Doomsday Hunter 2, page 26
part #2 of Doomsday Hunter Series
Soon, I heard the sound that made my blood run cold.
The soft whirring of the Deltacorp drone.
“Inside!” I hissed as I threw open a nearby door and forced Tracey and Natalie inside.
The place was thankfully abandoned, which made it the perfect place to hide out for the time being. There were remnants of what appeared to be tables, chairs, and booths, and the air was drenched in the faint stench of mildew, surely related to the black mold I could plainly see on the ceiling.
It was probably a restaurant at some point in time, but judging by the eclectic decor and vinyl red chairs, it was more on the tacky side. So, it probably wasn’t “bougie” enough for Utopolis. And like all things of which Deltacorp didn’t approve, it was now a heap of rubble.
“Do you think it saw us?” Natalie whispered, and her blue eyes were opened wide. “Can it see us now with its infrared camera?”
“Not if it’s not looking for us,” Tracey explained. “For all we know, the pilot still thinks we’re at the hotel.”
I peeked out the door cautiously, saw the drone was far off in the distance, and then gave the all clear sign.
The three of us came out of the building and continued on for a few more minutes.
Then we heard a loud explosion.
I spun around to see a huge plume of black smoke rise into the sky from the direction of where the hotel was located.
“Holy shit…” I gasped as my heart dropped into my gut. “Th-they blew up the whole hotel.”
“I told you they don’t fuck around,” Tracey sighed.
“Rest in peace, Big Jim,” Natalie muttered under her breath.
“What happened to the whole ‘not wanting to destroy their prized possession’ concept?” I sputtered as I stared off at the dark smoke.
“They must have come to an agreement with the military,” Tracey hypothesized. “There’s no way they would have blown you up like that unless there was a sure chance they could obtain a backup copy.”
“I just hope this doesn’t mean he’s already been uploaded.” I shuddered.
With its mission accomplished, the drone flew away in the opposite direction of the roaring flames, and once it was little more than a dot on the horizon, we pushed on down the road.
Finally, we came to a drag of road that actually seemed to be populated. There were several people walking out and about on the sidewalks, and cars passed by sporadically.
I raised my hand up to hail a cab, and soon a vehicle pulled over for us.
Instead of one of the geometric, sleek vehicles that had transported us all around Utopolis, this car was one of the taxis of old. Its yellow paint job was chipped and cracked, while the metal of its body was rusted all along the bottom. The white and black stripe on its side was faded almost beyond recognition, and the car made a strange sputtering noise as it pulled up.
Still, it would get us from point A to point B.
Hopefully.
I opened up the door for the two women and then slid into the cab after. The interior smelled like a mixture of stale cigarette smoke and some sort of unidentified spices.
“Where ya headed?” the man in the front, clad in a flat fabric driver’s hat, asked.
“Fifty-second and Elm,” Tracey announced, and then the taxi sputtered forward.
When we finally arrived at the destination fifteen minutes later, I tipped the driver handsomely, and then we got out of the car.
“Thanks a bundle, buddy!” he called out, and then he sped away as quickly as his jalopy would go.
“I had him drop us off a few blocks away,” Tracey noted as her hazel eyes darted nervously about. “It’s less suspicious that way.”
“Good idea.” I nodded and took a look at our surroundings. The bay was just off to our right, and I could already see the shipyard in the distance. Hundreds of different colored shipping containers were stacked in mounds of different heights, and a large flat boat floated just beyond.
As we made our way closer to our destination, the main building came into view.
We ducked into an alley and then peeked around the corner to observe the spot of our final mission. It was an oval-shaped structure built out of red bricks and topped off with a barn-brown roof. Multi-paned windows dotted the walls all around, and the whole place looked pretty run down.
Of course, that was just an illusion.
From what I could see, there were only a handful of guards out and about, and all of them were wearing military fatigues. One of the men stood guard at the main entrance, while I noticed another one was patrolling the top of the building, and an undocumented number were walking around the docks. Each one of them held a Deltacorp branded assault rifle in their hands as they made their rounds, and my heartbeat kicked up a notch.
“Well,” Natalie chuckled, “that’s good news for you, and bad news for us.”
“How do you figure?” Tracey questioned as she bit her lower lip.
“You’re only going to have to persuade a single guard,” the Scavenger explained. “Me and Hunter here have to either avoid or take out all of the rest of them, all while trying not to be spotted by the sniper up top. In broad daylight.”
“Okay, I’ll admit,” the brunette mused, “when you put it that way, yeah. You guys have it way harder.”
“That’s not an issue,” I admitted. “It doesn’t look like there are overwhelming odds against us, and we’ve already proven we can defeat both regular security guards and Deltacorp Strike Force soldiers.”
“I don’t think these are either,” Tracey pointed out. “I’m pretty sure these are straight-up military. Though, I’d much rather deal with them than a Deltacorp Strike Force soldier.”
“So, I think we still need to stick to the original plan,” I announced. “Tracey tries to sweet-talk her way in, while Natalie and I sneak around to one of the back doors.”
