The Sixth Level (Secret Apocalypse Book 2)

by James Harden

  "Yeah. That’s definitely the HQ."

  I had to strain my eyes to see it. It was off to the side about half way down the runway, about two miles away. From here it looked like a couple of large green tents or marquees, which I guess that’s pretty much all it was.

  "Is it deserted?" Jack asked with his arm around Maria.

  "It appears so," he said as he slowly scanned back and forth.

  "Why did they set up their base all the way out there?" I asked. "Why didn’t they use one of the hangars? Or even the air traffic control tower?"

  "I don’t know," Daniel answered. "But we’re going to find out."

  We continued running towards the base of operations. It became obvious the closer we got that it was completely abandoned. But just to be on the safe side, Daniel and Kenji moved ahead and made sure it was empty.

  They moved together, perfectly in sync with one another. Both of them had their rifles up to their shoulders even though I’m pretty sure Daniel didn’t even have any ammo left at that point.

  After a few minutes they waved us over. They were both smiling.

  The temporary base consisted of two extremely large, dark green tents, about the size of a small town hall. They were both joined together. Situated around the rear of the tents were two Humvees. One had a huge satellite dish on top of its roof and the other one had a machine gun mounted on top.

  But the best thing of all, right next to the Humvees was a freakin helicopter.

  Now I knew why Kenji and Daniel were smiling.

  Inside the tent were rows and rows of tables. Whiteboards and large monitors were situated towards the front of the tent. Maps of the surrounding areas lined the walls. To my surprise there were a lot of laptop computers left behind. I guess it was sort of like the camp Daniel’s team had set up. Only this was about twenty times bigger.

  Outside the tent, parked right next to the main runway was a whole row of fuel tankers. They looked like they were lined up and ready to go, waiting for jets to land so they could be refueled. There were six of them.

  I started to get the feeling that the military had left in a real hurry. The computers were still on. There was paperwork and maps of Sydney left strewn all over the tables and the ground. Coffee cups were left half empty. Or half full, depending on your outlook.

  Kenji had moved over to the Humvee with the machine gun on its roof. He checked the back seat and found some rifles and spare ammunition. He gave me one of the rifles as he and Daniel reloaded.

  It was like Christmas. We had guns, ammunition, our choice of armored Humvees and even a helicopter.

  I picked up a pair of large binoculars that had been dropped on the ground and looked back towards the international and domestic terminals.

  Daniel was right, there didn’t appear to be anyone home at all. But as I looked closer I slowly started to realize there was indeed some evidence of the military being there. Situated right near the terminals and the individual boarding gates were the burnt out wreckages of commercial passenger jets. There were Jumbo jets and smaller ones as well. All that remained of them was their blackened skeletal framework.

  This could only mean one thing. People had boarded these planes hoping to get out of the country, hoping to escape. And the military had enforced its containment protocol to the fullest.

  It’s amazing just how lucky we’d been to escape the full brunt of the military’s might.

  "It’s a Blackhawk chopper," Daniel said referring to the helicopter parked next to the tent. "If it’s fuelled up, we can get out of here."

  "Will it make it all the way back to the camp?" I asked.

  "No. It won’t make it that far," Daniel answered. "On a full tank we can get maybe five hundred miles."

  And there's the catch, I thought.

  "But that’ll get us out and away from here," Kenji added. "Away from the population centers."

  "I don’t know, maybe we’re better off taking one of these Humvees," Jack suggested. "At least then we won't get stranded. We’d have a better chance of refueling."

  "Yeah, because it was so easy to fill up last time," Maria said. "Did you suddenly develop a case of amnesia? We were almost killed by a giant mechanical spider!"

  "But next time we’ll be prepared."

  "Prepared? How the hell can we ever prepare for something like that?"

  "Well, I don't know. But you saw what it did. It watched and waited. Next time we will be more careful."

  "I’m not convinced," Maria said. "I vote for the chopper."

