The lights flickered and buzzed overhead. Somewhere a constant drip could be heard.

 

Around the table in the shelter’s decontamination room, three men in bulky hazmat suits waited for the timer to tick down so they could head inside.

 

There usually wasn’t much conversation after an excursion, mostly because the job was the same every day and best forgotten. But this time was different, and they sat looking at each other waiting for someone to be the first to speak.

 

The youngest man sighed. Quietly he whispered, “Ok, are we going to talk about this or just forget it when it comes time to do the paperwork? We all saw what we saw, or nobody saw anything.”

 

The other two men shifted uncomfortably in their seats and then the oldest nodded. “Gaspar is right. We bury this or we tell them the truth today.”

 

The third man shook his head. “Balthazar, if we’re voting on this, then I say we tell them.”

His voice trembled. “We can’t keep this a secret forever and you know what they’ll do to us if they find out we tried.”

 

They shuddered. Failing to pursue Defectives or, worse, allowing them to escape was punishable by slow death.

 

Gaspar stood up. “Melker, we don’t know these folks are Defectives, do we? What if they aren’t? That girl was no mutant.”

 

The men sat silently brooding for a moment.

 

Then Balthazar said, “We have to tell them. Yes, I agree the one we found wasn’t blighted. But that doesn’t matter, especially since the map she had in her pocket tells where there’s more. The Boss will send out a special team and that will be that.”

 

Melker eagerly nodded in agreement. “Gaspar,” he whined, “not even you can keep this a secret until you die. Nobody could. And if you let it slip, all of us and our families will burn. Our job is to finish off what the radiation didn’t, and it doesn’t matter what we think.”

 

Gaspar thought for a moment and then shook his head. “She wasn’t a Defective. I’ll wager if we followed that map ourselves, we’d find a lot more who aren’t either.”

 

He pointed at Balthazar. “Tell me. How many babies were born here in the last census period? How many healthy babies?”

 

The older man looked away and said, “One, but he’s still in the infirmary. None during the census before.”

 

Gaspar slammed his fist against the table and said, “That girl we killed was healthier than anyone I’ve ever seen inside, and she lived out there! If we put this in our report, all of those healthy people will be murdered just to maintain the status quo and protect the Shelter. But you’re right about one thing. One of us would slip up sooner or later and spill the beans. Three men can’t keep a secret forever… not living men, anyway.”

 

The guards standing watch at the door heard two quick bursts of gunfire followed by one single shot. When they rushed inside, all was quiet. A haze hung over the three bodies on the floor. One of the men bent down to check for any signs of life.

 

“They’re all dead. I’d say it looks like Gaspar pulled the trigger. But why? Both of these troopers were his friends. It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

The second guard shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve never been outside. More than a few men see things out there that they can’t deal with. We’ll never know what secrets this boy was keeping locked up inside, poor devil. Anyway, that’s for the investigators to sort out. For the rest of us, life goes on.”