Orpheus (34 page)

"Yeah, it's an honor. What's the second thing?"

"Oh, yes. The first known Jekyll. We had no clue it was possible, and we never would have if it wasn't for Scalpel."

"What did he bring? The cure?"

Dr. Vincent paused and considered his next words carefully. "Sgt. Mutters, we've had a very civil discussion up to this point, and I have, to be honest, enjoyed speaking with you. I hope what I say next doesn't change that. We..."

"You already had the cure," he said, as matter-of-factly as if he was telling someone the time. "You had it by the time you left that village, I bet."

"That's amazingly perceptive. And you're right on both counts, of course. Finding the Jekyll was a happy accident, I'd say. You've seen how zombies behave around a Jekyll. They mimic their disposition: if the Jekyll is in a calm stage, they're docile. If he attacks, they attack. When we...you...discovered this, the island experiment changed a bit."

"Weaponization. An..." Mutt's answer was interrupted by a fit of coughing. Dr. Vincent acted quickly and gave him another dose. Mutt composed himself and continued. "An army of zombies, mindless soldiers who can take massive amounts of punishment, led by Jekylls who still maintain some semblance of intelligence."

Dr. Vincent clapped with sincere appreciation. "Right again! You're an extraordinary man, Sgt. Mutters. Being a man of law as you are, I don't suppose you'd be interested in continuing your service..."

"Not a fucking chance."

"I didn't think so, but I had to ask. We learned a great deal from the Jekyll before he expired, but we weren't quite there. He was in a more...advanced state then you are, so we only found a way to retard the zombification process, not arrest it to the point that we needed. The same goes for the other one you brought us. We were so close, but we were dead in the water. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

If Mutt did, he didn't say so.

"I needed a miracle, then you fell into my lap. I'm not a religious man, Mr. Mutters, but you being infected, Mr. Holt's insane run to get the serum into you, the quick pickup, and the relative newness of your state...if anything were to make me believe in a god, that would have been it."

"Dr. Vincent!" Jen charged in. "Dr. Vincent! I think we got it!"

* * *

The group was unanimous in the belief that there was no benefit in waiting to take action, and they had everything to lose by waiting too long. The groups had their specific missions: Sister Ann, Harold, and Jason would take the van back to Ethan's wrecked truck to take possession of the power source. (When Fish opined how convenient it was that Ethan had a battery jumpstarter in the back of his truck, Ethan countered with, "Last time I checked, it was surrounded by fucking zombies. It's coincidental, not convenient.") He'd written down instructions on how to start it, assuming they could get it from his truck into the van, and then into Lena's apartment, without becoming dinner.

"There's another point where this plan can fail spectacularly," Tim said. His voice was solemn. "I'm worried about the radio."

"Don't you worry, Tim. We can figure it out. Plug it in, turn it on, transmit until someone responds, even if they're on the other side of the world. Once we're in the apartment, we should be safe. Ish."

"I don't doubt that at all, Harold. But we're going on the assumption that Lena was telling me she has a radio in her closet. She might have been directing me to her favorite pair of shoes, for all I know."

Sister Ann tried to reassure him. "Have faith in her and yourself, Tim. Without it, there's no point. The radio will be there."

He shrugged.

Ethan knew the feeling. All of the planning sounded good, but the reality was that they were going on different, but equally suicidal, missions. Pulling just one off would be a miracle.

"Ethan? You with us?" Sam said.

"Yeah, sorry. So you three have that covered. It'll be a piece of cake. All we have to do is break into a hospital that's surrounded by zombies and rescue a couple of people from mass murderers, then survive until we get the word out. I like it."

"There's the man I dig," Rachel teased.

"I think we can break in easily enough. Orpheus told us that he left by a side exit that he taped open just in case we had to come back in that way."

"How sure are you of this, Fish?" Rachel asked.

"I'm sure what he said, and if it's the door I'm thinking of, I don't think anyone in the building would think to secure it. His run should have cleared most of them out, too."

Ethan said, "That's another big 'if' but it's better than nothing. We'll figure it out, but has anyone given any thought to how we'll find out where they're holding everyone?"

Tim blew a long breath out, cheeks puffing. "Still working on that one."

"Keep working. If everything goes well, Ann, we'll call you when we're clear. Is everyone absolutely comfortable with how to use their weapon?" More nodding heads. "Okay, then." Ethan believed that they'd covered all of the bases now. He closed his eyes tried to visualize their success in the same way that a golfer is taught to visualize the ball dropping into the cup. As hard as he tried to see their collective triumph and hero's welcome back on the mainland, each vision ended in total, and often horrifyingly vivid, failure.
Well, that was a colossal mistake,
he thought.

When he opened his eyes, Rachel was leaning close. "It'll all work. I know it will."

"I know."

"Ethan, it will work."

He smiled. "You're pestering." She laughed and kissed him quickly on the lips.

"I think now's a good time for a prayer." Ethan decided to join in this time, not necessarily to pray, but to feel safety and gentle human contact for possibly the last time. They all linked hands and bowed their heads. Sister Ann prefaced the prayer with a heartfelt recounting of all the people they'd lost, most notably Denise and Mickey, then began with a Hail Mary. Ethan's thoughts drifted to his father, and his idea of a prayer solidified in his mind:
If nothing else, please let me see my father one last time.

Sister Ann finished, and the circle broke.

Sam said, "Final equipment check, then we're on."

Tim, Sam, and Fish paid particular attention to the radio mission crew, as they were the ones with the least firearms experience. They all carried pistols. They were simpler to operate and reload, and they only needed them for defense against the undead, if at all. But the hospital assault team?

