Chapter 6
Darkness made everyone honest for three seconds.
Someone screamed.
Someone prayed.
Someone cocked a rifle.
Someone shouted Lena’s name.
Then emergency lights came on.
Red.
Low.
Varga’s bed was empty.
Ruth stared.
“No.”
The restraints had been cut.
One guard lay unconscious.
Not dead.
Darek spun.
“Seal the corridor!”
Soren laughed bitterly.
“You keep saying that as if corridors respect authority.”
Elias grabbed the fallen guard’s pulse.
“Alive.”
Maya handed Tomas to Ruth.
“Take him.”
Ruth held the child.
Maya ran toward the service panel.
“Power was manually interrupted.”
“By who?” Darek snapped.
“Someone with access.”
Everyone looked at everyone.
Exactly what whoever cut Varga loose wanted.
Ruth shouted:
“Stop.”
No one listened.
She climbed onto the stretcher frame.
“Stop!”
People looked.
“Varga escaped because we are all busy deciding which side is worse.”
Darek’s face hardened.
Soren almost smiled.
Ruth continued.
“He wants the Continuity index.”
Lena nodded.
“Cabinet behind pathology freezer.”
“Key?”
“No.”
“Code?”
“My birthday.”
Ruth stared.
“Seriously?”
Lena shrugged weakly.
“I panicked.”
Ruth almost laughed.
Maya returned.
“Backup circuit cut from lower junction.”
Soren frowned.
“Varga had help.”
“Who?”
“No idea.”
Darek said, “My men search.”
Soren said, “Your men don’t know the layout.”
Darek glared.
“You do.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Ruth looked between them.
“Together.”
Both turned.
“No,” they said.
“Good. You agree.”
Maya smiled despite herself.
Ruth continued.
“Elias goes with Soren.”
Elias looked offended.
“Why me?”
“Because you hate him enough to notice betrayal.”
Soren nodded.
“Sound.”
Elias glared.
“Stop agreeing.”
Darek said, “Two of mine too.”
“Fine.”
“Maya?”
“Medical Seven.”
Ruth looked at Lena.
“I go.”
Lena shook her head.
“You stay.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
Ruth stared.
“Maya knows where cabinet is.”
“She doesn’t know my birthday.”
Maya said, “May ninth.”
Ruth and Lena looked at her.
Maya shrugged.
“I live with Ruth.”
Lena smiled.
“I like her.”
Ruth felt absurd warmth amid crisis.
“Good. She goes.”
Maya took the keycard.
Tomas reached for her.
“Maya.”
She stopped.
Ruth looked.
The child’s eyes filled.
Maya’s face broke.
“I’ll come back.”
He shook his head.
Ruth whispered, “You do not have to promise a result.”
Maya nodded.
She crouched.
“I am going to get something important.”
Tomas stared.
“I want to come back.”
Better.
He touched her face.
Then let go.
Maya left with two neutral medical volunteers and one fighter from Elias’s unit.
Darek began organizing the surface evacuation.
Soren and Elias headed after Varga.
Ruth stayed with Lena and Tomas.
For five minutes.
Then Lena said, “You’re vibrating.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“Shut up.”
“Go.”
“No.”
“Ruth.”
“I lost you once.”
Lena’s face softened.
“You didn’t lose me.”
“The regime took you.”
“Correct.”
“I stopped searching.”
“You survived.”
“I stopped.”
Lena grabbed her hand.
“You do not owe me eight years of punishment now.”
Ruth stared.
“I should have found you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Excellent plan.”
Ruth laughed through tears.
Lena continued.
“You were outside. You kept telling people I existed long after the state said I didn’t.”
“Then I stopped.”
“Yes.”
Lena looked exhausted.
“Because hope was eating you.”
Ruth closed her eyes.
Her sister always knew where pain hid.
“You don’t get to make me feel better.”
“I am not.”
“Good.”
“I need you useful.”
Ruth laughed.
“Still Lena.”
“Unfortunately.”
A monitor alarm beeped.
Ruth adjusted electrodes.
Lena watched Tomas.
“Who is he?”
“Cohort T.”
“I know that.”
“Then why ask?”
“What is he like?”
Ruth looked at the child.
Scared.
Observant.
He liked Maya.
He kicked Elias.
He hated loud metal.
“He is two.”
Lena smiled.
“Good answer.”
Ruth looked at her.
“Did you know him?”
“No.”
“Then why did Varga say family match?”
Lena’s face changed.
“Because you match the cohort.”
Ruth froze.
“What?”
Lena looked away.
“Not Tomas specifically.”
“Explain.”
“You and I were exposed during North Fever.”
Ruth stared.
“Everyone was.”
“No.”
Lena shook her head.
“Our building was in the first cluster.”
Ruth remembered.
Their mother died that winter.
Their father survived.
Ruth and Lena had mild fevers.
“Blood samples?”
“Yes.”
“Taken at clinic.”
“Yes.”
Ruth felt cold.
“They kept them.”
“Continuity started there.”
Ruth looked at Tomas.
“The cohort children came from survivors.”
“Families with certain markers.”
“Why me?”
“You have one.”
“What marker?”
“I don’t know exact.”
“Varga does.”
Of course.
Ruth’s medical brain ran through possibilities.
Immune alleles.
Antibody profiles.
Rare receptor variants.
None of it justified children.
“Did they ever contact me?”
Lena stared.
“You donated blood twice after the fever.”
Ruth remembered emergency drives.
Government requests.
“Those were Continuity?”
“Partly.”
Ruth felt violated by memory.
An ordinary needle.
A patriotic poster.
“Did you know then?”
“No.”
Good.
One less thing.
Lena continued.
“Varga tracked families because natural resistance appeared inherited in some lines.”
