“Wait, no way, we’re going back to get Fay. I’ve got to search for the others, they could be washed up on the shore somewhere. We can’t just leave them—” Mercy clenched her fists, anger rising in her veins.
“That’s a negative,” Barnes said, “this area is hot, we don’t have time for a rescue mission. Your friends are finished—”
Mercy’s eyes widened, “No fucking way am I leaving my people back there. I’m going to get them, you can either come with me or you can leave—”
Barnes glared at Mercy. Then his expression changed and he shrugged. “Well, since you put it like that… guess I’ll tag along.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small tin. “Here, put this on, it’ll hide your scent from the tropes.”
Mercy took the tin and opened the lid. The smell of lubricating oil hit her. “Axle grease? No thanks,” she handed the tin back to him. “I don’t need that, the NSA implanted biotech in me. I’m invisible to tropes, unless I attack them, then they wake up to me. Alphas are another story though, they can see through the biotech. No amount of axle grease is gonna stop those bastards—”
“OK, so… you know about the alphas.” Barnes took the tin. He rubbed some of the thick oil onto his hands and neck. “The biotech then… that’s your secret? When I saw you I thought what the fuck? Is this what all the effort was for? So… Constantine believes you’ve got something to bring to the fight—”
Mercy shrugged, “Guess so, the devil’s always in the detail though—”
Barnes grunted and pocketed the tin. “Well let’s get the fuck out of here. Seeing as you’ve got this super power I’ll let you lead the way—”
Finally—
Chapter 3
Hot Dog
Thirty minutes later Mercy was digging Fay out of the sand at Oyster Harbor. Barnes stood watch as the early morning light burnished the horizon.
“Come on, come on, come on—” Barnes repeated. “The drones start patrolling at dawn.” His eyes were glued to the sky.
Mercy scooped the last of the sand from Fay’s legs. She leant forwards and helped Fay into a sitting position, “Come on girl, time to rock, let’s go.”
Fay stood up and allowed Mercy to lead her through the dunes to the road. Mercy turned to Barnes and pointed at the shop opposite the car park. A sign advertising hot dogs squeaked in the breeze.
“Over there, the hot dog place… we can shelter in there,” Mercy said, guiding Fay.
Barnes followed, his silenced Steyr SSG 69 sniper rifle in his hands. The shopfront was shuttered so they went around to the back. The rear door was ajar, the lock had been forced. Mercy glanced at Barnes, he nodded. She propped Fay against the wall.
“Stay here Fay, I’m going to check the place out,” Mercy said, her voice low.
Fay gave a weak smile and sat down. Mercy pulled out her SIG and knife and opened the door. She listened then stepped into the semi-darkness. The store had been looted; broken glass and trash littered the floor. Mercy scraped her pistol along a radiator and called out.
“Hey there tropes, hello fuckers. Mercy’s here, come on out, show yourselves—”
Her words were swallowed by the darkness. She waited. A few seconds later a familiar moaning came from behind a glass-fronted door behind the counter on her left. A hand and face pressed against the other side of the glass. Mercy squinted at the door, its handle was smeared with bloody handprints.
Leave it, it’s not an immediate threat—
The rest of the ground floor was clear. She beckoned to Barnes who entered the shop with Fay. Mercy pointed at the stairs in the corner. Barnes shouldered his rifle and took out his knife and Glock 19. Mercy approached the stairs and listened, she went up and reached the top a few seconds later. The stench of decay reached her. Three grimy skylights looked down on the room. A scraping sound came from the darkest corner. Mercy’s skin prickled. She moved towards the sound.
A skeletal trope stood in the corner, its back to her. It swayed from side to side. It wore a tattered vest and stained underpants. Straggly, shoulder length hair hung from its leathery scalp. Its arms were tattooed. Mercy stepped towards it, the knife in her right hand.
Come on dude, let’s make this easy for everyone—
Mercy took a few more steps. A floorboard creaked underfoot. The trope stopped swaying and brought a hand to its face. Its head tilted.
Shit, is it… listening—?
