Free Children of the Cull by Cavan Scott Page A

didn’t respond to the insult. I didn’t have to.
    “Stow it, Fenton,” Brennan ordered. “You’re not helping.”
    “And he is? Standing there gawping at the fucking door? What are we going to do? Use this?” He slapped the battering ram on Curtis’s back, drawing a glare from the giant.
    “It would have taken down the old doors, no problem,” I admitted. “This... well, I guess we’ll have to improvise.”
    Fenton wasn’t giving up the argument. “Improvise? What are you going to do, knock on the door and hope one of the little piggies let you in?”
    “Enough,” Brennan bellowed, her voice echoing down the corridor.
    “Quiet,” I hissed, raising a hand. “We need to keep our voices down.”
    Fenton scoffed. “Worried they’re going to hear us?”
    “Not yet,” I replied, turning and marching towards the bloody door. “But they will in a minute.”
    Brennan took after me, rushing to catch up. “What are you thinking?”
    I reached the door and rapped lightly on the metal.
    Little pig, little pig, let me come in.
    It was solid, too solid. Resting my hand on the cool metal, I looked up, running a beam of light around the edges.
    “It must slide down,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “There isn’t room for it to swing open, not if they want to drive vehicles through, so it has to come down from the ceiling, on hydraulics.”
    “So, what? We blast our way through?”
    “And bring the roof down on our heads?” Fenton spluttered.
    I crouched down and slapped my palm on the concrete floor. “It wouldn’t work anyway. These things are built to withstand most explosions...”
    “But...”
    I swung the pack from my shoulder, unzipping the main compartment. “What time is it?”
    Beck shone her light over her wristwatch. “Six forty-nine.”
    “We haven’t got long.” I started unpacking what was left of my plastic explosives.
    “I thought you said explosives wouldn’t work?” Fenton pointed out. I briefly fought the urge to stuff the C-4 down his stupid whining throat.
    “Not against the door,” I replied. “Now shut the fuck up and let me get to work.”

 

     
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    CURE
     
     
    M OORE GROWLED AT Lam as he stalked into the Ops rooms. “What are you doing here?”
    I raised a hand. “He was trying to access the computers. The system’s in lockdown.”
    “It’s what?”
    “We’re shut out,” Lam told him. “None of the passwords work.”
    “What about the cameras?” the chief said, barging the technician out of the way to get to the security controls.
    “They’re on a different system. Everything else seems up and running.”
    “But for how long?” Moore asked, pulling Lam’s chair towards him and sitting down. He jabbed at the CCTV control console, cycling through the feeds, the grainy images switching from one camera to another on the screens.
    “What are you doing?”
    Moore peered up at the central screen. “I’ve established patrols around the perimeter.”
    “Patrols? Chief, I said two guards, max—everyone else is supposed to be confined to quarters.” Couldn’t anyone follow a simple order today?
    The chief glared at me. “And you’d rather we were left unprotected?”
    How many times would I have this argument today? “Until we find out—”
    “The medical staff are contained, as are technical support”—the security chief scowled at Lam—“at least, most of them are. I’ve only got a few men out, a handful; the ones I can trust.”
    “Can we trust anyone? ” Olive asked by the door. I raised a single finger to silence her. Not a fight worth having.
    “So, what are we looking at?” I asked.
    Moore manipulated a joystick, the image on the screen zooming in to focus on a section of fencing illuminated by floodlight.
    “The east perimeter. Team Three called it in.”
    “Called in what exactly?”
    “Movement, beyond the fences. In the bushes.”
    The picture continued to zoom in. There was nothing there, save for blurry,