The Complex (The Omega Protocol Chronicles Book 3)

by Courtney McPhail

  “We’re gonna have to send out a couple crews,” Eddie said to the other men, who had been introduced as Rob and Johnny. They looked pretty much the same. Young guys with the same brown hair and pathetic attempts to grow patchy goatees. The only reason Jackson knew which was which was because Rob had barbell piercing in his lower lip.

  “All that gunfire is gonna rile up the sickos,” Eddie continued. “It’ll give us a chance to clear out the ones that have been nesting.”

  “Nesting?” Banks asked.

  “You haven’t noticed that?” Eddie smiled. “They’re like rats. They make themselves these nests to stay in. Go out to look for food and then scurry back. We’ve been rooting them out where we can but there are a lot of places they can be hiding.”

  “We’ve tried different things to draw them out,” Rob told them. “Put out a stereo with music, air horns, megaphones. That tricks the dumb ones. They’ll run after anything that makes a noise.”

  Johnny laughed. “Remember that one we saw get caught up in a swing at the park because the chain was rusted and squeaking?”

  “Dumbass strung himself up like a fish,” Rob grinned and mimicked shooting a gun. “Took care of it easy.”

  “The smart ones are harder to trick,” Eddie told them. “They’re only interested in dinner that’s alive and kicking. We tried tying up live animals as bait. It worked on the smarter ones but then it became a matter of us needing the meat instead.”

  “How many you figure are left in town?” Banks asked.

  Eddie shrugged. “Who knows? Town had a population of fifteen thousand. We’ve got eighty-six of them living at the Complex. What was the last total count?”

  “Three thousand and two last count,” Rob said. “How many did we get out there?”

  “Forty-five,” Johnny said. “Twelve for Eddie, eight for me, seven for you, two for Hanson. These guys took out sixteen.”

  So maybe Johnny wasn’t as dumb as he thought. He had to have some functioning brain cells if he was able to make that kind of count during a firefight.

  “If you four want to split the sixteen even, we can add you to the pool,” Johnny said with a grin. “We’ve got a monthly pool going on for who can kill the most.”

  “What’s the winner get?” Mendez asked.

  “Respect and bragging rights,” Johnny said.

  “Used to be winner would get to spend the next month in the luxury suite,” Rob said, his face showing annoyance. “Then Jacob took over and ended that, which is bullshit.”

  “Quit your bitching,” Eddie said. “The ‘luxury suite’ was just some pillow top mattress and extra pillows.”

  “It was still nice,” Rob shot back defensively. “Helped my back.”

  “Well, next time we’re out, look for one of them and you can bring it back,” Eddie said.

  Rob let out a snort. “I do that and it goes to the communal pile. I got a one in eighty-six shot of drawing the blue marble. Which is total bullshit, I should get to keep what I bring back.”

  “You know that’s against the rules.”

  “The rules are bullshit. We go out here, we should get better things, like it was with Sam.”

  “Well, it pissed off the other people when we did it that way,” Eddie said. “That’s how Jacob ended up getting elected. They outnumber us.”

  “Don’t know why half the run teams supported Jacob. Sam was good to us.”

  “Pillow top mattresses wasn’t enough for most of them. They don’t have delicate lady backs like you,” Eddie cracked and Rob shot him the finger. “Truth is most of them were threatened by Sam. Look at Jacob. Guy can’t weight more than a buck fifty, don’t look like he’s ever held a gun in his life. Anyone on the crews could take him. A guy like that, he starts doing something you don’t like, he’s easy to take out. Sam, not so much. We learned that the hard way.”

  “So we’re following around some pussy because he’s a pussy?”

  “No, we’re following him because he treats us right,” Eddie replied. “When he stops, we take him out. Look, man, you really wanna deal with all the bullshit? Jacob spends half his day calculating how many pounds of food we need, water to drink, fuel to run the gennies. He’s welcome to all that shit. Me, I’m happy being on the run team and taking what perks come my way.”

