Blind Sighted: Navigator Book Two

by SD Tanner

The uncomfortably warm room, where fifteen people were lying on the floor exhausted and beyond fear, stank of sweat and shit. Their nightmare had started over two weeks earlier, when they were rushed into the storage room at the back of the supermarket. Before then, he and his sister had been hiding in an office building next door, and he wished they'd stayed there.

  Staring blankly at the people in the brightly lit room, he gently stroked his sister’s dark hair. He had her head in his lap and she was breathing in shallow gasps. When he was a young boy, he'd sat with his pet rabbit while it died. The soft fur he'd loved to stroke had become hard like drying straw, and the animal had gasped softly until it had simply stopped breathing. Cassie would die soon and he wasn't sure what he would do without her. At sixteen, he was only three years younger than his sister, but she'd been like a second mother to him.

  It had all started so well. Cassie had an apprenticeship with the bank, and she’d invited him to spend a week in the city. With her sharing a small two-bedroom apartment with an older couple, he'd slept on the floor in her room. After riding the cable car, he’d walked all over the city while he waited for her to finish work. When people had started killing one another on the streets, he'd run to her office. The people there had told them to stay in the building until the cops restored order, but they never had.

  They’d found a large conference room and blocked the door with tables. After hiding in the bank building for almost a week, everyone was tired and hungry. The meager supplies they’d brought with them hadn’t lasted long, but with the critters screeching outside the door, no one had been willing to leave. It was only when they’d seen the armored vehicles driving along the road that they’d finally found the courage to brave the long corridor outside of their room.

  When they’d met the soldiers on the street, it became clear they weren’t there to save them, and they’d been told to hide in a small room at the back of the supermarket. He and Cassie had joined fifty other people, cramming themselves into the tiny windowless room. They used a bucket surrounded by stacked cardboard boxes as a toilet, and their food was piled up in the opposite corner. Initially it had been uncomfortable, until at least thirty of them chose to leave again, and he wished they'd gone with them. After so many people had left, having enough food and water was the least of their problems.

  A woman in the room began to scream feebly, and he turned his head away trying not to watch.

  “No, no, no!”

  Several people were dragging her away from the dead body she was trying to protect. “Shush, honey, leave it, he’s dead.”

  “We’re jus’ gonna die, one by one,” she wailed pitifully

  With sweat staining her shirt and grime all over her jeans, the woman weakly tried to stop the man from pulling her away from the corpse. Every day this happened, and soon it would be his turn to watch someone he loved being absorbed. The shiny sticky goo that was covering the door, making it impossible to open, gave the room an odd glow. When the gunk had first appeared, it had oozed around the door lighting the room brightly. No one had known what it was and some were foolish enough to touch it. The goo was absorbed into their skin, and after being unconscious for a few hours, anyone who had touched it died.

  If that were the only problem, they could have tried to avoid the stuff. It wasn’t as if it moved quickly. Using plastic bags wrapped around their hands and pieces of cardboard as shovels, some of the men had tried to open the door. The goo had the consistency of wet clay, and it stuck to anything it touched like a powerful glue. Their makeshift tools were absorbed, until the goo became shiny and almost transparent again.

  With it covering the entire door, they were trapped inside the room. Originally, they’d assumed they could avoid contact with it, but it had other plans. That was the funny thing about the goo, it wasn’t smart, but it wasn’t stupid either.

  “We have to get out of here,” a woman called Lizzie said.

  “How?” A man called Mark asked.

  He pulled Cassie closer to him, and tried to distance himself from the other survivors and the goo. They’d said the same thing for nearly two weeks now and they never had a solution. When the goo had first sealed the door there were eighteen of them, but now there were only twelve of them left. With enough food and water to survive for at least another few weeks, he imagined they would all be dead before they managed to use up their supplies. The soldier’s plan for them to hide in the room had been a reasonable one, and he assumed no one had known about the goo.

  Beginning to cry, Lizzie replied miserably, “We can’t stay here.”

