Authors: Scott Cramer
Lisette giggled so hard her sides ached. Charlie was chasing Zoe around the big room, and he reached out to tag Zoe as she would zig or zag to avoid his hand.
Lisette, and practically every other girl from Unit 2A, stood off to the side and cheered for Zoe. The boys from Unit 2B stood on the opposite side of the room, naturally rooting for Charlie.
Mother raised her hands. “Please slow down.”
The shouting and laughing almost drowned out her voice.
Zoe suddenly stopped, and Charlie almost crashed into her.
“Got you,” he cried, eliciting a loud cheer from the boys.
Zoe didn’t seem to care that Charlie had caught her. She was staring at something else. When Lisette turned to see what Zoe looked at, she smiled in wonder.
A girl with red curly hair and freckles was on the TV monitor. Usually, that TV showed pictures of Generation M kids playing.
When the room quieted, they could hear her.
“We call it the Pig,” the girl said. “I had it. I know how awful the illness is, and I’ve seen what it does to other kids. It makes them desperate for food. They’ll do anything. Two months ago, those same kids were working together and forging lives for themselves. Now they are dying and fighting with each other.”
Lisette liked the girl’s voice, but she loved the girl’s hair even more.
Doctor Perkins jolted forward in his chair. All four monitors featured a ratty-looking teen talking about the epidemic. He punched in the intercom code for the communications center. “Ensign Ryan, what is going on?”
Perkins recognized the child. It was ID 1002 from Colony East. Abigail Leigh had supposedly drowned in the Hudson River while attempting to escape the colony.
He put his lips almost in contact with the intercom’s microphone. “Ryan, respond!”
Perkins balled his fist. Dawson was behind this. He had lied about the girl drowning in the Hudson River. Now the lieutenant and 1002 had infiltrated the bunker. Dawson needed to be stopped.
To kill the video feeds and black out every monitor throughout the bunker, Perkins danced his fingers across his keyboard, but the command failed to execute. He frantically repeated the sequence.
“All of you can help by making and distributing pills. Kids will help with the distribution. I’m sure of it ….”
Someone in the communications room had taken control of the system. Unable to shut the girl up, he drowned out her voice by tapping a key to sound the general alarm. The emergency light in his office flashed red, accompanied by a piercing wail.
The alarm, designed to warn of a wide range of threats from biological agent contamination to radiation exposure, started a chain of events. Lab doors were sealed. Teams of scientists jumped into hazmat suits, and Generation M went into lockdown in their living quarters.
He grabbed his two-way radio. “Captain Mathews.”
Her voice crackled back immediately, “I’m on my way to the communications center.”
“It’s Dawson,” he said, seething. “We have to stop him.”
“We’re ready for all threats,” she replied in such an angry growl that Perkins wondered if Mathews relished the thought of having a showdown between her and Dawson.
“I’ll meet you there,” he said and signed off.
He paused to collect himself before stepping outside his office. As a leader, it was important to project quiet confidence and wisdom.
He moved through the hallways at an unhurried pace, smiling and giving reassuring nods to those who jogged past him. The look in their eyes deeply concerned him. He sensed their fears and their doubt in his strategy to create the colonies. The Leigh girl had put both a face and voice to the tragedy.
Approaching the communications center, he heard a loud pounding above the screaming alarm. When he rounded the corner, he saw Captain Mathews banging on the door with the butt of her assault rifle.
He moved to her side. “Report.”
“Whoever’s in there has locked the door.”
“Dawson and the girl?” he asked.
Mathews flashed him the steely look of an assassin. “I’m ready for all threats. Please back away.”
Perkins stepped back, using his hand to shield his eyes from the flashing red beacon on the opposite wall.
Mathews attacked the door with powerful kicks, striking a spot next to the knob with her heel. Lab doors could survive the punishment, but the communications’ door was less secure, and it started to budge.
Someone on the other side pushed back, though. Mathews’s strikes would budge the door forward an inch, but then it would shut again.
She brought the M-16 level with her hip and squeezed the trigger. Bullets ripped through the door in a circular pattern. Perkins, formulating how he would explain this event to his colleagues, was glad the alarm had muted the gunfire. Keeping the barrel aimed at the door, Mathews gave it one more heel thrust and then rammed it with her shoulder. She charged through the narrow opening. Perkins, expecting more gunfire, took another step back and covered his ears.
