NOT BAD.
Those words flicker onto Kyle’s phone screen before the Suckerpunch hacker reappears in his pixelated chat window. “Not bad at all,” he echoes.
“What now?” I ask. No time to be clever. “We’re in some sort of research archive.”
“You’re in a server room, to be precise,” he says, and I look around at metal shelves with shoebox-sized gray boxes: computers without monitors.
“Look for a computer labeled UNIT 298. Once you find it, use a USB cable to connect the computer to Kyle’s phone. That’s how I’ll access the unit.”
“A USB cable? Shit, I don’t have one!” says Kyle.
“On it,” I tell them. “You find the computer; I’ll get a cable.”
I creep out into the corridor. My gaze catches sight of a door labeled Kitchenette, and I dart in. There’s a microwave, a fridge, and over in a corner—bingo!—a phone connected to a charger via a cable.
When I return, Kyle is crouched in front of a computer labeled UNIT 298. I hand her the cable, she links her phone to the computer, and her phone screen flashes with the Suckerpunch logo. Footsteps sound in the distance.
“Hurry,” I hiss.
“I’m inside UNIT 298,” says the Suckerpunch guy. His pixelated face on Kyle’s phone is replaced by a screen with a progress bar. “I’ll need a few minutes to copy all the relevant info.”
“Can we check the files while you copy them?” Kyle asks.
“Have a party,” he replies distractedly.
The progress bar shrinks to a small strip as the phone screen scrolls through an alphabetical list of all the folders. Kyle navigates to P, where we see a folder labeled Portal Closure.
Inside the folder is one file: Portal_Closure_Experiments_Video_(45mins).mp4
Kyle hits PLAY, even though we have no time to watch the whole thing. She skips forward a few minutes, to a section where a bald scientist with round glasses stands in an empty room. He says, “Our Doomie subjects seem to have a strange relationship with the world beyond the portals—the negative emotional plane, as we refer to it—and these experiments aim to explore the connection between these unusual humans and the NEP.”
“Doomies?” Kyle and I echo, swapping a gaze.
The scientist continues talking, and says, “When a Doomie claims to see the ‘future,’ I believe they are sensing the consciousness of the negative emotional plane . . . and what that consciousness is planning to do.”
Kyle skips farther ahead.
Now the same scientist is standing in some abandoned office. There are soldiers in the background, but the cameraperson follows the scientist as he heads closer to a portal—where a dozen Doomies in hospital gowns are standing just beyond a quarantine gate. They’re shivering and doing their best to avoid looking at the hole.
“Easy, friends,” the scientist tells them.
Kyle and I watch as he urges the Doomies to face the portal. “Remember what we discussed about your emotional clarity and sensitivity and depth—all the things that have caused you to be afflicted by Doomsday Delirium. Use that . . . here.”
The Doomies close their eyes and sway as they seem to do something . . . with their minds? It’s hard to tell.
Kyle skips ahead in the video. And that’s when we see it.
The portal shivers, ripples, and then . . . spins inward.
Whoever’s recording this staggers back and drops the camera. When the video reemerges, the quarantine zone is empty. No portal.
Kyle pauses the video.
“I’ve finished copying the files,” says the Suckerpuncher.
Kyle doesn’t seem to hear him as she turns to face me.
“This isn’t just a high-security facility—it’s also a research base,” I seethe. “And that’s why the asylum is located directly next door. So they can use Doomies for their experiments.”
Kyle gives me a dazed look. “Jasper, we could close the mart portal if we had some Doomie backup.” She says what I’m thinking: “We need to rescue as many as we can and get them to come with us.”
“Can you help us?” I ask Suckerpunch.
After a pause he says, “A sky bridge connects the two buildings on level two. If you can cross over into the asylum, you could wreak some more havoc . . . and force the staff to release the Doomies from their cells.”
“Good enough,” says Kyle as she unplugs her phone and sticks it in her pocket. She puts her black visor piece back on, and so do I. “Okay! Let’s give the folks over there a firsthand demo of the Dustbuster 4000!”
Kyle and I make it up to the second floor of the building only to find ourselves alone in a lab full of workstations and computers. Everyone seems to have been evacuated. Klaxons ring on.
“It’s only a matter of time before VC backup arrives,” Kyle mumbles as we linger.
I turn to face Kyle and write the word Hey in reverse on my dusty helmet screen.
She chuckles, less of a laugh and more of a shudder, but writes the same on hers.
“Ready?” I ask, to which she nods.
On the far end of the lab is a door slightly ajar. We go through it to enter a glass sky bridge that is ash-clouded on our side but clearer on the far end. We hurry across and peer through a glass door to see a medical waiting room. A couple of wheezing scientists with coats stained gray are being tended to by the asylum nurses.
We retreat a few steps until we’re hidden again in the haze.
“How many rounds you got left?” she asks me.
“About six,” I reply.
“Me too. When we get inside, flood the place with pellets. They’ll be forced to evacuate everyone to the front lawn.”
I’d ask her Then what? But we’re clearly the poster children of making shit up as we go.
We barge into the asylum and fire away.
We didn’t plan to attack Vanguard, but here we are, two Davids shooting stones at Goliath’s crotch. And man, this somehow feels like we’re evening a score. We holler as everything gets swallowed up in a soup of gray. Moments later we’re all out of ammo.
