Soldiers of Fame and Fortune Full Series Omnibus: Nobody’s Fool, Nobody Lives Forever, Nobody Drinks That Much, Nobody Remembers But Us, Ghost Walking, 12 Book series...

by Michael Todd

  Alvin laughed and clapped in approval. “That’s some sweet fucking talent right there. Makes me hard.”

  Misha looked at him in disgust. Billie turned and snickered. “Is that what that is? I thought for sure it was a button on your suit.”

  “Ohhhh,” the Russian cheered and laughed loudly.

  Billie grinned and waved her arm. “Come on, we have more to explore. There are tons of specimens for Holly to collect as we go.” They pushed farther through the jungle but stopped each time that Holly found something she was looking for. Their progress was anything but chaotic, though. The team assembled and stood watch to make sure that nothing was out there and a potential threat while she did what she needed to do.

  Holly was aware of the dangers, so she hurried through the process. Some of the plants had to be extracted in a specific way in order to not kill them. Others could be snipped at the ground and preserved for later research. Either way, she had planned to do as much research as she could. There was no time, in anyone’s life, for her to take her sweet-ass time, and she knew that.

  While she bent to clip a leafy plant, Billie moved up beside her. “Is there a method to your madness?”

  She snickered and looked at Hickok. “Yeah. I’ve done the research on plants and animals in the Zoo that have properties and chemicals in their goop and in their cells that could be a possible source to create what we need. There are certain ways earth-bound chemicals react and I have found that pairing them with their alien counterpart usually yields much the same reaction. So, I made a list and I have my HUD identify them as I go.”

  Billie was impressed. “I didn’t realize you were so good at this.”

  Holly snorted. “I only got a doctorate in it. I don’t usually use it for this purpose, but I have found that I enjoy it. If I were given a proper lab and endless money, I could probably save the fucking world with this stuff. Right now, though, I am focused on saving JB and nothing else.”

  Adisa cleared his throat over the comm. “We have company. Four duo-bears are headed in our direction. These beasts are hard to kill and as smart as fuck. Be ready and don’t blast your guns until it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Oooh, boy, this is my lucky day. I am able to kick all kinds of fucking Zoo trash out here.” Alvin reloaded his weapon and smiled widely.

  Misha smiled as she drew her daggers. “I am pretty sure that is exactly what those animals think about you right now. That and how you might taste like chicken over an open fire.”

  Alvin continued to chew on his toothpick inside his helmet. “Baby girl, you are in for a shock when you see how I handle these dual-head sonsofbitches.”

  Billie moved Holly back in line with the others. They faced the oncoming bears and waited for them to emerge. She gripped her sword tightly as visions of the last time she’d fought a duo bear rose high in her mind. It was the only kill so far that had given her an emotional reaction. There was something about the damn thing that made her want to work with it or even talk to it, not try to kill it. From the look of determination on the other guys’ faces, though, that was not the case for them.

  Without warning, the bears plunged from the jungle into an immediate charge and broke Billie’s concentration. Adisa and Misha paired up and challenged one of the duo-bears head on. The animal was fast, deflected their attacks, and circled them slowly. Alvin had another all to himself and noticed that this one did the same thing. He would jab at it with the end of his gun but not fire. The bear would swipe and growl, but mostly, it simply stared at him without making much of a move.

  He scowled with a mixture of disapproval and confusion. “What the fuck is this thing doing? Attack or get the fuck out of here.”

  Holly’s bear, on the other hand, wanted a fight. It lashed out at her, reared up on its hind legs, and came down hard in an attempt to knock her off her feet. She grasped her pistol at the ready and tried to focus on a solid target but the two heads made it difficult for her to focus. Billie stomped over and swatted the bear aggressively with her body. It growled and rolled along the ground. She looked at Holly and shook her head. “The thing will eat you in two bites.”

  She nodded and lowered her pistol to her side. “The damn thing was tricky.”

  Hickok turned and found herself face to face with the fourth duo-bear. A vivid scar slashed across the side of its neck and its eyes were bright with aggression. She stepped forward and it immediately sat on its butt and stared cautiously at her. With a gasp, she realized in that moment that the bear was the same one from when she had first collected the Pita. She put her sword down, dropped to one knee, and raised her visor.

  The bear sniffed in her direction and tilted its head as if it waited for her to speak. Billie shrugged, not sure that she could actually believe the evidence of her own eyes. “It looks like we meet again, old friend. I don’t want to kill anyone this time either. We are only here for some petals and some samples.”

  A tense silence settled over both humans and animals as the creature eyed her for a few minutes. Finally, it roared loudly and the team watched in disbelief as the other bears snorted and ran off in the direction from which they had come. The remaining animal stood on its hind legs and stared at Billie for a moment before it turned and joined the others.

  “I have never seen anything like that before.” Misha was amazed.

  Adisa shook his head. “You are the whisperer of the Zoo, not the ghost.”

  Billie slammed her visor down, stood, and turned toward the team. “Those things are not earth-bound. They are alien. I have faced that one before and there is something different about it. But don’t take that as a weakness. It will only allow our intrusion so many times, and when it has had enough, the beast will take us all down. The last thing any of you need to do is relax out here. It’ll fucking swallow you whole. Now, pack up and let’s head out. I don’t want to wait for them to come back.”

