s wrong,” Samantha warned. “The nurses are cowering. Won’t even look at me. Acting like they’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“Bingo,” Puck shouted, so loud I jumped. “Contact! Walter and Carla, with two other Infected I don’t recognize, wheeling a patient. They’ve got our boy!”
“Where??” I demanded. Walter and Carla. The Chemist’s most trusted bullies. Those two were trouble. They nearly killed me in Compton.
“Ah jeez, I don’t know. Which security camera am I looking at?”
“Puck, figure it out!” Samantha ordered, jogging back to me. She had a pistol in her fist, her face a mixture of excitement and rage. I recognized that visage. The madness was beginning to blaze in both of us.
“Got it! Opposite end of the hospital.”
Samantha and I bolted in that direction. We’d cover the distance in seconds, bursting through security doors.
“They’re moving slowly. Heading towards the western bank of elevators.”
“How’d they get out of Compton?” I wondered. “And get here so quickly?” I had heavy steel in my hand, ready to remove someone’s head if necessary.
The same virus burning in Samantha and me also burned in Walter and Carla, and presumably the other two with them. The virus interacted with our specific body compositions and affected us all differently. Samantha and Walter were both blessed (or cursed) with snap reflexes, crazy-good mental focus, and heightened hand-eye coordination, making them natural gunners. My body had grown quick and strong, even more so than Samantha's, but I’d be useless with a gun. I didn’t know anything about Carla’s abilities. Or the other two.
“Heads-up!” Puck called. His voice hurt my ears. “Ambush!”
Walter rose up behind a chest-high nurses’ desk at an intersection and opened fire, aiming at me. The cluttered hallway erupted into a riot of shrapnel as the oncoming storm of bullets flung hospital equipment. I couldn’t see the rounds, but some inner preternatural instinct knew how to dodge them. I was a blur, slipping through the storm, but Walter was lightning quick too, and POW! One lucky bullet caught me in the shoulder. I rolled behind a meal cart that shuddered with impacts.
Samantha returned fire. She emptied the clips of her two pistols so fast it sounded like a violent peal of thunder. Walter fell back as the Nurses’ desk disintegrated.
Puck asked, “You okay?”
“So great!” I shouted, examining the smashed bullet-proof plate in my vest that saved me serious injury.
“Children!” Samantha screamed down the hall in delirious, sick joy. “You’re just children!” She reloaded faster than my eyes could follow and aimed another volley at Carla, coming around the corner with a shotgun.
“Outlaw Outlaw Outlaw!” Puck repeated in my ear, barely audible over Samantha’s gunshots.
“What?!”
“They’re stalling! Some jerk is pushing our patient down the hallway!”
“Okay,” I said, sn
eaking a peek. A kid (I’d never seen him before) was almost to the elevators with the bed. “I see him. I got him.”
I gathered a fistful of metal and sent a heavy barrage after him. The steel ballbearings hummed like angry hornets and ripped through the rolling bed’s legs. The patient spilled onto the floor.
“Nice shot!”
Carla came again, and this time she took us by surprise. She had an illegal eight-gauge semi-automatic shotgun whose concussive blasts shook the floor and rattled picture frames off their mountings. Samantha and I bailed into rooms on either side of the hallway as death whistled past, gouging the walls.
“Any ideas, Puck?”
“You’re the Outlaw! Not me!”
“Then I’m going out the window.”
Both Samantha and Puck said, “You’re what??” but I had already broken through the third-story window. A billion slivers of glass went slicing off into the air. I snatched a hold on the outside wall before I fell. I put my fingers straight into the pink stucco-like material. It was quiet out here. I hadn’t realized people inside were screaming in terror until I no longer heard them. I was above the parking lot, over a vacant ambulance. A nearby palm tree was almost touching me.
I glared across the sheer face of the hospital to the next window. It wasn’t far. Easy. Jump!
“Outlaw, where’d you go? What are you doing?”
