Cole departed, heading for the mess hall, and Alec decided to return to his room, gather a few things, and prepare to leave.
The aliens’ ship was intimidating as always. They’d already gone over the drones’ programming instructions the day before, and Alec found Whittaker sitting at the ramp to the entrance, chewing on a long piece of grass.
Zhao was there with Izzy beside him, arguing with the girl, and she met Alec’s gaze, smiling knowingly as he approached. “Would you tell my dad to relax, Mason?”
“What’s the problem?” Alec asked.
“The problem is Isabelle thinks she’s going with you to Spain.” Zhao seemed older, his gray hair nearly white.
“She is coming, Zhao. We already established that.” Alec started up the ramp. Inside, he found Soares and Cole waiting for him, along with Renata and Becca. Bailey sat there, smiling at the altercation.
Zhao was right behind him. “Mason, we’re not done here.”
“Look… Gregory.” Alec saw the clench of the man’s jaw, and he decided he might have been overstepping the boundaries, so he changed his tone, making it more amiable. “This mission is imperative, and Izzy’s a good shot and a smart woman. We already have feet on the street in Spain with Sylvie, and Jack is ready to join us at a moment’s notice. We have insight from Dex, and a submarine heading to Shanghai. We’re doing this.”
“Dad, just make sure you get everyone into hiding that you can, okay? Do what you do best, which is protecting us.” She stood on her toes, kissing her father on the cheek. His shoulders slackened, and he nodded, walking away muttering something about Tom and the trouble he always brought.
Becca hopped off her chair and gave Izzy then Alec a hug. “Sorry I’m not coming, but you have Whittaker. I’ll be ready to fly the other ship on your word.”
Their secondary team consisted of Lisa from the Cripple Creek facility, Becca, Renata, and a few of the Freeborn warriors, along with Scott the ex-cop from Phoenix. Alec was pleased with their second string and wondered if it might actually be their best team. If they didn’t survive Spain, the others would have to be strong and prepare for battle.
“Okay, everyone not coming with us, I’m asking you to leave,” Soares said loudly, and Becca walked past the old man Whittaker as he climbed the ramp slowly.
“Shouldn’ta drank that many moonshines last night.” Whittaker stumbled, and Alec caught him.
“I hope you’re joking,” Alec told him.
“Fine. I shoulda drank more.” The pilot sauntered toward the bridge.
The ramp lifted, and Izzy waved to her father on the ground below, and Alec’s heart raced as the ship rumbled to life. They were so loud, that for a moment, doubts crept into his mind. How could they fly all the way to Wisconsin, then to Spain without being tracked? They’d used the weapons a few times, but could they compete if there was a real defense against them?
“It’ll be fine.” Izzy’s voice was quiet, comforting, and he nodded.
“Thanks.” He walked down the ship, past the room lined with inactive drones, and toward the bridge where Whittaker was sitting in the modified pilot’s seat.
“First stop, Wisconsin, show the lady yer ticket stubs.” He pulled on a lever, grinning like a mad man as they lifted off the ground.
Alec wondered if he’d ever see this place again, and guessed that he wouldn’t.
Dex
A full day and a half after arriving in Florida hadn’t given them any real answers, other than the fact that a group of Reclaimers had indeed lived in Jacksonville. The aliens were ramped up, these ones larger and more muscular than the complacent ones Dex was used to. They took charge, leaving even Hansen out of any decisions, and seemed somehow livelier, making Dex suspect these were reinforcements fresh through the Gateway.
It was clear Hansen was nervous, his cronies sensing it. They’d started out the trip with jocular remarks, making fun of one another, and talking about all the terrible things they were going to do to the vermin once they caught them. Dex hated his crew with every ounce of his soul.
He’d known so many men like them in his life—hell, he’d been a sick version of them for most of it—but even after everything, these guys still clung to a belief that they were doing themselves a favor by siding with the aliens.
