Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Fitz jogged through the abandoned cars on the FDR onramp. The narrow one-way road was clogged with twisted metal. He ran to the concrete barrier overlooking the river, Apollo nudging up against him when they got there.

  To his left, the center of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge sagged into the river. The white hull of a capsized yacht sat in the water under the bridge like a fin of some giant whale.

  Fitz shouldered his M4, and centered his scope on FDR Drive to the right. There were several platforms in the river along the side of the road. A small fleet of eight boats ranging in shapes and sizes were docked on the third galley down. Some appeared to be Coast Guard vessels; others were speed boats like those he had seen scoping out Plum Island. Movement on the dock caught his attention, and he centered his muzzle on several soldiers loading boxes.

  Fitz wanted to scream and wave, but held his breath instead. He wiped the rain from his face and pushed the scope to his eye. These men, filthy and thin, were dressed in soiled, tattered clothing. They didn’t look like the type that could survive out in the open. He flinched as a pack of Variants leapt onto the dock. The men backed away and jumped into the boats.

  Zooming in, Fitz almost choked at the sight of dozens of human collaborators. Some of the men carried rifles, and there was no mistaking the AT-4 launcher one of them had slung over his back, nor his Army uniform.

  Mother—

  It took every ounce of strength to hold back his trigger finger from raining rounds on the boats. But there was nothing he could do from here. He didn’t have enough ammunition.

  The Bone Collector lumbered across the dock with the surviving collaborator dragging Knapp behind them. The Alpha turned and picked Knapp up by his throat and tossed him into the closest boat. Then it turned and roared at the other Variants. They clambered onto the platform, squawking as if disoriented. The beast screeched again, and the Variants finally climbed into the boats. Others continued to file in from FDR Drive until the eight vessels were filled to the brim.

  Fitz considered shooting the engines or trying to take out the human collaborators. The Variants couldn’t drive themselves, and it would take days to swim to Plum Island. He pivoted from side to side, searching for a clean shot, but the Variants had filled the boats, and the human collaborators were already behind the helms.

  Apollo poked Fitz’s bent blade with his wet muzzle. He let out a low whine and looked up, the fleck of amber in his dark eyes reflecting an astonishing level of comprehension—the dog understood what they were up against, and he was still itching to fight. They were both exhausted, injured, and frightened, but it was up to Fitz and Apollo to stop these bastards from reaching their friends at Plum Island.

  The engines coughed to life, and one by one they launched into the water. Rain pelted the diseased cargo as they took off down the East River. Even at full-speed, it would take them a couple of hours to reach their destination. With no way to contact the island, he would have to beat the creatures there. That was his only hope, unless the Blackhawks patrolling the skies above the island noticed them first.

  As soon as the final boat launched, Fitz took off running down the ramp, his loyal German Shepherd by his side. There were still two docked vessels, both red, one with lightning bolt strikes on the side. He opted for that one, and almost grinned when he clambered into the cigar-shaped boat. The Variants weren’t as smart as he’d given them credit for. They had left the fastest boat, and Fitz was going to give the beasts a run for their money.

  Side by side, Beckham and Horn fought their way into the crowd of beasts in their search for Chow. They couldn’t see him, but they could hear his screams over the comm. Every agonizing second felt like talons flaying Beckham’s flesh. This was his fault. Chow’s death would be on his hands, just like all of his other men lost since Building 8. The sound of distant suppressed gunfire rang out as the duo battled their way deeper into the throng. At the end of the corridor, a trio of soldiers rushed down the stairs.

  The hope that had died inside of Beckham reared its head, fueling another wave of adrenaline that pushed him forward. He fired his .45 with his right hand and slashed with his knife in his left, executing any Variants that made a run for him, and slashing the throats of those he didn’t shoot in the head. Horn had torn a hole in the wall of Variants to the center and the right.

  “Hold on, Chow!” Beckham shouted. He was down to his final bullet when a muffled reply broke over the channel.

  “Save some for us?”

