FEBRUARY 20th 2037
I felt this huge wave of tiredness as I woke up; it was like I should have died in my sleep. I was so tired and weak and even though I had eaten before I slept the previous night, it was like I hadn't eaten anything in weeks. I pulled myself up from the bed and rubbed my eyes after I stretched my hands with a yawn. Then I looked at the time on the alarm clock which barely worked and it was already 8.a.m. "shit!" I exclaimed, I overslept, the Sarge said debriefing on the test results was at nine and I was still in bed; why Vanessa didn't wake me, I had no idea. Then I jumped on my feet and ran to the bathroom to freshen up, I threw off my pajamas and jumped in the shower, taking a really fast shower then I used the mouth wash to clean my mouth and I toweled my body dry. And then it was like hell was out to get me; I remembered I didn't have anything to wear, I was supposed to laundry my wardrobe the day before but with everything that went on, I forgot, how that happened, I have no idea but I had to be in the command center by 9. Jamie was probably wondering where I was, damn you sleep. Inside my wardrobe was a red blouse and a really large pair of lose black trousers. I hated those clothes, I had been avoiding them for four years but nemesis had caught up with me. Without much thought, I put them on and hurriedly left my room. The elevator as usual didn't respond so I had to use the stairs, before I turned around, I heard private James talk in a loud voice
"Whose child is this?" I looked around quickly and saw him holding a little girl of about 8 years old, her cute tiny pinky gown made her look like some kind of fairy from a movie, it was cute, she was Ray's daughter, Anna (short for Annabel) why was she down here? She should have been in the living area two floors above me, the Sarge didn't like civilians or rather children in living area 3 so I rushed to the corporal and took the girl,
"Hey sweetie, what are you doing all the way here? Where's your father?" I asked
"McCarthy!" she exclaimed several times and jumped around in excitement, the Sarge made the name stick, screaming McCarthy every time he saw me, now even an 8 year old child makes jest of the name, if she was older, I would have beaten her with my Kung Fu skills but she was still little; (I actually don't know kung Fu to be honest) so I overlooked it and asked her where Ray was again,
"The Grumpy angry man took him" she said, of course, the Sarge said Ray would be on medic duty with him on the mission, my memory was still waking up, I had to come up with an excuse to get the girl back up to living area 1, knowing her, she was pretty stubborn and wouldn't have left if I didn't think of something.
"Your father is on an important mission to save the world, so he wants you to stay with Aunt Celine until he gets back okay, so follow uncle James here… he'll take you back upstairs okay" I said
"Ok… McCarthy!" she answered reluctantly while raising her voice when it got to the McCarthy part, James giggled a bit, because every time she said McCarthy, she tried to make her voice sound like the Sarge's, constantly tormenting me. I got on my knees and I felt the hard terrazzo floor on my bones, it wasn't comfortable at all but I swallowed the discomfort and said to her
"If you call me McCarthy again, I'll have your father take away your toys"
"Wait not my toys, I'm sowie" she said still making a jest of me but she sounded apologetic "what should I call you?" she asked
"We've been here a while, you don't know my name?" I asked
"Rose… daddy always calls you Rose. Is that your name?" she asked, I nodded and took her hand. James and I started to walk with her to the stairs and when we got there, we climbed up the flights together and she kept singing that famous song from strawberry shortcake… was it old? Yes it was; it was ancient. I knew the song while I grew up… it went like 'you're my honey bunch something blah blah blah… I couldn't even remember the lyrics. Why she was singing it I had no idea, and she kept singing until we got to her floor. I told James to take her to Celine while I was about to go up to the command center, she said
"Will daddy be safe? I know he is going outside where those things are" I smiled even though I wasn't sure he would be okay and answered
"I'm keeping watch over him so he'll be fine, I promise" I lied… was it a lie? He had not left the base at the time so it probably wasn't
"Is your name really rose?" she asked with a smile, it was a beautiful smile, I so love kids, I remember when I first met her some years back, she was the only child on the base then so I spent quite some time with her
"It's Roselyn, it means gentle horse"
"I think It means Rose, like the flower" she made a big smile at me that I blushed for a moment, her voice did lighten my mood a bit
"It's of German origin sweetie, not Rose like the flower, but gentle horse" I smiled back then she ran to the exit door and opened it
"So you are a horse" she ran off shutting the door before I could answer; James looked at me and smiled deviously, I made a grin at him,
"Don't you tell anyone what just happened, or I'll hunt you down and kill you" he shook his head and went back down the stairs while I walked up to the command center (her joke was a funny one, I was going to get back at her for it). Upon getting there, I opened the door and saw it was empty, just one Humvee and a few soldiers in the corner playing cards, I assumed it was solitaire, It was all they ever played, unless it was whot, then that would have been surprising.