“Flanking maneuver,” I said. “Just like Call-of-Duty!” Another Jump! I balanced myself on the window sill by pressing my fingertips firmly into the edges of the frame.
“Explain,” Samantha demanded.
“Coming in behind them.” Jump! “Get ready.” Jump! “Else they’ll shoot me a lot.” Jump Jump!
I broke the glass and re-entered the mayhem from a new location.
The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen was hiding in the adjoining hallway. We were both startled, and for several seconds we only stared. She was perfect. So perfect it was hard to think. She had long blonde hair and an oval-shaped face and full lips and big blue eyes, and she was dressed in tight, trendy (and very unmilitary) blue clothes. The girl shook off her surprise and said, “Stop.”
I stopped. Immediately. No questions asked. No movements. She was so attractive I had no choice. The lights dimmed. The sounds faded. There was only her.
“Go back out the window,” she smiled. Her voice was as smooth as silk. Soothing and pleasant, with musical notes. My ears turned hot, like she’d said something indecent.
I obeyed. I went back to the window. The pretty girl told me. I had to…
“Wait.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. Something was wrong. I was…where was I? My brain was full of fog. I was dizzy. “Wait. Why? What’s…I’m confused.”
“Go outside,” she said again. “Please? Jump out the window.”
“Okay,” I nodded. That made sense. She asked nicely. I’d do anything for her. All I could think about was the beautiful girl; she was everywhere. She smelled so good I tripped and fell into the wall.
“Chase,” a voice said loudly into my ear. “Chase, dummy. What are you doing?”
Puck. Puck’s voice. His words blew away some of the mist in my brain. Where am I? My face was pressed against the blue wallpaper. I felt like a toy with two puppeteers. What’s wrong with me?? My mouth wouldn’t work. “Huh?”
“Stop being an idiot,” he yelled. “She’s Infected!”
I couldn’t function. My mind was thick and slow. The gorgeous girl was inside my head. I stared suspiciously and said, “Who…you… who are you?” Behind her, the gunfight raged but it didn’t seem to matter.
She planted fists onto her hips and said, “The Father predicted you might be able to resist me.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Every move she made, every noise, was intoxicating.
She appeared caught between frustration and amusement. “You’re a handsome specimen, and I wish I had more time to play with you.”
“…what?”
She winked and then she intentionally changed her expression to one of fear, and she cried, “Help me! Please!”
Help me?! My first instinct was to obey her. Was she hurt?
A pack of hospital workers, hidden and cowering from the nearby gun battle, began pouring out of doorways. They leapt to obey her. Men, women, doctors, nurses and even patients all charged me, glaring and shouting. She was commanding them!
Puck said, “This is super weird.”
“How is she controlling people?” I shouted, knocking hands away and shoving the mob backwards. There were about a dozen attackers.
“Who cares, stupid! Take her out!”
I Moved. I went through the crowd. Easily. They were slow and clumsy and I advanced like a nightmare. The startled girl turned to run. I tried not to notice her astonishing figure. She was Infected, that was obvious, but she didn’t move well. She had locomotion issues, like her bones were brittle or her legs were injured. I grabbed and threw a cordless phone that connected solidly with her skull and she collapsed. The deranged crowd watched and wailed with grief, but at least they quit chasing me.
“That was trippy. Careful, here comes Walter.”
Walter rushed into view, reloading his weapon. He was unprepared for me. I put the heel of my hand into his chest like a battering ram, driving with my shoulder. He landed nine feet away and slid across the thin carpet into the far wall.
“Chase! Move!” Puck cried, but it was too late.
Carla spun around the corner, and she fired. I caught the entire shotgun blast in my midsection. Pain! My consciousness flickered. The hospital whirled. I found myself on the carpet several feet away, unable to breathe, the heady smell of gunpowder thick in my nose. The mob of attackers were screaming and holding their ears. My chest roared and ached.
“Holy god, please don’t be dead,” Puck said, barely discernible from the ringing in my ears.