  Eddie turned to Jackson and the others. “You’d be smart to do the same. You guys handled yourselves out there today. We need more people for the run teams and that makes you valuable to our community. Jacob will want to vet you but if we vouch for you, he’ll take you in."

  “Do you take in a lot of strangers?” Mendez asked.

  “From time to time,” Eddie replied. “Especially if they bring something to the table.”

  “When was the last time you took new people in?” she asked.

  Eddie stared at her a moment, and Jackson worried that he was starting to get suspicious, but then a wide smile split his face. “You worried you won’t get the invite? Don’t be. You guys all seem to have the right stuff.”

  The way Eddie’s eyes trailed over Mendez and Claudia got Jackson’s hackles up but he met eyes with Banks, who gave him a small shake of his head. Don’t rise to the bait. The last thing they needed was to get ditched by these guys before they found out where they were living.

  “What’s the Complex like?” Jackson asked, wanting to get Eddie’s attention off the girls.

  “It was an apartment complex before all this called Paradise Court.” Jackson exchanged a look with Claudia. Well, there was the answer to that mystery. “It was a pussy name so we changed it. Complex sounds a lot more badass. It’s got a six foot brick wall around the whole thing so it ended up being a safe place when all this started.”

  “We’ve got generators, water and food,” Rob said. “We’ve been clearing out the town of everything we can use so we’ll be set for the winter. We’ve got plenty of people to watch the walls, make sure we don’t get any surprises.”

  “Has that happened before?”

  “Mostly just infected showing up at the walls,” Eddie told them. “Assholes can be good climbers so we’ve got to make sure they don’t get inside. We haven’t had any issues with people trying to attack us. Some show up but we’re always willing to give them a chance to find a place with us.”

  That sent fear through Jackson. He had been relying on Veronica’s message to Claudia to know that she was safe. If they had intended to hurt her or the others, they would have done it at the hospital instead of taking them. But he knew that none of them would have accepted the offer of staying at this Complex.

  “What happens if they don’t wanna join ya?”

  “That’s never happened,” Eddie replied, that shit eating grin still on his face. “Trust me, when you see this place, you’ll get why no one has ever left.”

  Jackson didn’t like the sound of that.

  Subject File #750

  Administrator: My biggest concern with subject seven-five-zero going on this mission is that she won’t return. For all the problems we’ve had, she is a part of the family. I don’t want her to die.

  The ground beneath her was hard but it was also cool and that was nice against her heated flesh. It felt like every part of her body was swollen and throbbing like a bad tooth. Every breath felt like it was shredding her dry throat, even her eyes ached as she forced them open.

  All she could see was black and all she could feel was pain. Did she die? Was this what came after death? Unending agony in a dark abyss.

  “Veronica?”

  The familiar voice cut through the darkness and she tried to turn towards it, groaning as her back let out an excruciating throb.

  “Don’t try to move.” She felt a soft hand on her shoulder and she realized she was on her side, stretched out on the floor of the cell. “Your back is all cut up. If you move too much, it will make the bleeding worse.”

  She finally recognized the voice. Travis. She wasn’t alone.

  Now that she knew where sh
e was, the fear and panic that was keeping her from realizing the extent of her injuries was gone. Her throat ached and it was difficult to swallow, her tongue thick in her mouth. Each individual welt in her back was like a hot knife cutting her open with each breath she took. She could feel a strong weight against her back and she realized it was Travis putting pressure on her wounds.

  “How bad is it?” she croaked out, each word painful to get through her swollen throat.

  “It’s not great,” Travis said. “Some of the welts are still bleeding. Sorry I had to strip you but your bra was making the bleeding worse.”

  “That’s why I’m cold,” she said.

  “Sorry, here,” he said and then she felt him drape something warm over her. His scent surrounded her and she realized he had put his shirt over her.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll help you put it on when you’re ready to sit up,” he said, “And I promise I didn’t look. I just wanted you to know because...well, what Crawley tried to do to you.”

