The Renegades (Book 4): Colony (4 page)

When I found my way back to my cot, I noticed Alex was back. Once again he was sitting there flipping through the pages of
Moby Dick
.

“Convince you, did they?” he asked.

“If you must talk in riddles at least make sense,” I said slumping down.

He swung his legs around. “Shift to your left a little.”

I groaned, becoming tired of his games.

“Come on.”

I moved.

He opened the book and flashed me the access card as if I should know what it was.

I shrugged. “So? What is it?”

“Tonight, I’ll show you.”

T
hat night
I came to know why they called it the Hive.

I’d drifted off to the sound of humming and awoke to a whisper.

“Johnny, wake up.”

Birdy was crouched down beside my cot, whispering into my ear. I don’t know how long I had been asleep, just that the room was dark and his hand was on my chest. It took me a few seconds to gain my bearings.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I ran a hand over my tired face and was about to get up when he pushed me back down.

“Don’t get up. Roll off the cot onto the floor.”

This kid was strange. I rolled and dropped into a press-up position. Both of us were lower than the cots themselves. The tiled floor felt grimy and smelled of bleach. His eyes swept back and forth.

“What are we waiting for?” I whispered.

“Hold on.” His eyes were fixed on the entrance.

I heard the sounds of boots. Beneath my cot I saw the glow of the corridor lights and then a security guard doing rounds. He glanced inside the room for a moment, cutting the darkness with the flashlight and then continuing on his way.

“Stay low.”

Birdy began crawling forward across the floor like a spider. I followed him doing my best not to make any noise. All that could be heard was the sound of snoring and a hum. There was always a constant hum in this place like the back of a refrigerator. I wasn’t sure if it was the fans or something else but it was pissing me off. I’d seen a number of large ventilation grids around the facility, some had fans inside that groaned and flooded the hall with air.

We passed by Ben. He was gone to the world. Elijah peered over his pillow.

“Where are you going?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Shhhh,” I replied before hustling to catch up with Birdy. This kid could move fast. He was like an insect. Once we made it over to the other side of the room he peered out into the corridor. Our backs were pressed up against a wall.

“You want to tell me where we are going?”

“Just keep up. It’s all about timing in here.”

He counted down with his fingers. Three. Two. One.

“Let’s go.” We dashed across the corridor until we found ourselves in another. It didn’t matter how fast I went, he was always ten steps ahead. I hoped he knew where he was going as I didn’t have a clue, it was a complete maze of criss-crossing hallways. We reached an intersection and he was hesitant to continue.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s no way to get across this without showing up on their monitor. We’re going to have to hope they are busy jerking off or playing cards.”

“Then why would you bring me out here?”

He was breathing hard, shaking slightly.

“You need to see this for yourself.”

“See what?”

I was beginning to regret leaving the warmth of my cot. The Hive might have not been the Ritz but after having lived in a constant state of fear outside, it was nice to be able to lay my head down without the threat of a Z chewing me apart.

Now whether he was convinced that we could pass over that intersection without being spotted or he really didn’t care about getting caught, he tapped me, gestured forward and that was it. He was off doing a one-hundred-meter sprint. Against my better judgment I raced behind him. I was waiting to hear alarm bells or find myself being shocked into submission by an overly eager security guard but that wasn’t to be.

At the end of the corridor we stopped and he swiped an access lock with the card. The door hissed as it slid apart. The moment we entered, motion detector sensors illuminated the room in a fluorescent light. He continued moving fast down the next corridor until he stopped and put his hand back.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What?”

I peered over his shoulder and saw a security guard standing about thirty feet down the corridor. He was talking to another one.

“He’s not meant to be here.”

He started muttering to himself a series of numbers. He looked again and they were gone. He cocked his head.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said chasing after him.

We pressed on through three more doors. Where the hell we were was anyone’s guess. Several times we stopped and didn’t move until he counted using his fingers. It was about the third time he did it that I started to wonder if this was a mental institution.

But this kid was smart. He’d figured out when and where the guards would be at night. He knew their shift rotations and where they would be at exactly the right moment.

By now sweat was trickling down my back.

When we finally arrived at the location that he swore I would want to see, I was about ready to go nuclear on his ass.

“This had better be the Ark of the Covenant or some invite to a party with women who like to get funky as I’ve…”

Before I could finish, the door hissed open in front of us. Inside the room was what looked like steel coffins; however, the tops were covered in glass. In front were glowing buttons and blue lights that flickered. Monitors displayed heartbeats. They were like cryogenic chambers. My eyes fell upon what was inside. Humans, naked and motionless with round white monitoring pads and cables attached to them.

