by Michael Todd
Sal took a moment to rub the fuzziness from his eyes. He’d barely had five hours of sleep before his phone buzzed incessantly to tell him that Courtney tried to contact him from the other side of the encrypted connection.
“Right…hi, morning,” he growled.
“Did I wake you?”
“A little…uh, yeah,” Sal admitted. “But that’s not a problem. It’s nice to hear your voice again.”
“Ditto, big guy,” she said with a soft giggle that she immediately regretted. Big guy? What was she, a preppy sorority girl? “Anyway, I dropped you a couple of documents about the sale of some intellectual property between my dad’s company and some vague and hard to track down buyers.”
“Our IT specialist actually ran into something similar,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Some documents that were apparently signed by your dad before he died but only submitted into the records after he passed away.”
Courtney nodded but remembered that she was on the phone and he couldn’t see her. “Huh. What do you make of these documents popping up all over the place right now?”
“It looks like someone is trying to clean shop,” he said. “You have made some waves there, so whoever it is, they probably want to move everything they need out of the company before anyone notices that you have it. They had the sales records already printed and signed, but they need them to be a matter of record for them to be legally binding.”
“I think I know who you’re talking about,” she said and her good mood vanished almost immediately. “There’s a woman working at my dad’s company called Andressa Covington. She’s given me a hard time ever since I got here, and when I retaliated, she backed down a little too easily and accepted a nominal and useless position in the company. Do you have anything that I can set as a trap for her?”
“We could always send her into the Zoo,” Sal said, only partially joking. “The beasties in there have a way to fix problems like that without too much fuss.”
She chuckled. “I wish. Although we might want to revisit that idea later. No, I thought about some kind of intellectual property of my dad’s that she might not already have filed and that would make her come to us—or me, rather—to deal with personally. If I can get her to agree to pay me off, that should put her in hot water with the authorities around here.”
“You only need her to show up, really,” Sal said. “Tell her that you have something of the company’s and you know she’s the one who’s disposed of the rest of the stuff, so you want her to include you in the action. Make it believable so that she thinks that she has to buy your protection in this situation—something that she can’t do without.”
“Right,” Courtney agreed. “But I don’t think I have anything I can access easily. I’m still new around here, and while I’ve been given free access, they still keep very close tabs on me.”
“I think our hacker might be able to help you with that, actually,” he told her. “She has the technological equivalent of the nose of a bloodhound, which means that we should have something for you within a day or two. No promises, though. She’s the expert.”
“Great,” she said. “Call me as soon as you have something.”
“Will do. Talk to you later.”
He hung up and shook his head before he gathered some clothes to throw on quickly and left his little apartment for the server room. He wasn’t sure why he knew that Anja would be there, hard at work, but when he saw her still glued to the screen of her computer, he wasn’t at all surprised.
“Hey, so,” he began, “I know we’ve increased your workload around here a lot lately, but I wondered if you could take some time to run a quick search on someone.”
“Andressa Covington,” she said and tapped her headset.
“You were listening to all that?” Sal asked.
“Of course,” she retorted. “It’s my private comm system, so I have to make sure that nothing is shared in it that I don’t approve of.”
“Okay.” Sal was anxious to move past this topic of conversation. “Anyway, do you have a way to check for anything that might be along the lines of bio-secure tech that’s connected to her that we could use?”
“I’m already on it,” Anja said, her gaze still fixed on the screen.
“Huh, right.” He realized that he seriously needed to give her a raise when he had the chance. “Thanks.”
She nodded but remained entirely focused on her work. He decided that it was time to get the hell out of there.
“Pita plant, freshly removed from the Zoo, healthy and blooming and available for purchase to the highest bidder,” the man in the blue jacket said and dusted the snow from his shoulders. “Do you really believe that someone might have one of those? Do you know that they’ve tried to get one of them out ever since the damn plants were discovered and nobody who tried has even made it out of the Zoo?”
The man in the red jacket nodded and pulled his hood back to reveal fresh good looks with only a hint of salt and pepper in the stubble on his chin. “I know who the people making the sale are. They have worked in the Zoo for a while and have brought good material out for almost a year now. They can be trusted.”
“If you say so,” Blue Coat responded with a chuckle. “And they aren’t above fabricating something to raise cash when they’re in need? Please, we need evidence that they actually have a plant before I can even consider putting in a bid.”
“It’s a somewhat roundabout reasoning, but the way they said that all bids are subject to inspection should the sellers not want to do business with certain buyers led me to track them down,” Red Coat replied. He shook his head as he looked out over the vast expanse of snow outside. No matter how much technology in the world advanced, there would always be people who came to Switzerland for the resorts and stayed for the agreeable banking laws.
“So, this…Heavy Metal,” Blue Coat asked and glanced at a pad he carried. “What do you know about them?”
