by Brad Knight
Ted heard another beep from the computers. He rushed over to read the incoming message.
“EVAC ETA 12 minutes. Clean up squad ETA 10 minutes. Rendezvous on South Las Vegas Boulevard. Be advised, wait until after Hellfire strike. Location: Los Angeles Facility - Christopher Granger.”
Fuck that. I’m not waiting. How can I pass up a chance to see Hellfire jets do their thing up close? Ted decided to leave. Before doing so, he had to destroy the lab. Any criminal knows that leaving behind evidence was a bad move.
Every Galatea Systems lab had measures installed to destroy the site. In the case of the Las Vegas lab, thermite bombs were planted. They were designed to explode, lighting the highly flammable substance and spreading it all over. With temperatures reaching heights of three thousand degrees Celsius, the powdered metal was more than capable of destroying everything in the facility.
The thermite bombs were embedded in the ceilings of the Las Vegas lab. That way they were guaranteed to cover the most ground when set off. It was an efficient means to vanish any evidence of wrong doing on Galatea’s part. Plus, it would prevent any rivals from gaining their information or technology.
Ted entered in the self-destruct commands and hurried towards the lab lobby. Though he had the ability to heal himself from almost any wound, thermite would reduce him to nothing. He needed to leave, and do so in a hurry.
Time to go. Ted entered the elevator car. He lifted himself up through the hole he stomped into the roof. The added strength in his legs didn’t give him enough power to jump all the way up to the shaft entrance, but it was enough for him to climb the cables.
It took a little time, but Ted managed to make it up to the entrance to the elevator shaft. All it cost him was some skin from his palms. Having made it up, he hurried through the backrooms and hallways of The Golden Pony. He headed towards the entrance. There he would have a front row seat to the Hellfire show.
Ted stood near the broken front windows of The Golden Pony. From there he could watch the jets fly in and drop their payloads onto the thousands of meat puppets that shuffled through the Strip. It would be glorious. It would also probably hurt. That was okay. Pain meant less and less to him as time went on. And it certainly wasn’t a deterrent.
In the distance, Ted could hear the roars of jet engines over the random screeches of meat puppets. He grinned. The CEO knew what he was about to witness. Each Hellfire jet carried updated versions of British blockbuster bombs. They combined high explosives with incendiary chemicals. Anything in their path was sure to be destroyed.
This should be good. Ted saw the lights of the Hellfire jets. It was only a matter of seconds before the fireworks. He was practically giddy at the idea of all that destruction. That was until his father tried to ruin it.
“How can you be excited, you little monster. They were people once. They had families once. They were loved. Unlike you. Is that why you can just stand by and gleefully watch? Are you bitter? Are you mad that I never loved you? Get over it, boy.” Thomas appeared on the opposite side of the broken glass. His green eyes stared at Ted, who tried to ignore it. But he couldn’t.
The Hellfire jets flew over South Las Vegas Boulevard, The Strip. As they passed over, high above, they dropped their loads of blockbuster bombs. Ted watched as the explosives seemed to fall in slow motion.
When the bombs hit the street below, they detonated. First came a blast wave, strong enough to kill anyone in its radius. It sent meat puppets flying. Others were simply blown apart. As it was designed, the explosion ripped off pieces of nearby buildings, shattered any remaining glass, tore up nearby sidewalks and made a crater in the asphalt. Then came the incendiary component.
Clouds of flames erupted from each detonated blockbuster bomb. They consumed everything they came into contact with. The Strip lit up with an intense light. None of the meat puppets stood a chance.
It’s beautiful. If Ted were capable of crying, he would’ve. He was enamored with the wanton destruction unfolding before him. Due to his fascination, his mind didn’t register the fact that the next bomb would land not far from The Golden Pony entrance. It exploded, quite close to him.
The blast wave threw Ted off his feet and into the middle of the lobby. He immediately felt the damage done to his insides. That alone would have been enough to kill any other man, instantly.
