Second Activation (The Activation Series Book 2) Read online

  “The more I hear about these people . . .” I trailed off. Just as I thought GA couldn’t get any worse, I found out they press-ganged poor buggers into working for them too.

  “A week later, they couriered tickets to my house, and I traveled to Estonia. They picked me up at the airport and whisked me to a compound just outside Tallinn. The workers called it ‘Doctor Death’s Military Academy.’ Most of us were in similar situations, and no one dared disobey orders. We had a simple goal of bringing a global communications network online. To effectively activate all the devices simultaneously.”

  Brett held his head in his hands. I considered what I’d do in his situation and concluded I would probably act in a similar way. Although as a part of the technology team, he couldn’t have been completely blind to the ultimate solution. “Hold on, if GA is activating these gizmos simultaneously, why the need for local controllers like Jerry?”

  He rubbed his face and looked up. “The devices are individual so local areas can adjust the frequency and method of operation. Basically, when all devices go live, the head of each region inputs the activation codes to send out the required signal instructions.”

  “Is Ron head of this region?” I said.

  “He was . . . Monroe controlled a big area.”

  “Do you know the codes?” Jack asked.

  “No, I’ve haven’t got access to the activation codes and didn’t get near any devices until coming here a few weeks ago.”

  Brett left the table and returned with two more bottles of water and a package of cookies. He dropped them in front of us. “Do you have any more questions? I need to get back to my post, and you need to get clear of here.”

  Jack opened the package and stuffed two cookies in his mouth. I unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and had another drink. I think we both wanted to make the most of our free supplies.

  “Why did you come to Monroe?” I said.

  “It’s a key place to the strategy, apparently. It’s not like I could argue,” Brett said.

  “What happened when you got here?” Jack said, spitting crumbs across the table. “Did you work with Jerry or Anthony?”

  “Ron greeted me at the airport and told me I would be shortly reunited with my family. He said I should be grateful that I was a chosen one.”

  “Chosen one? Some choice,” I said.

  Brett grunted a sarcastic laugh. “Just before the first activation, we were all taken to a bunker close to Lake Michigan and stayed there for three days.”

  “Why three days?” Jack asked.

  “That was supposed to be the time span for the activation effects.”

  “Supposed to be?” I asked.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. We were given training on survival techniques and procedures for the new world and a whole load of information that was impossible to remember. We were also issued personal weapons and radios.”

  “So who’s behind it all?” Jack asked.

  “The last morning, before being released, everyone gathered to watch a video presentation by an old guy I immediately recognized as Henry Fairfax.”

  “Fairfax Industries? I thought that was renewable energy,” I said. “Is he the one running the show?”

  “Yeah, he proclaimed a new world order and said we’d been chosen to rebuild humanity.”

  “Why did he do it?” Jack said.

  “He mentioned religion, politics, and fossil fuels. I can’t remember exactly, but it was all kinds of crazy shit. When we came out, the whole world was a complete fucking mess. Ron said he’d received orders that we were to stay here and assist with the cleanup operation in Monroe. He held daily meetings to reassure us that our families were okay, and said there was a lot of work to do in getting the rest of the surviving population back on its feet.”

  “How many are left alive?” I asked.

  He leaned back and puffed out his cheeks. “No idea. The plan for the second activation was to bring in survivors for processing. But you two torturing Jerry and Anthony sent Ron into a tailspin. The activation got delayed, procedures were thrown out, and we were all told to wait for you to get here so they could have revenge—”

  Jack banged his fist on the table. “I knew he was full of shit.”

  Brett paused, eying us both, as if waiting for one of us to speak. I didn’t know about Jack, but I was consumed by his story and wanted to know more. Brett continued, “Ron ordered us to report communications problems to Headquarters. They could tell we were hiding something. My team started to get nervous. We didn’t want to poke the hornet’s nest. Ron said if the local operation was shut down, our families would be butchered like pigs.”

  “Does he have the authority to do that?” I said.

