by Peter Clines
Taylor had his Bravo inches from her head, brushing the fabric of her hood. Harrison and Hayes stayed a few feet back with their weapons raised. “Don’t be stupid,” said Harrison. “You know you can’t get out of here.”
She tugged on the handcuffs again and laced her fingers over Polk’s mouth and nose. “He will asphyxiate in two minutes if you do not place your weapons on the ground and give me the handcuff key.”
“Standard procedure for moving prisoners,” said Harrison. “The key’s never in transit, only at either end of the—”
“The key is in the left front pocket of your pants on a silver ring. Corporal Polk now has one minute forty-six seconds left to live.”
“You’re supposed to be one of the good guys,” said Hayes. “You’re not going to kill a soldier in the line of duty.”
“One minute thirty-three seconds.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Smith, shaking his head. “You’re not going to kill him, are you, Stealth?”
The cloaked woman lurched forward an inch, just enough to loosen the chain. Polk took a deep, wheezing breath. “No,” she said.
“Would you mind releasing him, then?”
She unlaced her fingers and pulled her arms over his head. In the process she yanked out his earbud, mussed his hair, and knocked off his cap. He took another deep breath. “Fucking bitch,” he muttered.
Smith gave her an annoyed look. “Can we make it all the way onto the helicopter without any more outbursts?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Do not expect to bend me to your will,” she said. Her voice was loud and clear in the tunnel.
“Lady, you’re already bent,” he said. “Be thankful I just want to get out of here or you’d be putting on a donkey show for the soldiers.”
Taylor chuckled.
“You have demonstrated a small amount of control when I was unprepared. Your limited influence forces you to use more indirect means. If you could assert direct control, you would have done so.”
“I’ve got direct control of half the base already,” snapped Smith.
“But not us,” said Stealth. “St. George and I are too strong-willed for you to influence directly. I would imagine Captain Freedom is too strong for you as well.”
“Freedom will put a gun in his mouth the moment I ask him to,” said Smith. His own voice was rising to match hers. “They all would. Don’t you get it? This has been my base for almost two years now.”
Harrison cocked his head and looked back and forth between the soldiers.
“Is that why you killed Colonel Shelly? Did he become a threat to you?”
“Shelly was my sock puppet up until he died,” said Smith. “He had just enough willpower to turn his own brain into mush trying to resist me. He’s lucky I let him live as long as I—”
“Sir,” barked Harrison. He held up his hand. The soldiers were looking back and forth at each other. The staff sergeant snapped his fingers, then again, then once more. Taylor tapped his collar and Hayes rubbed his own between his fingers.
Polk pulled his duty cap back on his head and coughed. They all looked at him. He blinked. “What?”
“You’re keying,” said Harrison with a glance at Stealth. “She turned your mic on!”
Ummmmm … did everyone else just hear all of that?
They’d just made it back to the main gate. Freedom and Kennedy exchanged looks. All the super-soldiers gave each other uneasy glances. St. George looked up at the gleaming wraith.
I never liked that guy.
Sorensen sat in the workshop and watched figures stumble by outside. He’d stayed hidden in the back office for an hour, but at some point he’d wandered out without thinking of it. From here, hidden in the shadows of the shop, he could see groups of soldiers running by, or the far more frequent mobs of exes. Several of them wore his nonfunctioning Nest units, but many more did not.
He tapped the fingers of his left hand against his thumb. His right fingers traced lines back and forth on one of the worktables. He was aware he was doing it. It was one of those faint moments of clarity when he realized he looked like a madman. He also realized he needed to trim his beard. Eva hated it when his beard got long.
He heard the cries and the screams, the clicking of teeth, and various shouted calls and orders. Someone would probably come to collect him, soon.
It all seemed distant. The guilty thoughts about the Nest and the ex-soldiers that had weighed on his fragile mind were gone. For the first time in over a year, he felt peaceful.