"Uhm guys, where's the Sarge?" I asked; one of the soldiers pointed up as if to imply upstairs or something but said nothing, damn soldiers and their attitude. I walked back into the stairway and went to the computer control center, when I got there, I saw Vanessa sitting on one chair, leaving an empty one beside her, watching the monitors as they prepared a connection.
"You sly, you didn't wake me, why?" I shouted, she whirled around on the chair and burst into laughter "you think it's funny? Where's the Sarge? He could have scolded me"
"What… remember the last time you overslept and I woke you? How you elaborated on the reasons your sleep is precious to you and basically cut chain for me?" (to cut chain means to explode at someone) that was right, I hated been disturbed while I slept, and yes, I would have cut chain for her if she had woken me up, but I had to blame someone, If Efomo was with us, I would have blamed him. Assigning blames was fun
"You do have a point though, fine, I nor go parra follow you, not today at least" I answered (to parra for someone is local tongue for quarreling with that person) "where's the Sarge?"
"Yeah, the mission already started, sorry. I'm waiting for video uplink now; they left about twenty minutes ago"
"Are you serious? What about the debriefing on the test results? Where are Efomo and Steve?" I asked
"He took Efomo, Walker and Eric, Steve is in the…" she looked at me from head to toe "what the hell are you wearing?" she asked
"Apparently I didn't have any clean clothes so this is all I had unfortunately"
"You look like my mother, why didn't you borrow some from me?"
"You know I don't like sharing clothes Vee. I probably look like crap right"
"You do, like an old lady's crap"
"You're not helping at all, what happened with the blood test?"
"That… well as it turned out, Jamie suffered from a severe and very rare case of Angioedema that affects around 1 in a billion people. Fortunately for him, there was an experimental treatment that required him to take injections every week. Overtime, his sickness vanished and he was well. Doctors probably thought it was a miracle but it was because the drug he took had bonded with his body on a molecular level due to excessive use. He said he took several doses a week in an attempt to end his life; he couldn't handle the pain of the illness. But after overdosing for about nineteen weeks, the sickness stopped manifesting and he was cured"
"Is that possible?" I asked "it's not right"
"Normally it's not, but Jamie also stole Migalasat and Luspatercept from his father's office and took them, the general effects of the combo was a bonding on a molecular level so his body started producing Lanadel-satept as an enzyme and as it turns out, satept reacts with Relilium and practically neutralizes its effects, that's why Jamie is immune"
"Wait doesn't that mean Relilium is a form or... A kind of Angioedema?" I asked
"Not necessarily, Jamie had other substances in his body at the time, the unfortunate attempt at suicide might just be fortunate after all. If we can get our hands on those elements, given time and resources, we might be able to synthesize a cure" she replied "you see the mixing of all these stuff in his body, all that chemicals made his Body resistant to Relilium, instead of killing him which it should have"
"That's really awesome" I smiled in excitement, "it's perfect… thank God for Jamie" I said
"That's why the Sarge took Steve; they'll branch after their main mission and look for drugs that may contain those elements"
"I see, well then let's get to it, are the drones up?" I asked
"Yeah, they're mounted on the chopper, when the teams drop, they'll be released"
"Walker was supposed to make over watch easy for us… shit…How many minutes out are they?"
