The New Authority Conspiracy
Part I
I woke up running.
As illogical as that seemed, the fact that someone was shooting at me made stopping to consider the situation carefully a waste of time. I concentrated on moving my feet.
My arms felt heavy. Someone was holding me upright. Two people in fact. A man, taller than myself, with sharp blue eyes, a slight beard and a narrow, severe face hauled me along by my left arm, while a woman, shorter than me but stout, with beautiful olive skin and firm hands did likewise on my right.
I stared hard at their faces. Both of them flashed protective/terror when they looked at me, which indicated they were heavily invested in my survival, and fairly convinced the likelihood of it was doubtful.
A third man came into view. He’d been following us, holding a weapon of some kind pointed down the hallway, covering our escape. He fired liberally, and with some skill, which was encouraging.
“Down there, down!” he said, pointing.
The two people supporting me obeyed, and we scrambled down a flight of stairs.
Metal stairs.
Leading to an… ocean? I tasted sea salt and humid air.
My legs felt stronger. “I can walk.”
The man holding my left arm released me and lifted his own weapon, training it toward our clear escape route.
The woman seemed less inclined to let me go and kept a firm grasp on my arm.
We hurled down the stairs and I saw blood drops splattered on the metal beneath my feet. But it wasn’t coming from me. The man who had held my left arm limped from a jagged wound above his knee. Based on the amount of blood he was losing, there was no chance he would survive unless he received medical attention.
A sizzling sound followed by an explosion at the top of the stairs told me that medical care was not an available option, and I felt sudden sadness for the man. He would be dead in a matter of minutes.
We reached the bottom. The metal stairway led to a corroded platform, red with rust and stained from years of neglect. The platform gurgled as dark water lapped beneath it, and I realized it hung over the ocean. Some sort of dock?
The bleeding man stopped and stared at the water. “Where’s the boat?”
The woman collapsed to her knees beside me. “Oh no.” She sobbed.
This wasn’t encouraging.
“What do we do?” asked the bleeding man. “We have to get her out of here.”
By ‘her’, he meant me. Presumably, our grim circumstances were on my behalf.
The second man, a tall, square-jawed individual, lowered his weapon and considered the situation.
He looked down at the water with glazed eyes. Defeat/shame flashed on his face and I suffered temporary cynicism.
“How far are we from shore?” I asked.
The three of them looked at me, astonished.
“You remember?” asked the woman.
I shrugged one shoulder. “No. Can we swim?”
“Not that far,” said the woman.
Clattering sounds coming from the stairs announced the arrival of our pursuers. My three rescuers turned to look back and their collective expression shifted from dread/shock to horror/panic. Utter silence, and then, the platform beneath my feet reeled.
Water geysered up in an exploding column of blue-green and I soared an alarming distance through the air. The ocean swallowed me with a gulp, and pain drew my attention to my left shoulder. A huge fragment of the platform had snagged my clothing. Hundreds of kilos of twisted steel pulled me down.
I assessed my surroundings.
Wreckage from the explosion splashed into the water above my head. I could feel the shockwave punch of pressure as each heavy object hit the surface, sending a jolt through the gloom.
Since I couldn’t breathe underwater it seemed prudent to get out of it quickly, and then decide what to do next.
I felt along my shoulder and realized the jagged metal hadn’t penetrated my skin and was only caught on my shirt. Hopefully I would be strong enough to tear the fabric free.
The bleeding man shot across my blurry vision, swimming at an amazing speed toward open water. His forward progress halted abruptly and a bloom of red blood followed the sudden flash of a white fin. The sleek form of a shark came into focus and it shook him violently, killing him almost instantly.
A second shark darted in, intent on sharing the meal.
I tore my shirt free of the metal and gave a single kick. My lungs were full of air and the buoyancy carried me up.
A frenzy of activity erupted below as a third shark brushed by my feet, headed for the feast, and prompted in me an urgent desire to get out of the water.
In spite of a primal impulse to escape the danger beneath, I stopped just short of the surface and squinted through the greenish water to see if it was safe to proceed. A murky shape bobbed overhead.
The woman floated on the surface above me, limp. Her mouth hung open, gaping lifelessly. For some reason, this sent a pang of grief and sadness through me that was unexplainable. Had I known these people?
Memory was not something I seemed to have any access to at the moment, so I decided to focus my energy on staying alive.
Considering the sacrifices made for my benefit in the last five minutes, doing anything other than fighting for survival seemed ungrateful.
I changed direction and angled my ascent away from the open water and back toward the remains of the platform. My face broke the surface, and thankfully, shredded steel protruding from the bottom of the stairs shielded me from view. Movement and activity above prevented me from climbing out of the sea, which was something I very much wanted to do, and I was forced to tread water until the sound of booted feet retreating at a run told me I was finally alone.
