The 45th Parallel, page 25
“No.” Sera read my thoughts. “I need you alert.”
“One sip for courage,” I said, swilling a mouthful of one of Antonio’s better vintages. I had deliberately taken some of the better varieties. Once they started, I needed them to drink it all.
“How do we get the wine to them?” I asked Sera. “We can’t just walk up and present it to them. ‘Hey guys, fancy a drink?’”
“No, but there is a kitchen near where they are, and I haven’t seen them go into it yet. How about you leave the bottles on a bench in plain sight? How many people do you know who would walk past six bottles of wine left for the taking?”
“Very few,” I admitted, knowing perfectly well I wouldn’t. “But how do we do that without them seeing us?”
“How is your night vision?”
“Pretty good now that the headaches have passed. Why? What are you thinking?”
“If I cut the lights and cameras for ten seconds, do you think you could get in and out?”
“Geez, ten seconds? You can’t give me any longer?”
“Fifteen, twenty tops. Any longer, and they will go looking for reasons why the power went out? The key is to have them still be standing there wondering what is happening. By the time they take action, the lights are back on. Hopefully, they just think it is a power glitch. They don’t know this community well enough to know if it is common or not.”
“It sounds too simple to work.”
“Dad used to tell Summer and Ally about his military missions. They used to tell me those stories; it was their way of keeping him alive. Making him real for me. He always told them when enacting a plan to keep it simple. The simplest plans often work the best. Fewer variables means fewer things to go wrong.”
“Okay, so how do I get from here to there, carrying six bottles, no less?”
“Cameras are only in the articulated corridors and the Soggiorno deck. There aren’t any in the internal corridors. While they are watching the cameras, it has been hours. They think they have everyone. Look at them. They are relaxed, many of them sitting down. They genuinely don’t think they are at risk. I can record on the camera while this corridor is empty. I’ll play the recording on a loop so they don’t see you. When I see you at the edge of the articulated corridor, I’ll flick the lights. You will need to get to the kitchen and leave the bottles.”
“Where is the kitchen?”
Sera pointed the path out to me on the screens. “They are nowhere near this passageway; it is that one… there… where you will come out. All you need to do is duck to your left, stick to the wall, pass three doorways, drop the bottles on that bench and get back into this passageway.”
“And you think twenty seconds is enough?”
“I’ve seen you move swiftly when you need to.” She smirked, remembering the times I had escaped from boys’ houses without being seen.
“How far do you think it is?”
Sera stared at the screen and estimated. “About twenty meters? The bench is next to the doorway on your right as you enter the kitchen, so you will need to have the bottles ready to drop. That gives you roughly eight seconds there, four seconds to drop, and eight seconds back.”
I gaped at her. “I can’t do that. I’m not that fast.”
Sera thought. “Okay, so how about I flicker the lights as a warning? Two seconds on, then off for thirty. Flicker again, then back on. It can’t be any longer, or they will go looking for reasons the lights were off.”
I sighed. “Fine. Let me wrap the bottles up and get them into a bag. The last thing I want is them hearing the bottles clanging as I approach. But let me dry off properly. I don’t want to slip over in my bare feet because I dripped water all over the floor.”
As I toweled my hair, I said, “Sairs, I’m not sure I can do this.”
“I have faith in you. Think of our mothers. And our fathers. You are Luca’s daughter. He would be so proud of you.”
“Of you too.” I smiled wanly. “I’m shitting myself. What if they catch me?”
“Then I will think of something else,” she replied. “I won’t let you die, Cait, I promise. I love you more than anyone else on this planet. We may not be twins, but I will always think of you as the other half of me.”
I hugged her tightly. “Let’s run through this again.”
