Orpheus: Homecoming (The Orpheus Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

Lena held up her glass.

"Wait, what are we celebrating?"

"In a minute, in a minute. Just shoot this with me."

They clinked their shot glasses and threw them back. Orpheus shot his quickly and cleanly, but the afterburn was intense. "Jesus, Malone, whose piss is that?"

Lena was a bit slower, and sputtered a bit. "God, what
was
that shit, anyway?" She stuck her tongue out and made gagging noises.

"Hey, you ordered it." He took a drink from the beer that he'd given to her. It helped to put out the fire a little. "Okay, what's the occasion?"

She took a sip of beer and explained. "Okay, you remember the radio station that was here? The one that Ethan trashed? Well, I pulled a few favors and managed to get the permits to broadcast on that frequency. I'm going to be the voice of the island!"

"I don't understand. That radio station is gone."

"That one is. But we have a broadcast setup right here in this school."

"That's cool, but there's no way that signal makes it to the mainland."

"No, Cam, but that's what the internet's for. Come on, you're not that old." She began to get more animated, her hands moving a mile a minute. "I managed to land some syndication deals all over the East Coast. Marty helped a little. A lot. Okay, he did it all. Anyway, this is huge for us. Zombie radio. It won't be just a cute name!"

It was hard to not be infected by her enthusiasm. "What's the, uh ...?”

"The word you're searching for is 'format.' It'll be music, interviews, updates, listener stories, whatever I want. The marketing guys agree that ratings should be really big."

Orpheus chewed on it for a moment. "You know, I think it's awesome. In anybody else's hands, I'd probably try to fight it, but you're earned my full support."

She spontaneously hugged him.

"Jeez, can I leave you alone for ten minutes without you putting the moves on our boss?"

Lena broke her hug and gave Tim a quick kiss on the lips. "Hey, baby, I was just telling him about the radio thing. He thinks it's a great idea."

"I do. You'll do well." Orpheus got up. "I have to get some rest. I haven't been doing my internal clock any favors." He shook Tim's hand and guided him into his vacated seat. "You let them know that as long as this stays under control, we won't have a problem. If anyone screws up, I'll shut it down."

"You got it. When's your first interview?"

"What?"

"Nothing! Nothing! He was talking to me," Lena said. It was obvious that she was flustered.

Orpheus did the math. "You promised them an interview with me."

She took a sip of her beer and said, timidly, "Kind of."

He put a hand on her shoulder, leaned forward slightly, and looked her straight in the eyes. "Explain."

She put the bottle to her lips, more for protection than for thirst. She nearly spoke into the bottle itself. "I maybe promised them that I'd get thirty minutes a week from you."

Orpheus couldn't find it in himself to be surprised. Or mad. He just wagged his finger at her impotently while he attempted to form a response. What came out was, "I never liked your tattoos." The three of them laughed, and Orpheus said, "Thirty minutes. Not a second more. And I decide where and when."

"Of course, of course, thankyouthankyou!" She hugged him again.

Tim threw his hands up. "Oh, come on, I'm right here!"

By the end of the third week, the school and its grounds were completely secured. Every bit of infrastructure was not only running smoothly but had at least one backup in place. A double fence surrounded the entire school, the armory was stocked with weapons and over a hundred thousand combined rounds, food filled not only the cafeteria's storage space but a few unused rooms nearby, and the school had three independent generators installed (any one of which could run the school). Even the gym had been returned to its intended purpose, as Orpheus had allowed the men to sleep three to a room as long as they got his approval. Every soldier took him up on it, to no one's surprise.

The school could be a completely functional fortress for at least several months. It would take a small, human army with heavy weapons to take it. Even if every remaining zombie on the island attacked them all at once, the school would be impenetrable for an extended period. 

Even Orpheus caught himself relaxing every now and then.

Then he reminded himself that securing their base was the easy part. Now they had to begin the process of seeking out ...
hunting
... the zombies. No matter how well he'd prepared his troops, they'd still be much more vulnerable outside the fences.

So he constantly kicked himself for letting up and always tried to consider the worst-case scenario. He figured that he had them all covered, up to and including a meteor strike.

Still, he felt the nerves, and that was a good thing. He was about to send his men off on their own.

He met everyone in the staging area. His lieutenants had already organized the personnel into four teams. Each team consisted of one Rhino, one Jeep, and fourteen troops, including a team leader.

Lena was briefing them all on the day's plan of attack. She had mapped out the entire island and implemented a plan that would allow them to cover the most ground with the least risk. She stressed the importance of high-visibility areas and the necessity for each team to be able to relocate to another team's location within a minute. Orpheus loved watching her work. For all of her free-spiritedness, she was born to do exactly this. She'd already done it once before with a lot less at her disposal, and she understood that lives were in her hand. She took that as seriously as one could.