Dex wondered how tough it would be to convince them now that the aliens were bad, and that they could overpower these four. Watching the Overseers here, Dex had a new disdain for them. If the Overseers had an army like this out there, the humans were in real trouble.
The facility was inland some distance, along an inlet, so there was still water beside it. A large dock sat behind the building, and Dex assumed it had been used to haul goods by boat from the car parts distributor. A red and white logo was etched on a sign jammed into the concrete, the words long ago faded from years of direct sunlight.
“How many times are we going to walk around this building?” Dex asked Hansen.
“As many times as they want.” Hansen had taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and showed that he was sweating through the white shirt. His tie was long ago removed, and Dex had never seen the scarred man so flustered.
They entered the warehouse again. It was lined with beds on the right side, built into the shelving racks. There had to be at least a hundred of them staying there. “How close was the nearest Occupation facility to here?” Dex asked.
Hansen frowned. “About fifty miles. Fruit. Apple orchards and orange groves.”
“It's gone?” Dex asked.
“Burned.”
Dex nodded. So much waste. His Glock was heavy on his chest, and he almost reached for it.
“Over here!” one of Hansen’s men shouted, drawing the attention of the two aliens in the room. The aliens ran to the grate on the floor, shoving the guy to the ground. He slid on the floor, crashing into the pallet racking. Hansen set a hand on Dex’s chest, as if fearing Dex was about to retaliate on behalf of the bastard on the ground.
The alien crouched at the floor, tearing at the grate. His neck muscles bulged, and he let out a terrible cry as he ripped the metal door from the warehouse concrete. Hunks of gray flooring rolled from the opening.
The other alien glanced around before jumping into the hole, and Dex followed Hansen over. There was a ladder, and the remaining Overseer chittered something at Hansen, who nodded. “He told us to go in.”
Dex shrugged, finding metal rungs embedded into the wall of the hole. He clambered down the steps and landed with a resounding echo as his boots hit. Hansen was right behind, aiming a flashlight into the corridor.
It looked like whoever had been staying here had left in a hurry. There were open crates, empty boxes, and blankets strewn over the room. It went deep, and more cots were discovered, as well as a spattering of weapons.
The alien bellowed again, and Dex cringed at the noise. He peered over, wondering what had the thing so excited, and he saw the computer. Damn it.
The Overseer waved Hansen over, speaking in its rough language. “What did it say?” Dex asked.
“It wants me to extract information,” Hansen said, setting the flashlight down, the beam hitting the ceiling twelve or so feet up.
“Can you do that?” Dex asked. The computer was plugged in, and Dex considered shooting it. It would mean his life, but it might save others. His heart pounded in his ears as he made his decision. He stood restlessly, letting Hansen activate the monitor. Someone had left this computer behind, and Dex could only hope they’d been smart enough to wipe anything important off the drive.
A video began playing, and it showed Tom and Hansen from the drone’s camera. “What’s this?” Hansen asked, but he didn’t mean the image of Mason and him in Detroit. He paused the feed and clicked open a file marked WCR. “They’re near the ocean, northern California!” Hansen stared at Dex, a maniacal grin spread over his face. “Tell your people to mobilize. We have some Vermin to squash.”
Dex needed to send a warning. He
only hoped it wasn’t too late.
Chapter 15
Cole
The feeling of being inside the alien ship as it weaved sickeningly left Cole sitting on the deck and holding on tight. He didn’t know if they’d been flying and hugging the contours of the ground below for minutes or hours.
The ship lurched again, only it was different that time, and Cole felt the metal beneath him vibrate as the landing gear descended to cushion their less than gentle return to the Earth.
“This is us,” Soares said, slapping his shoulder and wearing an expression that spoke of having more fun than was polite given the circumstances. The ramp hummed as it lowered, and Cole felt hands helping him up. Standing unsteadily, he looked directly into the eyes of his brother.
“Stay safe,” Alec said, hesitating before pulling Cole closer and squeezing him in a hug that he didn’t fight.
