The Event Series (Book 2): The Gospel According to Matthew, Margo & Lance

by Thomas Larson

  March 7th

  We started doing the morning run and sword work again, the weather has improved and the loss of Henry was a motivator. I want my fighting edge back. I never really lost it, but the focus was not there like it was.

  Code and I were doing drills with the wooden practice swords and well, I think the frustration just snapped and we really beat each other up good. There will be bruises, and there was blood. Del finally had to put a stop to us fighting.

  Tanya has taken Henry’s slot on The Three. She is a good choice. She fills in for the common sense and compassion side that Henry brought to that group. Teckla was the muscle, Charlene was the negotiator and well Henry, was the soft side of reason.

  Deer Stew with acorn bread for dinner tonight, but it was a quiet meal.

  Code and I watched the sky tonight for a while, it was our turn. I saw some lights and just wanted to shoot the shit out of them.

  March 8th

  Alarm bell early this morning, 6ish. As we ran to the dining hall, thoughts were running wild.

  “We have gotten a radio call a few minutes ago. It was Tom’s cop friends from Winter Love. They are on their way here, should arrive very soon,” said E.

  “They are under attack and have lost some people, and some people are hurt,” added the Major.

  There was a lot of muttering, finally, “Who attacked them?” asked Matt.

  “They said it was airplanes, I think it may have been Hunter A’s,” said E.

  “But they are being pursued by Hunter G’s also” added Teckla.

  “I want me some of them,” I thought to myself as I looked over at Code, and then Del. They looked back and nodded with grim smiles, payback time bitches!

  “How long, what direction?” I asked.

  “We think they are about an hour out, coming from the North.”

  “Okay, what is the plan?” said Matt standing up, ready to head for the door.

  All eyes were on Teckla.

  “We’ll try to help them the best we can, we have to take down the A’s as quick as possible, Nick, Frank, Tay, Mark, you get those stingers ready, we only have six so make them count.”

  One of them said; “Got it”

  “Matt, you and the Huntresses go after the G’s, and if you get a shot at an A, take it. But remember, no heroics, we do what we can for them, but we take care of our own first.”

  Matt just nodded.

  “Let’s roll.”

  We all raced to get our gear and get moving. We, the 50 Cal crew figured that we would move out of camp about a half mile to the north. This gave us a cushion to intercept and also would limit the mobility of the G’s. Most likely the Winter Group would be coming down the main road to camp so we stationed ourselves figuring or hoping that the G’s would be following.

  Code was mumbling, “The G’s can’t cross the river they said, they shouldn’t be a problem they said, Crap!”

  It was about 20 minutes before the first pickup truck raced by; I could see a driver, and blood spatter on the inside on the windshield. This did not look good. I think there may have been someone in the back of the truck, but I was not sure. A couple minutes later a second truck came through, driver, only a driver and it looked like a gun barrel sticking over the back of the tailgate.

  As fast as the truck was going, the two G’s were close behind. They seemed to have a lock on the target but a metal plate behind the driver was deflecting the marbles. Whoever was in that second truck was running rear guard for the first one.

  Matt and I fired simultaneously and suddenly there were two smoking, flaming G’s in the middle of the road.

  We waited, and listened. We could hear the sounds of trucks getting softer in the distance. Then, there was nothing.

  We waited, then a whirl, it was an A. I lined up my shot. It was Code who became the first to kill an A. He took off the left wing and it crashed to the ground.

  We waited.

  Another G arrived shortly, but this one was pretty messed up, it had taken a lot of gunfire and had been unable to keep up with the other two. When the remaining Hunter reached the two that had been reduced to burning heaps, it stopped. It just went inactive.

  “Perimeter, they are here, we have the trucks. Said they had two G’s and an A in pursuit. Status?” came over the radio.

  Matt answered; “Two G’s killed, an A down, but we have a third G here, it is pretty busted up, and it just stopped when it reached the dead ones.”

