“What do you know about the outside?” Cole asked.
“Not much, honestly.” Root wiped the sweat off his forehead. The men were gathered around the screen, hoping to find clues about the man from the outside they had seen earlier. “Just rumors, a whole lot of make-believe.”
“Between the three of us, we have to know something, right?” Zach stammered.
“Well, I know that wherever we saw that face, I didn’t recognize the location.” Cole said.
“Me neither,” Root added. “And I’ve been just about everywhere.”
“So they have cameras on the outside?”
“Makes sense,” Cole said. “If there was a threat out there, you’d want to keep an eye on it.”
“But nobody’s here, so they don’t care anymore?” Zach asked.
Root perked up again. “I think you’re right. The quarantine. Moving barracks. The people from the outside are already here.”
“Shit,” Zach said. “You’re right.”
“That’s good for us though, right? All we have to do is get back to the barracks and we can talk with them.”
“Maybe,” Root interjected. “I imagine that’s where all our forces went. Security. Enforcers. Ugh…” Root snapped and paced. “Maybe the elders? Top room folks? Trying to negotiate stuff. Who knows? Could be a whole shitshow down there.”
“Probably is,” Cole agreed. If someone, or a group of people, broke in from the outside, there’d be a whole lot of panic from the town. It would be an all-hands-on-deck type of situation, which it sure seemed to be now. It explained why breaking Root out of jail was so easy too; all the security was gone. If they didn’t need to monitor anything from the top room, except for the outside, it made sense why nobody was here, either. The top room was only to monitor the outside, not the machine. Now that the outside was, in fact, inside, there wasn’t a point to do it anymore. Cole felt the puzzle pieces snap together in his brain. “But we have to walk into that shitshow if we’re going to free everyone here.”
“I keep telling you guys, we’re not going to just walk into anything.” Zach added, leaning against a desk, pushing buttons that didn’t appear to do anything.
“We have so far, right?” Root asked.
“Sure, but it helps when nobody’s here. Pretty sure that’s not the case in the barracks.”
“They couldn’t have possibly blocked off all the tunnels to the parts,” Cole added. “I’ve been through most but I’d wager it’s still only 40% of what’s actually down there. We can weave our way in through a back way.”
“Phew,” Root said. “I was afraid we’d have to knock on the front door.” He laughed but only got a few mild chuckles from the others.
“Once again,” Cole continued. “There aren’t a lot of options.”
“What if we still find the outside and just… leave?” Zach scratched his chin, asking nobody in particular.
Cole shook his head. “Not knowing what I know, I can’t. If you feel like you can just walk away from this, by all means, don’t let me stop you.”
“I was just curious,” Zach added.
“Me neither,” Root said. “This is my chance to do something, you know? Plus, who knows what the hell is out there. Maybe it’s worse.”
Cole realized Root was right, again. If these people came from the outside, why were they wanting to break in so badly? Was it because they had the same vision of wanting to save the town, or something else? He shook the thought out of his head. He’d deal with that later, but for now, had to keep his focus on the task in front of him.
“The barracks,” he said. “We got a long way to go.” He looked over to the door. “Better start now.”
Zach sighed. Root bounced up and down and jolted for the door. Cole took a deep breath and let them both go through first. On his way out, he looked at the screens one last time and then closed the door behind him.