Undorn: The Beginning

Part Fourteen

Bones, Region of Orrosta

Location: Camp Monmouth

"G'luck, mate," Orwell mocked a tip of his hat to his now-friend Bones, flashed him a quick smile, then took off down the steps of the Watch Tower almost like he hadn't come and cracked a high-security code system at all.

Stunned and mesmerized by Orwell's efficiency, Bones swore outwardly, his muttered "fuck" bouncing off the circular brick walls and echoing around him. It made a shudder run down his spine, and Bones never shudders.

Bones shook his head clearing his mind to focus on the task at hand. He was to enter his code and open the garage doors and then from there, open the front gate. 

He stepped inside the control room that sat at the top of the tower and finally let out the breath he had been holding in since Beo tapped his shoulder early that morning, waking him up from a restless sleep, telling him it was time. He knew no one was to be in the room, but on the off chance that someone decided to stay a bit longer or come in earlier for their shift, Bones would have been dog shit. 

Quickly--that was the trick with this whole thing, speed--Bones found the keypad labeled "garage" and entered the code he had swiped off the Watch Tower officer days earlier. He pressed enter, then waited 15 seconds until he heard the signature low-rumbling sound of the massive doors pulling away from their place on the asphalt, retracting into their grates on the ceiling. The garage was only a meter or so away, so Bones peered out the massive window above the control center and was able to confirm it's opening with his eyes. 

He switched off all power on the camera systems, pausing to allow himself a small smile of victory, then turned away from the window to climb down the Watch Tower and join his friends. Before he got much more than a step away, his vision flashed with a quick image full of blinking white dots coming from the monitor on the control center. Bones knew he had to move quickly, but something in his chest told him to turn back around. So he did. He did a double take and eyed the blinking monitor more closely. It was then that he realized it was his name that he saw. It was his name that his mind subconsciously registered, urging him to take a second look.

His name, Thomas, followed by the letter O, presumably for Orrosta, was there, on the dark blue monitor,  hovering above a blinking white dot. His name. 

The monitor, he now realized upon further inspection, was a map. A map of the camp. A very detailed map of the camp. It probably extended about two miles passed the furthest barrack in all directions. Bones' eyes found his dot again. Quite clearly, it was blinking in the digital Watch Tower, in almost the exact spot he stood in front of the monitor. 

His heart rate spiked. His eyes frantically scanned the map, looking for the others. He found them all, where they said they would be, in the garage waiting for him. Orwell's dot flashed next to Taide's and Beo's. He had made it back safely at least.

It was clear to Bones that the officers had somehow figured out a way to track the exact steps of each and every one of their recruits as they moved about campus. They had their location--Bones, Beo's, Taide's, Orwell's, all of them. 

Bones didn't know if the officers had tracking capabilities ranging beyond the campus, but he had a feeling that he didn't want to find out the answer the hard way.

The moment the four of them stepped off campus, they'd no longer be visible on the camp map. They'd instantly have targets on their backs. In fact, the next officer to walk in here will know they're gone. In a matter of minutes, they'd be fugitives. And Bones wasn't about to risk his only chance of leaving his damned fate by blindly hoping  that the officers couldn't find them once they left the camp.