by David Peters
He turned the laptop back around and opened up several different photos. They all appeared to have been taken during combat. Some were blurry or distorted while others seemed crystal clear.
He turned the screen back to Charles, “Have you seen any of these?”
“That black one, kind of. They looked more like people though. They still had hair and sometimes clothes. The claws on their hands weren’t that big. Haven’t seen the other two.”
“I can’t speak to the science behind it but these were all people at one time.”
“How is that possible?”
“Living genetic manipulation. Have you seen people with extremely high fevers?”
“Yeah, it’s like they are on fire. They don’t ever recover from what we have seen.”
“That is the heat from the exchange. It goes very quickly and uses body parts no longer necessary for fuel.”
Charles rolled his head and rubbed his neck, “So what the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Sir, my orders ended when I got this thing on board your ship. I really don’t know what else I can tell you. Personally, I don’t see any hope against this. Not with the numbers they have now.”
He pushed the metal case over to the captain, “It’s all yours. The flight crew and I are going back to shore. We are heading north to Prince Rupert then beyond. Things aren’t as bad up north, maybe we can find fuel and make it all the way to Anchorage or further. I’m going where there is several feet of snow year-round.”
“Water gets rough up north,” the captain said as he thought about where he should go.
“You are in charge of your ship, Captain. Do what you must but don’t lose this case. It’s everything we have. Someday you will find someone that can do something with it. That’s what I am going to tell myself so I can still sleep at night. Even with all the crap I have seen and can’t forget.”
Without another word, the doctor got up from the table and walked out the door. Charles continued to stare at the case.
“You’re just leaving?”
“Not immediately. We are going to get something warm to eat, get a wound on the major’s arm looked at, then get the hell out of here before nightfall. I gave up everything to get this to you, Mr. Lewis. My family, my life, my world is all gone. I am going where nothing will remind me of that fact.”
The doctor did not wait for a reply before stepping into the hallway and out of sight.
What the hell was he supposed to do with this thing? Was there anyone left to even give it to?
~5~
“We saw one of those disk things in a hive. It was like leather, really strange,” Dylan said.
“You actually went into one? We’ve seen a few photos but I haven’t ever spoken to anyone that went into one and came back out. I had gotten some scuttlebutt over the SatCom relays that one was nuked in Denver but we weren’t ever able to verify it. I guess they went into the entrance with a robot of some kind.”
“That was my group,” Caperson said quietly.
“Really? You ex-military?”
“Yeah. Idaho National Guard but we fought all through the midwest and down south. Not that it did any good. We were pretty much down to throwing rocks by the end of it all.”
“Small world. Seemed like the bases got hammered pretty fast. Communication was a pain. We couldn’t communicate with anyone beyond our own fleet less than a week after it started. Even satellites need a ground station to make everything work and they were squished pretty fast.”
“So how does all this help us? I mean what can we do with this information?” Dylan asked.
“Like the doc told me. My job was to get it to someone that could do something. You folks have done more than anyone that I am aware of. It’s yours now. My role in this thing is done.”
~6~
Neil laughed as Travis showed him around the town. They turned the corner at the bakery and started down the central boardwalk going around the town square.
“I wish you didn’t have to blow up that sound system man, those tunes were great!”
“Headphones were broken and no one could stand my taste in music,” Neil said with a smile. “I saw those guys live in San Jose back in like two thousand.”
“Same tour, man. Portland in oh-one.”
“Right on,” Neil said as he high-fived
“I should figure out how to build a record player. I have a bunch of old vinyl that I would really like to hear again. Don’t think I am going to be able to pull off the bass you had going on that boat though.”
“Sixteen inch woofer. I knew it wasn’t going to get a place on the wagons so I thought it should go out in style.”
“Tragic.”
Neil started walking toward several large military cases, “So rumor has it you like toys. Is that right? Do I have the right guy?”
“Love ‘em. Love ‘em more if they go boom but anything that is a gadget and I can tweak it.”
Neil smiled, “Good. I think you will find a special place in your heart for this little guy.”
He flipped the locking clamps open and with Travis’ help they pulled the large, heavy plastic cover off.
“Is that was I think it is?”
“That, my new-found friend, is a solar powered, optically guided, self-landing drone. Had four of them on board for sea trials. Top of the line tech with an easy to maintain field management system. Based on an Israeli design that the guys down at the labs were able to improve.”
“Why are there only three here?”
“The auto-land feature was more of an auto-ditch-in-the-ocean feature. It didn’t so much as bring the plane back as it cut the engine and popped a parachute. Their ability to read manuals before attempting to use the thing was extremely poor. They hit auto-land and the thing ditched eight miles out.”
“Ouch.”
“Those chutes shot out in a massive puff of smoke. Drogue rockets pulled these brilliant orange and yellow parachutes thirty or forty feet into the sky. It was glorious.”
