Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 7

Site Kilo-29-Civil Defense Area
United States of America
Winter, 1993
Day Two-Morning

I could feel someone near me and my eyes popped open, one hand reaching out to sweep them away, the other grabbing the knife from the rucksack next to me. One of the meatheads squawked as I threw him hard against the railing. I was growling as I came up to a sitting position, everything blurry around me.

...never swing until you can verify your target, son...

"Sergeant Ant!" Donaldson said, falling against the side of the Humvee bed.

"Don't fucking touch me." I snapped at him, reaching around blindly.

"I've got your glasses." He said, and I held my hands out. "I didn't want you to roll onto them." He told me.

I was wide awake, my nerves thrumming and my head clear. Donaldson put my glasses in my hand and I put them on, the motorpool swimming into focus.

"What are you doing over here?" I asked, looking around. The motorpool was completely silent.

"The Major had all of us bed down, I'm on guard." He said.

I reached out and grabbed a bottle of water, cracking it open and guzzling down half of it. Damn meds gave me dry mouth.

"You cry in your sleep." he told me.

"Yeah, I've been told that." I answered, standing up and stretching. "How long was I out?"

"About 3 maybe 4 hours." He told me.

Already I could feel the strength returning, my head had cleared up, and it was silent in my head for the first time in two days. I felt a flush of guilt, knowing that Heather would be disappointed in me for not taking my medication when I was supposed to.

"Me and the other guys, we were wondering." He paused for a moment. "Can you really get us out of here?"

I looked at the motor pool, almost completely black as the majority of lights had shut off. I guessed that they had probably been on some kind of timer, and when whatever system was watching over the motorpool had sensed that none of the doors had been opened in over an hour, they'd shut the lights off.

"I'm not sure, kid." I admitted. "I want to check a few things first." I looked at him. Young, short blond hair, pretty much Generic Soldier that it starts to seem like fills the lower ranks some days. "How well do you know the other guys?"

"I've been working with them for about three months." He told me. I nodded and scrubbed my face for a minute.

"Wake your relief, get someone you trust who isn't a goddamn spaz, and meet me back over here." I told him. I lifted my arm and glared at the field dressing on it. "I've had enough sleep, let's see what the fuck is going on in this place open."

"Yes, Sergeant." He said, then went to turn away.

"Tell them to put on full battle rattle with NVG's, but come back here while they're dressing, I what you opinion on what you saw." I told him. He nodded and jogged off.

Everything was fuzzy since I'd driven through Ohio, I could remember that I'd had problems with the Major, but couldn't remember why. I'd probably started acting like a nut again, or at least extremely erratic.

I'd have to apologize to him now that I wasn't getting screamed at constantly by people who weren't actually near me.

The water was tepid, but I still used it to wash down my morning meds before I got dressed quickly, throwing on my Kevlar vest under my LBE and gear. Where I'd been bitten was puffy and red, but didn't look any worse than any other time I'd been bitten by something. Knives in both boots, two on my LBE, one down my back, one at the small of my back. I pulled out the ammo box and opened it, running my finger over the foam pad before shutting it again.

Just in time for Donaldson and some meathead.

"Sergeant Ant, this is PFC Kincaid." Donaldson told me.

Shit, now another meathead had a fucking name.

He was the one who would probably get me killed this time. Fucking little lost lambs.

"Donaldson said you want to try to open the doors." the meathead said.

I shook my head. "No, before I open this place I want to know what the hell is going in here." I looked around, then back at the two men.

God, they were so young looking.

"The Air Force team got here, they parked over there." I pointed off into the darkness. "I want to find out if the engineers got here, and I want to figure out why someone erased the goddamn computers in the Civil Defense C&C."

I turned back into the back of my Humbee and pulled out a dufflebag.

"Something bad went down here, gentlemen, and I need to find out what so I can make my report." I lied, undoing the clip of the dufflebag and opening it. Both of the privates stared as I pulled out two M-16A2's, then handed each of them one before closing the dufflebag up I had hidden in it. I pulled another ammo can over, opened it, and took out a brass padlock with a key in it, then locked the dufflebag.

"Are we going to need these?" Donaldson asked me as I pulled over a wooden box that had formerly held 2 APDSFSDU-T's.