My heart was pounding out of my chest as I tiptoed down the hallway. Sera had already set the camera on a loop, so I logically knew I was safe. The only risk was that I would run into one of them. I could see the light ahead of me in the main pod. The people were concentrated in the middle of the space. The few I could see looked terrified. Standing with my back against the articulated wall, I closed my eyes and thought of my father. My biological father, Luca. A military captain, he had been deployed to war zones and saved many people. Please, please let me not get caught, I prayed.
I opened my eyes and looked up at the camera in the corner. Sera was watching, and I felt slightly better knowing she was there. I moved the backpack onto my front, unzipped the top, and wrapped my arms around the bottles, running the plan over and over in my head.
Focus, Cait. Exhaling forcefully, I nodded.
The lights flickered twice; I dipped my head and bolted. It was dark with all the blinds down, but being daylight not pitch black, and I hoped like hell they couldn’t see the movement in the shadowy light. Thank goodness I had excellent night vision. The bottles clanged slightly but were masked by the sound of their hostages, cowering and gasping in fear after being plunged into darkness. Getting the bottles out of the bag and onto the bench took longer than I wanted, and I cursed my slippery, sweaty hands. Pivoting, I barely made it back to the corridor and against the edge before the lights came back on. I could hear shouting and prayed they wouldn’t hurt anyone for what I had done. Staying close to the wall, I rushed back to the technical pod and fell into Sera’s arms. The stress of what I had just done weighed on me like a brick wall pushing me down. Using the wall for support, I played the run over and over in my mind. Have I done enough? Did they hear me? Seen me? What if they ignore the bottles, and it is all for nothing? Have I risked these people’s lives? People I now care for like my own community.
Sera sat beside me on the floor, holding me against her and stroking my hair as I panted.
“You did good,” she kept repeating. “You did so well, Caitlin. Our parents would be so proud. All of them.”
Over the following hours, we deactivated the cameras in the main corridor of our pod and moved to the main control room, knowing the intruders were all on the Soggiorno deck. We set up each screen and watched the cameras cautiously. They patrolled up and down, pulled people out, and shot them before dragging them away, not caring if the blood spattered on the crowd seated terrified behind them. The guards walked up the corridors, escorted individuals to the bathroom. But no one went into the kitchen.
“We need a Plan B,” I said as frustration rose in my chest, watching them kill another three people, this time including a child. The crowd was distraught, but no one was challenging them. This was a peaceful community, not a combative one. “Surely, there are weapons somewhere. Knives even? Remember that time we practiced knife throwing in the forest, practicing being ninjas?”
“I do.” Sera smiled. “We couldn’t source ninja stars, and we were too scared to make them in case we got caught, so you borrowed your mum’s knives.”
“Do you remember how she lost it at us when she saw how bent the tips were?”
Sera returned to the pod schematics, looking for a logical place for the community to store weapons. “Surely not in the crops or algae pods,” she mused. “Apartments are possible, but goodness, how many would we need to search? Medical, I don’t think so. Besides, you said you hunted there already. It would need to be a locked cupboard and sizeable. Perhaps two if ammunition is stored separately.”
“Look!” I said, pointing at the screen on the right. One man had wandered into the kitchen and was filling a glass of water at the tap. He drank it thirstily and refilled his glass. As he turned, he saw the wine on the bench and emptied his cup into the sink.
“Share it, you greedy asshole!” I hissed at the screen as he unscrewed one bottle and chugged the wine directly from it. “Fuck, if he drinks it all, then we won’t have enough to go around!”
Sera pulled her attention away from her laptop and stood beside me, watching.
“Shit, maybe we should have taken a dozen?” I held my breath, watching. If he drank the entire bottle, then that only left five for twenty-four people. The problem was, I didn’t know what a fatal dose was. The bottle of Morte Liquida wasn’t large, and I didn’t know how concentrated it was. Surely people didn’t kill themselves daily, and they didn’t need to hold a large supply?
“You couldn’t have carried that many,” Sera reassured me. “Besides, I don’t think they will fall for the lights off trick twice. Every one of them we eliminate is one less threat. But I think we are going to need weapons.”
