G-157 (33 page)

As though hearing his thoughts,
Jenkins jumped down from a tree three blocks south, and popped
a
dart into the man
Aire had
been with just before he could open the humvee door. Now he was sprinting across the lawn in hot pursuit of the girl. More troops were coming from the south on Commerce, blocking his path to get to her.

“Shit.” He watched red team rush down Bourbon. Jenkins was going to get to her first. “Move,” he whispered as four members of red team scanned the street. “Move.”

***

Thursday May 6, 2010

5:31 a.m.

Population: 118

“Dr. Caughlin, we’ve got to get out of here,” Aire shouted as she burst into the doctor’s office.

She found him sitting behind the secretary’s desk,
his
h
ands pressing
hard
on the table. Aire rushed towards him and grabbed his wrist.

“Come on, Doc, we gotta go.”

The doctor twitched. Aire let go of him but it was already too late. His wrinkled hand lashed out and clutched her throat. He picked her up by the neck and shoved her into the exam room. He eyed her carefully as she tried to kick him, her arms struggling to get out of his grip. He twitched again and smiled.

“Such a pretty girl.”

He slammed her onto the table, his grip tightening as she struggled to keep him from ripping her pants down. Coolness prickled her skin. She vaguely heard the sound of belt buckle. He loosened his grip as he thrust. Not much, but just enough to give her some air.

She wished he would have strangled her then. She could feel him, could feel her stomach grow sick with the sensation of his belly smacking against her thighs. Her skin crawled, she tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. The only words she heard  over and over again were, “such a pretty girl.”

It
lasted less than a minute, but t
o Aire
seemed
an eternity. The doctor’s face
contorted
, his jaw dropping open. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she felt the warmth.

There was a
quiet pop
from behind him. Caughlin’s expression changed to surprise
, then went slack as h
e slowly toppled to the floor, Aire kicking him the rest of the way down. She choked and
sucked in air
, trying to pull her jeans up as she collapsed next to the old man. She wiped away the tears to see a gun inches from her nose.

She stared up at him, her eyes hard and glowing beneath the tears. She sat unmoving, unnerving him with her stare.

“Go ahead,” she whispered.

The soldier stared down at her, the tip of his gun beginning to tremble. He took his hand off the trigger, and threw his helmet to the floor. Her eyes widened as he removed the black mask from his face.

“You were in on it?
” she said, her voice slow and trembling.

Jenkins looked down at her, a tear sliding from his gray eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I came to sa-“

Jenkins dropped to his knees, his eyes wide as he crumpled next to Caughlin. A yellow dart babbled from the back of his neck. Aire looked up. Another faceless soldier stood in the doorway, motioning for her to follow.

“I’ll explain on the way. Come on, Aire, we don’t have time to talk right now.”

He offered his hand to her as a friend would. She hesitated, looking from him back to Jenkins.

“Come on, I’m here to help you.”

She remained still as the soldier removed the orange bandanna from Jenkins and tied it around his arm. He
took a
blue one
out of his pocket
and tied it on Jenkins. He held his hand to her again.

“Aire, they’re going to kill you if you don’t come with me,” he said.

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me?”

“Because I would have done it already.”

She nodded, and reached out to take his hand.

“Play dead,” he told her as he pulled her to her feet. “The only way I can get you out of here is if they think you’re dead.”

“Okay,” she nodded. The soldier picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and she let her limbs go limp as he carried her through the door.

The streets were packed with frantic people. Those with their minds intact could no longer be distinguished between those who didn’t. Everywhere people were running and screaming, attacking the faceless soldiers and dropping like flies to the ground.

He carried her down Bourbon towards the parked truck. Another soldier in black stopped him in the intersection.

“Finally got her, Major?” the soldier asked. The man carrying her nodded. “Good. I didn’t think it’d take you long to find
the Wild Card
. We’re almost done here. “

The soldier said nothing as he nodded again.

He rushed past the marine to the truck and tossed Aire in the back. Seconds later, she felt it begin to move.
From the direction she felt like they were headed north. The sounds of the screaming city began to fade as the truck sped down the road.

“You can get up now, but stay low,” he said.

Aire sat up and climbed behind his seat so she could look out the front window while still being able to duck down if someone saw them.

“Where are we going?” The truck sped faster down the highway through the woods.

“I’m getting you out of here.”

“Are you taking me to Parker?”

“No, Parker is on the other side of the state. You’re not where you think you are.”

“Then where am I?”

“Underground,” he said, pressing his foot harder on the accelerator. “You’re in an underground facility built to look like a small town in northern America. “

“But, how can that be? How are we underground if there’s rain and the sun and wind?”

“It’s all computer generated. Fans blow air, spri
nklers bring rain, the sun is a
series of LED lights like a planetarium. None of its real.”

