Kiss My Apocalips Ch. 08

"What was your purpose?" I asked. "Was there any sort of mission statement? Were you just considered personal protection?"

"The first few of us to be hired made him add a paragraph to our contract that made it clear that we would not be used for anything that was counter to national security; or that was illegal, either in the U.S. or the state of Arizona. We all just assumed that he would be using us for corporate espionage overseas. Most of us could live with that, or at least justify it in our minds when we considered what we were being paid. But right away, things started getting weird.

"His 'compound' was massive, and it was obviously some sort of survivalist operation, with warehouses of food, vehicles, fuel, weapons, you name it. There were solar, wind and gas-driven generators, and comm arrays out the ying-yang. When we were quartered there, we often got together in groups and talked about what kind of grandiose scheme the doc was up to; but two weeks ago, after what you guys have come to call 'The Event,' all of our best guesses were blown right out of the water."

She took a deep breath and looked meaningfully at her two blonde companions. "There's a theater on base where we sometimes got together and watched vids. I mean, there was lots to do. Engine and woodworking shops, gym, game rooms, library. But the theater was where we briefed and had all-hands meetings." She seemed conflicted about how much to tell us, and again she glanced at her two female companions. "I should tell you that about a third of us were married. All of those were guys. That's a big incentive, providing for your family while putting up with our lifestyle. Imagine going through eight, maybe ten years in the military, all the separations, the deployments, leaving the family you're providing for without a husband or dad, never having enough money. It's really rough. And then, what appears to be the big payday comes along and falls right in your lap. That's something a guy just can't pass up."

She sighed heavily. "People in a unit like ours; we're tight. We're a lot like siblings. We rely on each other; we have each other's backs. We'd die for each other. And I mean that. The problem comes from the leadership. Sometimes, OICs can be either really dumb, or simply horses' asses. That's 'Officers In Charge,' by the way. And that pretty much defines Barrington-Smythe. He might have been smart enough to have pulled off this 'Event' thing; or more likely, he just bought the scientific expertise he needed to make it happen. Whatever the case, two weeks ago on that Monday morning, he got us all together and told us the news."

"Worst meeting of my whole life," one of the Sallys muttered. Looking down the table at them, they were both seated with their forearms on the table, hands clasped in front of them, their fingers interlaced. Once again, it was like seeing a single person next to a mirror. This was starting to get bizarre.

"It makes sense that your 'Dr. Hyphen' would think that everybody else was thinking the way HE thinks," Juanita continued. "He more or less told us that he had good news and bad news, but that the good far outweighed the bad. First, the guys' family and friends still had them there, he explained, or at least a copy of them; and they were all set financially. Of course, that was all in another quantum world. Secondly, and unfortunately, we ... the people who were physically there in that room in THIS universe ... would never see those loved ones again. But, he explained excitedly, that was okay, because we each had the unique opportunity to start over again; and there was almost no limit to all the wonderful things we could do in this new world!He had arranged it so that WE were the greatest military force left on Earth. We could conquer, we could enslave, we could even rule different lands and form different territories."

She shook her head. "Well, the meeting broke down into chaos. Every person there pulled out a phone and started calling, only to find that he was right. There was nobody left. And that asshole couldn't figure out why we weren't all overjoyed at this great good fortune he had given us. When reality finally set in, I think we were all in too much shock to form any kind of individual plans.

"When that mood finally settled over the room, the leader continued with his strategy for us. He had elicited the help of six men from our ranks, all relatively senior members, and all bachelors. They had gone out the day before and had brought twenty girls from escort services to spend the night there. Once in the compound, they had all been given refreshments that were drugged; and they were all resting comfortably in rooms there. After 'The Event' took place, they were given doses of Sub-J, then kept incapacitated. He was giving the girls to us, he told us all." Using the drugs he had at his disposal, he could turn them into the perfect women we deserved."

"What a sweet guy!" the Sally on the right commented.

"He then told us that he was aware that most of us female troops had been finding some sexual comfort among our ranks." Juanita shrugged. "Just about everybody knew that Dmitri and I had paired off. I don't think either one of us had meant for it to happen, but ...." She shrugged; then, she looked down the table at her two female companions.

