Overrun: Project Hideaway (23 page)

The three men moved single file
slowly through the darkness. They stuck close to the shadows as they made their
way quietly through the wreckage of the destroyed dome.

Tuttle held his weapon tightly
against his cheek. He trained its tip over the shoulder of Captain Mike Samuel,
the man who stepped noiselessly in front of him.

A small light bobbed from
Samuel's shoulder. Its beam was dim enough so that it wouldn’t give them away
in the darkness but gave off just enough light to help them navigate what laid
ahead of them across the floor.

Tuttle's heart and stomach were
sick. The bodies of those not able to escape littered the ground. Hands and
arms sprawled about in grotesque positions. Many of their eyes stared wide.
Some of their mouths were open in still silent screams.

Tuttle stepped carefully ahead.
Without looking down, he moved the toes of his boots gently around trying to
find a clear path in front of him. Captain “Corn” Cranden moved cautiously
behind him.

They took a few more quiet steps
down the dark hallway. The clamor of artillery and small explosions echoed
throughout the structure. Small fires still burned along the walls and on the
floor. The smell of seared and rotting flesh threatened to choke them all.

There was also the subtle
sensation that J.G.U. soldiers were still skulking about. It was something they
all felt. All three men kept their fingers clasped tightly across their
triggers.

Their progress through the halls
was painstakingly slow. And the stench of the dead was almost overwhelming.

Tuttle felt something near his
foot. A stinging pain from his ankle quickly followed. Something soft gave way
beneath his feet. It made a sound like a tree branch that had suddenly snapped.

Tuttle stared down at the fair
skin of a small arm that reached out to him from the darkness. The arm
stretched from the ghostly form of a young female. Her broken body was sprawled
along the floor against the wall.

Tuttle stopped for a moment to
catch his breath.

He inhaled slowly and deeply
trying to force the shock from his body. Or at least push it back as far as he
could.

Tuttle bent down and gently
tucked her arm against her body making the way clear for them to pass.

Standing back up, Tuttle reached
across his shoulder and hit a switch at the top of his gear. Like the other men
ahead of him, a small light appeared that cut lightly through the gloom.
Freeing a hand from his weapon, he repositioned his shoulder lamp so that its
beam pointed towards the ground.

So that they could at least see
what it was they were stepping through.

Still a few paces in front of
Tuttle and Cranden, Samuel quietly stopped. The small beams of their shoulder
lamps pushed away just enough of the shadows and gloom to reveal an
intersecting corridor across their path.

Like a spirit moving through the
darkness, Samuel turned and pressed his back up against the passage wall. He
pulled his weapon in close to his chest and head. Tuttle slid over to the other
side of the corridor. Cranden moved noiselessly up to Tuttle’s side.

"This one," Samuel
said softly. "This one running across. Corridor two command level. We’re
getting close to where we need to be."

Except for the dying sounds of
the battle coming from outside the dome and the last of the tanks battering
their way through its base, the corridors were strangely silent.

But Tuttle could still feel the
presence of the J.G.U. still lurking about. They snuck through the dimness and
walked amidst the dead. Tormenting the tortured souls on whose graves they
trespassed with every tread.

The intensity of the silence
made Tuttle want to scream.

It all reminded him of what he
himself had done. His mind began to race, and his soul became a victim of his
own tortured frenzied thoughts. He feared he would never be forgiven for
helping create the bloody carnage that surrounded him along the ground. For not
saving John Kirken. If anything, the one act that might had allowed him to
atone for the war he helped cause.

His mind and spirit yearned
desperately for another chance to somehow make things right. It was the only
thing that continued to push his feet forward. The only thing that kept breath
in his body and his heart from missing a beat.

He walked through the
passageways littered with the dead trying to find a way to save himself. The
burning need to erase his mistakes was the only thing that kept him from
turning the weapon he gripped tightly in the dark against himself.

"Checking corridor
two," Cranden whispered close to Tuttle's ear.

He pulled out a small black
pear-shaped device in the palm of his hand. He stepped closer to Tuttle and
pressed the device against his back to hide the glow from the display. He set
his weapon down on the ground and stared intently at the facility schematics
that scrolled across. He made two small adjustments on the device which made
soft clicks in the dark.

He switched off the device and
stepped back away from Tuttle. The slight glow it sent through the corridor
quickly disappeared. He stuffed it back into his gear and reached down to pick
up his weapon.

"Right. Head right,"
he said quietly. "We’re almost there."

"You read anything
else?" Samuel said keeping his back to the wall and not looking at either
of the two men across from him.

