December 13th, 2030

“What are you going to do?” the woman standing in the corner of the room asked. The man standing across from her stepped gingerly around the perimeter of the large, circular ring of yellow paint on the floor and let his hands drop to his side.

The room they stood in was an abandoned auditorium, painted black to make it resemble an almost endless cavern. The only color in the entire room was the circle of yellow. Not even the two people standing in the room showed a hint of life in their dark attire.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” he asked in reply. The answer was obvious.

“You’re going to use it?”

He eyed the object joyously, like a child who had just seen the Christmas presents under the tree for the first time. “Of course, you fool.” He paced the floor, deciding, then stepped over the yellow ring. “This is how it’s supposed to happen.”

“You don’t know that!” she whispered urgently.

“Of course I do,” he replied, taking no offense to her quiet shouting. “I was there, remember?”

“So was I. That doesn’t make a single bit of difference. If you do this, everything else will be undone.”

“I thought that’s what we want.”

“It’s what you want! You don’t know what the ramifications could be. For all you know, it would completely destroy us!”

“You miss the point! Even if we are destroyed, wouldn’t it be better than this life? I certainly think it would.” He took another step closer, almost reaching his hand out to touch the gray object.

“You know that’s not true,” she told him. “The fact of the matter is that you aren’t the same man I met three years ago. You’ve changed.”

“For the better, I think.”

“No! Not for the better. If anything you’ve changed for the worse.” She turned and began to walk away, but couldn’t help being drawn into an argument about his morality. “You don’t know for a fact that this will change a single thing. You don’t even know if it will work! It might kill you, and then what would he do?”

The mention of him caused a slight quiver in both of them. Designation One. “That’s not true, and you know it,” he said calmly, never taking his gaze off the item elevated by a stone column in the middle of the circle. “It has to work. I know it. One may be smart and have more power than any of us could ever hope to achieve, but I know he wouldn’t deceive me.”

“The truth is that he’s more cunning than you think. He could be planning to kill us both, for all we know.”

“Which is all the more reason to disappear, isn’t it? I can set things right so that he won’t be free.” He reached out after taking another step and held his hand only a few inches away from the object.

She realized something then that hadn’t occurred to her before. He was losing it. After three years of waiting and taking orders and never being able to improve the situation, he was slipping. The endless years of living like a rat in the shadows had taken its toll on him, not to mention his part in the end.

Though when she thought about it, it had taken its toll on everyone, including her. Perhaps he didn’t remember that she, too, had her reasons for wanting to get out of there. The one person who really mattered to her⎯the one man who could bring an end to everything that had tormented them for the past three years⎯may very well be out there dying in the insanity of a lifeless world.

Maybe he needed a reminder.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” she said, summoning her most commanding of tones. “He can do anything, including killing the only two people who matter to us.”

He wasn’t even fazed by the idea she’d set in his mind. “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t think he can.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Because if Six can’t, no one can.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. “He tried?”

“In no uncertain terms.”

She hit him hard in the face. “What is wrong with you?” His cheek swelled with blood and her own became just as heated. “You really are evil, aren’t you?”

“I wasn’t the one to attack them. If you want to get angry, be my guest. Just make sure you hit the man who’s actually responsible.”

She wanted to hit him again, but held the urge. “You ordered it.”

“He ordered it. And whatever he said about me, it’s not true.”

“Oh, well that’s what they all say, isn’t it? You try to have them killed, he tells me things about you I didn’t even want to know, and you expect me to believe that you’re okay? How can I?”

“Please, Thirteen, you have to.”

She ran cold at the mention of her designation. They’d implemented the use of numbers long ago, but she still hated being reduced to a single identification that stripped her of all individuality.

“Don’t ever call me that again.”

He looked as if he truly understood his error, but that was probably part of the deception. He was just playing it like it was a sick game.

“I’m sorry, but you know we can’t use names.”

“Then make something up. Anything but that.”

She glared at him for a long two seconds, and he nodded slowly. She wondered for a moment if he truly had gone as far out as a person could go. He’d had his share of troubles, she wasn’t arguing that. But to order the execution of the only man who could save them . . .

It was unthinkable.

He returned to gazing at the object elevated by the column, turning his back to her. Something he rarely ever did. As a general rule no one was supposed to turn their back to anyone, even each other. It made sure that they stayed paranoid⎯something practically required in their line of work.

So, believing that the danger ended with him, she turned her back and headed for the only door in the room. Little did she know, her back hadn’t been turned to him.

She’d tried to leave behind something else entirely.

The lights to her world went off.

Designation Thirteen awoke with a dark haze covering her vision. The smell of rotten meat and dead fish filled her nostrils, and the cold, damp concrete floor was more familiar than she thought it should be.

As her vision cleared Thirteen could make out the elongated rack that she clung so desperately to. Cold steel around her right wrist kept her left palm sturdily on the rack. She had only one hand to help her to her feet.

This was . . . the storage room? Concrete walls, completely similar in appearance to the floor, surrounded her on all sides and the only decoration was food. Meat, fish, canned vegetables and preservatives. There was no light aside from a hole in the ceiling the size of a quarter.

The door was on the wall across from her. Locked from the outside.

Why was she here?

She remembered the talk with Ten earlier in the day, the debate that had taken place soon after, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and her evening shower. The talk with Two, which had been altogether far too strange. And then nothing. It was all clouded like her mind had been just a day ago.

A drop of water poured in from the crack of light in the ceiling. It had rained last night; a hard, steady onslaught of watery bullets to wash away the eroded dirt. Puddles had most likely formed around the West Wing, the dormitories, and the kitchen, like they always did during a good rainstorm. Living underground, they had to expect that.

