by Michael Todd
Chapter Four
The heavy footsteps drew relentlessly closer like the massive creature had homed in on them and began to increase its pace.
If she hadn’t been so utterly terrified for her life, she would have been fascinated. Well, she was fascinated despite the fear. The creature’s size defied physics in ways that she couldn’t really comprehend but which intrigued the scientist part of her brain. More than a few educated guesses floated around, but most of them revolved around the possibility that the alien goop somehow allowed the creature to walk around, eat, and breathe without the issues that would come with lower air pressure and heavier gravity than creatures that size would normally have had to live with.
The indisputable reality, in scientific terms, was that this monster should live underwater or be crushed by its own weight. But it existed there, larger than life and with an ear-splitting roar that sent all the other monsters that lived in the Zoo running for cover. Along with any sane human being as well, of course.
So yes, fascinated and terrified at the same time sounded about right.
“Keep your aim at the lower neck area,” the squad leader, a man named Roberts, said over the comms. “That’s where the critter’s armor is weakest, but the slugs miss the good stuff. Once it goes down, form a defensive perimeter and let the doc do her work, okay?”
A selection of affirmative pings showed up on her heads-up display as the monster finally appeared. Predictably, Wayne was the first to open fire, and his massive assault rifle spewed a lethal spray of lead. The creature roared angrily and charged the group as they formed into a pair of V’s that drew it into the center. Courtney wasn’t sure how they seemed to be able to do this without any obvious previous coordination, but she followed Conway’s lead as he drove her to the side. The monster charged into the center, which allowed the eight members of the team to part around it and maintain fire as the beast moved forward and crashed into one of the trees.
Its massive tail flicked to the side and caught Roberts across the chest. She didn’t need to hear the crunch to know that it was a fatal blow. It didn’t seem fair. They fired unceasingly at the animal from point blank range. The shots ripped into the weaker spots in its gray armor, and it still didn’t go down.
But with a single strike of its tail, one of their best was dead.
Fuck this place, she thought, not for the first time and definitely not for the last.
She gripped her gun more firmly and shot as best she could. Realistically, though, without any real frame of reference and with multiple shots striking home where she tried to aim and shoot, she couldn’t be sure if she actually connected with her target. Her arms slowly grew numb from the sustained action, and soon, she felt lucky to even still manage to hold her weapon as the creature hurtled past them. Conway was the team’s medic, and he rushed to where Roberts had been flung.
Courtney wished she could have gone to help too, but as her assault rifle went dead, she saw the massive reptile’s eyes flicker as it swept around. It was in pain and very angry at the sustained attack, and she could see the rage. Massive green eyes picked her out as a target as if it sensed that she was the weakest. Then, she looked around and realized that the rest of the squad, except for Conway, had taken cover behind trees. Again, this all seemed rehearsed, although perhaps years of combat training was the real reason.
They were all in cover while she was out in the open with an empty gun. She moved toward one of the trees and tried to keep the massive beast in her sight and reload her weapon at the same time. Pushing back the panic, she reminded herself that she was used to multitasking and had learned to operate a gun. It wasn’t too difficult, considering that these were weapons designed to function and go wrong as seldom as possible. Even so, her hands shook uncontrollably, and all she could hear over the enraged roar of the monster was her own heartbeat. The empty mag dropped, but she fumbled the new one and it fell. Somehow, she managed to sweep it up again and stumbled to the nearest tree. She slipped behind it as the creature swung into the attack again.
More gunshots resounded. Courtney heard little over her thudding heart as she slapped the mag into the rifle and caught the bolt on the second try to draw it back and insert a round in the chamber.
The monster rushed past her and the massive tail whipped around the tree that she now hid behind. A flood of wood chips struck her face mask and she recoiled instinctively as the tree groaned, tipped, and slowly keeled over.
Away from her, thankfully, and off to the right.
The ground shuddered as the tree finally impacted. Given the size of the trunk, Courtney wasn’t surprised that a blow from the monster’s tail had killed Roberts, even with his armor. Anything that had the power to fell a tree of that size would be both painful and lethal to an unfortunate human in its path.
Conway seemed to come to the same conclusion. Roberts wasn’t responsive, and there was nothing he could do. To linger there would simply increase the danger that he would meet the same tragic end. He snatched his rifle up and fired without bothering to move into cover. There was something almost hypnotic in the rhythmic thud of the rounds into the surprisingly tough skin of the massive creature, but the assault seemed to only enrage it, not do any real damage.
She gritted her teeth and aimed at the creature’s head and specifically for the massive eyes. They moved independently of each other, almost like a chameleon’s, as the beast tried to find a target. It seemed undecided like it couldn’t determine which of the squad members to attack now that they had all spread out.
Courtney raised the rifle slowly until she could look down the iron sights. That was how she had been taught by the man who ran the shooting range.
Before she could pull the trigger, someone else had obviously had the same idea that she had and acted on it much faster and more efficiently. Blue blood gushed from the wound as the monster emitted one last, blood-curdling roar before it dropped with a massive thud that brought two trees down with it.
