Apocalypse Paused Boxed Set One (Books 1-4): (Fight For Life And Death, Get Rich Or Die Trying, Big Assed Global Kegger, Ambassadors and Scorpions) (Apocalypse Paused Boxed Sets )

by Michael Todd

  Chris frowned. If he recalled correctly, the team had only been instructed to patrol the first mile. Why had they gone deeper?

  Contemplating this made him more than a little uneasy, and the unease mixed poorly with the tension he felt about returning to the jungle’s depths. The Zoo might not be spitting locusts at them anymore, but all those kangarats and Chimeras more than made up for it.

  The team was to assemble right by the front gate that led through the USA’s section of Wall 02 to the desert buffer zone between it and Wall 01. Chris, not knowing quite what to expect, stepped through a doorway and into the hot sun and dusty wind.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Finally!”

  A platoon. This time—this time—they were getting an entire full-strength platoon! Kemp’s expedition to retrieve the files of the original project leader, Dr. Marie, had consisted of ten people, including Chris and Emma. On Chris’ second sojourn into the jungle to hunt down the mother Chimera, there had been only nine. This force had to be the whole schmear—thirty-nine troops, according to Army standards, not to mention a big-ass armored personnel carrier with multiple mounted weapons, as well as two of the JLTVs. Furthermore, everyone was heavily-armed. There was a small group of soldiers wearing slightly strange outfits and carrying badass-looking weapons he’d never seen before, plus a guy carrying an entire bandolier of grenades over to stash in one of the vehicles.

  Chris wandered into the midst of this miniature legion, allowing the bustle and noise to enfold him without getting in anyone’s way. He was impressed and satisfied. Senator Terry Hall was sparing no expense. Clearly, things were going to start working differently around here than they had under the Agents, who considered a spilled cup of coffee an act of “avoidable waste” on par with sabotage.

  “Looks like the scientist decided to show up,” someone said. Chris glanced around, trying to see who’d said that. Did they not know that he was a two-time survivor of botched missions? He couldn’t tell, though. It could have been anyone since there were soldiers everywhere. He recognized none of them aside from a couple of faces he’d seen around the base, but he didn’t know their names. There seemed to be no civilians besides him. Gunnar had been right about them bringing in more female personnel, though. Chris counted four or five of them. Not bad.

  Chris moseyed over to the half-dozen troops with the strange weapons. They wore hoods almost like those used for scuba, complete with goggles, and the weapons were attached to very sophisticated-looking gear they had strapped to their backs that almost looked like the proton packs from the Ghostbusters films.

  “Heyyy,” Chris began. All of them—five men and one woman—looked at him in annoyance. “What the hell are those things? They look like the Ghostbusters’ proton packs or some shit.”

  “Ghost-what?” One of the guys, who barely looked old enough to drink, snorted. All of them turned away from Chris and continued talking to each other.

  Chris frowned and looked around to see who was commanding this outfit. His gaze fell upon two figures approaching the group from the nearest building. The first was the familiar average-sized figure of Lieutenant Danvers, one of the senior officers at the base. He and his men had rescued Chris at the eleventh hour during Kemp’s failed expedition.

  The second was, beyond any shadow of doubt, the only other survivor of that same expedition. He moved with a strange mixture of perfect fluidity and robotic stiffness, and his new half-body made soft mechanical humming and whirring sounds as he approached.

  “No way,” Chris said under his breath. “No frickin’ way…” He started to approach them, but the second man made a quick motion—a nod of the head combined with holding up the palm of his hand. Chris knew him well enough to understand what this meant: Hi, Chris. Not now. He also knew that he wasn’t being rude, just…businesslike.

  “Attention!” Danvers barked. Everyone faced him, stood up straight, and saluted. “At ease.” They relaxed.

  Danvers, who was plenty businesslike himself, wasted no time explaining things. “This is Acting Lieutenant Erik Wallace. Some of you might have met him or served with him. He will be commanding this mission.”

  Commanding? Chris thought. And what the hell was an “Acting Lieutenant?” Had they promoted him when they’d finally cleared him for active duty again?

