Midnight Zone: a Cade Rearden Thriller

by JK Franks

  “Do it.” He came up firing at the spot of ugly terrain he’d memorized and felt the impact as a massive round punched him in the shoulder. The armored Battlesuit absorbed most of the round’s kinetic energy, but the seven percent that got through was enough to throw him backward and possibly dislocate that shoulder. Pain ripped through him as his vision began to narrow. He was about to have bigger issues, though, as the antithesis of stealth stirred to life. Oh, shit…he thought, before relinquishing control to the long silent barbarian.

  The pain in Cade’s shoulder faded to the background as he quickly rose, and feet began to pump faster than he thought possible. The gun was firing, and Cade realized it was for effect; many of the rounds were only to produce smoke, making it harder for the shooter to find his mark. Brutus covered the distance faster than should have been possible. Through Cade’s head’s-up, he could see the other three members of his team moving quickly to the south.

  Hey, Gus, you think this fool has a plan? Cade asked internally.

  Gus gave the equivalent of a mental shrug, Did you?

  One of Cade’s legs bent back at a sharp angle, and he felt a tendon pull. A glancing impact from another round. Brutus let that leg drag awkwardly as he slowed to within meters of the sniper’s hide. Through a fog of pain and the acknowledgement that he wasn’t the one driving, he still couldn’t make out the target. But he did see a splatter of blood on the mottled gray rocks. Jesus, where is this guy?

  With a roar, Brutus put the assault rifle on full auto and painted the ground with shots. So much for taking the shooter alive, Gus said, the internal voice offering a hint of amusement at the predicament.

  Suddenly, Cade saw the ground move and noticed a crease between what appeared to be differing rock layers. Then a spray of blood erupted literally out of the ground.

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, cowboy. I think you got him, big guy.

  Brutus’s bloodlust temporarily satisfied, he stepped back into his cage, leaving Cade to deal fully with the agony of the wounds. His leg gave out, and he dropped beside the combatant. He could see it was a guy. Young, with a very slight build. The boy’s chest was moving up and down erratically. Even right on top of him, Cade could still barely make him out. The sniper had not been under any device. No Antarctic mountain version of a Ghillie suit, even. The kid just had some sort of tactical body suit on that blended seamlessly with the surroundings, and he’d taken care to color his hair, weapon, and face with a complex pattern that blended almost perfectly. It reminded him of an artist he’d seen on TV who could paint himself into the background of nearly any scene. This kid was better, he wasn’t just an artist—his camouflage was perfect. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t bulletproof. The would-be killer looked up, took one more breath, and was gone.

  44

  Caribbean

  Kissa was having another of the borderline panic attacks. This was not just uncharacteristic for him, but unheard of, at least until the last few days. His hands gripped the deck rail hard as he stared out toward the approaching beast. His black skin shimmered with perspiration as he tried his best to settle his nerves. “You are a warrior, a champion. Pull it together, man,” he whispered as more of a prayer than a command.

  “Bottom contact!” Micah yelled from below deck. “Something coming back up, not the…um, big ass thing again.”

  The ‘big ass’ thing. The thing that should not exist, Kissa thought. The spaceship, that’s what it has to be. That’s what it looked like. We’re out here in my ocean battling alien monsters. Is that their mother ship? How many of the beasts could be inside that thing? Is that where they took Thera? The thoughts kept coming, feeding his panic until he was paralyzed to do anything but stare at the fast-approaching v-shaped wake.

  “Hundred yards,” Trondo yelled as he turned the boat sharply away from the approaching danger.

  “Get us out of here.” Sergeant Coffee had stepped beside Kissa, but the islander was so focused on the creature he hadn’t noticed. “Captain, permission to engage.”

  From somewhere below, a frustrated Nance said, “Negative. We’ve been ordered to get a more complete tissue sample.” She stepped up the short ladder onto the main deck. “If this thing is something everyone thought was extinct, then killing it would make us the monsters.”

  “And if it attacks?” Coffee asked.