Just as I feared he had finished the bottle, one of his colleagues wandered into the kitchen and saw what he was doing. We had no sound but could see from the body language and hand gestures that his friend wasn’t happy. The altercation attracted the attention of two more who lingered in the doorway.
“They are going to do it,” Sera breathed. “Please, please share it with everyone.”
One of the group, a woman, now that I could see her hair tied neatly in a bun from the back, was collecting glasses from a cupboard and brought them over. They tipped the bottles across all the glasses.
“Now share it,” I encouraged. “It is a delicious wine. I enjoy it. Drink it. Please let it be enough.”
“No!” I pointed to one who refused, waving the proffered glass away. “Take it, you fool!”
It was the man with the list, the leader by the looks. He was pointing and giving orders but didn’t take the wine from the others. They were here for the long haul. That was plain. Yet, he didn’t stop his comrades from drinking. The residents weren’t putting up any resistance, which frustrated me. But these were ordinary people who had been dragged out of bed with their children, menaced, and watched their friends and neighbors being slaughtered before their eyes. In the same position, I wasn’t sure I would kick up a fuss and draw attention to myself, either.
Each of the guards returned to their posts, sipping slowly. The man watching the surveillance footage looked up and took his glass, taking a healthy gulp before placing it beside him.
“Fuck, we will be here all year at this rate,” I ranted, watching them sip slowly. “They will still be drinking at the full moon, and we won’t be able to shove them through the portal.”
“One step at a time.” Sera spoke in a calming tone. “First, we get them to sleep. Then we tie them up and work out what we do with them before the portal opens. It is weeks away.”
“I’m worried that they won’t get enough even to knock them out. What then?”
“Look!” Sera pointed to the screen. The first guard, the one who had chugged from the bottle, was slumping against the wall.
“The people, they have noticed.” I pointed to the residents facing him. The crowd was nudging each other quietly.
“Shit. What happens if the rest of the Caspians notice he is unconscious?”
“Hopefully, he sleeps first, and they just think he is drunk.”
“On one glass?”
“Look, is that … Carmelo?”
Carmelo was slithering slowly toward the nearly asleep guard.
“Don’t be a hero!” I ranted at the screen. “They will all be asleep soon.” Carmelo stopped and waited. Watching.
“Look. It’s Gio!”
“And Matteo!” I pointed to the screen where Gio and Matt were sitting several rows back in the crowd, whispering. Even on the slightly grainy camera footage, I could see Gio had a pronounced bruise down the side of his face. Matteo had blood-soaked hair, but they were alive. Thank goodness they were alive. I closed my eyes for a second and breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
“I wish we could get their attention,” I mused.
“You will get them killed. They are a doctor and an engineer. What do they know about battle strategy?”
“What do we know?” I retorted.
“Well, we have heard enough stories from your mother and mine, Jake, and Gerry at every birthday party we ever had. Add in all of Dad’s stories from Summer and Al, and I think we know a little.”
“Perhaps, but it is all theory, Sairs.”
“But it is more than they have. We can’t leave them there.”
“We need to get one of those weapons,” I mused. “They have plenty. Even one helps us. Perhaps we can pick them off as they go to the bathroom?”
Sera returned to the pod blueprints and hunted for a storage cupboard large enough to store weapons. I continued to watch the monitors. Within thirty minutes, all the wine appeared to have been drunk. The original drinker was out cold, slumped against the wall. Two others seemed to be asleep.
“How long does this fucking stuff take?” I wondered aloud. “It can’t be long. They wouldn’t make a death ceremony go on for hours, surely. Come with me, Sairs. I need to nervous pee, and I don’t want to be alone.”
Ten minutes later, I knew we couldn’t wait any longer. We needed to get one weapon. Their weapon.
“I have an idea,” I told her. “But you aren’t going to like it.”
