The Red Phoenix 12: Strength Comes in Numbers (35 page)

“I don’t believe you,” said Chris in a hard tone.

“Even if you don’t believe me, you still misappropriated federal science lab equipment, Chris,” said Siddoway in a louder voice. “You fell in love with Sanders’ clones and turned them into the wife and the son you lost.”

Chris was silent.

“It makes sense but the fact remains that you committed several felonies in doing so,” said Siddoway. “Do you even know what the initial clones were for?”

“The first one was for the president,” Chris replied. “So what?”

“Ha! Try the president’s administration,” Siddoway yelled. “How is that for power? The government was tuned in to the level of technology of this place and moved on it instantly. And now they will be blaming you for taking that away.”

“Again, more meaningless words, Alex,” Chris stated.

“Chris? Join with me and let’s get out of here, alive,” said Siddoway.

“Why don’t you stick your face out of the elevator so I can finish you off?” asked Chris.

“Listen to yourself, Chris,” said Siddoway. “This isn’t you. But tell me, does that clone who looks like Kerry even know who you’re pretending her to be? Or the others that look like Kirk?”

“They know and they’re proud,” Chris responded.

“All that loyalty to their fearless leader, huh?” asked Siddoway, chuckling again. “What did you do? Teach them how to shoot a gun and throw a grenade?”

“This conversation is over, Alex,” Chris said.

“You’re so naïve, Chris,” said Siddoway. “You have no idea what’s coming, do you?”

“Make it fast!” said Chris.

“They’re coming for us, Chris,” said Siddoway.

“Who?”

“The military,” Siddoway responded. “Who do you think?”

“Good! The quicker, the better,” said Chris. “Then we’ll finally see you get the justice you deser—”

“—No! It’s not good, you idiot,” Siddoway stated. “In this type of catastrophe, the government has only one way to handle such things.”

“Such as?” asked Chris.

“Burn it and bury it,” Siddoway replied.

“I don’t follow,” said Chris.

“Of course not,” said Siddoway. “Take a look around you. It’s most likely deemed a nuclear holocaust, Chris.”

“So?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the strike teams weren’t here already,” said Siddoway.

Chris stayed quiet, thinking about it.

“They’ll start by wiping out anybody still alive in this place who’s falling apart and crumbling,” said Siddoway. “All survivors will be considered
contaminated
. You’ve seen the creatures upstairs, I presume?”

Another rumbling sound was heard above them.

“Well, my clones and I aren’t contaminated,” said Siddoway. “We’ve already killed several of those creature things.”

“It’s not going to matter, Chris,” said Siddoway. “They’re not going to care. The teams, if they’re not here already, will come for three reasons: to quarantine any survivors, deactivate a nuclear arsenal then send in a controlled nuke that will incinerate the rubble and weeds around this place until it’s nothing but a big hole in the ground.”

“And we have you to thank for that, don’t we?” asked Chris.

“It is what it is, Chris, but these are the facts,” Siddoway answered. “So, we can sit here, bicker and argue like fools or we can join together and figure out a way to get out of here in one piece.”

“Where’s the nuclear arsenal?” asked Chris.

“There’s obviously so much you don’t know, Chris,” said Siddoway. “It’s going to cost you everything. The arsenal is on level minus seventy-nine. It’s been there since the Phoenix opened as top secret. Only a few of us even knew about it.”

Chris lowered his barrel a tad, mulling over what Siddoway said. Kirk One noticed Siddoway scoot out of the elevator a little, standing just around the corner of the door opening. He had a shot and fired!

“Got him!” said Kirk One, hitting Siddoway across his body armor, breaking his XD into two pieces.

Siddoway screamed, falling back into the elevator. The doors closed.

“What was that?” asked Chris, shocked at One’s boldness.

“I acquired a target of the enemy and took the opportunity,” Kirk One answered. “Did I err?”

Chris and the others moved into the vestibule. Chris stared at Siddoway’s elevator, wondering if he was telling the truth.

“Did I make a mistake, Chris?” asked Kirk One.

“Huh? Uh, no, you did fine,” Chris answered. “We probably couldn’t have trusted him anyway. He’s a conniving, manipulative person.”

“Something is bothering you, Chris,” said Kerry. “What is it?”

“I’m just hoping he wasn’t telling the truth,” Chris answered.

***

Siddoway lay on the elevator floor, gripping his wounded arm that was bleeding. He tried to lift his head and move but stopped by the cramping across his chest. He clenched his teeth, unstrapping the Velcro on the sides of his body armor, taking it off.

“Ah! Oh, damn that hurt,” he yelled, going into a fetal position.

He lay on his back again, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling as the elevator ascended then closing his eyes.

