The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1) (35 page)

Wayne spoke for the first time since they met Bartholomew. “Forgive
me if this is offensive to you, Bart, but I thought the Mutes were stu... er,
not as intelligent as regular people.”

Bart laughed, which was fortunate because after asking his
question, Wayne looked like he was going to collapse from anxiety, and Bart’s
comforting laugh seemed to set him at ease. “Overall, the Evolved have a lower
capacity for intelligence, this is true. However, what that really means is
that while some of us are pretty stupid, a few of us are quite intelligent. Chances
are we will never have any scientists that will be extreme geniuses, but we do
have scientists, doctors, politicians, engineers, and other people in our clan
who are rather intelligent. I was never much of a political type myself, more
of an engineer actually. I have never had access to the information that your
communities have, but I have learned quite a bit from what I have scavenged and
from what we traded with Cali. Plus, it is amazing what you can learn when the
people you deal with think you are stupid.”

Wayne nodded, satisfied with the answer, and probably not
very comfortable with the thought of asking another one.

Anton pulled the conversation back on track. “So you
overheard them planning to attack us at the old factory building? How did they
know we would be there?”

“It was luck really. I normally don’t listen to them during
the day, as they are usually out hunting or sometimes even moving the camp, so
I listen at night and sometimes review the recordings from the day, if there
are any. It so happened that I was out hunting the previous day and had caught
myself a very nice deer, and was busy butchering it yesterday morning. I turned
on the radio to see if anything was going on while I worked, and a call came in
from Cali. They said there would be a New Hope group at that factory in about
an hour, and they would pay very well for anyone captured. Farnak sent one of
his most loyal generals, along with fifty men to capture you. I figured that
you must be important, so it would probably be a good thing if I foiled their
plan. Turns out I didn’t need to do much. Our weapons are not nearly the
quality as yours and obviously are not very effective against your armor. Farnak
made a huge mistake, and I intend to make sure it is a devastating blow to
him.”

Anton had gone pale, but Wendy was still trying to make
sense of what Bart had told them.
How did Cali know where they would be?
It
only took a moment before she realized, and she felt the blood drain from her
face as well. She looked at Anton and said, “Holy shit, do you know what this
means?”

Anton simply nodded, still too stunned to talk.

“Ah, looks like this is your turn.” Bart was gesturing, and
Wendy looked ahead of them. The remnants of the interstate were a dozen yards
from them. The tree line had grown right to the edge of the road bed, but only
brush and grass was growing through the old asphalt. A path was all that was
left, but it was clear in both directions, unlike the tree-strewn path they had
followed through the mountains to get here. To the left there was a pile of
brick and concrete, maybe a hundred yards down the path.

“Is that the ruins of West Yellowstone?” She directed the
question at Anton, but Bart answered.

“Yes, but there is nothing there worth looking at. Just some
piles of rusted metal and stone. A couple buildings still stand, but another
hundred years will claim those as well, and soon there will not be anything
left to show it even existed.”

They turned right and started walking down the path. Anton
pulled out his PDP and hit a button. “Rescue party, this is Salvage Crew Three,
do you copy?” A thread of adrenaline went through Wendy as she waited for a
response. After a minute, Anton repeated the call. There was no answer, and the
adrenaline faded from her blood, leaving her weak and hungry.

“Think they are out there?” It was Greg who asked.

Anton nodded. “I think we just need to get a little further
south. Let’s move out.”

Chuck dropped the transport down through the light cloud
cover and started descending toward the landing site. He was keeping a careful
eye on the trees down below, wary of any surface to air missiles. The rockets
that Jack had described were very low tech, but dangerous nevertheless. They
don’t have the explosive force required to completely destroy a medium
transport, but it had been determined from the wreckage that the rocket had
struck the transport at a critical point and caused the six air to air missiles
in the bay below the cargo hold to explode. There was no telling if the Mutes
who had attacked the salvage crew were still around, so he was playing it safe.

This morning he had been wandering the halls, bored out of
his mind. Teague told him he needed to rest for another day, but it was
bullshit; he needed to do something. The news Jack had given him the day before
was weighing heavily on his mind, and he knew if he didn’t stay occupied he
might do something he would regret.

“Goddamn Council” he muttered to himself. Those guys were so
out of touch with reality after two hundred years of planning the “future of
humanity”, it just made him sick. New Hope needed some new leaders. Chuck was
never a leader; he’d always had issues with authority. As long as he thought it
was the right thing to do, he would follow his orders without fail, but he had
wound up in a cell on more than one occasion for failing to follow orders. Usually
it was when some bullshit officer was trying to gain some glory at the expense
of his men, but in the end nobody cared what the reason was, it was just a case
of an enlisted man not following the orders of an officer. He had never met an
officer he liked, at least until now.