Sera set the camera to record and recorded the empty hallway. She then played it back through the broadcast channel on a loop, although the man with the laptop appeared to be asleep. From the distance and camera angle, it was hard to tell if the man leaning against our pod entrance was just relaxed or had his head tipped back in slumber. It didn’t matter. I needed that gun. With none of our own, I needed one of theirs.
As I crept along the reticulated passageway between the tech pod and the Soggiorno deck, my heart was pounding. Can I possibly be stupid enough even to complete this? This had to be the dumbest thing I had ever done. As we reached the entrance, we tried to attract the attention of the people facing us. Using the best sign language we could, we clasped hands against the side of our face and eyes closed, catching the eye of several residents. Was the guard leaning up against our doorway asleep? Infinitesimal nods indicated yes. Holding my breath, my lip held between my teeth, I leaned around the entrance and plucked the weapon from the sleeping man’s arms. He moved slightly as I lifted the gun, and my heart skipped a beat. But he didn’t open his eyes, and I slipped back into the corridor, wiping my sweaty palms on my wet jeans. That was one.
The problem was, the room was enormous and round. The lift ran through the large circular pillar in the middle, obscuring our view. The residents were sitting in the middle, but I couldn’t see all the way around the room, and we couldn’t easily see all the guards, nor all the residents. A groundswell and surging at them would cause deaths without question. Slow and steady, I told myself. Take your time. Don’t rush it.
Carmelo caught my eye, slithering inch by inch to the front. He gestured with his eyes to my left, then closed his eyes. Asleep. That guard was asleep. Okay, so we could get that one.
“Fuck. We need a better plan, and we need it now,” Sera whispered.
Casting my eyes to the left, I could see the guard several meters from the entrance. Asleep or dead. Frankly, I didn’t care which. A plan formed in my mind.
“Help me,” I mouthed to Sera. I reached out and grabbed the foot of the guard I had taken the weapon from. He slid down the wall to lie flat. I heaved, but the man was several times my size. Sera saw what I was doing and helped pull the other foot. Dead weight. I had heard that expression many times, but I had no idea of its accuracy. Using the door jamb as a brace, we heaved the body through and as far up the hallway as we could. It was the man who had discovered the wine, and he was dead. I poked him with the screwdriver, to be sure.
“Now what?” Sera whispered.
“Strip him.”
Holding my breath, I braced myself against the stench that assaulted me from the unwashed man as we stripped him of his outer clothing. Discarding my wet clothing, I dressed in his black pants and shirt many sizes too big. Clutching the weapon, I took a deep breath and strode purposefully into the Soggiorno deck. My long dark hair was tied back in a neat bun, the best Sera could manage with the single hair elastic we had. My hands had been shaking too much to complete the task. The pants were far too long, tucked up on the inside, but I prayed the length concealed the fact that I wasn’t wearing shoes. The shirt swam on me, but tucked into the belt at my waist, it at least hid the fact that I was a woman. Tall and dressed in black, I hoped I looked enough like one of them if they didn’t look too closely. They all had dark hair as well. The several women we had seen on the surveillance footage had their hair tied back in buns. Those residents seated facing that doorway had seen Sera and I pull the guard in and were watching, open-mouthed. Holding my breath, I strolled as confidently as I could manage to the next guard around the wall. Fortunately, I had seen Illy in an official capacity many times, managing teams and barking orders, and replicated her ramrod straight back and confident stance. I prayed no one spoke to me. That would be a dead giveaway. My heart was beating madly. I glanced down at his face, terrified of needing to use the gun, and wondered if I had the stomach to slam the gun butt to his face if he spoke. Using it would be a disaster, not to mention loud. I had been taught how to load and use one by Illy many years ago, but a wave of relief struck when I saw he was unconscious too. As smoothly and unobtrusively as I could, I unlooped the weapon from his body and dropped it over my back. I cast my eyes around the room confidently. No one had noticed. Two down.
