Chapter 34: Final protocol
I couldn't breath. In my heart, I'd known it was coming, but hearing it said was a completely different thing. From the looks on my companion's faces, I could tell they felt much the same.
“Well we have to stop it!” Jason's voice cracked. “There must be a way!”
Optimistic. Jason had always been so optimistic. Miya was slowly shaking her head, and Drew was biting his lip hard enough that blood was beginning to drip from the spot.
“How long do we have?” Skye's question was more practical, but much more depressing.
The frustration in the air was tangible. “No more than six hours,” Miya said, “but it could happen much quicker.”
There was silence. No one knew what to say. I felt Dustin's hand on my shoulder, squeezing. Romeo turned and began to walk away. To where he was going, I had no idea. I had to do something! There was one thing I was sure of, I couldn't just sit still, waiting to die. Even if I knew in my heart we were finished, I had to try. There was always a chance. From being marked, I'd learned many lessons, but that was the top one. Even in the face of unbelievable odds, you still had to try.
“I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to just stand here and wait to die.” I'd gotten the attention of the room. Even Romeo had stopped. “You don't have to tell me how impossible this is going to be. Believe me, I know. But I agree with Jason. There has to be a way.”
I turned to Drew and Miya. Between the two of them, they had to know something that could help us. They seemed to be taking my words more seriously than Jason's, and they were both lost in their own minds. They were trying. That was a start.
“There's only one thing I can think of, aside from evacuating the city, and even it won't save us forever. It will buy us some time. I don't completely understand how final protocol works, but I fairly sure that once it's put into play it can't be stopped. There's a countless number of people that have to hit a button, and they can all veto each other, but once it's decided on I have no idea how to stop it. However, there is a fail safe.” Miya spoke first
I held my breath, this was promising.
“I actually didn't learn about it until this year, when I started working in the area of the nuclear generator.”
Shuttering, I remembered the two guards Skye and I had killed when we'd been trying to escape from the underground.
“In case the entire EUP suddenly had a change of heart, and decided not to detonate, there is a way to go back.”
“Then why didn't you just say so?” Dustin protested, looking annoyed.
“Because there's no way we could do it. All of the people, all over the EUP, who originally pushed their buttons, have to turn it off. Now, the people who designed the system realized that this would take to much time, so they built in a way to delay the detonation. This will not turn it off, but it will delay it for thirty-six hours. I have no idea what we could do with that time, but it's better than what we have now.”
She looked at Drew, as if expecting more. Instead, Skye spoke.
“If we can manage to delay the detonation, I know a way that we can evacuate the city.”
Romeo looked at her like she'd just grown a second head. “The perimeter is going to be completely patrolled, not to mention not everyone will make it. The blast radius is to big.”
Skye shook her head. “That won't be a problem. I know some people, some people with duel blades.”
Finally. Finally I was going to learn Skye's big secret. What group she was part of, why she'd been put in prison, and if the the mystery pursuers from that night had something to do with her.
“I suspected it,” Romeo muttered. “But I didn't want to believe it. I left you alone because you seemed to resent the group you worked for, and it didn't really matter anyways, where we were.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked Skye.
“Before I was capture, I was part of a called united North America, or UNA.”
Romeo made a face, Drew shook his head, and Krystal's jaw dropped.
“You're a fucking Unite?” she gasped.
“Was,” Skye said. “And I hate how you make it sound like you're better than them, because you're not. You WUIA agents talk about them like they're as bad as Alec's group when you know it's not true. I have a way to contact them, although I swore to myself I never would.” She paused. “Oh, well. Back then I didn't expect that I'd get sucked back into things like this.”
“She's right.” Drew nodded. “The Unites have some serious fire power. We have a resentment of them, because of the damage they've done against the Western Union, but they're not psychotic like Alec. They're also fiercely apposed to the city. They'd be a good ally to have on this.”
“Well, I'm out.” Romeo spun on his heals.
“What?” I was shocked. That didn't sound like the boy I'd begun to know.
“When the city blows, Alec goes with it. If we save it, he'll have a change to get away. I'm not ready to make that gamble.”
At Romeo's words, Drew decided to join Skye in what she'd done earlier. He slapped him across the face.
“What the hell happened to you man? I can't believe you just said you'd let thousands of people die to kill one. You're no better than him.”
“Yeah, I'm sorry.” Romeo's change of heart was almost instantaneous. “I didn't mean it. Sometimes I can't think, I'm sorry.”