Mercy’s eyes narrowed, livid welts marked the trope’s back, its flesh had come away in strips near the shoulder blades exposing bone in places. A soft clink rattled at the trope’s feet. Mercy glanced down and frowned.
You’re chained. Oh, Jesus—
A huge rat was gnawing the trope’s foot. The rat stopped and looked at Mercy. Mercy suppressed the urge to vomit. She reached forwards and thrust her blade into the back of the trope’s skull. The trope dropped to the floor, a soft sigh leaving its lips. The rat scurried into the shadows.
Fuck this shit—
Mercy turned to Barnes, “Reckon we’ve got the place to ourselves now.”
Barnes grunted and turned to look out the front window. The dawn light was strengthening in the east. “Just as well, we’d be sitting ducks out there now.”
Fay appeared at the top of the stairs, “Found these behind the counter.” She held up four tin cans. “Looks like someone’s stash. We’ve got lemon pepper tuna and beef ravioli.”
Mercy’s stomach growled at the mention of food. She smiled at Fay, “Good job Fay, for a minute I thought ratatouille was on the menu.”
Barnes secured the building and Mercy made Fay comfortable upstairs. She found musty blankets and old newspapers and made a bed for her friend. Fay had a few mouthfuls of food and drank from Barnes’s water bottle. Minutes later Fay was asleep.
Barnes joined Mercy after laying sound traps on the ground floor. “Back office door’s secure, that trope won’t be going anywhere. It’s good to keep one penned up nearby, its stink helps to mask your scent. I’ve got one back at the safe house, chained up—”
Mercy pulled a face and stopped chewing her food, “You sleep with one of those fuckers nearby?”
Barnes grunted, shovelling beef ravioli into his mouth. “Make your environment work for you, blend in, become one with what’s trying to kill you. All that weird Zen warrior shit. It’s worked for me… so far—”
Mercy nodded, “Yeah, weird shit works; thinking outside the box, doing the opposite of what’s expected… or sometimes lead them on and do what they expect. It’s all part of the game—”
“Game?” Barnes growled. “Is that what this is to you? A fucking game? What about the men I lost? I’m supposed to nanny your sorry ass to Washington and you call it a game? Well fuck you—”
Mercy flinched, she held Barnes’s stare. “Look Barnes, I’ve had a shitty day, you’ve had a shitty day. Fay over there… she’s had an uber shitty day. I know I’ve dragged you here against your best judgement, we’ve not gotten off on the right foot but we’re on the same side. Let’s call a truce—”
Barnes put his food down and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I don’t know you. You’ve dropped into my world. I’m trying to figure out if you’re going to get us killed, so just know that I’m watching you.”
Mercy bit her lip, “Understood.” She tried a different tack, “So, you’ve got a sat phone? Are you going to tell Constantine that we’ve connected?”
Barnes stood up and went to the shuttered window. “She knows we’ve been in contact. I signalled her after I spoke to you and Cronin. I’ll send her another message once we get back to the safe house.”
Mercy’s eyes fell to the ghillie suit on the floor. “So… NSA drones operate by day and we’ve got tropes 24/7?”
Barnes peered out the window. “NSA forces pulled out of the Annapolis area a week ago. They’ve retreated to strengthen their defences in DC. Tropes are appearing everywhere around the capital’s perimeter, tens of thousands of them. They�
��re coming from Baltimore, Richmond, Charlottesville. Hell, my source even told me that tropes were on the move from Philly and Pittsburgh—”
Charlottesville? Billy-Ray’s daughter was from there—
Mercy raised her eyebrows, “Your source?”
“Yeah, the wounded NSA grunt I captured; the one I’ve got chained up at the safe house. I got some intel from him before he turned.” Barnes pulled a pair of binoculars from a pouch on his webbing and used them to look outside.
“So, the drones—?” Mercy persisted.
