“Why is he writing her letters?” Frank reached for it.
“Who? Elliott?” Robbie chuckled and pulled his arm back. “To be nice. To have conversation, sort of.”
“Conversation?”
“Yeah. He likes having conversations with her.”
“Why don’t you just say ‘talking’ to her?”
Robbie shrugged and tapped the envelope on his hand.
“You read it, didn’t you? I see the seal’s broke.”
“I sat on it.”
“Bull shit. It’s open now. Let me see.”
“I don’t know, Frank, maybe . . .”
“Robbie!” Frank snapped and held out his hand.
“Because you’re my big brother, here, but don’t say anything.” Robbie laid the letter in Frank’s palm. “Read as you walk. I wanna get this perimeter done.”
Frank slipped the note from the envelope. “Is this right? I mean reading this.”
“Frank, please. Ellen would share anyhow.”
“You’re right.”
“Besides.” Robbie walked. “I don’t believe, not that I know for sure mind you, but I don’t believe there’s anything in there that . . .” Robbie felt the slightness of it hit his leg at the same time he heard the tiniest ‘snap’. “Frank?” Robbie looked to his right then as he peered down to see the thin wire on the ground. A simple ‘pop’ rang out followed by a small emergence of white smoke. “What the hell?” Robbie waved his hand to clear the smoke.
“Bet me I know.” Frank walked in front of Robbie, pulled on the wire, and followed the smoke. “I knew it.” Stuck to a tree where the wire was attached, was a note. Frank ripped it off. “Dean.” He handed the note to Robbie.
Robbie laughed as he read it, “Frank, if you read this, you must have found my trap. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Robbie shook his head. “How immature.”
“Yeah.” Frank grabbed his radio and called into it. “Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean.”
‘What!” Dean blasted back over the airwaves.
“I found your trip wire and enjoyed the little puff of smoke.”
“Then I killed you?”
“No, Dean, you killed my fuckin brother.”
“Shit.”
“Yep. But nice try. Oh Dean, it’s moments like this that really show that you were an officer in the Armed Forces. Bye.” Laughing, Frank lowered the microphone away from his mouth. “Now let’s see what we have.” With a grin, he lifted the letter from Elliott Ryder to Ellen and opened it.
^^^^
Mark in Security was an avid reader. He was never without a book, especially while working Tracking. Of course it was something that he didn’t let Frank see him with. He felt like a kid with a dirty magazine every time Frank caught him reading, but working tracking was boring. The occasional beep of an animal entering the zone would take Mark from his reading long enough to identify size and weight. He had to admit it was pretty interesting with the killer babies running around up there, but they seemed to have either wandered off or died and Tracking returned to being boring once more.
He enjoyed reading “Gone with the Wind” and expected great things from Scarlet. But reading material and choices were running so short in Beginnings. Mark started to contemplate becoming the world’s next great author. After all, to Mark, competition was minimal.
He was enjoying his daydream of literary compliments from those in Beginnings when the beeping caught his attention. Peering up from his page, the book dropped from Marks hand. The beeping blared steady and loudly and Mark grabbed the radio. “Frank. Come in.”
^^^^
Crinkling the letter in his left hand, Frank held up a ‘wait’ finger to Robbie as he adjusted the microphone on his headset. “Yeah.” Frank’s eyes lifted to Robbie. “Shit. Where . . . fuck. . . how many? All right, I’m on my way.” He spoke his last word and handed the letter back to Robbie as he started to briskly walk. “Go to the hanger. Get the chopper ready. We have a breach.”
“Where?”
“Area Twenty-two. It’s three miles away and moving at top human speed.”
“Too close to home.”
“Too close to our most vulnerable area.”
“SUTS?”
“Don’t know.” Frank shrugged. “That’s my guess.” He paused. “Or Savages.”
“How would they know enough to hit our vulnerable area? Can’t be.”
“We’ll know when we hit the air now, won’t we?”