“They don’t look big enough to carry weapons.”
“Maybe I misunderstood your level of skill. Let’s just close them up then. These aren’t meant for you.”
“No, no. I can make them shoot. Trust me. If I can weaponize a can of chili, I can do something with this.”
Neil smiled and put his arm around Travis’ shoulder, “I do believe we are going to become very good friends.”
“I need to introduce you to Whitey. You’ll like him even more. He’s me if I had ever been forced into the military as a teenager and could actually shoot straight.”
~7~
Dylan set the tray of tea in the middle of the table and sat back down, “Did I miss anything?”
Travis smiled, “Nope. Doc won’t let any of us touch the laptop even though he couldn’t type the login right to save his life.”
“Look at this thing? It’s thirty-seven characters long and half of them I don't even recognize.”
He tried to enter the password again and the command line interface finally appeared on the screen.
“Uh, where is my mouse?”
Travis shook his head, “It isn’t what you are used to, Doc. You sure you don’t want me to drive? You ever use a command line interface or did your system only have Solitaire?”
Doc reluctantly turned the laptop around so Travis could type, “Solitaire is a very relaxing game. You should try it sometime.”
“What do you want first, Doc?”
“Let’s start by figuring out all the data we have available. Give me a run down on their file classifications.”
Travis typed several commands and read back the listed folders, “We have archetypes, notable locations, chemistry, biology, and analysis.”
“Let’s start with Archetypes. Maybe there is a breed we don’t know about yet.”
Travis dug down to the folder contents and looked at the stream of data, “I see Hunters, Sappers, Workers, something they call Giga and then
several listed as unknown.”
Dylan asked, “They have any pictures?”
“Let me see.”
Travis typed several things then nodded, “Giga is a Guard. I like Guard better. These are crap photos by the way.”
“Agreed on both counts. What about the unknowns?”
“Unknown case study one. Blah, blah, blah, noise. Blah, blah, blah stacks. Must be the bug flying things.”
“Has to be.”
“Unknown case study two,” he was quiet for several moments as he read the small print, “Case study two is the stealthy ones that start the hives but they have almost no data on them. They think that is what killed their crews in what they call the ‘Initial Point’. That must be that drum they found.”
“Would make sense. If they didn’t go in prepared, those things would tear them up in a dark cave.”
“Unknown case study three looks like a queen but it is all supposition. They never found one for study.”
“Anything else in that section?”
“Something called Recording Zero Four.”
“Fire it up,” Caperson said.
“The following is the modified recording of Object Seven. It has been sped up in order to make it audible to human ears,” a calm voice stated.
A sound began to play that no one had heard before. It was a slow pulse, sounding almost as if a large, steel drum was having a rubber mallet dragged roughly across the top.”
“Sound example, Object Seven sped up one-hundred times,” the voice said.
The sound took on an oscillating tempo. It would rise slowly in tone before dropping off and starting over.
“Is that really them?”
“It’s at least something they understand.”
Charles finally broke his silence, “I know that sound.”
“How?”
“About five years before the stuff hit the fan, the navy had this big research project. Long story short, the mucky-mucks at the top thought we could use GPS and small, autonomous buoys that could monitor the sound across the entire ocean. All the data would be collected and filtered back on land but it would give us a moving picture of the entire world’s oceans. You know, follow any sub out of China or Russia and know where it is at all times.”
“Ambitious.”
“And expensive,” Charles added. “They started out with a test apparatus not far off of Hawaii. Dropped a carbon-fiber line with thousands of microphones on it. That sound was everywhere. It came and went but the guys in the white suits couldn’t figure out what was causing it. They finally assumed that it was some sort of background resonance. Like the center of the planet was ringing like a bell.”
“I’m guessing they were wrong.”
“The fact that we are in a mountain hideout with monsters from children’s nightmares roaming the countryside. Yeah, they were wrong.”
The four nodded.
“We had a research vessel that was out gathering data prior to the first run of tests. They wanted to know every sound that occurs in the ocean, how powerful it is, how far it travels, everything. About midway through their gathering this sound starts showing up. I mean it starts showing up everywhere. East Coast, West Coast, we could even hear it in Antarctica.”
“How is that even possible?”
“For a long time they were convinced it was some kind of global harmonic. One guy finally asked why it wasn’t consistent and sometimes would stop randomly.”
“Can Corrupted hear this sound? I mean, do they hear it all the time?”
All five turned toward Doc as they waited for an answer.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, “I would say categorically, no. Their ears are slightly different from ours but there is simply no way they could process a sound wave that low with what they have. I don’t think it is physically possible.”
Caperson nodded, “And there is the rub. Somewhere in their hive is something that allows them to not only make this sound, but receive it, interpret what it is saying so that they can understand and obey.”
“What, like a converter of some sort?”