“What the hell…”

Birdy was looking around anxiously.

“We don’t have long.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Family, friends, sons and daughters.”

I ran my hand over one of the chambers, it was warm. I could see their chests rising and falling. Behind the chambers were large metal vats.

“There are even more beyond those doors.”

“What are they doing to them?”

“It’s not what they are doing to them, it’s what they are doing with them. Siphoning.”

I frowned trying to make sense.

“But why?”

“Answers later, we need to go.”

The door hissed open and I stood there taking it all in.

“Johnny. Hurry.”

That’s when I saw something very troubling. The man who had asked to leave. The one with the tattoo on the side of his neck was inside one of the chambers.

U
pon returning
to our dorm following the same lengthy process of stopping and starting to avoid being seen, I was full of so many questions. Birdy was more than eager to spill what he knew. In the darkness of the room he answered me. Every answer shocked me to the core.

“That’s why they call this place the Hive. Like worker bees going out and gathering pollen to make honey. They keep bringing them in and siphoning out what they need.”

“To develop a cure for everyone, right?”

He shook his head. “No, to develop a cure to sell to everyone.”

“What?”

“They’re not going to give it out. The cure is the new commodity. This world has gone to shits, Johnny. A cure is the means to create a new government where those who own it are the ones in power, and those who need it are slaves.”

I shook my head. “No.”

Birdy raised his eyebrows, then handed me the access card.

“You’re going to need this.”

I stared down at it.

“How did you know about the room?” I asked.

Birdy pushed up his sleeves. In the crooks of his arms were dark red needle marks.

“That’s where they took you?”

He nodded. He didn’t need to explain any further. For a moment I sat there contemplating what this meant and my conversation with the Warden that day.

“Why would anyone be willing to do that?”

“Because they think they are getting the cure. An antibody therapy treatment. Like getting a flu shot to prevent catching a cold.”

“But they’re not, right? They’re extracting,” I muttered.

He nodded.

“Are you an anomaly?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. I’m guessing that’s why I’m still alive here when others…”

He trailed off and I stared at him as his chin dropped.

“What do they do with the others, Birdy?”

He hesitated before replying. “There is no way for them to know if someone is or isn’t an anomaly until you are hooked up. Those who don’t have what they need, they get rid of or use as worker bees to bring in more.”

“The Warden. He wants me to go out in a few days.”

Birdy stared at the ceiling above him and exhaled hard.

“The Coalition. Do you know who they are?” I asked.

He nodded. “You’re looking at one.”

“
F
or a place
that’s not meant to be a prison, this feels a helluva lot like prison,” Elijah said, looking around the yard. The sun was beating down hard that morning. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Guards patrolled the walls, spending more time looking in than out.

Baja sat playing checkers on a stone table against a guy who looked like a crack addict. His face was gaunt, and his skin thin as though he’d been drained of too much blood.

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I saw, Ben,” I answered, while my eyes drifted across the yard full of people. Most were milling around in groups. Even in an apocalypse certain types flocked together. There also seemed to be a pecking order inside. A group of six guys had beaten down this one kid in the cafeteria. No one knew why. By the time the guards got over there, the crowd had dispersed. Birdy said they worked for the Warden. I was starting to believe the kid.

The Hive was beginning to turn into a nightmare.

“And you say, Kat was there?” Izzy asked.

I nodded. “Seems she works for the Warden within some facet of the infrastructure they have set up.”

“Which is?” Elijah asked.

“How am I supposed to know?” I shot back, getting frustrated by the same questions being asked.

“You were there. Think.”

My head dropped as I ran a hand around the back of my neck. “He said there was a group. The Coalition. Apparently they are some kind of resistance who are making things difficult for them. He wants us to go out with his team to bring them in.”

“The anomalies.”

“Yeah.”

Jess seemed to be having a hard time buying it.

“I dunno, Johnny, it seems a little farfetched.”

“Does it? You tell me how NORAD, a facility that was meant to withstand a nuclear blast, ends up being abandoned because of an outbreak inside. There’s only two ways that could have happened. Someone was bitten and came back in, which seems very unlikely. You said yourself that everyone was checked going in. The other is that they already had the infected there and they were performing tests on them.”

“By the way, who showed you this?”

I nodded to Alex Bird who was tossing pieces of bread to a flock of birds.

“The birdman of Alcatraz? Are you kidding me?” she said.

