Ex-Isle by Peter Clines (electronic reader TXT) 📕

“That was the hope, yeah,” Johnson said.

“That’s why we’re all out here,” the first sergeant explained. “It was a chance to start training again, to be more active, to try to halt the degeneration. And to do it with a lot fewer eyes on us.”

“Why? Why not just ask for help? Doctor Connolly could’ve—”

“Because this is a military problem.”

Gibbs rolled his eyes.

“Jesus,” Danielle said. “When are you going to get it through your heads? There is no more military. No more us and them. We don’t have enough people left for us and them.”

“These are my soldiers,” snapped Kennedy. “My platoon. They’re my responsibility.”

“What about Freedom?” asked Gibbs. “Is this happening to him, too?”

Wilson snorted. “The captain’s unstoppable. We’re all the prototypes. He’s the next generation. The real deal. He’s going to be like that forever.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sorensen was sure,” said Kennedy, “and he’s been right about everything else.”

“Does he know what’s happening to all of you?” Danielle asked. “The captain?”

“He does,” the first officer said. “We debated this action, but in the end he agreed it would be better for morale if we were training out of sight.”

“So you both knew you were leaving Eden poorly defended.”

“No,” said Kennedy with a shake of her head. “We’re still the best choice to be up here. We may not be as strong as we were, but all of us are still twice as strong as an average adult.”

“But not as strong and capable as you’d led us all to believe,” Gibbs said.

Hector pointed a finger up at the roof. “What about your watchtower?”

“What about it?” Kennedy glanced up, then back at Hector.

“Why’re they watching the people inside the fence?” asked Danielle.

Kennedy shook her head. “It’s a sentry position to watch the exes.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is. What else would it be?” She leaned her head back. “Sergeant Pierce?!”

A call came down through the canopy. “Yeah, First Sergeant?”

“What’s in your sights right now?”

Johnson noticed something on his boots and began to study it. Pierce’s voice rang down from above. “Dead guy over by the east gate. Ugly bastard with one arm and half his face gone.”

Kennedy looked at Hector, then Danielle.

“Sergeant Johnson,” said Gibbs, “care to tell us what you were looking at?”

“Sir?”

“You’re the one we all saw looking somewhere that wasn’t the fence line.”

“I don’t recall, sir.”

“I think the lieutenant just asked you to remember, Sergeant,” Kennedy said.

Johnson twisted his lips. “I was checking out the woman,” he said.

Danielle almost laughed. “What?”

Johnson straightened up a little more. “It’s been warm, ma’am, and Desi, one of the people working the gardens, she’s been wearing a lot of shorts and tank tops and…” He shot a quick glance at Kennedy. “She’s really well-shaped, First Sergeant.”

Hector rolled his eyes. “Pig.”

“Hey, I mean it,” said Johnson.

Kennedy turned back to Danielle. “Happy now?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Hang on,” said Cesar. The battlesuit unfolded a steel finger to point at Kennedy. “Still one question. If this isn’t some big plan, why’ve you been so friendly? Why’ve you been trying to get Dr. Morris on your side?”

Kennedy shifted her stance. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ahhh,” Gibbs said after a moment. “I’m going to guess the first sergeant wasn’t trying to get Dr. Morris on ‘their’ side as much as on ‘her’ side.”

A quick flush of blood washed through Kennedy’s cheeks and vanished. She had remarkable self-control. “You have no business talking about it, Lieutenant,” she said. “It’s my private life. I keep it private.”

“I think Dr. Morris made a good point a few minutes ago,” said Gibbs. “There isn’t much of a military left. You can safely assume you’re not obligated to follow the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ guidelines anymore.”

Danielle blinked. “Oh.”

“Fucking dyke bitch,” muttered Taylor.

Kennedy spun and slammed her fist into the soldier’s gut. It hurled him back through the thin wall of shrubs. He crashed to the ground, rolled over twice in the dirt, and came to rest at the edge of the garden plot. Smith looked at him and smirked.

“Specialist,” bellowed Kennedy, “you’d better stay down if you know what’s good for you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hector said. “Weak as a kitten. No good like this at all.”

Taylor coughed a few times, sat up, and shook the dust from his hair. He glared at the first sergeant, but he kept his mouth shut and didn’t stand up. He turned his gaze on the people watching, instead. Smith and the others slipped away into the garden.

“So,” Danielle said to Kennedy, “I think we need to reconsider how things are going to work up here, with all this new information in mind.”

Kennedy took a breath, then nodded.

“We’ll want to get Lester in on it, too.” She nodded at the head gardener. He’d snuck closer to listen. “And Al. They’ll both need to know.”

“Right,” said Kennedy. “Of course.”

“For now, we could burn up some extra power and give the battlesuit an extra patrol each day, but after that we—”

The warning bell rang. They all looked in different directions, at the closest borders of Eden. The main building was in the way for most of it. The chain-link and wooden fences off to their left looked as solid as ever.

“Probably Pierce got his rifle stuck in the cord again,” muttered Johnson.

The bell kept ringing.

Lester stepped forward. “Doesn’t that mean—?”

“Oh, crap,” Danielle said. Her arms pulled in tight against her body.

“Holy hell,” shouted Pierce up above. “Half the south fence just went down!”

MITCHEL KNEW HE was screwed. He prided himself on being good at reading the signs. And he knew what the signs were saying right now.

Get. The hell. Out.

As soon as he’d woken up from the dead girl’s ambush, he’d crawled away, then run. Every step made his face ache and he bit back howls of pain. But he had to run, because it was time for plan B.

It was all over. No denying it anymore, these guys were the Mighty Dragon and Zzzap. And he was pretty sure the