  Mark scooted across the floor and pulled her into a tight hug. “Something will happen. Someone will find us. You have to believe that.”

  “Why would you even think that?” She moaned quietly. “The soldiers left. They’re not coming back.”

  “You don’t know that, honey.”

  A large globule, about three-feet by two-feet, was slowly making its way across the room towards the body of the dead man. The man had been a friend of Lizzie’s and she was inconsolable after he’d died. Being dead for two days, he was already rotting and adding to the foul smell inside of the room. The corpse was lying on its back and the goo reached his feet, pulsating onto his legs. Seeming to gain energy from the contact, it stretched over his entire body, covering it in a thick layer of brightly lit mucus. Once the body was fully enclosed, the goo began to undulate, rising and falling, as if it was breathing. He could see the outline of the man underneath and the goo briefly gained a greyish color.

  Cassie hadn’t been stupid enough to touch the stuff. They’d been sleeping against the wall furthest from the door, and he’d awoken to her crying in pain. The goo had drifted along the side of the wall and she was the closest to it. People invaded by the goo generally only lived a few hours, but Cassie had been alive for two days. She wasn’t well, yet he desperately clung to the hope that maybe she’d be different. Perhaps less goo had invaded her or maybe she was able to fight it.

  “How’s she doin’, sweetheart?”

  Rhona was a big woman with a heavy chest. As soon as Cassie was invaded by the goo, it was Rhona who’d reacted quickly by wrapping a tight tourniquet around her arm just above the elbow. Cassie’s forearm was now a terrible shade of purple and her hand was deathly cold, but she was still alive.

  “Her breathing is bad.”

  With her being a qualified nurse, he trusted Rhona when she replied, “As long as we get help soon, she’ll be okay.”

  Scooching her well-padded rear across the floor, blocking his view of the almost fully absorbed man, Rhona dampened a small towel with water from a bottle. She gently wiped Cassie’s face, crooning softly to her. “There, there, sweetheart, jus’ hang on for a lil bit longer.”

  Cassie stirred slightly in his lap and his face creased with a smile. If she could still hear Rhona then she was still with him.

  “Do you think help is coming?”

  Checking Cassie’s pulse, Rhona replied with a sigh, “I don’t really know. I’m jus’ hopin’ and prayin’.”

  Jerry was sitting with his back to the wall and leaning forward, he said, “Maybe we should burn it.”

  Giving Cassie’s healthy wrist a gentle stroke, Rhona replied, “We’ve been through this. We’d suffocate.”

  “We can’t just sit here waiting to die.” Suddenly Jerry banged his fist into the wall. “Maybe we can break through the wall.” Looking up, he added hopefully, “Or maybe the ceiling.”

  Mark whispered urgently, “Cut it out.”

  Trying to pull himself closer to the wall, the goo that had consumed the man on the floor began to ooze towards him. Having lived with the nasty stuff for over a week, they’d learned it was attracted to sound and movement. Providing they talked quietly and didn’t move too quickly, it stayed motionless until it wanted to feed. The goo was awake now, and it was silently spreading itself thinly across the grey concrete floor. The storage room only contained cardboard boxes filled with pa
ckaged goods for the supermarket, and none was sturdy enough to stand on. If the goo wanted them then there was nowhere they could go to be safe.

  Rhona was sitting between him and the goo, and she whispered calmly, “Shhh, jus’ sit still, sweetheart, help will be here soon.”

  Suddenly her dark eyes opened wide and she gave a small gasp, before slowly tipping on her side until her head rested on the floor. Behind her, the goo had spread in a wide line from the dead man to her ample rear. Having watched how the others had died within hours, he knew she too would soon be gone.

  CHAPTER SIX: Who’s the boss? (Leon)

  “Aww, crap!”

  “Shit!”

  “Goddammit!”

  The hangar filled with the sound of metal on metal, as the three of them tumbled to the floor in an untidy tangle of armor-covered limbs. When the sound of creaking metal stopped, all he could hear was laughter.

