Aegis Incursion (2 page)

T
he white delivery van cruised along a mostly empty highway. Sagebrush flanked both sides of the road, but these were barely visible through the pouring rain in the dark of the night.

Behind the wheel of the vehicle was a rugged-looking man who appeared to be in his thirties. His hair was cut in a matte side-part and he sported a carefully trimmed beard. He was built tough, with a strong chest and biceps that stretched the sleeves of his collared t-shirt.
Semper Fi
was inked around his right wrist; it was his only tattoo and he bore it proudly. With his height and impressive build, he could have passed for a dirty-blond Hugh Jackman.

Bored with the remixes of Top 40 tunes the radio was playing, he switched to another station. A loud voice resonated through the speakers, a voice familiar to his ears. With a small chuckle, the driver thought,
Shock jock hour.
As he listened, though, he was rather surprised to hear a slightly mellower version of the usually obnoxious radio host he was used to. Currently, the jockey was conversing with a female caller from North Dakota.

“I just don’t understand,” the woman was saying, sounding breathless. “
All
my crops. Can you imagine that? This is how I make my living, you know, and they’re gone! I wake up this morning and all I see are my crops—dead in one night.”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting a few other calls like yours over the past couple weeks,” the radio host answered. “Some crazy things are going down! Let’s get the tinfoil hats out, yeah? Next caller, whatchu got, man?”

“Hey, I’m a long-time listener, first-time caller . . . ”

The new caller went into an earnest ramble and listed off what he thought might be the causes behind the dead-crop phenomena that had been sweeping across parts of the mid-west. The driver of the van grimaced—most of it was conspiracy theories. He understood why some minds would drift toward that kind of thinking. If it had been only a handful of farms that had lost their crops, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. This, unfortunately, had spread across a few states, thereby attracting more than a few conspiracy nuts.

The driver quickly checked his GPS to see how much time he had before his freeway exit. The wipers were working hard to clear the heavy rain. He shook his head in disbelief at the weather that was blanketing California; the state was experiencing its heaviest rainfall in ages.

He drove for a while longer, listening as the shock jock moved on to other topics and returned to his usual gaudy and boisterous self. As the driver exited the freeway near the town of Redding, the rain began to ease until it stopped completely. He turned off the wipers and drove past several small homes and businesses, breathing a sigh of relief.

Industrial buildings began to appear at the side of the road. The driver instinctively turned the volume down on the radio, then caught himself and made a face.
Why do people do that? It’s not like reducing the volume helps us see better.

He drove past a few large parking lots and more buildings until he found his destination. It was a gated single-story structure, built long and rectangular—generally looking like any other ordinary manufacturing facility.

The driver pulled up to the guard post and stopped before the boom gate. There were four guards inside.
Why so many?
the driver wondered.

The guard closest to the window peered out at him from under thick brows. “State your business, please.”

“Delivery.”

The guard checked his clipboard, then looked up at the clock in his post. Noting it was nearly midnight, he said, “You’re late.”

“Oh, lighten up. I’m not more than ten minutes behind. With the rain pouring the way it did for the past three hours, I had to stay well below the limit.”

The guard glared at him. “Alright. Head toward the loading dock. Remember, in and out, that’s it. You don’t go anywhere else.”

“Yessir.”

The guard pressed a button and the boom gate rose. The driver gave the guard a nod of thanks and drove toward the back of the building where the loading dock was located. When he was positioned properly, the driver turned off the engine and hopped out of the van. He strode around to the back of the vehicle, threw open the doors, and began offloading the heavy boxes. A couple of workers from inside the building came out to help him. Once everything was unloaded, the workers disappeared without a word.

As he fished his van keys out of his uniform pants, the driver paused as an uncomfortable feeling grew in his stomach. He knew right away that it had been a horrible idea to grab a late dinner at the Chinese takeout. He should have known; the Kung Pao chicken had smelled and tasted funny—probably had something to do with the sauce that the dish must have been cooked in. Just thinking about it now made him queasy. He needed to find a restroom, and quickly.