Mathews poked her head out. “All clear.”
Ensign Parker lay crumpled on the floor, dead. Mathews was freeing Ensign Ryan, who sat in a chair with duct tape covering his mouth, his ankles and wrists secured with more tape.
Mathews’s radio crackled to life. “Captain, come in.”
“It’s Ensign Beecham,” she told Perkins and brought the radio to her lips. “Go ahead.”
“A vehicle just left the facility,” Beecham said. “Doctor Hedrick was driving. There were others in the vehicle, but I couldn’t identify them.”
Perkins massaged his temples. Hedrick and Dawson had obviously communicated with each other prior to this to coordinate the breakout. He couldn’t speculate who else was with her, other than Dawson and the Leigh child.
Mathews barked commands to Ensign Beecham. “Get assault rifles. Ryan and I will meet you in the garage.”
Perkins raised an index finger.
“Beecham, hold on,” Mathews said.
“We know they’re going to Alpharetta,” Perkins said. “First, let’s mop up this mess and patch the door.”
As Mathews conveyed new orders to Beecham, Perkins sat before the communications room computer and typed in a command that ended the alarm and flashing red lights. He turned on the video camera and looked into it. Behind him, he could see blood splatters on the wall, so he shifted his position until the background was clean.
“Everyone quiet,” he said and tapped a command that put him on every monitor throughout the bunker.
“Thank you for participating in the drill.” He smiled and paused, allowing his confidence to shine through the screens. “Everyone performed admirably, including our young actress from Unit 4T. If ID 121 were not such a genius in mathematics, I might suggest she pursue a stage career. Please write up summaries of the drill and send me your reports.”
He ended by saying, “The future is bright,” and switched the video feed to the Generation M living quarters.
By the time his colleagues realized it was not a drill and there was no ID 121, the crisis at large would be over. Dawson and the Leigh girl would be dead, and the renegades who’d left the bunker would be back in the fold.
“Ensign Parker will be okay. I know it,” Murphy said from the passenger seat of the Humvee that rumbled toward the pill plant. “I’ve only known him a few days, but I can tell you he is one tough S.O.B. He can handle Mathews.”
Sandy drove and Abby sat in the backseat, wedged between Doctor Levine and Doctor Droznin. Ensign Royce rode in the cargo section.
“Petty Officer Murphy, do you know my sister, Lisette?” Abby asked.
“Call me Murph. Yeah, I know Lisette. Great kid.”
“Lisette’s fine,” Sandy said.
Something struck the front windshield and everyone jumped. Kids were throwing rocks. More rocks pelted the side of the vehicle.
“Can you blame them?” Levine asked.
The rock throwers, along with the fights, the corpses, and the desperate survivors they’d all seen since exiting the bunker, were normal sights to Abby.
“What is wrong with Toucan?” Abby asked. “Please, will someone tell me?”
“She’s in excellent health,” Sandy said, making eye contact with her in the mirror.
A chill rippled down Abby’s spine at Sandy’s troubled expression.
“There it is.” Doctor Levine pointed to a water tower rising above the charred buildings about a quarter mile away.
Abby did her best to put Touk out of her mind. Knowing they were close to the plant, she wondered if Mark and Toby had ever made it there, having seen first-hand how kids reacted to an adult. She reminded herself that Toby was one of the most resourceful boys she knew. Toby would have made sure that Mark reached the plant safely.
Due to cars and trees in the road, it took them an hour to reach the front gate of the plant. The gate was closed, secured with a heavy chain and padlock. Sandy stepped on the gas pedal and rammed the gate, bursting through it as if it were tissue paper. She stopped the vehicle near the building and blasted the horn.
The door opened a crack, and Mark stuck his head out. The release of tension did wonders for Abby’s weak legs, and she jumped out of the Humvee and rushed over to him. “Where’s Toby?”
Mark’s brow crinkled. “Looking for you.”
Doctor Perkins wished the commando team would hurry, because it was crucial to tamp down the mutiny in a timely manner.
