by John Darling
Just then a huge noise came from behind. I turned and watched the concrete walls across from us crumble. Emerging from the rubble were more of the experiments that I had hoped we’d seen the last of. This time however, there were hundreds of them. Sophia and I started shooting at them as Dr. Falco frantically yelled at the last few people boarding the trains.
“Get these trains out of here now! Trent! Don’t waste your bullets! We need to go now!”
Despite his instructions, I emptied my magazine and several of the monsters fell to the ground motionless. I placed my last magazine into my rifle and began shooting again. Sophia was going all out on them and bodies are hitting the ground everywhere. We could hear the subway cars pulling away from the station behind us and pretty soon we were going to have to get on one, but not until I was completely out of ammo. Sophia and I had to shoot at them for as long as possible to buy all of the evacuees as much time as possible to escape.
A few seconds later, my rifle clicked. It was time to go.
I threw my rifle aside and grabbed Sophia. We rushed toward the second to last train car and jumped aboard. The doors closed and everyone watched as the experiments sprinted toward the moving cars. I heard a voice shout from the front of the car; “Blow it! Blow it now!”
Sophia gripped my arm tightly as the entire car shook. In the corner of my eye, I could see tiny explosions through one of the train’s windows. High Command was getting what they wanted after all as the building came down. However, not a single innocent soul would be lost in the crossfire.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Witness Selection Program
Uncle Keith finished telling us about what Dad had done on September 11th. I couldn’t believe it. He really was a hero. This must be the reason everyone respected him so much. Uncle Keith also said that this had not been the only instance where Dad had come through and saved people against the odds. I wanted to know every story. Any speck of history that contained a single detail regarding my dad had to be uncovered and brought to light. Future discoveries would have to be put on hold for the time being, however, since Uncle Keith was signaling for everyone to exit the Hall of Fame.
All of the other recruits began filing out of the room but I stayed back to look at the hologram of my Dad for a few more minutes. I thought I was the only one who stayed behind, however, a sniffle broke the silence in the room. I turned around to find Sierra wiping tears away with her arm.
“Sierra, are you OK?”
“Was that really your dad?”
I looked back up at the lifelike hologram and smiled.
“Yes, that’s him. I didn’t know about this part of his life until recently, but I’m damn proud of it.”
“I knew him.”
Sierra and I both turned toward the direction of the third voice. From the doorway emerged Marcus. His head was down and has his hands folded neatly at his waistline. I lost my train of thought and don’t know how to respond. Sierra remained silent as well.
“If it wasn’t for your Father, I wouldn’t be alive today…”
Sierra sniffled again and took a few steps toward Marcus.
“What happened?”
“September 11th is a day that I will never forget because it is the day I almost lost my life to those monsters. I was in seventh grade and a few of my friends decided to play hooky from school. Shortly after we ditched school, the first plane hit the towers and the entire city went into a panic. Being a kid and not knowing what to do, I went down to the police station where my father worked. He was a patrol officer and I caught him just as he was getting in his squad car. Like most cops that day, he was headed downtown. He told me to take the subway home, but I insisted on staying with him. We ended up responding to a distress call right outside Tower Seven, which we all just learned was called the Nucleus. However, when we got there, there was no one around the building. My Dad, being the way he was, decided to do some exploring. We broke into the back door of the building and found groups of people rushing upstairs along while alarms went off. The door we came through locked behind us and we ended up getting swept up along with the rush of people. Before we knew it, we had found ourselves in the safe house along with all of the other scientists and doctors.”
Marcus’ story was just as intriguing as the one Uncle Keith told us. My ears devoured every word and like an addict, I want more.
“After hours of not saying anything, not knowing where we were or the people that we were with, the doors to the safe house opened up to none other than your father.”
He pointed up at my Dad’s hologram and I looked up once again. I’ll never get tired of seeing this memorial, even if it is just a high-tech computer image.
“They escorted us all out of the building with a great sense of urgency. I didn’t understand why they were in such a hurry until we boarded the trains and saw the monsters chasing after us.”
Marcus slowly walked closer to us and looked directly into my eyes.
“I saw them. I saw those things. They were awful and terrifying. Images were ingrained into my brain that day and I will never forget what I saw. Never.”
Marcus was scaring me. His story had gone from heroic to horrific. Part of me thought that Marcus was being a little dramatic, but my gut told me that he wasn’t.
“So how did you get here? Did you get asked to join S.T.O.R.M. after that?”
Marcus moved away from us and snickered in disgust.
“Hardly. For the next twelve years, my Dad and I were placed in what S.T.O.R.M. calls their Witness Selection Program. We were brought to some base after the incident and sworn to secrecy. We weren’t allowed to breathe a word of what we saw or what happened, otherwise bad things would happen to us. S.T.O.R.M. did a great job scaring us and neither of us ever said anything. In fact, you’re the first two people that I’ve ever told this story to.”
Marcus made his way over to a different hologram across from my Dad’s and looked up.
