The Bronze peered ahead, and his eyes widened.
The concrete ended, and the corridor became a tunnel of perfectly rounded ribs of steel. A red light flashed, whirling in a continuous pattern over pipes and finishes of chrome. Bodies littered the floor, dozens of bodies, both military and civilian. All dead, by headshots.
The Bronze proceeded deeper, turned to his right, and counted two more steel doors, each a foot thick and wide open. There was a side passage, which opened into a large room. He proceeded to enter, and overhead lights once again automatically switched on.
The sight straightened the Bronze’s spine.
Guns.
Whole racks of guns and countless ammunition caches. Weapons of a futuristic make that stunned the masked man. There were rows of gunracks, stacked on top of one other, stretching well back into the dark. To the right were open lockers, containing complete sets of body armor and even bulletproof shields.
Long dead mindless covered the floor.
And that was just one room. The doors were wide open, as if someone didn’t have time to close them. A number of the Leather gathered at the Bronze’s back, and he gestured that they take what they wanted. Their black outfits gleamed as they stepped into the armory.
The Bronze, however, returned to the main corridor and pressed on. Ten feet. Twenty. A single red light swirled over steel and support struts, as if this section was under continuous alert. The corridor ended in a pile of mindless, gunned down upon the threshold to another chamber. There were more inside, but the dead didn’t interest the Bronze.
Computer terminals filled the room. Huge monitors hung from ceilings. Cords and wiring drooped in black coils. The main level had three multi-level tiers all descending from it, like a mythical giant’s stairway to a lower floor. Computer workstations lined those tiers as well, and a single set of stairs split them right down the middle. There were open manuals everywhere, as well as undisturbed coffee cups, tablets, and half-filled water bottles. A few stuffed animals peeked out from between workstations.
A blinking light caught the Bronze’s attention.
There, on a raised platform, in the middle of a series of computer terminals, was an elevated plate. Two separate glass covers sat side-by-side, each one protecting a linear keypad and a keyhole.
A green light blinked just to the left of the ominous twins.
The Bronze knew enough about computers to wake the system. He reached for the nearest keyboard and tapped a key. Hard drives whirled to life. Overhead, the red lights switched to white. A huff of hydraulics and the entire center was resurrected, causing the dozen or so Leather accompanying him to become restless.
A moan caught the Bronze’s ears.
And below, in between the terraced workstations, a huge white spider crept into view. It crawled out into the stairway running through the tiers. Except it wasn’t a spider, it was a hand. Attached to a wrist.
The Bronze stopped at the head of the stairs to get a better look.
A gray length of arm lifted weakly before flopping onto the floor.
The Bronze descended slowly, approaching it. As he drew closer, he could see the arm was dressed in a technician’s uniform. The clothing was ripped in places, bloodied as if the person had been mashed by a speeding car. The man’s legs came into view, but they ended in rags and were useless. A dirty-blonde head of hair lifted and the face beneath smiled.
Except one side of the mouth had been ripped off to the jawline, where the strip of missing skin continued to the ear.
The zombie greeted the living with a slow, exaggerated nod.
The Bronze split its head with one chop.
The undead creature flopped to the floor and remained motionless, delivered to its final death. The Bronze nudged the skull with a boot and then cleaned it off on the uniform.
From up top, one of the Leather waved.
The Bronze retraced his steps back to the main platform, searching for any more infected lurking in between the other workstations. There were none. The minion that waved to him pointed at three live monitors, ones that had powered up after being awakened from sleep mode.
The Bronze stopped in his tracks. His eyes narrowed and he had to remember to breathe.
Two of the screens showed detailed information that would take time to process. The third screen, however, needed no such effort.
That one offered a live feed of a missile silo, and the single rocket poised and ready within its metal sheath.
46
“All right,” Collie said after removing the last of the bolts from her wounds. “That’s all good.”
Carson was propped up against a cabinet with the battle rifle aimed at the human stool. The cleansing fire of the decontamination chamber had stopped, but scorch streaks marred the bulletproof glass. Once she had the bolts out, Collie removed her leather duds she’d forcefully appropriated from one of the dead cock-knuckles. Her own clothing was underneath, but it was in a sorry state.
“Ohhhh,” Collie groaned, inspecting her chest wound while adjusting her own shot-up ass against a cabinet. “Gonna need a shitload of surgical tape for this one.”
“How are you even alive?” a wary Carson asked.
“Keep your eyes on him,” she ordered softly.
“Sorry.”
“S’okay. And to answer your question. No fucking idea. Well. I might have a theory, but all you need to know now is… that I’m still me. Still rational-thinking, secret squirrel shit me.” Collie looked at the man-stool then. “You got a name?”
“Top Gun.”
That caused her to scowl in amusement. “What? Fuck off, that’s not your name.”
“That’s what they call me.”
“I’m not fucking calling you Top Gun, so get that outta your head now. What’s your real name and don’t make me ask twice.”
“Milo.”
