by P. T. Hylton
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I had this blood to wash the taste out of my mouth after kissing ass all night.”
Aaron chuckled. “Stay strong, buddy. It won’t be forever. Once we’re free of Toby shadowing us everywhere, all we need is access to the security control room. If we turn the humans who work in there, we’re golden. We’d control the blast doors, the gun turrets, the alarm systems, you name it.”
“What do we do then?”
“We force them to send out an emergency signal and get the vampires running for the blast doors. I figure if we trap Jaden’s disciples between the blast doors, we’ll have time to turn a bunch of the humans into disciples of our own.”
“Huh.” Mark was silent so long, Aaron thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke again. “I don’t know, man. That all seems pretty complicated. Who knows when they’ll even let us out without Toby watching us. Things seem to move damn slow around here. Besides, what kind of reason would even make sense for getting a bunch of humans between the blast doors?”
“Relax. It’s good that things are moving slowly. Means we have time to plan. For now, we just have to concentrate on getting Jaden’s trust. Once we have that, everything will fall into place.”
“And what do we do once we take over?”
“We do what Jaden won’t,” Aaron answered. “We help the Ferals. With ten thousand humans in this place, I’ll bet we could feed four thousand vampires. And that’s just the start. Once we get the humans breeding, every female pumping out a kid a year, that number will jump up fast in just a few generations. Vampires could have a world worth living in again. All vampires, not just one hundred assholes who think they’re better than the rest of us.”
“Heh. I’d like to see that.”
“You will see it. And the best part? We’re going to rule it.”
16
The next two weeks were a whirlwind of missions. Fleming sent the GMT on fourteen missions in as many days.
Today was their fifteenth. Alex had promised her team they’d get a much-needed break after this one, and it was a promise she intended to keep, no matter what Fleming had to say about it.
The two previous weeks had been an assortment of failures and successes. They’d managed to bring back all the weapons from the Colombian rainforest. It had taken five trips, and they’d encountered a few vampires waiting in the vault on their fifth trip, but they’d managed to recover every damn crate.
Alex had hoped that would earn them a short reprieve, but she’d been incorrect. First, the team had been sent to salvage as much as they could from the away ship that had crashed near Agartha. The backup ship was serving the team well enough, but Fleming had a team working on building a larger transport that could get big groups to and from Fort Sterns.
Then had been the daylights. Brian needed more supplies to continue making them in the numbers and sizes Fleming demanded. The parts he needed would have been used in large lighting systems in the pre-infestation days, so the GMT had gone to retrieve them. Though they’d visited various sports stadiums around the world, they’d so far come back empty-handed. It turned out that the stadiums hadn’t held up well without anyone to maintain them. The rusted-out and deteriorated lighting systems had been useless.
And then there was Firefly. Things had been contentious between Alex and Firefly since their ill-fated dinner. He and a few of his best recruits had accompanied them on about half the missions, and Firefly seemed to flex his leadership muscles a little more on each trip. The last time, he’d actually tried to override one of Alex’s commands, a move that had almost earned him a punch in the face. He’d apologized after the mission and had promised to let her take the lead on this next mission, but she’d believe it when she’d seen it.
It hadn’t been all bad, though. As hard as the nonstop schedule had been on her team, it had hardened them like a refining fire. She almost couldn’t believe how far they’d come in such a short time. They operated with poise and instinctive teamwork that most units took years to develop. The Barton brothers were absolute monsters in the field, eradicating hostiles with a ruthless efficiency. Chuck had come into his own too now that he’d been moved back to reconnaissance.
The other bright spot was their newly returned team member, the one who’d taken over the explosives specialist job from Chuck. He still had a slight limp and probably always would, but it didn’t restrict his movement. It was damn good to have Wesley back on the team.
Though there were no backup GMT recruits at the moment―Fleming was supposedly working on that―they had a full team again for the first time since Hope’s death.
Now they were back on the away ship, heading toward yet another mission. They were going after another lighting system and the stakes were high; Brian was out of components, and he wouldn’t be making any more daylights for Fort Sterns until the team brought him some.
Alex looked out the window and tried not to let her confidence falter at the landscape stretched below her. Nothing but sand and mountains as far as she could see. She couldn’t imagine a large lighting system down there.
Owl came over the speaker when they were five minutes out from their destination. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re ready for some fun in the sun because we will soon be arriving at the location formerly called as Las Vegas. Also known as Sin City.”
Patrick sat up a bit straighter at that. “Sin City, huh? That doesn’t sound half bad.”
The ship banked left, and Alex noticed some columns protruding from the sand; it took her a moment to identify them as the tops of buildings. There were no other signs a city had ever been there. If there were roads and houses down there, they were buried beneath the sand.
“Las Vegas means ‘the meadow’ in Spanish,” Owl continued. “In actuality, the city is situated in a basin in the Mojave Desert. It’s surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides. This area also had the third greatest seismic activity of anywhere in the United States. Whether it was an earthquake or simply the passage of time that led the city to being covered in sand, I do not know.”
