He slipped it over his wrist, hoping it would help him like she had said.
“Here we go,” Ruckley said.
Timothy clicked down his night-vision goggles. The black-and-green world around him was filled with other choppers coming in low toward Vegas. Humvees, Strykers, and other vehicles that had been transported via C-130s and other transport aircraft shadowed them on the ground.
He imagined how many Variants, Chimeras, and collaborators they would be striking down when they got to Vegas. Finally, he was a soldier fighting for his country, fighting to honor his dad’s sacrifice.
The copilot turned back to them and shouted over the thrum of the engines. “ETA five minutes!”
“Ready, Private?” Boyd said, leaning toward Timothy.
“Hell, yeah.”
He felt another flash of fear and wished he was back with Tasha for a moment. But as he looked around at the other men and women on the chopper, he realized this is where he belonged.
The chopper swooped in past hotels and casinos at the north side of the city. Many of the buildings were nothing but scaffolding and rubble. Timothy spotted a street covered in some kind of arched white roof, most of it bent and blackened. Next to it was a casino with only a few letters left on a sign that said “GOLDEN.” Nothing about it looked golden now.
Another casino across the street had been nearly leveled, but its front wall still stood, announcing “FOUR QUEENS.”
“Any sign of contacts?” Ruckley asked over her headset.
“Nothing yet! LZ is clear,” reported the primary pilot.
The chopper dipped toward a street lined with abandoned rusty cars and mountains of trash. Some of the debris whipped around as they descended.
The wheels of the bird hit the street.
“Go, go, go,” Ruckley said.
The soldiers jumped off the Black Hawk, ducking low under the rotor wash. Timothy followed Boyd and Wong, Ruckley tailing them. A half-dozen other choppers disgorged men and women into the empty street. The soldiers spread out into their individual squads, forming a perimeter around those still unloading.
Once the last soldier had his boots on the ground, the choppers took off. Their engine noise dissipated as they vanished back into the night. The squads spread into the ruined city, taking their individual routes as they began the advance.
Ruckley signaled for Wong to take point, and Boyd took rearguard. They filtered past an old semi, its tires rotted and deflated. Timothy roved his gun barrel over their shadows, listening for any rasping growl, the clatter of claws, or clicking joints as they passed a couple of wedding chapels.
Ahead Timothy saw an enormous glass cone on a spindly tower, stretching far higher than the rest of the boulevard.
That must be the Stratosphere, he thought. Our target.
Timothy trained all his senses on their surroundings, looking for the predatorial eyes or snapping teeth of a monster. His skin crawled as he waited for one of them to shriek, announcing that the battle had begun in earnest.
All he heard was the soft pat of boots on the street and sidewalk, along with the distant engine noise from the vehicle convoys and choppers traveling elsewhere in Vegas. He looked toward the sky for a second. Additional troops would be parachuting into locations around the city, and he saw a few of their IR tags glowing in the night, signifying their successful descent.
Still, they saw no signs of the enemy.
The night’s still young, Timothy thought. And maybe the monsters are still all underground.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that the beasts had received warning of the assault. Maybe they were preparing a massive defensive effort. He pushed those thoughts away and followed Wong, who led Recon Sigma down the street ahead of the main forces.
Glass shards covered the sidewalk, and Timothy peered inside an old diner with moldy booths and chairs. Plates and tables were broken and scattered inside. Among the debris, he saw a pair of old skeletons that had been picked clean, claw and teeth marks covering the bones.
But no recent signs of monsters.
Somewhere far across the city they heard the rattle of gunfire. Then a few more bursts.
Ruckley held her fist up, and the team paused. Other soldiers sifting through the street and nearby buildings found cover.
Timothy scoped the street, looking for movement near a manhole cover and storm drain. Then he adjusted his aim over the windows of a nearby hotel.
Nothing there either.
The gunfire quieted, and the teams began advancing again.
Wong took them the final stretch toward the Stratosphere tower. Skeletal branches from dead trees and bushes rustled in the wind. A few nearby buildings had crumbled into oblivion, their façades torn apart by the bombing and fighting that had taken place here nearly a decade ago.
They passed rusted out Humvees. A few skeletons lay around them, the rags of their ACUs flapping over their limbs next to weapons in utter disrepair.
Since they hadn’t run into enemy contacts, they were already ahead of schedule. Ruckley signaled for them to keep going, pointing toward the taller towers on the main strip. The closer they got, the more damage the structures had sustained.
Entire sides of buildings that were thirty, forty, or more stories tall were gone, revealing the guts of the former hotel rooms and restaurants inside. One hotel looked like some kind of circus tent, except half the tent’s roof was missing. A creepy looking clown stood above a sign, pointing toward the hotel.
Teams were spread out between the buildings and even delving into the tunnels. By now he would have expected more than the few scattered gunshots they’d heard.
A voice called over their channels. “All teams be advised, this is TF Alpha Command. Recon Teams Delta and Lambda have found evidence of webbing network in drainage tunnels located near the main strip.”
Wong navigated past a charcoaled transport
