Bowen wanted to flee. In fact, he was going to run, try to get into the woods and away from the cop. The scooter falling on him ruined that plan. Or so he thought. The deputy laughed as he came from around the driver’s side door.
Seeing that Bowen’s hands were empty Styles holstered his sidearm. Bowen wondered if the cop would have shot him if he had run. Now he thought that the cop would have to redraw his gun before he could do that. Bowen finally pulled his left foot free from the weight of the machine. He brought both feet underneath him as he scrambled on his hands and knees to his feet. He heard the deputy yell at him to “freeze” but ignored him.
Bowen was still sore from the previous encounter with the crazy bitch, and it hurt to move quickly, particularly around his abdomen and torso. Still, he tried to sprint away hoping to get some distance between him and the cop.
The deputy didn’t give chase. Instead, he drew a different item from his belt and pointed it at the young man just a few feet away on the other side of the fallen scooter. Two blue laser dots appeared on the back of Bowen’s red polo shirt. As he took his first long stride, Styles pulled the trigger.
Bowen felt the two prongs of the Taser pierce his skin. What followed was worse. The 50,000-volt charge locked up his muscles so that he could not do anything but fall forward. He could not even bring his arms or hands up to protect his broken nose that slammed into the dirt; Bowen’s short sprint turned into a diving face plant to the ground.
Deputy Styles was in no hurry. He slowly walked around the scooter and over to Bowen whose body twitched until the five-second cycle ended. Styles could have turned it off sooner. But he both wanted to get closer to Bowen and tire him out so that there would not be much fight left in him.
“Place your hands out to your sides, palm up. Fail to comply will result in another voltage cycle. Do you understand?”
Bowen nodded his head.
“Do it now.”
Styles knelt and grabbed the closest wrist before twisting it into an arm bar behind Bowen’s back before kneeling on the suspects back. Bowen felt the cold steel of the handcuff going around one wrist then the other before the deputy yanked him to his feet.
As the deputy walked him back to the unit Bowen watched several other marked cars racing to the scene along with a couple of official-looking but not marked vehicles. Bowen felt a genuine stomach-wrenching fear as the cars skidded to a stop. Not that he’d been caught but that he would be unable to get back in-world; the place he wanted to go to more than anything right now.
Pushed into the backseat prisoner compartment, Bowen bit his lips and counted the unmarked cars. How had they found him so quickly? Did Haus get caught and give him up?
There was someone he did recognize. A different dread emerged as the woman he and Haus took hostage the evening before stepped from one of the cars. She wore different clothes, a flight suit it looked like, and her hair was wet. Just like the Asian man also in a flight suit walking with her. The second man in a dark suit and sunglasses walked on her other side. Both men had an official air about them.
Bowen was glad he was in the closed vehicle. There was no telling what that crazy bitch might do. She walked up to the window and stared at him then nodded to the two with her. They motioned for to her to return to their car. She frowned back at Bowen before bringing her left index finger and middle finger in front of her eyes in a “V” shape. Mia pointed the tips towards her eyes before rotating her hand and pointing them at Bowen.
Mia folded her index finger and rotated her middle finger into the air. She held it in front of the car window for a moment before pounding it into the glass with a thump. The young man jumped back, afraid that she might try to open the door and get at him. Handcuffed and seat belted he would not be able to defend himself.
Mia turned and walked back to the car she rode in to the scene. After she sat down, the men outside ripped open his door. Bowen glared up at them.
“Mr. Bowen, I am Agent Calum, and this is Agent Wu from the FBI’s Metaverse Crimes Team, you have the right to remain silent...”
Calum finished giving the Miranda Warning, then paused. He looked around, first at the young woman sitting in his car then to the Deputies and FBI Agents milling around. Finally, his eyes locked on the scared young man with the two black eyes and swollen, disfigured nose that bled again from the impact.
