Page 63 of Vice

26

Viper

If I’m going to trust Dele to run the daily affairs of the business I’m planning to steal from Pray, I’m going to have to learn to trust her instincts and decision-making processes. And while I may not have any reservations about killing everyone in this facility, she does.

Dele is ruthless when she needs to be. That’s for certain. But she’s also so kind and softhearted. Good thing I’m hardhearted and mean enough for the both of us.

“Right now, all we need is a containment strategy,” she finally says. “And Pray has pretty much done that for us. Which only means we just need to kill all the administrators and people who run this place and replace them with our own.”

I finally turn to her, an eyebrow cocked. “You want to keep the child army that you were just so indignantly and self-righteously against not ten minutes ago?”

She gives me a wry look. “Well, we can’t let them go. They’re too dangerous for that now. The only thing we can do without killing them is to tweak whatever brainwashing Pray has done. Instill in them some autonomy. Allow them to start having their own thoughts, and when it’s not too dangerous for them, then give them a choice. They can either keep working for us or they can go live their own lives. Because it’s not like they actually know anything about the running or logistics of this thing. The only thing they’ve been taught is to kill for it.”

It's not a bad plan. A middle ground between both our ideal outcomes that gets us to the same goal. To neutralize the threat. More than neutralize, this threat may actually become an advantage to us if they choose to work for us in the end.

Still, I press on. I need to know that Dele understands the realities of what she’s dealing with. That if it doesn’t turn out as ideally as she hopes, she’s willing to allow what needs to happen.

“That’s probably going to be fine for the younger children. Hell, if you want, we can probably release some of the younger and let them find nice happy homes to be raised in,” I say, appealing to her optimism first. “But what if they resist. What if after everything, they’re still a threat?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “Then I guess I’ll let you deal with it as you see fit.”

She knows the way I see fit is to murder. Even though she disagrees.

Optimistic. Idealistic even. But also realistic. Willing to take the most drastic measures even when she doesn’t want to. Ruthless, but not needlessly so. And yet, always when needed. That’s not something I’m ever going to be able to learn. I’ll always choose the most ruthless and cruel option. Dele won’t. And so long as she keeps the money flowing in, people will bow down to her for it… with me looming threatening in her shadow.

“But we shouldn’t let that plan of yours go to waste,” she adds looking around the room. “Think you can restrict that plan of yours to just this room?”

What’s she planning now…

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s get Randy to gather all the administrators and help here in the morning. That’ll give me some time to arrange for new management.”

Her idea of new management is pulling enforcers and agents of hers that she can trust to run this facility in such a way that Pray never notices that anything has changed. And the person she chooses to replace Randy is no one other than Wyan himself.

“He’s the one that helped make you,” Dele says when I question her on the choice. “If you’re the blueprint for these kids, there’s no one with more expertise on how to deal with them.”

I neglect to point out that Wyan helped to make her too, so she’s also a blueprint for all this. And not just us but also the Soles. All along, Pray has wanted to mimic their recruitment process. To take children and turn them into killers for a cause. Except Pray doesn’t try to make this look any less fucked up than it is.

When it’s time, they all gather obliviously into the room. All twenty-five of them. Trainers, teachers, cooks, medics and the three guards from outside included. The only one who has any clue what’s going on is Madelyn, but the threat of me finding and harming her own child looms over her. Before she goes into the room, though, Dele takes her aside.

She either thinks I’m not paying attention or doesn’t care when she looks at the woman and says, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t find your family when you die.”

It’s a sickeningly hollow comfort when Dele is shepherding a bunch of people into a room to die without a second thought or any remorse. But it’s a kindness she doesn’t have to give. One she doesn’t even know if she can guarantee yet because she doesn’t know what I have planned for her. A plan she won’t know until the right time because I don’t need her counterplotting against me or using the knowledge for more leverage to defy me as we work against Pray.

“Are you sure Pray’s not going to notice that his entire administrative staff has changed overnight? And that the head administrator is not the one he put in place?” Wyan asks as we stand at the observation window after all the doors have been shut and sealed and the admins are locked in the same cage they force the children they keep to train in.

“Nothing a little makeup and Hollywood magic won’t solve,” Dele assures.

“You also overestimate how much Pray pays attention to people he thinks are beneath him and aren’t a threat,” I add. “But we’ll keep a few of Randy’s body parts preserved just in case something is locked behind a fingerprint or retinal scan or something.”

I doubt Pray’s that sophisticated. He’s gotten with the times and the advanced tech that he can, but he’s still very old school in some ways when it comes to this business.

“Is everything sealed off?” Dele asks.

I nod.

“Do it then.”

I open the app on the encrypted device I connected to the network and electronics here. Doublecheck to make sure all other vents are sealed again, and then press the button to release the poison that will kill the people below. It’s unseen and odorless. No one has any idea anything is going on until everyone starts getting drowsy and begins to just fall asleep. By that time, they’re too drowsy to do anything or try to warn anyone. They simply fall asleep, their bodies’ stop breathing, and they never wake up.

Much less bloody and dramatic than I would have preferred but effective all the same.

With another press of a button, I ventilate and air out the room, cycling fresh morning air in over and over until it’s safe to go into the room, at which point, the people Dele called in overnight to takeover begin to gather the bodies to cart them away and dissolve them until no trace is left. Just like Pray had with the children deemed unworthy.

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