by RW Krpoun
“He went undercover.”
“The CIA cannot operate on US soil, but they have made extensive use of civilian contractors in the past,” Cyrus observed truthfully. “If you check the core members of the corporation you get dossiers on a handful of non-entities; but if you check their field record you get FASA assets coming up second best every time. They have a man with them, an Addison Smith, who is a null blot on every background check. I believe the corporation is serving as a cover for that man to enter this area and investigate without drawing attention or suspicion.”
“How do you want this handled?”
“By hiding, I’m afraid. FASA has no combat teams in this area, and the security assets assigned to Project Lantern, as you know, are not sufficient to the task. So just lay low; we have an excellent contact within DSR so I will have the full details on when and how long they are in this area, and what they report to their superiors. I doubt we will lose more than a week.”
“All right,” Hodges sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “It doesn’t seem too serious.”
“Not as long as you are informed,” Cyrus agreed. “That was why I came in person: I want you to ensure that your local security people understand that there must not be the slightest hint of a FASA presence in this area. Let these mercenaries come and depart unmolested. I would rather lose a month’s progress than risk a FASA presence being detected here. Project Lantern is vital.”
“I understand.”
Later, as the plane leveled out and headed southeast, Cyrus permitted himself a small smile. The happy coincidence of an old enemy showing up in the area just made the entire matter sweeter, and much easier. Had the Yard Gnomes not told the DSR they had business recovering family in Minnesota he would have had to leak information to prompt a government intrusion into the area, and leaks are always a dangerous thing, an entire cluster of loose ends that could lead to complications further down the road.
He was helped by the fact that Hodges was paranoid, and to the paranoid there is no insignificance; when he or the ERF delved into the information on the YGAT Corporation they would jump to the conclusions that Cyrus had suggested. The simple truth in this sort of situation was that just because someone was paranoid did not mean that no one was out to get them.
The problem should sort itself out shortly; it was a shame to lose Hodges’ talents, but the project would not be greatly delayed and the deaths of the Yard Gnomes would be a bonus. Best of all, no one would know that he had anything to do with any of it.
Franklin Hodges looked up from the file and stared at the Minnesota countryside rolling past. It had only taken a couple phone calls to confirm the core facts of Davenport’s story, and while he didn’t trust that slimy little runt for an instant, there was no denying that he was going to have corporate security nosing around his bailiwick soon.
Which just wouldn’t do. Project Lantern was only FASA’s concern, while he was also working on the core mission of the ERF, to whom his true loyalty was pledged.
The ERF’s long-term goal was not just the elimination of technology and social mores until Mankind was returned to a state of hunter-gatherers. While the 618 virus was certainly capable of accomplishing that goal, many in the ERF, including himself, were convinced that 618 would not be able to keep Mankind down. Like many other crises in the past, Mankind would rally and claw its way back up from what the 618 had inflicted upon it.
The solution was simple: Mankind had to be returned to the state of hunter-gatherers, and to be kept there he had to be replaced at the top of the food chain on Earth. That had been the goal of Project Top Gun, the covert project-within-a-project inside Static Overlook like a Russian nesting doll. Top Gun had had to be pushed forward due to unwanted interest by intelligence agencies, but it had produced a viable bioweapon if its own. They called it the 619 virus, and while it wasn’t what the ERF had intended, it was a definite improvement over the 618 strain. The 619 virus produced stronger, faster zombies who steadily regained body and brain tissue function. To what degree of recovery they could attain was uncertain, as the virus had been still been in the testing phase when necessity moved them to launch their attacks.
Under the cover of Project Lantern Hodges had been working on the ERF’s Project Outback: obtaining 619 virus zombies (code named Ghouls), extracting infected salvia and culturing it, and delivering the resultant material to ERF and independent factions for use in infecting subjects. He had also worked up a viral agent which when injected into 618 virus zombies ensured that they would pass on the 619 virus (code named Vectors). The ERF had teams armed with dart guns ensuring that every sizeable group of infected subjects had at least a few 619 vectors in their ranks.
