Author's Note:
This chapter is a bit short, but I hope you like it all the same.
Chapter 33: The Storm.
"These won't do." Thomas dropped the launcher back into the crate. It clattered against the dozen or so replicas of it.
"Why not?" Alby asked. "If one of you welcome them inside, the other one can hide with me in the defense-posts. With all of them in a big group, we can take them down with only a few shots from our launchers."
"I already told you. It's too risky. If we're not fast enough, they'll return fire. Even if we hit all of them, the effects will wear off in a few minutes. We need time to lock them someplace they can't escape from, and we need to take anything they can use to communicate with. Not to mention that they have Newt and Teresa."
"So we hit them again before they can get up and we grab Newt and the girl. There's protective gear in the next room, so we won't get shocked if we touch them."
"Isn't there another way that doesn't involve torture?" Harriet questioned. "Like what they did to the others here. We can lock them in a room and send the gas inside from the vents."
"That sounds like the safest option," Thomas said and turned towards Alby. "Do you have something that could work?"
Alby considered. "In there." He pointed at a line of shotguns.
Thomas was confused and about to protest until Alby pushed the guns aside to reveal a small cabinet standing on the floor.
Thomas and Harriet knelt behind him to see the contents. An array of labeled containers and some other equipment stood inside. He read the neat writing on the containers. He recognized some names, such as teargas, but others were stranger.
"What is 'DA463'?" He asked, reading from the largest canister.
"You don't want that one," Harriet assured him. "It's painless, unnoticeable until you collapse, but it will kill you within two minutes of coming into contact with it."
"How do you know?"
She shrugged, looking confused herself. He supposed it was no stranger than the flashes of previous knowledge that would hit him from time to time.
Alby turned the container to read the back, where the effects had apparently been written.
"You're right. So which one should we use?" He asked.
"Maybe… that one," Harriet decided, taking a medium-sized container from the cabinet. She read out the description.
"Inhalation of gas causes sleep. Takes effect within one minute of inhaling. Induces sleep for four to six hours. Potential side effects: Nausea. headache."
"That sounds good enough, but how do we get the shanks to inhale it?" Alby asked. "If we pass out too, there's no point in doing it."
"We need to lock them in a room and get the gas through the vents. It's like you said, Alby: We only need one person to greet them. The other two can pump in the gas and put the shanks in cells." Thomas frowned. "You do have cells here, right Alby?"
"Course we do. And I think I know where we can lock 'em in."
"Great. Show us," Thomas said. Things were going strangely well for once.
"Right, we're leaving now. You two, by the door."
Alby, trusting as always, was concerned that they would pick up weapons from the room and kill him. He had therefore locked the room with a code only known to him. In his own words: 'Kill me and you starve to death in here.'
He made them stand by the door to make sure they wouldn't attack him from behind as he unlocked the door.
"Wait. Before we go there, we should check on Sonya," Harriet said.
"We don't have time," Alby protested.
"She could be dead or something! We are going there. It's not far, and we can plan on the way."
"Let's just go there," Thomas said before Alby had the time to argue. It was true they were short on time, or rather, they didn't know how much time they had, but they assumed it wasn't much. Still, it wouldn't do to start fighting. Also, what if Sonya had stopped breathing while they were gone?
Sonya's breathing was just fine. They had decided that the unconsciousness must have been the same kind everybody else was suffering from at the moment. The antidote clearly had to be ingested prior to exposure, because it hadn't worked on the doctor earlier. They would have to wait and see. Their discussion during the visit consisted largely of Alby complaining over the pointlessness of going there, and Harriet glaring at him. They were definitely not going to become friends in the foreseeable future. Maybe it was their corresponding roles as the leaders of their respective groups. They were like magnets with the same charge, repelled.
After checking up on Sonya, Alby led them to a large, L-shaped laboratory. It had two doors, one leading back to the corridor and another to the outside. Harriet took a look at the vents leading into the room, while Thomas checked out all the things in the room.
The lab was clearly in use. One table had a messy stack of papers, along with a microscope and some test tubes with colored liquids inside of them. Maybe the experiment had been interrupted when Harriet and Sonya arrived.
He moved the things to a cupboard, where they were less likely to be smashed.
He began reading one of the papers, to see what the experiment had been about. The text spoke of enzymes and duplication of something. He guessed it was to see what would kill the Flare-virus, though the notes were much too messy to really understand.
