72 hours previously…
"I'm going to make
my final round!" Megan called to the guard at the front nurse's station. She knew she was supposed to check in with
him before she left, but the locker room was clear on the other side of the
building, and that would mean it would take forever to get out. She only had half a dozen patients left to
give their medicine to, and then her shift would be over.
She saved Lisa for
last. Lisa was always so easy to take
care of. In a home for mentally
disturbed young people, an easy charge was a blessing. They had all been warned about her when she
was admitted six weeks ago. She had
been in an institution for the criminally insane. That's why there were two armed guards at her door at all
times. She had been raped by a guard at
the institution, and had become pregnant. Poor thing. They had transferred
her here until the baby was born.
She was diagnosed as
paranoid schizophrenic. Since she'd
been attacked, she'd slipped away into a twilight world. Her room was more of a cell. There wasn't even a bed, just a floor pallet
and a pillow. They said anything she
had would be a weapon. The window had
heavy bars across it. Megan didn't know
how she could attack anyone. Lisa just
sat in the corner of the room, staring straight ahead. Megan could walk up to her and put food in
front of her, and she would eat mechanically. She never fought taking her medicine. She never spit, or cursed, or did anything nasty. If all patients were like Lisa, her whole
day would be so much easier.
She smiled and
nodded to the guards as she approached. The dark haired one, Kellman, was so cute. She'd seen him eyeing her before. She hoped he would ask her out before Lisa left and he was gone
too. She unlocked the door to Lisa's
room and opened it, her best nurse smile beaming. The room was empty.
"She's gone!" she
squeaked in a strangled voice. The two
guards rushed in immediately. One
reached for his comm. device, but before he could even get it out, she was
there.
Megan watched in
horror, too terrified to scream as Lisa leapt down. She had been balancing on the door jam, holding the ceiling for
balance. Her pregnancy was just
starting to become obvious, but it didn't slow her a bit. She spun and kicked the one guard in the
head, knocking him out cold. The other
one grabbed his comm. device, but she was on him before he could do a thing.
She kicked the comm.
device out of his hand. He went to
punch her, but she caught his fist easily. She spun into his arm, breaking his elbow. He gasped with the pain, but true solider that he was, grabbed
her around the neck and squeezed tightly. Megan knew no pregnant girl could get away from such a big man, but Lisa
easily tossed him over her shoulders. He landed on flat on his butt, and she snapped his neck like a chicken
bone.
In one motion she
rolled to the unconscious guard, and had his sidearm out. The muzzle looked ten feet wide to Megan
when it was pointed at her. She was
hitching her breath for a scream when she heard Lisa speak for the first
time.
"Screaming is a
very, very bad idea right now." Her
voice was as deadly cold as her eyes. Megan did the only sensible thing she could think of. She fainted. When she came to, she was locked in the room. From her watch, she could see she'd been
there for a couple of hours. Lisa's medicine
cup was empty. She simply put the
sleeping pill in Megan's mouth.
Lisa was gone. Megan crawled over to Kellman to wake him
up, and finally the screams came out. Blood from a gunshot wound made a bright crimson circle around his
head. Lisa's pillow had a hole in it
from being used as a silencer. His
shirt, gun, and knife, and cap were missing. There was a note carved on his back.
"He knew better," it
said. "You all did."
Escaping was easy
for Alicia. The director put her in
there six weeks ago, and expected to keep her in a drugged quiet for
months. It was amazing how little the
"leaders" really knew about Manticore. Dad would know that place wouldn't hold her for a month. She'd disabled security within the first
week. She could get in and out of her
cell easily within two. She was
watching the nurses and guards carefully, looking for the right target. Megan left without checking in.
Alicia followed her
around one night through the ductwork. She was going to have to leave very soon. She was getting too big to be crawling around. She hadn't let herself think of the baby
while she was in there. She had to be a
solider. Later she would be a
mommy. She memorized Megan's locker
combination. She watched her go to her
car.
Now, she easily got
into the locker. Megan was about three
sizes larger than Alicia, but her skirt wouldn't work with the plan. Oh well, she'd have to wear her scrub
bottoms that had been issued. In the
dark, they could be issued military trousers. She pulled on the fatigue shirt, and tucked her hair under the cap. It was a little too large, but it would do
to the untrained eye. Plus at three in
the morning, who cared? Megan's shoes
were a little large, but that was fine. She grabbed Megan's overcoat, grateful to see it. It was early spring, but still cold.
She had Brewster's
credentials. His first name was
Cary. He was thin, and very young. She scratched the picture a couple of times
to blur it. He was rather new on the
watch, so the guards probably didn't know him yet. If they did, that was what the 9 mm was for. It could go either way. She didn't give a damn about killing another
person that night, but the guy in the guardhouse would probably be noticed too
soon for her taste.
There was nothing to
worry about. The guard didn't look
inside the dark car and notice her pants. He hadn't been on shift when the two guards for "Lisa" had arrived, so
he didn't no that Cary was a male. He
asked where Kellman was, as Kellman had been there for the entire six weeks,
and she used her best men-are-pigs tone. "Flirting with some nurse. Little redhead? Megan or
something like that." The guard
laughed, and waved her on through.
As she left, she felt a slight movement within her. She rubbed her swelling stomach lightly. She knew it was a boy, and he'd just started wiggling around a few days before. "Don't worry," she said, feeling teary at the thought of him. "We've miles to go before we sleep, but I promise you'll be OK. Even without your daddy, we're going to be OK."