Enemy Lines: Navigator Book One

by SD Tanner

  Once they’d finished their hasty preparation, he was relieved to leave the base. It was a sprawling site next to the Albuquerque International Airport, with a wide range of buildings and winding roads. There was no way they could secure the base in any decent way, and with the thousands of people already there, it was a question of time before some would turn and all hell would break loose. The city wouldn’t be safe either, but for some reason he felt better when they were moving. At the very least they could drive away from the creatures, but it was a bad day when retreat was the only way to defend yourself, and it went against everything he was trained to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Sight to behold (Lexie)

  This was only her second real combat mission. If she counted the landing at the base, then she supposed she could call it her third. She and Ark had done plenty of simulated missions together, but it was very different. Although their trials had emulated the actions of war, they didn’t have the same edge of reality. During the trials she was prone to getting confused and stopping, which made Ark bark at her like a drill sergeant. She found his shouting alarming, and it had the desired effect of making her do as he instructed without any thought. Despite his bullying in combat, he was also the guy who would read to her until she fell asleep after a hard day of training. Since working with Ark she’d missed her sister less, and wondered if she was just too busy, or perhaps he was helping to fill the gap in her life. Being blind made it difficult for her to get close to people, and it took a long time for her to feel comfortable with anyone. She wasn’t romantically involved with Ark, and he hadn’t even made a pass at her, but he was slowly penetrating her defenses by being steady and reliable.

  The equipment in the armored vehicle could interfere with her visor, so she was sitting on top of the truck as it rumbled down the road. Having been completely blind all of her life, she had no benchmark to compare the visor vision to actual sight. It was still a pleasure to see anything at all, and she was looking around the city with interest. They were passing two and three story buildings on the outskirts of the city, and the roads were becoming increasingly congested. Lumpy, grey outlines littered the streets, and she realized they were corpses. They emitted no active signal and were like any other inanimate object to her. Deep inside the buildings she detected life forms, which glowed a pinkish color indicating they were alive. There were also green blobs, and she knew they were the people who’d changed or were about to. Sometimes the green and pinkish blobs were together, and she wondered if those people knew they were with the killers. Plenty of weapons were being highlighted as well, and sometimes there were so many that the red outlines around the weapons overlapped, making a mad spiral of layered circles. Occasionally she saw the sharp lights of gunfire, and assumed there was a fight going on inside the building.

  Donna had given Leon and Tuck spare radio earpieces so they could talk to her, and both men had joined the grid. There was a lot of chatter on the grid, and listening to it she finally understood the seriousness of their situation. The attacks were not an isolated issue, and it seemed every city had come under the same type of assault from their own citizens. According to Ark, CaliTech was in lockdown, and they had seven Navigators secured onsite, while everyone waited to be told what to do next.

  The grid wasn’t connected to the military comms system and she could only hear what Leon or Tuck were saying. It seemed they were heading for a police precinct called Northwest Area Command, but when Leon asked why, she couldn’t hear what he was told through his military radio. She supposed it didn’t really matter to her where they went in the city as long as they went to CaliTech once they were done. Her power packs would only last so long and her gear had weaknesses. She wanted to talk to the techs about replacement kit and replenish her power packs. They could be charged using standard power outlets, but she was worried what she would do if the electricity around her failed. Given the land and cell phone lines were being lost, it was only a question of time before the power also completely failed.

  “Keep scanning, Two One,” Ark ordered.

  “Spinning my head like a top is making me dizzy.”

  “I’m recording what the visor is picking up. We’ll analyze the detail we’re getting later.”

  “It’s pretty interesting, Lex.” Through the comms screen on her visor she knew Tank was talking to her.

  “But you said you went outside with Amber to get her family.”

  “I did, Lex, but she lives in the ‘burbs. It wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as the city.”

  She didn’t think the city was interesting. It was full of corpses, and although the others might not be able to see it from inside the truck, her visor showed an endless horizon of motionless bodies both on the streets and in the buildings.

  “Were there as many dead people?” She asked unhappily.

  Clearly listening to their conversation, Tuck remarked dourly, “The city is gonna become a health hazard.”

  “Is that your only concern?” She asked in horror at his casual attitude.

  “Of course not,” Tuck replied sharply. “I’m just looking ahead. These bodies will rot unless they’re cleared, and the city will become uninhabitable.”

  “Both of you cut it out,” Leon interrupted. “We’ll deal with one problem at a time, and right now we’re looking for anyone alive.”

  “There’s plenty of people alive,” she replied. “They’re in the buildings, but so are the green blobs.”

  “We need a better name than ‘green blobs’,” Ark remarked.

  “What we really need is to get the living out of the buildings and to the base,” Leon replied. “Now I get why they sent the people there. No one can stay here. The city is lost.”

  “Is that what you’re planning to do? Get all the people out of the buildings?” She asked.

  “It would take a considerable force to get them out, and I’m not sure we have one,” Leon replied bluntly.

  While they’d been talking, the truck had weaved its way through the crashed and abandoned cars, and was stopped outside the white concrete stairs of what she assumed was the police precinct.