His shoulder lamp tipped down
towards the battered torso of a young male lying on the ground in front of
them. The man’s legs stretched grotesquely out behind his back. His eyes were
open. A gaping red hole stained the white uniform covering his chest.

Tuttle tried to press himself
further into the steel wall behind him.

The man’s mouth seemed to scream
defiance and accusation into Tuttle’s ears. Tuttle closed his eyes and tried to
block it out. Hoping the whole world might just disappear.

"Nothing indicating
life," Cranden said looking ahead into the corridor crossing their path.

Its dark opening stretched both to
the right and left. He didn’t look at what was at his feet. He stepped in front
of Tuttle and Samuel into the next corridor.

"No soldiers, no nothing.
At least not on this floor. This could be a wasted trip."

"We're not here looking for
survivors…or prisoners…," Samuel said gravely as Cranden turned right and
disappeared around the corner of the passageway.

Samuel stepped away from the
wall and followed him leaving Tuttle alone in the passage.

Tuttle stood there for a moment
and took in several hard deep breaths. He tapped his forehead lightly against
his raised weapon and continued battling the voices of the tortured souls
standing there with him in the gloom.

Their spirits pressed at him
from everywhere through the blackness.

Tuttle waited a few seconds for
his thoughts to finish their tormenting burst. When his mind had a chance to
briefly rest, he held his weapon ready in front of his chest. He turned around
and stared into the shadows behind them making sure no one approached through
the empty corridor.

Satisfied they were still the
only ones making their way through that section of the facility, he turned back
towards the dim bobbing shoulder lamps of the men in front of him twenty feet
down the corridor. Stepping quietly, he followed their glow to the end of the
passage. Both men looked at him when he rejoined them, but neither of them
spoke. Their attention was focused on where their lamps pointed towards an
opening in the wall.

Samuel and Cranden stood on
either side of a dark doorway and whispered to each other silently.

Tuttle adjusted his own shoulder
lamp and stepped closer in. His senses were alive with dread and wariness at
what could be waiting for them in the blackness of the overrun dome. He turned
around again to make sure no one approached from the way they had come.

Tuttle inched closer to Cranden
and Samuel. He reached Cranden first. Samuel leaned against the wall on the far
side of the doorway.

When he finally stood near
Cranden’s shoulder, the medic pulled his sweaty gaze away from his weapon sight
and stared straight into Tuttle’s face. Tuttle's shoulder lamp glowed softly
across his cheek. Holding his look briefly in the artificial light, Tuttle
couldn’t tell if it was fear or accusation sitting behind Cranden’s eyes.

Finally breaking his gaze,
Cranden turned and stepped into the room. Tuttle moved in closer and stood
across from Samuel just outside the doorway.

He tucked the base of his
assault rifle tightly against his ear and pointed it inside the doorway at
whatever was hidden in the dark.

Barely visible in the dim light
of their shoulder lamps, a bloody trail stretched out in front of them across
the floor. Tuttle could smell its fresh stench.

"We're almost to the
command center," Samuel whispered to him from behind the trigger of his
own assault rifle.

The light on Cranden's shoulder
bobbed eerily as he made his way deeper into the gloom. He stopped when a
movement ahead of him caught the beam of his light.

At the same time all three could
hear a sporadic clinking noise disturbing the screaming silence of the room.

Cranden moved his light across
the trail of blood along the floor looking for the noise. Back along the
furthest wall, shapes began to slowly disentangle themselves from the
surrounding dark.

Every few seconds a tiny
"clink" interrupted the encompassing silence.

Cranden slowly moved his fingers
and readied his weapon to fire. The faint click of the arming mechanism sounded
like a cannon across the black chamber.

Tuttle stepped away from Samuel
and followed Cranden inside. His feet slipped when he stepped through the trail
of blood stretching across the floor.

Suddenly the light on the top of
Cranden's shoulder stopped. Its beam carved ahead into the blackness but did
not reveal the sound in front of them. Tuttle stepped further into the room and
stood next to Cranden.

The sound of his own breath
roared like a raging forest fire in his head.

As they moved further inside, a
different sound came to their ears. This one was quiet, rhythmic and slow like
water dripping from a faucet.

Tuttle felt his stomach turn
over in his gut.

"Jesus Christ," he
heard Cranden breathe as he reached into his gear and pulled out a larger
light.

With a loud click, a sharp
steady beam cut like a laser through the heavy darkness.

Tuttle felt his heart stop in
his chest.

Two bodies hung in front of
them.

