Into the Storms: A Hell Divers Prequel, page 29
There were hostiles below him.
Cecil moved across the landing and down the stairs. He swung the shotgun up at a figure on the stairs, almost pulling the trigger.
“Shit,” Cecil growled.
It was the green-haired teenage spotter he had seen on the third floor earlier. With both hands in the air, and eyes wide with fear, he didn’t look so hard now.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Cecil growled.
The kid ran.
Cecil moved down to floor 3, then 2, and down to 1—almost out of the building.
“Tank, I’m almost to the lobby,” he said into his headset.
Cecil kept going, nearly tripping on a stair. He passed a junkie who had just come to and was looking at him with a tilted head.
“You look like dog shit, bruv,” he said.
Cecil almost laughed.
When he got out into the lobby, he did laugh. He had made it.
He walked through the cloud of dust and smoke from his two grenades.
Over the ringing, he heard sirens, but these were coming from outside. He moved through the open doors with the shotgun but dropped it when he saw the armored vehicles outside.
“Hands in the air!” someone yelled.
A strike team of six officers in riot gear and holding shields strode in a phalanx toward the stairs.
“That’s him!” one of them yelled.
Cecil held back the sigh of relief—he wasn’t out of this hell just yet.
He hurried down toward the strike team with his hands up, not wanting to catch friendly fire from an overeager officer.
Two officers in riot gear passed him, weapons raised to provide cover, if needed. The next two grabbed Cecil by his arms, hoisting him off his feet and practically carrying him down the stairs.
“We got you,” said one of the officers.
Cecil glanced over his shoulder as they rushed him off the stairway landing.
The building loomed above him—a place that had claimed the lives of Enforcer Ricker, Jerky, and the rest of Alpha team.
But not Cecil.
Cecil had escaped, and he had taken down Wild Bill.
He relaxed, letting his weight shift to the two men helping carry his battered, exhausted body. They rushed him to an ambulance that waited outside the NGZ. Captain Harkin jogged over from the command post that had been set up across the street.
“Jesus Christ, Pepper, what the hell were you thinking?” he asked.
Cecil stiffened, steeling himself for a reprimand or worse.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Cecil said. “I saw a chance, and I took it. I couldn’t let Wild Bill get away with murder, not while I had him in my crosshairs.”
Harkin looked at him, then grinned. “You did good, Pepper, but you just made your life a lot more challenging.”
Another man came over, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding an automatic rifle. To Cecil’s surprise, it was Chief Krycek, and the bandage on his head made him look as though he had been in the fight.
“Well done, Pepper,” he said. “Today we got Nion and his leadership and recovered the automatic rifles, and you took out the punk who sold them to Cipher Crew. With Wild Bill dead and Nion in custody, the NGZ might actually see a period of calm.”
“Thank you, sir.”
For the first time in his career, Cecil felt that he had made a real difference. People like Diana and her kids might have a chance at a better life.
“He good?” Harkin asked the paramedic.
“He’ll be fine,” she said.
Another officer jogged over and said, “She’s here, Captain.”
Harkin nodded. “Bring her over.”
Cecil stood as a woman in an ITC uniform got out of a car. When she turned, he saw that it was his wife.
“Michelle,” he said.
Gripping the bandage around his chest, he went over to her.
“Cecil!” she cried.
Harkin stood by while they embraced.
“What happened? Are you okay?” she asked as she pulled back, looking him up and down.
“Yeah, I’m good. Better than ever, to be honest.”
“What . . . what happened?”
Cecil exhaled. “I’m sorry. I had to get payback for Jerky.”
“Payback? On your own?” Her voice was filled with shock.
“Your husband took down Wild Bill,” Harkin said.
She looked at the captain, then back to Cecil.
“I’ll give you guys a minute,” he said.
He walked away, leaving Cecil alone with his wife.
“I’m sick of treading water in the ocean with no shore in sight,” he said. “You’ve thrown me a life buoy, and I love you, Michelle, but I had to get to shore on my own. And now I’m on my way. I’m whole again. I proved to myself I’m still a fighter.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, well, now I’m in the ocean, too, treading water right alongside you.”
“What do you mean?”
Michelle heaved a breath. “They say we have to leave town, that it isn’t safe for us now.”
“What?”
Cecil waved Harkin back over.
“They saw your face, Pepper,” he said. “You avenged our fallen men, but Wild Bill has a loyal following that will want to avenge him too. And they won’t stop at you.”
Cecil swallowed hard at the realization as Harkin looked to Michelle.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Pepper, but it’s not safe for you either,” said the captain. “You’ll both have to leave as soon as we find you a safe house.”
PART FOUR
SHADOWY FORCES
TWENTY-THREE
Santiago woke to a buzzing, as if the room were filled with bees. Over the strange hum came a foreign voice.
“Sergeant, can you hear me?”
He tried to open his eyelids, but to his alarm, they wouldn’t move. Around the edges, he felt something crusty. The skin along his neck burned and itched terribly.
Pushing down the rising sense of panic, he tried to remember where he was as that same unfamiliar voice spoke again.
