The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (16 page)

That
night the Captain chained Sarah, Finn and Boulder to a metal pole jutting out
of the wall of the abandoned building they were staying in. It was impossible
to get comfortable to sleep. When he saw them struggling the Captain reminded
them that they shouldn’t have run. Somehow that didn’t make things any better.
After a lot of squirming and repositioning Finn finally got sick of Sarah
moving around and wrapped his free arm around her, pulling her in close. Sarah
settled against his chest. Maybe, she thought, tonight wasn’t going to be too
bad after all.

She
was wrong.

She
dreamt she was back fighting with Gillie, Bettina, Hutch and Jaz. She dreamt of
them most nights now. It was getting so bad she was starting to fear falling
asleep. She saw Gillie and Bettina grow huge with the Berserker drug, their eyes
bloodshot as they ran to their death. And although she never saw it in real
life, she watched as Jaz got blown up by a planted mine. It happened again, and
again, and again. And then her dreams would change. She would be in the
Hourglass facility. Only this time she wasn’t breaking the others out. She was
inside, strapped to a table. There was a man there, wearing a surgical gown and
holding a scalpel. He told her not to worry but she knew he was lying. He was
going to hurt her. She turned her head and saw the other strapped to tables as
well. Not just Finn, Boulder and Marland, but Gillie, Bettina, Hutch and Jaz
too. He was going to hurt all of them.

She
woke screaming with tears running down her face. Finn tried to sooth her and
held her close for the rest of the night, patting her hair, trying to keep her
calm.

He
didn’t ask her what her dream was about.

He
knew.

He
had them too.

The
town of Scarlyle was dead. It looked like it belonged in a horror movie. Nearly
every third building was completely destroyed, but the rest of it was
untouched. It looked like it was waiting for its inhabitants to return at any
moment. There were signs hanging in shops, market carts lining the streets and
kids toys littered haphazardly along the ground. Sarah could picture it. People
going about their everyday lives, and then the bombs had started to fall and
they just dropped everything and fled. It was incredibly depressing. And
creepy.

“This
is creepy as hell,” said Boulder, unintentionally voicing her thoughts out loud.

Their
car seemed to make an inordinate amount of noise as it trundled along the
deserted street.

“Up
here on the left,” directed the Captain.

Lieutenant
Wong slowly drove the next thirty metres and then stopped outside the Hourglass
Group building. Its neighbour had been completely obliterated by either a bomb
or fire, it was hard to tell, and the Hourglass building’s front had half-caved
in as it too suffered from the damage. Unlike the facility in the last town,
they didn’t have to go through the front door. Instead they could just walk
through the giant gap in the wall to access the office area prior to the lab.

“See
any sign of anyone?” asked the Captain.

“No
Sir,” replied Lieutenant Wong. Both Lieutenant Wong and the Captain had drawn
their firearms, keeping them lowered but ready. Lieutenant Wong went first,
again peering into each of the offices before approaching the door at the end.
The Hourglass Group may have been great at weapons, Sarah thought inanely as
they proceeded through, but their building designs left a lot to the
imagination.

“Empty,”
reported Lieutenant Wong. He gripped the far door leading into the lab area and
pushed before letting go and standing back, his handgun raised. The door kicked
up a small cloud of dust. Lieutenant Wong strode through into the dark room.
After a moment he lowered his gun.

“Nothing,
Sir,” he called back. “There’s no one here.”

The
Captain frowned, rushing in after him, pulling Sarah along by her shoulder. The
room was almost a carbon copy of the last lab they were in. It had also
obviously been deserted a long time ago.

“Search
it,” ordered the Captain. “All of you,” he added, gesturing for everyone else
to join in the hunt. They jumped slightly and joined in. They returned after
three minutes, empty handed.

The
Captain turned to Sarah.

“You
said they went to Scarlyle,” he said, his gun-hand twitching in a way that
Sarah did not find comforting at all.

“I
only told you what I remembered. It’s not like I have them on a tracker.”

The
hand twitched again and Sarah stopped talking.

“Search
it again,” ordered the Captain. His voice was deadly now. They all could have
told him it was pointless, but no one wanted to get shot, so they did it
anyway.

Unsurprisingly,
the result was the same.

“There’s
nothing here, Sir.”

The
Captain roared, making them all jump back. He kicked at a loose pile of rubble,
sending it skidding across the floor, leaving a clear trail in the dust. He was
breathing heavily, his chest heaving. The rest of them just stood there,
uncertain what to do and not wanting to draw any attention to themselves in
case they became his next outlet for his anger. Even Lieutenant Wong was
hanging back. The Captain swung back around, facing them.