"With luck, no." I told them, and opened the box to reveal carefully stacked 30 round magazines. "Fill your ammo pouches, put one in the well, put another one somewhere else." I told them. While they followed my instructions I grabbed the two duffelbags, the CD codebook, and the ARMILCOM book.

"Sergeant, are we going to need this?" the new meathead asked me.

"With luck, no." I repeated, standing up and shrugging into my rucksack.

"What is all that stuff?" New Meathead asked, looking at the other wooden boxes, ammo cans, and dufflebags.

"None of your business." I told him, standing up and closing the tailgate. I bounced the camera in my hand. "One thing. Donaldson already learned this, I need you to learn it." I faced New Meathead directly. "Do what I say. Don't hesitate when I tell you to do something. Your life, and mine, might depend on it."

The Meathead nodded, licking his lips and I nodded. "Look, something attacked me and Donaldson, and it might come back."

"What was it?" He asked as I flicked on my flashlight and started heading back to where the Air Force sedan was.

"I think it was a sick cougar." I lied.

...liar...

shut up, Nancy

"Why do you wear an eyepatch and glasses both?" NM asked me.

"So I can see out of my one good eye." I told him, panning my light over the cars.

Most of them were 1950's and 1960's vehicles. Solid Detroit steel, none of them with government markings. The liscense plates were a large sample of the main 48 states. I passed by makes and models of all colors, from cars with fins to the pickups I'd grown up with.

"Where did all these cars come from?" NM asked.

"Detroit." I grunted, suppressing a grin. When neither of them caught the reference I sighed.

"What the hell is this place for?" NM asked, and I grunted. "Seriously, why did they even build this place?"

"Fight and win on the nuclear battlefield." I admitted, slowing down as the car finally came into the light of my flashlight.

...watch it, it'll cut out any second...

...that place is years behind us, Bomber...

I pulled my pills out of my pocket and shook one into my mouth while New Meathead kept babbling.

"You can't win a nuclear war." He told me, with all the sincerity of an idiot.

"Wait here." I told them, carefully looking at the ground as I moved up the car. No blood on the cement, no broken glass, no scrapes or cracks in the cement, no spent brass.

"Look at all the taxpayer's money they wasted on this bullshit?" NM said, waving his hands at all the vehicles. "Hell, these things all cost like 3 years pay, and there's dozens of them."

"Try over a hundred." I said, moving around the car, making sure to stay back from the car.

"Why would they put these cars in here?" NM asked.

"This place is EMP shielded, we're looking at hundreds of feet of rock and God only knows what kind of shielding they built into the place." I told him, staring at the car. "There's probably fuel dumps and the mechanic's bay in the military section." I lifted the camera and started snapping pictures.

"Why in the civilian area?" Donaldson asked, watching me snap photos.

"Control. You control the fuel, the repairs, you can decide when excursion teams can leave and when they can't." I said, leaning forward and looking in the windows. Nothing, bare vinyl seats. "The cars probably have fuel tanks, and there's probably a switching system to allow the vehicles to be fueled in here, but the main tank access is probably in the military motor pool."

"It isn't like they could leave for like 10,000 years, Sergeant." NM sneered.

Unlike the day before I didn't have the sudden urge to kill him for being such a dumb ass. I didn't feel like explaining radiation half-life or exactly what kind of radiation was created by the detonation of a nuclear weapon.

"Let's go." I told them, stepping back from the car after checking the doors. Locked.

"Where are we going?" Donaldson and Dumbshit asked at the same time.

"Military section." I told them, heading off into the darkness. I could hear them following me, with Dumbass still babbling about how this was nothing but bullshit, that nothing could survive a nuclear war, that these places were a waste of time.

...people like him made it so we didn't have jobs after the Cold War, Ant, you should kill him...

...hush, Taggart, it won't bring back our jobs...

My meds were working and she took her Midwest accent with her when she left. The back of my skull, on a weird flat spot, throbbing sharply.

I stopped at the thick heavy door that led to the decon showers. I turned to the two privates and put on my game face. "OK, soldiers, we're going to cut through the decon showers if possible and into Civil Defense emergency medical. If there isn't access through the showers, then there should be access through the primary reception room."

Donaldson's face was pale in my flashlight. "You saw it, you saw how fast it moves, make sure your lines of fire are clear, but don't hesitate to shoot if you have a clear shot." Donaldson nodded, and I turned to Dipshit. "Be careful with that weapon." He nodded, but I could see in his eyes that he didn't take it too seriously.

