by Alan Janney
“He freed Tank Ware from prison.”
Samantha swore and punched the metal fuselage so hard her fist left an imprint. “I knew I should have ended that ape when I had the chance.”
Katie’s voice was quiet. “Where’d he go?”
Anderson held up his palms. “Out to sea. That’s all we know. But he can’t stay hidden long.”
He appeared exhausted. I’d been so caught up in my own struggles I failed to notice his. His eyes were red, framed by dark circles, and he needed a shave. Katie noticed too. She squeezed Isaac’s hand and said, “Have you heard from Natalie?”
He tried to smile but couldn’t. “No. Not since the Downtown takeover. Teresa Triplett mentions her in the Chemist blog now and then, so I know she’s alive.”
Katie nodded sympathetically. “I read the updates. I met Natalie North once, did you know?”
“I didn’t.” He grinned, genuinely this time. “I haven’t told anyone we’re together. It’s a hard secret to keep, because I’m so proud of her.”
I said, “That settles it. That’s the plan. We’re going after the Chemist. And we’re going after Natalie.”
“That’s always been the plan. Not working so far.”
I said grimly, “This time is different.”
“How so?”
“I don’t have homework or English class. Samantha and I are going in and we’re not coming out unless we’ve got his head.”
Samantha pumped her fist, a small but fierce motion. “That plan makes me so happy I could cry.”
We landed on the far side of a hot Los Alamitos tarmac, away from prying eyes. The four of us hopped off and Mike Matthews launched the Black Hawk into the firmament again. Anderson got behind the wheel of a waiting jeep and we climbed in.
He explained in the sudden silence, “I’m working with a small group of trusted individuals. Influential members inside all branches of intelligence, military, and law enforcement. We call ourselves the Resistance, and our main goal is to provide resources to our Hyper Human allies. With the military and governmental infighting, we don’t advertise our existence. One of the Resistance is a colonel here. He allocated this jeep for us and a place to stash you.” He ground the gears and gunned the gas, and we lurched down the runway. Like every nearby base, Los Alamitos bore scars from a recent Chemist rampage. This airfield was still being repaired so larger fixed-wings could land. We rolled through a graveyard of scorch marks.
I said, “I’m not crazy about being stashed.”
“Me either,” Samantha announced. “Infected are incapable of being stashed. We’ll go crazy.”
Anderson grumbled, “Just trying to keep you three alive. There’s only so much help I can provide.”
“You’re doing great, Special Agent,” Katie said. “And we’re very grateful. Aren’t we?”
“And you’re hot,” Samantha noted. “So that helps.”
I said, “This place is perfect. Temporarily. We’ll lay low until its time to move out. Where are we staying?”
“The guest room at the Infirmary. But I’m not positive where that is. I’ve never been here.”
Our journey in the jeep did not go unnoticed. Four strangers in civilian clothes were uncommon on a Joint Forces base. Katie especially stuck out.
“Here,” Samantha growled and stuffed a duffle bag into Katie’s lap. “Hug that to your chest. You’re too attractive and curvy, especially in your pjs. All these half-wits are staring.”
Los Alamitos is not pretty. It’s old and utilitarian and without adornment. No grass, just soldiers jogging in cadence over dusty earth. Anderson said there was a pool and golf course, but we’d never use them. We motored through cinderblock housing and offices and armories, all painted military grays and khakis, until we stumbled across the Infirmary. A small apartment was built into the back, just a bathroom and small bedroom. Several bags of McDonalds were steaming on the bedside table. I ate a sausage biscuit in one bite.
“One cot?” Samantha arched an eyebrow at the rickety mattress.
“I’m not your concierge,” Anderson yawned. “Go check into a hotel if you want. See how that goes. Colonel Jordan should be here soon. I don’t want to be spotted, so I’m leaving the base immediately.”
The jeep roared, and he was gone. Samantha glared at the door, hands on hips, for a full fifteen seconds before announcing, “I look military. I’m not staying in this tiny room. Back later. And I’ll bring clothes for Miss Pajamas.” She grabbed a McDonalds bag and slammed the door.
