by Zack Archer
We followed Lucy over a catwalk that was suspended over a subterranean spring. I hustled along after her, my eyes glued on her glorious rear end which bobbed left and right, marveling at how her long legs ate up so much ground.
“I meant to ask you before, but that was you back there, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Were you the fella that got bumrushed outside the cafeteria by the zombies when the lights went out?” she asked without looking back or breaking stride.
“Yep, that’d be me,” I said.
“Happy to have saved your arse—”
“Nick…I don’t think I ever introduced myself, but the name’s Nick.”
“I know,” she replied.
“Maybe I can repay the favor some time.”
She glanced over her shoulder and flashed a blindingly white smile. “Doubtful, but thanks, Nick.”
She stopped in front of a chrome door with a touchpad on the right centered by a red button.
“Boz’s quarters are on the other side of that door,” Lucy said.
“Who’s Boz?”
Lucy slapped her hand against the red button and the chrome door lifted to reveal a brightly-lit workshop with a series of four-foot-tall benches and workstations. Aside from a fake Christmas tree in the middle of the place, every other inch of space was given over to weapons. A shitload of weapons, from small drones to pistols and everything in between.
In the middle of it all was a tiny man in the winter of his years who was dressed in one of those tacky Christmas sweaters, seated in swivel chair. He was puffing away on a cigar while adjusting what looked like a jeweler’s loupe, peering intently at what looked like a disassembled grenade launcher.
Lucy angled her chin in his direction. “That’s Boz. He’s the site’s master armorer, the one who makes things go boom.”
Boz removed the loupe and squinted in our direction. “Holy Christ, Lucy, what do I keep telling you about letting in strays?”
“Sharla brought them here,” Lucy replied.
“Women,” Boz said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t like this when the men were in charge.”
“We weren’t offended by that, if you were wondering,” Scarlett said.
Deb’s jaw locked. “Speak for yourself.”
Boz rose. He was basically pocket-sized, maybe five-feet-two-inches in his shoes and a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. He plucked a pair of glasses off a table and slid them on to get a better look at us.
“They need some weapons,” Lucy said.
“Oh, they do, do they? May I ask for what purpose?”
“They’re going down to Florida.”
Boz cackled. “You, you’re sending this…this group of skirts down to get the antidote?”
I raised a hand. “You probably missed me, but I’m actually a guy.”
“No, I saw you, son,” Boz said, peering at me over his glasses.
“We don’t have time to dick around, pops,” Deb said. “Show us what you got.”
At this, Boz grabbed a sword with a golden hilt and a gleaming blade etched with what looked like runes from a table.
“Be careful what you wish for, sweetie,” he sneered.
He moved faster than a man his age should be able to move as he squared up on Deb, who dropped into a defensive crouch.
“Remind me to apologize after I do it,” Deb said.
“Do what?”
“Spank your salty old ass.”
Boz shouted a war cry and violently swung the sword at Deb, who ducked and dodged the blade. At first, I assumed it was all for show, but then he swung the blade full force over her head and hacked off a lock of hair. She responded with a punch that the little man dipped under, swinging the sword so violently that it became a silver blur.
Deb seized a length of PVC pipe from one of the benches and parried his blows. The old man was fast, but Deb was faster. The sword stuck in the PVC and Deb twirled her wrist, binding the blade and nearly breaking Boz’s wrist as she wrenched it away from him.
The sword broke free and flew into the air. Deb snatched it and angled the pointed end at his throat. A few seconds of awkward silence fell and then Boz’s mouth tugged back in a gigantic smile.
“Oh, I like this one,” the little man said, clapping his hands. “Can I keep her?”
Lucy shook her head. “She’s kind of integral to the mission.”
“Very well,” Boz said, adjusting his glasses. “You need weapons? I will give you weapons. Lots and lots of them. Now, let us get our stroll on.”
The next fifteen minutes were spent shadowing Boz, who shuffled around the room, detailing his menagerie of weapons. There were grenade launchers, assault rifles, combat shotguns, surface-to-air missiles, and all manner of other gear including what Boz said was newfangled nanomesh body armor.
“You seeing this, Slade?”
“I’m seeing but not believing. It’s like Santa’s Workshop by way of an NRA fever dream.”
“What should we do?” I asked.
“Enjoy yourself while you can and take anything they give you. Just make sure to implement gun control.”
“What does that mean?”
“Keep both hands on your weapon,” he replied with a snicker.
“What suits your fancy?” Boz asked us.
Raven raised her hand and pointed at the sniper rifles. “Got any self-steering bullets to go with one of those?”
“We don’t have those,” Boz replied. “But we’ve got a variation on Black Talon rounds.”
Boz help up a few magazines filled with green-tipped bullets.
“What do they do?” Raven asked.
“Explode.”
“All bullets contain explosives, man, that’s how they work.”
Boz grinned. “These aren’t bullets since they contain an explosive charge in excess of point twenty-five ounces.”
“Explosivos? If they’re not bullets, what are they?”
“The ATF classified them as missiles.”
Raven took one of the magazines from him and held it up, admiring the rounds. “A gun that shoots missiles, huh? Pretty sweet.”
