Zompoc Survivor: Inferno (12 page)

All three of us froze when we heard a door open. Low voices sounded nearby, then we heard a palm slapping flesh followed by a surprised yelp. We plastered ourselves against the wall as footsteps approached, then a slight figure in blue coveralls rounded the corner.

“If I was trying to escape, where would I be?” I heard Amy mutter.

“Waiting for the elevator,” I whispered softly. She started, then rushed forward and grabbed me in a fierce hug.

“Thank God,” she whispered. “We’ve gotta get out of here, quick.”

“That’s the plan,” Kaplan said softly as he handed her vest and gear to her.

“I mean off this floor. Whatever you said really spooked Hall, and I figured we’d want some kind of distraction…so I kinda started a fire in the room next to mine before I snuck out.”

“Smart girl,” I said as she shrugged into her vest. I went to the elevator and pulled the key I’d made at the hospital from its pocket. Seconds later, the doors were sliding open. In this building, the service ladder was just a step inside the hoistway. I grabbed ahold and started climbing down. Hernandez was right behind me, her progress slowed by her injured left arm. She kept her wounded limb at her side, using it mostly to keep herself from falling as she grabbed the rungs with her right. Like the hospital, the elevator had gone to the first floor and stopped. Once again, we found ourselves on top of an elevator car.

“How’d you know to come back here?” Kaplan asked as Amy crouched beside me.

“Dave told me to the last time we talked,” she said as if it should have been perfectly obvious. She watched his face in the glow of my flashlight for a moment before she spoke again. “Did you ever watch Star Trek II?” He shook his head, and she laughed. “The part Dave was talking about with Saavik was about coded communications. When he said I usually did the opposite of what he told me to, he was telling me to do the opposite of what he was saying.”

“How did you know he hadn’t seen it?” Hernandez asked.

I shrugged. “I didn’t really, though he didn’t get the reference I made when we were eating dinner, so I figured I had a better than fifty-fifty chance that he hadn’t. Now, it’s time to kick this ant-hill over and really get the ball rolling.” I pulled the radio I’d taken from the equipment room out of my pocket, put the earphone in my ear and switched it on. A few seconds later, I heard someone report in. A few seconds later, someone replied, and I pressed the transmit button.

“Hey guys, this is Dave Stewart. Have any of you seen me lately?” Immediately, someone ordered the guards to check on me.

“Shit, he’s not here!” a frantic voice came back a few seconds later. “He’s in the ceiling!” Gunshots sounded overhead a few seconds later. Chaos filled the airwaves for a few minutes as orders were sent out, contradicted, countermanded, and repeated. Finally, Caleb’s deep rumble came over the air.

“Everyone, kill the chatter and switch channels. Stewart, the Prophet wants to talk to you.”

“I’m aquiver with anticipation,” I parroted Hall’s earlier words.

“Dave, give up now, or I kill that sweet little girl of yours.”

“I’m warning you, Daniel!” I hissed. “You better not even try it.”

“I am the Prophet of God Himself,” Hall said. In the background, I heard people talking as he continued. “No man defies me without…what do you mean she’s gone? Where the fu-” the transmission cut off abruptly.

“I warned you.” I fell silent as the pounding of feet came from the other side of the door. Voices sounded outside the elevator.

“The Prophet wants every available man on his security detail. Jake, pull all but two of the men guarding the Sinners. You three, go down to the garage in case he tries to get out that way.” I heard them leave, then silence.

“Damn it Stewart, show your face!” Hall yelled. “Quit hiding like a coward.”

“Patience, Brother Daniel,” I said with a smile. “I’m just getting started.” I popped the door open and slipped out into the hallway.

“I swear to you, I’ll finish this.” Hall’s voice was trembling with rage.

“You shouldn’t swear,” I said softly as I peered around the corner. “It’s not attractive in a prophet. Besides, you have bigger things to worry about than me. Do you smell smoke?”

“You are so far inside his OODA loop it’s scary,” Kaplan said as we crept toward the holding area.

“What’s an udaloop?” Amy whispered.

