Authors: David Berardelli
When we finally reached the main wing of the complex, we found no one in the
administrative offices. I’d expected to run into more TABs, or even someone still
functioning as a human. Just in case, I kept my gun out and cocked. But I was
soon distracted.
At the end of the hall, something around the corner blazed with light. Bright
golden bars streaked the beige carpeting with hazy parallel strips, as the light
peeked through the open blinds.
We stopped moving and stared for a long moment, squinting from its glare, its
power. Relief flowed down my body like warm honey. I was seeing—noticing—
my first sunrise in a long while, and it had never seemed so beautiful, so
magnificent. Suddenly, momentarily, I felt like a kid again. No worries. No
problems. Another day of fun and frolic lay ahead. I truly believed a beautiful
summer day awaited us. Everything felt new again. The morning meant birth and
a fresh start—and hope.
But first, we needed to regain our freedom.
As my mind returned to reality, anxiety ripped through me, and I reluctantly
turned away from the beautiful specter, back into the grotesquely dark face of
cold, terrifying reality.
The front entrance
.
Outside. Escape. Leave this place forever. Run away from
the death
.
“Let’s get out of here,” I told Reed and Fields.
We broke into a fast gait and sprinted down the hall, leaping over the bodies
lying on the floor and jutting from doorways. The recirculating air-conditioning
system had done much to neutralize the smell; otherwise, the atmosphere would
have been unbearable. This, more than anything else, compelled me to get away.
In just a few days, the generators would eventually run down, and the ventilating
system wouldn’t be able to handle the growing stench of death.
The mere thought of it forced me to maintain my speed. As I bolted along, I
couldn’t help thinking how much I’d changed. Even with my military background
and our experiences during the last few days, I now found myself in a constant
state of nausea. The passing of the years had filed down the sharp, competitive
edge that once had made me a tough, driven soldier, one who considered death
nothing more than a means to an end or a growing number on my locker door.
When my father died five years earlier, I had viewed the event as a quiet
passing, followed by a permanent absence. We hadn’t been close for years. I’d
only seen him a dozen times or so since my military days, and though it hurts to
say it, his death meant very little to me. His funeral remained etched in my
memory, not because of how much it had affected me, but how badly it had
affected my mother.
But now, after being a reluctant participant in this endless plague of darkness
and destruction, I viewed death much differently. Death was darkness, a state in
which all signs of life, hope, and happiness had vanished. Death was permanent.
Unable to undo. Impossible to ignore. Witnessing so much of it did little to numb
the senses. In this battlefield of immeasurable loss, it had achieved the opposite.
The only thing keeping me from giving up was the knowledge that relief awaited
us straight ahead, just beyond the front entrance.
I lacked of food and rest, and I found myself growing weaker with each step,
but I fought it with every fiber of my being.
Don’t give in
.
Don’t even think about it.
I couldn’t even allow myself to think about Reed and Fields. I could hear
them gasping for breath just a few feet behind me, which told me they were
keeping up. Hopefully, they could continue. They had to, for all our sakes.
We had to fight our way out, even if it meant crawling through the entrance
doors with our last breath and dying outside, in the sunlight.
There, our struggle would continue. We’d need a vehicle that worked and also
a way of getting through the locked gates. Otherwise, we’d die in this massive,
sour-smelling tomb of concrete.
I fought the dizziness and the ever-increasing weight of my legs, which had
grown as heavy and as cumbersome as concrete pillars.
Keep moving. Do not under any circumstances stop. Never look back
.
Reverting again to my military training, I focused on my objectives—freedom
and safety—and ignored the knot of heat growing in my chest, as I forced my
aching, worn-out body forward.
What seemed like ages later, we reached the lobby. The sun pressed its
powerful radiance against its wall of glass doors, forming silver spears pointing at
the slumped figure in the wheelchair in front of the entrance.
It was General Eldon—the real General Eldon.
Dressed in a crumpled white shirt, baggy black pants, and brown slippers, he
gripped a gun in his right hand and rested his forearm on the arm of the chair to
keep the gun steady. Its barrel pointed in our direction.
