The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series (11 page)

“What is this place?” David said.

“I don’t know.”

“Wow…” Annabelle said, once she was through the door.

Once they were all there, Antonio said: “There’s a bunch of empty rooms where we can camp out.” He led them through the first door on the left, which led into one of the partially-dark disused control rooms. They went through it, and out of a door at the back. They were then in another room, which was very similar—about the size of a small living room. The lights came on as they entered, revealing white walls dotted with gray control panels. There were buttons, switches and displays on them, but they were all dark. Gray wiring conduits connected them.

David ran his fingers through his hair. “At least bullets can’t penetrate into here.” Nods from the others.

“It’s totally silent,” Annabelle said.

“Yes.”

“Now what?” Kassandra said, looking at each of the others in turn.

“I don’t know,” Vivianne said.

“I guess we just wait it out,” Annabelle said. “We can’t go back out again if they’ve got control of this area. We’d probably be shot on sight.”

David nodded. “Let’s just try and make the best of it for now. There could be others hiding in here too. Come with me, Tony. Let’s see what all there is here. And possibly
who
there is, too. How did you know about this place, anyway?” Antonio related the events of the night before, to stunned expressions from the others.

“Wow…” Annabelle said. “I wonder who, or what, it was?”

“Don’t know,” Antonio said. “I do think it was human though. It might come back again. We should probably try and hide out in this room as much as possible so can’t be seen from the main corridor.”

“Can I come and explore with you?” Kassandra said.

“Sure.” They exited back to the corridor, and then entered the next room.

“So, four rooms off this corridor, two on either side, and each one has another room behind it,” Kassandra said, after the short excursion. “All pretty much the same.”

“Nobody here, and no signs of recent occupation,” David said, “though someone’s keeping the lights on here.”

“Hmm,” Antonio said. “The big problem is there’s no food or water. Anywhere.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Excluded

“Oh God, why does this have to be?” Vivianne cried. It was now evening. She held Etienne in her arms. The child was tired and red-faced from having cried for hours from hunger and thirst. “She’s getting dehydrated fast,” Vivianne said. “I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think kids can go much more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours without water. We’ve been in here twelve hours now, and she hasn’t had a drink since last night, so it’s already been twenty-four.”

All six sat with their backs against the walls, lining both sides of the room they had entered that morning. David shook his head. “It’s much too dangerous to go out.” He buried his face in his palms. “We can’t even get to the stuff in the cart. Someone might be lurking in the dock.”

“But Dave, she could be dead within a day!” Vivianne said.

Annabelle’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to catch it!” she said. “That thing or person you saw last night, Antonio, that’s stealing stuff. It might come back tonight.”

“My God, you’re right!” David said. “At the very least, we might be able to steal from it. Tony, you and I should lie in wait.”

Antonio nodded. “I wish I could have caught it last night. It may not know what happened out there today, so it may think it’s still safe to go out.”

“It could be our only chance,” David said.

“Yes,” Annabelle said. “Otherwise, I really don’t know what we’ll do. Although, we could just go out and surrender…”

“We could end up dead if we do that,” Kassandra said. “You saw what they were like.”

David nodded. “Well, let’s try and catch the
thing
tonight. I doubt it could do much damage to two grown men. If it can’t lead us to food and water, we’ll go out and give ourselves up tomorrow.”

----

The corridor was silent. The door to the rear room, in which they were camped, was closed, and everybody had been instructed to remain absolutely quiet. David crouched behind the doorway to the front room, leading out into the corridor, ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice. He would have been visible through the window in any other position. Antonio was poised similarly in the doorway on the opposite side of the passage, one room closer to the exit out to the dock, ready to pounce if the enigma managed to slip past David.

David checked the time. One AM. Etienne began to whimper again. The sound carried easily out to the corridor. “Shut up!” David growled to himself. He half rose and turned to go back into the rear room, then stopped and returned to his squat by the exit to the corridor.

“She needs to be quiet,” came Antonio’s whisper, from three meters to David’s right.