Collie’s face went slack. “You’re shitting me. From one extreme to the other? Milo’s your name?”
He released a tired smile and nodded. “Milo Trasher.”
“He’s the one who shot you,” Carson said, nodding at the man. “I heard them going for him. Telling him what to do.”
That information visibly uneased Milo. He chuckled, a breathless sound that might’ve been the last bit of air shaken free of his lungs, and suddenly he was very attentive.
“You did this?” Collie asked.
“They forced me to,” Milo quickly explained. “I had no choice.”
“You shot me from a hundred meters out? On a moving vehicle?”
“They would’ve…” Milo bit his lips, his eyes darting from the automatic cannon in Carson’s possession. “They would’ve hurt me. Just like him. Or worse. Believe me.”
“You still didn’t have to shoot her,” the mechanic said.
“And wind up like you?” Milo demanded. “I don’t know her. Don’t know any of them. All I knew was that if I didn’t shoot, some psycho with a hammer was going to smash in my ear.”
“Why they got you dressed up like that?” Collie asked.
“They do this to all their slaves. They call them meat puppets. Which is pretty much how valuable they are to them.”
“So you know about these knobs?”
“Yeah. I know about them.”
“Who are they?”
Milo sighed. “They’re called the Leather. A small army of… well… organized crazies from back west. Past Saskatchewan. Maybe past the Rockies.”
“And what are they doing out this way?”
Milo shrugged. “Picking up the leftovers. Conquering. Claiming the land as their own. Medieval shit.”
Collie considered the man before him. Carson’s expression softened, but only a little.
“Top Gun, eh?” she finally asked.
Milo nodded warily.
“That’s something you get from the army?”
That made him blink. “Yeah. Actually.”
“So you’re CF?”
“Yeah. About sev
en years. Then I became a gym teacher.”
“How old are you?” Collie asked.
“Thirty-nine.”
“Jesus. And you were in the Forces? What part?”
“Infantry.”
Collie’s expression lightened. “Ahhh, a cowboy. What regiment?”
“Patricia's.”
“Ohhhhh, a dirty cowboy.”
Milo nodded with a sorry smile.
“A vicious princess,” Collie added with a mild note of appreciation. “I like you already. You’re not a lawn dart, are you?” She looked at Carson. “That’s paratrooper to you.”
Right then, a light on the terminal flashed. Collie got up, hobbled over to the computer station, and tapped a few keys. The two men quieted as Collie reached for a headset and put on the device.
“This is—”
“I know… who you are, Captain Jones,” the voice interrupted. “So please. Listen carefully. We have an extremely dangerous… situation… developing…”
47
The last of the mindless lunged at Gus in a flash of teeth and hooked fingers.
The unexpected attack surprised him, and the mindless, still caught in the batting cage’s web, crashed into him. Gus staggered back until his feet were on green flooring. He straightened and saw that the netting still held the trapped zombie, but the creature, through sheer power alone, had managed to pull itself forward a few feet.
“You got me that time,” Gus said, and bashed in the thing’s head. The mindless went down in a heap, suddenly boneless. Gus moved around the edge of the netting before finishing the job with two more strikes.
After that, he retreated a few steps until his back hit the glass.
He’d done it.
Sweet Christ and honey-tipped titties, he’d done it.
But his shoulders dearly ached from the effort, and he could chop his fucking foot off at the ankle, it was bothering him so much. He’d put the kibosh on the mindless hunting for his ass, however, so that was good. Nothing moved in the batting area that wasn’t him, and that alone filled him with relief.
“Thank you, Lord,” Gus whispered. “Thank you very much.”
Then he remembered the ones who had unleashed the mindless in the first place. They were still out there, the barbarians, and it probably was in his best interest to find them.
Before they reached anything important.
The light outside the window began to flash. When he glanced at it, the light stayed on.
“That you, Josh?” he asked, but Rogan did not answer.
Though bone-weary and aching, Gus lumbered towards the batting cage entrance. He hurried outside to the main hall and waited.
The lights remained on.
“You there…?” a voice crackled overhead, causing Gus to jump.
“I’m sorry,” Josh Rogan said. “As I mentioned before. I’m research. Not security. And I never had to… use the speaker system before. Not while I was alone. I’m learning as I go.”
“S’okay,” Gus said. “I don’t—”
“Listen carefully,” Rogan interrupted. “And don’t bother asking questions. I can’t hear you. I can see you, but that’s it. You’ve killed off the zombies in your area, but there’s a bigger problem now.”
“All right,” Gus said, realizing at that moment the assistant couldn’t hear him.
“A group of those… skid-marked assholes… have found an armory,” Rogan continued. “A very important armory. One that must’ve been opened by a guard. This particular armory… isn’t far away from Whitecap’s nuclear arsenal.”
Nuclear what?
“I think… the arsenal is secure,” Rogan explained. “I think… but if anyone does a search of the area, they may…eventually find the keys. Then it only stands to reason… that they have someone who can access the weapons. Perhaps activate them.”