“O-O-D-A,” Hernandez whispered back. “Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It’s a decision making process. Dave’s reacting faster to the situation, so he keeps forcing the Prophet to make bad decisions because he’s ‘inside’ his loop and hiding what he’s really doing.” Amy’s mouth twisted into a knowing grin.

“He got in his head,” she said, then turned to me. “She’s got you pegged.” We moved among the haphazardly piled office furniture until we saw the glow of lanterns ahead of us. Two men in brown stood at the windows, facing away from me. I drew the SOCOM and the suppressor and started to screw it onto the barrel. Hernandez and Kaplan unlimbered their SMGs.

“Okay, how do you guys want to do this?” I asked the two Marines. “I’d rather not kill these two, but if one of them gets a call out…”

“I thought you had this all planned out,” Kaplan said softly. I shook my head.

“I’ve been mostly making this up as I go along,” I said.

“Great,” Amy muttered. “More Xanatos speedchess.”

“Can you two knock someone out quietly?” I asked. Kaplan shrugged, and Hernandez pulled her crowbar from her belt. We crept up behind the two men. Their attention was on their radios, and they never heard us. Hernandez swung her crowbar at the back of her target’s head, and he went down in a heap. Kaplan grabbed his man, spun him around and punched him. There was an odd comfort in seeing someone getting punched out that wasn’t me. I knelt beside Hernandez’s man and pulled his radio from his shirt pocket. As I checked the indicator for the channel Hall’s people were using, several people started walking toward us, coming into the light. A group of them were dressed in suits or designer jeans and tops, but behind them were people in less expensive clothes, mostly jeans and t-shirts, and one familiar figure in boxer shorts and a white tank top.

“Mr. Garza,” I said to him as I pulled the guard’s shirt off. “I was hoping I’d find you on the way out.” I yanked his shoes off as Garza stepped forward.

“What do you want?” he asked, his tone wary. I tossed the shirt to him and started undoing the unconscious man’s pants.

“Come with us if you want to live,” I quoted as I pulled the brown trousers free and tossed them Garza’s way.

“You’re taking me with you,” an older man in a gray suit jacket and slacks said. His round face sported multiple chins and his button down shirt was stained with sweat. Several of the well-dressed men and women stepped forward and voiced their agreement.

“The plan was to help you all get out of here if you wanted,” I said as I switched the radio I’d taken to the new frequency.

“That’s not good enough,” the man said. “You have to get
me
to safety. Do you even know who I am? I’m Cyrus Wall, the owner of Wall Propane. My tax dollars pay your salary, and I have important friends in Washington. If you people know what’s good for you, you’re going to get me to the nearest inprocessing center and you’re going to make sure my ass is on the first flight to St Louis. You got it?” I cocked my head at him as I found myself face to face with the kind of person I used to have to listen to at Provident American, then turned and raised an eyebrow at Kaplan and Hernandez. Both of them shook their heads, and I glanced over my shoulder at Amy. Her expression dripped disgust.

“You’re on your own, Cyrus,” I said. “We can help you get out of here, but after that the best I can tell you is to head east or south of here.” Several people nodded, including some of the crowd behind Cyrus.

“We’ll help,” Garza said. “Just let us know what we can do.”

“For the moment, I need everyone to stay quiet,” I said as I help up my stolen radio. Garza nodded, and the room went silent. I held the radio up and pressed the transmit key. “Hey, Daniel. It’s Dave. You listening?”

“I’m here,” Hall said. “I thought you would have had the balls to try to kill me by now.”

“Nah, it’s too much fun watching you sweat. I just wanted to tell you something before things get serious, though. I lied when I said the last thing you were going to hear before I killed you was the sound of my voice.”

“What am I gonna hear instead, David?” he asked tightly.

“Silence.” I dropped the radio as Hall’s frantic voice came through the ear bud. The sound of a round being chambered in a pistol was loud in the room, and I looked to my left to see Cyrus pointing the other guard’s gun at us. Kaplan, Hernandez and I brought our guns up in unison.

