Dawn of the Mad (15 page)

The colonel and his team had transported into a back room of a condemned one-story house. A bent street sign outside read, in faded letters, “Orleans Street,” with “3400 block” in smaller characters below that. Plywood boards covered most of the windows, and the yard was filled with trash. A faded orange sticker affixed to the front door read, “Condemned by the Metro Housing Authority: Do Not Enter.”

When Sergeant Matthias had materialized inside the rancid dwelling, four occupants had looked up, surprised, from where they sat on the floor, but none of them had moved or put up resistance. He quickly and silently dispatched them with his combat knife. When Colonel Chuikova and Captain Cruwell arrived, they quickly searched the rest of the house but found no one else present. They stripped the bodies of clothing, and placed them in one of the smaller rooms, and shut the door.

The colonel surmised that the four were vagrants or common criminals, and that they therefore would not be missed. The staging area room was bare, save for a small table and single chair and two filthy, mold-covered mattresses. The room reeked of stale urine and mildew. The team quickly cleared the room of its litter of spoiled food, hypodermic syringes, filthy clothing, and various other bits of trash. They put the clothing in a pile with the clothing they had stripped from the occupants of the house.

More than fifteen minutes had passed since the colonel’s arrival. The team members had selected clothing from pile that fit them best, broken open a few of their equipment crates which were sent after them down the trans-mat. They stood and now watched the slowly rotating trans-mat disk.

“Should we wait for Scotts, or should I go back?” Matthias asked the colonel. Matthias knelt down and opened a small panel on the box on the trans-mat disk. He looked inside briefly not quite sure he knew how to activate it.

“It doesn’t appear overheated yet,” he announced, satisfied as he closed the panel back up.

“Maybe he didn’t make it,” Cruwell suggested.

No sooner had he spoken than the disk began to rotate more quickly. The top of the disk opened outward, and the purplish light radiated from it once more. The three stepped back, and immediately the unmistakable lanky outline of Corporal Scotts materialized before their eyes. His veins, followed by his muscles, became visible in the swirling light show. The lights finally dissipated, and the corporal collapsed in a sweaty heap onto the ground. Cruwell and Matthias gently raised him to his feet. Scotts put one arm on a wall to support himself.

“We thought you weren’t going to make it,” the colonel said. He put a hand on Scotts’ head. “You look like you are all here.”

Scotts turned away and vomited on the wall, sinking to his knees in the process.

“It’ll pass,” the colonel said. “We all suffered some vertigo. Hell of a way to travel.”

Scotts slowly rose to his feet, unsupported. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Not long, maybe twenty minutes,” the colonel answered. “We were worried about you, but Cruwell said the transmit beams get twisted and pulled apart sometimes, making reassembly take longer. Take off your utility overalls. We have some clothes we acquired from the inhabitants here, so that we’ll fit in better.” Scotts nodded and reached over, deactivating the trans-mat disk.

The colonel turned and pulled Matthias off to the side. “You and Cruwell need to obtain transportation,” he said.

Matthias nodded slowly. He put on a long black trench coat from the pile and drew the collar tight around his neck. He found a side window that was only partially boarded up, pulled another board loose, and exited through the hole.

“Scotts,” the colonel said, “monitor the radio frequencies in this area and keep me informed of anything that might resemble our target. Also, keep alert for any unusual power surges. That shuttle might still have power and they may be attempting to liftoff again.”

Cruwell said, “I’m going to see if I can track the alien on foot until Matthias can secure transportation. The shuttle’s signature terminated around here somewhere, we could get lucky.” He had selected tattered jeans, black Chuck Taylors, and a dirty white T-shirt that bore the single word “Relax.” He put his hand cannon down the back of his pants and retrieved a small black box from one of the equipment crates. He activated a small switch, and a 3-D holographic image was projected in the middle of the room. The image slowly rotated and gave a display of the immediate area. A strap was attached to the box, allowing him to wear it on his wrist. He grabbed an L. A. Raiders jacket and headed for the window Matthias had used as an exit.

“Happy hunting,” Scotts said, managing to crack a smile. He powered on the computer terminal, sat down, and began to adjust frequencies. Within seconds, he was on an active frequency, and traffic could be heard emitting through the speaker.

“Sir, this appears to be a military or civil order channel. I will commence monitoring,” Scotts said.

The colonel nodded and watched the captain depart. He loosely replaced the board over the window.

“Corporal, I’m returning to the shuttle to maintain contact with Raus and monitor the shuttle’s long-range scanner. This could be just a short stop for our quarry, perhaps for fuel.”

Scotts nodded and stood up, and walked back to the trans-mat disk. He activated it, and within moments, the colonel stepped through. After he vanished into the room’s musty air, Scotts powered down the disk and sat back down. He quickly unpacked a computer terminal from a crate and set it up on the table.

The rain had increased to a downpour, and water began to leak through several small holes in the ceiling. A loud crash suddenly occurred outside the house, startling Scotts. He could hear several loud voices. He stared at the front door of the house and grabbed his pistol, which was sitting on the table next to him. He aimed its laser sight at the door and powered up the sub-atomic projectiles. The pistol made a slight whine as he hit the activation switch.

I hate this planet already
. He stayed frozen, his weapon aimed at the door. After a few minutes, with no further loud noises from the outside, he deactivated his pistol. He quickly resumed his work scanning frequencies.

A few minutes later, he heard a panicked voice on what he had determined as a police frequency. He listened for a moment before contacting Cruwell. “Captain, I have something interesting here.”