“So Tomas’s parents—”
“Both resistant.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruth thought of the thousands below.
“We find them.”
“Yes.”
A voice from the stair.
“Ruth!”
Maya.
She returned carrying a black metal case.
Her face was pale.
“Got it.”
Tomas reached.
She took him.
Ruth exhaled.
“Index?”
Maya nodded.
“Encrypted drive. paper ledger too.”
Lena smiled.
“Paranoid systems trust paper eventually.”
Maya looked at her.
“You are terrifying.”
“Yes.”
Then Maya’s face changed.
“What?”
“We found bodies in Medical Seven.”
Ruth went still.
“Who?”
“Staff.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Varga?”
“No.”
“Killed when?”
“Recently.”
“By?”
“Gunshot.”
Ruth looked at Darek’s fighters.
Maya shook her head.
“Old regime sidearms.”
Soren’s people?
Or staged.
No.
Stop.
Evidence.
“What else?”
Maya held up a small audio recorder.
“Lena’s.”
Ruth looked at her sister.
Lena smiled faintly.
“I told you I hid copies.”
“What is on it?”
“Varga meetings.”
“With who?”
“Everyone.”
Darek returned just in time to hear.
He stopped.
Lena looked at him.
“Want to sit?”
“No.”
“Your loss.”
Maya inserted recorder battery.
First file.
Varga’s voice.
Darek’s.
Years younger.
Ruth looked at the colonel.
He went still.
Varga:
You understand the refrigeration contract cannot be audited.
Darek:
I understand you are paying triple market.
Varga:
Risk costs.
Darek:
My company transports equipment. What happens after delivery is not my concern.
Varga:
Good.
The recording ended.
Silence.
Darek’s face had gone gray.
Elias was not there to hear.
Ruth wished he was.
Darek said, “I did not know.”
Lena replied:
“You knew enough to say you did not want to know.”
He closed his eyes.
That was fair.
Maya did not look at Ruth.
The same sentence belonged to her too.
Next file.
Varga with General Soren.
Soren’s voice:
No children.
Varga:
Then no program.
Soren:
Use adults.
Varga:
The marker is developmental.
Soren:
I said no children.
Varga:
And I said your prisons need epidemic protection.
Ruth stopped the recording.
She looked at Soren’s absence.
Interesting.
He objected.
Then what?
Lena said, “Keep going.”
Next.
Soren:
How many?
Varga:
Twelve initially.
Soren:
You told me four.
Varga:
Numbers changed.
Soren:
End it.
Varga:
President approved expansion.
Soren:
I am security.
Varga:
And I am health.
Soren:
End it.
Recording.
Then months later.
Soren:
Why are there forty-two?
Varga:
Because you kept delivering families.
Soren:
Political prisoners.
Varga:
Bodies do not care why they are in cells.
Ruth stopped again.
There.
Soren had objected.
Then enabled.
Complexity did not absolve.
Lena said, “One more.”
Maya played.
A third voice.
Unknown.
Varga:
If the regime falls, lower sectors must not open.
Unknown:
Agreed.
Varga:
There are records that implicate your people too.
Unknown:
Then burn them.
Varga:
People remember.
Unknown:
Then they burn with records.
The voice was distorted by poor recording.
Ruth looked at Darek.
His face hardened.
“Not me.”
Lena said, “I know.”
He looked surprised.
“Who?”
Lena closed her eyes.
“I never saw him.”
Maya replayed.
The voice.
Older.
Male.
Educated.
Darek whispered:
“I know that voice.”
Everyone turned.
“Who?”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“President Malik’s chief negotiator.”
The opposition’s political leader.
Not Colonel Darek.
The man expected to become interim prime minister after the regime fell.
Anton Vale.
Ruth felt cold.
Maya said, “You’re sure?”
Darek shook his head.
“No.”
Good.
Not certainty.
“But I have heard him for years.”
Lena whispered:
“He visited Varga.”
“How often?”
“Twice that I remember.”
Darek’s face darkened.
“Vale always said he had never entered government facilities.”
Soren and Elias returned.
No Varga.
Soren looked at the group.
“What happened?”
Ruth pointed to recorder.
“Your revolution has a problem.”
Darek corrected quietly.
“Our revolution.”
Ruth looked at him.
“No.”
She held Tomas’s hand.
“My problem is the people still underground.”
Then alarms sounded above.
Not purge.
Gunfire.
Elias’s radio exploded with voices.
“Surface entrance under attack!”
Darek grabbed his weapon.
“Regime?”
The answer came through static.
“No.”
“Who?”
A pause.
Then:
“Opposition security.”
Everyone stared at Darek.
He went pale.
“What unit?”
“Vale’s.”
Ruth looked at Lena.
The interim government had arrived.
And apparently it wanted the tunnels back under control.
Before anyone moved, Ruth looked at the black Continuity case in Maya’s hands.
“From now on, nobody carries the only copy of anything.”
Darek frowned.
“That slows movement.”
“Yes.”
Maya nodded immediately.
She removed one memory card from the case and handed it to Lena.
A second went to Elias.
The original stayed sealed.
Ruth looked at Soren.
“You get nothing.”
He almost smiled.
“Sensible.”
Vale’s voice no longer came through the walls, but Ruth could feel the next government forming above them already—rooms, titles, chains of command, people saying later.
She wanted one rule established before any of that hardened.
No single person would own the truth again.
Not a president.
Not a revolutionary.
Not a doctor.
Not even a survivor.
Lena slipped the memory card beneath her blanket.
“Finally,” she said, “a family inheritance worth keeping.”
May you like
Ruth laughed despite herself.
Then the gunfire above grew louder, and everyone stopped pretending they had more time.