Following the massive blast, flames blanketed the street in front of the casino. They spread into the lobby and set Ted on fire. No matter how accustomed to pain he’d gotten, burning alive is too much for any man or woman to bare.
Ted frantically rolled around on the singed carpet of the casino lobby. He tore off his clothes. In that moment he regretted his fascination with the Hellfire jets. His dead father laughed at him.
“What’s a matter, boy? Is it hot in here or is it me?” joked Thomas Gorman as he smoked a cigar and watched his son burn.
Ted managed to extinguish the flames that threatened to destroy him. Never before had he felt such agony. Even his fall from the roof of The Golden Pony didn’t hurt as bad. But there was little time for him to dwell in his newfound misery. He could hear rotor blades.
Three Galatea helicopters came into view, to both drop off heavily armed clean up squads and evacuate their CEO. All three had door gunners that mowed down any meat puppet left moving. They sprayed the streets and sides of the casinos as they passed.
In the lead helicopter was Sebastian Monticello, the second most powerful man at Galatea Systems. The younger more ambitious Sebastian was hoping that they’d recover Ted’s corpse. Secretly, most in the company felt the same way.
“There it is. Set us down,” ordered Sebastian as he pointed towards what remained of The Golden Pony.
The helicopters stopped advancing, then started to descend. Winds produced by their spinning rotors caused the fire below to become displaced, producing swirling flames and embers. It made for a relatively safe landing site.
As soon as the first helicopter touched down on the street, Sebastian got out, flanked by four of the company’s best security officers. They headed towards the blown out entrance of The Golden Pony.
Out of the smoke and fire, someone came walking out of the casino entrance to meet Sebastian and the security officers. All they could see was a silhouette.
“Stop! Cease, or you will be fired on!” yelled Sebastian. His security officers raised their assault rifles and aimed them at the silhouette. It did not comply. “Prepare to fire.”
“Stand down,” a voice emerged from the smoke and fire.
“Mr. Gorman?” asked Sebastian. Immediately he recognized the voice of his superior. He tried to hide his disappointment.
Ted came out of the swirling smoke. He barely resembled the man who ran Galatea. All of his hair was burnt off, including eyebrows. His body was nude and badly burnt. It was hard for him to walk with all of his internal injuries. They were mending, but their grievous nature meant it would take some time.
“Mr. Gorman, is that you, sir?” asked Sebastian with a look of concern on his face.
“What, don’t you recognize me?” laughed Ted as he kept walking towards his men, his employees. It hurt to laugh, but he didn’t care. “Is it my new haircut?”
“Sir, you need medical attention. Please, hurry up and get in the chopper. We’ll get you to the LA site so you can get treated.” Sebastian faked concern. But he faked it well. He figured that with such serious injuries, Ted would die long before he got to the Los Angeles labs.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m in no hurry. I mean to see to it that this city is cleansed.” Ted waltzed out into the hell scape that was once the infamous Strip.
“But sir…”
“Do me a favor and shut up, Mr. Monticello,” said Ted, interrupting his second in command.
There’s no way Mack and his little bitch got out of the city yet. We’ll find them and kill them. Ted watched as the other two helicopters landed and unloaded their cargo of highly trained killers.
&n
bsp; “Can’t we just get out of this shit hole and send the Hellfires back to finish the job?” asked Sebastian. It was a reasonable question. That would make the most sense.
Ted turned his head around so Sebastian could see his face. The burnt skin was rapidly repairing itself in front of his second-in-command’s eyes. “I want to personally see this done. We’ll send in the planes afterwards.”
Chapter 3
: What Happens in Vegas...
Mack and Amber made their way away from the strip and were heading for the outskirts, then out of Las Vegas proper. First they needed to find another ride, despite their increasingly bad luck with them. Trying to escape on foot would just be suicidal.
The duo passed behind a strip mall. They could hear the meat puppets in the parking lot on the other side. Even though his injuries were getting worse, Mack started getting used to the pain. As long as his broken ribs didn’t stab him in his lungs. Still, Amber took point.
