Eve of Destruction (7 page)

From looking at the map I knew there was a communication station on the other side of the blue door, so if I opened it and Marisa came through with Kate, I could move the direction of the S2 camera and I'd see them both. It was all I could do not to press the large, round button that would send them through, because I knew what I'd have to do once they stepped away from the door.

I'd have to engage the
BLUE LOCKDOWN
option and throw the door shut again, sealing them off on the other side.

My hand hovered over the blue button, big and round, like something the president would push in order to launch a missile attack.

You have to get her through, Will,
I thought.
She's safest on the other side. Just put her through!

My hand hit the button hard and I felt it click under the weight of my palm.

Had it worked? Was the door open? I didn't know for sure until I saw them stepping cautiously through. I saw them on a monitor, slowly inching forward into a long, empty tunnel.

“Can you guys hear me?” I yelled, watching them in the S2 communication feed.

“Take it down a notch,” Kate yelled back. “No need to scream at us.”

“Sorry—move away from the door, but not too far. Don't get near the broken-out flooring.”

“Why not?” asked Marisa. God, she sounded tired. I knew her well enough to know it was only a matter of time before she slumped down in one of the tubes and passed out for an hour.

“Because there's electricity in the water down there. It's not safe.”

“Very nice, Will!” yelled Kate, but she and Marisa had moved away from the door, peering down into the muck of the first broken-out section. Kate had one of the two flashlights Connor had found and she pointed it down the tunnel in my direction.

“Don't move, just stay right there,” I said. “And don't be mad, okay?”

“Too late,” said Kate. But I was talking about what I did next and how angry I expected them to be. I pushed the button marked
BLUE LOCKDOWN
and heard the door slam shut behind them. Both girls screamed, then they returned to the door and tried to pry it open as Kate cursed me in a long, flowering echo.

I couldn't look from the shame of what I'd done, and I found myself staring at the entryway, where Connor and Alex were looking up into the exit, still trying to coax Ben Dugan down. They were waving and yelling, until something shifted in their perspective that made them stop what they were doing and jump out of camera range. About two seconds later I saw what it was: a falling body, which landed in a heap on the tile floor.

Ben Dugan, with his arthritic hands, had lost his grip. And by the looks of the situation, it had happened quite a way up the ladder. Both Connor and Alex were quickly at Ben's side assessing the damage, but I only got a brief look at them before the screen fluttered crazily and the feed went dead. I looked at Kate and Marisa and saw that Marisa had slumped down on the concrete near the door, her head hanging as if she'd fallen asleep.

“Looks like we're taking a little breather,” Kate said, and she sat down, too.

The video feed on the main screen started popping back to life, accompanied by the sandpaper sound of static, but nothing could have prepared me for what appeared on the monitor.

It was the bomb shelter, where Mrs. Goring had been. That part hadn't changed, but Mrs. Goring wasn't sitting there anymore.

The world underground was in chaos, but up above, in the gloom of Fort Eden, someone else was staring back at me.

“Who are you?”

That was the first question she asked me, and I asked her the same thing right back. We had a silent standoff for all of five seconds, her staring at me and me back at her. Even in the fuzzy glow of a fifty-year-old monitor, this girl was cute. Blond hair pulled back with a royal blue bandanna that matched the color of her eyes; brilliant white skin, like porcelain, and a delicate nose.

“I'm Amy. Are you one of us?” She was looking around a lot, like she was nervous someone might find her.

“Umm . . . I don't think so. I'm Will. Why are you at Fort Eden?”

“You wouldn't understand,” she said, and it seemed like she was about to leave, but then she took a deep breath, letting it out as she stared at the floor. When her face came back up, it was different. There was fear in her eyes.

“I don't trust her, something's not right.”

I tried to ask what she meant but she just kept going.

“Where are you? Where am
I
?” she looked around the bomb shelter as if she had fallen down a rabbit hole into an alternate reality.

Amy was confused, and I had a feeling I knew what she was doing at Fort Eden. I wanted to talk to her, but there was no time—any second now Connor and Alex would show up on a monitor or Kate would start yelling at me. Or worse, Mrs. Goring would come back to the bomb shelter and catch Amy standing there.

“Did Dr. Stevens tell you to come here?” I cautiously asked.

“Yes! You
are
one of us!” She wasn't yelling, she was whispering excitedly, so I read her lips more than actually heard her words. Amy moved closer to the monitor, still warily turning back to the door of the bomb shelter again and again. “She's your doctor too, right? Are you getting cured?”

“. . . Not exactly,” I said, trying to buy some time. “I mean, maybe. I don't know.”

“It's scary, right? I'm not sure I'm doing it. She's not what I expected.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Goring. She's, I don't know. I mean she's the best, right? Some sort of miracle worker. I just don't know.”

“How did you get into her basement?”

“Easy, I walked.”

Her answers left a lot to be desired.

“How many of you are there?”