“You too,” Cole said into Alec’s shoulder as they separated amid some manly pounding on each other’s backs.
Cole went to run down the ramp but was forced to slow, as his legs were still unsteady. It was quite dark, but the air felt cooler and held a lot more moisture than where they’d come from. The ship carrying his brother and the others left, its engines far too loud in the quiet.
He followed Soares away from the ship, the drone keeping a halting pace alongside him, as it had to keep correcting for his unsteady progress. Dropping to his knees beside his companion, he saw the man’s face illuminated by the weak glow from his tablet. Cole leaned over to look, seeing a 3D map image displayed but not of any landscape he recognized.
He knew where they would be, in theory at least, but he couldn’t recall ever being in that place before. Eagle River was further north than he’d been in his life, and the cold began to seep into his bones with each passing second spent immobile.
“Two miles due east,” Soares said, turning to face the direction they needed to go. “Send your boy out ahead.” Cole wasn’t sure how he felt about the drone being his boy, especially as he was racked with guilt over replacing the loyal coyote with a soulless machine, but he gave the instruction anyway.
“Scout ahead,” he said clearly. The drone did nothing.
“Eighteen,” he tried again, remembering to activate the voice commands with one of a few keywords programmed in. “Scout ahead.”
The drone launched forward, curious legs moving fast in the low light as the body stayed still, unlike a real dog. They moved. The drone continued ahead of them, starting and stopping when they did so that it was permanently deployed as a screen.
Cole didn’t think too hard about it, concentrating mainly on his returning senses after the debilitating ride in the alien ship, but he did start to question what else the drone was programmed to do without being instructed.
Two miles of wild, descending terrain later and no longer feeling the cold in any way, Cole and Soares caught their breath. They stared at a simple steel and concrete building that bore all the signs of yet another abandoned structure too stubborn to be broken down by nature and the passage of time.
“This another cache?” Cole asked.
“The entrance to one, yeah.”
“Looks clear,” Cole said, pulling out the tablet to access the advanced optics of the drone and cycling through the options—night vision, thermal, ultraviolet—before being sure they were safe.
“Could’ve done with a couple of those Seekers running top cover for us,” Soares commented.
“No way. Just the sound of those things in the distance is enough to make you shit your pants,” Cole told him, educating his mentor on how life was outside of the underground facilities he’d spent two and half decades inside.
They moved forward cautiously, weapons up and the drone ahead of them. Reaching the open doorway of the building on the western side, Soares used his boot to move dirt and debris from the ground to uncover a round hatch. He bent down to blow dust from a spinning dial before pulling up his sleeve and checking the numbers written on his skin under the glow from his shrouded flashlight.
Looking up, he caught Cole’s eye and winked. “Old school,” he said, spinning the dial on the hatch right then left then right again until it clicked heavily. It took both men to haul the heavy trapdoor up, and this time, Cole used his own initiative.
“Eighteen, check it out.”
The Tracker whipped its head around to fix on to Cole as soon as he spoke. It didn’t hesitate but responded to the command by crouching into the hole and making the air hum with the metallic clang of its claws hitting the rungs of a steel ladder descending into the darkness below.
They followed, with Soares muttering something about the automatic lights not working before he pulled the trapdoor shut behind him and plunged them into total darkness. Their flashlights clicked on to slash bright beams of white through the blackness underground.
They were in a shaft, about the same size and shape as the old subway tunnels in Chicago, with the ground cutting off the perfect roundness with a flat surface under their boots. Soares took the lead behind the tracker still in scout mode.
Not having the night sky visible above them disorientated Cole as it always did when he traveled any distance beneath the Earth’s surface, so he couldn’t tell how far they’d walked through the dank, musty tunnel before they reached a reinforced door set into the wall. Soares used another number on a mechanical keypad, this one stored in his mind and not written down, and pulled the door open on smooth hinges.
“Eighteen,” he said, “search.”
The Tracker rocketed into the darkness, triggering banks of overhead lights which Cole guessed were motion activated, illuminating racks of stored weapons and a few familiar shapes under dust-covered tarpaulins.
