NanoSwarm: Extermination Day Book Two
Page 9
Mattie searched for anyone who might try to stop them, but there was no one. And that bothered him. It was too easy. Something was not right; he could sense it. Their pursuers had been too vigilant and too highly organized to have been thrown off the scent this easily. Of course the first two men who’d come after him weren’t so organized. Those clowns looked like they had no idea what they were doing.
Well, they couldn’t wait; they needed to move. After the man pushing the vegetables made it inside the ship, Mattie and his mom ran up the ramp and hid behind more containers. Inside other workers were entranced by a small TV broadcasting the latest news about the attack on the US. Video footage showed a plane crashing into a corn field. While the workers were distracted Mattie and his mom were able to slip past them and get on the cruise ship. From there, they slunk around inside, dodging into storage rooms if they heard anyone coming.
Eventually they made it out of the crew area and into a part of the ship where a few other passengers were looking for their rooms. They were getting quite a few stares, and offers of help, Mattie with a blood caked T-shirt and face, and his mother with her eye swollen completely shut and cradling a bleeding arm where she’d been shot.
“We need to get you to the infirmary,” Mattie said to her. “You might need stitches.”
"It's just a flesh wound, dear. I'll be fine. We're stowaways remember. The last thing we need is anyone asking questions about a gunshot. They would definitely call the cops then."
She was right. They would have to make due with some over the counter medical supplies from the drugstore on the main deck. Mattie bought a pair of cheap sunglasses for his mother at one of the shops and went to find a public restroom where they could wash up and change clothes.
Digging into his backpack, Mattie saw that Raphael was safe and staring at him with his unmoving eyes, his permanent grin showing teeth on both sides of his mouth.
Excellent work, Mattie. We seem to have escaped from those men, but I am detecting an anomalous signal nearby. Be vigilant.
“An anomalous signal. Great. What does that mean?”
Unknown at this time.
When Raphael didn’t know something, it was never good.
As he was changing his clothes, Mattie thought back to his awakening, as he’d eventually come to call it. He wasn’t sure exactly what Raphael had done to him. He just remembered being scared when the turtle probed into his ears a few years after his father had died. He felt an itching inside his skull, like tiny little creatures were moving around in there, then things, all sorts of things, suddenly became clearer. The world opened up to him, his senses expanded. It was like seeing and hearing for the first time.
He could think much faster, solve problems much easier, and his reaction time, strength, coordination, and physical speed went off the charts. Then there was the healing. Cuts would disappear immediately, and Mattie never got sick anymore, not even a cold.
He went from being the last guy picked for a neighborhood basketball game to starting on his high school team as a freshman. And he wasn’t just good at basketball, he was good at everything. Mattie had Raphael to thank for all of it.
After cleaning up, he met his mom. She'd managed to bandage her wounded arm and cover it up with a long sleeve shirt she'd bought at the souvenir shop. They both looked and felt refreshed. The happy and excited passengers mingling around them helped lighten their moods. Even though they’d been through a traumatic experience, Mattie couldn’t help but enjoy their surroundings.
Your room will be ready in about an hour.
Mattie smiled. Raphael would take care of everything.
“I’m going up to the top, Mom.” He needed to get out into the fresh air and calm down after what they just went through.
“Okay, I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes. I need to lay down for a while in one of the lounge areas.”
She looked a little pale. He hoped some rest would help.
Mattie made his way up to the deck and dropped into a chair beside the pool. He set his backpack beside the chair and took off his shirt. His bullet wound had completely healed, with not even a scar. Amazing. A cool ocean breeze ruffled his hair as the late afternoon sun touched his cheeks. His eyes started to close as the stress of the day began to release from his body.
“Hello, Mathew.”
Mattie was jolted to attention by a woman’s voice. She was sitting in a deck chair right beside him, wearing a bikini top and shorts. She was very pretty with soft, straight blond hair and green eyes. She was probably in her mid-thirties and very fit.