“Yeah. This thing is living so it probably has more purposes than just generating noise.”
“Do you know what they are saying?”
Doc shook his head, “I have no clue. I couldn’t even begin to guess where to start when it comes to understanding their language.”
“We know part of it is like a heartbeat,” the Doc stated. “That is why they keep trying to repair Sumter.”
“Is there a way we can use this to our advantage?” Caperson asked.
“There has to be,” Dylan said to no one in particular.
“We need to see what the device is,” Caperson said flatly.
“You want to invade a hive and go take a look?” Dylan asked.
“I guess the question is, can we learn anything from it?”
Doc interrupted their conversation, “Before you folks run off to blow something up, how about you let me process what is here and combine it with what we know?”
“So sit tight?”
“For a while, yes. Go build something,” he added with a smile, “make some forts in the woods like you were talking about.”
~8~
Charles leaned against the tree and looked at his military issue nine millimeter nestled in the well worn nylon holster. Outside of training in his distant past, he hadn’t fired more than a handfull of rounds in the last decade. None-the-less, the bluing was worn from the cleaning and the simple wear from years of riding on his hip.
He smiled slightly as he thought about the absence of weight on his back. He had no one expecting an answer for anything, no meetings to attend, no food stuffs to track, no ship to monitor. Everything he had sworn to do was done.
He took a deep breath and looked up at the trees towering over his head. The sun was coming over the far hillside and just beginning to warm the still mountain air. He sighed contently again and looked at the rising sun, the warmth just beginning to splash across his face. He pulled the pistol out of the holster and leaned back against the tree. The responsibility was gone, his purpose fulfilled, his guilt would soon fade.
He listened to the birds in the trees for several minutes as he savored the last few minutes he would have to suffer through.
As he pulled the hammer back, a noise off to his left caught his attention. Alex was running up the trail with a large smile on his face.
“Hey, Charles.”
“Howdy there, Alex. What are you up to this early in the morning?”
“Dylan said your meeting was over and you were free the rest of the day.”
“So I am,” Charles said as he lowered the hammer on his pistol and hid it under his coat.
“Do you remember?”
“Do I remember what?”
“You promised to help me climb a tree!”
Charles smiled a little as he fought against the feelings turning inside of him. Here was a child, looking up to him, and wanting nothing more than to climb a tree. To share a moment with a friend, nothing more. No demands, no ulterior motives, simple innocence looking for child-like adventure.
“I did promise you that, didn’t I?”
“You don’t have to do anything for Dylan so can we do it now?”
“I wasn’t planning to do it today.”
“But you promised!”
“That I did. Well I can’t let a promise of this magnitude just slip, can I? I’ve been looking at that maple over there. You see that branch that comes out about twenty-feet up?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s where we are going to sit.”
“Awesome!” he yelled as he ran toward the large tree.
It took twenty minutes for them to work their way up. Several times Charles stopped and carefully walked through where Alex should put his hands and feet but they finally sat with their backs comfortably against the large branches.
“Neil said he would help me build a tree house but I to
ld him I wanted to do it with you.”
“Why would you want to build a tree house with me instead of Neil? I’m pretty sure he can build circles around anything I could hammer out. Mine is liable to look like a train wreck.”
“Is that good?”
“What? A train wreck?”
“Yeah.”
“Um, no. Train wrecks usually look pretty bad. Do you remember the first community center we built in the hangar?”
“Yeah. That thing was dangerous.”
“Exactly. It was a train wreck.”
“Oh. Well,” Alex said nervously, “I just thought I would spend time with my friend.”
Charles smiled and adjusted his position slightly. As he did so, the pistol in his pocket fell free and cartwheeled to the soft grass twenty feet below.
“How come you have that gun?”
He thought for several moments, “Just need to be safe, I guess.”
“I thought we were safe with the new walls and stuff?”
He sighed as he realized he just couldn’t lie, “It’s a very long, painful story.” He looked at the child. The way he smiled and looked up to him in a manner he hadn’t felt for years. “A story that someday, far from now, I would love to tell you.”
“Think I’ll get to shoot a gun someday?”
“Regrettably, yes. But I’ll teach you how to do it right. Make sure you hit what you are aiming at. There are a lot of safety things to know.”
“Wow! That would be really cool. I want to shoot one like Dylan uses.”
Charles nodded, “That can probably be arranged. Now about that tree house. Let’s see if we can scrounge up some scrap lumber. We don’t need much to begin with but the first pieces are super important.”
They started their climb down the tree.
Alex smiled, “The guy we want to talk to is named Porter. He’s huge. He looks like he used to play football but I guess he is super smart and reads a lot. He runs the mill, I’ll bet he has something sitting around we can use.”
“Don’t think I have met the man yet. He sounds interesting.”
“Have you met Travis and Erica?”
“I have. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with them yet but they both seemed very nice.”