“Sergeant Rodriguez, if you can hear me, nod or move.”
With great effort, Santiago lifted a hand. At least, he thought he did.
“Get me that epinephrine injection now!”
This was a different voice.
Something stung his arm, and his heart started to thump faster. Breathing evenly, he tried to keep calm, but the rush of adrenaline was too much. His body shook from the sudden burst of energy. His eyes banged open, and he saw multiple figures leaning over him.
“Relax, Sergeant, you’re safe,” one of them said. “You’re on an evac.”
Santiago blinked at the body of a man lying beside him on the deck of the Wasp. He knew right away who it was from the arm stump wrapped in gauze.
“Nodin,” he whispered.
“Sergeant Tatanka is unconscious, but he’s stable,” said the voice. “We have him sedated.”
Santiago focused his gaze on a navy corpsman. Behind him stood a man wearing square plates of black armor over his chest, and a red flame symbol on his helmet. This wasn’t an ITC security trooper like Santiago; this was an officer of the JMF.
The man leaned down. “Sergeant Rodriguez, I’m Major Han. I need you to tell me what happened at Field Lab Alpha.”
Alpha . . .
A brief flurry of memories surfaced: diving into the crater, finding the field lab and what was left of the scientists. Then the storm, and locating Dr. Voss.
An image of Alistair falling to the rubble with smoking holes in his armor made Santiago flinch. He tried to sit up, but his head pounded. He reached up, felt his hair matted with blood. The last thing he remembered was throwing the grenade at the machines, then shielding Yosef and Nodin with his body.
Santiago searched the hold for Yosef but saw only Nodin.
“Where’s Lieutenant Yosef?”
“He’s on another transport,” Han said. He crouched down. “I need you to focus, Sergeant, and tell me what happened down there. Were you engaged by Tritons?”
Past the shock, Santiago pulled himself together.
“Negative. The machines were Def-8 units.”
Han hesitated. “You’re sure?”
“Haven’t you engaged them yet?”
“Whoever or whatever attacked you was gone when we arrived,” said Han.
Santiago stared, trying to understand.
“Tell me exactly what happened, step-by-step, Sergeant Rodriguez.”
“Okay.”
As best he could recall, Santiago described what had gone down from the moment they dived out of Persephone to the last thing he remembered in the mall. As he considered what he was saying, the implications chilled him, especially the possibility that the machines had escaped the sector or spread mutiny to the other machines out there being used by ITC. There weren’t many, due to the Global AI Limitation Accord, but there were enough to inflict major damage.
“Is this widespread?” he asked.
Han didn’t answer.
A wave of nausea hit Santiago. He rolled over and vomited.
“Corpsman, give him a second R-1 shot,” Han said.
The major stepped back to allow the injection that Santiago knew was for radiation exposure. He had taken a big dose of rads, hopefully not a lethal one. The warning signs were already there: itching and burning skin, confusion, racing heart, severe dizziness. And the nausea.
Maybe this was all one big delusional dream.
No, this is fucking real.
The corpsman gave him another injection, and Han leaned back down.
“You’ll feel better soon, but I need you to focus right now,” he said. “I need to understand more about the Def-8 units. You’re sure they attacked you and killed Dr. Voss? Radiation poisoning can cause—”
“It was them, Major. And I’d be willing to bet the machines ripped the other scientists to pieces back at the field lab.”
Han glanced up.
“The lab was destroyed,” said one of his comrades.
“Listen to me,” Santiago said. “If the Def-8 units have gone rogue in other locations where ITC has them deployed—”
“They haven’t,” Han interrupted. “We’ve confirmed that with ITC. This is an isolated incident and will be dealt with swiftly. Tell me more about your interaction with Voss.”
Relieved, Santiago nodded. “He said something about them having his family.”
“Who had his family?” Han asked.
“I don’t know. He ran before we could get more out of him. He was definitely suffering from radiation poisoning.”
Han pulled back, saying something into his headset that Santiago couldn’t make out.
Rolling slightly, Santiago checked on Nodin again. He had survived, thank God, but Alistair and David were gone. They had survived the war, only to die right back in that same hell.
Anger burned through him at the pointless losses.
“Sergeant, we’re taking you to Omega Base in the DMZ for medical attention,” Han said.
Santiago managed a nod. “Thank you, sir.”
“One more thing.” Han crouched beside him. “What happened is classified.”
“Understood, sir.”
He rested his head back on the deck as the medicine took hold, his world spinning. Another bout of nausea hit him, but this time he closed his eyes and managed to resist throwing up.
“Prepare for landing!” shouted one of the pilots.
The Wasp swooped and set down with a slight jolt on the tarmac at Omega Base. By now, the adrenaline was already starting to wear off, and Santiago felt dizzy as he got up off the deck with the corpsman’s help.
Another Wasp set down next to them, and Alistair’s body was unloaded. They had recovered David too. The sting of the losses hit Santiago again, followed by a wave of anger. He clenched his jaw.
The itching grew worse, up his legs and burning along his feet.
“Let’s move!” Han shouted.