Jack was different. Even though he had really not spent much
time with the man, he was confident that Jack would never issue an order he
wouldn’t be willing to do himself. That meant a lot to Chuck, and despite the
fact that Jack had saved his life already, he would follow the man into Hell
itself. If there was someone well suited to run New Hope, it was Jack.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind and focused on the
task at hand. It was mid-afternoon, and earlier the rescue crew had not seen or
heard anything from the survivors. Chuck knew that the odds were not good for
them to find anyone. He still had hope, but it was quickly fading. This would
be the last search party of the day, and he intended to stay out until dark.

He piloted the transport to about four hundred feet off the
ground, then proceeded due east, first along the river, heading toward what
used to be Yellowstone National Park. There were five men with him, and three
were at the windows, scanning the ground below for any sign of anything. One of
the men was watching his instruments, looking for a sign of technology, and the
last was navigating. The navigator looked at the map on his datapad and said,
“The hot zone is due north of us. We know they went northwest from the landing
site, but they might have looped around the north side of the hot zone and into
the mountains. We have covered everything for fifty miles to the north and west
of the site, and it is unlikely they swam the river, so this is the last place
we haven’t looked.”

Chuck just nodded. He had reviewed the search maps before
setting out, and knew all this information already. He also knew Anton pretty
well. If the man was still alive, there was a good chance that they were all in
the mountains near the border by now, if not further east and north. He veered
just a little toward the north, and moved along at a steady pace.

Ten miles later he banked north, then west again, starting
his first zig zag over the area. It was going to be a long afternoon.

* * *

Jack spent the majority of the day just checking on everyone’s
progress, and making sure they all had what they needed. The engineering crew
had started manufacturing the pumps for the cooling system. Four members of the
maintenance crew were constructing the entry doors for the cold rooms, and the
rest of the crew was at the flight deck sorting out the insulation that the
morning salvage crew had brought back. Tiny and his team had worked out most of
the details, and were now waiting on a bulldozer to get the timing down. The
key to the whole operation was the dozer itself, and everyone knew it. Most of
his time was spent working with Teague and Thomas, finalizing the details for
the mission to Saber Cusp.

The crew was ready to go, but Jack had been holding them
back. He wanted to go over every detail one more time. The truth was, he was
waiting on news from the rescue teams, and didn’t want to put more people in
harm’s way until he knew the fate of the four people still out there. He hadn’t
exactly lost his nerve, but he was definitely rattled.

“Jack, listen, we need to get this operation going. The team
is ready to go. They’ve been briefed, they know the risk, and they know how
important it all is. There is no reason to keep this on hold any longer.” Thomas
was doing his best to convince Jack to ease up and let it happen. He was a good
kid, very smart, very dedicated, and from what little Jack had seen so far, a
good officer. He hadn’t missed anything, and had done a fantastic job briefing
his crew.

Something was nagging at him, but he couldn’t put his finger
on it. The problem was, he wasn’t sure if the nagging feeling had something to
do with this mission, or if it stemmed from the other issues he was dealing
with. Either way, he wanted to review the operation once more.

“Okay, how many men are you going in with?” Originally they
were going to go in with a small group of six men, punch through the Mute
neighborhood, then move in and disable the ground to air missile defense
system. After Jack’s fight with the Mutes the previous day, he decided they
needed more men.

“Our new group consists of fifteen men. Ten soldiers, one
mechanic, one computer expert, the pilot, myself, and one other officer.”

Jack liked the idea of two officers in the group, in case
something happened to one. The other officer was Red, the one he had dressed
down the day before. Since he’d put him in line, the man was proving to be a
valuable asset. When Jack decided they needed more men on this mission, Red had
volunteered. He and his team were idle until they had a bulldozer anyway, and
his men were seasoned fighters.

Thomas continued with the review, not needing to be
prompted. “We have two fire teams. The computer guy will go with us, and the
mechanic will stay with the transport. Red’s team will hit the Mutes here,” he
pointed to a location on the three dimensional map, “and the distraction should
allow us to punch through here in the south without much resistance. If we go
quick and quiet, we can skip right past them, disable the defense system here,”
he pointed at another location to the southeast of the first, “and then come
back to here and hit the Mutes from behind. We will put them between a rock and
a hard place, and if they don’t retreat, we will crush them.”

Jack nodded. It was a good plan. The central computer for
the air defense system is in a building about a half mile to the west of the
Mute camp. The area is guarded by some auto-firing turrets and other nasty
surprises, so the Mutes avoid the area. They got that information from Marcus,
who happened to be responsible for putting the systems in place, and who also
still has the key to shutting those turrets down. The computer tech should be
able to hack into the building and gain access to the defense system. Once the
network is down, the transport can fly in from the east, avoiding the Mute
camp, and with the help of the mechanic, load up the transport with the booty. From
there it’s up to the two fire teams to get to the rendezvous points and catch a
ride home.

Jack couldn’t see anything he could do better. The firepower
and armor the teams will be packing will easily overwhelm the Mutes. If they
work together as a team, and keep moving, they shouldn’t have any problems. Of
course, the best plans are only good until the first shot is fired. At that
point, it’s anyone’s game.