Courtney turned to see who’d delivered the killing shot. Her heart sank to her stomach when she saw Wayne on his feet, his rifle posed in a cocky stance as he made a finger-gun gesture at the creature and mock-shot it again.
“Am I good?” he asked nobody in particular. “I’m good.”
She rolled her eyes as she pushed to her feet. It seemed Conway felt the same way as he jogged away from Roberts’ body.
“What are you, twelve?” he growled and made a quick visual inspection of his gun. “Quit gloating and form a defensive perimeter around the asset. Doc…” He turned to Courtney, who was on her feet by then. “It’s up to you to get what we need out of that body.”
“Who died and made you queen of the world?” Wayne snarled.
“Roberts died, moron,” Conway said and deliberately kept his voice even. “And unless you want to take a picture with your kill, I suggest you get a move on—unless you want your paycheck to be sent to your next of kin.”
It wasn’t a threat, but it wasn’t empty either. Courtney could already hear the cries from the jungle all around them. It seemed that the whole Zoo had suddenly gone from wild to savage in a split second. They had minutes before the monsters hurtled in to try to kill them. Maybe less.
“Get a move on, Doc,” Conway said. Courtney snapped out of her train of thought and let her rifle hang from the strap as she pulled some of the vacuum bags and a scalpel from her kit. She climbed quickly up the corpse of the monster.
It felt wrong. The gargantuan beast still twitched beneath her. It had been alive and full of all kinds of rage minutes before, and she felt she was desecrating a holy place. Maybe she should say some words and hope that it went somewhere where it could exist without the bother of men with guns. Maybe it did, and in that place, wherever it was, it would stand victorious.
She the thought aside and cringed as the creature’s forepaws and tail spasmed. This was the first time she’d been called upon to do something like this, but as bad as she felt about it,
she knew that she needed to move fast.
“Sorry,” she whispered and pressed her scalpel to the soft, armor-less flesh where the neck met the head. She made the incision slowly and precisely and penetrated only the skin, careful not to cut anything that was underneath.
She knew it had to smell bad and thanked whatever deity was up there that she had turned her air filters on. Blue blood drenched her suit as she found the sacs that glowed even in the indirect sunlight.
With studied care, she drew them out and sealed them into the first bag. Still working as quickly as she could, she drew out a couple more. It would be more than enough to guarantee that the whole of the team got a fat payday. Assuming they all survived, of course.
“You done, Doc?” Conway asked. The sounds of the animals around them grew louder. She had the impression that they waited to gather in greater numbers before they launched an attack, although she didn’t remember them doing that before. Maybe with the Zoo spreading so quickly, the animals had all drifted farther and farther apart.
She hopped down from the carcass and nodded. “All done here,” she said and tried to ignore the blood on her gloves as she stored the sealed sacs carefully in her kit.
“Wayne, drop the grenades,” Conway ordered. The rest of the squad seemed to accept the medic’s taking charge of the situation, and the other man did as he was told without complaint.
“Switch to motion sensors,” Wayne said as he dropped a couple of the grenades. A second ticked by before they released the odorless smoke. After months of testing, they’d finally found a way to make the smoke mask the pheromones that filled the air when the big monsters died, making it easier to get in and out with valuable sacs of blue goop. It didn’t help much when they tried to get the Pita plants out, though, since the animals seemed to react with a lot more violence and intensity when those were plucked. In addition, the plants gave the pheromones off constantly, while the monsters only discharged them once.
They cleared the area, and the animals seemed to have no interest in pursuing. Even so, Wayne dropped another one of the smoke bombs to cover their trail as they made a beeline back to the Hammerheads. It was a rapid march, but their spirits were higher now that the prospect of a decent paycheck was in sight. A few creatures crossed their paths, but they quickly moved away into the jungle before the team could open fire.
Not everyone’s spirits were high, though.
Once they reached the vehicles after hours of moving quickly through the Zoo, Conway looked in the direction from which they’d come.
“It’s shitty that we left Roberts out there,” he lamented as the teams mounted up. Courtney saw Wayne open his mouth to say something, and from the small grin on his face, she could tell that it would be less than tasteful.
To her surprise, though, the man shut his mouth again. She would have thought he was unable to keep his mouth shut, even in honor of the dead, but then again, as much as these guys had their jokes about the specialists on their teams—and women in general—they had to respect the men who had been given command over their own squads. Usually non-commissioned officers, or NCOs, these were men and women who led by example and knew how to kick ass and take names and still keep a full squad under control.
People like Sergeant Madigan Kennedy, Courtney thought with a small twist of her mouth as she scrambled into the Hammerhead. Once everyone was in, they began the slow return journey to the Staging Area.
“Look,” Conway said once they were moving, “you need to adjust your situation. Whatever contract you were pressured into signing clearly isn’t working for you and has obviously been structured to totally screw you. Since you’re a freelancer, there’s not much I can do, but if I were, you, I’d find someone you trust to go over your contract and initiate some changes. No offense.”
She laughed. “None taken. I’m not sure I have anyone in the whole of the Staging Area that I’d really trust, though.”