“And then, once I’m inside, I’ll open up one of the doors and let you in,” Tracey finished with a nod. “I’m ready whenever you guys are.”
“Not so fast,” the blonde Scavenger said like a scolding school teacher. “I’ve got some goodies for you before we begin.”
“Goodies?” Tracey raised her eyebrows.
Natalie reached into the plastic bag from the convenience store, rustled around inside for a moment, and then came up with a small walkie-talkie in one hand and a pair of single-eared headsets in the other.
“I figured we’d need this, since we’ll be split up for part of this mission,” the Scavenger explained. “I’m going to set this thing so it’s always recording, and then I want you to put it into your pocket. Hunter and I will wear these headsets so we can listen in on whatever’s going on without the risk of giving away our position.”
“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?” Tracey mused.
“That’s why we keep her around,” I joked.
“Take this, as well,” Natalie offered as she reached into her pocket and came up with a small wad of cash. “It’s the last of our money, but you never know when it might come in handy.”
Tracey nodded, took the two offerings, and slid them into her pockets. Then she stood up, produced her Deltacorp employee card, and hung it around her neck.
“I guess it’s showtime,” she said as she took a deep breath. “I’ll see you guys on the other side.”
“Literally,” I confirmed. “We’ll use these headsets to let you know where we are, and when we’re ready for you to let us inside.”
Tracey straightened her posture, sighed, and then headed down for the main entrance.
Natalie and I, on the other hand, stealthily made our way down to the shipyard. The first guard was standing over by the edge of the space, and he looked out over the bay as he smoked a cigarette.
“At least the first one will be easy,” Natalie muttered.
“I’ll take out his feet, and you put him to sleep?” I suggested, and Natalie’s grin agreed with me.
We looked around for any more guards before we began to sneak up on our first enemy, and both of us held our breaths as we tiptoed over. One small sound would completely give us away, and then we’d be hosed.
Once we were only a few feet away from the guy, I gave Natalie the signal.
Like a well-oiled machine, I crouched down, extended my leg, and swept out the man’s balance from underneath him. At the same time, Natalie wrapped one hand around his mouth to prevent him from talking and took him into a sleeper hold with her other arm. Then, before he could raise his Deltacorp weapon, I snatched it out of his hand and tossed it into the bay.
The guard only struggled for a few seconds before his eyes drooped closed and his body went limp.
We dragged the man over to one of the shipping containers, slid him inside, and then continued on. We had to time our movements with the pattern of the guard on the roof, who seemed to only look out over the shipyard in five-minute intervals.
Meanwhile, Tracey had finally arrived at her position.
“Halt!” the guard ordered into our headsets. “This is a private facility, only available to authorized personnel.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem, then,” Tracey’s voice explained, “because I am authorized personnel. See? I work for Deltacorp. Specifically, I’m one of the biotech coders for the JMP.”
There was silence on the other side, and I held my breath as my heart pounded in my ears.
“Nobody told us to expect any employees,” the guard pondered aloud. “I have to stick to my original orders, ma’am.”
“Seriously?” Tracey’s tone changed to a “do you know who I am” voice. “My boss is going to be really, really angry if I can’t be there to supervise the uploading process.”
“How do you know about that?” the guard growled.
Crap. Ohhhhh, crap.
“Because I just told you,” Tracey sighed and remained cool as a cucumber. “I’m working on the JMP. Why would I come all the way down here, out to the middle of fucking nowhere, if I wasn’t ordered to by my boss? Now, can you please let me in? We’re both going to be in deep shit if I miss this thing.”
“I’m going to need more than that, ma’am,” he grumbled. “That sounds like a good story, but there’s no proof. Nobody goes in or out. Those were my orders.”
“And my ‘orders’ were to supervise the uploading process!” Tracey argued. “We’re on the same side here. I can prove to you I’m working on the JMP.”
“Oh?” The man’s voice sounded skeptical, and my mouth was dry with fear. “This should be good.”
“The JMP is really the code name for the hyper-intelligent AI you have today,” Tracey began. “Everybody knows about Jackson Merrick’s little foray into the virtual world, but what most people don’t know is it’s always been intended for military purposes. That’s why you’re installing it into your drone systems today, and that’s why it’s been programmed with a backdoor kill switch only Deltacorp knows how to access. Which is also why your people needed us here. If not, he’d be impossible to control.”
“I--Uh, how do you know all this?” the guard demanded.
“Because I wrote the damn code!” Tracey groaned. “Now, please, let me in. If I’m not in there when the uploading process begins, I can’t ensure the proper failsafes are in place.”
There was another moment of tense silence before the man spoke up again.
“Fine,” he conceded. “But we’ll be calling this in to reconfirm with your superiors.”
“Excellent!” Tracey lied. “Have a wonderful rest of your day.”
“Alright, then.” I let out a sigh of relief, and some of the tension eased away from my shoulders. “She’s in.”
“What was that about the kill switch?” Natalie asked, and her blonde eyebrows pinched over her blue eyes. “Nobody ever mentioned a kill switch.”
“I’m pretty sure she was just bullshitting,” I theorized. “Obviously, if there was one, it doesn’t freaking work.”