The ERF’s ultimate goal was the 620 virus: a viral agent that would result in a zombie which was healthy, self-sustaining, and capable of near-Human mental capacity. This creature, code-named Revenant, was to be the new apex of the food chain on Earth and the creature that would keep Mankind few and primitive. He was working on 620 in the little time he had left from Projects Lantern and Outback, but progress was very slow, all the more so because the ERF’s slender resources were stretched past the breaking point. He was having to mount operations that should be relegated to underlings simply because there were not enough underlings available, such as his recent trip to Oklahoma to deliver two hundred doses of cultured 619 salvia to an ERF team.
Shutting down a week would be fine for Project Lantern, but it would be a significant setback for Outback; fortunately while that pedantic dolt Davenport was correct that the security assets assigned by FASA weren’t up to the job, he had an ERF action team in the area keeping an eye on the organization’s interests, running errands, and rounding up the extra zombies he needed.
What Davenport wanted was immaterial, and the Yard Gnome Action Team was going to get a good old fashioned elimination. They didn’t call Minnesota the ‘Land of Ten Thousand Lakes’ for nothing; they wouldn’t find the mercenaries or their vehicles until the spring thaw, and by then both Lantern and Outback would be done.
He closed the file and dug out his satellite phone.
Chapter Ten
“Why are we stopping, dude?” Chip asked, climbing alongside Gnome-1 to the cleared area on the second flatbed.
“Damage to a rail,” Dyson advised, dealing cards to Bear, Bambi, and George. “Be down about an hour.”
“We’re in South Dakota, right?”
“Just across the border.”
“Where’s Marv?”
“Up in the command car, should be back any minute. Why?”
“Got an idea I want to run past him. So how long will it take to cross South Dakota?” Chip fished a Milky Way bar out of his tactical vest.
“We don’t,” Dyson tossed in his hand. “We have to angle into southern Minnesota and then zig back into North Dakota.”
“Really? You would think it would just be in a straight line.”
“Apparently laying rails is not like building roads. Anyway, that’s the way it works. There’s Marv now.”
“Why is Marv of interest?” the Ranger asked as he hopped off the sandbag barrier onto the flatbed’s deck.
“I have a request, dude,” Chip announced.
“Oh, good.”
“Remember when we talked about the medals and stuff?”
“I do indeed. Despite the fact that we are engaged in a desperate struggle for survival in the face of zombie hordes, my mind often returns to the discussions you and I have shared.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve been working on the details and things are pretty well sorted out. Now all we need in the medals themselves.”
“What about the arm stripes you were taking about?”
“We decided to drop clearing buildings and focus on people rescued. At that clothes shop in the first operation we picked up pounds of these five-point stars inside a circle,” he handed one to the Gnome leader. “They are in silver and gold. We figure silver means fifty people, and gold means two hu
ndred. You’ll wear them here,” he patted the left breast pocket. “But only when we’re back at base.”
The star was about the size of a nickel, and surprisingly solid. “A good ice-breaker, I suppose,” Marv nodded, handing to Dyson. “And you’ll keep track?”
“Yeah, I already had a database set up; remember the decals Sylvia made for the RV back before we got to Texas? It will look sharp, and give us some rep. I thought we could incorporate the total number rescued as a company, like McDonalds used to do, paint it on the vehicles.”
“It would make us sound less mercenary, more humanitarian,” Dyson admitted, passing the star to Bear. “And the troops are for it?”
“Their idea,” the husky Gnome shrugged. “I just act as a moderator and carry the news up the chain of command, as befits the role of a senior Gnome.”
“It’s the sort of thing that would give you an edge picking up strange,” Bear handed the star back to Chip. “But they better understand that somebody get caught wears something they didn’t earn it’s gonna cost them.”
“Yeah, I pointed that out.”
