The words hit Huck and he recoiled. He rose from his seat and walked with steady footsteps to Scott and put his hand on his shoulder.
“It’s time,” Huck said in a small voice.
Hesitating, Scott let his hand hover his pocket. “I can’t, Huck,” Scott replied in a calm voice. He had been practicing the words in his head for the last ten minutes. “It’s not the same.”
From the corner, Blair shifted in her seat and strained to hear. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her hand poised above her notepad. The monitors hummed, someone cleared a throat, another rustled papers.
Huck bent down, his lips near Scott’s ear. “Everything we did was to rid the world of men like this. He was responsible for attacks on girls, Scott. And his wife was complicit in those crimes. Their son was expelled from two private schools for carrying on his father’s tradition of feeling he is entitled access to everything, even people. We used him and now we’re done with him. These are the people who deserve to die.”
“What’s he saying?” Eugene demanded. “What’s he whispering?”
The members of the Elektos began to ask questions from the screens: “How did a man with his history make it through your background checks and personality tests? Why was he let inside, knowing his past? Tell us about the survivors. There is a child?” They crooned in waves of questions, each voice rising above the next, then dying away.
And behind it all was Eugene. “I demand to know what they are saying!”
Scott stood and turned to Huck, his back to the people he was commanded to kill. “Why now? How easy would it have been to count him among the missing...spirit him away...why the fanfare?”
“I’m allowed my reasons,” Huck replied and he turned away from Scott and walked over to Claude, whispering in his ear with empathic tones. And after he was done, Claude rose and walked over to Blair and extended his hand to her.
“What?” Blair asked, confused. She drew her notebook to her chest and looked at her father. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m staying.”
Putting his large hands on her shoulder, Claude pulled Blair to her feet and directed her toward the door. Reluctantly, she leaned back and grabbed the lined up pens and dumped them into her purse. She shook Claude off with a glare.
“Dad,” she said. Huck turned to the wall, away from her. “Is this necessary?” she asked him, but he continued to ignore her. She straightened her back and brushed a piece of hair out of her face and followed Claude to the hallway. When the door clicked shut behind them, Huck turned back to Scott and waited.
Scott’s heart pounded as he pulled the vials from his pocket and silently popped the plastic lids off into his hand. He held the needles away from his skin. He turned like he was following in Claude’s footsteps, and then paused, as if he were changing his mind, and walked to Eugene.
The man stood again and he put his hands out in front of him. “Stop,” he commanded. “Stay where you are.”
Standing tall, Eugene towered over Scott. Everything about him loomed large, and Scott began to assess if this was possible, if he could be quick enough, confident enough, to pull off Huck’s request. His mind worked overtime as he watched Eugene’s eyes hone in on him like a caged animal plotting his escape. He had to know his time was over. He could smell it in the air.
“I agree with you...the Elektos Board should be an elected body,” Scott said and he took a small step forward. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It makes sense.” He stopped in front of Mrs. Brikham and closed his eyes for just a half-second. “And I’m sorry. There is no other way.” With a quick motion, he plunged the needle into her neck, pushed the poison into her jugular, and left the syringe dangling from her flesh.
Mrs. Birkham yipped and cussed, and grasped at the foreign object. She fell forward to the table, white foam forming at the edges of her mouth. In the moment it took for Eugene and Charles to realize what had happened and rush forward to her aid, Scott had brandished the virus filled needles in both hands and jabbed the men simultaneously: one into Eugene’s hand, the other into his son’s stomach.
By the time they realized they, too, had been attacked, the vicious concentration of heart-stopping pathogens had already started working, decelerating their systems, blurring their vision, and slowing their breathing. Within fifteen seconds, they were dead. Their eyes rolled upward, their bodies only heaps on the ground. Scott stepped to the wall and took a deep breath. It was done. It was over.
“Are they contagious?” Gordy asked, covering his mouth and nose with his jacket. The Elektos Board began to yell into their microphones, their voices merely tinny screeches from afar. Huck leaned down and pushed the mute button. The room went strangely quiet.
Scott shook his head. “Of course not. It’s not the same as before. Just stay away from the bodies as a precaution, of course. And I do want them brought to my lab for further testing.” He hated that it made him sound callous and detached, because it could not be further from the truth. He wanted to examine them closely because he had yet to test this batch on humans, and his mind was racing with the hope that he had improved upon his original design. He would take great care of their bodies, as specimens, as contributors to science.
“But we can release this one in the air, too?” Huck asked, stepping closer to Eugene’s body, tiptoeing. Scott nodded.
They took stock of the room—the screens around them moving with talking heads, pointing fingers. Huck reached and pushed the volume button again and the room once again erupted with noise.
“We demand to know what just happened!” Roman yelled.
“This is outrageous,” Victor said.
Huck sat back down at his seat and straightened his camera. He looked directly into the screen. “Settle down, settle down,” he said. And when the Elektos Board failed to listen to him, his face turned red, a vein throbbed in the middle of his forehead, and he yelled wildly. “You will listen to me! I command your attention.”
The Board stopped talking. They looked at their screens and waited; Huck was illuminated by the glow of their screens.
Claude reentered the room, followed by six guards in full protective gear. Blair slipped back in behind them and when she saw the bodies, she brought her hand up over her mouth, and pushed herself into the corner of the room, holding her bag up against her chest like a shield. The men worked efficiently to clear the Brikham’s bodies out of the boardroom. They disposed of the needles in a metal case, and hauled the family out like ragdolls. Then they cleaned the area with disinfectant wipes: the chairs, the table, and the ground beneath them. The whole spectacle took less than a minute. Scott couldn’t help but notice that the teenaged boy’s features had softened in death, and he looked so young and baby-faced. Without his scowl and his offensive demeanor, he was just a kid.
He looked away as the young man’s body disappeared out into the hallway.
Shay tapped his microphone and drew everybody’s attention to his screen. “What happened, Huck? We are hopeful your answer is reasonable. Our people will demand it.”
“You are in charge of what your people know about, Shay,” Huck said, annoyed. “Are you implying I should find someone with more discretion for your post?”
“We shouldn’t discuss this remotely. I petition for an in-person Board meeting,” Morowa demanded.
Huck sighed. “This is the way it has to be. We will no longer humor the entitlement. The Brikham family is one of many who felt that their money bought them the right to make requests and the right to break the rules. They thought they were better, and for no reason. And, as you know, we are not in the position to change course. Our Islands are perfect. They will be run with precision under my direct leadership. Had I anticipated their poor behavior, I would have rid our Systems of them before now. But we were busy implementing Release Day...getting people to our bunkers was enough of a hassle. Then we were supposed to add a second operation? No. It made sense to wait.”