  Wallace stepped forward. “As you can see,” he said in his deep yet somehow mild and comforting voice, “I’m no longer entirely a natural human.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. No one had expected this level of bluntness, especially not when they were still getting used to the subject in question, which was to say, to the sight of a goddamn cyborg.

  Wallace was an imposing man. He was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and blade-like cheekbones. His red hair was buzzed way down, but not far enough to disguise its color. Chris remembered an Irish-American guy in school who used to joke with him about whether Asians or Gingers were the bigger nerds. There was nothing nerdy about Wallace, though. He looked like he was descended directly from old William, his namesake back in medieval Scotland, and ought perhaps to be carrying a bloody claymore for good measure.

  His new exoskeleton did look a bit like medieval armor, albeit an incomplete suit. His feet and lower legs were all sheathed in deep-gray slightly glossy metal, and plates also covered most of his thighs, his hips, and his lower back. Since last Chris had seen him, Wallace had also gained a sort of gauntlet of the same gray material that largely covered his left hand and forearm. A wire ran from his waist up his back and neck. It ended at what, in Chris’ opinion, was the coolest-looking part of the entire getup: a small wraparound headpiece that emitted a very faint light. Total anime shit.

  “However,” Wallace went on, “what we are up against isn’t entirely natural, either. It has co-opted parts of our planet, but fundamentally it is a hostile alien force. It may have some potential for good, but make no mistake—when we go in there, we will be treating that entire place as our enemy.”

  Chris grimaced at that. It was true, but he suddenly felt slightly afraid. Wasn’t this supposed to be just a recon-and-collection mission? Find a few pieces of fruit, find Kemp, and get out. The size of the force, the firepower it carried, and the speech Wallace was giving suggested something more like a declaration of war against the Zoo. It reminded him of the douchebag team of international bounty hunters that had tried to capture the Chimera for a rogue client, who had dealt with any and all obstacles through the use of excessive force.

  Then again, Chris wasn’t military. Maybe overwhelming force was exactly what the experts knew they needed this time around.

  Wallace and Danvers expounded upon the mission, relating a mixture of stuff Chris already knew but using various technical Army terms he didn’t understand. Still, something about Wallace’s voice and demeanor was reassuring. And Chris knew him; was friends with him.

  This was the man who had explained to him, on their first meeting, how to fire a gun as if he actually wanted him to learn for his own good rather than as if he were talking to a Dumbass Civilian Passenger. This was the man who had survived (somehow) an assault by dozens of locusts that had killed the entire rest of Kemp’s team but had nevertheless pushed on with the mission alone until he’d caught up with Kemp and Chris. This was the man who had waited for him to catch up, exhausted when they were being chased by three kangarats. This was the man he had talked to quietly during the struggle to deal with his crippling injuries and been beaten by in a friendly fight in the ring even with those same injuries.

  Chris was elated; he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have in charge. They were going to kick ass this time. Everything would go well.

  When the briefing was over and the troops had returned to their last-minute preparations, Chris at last was free to walk up beside Wallace. “So yeah,” he said, “you stepped right out of a sci-fi movie here, and now I have a very warm, fuzzy, positive feeling about this whole mission.”

  “Nice to see y
ou, Chris,” Wallace returned, attempting something resembling a smile. He was stoic as hell, so Chris had learned to take whatever he could get as far as emotional displays were concerned. “Definitely gotten a lot better at moving in the suit. And they concocted this ‘Acting Lieutenant’ business on the grounds that I’m the only one they thought could command this platoon, but they didn’t have time to send me back for training as a commissioned officer. Makes me feel like a fraud.”

  “You’re not a fraud,” Chris replied. “You’re one of the best guys we have, for God’s sake. Anyway, all we need to do is keep everyone safe while we gather a good armload of those weird red fruits…and find Kemp.”

  Wallace sort of swallowed, but all he did was nod. He seemed to be about to turn away, but first, he said, “Stay near the center of the formation, all right? And stay safe. And feel free to advise some of these damn rookies on anything they might need to know about this place.” He patted Chris on the shoulder and walked past him, his exoskeleton making somewhat creepy sounds as he did.