“But,” she said slowly, her mind lost for words. “But that doesn’t make sense. We can’t be underground, we
can’t
be. And what’s a computer?”

“God, there’s so much you don’t know,” he said, typing rapidly on the buttons next to the gear shift. “The real world is completely different from what you know. Its ruled by computers, television, MP3 players, internet, cell phone, radio. When you get out there, don’t get a social security number, driver’s license, credit card, nothing. You either stay away from people, or only go to heavily populated areas.”

“What do you mean the
real world
is different? I come from the real world, and there’s no such thing as a social security number or a credit card.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, hitting the last button and replacing a clear case back over the pad. “This whole place is a lie. You live in a government created community two and a half miles underground.”

She sat back in the seat, chewing on her finger as they drove past the first set of billboards. “Why?”

“The government wants to create world peace, so they had people like me create computer chips that insert into the back of the cranium. The chip, that thing you’ve been carrying in your pocket? That chip regulates the hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain to keep people from getting violent or depressed or anxious.”

“Is that why Troy went crazy? Because he was missing his chip?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “
Without the chip,
the chemicals in his brain couldn’t control themselves.”

“Do I have a chip?”

“No, you’re the only one without it. We wanted to see if we could create peaceful people without using it.”

“Nature versus nurture.”

A chill ripped down his spine. “Exactly.”

“Did Jenkins have a chip?”

The soldier turned his head to look back at her. They’d passed the third set of billboards. Time was running out. He turned back to the road.

“Did Jenkins have a chip?
” she asked again.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Jenkins was a soldier sent to monitor you and regulate the community.”

The landscape began to change. What had once been forest was now rocky ground overrun with weeds and wayward grass. No trees lingered near the now dirt road.

“What happened to everyone? Everyone I knew?”

“There was a problem with the chip. We couldn’t fix it.”

“But-“ Aire started, stopping herself s
h
ort when she saw the dark blue emblem of a lion against a light blue backdrop.

“The blue lion,” she whispered, her hands beginning to shake.

The soldier jerked his  head to look at her as he slowed the truck.

“You’ve seen this?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I dreamt of it, and
then
saw it on one of Jenkins’s letters.”

He brought the truck to a stop just in front of the giant emblem staring back at her and began punching buttons on the truck dash. A loud groaning sound came from the lion as it ripped in two, the double doors opening slowly as the soldier inched
the truck
inside of it. She could hear the clicking of
gears and the grinding of metal as the truck slipped behind the entrance.

“What is the blue lion?”

“The blue lion is an elitist group who paid for this place.”

The soldier pulled to a stop in front of them. “Wait here.” He jogged to the lion on the left, removed his mask, and began punching more buttons. The door began to close as he jogged back, and put the truck into drive.

“
You’re the African,
”
she said, h
er eyes were wide as she stared at him.

“What?”

“I knew you weren’t extinct. I dreamt of you
, too
. You held the chip in your hand and told me to beware the blue lion.”

The man smiled. He had beautiful teeth that radiated next to his midnight skin. “Word of advice when you get on the outside. When you see people my color, you call them black or African American.”

They drove into a huge parking garage, the door closing behind them.
Aire’s jaw dropped when she saw crumpled tents and broken down carnival rides in the corner of the massive steel room.
None of i
t’s real, T
he Moto, the carnival, my family, nothing is real.
The man shut off the truck and ordered Aire to get out. He took her hand and led her up a set of steel stairs.

“What’s your name?”

“Jackson.”

“Jackson, what’s that noise?”

He stopped at another
steel door, and
pushed more. They entered a large circular room littered
in chairs and
more gadgets like the one in the truck.
Five hallways radiated from the room like arms of a starfish. He took her hand and led her down one on the far left.
Huge sections of glass
were cased on one wall. From behind it people in white coats banged furiously and shouted silent screams at them
.

“That is the emergency alarm. Those people just figured out they’re trapped in here and can’t communicate to the outside world.”

“What do you mean?”

He lead her through another door, climbed more stairs, and through yet another door that lead to a tiny
five-by-seven
room. The door closed, more buttons were pushed. Aire jumped and clung to the
railing
when she felt the room heave.

“This is called an elevator. It will take us towards the entry room near the surface.”

Aire gazed around the elevator, slowly getting used to the idea of a moving room. She backed away from the wall, but still clung tight to the railing.

“Jackson,” she said. “What do you mean they
can’t
talk to
the
outside world?”

“You won’t understand now, but you will later. I jammed the telecommunications transmitters. No signal in, no signal out. There’s only one working radio transmitter in the facility, and no one but us can get to it.”

“What?”

“I rewired all the security
codes. M
y job was chief computer system researcher, so I had access to all data bases. Basically, I cage
d them in and stopped the mail.
By the time they figure out the new codes, you’ll be out of here.
”