“I, ah, tripped coming out of the RV last night when it was dark.”
“Too much to drink son?”
“Maybe ah, a little, sir.” His teeth chattered as he formed the words.
“Well, school of hard knocks I suppose. If you’re going to be partaking again tonight make sure you keep it quiet. There a group of you in that thing?” The deputy nodded to the RV.
“Just, ah, me and my older brother, sir.” Bowen lied.
“Where’s he?”
“Ah, the store…to get some food.”
The deputy smiled. “Mind if I take a peek? Looks like a nice rig.” Without waiting for an answer, the deputy opened his door and stepped towards Bowen, leaving the car running.
Bowen didn’t know what to say or to do. Crazy things went through his mind. He envisioned jumping in the running police car and driving off after he let the deputy into the RV. It was all he could do from pissing his pants as the fit looking man walked toward him.
“You have an ID?”
“Ah, sir, ah what’s this all about?”
The bigger man smiled. “It’s just routine.”
Bowen dug into his pocket and gave the deputy his ID with shaking hands.
“You got the DT’s son?”
“Yeah...”
The deputy glanced down at the ID.
“You’re from Washington State Henry? Your ID looks a little faded.”
“I left it in the sun for a few days by accident.” Bowen hoped the fake University Student Card would satisfy him.
“S-O to Two-Charlie-Five,” the radio crackled to life startling Bowen.
The deputy turned his head to the left, his eyes still on the smaller man in front of him as he keyed the lapel mic with his left hand. “Go for Charlie-Five,” he answered dropping the shift designator of “two” for dayshift.
“Two-Charlie-Five, 10-19 to Incline High and 10-5 with federal agents regarding a kidnapping, code 2.”
“Charlie-Five is 10-4, show me 10-76.” The deputy answered indicating that he was on the way.
“10-4, Two-Charlie-Five,” the radio crackled.
“Here you go, Henry. Be careful.”
Bowen took his ID back and managed a weak goodbye wave with his right hand. His whole body was quaking as the police car drove off.
Mia who heard the crackle of the radio raced from the bathroom. She tried to get to the window but held fast by the restraint attached to her left leg. Anchored to the frame through a hole drilled into the floor in the doorway of her room the cable allowed her just enough movement to get to the bed and the bathroom. As much as she tried, she could not pull it free.
Mia pounded on the floor and screamed at the top of her lungs. It was too late; the car had driven off. If only she knew earlier, maybe the cop would have heard her.
Bowen did hear her and rushed inside. Racing down the middle of the RV he grew enraged at the woman who almost got him caught.
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” His fear had turned to pure rage at what she was doing; the beating he received at her hands earlier lost in that fury.
Mia got to her feet.
At the last moment, that memory clicked in, partially by the pure hatred in the eyes and face that was waiting for him. If anything, the woman’s expression conveyed the message that she was glad he was coming at her. Bowen skidded to a stop just outside her reach.
He stared at Mia, coiled like an animal waiting for the right moment to pounce on its prey, in this case, him.
“Fuck this shit, were moving now.”
Mia stayed silent, returning Bowen’s glare. His eyes were back to being fearful, while her face communicated absolute intensity, focused on the violence she intended to do to him. Bowen backed away before turning to walk back to the front.
Mia took little satisfaction in the young man’s retreat. Two more feet and he would have been hers.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The .50 caliber explosive rounds not only obliterated the shadows but most of the exterior wall and the next two beyond it.
“Save the Ammo!” Ricky screamed up to the turret gunner, loud enough the man could’ve heard him without the internal comm system.”
“There was DEVO’s, sir! Right in front of me. I saw them through the openings.”
“No shit, Probie. Where do you think we are? All you did was wake some up. Hopefully, they won’t start screeching up and down the streets now and alert others ahead. They can’t come out, but that fucking screeching wears on my nerves.”
