The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit

by Michael Anderle

  Moments later, the bridge door opened, and Terry, hair messed up and tucking a shirt in, asked, “What do we have?”

  “No idea, yet,” Robert said and pulled the goggles away from his face. “But those two left the ship and I’ll be damned if I can even see them. Are they even warm blooded?” Robert chuckled. “It’s as if they disappear in the night or something.” He put the goggles back to his face and continued looking when a voice came in on his own team’s line.

  “Contact, south avenue, two vehicles, one sedan, one old Toyota filled to the brim with troublemakers.”

  Terry pulled up his own light amplification binoculars and turned in the direction Robert was looking. “Well, get the guys ready to repel boarders, permission granted for live ammo.”

  “I wonder what our aces are going to do?” Robert asked as he relayed Terry’s commands.

  —

  Samual, south side. Richard sent to his friend.

  Moments later, a figure dressed in black jumped to Richard’s roof from across the street and jogged over, his feet crunching. “Do we have something to do?” Samual asked as he came up beside him and looked over the side of the building.

  “Yes, I think this time this is something we should probably take care of ourselves. The ship’s team is breaking out live ammunition, so I don’t want to be downrange when they unleash. That shit hurts.”

  “Well, the idiots are coming up this street, it isn’t like we couldn’t take out those two street lights and have some fun.” Samual agreed.

  “You know, I’m just still pissed,” Richard said. “I don’t have much fun in me at the moment.”

  “Oh, really?” Samual asked. “So, Auran is still at the surface?”

  Richard nodded.

  “Well then, it’s all going to be fun,” Samual said, his eyes going red, his voice a little deeper. “Just a different type of fun, old friend.”

  Richard turned to his friend, his eyes blazing red. “Yes, there are no victims tonight,” he agreed as he reached down to grab some pebbles from the rooftop.

  —

  “Shit!” Robert exclaimed. The two lights on the street blew out, and he would swear he saw two figures drop from the top of the two-story tall buildings next to the road.

  That’s when the chaos started.

  “We have fire, we have fire!” Victor called out over the radio. Gunshots and screams began to reach the ears of the men on the boat. Terry and Robert both stepped out of the bridge to hear what they could, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “Fuck me.” Terry breathed. “Did you see a Toyota get thrown into a building?”

  “See it, yes.” Robert said, eyes glued to his binoculars. “Believe it? No.”

  —

  Richard tossed two small pebbles, breaking both lights, dropping the road into darkness except for the headlights of the small Toyota truck and old brown Ford sedan in front of it. He stepped off the building right behind Samual, flexing his legs to drop almost silently to the street.

  He saw Samual walking at an angle to the first car and casually kick out, his foot slamming into the driver’s quarter panel which caused the car to turn violently and ram into the building to their left. The Toyota in the back then caught Samual in their headlights and slammed on the brakes.

  Richard walked quickly up to the Toyota and smiled maliciously.

  —

  Santiago was driving Mateo’s beat up old Toyota. Since Mateo was stuck in jail after the latest police crackdown, he wouldn’t be using it tonight. He and his people needed money to get weapons again after the last raid by the cops, and this looked like it was going to be an easy hit.

  None of the guys were wearing any clothes or gang symbols that would point back to them, as the cops were getting smart with videos and images and even hiding in the slums wasn’t working as it did years before.

  “Dammit!” he elbowed George. “Keep your elbows to yourself, I got to drive.”

  “Like that’s so hard?” George grunted. “Following Miguel and shit,” he moved his elbow anyway.

  Both streetlights sparked then shattered. A second later the car taillights in front of them jerked violently to the right. It skidded into a building and then Santiago slammed on the brakes as a figure appeared in his headlights.

  “What the fuck?” Santiago heard from a couple of guys holding on in the back and a couple of pistol shots from the car in front before the screaming started. Then they saw another figure walk into their headlights, his eyes glowing red, and teeth, vampire teeth, prominent in his smile.

  “Jesus, Mary and the Holy Ghost,” George said as the man grabbed the front of the Toyota and Santiago could hear those in the back stumbling and jumping out of the bed of the truck. Time seemed to go in slow motion as the man twisted and the truck was instantly flipping, the street turning round and round and then a massive concussive slam as they hit a building, quiet reigning for a moment as they got their wits about them.

  “Santiago,” George rasped as he looked over at his friend, only to see that half of his body was lost under the truck, laying on its side. “Oh… God!” he mumbled when the screech of the other door being torn off assailed his ears.

  —

  “Sir, what the fuck is going on?” Robert heard from Craig over the line.

  Robert clicked the mic. “Our protective detail has intervened, everyone stay frosty,” Robert replied.

