Deadlocked 8 (25 page)

“Open the door,” I said while staying several
feet away. I repeated myself with no result, and finally had to
inch closer. I held my hand out and pressed my finger to the door
to test if it was locked, and found that it was.

“Unlock the door, pal,” I said. “Unlock it or
so help me I’ll put enough holes in it to end you.”

“I’m sick,” said a man’s voice from within
the stall.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“No, I’m sick with the…” he coughed and
sputtered, his final word muffled.

“Sick with what?” I asked.

“I’m turning,” he answered from behind the
closed door.

I stepped back, terrified and concerned as I
stared at the blood coming from under the door. My mind spun with
the implications here. The disease was loose within this facility.
If that was discovered, Covington wouldn’t hesitate to lock
everything down. I debated shooting the man in the stall, but that
would draw too much attention.

“Okay, stay here until I get back. Do you
understand? Stay right where you are.” I left him in there as I
tried to come up with a solution as I silently cursed.

I went to the door of the restroom and locked
it before turning back to try and think of a way to kill the man
without making too much noise. I walked back over to the stall and
knocked on it as I avoided stepping in the blood on the floor.

“It’s okay, open up the stall.”

The infected man did as I asked. He was one
of the doctors, and I was certain I’d seen him just days ago, but
the disease had ravaged him. He looked sickly and his arm was
dotted with dark lesions that were leaking black fluid. He was
covered in blood, his shirt and pants soaked, and it looked like
he’d been vomiting for hours. It was a miracle that no one else had
found him before me.

“Christ,” I said as I looked him over. “How
the hell did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” he said pitifully, red tears
falling down his cheeks.

I had no choice but to step into the stall
with him, and I heard the blood squish beneath my boot. “Turn your
head to the side for me,” I said as I got closer.

“Why?” he asked.

“You’ve got a cut on your neck there,” I lied
and pointed to the side of his neck. “Let me get a look.”

He instinctually reached to his neck in
search of the abrasion I claimed was there, and he tilted his head
to the side as he did. I took the opportunity to strike him hard in
the throat, immediately crushing his windpipe. Blood splashed up
onto my cheek. I wrapped my hands around his throat as he struggled
beneath me. I pressed my weight into him, trapping the doctor
against the toilet as I squeezed the life out of him.

His eyes bulged as he stared up at me, and he
tried hard to pull free, but this wasn’t the first man I’d
strangled. After a few final twitches, the doctor was dead, but I
was far from finished. If I didn’t destroy his brain, he would be
reanimated soon. I had to act fast.

I pushed his corpse forward and grabbed the
lid of the toilet from behind him. I gripped the longer sides and
then aimed the edge down at him as I steadied myself. Then, with a
few quick strikes, I’d split his head wide, causing his brain to
immediately bulge forth as if it had been swollen and trying to
leak out already. The pink matter was revealed, and I smashed down
into it again just to be certain.

I was covered in blood as I staggered away
from the murder and to the sink where I feebly tried to clean
myself off. This encounter hastened my plans of escape. There could
be no waiting for the perfect time to put plans in motion. I would
have to get my men and their families out now.

While I was cleaning myself off, I decided
that it would be prudent to check into this doctor before I set any
plans in motion. I was curious how he’d ended up getting infected,
and wanted to make sure not to bring his family along if it was
possible that they’d been exposed to the virus.

I locked the bathroom door, hoping that would
be enough to keep anyone from discovering the body, and then headed
up to the family level. I knew the doctor’s name was Hank, but
nothing much else about him. However, it didn’t take me long to
track down his family’s quarters.

His wife greeted me, and was concerned when I
started asking questions about her husband. I sat with her as her
children played, and she was forthcoming with information, although
concerned as to why I was asking. She said that Hank had been
working late each night, and that she would wake to find him at his
computer at odd hours. She was concerned, but I told her there was
nothing to worry about, although I would need to take his
computer.

