Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Will

“Is this how I die?” Maliha yelled at the top of her voice.

As I was in my wolf form, I did not respond to her. I had to give it to her; the girl had speed. She was racing as fast as she could, leaving the horde of soldiers far behind her. Vincent and Alexis were taking on the soldiers, slowing them down. I was escorting Maliha out of the building. Given my recent injuries, I was staying away from the fight. The last thing I needed was more injuries.

I shot a look behind me and saw Vincent engaged with no less than half a dozen soldiers by himself. Alexis was beside him, dealing with another half dozen soldiers. But that number was insignificant against the horde that was breaking through the hole and filling up the corridors. If they stayed there, they would die.

Get out of there right now. I have a plan. I called out to Alexis. It wasn’t until she had quit fighting that Vince followed suit, and the two made for the doorway that Maliha and I had just used. In their wolf forms, they were considerably faster than the soldiers.

What happened? Alexis asked.

Look around, I said.

Maliha’s theory about the hive mind seemed more and more true by the minute. For one, there were straggling soldiers coming towards the building from all sides of the town. And to think that I was satisfied that we had wiped them all off from the town. Clearly, there were more soldiers around, and now more were coming out of that goddamn hole. There was only one way around it.

I shifted back into my human form.

“Sweet Jesus! I cannot get over how you just shift to and fro into a wolf,” Maliha yelled.

“You do realize we have a horde of mutated soldiers on our asses, right? Between the two, which defies belief more?” I asked, fiddling around for the button in my pocket. I had tucked it away safely, hoping I would never have to use it. It seemed that there was no way around it now. Alexis was not the only one who had been keeping secrets. As far as secrets were concerned, this was a doozy.

Now, Vincent and Alexis were shifting back into their human forms too.

“Will. We’re going to die if we stand here idly,” Vincent said.

“Yeah. What’s the plan?” Alexis grunted as she dragged a big piece of broken wood and placed it in front of the doorway. Vincent helped her and placed another big piece by the ajar door, blocking the exit.

“Look around. All those soldiers are coming in to answer the call of the hive mind. We can never kill all of them by ourselves. We have to blow this fucking building up,” I said.

Maliha gasped and said, “How?”

Even though I had kept this part a secret from Alexis, I had gotten the original inspiration from her. Ever since I had suffered the defeat atop this horrible tower, the same tower Alexis had fallen from, I had wanted to demolish it. But until now, I had no reason to do so. I had been planting TNT along its length for the past few months, somewhat subconsciously knowing that this eyesore would have to go sometime, and wouldn’t it be the best if it went in a blaze of glory?

“I don’t have a lot of time to tell you what I did. Just know that I did something that I was never going to actually go through with. But now it kind of seems the only option,” I said to Alexis.

“Do what you have to do!” Alexis said, holding the barricade in place with Vincent’s help.

“On the count of five, everyone run to the other side of the road,” I said, beginning the countdown.

Time seemed to slow down in those five seconds, allowing me to see everything in super-slow motion. The stragglers had made their way into the building, becoming one with the hive mind. The horde was unified and isolated within the building, making this the perfect time to blow Beckett Pharma’s tower to smithereens.

I was the last to make it to the other side. I turned around just in time to push the button and see the explosion for myself. Ever since I returned to the normal world, ordinary things have captivated my interest. Elevators. Escalators. The moon landing. Controlled demolitions. Videogames. Artificial Intelligence. While I could not understand all of those things, the latent engineer in me could grasp the concept of controlled demolitions. It was done so by strategically planting the bombs along the length of the building so that the building collapsed onto itself and not anywhere else.

The building exploded along its length, the explosives on each floor setting off as part of the chain reaction that would ensure that the building collapsed downwards instead of sideways. I could hear the screams of the hive-mind soldiers coming from inside. It was too late for them. They had tried to escape, but the barricade had kept them in place—hundreds of them, all dead and buried under the rubble of the building.