  Thomas jumped on the channel. “I thought we were the protective detail?”

  “Apparently,” Robert said, “Terry’s ace in the hole decided to save us the trouble of shooting a lot of people.”

  Screams shattered the night, the occasional gunshot punctuating the cries of the wounded.

  “Sir,” Victor called in. “Did you have an itch?”

  Robert clicked the button. “Affirmative, guys.”

  “Well, we are fucked,” Victor said and then added, “again,” to a lot of laughter on the line.

  Terry, still watching to see what he could see through his binoculars smirked, “Well, at least they still have their sense of humor.”

  —

  The strobing lights of the police and medical vehicles flashed around the walls as the cop Inspector Gutierrez had sent to the ship walked back and reported in. “Sorry, sir. They say they were all on the ship when saw the headlights. Then, all hell broke loose with screams and gunfire and lights going every which direction.” He held up a small USB drive. “They gave us the video that was aimed in this direction.”

  “Anything special on it?” Inspector Gutierrez asked.

  “Only one thing they didn’t mention, sir.” The cop said, “I can hear those in the fight are screaming a name when it all goes down.”

  “Well?” the Inspector asked as he accepted the USB drive.

  “They are screaming ‘O Diablo,’ sir,” the cop answered, as he looked around at all of the dead.

  —

  Richard watched and listened to the police from three buildings away, Samual was watching from the building on the other side of the street. Richard spoke softly but loud enough for Samual. “O Diablo?” he chuckled. “If only Gabrielle would give us a few weeks in the slums, I’d give them O Diablo.”

  “It was fun,” Samual said. “Perhaps we were growing too sedentary in Australia.”

  “Did you heal yet?” Richard asked. “Bad luck taking that last shot.”

  “The little prick was playing dead and shot me when I turned him over,” Samual bitched. “I can’t believe I fell for that trick. Promise me you won’t tell Gabrielle?”

  “I’m not telling her anything. Especially not that I saw you drop the little prick’s body off the pier after you took payment for shooting you.”

  “Oh,” Samual answered, “I thought I was sneaky.”

  “Samual, I’ve been with you hundreds of years, I don’t believe that you can be sneaky around me.”

  “Bah,” he replied. “I’ll have you know I’ve fooled you plenty of times.”


  “Like when?” Richard asked, watching medics pick up a couple of arms and drop them on the body they belonged to. Richard wondered if they would find the head. He remembered kicking it off, but not where it went.

  “I can’t tell you, or you’ll figure out how I accomplished it,” Samual said.

  “El Diablo,” Richard laughed again. “God, that’s priceless.”

  —

  Robert’s team, except for Frederick who was up top keeping watch on the police, joined Terry and him in the team’s meeting room. Everyone on the ship had seen what was going on, but most of them thought it was some gang on gang violence that happened to have been close.

  Terry looked around the table at all of the men. “I’m going to ask, but not require, you stay as mum about this as you can.”

  When you hire a bunch of guys who get assigned to agencies with acronyms, you take your chances, Terry thought.

  “Two guys are with us, their names are Richard and Samual, and they were the two guys who had a field day out there,” he nodded in the general direction of the docks. “They’re on loan here because we’re getting more attention than we should be getting.”

  “I’ll say this again,” Thomas said, “not that I’m complaining, as it might have been a pain to go through the police discussions about us shooting everyone, but I thought we were the protection detail?”

  “You are, or should be,” Terry amended. “After the incident in Germany, I reached out to the same people that helped us in the sandpit to see if they had anything they might be able to provide.”

  “Oh… goody,” Craig said.

  “Hey, just be glad they’re on our side,” Robert interjected.

  “Hey,” Craig said, putting up his hand. “I got nothing against them. We’d all be six feet under without their help with ISIS, so I’m good there. It just means that we’re probably on to something and anything we find is going to get lost in transit.”

  “No,” Terry told them. “All that stuff was returned, eventually,” he qualified. “Melissa says it got back to her after a week.”

  “So, they probably went through it and made sure nothing was relevant and gave it back,” Craig finished.

  “Might have been the price for saving our lives,” Terry shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve heard screams before,” Victor said. “Those men saw monsters out there.”

  “The police officer,” Robert said, “says not one person was left alive. Most had been torn apart or had major slashes across their bodies and bled out. Like something a monster would do.” He looked around. “Just remember these monsters are OUR monsters and be polite.”

  “Fuck yeah, be polite,” Charlie laughed. “Because I don’t care what anyone else says. Every time I’m involved with TQB those motherfuckers get scarier and scarier.”

