Nano Z (Book 3): Oblivion

by Brad Knight

  “Can you understand me?” asked Blunt. He stood right outside the Alpha's cage. Wisely, he was on guard and ready to jump out of the way of any potential attacks.

  “Understand. Yes,” replied the Alpha. Both words were spoken in different voices. It tried to find the right one, the right sex. Hearing a guy's voice coming from what looked like a gal's body creeped Blunt out even more than he already was.

  “We are going to drop you out of this plane onto a freighter. That freighter is full of enemies of the company. You need to eliminate those enemies. Understood?” Blunt kept his distance.

  “Why? This do? Why?” asked the Alpha as it cocked its head to the side and stared at Blunt with its glowing yellow eyes.

  “Orders, I'm afraid.” Blunt misunderstood the question.

  “Why me orders?”

  “Oh,” Blunt started to catch on. He reached into a pouch on his flak jacket. From it he produced some of the serum that kept Alphas alive in a tough plastic vial. “So you can get some of this.” He held the vial up so the creature saw it.

  Suddenly the Alpha tried to reach outside it's cage by growing an extra limb almost instantly, that was long enough to grab the vial of serum out of Blunt's hand. That attempt was thwarted by a security measure built into the cage. As soon as a part of the creature crossed the threshold past the magnesium alloy bars, a burst of electricity shocked and caused it to retreat.

  “Sorry about that.” For some reason, Blunt apologized.

  “Ten seconds till drop!” yelled the pilot's voice.

  The back door/ramp of the large helicopter opened up. Usually it was used to load or disembark ground vehicles. In the case of the Galatea version, two rows of metal ball bearings attached to the Alpha cage engaged. That cage slid down the rows of ball bearings until it came to a rough stop right at the end of the door.

  “Drop!”

  The cage at the end of the door/ramp opened. When it did, the Alpha saw an opportunity to escape. So it jumped out. Just as Galatea planned.

  ***

  It wasn't until Mack reached the lowest levels of Haven that he ran into any security. First were cameras. They would have seen him but his eyes allowed him to spot them first. Getting past them took some time but wasn't difficult.

  Sneaking around was tricky. The floors in the lower levels consisted of rusted metal grates that moaned at the slightest applied pressure. Narrower hallways meant the echoes of each step were louder.

  To mitigate the noise he was making, Mack took off his boots. He was going to go forward in just his socks. It was quiet but slippery. So he took those off as well. After a little concentration he was able to harden the bottom of his feet, making it bearable.

  Past the cameras was a ladder that led down. A sign next to it indicated that it led to the bottom floor. If Mack was going to find anything it would be down there.

  This is it. Either I discover something that busts this whole thing open, or I go empty handed and wait till Jeanine and her cronies figure out I was down here.

  The next floor down, Mack ran into the first guard. Not wanting to kill anybody unnecessarily, he snuck up behind the unsuspecting sentry and put him in a choke hold. There was no breaking out of the big guy's grasp. His muscles at that point were more like steel cable than tissue.

  Within seconds the guard went down. Not bothering to cover his tracks anymore, Mack just left his unconscious body on the floor. If the guy was found, he was found. There was no reason to bother trying to hide him.

  Mack heard another guard coming from around the nearby corner. He quickly assessed his options. Having little choice he picked up the unconscious guard's gun. Shooting the weapon was out of the question. It would've been too loud.

  With the butt of a rifle in his hand, Mack waited for the second guard to come around the corner. As soon as he saw his face, that rifle would be flung into it. Sure enough, the second guard appeared.

  Mack threw the rifle like it was a throwing knife. It hit the second guard in the face with enough force to knock him out. The guy went down like a sack of bricks.

  Around the corner at the end of the narrow hallway, Mack ran into anther bulkhead door. Thankfully it wasn't welded shut. Beyond it he could hear some coughs.

  There's people in there. Mack grabbed the wheel of the bulkhead door. He spun it until he heard a loud clank, then he opened it.