"About an hour or less, give or take" she replied
"Well then…" the monitor uplink began coming in and we were good to go, Vanessa put in her earpiece and I put on my AR headset, she would monitor their vitals, weapons and equipment on the monitors, particularly noise levels as the draugrs were drawn to noise so anything above 25Hertz and 15-20dBA so Vanessa's job was to make sure they didn't make noise above that. My job was to keep watch on the surroundings, alert them of any draugrs in the area and plan the best possible escape route if draugrs did come close. They normally moved in hordes so a battle wasn't a smart option. The helicopter continued for another couple of minutes before they located the bunker somewhere around Sapele road, Oka, located in the main city and air-dropped the team off,
"Okay people, here's the drill, the bunker is about three hundred and fifty feet north of here, we're going to avoid ground as much as possible and move from rooftop to rooftop, until we get there. Henry, find a high-rise that's safe to land and set the birds down, keep them on standby and be ready to liftoff in less than a minute. Well buzz you when we're ready for pickup. This is the real deal people, watch your backs, keep quiet, stick to the circle formation and be careful, okay" the Sarge said "Vanessa, launch the mini drones, we need eyes in the buildings around up till the bunker, McCarthy, ready your eyes in the sky, we're a go" he added
"Hoorah!" the soldiers exclaimed but not in a very loud voice. Even they as stupid as they were could handle a simple task; I couldn't make out Jamie's voice in the chatter so I assumed he didn't talk
"McCarthy, you planned a route yet?" he asked
"Yes sir"
"Good. Jamie, lead the way" he said
The pilot flew up and got to a roof nearby where he kept the engines on stand-by and maintained a noiseless rotor speed on the tilt rotor osprey. The birds were designed for stealth missions so their rotors operated with a relatively low noise level. As the drone got in the air, I looked around the buildings in the area up to the location of the bunker; it was underneath Market square supermarket, and there were only a few high-rise buildings in the area up to the supermarket the rest were small so it wasn't going to be a problem. After I examined the area briefly, I coursed out the best route which was basically the main road. It was quicker, they had a larger area to move across and their field of vision would be wider. And as they weren't any draugrs in sight, I sent the directions to the Sarge and he linked his landware to the team's G.P.S (landware is a piece of military equipment that displays a particular terrain in 3D holographic view)
"Alright people, let's move" he said and they jumped of the road side edge of the building and started to advance towards Market square. Things had changed a lot outside the base, plants and trees grew over most of the buildings, damaging them and there was a lot of debris on the ground, uncontrolled vegetation was claiming the lands back and abandoned cars were left at random on the roads, making them impossible to drive through. Although there were no draugrs around, tensions were still high among the team. The draugrs must have fallen asleep due to the quiet, normally after about 6-8 days without food; they would go into hibernation and would only be jolted back by loud sounds or touch, though the Sarge didn't want to take chances, he still carried on with the formation, moving Rick and Ethan to the fore front, Steve and Efomo on both front wings, Ray and Erwin on both back wings while he and Walker were at the back, Jamie was in the middle. They kept advancing until I noticed movement in a partly broken building just in front of them
"Hold" I said "something's moving in that building over there" then I touched the building in the AR render and it lit up in the landware. "Sarge, have Ethan move around 7-10 feet forward, he'll get a better view inside the building from there"
"No, let Jamie go look. He doesn't gat attacked so he is the best man for the job"
"Right" I said "you heard the man Jamie, go"
"You're making too much noise guys, try to be a little quieter" Vanessa said "I can't send drones in there, there's too much tree branches"
"We figured that much, that's why Jamie's going" Rick said. He took some steps forward and looked inside through the scope of his rifle and moved it around a bit
"It's a really large rat" he said "that thing has got to weigh at least 5kg"
"Move along then, Jamie fall back into formation" Sarge said and they continued walking forward. As they got to about 100 feet of the supermarket, my drone feed went dead,
"Sarge, my video is dead, watch your backs. Vanessa can you get it back up?" I asked
"What's wrong McCarthy? Did you break the drone?"
"I'm on it" Vanessa said
"I think someone is jamming its video feed sir, there's someone else with you out there, be careful sir" I said, I took off the headset and connected one of the mini drones feed to the main monitor. They couldn't jam that signal because it was a secured wave link connected to the helicopter; my drone used satellite connection
"I can't restore the connection from here, henry, get that drone back to the bird, we can't lose it" Vanessa said. By the time the mini drone video began to render, the team had broken formation and moved to the side of market square, the big square brown building with an abandoned wide car park.