Two sets of shredded wrists
drooped from bloody shackles. The bodies of two men dangled limply from their
bindings like pieces of recently butchered meat. Fresh blood seeped from their
bodies and dripped from the tips of their hanging feet. The quiet clinking came
from the chains as the bodies continued to gently swing.

The body closest to them was
turned to its side. Its head was pressed up against the chest of the other
hanging next to him.

Lt. Chris Shriver’s eyes were
still open wide. His lips were stretched and twisted as if they had fallen
loose from his teeth. It had been some time since their last defiant scream.

Cranden reached across the beam
of his lamp and tugged at the other body hanging at Shriver’s side. Pulling
gently at the bloody shackles, he brought Dome Commander Steven Corrado's
broken form around.

As he did, air escaping a
swollen pocket in the dead man’s lung made a loud gurgling sound. Cranden
jerked back in surprise, and his feet slipped awkwardly in the blood on the
floor.

Tuttle caught him as he fell
back.

"Son of a bitch,"
Cranden swore softly as he quickly balanced again on his feet. He raised his
arm and pointed his lamp again at the two suspended bodies.

"What do ya got?"
Samuel whispered from where he stood guard just outside the room.

"Two more dead,"
Cranden said running his light up and down their swaying forms. "These guys
a little more recent though. One is still wearing his headset. These guys
weren’t just killed outright. This was an interrogation."

Tuttle pulled out his own light
and pointed it at the men. His beam added to Cranden’s and further lit the
horror the men had endured within the room.

The chains still clinked as they
continued to gently sway.

Tuttle moved closer. With his
gloved hand, he tugged at several ripped pieces of material along the bloody
arm of the man Cranden had just turned around. Matching several pieces
together, an insignia became recognizable.

"Officers," Cranden
whispered peering closer into the light.

"Look at this," Tuttle
said pointing to a spot higher up the dead man’s arm.

Cranden moved the light to where
Tuttle indicated with his finger.

"Facility commander
stripes," Cranden breathed. "Jesus. The dome commander didn't even
get out. I don't think as many escaped as some people seem to believe."

"Let's just hope they had
enough time to safeguard what they've been developing all these years,"
Tuttle said and switched off his light.

"Jesus," Cranden said
again and extinguished his own.

Cranden hooked his assault
weapon across his shoulder and brushed past Tuttle towards where Samuel waited
outside the room.

"The command center has got
to be close," Tuttle heard him say as he walked past Samuel and
disappeared around another corner in the dark.

Tuttle followed him out.

Behind him, he could still hear
the chilling sound of the two dead bodies as they continued to gently swing.

"When did we reestablish
contact?" the President asked while following Baldwin from the elevator.
Two bodyguards wearing plastic face shields, heavy body armor, and carrying
full assault weaponry and gear trailed closely behind him.

Ford and Baldwin walked briskly
down the hallway to the underground command room. Ford’s bodyguards trotted at
their heels. Their hands were clasped tightly across the assault rifles they
held at their chests. And their gear clinked quietly with their every step.

"First signal came in six
hours ago when they first entered the facility," Baldwin said leading the
group down the hall. "We've been monitoring their progress to the command
center. We expect another contact soon."

Baldwin took the group around a
corner where two more bodyguards in assault gear stood on either side of the
brightly lit passage. These men were noticeably bigger. And their weapons were
nearly twice the size and caliber of the other two guards.

Neither man moved or reacted to
the sudden appearance of the President and his small entourage. They were
positioned outside a mammoth steel door where a series of switches and controls
blinked from a control panel to the right of its frame.

The President, Baldwin, and the
first two guards stopped just outside the door. When the clatter of their
running feet subsided from the hallway, a dull hum could be heard coming from
the control panel.

They stood outside the doorway
while one of the sentries swiped an access card across the panel. Ford’s guards
pressed up closely behind him.

After swiping his control card,
the sentry stepped back while the giant door lifted gently up.

Baldwin bent his head and
stepped quickly beneath before the door had withdrawn completely back into the
ceiling. The sentry tucked the access card back into his gear and retreated
back to his post making way for the President and his guard detail to walk
past.

Inside the command center, there
were more than fifty empty chairs and dozens of blinking command terminals
throughout the room. A handful of men and two women hurried quietly about the
command area working hard to monitor them all.

Some moved quickly. Others moved
unhurriedly like they were plodding through a dream. An officer approached with
sweat dripping from his forehead. He nodded respectfully at the President as he
brushed hurriedly past. The man had already left before Ford could return the
gesture.

