Genetic Drift (19 page)

DAY 282

INFILTRATION

CAMP PHOENIX CONTROL BUILDING

“We can beat these bastards,” Ben announced to the communications center.  He got on the radio with Marcus, “They are going to breech the building.  You have to empty rounds in them but you can kill them all.”  A beep came over the radio and a voice crackled loudly.

“Copy all, setting positions for building defense.  Standing by for breech,” Marcus replied.  Ben looked over to the surveillance video.  A movement caught his eye.  He thought that he saw one of the soldiers walking back to the control building. 

“No, it can’t be,” he muttered under his breath.  “Just when we figured out how to kill these flippin’ aliens,” he yelled so everyone could hear him. 

Ben focused on the man in the video just to make sure.  He saw someone holding an orbitizer, something that was common before it was known that humans could not shoot one.  The exception was Maddie.  Ben switched the monitor to full color and observed the man walking toward the control building.  He was covered in red scars and Ben had seen that color before, Maddie’s eye.  This man was definitely taken by the aliens. 

“Maybe he’s an Inject that escaped?” a person watching the screen suggested. 

“Not by that walk, no way,” Ben answered. 

He watched the man continue his march and raise his orbitizer.  A blue orb came hurtling toward the control building and met the wall.  Marcus came over the radio, “The breech has begun, we’re engaging.”  Ben knew at that moment that humans were fighting with the aliens.

“Marcus, watch out.  There are humans fighting with the Trolls,” Ben said.  The radio keyed and there was gunfire already in the background.

“I don’t give a damn, if it’s shooting at us then we’re shooting back,” Marcus responded.  Ben knew that there was a chance that the aliens would still win.  He turned to one of the radio operators.

“Prepare to blow the dam.”  The radio operator hesitated.

“Yes sir,” the words quietly came from the operator’s mouth.

Marcus had shot several clips into the breech.  A couple of soldiers were by his side shooting at the same rate.  A boom was heard in the distance.

“Was that another breech?” one of the soldiers asked Marcus. 

“I don’t know,” he replied as he called over his radio, “Quill, Quill, come in.”  There was a pause with no answer, “Quill, Quill—”

Quill answered with his raspy voice, “What do you need?  I am busy here.”  Marcus thought he couldn’t be too busy to check out the noise.

“Quill, check your area and make sure there aren’t any other breeches,” Marcus directed Quill. 

“As soon as I am done here,” Quill told him. 

“Hurry and do it,” Marcus was quick to reply,

Quill shook his head, “Hurry he said.  He doesn’t know how busy I am.”  He stepped over two beheaded Trolls.  “You can try to grow back but I’ll keep chopping you up,” he said to the two Trolls as he spat on them.  The head of one of the Trolls was starting to reform.  The neckline started to grow.  Quill stood over it and watched, “Oh, no, no, no.”  Quill took his blade and with one slice he severed the Troll’s reforming neck.  “You don’t get to come back from this one.” Quill grabbed the severed neck and threw it away from the Troll’s body.  “Quill do this, Quill do that.  Now I have to check that wall.”  Quill ran down the hall to look for another breech.

The door that Quill guarded was left abandoned.  In the opposite direction, a Troll emerged and approached the two beheaded Trolls.  It touched its claw to the bodies without a response.   The Troll reasoned there must be something worth investigating behind the door.  It entered the door and descended the stairs.  It entered the first door it came to, which led to the intake area.  The Troll was met by Joel.  Joel aimed his gun straight at the Troll’s chest and pulled the trigger.  The bullet flew into the chest of the Troll.  The Troll didn’t even look down as it raised its orbitizer.  It shot Joel in his chest and left a huge crater.  Joel didn’t look down either.  His body fell to the ground.  The Troll saw someone else in the distance and began to fire.  One shot after the other went into the walls and ceiling, knocked down lights, and put holes in the glass.  The door fell off the hinge to Jay’s room and jammed in place.  Jay had heard the commotion and was putting on his shoes.  He tried to open his door but it wouldn’t budge. 