Santiago went over to Nodin and walked beside his stretcher toward the rows of concrete buildings.
“You’re going to be okay, brother,” Santiago said.
Nodin’s eyelids fluttered.
A squad of ten soldiers in full armor and hazard gear jogged over with a colonel in their midst.
“Major Han,” said the colonel.
“Colonel Edwards,” Han said, saluting.
The soldiers who accompanied them off the Wasp halted and saluted.
“Escort the ITC troopers to the quarantine area,” said Edwards.
“Quarantine area, sir?” Santiago asked.
“If you’d come with us, Sergeant,” said one of the guards.
Half in shock, Santiago stared at the colonel, who said, “I’m sorry about your squadmates. Now, please go with the guards.”
Then he was gone, hurrying over to one of the Wasps.
“Follow us,” said Major Han.
Santiago was separated from Nodin, who was taken toward a different building.
“He’ll be fine,” Han said.
“Where’s Lieutenant Yosef?” Santiago asked, realizing he still hadn’t seen him.
“He’s on another transport; I told you that,” Han said. “Now, follow us.”
They guided Santiago into a different building, where they began a journey through the windowless hallways of what had been an interrogation center in the past. They stopped in front of one of the doors.
“You will wait here until a doctor comes to see you,” Han said.
Santiago looked inside the holding area. “What is this?”
Han began to walk away, but Santiago followed. Both guards stepped forward. “Sergeant, we have orders to place you in quarantine. This is quarantine.”
“Major Han!” Santiago called out. “I’d like to talk to my commander on Persephone, First Lieutenant Zimmerman.”
Han turned. “That won’t be possible right now,” he said. “The base is on a comms lockdown.”
“Look, we have orders directly from CEO Tyron Red—”
“You haven’t heard, have you?”
“Heard what?”
“There’s been an attempt on his life in Atlanta,” Han said.
Santiago froze as Han turned and walked away, leaving this new bombshell without another word.
“Please proceed to the quarantine cell,” said one of the guards.
Santiago turned to the box. The cage. A moment of pure fear gripped him as he stood in front of a prison cell not so different from those that he himself had put so many men in back when he fought the cartels, and again in the war. The door shut behind him, shrouding him in darkness.
He was a prisoner of the military, who had clearly taken command of this mission.
Fear turned to anger as realization set in. He had seen something that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Not only had the Def-8 units gone rogue, but they had likely murdered the scientists and attacked his team. If that got out, it would cause pure panic across the world.
And this wasn’t just about the machines. There had been an attempt on Tyron Red’s life—an attack on ITC itself.
Santiago had been around long enough to know this was no coincidence.
It was all connected.
Tyron stood at the bulletproof windows of his office at the top of the ITC headquarters, looking at the brightly lit campus below. The place looked like a military base, with armored vehicles, roadblocks, and uniformed security forces patrolling about. Drones flew around the airspace, ready to intercept any aerial threats. He reached up to massage his sore neck. The pain was getting worse since the attack two hours ago, when the blast lifted him off his feet and hurled him into the wall.
He had a ruptured right eardrum and a likely concussion.
In a daze, he had been airlifted away from the gala back to the headquarters building, where he saw a doctor in their own medical facility. They wanted him to stay there for observation and rest, which Whitt had agreed to, but Tyron had declined, insisting he return to his command center, where he could work.
Trying to shake the shock, Tyron stepped away from the windows and returned to the room of monitors.
“Sir, are you okay?” Whitt asked.
“No,” Tyron said as his gaze flitted to the empty chair for Angelina. He felt a deep, raw pain unlike any he had experienced before. When he lost Daniel, it had hurt. Even losing his mother hurt, though they hardly had a relationship. And he still felt the pain of losing his dad. But this was different. Angelina was a significant part of what made ITC tick.
Tyron could still see her smile, erased by the blast that was meant to kill him.
He shook it off. This was not the moment to grieve, but to act. He had always been two steps ahead of everyone, and now he felt three steps behind.
“How!” he yelled. “How did this happen?”
Whitt kept his composure. “I’m sorry, sir. I take full responsibility. I will resign if that is what you want.”
“I want to know who did this, Whitt. Who’s been attacking us? This isn’t the Blackworms, no fucking way.”
“I agree, and I’m going to find out. Every asset at our disposal is working on determining who’s responsible. I won’t rest until I have the perpetrators. The drones have been recovered and are undergoing analysis in our labs right now for a point of origin.”
Tyron knew that the chances of the drones being traceable were slim. Whoever managed to pull this off would cover their trail. They would leave nothing to chance.
“Sir, I do have an update on Hell Squad,” Whitt said. “Survivors were taken to Omega Base. Meanwhile, JMF strike teams have deployed to hunt down the three rogue Def-8 machines that are believed to be responsible for the attack on the team and on the scientists at Field Lab Alpha. I’ve been in contact with Captain Dominique on the Persephone, but he reports that the JMF is not responding to requests for intel on the ground.”
Tyron simply stared in shock. It wasn’t raiders or the vegetation after all. It was the machines.
