by RW Krpoun
“You can always patch yourself up,” Chip pointed out.
“Bite me.”
“After the shot you need to lie down for a while and drink a quart of water. You lost a fair amount of blood and your body needs some quiet time to absorb the shock. Eat something if you think your stomach can handle it.”
“Yes, mother.”
Wade Schmidt was in his shirt sleeves with his wrists and ankles bound by flex-cuffs, his wrists in front of his body and lashed to his belt. The big ex-con was kneeling grim-faced by a galvanized metal tub the Gnomes had picked up in Grand Forks. Dyson was watching him while Brick emptied another water can into the tub.
“You think you’re going to scare me with a pipe?” Schmidt grinned, blood leaking from his swollen nose.
“Nope.” Marv dragged a water can over and sat on it. “You want to tell me where Hodges is?’
“Who?”
“Yeah, who. Why do you owe him anything? He’s the one that got your crew killed.”
“They weren’t real close friends of mine.”
“Well, he’s the reason you’re here with us.” Marv checked the water level in the tub, noting the four cinderblocks in its bottom to give it stability, and nodded to Brick.
“Who?”
“Ok.” Marv tossed the pipe to Dyson, and looked Wade in the eye. “You’re in complete control of this process. It stops when you tell me where Hodges is and everything you know about him. Understand?”
“Who…hey!” Wade cursed as Brick grabbed him and held him in place as Dyson slid the pipe between his left arm and his body and then used its length as leverage to position the pipe so it ran across his middle back through the crooks of his elbows.
“Last chance,” Marv pulled a notebook and pen from his MOLLE vest.
“I’m not a snitch.”
“Ok.” Marv nodded to Dyson and Brick. “Go.”
The two men grabbed the ends of the pole and used it to bend Wade forward into the tub so his head was underwater. The pole’s leverage and his bound ankles made the big man unable to effectively resist. Marv watched the timer on his wristwatch; bubbles started leaking upwards, and then Schmidt began to thrash as much as he was able. “Up.”
Wade, red-faced and gasping, was hauled back to a kneeling position. Marv kept his eyes on his timer. “Go.” The terrorist’s head was submerged.
“Up.”
“Go.”
“Up.”
“Go.”
“Up.” Schmidt tried to babble something, but Marv ignored it. “Go.”
“What are you doing?” Anna asked, coming up from behind and to Marv’s left.
“Instilling patriotism.”
“What?”
“Eventually he is going to decide to help out the US of A by telling us where a guy on the CATL is.”
“Who is he?”
“The leader of the gang. Up.”
“Boss of the bunch of rapists?”
“Yup.”
The girl was quiet, watching Wade desperately coughing out water and sucking air into his lungs, his face dangerously dark.
“Go.”
“That’s like torture.”
“Yeah, sort of. No permanent harm, and he can end it at any time by talking to us. It’s a primitive form of waterboarding-we let him start to drown, and pull him out just as the panic sets in. Pretty soon he’ll decide that protecting the target isn’t really all that important.”
“Actually, I think its just stubborn pride holding him at this point,” Dyson observed.
“You’re probably right. Up.”
Marv let Schmidt hack, gasp, and cough for a bit. “So, Hodges or another drink?”
“Screw you.”
“Go.”
“This is horrible,” Anna said in a strained voice as the terrorist struggled.
“Want to tell us to stop?” Marv was curious-he hadn’t spoken to the girl much.
“Not really,” she said after a long pause. “Before I saw the girls…”
“Yeah, that sort of thing changes the rules of the game, doesn’t it? From the pictures it looks like there were eight at one time.”
“The other six were taken away to become zombies. These two were…favorites. The truck that came for the other six girls drove in from the north, and from what they overheard the main site is just a few miles from where they were kept. That’s what I came to tell you.”