He shivered as a gust of cold wind swept into the room and turned to see that Alby had opened the door. He joined the older boy by the door out of curiosity, putting the paper aside.
"Why is there even a door here?" He didn't see anything special, only a plain landscape dusted with snow. He took a step out, despite the cold, but Alby yanked him back by the shirt-collar.
"What was that for? Do you have poison arrows shooting from the ground if you step on it?"
"It's a trap door, actually. You stand right there and the ground swallows you up. Cranks are always useful for research, and if we catch a wolf…"
Thomas was glad they'd had chicken. "Is there anything in there now?" He asked.
"Doesn't sound like it. Still, we better put some planks over there unless you wanna make yourself some more enemies."
Thomas let Alby put up a makeshift bridge over the pit, as he studied the door closer.
"Is this the lock?" He poked a screen with buttons underneath.
Alby glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah. Just put in the code and they won't get through with a battering ram."
Harriet walked up to them. "I think it should work, but we need to separate the vents in here from the ones in the adjacent rooms. I'm not sure where they lead, but we can't risk the gas getting everywhere."
"Check the control room. They wouldn't have the gases next to the weapons unless they wanted to use them, so it shouldn't be hard to find a way to block the vents." Alby said.
The control room was a large room in the middle of the building. There were monitors, showing surveillance over the building, both inside and out. A few computers were placed on a large desk, the control part of the control room. There was an assortment of machines, and several large pipes that continued into the floor or ceiling. Most notable of these machines was the air-conditioner. Thomas approached the humming box and was greeted by a warm wind. He looked around for a control panel but didn't find one.
"It's got to be controlled through the computers," Harriet said.
Alby had the password to the computer system, but he didn't know much about how the programs on it worked. The three of them were able to find a file about the ventilation-system quickly enough, and it seemed that it had, in fact, been designed to keep the air in any room from being transported to the rest if needed. It was a necessary precaution when studying Cranks, as Alby claimed they did. Another vent could be opened, one which lead to a tank of oxygen under the floor. The air refilled automatically from outside, but several filters were applied to keep out most hazardous things. Using a map they found, they adjusted the ventilation-system to their requirements.
"That's it, right? It will work?" Thomas asked. He looked from Harriet to Alby, but neither seemed entirely sure.
"It should work, but I think we need a backup plan in case something goes wrong," Harriet said.
"Yeah," Alby agreed, "I think I should hide in the lab with a launcher. If the gas doesn't work, you're gonna get torn to pieces by the Right Arm."
Torn to pieces… Thomas shuddered, remembering the illusion back in the maze. He looked away and saw something move in one of the cameras, from outside.
"It's them." He got closer to the camera to get a better look at the tiny people on screen. A group of twenty people was approaching the building, beginning to split up to check all sides. He tried to spot his friends, but there was no way to make out who was who beneath the hats and hoods.
"We need to go!" Harriet commanded.
They ran back to the lab, doing their best to talk at the same time.
"I know how to pump the gas through the vents!" Harriet said.
"Then I'll open the door!" Thomas replied. He wanted to see Newt and Teresa as soon as possible, and he knew that they would catch on to what he was doing. The telepathy was still not working, but he could say what he needed to with just his eyes. They would help him if the plan didn't work, and he could make sure they wouldn't get hurt. Alby was going to hide in the room as backup, in one of the so-called 'defense-posts, which were built-in cupboards with small hatches that could be opened to fire through. It made him feel safer, even though Alby's purpose was to shoot everybody with a launcher, including him.
Harriet began setting up the equipment, and Thomas and Alby went into the lab in preparation. Angry fists were banging on the door. Alby was moving the furniture that stood in front of the hiding spot while telling Thomas the code to the door. Thomas paced back and forth, filled with nervous energy.
"Alby!" Harriet called from the other room. "We need two people to use this!"
Alby looked at Thomas, and to his surprise, he looked concerned. "You gonna be okay, Greenie?" He asked.
"Yes. Now hurry!"
Muffled voices were shouting outside, getting increasingly loud
Thomas walked to the open doorway. "I have to let them in now," he said.
Harriet was sat on Alby's shoulders, trying to get a hose into the air vent in the ceiling.
"We're almost done. Do it," Harriet said.