Right then I saw the same group of guys from the cafeteria pushing their way through a crowd. They were heading for Alex.

“Heads up.”

Ben cast a glance over. “Don’t get involved.”

I got up. “No one is asking you to.”

Birdy was now standing by the bleachers when the six guys came up on him. I saw a glimmer of steel in one of their hands. I broke into a sprint while staring up at the guards who were paying no attention. It all happened so fast. One of them stabbed him while the others blocked the guard’s view, then they moved on as though nothing had happened. By the time I reached him he was holding his side and coughing blood out of his mouth.

“Help!” I yelled, crouched over him.

“Use the card to get out,” he whispered into my ear. “Find Wren.”

“Where is she?”

“In the city, you’ll…”

He never did get the words out. His eyelids closed as he breathed his last breath.

I didn’t even hear them coming up behind me but I felt the painful shock as they hit me with a strong voltage. I collapsed on top of Birdy, his blood soaked into my clothing.

“Get off him,” Elijah shouted, giving a guard a right hook in the face. But it didn’t take them long to subdue the others who had come to my aid without weapons. A few minutes of chaos, then gunfire erupted forcing everyone to hit the ground.

H
alf an hour
later I found myself sitting in the Warden’s office. He came in, looked at me, and moved over to a small coffee machine that functioned off the generator that the entire place used for producing light.

“Coffee?” he said nonchalantly, as though what had just happened was an everyday event.

“I didn’t kill him.”

The guards had treated me as if I was to blame even though no knife was found.

“I know you didn’t,” he replied.

I shook my head without saying a word. I watched him go through the process of grinding beans. He sniffed at them before pouring hot steaming water into a French press.

“Ah, that’s one thing I am going to miss. We don’t have much of it left. We’ve tried to salvage what we could from the city but it’s bad out there. So much of what used to be plentiful is scarce. What do you miss, Johnny?”

He turned waiting for me to reply. I could still smell Birdy’s blood on me. It had caked the side of my neck, covered my hands, and soaked through my clothes. When I didn’t reply he continued.

“You might want to change into the issued clothing.”

“I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself.” He stirred the black liquid slowly. “You know the key to making good coffee, Johnny?” I remained silent. “It all comes down to the coffee maker. Not the machine but the person behind it. He or she is ultimately responsible for the kind of beans they pick, the water they use, and the method in which they brew. You see, most folks use crappy drip coffee makers, and pre-ground beans and then wonder why their coffee tastes so bitter. What they don’t realize is that the moment the air hits the beans you have already lost the best part. No, to really get that fresh taste, you have to use the cleanest water, beans that have never been ground, and a French press. You can’t let it sit there on the counter the way some businesses would. No, that’s what makes it taste so bad. Hell, you can get the finest coffee in the world but if you screw up the timing or the method in which you make it, it will ruin it.”

“Is there a reason why you are telling me this?”

“We are losing hours, Johnny. Time is running out for us to find a cure. Every day more and more people are turned into those monsters. What I am trying to do here doesn’t come without a little sacrifice. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Does that make sense?”

I had a feeling he knew that I had seen the room. Was that why he killed Birdy? Would he kill me too?

The Warden took a sip of his coffee and relished its flavor by swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing and slapping his lips like a dog. “Oh that is divine. Are you sure I can’t get you some?”

My eyes flitted to the French press. I shook my head.

“Very well.”

He took a seat behind his desk and leaned back as though he was the commander-in-chief. He craned his head towards the window and gazed out as he drank from a cup that was no bigger than what you might get in a little girl’s tea set.

“So what are you going to do about Birdy’s murderer?”

“Ah yes, Birdy. That was unfortunate. I can assure you whoever is responsible will be dealt with.”

I shook my head ever so slightly. It was highly doubtful that he would do anything.

“Have you considered going out with the team this evening?”

“I have.”

“And?”

I hesitated before replying. “Yeah, we’ll do it.”

He smiled and the lines on his forehead disappeared as he took another sip.

“Do you mind me asking what changed your mind?”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right?” I replied, tossing back his words.

“Right,” he said, giving me a skeptical look. “I think you are going to fit in here quite nicely.”

I left his office feeling despondent. Who was Wren? Why did they kill Birdy? I wasn’t sure I would ever discover the answers. When I returned, I noticed his book was gone and so were his covers. I checked inside my pillow for the access card. It was still there.

I squeezed it tightly and glanced at his empty cot. Staying was no longer an option.