Read The Renegades (Book 4): Colony for Free Online

them.
    “We thought we did. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. The test subjects eventually turned…” she trailed off.
    I began to think about NORAD and the outbreak. Was that what had caused it? Had they been running tests inside the mountain?
    “Please. Johnny, take a seat.” The Warden motioned to a plush leather chair. “Kat has been telling me a lot about you and your group of friends. How you assisted her in Salt Lake City.”
    I was still processing what she had said. Also the realization that there wasn’t a cure hadn’t really sunk in. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I had believed that as bad as the world had become since the infection, there was still hope to be found in the cure. But now, here they were telling me there wasn’t one.
    “So what are you going to do now?” I asked.
    “That’s where you come in.”
    “Me?”
    “Well, you, your friends, and others.” He paused, turning in his seat and pouring two fingers of bourbon from a decanter into an expensive-looking glass.
    “Maybe you would like to explain, Kat.”
    She nodded. “In the city we have discovered there are anomalies. Those who are immune to the infection —”
    “You’ve seen one get bitten… and survive?” I asked.
    “That’s right,” the Warden continued. “Like any disease, Johnny. There will always be those who are immune. For whatever reason, their bodies reject or can fight this infection.”
    “But this wasn’t a disease, it was a biological weapon. Garret said it himself.”
    “Yes, that’s right. A weapon that in a controlled environment would have been highly effective.”
    “Oh it was effective. You guys fucked it up and now you want us to get you out of this mess?”
    He smiled and leaned back in his chair.
    “You’re misunderstanding. It’s not about you or us. It’s about the survival of humanity.”
    I leaned forward. “If you know these anomalies exist, why don’t you just ask them to come in? I mean, I’m sure they would help if they knew.”
    He took a long pull on his drink and then opened up a wooden box in front of him. From it he pulled a cigar and snipped the end off.
    “You would think that. But it’s not that easy. There is a group called the Coalition that is… what can I say… making it difficult.”
    “And you expect us to go in and get them?”
    “Something like that.”
    I watched him fumble to light the cigar between his lips. The end flared orange as he disappeared behind thick white smoke. I looked at Kat.
    “What do you think?” I asked.
    “I think we have to do whatever we can to ensure our survival. This is far bigger than us, Johnny. We had our chance to create a cure, it didn’t work. The answer lies now with these anomalies.”
    The Warden stood up. “Talk it over with your group, we are planning to send out a team in a few days. I would like to see you go with them.”
    I nodded, slowly getting up.
    “And Johnny. What we are trying to do here is for the good of everyone.”
    About to exit, I paused at the door. “I’m sure that’s what they said when they created the biological weapon that started this mess.”
    I returned to the dorms. My mind was reeling at the thought of it all. On one hand the idea of trying to survive without searching for a cure was an option. But how long could we live that way? Food supplies would soon become scarce. Eventually people that weren’t infected would turn on each other. Hell, it was already happening.
    When I found my way back to my cot, I noticed Alex was back. Once again he was sitting there flipping through the pages of Moby Dick .
    “Convince you, did they?” he asked.
    “If you must talk in riddles at least make sense,” I said slumping down.
    He swung his legs around. “Shift to your left a little.”
    I groaned, becoming tired of his games.
    “Come on.”
    I moved.
    He opened the book and flashed me the access card as if I should know what it was.
    I shrugged. “So? What is it?”
    “Tonight,