  "OK, so let's say we fly out," I said. "How far will we get?"

  "Like, I said before," Daniel answered. "We can get about five hundred miles on a full tank of fuel."

  "And where will that get us?" I asked. "Should we aim for a town or somewhere? I mean, where the hell would we even fly to?"

  "I wouldn't aim for a town," Kenji warned. "They would be just as overrun as the cities."

  "I guess our best option is to get all the way back to camp," Daniel said. "Back to the Nullarbor plains."

  "How far is that?" Kenji asked.

  "Too far. We'll never make it. We'd need to refuel."

  "There's gotta be some airfields, or regional airports between here and the camp where we can re-fuel," Maria said.

  "I can check my GPS," I suggested.

  "Well yeah, there'll definitely be airports between here and the camp," Daniel answered. "But we don’t know if they’ll have any fuel and we don’t know how secure those places will be. I know from experience that in disaster areas and war torn areas, fuel becomes scarce. People start to panic and as a result they hoard food, water and fuel. And on top of that the supply is cut off."

  "So what you're saying is," Jack said. "Any place we set down to refuel will be a huge gamble? And it may not even have any fuel at all?"

  Daniel nodded.

  "OK, so maybe we should take the Humvee after all," I said. "I mean, if we don't know if we can refuel, there's no real point in taking the chopper."

  "But taking the Humvee won’t be any safer," Kenji pointed out. "The back streets might be clear but the main roads leading out of the city are a parking lot. They’re completely blocked up with abandoned cars. So are the highways. You know this. The Humvee will only do us any good if we’re already out of the city. Way out of the city."

  "Maybe we could tie the Humvee to the Blackhawk and take it with us somehow?" Jack offered.

  Daniel shook his head. "No, it’s too heavy. The Blackhawk isn’t designed to carry that kind of load. And besides, we don’t have anything to secure it with."

  We were arguing back and forth. It was getting pretty heated. The problem was we were all imagining the worst case scenario, which is totally understandable given the circumstances. It was weird though, finally we had come by a bit of good luck and yet it still presented a problem.

  "Guys, remember what you said about taking risks in a warzone," I said.

  Everyone suddenly stopped arguing and looked at me.

  "We need to think this through carefully but we also need to understand that no matter what option we go with, it’s going to be risky. We’re right in the middle of an apocalyptic warzone. We need to take calculated risks remember?"

  Kenji and Daniel both nodded.

  "Let’s make a list of pros and cons," I suggested.

  It was crazy after everything that had happened today we now had time to sit down and write a list and plan what we were going to do instead of just running for our lives. It was an amazing yet weird luxury.

  I moved over to one of the collapsible tables, looking for a pen or a pad or something to write with. But there were no pens, no magic markers. There were a few boxes and a few briefcases that upon closer inspection, I realized were computers. Most of them were black.

  But one of them was metallic silver.

  And there was a smeared, bloody hand print on the case.

  I opened it. Turned it on. Amazingly it still had about fifty percent of its batt
ery power left.

  Daniel moved over to have a look.

  There was a message on the screen.

  It read: ‘Welcome Doctor Hunter’. A cursor blinked at us, waiting for a password to be entered.

  "You gotta be kidding me," I said.

  Welcome Doctor Hunter.

  "What is it?" Daniel asked.

  "Doctor Hunter…he… he tried to kill us… he was crazy."

  A shiver ran down my spine as I realized this computer belonged to the madman who tried to harvest our organs in the morgue of North Sydney hospital.

  Chapter 39

  I choked up as I remembered what this man tried to do to us. How he lured us in, wielding a strange, hypnotic power over us, using the trust that we gave him willingly and without question to blind us to the reality of our situation.

  When I said his name, Jack and Maria snapped their heads in my direction like I'd said a bad, bad word. The look they gave me was one of anger and disbelief. Anger because if I was trying to make a joke it was just plain sick. And disbelief because we had handcuffed Doctor Hunter to the fridge in the morgue. We had left him for dead.