Natalie and I waited for the guard up top to turn back around, and then we made our move.
Unfortunately, that move was right into the pathway of two more patrolling guards.
Both of their eyes went wide with disbelief when they saw us, but we were quick to act.
I dove forward, punched the closet guard in the throat, and disarmed him quickly. I heard the hard slam of flesh against metal beside me as Natalie took down her man, and then I struck the guy in front of me with the butt of his rifle.
Blood shot out of his nose as he went down, and then his body went slack.
“That was too fucking close,” my Scavenger mate whispered as we dragged the unconscious men out of sight of the roof guard.
Once his eyes were not in our direction any more, we pressed onward.
There were three guards standing in a small circle and chatting it up over by the edge of the dock, and we were able to sneak past them without incident. Finally, we came to the back door.
“Hey, Tracey?” I whispered into the microphone on my headset. “We’re out at the back door. It’s the one that comes up almost right to the water.”
“Got it,” the slender programmer’s voice crackled through the earpiece. “I’ll be there shortly.”
“She’s on her way, Nat--” I began as I turned to my mate, but then I gasped in horror.
There was a guard sneaking up on us from the side. He was right behind Natalie, and his rifle was already raised and at the ready.
“What’s the matter, Hunter?” the blonde woman asked, but I was already making my move.
I shoved Natalie to the right and then dove off to the left as a burst of deadly bullets sprayed from the guard’s gun.
Then, before he could readjust his aim, I whipped out my Sig Sauer, took aim, and fired off three rounds straight into his chest.
Three bursts of crimson mist sprayed out of his back as he stumbled backward and clasped at the fresh wounds in his chest. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the ground, dead.
“You alright?” I asked as I ran over to Natalie, who was pulling herself up off the ground.
“You saved me,” she panted as she swiped some stray blonde locks out of her face.
“Just barely,” I reassured her. “So much for stealth, eh?”
“Hunter?” Tracey gasped through my earpiece. “I just heard gunshots. Are you guys alright?”
“We’re fine right now,” I noted, “but they’re gonna be on us in a few seconds here.”
“Man down!” I heard another guard scream, and then I heard the clomping of boots as they echoed through the shipyard.
As the first guard came around the corner, Natalie and I both raised our guns and fired. There was a spray of blood as one of our bullets tore through his left shoulder, but the man was able to duck back behind the side of the building before he took too much damage.
Suddenly, the door behind us burst open.
“Get the fuck inside!” Tracey barked.
She didn’t have to tell us twice.
I gave Natalie some covering fire as she retreated through the doorway, and then I followed her through.
Tracey slammed the door shut behind us and then motioned for us to follow after her. As she led us through the halls of the run-down building, however, a high-pitched alarm bell began to ring.
“Fucking shit,” Natalie huffed under her breath. “I’m guessing that’s the bell that tells them we’re here?”
“Unfortunately,” Tracey confirmed as she pursed her lips into a tight line. “But at least I know where we’re going this time. The signs say the server room is right this way.”
Tracey quickly led us across the laminated floors of the hallway until we finally came to a large set of black double doors. Next to them was a sign that read “Server room, authorized personnel only!” and a plaque that showed the room number.
The brunette woman swiped her Deltacorp badge, waited for the light on the door to turn green, and then yanked the left door open.
Inside we found a large, open room that obviously used to be a warehouse. The floors were bare concrete, and rusted steel pillars held up the vaulted ceiling above us.
What made this room stand out, however, was the fact it was filled with Deltacorp drones. The pointy-nosed death machines were lined up along each side of the warehouse, just waiting to be activated and sent after a target. There were way too many to count, and I didn’t even want to think about the damage these things could do if they were activated at the same time.
No wonder Dr. Merrick had no issues taking over the world. We’d seen what a single drone could do… With a whole army? He’d be unstoppable.
All the way at the other side of the warehouse was a black computer that took up the entire wall. It was covered with flashing lights of red and blue, as well as large text that read “JMP.” Strangely enough, the only other thing in the room was a dentist-style chair positioned right in front of the supercomputer.
“That’s our guy.” Tracey whistled as we drew closer. “Now, we just have to figure out how to destroy it.”
“There’s not much to it.” Natalie grinned. “I say we light it up like a Christmas tree and then get the fuck out of--”
The Scavenger’s sentence was interrupted by the sound of something falling against the concrete floor. It came from our right, just behind one of the nearby drones.
Natalie and I held our pistols at the ready as we inspected the sound. We both approached from the front, with the Scavenger going around on the right and me going around the left.
When we met at the back, we found a scrawny man in a Deltacorp lab coat cowering on the ground.
His frame was built like a scarecrow, though it was currently curled up into a ball. The man wore large, square-brimmed glasses on his comically small nose, a sharp contrast to the massive ears that sat on the side of his head, and he had a buzzcut, though it did not work on him whatsoever.
“Please, don’t kill me!” he pleaded as he threw his hands up.
“Have you uploaded the JMP into the drones yet?” I demanded as I pointed my pistol directly at him.
“I--What do you--”
“Have you uploaded the JMP into the drones yet?” I growled once more.