"Troops have been detected
about fifty miles from the safety zone barrier," Baldwin said moving to
the front of the room.

“From Science Dome 15?” Ford
asked quickly.

“No,” Baldwin replied as quickly
back. “From here. Troops have been sighted within fifty miles of the
Administration Dome facility. They are getting close.”

The President didn’t answer. He
followed silently after Baldwin. They both stepped awkwardly through the
multitude of chairs spread haphazardly across the room.

"They are twenty miles from
the maximum range of the Death Wall.”

Ford removed his suit jacket and
threw it over the back of an unused workstation console.

The leather holsters containing
the two brilliantly polished high-caliber Sunszk hand weapons hung tightly
across his white sweat-soaked shirt. The gleaming metal tips of their extra
rounds protruded noticeably from his large leather belt.

A few workers in the room stole
quick looks at the sight. Most, however, did not react or take notice. It
wasn’t the first time the President had openly carried fire arms while in
office. He had realized long ago the responsibility of keeping himself alive
did not begin and end with his personal entourage of guards. It ultimately
began with himself.

Especially in the world in which
they now lived.

The head of the guard division
had never balked when Ford first approached him with the desire to be trained
in light and hand weaponry. The guards on his detail themselves had expressed
their agreement and complete support of this idea many times over.

Despite the multitudes of extra
personnel that had been assigned to his protection detail, he carried a weapon
for years following the first assassination attempt. Either concealed or
sometimes just outright. It was only in the most recent of years he had finally
stopped.

It was almost twenty-five years
to the day since his family was lost.

He began heavy weapons training
the following morning. The day after he became a widower and learned he would
live the rest of his life without his children.

Baldwin he arranged for top
military munitions experts and guerrilla class snipers to set up a camp two
floors beneath the Administration Dome. Ford spent many long hours with these
men still all the while attending to the required duties of being President. He
spent even more time in the makeshift weapons camp during the trial of the men
that had caused all of this to be.

He became adept in small arms,
long-range, and assault weaponry. He even went so far as to having made
arrangements to secretly take the place of a member of the Judicial Firing
Squad should they have been assigned the duty of the executions.

It was to his disappointment
when the verdict was read. The punishment of death was handed down, but the JFS
was not given the execution assignment.

It was decided by the Judiciary
Committee that their terminations would be carried out with radiation
injections. Radiation injections administered during a live holovid broadcast.
It was thought that publicizing the horrific spectacle of a radiation injection
execution would hopefully deter any such future attempts on the President’s
life.

The trial and sentence were all
carried out within the span of two weeks.

Ford stood between them when the
poison was slowly leaked into their bodies. He remembered how much he relished
in their terror. And he remembered the fear he felt at how much pleasure and
satisfaction it brought.

For many years past, he
struggled with the tragedy and death that had befallen his family. He also
suffered silently through the nearly debilitating paranoia he had of future
assassination attempts. He seethed with hatred at what had already happened and
what still could come.

For more than a year, his heart
felt like it would rip open a hole and fall right out of his chest. At the end
of each year, he was always surprised that it was not his last.

And then came the second
attempt. It was a day Ford also recalled vividly.

He was walking from his own
private bathroom when he noticed a muzzle tip pointing at him from just outside
his bedroom door. He stopped just before crossing the weapons path. The assassin
had not yet seen him and still waited for him to pass.

Ford pressed up against the
doorway and stuck his own weapon, a small one he always carried with him, into
the doorway crack. He fired three shots straight into the man’s chest.

The would-be assassin had
dropped over on his back on the other side of the doorway and laid there
bleeding while Ford walked into the room. Ford leaned over the dying man and
stared without mercy or compassion at the seeping hole in his chest.

He kneeled down and watched him
try to stop the rush of blood from his wound with a shaking hand. He stayed
there and waited until life had completely seeped from his body and ran out
onto the floor.

It was then he realized he
wasn’t ready to join his family. There was too much hate in his soul to die
before he could find some sort of release. Some way to end his bitter
frustration and find justice for the lost lives of his family.

His guards still followed
closely behind as they made their way to the front of the command center where Baldwin
approached a woman standing at its center.

She had long brown hair, and her
uniform was neatly pressed in sharp comparison to the disheveled look of the
rest of the command center staff. She spoke briefly with Baldwin and walked to
the rear of chamber. She moved gracefully through the room as if completely
removed from the chaos erupting around her.

After speaking with a few of the
communications personnel at the rear of the room, she returned and sat at one
of the main command stations. Baldwin leaned over her shoulder and pointed at
one of the four empty holovids to her left. Blue static crackled across all of
the holovid screens.

