The Twelve (Book Two of The Passage Trilogy): A Novel (62 page)

Something was being fed down there.

And then shortly after noon on the fifth day, Alicia was resting in the culvert where she’d made her camp when she heard the distant wallop of an explosion. She pointed her binoculars to the heart of the city. A plume of black smoke was uncoiling from the base of the hill. At least one building was on fire. She watched while men and vehicles raced to the scene. A pumper truck was brought in to douse the flames. By now she had learned to distinguish the prisoners from their keepers, but on this occasion a third class of individuals appeared. There were three of them. They descended upon the site of the catastrophe in a sleek black vehicle utterly unlike the salvaged junkers Alicia had seen, straightening their neckties and fussing with the creases of their suits as they emerged into the winter sunshine. What strange costumes were these? Their eyes were concealed by heavy dark glasses. Was it just the brightness of the day or something else? Their presence had an instantaneous effect, the way a stone cast ripples across the surface of a pond. Waves of anxious energy radiated from the others on the scene. One of the suited men appeared to be taking notes on a clipboard while the other two shouted orders, gesturing wildly. What was she seeing? A leadership caste, that was apparent; everything about the city implied one’s existence. But what was the explosion? Was it an accident or something deliberate? A chink in the armor, perhaps?

Her orders were clear. Scout the city, assess the threat, report back to Kerrville in sixty days. Under no circumstances was she to engage the inhabitants. But nothing said she had to stay outside the wires.

The time had come to take a closer look.

She chose the stadium.

For two more days, she observed the comings and goings of the trucks. The fences were no problem; getting into the basement would be the
tricky part. The door, like the portal on the bunker, looked impenetrable. Only when a truck hit the top of the ramp would the door ascend, sealing quickly as the vehicle passed through, all of it perfectly timed.

Dusk of the third day: behind a stand of scrub, Alicia stripped herself of weapons—all but the Browning, snug in its holster, and a single blade sheathed against her spine. She had scouted a spot in the wires where her ascent would be concealed by one of several buildings that appeared unused. A hundred yards of open ground separated these buildings from the ramp. Once the driver of the van rounded the corner, Alicia would have six seconds to cross the distance. Easy, she told herself. Nothing to it.

She took the fence with a single toehold, scuttled against the building’s rear wall, and peered around the corner. There it was, right on time, churning toward the stadium: the van. The driver downshifted as he approached the turn.

Go.

When the vehicle hit the top of the ramp, Alicia was just twenty feet behind it. The door, ascending on clattering chains, approached its apex. With a vaulting stride she took to the air, alighting on the van’s roof and dropping facedown within half a second of passing beneath the door.

Flyers, was she
good
.

Already she was feeling it, feeling
them
. The too-familiar prickling along her skin and, deep inside her skull, a watery murmuring, like the caress of waves upon a distant shore. The van, at reduced speed, was moving through a tunnel. Ahead she saw a second door. The driver beeped the horn; the door rose to let them through. Another three seconds: the van drew to a halt.

They were in a wide, open space, fifty feet on a side. Peeking over the top of the windshield, Alicia counted eight men. Six were armed with rifles; the other two wore heavy backpacks with tanks and long steel wands. At the far end of the room was a third door, different from the others: a heavy steel contraption with thick crossbars set into the frame.

One of the men sauntered toward the van, holding a clipboard; she pressed herself as flat against the roof as she could.

“How many you got?”

“The usual.”

“Are we supposed to do them as a group?”

“Hell if I know. What does the order say?”

A shuffling of paper. “Well, it doesn’t,” the second man answered. “A group, I suppose.”

“Is the betting pool still open?”

“If you want.”

“Give me seven seconds.”

“Sod has seven. You’ll have to pick something else.”

“Six, then.” The driver’s door creaked opened; Alicia heard his feet hit the concrete floor. “I like the cows better. It takes longer.”

“You are one sick bastard, you know that?” There was a pause. “You’re right, though. It is pretty cool.” He directed his voice away from the van. “Okay, everybody, showtime! Let’s dim the lights!”

With a thunk the lights extinguished, replaced by a twilight-blue glow emanating from caged bulbs along the ceiling. All the men were backing away from the door at the far end of the room. There could be no doubt what lay on the other side; Alicia sensed it in her bones. A metal gate began to drop from the ceiling, then jolted to a stop. The men with the backpacks had taken up positions on the near side of the gate, wicks of flame dancing at the tips of their wands. The driver strode to the rear of the van and opened it.

“Come on, out with you.”

“Please,” a man’s voice pleaded, “you don’t have to do this! You’re not like them!”

“It’s okay, it’s not what you think. Be a good fellow now.”

A woman this time: “We haven’t done anything! I’m only thirty-eight!”

“Really? I could have sworn you were older.” The click of a cocking revolver. “All of you, let’s move.”

One by one they were hauled from the van, six men and four women, shackled at the wrists and ankles. They were sobbing, pleading for their lives. Some could barely stand. While two men kept their rifles trained, the driver moved among them with a ring of keys, unlocking the chains.

“What are you unshackling them for?” one of the other guards asked.

“Please, don’t do this!” the woman cried. “I’m begging you! I have children!”

The driver backhanded the woman, knocking her to the ground. “Did I tell you to shut up?” Then, holding up a pair of shackles to the guard: “You want to clean these things later? I sure don’t.”

Do not engage the inhabitants
, Alicia told herself.
Do not engage the inhabitants. Do not engage the inhabitants
.

“Sod?” the driver called. “Are we ready over there?”

A piggish-looking man stood off to the side at some kind of control panel. He moved a lever, and the gate gave a little twitch. “Hang on a second, it’s jammed.”