  “What can you see, Lexie?” Leon asked.

  She couldn’t see any signs of human life, but there were nearly half a dozen green blobs clustered together on the ground floor. “Nothing much, just some green guys on the ground floor.”

  “Hang on, Two One, there’s something deep inside the building. Zoom in,” Ark ordered.

  Obediently doing as she was asked, several pinkish blobs appeared, but there was some interference from the weapons and ammo being circled. Tapping her invisible screen to remove the weapons and ammo, the two bodies became clearer. “Oh, wait, there’s a couple of people in there near the green guys. The green guys are grouped together.”

  “Maybe the people are hiding from them?” Leon suggested.

  Zooming closer to view the moving forms, she and Ark tried to understand what they were seeing. “Is that a wall?” She asked uncertainly.

  “Looks more like a gate.”

  “Why would there be a gate inside a building?”

  “I dunno, but it looks like a barrier of some sort. It’s probably the only thing keeping the green guys away from them.”

  “Okay, so we’ve got a front entrance, and they’re about twenty yards down the corridor.”

  “There’s an exit at the end of the corridor, but it’s closed,” Ark added.

  Leon had been listening to them and said, “Okay, let me relay that to my guys and we’ll work out how we can break in.”

  “We’re going to break in?” She asked in surprise. “Why would you break in here and ignore all the people in the other buildings.”

  “Someone in there spoke to the bunker and that’s where we’re getting our orders from.”

  “Sounds like favoritism to me.”

  While she listened to one half of the conversation Leon had with the squad, it became apparent she was going to break into the building with the
m. Combat engagement number four was imminent and she wasn’t looking forward to it. She didn’t know what she was doing, and expected it would disintegrate into Ark barking and her doing as she was told. When Leon came back on her radio, he confirmed her suspicions, and she steeled herself for another fight. Always conscious of her blindness, her parents had treated her with gentle guidance and very little discipline. At the time they’d frustrated her, but now she felt ill-equipped to deal with the harshness of the real world, and she was missing their endless patience. Her irritable nature and sharp tongue usually kept most people at arms-length, but the army types weren’t even slightly phased, and they seemed more amused by her than intimidated.

  Taking a deep breath, she checked her power pack status and ammo. “This sucks,” she muttered.

  Leon led the squad of four to the front door, and they ran in a low crouch with their guns aimed, watching for movement that she could see without even trying. Sighing loudly, she dropped from the top of the truck. “There’s nothing out here…yet.”

  Once outside the door, Leon said, “When you open the door, fire down the corridor. We’ve only got two sniper rifles firing fifty cals, so the rest of us can only hold them back with our M4s while we get inside. The two people are in a room approximately twenty yards down on the left. We need to get in and get them out.” Batting her shoulder, he added, “Lexie, kill anything that comes for us.”

  “There’s more of the green guys around and your shooting is gonna bring them to us,” she replied unhappily.

  “We know. We’ll get the people out and let the trucks get us the hell outta here.”

  They couldn’t see she was tensing inside her armor. Even with the hydraulics, the armor needed muscle to move it. The joints in the gear matched her own, but she still had to use her body to make it move in the ways she needed. It was one of the reasons the kit came with a small oxygen pipe. The cardio demands were beyond normal human ability, and after some of the Navigators had fainted with the effort, they’d taught them how to use the oxygen tank. Her tank was only half-full, and she prepared to sprint down the corridor, hoping they wouldn’t shoot her. Anything less than a .50-cal wouldn’t penetrate her armor, but it would hurt and it could leave her badly bruised.

  One of the squad opened the door and her visor lit up with the gunfire. The green blobs separated and then began to run down the corridor. One was immediately hit with .50-cal bullets and it collapsed. The remaining four continued to fight against the bullets, but were being pushed backwards. The four squad members moved into the foyer and continued to fire.

  “Ceasefire.”

  “Go, Two One.”

  As soon as they stopped firing, the green blobs launched down the corridor and she ran at them. Her own guns were less than .50-cal and they wouldn’t do anything to the advancing blobs. When the first of them reached her, she grabbed it by the torso, and used it as a battering ram against the blob behind it. Both blobs merged into a single large green mass on her visor. Treating it like a rag doll, she pummeled it into the body of the one behind it. It fought back by pushing its arms against her chest plate, and kicking at her wildly. Another blob was trying to sidle past her in the corridor. Still holding onto the other one, she lunged and grabbed it by the head, then she stopped, unsure what to do with the three creatures she was holding back.

  Ark’s angry voice roared in her ears. “Break their legs!”

  She wasn’t sure how to do that, and instinctively lifted the one she had by the head high, and then slammed it into the hard floor. It seemed to crumple into itself and she let go of its head. Without waiting to see if it would rise again, she leaned down and grabbed the leg of the other blob. Pulling it by the leg until it was dangling upside down, she kicked at the blob behind it. With a force of over two thousand psi, the creature flew down the corridor, slamming hard against the wall. Still holding the other blob by its leg, she used her other hand to grab it by its round knee and snapped the leg in two.