Reed and Fields bunched in close behind me. Fields pressed her left hip
against my right and shifted her weight, keeping her right side out of sight. I
heard her gun sliding out of her waistband.
I gently tapped her thigh while leaning into her. Even though we were
exhausted, scared, and sweaty from running, I could smell the residual lilac scent
in her hair.
Stay focused.
“You’re not gonna do anything stupid, are you?” I whispered to her.
“Like what?”
“Like shooting a dying old man in a wheelchair?”
“He’s pointing a gun at us.”
Defeat and agony registered prominently in the general’s sunken cheeks and
bloodshot eyes. Even at a distance of twenty feet, I could see that he’d had
enough and probably couldn’t take much more.
“He doesn’t look like he’s strong enough to pull the trigger,” I said.
“Are you willing to gamble our lives on that?”
She was right. I was stupid to assume anything at this stage. But I didn’t want
to shoot the man if we didn’t have to. We’d seen too much death, and I’d done
entirely too much killing in the last few days. The prospect of shooting this man
in particular made my insides ache.
Fields moved her face closer, and I found it hard to focus again.
“I’ve got your back,” she said. “Try not to get shot.”
“I’ll do my best.” My limbs stiff and as cold as ice, I took several cautious
Just as I reached him, he slowly raised his head. His blotchy cheeks and the
bruises on his forehead made him appear twenty years older than his clone. His
eyes were glossy and out of focus. The lids kept lowering as if he was fighting off
sleep. His bruised, withered forearm resting on the arm of the wheelchair did not
drop. And the gun remained in his trembling fist.
He squinted at me, as if trying to determine who I was. He then took a deep
breath and whispered, “I thought ... you were ... the clones ... can’t let them ...
escape.” He coughed wetly.
“It’s over, sir.” I pulled the pistol out of his hand. He didn’t resist. He coughed
again, and took another deep breath.
“It ... got out ... out of hand.” The words came out brokenly and ended in
another coughing fit.
“The clones were designed to kill off everyone else?”
“They were supposed to ... rescue the unaffected ... bring them here ... for
study.” He took a breath. “The others … supposed to be … taken to … Walter
Reed … for … treatment.”
“It’s all right now, General.”
“You need to ... to go back ... kill the program.”
“It’s done, sir.”
He sighed wearily.
My rage evaporated. The tears staining the general’s cheeks told me he was a
decent man who’d genuinely wanted to serve his country with an ultimate dream.
He could not possibly know this dream would shatter and become a nightmare.
Rage would be wasted on this man. Pity was the only thing left. I had none,
but at least I wouldn’t have to kill yet another human being. I wanted only to
walk away. But I also couldn’t leave him like this. He was, after all, an officer
and entitled to some respect. My intense anger for what he and his peers had done
would stay with me to my dying day, but I couldn’t hold it against him now.
“Are the gates locked, sir?”
He jabbed a shaky thumb at the guard’s station on the other side of the double
doors then doubled up in pain. “Controls … at … guard’s … desk,” he
stammered, coughing.
I could tell he had only minutes left. Making him more comfortable might
give him a semblance of dignity. “Would you like to lie down, sir?”
He nodded, so I pushed his wheelchair over to the leather couch in the
waiting area, pulled him up, and set him back down. He’d probably weighed two
hundred solid pounds in his prime, but now he felt as if he weighed no more than
eighty. Even so, I had difficulty. My own weakened condition plagued me, and I
nearly let him slip from my grasp. I knew I should’ve asked if he wanted to go
out the conventional way—a bullet in the line of duty—but I couldn’t bring
myself to do it. In any event, he was very close to death.
Now lying on his back with his head propped up, he stared at me, and his
eyelids lowered once again. This time, they stayed closed. I felt for a pulse. It was
very weak.
“Who … are … you?” he asked in a soft, raspy voice.
“Sergeant Alan Moss, sir.”
“Sergeant … Moss … yes … Moss?”
“Sir?”
“It wasn’t ... supposed … to…” He began coughing again. The coughs grew
softer, weaker. His eyes closed, and he lay still.