  The team members looked at each other as she moved ahead of them without saying anything else. Holly shrugged and followed her. She wasn’t sure what was up with the woman, but she wasn’t about to have a heart-to-heart in the middle of the jungle. They walked another two or three hours before they found a second patch of Pita. Billie checked the area and gave them the go-ahead. This time, Holly helped pick petals because she wanted to make sure she had a stash and some extra money when they got out of there.

  Hickok scanned the woods around them and looked at the canopy. “The sun is low. We need to move on and find our campsite. This is an area where very few humans go so we might encounter a lot of danger out here. It’s better to buckle down before the sun sets.”

  The team finished and turned their petals over to Misha for safe keeping. Holly kept one bag for her research and handed the rest over. They fell into line, moved out, and found a decent campsite about thirty minutes from the patch. Without instruction, as usual, the team set up the perimeter sensors, lighting, and tents before they settled down together to eat something.

  Adisa, Misha, and Alvin all talked about the day while they ate their MREs and granola bars around an absent fire. The Russian was apparently still in shock from the bears. “This place is nothing like home. Of course, I don’t think it is like anywhere else either.”

  Alvin chuckled. “Definitely not like Maine. We had a horse farm in the country. Ain’t never seen a bear out there. Had other animals, but they all seem tame as a puppy to me now I’ve seen this place.”

  Inside the tent to the right, Holly squatted in front of a makeshift table she’d created by erecting her tent around a fallen tree. She looked through her microscope at one of the samples she had snagged and jotted notes in her book. With a special pair of tweezers, she moved the sample gently from one slide to another and stored it for further research. She drew another flower from her bag, carefully snipped a small piece off, and placed it on the slide. When she looked through the eyepiece, she caught the moving and swirling of something unlike anything she had studied in school.
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br />   She balanced her notebook more comfortably and wrote some notes on the plant. “Plant P9087 has a similarity in the goop surrounding the cells to that found in the Pita plant. More research is needed to see if the chemicals will complement each other when combined. One certain strain in this plant is similar to the P0874, which creates a negative effect and breaks down the healing powers of the goop. This may be a common thread to that situation.”

  Holly leaned back and tapped her pen against the book. She pulled the slide out, placed it in her slide box, and shut the lid. With everything securely stowed, she laid back on her sleeping bag and put her arms behind her head. She looked through the transparent roof of her tent at the sparkle of stars that peeked through the dark black of the canopy above her. It seemed like she had moved closer toward a cure, but they were only baby steps. And although JB had been up and around, she knew it would only be a matter of time before the disease became resistant. She needed something big—something that would kill it where it stood and leave the carrier alive.

  Chapter Ten

  The team woke early and planned to head out of the Zoo. They needed to get back but would stop along the way to collect Pita if they found any. Billie took the lead as she had previously but the team had looked to Holly for answers as to what they needed to find. She wasn’t used to being a leader but she took it with grace and sent them each pictures and stats for the plants she still hadn’t found.

  As they crested one of the small hills, Alvin stopped and turned to them. “Well, this may not be one of the plants on your list but it is one fucking giant payday.”

  The team hurried up the hill and stood silently in shock. Billie sighed. “Get what you can. We have approximately twenty minutes before we have to move on. We are out of rations and we need to be out of the Zoo.”

  The team acknowledged, rushed down the hill, and worked as fast as they could to clip the petals without bruising them. Holly wandered up beside Billie. “Damn, that’s a lot of Pita.”

  Her friend didn’t say anything but was instead focused on the screen in her HUD. Holly asked, “Are you okay?”

  Billie cleared her throat. “There is something moving toward us—something huge—but the system hasn’t picked up a match.”

  They both whirled when they felt the ground shake beneath them. Standing in the trees was a giant animal that resembled a T-Rex but with long, strong arms. When it moved, it ran like a gorilla and put its fists down as it galloped through the trees. Even in the daylight, the beast glowed bright blue and the goop flowed through it like oil, easily visible beneath the tight hide.

  Holly gripped Billie’s wrist, her eyes bright with excitement. “This might be the animal that holds the key to JB’s cure. There’s enough goop in that thing to feed every company in the world. I bet there are sacs.”

  It took a moment before Billie clicked her x-ray vision on. She’d never used it before and had forgotten that she had it. She scanned the beast and located four large sacs along its spine. “There sure are. We need to take this bitch down, but no one—and I mean no one—shoot its back.”

  The team had heard the commotion and stood in the Pita patch with their weapons raised. “Roger that, no spine,” Alvin said

  The battle erupted almost immediately. Alvin and Adisa showered the animal with a volley of bullets while Misha circled, dodged through, and slashed its thick skin with her daggers. Adisa growled as he yanked his sword from his back and dropped the machine gun. He ran forward, lunged upward, and grabbed the beast by the neck. It roared loudly and raised a clawed hand to pick Adisa off him like a tick.