  The Golden Pony all over again. What's with people and fucked up secret labs? Is that a prerequisite for being crazy these days? Mack wasn't terribly surprised by what he saw after opening the door.

  People, scientists, were handcuffed to pipes and tables inside a sad looking laboratory. All the equipment looked second hand. Water dripped down from the ceiling. It was hot and humid. None of those imprisoned down there looked like they'd been fed in days.

  “How long have you guys been down here?” Mack knelt down next to the nearest prisoner. She looked like she was in bad shape. Her long hair was a tangled mess. Her clothing was soiled by every kind of stain imaginable. She wouldn't make eye contact with him. Instead she stared at the rusty floor.

  “Let me get that for you,” offered Mack as he reached for the prisoner's cuffed wrist. The skin around it was broken and bloody. Her arm was raised high above her slumped over body.

  Not needing a key, Mack snapped the chain of the prisoner's handcuffs. That got the other captives' attention. Their lifeless bodies started to stir.

  “It's okay. I can free all of you.” Mack moved on to the next prisoner. Some thanked him. Most of them stayed silent and nursed the wounds on their wrists.

  What do they want with all these people? The more scientists that Mack saved, the angrier he got. But he also was confused. None of it made sense to him. Why would Haven need so many scientists. Unless…

  “Why are they keeping you here?” Mack asked the group. “Why'd they lock you guys up?”

  No one answered . One of the male scientists struggled to his feet but managed to stand. His face was bruised and swollen. There were even ring indentations on the side of his head. Whoever beat him fancied jewelry.

  “Why are you guys here? What the hell did they do to you?” Mack got no answer. “Did they want you guys to work on the virus? Is that it? Nod if I'm right.” No one nodded their heads. “Is there anyone else?”

  The battered and bruised scientist pointed towards a mold covered tarp on the floor. Mack looked at the guy then down at the tarp. Not satisfied with what little he knew at that point, he was determined to keep going.

  Mack lifted up the moldy tarp. Underneath it he found a hatch in the floor. What do we have here?

  A wave of body odor, urine and feces assaulted Mack's enhanced senses as soon as he opened the hatch. It was enough to almost put him on his ass. But he endure and took a look down.

  There was a ladder that led down about eight feet. At the bottom, Mack saw pairs of eyes looking up at him. People were down there.

  Gunshots erupted near the entrance of the labs. Mack looked to see what was happening. Josiah and other Haven residents were shooting the scientists. It was a massacre. Not only were the victims not armed, they were malnourished and weak. It was about as far away from fair as you can get.

  Mack jumped down into the space under the hatch, closing it on the way. His hope was that none of the armed men saw him. True, they probably couldn't kill him. But he had no desire to be a bullet sponge either.

  I've seen these people before. What are they saying? Mack might have been in pitch darkness under the hatch, but he could see just fine. He was surrounded by a bunch of people who looked terrified. They kept their distance.

  Wait… these are the people I saw Jeanine and her guys kidnap from the island. Again, why? Mack stayed near the ladder. He didn't want to scare the people around him any more than they already were. So he waited and listened.

  It was hard to sit tight and do nothing as Mack heard the slaughter going down up above. What made it harder was that he knew he could stop it. All i
t would take was a little exertion and he could've taken each and every one of the attackers down. But that wasn't why he was there. He was after answers. The dead don't talk.

  “Kill them all. We don't need them anymore. Send them home. God will take them in with open arms.” Nanite enhanced ears made the talking up above clear to Mack. “When we're done we'll seal this place off.”

  “Shit,” Mack accidentally thought out loud. One of the kidnap victims down with him actually shushed him. It caught him off guard.

  “You got the torch? Good. Let's seal this place...” Mack heard one of the armed men above. He was interrupted by the loud blare of sirens. “That the alarm? Shit, we'll pick this up later. C'mon!”

  Are they leaving? They're leaving! Mack waited until he heard the last of the attackers leave the lab. Then he climbed up the ladder and slowly opened the hatch back up.

