Impetus (19 page)

CHAPTER 25
 

Phillip gathered the entire scientific team in the largest of The Facility’s conference rooms. He stood at the front of the room, behind a cherry wood podium, and stared out furiously as the last of the lab coats entered the room. He signaled to one of The Facility’s security personnel to close the door in the rear of the room.

“
May I have everyone’s attention please?”

The room hushed in an instant. They had all been talking about Sid leaving. Word had spread
quicker than Phillip had hoped it would. He had not had a chance to squelch it in time. So now he would need to address what had transpired head-on and hope that it ended here.

“
As some of you may know,” Phillip said, “one of our colleagues has decided to leave the security of The Facility. I do not know his reasoning. Though to say that reason played a part in his decision would seem like folly at this point. There is no logical reason to leave The Facility. What is outside these walls is nothing more than a painful reminder of what the meteorites destroyed.” He looked around at the faces that stared back at him intently. “As you all know, we rarely open the doors for fear of contamination.”

There were a few hushed giggles that died down too quickly to tell where the
y came from. But Phillip knew what they were laughing at. They had already been contaminated. Thankfully, to his benefit, the people within these walls still believed the virus was brought in from the outside because of poor air filtration. If they found out the truth, it would be sure to spark rioting. Or worse, a lynching.

He waited for the room to fall silent before continuing.
“Once a person voluntarily leaves The Facility, they surrender all rights to return. Dr. Roth made his decision. He must now abide by the consequences. I will not further risk the stability of The Facility over egregiously wayward personal decisions.”

The room remained quiet until he attempted to wrap up his pleasingly short spiel.
“Very good,” he said. “Let’s all get back—”

“
Dr. Jones,” interrupted a woman near the middle of the room. She stood before being addressed. “I’ve known Sid for years. He doesn’t strike me as the type to just up and leave for no reason.”

This
was exactly what Phillip had hoped to avoid.

“
Yes,” Phillip answered. “Dr. Barron, is it?”

The woman nodded. She smiled slightly, seemingly pleased that Phillip remembered her name. That in itself was a sur
prisingly difficult task. The people inside The Facility never changed. But there were enough of them that he had fits trying to remember everyone. And that was only because he had to. If given the choice, they would all wear numbers across their lab coats so he could refer to them more easily. He had far too many important things to remember. Names should not have to be one of them.

Phillip continued
. “This has come as a shock to me, as well. Sid, as most of you know, was on my executive science team. I relied on him for a great many things.” That was not totally accurate, but he figured it was best to play up his relationship so he did not appear to be in any way associated with Sid’s decision. He would plant a seed of doubt in everyone’s head to prevent any further escapes. “His departure greatly weakens our ability to find a cure for CV-1. I had the greatest amount of respect for Dr. Roth. But he has selfishly left us all in our time of need. I don’t think I need to remind any of you how important it is that we find a cure?”

He again looked over his audience. They looked at one another. Some nodding, others whispering.

“But Dr. Jones,” continued Dr. Barron. “How did Sid even get out of The Facility without you knowing?” She looked around the room. “Actually, without any of us knowing? It’s hard to miss the doors when they open.”

That question burned him. He pursed his lips to prevent a flurry of anger from escaping.
How dare she question him? Who was she? A nobody, that’s who. Not even recognizable beneath his shadow of greatness.

He composed himself.
“There is a second exit from The Facility located beneath us. But before anyone gets any ideas, I have put both the main doors and the secondary exit that Dr. Roth used to es—” He caught himself, pausing for a moment. “Both doors are now under administrative lockdown.”

“
Lockdown?” someone said from the audience. There were more murmurs, louder this time. Less caring of who heard what.

Phillip held his hands up
to quiet them down. “Please. Everyone. It is simply a term used by the system.”

“
So we are free to go if we choose, right?” said someone else.

Phillip looked to see who was saying what, but the stationary audience had begun to shift in their seats
as if a tide of anger had started coming in.

“
Well,” Phillip said, “not exactly.”

“
What does that mean, Dr. Jones? Not exactly?”

“
It means the doors will not open for the immediate future.”

“
How long is that?” someone else said.

“
Until order is restored within our walls,” Phillip said.

“
You mean until you feel like it,” another voice said loudly so everyone could hear.

“
People, people,” Phillip said. “Do I need to remind you of the dangers outside? Why must you fight to leave? I am merely concerned for your well-being.”

“
It’s called freedom, Phillip.” This time it was Alex that spoke up. Another of his trusted group of executive scientists. “And once you take it away, it’s all anyone will want.”

Phillip sneered at
Alex. How dare he join the masses in revolt?

“
No one has taken anything from anyone,” Phillip said.

“
Then we are free to leave?” Alex said.