"Do not deviate from this plan. I've busted my ass for a month, checking satellite photos, weather reports, population clusters, currents, and everything I can imagine to give you every advantage." She saw Orpheus and continued. "If you ad-lib because you're bored or, worse, you think you know better than I do, the very best that you can hope for is that you'll be kicked off of this island. Is that understood?"

They did.

"Good. Plans may need to change from time to time. Communicate, communicate, communicate. When you're out there, all I have is the info you share. And all you have is me. Questions?"

There were none.

Orpheus nodded to Ethan, who said, "Let's get to work."

Within sixty seconds, the teams were loaded and heading to their assigned zones, and Orpheus and Lena stood alone. Even though he intended to head back to the same place that Lena was, he had no desire to walk together. Not because she was bad company. It didn't come any better. But he did need some time alone to think.

About the job.

About his family.

Certainly about Ralston.

But mostly about loose ends. The island was home to a few, none of his own creation, but he intended to tie them up.

The last time he was here, it seemed that nearly everyone was working an angle. This go round, it was him.

He hated unfinished business.

The walk back to his office felt different. For the first time in weeks, the place wasn't alive with activity. Everything that needed to be set up had been, and only now had they been able to begin the work they were there to do. With the majority of his personnel out to scrub the island there was only a small contingent of sentries, cooks, mechanics, and the like left at the base, and most of them were out of sight. Once, he couldn't go fifty feet without walking by someone else. Now, with a few strategic turns here and there, he could get back to his office unseen, even by Thompson.

The effect was almost eerie, and he had to remind himself that it was all a good thing. The operation was running even more smoothly than he'd hoped. Outside of Ralston's visit, nothing had really gone off script.

And that's exactly why Cameron Holt, firm believer in the other shoe, was worried.

This nagged him all the way back to his office, but it was quickly forgotten when Orpheus pulled a weighty accordion file from his personal bag.

He pulled out the first folder and smiled. After they'd escaped the island, Lena had clued him in to "Project: Snake." This was everything she'd amassed on one Martin Trager before it turned out he wasn't quite the asshole that they all thought he was. Even though he was now a staunch ally and unquestioned friend, Orpheus kept the file. He knew the value of information. He put that file to the side and saw one with his own name on it, which was news to him. The front of the folder featured a yellow sticky note with a big smiley face and the words "DON'T BE MAD." He skimmed through the file, passing over physicals and correspondence until his eyes registered the phrase "on the edge." He read that entry with interest. Lena had amassed an informal, but surprisingly extensive, psych profile on him. The picture that she painted wasn't pretty.

Her handwritten summary paragraph read:
Cameron Holt is a man on a mission, as personal as they get. At this point, as much as I want to think otherwise, I believe that he is on a fool's errand, and that his son is dead. I've looked at literally thousands of photos and videos, and not even a hint of a clue. Cam is most likely aware of this on some level, but won't allow himself to accept it. Assuming this is the case, the longer his "mission" goes on, the more risks he is likely to take until he is either killed or can no longer deny his son's fate and will take his own life. He's clinically depressed, but fights it with rage and sheer force of will. He's made an admirable effort to hide this, but those of us who know better can see right through it. He carries a single-shot "backup" on his leg, for Christ's sake. Who only needs one shot? I'll continue to work on his behalf and pray for a miracle, despite the resistance from certain tall, bespectacled southerners who think they know better (could be a guy thing, I don't know). Why? Because I'm the only one who can give him any hope, and I'll delay his tragic end as long as I possibly can, thank you very much.

He didn't know how many times he reread that paragraph. He just couldn't take his eyes from it. He wanted to find something, anything to argue with.

He couldn't. He really had been that close.

That was then, though. He'd pulled himself back from the abyss.

I have.

Despite his desire to burn his file immediately, he couldn't allow himself the bout of hypocrisy. He slid the file on top of Martin Trager's and moved on. Next was Ralston's file. He put that in a different pile for later reading. Same for Thompson's, though he figured he had a pretty good handle on him already.

Friend files over here, unknowns such as Tino and German over there.

The last file was what he was most interested in. Judging by the thickness, Lena had been a very busy girl. He opened it up and removed a large map of the island. He unfolded it and spread it out. At its full size, it nearly covered his desk. The file also contained a transparent overlay. Once he was sure of the proper orientation, he laid that on top of the map. Next came a bundle of 6x9 sheets of paper held together by a heavy duty spring clip. The top sheet had a simple label on it: "OB1" and a timestamp. He found the corresponding label on the overlay and placed the sheet next to it. He did the same for the next paper. He repeated this process nearly a dozen more times until the stack was exhausted.