A trio of exes stumbled in through the wrecked doors. They weren’t any of his. These had all been civilians. The woman was dressed in a pant suit, bleached from ages in the sun. The two men were in plaid shirts and jeans. One of them had a thick beard. The other tripped over the edge of the door and fell forward. Its skull hit the ground with a solid crack, but Sorensen could hear its limbs moving on the floor, trying to push it upright. Not enough damage to the cerebellum, but it may have broken its jaw from the muffled sounds its teeth now made.
The dead woman saw him and stumbled forward. Her skin was like leather, and there were a few twigs and tiny leaves in her dark hair. He could see an elaborate cobweb stretched from a ragged ear to her shoulder. Her brittle lips were pulled back in a smile.
“I knew you’d come,” he said. “I kept telling them you were out there somewhere. None of them believed me.”
He pulled her close. His wife wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.
“HOW MUCH LONGER WE GONNA KEEP THIS UP?” Hundreds of dead faces split into hundreds of grins. “YOU ASK ME, YOU GONNA RUN OUTTA BULLETS LONG BEFORE I RUN OUTTA BODIES.”
“First things first,” said St. George. “Let’s get this gate blocked.”
Freedom gave three quick hand signals and the chisel-nosed truck coughed to life. It was a long, eight-wheeled vehicle with a crane mounted on the end of it. They pulled it across the gate and the soldiers fired around and under it as the driver leaped clear.
St. George hooked his fingers under the truck’s frame and heaved. The flatbed’s side lifted up and he grunted. The damned thing was armored and weighed twice what he’d thought. He got the tires three feet off the ground, then four. He heard a rattling noise as some of the chains on the bed slid off the far side, but he couldn’t get it to the tipping point.
His forearm throbbed. He could feel his pulse in the wound and the wet bandage over it. It felt like the fang was tearing into him all over again.
Legion laughed from a hundred throats.
“Unbreakables,” shouted Freedom, stepping forward, “give the man some assistance.”
The captain’s oversized hands slammed into the truck’s frame next to St. George’s. Pierce, Kennedy, and Garfield added their strength, too. The side of the truck went up another six inches, then six more, and the five of them rolled the ponderous flatbed onto its side across the gate. The soldiers behind them cheered.
“That’s not going to hold forever,” said St. George.
“Agreed,” said Freedom. “The fence line’s been compromised in at least three places, and weakened beyond each of them.” He pointed at either side of the gate, where the chain-link sagged. “No tension, no strength.”
“Sir,” said Kennedy, “we haven’t been able to reach Captain Creed. If Colonel Shelly is dead …” She looked at him with a neutral face.
“Ranking officer?” guessed St. George. “So, what are we going to do?”
Freedom knelt and scratched a rectangle in the sand. “We’re here,” he said, pointing. He made two quick crosses on the opposite side and gestured to one on the corner. “We’ve got breaches here and here. That’s where your friends are.”
“And this one?”
“Most of third company’s there. Two more squads on the way.”
“How many is that? Fifty, sixty soldiers?”
“More or less,” said Kennedy. “Any of the
m your people?”
Freedom shook his head. “We’ve got Twenty-two here. Squad Eleven’s still cleaning out the barracks. That leaves Twenty-one escorting Agent Smith.” He glanced at the gate. “First sergeant, now that we’re here with St. George let’s get Sergeant Pierce and his people to the southeast corner.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know this place,” said St. George. He nodded at the upended flatbed. “Are we going to be able to block the other holes?”
The captain looked at the map in the dirt. “Maybe,” he said after a moment. “It depends on how much Legion has to throw at us.”
“Zzzap?”
The gleaming wraith shot into the sky. When he was a few hundred feet above the base he turned in a slow circle, taking in the lay of the land. A moment later he raced back to the ground. Lots of exes coming, he said. I’d guess you’re looking at two thousand or more in any given direction.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Kennedy. “Most of them should be coming from the southwest, Yuma. Every other direction is a hundred miles of nothing. Where are they all coming from?”
