Up From the Depths

by J. R. Jackson

  “Chief Warrant Officer Doyle,” Breckhov said. “For the sake of conversation, are you happy to be cooped up in here? Inside a building of questionable integrity while outside, hundreds, possibly millions, of your fellow citizens have succumbed to an infection that makes them very eager to get inside?”

  “Sir, Anatoli, its only Warrant Officer, not Chief,” Doyle said. Breckhov nodded. Had she been in Mother Russia, she would have been a real officer, he surmised.

  “Of course, my mistake,” Breckhov said as he poured more tea. “I would love to see the sights again,” he added whimsically as he sat back and noisily sipped his tea again.

  Luzetski and Doyle finished their tea and politely excused themselves.

  “I’m having a hard time relating what just happened to reality,” Ski said after they had walked quite a distance. Doyle shot him a sideways glance.

  “In what way?” she asked.

  “Just a few short hours ago, I was outside the perimeter facing a very real risk,” Ski said. “Now, I’m inside this place and... shit. I don’t know. Maybe it was better to be outside.”

  Doyle didn’t know how to respond to Ski’s statement.

  “I’ll drop you off with the rest of your men,” Doyle finally said. “Tomorrow, maybe, you’ll have a better perspective.”

  ***

  Chapter 4

  Safeguard, New Mexico

  “Goddamnit!” John Stone bellowed as he caught himself before he fell. The pain in his leg, the one that he had received a bullet through from an improvised anti-personnel device, worsened making his face flush red and sweat break out on his brow. The red furrow where the same bullet had creased the side of his face from jaw to hair line was a bright crimson.

  “Don’t push it, man” Frank Durst said as he stepped forward to help his long time friend.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” Stone yelled, gesturing for Durst to stay away. “I can do this without your help.”

  Durst watched as Stone struggled to regain his balance using an old cane that had been found in the storage area of the Safeguard facility. Elwood St. John, Safeguard’s owner, had visited Stone’s room one day and left the cane behind. He had told Stone that the person who had placed it in his care wouldn’t need it anymore. The cane in question was a professionally stained and lacquered oak branch that had been lovingly sanded smooth then treated. Stone gripped it hard enough for his knuckles to turn white as he pushed himself upright.

  The bandages were still present and showing beneath the shorts he wore as he struggled to take a lap around his room. Off to one side, Allison Drewett, the former US Air Force captain and JMAU trauma nurse stood and watched. As much as she wanted to step forward and assist Stone, she knew he had to do this on his own. It was hard for her to watch and her eyes burned with unshed tears of frustration. Her feelings for Stone confused her. When she and her friend and fellow JMAU nurse, Jessica Burnett had left Cannon AFB on the same MV-22 Osprey with Stone and the rest of the Safeguard group, she had no idea where they were going or even if they’d live to see the dawn of a new day. Now, after becoming emotionally and physically attached to the former salvage yard/custom truck/gun and drug smuggler that Stone had been or maybe still was to some extent, she was unsure of how to classify their relationship.

  Was he a boyfriend? Just a one night fling? Maybe he was something more substantial than that. Drewett let her mind wander to the night they had spent on the artificial hill that contained Safeguard’s main entrance. The sex they had that night was mind blowing, at least to her it was. It had been quite some time since someone had physically wrung her out and left her a quivering mass of post-orgasmic Jell-O. It could have been the environment, maybe the set of circumstances that had led up to that moment. Whatever it was, she was battling with what the relationship was between her and the man who was struggling to walk.

  Elsewhere in the former Atlas missile complex, Mecceloni and Cassandra were deep in conversation.

  “We’re not having this conversation again,” Cassie said, glaring at John Mecceloni. He looked at her, she was definitely pissed off. He could tell by the way her green eyes flared at him.

  “Look, all I’m saying is we should at least consider it an option,” he said.