Phillip found himself getting angrier by the minute. Who wer
e these people to question him? He provided them a life the rest of this ragged world would kill for. Selfish bastards, the lot of them.

“
Is that what you want?” Phillip asked angrily. “Do you want to leave, Alex? To eke out a miserable existence while you wait to die? You should know better than most what little remains outside our walls.”

“
You did not answer my question, Phillip,” Alex said. “Are we free to leave if we so choose?”

The room fell silent.

“Yes, Alex,” Phillip said. “Of course you are free to leave. This is not a prison.”

Alex
took off his white lab coat and let it fall to the floor. He then picked up a bag by his feet.

Phillip laughed.
“Yes, Alex. Very funny. You actually had me there.”

“
I’m not joking, Phillip. You say we are free to go. Prove it.”

The rage within Phillip boiled his blood to the point where he felt he may explode from the pressure.
Insolent idiot!

Alex
simply continued to look at Phillip, waiting for his answer.

“
If that’s what you want,” Phillip said.

“
Yes. That’s what I want.”

The room broke into
a flurry of conversation. Some tried to get Alex’s attention, but he remained focused on Phillip. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed toward the door to the conference room, where he was stopped by one of the security personnel. They both then looked back at Phillip.

This was it.
Alex was truly leaving. Phillip did not have time to think of the ramifications of this move. He only knew that he had been put in a position where he could not possibly win. If he denied Alex his request to leave, then he would be seen as a liar, and everyone else within The Facility would know they were not free to go. But if he let Alex walk, then others would be sure to follow. He could not have a mass exodus. Not now. Not when he so desperately needed to find the cure to erase the mistakes that were made.

Phillip
nodded to the security officer. None of the options seemed good, but he had to choose one.

The uniformed man stepped aside and let
Alex leave. The entire room watched as he walked by the long wall of glass and toward the two enormous doors at the end of the hall. Alex stopped when he reached the doors and waited.

“
If you’ll excuse me,” Phillip said, dashing from the room. He walked purposefully down the hall toward Alex. He was still in plain sight of everyone in the room and therefore needed to remain tactful for appearances’ sake. But there was no one close enough to hear what he had to say.

“
You have a lot of balls, Alex,” Phillip said, stopping next to him. “After all I’ve done for you.”

Alex
said, “I know what you’ve done, Phillip.”

Phillip
had expected a fight. For Alex to lash out. That was his intent. To show that Alex was a loose cannon and that he was the collected one simply trying to help fulfill a colleague’s desire. But what Alex said made his legs weak. What did Alex know? He prayed it was the one thing that no one but himself could ever find out.

“
And what is it you think that you know?” Phillip asked, trying to keep his composure. “I’m curious.”

Alex
smiled at Phillip. He then looked to the large doors.

Phillip paused.
“Very well.” He then walked over to the access panel to the right of the doors. He punched in his code.

A female voice
said, “Access restricted to Dr. Phillip Jones. Please enter executive unlock code.”

Phillip waited. He turned back from the panel. He caught
sight of the conference room as he did. The wall of glass was stacked with scientists and the like as they peered out. A few had spilled into the hall behind them, trying to get closer to add audio to the drama taking place.

Alex
walked closer to Phillip. He said, “Others will find out what you’ve done. And when they do, they may not choose to be so passive.”

Phillip kept his eyes locked on
Alex for another few seconds before turning his attention back to the keypad. He angrily tapped the twelve-digit unlock code.

The female voice sounded again.
“Access granted.”

The same yellowish lights that traced the secondary set of doors
that Sid had left through began to flash. The metal pins slid from inside the walls to the recesses within the large doors. A moment later the two doors parted, swinging inward slowly.

“
Have a nice life,” Phillip said with a smirk.

Alex
walked out of The Facility without uttering another word.

Phillip turned to the crowd that had gathered.
“Anyone else want to leave? The doors are open. Now is your chance to test your freedom.” He waited and watched. People looked around for who was next. No one volunteered. Some even shrank away from their positions in the hallway, fearful, no doubt, that they would be pushed out for looking at Phillip the wrong way.

“
Very well,” Phillip said. He entered his code again and watched as the doors closed and locked. He hoped his secret had just walked out the door.

CHAPTER
26
 

“Mick,” Laurel said. She exited the stairway and into what was left of the shelter. “We have a visitor.”

Mick looked up from his position
on the floor. His kids had fallen asleep against him, Kathryn to his left and Nate sloppily to his right. With Sarah’s death still fresh on everyone’s minds, and the fact that soon they would be leaving the only home they’d known for the past ten years, he figured it was best not to wake them.

The Herd decided it was imperative to find food and supplies. With all of theirs lost to the storm, it had to be one of their first priorities. But they were all worn thin in every aspect possible. When even the slightest chance for rest came,
they needed to take it. Mick understood that. So he wasn’t about to take it back from his children.