“Up. Good to know-that just smoothed out our day. I’m inclined to let Schmidt drown at this point.” Marv eyed the wheezing, choking ex-convict. “He was planning to kill us, he did his best to kill Bear personally, and I don’t care for his taste in entertainment. What do you say, Wade? With what your captives just told us, you’re surplus to requirements. Any last words before we drown you?”
The terrorist coughed up more water, gagging and gasping, before raising his bloodshot eyes to the Ranger’s. “You…won’t drown me.”
Marv leaned forward and grinned. “Maybe. But believe me, we’ll dunk you until you’ll wish you were dead, and when I get tired of that I’ll just shoot you and say you got it when we hit the store. Who would possibly care what happens to you?”
“The…ERF..”
“Fuck the ERF. You’re expendable to them, and in any case they’re at war with the entire USA. You’re worthless to everyone, Wade, completely useless. Unless you want to tell me something I don’t know.”
The ex-convict hesitated.
“Go.”
“All right,” Marv surveyed at the assembled Yard Gnome force. “To bring everyone up to speed we just took out an ERF hit team assigned to ambush us. Thanks to Addison’s mad spy skills we knew when and where they planned to do said ambush, so here we are. Now, the purpose of today’s jaunt through the soggy portion of the Great White North is a man named Franklin Hodges, a proud member of the CATL with seven hundred fifty thousand tax-free dollars on his noggin, dead or alive, a sum which recently went up by a quarter million.” There was an appreciative murmur at the mention of the bounty as the pictures of Hodges circulated from hand to hand.
“Hodges is at a FASA site about twenty-five miles from here; he sent the ERF team to ice us, so he is on edge.” A raised hand caught his attention. “Yes, George?”
“If he works for FASA, why did he send an ERF team? According to the DSR, FASA and the ERF parted ways a while ago.”
“That is a very good question. We’ll ask him that when we take the compound.” Marv propped a sheet of plywood on Gnome-1’s front bumper. “We’re hitting an old chicken farm. Its surrounded by the trees we have come love since getting here. There’s two long low tin barn-looking structures which used to house the chickens, this was one of those places where they lived in little cages or something like that,” he indicated two rectangles drawn on the plywood. “They’ve been gutted. Pen One,” he tapped the western square. “Is a zombie holding facility, while Pen Two to the east is a workshop or light factory, building something, we don’t know what. As you can see the two ‘pens’ are at the north end, while this at the south end is a small barn which houses the vehicles and has sleeping quarters in the second story. The farmhouse here on the east edge houses the rest of the people, and is where we will find Hodges.”
“Do we know why they are gathering zombies?” Bear asked.
“No. At first the ERF team rounded up zeds that were pointed out by a member of Hodges staff; later they just gathered what zeds and uninfected people came to hand. Periodically they run truck-loads of infected subjects to terror cells in four states and Canada, but from the numbers this isn’t a breeder operations-the zombies are just a by-product.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” JD observed. “We’re missing some major pieces of the puzzle.”
“Very true. So, we are looking at a around a dozen people working under Hodges in the workshop or with the zeds, and six dedicated security types, although everyone is armed. Around nineteen all told if the count is accurate, although they won’
t be expecting us.” Marv surveyed the faces. “I know that this isn’t in your job description. Corporate security is expected to guard, escort, and salvage, mixing it up with zombies only as those occupations dictate. From the start the Yard Gnomes, like some companies, have taken a more aggressive stance, undertaking rescue and response missions. But this is going toe-to-toe with terrorists, a straight-up firefight; I’m not going to kid you, it is not going to be easy. What I will assure you is that this is an opportunity, and not just to make money, although it is definitely that: there’s probably a million dollars in bounties in this compound, maybe more.”
“The opportunity I’m talking about is a chance to do something important. Hodges is a valuable man, not just in dollar terms but in his service to FASA, and whatever he is doing in this hideaway is not intended to be for the benefit of Mankind or the furtherance of the interests of the USA. If we stop whatever they are up to in there we will certainly save a lot of lives. The guys we just killed were rapists and murderers who liked to record their exploits, so anyone who wants a look can see it first hand, and they were just the foot soldiers.”