Robbie stopped walking just at the point where they would separate and he would go toward the hanger and Frank to Tracking. “What kinda firepower?”
Frank had to think for a second. “The area’s dense. Dean-2 tipped, no, wait, Dean-3 tipped. That will work.”
“Got it.”
“See you in five.” Frank took off running toward the direction of the utility buildings.
“A pedophile,” Gemma stated to Joe.
Joe’s head just dropped forward onto his desk and he whined.
“Joe?”
Joe lifted his head with an almost laugh. “Trish?”
“She exposed herself to the boys and . . . and . . . offered herself.”
“I find that really hard to believe,” Joe defended. “Maybe you miss understood those boys. They can be morons.”
Gemma gasped. “They are our young, our future.”
“Oh God.” Joe began to rub his temples.
“Talk to them.”
“I’m going to have to. This is a serious offense you’re accusing her of and knowing those boys, what actually happened is nowhere near what you’re telling me.”
“Let’s just hope because the last thing anyone needs is . . .”
“Dad,” Frank called out as he walked into the office.
“Frank.” Joe stood up. “Glad you’re here.”
Seeing Gemma sitting there, Frank motioned his head back in a signal to Joe for him to come outside.
Joe happily obliged and closed the door behind him. “What’s up?”
“Got a breech in Area Twenty-two.”
“Near the east tunnel.”
“Twenty humans, heading fast, now about one and a half miles from the tunnel entrance.”
“Christ.”
“We’re taking them out by air.”
“Frank . . .”
“They’re too close. They have to be taken out especially if they’re Savages.”
Joe sighed. “Frank, they can’t be Savages. They’re hitting out most vulnerable area.”
“My gut tells me otherwise.”
“What do you plan on using?” Joe asked.
“We can’t fire on them. It’s too dense and we can’t take a chance on hits spreading. We’re gonna try the Co-2 tipped missile.”
“No. It’s too deadly.”
“There’s no other choice. We’re going with tip three. That’s our best option. The oxygen saturation of 1.28 percent is only in a half a kilometer circumference of ground zero. It’ll dissipate the further out it goes.”
“Half a kilo is not much room.”
‘They aren’t spreading out any further.”
“Be accurate.”
“Got it.” Frank backed up. “I’ll radio.:”
“Frank,” Joe called out as his son took off. “Masks. I mean it.”
With a mere nod, Frank charged for the hanger.
^^^^
“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch.” Robbie sat up in his helicopter seat. “You were right.”
Frank nodded. “Savages.”
Below them, through the trees, the Savages kept a steady pace. They ran in a group straight toward Beginnings.
“This is gonna be tough,” Robbie commented.
“They’re scattering. I’ll fire. You drop and hover as close as you can. We have to nail it.”
“Got it.” Robbie tilted the chopper and swung out, preparing to make another sweep. “Masks.”
“Masks.” At the same time both Robbie and Frank lifted and secured their gas mas
ks. Frank stood up from the seat and moved to the back of the chopper. He grabbed his M-16, slid the door open, and braced himself in the opening. “Ready!” He aimed and with his weapon on automatic, he began to lay fire, but the savages kept running forward even as the dropped.
Robbie slowed the chopper down to a near hover and released the missile. The slight long whistle precluded the crack and the cloud of smoke that rose up.
Frank stepped way from the open door, leaving it that way so that the deadly smoke that seeped into the chopper would eventually air out as they flew. He moved up front and saw Robbie reaching for his mask. “No.” He grabbed his hand. “Leave it on.”
“You think it worked?”
Frank looked out the window. He couldn’t see a thing through the thick cloud that lingered in one small section of the woods. “We’ll have to wait and see. We’ll be landed before it even takes effect.”