He carefully slipped out from between them
. He then walked the few steps toward Laurel and their new visitor. The confusion he felt seeing someone new must have been evident on his face. Laurel offered the answer before Mick had a chance to form the question.

“
This is Dr. Roth,” Laurel said.

“
Sid, actually. Please just call me Sid.”

Laurel looked at
him and then back to Mick. A smile cut her face. “He’s from The Initiative.”

Mick perked up.
“That was quick.”

Sid seemed confused.
“I’m sorry. Quick for what?”

“
Your note. It said that you would be in contact once we had injected ourselves. We just did that a couple of hours ago. That’s a pretty good turnaround time in my opinion.” And he was overjoyed to know they existed in the first place. “And it couldn’t come at a better time.” He looked around the destroyed shelter and at the tarp.

Sid took a breath.
“We need to talk.”

“
We are talking.”

“
No,” Sid said. “I mean, we have something important to talk about. The reason I’m here.”

The others heard that and slowly gathered around.

Mick said, “Everyone. This is Sid. He is from The Initiative. That group from the note. He has something he needs to discuss with us.” Mick turned to Sid. “The floor is all yours.” What little of the floor could still be seen, anyway.

Sid said,
“As I was telling …” He paused and looked to Laurel.

“
Laurel,” she said.

Sid smiled.
“As I was telling Laurel here, I
was
part of the group known as The Initiative.”

“
Was?” Mick questioned.

“
Yes,” Sid said, nodding once. “I was part of the group up until a few hours ago. Our group was formed by the United States government, in secret, to be their proxy after Impact. We were to study the aftereffects of the impacts on the Earth. And maintain a scientific chain of command in the eventuality the world was impacted on a global scale. Once the damage had been determined, we were to outline restoration projects to get things such as the power grid and the Internet back to where they were prior to Impact. But no one ever thought the Earth would become this.” He looked around. “Not in a million years did anyone envision the meteorites doing this kind of damage.”

Greg said,
“So now that there is no government, who calls the shots?”

“
Dr. Phillip Jones. He is the man in charge of The Facility.”

“
The what now?” Greg asked.

“
The Facility. That is where the Initiative is located. I know. It’s a bunch of silly code names. But the intent was anything but silly. The Facility was initially built as a research center before anyone knew about the meteorites. It was the perfect repurposing at the time since The Facility already had a lot of the equipment we needed.”

“
Is this facility a submarine base?” Mick asked, remembering what Sarah had said the other day. Sadness then swept over him as he thought about their last conversation. He missed her terribly already. But this wasn’t the time to grieve. “And does it have some kind of nuclear power or something?” He thought that was what Sarah had said.

“
No submarines,” Sid said. “The Facility is landlocked. And not far from here. But it does have a large-scale prototype fusion generator. It has worked surprisingly well since Impact.”

“
Wait,” Sandeep said. “How far is not far?”

“
About five miles from here.”

“
Five miles?” Mick said. “Wow.” To know there was indeed a secret base a mere five miles from them all this time put his thoughts into overdrive. All those times they needed something and it was right there. Then came the animosity. They had gone without for so long because, in their minds, there was no choice in the matter. But to know there were others a few miles away that lived the life that had been taken from them was infuriating.

“
So this fusion reactor means you have power, right?” Laurel asked.

“
Yes,” Sid said.

Laurel processed that
. She asked, “Well, what else do you have?”

“
The Facility is fully equipped with a great deal of what the world had pre-Impact.”

“
Like refrigerators?” Laurel asked.

“
And running water?” Mick added.

“
Yes,” Sid said. “We have both.”

“
Indoor plumbing? Heat?”

Sid nodded.
“Yes. We have all of that, too.”

“
It appears we made the correct decision, Mick,” Chester said. “All that worrying about nothing.” He looked to the sky. “Thank the Lord! He has come to us in our time of desperation.”

Mick smiled back at Chester. It did appear that way.
Sarah passing and the shelter being destroyed were two of the worst things that could have ever happened to them. But now it appeared that fate had finally smiled on them.

Mick said,
“So when do we leave for this ‘Facility’?”

Sid took a large breath.
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. No one was ever going to come and get you,” he said.

“
But the note—”

“
Most of that note was a lie.”

“
I’m still not following you,” Mick said. “You are from The Initiative, right? And you did come after we injected ourselves like the note said you would.”

“
Yes. I
was
part of the Initiative. And I did come after you injected yourselves. I tried like hell to get here before you did it, though.”

The room fell silent. They waited for Sid to elaborate.

Sid took a breath. “What you injected into yourselves was not an inoculation. The gel was an accelerant.” He held up his hands quickly. “But I assure you that I was deceived just like you.”

