Final Dawn: Season 2 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series)

by Mike Kraus

  Undisclosed Location

  Mr. Doe watches as images roll across his monitor, bits of data streaming in from the people his swarms have taken over. The signal to the swarms is weak and intermittent, with some not sending any data and not responding to any commands, either. He rubs his eyes as he watches the monitor, sipping on a cup of coffee to keep himself awake. Two days without any sleep or rest is taking its toll on his body, but he refuses to allow any distractions to keep him from monitoring the situation. Six of the mutants are already gone, along with their swarms. It is a loss he considers to be unacceptable, but there was no way to prevent it when the device was activated. Fortunately, half of the twelve mutants confirmed to be under his control were in a shielded area when the pulse was activated, providing them with enough protection that they survived unscathed.

  Besides receiving data from the remaining core swarms, Mr. Doe also receives periodic bits and pieces of information from swarms that weren’t as successful in taking control of their host. Many individuals received too small of a swarm when they were infected, resulting in a mutation without control. Unable to pinpoint exactly where they are, these individuals are liabilities more than they are assets, since they retain enough control over themselves to cause problems.

  A notification appears on the monitor to indicate that a new data source has been located. The computer systems automatically connect to the source, swap security codes and begin the data transfer. Images of a brightly lit corridor emerge, bathed not only in a blue glow, but in a white one as well. Mr. Doe straightens up in his seat and pauses the automatic image display, his coffee forgotten. He goes through each incoming image slowly, trying to discern the environment they are coming from.

  A large steel door, a tunnel, three people, movement and then a view of a long stretch of empty corridor follow each other in succession. Mr. Doe pushes for more data from the source, sending new commands to the swarm to order more detailed information to be sent back. As the command set is pushed out to the swarm, the data stream suddenly freezes. Mr. Doe pulls his hands back from the keyboard, wondering for half a second if, in his exhaustion, he sent the wrong commands.

  A quick check shows that he is not at fault, and he frantically begins to try to fix the communications problem. Despite his best efforts, his attempt to regain control over the swarm fails. Frustrated, he takes his half-empty cup of coffee and throws it against the far wall, not flinching as the hot liquid and shards of ceramic spill across the room. He presses his hand against his eyes, gently massaging them as he tries to come up with a new course of action.

  Despite the events at the laboratory, the AI achieving self-awareness and the world-ending disaster that followed, Mr. Doe has—in his mind, at least—maintained some semblance of control over some events in the world. Losing his grip on everything including his own swarms, though, is a turn of events he never anticipated. Caused by unforeseen problems with the swarm’s programming and AI restrictions, not all swarms successfully bound to their hosts, as he is now painfully aware. Those swarms that did successfully bind to their hosts are fully integrated and have complete control, but those that didn’t are another matter entirely. Caught between life and death, the swarms inside the failed bindings serve as life-givers to their hosts, keeping the bodies and minds alive—if only barely.

  Sighing deeply, Mr. Doe turns back to his monitor and goes back through the images sent by the swarm he lost contact with. No audio or video was sent, but data like atmospheric pressure, altitude and general location is included with each image. Mr. Doe stops the image display at the one showing three individuals standing near a large steel door. The individuals are blurred and distorted in the image, but as Mr. Doe stares at the area around them, he has a flash of insight. The steel door they are standing before is one of just a few in a complex of underground tunnels near the laboratory, and this revelation gives him a short list of locations where the individuals might be.

  The next image in the display shows a large object obscuring the door and individuals, nearly featureless except for a small amount of lettering in one corner. Like the individuals, part of the lettering is blurred, but enough of it is visible that Mr. Doe knows what it represents.

  “They have it.”

  His statement is matter-of-fact and devoid of emotion. His outbursts gone, he draws upon his last remaining fragments of energy to carry out his next task. Creating a new set of tasks, he sends out a repeating broadcast to the six remaining swarms he knows he still has full control over. With the transmissions being interrupted as much as they are, he hopes that the swarms receive the commands before it is too late. With a last, lingering look at the monitor, Mr. Doe stands from his chair and walks to his bed. With nothing else he can do but wait, he rests.

  Somewhere in North Dakota

  11:34 PM, April 13, 2038

  Samuel arrived at his vehicle ahead of the two men who came out to help him repair it. Though it was functioning normally, he quickly leaned down at the engine and pulled out several wires that ran from the front controls to the back. Standing up, he pointed down at the engine as he looked at Jonathan and Henry, one of Jonathan’s teenage sons who had come with him to help fix Samuel’s vehicle.

  “It was running along okay, then I hit a rock and the engine just died.”

  Flashlight in hand, Henry pointed it at the engine while his father leaned down to try and find the problem. Samuel stood a few feet behind them, toying nervously with the pistols under his jacket. Jonathan mumbled under his breath as he fiddled with the engine until he finally spotted the loose wires dangling underneath. Leaning to the side, he motioned Samuel over.

  “See these? That’s probably your problem right there. All the controls were disabled, along with the electric.” He arched an eyebrow at Samuel. “Must have been quite the big rock you hit to do all of this.”