“It's fine.” Drew looked relieved. “Just try to keep your head in the game.”
After that, there was no more discussion. We needed to let the UNA know first, so that they could prepare their forces to go into the city. Skye's protocol for making contact was something straight out of an old spy movie.
We used the big van, where I had been held, twice. Miya and Drew sat in the drivers seat, while the rest of us sat in the back. Sarah was tied up in a corner. I didn't see the point of bringing her along. I still didn't like being back here. My head always hurt more, as if it was remembering what had happened.
On arriving at Skye's destination, the rest of us stayed in the van. Alone, Skye's jumped out the back and approached an old telephone booth. There weren't many of them in the city. They'd gone completely obsolete around the mid twenty-first century. As she entered, I almost expected it to sink into the ground, like an elevator. But instead, she ripped off the bottom of the cradle. From inside, she removed a small disposable cellphone. A phone within a phone, how clever.
She returned to the van, phone in hand. On closer inspection, I realized it was different than most phones I was used to. It was a thin touch screen, and at a click of her finger, it changed shape. For a second the whole thing seemed to dissolve in her hand, then it reassembled itself in the shape of normal phone, buttons and all. I was fascinated, and suddenly I couldn't wait to see what lay outside the city.
Typing one on the speed dial, she held the phone to her ear. The van fell into a worried silence, so I was able to make out the sound of it ringing. It really wasn't all that different from the cellphones that had existed in the twenty-first century. But maybe it was an older modal. Once the phone was answered, Skye responded with a string of gibberish. It was English, but it made no sense. After an exchange involving cats and going out for lunch, Skye finally got down the business.
“Listen, Zoh, I'm sorry I haven't checked in in a while. I only got out two days ago... I'd love to follow protocol, but I'm in a bit of trouble. Well, the entire city is... Yeah, well they're not just rumors... I know, but I have a plan. I'm working with a WUIA agent, Drew Carson, a EUP government official, Miya Dunne, and some others. We have a plan to delay the bombing for thirty-six hours... Do you think that's enough time for you to send in everyone. You have to do something! We can't just let all these people die... Yes, that's completely understandable.” Skye held the phone away from her face. “It's for you.” She handed the phone to Drew.”
He looked surprised, but he took the phone.
“Yes, it's Drew Carson... Yeah, that one... Yeah, she works for the EUP. But after this I doubt it.” He laughed lightly and looked at Miya. “Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Well I guess you're happy about that... So will you help?... That's great... Of course... I'll give it to Skye to hold onto.”
The phone was hung up, with a beep. The whole room turned to Drew, expectantly.
“They agreed to help, but we have to contact them once we've delayed the detonation. They won't risk sending in their people otherwise.” Drew laughed again. “He was actually kind of happy to hear that agents from both sides of this war were working together. Truth is, I never thought of it that way.”
Miya shook her head. “Me neither. I guess nothing brings people together like the threat of death.”
It was decided that Skye would hold onto the phone for safe keeping. When and if we'd succeeded in delaying the detonation, Skye would make another call. But we were getting ahead of ourselves, first we needed to delay the detonation. As Miya regretfully informed us, there was only one way to do this. We had to have access to the control terminal inside the detonation room itself. Meaning, we had to go back to the room from which we'd recently escaped.
“I have no idea how we're going to do this.” Krystal didn't appear to be in the most positive mood. “The underground is even more secured than usual. The lifts have been shut down, and no one is even allowed on the river level. It's to close to the bomb control room.”
Krystal's words were meant to intimidate, but instead they gave me hope. That huge hallway, the one with the guard houses and bad memories, it would be completely empty. There would be no one down there to catch us.
Romeo seemed to see the glint in my eyes, because he said, “there will be motions sensors, cameras, and other forms of security. This is not going to be easy.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Unless we go in the same way we got out, through the pipes.” Then, remembering my earlier concern, I said, “wait, that won't give us radiation poisoning right?”
“Nope,” Miya reassured me. “If there was a danger of that don't you think you'd be feeling the effects by now?”
Right. I guess that Skye had been wrong. Crawling through the pipes hadn't been dangerous at all. Well, at least not in the sense we'd originally thought.
“That's a good plan.” Drew seemed to be deep in thought. “But the way you got out is now heavily guarded. We'd have to go in a different way.”
