The team retreated back inside the building, as blasts shook the rooftop. Retreating soldiers tumbled from the concussive force, falling against the stairs. Heavy booms rattled the structure, and ceiling panels collapsed, breaking over the floor.
Beckham tripped on a landing and fell, only to be yanked up by Horn.
When they got to the bottom of Corthell Hall, the thunderstorm of explosions ceased, replaced by the agonized screams of the injured and dying. Beckham saw the surviving creatures peeling away, disappearing almost as fast as they had attacked.
Civilians flooded through the doors. Some of them had devastating burns and bleeding shrapnel wounds. One man had lost an arm and staggered, eyes staring blankly ahead with shock. Another man’s face was partially burned away, his ear and nose darkened into crisped flakes.
Soldiers helped carry in the injured. The shouts and cries of horror filled the night. Beckham looked for Bo and Donna in the masses of panicked people, wading through with Horn.
“Bo! Donna!” Beckham cried. Smoke burned his eyes, and the scent of charred flesh filled his nostrils.
Horn coughed, deep and hard.
Dark columns of smoke rose from dozens of craters. Bodies lay strewn across the field of destruction.
Beckham only knew they had reached Bo and Donna’s tent because it was the center of the camp, and strips of burned red plastic had survived the inferno.
He didn’t see any bodies in the remains, but corpses lay twisted in one of the nearby craters. Most were mangled and burned beyond recognition, but one of the victims was still moving.
Beckham ran over and bent down next to the man. He was hurt bad, his legs charred. Most of his hair had been singed away, leaving a glossy, red and black scalp.
“Medic!” Beckham yelled. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder hoping it wasn’t Bo. The man turned, but he had no eyes left to look at Beckham.
My God…
Beckham felt guilty when he felt a wave of momentary relief that it wasn’t Bo.
“Hold on, man, help is coming,” Beckham said. “Just stay still, okay?”
A soldier came running over with a medical bag and crouched next to the injured man. Beckham nodded at the medic and then ran to Horn.
He knelt next to a victim draped over another body.
The big guy looked up at Beckham, tears running down his eyes.
“Bo…” Beckham said quietly.
The teenager had valiantly shielded his mom’s body with his own. But his heroic efforts had been futile. A touch to her burned neck confirmed they were both gone.
— 12 —
Kate walked side by side with Carr and Sean down a passage of the USS George Johnson. Accompanying them now was a computer engineer named Sammy Tibalt, a former military contractor specializing in cyberwarfare and technology. The war had brought her back to helping the Allied States. She was whip-smart and had helped with testing their neural network hypothesis.
Sammy had a tangle of tattoos, dragons, phoenixes, and lions interwoven in a colorful tapestry along her arms. Kate didn’t bat an eye at the ink, but Sammy’s long dreadlocks did catch her attention.
A bit unconventional, Kate thought. But she knows what she’s doing.
Carr, Kate, and Sean had spent the night locked away and working in the lab with Sammy, oblivious to what was happening outside the airtight fish bowl until Ringgold had come to check on them earlier.
The president had informed Kate that her husband and Horn had gone out on a mission, and had returned.
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, but I wanted to wait until I had better intel,” Ringgold had said.
Kate’s first reaction was anger, but that had passed. All she cared about was that Reed and Horn were okay. Knowing that had helped get her through the early morning hours. Aside from that, she had no idea how the other outposts had fared during the night.
Exhaustion and worry weighed on her, but the knowledge she carried with her after a night of experiments was enough to keep her going. They now better understood the role the red webbing in the Variants’ tunnel played in their communications with the collaborators. It had also led them to an insurmountable roadblock and they needed the president’s help.
Sailors and other crew members flowed past them until they reached a hatch with two Marines standing guard.
“Dr. Lovato, Dr. Carr, Sammy Tibalt, and Sean McMasters,” Kate said, holding up an ID card. “We’re here to meet with President Ringgold.”
One of the Marines squinted at her ID before locking eyes with her. He then opened the hatch. They stepped into a space with a U-shaped table. Chairs lined each side, and a large monitor was mounted to the bulkhead.
Already seated were President Ringgold, Vice President Lemke, General Souza, and Lieutenant Festa. Chief of Staff James Soprano stood in a corner with his arms folded.
The dark circles under Ringgold and Souza’s eyes showed Kate she wasn’t the only one who had missed out on some shuteye. No doubt, the attacks last night had kept them occupied.
“Did you bring me some hope?” Ringgold asked.
“Yes, but we need your help, Madam President,” Kate said. “Starting with some coffee.”
Soprano disappeared out of the briefing room.
“Have a seat, please,” Ringgold said.
Kate suspected she was about to get some very bad news as Sammy, Sean, and Carr dropped into seats beside her.
“There was another attack on Outpost Portland after I saw you,” Ringgold said. “Beckham and Horn are still okay, but we lost a lot of people.”
“No,” Kate stammered. “How? I thought…”
“The collaborators used bats strapped with explosives to attack the outpost,” Souza said.
“Bats?” Kate was taken completely off guard.
“How in the world could they control them?” Sean asked, face going pale.