“So do you!” No more was said. The minutes ticked by. Then they became hours. Etienne’s crying stopped again. David rubbed his eyes, and then began to stand slowly, in order to stretch. There came a soft click from around the corner, to his left. David crouched again as quickly as he dared. Then, he craned his neck up just far enough to see anything of even half-human height out in the corridor.

Silence again. Then: there it was! A blur came dashing past. “Yarrrrgh!” David simultaneously yelled and lunged. He missed. He sprawled into the opposite room. The confusing shape turned and flattened itself against the wall two meters to David’s right. It was human in outline, if not color. It then spun and made to flee. Antonio sprang from his doorway and caught it in a full tackle. He and it
crashed to the ground. David immediately jumped on them both, and pressed down with all his weight. Neither of them was going anywhere.

“I can’t breathe!” A pair of small, frightened human eyes looked at them through holes in the strange gray and black static pattern. David let up part of his weight. “Who are you?” A moan was the only answer. “Lift up a bit, Tony.” The thing breathed in deeply, and exhaled. David grabbed at its head, and yanked off what appeared to be a ski mask. They were looking into the face of a blonde-haired boy. “I’m dead! I’m dead!” he whimpered.

“No you’re not,” David said. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”

“If I tell you they’ll kill me!”

“Who will?”

“Uhh…”

“Put it this way. If you don’t lead us to food and water,
I’ll
kill you,” David said. Antonio turned and looked at David, wide-eyed, but stayed silent. The boy’s terrified eyes moved from David’s face to Antonio’s, and back again. He stayed silent. A long, tense moment went by. Then, David turned to Antonio. “Get a knife.”

Antonio nodded, slid out from underneath David, got up, and headed to the back room. David shifted his weight so he was astride the boy, and grabbed both his arms, pinning them out to the side. Antonio came back. “They’re in the cart, outside…”

“Crap. Then I’m going to have to use my bare hands.” David slowly and deliberately let go with his right hand and moved it to the boy’s throat, gripping his neck firmly, with his thumb pressed against the windpipe below the Adam’s apple. David’s glare bored into his prisoner’s frantic face. David then brought his left hand, in cold, deliberate moves, and interlocked it with his right. Antonio looked on in terror. “Slow strangulation, or a quick broken neck?” David asked the boy.

“Ugchhk…”

David released the pressure slightly. The boy inhaled deeply. “This is not a game,” David said. “I have a child who’s going to be dead before long. If it comes down to her life or yours, it won’t be her that perishes. Are we clear about that?” The captive nodded vigorously. David released his hold slightly more. “So this is how it’s going to work. You’re going to take me to supplies. Don’t bother trying anything.”

The boy exhaled. “Okay.”

“Get up.” David released him and got up. The boy was halfway to his feet, his clothes still shimmering in the strange pattern, when David put a hand on his shoulder from behind and forced his right arm up behind his back. “You go in front of him, Tony.”

“Okay.”

David frog-marched the boy slowly back the way he had come, turning right at the T intersection. They were soon at the large hatch-like metal door. The boy punched in a code. “Five-four-six-two,” Antonio muttered, watching the boy’s fingers. Antonio pushed the door inwards. It opened onto an almost unbelievable scene: a metal grate, half the size of a tennis court, at the inner wall of a vast concrete silo, maybe 250 meters across. The drop below extended farther than they could see. Rising up from the depths was another gray silo, in the center of that one, whose outer wall was perhaps fifty meters away.

“Holy crap!” David said, wide-eyed. A walkway extended straight, across the void, towards the inner silo. There was another platform that encircled its girth like a ring, with halogen lights shining down on it. David still had the boy’s right arm up behind his back, and his left hand on his shoulder.

“There are others like this,” Antonio said, pointing across the silo. He had now gone through the hatch, and was standing on the platform. Spaced at intervals around the wall were other similar platforms, also sporting catwalks to the inner silo. Each was lit from above. This pattern was repeated both above and below where they stood, at roughly twenty meter intervals. Stairs at a roughly forty-five degree angle connected them. On some of the suspended levels were people, especially on the inner ring. Many laid down, while others sat. The air smelled bad.

