“I see it, too,” Allen replied with anxiety in his voice.
“They’re flowers,” Alvarez answered with an unexpected reverence.
The captain and the group all looked at Alvarez.
“Flowers in the Fringe?” Gray asked.
Allen eased into the accelerator and headed to the fallen slide piece.
“They grow out here. Usually in small patches,” Alvarez answered, remembering what his dad told him.
“Can’t worry about flowers right now, boys. You can pick some for your lady friends or for each other if you want when we’re done,” the Captain said, trying to get them to focus.
The captain, Gray and Alvarez quickly geared up and were ready as Allen brought the transport to an overly cautious stop.
“Alvarez on point, Allen you’re on six.” The captain checked his rifle and tucked a small walnut-sized Skynut drone into one of his vest pouches. Alvarez and Gray checked their rifles while Allen secured his helmet and pulled his pistol from a holster on the door.
The Captain looked around checking his team and saw that they were ready.
“Let’s move.”
The bright lights in the transport faded into a deep red glow as the doors opened. They all exited and quickly formed a fire-team line at the edge of the eight-foot-tall broken section of the water slide. Alvarez motioned for them to advance. They moved smoothly across the empty wading pool and after checking the other transport, and finding it locked, moved quickly to the broken wall. They stopped at the lobby, and as they were checking the corners of the room, they heard a faint banging coming from downstairs.
Alvarez looked around, quickly pointed down the stairwell and advanced with the rest of the team following closely behind. They made their way down the stairs and came to a long hallway. The banging started again, and this time it was much louder. Alvarez motioned for the team to hold, and after the banging stopped, proceeded down the corridor.
Alvarez slowly scanned the hallway with his gun-light. A system of pipes on the ceiling ran the length of the hall and then disappeared into the wall. Alvarez used his light to show everyone the black water on both sides of the cement walkway that also ran down the corridor. The walkway was narrow, and a couple of sections seemed to disappear in the water, but it was solid.
They came to the iron gate. Alvarez checked for trip wires or traps and signaled to the rest of the team that it was clear. As they moved forward, a faint light came from a hole in the wall near the end of the hallway. Alvarez pointed to it and signaled for direction from the captain, who reached in his pocket and pulled out a small drone with Skynut painted on the side. He entered a sequence into the monitor on his wrist, and the drone unfolded. After he gently tossed it up, the drone fell a couple of inches then stabilized as the propellers gripped the air. He pointed at the small drone, then pointed down the hall. Immediately, the drone turned and made its way to the open section at the end of the hall.
The captain looked down at a small monitor and saw shadows overlapping and mixing with each other.
“Gotta be some kind of hideout for the renegades. Must be dozens,” the captain whispered in the coms. “I’ll take lead now, Alvarez.”
The captain moved forward, rifle ready, and walked out onto the concrete walkway. He crouched, and then motioned for his team to follow. They moved through the doorway, slowly approaching the hole in the wall. The Captain motioned to hold as he moved right next to the drone. He pointed at it then pointed to the hole.
The drone flew through the opening and stopped at the end of a tunnel that led to a huge underground cavern. Hundreds of yellow lights embedded in the walls illuminated a vast underground community. Fringers dotted every landing, every nook, and every path. There were hundreds of them. The Skynut drone tried to focus, but light was too low for a detailed view.
“Too many to take on,” the captain whispered into the coms. “We need to head back. We know the location now.”
The captain looked down at his monitor and saw half of a mutated face staring blankly at the drone. “Quietly, back to the transport NOW,” he said louder this time, motioning repeatedly for the soldiers to go.
“What’s going on Cap?” Gray asked quietly.
“Just move,” he replied.
“Move, move, move,” the captain whispered.
“Fringers,” Alvarez said clearly for everyone to hear.
Just as the team turned around and headed back, the door slammed shut making a monstrous sound that shook the walls.
“What the hell, rookie!” Gray said, before noticing that Allen was nowhere near the door. Realizing that it hadn’t been any of them, they all flashed a light at the doorway and saw the newly added lockbox and the dim silhouette of a soaking wet Gus and Ripp rushing up the stairs.
“Get that door open,” the captain barked, as he turned around. He saw a group of shadows running right at them.
The muzzle flash of the captain’s rifle illuminated the broken hallway, showing the horrible state of the feral humans. Their faces were patchworks of sores and bruises. Their eyes were bright yellow and seemed larger than they should have been. Some open wounds and sores oozed with infection. Their tattered clothing seemed irrelevant.
The soldiers’ gunfire echoed and shook the hallway. One Fringer fell, then another, and then another as Alvarez and Gray joined the captain in firing on the group.
“How’s that lock coming?” the captain yelled.
“We don’t have cutting tools,” Allen replied.
“Shoot it!”
Allen leaned at an angle to avoid a direct ricochet. His pistol fired but didn’t make a scratch.
“Bulletproof.”
“Keep trying!”
“More!” Alvarez screamed.
The growing Fringer group barreling through the opening now blacked out the light from the broken hallway. The muzzle flashes strobed through the pitch-black corridor, making it look like an old movie.
“Changing.”
The Fringer group was thinning, but there seemed to be more shadows spilling out of the opening in the wall. The captain pulled his grenade off his vest, activated it and tossed it as close to the opening as he could. Gray and Alvarez continued to mow down the Fringers until the explosion.
Boom!
Debris, blood and Fringer parts flew in every direction. Other than a couple of disoriented Fringers that made easy targets, the horde was down.
His team shot the remaining stragglers. He had hoped that the blast would have closed off the opening to the tunnel, but it hadn’t.
“You guys good?”
A collective “good”, sounded muffled and inhuman, but was reassuring.
Gray tossed his rifle to Allen, who immediately began hammering the box with the butt of the gun. The box loosened a bit, but held firm. He used the barrel of the gun as a lever to try to free it, but it wasn’t coming off.
Air rushed down the corridor. The floors and walls shook as a rumble grew to a roar. The light in the hallway went dark.
“More!”
The bullets hit their marks, but the group was much bigger this time and no matter how many they shot, the horde was still coming.
“How’s that door coming?” Alvarez asked this time.
“Not coming,” Allen replied.
Gray quickly drew his pistol as his last magazine emptied. The captain was out of his last magazine and resorted to his pistol as well.
Alvarez stopped shooting. He looked back at Allen who was still hammering away at the lockbox, and felt bad for the kid. This wasn’t the way to go. He unhooked his grenade, pulled the pin, and ran into the horde.
“NO!” the captain yelled.
Alvarez dove into the shadows. The explosion was too close. A flying Fringer body hit the captain, and pinned him to the floor. Allen was thrown hard against the door knocking him unconscious.