"Alright Sarge, I see you. I don't have an eye on whoever is jamming the signal; audio is breaking so you really have to take out that jammer sir"
"Sarge, take Rick and Walker and get on the roof, from there you'll have to combine your plasma rifles to use the plasma cannon to take out the mast facing the building, the signal is strongest there so taking out the mast should release the signal, the rest of the team, get in the building, gather whatever you can, locate the bunker and get in there. There's a high intensity rail-gun attached to Ethan's rifle, it should take down the door" Vanessa said
"There's a small horde of draugrs in hibernation d in the bush around the mast, blowing it up will wake them sir, you guys will have to be quick" I added. They broke into the supermarket while the Sarge, with the help of rick and Walker got on the roof of the building and ready their cannon. Then one of the Sarge's navigation tablet picked up a weak signal and sent it to Vanessa, it was very weak but the signal got through. I knew the signal signature; it was a weapons system from Exadyne advance robotics division, as at the time of the accident, they were still prototypes so something was off. I quickly spoke up
"Sarge, run a deep scan in the area around you, I think there's a sniper trained on your position"
"Are you serious" he said "Rick, Walker, get behind that slab now. There may be a sniper onto us" and then we lost audio. All we had was the mini-drone uplink I quickly located henrys frequency and said
"private Henry, the Sarge is in danger, ready the bird for takeoff, and fire on the mast at the co-ordinates I just sent to you, it has to go down" I said
"Roger" he answered. All Vanessa and I could do was to sit back and watch what would happen. We couldn't see inside the bunker, and we couldn't hear anything outside it; but we did see the Sarge ready the canon and fire on the mast, though he missed because he had to take cover, the sniper fired on him. I couldn't understand why there was a sniper there, was someone else going to loot the bunker or were they waiting to see who would come for the goods inside of it. The cannon bolt exploded just a few yards away from the mast waking the draugrs up, most of them stormed to the location of the explosion while a few remained around the mast; I couldn't tell what the Sarge was thinking, the cannon would take too long to reload for another fire and there was a sniper somewhere; then the mast exploded as a missile dropped on it like brimstone from the heavens and audio was back up, then I heard a gunfire from the car park, it was Efomo; the Sarge predicted whoever was jamming us was listening in on us so he had Efomo go around the building to keep watch. The cannon fire was just to expose the location of the sniper, a carefully planned strategy; he wasn't a colonel for no reason, come to think of it, I had no idea where the name Sarge came from, he wasn't a Sergeant or anything of that rank. But the sniper fire did attract the draugrs; they started to bolt towards the supermarket and the Sarge had to call in Henry to blow them up to hell with napalm. Of course he could only hit so much, some got through the wave of fire, the Sarge, Rick and Walker from the roof of the supermarket took out the few surviving ones while Efomo who I honestly didn't peg for a sniper was providing cover from the back of the building. As the main drone uplink got back up, I put on my AR headset and set the terrain to legend mode, to view as much area as I could. About three larger hordes of draugrs were zooming to the supermarket I said through the radio at once
"Sarge you're gonna have to be quick, there's a very large horde onto you about 600 feet away, they're split into three groups, get the goods, and get out now" I said
"How do we get the goods out?" he asked, I hadn't thought of that, I assumed they would load them onto the osprey and fly away but there was a building on top the bunker. I turned to Vanessa
"How do they get the goods out?" I asked
"Fuck" she said "there's no time to load it"
"We're running low on time guys, common" Efomo said
"What if we take the entire bunker with us?" Steve asked
"For God's sake it's a bunker, we can't air lift it" I replied
"There's a safe in the bunker, we can load the goods in the safe within the bunker and blow a hole through, and the two ospreys should be able to lift the safe out" Jamie explained
"Vanessa, will that work?" the Sarge asked, she looked disconcerted, almost shuddering
"The safe is what, 10 feet around?" she asked
"12, maybe 15" Jamie replied, she adjusted the frequency on her console and said
"Henry, circle the other osprey around and release the magnetic hook, set the rotors to max rpm and adjust the birds for max weight. Guys blow a hole in the building and get everything in the safe, use the plasma beam on your weapons to break the concrete around the safe. We're getting out of there a.s.a.p."