  Still agitated, she nodded, “If it tries to eat us, you have my permission to fire to wound, but not to kill. Micah is working on some sort of tool to retrieve the sample.”

  Coffee had no idea how he was supposed to know where to shoot to wound, but not kill, this abomination. “Shit,” he said seeing the humped back breaking the waterline now. Damn, that thing is big. He centered the rifle scope just ahead of the disturbance and allowed the weapon’s KillPoint software to take over tracking and targeting. Reluctantly, he said, “Dee, you have control.” In doing so, he relinquished firing authority as well as ammo choice to the little AI. Let her figure out what to do. Putting his own safety and that of his team in the hands of a computer felt wrong to him. It went against years of training and all of his actual combat experience, but this was the world he was in now.

  Coffee felt himself already beginning to get the shakes and sensed the oncoming headache. Glancing to his left, he saw Kissa was on his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his head. Kissa seemed even more susceptible to the effect than the rest of them.

  “Got it,” Micah said, coming up beside them just as a short tentacle broke the water and a pulsing bluish light could be seen just beneath the creature. The light silhouetted the animal, giving them a more complete vision of the approaching horror.

  “A speargun?” Nance asked. “Not that high tech.”

  “We just need some blood or skin or whatever. I changed the barb so it will pull out a piece of flesh when it comes out. We just have to get it in…” Micah dropped the weapon and fell suddenly to the deck unconscious.

  Captain Nance looked at Coffee. Then she, too, seemed to lose control of her muscles and collapsed. Still focused on the beast, Coffee took in what was going on. “Trondo, buddy, get us the hell out of here.” The boat's pilot, only a few feet away, gave no indication that he’d heard him.

  Sergeant Willy Coffee was pretty sure he was the most frightened person on this boat, yet he was the only one still functioning. He disliked water, was a lousy swimmer, and despised anything slightly reminiscent of a B-movie horror film. Growing up, his brother and older cousins had made him watch every gruesome, terrifying movie they could find, only to mock him afterward.

  The pain in his head suddenly intensified just as the KillPoint target acquisition scope flashed red, then green. The rifle had an optimal firing solution. All he had to do was hold the gun steady and keep it pointed in the general direction. The gun barked twice as it fired at some predetermined point on the animal’s body. The tentacle was fast approaching the side of the boat, which took that precise moment to drop speed to idle.

  Through the pain, Coffee could see Trondo’s body had slumped forward, knocking the throttle into neutral. “Oh, fuck.” The one tentacle was now joined by several more, all coming over the edge of the rear deck. The pain in his head was taking over, and he felt a line of drool crawling down his chin. He still held the rifle, but idly saw it pointed uselessly toward the sky. The world slipped sideways as he dropped to a knee, and then the deck came up and slapped him in the face.

  Coffee’s eyes were focused ten feet away from where Micah and his captain lay. Shit, this is it. This is where the monster takes its prize. He wasn’t the hero in this shit of a movie; he was going to be unnamed victim number four. Then he saw a dark, bare foot hit the deck between him and the boy. He saw a hand reaching down for something. Seconds later, he heard gunfire, then a tentacle hovered overhead, the end of which looked like a bloody curved blade. Then, nothing but darkness.

  45

  The rocking of the boat was one of the few sensations Kissa could still register. The pain i
n his head was overwhelming almost all other senses. The sunlight seemed blinding, and muted voices sounded like they were coming to him from underwater. Is the ship sinking? Am I dead? He was only vaguely aware of the large, black man standing above him firing out at the ocean. Then, the gigantic man was also lying on the deck.

  He knew he had to get up. He needed to fight back against whatever this was, but he couldn’t exactly remember why. Why am I out here? Who are these other people? The answers seemed to be swimming just out of reach, occasionally rising to the surface, only to disappear in another flash of intense pain. This pain was growing familiar to him now, not any less intense, but he knew it reached a point where it would not hurt any worse. Memories...swimming…why?