Cole groaned, his thighs and groin already hating him at even the thought of having to ride a quad bike again.
“You love it really,” Soares told him. “Come on. We’ve got maybe ninety miles to cover.”
The exit tunnel, illogically much smaller than the wide tunnel they walked in via, forced them to duck their heads for an uncomfortable mile until daylight showed ahead. A grate swung low to allow them out, but it took both of them to lift it back into position afterward. Soares scuffed his boot over the flattened grass, so the signs of their exit weren’t so obvious to anyone or anything from above.
They headed east, sticking to narrow tracks that had once been roads serving to connect towns filled with tens of thousands of people to each other and the world beyond. Cole rode behind Soares, the drone deactivated and strapped to the rear luggage rack, forcing Cole to fasten his weapon to the handlebars and keep his pack on as they bumped over the uneven surface.
The heavens opened up after an hour on the road, just as they exited the heavy tree cover, and both were soaked to the skin within minutes. Stopping was pointless, so they carried on, albeit at a slower pace as the driving rain blew straight into their faces on a strong wind, blinding the riders.
They rode without taking a break, forcing their way through the weather. They had to get there in time to meet the outgoing convoy, and failure had far-reaching consequences.
Cole struggled to gauge their pacing as the cloud cover was so heavy and ominously gray that the sun’s position was hidden from view, but occasional glances at his watch along with some basic calculations in his head told him they had to be near to their objective.
Three and a half hours, he thought as his teeth chattered involuntarily, twenty-five miles per hour, eighty… eighty something… getting close… must be close.
About a mile past the point when he thought he’d have to call out to Soares and stop, the man in the lead pulled off the road and rode into the trees where the ground bumped and bounced them uncomfortably over tree roots and wet rocks. The sudden diversion turned Cole’s concentration back to where he was aiming the wheels of his quad and away from his soaked and frozen body. Soares, leading at a far slower pace than before, turned the nose of his quad into a dark opening in t
he ground and ducked to clear the low roof. Cole followed, seeing Soares light up the path with his headlamps.
The tunnel, a long, natural cave unlike the previous man-made ones, wound through the earth ponderously as if following a pattern laid out by nature and hence never following a straight line. Eventually, they stopped, climbing stiffly out of their saddles in a cavern dimly lit by distant sunlight.
“Great,” Soares complained. “Now it stops raining. Typical. We’ll start a fire, dry our gear out.”
Cole, too numb to respond verbally, shrugged off his pack and let it fall to the ground before unstrapping the Tracker and waking it up with a stuttered command.
“G-g-g-guard.”
The drone sparked to life and hopped from the quad to scan the cave and begin a perimeter patrol. Soares was stripping off his clothing, wringing each item out before attempting to strike a fire in nothing but his underwear. The sparks found a small pile of dusty kindling and curls of shaved wood to flare up and crackle instantly.
“Stays pretty dry in here,” he said, his teeth chattering from the cold. Cole struggled to remove his clothes with hands and fingers so numb, he didn’t know if he’d ever feel anything with them again. He squeezed the water from each piece and ended up mostly naked with his skin contracted tightly. Dry logs were stacked in the cave and were added to the flames carefully so as not to smother the fledgling fire or knock the sparks away.
“W-w-who s-set thiss up?” Cole asked, shivering and rubbing his arms with his hands.
“Rub your chest,” Soares told him. “Don’t bother with your extremities.” Mention of extremities made Cole think of a specific body part he’d lost contact with over two hours ago. They put on their dry gear, something Soares had taught Cole on their first mission, and life slowly returned to their skin with each passing minute.
The fire picked up and the heat it kicked out began to warm their skin, but Soares wasn’t content to sit and wait patiently. He used sticks to create a framework, hanging the dripping garments over the horizontal bars near the fire to fill the cave with a gentle sizzling sound.
Rise | Book 3 | Reclamation Page 10