The Americans: Apex Trilogy, Book 2

by Jake Bible

  “Sorry about that, Mr. Stone,” Reginald responded. “Not sure what happened there.”

  “Me neither,” Mr. Stone said, turning and walking gingerly back to where Reginald was positioned. “I think I twisted my ankle on a rock or bit of driftwood.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Do you need some help?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just call this in and have the satellites tasked to track that boat,” Mr. Stone said. “Hopefully it isn’t cloaked. If it is, have the techs look for a dull spot on the scan. That should tell us where they’re at.”

  “Will do, Stone. Again, sorry about missing the shot.”

  “You didn’t miss, Reginald. I don’t know what happened, but you didn’t miss.”

  ***

  “Corporal?” General Fitzroy called. “Let Commander Lafonte know I have put the order out for all FCUs to close up shop and return to base. Have Communications tally the responses. Let me know if we have any stragglers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Corporal Stephens responded.

  ***

  “Roll her on her side!” Melissa shouted. Beth just sat there stunned, watching the liquid spew from Heather’s mouth. “Are you fucking listening?”

  Beth couldn’t move; she heard Melissa, but she was frozen to the spot, the sight of the viscous fluid mesmerizing her.

  Melissa shoved her aside and rolled Heather over, letting the red-black goo slide easier from between Heather’s lips.

  “What the fuck is this shit?” Melissa cried out. “It smells horrible.”

  “What’s going on back there?” Billy called from the cabin. “Is Heather alright?”

  “No! She’s puking up sludge!” Melissa turned on Beth. “What happened?”

  “She…she had her brains blown out,” Beth stammered.

  Melissa checked the back of Heather’s head and found no sign of any type of wound. “What the hell are you jabbering about? There’s no exit wound.”

  “Look at her eye. The bullet went through there.” Beth shivered. “Then out her head. Look at me.”

  Melissa could see the bits of bone and brain matter splattered across Beth’s already soiled clothes. She lifted Heather’s right eyelid exposing a normal green eye. Then lifted her left lid and gasped. “Jesus fuck!”

  “See,” Beth said. “I don’t know how, but her head healed. It almost looked like it was healing as the damage was happening. One second there was a hole then the next there wasn’t.”

  “Uggh,” Heather gurgled.

  “Shhh,” Melissa soothed. “Just stay still.”

  Heather convulsed and an incredible volume of sludge disgorged from her mouth, then slowed to a trickle and stopped. Heather’s breathing began to normalize and soon her eyes fluttered open, both once again green.

  “Whoa…” Melissa said. “That eye was just full-on white.”

  “What…” Heather wheezed. “What happened?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Melissa answered. “Freak here said you had your brains blown out, but you look fine to me.”

  “She did!” Beth yelled. “I watched the bullet rip through her fucking head and come out the back! Look! Look at me! I have her all over me!” Beth balled up her fists in anger, her body shaking with uncontrollable rage as she got to her feet. “And don’t call me freak again or I swear I’ll fucking kill you!”

  Melissa grinned. “Fine. No more freak. As long as you promise to keep up the attitude and don’t bring back pussy Laughlin.”

  “Have to agree,” Heather smiled weakly. “I prefer the backbone version.”

  “You people are insane!” Beth shouted.

  “Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Billy called again from the cabin. “Fucking hello! Let’s not make the junkie worry here, please!”

  Chapter Eight

  “Again?” Director Gein shouted over the com. “You are supposed to be my best agent, Mr. Stone, yet you have done nothing but disappoint me today!”

  “I understand, sir,” Mr. Stone replied. “I have to admit that my performance has been less than stellar.”

  “Less than stellar? How about an all-out motherfucking failure!?!”

  “That might be a bit harsh, sir, but you are the boss,” Mr. Stone responded.

  Director Gein took a deep breath and held it then slowly released it, letting the air hiss between his teeth. “What am I going to do with you, Stone?”

  “Well, first, Reginald and I will need a boat,” Mr. Stone said. “Preferably a fast one. Second, we’ll—”

  “You’re getting fuck all is what you are getting, Agent,” Gein growled. “I should have Reginald put a bullet between your eyes right now.”