  Slowly, Kissa’s muddled brain found one of those memories that was sharper, more intense than all the others. A name maybe…no, a woman, maybe a friend. Thera! It came to him in a flash and was gone again just as quickly. The afterimage of her face floated there in his near unconscious mind. She was why they were here, she was more than a friend. A spark of something latched onto that memory. It fed his resolve and determination. As he rose back up to his knees, he felt the nausea rushing up his throat. Vomit spewed across the deck, but the action forced his eyes to open wide. The scene playing out around him was the stuff of nightmares.

  The woman and boy lay close together a few yards away. Both appeared dead. The Indian soldier was falling out of the pilot’s chain, also unconscious. It took Kissa several seconds to realize what else he was seeing. The nightmare creature was perched along the aft deck of the boat like some evil phantasm. Its underside pulsating a rhythm in that strange blue light, he now saw that most of the tentacles were holding knives. No, that wasn’t right. Just the larger ones, maybe eight that were much longer than the others, and it wasn’t knives. It was claws. “Well, shit!” he said rising unsteadily to his feet.

  “The Cthulian-looking beast is going to fucking eat us,” Kissa whispered, not wanting to draw the creature’s attention. He stepped over the large man who he recalled had a funny name, and as he did so, he took the weapon that the man still held. “I need this, brother.”

  Looking at the speargun lying beside the boy, he knew that would’ve done no good. Not on this monster. The pain in his head surged, causing him to double over and wretch again. The monster had spotted him. The pulsating light was stronger and faster now. Slowly, he stepped toward it, other memories crystallized out of the darkness of pain. His training, studying large marine creatures, swimming with Thera, and the ruins of dead fish in the wake of the beast the prior day. The scientist part of him was battling with the former soldier wanting revenge. Could they ever understand this thing, and more importantly, could he kill it?

  The flashing lights were a weapon. That much was clear. The pain was strongest when the animal looked at him, and it flashed brighter. What does that tell me? “Think, Kissa, think!”

  It, it…damn it, what? It’s not defensive, so maybe it was to stun prey. Deep ocean creatures use bioluminescent to communicate, attract mates, or signal danger. Could it be doing any of those things now? The animal pulled itself completely out of the water and onto the deck, smashing a mounted chair in the process. Kissa felt the large boat tilt backward under the intense weight. A tentacled arm swept overhead, and as he pointed the weapon up, it began to fire on its own. The rounds neatly severed the scythe-looking claw and attached tentacle. Nice gun, he thought idly.

  Now the squid-creature was enraged. The pulsing was even more ominous and threatening, if that was possible. The headache returned with what seemed like twice the original intensity. The light sensitivity, nausea, and all the other sensations landed on Kissa like a massive crushing weight. He’d known a soldier that suffered from intense migraines. The kid had stayed in the infirmary more often than he’d been in the bunkhouse. All had made fun of him, right up to the point they found him hanging from a towel in the showers. Kissa now knew, if this was the kind of pain that kid had faced, he would have taken his own life, too.

  No longer able to open his eyes, he felt the animal close enough to reach him now. Close enough to kill all of them if they weren’t already gone. Removing one of the arms hugging his head, he pointed it in the direction of the beast. Had his eyes not been clenched tight, he would have seen the optics on the targeting reticule flash green before a complex firing sequence began.

  Not killing the unique creature was no longer a viable mission. The weapon had communicated with the local submind called Dee, and the determination was to follow the mandate to preserve human life at any cost. A barrage of razor sharp flechette mixed with more traditional hollow-point 5.56 x 45 rounds tore into the animal's head and stitched a line through to the ridged spine. The little AI had made a guess that might be where a centralized nervous system would be.

  One of the rounds tore through a ganglion bundle, causing the animal to begin spasming violently. The deadly scythes whipped about, slamming down violently into boat decking and meat. To end the threat, Dee ordered the gun to use up the entire magazine of explosive rounds. The sound coming from the muzzle immediately changed as the slower ammo exited the rifle and embedded deep inside the creature, followed seconds later by muffled explosions of meat and gore. One blast tore most of the part that looked like a wing entirely off, and as the animal lost its fight to remain balanced on the stumpy legs, it began to topple over the edge of the boat.

