2

Dimitri took a blow to the face that momentarily blurred his vision and made him stagger. He shook like a wet dog shaking off the momentary daze. Blinking his eyes, he took a deep breath and drew himself to his full height. He looked over the large young man he had been fighting. The man stood the same height as Dimitri and was roughly the same build, but he was a good fifteen years younger than him, and the kind of stamina and power Dimitri had at his age.

He himself was only thirty-five, but after twenty-five years of war, he felt more like a man in his late fifties. His body had taken so much abuse, and he had to confess he was worn out. He still trained like he was twenty. After all, he had a reputation to maintain, but he could feel himself getting old. While his pride told Dimitri he could still do this, his body protested.

He could barely hear the cheers of the spectators. Those gathered around betting on the match he had gotten suckered into by this young hotshot that wanted to prove he could take Dimitri on. Out here in the wasteland, it was like lions in the wild. Every once and a while, a young male got cocky and thought they could take on the leader of the pride, so every once and a while, Dimitri had to prove why he was still top of the food chain.

The young man came at him and punched him in the gut. It almost knocked the wind out of him, but Dimitri fought back. He threw all he had into each swing punching the young man in the gut until he doubled over. Then with an uppercut to the jaw, he sent his opponent flying back into the crowd knocking him out cold.

The fight was over. Dimitri walked over and gently tapped the man’s face trying to rouse him. When he came too, Dimitri patted him on the shoulder, telling him he had fought well. That was when he noticed his second in command, Terrence Parker standing in the doorway watching. Terrence nodded his head, indicating he wanted to talk.

Dimitri gathered his shirt and pulled it on as he joined Terrence at the door. They started up the stairs to the upper level of the abandoned underground bunker they had taken over as their own last year. Terrence chuckled as Dimitri groaned while he pulled his shirt down over his torso. “It almost looked like you were not going to win,” Terrence teased.

“They are getting younger and hitting harder,” Dimitri groaned. “I do not know how much longer I can keep doing that.”

“Even if you lost, the people would still follow you. A good leader has to have more to him than brute strength. Those youngsters cannot do what you do. You have the three things every good leader must have; brains, compassion, and conviction. With that, you can change the world.”

Terrence’s little pep talk did make Dimitri feel better. “And that is why you are my second in command because you make sense. Where were you twenty minutes ago when I needed those pearls of wisdom?”

“In bed with your sister,” Terrence snickered as they came around the corner of the corridor, making their way to the command room.

Dimitri made a disgusted face. “Please, in the future, lie to me.”

Terrence snickered. “But it is so much more fun to torment you.”

They stepped into the command room where Dimitri’s most trusted comrades were gathered. He used each and every one of them to help him manage the rebellion. They all had very serious expressions on their faces, and Dimitri was getting a bad feeling. “I sense something is amiss,” he said and watched as Masha closed the door so no one outside the room could hear what was about to be said, and his bad feeling began to grow.

“Show him,” Terrence ordered Phebe Lefey, a New Gen woman that had joined their ranks back in France ten years ago. She was Dimitri’s best reconnaissance agent. She was very good at getting into places and going unnoticed. She was unimposing and easily forgettable, which was useful. She was also daring and courageous, and she always took whatever risk she had to in order to get the information they needed. Thanks to her, they had won many battles, and they were always one step ahead of the enemy.

Lately, she had been posing as a pregnant janitor at Holton Industries. It was supposed to be a Scientific lab where they were finding new ways to better the new world, but the Red Hand knew it was a war machine. They were inventing weapons and bioweapons. Hell, the founder Dr. Curtis Holton had designed the Red Death in those very labs decades ago.

Though Phebe was not pregnant, she wore a false belly which maintained her cover and allowed her a way to smuggle things in and out of the city. Dimitri watched as Phebe reached into her false belly with a grave expression and took out a large glass bottle filled with a red fluid that looked all too familiar to Dimitri. He sucked in a deep breath and held it as his back straightened and his shoulders rolled back. She placed the bottle down and turned it so he could read the label… DT-124.

The Red Death.