  “Huh,” Chris said. Even by Wallace’s standards, that had seemed a bit…brusque. He must just have been focusing on the responsibility he bore as leader of the mission.

  “Everyone,” Wallace announced, “guns up and move out.”

  6

  Chris quickly decided that Wallace had been a hundred percent correct to approach this venture seriously. If they hadn’t had such a large force and so much firepower, they’d probably already be dead. The Zoo was angry.

  “Joseph, Mary, and Jesus tap-dancing Christ,” the guy next to Chris wheezed. His teeth stayed bared even after he finished speaking, and he was trembling. His nametag said “Simon,” and he was obviously a newbie. Chris couldn’t blame him.

  Only half a klick down the same path Peppy had driven them over yesterday morning, they’d gotten their first glimpse of the welcoming committee. Kangarats barreled through the trees like giant, hideous squirrels or monkeys, coming just close enough to make their presence known—and spy on the intruders—but always darting back into the jungle shadows before anyone could get a clear shot at them.

  “Hold!” Wallace had ordered. “Do not open fire yet. Keep moving. Maintain your formations, and don’t shoot until you see two or more of them in the same place and clearly emerging from the tree line. They’re not likely to attack a column this large except in force.”

  And they had.

  Four of the beasts had come tearing out of the foliage at the rear of the platoon, two on each side, their strikes almost perfectly synchronized. One guy had screamed, and then there had been gunfire. Chris hadn’t seen what had happened. Apparently, a PFC at the very back had gotten his rifle torn out of his grasp, only for the other troops nearby to blast away at the hulking, brown, hairy beasts, driving them off and badly wounding at least one. All of the soldiers were still moving. The disarmed man, embarrassed and shaken, had been given a machine pistol from the APC and moved a bit closer to the center. Two more guys from the center, meanwhile, had taken the rear, including one with an automatic shotgun. That weapon had performed well against kangarats in the past.

  The next strike had come from three sides—left front, right flank, and rear, two kangarats in each group. Everyone was sufficiently frosty after the first skirmish that they opened fire immediately and the monstrosities were driven off again without injuring or killing anyone, but one of them had unexpectedly leaped on top of the APC and then bounded into the jungle on the other side of the path, doing no damage but terrifying the men in and around the vehicle.

  Were they using psychological warfare? Chris didn’t want to think about that. Almost from Day 1 the Zoo and its creatures had demonstrated uncanny intelligence, but he wasn’t sure they were that sophisticated. And if they were…

  “If you see anything blue moving in a line or a column or whatever,” Chris said to the soldiers around him, “assume it might be a diversion. Those are baby Chimeras, pretty dangerous in their own right, but the kangarats might try to attack from another side as those things approach. The Chimeras aren’t as fast or strong, but they can kinda-sorta fly, and those tentacles on their back can hit you from a good ten feet away. Don’t underestimate them.”

  “Oh, right, fuckin’ thanks,” Private Simon said. “Why the hell didn’t anyone warn us about this crap?”

  Chris wondered that himself. Then again, it seemed like Hall had thrown this team together rather quickly.

  Onward they pressed. Chris wanted to talk to Wallace and trade ideas for how they might deal with this situation, but the acting lieutenant was keeping the ranks tight and the pace brisk, making it difficult for Chris to get close to him. Wallace was between the front line and the first JLTV, whereas Chris was behind the JLTV and in front of the APC at the center.

  Suddenly, blue shapes moved to their left.

  “Fuck! Are those the, uh, Chimeras?” someone asked.

  “Yeah,” Chris replied and looked around. Another column of Chimeras was approaching from the opposite side of the path at the same time. He drew his pistol and took a deep breath.

  “Turrets!” Wallace shouted. “Fire on the Chimeras! Everyone else, prepare to shoot anything else that jumps out.”

  Chris opened his mouth and covered his ears just in time. The machine guns on both JLTVs as well as the APC exploded to life, the APC also launching a grenade toward the column to the left as its turret fired to the right. Chimeras shrieked as the high-caliber rounds tore them to pieces, then the grenade went off.

