by Michael Todd
“We’re one klick away from the pick-up point,” Sal advised her after a while and noted that he too was running low on ammo. “And all the creatures look like they’ve decided to give us a break.”
“Do you think it’ll last until we get there?” Kennedy asked with a wide grin.
“Not a fucking chance. None of the other teams they had testing this place even reached this far. They’ve probably tried to compensate for how drop-dead awesome we are at this.”
“Truth,” she agreed and enthusiastically bumped the fist that he’d extended with her own as they continued toward the little red spot marked on their map.
They’d barely moved a few steps before the ground shook ominously. At first, only the sensors registered the quake, but as they focused on their surroundings, they realized that they could feel it even through their suits.
“Well, we had to jinx it, didn’t we?” Kennedy snarked and raised her rifle once again as they proceeded to the pickup point. “Can you see anything?”
“Nope.” His good mood had disappeared almost entirely. “There’s nothing on the motion sensors either.”
“Which means that whatever has caused the ground to shake is big enough to do that while out of our range,” she observed. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Not to make things worse or anything, but I pick up four different sources of comparable mass headed our way,” Sal said. His gaze narrowed as he scanned the jungle. The sensors on his suit registered off the charts. On top of the regular motion sensors that paired flawlessly to the night vision in the HUD, temperature and seismic sensors pinpointed the direction from which creatures might be coming when they were out of the range of everything else.
All the sensory equipment told him very clearly that a quartet of creatures that each weighed more than a pair of elephants now headed their way.
“Oh, that is bullshit,” he heard Kennedy mutter as she stopped so abruptly that he almost walked into her. “That’s not even fucking possible.”
Sal looked up and his mouth dried in instinctive response as he saw what approached. The massive creatures were bi-pedal from what he could discern from the sensors. They weren’t even within range of the motion sensors yet, but their sheer enormity meant that they could see them draw steadily closer. The four monsters moved almost in sync, each on a direct trajectory toward them. Their rapid and deliberate progress made it very clear that they were out for blood.
“Well, I guess we now know why nobody’s ever made it to the pick-up point.” Kennedy glanced nervously at her limited ammo supply. “I knew the creatures had given us too much room.”
He nodded. “That’s fucking bullshit, though. Come on. They look like the dinosaur monsters that we can get the goop from, but they’re—what, almost three times as large as the biggest ones we’ve seen out there? Seriously. There’s possible, there’s Zoo possible, and then there’s this bullshit.”
His partner grinned. “I think we’ve pissed off the dev team in charge of these sims. Let’s piss them off some more, shall we?”
Sal tilted his head and regarded her thoughtfully. He knew that particularly wicked edge to her voice. “Former Sergeant Madigan Kennedy, you wouldn’t happen to have a plan now, would you?”
“I do.” She nodded emphatically. “Remember our little run-in with the German squad a couple of weeks back?”
He chuckled as the penny dropped. “You’d better get the timing right, though.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she assured him. “Get moving.”
Without hesitation, he did as he was told and increased his pace across the open spaces where the huge trees blocked out most of the sunlight. Kennedy’s armor could reach a higher top speed, but he’d found that his own armor could accelerate much faster, as well as maintain that speed through rough terrain. Their attackers appeared, now within both vision and range.
As he ran, he turned on the open speakers on his suit and yelled into them while he fired at the massive creatures as Kennedy remained utterly silent and motionless. While he wasn’t sure what kind of thought had gone into the design of the monsters, they did as most creatures did and simply followed the noisy, quickly moving creature that hurt them and left Kennedy alone.
Sal knew that this probably wouldn’t end well, but they might as well finish their little simulation with a metaphorical—and very, very literal—bang.
He ducked behind the trees and saw with satisfaction that all four of the creatures had turned to follow him. One emitted a loud, ear-splitting roar that would have burst his eardrums if the suit’s noise filters hadn’t quickly canceled it out.
Kennedy, for her part, hadn’t remained idle. Once their attackers’ attention had turned away from her, she moved quickly behind them. She didn’t have enough bullets to follow the identical tactic as when they’d been out there with the Germans. That had been a rough engagement involving one of the massive dinosaur creatures and Sal had wanted it killed without the expensive sacs being burst prematurely. He’d also not wanted to have to fight their way through a horde of angry Zoo monsters, and necessity had birthed an idea. While he and one of the gunners had rushed away to distract the creature, she had remained behind to circle and shoot out the base of one of the trees. She’d then waited until the two men led the monster back. They’d dropped the tree on its back, killed it quickly, and interestingly enough, hadn’t summoned an angry mob.
Sal had made a pretty penny from updating the Staging Area’s database with that interesting piece of information, as well as with the bounty from the sacs.
It had been only a single creature, though, and from the sound of things, Sal and his buddy had been very lucky to have escaped that little romp with their lives. With four of these monsters, things might work out very differently.
Either way, it was her turn to be creative.
