— 21 —
Beckham had done exactly what Fischer had expected any hard-headed Delta Force Operator would. He had marched to the forward command point to discuss security again with Colonel Presley. This time Master Sergeant Parker Horn accompanied him, too.
Fischer had joined the meeting, but kept his mouth shut. His men were holding security outside a tent functioning as their command point outside the area where Presley had his desk and war tables.
Beckham was determined to root out the issue immediately as soon as Fischer told him about Cornelius’s worries that collaborators had infiltrated Manchester.
“Captain, I understand your concern, but we do not have a collaborator problem,” Presley said. “The problem we’re facing right now isn’t some boogeymen hiding in our base. The problem is finding those packs of juveniles we spotted before. Their trail disappeared an hour ago, and we need to pick it back up. Not waste our time throwing around crazy allegations.”
Presley was trying his best to hide his frustration, and Fischer didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, but he had no choice.
“Colonel, I regret not bringing this up earlier,” Fischer said. “But it seems too much of a coincidence that the juvenile scouts showed up right when work began on the mastermind. Now I’m not a military man, but I’ve been around long enough to run into my fair share of company spies looking for the next oil or mineral rights to pull a land grab right under my nose.”
“This place isn’t an oilfield,” Presley snapped.
“No, it’s not, but I’m telling you that my experience and recent events sure get the gears in my head turning.” Fischer gestured toward Beckham. “When I mentioned this to Captain Beckham, he insisted we come back to you, because we both respect what you’ve done at this outpost.”
Presley clenched his jaw. He set the folder he was holding down on a table and motioned for Horn to shut the tent flaps.
“What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this tent,” Presley said.
“Understood,” Beckham said.
Fischer and Horn nodded in turn.
“A little over a year ago we discovered a group of terrorists planning to poison our water treatment plant,” he said. “They were collaborators, but we never found out much more than that.”
“Poison with what?” Beckham asked.
“Poison isn’t exactly the accurate word.” Presley hesitated, apparently considering his words carefully. “They were planning on infecting the water with VX-99.”
“What?” Beckham said.
Fischer was equally surprised to hear this. Horn’s brow creased, nostrils flaring like a bull ready to charge.
“Why wasn’t President Ringgold informed of this?” Beckham asked.
“I informed the proper people,” Presley said.
“The president is the proper person, sir,” Horn growled.
Fischer had to admit he agreed. “It seems to me the administration of this country has the right to know about terrorist activity involving VX-99.”
“Look, I’ve taken care of my people here.” Presley shook his head. “We don’t need any local problems blown out of proportion. If you think back two months ago, even before those attacks, local economies relied on trade between all the outposts. Who wants to trade with an outpost that has a collaborator problem?”
“The president had a right to know,” Beckham repeated.
“And I had a right to protect my people. Both from physical and economic harm.”
“How can you be sure you’ve actually protected them?”
“Since those arrests and the following executions, we have not had any problems.” Presley shrugged. “Burning people alive in the town square has proved to be a good deterrent. I’m a big believer in making my actions count more than my words… Any potential collaborators knew from then on we meant business, and I made a promise that if we caught more, I would do worse to them than the Variants would.”
“You never found out who they were working with?” Horn asked.
“No, none of them would talk,” Presley replied. “We used every technique we could and got absolutely nothing from the bastards.”
Beckham and Horn exchanged a quick glance.
“If the juveniles know the mastermind is here, it’s not because anyone within our walls leaked that intel,” Presley said in an argumentative voice. “You might want to take your search for collaborators elsewhere.”
“I don’t buy it,” Beckham said. “I still have more questions.”
Presley let out a grunt. “Captain, your concern is noted, but we need to find those juveniles.”
“I agree, but they might not be the biggest threat. And I need to ask a few more questions. Sir.”
Presley looked exasperated but gave Beckham a nod.
“How many people have gone missing from Outpost Manchester in the past few years?” Beckham asked.
“I… I’m not sure, Captain… We don’t exactly keep a running census.”
Fischer found himself wondering the same thing Beckham probably was thinking. How could the colonel not know?
“You don’t have any idea? Not even a range?” Beckham asked.
“It’s a low number, I know that. Less than thirty. I would have to check with my staff for a better total.” Presley was agitated.
He walked around the table and called over one of his officers. Then he turned back to Beckham.
“You going to tell me why this information is important?” he asked.
“It’s important because collaborators use people by kidnapping their family members and forcing them into serving the Variants,” Beckham said. “Or other times, they simply brainwash them. Think Stockholm Syndrome on steroids.”
“Happened at our outpost,” Horn grumbled.
“I’d recommend putting together a list and checking with the family members of the people still living here,” Beckham said. “That’s one way to see if there’s anyone who might be connected.”
A female officer opened a tent flap and saluted. Presley spoke to the woman quietly but suddenly went rigid after she said something in response.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. He went outside and continued talking with the woman in trenchant voices for minutes.
“That doesn’t seem good,” Fischer said.
