“How are we looking?” Kate asked when she reached Carr.
He turned in his full white bunny-suit and facemask. “I think we’re about ready to bring you in. Follow me.”
Sammy joined them as they went to a bench filled with computer terminals and sat about six-feet from the creature’s restrained claws. Two other computer engineers worked at the keyboards.
Next to them was a clear bioreactor about the size of a football. A series of micro-electric arrays connected the blob of red webbing tissue growing inside the bioreactor.
Sammy gestured to the bioreactor. “The connections are complete.”
“Good, then the last thing we have to do is connect the webbing to the mastermind,” Kate said.
Carr stood next to the bioreactor with another micro-electric array in hand. The device looked to be nothing more than a series of circuits and metal prongs that Kate didn’t know much about. She certainly wasn’t the expert in brain-neural interfaces, but people on the team around her were.
Sean joined them with his arms folded across his chest.
“We’ve prepped the connection tendril,” he said.
“Bring it over, please,” Kate said.
Sean walked over to the beast’s open palm, approaching fearlessly. Kate was a bit shocked to see him acting with such confidence. It was almost like the imminent threat from outside had sparked new courage in the young tech. From the mastermind’s hand, he dragged a red vine of tissue.
It looked like an enormous piece of stringy, chewed bubble gum.
Sean clamped the tissue into a vice on the table right next to the bioreactor. Carr then connected the micro-electric array.
Next, Sean moved a large surgical lens into place above the vice gripped-tendril.
“Okay,” Sean said.
Carr bent down and peered through the lens to help him surgically attach the probes from the array into the tendril. Connecting nerve bundles one-at-a-time required expert precision.
To an outsider, what they were doing might have looked like nothing more than connecting some wires to a few chunks of meat. Kate’s nerves were alive with coursing electricity, adrenaline pumping through her vessels.
This was the ultimate experiment, connecting a mastermind to computers loaded with the programs the collaborators had been using to communicate.
No one in the Allied States had ever done this—and it could change the course of the war in their favor.
Carr pulled away from the tendril and nodded. “It’s connected.”
Sammy leaned toward the monitor on her bench. A moment later she looked up. “Holy shit, I’m already getting something,” she said. “An electrical pulse.”
A long groan escaped the monster’s bulbous lips.
The click of weapons being shouldered echoed around the room from the soldiers standing guard.
Kate tensed up, but the monster quieted once more.
“What else are you seeing?” she asked.
“I’m getting a constant pulse,” Sammy said. “It looks to me just like a repeated signal to let the collaborator software know that the beast is connected.”
“Hmm,” Carr said, twisting to look at the beast. “Nothing in English yet?”
“Not yet.” Sammy typed something on the keyboard. “Let me adjust something on our end.”
Text scrolled on her screen. A series of 1s repeated over and over. Like they were appearing at the beat of the drum.
“I think I’ve got this tuned right.” Sammy pointed to the screen excitedly. “The ‘1s’ appear in the collaborator program when the mastermind is present, but not actively communicating. Kind of a neutral state.”
“So how do we get it to a non-neutral state?” Kate said.
Sammy gulped, locking her gaze with Kate. “I think it’s waiting for an input. We need to experiment with it.”
“You can type a query that’ll be translated through the webbing to the beast, right?” Kate asked.
Sammy nodded.
“Ask it: What are our commands?”
Sammy typed the words onto the computer terminal and hit the enter button. Everyone moved closer to the screen.
For a second, nothing happened. Just a series of more 1s and the low rumble of the comatose mastermind’s breathing. Then the beast started twitching. Some of the severed tendrils draping off its body whipped like live electrical wires fallen from a power line.
The lab technicians retreated behind the iron columns. The soldiers around the perimeter advanced toward the center, their weapons trained on the monster. The giant’s eyes fluttered open, and its yellow reptilian pupils flicked back and forth, surveilling its surroundings.
The soldiers closed in while the science team backed away.
Kate held up a hand, hoping to keep the soldiers from acting too hastily. “Don’t fire!”
“Increase the anesthesia!” Carr ordered.
The beast pulled its legs and arms toward its body. Then it started to stand. Metal protested as the columns and chains resisted the strength of the monster. Pops like rivets breaking loose sounded from where the columns met the ceiling.
“We’re losing it!” Sean yelled.
The soldiers moved closer, weapons up.
“Hold your fire!” Kate yelled.
“More anesthesia!” Carr snapped at Sean.
Kate watched Sean work quickly to increase the dose. She could feel the tension striking like lightning between the soldiers and the research team.
If the beast broke free, it could kill everyone here. But if they killed it, they would lose everything they had fought for. This was their only chance at uncovering how the Variants and collaborators were coordinating their attacks.
The beast took a faltering step, fully upright now. It let out a bellow that shook the ceiling, releasing dust. A few bolts fell free and clanged on the floor.
Researchers scattered as it took another step, dragging the huge IV lines attached to its body.
Kate moved away from the beast, stumbling into a lab station.
“What do we do?!” one of the soldiers yelled.
“Light this motherfucker up,” replied one of the men.
