Black Tide Rising - eARC (24 page)

Sarah was staring. “But they loaded Joey in the truck. Where are they taking him?”

Colleen hugged her.

“Better not to overthink it. Let me hold you.”

“But…”

Colleen stroked Sarah’s hair. “It’s okay. Things are pretty normal.”

* * *

A few weeks after the bakery on her street closed, Colleen was leading her snatch team on a routine patrol on the Upper East side. MetBank’s regional board had elected to add a third BERT. Each of the existing teams had to give up one person in order to ensure some continuity of experience for the new group. Colleen had not been sorry to second Larry to the new team—he had a shot at the lead role there, and wouldn’t be aggravating her. She had been been training up Erich, the newbie, a transfer from the executive protection detail. Many of the executives had decided that working remotely from their estates on Long Island a few days a week beat driving in, freeing up trained drivers. Erich was competent behind the wheel, though the inertia of the big truck still tended to surprise the driver who had spent the last year in a S600.

Around the City, conditions had become even more tense, though Colleen couldn’t put her finger on it. Sarah kept her up to date on the financial markets situation. After some spectacular gyrations, the markets had steadied a bit. Money continued to flow into, around and out of the city. If Colleen squinted her eyes some, and kidded herself just a little bit, she could pretend that the City was reaching an equilibrium. The subway was running without drivers now, and although there were fewer trains on the tracks in order provide a safety margin for the automated systems, there were fewer riders too.

All that aside, the city felt somehow different to Colleen.

The number of infected that they found hadn’t gone up materially. Overture’s crew continued to spread across the city. They were policing nearly all of the Bronx and Queen’s now. They had also ruthlessly absorbed all of the Triad’s area. There were whispers that many of the Triad’s gunmen simply went missing. Matricardi’s crew owned everything south and west of the City, which they had effectively ceded to Overture. The PD continued to roll units, but the conditions in the “Afflicted Temporary Holding Facilities” were so bad that the cops were ceding nearly all the infected detentions to the nearest BERT. Since numbers weren’t up, there was increasing competition for the raw vaccine “ingredients.”

Colleen yanked herself back to alertness when Solly called out a possible infected.

“Heads up, left side, looks like a runner.”

Sure enough, there was a single person running from a possible zombie, right down the west side of Second Avenue. Joggers had become increasingly scarce as the summer wore on, but this person wasn’t jogging, he was sprinting ahead of another man. This one was naked, visibly bloody and slowly closing.

“Erich, get turned around and get us in front of those guys, Solly, get ready to unass the truck as soon as we stop.”

“Got it, boss.”

Colleen released her seat belt and checked her rig. Sidearm, capture stick, taser, bite bag—all good. Her new tactical jacket and gloves were bite resistant and she had gotten N95 respirators and face shields for her teams. After the close call in the boardroom where the infected secretary sprayed her with blood, she decided that more protection was in order.

Erich reefed the big truck around at the next intersection, foiled by the large concrete planter than ran the length of the median on every block. Colleen saw the infected sprint around the corner on East 96th. Despite being in a vehicle, they were actually well behind in the chase now.

“They’re heading towards the park. Hook right and gun it.”

Colleen didn’t think that you could drift a ride as large as their BERT truck. Erich proved her wrong, buffering their turned by using a parked limo to stop their lateral movement. Knuckles white on the dash chicken bar, she looked in the mirror to see Solly grinning, imperturbable as ever.

“Are we making this too boring, Solly?”

“Hell Colleen, this ain’t nothing. I’ll let you know when it gets exciting.”

On the straight away, the BERT closed the gap to the runners rapidly and Erich braked to stop on Lexington, just ahead of the pair.

Out of the car, Colleen already had her taser in hand when the runner blew past her and she shot the infected. He stumbled, clipping Colleen and driving her to the ground. She kept the power on and was levering herself to her feet when Solly yelled.

“Boss, another one!”

She locked the taser on and dropped it, hoping that would keep the first infected down.