“You have a lot of questions, Will.”

“Sorry, it's just . . . listen to me. Don't let her know you found this place. She won't like that you're talking to me.”

“Why? Are you bad?” She laughed nervously, but then she asked me again: “Where
are
you?”

Before I could answer she was off the screen, as if someone had called her away; then she was back, but only for a second.

“I have to go, but I'll come back. Don't go anywhere. And Will?”

“Yeah?”

“There are seven of us.”

She reached up and touched the royal blue bandanna holding her hair back, then her hand hovered near the screen as she shut it off, and the place where Ben had fallen was back. The camera held a steady, unmoving eye on the place where we'd entered the underground missile silo. It was the same as before, only it wasn't.

Ben was gone. So were Connor and Alex.

I glanced at Marisa and Kate on S2, where they were still resting, then threw every monitor switch into the off position as fast as I could. I needed a second to think, to piece things together in my head without being distracted. I couldn't control the central monitor—that was on but silent, pointing at the exit. But other than that, it was a moment of complete isolation from the rest of the world.

I reached into my pocket and fished out the thing I had found in the woods and stared at it. It was soft, torn at the edges, not very big: a royal blue strip of bandanna, same as the one holding back Amy's hair.

They can't be serious
, I thought.

The only explanation I could fathom was that Mrs. Goring had figured out how to use the fear chambers and the equipment in order to do for herself what Rainsford had done so many times before. She'd instructed Dr. Stevens to bring seven more subjects to Fort Eden. Amy was one of the seven, she would be the first to be cured. And over the next seven days, Eve Goring would use Amy and the other six to get what she wanted.

She would use them to become young again.

There were gaps in my understanding as I stood in the surveillance room staring at the floor. Big questions lurked in the dark corners of my mind as I prepared to turn the monitors back on again.

How long before Amy and the other six would start getting cured? If it was like it had been for us, Mrs. Goring would start the cures as early as that night, six or seven hours later. That didn't leave me much time to sort things out.

Had Mrs. Goring really figured out how to use Rainsford's twisted tools of immortality, or was she simply going to experiment on these people and hope for the best? It was a tragic situation either way, because they'd all end up in the fear chambers regardless. Could I let that happen?

And why, really, were we being held captive in an abandoned underground missile silo? I was beginning to doubt Mrs. Goring had any intention or ability to actually help us. All she wanted was the vials. Did she need them in order to complete some part of her own process? Or did she really intend to cure us and kill Rainsford if he ever came back?

All these thoughts and many more washed over me as I was jolted back to reality by the muffled sound of someone pounding on the door outside. The door had the echo of something ten feet thick, the deadened hum of Connor's voice barely piercing the space between us.

He was mad, that much I could tell.

I switched on all the monitors and saw that Kate was standing again, pulling Marisa up with her.

“Just leave me here,” I heard Marisa mumble in a half-stupor.

“No such luck, sleepyhead. Wake up!” Kate shook Marisa and yelled over her shoulder. “You back, Will?”

“Yeah, I'm back. Hang on a sec.”

“We're moving with or without you, so you better hope she doesn't fall asleep on her feet and end up in one of these holes.”

“Hey, I'm not
that
bad.” Marisa was waking up, coming out of her cocoon.

The S1 monitor, where I'd first called everyone, was filled with Alex's face. He said something about what an ass I was and ran off screen in search of Connor. With Alex's head out of the way I saw Ben Dugan sitting against the metal tunnel, his head slumped to one side. They'd dragged him down the passage while I wasn't watching.

“Ben, buddy, how you doin'?” I asked.

“What's wrong with Ben?” Marisa asked from S2, and I was happy to hear some spunk had returned to her voice. The ten-minute nap had revived her.

“Idiot smashed both of his ankles and messed up his back.” Connor had returned, and hearing the question, he'd answered it for me.

“How bad is it? Can he walk?” I prodded.

“No way. We'll have to carry him out of here.”

“If we get out at all,” said Alex. “It's starting to feel like there's no reason for us to even be down here. Did she tell you anything else?”

“Wait, so Ben is okay, just incapacitated?” I pressed.

“I'm fine, Will. Just get us out, okay?” Ben had lifted his head with some effort, staring up at me. “It's mostly my feet that hurt, like I sprained both ankles at one time playing soccer or something. I can just sit here.”

Alex's face tipped into the monitor from the side: “Let's finish this thing so we can vacate before someone else gets hurt.”

“Answer Connor's question,” Kate insisted. “Did she give you any more instructions?”

“There are two wide holes between you and me, or you and the monitor anyway. There's a corner at the S2 monitor, and beyond that, another door I can unlock. I need to get you guys behind that door.”

“So you can lock us even deeper down here?” Kate mumbled, but she didn't push it and I didn't answer. Instead, I turned to Connor and Alex, who stood next to each other staring at me.

