He was jacked up on morphine by the time they saw Denver from the stealth Black Hawk. Liam piloted the craft with the night vision optics from one of the former pilots. They were flying dark toward their target outside the city, hoping to avoid anyone or anything that might still be alive.
As they drew closer to their LZ, Beckham had a hard time believing anything could have survived down there.
Moonlight illuminated enough of the city that the sight was breathtaking. But not in a good way.
Command had fired one of the most advanced nuclear weapons left in their arsenal on Denver.
A crater had swallowed the center of the city, demolishing the buildings and streets that had once crisscrossed the terrain. Instead of the normal airburst detonation, this nuke had targeted the Variant hives and tunnel networks beneath the city. That had required subsurface targeting, resulting in the terrifyingly large crater.
“You sure anything is going to be left of this site?” Rico asked. “Maybe it’s not even worth the risk of investigating.”
“Good question,” Beckham said.
He tapped the deck of the helicopter with his new leg, a contraption made of a metal rod, duct tape, and plastic debris that Horn and Rico had secured to his busted prosthetic. The result resembled a peg-leg that a pirate might have sported centuries earlier.
But as long as he could walk, Beckham didn’t give a shit. Walking meant he could fight. Although hostile forces weren’t the only threat here.
The entire city was radioactive from fallout.
To protect his body, he wore one of the CBRN suits like the rest of the team. But Liam had refused to put one on.
“You really don’t want a suit?” Beckham asked the pilot.
“No, I can’t use the night vision with the suit and visor on.”
“Radiation is still going to be at lethal levels.”
“I understand the risk, but if I can’t fly with NVGs and we all crash, then none of us survive.”
“At least nothing’s left to eat us down there, right?” Horn said, his voice slightly muffled behind his mask and respirator. He checked the tape over his gloves and sleeves before opening the side door.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Rico said. She got up for a look outside.
“No, but it’s better than Seattle,” Horn said. “That place must be a nightmare.”
He froze, probably realizing his insensitive remark.
“Fitzie can handle it,” Rico said.
“I know. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“It’s all good, big guy,” Rico said. She slapped Horn on the shoulder.
Beckham checked over his suit again as they prepared for landing.
“Hold on tight, okay, eh?” Liam said.
“Parnell,” Beckham said. “You good?”
The injured recon Marine looked over from his seat.
“Yeah,” he replied, giving a nod that rustled his suit.
Parnell had insisted on joining them, but the Marine was loopy from the meds. Even if Beckham trusted the guy to shoot straight on those painkillers, the injured Marine would slow them down more than Beckham with his peg leg. He had finally convinced Parnell to stay and guard the chopper with Liam.
The bird lowered over the destroyed city streets, flying over mounds of collapsed buildings and a disintegrated highway overpass where chunks of concrete had smashed a convoy of vehicles.
“Oh, my God,” Rico said.
“What?” Beckham asked.
“That’s the former outpost,” she said.
Beckham didn’t see what had caught her attention. The city looked the same here as it did everywhere.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“See all those cars and trucks around the interstate?” she asked. “Looks like a convoy, either trying to escape or looking for shelter.”
In the pale moonlight, Beckham surveyed the remains of the caravan. Every car represented a family or group of neighbors who had been fleeing when the nuke had landed.
These refugees had died partly because of him. Because he had agreed with the order to drop the bombs and fire the missiles that had destroyed so much of their own country.
An overwhelming sense of regret washed through him.
“Lord have mercy on us,” Beckham whispered.
Parnell made the sign of the cross with his good hand.
Another few minutes passed by in silence, everyone in the troop hold shocked by the destruction.
“Here we go,” Liam said.
He prepared their final approach on the outskirts of the city. Beckham looked for their target—Golden, Colorado. The facility that had once developed medical therapeutics from donated human tissues.
Now Beckham feared it was being used to make monsters from those tissues instead.
“Looks clear,” Liam said. He circled on the first pass. “I don’t see any hostiles.”
“Take us down,” Beckham ordered.
“Copy. Everyone hold on to something.”
Beckham grabbed a handhold as the chopper descended. They landed hard, slamming the wheels on the pavement, and Parnell whimpered in pain from the restraints pressing on his wound.
Rico and Horn hopped out to secure the area. Beckham stood next to Parnell. Snow fell around them, mixing with the carpet of ash on the ground.
“You sure you’ll be okay?” Beckham asked the Marine.
“I’m good.” Parnell grabbed an MP5 submachine with his good hand. “Long as I can reload.”
Beckham held up his prosthetic hand. “Take good care of Liam and the chopper.”
“You got it, Captain.” Parnell stood and stepped outside. He wobbled slightly until he leaned against the hull of the bird.
Beckham hobbled over to the cockpit. “This could take a while. If we’re not back in a few hours—”
“I’ll wait as long as it takes. I don’t have to be anywhere else.”
“Thanks, Liam. You’re a good man.”
Beckham lowered himself carefully out of the chopper and joined Rico and Horn. The town of Golden had been far enough from the nuclear blast it had mostly survived. By the looks of it, their target, HumoSource, had too.
