by SD Tanner
Pulling a packet of cigarettes from his top pocket, he tapped one out. “Bella don’t like me smokin’, but if we always did what our womenfolk said we’d never have any fun.”
His words only vaguely registered with him and an image of Jenny filled his mind. Ignoring his silence, the man continued, “People call me Stax, and Sean and Dean are my boys. They told me they ran into ya at the gas station in Baker, and you said you was goin’ to Vegas to get your pregnant young ‘un. I’m guessin’ she’s the one they saw turn. I could say I’m sorry for your loss, and I am, but it ain’t meaningful to ya right now. I’m a man who’s always thought disaster was jus’ around the corner, and it looks like I was ‘bout right.”
Stax flicked his lighter and held the flame to the end of his cigarette, inhaling deeply as he did. Blowing out smoke, he tucked the lighter into his top pocket, and the sweet odor of burning tobacco flooded the small room. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Stax continued to talk. “If Bell and I lost our boys I dunno how we’d cope. That’s why we live out here. I built this bunker so my family would be safe no matter what shit went down.” Pointing the burning cigarette at him, he said, “But someone like you was prepared to die for other people. That’s what bein’ a cop is all about. Now, I get with your family bein’ dead ‘n all you dunno what you’re about no more.”
With his steady voice and easygoing manner, he found himself listening more closely to Stax. His words were making sense, and he lifted his head to look at his weatherworn face.
Stax gave him a lopsided grin. “Ya know, you can jus’ quit or ya can find another way. The way I see it, life jus’ took away everything you ever had and that means you’ve got nothin’ left to lose.” Narrowing his eyes, he leaned forward slightly. “Do ya know who the most dangerous man in the world is?”
In a croaking voice, still shaking with fatigue, he replied, “The man who has nothing left to lose.”
“Exactly!” Stax declared loudly. “The way I figure it is you jus’ became the most dangerous man alive and that’s a good thing. We’re deep in the shit now, and if we’re gonna climb outta this hole we’re gonna need more dangerous men than good ones.”
Flicking his meaty hand at Stax, he indicated he wanted a cigarette. Once he lit it, he took a deep drag and looked Stax in the eye. “Jenny never liked me smoking. She said it would be the death of me, but it won’t be.” With a cynical laugh, he added, “I’m going to die of something altogether different.”
“What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter who I was, it’s who I’m going to be that counts.”
Sean and Dean might have saved his life at the gas station, but Harry Jones had died in the blast. As Jonesy, he’d been a cop, a husband and a father, but now he was a man without a purpose and he needed a new one. The critters had taken everything that ever mattered from him and he was going to kill them for it. Destroying them would never bring Jenny, Miranda or his unborn grandchild back, but it would give him something to do while he waited to join them.
“Lemme show ya our shelter.”
Sitting up on the sofa, he shrugged the blanket from his shoulders, and took a long drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke across the room. He’d never been in a shelter before, and although it didn’t have windows, it looked much the same as any small apartment. The kitchen to his right had a stove, refrigerator, sink, and a long bench style table against the opposite wall. There were three two-seater sofas facing a large flat screen, and Stax had been sitting on a white coffee table made of solid plastic. Following Stax, he went into a short corridor against one wall.
Opening the door on his left, Stax flicked a switch and the good-sized room lit up. Inside was a pantry filled with supplies. To his surprise, pretty much everything he could ever imagine was inside. There were freeze dried beans, canned seltzer water and juices, powdered milk, whey, eggs, hard cheeses in wax, protein bars, canned and dehydrated meats, oils, whole wheat flour, cereals, dried corn, oats, rice, pasta, jams, canned veggies, honey, salt, sugar, chocolates, vitamins, vodka, dry yeast and baking powder. All the items were lined up with their labels facing outward, and tacked to the wall was a manifest clearly used to track their supplies.
“That’s a lot of food.”
“Twelve months supply for five adults,” Stax replied proudly. “Me and Bell planned for our boys to be with us.”
“Who’s the fifth person?”
“We don’t have a fifth, but Bell said we should always carry for another person.”
The next room contained a generator, and a bank of batteries sat on a low shelf with some car alternators.
“Where are you getting your fuel from?”
“We’ve gotta store, plus the additives to keep it fresh, but there’s a bank of solar panels on our property too.” Pointing above his head, Stax added, “Plus the LED lights run on twelve volts, not the usual one twenty, so we’re conservin’ our use.”
He was starting to realize just how seriously Stax and his family took their prepper vision. The next room was a wet toilet and shower area. Stax told him they had a water tank with a filtration system providing them with running water. After taking him into the first bedroom with two bunk beds, he led him to the main room. Opening a small hatch, he pointed to a tunnel that acted as their secondary exit. Next to the bed in the main bedroom there was a screen displaying the area outside of the shelter.
“Ya need a key card to get in,” Stax said, as he flicked through the screens.
Tapping the wall, he asked, “What’s this made of?”
“Corrugated steel. We coulda got a concrete one, but Bell wanted somethin’ square. She said the rounded ones wasted space and she was right, jus’ like she always is.”
