by SD Tanner
‘Collaborators,’ he said grimly.
‘Looks like it,’ Nelson replied.
Still grim, he said, ‘The real problem is we haven’t been dealin’ with the super hunters. We’re barely copin’ with gettin’ people secured and trained. We haven’t had time to get on the front foot and attack the super hunters.’
‘And now we got super hunters gettin’ people to join ‘em.’ Pax said morosely. ‘Why the hell would anyone do that?’
Nelson replied simply, ‘They’re trading on their fear, Pax.’
Looking disappointed, Pax said, ‘But they could join us.’
‘Maybe they don’t know about us,’ Nelson answered.
He hadn’t expected collaborators. He assumed there was no way to collaborate with the super hunters. They communicated through telepathy and he didn’t understand how they could even talk to people to collaborate with them. He had a nagging suspicion he was missing something, but he didn’t know what.
Pax asked, ‘Do ya think one of the livin’ has maybe captured a super hunter? Coerced it in some way?’
‘How the hell could a person do that, Pax?’ He asked.
Shrugging, Pax said, ‘I dunno. I’m tryin’ to work out how the super hunters could communicate with the livin’ to coerce ‘em.’
Touching Isaac’s arm to get his attention, he asked, ‘Isaac. Does Ip know about the humans with the super hunters?’
Isaac speaks: Do you know humans choose the ruler to fear?
Ip speaks: Humans follow the ruler? I did not know. That is foolish. Not good flow.
Isaac replied bluntly, ‘No.’
‘That’s weird,’ Pax observed. ‘I thought she could tap into the super hunters.’
‘Maybe she hasn’t been tapping in to these ones,’ he said. Leaning back in his chair, he pondered, ‘I wonder where they’re goin’?’ Turning to Isaac again, he asked, ‘Ask Ip if she can see humans with super hunters.’
‘What have you got in mind, Gears?’ Nelson asked curiously.
Leaning forward again, he said, ‘I’ve been patient with this set up Nelson…’
Interrupting, Pax said, ‘Really, Gears? Ya bin like a gorilla with a sore head!’ Turning to Nelson, Pax complained, ‘It’s like livin’ with an ape pacin’ its cage.’
Rolling his eyes, he said curtly, ‘Shaddup Pax.’ Without waiting to see if Pax would do as he was told, he continued, ‘I want us to take an act of aggression. We need Ip and Isaac to find us some super hunters and we need to send a message.’
‘What today?’ Nelson asked in surprise.
‘Why not?’ Pax replied. ‘Anythin’ to make the big chimp happy.’
Ip could look into the minds of super hunters, see what they were seeing and what they had seen. Through the use of pictures they’d been able to isolate roughly where the super hunters were. Once they knew the area the super hunter was in, they would fly over until Ip recognized what the super hunters were seeing. That was how they found the super hunter at the Walmart near Nelson’s original bank site.
Nelson offered to work with Ip and Isaac using pictures of locations within a 500-mile radius to see if he could locate an area that was likely to have a super hunter. If they located a super hunter, they knew they would find a horde of hunters, and he figured it would be worth a trip and some heavy weapons to make their point.
He and Pax headed off to find Captain Ted who was most likely at the Marine supply base. Pax suggested they walk the Naval base and he could see how they were progressing with the set up. The containers had proven to be a fantastic solution to their accommodation problem. There were another hundred of them set up on Haven, which was the living island next to their farming island. As he walked down the seemingly endless maze of corridors the containers created, he could see men and women, all dressed in ACUs, moving about with purpose. People nodded and waved to him as he walked by and he was surprised everyone seemed to know who he was. TL dealt with survivors, Pax trained the survivors, scavengers and combat shooters, and with his role of planning and combat, he only ever dealt with small groups of people. As people waved, he nodded in acknowledgement and resisted the habit of saluting while he walked.