“They’re coming from Yuma,” said St. George. “These aren’t random wanderers. They’ve been moved into position. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been herding them out here for months. He might have half the population of the city here.”
There’re also a couple good-sized packs inside the fence line. One’s coming this way from the north. He looked at Freedom. I didn’t see many of your people, though.
The officer raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
I mean I don’t see anyone. Shouldn’t they all be on guard towers or making barricades or something?
“They’re probably already in position.”
I’d still be able to see them.
“Most of these buildings have a degree of shielding for heat and radiation,” said Kennedy. “Once someone’s at their post they’d be shielded.”
The towers have radiation shielding? scoffed Zzzap. Still, shouldn’t there be a couple stragglers or something? Somebody still moving somewhere?
“The Army isn’t big on stragglers,” said Kennedy.
St. George silenced them with a gesture. “What about evacuation, then? You must have a plan. You didn’t think some chain-link fences were going to hold forever.”
“We can’t abandon our post,” said Freedom.
“You sure?”
“It’s out of the question,”
“Okay, then,” St. George said. “Last thing, then. Can all of you hold the gate here while I get to the helipad?”
“Sir,” said Freedom, “I think we owe Mr. Smith more than that.”
Harrison led his squad up the staircase into the records building. Smith was right behind him. Taylor and Hayes dragged the prisoner with Polk at the rear. The sergeant stepped into the dim hallway, checked each direction, and waved them to follow. From the stairwell it was a short jog to the lobby, and the lobby doors were a few hundred yards from the helipad.
Harrison’s jacket was stained red just below his chin. There were drops on his collar, too, just below his ears. “Sir,” he said, “if we’re taking the Black Hawk, what about the rest of the men? Will they meet up with us later?”
Smith sighed. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave them behind,” he said.
“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”
“Getting this prisoner to Groom Lake is our top priority. And don’t you remember, Colonel Shelly gave me vital orders that need to be delivered there?”
“Yes, but … Sir, there’re a thousand soldiers and support staff here. We can’t abandon all of them.”
“Necessary losses, I’m afraid. You understand, don’t you?”
Harrison reached up and wiped away more blood. It flowed from his ears and nose in a set of steady streams. He blinked and his tears were stained pink. “That … with all due respect, sir, we can’t do that.”
“I understand,” said the agent with a sympathetic nod. He looked at the cloaked woman. “Moral conflict,” he said, shaking his head. “It starts to break down their brains. A vicious circle, really. The degradation of affected areas frees them from my control, which means I need to exert more influence, which leads to more degradation.”
The staff sergeant looked up from his bloody hands. “Sir?”
“It’s always good to know there are men like you in our armed forces,” said Smith. “Men who aren’t going to blindly follow orders without at least questioning the morality of them. Could I have your sidearm, sergeant?”
“Of course, sir.” Harrison pulled the weapon from its holster, checked the chamber and the safety, and handed it grip-first to the agent. “It’s all set to go, sir. You just need to flip the safety.”
“That’s this one here, right?” He pointed at the tiny lever over the red dot.
“Yes, sir.”
Smith flipped the lever with his thumb and fired four shots into Harrison’s chest. The sergeant fell back against the wall and dropped his Bravo. His vest had taken most of it, but he still wheezed out some air.
Smith peered down the sights and squeezed the trigger a few more times. One shot went into Harrison’s throat. The next one tore open his cheek along his jawline. The last three turned his head into a red and ivory mess.
The soldiers had their weapons up. They’d thrown Stealth to the ground and had Smith in their sights. “Do not move, fucker,” roared Taylor.
The young agent blew smoke from the pistol’s barrel. “Staff Sergeant Harrison was collaborating with the enemy,” he said. “You all knew that, right?”
“Of course, sir,” said Polk, lowering his weapon.
“I’m only sorry I didn’t shoot the traitorous fuck myself,” muttered Taylor.