CHAPTER TEN
QUARANTINE

Braddock, wearing a gas mask with night vision goggles, leaped down through a hole to a dark lower level of layers of concrete with rebar, piping and jagged strips of metal protruding from the sides.  He scanned around the layers of rubble with his tactical assault rifle with light and laser siding, seeing nothing threatening over the piles of broken sheetrock, shattered glass, and sparking wires hanging from the ceiling.

He took out a metallic ball from one of his pockets and underhand-tossed it into the air. The ball opened, shining a red light, flying slowly around the premises, making a buzzing sound. The ball stopped in mid-air, projected a thin, red wave that scanned a full three-hundred-sixty degree circle. Braddock held up a small device with an LCD screen in his palm. A small, robotic voice came from the device, saying,
No-life-forms-detected
. He pushed a tiny button on the device, making the flying ball return to him. It flew around the pieces of cement, broken walls, rebar and broken pipes, until it landed in his palm.

“Move in, company,” said Braddock, moving forward as he climbed over a ventilation system that was torn apart, lying on the floor.

Osborne and the others came down through the hole and followed Braddock, wearing gas masks and night vision, turning on the lights on their weapons. The sounds of sheetrock and glass crunched under their boots as they made their way through.

“What floor are we on, Commander?” asked Osborne.

“This should be level minus two,” Braddock answered, his voice muffled from his gas mask, lifting his night vision goggles. “I see a light up ahead through the cracked wall. Everyone, stand back. Grenade going hot.”

“Grenade live!” Osborne hollered to the soldiers behind them, causing them to halt.

Braddock fired a grenade from his assault rifle. It struck the cracked wall, blowing a hole as clouds of dust and pieces of sheetrock blasted into the corridor on level minus two, making another mess on the once pristine floor. He and Osborne came through the dust-filled hole carefully that was large enough to fit the men through with their weapons easily. They scanned the corridor, searching the wide hallway for threats.

“I want four at the far end of this corridor,” Braddock ordered. “The rest come this way.”

“Sanchez?” asked Osborne.

“Yes sir.”

“You, Finley, Benson and McGee guard the opposite end of the hall,” said Osborne. “We don’t want any surprises. Clear?”

“Right away, LT,” Sanchez replied, dashing off with the others to set up their posts.

Braddock led the rest to the other end of the corridor that opened on to an octagon-shaped shaft with guard railing around each side. It resembled a multi-level shopping mall with plants in vases against the railing and polished floors. The green mist had dissipated.

They glanced over the railing, noticing another waterfall pond display at the bottom on level minus seven.

“Looks like it goes down about five levels, Commander,” said Osborne. “Sure you don’t want to take the stairs?”

“We go down from here,” said Braddock.

***

Braddock and his men repelled from the railing to level minus seven, still hearing nothing but the gentle sounds of the waterfall display pouring into the pond. Braddock looked around through his gas mask, gripping his weapon.

“Doesn’t look like anybody is here,” said Osborne. “Do you think everybody went to the lower levels?”

“Stay alert, Lieutenant,” Braddock responded, pacing the floor.

Suddenly, the sounds of running footsteps were heard coming up another corridor near the waterfall display, becoming louder. Braddock and his men aimed their weapons, waiting for whatever it was to arrive.

“At the ready, men,” said Braddock. “Remember, whatever comes around the corner dies.”

A group of ten employees of men and women hurried around the corner.

“Wait! Help us! Help us!” cried a male employee, wearing a lab coat and glasses.

“Oh thank God, somebody is here!” cried a woman, scared to death.

“They’ve taken the place the over! We got to get out of here!” said another male.

Braddock and his men opened fire with their machine guns, filling the frightened employees’ chests, thighs, and shoulders with holes as the room clouded with gun smoke. The employees cried out but were silenced quickly as their bloodied bodies heaped up on the floor.

The room returned to a cold silence.

“It looks like that’s it, Commander,” Osborne reported, checking the corridor for more persons.

Braddock checked their faces, holding his device with Michaels’ and Siddoway’s faces on the screen.

“Did we acquire the targets?” asked Osborne.

“Negative,” Braddock answered as he and his guys walked over the bodies of the dead employees like they were nothing more than animals with rabies that had to be put down.

Another man and woman came running out of an office near the scene.

“Look, it’s soldiers!” said the male employee. “We heard the gun shots! We’re saved!”

The female screamed, noticing the dead employees on the floor.

“Oh my God!” said the male, seeing his dead co-workers, looking at Braddock like he was the Grim Reaper.

The soldiers aimed their weapons at them.

“Run! Run! Go!” said the male employee as he and the woman sprinted down the corridor to get away, screaming for their lives.

