Old-timer fought to catch his breath. The skin on his face burned with embarrassment and guilt. “I’m…I shouldn’t feel this way.”
“
6
“That’s it,” Lieutenant Patrick announced as he pointed to a patch of dead earth at the base of a large and rolling hill that didn’t look much different than all the rest of the dead earth everywhere on the planet.
“How can you tell?” Djanet asked him. “There are no landmarks anymore. Everything is dead.”
“There’s still landmarks. Stones. Hills. It’s enough.”
Djanet lowered the pair to the area Lieutenant Patrick had indicated. The others followed them down and landed in the ankle-deep gray sludge, adjacent to a reasonable facsimile of salvation. He spoke into a radio transmitter on his wrist. “It’s Patrick. Open the blast door.”
“Copy,” replied a garbled electronic voice.
Wet earth began to move as the metallic door underneath began to slide open. Lieutenant Patrick paused for a moment. He knew if Alejandra wasn’t right about the outsiders, he could be leading a fox into the henhouse. He breathed a deep breath and then gestured to his companions. “Come on.”
Old-timer went to Thel and helped her carry James through the door. “Is he conscious?” he asked.
“In and out.”
Inside, there was a short concrete hallway followed by a stairwell; a few lights mounted on the walls guided the way. The group reached a large cargo elevator.
“Where is the doctor?” Thel asked.
“About 200 meters straight down,” replied the lieutenant. “Everybody get in.”
When everyone was inside the elevator, Gernot pulled the hand lever to begin lowering it. The elevator jumped and bounced slightly as it began to slowly grind its way down the shaft. The lights flickered as they descended, and the temperature began to rise.
“I was wondering, could you guys make your underground lair a little more creepy?” Rich suggested. “I’d like to be slightly more terrified.”
“How about shutting up, before I punch you in the face?” Gernot replied.
“That works. Thanks,” Rich answered.
“How about if I fry your brain?” Djanet asked Gernot.
“Settle down,” Lieutenant Patrick interjected.
“How do you keep this place hidden?” Old-timer asked Lieutenant Patrick. “Can’t the A.I. detect such a massive structure?”
“The complex is equipped with a state-of-the-art cloaking program. It sends out false signals, so that no matter what technology the A.I. uses to try to detect us, all it will see is a big chunk of earth.”
The elevator came to a halt, and the door opened.
“Holy…!” Rich gasped.
Before them was a massive hangar, populated by hundreds of people busily buzzing around what appeared to be ancient military equipment. Airplanes and vehicles that looked like tanks and helicopters stretched toward the back of the hangar to a far wall about a kilometer away. Djanet, Rich, and Old-timer were transfixed by the sheer size of the room.
“Where’s the doctor?” Thel asked again as James’s body became more and more limp at her side.
“This way,” Lieutenant Patrick answered, leading the group towards one of the many doorways that were burrowed into the walls of the massive bunker. It appeared as though the hangar was the central hub of a complex that spread off in all directions through a series of doorways; the group followed Lieutenant Patrick to the hospital.
“I can’t believe my eyes,” Rich stammered. He and his companions had expected a single shaman figure who could practice uncanny mystic medicine to save James, but the hospital appeared massive and well organized. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies populated the hallways and bustled efficiently about their business. There were injured people lining the hallways, suffering from cuts, bruises, and burns.
Rich and Djanet both observed a woman whose burnt skin looked like the cheese atop a replicated piece of lasagna. She was on a stretcher, bandaged and moaning in pain as she passed in and out of consciousness. “Why would people live like this?” Rich whispered to Djanet.
One of the doctors saw the soldiers and their companions and immediately came to help. “What happened?” he asked Thel as he began to examine James.
“He fell…several meters.”
“How long has it been?” the doctor asked as he looked at James’s eyes and felt his pulse.
“It’s been about five hours. The A.I. told us he had less than twenty-four hours to live.”
Thel’s words momentarily stunned the doctor. His mouth opened, and his eyes were wide as he turned to the lieutenant and asked, “Who are these people?”
“Calculator-heads,” Gernot asserted as he spat chewing tobacco on the floor.
Lieutenant Patrick turned on him angrily. “This is a hospital, damn it! Get a mop and clean that off the floor! And when you’re done, go get Cochrane and finish your recon shift! I’ve heard enough out of you for one day!”
Gernot reluctantly stepped away from the others, sneering at Djanet as he turned and left in search of a mop.
The lieutenant turned to the doctor and replied, “They’re outsiders, Doc, but they’re okay.”
“Does the general know about this?”
“He will as soon you get this man treatment.”
“The A.I. said he has two broken ribs and a punctured lung. Is that true?” Thel interjected.
The doctor’s stunned eyes left the lieutenant and fell back to James. He leaned over and began to examine James’s torso. “He’ll need further examination to determine the extent of his injuries, but he definitely has two broken ribs.” Turning away from the strange party, the doctor called for help, summoning nurses to his side. “Get this man on a stretcher and into the emerge immediately.” Three people clad in green and pink uniforms put James on a stretcher and then began to take him away.
Thel and the others began to follow, only to be stopped by the doctor. “You’ll have to stay here.”
“I want to be with him,” Thel insisted.
The doctor turned to the lieutenant “These people need to see the general,” and with those words, the doctor exited through swinging doors and followed James into the bowels of the hospital.
The lieutenant placed his hand on Thel’s arm and spoke reassuringly. “He’s in the best place he can be now. They can help him. If you stay, you’ll only get in the way and prevent them from doing their work.”
“What are they going to do to him?”
Alejandra touched Thel’s other arm and lent her voice to the reassurance. “They’re going to save him.”
“Right now, I need you to come with me. You’ve seen the A.I. That means you have one hell of a story to tell and you need to tell it to the big cheese,” said the lieutenant.
7
General Wong stood with his arms folded in the darkness of the situation room, surrounded by his three closest advisors—his closest advisors by default. They’d earned that distinction by being the only soldiers he could remember serving with in the past who’d survived the onslaught earlier in the day. Everyone else he knew was dead.
General Wong was really Lieutenant Commander Wong, promoted out of necessity because he was the highest-ranking official to survive the attack on Purist territory. He hadn’t sat down since early that morning, and he still wore the dust on his clothes and in his hair from the destruction he had escaped earlier in the day. He had
