Tourists of the Apocalypse (3 page)

I drag my purse across the marble grunting all the way. There is another huge set of double doors with a sign reading
Catch Room Actual
. Just before the big doors is a smaller single door. It’s white, probably metal, but not steel. The plaque reads
Clean-up
.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I exhale deeply, popping the door with my phone.

The room is small, akin to a walk in closet. A dustpan and broom hang on the wall. Two mop buckets on wheels fill one corner. I am shocked to see a lightbulb hanging from a wire above. It looks out of place in the middle of this bastion of technology. I tug on the string, and the one very bright bulb sprinkles the room with light. The bulb sways back and forth throwing shadows around. We have one like it at home in the barn.

“There’s no place like home. No place like home. No place like home,” I recite, dropping my weighty purse.

The
Catch Room
doors open by themselves on motors. There is an
Observation Room
just inside on the left. It’s a narrow room the looks into
the Catch Room
. There is some sort of plate glass window running the length on one side. There is an elevator door on the back of the room. Waylon told me that this elevator goes directly to the secretive 5
th
floor.

I limp into the control room and find two rolling office chairs facing the windows. I drop into one then look into the
Catch Room.
It’s a hexagon, all tiled in white with the exception of the last row of tile before the walls. This row is brick red and frames the room. I’d guess fifty feet across and at least ten feet high. There’s one huge light hanging in the center than reminds me of the lights on a pole like dentists have.

Taking the office chair with me, I exit the control room and roll out into the
Catch
area. In the center, I turn slowly in the chair, making sure Waylon’s intel was correct. One side has the observation glass, but the next wall over has a clock embedded in it. It’s digital, showing the time in bright green numbers. Just to the right of the clock is a brick red medicine cabinet. The cabinet is bolted to the wall, a white cross painted across the doors. A key pad and card slider grace one side.

The clock reads eleven forty-five, but that’s not what time it really is. When I hit send this morning, taking over the mainframe, all the clocks in the building started running faster. Even people’s phones followed suit. Everyone thinks its noon, but it’s actually almost thirty minutes earlier than that.
It’s about to get crowded in here.

Pushing myself backward in the chair, I glide out of the room. While I roll back to the
Clean-up
closet I use my phone to shut all the doors and dim the lights. I can’t quite stop in time and run into the door with a thud. The clock on my phone now reads eleven fifty-nine.

“Let the games begin,” I whisper, slipping into the
Clean-up
room.

To be safe, I override the door so that it can’t be opened. I don’t need a guy looking for a roll of paper towels finding me. In the lab coat pocket is a magnetic strip with tape on the back. I peel the paper off and apply it to the door frame. Once it’s secure I stick my phone to it. Eye level with me sitting on the chair, I can see the phone with my hands free.

There is a red number readout running on top. It’s counting down forty-five minutes. In the middle section are boxes with video feeds. My phone is jacked into all of the surveillance cameras. From the direction of the lift, the double doors open and three men in yellow radiation suits march my way. I had thought they would come down in the lift in the
Observation Room
. They glide right by the camera and I can just make them out through the glass when they reach the
Observation Room
. The men will sit here for thirty minutes in case the
Fail Safe
shows up.

“Alright Lucy,” I whisper. “A hundred lines on the list and I am only on number fifty. Keep your eye on the ball.”

In my purse is a headband with a small light mounted onto it. Slipping it on my head, the tiny light focuses its glare on my lap. There is also a razor knife in the bag and I push out the triangular blade and begin cutting. I push the blade into my slacks halfway up my thigh and then work my way around. I struggle to lift the artificial limb high enough to cut around the back, but manage it with some grunting. When the pant leg is free, it slides down my prosthetic, landing around the ballet flats. I repeat this process with the other leg, leaving me in rough cut shorts.

The top of my artificial legs is a cone that fits snugly over my thighs. Bouncing a bit in the chair, I manage to push the right leg off. This leaves the thigh covered in a white sock. It’s warm in here, but what’s left of my leg is always hot and sweaty. I peel the sock off, exhaling in relief.

