The distance between us is maybe eighty yards.
Time to make some real fireworks.
Tossing the rifle aside, unstrapping the RPG, I drop to one knee and place the missile launcher on my shoulder. Having looked over the thing earlier, I know exactly what I need to do to make it fire, and I do those things now-flipping open the sight piece, flicking the safety off so the thing is primed and ready to go.
The driver and passenger understand my intention immediately. The gun disappears back inside the car as its tires start to squeal again, only this time the car doesn’t rush at me. Instead it starts to speed backwards, down the drive.
I can’t wait any longer. I aim low and squeeze the trigger. The RPG shakes on my shoulder and then the missile is gone, one-quarter second in the launcher, the next one-quarter second under the car.
The explosion is massive, a gigantic fireball, sending the car airborne. It hangs there above the ground for a second or two before gravity pulls it back down, tipping over and landing on its hood.
I don’t move at first, completely amazed that it worked as well as I had hoped. Then I toss the RGP aside, grab the rifle, and hurry toward the open garage door.
sixty-eight
“What are you doing with those children?” Eli asked.
Nobody answered him. Not Zach, and not Matheson, who Eli currently cradled in his arms like a husband ready to take his bride across the threshold. Only they weren’t going over any threshold. They were going up stairs, a full flight, if not two flights, the ten children already ahead of them with the women, marching single file like silent, vacuous robots.
“My wheelchair,” Matheson said. “We can’t just leave my wheelchair.”
“You’ll get another one,” Zach said. Despite the fact he was soaked-they were all soaked, thanks to the sprinklers-he still looked intimidating, his eyes hard, his face stone, his jaw clenched so tight Eli wouldn’t be surprised if he cracked a tooth. The gun stayed in Zach’s right hand, aimed at Eli’s spine.
“Why can’t you carry me?” Matheson asked, looking at Zach over Eli’s shoulder.
Zach, staying a few steps behind as Eli trudged up the stairs, said nothing.
Eli had never been a super strong man by any means, but Matheson wasn’t very heavy, maybe one hundred fifty pounds, the cancer leaving him all skin and bones. Sure, Eli was being forced to do this, or at least that’s what Eli wanted Zach and Matheson to think. Eli had been all set to keep refusing, no matter how many times Zach beat him, until an idea sprung up in the back of Eli’s mind, an idea as bright and beautiful as a rainbow after a storm.
And so he carried Matheson, step after unsteady step, the children ahead of them having already reached the top, being ushered out through a single door, while Matheson kept whining for his chair until, realizing he wasn’t going to get his way, the old scientist started threatening Zach.
“I’ll call Caesar myself, don’t think I won’t. He’ll have your job for this. He’ll kill you for this.”
“The wheelchair stays,” Zach said, his voice showing no hint of fear, “plain and simple. I’m sure you have the money to buy another one, and if not, someone will buy it for you. But right now? Right now we’re facing a code black, which means we have to evacuate this place”-a pause as he checked his watch-“in just under thirteen minutes.”
“Then why don’t you carry me? It’d be faster than this slug’s pace.”
“And give Eli here an advantage? I don’t think so.”
They trudged on, Eli carrying Matheson, Zach maintaining a three-step buffer behind them. No one had spoken for several long seconds, so Eli decided to voice his question again.
“What are you doing with those children?”
Zach said, “Don’t worry about it,” while at the same moment Matheson said, “They’re for the games.”
“What games?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zach said, louder and angrier now.
“But what about Project Legion?”
“The project is complete,” Matheson said. “It’s been complete for nearly ten years.”
“That’s enough,” Zach said. “He doesn’t need to know anything else.”
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, the children were gone, as were the two women. The door was closed.
Zach went to the door, placed his hand on the knob, his back to Eli as he said, “You’re going to need to carry him out here, too.”
“No I won’t.”
Zach turned around, hesitant, sensing something in Eli’s words. His hard eyes went even harder when he saw Eli and what Eli intended to do.
“Don’t,” he said, and aimed his gun at Eli’s face.
Eli leaned back against the railing. Matheson was still in his arms, and the old scientist seemed to know exactly what Eli meant to do with him, because he started squirming around, trying to break out of the hold.
“What are you going to do?” Eli asked. “Shoot me? Go ahead.”
The gun in Zach’s hand didn’t waver. He stared straight back at Eli, his face impassive.
“Help me!” Matheson shouted, trying to crawl out of Eli’s arms. “Help me!”
Eli said to Matheson, “Say goodbye to your legacy,” and with what little strength he had left, he pushed Matheson over the railing, pushed him as hard as he could, distantly aware of the gunshots and the bullets as they tore into his back, watching the old scientist crying out and flailing as he fell to the bottom.
Eli stood there then, his hands now clutching the railing, his body jerking as another bullet tore into his back.
“You piece of shit!”
Zach was beside him in an instant, the barrel of the gun burning into Eli’s neck, and Eli, still clutching the railing, three bullets in him, began to laugh. He couldn’t help himself. He just started laughing, and before he knew it, Zach moved the gun down to his stomach and pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, and all the while Eli laughed, blood deep in his throat, and he felt Zach grab him again and the next thing he knew he was in the air, weightless, seeing first Matheson’s sprawled and broken body at the bottom of the stairs and then seeing Zach at the railing, watching him, and even this didn’t stop Eli from continuing to laugh as he fell and fell and reached the point where he could fall no longer.
sixty-nine
The moment I step through the garage door, a bullet nearly takes me out.
I duck low, sprinting as far left as I can, returning fire at the man shooting at me.
The garage is mostly filled with vehicles. Two cars, one SUV, and a large white delivery truck.
The man is standing near the delivery truck. He empties his entire magazine, and it’s when he pauses to reload do I get the advantage.
My rifle kicks out its last shell. I toss it aside, grab the gun secured in the waistband of my jeans, aim at the man, and fire.
The man slaps a fresh magazine in his rifle, starts to shoot back at me, but one of my bullets strikes his shoulder. He spins away. His rifle clatters to the ground.
I advance across the dark garage-the few lights stationed about flickering red-and place two bullets in his head.
That’s when I notice someone in the driver’s seat of the truck.
I raise my gun but pause when I see it’s a woman.
She screams, “Don’t shoot!”
I lower my gun.
She raises a gun.
I duck as she fires, as she steps out of the truck, and I fire blindly again, running for safety beside the sedan parked beside the truck. I must be lucky, because she stops shooting, and when I look, I see that she’s on the ground, blood filling the pool that was just a moment ago her left eye.
I eject the empty magazine, reload another, approaching the back of the delivery truck. Here is where the surrogates will be.