They reached the end of the maze of containers, and at the end were the stacked containers that formed a fence cutting the Naval base from the mainland. To the far left of the double containers was a single container that had been moved to allow access in and out of the area. The single container was sitting inside the perimeter still attached to the truck they used to lift it in and out of position each day. He and Pax walked into the gap in the container fence and watched the training session that was in progress less than half a mile away. They could hear the crack of gunfire of people taking target practice. Standing in the gap in the fence, he surveyed the Naval base with its endless stream of containers, docked transport ships, supply ships being unloaded and sentries standing guard at the top of the double stacked containers. Looking outside the container fence, he watched the people being trained in the distance. Despite what he said to Pax, he did feel a level of satisfaction with their progress.
Turning to Pax, he said honestly, ‘You’ve done good, Pax.’
Pax looked back at him dubiously and asked, ‘Is that a compliment?’ Frowning and narrowing his eyes, he added, ‘It’s gonna take more than that, Gears. Dinner, flowers and chocolates if ya want your way with me.’
Looking at Pax in disgust, he replied sternly, ‘I think I can avoid doin’ all of those things for the rest of my life.’
‘Should fuckin’ hope so,’ Pax muttered.
Punching him in the arm, he grinned and said, ‘Seriously, Pax. You’ve done good.’
Pax shrugged and he didn’t push the point. He knew Pax was the kind of guy who didn’t take compliments well, but he was impressed. The Naval base had really come together and now he wanted to use the combat shooters in anger. Pax put everything he had into training his people and he was always angry when he lost even one person. In the upcoming fights he knew they would have, Pax would take their losses hard.
Knowing bad times were coming, he sighed and said, ‘We should go see Ted.’
Grabbing a truck from the Naval base, they drove across to the Marine supply base where they were met by the sentries. A lanky young man holding an M4 peered into the truck and grinning, he said, ‘Hey good to see you guys.’
‘Ya gonna let us in?’ Pax asked.
The young man laughed and replied, ‘Dunno. What’s the password?’
‘Open the gate or I’ll shoot ya,’ he offered.
The young man laughed again and said, ‘That’ll do.’
The Marine supply base was attached to the mainland by a wide bridge. As a major supply base it was filled with all types of vehicles, helicopters, heavy weapons and personal supplies. This one wasn’t the largest Marine supply base in the country, but it still contained substantial stock. With a considerable number of people to take care of now, they maintained good levels of stock with aggressive scavenger runs,. One of the advantages of the hunters was they stopped buildings from being easily raided. A curse for the small survivor groups, but a boon for their scavenging teams trained and equipped to deal with the hunters. Ip and Isaac also made it far less dangerous for them to scavenge. As the scavenger teams became better skilled, they called on Ip and Isaac less, but they still helped the teams to clear large or high-risk sites.
They drove into the Marine supply base and as they climbed out of the truck, Captain Ted walked up to them and said, ‘Gate told me you guys were headin’ down. What brings you to the Corps?’
‘I thought we’d dispensed with the divisions,’ he remarked dryly. ‘One big happy team ‘n all that.’
Captain Ted grinned and replied, ‘You’ll always be a dogface to me.’
‘He can’t help it,’ Pax replied. ‘It’s the face he was given and then he smacked it up a little tryin’ to be prettier.’
Over four years ago, he crashed his car into a semi-tr
ailer. His air bag had failed to deploy and he hit the grill with his face. It took a lot of operations to reconstruct his face and he had considerable scarring. Pax was making light of his accident, but both Pax and TL took training jobs in the Army so they could support him through the rehab he needed. For all his verbal abuse, he never doubted how much Pax cared about him.
Ignoring their banter, he asked, ‘Do ya kids wanna go hunter huntin’ or not? ‘Cos if ya don’t behave yourselves, I won’t be takin’ either of ya.’
‘Aww come on, Dad,’ Pax whined playfully. ‘We’ll be good.’
Captain Ted brightened and said gleefully, ‘Hunter huntin’! Hell yeah, let’s get some!’
Talking into his radio mike, he said, ‘Nelson. Have ya got targets yet?’
Nelson replied, ‘Might have a couple for you.’
‘Well get on over here,’ he said. ‘The kids are gettin’ rowdy.’
‘On my way,’ Nelson replied.
Turning to Captain Ted, he said, ‘How’s the base doin’.’
