“Isn’t that why you’re here? For a story? I should tell you I’m currently out of a job since the government just saw fit to close down the Post.”
“We heard,” Ollie told her. “But we’re not here to be your contacts. We each have something the other needs. I read your exposé on Sentinel. I gotta say, that was some ballsy stuff.”
“Maybe, but look where it got me.”
“Darling, you and your lot were heading into the dustbin anyway. You merely sped the process up a little.”
She stared into his dark eyes and saw he was dead serious.
“Dissenting voices make it far too difficult to run an authoritarian regime,” he told her. He aimed a finger in the air. “Given what we’re up against, it should come as no surprise that’s the direction the world is heading in. When times are scary, people yearn for safety, security, often at any cost. By the time the threat is over, it’s often too late.”
“So President Myers is a dictator? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not quite. He’s just a patsy. Sentinel’s the real power behind the throne. And like most groups with a radical goal, there’s actually some logic to it. I should know. I was one of them once. But somewhere along the way that goal became secondary to the thirst for power they needed to realize their vision. Sentinel wants to save humanity. There’s no blaming them for that. But the way they’re going about it will certainly make our fate so much worse.”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” she said.
Ollie nodded. “It took me a hell of a long time to understand that.”
“You’re a crusader,” Kay said, sizing him up. “Battling anyone and anything for what you believe.”
Ollie smiled, liking where she was going with this.
“But you also have a weakness,” she went on. “How do you know you’re on the right side?”
“You’re a smart Sheila,” he said, grinning. “I’ve made mistakes in the past, I won’t lie. Even Sven here’s mucked things up a time or two.”
“So now you’re trying to stop Sentinel,” Kay said, cutting to the chase.
“That’s the idea.”
“But how do you know they aren’t really the good guys? Maybe you’ve been hoodwinked again?”
Ollie nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Here’s how I know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rolled-up sheaf of papers and handed them to her.
“What is this?”
“Go ahead and read it.”
Kay did so. Blazoned across the top was the Homeland Security letterhead. Beneath that were rows and rows of names. A paragraph at the top identified them as dissidents and ordered the local authorities to round them up for detainment and processing. Kay ran a trembling finger down the list until she came to three she knew all too well: Felix, Thereze and Kayza Mahoro.
“I heard about this, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Well, believe it,” Ollie said, handing her another piece of paper. This one was an email from a Dr. Alan Salzburg to President Myers. The two documents were nearly identical.
“Myers is taking orders from Dr. Salzburg,” Ollie explained. “And Salzburg heads Sentinel. Which effectively means Sentinel is in control of the United States. They’ve erected what they call correction camps for troublemakers. They can call them anything they want, but you and I both know what these really are.”
“Concentration camps,” Kay whispered. She had to curl her right hand into a ball to stop it from shaking.
“Trust me,” Ollie said, sarcastically. “It gets better. They built these camps at low elevations all along America’s East Coast.”
“Why not inland where they could keep it secret like they did during World War II?” Kay asked.
“Great question and the answer is simple. That ship is expected to slam into the ocean right off the coast of Newfoundland. Beautiful place, by the way, but it’ll be vaporized in an instant. The resulting impact will cause a massive tsunami that will flood most of the east coast, killing the tens of thousands of dissidents imprisoned in the various camps. So you asked me how I knew I was on the right side. That’s how.”
“What can I do about any of this?” Kay asked, struggling to hold it together. “I can’t even get the cops to go collect my fiancé’s dead body.”
Ollie’s face changed. “I’m sorry about your bloke, I really am. From what I could tell, he was a standup guy. But don’t worry, Sven here had a few members of our group take care of him.”
“Really? How did you know?”
“We’ve been looking for you. You’re not an easy woman to find, Kay.”
The smile on her lips held little joy. “I’ve been told. So what can I do?”
“Help us get the word out, for starters.”
She shook her head. “Didn’t you hear? The Post was shut down, along with a bunch of other news organizations.”
“That’s right,” Ollie conceded. “Although shut down is not entirely accurate. They’ve been taken over and will be rebranded as propaganda machines to only disseminate Sentinel’s point of view. Most of your colleagues who wouldn’t go along chose to quit. The ones who raised a stink were put on a list and shipped off. But for as long as the internet’s still running,” Ollie said, taking her by the hand, “there will be folks eager to find out what’s going on. You’re one of the few who knows and has the reputation to convince them.”
“You want me to start a blog or something?”
“That’s a good start.”
“But what will stop the authorities from tracking me down and sending me away?”
“Kinda hard to catch someone if they don’t stay in one place,” he told her.
She regarded him quizzically.
“That’s right, you’ll come with us. Besides, we have someone who can bounce your IP through so many countries Sentinel will think you’re a bloody kangaroo.”
Kay pulled her hand from Ollie’s grasp. “Maybe whoever got you these documents can also find out where my parents are being held. You agree to free them and I’ll help you with whatever you want.”
“What you’re asking is dangerous.”
Kay folded her arms, staring into his eyes with stark determination.
A few tense moments went by before Ollie sighed. “Okay, we’ll do it.”