I stood over him for a moment. I felt for a pulse. There was none. The man’s
worries were over. Snapping myself back to the immediate reality, I turned to
face my friends. They had already moved to the guard’s station and were studying
the controls.
The security system consisted of four monitors, all of which were working
and showing views of the building’s exterior—including the front gate. The
console beneath the table was clearly marked. The gate would open with one
press of the appropriate button. I pressed it, and the chain-link gate slid open.
The exhilaration I felt when we pushed through the glass doors compared to
being splashed in the face with a bucket of ice-water. I stopped cold and stood on
the concrete landing outside, my eyes closed. I greedily sucked in the fresh
country air, as if it was some rare healing elixir from a mystical land. It had a
fresh sweetness I’d never noticed before, and I knew it would never again
intoxicate me as much.
I took in the special scents of fresh grass, pine from the trees, the sharp
bouquet of the flowers growing along the steps down to the parking lot, and I
noticed that the sourness of death was missing. It made me realize at once how
powerful it had been, how it had consumed us. The sweet air and the morning
sunshine rejuvenated me, and the exhaustion, soreness, and stiffness plaguing me
only moments before began to recede.
Then the fresh air turned normal again, and I opened my eyes. Standing
beside me, Fields squirmed out of her lab coat and dropped it on the ground while
gazing up at the bright, clear-blue sky. On the other side, Reed leaned against the
steel rail at the top of the steps, scanning the parking lot.
Without another word we descended the concrete steps. My knees wobbled a
little, but I managed. Now was not the time to submit to the exhaustion, nor the
throbbing I still felt in my hip from being tossed to the concrete floor. I could
submit to that when we were a safe distance away.
The enclosed lot was about half the size of a football field, yet less than two
dozen vehicles and a row of eight unmarked vans sat quietly in their designated
spots. The researchers valuing their lives had probably fled and would never
return. I couldn’t blame them.
Three TABs lay off to the side, peering up at the sky with dead eyes. Their
guns were drawn, but they didn’t move. Another TAB lay at the far end of the lot,
his gun drawn as well. Like his comrades, he remained motionless. We glanced at
them but said nothing. They’d ceased being a threat.
“How picky are we?” Fields said, as she scanned vehicles in the lot.
“I really don’t care,” I said. “Just so it has a key in the ignition and runs.”
“I’m fond of that model, too.” Hair bouncing, she strode toward the row of
About a minute later, the roar of an engine shattered the silence, and one of
the vans jerked out of its spot, zooming toward us with Fields behind the wheel.
Reed and I scrambled into the back, and she floored the gas pedal as I pulled the
door shut. When we had roared through the open gate, I took my first—and last—
look at the building that had nearly become our tomb.
The facility looked nothing like I’d imagined. With its sandblasted block
walls, metal roof and tinted windows it was roughly twice the size as the average
bank. But with so many underground levels, its mass rivaled that of a thirty-story
skyscraper.
Surrounded by ten-foot, chain-link fencing and concealed by a large pine
forest cresting the hill and sweeping down the rise, the complex nestled
comfortably in the hillside. Its mile-long driveway, a modest, two-lane dirt path
cut into the heart of the forest, could barely be seen from the main road.
Like many secret governmental facilities, the building was unmarked. It had
no visible sign or even a mailbox. Its security system was most likely motionmonitored, its sensors fitted into the branches of the pine trees surrounding the
property.
Passersby or airline passengers probably would have considered it just
another research facility. The locals would pass the driveway daily without
paying it much notice. No one would imagine it directly responsible for a legion
of robotic clones recently dispatched to annihilate what was left of humanity.
Now, with most of humanity dead, none of the remaining few would know
that the legion, like the power stations that had once served as the life-blood of
society, had been permanently switched off.
Our van remained where we’d left it, in the slow lane, sitting beside an
abandoned SUV parked near the guard rails. Straight ahead, most of the
roadblock remained. Six TABs lay motionless in front of their black sedans, their
shotguns dropped to the ground.