Calum pushed the sunglasses to the top of his head. “It’s unfortunate for you that you took up with Mr. Lindel, AKA Graybeard.”
Bowen was a Crewmen through and through, and proud of it. “I’m a loyal member of the Crewmen. I would never work with that scum.”
“I’m afraid Graybeard has misled you into believing he was Haus in the real world. Even now the actual Haus is in the Dead Zone helping us to isolate and delay Graybeard there for his crimes here, the ones you helped him commit.” The Asian agent said.
“You’re saying this whole time in the real world I have been working with Graybeard? That Haus is still in the zone fighting the fight?”
Wu nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Bowen trembled, both in fear and rage. The FBI Agents stared at him, staying quiet.
After a moment, Calum broke the silence. “We’d like your assistance in bringing Graybeard to justice for the killing of Christopher Harvey—”
“I didn’t kill him, or help get him killed. I don’t know who that is.”
“That’s why it’s in your interest to help us,” Wu said.
Christopher Harvey? Graybeard? None of it made sense to Bowen; he was working with Haus, or so he thought.
“Right now, Haus is helping us in the zone, if you want to help him and indeed operate with him, then you need to work with us out here; Graybeard, AKA Jerry Lindel is our primary target, help us get him and you help yourself,” Calum said.
Bowen stomped his feet and shook his head. “Stupid motherfucker, stupid, stupid motherfucker…” He realized he had left his friend and the only world he could relate to and inadvertently helped a sworn enemy. One who got him to almost kill an innocent person.
Everything that he craved was now lost; he had become another casualty of Graybeard.
Unlike the simulation adventure, this really was for keeps.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Andy dropped into the elevator landing next to Anderson. The noise of the thing would be ear-splitting without their helmets. Andy peered down the short corridor to the vault door that had been cut open by Keith and David, their spent torches still there along with a lot of cut up metal.
“What the hell is going on down there?”
“We’ve got DEVO’s down here it sounds like, but we can’t see them.”
“Need me to come down?”
“No, Logan. I need you to cut us a way out. If the DEVO’s wake up, we’re going to need it sooner than later.”
“Roger.”
Logan clipped his safety line onto another support beam above him as he moved the cable ascender onto the elevator cables.
The creature screeching was sure to wake up the others if something wasn’t done and fast. Andy thought it weird that it seemed so close but wasn’t coming at them.
“Follow me,” Andy said.
The two made their way from the elevator toward the vault, both held their rifles at the ready. The shrieking grew louder as they approached; it was very close and just ahead.
Entering the vault, they still didn’t see it, but the noise was emanating from behind the heavy-duty iron shelving sitting in the middle of the room holding gold bars, more than Andy could count.
“Holy shit, sir. Look at all that bling.”
“Stay focused; these things can leap. I’m wondering why it hasn’t shown itself, no doubt our fresh flesh is driving it mad.”
Angling around the shelving Andy soon had his answer. There laying on the other side of the stacks of gold was a hideous looking thing shrieking at them. It dragged itself forward with one arm. The other arm and both of its legs were broke
n and twisted. But what shocked both team members even more than the sight of the gruesome thing were the torn remnants of a tanker suit, the same type and color as the ones in which they were clothed; most shocking were the Voracious Soldiers patches.
“David?” Andy gasped.
Terribly scarred and disfigured from his injuries, the thing gave no hint of recognition for Andy. It clacked its teeth, shrieked and tried to move towards him. The blond hair was the only thing unchanged. The scars the DEVO’s inflicted on him were fresh; a pale greenish membrane stretched over his musculature.
Anderson glimpsing his future if he were taken had to fight down the panic. Andy didn’t think it was possible, he thought for sure the 40mm thermobaric-tipped HE round would have kept the transformation from happening, there shouldn’t have been enough left of David for it to occur. Maybe his body was blown clear in the explosion and was intact enough to rise.
Andy pulled his eyes from the former Victor Sierra and studied the immediate area. Hides of rats here and there were all that remained of the rodents he had been catching and eating.
