Free Eve of Destruction by Patrick Carman Page B

Will?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThere are seven of us.”
    She reached up and touched the royal blue bandanna holding her hair back, then her hand hovered near the screen as she shut it off, and the place where Ben had fallen was back. The camera held a steady, unmoving eye on the place where we’d entered the underground missile silo. It was the same as before, only it wasn’t.
    Ben was gone. So were Connor and Alex.
    I glanced at Marisa and Kate on S2, where they were still resting, then threw every monitor switch into the off position as fast as I could. I needed a second to think, to piece things together in my head without being distracted. I couldn’t control the central monitor—that was on but silent, pointing at the exit. But other than that, it was a moment of complete isolation from the rest of the world.
    I reached into my pocket and fished out the thing I had found in the woods and stared at it. It was soft, torn at the edges, not very big: a royal blue strip of bandanna, same as the one holding back Amy’s hair.
    They can’t be serious , I thought.
    The only explanation I could fathom was that Mrs. Goring had figured out how to use the fear chambers and the equipment in order to do for herself what Rainsford had done so many times before. She’d instructed Dr. Stevens to bring seven more subjects to Fort Eden. Amy was one of the seven, she would be the first to be cured. And over the next seven days, Eve Goring would use Amy and the other six to get what she wanted.
    She would use them to become young again.
    There were gaps in my understanding as I stood in the surveillance room staring at the floor. Big questions lurked in the dark corners of my mind as I prepared to turn the monitors back on again.
    How long before Amy and the other six would start getting cured? If it was like it had been for us, Mrs. Goring would start the cures as early as that night, six or seven hours later. That didn’t leave me much time to sort things out.
    Had Mrs. Goring really figured out how to use Rainsford’s twisted tools of immortality, or was she simply going to experiment on these people and hope for the best? It was a tragic situation either way, because they’d all end up in the fear chambers regardless. Could I let that happen?
    And why, really, were we being held captive in an abandoned underground missile silo? I was beginning to doubt Mrs. Goring had any intention or ability to actually help us. All she wanted was the vials. Did she need them in order to complete some part of her own process? Or did she really intend to cure us and kill Rainsford if he ever came back?
    All these thoughts and many more washed over me as I was jolted back to reality by the muffled sound of someone pounding on the door outside. The door had the echo of something ten feet thick, the deadened hum of Connor’s voice barely piercing the space between us.
    He was mad, that much I could tell.
    I switched on all the monitors and saw that Kate was standing again, pulling Marisa up with her.
    â€œJust leave me here,” I heard Marisa mumble in a half-stupor.
    â€œNo such luck, sleepyhead. Wake up!” Kate shook Marisa and yelled over her shoulder. “You back, Will?”
    â€œYeah, I’m back. Hang on a sec.”
    â€œWe’re moving with or without you, so you better hope she doesn’t fall asleep on her feet and end up in one of these holes.”
    â€œHey, I’m not that bad.” Marisa was waking up, coming out of her cocoon.
    The S1 monitor, where I’d first called everyone, was filled with Alex’s face. He said something about what an ass I was and ran off screen in search of Connor. With Alex’s head out of the way I saw Ben Dugan sitting against the metal tunnel, his head slumped to one side. They’d dragged him down the passage while I wasn’t watching.
    â€œBen, buddy, how you doin’?” I asked.
    â€œWhat’s wrong