  The memory of Crawley pawing at her panties flashed through her mind. The bile rising in her throat rivalled the fear that choked off her breath. Oh God.

  But she had stopped him before he got the chance. She remembered that. She killed him in the end.

  “He tried but he didn’t,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Not great, but better than you.”

  She was sure that was true. If she didn’t move, the wounds softened from stabbing pain to throbbing ache. What she wouldn’t give for a truck full of painkillers. If breathing made her want to cry, she wasn’t sure how the hell she was going to walk out of here.

  Though she was probably getting ahead of herself to imagine she’d have any chance of getting out of here.

  “Malcolm and Nas?” she asked. It felt like it had been days since they had seen them.

  “I asked for them when they brought us back down here but Marsh punched me for talking. He said Jacob would deal with us.”

  She hoped that Malcolm and Nas were in better shape than them.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wished I could tell you that I had an idea to get us out of this but I’ve got nothing.”

  She didn’t blame him. She sure as hell didn’t have the first idea and she had been the one to cause this. They were here because she killed Crawley. That had been her choice and she sure as hell didn’t regret it but she did regret that Travis would pay for it. She wasn’t under any delusion that the kind of men who gang raped women were going to let her walk away from killing one of them.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said, tears dripping from her eyes, one of them stinging as it ran over a cut on her cheek.

  “Don’t apologize,” Travis replied. “You saved yourself and that’s what is important.”

  She wanted to argue but before she could speak, the door opened and she saw a tilted view of Jacob standing in the doorway. She tried to lift her head up so she could see straight, wincing as the skin around her wounds pulled and throbbed.

  Jacob stepped into the cell followed closely by Marsh, who carried an AK. He glared down at her, hatred alive in his eyes and the curl of his lip.

  “You killed one of my men,” Jacob told her, his voice emotionless as he looked down at her.

  “He tried to rape me,” she spat out, trying to hide her wince of pain from the man.

  “There’s no such thing as rape here.”

  Her mouth fell open as she stared up at him, not sure she had heard him right.

  “Everything in the Complex is communal,” Jacob said, “And that includes the bodies.”

  “You’re monsters,” she said. “Disgusting monsters.”

  Jacob scoffed at her. “We aren’t monsters. Monsters don’t have rules, they don’t believe in fairness.”

  “How is any of this fair?”

  “You think the world before was fair? When nepotism and corruption put people in places of power instead of their own merit. Where the people who put the least work in were rewarded. Here everyone is equal. You put everything you have towards the common good so you can be a part of the common good. It is the only way to survive now.”

  “Bullshit,” Travis said. “This isn’t about survival to you. This isn’t about creating a better world. It’s about putting yourself in power. You spent your life before this cursing what little you had, always craving more but never able to get it. Turned away, passed over, rejected again and again. Life then wasn’t fair, was it?”

  Colour filled Jacob’s cheeks, his eyes flashing with anger but that didn’t stop Travis.

  “All those people with things they didn’t deserve, that they didn’t earn, but you changed that, didn’t you? Now you’re the one in charge, got all the power you want. All you had to do for it was let the rest of these men live like animals.”

  “We don’t live like animals,” Jacob snapped. “We have rules here. The first one is that we do not murder each other. If you take a life, you forfeit your own. We are especially strict about it when it’s an outsider who kills one of our own.”

  His anger faded away as he smiled at Veronica. “We like to make a bit of a show of it, remind everyone about the rules. Both of you will be hanged in the courtyard just as soon as we rig up the gallows.”

  “No, you can’t!” Veronica cried, trying to struggle to her feet but the pain from her wounds kept her down. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. “Please, Travis didn’t do anything!”

  “He aided you in murder, that makes him as guilty as you,” Jacob said with a sneer. “We’ll be back when it’s time.”