  “I doubt it.” He leaned toward us and lowered his voice. “When you shot him, we heard Jerry screaming down the radio for the guards to stand down. They wanted to kill you themselves. Jerry and Anthony appeared in a Mustang and started blaming everyone for letting you take a weapon into the house. They shot up our last vehicle. Those were the guys who were supposed to frisk you outside.”

  “I tucked the pistol down the front of my pants. People don’t tend to search there,” Jack said.

  “I wondered where everyone went,” I said. “Where did those other GA goons come from?”

  “Jerry’s order caused massive confusion over the radio. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. All of a sudden this guy turns up, barking orders, and rumors are flying around that Ron’s dead. My team isn’t trained for this. I’d already scouted this location as a fallback position. The way we see it, if local GA are going down, we didn’t want to be part of it.”

  “We thought something weird was happening,” I said. “Couldn’t believe it when I looked out of Ron’s window.”

  Brett cracked a smile. “We’re a techy team. The last thing we wanted to do was to come charging in. Jerry’s order was a relief. What did you do to those guys to get them so pissed?”

  “We tortured information out of Jerry,” Jack said.

  The voice from the gloomy corner of the room said, “You did us all a favor. Shame you didn’t kill the bastard.”

  “What about Anthony?” Brett said. “He’s the one you really need to be worried about.”

  “We sprayed mace in his face and put a plastic bag over his head,” Jack said. “After that, we burnt his house down and left him tied up in his vehicle with a dog bowl full of canned peaches.”

  Brett appeared to take some pleasure from hearing about our run-ins. “I heard him say on the radio that he wanted your heads put on spikes. I can see why.”

  “It’s not like we wanted to do any of it,” I said. “Jerry had our friend Bernie killed, and we found a device in his barn. He also led us to Anthony. What would you do in our shoes? They were partly responsible, and I suppose . . .”

  I trailed off, not wanting to blame Brett. He was a victim of cruel circumstance, and I suspected most of the others in his team had suffered the same kind of treatment.

  “Why’s Anthony more dangerous?” Jack asked. “Jerry seemed the more evil of the two.”

  “Jerry’s a fool, not necessarily a harmless one, but he’s more dislikeable than dangerous. I got the impression that he was a loser in his previous life and is reveling in his newly found importance. Anthony is on a whole other level. He was fiercely loyal to Ron, is completely at ease with what’s happening, and the bastard had one of my team executed.”

  “Bloody hell, what did he do?” I asked.

  “One of our guys tried to argue with Ron in the bunker. Anthony lined us up for a parade and beat his brains out with a baseball bat. I told Ron I’d be reporting the incident to Headquarters. He gave me two options. First, he could send Anthony back to Hermitage in exchange for my silence. The second option was me reporting the incident. He said he couldn’t protect me from Anth
ony or the team. Basically, I was a dead man if I said anything.”

  “Why didn’t you guys take them out?” Jack said. “If most were recruited like you, there must be a lot of pissed-off people.”

  Brett shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, they’re all experienced with weapons. It’s not exactly my area of expertise, and I have my family to think about.”

  I looked around the room again at the forlorn shapes in the shadows. An air of resignation and depression infested the place. It was bad enough to live through our own experiences, I would have hated being forced to take part.

  “Can you stop us from getting activated?” Jack asked.

  “The devices are activated, you are just signaled,” Brett said.

  Jack leaned forward. “Don’t get all techy on me—can you do it or not?”

  “I’ll take care of you. You can’t take the neutralization tool, though. We’ve only got two, and Headquarters will check when they arrive. If I lose this, I lose everything.”

  “They’re coming here?” I said.

  “I managed to get in touch with a friendly colleague a few hours ago, using our satcom. They’ve already sent a force to deal with Monroe, and he told me to make sure I wasn’t with the local team. They’re docking in Boston. I know they own a warehouse there, filled with weapons and armored vehicles.”

  “Do the local goons know about it?”

  “They suspect. That’s what’s thrown them into a meltdown. They’re all shitting their pants.”

  “HQ is coming from the UK? You’re kidding me?” Jack said.

  Brett sighed. “Why would I joke? He said they sent a ship filled with choppers and troops.”

