Apocalypse Before Finals, Julie Steimle [black authors fiction txt] 📗

Now that's overconfidence for you." Chapter Fourteen: Revelation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

 

The room was empty. Truly so, in fact. Jafarr walked cautiously across the front hall to the first door. It was locked.

"Why have security when you can just lock a door," he muttered, pulling out another one of his pronged cards.

"Probably because they didn't expect you or me to be around," Zormna replied, joining him. She leaned over his arm to the keypad and punched in a code.

The door opened.

Jafarr leaned back and looked at her. "How did you know that code?"

Zormna shrugged. "A guess."

But he could tell from the look in her eye that she was teasing. Zormna was just as much of a hacker as he was. He just never knew which computer systems she had hacked in her past. And further, he knew she was not inclined to share every secret she was keeping no matter how much they were allies.

They walked down another plain corridor. This time the walls were narrow. There was another door at the end, but Zormna leaned to the keypad and punched in the code there as well. The door didn't open this time. Jafarr raised his eyebrows.

"Guess wrong?" he asked innocently.

He could hear her irritated growl from her helmet. "There is a first for everything."

Jafarr laughed and pried open the keypad panel and connected his card. From there he punched in the keys and the door released, but did not slide open.

He frowned. "We cannot force it."

Zormna nodded. "Alarm?"

Jafarr nodded back to her. Then he side glanced at her again. "Try another code."

Shrugging, Zormna typed in another code, another guess. The door snapped shut.

"That was not it." Jafarr sighed.

Zormna growled and punched in another. This time the door slid open.

Jafarr lifted his eyebrows and considered her for a while as she marched through. "How do you know P.M. codes?"

She didn't respond, but Jafarr could feel that she was blushing. He had caught her being sneaky, which for some reason she didn't like him seeing in her.

"Zormna..." he whispered, yet stopped and stared at the room.

It was oddly shaped. And it contained three prison cells. These cells were not like those back in Pennington with bars of metal. But rather they were like horse stalls, each about as large as a walk-in closet and as comfortable as an icebox. Two of the cells were empty, but the third contained a shaking, disheveled man of around fifty. His red hair had streaks of white, and it tangled over a balding spot in one place in the back. It looked as if the man had been running his fingers through his hair. It stuck up in parts. He wore a filthy silver suit that once had a coat. Someone had torn the emblems of rank off the sides and legs, leaving rips.

"Oh..." Zormna exclaimed. She rushed over to the cell door and almost touched it, but stopped when she felt the heat of the field. A top-of-the-line energy shield, the kind they used in the high security prisons in ISIC.

Jafarr walked slower to where she stood. He stared at the man in the cell, but held back. His memory of the Kevin had not been as fond as Zormna's, whom the Kevin had been nearly a father to. The Kevin always had a critical eye on him, even when their first meeting had been favorable. And their second meeting had been a bad one, which stuck firmly in his memory. The man had been critical of him since. And Jafarr knew that Alea Salvar's attitude toward him was a mild sample of the Kevin's feelings. The man hated the rebellion - which made Jafarr's job a lot harder. Honestly, Jafarr would have preferred negotiating an alliance with Alea Arden. That man had been reasonable. But Alea Salvar, who had taken over Zormna's district, would in no way cooperate if they gave the Kevin up for lost.

Jafarr glanced around the room. Looking at the machinery, he peered around to see if there were any guards in sight. He saw a control computer table on the opposite side of the room, but still no guards. He went over to it. 

"Kevin!" Zormna said, above a whisper.

The man stirred, lifting his eyes with a moan, shivering in his cell.

"Kevin, wake up! We're getting you out," she called again.

The man turned around and looked bleary-eyed at the uniformed soldier crouching near the door. He recognized the suit at least belonged to his military. "Who are you? Where is my son?"

Jafarr walked over to Zormna and tugged on her shoulder. "Hey, Zormna, can you break this code?"

"Zormna?" The Kevin stared half-awake at the taller figure in the robe and then back at the helmeted soldier. "That boy... Soldier, that boy is - "

"I know." Zormna nodded and stood up. "Wait there. We'll get you out."

She walked over to the computer console, hearing the Kevin mumble to himself, "But he's that Zeldar.... What is one of my officers doing with that Zeldar?"

Zormna sighed, frowning at the machine in front of her. The machine had a wide screen with a larger number of buttons which were not properly labeled, but color-coded and containing peculiar symbols which Zormna was not familiar with. It was an awkward system, one she didn't like. Codes she knew. This combination, perhaps not. She felt around the coded buttons until she found one which dug up a touch screen with a traditional keyboard. "Finally."

She quickly typed in commands to open the doors. The computer responded by switching off the touch keyboard and asking for a code.

"That is what it did to me," Jafarr said. He had been patiently watching her, hoping she could see something he hadn't.