Chuck let out a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Ed asked.
Chuck nodded out the window. “We’re going into a desert, one of the sunniest places on Earth. And yet we’re going to be digging down into the darkness under the sand.”
Ed chuckled. “Let it never be said the GMT doesn’t go to great lengths to find and exterminate the enemy.”
Firefly touched his radio. “Hey, Owl, how many people lived here prior to the infestation?”
“Patience, Captain,” she said. “Las Vegas was known for its casinos, which were gambling establishments where visitors could wager their money against long odds in the hopes of winning even more.”
“Long odds, huh?” Patrick interjected. “This is my kind of town.”
“And to answer Captain Eldred’s question, the population of the city was eight hundred thousand people prior to infestation.”
“Great,” Firefly muttered. “So we’re looking at over three quarters of a million vampires under that sand.”
“That is all the information I have for you today,” Owl said. “My apologies. With our frantic schedule, I haven’t had much time to spend in the library.”
The ship touched down next to three towers that stuck out several stories from the sand.
Alex led the team off the ship and out onto the sea of sand.
Firefly put his hand in his hips and grunted. “I thought Brian said the lights we’re looking for are in a stadium.”
“They are,” Alex answered. Then she pointed downward.
“Great,” he said. “So we take the tower down?”
“Yep,” Owl said, stepping out of the ship. “There should be a system of tunnels that connect this tower to the stadium. Assuming it hasn’t collapsed under the weight of the sand.”
“No time like the present,” Patrick said. “Let’s go inside.” He walked up to the tower and slammed th
e butt of his shotgun against a window. The gun bounced off, the window still intact.
Ed barked out a laugh. “Let me show you how it’s done.” He slammed the butt of his gun hard against the window, grunting with effort, and he got the same result.
“Son of a bitch,” Ed muttered. He swung his gun around and fired into the window. That did the trick.
Alex glared at them both. “Wait for orders before you fire at a non-hostile target. I would have preferred not to let every vampire in the building know we were coming.”
“Sorry, Captain,” the brothers muttered in unison.
Alex walked toward the window. “Nothing to do about it now. The damage is done. Let’s go inside.”
The team made their way into the room, past the ruins of old furniture and out into the hallway beyond. Firefly brought up the rear. He stepped into the hallway and the door swung shut behind him with a thump, instantly darkening the space. They were truly in the vampires’ territory now—a cold, dead place cut off from the light of the sun.
They all turned on their headlamps, and Firefly tried the doorknob. It was locked.
“No worries,” Alex said. “We can always bust through it if we need to.”
As they walked down the hallway, a low rumble came from the distance. The team froze.
Alex felt goosebumps spring up on her arms as she stood stone-still, listening. It didn’t sound like a vampire, but it took her a moment to figure it out. “It’s the wind. Rushing through the halls.”
The team let out a collective sigh of relief. “Not vampires,” Chuck said, “but still damn creepy.”
Owl pointed to a sign—it showed a simple depiction of a staircase and an arrow pointing left.
“Left it is,” Alex said.
As they made their way down the hall, she noticed Firefly’s three recruits—Shirley, Mario, and Henry—stuck close to their captain. It had been that way on every mission, and Alex had gotten used to it. Firefly’s people were equipment just like the rest of the GMT, complete with silvermail and jetpacks, so it was easy to look past them. The three had proven themselves competent, if still a little jumpy, but they worshiped Firefly a little too much for their own good. For the most part, they tended to hang back and let the GMT do the real work, which was fine with Alex.
“This place looks pretty great for having been abandoned for one hundred fifty years,” Patrick said. “Unless the vampires are keeping things tidy.”
“It’s the dry climate,” Owl said. “This place was sealed up like a tomb.”
“Not a wonderful analogy,” Patrick complained.
After a few minutes of walking, they reached the end of the hallway and a door marked “Stairs.”
Chuck tried the door, but it was stuck. Alex nodded to Wesley, who took out his cutter and went to work.
He cut slowly and carefully, making as little noise as possible, but even the quiet whir of the blade sounded loud in this dead hallway. The team waited in silence.
When Wesley was just about finished, the locking mechanism slid, then fell, cut free from the door.
Alex froze, dreading both the sound it would make when it hit the floor and the vampires the clang would bring. But Chuck reached out and plucked the lock out of the air.
Alex raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Nice.”
Chuck just smiled.
They stood gathered at the doorway, looking through to the sign over the stairs. It read “20.”
“I take it that means this is the twentieth floor?” Mario asked.
“Looks like,” Alex said. “You got the layout of this place, Owl?”
The pilot pulled her tablet out of her bag and tapped the screen.
“There are three towers. We’re in the westernmost one. There’s a central area that connects all three towers at the base. That’s where we’ll find the stadium.”
“The bottom,” Firefly said. “Of course.”
