As I followed Tom and Wallace out of the room, two young men with weapons visible on their hips stepped away from the door and shadowed us down the hall. I shook my head. Wallace clearly wasn’t taking any chances. That was going to make this more challenging, but it wasn’t unexpected. Frankly, I was more surprised that they had approached me at all. I would have to ask about that, if the chance presented itself. Otherwise, I was just going to have to play along and wait for an opportunity. After all, he couldn’t dedicate all these resources to watching me forever, not with how short-staffed everyone was, lately.
“Now, where should we begin our tour?” Wallace mused.
“This is your party, Wally, we’ll start wherever you like.”
“Well,” he rubbed his chin theatrically. “You’ve already seen the infirmary, so perhaps we should start with the prison block.”
That decided, he paused at a metal door with keycard access. Swiping his badge, Wallace opened the door and motioned to the guard inside a plexiglass booth, he pressed a button and the barred door blocking the way swung open. Wallace waved us through.
“There are two wings to the prison complex,” he explained as we reached a path that branched in two directions. “To the left is the high security wing, where we are housing the members of the Domini we have managed to detain, and to the right are their victims, mostly former Organization members, who are being detained until we can find a way to deprogram them.”
“Since when are you responsible for locking up Domini?” the last I had heard, Gail was managing that side of things.
“Since no one else has the capability,” Wallace snorted. “The others are already overwhelmed with their own responsibilities. Someone needed to handle this matter. And since we already have this facility, I figured it might as well be us. Besides, keeping them here has certain advantages, for example, it allows us more time to interrogate them.”
I had no real sympathy for the Domini, but something about how he said that put my teeth on edge. Moreover, it seemed clear from the way that he phrased it, that Wallace did not have approval to be housing Domini here, he had just decided to do it anyway. I wondered what other secrets he was keeping from the rest.
“We have some very interesting prisoners in this wing,” Wallace turned to the left. “Some you would even recognize, I am sure.”
“Oh?”
“Vicki Carter, for example?”
“Why on earth would she be here?”
We walked down the corridor past thick, reinforced doors with only a small slot at about eye level for guards to peer in at the prisoners. Every slot we passed was closed, so there was no way to know how many prisoners Wallace truly had.
“I pulled some strings to get her transferred here, for questioning about the Domini. If you are interested, I am sure I could arrange for you to help with that. You will need something to keep you occupied here, after all. We don’t need you wandering at loose ends, do we?”
“Yeah, hard pass, Wallace. I have already had my fill of that particular succubus. Besides, I don’t think she even knows anything about the Domini. She wasn’t really one of them, she was just a killer, a rabid dog they found and let off the leash, because she was convenient, someone they could use. I don’t see how she could possibly help you.”
“You never know unless you try,” Wallace shrugged, unperturbed. “Now, you can see that we have top of the line security here. Every door is reinforced and soundproof, so the ubarae inside cannot influence anyone on the outside. And to ensure that there are no attempts at escape, we have cameras in every cell that are monitored in the central guard room, which is just down here.”
He smiled broadly, clearly enjoying showing off ‘his’ facility. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He was preening like he had built the place himself, even though this was just an existing prison facility he had commandeered during the chaos after the big reveal.
Still, as he continued the tour through the guard station, then out of the prison sector and into the kitchens, the surveillance control room and the storage areas, I had to admit he had done quite a lot with an abandoned prison. The place was well staffed, stocked and reinforced like he was planning on weathering a siege. Which, come to think of it, he might be. The most surprising part was how many people were down here. I had expected a skeleton crew, at most, after all, everyone was struggling with staffing after what had happened, but Wallace seemed, if anything, to have too many people. Every sector he showed me was fully staffed, with plenty of people guarding the prisons, tending to patients, stocking shelves, monitoring surveillance, and just patrolling the halls. And, like the two guards that were still trailing behind us, most of them were also very young, most seeming to be in their early to mid twenties. Where was Wallace getting all of these people? He wouldn’t bring just anyone in to guard Domini members, would he? As I was pondering that, Wallace opened another door and gestured for me to enter.
“I think we can end the tour here for today. This is our fitness and training centre, where the new recruits can exercise, spar and prepare themselves for combat. I am rather proud of it, myself. After all, training the next generation is our most important task right now.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
We stepped out onto a slightly raised viewing platform around a large, open space set up much like a commercial gym with workout equipment, free weights and open space for various activities. My jaw dropped; there were dozens more people down there, on treadmills, lifting weights, even fighting in a zone marked off for sparring on the side closest to where we stood. I had already thought there were too many people in this facility, this was… concerning. Before I could speak, Wallace rapped on the railing, drawing their attention. When they saw him, I watched people straighten, hands clasped behind their backs and chins up, lining up for inspection. He didn’t even need to say a word.
“Attention, recruits,” Wallace began.
“Sir!”
The chorus of replies came back immediately. Loyal.