  “That is weird,” it was E.

  “Yeah, it was like it just gave up.”

  “Be careful, I don’t like this.”

  “Tell me about it. Should I kill it, or can we try to capture it?”

  “Wow, good question, can you? safely?” asked E.

  In the background I heard a couple of voices “Are you nuts?, no way!”

  “Hold on, we are talking about it.”

  Code piped in, “I think we can get it safely from the left side, and if it starts to get funky we can kill it before it can hurt us.”

  Matt and Del gave him thumbs up. I was not happy with this idea.

  Code broke cover from the left and as he did so the G began to shake a little, like it was powering up, but before it could even move, a third truck from Winter Love hit it from behind and knocked it over. Its weapon was pointed harmlessly into the air.

  The guy in the SWAT suit got out of the truck and walked to the disabled Hunter, he pulled out his 45 and aimed.

  “No, we need it!” shouted Matt, but too late, bang, sensor destroyed.

  We broke cover and headed toward the truck and the SWAT guy.

  “Did anyone get through to you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, two trucks made it, not sure about numbers but two got through”, Del said.

  “We wanted that machine, we wanted to examine it” said Matt.

  “It and friends fucking killed 10 of my people, it was personal”.

  It went downhill from there, but in the end, we loaded the G up onto his truck and Matt rode back to the camp with him. Del, Code and I hung out for a little longer before we headed back. We had no further contact with Hunters or Winter Love people.

  March 9th

  By the time we got back, yesterday, it, the camp, was in an uproar. The Major and Charlene were trying to deal with the injured. Let me back up a little. In the first truck, it was driven by a woman called Langley. That truck had four people in it. One in the bed of the pick-up was alive, and had taken a hit from a marble. By some stroke of luck it had hit him in the face and only shattered a cheek bone. The other person in the back of the truck was dead. The person in the passenger seat had been trying to get a shot off through the back window and took a hit. There was nothing that could be done for him.

  Both people in the second truck made it through okay and were un-injured. Sadly, we found out that there had been two other trucks that had tried to make the run. Both had been targeted by A’s and didn’t make it. The last truck to get through was the one with a guy named LJ, he was the SWAT guy. He was sort of the rear guard, but when he stopped to try to check on the two trucks for survivors the G’s got by him. He was trying to catch up to the rest of the group. So of the group from Winter Love, only 5 made it, 5 out of 20.

  What to do next. Do we run, do we vacate the camp, or do we hunker down and wait to see what will happen? LJ and Langley wanted to know where Tom and Henry were, they knew them from when the groups had met in Winter Love. They were saddened by the loss of Henry and confused by the Tom thing.

  “Space, he went into outer space with a bunch of lizard men and that Asian chick?” said LJ, shaking his head.

  “It’s a long story” explained Teckla, “and right now, not one that needs to be told. We need information from you, and quickly.”

  “What do you mean?” asked LJ.

  “How many Hunters were there? How many A’s and how many G’s?”

  “Hunters? G’s? A’s?”

  “Robots, how many robots, groun
d type and air type” Ethan added, a little flustered.

  “Oh, I think there were 8 ground types and 4 air types. We thought that when we took out the leader it would stop.”

  “Leader? What leader?”

  “There was one, it was flying around them, it seemed like it was trying to herd them, and we figured that it was their command drone and we focused on it first, we managed to shoot it down,” said LJ with pride.

  E, with a sour look on his face said, “It was orange wasn’t it.”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  There was a collective sigh, and Teckla finally said, “That was a good guy, it was trying to save you.”

  “What?”

  E explained the differences between the different machines and what their purposes were.

  “How could we know? I, it seemed, I mean” stammered LJ.

  “I know, it is unfortunate, but I understand’” said Teckla.

  LJ was left muttering to himself. Langley took up the story about the events of the attack and what happened.