‘Pretty good,’ Captain Ted replied. ‘We’ve turned the commercial area into storage, repairs and some accommodation.’ Spinning around, he pointed to the containers and said, ‘The kitchen and facilities are working fine. Power’s no problem providing people don’t fuckin’ waste it.’
Despite being bigger than the Naval base, there were fewer people at the Marine supply base. There was no reason for this other than the people who no longer needed training stayed at the Marine supply base. The Naval base had the training facilities, but most people were still fairly new to the base and were still in training. Pax designed the training at three levels. Basic survival training for all able people. Weapons and combat training for the scavengers. Weapons, tactics and combat training for the combat shooters. Everyone who was able was trained and stayed at the Naval base until their training was complete. Their approach to training meant everyone was able to defend themselves and others, and he knew they were becoming a formidable force.
Although he was impressed with the operations of the bases, he didn’t start this mission to become a manager of logistics and as far as he was concerned, that was pretty much all he and his brothers were doing. Their mission was to clear the land of hunters, and other than the practicality of the need, he’d no further interest in the bases. He was here to fight and that’s what he intended to do.
Excited and bouncing on the balls of his feet, Pax asked happily, ‘You want combat shooters for our huntin’ trip?’
‘Might as well throw a small team on board, but we need a loaded bird,’ he replied. ‘Dunno what we’re gonna find out there and might as well go prepared for anythin’.’
Sounding even happier than Pax, Captain Ted replied, ‘Roger that!’
Pax and Captain Ted left to go and find a fully armed helicopter. It took them another hour to get themselves organized. He, Pax, Captain Ted and Nelson headed out on the winged Black Hawk with M136 AT4s and M3 MAAWS anti-tank weapons loaded. With them were six combat shooters including Benny, who happened to be at the Naval base that day. Through Isaac and Ip, Nelson identified a possible super hunter site at a large mall just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
When they arrived at the mall, Pax asked, ‘How do ya wanna play this?’
‘I dunno,’ he replied. ‘We haven’t had much experience goin’ on the offensive with the super hunters. That’s the point of this run. To learn.’
From the air they circled the mall, but there was no sign of movement. The car park was half-full, but they had learned from their experience at the Walmart with Nelson, not to land the bird in the car park. At the Walmart, that resulted in them being swarmed by hundreds of hunters and they lost two people that day.
‘Whatdaya think?’ He asked.
‘Dunno,’ Pax replied. ‘There’s nowhere easy to land other than the car park.’
‘We don’t want to do that again,’ Nelson declared decisively.
‘Why’s that?’ Captain Ted asked curiously.
Pax replied grimly, ‘That’s how we got swarmed last time.’ Pragmatically, he added, ‘We got two choices. We either draw ‘em out and kill ‘em, or we go in and kill ‘em.’
Shaking his head, he said, ‘No, Pax, we gotta work out where the super hunter is. That asshole is our first priority. The hunters are dumb dogs without him.’
‘How we gonna do that, Gears?’ Pax asked doubtfully. ‘We dunno where that asshole is in there. Even if we get him, then we still gotta deal with the hunters in the mall and it’s dark in there.’
Rubbing the scar on his face while he thought, he suddenly grinned and said, ‘We need to change the dynamics. If I had a Stryker I’d take one in but…’ He looked down at the collection of vehicles in the car park below and said, ‘There’s some mighty fine trucks down there.’
Pax peered at the trucks below, then turned to him and grinning, he said, ‘Yeah there is!’
‘Hatch!’ He called. ‘Fly low and slow. We need a truck.’
‘I heard ya,’ Hatch replied steadily. ‘You guys make me look sane.’
He, Pax and Captain Ted chuckled happily as they looked for a vehicle they could use to break into the mall. There were a few options, but they needed a vehicle they could get to from the bird easily and be sure it would start before the hunters could get to them. He decided it might be better to find a vehicle that was not within the line of sight of the super hunter that might be watching them.
‘Hatch!’ He called again. ‘Go find us a car dealership.’
‘Whatdaya want?’ Hatch asked. ‘Somethin’ fancy?’
Catching onto his idea, Pax said, ‘HUMVEE dealer would be good.’
