by D. J. Molles
Were any of them in on it?
And had he done the right thing by taking his bunkers offline?
That was the one that haunted him the most.
That was the question that kept him lying awake at night.
When he’d crawled out of the lake after that night when Captain John Bellamy had betrayed him, and attack helicopters from Greeley had raked his men with devastating fire, and Cornerstone mercenaries had finished them all off, Tex had hit the road, and not looked back.
It had taken him a week, but he’d made it to his northernmost bunker, Bunker #3, right on the edge of where Texas and New Mexico and Oklahoma’s borders converged. He’d been nearly dead—dehydrated and half-starved and hounded by primals down to his last bullet—but he’d made it.
And then he’d shut himself in.
And the first thing he’d done, after sticking an IV line in his arm to get some fluids back into him, was to go to the bunker’s control room, boot up the computers, log into the Texas mainframe, and reset the security systems at all his bunkers back to their default.
Which meant that no one except Tex could get access to them.
This was how all Project Hometown bunkers had been originally designed. So that only the Coordinator in charge of them could get access. And that Coordinator had to have his GPS device in his possession, and had to pass through a daunting battery of alphanumeric passwords and biometric security scans, just to get into the elevator that would take them down into the bunker.
Over the course of the next two weeks, Tex had nursed himself back to full strength, and spent a lot of time trying to reason out who might still be alive, and who, if anybody, he could trust.
It was a short list, made shorter by the fact that most people on it were dead.
Menendez was on that list. But he was probably dead.
Tzetzelewska—Cheech—would have been on the list, if Tex hadn’t watched his body fly into pieces after a strafing run from the gunships at the power plant.
Lee and Abe?
Tex didn’t even know where to begin with them.
Maybe they were dead.
Maybe they’d been in on it the whole time.
It certainly didn’t seem like they’d been in on it, and if they had, they sure as shit risked their lives to pull it off—those choppers and the Cornerstone operatives had shot at them just as much as everyone else.
But Tex had no way of getting in contact with them even if he wanted to.
All things considered, there was only one name on the list that he trusted, and who he still could get in contact with, from the safety of his bunker.
And Tex was staring at the most recent message from him.
Tex had reached out to Captain Tully from New Mexico the day before.
Tully had his back up against the wall. Greeley had been gunning for him hard, and he’d been putting out his own fires and trying to stay alive and free from a Greeley takeover for more than a year. He probably didn’t have much to offer Tex, but Tex was out of options.
Tex had sent the message, bunker to bunker. He hadn’t expected Tully to respond, perhaps for weeks, as he wasn’t sure when the other man would make it to a bunker and see the message waiting.
But, twenty-four hours later, Tully had responded.
It was not what Tex wanted to hear, but at least it was something.
Cornerstone has my back against the wall, the message read. I’m not sure how much help I can be to you, brother. I might need to bug-out to Texas. If you want to meet, tell me a place and time, and I’ll be there.
Tex looked at a laminated map of northern Texas, propped up against a console to the left of the computer screen with the message displayed on it. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowed.
He felt exposed. Unsecured. Like his hand was being forced.
The web camera on the top of his monitor seemed to stare at him. To watch him.
It wasn’t plugged in. Tex was paranoid about things like that.
It was supposed to be used for communications between Coordinators—so that they could video chat, if necessary.
Perhaps that would be a good idea now…?
No. He couldn’t keep covering his ass.
He couldn’t sit in this bunker forever.
He had to do something.
He’d made his list. He’d reasoned it out.
Best not to second-guess himself now.
He selected a tiny waystation of a town, close to the New Mexico border. It would be accessible to him. He could make it there within several hours and set up an overwatch. Paranoia, perhaps, but he wanted to watch Tully arrive before he exposed himself.
He needed to give himself enough time.
Decision made, and determined not to agonize over it any longer, he typed his reply:
Pine Station. The TX DOT facility. Noon, tomorrow.
***
The Butler Safe Zone did not have a full medical center like Fort Bragg.
