by P. T. Hylton
It felt odd running a covert mission on New Haven. Unlike her usual operations, there was no risk of encountering a vampire today. So why did she feel so nervous?
She leapt to the rooftop of the city council building and made her way to the fire escape on the northeast end. Taking a deep breath, she headed down to the third floor, jimmied the window open, and slipped inside.
She found herself in an unoccupied office. After listening at the door for almost a minute, she crept into the hallway and made her way to the conference room where the city council held their meetings. The room where they’d died.
Just as she’d expected, the door was locked. That was okay; she’d come prepared. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a keycard.
As colonels, CB and Kurtz both had access to open most of the doors in this building, but using one of their keycards would have been risky. If Alex did her job correctly, Fleming wouldn’t know anyone had been in this room until it was too late for it to make a difference. But it was possible he was tracking the movements of his colonels, and they didn’t want to throw up any red flags.
Thankfully, Kurtz had come through and provided her with General Craig’s keycard. The badges had taken it along with the rest of his personal effects when he was arrested. Granted, if someone looked at the access logs, it would seem awfully strange that a man currently locked in jail had entered the city council chambers at three in the morning, but it seemed unlikely anyone would check. And even if they did, it would take time to figure out Alex had been the one using it.
She opened the door and entered the chamber.
Even more than two weeks after the explosion, the devastation in this room shook her. The furniture and carpet had been removed. The western wall had been stripped down to the studs, but there were still telltale scorch marks on the ceiling and some of the other walls. The thought of what had happened here made her shudder.
The north wall was still intact, and she saw the removable panel with the small hole in it just where Kurtz had said it would be. Taking a screwdriver out of her pack, she went to work. Unlike most security cameras which fed to the network rooms on each floor, Kurtz had told them that the hidden camera had a separate storage mechanism kept in the hidden compartment with the camera.
In less than a minute, she was able to confirm that for herself. She quickly had the camera exposed, and a few seconds after that, she was holding the tape in her hand.
She suppressed the urge to laugh. She couldn’t believe it had been that easy. After all the scheming Fleming had done, he was going to be taken down by this little video tape. The thought made her giddy.
On the way out, she stopped at the network room at the end of the hall and pulled the tapes for every camera in the hallway, thus erasing the evidence she’d ever been there.
Then she went out the window, up the fire escape, and started back toward GMT headquarters.
14
Garrett Eldred watched from the doorway as Councilman Sterns sat down at the table and looked around at the other council members, a wide smile on his face. “Ladies! Gentlemen! It’s been too long.”
“Indeed, it has,” Phyllis said. “How’ve you been, Sterns?”
“I can’t complain. Shall we get to it? We’re here to discuss the future of our great city. I think you’ll all agree that there’s more we could be doing—”
He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Garrett. “Firefly. You again?”
But it wasn’t just Sterns who was staring. It was all of them. Phyllis, a woman in her sixties who represented the agricultural sector. Vernon, a man in his late thirties who’d been elected to represent the engineering sector only earlier that year. On and on it went, every council member staring at him, as if waiting for him to say something important.
Garrett opened his mouth and felt his vocal cords tighten as he tried to speak, but no sound came out. He wanted to warn them, to tell them to run. He knew what was coming next.
It started at the far end of the table with Councilman Vernon. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from his sleeves, quickly thickening, and followed shortly by flames as the man’s clothes caught fire.
The strange phenomenon traveled down the table, and it became more violent as it progressed, changing from a strange fire to an explosion.
Garrett found himself unable to move, unable to speak, forced to watch in horror as these people burned.
The councilors didn’t scream. They made no move to dampen the flames. They sat still, resigned to their fates as the slow-motion blast tore flesh from bone, leaving only charred, blackened patches of skin. The exposed teeth left behind after their lips disintegrated made the councilors look like they were wearing ghastly smiles.
The slow-motion blast reached Sterns, and as his eyeballs liquefied in their sockets, he spoke to Garrett in a calm voice. “Am I pretty now? Do the ends justify my makeover?”
Garrett screamed as loud as he could, straining his vocal chords, but no sound emerged.
Until it did.
He heard himself crying out and opened his eyes to see his bedroom. For a few moments, he just lay there, breathing deeply and waiting for his heart rate to return to normal. Then he glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly morning.
Twisting himself out of the tangle of sweat-drenched sheets, he got up and walked to the bathroom. He looked at himself in mirror for a long moment, and he couldn’t help but remember the vivid way Councilman Sterns’s eyes had been destroyed in his dream.
“Fuck you, Sterns,” he said, still looking into the mirror.
An hour later, he was outside the GMT facility. He waited by the doors where he’d instructed his handpicked recruits to meet him. Thankfully, none of them were there yet. As the boss, he made it a point to always be the first in and the last out.