Thomas shut the door, putting in the code. The door could be unlocked from both sides, but nobody was getting through without the password.
He approached the front door in quick steps but hesitated with his hand on the lock. If the plan didn't work, nothing would protect him against the angry people. Still, this was what he had to do.
He typed in the code, and the door made a little clicking sound that sounded much louder than it should have. He pushed down on the door-handle. Too late to change his mind. He had to get them inside quickly and then stall for as long as possible once they were in place.
"Hey! There you are!" He said as the door was pulled open by a few people he recognized only vaguely. They looked excessively grumpy, shivering in the cold wind despite their thick clothing. It had begun snowing lightly.
"Over here!" One of them called to his companions who had been looking for other entrances. The call was repeated and people were soon streaming through the doorway. Hot air was no longer being transported into the room, but it was still a significant improvement from the snow.
He moved to let them pass. Two long tables were strategically placed near the opening, almost forming a barricade with only a narrow gap between them to get past. Thomas placed himself there, trying to look casual with one hand on a table, leaning on it. He would slow them down if only slightly. He did not want them to get to the locked door on the other side of the room. He would have to move to lock the other door, to prevent escape before the gas could spread throughout the room. Thankfully the last person to enter closed the door behind her, which meant half the job was done.
He looked at their sullen, frost-bitten faces. None of them were the faces he had hoped to see. He couldn't even find Brenda. Where were they? Outside the building? Were they on their way, or waiting as backup? How many more were out there? He tried to count them, but they were moving too much, and it didn't even matter. He had counted twenty people around the building on the camera, but more could be lurking in the nearby forest.
He was sure that Harriet and Alby had released the gas by now, or were going to any second. The door had hopefully been closed when they did it, and in that case, everybody had inhaled it. The unlocked door wouldn't have mattered much if they had all inhaled the gas, but with people outside, it was dangerous. He needed to lock the door, but he had to make his way there without raising suspicion. He knew that they would want to get past him, so he stayed in place, waiting. He knew that the gas was supposed to go unnoticed until it took effect, but what if it hadn't been pumped in yet? He would just have to wait until he could get out of the way, lock the door, and hope for the best.
"Move!" Ethan —the guy Thomas had met earlier— was glaring daggers at him. Ethan's friend Rose was doing the same next to him. Thomas moved out of their way, looking around for the third member of the trio. He wasn't there. He supposed the guy was too young to go on missions.
The group walked between the two tables, slowly, as only one person at a time would fit. Thomas edged out of their path and closer to the lock.
The first few people were around the corner. Any second now… There they came; the angry shouts, the obscenities. They were still processing the locked door, but soon they would turn around.
He tried to hide his hand on the lock-panel, only glancing at it carefully to put in the code, but they noticed it all the same. The door clicked, locked. He still didn't feel tired. A horrible thought struck him then. What if this gas was the same they had used against WICKED? The one everybody in the room would be unaffected by.
They were advancing on him now. He reasoned with himself, that if the gas went undetected until the last second, surely Ben wouldn't have had the time to open the door and attempt to escape.
A large woman grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "What do you think you're doing, kid?! Why is the door locked?!" She demanded. Thomas stayed still. He knew that it would be over the moment he started a fight.
"Answer!" She pushed him against the door. He hissed in pain as his head struck a metal pipe.
"I have no idea!" He said, as innocent as he could possibly sound. "Harriet. She must have betrayed us!"
The woman didn't release him. The buttons on the panel were digging into his back. She held out a hand, and a nervous-looking guy handed her a knife.
"I don't like hurting kids, but if you don't unlock that door right now…" She put the edge of the blade against his cheek.
Thomas knew there was nothing he could do. If he unlocked either of the doors, he would lose. He would rather die here. If the Right Arm took the building, he wouldn't be any better off. He could only hope that Harriet and Alby would find a way to neutralize the enemy by themselves.
He lost the strength to stand upright. The woman dropped him in surprise at the sudden shift in weight. He sagged until he sat on the floor. He was going to die. He didn't even know where his friends were, and he never would. He closed his eyes. There were so many things he wanted to say, so much he wanted to do. It wasn't fair.
No, not fair at all, but all the fight had left him. Death sure seemed relaxing.
His ears were like old radios, switching from high volume to low, buzzing all the while. He heard thuds around him, but he didn't feel like opening his eyes to see what was going on.
It was just like falling asleep.