‘Doan ask for much, do ya?’ Hatch grumbled, but the bird banked as he searched the area.
The area around the mall was an up market area and there was a long stretch of road filled with car dealerships. They would have been very lucky to find a HUMVEE dealer, but there were plenty of off-road vehicles that would do just as well. Hatch landed and dropped them on the road with car dealerships and they started walking the road looking for vehicles they could use.
‘Keep eyes out for trouble,’ Pax advised his combat shooters.
There were a few cars parked at awkward angles on the road, and other than the sound of the flags advertising cars rustling from their poles, the area was silent. There would be no supplies in this area and he figured no one came here much. Most of the car lots were still filled with densely packed cars, but again that made sense. In a world where there were literally hundreds of millions of cars and incredibly few people, there was no need to travel far to find a viable abandoned vehicle.
‘Maybe we should check out the dealers cars,’ Nelson suggested. ‘Whenever I bought a car, the dealers always had the best cars on the lot.’
‘That’s true,’ Captain Ted agreed. ‘Plus they might be gassed up.’
The car lot they were in sold Jeeps and they walked to the back of the lot to the dealer car park. As they walked past the storefront, they could see a collection of Jeeps behind the glassed walls that must have once been glossy, highly waxed four-wheel drives, but now looked dusty with slightly flat tires. Parked up next to the back entrance to the display room, was a dusty, but pristine Grand Cherokee Summit with grille guards over the headlights and extra fog lights. It was fully pimped with all the options and it had a generous sunroof.
Captain Ted asked, ‘Anyone know how to hotwire a car?’
Frowning, he asked, ‘Why don’t we just get the keys?’
‘Cos it sounds too fuckin’ easy,’ Captain Ted replied dryly.
The back entrance was unlocked and once he opened the door to the shop, Ip skittered in. Closing the door behind her, he said, ‘Some things are easy.’
Once Ip cleared the site, they found the keys to the Grand Cherokee Summit outside and a brand new one inside the store. Deciding they would serve their purpose, they split into two teams. Nelson and he teamed up in the new Grand Cherokee Summit
in the showroom with three of the combat shooters. Pax and Captain Ted teamed up with the other three combat shooters in the Grand Cherokee Summit outside. As usual, Ip travelled with him.
‘How are we going to get it out of the showroom?’ Nelson asked.
Chuckling, he said, ‘It’ not like ya to ask a stupid question, Nelson.’ Then he gunned the engine and drove through the glass window of the showroom. The glass shattered into tiny chunks and fell like crystal rain.
Once they were back on the road, he called Hatch down and they split the weapons and ammo they’d brought. They each loaded an M136 AT4 into each of their Jeeps. The M136s were smaller than the M3 MAAWS and they’d be easier to handle inside the Jeep. Weaving their way back to the mall, they pulled the Jeeps one behind the other in front of the wide entrance doors to the mall.
After checking all their radios were working, he said, ‘Okay, here’s the plan. We drive through the doors and let Ip go find that super hunter while we keep movin’. When she finds it, we kill it and get the hell out. Other than shootin’ the super hunter, we don’t stop. If it gets outta hand, we drive out and regroup. Ip’ll be fine. Understood?’
‘Nah, Gears,’ Pax replied sarcastically. ‘That’s a real complex plan.’
‘I had a more complex plan, Pax, but then I remembered you’re with us,’ he retorted.
‘Can we go now?’ Captain Ted interrupted. ‘I wanna go huntin’.’
‘Man speaks sense,’ he said and gunned the engine, getting his speed up before crashing violently through the doors. Unfortunately there was a large long thin, now dry, inbuilt pool immediately after the entrance. He swerved sharply to the left to avoid running straight into the benches in front of the pool. Skidding on the marble floor, the Jeep sideswiped a shop front and sent glass shattering over the hood and roof. Not being used to driving on marble, he over-compensated again. The Jeep skidded to the right against another row of benches and they could hear the sound of tearing metal as the benches cut into the door. Finally he managed to get the Jeep back under control and keeping his foot on the accelerator, he navigated the Jeep between the long pool and the shops to his left.