He hadn’t been to this building since he’d left the team, and it felt odd being here as an interloper who’d been forced upon them. But that was his role, and he’d play it out.
Shirley arrived three minutes later, followed by Henry and Mario. These were the top three recruits. All of them were honored badges, and he was hoping to give them this experience to help prepare them for leadership roles on the surface.
“You ready for this?” he asked them.
Shirley was the first to respond. “Captain, I’ve been waiting for this all my life.”
“Good,” Captain Garrett Eldred said. “Then let’s go. It’s time for your first mission to the surface.”
CB, Owl, and Alex huddled around the monitor as Brian scrubbed through the security footage Alex had brought back.
“Whatever we find on this tape, we still have to proceed with caution,” CB said. “This is our smoking gun, but we need to make sure everything is in order before we reveal it. Kurtz is still working on his badges, and I still believe we need Firefly.”
“Of course,” Alex said, but she was barely listening. In a few moments, they would see the hard evidence against Fleming. And then, whether he knew it or not, Fleming was finished.
CB frowned at her, clearly able to tell she wasn’t paying attention. “I’m just saying, we can’t show our card until―”
“Hang on, CB,” Brian said, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Is there a problem?” CB asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
They waited in silence, watching the images on the screen flicker past in fast motion.
“Okay, there’s a problem,” Brian said.
“Explain.” CB’s voice was tense.
Brian paused the video on a shot of the empty council room. “This is two days before the explosion.” The picture flickered to a very different, burned-out image of the room. “This is the day after.”
“Where’s the footage from in between?” Owl asked.
Brian looked up at them, his face drawn with concern. “It’s not here. Someone erased it.”
Alex felt sick.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Finally, CB cleared his throat. “I don’t want anyone to panic. This is a dead end, but we’ll find another way.”
“What way?” Alex asked, her voice weary. “Fleming’s two steps ahead of us. Again.”
“There’s evidence out there. We just need to find it. In the meantime, winning Firefly over to our way of thinking is more important than ever. Today’s a great opportunity to start working on him.”
Alex nodded absently, barely registering the words. She’d been so sure this was how they were going to take Fleming down. She’d been so confident. And now the tape had proven itself worthless.
“I know this is disappointing,” CB told them, “but don’t give up. You keep doing your jobs. Kurtz and I will do ours.”
The GMT away ship cruised toward their target location.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Owl said in their headsets, “you will soon be planting boot on the fertile soil of a rainforest in the pre-infestation country of Columbia. It’s a diverse landscape filled with more species of bird than any other place on Earth.”
“We’re really doing this again?” Patrick grumbled. “Every time?”
“Spanish was the primary language of the region,” she continued. “The economy was agrarian for most of its history.”
“What the hell is that?” Ed asked.
“Means they farmed and shit,” Chuck said.
“In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the country was engaged in ongoing warfare between the government and guerilla groups. I assume that’s the source of the weapons stash we’re after today. Columbia was also part of the region that scientists called the Ring of Fire, because of the frequency of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”
Patrick put a hand to his earpiece. “Hang on. Did she just say volcanic eruptions?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re paying attention?”
“I signed up to fight vampires. I don’t mess with volcanos. Lava is liquid rock.”
“If any volcanoes erupt, we’ll let you get back on the ship.”
The purpose of the mission was to recover a large weapons stash they’d identified from the NSA records. As disappointing as Brian’s news about the tape had been, it felt good to have a straightforward mission for once. Go to a building and find some guns. No politics, no electricians, just her team and a clear-cut objective. The only thing that had her on edge was their companions.
Firefly—she couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Garrett—and three of his top Resettlement recruits were accompanying them on this mission. At Fleming’s orders, of course. Fleming had informed CB and Alex in no uncertain terms that this was not optional. They were to take the Resettlement crew along to give them some experience on the surface.
Alex was doing her best to hide her frustration at the situation, but she was pretty sure the others could see through it.
Here she was, still trying to break in this new team, trying to help them establish good habits and trust her as a leader, and now there was a whole new group of rookies she hadn’t even been allowed to vet.
Not that she minded having Firefly. As much as they’d clashed over Resettlement, she respected him as a soldier. She’d fought back-to-back with him, sometimes literally, and she knew he could hold his own in a fight. And, as CB had made painfully clear, this was a good opportunity to try to win him over.
And yet, his mere presence confused things. Technically, she and Firefly were equals, both captains. CB had made it clear that Alex would be in charge on this mission. But everyone aboard the away ship knew Firefly held the more important position as head of the entire Resettlement operation.
Not only that, it didn’t take a genius to realize Firefly wasn’t only there to give his troops experience. He was there to watch her. To make sure she didn’t throw the mission.
Chuck looked out the window and whistled. “Would you look at that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Alex had to admit it was breathtaking. Even though she’d been on dozens of missions to various climates and regions of the Earth, the sight of the surface never failed to awe her. Especially rainforests.