“I want that bad boy,” Lexie said, gesturing to a weapon that looked like the bastard spawn of a rocket-propelling grenade and a combat shotgun.
“That’s the Mayhem weapons system,” Boz replied. “It uses a magnetic flux generator to fire multiple molten-metal magneto hydrodynamic rounds without the use of chemical explosives.”
“What’s the takeaway?”
“Increased accuracy along with decreased recoil, but it delivers a big bang. Can you handle a big bang, little lady?”
“She absolutely can, Boz,” I said, smirking as Lexie rolled her eyes.
Next up was Scarlett, who pointed to a black boxy gun with a bipod fitted to the end. Boz grinned. “That’s the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response Rifle. The Phasr.”
“Like in Star Trek?”
“More like Firestarter,” Boz said. “The weapon fires a concentrated beam of light that can immolate any object in as little as three seconds. It’s one of our most advanced weapons, but also a bit on the delicate side, so don’t get it wet.”
“I’ll take it,” Scarlett said with a nod.
Layla raised her hand. “Knives, por favor. I’ll take a shitload of really big knives.”
“How about something that fires them?” Boz asked, twirling his finger and pointing to a stubby gun with a huge cylinder in the middle. “The XM-99 holds one hundred and ten stainless steel, razor-sharp five-inch Yojimbo blades.”
Boz handed Layla the gun and she withdrew one of the blades and ran it down her finger, drawing a bead of blood.
Working with the other ladies, Boz held out two machine-pistols and a tomahawk manufactured by the American Tomahawk Company to Hollis, and then a mini-gun mounted on a receiver taken from an old M-60 machine gun was gifted to Deb. Deb rose to her full height and slipped the minigun’s nylon sling over one shoulder as she panned the weapon back and f
orth like one of those M56 smart guns the Colonial Marines used in Aliens.
“What about me?” I asked.
Boz tapped a finger against the side of his head. “You’re special.”
“That’s what all his teachers used to say,” Lexie quipped, sticking her tongue out at me.
Boz cocked a finger and motioned for me to move toward the rear of the room. He pulled up two chairs and sat me down in one. “Hope you cleared your schedule, son, because this is going to take a while.”
I held my hand up and showed Boz my pig-skinned stump and the metal nub in the middle along with the tiny wires, metal and rubberized, protruding from the flesh.
Boz rubbed his chin. “May I ask the obvious?”
“I had it hacked off,” I replied, anticipating his question.
“By whom?”
“An angry woman.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” he said.
Deb overheard this and made a face. “That’s not all,” I said.
“Please tell me it doesn’t get weirder than losing a hand.”
“Only if you consider having a friend literally implanted inside you.”
Boz removed his jeweler’s loupe and I mentally connected with Slade. “You awake?”
“Yep, and I’m getting a little annoyed at this Boz fella.”
“You’ve been listening.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“What do you think?”
“For starters, I’m a little offended that he finds something odd about our special relationship.”
“Right, because mentally communicating with a computer implanted inside your body isn’t odd at all.”
“A.I., Dekko.”
“Sorry.”
I heard Slade sigh. “Ask him if he’s got a set of speakers.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk to the dude and educate him a little.”
“He’s a pretty knowledgeable guy, Slade.”
“And I’m not?”
“He’s a government scientist-type. Probably went to an Ivy League school.”
“Well, you’re talking to a guy with a Ph.D., pal.”
“From where?”
“The school of hard knocks.”
I spent the next five minutes with Boz detailing how Slade had saved my life via the nanites, then worked to build a microelectrode array that functioned with an array of implanted amplifiers. I was just parroting what Slade told me to say since I didn’t understand one fucking word of that.
Once that was over, Boz and I scoured the place and eventually located an old Bose speaker that we connected to my hand—and to Slade—via the port in the middle of my stump. It took lots of work and a bit of luck, but eventually we were able to pipe Slade through the speaker.
Surprisingly, Slade and Boz got along like old buddies, the two of them working together on my hand and arm while cracking dirty jokes and ogling the ladies. Using a set of high-tech pliers and other devices, Boz bolted a six-barreled cannon to a cage that was then tightened and secured to my good arm. I was able to manipulate the cannon with my fingers.
On my stump, Boz slotted a short stubby metal tube that could fire three-inch steel darts, two hundred in all, that were stacked inside. Slade worked with Boz to synch everything with my HUD and I surprised to find that I could aim and trigger the dart gun simply by mind manipulation.
Raven ambled over and threw up her hands, eying her weapon. “When do we get take everything for a test drive?”
Lucy ushered us through a false shelf at the back of the room that concealed a long, narrow firing range—one of two ranges on site, she informed us—complete with paper targets in the shape of six-foot-tall males, sandbags, blocks of what she said were ballistic gel, and rows of dated electronica: old-school TVs, boomboxes, and a microwave oven.
Other people had arrived before us. It was Bo Knox and three other men, two of whom were wearing strange masks, and Lawless. Smoke rose from the barrels of their guns and it was clear they’d been doing some shooting.
“I didn’t know it was Halloween,” Deb said, eying the men, who removed the masks.
“It ain’t,” Bo replied.
