“I’m just supposed to take your word for it? I’ll plan my tactics, and right now those tactics assume there are more of those anti-armor weapons out there.”
“Have it your way mate. Just get me my gold by sundown.”
“Where do I meet you?”
“I’ll call you and give you a location. No games. I’ll be watching.”
The line went dead.
***
Forward Operating Base Victor Sierra was not much to look at, although it was considerably better-equipped than others that populated the landscape. A 4-foot deep, saltwater moat about 20 feet across surrounded the three-acre encampment. Electrified coiled barb wire ringed the outside of the moat. Since driving off the ferry, Logan and Andy traveled through what everyone called “The Line.”
It was a five-mile wide strip of land that went from the bay on one side to the ocean on the other, 38 miles away. Within those 190 square miles, what had been booming and thriving communities was now a wasteland. The Air Force had bombed a wide swath of buildings, bridges, homes, and even vegetation in the early days of the viral outbreak followed by intensive fire from the Army’s artillery brigades. Not a single building stood, most taken out by the fire-bombing and artillery rounds that removed much of the foliage providing the sentry towers clear lines of sight from one to the other strung across it.
The area just in front of those towers had land mines with the exceptions of certain heavily guarded routes. The Line was where the DEVO’s were stopped and eventually pushed back. A mile or so south of the towers along the main route through the Line the various infiltration teams maintained their FOB’s. Everything north of them in what once had been a metropolitan area of thirty-five million residents was the Dead Zone.
As Logan and Andy passed the armed sentries of FOBVS, its official designation on the map, the truck tires vibrated across the steel grating crossing the moat. That bridge would be rolled back at nightfall. No one was allowed outside the wire at night unless expressly authorized and then those were usually teams returning from a day of hunting or troops going out to orient the newbies. Logan pulled up in front of a portable building that held the operational headquarters.
Much of the security precautions in place were put there when the creatures still wandered this vicinity at night. The creatures had been mostly eradicated here by the bombing and destruction of any hiding places along with the efforts of the teams that would take the Probies out at night to get some experience and hunt down any remaining DEVO’s they found meandering around. The clear majority of that population had been pushed north, into the peninsula and the large adjoining island both now contained by the Line to the south, the bay on the eastern shore and the ocean on the western one.
There was still a concern they could break out, use a mass movement, take out the lights in an area and overrun the mines. The other scarier scenario was they might further evolve or mutate to the point where UV light no longer affected them, or they could start picking up guns and driving vehicles as they did in the early days.
Then, their human-wave attacks took tremendous tolls on first the police forces and then the military, slaughtering entire units when they ran out of ammo or were trapped in the city somewhere. Most of them now DEVO’s; some seemingly less de-evolved and in leadership roles.
Everyone who went near the zone was aware of this, particularly in the Line. Every FOB was an armed and well-defended encampment. If the creatures got out and into the cities across the Bay or to the south beyond the Line no one knew where it would stop. Across the globe dead zones were contained with the same tactics, falling back and creating a kill zone. Some comprised whole regions. A few became re-occupied when the DEVO’s were decimated, but then so was the real estate. Everyone just hoped they died off. But so far, the things were not cooperating.
Getting out of the truck in the dust of the dirt parking lot Andy tried to remember what was real. Mia’s life was, and so was the need to get that gold.
Andy sighed at the realization that what he was doing now was anything but an adventure. In a cruel bit of irony, the slogan, “As real as it gets” took on a new meaning.
Andy surveyed the vehicles parked under a large carport. They were mostly Humvee’s with twin .50 caliber machine guns with their explosive rounds. Far less sophisticated and capable than his beloved JLTV. The “Deuce 50” was quite capable due to shear velocity and the mass of the rounds fired in concentrated zones of ripping DEVO’s apart. The negative was that to get the job done one had to expend significantly more ammo than a Vulcan required, not to mention the overheating of the barrels, which could turn white hot, making it ineffectual or even cooking off the ammo. The rigs filled to the brim with as much ammo as could be carried, meant the math, always in the DEVO’s favor, was even more so if the rig became stuck or disabled. Especially the case if they trapped you after dark, or even in a shadowy alley shaded from the sunlight.
The .50’s also could not chew through buildings or roadblocks like a Vulcan. Residential structures sure, but not the steel and concrete buildings downtown.
“We’ll need to be in the alleys only when the sun is overhead.”
“Yes, sir. They just walked in. Yes, sir. I understand.”
Andy and Logan studied the individual behind the operations desk. Ricky Hatch was the Officer of the Day or OOD. He was the guy running the operations in the zone today. Mostly a desk jockey these days Ricky was a legend within the Voracious Soldier ranks. Ricky, like Andy, had enough protégés’ out there where he got a cut of the action to stay out of the DZ. He went out occasionally, but he typically stuck to training and administrative duties for which, like all the officers and NCO’s, he was paid a stipend by the organization. It had become a job, but a cool one.
Ricky rushed around the desk to give Andy a warm bro-hug before releasing him and shaking Logan’s outstretched hand.
“I dunno what you got going on, but the XO says your suspension is lifted and that you can have anything you need.”
