Vagabonds

Chapter Fifty-Two: Fun and Games

"Well that was a great idea, Otto."

"Fuck you, Moose. It stopped them getting in, didn't it?"

"Hey," Tori snapped, squinting in the impenetrable darkness. "Everyone keep your head, we have to think."

"There are approximately one million soldiers out there," Moose said, his voice echoing weirdly around the room he darted from the door to the back wall. "And no other exits. But hey, at least we have some beakers."

"We have guns, dumbass."

"Wait, wait, wait," Tori cut in, taking an unsteady step forward. "Guys, if we want to find the cure —"

"I'd really like to find Aquila and get the heck out of here," Moose said.

"W-we need p-power," Tero piped in. "If we w-w-want to g-get out. A-all the d-d-doors will be a-auto l-locked."

"Otto?"

"What? You think I can jumpstart the whole goddamn building?" He snorted, the sound accompanied by the meaty thud of a kick. "What about this smarty-pants?"

"I'm not helping you," spat the scientist.

A bright light flared in the darkness as Otto's skin crackled. Tori blinked, eyes adjusting enough to see the boy leaning over the prone body, grin terrifying in the spasmodic light.

"You wanna rethink that?"

"Wait, ok, fine. You have to reboot the system." The man swallowed. "The fact that the emergency lights haven't come on yet means you shorted everything when you electrified the lock."

"So how do we reboot the system?" Tori asked, edging closer.

"The utilities room. It's at the end of the hall."

"Well... shit," Otto said.

It's what they were all thinking. Otto had fried the door in an attempt to keep the swarming soldiers from breaking in. But the swarm was still out there, probably swelling ranks even in the oppressive darkness. They'd have to fight through the armed men and women of the U.S. Army in the dark without enough weapons to go around.

And that was just to turn the electricity back on.

"H-hold o-on."

Tori twisted to see Tero moving, stepping among the empty cots like a wraith, demonic and strange in the shadows thrown by Otto.

"What are you doing?"

"I c-can still n-navigate just f-f-fine."

Tori looked to Otto, his face lit from below by the static running over the skin of his hand.

"Echolocation," Otto said in explanation.

"What do you see, brother?" Moose interjected. "The mysterious shadows of beyond? The messages in the dark?"

Tero interrupted by flicking on a flashlight and pointing it at his brother's face.

"T-they have them o-on their b-belts."

With Tero's help, Joe, Tori, Daisy, and Moose gathered the flashlights. One of the guards fought to keep his, but Joe knocked him out with a punch to the side of the head.

A new problem became immediately apparent

There were only three.

Tori stared at the flashlight in her palm, her brain whirring into action.

"I think Tero and I should go to the splicer... room... thing," she said when no one spoke. "We'll take that one —" she pointed at the scientist still under Otto's foot, "— and find a cure so we can leave right away."