Barnes spoke with his back to her. “Yeah, the drones and the watcher-dogs are in charge of Annapolis… by day anyway. I say dogs, well, you’ll see what I mean. They’re like dogs but they’re robots; hunter-killer machines, fully automated, all terrain A.I. controlled robots. I heard about the next-generation platform for this type of weapon system years before the Fall. We all knew the government was developing autonomous hunter-killer systems. DARPA: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Hell, they were open about the stuff they were developing, it was in the public domain, right there for people to see on the net. So anyway, the NSA have pulled out of Annapolis and they’ve left their A.I. drones and dog bots—”
Mercy processed Barnes’s information, “So, how do you avoid detection by the A.I.? Do they use thermal imaging, infra-red, what? And what about night? How do the NSA cover that?”
Barnes set down the binoculars and looked at her, “Yeah, the dogs and drones use thermal imaging, they detect body heat. That’s why I’ve adapted my ghillie suit; it’s lined with BoPET film, the stuff that’s used for those foil balloons and space blankets. It traps thermal energy makes you invisible to the sensors the A.I. uses. The dogs hunt in packs. I watched when the NSA were deploying and testing them before they pulled out. You knock out the lead dog and another takes its place. They’re linked to the drones and those fuckers can call in an airstrike—” Barnes stopped and scratched his beard. “That’s how they nailed my spotter on our recon trip to DC—”
Mercy listened, her face thoughtful.
Barnes continued, “Yeah, and night time? Well, the NSA cleared Annapolis of most normal tropes. But they met their match, there’s a hard core of those alpha ones. Looks as if the virus is adapting, evolving, whatever you want to call it. Those fuckers are badass, the NSA took a beating. Those alphas… they come out at night, there’s pockets of them clustered around the city. It’s like they’ve got nests, strongholds in buildings and underground. The NSA had some success with phosphorous grenades and flamethrowers but they couldn’t weed out all the nests—”
“Alphas—” Mercy breathed.
Barnes raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, that’s right. That’s what my source called them; alphas.”
Mercy pulled a face, “Me and a friend came across one in Norfolk, it had an NSA tattoo on its chest with some kind of barcode—”
A dark look crossed Barnes’s face, “Wait— markings?” he looked out the window, thinking. “The alphas in Annapolis are wild, feral groups, not like the one you’re describing. So… that means the NSA are capturing the feral ones and altering them, weaponizing them—”
Mercy closed her eyes, “Yeah, alphas are active day and night—”
Barnes frowned, “How in hell are they being controlled? A.I. controlled robots I can understand but A.I. controlled undead? That’s just… insane—”
Mercy sighed, “Yeah, fucking Cobalt Biotech off-the-scale insane—”
Chapter 4
Damocles
“So, the MO here is stealth then?” Mercy said.
Barnes grunted, “Stealth or die, you’ve got it. Do not discharge your weapon unless you have no other choice. Noise will bring down a shitload of pain. And always have at least two, preferably three, exits available from a building. These fuckers… the watcher-dog-robots, they work in packs, the alphas too. Hunter-killers… remember that, day and night. Be a ghost and you’ll survive. I’ve got a spare ghillie suit back at the safe house, it’s like mine, lined with BoPET film—”
Mercy pulled out her SIG and started cleaning it with a cloth she had taken from a shelf on the ground floor. “So your spotter, you said he didn’t make it?”
Barnes looked out the window again, pressing the binoculars to his eyes. “Yeah, Lou, he was a good guy, we made it to Anacostia Park. We set up an OP there for a couple of days. He was spotted by one of their mini drones, there’s more of them there. NSA fired a few mortar rounds from across the river. A piece of shrapnel took him in the neck, he bled out… nothing I could do.”
Barnes’s face hardened, “The NSA built a barrier along the eastern shore of the Anacostia River. It was doing an OK job, for a while. It’s mostly broken down now. It wasn’t built for the numbers of tropes that are showing up. There’s thousands of the fuckers descending on DC, mostly from the north. It’s like an undead migration or pilgrimage. Something’s drawing them in. The river current’s strong enough to sweep some away. The stronger ones make it across. The NSA have abandoned everything east of the river, they had a ditch and a wall like you wouldn’t believe, to the north of the city, it’s been breached in a few places. The west is protected by the Potomac River. They’ve blown most of the bridges and heavily fortified a few strategic ones. The National Mall is surrounded by its own concrete wall. It’s sewn up pretty good, not sure how we’re gonna infiltrate the city. We could try a boat to get across the river—”
Mercy looked up, “I met a guy, ex DC Fire Department, he said the DC Metro was the way in. The NSA have sealed off all underground access except for the Blue line. He told me a way in… through the Capitol Heights station. If it works it’ll take us under the Anacostia to the Stadium-Armory station in DC—”
Barnes let out a low whistle. “Lucky break,” his tone darkened, “except for all the security measures the NSA will have underground—”
Mercy squinted at the window. “Well, he got out that way… with his family.”