“
What, exactly, is it accelerating?” Sandeep asked.

“
You have the CV-1 virus. We all do. It’s not just the people on the outside. Everyone inside The Facility has it, too. Our air purifiers failed to protect us.”

“
That doesn’t answer the question,” Mick said. “What does this blue gel do?”

“
It speeds the virus in our systems.”

Greg shot past Mick and pinned Sid up against the wall.
He got nose to nose with him. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.” He then turned to Mick. “I told you that stuff was bad news, Mick. I told you.”

Sid said,
“I left The Facility as soon as I found out what was really going on. We were told the accelerant was a test to search for an immunity to the virus. I was lied to just like you. I’m just like you.”

“
You are nothing like us,” Greg said.

“
So did you bring an antidote to get this gel out of our systems?” Sandeep asked.

“
There is no antidote. There is no cure for the virus. That’s what we were searching for.”

Nate and Kathryn
were now awake and listening. The enormity of what Sid told them hit home when Mick saw their faces. He’d injected something into his kids that was going to basically speed up their deaths. His worst fear materialized in an instant. Done by his own hands.

“
How long do we all have?” Mick asked through his clenched jaw. He was angrier than he could remember ever being. To play with his life was one thing. But to play with his kids went beyond infuriating. But he knew it was misguided to unleash his anger now, especially on some scrawny scientist with a newfound sense of obligation. Just when he’d thought things had turned for the better, they couldn’t have possibly gone any worse.

“
Like I said, I tried to get here before you injected yourselves,” Sid said before being cut off by Mick.

“
How long do we have?” Mick asked.

“
At most, five days. But it’s probably closer to four at this point.”

Mick sank to the floor, defeated.
Four days?
Everything he had worked so diligently to maintain over the years had just been destroyed.

“
I didn’t have enough time to study the accelerant,” Sid said. “As soon as I found out what it really was, I left and came here. I wanted to stop you from injecting it. I promise you.” Sid looked around, panicked. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but I left everything I knew behind to try and help. Please believe me.”

Greg shoved Sid o
ne more time against the wall, grunted, and then let him go. He punched the concrete wall and walked away toward the tarp.

“
Are we going to die, Daddy?” Kathryn asked. Her face had become pale. And her legs wobbled. Nate reached out and grabbed her tight.

Mick looked at his kids.
His eyes welled up. His lip quivered the slightest bit. A sickening light-headedness overtook him. How could he say no at that point? It was evident the answer was yes. But here was his little girl, asking the man who had always protected her if she really only had four days to live. An all-consuming blackness draped over Mick.

“
There’s still hope,” Sid said. “That’s why I came as soon as I found out. It may not be much, but it is something.”

“
What are you getting at?” Mick said.

Sid reached into his bag. He removed a device that looked similar to the auto injector.
This one was black with a flat, circular tip. “This is a cellular scanner. I can use it to gauge the virus’s progress in your bodies.”

“
And what good will that do?” Laurel asked. “So I can see what’s killing me?”

Sid said,
“Our original thought was to find a natural immunity to the virus. It happens all the time with other viruses and diseases. Certain cellular makeups are immune to certain virus strands. If we were to find the immunity to CV-1, I could synthesis a possible cure.”

Mick shook his head.
“So why has it come down to this?”

“
Because this virus is like nothing we’ve ever seen. We believe that it was introduced by the largest of the meteorites, Colossus, thus the CV-1 tag. Whatever the meteorite brought with it interacted negatively with another less harmful earth-borne virus. We’re not sure there is an immunity. But it’s our only chance.”

“
So scan us already,” Greg said from the back of the room.

Sid nodded. He powered on the cell scanner. A few beeps and the screen lit.
“Who’s first?”

“
How about yourself?” Mick said. “I’m not putting these people through any more without first seeing what it is.”

“
Okay,” Sid said. “That sounds like a good idea.” He held the flat end of the device against his skin. He then held down the button on the device’s handle. A green line traveled up and down the screen. Each pass was something like a radar screen, showing small round cells mixed with longer stringy cells. He nodded toward the screen. “The longer shapes you see is the virus. See how they are moving towards and attaching to the round shapes?”

The group
gathered around for a better look.

Sid continued
. “The round shapes are my blood cells. The virus works by killing them off. Basically strangling them to death.”

“
And this crap we injected ourselves with speeds this whole thing up?” Mick said dejectedly.

“
Unfortunately. Yes.” Sid took the cell scanner from his arm. “I can show you.”

Mick understood. He rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. Sid then placed the scanner on his skin and repeated the same process. This time the screen had many more stringy virus cells and many less healthy blood cells.

Sid said, “You can clearly see the difference only a few hours have made.”