The soldiers still with Bren had followed him like a god because he’d stopped sending them on suicide missions, and their primary job now was protecting the lake. There were some in Bren’s command that worried about Victor, but not Bren. Victor needed him to run the campaigns, and he needed Victor to run the business.
Working through the math of what Bren had said, Victor finally looked at him. “Okay, I understand what you’re saying now.”
Tilting his head, “I knew you would,” Bren grinned.
“The eggheads give us anything new?” Victor asked leaning back in his chair.
“We have a briefing from them this Friday. At present, they’re running eleven experiments.”
At first, Victor had scoffed when Bren had found those at the lake he’d set up as researchers. Of the eleven eggheads, four would’ve been outstanding stock and one of the others, Victor would’ve branded. It hadn’t taken long for Victor to understand the importance of studying the infected. The ‘eggheads’, as Bren called them, were all primary staff. They were on the same level as the engineers and electricians from the dam.
“Hope they give us some good news for a change,” Victor sighed.
“Any information about the infected is worthwhile,” Bren said as the door opened.
About to unleash because there hadn’t been a knock or an announcement from his receptionist, Victor paused seeing his brother Blake walk in. “We lost two scout patrols,” he said, stopping at Victor’s desk.
Very slowly closing his eyes and shaking his head, “You’d better not tell me they were in the exclusion area,” Victor grumbled.
“Oh no, Vic,” Blake blurted out. “One was swarmed over by stinkers and...” He stopped and swallowed hard before continuing, cutting his eyes toward Bren. “The other came under fire near Gregory. We lost contact with them after a few minutes. Do you want me to call Major Dankin to check on them?” Dankin had a camp set up at Peoples, Kentucky, and traded with them fairly often.
“And just how do we know it wasn’t Dankin’s troops ambushing them?” Victor asked.
“Before we lost contact, the patrol said it was the gang that paints their faces blue,” Blake answered.
“You know, I never would’ve believed the world could descend to Mad Max levels in such a short time,” Victor sighed. “Bren, how should we deal with these ‘Blue Men’?”
“Vic, not all of them are men,” Blake told him in a low voice, but Victor just ignored him.
Thinking for a minute, Bren answered. “We need to let Dankin know they’re close. He’s lost a lot of troops to them. I’m betting they want his base.”
“You think they can take his base?” Victor gasped. “He has over three hundred troops.” Dankin was set up between the forks of streams but had dug them out. He had blocked off the land route by digging a moat. It wasn’t as formidable, but it did keep the infected at bay. The only thing that pissed Bren and Victor off was, they had no helicopters here while the other three units around them did.
Shaking his head, “No, the ‘Blue Men’, as you call them, use very little planning when they attack, only brute force,” Bren told him. “Against small forces where you greatly outnumber your opponent, that’s okay. But if they, the Blue Men, attack Dankin and he’s ready, they’ll get wiped out. And that will be one less group we have to worry about.”
Liking the sound reasoning, Victor turned to Blake. “Blake, you know I hate the term ‘stinker’,” Victor warned.
Holding up his hands, “Sorry, it just slipped out,” Blake blurted out.
“So, how many and what were the scouts doing?” Victor asked, picking up a pen.
“Looking for Diane,” Blake answered, and looked down at a notepad. “The group that was overrun by infected had a dozen shooters. The one the Blue Men took out had sixteen.”
Tossing the pen across the room, “Stop all patrols looking for Diane now! That bitch has already cost us enough. I want the reward doubled if she’s brought in alive. But we won’t dedicate any more resources to finding her,” Victor snarled. “We don’t even know which area we need to avoid for the Wild Ones, and that bitch has cost me more.”
Glad they were stopping the search after so long, Blake made notes in the pad. “I’ll get it done, Vic. Just to let you know, the scouts’ haul of scavenged supplies this week is a ton under average.”
Raising his eyebrows, “Any ideas?” Victor asked Bren.
“Victor, the only option is to send the scouts out farther. But before you do that, I would advise replacing what scouts we’ve lost from the bodies here and adding two hundred more,” Bren told him.
