Wasteland Rules: Born to Fight (The World After Book 2) (24 page)

   “Why didn’t they do something about it?” Rora
wondered.

  “Because they had become so self-absorbed and
divided they couldn’t work together to solve the problem.” Derek said
disappointedly. “They thought the answer was more government control and the
media participated in that charade. People had become sheep and they were
ultimately led to the slaughter. Now they have the worst of it in the U.S.T.G.
with the small elite ruling over masses of downtrodden workers who live barely
better than slaves.”

   “At least they have food, water, and shelter.”
Rora pointed out.

   “But at what price?” Derek asked passionately.
“They have no freedom. They work and work for the system, but get nowhere and
then they die.”

   “That seems very fatalistic.” Rora replied. “Not
everyone can survive in the wastelands like you. You have special training and
genetic enhancements and even you barely survive. They would all die in
minutes.”

   “I’d rather die free in the wasteland than live
like a slave in the U.S.T.G.” He said with finality.

   A few seconds passed before Rora began to reply.
“Easy for you to say…”

   “Stop.” He interrupted.

   “What? I’m not allowed to disagree?” She snapped.

   “No. Stop the vehicle. Stop the vehicle!” He
ordered. “Something isn’t right here.”

   “What are you talking about?” Rora asked
frustrated.

   “These piles of rubble don’t look random. They
look like they were dragged here to create a channel leading people in one
direction, very probably leading into a trap.” Derek explained.

   “It looks like rubble to me.” Rora complained.
“There’s no one here. Let’s go.”   

   Derek looked around and tightened his grip on the
machine gun. It looked like random piles of rubbles, but it was just a little
too neat. The rubble was in a straight orderly line instead of a slight curve
or random displacement it would have had if created by the blast wave or a
building collapse. The piles of rubble blocked every direction but the one,
cutting off every avenue of escape. This wasn’t new so it wasn’t created just
for them, but who would have been here to build it. Was it possible people who
survived the initial blasts built them and are now dead, the trap being their
legacy?

   It was completely quiet and nothing moved. It was
like the place was frozen in time. Then he saw the movement. It was slight, but
a pebble rolled down a pile of rubble. There was no breeze and no animals here,
so there was only one way it could have moved.

   “Back!” He yelled at Rora, startling her.

   She recovered quickly and reversed the LTATV. She
spun the vehicle around as figures poured out of hiding all around them. Rora
screamed as rocks and makeshift spears rattled of the armored panels and roof.
A spear passed right by Derek’s head and he could see it was a butcher knife
duct taped to a broom handle. Very primitive, but effective if it hit. And
there were a lot of them. Their armor should protect them, but you never knew
where there was a weak spot.

   Derek squeezed the trigger on the machine gun as
a wave of screaming black clad figures crested a pile of rubble. It chattered
to life and cut down the attackers, the heavy rounds scything through them like
stalks of wheat. Another wave of screaming attackers took their place as Rora
frantically tried to get them out of the ambush. He kept the trigger down and
sprayed bullets as they swerved back through the rubble. A steady stream of
lead mowed down the enemy as Rora wove wildly back through the piles of rubble.
The machine gun rounds sent their enemies flying when they struck.

   Derek grunted as a thrown chunk of concrete
struck his right arm, numbing it briefly and ruining his aim. He glanced over
and could see Rora’s eyes were wide and she was clenching the steering wheel
tightly. She was scared but she wasn’t panicking. He was impressed as she
continued to handle the vehicle and do her best to get them free. He was amazed
at the number of attackers; there shouldn’t have been anyone here at all. Yet
they were being swarmed by a horde of attackers.

   He finally got a good look at one as they whizzed
by. It was human, or had once been. It had pale skin, to the point of being
bone white, and no sign of hair. The white of the eyes were completely blood
red and rimmed with what looked like black ash. The creature wore all black
scraps of filthy clothing and carried a baseball bat with nails hammered into
it. It looked like a crazed refugee from a goth concert. He fired a short burst
into the thing and watched it fall as the heavy rounds tore through it.

   Rora yelled in frustration as an old bus suddenly
rolled into view and blocked their exit from the rubble. It was rusted and all
the windows were gone, but it was still a solid wall of metal. Derek could see
an old faded advertisement with the ubiquitous gecko on the side of the bus.
She wheeled the LTATV around in a circle as they approached the blockade. Derek
fired as they swung around and cut down more of the screaming creatures, the
ammo box ran dry as they skidded to halt in a spray of dirt facing the bus. He
grabbed another box from the back and worked quickly to reload.