“Hey, you're the one who's supposed to have the pipes memorized,” Dustin pointed out.
“Yeah, yeah, I think I know a way... but it's not going to be easy.”
I'd been hearing that a lot today.
“You're not honestly thinking...?” Romeo trailed off.
Drew nodded. “Yeah, we're going to the bomb shelter. The one big government building that Alec failed to destroy.”
They were right. This was going to be difficult.
Lead by Miya and Drew, we formulated a plan. They sketched blueprints from memory. Miya: the building that we had to enter, and Drew: the pipes that we would need to take and the equipment we would need to go through them.
“Hey.” Sarah's voice caused me to spin around. “Let me help. I don't want to die as much as the rest of you.”
“No way.” Jason glared at her. “You and Alec got us into this mess. So excuse us for not trusting you.”
Drew nodded, to show that he agreed with Jason's statement. Sarah fell silent again, and I went back to poring over the plans. It wouldn't be as hard as I'd originally thought, because all nonessential personal had already been evacuated. The building would be all but deserted, and those who were there would be in a hurry to leave. The air vent we were trying to reach was located in the basement's ventilation room. This was a huge cylinder, with a spinning fan and countless ducts. We'd have to memorize the exact position of our target pipe.
The most surprising part of the mission was who was being sent in. It wasn't Drew, Miya, or even Krystal. No, they had something much more important to do. They had to start setting up for the evacuation. Getting people to planned points, they would later communicate to the Unites, and other things. That left the rest of us to do the actual mission. There were no assigned roles. The five of us went in, and tried to get as many of us as possible to the ventilation room. Once we were in the pipes, it was a straight shot. We were all given grappling hooks. This time, at least, I wouldn't have to climb.
Since Drew was going to have his hands full already, they decided to leave Sarah with us. She would be watched by whichever of us was assigned to stay in the van. I wasn't going to let that be me. There was no way I was staying behind on this one. I couldn't. Plus, it was best that both me and Skye went, we'd been through the pipes before. As for actually delaying the bomb, that was pretty simple. Krystal had provided a device, which she had referred to as a sinc-pad. If we placed it on top of the control panel and typed in a code, it would allow Drew to hack in, from the surface.
The van came to a stop across the street from our destination, and I could barely breath. We were completely prepared, except for one thing. We hadn't yet decided who would stay behind. The door to the drivers cabin slid open, and Romeo entered the back. He stared at us, expectantly, like he'd expected that we'd have figured it out on the way.
“So?” he asked.
I tried to make sense of it in my mind. There was no way I was staying behind, and it was the same with Skye. Romeo had to go. He was the only one who really knew what he was doing. That left Dustin and Jason. I looked over at my two friends. There was no way I could decide between them. They both wanted to go as badly as me.
“We're wasting time.” Skye spoke. “I say we all go. Sarah here can watch the van.” She nudged the prisoner with her foot, contempt in her voice.
“Alright.” Romeo put up no fight. It was more than I could have hoped for.
I looked over at Jason, and saw my shock reflected in his face. That had been to easy.
On exiting the van, I saw no imposing structures, like I'd been expecting. Across the street from us, I saw a dilapidated pawn shop and an old book store. From the words, bomb shelter, I'd envisioned something a little more intimidating.
“Where is it?” Dustin asked the question we'd all been thinking.
Romeo smiled. “You didn't think it would be obvious, did you? Why else would Alec have missed it?” He paused. “Follow me.”
Silently, we complied. We crossed the street, and headed left.
“Now.” Romeo looked at Dustin, who held the camera jammer.
He nodded, and hit the button. Romeo broke into a jog, and we mimicked him. There was no way we could mess this up... right? Romeo lead us up to the store beside the pawn shop. It was a dilapidated building, with boarded up windows and no sign. At first, I thought that he must be mistaken. Then, I noticed that through one of the holes in the rotten wood there was cement. Not siding, like you would expect, but grey cement. We were in the right place.
On the door, there was a keypad. We hadn't disabled the alarm. Our hope was that there would be to few guards, do to the impending explosion. Quickly, Skye withdrew a knife from her boot. As if she'd done it before, she shoved the blade between the pad and the wall. With a twist of her wrist, it popped off, revealing a tangle of wires. Romeo reached in, but she swatted him away. Reaching in herself. She cut two, and rearranged their connections. The door swung open.
From deep inside, I could already hear the blaring of an alarm.