“I’ve had enough!” he snapped. “You’re going to do what you’re told or I’m going to shoot someone!” He waved the gun back and forth, then he focused in on Amy and brought the barrel to bear on her. “I’ll start with the dead weight. Now put the guns down. Now!” All three of us lowered the barrels of our guns, but none of us set them down. Slowly, I put my finger on the trigger of the SOCOM, and the laser sight put a green dot on Wall’s stomach.

“Don’t threaten her,” I said. “It’s bad for you.”

“Fuck you!” he yelled. “I’m the man with the gun, I’ll shoot whoever the hell I want! I’m sick of people like you thinking you fucking matter. You’re failures for a reason! Now get your lazy asses in gear and get me out of here.”

“People like me,” I said softly. Slowly, I brought the green dot up to his hand. “You know the big difference between ‘people like me’ and douchebags like you?”

“About twenty million dollars a year,” Wall sneered.

I pulled the trigger.

For a moment, he stood there and looked down at the ruin of his right hand as the gun flew to one side. Everyone behind him jumped at the sound of the SOCOM’s suppressed bark. Then he grabbed at his hand and let off a pitiful little wail. He dropped to his knees and kept up the high pitched keening. When I took a step toward him, he shrank back from me.

“I don’t point a gun at someone unless I’m ready to pull the trigger,” I told him, then turned to face the rest of the people that had gathered. “Anyone who wants to make a break for it is welcome to tag along, but I’ll warn you now, it’s likely to be a fight to get out of the garage. Honestly, if it’s safety you want, you’re better off staying here. If you can live with what you have to give up for a little security, then by all means…stay. Otherwise, follow me.” I scooped up the naked guard’s gun belt and started walking back the way we’d come from.

“You can’t leave me like this,” Wall whimpered as I went past him. I stopped and turned a hard gaze on him.

“You threatened my kid,” I told him. “You don’t fucking matter.” I turned and walked away. Garza caught up with me as we headed through the darkened hallway toward the elevators. I offered the gun to him, but he held up a hand to refuse it. I shrugged and we walked in silence, but I could feel his eyes on me every step of the way.

“What’s the plan?” Kaplan asked when I stopped at the other stairway. Ten, maybe twelve people were milling around behind him with one of the lanterns lighting the group’s way.

“The three of us go down into the garage and grab one of the Strykers…maybe two, if we have someone else who can drive one. There’s an armory upstairs, and given the way things have been going tonight, it might be lightly guarded. If some of you wanted to… ummm… liberate some weapons while we take care of the guards downstairs, we’ll wait for you.”

“We’ll need some guns,” one of the men said. I held up the pistol I’d taken and the shotgun. The man who’d spoken stepped forward and took the gunbelt. A woman came up and took the shotgun. I studied them in the lantern’s glow as they looked the guns over. The man was in his thirties, with dark hair that was cut close to his scalp. Judging by his jeans, the dark button down shirt and sturdy combat boots, I would have guessed he’d been a cop before the world went nuts. The woman was a different story altogether. In her forties, she had the look of a professional, with brown hair streaked with gray. Her dark slacks had obviously seen better days. The pale silk blouse she wore had been torn in a couple of places, and her feet were bare. While the man handled the pistol with the smooth confidence of long familiarity, the woman handled the shotgun like she’d never held one up close. However, with each passing second, I could see that she was becoming more and more comfortable with it. Her eyes and hands moved over the weapon, and after a few moments she racked the pump back carefully, letting it move just enough to see if there was a shell in the chamber. When she could see that the chamber was empty, she completed the action and turned to face me.

“Do you have any more ammunition for this?” she asked. I smiled and handed her the box of shells I’d taken for it. She immediately thumbed one into the tube and grabbed another handful and stuck them in her front pocket.

“No more than one rifle and one pistol per person,” Kaplan said. “Go heavy on the ammo.”

“We got this,” the man with the pistol said as he and the woman led some of the others up the stairs. Kaplan joined Hernandez and me at the door to the stairwell.

“I hope one of you can drive a Stryker,” I said.

“I’m an LAV driver,” Hernandez said. “A lot of the basics are the same.”