She was missing her right arm just below the elbow.
“We need to talk,” she said calmly.
Alert, Mattie! Run! Run!
Before Mattie could move, something incredibly fast flew past him and landed on the deck of the pool a couple of feet away from his chair. He stared at the thing as it crouched in front of him.
It was a black cocker spaniel, but a toy, not a real dog.
Mattie heard his bag unzip behind him, and Raphael climbed out and crawled forward, glaring at the black dog. The woman’s eyes widened in shock.
“My God,” she whispered.
The toy dog spoke, "I see you've got a new skin, R-3. Didn't like being a teddy bear?"
"I prefer Ninja Turtle," Raphael said.
No more running, Mattie. It’s time I faced Model R-4. We have unfinished business. Don’t worry, though. I’ve had over four hundred years to think of ways to destroy him.
The dog growled, and Raphael surged forward.
Chapter 10
4:35 p.m., July 25, 2002
Logan Heights, San Diego
The cold steel barrel of the pistol dug into the back of Jeff’s skull, jamming his face into the concrete.
“Wait, wait. Don’t do this. I can get you more money. Lots of money.” Jeff didn’t want to beg for his life, but there was too much at stake right now, and he was scared.
“Ah, we’re going to make a little trip to the ATM, puta,” Pacho barked, drops of blood and spit hitting the ground from his broken nose. “But first I’m going to cut up this motherfucker, slowly.”
Jeff heard the sound of a switchblade flicking open. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Pacho squatting in front of Arrington. The gangster scraped the blunt end of the blade across the bottom of Arrington’s eye.
“How ’bout an eye for an eye, motherfucker. Or in this case, an eye for a nose.”
Pacho’s boys laughed.
A shot silenced their laughter, echoing off the concrete overpass above them. The man standing over Jeff jerked and fell to the side. Jeff and Arrington both jumped to their feet. The gangbangers frantically searched in all directions, waving their guns in the air, trying to find something to aim at.
Another shot sounded and another banger’s head exploded and he collapsed onto the concrete. The other Logan Heighters started firing randomly. Another head shot took down a guy standing in front of Pacho, spraying blood and pieces of skull all over his tank top and onto Jeff’s white dress shirt. The bangers started running.
Pacho gritted his teeth and snarled, “Something to remember me by, puta!”
He jabbed his knife toward Arrington’s chest, but the bodyguard was too fast. He dodged to the side, the blade slicing the outside of his forearm. He used Pacho’s momentum to pull him forward and off balance. Pacho fell to the ground again and dropped the knife, which went spinning off on the concrete.
He looked furious, hatred filling his eyes as he glared at Jeff and Arrington. But he knew he’d lost this fight as he glanced up, scanning the overpass and the surrounding buildings. Then he too jumped up and ran, sprinting out of the park without looking back.
Jeff and Arrington stood watching the gangbangers scatter in all directions, thankful to be alive.
“Did you call in backup and not tell me?” Arrington asked.
“No, I still don’t have any cell service.”
“Who then?”
As he spoke, four men dressed in all black, faces covered with dark masks, emerged from behind the overpass columns, like urban ninjas. They were heavily armed with assault rifles.
One of the men approached. “Mr. Madison, Mr. Arrington. We’ve been instructed to take you to a safe location.”
“Under whose orders?” Jeff asked, not sure of these masked warriors.
“Lieutenant Commander Charles Paulson.”
Jeff nodded. He could always count on Paulson to save his ass.
“Are you tracking the signal?”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier replied. “But we can take it from here. We need to remove you both from danger.”
“Okay.”
Jeff was more than happy to leave things in the soldiers’ capable hands. They were obviously an elite squad, well equipped and trained to handle a crisis. Jeff and Arrington followed them to a black SUV parked outside Chicano Park. A medic treated Arrington’s cut, which wasn’t deep.
