by S. E. Smith
“Where are the reports for today?” General Andrew McCullon requested.
“Right here, General McCullon,” Major Alisa Mendoza replied.
Andrew held his hand out and gripped the file. He opened it and scanned the contents as he walked. A frown creased his brow when he read the second paragraph.
“Get General Troyfield on the line,” Andrew ordered.
“Yes, General McCullon,” Major Mendoza said and hurried ahead of him.
Andrew studied the information in the report. More survivors had been discovered. There had also been an encounter with several suspicious creatures which had been terminated in the process. What worried him was that two of these survivors were exhibiting signs of exposure to gases from the comet, a male and a female. Initial reports confirmed that the female exhibited unusual skills, but the male’s status was still undetermined. So far, the remaining six appeared to be normal, though they would be isolated and confined until they could be thoroughly evaluated.
“Sir, General Troyfield is on the line,” Major Mendoza informed him.
He nodded to her after she stepped to the side so he could enter his office. He nodded to her again after he entered, and she closed the door. Circling around the desk, he picked up the phone that linked him to the Air National Guard base in Portland, Oregon.
“Andrew, how goes it?” General Michael Troyfield greeted.
“Reasonably well, considering,” Andrew replied as he sat down in his chair. “How is the rebuilding coming along?”
“Slowly. Training and retrieval of equipment remain two of our biggest challenges. New refugees continue to arrive. We are close to ten thousand now,” Michael replied.
“That is a far cry from the six hundred thousand inhabitants who lived there before,” Andrew commented.
He listened as Mike sighed. “I’m sure you didn’t call me to chat about our construction projects and the population. Do you need more air support?” Mike asked in a tight voice.
Andrew knew the other man wanted to know if more crew members had been lost. Last month, two fighters and a helicopter crashed due to encounters with bizarre creatures that had evolved after the comet’s devastating collision. Five great soldiers lost their lives.
“No. Thank you for sending the two helicopters. I know that you are stretched pretty thin,” Andrew commented.
“The perimeter walls have helped,” Mike replied.
“Listen, Mike, more survivors were discovered earlier today. There are six that I would like to transfer to you,” Andrew commented, sitting back in his seat.
There was a long pause on the other end. For a moment, Andrew wondered if he had been disconnected or not. The short wave radios that were connecting the scattered bases around the country gave them a sense of hope, an assurance that they weren’t alone, but it also caused a large amount of frustration when the system didn’t work. He picked up the pen next to the file and twirled it between his fingers as he waited.
“Have you screened them?” Mike finally asked.
“We will,” Andrew promised.
“Send them. I’ll send a relief crew to you and you can send one of my crews back,” Mike replied.
“Thanks, Mike,” Andrew murmured.
“One day at a time,” Mike responded.
“One day at a time,” Andrew repeated, disconnecting the call.
Over the last two years, that had been their signature sign-off. He sat back in his seat. He looked at the file folder. Tapping the pen on his desk, he frowned at the report.
“What is different about you?” he murmured out loud.
“Sir?” Major Mendoza asked.
Andrew looked up. He had been distracted and hadn’t realize that Alisa had knocked and entered. Alisa stood at attention, waiting for him to repeat what he had said, unaware that he’d been talking to himself.
“I want each of the survivors thoroughly examined. Isolate the two who are suspected of exposure. I will interrogate them myself,” he instructed, going with his gut feeling that he needed to handle this situation himself.
“Yes, sir,” Major Mendoza replied.
“Dismissed,” Andrew said.
Major Mendoza saluted, turned on her heel, and quietly closed the door. Like the rest of them, she had lost her family when the comet struck.
He looked at the file again. He had lost his wife and his teenage son and daughter. He wrapped his fingers around the pen as a wave of grief washed through him. With practiced discipline, he let it pass before pushing the anguish and regret back into the dark vault in his mind.
Everyone who worked in the complex had lost someone. Mike Troyfield had been one of the fortunate ones—if you could call watching his wife slowly fade into madness as being lucky. The other man had also lost two out of his three children. Still, Mike had some family left, which was more than most of the survivors.
When Andrew first met Mike, he learned that the other general’s wife and two of their daughters had survived the initial impact. As far as Mike knew, his son, who had been attending college in California, had perished along with most of the residents there when the massive earthquakes following the comet’s impact had razed nearly all the structures and fires had destroyed everything else. Two months after the impact, their oldest daughter was killed by a pack of Others—creatures that had been Changed.
Andrew didn’t know for sure, but from the little he was able to glean from his conversations with Mike, the other general’s wife was not doing well. In response to the attacks, Mike had slowly expanded the Air National Guard base, erecting temporary walls at first before more permanent ones could be built, and screening any survivors who entered the base. Initially, anyone found to have been altered was considered a danger to the remaining survivors and immediately executed. Finally, an agreement was made to determine the level of change and threat before termination. In the cases where minor changes had occurred, the survivors were quarantined before a decision was made to either keep them incarcerated or release them into the ruins outside of the compound—a sentence that meant almost certain death, but still gave the survivors a remote chance.
