Page 3 of Jude

“Whatever was in them, it’s hatched,” said Abbie. “Do you want me to bring back a sample?”

“You’re carrying the sample,” said Cliff.

“You’re not man enough to handle a Dinnorm pod?” asked Abbie.

“It’s got nothing to do with being man enough,” said Cliff. “I just don’t want to stink for the next week.”

“Too late for that,” said Solomon.

“Collect a sample,” said Tobias. “Sophia will want to look at it.”

Sophia was the bunker’s vet turned medic and something of a genius when it came to patching up the injured.

“We’re on it,” said Abbie. “I’ll deal with the pod so my colleagues don’t break a nail.”

“Then get over here,” said Tobias. “If those things have hatched and are still trying to find their way out of here, they might chew on us as their next meal.”

“I’m not picking up movement around you,” said Jude. “But the feed is delayed because the walls down there are hella thick. If this place works out, there’s no way the State will detect us there.”

“So long as we don’t get eaten by any baby Dinnorms first,” muttered Solomon darkly.

“You won’t mind losing an arm while I collect a sample of this sticky shit,” said Abbie.

“I’ll let one of those little monsters bite on my arm if it keeps your sexy ass safe,” said Solomon.

“You’re such a charmer,” said Abbie.

“Jude, can you hear me?” It was Octavia. “If you can, switch to secure channel sixty-four. We’ll only have a moment.”

Jude almost jumped out of his seat. It was the first time Octavia had ever spoken to him directly over the radio. She must be in trouble to be so direct. He scrambled for the channel changer and flipped over to the new channel. “I’m here. Are you okay?” His heart hammered in his chest. Maybe she’d been hurt and was all alone.

“I’m fine. You need to hear this. I recorded it a few hours ago. I’ve been trying to make sense of it. Something’s wrong.”

Jude held his breath as a strange-sounding babble filled the channel. He’d heard nothing like it before. It was a combination of clicks and whistles and garbled speech that didn’t sound human.

“Are you getting this?” asked Octavia.

“Yes. What the hell is it?”

“I’ve no clue. I’ve been finding it harder to track State communications over the last month. It’s got me worried. I think they’re planning something big and they don’t want us to know.”

“Is this Dinnorm language?”

“Dinnorm?”

Shit! She didn’t know who the State really were, or how dangerous they truly were. “Octavia, you need to know—”

“Get down! They’re in here,” yelled Tobias. The sound of laser fire blasted through the speakers.

“What’s going on?” Octavia’s voice rang with alarm.

“Fuck!” Jude had been so distracted by Octavia that he’d lost focus. “What’s happening?”

“Dinnorms are in here,” yelled Tobias. The sound of laser fire blocked out his next words.

Jude linked to Tobias’s head cam. The feed was patchy and jumpy. He saw flashes of laser fire and could see Tobias was running. The connection died.

“Jude, can I help?” asked Octavia.