“NO!” Kate shouted.
The soldiers moved closer, hunched, weapons aimed at the head.
“Not yet! You can’t!” Sean cried, adjusting the dosage on the IV. He moved slightly to obstruct the target.
“Out of the way,” said one of the soldiers.
Defiant, Sean remained in place.
Kate started to walk toward him when the creature staggered. The guards moved for a better vantage, but all halted as it slumped to the ground between the iron posts with a thud.
The rifles remained aimed at the beast, but the soldiers calmed down.
“Dr. Lovato, I think…” Sammy said in a quiet voice. “I think it worked.”
Kate went back to look at the screen, her nerves still frayed. Words scrolled across the monitor.
Command? Command? Where am I? What is happening? Who are you? What is this place? You are my enemy!
The mastermind had spoken through that neural-computer interface, and they had been able to listen. Kate found herself smiling, such a rare reaction she hardly recognized it.
They finally had their key. Soon they would have full access to the Variant-collaborator network.
This was the beginning of the end for the Variants.
— 19 —
Fitz had prepared mentally for a lot of different things, but finding traps built for Variants was the last on his list. Coupled with the heavy fog, the traps and terrain made their advance extremely dangerous.
Fitz was grateful now more than ever they had Dohi to guide them. If it weren’t for the Navajo tracker, half of Team Ghost and the Wolfhounds following them would have been impaled by now.
Dohi bent down to look at a snare trap they had just discovered. He glanced up at the tree and raised a brow.
“These guys are good,” he whispered.
&n
bsp; Fitz relayed the location of the trap to the others and then gave the advance.
For the next hour Dohi navigated the terrain expertly, uncovering more pits. The putrid odor of Variants drifted out of some, but others were empty. They found a skeletal Variant dangling from a snare in the trees, and another beast whose leg had been clamped nearly in two by a bear trap.
Most of the fog had thankfully lifted, replaced by pale moonlight when they finally made it to a tree line. An unobstructed highway appeared before them. Beyond it were the scattered buildings of the National Accelerator Laboratory campus.
Weeds had grown through the cracks in the broken asphalt of the road. Fitz crouched out of view to scope the area, searching for hostiles, human or monster.
He didn’t see anything alive, but he did see evidence of life. The roads had been cleared of charred and rusted vehicles.
But when?
His stomach dropped. If the pits were any indication, the people out here were organized and intelligent. They’d made this place their home and defended it.
The real question was whether these would be the type of people who invited their guests in to share a meal or the kind that made their guests into the meal.
Dohi pointed to something a few hundred meters away. Fitz used his NVGs to search the darkness. In the green hue, he saw a tall fence barricading part of the town. Atop each post was something that confirmed these weren’t collaborators.
Collaborators didn’t mount Variant skulls on fence posts, and trap the beasts in pits.
But Fitz still didn’t know if these people were allies or hostile, and there was only one way to find out.
He gave the advance signal.
As they crept through the overgrown grass leading up to the fence around the facilities, Fitz halted to scan parking lots containing rusted vehicles and shipping containers.
It was a huge area to cover and he split the team up with more hand signals. Normally he would have sent Rico off with another team, but this time he sent Dohi and Mendez. He wanted that group to focus on tracking down the equipment while he surveyed what they were up against with his team.
The men nodded back and set off with ten Wolfhounds around the north side. They headed toward a series of warehouses and neighborhoods that had mostly been taken back by nature.
Singh took the remaining ten men and followed Fitz, Ace and Rico southward.
If anything went wrong, they were to meet back near the freeway, their designated rally point. It was always hard seeing his team split off, but this was worse than normal. They were being dragged down by inexperienced soldiers.
A harsh wind carrying the faint scent of a bonfire pulled him from his thoughts. The scent vanished as quick as it had emerged.
He moved along the fence until they came to a corner concealed by a thicket of trees. Even here, among the foliage, the metal post sticking above them had a Variant skull stuck on it.
Fitz crouched down beside the fence and signaled to one of Singh’s men. The one called Hopkins moved over with a pair of bolt-cutters. He went to work snipping through the chain-links. Then a pair of Wolfhounds pulled the puckered chain-link fence back.
Rico ducked through, followed by Fitz. Then came Ace and Hopkins.
A wall of trees demarcated the end of a parking lot and Rico took them past those trunks. She halted on the other side, crouching. Fitz held his fist up to the Wolfhounds and then joined Rico and Ace.
Rows of white buildings with tinted windows towered above a cracked asphalt parking lot. Through those fractures grew a mess of plants taking back the land. Shipping containers rose like small houses out of those tangled yellow weeds.
Rico pointed at the west end where tarps and tents rippled in the wind. Clotheslines were hung between the containers with clothing flapping like tattered flags.
Fitz gazed through his rifle’s optics, glassing the makeshift village. In areas cleared of weeds, he spotted empty chairs and tables with plates and cups.
It all looked recent, but where were the people?
Everyone had just disappeared.
He wondered if they would find Variant tunnels or the site of a massacre on the other side of those big white buildings. If only they had been here a few hours earlier, maybe a few days, they might have been welcomed into this place.