“Anything?”
“Yup, bro. What’s Victor Sierra’s is yours.”
Andy cast an eye towards a group of Probies. The six were filling magazines with ammo at a table.
“I’ll take them.”
“They’re kind of green; the XO says you’re going downtown.” Ricky’s expression turned serious before addressing the group of newbies.
“Hey, FNG’s.” Ricky used the abbreviation for Fucking New Guy’s. “How would you like to go downtown with the famous Andy Crawley and Logan McMillian?”
“OOD, you shitting us, sir?”
“Serious as a heart attack, trooper.”
The group looked to one another before turning back to the OOD.
“Hell yeah!” They said in unison.
“Well, they’re yours, even volunteered. Try to bring at least one back.”
“I’ll leave that up to you; you’re going with me.”
Ricky splayed his hands apart. “Much as I want to, bro, my job is here with the gear in the rear.”
“I can have anything I need, right?”
“Roger that, Andy.”
“I need you, Ricky.”
The OOD cast a bored look towards the smiling assembly at the ammo station high-fiving each other.
“What the hell, someone’s got to drive the rig back when they’re all the main entree in a DEVO’s buffet line.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The black Bureau VTAL circled over the Incline High School athletic field. Calum looked down at the green grass, surrounded by the oval red track then to the parking lot near the southeast end. He was pleased to see the two unmarked but nonetheless distinctly government sedans. Standing outside each were agents from the Reno office.
The information they had was sketchy, but Calum and Wu believed it to be solid, or at least the only substantial lead they had; the pinging of Mia’s work cell phone. The last known contact was earlier, around six in the morning on a cell tower in a
remote area. The only thing in that area was a roadway leading towards Lake Tahoe via Incline Village.
That ping was the last of a trail of them tracing a route from Phoenix. The phone had gone quiet, despite the cell company’s efforts. Either the battery had gone dead, or the phone was in some other way disabled.
Calum and Wu knew it was possible they were just passing through the area and continuing around the lake or towards California. The timing, however, suggested that at least for the day this was probably the kidnapper’s destination.
Haus was to meet Andy in-world today, and the only way into that sim was through an H-Pod. A hood and exo-mitts or other remote VR hardware would not work, the exception being Calum and Wu’s ability through the MCT labs to move anywhere at will in-world.
Calum hoped neither Haus nor anyone he was working with would notice the VTAL settling to the turf. They would leave the bird parked there after hastily arranging with the high school to conduct tours out to the aircraft for the students; hoping that would allay any suspicions.
After a few quick introductions, Calum briefed the Reno agents on what they knew, which wasn’t much.
“Can’t you just trace the suspects back to their pods from the lab in Denver?”
“We can if they have a legitimate Digital Adventures account, and are not using an alias or another pod registered to someone else. Most of the participants, they call themselves adventurers are straight up legit with nothing to hide. The problem is there is an underground element that exists in many of these sims and for better or worse have become part of the storyline.” Wu answered.
“Storyline?” The female agent who asked the question shot Wu a puzzled look.
“A Storyline is what occurs in a particular sim and is germane to the adventurers involved. In this sim with the groups concerned, there are rogue players whom Digital Adventures not only stopped trying to sweep, they now actively encourage their participation; apparently, it adds to the complexity and realism of the adventure.”
“And this adventure is somehow linked back into the real world? I don’t get it.” Another agent asked.
“Human psychology is something I find elusive as well.” The agents as a group gave Wu a puzzled look.
“I think what Agent Wu here is saying is that the realism of these sims is such that many people cannot separate their real lives from their digital ones. After a while, for some of these people that fully immerse themselves for days, weeks or months in-world… well, the sim becomes their reality,” Calum interjected.
“Anything on facial or vehicle recognition?”
“No one that we can identify. So far, we have the usual traffic for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Lots of RV’s, SUV’s pulling boats, etc. No way to discern one from the other without at least a name that we can crosscheck.”
Calum lost himself in thought at the agent’s answer. “Crosscheck? What if we checked all the vehicles that we can document with video traveling from Phoenix to Lake Tahoe? How many would that be?”
***
The two Humvees rolled along Route 1. It was the one open road into the old city and hence its name. Blockades prevented all the other roadways from being used and any bridges not on R-1 were cut. It wouldn’t stop DEVO’s on foot, but if they ever figured out how to operate vehicles again, they wouldn’t be able to drive through the roadblocks or past the blown bridges that crossed some small rivers, creeks, ravines, and other natural obstacles.
After checking in with the authorities at the gate that officially designated the dead zone border, they continued north, entering the deserted suburbs. A few miles in they jumped onto a freeway north of a destroyed overpass weaving their way through hundreds of crashed or burned out vehicles. The highway, elevated here, gave a view of the neighborhoods on each side, particularly to the gunners up in the turrets. Ricky briefed the FNG’s.
“The first couple miles in is very much like the Line.”
The newbies took in the flattened and burned buildings, houses and schools. Sprinkled here and there were complete structures still standing and more partial ones. Vehicles by the tens of thousands lay abandoned where people drove them as far south as they could on secondary roads. Many were burnt out or destroyed clogging the streets for as far as their wide eyes could see on both sides of the freeway.