“It’s run by a couple of veterans,” Red Coat explained. He flipped the images to the pictures of a younger-looking man and a military-looking woman. “Salinger Jacobs, one of the most prolific authors on what comes in and out of the Zoo over the past six months. He’s young and only a doctoral candidate. Then there’s Madigan Kennedy, formerly part of the military complement on the base there and gave up her position to join with Jacobs full time. They have more members on their team, but it has been difficult to find anything resembling details on them. Anyway, they were responsible for the first live animal brought out of the Zoo and handed it over for a significant fee to one of our competitors. From the looks of things, they’ve established ties with companies in the United States. We think that government contracts are their eventual goals, but if they have an item this rare up for sale now, there’s no telling the kinds of benefits that could be acquired if we were to make ties with them now, while they’re still starting up.”
Blue Coat scowled as he studied the various reports of the missions run by the two. They were fairly active in the area and more than a little connected with the bases already established there. Which meant that they would only continue to grow. If they had connections with major companies in the US, they would grow much faster.
“How many bids have been placed?” he finally asked.
“Six, so far,” Red Coat replied.
“What kind of money have they put on it?”
“Unknown,” Red Coat growled. “It has been a blind bidding process so far. I can make some inquiries, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll find anything of note before the auction comes to an end.”
Blue Coat nodded and sighed deeply. “I need to look into what funds I can move. I’ll get you an exact figure tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty
The stories about the Zoo and the creatures living inside proliferated to the point that people began to buy into them—in the commandant’s office and even in the budgetary department, which prided itself on its supreme indifference and self-isolation. Of co
urse, it only added fuel to the fire when more bodies were brought in and more teams dropped off the radar with a quick warning to say that they were under attack before comms went dead.
The administration now faced the problems involved in how to explain to the family members of the soldiers who died in the Zoo what had happened—and, potentially, what could eventually become a horde of lawsuits regarding wrongful deaths. Finally, the people in charge reconsidered their stance on how many people would be sent into the Zoo. They also began to run drills with the newcomers to ensure that they knew the advisable tactics if they were engaged.
Niels didn’t mind the fact that they had only one specialist on this simple Pita plant run with a dozen gunners to protect the man. That, in itself, wasn’t too much of a problem, except that they had rapidly run out of specialists who wanted to head into the Zoo, which made it almost impossible to find qualified personnel.
The specialist they were stuck with now was a doctor with a sheaf of credentials back in the States and who appeared to be quite the catch on paper. When the problems with his assaults—sexual and otherwise—emerged, though, the reason why he’d elected to join the teams heading into the Zoo became clearer.
What hadn’t been clear before the moment of no return was the fact that the man was about a hundred pounds overweight and seemed to have a smoking habit that couldn’t be helped. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the Zoo as the pungent smell would attract the very animals they tried to avoid. Sadly, the harsh reality that he had to quit at the same moment he entered the jungle made an already disagreeable fellow almost impossible to work with.
Niels had dealt with smokers before, and while they could get edgy when they were forced to quit for a couple of days, most had been professional enough to make sure that their habits didn’t interfere with their ability to do their jobs. This man had no such professionalism and made it a point to render everyone’s life miserable until he finally had the smoke he so desperately needed.
Of course, Niels wasn’t one to judge someone for their vices of choice. Hell, he had a couple of his own. He merely demanded professionalism from the people he worked with and this specialist seemed utterly incapable of delivering that.
He adjusted his grip on the rifle and scanned the jungle once more. One of the first lessons he’d learned about survival in the Zoo was to keep an eye on the treetops. There wasn’t always something there, but when there was, it was way better to see it before it chowed down on you. This wasn’t something that he would have learned in the quick lessons they gave first-timers, but rather something that was only learned through tough experience and, usually, lost lives.
Panthers now used the trees as cover to attack unsuspecting travelers, but other beasts had begun to employ the same tactics. They were annoyingly effective, and the only real way to handle beasts like that was to anticipate their movements. The trees were tall, which made them difficult to navigate without triggering all kinds of motion sensors. If you were watchful and careful, that advance warning would enable you to gun the creatures down before they were able to kill anyone on your team.
Of course, these days, the smarter option was to move away from any curious panthers and make sure they knew that they had been seen and would not be able to rely on ambush tactics when they attacked. They tended to take that sort of stuff seriously and backed away from any kind of confrontation in which they didn’t have the element of surprise. These were creatures on the hunt and wouldn’t charge any potential prey that could defend themselves.
But there was sometimes another way in which the Zoo reacted. Niels checked his weapon for at least the tenth time as he recalled the two major attacks he’d survived. Both still were vivid enough in his memory to make him nervous about the next one. And there would always be a next one, he accepted morosely. That was why the teams were double their usual size and ran with more gunners and fewer specialists. It still made him sweat to recall how the animals reacted—fought together, joined forces, and used complementary tactics to drag the teams down. They didn’t always defeat the teams they attacked, as evidenced by Niels himself, but they did always manage to decimate the ranks before they slunk away.