  As the pain finally relented, Kissa opened his eyes to find the gun in his hands still firing at what remained of the monster. Strange looking blood that was more purple than red covered the back half of the deck along with claws, tentacles, and pieces of what must have been the body. “Damn,” he said. They had plenty of samples now. Then, the unmistakable sound of a proximity alarm began trilling. He’d heard it several times already. Whatever had been rising back up from the depths had arrived. He looked around at the others, noticing gaping wounds in more than one of the bodies. These people had tried to rescue him, and now he didn’t even know if they were alive. The pounding in his head was already receding to a faint echo, and he thought he heard sounds from a couple of the others letting him know at least some still lived. Whatever was coming next, he knew he had to do one thing first.

  46

  Antarctica

  Cade rolled the body over. The kid might be dead, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn something from him. Dee had already suggested he clean the camo makeup from his face, so she could run him through the facial matching algorithm.

  “Nothing so far, Nomad. A better than 70% chance he is of German or Austrian descent. A DNA swab could reveal that for certain,” Dee told him.

  Cade removed the swab kit, broke the seal, and took a cheek swab. He also ungloved the fingers and pressed them to the screen on his SmartCom. He would have also run a retinal scan using the same device, but one of the explosive rounds had burst most of the capillaries in both eyes. If Doris couldn’t ID him from the other items, then the kid was a ghost.

  He checked in with McTee and Alan while he waited on his Dee. They were making steady progress and feeling much better now that the shooting had stopped. “And, you’re welcome.” He decided not to comment on his own condition, as that was going to be his problem. The suit’s med pack was already easing the pain, but he knew he was going to have to do something about the wrenched knee. The shoulder could wait a bit.

  And the kid…was a ghost. “No match in any database, Nomad,” the very proper sounding Dee said, using the British voice he’d selected for her months earlier.

  “Well, shit.” Weird. Okay, what else could he find out? He inspected the weapon. It was a pretty generic high caliber sniper rifle. Serial numbers had been filed away. Ammo was also generic. He found one H&K VP9 compact pistol in a shoulder holster, several knives, and a length of wire wrapped around two carbon fiber handles. A garrote, this dude was a killer.

  Cade began removing the tight-fitting tactical suit. It was good stuff, maybe East
ern European. Nothing exotic, but the outer layer was fascinating. The coating literally mirrored whatever was on the reverse side of the wearer. He searched for a power source or a control but found neither. As he was peeling the suit off of the increasingly stiff body, Dee spoke up,

  “Stop Nomad.”

  He glanced quickly, looking for the problem.

  “Focus here,” she said, showing him a spot on the boy’s shoulder near his neck.

  He could just make out an irregularity in the pasty white skin. His goggles zoomed in to magnify and scan the region. “Is that some sort of design?”

  “I believe it is a tattoo,” Dee responded. “Perhaps one made to be visible only under certain light sources. Please hold the SmartCom up, and I will scan with alternating light patterns.”

  Cade did as instructed, and within seconds, he was looking at a bluish glowing design. “That looks tribal. What is it, some kind of sun design?”

  “It is very old, ancient. I believe it is similar to an old runic design. One called the ‘Black Sun.’ This particular one in ink that is visible only in the ultraviolet spectrum is rather unique.”

  “Black sun, is that significant? Does that help us know who may have sent him?”

  “Unknown, Captain. I had to forward it to The Cove for analysis, as I am limited here in what I can access,” Dee said.

  He finished removing the suit and saw no other marks, nothing at all that was helpful.

  “Doris said it is similar to the meaning of the Chinese Tao or Yin and Yang symbology.”

  “Oh, yeah, the swirly thing like the balance between light and dark?” Cade asked.

  “Similar, although this one may have an even longer lineage. It is a runic symbol with various interpretations throughout history, but often has numerous related meanings. This one essentially means ‘The Way’ and is known as the ‘Circle of Nothingness.’ Think of it as the Yin and Yang when light loses out completely to the dark,” Dee explained.