The tent flaps opened again, and Presley walked over to a table with maps draped across the surface. He pulled out a pen and circled a spot.
“We lost a scout a few minutes ago,” Presley said. “But we now know where the juveniles are.”
Fischer surveyed the location. It was to the east, not even five miles from the outpost perimeter.
Presley looked up from the map. “I recommend getting back to your shelters and hunkering down for the night. Captain, for your benefit, I also charged a team to start looking into what we discussed.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Beckham said.
Presley sighed. “I hope you’re wrong.”
“Me, too,” Beckham said.
Fischer followed him and Horn out of the tent. They cradled their rifles as they walked into the street to join Tran and Chase.
“Any update on that monstrosity your wife is working on?” Fischer asked.
“She didn’t say much,” Beckham said.
“Better get back to the kids,” Horn said. “I don’t trust that redhead lady we left them with.”
“We better try and snag some sleep,” Tran said.
“No way I can sleep with everything going on.” Chase spat onto the ground. “I’d go for a beer instead.”
“I wouldn’t say no to one,” Horn said with a chuckle.
“We can drink when we win this war, boys,” Fischer said.
“Agreed,” Beckham said. “Until then, I’m staying frosty.”
The group set off down the empty streets, quiet with the curfew imposed by Presley. When Beckham and Horn got back to their building, they parted ways and headed for the shelter.
Fischer cont
inued down the road with his men, walking for close to an hour. They were almost back when the sound of diesel engines rumbled through the night. A convoy of M-ATVs cruised through the empty streets, stopping at the shelter Fischer had been assigned.
Men in riot gear jumped out of the vehicles and rushed inside. Fischer moved aside with both Tran and Chase getting in front of him when more soldiers hurried over, shouting for their IDs.
“What in the hell are you idiots doing out after curfew?” a guard asked.
“Take it easy,” Chase said. “We were just talking to the colonel.”
“No need to go Gestapo on us,” Tran said.
“Shut the fuck up and show me your ID. Now,” said one of the guards.
Fischer understood the value of intimidation, but these guys were pissing him off. He and his men hadn’t done anything to deserve this kind of treatment.
When he got his ID back, shouting came from the front entrance. The men in riot gear pulled people out, their panicked voices filling the otherwise quiet night.
“Where are you taking me?” one of the men said.
“We didn’t do anything!” shouted the woman.
Fischer had expected to hear the shrieks of monsters tonight, but he didn’t expect to hear the cries of terrified people at the hands of the base’s own guards. He didn’t exactly regret going to the colonel about collaborators, but now that he’d seen the results, he worried paranoia and rumors would add a dangerous, unforeseen threat to Outpost Manchester’s existence.
“Get inside,” said the guard standing by them.
“Calm down, bro,” Chase said.
The guard grabbed him and shoved him hard. Tran stepped between the two. “Don’t you fucking put another hand on him.”
Fischer found his hand inching toward his holstered .357.
Another voice rang out.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
An officer walked over, a vest full of magazines, and a helmet over his black face mask.
“These men were out during curfew,” said the soldier who had pushed Chase.
Chase stood next to Tran now, both tense and ready to fight.
“We had a meeting with Colonel Presley, you dumb shit,” Fischer said.
The officer motioned for the soldier to return to the truck. After he left, the officer said, “Get back inside the shelter. It’s not safe out here.”
Fischer glared at the officer but said nothing. Instead, he motioned for his men to move inside. Once they were through the door, the guards locked it, leaving them only a window’s view to the street.
The officer got back into an M-ATV and the armored vehicles pulled away, speeding to the next location.
“I was about to break that dude’s face,” Chase said.
“Me too,” Tran said.
Fischer watched the vehicles round the corner.
“What do we do now?” Tran asked.
“We wait, and we pray I’m wrong about the collaborators,” Fischer said. “And if I’m not, we get ready to fight.”
***
“Our test today is the most important yet,” Kate said. “If we’re successful, we can actually figure out what in God’s name the Variants are planning.”
The mastermind let out a long exhale that rushed over Kate like a storm-born wind, carrying with it the rotten stench of a garbage dump. The two giant, muscular limbs trembled, and its eyelids fluttered.
Nothing Kate had studied during graduate school had prepared her for a test subject like this. In fact, she couldn’t imagine anyone in the massive laboratory at Outpost Manchester had ever thought they would be experimenting on a giant monster that wanted nothing more than to have them all killed.
She turned from the half-sleeping beast and joined Sammy, Sean, and Carr at a nearby laboratory workstation. On it lay the bioreactor with a chunk of pulsating red tissue inside of its clear plastic drum-like container. One of the mastermind’s tendrils was attached through a port via micro-electric array. On the other end of the tissue, another array connected to Sammy’s computer.
Sean looked between the computer and the beast, his right foot tapping the ground. His fingers traced across the regulator for the monster’s sedative IV drip. “Are you sure we have to keep that thing half awake?”
