Born (30 page)

"Sit. " The large older man
sits at his desk.

"Leo." Leo stalks in and
growls.

"Push your chair back."

He does and Leo rests his growling face
in the doctor's groin.

"That’s a fucking scary dog
lady."

"He's a wolf." I mutter and tie
his hands to the armrests on the chair. "If you are one of us you'll need
proof you tried to stop me. This looks convincing." I finish the knot and
smack him in the eye with my gun. He winces but doesn’t cry out. His eye is red
and swelling instantly.

Holding his pass I walk to the door and
look both ways. Leo makes a grunt and leaves his groin.

"There is a destruction level in
here."

I glance back, "What?"

"You have to come back and get me
out before you detonate."

I nod.

He sighs, "In case the infection
ever makes it in. It's new. Every building has one now. The infection got into
a building in the south. We have a way to wipe the building. All the breeding
institutes have it. It's in the basement, in the far left corner when you come
off the elevator. It's a time-release detonation bomb. The building implodes
like how they demolished buildings, before."

"How can I get the women out
first?"

"Each wing has a pool. It's their
best hope. It's where we were told to go in case of detonation. The building
has an alarm. The minute you set the bomb the alarm will go off.

"Like a fire alarm."

He nods. His eye is watering and
swelling.

"I will come back for you." I
take a doctors coat off the back of his door and shrug it on. Leo and I walk
out again and look around. I need to get the women out before I blow the
building. The pool sounds like a bad idea but I don’t see any other hope. If I
set the alarm with too much time they could stop it from blowing up the
building.

I try to remember the way back but I
realize it doesn’t really matter. I need to get them all out. I have to go to
every wing.

I see a nurse ahead of me I recognize and
follow. I assume she is on a night shift. She leads me through a doorway. I
stay far enough behind that she doesn’t pay attention to me or the giant wolf
behind me. We end up in the hallway that has the windows to the garden. The
place I used to escape.
"Hide Leo."

I open the door to the garden and let Leo
in there. He leaps in and hides in the garden.

The nurse goes through another doorway
and I break into a run. I arrive at the first door and open it.

"Get up and wake up the girls next
door."

A very pregnant redhead wakes with a
start and looks at me startled, "What?"

"The infection has gotten inside.
Everyone needs to go to the pool. Immediately. We're doing a lockout."

She waddles out of the bed and starts
banging on doors.

I walk until I get to another door that
needs my pass. On the other side of the door there is another hallway with a
kitchen and garden like our side. I run and open the first door, "Wake up
and help wake the other girls. You have to tell them the infection has reached
us. We are all going to the pool. RUN!"

Two women get up and start gathering
their babies. This is the baby hallway. I hear babies starting to cry as I make
my way to the next door with a scanner on it. When I open it I see a man
talking to a young girl on a couch. He's rubbing her leg and shaking his head.
I raise my gun and take aim. They don’t see me. His hand squeezes her thigh and
my finger pulls the trigger before I reason with myself. His head jerks back.
Blood seeps down between his eyes. She sees the blood spray on the back wall
and screams. She screams louder when she sees me.

I put a finger to my lips, "The
infection has gotten in. Tell everyone to wake up and get to the pool. Hurry.
They're destroying the building."

Silent tears roll down her cheeks,
"He was such a kind man." She whispers.

"If you want to stay here with him
feel free. You will be dead shortly if you do. Then you can be together.
Forever." She's up and running before I have to say another word.

I knock on another door just in case she
decides to be a moron.

I wake a young girl with a swollen belly.
She can't be older than Anna. I gag a little, "Everyone needs to wake up.
The infection has spread here. Everyone to the pool. Wake everyone and go there
now."

I go to swipe the card to open the next
door at the end of the long hall but it opens. A shiny woman with a pretty face
frowns, "Who are you?"

I lift the gun and pull the trigger
before she has a chance to scream. She drops to the floor. I step over her and
see another nurse. I know I am in the little kid section. I shoot the nurse in
the back of the head. I look back and see a girl with brown hair who has a slightly
swollen belly, "Come and help the small kids get out."

She follows me but stops when she sees
the dead nurse.

"They're going to leave us here to
get the infection. The alarm is going to sound in a minute or so. They plan to
blow the building up. The pool is the best bet apparently."

She bites her lip hesitantly. "You
are a doctor?"

"I'm one of you. I was on the
women's side. They're going to let us die."

She steps over the nurse, "I never
liked that bitch anyway." She smiles at the small girl in front of her,
"Hey you need to come with me okay."

I turn and walk back. Every hall I pass
through has women running scared. Nurses are on the floors trying to calm
everyone. I shoot the few I can hit without injuring anyone else. It makes the
screaming worse.

I round a corner and hear a woman
speaking. "When the alarm sounds we know then that it's an evacuation. Not
until then."

I sneak my way behind her and run to the
garden where Leo waits. We leave through the other door. I feel lost.

I leave the doorway and enter into a
staff area I see a map on the wall. I tear it off and start walking. I climb a
set of stairs and enter another hallway.

"Hey you. Where do you think you're
going?"

I turn and shoot without thought. The man
in the lab coat drops. I know the guards will be coming soon. Normally they
aren’t allowed in where the women are but dead doctors and nurses are going to
alert someone.

