White noise cut his voice off, the connection already severed.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Les cursed. The words echoed in his helmet. He bit down on his mouth guard, trying to keep his heart rate and breathing under control.
Another transmission came over the link from Command, but Les made out only two words.
“Possible hidden …”
Dazzling swirls of lightning flashed below, foreshadowing what lay beneath the dark clouds. The weather sensors on Deliverance were more advanced than those on the Hive, but apparently, even they hadn’t been able to detect what was down there. Ensign Connor was also one of the best meteorologists in the history of the Hive, but these storms were unpredictable.
Les shifted his gaze back to his HUD. He was already down to sixteen thousand feet, and at his current speed, he would be on the ground in four to seven minutes, depending on when he pulled his chute.
Very long minutes.
And he was still picking up speed. The wind rushed over his suit and armor, whistling, screaming like a wild animal.
Les straightened his long body the best he could, his muscles tense and his spine straight. The rifle strapped over his back made it difficult, but he managed to hold his head-down vertical position all the way down to twelve thousand feet.
His eyes went from his HUD, which now began to crackle, to the divers below. The red of Michael’s battery pack, at around ten thousand feet, looked like a flame in the darkness.
An arc of lightning streaked between the two blue units, but according to his HUD, both Layla and Erin made it through. Their beacons beeped for several more seconds until the minimap fizzled out. He was deaf and blind now, with only his instincts and brain to keep him alive.
The floor suddenly lit up like a strobe light. Dozens of lightning flashes created the illusion of an electric ocean.
My God, it’s beautiful, he thought. And deadly, he reminded himself.
Les was close to terminal velocity, somewhere around 170 miles per hour. Even though his last HUD reading showed an ambient temperature of forty-one degrees Fahrenheit, he was sweating. The synthetic layers under his suit were warm, and he had an extra layer of clothes on under those.
His muscles tensed as he hit a pocket of turbulence. For a fleeting moment, he thought he might be able to hold the suicide dive, but the wind took him, cartwheeling his body as if it were the giraffe doll his daughter had given him.
The mouth guard popped out and lay against the inside of his face shield. He flexed his arms back into a hard arch, doing what he was trained to do—fighting his way into a stable free-fall position first, then working his way back into a nosedive.
A voice broke over the speakers, the system flaring back to life suddenly.
“Raptor Two, Three, Four, report …”
It was Michael, but Les couldn’t make out the rest of the transmission.
The battery units of the other divers were about to enter the heart of the storm below. One by one, they vanished into the cloud.
Les was next. His altimeter put him between six thousand and seven thousand feet, which meant the cloud cover would break soon and they would have to pull their chutes.
As he entered the nucleus of the storm, lightning flashed in all directions. The hair on his neck prickled, and he felt hot and cold at the same time.
Five thousand feet. Or was he past that already?
The next few seconds felt as if he were falling through some interdimensional wormhole surrounded by blue. The clouds around him seemed to swirl like a tornadic vortex.
And in a blink, it was all over.
He blasted through the final cloud of the storm, untouched by the lightning. The hair on his neck and arms relaxed, and he blinked as his HUD flickered back on.
Now he knew why Deliverance hadn’t picked up the electromagnetic disturbance. It was just a small rogue pocket, nearly undetectable by their weather sensors.
Voices boomed over the channel.
“We’re off course.”
It was Michael, and then Layla shouted, “Pull west! Pull west!”
Les spotted their battery units, but he still couldn’t see the ground—only a flat black surface.
Wait … Is that …?
The subtly shifting clouds below weren’t clouds at all—they were waves. And to the west—his left—rose a domed building set in the middle of a disk-shaped platform the color of rust. Docks extended from the circular edge, giving it the appearance of a spiked virus shell.
Could this be the Metal Islands?
The ITC military base was unlike anything he had ever seen. Now that he was clear of the storm, he gradually brought his arms out at right angles and spread his legs until he was in stable falling position. Then, turning and extending his legs a bit, he began to work his way toward the other three divers.
Erin was to the far right of Michael and Layla, about two thousand feet away from Les. She must have caught some serious turbulence.
“Raptor Three,” Les said.
She didn’t respond.
“Raptor Three,” he repeated.
After another pause, he yelled, “Erin!”
She continued falling headfirst in a suicide dive.
Les saw then that it wasn’t precisely a suicide dive. Her arms were not tucked against her sides as they should have been.
“Oh, no,” Les mumbled. It wasn’t turbulence that had hit her. She must have been zapped by lightning in the rogue storm pocket.
“Raptor Three, do you copy?” Michael said.
“She’s been hit!” Les said. “I think she’s been hit!”
Michael wasted no time dropping into a nosedive.
“Tin, what are you doing!” Layla yelled.
Les knew exactly what the commander was doing, and it was a long shot. He had little to no chance of catching her and getting his canopy over them before hitting the water.