Unfortunately I didn’t seem to possess any superhuman abilities, and struggling out of the ocean to the remnants of the platform took almost all of my strength. All I could do was lie there, heaving, deliberately not looking at the activity in the water while my body recovered. When I could stand up again there was only one avenue of escape.
Climbing the stairs one by one made me feel uncomfortably vulnerable, and with each step, I anticipated meeting a large group of heavily armed individuals who doubtless wanted to kill me.
It came as a surprise when I met no one.
I followed the blood trail back to the hallway where I had first regained awareness and walked until it divided into two corridors. One angled upward to the right, while the other went on, straight ahead.
I studied the floor. Many boots had tracked blood across the surface heading straight, but not one sign of a single scuffmark or drop of red could be seen in the corridor toward the right. It looked completely untouched.
That made my next decision easier. I veered right and hurried along the deserted corridor, breathing through my nose and trying to make as little noise as possible.
It was then I realized my feet were bare. The floor felt cold, but not dangerously so, and, though it was uncomfortable, at least I could move silently.
Abruptly the corridor ended in a short flight of stairs that seemed to lead toward a bright light. I stopped and listened.
A row of lights snaked along the ceiling, but it was obvious they hadn’t worked for a very long time. There was no hum of power, no whirr of sound accompanying a working building, and that told me this was an abandoned structure. Therefore the light ahead would most likely be coming from the sun.
I carelessly hurried up the stairs, went through an open door, and blundered straight into a squad of no less
than ten men. Inconceivably, all of them had their backs to me.
All but one.
The man blinked surprise when he saw me, and his face flashed shock/recognition.
This person knew me.
Well, that made one of us.
I stood there, debating my chances of escape if I made a move to run, or if backing away slowly was the better option.
Before his companions noticed my arrival the man motioned toward his left with a subtly pointed finger and gave a slight nod. The implication was obvious. Hide. That way.
Incredibly, he was helping me.
I stumbled sideways in the direction he’d indicated and saw an old nylon sheet draped over a railing draped into a kind of tent. I managed to crouch behind the flapping sheet between the rail and the nylon and tucked my knees to my chest to reduce my profile.
The nylon was black, therefore opaque, and it would shield me from view. I held my breath and listened.
“I see one of them,” said a voice.
“Where?” asked another.
“Over there, by the dock column. It’s the woman. She’s dead.”
I listened as the squad shuffled collectively around the railing and stopped.
“I see her.”
“The man is bait. There’s nothing left of him.”
“How many were we dispatched to locate?” asked the first voice.
There was a pause, then the sound of an electronic ping.
“We had orders to eliminate, and I’m quoting here, ‘a small band’, and that’s all it says.”
“Jeck, we’ve got a swimmer!”
The feet scrambled again and headed back toward their original location.
Jeck responded. “Where?”
“Out approximately twenty-five meters. He’s in open water.”
“I see him. Get me confirmation of kill with vid.”
A piercing explosion followed a whooshing sound. Then sudden silence.
“Confirmed,” said one of the men.
My wet hair fell across my face as I dropped my head.
Whoever they had been, all three of my companions were now dead. A single tattered sheet of nylon separated me from the same fate. My hands should have been shaking, but they were curiously steady.
It occurred to me the reason the squad had left the stairwell and come up to the top was to have a better view of the water. From above, it would be easier to see someone trying to escape by swimming away. Clearly, these men had weapons that were effective even at a great distance from their target.
Running would be pointless.
“That’s three, correct?” asked the man named Jeck.
“Three. Confirmed.”
I sensed a heaviness followed by a thump as a man dropped to the ground directly on the other side of the sheeting where I crouched. “Three constitutes a ‘small band,’ wouldn’t you say?” he asked.
“It could be considered that, yes,” replied Jeck.
“I think we can call this mission,” said the man. Based on his proximity to my hiding place, he was clearly the same individual who had instructed me to hide.
He positioned himself directly in front of me, not an arm’s length away, either intending to shield me from his comrades or call attention to my hiding place due to second thoughts about his rash decision to lend aid.
The next few seconds would establish which.
His voice sounded hopeful. “Do we call it?”
“Did you check the stairs?” Jeck asked.
“It’s deserted.”
Jeck took a very long time to respond. “All right. Call it.”
The disposition of the squad changed almost instantly. Someone spoke into a communication device and the garbled reply suggested a transport of some kind was coming. Laughter and chatter replaced the previous quiet determination of the men, and, from the sounds they made, it was obvious they would be gone in a matter of minutes.
I felt an emotion akin to relief but tempered by apprehension. I couldn’t help but notice I had no communication device, and no boat would be whisking me away when the ordeal was over. After these men left, I would be trapped here.
“Too bad we can’t stay awhile,” said my unlikely collaborator.