What they had was a wing of the Taylor County High School, with a slapdash collection of medical machinery that they’d confiscated from nearby urgent cares and family practices that lay beyond the safety of the high voltage wires.
It was here that Squad Four brought Loudermouth’s body, arriving shortly before midnight.
Displaced from Fort Bragg, Doc Trent was not the lead physician at the “Butler Hospital,” as it was called. But he was the one on call that night, and he met them at one of the side entrances to that wing of the high school, with a stretcher, a nurse, and bags under his eyes.
Chris pulled the Humvee up close to the doors, and the whole team filed out. Sam went to the rear and opened the fastback, releasing Poggs from his cramped position in the back with Loudermouth’s body.
Doc Trent and the nurse with him rolled the stretcher around to the back, mumbling curses in his usual ornery way. “What the hell happened to this guy?”
Sam helped Poggs hoist Loudermouth’s limp form out of the back and onto the stretcher. Loudermouth let out a groan that might’ve been half-formed words.
Poggs ignored Trent for a moment, and spoke to Billings. “Looks like the fentanyl might be wearing off. You should get Master Sergeant Gilliard and First Sergeant Hamrick down here, ASAP.” Then, to the doctor, who was already probing Loudermouth’s body with a pair of gloved hands, he said, “This is the team leader that got taken by the primals earlier this morning. Superficial bite mark to the right trapezius. Both shoulders are dislocated, and both hip joints are broken. Pelvis didn’t crackle when I moved it, but I’m still concerned about a fracture. His blood pressure is low, but it stabilized some. He’s had two bags of LR and half a fentanyl lozenge about five hours ago.”
Trent nodded along as Poggs and the nurse began to wheel the stretcher towards the doors. “Anything for the bite?”
“Cleaned it out as best I could. I don’t have antibiotics in my kit.”
Sam followed them, his eyes on Loudermouth’s form.
A hand on his shoulder pulled him back.
He turned and found Jones smirking at him. “What, are you a doctor now, Ryder? Let ‘em work.” Jones looked over Sam’s shoulder, his expression turning lustful. “That nurse, though. Amiright?”
Billings stood up from the front passenger’s seat of the Humvee where he’d used the command radio to call in to Hamrick. He closed the Humvee door, then nodded towards the retreating stretcher. “Come on, Jones. We’re going in there. Hamrick and Gilliard will be here in a bit, but if Loudermouth wakes up, I want to hear what he has to say.”
Jones shrugged, releasing his grip on Sam’s shoulder. “Never mind then. Come on, Ryder.”
The squad hustled up, making it to the doors before they swung closed, and shuffling through.
The stretcher moved down a hall to the right, Doc Trent’s voice murmuring back at them over the squeaking of their boots on the floor tiles. “Let’s get him in the X-Ray before he wakes up.”
They didn’t have that much time.<
br />
Loudermouth suddenly thrashed, his head whipping around, but his dislocated limbs only flopping. The first bit came out of his throat in a guttural scream, but then it clarified.
“Ryder! Ryder!” Loudermouth slurred, but it was at the top of his lungs, and there was no denying who he was asking for. “Ryder!”
“Calm down, buddy,” Poggs tried. “I got you.”
Loudermouth screamed louder. “Ryder! RYDER!”
Doc Trent kept the stretcher moving, but whirled around, his eyes exasperated. “Any of you Ryder?” he called out over Loudermouth’s screaming.
Billings shoved Sam forward. “Go on, private.”
Trent peddled his hands at Sam, impatient. “Calm him down!”
Sam scrambled forward, unsure why Loudermouth would be calling out for him. Maybe because he was still half out of his mind on fentanyl. Maybe because Sam’s had been the face that he’d seemed to fixate on as he’d been pulled to safety.
He went to the side of the moving stretcher, striding fast to keep pace with it. He almost grabbed Loudermouth’s limp hand but thought it might hurt him, so he put his hand on the man’s heaving chest instead.
