The Dying of the Light: Interval (26 page)

“Good. I’ll let you know when I hear from the other bunker about the plane. Until then, goodnight, James.”

“Goodnight, Angela.”

Atkins sat back in his chair, wondering what the hell had just happened. It was a lot to take in. Warner walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I never thought I’d say this, James, but you may have just saved all our lives.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Warner shook his head. “Ever the idealist, you are.” He began putting on his gear, in preparation to leave the Shack. “You don’t think they’d have come all the way down here without that research, do you?”

“Of course they would have!” Atkins said, knowing even as he said it that it was unlikely, at best. “I mean, wouldn’t they?”

“No, they wouldn’t.
I
certainly wouldn’t have. It’s nearly ten thousand miles from them to us, and all of that by a plane or three that likely hasn’t been maintained at all, and certainly not
adequately
, to pick up a measly nine hundred people who would serve no useful purpose other than as a drain on their already stretched resources. Dangerous doesn’t even begin to describe it.” He finished putting on his gear, and zipped up his jacket. “No, they’re not coming for us, my friend. They’re coming for
you
. We just get to tag along.”

“What if they can only find one? What about everyone who won’t fit on the plane, Jack? What do we do? How do we decide who goes?”

“What do you care, James? You know you’re going. They need you too bad not to take you.”

“Of course I care, you asshole! I’ve got friends here.
Real
friends, not douchecanoes like you!”

“Well, then, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, I guess. Fair and impartial as possible, seeing as how you have a free pass.”

“And how’s that? How do we do choose to kill half our people? Because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Leaving the rest of them…
marooning
them to die on the ice. How do we come up with that list?”

“The fairest way of all, James. With a lottery.”

Atkins stood and began pacing back and forth. “No, you’re right. That makes sense. But we’ll have to save the drawing for the day of; there’s no way people are going to take this easy. We’ll have to wait until the last minute, or they’ll get crazy.”

“They’ll kill each other, Jim.”

Atkins looked around, startled. “Surely not! It won’t come to that. These are reasonable, logical,
intelligent
…”

“…
scared
people who are looking at their doom—starving to death on the ice. All that ‘social responsibility’ crap will go right out the window, I guarantee you. They’ll reason it out, and come to the conclusion that the fewer people are in the lottery, the better their chances. The only reason they haven’t started already is because only you and I know the plan. Word’s still spreading faster than I’d like about the rescue, anyway, and people are starting to get hyper, precisely when they need to be conserving energy.”

Atkins sat back down, collapsing into the chair, which groaned briefly. “I can’t believe they’d…”

“They would. And so would you, given the chance. Fortunately, you’ve got the golden ticket, what with the stuff in your head and on those drives. We’ve got to keep a lid on this, or at least the details. Agreed?”

Jim didn’t like the idea, but he felt awful enough already from his guaranteed spot on the plane. At least this way he could be involved and make sure Warner didn’t screw everyone else over. “Agreed.”

“Good,” said Warner, opening the door to the outside. “We have some preparations to make.”

Jim hadn’t been in the genetics lab in more than four years, and from the looks of things, neither had anyone else. Shards of glass, broken plastic and bent metal littered the floor and work surfaces, and a thick layer of frost covered most of it. Without ambient heat, the room had frozen over, and he’d had no reason to argue when Warner suggested they turn it off. After all,
he
certainly wasn’t working in here anymore, and no one would—not with the mess he’d left.

Time to find out what’s salvageable
, he thought.
Beyond the two drives in my quarters, that is
.

He rummaged in the detritus of his lab for some time, returning to his quarters to retrieve his jacket and gloves when it got too cold to continue. With a rescue mission on the way, it was time to go through this more thoroughly, and it didn’t take him long to determine he would need the heat back on for that. He straightened up, his back popping loudly from being bent over pulling at equipment frozen to the floor for years. It was then that he noticed Warner in the doorway.

