Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Ground Zero

A cool rain fell from the sky. The day was overcast, and water pattered against the aluminum roof of the pop-up mobile command center. The air was filled with the sound of warm damp soil, and the air was saturated with the heady scent of mud. Plants hunched quietly under the downpour; their leaves vibrant with the sort of color that only comes with a sudden burst of rain. Two UNSC MPs stood outside in the guard shelter bundled in their windbreakers rifles casually slung over their chests. One of the men wore a reflective yellow belt diagonally across his chest which caught the light even in the dim early morning.

"Radio check.'

"Team 1 perimeter all clear."

"Team 2 perimeter all clear."

"Team 3 garage all clear."

"Team 4 overwatch all clear."

...

"Team five?"

No answer."

"Team five do you copy?"

Still nothing. A long drawn out sigh came over the end of the line as MP team 1 shifted in their shelter, looking up from their implants.

"Dammit, those clowns fall asleep again."

"Probably jacking off somewhere." One of them grumbled

"Or sitting with their thumbs up each other's asses." The other replied.

Inside the command center the overwatch Sargent glanced at her cameras. He didn't see team 5 but there were plenty of blind spots, "Team 1 can you go in there and tell those ass clowns to stop screwing off and get back to work."

"Sure thing boss."

The two men moved from their enclosure and stepped out into the rain. Mud squelched under their boots as they headed leisurely back towards the gate opening. All around them open fields of.... Corn or soemthing stretched from horizon to horizon. The MPs were stationed here from the metropolitan areas and so neither of them knew what was being farmed out here.

Certainly looked tall like corn did in the movies, and they couldn't think of any other plant that looked like that.

So Corn it was

Everyone was aware of how odd it was to have a military compound sitting in the middle of a corn field, but there really was a good explanation. Over two years ago a group of men who worked for this farming mega crop. had come across evidence of void activity, human bone growing up out of the soil that produced a sort of red fog when it got to a certain height.

The men had responded judiciously with deadly violence, and one of the men had blasted it apart with a shotgun.

But still the UNSC had been called and they had intervened. The area had been cordoned off by a serios of pop-up aluminum tunnels and a hastily erected electrified barbed wire perimeter fence. Flood lights scanned the area for anomalies day and night. A series of cameras had been set up inside the central yard where a sort of domed bubble had been erected to contain anymore outbreaks.

So far they had seen nothing.

For the past few years, president Hunt had been talking about dismantling the "void checkpoints" saying the danger was past, but there were still members of the parliament who disagreed with him, and so the void checkpoints continued. The two men hurried through the doors and into the first aluminum hallway. The rain was loud on the roof above, but otherwise the interior was quiet. The two men walked casually down the hallway together before coming to a second pop up mobile unit which acted as the other men's resting station.