“I suggest that we all make our way back homes. This sort of thing doesn’t just fly under the radar. The cops will show up. The town will be shocked. Let’s disappear,” I said.

“Will. What the hell was that?” Alexis asked.

“That was my contingency plan,” I said. “I would appreciate it if we left it at that.”

“Lover’s tiff, huh?” Maliha said to Vincent, nudging him on the shoulder.

“That wasn’t a contingency plan, Will. That was crazy!” Vincent exclaimed.

“He’s right. That was crazy,” Maliha said.

“How come you never told me about this?” Alexis asked.

“Because you’d think I was crazy,” I said. “I mean, if you came to learn that I’d secretly been planting bombs in that building, you’d have worried about my mental health, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, your craziness just saved all our lives, so…I’m thankful that you had that impulse,” Alexis said, running her fingers through her hair. “Jesus. I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier,” I said.

“I’m just glad we’re all safe,” Alexis said.

***

We were back at the commune. Even from this far, the smoke issuing from the burning building was visible. The townsfolk aside, the pack members were all out of their houses and looking at the giant spectacle unfolding in front of their eyes.

Vincent, Alexis, Maliha, and I went into my home, where Maliha revealed her thoughts.

“Hive minds are weak. It may seem like they’re strong from afar, but when you break down their hierarchy, it will be clear to all that they cannot behave individually. They are controlled by one source through one wavelength. You want to stop them from acting like a hive mind? Jam the wavelength they’re operating on. Of course, there’s a risk to it,” Maliha said.

“Is any risk too big when it comes to taking down a deranged army of mindless soldiers?” Vincent asked.

“How can they be deranged if they’re also mindless? Only a mind can get deranged,” Maliha said, cracking up.

“Is this really the time for wisecracking?” Vincent asked impatiently.

Alexis and I were standing on the other side of the room while these two talked.

“Are you sure we’re fine? I mean, you have every right to be mad,” I said slowly.

“Will. I am not mad at you. What you did saved our lives. I can’t stay mad at you for that, can I? It’s in your instinct to be protective. Someday, we’re going to have a child together. And you’ll be awesome at protecting them, too,” she said.

“Child? Alexis? Are you pregnant?”

“What? Jeez, no. I so am not. It was just a figure of speech.”

“Guys! Let’s get back to the point here,” Maliha said, coming back to the center of the room. “The downside to creating a device that can jam signals and block the wavelength that controls these soldiers is that the device can kill all those soldiers. There’s a one in a hundred chance of that happening, but still. I’ve done the math. I know what I’m talking about.”

“With a single press of a button, you could potentially kill all those soldiers, leaving Blair without an army?” Alexis whispered.

“Yes. But that’s genocide,” Vincent said with a grave face.

“Will?” Alexis looked at me.

I had no answer. Not at once.

Tonight, when I had pushed the button, I had gotten a small taste of what it would feel like to kill so many soldiers at the same time. Now, Maliha was talking about raising the bar. With a single press of a button, thousands of soldiers would die. Not hundreds. Thousands.

“No. We’re not doing that,” I said. The regret building up in my chest was too enormous, even though I knew that those soldiers I had killed had no way of being saved. Their minds had been turned to mush. Their bodies were like ticking time bombs. But even then, killing them all in that explosion had made me consider the barbarity of what we were doing. Blair might not care, but I did.

“Will. It’s the solution to all our problems,” Alexis said.

“But so much death on our hands,” I said.

“Will’s right,” Maliha said. “There’s no telling how many soldiers die. It’s not a war anymore when there’s just one side remaining.”

“Yes. That’s a victory,” Vincent said. “Are we really going to let victory slip out of our hands like this, Will?”

“Maliha, if you make that device, I want to make sure that it only jams the signal. It should not kill those soldiers. Their deaths have to be on Blair’s hands, not ours. I will not risk creating a device that can kill them all, even if that means an easy victory,” I said.

It was a little too much to think about, overwhelming me. Vincent and Alexis were right in their own way. It was a victory. But at what cost?