Wincing hard, “You realize how much that’ll cost us?” Victor gasped.
“Sending patrols out farther weakens us, and we have to keep the patrols around us. The only way to counter that is to add numbers,” Bren pointed out. Neither man was worried about the scouts keeping any supplies they found, not anymore. In the beginning that had been a problem, but after a few bloody examples of those who had tried, it’d stopped very fast.
Giving a sigh, “Have to spend to make,” Victor said looking up at Blake. “Do it, and let the receptionist know I want my girls ready for tonight.”
Writing in his pad and not looking up, “I’ll take care of it, Vic,” Blake said moving to the door. “You know the Borg Queen’s broadcast changed, right?” Blake asked, and saw Victor and Bren both give dumbfounded looks. Walking over to the radio and turning it on, Blake spun the dial and the Borg Queen’s voice came from the speakers.
“To all, the Wild Ones’ kingdom is declared. If you enter Knox, Clay, Bell, or Leslie counties, you shall become a drone. Death will be granted by those moving off the beaten path and it will be welcomed, for the alternative is much worse, alone in the dark with the Wild Ones. This is feared by all mortals and even drones are learning, the Wild Ones’ kingdom belongs to only them.”
The recording repeated and Blake turned the radio off. “When did it change?” Bren asked.
“Yesterday,” Blake answered.
Pushing up from his chair, “I’ll call Dankin,” Bren said, then grinned. “I want to remind him that he owes us for this warning.”
“Shit, you are a businessman,” Victor chuckled.
Tilting his head to Victor, Bren followed Blake to the door. He knew war and was thankful he’d joined up with Victor. After Blake opened the door, Bren didn’t leave but closed the door, then turned back to Victor. “Victor, I’m telling you, we’ll have to take out General Wade in Buckhorn eventually. I’m surprised he hasn’t attacked us yet. Don’t trust him.”
Holding up his hands, “Sorry. I don’t trust anyone,” Victor told him and Bren nodded. “I know Wade wants to rule like a Roman Emperor over an empire.”
“The only reason he hasn’t tried for us is he’s so far away. Before this, fifty miles was nothing for units, but moving through the country with walls of infected really makes the world bigger. Units have to stay small to move about, otherwise I would advise to attack his ass now.”
“That’s why I put so much effort into finding Diane, if any of our enemies got her, that could hurt us,” Victor said, and was surprised to see Bren smiling. Diane had known a lot, but there was much she didn’t know. Only Victor and Bren knew just how many troops and scouts they really had. While his troops knew how many other soldiers were there, they didn’t know how many scouts there were. With two peninsulas blocked off, one on each side of the lake, it wasn’t that hard.
“I know, and with you increasing the reward that much, they will know. I would increase it, just not that much.”
Realizing that, Victor nodded. “Tell Blake, and just how many shooters do you think Wade really has up there in Buckhorn?”
“Oh, I’m certain he has more than we do. I’m betting double,” Bren told him, and was surprised this shocked Victor. “Victor, your scouts aren’t really scouts. But Wade isn’t a tactician by any means. He was a general because of his family only. I’m certain
the only reason he hasn’t marched on us is because of his staff. They’ve told him he would lose much of his force before getting here. The noise they would make fighting to us would draw infected in from a thousand miles, and he would be caught between our walls and waves of infected from behind. That is, if they even reached us.”
“Thank you, Bren,” Victor said, spinning his chair to face a computer.
“It will take some time, but we will have the area secured, Victor,” Bren nodded as he opened the door and walked out.
Tapping away on the keyboard, “I hope I never have to kill you, Bren. You make an outstanding CEO,” Victor mumbled.
Chapter Two
Inside Wild Ones’ Perimeter
Standing on the bluff to the south of the build house, Heath looked out over the valley floor six hundred feet below. Work on the four community greenhouses had started the week Sandy and Mary had returned home. Heath had asked Lance and Ian to take a week off because everyone was shocked that the dads hadn’t made it. It was the fact the dads had died because of humans was what pissed everyone off. He and Dwain had gone over to help Lance and Ian set up tombstones in the back of the cabin, one for each dad, and then one each for Doug and Jason.