“We have a distinguished guest, today,” he gestured in my direction, and I took a quick gulp from my glass. “Allow me to introduce you to Rayna Clay, formerly of the Organization. I am sure you all remember her.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd and people exchanged glances. Oh good, he’d told them about me. That was surely going to be fun.
“For now, she is just here to observe. So, I hope everyone will make sure she has a good first impression. Now, what is our motto?”
A young man stepped forward,
“Security, unity, humanity!”
“And what is our goal?”
“The extermination of all threats to the future of humankind!”
“By any means necessary,” another added.
“Why?” Wallace prompted.
“Because it is us or them.”
“And we choose us,” they all responded in unison.
Wallace smiled,
“Very good. Remember what I told you. They had your names. They knew your families. It was only a matter of time before they came for you. They started this; you need to finish it. And to do that, you need to prepare yourselves. Now, as you were.”
Wallace waved them away and the group relaxed and returned to their work. I stared down at the crowd, shaking my head slowly.
“Wallace, what have you done?” I muttered.
“What do you mean, Rayna?” he smirked.
“All of these people… Where did they come from?” my gaze never shifted from the kids sparring several feet away from us.
“Ah, you are concerned that I have allowed people with no immunity into a facility housing Domini, am I right?” he chuckled. “That would be very foolish of me, wouldn’t it? No. I would never do such a thing. We do, of course, have plenty of staff who are not immune, but they are headquartered in other facilities, ones where the ubarae are never housed. Not here, at our most secure facility.”
“Well, where else could you have gotten so many? There aren’t many Immune or Partials left. Certainly not this many.”
“Ah, that is where you are wrong, my dear,” Wallace patted me on the shoulder. “You forget, the only reason we were so short staffed is because Carmine and Suzette were turning away most of the promising prospects, for years. And not just them, but their counterparts overseas, as well. Surely, you can see what that means, Rayna?”
My eyes widened, I turned to stare at Wallace.
“Now you see,” he smiled. “I have done what the others should have. I have spent months recruiting those rejected candidates, and training them for the inevitable war to come.”
“How did you find so many, so quickly?” I asked.
“Well, we did admittedly get a bit lucky, there,” Wallace admitted. “We raided a Domini facility early on and recovered their records. They detailed all the candidates they had turned away. After that, finding them was easy.”
“Why would they have even kept those records?”
“I imagine they were planning to purge all of these people, once they took control. They were not a priority, in the beginning, but they could have become a threat later on. So, I suspect that, had the Domini succeeded in their takeover, once they consolidated their power, they would have quietly hunted down and killed everyone you have seen in this facility, to ensure their own safety. And once I communicated that to them, most of the candidates were more than willing to join our cause, to protect themselves and their families, from the ubarae threat. After all, they are at more risk than anyone, given that they are a known threat.”
“And I take it you didn’t tell any of the others about this? Gail, the government, the Council?”
“Why would I do that? That would serve to do nothing but sacrifice the element of surprise. The ubarae think we are weak, now, and Gail’s clumsy flailing only reinforces that notion. By the time they realize we aren’t, it will already be too late for them. Surely, you can see the strategic advantage in that?”
I nodded thoughtfully.
“Now, the main problem is that they have no experience and no training, so at the moment we are trying to get them up to speed, so that they will be ready, when we make our move,” Wallace remained vague about what that move would be, but I was suddenly much more concerned that, whatever he was planning, he could actually pull it off.
I had thought, hoped, that I was overreacting. There was no way Tom or Wallace could have the resources to accomplish whatever they were planning. But I was beginning to see that I had underestimated Wallace. I leaned on the railing, watching the kids spar, trying to process. It was clear now that this was a radicalization pipeline. Wallace was weaponizing these kids. Filling their heads with lies, with his hatred. Building himself an army. Really, the only silver lining here was that Wallace wasn’t kidding about them being untrained. If the two fighting below me were any indication, whatever work they had been doing thus far was not paying dividends. I studied their movements, concluding that they were beyond sloppy; frankly, they were a danger to themselves and each other. In fact…
“So, Rayna, what do you…” Tom approached.
“Hold this,” I thrust my glass into his hands and vaulted over the railing onto the gym floor.
The two people who had been fighting directly below me stopped, turning to stare. I grabbed the wrist of the closest man.
“If you punch someone like that, you are going to break your fingers,” I turned to the man’s sparring partner. “And you are going to get your nose broken, blocking like that. What clown has been instructing you?”
“Instructing?” the man pulled his wrist from my hand. “We are just practicing. Who needs instruction?”
I rubbed my forehead, and looked back up to the platform.
“Come on, Wallace. You know better than this. Amateurs practicing on their own will only embed their mistakes. They won’t learn anything good this way. You don’t have anyone instructing them?”
“You know how it is. I haven’t found anyone I trust, yet,” Wallace rubbed his chin, studying me. “But maybe that has just changed.”