But the entire place looked like a ghost town.
The team advanced through the darkness, flakes of snow falling lifelessly from the sky. It was like entering a post-apocalyptic wintery wasteland.
Filthy snow covered the streets and rooftops. The rectangular HumoSource building wasn’t far and Beckham saw it a moment later. He had expected it to be covered in red webbing, but it too was painted in the dirty snow.
“Rico, take point,” Beckham said.
She took lead, her suit crinkling as she cleared the sidewalk in front of the building. Snow and ash fell around her, filling her footsteps nearly as soon as she left them. The doors to the lobby were open.
She peered inside using the light mounted on her rifle, then gestured it was clear.
They advanced inside. Shadows smothered the interior. Beckham and Horn flicked on their tactical lights.
Their beams revealed a lobby furnished with tables and chairs covered in dust. It appeared this place hadn’t changed since before the Great War, and Beckham had a hard time believing the intel Kate and Sammy had provided.
The only evidence of life here were boot prints in the dirt covering the floor. Those could’ve been from bandits or civilians. He saw nothing that led him to believe there was a mastermind or even Variants around.
Beckham gave Rico an advance signal. Despite his reservations, they had to make a comprehensive sweep to ensure they didn’t miss anything.
Rico led them down a corridor framed with large-glass windows that revealed vast cleanrooms. Large stainless-steel tables were lined up in rows, and industrial refrigerators and cabinets full of glassware were pressed against the walls.
They passed a door that led to an anteroom into the cleanroom. Pegs on the wall inside held ragged-looking coverall suits and b
oxes of rotting latex gloves lay on a table beside them along with stacks of cleanroom booties to cover shoes.
The layers of dust were thick here too.
Rico took them past another set of glass doorways, each leading to a room filled with cubicles. Beckham limped up to one of the glass doors and shone his light through. It fell on desks filled with old computers and telephones, boxes of papers stacked next to them.
The thought that this was another dead-end was hard to swallow, especially with the sacrifices of the Marines who hadn’t even made it here.
Rico took another corner, locating something Beckham hadn’t expected—a blast door to an underground shelter. The wall that had blocked off the door was broken open, drywall and boards ripped apart.
Even more surprising, the blast door was open.
More footprints tracked through the dust. These went both in and out of the door.
Rico looked back for orders.
Beckham paused, then gave her the nod to continue. She went through the shelter door using the tac light to illuminate a pair of massive elevator doors with a mirrorlike finish.
Two buttons next to them operated it, but the power was out.
Beckham found the entrance to a stairwell. Horn went first with his SAW shouldered. Rico followed and Beckham went last. He took each step carefully, his damaged prosthetic ringing on each step, making his descent difficult.
By the time they hit the bottom of the five flights, he was sweating inside his CBRN suit, and pain throbbed up what remained of his leg.
Horn stopped at another steel door, and Rico joined him. It was slightly ajar, and Horn used his body to press it open, the sound echoing in a cavernous space.
The trio slipped inside, their flashlights piercing the overwhelming black.
An incessant buzz filled the long room, almost like they had entered a beehive. Beckham nearly took a step backward when his light hit a swarm of flies.
He kept walking, ignoring the insects that could only mean something dead was down here.
In the middle of the room were examination tables and rolling carts full of bone saws, dissection tools, and more. Against one wall were rows and rows of smaller doors that appeared to be part of a massive morgue cabinet.
Horn went to one and slid it open. Then he stepped away to flash his light over the remains of a corpse. There were so many squirming maggots inside that the rotting flesh looked like it was moving.
Beckham pulled open another to find the same morbid sight.
Each mortuary drawer was stuffed with decayed bodies.
The nuclear attack had cut the power. Without electricity, the morgue cabinet had stopped working, letting the corpses rot away. Judging by the maggots chewing through their flesh, the corpses hadn’t been left alone all that long ago.
That meant someone had been storing these bodies, but the question was why?
The images of all those horrifically decayed people lingered on Beckham’s mind as they entered another chamber in this subterranean hellhole.
This was worse than the first.
There were six surgical tables, each topped with a bloated corpse. Behind the tables were lab benches covered in microscopes and other equipment. Freezers and refrigerators stood next to them.
Beckham walked in slowly, stomach churning as his light fell on the decomposing cadavers. They were all in various stages of dissection. Cut open chests and stomachs revealed leathery organs twisted in rot. But these bodies weren’t like the ones in the morgue cabinets.
Even with their putrefied flesh, Beckham noticed the claws at the end of their fingers. Their lips had dried out, peeling back to reveal pointed teeth.
Horn and Rico spread out to sweep the rest of this macabre lab.
“What is this place?” Horn asked.
“The morgue from hell,” Rico said.
“Gather any intel you can find,” Beckham instructed.
They scrounged through the plastic vials they found in the thawing freezers and the refrigerators. A pair of computers lay in another corner. These weren’t covered in dust like the ones they’d seen upstairs. Beckham pried out the hard drives from each.