"Quick guys, the horde is about six minutes away, get in the safe now" I said
"You heard overwatch people, move your asses, push all the damn crates into the safe" the Sarge said as he set up a delayed pulse bomb on top the building and jumped down, along with Rick "walker, take cover, the bomb will blow a hole through the roof while ground unit will cut a hole through the bunker, when the hook comes, you attach it to the safe. It's magnetic so…" he said as he jumped down. Efomo, Rick and him went into the building and after thirty seconds, the roof was blown open, just in time, the second osprey arrived and they released their hooks. After about three minutes, the plasma cut through the roof of the bunker and Walker lowered the hooks and stuck it on the four edges of the safe, and he stuck his suits grapple on one hook, then as the ospreys raised their power, the safe left the ground with the birds. I executed the recall program to call back all the drones to the birds while I sent the AR drone to Henry's osprey. The first phase of the mission was completed; Sarge then sent a message to Vanessa and I, he said
"Vanessa, McCarthy, analyze the video of the draugrs from my cam-feed, something seemed different about this horde, their looks and all"
"Copy sir" Vanessa answered
"Henry, Steve and I will drop down around the central hospital; I've located a functioning vehicle there. Get the rest of the team with the safe back to the base, well carry on the mission alone"
"Roger that sir" henry replied
"You sure about this sir, it's a risky move going in on a mission without air support or backup" I remarked, the comms remained static, he knew it was a risk but he took it anyway, perhaps he couldn't risk losing the safe after the gruesome stress wed gone through getting it.
"McCarthy, you'll take the mini drones after us, we need eyes in the sky, connect its feed to my suits pack, we can get a direct uplink from there"
"Yes sir"
"We'll approach the hospital in four minutes sir" Henry announced and the Sarge got out of the safe and held onto its metal frame via his magnetic gloves, as did Steve. As the osprey closed in on the gigantic hospital building, they released their gloves and dropped on the roof of the hospital
"McCarthy, we'll search the hospital for drugs and supplies that will be useful, it's been raided ages ago but I doubt that the drugs that contain those things Steve talked about would be taken. So hopefully in the pharmacy, well find something"
"Right sir, radio me as soon as you find anything, and keep sounds as low as possible, even avoid talking unless absolutely necessary, without backup, you're sitting ducks" Vanessa pointed out
"Good luck sir, and be careful" I said
"Thanks McCarthy, we'll need it" he replied and then Henry released two drones and started to fly back to the base.
The Sarge and Steve landed beside a green dumpster at the back of a tall concrete fence. If memory served me correctly, that used to be the Benin prison before the accident and after, it was used as a shelter before its eventual fall a year after the accident. About a thousand people died that day, it was sad but that's not the important now, as the drones buzzed pass the road, I observed there were no draugrs, it was strange that the area was empty so I switched to thermal and sonar scan via the two drones to map the area, something was in the building opposite the hospital blocking the scan in that area but I couldn't tell what, it most definitely weren't draugers but it was something.
"Sarge, as soon as you get the vehicle working, and the mission, take a look around and inside the glass house opposite the hospital's main building. There's something inside but I can't tell what it is"
"Alright McCarthy, thank you"
"Vanessa will take overwatch sir, I'm starting the analysis you requested now"
"Copy" he replied
"Main command console is all yours Vanessa" I rolled back my chair to the command console on the left and pulled up the video Sarge sent; as the playback started, I watched closely and didn't notice anything significant at first then I played it again, if the Sarge thought he saw something, then he probably did. He wasn't very smart but sometimes his observations are incredibly accurate so I didn't want to take chances. As the video progressed, I noticed something in the video moving in the distance but the quality was shit so I couldn't make it out
"Vanessa, can you enhance this video?" I asked
"If it's from the teams gear, I can't… you'll have to wait until the bird's feed arrive"
"I see"
"Did you observe anything?"
"I might have but the quality is like super low so I'm not sure yet. Why do we still use these 480p lenses? They're ancient"
"It's all we could get since the accident; we'll have to make do with them"
"You should focus on helping the Sarge, I'm gonna take this video to the main computer if it can analyze the movement patterns and all" I stood up and went into the inner room, and then I plugged the drive into the main computer and pushed a bunch of buttons. Vanessa had already pre-programmed it to automatically start analysis of any video file inputted. It was scanning the patterns on the video and cross-referencing them with videos already in the system, which normally took about thirty minutes or so. Then I left the command center and went down to my cubicle… thats right, everyone else had fairly large rooms except me, the Sarge definitely did hate me in my early days at the base. Since I was less busy, I went to get my laptop so that I could study and probably figure out something about my exoskeleton suit. If only I had one, missions would have been easier and less stressful, then we wouldn't need drones and the shitty camera on the gear we had. When I carried the laptop, instead of researching, I started looking at photos of my family, my boyfriend who is now dead and I just got lost in the moment. Everything around seemed to remind me of the things we lost to the draugrs. Reminiscing wouldn't have helped but I didn't care, I kept thinking of them, creating scenarios in my head where they never died or the accident never happened, I had been doing that for the years past but nothing changed, until Jamie came along; the hope I had lost returned. I was sure everyone had their hopes up again. Then the speakers in the lobby went off and Vanessa voice came through
"Rose, you're needed in the command center" I sighed and stood up, and then it dawned on me that I had been lost in thoughts for close to fifty minutes.