“Why would you want to stay here?” asked Jeck, incredulous.
“It’s nice. Peaceful, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say Skee is due for cranial trauma evaluation,” someone remarked.
I felt the nylon move.
Skee, the man sitting in front of me, had positioned something on the corner of the sheeting, effectively pinning it down. I could see a round bulge protruding on my side and heard zippers opening rapidly, telling me that he was busy rummaging through a heavy pack.
Why was he doing this? How could he know me when I didn’t even know myself?
Considering the situation, I was fully prepared to let those questions go unanswered and accept whatever assistance I could get.
“A man could stay here for two or three days, no problem,” Skee said, “aside from the lack of water. But with a filter, a couple of meal pills, and a thermal, just picture it.”
There was another long pause.
“Is he fighting with his girlfriend again?”
Skee droned on. “Imagine the stars. Well, probably be too cold on the deck after sunset, but what a sunset!”
“There’s the airship.”
I heard the thrum of big engines overhead as the airship approached. It throttled back and the deck shuddered when it set down. My fragile hiding place stayed where it was because Skee seemed to be standing on the corners of the sheeting, holding it in place. A tactically prudent gesture, considering the amount of blowback produced by the airship as it landed.
The engines slowed to a low hum.
Skee moved off the nylon and clattering sounds surprised me as the contents of his pack spilled across the deck noisily.
“Dammit. Right behind you!” he called out.
I perceived the sounds of booted feet proceeding to the airship.
He dropped to his knees and fumbled with the spilled items, repacking them as he whispered.
“Lock yourself in the bathroom at night. Don’t drink the water on the base. It’s contaminated. Stay off the deck.”
He stood up, kicked a green canvas bag under the nylon sheet, and was gone.
I put my hands on the corners of the nylon and held it down, anticipating blowback.
The airship powered up its big engines and roared away, creating a hurricane of wind as it departed.
I stayed in place for a full two minutes to make certain they were not returning. Then I considered my situation.
The canvas bag sat beside my foot. Ostensibly this was a gift intended to aid me. I stared at it, thinking.
Skee. Either that was his name or his tag while on duty. How I knew this was a mystery, but the information felt correct, somehow. Still, it meant nothing to me so I did not waste any time wondering about it.
What had he said? He’d called this place a base, so likely it was an old enforcement facility.
Had this been a professional civilian structure it would not be abandoned, it would be dismantled and recycled.
It wasn’t clear to me how I knew those things, but the data was inside my head somewhere.
Then I considered the group of men. They wore dusty green clothing and I knew that meant they were officers. Green indicated involvement in some form of enforcement, but only a select few of those individuals were armed. That made this group of men rare, expensive, and highly trained. So this mission was important.
By extension, that made finding me important.
And considering what had happened to my three companions, being found was something to be avoided.
The green bag was heavy when I picked it up. It was only about the length of my forearm but weighed more than two liters of water. Whatever it contained was all that stood between certain death and me. I held it tightly.
Skee h
ad told his comrades that a man could find it pleasant to spend two or three days here, provided he was outfitted with a water filter and a source of heat. An idiot could have guessed that he was instructing me to use the bag to sustain myself until someone came to retrieve me, and he’d given me an estimation of how long the rescue could take.
Two or three days here were endurable. But, where was here, exactly?
I stood up cautiously and scanned the horizon.
Uninterrupted ocean waves lapped for kilometers in all directions. Not a speck of land was visible.
Sunset was still a few hours away, and with no darkness to shield me from view, the danger of being discovered was high.
Skee’s instructions had been clear.
My first priority was to locate the bathroom and get out of sight. I needed to get below the deck and do it quickly.
Both the main hallway and the small corridor I’d used went down to the docking platform, or what was left of it. This was why I’d blundered upon the men and why they hadn’t bothered worrying about the smaller hallway as an avenue of escape. Any survivors moving through the hallway, or the corridor, would have been funneled to the deck and soon discovered.
Ostensibly the men had searched the corridor before leaving, and if I had attempted to hide there, I would have been easily eliminated.
Fortunately, I’d opted to move.
Heading back down where I’d come from was pointless. I needed to get into the main operation center of the base, not back to the dock.
Opposite from where I stood, at the far end of the deck, another door stood partially open and I hurried through it. Some instinct told me it was prudent to get out of sight.
The door led down a long sloping hallway devoid of handrails, and it looked like a cargo ramp. Eventually, the ramp emptied into what was obviously the main level and living quarters of the base, and, after a quick examination, I found the bathroom.
It was impossible to miss.
The entrance consisted of two swinging blast doors that were at least a meter thick. They stood slightly ajar, and when I pulled them open they swung with ease, obviously constructed to move quickly in spite of their massive weight.
Inside it reminded me of a siege room.
The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1) Page 1
