The Shelter: Questions (II)

“Derwin Indigo is dead.”

The words were said casually by Miller, the technician sitting in front of the monitor grid on the north side of the dimly lit, 30 ft by 30 ft command room. He had been staring at his monitor grid intently, tracking the progress of the new recruits to the Logan Camp, but had turned his head to address Commander Palmer, a weathered man with graying hair in his 40's. He was pacing around the room, glancing occasionally at all of the monitors on 4 walls of the room.

The statement’s equivocality was punctuated by the unceasing faint hum of the camp generator two stories below them outside, about a quarter of a mile to the south, audible because the walls of the command center were the thinnest of any in the camp, though those with better hearing than both the Commander and Miller had said that the generator could clearly be heard everywhere if you listened hard enough.

“Based on what?” asked Commander Palmer, stopping behind Miller’s chair.

“Suit biometrics,” replied Miller. “Brain activity spiked for about half a minute, but quickly after that, everything went to zero.”

“Could it be a malfunction?”

Miller hesitated before giving the answer to the question. He was asked it every single time he had to report a death of a recruit in the field, and every single time, the answer was the same. “Very unlikely. Also his GPS signal isn’t moving one bit. His radio looks like it’s still active, though. Do you want me to call him to confirm?”

“Yes." He paused, "and run it into my headset also.”

Miller pressed several keys on keyboard, and began to speak. “Derwin Indigo, this is Logan Camp command. Please respond. If you do not respond within the next two minutes, we’ll be listing you as deceased, and you won’t be receiving any support once you've completed your mission.”

Miller and the commander waited for 2 minutes for a response. There was none. After the long silence, Miller was the first to speak, “Sir I’m going to cal--“

“Helrlo brasterds.” The voice on the end of the line startled both Commander Palmer and Miller, causing them to flinch. The voice didn’t sound human. It was garbled, as if the speaker’s lungs were filled with fluid and the tongue was moving in an uncontrolled fashion that distorted everything that was being said. “Thourght I was deaard did yrou? Wrell I got another one fror you. Is thrat good enough! Arrnd here you rleft me in the cold. Thre’ll be more!” then there was a crashing sound, and the blip on one Miller’s monitor grid indicating the signal strength of the radio went blank.

Miller and Palmer looked at each other for a moment, blank-faced.

“Was that Indigo?” asked the commander, breaking the relative silence.

Miller shook his head. “No. If he’d been turned by the gases, his monitors would have become erratic, but they wouldn’t have gone to zero.”
“Motherfucker,” said the commander under his breath, barely audibly but loud enough that at least Miller heard it.

“How are the other recruits?” He asked, speaking more clearly.

“Jamison looks like he’s headed back. Morgan has been sitting in one place for over half an hour, but his biometrics look fine, and Leiney is moving at a steady pace, it looks like towards Derwin’s last location.”

            “Recall all of them,” said the commander sternly. “Tell them that they’ll be performing their trial a different day.”

            Miller gave the commander a blank stare, having never been given this type of order before. Recruits were never pulled from their trials. That was the whole nature of the process; they came back a full member of the camp, or they didn’t come back at all.

            “Commander, are you sure?” asked Miller.

            The Commander sighed. “Yes. Do it. Have them wait in the staging area once they’re back.” He turned to the technician sitting in front of the monitor grid on the left side of the west wall. “Bush, send a professional, preferably Stoly, along with an apprentice to Indigo’s GPS location. Have them retrieve the body and bring it back to camp.”

            He turned to Miller. “You’re in charge here. Make sure the recruits come back safe. I’m going to speak to Sub-commander Wilhelm. If you have any questions contact me on my Univ-Int.”

            The commander did a quick about-face turn and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

            The technicians all looked at each other uneasily.

            The hallways in the Command Annex of Logan Camp transmitted even the quietest of sounds. The whole annex was made completely out of metal for ease of construction and repair. The only thing not made out of metal was the insulation on the electrical wires, haphazardly running along the lengths of the hallways and kept in place by small metal hooks. Furnishings were minimal, being confined to the offices of the command staff, the command room, and the guard area on the first floor of the building.

The bulky metal doors of the offices didn’t stop this transmission of sound, and it was this way that the sub-commander, formerly asleep, was waiting at attention when Commander Palmer knocked on the door.