  Lying flat on his back, he stared at the beams they were learning to walk on. After trying to walk one behind the other along the narrow strip above them, he, Tuck and Trigger had just fallen fifteen feet to the floor. Lexie was still standing on the beam, and flicking her lower helmet up, her peals of laughter joined the others.

  Donna’s stern voice cut across the hangar. “Get the hell up and do it again!”

  Lexie’s voice was still full of mirth when she said cheekily, “Yeah, we wanna see you do that again.”

  More laugher echoed across the hangar, and Donna said sharply, “Knock it off! I can remember a certain madam who nearly broke her neck on more than one occasion!”

  Trigger was already on his feet and held out his hand to help him from the floor. Lexie had taught them to lock the hydraulics along their legs and spine, so they could stand without using their arms. He tucked one foot near his butt, and straightened his leg and spine, feeling his body rise from the floor while he used his other leg to balance himself. In one smooth, fluid movement he was standing.

  Tuck nodded appreciatively. “Cool move, dude.”

  At least they could now walk and run in their hydraulics without falling flat on their faces. Donna and Lexie were teaching them precision movements, which meant they were learning how to balance on the beams and fall without damaging their gear. The tanks didn’t need to learn the finer movements, but Bill had convinced them they needed to become mid-level Navigators. There was only one Navigator fully skilled to use the hydraulics and advanced vision and that was Lexie.

  Lexie’s visor was different to theirs. Being blind, she took a direct feed from the orbs to her optical nerve and no translation was required. Tank’s visor allowed him to see normally, but reality was overlaid with screens highlighting basic information about what was around him. The tank visor could zoom in for up to a mile, and Tank had access to various spectrums including infrared. It was definitely an improvement, and although he didn’t want his eyes replaced with orbs, he wanted more vision than Tank had.

  The mid-level visor was a compromise between reality and Lexie’s advanced vision. Being able to see, they could always switch to reality viewing, but had access to the advanced vision. The advanced viewing meant he could see through barriers, so everything was layered on top of one another. Using the sensors in his gloves, he could flick layers out of the way or touch an object on his screen. Anything that was known about that object would be listed in a highlighted bubble around it. Being able to see through everything was confusing, and they were struggling to make sense of the enormous amount of data available to them. CaliTech’s psychologist, Sally, had told them it was more information than the human mind was meant process, but he was learning how to narrow the spectrum and distance on his visor to something he could deal with.

  The first time he’d seen a weapons summary, he’d whistled in appreciation. With this new tech, they could see an enemy up to three miles away, know what weapons they had, how much ammo, and whether their gun had been fired recently. Dunk was definitely onto something with his tech, and he wondered if the army had understood just how good it was.

  The Navigator tech was both easy and difficult to use at the same time. Getting into the gear was fairly straightforward and the way it worked was intuitive. Through his visor, he interacted with the screens by using voice command or pointing at them and sliding icons. The sensors in his gloves would relay his instructions to his onboard computers and whatever he wanted would happen. On his orders, the computer would take control of his hydraulics and move him or his weapons. If he wanted the computer to auto target specific enemies, by using the hydraulics, it would move the weapon attached to his arm, firing it with stunning accuracy. Dunk and his engineers had done a fine job of creating a fully integrated and easy to use system.

  It wasn’t the tech that was causing a problem, but how fast their brains could process all of the information. Whenever he saw a weapon on his screen, his brain had to recognize it, read and assess the summary data, and then decide what to do about it. The three of them were practicing their speed of data acquisition on simulators in the training lab, but they’d yet to gain a high enough score to be considered even close to competent. Whenever they tried to perform precision movements, like walking along the beam, their speed of processing was even slower. He’d passed all of his army training in good time to a high standard, and his inability to satisfy the simulator was frustrating him.

  Staring up at the beam, he shouted, “How do you do it, Lexie? I mean, you’re a crappy soldier, so how do you make it work?”