“If only my Dad had a proper memorial like this for what he did in his life.”
“What happened to him?”
“A few years ago he responded to a gang fight in the Bronx. He ended up getting shot multiple times and rushed to the hospital. He died in the ambulance on before they arrived. Although, he escorted a woman and her three children away from the fight and to safety. His sacrifice did not go to waste. As for me, well, S.T.O.R.M. recruited me after I joined the force and became a SWAT officer.”
I walked up to Marcus and looked at him with every ounce of conviction that I could physically muster up.
“He’s a hero.”
Just then Uncle Keith came back into the room. “I noticed that we lost some of the class. You guys OK?”
He paused for a moment and looked at the three of us before turning towards the hologram of my dad. He let out a huge sigh and put his head down.
“He was an incredible man and one of the best S.T.O.R.M. officers I’ve ever had the opportunity to serve with. You three have the potential to be just as great. Everyone in your class bears the burden, as well as the responsibility of making sure their legend lives on.”
Uncle Keith was right. That’s why I was here. I had a responsibility to carry on what my father had started. How exactly I was going to do that was still unclear, but after learning more about what Dad had done, I felt much better about why I’m here.
“C’mon guys, we should catch up with the rest of the group.”
Marcus, Sierra, and I followed Uncle Keith out of the room and down the hall where the rest of our class was waiting. Uncle Keith announced that we were headed to Deck Nine since Decks Seven and Eight apparently didn’t have anything super exciting to see. Deck Seven had the main mess hall for all of the Stormers that worked here, a movie theater which played new movies every Friday night, as well as the hospital where all of the medical recruits studied. Uncle Keith continued to explain, as we walked up the stairwell, that Deck Eight was made up entirely out of living quarters for every Stormer that lived in
the Eye. He voice suddenly disappeared as everyone stopped climbing stairs and entered through a door labeled ‘Deck Nine’ at the top. I recognized the floor as soon as I walked through the door. The sweet smell of the ice rink entered my nose, immediately putting me at ease.
“OK, so this is the recreational level. As you can see there’s an ice rink and up ahead on the left there’s a pool complete with swimming lanes and hot tubs. There’s also a huge basketball court as well as a bowling alley. This entire floor is meant for Stormers to relax and blow off some steam in their free time. Every few weeks there are basketball tournaments and if you are stationed here you’ll have the opportunity to join our very competitive bowling league. I’ll have to warn you, though, you’re looking at someone whose average score is seventy-eight.”
Everyone laughed at Uncle Keith’s joke. It was true. I remembered going bowling with him a few times during high school and he was terrible. There is just something about the sport that he couldn’t figure out. Most of the time he had also had a few too many beers before the second frame, so that might have had something to do with it as well.
We finished walking through Deck Nine and Uncle Keith informed us that we’d now be heading up to Deck Twelve. It immediately made me wonder why we were skipping Decks Ten and Eleven. We entered the stairwell and made our way up to Deck Twelve. As soon as I stepped onto the concrete floor, I instantly got a weird feeling, as if I’d been here before. I looked around at all of the parking spaces and black Suburbans and then it hit me. This was where Mom and I had been brought when I’d first arrived at the Eye. About fifty feet from where our class was gathered up was where this whole journey had begun.
“OK this is Deck Twelve; the uppermost floor of the base right below the surface. There are several ramps and tunnels that lead into the base. Not many people live out here in the desert, so we usually don’t have to worry about being seen, however, it’s a good idea to check the scanners before going under. There are several surveillance systems in the area to detect people wandering around out here and for the most part, we don’t have any problems. Anyway, this part of the garage houses a wide range of vehicles that we use for undercover missions and transports in civilian areas. Follow me to the next part of this deck, the aircraft hangar.”
We walked past a long row of black Suburbans and other assorted black vehicles. There were vans, cars, trucks, and even some motorcycles. I didn’t remember noticing any of this the night I’d arrived but in my defense, there had been a lot going on then.
Uncle Keith escorted us past the giant elevator that I had ridden in that night. We took a right and came to a huge steel wall with a vertical line down the middle. There was some sort of keypad on the wall adjacent to it and Uncle Keith approached it while the rest of the class stopped. He pushed a few buttons and a few seconds later the steel wall began to separate at the vertical line. The doors revealed one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life: Aircraft everywhere. Jets, helicopters, planes, and hovercraft. All of which were very futuristic looking and not like any military aircraft I’ve seen before. The hangar was huge and there must have been a hundred different types of aircraft all lined up next to each other. There was no kind of runway or landing strip, so where did they take off or land? How had they all gotten down here in the first place?
“Here is where we store all of our aircraft. Like the carport, the airport also has ramps that open up to the surface. Helicopters and rotary aircraft can go straight up, while jets and planes are towed to a strip of road a few miles away for takeoff. Some of you may go on to become Flight Officers like Darin Foxx. Many of you may have noticed that she was pulled out of training a few weeks ago. Anyway, there’s one more area I’d like to show you up here.”
