Fallen World: The Complete Trilogy

by Tom Jones

  Arcades stopped walking when he reached one of the disabled M1114s. He could see the burnt remains of a couple NSS members on the ground. He could only recognize them due to the AUGs that were discarded on the ground. A Steyr MG 74 was also on the ground. Arcades could tell that it was a Steyr MG because the stock and pistol grip were a distinct drab color. Rheinmetall MG3s were completely black. Jason spoke as he was looking at the disabled M1114, “This thing looks about like it blew up.” Arcades looked around the ground, and he could see the shadow that was printed on the ground from an explosion, “Seems about right. I reckon it was some sort of anti-tank mine.” Bocchino shook his head in disbelief, “Why would they detonate that right here? This tarmac is important, you know.” The fox tried to get a look inside of the improvised bed of the truck, but he was unable to see inside of it. The truck had seemingly been completely capsized from the blast of the mine. Arcades took a step back away from the wreckage, but he was careful as to not step on shrapnel on the ground. After standing on ground that was not covered by shrapnel, he began speaking again, “Well, I think it must have been a last-ditch effort to make something out of the situation. I think maybe the NSS may have detonated it -” Bocchino cut his boss off, “The NSS is supposed to have improvised anti-tank mines now?”

  Arcades’ mouth was still open due to being cut off mid-sentence. He continued after waiting for Bocchino to finish talking, “How are you sure it’s improvised?” The cat removed his ballistic goggles from his face and let them hang from his neck, “Why would you just blow yourself up like that?” The fox kept his glasses on, as he did not want to have to deal with the sunlight, “I do not know.” He waited to see if Bocchino had anything else to say. After another brief moment of silence, Arcades wanted to continue moving, “Come on, let’s go check out that hangar.” Jason turned to face the hangar that Arcades was looking at. Bocchino stood waiting while the fox and the wolf passed him. After they continued towards the hangar, Bocchino began following them.

  “What do you think happened here? An airstrike?” Jason asked a couple questions. The fox looked up from the ground to the hangar, and he visually analyzed what he was looking at, “I don’t think so. The roof would have been more damaged from an impact like that. I don’t think a missile or rocket would go straight inside like that… Say, have you seen any anti-tank missiles around here?” Jason had not seen any, so he did not answer. Bocchino, on the other hand, did answer, “Nope. I didn’t see that in the airfield.” As the anthros moved closer to the hangar, Arcades made an observation, “That’s weird. The hangar doors don’t seem as if they were opened from a blast. There is hardly any deformation from the outside.” Jason silently looked at the hangar. After another moment of silence, he spoke, “I guess we’ll have to go check it out when we get there, yeah?”

  Arcades was the first to look inside the hangar. Jason was surprised to see that the fox did not lift his rifle up as he looked inside. The fox paused to remove his glasses. He placed them on his boonie hat again. After finishing, he examined the remains of another M1114. This vehicle was less intact than the capsized vehicle that was out on the tarmac. The fox looked around on the ground again, and he saw more remains that he had to carefully step over. Jason chuckled as he saw the fox stepping over the shrapnel, “Ha, mate. That’s why you wear shoes.” Arcades placed his foot on the ground before turning his head to face the wolf, and he silently smiled at the wolf. As he continued to move, he spoke aloud again, “I want to say that the vehicle came in and blew up.” Bocchino walked right over the shrapnel since his boots were thick enough, “Blow up who, exactly?” Arcades made his way past the shrapnel surrounding the vehicle, “Not sure. I’m not going to go and look inside of the cab. I don’t think it’s a pretty sight.” Jason stared at the remains of the Humvee, “Are you sure that there are no survivors inside of that thing, mate?” Arcades looked back up at the vehicle, “If there were, I’m sure they would have said something by now. I don’t want to look at their bodies. I’ve seen enough dead people for today.”

  Arcades finally turned away from the vehicle, but he did not notice the dead CDI personnel that were thrown from the blast. However, he did see one body in front of him. Something about the body looked familiar for the fox, “Hmm… Is that a CDI member?” Bocchino was already standing next to the corpse, and the cat was looking at the gear the dead human was wearing. The wolf was the second anthro to move next to the corpse. Jason also could notice something similar about the human. Bocchino squatted next to the corpse to get a better look at it, “Looks more like he caught shrapnel rather than blown up by the blast. He’s got a big chunk of something lodged in the back of his head. He ain’t even wearing a helmet.” Arcades finally stood behind the corpse after walking past the shrapnel. The cat used the barrel of his SCAR-H to roll the man over. Arcades and Jason were both shocked to see who the body belonged to.