She activated one of the rockets mounted on her shoulder and moved quickly to select a tree that could be dropped in time to catch at least one of the fuckers. Thankfully, she located the right one without difficulty and paused to fire the rocket. It spiraled and spun to lock firmly onto the selected target before it exploded in a quick white blast. Splinters erupted with the force.
The tree rocked in place and rained a flurry of leaves from the top but it didn’t fall. She engaged a second rocket as Sal sprinted past the tree in question, having already circled the monsters. Distracted for a moment, she fired the second almost without meaning to and knew, even before it impacted, that he would be caught in the blast.
“Fuck!” he yelled. The shockwave knocked him slightly off balance and he stumbled awkwardly until he crashed head-first into one of the other trees.
“Sorry!” Kennedy called after him. The second blast gouged another chunk out of the tree but wasn’t quite enough to knock it down. With Sal still recovering from his quasi-high-speed crash, she needed to get the damned thing down before the monsters reached him and ground him into a paste.
She pushed herself into a sprint and used the HUD to time the powering up of the rockets on her back and legs exactly to the millisecond. Her energized vault launched her and maintained velocity as she careened forward to slam feet-first into the tree.
The impact of the two and a half tons of metal at roughly fifteen kilometers per hour was more than enough to send the teetering tree over the edge. It groaned and cracked violently before it toppled with a thunderous crash.
“Oh, shit!” was all she heard from Sal’s comms before they went dead. Kennedy pushed quickly to her feet and noticed smugly that the tree had done its job and fallen on two of the monsters to kill them instantly. Unfortunately, her violent impact had also managed to send a massive chunk of it to land on Sal.
The top half of his body was crushed.
“Shit,” she exclaimed a moment before she turned as a massive tail swung in her direction. She would blame the lag when she got out of there, she swore to herself as the tail struck her with unimaginable power.
The
result was a quick moment of darkness as the simulation shut down, and in seconds, the real world crystallized around her. She blinked and her eyes found it difficult to adjust to the light as she disengaged herself from the various machines that made up the whole experience. Sal was already out and glared at her with a scowl on his face.
“I said I was sorry,” she said quickly and shrugged her shoulders defensively.
“No, you didn’t,” he corrected her with a smirk as they moved out to where the various technicians still evaluated the details of the run.
“Of course I did!” she protested. “Right after you crashed into the tree.”
“What about the apology for dropping a fucking tree on my head?”
“Oh…right,” Kennedy conceded. “What, do you want me to open a fucking tab?”
“A fucking tab?” He grinned at her. “I’m sure something like that could be arranged.”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know. But please, work on your damn timing. Maybe next time, we’ll walk away from this thing as the first team to actually reach the pick-up point.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” one of the technicians said and handed them tablets. “We’ll make sure that the animals are a lot more difficult to deal with the next time around.”
“Yeah, they were pretty damn easy,” Sal conceded and proceeded to answer the various questions they’d set for the people who engaged in the simulations. “Right up until you guys found the biggest fucking monsters on record and hit zoom.”
The technician chuckled but didn’t respond and simply allowed them to finish the paperwork in peace. It was quick work, and they were soon on their way out. Sal’s phone buzzed.
“The pay for the run has already come through,” Kennedy said with a grin. “I love working for these people.”
“Yeah, getting paid to play video games,” he agreed. “What’s not to like?”
Chapter Two
Anderson looked up from his drink. He was keeping track—something he always seemed to do as a matter of habit now, even when he and his team were supposed to have time off for good work. A couple of weeks of off-time, but he still wasn’t allowed to leave the site as per his superiors in the Pentagon. They wanted someone to oversee the operation for the duration. That meant that while the mercenaries Pegasus had brought in were allowed leave, he had to stick around.
Which was why he was there and also why he was drinking. The colonel had begun to drink more and more over the past few months. He had never really liked alcohol, not even in scenarios where it was considered a social lubricant. So much so that he was always the designated driver for his wife whenever they went to parties. As a rule, he stuck to maybe a glass of wine with meals and a toast for birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions.
Today, however, he’d consumed two beers, a rum and Coke, and a couple of shots and now, he held a scotch on the rocks. He felt miserable and missed his wife and the rest of his family back home, but he was still there in this fucking desert. It infuriated him that he actually tried to get drunk to put some distance between himself and the worries that had plagued him all month.
“Need a refill?” someone asked and moved purposefully beside his table. He looked at a tall, lean man with the look of a lawyer who slid into the seat across from him and offered him a tall, frosty glass of beer. Anderson opened his mouth to say that he hadn’t ordered anything of the kind, but then he noticed a small piece of paper beneath the glass. He shut his mouth quickly and moved the scrap to reveal a crudely made drawing of a horse with wings in blue ballpoint.
A Pegasus.
Anderson studied the man once again and tilted his head noncommittally as he crumpled the missive. “How can I help you?”
“I’ve been told that you’re still looking for a party to help you out with your little campaign,” the stranger said with a small smile. “Some guns to lend your investigation some teeth. Is that right?”