“But like I said, this isn’t in our job description. This will be volunteer only, and anyone who chooses to stay behind won’t hear a word of recrimination from me. I’ve seen you fight too many times to question the courage of any man or woman here.” He surveyed the faces. “JD, dismiss the Yard Gnome Action Team. Officer’s call in five minutes.”
“What’s the count?” Marv asked as the seven senior Gnomes gathered around Gnome-4’s hood.
“All of them, even Anna,” JD looked over at Dyson. “I just meant that technically this is her first day.”
“She picked a helluva day to join,” the Georgian nodded grimly. “I’m not all that comfortable, myself.” He shrugged. “Not that I object, its just…unsettling.”
“Well, she won’t be seeing action, the three females will guard the prisoners and secure the rescued women. Its not a comment on their capabilities because someone has to do it, so assigning the least experienced is the best tactical choice.”
“Speaking of tactical choices, what’s the plan?” JD asked.
“Bear, are you up to the mission?”
“Yeah, despite Chip’s best efforts.” The biker ducked the apple core thrown at his head.
“OK, it won’t be long until Hodges figures out the ambush didn’t work, so either we go right now and take what surprise we can, or we hold back and try something complex.”
“What about calling the military?” Chip asked.
“Nobody’s in the immediate area, and given Hodge’s obvious access to DSR intel I’m not confident they can get here in time to grab him. This is more than about the money-this guy ordered an ambush on us specifically. This is personal.”
“Better hit him now, than he hit us later,” Brick agreed.
“Exactly.”
“You OK?” Dyson grabbed Anna in a sideways hug that rattled their tactical vests together.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Her face was pale and drawn.
“Rough day to join up,” he kissed her forehead.
“Its been a rough couple of months,” she sighed. “Today…today was the first day I didn’t feel totally helpless and useless. Up in Maine I was worried about you and for my folks and trying to grasp what was happening to the world. Then that awful plane ride and the forced landing, and sitting in the Center they have at the air base feeling helpless while you’re fighting to get there.” She hefted the shotgun on its three-point assault sling. “At least now…doing is easier than waiting.”
“Amen to that.”
“But the killing, those poor girls, seeing…”
“Seeing me help torture a guy?”
“Yeah. No. Not really-it wasn’t as horrible as watching you in that stupid cage beating on some guy. Not seeing you do it to that guy, anyway; those girls are shattered. Its just…nothing is the same. The last time I saw you, you were teaching mixed martial arts and I was making floral arrangements and planning other people’s events. The world made pretty good sense. The next time we are together there’s zombies and terrorists and you’re a commando.” She pulled on the shotgun’s sling again. “And I’m carrying the meanest-looking shotgun I’ve ever seen and I’m glad I have it. Its just…its like when I watched you fight, only now I’m in the cage too, and there’s no referee or bell or rules.”
He hugged her again. “Hang in there, babe. I know what you’re feeling: when I met the guys down in Florida on I-75 I felt the same way, plus a big dose of helpless. But we rallied together, pooled what we knew, and fought our way across half the country. I saw Marv cut a guy’s ear off and I nearly freaked out, but then I saw the girls we rescued and I basically un-freaked. FASA sent people to kill us, us specifically, by name, but we got through. Now we’ve chopped our way up here, and we’ll fight our way back down to Texas, and everywhere we go we leave stacks of downed zeds and rescued people in our wake. Just wait-you get some perspective, you’ll see what we’re doing. If it wasn’t for us, those girls would still be getting hurt.”
She leaned against him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I don’t love either one of you,” Bear said from behind them. “Especially since we’re doing all the work.”
Dyson held his hand over his head, flipping off the biker. He kissed Anna and gave her a quick hug. “One fight at a time, shug. We’re going to win this.”