  The ground shook, their ears all rang, and orange fire blossomed, consuming the approaching monsters as well as the nearby trees, weeds, and vines. Then the kangarats attacked.

  There was no way to hear them over the din the humans had created. One burst out of the screen of leaves right next to Private Simon, and he fell on his ass as Chris and two other men blasted at it, driving it back into the now-blood-splattered foliage. Around them, other brown shapes flitted through trees or scampered alongside them, the kangarats making horrible gasping, cackling noises. Every gun in the platoon was shooting now.

  All at once it was over; four kangarats lay dead, most of the Chimeras had been destroyed or had fled, and none of the soldiers were dead. One of the female soldiers had lost an arm, though. She screamed in agony as a medic applied a tourniquet and gave her an anesthetic while another prepared a quick-cauterization kit.

  “Goddammit,” Wallace said from somewhere up ahead. “Halt! Everyone, stay on guard, but we’re stopping for five minutes. Don’t think they’ll be able to come back again that quickly after the hell we just gave them.”

  It was true; the humans had slaughtered an incredible number of creatures (including the trees and other vegetation burned and blasted by the grenade) relative to the single major injury their side had suffered. Nevertheless, everyone remained on edge.

  As Private Simon climbed back to his feet, still shaking, Chris took a few moments to calm himself, then walked over the leaf-covered ground, trying to get closer to Wallace. En route, he encountered the sole woman among the six Proton Troopers, as he’d mentally nicknamed them. They had not fired their weird new weapons during the fight. Instead, they had resorted to rifles or machine pistols. The woman, he realized, had to be at least half-Asian, and the tight, jumpsuit-like outfit she wore flattered her greatly.

  “Heyyy,” Chris said, getting her attention. “How do you like our field trip to the Zoo?”

  She glared at him. “What do you want?”

  “Well,” he said, “You look like trash, so I wanted to take you out.”

  “What the FUCK!?” she exploded, looking more homicidal than she probably had while shooting at kangarats. “What the fuck did you just fucking say to me, you piece of shit?”

  By now Chris was already mostly past her, safely behind the base of a large, thick, sturdy tree, and then even more safely around the corner of the front JLTV. “Ha, ha, yeah, sorry,” he said as he maneuvered out of her line of fire. Fucking Gun
nar. Dickhead.

  “Aww, it’s okay, Santos,” someone said, “he probably meant the good kind of trash.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Santos screamed back at him. At least she was distracted. Chris hurried along, contemplating how wise it had been to put a mysterious high-powered weapon into the hands of someone with no sense of humor.

  Just as Chris was about to catch up with Wallace, he saw the man raising a hand and preparing to speak. “Everyone, move out.” He glanced to the side, his hazel eyes meeting Chris’ black ones. “Chris, please get back in the center of the formation,” he said flatly.

  “Sorry, Wallace, I just wanted to suggest that—”

  “Dammit!” someone said just behind them. Engines were gasping and struggling, and it sounded like earth was being dug up.

  Wallace pushed past him, and Chris followed him with his eyes. None of their vehicles were moving. All seemed half-stuck and half-dead.

  “Aww, what the hell?” There was a generalized depression of the vibe, a dampening of the esprit de corps. Nothing had that effect quite like equipment that failed to work at ridiculously inopportune times.

  Someone had gotten out of the JLTV and was checking under it. “Hey, there’s something weird here. Really weird,” he said.

  Wallace had already made his way back to the APC at the center, so Chris ran up to the guy by the JLTV. “Define ‘really weird,’” he said but dropped to his knees to check.

  The man hadn’t been lying. Amidst the carpet of plant life, a thick, twisted green weed had—in the space of only a few minutes—climbed into the lower structure of the vehicle, weaving itself into the engine and around the axles.

  Behind them, the other JLTV, the one that had been near the rear, roared to life and rolled bumpily past them. Chris noticed green trailing from the bottom of it. They must have broken loose before the plant could get a firm grip.

  “Hey!” Chris called, “don’t park that thing over any of these weeds.” The driver must have heard since he stopped over a mostly-bare patch of mud.