Final dawn season 2, p.32
Final Dawn: Season 2, page 32
part #2 of Final Dawn Series
Leonard shrugged and nodded, then began refolding the map to put back in his coat. "Maybe, if the storms let up at all. Until then, though--" The thunder from a bolt of lightning striking a nearby building shook the hanger, punctuating Leonard's sentence. "Until then, I don't think we'll be able to reach anyone."
Bering Strait
April 18, 2038
Standing under a softly glowing light, Pavel Krylov studies a map of the Alaskan coastline. Tracing several paths with a soft-tipped marker, he glances to the side as one of the young officers walks up behind him.
"Commander?"
Pavel turns to the officer and holds out his hand, accepting a document on a clipboard. "Thank you. How soon can we be ready?"
"The ship stands ready for your command, sir."
Pavel nods and turns back to his map, musing over the various routes he has traced out. "I'll have something for you within the hour."
With a quick salute, the young officer turns away and goes back to his station. After staring at the map for several more minutes, Pavel uses a damp rag to wipe away all but one set of lines on the map and then motions for the officer to return to him.
"We'll follow this course, moving at periscope depth unless we see more signs of those things. If they come back, descend to maximum depth, but maintain course and speed."
Another salute follows Pavel's commands, then the command deck erupts with activity. The officer Pavel had given orders to begins to repeat them, calling them out to the crew with a loud voice. Moving slowly to his seat, Pavel watches quietly as the crew works. Within moments the ship lurches and begins to move, rising to a shallower depth and beginning its run down the long coast of Alaska.
Feeling frustrated and tired of sitting in the same place for days on end, Pavel has plotted a course that will take the Arkhangelsk down the coast of Alaska, through the Krazinski pass and into the harbor at Anchorage. Pavel isn't sure what they'll find in Anchorage, but if there is no sign of anyone, he plans to make for the nearest Russian port where he'll take the remaining crew members ashore.
"Sir?" The helmsman approaches Pavel, darting his eyes back and forth nervously. "If I may... why are we making for the United States instead of home?"
"It's a matter of national interest, of course." Pavel says, speaking loudly enough for the whole crew in the control room to hear him. While the late commander wouldn't have taken kindly to being questioned, the crew is still on edge enough that Pavel must tread carefully lest they tilt back into a mutinous state of mind. Pavel stands and walks slowly around the deck as he speaks. "It's a good idea to keep a close eye on the ones who may be responsible for whatever is going on out there, wouldn't you say?"
The thinly veiled appeal at the crew's patriotism works perfectly. They begin to smile and clap each other's shoulders, enamored with the fact that they are about to take the Arkhangelsk right off the coast of a major American city.
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry
11:49 AM, April 20, 2038
A week prior, the road north into Washington had been relatively easy to travel, with a few exceptions. Roving mutated creatures, unstable buildings and the plethora of destroyed cities and abandoned cars notwithstanding, getting into the city had been a walk in the park compared to getting out. Before losing his connection to the satellite, David had managed to grab real-time imagery of the storms sweeping across the globe. The results were not pretty.
Many of the smaller individual storms had combined into larger "superstorms" that covered entire continents, blocking out the sun and generating vast amounts of lightning and damaging winds. Few of the storms produced precipitation, though there were exceptions at the northern and southern ends of the planet. The existence of the storms--particularly the way in which they sprang up out of nowhere--was in direct contradiction to the laws of nature, but there was no doubting their reality or ferocity. This fact was particularly poignant given that Rachel, Marcus and David had been stuck in the APC for three days, trapped beneath an underpass as they tried to wait out the storm above.
Though the armored vehicle was no lightweight, occasional gusts from the storm had nearly thrown them off of the road on more than one occasion. Seeking refuge beneath the underpass, the group had hoped that the storm would pass in less than a day. Three days later, though, the storm had not lessened in intensity and they were beginning to go stir-crazy, especially Sam who was not used to being confined for so long.
Forced to stay in the cramped interior of the overloaded APC, the group only dared to venture out when it was absolutely necessary, either for bathroom breaks or in their vain attempts to start a fire and warm up some of their dwindling food supplies. The hours passed by slowly, and after the first day they all slipped into silence, having no more topics at hand to discuss.
Sitting in the driver's seat, Marcus ran one hand over the steering wheel while he adjusted his air conditioning vent with the other. Running the engine on and off to keep themselves comfortable had helped save on fuel, but they were beginning to run low. Taking advantage of the brief time when the engine was running, David sat in the back with his computer, trying in vain to connect to the orbiting satellite so he could contact Leonard and Nancy.
Rachel sat quietly in the passenger's seat, her eyes closed as she tried to sleep, not wanting to give the dark storms outside another glance. A soft grinding sound came from her left and she opened her eyes, giving Marcus a worried look. His jaw was tense as he ground his teeth together. Three full days of frustration had built to a head, and with nary a warning, he snapped.
