“You’re doubt is a bit insulting,” he said, giving me one of his steely looks he was so practiced in. “But you are right. It’s a smart idea. Our scientists are getting rusty in that they didn’t think of this themselves.”
“I’d like to take a vehicle and go out and catch two subjects,” I said. I placed my arms behind my back, holding my left wrist with my right hand. “Can you quickly create a holding cell of some sort for them?”
I was somewhat annoyed when Royce delayed in responding. I could see the thoughts turning behind his eyes, debating whether or not to let me do this. He knew the stakes if anything went wrong as I attempted capture—but he also trusted me.
“We can get something together,” Royce said. “And it shouldn’t pull away any of our scientists. We’ve got an old prison transport vehicle you can take. The Bane will probably beat the tar out of it, but it should be able to hold up long enough for you to get back here.”
“I’m going to try and find some Sleepers,” I said. “Seems a little less…dangerous than trying to tackle a Hunter or two. I have less chance of having to kill a Sleeper.”
“Makes sense,” Royce said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a well-worn long sleeved t-shirt. He pulled it over his head and next set to lacing his boots up. Suddenly, his brows furrowed and his hands hesitated. He looked over at me. “Remember when you asked me about my brother the other day?”
Everything in me froze at that, except for my heart. It broke out into a sprint.
“How did you know his name?”
I swallowed hard. My palms started sweating. “It’s not important right now, sir. We can talk about it later.”
He looked at me for another moment, and then turned back to his shoes.
I was a coward, that was the honest truth of it. I was too scared to delve into something this personal. It was easier to focus on the end of the world for the time being.
That didn’t mean my hands weren’t shaking when I shoved them into my pockets.
Thirty seconds later, Royce and I were walking to the stairs and up to the blue floor. He unlocked a door I had never been behind. He opened it up to what was little more than a closet. Inside, there were shelves lined with all kinds of menacing looking devices. Royce grabbed one and closed the door once more.
“You really meant it when you told one of the Undergrounders those months ago that he didn’t want you digging into your closet,” I said, smiling.
“I don’t often kid,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. A smile curled on his own lips. “Now this is a cybernetic diffusion unit,” he continued. It was different than the others that I’d seen. It was smaller, small enough to be easily held in one hand. A digital keypad lit up when Royce turned it on. It instantly hummed, a quiet yet high-pitched sound. “But this one is adjustable. You can crank it all the way up, enough to short even the most advanced Bane out. Or you can dial it back so you’ll just give them a nice jolt that will basically put them into shock.”
“When have you ever used this, Royce?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.
Something in his demeanor changed and there was regret and pain in it. “In the beginning, six months or so after we settled the hospital, I wanted to study the Bane, to see if there was a way of reversing what TorBane did. I made this to try and capture them. I would have gone out and used it myself, but something came up. My then right-hand man took it out instead. As you can guess, something went wrong. We started development on the Extractor the next day.”
He didn’t need to explain further.
He quickly showed me how to adjust it, all without me touching it. We found a thick pair of rubber palmed work gloves, which I was to wear at all times when handling the device.
“Where’s Avian?” Royce asked as we walked down into the garage. He walked me up to a large, boxy vehicle and handed over a set of keys.
“He’s out with security detail,” I responded as I pulled the driver’s door open.
“He doesn’t know about this mission of yours, does he?”
I hesitated. “I didn’t think of it until after he’d left this morning.”
“No complaint here,” Royce said, a hint of a smile pulling on his lips. “That boy tends to do stupid things when it comes to your safety. I think that means he loves you.”
“Something like that,” I said, smiling back.
“This thing isn’t too difficult to drive,” Royce said, turning his attention to the vehicle’s interior. “That’s the gas pedal, that one is the brake. Shift it into gear here. The back transport box locks from the outside with this key. Other than that, pretty simple.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the keys from him. “I think I can handle it.”
I climbed into the massive vehicle and started the engine. I waved to Royce as I pulled out of the garage. I was just about to turn left to head south when I spotted Vee heading back into the hospital. I slowed and rolled down the window.
“Feel like trapping some Bane with me?” I asked, squinting against the bright morning light.
Vee didn’t hesitate as she walked around the vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat. She didn’t ask for an explanation as we headed southwest.
It took us twenty minutes to get to where the ocean was directly to our right. It was a sunny but gray colored day. The ocean waves crashed to the shore softly, with only the two of us to notice. It was hard to imagine that at one time, these beaches had been packed with thousands of people.
Eventually the silence grew heavy in the air and I had that urge to fill it.
“For five years I didn’t know that I couldn’t be infected by the Bane,” I said, grasping at anything to fill the quiet. We had the windows rolled down, despite the cold. It blew our hair around but it made me feel alive, alert.
“It probably would have made your life a lot easier if you’d realized sooner,” she said, looking out toward the ocean. She hadn’t looked away from it since we got on the road. I realized this was the first time she had seen it.
The first time I saw the ocean was the first time I’d ever cried.
“Yeah,” I said. “It would have.”
We were quiet again and I felt that human pressure to fill the dead air with something. But I didn’t have anything to say.
“I really don’t know what to say to you,” I said. “I feel like we’re supposed to do all this catching up or talk about…things. But I don’t really know what to say.”
She looked over at me. “Why do you have to say anything?” she asked. “What is there to say? I remember your childhood. They never allowed us to be close. You were supposedly dead. And then I find out that you aren’t and we’re all grown up. You have your duty and your man and I am fine with simply existing. I’ll be here for you when you need me, and I’m pretty sure you’ll do the same. What else is there?”
I couldn’t have said it any more perfectly myself.
Our past had made it so we would always be slightly distant to each other. The bond of sisterhood that those who were not TorBane-infused knew would always be just out of our reach.
But she was here now, helping me with what was required, and that was more than enough.
We were seventy miles from ground zero of the hospital when I pulled off the main highway and into smaller streets.
“Keep an eye on the buildings,” I said. “We might get lucky and find some Sleepers instead of Hunters.”
I drove slowly, inspecting the buildings and shops on the left side of the street while Vee inspected the ones on the right. But everywhere we looked there were just dead, destroyed bodies.
We continued south.