"It's okay," one of them said. "If we're going to be friends here, it will come out sooner or later. Sally and I ... we enjoy sex."

"We REALLY enjoy sex," the other sister remarked.

"We'd hooked up for an evening with most of the unattached guys in the squad," the first one continued.

"But we hadn't done it with ANY of the married guys," said the other one.

"Yet," said the first. "It was just harmless fun."

"Some much more fun than others."

"To get on with the story," Juanita interrupted. "Two of the women had sort of hooked up with each other. But most of the gals did not look very happy about how this little scenario was playing out. The Doc told us all to follow him and his six 'senior men,' and he'd introduce us to the girls that were now going to be part of our little desert family. Dmitri and I held back from the group as all the others went outside and headed over toward the dormitory; and he told me that this little organization was no longer where he wanted to be. He asked me if I would join him." She sighed. "Actually, he proposed to me. Right then and there. And he took my hand and ran."

"You never formally accept my offer," he cut in. "When you going to tell me yes?"

"When you ask me properly, I'll consider your proposal," she told him flatly. Then, she returned her attention to the others around the table. "Well, before we'd gotten a hundred feet, our friends Sally were suddenly with us, and we were all hightailing it toward the motor pool. He and I just sort of accepted them into our little impromptu plot without comment. I have no idea how they knew we were about to bolt when I didn't even realize it myself."

"We know things," one of them said, and they both arched opposite eyebrows in a slightly sinister expression that made Wanda laugh out loud.

"Somehow," Juanita continued, "Dmitri had it all figured out. He drove a personal vehicle to the flightline, where he spent sixty seconds each on our four rotorcraft, and he came away with a small, identical part for all of them that he said meant they were 'hard down' until those parts could be replaced. Then we drove to the civilian side of the field and we commandeered that Pilatus PC-15 that you saw us in yesterday. Slick little airplane. Took us a couple hours to get to Reno-Tahoe Airport, where we refueled and hangared the plane for a few days. We visited a National Guard base and an Air National Guard facility and picked up some weapons that are ... well ... pretty formidable. They're crated up, out in the van. FIM-92's. The latest variant of an eighty-year-old weapons system."

"The Stinger," Sadie said. "The newest version has the updated DDA's, the Dual Detector Arrays. They can differentiate chaff and flares from the aircraft engine they're targeting." She glanced around at the people staring at her, then shrugged and added: "I read an article once."

"You should also know," Juanita continued, "that Dmitri is in discrete communication with someone that's still on the team in Arizona. He considers his contact so secret that he won't even tell US who it is or how he's contacting him. Or her. At any rate, that's how we know that THEY know where you are. That's how we know that Doctor Hyphen is almost rabidly intent on exacting revenge because you've foiled his attempt at 'noninterference and scientific observation.'

"And ... that's how we know that they've put together a force to come here and get even for 'outing' the Doc. But let me go back to point number one in my little narrative. The people that are coming here; with the exception of the old Mad Doctor himself and maybe those half dozen 'senior lieutenants,' we consider them our friends. We flew that Pilatus to San Francisco, then to Portland, and we decided to fly here yesterday to try to hook up with you after Dmitri found out where you were from his contact."

"Okay," I said calmly. "If you don't mind, let me see if I understand what you're telling us. You hightailed it out of there because you don't like the Doctor's crazy leadership. At his direction, a bunch of very dangerous military specialists are coming to kill us. You're here to help US, but you don't want to kill THEM. You've got a bunch of Stinger missiles, but you obviously don't want to use them. We have defenses here, but they're dramatically ineffective. We can't run because they'll see us and know where we're going. Have I left anything out? Is there an upside to this problem anywhere?"

"Wow! I bet you real downer at parties!" Dmitri exclaimed.

"Why don't you let the four of us examine your little oasis in the clouds here and see if we can find a silver lining," Juanita commented. "One of the first things we're going to do is take a picture of you holding those ground-to-air heat-seeking missiles, and then we're going to plaster them all over the internet. If those helicopters DO show up, we'll have no choice but to use them; but our guys are smarter than that. They'll know that the only possible type of assault will be with ground troops; and THAT option is going to be wildly unpopular, as well. We're hoping that, sooner or later, everybody's going to realize that one crazy doctor who's worried about his injured pride is not worth all of this death and destruction."