  An odd silence fell as the attackers held back. He
could see them behind the rubble all around them but the creatures were scared
enough by the machine gun to stay in cover. Whatever these things were they had
some level of intelligence and had constructed an excellent kill zone. It was
only a matter of time before the things resumed their barrage of projectiles.
One of those spears or rocks would eventually strike Rora hard enough to
disable or kill her and they would be sitting ducks. They had to get out of the
kill zone. Derek looked around and could only see one way out.

   Turning to Rora he said. “You wanted to fly
didn’t you?”

   “Are you serious?” She yelled.

   Derek smiled and pointed to a pile of rubble in
front of them. “There’s your ramp.”

   Rora laughed and jammed her foot down on the
accelerator. The vehicles lurched forward spraying dirt and debris behind them
as the wheels grabbed the ground. As if the LTATV moving was a signal, the
creatures rose up screaming from behind their shelter and unleashed a barrage
of spears and rocks. Derek grabbed hold of the frame as they raced through the
hail of projectiles towards the improvised ramp. He took a spear to the side,
but ignored the pain to keep holding on. A rock grazed Rora’s forehead and ricocheting
off her helmet, but she remained focused on their impending jump.

   The vehicle struck the rubble and bounced upwards
as they climbed the pile. The small vehicle was at full speed as they launched off
of the makeshift ramp. They flew through the air, almost defying gravity as they
soared over the bus. Rora had a wild look in her eyes and was screaming at the
top of her lungs. Derek could see the amazed faces of the creatures beneath
them as they passed over. The wheels grazed the top of the bus and they began a
rapid descent towards the ground.

   The LTATV landed with a loud crash, the
suspension overwhelmed by the weight of the landing. Sparks flew as the bottom
of the vehicle struck the roadway and then bounced. Derek grabbed hold of the
frame to prevent himself from being thrown free. They swerved wildly as Rora
tried to maintain control of the bouncing LTATV. It nearly rolled before she
regained control and brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop. They both looked
back at the trap they had just escaped.

   The black clad creatures were nowhere in sight.
Once their prey had escaped they had disappeared back into whatever holes they
had come from. The scene was quiet and clear, almost like it the things had
never existed. Derek and Rora looked at each other, and he could hear her
breathing heavily.

   “What were those things?” She asked loudly.

   “I don’t know.” Derek replied. “I had heard
rumors that people had survived the strikes and lived in the ruins, but I
always thought it was an urban legend.”

   “Obviously not a legend!” She huffed.

   Derek laughed and replied. “True. But the
scientist in you must be excited about seeing something no one else has seen?”

   “They were interesting.” Rora agreed. “The white
skin and lack of hair must be due to the radiation, but it should have killed
them off after a few weeks. Not only did they live, but to have those numbers
they must have bred and the radiation should have made them sterile. It doesn’t
seem possible. I mean what are they even eating?”

   “I don’t even want to think about that. It’s a
mystery we may never know the answer to.” Derek replied. “Let’s get back on
track and complete this mission before any more of those things show up. Check
your suit.”

   He checked his suit. It still showed 100% integrity,
meaning none of the projectiles had penetrated or otherwise compromised the
suit. According to the readout he had not been exposed to any radiation or
toxins. So far the suits were working as well as promised. He looked over at
Rora and she gave him a thumbs up that her suit was good as well. They had
survived that little surprise, time to finish the mission and get out of here
before anything else happened.

June 24, 2029

Langley Park, McLean, VA

   They took a circuitous route to the ruins of the
CIA headquarters avoiding the narrow confines of the rubble strewn streets. They
saw several more channels that probably led to traps similar to the one they
escaped. Rora made sure to steer clear of traps, and maneuvered them through
parking lots and blown out buildings. It took longer, but they arrived at the
entrance to the building without seeing any more of the pale creatures.

   The headquarters was in complete ruins, the above
ground floors having been blown clear off by the successive blasts. The park
and grounds were completely dead and the complex was surrounded by dirt and
ash. The river that had run near the building was gone, flash boiled away by
the heat of the nuclear blasts. Rora parked the LTATV on the tarmac in front of
the building and they got out to investigate.

   A quick search revealed a collapsed section of
the ground floor leading into the basement of the building. Old power cables
fell limply into the gaping hole and into the darkness beyond. Derek triggered
the night vision and then the thermal settings on the helmet but he still
couldn’t see into the gloom. There were no sources of heat for the thermal and
night vision still required some ambient light to work. They would have to do
this the old fashioned way and use their headlamps.

   “Are we just jumping in?” Rora asked him as she
came up next to him to look in.

   “I brought climbing gear just in case.” Derek
told her. “We can secure it to one of the steel support beams and rappel in.”

   “What about the LTATV?” She questioned.

   “I don’t think we have much choice except to
leave it up here. We can pull some debris around and over it to provide some
concealment, but we will just have to assume it will still be here when we come
back out. I don’t think that whatever those things were, that they are capable
of hotwiring it.” Derek said.