“Where is Bell? And Sean and Dean?”
“They’re takin’ some supplies to another bunker. One of our group didn’t have the right antibiotics for their young ‘un.”
“There’s more of you?”
“Hell, yeah, and we’re in radio contact.”
“Then how come Sean and Dean didn’t know what had happened?”
“Nobody did. There’s been no news. When the TV went off and the power and comms were cut, we all dived for our shelters. For all we knew it was a nuclear bomb, but when nothin’ seemed to be happenin’ Sean and Dean wanted to check it out. Bell weren’t too happy ‘bout ‘em leavin’, but they’re smart boys.”
“Do the others know now?”
“Hell, yeah, we got the message out. Runnin’ into you was real helpful.”
He hadn’t given much thought to Bill’s plan to tap into the prepper network, but now he was in one of their shelters, they were a lot more organized than he expected. Up until now, Miranda had been his only concern. As an image of her contorted face filled his mind, his head swam slightly and he blocked the thought. Stax had been surprisingly open with him and he wanted to return his trust.
“There’s a weapons research and development site in Johnsondale. They created a new technology for soldiers of the future. They call them Navigators, and they have hydraulics, heavy-duty armor, and advanced vision using visors. With their tech, they can see through walls and up to three miles away. They also design leading edge weapons, and they’re the only chance we’ve got of killing these fuckers. You need to come with me to CaliTech. There’s a Colonel there who thinks people need to live in small cells.” Looking around the room, he added, “Just like the one you’re already in. You two need to talk.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Flawed vision (Leon)
The city hadn’t changed much since they’d seen it a month earlier. Cars were still parked across the roads and sidewalks, nothing was moving, but some buildings now had wide sheets hanging from their windows and balconies. Each had a plaintive message where people were either begging to be rescued or warning others to turn around and leave the city.
He was using his advanced vision and could see people and critters inside the buildings. Usually the survivors were
grouped together, whereas the critters were moving around freely. Having seen how people were trapped inside the house in Porterville, California, he assumed the critters were using the goo to seal them into rooms. It led him to wonder why they were holding people prisoner, and what they would do when their food and water ran out. Would they let them die, or did they have some other nasty-assed plan in mind?
“Ark, what’s your theory?”
“About what?”
“We’re on the outskirts of the city center and there’s people inside the buildings.”
“I can see them.”
“What’s the critter’s endgame?”
“I dunno, but the critters are smart. Based on everything we’ve seen they’re holding prisoners everywhere.”
“Why does anyone keep someone a prisoner?”
Ark didn’t answer immediately, but after a short pause, he said thoughtfully, “Negotiation. The prisoner is being used as a trading chip. Control. You want control of the person to make them do something or to stop them from doing something. Punishment. The person did something you didn’t like, so you want them to suffer. Gain. The prisoner has something you need, even if it’s only that they’re food to you or slave labor.”
Jo interrupted, “You forgot one.”
“Sounded like a pretty good list to me, and remind me never to piss Ark off. He has a nasty mind.”
Chuckling, Ark replied dourly, “That’s been said before.”
“Fear,” Jo said. “You forgot fear. Sometimes a person is held prisoner to stop them from doing something that will hurt you.”
“Isn’t that the same as punishment?” He asked.
“No. Punishment means the person has already done something bad. Fear means they haven’t done it yet, but if they do you’ll be screwed.”
It was an interesting way of looking at their situation. Was it possible the critters feared what people could do? Before he could ask what they could possibly do to the critters, Ark said, “Or maybe there’s more than one reason. They’re definitely using people as a source of food, but if they can eat people then they can eat animals just as well. Maybe we’re both a threat and a source of food.”
“Psychological warfare,” Jo said decisively. “If you break the spirit you own the person. Maybe they’re just breaking the human race and then they’ll make slaves out of us.”
Her suggestion sent a flare of anger through him. He’d die before he became the slave of anyone or anything. “That’s a non-starter. I’ll fuckin’ die before I concede to an over-sized cockroach.”
“You would,” Jo replied. “But don’t assume everyone else will. If you hold someone prisoner, starve and terrify them, how long before that person will do just about anything to eat?”
Studying the pinkish, glowing bodies on his display screen, he realized the visor didn’t tell them everything they needed to know. If the people were trapped inside rooms and unable to forage for supplies, just how many of them were slowly starving to death? His stomach contracted at the thought. He was quite probably looking at the pinkish images of people who were suffering a slow and terrible death.
As his mouth set into a grim line, he said unhappily, “Sonofabitch, they’re dying in there right now and we can’t do a fucking thing about it.”
“If they’re aiming to break and not eliminate, then there’s hope,” Jo said soothingly.
“How do you figure that?”
“It means something has to change and soon, or there’ll be nobody left.”
“I know some people who are left,” Lexie chirped.
Her suddenly cheerful voice cut through his anger, leaving him confused. “What the hell are you talking about, Lexie?”
“Those people you left in the supermarket are still in the storage room.”
Flicking his screen so his visor switched to reality viewing, he recognized the street they were slowly driving along. The green awning over the supermarket looked dustier than he remembered, but the flyers were still in the window and the front door was ajar.