He glanced around. “In and out, don’t go anywhere else,” had been the guard’s orders. The driver couldn’t wait, though, not with the way his insides were churning. He quickly made up his mind and, ignoring the ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ sign, tried the door that the workers who’d helped unload the van had gone through. It hadn’t closed completely, thank goodness. The driver entered the building and hurried down a narrow corridor, hoping that no one would see him.

A sense of urgency took over as he went past several doors but none bore the sign of a restroom. Then he spotted it: A stick figure nailed to a dark blue door. He walked in and found a stall for himself. Once he was done, he reached out to open the stall door but froze when he heard the creak of the bathroom door swinging open. Two men in mid-conversation entered.

“But yeah, we really appreciate you coming all the way in from Reno,” one said. The man speaking sounded like he had a cold. “Your approval of the components will help us firm up the production schedule.”

The second man cleared his throat and responded. “Well, we
are
on a tight timeline. Anything I can do to speed things up. We need to get the parts to Quest Defense as soon as possible.”

The first man lowered his voice. “I know it’s none of my business—we’re just producing components here—but, ah, there have been rumors spreading across the floor among the engineers.”

“Rumors? What kind of rumors?”

“I don’t know if I should say this, but a couple of engineers are making a link between what we’re doing here and . . . ” The man trailed off.

“And what?” the second voice demanded.

“And the farm phenomenon that’s been making news.”

“Garbage!”

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to let you in on some of the chatter that’s been percolating along the assembly line.”

In the stall, the driver was breathing lightly through his nose, doing his best not to make a sound as he listened.

“You know what? There are rumors in every corporate corridor. It’s your job to keep it in check.”

“I get that, but there are a number of things that have happened lately that are feeding this.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“For one, the company invested heavily in upgrading our cleanroom to a Class One facility.”

“Go on . . . ”

“And the fact that we are producing a component for which we are not given information about the intended purpose—that’s never happened before. There’s also been talk about supplies of a rare mineral that were brought in, possibly illicitly, from Northern Canada and Siberia several months ago. Add to that the bolstering of the site’s security with guards from Quest Defense. You know we only hire the best people to work for us, and these are pretty smart engineers I have in here. They’re quite capable of putting two and two together and with the news of the outbreak in Kansas and North Dakota, the question is: Is this more than mere coincidence?”

The driver of the van made the mistake of shifting his weight. A loose tile under his foot cracked as he moved. The sound was as loud as a gunshot in the enclosed space. He froze as the voices went silent. Footsteps were now approaching. Expecting a knock, he was caught by surprise when the door burst violently inward and smashed into his face, sending him stumbling backward. Dazed, he lifted his head and saw two men staring at him. The younger of the two wore a white lab coat and the other, slightly older, was clad in an expensive-looking suit.

“What are you doing here?” the man in the suit asked sharply.

The driver straightened himself and raised his hands in a non-threatening manner. “I just really needed to use the restroom.”

“You would have been told that you weren’t allowed in here,” growled the second man.

“Yes, I was. I’m sorry. It was an emergency. Look, I’m leaving. I’m gone.” He started to push his way past the pair but was held back.

“He’s heard too much,” the one in the suit muttered. “Call security.”

“Whoa, whoa, relax,” the driver said. “There’s no need for that. I’m just a delivery guy. I’m on my way out now.”

The men said nothing as the one in the lab coat moved to block the bathroom door and spoke quickly into a small radio. The driver sighed inwardly. He didn’t like where this was going.

The guards arrived within a minute. When they entered, the driver assessed them. Both were wearing black coveralls with handguns at their hips. Mean-looking batons were in their hands, and the guards didn’t appear to be the types who’d shy away from using them.

