Inferno (The Glitch Book 2), page 16
“What is it?” said Becky from the doorway.
Alexis waved her away, but she came inside anyway, seeing the brown boot. “Is he dead? Is he like the others?”
The agent couldn’t see any obvious injuries, and even from a few feet away she could see his chest moving up and down. She leaned closer. “I think… he’s sleeping… or something else.” She had a hard time believing that the noise she had created wasn’t enough to wake him. She clapped her hands together directly above his ears. And again. The man’s eyes remained closed, his breathing steady.
“So he had too much to drink. Grab some keys and let’s get out of here.”
Alexis moved closer to the man, kneeling beside him and leaned close to his mouth. “There’s no smell of alcohol on his breath. He seems to be in a deep sleep… almost like a coma.”
Becky sighed and moved to the keys and grabbed a bunch. “You play doctor while I choose our ride.”
Alexis went to touch the exposed neck of the man, but pulled her fingers back and stood. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.” She grabbed more keys and they both walked back outside.
“What about this one?” said Becky moving to the closest motorhome, a brown and silver RV roughy twenty feet long.
“Too small. We need a class C.”
“What the hell is a class C?”
Alexis scanned the options around her, then spotted a larger older vehicle. “That one. Blue and silver. That’s what we need.”
*****
Mike looked out across the city hoping to see movement, but concerned about the possibility if there was. He was on the eighth floor of the army’s headquarters in the same open plan office he had been taken to, to meet the general the day before. Chairs lay overturned behind him together with dead computer monitors and empty desks. They had found more paperwork with the ‘Halstead’ designation, but nothing to give them any idea what it meant. Was it the number of infected? Populations of towns or cities? They had no idea. The only thing they did know was that the thousands that filled the streets when they arrived were missing… presumed… well, best not to presume. They wondered if the city had been evacuated during the storm. A last minute escape to try and save those that had thought of Roswell as their salvation, but none of the four men had heard even the slightest sound to indicate such a massive task was underway. Maybe the thunderous rain covered up the evidence.
He had tried the police chief a few more times until giving up. He liked Gill, despite hardly knowing him. It had been the same throughout his career when he had met local law enforcement. They had a practical way of dealing with problems, and little time for academic theories of the minds of criminals, which suited him fine.
The fog hung like a blanket across the city, obscuring his otherwise excellent vantage point and only allowing him to see a few miles in three of the four compass directions. But he could clearly see the center of the town, the main streets with popular stores, a movie theater and what looked like a radio station with a mast almost as high as the building he was in.
He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and looked at the blank screen. The battery was dead, and he had no way of charging it. But he didn’t mind, just knowing locked away inside it was the video of Travis gave him comfort.
A noise echoed around the streets below, almost at the same time that his radio came to life. “Mike? We’re almost there. Over,” said Alexis.
He strained his eyes into the mist. A dark shape moved into the end of the street. “I think I see you. Coming from the west? Over.”
“Umm… yeah I think so. Over.”
“In a… RV? Over.”
“That’s us.” Alexis’s voice was triumphant making Mike smile. “Mike. I think something’s happened to the people of—”
A sharp piercing noise rang out from his radio’s handset making him pull it away from his ear, which still wasn’t quick enough for it to cause momentarily disorientation. He noticed the RV a hundred feet below wavered on the road, crossing into the wrong lane before correcting. He went to talk again when fragmented pieces of human voices came from his radio mingled with a scratching sound. Words and phrases each spoke with a different pitch and tone, garbled and mutating together while the incessant scraping continued. Even though it was impossible, in his gut he knew what he was hearing. The tormented digital souls of the people of the Roswell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mike pushed open the door from the stairwell to the ground floor out of breath and sweating, despite the near zero temperature in the lobby. Daryl, Brad and Elias were already there, the latter kneeling as Brillo bounded over the cold stone floor to his owner.
Alexis appeared and without hesitation jogged across the room and threw her arms around Mike, while planting her lips firming on his. They kissed as some of the others tried to avert their eyes. Brad nodded and smiled while Becky was looking back out into the street.
Alexis pulled back and started talking as if the embrace hadn’t happened. “Did you hear it?”
Mike regained his composure. “I did…”
“What was that?” She looked around at the others. “Listen…” She turned her radio back on. Mike wanted the speaker to just be producing static, anything other than the sound it unfortunately still was making.
Daryl looked confused. “Voices…”
Mike looked at Elias. The big man knew just as well what they were. “It’s them… the people of this city,” said Elias.
“What?” said Becky. “That don’t make any sense. They can’t all have radios.”
“None of them have radios,” he said. “They ain’t speaking. What you’re hearing is their minds. The AI has them.”
Becky turned away, her head slightly shaking refusing to believe, then continued to look back out into the deserted streets.
“Where I got the RV from,” said Alexis. “There was an office, with a man. Looked like the owner. At first I thought he was sleeping, but he was in a coma of some kind.”