   “What if they just carry it off? It’s not that
big.” Rora pointed out.

  He hadn’t considered that possibility, but he
replied. “We’ll have to take our chances. But I’ll tell you what; I’ll set up a
little surprise for anyone who tries to take it.”

   “What kind of surprise?” She asked curiously.

   Derek smiled and fished a claymore mine out of
the storage bin on back of the LTATV. “It’s an area effect mine that sprays
steel bearings, very deadly.” He told her with a grin. “I borrowed it from the
armory at NASA. I’ll rig it to blow if anyone tries to move the vehicle.”

   “Works for me.” She replied back with a matching
grin. “Let’s go see what’s in the hole.”

   She watched as he attached the climbing gear to a
steel support pylon and prepared the ropes. After a brief lesson for her on how
to rappel, he moved to the holes and jumped in. She could see his light in the
inky darkness as it descended. After a brief hesitation she followed him down.
At the bottom of the hole, the only light was from their headlamps. Fortunately
they were very bright LED lights that cut easily through the darkness.

   The beams of light revealed that the basement had
suffered massive damage as well. Piles of rubble from the collapsed ceiling
were everywhere and it looked as though a fire had come through and burned up
anything flammable. Scorch marks covered the walls and the bare concrete floor.
Piles of ash and puddles of plastic and metal indicated the location of desks
or cabinets. Rora shuddered as her lamp passed over piles of bones, the
survivors of the blasts who hadn’t been able to escape the fire.

   They made their way carefully through the debris
and wreckage following the blueprints on their wrist tablets. In the center of
the building they found the concrete column that had provided the central
support for the building. Within it was the secure elevator that would take
them into the storage facility below. Hopefully it was still intact and still had
power. The intelligence the general had provided indicated it was powered by a
nuclear reactor buried deep within the facility so it should still be powered.

    Derek cleared some fallen rubble from their path
and they found themselves in front of the elevator doors. They were extremely
heavy looking and looked like they were made from solid steel. There was some
minor scorching but otherwise they seemed untouched. The keypad next to the
doors was melted, but she didn’t have the code anyway. Using the flat bladed
screwdriver on her multi-tool, Rora popped the melted cover off and exposed the
guts underneath. She attached a cable from her tablet to a port in the keypad
and started the access program. Good news, it was still powered.

    Derek watched her impassively as she hacked into
the access program for the elevators. She was never quite sure what he was
thinking since he kept most thoughts to himself. He had certainly been there
for her since her father died. His code of conduct, the Rules, was draconian
but they made complete sense and were words to live by. His behavior was often
cold hearted, like how he handled Kevin’s death at the airplane graveyard, but
he seemed to be trying to do his best to help her. He was just incredibly
cynical and jaded after years in the wasteland.

   She typed while she thought, the ability to use
all of her brain simultaneously coming in handy, and the keypad chimed suddenly
as she gained access. Motors whirred to life and they could hear the elevator
rising towards them. Derek unslung his M4 carbine and trained it on the doors.
Rule # 15, always be prepared. He was somewhat predictable in his actions, but
it had saved their lives several times.

   The elevator stopped rising, and the doors slowly
hissed open. Trapped air rushed out as the pressure in the elevator equalized.
The light from the interior of the elevator flooded the darkened basement and
momentarily blinded her. Hesitantly she followed Derek into the large elevator
car. The interior was constructed from the same solid steel and had no
ornamentation. It was completely sealed except for an access panel on the roof,
but that was shut tight. The only other thing inside the elevator was the
control panel with a handprint and eye scanner.

   Rora needed Derek’s help to remove the cover of
the panel so she could access the computer behind it. A few more minutes of
hacking and she had control of the elevator. The doors hissed closed and they
started to descend. The elevator descended so smoothly she couldn’t tell how fast
they were moving and how far they were descending. But it took several minutes
before the elevator stopped, so she assumed they were fairly deep underground.

   The doors opened to reveal a small room with an
airlock at the other side. Emergency lighting cast a dim light throughout the
room. The walls were made of some sort of thick security glass, at least a foot
thick. The floor and ceiling were solid concrete without any covering. There
were security stations on the other side of the glass and when the facility was
under normal operations would have housed armed guards. Video cameras and other
sensors were housed in a bubble on the ceiling along with several circular
vents.

   When they exited the elevator, the doors hissed
closed behind them and fans in the ceiling revved to life. The suit’s sensors
showed that the air was literally being sucked out of the room. Rora watched as
the oxygen levels dropped to almost zero before the fans stopped. Without the
suit’s air supply, they would have been suffocated. The facility must be under
some sort of lockdown and this was a security measure to protect against
infiltration.