Kate appreciated Sean’s caution, but his wariness was holding back their research. It almost seemed like he was purposely trying to slow things down, but they were all tired, and she wasn’t working as quickly as normal.
Sammy responded as she typed at her keyboard. “If we put it to sleep, then I’m just talking to a comatose blob. The thing didn’t respond last time until we woke it up with enough prodding.”
“And we’re not going to make any progress if we don’t get an actual response from the beast,” Kate said.
“We won’t be doing ourselves any favors if we’re scared to confront the mastermind.” Carr leaned over the bioreactor chamber, scrutinizing the tissue within.
Nodding, Kate pointed at Sammy’s computer. The technician had done a great job adapting the collaborator’s software so they could translate an input signal. That should help them intercept any communications in the Variant network once they hooked up their own computer systems to the webbing.
“We can’t just be reactive anymore. We have to be proactive. The way to do that is to send our own signals through the network,” Carr said. “Signals that can interfere with Variant-collaborator communications or even lure them into a trap.”
“First things first,” Sammy cut in. “What kind of messages do we want to send it now?”
“Maybe we should try to trick the monster into thinking it’s tapped into the actual Variant network,” Kate said. “That might get it to open up more and give us a chance to test how well our messages pass for the real thing.”
“Why don’t we just tap into the real webbing network?” Sean asked. “We can circumvent the mastermind. Wouldn’t that be safer and quicker?”
Sammy laughed, swiveling in her seat. “No way. Not at all. Look, we’re trying to play biological hackers here. If we don’t know what we’re doing and we send a message that makes it obvious it’s coming from the outpost, then the Variants will rain hell on us. But if we can fool the mastermind, then maybe we can use what we learn to trick the rest of the Variant network.”
“Exactly,” Kate said. “So long as we’re only connecting the mastermind to this secured bioreactor, it’s like we’re operating a computer at home with no Internet access. But as soon as we connect to the internet—or in our case, the Variant network—then any beast or collaborator could connect right back to us. Not a good idea.”
The mastermind shifted in its restraints. A long growl escaped its bulbous lips. Kate eyed it suspiciously, waiting to see if it would make another move, but it settled back down, its head rolling on its shoulders.
“I really don’t like this.” Sean tapped on a gauge measuring the sedatives pumping in through one of the massive IV lines into the mastermind. “It’s unpredictable. We’re playing with fire, just guessing how much we think it needs.”
“I trust you’ll keep the beast under control, but if all else fails, you have my permission to knock it out,” Kate said.
Sean kneaded his fingers together nervously, taking a step back from the lab bench.
“Just focus on taking care of the lab equipment and connections to the mastermind,” Kate said.
“Sure,” Sean replied.
Truthfully, Kate didn’t feel safe either. Not with a monster that could destroy her entire team with a single swipe of its scythe-like claws. Even the dozen soldiers along the walls of the massive lab didn’t make her feel much better. She couldn’t help but think of Javier and Horn’s girls in addition to all the other people sheltering at this outpost.
If the abomination escaped and started attacking from within, she worried how many would fall before they could stop it.
But worries like that wouldn’t solve the challenge the
y faced now.
“Sammy, re-open the connection with the mastermind,” Kate ordered.
A few keystrokes and numbers scrolled across the computer monitor. The mastermind’s tendrils squirmed like long red snakes slithering from its body.
All around the laboratory, Kate watched technicians and scientists stop what they were doing to watch the giant.
“Connection confirmed,” Sammy said. “Ready to proceed on your mark, doctors.”
The monster’s tendrils undulated as Sammy performed some basic checks.
She input simple commands checking the status of the mastermind.
“Alive?” she typed out.
The response came back, “Yes.”
“Where?”
“Location unknown.”
“Identify yourself.”
“Bio-node Twenty-Two.”
From their work with the mastermind, they had determined that the masterminds called themselves Bio-nodes, though they were still unsure who had given them that name.
“Network connection with other Bio-nodes?” Sammy probed.
“Unavailable.”
In its half-sedated state, the monster continued to respond robotically. None of the dramatic anger filtered into its responses. For that, Kate was optimistic. It meant Sean had to have dialed down the sedatives at just the right level.
But for the next part, they needed a stronger response from the beast.
“Sean, reduce the sedatives,” Kate said. “We need the mastermind in a higher state of consciousness.”
Sean’s fingers shook as he adjusted the regulators on the IV lines.
The mastermind’s eyes blinked, and its arms started to lift, yanking on the thick chains attached to the iron scaffolding.
Simple inquiries like the ones Sammy had tried so far were easy.
But if they were going to disrupt the Variant-collaborator communications, if they were going to send bad intel to compromise the enemy’s strategies, then they would need to create significantly more complex messages that would fool even the mastermind.
Now was the moment they had been waiting for. The final test that would determine if they had figured out how to do just that.
To accomplish it, Kate had to rely on Sammy’s computer genius to translate regular language through the collaborator’s software into signals that the mastermind could understand and react to.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 58
