Orpheus (3 page)

Instead, he looked over his shoulder at Orpheus. He cradled something in his hands, and Tim could make out that it was another pistol, only smaller than their primary. He figured it for a backup, probably strapped into an ankle holster. He wasn't sure if anyone else had one, only that he sure didn't. Maybe he'd ask Orpheus about it when they got back to the tower.

Not for the first time, Tim wondered why in God's name they had to do this at night.

* * *

Tim asked Mutt why they didn't insert during daylight hours.

“We go in at night. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it gives us the best chance of moving around unnoticed. These things possess the same tools that living humans have, and for a lot longer than you'd think. If they have eyes, they can see. If they have ears, they can hear. At night, we take their vision out of the equation while we still have it, thanks to technology.” He motioned towards the night vision rig.

“The night vision is nice but, like all technology, there is a chance it will fail you when you most need it. It's supplemental, that's all. And don't think that a zombie with no eyes, ears, or nose can't find you, because they can. We have no idea how it works, but they can find a living person like a damn homing pigeon finds its roost. Your most valuable tools are located on either side of your head. Your second most valuable is right in the middle of your face. Pay attention to them. You'll live a lot longer."

* * *

The helicopter hovered ten feet above the roof of the library in downtown. Fish yelled, “On my heels, Bait!” and jumped without another word. He flexed his knees and rolled into it, popping up gracefully into a crouch with his pistol raised. Tim hesitated only briefly before he followed suit. The impact from that height was unexpected, but he rolled with it and came up in the same position.

“Not bad!”

Tim nodded and tried to ignore the throbbing in his knee as he watched the remaining three men exit, Orpheus last. The copilot dropped several black bags and flashed a thumbs-up. Orpheus returned it and the copilot disappeared behind the tinted glass. Ten seconds later, the helicopter was gaining altitude and heading back to the tower.

After the helicopter was mostly out of earshot, Orpheus said, “Let's move.”

“Why?” Tim asked. To him, the library roof seemed like a good place to set up.

Mutt replied, “If you're thinking that this is a nice spot to camp and make s'mores, you're right. Unfortunately, we just made a highly-visible entrance and a helluva racket. We don't know what might be coming for us. So we move and wait.” He pointed over Tim's shoulder. “Right there.”

Tim looked and saw that he was pointing to the building next door. Tim had grown up on the island, and, though he'd never seen it from this angle, he knew that they were next to the old movie theater, The Classic. Tim grabbed a bag without being told and walked to the edge. It wasn't a terrible jump, only about eight feet, but being three stories up made it seem like twenty. It seemed like fifty when Tim saw some shadows moving in the alley beneath him. The shadows seemed to be moving in the same general direction, and that direction was right at them.

Something made a loud pounding noise behind them, and they all whirled with their pistols up. They heard it again and realized that something was repeatedly slamming against the door to the roof. Suddenly, Tim agreed wholeheartedly with the decision to move next door. Orpheus motioned for Mutt to take Fish and Tim with him to the next roof. They threw the bags over the gap. Fish backed up a few paces then rocketed forward, pushing off the ledge and clearing the gap by a mile. He got up and mimed a little air guitar before he began slowly searching the roof. Tim caught Mutt rolling his eyes a bit. The rookie brought up the rear and made the jump with surprising ease. His two companions seemed a little surprised that he didn't come up way short and end up dangling from the ledge.

The three of them did a quick sweep of the roof. It was empty, so they took up positions and got as low as they could while still being able to see Orpheus and Sam. The boss motioned for Sam to make the jump while he kept his pistol trained on the door. Tim expected Orpheus to be right behind, but he paused on the roof. He walked back towards the door and grabbed the handle. He started to push the latch down with his thumb, and Tim looked at Mutt with a panicked look.

Mutt's face showed nothing.

“What is he doing?” Tim whispered.

“Don't know. Stay ready.” To emphasize his point, he pulled a spare magazine and laid it next to him. Sam hustled to the pile of bags and opened one. He pulled out a shotgun and took up a position next to Mutt.

Fish had his back to the rest, guarding their backsides.

Tim resisted the urge to wrap his finger around the trigger. He was tense enough that accidentally firing it was a definite possibility.

Orpheus hadn't moved in a few seconds. He turned his head to look at something past the door and appeared frozen. Tim realized that Orpheus wasn't looking at something; he was listening
for
something.

After a few more seconds, Orpheus let the handle return to its original position slowly. He backed away from the door, holstered his sidearm, and made the jump.

“What in the hell was that?”

“Let's set up, Sam. Then we can talk.”

* * *

Orpheus finished telling the others about the new wrinkle while they set up their gear. The roof of the movie theater was meant to serve as their “command post.” In practice, it meant this was where they'd store the gear they couldn't carry, and where they'd come to rest until they were ready to extract.

Fish was the first to speak after Orpheus finished. “Sooooo...we're supposed to grab a snarling, spitting, screaming Jekyll, bag or whatever the hell else we can do to subdue it...and get it back here for pickup while trying to not alert the zombies that we already have a hard enough time avoiding when it's just us."

Orpheus laughed. “That's about right.”

“Well, I must say, I'm psyched. When can we get started?”

“Let's eat. Then we have to head over to the burn zone for the walkies. Tim, that bag has the MREs in it.” Orpheus sat down on an exhaust fan housing and rubbed his neck. The rest of the men got as comfortable as they could while Tim rummaged through the bag. He pulled out an MRE, squinted to read it in the moonlight, and said, “Uh, who wants hot dogs?”

Sam said, “Just throw us whatever.”