A figure darted out from behind the open door. At once, a knife was at Antonio’s throat. Holding it was a man with dark skin, wearing a pair of dirty blue jeans and a worn leather jacket. “Who comes here?” he said, in an African accent. The man then spun around behind Antonio and restrained him with his left arm, while keeping the blade in place.

“Uhh…”

“Outsiders!” the man said.

“I swear! They forced me!” the boy spat.

“It’s true,” David said calmly. “We caught him. He had no part in it.”

“Josiah, go to your unit. You will be dealt with severely,” the man said.

“He’s not going anywhere,” David said, tightening his grip on the boy. His eyes narrowed. “Not until you release my friend, and provide some food and water for my family. Then, we’ll go away and forget this ever happened.”

“
You’re
not going anywhere,” the man said. “Not now you know we’re here. Intruders!” He turned and yelled behind him. “Backup!” Two other men came running along the catwalk, from the inner ring. As they approached, one unsheathed a knife, and the other a pistol. As soon as they reached the platform, the right one aimed his pistol at David’s head, and they advanced slowly.

“There’s not much a desperate man won’t do,” David said, shakily, eyeing them, and wrapping his left arm around the boy’s head as though he was about to break his neck. “We’re refugees. We have a small child, who needs sustenance. Just give us some food and water, and we’ll be on our way.” By this time, another man was walking along the bridge towards them.

“No… can… do,” Antonio’s assailant said, slowly. “We just can’t take the risk of being discovered. Tie them up.” The left man produced a roll of silver duct tape, and advanced.

“I’ll do it,” David said. “Meet my demands else he dies now.”

“And all three of you will go with him,” the gunman said. “Then we’ll find your family, out there”—he nodded towards the door—“and kill them too. It’s a very long way down.” He indicated the edge of the platform, and the drop into oblivion.

David quickly released his captive. “Do what you need to do.” He held out his wrists. They were taped together in one smooth motion. Josiah collapsed, panting, then got up and ran along the causeway towards the wall of the inner silo. The fourth man arrived, and merely watched as David and Antonio were led away in the same direction that Josiah had run. Once they reached the platform connected to the inner silo, two brunette women in worn combat fatigues ran back across to the outer one. They and the one who had watched David and Antonio’s capture exited through the hatch into the corridor that led to the family’s hiding place. A few minutes later, David saw Vivianne’s terrified eyes, fifty meters away, as they were marched in. She and the girls’ arms were taped behind their backs, and they were gagged with a silver strip across their mouths. One of their captors carried a kicking, screaming Etienne over her shoulder. They passed across the walkway, to where David and Antonio were, and all were soon sitting in a semicircle on the wide metal grid that was the ring around the inner silo. Etienne was placed on Vivianne’s lap. She snuggled into her mother, crying. Vivianne struggled against her binding to hold Etienne, but couldn’t break free. Their captors stood guard, in front of them. The gunman had holstered his revolver, while the other dragged the blade of his eight inch hunting knife threateningly across his palm.

Only David and Antonio were not gagged, but they remained silent. They sat on the left side of the group. David looked across at Vivianne, sitting in the center, with an anguished expression. A crowd of onlookers, men, women and children, gathered at a respectful distance. They were grubby, and clothed in what looked like third-generation thrift store wear. The men sported long beards. A well-built black man of some thirty years appeared at a hatch in the floor of the ring. He had climbed the stairs twenty meters up the side of the inner silo, from the level below. He nimbly pulled himself up, stood up, and walked round to the front of the captives. His white t-shirt revealed large biceps, and his hair was cut short. A large letter X had been carved into his right forearm. “Well, well, well,” he said, sizing them up. “This is a bigger group of trespassers than we’ve had in a while. Tell me, how did you find your way in here?”