“I
suppose,” he said, his voice unnaturally level, “that there’s no longer any use
for you three.”

Finn,
Boulder and Sarah all took a simultaneous step back.

“We
can still be useful,” said Boulder.

The
Captain’s face swung towards him. “Shut up!”

“Ah,
Sir…” interrupted Lieutenant Wong.

“I
said shut up!” screamed the Captain maniacally. He raised his gun at Boulder.

“No,
Sir, seriously,” said Lieutenant Wong again, stepping forward, but he wasn’t
looking at the Captain or Boulder. He was looking above the Captain’s head.
Finally the Captain seemed to realise that something else was up, because he
turned to look at Lieutenant Wong.

“What
is it?” he spat.

“Sir,
look.” Lieutenant Wong raised his arm and pointed at what had grabbed his
attention. The Captain turned his head awkwardly, gun still aimed at Boulder.
Sarah risked a glance up at what had so mesmerised Lieutenant Wong as well.

Situated
just over the door frame, looking out over all of them, was a camera.

“There’s
no dust on it,” said Finn, also looking up.

The
Captain lowered the gun and Sarah saw Boulder take in a deep gulp of air. “It’s
a later model as well,” he said, his voice much more normal sounding. “You,” he
ordered Boulder, “grab me a chair.”

Boulder
grabbed the nearest chair to him and dragged it over to the Captain, before
positioning himself so that he was out of the Captain’s line of sight. It was a
smart move, Sarah thought. The Captain grabbed the chair by its back,
manoeuvred it into a more favourable position, and then stood up on it, getting
as close to the camera as he could. He reached out and plucked it off the door
frame. After a second of examining it he made a sudden jerky movement, nearly
dropping the camera.

“It’s
recording,” he said, his voice both surprised and excited. “This is recording.”

“Why
would someone watch an empty lab?” asked Clara, confused.

“Why
indeed?” repeated the Captain, his interest piqued.

“They’re
here,” said Lieutenant Wong, his voice certain.

“What?”
demanded the Captain.

“Sir,
they’re here. They’re here somewhere. Why else would they be watching the lab?
They knew we would search here first. It’s their early warning system. They’re
somewhere here.”

“How
close would they have to be?” asked the Captain sharply.

“Show
me the camera,” said Lieutenant Wong.

The
Captain lobbed the camera at his Lieutenant, who caught it deftly. He examined
the little piece efficiently.

“They
can’t be too far. They would have to re-charge and change the batteries every
few days. It can’t have a very strong signal either. I doubt they have another device
which they could use to ping the signal. Nah,” Lieutenant Wong weighed the
little camera in his fist, as if it held all the answers, “they’re really
close.” His fist suddenly stilled in mid-movement.  “A basement,” he added
suddenly. “Some of the Hourglass facilities used to talk about getting spare
parts out of the basement.” He looked up at the Captain. “We need to find the
door to the basement.”

“Alright!”
roared the Captain, “everybody get to it!”

They
fanned out again, scanning the area.

Sarah
didn’t want to admit it, but even she was getting excited about finding this
elusive group.

“Here!”
called out Clara after a couple of minutes. She had disappeared into one of the
offices and now reappeared back at the doorway to the lab. They all followed
her back into the second office on the left. “This room’s smaller than its
counterpart on the other side of the corridor,” she said. “So I started banging
on the walls. This one’s hollow. There’s probably a secret switch of something
somewhere…” she said, starting to run her hands along the grating. Lieutenant
Wong left the room and came back a moment later with an axe.

“Bloody
hell,” said Boulder, startled, “where did that come from?”

Lieutenant
Wong ignored him. He ordered them to stand back and they scrambled out of his
way as he lodged the blade into the wall. It sunk in easily and as he pulled
back a hole opened up. “Give me a light.” Clara thrust a torch into his hand
and he poked it through the hole, peering in.

“Stairs,”
he said, handing back the torch and rearing back for another strike with the
axe. “There’s a way down.”  He hit the wall again. Two minutes later the hole
was now big enough for a person to clamber through. The Captain grabbed the
torch off Clara and went in first.

