Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

us. The farthest we venture are the parking structures to the south and east. But even then, we only go up into the first and second sublevels, and we always wear our O2 masks.

Never onto the surface. Never.

I nudge her and wink. "What if we call 'em retrievers?"

She almost smiles. "Still reminds me of golden—"

"Captain Willard?" Perch's throaty voice comes through the radio clipped to my uniform, somewhere on the floor.

With a short sigh, I roll off the bed and sink my bare feet into the thick carpet. The radio chirps from my camouflage pants. Takes me a few seconds to locate them in the tangled mess we threw aside moments ago.

"Captain?"

Margo giggles, watching me struggle. She sits up, uncovered and unashamed. I contemplate dropping the uniform and diving onto her for another round.

"Willard here." This had better be good.

"Am I interrupting anything, sir?"

He knows he is. I'm sure he wants her for himself, wishes he was captain. Maybe not. Paranoia—another burden of leadership.

"Not at all. Proceed."

A short pause. "The dogs, they-uh…found somethin' you'll want to see."

His tone makes me glance at Margo apologetically. "I'll be right over."

With my uniform and beret back in place, I shut the door to our apartment and head down the ladder. Margo and I will meet up again later when she makes her rounds. She reminded me yet again how important it is for me to be a visible presence amongst the patients. Whatever makes her happy. I can't afford to lose her.

Not that she'd be stupid enough to leave me, of course. She's a smart girl.

Jamison stands outside the door to the monitoring station, his features guarded. He's already seen what I'm about to; that much is obvious. And he doesn't know how I'm going to react. Should be interesting.

I step inside without a word to him, but he salutes anyway and I return the gesture as I pass. Perch is seated inside the dim room in front of a wall of monitors, each one displaying the viewpoint of a different camera-equipped dog collar. His thick fingers are splayed over the dials on the console before him, increasing and decreasing the settings, guiding the mutos where he wants them to go.

"Captain," he greets me without looking my way, his attention divided between the screens and the controls.

I lean over his shoulder. My eyes rove across the monitors. "What am I supposed to be looking at here?" The images are green and fuzzy, distorted. I thought we'd already made all the needed improvements.

"Coming up," he murmurs, concentrating.

"We're—he's getting them to face it from different angles so we can get a better look. But they're tired, probably hungry. They're not responding as quickly as normal," Jamison explains.

"Increase the settings then." Send a thousand volts through them, I don't care. There's plenty more mutos where they come from.

"That's what we're doing, but they can only take so much before they—"

"Keel over." Perch curses as one of the monitors is seized by static. "Lost that one."

"What did they find?" I assumed it would be ready for me to see, whatever it is.

Jamison points to the third screen from the left, second from the top. "There. You can almost make it out."

I see fuzzy green and black shadows. I squint and lean in closer, but it's no help. "Can't you adjust—?"

"Compensating," Perch mutters, reaching for another dial on the control panel. Gradually, the image resolution clears. "How's that?"

"Better." I see it now. Time slows. I forget to breathe. "Where are they?" I whisper.

"From what we can tell, they're beneath one of the storage facilities to the southeast. Two or three levels down." Jamison clears his throat. "It's a radio. Shortwave, by the looks of it."

Obviously. But why is the light on the receiver blinking? "Power source?"

"None that we can see." Perch sets the dials and leans back, folding his hands behind his head. "Three, four, and six." He gestures to the monitors. "Those are our boys. Got 'em on standby."

One muto's camera faces the radio; the other two are aimed at its sides and just behind it, against a concrete wall. The light next to the receiver blinks steadily, patiently, with an incoming transmission. How long has it been functional? Twenty years?

What kind of battery would last that long?

"So..." Jamison clears his throat, crossing his arms. "You can see our dilemma here."

I glance at him. Of course I do. If we have the mutos fetch it for us, we risk losing the call, whoever it's from. The dogs haven't held the greatest track record with retrieving fragile items. But there's no other option. We can't go and get it for ourselves. It's too far out.

That option better not be crossing their minds.

"No dilemma here." I shake my head and step back. "Have 'em bring it down."

Jamison's mouth drops open and hangs there a moment. "This could be important, sir. Can we really expect the mutos to deliver it in one piece?"

"Important?" I raise an eyebrow at him.

"The incoming transmission... I mean, it could be—"

"Are you expecting a call, Jamison?" I grin, and Perch snickers. "From an old girlfriend, perhaps?"

He looks down, but his eyes rebound quickly. "We could send somebody up—"

"Not happening." He's an idiot even to think it.

"Just hear me out, sir." Jamison steps forward and waits for my reluctant sigh before continuing, "The patients. Couldn't we send one of them? They're already infected, so the harm's been done. We could use a radio to guide them to it, then—"

"Then what?" Perch chuckles. "Have 'em talk to whoever's on the other end? Yeah, that would go over real well. Not the best spokesmen for Eden, that bunch." He laughs out loud.

But I don't. Because young Jamison here has stumbled onto something brilliant. Of course we wouldn't want any of the patients to actually use the shortwave radio—but they could bring it to us. And I'm sure they'd do a better job handling this sensitive piece of equipment than the mutos ever could, even on their best days.

"How