“This is the area where the tide turned, when the government realized they needed to bring heavy weapons in and fire indiscriminately at anyone fleeing south. It was a desperate situation. In the initial stages, the virus didn’t make someone immediately like the way the DEVO’s are now. They could appear otherwise healthy before moving onto the next stage.”
“What happened at that stage, sir?”
“People became crazed; they would start to clack their teeth and soon bite. But also at some level, their consciousness told them they were sick and needed help. They were afraid and sought medical treatment. By then the roads and railways had been cut, the runways at the two airports cratered during bombing runs and the ship channel to the harbor and port blocked with ships sunk by the Navy. Those that made it out on foot, and there were tens of thousands of them, fled to the camps.”
“Camps, sir?”
“South of our current FOB is where most of them were. As people found their way out of the city and the suburbs, they were rounded up and placed into containment camps to make sure they were not infected.”
“And if they were, sir?” Asked another newbie.
Ricky took a swig from his water bottle before answering.
“What’s the only thing you can do for a rabid animal Probie?”
“Shoot it dead?”
“Destroy it is the answer. The things don’t just die, not quickly anyway; as long as they can bite they will. Never forget that.”
“Yes, sir. What became of the camps?”
“They failed. All it took was one infected man, woman or child. Then it spread like wildfire. Within a few nights, we had something like thirty thousand DEVO’s on the wire when they broke out of their camps.”
“How’d you survive, sir?”
“Air Force bombed us.” Ricky glared off into the distance. “Danger Close.”
“Anyone not in a bunker, including a lot of good troops, didn’t survive. In the morning, there weren’t enough survivors to bury the dead. We had to use bulldozers to gather them up, then soaked them in fuel and burned them. After that, zero tolerance became the operational doctrine, at least until the vaccine that protects from the airborne variety of the virus got developed.”
“Zero tolerance doctrine, OOD?” The lone female in the group asked.
“Before it was called The Line, it was just a free killing zone; anything that moved got zapped. That’s how we held them and why there are officially anywhere from 2 to 8 million DEVO’s left in the city, most densely in the downtown and commercial districts. Although I think 8 million might be low.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“There are two types of creatures. There are the ones that were human and never truly died per se. The virus turned them into DEVO’s, and they began to feed on other folks. Those people, despite having much or all the flesh chewed from them never actually died either. After a few days though, they rose and joined their ghastly brethren. You can always tell which ones were eaten first, before they turned. They have a greenish-grayish hue to their otherwise pale features. But most telling are the horrible scars. The flesh that grows back doesn’t cover everything completely.”
Ricky paused as he collected his thoughts.
“There were 35 million people on this peninsula when the virus hit. People were not terribly alarmed at first, as you didn’t just start chomping on anyone in reach, or really show any symptoms. It was gradual. When the medical people realized a virus was sweeping through the population and eating away at the brain, they did what anyone would do. They told their family and friends first. Same with the politicians, that’s why so many high net worth people got out early. By t
he time word got out to the main populace, panic had set in, and the city quarantined. That only made things worse for those not infected, however.”
Ricky glanced around, instinctively looking for danger through the windows constructed of transparent armor before continuing.
“Those people either caught the virus and became DEVO’s, or were eaten. Many in the designated quarantine zone tried to barricade in place, but unless you had a robust fortress and plenty of weapons, then your odds were slim to none. The DEVO’s, as they do now, hunt relentlessly and at that time they were not so affected by vibrations or electrical currents. They could and did use vehicles and weapons. Some non-DEVO’s did survive, and when the zero-tolerance doctrine got relaxed, they came out and were rescued, but they number just a few thousand.”
Ricky took a deep breath. “So do the math, Probies. Just look at the numbers Andy and Logan wasted a few nights ago. Estimates from the after-action videos and drone overflights at sunrise are between five and ten thousand destroyed. Since then our probes into the area indicate they are as thick as ever in those skyscrapers, warehouses, and factories.”
“Why does the government say only two to eight million? Which is still a shitload, sir.”
Logan chuckled at all the formalities. Once these newbies proved themselves, all that would be dropped. Teams like the Voracious Soldiers were deadly serious about their operations in the sim. To some on the outside, it was just a game. Until you had lived it as they all did you could not have any appreciation of how it impacted you, either as an individual or as part of a group. Everything that Ricky described happened in the sim; it wasn’t just some back story.
Artificial Intelligence was a big part but so was the adventure and challenge of trying to stop a spreading virus that threatened all of humanity. Either as a scientist, a member of the military or as a person trying to get out and then eventually having to survive among the DEVO’s. So realistic was the simulation that back in the real world it was studied by emergency management professionals. All the teams oriented their recruits into a paramilitary structure, since they were essentially mercenaries. They set the tone early among those they accepted in. Probationary members needed to be able to function, without hesitation, as part of a team under the direction of a leader whose authority in the zone was absolute. In the case of the Voracious Soldiers, until you were Victor Sierra golden, you were just dead weight.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 24