  It was Garcia, and the monsters were falling back right into the gunfire of the Variant Hunters. Forming a perimeter, the two teams clamped around the desperate creatures. Through the fence of stalk-like appendages and withered torsos, Beckham saw Chow’s still body.

  Claws ripped across Beckham’s left arm. He shot the beast in the face without slowing. Another lunged at him from the side, and he jammed his blade into the creature’s skull.

  The final Variants scattered, Garcia and his men pursuing while Horn and Beckham ran for Chow. Blood was already pooling around the man’s body. He lay curled up in a fetal position. A deep gash stretched from his chin to his eyebrow on the right side of his face.

  Beckham dropped to a knee and put a hand on Chow’s shoulder. The man screamed in agony. Trembling, Chow rolled onto his back.

  “Got me good,” he said.

  Beckham held in a breath when he saw the extent of Chow’s injuries. His body was covered in lacerations, some so deep he could see muscle. Beckham wasn’t sure what to dress first.

  “Fuck, we need to get him out of here ASAP,” Horn said.

  “I’m cold,” Chow said. “Shit, man, they really fucked me up, didn’t they?” He tried to raise his head, but Horn pressed down on Chow’s chest.

  “Don’t move, brother,” Horn growled. He reached into his pack for his medical supplies.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Beckham said. He looked up as Garcia, Tank, and Thomas rushed over.

  “Thomas, Tank, hold security,” Garcia said. He crouched down, whispering something under his breath and locking eyes with Beckham.

  “We got the package.” Tank said. “Should I call in our extraction?”

  Chow managed a crooked grin with blue lips. “You guys got one of those little fucks?” He let out a wet cough, his lungs crackling.

  “Don’t talk, man,” Beckham said to Chow. He glanced back at Tank. “Hold off on the extraction. We still haven’t found Fitz or Apollo.”

  Tank hesitated, but Garcia nodded at the Marine.

  Chow attempted to move his head again. “You guys really nabbed one of them?”

  “Hold still, Chow!” Horn growled. He was already wrapping Chow’s right arm.

  Garcia pointed back at the staircase. A juvenile Variant was sprawled on the ground, unmoving. “Yeah, we got one, brother.”

  Garcia stood and gestured for Beckham to join him a few feet away. Horn remained at Chow’s side, working quickly to dress the worst of his injuries.

  “Look, I know you want to search for Fitz and Apollo, but if we don’t get Chow out of here, he’s going to bleed out. Plus, we have to get that thing back to the GW,” Garcia said.

  Beckham looked back at the staircase leading to the concourse below. He stared for several seconds, his heart icing over. Garcia was right. They had to get Chow and the specimen out of the city before it was too late. With no way of telling where Fitz and Apollo were, Beckham knew what he had to do. Chow’s life depended on it. If Fitz and Apollo were out there, they were on their own now.

  Good luck, brother, Beckham thought as he nodded to allow Tank to call in their extraction.

  “We can’t let them down, boy,” Fitz said. He looked back at Apollo. The dog was lying on the floor of the boat, head tucked between his paws. He had already thrown up twice, but Fitz couldn’t let up on the gas.

  Thunder clapped overhead, and the distant booms rattled Fitz. A heavy rain beat down from the purple sky. In the meat of the clouds, rays of moonlight li
t up the East River with an eerie glow. Ahead, the small fleet of eight boats carrying the Bone Collector and his army were closing in on Plum Island, and Fitz was still at least a mile behind. The monsters hadn’t seemed to notice him yet, or maybe they didn’t care. There were at least sixty of the beasts on the boats. Between air support, and the Mark V SOCs, Fitz was hopeful the monsters would be intercepted before they reached the island. If they weren’t, Vice President Johnson’s reinforcements would be able to stop them at the fences, as long as the human collaborators didn’t put up a fight. That’s what Fitz was mostly worried about now. The AT-4 launcher and machine guns they carried could do some major damage.

  Jesus, how could these men be so evil?

  Fitz wiped the rain from his eyes and pushed down on the throttle. He’d lost ten minutes trying to figure out how to fill it with gas. The tank was almost on empty when he boarded.

  “Come on, you piece of shit.”