Do not engage, do not engage, do not engage …

“There, that’s got it.”

The hell with it.

Alicia rolled off the roof to find herself standing face-to-face with the driver. “Howdy.”

“Son of a … bitch?”

She drew her blade and shoved it under his ribs. With a sharp exhalation he staggered backward.

“All of you,” Alicia yelled, “hit the floor!”

Alicia unholstered the Browning and moved forward into the room, the weapon cupped in her hands, firing methodically. The guards seemed too stunned to react: one by one she began to pick them off in rusty spurts of blood. The head. The heart. The head again. Behind her, the prisoners had erupted in a torrent of wild screaming. Her mind was focused, clear as glass. The air grew suffused with a sweet intoxication of blood. She popped them off their feet. She lit them up like lightning. Nine bullets in her magazine; she’d finish them off with one to spare.

It was one of the men with the flamethrowers that got her. Though he certainly didn’t intend to. At the instant Alicia pulled the trigger, he was trying only to protect himself—an instinctive gesture, to duck his head and turn his back to her.

45

“Papers.”

Willing her fingers to stop trembling, Sara held the forged pass out for the guard. Her heart was hammering so hard against her ribs, it was a wonder the woman couldn’t hear it. She snatched the pass from Sara’s hands and looked it over quickly, darting her eyes to Sara’s face before examining it a final time and shoving it back without expression.

“Next!”

Sara pushed through the revolving wire door. A final act: once on the other side, she was on her own. Beyond it lay a fenced chute, like something in a slaughterhouse. A column of day laborers was shuffling through—groundskeepers, kitchen workers, mechanics. More cols stood watch on either side of the chute, holding back snarling dogs on chains, laughing among themselves whenever one of the flatlanders flinched. Bags were searched, everyone was patted down. Drawing her shawl around her head, Sara kept her eyes averted. The real danger was being
seen by someone who knew her—flatlander, col, it didn’t matter. Not until she was wearing the veil of an attendant would she be safely anonymous.

How Eustace had managed to place her in the Dome, Sara didn’t know.
We’re everywhere
was all he would say. Once she was inside, her contact would find her. An exchange of code words, ordinary remarks of hidden meaning, would establish their identities. She moved up the hill, trying to make herself invisible by keeping her eyes to the ground, though on second thought, should she? Would it seem more natural to look around? Even the air seemed different here—cleaner, but in a way that seemed laden, humming with danger. At the periphery of her downcast vision she detected a heavy presence of HR personnel, moving in twos and threes. Probably they had ramped up security because of the car bombing, but who knew? Maybe it was always like this.

The Dome was ringed by concrete barricades. She showed her pass at the guardhouse and ascended the wide staircase that led to the entrance, a pair of massive doors set in a bronze frame. At the threshold she drew air into her chest. Here goes, she thought.

The doors were flung open, forcing her to dodge to the side. Two redeyes brushed past, the collars of their suits turned up against the cold, leather briefcases swinging from their hands. She thought she had escaped their notice when the one on the left halted on the top step and turned to look at her. “Watch where you’re going, flatlander.”

She was staring at the ground, doing anything to avoid their eyes. Even behind their dark lenses, they had the power to make her insides twist. “Sorry, sir. My mistake.”

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”

It felt like a trap. “I meant no offense,” she murmured. “I have a pass.” She held it out.

“I said,
look at me
.”

Against all instincts, Sara slowly raised her face. For a fraught moment, the redeye considered her from behind the inscrutable shield of his glasses, making no move to accept the pass. The second one’s attentions appeared elsewhere; he was merely indulging his companion with this interruption in their day. There was something distinctly infantile about them, thought Sara. With their soft, unblemished faces and boyishly limber bodies, they were like overgrown children playing dress-up. Everything was a game to them.

“When one of us tells you to do something, you do it.”

The other one puffed his cheeks impatiently. “What the hell is with you today? She’s nobody. Can we please just go?”

“Not until I’m done here.” Then, to Sara: “Have I made myself clear?”

Her blood felt like ice in her veins. It took every ounce of her will not to look away. Those demonic eyes. That curling sneer. “Yes, sir,” she stammered. “Completely.”

“Tell me. What is it that you do?”

“Do?”

A flicker of a smile, like a cat with a mouse in its paws. “Yes, what do you do. What’s your job.”

She offered an obsequious shrug. “I just clean, sir.” When he made no reply, she added, “I’m going to be an attendant.”

The redeye studied her another moment, deciding if this was a satisfactory answer or not. “Well, here’s a little word to the wise, flatlander. You go through those doors, you best watch yourself. It doesn’t take much.”

“I will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Now get the fuck to work.”

Sara waited for the pair to complete their descent before she allowed her body to unclench.
Flyers
, she thought.
For the love of God, get ahold of yourself. You’re about to walk into a building full of these things
.

She screwed up her courage and opened the door.

She was instantly overwhelmed by a feeling of expansiveness, her sense of dimension distorted by a vertical vastness of space. She’d never seen anyplace like it: the gleaming marble floor, the tiers of balconies, the massive, curving stairs. The ceiling soared far above. Diminished sunlight descended from the high, curtained windows of the cupola, dimming the interior to a kind of twilight. Everything seemed both loud and quiet at once, the tiniest sounds reverberating before being absorbed by the void. Cols were stationed both around the room’s periphery and at regular intervals on the stairs. A line of workers, ten deep, waited at the processing desk in the middle of the room. She assumed her place behind a man with a bag of tools over his shoulder. The desire to glance past him to see what lay ahead was intense but nothing to indulge. The line crept forward as each pass was stamped. She was fifth in line, then third, then second. The man with the tool bag stepped to the side, revealing the figure seated behind the desk.