As they were driving, the soldiers received updates over their radios. Apparently another part of the group was pursuing the skateboarder. Several minutes passed and from what Jeff could make out from the chatter, the boy was cornered at a house several blocks away. The other team was going in for the capture but moments later, all communication ended.
“Evangelista, Banks, Mijatovic, can you hear me? What is your status? Over.” One of the men in the SUV repeated his call several times. “Team Alpha is down. I repeat Team Alpha is down. Team Beta moving to intercept target.”
A man turned to Jeff and Arrington.
“We need to drop you two off here for safety reasons. Hide in the bushes. This target has already taken out three of our best agents with his bare hands; we’re coming up on him now.”
"What the hell is going on, Jeff?" Arrington asked frantically, by this point clearly realizing that this whole expedition was not business related.
Jeff tried to calm him down, "I'll brief you later, when we get the hell out of here."
“There he is,” another masked man yelled out.
The SUV skidded to a halt in front of the skateboarder, and Jeff and Arrington climbed out to hide in nearby bushes. Jeff knew instantly this was no normal boy. He moved faster than humanly possible, taking out all three armed men effortlessly with gruesome death blows. He moved just like the evil time-jumping Patrick Chen they’d fought all those years ago outside of Lechuguilla Cave.
Jeff’s heart paused as he waited for the boy to throw the bodies of the soldiers out onto the street and speed off in the SUV. He and Arrington climbed out from cowering behind the bushes and rushed over to inspect the bodies. It was a ghastly sight. One of the men had been punched through the stomach, the other through the head. Blood and guts were all over the street. Jeff felt like throwing up. Arrington did.
“What the hell,” Arrington said between heaves.
“That boy isn’t human,” Jeff replied.
“No shit,” Arrington said, puking again and turning his back to the dead men.
“The only thing that can stop him is an EM pulse cannon.”
“Well, in case you didn’t notice, we don’t have one of those.” Arrington was never sarcastic, but he’d been pushed to his limits.
“No, and there’s no way to contact somebody to get one here soon enough.”
"Soon enough for what? You still haven't told me shit!" Arrington was getting pissed now.
"Okay, Chase." Jeff decided it was time to come clean and give up some of what he knew. "I'm tracking a signal that may be related to the attack earlier. I believe the boy has something on him, or in him for that matter, that could pose a threat to us all."
"You mean the nuclear attack?" Arrington looked horrified.
"Yes."
"Listen, Mr. Madison, this is way outside my pay grade," Arrington held his hands up and backed away. "We need to call the military or FBI in on this."
"How?" Jeff responded abruptly. They didn't have much time, and each ticking second gave the boy and any nanobots or other threats he may be carrying a chance to get away. "All comm lines are down. And in case you didn't notice, these military guys didn't fare so well against the boy. It's just us."
"But what can we do that this black ops team couldn't?" Arrington waved his hand at the dead men.
"I've dealt with things like the boy before. I know what to expect and how to stop it. I can't explain any more than that. You just have to trust me."
Arrington hesitated for a second to make up his mind, then nodded.
Jeff talked a good game, but he had no idea what to do. They couldn’t engage the boy in a fight since he couldn’t be stopped with conventional weapons. But they still needed to know what he was up to and where he was going. If he got too far away, the signal they used to track him would be lost. They needed to press forward.
“We need to keep following this kid, this . . . thing,” Jeff said. “And when communications are back up, we need to call in reinforcements with a pulse cannon.”
“What if it sees us again?”
“We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t. Let’s head back to the Town Car before they get too far away.”
Jeff and Arrington ran a few blocks back to where they’d left the car. Luckily none of Pacho’s gang was around, although police sirens were blasting as local law enforcement descended on the bloody scene. They drove out of Logan Heights as an army of police cars rolled past them.
“I’ve still got the signal,” Jeff said, looking down at his portable.
About fifteen minutes later they pulled into the parking lot at San Diego Harbor. A cruise ship was docked in front of them, rising several stories into the blue Southern California sky.