“I bet he fell down the shaft from the penthouse access.”
“Wouldn’t that have killed him?”
Andy stared at the newbie in disbelief.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”
“We have to destroy it before it wakes the other DEVO’s.”
“Should I shoot it?”
“No that will wake the DEVO’s for sure. The report and the explosive round going off will reverberate all the way up the shaft.”
Andy stared at the screeching clacking creature. As much as he wanted to feel sympathy he could not. He knew what he was about to do was for the best.
“Grab some cord out of my pack; it’s in the outer pocket.”
Anderson moved behind Andy and quickly retrieved the utility cord.
“Get behind it. I’ll move my hand towards its face and when it starts biting at me, drop the rope around its open mouth and shove your boot down on its back so it can’t twist around.”
The creature shrieked and tried to move again.
“Can’t we just shoot it?”
“Hurry the fuck up, Probie, before we have a thousand of these things to deal with!”
“Roger.”
Anderson moved around behind the creature while Andy extended his hand out toward it. The gruesome thing started clacking its teeth, opening its jaw wide and attempting to launch at Andy, anxious for a mouthful.
“Now!”
Anderson swung the cord around the thing’s mouth. He pulled back hard locking the rope against the creature’s cheeks or what was left of them at the corners of its mouth as he pushed his boot into its back between the shoulder blades then pulled back. The thing’s head arched back, and it tried to twist around as it shook and jerked trying to turn over.”
“Pull up harder!”
Anderson pulled up with all his might. He thought for sure the thing’s neck would snap, but all it did was hiss, and jerk as it tried to reach behind its back and claw at him with its good hand.
A brilliant light filled the vault. Anderson gasped at the site of Andy plunging the cutting torch into the thing’s throat. As soon as he touched it, the head snapped back. In another second, it pulled free from the body in a burst of blood shooting from the stump about where its Adam’s Apple had been.
Anderson stepped back flinging the head to the side as flaming skull clacked a few more times biting down on the cord as it rolled away. Anderson dropped the rope. He was horrified at what he just participated in. He thought destroying DEVO’s would be fun. After all, it was just an adventure in a simulation. The realism made it so much more than that, however. What he just participated in was sickening.
No matter how many times he reminded himself during intensely stressful times that none of it was real; his eyes and other senses told him, no convinced him that it was otherwise. That was the whole point of the full emersion technology.
He felt the struggles of the thing, heard the awful sounds it made; its blood splattered him when the head separated from the neck. Like most adventurers, the more time he spent in the sim, the less he could distinguish it from real life. The real world itself now a distant memory, more like a distant dimension, another place whose reality competed with what he now experienced. The location his body, sense’s and psyche occupied in the simulation became Anderson’s reality. It was not one that he was sure he cared for now despite the huge rush the adventure provided.
Andy killed the torch. “Only two ways to destroy these things, separate its head or brain from its body or blow it up so that it’s in pieces, even then they can still bite and claw. Remember what your role is here and how this is a struggle between them and us. It will get easier, trust me. Keep your head in the game newbie and remember we just did our former brethren a favor.”
“Was he trying to get the gold? What’s a DEVO going to do with it?” Anderson took a couple of deep breaths and tried to focus and not vomit, something that would be a disaster in the H-pod. Fortunately, the Nutrient mitigated that with anti-nausea compounds interlaced into the liquid sustenance.
“I think after he transformed, he still had some memory left. He probably didn’t know why but found himself drawn back here. Terrible to think about rising as one of these things then have some vague memories; maybe even thinking you are going to get help.”
“If it ever gets that bad, shoot me.”
“You’ll have to do that yourself; if it’s that bad, I’ve already checked out.”
As if to punctuate that last statement, gunfire from the subbasement above them reverberated through the elevator shaft and down into the vault. The excited voice of Hicks came over the comms.
“Sir, we have a problem up here!”