“Well, request granted.” Marv pulled over a block of Styrofoam and sat down. Other than Bear’s green camp chair they had no furniture but the cut-down dock supports from the trucks. “If we do another train op we’re going to bring some some folding chairs and tables along.”
“Plus we need cooking gear-Angela was right about that, it would be good for morale and a lot more efficient than having everyone fend for themselves,” Dyson agreed.
“That wasn’t the request, dude,” Chip persisted. “What we need are medals themselves, the formal awards for valor and stuff like that.”
“I’m not opposed to them, but if we do this we’re going to treat it seriously, not handing out medals every time somebody volunteers for a detail.”
“Yeah, they all agreed on that point. Frankly, other than maybe Addison tracking Hodges there hasn’t been anything really distinctive that anyone can think of to date. But its more the idea of the thing: if we have them in place, its kind of…nice knowing they’re there.”
“Then we’re all on the same page,” Marv eyed Chip. “But you still haven’t gotten to the point.”
The husky Gnome pulled out a map. “We’re about five miles from a place where they made costume supplies, dude. Actually, its an illegal sweat shop, Addison thinks they ran it with people from Human trafficking. One thing they made is medals for costumes, for civic awards and things like that. Plus trophies, ribbons, all that sort of stuff.”
“How the hell did we happen to stop to fix a rail so close to that sort of place?” Marv looked at the map. “This is only the third time we’ve stopped to clear or repair the tracks. Maybe the fourth.”
“We would have had to stop to manually switch us onto another line at the town where the shop is located,” Chip pointed. “Addison’s been searching both the legit Net and dark Net for a place we could get medals since Oklahoma. This is the best option he found along our route.”
“Blanket, South Dakota,” Marv shook his head and handed the map back. “So what’s the plan?”
“The sweat shop is actually next to the rail line, in an old warehouse. Since we’re stopped now I thought we could drive up, grab the medals, and load back up while the rail guys switch or whatever it is they do. It would only cost the train a few minutes.”
“What about the locals?”
“Blanket is supposed to be empty, they got hit by an ERF zombie truck-bomb a while back.”
“OK, but officially we’re not going for medals. We’ll do a quick sweep for survivors, and see what’s what. Civic duty sort of thing.” Marv stood. “I’ll clear it with Grase. Take two trucks and enough volunteers to fully crew them.”
“What?” Chip froze.
“Your idea, Chip, your command.”
“Yeah,” Dyson grinned. “JD’s taking a nap. You’re supposed to be a man of action, at least according to a recent poll of Cuban hard-bodies.”
Chip opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally he shrugged. “OK.”
“That’s the spirit,” the Ranger grinned.
“Hell, I’ll go too,” Bear tossed in his hand. “I’m bored. Feel like a trip, babe?”
“Sure,” Bambi gathered the cards, shuffled them, and put them back in the box.
Chip took a deep breath. “Thanks, dude.”
“So why do you have a UN button on your pouch?” Addison asked. He, Angela, and Angela’s half-sister, the blond archer, were sitting on the rear of Gnome-3, whose tailgate was down. The archer, whose name was Kat Fisher, was just shy of fifteen and had already been pledged to a man in his late forties. Kat, who was perky but not really pretty, didn’t say much; she was sanding an arrow shaft that lacked a head or fletching and keeping her own council.
“Its not the UN, it’s the symbol of the Flat Earth Society. I don’t believe the world is an orb.”
“Really?” Addison didn’t notice Kat rolling her eyes.
“Yes. It’s a disk walled in with ice,” she sketched a circle on a fold of her cloak lying across her lap. “Go too close to the edge, and you hit ice. Otherwise you just travel in circles.”
“What about the various space programs?”
“Every single person who claims to have entered space has been hand-picked by one government or another. And there’s no denying the moon exists, so for all I know they landed there.”
Addison considered it. “So how do compasses work?”
“Magnetic north is close to the North Pole on a globe, while that is also the center of our disk. Pole or center, it makes no difference.”
“So why all the deception?”