  “Is that?” Arcades gasped, but he could not finish the sentence. Jason was in denial, “It can’t be.” Bocchino looked up at the two anthros, “What the? Do you two know this guy here?” Arcades got down on his knees, and he began to search the man’s pockets for any form of identification. After rummaging through the corpses’ pocket’s the fox found a pair of dog tags. Arcades’ eyes widened as he read the name aloud, “J-Johnathan Moretti.” Jason shook his head, “No bloody way. That can’t be him.” The fox blinked a few times before reading the name again. The text on the dog tags did not change. Arcades lost control of his breathing, and tears began to well up in his eyes. Bocchino questioned, “Is that supposed to be that one guy who was with us for a few months, but he quit after you guys went to Hong Kong?” Arcades did not answer, but Jason did instead, “That’s him, mate.” The cat sighed, “Well, shit. Looks like he didn’t have a happy ending.” Arcades clutched the dog tags, and he was still remembering all that happened. He remembered Las Vegas, Alaska, and Hong Kong. He could not let it go.

  “Kurt, there’s nothing we can do, mate.” The wolf grabbed the fox’s shoulder. A few tears began to roll down Arcades’ eyes, and Jason only could watch him. Jason remembered what happened as well; However, it did not affect him like it affected Arcades. Bocchino did not want to stand around and watch Arcades, “I’m gonna go and let you two have your little moment, m’kay?” The cat made his way past the fox as he was going to walk out of the open hangar door. After Bocchino left, Jason began speaking again, “Kurt, you know he wanted nothing to do with us.” Arcades tightly held his eyes shut and shook his head, “That’s the horrible part. Remember Hong Kong? He blatantly said that he rejected the Word of God.” Jason raised his eyebrows, “Is that what is troubling you?” The fox nodded his head, “Yes… He rejected eternal life.” Jason lifted up Arcades’ chin, “Remember what you told me back in Alaska? A lot can happen in one minute.” The fox looked back down, but gave a half smile. He placed the dog tags back on Johnny’s body.

  The fox waited until he was ready to start talking again, “Y-Yeah, you’re right. I can’t know that for sure. He could have met God right before he died.” Jason looked down at the fox again, “So, are you ready to get going?” Arcades could not take his eyes off of the body. However, he heard a voice sound over his speaker microphone, “We have secured functional communications equipment, and we are able to contact friendly aircraft. Over.” The voice took the fox’s mind off Johnny momentarily as he held the PTT button to reply, “Copy. What is your location? Over.”

  The voice sounded again, “Main ATC tower. Exfil is en-route. ETA fifty minutes. Over.” Arcades looked back up at the wolf before replying to the humans, “Copy. We’ll be up there soon. We found… nothing important. Out.” Jason grabbed the fox underneath his arms in order to lift him back up. Jason patted the fox on the back, “It is his choice, remember? You told him all that you could have. A choice.” Arcades silently nodded before picking up his HK433 that was on the ground. He put the sling back on, and he spoke again, “Yeah… I suppose.”

  Arcades placed
his M2 Frames back over his eyes. Jason knew that the fox was just doing this to hide his now reddened eyes. The wolf grabbed the fox’s arm again and tried to make him feel a bit better, “Don’t blame yourself, mate. Now, let’s regroup with the rest of the squad.” The fox did not say anything in response. As the two anthros exited the hangar, Bocchino was already making his way to the control tower. He overheard the radio transmission on his own transceiver. The cat entered the tower after visually confirming that Arcades and Jason were on their way. Bocchino ascended the stairs to the tower, and the remaining two anthros soon followed.

  Arcades was the last to reach the top of the tower. As he entered, he saw the rest of the squad looking at him. They had removed their vests and helmets, and they had their weapons sitting up against the wall. Bocchino had just started to remove his helmet upon entering the control room. Jason removed his headgear too, and he sat his ARX-160 against the wall with the rest of the rifles. Arcades did not remove his headgear, and he only propped his HK433 up against the wall. One of the human operatives broke the silence, “So, what happened down there?”