  The wicked claws slashed down his right leg and the creature threw him to the right. He landed hard enough to lose his breath with the impact. His loud groan spurred the others to try to do battle without being wounded in the process. Billie stepped in front of them in her armor. “Get your man out of here. I got this. Move!”

  The team didn’t argue but rushed to their teammate. Alvin and Misha immediately began to lash a stretcher together while Holly talked to Adisa in an effort to stop him from passing out. They rolled him onto the stretcher and looked up in disbelief as Billie grabbed a Pita and ripped it out of the ground. “Get out of here!”

  Alvin shook his head as she ran off in the other direction, which compelled the beast to follow her. “She is a certifiable lunatic.”

  He took the front of the stretcher and Misha and Holly each took a side at the rear, their guns in their free hands as they pushed toward the Staging Area with absolutely no idea what waited for them along the way.

  Luckily, the team had made it out of the jungle and to the JLTV without encountering anything worse than moving vines along the way. Misha and Holly sat in the back with the stretcher as Alvin took the wheel and pushed the vehicle as fast as he could toward the town.

  The Russian glanced at her. “I hope your friend is okay.”

  Holly chuckled nervously. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  When they reached the town, they went directly to the hospital. There, Adisa was immediately taken to surgery and Misha and Alvin were able to have their wounds stitched. The Russian had given the petals to Holly to take care of since she needed to be treated. Holly turned them in and made sure the money went to the right place. When she returned to the hospital, she went to the front and settled everyone’s medical bills.

  She found Misha’s room, slipped inside, and handed her three envelopes. “The money from the Pita should be in your accounts. This is extra for helping me out. I turned in the information on that weird glowing T-Rex so they paid me a hefty bonus. I wanted to take care of you guys.”

  The other woman smiled. “Thanks. I’ll get these to the guys. And thanks for covering the bills. We’ll see you soon, right?”

  Holly smiled. “You know it!”

  She waved and headed out of the hospital. It was her first time ever being even close to a true lead, and she had to admit that it felt really good. Of course, it didn’t feel good to see Adisa like that, but the doctors had worked hard on him. When she walked out of the hospital, Trigger was outside with a Humvee.

  Holly smiled and approached him. “Everyone should be okay, and I took care of the finances.”

  He patted the seat. “Come on, I’ll drop you off at home.”

  “Can you drop me at FUBAR?” She scrambled into the passenger seat.

  Trigger laughed. “Hell, yeah I can.”

  They drove in silence through the town until they reached the front of the bar. He patted her on the shoulder and gave her a nod but said nothing more. Holly jumped out and headed inside, aware that much of the adrenaline still pumped through her. She went to the bar, leaned against it, and watched Paula making drinks.

  The other woman looked up and smiled. “Hey, doll face. You look…tired.”

  Holly didn’t even think about the way she probably looked in her suit, no helmet, and no shower in three days but at that moment, she didn’t care. “Where’s JB?”

  Paula nodded toward the back. Holly slapped the bar and walked around and down the hallway to the office. She poked her head in to find him seated in his office chair with both legs propped up. “Hey there.”

  JB smiled. “Come on in. Close the door behind ya. I was just getting a little rest in.”

  She wrinkled her nose and walked over to roll his pant leg up slowly to check it. She took a deep breath and shook her head. “The lines are coming back.”

  He nodded but didn’t look particularly downhearted. “It was bound to happen.”

  Holly withdrew a vial from her pocket. “Here, take this. It should ward it off again, at least for a little while. I hope to have something more permanent later.”

  JB took the vial, opened it, and sniffed. “It smells great and tastes like pure cow shit mixed with dog vomit. But it does the trick.”

  She watched as he pulled out a shot glass, filled it halfway with whiskey, and emptied the vial into it. He took a deep breath, threw it back, and grimaced un
til he managed to swallow the whole thing. Holly gritted her teeth. “Once we get the actual kind made that will save you, we will work on making the taste a little more appealing. Or maybe we’ll figure out how to put it through an IV. Right now, I’m afraid to try it and we end up with you turned into a wild beast.”

  “Some say I was once already a wild beast.” JB laughed.

  Holly snorted. “Some like Wild Bill?”

  He smiled and looked at her with a glint in his eye. “You saw her again, didn’t you?”

  She chuckled and moved to sit on the edge of the other seat. “Yeah. Billie’s helped in every way that she can. She has been out there with us for the last few days and even let the three guys on my team know who she was. It was a big step for her.”

  JB laughed and leaned his head back. “Who fucking knew that helping that woman would eventually help save me?”

  He nodded toward Holly. “Or thinking that I might have someone to take my bar over would make her my doctor?”

  Holly raised an eyebrow. “I’m your drug dealer, not your doctor. I’m honored that you have thought of me to take FUBAR over, really. The thing is, I like to be served more than doing the serving. So, you need to get well because I’m fucking spoiled now and you can’t ruin all that.”

  Holly made sure that JB had made it back upstairs to his apartment and into bed before she headed out. Part of her wanted to stay for a drink, but the lack of sleep and the physical exertion from the last few days had made her yearn for a fuzzy pair of slippers and a comfortable chair to relax in. She said goodbye to Paula and headed back to the apartment.