The room was small. No windows. No televisions.
Katie said, “Well…”
“That was an interesting morning.”
“Shall we eat?”
“Let’s snuggle first.”
She smiled. “We’d be fools not to.”
Chapter Six
Friday, January 5. 2019
I couldn’t stay quiet. I was too amped. Too juiced. Too much adrenaline. I paced back and forth until after lunch, when Katie grew tired of my simmering energy and pushed us both outside. We found a rec hall with a television but we could barely see the screen. The hall was standing room only, way above capacity, bodies crowding for a better view. The video footage of Chosen rioting over Glendale startled everyone, even me and Katie. Those freaks were fast. How on earth did we escape? The newscast displayed the wreckage which used to be my home, as well as the ten-mile backup on the interstate. Fortunately our names weren’t being used, even though our helicopter dash had been caught on several cellphone cameras.
“It’s only a matter of time,” Katie observed. “A few hours. And then they’ll be confident enough to release your real name.” Katie did not fit in, even wearing camouflage fatigues. She was too soft, too pretty, too feminine, her voice too bright.
I wanted to fight. My blood boiled. I’d been attacked. The Chemist sent monsters to my house! To Katie’s! He came early, hoping to catch us asleep. He invaded our private lives. And Tank sold us for his freedom, breaking our rule about no families. I wanted to break things. I needed justice. A reckoning.
We found Samantha Gear at an outdoor firing range. Where else. A small crowd gathered to watch. She stood perfectly still, her left elbow propped on her left hip, glaring down the length of a sniper rifle. She was still dressed in camo cargo pants and a tight black shirt.
A buzzer sounded. Targets moved. She fired five times, sharp blasts, spinning copper cartridges, and she shattered five mechanical moving targets.
Two soldiers stood in front of me, whispering.
“See how fast she works the bolt? Christ almighty.”
“Not even using a scope.”
“Scope? How could she? Moving too fast.”
“I’m not that accurate when I’m kneeling. She’s just standing there. Who the hell is she?”
Samantha turned and glared at the crowd. She held up a pair of fingers.
“You boys have two problems!” She started stalking up and down the line of admirers, professional soldiers in awe. “One, you’re moving too slowly. You’re concerned with silence. Forget silence. This isn’t elegant. War isn’t elegant. There’s no silence in combat! You shouldn’t be using a bolt-action anyway. You need the semi-automatic M110. Reloading messes with your mind. When you’re worried about silence and about reloading, then you’re worried. Worried. Guns. Don’t. Hit. Targets.” Her teeth were grinding and she snarled in their faces. “Your enemy, this new enemy on the television screens, won’t give you time to worry. They’ll rip you open. Never practice silence. Never practice worried. Practice angry. Practice desperate.
“Next! Your second problem! You’re practicing with scopes?! No! Lose the damn scopes! Anyone can hit anything with a scope from a mile away. You don’t need to practice that. You don’t need to practice with a scope. This isn’t Boy Scouts! This isn’t Sniper Camp! You need to practice firing at targets sprinting at you fifteen feet away. Practice firing at targets moving too fast to see. There will be NO time for scopes! Scopes m
ake you worry. You won’t have time to worry. You won’t have time to fret over being accurate. Forget about accuracy. Your ass will be dead. You want something to worry about? Worry that you won’t even hit them once. That you won’t have time to fire. That you’ll miss entirely. Forget perfection. Forget aiming for the heart. Just hit them anywhere. If you can. Otherwise you’re dead.”
She tossed her rifle to the man behind her, and said, “Where’s your Armory Officer? Where’s your Gunnery Sergeant? Speed up the targets. Triple the speed. Get semi-automatic weapons, not single shot sniper rifles.”
Katie whispered to me, “She’s very impressive. I didn’t know she could do all this stuff.”
One of the observers, probably the senior ranking officer in attendance, spoke up. His hair was buzzed and he spoke quietly. “This is very impressive. But I don’t recognize you, soldier. You’re not Green Beret. And I don’t believe you’re Navy SEALs. Our soldiers need to use the weapons they’ve been trained on.”