“Because until the 1950s nobody knew for sure. Once the governments realized what was up, they had to keep it a secret. The ice on the rim keeps things going, like the lead weight on the side of a car wheel. Imagine what would happen if people started messing with our balancing weights.”
Addison pondered this for a bit, then mentally shrugged. He had taken the idea of a globe on faith, but the truth was he had no verifiable proof. And after all people took it on faith that mothers loved and cherished their children while his had been trying to kill him since he was young. “Did you know that Tolkien’s book is really a warning against appearances?”
“You mean that the hobbits were behind the whole Ring business? Of course! Sauron was the only one who saw the danger-that’s established by the literary device of his ‘eye’ symbol.”
“Exactly! Almost nobody ever gets that!”
Unnoticed by either Kat stuck her finger into her mouth and pretended to vomit.
“Hey, there you are,” Chip hopped off the sandbag wall and started cranking down the draw-bridge-like truck ramp. “We got the go-ahead for a quick run into Blanket, taking Two and Three, Bear’s in charge.”
“Great,” Angela hopped down. “Kat, you better stay here.”
“Actually, I don’t think Marv would want you along either,” Chip stopped cranking.
“Why?” Angela crossed her arms.
Addison eased Chip aside and manned the crank, glad to avoid this issue.
“Well…because you’re unarmed,” Chip stammered.
Angela reached to the small of her back and brought her hands forward, each now gripping a trench knife; the knives had a foot-long dagger blade set into a hilt shaped like a set of brass knuckles, except these were case-hardened steel. “Wanna try that again? You could chin yourself using my staff and it wouldn’t even flex,” she sheathed her knives.
“We prefer to avoid getting to knife range with zombies,” Chip explained patiently.
“I prefer to avoid ‘em entirely. Look, I’m the soothsayer and cook, and if you guys get kitchen gear I want to be on hand to pick it out. Just don’t plan on me being part of the combat line, or whatever you call it.”
Chip looked to Addison, but the dark Gnome was completely absorbed with the task of inserting the locking pins into the ramps. �
�Maybe after you are issued a weapon and practice with it...”
She shook her head and pulled a steel cylinder from the round case on her right hip. It was about eight inches long, two wide, with a machined knob at the base. With a harsh click a stainless steel spike a half-inch in diameter shot out the end, reaching a distance of four inches before sliding back.
“Its based on a captive bolt pistol, what they use to kill animals in a slaughterhouse. My two are powered by a spring wound by the knob,” she demonstrated. “Gramps didn’t approve since its modern materials, but I brought them along when I ran. Quiet and lethal. I told you, in a pinch I can protect myself. I never claimed to be a front-line type.”
“Its up to Bear,” Chip raised his hands in disgust.
“I want to go, too,” Kat announced. “I am a front-line type.”
“You’re what, thirteen?”
“Almost fifteen,” Kat snapped. “You can ask the zeds with arrows in their skulls how old I look.”
“Why do you need to go along?” Angela frowned.
“I didn’t come along to cook.”
“You aren’t signed on as a shooter, either,” Addison pointed out.
“I’m an asset in a fight. My bow fires as fast as your guys with pump-action shotguns, and I’m a better shot.”
“I’m not arguing those points,” Addison conceded.
“There are no points,” Angela snapped. “You’re not going.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“But we are,” Addison cut in. “At least as to who goes and who stays. This is a situation for Marv, we need a policy decision.”
“No joke,” Chip nodded.
“You should have let me go,” Kat said sullenly.
“It wasn’t because of a lack of confidence in your skills,” Marv admitted. The two were seated in the lee of the patched-together windbreak as the train rolled towards Blanket. “At this point there’s a lot of legal gray areas in what we are doing, and I don’t want the Gnomes to be a test case for criminal charges stemming from employing juveniles in combat operations. If we didn’t have a reality TV crew with us and a DSR rep at our elbow, I wouldn’t have minded, or if you were at least sixteen. But while we’re on this train you’re strictly a home guard.”