And chances were that Erin was already dead, although her beacon was still beating.
“Pull your chutes!” Michael yelled at Layla and Les.
Layla ignored the order. Les checked his HUD before grabbing the ripcord.
Michael continued in his suicide dive.
He was really going to try to save her.
“You got fifteen seconds, Raptor One!” Les shouted. He checked the numbers again: four thousand feet and falling at 120 miles an hour. Fifteen seconds was pushing it.
Les reached up and wiped his visor clean of precipitation. Whitecaps extended across his field of vision. But there seemed to be a border to the east. Yes, a big landmass curving across the wide horizon.
Cuba …
Three seconds after Michael had given the order, Les pulled his chute. Layla followed his lead. Their canopies bloomed outward, yanking them back up toward the storm, or so it seemed.
Steering with his toggles, he flew his canopy toward Layla as they neared the DZ. The domed structure rose up at them, and as it came into view, he could see why Katrina had risked the dive despite the storm hazard above.
Several boats were docked at the concrete piers jutting from the sphere.
Cazadores …
Or was this just an old fleet that had never left the island? Perhaps, the defectors mentioned in the video had landed here and killed Dr. Julio Diaz and his team.
They would find out soon enough.
“Michael!” Layla yelled.
Les found the red and blue battery units nearing the surface of the water. Seven seconds into his nosedive, Michael had caught up with her. Extending his arms, he grabbed her, wrapped his legs and arms around her, and then pulled his chute.
The canopy jerked the divers upward.
Les held his breath.
It was a ballsy move, and Michael managed to keep his grip on Erin in the process, but they had only f
ive seconds left for the canopy to slow their speed before they hit the water.
Les and Layla continued to slow their descent, creating more of a gap between themselves and Michael and Erin. Even with the NVG, it was hard to see them.
“Tin!” Layla yelled even louder.
A small splash went up where the two divers hit the water. Les continued steering himself toward a pier extending from the dock but twisted slightly for a better look at the spot where they splashed down.
He spotted flailing arms a moment later, but he had to focus on his landing. Pulling on his toggles to slow his descent, he did the two-stage flare.
It would have worked just fine if the concrete platform weren’t slick with rain. He ran out the momentum for several steps before slipping and falling on his back. He hit hard enough that he felt a little woozy.
Get up, numb-nuts. Get up!
Fighting his way out of his parachute, he unclipped one riser and anchored the chute so it wouldn’t blow away. He glimpsed the ancient ship on his right, and the hull speckled with rust and barnacles.
It could be a Cazador ship for all he knew, or it could just be another artifact from the Old World. He did a quick scan for contacts and, seeing none, hurried over to Layla.
She had landed behind him, closer to the edge of the pier. She was already nearing the water’s edge and screaming for Michael and Erin.
When Les got there, he looked out over the waves but saw only whitecaps.
“Where are they?” Layla asked, frantic.
A hundred meters out, movement caught his eye.
Panting broke over the comm channel, then a voice.
“Help … help me with her,” Michael gasped.
Les unslung his rifle, took off the vest laden with flares and magazines, and kicked off his boots. Then he dived into the water. Layla jumped in after him. They swam side by side, kicking away from the platform and into the rough sea.
Les hated dark water almost as much as he hated the dark skies, but at least the skies didn’t hide fish that could swallow you in a bite, or giant octopuses like the one X and Magnolia had reported. He tried to shut out thoughts of whatever might be sharing the same water with him.
Fear fueled his movements, and a minute later he was nearing the two chutes spread out like flattened mushrooms in soup. He put an arm under Erin and helped Michael pull her back toward the dock.
Layla swam alongside, freeing their chutes from their harnesses. They wouldn’t be able to salvage those, but it beat the alternative of drowning with them still attached.
“Is she breathing?” Layla asked.
Michael nodded. “She’s alive.” He let out a painful grunt that told Les it had been a rough landing. As the divers made their way back to the docks, waves rolled in, blocking their view each time one slapped against them.
Layla was first to the pier. She climbed up, then turned to help Les and Michael get Erin out of the water.
Les was so anxious to get out, he nearly jumped onto the concrete.
“We have to take off her helmet,” Michael said.
Les checked the radiation reading on his wrist monitor. This area was a green zone—odd, considering the storm that raged above them.
Something was definitely off about this place.
Michael eased Erin’s helmet off her head. Her eyelids were closed, and blood trickled from her nose.
Layla pulled out a medical kit and fished through the contents.
“Open her mouth, Michael,” she said.
He did as ordered, and Layla slipped a pill under her tongue.
“If this doesn’t wake her up …” Layla didn’t finish her sentence.
Les had used the adrenaline pills before. They acted fast, entering the bloodstream through the gums and veins in the mouth.
Michael looked over his shoulder as they waited, and Les followed his gaze down the dock. Two ships were anchored here, but with no sign that anyone had been aboard in the past hundred years.