Samantha stared at the emblem on his shirt and said, “That’s very cute, Captain. However it’s obvious you’ve never seen combat. None of you boys have. Just arrive here from some safe outpost in Texas?”
“Training matters. Repetition matters. Comfort level matters. Working as one unit matters. And who are you?”
Samantha Moved. She had the Captain’s firearm out of his holster without warning, and she pressed the muzzle into the soft underpart of his jaw. The assemblage tensed and stepped back as one body. It happened so fast. I groaned.
“Tell me about comfort level now, Captain,” Samantha said quietly. “Go ahead. I’m listening. Explain to me how repetition is going to save you.” His eyes were wide and he didn’t move. More guns emerged, pointed at Samantha. Voices were raised. Radios began squawking. “Here’s the point, Captain. Your enemy is ten times faster than you are. You have no time to worry. No time to reload. No time to aim through a scope. Get it?”
More boots came pounding across the pavement. More yells. More weapons. I mumbled, “This is going well.”
Katie said, “She’s so cool. I hope she doesn’t get shot.”
“Might be good for her.”
Two MPs ran up, guns drawn, and began bawling orders. “Drop the weapon! On the ground! Everyone back! Drop the weapon now!” With recent hostilities on military bases, this could escalate quickly.
“Drop the weapon?!” Samantha cackled. “Drop the weapon! You think your enemies are going to drop their weapons??” She began turning in circle, one fist holding onto the helpless Captain, the other fist pressing the gun into his neck. “Stop me! Someone stop me! How will you do it? There’s only one way. Only one way to stop me. What is it?”
They didn’t know. I knew. And I hoped no one tried it.
“This is fun. Let’s turn this into a lesson. All you kiddos need to learn this. Everyone follow me!” she called. “We need more space.”
She marched the Captain away from the firing range, past the pool, across Yorktown Avenue, through a parking lot, next to a hanger, and onto the runway tarmac. Our crowd grew the whole time, swelling to over a hundred. They were nervous, agitated, but interested. Everyone with a gun had it drawn, fifty total. She halted on the airstrip, immediately encircled by Military Police and soldiers with firearms.
“Stay behind me,” I told Katie. “I’ve seen her like this before. It’s going to get weird.”
“This is Captain Comfort,” Samantha called to her audience, turning the poor man in a circle. “He wants to stick to the old way! Just keep doing what you practiced, he said! Repetition will save you! Trouble is…the old ways won’t work anymore. You aren’t fighting Al Qaeda! You aren’t fighting Islamic radicals or any other religious zealot. This is a new animal. There’s a new beast in the jungle. And it’s faster and stronger than you.”
The captain hissed, “Who are you?”
“I’ve fought the Chosen. I’ve killed more than you ever will.”
“What are Chosen?”
“Who am I, you want to know? Who are the Chosen? I went into Compton with the FBI’s HRT. None of them walked out. Brave men. Well trained. All dead except one, and he had to be carried.”
“Alright, soldier!” the ranking MP shouted. “There’s a lot of us, and only one of you. Gun down.”
“Only one of me?” she laughed. “Who cares?! I’m more than enough for you. All of you. Why? Because you’ll fight using old methods. I will take you apart, and I’m not even the one you should be scared of.”
“Oh crap,” I muttered.
She continued, “You should worry about me, but you ought to be terrified of him!”
“Katie, back away. I have a bad feeling.”
“Because you can shoot me! I mean, you can’t. But technically I could be shot. But not him! He’s too fast! That should give you a hint about how to save Captain Comfort. Bullets won’t work. So how can you save the poor Captain? Forget bullets. There’s your hint.”
“Our bullets work just fine, lady,” a growl.
“Oh really??” She howled in laughter.
I sighed. “Oh no.”
“Watch!” She raised the gun. At me. She fired three times. Some cerebral mechanism activated, computing time and distance at hyper speed, and fired synapses independently. I saw the oncoming rounds. Saw the disturbance as they cut through air. I Moved, twisting away from the bullets, and catching the final shot. The lead hissed and spun briefly in my hand. No idea how I do that. It’s like the phenomenon happens to someone else.