"Ugh." Zormna leaned back from the screen. "It has its own separate system. I've never seen anything like it. Can't you break into it?" Zormna asked, looking up at him.

"But it sounds like her," the Kevin muttered from across the room.

Jafarr felt the keys over and frowned. "Maybe with more time and... well, better tools. I have never quite seen a system like this either. It looks experimental."

Zormna nodded, taking a step back from the controls. "Then we'll have to take an old approach."

"Old approach?" Jafarr watched her trot back to the cell then look around the room at the furnishings. "Breaking out of prison isn't easy. I did not get out of ISIC without breaking some computer system. What are you going to do?"

She smirked, but he didn't see it. "Exactly."

"What?" He followed her.

Zormna walked right by him and crouched down back at the heat field. "Kevin, I need you to go to the other end of the cell."

The older man gazed on her and didn't move. "Who are you?"

Zormna huffed. "Alea Zormna Clendar of Zeta. Yes, I know you told me not to come back to Arras, but I had to. Now move to the back wall."

The Kevin's eyes opened wider. "But, but you are dead - she is dead. They have her..."

Yet his voice trailed off as Zormna pulled off her helmet and glared at him. "Go to the back of the cell," she said.

The Kevin blinked staring at her - seeing her clearly now that she was most definitely alive. He rushed immediately to the back of the prison cell.

Zormna turned to Jafarr. "Help me?"

"At what?" he replied, striding over and grabbing her helmet, shoving it back on her head.

Zormna frowned and pulled it off again. "I can't see."

"Better no one seeing you," he snapped back, taking the helmet from her hands and putting it back on her head. She snatched it, glared at him and readjusted it so it sat right. The neck strap dangled. Zormna then walked over to the machine table.

"Help me." Zormna immediately tried to pry the top off.

Jafarr groaned, hanging his shoulders and nodded at once. "How is this the old approach?"

Meeting his eye, Zormna smirked. "Have I ever told you about the time I almost escaped the Pennington Sanitarium?"

"No." Though Jeff was interested. "I thought your memory was screwed up about that. Don't you get headaches when you remember anything from those three days?"

Zormna nodding, both teenagers, with the help of Jafarr's pocketknife, lifted off the top of the table and entirely removed it.

"I still get headaches," Zormna said while they carried the cover over to the cell. "But I've pieced it all together and wrote the bits down so I have pretty complete record."

He lifted his eyebrows, impressed.

"I had intended to sue the FBI for kidnapping, but I never got around to it," she said. "On the count of three."

They lifted it up, holding their breaths as they calculated the timing.

"One," Jeff said.

"Two," Zormna and he pulled it back, aiming at one of the sides of the head field generator.

"Three!" They rammed it in.  

The presence of the metal polymer mix in the heat field had a catastrophic effect on the mechanism, especially how Jafarr and Zormna had jammed it into the side and bottom field distributors, creating an electrical loop. The field bunched up, like water gathering in a dam, forming ripples that resurged back into the walls and the beam transmitters, magnifying the energy much like a magnifying glass did with the sun. It caused a ripple effect that overloaded not only the field in that cell, but the neighboring cells and the controlling computer.

Zormna and Jafarr both ducked to the ground, covering their heads.

With a rumbling boom, all four objects simultaneously exploded and caught fire. The lights in the room immediately flashed red.

Jafarr was the first to pop up his head. "I guess that will wake the P.M.s up. Is that how you escape the sanitarium?"

"I like playing with electricity." Zormna's helmet was tipped on her head. She jerked it down. "Now help me get the Kevin."

They scrambled to their feet. Zormna jumped through the debris at the door. The older man was crouching over, shaking violently in the back corner of the cell with his hands over his neck. She touched his back gently. He jumped.

She pulled on his arms to make him rise. "Come on, Kevin, we have to hurry before the P.M.s get here."

Jafarr reached his other side, helping him stand. The Kevin regained focus and looked at Jafarr first.

"You?" he gasped, trying to pull away.

"Stop being stupid and come on," Zormna snapped. "He's a friend. And we have to get out."

Hearing her voice, the Kevin heard her voice turned to face her. "Zormna, are you really alive?"

"No. I'm a ghost." She huffed, lifting him to his feet with Jafarr's help. "Now stand already!" Zormna gritted her teeth.

Grumbling, the Kevin wearily stood, muttering. "You've gotten a lot more sarcastic. And disrespectful."

"Well, you abandoned me on Partha," Zormna snapped back. "Now lean on Jafarr for pity's sake. You're heavy. I can't carry all of you."

Grumbling, the Kevin shifted his weight so Zormna did not have to bear the entire burden. But he could hardly stand himself.

Jafarr chuckled, trying to bear his equal share.

"Why did you come with him, of all people?" the Kevin muttered when they squeezed him through the open door. The door they had come through was stuck open. In fact, all