  “It was about a week ago. We had noticed the lights in the sky and wondered, we thought maybe the Air Force was back in action and was trying to make contact or help people out. We heard stuff on our radios but nothing specific. It was pretty much business as usual for us.” She began.

  “Then three days ago while they were out on a hunting party a couple of our people came across these tracks, like ah, little tank tracks in the snow. They followed them and found a machine, it was not moving, it was just there. It looked like a cross between Wall-e and a bomb disposal robot.”

  “That sounds like a G’s for sure,” exclaimed Ethan.

  “Yeah, well, we did not know that,” grunted Langley.

  “So like a bunch of assholes we took our big ATV out there and picked the fucking thing up and brought it back to our camp!” said LJ.

  “Oh, that was not good,” I thought to myself.

  Langley continued, “We left it in the middle of the camp, thought nothing of it. And then when we got up two days ago, it had moved a little, and as Timmy G walked out of his cabin, it shot him. It began to turn to another, Sarah, I think, she shouted, but it got her too. But we were aware now, and were able to shoot it, kill it.”

  “We did what we could for the two of them, but it was too late, both had taken head shots, we looked at the robot, and figured out it had that air-gun kind of thing. As we were looking at it, the air robots showed up.”

  “The A’s”, muttered Ethan.

  “Yeah, and they started to do air to ground attacks on us. We fought back the best we could, and took the orange one down first. We were able to get a couple of more of them and then made a break for it in the trucks, those of us who could.” Said LJ

  “We still had two air machines chasing us, as we drove, and about a half mile out of town we were attacked by the first of the ground machines, the Wall-e things” continued Langley.

  “The G’s” said Ethan, everyone turned toward him with a look of just be quiet.

  “Yeah, G’s, we saw 7 or 8 of them, and just drove like hell, we killed a few, and they hurt us, and in the end there were a couple of them that just would not give up, and we had nothing left to fight them with. We thought if we could make it to you it might, well, we might make it.”

  “We radioed ahead, Dave, the guy next to me, did that, I……” she choked back a sob.

  “We found you and you pretty much know the rest” said LJ.

  There were many side conversations and meetings after that. We needed a plan, just in case more Hunters showed up, and we needed to contact the Pittsburgh, and try to let them know what had happened.

  “There weren’t supposed to be G’s on this side of the Hudson, what the hell were they doing here?” Muttered Ethan, a thought we all shared.

  “Don’t know, I have to talk with someone, someone on the Sat Net” replied the Major. He had clearly stepped up into the War Chief role.

  “Lance, let’s make a phone call.”

  He, E (Lance) and Teckla headed to E’s lab. Some of us followed along but most just looked at the dead G.

  Ethan decided it would be a good idea to take it apart and see what made it tick. Maybe he could find some info on how it worked, or how to kill it more easily. Frank and Joseph decided to help and they dumped the thing onto the ground and rolled it into the garage shed to work on it.

  Once contact was made with the Pittsburgh, which was the sub we had contact with, the Major started to talk with the XO, Lt. Commander Gaines. He had a little bit of a southern accent, and seemed nice enough. The Major explained to him what had happened with the attack on the Winter Love people and the pursuit that followed.

  “Is LJ with you? I need to ask him a couple of things” said the voice on the Sat Comm.

  “Yes, I am here,” no one had noticed that he had joined us and was in the back of the room.

  “Okay, good.” Said the XO. “When you first found this thing what was it doing?”

  “Nothing, it was just sort of standing there.”

  “Were there lights going or did you see blinking?”

  “No, it was doing nothing”

  “Was it in the sunlight?”

  “Ah, no, it was under a couple of pine trees”

  “Okay, that makes sense then. It had probably run down on power and was trying to recharge, but the trees were blocking the solar panels.”

  LJ slumped, “So when we brought it back to camp…”

  “Yes, it could recharge there, in the open.”

