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Chapter 25 |
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“The Radical Movement was all but wiped out during the Great Purge. Were it not for the efforts of a handful of brave souls, the Central Government’s plan to cleanse the country of everything ‘abnormal’ would have succeeded. Though that single event proved to be the strongest argument for the future Radical Government’s inception, the ends don’t justify the means. Too many lives perished that day.” Radical Archive – excerpt from Radical Government Origins
“Right then, change in plans,” Veronica said after the enormity of the situation finally sunk into her brain. “Chad, lead everyone with masks up the stairs. Molly, help everyone else to the tunnels and make sure they know it’s a trap. Keep them below ground as long as possible – Todd will expect us to surface sooner than later – it’s in the Blithe Spirit evacuation plan, and he’ll anticipate everyone will fall back on it in the event of a leadership breakdown. Alex, I have a special job just for you.” “Wait, what about you Veronica? Aren’t you coming with us?” Molly asked. “I’m getting to that. Once you return from evacuating people to the tunnels, I need you and Alex to collapse the tunnels. I need every single evacuation route to disappear. When all is said and done, the top entrance will be the only way in or out of this place.” “That’s a lot of explosives,” Alex said. “We have enough,” Chad said. “I’ll show you where they are, come on.” “Wait! What’s this all about?” Molly asked. “I need to be able to control access in and out of Blithe Spirit since we’re pitching camp here,” Veronica said. “Once you all finish your tasks, meet me in the control room. I’ll be trying to get in contact with everyone I can via the Undernet.” “The Undernet hasn’t been used in years though… not since the Central Government created the Criminal Justice Guild,” Alex said. “They began monitoring it – they didn’t shut it down though. I imagine most of us who remember it will be monitoring the network today…and regardless of the Central Government knowing what we’re saying, this needs to be said.” Veronica began walking toward the main passage, but then turned to say one more thing. “The four of us should have immunity to this in theory because of the Seattle facility – you two in particular,” Veronica said to Chad and Molly. “You two were actually in the cellar and had the drugs pumped through you.” “What about us?” Alex asked. “I’m hoping the initial inoculations we received in Phase One of the program will keep us alive and sane.” She turned and began walking away from the crowds and noise. All around her, alarms and sirens blared. In some odd way, she felt at home since she’d experienced this exact scenario in her dreams for so many weeks. Seeing it in the coherent light of waking hours gave it perspective – and gave Veronica the calm she needed to begin putting a plan into action. She walked quickly down the main corridor, finally arriving at the central control room within a couple of minutes. She took a seat at the primary control access station in the center of the circular room. Veronica looked down as terminal monitors displaying images around the facility from the CCTV network streamlined through the underground as well as the surface areas of the building. She could see everything and monitor the situation as she began typing in commands to reach the antiquated Undernet. No sooner had Veronica hit enter on the keyboard to send the warning out, a window popped up on her terminal screen. A video seemed to be set to load the instant this happened – the moment someone attempted to access the Undernet. Veronica knew even before the video started who she’d see once the footage began rolling across the terminal screen. Todd’s face appeared with the control center in the backdrop behind him. The timestamp was from that very day – the morning in fact. “Hello Veronica. Despite my best efforts to harness your raw potential, it seems as if we’ve come to a crossroads. As you and I already know, you’ve tripped the safeguard I left behind in case you managed to survive the surprise I left for you. If you haven’t already found it, well…I’m certain one of your friends have. Perhaps you’ve finally allowed yourself to let others help. Everyone’s always told you that, right? That you can’t rely on just yourself? Well in this case, I suppose that philosophy just saved your life.” Todd looked down at something on the monitor in front of him, then back up to the camera. “From the moment this playback began, a timer on my little surprise began. It’s a backup in case you didn’t run into it on your own in the course of escaping the facility. I knew you wouldn’t flee with everyone else, so perhaps this wasn’t a fallback so much as a primary plan. That way, you could be the only one to watch it happen from the safety of your control room seat.” “Oh come on already!” Veronica said. “Just spit it out so I know who to contact!” “No doubt you’ve already surmised I’ve planned something since I shut down all but two subterranean escape tunnels. Did you think I’d just let them all scamper around the sewers to safety though?” He laughed, bellowing out an empty, shallow murmur of inhuman delight. “Molly!” Veronica said. She hit a recall button on her wrist transmitter and waited for it to connect. While she waited, she