“Oh, okay.” Tim tossed a package to each man, but kept the hot dogs for himself. They ate mostly in silence, and Tim was surprised at how peaceful everything seemed. If he didn't know any better, they were just five guys on a camping trip. On the roof of a movie theater. Surrounded by the walking dead.

“Trager had a point, as much as I'm loathe to admit it,” Orpheus said. “If we survive...by 'we' I mean 'mankind'...we have to believe that the outbreak could happen again. If we find a Jekyll, and a cure comes from that, then we did some good work.”

Mutt said, “We've already done good work, O. A shitload of it. You especially.”

“We're talking about the future, though. We owe it to the survivors, don't we?”

“Yeah, Sam, we do. I get what we're doing here; I just don't like having it sprung on us with no warning at all. That's a pretty big curveball to throw at us.”

“Maybe we'll end up in the history books,” Tim offered. “That would be something, wouldn't it?”

“You know what else would be something? Being around to read it.” Mutt consolidated his trash and placed it back into the bag. “Eh, no sense wasting daylight, so to speak. We ready?”

“Lead the way, brutha,” Fish said. He clapped his hands. “Let's go grab ourselves a psycho.”

“I don't think that we'll have to look hard,” Orpheus said, and Tim immediately figured out what he meant.

“That's what you were listening for over there. You think that you heard a Jekyll, whatever that is.”

“Mmm. Here's what we do. Clear the theater, head over to the dead zone next door, pick up the walkies and whatever else we can find, drop the walkies into this zone, come back up, and pull that thing right through that door. If I'm right, and I think that I am, we can grab and extract within a few minutes.”

Several heads nodded at this. Tim saw the deep respect and blind trust that they all had in Orpheus. He could see how that would happen. His confidence was very soothing, considering their surroundings. Tim wondered how much of it was bravado intended to keep his teammates' morale up.

“Any questions?”

Tim raised his hand.

“This isn't geometry class. What do you need?”

Tim put his hand down and felt like an idiot when he asked, “Would someone please tell me what a Jekyll is?”

Chapter 4: Back on the Ranch

Selena Moore knew that Trager would not be happy with what she was doing right now. His only concern was getting what he wanted: money, top-shelf booze, women, and, of course, power. He hid it surprisingly well beneath a facade of manners and cultivated humility, even a maddening charm that worked on Lena more than she was comfortable admitting. Once you saw him for what he was, a selfish prick who would use anyone to get what he wanted and then discard them, you felt better.

What he wanted right now was a Jekyll, and he was using Orpheus to do it.

Lena didn't like that. Not one bit.

All Orpheus wanted to do was finish his business and be left alone. He'd already given far more to the island and whoever was left than anyone else could have imagined. Still, he had unfinished business, and Trager knew it. He leveraged Orpheus' personal mission into one that would, Lena had no doubt, benefit him and only him in the end.

She wanted to know what his angle was, but she had come up empty so far.

A crackling noise came from the bank of radios set up against the far wall. She quickly rolled her chair back with a thrust of her legs and figured out that it was coming from the shortwave. She opened her own mic and said, “Caller, if you can hear me, repeat last transmission.” She didn't expect to get a response; she was fairly certain that she'd heard nothing more significant than random static. But she had to try.

“Caller, repeat last.”

Nothing.

She hung the mic back on its hook and rolled back to her desk. She closed the book for the time being on what she called “Project: Snake” in her head. There were two hidden files on her computer: that one and “Project: Lost Soul.” She opened this file and started poring over everything she had learned about the lone open file: Ethan Holt.

Where could he be?

Twenty minutes went by before another radio transmission came through. This one was crystal clear, and expected. “Lena, it's Sam.”

Lena keyed her mic, mindful that this frequency was monitored by Trager's goon squad. For some reason, they didn't think that anyone else knew about it, but they only had Lena fooled for about ten seconds. “Go, Sam.”

“We're initiating retrieval of the walkies, and then we'll begin the sweep of the theater and surrounding buildings before we work our way back up to the roof for extraction. Hope to have a Jekyll in tow. If everything goes well, we'll be silent for a few hours, at least.”

“And if it doesn't go well?”

“Then we'll be silent a lot longer.”

“That's funny. How's the rookie look?”

“Too early to tell, but he seems to have some balls. That's something.”

“Okay. Take care of them.”

She heard Fish yell off-mic but clear, "His balls?" Lena shook her head and chuckled.

“Shut it, Fish. Will do. Oh, and don't tell those Scythe boys this, but I find them all very sexually arousing. Out.”

Lena held back her laughter long enough to croak, “Out.” She giggled for a few moments more and then got to work. She went to the large plastic-covered map of the island, found the area that the Scalpel team was going to search, and wrote “2140” in grease pencil over the theater. Tracking their progress was her favorite part of being the dispatcher/resident techie for the team. She liked to imagine that she was right there with them, doing some dirty work.

In reality, all she really did was answer the radio, chart their movements, and then send in those death-dealers to “sanitize” the areas. She knew why Orpheus and his team didn't let up at all during their searches. They knew that, as soon as they were extracted, everything living and unliving alike would be wiped off the face of the planet, and Orpheus' past failures and desire to not let any innocents die drove him to the edge time and again. His team was the same way: they all had demons. But, unlike a lot of people, they used those demons to push themselves farther.

They saved lives. And they could very well be instrumental in the survival of the human species.

She could at least help them, and him, in any way she possibly could.

* * *

Trager swiped his ID card and entered the outer viewing ring of the laboratory. He was still amazed at the design of this building, even though he'd all but personally swung every visible and back-alley deal to make it happen; it was put together with such forethought that it was easy to forget the world that existed just outside the doors to the street.