Franklin Hodges checked the sat phone again and sighed to himself: still no word. Given the multiple paths that the Yard Gnomes had laid out there was a broad time window in which they would enter the ambush, and that assumed that they did not run into any difficulties in route, but that knowledge was of no comfort whatsoever. Neither was the statistical certainty that the mercenaries were destined to lose. This entire matter was a loose end and it was not coming at a good time, what with both projects being at critical junctures; he was eager to see the matter closed.
Stowing the phone, he concentrated on the clipboard in front of him. He was in Pen One, in the north eighth of the building which had been sealed off with two cinderblock wall with a steel cage sally port between them. In the southern seven-eighths sixty-one zombies milled about, all ghouls or 619 vectors. Periodically the two workers would, with assistance from the security staff, extract one zombie and milk its salvia glands for the virally-infected fluid.
Once extracted the viral material was separated and fostered in nutrient solution for long-term storage. The two technicians, loyal ERF personnel, used about a third of the output to create the bridging viral mix Hodges had developed to create 619 vectors. These were used to convert every ordinary zombie that came into their hands, while the excess was packaged and handed off to ERF teams across the country to be used to increase the number of 619 vector zombies.
The rest of the viral matter was used to convert the captives Schmidt’s team brought in, or was sent to Pen 2. FASA was unaware that instead of simply milking the same pool of zombies initially provided, Hodges was creating ghouls and vectors and distributing them across four states; if the ERF had learned one lesson from the events since the outbreak it was that you needed a multi-layered approach to the destruction of modern society.
Noting the changes he wanted made, Hodges initialed the forms on the clipboard and returned it to the status board. Nodding to himself, he left the building and headed over to Pen Two to check on production. In Pen Two six skilled men and women worked on cordless hair dryers, battery charged hand warmers, rechargeable flashlights, hand-crank-powered AM/FM radios, and similar items. Each was carefully removed from their factory packaging, modified, and re-sealed to appear as if untouched. This was the heart of Project Lantern, the effort to break the Patriot Homesteads: the introduction of high-use items modified to deliver a dose of viral agent to the user by way of a cunning hypodermic injector.
Security companies would gladly salvage such useful items for their easy resale, and th
e resultant outbreaks should seriously impact the public’s trust in both the Homesteads and corporate security.
Davenport had wanted distribution to begin a week ago, but Hodges insisted on waiting until enough devices had been modified to create major outbreaks in four Homesteads at the same time, both because he felt it was the best approach, and because each device was loaded with the 619 virus; there was the danger that FASA would notice the difference in zombie capabilities and become suspicious, so a delay was essential to ensure that Project Outback was competed; to date, they had only delivered roughly forty per cent of the viral material required to make the 619 virus the dominant infection agent in North America.
He was sharing his research with a French team who was striving to accomplish the same goal in Europe and the Middle East, and they had great hopes, although as always what they needed was time. Time was always the issue, because the enemies of social progress were forever hunting them, while the stubborn masses of Mankind were refusing to submit to their destiny.
“Sir,” Irene Washington, the head of security for Project Lantern and also a hand-picked ERF foot soldier, was standing in the door of Pen Two.
“Yes?”
Irene, a tough black girl from Detroit who had served overseas in the Marines, jerked her head and stepped back outside. He followed her, checking the sat phone again.
“What is it?” he asked when they were outside and safely out of earshot. Other than his six-person security detail only the two technicians in Pen One were ERF members.
“Sir, I was checking into the corporate security team you mentioned.”
“Yes?”
“Are you aware they are the ones who reported the safe house in Oklahoma?”
“Yes.”
“And that the core members of the corporation are also the survivors of Fastbox Two?”
She had his undivided attention. “What?”
“Fastbox Two,” she repeated. “The team that delivered part of the Miami bomb’s payload despite everything that Districts Twelve and Thirteen could throw at them. They formed the Yard Gnome Action Team corporation after that job.”