“Go ahead,” Cruwell replied, over a buzz of static.

“I think we may have found our science experiment. I am going to patch the radio communications through to your handset. The transmission is from a policeman.”

“Good work.”

Cruwell was riding shotgun in a lime green 1990 Ford Mustang that Matthias had found with its keys in the ignition. After a quick familiarization he was now driving. As he listened to the radio broadcast patched through to his wrist box, the holographic 3-D map of the surrounding area also was projected, illuminating the dark confines of the vehicle with a pale green light. The holographic map was able to display other vehicles and pedestrians through a link to the shuttle’s sensors, high above in the sky. Humans and other living creatures gave a faint red outline, indicating heat. He heard an excited voice yelling over the radio, “He’s not falling! Where’s my backup?”

“If they are shooting him and he’s not falling,” Cruwell said, “that may be our alien.

“Let me give you a fix on the transmission,” Scotts said. A moment later, a flashing blue dot appeared within the hologram.

Cruwell saw it and quickly determined the quickest course toward it. He gave Matthias a direction, and the sergeant pressed harder on the car’s accelerator, but with little response other than the pedal going all the way to the floor and a slight increase in acceleration. The car appeared to have reached its top speed, and it belched acrid black smoke from its bent tailpipe. A few minutes later, the car was within a block of the source of the radio transmission.

“Go slow,” Cruwell said, watching the holographic map intently. “We are here.” According to the hologram, the source of the radio calls appeared to be leaning up against a vehicle, and the captain correlated the holographic image with the scene outside the car. “That’s him right there, but I don’t have any sign of our alien, or whatever it is. We may be too late.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Matthias.

Cruwell withdrew a monocular from a pocket, switched it to night vision, and stared at the policeman through it for a moment. “He is holding a pistol with the slide locked to the rear. I think he is talking on a handheld communication device of some sort.” Cruwell put down his monocular and noticed the arrival of several cars with flashing lights on their roofs. The policeman sat down in the car he had been leaning against, with the door open.

“Let’s hang back and see where this takes us,” he suggested. “It’s all we have to go on for now. I’m also interested in taking a look around here when the area clears out.”

Matthias parked the Mustang on a side street, behind an overflowing trash dumpster.

“We should get hold of Scotts,” he said, “and try to get a sensor sweep of this area from the shuttle. If our quarry landed around here, we should be able to lock onto it.”

“I should have thought of that,” Cruwell replied. “I’m a little exhausted right now. Make the call, sergeant.”

A lone figure wearing a soaked white long sleeved shirt and gray pants was also watching events unfold, from a concealed position down the street. Dr. Keitel hoped his creation had enough sense to flee if these indigenous life forms approached the shuttle. Its sense of self-preservation seemed to be developing faster than he had anticipated.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 12

As Johnny Roman sipped strong, black coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and reading the sports page of the
Morning News
, he found his mind drifting to his promotion to homicide detective. He still could not comprehend how he had made it up the promotion ladder so quickly.

With barely 22 months on the force, he had put in for lateral reassignment to the Southwest Division as a detective based on nothing more than a whim. You won’t know if you don’t try. That’s what his dad told him anyway. Roman scored very well on the aptitude test so was not too surprised to be invited before the interview panel, but notification that he was on the final selection list came as something of a shock. With several homicide detectives on administrative leave pending internal affairs investigations resulting from various civil rights violations and evidence tampering, vacancies needed to be filled. Roman’s limited but effective street experience made him a prime candidate. He was also a former Army Ranger and a veteran of the war in Iraq, and he had prior experience as a gun for hire working for the U.S. State Department, which helped his resume. He figured he could bring a fresh outside perspective to a rapidly sinking department. Being awarded the department’s Medal of Valor last month hadn’t hurt either, or so the newly appointed deputy chief over investigations thought when he had approved Roman for assignment to detective one week ago.

As he waited in a chair outside Detective Captain Martinez’s office, he turned his attention back to the sports page.
What the hell is up with the Cowboys, losing 38 to 6 against the Texans
? He took another sip of his coffee.

The door to Captain Martinez’s office opened. A short, stocky Hispanic man with gray hair parted to the side and a gray moustache appeared in the doorway. “Are you John Roman?” he asked, seemingly rather annoyed.

“Yes sir,” Roman stated as he jumped to his feet, discarding the paper and Styrofoam cup in an overflowing trash bin next to the door that appeared not to have been cleaned in days.

“Get in my office.” Martinez retreated back into his office, not waiting for Roman. Roman followed him in.

“Close the door and sit down.”

Roman shut the door and sat down. He briefly looked around and saw various plaques and awards on the wall. A couple of photos with the mayor and the recently fired police chief caught his eye.

Martinez sat in an oversized leather chair behind a desk. Roman looked up at Martinez with curiosity as Martinez read from a police personnel folder. He could see that the vertical label had his name on it.

Martinez spoke from behind the folder. “You have an impressive record so far in your short career. I see you have three letters of commendation plus the Medal of Valor for pulling a woman out of a burning car.” Martinez closed the folder and dropped it on his desk. He reclined back in the chair and addressed Roman with a look of contempt.

“You made detective. That’s real nice. And you are assigned to my homicide unit. That’s also very nice. Let me ask you something.”

“Yes sir?” Roman replied, unable to even guess at what was about to hit him full on like a freight train.

Martinez rose out of his chair and shouted nearly at the top of his lungs. “What do you think gives you the right to make detective when I have guys on the street busting their ass for 15 years who don’t get as much as a ‘thank you’ for trying? Huh? Answer me that!”