Wasteland Rules: Die Fighting (The World After Book 4) (26 page)

   “Can’t we just land the helicopter in the yard?”
Derek proposed. “And shoot our way in?”

   “No. The place will be swarming with guards. We
need to take the stealthy approach.” Sterling answered firmly. “We don’t know
who or what will be waiting for us there. They could have more of those
monsters.”

   “True.” Derek said, somewhat subdued. “What if Deimos
is there?”

   “Nothing has left Wichita airspace except the
android.” The Voice suddenly informed them. “So we can assume it will take
hours for Deimos to obtain transportation and get back here.”

   “That means we have to go in right away, but
quietly.” Rora agreed. “How do we do that?”

   “I have an idea.” The Voice informed them. “The
prison is actually two separate walled compounds. One is the Supermax facility
and the other is an adjacent minimum security facility. They are linked by a
secure tunnel that runs under the road that passes between them.”

   “How does that help us?” Derek interrupted.

   “The larger of the two compounds has guards patrolling
the fences and in the towers and a significant amount of power usage and
electronic signals. But the other compound is practically dark.” The Voice
explained. “I think they are using the main compound as their base and are not
really using the other one. There is activity in the yard. I can see people
moving around, but they aren’t using electricity or heat.”

   “Could it be left over prisoners?” Rora asked.

   “Possibly, but that’s a long time to survive
without power or heat, or food.” Derek replied doubtfully. “We don’t know what
changes the Discordians have made since they took over the facility or who is
housed there.”

   “We can land nearby, enter on the side opposite of
the other compound, sneak through the smaller compound and enter through the
tunnel.” Sterling suggested. “Voice, can you cause a power outage as we enter
to provide some cover?”

   “Yes, but they have backup generators.” The Voice
clarified. “I can briefly shut down all their systems including all their
computers through a wireless network. But they will move to backup power and
then reset the system and I won’t be able to do anything remotely.”

   “But if we plugged you in directly, you could get
full control of their system?” Sterling pushed.

   “Yes, I believe that I can.” The Voice agreed.

   “Alright, so I need to sneak into their server room
with the Voice and gain control while you two retrieve the ARK.” Sterling
instructed.

   “I don’t think so.” Derek snapped. “I’m not giving
you the phone.”

   “Don’t you trust me?” Sterling asked, slightly
wounded.

   “No. I barely know you.” Derek reminded him. “I’ll
go to the server room and you two retrieve the ARK.”

   “What if we have to fight our way out?” Sterling
argued.

   “He makes a good point Derek.” Rora added. “His
plan best fits our skill sets.”

   “I still don’t like it.” Derek grumbled.

Near ADX Florence, Pueblo Colorado

September 16, 2029

   Night had started to fall as they arrived near ADX
Florence. They were forced to set down five miles away when the chopper ran out
of fuel. Derek had used the autorotation feature to get them as far as he could
but it was a hard landing. Since they weren’t sure if they would make it back
to the chopper they stripped it of anything valuable. Rule #9 again, take
anything you can carry. Derek made sure to grab the medical kit since they were
sure to need it and any tools he found. After a good hike, they found
themselves outside the southeast fence of the maximum security compound.

   The facility was futuristic looking and full of
jagged edges and curving walls. It had a roughly triangular shape with lots of
protruding edges. It was surrounded by a double fence, both topped with razor
wire, and several towers on the outside overlooking the fences. Between the
fences and the facility was a lot of what had been green space prior to the
crop virus. There were no lights outside or inside that he could see. The place
seemed abandoned.

   “Do you see anything?” Derek asked the Voice
quietly.

   “There are several heat flares from large bonfires
inside, and plenty of heat sources on the grounds around them, but nothing along
the fences or in the towers.” The Voice informed him. “There is an entrance on
the east side that should give you the access you need based on the blueprints
I found.”

   “What about inside?” Derek asked.

   “It looks fairly empty.” The Voice told him. “There
are some heat signatures, but not many. They seem congregated around the
exercise yard in the interior. There is another bonfire there.”

   “So our path to the tunnel entrance is relatively
clear?” Derek pressed.

   “It looks that way, but you should be careful.” The
Voice noted. “We don’t know who is in there. They may have the ability to
conceal themselves from the reconnaissance.”

   “I hear you.” Derek acknowledged.

   “Are we good to go?” Sterling asked softly.

   “Yes.” Derek told them. “Stay close to me since I’m
the only one with night vision. We cannot risk using a light source.”

   “Don’t worry about me.” Sterling said confidently
and produced some sort of goggles from his pockets.

