Page 17 of Breaking Danger
“We have it all. Including a Step Facility.”
“Wow.” The Step Facility was brand new, revolutionary. A system that cut the production time to less than 24 hours and allowed for immediate mass production.
Another woman stepped to Elle’s side. Pretty, slender, dark-haired. “Dr. Daniels, I am Catherine Young. If you can get those viruses here as fast as possible we can start mass manufacture immediately.”
Wow. Catherine Young in person! Sophie had never met her but had read her papers. “Dr. Young! It’s an honor to meet you!”
A huge man stepped to her side. If he hadn’t put a protective arm around her, Sophie would have shouted at Catherine Young to run like the devil. He was enormous, even more heavily muscled than Jon or the guy with an arm around Elle and had badass, scarred features. He looked like something out of a horror movie. They kind of guy you ran from the instant you saw him.
Dr. Young didn’t look afraid though. She reached up to touch the huge scarred hand cupping her shoulder, glancing up at him and smiling. She didn’t look like she was running away from him any time soon.
“Please, call me Catherine and I’m hoping I can call you Sophie.”
“Of course. It would be an honor.”
“And the two gentlemen here are Mac and Nick.” She gestured. Mac was the Hulk and Nick was the Brooder holding Elle. Sophie noticed that no one mentioned last names.
“Sweetie.” Elle leaned forward, her pretty face filling the hologram. “I can’t thank you enough for warning me the other night. You saved my life. You gave me just enough time to get away. Arka goons were after me and after the whole project group.”
“I know. I think they got Les, Moira and Roger.” It pained Sophie’s heart. The only saving grace was that they had probably been killed before the virus was released and had been spared the end of the world.
“No, no they didn’t.” Elle looked up lovingly at the dark man holding her tightly. “Nick and Mac and Jon rescued them. They are actually here with us.”
“Oh my gosh!” Tears sprang to Sophie’s eyes. This was the first piece of good news in…forever, it seemed. She swiveled her head up to look at Jon.Thank you, she mouthed and he dipped his head. “So…where is here?”
Silence. Elle bit her lip and the two men in the hologram looked even grimmer.
Catherine Young answered. “‘Here’ is a community situated on, or rather in, Mount Blue. About 450 miles from where you are now.” She looked at the huge man holding her, narrowing her eyes at him. She spoke directly to him. “She has a right to know. And with any luck she’ll be here soon. So I don’t want any flak from you.”
Sophie would have felt a little scared of the huge scowl she got, but it didn’t seem to faze Catherine any.
“So, Sophie,” Catherine continued. “Our news is that as soon as you get the vaccine here, we are fully equipped to start incubating and then mass producing. We’ve had an input of new arrivals and plans are being made to go out in armored vehicles to reach the uninfected, inoculate them and bring them back here. So you guys get here as soon as you can. For the rest, I think Mac and Nick here want to give Jon the latest news.”
“Sitrep,” Jon barked.
Sophie’s head swirled. These guys, together with Catherine and Elle, were equipped and had plans, whatever they were. Oh God. She clung to that thought. That someone somewhere had aplanand that she could play a part in it. That somewhere reason and will survived. And might even prevail.
Jon was exchanging news with the two men. She barely followed but then he suddenly shouted, “What?”
“You heard me,” the man called Mac said. “We’ve got General Snyder here. Together with about 300 civilians. Some are ex-Marines, so we’re looking good security-wise.”
Jon looked at her, then back at the hologram. “You know the score, Mac,” he growled. “General Snyder is our enemy.”
“That’s ex-General Snyder, and he’s not the enemy. Never was. He had to take early retirement because he didn’t believe the story about Cambridge and kicked up a fuss. The Pentagon internet is still up, I checked, and it’s true. So he’s now Robert Snyder, and he retired to a community about 150 miles from where we are now. The Captain talked to him. The community where he lives is a gated community with a lot of former military people and they took security seriously. So when the shit came down?—”
Catherine Young elbowed him and his eyes rolled. He blew out a breath, looked straight into the camera, dipped his head. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
Sophie waved that off.
Mac continued. “So when the virus hit, they were able to close themselves off fast. There are no infected in their group. We heard them issuing a general SOS. I didn’t want to contact them at first because, fuck—” He rolled his eyes and sidestepped another sharp elbow to his side. “Sorry. I didn’t want to contact them for reasons you can imagine. But the Captain overrode me. He said Snyder had always been a good guy. And you know, Jon. It’s a whole other ball game now. Anyway, we gave them directions. There were enough secure vehicles to evacuate the entire community—almost a hundred families. They also came with provisions and weapons and they are now part of Haven. And we’re happy to have them. They are also happy that there is the possibility of a vaccine. And that’s that, Jon. End of story.”
Mac’s voice had turned hard at the end, as if knowing that Jon had objections. Whatever objections he might have, they were overruled. Jon stiffened. “Yes, sir,” he replied.
“The group also has some useful skills. Military-trained men for defense. Eight nurses, two with emergency training, two medics, eight cooks. We’re in touch with other groups who’ve barricaded themselves against the infection. We’re estimating at least three thousand people within an hour’s radius. Get that vaccine to us fast, Jon, and we’re going to save some lives. Maybe even civilization while we’re at it.”
“Yeah, there’s something else, too,” Nick said.
Sophie was interested in what he had to say but she was also interested because of Elle. For all that they were very good friends, Elle had spoken very little of her love life, maybe because she had even less of one than Sophie did. But Sophie had had the impression that Elle had loved someone very much in the past and that the memory was painful. There was a feeling that Elle had been brutally abandoned.