searched the surveillance screens for any signs of the escapees. “In five, four, three, two…” Todd said as he continued talking through Veronica’s rescue attempt. When the count reached zero, the entire control room shook harder than any earthquake Veronica had ever been through. She clutched the desk in front of her to steady her chair as she looked around for any falling debris. Todd laughed again. “I hope you didn’t send everyone down into the tunnels dear…that would ruin all of the fun for our men on the surface.” Veronica’s transmitter began vibrating. “Molly? Is that you?” Veronica said in an exasperated voice. “It’s Chad. What just happened?” he asked. “A present from Todd. Be careful getting people to the surface, I think they’re expecting us.” Veronica shook her head. “This is going to hell Chad. All of it.” “We’ll get through this.” “I need to get back to work. Todd left a lengthy message, and it’s still playing.” “What could he possibly have to say to us now?” Chad asked. “Well right now he’s going on about his having been a step ahead of me this entire time, and honestly? He’s probably right.” “We’ll find a way. Don’t give up hope. I love you,” Chad said out of no where. “I…I have to go. Good luck,” she said as she disconnected the transmission. “In closing, it’s been a pleasure trying to get you to see the light of day. I guess we’ll just have to focus our attention on the one intake we were able to make today from Blithe Spirit. At least our other agent was successful where I failed,” Todd said. “Ruby,” Veronica said aloud. “I suspect we’ll probably speak again before all is said and done. Until then,” he said, ending the video. Veronica punched the intercom button on the panel in front of her. “Molly? Alex? Is anyone down there? Is anyone receiving this?” She sat and waited, knowing more and more that no one was receiving it. She wanted to rush down to the explosion area to help survivors, but that would leave those coming back to meet her wondering where she went. She’d have to wait until they began filtering back before she could venture out. When a prompt on the screen began flashing, Veronica snapped back to reality. The prompt appeared to be a priority message meant for senior level leaders in the facility – mainly, Todd or Ruby. In their absence, the message sat there awaiting someone – anyone – to accept it. Veronica pressed the enter key on the keyboard and waited for the information to download and display. As it fed onto the terminal screen, Veronica couldn’t quite believe her eyes. You need to get out. Now. Your life depends on it. They know. They all know. “What the hell?” Veronica said. She didn’t have time to ponder the cryptic message though as her transmitter began vibrating again. “This is Veronica,” she said. “We’re falling back,” Chad said. “What’s wrong?” “We’re outnumbered Veronica. This isn’t just some covert agency cracking down on Blithe Spirit out here.” Veronica’s blood ran cold. “They all know,” she said. “What?” Chad asked, confused. “Get everyone back down here. I’ll be in the pantry so I can start getting people downstairs as fast as possible.” “What do you know Veronica? Something’s wrong, I can tell.” Veronica shook her head. “I don’t have time to explain. Just fall back!” She disconnected the transmission and ran out of the control center toward the main hallway that would lead to the large steel exit door, then up the spiral staircase to the pantry. Veronica could feel her heart pounding in her ears. The pain - all of it - seemed to flee to the back of her head as instinct and adrenaline took over. As she reached the steel exit door, Veronica stopped. The door stood open and she could already hear the gunfire upstairs. The problem? No one seemed to be coming downstairs despite her fallback order. She realized belatedly she had no weapon, but couldn’t spare the time to go back and grab one. She pushed forward, climbing the staircase up to the hidden pantry door upstairs. After Veronica arrived, she listened for noise at the other side of the wall. Gunfire and screaming seemed to fill every crevice of the tunnel, making it impossible to pinpoint outside the dank cylinder. She pressed her palm against the lock interface and waited for it to scan to make the wall recede. When nothing happened, she pressed her palm against it again…and nothing. “The external door must be open,” she thought out loud. She squinted at the transmitter on her wrist as she tried to contact Chad. Once she initiated a signal to his transmitter, she waited for him to connect the transmission… only he didn’t. She tried again two more times and didn’t receive a response. “What’s going on out there Chad? Talk to me.” She slid down the wall and sat by the exit, leaning against the cool metal door. She grazed the surface of the metal with her hand as she listened to the violence and mayhem only feet away from her. Knowing she couldn’t do anything but listen felt torturous. Veronica couldn’t take it any longer; she had to get back to the control center to get a visual glimpse of what was happening on the surface. She stood up slowly, painfully aware of her adrenaline rush fading, and began the downward descent to the entrance door once more. Before she made it to the bottom of the spiral staircase though, everything began shaking again. “What now?” Veronica said. She held on tightly to the railing until she reached the ground