The Troll continued to walk through the intake area and spotted two people in an office.  Hope had been out of her room walking around the area since there was nothing else better to do.  She was watching Barron as the Troll entered the level and she jumped into his office when she saw it.  The Troll did not hesitate to enter the office.  Seeing two humans that could be assimilated, it grabbed them both by the legs and began to drag them.  Both Barron and Hope were kicking but to no avail.  The Troll continued to drag them toward the exit.  Dr. Snodgrass saw the Troll approaching and swung a broom at it.  With Hope still in its grips, the Troll pushed the broom aside.  Dr. Snodgrass stood there, mouth agape, as the Troll’s claw pierced her throat and stuffed it into her windpipe.  She grabbed the Troll’s arm in vain.  She faded and fell to the ground.

The Troll walked back up the stairs and through the door, dragging Barron and Hope behind it.  Hope was yelling and Barron was still struggling.  The Troll doubled back.  In the meantime, Quill had killed another Troll and found the breech.  He reported the finding to Marcus and returned to the door but did not notice that the Troll had passed through his area.  “Quill back on station,” he reported.

Jay pushed and shoved and the door finally budged enough to fit his husky body.  He squeezed through the small opening and looked around.  “Hope, Hope,” he called out with no response.  He saw Joel and Dr. Snodgrass on the floor and called for Hope again.  “Hope, Hope,” his yells got louder and still no response.  He had no idea where she could have gone but she should have let him know she was okay by now.  He looked around and thought there was only one person who could help him.  He ran into the office and grabbed the keys for the Sanitarium. “Maddie, I need your help,” he yelled as he ran to the door.  He flung the door open and Maddie got to her feet.  He begged her for help and she followed him out to the intake area.  They made their way to the stairwell and up the stairs.

Jay and Maddie burst through the door.  Quill turned around quickly and readied his blade for attack.  Maddie screamed, “No Quill,” raising her hands to show she wasn’t hostile. 

“What are you doing up here?  We are under attack,” Quill said.

“We know, where’s Hope?” Jay asked.  He looked down at the two beheaded Trolls thinking Quill had stopped them. 

“There was no one with these things.  I killed them before they had a chance to attack.  And then killed them again when they tried to grow back,” Quill told Jay.  Jay nodded distractedly.  The disappearance of Hope was tearing him apart.

“Where did she go?” Jay desperately spun around looking for any evidence of where Hope had gone.  Quill knew that he hadn’t seen anyone in the direction that he had run.  He pointed his blade in the other direction.

“They must’ve gone that way,” he said.  Maddie saw an opportunity to grab another orbitizer.  She crouched down and held it ready to fire.  She looked up at Jay.

“I’m with you Jay,” she said.  They started to run around the corner and left the building to find Hope.

More Trolls moved through the breech that was defended by Marcus and his two soldiers.  The blue orbs had been hitting the wall, taking it away bit by bit.  The wall was a foot wider than it had been.  Marcus looked down toward the floor and noticed that some of the orbs had hit there too.  Another shot hurtled toward them and hit one of the other soldiers.  He fell to the ground with his shoulder gone.  His arm fell and his torso landed on it.  The soldier continued to shoot at the breech and a flurry of orbs came in his direction.  Orb after orb hit him and the floor.  Marcus watched as the soldier disappeared in front of him and also saw the orbs remove the floor.  Then he saw it.  The communications center was unmasked and open below him. 

Ben looked up as he heard the change in gunshot volume.  “That is as far as they can go.  Blow the dam and evacuate,” Ben told the radio operator. 

The radio operator stood up, “Blow the dam,” he directed over the radio.  The radio operators yanked off their headsets and made for the exit.  Ben and the General were the last ones out of the communications center.

Marcus called to his team, “We’re blowing the dam, make for high ground.”  He started to go up to the second floor.  Quill heard the command.  He was too far from access to the second floor, so he headed for the breech. 

Maddie and Jay had just made it outside the control building.  There were no Trolls in sight.  Visibility was low due to the fighting and debris, so sight was not the most reliable judge.  “It must’ve taken her back to its base,” Jay told Maddie. 

Maddie clutched the orbitizer and said, “We need to move.  We aren’t getting any closer to her standing here.”  They began their run along the river toward the metal wall.  A figure came out of the cloud that had formed and Maddie was taken by surprise.  It wasn’t a Troll.  It was a man with red scarring.  He was holding an orbitizer.  She looked at his face.  She couldn’t believe what she saw. It was Bryce.