Barnes scowled. A second later his shoulders tensed.
Mercy stood up. “What is it?”
Barnes swore, “Here, take a look.” He handed her the binoculars.
Mercy went to the window and peered through the section Barnes had cleaned with his glove. She looked through the binoculars.
Jesus—
She adjusted the focus, “Yeah, I see it; that’s a fucking big drone… is that thing unmanned?”
Barnes grunted, “Sure is, it’s doing a search of the coastline, where you had your encounter last night. Looking for survivors or threats. It’ll be wired to NSA eyes back in DC. Like I said this area is now officially hot.”
Mercy scanned the rest of the shoreline with the binoculars.
Nothing—
Barnes paced behind her, “Look, there’s no sign of your people. They’re either dead, lost… or captured. Whatever. We’re wasting our time here. Now that you’ve got your friend and you can see what we’re up against we’ll be leaving here at dusk. OK?”
Mercy remained silent, her mind racing.
Flynn, Tawny, Rose—
Their faces loomed large in her mind.
They could be lying wounded somewhere, somewhere close—
Her jaw tightened, determination spreading through her.
Later, I’ll go out just before sunset—
“So… I met a guy you know; Erickson—” Mercy changed the subject.
Barnes stiffened, “Erickson?”
“Yeah, he told me he served with you in Afghanistan. Your Humvee was hit, you were patched up in Bagram. You were lucky to have made it out alive—”
“You know Erickson?” Barnes said, his face dark.
Mercy returned the binoculars to Barnes and sat down again. She shifted her back against the wall and returned her attention to cleaning the SIG, “Yeah… well, I knew him. He was in Cronin’s unit—”
Barnes looked away, “What happened?”
Mercy’s jaw tightened, “He didn’t make it. Kitty Hawk Bay
, Outer Banks… somewhere there. NSA militia ambush… it was fucked up—”
Barnes remained silent.
Mercy cleared her throat, “So anyway, Erickson said your father was a Marine and your family owned a bar in Baton Rouge. The Seven Fingers bar. Where did the name come from?”
Barnes grunted, “Marine humour, my father, he served in Vietnam. A VC soldier threw a grenade into his medevac Huey. My father was a stretcher case but he managed to throw the frag out the door before it detonated. His hand caught some shrapnel, he lost three fingers—”
Mercy sighed, “And there was me thinking it was something historical to do with the French or the Civil War, back in the day.”
Barnes smiled.
Mercy racked the SIG’s slide and tested the empty pistol. Satisfied, she inserted a fresh magazine. Fay groaned in the corner and doubled up.
Mercy looked across, “Fay? What’s up girl—?”
Fay went rigid, she gurgled, her arms and legs started jerking.
“What the fuck—?” Mercy jumped to her feet and rushed over. She placed her hands on Fay’s arms, “Fay, Fay… what’s wrong? What is it?”
Fay was an ashen, her lips had a blue tinge. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets.
“Jesus—” Mercy said. “Barnes, do something—”
Mercy lost her grip on Fay’s arm, she brushed against Fay’s back.
What—?
Mercy held her bloodstained hand up.
Fay’s shirt… it’s covered in blood—
Mercy pulled up the fabric, her eyes widened.
Oh—
Fay’s shoulder was punctured by a row of teeth marks. The surrounding skin was livid and angry-looking.
Trope bite. Fuck—
Fay jerked, her head hit the floor. Blood gushed from her nose. Mercy reached for her SIG.
“Don’t—” Barnes said.
Barnes took something out of his chest pocket and placed it between his teeth. “Help me… hold her down.”
The Survival Chronicles (Book 6): Dark Mercy Page 2