Lifting his gaze off the shelves that had been dug into the hillside to house the huge greenhouses, Heath looked toward Hinkle down the valley. With not a stinker in sight, he couldn’t help but grin. The boys had put out two more sets of battle bots to the east. After they’d been placed, one had to actually hunt for stinkers inside the three mile perimeter. Stinkers were still inside but thankfully, not many.
Lifting his arm and seeing it wasn’t seven a.m. yet, Heath looked at the top of the bluff above the greenhouses. It had been leveled and then a hole had been dug out. He and Dwain both knew construction and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know the hole was for a swimming pool, but neither had seen one this big. There had been an Olympic-sized pool in Barbourville that he’d taken the kids to every summer, but this pool was bigger. Unlike a regular pool that sloped to the deep end, you went from four feet to eighteen feet at the middle because Lance and Ian didn’t want to fuck with concrete on a slant. Then to top it off, there was a building around the pool. The roof was up too, but it wasn’t enclosed yet.
The boys hadn’t even been over there the two days when the others had poured the cement. Heath and the others had told Lance and Ian they would do this, and for them to go do whatever they did to keep the area safe. That was how four more battle bots had gotten built in just a week. Nobody was going to tell Lance and Ian that they had all talked and whenever the boys showed up to do the tasks Heath and the others could do, everyone would purposely get in Ian’s and Lance’s way and pester them. After two days, they’d both told Heath they would leave him in charge of this project.
The pool wasn’t filled yet, and Heath would’ve liked to fill it. This summer had turned into a true scorcher. Many were thankful it was nearly October and hoped the heatwave would soon be over.
Like all pools there was a huge network of plumbing, but there wasn’t a chlorination system with the filter system. When this was pointed out by Dwain, Ian had explained the pool was going to be used to water the greenhouses below and refilled at night. With that much exchange of water, it wouldn’t become stagnate. As a surprise for Lance and Ian, Dwain and the members of the Beard Clan had mortared in a rock wall beside the pool that would have a ten-foot waterfall raining down into the pool.
Everyone had been disappointed the boys weren’t very excited to see the waterfall, but that hadn’t applied to the Ladybugs and Lilly. It was in watching how they had reacted, Heath had gotten a suspicion they’d been the ones who had asked for a swimming pool. Lance and Ian liked the waterfall, but it was how they’d acted that told Heath the pool hadn’t really been in their own plans.
After Lance and Ian had turned the site over to Heath was when he’d become nervous. He had watched the boys work in the past months and was always blown away. They talked very little to each other, but worked together seamlessly. Watching them, anyone could see they knew what each was doing, so any project they were on moved along very quickly because each knew what the other was thinking. What would take Heath and Dwain a few days to do, the boys could do in an afternoon.
“They make people feel inadequate,” Heath mumbled.
Adjusting his M4 across his chest, Heath gave a grin thinking about the new people who had been brought in during the past months. Everyone had helped them get set up, and Heath was very thankful the boys had agreed to move up the timetable to bring in the others. Now, there was a group in every section. The group in section four had been the last.
Thinking about the day they’d been brought in, he couldn’t help but laugh. Two of the young men in the group had had t-shirts on that said, ‘Geek Squad’ and lo and behold, that had become the group’s name. After getting to know most in the group, Heath and Dwain agreed the name fit really well. The group in section three had only been there for two weeks and Heath had been disappointed when Ian and Lance had just called them Group Three. But during that first week, the Ladybugs had started calling them ‘GTs’ for Group Three, so now everyone called them GTs.
During all that time, Ian and Lance still patrolled while they stayed on a schedule only they knew. With group three, GTs, and four, Geek Squad, the boys had added others they’d found, but had put one person in each group in charge. As of now, the GTs numbered thirty-four and the Geek Squad had forty-seven. One day on patrol outside the three mile perimeter with Jennifer, Lilly, and Rhonda, the boys had found the three slaves that had been released from the Pirates.