“It’s alright,” Sam said, not knowing what else to say. “I’m here.”
Loudermouth immediately quieted.
The nurse prepared an injection.
They turned a corner and stopped at a door with a hand-written plaque that said X-RAY.
Loudermouth’s eyes struggled to focus on Sam’s face. He looked drunk. Sweat had broken out all over his face, which Sam supposed was a good thing—at least he wasn’t dehydrated anymore.
“Ryder,” Loudermouth said, nearly whispering now. “Don’t let them go in there.”
Sam nodded. “Okay.”
“Tell them. You have to tell them.” Loudermouth’s head rose up off the stretcher, the cords of his neck straining. “There’s thousands. It’s a colony. And they saved me. They saved me for the babies. And they have a brain.”
Sam’s brow was creased into a confused frown, but he kept nodding.
The nurse stuck the needle into Loudermouth’s IV line and delivered the whole payload.
“I saw it,” Loudermouth rasped. “I saw her. She’s not like the others. Tell them.” His eyes crossed. His words became soupy. “Tell ‘em…’ell ‘em there’s…thousands…”
His head dropped back, eyes half-lidded, unseeing. His mouth hung open, moving with breathy syllables that made no sense.
“He’s out,” the nurse announced. “Let’s go.”
“We got it, gentlemen,” Doc Trent said over his shoulder as the nurse shoved through the door to the X-Ray room.
Poggs stood off to the side, recognizing when he was no longer needed.
Sam stood next to him, and the stretcher bearing Loudermouth slipped through the door, and it swung shut, leaving Poggs and Squad Four standing in the hallway, looking a little dazed.
“The hell was that about?” Jones said.
Sam found Billings’s concerned gaze. “I don’t know. But you need to tell Hamrick to pull the squads out of there.”
Billings shook his head. “I already told Hamrick. He didn’t listen. Maybe you should try.”
Sam looked aghast. “Hamrick hates my guts.”
“What about Gilliard?” Billings said. “Doesn’t he know you?”
“Yeah, he knows me. But I’m still just a half-boot private.”
“Well, Loudermouth’s not. And you’re the one he gave the message to.”
“Speak of the devil,” Jones murmured, looking down the hall.
Sam and Billings followed his gaze. First Sergeant Hamrick approached, wearing his UCPs, and Master Sergeant Gilliard strode beside him, wearing khakis and a t-shirt.
Carl and Hamrick stopped, facing the squad, with the door to the X-Ray room between them. Carl raised an eyebrow at Billings. “What’s going on?”
“Master sern’t,” Billings nodded. “Just got Loudermouth into the X-Ray. They had to sedate him again. But he said some things when he was conscious just now.” Billings gestured to Sam. “He spoke to Private Ryder.”
Carl’s cold, gray gaze settled on Sam. “Alright. Ryder. What’d Loudermouth have to say?”
Sam shifted his weight. “Sir, I couldn’t make a lot of sense of it. He was only partially conscious, I think—”
“Master sergeant didn’t ask you what you thought,” Hamrick growled. “Less editorializing. Just tell us what he said.”
Carl cast an annoyed sidelong glance at Hamrick and raised a finger, which was sufficient to command silence. “Go ahead, Ryder.”
Sam swallowed. “Yes, sir. He said not to let them go in. He said there were thousands. Something about saving him for babies. And that they had a brain.”
Hamrick let out a disgruntled little chuff, but Carl’s face remained impassive.
Except for one tiny twitch of an eyebrow.
“Who was he talking about?” Carl asked.
“I understood him to be talking about the squads when he said don’t let them go in. And I think he was talking about the primals when he said there were thousands. I don’t know what he meant about the babies or the brain.”
“He was drugged,” Hamrick commented. “Rambling.”
The corner of Carl’s mouth made a downward twitch, but he didn’t respond to Hamrick. Instead, he looked at Billings. “Sergeant, have your men stand down and get some rest. But I want you and Ryder in the TOC with me. Now.”