“Networking…” The word breathlessly left Daryl’s mouth. He looked at the others. “The AI doesn’t have enough nanites or whatever it uses to control the bodies of these people but it can still use their brains as computing power. So it’s networked them.”
“Why?” said Alexis.
He shrugged his shoulders.
She looked at the empty military grade crates, left on the floor. “The army pulled out in a hurry. They must have known what was about to happen…”
“It’s time we left Roswell,” said Mike.
“I hear that,” said Becky. “This whole city is an eerie level ten.”
Mike switched channels on his radio to try the police channel one more time, but the sound of the anguished citizens remained. He switched it off. “Before we leave, I want to see if we can find Gill.”
It wasn’t long before they were inside the motorhome which was spacious, even for seven people, driving slowly along Main Street, Alexis not wanting to rev the engine too loud. The sidewalk was covered in litter, and what stores weren’t boarded up, where just hollow shells of their former selves. They passed a theater which had a large fabric message hanging from it, mentioning food and shelter available within.
“Hard to believe these are the same streets,” said Dawn. “The cars had trouble getting down them.” She shook her head. “It’s a lot of comatose people.”
“I wonder what it’s doing to their minds.” said Daryl. “Why it needs them.”
“We’ll be long gone before we need to know,” said Mike, sitting in the passenger’s seat next to Alexis.
She looked at the fuel gauge. “We will need to fill up soon.”
They arrived at a junction. The lights permanently on red. “Turn here,” said Mike.
They moved at a steady speed into the smaller road, then had to hit the breaks. A green pickup sat across the two-lane street, its driver’s door open, and a thirty something bearded man, in a red plaid shirt sprawled on the concrete, his eyes closed.
Alexis shook her head, and turned the large steering wheel, so the RV moved to the left, partially moving up onto the sidewalk. “The people of this town have been abandoned. I wish there was something we could do.”
“First thing is, we survive,” said Mike looking across to her.
They pulled up outside the police station, its lot only containing one police car.
“Could be Gill’s,” said Alexis.
Mike switched his radio on, then promptly back off on hearing what came from its speaker. He pulled his gun from its holder, pulled the magazine to check the number of bullets left, slid it back in and reholstered it, then in his mind quickly ran through the people around him. Daryl was good for the tech, but not so much in a firefight. Dawn was the closest they had to a doctor and Brad was needed to protect those two and Becky and Elias, although he was sure the old guy would disagree. That just left the last person he wanted to go into a dangerous situation with, not because he couldn’t depend upon her, he… just needed her to be safe.
The driver’s door sprung open before he had a chance to object.
He looked to the others seated at the table behind. “Keep watch.” They nodded and he pushed open the door and jumped down onto the street. If it had been any other November, he would have put the overwhelming feeling of isolation down to the biting cold. Folks would have been wrapped up and preparing for Christmas…
“You hear something?” said Alexis standing near the station’s entrance.
He shook his head trying to rid it of the holiday images, and stepped towards her when the silence of the streets was literally shattered by the glass doors exploding outwards showering her with glass. She staggered off to the left side, while he did the same to the right pulling his gun free in the same movement.
He looked across to her as she was shaking glass from her hair and noticed a trickle of blood running down the wrist that was holding up her own gun. The RV side door opened and Brad appeared, but he waved him back inside. He looked to his right which was now a jagged opening. “Stop shooting!” he shouted into the hole.
“Are you one of them!” shouted a woman, somewhere in the lobby.
“What?”
“Speak!…Err… say something! Where you were born or your mother’s name!”
“I’m special agent Mike Richter. I’m with others!”
“Special agent Alexis Adams, who are you!”
“How can I trust you’re not just speaking those things, like a machine! Like some kind of recording!”
Fear had obviously driven the woman inside frantic. “If I put my gun down,” said Mike. “And I come in, will you promise not to shoot!”
“I’m not promising anything! But put your gun down anyway. I’m a Roswell police officer!”
The sound of the woman’s voice jogged Mike’s memory of the day before. “Officer Hanson? Is that you?”
“I’m not saying it is!”
“Have you seen Gill? We came here looking for him.”
“I… I tried contacting him on the radio, but he’s not responding. He’s been got to… or he’s sleeping like the others.”
Mike glanced at Alexis who shook her head, but he had no time for this standoff. He threw his gun around the corner, hearing it skid across the tiled floor. “That’s my gun. I’m coming in. Shoot me if you think I’m one of those things, but we need to talk.” He swung around the corner, not seeing much detail in the gloomy interior of the lobby, then caught movement beyond the counter opposite the entrance. He walked slowly forward. “I’m not controlled by the AI. I’m… myself. All those with me are the same. We want to find Gill, then leave the city. You can come with us if you want?”
He was now halfway to the counter.
“I… I… don’t know. I don’t know who to trust. The radio… I… think there are voices, but maybe they are in my head…”
He could see her ducking down behind one of the desks which was turned over facing the counter. “They’re not in your head. We hear them too. I don’t know where Gill lives. But if you want to come with us, we will go to his home and check that he’s okay. Do you want to do that?”