  They closed the door, the sound of it echoing in the store room along with her racing breath.

  “It’ll be okay,” Travis said. “Malcolm and Nas are still out there.”

  “They are probably already dead,” she said. “And if they aren’t, how will they even know what’s happening?”

  This was all kinds of fucked up. There was no way she could fight her way out of this. She could barely even stand.

  The only thing she could hope for was that Jackson and the others had got the medicine at the other hospital. That was the only hope she had to cling to now.

  Subject File #745

  Administrator: Do you want to talk about it?

  Subject: Can’t. I hate that I remember it. The way she looked...I can’t.

  “There she is. We call her the Complex.”

  The twin apartment buildings that Eddie pointed out weren’t particularly impressive, but his tone said he thought they were.

  As far as Jackson saw, they were like any other apartment building he’d ever seen. Still, he knew that they were playing a dangerous game here so he let out a low whistle.

  “Looks like a good place.”

  “It is,” Eddie replied. “As long as you follow the rules. Jacob is a big stickler for rules.”

  Jackson spotted armed men on top of the walls and he glanced at Mendez, who gave a slight nod of her head. She’d seen them too. Whatever this place was, it was strong.

  They’d been smart with their plan to convince the men who took the others to bring them past the walls. There was no way, even if they had found this place on their own, they’d have been able to get inside.

  “Now, you all play it cool,” Eddie said as the gate opened and they drove inside. “Don’t make any stupid moves and listen to me.”

  Jackson looked around the courtyard, searching for a familiar face but the men who stared back at them were strangers. He didn't see any of the others among the people of the Complex.

  When they came to a stop in the parking lot, Jackson had to hold onto the side of the truck to keep himself from immediately jumping out. He wanted to call out for Veronica, to demand to know where she was, but he knew they had to hold their cards to their chests.

  They had no idea what was going on here and until they did, they had to pretend not to know Veronica and the others.
>
  A man walked towards the truck, fresh bruises marring his face and cotton still wadded in his nostrils. He’d taken a beating and recently.

  “The hell happened to you, Marsh?” Eddie asked.

  “We had some problems,” Marsh replied. “What did you find out there?”

  “Some fuel and a couple new recruits with some skills,” Eddie said. “Jacob busy?”

  “He’s arranging a reckoning.”

  Eddie let out a low whistle. “Is it Sam?”

  “Nope,” Marsh replied, fingering the bruise on his chin. “The cocksucker who did this and his bitch. She killed Crawley.”

  “Damn, I’d hoped it’d be Sam. That asshole has it coming.”

  “Jacob would only do it if he cracked and fessed up. That bastard’s steel. He’ll never crack.”

  Eddie laughed. “Can’t say I blame him. If I made off with all that booty, I’d keep my mouth shut too.”

  “Damn straight,” Marsh agreed and looked them over. “Listen here, we’re giving you a chance and you better not fuck it up. This place is heaps better than out there. First rule, you hand over your weapons. When we feel we can trust you, you get them back.”

  Jackson wanted to refuse, not liking the idea of being unarmed one bit, but he refusing would mean he was dumped on the other side of the wall. Jackson put his gun on the tailgate and climbed down.

  “Eddie will take you over to the north lobby,” Marsh said after the others had disarmed themselves. “Jacob should be there. He’ll make the call.”

  Jackson studied the place as they crossed the courtyard. Manned perches were on the corners of the surrounding wall as well as at the main gate that was already locked tight after their entrance. Men were milling about under the large tents, their voices raised in excitement. Something had them happy, roars of laughter regularly coming from the tents.

  The lobby wasn’t anything to write home about. The two elevators in the centre were open, the cabs dark and empty. There were several mismatched couches and chairs lining the wall, stacks of boxes surrounding them.

  A short man with bug eyes behind a pair of Coke bottle glasses was talking to two other men. The bug-eyed one looked at them, his eyebrows drawing together as Eddie led them over.