“Okay, all the Doomies should be getting—”
Kyle doesn’t get to finish that sentence. One moment she’s standing in front of me, the next she’s been pulled backward. A soldier has her by the backpack. She tries to fight him, but he flings her against a wall.
“No!” I yell out.
The soldier turns in my direction, and I see a familiar salt-and-pepper haircut.
It’s fucking Shiner. He’s wearing a gas mask and a pair of thick goggles.
“Show yourself!” he calls out to me.
I retreat into the shadows and look around for a weapon, but I can’t see anything. Think, think, think! Then I realize that one of my suit pouches is still full.
Hell, yeah. I have one last pellet left.
I unclip this pouch, gently pour the brimstone onto my right hand, and carefully close my fingers around it before Shiner emerges from the fog.
“Take off your helmet. Now,” he commands, holding Kyle in a too-tight headlock.
When I waver, he squeezes Kyle tighter.
“Okay, okay! Chill!” I call out as I use my left hand to fiddle with my helmet. I make a show of it being jammed, and Shiner moves closer to me, ready to yank it off.
When he’s directly in front of me, I throw a right hook at his face and punch him in the cheek before sliding my fist upward. I end up pushing away his goggles just as the brimstone in my grip powderizes in his face.
Shiner roars out. He lets go of Kyle and collapses.
“You okay?!” I ask Kyle as I help her up, but she doesn’t answer. She just looks down at a writhing Shiner and kicks him hard in the side.
“Let’s go!” she whispers.
Kyle guides me around a corner, then stops to take off her suit. I’m not sure what she has in mind, but I follow her lead. And as soon as my helmet is off, I feel like I’m breathing in—no, drinking in—an ashtray smoothie. I choke, then try breathing through my shirt collar as Kyle leads me into a stairwell full of Doomies.
We follow the crowd outside. Floodlights are on, but the afternoon sky might as well be night, and thanks to all the ash, Kyle and I are now as gray as everyone else. Her Kevlar vest is hidden under dust. Everyone looks . . . smudgy.
Kyle pulls out her phone and tells Suckerpunch, “We’re out, along with the Doomies. What now?”
“Behind you is the eastern part of the fence,” he says. “Sundown City reservoir is just a couple of yards beyond. If you can get to the reservoir, there are stormwater tunnels you can escape into.”
“But how do we get through the fence?” I ask.
No answer. So Kyle says to me, “I’ll work on the fence. You gather us some Doomies.”
We split up, and I stumble around, looking for some Doomies who seem clearheaded enough. But all the Doomies are either catatonic or hallucinating.
“What have we done?” I whisper.
Only then do I see someone crouched to the side, hands to his head. I move closer and freeze. It’s Pete Moretti. I kneel beside him as he tries distracting himself by reading the washing instructions tag on the hem of his medical gown: “ ‘One hundred percent polyester . . . do not bleach . . . made in . . .’ ”
Carefully, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Pete. It’s me . . . Jasper.”
He looks up and blinks. “Jasper?”
“Come on. Follow me and I’ll lead you out of this place.”
Pete doesn’t move.
“Buddy, we really need to go, like, now.” I lean in closer and whisper, “We have a way to stop the thing you’re always trying not to think about. But we need your help.”
Pete still doesn’t budge. “You can’t stop that.”
I blink. “Pete. We can do this. We can stop the end!”
Kyle’s earlier theory returns to me.
“If we defeat that stuff, you won’t have the nightmares and visions anymore! We’ll be normal again. Free again to do whatever we want!”
No response.
“Pete. Help us stop a Black Friday disaster, and you’ll live to see Cyber Monday. Just picture the discounted clothes you’ll see on the VC auction app. There’s no way Vanguard won’t put everything on super sale!”
His eyes light up, and I get to my feet.
“Come on!”
He rises soon after. Only then do I tell him we need a dozen more Doomies. “The most clearheaded ones you know. Folks who can concentrate for long enough to get outta here.”
“Okay!” he says with sudden pep.
“Okay.” I smile back.
Pete stumbles off into the crowd. He gathers together ten young guys and girls, then comes back to my side. I tell them to follow me, and we head to the east side of the barbwire fence. Here, I find Kyle standing by a small gap on the fence’s lower edge. She has carefully bent some spikes outward and is using her booted feet to kick the hole wider. Wordlessly, Pete and I join her to help.
“Hey!” a soldier shouts out as he sees us.
He’s too late. Kyle is already on the other side, holding up the wire edge for the rest of us. We scurry through to join her. The Doomies follow more quickly than I thought they could, and soon, we’re running down a slope to reach a narrow ledge that runs along Sundown Reservoir.
Kyle chucks her heavy Kevlar vest and boots into the water, then leaps in. One by one we all follow. The Doomies seem unbothered, but the water is icy, and I can’t feel the bottom. I flail about before I realize I can swim. Score one for me! Nice to have skills I didn’t know I had. Kyle holds her phone above the surface, and we all hear the hacker dude tell us, “Swim to the other side, and climb onto the ledge there. Follow the path all the way to the reservoir opening. You’ll see a gate in a wall.”
Before long we’ve reached that barrier. It’s secured by a combination lock, but the hacker guy gives us a four-digit code. Moments later, we’ve relocked the gate behind us, and we’re running at top speed through a dark corridor, with only the light of Kyle’s phone to guide us.
Suckerpunch leads us through a mazelike series of stormwater tunnels until we reach a wall-mounted ladder that leads up to a manhole cover.
Once more unto the breach, it seems. Once more.