“Very good,” Van Ness replied. “Shall we, team?”
Team. Cafferty almost spat the word back out. He remained under no illusion about his own use from here out. He was simply a spectator to the Foundation’s main event. The same went for Ellen and Diego. At least Sarah seemed to have found a place working with Roux.
Van Ness wheeled toward the first plane in the fleet, the lead aircraft in their journey toward what Cafferty hoped would save humanity. Save his son. Save Ellen. Provide a future free from the creatures’ barbarity.
Even if that future most likely wouldn’t include him.
Ellen trudged up the C-130’s ramp, following Tom and Van Ness into the cargo hold. The supersoldiers parted, shuffling to their left or right, and they formed a corridor that led to the front of the plane.
“They’re packed in like sardines,” Munoz uttered from behind.
“They do not require personal space,” Van Ness replied, and wheeled past them straight for the cockpit.
She tensed as she walked between the soldiers. It would take only one of these things to eliminate all of them. If just one went rogue—forgot an order, had some kind of psychological meltdown and mistook her for a creature—that would bring a fast and brutal end.
They didn’t even look at her, though. They just seemed to stare into nothing, oblivious to those around them. The plane remained in near silence.
Eerie, she thought.
Hot breaths brushed against her face, though all of their eyes remained looking up. She wondered what kind of awareness the supersoldiers had.
There’s no doubt they are sentient. I’ve seen them walk and fight. But do they possess even the faintest scrap of free will?
What happens if the battle doesn’t go as planned and we need to improvise? What if we need a bridge built, or a generator rewired, or a communications tower set up? Are they capable of anything beyond killing creatures?
All valid questions, she considered. But the nature of their whistle-stop tour around the base, coupled with the necessity for their quick departure while some semblance of civilization still existed, meant nobody had had any real time to reflect on the mind-blowing things they’d seen since landing. And while she respected the urgency, she also worried if things were moving too fast. This was Van Ness, after all, and his creations. He’d never been a plain dealer, and even as he talked about the supersoldiers as his contingency plan, she couldn’t shake the feeling there was another plan hiding deeper under the surface. With Tom so distracted by . . . well, by whatever it was that preoccupied him, Ellen was left to puzzle this on her own.
Roux directed them to a set of seats behind the cockpit and they buckled up. By now, Ellen was used to the complicated military buckle and wondered how her life had changed so much in just a short space of time.
The plane’s engines roared to life.
Ellen stared out the small window at the propellers spinning to a rapid blur. It was amazing to think that, despite all the advances in science and technology sitting inside this plane, the machine itself was basically the same design that had been used by the U.S. military for decades. There was something comforting about the fact that as the world progressed—and possibly progressed into complete meltdown—constants remained. Yes, this plane. But also family. Love. Hope.
A sense of anticipation rose inside her as they taxied out of the hangar and gradually picked up speed toward moonlight. The C-130 burst into the wide-open whiteness of Antarctica, roaring along the ground on a flattened section of ice until its nose lifted and the wheels left the ground.
Ellen grabbed Tom’s hand and squeezed. He returned a nervous glance.
“What’s going on, Tom?” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re hiding something from me.”
Cafferty’s eyes darted away from her gaze. Ellen hadn’t meant it this way, but she realized her husband undoubtedly was thinking about his marital infidelity a few years prior. She had known he was hiding something then, too.
“I mean,” she clarified, “I get that you and Van Ness despise each other. That’s fine. But there’s something more you’re not telling me.”
The C-130 hit a pocket of turbulence in the cloudy sky. Its body shuddered several times during the bumpy climb to cruising altitude, but the plane was built to withstand it. For all her adventuring, though, Ellen was not a big fan. She grabbed on to Tom’s arm. He patted her hand, even as he didn’t answer her question.
He looked back and was surprised—but also not surprised—that the supersoldiers remained standing each time the plane encountered some turbulence, swaying in unison to maintain their balance. All seemingly unperturbed.
As it climbed higher, the plane hit smoother air and quickly gained altitude.
Ellen turned her attention back to her husband. “This is more than just a personal grudge and you know it,” she continued.
“Let’s try to get some rest, baby,” Cafferty said, looking away.
Sleep was the last thing on her mind. Although it had been over twenty-four hours since her last decent rest, the idea of Tom doing something reckless kept her firmly awake. She squeezed his hand harder. “No, Tom,” she pressed on. “I’m your wife. Your partner in this. In everything. I need you to make a better choice here.”
A sickly look spread over Cafferty’s face.
“Now, what’s going on?”
Cafferty let out a deep sigh. “I made a deal with Van Ness.”
“What kind of deal?”
“It was his one condition to help.”
“What was the deal, Tom?”
“It was my only chance to save you, to save David, Sarah, Diego, everyone. The entire planet.”
“Tom, what was the deal?” she asked sternly.
Cafferty swallowed hard, then finally spoke. “Only one of us survives this war, either him or me. No matter what. Winner takes all.”
Her eyes widened. “Have you lost your mind?!”