  “Shit”, muttered LJ.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself; you didn’t know what you had. Anyway, there are some things to keep in mind about these things. The first is that they are both simple and yet complex. They have a system by which spare magazines of munitions are available to them. The canisters are located at various military bases and have homing devices that are attached to direct the Hunters to them for re-arming. You probably had some at Arsenal.”

  “We never saw any,” said Stephen, “But then we weren’t looking.”

  “Just as well, they are set up with a proximity system that in the event that a cluster of infected within a 25 foot radius they would explode, kind of acting like a Claymore Mine.”

  The Major jumped in, “What about when they are in the machine itself? Can the canisters blow-up?”

  “No, once loaded that sensor is overridden by the Hunter’s computer system.”

  “What other surprises do the Hunter’s have that we should know about?” asked the Major.

  “Well, there are several things. Wait, why do you ask? You didn’t, you don’t……Fuck…..you do!”

  “Yeah, but it is dead, I shot it in the sensor” exclaimed LJ.

  “No, no it is not dead. I mean it can’t shoot you, but you have to get rid of it, and quick. Those things have homing devices, if it is disabled it sends out a signal, it tells the other machines where it is.”

  “Get Stephen, fire up the Helo, quick!” shouted the Major.

  “On it!” Said Matt as he raced out the door.

  “Okay, that is good, just be careful, it has a self-destruct system. Don’t try to open it.”

  It was too late; before we could get to them it blew up. The garage was still standing but with small holes throughout the walls and roof. There was very little inside that was not shredded. Ethan, Frank and Larry were….. it was horrible.

  The Major filled the XO in on what had happened.

  “This is bad, I mean I am sorry for the loss of your people, but this is really bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Okay, when they started to disassemble the Hunter, it sends a kind of help me message to the other machines in the area with location. It tells them there are targets, and that it is going off line. The other Hunters then move toward the last known signal.”

  Deflated, the Major asked, “how soon?”

  “It depends on where and how many are out there, but
I would not think more than a couple of hours before you could have a shitload of them in your area.”

  “How many?” Asked the Major

  “We don’t know, we have no way of tracking them or know how many were in the area when they went rogue,” answered Gaines.

  “Suggestions?” asked the Major.

  “Well if you can find the transmitter it might be possible to relocate it, it is a small black and yellow box about the size of a deck of cards. It may trick the others to a new location, where ever you can drop it.”

  “And if not?” asked the Major.

  “Time to pack your tent and steal away into the night. Split into small groups and get the hell out of the area.”

  “Great!” said the Major.

  “Look, I will try to contact the air command and see if we can get some predators into the area, that may help, there was one in the zone, but it has gone silent. We think it may have crashed.”

  Eyes turned to LJ, who winced.

  “Okay, we have to get moving here, we have some work today, and not much time” said the Major, a look of determination on his face. I had not seen that look for a while, and it had usually been on Tom’s face. The Major had a plate full of shit, and it was dinner time.

  Orders, packing, and grieving, we had lots to do. I will catch up soon.

  March 11th

  I missed writing yesterday, but we were busy.

  While we were cleaning up the mess, and sending Frank, Joseph and Ethan to a better place Mark found the homing device, and it was quickly whisked away to the middle of the railroad bridge across the Hudson. The idea was that the G’s would get stuck in the middle of it and become an easy target with a clear line of sight from the banks. It would also expose the A’s to easy targeting as they buzzed the bridge. But the question was whether it was too late, did we move it in time.

  In the course of the day, we bugged out, well most of us did. There are 27 of us. The plan was to split into three groups and relocate near, but not too near the camp. The groups were split up between Peru, Hinsdale and Dalton. My group has Del, Code, Captain E, Mark, Michelle, Alexander, Chelsea and me. We drew Peru as our relocation point. Dalton would be the new home of Nick, Grace, Matt, Tanya, Tay, Fred, Jan, and the Winter Love survivors, LJ, Langley, Paula, Rick and Bernie.