   Derek shook his head as the hacker put the goggles
on. They were presumably some sort of night vision goggles, but they were much
more compact than any Derek had ever seen. The guy never ceased to amaze him
with his ability to produce exactly what he needed at any given moment. Putting
that aside; Derek cut through the first fence and crossed the path between it
and the second. He cut the second fence and waved for Rora and Sterling to join
him.

   They dashed across the grounds and pressed
themselves against the outer wall of the facility. Staying close together they
crept along the wall until they reached the eastern tip of the triangle.
Peering carefully around it, Derek could see the large bonfires the Voice had
mentioned. Deformed figures wearing scraps of prison clothing milled around
them aimlessly. The firelight may have been distorting his view but all of the
people, if they were people, were severely disfigured in some way.

   Their legs or arms were too long, and they were all
slightly stooped looking, with some being hunchbacked. Most walked with an odd
loping gait reminiscent of gorillas. As he watched he noticed many of them
seemed to have brown patches on their skin, possibly from some sort of disease.
Some of them had exaggerated features like bulging eyes or large floppy ears or
broad noses. It even looked like most had fangs and claws. All of them were
larger than a normal human being should be. He noticed some of them were eating
and there appeared to be several spits with meat cooking on them.

   “What are we waiting for?” Sterling whispered.

   “Shhh.” Derek warned. “Those things aren’t human.”

   “What do you mean?” Rora asked curiously as she
tried to look past him.

   “I think those are the failed experiments of the
Faceless as they tried to create whatever those things were with Deimos.” Derek
explained quietly. “They used the inmates for their experiments and dumped the
failed ones here.”

   “That’s not good.” Sterling said in surprise. “But
how does that affect our plan?”

   “Some of them possibly have enhanced senses; we
need to be extra quiet and careful.” Derek informed them. “Stay close and run
for the door if they spot us.”

   “Is that?” Rora asked in disgust as a familiar
burnt pork smell wafted over to them.

   “Breathe through your mouth.” Derek hissed. “Let’s
go.”

   Without waiting for a response, Derek snuck around
the corner staying close to the wall and trying to keep a low profile. The
light of the fire behind the things should make it hard for them to see the
trio, but he didn’t want to take any chances. They were halfway there when one
of the creatures with a big nose began sniffing the air. He gave a loud, sharp
roar and the others suddenly stopped moving. The ears of the large eared ones
went up and all of the things started looking around. After a couple of tense
minutes one of the creatures pointed directly at them and let out a series of
grunts. The others started howling wildly and charged towards them.

   “Cover your eyes.” Derek snapped as he pulled out
the flare gun he taken from the plane.

  He fired the flare directly at the creature that
spotted them. The burst from the flare startled the attacking things and they
paused. The sudden light blinded those with low light vision or big eyes and
Derek saw them clutch their eyes in pain. The flare struck the creature that
had spotted them in the chest and it screamed as the flare ignited its dirty
rags. The light from the flare and the burning creature gave them a good view
of the things attacking them.

   Rora gasped as they all recognized that the
creatures were some sort of Drinker/human hybrid. They could see the feral
gleam in the eyes of what had once been human. They still seemed to retain some
sense or memory of their humanity because they were cooking their food and they
were able to communicate with grunts and howls. But other than that they had become
nothing more than animals.

   Derek didn’t hesitate and he drew his shotgun. He
blasted five of the creatures and was reloading before Sterling and Rora could
react. The shotgun blasts snapped them out of their momentary shock and they
raised their weapons and opened fire. The creatures fled screaming as the trio
cut them to pieces with a hail of gunfire, leaving a mess of mangled bodies.

   “We have to hurry.” Derek insisted. “That is sure
to draw some attention.”

   Rushing to the exterior door, they were surprised
to find it unlocked. Derek surged inside his shotgun at the ready but there was
no sign of anyone or anything inside. Relieved, the other two followed him in.
As a precaution, Derek jammed the door shut behind them. Those things might regain
their courage, and this facility was their home. They knew all its back ways
and hidden passages. He didn’t want the creatures to try to ambush them.

   The Voice directed him through the facility and
they quickly made their way to the tunnel without any difficulty. The facility
was in remarkably good shape and looked like it had simply been abandoned.
There was no sign of a riot or any kind of struggle and no damage to anything.
Everything was unlocked and open, but a stale smell hung like a pall throughout
the entire facility. It was deathly quiet as they hustled through down the
hallways; there wasn’t even the hum of air conditioning or heating.

