by D. J. Molles
“Uh, Sam, is it?”
“Yeah. Can I talk with you?”
Doc Trent mumbled something unintelligible, but then moved out of the doorway and held the door open, bobbing his head as an invitation for Sam to step in.
Sam tried to smile at the nurse, but she avoided his gaze.
Oh well.
Sam stepped into the office and closed the door behind him as Doc Trent retreated a few hasty steps to stand by his desk, as though this was a source of power and comfort to him. From what little Sam knew of Doc Trent, that was probably accurate.
“What can I do for you, uh, Sam?”
“Did you have a chance to speak to Sergeant Loudermouth?”
Doc Trent made a face that looked like Sam had just brought a bucket of sewage in the office with him. But then, there was something else there. Something that lit up the man’s eyes. Something like good, old-fashioned scientific curiosity.
“Yes,” Doc Trent said. “Yes, I did.”
Sam nodded. “Sir, I’ve just been back from Augusta. And…there is something happening with the primals. Something that I don’t think the higher-ups are aware of, or maybe they just don’t want to admit it. But I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Loudermouth. Or you. And I’d like to know what you think.”
Doc Trent shuffled sideways, like a hesitant crab, and then settled himself into his seat. “Yes. Well. Loudermouth had a lot of…very interesting things to say. Can you, perhaps, go into a little detail as to what you saw?”
As Doc Trent spoke, Sam’s eyes roved across his desktop, and he noticed a worn out notebook sitting open in the center of it, and when his eyes landed on it—pages of cramped, tiny writing—Doc Trent hastily shut it.
Sam raised his eyes to Doc Trent’s. “Is that Jacob’s notebook?”
Doc Trent leaned back. “It is.”
“Are you finding any answers in it?”
“Perhaps.” Doc Trent leaned forward, and slid the notebook off to the side. “What was it that you saw in Augusta, Sam?”
Sam’s legs felt like logs. He saw that there was a chair pushed off to the side of the room, not positioned in front of the desk. He grabbed this without invitation and dragged it over so that it was facing Doc Trent, and then he sat himself down in it.
Interesting how exhaustion could make you bolder.
Leaning back in the chair, Sam recounted everything that had happened, for the second time that day. The first time had been during the After Action Review. He wasn’t sure whether what he was saying to Doc Trent was supposed to be kept secret, but he thought that if it was, then that was dumb. This was information that needed to be figured out. Not horded until it bit them in the ass.
When he finished, he noticed that Doc Trent had interlaced his fingers together on the desktop, and that the knuckles were white.
After a moment of silence, Doc Trent seemed to recover himself. “So, you say you heard a voice. Over the radio.”
“Yes.”
“And you think it spoke English.”
“Yes. That’s what I think.” Sam leaned forward. “What do you think about that, Doc?”
Doc Trent considered this. “Is there any way it could have been one of the team members on the radio?”
Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. But it didn’t sound like them.”
Doc Trent nodded. “Let me ask you, Sam. If I tell you something, maybe even a few somethings, is it going to get back to Angela?”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Well, frankly, sir, if it’s important information…then yes.”
Doc Trent nodded again. “Good. Someone in this God-forsaken shit heap needs to start paying attention. Now, listen…”
***
Sam went back to The Underworld.
His gear was still scattered his bed from when he’d shucked it off and followed the rest of them out for their individual interviews about what had happened.
A few of the large industrial lights were on, but not all of them, as several squads were trying to get some sleep.
Jones and Pickell and Chris were all racked out. But Billings remained awake, and his eyes shot to Sam as he stepped under the camouflage netting that made their roof.
Billings sat up. “Where’d you run off to, Ryder?”
He kept his voice down, but Sam could tell he was irritated, probably at having to stay up and wait for Sam, like a parent for their wayward teenager.
Sam squatted on the edge of Billings’s cot. “I went to talk to Doc Trent after my AAR.”
Billings tilted his head. “And?”
“Have you heard what command might be doing with Augusta?”
Billings made a face. “You know they don’t talk to me.”
Sam waited.
“But I have heard that they’re mobilizing a portion of the Marines.”
“To assault Augusta?” Sam balked.
“That’s what it sounds like. What’d Doc Trent say? Has he talked to Loudermouth?”
Sam nodded. “I think…well, it’s not what I think. It’s what Loudermouth says. And what Doc Trent believes. He was studying Jacob’s notebook. He says he thinks that what happened in Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, that’s what happened to Augusta. That’s why all these primals are congregating in one place.”
Sam registered that Jones had come awake and sat up in his bed, frowning at them with squinty eyes. But he said nothing, and seemed inclined to listen.
“Loudermouth says he was being kept alive as food. That the building he was in was a sort of nursery. A…breeding ground, I guess.”
Billings shook his head. “We didn’t see any other primals besides that one that led us there.”
“Loudermouth claims they were there,” Sam said. “He claims they hightailed it when they saw us coming.”
“That doesn’t sound like something primals would do.”
Sam’s hands came together, the fingers wrestling with each other. “Doc Trent says they’re evolving. He says they’ve been evolving. And he says he thinks that these large colonies aren’t really colonies at all, that they’re big, temporary breeding grounds. He says it makes sense. That there’s precedent in the natural world for this type of behavior.”