Carla. She glared and jacked another round into the chamber. I was dead. The body armor and my freakish skin absorbed the attack, and I’d heal from inner injuries. But she could take my head off with the next shot.
To my surprise, she snapped, “You don’t use guns. Why not?” She wore a fierce scowl and her hair was tightly cornrowed around her skull. I sucked in lungfuls of air but got only a trickle. I tried and failed to say, I don’t kill people. “We shouldn’t be fighting, Outlaw. You and me. Us. You agree?” she asked. I nodded and winced. “You agree? This is stupid? This fighting?” Her words stunned me as much as the shotgun had. I nodded again. She was pleading, hoping I could reason with her. “You and I, we think alike. I can tell. We need each other. You hear me?”
Thunk. Carla’s eyes rolled up and she fell, unconscious. Samantha Gear was behind her, holding a heavy leather blackjack. She'd hit Carla behind the ear; lights out. Samantha stuffed the blackjack into her side pocket and said, “You two have a nice conversation?”
I nodded and she pulled me to my feet. “Oooooooouch.” I couldn’t raise upright completely.
“Did she shoot you? With her shotgun?”
“It was great,” I wheezed in agony.
“Even with your skin hard as a rock, I bet that hurt.” She indicated the gorgeous girl on the floor and said, “How’d you do with Blue Eyes?”
“Blue Eyes. Good name for her. She’s like a witch or something,” I said, partially unzipping my busted vest and inspecting the damage. The shot hadn’t pierced.
“I should have told you,” Gear nodded. “Leave her to me.”
“How does she do that?”
“I’ll explain later. Where is Walter?” she asked.
I pointed but Walter was gone. “Crud. Puck,” I said. “Where’d they go? Walter and that kid and the patient?”
“I’m so glad you’re not dead,” he said in a heavy rush. “I’m trying not to cry.”
“Aw. That’s nice,” I smiled.
Samantha stared incredulously at me. “Really? You two need a moment? Right now?”
“Thought she�
��d blown you in half,” Puck sniffed. “I was praying so hard. Huh…I believe in God, apparently.”
“Puck!!”
“Okay, okay. I’m scanning. You have no soul, Samantha.”
“Hurry up.”
“Shut it. Found them. Boarding the far elevator. If you hurry you can head them off at the pass.”
We ran, no words. Well, she ran. I winced and shuffled. She jumped down the stairs to the first floor. I mostly fell.
We arrived at the lobby before the elevator did. Samantha pulled out two pistols and aimed them at the unopened silver doors. Young orderlies down the hall screamed.
“Puck, how much longer before police arrive?” I asked.
“Dunno, dude,” he said, typing furiously. “Any minute. At least five calls to 911 have gone out from the hospital.”
“Samantha, if possible…” I said carefully. “Try not to kill anyone.”
“Shut up, Chase.”
I sighed, which made my chest hurt. “I can’t believe Puck said head them off at the pass.”
“Focus Outlaw.”
“Like we ride horses or something.”
“Oh…crap!” Puck cried. “The elevator went up, not down! My mistake. They’re on the top floor!”
“Puck, kill the power,” Samantha directed. We were moving, already at the second floor landing.
“Working on it.”
“Puck…”
“This was a rush job!” he shouted. “Don’t yell at Puck! This building sucks so much. There! …jerks.”
The hospital’s power went out. All the lights in the stairway clicked off. Total darkness. More screaming throughout the building. I crashed into Samantha and we both sprawled across the stairs.
“Chase! Get off!”
“Why’d you stop??” I shouted.
“I’m putting on night-vision goggles!” At that instant the emergency lights flickered on, providing enough light to see. She snarled, “Come on.”
The Patient Care area had been transformed into a spooky ward with only dim pools of light and far-off cries. We found the vacant elevator on the top floor. The doors were pried open.
“Where’d they go?”
“I killed the power,” Puck remarked dryly. “Remember, dummy? No power, no security cameras, no idea. By the way, the back-up generators are about to kick in.”