  Kenji moved over to Daniel to see if what I was saying was true.

  "It’s got a password lock," I said.

  Daniel tried to type in a few basic options.

  Password.

  Admin.

  Doctor Hunter.

  Hunter.

  He tried no password. But they all failed.

  "Try holy trinity," I whispered.

  "What?"

  "Holy trinity. That’s what they were called. There were three doctors in charge of this whole thing. People thought they were miracle workers."

  Daniel typed in ‘holy trinity’. "Got it."

  The main menu popped up on the screen. The laptop must've been in 'sleep' mode because everything that the last person had been doing was still open. All the websites, the documents and email. And that last person was in all probability, Doctor Hunter. I shuddered at the thought that I was using his personal computer, that he had been using it not too long ago.

  I couldn’t believe it. Somehow he had survived. I wondered how he got out of the morgue, out of those handcuffs. I wondered if he was here, somewhere. It was such a huge area; he could've been hiding anywhere. He could be hiding over at one of the terminals and we’d have no idea.

  Daniel checked through the email first. The way he searched and started looking through email after email suggested he had done this before and was highly trained at finding relevant information, like a human search engine.

  "Check this out," he said as he brought up a list of connected emails.

  The first one dated back to February 23rd. The day I gave my interview.

  The title of the email simply read ‘Test Subject Zero’. There was a video attached. Daniel moved the mouse over the video attachment and clicked on it. The video loaded instantly and to my horror an image of Kim filled the screen.

  Jack’s eyes lit up. "What the hell? Is that Kim? Where is she? Is she all right?"

  The first thing I noticed was her hair. It was a mess. And her eyes. Her eyes were only half open. Her head was tilted to the side and I couldn't be sure, but it looked like she was drooling. She was sitting behind a table and her arms were down by her side, possibly tied to the chair, or behind her back.

  "They must’ve interviewed her in New Zealand," I said.

  Daniel pointed at the screen. "I don't think they interviewed her in New Zealand."

  There was a little note in the body of email that read: ‘Christmas Island Facility’.

  "Where the hell is Christmas Island?" I asked.

  "It’s a small island off the coast of Western Australia," Daniel answered. "It’s used as an immigration processing center. It’s on the other side of the country."

  "That's a long way from New Zealand."

  "You mean they’ve moved Kim to a quarantine facility on the other side of the country?" Jack asked. "Why would they do that?"

  Kenji ran his hands through his hair. "I don’t’ think that’s a quarantine facility."

  "What else would it be?"

  "It's a research facility. Oh, God. There’s more than one site. It wasn’t just Woomera."

  "Play the video!" Jack said with a strain in his voice.

  Kim had obviously been drugged up. She had been forced into the iron grip of chemical handcuffs. She was definitely drooling.

  Maria had to turn away initially. Jack continued to watch. A single tear streaked down his cheek, making a neat line through the layer of dust on his face.

  "They must be keeping her sedated," Daniel said.

  There was a man's voice from somewhere off screen, behind the camera. It sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it. The voice sounded tired and hoarse. Like whoever was speaking had been up all night yelling at a football match and then singing along at a heavy metal rock concert.

  The man behind the camera then lit up a cigarette. We couldn't see but we could hear the flick of a gas lighter as a thin veil of smoke wafted in front of the camera.

  Kim slowly lifted her head. Her gaze was slightly to the left of the camera. She mumbled something.

  "Kimberly," the man said. "Remember what we said about speaking clearly."

  Kim licked her dry lips and swallowed, taking considerable effort to talk. "Can you please... can you please not smoke."

  The man took a long, deep drag on his cigarette. He flicked his lighter once, twice. Then he let the flame linger and burn. Kim stared at the orange light with giant black pupils.

  "It's Doctor West," I said. "It has to be."