David shouted in surprise and Rachel heard his laptop computer slam closed as the APC jerked forward, its tires spinning against the pavement as they fought for traction. Pushing herself up in her seat, she screamed at Marcus in shock. "What the hell are you doing?"
Marcus ignored Rachel's cry and swerved the APC around a pile of cars, sending Rachel slamming up against the side door. Sam barked loudly in the back compartment and David shouted something incomprehensible as he was buffeted from side to side, though there was little room for him to go anywhere.
"We can't be out here, Marcus! We'll get torn apart by the storm!"
Marcus's eyes flicked over to Rachel and she involuntarily shrank back. For the first time since meeting him, Rachel found herself somewhat scared of Marcus, especially after seeing the look that filled his eyes.
"I guess we'd better buckle up then, because we're not going back!"
In the brief moment that he had been driving, Marcus had already brought the APC up to a high rate of speed, and was tearing through grass and across the highway at a breakneck pace. Rachel tightened her harness and looked back at David who had finally managed to sit up as he frantically gathered his scattered computer equipment.
"What the hell is going on up there? Why are we moving again?"
Another swerve cut off David's next question and he groaned loudly as he bounced off of Bertha and fell onto his back. Instead of trying to get up again, David kept still, gripping his computer on his chest as he grumbled to himself about the current state of affairs.
"Marcus, please... we need to get back under cover and wait for the storm to pass." Rachel spoke calmly and fought to keep her voice level as the APC continued to swerve back and forth on the road. Marcus's driving, though erratic, was successful, and he had avoided every obstacle in their path.
"I know you think I'm crazy right now, Rachel."
"No shit." Rachel whispered under her breath, though it was still loud enough to elicit a grin from Marcus.
"But the way I see it is that we don't have time to keep standing around with our thumbs up our asses. Either we get to the coast or we die trying."
Stopping herself before she spoke, Rachel simply held on to her seat and tried to keep from bouncing as the APC continued forward. At the speed they were going, it would be suicide to try and wrest control of the vehicle from Marcus. In a way, she thought, he was right, though the execution of what he described left something to be desired.
When they had first set out from Washington, they had been able to maintain contact with Leonard and Nancy. Taking turns, each group described the events of the last several days to each other, comparing notes over their situations and discussing what their next steps would be. The first sign that Rachel, Marcus and David wouldn't have an easy trip to the south came in the form of a massive storm that stretched farther than they had previously encountered.
While he was still able, David had grabbed the latest satellite imagery of the storms and had compared notes on them with Rachel while Marcus had slowly maneuvered them down the road. The storms were obviously not a natural phenomenon, so Rachel and David took to discussing the various reasons why the nanobot AI would want to generate them, assuming of course that it was responsible.
Much of the debate about the storms centered around the possible benefits that they would provide to the nanobots. Theories were tossed back and forth until Marcus finally interrupted, pointing out a possibility that Rachel and David had overlooked in their overly analytical debate.
"Doesn't this thing want us all dead and gone?"
Rachel and David looked at each other blankly, then Rachel answered. "Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that, but yes, that's right."
"So the first thing it did was wipe us out en masse, but it missed the ones in its whitelist, and probably a few others too, I'm guessing. So what would be the best way to kill off the remaining survivors now that pretty much anyone capable of putting up a fight is dead?"
Marcus didn't wait for Rachel or David to answer his question. "I'll tell you how: pull us into another ice age, or whatever these storms are going to do. If they're expanding to cover the planet and these things are using precious energy to do it, what else would they be trying to do but snuff out the remaining survivors?"
Rachel looked down at her feet, considering what Marcus had said. "Do they really consider us that much of a threat, though? The survivors, I mean. Are a few people that they haven't yet killed really enough of a threat to them that they're willing to do something so extreme? It'll work, don't get me wrong, but the storms will have to be kept up for years... or longer, if they want to starve everyone out."
"As smart as the AI is, it's still somewhat limited by what it knows, Rachel." David's voice was distant as he considered the new possibility brought up by Marcus. "Obviously it does consider the remaining few people to be a large threat, otherwise it wouldn't be sending bands of the creatures through cities with the express purpose of killing any survivors they find. Maintaining those creatures is a huge task in and of itself, but it clearly thinks that expending resources on that and the storms to keep us at bay is worthwhile."
Marcus chuckled from the driver's seat, a small laugh building into a roar as Rachel and David both looked at him quizzically. He grinned as he looked back at them, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.
"Don't you get it? The thing's afraid! It's so scared of a few little people running around that it's going to destroy everything on the planet in order to get to us. It can't do it directly still, so it's throwing everything else it's got against us, and not just us three, but any and all remaining survivors, too.
"I don't know about you, but that kind of behavior just smells of pure, unadulterated fear. And fear like that can be exploited like nothing else on the earth."