  “Down! Now!”

  Not understanding why she was doing it, she dropped to the floor, and her visor showed nothing other than the bright light of gunfire above her head. The two squad members were using the sniper rifles to blow the green blobs apart. As their body parts flew in the air, their green glow was lost and they landed as inanimate objects.

  The pinkish bodies she knew to be her squad were clustered over her prone body. “Nicely done,” Leon said, as he patted at her armor.

  Flipping lightly to her feet, she looked around the corridor. Other than her own squad, nothing was moving or showing as alive to her. The other pinkish blobs were leaving the room they’d been hiding in, and she could hear Leon brusquely introducing himself.

  “Gotta go, Lexie,” Leon ordered.

  Breathing deeply, she tried to calm her rattled nerves and followed them along the corridor. When they returned to the truck, the driver left the area immediately and Leon spoke to her again.

  “We’ve picked up a Colonel Bill Ketcher. He wants us to head to the hospital. He’s pretty impressed with your gear, Lexie, and he’s agreed we need to get to CaliTech asap.”

  Still feeling adrenalin coursing through her, she snorted irritably. “I’ve been telling you that all along.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Stepping up (Jonesy)

  “Who farted?”

  “Nobody farted, George. Don’t be rude. The smell is decaying bodies,” an older woman replied amiably.

  George and his wife, Rose, were sitting in the back of his Malibu, and they’d kept up a steady chatter of nonsense from the moment they’d left his apartment block. Without needing to look again, he knew they were sitting side by side as if they were on a Sunday drive. He’d never really spoken to either of them and now he knew why.

  “World’s gone to hell,” George remarked dourly.

  “Yes, it has, George.”

  He hadn’t recovered from discovering his wife of thirty years as a monster. Ever since that moment, his life had become surreal, and he agreed with George that the world had gone to hell. Miranda was somewhere in Las Vegas, and had he been in a saner frame of mind, he would have been trying to work out how to find her. As it was, he and Jas were now escorting the seven people they’d found at his apartment block out of the city. Jas was following him in another car being driven by John. In his rear mirror, he could see John was still navigating around another abandoned car.

  Catching his eye in the rear vision mirror, Rose asked kindly, “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t really know. Nothing about this situation feels real.”

  Next to him, Clarissa said gently, “I’m sorry about your Jenny. She was a very kind woman, Jonesy. Try and forget what you saw and remember her as she really was.”

  “I’m worried about Miranda.”

  “She was such a sweet little girl,” Rose said sadly.

  “Why do you say was?”

  Rose sighed deeply. “George is right. The world has gone to hell. You may never find her, and it’ll probably be impossible to even look for her.” He felt Rose’s hand on his shoulder. “You need to worry about the people who are with you and still alive. Hopefully someone somewhere is taking care of her too.”

  There seemed to be even more corpses on the road than before, and he suspected Rose was right. Everything had collapsed around them, and it was unlikely he would make it to Las Vegas alive. Even if by some miracle he made it to Miranda’s home, she probably wouldn’t be there, and he’d be back where he started. Only a day or so earlier he could have called her on the phone, but his cell was dead. He couldn’t even raise an engaged tone when he dialed her number, and he assumed the network was completely down.

  He was driving along Tijeras Avenue when he finally saw something other than their own car moving. It was a large, black SUV with darkened windows and it was driving towards them. Other than being dented it looked fairly new, and the car with John, Jas and the other three people slowly came to a stop behind him. There were vehicles on ei
ther side of their two cars, and the only way he could drive was forward, but he was blocked by the black SUV.

  “What do we do?” Rose asked.

  “Wait and see what they want.”

  The door to the black car opened and a young man wearing jeans and a t-shirt climbed out. Typical of the younger street crowd, the man’s pants hung low on his hips, and he was pointing a Saturday Night Special at them. Judging by the careless way he was holding the gun, he wasn’t experienced with the weapon. Taking his Glock from its holster on his hip, he held it low and waited to see what the young man would do.

  “I can’t reverse unless John does,” he warned. “I need you to duck down in your seats.”

  “Are they going to shoot us?” Rose asked in a relaxed tone.

  “They might,” he replied equally as casually.

  He felt his chair being moved from behind and George muttered, “World’s gone to hell.”

  “Get outta the car!” The young man shouted.

  Pressing the button to lower his window, he called, “What do you want?”

  Another man was climbing out from the passenger side of the black SUV, and now he had two targets. In his decades on the streets, he’d grown familiar with every type of thug. These two were what he thought of as opportunists. They weren’t inherently bad boys, but given the right circumstances, they were capable of terrible crimes if they thought they could benefit from them. The only thing stopping the young man from firing was the possibility there was something still to be gained from keeping them alive. Clearly growing confident by their lack of response, both men began to saunter towards their car. As quietly as he could, he pulled the handle on the car door to unlatch it, but didn’t swing it open.

  “Whatcha got in the car, old man?”

  “Nothing you need.”

  “You dunno what I need,” the young man called back with a wide smirk. “I kinda like that hot piece in the other car.”