It had been twenty-five years since he had seen the virus that had killed so many. “Good lord,” he gasped, still finding it hard to breathe.

“They got more of it back in the lab,” Phebe told him. “They are talking about mass producing it.”

“They would not do it again, would they?” Asked Ellis Green, his expert genius hacker. Like Phebe, Ellis was a New Gen and had not been alive during the plague. “I mean, they cannot get away with genocide twice… can they?”

Dimitri stared at the bottle of death on the table. “I have lived through the first outbreak. I have seen what they are willing to do. The last time they released this into the population, seven billion people died a horrible death. We do not have the luxury of hoping they will not do it again.”

“If they are producing the virus again, then they must also have an anti-virus,” Terrence piped up. “I mean, some of us are immune, but the New Gen is not. They would have to have a vaccine to inoculate the New Gen citizens. After all, they do not want to kill their own children, just ours.”

“I have been all over those labs,” Phebe said. “I have seen no vaccine.”

“They have to have one. I mean, no one is crazy enough to engineer a plague they cannot control,” said Demi Smith. Demi was an excellent medic, and Dimitri had put her in charge of training other medics. She was not a doctor, but she was just as good. She had been very young at the time of the first outbreak. Just a toddler, but she had grown up within the Red Hand helping her father, who himself had been an exceptional medic until the day he was killed in battle.

“Demi is right; they must have a vaccine,” Dimitri agreed with his young counterpart.

Phebe thought about it. “There is this one wing. They do not let anybody in there without crazy security clearance. Not even to clean. The doors are heavily guarded by four men with automatic weapons and monitored by some extremely sophisticated closed-circuit cameras. It is high-tech; I am telling you it is like no system I have seen before. There is no way I can get inside, and I doubt very much even Ellis can hack the system.”

Dimitri stared at the bottle and thought. “If we cannot get in, then we need them to bring the anti-virus out to us.”

They all looked at him, confused. “What craziness is running through that brain of yours?” Masha asked as she studied her brother.

“We have the virus. It is not going to be long before they realize it is missing. We need them to panic. If they panic, they will slip up. So, any ideas on how to make them freak out?” He asked, looking around at his council. “Suggestions, anyone?”

Everyone took on a thoughtful look. The room was dead silent for a few minutes. Suddenly Ellis’ face lit up. “Oh, I got it. We all know that Dr. Holton has two kids. His son Jacob took over as CEO of Holton Industries two years ago, but the Doctor still runs the lab. Then he has a daughter. His pride and joy, his little princess,” he said excitedly.

Dimitri stared at him, confused and waiting for him to continue. “I hope you are getting to a point.”

Ellis rolled his eyes, annoyed that he was not following his train of thought. “He loves his baby girl. So, we abduct her. Then we send out a broadcast. I can bounce the signal off so many satellites they will not be able to trace it. On this broadcast, we inject her with a dose of DT-124. Then we threaten to release her back into the city population. The whole city will be freaking out, and Dr. Holton will break out the vaccine to save her life. At which point we have the agents we have following him, ambush him and steal the vaccine. We bring it back here and mass produces it, then we inoculate as many people as we can before they retaliate. There’s been chatter, and I know where she will be. We can intercept her while she is out; it would be easy.”

Everyone stared at Ellis like he had lost his mind. “You want us to murder an innocent girl?” Demi asked, astounded.

“Do you have a better idea?” Ellis asked.

Masha made a thoughtful sound. “It could work,” she told Dimitri.

“It is still murder,” Terrence disagreed. “We are not the bad guys here. We do not murder innocent people.”

“We have killed people in the past,” said Dallas Woolf, Dimitri’s weapons and explosives expert. He had been silent up until this point.

“We have killed soldiers and tyrants. We are talking about deliberately murdering a young woman that has done nothing but been born on the other side of the wall. If we kill this girl, we cross a line we cannot come back from,” Terrence argued. Everyone turned to Dimitri, who had been quiet as he considered Ellis’ idea and everyone’s position on it. “Dimitri, you cannot be seriously considering this.”

Dimitri’s gaze lifted, and he looked around at his people. “Bring me the girl.”