Rebel Heart

"I'll walk you out," he said, standing.

He offered her a hand. Lana accepted it and allowed him to pull her up and steady her with warm hands on her arms. She'd never interacted with the army-types before, but she found herself liking them, if they were all like Guardian and Brady. Brady led her to the door without releasing her hand and opened it for her.

"Thanks," she murmured, uncertain what to think about the small touches. They made her insides feel even warmer than the doc's drugs.

"No more cliff diving," Brady said as she stepped into the night. "And get some rest."

Lana smiled faintly and nodded, touched by his concern. The door closed behind her. She stood at the bottom of the hill leading towards the command center. It may as well have been a death march! She was sweating from the effort of walking out of the medical facility.

"Greenie sent me." Elise's voice came from the darkened parking area. Lana turned and smiled as the security specialist drove towards her in a cart. Her smile faded at the look on Elise's face.

"What happened?" Lana asked.

Elise pursed her lips, and Lana was surprised to see her eyes water. "Someone wiped out everyone in the mountain."

"What?"

Elise said nothing else, struggling to control her own emotions. Lana's head spun at the news. She thought of Elise's security detail and then of the Vice President, the President's staff, the renowned scholars and businessmen taking refuge there.

They drove to the command center in anxious silence. It was quieter than a graveyard when they pushed their way in. The highest-ranking military members and civilian staff members were crammed into the small center, staring at the scene on the screen before them. Lana made her way through them to the general and followed his gaze. The cameras in the mountain showed a white haze hugging the ceilings and the unmoving bodies of the men and women in the mountain. She covered her mouth, horrified.

"We have a security breach," the general said, his voice unsteady. "Lana, contact the central and western centers."

Elise nudged Lana when she continued to stare. She all but dropped into the commo sector chair and issued mayday calls on the emergency net. Her left hand was numb from the drugs, her right hand trembling as she pushed the buttons. She checked the comms from the mountain and fed the decrypted messages back into the computer. Everything looked quiet, until she checked her micro again and saw that the decryption program had begun popping up the messages that had been repressed in the comms system. Lana was surprised to find that someone else at the Peak within the mountain had issued a similar mayday call.