^^^^
Mark watched the strong life signal beeps of Tracking stop moving and stop beeping, one by one. He smiled, pleased, knowing full well what that meant. Two to three minutes, according to Dean’s tests and the Dean-3 tip missile will have completed its destruction. Mark looked at his watch. Two and a half minutes. The twenty beeps went down to eight then five. It was a count down, but Mark’s eyes stayed on the ones that still moved but had to have inhaled enough of the deadly substance. Four . . . moving . . . three . . . still moving . . . two . . . moving steady . . . one, and Mark waited. He watched the screen intently waiting for the lone strong beep to stop before it made it to the entrance.
Nothing.
Beeping.
Silence.
Relief.
Alarms.
“Shit!” Mark sprang forward, his eyes moving to another monitor as a different alarm sounded off. It was more of a siren. “Frank,” he spoke rapidly into the radio. “East tunnel. Motion just picked it up. We have an intruder!”
^^^^
“Squad Four, you take the two tunnel entrances center town,” Frank ordered out through his headset as he dropped down into the east tunnel by the quantum and mobile labs. Robbie, Dan, and three other Security men stood there waiting. Frank shoved a clip in his M-16. “O.K.,” he spoke to them. “I have teams coming in from the north, south, and west. The only way out is this way or up. Dan, you stay here.”
“Got it, Frank.” Dan readied his weapon.
“Robbie and the rest, fan out. These fuckin tunnels are like mazes. He may be panicked because he’s trapped.” Frank pumped the chamber on his M-16. “Shoot to kill, gentlemen. Let’s go.” He started to march ahead.
“Frank,” Robbie called out. “Wait.”
Frank turned around in his walk. “What’s up?”
“Center town. Four o’clock. Where are our mad scientists?” Robbie questioned.
“They better be fuckin home.” Frank reached for his radio.
^^^^
“Whew!” Ellen waved her hand in front of her nose as she turned the speed of the fan up to high. The fan pointed out the open cryo-lab door.
“It’ll air out,” Dean said as he waited at the counter.
“I hope.” Ellen made her way back. “We have to do this now? It really stinks in here.”
“Yeah, El.” Dean stood over a trembling rabbit and strapped him down. “We could have done this earlier had someone checked on the last rabbit sooner.”
“I thought he was sleeping. Sorry.” Ellen moved closer and placed on a pair of gloves then stood on the other side of the counter.
“It shouldn’t take as long to do this rabbit . . .”
“Face lift?”
Dean raised his eyes with a chuckle. “Did you call Hap to tell him we’d be late?” Dean looked oddly around. “Do you hear that crackling?”
Ellen listened. “It sounds like static. With that fan going it’s hard to tell. And yeah, I called Hap.”
“You know what he was like the last . . .” Dean turned his head quickly to the right. “Is that my radio?”
Leaning far to her left, Ellen tried to hear. “Yeah.” She grabbed it. Bits of her name made it through, but it was interrupted by the static. She banged it off her hand. “It has to be the fan, but it sounds like Frank.” She depressed the button. “Whatever you’re saying, Frank, we can’t make it out!” She yelled out and set the radio down. “If it’s urgent he’ll find us.”
“The sedative ready?”
“Nope.” Ellen reached for the vial and the syringe. “How much? He’s a big rabbit.”
“Twenty-five milligrams should be enough. No overdose. You killed the last one.”
“God, make me out to be a bunny murderer.”
“Get the syringe ready. I want to do this.”
Ellen held up the vial and lifted the syringe. Before she could plunge the needle into the tip of the vial, the loud ricocheting crash of the falling fan made her jolt. When she looked up to the door, her mouth opened. A scream came out but it wasn’t her.
War call. Savage.
“Shit.” Dean jolted his views. “Duck.”