It was too late, the creatures screeched and carried on, but the noise faded away as the vehicle raced down another narrow alley. Ricky rocked in concert with his seat as the Humvee ran over concrete and other debris. The driver, the lone woman yanked the wheel hard over making a quick left onto a cross street before slamming on the accelerator to catch up with the Humvee in front driven by Andy.
“If we rollover we’ll never get there!” Ricky shouted.
“Sorry, sir. Just trying to keep up.”
The rig took another sharp right and then slammed to a stop; the front, thick tires locking up momentarily on trash and chunks of cement occupying the street.
Ricky cursed, slammed forward against the belts as his driver braked hard to keep from rear-ending the Humvee in front, “Christ what now?”
Andy’s voice came over the radio, “stay mounted up, gunners train your weapons on them but hold your fire I’m dismounting to talk with them.”
Ricky’s face lit up; there in front of Andy’s Humvee sat three pickup trucks and at least two dozen men. All held shotguns with the “street sweeper” magazines mounted underneath favored by the Outfits for their simplicity. No integrated sighting system and no helmet with a HUD, unlike the more sophisticated weapons the teams fielded.
Each of the rigs had a mini-gun, or a machine gun mounted on a swivel post just aft of the cab so that the gunner could spin around and cover the six, the standard way the Outfits deployed. A second weapon protruded from the passenger’s side where the front window had been.
“Andy, you need some company up there?”
“Negative, Logan is with me, just be ready to mow them down if things go ugly.”
“Roger,” Ricky turned to his driver. “Angle the rig to the left. Gunner swing that fifty right down on the big ugly guy standing in front, so he knows he goes down first.”
“Rolling, sir,” and “on it, sir,” came the replies through the internal comms.
He studied the Outfitters now getting a better view from behind the thick transparent armor as his Humvee rolled around from behind the lead rig and angled off to the left. Ricky was confident that despite being so green, his troops from behind the up-armored vehicles would make short work of the motley crew in front of them, primarily as they would be shooting from behind armor, and the Outfitters were in the open. Not that the pickup trucks with the welded steel plating would be much safer. While they had the mini-gun and a few machine guns, those rounds would bounce off the Humvee’s Armor in any short but bloody firefight with the Victor Sierra’s.
The Outfits were ambush fighters; they liked to hit and run and only then when they had an advantage. They also rarely showed themselves. Ricky glanced at one of the black vests. “Day Breakers? I thought this was Crewmen territory? What the hell is going on?”
Graybeard’s head followed the Humvee rolling from behind the point rig as it angled off to his right, the tires crunching some broken up concrete on the pavement. The purr of the turret turning towards him captured his full attention. His eyes looked up to the top of the vehicle and the rotating portion before dropping to the machine gun depressing down, pointing directly at him. He glanced above the large barrels that could turn his body into nothing but a bloody mist. Behind the transparent armor, the helmeted head of an INFIL-rat stared at him from behind his black facemask.
Graybeard ignored the display of bad manners and shifted his eyes to the two getting out of the front of the other rig.
Both were wearing the blue one-piece tanker suits with the endless cargo pockets filled with who knows what. Black, heavy bulletproof load bearing vests covered them from the thick upraised collar extending to the top of the neck where it met the base of the ballistic helmet down to the waist. Pouches bulged with extra magazines; a large handgun secured in a holster occupied the front lower right side of both. A half dozen M420 rounds that would feed the larger barrel contraption underneath the large rifles that each carried filled other pouches along with several fragmentation grenades. Graybeard and his crew took note; there was no ambiguity, the INFIL-scum came loaded for bear.
On each of their heads was a black ballistic helmet. A darkened face mask shaded their eyes from the sun and hid their faces. Not being able to observe their expressions and reactions, remarkably accurate with the SecondSkin, made Graybeard feel even more at a handicap. Those masks with the built-in HUD provided them with all kinds of data; everything from the outside temperature, compass, range finder, night vision and an aiming reticle linked to their weapons among other things.
