Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2 (15 page)

She started to run, and he could feel the tears at his panicked order before they ever began to fall.

He pulled out his phone. He had no idea if it would work. He worked with good people, the best people, but he wouldn’t let their sacrifice be in vain. If he could stop some portion of this…

He barked commands in an obscure language as he thundered up the steps to unlock the app he’d hoped never to use. And issued the order he’d never wanted to issue.

“Execute thorough self-destruct sequence on Bunker 24601.”

“
Confirmed.
” The app had checked his identification through voice identifications in a fraction of a second. It was still more time than he had. He pocketed the phone and accelerated.

“Micah!” Sheila screamed. She’d never called him that before. “Why… you’re going to kill them all!”

How to explain that they were dead, that his order would save them pain, that the self-destruct command represented the only opportunity to save thousands of lives left to them?

He ran back down the steps to her, bent down, and scooped her over his shoulder.

Then he sprinted up the stairs, past the landing to their offices, toward the opening to daylight far above.

She kicked her legs at him and pounded on his back with her fists. It didn’t hurt, but it hampered his progress. “Put me down, you murderer!” she screamed. “Those people are my friends!”

“Mine, too.” He shouted back.

“Then why did you order their deaths?” Her voice had lost all its usual calm. Every word was a scream masked with tears.

He opened his mouth to try to ask for patience as he tried to run both of them to the exit above and their sole chance at safety.

One hundred feet below, the timer on the bomb planted by Wesley Cardinal finished its countdown and he felt the reverberations of the explosion in the stairwell.

He lost his balance and fell backward.

…housed large pools of computing and data storage equipment in rooms designed to maximize air flow and combat the natural heat… physical access to the equipment severely restricted to prevent tampering and accidental loss of information…

T
he reverberations of the closing door
still echoed in the room as he began working the bonds loose. It didn’t take much time or effort, and he realized they’d not really meant for him to stay in that chair forever. Just long enough for them to leave and lock the door behind them.

He patted himself down seconds later after freeing his hands. Damn. He’d not been imagining things. They’d taken his badge, which might enable him to open the door, and his phone, which might enable him to call someone. He bent down, then sat back up as the cumulative injuries left him lightheaded. He took a few deep breaths before bending down to work his legs free. He stood up twenty seconds later and the room swirled, and he staggered into a nearby desk. A wave of nausea hit, and he vomited into an empty wastebasket nearby. He glanced around and found a small refrigerator in the corner. He swayed on his feet, gradually regaining his balance as he worked his way to the refrigerator. He found several bottles of water. He used the first swallow to swish the vomit taste from his mouth, then drank the rest greedily. He opened a second bottle and splashed the water on his face, shocking himself alert, before draining the remainder. He left both bottles on the floor, feeling guilty at the littering.

If he couldn’t locate an immediate means of escape, he’d have plenty of time here to tidy up later.

He needed to escape. He needed to get back outside. He needed to find out the topic for the next podcast from the Voice…

The Voice?

“I’m trapped!” he shouted. “Can you help me?”

The Voice had initiated their first conversation, making Wesley aware of the disembodied voice delivered into his head via a speaker implanted there in a medical procedure Wesley didn’t remember. The Voice could hear what Wesley heard through his ears but not his thoughts, and could only “see” what Wesley described aloud.

He found the conversations uncomfortable, and not simply because each conversation left him with at minimum a dull headache. He generally was asked to do some task for the Voice, to act as the hands the Voice couldn’t provide, and in general he did so willingly, seeing in the Voice a similar soul on matters of exposing the truths of the Western Alliance government and the controlling megacorps. Disagreement was rare given the Voice’s ability to silence dissent with a high pitched shrieking sound that drove Wesley to do as commanded to end the torment. For those reasons, he’d never tried to initiate a conversation with the Voice.

Not until now. The Voice surely belonged to a real person somewhere outside this room, and that meant the Voice might be able to aid Wesley’s efforts at escape.