“Jo, halt the trucks,” he ordered.
Putting his visor on advanced viewing, he scanned the interior of the supermarket. Just as Lexie had said, there was a good-sized group of pinkish shapes inside the storage room.
“Let’s have at it,” Tuck said decisively.
His squad needed a win, and rescuing the survivors they’d abandoned in the supermarket might help restore their flagging confidence. Ark must have had the same thought, and he said, “You do need the practice, Leon.”
Even if they got them out alive, they couldn’t transport them and nor could they send everyone they found to CaliTech. Before they’d left, Bill had stressed to them that they couldn’t afford to compromise the safety of the site. If they lost the tech then they’d lose any chance they had to mount an effective attack on the bigger problem. In his opinion, the problem was really a collection of smaller ones and he wanted to start solving some of those now.
“Tuck and Trigger, work with Jenna and her team to find some useable cars. If…when we get them out they’re going to need to drive themselves outta the city.”
“Roger that.”
“Tank and Lexie, you’re with me.”
“Where do you want me?” Jo asked.
Realizing the sight of three heavily armored humans wearing visors probably wouldn’t make the survivors feel any safer, he said, “Come with me.”
Walking into the supermarket as a Navigator was a very different experience from his last visit. For one thing, the door wasn’t wide enough and Tank didn’t even bother to try it. The pane of glass collapsed as he marched straight through it as if it wasn’t there, and Lexie followed him, gracefully stepping over the edge of the window with Jo. The interior of the shop was still full of food and that worried him. They’d sent fifty people into the room, and they should have needed to forage for more food and water by now.
“Hang on, Leon,” Ark ordered. “There’s goo all over that door.”
The systems engineers were still working on writing code to enable their visors to detect the goo, so they still couldn’t see it through their scanners. Fortunately, Ark was using multiple views to direct them in battle, and one of them was reality viewing. He could see the goo even if they couldn’t.
“That’s a pretty solid wall,” Lexie observed. “I don’t think even Tank can punch through that.”
“What about the next level up?”
“Hang on, I’m checking. Lexie, scan the ceiling,” Ark replied.
Feeling again like he wanted to tap his foot impatiently, he waited for Ark to report back.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Ark said confidently. “But the upper floor is full of critters, so get ready to fight.”
“How are we gonna get them onto the ground floor past the critters?” Lexie asked.
“If the cars are ready then we’ll take them out three or four at a time. Tuck and Trigger can escort them to the vehicles,” he replied.
“But it looks like there’s at least twelve people in there,” Lexie complained.
“That’s too many trips,” Tank growled.
“Fine. We’ll take them out in groups of six or seven,” he replied. “Tuck, what’s the ETA on the vehicles?”
“There’s loads of cars out here. One of Jenna’s cherries has some less than regulation experience with hotwiring.”
“Don’t call them cherries, Tuck. Team love ‘n all that shit.”
While Tuck and Jenna’s troopers drove two cars into the middle of the intersection next to the supermarket, Ark and Lexie located the stairs to the next level. The supermarket was a quarantined space and it wasn’t connected to the rooms around it. The stairwell in the next building presented a tight corridor they would have difficulty moving in. After discussing various options, they decided to break the window on the second floor and hand the survivors from one Navigator to the next.
With the cars already idling, the critters began to wake up and move aro
und the buildings surrounding them.
Before entering the building next to the supermarket, he ordered, “Jenna, lock the trucks down.”
When Tank opened the door to the next building by punching it open, Lexie remarked, “It probably wasn’t locked, you know that, right?”
Tank no longer had his shoulder weapons so he was not much better armed than they were, but he let him take point. At least Tank could shoot which was more than he could say about Lexie. The room they needed was on their left, and they planned to get inside and secure the door. As Tank entered the wide corridor from the stairwell, critters began to race towards their position. One attached itself to Tank, and he tore it from his chest with one armored hand, slamming it into the wall while continuing to walk. While Tank killed the critters in the corridor, he, Jo and Lexie found the door to the room above the supermarket.
Once they were inside, he said sharply, “Tank, get in here and don’t bust the door, we need it.”
He and Tank moved desks and cabinets to block the doorway. His visor was showing a growing green mass on the other side of the door, and he worried the cabinets wouldn’t hold back the swarm. Lexie was scanning the floor with Ark, looking for the weakest point.
His screen lit up with an outlined area on the floor, and Ark said, “Get Tank to punch that spot. It’s over the air conditioning pipes, so it’s hollow underneath.”
Unable to interpret the data on the screens as well as Lexie and Ark, he had to take their word for it. Dropping to his knees, he and Tank flicked to reality viewing and examined the floor. Under the carpet was a thickly tiled surface and each slab could be lifted. Without the right tools and wearing thick armored gloves, it wasn’t easy to lever a tile out. After trying to pry one loose, Tank eventually punched a hole into the corner of it and was able to lift it. Beneath the floor were wires, and below that there was a ceiling made of plasterboard.
Once they’d made a large enough hole in the ceiling of the room underneath them, he said, “Jo, can you talk to them? Explain to them what we’re doing.”