  Mr. Stone didn’t respond, locking eyes with his partner. Reginald gave him a quizzical look, but Stone just shook his head.

  “Did that get your attention, Agent Stone?” Gein laughed. “It’s sobering knowing you are expendable, isn’t it?” Director Gein thought for a moment then grunted. “I’m calling in the Spiders. Stay where you are, Stone. I’ll send them to you. They’ll suck a few facts from your brain, it will hurt immensely and then they will be on their way. Hopefully they can finish the job that you couldn’t.”

  “Of course, sir,” Mr. Stone responded soberly. “If that is what you feel the situation warrants.”

  “Fuck you, Stone.” The director disconnected.

  “How bad?” Reginald asked.

  “Spiders,” Mr. Stone responded.

  “We really bollixed it all up, didn’t we?” Reginald grimaced.

  “They don’t send Spiders when it all goes right, Reginald,” Mr. Stone growled. He slammed his fist against his thighs. “FUCK ALL!”

  ***

  Blue Masterson’s com beeped on his personal channel. “Charlie? That you?”

  “Dad!” Charlie Masterson cried. “They…snipers…everyone…reinforcements…”

  “Charlie? What’s going on? Charlie!” Static squawked in Blue’s com and he winced. “CHARLIE!” The connection was lost and Blue Masterson found himself scared for the first time in a very long time.

  ***

  “Come on, you fucking Jacks! Take what’s coming to you!” the leader of the mob yelled from the street. “You think you can kill innocents and get away with it? Fuck you!”

  Another man stepped forward, holding a crate of bottles, rags stuffed into the neck of each. The mob swarmed him, hands yanking the bottles from the crate and setting fire to the rags. Almost as one the mob threw the burning bottles at the small house, flames engulfing the roof and siding.

  “Burn, you fucking Jacks! Burn in Hell!”

  Inside, Tabitha Shepherd hurried the children down the stairs and into the basement. “They’ve set the house afire!” she yelled down to her husband Dell.

  “Fuck!” he cursed, yanking the door to their safe room open. “I can’t get BOP, either! System is overloaded! I think every Family Unit in the UK is trying to report in at once!”

  The sound of breaking glass could be heard above as Tabitha followed the twins and Albert, their oldest, into the safe room. “Not like they can do anything anyway with that mob!” she called.

  She looked into the scared eyes of her children. The twins, Barbara and Russell, only four years old, clutched at each other as they leapt onto their cot and pulled the blanket tight about them. Albert, seven, sat at the com console and popped out his right eye, grabbing the ocular jack and plugging it into the empty socket. Birth abnormalities, common among Americans considering their use of in vitro genetic engineering, were never wasted and always used to their full advantage.

  “It’s just the heat from the fire shattering the glass!” Albert called out, the ocular jack giving him instant cerebral access to the holo cams stationed about the house.

  “That’s everything,” Dell said, shutting and securing the three foot thick door behind him. He turned and looked at his family. “We’re in here until they come to get us.”

  “What if they don’t, Daddy?” Russell asked, tryi
ng to be brave.

  “We have enough food and water to last us for three weeks,” Dell said, smiling. “We’ll be fine.”

  ***

  “STEP AWAY FROM THE SHIP!” the voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “DO NOT APPROACH! WE WILL OPEN FIRE!”

  “They aren’t listening, sir,” Darren McCauley said, setting the handset aside and looking towards his Aunt Fiona.

  “Then open fire, Darren,” Fiona responded. “We can’t afford to lose this boat to an angry mob.”

  “Aunt Fi? But those are civilians!” Darren cried.

  The sound of gunfire erupted and bullets began to ricochet off the Klondike’s biochrome hull.

  “They were civilians, Darren,” Fiona said, setting her fourth loaded shotgun down on the table in front of her and picking up an empty fifth. “Now they are armed combatants. Open fire.”

  Darren hesitated for a moment.