We walked through another set of steel doors and entered another hangar with more rows of vehicles, but this time they resembled tanks, armored transports, dune buggies and tons of other off-road driving equipment. I marveled at the equipment around us when I realized something. The amount of military gear stored in here would probably have put most countries’ military arsenals to shame. Whoever funded S.T.O.R.M. definitely had some deep pockets.
“All right, everyone. This is our main hangar where all of the combat vehicles are stored. They are used for every kind of mission, from assaults to extractions. Here at the Eye, we are equipped for any and every kind of situation. This hangar is located right next to the aircraft hangar so we can load any tanks or amphibious assault vehicles right onto the C-17s. Once airborne, we can take the vehicles to any place on the globe.”
Alexei tapped me on the shoulder and I turned.
“Hey, have you seen Jemma? I don’t see her anywhere.”
I looked around and confirmed that she wasn’t here. She either must have gotten lost or wandered off on her own. Either way, I was sure she was fine.
Uncle Keith explained that the giant elevator back near the regular vehicles was used to move anything in here down to Deck Eleven for maintenance or upgrades. I had a feeling that elevator wasn’t that big by accident. Just then, there was a noise from behind us and everyone looked to find Lieutenant Ward approaching the group.
“Commander Kreider. It’s time.”
“Ahh finally. All right everyone, into the elevator. It’s time to show you the best part of the base.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Lead By Example
The doors of the elevator opened up to reveal a vast room with a sea of cubicles. Uncle Keith jumped out first and instructed us to follow as we wove our way through a maze of desks with dozens of people frantically typing on computers and talking loudly into headsets. Not a single one looked up at any of us as we walked by. The amount of noise and activity on this level gave the impression of what the New York Stock Exchange must have been like during trading hours. I became briefly fascinated with the commotion until I lay my eyes on a huge glass wall ahead of us.
The wall stretched the entire length of the room and it only drew my attention for a few seconds as I marveled at what was behind it. Directly behind the wall were several rows filled with more Stormers. All of them were holding tablets or some sort of electronic devices. There was one thing that every single person had in common: they were all fixated on a massive wall in front of them, with about twenty giant movie-theater sized TV screens. Once again this area reminded me of pictures that I’d seen depicting the floor of NASA’s control center.
We reached the end of the cubicle floor and Uncle Keith opened that led us into the giant area. As soon as the door closed I noticed a dramatic shift in the noise level. Unlike the cubicle floor, this area was very quiet and the glass wall must have been soundproof. Ahead of us, I could see the rest of our class getting briefed by Commander Knight and a few seconds later we quickly slipped into the back of the group.
“Everyone, welcome to the largest surveillance center in the world. On this deck, more than a thousand people work every day to locate threats that S.T.O.R.M. responds to.”
I focused on one screen and in the bottom corner of it read the name ‘Moscow, Russia’. A few seconds later the name changed to ‘Saint Petersburg, Russia’, and then to ‘Novosibirsk, Russia’. Every thirty seconds or so, the name changed to a different city. I started reading some of the other screens and found that each one was displaying a different country, showing its major cities in intervals. From what I could see, there was one monitoring various cities in Spain, England, Germany, Portugal, Russia, the United States, China, and Japan. The bottom corner of the screen had Latitude and Longitude positions as well as the population. The city names and positions continued to change every few seconds. I tried to make out the images on the screens, but they were just arrays of weird colors.
“This is the eye of the storm gentlemen. Our entire operations for stopping outbreaks starts here. Everyone see those screens up there? They’re linked to our satellite system orbiting Earth. Each screen shows a different part of the world. They zoom down to the ground level and scan
everyone’s heat signature. If an abnormal heat signature is found, one of our analysts investigates the spike. More often than not, it’s a sign of someone with the infection.”
I was slightly alarmed by this system. I understood that they were looking for infected people, but this seems like a huge invasion of privacy.
“Once an analyst finds a target, we usually have twenty-four to forty-eight hours before they turn. Our forces are mobilized and sent directly to the target’s last known location. He or she is either taken into custody before they can infect anyone else. If they do turn, and other people get infected, then we have a different kind of mission on our hands; the kind that you’ve all been training for.”
Just then, I noticed that one of the screens was different from all of the others. The one in the middle has what looked to be a soccer game on. They hadn’t called us all in here to watch the World Cup, had they?
“Today you will all see what an actual mission looks like. This one happens to be on the complicated side but not to worry, our Brazilian strike team, the Epidemia Matadors, are on scene. For those of you who don’t speak Portuguese, they are the Epidemic Slayers. Led by Captain Julio Santos, this team is one of our best. We haven’t had any slips up in their region in over twenty years. Today, we will be following the mission via Captain Santos’ mini-drone.”
Mark spoke up, “Sir, why are we watching a soccer game if there’s a mission going on?”
“Good question. Anyone here a soccer fan? Or I guess I should say a fùtbol fan? I never can seem to get that right.”
A few people in the class raised their hands in response to Commander Knight’s question.