Page 62 of Broken Wheels

“Dixon?”

Something in the way Doc said his name had the hairs rising on Dix’s arms, and he had no idea why. Then he saw Doc’s expression, and whatever optimism he’d felt died. “What’s wrong?”

Doc sighed. “I didn’t tell you, Gary, and Michael everything.”

What the fuck?

“But you said?—”

“I know I said I would, okay? But….” Doc took a deep breath. “There are things that they—especially Michael—aren’t ready to know.”

Right then, Dix didn’t want to know either, judging by Doc’s grave demeanor.

“That bad?”

Doc shivered. “Worse. After I found out about the so called ‘accident,’ I dug deeper. And then I saw the autopsy reports. There were pictures too.” Another hard swallow. “I sanitized it by saying they’d died of the toxins, but that wasn’t the full truth. It made everything sound benign, but what they did?” Doc’s eyes were full of pain. “It was torture, pure and simple.”

Dix girded himself. “Tell me.”

“The toxin didn’t kill people instantly. It never does. According to everything I read, first it made the ‘subject’ experience a… sensation.” Doc grimaced. “They’d feel as if their skin was on fire.”

Oh dear Lord.

“They couldn’t wash it off, though,” Doc continued. “They had to have been so terrified, because they tried scratching the skin, ripping the flesh down to the muscle in some cases.”

Dix’s stomach roiled. “That’s sick.”

Another shiver rippled through Doc. “I wish that was the worst of it. About an hour after exposure, their lungs would fill with fluid. They literally drowned as their bodies betrayed them.”

“But if they wanted people to die and leave the town untouched, why?—?”

“It was the first trial. These people were lab rats, nothing more. There were other tests scheduled on progressively larger towns, followed by a city. They’d committed atrocities on a hundred fifty people, but their main goal was to test it on one of three places—Chicago, Tucson, or Tulsa.”

Dix wanted to throw up. “How could they expect to get away with that?”

“If they were ever in danger of being discovered, they’d put together a story that would do a science fiction writer proud. We’re talking underground canisters filled with a type of nerve gas, left behind from World War Two, buried. Decades later, the canisters began to crack, flooding the water table. Their contents were released in small doses into the air. The people would never know, until it was too late to do anything about it.” He shivered. “Some cover story, huh?”

“And this was our government?”

“It wasn’t the federal government,” Doc told him. “Well, not entirely. There were people involved throughout all levels of government, from local to national. They’d start small, perhaps with a city council’s elections, knowing it would pave the way to bigger and better things.”

“But why would anyone even contemplate doing something so… heinous?” That was the part Dix couldn’t get his head around.

“They believed that war was imminent and that this time there would be mass casualties. They sought to take a city without using force and make it their new base of operations for the government.” Doc shrugged. “Think of it like North versus South, but this time with access to much deadlier weapons. They could explode missiles over areas like Iran, China, Russia. Anyone they deemed the enemy could be systematically destroyed.”

Everything Doc was saying chilled Dix to the bone, and it took a lot to generate that intense a reaction.

To think there are people out there who are so evil, they’d willingly kill to get what they want.

He could understand why Doc hadn’t told Gary and Michael. Gary was coping with his own problems. Despite everything Michael had seen and dealt with, he was a good person at heart who clearly thought he was ready for the realities of life. Gary and Dix had seen those realities. Hell, they’d been smacked in the face by them enough times. No, Michael certainly wasn’t ready.

But even the cruelest people Dix had dealt with seemed to have a human side, some kind of line they wouldn’t cross. Usually the death of kids was off the table, but this group? They didn’t see it like that, apparently. All they appeared to see were insignificant things to be squashed beneath their heels on their climb to the top.

“Doc?”

“Yeah?”

“When you’re doing your… research, find out what happened to those people who’d been part of this group. There must be something you can learn. Maybe one of them would have an idea of what’s happening now.”