"Donaldson, you're behind me, What's your fuck, you're pulling drag." I said, opening the access door. Dipshit said his name, I guess, but I couldn't hear it.

Mainly because I wasn't listening.

When the door opened up to the locker room, I'd replaced my softcap with my helmet, my NVG's were already on and I had a knife in my hand. Two knives look good in movies, but I'd always preferred one. The Gerber's weight was comfortable in my hand, the thin calfskin I'd wound around the hilt as comfortable as it was stained.

"Stay sharp." I said softly.

The room smelled of rotting meat and blood, and rather than go straight between the eight rows of lockers and expose myself to three avenues of attack on each side, I skirted toward the side we'd already gone toward, ignoring the door that led to the egg, and headed toward the far wall.

I kept watching the rows between the lockers, the tops of the lockers, and the ceiling. I tried to listen but goddamn Dipshit McGee was a mouth breather and was panting. It irritated me but it wasn't that big of a deal, I should be able to tell the difference between something bouncing on the top of the lockers and Dipshit the Mouth Breather.

We moved up to the decon shower and I stared at the door. There were deep scratches across the pain, and someone had painted on top of the scratches, obliterating the words. I pointed at Dipshit, then at my NVG's, then at the locker room. He nodded, and I moved over to the heavy switch and motioned for Donaldson to take the other side of the door.

When I threw the lever the door began to slowly raise. Mist poured out from underneath, reeking of rotting meat. Dipshit began to cough and swear.

"Shut the fuck up, Kay." Donaldson hissed. Great, the goddamn meat-head a fucking nickname and now I knew it. I. Don't. Care.

The door raised all the way up and I could smell hot water, rotting meat, and rust.

"We going through that, Sergeant Ant?" Donaldson asked. I could see that he had on his NVG's.

"I'll lead the way, you two follow." I told him. Donaldson nodded, Dipshit did too. I made a fist and shook it, putting out first one finger.

Then two.

On three I swung low, moving in the door, trying to see through the steam, breathing in the stench of rotting meat, blood, and rusting iron as little as I could.

I could tell by the layout it was a 1950's group shower. Probably 2 banks of showers on the inside, creating 3 rows total, split down the middle. With 10 shower cubicles per side per section, it meant 120 showers total, each other them with a nice 6x6 shower.

You could even decon people if they were unconscious. You could process hundreds, thousands, in the space of hours.

The largest I'd ever seen before a shower decon room with twenty-four total.

I moved quickly across the shower, my boots thudding and crunching on the wet steel grate that made up the floor. I could hear them following me as we moved through the steam and the stench. Twenty-five paces moved me across the room, roughly 75 feet, matching up with the map I was building in my head. I glanced left as we were moving through the room and I saw a door in the middle of the wall, lining up pretty much with the egg.

I threw myself flat on the wall, watching the other two hit the opposite side of the door. I counted to three with my fingers again and hit the lever. The door made clicking sounds for a second, weirdly muted with the hissing of the showers, then slowly started to raise.

As soon as it was up high enough I crouched down and spotted another door roughly ten feet away.

...how far it needed for 2 men carrying a stretcher...

The three of us moved quickly into the "airlock" and Donaldson threw the locking bar. Dipshit started to turn around and face the other door and Donaldson stopped him as the clattering of mismatched or stripped gears sounded..

"It isn't over till you're sitting in the E-Club drinking whiskey with two fingers in a redhead." Donaldson told him, jerking his head at the still open door and bringing the rifle up to his shoulder even though it was closing. I hid a grin.

"Open the other door!" Dipshit yelled.

"It's an airlock, while one is open the other can't be." I told him, watching the door drop in slow motion.

Something moved in the steam.

There were three loud clunks, the door shuddered, then began to move downward smoothly.

Another something moved in the mist.

The door crunched into the frame and I threw the other lever, tightening my grip on my knife.

The door didn't start clanking, but instead raised smoothly. I put my fingertips against the wall and took note of the lack of vibrations. As soon as it raised out of the six inch deep well, a sliver of bright yellow light filled the air-lock. Cursing, I turned off my NVG's and flipped them up. The door lifted up far enough and I crouched a little further to see under it.

"Holy shit." I breathed as the med-bay came into sight. Donaldson let out a soft "fuck!" and Dipshit screamed.

It wasn't a medbay, it was an abattoir.