Free Oh Hell No! (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 3) by John Freitas Page B

memory that had been
touched by the feasting lice had been abandoned or consumed.
    It might have saved Loriei’s life,
but it was gone now.
    She reached behind her back at
something pressing on her spine. She feared it was one of the enormous lice
coming to claim a new host. She felt the notebook stuffed in the belt behind
her dress.
    Now her eyes went wide with the
flood of memory returning to her. “I have to get back.”
    Loriei turned and walked up the
street with greater determination than before.
    She found the old bank building
and worked her way through the dark lobby over the molded carpet. The vault was
open and she entered the deeper darkness. Loriei felt along the bumpy faces of
the safety deposit boxes. She found herself wondering what might have been left
in them. They could be full of precious treasures that might be worthless now.
    She found the smooth back wall of
the vault and slid her bony fingers down looking for the latch. It was
difficult to find in the dark even if one knew where to look. It was tough to
find on purpose. The others had probably discovered she was there by now, but
they couldn’t help. If she was too far gone and only searching out of a faint
hint of memory, then they could not open it for her and let a dangerous shadow
mind into the laboratory.
    “Like a man remembering to play
the violin one last time.” She whispered.
    If they heard her talking to
herself, that wouldn’t go over well either.
    She found the slot and slid her
fingers in to punch out the sequence. She wondered if the fingers of a pre lice
human would be able to fit in there at all. Maybe a child? There weren’t many
children left either.
    “All of the human race is a shadow
on the world at this point,” she said. “And stop talking to yourself, Doctor …
Loriei.”
    The door broke loose from the rest
of the wall and slid backward. She pulled her fingers from the slot before they
were torn off. As the door slid aside to more darkness, she turned her head
carefully to look back through the open vault to the light of the street
outside. With the creatures boring and feeding constantly, there was the
constant paranoid itch that someone was watching. It made Loriei want to close
the vault door. She wondered if those below had chosen to keep it open on purpose
or simply because there was no one left strong enough to close it.
    She stood and stepped through into
the space beyond the false wall. The door slid back closed and locked into
place. The red security light above her flickered on and the elevator lurched
downward. She held the wall to keep her balance. The wall behind her open and
she turned before stepping out into uneven, florescent light.
    They were waiting coated in folds
of plastic that hung off of them like the skin of an elephant, if there had
been any still alive in the world.
    One of them pressed the syringe injector
against her arm and she felt the warmth of the treatment course through her arm
and out into her body. The heat brought pain through her heart and fluttered
its rhythm for a moment. She waited for her flock to react. Sometimes they had
a bad reaction and fought the sedatives. She felt a few spiny feet move inside
her skin, but then they went still. Her mind grew clear and focused. The itch
subsided.
    Loriei blinked and pulled the
notebook out of the back of her dress. “I found it. This is all the information
I collected on the gravitational wave that passed through the Earth over a
century ago. Everything we need is here. We can use this to recalculate the
jump.”
    The other plastic covered
scientist took it from her and set it aside. “What took you so long? You said
it was in your old bunker.”
    “It was,” she said. “I forgot for
a while and went back to living there before I remembered I was supposed to
come back here.”
    The man that injected her with the
treatment pulled the old dress off her shoulders and down off her splotchy
body. “You are lucky you didn’t end up