“It’s open. Come in.”

The door creaked open, and the commander entered the room. He pushed the door shut lightly, but nevertheless it closed with a slamming sound.

“It happened again,” said Commander Palmer, looking Sub-commander Wilhelm in the eye, “and this time I recalled all the recruits.”

The two men stared at each other, trying to read each other’s thoughts. They’d been friends since they first went through the trials together in Logan Camp, and conversation had become a formality between them. They could each predict each other's actions to a degree that many of the soldiers serving under them found unsettling, and the chief had found to make them effective as leaders.

“Need a drink?” said Sub-commander Wilhelm.

“Not while I’m on duty, Joffrey,” replied Commander Palmer.

The sub-commander shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He turned to the wall to the left of the door and pulled out a glass bottle filled with a cloudy, yellowish liquid from the small cabinet that was hanging from it.

“The techs in the chem lab distilled this stuff. They said it’s supposed to taste like banana.”

“Does it?” inquired Commander Palmer, non-chalantly crossing his arms.

“Maybe rotten banana,” replied sub-commander Wilhelm, smiling as he took out a small glass from the same cabinet and poured himself some of the liquid

Palmer sat down in the wooden chair situated in front of Wilhelm’s desk. Wilhelm sat in a similar chair behind his desk, taking a sip of his drink. He cringed. “It’s disgusting, but it’s all I’ve got.” He sighed, and then paused, his brain switching gears.
“The governing board isn’t going to be happy with what you did, Flynn.”

“I know. But this time it was different.” He paused. “I have proof that we're right.”

“What kind of proof?”

“When Miller radioed to confirm the death, we got a reply.”

“The recruit replied?”

“No.”

There was a long silence.

“Shit..." replied Wilhelm, his voice trailing off.

“And it wasn’t just any reply. The crazy sounded like he was hunting or something. Like he thought he was a recruit trying to get a kill. It was weird. I sent Stoly to get the body. I bet we’ll see that it’s been decapitated like the others.”

“And the other camps have denied involvement?”

“This just happened, so I haven’t had the chance to ask them about this incident, but I’m sure they will. After what I heard just now, though, I’m inclined to believe them.”

Wilhelm dropped  his head in his palm, before looking up again. “You do understand what that means, right? We’re going to testify before the governing board that, contrary to what they've known to be true since the founding of Logan Camp, some of the crazies are intelligent, and are capable of actively stalking and killing people if they want to.”

“Is it really that insane of a theory, though? Before I came down here, I’d heard of cases where crazies were successfully treated. If they can be treated, it makes sense that it’s a non-permanent condition with varying degrees of severity, right? Plus, this is the fifth fucking time this has happened, and THIS time, we have an audio recording that proves something is up. ”

Wilhelm shook his head. “This won’t be easy to sell, Flynn. They'll be pissed you interrupted the trials."

“Which is why you’re going to talk to them alone, Wilhelm. They will hate me for messing up their ‘young child into the wilderness to become an adult’ ritual, and the whole thing will drag on with nothing getting resolved. You, however, as sub-commander, had nothing to do with interrupting their trials, and they'll be forced to hear you out. You don't need to convince them that what I did was right; you can throw me under the bus for all I care. You just need need to convince them that we need to look into this further. The point of the trials is to get newbies acquainted with how life is down in the shelter by killing a mindless zombie, not to get tracked and slaughtered by a calculating serial killer.”

Wilhelm downed the rest of his drink and cringed for a moment. “It was me that came up with this theory in the first place, right? After the first three incidences?”

“You were pretty drunk, but yes, it was your idea and this is your chance to follow through. Maybe once this is all over you’ll get promoted. Just get the governing board to agree to investigate this further and to hold off on any more trials until we get this resolved.”
"They'll need a reason for you not being in attendance."
"I'll be sleeping. Make sure that's enough."

“Fine. I’ll draft a presentation tonight and call an emergency session in the morning. Looks like sleep will have to wait.”

“Don't stress out about it too much. The facts are on our side. I’m going to get back to the command room and make sure the recruits made it back okay, then I’ll go down to the staging area to debrief them.”

“Good luck Flynn.”

“You too, Joffrey.”

Commander Palmer stood up, dusted off his jacket and walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.