The crowd shivered again and moved away from me. I stood alone, glaring at the Shooter.
There went our anonymity. Way to go, Samantha. I tossed the hot metal onto asphalt.
She had their attention now. Well, we both did. She spoke evenly and slowly. “You will barely see them. You will not have time to use a scope. You will be lucky to get off a few rounds. And you will probably miss. So I repeat myself. How will you save Captain Comfort?”
I heard the whispers. It’s the Outlaw! I saw him on the television! It’s him! I was bigger than them. Taller, broader. The presence I imputed on their emotions and their psyche was stronger than normal. I felt big.
“You feel safe behind your guns?” Samantha continued. “Put them away. Right now. Trust me. They are doing you no good. Put your guns away or the Outlaw will disarm you. And he can. And you won’t like it.”
I could. I just didn’t want to. Slowly, alternating stares between their superior officers and me, they holstered their weapons. She wasn’t an active hostile. She was something else.
“Now you realize just how helpless you are against your enemies. Against the Chosen and Infected. You have one chance to save Captain Comfy. What is it?”
No one spoke. She growled and produced a smooth green grenade. THAT spooked them. And me. Was it real? It better not be. I hoped not. But it was. I knew Samantha. Crap.
“In all likelihood, the Captain here is dead. You can’t realistically save him. The one chance you have, and this is important…” She pulled the pin out with her teeth and released the lever. I started to count in my mind. “…you can drop grenades and pray you survive.”
One second. The troops backed away.
“You can’t hit the Chosen. You can only slow them.”
Two seconds. The Captain was white.
“And your best chance is grenades.”
Three seconds.
“It might kill you. Might kill the Captain. But you’re probably already dead when it goes off.”
She tossed me the grenade at four seconds. I Threw it straight up. It detonated two hundred yards high, a safe pop.
Samantha released the Captain. He collapsed to his knees. Poor guy. Only human. She disassembled the pistol with one hand and the metal parts fell noisily to the ground. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” one of the guys said. A lot of cameras began emerging from pockets. “Can we get a selfie with you?”
* * *
Colonel Jordan wa
sn’t happy with us. He appeared to be a perpetually irritated, thirty-five year old black stalwart. Older and wiser and angrier than his years. And his territory was in an uproar.
Katie was besieged by the women on base. She’d been in gossip magazines, kidnapped on national television, named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People, dated the infamous Tank Ware, and now dated the Outlaw. She took pictures, signed autographs, and answered questions.
Samantha was a hit with the guys. She beat them in arm wrestling. She outshot them. She doubled them in pushup contests, screaming at them the whole time. She turned down a dozen date requests.
After thirty minutes of pestering, I finally relented to a race. Fifty guys lined up to race me across the width of the airstrip and back. I gave them a head start but I still lapped the field. They roared with delight. We played catch with a football until their fingers blistered.
It was fun for an hour. But that was enough. I wasn’t a zoo animal. Nor a circus act. I grew weary of ducking uncomfortable questions. Fortunately Colonel Jordan began blowing an airhorn and ordering everyone back to their duties. He allowed Samantha to work at the shooting range, lecturing on new techniques for battling Chosen.
“You two. Get in,” he ordered. We obeyed, Katie in the front, and me in the back. He climbed behind the jeep’s wheel and we motored back towards housing. “I’ve got over two thousand men and women stationed here, due to the threat downtown. Over thirty-five aircraft. And more arriving as soon as we complete major repairs. That’s a lot of moving parts. And the only way it keeps moving is through discipline, structure, and routine. I don’t like when those get disrupted.”
I liked this guy. Gruff. Straight to the point. “I understand, Colonel.”
“Don’t misunderstand. You and I, we have the same mission. On the same team. But I need Los Alamitos to run like a well-oiled machine. Now you two. Both of you. Reach under your seats. Packages just arrived.”
We found insulated manilla envelopes. Inside were brand new phones with text messages from Puck.