TWENTY
─▬▬▬─
QRF
They didn’t have far to go.
The TOC had been erected in the high school gymnasium.
Billings and Sam walked behind Hamrick and Carl.
Sam found Billings’s eyes, questioning whether he was now going to be in the permanent shit-house with Hamrick. Billings gave him a small nod, as though to reassure him that he’d done the right thing.
Ahead of them, Hamrick kept throwing barbed looks at Carl, but Carl walked, staring straight ahead, not oblivious to the looks, but not caring either.
“If we pull the plug on Augusta, we’re going to have to clear a completely new route,” Hamrick was saying in low tones. “It’ll take weeks to establish a new route. And we might even have to move the comms relays. And whatever route we find might not be any safer.”
Carl answered, his voice almost bored. “Half of the squads are deployed into Augusta right now. If we have to find another route, I’d prefer to do it at full strength, and not sacrifice half of our guys to stubborn stupidity.”
Hamrick clamped his mouth shut.
Carl waved a hand. “Billings. Ryder.”
Sam and Billings quickened their pace to Carl’s side.
“Tell me about Loudermouth and his injuries.”
Billings fielded the question, much to Sam’s relief. He explained, mostly verbatim, what he’d heard from Poggs.
“Tell me what you think of that,” Carl commanded.
Billings blinked a few times and didn’t look over to Hamrick, who was glaring now. “Sir, I think the primals deliberately incapacitated him. I think they were saving him—and maybe others, I’m not sure—to feed their young. That’s what I think he meant when he mentioned the ‘babies.’”
Carl didn’t respond.
“We’re already aware that they’re procreating,” Hamrick griped. “This isn’t anything new. Certainly nothing to justify an inordinate amount of concern.”
Carl ignored him yet again. “Your initial reports this morning were of the primal pack being about a hundred in numbers. Loudermouth quotes a thousand. Was he out of his mind, or do you think he saw something you didn’t?”
“I can’t say, sir,” Billings admitted. “I prefer to err on the side of caution, and assume he saw something I didn’t.”
“If his estimation is close, then Augusta could be housing a colony comparable to the one that took over Fort Bragg,” Carl reasoned. “Up until a month ago, we didn’t even know
the primals operated in groups that large. What do you think about his comment about the brain?”
“I don’t know,” Billings answered again. “It would be pure conjecture on my part.”
“Yes. I’m asking you for your pure conjecture.”
They rounded a corner and the gymnasium doors lay ahead of them.
Carl stopped there and looked at Billings, waiting.
Billings took a breath and plowed forward. “Sir, those primals that took over Fort Bragg—they weren’t like the hordes from before. The hordes were…disorganized. More like herds, with a herd mentality. Where one decided to go, they all followed. The primals that took over Bragg were different. They worked together, but they didn’t follow each other. There was some sort of coordination happening.”
Hamrick made another dissatisfied noise, but chose to say nothing this time.
Carl regarded Billings for another moment. Then finally nodded. “Those observations are consistent with the facts. That doesn’t mean they’re true. Just consistent.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carl turned and grabbed the gymnasium door, pulling it open. The others followed him inside.
The interior of the gymnasium was dark. There were plenty of overhead lights, but they were switched off to accommodate visibility of a bank of monitors that stood to one side of the room.
This was Sam’s first time in the TOC—there weren’t a whole lot of reasons for half-boot privates on a kill squad to go to the TOC. He had expected it to be much shabbier. The bank of monitors impressed him, even though it didn’t look like they showed much. Maps, mostly. Basically an electronic sand table.
Still, Sam felt relieved. Like maybe their lives were in better hands than he’d originally thought.
He followed the others around a few rows of tables at which there were multiple computer stations. Only two techs were working, both in what Sam recognized as US Air Force uniforms. One was a male, stationed on the far end. The other was a female, and that’s where Carl was heading.
Sam wondered if this was the one that Jones thought sounded “hot.”