Ellen did when the tall boney Savage sailed a small spear across the room at her. It whizzed above her head just as she lowered and then it smashed into the wall. Instincts telling her not to stay on the floor, Ellen stood quickly to her feet from behind the counter. There wasn’t a split second to look at Dean who was standing. The Savage charged across the room, leaped in a hurl mid-lab, and lunged toward Ellen. His body made it to the counter when Dean barreled onto his back, crashing the Savage into the counter’s edge. There was a slight bounce as the edge seared into the savage’s gut, and with the velocity of the bodily hit Dean gave, both the Savage and Dean careened down to the floor. They rolled a few feet in an entanglement Dean was not expecting. Coming to a stop, the Savage jumped up, his long hair dangling in his face, and he reached for another spear from the strap on his back. Raising it high at Dean, who was backing away, he didn’t hear the long cry out ‘no!’ from Ellen. Just as he went to plunge the spear, he dropped it, grunted out, grabbed his calf, lifted it, and began to hop. He spun around with vengeance to see Ellen backing up.
‘She kicked him? What the hell . . .’ Was the immediate thought to race into Dean’s mind as he made it to his feet in time to see the Savage go after Ellen. Knowing he was smarter to do something other than kick the Savage, Dean, in an attempt to stop him again, leaped up onto the Savage’s back.
The Savage did not go down.
Crying out louder, the Savage swung back and forth in angry annoyance trying to shake off Dean who clung to his neck and was attached to his back.
“E,.” Dean called through his struggle to hold on and keep back the savage who was at least a foot taller than he. “Call Frank.”
“Frank!”
“Radio,” Dean grunted as he and the Savage began to crash into things.
“Shit.” Ellen stumbled in a run to the counter, reached for the radio, and stopped. She smiled brightly then grabbed the vial and the syringe. In her hurried move back to Dean, she plunged the needle into the vial and filled it all the way up. “Hold him!”
“What?”
“Hold him.” Ellen moved about in an attempt to aim for a spot to inject.
“What do you think I’m doing? Call Frank.”
“No.” Ellen squatted, stood then leaned to the left and the right.
“El!”
“Dean, I’m trying to find a . . . yes!”
“What . . .”
Ellen dropped from sight.
“El?”
A long and gasping high pitch squeal came from the Savage at the same instance his legs buckled. He dropped to the ground. slamming knees first to the floor with a bang. The inhaling, wheezing scream continued as the Savage’s hands joined in a cup to his crotch. As Dean lifted from the Savage’s back, the Savage fell face forward to the floor He squealed, rolled his eyes and then became still.
Dean looked to Ellen who grinned and held up the syringe. “You knocked him out.”<
br />
“Yeah. I found the perfect spot. He’s out like a light.” Ellen nudged him with her foot. “I need another needle.” She moved across the lab, tossing the syringe she just used into the bin.
“For what?”
“For . . .” Ellen plunged the new needle in the vial. “To ensure his sedation. This is bunny Thorazine, but we did use it on that deer the one time.” Shrugging, she bent down to the Savage.
“El.” Dean ran his fingers through his hair. “Why are you doing that?” He watched Ellen inject the Savage into the neck with another full syringe.
“I told you . . .”
“Yes, I know, to ensure he’s out. Why? Frank’s just gonna kill him anyhow.”
“No.” Ellen stood up.
“No?”
“Dean, listen.” Ellen stepped back and dropped the syringe to the floor. “Think about it. What were we just discussing?”
“Lots of things. When? Be more specific.”
“About our meds. How we’ve abused the poor field workers long enough by testing on them and how Joe how won’t let us try anything too dangerous on them.”
“Yeah, so.”
“So.” Ellen twitched her head down to the motionless Savage.
“No.”
“Dean, why? It’s perfect. No one knows about him. He’s a Savage. Who cares?”
“Ellen, that’s right. He’s a Savage. He’s wild.”
“So are some of the animals we’ve brought in here. We have the deer room in the back. It’s not clean but neither is he.”
“El.” Dean held up his hands. “No. Joe will have a fit.”
“How’s Joe gonna know? Really. Think of it. We can do skin chunking tests, test anti-inflammatory agents that we want to try, and even try out surgery techniques. You name it. We could do anything. He’s fair game and . . .” She held up her finger. “If it tortures him, we can justify it.”
Dean bobbed his head in thought. “True. Really, how many humans has he tortured?”
“Exactly.”
The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20 Page 55