Lilly later informed everyone, the three had impressed the boys by setting up in a house up a draw. When the three girls returned with them, Heath was shocked when the boys didn’t send them to one of the new groups. They’d simply asked the Beard Clan to take them in. Patrick, just like Heath, wasn’t about to tell the boys no and had taken the three in to bring the Beard Clan up to twenty. It was Dwain who’d asked Ian why the girls had been put with the Beard Clan.
Ian had explained the girls, who were nineteen, sixteen, and fourteen, needed to be around stronger people. People who wouldn’t look down on them for what had happened to them and could train them. They knew the Beard Clan and Bear Trap Clan could do that, but only the Beard Clan had room since they’d cleaned up the third house that was in the draw with them where the Devil Lords had chopped up bodies to keep people away.
Hearing footstep behind him, Heath glanced over his shoulder to see Dwain walking over. “You left this in the Ranger,” he said, handing Heath a mask just like the boys wore, complete with skull.
“Shit,” Heath mumbled taking the mask. Pulling his helmet off, he put the mask on. Everyone now wore them when outside the area their group stayed at. Many loved them but some, like Heath, felt constricted with the mask on. That was when Ian had told him why everyone had to wear one.
“Just in case someone gets inside the perimeter, they can’t see our faces and can’t get a count.”
When it’d been put like that, Heath had to agree. At first, he’d had trouble spotting who he was looking for when working. Now for the most part, he could find someone just by how they stood, but he understood. It was just in the last month the gun bot overlooking Girdler had taken out a truck loaded with men.
Remembering the carnage, Heath gave a shiver. From five hundred yards, the ball bearings had passed right through the truck, turning it into Swiss cheese. The four men in the truck never knew what hit them when four thousand ball bearings had poured through the truck. From the equipment in the truck, well, what was left of it, they could see the group had been heavily armed. There had been a radio but like the truck, it’d been destroyed. The only useful item they’d salvaged was one pistol. Even the rifles had holes punched through the stocks and receivers. Hell, two of the rifles had their barrels sheared off by the ball bearings.
Many were worried they might have pis
sed off another gang, but Lance and Ian couldn’t have cared less. Both had just said, “Let ‘em try us.” It was then that everyone in the coalition had realized they were all part of the Wild Ones because the boys had said ‘us’. Radio traffic everyday talked about them and gave the area to avoid and for the most part, people did. Only a few were spotted on the outskirts of the perimeter moving through. Rhonda and Jennifer had found a campsite that someone had used in section four, right on the perimeter a week ago, but that was it.
Thinking of Rhonda, Heath gave a chuckle. Since the moms had returned, Rhonda did her work at Bear Trap house and when she was done, she went to the cabin. Every day she asked Lilly what their schedule was, and arranged her own work to be done while the boys were in the research area with or without Lilly and Jennifer. When they were done there, they would find Rhonda at the build house or cabin, waiting with the Ladybugs, moms, and the other kids.
She’d wanted to learn what they knew and was doing a good job of it. Now Rhonda could weld really well and was learning the CNC. Not to mention doing the gun drills with them. Lance and Ian hadn’t liked the fact that Rhonda drove her ass over, alone, every morning for workouts and gun drill days, then would head back to the Bear Trap house. Ten days ago, Rhonda had moved into the cabin. It was Sandy and Mary who had told her to because they didn’t like her riding over alone either. Rhonda had never asked to move in, but wasn’t about to turn it down. She’d flown back to the house, grabbed her belongings, and left. It was later that afternoon that Heath had even found out she’d moved.
Many at his Bear Trap house hadn’t liked Rhonda going because she was the best shot and put them down one strong body, but nobody was going to tell Rhonda what she was going to do. Just seeing Rhonda happy made Heath and Dwain proud of their sister. In school, Rhonda had been a mediocre student at best. She could now recite the periodic table and was studying like she was in college. Neither Heath nor Dwain could ever remember Rhonda reading a book, but now she was devouring everything the group at the cabin put in front of her to read and study.
Forsaken World | Book 6 | Redemption Page 2