“Shit.” Billings rubbed his face. “So, what about the transmission? What about the voice we heard?”
Sam’s hands stopped wrestling. He clenched them together. “Yeah, that’s the other thing. Loudermouth claimed he saw something. Doc Trent says he called it a ‘brain.’ It was a female primal that was…different. More human. But still primal.” Sam’s eyes went up to Billings. “And Loudermouth says that she spoke to him.”
Billings puffed out a disbelieving breath, but then sat there, silent.
There was more that Sam knew now. Some of it was what Doc Trent had told him. And some of it was his own thoughts. All of it was theoretical. But they were theories that somehow seemed right. They made sense. And they were consistent with everything that Sam had seen.
“These breeding grounds,” Sam said, his voice little more than a whisper. “They’re breeding with these more human-like females, these ‘brains.’ The strongest males, to the smartest females. And I think these females are…controlling them, somehow. And they’re protecting their breeding grounds.”
Jones rustled in his bed. “Is that why they yanked Paige’s head off?” he whispered. “To warn us off?”
Sam nodded. “They’re smart. And they’re getting smarter. And if all of this is true, then I think we know what we’ll find when we get back to Fort Bragg. Shit, I’m not even sure that we should go back.”
“So we should just let ‘em breed?” Jones hissed. “Fuck that, man. We need to nuke their asses.”
“We can’t,” Billings said, his voice flat. “All we got’s ground pounders. All we got is infantry in trucks. And you see how that’s working out for us.”
“I don’t know what the answer is,” Sam said. “I just know that command isn’t taking Loudermouth or Doc Trent seriously. And I t
hink…I think that’s going to kill us all.”
Billings nodded, then reached across to Sam and poked him in the shoulder. “Fuck chain of command, Ryder. You need to speak to Angela.”
***
Sam knocked on the door of the tiny white house, and waited.
He heard a thunder of footsteps, and then a small face peered out of the mottled glass sidelight to the right of the door. A halo of frizzy curls. Bright blue eyes. A sudden, big smile.
The door flew open.
“Sam!” Abby squealed, then grabbed him about the midsection.
He put an awkward hand around the smaller girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
She pulled her head back, her nose wrinkled. “You stink, Sam.”
Sam smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. The sudden burst of affection had taken him back. He hadn’t even been thinking of the little girl who had become his kind-of-adoptive-sister.
“Hey, Abby,” Sam murmured. “Why aren’t you in school?”
Abby rolled her eyes with great drama. “It’s Sunday, you big dummy.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Oh.”
Was it really? Days of the week tended to blend together. Weekends didn’t mean much anymore. Unless you were a school kid, apparently.
“Why don’t you live with us anymore?” Abby said, twisting around and fidgeting, but keeping her eyes locked on Sam’s face.
Sam found himself searching for appropriate answers.
Because he didn’t want to be seen as Angela’s son?
Because he didn’t want to be reminded of every way that he was different?
Because he found this fake family life stifling?
Sheepishly, he turned and pointed in the general direction of the warehouse where all the Hunter-Killer squads were housed. “I’m just right over there. But sometimes I have to get up really late at night, or really early in the morning, and you wouldn’t want to hear me tromping around at all hours, would you?”
Abby was absently swinging her arms back and forth. She managed a shrug, somewhere in there. “I wouldn’t care. I miss you.”
Sam blinked a few times.
What the hell do you say to that?
“I, uh, miss you too.” He frowned. Cleared his throat. “Listen, Abby, is…your mom here?”
If Abby noted the oddness of Sam calling Angela “your mom,” she decided not to say anything about it. More likely she hadn’t even noticed.
She bounced one time. “Yeahsure. Mom! Sam’s here!”
“Hey, Sam!” Angela’s voice called out. “In the kitchen. You want some lunch?”
Sam felt something hot and uncomfortable settling onto his neck. He pushed through the doorway, and closed it behind him.
TWENTY-SIX
─▬▬▬─
VISITORS
The guard at the front gate of the Butler Safe Zone heard the engine before he saw it.
He was in the shade, leaning up against one of the four posts that kept the corrugated metal roof over his head—great for the aforementioned shade, as well as not getting piss-soaked every time it rained.
His buddy on duty sat in a rusted metal folding chair, slumped against the M249 that rested on the sandbag walls of the guard post, pointing at the front gates.
Beyond the gates, the highway stretched for a good distance, straight as an arrow.
The guard squinted into the distance and perked up. “Hey, we got any more trucks coming in?”
His buddy stirred himself from God-knew what sort of fantasyland kept him entertained for eight hours of holding a machine gun. “What? No. I don’t think so. Last of the Hunter-Killers came in two hours ago. I think.”
The guard pushed himself off the post. “Well, there’s a vehicle coming.”
“I can call up command and ask for confirmation,” his buddy said. “Maybe there’s a late comer.”
“Yeah, go ahead and get ‘em on the horn.” The guard leaned over the sandbag wall, propping his elbows on it for stability and bringing his field glass up to his eyes.