The President stepped behind
Baldwin. With his hands on his hips, he turned his body and looked around the
command center. Located deep beneath the Administration Dome, it was virtually
empty.

The Administration Dome command
center was one of the main operations and communications facilities of the
entire dome military command. There should have been more than 200 people
bustling around the room manning the equipment.

Ford only counted fifteen.

Noticing his stare, Baldwin
turned around and lowered his voice so that only the President could hear.

"We've had to send as many
people as we can out to combat. As far as staffing, this is the best we can
do."

The President nodded in
acknowledgement. A bead of sweat dropped from his brow.

The two guards stepped away from
Ford and took positions against the walls on either side of the command center.
Their assault rifles rested in their arms ready to fire.

"Mr. President, we’ve lost
nearly 425 domes," Baldwin said taking a seat next to the woman with brown
hair.

His arms swept across the
consoles next to hers making more of the holovid screens glow to life.

"Along with those, about
eighty-five percent of our scientific facilities have also been lost. We’ve
confirmed a ninety-two percent personnel loss. Eighty-three percent of our
military force has also been eliminated.

“More than ninety percent of the
Vulture Squad is dead,” Baldwin said softly and more slowly while turning to
the President. A lot of them died in their own attacks. The J.G.U. are going
where they wish and neutralizing everything in their path. We haven’t been able
to do anything to stop them."

The room around Ford became
suddenly eerily quiet.

Only faint hums from equipment
consoles and the hiss of static across unused holovid screens broke the
silence. The small number of people working the command center moved steadily
about the room. A faint quiet horror started to take hold of the President’s
head.

He reached absently at the
holster hanging under his left arm and shifted it further towards his back.

"The times we have come
across here, Mr. President, are extremely grim. I don’t think I even know
anymore what it is we should exactly do."

Ford looked around the room
eyeing up the empty stations.

"Everyone capable has been
called to outside battle,” Baldwin explained following his gaze.
"Communications monitoring. Troop tracers. Most command systems, even here
at the Administration Dome, are being operated by extremely diminished crews."

The President let his breath out
slowly.

"Sir," Baldwin said
softly. "It’s come down to it. We're running out of men. Many to combat.
Many others to desertion. Our government is crippling, sir. We’re starting to
pay for what we’ve wrought."

These last words brought
complete silence to the room. Most everyone within earshot stopped working at
their consoles and turned to stare at Baldwin and Ford. The brown-haired woman
next to Baldwin dropped her hands from the control table in front of her and
folded them in her lap.

Both Ford and Baldwin stood at
the center of the room without speaking for a few minutes deep in thought.
Neither seemed to notice the scared looks from the command center crew around
them or the intense silence. Ford struggled to think. Trying to comprehend that
he was the first president in United States history to preside over the country
as it slowly fell to foreign defeat.

The invasion upon U.S. soil was
almost nearly complete. The country was quickly running out of time. He had to
act now.

Ford turned his head and looked
again at the brown-haired woman near him. He tried to lose himself in her
movement and grace. Her face glowed with a spiritual warmth, and her warm gaze
lashed out against the pressing gloom.

"What about the Hideaway Project?"
Ford asked.

"So far…,” Baldwin
answered. “…so far, we just don't know."

"If we have it and have
access, will it be enough to bargain with the J.G.U? At least get them to talk
about a cease fire or terms of an amicable truce?"

"It might be Mr. President,”
Baldwin answered slowly. The brown-haired woman next to him had started working
at her station again. “It's why they're here. To acquire the beam cannon
technology. It’s why they're ripping through the science domes. That’s the
information they’re seeking. We can only pray that they haven’t been able to
access it yet.”

“It’s really the only chance
we've got," the President whispered though everyone was still able to hear
him throughout the room.

"It is, Mr.
President," Baldwin answered him. “I totally agree.”

Ford rested his hands on his
hips and felt the muscles settle and sag across his face.

Light glinted off his eyes like
shards of broken glass, and his jaw set in a cold solid line.

Everyone and everything within
the command room ceased to move. He could feel the eyes of everyone pushing
hard at his back.

He let his breath out in a loud
exhale and stood there for a brief while. No one in the chamber around him
dared to move. Silence continued to suffocate the air.

"Mr. President," the
voice of the brown-haired woman brought him back away from the hopelessness of
his own thoughts. He looked down over her shoulder at her hands gliding gently
over the console controls. The static filling the holovid screens in front of
her began to lessen, and a hazy image slowly came into view.