“Make
sure they don’t slip away,” he ordered Lieutenant Wong as he disappeared
through the hole. Lieutenant Wong nodded and motioned for the others to go in
after the Captain. They did so, a fair bit more warily than the Captain had.
Despite knowing that the stairs were in use, it didn’t stop them from looking
old and faulty. Also as the Captain had the only torch, and he was rapidly
disappearing, it was getting extremely hard to see.  After descending ten steps
their view lightened again as an open doorway appeared in front of them. A
bright, sterile white light shone through it. Sarah had to blink several times
as she passed through it, the glare almost blinding. Finally her eyes adjusted
and she gasped.

They
had walked into a pristine looking lab. The halogen lights shone down on the
room strong and unflickering, bathing everything in a bright, unfiltered light.
There was also evidence of recent occupation. A sandwich sat on the bench
closest to her, half-eaten. Most of the equipment remained where it was, a lot
of it still turned on and humming softly. In the corner, the ashes of what had
been a small fire still contained the red glow of heat. The occupants had
clearly tried to burn away any loose work. It looked like they had only missed
them by minutes.

It
was only then that Sarah realised the Captain wasn’t down there. A door at the
other end of the lab was ajar, revealing another set of stairs. He must have
gone up through there.

A
gunshot rang throughout the room, loud and reverberating. Sarah jumped,
glancing around quickly, but everyone there was unharmed. It must have been the
Captain or one of the scientists. Maybe they had been even closer to the
scientists than she had thought. Maybe it had been mere seconds. The only
question now was who had fired the gun. She didn’t have to wonder for much
longer. The sound of someone dragging something heavy echoed down the far
staircase. Lieutenant Wong raised his gun, in case the intruder wasn’t the
Captain. A form darkened the gap between the door and the staircase, and then
the door was shoved open as the Captain walked in backwards. He was dragging a
woman along with him. She was unconscious, and there was a bullet-hole in her
leg.

The
Captain turned around and grinned. “Give me a hand.”

“You
two,” barked Lieutenant Wong, pointing at Finn and Boulder, “go help him.”

“What?”
asked Finn, appalled. “No.” He shook his head.

“You’d
rather we leave her here to bleed out?” demanded Lieutenant Wong.

Finn
wavered for a moment. Lieutenant Wong’s gun-hand twitched and Boulder grabbed
Finn by the arm.

“C’mon
man,” said Boulder, tugging him along.

Finn
gave in and went to help the Captain carry the injured woman. Sarah stood
there, stunned, and then pulled herself together. She scanned the room, looking
for the first aid kit that she really hoped was there. By general rights, every
lab had a safety area set up in case of accidents. Surely a team as advanced as
these people were wouldn’t have shirked that? A cursory glance failed to find
anything, so she started searching in between each of the lab benches. She
breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled out a neat, well-packed first aid kit
from the bench at the front of the lab. They boys were now half-way up the
staircase, and she hurried after them. She slipped and had to steady herself on
the nearby bench. She looked down to see what she had slipped on. It was blood.
The injured woman was leaving a trail of it behind her. Sarah felt sick. The
boys hustled the woman through the gap in the wall and out to the truck.

Clara
was waiting for them in the truck. Her mouth fell open as she saw them
approach.

“Oh
my god,” she gasped. “What have you done? What did you do?” They laid the woman
down on the floor in the back. “Why is she unconscious? I mean, it’s a leg
wound, right?”

Sarah
jumped up into the truck and knelt down next to the woman. She rummaged around
in the first aid kit and pulled out a bandage. She glanced up at the woman’s
face. It was pale, too pale. There was also a dark bruise forming on her forehead.

“I
think the Captain knocked her out after he shot her,” she said dryly, not
caring if she sounded judgemental. She tore the packaging off the bandage and
started to wrap it tightly around the woman’s leg. She hoped it would work. The
bullet was probably still in there, and would need to come out, but they didn’t
have time for that and although Sarah wasn’t medically trained, she was pretty
sure that she shouldn’t be doing it in the back of a truck anyway.

“What
do you want me to do?” Clara was asking Sarah, but Lieutenant Wong answered.

“Take
us to the old bank a few blocks back,” he ordered. “We’ll stay there overnight.
We can stabilise the woman and then get us all back on the road again tomorrow
morning to the closest military compound we can find.”

Clara
just stared at him. “I meant what can I do to help stop her from dying,”
replied Clara scathingly.

“Clara,”
barked the Captain. “Do it.”

Clara
gritted her teeth but climbed back into the front of the truck and took off. To
her credit, she drove far more gently than she usually did. The back of the
truck hardly rocked.