Jeff and Arrington watched from a safe distance as the boy and woman snuck onto the ship. It looked like they were going to make their escape by sailing off into the sunset on the Golden Princess.
The two men were easily able to follow them, sneaking past the snoozing security guard and his lollygagging companions. Jeff kept his distance from the boy and woman. This close, he could get a clear tracking signal and since they were on a ship, he didn’t need to worry about the boy getting too far away.
Once they were in the main passenger area, Jeff thought it would be a good idea to head to the top deck of the ship where they could get an overview of their surroundings. Passengers had begun to board and everyone was happy and excited about their trip. A horn blast signaled that the last of the passengers were on board and the cruise ship was departing. A young couple stood beside them, arms around each other, smiling, obviously very much in love. Jeff hadn’t felt the way they appeared to feel in a long, long time. He missed it.
“There he is,” Arrington said, breaking up Jeff’s frivolous daydreaming.
Down below them, lounging beside the pool, was the boy. His backpack lay beside him. He looked like he was dozing. A woman sat across from him.
Could it be? No! Impossible. What the hell was Holly Scarborough doing here?
Jeff couldn’t believe his own eyes as a rush of old feelings came pouring back. She must’ve tracked the signal just as he had. But she didn’t know what she was dealing with here. She didn’t know this boy was another of the infected, like the evil Chen they’d killed.
He wanted to yell out to her that she was in danger, but before he could open his mouth, he saw her talking to the boy. They were too far away to hear, but whatever it was, Jeff could tell from the boy’s body language that he didn’t like what he was hearing.
Jeff leaned forward, hoping to get Holly’s attention. Only . . . He blinked.
A black blur had flown across the deck and landed in front of Holly and the boy. It looked like a black cat, but it was hard to tell from this distance. Then the boy’s backpack opened and out crawled a green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
“What the hell is going on?” Arrington asked.
Jeff shook his head. He had no
idea, but whatever it was, Holly was right in the middle of it. She was in danger, and he had to do something.
Chapter 11
6:10 p.m., July 25, 2002
Cruise Ship Golden Princess, Port of San Diego
Holly was shocked to see the turtle emerge from Mattie’s backpack; they’d been expecting a teddy bear. The robot must’ve disguised itself. No matter—it was unmistakable that what they were dealing with was no children’s toy. Nor did it move like any robot she’d ever seen. Jerky, halting movements had been replaced with fluid, lifelike ones.
The turtle—Holly knew it was Raphael because of the R on his belt—pounced on the cocker spaniel that Holly had started calling Lady. Lady jumped and the animals collided in the air before crashing on the deck with a thud.
Holly and Mattie sprang from their lounge chairs as the animals spun around in a blur of black and green fur. Each was grasping the other’s limbs, trying to rip them off. Lady’s eyes burned fiery red and beams shot out from them as she mounted the turtle. Raphael dodged to the side and the lasers seared the deck. Holly could smell the burned wood as smoke drifted into the air.
Lady fired her laser again, this time striking Raphael in the center of his body. But the turtle was covered in some type of shielding, and the laser simply bounced off and shot over Holly’s head.
A few passengers had gathered around to check out the commotion. Most were smiling and laughing, thinking the toy fight was part of a show.
The animals struggled, but neither creature could gain the upper hand. They appeared to be evenly matched. Raphael threw Lady into the pool and the crowd laughed and clapped. Then the turtle looked at Mathew. The boy ran and grabbed his toy, then sprinted to the other side of the ship. Before Holly could even flinch, Mathew jumped up, placed his foot onto the top rail, and dove off the ship, flipping perfectly in midair.
Holly ran to the rail as Lady burst out of the pool. Lady had survived for over four hundred years, so she was without a doubt waterproof. Holly and the cocker spaniel stood on the side of the deck peering down. Out in the ocean, several stories below them, Mathew and the turtle were leaping through the water like dolphins.