Viewing the armored rigs with the heavy weapons and all the equipment they carried not to mention what each of the team members did; one might have thought it overkill. After all, here was Graybeard and his Outfit standing around with shotguns and in leather vests, black turtlenecks or t-shirts and blue jeans.
The reality for the infiltration troopers was they were some 35 miles north of the Line. They were deep in DEVO’s land with all the hazards, not the least were the ragtag group of men in front of them. They had to be able to sustain themselves and fight their way in then back out, possibly after sunset if the mission didn’t go to plan, which often it didn’t.
The Outfits, on the other hand, lived right beneath the streets; sealed off and safe in their network of sewers and bunkers where multiple wrought iron gates and other measures kept the DEVO’s out. The Outfits need not fight the DEVO’s in mass; they left that up to the infiltration teams. Once they located a trophy, it was a short trip to safety.
Subsisting right downtown or rather the sewers below it, provided the Outfitters another advantage. They kept track of the locations that the creatures used as choke points and ambush sites and therefore could move around faster when topside during the day. The Outfits rarely went topside at night; they neither had the equipment nor the firepower.
While the infiltration teams did have those things, they really could not carry enough if they got stuck down there late in the day. There simply were not enough rounds in their magazines or even in the ammo cans in the rigs. The DEVO’s had no sense of self-preservation. Regardless of how many of their kind lay destroyed before them, they attacked one after another without hesitation. As they closed ranks, at some point, you cannot fire your weapon fast enough to keep them back. Getting cornered anywhere was a losing proposition. The man-made canyons of the huge city and the narrow alleys were ideal places for the DEVO’s to trap you. Inside the behemoth buildings even more so.
Graybeard looked up and down the two members of the Voracious Soldiers in front of him. Both had a military bearing right down to their bloused boots.
He hated that whole structure. He wanted to be free to do what he wanted the way he wanted. Rules were okay, if they were his rules. But this was a game of chess; mind over brawn, even though everything that he did seemed to be the opposite tactic. Graybeard gave a tight smile at the thought.
The two troopers stopped just in front of the man who towered over them. Both were significantly smaller than he. If they had bulging muscles like his, the bulky vests and the suits concealed them. Like all INFIL-maggots, their uniforms and gear made them seem identical to the Outfitters.
Neither Andy nor Logan cared about building up their avatar body. While only training and time in-world would do that, an adventurer could opt for a more subdued appearance. They might very well be as strong or stronger than Graybeard, but their avatar would only reflect a toned physique. Appearance seemed to be a more important element among the Outfits, perhaps because they lacked the equipment and sophisticated weapons. Physical intimidation, rather than just rank reflected their seniority and indicated their position within the group.
Graybeard read the name tags. Unless they raised their face shields, he could not tell Andy from the other. Even then, not everyone’s avatar reflected their actual appearance; certainly, that was true in Graybeard’s case. The hulking man standing more than two meters in height with the broad shoulders, massive chest and arms bulging at the sleeves was a far cry from the diminutive, near-sighted college professor that existed IRL.
In Andy’s case, Graybeard had seen him on his videos filmed in the zone. He looked identical to his real-life images all over social media in the real world. Of course, the famous Andy Crawley had nothing to hide. He had made his fortune and fame from his actions in the zone. Graybeard quite frankly was tired of hearing of his exploits. It was time for a new sheriff in town.
“About fucking time, Crawley.”
The man standing in front of Graybeard a few feet raised his rifle and pointed it directly at graybeard’s face eliciting a chorus of screams and curses. Sounds of leather creaking and boots shuffling around Graybeard broke the silence as his crew moved their weapons up to a shooting position to defend their boss.
Graybeard raised his hands out to his sides and slowly moved them up and down, motioning his crew to relax.
“Take it easy, boys. The INFIL-rat fears us, as he should.”
