At that moment, a phone ringing interrupted her, and she glanced down at her desk. For a moment Kenji thought he saw a hint of fear in her eyes, but it quickly changed as she looked back up at the source of the noise.
Muller stood up, pulling his phone out of his pocket, “Sorry, I need to take this. I’ll be back shortly, continue without me.”
Odd, Dr. Victoria looked at her desk, not the phone right in front of her, when she heard the ringing. I wonder what she looked so afraid of.
“So…” Dr. Victoria said, looking back at Kenji, smiling, “The next step is for you to begin training our newest recruits to the organization on how to identify, engage, and neutralize any infected they come across.”
Dr. Victoria chuckled at Kenji’s surprised face, “Don’t worry, we aren’t expecting any infected. These soldiers we are bringing in for training are part of a new group of the IVC, a task group called the Net. Their job will be to set up outposts along the western coast of North America, in case there is any chance that a ship carrying the infected made it past the quarantine and our sweep of the ocean.”
“Okay. I was curious why they needed to know how to engage and neutralize the infected. I thought Muller said we were far away from any attempt to reenter Japan,” Kenji said, taking a collective sigh of relief.
“Yes, we have two training groups. The first group will be the Net, our rapid response to any sighting of infected breaking landfall since the North Pacific Current meets with the Alaskan and Californian currents. That, of course, means there are risks of infected making it past our quarantine.”
“The second group, which you will train after, will be our live rescue teams, focused on primarily rescuing anyone that attempts to reach out. They will be on the front lines dealing directly with the infected, in mass, so don’t let them fluff off what you have to teach them.”
“Rescue teams? Do you think we will find many survivors?” Kenji asked.
“Honestly, no. However, it’s not purely out of the goodness of our hearts. Our hope, my hope, is that we can locate a survivor that is immune. The likelihood is extremely small, but if we can, it will change everything.”
“A cure…”
Dr. Victoria sat up, “Exactly.”
“Do you think you can do the task we are asking of you? Can you train soldiers to fight the infected? We need soldiers ready to face the horrors of the virus and come out alive,” Dr. Victoria asked.
“I can do my best. I’ll share as much knowledge as I can give,” Kenji replied.
“I have faith that you’ll do just fine. Two things before I let you go. First, this first group you are training, they will be leaders of separate teams, so when you train them, make sure they can easily use that knowledge to share with their teams. Second, if there is anything you need, ask Muller, he can take care of it.”
“Okay, you said I start this training tomorrow?” Kenji asked, standing up.
“Yes, Muller will help you organize your group tomorrow,” Dr. Victoria stated, standing up to let Kenji out of her office.
Kenji left the office, spotting Muller on the phone, in the nearby conference room.
Upon opening the door, Kenji heard the last part of the conversation, “Good, the last plane will arrive in three hours. Yep, I’ll be there to greet them, let them settle in before tomorrow. Hey, I got to go…yeah, talk to you later.”
Ending his phone call, Muller approached Kenji, “Sorry about that. Trying to coordinate the arrival of thirty different people from around the country is not as easy as it sounds.”
“No worries. So, I guess we start training them tomorrow. Who are these people anyway?” Kenji asked.
“Oh, most of them are from the navy, a few Marines, they’ll listen to what you have to say. After all, it will be their job to train their teams, and they know the risks of their failures. I don’t see that happening though,” Muller said, walking toward the door, “Come on, let's get you some real food.”
“That is the best thing you’ve said all day!” Kenji said in excitement.
✽ ✽ ✽
The next day, Kenji awoke to his alarm, and began to dress, choosing clothes identical to the ones he wore yesterday. He entered the quad, standing near the center of it, enjoying the cool morning weather, watching the sunrise.
“Ready?” Muller asked, joining him.
“Yep, let’s get these guys trained,” Kenji said, following Muller.
They entered a room with rows of tables and chairs lining it with a podium at the front. After waiting a few minutes, men and women began filling the room, all taking seats, staring at Kenji.
Panic set in, as he had never really been great at public speaking but fought to overcome it.
Seeing them all before me…Why did I agree to this? Too late now, I suppose.
“Alright now that everyone is here, my name is Muller, and this is Kenji. We will be giving you training on how to properly identify, engage, and eliminate infected. Now, before we begin. This is the most important lesson you will be given, so do your best to become sponges,” Muller stated, stepping aside for Kenji to move up.
“Good morning. Has anyone seen pictures of the infected before? Raise your hands,” Kenji asked.
A few people raised their hands in response.
“Okay, well, I wanted to start this training off with showing you some pictures of the infected.”
Kenji turned around to a screen on the wall behind him, using the remote on the podium to start the slideshow. The image of an infected man filled the screen, his dead black eyes, staring right past Kenji. The man’s face had been ripped to shreds on one half, exposing his teeth and jaw under the skin. An audible murmur filled the room.
Kenji looked away, finding it hard to stare, “This is what an infected person will look like. Make a note of their eyes, they will be black, or red. Yes, you there.”