  “Goddamnit, John! We are not going back to Clovis and we’re sure as shit not going to Cannon!” she stated defiantly. “The last time we went to Clovis I almost lost you.”

  “I know,” Mecceloni said with a nod. “I was there, remember?”

  “Damn right I remember!” Cassie shouted. “We had to go in and save your asses.”

  “We could have made it back to the market,” Mecceloni said knowing as soon as he said it that he shouldn’t have.

  “There was no way you could have made it back there. The streets were full of infected and you had to grandstand and plow right on through them,” Cassie retorted.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said.

  “Bullshit. It was worse,” she stated. “I saw the truck, remember? It was totally fucked up! There was body parts blasted all over the place for God’s sake! So don’t tell me what it was or wasn’t like. There’s no way in hell we’re ever going back to Clovis or even considering a return to Cannon.”

  Mecceloni looked at her. Damn. She was beautiful when she was angry. She was beautiful when she wasn’t angry. He remembered back to the first time he met her. Las Vegas, in a hotel room, after he had just eliminated a contracted target. She had walked out of the bathroom and seen him standing there; weapon in hand, body on the floor. Mentally shaking his head to clear it, he brought his thoughts back to the present.

  “We need to at least check out Cannon to see if there’s anything there we can use,” he said in an attempt to defend his plan. “It’s pretty obvious we’re going to be here a long time.”

  “John, you’re a stubborn asshole,” she said. “If, and that’s a big if, we do decide, as a group, to head back to the Air Force base to do anything, we’re not going to go through Clovis to get there.”

  “That’s reasonable. But, when not if, we go, you’re staying here,” he said.

  “Fuck you, John. We’ve been over this before. Where you go, I go,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. “That’s how we work and you know it.”

  “That’s not how it works. You’re staying here and that’s how it’s going to be,” he said. “I saw how you reacted when we were at Clovis and I don’t want a repeat of that.” His mind flashed the picture of Cassie perched through the open window of the surplus CUCV and firing a shotgun into the massed infected while Sharon drove. “If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do,” he added. There, he had said it.

  “You could have gotten your ass chewed off,” he said.

  “You think so?” she asked with a smirk. “You were only concerned about my ass? I think you like more than my ass. I think you like what’s attached to my ass. You seem to like that a lot.”

  “Well, the whole package is nice. The ass is as exceptional as is what’s attached to it. That’s why I don’t want it damaged.”

  Cassie dipped her head and shot him a mischievous look.

  “Maybe you should check my ass again to make sure there isn’t any residual damage.”

  Mecceloni smirked, the argument was winding down and something else was winding up.

  “You may have something there,” he said, stepping towards her. “Some injuries can take a while before they present themselves. I’d be remiss if I didn’t do a thorough follow-up.”

  She moved into his arms and hugged him tightly.

  “I hate it when we argue,” she said into his chest. “But I love it when we make up.”

  Her lips found his. The kiss was tentative at first then more passionate as they stumbled towards the bed and collapsed onto it, their hands roaming each other’s body as they divested themselves of their clothing.

  Several levels below the lovers, Sharon Wharton was looking for Elwood S
t. John, the owner of Safeguard. She hadn’t been to this level of the facility before. The doors were larger and labeled as storage with some kind of numerical designation. She knew from talking to St. John that this was supposed to be the data and material storage level but, so far, she hadn’t seen anything but closed doors. Duty Officer, the operating system for Safeguard that lived inside a surplus Cray computer, had reported that St. John was on this level. So far, she hadn’t been able to find him. At the far end of the corridor, she saw a partially open door. Walking quickly to it, she opened the door and stepped inside. Sensors registered movement and the overhead lighting clicked on illuminating the storage area. St. John sat in the middle of the room on a bar stool, his head bowed and looking at something he held in his hands.

  Sharon approached slowly.

  “Woody? Are you all right?”

  St. John looked up, his eyes moist and red rimmed. As she drew closer, she could tell he was holding a framed group photograph.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  St. John sniffed, used the back of one hand to wipe his nose then nodded his head.

