by Rick Chesler
Entirely unstoppable, DeKirk thought, smiling and licking his lips, still tasting the delicious iron-infused tang of his last meal.
He switched his gaze to Washington, where the battle was currently fiercest. Where T. rexes rampaged amidst cars and police on a congested street. Zombies climbed one of the beasts and leapt madly off its shoulders into the crowd of human defenders, and everywhere mayhem ruled. It was almost too much to take in, like watching multiple action movies simultaneously, but DeKirk’s enhanced vision absorbed detail after detail.
It was good. So perfect, this army of his. Ruthless, relentless, indefatigable. Unstoppable.
Police, National Guard, and army units were set up at intersections, firing madly into the zombie mob or aiming for the faster moving crylos, but everywhere they were overrun—flanked by other dinosaurs, dive-bombed by pteros or assaulted from within, their own members changed, now one of the enemy after close battle.
On yet another screen, DeKirk called up a real-time satellite feed of Pennsylvania Avenue. He watched with grim satisfaction as the wave of zombies, following and riding along with a pair of T. rexes, strode up the street, oblivious to the defenses, to the armored cars and tanks and turrets that cut down hundreds of undead, but eventually fell prey to overwhelming numbers and relentless, unflagging brute force.
One T. rex was shredded through with heavy fire and missing huge hunks of flesh from its side, while the other was nothing more than a bullet sponge, its muscles and sinews shot to pulp, but they both seemed unfazed, still driven by primordial bloodlust and unquenchable hunger, and an ancient need to follow instinct.
Or, in this case, instructions. Biologically coded and enhanced neural instructions.
They had their target, answering the call from DeKirk’s programming, and they in turn issued similar instructions but on a much simpler scale to all those even more mindless prion-infused hosts. The zombie humans that followed and swept along in their wake, headed toward a singular destination at the end of the avenue. With the glimmering white dome of the Capitol behind them, they headed toward the stark obelisk of the Washington Monument, rushing en masse toward…
The White House.
The defenses in that area would be the strongest, and already DeKirk saw the fleet of helicopters hovering ready, and knew there were more tanks and more teams of elite soldiers standing ready.
Ready to withstand most armies.
He smiled.
His was not most armies.
Directing his attention to another screen—captured video over the banks of the Potomac— he observed the fighting in the air. F/A-18s zipping across the sky, tangling with more agile pterodactyls that retained some base sense of self-preservation and evasiveness. Ducking and swooping, merging into forests and out and back, sweeping through the city even, leading the planes away from the open sky where their advantage was strongest.
Enough cat and mouse, DeKirk thought. Enough distraction for the planes.
His air power was needed elsewhere.
With the click of a few keys, he initiated a pulse to the neural chips embedded in the pteros’ brain stems, activating a complex biological sequence of peptides and fast-release hormonal chemicals. Their senses were stimulated and augmented, and like migratory birds, their targeting system changed and a new destination beckoned intensely.
Fly, DeKirk thought. Time to neutralize the Capitol’s air supremacy. After which the zombie horde, converging from all angles, led by the most vicious carnivores ever to walk the planet, would do the rest.
#
A few minutes, and he could watch it all unfold…
In the meantime, a check on that other metropolis he wanted to fall—and fall fast. It would be far easier to take New York, though not as satisfying at the end, but far more fun to watch.
Zombie-laden barges had burst through the blockades at four different points in Southern Jersey. Only a few crylos aboard, the bigger weapons not needed here, DeKirk had reasoned.
The congested city, the lack of defenses other than the valiant men and women of the NYPD and FDNY. They would be outmatched from the onset, and from what he could see of the various video feeds from CNN, local news and citizen video uploads, all splayed out on the next large screen, the Big Apple was rotting fast. Terror in the streets, mayhem in Times Square, Central Park in flames. People fleeing and trying to hold out in skyscrapers. That could happen, and certainly would be the last bastion of humanity…but they would soon be starved out and turn on each other or be fed upon by those outside.
DeKirk was more than patient, and when Washington had fallen and the final phase of his plan was firmly in place, he could mop up the remaining resistance at his leisure.
First, however, a blinking light on his secure line.
He pressed the button, wondering which of his lackeys was reporting in now.
“DeKirk! You have to get me! I’m on the U.N. rooftop, they’ve broken inside. You promised…”
“Hold your horses, Speaker Balsini.” DeKirk rolled his eyes. Did he really promise this spineless cretin anything? And did it even matter?
Clicking a few keys, he accessed the U.N. cameras and bypassed their cyber-security measures through the passwords Balsini had supplied him with months earlier. There it was, the rooftop camera. He pulled up the video feed and saw Balsini, looking more than a little frazzled and worse for wear, way out of his element. Tie shredded, shirt bloodied.
“Looks like you had a little scuffle. Fight break out for the last donut at another catered lunch billed to the taxpayers?”
“You know damn well what’s going on here! Thought you were going to give me a little more warning. I was in the middle of a briefing and…aggh.” The Speaker doubled over, holding his gut. Then straightened up, shaking off the pain. The sun was intense up there, and DeKirk couldn’t get a good look at Balsini’s eyes.