“Then what’s up with the masks?”
One of the other men, a brown-skinned, broad-shouldered colossus with long, black hair tilted his chin. “They’re not masks. They’re called Second Skins.”
Raven made a face. “The hell are those?”
The brown-skinned man held up his mask. “My ancestors used to use these before they went out to make war. They’re supposed to bring you good luck, to protect you from your enemies.”
“Plus, they look fucking rad,” Bo offered. “Puts the fear of God into the biters. Let’s ‘em know that the Dirty Thirty is coming to kick some ass.”
“Who’s the Dirty Thirty?” I asked.
“Us,” Bo replied, slapping a balled fist against his chest.
“Why were you called that?” Scarlett asked.
“’Cause that’s how many men we started with.”
“But there are only four of you.”
“Exactly,” Bo replied, a pained expression in his eyes.
Raven strode forward. “You boys need someone to teach you how to shoot?”
“Have at it, sis,” Bo replied.
Raven turned to Lucy, who handed out ammunition for our respective weapons.
Raven was indeed the first one up. She aimed her rifle and squeezed off one of the explosive rounds. It struck a TV, atomizing it in a metallic mist. Scarlett shot next, aiming at the boombox with her laser rifle. The beam sliced through the middle of the boombox like it was made of butter. To the surprise of all of us, the boombox powered up, blaring an ancient song that I vaguely remembered.
“What in God’s name is that?” Hollis asked.
“That’s our shooting music,” Lawless said with a loopy grin.
The tune sounded familiar. “I’m pretty sure that’s a song by the group Maroon 5.”
Lexie shot the boombox with her Mayhem weapon, the molten-metal magneto round vaporizing the boombox. “Whatever that was, it wasn’t fucking music,” she said, blowing some sparks from the end of her gun. Even Bo cracked a smile and chuckled at this.
The rest of us followed, firing a flurry of shots at the targets, until Layla was the only one left. She hefted her XM-99 gun and deftly fired six of the five-inch steel blades, which stuck into the groin area of the male paper targets.
“I hope there wasn’t a message in that,” Bo said, wincing as the others laughed.
She turned and winked as Lawless clapped his hands. “I gotta say, ladies, your shooting makes me feel good in all my naughty places.”
“Yeah, that’s a special feeling,” I said.
Lucy whistled and told us to bring our gear. “It’s time to get to it,” she said.
“Time to get to what?”
“Time to plan our orders of infiltration and battle.”
6
One floor below Boz’s armory was a conference room with a large oval chamber surrounded by twenty-four wingback chairs. An eight-foot-wide screen descended from the ceiling.
Given all that we’d been through, we were in dire need of some levity, even a simple joke. When Lexie said, “Maybe we’re gonna watch The Sound of Music,” everyone burst out in laughter.
A flicker of annoyance crossed Lucy’s features. She was all business as she clapped her hands, then snapped on a laser pointer. She angled the red beam to the screen as the lights went down and images popped up. The initial imagery, scenes shot from what I reckoned was an airplane or drone, showed a never-ending sweep of water.
Raven raised her head. “Why the hell are we checking out the ocean?”
“That’s not the bloody ocean,” Lucy replied.
“Then what is it?”
“What’s left of a cocked-up, downtown Miami.”
Both of my brows rose at the sight of South Beach underwater, and my gut tightened
. I knew the city had routinely flooded over the last few years, but I didn’t realize it was so bad.
The POV on the screen zoomed in and panned to the right. I saw things sticking out of the water that looked like broken ribs on a zombie corpse. There were struts and metal beams, and then I saw the upper portion of a freeway and the top ten or fifteen stories of the tallest structures in the city.
“As you may or may not know, the city was routinely threatened by flooding over the last ten years. It managed to remain relatively dry only because of an elaborate flood-prevention program and a large system of pumps.”
“Let me guess,” Deb said. “Once the power went out, the water came in.”
Lucy nodded. “Quite. The pumps failed within a matter of days, and the storm drains and walls were overwhelmed shortly thereafter.”
“I assume everyone died,” Hollis said.
“Not everyone,” Lucy replied.
The POV zoomed down again to reveal a series of structures connecting the buildings, the freeway, and what little remained of the city streets and bridges.
I quirked an eyebrow. “Survivors.”
“Of a sort,” Lucy said.
New footage showed speedboats moving between the buildings, then a series of still photos of men and women, all heavily armed, offloading and onloading things onto the boat.
Lucy circled the people with her laser point. “A new kind of piracy has developed. Gangs and traders are using boats to make runs up and down the East Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico.”
“How many pirates are there?” Scarlett asked.
“Unknown, but we’ve made contact in the past with one of the local groups. They’re friendly.”
Deb smirked. “How do you know?”
“They said so.”
She snorted. “We’re relying on the word of goddamn pirates now?”
“Our methods of collecting intelligence are admittedly a bit blinkered, but I’m afraid that’s the terrain we currently find ourselves deployed in.”
The images changed a final time to one of the taller buildings. It was closer to the heart of the city, fringed by raised highways and several skyscrapers.
“That’s it,” Lucy said. “The Vortex Lab. That’s where the Strategic National Stockpile is located.”