He placed his palms flat against his desk and drummed his fingers several times. He was about to begin reading when it occurred to him that he didn't want anyone other than a handful of trusted people to ever see this, but he didn't want to go through the hassle of setting it up every time, either. He grabbed the sticky note from his file and wrote underneath Lena's script. He marched to his door and slapped the reminder to "LOCK UP YOUR DAMN OFFICE" on the door.

He returned to his desk. He moved the now empty "Reported Outbreaks" file to the floor beside him and dove in to the firsthand accounts. The first few confirmed what he already knew: that the outbreaks started suddenly, with only one or a small handful of people ... and they all started within a few minutes of each other. He used his own experience as a starting point. He knew the exact time that Marcy's friend had turned, because he had looked at his watch no more than thirty seconds prior. When Orpheus took into account that all of the reported times were approximate guesses by terrified witnesses, and that all of them ostensibly occurred within fifteen minutes on either side of his known baseline, he couldn't shake the feeling that they had actually occurred simultaneously.

As if synchronized.

The more he thought about it, the more sure he became.

He didn't even try to fool himself into believing that this was solely the doing of Dr. Vincent. He was working for someone, and that someone was Darrin Cross of Charon Biotics International. Did it end with him? Orpheus doubted it. Marty had Cross on the hook and was convinced that while he was directing things, he wasn't the money or the power behind it.

Orpheus was beginning to go cross-eyed from all of the reading, so he pushed away from his desk and leaned back in his chair. He laced his fingers together behind his head and closed his eyes.

Whoever you are, you motherfucker, I will find you.

O

"Okay, stop for a second," Tim said to the driver. The coordinates on the GPS readout were correct. Tim, who had recently (and for good reason) become a guy who refused to be entirely dependent upon technology, double-checked it against a map. "Yeah, we're good."

"Roger." The driver stopped the Rhino, but kept it running so they would have the full use of the van.

Tino said, "I don't know if 'good' is what I'd go with, LT." He motioned to the window while he checked his weapon.

Tim looked and saw the same thing that Tino saw.

One of the spotters yelled, "We got some coming from the side, too!" He'd barely gotten the last word out before several zombies crashed against the Rhino with resounding thumps. The Rhino itself didn't budge an inch. A few of the men were startled, but quickly composed themselves.

Tim heard the mechanical hum of the stabilizers being lowered. "Sit tight, guys. This is what we're here for. Once the stabs are down we go to work."

Ethan's voice came over the radio. "Zulu One, this is Zulu Two. We're in position. Over."

"Same here, Zulu Two. Zulu Three, status?"

"In place and locked. We have a few customers already." Rachel sounded confident.
She has every reason to be,
Tim thought.
She's already done a lot more damage with a lot less firepower.

"Zulu Four?"

"Ready to fucking rock, over." Fish sounded like Fish.

"Copy all in position. Wait for my go."

The horde that had caught Tino's eye were pounding away at the front of the Rhino. They clawed ineffectually at the Rhino, hands leaving streaks of gore in places, because the laser-cut door seams were nearly invisible and impossible to pry open anyway.

Tim felt the Rhino lift an inch or two as the stabilizers drove into the earth. The driver confirmed that the stabilizers were locked in position. "Let's do it, fellas. Give me eight up top. No sense crowding everyone up there." There was a little jostling for position, as none of them wanted to be left inside. The fear of the zombies that some of them had initially felt on day one had been replaced by a general desire for action. Tim supposed that was a good thing, generally speaking, although he didn't know why some of them were so damn excited to kill what not too long ago were human beings.

He radioed to the other three units that they were almost a go. He handed his weapon to Tino and headed topside himself. He wouldn't be firing today if he could help it. If he got through the entire mission without killing anyone else, he'd consider that a rousing success. His sole duty was to make sure they stayed safe, that no one fired anywhere near the other Rhinos, and that the job got done efficiently. The other lieutenants would be doing the same.

For this gig, they were all just middle management.

He reached the top of the hatch and got his feet under him. He ensured that he was clipped in properly and walked the length of the Rhino. He wasn't surprised to find that they were completely surrounded by more than three dozen zombies. In another lifetime, it would have been utterly terrifying. But these were entirely different circumstances, and he was, to be frank, an entirely different man. This time, he and his friends were in complete control.

He surveyed the other soldiers and was amused that the ones who showed the most bravado at the school seemed to be the most nervous. It was kind of odd, as they all had at least one or two zombie kills under their belts. Then again, that was back at the base, they only had to deal with a handful at a time ... and Orpheus had been there.