The second was a truly large man. Wearing the ragged remains of a Yankees sweatershirt, he was lunging at Solly who was trying to get the capture stick cinched down on his neck and arm.

“Erich, a little help,” she yelled, as she drew the second taser from her belt.

“Erich…” Her second shout was drowned out by a very loud siren as two Suburbans squealed to a halt. Members of Big Mac’s crew starting piling out.

“No, we got this,” Colleen started to yell over the siren, which was still going, when an Overture tech casually shot her first zombie in the head.

Solly and Erich spun around at the sound of the shot, never seeing the movement of a third zombie emerging from the subway entrance on the corner of Lex and 96th. It was rapidly followed by two more, then three after that.

“Behind you!” she yelled as loudly as she could, trying to be heard over the sounds of the other BERTs. Her manner caused an Overture tech to turn around just as the first infected to reach him got it’s teeth well into his neck. His screams were actually audible over the ringing in her ears from the shot and the sound of the sirens. Non lethal ROE was now officially out the door.

“Solly, go hot!”

He didn’t bother to answer as he drew his sidearm and dropped the infected on the capture stick and then spun to engage the mass of infected lunging from the subway.

Colleen had never seen so many infected at once. There were at least ten now. The Overture techs were all shooting, mostly with pistols but at least one carbine barked as the infected dropped, one at a time. Body shots accomplished nothing unless they hit a spine.

More screaming, this time Erich was down, clutching his side. There wasn’t a zombie anywhere near him. Colleen guessed that he caught a ricochet from the Overture guys. Two of theirs were down, covered in infected and the rest were slowly retreating the short distance to their trucks.

Solly started dragging Erich by his plate carrier while Colleen tried to make head shots. Except for the few on the two strange techs, the only surviving zombies were the ones still emerging one or two at a time from the subway entrance. She nailed her mag change, her hands steadying out, and started to heel and toe backwards to where her own truck sat idling.

The rate of fire picked up from the Overture people as the survivors pulled more carbines from their trucks. The zombines in the subway entrance were not gaining any ground and the growing pile of corpses was impressive and horrifying.

Erich was moaning in the rear of the vehicle.

“Solly, are you seeing this!”

“No likey boss! This one gets all my nopes,” he replied cheerfully.

He attended Erich in the back, and was cutting his plate carrier side straps with a set of trauma shears.

“Hold still and stop freaking out, man!” he said without sounding more than a little excited. “Let me look at this scratch and get a dressing on it. Ok, now give me your hand and push on this.”

He guided Erich’s hand against the dressing to keep pressure on the gunshot wound. Someone mercifully turned off the siren in the other trucks.

Colleen was trying to line up a shot on the last zombie who was still mounted on the form of a prone Oveture tech, but hesitated, worried about hitting the downed man.

The fire was slackening as fewer zombies appeared at the top of the subway stairs. Then the prone Overture man stirred, and got to his knees.

Overture’s men started yelling at him to come back to the safety of the trucks. Colleen could see the bite marks on his face and hands. His wide open eyes and jerky motions were a plain diagnosis. He turned and started moving more rapidly, straight for the MetBank team.

“He is infected, don’t get close!” She couldn’t tell if anyone could hear her, especially if their ears were ringing from the gunfire as much as hers were.

Solly had their carbine out and was right on target. She distantly heard the yelling from the other teams.

“Boss?”

“Do it.”

Solly dropped the new zombie with a single round.

“Motherfucking bitch!! That was Manuel!”

She turned to see one of the Overture techs, a team leader judging from the radio and the jewelry. He was stalking towards them with a pistol in hand.

“He was infected, you saw it as well as me,” Colleen answered. “Who was the genius who decided to try to take our assets? You! Who shot my guy first? Your assholes! Step off!”

The other two surviving Overture team members were tense, covering their boss from their trucks.

She heard police sirens approaching. This amount of shooting was a first, as far as she knew, so it wasn’t too surprising that someone had called it in.

“You hear that, jackass? That is the cops. You might want to holster that before they get here unless you want to see them really excited. You know the ROE, and you shot first.”