Somewhere in Canada
Samuel pulled himself out of his vehicle, gasping for breath as lances of pain shot through his back and exploded out through his chest and shoulders. The infection that was ravaging his body had gotten slowly but steadily worse, and nothing he tried had been able to change that fact. Every bump and vibration along the road had manifested in the form of intense pain, and driving had become a burden greater than he had ever thought he would have to bear.
Despite his physical condition, Samuel had no intention of giving up his chase. After passing over the Canadian border and finding the clear path of destruction taken by Leonard and Nancy's armored vehicle, he wasted no time in getting back on the road to follow them. By his estimation, he was no more than a day--and perhaps as little as a half day--behind them.
Tugging at his shirt, Samuel gently pulled it off, reaching around to his back to touch the throbbing infections. What had started off as simple scratches had progressed into something far worse, and Samuel was at the end of his rope. After starting a small fire, he pulled out a long-bladed knife and wiped the edge of the blade on his shirt, removing any visible pieces of dirt and dust. After it appeared clean he plunged it into the flames, heating the steel for several minutes in an effort to sanitize the blade.
Gritting his teeth, Samuel held the knife upside down in his hand and maneuvered it around to his back. While he couldn't see the lines of infection, they stood half an inch up from the surrounding flesh and were easily felt by hand. The heat of the knife made his hairs stand on end as he held it close to the top of one of the infections before quickly scraping it downward, breaking open the pus-filled skin and causing it to hiss violently upon the hot knife.
Try as he might, Samuel couldn't help but let out a small scream as he continued the process on the next infected area, cutting open the wounds in an effort to remove the infection from his body. After each pass he wiped the residual flesh from the knife on his shirt and held the blade back in the fire for several seconds, hoping that he was doing enough to keep the freshly reopened wounds clean.
After each of the several infected areas had been scraped open, Samuel placed the knife to the side and opened a large plastic bottle filled with rubbing alcohol. Part of his homemade first aid kit, Samuel didn't hesitate to hold the bottle behind his head and pour the contents of the bottle down along his back. As much as the initial step had hurt, feeling the burn of the alcohol in the wounds was a hundred times worse. His arms and hands shook and drops of alcohol flew around nearby as he struggled to keep most of the liquid from being wasted.
After he had finishing dousing his back in the alcohol, Samuel took a large roll of gauze from one of his bags and began to slowly wrap it around his chest and back, wincing each time the fabric touched the dampened wounds. The process felt agonizingly slow, but after several minutes he was finally finished. Samuel completed the bandaging with a piece of medical tape, holding the gauze firmly in place. It was wrapped tightly around his torso, but not so much that he couldn't bend over or back, though such actions irritated his wounds and caused immense pain.
Between the wounds, the infection and the procedure he had just performed, Samuel's body was ready to shut down. He felt exhausted, and knew that he needed sleep more than anything else, but he dutifully climbed back into his vehicle and donned two new shirts, one on top of the other to help absorb both the blood and alcohol that was coating his back.
There will be time enough to sleep once the chase is done.
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
1:08 PM, April 20, 2038
A break in the storms was rare, but Leonard and Nancy both kept their eyes on the sky for any signs of one. The first hint that a break was coming was when a piercing ray of sunlight broke through far to the west. Landing on a distant body of water, the ray was overwhelmingly bright in contrast to the dark clouds. When Leonard first saw the sunlight, he stood slack-jawed, in awe of the simple display. After a moment of contemplation he came to his senses and ran back into the hanger, shouting for Nancy.
"Get everything on board! Hurry!"
Nancy stood hastily and turned to look at Leonard. Confused and worried by his shouting at first, his grin made her relax as she realized that he must have spotted a break in the weather. Together they quickly loaded up the few supplies that were scattered on the ground around the APC and jumped in, fastening their harnesses with an urgency that they hadn't felt in days. The opportunity to make their final push to Alaska during a lull in the fierce storms wasn't something that either of them took lightly, and Leonard was eager to get them on the road.
As they drove out of the hanger and down the runway towards the nearest road, Leonard and Nancy kept their eyes on the surrounding city. The fast-approaching light painted the area in a completely new perspective, showing them just how small the city was in comparison to the adjacent wilderness. Driving down the main road, Leonard didn't bother to slow down to check any of the nearby stores. He and Nancy had raided as many as they could when they'd first entered the town, and the back of the APC was stuffed full of the best gear they could find. Trying to find anything else paled in comparison to getting on the road.
Leonard gunned the engine to its limit as they reached the edge of the city. Except for an occasional vehicle, the road heading out to the northwest was relatively clear, although quite worn down. Instead of being a well-built highway, the two-lane road was narrow and treacherous, with rusted bridges extending over rivers both narrow and wide. The one nice thing that they could say about the road--and the area in general--was that it was insignificant enough that it had escaped the wrath of the nuclear bombs. Whitehorse, while being a moderately sized city for the area, had received no damage, and neither had any sections of roadway going in or out of the area.