  “Do it now, boy!” Fiona yelled. “That is a direct order!”

  Darren plunged his hands into the ship’s weapons console, the jack points on his forearms instantly making contact and giving him full access to more than enough firepower.

  “God help us,” he whispered as he activated the 50 caliber turrets and fired round after round after round into the crowd of attacking civilians. Despite the noise and vibrations caused by the big guns, Darren could distinctly feel and hear the Klondike’s engines start up.

  “Where are we going, Aunt Fi?” Darren asked, adjusting the cooling units to keep the guns from overheating and jamming.

  “We got orders,” Fiona said, manning the helm and bringing the Klondike slowly away from the dock. She winced at the sound of every ricocheting bullet and impact against the ship’s hull. “We’re heading back to base. All FCUs have been recalled.”

  “Why are they attacking us?” Darren asked, but his aunt didn’t hear him; she was too busy trying to navigate the choked waterway. Darren felt as if he was going to be sick as he watched people he had considered neighbors and friends collapse and die at his hands, their blood, guts and brains splattered across the dock’s wooden planks.

  Neither American saw the incoming rocket until it was too late.

  ***

  Jonathan Martin stripped the bum of his clothes, and taking on the gait of a drunk, stumbled out of the alleyway into the crush of people on the sidewalk. He bumped into a few, playing the part to the hilt until he was sure the LOMSD shadows had dismissed him and moved on through the crowd. He kept trying to activate his com, but nothing would go through.

  Being a Ghost, and free of jack points, he knew the LOMSD’s tech wasn’t going to pick him up on their scans, but if he was careless, the face-rec would nab him the second he was caught on a holo cam. He pulled the hood of the soiled jacket closer around his face and ducked his head as he took the next corner, coming face to muzzle with a Leinhauser12 auto-pistol.

  “Hello, Jack,” a voice growled from behind the auto-pistol pointed at Jonathan’s nose. “And goodbye, Jack.”

  ***

  Blue burst into Communications, his blood boiling, ready for war.

  “Get me Charlie Masterson’s com signal now!” he shouted.

  One of the com Techs began the search, grew puzzled, tried harder then pushed away from his console. “We’re locked out.”

  “What?” Blue said. “How can that be? We’re a closed system, nothing can lock us out. They’d have to physically…be… Mother fucker!”

  ***

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Commander Lafonte said into his com. “I have activated the protocol. I have maybe five minutes until they discover what I have done.” He listened intently. “Yes, of course. If the LOM plants are in place throughout the Kingdom and have already instigated riots against the Jacks then the days of American military dominance have finally come to an end. God bless you, Your Highness. I thank you for this honor. All for King and Country!”

  ***

  “Corporal!” General Fitzroy called. “Stephens? Where the fuck are you?” Frustrated, the General pushed away from his desk and stalked to his office door. “Goddamn it Stephens! What the hell are…you…?”

  He stared at the Corporal’s unseeing eyes, the mind-spike jutting from between them, and the pool of blood that was already congealing on the desk around his assistant’s head. “Oh God, Stephens…”

  Decades of military training told him his com wouldn’t work, even as he went through the motions to activate it. He stepped back into his office and locked and sealed the door.

  Moving to his liquor cabinet, he shoved the bottles aside and pulled at the back, revealing a small panel. Pressing his thumb to the panel, he felt a quick prick of pain as his temperature and DNA signature were verified, and half the wall slid away.

  Fitzroy stripped down to his civvies, revealing a well toned body covered in scars and jack points. He stepped to the wall and pulled out his personal Shock suit, activating it immediately. Stepping into the suit, the biochrome sealed about him, fusing with the jack points that were in turn fused to his bones and nervous system. He rolled his neck, loosening it before he activated the helmet and face shield.

  “Oh, Commander Lafonte,” he growled. “I am so going to fuck you up.”

  ***

  “Seal that door!” Blue ordered. “No one in or out!”

  One of the Techs activated the lock down procedure. Nothing.

  “Um, Colonel? I don’t even have basic functions anymore,” the Tech said.