“You haven’t been in here for quite some time, Jim,” he said, looking over the mess. “No one has.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Jim replied, rolling his eyes. “I need the heat turned back on in here.”

“We can talk about that.”

“We can talk about it? As in, you might not do it? Why the hell not?”

“Power is at a premium, Jim, you know that. We’re rapidly running out of fuel. And for something as unnecessary as this…”

“Unnecessary?” Jim shouted, and he realized he was furious. Taking several deep breaths, he strove to remain calm. “Unnecessary? What could
possibly
be more necessary than finding all my research to cure the prion disease? Please, enlighten me.”

“But you do have all your data, yes? On your drives? I forget where you stored them…” It sounded like the man was fishing for the answer.

Suddenly, Atkins was very suspicious. Warner had never been interested in his work before, despite its possible applications to the prions, and why would he want to know where the drives were?

Unless he’s planning to have the drives, but not me, available when the rescue party shows up. After all, what would you need with the scientist when you have his data? And there would damn sure be a spot on the first flight out for the man who secured that data, wouldn’t there?
Atkins looked at Warner with a new perspective, and began to wonder what else he hadn’t seen before.

“I have the data on the drives, yes. And they’re safe, no need to worry.”

“Of course, of course. I wasn’t worried. I know how careful you are.”

What a lying, hypocritical, asinine
… Jim took another deep breath. “But the data is useless without the knowledge of how to use it, and there’s other data here, in this lab, that goes with it. Research, charts, etc. It’s all still here, under the ice.”

It was only for a moment, but Atkins clearly saw an expression of frustration, of barely controlled rage, pass over Warner’s features, and then he was calm once more. “As I said, we can discuss that, Jim.”

Now is not the time to play timid, Jim
, he thought to himself.
It’s time for hardball
.

“I think we
can
discuss that, Jack. Right now, as a matter of fact. You see, I need this data, this research, and I can’t spend the hours I need to in here without heat. It’s extremely valuable knowledge, and if it fell into the wrong hands, of someone who couldn’t appreciate or understand it, it might be… mishandled. And mishandled information can be very dangerous, don’t you think?”

Warner looked confused for a moment. “Uh, yes. Yes, it can. We wouldn’t want the data mishandled, certainly.”

“I mean, think of the repercussions if some of this information about the rescue and the lottery got out ahead of time. What if it were shared with people who wouldn’t get what we’re trying to do? Right? Wasn’t that your argument all along?” Atkins took a few steps forward. “Plans should be kept under control until the proper moment, don’t you think?” He tried to make his tone as menacing as possible.

Warner looked puzzled for a moment more, then his puzzlement turned quickly to anger. “You wouldn’t!”

Atkins smiled, a grim smile that he hoped conveyed ruthlessness. “What wouldn’t I do, Jack? To save the world?” He lowered his voice, taking another step forward. “And speaking of that lottery, how will you be picking those names, Dr. Warner? Do you think everyone will trust you to handle that responsibility? You and I both know any lottery
you
set up will damn sure spit out your name for the first flight.”

Warner looked around outside the room, then came in and closed the door, shoving it against the ice buildup. “Keep your voice down!”

“I’m happy to keep it down, Jack. I won’t tell a soul.”

“Fine. You’ll get your heat.”

“That’s not all. We draw lots. Everyone gets a fair chance. Unless I can come up with some other way to get us all out of here.”

Warner was fuming, and Atkins wondered if he’d pushed him too far. “Fine! Just keep quiet!” He turned and left, trying and failing to slam the door after him.

Great. Now I’ve pissed him off. At least I’ll have heat
, Atkins thought.
Time to move those drives, too
.
As long as I’m the only one who knows where they are, Warner can’t cause me any ‘accidents.’ He needs me too bad
.

Atkins looked around the room once more.
I just hope all this is worth it
.

“This could cause us problems,” said Harold Duncan, staring across the desk at Jack Warner.