“Got everything?” Beckham asked.
Rico nodded.
“Let’s go then.”
“Good,” Horn said. “I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here.”
The team made their way topside.
Beckham hobbled out of the open lobby doors with his rifle shouldered, scanning for targets. The chopper was still there, and two figures were standing in CBRN suits in front of it. Parnell must’ve finally convinced Liam to don a CBRN suit. Beckham was glad to see it.
“You changed your mind?” he asked, lowering his rifle as they approached.
Liam raised a pistol and pointed it at Beckham. Parnell raised his MP5.
Beckham froze.
“What are you doing?” he stammered.
Liam walked forward with the gun trained on Beckham. Three more figures in CBRN suits suddenly came from around the chopper. Two had hostages—Parnell and Liam, still not wearing a suit.
Realization set in. These people must have ambushed the pilot and Marine, then stolen those suits and weapons.
“Take it easy,” Beckham said, his mind racing, trying to figure out if these were collaborators or someone else.
“Give me the word, boss, and I’ll light these fucks up,” Horn said.
Rico roved her gun from target to target. “I got a full magazine with hollow points for you assholes, just try me!”
“No,” Beckham said, holding up his prosthetic. Even if they took out a couple, these people would take out at least one of his team members.
That was a risk he was unwilling to take.
“Everyone, put down your weapons,” Beckham said. “Let’s figure this out and talk. No one needs to die.”
“We just want a ride out of here,” said the person with the pistol pointed at Beckham. The voice was female and she sounded sick, her voice crackling.
If these people had just put on the suits, they were probably already suffering the first symptoms of radiation poisoning.
“We can help you,” Beckham said. “Just put your guns down.”
“Take us somewhere safe,” said the woman. “Promise us that, and we’ll put down our weapons. I swear that’s all we want.”
Rico let out a huff and lowered her rifle slightly.
“Ain’t no place safe anymore, lady,” she said.
***
Kate surveyed the networking station in the tunnels beneath Lower Manhattan. The temperature was high as usual, and sweat trickled down her neck under her splash suit. It was almost as bad as the stale filtered air in her mask.
Besides a few piles of loose rock and dirt in the ankle-deep water, nothing in the tunnel looked amiss. The equipment was still here, and aside from a knocked over floodlight, it was all unharmed.
The generator had still been running when they had returned, casting the space in a blinding yellow glow.
Nguyen and his three soldiers had taken their sentry positions. Ron and Leslie checked over the network cables connected with the webbing, monitoring the physical connections with the red growths covering the walls.
“How’s everything look?” Kate asked.
Sammy sat in a chair behind a computer station and checked the monitor. “We’re in better shape than I thought we would be.”
“Good. Go ahead and open the signaling gates,” Kate instructed.
Sammy’s fingers worked across the keyboard. Then she sat back as her programs loaded.
“You okay?” Kate asked, noticing Sammy clutching her side again.
“Yeah. I don’t think we’ll have any major problems decoding the Variants’ signals now. It won’t be long before we know enough to send signals of our own.”
“I’m not talking about the software. I’m talking about you.”
Sammy paused. “I’m hurting, but I won’t let that stop me.”
&
nbsp; Kate placed a hand on her shoulder. “That’s admirable, but don’t push yourself too hard. Ron and Leslie have been keeping pace with our technical work. They can step in if you need a break.”
Sammy’s programs reported the computer had a complete connection with the Variant network.
“You want me to search for keywords again?” Sammy asked.
Kate nodded. “See if there are any other attacks planned for our location.”
They searched through the cascade of signals pulsing through the webbing into Sammy’s computer. It took a few minutes for her natural language processing algorithms to decode the messages and provide them a report.
“That’s strange,” Sammy said.
“What?” Kate asked.
Sergeant Nguyen walked over, cradling his rifle. “Something wrong?”
“No, it’s working,” Sammy said. “We got hits for keywords like ‘attack’ and ‘New York.’ None of them mention another attack tonight in this vicinity, though.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” Leslie asked.
Nguyen adjusted the strap on his rifle, stepping closer. “Yeah, why do you think it’s strange?”
“Because the monsters haven’t given us a break since they started this war,” Sammy said. “It’s odd that they would send those bats and nothing else.”
Kate worried they were missing something. A piece of the puzzle that wasn’t obvious. “We’re only looking at real-time messages, right?”
Sammy nodded. “That’s correct. Everything we see is being intercepted right now.”
“If the Variants already sent the orders to attack the base, then we may have already missed it,” Kate said. “We need to monitor this station 24/7. We might’ve missed vital information since the last attack.”
“Shit,” Sammy said.
“So there might be another attack, after all?” Ron asked nervously.
“I don’t know, but I want to download all incoming signals from here on out,” Kate said. “We can’t afford to miss a single second of Variant messages. That means we’ll need a remote server and extra drives. The hard drives on these computers can’t store everything.”
Kate turned to Ron. “I need you to help set that up, okay?”
Ron nodded.
Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 3): Extinction Ashes Page 24