A man had raised his hand, “Red? I heard they were only black.”
“That is true for the most part. However, one thing to understand is when a person has recently turned their eyes will fill with blood, which will be red, then eventually, over time, darken.”
Kenji pressed the button again; this time, an older woman appeared, “Don’t underestimate the strength of those infected. They don’t feel pain. Therefore, they will stop at nothing to bite you. If you look at this picture, what do you see? An old woman, fragile, weak? Wrong. A young infected will be just as strong as an older one.”
Kenji paused as the next picture came on screen, a young woman. For a moment, Kenji stopped, doing a double take of the picture.
I thought that was…Kiyomi…No, there’s no way, and I know that. I made sure she wasn’t one of these creatures.
“Uh…The last note I want to make is if you look at this woman, you can’t see any visible wounds that would indicate that she is infected, correct? Can anyone tell me how to spot she is infected without seeing a wound?”
After a few seconds, a woman toward the back raised her hand, “She has black veins along her neck?”
“Yes, that is a sign of infection. If you can’t tell if someone is infected or not, and you have no way of being sure, don’t second guess yourself. Use your best judgement, and don’t approach them until you know they aren’t infected. I’ve seen many people caught off guard by infected.”
Kenji clicked the remote for the last time, and the screen went blank, “Now, one last thing before we go to the course to practice, various techniques in the field to keep yourself safe, does anyone have questions?”
No one said anything or raised their hands.
“Alright, everyone, head outside, take a right when you leave the building. You’ll see the Humvees outside,” Muller said.
Kenji let out a sigh, relieved that he had made it through his presentation without a hitch.
“You did well, it was a good start to their training,” Muller said, patting Kenji’s back.
“I guess. They didn’t seem too impressed.”
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“Nah, they were just listening to you. Now, let’s go show them something practical, huh?” Muller asked, leading Kenji to the door.
✽ ✽ ✽
After two weeks, the thirty soldiers that Kenji trained, knew all he could offer them. He thought many of them picked up what he was saying, understanding that one bad move would lead to mistakes. Kenji’s main goal was to plant the seed inside each of them, that would grow until it became their first thoughts.
Kenji had taught them to knock on closed doors, waiting, before entering a room or building. He made sure they knew how to break the grapple of an infected person that would attempt to grab them. How noise was the infected creature’s main source that drove them. The silence was their best friend, and common sense was their ally.
After three weeks, he felt he had nothing left to teach them, and Muller agreed, passing the group on their training. The next week the Net was set up, and not a moment too soon. Four days after the soldiers set up their outposts, and began training their own teams, a ship carrying infected made landfall. Near the US-Canada border, a small fishing ship carrying six infected was beached after a storm, and a person traveling along the coast spotted the boat, and the infected on the beach.
Thirty minutes later, the strike team arrived and quickly took out the infected and cleared the ship. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if they had started training a week later. Kenji’s methods were proven to be of great use, as he read the report. He smiled as he read the strike team had used his own method of luring the infected one direction, while the other soldiers in the strike team took out the creature from behind.
As much comfort as it gave him, Kenji knew how close they came to having another outbreak. If someone hadn’t spotted the ship and infected, they could have wandered until they found new targets. He was focused on giving more in-depth training for the soldiers set to arrive in the next few days that would make up the rescue teams, putting his hope that they would find someone immune.
Chapter 9
The second training group was smaller, consisting of sixteen men, to be divided upon completion of their training with Kenji into four squads. He felt more comfortable with the smaller group but was even more nervous than with the last because this time he was training not just regular soldiers, but black spec ops soldiers. They all held the same steely gaze that Knight had, having seen a great deal of war and strife.
This led to a couple of the men Kenji was tasked with training to shrug off some of his lessons. Kenji could feel the tension between himself and these battle-hardened men. Who was he to tell him how to run a military operation? Did he have military certification? Live combat experience?
All they knew was that Kenji was a survivor of the outbreak, but not of what he had done to survive. To them, he was just another civilian. This conflict made Kenji struggle to get across the point that the infected were nothing to laugh at. He told the soldiers the same knowledge as the group as before, and the soldiers absorbed that information, but when it came to their training exercises, he had failed a couple of the men for ignoring his training.
Both men wouldn’t wait to check for infected, using their old methods of busting a door down, clearing the room while pushing inside. Several times they would still aim for the bodies of the fake infected set up throughout the training rooms. Kenji couldn’t seem to get past the disconnect between his knowledge and training to combine it with the soldier’s experience and expertise.
After two weeks of struggling with this, Kenji went to Muller, deciding he was his best bet. Finding Muller inside his room, he nervously entered. Kenji noticed the room looked exactly like his own. It was bare, clearly only used for sleeping.
“Hey, what’s up?” Muller asked as he took his shoes off, sitting on his bed.
“Do you have time to talk?”
“Yeah, what’s on your mind? Everything okay?” Muller asked with a concerned look.
“It's about the soldiers and the training,” Kenji said, not wasting time, “There’s a few that aren’t sticking to the lessons, as well I've heard a few rumors. Two of the soldiers seem to think I don’t have what it takes to train them.”
