"But shouldn't the system take care of that on its own?"
"It's trying, but...I think instead of thinning the concoction, it spread the vapors all through these upper floors. It's gone from room to room, filling the air with poison..."
"My gosh, Loni! That will kill everyone! Especially the infants, back there in the cribs..."
"We can only carry so many, right now," Loni reasoned. "Maybe we can come back a second time...get some more..."
"They'll all be dead by then...does Da realize what he did in here?"
"Not likely; won't help to scold; he's too simple to understand."
They entered a delivery room, and Gem realized why they had not been challenged so far. The fumes had incapacitated the adults, already.
Slumped across his patient, a surgeon was out cold. So was the mother, and...the child she had just recently delivered. Gem thought they were merely unconscious; they would survive.
But, Loni disagreed with her observation.
"They are not simply unconscious," he stated in silent regret. "All are dead..."
Gem shuddered, and hurried past the scene at a run. The wagon, Loni pulled, complaining violently all the way.
Why does this thing have to make so much noise? It grates on my nerves...
In another room, they found women in various stages of pregnancy. Some had been walking off their labor pains, and had slumped lifeless against the wall, then slid to the floor. Others lay on sofas, but all had their eyes closed, no longer breathing.
"Dear lord! What could be that deadly?" Gemma demanded. "What did Da use? Where did he get something that lethal?"
"From the janitorial cupboard...he threw everything together..."
"We need to get down from here...out of here! Now! Or we'll save none of them."
Loni agreed with her urgent assessment.
"You take the handle," he ordered. "I'll lift from the back end. We'll be able to go faster."
Switching positions, they quickly found a ladder going down.
****
The next room Da and Lydia entered was a second nursery, for those under a year. Each crib held a tiny sleeping boy, and the room was empty of adults.
At first glance, the infants appeared to be sleeping, but the room was so filled with smoke you could barely see, and Lydia quickly realized the small boys were asphyxiating, some were coughing hoarsely in their sleep.
Horrified, Lydia ran to a shelf, caught up a snuggly, similar to the one in which she carried her child, moved quickly to Da, and tied it to his chest. For only a moment did she hesitate, then grabbing up a small Asian child, enclosed him securely down deep in the carrier at Da's front.
Da caught the idea of what she was attempting. First he grabbed surgical face masks, then one at a time, he put the shielding on two small dark haired boys, raised one in each arm, and turned.
In the mean time, Lydia had caught up a fourth infant, holding it against the swell of her entombed baby girl on her chest. Regrettably, she forgot to take the time to fasten a facemask on the child in her arms, even though he was gasping and choking for breath.
Together, the two adults, with their burden of infants, ran for a nearby down ladder. Two adults were only able to rescue these five small ones, as Da carried a pack of foodstuffs on his back, and Lydia didn't take the time to grab another snuggly.
The other occupants of the room, unhappily, were left to die.
****
Gem was trembling visibly, as she inched down the sewer that led past the slaughter house. Loni watched her memory plague her; thoughts of the atrocities she had suffered at the hands of Galar...
Loni pushed the wagon forward, forcing her to hurry more rapidly.
A chicken fluttered by.
Vaguely, he wondered where all the live animals beside them had come from, and how they had gotten free. Other thoughts puzzled him also...
What has become of Da? Has he found Lydia?
Loni had no time to search for their minds.
A pig and a goat moved along with the wagon.
What became of Scar?
Is Scar responsible for setting these cattle free? If so...why?
Always, Loni was suspicious of the one armed man's motives.
What possible purpose could be served, to send all these livestock to their deaths? It will attract the Hydra...is that it? So we can't get to the above settlement?
When they reached the first shelf, at the bottom of the sewer drain, they met up with Da and Lydia. It was obvious they had also been in the infant dorms.
Chapter 38
In his opinion, Da had way too much to carry. Before they went along the ridge, Loni decided to distribute the loads more evenly.
He and Gem, each, had been trying to carry one end of the wagon, but every once in a while, they had to set it down. The wheels were unstable, and squealed atrociously; it was pointless to take the thing further, besides, they couldn't lift it up the ladder all the way to the above world.
Gem caught up the small black boy, and that left Loni with only the two year old blue-skinned toddler.
Loni felt he was stronger than Da, so he had the other man remove both the backpack, and the snuggly. Loni donned the second backpack over his chest, and fitted the second snuggly, and child to Lydia's back. That freed Da to carry the two boys he still had. Lydia now carried two infants each in a snuggly, one at her front; the other in back, and one small boy in her arm.
Gem had enough with a backpack of infant supplies, her infant, and the small black child in her arm. Now, Loni was the one over burdened: two loaded backpacks, and a two year old.
Balancing carefully, they sidestepped across the ridge until