  "The doctor we found hiding in the casino?" Jack asked. "The one who wanted me to kill Maria!?"

  "Yeah."

  "How do you know?"

  "It's his voice. The smoking. The lighter. He must’ve been rescued from the casino."

  The footage had taken on a weird orange glow from the tiny flame.

  "Why don’t they just kill her," Kenji said, absent mindedly. And as soon as he said it he looked at Jack and apologized. "I didn’t mean it like that. I just think… I think it’s strange what they’re doing."

  Jack didn’t say anything. He kept watching the footage intently. But I could see his neck and jaw muscles tense up. He was angry.

  "Tell me Kim," Doctor West said. "How do you feel this morning?"

  Kim mumbled something about how she wanted water. And that she wanted to see me.

  Doctor West ignored her requests. "I spoke with Doctor Hunter earlier," he said. "He tells me you're a very lucky girl."

  Kim lifted her head slightly. "Lucky?"

  "Yes. You will be the very first person to receive the vaccine. Nothing like this has ever been attempted. You will be part of history. You are a very lucky girl indeed."

  "I want to see Rebecca! I want to go home."

  "Kimberly, we talked about this. This is your home now."

  "I want to see Rebecca," she repeated.

  "Rebecca is in quarantine. Just the same as you are."

  "I don’t care. I want to see her. I’m not infected. I swear."

  "I tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you. As soon as we administer the vaccine and as soon as you’re given the all clear, you can see Rebecca. OK?"

  Kim seemed to lower her head in defeat.

  "Tomorrow you will be given the vaccine," Doctor West said. "Tomorrow you will be part of history."

  The footage ended abruptly and we all looked at each other as if to confirm that the footage was real, that it wasn’t a dream.

  "Vaccine?" Daniel asked out loud.

  "Wait, that’s a good thing right?" I said.

  "Why do they need to keep her drugged up?" Jack asked.

  "Come on, Jack,’ I said. "You know what your sister is like. She’s probably giving them hell." I said it in an attempt to cheer him up. I don’t think it worked.

  "I thought they needed Maria to create a vaccine," he asked ignoring me.

>   "The title of the email is ‘Test Subject Zero’," Daniel answered. "That would imply they are testing on her. Maybe they haven’t worked out all the kinks."

  "But on the plus side it didn’t look like she was infected with the Oz virus," Maria offered. "So that means they’re helping her right? They’re not gonna hurt her are they?"

  Maria was asking these questions out loud to herself. She had started to cry. What she said did sort of make sense. It looked like they were using Kim as a guinea pig for a possible cure. The date on the video footage was the twenty-third of February. That means at the time of the interview she had been in quarantine or wherever she was for over a week. If they had wanted to kill her, they would’ve done it by then.

  But still, it was unnerving to see Kim drugged to her eyeballs and drooling and slurring her speech. She had always been so strong, so in control of herself and her actions and her entire life. Now everything was messed up. She was at the mercy of a three desperate mad men. The so called ‘holy trinity’. These people would do anything to stop the truth from getting out, to clean up the mess of apocalyptic proportions they had created.

  Daniel said something about how these guys were nothing more than terrorists. He said terrorism is a war waged by the helpless against the innocent.

  He was right. I mean, so many innocent people had died. And the people responsible were helpless to stop it or even contain it.

  But maybe they could help now. Maybe they were finally on the road to fixing this thing. Regardless of how evil these guys were, or how badly they had messed up I would gladly do whatever they wanted if they could promise to fix this. I would donate my body to science, I would hand over Maria to them right now if they could create a cure from her blood or DNA or whatever.

  We were just about to open the rest of the emails. We were hungry for answers, desperate to know that Kim was all right. But Daniel stopped. He looked up from the computer.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Shh."

  We all held our breath and strained our ears. Off in the distance we could hear the familiar sound of a light aircraft’s propeller.

  "The Predator is back."

  Chapter 40

  "Everyone under the tables," Kenji ordered.