Niels held his rifle closer to his chest as his gaze swept the trees again to make sure that he wasn’t followed. A whole fucking jungle of creatures out there that wanted him dead, and he wouldn’t go down without a fight—or be caught unawares.
A flicker of motion caught his attention as he turned. Something moved and triggered the motion sensors, but by the time he managed to focus, it had gone. That made tracking it a lot more difficult and Niels fought to stay calm.
“Fuck, I need a goddamn cigarette,” the specialist whined and pulled at the suit that he wore. It was a little tight considering that he was easily the largest person ever to wear it.
“If you need a goddamn cigarette, why don’t you have one?” Niels snapped and shook his head in irritation. “Save us all from your incessant bitching and maybe cleanse the gene pool by taking yourself out of it while you’re at it.”
“I don’t need to take this kind of abuse.” The man tugged at his suit again. “You’re all out here to make sure I get out alive and well. Anything less would mean that you failed at your job, which means that if I want to bitch incessantly about my needs in this primitive, hellish, piece-of-shit place, you have to take it.”
“Hey, shut up,” the team leader commanded. “If you want to shout, you can use the isolated channels. You’ll attract all kinds of hell our way.”
Niels grinned, tilted his head smugly, and tapped his rifle before he resumed his survey of the treetops. As he moved to the front of the line, another small movement caught his attention. He tensed immediately and aimed his weapon in the general direction because he couldn’t be sure exactly where he’d seen it.
“DidDid you see something?” the team leader asked and squinted into the underbrush.
“Something moved just outside my range of vision,” he replied. “I couldn’t make out what it was.”
“Well, keep your eyes peeled. If we’re walking into a trap, I want to be the first one to know about it.”
“Will do, Sarge,” Niels replied. “I’m not even sure if there was something, but—”
He paused when something twitched the barrel of his rifle. It was gentle at first, which made him wonder if something had malfunctioned in his power armor. These new suits were a lot more comfortable, but all kinds of bugs needed to be worked out. He hated the fact that the soldiers out there were used as guinea pigs to prep the new suits of combat armor that would hit the market soon.
Well, he wouldn’t mind it so much if they didn’t demand that they turn reports in on the combat functionality of the suits that they weren’t paid for. It was a pain in the ass, and it would always be something he objected to. Extra paperwork that got in the way of time in the bar would automatically set him against it.
The odd tweak at his weapon continued and Niels drew back instinctively to examine his rifle. Something had wound around the barrel—something that came from the branches above them.
“What the fuck?” he demanded and yanked the gun away with all his strength. The tendrils wrapped around his rifle gave fairly easily but immediately jerked back, this time with enough strength to drag him off his feet. If it weren’t for the power armor that clamped down on the rifle, it would have been torn from his fingers. Despite that, there wasn’t much he could do other than be dragged by whatever the tentacle things were that now had his rifle in a vice. His finger clamped down on the trigger and he opened fire into the darkness ahead of him. He fell hard onto his stomach, his mind blank for a moment before the consequences of what had happened made him turn quickly. His team had already taken defensive positions—positions that excluded him.
Fucking assholes.
The jungle seemed to hold its breath for a moment before movement erupted all around. The animals had either lain in wait for them or had been drawn by the sudden outburs
t of gunfire. Niels scowled as the gauntlet closed around the team and left him alone and isolated as the creatures attacked the circle of eleven men. The gunners gathered around the fat specialist, who whimpered and prayed before a volley peppered the first wave of monsters that attacked. Niels clutched his weapon, afraid to open fire himself for fear of hitting his own men. Of course, it also occurred to him that shooting while he was out in the open himself would make him a very easy target. He acknowledged the truth of this but was sure that the main reason why he held his fire was because he didn’t want to hit his comrades.
Well, most of them.
Niels turned as more of the tentacles descended from the treetops and seemed to follow him as he shuffled away and tried to aim at the writhing, rapidly moving vegetation.
“It’s like I’ve stumbled into the world’s worst hentai,” he protested and fired at the tentacle vines as best he could. The few that he managed to hit quickly withdrew, but the others surged closer to wind around his gun again and haul him closer to the fight. A bullet hammered into his thigh as his comrades dispensed with the formalities and succumbed to a desperate frenzy. He yanked at his gun and tried to help them with a few random shots at anything he could even partially aim at. The battle was only a few yards away and he tried to drop the rifle and draw out his sidearm instead. The tentacles surged around his hand and the more he fired, the more insistent they became until they had all but immobilized his arm. He drew his knife with his free hand and attempted to hack the vines loose, but more of them appeared like serpents from the shadows. They encircled his body and he yelled a stream of obscenities when they swung him off his feet and raised him clear of the carnage.
Panthers slunk across the branches, but they didn’t seem to notice him, not even when a round hit one of them and knocked it off its perch atop the trees. He’d managed to regain some measure of control over his rifle and had instinctively fired as he passed the beast. Crazy though the thought was, it seemed that while he was entwined in the vines, the other beasts didn’t seem to mind him at all.