There was a pause, then she slowly stood, her shotgun swaying but still pointing generally in his direction. “Yes… but keep your distance. I’ll take my own car. You follow.”
Soon he and Alexis was back in the RV, he having taken over driving duties due to her right hand stinging. A flying shard had sliced the back of it, and her face had a smattering of red specks, which Dawn wanted to take a closer look at but Alexis waved her away.
After they collected Elias’s truck from the motel, checking it wasn’t infected, they made their way north, quickly leaving the multistory buildings behind, and into a moon-like landscape, flat and featureless, made even more so due to the wall of white which was at the back of every farmer’s field. They turned off the main road, onto a smaller track and passed a series of large single story homes, until Hanson stopped at the last of them with only more fields beyond.
He wasn’t sure, but it looked as if the front wooden door was covered in some kind of black stain.
“It looks burned,” said Dawn leaning between the two front seats to better see.
Hanson was still in her car. He wondered what she was waiting for. “Everyone stay in here. I’ll go look with Hanson… if I can convince her to come with me.”
“You should have some backup,” said Brad.
Mike pushed the driver’s door open. “I’ll be careful.” He dropped down and looked at the property to the right of Gill’s, just as impressive as the chiefs, and just as seemingly devoid of life. He leaned back inside the RV. “Watch those other properties.” He then closed the door and made his way to the car in front, giving it a wide birth so not to spook its occupant.
She was sat, her shotgun in her hand looking at Gill’s residence. He moved further around the hood until she spotted him, then she opened her door, and got out. “I… don’t know what I would do if he has changed… I don’t know if I could put him down. Maybe I should stay here.”
Mike nodded. “And what if he thinks the same? He knows you, he doesn’t know me.”
Her jaw tightened, then she sighed and nodded. “Okay, I’ll go first. But if he is… one of those things, you’re going to have to do it, right?”
“Lets just take it one step at a time.”
She left her door open and they both walked slowly towards the front, avoiding the dew covered lawn.
“Maybe we should go around back,” she said.
“Front door first.”
The stench of burned wood and plastic hit him just a few feet from the entrance. He knocked on the door but as soon as his knuckles hit the blistered wood the door swung back, revealing a hallway that was half black soot and charcoal. He had seen a few house fires in his time and this was a bad one, and would have been worse if it weren’t for someone’s actions. That and the fire extinguisher just beyond the blackened welcome mat were a good sign that humans still lived there.
“Gill!” shouted Hanson. “You in there?”
They both stepped inside, and that was when Mike noticed the spray of blood on the bottom of the wall, the top half just a dark stain. “Something happened he—”
“I killed my wife,” said Gill from somewhere beyond the end of the hallway. “That’s what happened.” A chair creaked and the chief appeared, his face a mixture of black dust and brown streaks.
Mike hardly recognized him, and his appearance was such a surprise to the woman nearby, that she put her hand to her mouth, evidently being in no doubt he was her boss.
Gill pointed behind them. “Stole an RV I see.”
A smile came to Mike’s face despite his mind telling him it was completely the wrong time for such a reaction. “Just take it out of my pension.”
Gill smiled.
“What the fuck happened!” said Hanson not wanting to partake in the conversation.
Gill sauntered forward sighing. He nodded towards the front door. “I came home, early hours, opened the door and she attacked me.” He smiled again, although this time grief was the cause. “My Mary… can you believe that? Took me a few seconds to understand what must have happened… I told her to stay out of the rain. Told her. But I don’t think she believed me when I said it was dangerous… anyway, the AI got into her somehow, and she came at me. Got me a few times with the kitchen knife before I knocked it out of her hand, but then… Ha… she put me down. She was a fighter! And this time she was playing for keeps… I… anyway. I buried her outback. It’s what she would have wanted.” He then looked at the two glum faces in front of him. “Why are you both here?”
“You don’t know?” said Mike quickly realizing it was a stupid question.
“Don’t know what?”
“The city Gill,” said Hanson. “It’s… the people… they’ve…”
“It looks like the rain got to a lot of people,” said Mike. “It’s put them into some kind of deep coma.”
Shock struck Gill. “Everyone?”
“The streets are empty. It’s hard to say. Some people are not affected, but it looks like it’s just a few. The army have left.”
He nodded. “Yeah… we discovered that shortly after the stunt we played on them last night. They said they were moving out. Leaving the city to us. Then the rain came. I headed back here and…”
“We’re leaving. Heading east. You should come with us.”
Gill bent down and picked up a half burned photo that had fallen from a frame. Only his part remained. He went to talk then stopped, swallowing hard. “You said not everyone is affected?”
“Looks like some aren’t.”
Gill nodded to himself. “If you can evacuate them, then I’ll go with you.”
Hanson took a step forward. “Gill, the city’s full of these… things. People aren’t people anymore. We have to get out while we—”
