Blackout (17 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

ALEC STOOD IN A LONG
line of people. At the front it was organized and single file, but the farther back it went the more it became a mob. The desert sand bit at his face, but he ignored it. After three hours of standing and shoving he was finally nearing the fence, and the steel-and-barbed-wire passage that left the quarantine zone.

He was worried that someone would recognize him here: he’d gone through twenty-three girls in the camp, looking for cell phones and then cell phone chargers and maps and any other contraband he could talk them out of. Only four of them had anything to scrounge, and most of it was useless. Of the three phones he’d found, two worked, and just one managed to get a weak signal all the way out here.

He’d spent the rest of his time moving from tent to tent, trying to remember the name of each girl in case he ran into her again. To make it easier on himself he’d used the same fourth-grade story each time, but there were a hundred little lies—“Oh, you went to Hawthorne Elementary?” “Yeah, I totally remember that Christmas party with the Hawaiian theme,” “Mrs. Staheli was the worst!” Alec could be caught in any of those lies, or even caught stumbling over the names: Emily, Heather, Jenny, Kara, Aubrey . . . so many of them. He was an expert at creating fictional memories, not retaining real ones.

The line moved slowly forward, but he still couldn’t see what was going on ahead of him.

He’d have to rejoin a group—a new group, since Laura and Dan were as good as dead. They were dead to him, anyway. Traitors. They’d abandoned him.

He wondered, for the first time in a long time, what had happened to the Glen Canyon Dam. It had to have been a total loss. Probably not the loss of life he’d hoped for, but definitely destructive to the power supply. He wondered how Hoover Dam had fared, downstream.

He also wondered, not for the first time, how many of his teams were still in action. In a way, Alec’s release from the quarantine today made him nervous. Did that mean the tide had turned? Had the teams been captured? Had the attacks slowed? The little news he’d been able to read on the smartphone seemed to indicate that everything was still moving according to plan. The attacks weren’t as focused as he’d prefer, but that’s because he was here and not giving orders. In that event, all teams knew they should look for targets of opportunity. Even if they were only burning down an apartment building, or knocking over power lines, they still could do major damage.

The line moved slowly forward, and after another fifteen minutes of dry desert wind, he got to the table by the door. A soldier was seated, flanked by two more. Two guard towers looked on, thirty yards to each side.

“Put your hand on the rectangle,” the man said, his voice monotone and dull.

Alec placed his left hand—the one that wasn’t broken—on the mark, and the man at the table inspected Alec’s wristband.

He consulted his paperwork, and compared his photo to Alec’s face. Then he rattled off a memorized speech without bothering to make eye contact.

“Your test results show no manifestations of the Erebus virus. The US Army, your government, and the people of the United States thank you for your patience with this quarantine process. While we know you were severely inconvenienced, we hope you understand it was for your safety and the safety of your fellow Americans.”

He snipped the bracelet off Alec’s wrist with a pair of shears, and then replaced it with another—nearly identical, but with a barcode and the word “HEALTHY” printed in capital letters.

“You must wear this bracelet at all times,” he continued, cinching it tightly onto Alec’s arm. “If it is ever removed, you will be returned to a quarantine center and retested for the virus. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” Alec said with a nod.

“I see you’re heading to Denver?”

“Yes.”

“The bus outside will take you to the Salt Lake transfer station.”

And with that, one of the soldiers opened the steel-framed door and let Alec outside the fence. He was on his way to Salt Lake, and from there he’d find a team. It was time to start things moving again.

THIRTY-SIX

THIS IS IT, JACK THOUGHT.
The final test
. To prove if Jack could properly track someone in the real world.

The real world. Real bad guys. Real weapons.

Jack listened as the captain on the far side of the hangar ruffled through papers with the warrant officer.

A door opened, and, to Jack’s surprise, Aubrey entered. A soldier pointed her to the folding chairs where Jack was sitting.

What did she have to do with Jack’s test?

“She’s going to be trouble,” the captain said, his voice hushed, apparently forgetting how well Jack could hear.

“We knew that going in,” the warrant officer said. “We caught her trying to break into a military facility, for crying out loud.”

“Her psych exam showed that she could be loyal.”

“She’s a loose cannon. The best we can do is keep her pointed in the right direction.”

The captain sighed and leaned on the table. “You think it’s worth it, having these Lambdas?”

“Not my call.”

“I asked what you think.”

