Startled by his reaction, the woman nodded once and left the room to wait in the seats outside the Commander’s office.
Oldham walked to his desk, picked up the phone and pressed a single button. “The woman seated outside my office is to be terminated immediately. Call me when it’s done.” He slammed the phone down and sat at his computer to think.
The Director had dosed himself with the Infinity Serum, that much was just confirmed by the nurse. Oldham shook his head, shocked. It never occurred to him that the scientist would react like this. He expected sorrow, sure—a grieving period where he mourned the girl, understandable. But this? This was…unthinkable!
Oldham wasn’t a scientist, but even he knew that the Infinity Serum was only tested on expendable subjects. He’d heard there was a huge mortality rate during the initial days after a subject was dosed. And even then, each new meta was volatile and unpredictable for a while. Some went on to be added as a cadet to the Facility. Others were too unstable and were considered inadequate for meta training. Those subjects were terminated. But he never knew of the serum to be given to a subject older than fifteen. What would it do to a sixty-five-year-old man? What was Williams thinking?
The more he thought, the more worried he became. He flipped open his laptop and typed in the search engine the words the woman had remembered. Of all the sites that pulled up, most of them referred to the words as Latin. Refining his search, he found a Latin to English translator. It only took a couple attempts for him to get the general idea of Williams’ statement. He whispered the translation to himself and worried that he was about to get what he had wished for.
“Ego suscitatio bestia intus” translated to “I awakened the beast within.”
52 Coming in for a Landing
“Okay, I have some good news and some bad news,” Alik said after having just spoken with his mom.
“I was just about to say the same thing,” Evan said as he made his way back down the aisle after visiting the cockpit.
“Farrow played target practice with Cole. She clipped his arm. Mom and Paulie just finished reconstructing his biceps. He’s lucky to be alive. Maze was hurt, too. But thankfully, it was by flying debris from a missed shot and not directly from a bullet.” Alik stared at his brother with wide eyes.
Evan sat down slowly muttering, “I can’t wait to get my hands on that—”
Interrupting, Creed said, “Cole and Maze are stable. Farrow must be getting desperate if she missed her targets like that. She’s usually an expert sniper. This is more telling of her state of mind than anything.”
“What was the good news?” Evan asked somberly.
“The good news is that mom made enough smoke bombs to give us near blackout coverage for probably four minutes,” Alik said trying to sound positive.
The cabin was quiet for a moment as the metas imagined being partially blinded for four minutes while trying to get Meg safely out of the ambulance and rolled up the walkway and into the house. It was going to be tricky.
“Evan, what’s your news? What’s going on with the pilots?” Alik asked.
Sighing deeply to clear his head, Evan said, “The pilots tell me that we’re going to begin our decent now.”
“That sounds like good news. What’s the bad?” Creed asked.
“We’re riding in on fumes,” Evan said seriously. “They’ve been fighting crosswinds that have taken up more fuel than the flight planner anticipated.”
“What can we do?” Creed asked the room.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to check Meg’s safety straps for the hundredth time, then strap myself in.” He looked over at his brother and nodded. “Then we’re going to pray.”
All three boys began moving around the cabin quickly in preparation. The speaker hissed awake and the captain’s voice came on. “Well, boys…we’re in for a bumpy landing, that’s for sure. I’ve been in contact with the tower and they have cleared the path for us to just come on in. They’ll have emergency vehicles standing by to help as soon as we’re down. We’ve already begun our decent and can see the island in the distance.”
At this time, please make sure the safety harnesses on our patient are secure then secure yourselves into your seats. We’re going to do our best to keep this bird behaving as we need her to, and with a little luck we may just pull this off. It’s been an honor serving you. Jacobi out.”
From the windows the passengers saw the ocean move closer and closer into view. From below their feet, they felt the vibrations as the landing gear was deployed and locked into place. The green of the island replaced the blue of the water. The gray of the tarmac was right below them, and then, with the softest of bumps, the tires touched the runway. The flaps were pulled up to slow the plane and just like that, they were taxing casually to the terminal.
It all felt so surreal.