  Samuel laughed nervously, trying to keep his hands down at his sides instead of feeling his pistols. “Yeah, well, I thought I heard something break on the engine. I guess this was it!”

  Jonathan met Samuel’s gaze for a moment, then nodded slowly. “It shouldn’t be hard to fix. Just a few seconds or so.

  “Henry? Do me a favor and go grab my toolbox from the house, please?”

  Henry nodded, handed his flashlight to Samuel and then ran dutifully back to the collection of houses to retrieve the requested tools. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jonathan stood up, his back to Samuel. “She should be all fixed up for you.”

  Samuel took a step forward to examine the engine when Jonathan whipped around, a small flash of silver shining in his right hand. He held up a small revolver and pointed it directly at Samuel’s head. When he spoke, his tone was low and gravely.

  “Who the hell are you and what do you want with us?”

  Samuel slowly raised his hands, putting them at chest level instead of over his head, well within reach of his pistols. “Whoa! What’s going on? I thought you were going to help me!” He let the flashlight fall to the ground with a tumble and it rolled a few feet, stopping against a rock and partially lighting the area where he and Jonathan were standing.

  Jonathan took a half step forward and cocked the hammer on the revolver, cycling the chamber with a deathly “click.” “You can take us for fools all you’d like, but with your electric wires pulled, how do you expect the horn to work?”

  Samuel stood still for a few seconds with a scared expression before finally relenting. He dropped his hands and shook his head slowly as he stared at the ground. “Looks like I forgot about that.”

  Jonathan shook the revolver slightly as he demanded answers from Samuel yet again. “I won’t ask you a third time; who are you and what do you want with us?”

  The bravery projected by Jonathan was no match for the raw skill possessed by Samuel. Jonathan may have had the drop on Samuel, but he didn’t have the years of experience that Samuel did, honed by thousands of hours of practice and dealing with escalations and conflicts of all types
. This practice not only resulted in incredibly fast reflexes, but a methodical way of dealing with opponents that was purely mechanical and logical, with no trace of emotion.

  Whipping his head to the side, he brought his hands up from his waist and twisted the revolver, blinking as it went off, the shot missing his skull by several inches. Caught off guard by the sudden movement, Jonathan didn’t have a firm grip on the revolver, which was launched out of his hand and into the darkness beyond the view of the flashlight. Bones snapped in Jonathan’s hand as three of his fingers broke under the pressure of Samuel’s twisting grip and he doubled over as Samuel delivered a kick to his abdomen.

  Without wasting a second, Samuel pulled out a pistol with his right hand and aimed carefully at Jonathan’s back, firing two shots. The shots passed through both of Jonathan’s shoulders, missing the vital organs, but thoroughly disabling him. A shout went up from the houses seconds after the shots were fired, but Samuel ignored them. Picking up the flashlight, he leaned down to the engine and checked the wires. Despite Jonathan’s suspicions, he had fixed the vehicle as he had said, and Samuel wasted no time in jumping in the driver’s seat.

  Before he started up the engine, a figure burst through the bushes behind the vehicle and shouted at Samuel. “Hey! What happened here? What the—Dad? Dad!”

  Henry had been the closest to the vehicle when his father was shot and he had dropped the toolbox, running headlong through the grass and bushes until he reached the glow of the flashlight. Samuel threw the flashlight out on the ground and started the engine, revving it a few quick times before pulling away in a plume of dirt and dust. Henry covered his eyes and coughed from the dust cloud as he leaned down over his father, checking the wounds that were bleeding copiously over the ground.

  Designed to disable, not kill, Samuel chose the option that he hoped would mean getting the least amount of blowback from the individuals living in the houses with Jonathan. While he had briefly contemplated killing the man, doing so could have easily caused those around him to devote all of their resources to tracking Samuel down. Maiming Jonathan in such an obvious manner sent a message, instead: don’t mess with me.

  Samuel continued driving, passing over the nearby bridge and heading west, pursuing Leonard and Nancy. His only regret over trying to recruit others in his quest to chase down the demon-bringers was that he had lost valuable time that would have been better spent chasing the intruders on his own.

  The Lord helps those who help themselves. I suppose there’s some truth to that after all.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  9:40 PM, April 13, 2038

  The mutated woman standing in front of David, Marcus and Rachel twitched suddenly and violently. As her body spasmed she tore at her scalp, her sharp nails digging through the skin and shrieking against the strips of metal underneath. Rachel leveled her rifle at the woman’s head, preparing to pull the trigger when David shouted again, his eyes glued to his handheld computer.

  “Wait a second, the signal’s dropping out!” David looked at the woman who was still tearing at her scalp, scraping away the remaining pieces of skin to reveal a nearly solid layer of the silver metal covering her skull. “She must be fighting against it!”

  “David, we don’t have time for this; if she gets anything more to Doe, we’re screwed!” Rachel’s finger hovered over the trigger of her rifle and she began to slowly squeeze, feeling the cool metal slowly retreating under the force.