“When are you leaving?”

Thomas looked at his watch. “We want to hit them after dark,
so we will leave in three hours.”

“Let’s get this party started.” Jack turned to leave the
room, stopped, turned back to Thomas, and said, “Good luck, Thomas, try to come
back in one piece.” The man smiled and shot him a quick salute.

* * *

They’d walked almost three miles down the path that was once
a highway. Not much had been said along the way, mostly just idle chitchat. Anton
appeared lost in thought, probably thinking about the information Bart had
given them a couple hours earlier. Wayne and Gregory didn’t look comfortable
around Bart, and they were giving him a pretty wide berth. That left Wendy to
keep him company.

“So tell me Wendy, you never answered my question earlier. You
told me you have been in New Hope for four months, yet you are not pregnant. Why
is that?”

This was not a subject she wanted to discuss with anyone,
especially not a four hundred pound mutated man. “I don’t know, I guess I just
didn’t like any of the men I met.”

This brought on another burst of deep laughter from Bart. “Are
you telling me that humanity is on the verge of extinction, and you couldn’t
find a man you liked? Hahahaha!” He obviously found this amusing. “Wendy, you
are an interesting woman. I think I like you.”

“Thanks, Bart. I think I like you too, but don’t get any
ideas.” They both laughed. Wendy liked his easy sense of humor. It was
unfortunate that his race was considered the enemy by her own. In the past few
hours, she had grown fond of his company, but she was sure it had a lot to do
with the sense of security his very presence gave her. It was a misplaced
feeling, she knew, as one well-placed bullet could end either of them before
they ever heard a shot, but nevertheless it felt good knowing that the biggest
man she had ever seen had been protecting her and the others while they
traveled.

The sun was getting low on the horizon, and daylight would
only last another hour or so. Wendy had just started thinking about a campsite
when the PDP on Anton’s wrist beeped. He quickly looked at it and pressed a
button. “Rescue team, this is Salvage Three, do you copy?”

There was a moment’s silence, and in that time, Wendy felt
adrenaline course through her body. The silence was followed by some broken chatter.
“Salv--- is Re---- ates.” The communicator was digital, so when there was poor
signal or interference, you only got the stuff that came through okay, not the
static that didn’t.

“Come again, rescue team, I can barely read you. This is
Salvage Three, copy?”

This time it came in more clearly. “Salvage Three, this is
Rescue Two, can you give us some coordinates?” Anton pressed some buttons,
transmitting his coordinates. The PDP communications were secure, so there was
no question it was a New Hope rescue team they were dealing with.

“Salvage Three, I got you on the map and will be there in
approximately six minutes.”

“Be advised, Rescue Two, we have a friend with us, and he is
big. Do not, I repeat, do not fire on him, he is friendly. Do you copy?”

There was a hesitation before the response. “Anton, did I
read you right? You have a Mute with you and he is friendly?” This time it was
Chuck and Wendy almost cried when she heard his voice. She realized now that
she had almost given up hope of a rescue any time soon, and was very happy she
didn’t have to walk all the way home.

“You copied that fine, Chuck, please don’t shoot at him. See
you in a few minutes.”

Bartholomew cleared his throat and everyone around him
turned to see what he had to say. “I suppose this is the end of the road for
us. I will be heading back to my home after you are on board your transport. I
hope my information was helpful to you.”

Wendy hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that he
wouldn’t want to come with them. She assumed that he was in it for the long
haul. “Bart, you are perfectly welcome to go back to New Hope with us.”

Bart shook his head. “I appreciate that, Wendy, but aside
from the low ceilings, there are other dangers there that I would not be
comfortable with. You obviously have someone in your community who has a
different agenda than the rest of you, and once that information is made
public, I would just be a very large target. I would like to keep in touch with
you, but I am afraid that the equipment I have is not secure. Cali could listen
in on anything I transmit, and worse, could find me very easily if I did.”

Wendy thought about it for a moment. She lifted her PDP and
punched a couple buttons. “Chuck, this is Wendy, any chance you have an extra
laser transmitter on board?”

* * *

Jack was heading to the medical level to get some dinner. He
figured the night would be busy, and there probably wouldn’t be time to get
some food once the mission started. He also wanted a little alone time, and
figured the medical level would be more or less unoccupied. As he walked off
the elevator, his datapad beeped.

Chin’s haggard looking face was on the screen. He had just
reported in an hour before, which meant that this call was probably news about
the search party. He hesitated, steeling himself for bad news before pressing
the button to answer. “Hey Chin. The second rescue team get back yet?”

“No, but they just called in.” He paused for a moment,
creating a little tension, but before Jack could react he put a big smile on his
face, which was kind of creepy given the big scar, deformed jaw, and bedraggled
appearance from two days of sitting at the control center. “They found the
salvage group. All four of them. Everyone is okay.”