Sarah
watched the woman’s blood stain the bandage she had just applied. After a
moment’s hesitation she put her hand over the bandage and applied pressure. The
woman groaned, but didn’t regain consciousness. Blood oozed up between Sarah’s
fingers.

“She’s
still bleeding!” yelled Sarah frantically.

“We’re
nearly there,” said the Captain. Even he looked a little strained. Sarah
supposed there was no point in him capturing someone if they just died on him.

Clara
stopped the truck and Sarah looked up to find themselves parked outside the
front of the bank. The boys got into position to move the woman. Sarah released
her hand and looked at the bandage. The blood stain had only spread a little
more. She hoped it stayed that way.

“Clara!”
barked the Captain, “get the door.”

Clara
jumped out of the car and raced around to the front of the building. She tugged
at the door but it didn’t budge. She kicked it viciously and it slid a few
centimetres on its tracks. Sarah put her weight into it and the door slowly
opened with a loud screech.

The
gloominess inside was mitigated by the large, dirty windows that opened out to
the street. Sarah supposed it originally gave the bank an open, friendly atmosphere.
 A large reception desk stood in the centre of the room. Clara rushed to it and
knocked off an old vase and a few rusted pens. Finn, Boulder and Lieutenant
Wong brought the woman over to the desk and set her down on it. The woman was
starting to wake up now. As the boys laid her down on the table she lashed out
at them, yelling incoherently.

“Grab
her arms!” commanded the Captain.

Seeing
that she was doing more harm to herself by thrashing around and yelling, the
boys complied.

The
Captain came close to her so that she could see him and looked at her in the
eyes. “Calm down,” he said firmly and loudly to be heard over her laboured
breathing. “You have been shot. We need to get the bullet out of your leg.”

Sarah
couldn’t help but notice that the Captain failed to state that he had been the
one who shot her.

The
woman, who had stopped yelling to listen to him, now went wide-eyed with fear
and starting yelling and thrashing around again. The boys nearly lost their
grip.

“Do
you want to live?” demanded the Captain. The woman continued to gaze
frantically around the room. Sarah wasn’t even sure if she had heard him. “Do
you want to live?” repeated the Captain, louder now. This time it got through,
because the woman narrowed her attention back in on him. “Because if you do,
then you need to stay still, and let us do this.”

There
was a pause as the woman stared at him, still wild-eyed, and then something
seemed to change in her internal landscape.

“I’ve
been shot?” asked the woman, speaking for the first time. She looked like she
was trying to claw herself back from the pain and confusion with logical
thought.

“Yes,
in the leg. I imagine it hurts,” replied the Captain dryly.

Sarah
wanted to punch him. He was such a twat.

The
woman nodded. “You shot me.” It was a statement, not a question, but the
Captain answered anyway.

“Yes.”

“And
it’s still in my leg?”

“Yes.”

“Am
I missing any fabric from my pants?”

“What?”
The Captain stared at her, surprised.

“Bullets
can stay in,” explained the woman through gritted teeth as another wave of pain
hit her. “What can’t stay in, is fabric from my clothes. That rots. So check my
damn pants and see if there is just a tear, or if there is actually a hole
missing.”

This
was news to Sarah, and by the look on the other’s faces it was obviously news
to everybody else as well. After a second Sarah pulled down the bandage and
examined the blood stained trouser leg.

“Well?”
asked the woman.

“There’s
a hole,” said Sarah, her heart sinking.

“Not
a tear?”

“Not
a tear.”

The
woman nodded, thinking. “Do you have any anaesthetic?”

“No.”

The
woman gulped, but nodded again, adding the information to her data.

“I
have morphine,” piped up Sarah. She had seen it earlier when she had been
trying to find a bandage.

The
woman nodded again, this time gratefully.

“Are
any of you medically trained?”

Not
for the first time Sarah wished that she had done more than clean in her time
spent in the infirmary. If only the doctor had taught her some things.

To
her surprise Lieutenant Wong spoke up. “I’ve done a field-medics course,” he
said.

To
the woman’s credit she gave a weak smile. “Better than I was hoping for,
actually. Ok, do it.”

As
Lieutenant Wong came over to the first aid kit to get what he needed and Sarah
took out the pre-packaged morphine syringe. She handed it to him. Lieutenant
Wong took it and added it to his things. When he had all that he needed he
approached the table and took out the shot of morphine.