She stopped. “Do you hear that?” Amber asked. Her head moved, tried to locate the noise.
“What? I don’t hear anything. And keep it down. They’ll hear us,” whispered Mack as he caught up.
“Be quiet and listen. Do you really not hear that?”
Mack shook his head. Please tell me you aren’t going crazy. “No, what did you hear?”
“Airplanes.”
“Airplanes? There haven’t been planes in the air since…” Mack stopped talking when he heard the sound of jet engines. “Wait, I hear it too.”
“Why would there be planes here?”
Middleton. Mack remembered the small town of nightmares months earlier. That was the last time he saw or heard a plane. And those aircrafts were dropping bombs. He had a feeling in his gut that the ones above Vegas were there for the same reason.
Before Mack could say anything, the ground shook and the night sky lit up orange. Then they heard the explosions. It caught both Amber and Mack off guard. From the sounds of the surrounding meat puppets, they were shocked too. Unlike them, the puppets hurried towards the noise.
Mack bit his lower lip and stood up straight. He started walking again, but with a quickened pace. Amber noticed and followed.
“We need to get out of this city immediately,” said Mack as he struggled towards the exit from behind the strip mall.
“Why are we in such a hurry?”
Dammit don’t ask questions, just follow me. “Remember Middleton? Remember what happened to it? That’s about to go down here.”
“But this a city, that was just some small town. They can’t erase a whole city. Can they?”
“They put labs under god knows how many cities without anyone knowing. They released a nanite virus that pretty much destroyed the country. These guys can do pretty much anything. They’re going to burn this city. We need to not be here when that happens.”
“Okay, but you need to take it easy,” pleaded Amber.
“I’m fine. We just need to…” Mack started coughing violently into his cupped hand. He felt something on his palm. It was blood. It was then that he realized that he was in trouble. His ribs must’ve punctured his lungs. With so much adrenaline, he didn’t even feel it happen.
Amber worriedly watched Mack wipe his blood off onto his jeans. For the first time since they’d been together, she seriously worried that he might die. And when he was gone, she’d be all alone in the most hostile of worlds.
Shit, don’t look at me like that. It breaks my heart. Get her mind off of you, old man. “Don’t worry about me. Let’s just keep on going. We don’t have any time to waste.” Mack was insistent that he and Amber not stop moving. He felt that any moment the planes could be over their heads. No amount of luck or survival know-how would save them.
The first explosion was followed by several more. Though not as shocking, each of them caused the city to shake. Each one made Mack and Amber quicken their pace just a little bit. Las Vegas was being bombed.
Who the fuck builds a monorail instead of a subway? Whoever built this damn city must’ve mistaken it for Disney World. If there was a subway we could at least take shelter, wait it out underground. Mack looked up at the elevated tracks above him as he and Amber passed under them. They looked so ridiculous and out of place. Just like the rest of Sin City.
Outside of The Strip, Las Vegas, like Atlantic City, wasn’t much of a city. The suburbs were nice but the inner city was dangerous and in rough shape. There were as many liquor stores as abandoned buildings. Before the outbreak the streets were plagued by vice and gangs.
Without any living or uninfected people on the desolate streets of Las Vegas, all that was left was urban decay. For Amber and Mack, the cityscape was advantageous. There were plenty of places for them to hide.
After passing under the Vegas monorail, they took refuge in a liquor store. Mack watched as meat puppets outside marched towards the falling bombs. They were drawn to them like moths to flame.
“The entrance is pretty secure.” Amber referred to the wooden planks that she and Mack squeezed through to get in the liquor store. “The back door is padlocked. There’s plenty of food, or rather, snacks. We got water, soda juice and a wide selection of beer. We can hold up here, wait this out till morning.”
Mack opened a bag of chips. “Eat something. Then we move.”
Amber was a little annoyed. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”
“Yeah I heard you,” answered Mack while chewing. “But like I said before. We need to get out of this city as soon as possible. Soon as we’re done eating, we got to find a vehicle.”