“It could be any number of things,” Sammy said. “Some kind of implanted micro-electrodes. Radio-telemetry systems that deliver microcurrent pulses, maybe. There’s so much documented research in this area to draw from.”
“If they can control bats, think about what else they can control,” Carr said. “The scientific implications… they’re frightening.”
“The result was certainly devastating,” Festa said. “Whoever was responsible might’ve been inspired by the experimental bat bombs developing in World War II.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Kate said. “More alarming is that these bats could be mutated by VX-99.”
Carr put a hand on his chin, deep in thought. “That would explain how those animals could carry payloads with such catastrophic effects.”
“Every time we take one step forward, the Variants and collaborators push us one step backward,” Lemke said with a shake of his head.
“How about the other outposts?” Kate asked.
Souza looked to Festa for a report.
“It was a tough night,” said the lieutenant. “Three of the six outposts around the target cities have fallen completely. I’m still going through all the data to figure out which are the safest outposts to evacuate survivors to.”
“This is why your work is so crucial,” Ringgold said, her eyes looking between each of the researchers. “We need to intercept the messages being sent on the webbing network if we have any hope of organizing our defenses appropriately.”
“Right now, we’re just evacuating people toward the Atlantic coast and hoping we can stop the advance of the creatures,” Lemke added.
“I think we’re close to a breakthrough.” Kate set up her laptop and synced it with the briefing room monitor.
She clicked on her touchpad. An image of the red webbing within a beer can-sized bioreactor appeared on the screen. Next to it was one of the computers that had been recovered from the collaborators at the Luray Caverns in Virginia.
“What are we looking at now?” Lemke asked.
“We successfully recreated the webbing network,
” Carr said.
“The connection between the computer and the neural cells was made with a flexible microelectric array.” Sammy swept her dreads over a shoulder. “It’s very similar to a design documented as early as 2006 by Dr. Simon Wong at the University of Florida.”
“Without getting into specifics,” Kate said.
“Right,” Sammy said. “Bottom line, Dr. Wong showed that a group of rat neurons could be successfully paired with a fighter jet simulator program.”
“I remember that,” General Souza said. “The DOD discussed investigating these topics to create better artificial intelligence for drones.”
“Did they?” Sean asked, leaning over the table.
“Yes, in fact,” Souza replied. “The DOD picked up many of the researchers involved in these efforts and hired them to continue their work on these subjects.”
“By chance, are any of these scientists still employed by the Allied States?” Kate asked.
Sean nodded. “If we knew who they were and had their help, they might be very useful.”
“I’ll look into it,” Souza said. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“For now, let’s assume you are the best minds we have left. Please continue,” Ringgold said.
Soprano returned and passed out hot cups of coffee as Kate moved on to the next slide. A graph showed the electrical output from the webbing. Next to it were screen captures from the collaborators’ computers that displayed a jumble of words.
“We connected the wires from the collaborator’s computer to the neural network contained within the webbing,” Kate said. “Sammy’s help was instrumental in this part.”
“By stimulating the cells, I recorded output signals from the webbing that were translated into inputs readable by the computers,” Sammy added.
Carr motioned at the screen with his coffee cup. “As you can see, while the computers could detect a signal, we couldn’t produce anything that made a lick of sense.”
Sammy agreed with a nod. “I’ve got the best computer scientists on my team, but even we can’t do anything to turn these messages into something understandable. It’s all just a bunch of gobbledygook.”
“How long do you need to decipher this?” Ringgold asked.
“What we have now is a slate full of hieroglyphics,” Sammy explained. “The symbols and the words are there. The message is there. But it’s hidden. We need our Rosetta Stone to translate this.”
Ringgold raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, then… What is your Rosetta Stone?”
Carr glanced at Kate while Sean rocked a leg.
They all knew what the request meant.
More soldiers were going to die.
“It’s a mastermind,” Kate said. “We need to connect the computers and neural network to one of those monsters in order to get a proper input signal. With that, we might get what we need.”
“You might?” Souza asked.
“Our team agrees this is the best option,” Sammy said. “This should be enough to complete the circuit, so to speak, and decode this language the Variants are using.”
“There’s really no other way,” Sean said emphatically. “No intel could be better than working directly with a mastermind.”
Lemke shook his head. “I don’t like the uncertainty, especially if you’re asking what I think you’re asking.”
“This information will be invaluable to predicting their movements and tapping into their networks.” Kate tapped on her laptop, and the monitor showed the collaborators’ computer systems again. “With it, we could even send signals of our own through the webbing. We could weaponize the enemy against themselves.”
Ringgold looked to Souza. “That’s something our troops could use. Imagine the possibilities.”
“Our job would be a lot easier if we knew the Variants’ plans,” Festa said.
“Think about the lives we could save,” Sean said.
“I don’t disagree,” Souza said. “But this requires us to locate a mastermind, secure the area, and connect your computer contraption up to it.”
“That would be one method,” Carr said. “But not what we’d recommend. Science is best done in a controlled environment. In a place where we can modulate all the external stimuli to ensure that the language we decode is uncorrupted.”