"Shit" I exclaimed "what's happening to me today?" I said rhetorically; then I threw the laptop on the spring bed and rushed out of the room and up to the command center. On my way there, I saw Rick storm out of the control center and went to the elevator
"What's going on" I asked
"The Sarge is in a deadlock, were going to airlift them out of there"
"Shit" I too ran to the command center and on getting there, I said "Vanessa, what happened?"
"Uhm… well there is a complication"
"What happened" I asked again, failing to notice Jamie, Efomo and Eric in the room.
"As it happened, the area our drone couldn't see was a rigged electromagnetic plasma bomb"
"The hell do you mean"
"They found someone in the building, he was trying to get out of the building and they rescued him but accidentally triggered the bomb. Fortunately, they got to the roof of the hospital and collapsed the stairway"
"So they're trapped on the roof and surrounded by draugrs"
"Well that's the problem, these draugrs are well aware they're on the roof, it's only a matter of time before they start to pile up to get there"
"I see…and Rick is gonna take a bird to extract them?" I looked beside me when I heard breathing other than mine and Vanessa's "Jamie, how long have you been standing there?"
"Since you came in" he paused "where were you?" he asked
"I was busy… where's Ray?"
"He went to the living area, his child needed his attention" Efomo replied
"Are you both alright? We were scared to death"
I was this close to shitting myself" Efomo said putting his thumb and index finger a centimeter close together.
"Why did we not see the sniper? Why was there even a sniper there?" Jamie asked
"I believe another group of survivors were looking out and they saw us… maybe they knew there were supplies in the bunker but they couldn't get in" Vanessa replied him
"That doesn't make sense, they were waiting for us there, why" I walked to Jamie's face "you said this Larry person suddenly stopped replying right"
"Yes" then Eric left the room, it wasn't until he left that I realized he too had been standing there with them
"Is it possible they killed him so as to get access to the bunker but they couldn't retrieve the keycard?"
"I suppose it is" he answered. Vanessa hurried to the main computer and brought the drive I plugged In back;
"I have the enhanced the feed and the analysis was completed" I ignored her and turned back to Jamie
"Survivors killing survivors is unheard of"
"I don't understand, why wouldn't they ask for supplies instead of killing him" he said
"People take drastic measures these days Jamie… and his daughter? Any leads?" I asked
"Unfortunately not, she recorded a message for her father saying she's gone to look for him, and she was to be back long before we arrived but the message was never played, she never returned" Efomo said
"I see… you and Efomo should go get some rest, the Sarge will be back in about two hours, there will be a debriefing then" I said. As they left, I turned to Vanessa, what were the results?"
"You were right, there was a draugr that acted independent of the horde, it moved away from the team and towards another horde in hibernation"
"And their movement, anything strange?"
"It seemed cautious. They weren't reckless; they were actually walking so as not to damage their body, almost as if they were conscious. Why did you want the guys to leave before asking me this?"
"Are you serious? They're slow… I'll have to explain it to them then I'll have to explain it again to the Sarge… I don't think so" I sighed "Did you notice their bodies weren't decaying? Even though they had been in hibernation"
"There's that too, I think we have a problem" she said, "They should have dropped the safe by now and should be on their way to get the Sarge, I'll prepare a briefing when he comes"
"Right, we should also check the goods for contamination… wait was the team decontaminated at their arrival?" I asked
"They were. I'm gonna run further analysis on the video feed, you…"
"I'll keep looking at the feed. Maybe I might notice something" I interrupted her, and she smiled and went into the computer room. "Fuck" I said as I ran my hand down my straight long hair which by the way was a perfect dark-tan, almost black colour; then I drew a chair and sat down, and loaded the video on the main monitor.