I look down at the map again to see where
the elevator is. I smash the glass it is in and pull the paper out. I fold the
small map and put it in my pocket. I round the corners with stealth. I shoot
one doctor who is on the phone. He drops it onto the desk and collapses. I scan
my way onto the elevator. I push B. I assume it means basement.

When the door opens I am instantly afraid.
It's dark and steamy down here. The place makes noises I've not heard in long
time. Noises motors make.

Leo is afraid. I can see it in his stance
and the hackles on his back.

I peer out into the dim lighting. No one
is there but I am terrified. I step out with Leo next to me. We walk slowly
looking all around us. My stomach is knotted tighter than when Will touches me.

A hissing noise blasts beside us. Leo and
I jump as steam is released from a valve. I almost laugh when it happens but I
feel nauseous for a moment. My injuries are clearly not gone.

A red light starts flashing and a loud
alarm goes off. I see the red light on the wall. In the flashes of red light I
see the far left corner where the detonation place is. I run to the corner. I
look at the red flashes and wonder if the dead doctors and nurses have been
found.

The panel is something I've never seen
before. It's huge and covered in buttons and diagrams. The wall above it has
steps.

1. Open the beige metal lid

2. Press the number of minutes you wish
to allow for evacuation

3. When the red light flashes Re-Enter
the number of minutes and press the green button to set the time

4. Lock out the doors you wish the seal

The lid is already opened. I look at it
and press the one and the zero. The red light flashes and I press the one and
the zero again. I press the green button and look at the labels. I push the
black button next to the doctor's lounges, nurse's rooms and the guard's desks.
The remainder of the doors I leave open I don’t touch the buttons.

I fire several shots at the number pad
and ruin it. There is a slot for a key card. I shoot it too. The bullets
ricochet off the walls and pipes that hang low. Steam starts to come out of
several of the pipes above me. Water comes out of one.

I look at Leo, "We need to go
now."

We run to the elevator but I have a bad
feeling about it. I see an exit sign and run for it. The door has no scanner. I
push it open and listen. There is no sound but I wait one more second. I hear
men shouting. There is a stairwell above me. I climb a flight of the stairs and
listen for the men. They are not in the stairwell. We climb the stairs. On the
second floor I scan my way out. I poke my head and see the hallway I was in
before. The broken glass from the map is on the floor. The dead doctor is also
still on the floor.

Leo growls. I feel it too. I look around
but see nothing. The alarms sounding have doubled. There is a red light and an
orange light flashing opposite each other. My heart is in my throat.

There is something around the corner and
through the doorway that is bad. I can feel it.

I raise my gun and glance quickly around
the corner. Several men stand in a group.

"Rebels in the halls and on the
grass" is all I can make out. I look at Leo and nod at the door next to
us. I open it and we slip inside and wait. I know we have about eight minutes
if we're lucky. The office is empty but it has a window. I look out and see the
several gardens in the middle. There are four. Each wing has it's own garden.
The building is a giant rectangle with the four gardens in the middle. Each has
a glass roof over it. The kids and moms all get natural light from them, like
greenhouses.

I stand at the door and listen. I hear
footsteps and voices. When they pass I almost open the door but I wait ten more
seconds. I hear someone run past the door. I open it and look out. No one is
there. I slip back into the hallway where the stairs to the lower level are.
The hall is empty. If they are trained like I was, they won't double back. This
section is cleared. I reload my clip. Thank god for the seventeen shots. I get
why Mary loves this gun.

We have minutes at most. I start making
my way back to the office where the doctor/spy is tied up. Girls and women are
running every which way. Nurses are telling them to go back to their rooms but
they fight them. I raise my gun and shoot one nurse who is dragging a young
girl to a room. The girl looks at me and smiles.

"
Get
to the pool. The building is about to blow up. The infection is here. We need
to get away. The pool is the only safe spot."
I shout but it only
makes them scream and run more. I run through the building to where I locked
the doctor in. I scan his door open to see him sitting looking terrified and
annoyed.

"About fucking time. Jesus Christ.
What kind of plan is this? We have three minutes until the building implodes
for crying out loud."

I untie him and wince when I see how
swollen his eye is.
"Sorry about that."

He shakes his head, "If they had
opened my door it would have saved me."

We sneak out of his office and run down
the hall to where the women's side is. I scan the door and we run into the main
kitchen area.

"Get to the pool. Please run now or
you will die. The building blows up in three minutes. Hurry please." He is
herding them.
I am scanning the crowd for one face.

In the chaos I don’t see her. The doctor
leads us to the pool. The room is huge. There are windows on one whole side of
the pool.

"Get into the pool." He tries
to talk normally.

He jumps into the pool and starts shouting,
"COME AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!"

There are far more women than I imagined
there would be. I smile imagining there are three other pools that look like
this one. Pools full of women and children about to escape.

"
Emma."

I turn and see Muriel. Her face is beaten
up a bit but she is running toward me. I run and hug her.

"I'm so sorry."

"No, the infected. What could we
do?"

I shake my head, "No. I should have
been prepared for them too. I never even gave them a thought."

She hugs me tight and talks over the loud
women panicking in the water. "Is this you?"

I nod, "It's all I could think of.
The building is going to be destroyed in a few seconds. The pool is supposed to
be the best bet."

She grips my hand. I grab Leo, who is
starting to freak out, by the scruff of his neck and drag him into the water.
It's cold and not inviting. Leo starts his splashing as he enters, he loves the
water but he is more nervous than normal.