“Huh. Well, I know they’re wrong. Sometimes the guys from the black ops and military, in general, think that anyone outside the service isn’t fit to tell them what to do. It’s part of the chain of command thing ingrained in all soldiers. If you don’t hold a rank higher than their own especially, they don’t need to listen to you.”
“I’m at my wits end with them. I can’t seem to make them understand these new methods are the difference between life and death,” Kenji said, frustratedly throwing his arms in the air.
“Who are the two soldiers? Do you need me to talk to them?” Muller asked.
“No, no. It's Brown and Wilson.”
Muller stood up, pacing the small room, “Of course it’s those two. They always were wild cards.”
“Without you talking to them, what do you think I should do?” Kenji asked.
“Well, how far along is the group as a whole for training?”
“Good, everyone else has picked up the new training without issue. If it wasn’t for those two, I'd say the group is ready for assignment,” Kenji replied.
“Hm, I can assign the other groups, as we need them sorely. What about next time there is something that comes up that requires a team, we send theirs and have them realize why the training is important? You can go along and provide oversite.”
Kenji smirked, “You want them to fight the infected. Learn the hard way?”
“Yeah, why not? I need them to perform tasks that will require them to stay alive, and your training is there to help them do that,” Muller stated.
Kenji thought about it for a moment. Maybe that’s what they need. A little dose of reality. I guess if Muller thinks it’s a good idea…
“Okay. Next time we need a team for a mission, we will send them. You can start tasking out the other teams tomorrow,” Kenji replied.
“Perfect. Hopefully, that will give them the fire underneath them to take your training seriously.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Eight days later, it was just Kenji and the last team of four, Brown and Wilson, their unfortunate squad mates, Davis and Bernard. Kenji felt bad holding back Davis and Bernard since they had done nothing wrong, but the other two soldiers were responsible for the whole group. By fate's chance on that eighth day, a merchant ship was spotted about six hundred miles north of the IVC headquarters.
Kenji sat awkwardly across from Brown and Wilson as they headed to their mission. A Handymax Bulk Carrier had been spotted by the coast guard only twenty miles off the coast. It hadn’t responded to any radio calls and was adrift in the current. It was a perfect opportunity as Kenji and Muller had planned for.
Sitting with a satellite connected rugged laptop, Kenji pulled up the details on the ship. Named the Aurora Light, a wood chips carrier, 667 feet by 121 feet, built-in 2007, callsign 7JCJ. The crew was listed as thirty-two, owned by the Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, commonly known as MOL. Kenji was impressed with access the IVC had to such information.
Inspecting the blueprints of the ship, Kenji looked over the layout, noting it had five cargo holds, an engine room below the command deck, and four cranes on the main deck.
Kenji looked at the four soldiers sitting next to him, as they all looked over the information. The soldiers wore all-black gear, head to toe, and were armed with several weapons. Cradled between their legs, their rifles with silencers attached, making their length longer than normal. As part of the standard loadout, Kenji and Muller had decided that a machete would be best for silently killing infected. While the soldiers were geared up, Kenji wasn’t.
He was staying in the helicopter as it circled the ship. Kenji wasn’t there as part of the team, but as an overhead trainer, listening as the men conducted their first live mission against the infected. The headset he wore would allow him to hear everything the t
eam said as they swept the ship.
The pilot spoke to them, “We are coming up on the ship now, portside.”
Kenji strained his neck, attempting to get a look at the ship, but couldn’t see it from where he sat. As the helicopter lowered, Kenji saw the white cranes, followed by the command deck. Everything looked normal from its outward appearance, but Kenji knew how misleading that was. The soldiers stared at the ship as well, everyone inspecting it.
The helicopter stopped circling, and hovered above the bow of the ship, leaving a gap of about thirty feet. The copilot immediately got out of his chair, hooking up the thick rope before opening the side door to the helicopter, dropping the rope below. Kenji watched as the soldiers unbuckled themselves from their seats and stood. Davis and Bernard slid down the rope without hesitation, while Brown and Wilson shot Kenji dirty looks.
Kenji shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but he knew that what the two men were about to face mattered little compared to what he was feeling. Kenji was already a little unnerved being this close to where infected presided. He didn’t envy the task before the soldiers and wondered if they would still want the job after clearing the ship. Kenji was also worried about their safety and could feel his chest tightening.
After Wilson dropped the copilot pulled the rope back up, closing the door. Kenji watched as the helicopter rose higher above the deck of the ship. He could still make out the shapes of the four soldiers, as they grouped up, moving quickly toward the command deck. Kenji switched to their operational channel, which filled his headset with their dialogue.
Davis, who was designated squad leader, began giving orders, “Brown, you’re with me, you two take the starboard side, let’s clear the outside deck, then move inside.”
Kenji watched as the four soldiers split into twos and ran the length of the ship.
“Starboard clear.”
“Portside clear. Group at the portside door.”
What Remains (Book 3): Epidemic Page 7