  Tank lumbered across the flat concrete floor towards them. “Maybe it’s because she’s such a bad soldier.”

  “Hey, assholes! I’m right here,” Lexie called indignantly.

  Ark was in the bunker in the main building listening to their training session and he said, “Tank has a point. Lexie is mindless. Maybe you guys are thinking too hard.”

  “Seriously, Ark, you’re on the grid and you just told everyone I’m mindless,” Lexie complained.

  The grid was used by anyone with security clearance to talk to the Navigators. Usually there were half a dozen or more people in the chat room and today was no exception. Lexie’s indignation was met with more laughter from the amused peanut gallery.

  “So, what you’re saying is we’re not stupid enough?” He asked.

  “Nah, you’re plenty stupid, but you’re trying to think it through step-by-step, and not allowing yourself to just react,” Ark replied.

  “That kinda reflex reaction takes practice, and practice takes time we haven’t got.”

  “Then I guess you’re gonna have to practice in theater.”

  It wasn’t optimum to learn how to master their gear in combat, but the sort of intuitive responses they needed could take months to learn and they didn’t have that long. He didn’t want to sit around CaliTech, and they’d all agreed they had a burning need to keep moving. Ark was already calling for a mission to the nest, Jo wanted them to go to the city, and Bill said they had to get into NORAD. None of this was taking him any closer to Seattle and Amelia, and he was tempted to ignore them all and head north. Everyone was just saying what he or she wanted to do and there was no single plan or leader. There were simply too many missions on the table and not enough skilled people to do them. He could see what was going wrong, but he had his own problems.

  Trigger waved his hand in front of his visor, and then pulled his helmet off taking his headset with it. Removing his own helmet, he looked at him quizzically. “What?”

  Also removing his helmet, Tuck walked across to where they were standing. Once they were together, Trigger said, “We can’t go as far as NORAD without knowing how to use this gear.”

  “I know. NORAD is a secured site and it’s a long ride to get there.”

  “Lexie will be with us, so we don’t have to use visor vision at all,” Tuck said.

  Shaking his head, he glanced up at Lexie who was still standing on the narrow beam and looking down at them. “She can’t be on visor for more than twelve hours a
nd we’ll be in enemy territory for over a week. We can’t rely on her for that long. What if something happens to her?”

  Trigger nodded. “We need more practice before we go to NORAD.”

  Shaking his head, he replied, “We haven’t got time to be training in this hangar. We need to get out there.”

  Giving him a concerned look, Tuck asked, “You wanna look for Amelia in Seattle, right?”

  With genuine sympathy, Trigger said, “Seattle was nuked, dude. There’s probably nothing left.”

  “I know, but she’s my wife and she was pregnant with my son. I have to at least try.”

  He knew the odds of finding Amelia were almost none, but he couldn’t move forward until he’d confirmed there was no chance at all. Given everything that had happened over the past three weeks, he’d learn to live with the loss providing he confirmed it was one.

  Tuck nodded. “I hear ya, but we should do some short missions first.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Trigger replied. “And we should take Lexie with us.”

  “Ark wants another recon of the nest and Jo wants to see the city. She thinks we could get a manifest of the prepper shelters that were built in this region. Bill says the only chance people have to survive is to form small cells and live in those shelters.”

  “The Kirkland air base was next to the city. Maybe we’ll find some of the troopers from there,” Tuck added.

  “How will that help?”

  “We need more combat soldiers to train as navs.”

  According to the inventory, CaliTech had nearly one thousand sets of gear ready to be used. There were four hundred engineers onsite, and two thirds of them built and maintained the gear, while the others worked on research and development. If they had more soldiers, they could create more Navigators, but they would need to find people disciplined enough to work in combat squads. Jenna and her squad of five were training as Navigators, but most of them were junior with very little actual combat experience. It was going to take a while before they were on their feet with enough confidence to fight and survive. They needed veterans, enlisted or otherwise, and the city was their best chance of finding them.