  “Check your jack port,” a second Tech advised.

  “I did,” the first Tech replied. “My jack ports are functioning fine. It’s the system!”

  “Son of a bitch!” Blue yelled, moving to the door and placing his hands against it. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated, melting and shifting the thick BC doors until their mass sealed off the doorway. “That will hold them!”

  “Hold who, sir?” another Tech asked.

  “The six divisions that are about to overtake this base!” Blue snarled. “Now, get your little brains together and open a radio channel for me!”

  “Radio, sir? As in radio waves?” a Tech asked.

  “No! As in radio fucking flowers! Yes, radio waves! They have our com shut down, but they’ll never think of radio. All I need is a couple minutes.”

  One of the Techs de-ported his jacks and ripped open the panel below his console. “Someone hand me some pliers! And I need a soldering gun if we have it!”

  “What the hell is a soldering gun?” another Tech asked.

  “I can do it,” Blue said, crouching next to the Tech. “What do you need connected?”

  “See the white with red and black with yellow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need those fused together on that node right there.”

  Blue grasped the wires between his fingers and melted them both into the node as indicated. “Done and done.”

  The Tech stood up and re-ported. There was a loud squelch and hiss of static over the speakers. “You have an open channel, sir. I do mean open. Everything you say will be heard by anyone listening.”

  “Understood. What’s your name, son?”

  “Nester, sir.”

  “That your first name or last name?”

  “Last name, sir.”

  “Good. Otherwise I’d have to punch your parents.” Blue cleared his throat and spoke up. “Attention all Americans listening to this. Suffolk base is under attack by the LOM and by the Royal Guard. I do not know the state of the other bases on the continent, but as of right now all Americans within this Kingdom are at war! This is Colonel Masterson. I am giving you full authority to use whatever force necessary to insure your survival and the survival of any Americans with you. Fuck their shit up and send them to Hell!” Blue looked over at Nester. “How was that?”

  “Not bad, sir. Are we really at war?”

  “Fucking-A right we are!”

  ***

  General Fitzroy ripped the door out of the wall, his Shock suit barely
registering a strain.

  “Hello, General,” Lafonte said before emptying his pistol into Fitzroy’s midsection.

  The General stumbled back stunned, then collapsed to his knees. His Shock suit began to disengage and pull away from his body. Clutching at his stomach, he looked down and was surprised by the amount of blood streaming between his fingers.

  “What? Didn’t you think I would expect Shock suits?” Commander Lafonte said. “These bullets could pierce BC ten times as thick as your suit.”

  “You…fucking…little…prick,” Fitzroy gasped. “My…people…will…fight…to the…death.”

  “They won’t get a chance, General,” Lafonte smirked. “I lied about the six divisions. There isn’t a single trooper coming to take this base.” He pulled a small box from his pocket and flicked it open. A single button was set inside. “I know it’s kind of retro in its look, but it was easy to get past all scanners. The nuke in my trunk was a little harder to conceal, but the LOMSD has quite a few tricks up their sleeve lately and helped me on that front.”

  The General’s vision began to darken and he slumped onto his side. “You’ll…rot…in Hell.”

  “Probably, but I’m sure I’ll have some good company there,” Lafonte said, kneeling next to Fitzroy while he depressed the button, holding it in. “Goodbye, General.”

  The General spat a wad of bloody mucus in Lafonte’s face. “Fuck…” But his breath was gone before he could finish.

  ***

  “Colonel Masterson?”

  “Yes, Private Nester?”

  “Um, Geiger sensors just went through the roof!”

  “Geiger? You mean nuclear?”

  “Yes, sir. Something just activated!”

  Blue didn’t hesitate for a second, raising his arms above his head. “Everyone on me now! Hold on!”

  The Techs, four of them, all de-ported and rushed for Blue, personal space issues pushed aside as they grabbed onto the Colonel wherever they could. Every ounce of BC in the room began to vibrate then rushed towards the huddled group.

  ***

  “God save the King!” Lafonte whispered as he let go of the button, detonating the compact nuclear device hidden in his trunk.