“By we you mean you and Sven, right?”
Ollie shook his head. “If you want your parents sprung, then you’re coming with us. There’s just one quick thing we need to do first.”
“Oh, really, and what is that?” Kay asked, not liking the sound of that.
The dimpled grin filled Ollie’s face. “Prevent the launch of a nuclear missile.”
Chapter 19
47 hours, 11 minutes, 03 seconds
Mia increased the brightness on her helmet light as she traced the vines growing along the walls.
“I’m not sure why I didn’t see this earlier,” she said to Jack over the radio, clear excitement in her voice.
Jack was kneeling down, studying something on the ground. He got up and came over. So too did Anna.
“What is it, Dr. Ward?” Anna asked.
“Take a look at the direction these roots are growing in,” she said, drawing a line with both index fingers from the center of the chamber toward the arched doorway. “Do you see anything unusual?”
“There are no cracks in the foundation,” Jack said. “I mean, this place looks like it’s sat abandoned a long time, but apart from the tangle of jungle plants, the structure itself appears to be completely intact.”
“I believe what Dr. Ward is getting at,” Anna interjected, “is that all of the vines appear to be heading in the same direction.”
“That’s right. And when you trace them back to their source…”
“They lead directly to the canisters,” he said, completing her thought. “Are you suggesting at one time this was some sort of plant farm?”
She nodded. “I’m suggesting that, one tim
e, this room was used to grow and house vegetation and that for some reason, something went wrong and the plants got out.”
“You make it sound like they escaped,” Stokes said, sneering.
Anna spoke up, eager for clarification. “Is it your hypothesis that the plant life from this chamber is responsible for giving rise to the jungle outside?”
“I’m suggesting it’s possible,” Mia said, leaning back. “But what doesn’t make sense is why anyone would do such a thing. We’re missing an important piece of the puzzle, I can feel it.” Between two thick yellow vines at her feet, Mia noticed a patch of moist earth. She dug her gloved fingers in as deep as they would go, curled them into a hook and pulled up a series of smaller roots, over twenty in all.
“There are plenty more down there,” she said.
“What are they?” Jack asked, moving in for a closer look.
Anna ran a laser over the shriveled strands in Mia’s hand. “They are the remnants of older vines,” she said. “But the stuff that looks like soil is nothing more than the composted remains from ages past.”
“So you’re saying these things have been growing down here for thousands of years,” Jack inferred.
Mia looked over at one of the shattered transparent cases. “Maybe even longer than that. The being who destroyed this plant nursery or greenhouse or whatever the heck it was must have done so a very long time ago.” She thought at once of the bones they’d found. “Do you think the Mesonyx people could have done it?” she wondered aloud.
Jack nodded, the light inside his helmet illuminating lips pursed in thought. “It’s possible, but why would they vandalize the place?”
“What if the structure around the portal wasn’t a shrine?” she said. “What if it was meant to be a barrier?”
Just then Kerr’s agitated voice cut in. “Sergeant Stokes, I think you guys better cut it short and get back up here.”
“Something wrong?” Stokes asked, the tiniest hint of concern audible in his otherwise steady voice.
“Peterson saw something in the bush and went to investigate. We tried raising him on the radio and he’s not answering.”
“Be right there,” Stokes replied. “Okay, folks, time to leave. Pack up your gear, we can always come back later.”
They did as he suggested and hurried out of the chamber and up the vine-covered staircase.
“Peterson, do you read me?” Stokes called out over the radio. They waited several agonizing seconds with no reply.
“We already tried that, Sarge,” Diaz told him, wide-eyed. “He’s not calling back, I think he might have fallen down a hole or something.”
“Which way did he go?” Stokes asked.
Kerr aimed a finger toward a gap in the brush. “He went that way.”
“All right, let’s all spread out five yards apart and head in that direction.”
They did so, calling Peterson’s name over the radio as they went. Mia’s pulse was scampering in her chest as they crossed the difficult terrain. She had seen the video of the large creature Jack had filmed his first time here. If a creature like that was walking around, there was no telling what else might be lurking about. They moved up a rise, all the while heading deeper into the jungle. Fingers of alien sunlight streamed down through narrow gaps in the canopy high above. Near the treetops, tiny red wisps danced about in a dazzling acrobatic display. To Mia’s right, Ivan rumbled along, avoiding only the largest of trees. Anything smaller he simply crushed under his tank treads.
Mia’s audio sensors relayed the buzzing of Anna’s drones circling nearby. If Peterson was close, they were sure to find him. As if on cue, Stokes ordered them to stop and to get down.
Jack swung his rifle around. Ivan circled back noisily, aiming for a spot next to Stokes.
“Dammit, Yuri, will you tell that shit-for-brains robot of yours to stay put!”
Yuri gave Ivan the order.
“Affirmative,” came Ivan’s reply as he skidded to a stop five feet behind the sergeant’s crouched form. With red flickering eyes, Ivan scanned the terrain before them.
They were standing on the small rise, overlooking a depression in the landscape where the foliage wasn’t nearly as dense.