  “Woody, tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help,” she said as she went to one knee by his side. The photo he held looked like a family gathering. Sharon gently touched his hand and angled the picture so she could see more of it.

  “Is this your family?” she asked.

  St. John didn’t say anything.

  “Do you think they’re safe somewhere?”

  “No,” St. John finally said. “I have no idea who these people are. This is a picture I found in that box over there.”

  Sharon was confused.

  “Why the tears and sad face then?” she asked.

  St. John wiped his eyes again, sniffed then turned and tossed the framed photo into a box.

  “I just realized that we’re totally out of Cabernet Sauvignon, the 1986 vintage,” St. John said.

  Sharon shook her head in dismay.

  “What?” she asked incredulously. “Here I thought there was something seriously wrong and you’re worried about wine? That’s not normal.”

  St. John chuckled.

  “I’ve been called a lot of things. Normal has never been one of them,” he said standing up. Sharon stood up and looked at him. St. John had made a strange introduction when they had first arrived at Safeguard. Over the time spent here, she realized that he had shunned public contact for his own personal reasons and considered himself agoraphobic. That was his own personal diagnosis not one from a trained professional. Since the events at Clovis and their return to recover the vehicles they had left behind, there had been a distinctive shift on the overall group dynamic and St. John’s personality. Sharon couldn’t quite place what the main problem was, but that shift was definitely affecting them all.

  St. John rubbed his face, took a deep breath and clapped his hands once.

  “Enough of this shit. Let’s go find a replacement for what I had chosen for dinner. Maybe a Riesling or Merlot,” he said.

  “Woody, isn’t all this stuff someone else’s property?” Sharon asked.

  “Just this room. All the other rooms are part of my collection,” St. John said as he led her out of the room, closed and locked the door. They walked in silence along the corridor until they reached another door where St. John ran his cardkey through the reader and opened. Inside, the smell of seasoned wood permeated the room. He hit the light switch to reveal row upon row of wine racks, and barrels. The racks ran floor to ceiling and lined the walls. Barrels covered most of the floor space.

  “I’m sure we can find something here that’s suitable,” he said as began to wander among the racks. Sharon watched him, not knowing how to react to what he had said previously or his emotional state in the other room.

  ***

  Chapter 5

  Off the Pacific Coast

  The spray of the ocean washed the foredeck of BB-63, Missouri. Up in the Citadel, Captain Gavin Horatio O’Reilly, United States Navy (Retired) watched the horizon through binoculars. This far into their voyage all they had come across were ships with no crews. Technically, those vessels still had crews but not personnel that could perform their assigned tasks as they had become victims to the Reset Virus. Several times they had to make course corrections to avoid collisions as some vessels were still under power and moving on their assigned routes until they either ran out of fuel or ran aground.

  O’Reilly lowered the optics but continued to stare at the sea. He glanced over at the bridge wings and saw the lookouts slowly swiveling their high power optics to scan for other waterborne traffic. This reminded him of the old sailing days he had read about as a youth. No electronics, no GPS, just sharp-eyed sailors watching the sea. Only this time the ship wasn’t made of wood but of iron, steel, and the blood of those that had seen her through combat.

  “Charts,” he called, using the old term for what was now designated as navigator. The bridge crew didn’t respond but as one looked over to the gray haired man who was bent over studying the map on the chart table.

  “Charts!” O’Reilly yelled louder. One of the younger sailors nudged Senior Chief Petty Officer (Ret) Arvin Pickering.

  “What?” he asked as he looked at the sailor. The sailor pointed at the captain. Pickering reached up and adjusted his hearing aids. Several seconds of pops, whistles, and squelch came from the Senior Chief before he answered.

  “Captain?”

  O’Reilly shook his head as he swiveled his command chair and looked at the retired Senior Chief.