again, and then knelt down to feel the ground vibrations. Even on the bottom level of Blithe Spirit she could feel the effects of whatever was happening above ground. A few quick, painful paces later Veronica re-entered the control center and took a seat at the terminal in the center of the room she’d been at before. The view appeared grim: above ground, CJ Guild soldiers flooded the grounds as well as the air. Every single camera told the same story: a full-on Central Government raid was occurring above ground, complete with vehicular blaster weapons blasting the structure of Blithe Spirit to block potential ports of escape from the building. That explained the tremors. They were destroying the mansion little by little on the surface, and every hit the building took from concentrated energy blasts shook it right down to its below-ground foundation. This didn’t bode well at all. Veronica began panning through the internal surveillance footage trying to see if they’d breached the front doors yet, but the answer seemed obvious already based on her lack of access to the surface. She couldn’t see her team members anywhere as she looked room by room. When she finally summoned enough willpower, she looked at the cameras spread throughout the kitchen. She had to know exactly what happened there and why the hidden door wouldn’t open. She knew the answer before she saw the footage, but that didn’t make the gory scene any more palatable. From the camera situated at the center of the room on the pots and pans rack, she saw the reason the internal door wouldn’t operate – the external door was indeed open…and not just open, it was ripped off the hinges and lying on the floor in pieces. It appeared as if someone came in with an ax and hacked into it just enough to open the door, and then, when the occupants inside continued to resist, they destroyed the door then and there. All at once it doomed those inside the pantry as well as semi-permanently sealing off that entrance to the lower levels. Veronica shook her head. She didn’t want to see who was lying on the pantry floor. She saw boots and ankles from the kitchen’s central camera, but couldn’t make out faces. She switched to the pantry reluctantly…she needed to know it wasn’t Chad. Why in the hell didn’t she say it back to him when she had the chance? “Damn it!” Veronica said at the terminal monitor. She continued scrolling through the various cameras trying to find the pantry view. When she finally found it, her jaw dropped. “Oh my…but…” Words seemed to flee from her before they could reach her mouth. She turned and threw up in a trashcan near her. The sight of the corpses in the pantry pushed her over the edge, sending Veronica into shock. Around her, the room as well as the rest of the facility continued shaking as if it were in the grips of a large scale earthquake. Dust and debris began falling from the ceiling as foundation cracks formed everywhere. Veronica couldn’t take it any longer. She stood up, grabbed her computer tablet from the desk, and ran out of the control center. With tears forming in her eyes, everything took on a semi-blurry appearance. The dust filling the air didn’t see to help matters either. She raced down the hallway, slowing only to give her aching body brief moments of rest before picking up the unrelenting pace again. When she finally arrived at her suite, Veronica stopped to catch her breath. Once inside, Veronica quickly packed a small shoulder bag. She placed her tablet in first, followed by a change of clothes, her suite’s basic first aid kit, and a few portable tech-tools she knew could come in handy (such as her mag-interrupter). Once the main portion of the bag wouldn’t fit anything else, she placed it on her bed while she changed into something a little more all-weather, including waterproof boots and an outer vest she could attach weapons to. Afterward, she slipped the bag from her bed over her good shoulder. Veronica looked around the room one final time, seeing Lorelei’s possessions in a new light. Each piece of art and every careless discarded tchotchke told a story of how far that woman was willing to go to secure her cover. The woman had more junk than most people at Blithe Spirit, and it turned out to all be a rouse. The realization frightened Veronica to her core. She shook off the feeling and began to walk out of the room, but stopped and turned around. Lying on her nightstand, she saw the one thing she almost forgot and couldn’t bear to leave behind: the locket Calvin gave her. It seemed like eons had passed since she last saw him, and she suddenly wondered how he was doing…assuming he was still alive. She unhinged the necklace and wrapped it around her neck before re-clasping it. After tucking the locket into her vest to keep it out of the way, she took a deep breath, left the suite, and headed toward the medical ward. There, Veronica wasted little time in finding what she was looking for: meds. After injecting a mild painkiller into her system and packing extras in another side pocket of her shoulder bag, Veronica decided it was time. After one last stop to load up on munitions, she’d begin the task of sorting out who was still alive, who perished, and who needed to be held responsible for bringing destruction upon the place she called home. |
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The Radical Chronicles is Copyright © 2009 by Tim Peacock.