  Arcades wondered if they could see his reddened eyes beneath his M2 Frames, but he brushed the idea off due to the fact the lenses were polarized. The fox reluctantly answered the question as he removed his gloves and placed them in his dump pouch, “Well… Remember that guy who worked with us for a few months after that Las Vegas mission?” Paul nodded, “Yeah, I remember driving you and him out of Vegas. What about him?” Arcades took a deep breath before continuing, “I found his body down there.” Paul did not understand, “Say what?” The fox shook his head, “He had joined CDI. I found his body in the damaged hangar.”

  Thomas commented, “Shit, man. I remember that guy. You told me to let him go back when we were in Hong Kong.” Arcades looked downwards at the floor as he was reminded of Hong Kong, “Yeah, I know. It was really sad… ” Due to the fact that Arcades mentioned CDI, Paul remembered what he had to tell the fox, “By the way, CDI apparently is going to stop trying to take this airfield. It’s not worth it to them anymore at this point.” The fox nodded, “Yeah? How did you figure that?” David answered the question, “They transmitted to this station. We happened to get here right before they sent it. They said that to any remaining personnel, they are cancelling the mission.”

  The fox shook his head in disapproval, “Gosh, you can’t just leave your men like that.” Noah had a comment to make, “Kurt, this is war.” Arcades looked towards the floor again as he displayed a face of disapproval. He looked at the palm of his hand before looking back up at his crew, “We are just going to pack it up now?” Jacob reminded Arcades of what he retrieved from one of the NSS members, “You got what you wanted, right? You came here looking for evidence as to why the NSS may be here.” Arcades reached in his pocket, and he viewed the Omega Foundation emblem that he had found. He placed it back into his pocket, “Yeah. I did.” Jacob nodded, “Yeah. You got what you wanted. We can go back home now.”

  Though the fox knew that the mission had been accomplished, he did not feel any sense of accomplishment at all. Arcades felt that he could remove his sunglasses and hat finally since his eyes felt like they were clear enough. He removed his headgear, and he placed his hat and glasses on the ground next to his rifle. The fox looked around at the other operators before asking, “So, you guys got a ride out of here?” Noah answered the question, “Yeah. The pilot that took us here is coming back to get us. He agreed to stay in range of contact for twenty four hours. We have not been here for that long now, have we?”

  The fox began rolling up his sleeves as he looked out the window of the tower. A lot of the smoke that was previously rising from the buildings had now completely dissipated into the sky. The afternoon hours were coming to a close, and the evening would soon be drawing near. Arcades turned back around to face the squad, “Do we have an ETA for getting back home?” Thomas nodded, “Yep. Pilot is gonna be here about thirty minutes from now, and then he’s gonna take us back to Berlin. From there, we are going to catch another flight to the US. We should get back to Fox Security by morning.” Arcades took a breath. He was glad that he would be able to return home. However, he wished that Johnny had not died. Immediately after thinking about Johnny, he thought about all of the other dead bodies. He wished that none of them had to die. The fox then thought about how many of the dead could have had the chance to be saved by God.

  Arcades’ contemplation was interrupted by Jacob, “We’ll stay here until the plane gets here. It’s gonna be a C-130. The same plane we took to get here in the first place.” Arcades nodded in acknowledgement, and he stood waiting for anybody else to say something. Bocchino had something to say, “I guess after we get back to the States, I’ll go look into that Omega Foundation for you. Who knows, maybe you’re right all along?” The fox halfway smiled, “Thanks, Bobby.” Jacob began to speak again, “Kurt, you did good. You don’t have to beat yourself up over anything.”

  The fox thought about what happened, “I didn’t do anything important.” Jacob scoffed, “You kidding me, man? You’ve done a whole lot in the past few months. You saved that vixen back in Vegas. You saved Jason right over there in Alaska. You stopped those hostile operators from obtaining the jade cane. You set the anthros in Berlin free, and you did what you came here for.” Jason knew what Arcades was still thinking about, “You can’t have everyone on board. Remember?” The fox nodded silently. He decided to just wait for the plane to arrive.