“I think they might save a few of our guys. And we just might get a couple of cheerleaders and the president of the chess club killed in the process. I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.”

Nothing else was said. The men flipped through papers. The warrant officer unfolded a map.

“Hey, Jack,” Aubrey said as she reached him. She grinned at the sight of him. Even in olive drab she looked good.

“Hey. What are you here for?”

“My ‘final test.’ How about you?”

“Same.”

She nodded. “They said it’d be real-world training this time. Whatever that means.”

Aubrey looked out at the open hangar door and at the helicopters just outside. Jack wished that he could hear her thoughts. The best he could do was listen to her breathing and the calm, steady sound of her heart.

Jack knew his heartbeat wasn’t nearly so slow.

He wondered where they were going. The captain had said they were going into enemy territory, and it frightened Jack to think what that meant. Had an entire city been overrun? Was there a rebellion? They’d talked about that many times in training—that if they didn’t get the terrorist attacks under control they’d be facing an uprising from the people. Citizens can only live so long in fear before they stop trusting their protectors.

Five Green Berets entered the room, and the captain pointed them toward Jack and Aubrey. He gathered his papers and followed.

“I’m Captain Dane Rowley,” he said, looking at Jack, then Aubrey. “My men have already been briefed, and they have their maps and timetables. But for your benefit, here’s the overview. A week ago, West High School in Salt Lake City was hit in a terrorist attack. Fortunately, it was at night, and there were no casualties—”

He seemed to say that just for Jack and Aubrey’s benefit. Jack had heard of plenty of other schools being attacked; learning there weren’t casualties here didn’t do anything to calm his nerves.

“Salt Lake hasn’t been hit as hard as some cities, but no resources have been allocated to clean up yet. This school has turned into kind of a haven for the homeless, and there are rumors of a monster living in the basement.”

“A monster?” Jack said, with a small laugh that, he hoped, hid his nerves.

“Well, ‘demon’ is the term that keeps getting thrown around. The West High Demon. Obviously, this is a Lambda.”

“A terrorist?” Aubrey asked.

“Probably not,” he said. “If it was a member of one of these terrorist cells, it would be leaving to make attacks. According to our reports, it hasn’t moved for five days.

“Parsons,” he continued, pointing to Aubrey. “Your mission is to go dark, enter the school, and find this demon.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of perfume, which he tossed to Aubrey. “Flowerbomb.” He grinned. “I thought the name was appropriate.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Spray yourself,” he said simply. “Jack here can track you by your scent.”

Jack exchanged a look with Aubrey. “Aren’t you going to be watching her, too?” He was a guy with a really good nose, not a Green Beret. He didn’t know what “demon” Aubrey was about to face, but he didn’t want the responsibility solely on his shoulders. There was so much that he couldn’t do.

“The school is just outside the downtown area, and our team will be stationed around the building, watching from all sides. But you’re only a kid, and you don’t look suspicious. You are going to be outside”—he pointed to a map and tapped on a wide lawn between the gym building and the school—“in the open where we can keep a close eye on you. You’ll have a mic so you can contact us and keep us on target. Aubrey—you can probably talk to Jack after you’ve gone dark. He should be far enough away to hear you.”

Aubrey was looking at the light pink perfume. “What am I supposed to do when I find this thing?”

“Assess and report. Give as much information to Jack as you can, and he’ll relay it to us.”

“Why don’t I just wear a mic?” she asked.

“Two reasons. First, we don’t know what this thing can detect. For all we know, it can sense electronics—we’ve run into that before. Second, we’re going to have some of our team close to you—maybe even inside the school, depending on how things look. And we’re not sure how the mic will work so close to you.”

One of the soldiers spoke up. The patch on his chest read “Jolley,” but his attitude didn’t seem to match the name. “We’re supposed to go into battle with an untested weapons system?”

“I’m not a weapons system,” Aubrey snapped.

Captain Rowley held up a hand. “This isn’t a battle, it’s a recon mission. In the event that we see a vulnerable target, we’ll move in. And yes, we haven’t had the time to test all of the Lambdas to the extent that we’d like. But this ‘demon’ has thwarted both the Salt Lake SWAT Team and a team from the National Guard. That’s why they called us.”

“Is it that important?” another Green Beret—his chest patch read “Eschler”—asked. “One Lambda hiding in a school?”