  Mack stuck his head up out into the lab. He looked around and saw no one except corpses. The coast was clear. Nothing would stop him from getting out of there and returning to Amber and Stephanie with all the proof he needed.

  He was about to leave when guilt punched Mack in the stomach. Sure, he could've gotten away free and clear. But what about those in the storage space under the hatch?

  Chapter 12

  : Book of Revelation

  “What are you reading?” asked Amber. She doodled on a notepad with a pen.

  “The bible,” answered Stephanie.

  “The bible huh? Is it any good?” asked the teen girl with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  Stephanie put the book down. “What's up? What do you want?”

  “Nothing.”

  Stephanie raised one eyebrow and stared at her. They both knew that there was a motive behind the question. And it wasn't a shitty one.

  “He'll be fine. Stop worrying. He probably didn't find anything and will come back with his tail between his legs.” Stephanie was confident that Mack was wrong in his accusations of shady goings on in Haven.

  “What if he isn't fine? What if he found something and got caught? What if he needs our help?”

  “What if sharks could fly? It would be terrifying. That's why you don't think about it.”

  Amber seemed confused by what Stephanie said. That was her intent. “But... what?”

  “Stop worrying about something that isn't going to happen.” Stephanie picked her bible back up. “Get some sleep. They said we'll reach Australia tomorrow.”

  Stephanie heard Amber's annoyed moans as she laid down in her bunk. Neither of them were able to fall asleep. Fake confidence aside, both worried about Mack. It wasn't just his well being but what trouble he'd dig up.

  Alarms sounded. It was so loud, Stephanie and Amber could feel it through their thin mattresses. Damn it, Mack.

  “Do you think it's…?” asked Amber after sitting up in bed.

  “Yeah, it's him. C'mon. Let's see if we can stop the big lout from getting killed.” Stephanie got up out of bed and got dressed as quickly as she could. Amber did the same.

  Before leaving their quarters, Amber reached under her bunk. She searched around with her hand until she found what she was looking for. Once she did, she presented them to Stephanie, who laughed and shook her head.

  “What? He taught me to always be prepared,” explained Amber as she held up a handful of shivs she fashioned out of whatever she got her hands on.

  Stephanie pulled Amber out of the doorway before she got ran over by the stampede of Haven residents who rushed down the hallway. They were in a panic. Something big was going on.

  Once the way wasn't quite as crowded and hectic, Amber and Stephanie left their quarters. They needed to find Mack. An easy solution to that problem would have been to follow the chaos. First they needed to arm themselves with something more than shivs. To do so they had to reach the armory.

  The armory was once a pantry just outside the kitchen. To get there, they had to find their way through the commotion that occurred all throughout the ship. Hopefully no one would be onto Mack and try to stop or detain them.

  ***

  Nothing but open air stood between the dropped Alpha and Haven. In those brief seconds before hitting the deck of the freighter, it felt freedom. It was at peace. One that would soon be shattered. All because the humans were the gatekeepers to the serum that the creature so desperately needed.

  But what if the Alpha were to ignore the commands of it's keepers? Was the need for serum real? Or was it programmed into the countless tiny machines that made up it's body? There wasn't a more opportune time to test that supposed “fact”.

  When the Alpha hit the Haven deck, it dissolved into a pile of nanites. The residents on that deck heard and saw the impact. Naturally they wanted to check out what it was.

  Some heard the sound of rotors high above but saw no lights through the clouds. What came next took all of them by surprise.

  From the pile of black particles, the feminine Alpha reformed itself. First it's head rose from it, followed by it's neck, torso and rest of it's body. To onlookers, it looked like a woman made of metal rose out of a puddle of mechanical insects. It was both horrifying and fascinating.

  Reconstituted, the Alpha looked at the men and women on Haven's deck. They pointed their weapons at it. From the sound of their elevated heartbeats and smell of their perspiration, it knew the humans were nervous.

  An unsteady trigger finger in the row of Haven residents accidentally squeezed off a round at the Alpha. The bullet ricocheted of it's stomach. Surprised, the creature looked down at where it was shot. It looked back up at the men and women in front of it.

