Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

him access to Level Six, then access the chamber, and then permit him to escape with Gina and Ben. It was a plan fat on assumptions. For one, would Black Island Research ever allow one hostage’s life to outweigh the safety of the entire facility? That seemed doubtful unless he could find, and get to, a valuable enough target. Yet, even after months on the island and now working for the Guardsmen, he still had no idea who the hell was in charge. Whoever it was had gone through great trouble to keep themselves and the scientists insulated from everyone else. While such lengths seemed mysterious and almost conspiratorial to Brent, they were also perfectly logical.  
    That was how you set up governments. You put the leader at a safe distance from the people. You didn’t allow the President and the Vice President to travel together for fear that some lunatic with a gun and nothing to lose might try to change history with bullets. And when the world went to hell, and people turned desperate and savage, the leader had to be at a safe distance, perhaps even veiled in secrecy, to steer clear of danger.  
    That meant Brent wouldn’t have access to anyone too high profile. And anyone beneath a leader might be expendable. The moment he stepped into the chamber with his hostage, someone might seal the doors and execute a burn protocol, killing them both and the treat of an escape.   Perhaps he could get to Ed Keenan, or maybe Sullivan. Both seemed to have value to the Island. Ed would be the tougher of the two to catch by surprise. Sullivan might be easier, but there was something Brent didn’t trust about the man. He was too calm, too sure of himself, too used to wielding power. Sullivan definitely seemed like someone you didn’t fuck with.
    Brent stared at the page for what seemed an eternity, waiting as if in prayer for an answer to bleed through the ink. Though he had been a features writer at the paper, there were times he had to write about complex subjects he knew little about. That’s when he’d break out the sketch pad and map out what he knew, what he needed to know. He’d work at it, hard, immersing himself in the subject until the fog lifted and the answers showed themselves.  
    But that wasn’t happening now. The longer Brent stared at his map, the more holes he found in his plan. The biggest of which was his wife. What if Gina went full-on monster and attacked him? Hell, what if Ben did too? What would he do? What could he do? Would he defend himself against a three year old by bashing his son’s skull in or shooting him dead? Brent doubted he could bring himself to ever choose his own life over his son’s, even if it was a husk of his son with a monster inside. When it came right down to it, he would allow his wife or son to kill him rather than fight back.
    Another fear, and perhaps the most realistic: what if he failed to even get to the chamber? He’d be shot for sure, or worse, excommunicated back to the ravaged wastelands of the outside world. No power, dwindling supplies, nuclear hotspots, bandits (he’d heard stories of from some of the other Guardsmen), and aliens.  
    He had to admit it; Black Island was, for all its limitations and restrictions, an oasis in a sea of chaos.  
    The more Brent considered his half-cocked plan, quarter-cocked more like, the more he resigned himself to the knowledge that he was at the mercy of Black Island. As was his family. He thought about what he’d told Luis so many months ago, how Black Island might be able to cure him. Brent wondered if they could cure the infection, or if the people who were bitten were already dead. The real question, Brent supposed, was whether the scientists were acting to find a cure or find a way to simply eradicate the cause. What motive would they have to synthesize a cure unless one of their own had been infected?
    Wait, that’s it!
    If he could infect someone else on the island, someone too valuable to lose, those in charge would be have to be compelled to accelerate work on a cure. Right?
    But again, there was the problem of determining who, if anyone, on the island held that sort of value. If there were such a person, what were the odds Brent could get to them? And how would he even begin to go about infecting them? Could he lure them to the chamber? Or was there another, better way?  
    Could he somehow inject them with the blood of the creatures? Perhaps the blood of the infected would work just as well. Shit, could the