It was 4 a.m., so Warner’s office lights were off, as were those in the hall, and, for that matter, most of the building, and the heat was lowered as far as was safe in this part of the world. But the windows let in plenty of bright sunlight, ignoring their oh-so-human perception of time.

“You think I don’t know that?” said Warner, running a hand through his thin hair and leaning forward on his forearms. “Of course I know that! It’s a problem, we’ll solve it, simple as that.”

Harold grunted, but said nothing. In his experience, absolutely
nothing
in this life was “as simple as that.”

“We’ll just have to be careful. See what they have planned, then come up with a solution. If and when they’re able to get here, we can hide the bodies. We can… silence Jennifer, if we have to.”

Harold sat forward in his chair, not trying to hide his eagerness. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Warner refused to meet his eyes. “She’s a problem, I’ll grant you that. So far, keeping her quiet has worked, but now… if they make it down here…”

Harold just waited.

“Yes, OK, something more…
permanent
… will have to be done. But let’s burn that bridge
after
we’ve crossed it, shall we?”

Harold nodded. He was fine with that. As long as the bridge got burned, and he was the one doing the burning… well, he’d never been good with metaphors.

Jennifer Shaw knows too much. The bitch has to die, plain and simple
.

Chapter Twelve

AEGIS Bunker One
Two months later

Kim looked around when she heard a quiet knock on the door of the colonel’s office. They had been going over reports together.

It was Daniel. “There’s a call for the colonel.”

She stood. “I’ll take it in Ops.”

Daniel shook his head. “You should take it here. It’s from Captain Anderson.”

Kim’s eyes widened and she turned back to the governor. “Maybe he’s got word from that Air Force base?”

Gates nodded to Daniel. “Send it in, please.”

Daniel left, and a moment later the governor’s phone rang.

Gates hit the Speaker button and leaned forward in expectation. “Hello again, Captain. You’re on speaker; I’ve got Colonel Barnes here with me.”

“Hi, Frank,” said Kim, taking her seat once more.

“Hello Governor, Kim. Good to hear your voices.”

“Likewise, I’m sure,” said Gates. “Do you have some news for us?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do. You’ll remember that I sent a recon group down to Lackland Air Force Base to check it out? Well, it’s a good thing I did, ma’am. From what my mechanics tell me, there’s several C-5 Galaxy aircraft on the tarmac down there, and a couple more in the hangars.”

“What kind of shape are they in?” asked Kim. “And what about fuel? We’ve had a problem with that up here.”

“That’s just it, Colonel. None of them are in great shape, which is hardly unexpected after ten years without maintenance. My guys think they can get one good jet out of the rest of them, what with cannibalizing parts from most of the others. Some of them aren’t even good for
that
. They weren’t able to check all the stores, though. The base was crawling with walkers, so it took a while to clear it and they ran out of time once that was done. But given that this was a training base for the big planes, among other things, they’re all pretty confident they can find the parts they’ll need.

“As to fuel,” Anderson continued, “they’ve got some huge underground tanks out there, which makes sense given their training and everything. The mechanics say it’s still usable, too; been tight-sealed for about ten years and only marginally compromised. Probably not what those planes are used to, but it should suffice for a there-and-back.”

“The base was crawling with walkers, eh?” asked Kim. “Any casualties?”

Pride was evident in Anderson’s voice. “Not even a skinned knee, Colonel. Although they did have a close call or two. Nothing they couldn’t handle. About this Frankenstein of a plane, though…”

“There’s always a ‘but,’” said Gates. “Out with it, Captain.”

“They say the plane will get down there OK, but there’s no guarantee it’ll get
back
, conditions in the Antarctic being what they are. None of these boys know anything about cold weather maintenance, being from the south.”

Kim and Gates looked at each other, their grim looks reflected as if in a mirror. “So,” said Gates, “what you’re telling me is that we’ve got one plane that will get us there, and it’s big enough to get about half those people on it, but there’s no guarantee the plane can get back, to say nothing of making a second round trip?”

“That’s the long and the short of it, ma’am.”