“Ok,”
he said, taking her arm, “this is going-” but he stopped suddenly. He shook her
arm, but it just flopped around loosely. “Hey! Hey! Lady! Wake up!” he yelled,
squeezing her trapezius muscle. She didn’t reply. Lieutenant Wong lowered his
head to her mouth and watched her chest, looking for signs of breathing. Sarah
stared as well, petrified that the woman had died on them. The woman’s chest
rose and fell rhythmically, but shallowly. “I think she’s just passed out
again. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Then
do it quick before she loses more,” ordered the Captain. “She needs to answer
questions.”

Lieutenant
Wong grunted and pulled out a pair of scissors. He cut away the material of her
pants surrounding the wound. He then pulled out something that looked like a
slim pair of pliers. Sarah looked away. The Captain, Clara and Finn all stared
in fascination at Lieutenant Wong working on the woman. Boulder was looking
green and had stepped back, looking everywhere but at the woman.
This would
be,
thought Sarah,
the perfect time to escape
. But she just couldn’t
do it. She couldn’t leave the woman here, not with them.

The
woman’s wound made a few squelchy noises as Lieutenant Wong dug around with his
forceps. Finally he grunted.

“Got
it.”

Sarah
turned back to see Lieutenant Wong holding up a bloody bullet in the teeth of
his forceps. A ragged piece of cloth was attached. He discarded the bullet with
a flick of his wrist. The bullet seemed to ping obscenely loudly against the
floor for such a small object. He then pulled out a packaged litre of normal
saline and started pouring it all over the wound, letting the bloodied water
pool out of it. After he finished the whole litre he chucked the empty bag in
the same direction as the bullet. He shook his hand out, like it was beginning
to cramp, and then went to ruffle through the first aid box. It was an awkward
task, as his hand was bloody and the other hand was providing pressure over the
woman’s wound. He locked eyes with Sarah.

“Pass
me the suture packs.”

Sarah
knelt back down next to the first aid box and starting searching uncertainly,
not exactly sure what a suture pack would look like. They hadn’t quite made it
that far in their first aid courses yet in basic training.

“There,”
said Lieutenant Wong, interrupting her thoughts. He had been peering over her
shoulder as she rifled. “At the back, pale purple.”

Sarah
saw it and passed it to him, but he shook his head. “Open it up and pass me the
needle.”

Sarah
opened the package and pulled out a wicked looking curved needle with a thread
attached. She pulled it out and handed it to Lieutenant Wong carefully. He took
it, and after only a moment’s hesitation started closing up the woman’s wound. It
was not a pretty or neat job, but it seemed to work as after a moment or two
the woman seemed to stop bleeding. Lieutenant Wong fished out another bag of
normal saline and poured it over the wound again, using his hand to help
dislodge the drier, more stubborn blood, so that her wound now looked more
presentable. He then dried off the area with some spare gauze and Sarah handed
him a bandage she had found while he had been stitching the woman up. Finally Lieutenant
Wong sat back to appraise his work, a look of satisfaction on his face.

“How
long until she’ll be able to talk?” asked the Captain. His hands were
twitching, as if he was desperate to shake her awake right then and there.

Lieutenant
Wong shrugged. “I couldn’t say, Sir. I think that’s up to her.”

The
Captain grunted and then strode away, unhappy. “Let me know the moment she
awakens.” He then strode into the back of the building, presumably checking
that they were safe and alone.

“Are
you going to hurt her?” Finn asked Lieutenant Wong. He had an odd look on his
face, and it made Sarah a little uncomfortable.

To
Sarah’s relief Lieutenant Wong snorted out a laugh and shook his head. “The
Captain’s keen, for sure, but he’ll want to get her back to an Accord barrack
so we can record her answers and question her properly.” He paused. “It’s not
like we need to hide the fact that we’re after them anymore,” he added in a low
murmur.  
That wasn’t as reassuring an answer as Sarah was hoping for.

“And
what about us?” asked Finn, asking the question that had been on all of their
minds since they had captured the woman. “What's going to happen now that you
don’t need Sarah to guide you anymore?”

There
was silence as Sarah, Finn and Boulder collectively held their breaths.

Lieutenant
Wong shrugged again, this time unhelpfully. “I don’t know. That’s for the
Captain to decide.”

“But
do you think he’ll let us go?” demanded Boulder, “or will he take us around the
back and shoot us?”

“He’ll
probably let you go,” said Lieutenant Wong after a moment’s pause. The pause
and the
probably
were not exactly reassuring either.