Angling my head to point the light, I pick some dry skin off one of the scars that fan out from the uneven lump located where my femur ends. The scars are thick and sometimes itchy. I rubbed lotion on them this morning to alleviate this for the most part. I should get working on the now free prosthetic, but the air on my stump feels good, so I remove the other stocking before starting. Once free of them both, I balance carefully and begin taking my legs apart.

“Some assembly required,” I mutter, keeping one eye on the camera feed.

The legs have one long tube a little over two centimeters in diameter. I use a sturdy allen wrench with a tee grip handle to remove this. Inside the long tube are nine shotgun shells. There is a slightly narrower tube that will become the barrel of the gun and I free that now, carefully setting the loose pieces on a stack of boxes next to the door. The other leg has the same tube of shells as the first. This mounts on a spring loaded turnkey, allowing the user to spin it into position once the previous tubes shells are spent. The plastic foot sections split into two and become the stock and butt of the firearm. A series of tiny socket-wrenches and nut drivers litter my makeshift workstation provided by a cardboard box by the time I am finished.

“Not bad,” I remark, pointing the gun at the ceiling and looking down the barrel.

It appears to be a standard shotgun, although it has a rather Frankenstein look to it. The colors are off as well, since it’s constructed out of white plastic and grey aluminum. Only the barrel section is dark steel, the rest is lightweight scraps. The long tube of shells has a twin suspended above it. A thumb catch forces the tube to spin out and replaces it with the tube overhead. It’s rather like an old .45 revolver with only two chambers. This gives the user eighteen shots.

“More than necessary,” I estimate, setting butt down on the floor and leaning the business end on a hanging mop.

Checking a hijacked video feed from a camera inside, I see the men are still in the
Observation Room
. One sits, while the other two lean on the wall. When the
Fail Safe
fails to flash into existence they should go. Unaware that the clocks are wrong, the guest of honor will arrive fifteen minutes later. If all goes according to plan, only I will be here to greet him.

Six minutes pass and the men break off their discussion, pile into the lift and disappear to the fifth floor. The lights go out leaving the camera feed nothing but darkness.

“Showtime,” I grunt, pushing the door open and peeling my phone off the magnetic strip.

Hooking my purse over the back of the chair, I put the gun in my lap and roll into the passageway. The metal double doors of the
Catch Room
open slowly as the lights flicker back on. Now legless, I put my back to my destination and use the gun to push the chair backward. This is a tiresome rowing process and sweat returns to my forehead. Several minutes pass before I glide through the metals doors. Pointing my phone at the digital clock on the wall, it suddenly switches from a clock to the countdown. Large green numbers flicker on the easy-to-read wall mount.

-00:13:56

When the clock hits zero, it will count up for another forty-five minutes. That’s the width and breadth of the window. Mr.
Fail Safe
will have that long to recover and get to the fifth floor. After that, we all just sit around and wait for the fireworks.

With this room now more or less cut off from the rest of the building, I paddle over to the medicine cabinet. My phone pops the lock, leaving me staring at an arsenal of medical devices and supplies. I run the mental list through my head and start tossing things onto the floor. Scalpels, scissors, bandages, syringes and vials of various drugs spill out onto the white tiles. A bit too high for me to reach, the compression bandages and aerosol cans full of BIC taunt me from the top shelf. I use the gun to poke at them until they topple out, bouncing off my head as they fall.

“Nice,” I grumble, shaking my head.

On the left outside of the cabinet is a portable defibrillator unit. Rather than fight with it, I whack it with the butt of the gun, dropping it to the floor. Turning slowly in the chair, I mumble to myself, taking inventory of the items strewn there. When satisfied that nothing has been missed, I set the gun against the wall and stare down at the floor. Pulling up on the handle under the seat, I lower the chair as far as it will go and slip off, hitting the floor hard from two feet off the tiles.

Still wearing my lab jacket, I push myself back against the wall. Taking a moment to shake off the jarring fall, I riffle through the tiny boxes on the floor. Inside one are glass vials containing bright red cigarettes. When I hold one up to the light and shake it, a wooden match can be seen tucked away under the smoke.