  “Sorry?” said the man with the itchy trigger finger.

  The Alpha screeched. It was loud enough to make everyone on deck cover their ears. Before they could recover the creature charged. Metal tendrils formed out of it's back, and at the end of each one were wide curved blades, not unlike those on axes.

  With claws on it's hands, the Alpha slashed at anyone in front of it. The blade tipped tendrils swung and flailed with minds of their own. Every person within a six foot radius of it was sliced up like lambs on spits. Except there weren't any gyros being made. Only the dead and the dying.

  The strike team watched from the air as their Alpha laid waste to any and everyone on Haven's deck. They needed the creature to clear it so they could repel down and get to business. Failure wasn't something any of them were familiar with. That's why they were chosen for that specific mission.

  Before they left home base, the strike team was informed that they were to restrain and detain the man known as Mack. Then they were to drag him back to the nearest Galatea facility. Anything or anyone who got in their way was expendable. The CEO himself assigned them the mission, in person, just to emphasize its importance.

  “Okay, it's go time! You got the EMP, Blunt!?” Yedlin referred to the experimental weapon meant to keep the Alpha under control. It emitted concentrated but weak EMP bursts. The gun wouldn't have been enough to put the creatures down but it was enough to hurt them. Rather than kill, it was meant to deter.

  “Got it,” said Blunt. He held the bulky weapon in his hands.

  “Ropes!” Yedlin ordered his men to drop the SPIE ropes they were going to use to repel down. They all did exactly as ordered.

  “Hook up!” On Yedlin's command, each member of the strike team hooked the SPIE ropes to harnesses they wore over their kevlar. They were ready to go.

  Blunt had a little trouble hooking himself in. His hands were sweaty, and nerves robbed him of coordination. By the time Yedlin gave the order to jump, he was still struggling to secure himself to his rope.

  There was a click. Blunt was sure his harness was secured to his SPIE rope. All that was left for him to do was jump.

  Looking out over the carnage below, Blunt could see his fellow strike team members. They already were on the Haven deck, engaging with the enemy. Though he had no desire to, he had to join them.

  Blunt took a deep breath and stepped o
ff the helicopter. He felt the rope sliding underneath his gloves. For a brief second he imagined how much it would hurt if he didn't have them.

  The deck of the freighter sped towards him. That was when he heard a click. There wasn't time for him to do anything about it. His harness wasn't completely secure.

  “Where's Blunt with that EMO?” asked Yedlin as he and the rest of the team watched the Alpha rampage. One of his men pointed up behind him.

  Yedlin turned to watch the split second before Blunt crashed hard into the deck. The young scientist shattered his skull, killing him instantly. Not one to lose sleep over casualties in the field, the commander of the strike team didn't even flinch.

  “Harris! Grab that gun before that thing turns around and decides to turn us into human sushi.”

  “Good to go, sir,” reported Harris after retrieving the EMP gun.

  A Haven resident sounded the ship's alarms. The element of surprise was gone, which was unfortunate but expected. That's one of the reasons the Alpha was there.

  “Okay. Let's find him!” Yedlin led his team under the deck into the innards of Haven, shooting anyone who tried to stop them.

  ***

  Stephanie and Amber headed towards the kitchen and armory. By then the alarms and sirens were so loud that it gave both of them a splitting headache. But there was no time for such petty ailments. They thought Mack was in trouble. As far as they were concerned, it was up to them to save him.

  An explosion several decks away made Haven rumble. It was almost enough to make Amber and Stephanie fall mid-run. They didn't, but others around them did.

  From a nearby hallway, just around a corner, they heard gunshots. Problem was, they needed to go in that direction. So Stephanie told Amber to wait as she took a peek around the corner.

  Stephanie saw Josiah. He stood in the hallway closest to her. Two men dressed in familiar Galatea Security gear had their guns pointed at him. She could smell the aroma of burnt gunpowder.