  The crew exited the control tower, and they were all carrying their equipment. They boarded the aircraft via the cargo bay, and they placed their equipment down. Arcades removed his dump pouch, and he placed his hat with glasses in the pouch. He kept his rifle next to his dump pouch, and he sat in his seat while he waited for the rest of his men to get situated. The fox was still thinking about Johnny, and he felt that he had not done a good enough job explaining the Word of God to him. Jason sat next to the fox, and so did Bocchino. After everybody was aboard the aircraft, the cargo bay began to close. The pilot performed the last pre-flight check before launching the aircraft. The plane took off, and Arcades took out his Bible. As the fox took out his Bible, Bocchino tapped his right shoulder. Arcades looked at the cat, and the cat said, “Look, man. I’m sorry for what I said to you earlier.” Arcades’ face now displayed a genuine smile, “It’s alright.” The cat continued, “I wouldn’t rather work for anybody else.” The fox nodded, “Thanks…” Bocchino decided that he would give Arcades time to read now. The fox closed his eyes, and he prayed to God. After he finished, he opened his Bible to the Book of 2nd Chronicles. He began to read, and Jason was looking over his left shoulder at what he was reading.

  Chapter 7

  Rest and Recuperation

  Arcades scrolled down the webpage as he scanned the screen’s text. He was trying to find leads on the Omega Foundation and the NSS. He knew that the organized nature of the NSS meant that they had to be communicating from somewhere. As the webpage he was viewing turned up to be lacking information that he needed, Arcades moved on to another page. Since he was using Tor, he was trying to find pages that were not viewable on Firefox, his preferred browser. He figured that the organization behind the NSS was trying their best to prevent any information from leaking on the clear web, so the fox found the lack of information to be understandable. Arcades began to review some images that Bocchino had sent him. He was trying to figure out the way the NSS set up their IFF system.

  Arcades squinted and leaned in closer to the screen as he studied the image. He was viewing infrared images of the NSS that had been taken the night before they arrived in Syria. They had been initially taken by CDI, but Bocchino retrieved them before they left Berlin. Arcades zoomed in on the image, however it was a compressed raster graphic. The image began to lose its fidelity, so the image appeared to be blurry. Arcades leaned in closer to the screen, but he moved back as he felt his nose touch the computer screen. He would have to find a higher resolution i
mage.

  The fox moved back away from the screen, and he brushed his nose off. Arcades switched to another tab that he had opened on his computer. He was not running a maximized window to ensure that if someone were to be watching his screen, the potential attacker would not be able to identify the native resolution of his screen going on the open browser alone. Arcades viewed the next page, and he began viewing images that had been taken during the Berlin attack. Many of the IFF patches the NSS members wore in both of the scenes matched up. Arcades thought to himself, ‘Hmm.. Maybe these guys are the same?’ Arcades then noticed some differences in some of the pictures. The NSS members wore an IR NSS patch and an IR rank patch on the other shoulder. The rank patches looked very similar to some of the World War II Waffen-SS patches. Arcades understood this because the NSS appeared to replicate the Waffen-SS with their emblems and other identifying symbols.

  Arcades viewed some patches that looked as if they were unit patches. He did not recognize the unit patches from Waffen-SS uniforms, so he did a search to confirm this. The patch reminded him of the NSS member he obtained the Omega Foundation emblem from. He tried his best to remember what the patch looked like. He viewed the image again, and his mental image matched up with the digital image that was displayed on the screen. The fox silently nodded as he scrolled down to view more images. However, he did not take a picture of the NSS member he got the Omega emblem from. He did not know if it was the same man, for other NSS members could be bearing similar emblems. Suddenly, a knock on the door broke Arcades’ concentration.

  “Come in,” the fox said aloud. His door opened and Jason entered his room. “Oh, hey Jason. What do you need?” Arcades asked the wolf. The wolf looked at the fox, “Hey mate, is this a bad time?” Arcades rolled backwards in his chair, “Hmm? Bad time for what?” Jason smirked a bit, “I was wondering if I could still take you up on your offer.” The fox now knew what the wolf was asking for. Arcades smiled and enthusiastically said, “Yeah, sure. You can go ahead.” Arcades disconnected his internet connection by removing the network cable, but he kept his browser open. Jason looked at the screen, “Wait, what were you doing?” The fox stood up. He was wearing a black polo shirt that was tucked into a pair of khaki tactical shorts, and he was wearing a Multicam belt. He answered the question, “I’m doing some internet investigation on the NSS and the Omega Foundation. Bobby is also trying to dig up what he can find as well.”