trained on her.
She does as I say, and with me to the side and behind, we walk toward the idling Stryker a short distance away.
“I’m returning with one woman under guard and leaving her vehicle at the front gate. Gonzalez, hold your fire,” I radio.
Backtracking inside, we park the vehicles and escort Jan to one of the conference rooms. I momentarily consider blindfolding her so she doesn’t get a view of the facility, but she already knows where it is. Besides, it’s not like we’re just going to cut her loose should her story not be to our liking. She takes in the facility as we guide her through, eyebrows rising in surprise at seeing the group of imprisoned soldiers under armed guard, but hides her expression almost immediately. She sits at one of the tables while I step outside with Lynn, filling her in on the details of the conversation at the gate.
“What do you think?” I ask. “I’m a little lost and confused here.”
“I honestly don’t know, Jack. On one hand, she knew where this place was. Then again, she may not know what it truly was or what happened. I guess the fact that she came alone is a plus on her side,” Lynn answers.
“Well, let’s see what she says. After you,” I say, opening the door.
I sit at the table while Lynn remains at the door. Lynn isn’t keyed up and alert, but she’s not exactly relaxing her guard either. Jan appears a little worn from whatever experience she’s been through.
“Okay, let’s begin. Who are you?” I ask.
“You have my ID, but I’m Jan Clark. I worked for the CDC before the world fell apart,” she answers, with a touch of sarcasm. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed. I choose both.
“How do you know about this place?” I ask, probing for her involvement.
I take her for having above-average intelligence, if the green eyes staring back at me are any indication. She has to know something big has happened, or is happening, by the prisoners she saw as we walked through. And by the fact that most were dressed as soldiers.
“That’s a bit of a story,” she responds.
“I have nowhere to go at the moment,” I state.
“Well,” Jan begins with a sigh, “I was the supervising manager in charge of several labs, specifically those dealing with the mutations brought about by the vaccine. You know it was the vaccine and not the virus that caused the changes?”
“Yes, we know,” I state.
“Well, it’s not that it wasn’t known. Anyway, we conducted tests…”
She continues to tell us about their tests and what they discovered in the short period of time they had available. It is nothing we really didn’t already know, but I let her continue nonetheless. She talked about classes of UV lighting and the effects each of the three wavelengths had. It appears that none of the manmade UV lighting would have any effect on the night runners. Only the sun provides the correct wavelength. There are other technical details, most of which go flying right over my head. At one point, I radio for some water to be brought in, as she was right about her story being a long one.
“There was one thing that led me to believe everything wasn’t quite right. Gabe Simons, a man I worked with for years, the director of the CDC and my boss, wouldn’t let us conduct any EEGs or MRIs on the test subjects. That hit me as odd, as it removed some very important resources. We were limited to physical tests…blood draws and such. So, when he told me to leave, I grabbed my duplicate files from his desk. I may have, well, picked up a couple of extra ones. I knew he was hiding something and that he knew more about what was going on than he let on. After a while, I looked through them and found a file talking about this place and one other about an hour north of Atlanta. I looked up the coordinates and kept them in the back of my mind. I had other research to conduct, but, well, that ended. Things weren’t getting any better so I decided to head out. I
She does as I say, and with me to the side and behind, we walk toward the idling Stryker a short distance away.
“I’m returning with one woman under guard and leaving her vehicle at the front gate. Gonzalez, hold your fire,” I radio.
Backtracking inside, we park the vehicles and escort Jan to one of the conference rooms. I momentarily consider blindfolding her so she doesn’t get a view of the facility, but she already knows where it is. Besides, it’s not like we’re just going to cut her loose should her story not be to our liking. She takes in the facility as we guide her through, eyebrows rising in surprise at seeing the group of imprisoned soldiers under armed guard, but hides her expression almost immediately. She sits at one of the tables while I step outside with Lynn, filling her in on the details of the conversation at the gate.
“What do you think?” I ask. “I’m a little lost and confused here.”
“I honestly don’t know, Jack. On one hand, she knew where this place was. Then again, she may not know what it truly was or what happened. I guess the fact that she came alone is a plus on her side,” Lynn answers.
“Well, let’s see what she says. After you,” I say, opening the door.
I sit at the table while Lynn remains at the door. Lynn isn’t keyed up and alert, but she’s not exactly relaxing her guard either. Jan appears a little worn from whatever experience she’s been through.
“Okay, let’s begin. Who are you?” I ask.
“You have my ID, but I’m Jan Clark. I worked for the CDC before the world fell apart,” she answers, with a touch of sarcasm. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed. I choose both.
“How do you know about this place?” I ask, probing for her involvement.
I take her for having above-average intelligence, if the green eyes staring back at me are any indication. She has to know something big has happened, or is happening, by the prisoners she saw as we walked through. And by the fact that most were dressed as soldiers.
“That’s a bit of a story,” she responds.
“I have nowhere to go at the moment,” I state.
“Well,” Jan begins with a sigh, “I was the supervising manager in charge of several labs, specifically those dealing with the mutations brought about by the vaccine. You know it was the vaccine and not the virus that caused the changes?”
“Yes, we know,” I state.
“Well, it’s not that it wasn’t known. Anyway, we conducted tests…”
She continues to tell us about their tests and what they discovered in the short period of time they had available. It is nothing we really didn’t already know, but I let her continue nonetheless. She talked about classes of UV lighting and the effects each of the three wavelengths had. It appears that none of the manmade UV lighting would have any effect on the night runners. Only the sun provides the correct wavelength. There are other technical details, most of which go flying right over my head. At one point, I radio for some water to be brought in, as she was right about her story being a long one.
“There was one thing that led me to believe everything wasn’t quite right. Gabe Simons, a man I worked with for years, the director of the CDC and my boss, wouldn’t let us conduct any EEGs or MRIs on the test subjects. That hit me as odd, as it removed some very important resources. We were limited to physical tests…blood draws and such. So, when he told me to leave, I grabbed my duplicate files from his desk. I may have, well, picked up a couple of extra ones. I knew he was hiding something and that he knew more about what was going on than he let on. After a while, I looked through them and found a file talking about this place and one other about an hour north of Atlanta. I looked up the coordinates and kept them in the back of my mind. I had other research to conduct, but, well, that ended. Things weren’t getting any better so I decided to head out. I
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