D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“One thing’s for certain,” Chris said in a calm voice.

“What’s that?” Jerry said.

“You guys need to make some tough decisions, and you need to make them now – not tonight, not tomorrow. No matter how difficult it is for you, you need to accept that your plan has failed – at least in its current form. Right now you need to get the hell out of here.”

Jerry began, “Who the fuck—”

“He’s right,” Sarah said with a weary sigh. “We’ve got to accept it.” She broke into tears. The sound of her anguished sobs echoed in the quiet room. Someone needed to console her, but nobody made a move to do it.

Finally, Chris walked over and touched her shoulder. “It’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad!” She screamed as she pulled away from his hand. “They’re dead. Don’t you understand that?”

Chris began, “Maybe—”

“Don’t even say it. They’re dead! And that’s all there is to it. You saw the van.”

Chris stepped away from her and said, “At least you’ve already developed Gen96. If you can get out of here and lie low for a while, you can release it later. At this point, it’s just time, right?”

The ensuing silence told Chris he was getting through to them. He wasn’t the only one who had been through hell the past week and he didn’t have the baggage of eighteen years of all-consuming idealism to reconcile. It wasn’t his life’s work that was being threatened with complete and total failure. To cap it off, there was a good chance they’d end up in jail, or dead. Up until David Rose had escaped, they had been naive, maybe even innocent but they were now undeniably a long way from David Rose’s failed escape.

Innocence was a tough thing to lose. Santa and the Easter Bunny don’t really exist, loved ones can be torn from you indiscriminately, the framework of love can be destroyed by uncontrollable urges – sometimes there weren’t brighter, better days ahead – at least in the short term. The paradoxes of life could overwhelm even the strongest of men. He couldn’t imagine a more anguished group anywhere else in the world than these people at this moment. Everything that could go wrong had. The heat of the moment offered an opportunity for him to stop Gen96 but it was also inherently dangerous, volatile.

Mike finally broke the silence. “Chris is right. We need to get our act together right now. God only knows if they know where we are, and I certainly don’t want to hang around and find out.”

“How could they know?” Sarah said. “We just moved again.”

“But they know we’re around here someplace and they’re going to be here in force trying to find us,” Mike replied. He stood up and started to pace, circling Chris and Sarah as he did so. He appeared predatory in his movements.

“What do you suggest?” Sarah asked.

He circled them a few more times before saying, “I think Camilla and I should head back down to LA. We need to make it look like we’re going about our normal schedule. If they suspect us somehow, we should be able to fight them in court. Without you, Sarah,” he looked at Sarah as he said this and bowed his head in a respectful, slow motion nod. “Or Seth, they won’t be able to directly implicate us. We could tie it up for years in court. Right, Camilla?”

Camilla stood and nodded slowly as she wiped the tears from her swollen, red face. She convulsed with each breath as she struggled to control her sobs.

“Sarah,” Mike said. “You need to disappear. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she replied turning her attention to Chris. “It is only time at this point. Only time.”

“We’ve got to go now,” Mike said as he turned and left the room. Everyone followed him to their car.

Once Mike and Camilla were inside, Sarah said through the rolled down window, “I’ll call you in a few weeks, Camilla. Once I get out of the country and settled someplace.”

“That sounds good,” Camilla replied. She was pale, her eyes red and swollen, her voice soft and shaky. Albert’s death had affected her deeply and the specter of jail loomed large for all of them.

From behind the wheel Mike said, “It’s a delay, Sarah. It’ll still happen. It’s just going to take a little longer than we wanted.”

Sarah leaned in through the window and kissed Camilla on the cheek. “It wasn’t your fault, Camilla,” she said softly. “He came here by his own free will.”

Camilla nodded. “I guess. I’ve just never been good at death,” she reached out and stroked Sarah’s face. “And I’m going to have to deal with Phillip. That’s not going to be easy.”

“I wish I could help you with that,” Sarah said.

Camilla nodded as she squeezed the nape of Sarah’s long neck. “Let’s get out of here.”

Mike put the car in reverse and backed out of the building. Sarah waved mechanically at the departing car and silently watched it drive away.

Chris had a bad feeling about where this was going. Sarah would go one way and Jerry and Mark would disappear into America, maintaining intermittent contact with Sarah over the internet until they could get things together to try again. But where did that leave him?

As far as he could see, he was the one variable – the wild card and he had a feeling he was about to learn his fate as Sarah turned and glared at him. This wasn’t a court of law. It was the court of Sarah. She was the judge, jury and prosecutor, and, if she found him guilty – which he had a feeling she already had – the executioner as well.

“Are you guys ready?” Sarah asked. Jerry and Mark said they were.

“Then let’s go, it’s a hike up to the extraction point,” she said as she slung a backpack over her shoulder and wriggled it into position.

“What about him?” Jerry said pointing at Chris.

“Bring him with us.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” Sarah replied.

Jerry shrugged, produced a gun and pointed up the mountain. “Walk,” he said to Chris.

They faced each other in awkward silence until Chris said, “We need to talk.”

“Okay,” Sarah replied.

He motioned for her to follow. They walked inside to the main room of the Peak Lodge and sat down at long table that was stained and had countless names and slogans carved into it.

“So. What now?” He asked as he scanned the empty room and frowned. Dilapidated, stench-ridden, filthy and on the verge of collapse. A perfect metaphor for their situation.

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”

He cracked his knuckles and studied her. He had to make something happen. Mark and Jerry were patrolling the perimeter. That was three against one – not the best odds but much better than five hours ago. He needed to get out of here. Get into the woods and run. They would have to make a split second decision, chase him, or run for their own lives and he suspected they’d take option number two.

“Do you think that I’m the reason this all turned out the way it did?” Chris asked.

“Yes.” Her grey eyes, the voids from the reflection, truly looked soulless, empty. They could have been stone eyes set in the hard, carved mask of a high priestess preparing for the ceremonial sacrifice.

Chris pulled away from her.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “This isn’t about me, Sarah – it’s all about you. What you were doing, or trying to do.”

“In your opinion,” she said as she folded her hands on the table. “It’s all perspective.”

“No. It’s not,” Chris replied. “There’s right and wrong. What if this thing mutated and sterilized men permanently? Then where would we be? You would be solely responsible for the demise of the human race as we know it. How would that feel?”