“It was either that or we all die.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Ellen replied. “One way or the other, he needed to get off that rig to show off these supersoldiers and try to regain whatever power he once had. Can’t you see he set all of this up? He baited you, knowing that he had his army all along. He knows he’s going to win.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Tom growled. “What choice did I have, Ellen?”
“You tell him to go fuck himself. You threaten to lock him up and throw away the key. Seriously, Tom, you think if you didn’t agree, he’d just sit there and let the creatures destroy us all? That the Foundation would have just left its soldiers in Antarctica until there was nothing left to save?”
Munoz and Bowcut were both looking across from their seats.
“Please keep your voice down,” Cafferty pleaded.
“Why, so you can keep this secret from everyone else, too?” But she lowered her tone. “You’ve been like this ever since Paris. Ever since the UN. Thinking you need to do it all on your own. Why didn’t you talk to me first?”
“Because we didn’t have any time! I don’t know what he would have done. All I know is the options I had in the moment. Besides, it might take years to win the war. We might not even find this queen he’s talking about. We might even lose. This is all on me, Ellen. It’s all my doing. I’m not prepared to sign humanity’s death warrant.”
“Your ego is out of control right now,” she hissed.
“What?” Cafferty looked down, forlorn.
“You should have spoken to me first, Tom. What you think was selflessness is actually the worst form of selfishness.”
Cafferty was at a loss for words. All he could mutter was “I’m sorry.”
“‘Sorry,’” she whispered. After his revelation, that was all he had to say.
Everything Ellen had suspected was proven true. She resisted the temptation to slap Tom across the face. She needed
to think this through, to process what she had just heard.
She closed her eyes, ending the conversation abruptly.
Perhaps he was right—it was time to get some rest.
Time to think.
Her mind spun with ideas about how she could stop this deal from going ahead if the supersoldiers came out victorious. She imagined a humiliating execution of her husband, a gruesome spectacle with his head in a noose and Van Ness excitedly pulling the trapdoor lever.
That wasn’t going to happen on her watch.
The most obvious course of action was this: during the heat of the battle, when nobody was looking, Ellen could put a bullet in Van Ness’ brain.
Will he predict this move?
Will the supersoldiers defend Van Ness to the death?
The sound of an electric wheelchair hummed toward the seats.
Ellen opened half an eye.
Van Ness sat in front of the group, fingers steepled, appearing deep in thought.
“Is there a problem?” Roux asked.
“I’m afraid Lima is under attack,” Van Ness replied.
“Is there anywhere else to refuel?” Cafferty asked.
Roux shook his head. “Nowhere safe between here and San Diego.”
The big Dutchman’s voice didn’t seem alarmed. Maybe it was just his accent, but it seemed like he truly wasn’t capable of panic. As much as he scared Ellen—especially with his face repeated in the Xeroxed versions of him that filled the plane—it was reassuring that he was cool under pressure.
It didn’t get more pressure packed than this.
As Roux considered alternative plans, Ellen quickly considered the consequences. The supersoldiers would never make it. The battle might never be won. And her last thoughts around a solution to her husband’s problem now appeared redundant.
“What do we do?” Cafferty asked.
Van Ness stared along the row of seats. “We proceed as planned, Thomas. Nothing will stop me from seeing this through to its absolute conclusion.”
The pit in Ellen’s stomach dropped, knowing now what Van Ness meant. She tried to disguise her panic to not reveal what she had learned.
Van Ness rotated his wheelchair back toward the cockpit and wheeled away.
“Captain,” Van Ness said, “creatures or not, we are landing these planes.”
Chapter Twenty
An hour had passed since all contact from the U.S. Navy base in Lima had stopped. From what Cafferty could make out during the transmission, the people on the ground had fought bravely and initially held back a small wave of creatures with conventional weapons. No small feat, considering the lack of impact bullets had on the creatures and the even more disconcerting minimal impact of a missile on a large group of creatures. Then, an hour before the planes were due to land, a larger second wave was reported, advancing on the perimeter fence at breakneck speed. Silence followed shortly after.
He imagined it was like a fast-forward version of the Battle of the Alamo, the initial onslaught repelled until a larger force attacked, leading to a retreat into the buildings. From there, it was just a case of the survivors being picked off in brutal fashion.
This, it seems, is game over. An end to the task force’s plans.
We have no way of refueling, no way of making it to San Francisco.
So we can’t take down the supposed queen . . .
And, he concluded, a possible terminal blow to everyone’s survival. If the theory held true that destroying the queen would paralyze the creatures’ rank structure, and they had no way to reach the queen, all was lost.
But Cafferty guessed he was missing something. He had to be for a simple reason: the man to his front.
Van Ness sat behind the pilots as the C-130 swept over the Pacific Ocean and headed toward the smoking remains of the Peruvian capital, silhouetted by the pink early-evening sky. He didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the recent news. He just stared through the windshield as they descended to take a look at the base at low altitude.
Hundreds of tall, light-colored buildings lined a cliff edge overlooking the shore. Once over them, the devastation in the city became chillingly clear.
Just like my first view of Vegas.