“We have initial reports of a more major action taking place tomorrow or the next day. Tonight we’re just testing out a possible strategy. We think Parsons and Cooper here can be a significant asset. But we’ve got to work together if we’re going to make this happen.”

Eschler sneered, as though to make it clear that he had no interest in making any of this work. Jack didn’t blame him. Even though everything about her training and powers pointed that way, he’d somehow managed to miss the fact that Aubrey would be taking the lead—and that she’d be all alone. He felt an enormous weight on his chest; he was the only person who would be in contact with her. He was the one who would decide when she needed help, when it was time to call in the reinforcements and get her out of there.

Worse, he knew that no one could contact her. They couldn’t order her out. She was relying entirely on Jack to make sure that the Green Berets would come when she needed them.

The captain dug into the large plastic shopping bag, from which he pulled a stack of civilian clothes. He handed them out to Jack and Aubrey. “Go change, and then get to work on these maps. I want you to know the floor plan of this high school backward and forward before we take off.” He looked at his watch. “That gives us about an hour.”

Unmarked cars were waiting for the team when the helicopter landed in a large parking lot in the middle of downtown, and no one wasted any time in transferring their gear to the new vehicles. Aubrey and Jack were dropped off a half mile from the school, in a dingy part of the city.

It wasn’t too late—maybe close to eleven—but the lights were out all over Salt Lake. The tall buildings were big black holes that blocked the view of the stars, and the only flickers appeared to come from the occasional candle or flashlight. Had the terrorists knocked out the power grid?

Aubrey followed Jack in silence as they hiked west toward the school. West High was made up of three buildings, but it was the main one—a large, three-story place that had probably been built eighty years before—that had suffered the damage. It had come tumbling down, collapsing on the north end. It looked now like the school was a sinking ship, slanted into torn-up earth. They skirted the building, as they’d been told to do, staying a block south and a block east before creeping up on it and making their way onto the lawn.

“Well,” Aubrey said, spraying her neck and wrists with the perfume and then holding them out for Jack to smell. “Are you ready, Bloodhound?”

The perfume was overpowering so close, and he had to focus on something else to not gag.

“The packaging says it has freesia in it,” she said with a smile. “Do you think I smell like freesia?”

“I have no idea what freesia even is,” Jack answered, and then was hit by a sudden pang of worry. She was going in alone. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to smell like you. You’ll be harder to track.”

“I’ll be okay.”

Jack nodded. “If you need something—anything—just say the word and I’ll get you out of there.”

The microphone sounded in Jack’s ear. “Cooper, this is Rowley. Everything is set on our end. We have eyes on you. Over.”

“They’re ready,” Jack relayed for Aubrey.

She nodded, taking a deep breath, and then headed across the dark lawn.

THIRTY-SEVEN

AUBREY LIKED THE SMELL OF
the perfume. It was one thing she’d never had—one thing she’d never stolen. She and Nicole had raided a Victoria’s Secret once for lotions and body wash, but that was the closest Aubrey had ever come.

She focused on the smell as she walked, not wanting to think about what lay within the school. She was invisible now—she’d “gone dark” as the captain kept referring to it—but that didn’t give her a lot of comfort. She’d been found before when she was invisible. The broken school almost certainly didn’t have any cameras, but she was wearing perfume with the express purpose of being recognizable. She was fairly sure that if she walked through a room of people, no one would notice her, or the smell, but what about when she was gone? Would the scent linger? Was she leaving a trail for others to follow—or, at the very least, a trail that would make people suspicious?

As she reached the school, she could hear voices inside, and smell the pungent smoke of a campfire. She wondered what else had happened in Salt Lake. These people were homeless, but had they been homeless a month before? Were they just normal people trying to survive?

She climbed a pile of rubble and then ducked through a smashed window that seemed to serve as a main entrance.

“Hey, Jack,” she whispered. “I’m going in. You can probably still see me.”

It was weird talking to him, knowing that he couldn’t communicate back. Still, it felt good—like she wasn’t alone.

“I’m in some kind of classroom,” she said. “English, by the looks of it. Lots of books on the floor. Ugh.
Great Expectations
. I hated that one. I can smell smoke. I should tell them they can burn these.”

She moved through the room, its ceiling slanted at a sharp angle, and out into the hall.

“Man,” she breathed. “What happened to this place? This building is majorly destroyed. I don’t know how anyone would dare to live in here.” She crept down the hall, past a man sitting on a desk. He looked like some kind of guard. A camp lantern sat next to him, illuminating his face and casting long dark shadows down the corridor.