“You want us to capture a mastermind and bring it in?” Souza asked.
“I know it sounds insane,” Kate replied. “But we’ve done this before to study the Variants and Alphas. There’s nothing like having that kind of research subject to ensure we succeed.”
“We suggest isolating and moving a mastermind to a defensible location with a large-scale laboratory infrastructure,” Carr said.
“Have you identified a place?” Ringgold asked.
Sammy leaned forward in her seat, her tattoos peeking out from her cuffs. “That’s where we were hoping you all might come in.”
Festa nodded right away. “I think I know a place. Outpost Manchester in New Hampshire might work. There’s a cluster of manufacturing buildings there where they used to research and produce tissue engineered organs. This is exactly the type of facility we could reuse for the mastermind.”
“That sounds ideal,” Carr said.
“They have had zero successful Variant attacks due to their defenses,” Festa continued. “It’s protected by bodies of water, rocky outcrops, and water-logged topsoil that is nearly impossible for the beasts to tunnel into. The commander is a decorated veteran from the Great War of Extinction.”
The room was silent for moment.
“I know what you all might think. Capturing a mastermind, relocating it, hooking it up to a bunch of machines in some outpost,” Kate said. “It’s a huge commitment with resources we are desperately low on.”
“We understand what we’re asking sounds ambitious,” Carr said. “Even foolhardy. But if we want to win this war against an enemy like this, we need to take big risks.”
Ringgold stared at the computer monitor with the garbled message. “If we do this, if we can actually figure out how to bring in a mastermind and tap into their network, you truly believe we can not only intercept their messages but also send signals to disrupt their communications?”
“Yes,” Sammy said. “Working firsthand with a mastermind will tell us what we need to know from a data perspective.”
Kate sat straighter. “With these revelations, we can eliminate the advantages the Variants have over us.”
Sean continued rocking his leg and nodded enthusiastically.
“And with the new equipment S.M. Fischer and General Cornelius are bringing to the table we can add a stronger layer of defenses to the outposts still standing,” Ringgold said.
Kate thought of Beckham and Horn and their children. In her mind’s eye, she saw all the other people they had left behind in Outpost Portland, like Donna and Bo and Timothy. All who could be dead now. They were among tens of thousands of people driven from their homes across the Allied States or dying at the claws of Variants.
“This plan might not be perfect, but it’s the best we have, and we have to do whatever it takes to stop these monsters,” Ringgold said.
“I can get behind it,” Lemke added.
General Souza sat quietly, seeming to contemplate all they had presented. He finally stood and let out a brief sigh.
“It’s a risky plan, but you’re right; it’s the best we have and fortunately for us, Team Ghost is already on their way to kill a mastermind. Lieutenant Festa, contact them and tell them their orders have changed from kill to locate and secure.”
***
Team Ghost trekked through the outskirts of a flooded New Orleans. A chopper had dropped them off the night before under the cover of darkness. Since then, they had moved slowly to avoid enemy contacts.
Fitz held point, listening for hostiles in Louis Armstrong Park as they approached the large white arch marking the entrance. The sun hid behind a blanket of dark gray clouds, and the city was quiet.
<
br /> Somewhere in the city a lone rogue beast screeched, and a flock of birds exploded into the sky. Judging by the distance, they were out of the monster’s scent range. Hopefully, the rub Team Ghost had used to mask their scent would protect them.
Fitz gave the order to halt in front of the white arch that had “Armstrong” welded to it in big, blocky letters. His blades creaked as he stopped in front of a thin film of murky, brown water.
The levees had failed years ago, and swamplands had reclaimed most of the terrain. He looked at Rico. Stains climbed up from her boots to her knees showing the depth of the waters they’d had to pass. Soon they would have to cross more.
“The French Quarter is only a block away. Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of the mastermind,” Fitz said. “Once we find it, we keep an eye on it and stay hidden until air support and backup arrives. When they do, we’ll help hogtie that bastard and get it out of here for the scientists.”
“Hogtie,” Mendez said. “Personally, I’d prefer to barbecue the damn thing and turn it into Carne Asada.”
“Don’t disrespect Carne Asada, brother; that shit is good,” Ace said.
“True,” Mendez smirked. “I still can’t believe they want us to capture this thing.”
“We won’t be alone,” Rico said in a low voice.
“This should be easier than killing it, actually,” Fitz said.
“Nothing involving Variants is ever easy,” Dohi said, eyes narrowed and tone gravely serious.
“You’re right about that, amigo,” Mendez said.
Fitz pictured the last time they had come face-to-face with a mastermind. It had only been a couple days, yet it felt like eons ago. In that time, they had lost Lincoln and watched hundreds of good men and women die at Scott AFB.
Snap out of it, he thought. You’ve got a mission to complete.
“You good, Fitzie?” Rico asked in a whisper, as if she could sense his thoughts.
“As good as I could be after wading through polluted floodwater in the middle of Variant territory,” he said. “You?”
“Fine, but I sure as hell wish Variants didn’t know how to swim.”
She stared out over the rippling brown water filling the streets between the park and the French Quarter.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 46