Stationary cars, jammed at odd angles on the roads. The tiny figures of corpses surrounding them.
Everything deathly still.
Cafferty visually searched for any signs of the creatures. He couldn’t see any, but it remained obvious they’d been here no less than an hour ago. Probably still were, perhaps underground or crammed somewhere in the shattered ruins.
“We’ll be over the airstrip in a minute,” the pilot said.
“Thank you,” Van Ness said, and nothing more.
A heartbeat later, a mass of creatures came into view—thousands of them, swarming a western neighborhood. They filled the wide streets, rushing in and out of houses, clambering over rooftops. Windows shattered. Human bodies went flying, got trampled, were tossed to the side like pieces of garbage.
The sound of the C-130s’ approach made hundreds of creatures stop dead. All eyes went up. Cafferty felt like they were all staring directly at him, and his soul shriveled just a little under their black gaze.
The pilots continued their course directly toward the distant runway, not deviating a degree. The plane sailed straight over the top of the neighborhood.
Cafferty edged across to the left side and peered down.
Predictably, the onslaught below had changed focus.
The creatures now followed the ten aircraft.
“Dammit, Van Ness, what’s your plan now?” Cafferty snapped. “You see them all down there. Don’t we need to find a safe place to land?”
Van Ness returned his glare. “We don’t need a new place. I’ve told you my plan already.”
“The base was overrun by creatures, thousands of them. We’ll be slaughtered.”
“Will we?” Van Ness asked rhetorically.
Cafferty glared at his nemesis.
“I suggest you strap in, Thomas. I’m expecting a bumpy landing.”
Tom wanted to say something, but realizing the futility of it—the plane was landing whether he argued or not—he rushed back to his seat and buckled in.
“Why is everything so goddamn secretive?” Cafferty said to no one.
But Ellen, sitting beside him, answered. “Because he gets off on it. It’s all a game to him. A game he thinks he’s best at. He thinks he’s playing four-dimensional chess while the rest of us push a hoop with a stick, and he can’t imagine explaining anything to us will make the slightest difference.”
She smiled at Tom.
“Put bluntly, he’s an asshole.”
Cafferty couldn’t help a short bark of laughter. He returned Ellen’s smile, but it didn’t last long. Something she’d said reminded him of the moves Van Ness was somehow planning: this was a game, and the winning move for the maniac was Tom’s death. He gazed back out the window.
Damn him.
The C-130s put at least three miles of heavily urbanized area between them and the chasing creatures. How much time that would actually buy them, he couldn’t possibly know. But despite all the tricks Van Ness had so far pulled off, he didn’t think it was going to be enough.
The pilot banked over the base’s flattened perimeter fence, littered with a few dead creatures, and powered past the runway. The rest of the fleet remained higher in the air, in a holding pattern until the first plane had landed.
At least one thing seemed to be in their favor: as promised, the fuel trucks had been readied for their arrival. Of course, dead ground crew members lay around them. Pools of blood and spatters of viscera stained the tarmac. Most of the windows of the several official-looking square buildings had been shattered. Corpses lay outside a few of them in gut-churning, twisted shapes.
Cafferty let out a deep sigh. They had all the visual evidence they needed to flee this place, and if that wasn’t enough, they knew more creatures were swiftly retur
ning to the site.
“We land now,” Van Ness commanded the pilots. “Tell the rest of the fleet. Only the supersoldiers on our plane will deploy.”
The pilot immediately spoke through his mic. The rest of the planes acknowledged in turn, no fear in their pilots’ voices, only cold acceptance of the order.
Cafferty couldn’t believe his ears.
The plane arced around and descended toward the base, smooth and fast. No hint of panic in anyone’s face. Well, almost everyone. He glanced back to Ellen, Bowcut, and Munoz. The three’s expressions matched his inner dread. All had their laser weapons out, preparing for the inevitable battle they’d soon be facing.
“As fast as you can, please, Captain,” Van Ness said.
“You got it, sir.”
“Are you insane?” Cafferty exclaimed. “You’ve got to call this off—you’ve seen what’s coming for us.”
“I’ve seen what’s been coming all along, Thomas.”
“I meant landing here. Thousands of creatures against a few hundred soldiers from only one of the planes? Send them all out at least!”
“Yet again, you’ve proven yourself the typical government employee, Mr. Mayor,” Van Ness replied. “Send ten men to do a job it only takes one to do.”
“What if it isn’t enough?” Cafferty asked. “You’re consigning us all to death.” He no longer cared that he now sounded increasingly desperate. The opposing force and theirs seemed utterly imbalanced to the point of the supersoldiers being sent out on a suicide mission.
“There’s only one death I care about, Thomas.” Van Ness’ eyes thinned as they rapidly closed in on the runway. He grabbed the arms of his wheelchair in preparation for landing. “Why, the creatures, of course,” he continued, shooting Cafferty a look.
The aircraft wheels screeched on impact and the plane shot along the runway. It gradually slowed and turned toward the fuel pumps.
Cafferty shuddered as the C-130 bumped over something. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what . . .
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