The driver quickly decided that the guards were not there to merely apprehend him. In a motion honed by years of practice, he grabbed the man in the suit and flicked out his box-cutter knife from its belt sheath. He held the blade to his captive’s throat. “Now,” he said quietly, “I’m going to leave. You try anything and he’ll be a bleeding mess on the floor.”

The guards hesitated. The fact that they did meant that the driver was using someone of importance as a shield—and that was the only advantage he had.

“Move away from the door.” When the guards glared at him, he snarled and pressed the blade harder against his captive’s neck. “I said, move away from the door!”

Seeing that the driver meant business, the guards and the man in the lab coat reluctantly stepped away toward the sinks. The driver’s eyes followed their every move. When he was satisfied with their distance from the exit, he walked backward toward the door, dragging the suited man with him. He kicked back and the door flung open. In a blink of an eye, he sheathed the knife and pushed the man toward the guards before turning and barreling out of the restroom.

He sprinted down the corridor in the direction he’d come from and threw himself at the door, pushing it open, and ran to his van.

As he jumped into the vehicle and started the engine, he caught sight of the guards racing toward him in the side mirror. Without another thought, he stomped on the gas and sped headlong for the guard post. He smashed through the boom gate, ignoring the shouts from the guards inside. As he swerved onto the road, he heard the report of gunfire. Thankfully, the rear of the van took the bullets and he fishtailed away from the site.

He turned northbound onto Interstate 5, pushing the bulky vehicle up to its limit. When he glanced at his side mirror again, he saw two pairs of near-blinding headlights following close behind. As they accelerated toward him, the driver recognized the vehicles as Dodge Chargers usually used as police interceptors.

The odds were not in his favor, not when all he had was a box van that could barely reach eighty miles per hour. He wasn’t going to lose his pursuers with speed. An idea formed in his mind but before he could act, shots rang out and he heard the back of his van take more bullets before one zinged past his window and shattered the left side mirror. Not easily fazed, he continued pushing the van as the leading Charger hastened to catch up.

He counted silently to three then slammed on the brakes. The van skidded to a stop but the guard behind the wheel of the leading Charger didn’t react quickly enough. The Charger slammed into the rear of the truck and the car’s momentum forced it up on its front wheels. The driver of the van quickly switched pedals and floored it. As the truck resumed speeding north, the Charger, in its precarious balancing act, flipped over.

The van mounted the crest of a hill bound by steep drops on either side and passed a sign that read ‘Lake Shasta’. Ahead, the driver saw the long bridge that spanned the lake. He took a quick look at his right side mirror. If he’d expected a break, he wasn’t getting one. The second Charger was hot on his tail. The lone guard inside was evidently none too happy about his colleagues being bested by a delivery man but wary of falling for any more of the van driver’s tricks. He switched into the next lane, out of sight of the only mirror the driver had to work with.

The driver wound down his side window halfway and risked a look. Craning his neck, he saw the guard use his baton to smash out the Charger’s windshield. Most of the glass broke away from the pursuing vehicle though some jagged pieces remained.

What is that nut—

The driver halted mid-thought when he saw the guard lift up his gun and point it toward him through the broken windshield. He recoiled as a bullet obliterated his window, shattering it into countless pieces. The driver bit back a cry of pain as dozens of glass pellets struck his face. Momentarily distracted, he swerved in the wrong direction. He was still trying to regain control when he heard a loud bang, and the van suddenly veered right toward the guard rail. Knowing one of his tires had been shot, the driver stomped on the brake but the vehicle continued to skid before crashing through the railing and plunging over the side.

The van tumbled down the two-hundred foot cliff at terrifying speed. Doors and parts broke away from vehicle. The van went airborne for one last time before crashing to the ground right next to the lake and rolling onto its roof.

The guard brought his car to a screeching halt and leapt out. He ran to the edge of the road and peered over. He drew his gun, took careful aim at the van’s exposed fuel tank, and fired. On the third shot, the tank exploded, engulfing the van in flames.