Gus had heard enough. He started pointing.
“Yes, yes, follow the flashing lights,” Rogan said. “I’ve taken the… the liberty… to summon reinforcements. For you.”
As promised, the lights in one section of the underground promenade flashed repeatedly. Gus forced himself into a run, heading towards them.
A short time later, Rogan told him to stop.
Gus stood before the wrecked front of a shoe store, where a golf cart had crashed though the front window. Shattered glass twinkled like diamonds upon the floor. The sight of crushed boxes, scattered footwear, and toppled displays all suggested an army had marched through the shop.
He had no idea where, however.
“Please wait,” Rogan informed him. “Reinforcements… are on their way.”
“Who?” Gus asked aloud, and then he remembered Rich Trinidad carrying a private gun collection. But if it was Rich Trinidad, what had happened to the islanders escaping through the secret hatch? Did they make it?
Some fifty-plus meters out, the walkway lit up one section at a time, as a lone figure approached.
Body armor. Carrying a handgun.
Gus’s eyes narrowed at the advancing figure, sensing something familiar.
The figure waved as he jogged through an unlit area where perhaps the lights needed to be replaced. The shadow slowed to a walk, coming closer, the light flashing off the visor.
“Hiya honey,” Collie said.
The heart-stopping realization that it was indeed Collie standing before him robbed Gus of all speech. His arms dropped to his sides as he simply beheld her from head to toe and back again. She let him have his moment.
Then he rushed forward and embraced her.
Their helmets clacked off each other, and his body armor pressed against hers, but Gus didn’t care. He had her in his arms and didn’t want to let go. Collie hugged him back and held on as if he were a rock in stormy waters.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
Collie’s hug lessened. “Yeah,” she said near his ear. “About that.”
She released him and he did the same a second later. Red-eyed, and clearly in stunned disbelief, Gus simply stared at the woman.
“We—I—have a problem,” she said.
Gus shook his head, not understanding.
“I was shot through the chest, Gus.”
That horrific memory replayed through his mind, the blast erupting out her back in black and white. His lower legs went weak, and his guts crystalized.
“Right through,” Collie continued. “One shell blew my heart out my back. And yet… here I am.”
“You’re… like Wallace,” he whispered.
Collie didn’t answer right away. “We’ll talk about this later. If there is a later. Right now, we got rats nibbling on the powerlines.”
“Collie… Josh said this place had nukes.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, it does.”
“How the hell does it have nukes?”
“We always had them. Just never told the public. One of the government’s best kept secrets, really.”
Gus’s head was swimming.
“We don’t have a lot, mind you,” she explained. “Just enough to play that card if we needed to. To ruin someone’s day.”
“Jesus, Collie.”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. After this next part. Come on.”
She pointed her sidearm, which he recognized as the Sig he’d left in the EV.
Collie entered the shoe store, and Gus followed.
48
“Just wait a moment,” the disembodied voice announced overhead. “Reinforcements are on their way.”
The words blared from the security center’s speaker system, hooking the Bronze’s attention. Others glanced at the ceiling, searching for the source, while those standing guard near the entrance immediately tensed and took aim at the corridor beyond.
“Wait a moment,” the voice said, suddenly wary. “Damn these controls. Captain. Captain Jones. We might have a problem.”
49
“What problem?” Collie asked, poised to proceed into the ba
ck corridor beyond the shoe store.
Gus was just about to comment that he’d run through a tunnel system on the other side, when Rogan spoke again.
“I might’ve broadcasted that last thought… throughout the entire complex. I’m so sorry. I never had to… to use any of this equipment before. I’m just—”
“A research assistant,” Gus finished with him, drawing a look from Collie.
She looked to the ceiling and drew an imaginary knife across her throat. “Stay off this line from here on end. Don’t call us. We’ll call you.”
Gus wasn’t sure if Rogan heard her or not, but the assistant immediately shut up.
“What do we do?” he asked her.
“We’re going to be even more careful,” she answered. “That’s what we do.”
*
The Bronze directed half his minions through the corridor while the others remained around their leader. The Leather took up positions within the tunnel, standing or crouching on one knee, partially hidden behind the steel ribs of the single corridor leading to the armory and beyond. Guns were readied and aimed.
All attention centered on the passageway ahead.
*
Collie advanced into the lit corridor, her gun in both hands. She stepped over the corpses littering the floor and quickly outpaced Gus, who staggered along as if he’d downed a two-fer of Molson’s beer.
Which wasn’t a bad idea, he decided, still reeling from the one-two punch of Collie being alive, but in a state like Wallace, and then the revelation that the country had in its possession a small and exceptionally well-kept secret nuclear stockpile.
We don’t have a lot, mind you, she’d said. Just enough to play that card if we needed to.
Collie stooped at times, extending a hand and patting down the bodies. “Picked clean,” she whispered to Gus.
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 32