Braddock hurried to the end of the corridor and opened fire at them too. His spraying bullets spotted up their backs with bleeding holes, dropping them to the floor.

“That’s twelve fatalities, so far,” stated Osborne, walking up behind him.

“Casualties of a necessary war,” Braddock added in a militant voice.

“Only seventy floors to go, Commander,” said Osborne in a calm voice, coming up behind him.

“What’s the status of the elevators?” asked Braddock, taking out a device.

“They’re effed up beyond reason,” said Osborne.

“We’re talking serious F.U.B.A.R. lieutenant,” Ashment added. “The cables on some of them have even snapped.”

“We could take the stairs,” Osborne suggested.

“Too risky, hostiles could surround us above and below,” Braddock replied.

“What do you think?” asked Osborne.

“If the elevators aren’t functioning, the subway transit system will have to do,” Braddock responded, checking a map on his digital device.

“Which way is it, boss?” asked Osborne.

“It appears to be in the northwest wing on this level,” Braddock answered.

“That shouldn’t take too long to get there,” said Osborne.

“Quickly! We don’t have much time!” said Braddock in a stern tone, jogging down the corridor.

“Company, move!” Osborne ordered, leading the men down the corridor, jogging, passing the dead man and woman on the floor.

***

Siddoway lay unconscious on the elevator floor over a small pool of blood. His elevator came to a stop at the main lobby and opened. A pile of broken concrete, sheetrock and rubble appeared in the doorway, blocking the entire exit. Some small pieces of wood chips and dirt slid off, hitting Siddoway on the chest.

“What!” he said, awakening, sitting up quickly like he just had a nightmare, panting.

He wiped the wood chips and dirt from him. The thoughts of all the destruction that had come to the Red Phoenix and the people therein began to faze him. He staggered, standing himself up, thinking about how his selfish ambition of selling the bomb to Ahkmed led to such an unimaginable disaster. He bent over like he was in pain.

“Where the hell am I?” he muttered, rubbing his forehead, pushing the
door open
button. “Main lobby?”

He pulled the smaller pieces of cement, asphalt, wood chips, and broken tile from the top of the elevator door, causing a beam of light to shine through the layers of piled up wreckage.

“A way out!” he said, pulling more bricks, dirt and pieces of rubble out of the way, making a hole large enough to fit one arm and part of his face through.

He tried to push the top layers of asphalt and concrete that lay across the top of the elevator but they were too heavy.

“Oh, c’mon!” he said, pushing with all his might, causing a broken strip of cement to move slowly.

Siddoway fell back to the elevator floor, catching his breath.

“Dammit,” he mumbled.

He climbed up into the layers of ruins again, scratching the side of his face on jagged edges of metal strips.

“Ah!” he cried, getting cut, clenching his teeth, pushing as hard as he could against the bottoms of the crossed pieces of rubble that prevented him from his freedom.

The piece of cement moved over enough for him to fit through.

“Oh thank God!” he said, climbing out of the layers of cement and tarmac, using rebar to help him up.

Siddoway stood, turning around, baffled as he beheld the leveled, massive buildings once known as the Red Phoenix complex that was now nothing more than several enormous mountains of rubble a hundred yards in every direction. His attention was grasped by the strange tall, dark trees with swirling, thorny branches reaching at least thirty-feet high, that had grown over the boundaries of the rubble and prevented him from seeing any further.

“What the—” he said, gazing in all directions. “Where did all the trees come from?”

He climbed to a higher level of the wreckage, still not able to see past the new murky forest that encircled the entire premises.

“It can’t be,” he said. “The explosion. It mutated everything in its wake for miles, including the damn weeds and desert brush.”

Three fighter jets flew low over the area, making a thundering noise and a wind that caused Siddoway to stagger, losing his balance as billows of dust were kicked up, blinding him.

“Whoa!” he said, falling down on broken chunks of concrete, coughing.

The silence returned. He rubbed the dirt out of his eyes and climbed down the hillside of cement, broken glass, piping and sheetrock, to make his way up another slope of wreckage, heading towards the shadowy branches that blocked any chance of escape. He climbed over more hills of the destroyed building for what seemed like hours, avoiding sharp pieces of metal, jagged concrete, piping and rebar.

He reached the edge of the dark trees, entering slowly like it was a forbidden forest.  He moved a thorny branch out of his way then crawled under more swirly branches with razor-like thorns until he came to a clearing.

“Absolutely incredible,” he said in a soft voice, standing, looking around, and hearing strange noises that sounded like abnormal animals, as though he was in a jungle on an alien planet.

“I simply had the power of evolution in the palm of my hand, literally,” he added, looking through the trees, vines, and plants.