  Every man sitting knocked twice on the table, affirming their agreement with Charlie.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TarHunt Protection Services, Kentucky, USA

  “Section one, move to channel Alpha Alpha Seven and report,” night watch leader Ryan Burrow called into his microphone as he punched in the new channel for his second set of speakers.

  “Terri here, clear outside building three, base,” a feminine voice came over the speaker.

  “Roger, Terri.” Ryan checked off the task. “Clear.”

  Ryan did this again for five more sets of outside perimeter guards watching the main building Ryan was in as well as the two other buildings. One outside building was temporary quarters for those staying less than two weeks, and the other was for meetings with external contacts.

  No one outside of the company was allowed inside the headquarters itself unless they were with upper management, and that was very rare.

  Ryan’s video system hit sixty different locations within the main building and ten inside the other two. Personally, none of the guards much cared about the two outside buildings. If something happened there, it was treated as a nuisance.

  Inside this building? That would be a problem.

  —

  Tabitha and her guys got ready in the same room. They helped her make sure her weapons were strapped on properly.

  Ryu was selected as her backup and would carry a backpack with the electronic equipment she would need to hack the system. Hirotoshi was with Katsu, who was Tabitha’s hacking backup. They all had electronic devices Team BMW had built especially for her team.

  Small computers with Etheric communications to ArchAngel and ADAM, with the special E.I. that the two had pulled together for Tabitha.

  Named Achronyx, it was a specially programmed subset of ArchAngel running off of hardware presently staged on ArchAngel. Eventually, it would reside in the ship being designed for Tabitha’s team. The Etheric connection stopped the tablet’s signals from being discovered but allowed Achronyx the option to sniff and subvert the surrounding assets if possible.

  Usually through poor Wi-Fi as a first choice. Then, through other means as available.

  “Ranger Team 2 to Pod bay, Ranger Team 2 to Pod bay,” ArchAngel’s voice announced.

  Tabitha and her team silently left the compartment.

  Minutes later, they had boarded one of the larger Pods and were strapped in. “Take us down,” Tabitha said, and the video screens showed their Pod lifting off the floor and heading out of the ArchAngel. Soon, the Earth was in front of them, and they were on their way.

  —

  The black Pod stayed up half a mile as the team watched the heat signatures walk the grounds beneath them.

  “Here, here and here,” Hirotoshi said, pointing to three locations. “They are uncovered at all times.”

  It had taken fifteen minutes for the micro-drones to settle in and locate most of the external security sensors.

  “That’s because,” Tabitha hit a couple of buttons to pull up the heat sensors, “they’re trusting the motion and heat sensors in those areas, and the walls have no entrances.” She hit a couple more buttons, zooming in on the roof. “I don’t see any options dropping on the roof, either.”

  Kouki spoke up, “Why not just hit them hard, take down the humans and power our way in?”

  “We’re trying to leave people alive. These guys aren’t bad, they’re just in between us and the information that I need,” Tabitha answered. “We can’t be the good guys if we do a lot of bad things to innocent people.”

  “I didn’t mean kill them, Kimosabe. I meant render them unconscious,” he clarified.

  “Oh,” Tabitha turned and looked at the vampire. “I’m sorry, I’m so used to everything being black or white.”

  Kouki shrugged. “We are just as capable of rendering senseless.”

  Tabitha turned to Hirotoshi. “What’s the downside to Kouki’s suggestion?”

  “I would think video,” Ryu said, and Hirotoshi nodded.

  “This place is over fifteen miles in the middle of nowhere,” Tabitha said.

  “I thought they were in Kentucky?” Shin asked.

  “Ask most people, and they will tell you that this is nowhere. Well, except for the fine people of Kentucky, I’m sure,” she added and played with the controls again. “Achronyx, I need information about the power supply coming into this set of buildings.”

  “Do you want to include local power sources, or strictly those arriving from external locations?” the EI asked.

  “Both.”

  A solid line came into the camp from the west, and a portion behind the main building was highlighted.

  “Send a drone around the back of the building, I need to see what that looks like.” Down below, a small insect, the size of a fly, sped around, heading towards the large building and then around the side to hover above a large metal skid. It had a rectangular half and a circular half.

  “That half,” Tabitha pointed to the side with the large pipe jutting out of the other side, “is the momentum device to provide quality electricity to the computers inside. The power is going to come into thi
s device, get cleaned up, and then go into the building. If the electricity dies, the momentum of the massive weight spins enough to keep the power going. Then, they probably have additional batteries inside to maintain the power at least a few hours in case they run out of diesel.”

  “We need the power, or we can’t use the computers,” Katsu commented.