“Fine, whatever. Just don’t get mad when we’re out in the desert and run out of food and water. By the way, what happened to us last time we were out in the desert? Oh yeah, that’s right, we got picked up and brought here. To this shithole!”
Better to just let her blow off some steam. She’s tired, frustrated and a teenager. Some battles just aren’t worth it. Mack did the smart thing, stayed silent and kept eating.
Mack and Amber both put down their respective snacks when they heard a screech just outside the liquor store. What caught their attention was how it sounded. It was different, deeper, more guttural.
Both of them hurried over to the boarded up entrance. They peered through the cracks at the street outside. At first neither of them could see anything. Then their eyes adjusted. Immediately they wished that they hadn’t.
This is really bad. And that thing is really big. Walking down the street was a massive meat puppet. It was twice as big as any of the others. Strips of loose skin hung over what looked like muscles made of steel cables. Both of its eyes were glowing white, not red. In one of its hands it dragged a mangled dead body.
The brutish meat puppet was surrounded by what looked like a pack of five or six infected coyotes. They had glowing red eyes and seemed to be following the brute. All of them stopped at once.
Three of the coyotes turned their heads towards the liquor store. That made both Mack and Amber’s hearts skip a beat. Their hearts sank when the coyotes both opened their mouths wide, revealing metal teeth and let out horrific screeches.
“Back up,” instructed Mack as he slowly did exactly that. Amber followed.
The coyotes ran towards the liquor store door. Their metal claws clicked against the street and the sidewalk. Before long they were scratching at the boarded up front door.
“How’d they know we were here?” asked Amber.
Mack picked up and started to load shells into the breach of his shotgun. “Doesn’t matter. Go try and get the back door open.”
“It’s got a padlock on it.”
“Then break it open. We don’t want to be in here when that big fucker gets in.”
“You think he’ll get in?”
Mack pointed the shotgun at the liquor store entrance. “Let’s hope not.”
As soon as the last words left Mack’s mouth, the glass on the front door shattered and he heard a loud thud. Amber didn’t stick around to argue, an
d ran towards the back of the store.
The meat puppet brute threw its shoulder into the boarded up front door, over and over again. Frustrated, it let out another guttural scream. Then it changed tactics.
Out of each knuckle on one of the meat puppet brute’s hand grew metal spikes. They were formed by nanites staked on top of each other. With its new mace-like fist, the monster started breaking through planks, one-by-one.
Amber reached the back door. First she tried kicking it open. That didn’t work. She just wasn’t strong enough. So she looked around for something to bash it with.
There wasn’t much in the backroom. A broom was leaning in a corner. Useless. A rolling yellow plastic mop bucket was next to it. Unworkable. Then Amber saw an expired fire extinguisher on the wall. Voila.
Amber hit the back door as hard as she could with the fire extinguisher. It didn’t open but it looked like it might work. So she hit it again. A couple screws flew out. She hit it again, another screw came loose. On her third hit she managed to bash it open.
“Shit!” yelled the teen. As soon as she opened the liquor store back door, Amber was confronted by six infected coyotes. They seemed as shocked to see her as she was them. She quickly closed the door.
She ran back to Mack.
“Did you open it?” asked Mack as he slowly backed away from the liquor store front entrance.
“Yeah.”
“Good, let’s get the hell out of here.” Mack turned to leave out the back.
Amber grabbed his arm. “Don’t!”
“What are you talking about?” Mack pointed towards the nearly broken down front door. “You hear that? In a few seconds whatever is making that noise is going to get in here. We really don’t want to be here when that happens. So let’s…”
“They’re waiting for us. I opened the door and there was a whole pack of puppet dogs or coyotes or whatever, waiting. We’re trapped,” explained Amber.
Do we try and fight off that thing trying to punch its way in, or do we take our chances with the coyotes? Choose, Mack. You’re out of time.