   She made her way over to the control panel at the
airlock and jacked in. A couple of minutes later she had hacked the airlock’s
controls and the first door slid open. They stepped inside and waited as the
door slid closed and decontamination procedures commenced. That sequence lasted
about five minutes and then the interior door slid open. They exited the
airlock cautiously and Derek took point.

   Following the marked path on the diagram on the
wrist tablet they headed towards the server room. She should be able to hack
into a server and find where they had stored the command module. The hallways
were solid concrete with no decorations or trim and the doors were all the same
solid steel. They also turned and split without any semblance of a pattern.
There were no indications or markings on the doors or hallways to let you know
where they went or what was behind them. Without the diagram they would be
hopelessly lost, which was probably the intent.

   They had only gone for a few minutes when she
heard a soft scrabbling noise behind them. It had been deathly quiet so far so
the noise surprised her and she turned around. A large black shape struck Rora
on her body and knocked her down. She screamed as snapping jaws tried to bite
her face through the helmet. She fought to get free, but the weight of the
beast kept her pinned down.  Drool splattered on her face plate and she could
see the maddened red eyes of the hungry beast looking right at her. She heard
Derek cursing and managed to look over to where he was.

   He was standing and struggling with what looked
like a massive Doberman at least as big as she was. The dog had Derek’s left
arm in its large jaws and was trying to rip the arm off. Derek had dropped his
rifle to fend off the attack and was barely preventing being thrown around by
the giant dog. She screamed again as she saw two more dogs come racing around a
corner towards him. Even more terrifying was that none of the dogs were making
a sound. They were simply trying to tear the two of them apart.

   Derek punched the dog in the face repeatedly but
it refused to let go. The other two leapt on his back dragging him to the
ground. He vanished under a pile of fur and fangs. She could see flashes of
white from his suit in the pile but couldn’t make out what was happening. She
knew he was alive because she could hear him grunting and cursing over the
radio as he struggled with the dogs. Rora tried to move the beast off of her
but it wouldn’t budge and it resorted to trying to smash in her faceplate with
its snout. Instead of a meaty thud there was a metallic crack when it struck
her. Worried, she stuck both hands in the dog’s mouth and tried to hold the
thing back.

  Suddenly there was a blast of gunfire and then
another and the pressure on her was relieved as the dog on top of her left. She
looked up and saw Derek kneeling with his M4 carbine smoking in his hand. A dog
lay dead in the hallway several feet away. She rolled over and checked to make
sure she wasn’t hurt. The suit still had 100% integrity so she knew the dog
hadn’t damaged it.

   “Are you ok?” Derek asked her as he came over.

   “Yeah, it just knocked the wind out of me.” She
replied. “How about you?”

   “I’m fine, but my tablet is scrap.” He said as he
displayed the rushed tablet complete with bite marks.

   “These things are made from scratchproof glass
and a steel case, how did a dog bite through that?” Rora asked mystified.

   “Let’s find out.” Derek said and walked over to
examine the dead dog.

   He opened its mouth to reveal a set of steel jaws
topped with razor sharp steel fangs. Rora gasped as she saw the modification.
It looked as though the jaws had been completely removed and replaced with the
steel contraptions. Derek whistled as he looked closer.

   “Their vocal cords have been surgically cut.” He
said shaking his head. “No wonder they didn’t bark. Someone was working on
creating the perfect attack dog.”

   “At least you scared them off with the gun.” Rora
said.

   “No, they were running away when I shot this
one.” Derek replied. “Something must have called them back or scared them off.”

   “Wait, what would have scared those things off?”
She asked worriedly.

    Before he could answer, a loud roar echoed down
the corridor. With the twisting corridors it was almost impossible to tell
where it was coming from or how far away. Derek clenched his carbine and began
surveying the area. Rora unslung her carbine and got ready to shoot whatever
was making that racket. The roars quickly got closer and sounded more and more
excited.

   “Why did you have to ask that question?” Derek
joked, trying to relieve the tension.

   A roar from behind them caused both of them to
spin around. Rora gasped as she saw a large hairy shape materialize from an
adjoining hallway and race towards them in an odd loping run. It had long arms
that it was using to help it maneuver and run and a gaping maw full of sharp
white teeth. She identified it as a gorilla from pictures she had seen as a
child. But it was very large for a gorilla, standing almost seven feet tall.

   Derek opened fire and she joined in. Their rounds
struck the charging gorilla but it didn’t even slow down. It moved deceptively
fast and was upon them before they could reload. Derek shoved her back and
blocked the gorilla’s path. It struck him with a heavy thud and the two flew
backwards knocking Rora to the side. They struggled, but the gorilla seemed to
have superior strength and lifted Derek clear off the ground in a bear hug. It
seemed intent on crushing him in the suit. She could hear him groaning as the
gorilla squeezed tighter.