  For a speedboat, he expected the damn thing to go faster, but the wind and rain prevented him from pushing her to the max. Doing so could result in flipping and capsizing. The last thing he wanted was to swim to Plum Island.

  They weren’t far now, and the closer he got, the higher his heart rate spiked. He wasn’t going to make it. There just wasn’t enough time.

  On the horizon, the vague outline of the island was already in focus. He searched the skies for a Blackhawk, but saw only darkness. And there was no sign of the Mark V SOCs in the dark water. By the time one of the guard towers saw the boats, it could be too late. Where the fuck was the air support? Had the other choppers been recalled to the GW?

  Fitz cursed, his mind spinning as he considered his options. He could remove the silencer on the M4, but gunshots were going to be hard to hear over the thunder. Craning his neck, he searched the boat. He had seen an emergency pack when he boarded. He eyed the box, an idea emerging on his mind. Ahead, two of the boats were slowing. The other crafts continued at full speed. Had they spotted him?

  Fitz eased off on the throttle and let his boat coast. He had to do something, and he had to do something now. He ran back to the emergency box. Rummaging through the contents, he pulled an orange flare gun and a set of flares.

  Stuffing them into his vest, he rushed back to steering wheel, grabbed it with his left hand, and pushed the throttle down with his right. The boat jolted, the bow lifting into the air. Apollo slid across the floor, letting out a whimper.

  “Sorry!” Fitz shouted. He took his hand off the throttle and loaded the flare gun. The boats were a half-mile from the island now, and there was still no sign of a chopper or a Mark V SOC.

  Fitz fired off a flare into the sky. He cracked the break open and was moving to put in another flare when Apollo howled. In his peripheral vision, a Variant, soaked and shrieking, pulled itself onto the right side of the boat.

  Now he knew why the two boats had slowed earlier. Just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, the beast had thrown a wrench into the cog of war.

  Fitz fired off a second flare into the sky and pulled his M9. Apollo was already on the monster and had it pinned it to the ground. A second and then a third Variant climbed into the boat from the left side.

  Before the third was all the way aboard, Fitz shot it in the nose. It flipped over the side and hit the water, skating over the whitecaps and vanishing in the darkness. The other beast leapt toward Fitz. Apollo left his limp prey on the deck and grabbed it by the ankle. The creature slashed at Fitz, knocking his hand away from the steering wheel. The boat curved to the right, slamming over waves and jolting up and down.

  Howling in pain, the Variant jerked and kicked Apollo off its leg. The dog slid across the bloody deck and hit the starboard side with a yelp.

  Fitz fought out of the monster’s grip and shot it under the chin, brains blowing out the top of its shiny skull. He pushed the beast over the side and grabbed the wheel, straightening the boat out with a quick twist.

  “Apollo!” Fitz shouted.

  The dog hurried to his side, seemingly unharmed. Fitz breathed in a sigh of relief, and turned back to the island. The other boats were slowing as they approached, but one was already making a run for the beach. Flashes of gunfire streaked away from the towers. Flames licked the back of the hull, and tendrils of smoke rose into the sky. The towers continued to fire, but the vessel hit the beach at full steam, skidding over the sand and smashing through both sets of electric fences.

  Fitz pushed the throttle down as far as it would go. A Blackhawk rose over the tarmac, the .50 cal barking to life as soon as it was in the sky.

  Thank God.

  Fitz twisted the steering wheel, trying his best to keep the boat steady. Rain beat against his face, and he batted the water from his eyes. In between blinks, a flash of fire streaked from one of the boats. He flinched as a rocket slammed into the side of the chopper, crimson ballooning out the sides.

  “No!” Fitz shouted, unable to control himself. He watched in shock, his mouth hanging open as the wreckage crashed back onto the tarmac.

  A Mark V SOC finally came bursting around the corner of the island, Gatling gun blazing at the approaching boats. But it was already too late. The human collaborators drove the vessels onto the beach. Monsters piled over the sides and bolted across the sand. Fitz swallowed, still unable to quite process the turn of events. His eyes flitted to Apollo.