“You guys need to get through the red door, down the hall. Once you go through I'll close it automatically, so step aside. And don't give me any grief about locking it behind you—it's what I'm being told to do. I'm only following instructions, which is our best chance of getting out of here. Keep going once you clear the door, avoid holes full of water or anything that looks like it might electrocute you, and eventually you'll come to another doorway to your left and a hall to your right. Skip those and keep going. I'll see you coming.”

I'd seen the doors I described on the map and didn't really understand where they led to. One entered an unmarked space about the same size as the room I was in, the other to something more mysterious, a large circle and a square behind that. It didn't matter, because Mrs. Goring's meaning had been very clear:
Don't open doors I don't tell you to open. Some are better left closed
.

“We're past the first hole, Will, no worries,” said Kate, sounding closer in the echo chamber of the tunnel at S2. “But the next one's bigger.”

They were standing on the edge of a space of tiles that had crumbled apart and fallen into darkness below. Swiveling the camera I could see pipes and frayed wires poking up through the rust-colored water.

“Give me a second to think, don't go yet.”

I slammed the knob that opened the red door and got the salute sign from Connor as he moved off camera and Alex took chase.

“Tell me when you're through!” I yelled.

“Hell yeah!” Connor answered. The more I worked with this guy, the more I envisioned him as a sergeant on the ground, guiding a battalion into all sorts of trouble on sheer adrenaline. He was the kind of guy I'd likely be in favor of having as my captain in a situation like that. Too bad he has senile dementia and won't get into the Marines no matter how hard he tries.

“Hey, Will.”

It was Ben, from the floor, his eyes a vacant stare.

“Yeah, I'm here.”

“Do you think we're getting out of this situation alive?”

He said it loudly enough for Marisa and Kate to hear it from where they stood, the audio feeds bouncing in and out of the room to other parts of the facility. It was a lesson learned: not everyone needs to hear everything.

“Wait, what's wrong with Ben?” asked Marisa, alarmed and confused. “Ben? Ben! What happened?”

“He's fine. Banged up a little bit, nothing to worry about.”

“What do you mean,
banged
up
?” asked Marisa. “Will, this is crazy. What are we doing down here? Tell her to let us out!”

“I demand that she let us out every time I see her stupid face!” I yelled, frustrated by the position I'd been put in. “And just as soon as she shows up again, I'll ask her another time. But I can tell you based on what I've been dealing with—it's not going to change her mind if she knows one of us is hurt.”

“So banged up is hurt. What happened?”

“Marisa, he's fine—right now I need you to focus on getting down that hall as slowly and carefully as you can.”

“Stop treating me like you're in charge or something. I'm just worried about Ben.”

“Ben!” I yelled, and he nodded his head toward me, staring up into the camera like there was a flashlight in his face. “How you doin'? You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm good. Just tired. Back hurts. But I'm fine.”

I turned to Marisa in her monitor and made a face that asked whether or not this was sufficient enough evidence for her.

“This isn't easy for any of us,” Marisa said, and then she turned away, putting her hand against the curved wall, staring off toward Kate. Without my consent, Kate had started working her way along the edge of the watery, electric hole of death.

“Take it easy, Kate,” I said.

“We're on the other side, Will!” shouted Connor. “We've cleared the door!”

“Standing clear!” said Alex, attempting to fit in or mocking Connor, I couldn't tell which.

They sounded like they were on a mission with a stated objective of setting off major explosives and blowing things up.

I engaged the red zone emergency lock and heard the door slam shut, losing contact with Connor and Alex until they wound their way through the labyrinth of tunnels and found the next station.

“Kate!” Marisa screamed.

When I looked back at S2, Kate was wobbling along the edge of the tunnel, having lost her balance. Marisa had gone along the other side of the long hole in the floor, and leaning out, caught hold of Kate before she was forced to step forward into an electric charge she'd never recover from.

“Marisa! Don't move!”

The two girls were holding each other's shoulders, leaned in, facing one another as they stared down into a wide mouth of death.

“Just take it slow. Reeeal slow,” I said.

“You didn't answer my question,” Ben said from S1. “Do you think we're getting out of here alive?”

“I'm a little busy right now, Ben. Gonna have to get back to you on that.”

I shut Ben's monitor off and focused every ounce of my attention on Kate and Marisa. I zoomed the camera in at their feet, panning back and forth over the water.

“I think you should keep going, just like that. Pushing off of each other might not work.”

“Don't go falling asleep on me,” Kate said to Marisa, and she took one tentative step sideways, then another. Marisa mirrored her movements, but on the third step the tile broke free and fell heavy, like a flat boulder, into the hole. Sparks of electricity flared up and water splashed on Marisa's foot. Both girls went into a brief spasm as an electrical charge jumped through the water and died, but not before giving them both a jolt.

“Don't let go!” I yelled as the side Marisa was on gave way and vanished in front of her. More sparks flew, more water splashed on both girls, more jolts held them together like electrified glue.