He heard a scratching sound inside his head. And then:
Wesley, where are you?

“I’m…” How to explain it? “I’m in the prison at my place of work. It’s… I think it’s an old data center room. They knocked me around after I attacked that demon woman, tied me up in here, and took my phone and badge. I’m trapped.”

Describe the room, Wesley, and explain why it is you’re unable to escape.

Straight to the point as always. “The room was built with the best security in this place because it once held all of the most critical data and computing equipment. They built a new room to handle the growth and turned this into the brig. The door is six or eight inches thick and made of solid Diasteel. You can’t break through that. If you have a badge I think you can swipe it and it
might
let you out. Without one, you have to figure out how to cut a hole through that door.”

Are there any tools in the room you might utilize, Wesley?

He looked around. “No, not really. Just the tile gripper thingy.”

Tile gripper thingy, Wesley?

He sighed. “All of the electrical equipment got very hot. They built a metal lattice about three feet off the main floor and covered it with heavy tiles in a grid. They ran cold air beneath the floor to reduce the temperature in the room and put all of the cabling there as well. The tiles fit the grid perfectly, so you can’t lift one with your hands alone if you need to check something underneath. The tool has suction grips you can use to lift the tiles. But that’s not going to help me break a hole through a Diasteel door.”

He waited, and heard no response. A tremor of panic ran through him. Had he lost the Voice? Did that mean his chance of escape, already slim, had plunged to zero? He felt a cool trickle of sweat run down his forehead, chilled by the conditioned air, and ran his sleeve to clear it away.

Wesley, is there a computer terminal nearby?

Relief. “Yes, but it won’t let me send a message to anyone, if that’s what—”

Go to the terminal, Wesley. You must enter the following command.

He blinked. What kind of escape plan was that? He’d privately hoped that, after all of his efforts, the Voice might reward him with something more tangible, like a massive force of Eastern troops overrunning the Bunker to set him free.

But… a command typed at a computer terminal?

He sighed and sat down. Perhaps he’d be advised to type “unlock brig door” to effect his escape. “Okay, I’m ready.”

He typed in the command as dictated, reading it back to the Voice to ensure accuracy, and then executed the command.

He heard no door locks disengage. Instead, a video feed appeared on his screen.

It was a grainy, black and white image of a large room dominated in the center by a circular tank. The top of the tank was clear, providing a view inside. Within the tank… He squinted, but the image wasn’t perfectly clear.

But something about the material inside that tank stirred a memory within him.

Movement on the screen pulled his attention from the dark substance in the tank.

He saw them then, two of the three people he most hated in the world. General Micah Jamison and Sheila Clarke scanned the interior of the tank, looks of frantic worry on their faces, as if trying to find something amid the ooze on the floor of the tank. He took some pleasure at their discomfort, but his eyes moved back to the substance.

Why did it look familiar?

Do you recognize it yet, Wesley? The material in the tank?

He shrugged, though he knew the gesture went unseen. “Should I?”

The pressure built inside his head. The pain didn’t resemble the deep agony inflicted by the shrieking sound. But he wrapped his arms around his head nonetheless. The pain felt ominous, as if some dreaded discovery lay just on the other side, and he hoped he might push that knowledge aside by gripping his own skull.

Images filled his mind.

The flow increased, like a water hose released of kinks. The memories long dormant resurfaced. He saw the experiments, saw the results, remembered his horror and revulsion at his participation and his contribution. He remembered the pain when they’d drilled the hole into his head, his screams… and he remembered the fog he’d lived in since that day.

His eyes refocused. He no longer noticed Jamison and Clarke. He saw nothing but the material inside.

He sucked in a deep breath as another memory, a more recent memory, returned. He remembered where he’d been overnight, what he’d done. And now he understood the ramifications of his then-unknowing actions.

“Why?” His voice was a whisper, his knuckles white as he gripped the desk with incredible ferocity. “Why do you make me remember
now
?”