With blood throbbing in his temples, he climbed into the front seat of the Humvee that would take them to the Alpharetta facility, and turned on the radio. To his shock, the voice of a child came over the CDC channel.
“This is a message for Pale Rider and the Grits. The adults know how to cure the Pig, but they want everyone outside the colonies to die. The Lemon Gang is ready to fight them. Jordan, Spike, and Jonzy are on their way to Atlanta. They’re taking Route 85, and while they are small in number, they’ll fight anyone who stands in their way ….”
Perkins angrily clicked off the radio. How many more tricks did Dawson have up his sleeve? And how could Ryan have missed another party broadcasting over the CDC channel?
A moment later, Captain Mathews, Ensign Beecham, and Ensign Ryan entered the bunker’s garage, all carrying weapons and wearing helmets and bulletproof vests.
Perkins climbed out and stood beside the vehicle, eager to hear Mathews’s report.
“Sir, we’ve taken an inventory of personnel. Doctor Droznin, Doctor Levine, Petty Officer Murphy, Ensign Royce, and 1002 went with Doctor Hedrick.”
He rocked back on his heels, caught off-guard by the news that Droznin and Levine had joined the renegades. Why couldn’t they see that the colonies offered the only path to a bright future?
More unsettling, those two possessed enough knowledge to train a pack of monkeys to make antibiotic pills.
“What about Dawson?” Perkins asked.
Mathews shook her head. “He never breached the bunker. Ensign Beecham reviewed the video logs.”
“So how did 1002 get inside?”
Mathews narrowed her eyes. “We have a theory. You remember that Doctor Hedrick and her team collected corpses? We believe they placed the Leigh girl inside a body bag. Immediately after Hedrick’s team returned inside, the clinic’s camera went dark for five minutes.”
Perkins nodded. “For that level of coordination, Dawson must have communicated with Doctor Hedrick. It appears he’s outsmarting all of us.”
Mathews’s neck muscles tensed like steel bands. “We’ll have the situation under control soon.”
“Will you?”
“Dawson is mine.”
“And what if your plan fails?” Perkins asked.
Mathews unclipped the remote detonator from her belt. “We decommission the plant.”
“Twelve charges?”
“Thirteen, sir. I added one more for good luck.”
She held out the detonator for him to take, but he waved her off. They piled into the Humvee, and Mathews, behind the wheel, raised the steel reinforced doors using a remote. They drove outside the facility where a sickening odor came through the vents, and Perkins punched the button to recycle the air inside the vehicle.
The mob of unruly children from earlier had vanished, and Mathews drove in a straight line across the plaza. The Humvee leaned left, then right, back and forth again and again as the tires rolled over objects in their path.
Ahead of them was a group of survivors who stood in the middle of the intersection, and Perkins cringed when it appeared that Mathews was about to drive right through the crowd.
“Stop,” he cried, squinting out the side window. A face caught his attention, a boy with a shaved head and earrings. He looked familiar.
The revelation stole Doctor Perkins’s breath. Months ago, the boy had entered Colony East with Abigail Leigh. Perkins would bet he had come to Atlanta with the Leigh girl and Dawson. “That boy in the green shirt,” he said, pointing him out. “Get him.”
The presence of Doctor Droznin troubled Dawson. He hadn’t liked or trusted the Russian scientist at Colony East, and he worried about the tricks she might try to play now that she was inside the plant.
Sandy must have seen the look in his eyes, because she whispered, “Give Doctor Droznin a chance.”
He gathered everyone together and briefed them on the explosives and the likelihood that Perkins would mount an assault.
Dawson described the white, waxy look and feel of C4 and said, “I found twelve charges inside the plant. Perkins wanted to take this plant offline for a long time. The explosives are outside now, a safe distance away. I combed the plant twice, and I believe I found everything. If you find something that resembles C4, get me right away. It’s safe to handle as long as the fuse remains imbedded.”
Then he raised his security concerns. “Perkins will send a team after us. You can bet Lieutenant Mathews will lead it.”
“
Captain
Mathews,” Murphy corrected bitterly.
A sour pit formed in Dawson’s stomach. “We have no weapons, unless you count fire extinguishers. All we can do is barricade ourselves and wait for the cavalry to arrive.”