“Something like that,” he responded without inflection. “What makes you ask?”
“Well, you have your pick from all the soldiers stationed around here.” The man indicated the various military men and women who were in the bar. “Why haven’t you already gone ahead and made your pick? I know you don’t have the time to spare.”
The colonel could concede that much. “True, but I don’t want to make the wrong choice. Most of the men and women here are paid by the corporations that run this base—Pegasus, among others. I’ve heard how these corporations don’t mind bending the letter of the law and hiring soldiers who are here as mercenaries for other kinds of services out in the Zoo. I’d rather not trust someone who might already owe their loyalty to the people I’m trying to investigate.”
The man nodded. It was a good point. Pegasus was known to offer certain bounties under the table for those teams who ventured into the Zoo and didn’t much care for the missions currently on offer. Nobody was sure what it was that they got out of it, but the fact remained that trust was a hard thing to earn around there.
“There are a couple of people who still make regular runs into the Zoo,” the newcomer said with an eyebrow raised. “Freelancers, but those who still work regularly with the commandant around here. They also work with the various other bases, which means that they don’t receive too much money from a single source.”
Anderson nodded. “Yeah… I know. Which means they’re probably not good enough to be hired by Pegasus, so why should I?”
The self-appointed informant shrugged. “Firstly, you don’t really have much of a choice at this juncture, between me and you. Secondly, have you seen the latest run by Heavy Metal in the Zoo-VR?”
The colonel looked up with sudden interest. He’d heard that certain companies ran virtual reality simulations with experienced Zoo-running personnel, but he’d never seen them in person. In fact, he’d actually assumed that it was for the development of software to be used in the civilized world.
“You mean those stupid video games?” he asked and sipped the beer the man had handed him. “I don’t have time to waste with that bullshit.”
“They’re not video games.” The stranger smirked. “They’re not stupid, either. Far from it. It’s state of the art research and development for armor suit designs that they’re working on back in the States but made to resemble a video game.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Please do.” He pushed a memory stick across the table, the movement casual, and was careful to hide it from clear view behind the glass of scotch. “It’s not exactly classified. They’ve released some edited versions of these videos onto ZooTube. And they make a fucking mint from that too, from what I’ve been told. This is the unedited version. See these guys in action for yourself and make your own decision regarding their skills.”
Anderson nodded and palmed the memory stick quickly.
The other man pushed lazily to his feet. “Grab some popcorn and give it a watch. See if these guys have what it takes to be a part of your investigation.”
“Thanks for the beer.” The colonel raised it and took another sip.
“Oh,” the man said and paused, his expression sober. “From what I was able to tell, you’re not the only one who’s looked into Pegasus’ mining investments. They’re slippery bastards, but my gut tells me that they’re holed up somewhere near Wall Two, although there’s no real indication which enclave they’re close to. Food for thought—and entirely free. It’s your lucky day.”
Anderson smiled, nodded, and leaned back in his seat as the stranger took his leave.
Anja looked up from her work in the server room when she heard a knock on the door. Amanda stood outside and held a couple of mugs of coffee.
“You missed out on breakfast,” she said with a smile as she placed one of the still steaming mugs on a counter. “Is everything okay? Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Um…no,” the Russian woman replied and scanned her computer screens.
“We had a little trouble that I needed to deal with. Something tried to track our location. With the kind of setup we have here, I didn’t think that was possible, but hey, there we are.”
“What do you mean?” The armorer sipped her coffee—black with a ton of sugar, the only way she liked it. “Do you need more equipment? Because I’m sure Sal wouldn’t mind signing off on anything if it means extra security.”
“It’s not that,” Anja muttered and shook her head. The truth was that Jacobs had been far more generous than she’d expected. He must have done exceptionally well for himself if he was willing and able to drop this much cash on someone as new to the team as she was. Of course, she was definitely worth it, but it wasn’t often that she didn’t need to prove that to people before they were willing to work with her. Then again, that might well be her fault. It wasn’t a comfortable truth, but that didn’t alter the reality she’d learned to accept. She wasn’t the most social of animals, but it was still refreshing to meet someone who needed her around for her skills and was willing to work with her various oddities.
“What is it?” Amanda asked, her expression both curious and encouraging.
The hacker sighed and leaned back in her seat. “Someone tracked our investigation into Pegasus’ dealings. The company has tried to get to us themselves, but this was different—a third party, I’m sure of it. From what I was able to see before they got a little too close for comfort, I’d say that they were looking into the same things we were. Not with anything resembling the same kind of skill, of course, but with a lot of determination and resources.”
“Did you stop them?” Amanda asked.
Anja looked up at her with a smirk. “Please. It takes a good deal more than a brute force DES attack to get past the stuff I set up. Either way, I added some extra precautions. It took most of the night, but I set up a couple of redirections that should have our friends hunting for our IP address somewhere in the Caymans.”