  “You ready to fight, boy?”

  Apollo bared his teeth and sat next to Fitz’s bent blade. He patted the dog on the head, and steered the boat toward the shore. Plum Island was about to be overrun, but he was prepared to fight with his bare hands to save his friends.

  Kate almost cried out loud when Major Smith told her Reed and his team had been extracted from New York with a live specimen in tow.

  “He’s on the Vice President’s shit list for making off with an Osprey unauthorized. Not like it matters anymore who follows orders and who doesn’t,” Smith had said with a shrug.

  Kate knew Major Smith had been broken by the loss of his family and his commanding officer, but she wasn’t prepared for how easily he brushed aside Team Ghost’s actions. Still, it was nice to know Reed might have some support from the officer if Johnson decided to enforce discipline. Then she remembered his words to Fitz when he first arrived on Plum Island.

  “UCMJ says I’m supposed to arrest you. But I suppose I should give you a medal.”

  Thoughts of Fitz put Kate’s mind back on the other news Major Smith had shared. Chow had suffered severe injuries in Manhattan. The Operator was in stable condition, but only just. And the teams had found no sign of Fitz or Apollo.

  Like everything in this never-ending apocalypse, there seemed to be a trade-off. A juvenile Variant could be the key to winning the war and retaking the planet. Could she weigh that against the losses they’d suffered to obtain it?

  Kate went over the data from Bioreactor 11 in silence. Earlier, focusing on work had been like trying to run a marathon with a hangover. She hadn’t gotten anything done, but now she couldn’t waste any more time.

  “Kate, you okay?” Ellis asked. He was standing in front of Bioreactor 12, checking the stats and tapping the results into his tablet.

  “As okay as I can be,” she said. “How about you?”

  Ellis nodded, and backed away from Bioreactor 12. “Only four or five more days before this batch should be ready. Did you speak to the other US labs before you left the GW?”

  “Dr. Yokoyama was going to contact them this evening and report back. He was pretty shaken up after the incident with Lieutenant Brett.”

  Ellis glanced in her direction. “You never did explain what happened.”

  “He overpowered the guards, from what I was told. Guess they underestimated his strength. After he escaped, he made a run for the labs.”

  “And he knew how to find them?”

  “Dr. Yokoyama had performed tests on Brett. He knew exactly where he was going.”

  Ellis was quiet. He lowered his h
ead and studied the screen of his tablet.

  “Where are we at with the next phase of Kryptonite?” Kate asked.

  Still looking down, Ellis said, “I’ve decided to use a polymer micro-encapsulation technique.”

  “That’s what the other labs are doing, too.”

  Ellis strolled over to Bioreactor 10. “I hope they know what they’re doing. This is all experimental.”

  Kate almost asked him if he understood the process, but he beat her to it.

  “I think I understand the technique, but I’ll need assistance. First, we’ll need to conjugate the antibodies to the polymer shells encapsulating the Paclitaxel and Docetaxel. When that’s finished, we put them into the missiles.”

  Kate nodded again. “I’ll contact Dr. Yokoyama tomorrow morning and let him know our status.” She was walking to Bioreactor 9 when a thud rattled the lab. “What the hell was that?”

  Ellis stared at the observation window. “I...I don’t know.”

  The blare of an emergency siren sounded. Both of them flinched at the noise. They exchanged a worried glance, each likely fearing the same thing—the island was under attack.

  “Must be a false alarm, right?” Ellis asked. “Major Smith would have told us if something was wrong.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Kate said. “Keep working.”

  The extraction from New York had gone flawlessly. Team Ghost and the Variant Hunters had only encountered light resistance before the Osprey picked them up. That was almost two hours ago. Now, the men sat in the troop hold of the craft, racing through heavy storms toward the GW.

  Beckham was lost in his thoughts, the mission replaying in his mind on a loop, one eye still on Chow. The man lay on the floor covered in bandages. Some of the lacerations were deep, but they had stopped most of the bleeding. He was stable for now, but he would need surgery when he got back to the GW. The creatures had carved him up good. If he did live, he was going to be covered in scars.