“Cazadores?” Michael asked.
“I don’t think so,” Les replied.
“Those are ITC ships,” Layla said. “See the markings?” She gestured at the nearer of the two, whose hull read Transport Cyber … with the rest of the letters too faded to read.
A sudden gasp made Les whirl around as Erin, eyes wide, shot up to a sitting position.
“Easy,” Layla said, putting a hand on Erin’s shoulder. “Just breathe.”
“It’s okay,” Michael added reassuringly. He put a hand on her other shoulder.
She looked at them in turn as she took in deep breaths. “Wha … What happened?”
“You were grazed by lightning,” Michael said. “But you’re going to be okay.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Red Sphere,” Michael said.
“Can you walk?” Layla asked.
Erin pushed at the ground, her body quivering. “I … I don’t know. Everything tingles.”
A metallic clanking sounded in the distance, and the divers all looked toward the domed building set in the center of the round artificial island.
“Did you hear something?” Layla asked.
Michael nodded. “Come on,” he said, “help me get Erin up. We need to get out of the open.”
THIRTEEN
A day had passed since the Sea Wolf left the Turks and Caicos. In that time, the vessel had traveled about seventy-five miles southeast, and they were nearing the eastern edge of the island of Hispaniola, which had once comprised the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
But the boat was in bad shape. The remaining battery was down to a 61 percent charge, and the single engine was struggling to plow through six-foot waves.
Magnolia took a sip of herbal tea, hoping it would calm her sour stomach. She sat in her bunk with her knees pulled up to her chest, reading historical records she had pulled from the satellite station on the island. The cut on her scalp hurt like hell—worse after her fall off the bluff.
Blinking over and over, she tried to clear her vision and concentrate on the tablet screen in her hands. Most of this was stuff she already knew: the history of ITC and the life of its wunderkind CEO, Tyron Red—everything up to his assassination, and what followed in the days immediately after he transferred his consciousness to a robotic body.
“Timothy, were you aware of this?” she asked.
The AI’s voice replied from the single speaker in her small quarters.
“Exactly which part of ‘this’ are you referring to, Magnolia?”
“The part about a computer virus shutting down the grid across the world and then manipulating governments into blowing themselves to kingdom come. I always thought it was humans who did this.”
“Oh, it was.”
“How do you mean?”
There was a slight pause, just long enough for Magnolia to wonder whether the AI might be hiding something.
“Humans designed artificial intelligence.”
“True, but you still haven’t answered my original question.”
“I did another scan, and I do not have anything in my database for the year 2043.”
She lowered the tablet.
“What do you mean, you don’t have anything in your database?”
“I mean that I have zero files about events in that year.”
“How is that possible?”
Another pause.
“What about the year 2042?” she asked.
“I have over one million files for that year.”
She grabbed her cup of tea and took another sip. “What about 2044?”
“There are thousands of files for that year, but not nearly as many as 2042 and before, and they are limited to the Hilltop Bastion and communications with other ITC facilities.”
“Holy wastes
,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance, Miss Katib, but this data must have been lost in what Dr. Diaz is calling ‘the Blackout period.’”
“I guess so.” She brought the tablet up again. This time, she did a search for Red Sphere, the top secret lab where the doctor and his team had spent several years after the war.
Maybe she had missed something in his audio and video clips. Maybe there was something more to this, an answer she had overlooked.
The boat suddenly rocked hard to starboard—the result of a rogue wave slamming into the port side. The impact nearly jolted the tablet out of her hand. She looked up at the bulkhead, where the recessed light flickered.
“No, please don’t,” she whispered.
Miles lifted his head from where he was sleeping off his second feast of shark meat. It was the most movement she had seen from the dog in several hours. It seemed the fish was not agreeing with his stomach. A gurgling sounded, and he let out an audible fart.
Magnolia chuckled until the light flickered off.
“Great. Just freaking great.” She laid the tablet down on the bunk to investigate what had caused the power outage. Whatever answers were in the data would have to wait.
She swung her legs over the bed and put her naked feet on the cold metal floor. Then she grabbed her sweater and threw it over her uniform. A boisterous clanking came from outside her quarters. The noises were followed by another sound, like grinding gears. She found her flashlight and used it to get across the small space to her boots without tripping on her gear bags.
“Mags, where you at?” X shouted.
“Hold on.”
After speed-lacing her boots, she moved into the dark passage, where she flitted her light back and forth over the smooth black bulkheads.
“X, what happened?” she asked. She got no answer right away. Not even Timothy replied.
Because the system is down, she realized.
“X, where are you?”
“Right here.”
She directed the beam behind her.
“No, up here.”
The beam hit his face. He was bending down from the upper level. “We just lost our battery power. Come on, I need your help.”
Hell Divers IV: Wolves Page 17