I returned to my room, feeling exhausted
after such a long day. It felt like I was getting a cold, which I
certainly didn’t have time for. I booted up Hank’s computer, and
started searching around until I came across a conversation that
had taken place between him and someone named EC.

That was when his betrayal was revealed. I
read through the communication, and learned that Beatrice and Hank
had been working together. It wasn’t much of a surprise, although I
was furious with myself for not realizing it was going on
earlier.

Then I came upon an interesting bit of
information about The Noah Initiative that I hadn’t known before.
It turned out that the Tempest Strain slowed down in cold weather,
which was why The Electorate was willing to give Beatrice time to
concoct a plan here. The virus could still infect people even in
the cold, but it almost seemed to go into a hibernation of sorts.
The communication explained that if Beatrice and the other members
of The Electorate that had been captured were somehow able to
escape, that they should flee to the mountains where the virus
would have less of a chance to reach them.

Now I knew where to lead my men once we
evacuated. I was nearly happy, but then started to cough. I gripped
my aching throat, surprised by how quickly this cold had come
on.

Celeste

I made the most of my meetings with Elise
Dawn. She was always chipper and eager to visit, and she brought
messages from the other girls who wished me well. Elise had been
relating my struggle with the fictional illness to the other Dawns,
and it’d become a major topic of conversation.

I had their attention.

“Do you ever dream of the surface?” asked
Elise as we sat together on the floor of my room, drawing pictures
of wildlife the Administrators had shown us videos of.

“All the time.”

“I can’t wait until I get my Surface Status,”
said Elise as she used her thumb to smudge a streak of pencil into
shade. “It’s been a long time since any other Dawn got their
status.” She sounded forlorn and distant as she focused on her
drawing of the elephant.

I was trying to draw the small dog that Ben
and Harrison had at Vineyard, but the details of his scrunched up
face were a mystery as I tried to duplicate them. I kept erasing
him until the paper was wearing thin.

“We’ll get there, one way or another.”

This was a dangerous game I was playing. I
knew that I was risking mother’s wrath.

“One way or another?” asked Elise.

“Of course,” I said as if the answer should
be apparent. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to be stuck down
here forever. All the Dawns will make it to the Surface. I’m sure
Paris and Echo are there now.”

“Maybe, but if they are then they’re lower
class citizens,” said Elise as if disgusted by the thought. “I’m
not sure I’d want to be up there if I didn’t have Surface
Status.”

“I don’t care either way,” I said as I tried
to stay focused on my drawing to continue the illusion of
nonchalance for the cameras. “As long as I can get out of this
place, I’ll be happy.”

Elise stopped drawing and focused on our
conversation. “You’d be willing to give up Surface Status just to
get out of here?”

I ignored the question and instead slid my
pad of paper over towards her. “Can you look at this? I just can’t
seem to get the face right.”

I’d hidden words inside of the picture, along
the dog’s neckline. I’d been spending nights obsessing over the
perfect phrase to instigate a rebellion in the Dawns, and I hoped
this would do it:

We’re prisoners. Administrators lie. Fight
back.

I’d used quick, punchy phrases because I had
to write small enough not to be captured by the cameras and I
couldn’t risk Elise sitting there reading for a long time. I
watched her eyes pass from left to right as she read the words, and
then I ripped the page out of the notebook.

“Oh forget it,” I said as I stood up. “I’m
not as good at drawing as you are.”

Elise was dumbfounded. Her mouth was slightly
agape as she stared up at me.

I walked to the small door on the wall that
led down to the incinerator and quickly tossed the crumbled paper
inside. The door snapped shut as I returned to Elise and sat across
from her. I looked down at her elephant and said, “Look how good
you are. You can do this so much better than I can. I bet all the
Dawns are jealous of you. They probably bug you all the time to
show them how to do it.”

She was lost for words, and stammered an
unintelligible response.

“Can you teach me?” I asked. “Show me how you
do the shading so well.”