Well, that wasn’t true. There was one person she knew she could trust. Despite everything about him, she knew that he was honest enough. More so than anybody else she could talk to anyway, although she wondered if she allowed her personal feelings to cloud her judgment.
She did, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t right. Whether he liked her or not, she wanted him for his body. Maybe he would want her for her mind. The thought made her smile as she massaged her sore muscles absently, relieved that the run was finally over.
Chapter Five
It had been an exceptionally long day, but thankfully, it had almost drawn to a successful conclusion.
He hated being out there. Born and raised in Arizona, he’d always managed to convince himself while growing up that he’d gotten used to the dry heat of the place. But once he’d left and enjoyed the cooler climates of the Northwest, he simply couldn’t adjust to it again. The heat stuck to you like a wet blanket and wouldn’t let go. It made him feel sick and exhausted.
But there he was, out in the middle of the second largest desert in the fucking world. Well, not anymore. A jungle had begun to cover it now, but that fact hadn’t changed the weather very much. It was still hot, and it was still dry—like blow-drying your entire body at the same time.
The men guarding the helicopter caught sight of him. At first glance, he didn’t make an impressive figure at barely a hair above five feet, eleven inches, and while he put a lot of work into keeping himself fit, he was always lean rather than bulky. His red hair was cut short to the standard two inches and fully covered by the black beret he wore that adhered to the color code of his combat uniform. The black eagle on his chest did catch their eye, though, and they saluted sharply.
It wasn’t often that they had a colonel straight from the Pentagon to oversee this place and he could see why. It was a hellhole—military discipline combined with the worst of capitalism.
They had a commandant to handle that shit, thankfully. He was there to oversee the Pentagon’s projects and honestly couldn’t give a damn about the management of the place. For all he cared, it wasn’t even a military base.
An assistant in dress uniform waited for him at the helicopter. The woman kept her head down as the rotors spun loudly enough to make speech impossible. She indicated for him to step inside.
Colonel James Anderson was no stranger to helicopters, although the ones he’d boarded while in the Recon Division had been considerably larger and more suited for flying in hostile territory.
Well, this wasn’t exactly hostile territory, he supposed, but there was still more than enough shit out there that wanted him dead to dissuade him from considering it friendly territory.
He sat down and strapped himself in before he pulled the headset on. The whine of the rotors was pleasantly deafened by the sound-canceling headphones and replaced instead with the drone of the pilots performing the preflight checks. The assistant took a seat across from him and put her headset on too.
“Colonel Anderson, Team Six is ready for action on your command,” she said quickly. She’d introduced herself on his first visit there, but he’d forgotten her name already. There were far too many non-essential personnel in the place for him to keep track of.
“Give them the green light. I want them to engage the hostiles before we arrive at the construction site,” he stated over the mic and leaned back in his seat as the helicopter began to ascend. Too many bad memories had been scorched into his mind to make the sensation of take-off a pleasant experience. He ran his fingers over the burn scars on his arm and hands. The assistant, who had a lieutenant’s bars on her collar, forced herself not to stare.
The colonel was used to it. He could have had surgery to remove the ugly scars and so avoid the stares and unasked questions. It was all bullshit, and more than once, he’d caught himself wondering if it wouldn’t save time and effort to simply do it and get it out of the way.
But the scars were memorials of men and women who wouldn’t be remembered any other way. He’d rather die than give the assholes in the Senat
e the satisfaction. Let them stare. Let them remember. This was their fault. He felt the guilt and damned if he wouldn’t make sure that they felt it too.
“Comm check,” a voice said through his headset. “This is Team Six Red Squad Leader. Do you read me, Falcon, over.”
“Roger that, Red Team Leader,” Anderson said and entered the usual groove of the pre-mission rituals. “This is Falcon, reading you loud and clear. All team leaders, please respond, over.”
“Red Leader, comm check.”
“Blue Leader, comm check.”
“Green Leader, comm check.”
Each of the team leaders would take control of a four-man fire team. This wasn’t a real operation—or rather, Anderson didn’t want to justify it with that name. It was a lobbyist’s wet dream. With the companies making these new suits of armor, they wanted the best of the best to try them out before they sold them to whatever market they found the most profitable. So not only would his boys run into a camp full of illegal bounty hunters in armor that they’d only trained in for a few weeks, but they would have to give the suits up once the test was over.
So much bullshit.
“Comms confirmed, Team Six, you have a green light—repeat, green light—to engage the hostiles, over,” Anderson said and tried his best not to sound bored though he failed miserably.
Twelve of the best special forces operatives that he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting would be decked out in the finest and the latest of field suits easily worth what each of these guys made in two years. And they’d use them against a bunch of underfunded, underfed black market bounty hunters decked out in old, cheap knockoffs that had been patched together from what the second-hand retailers couldn’t use.
This whole thing was a travesty.
They would take about three hours to arrive at the hostiles’ location. Anderson sighed softly and rubbed his eyes as the sensation of the rotors spinning faster than the naked eye could see vibrated through the cabin that he rode in.