She looked pointedly at Dr. Gonzales. "The Evil Doctor has his sights set on you, too. If they register ANY bio-signatures leaving here and going into Acton, then they might very well launch some sort of assault on that town, too. For the sake of all of your citizens, you should stay here until this little drama plays out." She pushed back her chair and stood. "Hannah, can you please show us your security center?"

Dmitri stood, as well. "Jacob, you and me, we inventory weapons, yes? You Sally girls: you help Juanita dream up wild tactics, yes? You two good at that, no? We meet back here at noon and talks, yes?"

So, we broke up into three groups, each with a walkie talkie for comm. Juanita, Hannah, Sadie and the Sallys headed into what we soon came to call "Lodge Mission Control." Doriana and I led Dmitri and the sheriff down to the cellar to look through the array of weaponry there. And everybody else wound up on kitchen duty, cleaning up and getting ready for lunch.

I'd never really been to the gun room in the cellar, and it was surprising, to say the least. It was like something out of a Hollywood vid, where the good guy opens his secret stash of guns to make the audience say "Wow!" Most of these I had at least seen in that gun store. Probably the most impressive things Dmitri found there were two cases of hand grenades and two cases of plastic explosive, along with various types of "caps" that set off the stuff. He was also enthralled with something that reminded me of old telecommunication cable, but this was called "Det Cord." It was the sheriff that explained that "Det" was short for "detonation," and it was strung between explosive charges for "near-simultaneous" blasts. Another impressive thing was a table with two gizmos that were apparently for "reloading" new bullets into old shell casings. There were small containers of gunpowder and caps for this operation. I could see how such things would be valuable in this new environment.

Our next destination was the barn, and we took the sheriff's big black sedan touring car the short distance so he didn't have to limp over there. There was room inside the barn for that vehicle, as well. Parked alongside the farm equipment were two four-person golf carts, replete with solar panels on the roofs, and we decided those were going to be our designated mode of transportation during the next few days. Dmitri took about five minutes to inspect the weapons in the smaller security office, but he found little in the way of anything new. Next came my big surprise for them; which fell flat, at least as far as our Russian friend was concerned. The haul of guns packed away in the green pickup DID impress the sheriff, but they were apparently of little military value. I asked him what he most wanted in the way of weaponry.

"Silencers would be nice," he commented.

I told him I thought there were some in the back of that truck somewhere. I remembered carrying them out.

"Dose for handguns," he said distastefully. "Americans all hung up on spies. Silenced rifles would be wonderful in mountain warfare. You use silencers wit flash suppressors, no one see or hear where you at. Our bad guys, dey have. We need somehow find way to see dem, and also find weapons that as good as dey got."

"Hey, Dmitri!" the walkie talkie barked. "Guess that they have over there somewhere? Your old friend, the GM-94! See if you can find it! There are four cases of ammo, too!"

"Hokey Dokey," he replied. But he had a sour look on his face as he turned toward me. "Where else you keep guns?"

I led the way over toward the long stairway. "I take it the GM-94 is NOT your old friend."

He shook his head sadly. "Close-in grenade launcher. Used for shooting into rooms to clear dem. Urban warfare; everybody's most unfavorite kind of fighting. My country last used it in Ukraine." He sighed heavily as he climbed up the steps behind me. "War sucks, my friend Jacob. But dat war, it sucked the most."

I motioned toward Doriana. "We hadn't even been born when that war was going on."

He shrugged. "I just little boy. My pater, he drafted and sent dare. But ever since, more than two decades after, international peoples I serve with, dey think Russia bad guy because of dat war." He turned his head to the side and spat, but the sound came out like "Pa-Putin!"Doriana and I glanced at each other and shrugged. Old wars and old politics held little sway in our minds. We had more urgent things to worry about. The sheriff seemed to commiserate with a sad smile, but he remained silent.