“Uh… could you move a little to your left? Into the shade, Speaker. If you please?”
“What?” He shuffled a little to his left, out of the direct glare. “Just get me the goddamned chopper like you promised and fly me the hell out of here.”
He winced again, then looked up and craned his neck, as if looking over the edge of the roof. “It’s madness out there.”
“Beautiful madness,” DeKirk said, taking control of the camera, leaning forward some more, tapping a few keys.
“It happened so fast. Did you know it would be that fast? I mean, dear God, from the barge landing to those…things…overrunning half the city? What the hell, man! Are you sure you can handle this, that we can control…”
“Hang on, Speaker, you’re moving too much. Stand still a second.”
“What? Why?”
DeKirk adjusted the camera again, focusing and then zooming in on a section of the Speaker’s shirt, just below the shoulder. A shredded piece of silk, and…
“There it is.”
“There what is?” Balsini jerked backwards, grunted and coughed up blood, a viscous flow down his chin. “Ugh, what the—?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker but I’m going to reroute that chopper.”
Balsini looked up, eyes in pain, reddening with flecks of yellow, but holding on to some flash of hope. He scanned the sky. “To get it here faster?”
“Sorry, but no. I thank you for your service so far, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for your service to come. Which will be in a different, much more mindless fashion.”
“What the hell do you mean? What…”
He choked, fell to his knees and tried to look down at himself, at his torn shirt.
“You’re looking a bit pale, my friend. Take a load off, have a seat. Won’t be long now.”
Balsini did as he was told. Sat with a groan, pulled his knees up to his bloody chin, and started to rock as he gazed up, without blinking now, his eyes reflecting the color of the sun.
“Will it take long?”
DeKirk licked his lips. “As you said before, and noticed so keenly, this h
appens fast. Just sit tight, you’ll be a new man soon enough.”
DeKirk clicked a button to minimize the screen while he returned his attention to the larger focus at Washington. He’d keep the U.N. rooftop view up just to witness the Speaker’s change, because no matter how many times he’d seen it before, it was still a fascinating transformation, like a caterpillar to butterfly in super speed, and every bit as symbolically perfect.
He flexed his fingers, tightened his jaw muscles and stretched his sinewy arms, still philosophizing on the comparison.
The slow and useless worm transformed into a creature of limitless power and potential.
And beauty.
20.
In the air over Washington, D.C.
Major Remington descended in formation—or what was left of his formation. Starting with six jets in the air, they were down to three. Two crashed into the Atlantic and the third slammed into one of those damned pterodactyls in mid-air, taking out both.
“Three bogies ahead!” Remington shouted, locking the targeting on one. Strafing the bird’s head with machine gun fire worked well, but so would a heat-seeking Sidewinder down its throat. Blow off its arm-like wings and it would still live, but it was going nowhere, biting no one and dropping no more payloads.
These things… He shook his head and regained his composure as his colleagues opened fire on the targets.
Damn, they were nimble. The winged reptiles arcing out of the way just in time, their hides taking some damage but not much as they rolled, ducked and split directions effortlessly. It was like trying to swat a fly in mid-air; they knew where the attack was coming from and expertly tilted just far enough out of the way.
“AIM-9s!” Remington called to the other pilots. “Take ‘em down with heat-seekers!”
If we can lock on long enough, that is. His target lock was lost already, before he could fire. He zipped over a smoking section of Fairfax and passed within visual of Reagan International Airport—where he heard all planes had been rerouted to the country’s interior, to places like Iowa or Mississippi. The streets all along the way, and wherever he could see, seemed peaceful from this level, but as soon as he dipped lower, chaos ruled.
Roads congested and bottlenecked, cars abandoned and blocking any further traffic. Some bodies lying about on the streets or lawns, but mostly…those killed had gotten back up, enlisted in the service of the opposition, minds no longer their own. Great hordes swelled into even ranks and marched with purpose, zone by zone, looking like a colony of ants from this height. Ants with a collective hive mind, serving a central authority figure, branching this way and that, racing through neighborhoods, breaking through windows, rooting out panicked and screaming residents.
Everything here was compromised, and Remington wondered how long it could be until he received an order to start firing upon the city itself? Or would they just call their forces back and send in the bigger guns from carriers at sea, or from NORAD itself?
He banked around again and ascended, mercifully giving his eyes a break and a clear view of the peaceful sky above, but only for a moment and then it was over, back to scanning for targets.
“Where the hell are they?”
“Broke formation and fled,” radioed one of his colleagues in the air. “Looks like they’re weaving around and going low, dive-bombing?”
“No more payloads,” said the third pilot. “I’ve got a visual and I’m in pursuit. Looks like they’re heading toward Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Shit,” Remington spat. “Take them out, first chance! I’m right behind you, and—look out!”
“Wha-?” The pilot couldn’t get another syllable out as a black streaking shape hurtled up from a copse of trees. A ptero that had been perched there, preparing to spring. It crunched hard into the left wing, its beak tilted so it rammed the fighter at an upward angle.
The F/A-18’s wing shattered and the entire fuselage erupted in flames and smoke. Its nose tilted and it went down—veering left, then nose-diving into a ball of fire and wreckage.