  “Where are we at, Senior Chief?” O’Reilly asked, stepping down from his chair and walking to the chart table.

  “We’re 575 miles West of Bremerton, Cap’n,” Pickering reported. “Bearing 120 Mark 5. Current course and speed, I estimate time to arrival at 1500 hours tomorrow.”

  O’Reilly nodded as he studied the chart. To have made it this far without the use of modern navigational aids took skill and years of experience. Senior Chief Pickering had both. Using compass and sextant to gauge distance, location, and bearing was the mark of a true deep water sailor. To have made it this far with less than the normal Iowa class crew complement of 2700 was another feat unto itself. Of course, with the engine room having been modernized in the late 1980s and1990s and not having any of the gun crews save two of the retirees who spent their time checking and rechecking the systems of each of the three turrets made the crew they did have focus on keeping the ship running.

  O’Reilly returned to his chair and continued his vigilance of the sea.

  “Captain,” one of the bridge wing personnel said.

  “Go ahead,” O’Reilly said.

  “Looks like a storm forming. We’re going to get fog the closer we get to shore. Probably some gusts and lots of rain.”

  “Copy that.” O’Reilly swiveled his chair, brought up his binoculars and studied the dark clouds moving towards shore. With luck, they might make landfall after the storm had come and gone. Without radar, he would have to rely on his lookouts to spot land.

  “All ahead two-thirds,” O’Reilly ordered. "Steady as she goes."

  “Two-thirds, aye.”

  ****

  Below decks, in the Combat Information Center or CIC, several of the sailors that had been on active duty at Pearl Harbor and had found their way to the Missouri in the chaos that ravaged the Hawaiian Islands, tried to understand how to boot up the older systems that had been installed before the ship had become a floating museum. The systems that had replaced the older 1940’s era equipment were still ancient technology from the 1980s.

  “Oh my God,” Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve Pratt said as he tried to get the sonar system to boot up for the twentieth time. “This stuff is like playing Pong. Bet it still uses DOS.”

  Seaman Ernesto Kimmel looked at him strangely.

  “Pong?” he asked. “DOS?”

  “Never mind,” Pratt said. “It was way before your time. Before my time too,” he added as the test screen
finally showed on the display. He waited for the self-test to complete before he tried the system boot. An error code appeared and the screen went dark again. He had been working on this since they left the Hawaiian Islands months ago and this was the only progress made.

  “Damn,” Pratt muttered. “This shit probably does have cathode ray tubes.”

  “Hey! Hey! I got something!” Petty Officer 3rd Class William Teller announced excitedly from his station. He had been trying to understand how the communications equipment worked when through experimental flipping switches up and down and turning dials, he had come across some kind of broadcast. Turning the volume up so everyone in the CIC could hear.

  “...Attention ...vessels, ... Port ...inthrop ..base. ... by ... restricted ...without ... inspected first. ... base is ... security lockdown. ... check ... force. ... not ... exercise. Deadly force ... authorized ... vessel ... fired ... to heave to. ... all vessels. This... Winthr... Naval base. ... not attempt ... pass ... ... markers .... inspected ... is conducting ... lockdown.”

  The transmission was weak, fading in and out with a lot of static that garbled the transmission.

  “Well, that’s something,” Pratt said. “See if you can clean that up and narrow down where it’s coming from.” Yeah, and maybe they could get the radio directional equipment to work, he thought.

  “On it, PO,” Teller said, turning down the volume and studying the equipment. Thumping and heavy breathing from the passageway announced the arrival of Chief Petty Officer (Ret) George Brown. Brown used a cane with four small feet on its base that made a distinctive sound when he moved through the Missouri and suffered from respiratory issues. Some of the sailors referred to him as Darth, a term lost on the younger members of the crew.

  “What have you youngsters come up with?” he asked as he stepped inside the CIC.

  “Afternoon, Dar...Chief,” Pratt said, catching himself. “Teller seems to have found a radio signal.”