While he understood Mike’s feelings, he didn’t necessarily agree with them. Andrew knew that humans weren’t the only ones affected by the change. If they were to survive, they would need the knowledge and skills of some of the changed human survivors. The scientists at the complex assessed those who were altered in order to discover what had happened to them. If they could control them, they could use them. If not… Well, if not, then they were classified as too dangerous and sent to quarantine on the military side of Asylum where Mike had his team of doctors studying them.
He studied the photo of his wife and two children. The wave of loss and regret welling up inside him was cut short by a sharp knock on the door. This time, he called out a command to enter.
“Yes?” he questioned in a sharper tone than he intended.
Major Mendoza remained expressionless. “I wanted to inform you that the retrieval team has returned. I was about to debrief the teams. You normally wish to attend. Do you want me to proceed with the debriefing or postpone it, General?” Mendoza inquired.
“I’ll attend,” he answered with a curt nod.
He closed the folder and pushed back his chair. Rising to his feet, he glanced at the picture of his wife and kids once more before he picked up his hat and stepped around the edge of his desk. Mendoza opened the door wider, her expression troubled as her eyes searched his face and she silently stood to the side as he passed her. He knew she hadn’t missed the grief in his eyes before he concealed his emotions. He’d thought he was ready to pull the photo out of the drawer. Perhaps it was still too soon.
Outside of the complex:
Tommy saluted the officers as they passed by him. Once they had moved on, he focused on his job of maintaining and refueling the helicopters. He waved to one of the other technicians who was doing the same to the other helicopter.
He walked arou
nd the outer perimeter and completed a visual inspection. Running his hand along the smooth metal, he wished for the thousandth time that he had been smart enough to become a pilot. His problem was that he hated school.
He ran his hand along the tail boom as he examined it. A startled curse escaped him when he felt something move under his hand. Tommy jerked his hand back and looked at the boom. There was nothing there. He looked at his hand and didn’t see anything either. Shrugging, he continued his visual examination before walking around to the open door. Climbing up on the landing skid, he stepped into the helicopter.
Tommy hummed under his breath as he tidied the inside of the helicopter. After checking and stowing several helmets, he made sure the M230 Chain Gun was secured. He moved between the bench seats toward the front and slid into the pilot’s seat. He lovingly ran his hands along the stick.
“Man, I wish I knew how to fly this thing,” he muttered under his breath.
A tickling along the back of his neck made him raise his hand and slap at it. He jerked when he felt a stinging sensation. He cried out in alarm when he felt the hard shell of something burrowing into the back of his neck. Twisting, he frantically tried to get out of the seat at the same time as he clawed at the end of the bug biting through the flesh near his spine.
He made it as far as the opening between the cockpit and the back cabin before he collapsed. His mouth opened in a silent scream and his body bowed in terror. Blood glistened on his fingers, but it was too late. The bug had burrowed in deep and already attached itself to his brain stem.
Foaming salvia slipped from the corner of his mouth as his eyes grew unfocused. His body convulsed on the deck of the helicopter as the creature worked to connect with his central nervous system. His hands dropped uselessly to the deck, his fingers curled into tight fists as the world around him grew dimmer and more remote.
Far away:
Daciana walked over to the broken window and peered down at the road through the gap in the shattered panes. She had spent the last two weeks gathering information and resources. Her mind reflected on what she had learned even as she recognized the danger approaching the building where she had taken temporary refuge.
The mixture of sand-colored and dark green vehicles woke repressed memories. There were six vehicles in all. Four vehicles were sand-colored and box-shaped. The green ones were large trucks. Each of the trucks had a soft fabric canopy over the truck beds. They reminded her of the one she had encountered previously.
Daciana attentively studied the convoy of military vehicles as they pulled through the broken gate. She looked over her shoulder when she sensed a new presence. One of the beasts she had encountered the first day was watching her with an intense focus. The beasts had slowly emerged from their hiding place after she had killed their alpha.
“Do not attack unless I tell you,” she ordered.
The creature softly whined before it rose and disappeared. She turned back and contemplated the vehicles. They were pulling to a stop in front of the building. Two dozen men exited the vehicles. She curled her lips when she saw that they had their weapons ready. Lifting her chin, she studied the leader of the convoy. He would be the most dangerous of the group.
“Looks like something has been here recently, Sarge,” one of the men called.
Daciana turned her gaze to a man who was kneeling. He was studying the ground and then the surrounding area with alert focus. She watched as he rose to his feet.
“There’s dried blood here. Can’t be too old since the rain hasn’t washed all of it away,” another man called out from the front steps of the house.
“There’s a skeleton of a woman in here. Looks like someone moved things around not long ago,” a third man called from the doorway of the house.
“Search the area. Harper, take two men and retrieve the hard drives. Conway, take a team and start packing up the paper files. I want anything of importance. The rest of you, two-man teams, spread out and shoot to kill anything that don’t look human,” the man called Sarge ordered.