“No!” Remington and the last pilot shouted together. Fumbling for control, he tried to lock on to the ptero that had done the damage. Its wing was on fire—another good source of heat for the missile’s tracking.
“I’m locked on,” said the other pilot, who fired immediately, diving from above, and then swooping up. The injured bird hugged its wings to its body and dropped, diving toward a populated section of Pennsylvania avenue… swooping for a convoy of tanks setting up a line of defense.
Oh no, Remington thought.
The dinosaur opened its wings—one of them still smoldering—at the last second, flattened out, then rammed the lead tank, knocking it sideways.
That in itself wouldn’t have done anything, except the heat-seeking missile right on its tail impacted a moment later, erupting into an enormous fireball of carnage that took out the tank and three of its neighbors, raining searing hot wreckage on a full contingent of soldiers.
Cursing, Remington peeled out, seeking the other three pteros, but before he could locate them something in the river caught his eye. A Coast Guard vessel, valiantly bombarding the shore and a pair of crylos wreaking havoc there, was suddenly upended and capsized.
The shark-thing, Remington saw, and his fury mounted. The word mesosaur, one he’d heard in an all-too-quick briefing, flashed through his brain. Did he have time? He could surely bomb that thing and take it out, freeing up the harbor for safe entrance by reinforcements, but his orders were to protect the White House.
He zipped ahead, swerved down low, around the Washington Monument, and prepared to make another run down Pennsylvania Avenue, over the remaining fighters and resistance. He would provide air bombardment and weaken the onrushing hordes, using every missile and round at his disposal.
He checked the radar for other aircraft—F/A-18s or enemy fliers. There was Nielson, in the jet, locked in a dogfight with one of the pteros. Six Apache helicopters also entered the fray, coming in fast from the south, bringing a smile to Remington’s lips.
Good, might have time now for a little fishing…
One pass down the avenue, unleash a few missiles, and then he’d bank for the river—
A jarring impact.
NO!
Another one of those damn birds, rising from below, this time behind the cover of a building. It just clipped a tail fin, but it was enough to throw off his balance and send the altimeter spinning. He wasn’t going to make it. Couldn’t rise, couldn’t turn.
Son of a—
He could at least steer and aim down.
There…
A T.rex leading the charge.
Remington armed his missiles, all of them. Accelerated—then hit the eject button.
He never saw the impact, never got to witness what he could only have imagined was quite a stellar display of destruction of U.S. government property, an F/A-18 Super Hornet colliding with a T.rex, exploding with about 1,000 gallons of jet fuel and four armed AIM-9 missiles.
The detonation, however, lifted his seat and the blast caught his parachute, launching him backwards hundreds of yards…
… out of immediate danger, over the army’s perimeter defenses, and into the encampment fronting the White House.
He tumbled, rolling hard and painfully on his shoulders and knees but then got to his feet, running and stumbling until someone caught him and other soldiers put out the fire on his parachute.
“Nice one,” someone said, and at last he looked up and back—to the huge cloud of fiery intensity and the skeletal thing that stumbled out of it, then literally fell apart, incinerated to dust.
“Took out a damn tyrannosaurus,” another soldier said.
Remington coughed and shook his head, then pointed. “There’s another one. Pterodactyls, too. Patch me through to those Apaches before they’re surprised and taken out.”
Someone raced to comply, getting a transmitter, when Remington heard the first of the choppers.
Relief, however, turned sour fast as two of the war machines went down, attacked from flanking positions by a squadron of pteros almost as soon as they were within range.
“Goddamnit! Get me…”
More screams sounded behind him, more gunfire, and out of the smoke and fire roared the other T.rex, and the rest of the zombie horde.
21.
Alex’s mind had trouble processing how quickly and how thoroughly things had deteriorated since he was last outside. He and Veronica stood on the steps outside the CIA building watching a kaleidoscope of strife and civil mayhem. The scale of chaos was like nothing they had ever seen. Where their struggles on Adranos had been set in largely a rainforest environment against isolated contingents of zombies and a few rogue dinosaurs, here they were suddenly in the midst of a concrete jungle in seemingly endless urban disarray.
Somewhere beneath the street, a gas main had ruptured and tongues of flame shot up from the subterranean level through an open manhole cover. Downed power lines were everywhere, many sparking blue arcs of electricity where they fell. The road itself was utter bedlam with vehicles disabled and toppled on their sides making it impassable to normal traffic. There were people about, too, only in most cases, Alex saw, they weren’t really people anymore. Zombies reigned, far more numerous than the living. Worse, they seemed to be capable of more organization than the undead he’d witnessed on Adranos.
There were no more one-on-one attacks; the zombies had somehow learned to assault in coordinated fashion like pack animals—probably like some of the dinosaur species that also rioted through the streets, through an environment for which they were never intended but now roamed as if in complete control. Two zombies would converge on a victim from either side, rather than both of them plodding mindlessly at the human. The behavior was definitely new.
Alex looked at Veronica, who stood by his side, equally stunned as she took in the rampant devastation. “How far is that airfield?”