“I think I see Peterson,” Stokes said in a hushed, deliberate voice over the radio. He didn’t need to whisper, but the fact that he did told Mia the news wasn’t good.
“One o’clock, next to the base of the red palm tree,” Stokes said. Of course, it wasn’t a palm, but who could be picky at a time like this?
“There ain’t nothing left but a pair of legs,” Kerr cried, fighting to stay cool.
“Where’s the rest of…?” Jack started to ask when they saw Peterson’s legs get lifted three feet off the ground before crashing back down like the bottom half of a discarded child’s toy.
The something else came into view and the question was no longer where the rest of him had gone, but what was the creature with the blood-soaked mouth hovering over him? It made a low gurgling sound and surveyed the area before returning to its meal.
Two of the creature’s six top-jointed legs were clasped onto Peterson’s corpse while the remaining four were used to brace its three-hundred-pound frame. The creature’s neck was long, its head a narrow tube studded with rows of eyes and punctuated at the tip with a circular array of sharpened teeth. Its flesh was shiny and grey and vacuum-sealed over an assortment of protruding bones.
From where they stood, it was a twisted cross between a house centipede and an anteater. For terrifying seconds they watched as the creature shoved its tubular head into the mess of Peterson’s remains, coming out time and again with chunks of the man’s flesh.
“That’s no way for any soldier to die,” Stokes said, pressing the glass of his helmet against the scope of his M4. He squeezed the trigger four times in rapid succession, hitting the creature with every shot. It stumbled back with surprise, emitting a loud cry of what Mia could only guess was pain. But then it leapt back onto those six spindly legs and charged at them.
Stokes continued firing as it drew closer, the creature picking up momentum as it darted through the heavy undergrowth, making it difficult to land a good shot. The remaining Delta Force men opened up a second later, bullets cutting narrow saplings in two, spraying the air with a strange milky secretion. Some of their shots were landing, but the creature wasn’t going down. By the time it was twenty feet away, Mia leapt to her feet in concern. And when it cut that distance down to five feet, dread began to surge through every fiber of her being. The thing that had killed Peterson was going to take Stokes out and maybe the rest of them too. In slow motion, Mia watched that crown of razor-sharp teeth widen as it came in for the kill, its body pockmarked with holes where the soldiers’ bullets had riddled it. The beast was three feet away, Stokes only now rising to his feet, no doubt certain these were the last few moments he would be alive.
Suddenly the animal was stopped abruptly in its tracks. It let out a shrill, strangled screech, the only sound it could manage with Ivan’s heavy pincers closed around its neck. The robot’s arm rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, breaking the creature’s neck with a loud snap.
Frozen, Stokes watched the beast’s limp body fall to the ground in a heap. Ivan hovered over it, the sensors from his eyes sweeping over its corpse.
“What the hell was that thing?” Kerr asked.
Diaz secured Peterson’s weapon. “He never fired a shot,” he said, his voice thick with fear. “Must have been stalking him.”
Nobody responded. Not because they didn’t want to. But because they either were still too stunned by what had just happened, or simply didn’t have an answer.
“Stalkers,” Dag said. “That sounds like as good a name as any.”
“Dr. Greer,” Anna said. “My long-range scanners have detected a distant sound very much like the one emitted by the alien life form we just terminated.”
Stokes looked over, concern in his normally stoic eyes. “How far?”
“It is difficult to tell. I can send one of my drones higher and have it search for movement through the underbrush.”
“Do it,” Jack said.
Stokes turned to two of his men. “Grab what’s left of Peterson. Wrap him up in a giant leaf if you have to, but double-time it. We best be booking it out of here before the rest of those things show up looking for another snack.”
Chapter 20
45 hours, 12 minutes, 36 seconds
The visible light was already starting to fade.
“That’s just what we need,” Dag said, expressing the thought lingering on everyone’s mind.
One soldier was dead and they were now running from a pack of flesh-hungry Stalkers. Now the prospect of trekking through an alien jungle at night felt like a thick layer of icing on a proverbial shit sandwich. They switched on their helmet lights, Jack growing certain that if the local wildlife hadn’t been aware of their presence, they soon would be.
Within a matter of minutes, the fading light had turned to total darkness.
“That sun sure went down fast,” Stokes said, navigating a tricky bit of footwork as they descended a rocky hill.
“It means the planet we’re on is likely spinning much quicker than Earth,” Jack replied, breathing heavily from the exertion. “If a day on Earth lasts twenty-four hours, then a day here is only half or a third that long.”
“Dr. Greer,” Anna said, crossing the rough terrain with ease. “I should let you know I have lost connection to the drone that was monitoring the creatures pursuing us.”
“How so?”
“I am not certain. It appears to have collided with something.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Ivan, hurry up,” Yuri shouted impatiently. “No, not straight through, go around.”
The tank treads let out a high-pitched whining sound.
“What do you mean you’re stuck?” the Russian said, his voice dry with exasperation and growing fear.
Stokes cursed. “If that tin can hadn’t saved my life I’d be just as happy to leave it behind. Kerr, head back and see if you can help Yuri free it. But don’t hang around forever.”
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 61