  “It’s gone! The signal’s totally gone now!”

  David’s last shout came just as Rachel squeezed the trigger far enough to engage the firing pin, which occurred half a second after the woman turned around and stepped to the side. A bullet flew past her, inches from her face and Rachel gasped in surprise, taking her finger off the trigger as the woman spoke.

  “They are coming.”

  Seemingly in full control of her faculties, the woman turned back around and sprinted down the corridor, heading down in the corridor in the direction of the snarls. Minutes ticked past slowly, stretching out into what felt like hours until the woman reappeared, running silently back to the group.

  “They are coming. Prepare quickly.”

  The woman’s voice was no more urgent than it had been a few minutes prior, despite the imminent threat that was on the group’s doorstep. Marcus and Rachel looked back at David, and Marcus yelled, forgoing any semblance of stealth.

  “Find a way to get through that damned door! We’ll hold them off!”

  Marcus knelt down a few feet away from Rachel and looked at her. The two of them exchanged a quick nod before they turned their eyes forward, keeping a careful watch on the darkness of the corridor. Their previous disagreement had fallen by the wayside in the face of the new danger that threatened to consume them right as they were on the verge of escaping from the tunnels. Behind them, the mutated woman stood still, her empty eyes directed out into the corridor. The snarls and growls echoed louder as the creatures drew nearer.

  Back at the steel door, David connected his handheld computer to the door control, trying to give it enough power to function. Though the connection was confirmed by the computer as active, the door panel flickered only once before fading out. Its electronics had either been fried or there wasn’t enough power being supplied by the computer, the battery of which was beginning to run low. David held his head in his hands, pulling at his hair in frustration. The mutated woman showed zero interest in opening the door, a pack of mutated creatures courtesy of Mr. Doe was nearly upon them, and David had no idea how to open the only way out of the tunnels.

  Before leaving his lab and meeting up with Rachel and Marcus at the room where Bertha was stored, David had brought as much equipment as he could carry in a duffel bag from his laboratory. Emptying out the storage cupboard where he had kept a laptop, handheld computers, and memory cards safe from Bertha’s discharge, David had plenty of working electronic resources. Unfortunately, none of it would power up the door’s panel for long enough to unlock the bolts that held the door in place. Picking through his bag in desperation, David’s hand brushed against a small steel box, cold to the touch, and foreign to him. Initially wondering what it was, he took it out of his bag and held it up, a look of shock on his face when he saw it in the glow of the transport cart’s lights.

  A black box, roughly six inches square on each side and three inches deep, it had two small connectors at the back with inch-long wires hanging from each. The box had been the last security device that David and Rachel had labored over for hours to get off Bertha so that they could move the EMP generator out of its storage room. Without thinking much of it, David had slipped the black box into his bag, wondering if it might come in handy later, though he’d promptly forgotten about it until now.

  Though the box was virtually featureless, it was not without function. The two small connectors on the back of the device had plugged directly into Bertha, and disconnecting them without triggering the box was not an easy task. This was due in no small part to the fact that, if the device had been removed improperly, it would have been activated. The activation of the black box would have triggered the tightly packed plastic explosives in its interior. Highly lethal, the explosives inside the box were enough to completely destroy Bertha, acting as a last line of defense against theft or potential misuse.

  David glanced at the steel door and the transport cart just a few feet from it. The tunnel near the door was narrow, with no safe place to hide the transport cart should David carry out the plan he was still formulating. The sound of the creatures still echoed up from the tunnel, though there was no sight of them yet. Making his decision, David threw his duffel bag back into the transport cart and opened the cart’s motor compartment, searching for a pair of wires leading to the rear brake lights.

  Pulling them out, he bit into the ends, stripping away the insulation on both wires and revealing the bare metal underneath. Rachel and Marcus were still kneeling several feet away along with
the mutated woman, and David shouted at them, holding the box aloft.

  “Rachel! I’ve got it!”

  Rachel turned to look at David and her eyes widened upon seeing the box. David pointed at the double doors on the side of the tunnel and shouted again.

  “We need to get Bertha in there now!”

  “David, the cart won’t fit!”

  “I’d rather take my chances without it than get pinned down here, wouldn’t you?”

  Rachel hesitated for a second and then nodded. “Marcus, keep watch; I’m with David.”

  Rachel handed her rifle to Marcus who dropped his pistol at his feet and raised the more powerful weapon to his shoulder. Behind him Rachel ran to David’s side, who had set the black box near the steel door and was already beginning to unhook Bertha’s dolly from the back of the transport cart. Rachel helped him finish the task and they both pushed on the dolly, moving the heavy load toward the nearby storage room.

  A relatively small area, the storage room was just wide enough to accommodate Bertha, along with the group’s various bags and backpacks. Rachel whistled for Sam, who hurried into the room and obediently lay down at the very back. David rushed back to the cart and pulled it around so that the rear end was just inches from the steel door, then hopped out and began searching for the best location to place the black box.