They could’ve entreated these people to help them with their mission and even bring them back into the fold of the Allied States.
Rico and Ace waited for orders. As much as Fitz hated sending them straight into this eerie setting, he had no other choice.
Fitz took point with Hopkins, leading the team into the camp.
New scents danced on the air like the charcoaled smell of grilled meat along with something more putrid. An odor he had long grown used to. The scent of decaying flesh.
They passed a shipping container with a door ajar. Fitz signaled Hopkins to open it and allow Ace inside. He aimed his weapon at the container, and with a gesture from Fitz, Hopkins pulled open the steel door.
Before Ace could go inside, a wave of bones rolled out, rattling noisily against the patchwork pavement.
Fitz flinched at the noise, anticipating a howling Variant to call out.
But it appeared most of the beasts around here were dead or too far away to hear the noise.
He counted off twenty seconds in his mind before examining the bones.
“Something is wrong with these,” Rico whispered.
She was right. The ribs were thick. Some even looked plated. The finger bones he saw were elongated, as were the femurs and arm bones. All the skulls looked smashed and malformed, but not because they had been damaged.
“Sweet Jesus! Those are Variants!” Hopkins said in a raised voice.
Fitz whipped around. Singh was already staring daggers at Hopkins.
The lack of discipline made Fitz worry about stepping another foot into this gruesome place, but he had no choice.
He gestured for Rico and the others to get back in formation and waited a few minutes to allow everyone to have a breath. The smell of death was more potent, and Fitz fought to contain the disgust welling up in his stomach.
Another open shipping container lay ahead, one door open.
An incessant droning buzzed from inside.
Clouds of black flies swarmed the place.
Fitz held in a breath and flicked on his infrared illuminator and laser designator to check the inside. He almost let out a gasp at the ghastly tableau.
Meat hooks hung from the ceiling. Beastly carcasses dangled from those hooks, chunks of meat missing from their haunches and ribs.
There was no mistaking it: the monsters had been slaughtered and were in the middle of being butchered.
Fitz didn’t want the Wolfhounds to see this, especially Hopkins. He closed the door slightly and whispered to Rico.
“Over here,” came a voice.
Singh pointed around the container.
Fitz rushed over with Rico to see a firepit and a spit roast. The embers beneath the roast were still glowing slightly. All around the firepit were abandoned bowls and silverware.
The source of the scent he had smelled earlier.
If those past couple of sights hadn’t already confirmed Fitz’s suspicions, this one did. The Variant being barbecued on the spit roast had been cut like a tender hog.
A chill shot down his spine. The chances of these people being friendly and hospitable were dying with each gristly find.
He brought up his mini-mic, deciding this was worth breaking radio contact.
“Ghost 3, Ghost 1. Do you copy?” he whispered over the comm.
He was met only with the constant sizzle of static.
“Ghost 3, Ghost 1. Do you copy?”
Again, nothing.
Three more times, and still no response.
When Singh tried to ping his men, none of them replied.
“I can’t get through,” he said.
Fitz’s guts tangled as he studied the char
red Variant.
If these people ate monsters, then what would they do with humans?
He prayed to God the other team wasn’t in danger of finding out, but with the lack of radio response, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were next on the menu.
***
“Boss, this is some bullshit,” Horn said.
“Relax, Big Horn,” Beckham said. He eyed the children and their dogs clustered around cots with folded blankets. They had gone from a luxury apartment to the damp, claustrophobic ancient bomb shelter. Ironically, the shelter was cleaner than the apartment, despite the dust.
There were dozens of people here. Families. Single people. Most were either too young or old to fight. Those that weren’t were supervising gaggles of children.
“I thought this place would be safer,” Horn said. “And now we’re in a Cold War bunker with a bunch of civvies that are lookin’ at me like I’ve got a Variant head growing from my stomach.”
Beckham turned to see if he was exaggerating, but a quick scan of the wide room proved he was telling the truth. Everyone around the shelter snuck furtive glances their way—some were far more obvious, openly gawking at them.
His eyes gravitated to a middle-aged man in a wheelchair wearing an Army Veteran hat. He held a shotgun and watched the steel door that was guarded by two outpost soldiers.
“I don’t like feeling like a zoo animal, boss,” Horn growled.
“You’re definitely not helping matters by glaring back, man,” Beckham said. “They’re probably worried you’re going crazy in here. Now calm down, and let’s talk to the kids.”
Tasha and Jenny were each reading a book, but Javier was tapping his foot; he was bored and anxious. Beckham knew it wouldn’t be long until the boy started asking more questions about why they were down here.
Tasha surprised Beckham and beat Javier to it.
“Dad, you going to tell us what’s really going on?” she asked. “This isn’t just a safety drill, is it?”
Jenny looked up from her book. Her freckled nose twitched as she prepared to sneeze. It came out in a blast of snot.
“Come on, Jenny, you’re not a little girl!” Tasha said. “Cover your nose!”
Jenny dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief Horn gave her.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 55