“We’re not going to make it until reinforcements get here,” the sergeant told Danielle. He had to raise his voice over the chattering teeth. “We’re going to have to fall back.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Fall back to where?”
The soldier looked at the hordes of undead pouring through the fence. “As far as we can,” he said. “Our ammo’s not going to last much longer. I think your robot’s running out of juice, too. Hopefully we’ll meet up with our reinforcements and we can form a new line.”
“So, you’re talking about a retreat,” she said.
“Yeah,” he muttered, “basically.”
His eyes shifted around for a minute and two or three expressions flicked across his face. Then he swung his rifle up and aimed it past her. She cringed as it went off. Something hit the ground behind her.
A group of ex-soldiers had come up behind them. Almost twenty of them. The sergeant had killed the one reaching for her. He yanked her out of the way and let off a dozen rounds. Three dead men and a woman dropped.
The soldiers shifted into a circle. Four in front, three in back. Danielle could see there weren’t enough of them. They were exposed.
She forced one of her Berettas away from her body and tried to remember every offhand comment Stealth had ever made about firing a gun. She squeezed the trigger. An ex-soldier a few yards away jerked up and its shoulder went limp. She fired off two more shots and the zombie dropped.
One of the soldiers facing the fence hollered. An ex had dropped on top of him. He was trying to kick it away and bring his rifle up, but the weapon was tangled in the dead woman’s limbs. Danielle shoved the pistol at the ex’s skull and blew it apart, but there was already another one clawing at the soldier’s feet. She flinched back against the solid safety of the wall.
The sound of teeth was drowning out everything. She barely heard the sergeant yell as his rifle ran dry and he clubbed an ex with it. One soldier wrapped his hands around a zombie’s neck and tried to twist its skull off. The circle was overwhelmed.
They were all around her.
She emptied the first pistol, pulled out the second, and looked for a target. There were too many, too close. There were at least a
hundred coming through the fence. Still more than a dozen coming from the base. She fired until her fingers ached and the slide locked open. Half the soldiers were down, wrestling with zombies. She was pretty sure two of them were already dead.
One of the exes reached for her with withered fingers. Danielle threw her pistol and it bounced off the snapping jaws. She was exposed. Weak. Flesh. The ex’s hand slid up her arm, headed for the exposed flesh of her face.
A metal hand reached down and crushed the dead man’s skull. It flung the body back into the mob. “Come on,” said Cesar. “We gotta get out of here.” He batted away two more exes with a shrug of the battlesuit’s shoulders.
Metal fingers closed on her waist and lifted her into the air. She was even more exposed. They set her down on the armor’s shoulders and she grabbed the helmet for balance. “Put me down,” she shouted. She banged her fist on the metal skull. “We’ve got to get somewhere safe. We all do.”
“Dr. Morris,” said the battlesuit, “there’s nobody left. It’s just us.”
She looked down.
The exes had overrun the small defense line. The soldiers were dead. One was still twitching but had a trio of exes gnawing on him. She was pretty sure one had put his rifle in his own mouth and the sound had been lost in all the gunfire.
A pair of exes reached for her feet, but she was high enough up that all they could do was brush her heels. The titan swatted them away. Danielle wrapped her arms tighter around the helmet as the battlesuit stomped down the road.
She looked back at the guard towers flanking the hole in the fence. The soldiers there were still picking off exes with their rifles, but it was pebbles to divert a flood. One of them looked at her and she could see his eyes from fifty yards away.
“We’re going to come back,” she shouted. “I promise. Just hang on.”
He gave her a weak wave that looked like it ended in a thumbs-up. The other one just kept shooting at the dozens of exes stumbling past his tower.
Smith had put Polk in front to replace Harrison and left Taylor and Hayes to wrestle with Stealth. They marched through the lobby of the records building and pushed the doors open. Smith took a breath, straightened his tie out of habit, and looked at the scene in front of them.