Behind him, he heard his buddy picking up the old trench-phone and calling it in.
At a distant point in the highway, where the heat from the blacktop shimmered the air, the guard watched two Humvees materialize out of the watery light. The shapes were distinct enough that he ID’d them before they were fully visible.
“Got visual on two Humvees,” the guard told his buddy, and his buddy relayed to command over the trench phone. “Moving pretty slow, but approaching the front gate. What do they want us to do?”
“…approaching the front gate,” his buddy finished up. “Please advise.”
They waited.
The guard kept watching.
His buddy kept listening.
His buddy nodded. “Roger that.” He held the trench phone down. “Command says we don’t have any trucks out in the field right now.”
The guard noticed something else through his glass. Someone had stuck their arm out the passenger’s side of the lead Humvee, waving what looked like a white T-shirt. “Hey. Tell command they’re waving a white flag.”
“Command, they’re waving a white flag.” A long pause. “No. They’re still approaching. Yes, they appear to be armed. Both trucks have turrets.”
“Hold on,” the guard said, frowning through his glass.
“Stand by,” his buddy told command.
Still frowning, the guard lowered his field glasses. “Tell command they’re flying a Canadian flag.”
***
Sam had excused himself from any top-level dealings. Angela had been close to insisting he be present when she called her commanders and leaders together for an impromptu powwow, but Sam couldn’t imagine standing there under the withering gaze of Gilliard and Hamrick, after going behind their backs to talk to Angela about the primals.
So, he opted to make himself scarce.
Sam turned a blind corner of a building, and started to cross over the main drag of the Butler Safe Zone, angling east to head towards the Underground, and possibly some much-needed sleep.
It was a testament to how exhausted he was that he hadn’t cleared that corner.
Checking corners had become something of a habit, even inside the Safe Zone.
Sam cast a glance over his shoulder.
And then he paused there, with one foot in the road, and one foot on the sidewalk.
People were gathering in front of the building he’d just rounded, looking down the street towards the front gates. And when he followed their gazes down that long, straight stretch of road, he saw a few more clusters of rubberneckers, and then a big traffic jam of soldiers in various uniforms.
They all looked tense about something, but Sam couldn’t really tell what it was. A lot of heads dipped towards each other, quiet conversations taking place, knife-hands pointing in different directions.
His eyes fixed on the scene at the front gates, Sam turned and stepped forward until he stood at the back of the small group of people that were watching. A quiet murmur tumbled between them as theories were passed back and forth of what could possibly be happening at the front gates.
Obviously it wasn’t primals, because the troops weren’t shooting and didn’t seem that worried.
But it definitely wasn’t something friendly, or they would’ve been a lot more relaxed, and probably wouldn’t need those two guntruck Humvees that framed the road, their turrets pointing outwards beyond the gates.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked in an undertone to the person directly ahead of him.
All he caught—because he was focused on the gate—was that she was short and had brown hair.
She turned to him, speaking as she did: “Not sure. Somebody showed up at the—”
Sam looked down, wondering why she’d cut herself off, and found himself staring at Charlie.
If any of the other people around them had not been so focused on what was happening at the front gates, they might’ve noted the very odd interc
hange between a boy and a girl.
The two of them, staring at each other in what appeared to be stark terror, their mouths partially opened like words had blocked up their throats.
For a moment, paralyzed.
Sam snapped out of it first. “Right. I’m sure I’ll hear about it later,” he said. Then, letting his desire to be rid of her overcome his curiosity, he turned away…
But not before glancing upwards one more time.
Not before seeing the gates, sliding open.
Not before seeing a group of people striding into the Butler Safe Zone.
They looked like soldiers.
Except for one of them.
One of them was Benjamin Sullivan.
What the hell?
Charlie must’ve seen the look of puzzlement on his face. She followed his gaze, and she saw what he saw, and she recognized Benjamin Sullivan too.
Benjamin Sullivan who had drugged and then raped some girl in the Fort Bragg Safe Zone.
Benjamin Sullivan, whose mother had been manipulated by Elsie Foster, the leader of the Lincolnists, to try to poison Abby Houston with infected tissue from a primal.
Benjamin Sullivan, who had been left behind during the evacuation of Fort Bragg.
Flushed, Charlie shot a look over her shoulder at Sam, and he recognized in it that she was just as surprised as he was—and just as concerned.
Because Benjamin knew about Charlie.
And if Charlie’s secret came out, Sam’s would too.
Sam swallowed and clenched his jaw.
Then he turned away and marched towards the Underground.
***
Angela stood, not behind her desk, but in front of it, and the few feet between her and Carl Gilliard was empty. Her hands were planted on her hips, and her lower jaw jutted like a challenge.
“Let’s be clear on one thing, master sergeant,” Angela said. “You should have pulled me in when this was going on.”
Carl arched an eyebrow. “This was a military matter—”
“You should have pulled me in,” Angela cut him off, raising her voice.
Off to the side, Doc Trent stood with his balding head bowed, his hands clasped together at his crotch, attempting, apparently, to meld into the wall like a chameleon.