   He was forced to use a red lensed flashlight to
light their way, even though it might attract attention. Night vision required
some form of ambient light to work, even Sterling’s goggles. The interior of
the prison was pitch black, with no external light entering the darkened
hallways. The light cast an eerie glow on the abandoned corridors and rooms.

   Derek was a little surprised there were no guards
or any sign of monitoring. It was possible that the Faceless had been unaware
of the tunnel, but that seemed unlikely. The tunnel had originally been used
for prisoner transfers and guard swaps, so it was a known part of the prison.
But it had been sealed off after an attempt by several minimum security
prisoners to break one of their allies out of the Supermax facility.

   When they arrived at the room with the sealed
entrance, Derek quickly saw why the Faceless hadn’t felt any need to guard it. The
room was a small empty square with double doors for the entrance to the prison.
A large steel door set into a reinforced concrete wall blocked access to the
tunnel. The room had once been monitored remotely but that was as dead as
everything else in the prison. The double doors were once magnetically locked
and operated remotely as well, but they swung open easily without power to the
magnets.

    The reason the Faceless didn’t need to guard it
was inside the room. Three of the deformed creatures blocked the doorway to the
tunnel. One was much larger than the other two and looked like an ad for
steroids. The thing stood at least seven feet tall and was bulging obscenely with
muscles. It had no neck because its shoulders were so huge and its hands looked
like catchers mitts. The muscles seemed to have muscles and the thing’s skin
barely seemed to contain them. The other two were smaller but were similarly
muscled. All three of the monsters smiled when they saw Derek, Rora, and Sterling
enter.

   Derek shoved the other two back out of the room and
opened fire with his shotgun, rapidly pumping all five shots into the biggest
creature. It merely raised a hand to cover its face and stood there. The
pellets seemed to have no effect and the monster made a horrible grunting noise
that could only be laughter. Derek quickly sheathed the shotgun and unslung the
grenade launcher as the massive beast charged him. But he couldn’t fire the
grenade as such close distance, the blast would hurt him too.

   The thing was surprisingly fast and barreled into
Derek, grabbing him in a bear hug and carrying him back out into the hallway.
They passed between the stunned Rora and Sterling and slammed into a wall
opposite the doorway. Derek groaned in pain at the impact, and the thing
laughed again. The horrible stench of its rotten breath hit Derek and he fought
hard not to gag. He heard Rora and Sterling screaming as they opened fire on
the other two creatures from the room.

   The monster holding Derek tried to bite him and he
did the only thing he could think of. He shoved the barrel of the grenade
launcher into its mouth. The creature snarled as it bit down on the hard steel
of the barrel. Then Derek closed his eyes, turned his head, and pulled the
trigger. The grenade blew the monster’s head apart and then the blast hit Derek
like a sledgehammer. The now headless creature toppled over still holding Derek
and crashed to the ground on top of him.

   He must have blacked out because when he could see
again, the monster was no longer on top of him. Rora and Sterling stared down
at him, but Derek couldn’t focus with the ringing in his ears and the double
vision. His ribs ached, which meant a couple were probably cracked. The impact
of the five hundred pound creature landing on him had broken the tiles on the
floor. He groaned as they helped him up and he saw Rora grimace as she saw all
of the blood on him.

   “I’m okay.” Derek murmured. “It’s mostly his. What
happened to the others?”

   “We killed them.” Rora told him. “Are you sure
you’re okay?”

   “I’ll be fine.” Derek assured her. “Now let’s go
before any more of these things show up.”

   “The steel door is welded shut.” Sterling informed
him dejectedly.

   “What? You don’t have something for this
contingency?” Derek mocked gently.

   “I left my bag in Wichita remember?” Sterling
snapped back quickly.

   “Great. Where are we going to find a cutting
torch?” Derek asked rhetorically.

   “Can’t we just blow it?” Rora asked impatiently.

   “No. We would need a special shaped charge, which
we don’t have. Anything else and the blast will just take the path of least
resistance; which is away from the door.” Derek explained.

   “There is a metal shop in the blueprints.” The
Voice offered. “There might be a cutting torch there.”

   “Good idea.” Derek said enthusiastically. “Which
way do we go?”

   The Voice led them to the metal shop, which they
reached without seeing or hearing anything else. It was abandoned just like
everything else in the prison. Derek rummaged through the various tool cabinets
before finding a locked one. Busting the lock he pulled it open and discovered
a small cutting torch and fuel. It should be able to cut a small hole in the
door large enough for them to pass through.

   “Major!” The Voice said urgently. “I am detecting a
large mass of heat signatures inside the facility.”

   “Where?” Derek whispered.

   “All around you.” The Voice informed him unhappily.