“There’s someone watching the hallway. He must be guarding the entrance—I haven’t seen anything that looks like it could go down into the basement yet. I don’t think he’s a Lambda—too old. Maybe in his thirties? The gun’s a .38 revolver, like that one that Matt’s dad used to have. The way this guy’s holding it makes me wonder if he’s ever used one before. Probably just defending the family.”

A chill went up her back as she said those final words. This was likely a guy who lost his house. Maybe he was guarding against more terrorists, or maybe he was guarding against robbers who wanted to steal their supplies.

No, that sounded too apocalyptic, and the world wasn’t like that. She hadn’t heard much news in the last few weeks, but civilization wasn’t completely falling apart, was it?

“I wish I had your eyes,” Aubrey said to Jack, walking farther down the hall. The lantern lit up most of what surrounded her, but it wasn’t enough light to really see what was in the damaged classrooms to her sides. “I don’t know how many people are here. I can hear snoring. There’s a baby crying.”

She kept moving down the corridor, remembering the layout the soldiers had shown her. The basement was smaller than the main floor, a few classrooms and the cafeteria.

At the end of the hall she began to make out another shape in the darkness. A man, watching the other direction—she was behind him.

“There’s another guy with a gun,” she said. “He’s barricaded—lots of debris surrounding him, like a bunker. He’s afraid of something.”

Aubrey was getting tired, and the darkness strained her already-poor eyesight.

“Shotgun,” she said, getting a little closer. “Pump-action. If it was brighter I could probably tell you the model. This guy is more alert, and he’s holding the gun like he means business.”

“Okay, I’m passing the barricade now. He has a flashlight pointing at a smashed portion of the floor.”

She paused for a long time. This was what everyone was scared of. This was the demon, and the floor plan that the Green Berets had wasn’t correct—it didn’t include this hole in the floor.

And her eyesight was going.

“Jack,” she said. “The maps are wrong. There’s this hole in the floor. I’m not sure where it leads. They’ve covered it mostly with a piece of plywood, and the wood is weighted with bricks. There’s a hole big enough for me to go in, but I don’t really want to yet. I’m going to follow the map and see if I can see more of what’s here.”

She walked carefully around the hole in the floor, peering into the darkness below. All the images of demons she’d ever seen appeared in her mind. Leathery wings, horns, fangs, long tails. The balrog in
The Lord of the Rings
. Chernobog in
Fantasia
.

“Jack?” she asked, even though she knew he couldn’t answer back. “It’s a little scary down here.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m okay, though. Don’t send in the cavalry yet. I’ll find this thing.”

As brave as she was trying to sound, part of her wanted to walk out that door—to the other side of the building, where there wasn’t Jack, or anyone else who could find her. She wanted to be done. She could find a place to live like this—she could disappear into the night and not be putting her life on the line.

She could not climb down into the basement with a demon.

“I’m moving past the hole,” she whispered, the waver in her voice unstoppable at this point. “I’m heading farther down the hall toward the stairs.”

Something ran across the rubble, and she froze. It was a rat, or a mouse, or a squirrel. Did they even have squirrels in the city? She didn’t really know anything outside of her hometown.

“Jack? When we get out of here, our next mission should be to Hawaii or something. And no demons.”

She reached the stairwell and found it blocked by debris—through her tired eyes it seemed a blurry mass.

“It’s collapsed, Jack,” she said, as she took a couple of tentative steps onto the fallen bricks and beams. She moved away, and glanced at the wall. “There’s been some gunfire here. The wall over the hole got hit by a shotgun blast. Two of them, it seems like. Birdshot. Nothing that went through the brick.” She forced a terrified laugh. “I don’t know about you, but if I were hunting a demon, I’d use slugs.”

She started back toward the hole in the floor. It looked to be the only way down.

“Then again,” she said. “I guess I’m hunting a demon and I’m not armed with
anything
. How did we get into this?”

She stopped at the mouth of the hole, and looked back at the man with the shotgun. He was staring right at her, though he had no idea she was there. All she could see of him was the bright flare of the flashlight, but she knew that he was eager to fire.

“I should take his gun,” she said. “But then he’d freak out, and this whole school would clear out. It would probably wake the demon.” She took a long slow breath and rubbed her eyes. “I can barely see anymore, Jack. I’m going down the hole now.”