“I just…” she looked down at her picture and
cleared her throat. “I just use my finger to smear the pencil like
this.” She gently brushed her thumb across the page.

“Let me see,” I said as I laid on my belly
beside her and scooted the pad of paper closer to me. I started to
draw over her sketch of an elephant and practiced creating shade
with the edge of my thumb. “Gosh, it’s so easy.”

“Yeah,” she said, still addled by what I’d
written.

I dared to write another message, this time
faintly within the curve of her elephant’s ear.

Not sick. Help.

I smeared the message as if merely adding
more shading to the picture. Then I did it again.

Will you?

“Oh, I’m ruining your picture,” I said as I
erased the message and gave her back her pad. “Here. Just let me
watch you do it.”

Her hands were shaking as she took the pencil
from me. She swallowed hard, but then started to draw. Elise
glanced up at the camera in the corner. She wasn’t writing a
message, but was instead continuing with her picture, and my heart
sank.

“Elephants have a lot of wrinkles,” she said
as she started to sketch a wide, yawning line under the animal’s
chin. She followed it up with a few more lines beneath it, and then
a curving edge to the elephant’s ear.

Suddenly her message was clear. Hidden in the
wrinkles was a simple, one word response.

Yes
.

She swiped her thumb across the paper,
smearing the evidence and leaving a stain on her skin.

“You should teach all the Dawns how to draw
like you do, Elise.”

“Some of them are really bad artists,” said
Elise.

“Well, then just teach the ones that you
think would be good at it.”

She nodded as she continued to draw. I
watched for another message, but she wasn’t writing anything else
for me. I knew that I’d already pushed her far enough. If we tried
to do too much now, we might give ourselves away.

“It just takes practice,” I said as I started
to draw on my own pad again. “Find the Dawns with some talent and
then get them to pay attention to you.”

That was the last we spoke of the rebellion.
I hoped it would be enough to turn the spark into a flame.

* * *

It was the middle of the night when mother
called.

The view screen was already on when I woke
up, and it was the only light in my room as I rubbed my eyes. I was
on my bed, facing away from the screen as mother called out her
name for me, “Cobra.”

I turned to face the screen and saw a version
of myself staring back at me.

“Mother?”

“Yes. Sorry to bother you so late, but I
needed to speak with you. There are…” she glanced away and then
back at me again. “There are things happening here that might
affect you.”

My heart raced from sudden fear. I’d been
caught trying to communicate with Elise. They were going to cut off
my contact with her, and had probably confined Elise as well. Any
hope I had of instigating a rebellion was crumbling.

Mother continued, “The facility might be
locked down soon, which means you and the other Dawns would be on
your own for a while. Possibly a long while.”

“Why?” I asked, daring to hope that I’d been
wrong about being caught.

“It’s a very long story,” said mother. “But
it’s not a bad thing. It would mean that you and the Dawns would
have to survive largely on your own for a time. Some of the
Administrators would still be with you, but most of the classes
that the Dawns have will be canceled.”

“Will I still be locked in here?” I
asked.

She didn’t have an immediate answer and
thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. I won’t be able to contact
you, but you’ll be well taken care of.”

“How long will it take?”

“We don’t know,” said mother.

“You can’t leave me in here alone to rot.
I’ll go mad. I can’t take the solitary.”

“You’ll be fine, Cobra. There will be people
looking after you, and I’ll make sure someone contacts you from
time to time.”

“Why not let me be with the other Dawns?” I
asked. “Haven’t I proven that I’ll be good?”

She smirked and then shook her head. “No,
Cobra. I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be allowed to mix with
the others yet. That’s too risky.”

“It’s not risky, mother, I swear. I’m not
going to fight anymore.”

Mother’s suspicion was written in the sneer
she gave me. Her image was a reflection of myself, and I was
intimately familiar with my own expressions. “Fires that bright
don’t go out this easily, my dear. I watched you punch the walls
for months.”