A document Kathleen holds has shapes and drawings of some kind of chemical formulas.
“They did this? Paizen created the virus?” I stare at the guy.
He is quiet again. Then he slowly nods his head.
“Son of a bitch!” Kathleen says.
Carlson and his wife let a deep breath out. They shake their heads angrily.
“Why?” I ask even though I can guess the answer. It’s probably to sell more drugs, especially Oxyrica. Considering the chain of events that occurred in the last few months, they seem to be successful with their goal.
Carlson lifts a vaccine bottle and rotates it. “This is not what they injected us with.” He is looking at the bottle from different angles. “The one they used on us had a black label with blue stripes and—”
“I don’t know what they injected you with, but the real vaccine is this,” the guy says, pointing to the bottles. I can hear the confidence in his voice.
Carlson drops the bottle and looks away while shaking his head again. His eyes are growing with anger. I can imagine how bad it feels not to know what is flowing in his blood vessels right now.
I turn to the guy. “What is your role in the Republic?” Even though he looks too young to have a higher management role in that so-called Republic, he might still have a role in this nightmare.
“I am just a carrier. That monster is holding my sister hostage to use me and my team…” He rolls his eyes down when he mentions his team. He scrunches his cheeks and nose as he stares at the salt ground. He sighs before continuing his sentence. “…to do his dirty work… Our mission was to take this from Paizen.” He raises his head to look at the briefcase.
He tells more about the West. He explains how the President Weck Highland makes people in the West obey him by punishing everyone who speaks up against him. He uses inhumane methods, like brutally torturing victims. The man tells us that some of his soldiers use rats in a heated bucket on top of the victim’s stomach to make agitated rats chew their way into the flesh. One of the generals who didn’t obey his orders and was killed in this way too.
Another torture he heard of is to keep the victim in a white cell with white clothes under bright lights for weeks to accelerate his psychological breaking point.
His cruel methods seem to be keeping him in power and helping him expand the area of Highland Republic, but the man says that a huge wave of unrest is building up across the West.
We lose our appetites after listening to the man. We pack our food and get back to the truck.
If nothing gets on our way, we should be able to reach that monster’s land tomorrow.
I feel like with this briefcase in our truck, we can have leverage against the monster and have a chance to change the timeline of the history.
Chapter 36
Nevada’s rugged terrain has been friendly to us so far. The reddish and light brown land is shining under the bright sun in a clear sky.
We are halfway into the state. The trip on this two-lane highway has been uneventful. We drove by a small RV park and a camp with a few tents. We had curious looks from their occupants, but nobody asked for help or tried to stop us.
“Everyone agrees on taking a break at this town?” I gesture to the green sign of a town called Battle Mountain.
“Good idea,” Kathleen says. She is in the passenger seat.
I glance at the backseat through the rearview mirror. The couple is asleep. Carlson’s head is on his wife’s shoulder while she is leaning toward the window. The briefcase guy seems to be lost in deep thoughts. His narrowed eyes are gazing at a point in the horizon through his window while he supports his head with his palm.
I take the exit to enter the town. We drive around to decide on the best spot for lodging tonight. I remember my sightseeing trips where I desperately looked for street parking to park my rental car. The difference is that parking is not an issue in this small town. There are only a few streets anyway.
We pass a sheriff’s office, a clinic, a Chinese take-out, a bar, a car wash, a church, and a hotel. There is also a building called Nevada Native Museum. We should skip the museum hopping and just get inside the hotel to rest.
I haven’t seen anybody around so far. It looks like a ghost town except for a crow cawing to the sound of the truck’s engine. I hope it’s not some kind of a warning sound for anybody.
I park the truck backward in front of the hotel to make sure we are ready to drive off anytime. Emergencies seem to happen frequently in the post-apocalypse.
It’s one of those two-star motels that travelers use for a night during their long trips.
The briefcase guy wakes up the couple. I take the handgun from the glove box and check the magazine.
“Wait for me here,” I say.
“I’ll come with you.” The guy gets off the truck with his briefcase.
I glance at his box-shaped bag and smile. He is emotionally attached to it.
“You better keep your best friend safe,” I say sarcastically, and he chuckles.
The front glass door is unlocked. There is a creepy couch in the waiting area and an even creepier counter. Woodworms seem to be consuming the hotel slowly while hiding under a thick layer of dust.
On the side table next to the couch are a few travel brochures of what to do in this area. They are probably about visiting the only museum, eating at the only restaurant, and drinking at the only bar, I guess.
I look for room keys behind the counter while the guy peers at the sticky notes on the corkboard.
As I expected, there are no real