Alex glanced back down the hallway. “I do like the setup in here. Narrow hallways. Narrow staircases. That’ll help if we get outnumbered. Hopefully it’ll be the same way below. Let’s head down.”
They descended the stairway quickly but carefully. With each floor they passed, Alex tried not to think about the layers of sleeping vampires that were likely stacked on top of them.
They reached the doorway to floor one and stopped. Alex looked at the group. “Tight formations. Stay alert, but be damn sure before you fire at anything. The last thing we want to do is wake up any vamps in this place. Chuck, you’re with me. Barton brothers, you’re anchor.”
“And us non-GMT weenies will huddle in the middle,” Firefly muttered.
“I'll be huddling right with you,” Owl said.
On Alex’s signal, Firefly pulled the door open, and she and Chuck went through. And immediately stopped.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.
Their headlights weren’t bright enough to see to the other side of the vast space before them, but they saw enough. Stone columns. Marble sculptures. Spiral staircases that led up beautifully adorned balconies.
“Damn, what the hell was this place?” Patrick asked as he came through the door and joined the group.
“A king lived here,” Ed answered.
Patrick frowned at him. “How do you know that?”
Ed turned, shining his headlamp on a large sign mounted on the wall.
Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino.
“Stay quiet,” Alex told them sharply. “Owl? You know where we’re headed?”
The pilot smiled. “I don’t even need my tablet for that.” She pointed to a smaller sign on the wall. It listed a number of locations with arrows next to each of them. The one they were interested in was on the bottom.
The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace.
“That’s where we’re headed,” Owl confirmed.
“Okay. Team, let’s follow the helpful arrows.”
The group kept in tight formation as they crossed the expansive floor. The area they were passing through was cluttered with rows and rows of metal machines which limited their visibility. The poor line of sight made Alex nervous; for all she knew there could be vampires huddled behind every one of those metal monstrosities.
They’d been walking for two minutes when Wesley suddenly stopped and spoke in a low voice. “Captain. Two o’clock.”
Alex looked to her right and saw it: a vampire was huddled against one of the machines, sleeping.
She held up a hand, indicating to her team not to engage. Then she started walking again, gun at the ready.
A few minutes later, they made their way through a massive arched hallway. Chuck looked up, illuminating the ceiling, and let out a barely audible whistle.
Alex followed his gaze and saw that the ceiling was painted to resemble a blue sky with a smattering of clouds. She couldn’t believe this place. It was at once awe-inspiring and sickening. To think people had once lived with such extravagance made her both envious of the past and angry at how far humanity had fallen.
She looked around and her headlamp illuminated a window that seemed to lead to some sort of shop. A vampire was sleeping against the glass. She gestured toward it, making sure her team knew it was there, then kept moving.
“This is it,” Owl whispered as they reached a wall with a set of double doors.
Alex pulled them open and led the team inside. The longer they were down here, the more nervous she was becoming. She didn’t want to spend any more time down here than they had to.
The feeling of paranoia only increased as they stepped into the Colosseum. It was a massive space filled with stadium seating that led to a large stage at the bottom of the room.
There might be worse places to get into a fight with a large group of vampires, but Alex couldn’t think of one. If a horde attacked them here, it would be all too easy for the vampires to surround the team.
She pushed the thought out of her mind. She didn’t usually think like
this, but something about being down here under tons of sand was stoking her nerves.
Owl touched her arm and spoke softly. “Alex, look. It’s everything Brian needs.”
Alex followed her friend’s gaze upward to the impressive lighting system. Owl was right. If the lights were in as good condition as everything else in this palace, they’d make Brian a very happy man.
“Excellent.” She thought for a moment. “Owl, Wesley, Ed, you’re with me. We’re going up to that catwalk to get the lights. The rest of you hold formation on the stage. Everyone, work as quietly as you can.”
Alex activated her jetpack and shot up toward the catwalk. The jetpacks were relatively quiet, but the noise they did make seemed amplified in the large, empty room. Still, the four of them made it to the catwalk without bringing any vampires down on them, and they immediately went to work.
The first few lights went slowly as they figured out how to remove them. To Owl’s delight, the lights were in even better condition than they could have hoped.
Alex, Ed, Wesley, and Owl worked quickly and quietly, communicating with hand signals or whispers when necessary, but mostly just flowing through the job. Before long, they’d each removed twelve of the large lights and lowered them to the floor where Chuck, Shirley, and Henry were organizing them while the others stood guard.
Alex eyed the pile on the floor far below her. They wouldn’t be able to safely carry out much more than what they had. She decided she’d let them each get one more light and then call it.
She was starting toward the next light when she heard Owl gasp. Alex spun, and saw Owl staring down in horror at the light that had just slipped out of her hand and was falling toward the floor.
Chuck saw it too, and he raced for the spot, trying to get under Owl so he could catch the falling light. He stretched out his hands, but he was a good three feet short of the spot.
The light slammed onto the ground with a thunderous crash.