“Stupid puta, I don’t care if Ramon likes you. He tell us you are competition now. I don’t care about the fucking cops either. Overture is gonna end up running this city. After that happens, I will get back to you for shooting Manuel, bitch!” He holstered his pistol and spun on his heel.

“Load these guys in the trucks. We can still get some spinal tissue and make quota!” he yelled at one others.

Colleen slowly relaxed her white knuckle grip on her pistol, just becoming aware of how hard she was squeezing the grip.

“Erich, how are you doing?” she called.

“Been better,” he coughed. “Can we get to a hospital sometime? Today is good.”

The police sirens grew closer.

“First we deal with the cops, and we call another truck to come get you.”

She turned to Solly. He had let the carbine hang from the friction strap and was calmly checking Erich’s dressing. “I’ll call it in. Then we can see if any of the dead zombies that those assholes are leaving are worth bringing in.”

The first black and white pulled up and killed the siren. The cops got out, guns drawn and looked at the bodies piled up at the subway and all the spent brass.

“That is a fucking lot of zombies.”

One yelled at the BERT techs from both companies.

“Who is in charge here?”

Without breaking a beat, Colleen and her opposite number yelled back, “They are!”

* * *

This time the conference wasn’t held at Goldbloom. No one particularly trusted them despite the reality that the safety procedures anywhere are usually followed with exquisite perfection right after an “incident.” The Chief Security Officer at Bank of the Americas had suggested that they meet outdoors in the gardens of the Elevated Acre located well below midtown. It had the virtue of taking advantage of both the warm August weather and the large number of exits from the conference dais area. The setting was less luxurious, but after the shock of seeing so many zombies in one place, Colleen really appreciated the longer sight lines and multiple exits.

The evening after the mass zombie attack and confrontation with Overture’s BERT, Colleen’s Metbank CSO had shared the information about their experience using NYSI. Reactions ranged from disbelief to near panic. The after-action pictures, as well as the eighteen dead zombies that their BERT, reinforced by the other two teams, returned for processing, forestalled most of the disbelief though not the fear. Larry’s team had been first to respond after the cops, and Colleen had to tell him to snap out if it—his palpable fear had plainly affected the other two in his truck. It took several minutes of reassurance before they would approach the pileup at the top and along the steps leading down into the Green line.

Sarah had been ready to leave town that night, and Colleen almost agreed. She was torn, feeling a compulsive need after she led them one more time, and give them her own “jump” order. The exaltation she felt following the fight, when she realized that she AND her team were alive and victorious, was headier than wine. She understood a little better about what her dad had tried to tell her about his experiences fighting in the Army. The profound sense of duty to her little team and was amplified beyond reason when the doctors pronounced Erich’s bloody wound mostly superficial—staples, a dressing and some T4 and he said that he felt good as new. There wasn’t another driver available, so she planned to keep him in the truck for future calls.

The fallout from Overture’s group was scarier, in a way. Ramon didn’t respond to any calls. She saw him in Big Mac’s group as the different BERT teams, law enforcement and the city government mingled prior to the meeting. The portable tables and A/V system delineated the meeting space, but multiple layers of security faced outwards from the group. Once her CSO’s check in was complete she started to head towards the Big Mac group for quick word but was forestalled by Ramon’s look and headshake.

“Alright everyone, take your seats,” called the Smith, the BoftA CSO. He had a no nonsense look about him. “I have talked to His Honor the Deputy Assistant Major Sphalos, and he has graciously allowed me to expedite this meeting. There will be only two agenda items, a summary of the MetBank and Overture BERT response on 96th and Lex and a discussion on what we are going to do differently to ensure further safe operations.”

Yelling threatened to drown out the end of his remarks, when Smith moved a microphone near a speaker to produce ear splitting feedback long enough for the yells to die down. “There will be a complete discussion of the tactical situation, the Rules of Engagement and discussion on asset territory. There will NOT be a general yelling match.”

He looked around the open table. “As the largest BERT operator here, I will confirm that this agenda suits Mr. Overture. Sir?”