The laugh was harsh.
Wesley, it would do us no good for you to remember when you’d have the ability to interrupt our plans. You’ve provided a useful set of hands to set our plans in motion, and for that, we thank you. But you have no place in the world we’re building, and your usefulness has come to an end. Farewell, Wesley Cardinal.

The click signaling the end of communications with the Voice was deeper now, and he knew he’d never hear that Voice again.

He looked at the image on the screen, watching as the General seized Clarke’s arm and hauled her from the room. The General had been there. He knew. If he was running…

Wesley gulped. He knew he had mere minutes to escape this prison, or he’d suffer a death too awful to imagine.

Just as the Voice had planned.

…documented proof purported to show at least three different occasions when Silver was spotted in two far-flung locations without adequate time to make the journey, fueling rumors of some advanced travel technology withheld from the general public…

O
swald Silver was a man
who seemed younger than his actual years, Roddy decided. His hair retained its deep brown color throughout his shoulder-length mane, marred only by the appearance of a trace bit of gray. His skin remained flawless, a fact Roddy found disturbing. Given the number of lives he’d ordered terminated—and there were many Roddy suspected but hadn’t proved—he ought to show wrinkles out of a pure sense of guilt. Silver didn’t experience the emotions of normal men, however.

That lack of emotion enabled the man to smirk and order his son-in-law and daughter to avoid intimate relations while in close quarters with him—and do so with a smirk—before sending his daughter from the room with an exhortation to head straight to their departure point.

Silver waited until the door clicked shut behind Deirdre before spinning upon Roddy once more.

“Long trip this time, Light. Destination will be revealed once we’re underway. Ensure the tanks are topped off, and full spare tanks brought aboard.”

Roddy tried to avoid a sigh.

Silver had shown himself to be deeply paranoid, trusting no one with information until the last possible moment. Roddy bore responsibility for seeing the tycoon safely to and from travel destinations, and yet Silver refused to provide the final destination until departure. Roddy had come to know the man deeply enough to recognize it was a sign of that paranoia. If Roddy knew the destination before departure, he might tip off Silver’s many enemies—as if Roddy knew who those enemies were and was on speaking terms—or he might be kidnapped and forced to reveal that destination under torture. Silver would ensure such torture could never reveal his final destination as Roddy wouldn’t know. With nothing to reveal, Roddy’s hypothetical torture would eventually end in death, but Oswald’s travel destinations would remain secret.

Roddy said nothing. He nodded once to express his understanding.

Silver leaned forward, elbows and forearms resting on his desk, studying Roddy’s face for signs of distress and reaction. Roddy forced a look of resigned boredom on his features. After a moment, Silver seemed to see whatever he’d been looking for. He sat back in his chair, rubbing his left hand with his right through the always-on gloves, and considered his next words.

“Light, I’m a bit concerned about Deirdre.”

Roddy startled. Silver never expressed concern about anyone. “Oh?”

“She’s been… unfocused of late. When she received my reminder that we needed to meet to discuss our objectives for this trip, she ignored my summons, then arrived late and appeared quite flustered during our discussion. This is… unusual for her.” He glanced at Roddy, a curious look on his face. “Have you any reason to believe the doctors misdiagnosed her?”

Roddy blinked.

In a society still looking to rebuild its population after nearly going extinct a few centuries earlier, cultural norms dictated couples produce many children, bolstering the numbers of the population. Roddy knew there were alternative reasons. The Western Alliance government also wanted increased numbers to augment its military prowess. In polite society, no one dared mention such crude motivations.

In the hours before their marriage and its consummation, Roddy had been informed that his wife had undergone a medical procedure for a rare health issue in her younger years. The procedure saved her life, but doctors declared she’d never bear children. Roddy had been devastated; in this culture, failure to produce descendants would be a badge of dishonor. But he’d stayed with her, and over the course of their marriage, despite their constant efforts to prove otherwise, the medical assessment had proved accurate.