They might be going to war, and they needed the heavy stuff.

Ethan, the son of a military cop, knew his way around an AR15, and Rachel was a quick study. He had great confidence in her abilities. He just wished she was more of a coward. Her weapon was set, and Ethan turned his attention to his own.

Magazine, check. Ammunition, check. Sling, tangled, and it bothered him a lot more than it should. He undid the sling totally, straightened it out, and tried to thread it back through the buckle. His fingers were clumsy from nerves, and he missed several times. "Aw, bloody hell," he growled loud enough to be heard.

Tim stopped dead. "Ethan, say that again."

"What? 'Bloody Hell'?"

"Yeah, but say it like you just said it."

Ethan did his best to recreate it, but he was more curious than angry now.

"Holy shit," Fish said.

Sam picked up on it, too. "We're dumb if we can't figure out a way to use that."

Curiosity gave way to outright confusion.  "Use what?"

Chapter 24: Conflicts

Orpheus struggled against his bonds, but they were tight and done with great care. The conference room chair that held him was solid, too. He only tried to get free for a few minutes before he gave it up; the only thing more struggles would get him was an undignified position on the floor and probably a head injury to go with it. He assumed that the others were done up in a similar fashion, so he expected no help from them. He hoped that they weren't waiting on a rescue by him, either.

So he waited for something to change the status quo.

That something, it turned out, was Anders. He entered the room backwards, obviously struggling with a heavy object. The object was the Scythe agent who'd been brought in with Lena and Trager. Orpheus had no idea who he was or what he'd done, but the fact that Anders had him tied up was enough to count him as an ally. Anders positioned him opposite Orpheus, then left wordlessly. Finally, he returned with Lena, also gagged, and her he put between Orpheus and the agent. He removed their gags and left the room with a "Be right back."

"You okay?" he asked Lena.

She opened and closed her jaw, trying to get rid of the sensation of the gag. "Yeah. You?"

"Never been better."

"Do we have any chance of breaking out of these things?"

Holt felt a little ashamed. "These are, um, good chairs. And Anders apparently has his merit badge in knot tying. Unfortunately."

The door opened and Anders walked in, pistol in hand. "Okay, first things first," he said nonchalantly as he pulled the hammer back. Orpheus thought it was a purely theatrical gesture. "You're a fuckin' traitor." He put the barrel to the Scythe agent's forehead and pulled the trigger. Gore exploded from the back of his head, which snapped back, but he was tied so securely to the chair that he immediately returned to his original position. The acoustics of the conference room magnified the sound of the gunshot, but the other three prisoners barely heard it. It had happened so fast, they didn't react for several seconds.

Lena was the first to make a sound, and it was less a conscious word than it was air escaping her lungs.

"Sorry. Orders." Anders said. "Let me just get this out of the way." He placed his pistol on the table, then dragged the dead man, chair and all, backwards five feet, far enough away to allow him to move more freely, but close enough to still allow everyone to see him. "Here's the deal: you're all going to die. How much it hurts is up to you."

"What do you want?"

"Something different from each of you. Little lady, we have your data card, but you encrypted it. Normally, we'd sent it to our expert, but that happens to also be you, so tell us how to break it. And you," he moved in close to Holt, "where's the rest of your team, and who were they meeting?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"You're a tough guy, Holt, and I'm not a professional interrogator. I doubt I know enough to cause you all the right pain in all the right places to get you to break, so I'm not going to bother trying." He pulled a clear plastic bag out of his pocket and unceremoniously slipped it over Lena's head. He grabbed a handful of it and twisted it around his fist, cinching it tight around her neck. She didn't react right away; she'd just taken a breath. Her eyes, however, showed sheer terror. "Her, on the other hand..."

"Whoa, waitwaitwait..."

"Sure. Tell me where you were going."

"Anders!"

"Where?" He checked his watch. "It's been just over twenty seconds. She's in shape; she might have another forty-five seconds or so before she really starts to struggle. Unless something like this happens." He cinched his other hand around her neck and shook her violently back and forth. The panic overcame her and she used up her oxygen. She gasped and the plastic bag imploded around her head and filled her mouth.

"Stop!" Holt was pleading.

Anders whipped the bag off of Lena's head. She pitched forward and made hacking noises as she tried to fill her lungs with air again.

"Tell 007 here how that felt, sweetheart. When you can, of course."

"Jesus, Lena, I'm so sorry," Orpheus said.

She started to speak, cleared her throat, and tried again. "S'okay, I can take it."

"Wow," Anders said. "You're just a little pistol, ain'tcha? Why didn't we ever date?"

"Because you're a pig."

"There is that. How do we crack the file?"

"That would defeat the point of me encrypting it."

Holt said, "Lena, I don't know what to do."
My son or this girl? How's that a choice?

"You shut up. We're dead anyway."

Orpheus' mouth twitched with anger. Part of him wasn't even there; he was thinking of Jackie. He saw flashes of her face when Lena was struggling for breath. It was horrible. "I can't let you go through that again."

"Don't you dare say ANYTHING! Not after all I had to go through to prot-" Her tirade went silent as soon as Anders slipped the bag back over her head. This time, she was caught unaware and the bag tightened into a second layer of skin almost immediately. She whipped her head back and forth, trying to make him lose his grip, but he held fast.

Orpheus strained against his bonds with every muscle in his body, but he couldn't get loose. "Oh, I'm gonna fuckin' kill you! You hear me? YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!"

"Yeah, yeah. Her first, though. You're obviously not going to talk."

Holt watched helplessly as Lena's struggles became weaker. Her eyes started to go glassy, and the heaving in her chest stopped.