She supposed it was a result of spending her life on an airship where most of the surfaces were made of cold metal and every square inch was carefully planned and engineered for optimum usage. The rainforest below was the exact opposite. It teamed with life, and the vegetation sprawled, each living thing limited only by its own ability to survive. If something could get the sunlight and water it needed, it grew.
The sprawl of the surface boggled her New Haven-bred mind.
The away ship slowed to a stop, hovering a hundred feet over the canopy of trees below.
“What’s going on, Captain Eldred?” a recruit named Shirley asked. Alex couldn’t help but notice the recruit had quickly taken the seat next to Firefly and had barely stopped staring at him during the flight.
“Don’t know,” Firefly said. “Alex?”
Alex touched the radio on her chest. “What are we doing, Owl?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Captain,” came the reply. “This is the coordinates we have, but I don’t see anything down there but trees.”
Alex stared out the window. She saw nothing below them but green. “This weapons stash was supposed to be secret, right? I guess it makes sense it would be camouflaged from the air.” She thought a moment. “Owl, get us as low as you can. We’ll use the ropes to get down there.”
Firefly frowned. “We’re going into that jungle blind?”
Alex stood up and started back toward the cargo door. “My team is. You can do what you want.”
She was gratified to see Chuck, Ed, and Patrick immediately rise and follow her to the back.
After a moment, Firefly nodded to his crew. “You heard the captain. Let’s move.”
It took a few minutes to get everyone rigged up, but they were soon being lowered down two by two through the thick canopy to the jungle floor. Alex and Chuck went first, followed by the Barton brothers. Firefly and his three recruits were the last down.
The jungle floor was dim, but Alex was relieved to see there was enough sunlight coming through the canopy that a vampire encounter seemed unlikely. On a less positive note, there were no structures in sight.
Alex looked around, hands on hips, searching for anything that might have been made by human hands. She was already sweating. The humid air felt like a wet blanket over her. She could see in her crew’s faces they were surprised at the weather, so much different than the arid, cold Colorado weather they’d experienced at the prison.
The sounds of life were all around them, from the songs of birds to the distant calls of unknown animals. The team looked a little spooked. She could hardly blame them after a life lived on the sterile environment of New Haven, where the only nonhuman sounds were those of machinery. She should have prepared them better for this. But as long as they kept their fingers away from the triggers, they’d be okay.
A gunshot split the air.
Alex spun, drawing her pistol as she turned.
Ed stood with his weapon pointed toward the brush, his eyes wide with fear.
“What the hell?” Alex shouted.
Ed’s stare remained fixed on the brush. “Something was looking at me, Captain. From the bushes. It had yellow eyes. Pretty sure I got it.”
Alex glanced up at the sky and saw once again plenty of sunlight was streaming through the leaves. “Hold your fire. Patrick, with me.”
She slowly crept forward, pistol at the ready. Patrick was close behind her. It took them nearly a minute to make it ten feet through the dense foliage, but they soon found Ed’s enemy combatant.
She sighed. “Well, at least your aim was true.”
The creature lay dead at her feet, a single bullet hole in the center of its skull. She recognized it from the picture books she’d obsessed over as a kid. It was a jaguar.
“Are you kidding me?” Patrick muttered when he saw it.
He turned back and shouted to his brother, “You dick! You killed a cat.”
Owl’s voice came through her headset. “Hey, Captain, I ran a scan of the area, and I think I found something.”
“I’m not going to lie,” Chuck said. “This is a bit anticlimactic.”
Alex couldn’t disagree.
The entire expedition, including the four GMT members and Firefly and his three recruits, stood in front of a small structure. The single-story building was made of brick, though thick moss and crisscrossing vines hid most of it from view. The remains of a few other structures stood nearby, but time and exposure had reduced them to little more than piles of rotting wood and scraps of metal.
The building in front of them couldn’t have been more than ten feet by ten feet. If there was a weapons store in there, it would be a very small one.
“Wonderful,” Firefly grumbled.
Judging by the condition of the exterior, Alex couldn’t imagine anything inside would be in usable condition, but she kept her feelings about the situation to herself. “Well, we’re here, aren’t we? Let’s open her up.”
Chuck tried the door. “Seems to be rusted shut, Captain.”
Alex looked at him, her face expressionless. “Shame we don’t have an explosives expert who might rectify that situation.”
“Yeah it is.” He paused a moment, then turned red. “Oh, right.” With that, he took off his backpack and began rifling around inside.
Alex suppressed a chuckle. This was the man’s first mission in charge of explosives, so she couldn’t fault him too much. She glanced at Firefly, who wasn’t making any effort to hide his annoyance at the way Chuck was slowly going through the backpack.
“Use a charge,” he said. “A small one. We don’t want to risk anything large if there could be weapons inside.”
“Yes, sir,” Chuck answered.