Daciana stepped back so that she was hidden in the shadows. The humans were here for a specific reason, and she suspected that she might be a part of it. She turned and silently walked across the room that she had been using as a shelter.
On the desk in the corner was the satchel with the files she had taken from the dead woman. She picked it up, slid the strap over her head, and adjusted it.
Below, she heard the sound of boots crunching across broken glass. The men had entered the building. She slid her hand over the flap of the satchel. She needed someone to interpret the information contained in the files inside the satchel. Unfortunately for the humans, she only needed one of them alive for that.
Chapter Nine
Waking up:
Dust woke from his slumber when the truck slowed down. He focused and rolled onto his back. The world around him shimmered as everything came back into focus.
He winced when he received a hard jab to his lower back. Sitting up, he felt around until he wrapped his hands around a metal object. Pulling it free, he grimaced when he saw that it was a pair of handcuffs. Memories of what had happened flooded through him, and he sat up.
“Great,” he muttered under his breath.
Running a hand through his disheveled hair, he thought about what he should do. He looked around the dark interior of the truck. It had hard sides with metal grating over two windows that were too small for anyone to climb through. The back had double doors, and he was pretty sure they were locked. Each door had a square window opening, but they were solid and opened from the outside only. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a window with a sliding lock on it. He’d bet his last allowance that there were bars across it as well.
He steadied himself when the truck moved forward a little before stopping. Outside he could hear several men talking. Scrambling up off the floor, he sat down on the bench seat and placed his hands behind his back. With a swift thought, he slid his hands through the handcuffs again, relieved that not all of his powers had disappeared.
A second later one of the back hatches opened, and a man peered in at him. Dust blinked when the sudden shaft of light momentarily blinded him. He gave the man a wan grin in greeting.
“Hi,” he said.
The man didn’t respond. A moment later, the cover closed and he heard the man yell for the driver to move on. He leaned back and rested his head against the side. Now, he needed to decide what to do. Since he currently was unsure of his powers, he didn’t want to try using them.
“At least I don’t feel nauseous anymore,” he mumbled.
His main focus would be on locating the others. As far as he could remember, he and Josie had been the only ones the men knocked out. He remembered Sammy and the others protesting to the soldiers.
He closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest. He didn’t know what had happened back at the bridge. Before he’d lost his powers, there had been no warning. He hadn’t felt ill or weird or anything.
Even the thought that had his powers might be fading away made him sick to his stomach. There had been times over the past year that he and the others might not have survived if he hadn’t possessed those powers. Josie didn’t appear to be having any issues. Powered up, she had been an inferno against the bugs. So what had happened to him?
He opened his eyes when the truck stopped. A few seconds later, the back hatch opened. This time he was more prepared for the bright light.
“Out,” a soldier ordered.
Dust stood up and walked to the back of the truck. He paused on the edge and looked around before looking down at the ground. He bent his knees and jumped out. The soldier steadied him when he wobbled.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
His gaze swept the area. He didn’t see any of the other trucks. Eight soldiers stood around him. The one nearest him held his arm while the others stood looking at him from several feet away.
“Do you know where my friends are?” he
asked as he turned and looked at the soldier.
“This way,” the man ordered, not answering him.
Dust pursed his lips together and followed the man. The other soldiers fell into step behind them. He squinted as they crossed a wide section leading toward a tunnel. He scanned the words written above it.
“Wow, this is cool. Some of my video games had this place in it,” Dust exclaimed without thinking.
Behind him, several of the soldiers chuckled. The sound gave him hope that maybe things weren’t quite as bad as he first thought. The small group entered the complex. It looked a lot like the area in his games. He figured the game creators either hacked into the blueprints for this site or someone from inside had gone into gaming after leaving the military. He turned in a tight circle as he walked. He knew that his mouth was hanging open in awe.
“It was in several movies as well,” the soldier next to him replied.
“It was? Which ones?” Dust asked, turning and looking at the man.
“War Games and Interstellar,” another man replied.
Dust nodded his head. He remembered both movies but didn’t remember the complex being in them. He swallowed at the tight feeling in his chest. It seemed like another life when he had watched a movie on TV or even gone to the movies.
“Where you from?” the man who’d answered him asked.
“Don’t answer,” the soldier next to him instructed with a sharp tone.
Dust looked in confusion at the man but kept his mouth shut. The ease he’d been feeling a minute ago was fading the deeper they went into the complex. He glanced at the men and women they passed with a growing sense of frustration. Where were Sammy and the others?
“Watch where you’re going!” a man in a lab coat snapped at another man.
The young man in a jumpsuit nodded his head. A shiver ran through Dust as he watched the younger guy stumble and nod his head before he turned and looked at Dust for a brief moment. Dust stopped in his tracks as if he’d hit an invisible wall. If he’d had doubts that maybe he was returning to normal, they vanished in that instant. He could feel his teeth beginning to extend and fought to hide it. He sensed danger.