Explosions inundated the dam and it began to crack.  Fountains of water began to pour out until the dam gave way.  With a huge crumble, the former lake above started a deluge on the flatland below.  Maddie looked into Bryce’s eyes as the water lifted them up and swept them away.

DAY 282

ESCAPE

CAMP PHOENIX CONTROL BUILDING

Water rushed into the building and created eddies near the openings.  Ben and the General exited the first staircase and the water was already thigh deep.  They made their way toward the stairs leading to the second floor but the General was swept under the water.  Ben grabbed for his hand but missed it and the General continued to drift away.  The General’s head emerged from the water and then his body lunged toward the stairs.  He extended his hand outward and yelled, “Ben!”  Ben went to grab his hand again but once he made contact, a Troll jumped out of the water and tried to claw over the General to the stairs.  Ben pulled out his gun and emptied the magazine directly into the Troll’s head.  The Troll stopped moving toward the stairs.  It fell into the water but its claws were so engrained in the General that he sunk with the weight of the Troll.  Ben knew that the General could not be saved.  He waited for a moment just in case the General resurfaced.  Silence was on the surface of the water.  He sighed, trying to come to terms with the loss of the General, and hurried up the stairs.

Marcus greeted Ben as he made it to the second floor.  “How many more are behind you?” Marcus asked him.  Ben was short on breath.

“No one, I’m the last,” he said.  Ben put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.  Marcus looked down the stairs and saw the water still rising. 

“We need to go up to the roof,” he yelled to everyone that had evacuated the lower levels.  Marcus grabbed Ben under his arm and pulled him to move. 

“We need to go,” Marcus said with a tug.  Ben, still catching his breath, followed him.  The evacuees went up a ladder that led to the roof.  Marcus helped Ben up the ladder just as the water began to fill the second floor. Marcus was the last one up. 

Everyone had grouped away from the opening to the lower levels.  Marcus reached the roof and pointed to two soldiers, “Both of you, guard the opening.  Shoot anything that tries to come through there.”  The soldiers took position as Marcus went towards the crowd. 

He approached Ben and said, “We did a good job.”  Ben moved his shoulder away from Marcus’ reach.

“We could have done better.  Look out there, any memory of the people who died is being removed.  The General is gone and the camp is unusable,” Ben said. 

Marcus shook his head, “You don’t get it.  Stop being so damn hard on yourself.  They didn’t win and that’s the best we have ever done.”  Ben nodded and looked over to the dam.  The structure that had once held water back had turned into a waterfall.  “You had to blow the dam.  If you didn’t then they would have got to the communications center.  That would have been their endgame,” Marcus continued to console Ben. 

Ethen hadn’t been listening but joined the conversation, “Where’s the General?” 

“He didn’t make it,” Ben replied.  Ethen took a second for the news to sink in.

“What do we do now, General?” he asked Ben.

Ben hadn’t thought about it but he was the second-in-command.  With the General’s death, that left him as the senior officer.  He turned to Marcus and Ethen, “Do we stay and try to rebuild or do we go someplace else?  A new camp or an existing base?” 

“We rebuild here.  We already have the infrastructure.  It’ll take work but they are more likely to attack another camp,” Ethen answered. 

Marcus nodded in agreement.  “I agree, when the water goes down, we know how to fight the Trolls.  We’ll be better prepared to fight them next time,” he said.  Ben turned toward the flooded basin and stared at the water.  He tried to look down at the tanks, the artillery, and the people.  He knew he wasn’t going to see them. 

“That’s fine.  We’ll start when the water goes down.  But in the meantime, I think we should concentrate on food and ammo.  They’re the bare essentials we’ll need to get through this,” Ben said.   Marcus and Ethen acknowledged the directive and started to create a plan immediately.

Marcus told Ethen, “You know where all of the storage areas are.  I’ll concentrate on getting food and you get the munitions together.” 

“I’ll do my part.  There’s food stored on top of that hill.  That would be the best place for you to start looking,” Ethen said.   Marcus was glad there was something that was easier than hunting rabbits. 

“Good, we’ll split everyone in half and get done what needs to be done,” Marcus said. 

“Agreed,” Ethen said, and walked over to the crowd.  It was time to divide them up.