The comment elicited chuckles and a few cheers from the Day Breakers.
“Tell me why I don’t kill you now and end this,” Andy said, his voice sounding disembodied through the speaker below the face shield and not the least fearful.
“Because then you don’t get the trophy. True, I don’t either, but then you have something more valuable at stake than I do. You kill me, my Outfit kills you, and Haus kills Mia. Except the only person to truly die will be poor, poor Mia. All because her beau couldn’t go and get a trophy.”
Graybeard slowly raised his index finger into the air with his still outstretched right arm. In the distance behind some rubble, an individual rose, shouldering what looked to be an AT-4.
“So that you know, in case you’re thinking about pulling something tricky.”
Graybeard paused to let the effect weigh not just on Andy’s mind but his team. They would believe they were no longer safe in their fancy rigs. Of course, none would realize that it was only the empty tube of a used AT-4.
Graybeard grinned, he was in control once more, “again, do something like that, and poor Mia doesn’t make it. My crew knows to target you and only you. Act stupidly, and you can no longer help Mia. And that’s just for today, maybe tomorrow I look up someone else you care about and visit them by drone, or maybe even you, but this time it will be more than your windows shattering.”
The Outfitter holding the expended AT-4 disappeared back into the rubble pile before anyone from the infiltration team could get a better look. Graybeard could not see the eyes that shifted from where the AT-4 emerged and now back to him, but he felt confident he had made an impact.
“What would be the point? Once I take you out, you are gone from this Dead Zone forever. You lose regardless.”
Graybeard lost his smile. “You don’t get it do you, Andy? This,” the giant spread his arms wide, “is not just some adventure for me. This is my life, multi-dimensional as it is. The places where you, Mia and others exist in the real world; that to me is just another adventure. I’ll have my trophy, Mr. Crawley, even if it is your head on the wall next to Christopher’s.”
“Bro, this guy is seriously whacked.” Only Andy could hear Logan over the internal comm.
“That’s what worries me.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The commercial lighting and drab gray walls were not the best accommodations, but as the saying goes about real estate, location is everything. Despite the lack of amenities, or even a view to the outside, the
seven men and two women felt safe and secure in the underground fortress. Best of all the subterranean climate kept it much cooler than the sun pounding down topside.
Each was in varying stages of getting settled into their new digs. All of them were part of Graybeard’s original crew of Day Breakers. The few left from the Crewmen after the other night and who joined Graybeard were topside with him now, dealing with the infiltration team.
The nine Day Breakers were off duty. They had pulled guard duty the night before or were rotating in and out of the two-hour shifts providing bunker security. Some were sleeping in a bunk room while others in the adjacent day room engaged in a game of poker, betting hands against valuables they had on them or from some anticipated future haul. Each was physically imposing, some significantly more so than the others. A larger man with a full beard kicked over the chair occupied by a smaller one with wispy facial hair and a “Prospect” patch who up till that moment was playing, and not doing too badly.
“I’m taking your place, peon.”
The smaller one offered no resistance as he got up off the floor and scurried off, leaving his cards and his chips.
One or two others cleaning their weapons nearby chuckled. All of them were eager to get out and explore the new part of the city they controlled and search for all the trophies just waiting to be found. To a man and woman, they were excited about their turn of good fortune orchestrated by the boss.
In addition to those in the bunker, four others were pulling guard duty on the two gates at the sewer intersections to the north and south of the HQ. Clayton and his boys had done a good job cutting through the sewer into the basement that formed the complex. The bunker had been his headquarters but now belonged to Graybeard. The HQ was around seven thousand square feet and divided into several areas. The area leading through the double wrought iron gates to the sewer was the operations room. DEVO’s or rival Outfits would have to get past the same double gates at the checkpoints and then past the two leading into the bunker. The creature’s, crazed as they were tried often enough at the smell of fresh flesh. The robust iron gates at the checkpoints and the UV lights kept them at bay.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 26