“Thought of everything,” I remark, setting the vial down and breaking it open with the butt of the gun.

I carefully sweep the glass to one side and blow on the cigarette to clean it off. Dragging the match over the tiles ignites a yellow flame, giving off a sulfur smell. I suck in when the flame hits the end of the cigarette filling my ears with a loud crackle noise.

“Tastes like a nine-volt battery,” I cough, smoke coming out my nose. Undeterred, I take another drag, checking the clock.

-00:04:36

The cigarettes are medical grade for people trapped in radioactive areas. They are full of iodine or some such thing. Not treatment per se, but intended to mitigate the symptoms. I’m only smoking them to put off the inevitable.
Technically speaking, I am out of here in under an hour.

Using the butt of the gun as if I were playing shuffleboard, I put the supplies into a semblance of order. I open up the defibrillator kit and charge the paddles. The main unit emits a pulse every ten seconds as it charges. The cigarette burns down to the butt and I flick it out into the center of the room. It bounces twice then settles just to the right of center. A lazy wisp of smoke trails into the air above it. The defibrillator unit chips a warning that it’s nearly ready to use. I’m reaching for another cigarette vial when I notice the clock.

-00:01:36

For some reason my stomach turns over and a sense of dread washes over me like an eclipse. I should feel triumphant, but I don’t. I have invested my entire life in this moment. Moreover, generations of my family have invested far more than that. I have no regrets or reservations about their decision or mine, but there is one sliver of concern stuck in the back of my brain, a miniscule ember that has chosen this moment to smolder into a fire.

“What if the
he
doesn’t come through?” I ponder, smashing my hand into the tiles, cracking the vial held there.

When I bring my hand back there is a blotch of blood on the tiles. I remove a shard of glass from the side of my hand with my teeth and spit it out. A small crimson drop rolls down my arm and turns the lab coat under it pink. I lick the blood off, before slipping the cigarette in the corner of my mouth.

“Cross that bridge when I come to it,” I announce, dragging the match across the tiled floor and igniting cigarette number two. “Not a lot I can do about it now.”

-00:00:42

Abandoning the red stick between my lips, I dig in my lab coat pocket. I return with a dinged up pair of sunglasses. Simple black frames with matching lenses, you can get them cheap on any street corner in the city. I pull them on and puff smoke out of the corner of my mouth. Leaning back on the wall, I try to quiet the persistent doubts.
Did I do everything? Did I miss anything?

-00:00:17

The defibrillator unit sounds an alarm telling me that it’s charged. The wonk, wonk, wonk, repeats over and over. A green light mounted on the top flashes in rhythm with the shrill noise.

“Hold that thought,” I grouse, pausing to take one last hit and then toss the half smoked butt into the center of the room. “Now kids, don’t look directly into the light.”

00:00:00

Nothing happens. I watch as the countdown begins running in the other direction. I had assumed
Mr
.
Fail Safe
would arrive exactly at zero, but I am left legless on the floor alone.
What’s a girl to do now?
In forty-four minutes the party will go on regardless, but it rings rather hollow without the guest of honor. I watch the clock for another three minutes before coming to grips with my own failure. Not just me, but twenty generations or more of my family.

“I’m here,” I complain, pounding a hand on the white linoleum. “Where the hell are you?”

When no answer comes, silent tears flow down my cheeks. I’m not sure how to feel.
Is it failure or anger?
In the end, I decide that feeling nothing would be preferred.

“Stood up by a man,” I complain, digging around in the piles of medical supplies. “Why is this not a huge surprise?”

I have to look at maybe a dozen vials before finding the Morphine. I stop to rub my face on my sleeve several times to wipe away the tears of failure. Tilting it up, I draw out an entire syringe and flick the end. The air bubbles disappear as a tiny bit of liquid dribbles out of the tip of the needle, running down my finger. At first I look for an alcohol swab to wipe down my thigh, but then smile when I realize the folly.
An infection is not what’s about to kill me.