The kitchen was just beyond the door, and because of the reverberation from the puddles, Thirteen could tell that someone was just outside.

Walking toward the pantry.

The door opened so slowly that, were she not paying any attention, she wouldn’t have even noticed. The tall shadow stepped so lightly into the room that she didn’t hear him. She saw him, though. That was what mattered. These days you couldn’t believe anything unless you saw it with your own two eyes.

The shadow closed the door, again careful not to make a sound, and turned his attention to her, standing against the food rack, one hand cuffed to the metal.

“I’m sorry,” the Russian said. Designation Six.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Thirteen bit off. “You tried to kill them. How could you? They’re all I have left!”

“He told me to.”

“You’ve been hiding behind that excuse since the first time you met him.”

“It’s no excuse, Peres.”

“Peres?” Two had informed Six of Thirteen’s desire not to be called by her designation. At least he was only heartless in matters of extreme importance.

“He mentioned your disapproval of the designations. It was all that I remembered.”

“Fine. Don’t get off topic.”

“Yes, well. We do tend to make a habit out of that, don’t we?”

“You do. I prefer being straight to the point; doing things they way the should be done.”

“Which I have been doing.”

“You call trying to murder them what you should be doing? Are you really that far gone, Six? Two is completely off the deep end and there’s nothing I can do about that, but you don’t have to follow him.”

“Please. Your arrogance offends me. I know exactly how unstable our leader has become, but that doesn’t conflict with the fact that we do what he tells us to do.”

He wasn’t that naïve, and Thirteen knew it. He was merely trying to play the part of a fool so she would cooperate.

“Well your ignorance offends me,” she retorted. “You’re not that stupid, Six. If there’s anything I remember of the old world, it’s that.”

“Then you would understand why I continue to follow orders. It is a matter of self-preservation, you see.”

“So in order to stay alive you tried to murder them in cold blood.”

“It wasn’t like that. They attacked first.”

“Sure they did. You’d never harm someone unless they intended harm to you first, right?”

Though he was still fully garbed and his face wasn’t visible, Thirteen could tell she’d hit a nerve.

“Three years have passed, Peres. They’ve changed.”

The conversation was going nowhere, she saw. Six would never change his mind. He was already too much like Two. It was a wonder they hadn’t killed each other upon their first meeting.

The room settled into an awkward stillness. Six looked down and muttered something, then crossed the room and leaned against the rack opposite Thirteen. He kept his head down, staring at the floor.

“He wants us to go get them.”

She stared at him dumbfounded. “What?”

“He wants them here. Now.”

“Why? They haven’t done anything!”

“Yet.”

She resisted when he tried to unlock the cuff on her wrist. “They won’t, and all three of you know it.”

“Don’t confuse us, Peres, any of us. He’s the one who gives the orders, not me, and not Two. You know that.”

“One doesn’t control you. His influence isn’t unlimited⎯you and Two could leave all this behind if you wanted to.”

“‘Resistance is futile.’ Remember that when he tries to come for you. Makes things a lot easier.”

“That’s all you care about? Ease?”

The suggestion angered him. Good. Maybe now they could get some productive conversation going.

“I care about more than you think.”

“And yet you’d kill everyone who’s left just to satisfy your own laziness. The same heartless man that I’ve always known.”

“In that case, you’ve never known me at all.”

“For three years the closest you’ve come to caring about something was when we almost lost our food supply. Someone dies, nothing. You’re a monster, Six, so are One and Two. Someday you’ll all find out exactly how wrong you are.”

“Wrong or not, we’re still alive. Monsters or not, we saved you, didn’t we?”

Not her favorite memory. “You had no choice. Back then the two of you were filled with ideas about rebuilding and becoming the leaders of a broken, bleeding world. You may have screwed us all over, but you tried to turn it around. Or don’t you remember?”

“I do. And I am the same man today as I was then.”

She would get nowhere, she realized. He was desensitized already. Had been ever since One had come to them and offered his proposal of a new world.

And still, a part of her felt sorry for both of them. They were truly devolving into heartless monsters. Beasts with no form of passion or compassion whatsoever. Men in whom faith and fear had collided more times than could be counted.

The damage that had taken toll on them was no longer just damage. It was a deep scar that defined them, tangling them both in the same predicament. Minds shot to pieces by what they’d done.

Thirteen was stronger that both of them, then. They may have been older, wiser, and a bit more knowledgeable, but they’d never endured anything like she had. They were all alike in some ways, carrying more pain than anyone had ever endured, but she . . . she had killed her own family.

And by doing so, she had killed many more.

“Come on,” he finally said. He unlocked the cuff after seeing that she wouldn’t resist .

“Work?” It was a sort of code for, We’re heading out?

“Yes.”

“How long?” How long will it take to get there?

“Two days.”

“I’ll never go along with this.” No codes this time.

“You won’t have to.”

“It won’t work without both of us together.”

“Then what do you suggest?” He raised his voice for the first time Thirteen had heard in years. He’d been one of those who’d learned to control their emotions and, most importantly, suppress them. It wasn’t often that he lashed out, with anger or any other hint of emotion.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “But I’ve already been over this with him. He’s set on having them here, whether you help or not.”

She looked to the ground, knowing she couldn’t help him. She would just have to go along and, if he did try to take them without her . . .

She would have to kill him.

“No room for mistakes,” she said. Their mantra.

“None.”

Three minutes later they had both left the pantry, retrieving all that they would need for a two-day excursion into the heart of the jungle. Each took the mandatory equipment: rations, water, knife, and pistol. Thirteen brought an extra knife and clip just in case Six couldn’t be persuaded to stop.

“I am sorry,” he said when they finally found each other again.

“I know.”

Then they struck out for the Morgue.