Hannah had given me an idea of where the boxed weapons and ammo were, and with a little fumbling around, we finally found the right place. Almost immediately Dmitri barked some sort of exclamation in Russian and slid a box off a shelf. "To hell wit GM-94!" he shouted into the walkie talkie. "We got old Mark-79 here! Two of dem!" He set the green case on the floor and looked at the boxes that were stacked next to it. "And maybe fifty rounds HE! And flares! Two boxes of flares! Oh, dis is gonna be fun!" He turned to the two of us. "Dis date back to YOUR least favorite war: Vietnam."

Again, Doriana and I glanced at each other and shrugged. He seemed to have a penchant for speaking in terms that were right out of history books. But he sure seemed excited about whatever these things were. Mention of the weapon had made the sheriff smile, as well.

"What de hell dis?" he exclaimed. I helped him carry the crates, containers and boxes to a conference room next door and spread things out on a big meeting table. The cases he had been most recently interested in contained a wicked-looking small assault rifle; but when he started examining the thing, he couldn't stop laughing. "It 22-caliber long-range air rifle!"

"Looks pretty deadly," I commented.

"Deadly for squirrel, yes! Dees for shooting rodents and birds that eat fruit from your trees! Dey bounce off man!" He thought for a long few seconds. "But hurt like hell," he murmured. "And quiet." He left them and went back into the storage room.

"Ah! Found what we might need! And is Russian, of course!" He brandished the case to make his point and grabbed the walkie talkie. "SV-99!" he said excitedly. "Two of dem! With silencers! Five hundred rounds ammo!"

"Perfect!" Juanita's voice answered.

"Kalashnikov," he told us. "Proudly arming everyone in de whole world! Dis shoot 22-calibre projectile, too; but kill a man at five hundred meters." He handed the cases to Doriana and pointed toward the boxes of ammo so that the sheriff and I could carry them into the conference room, though the lawman could only carry one at a time, since he was still using a cane.

We continued to find things that Dmitri had us add to our stash, but most of the remaining armament was rejected. The Russian shook his head at much of the stuff. "Fuckin' thermite!" he griped. "What deese idiots tinkin'?! You toss one of dees tings, you burn down whole state of Oregon! And fire travels UPHILL! There lots more better ways to kill yourself den use fire!"

He walked up and down the aisles made by the racks of supplies in the room, but obviously excluded most of them, only pointing occasionally, and barked a declaration of what was inside. "Night vision goggles," he said, indicating several boxes. "I see several inside lodge supply room, but we take deese, too." Further along, he indicated boxes of smoke grenades.

But he suddenly looked at his watch. "'Scuse, please," he mumbled, and stalked off down the hall for some privacy while pulling up the holo-display on the watch and tapping furiously at the thing. After several minutes, he returned. "We gots problem," he told us. "Let's carry some of dis downstairs. We take half on cart back to lodge and talk wit everybody. I drive our vehicle, as well, so we can take dat picture we want."

And so, half an hour later, we were all once again seated around the big dining room table. The Sallys had never seen the old fashioned M79 before, and wanted to hold the thing. It looked to me like a sawed-off shotgun, with a single short (but massively wide) barrel; and it "broke" open in the middle the way Hannah's big shotgun did, so that a lone bullet-shaped round could be inserted into the chamber. Juanita told us it could send a projectile up to 400 meters. There were other deadly trinkets displayed, as well. Mrs. G was not amused by all of this, and we could read that in her expression.

"De force that comes for us, dey in nort Nevada," Dmitri told us. "In Fallon."

"Home of the Navy's Top Gun school," Sadie told us. "There are lots and lots of weapons there, but they're all for aircraft."

"Dey dare to refuel and arm dare rotorcraft," he said. "I hope dey spend the night, but dey running a day ahead of what I tought. For sure, dey be here tomorrow."

"Speaking of weapons," I said, "what do you want me to do with the pictures you took of our little demonstration out front?"

Juanita had used Wanda's phone to record the six of us brandishing four of the Stinger missiles. In the photo, we were either holding one, or standing beside the crates they came in, making it look as if there were eight of them instead of the four they'd acquired.

"Tap me," one of the Sallys told Wanda, and they clicked phones, transferring copies of the pic.