“Who’s engaged?” Logan asked before Andy could.
“The Outfitters are, sir! They’re acting all crazed. The DEVO’s shrieking made them even weirder, sir.” Screeching and more gunfire echoed through the subbasement and shafts.
“Where are they now?” Andy jumped in.
“They are running around, thinking there are DEVO’s everywhere. They took off.”
“Shit, they are gonna end up back in the Galleria. They will wake the DEVO’s for sure.” Logan said.
“Do you want me to go after them?”
“Negative, Hicks. Stand guard there, if you see DEVO’s coming do not engage, you won’t have enough ammo. Set a flare then get into the shaft with Logan. Anderson and I are going to start bagging up the gold, at least what we can carry. Then we’re going to beat feet out of here. Logan, I need that egress hole cut.” Andy commanded.
“Roger, preparing to climb now.”
Logan finished testing the ascender by hanging from it while another safety line was attached to a rail support beam jutting out from the shaft. Satisfied that it was secure, he released the safety line and powered up the ascender.
The battery powered machine could lift 400 pounds at 100 feet a minute. It could both climb cables, as it was configured to do now, or raise or lower loads.
Logan squeezed the throttle, and he shot up the elevator shaft. After about sixty feet, he stopped. Craning his neck, he finally saw a marking, “L-2.” He squeezed the throttle slightly and went up until he came across another marker, “L-3.”
Logan grasped the handheld torch clipped to the front of his vest so as not to drop it and to be able to quickly find it. He consulted the floor plans of the building. The side he was on looked to be adjacent to a hallway in an office space. Logan wondered about the lighting. The construction on the exterior was all glass, meaning that the mid-afternoon sun would be angling into it. The question was if that light would be in the hallway or the spaces nearby? If it was, it should be relatively clear of DEVO’s. If it was dark in there… things would get ugly.
The wall radars they sometimes used could not penetrate the steel lining. It was a crap shoot. Logan knew it was not very far to the windows
of the building that surrounded it so there would not be a lot of the creatures. In any event, he would know in another half minute as he lit the torch.
Cutting into the wall, Logan held his breath. The metal fell away into the interior of the wall, and as he expected the cutting tool also burned through the plaster wall lining the hallway, supported by metal support studs spaced every sixteen inches. He leaned away from the small hole he had just cut, not wanting to be grabbed by anything.
Logan turned off his infrared light and listened. Nothing. Next, he peered into the hole. There was light. That meant no DEVO’s. He immediately got to work cutting out a large enough hole for the team to get through, including cutting out one of the studs as well as electrical lines running through the wall. Fortunately, there were no pipes, not that they would have slowed the torch down much anyway. Logan went through all of one cutting torch and most of a second. The thermite torches could cut through a lot, but they burned out quickly.
Kicking out the rest of the plaster wall that had not burned and crumbled from the torch Logan stepped out into the hallway. What he saw gave him pause. Right in front of him were two doors about eight feet apart on the other side. They were bathrooms and interior rooms; no doubt filled with DEVO’s. The light in the hallway while significant was not terribly bright. He checked his right and the sunlight angling in from the west. The sun would get lower on that side and shine in, at least until the skyscraper across the street completely shaded it.
Logan gulped, that would soon make it dark enough for the creatures. He thought there could be anywhere from one to two dozen in each bathroom. They would have to watch those doors carefully. Another thought entered his mind, how many closed doors between here and the stairwell? At least the stairs in this building have windows. But then there was the lobby, more closed doors, and other dark spaces. At least if things went to plan, they would not have to go through the entryway.
The sporadic gunfire and growing shrieking below reminded Logan of the one overarching issue that made working “Downtown” so dangerous. The later it got, the fewer options they had. One thing that the team had no flexibility with, something they were all keenly aware of, was that they needed to be miles away once the sun got low enough. They needed to be back to the Line, or damn close by the time the sun set.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 34