  “How long does that take?” I asked and tried to roughly calculate it in my head, remembering the distance to be just over three thousand miles from the airplane computer. “Eight days?”

  “I doubt they’re coming over on a pleasure cruiser,” Brett said. “Maybe four, and they left yesterday.”

  “If they’re after the local team, and you’ve been attached, what happens to you?” Jack asked.

  “GA needs the techs a lot more than Ron’s rednecks. I might be okay.”

  He led us to a small enclave and picked up something that looked like a silver Ping-Pong paddle. Brett depressed a button on the side, and a single red light started blinking on the handle. The object made a quiet whirring noise. The light stopped blinking, changed to green, and the device let out a small beep.

  Brett held it toward us. “Who’s first?”

  Jack stepped forward. “Are you sure it’ll work? You’re not going to turn me into a killer are you?”

  “A killer? . . . Oh, I see what you mean. No, just relax. You’ll feel a bit of pressure in your head for a second.”

  He held the device against the back of Jack’s head, thumbed a button, and the object beeped three times. Jack winced and hunched his shoulders.

  “That’s it, you’re done,” Brett said.

  Jack ruffled the back of his hair. “Am I supposed to feel any different?”

  “No. You’re lucky you avoided the first activation. HQ is putting it down to software problems. It hasn’t gone exactly as planned.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Do you know the plan?”

  “They won’t tell the likes of me. Stay away from people—that’s all I’m saying. We’ve had some crazy reports in.”

  “What kind of reports? At least give us an idea,” Jack said.

  “It’s too random to give you anything concrete. Sorry if that sounds like I’m hiding something, but the truth is, I don’t know and wouldn’t want any innocent people dying because of my bad advice.”

  The red light stopped blinking again and turned green. I switched positions with Jack, and Brett carried out the same procedure. For a second, I felt like I’d just woken up with a horrible hangover, but the pain quickly receded. I palmed my greasy hair flat against my head.

  “Can you tell us, in simple terms, a bit more about how the technology works? If we decide we want to do something about it, where’s the best place to strike?” Jack said.

  Brett placed his weird implement on the table, turned, and gave Jack a stern glare. “Listen to me. It’s not going to be pretty when HQ shows up. The best thing you can do is to get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Come with us. Stop this thing from happening again,” Jack said.

  I had been thinking the same thing. Although I didn’t want to suggest to Brett that his family was already dead or that his actions wouldn’t change their outcome. GA was ruthless, and from what I’d heard of them so far, he would be viewed as a flea in their big picture.

  “You’re one of the only people around who knows a piece of how these things work,” I said. “Join us and help to locate and destroy the devices. We know of other survivors in New York.”

  He slumped in his chair and looked away. “You can use a cattle prod. It’s unreliable; you’d probably have to do it several times at least. But you’ll give people a chance—”

  “Brett, come on. Everyone’s life is at stake,” Jack said.

  “Take the bull by the horns, mate,” I said. “You only need to take one look at that pit to know what you should do.”

  “What are your plans—?”

  The trapdoor opened and a head appeared in the gap. “There’s a Rover heading our way. It might be them.”

  Brett’s eyes widened. He grabbed a pistol from the top of a workbench. “Stay here and keep quiet.”

  He clambered up the stairs and slammed the trapdoor shut. I checked the rifle I took from Brett and shouldered it.

  Jack crouched and pointed Kate’s rifle. “Caught like rats in a sewer. I don’t fucking believe it. He set us up.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Keep your cool and we’ll be okay.”

  The voice in the corner of the room said, “Don’t start a shootout. We’re not going down because he brought you here.”

  Above us, I heard Brett’s muffled voice, probably handing out instructions to his team.

  The trapdoor creaked ajar. Brett leaned down. “They’re heading across the field. Get under those sheets on the mattress.”

  The door slammed shut.

  “Fuck that,” Jack said. “I’m staying here. If they come down, they won’t be expecting an ambush.”

  Through a small cracked window at the top of the room, I heard voices approaching. Boots squelched in the mud outside, getting closer. Somebody thumped on the front door.

  More mumbling overhead. The echo of a bolt scratching along its rail. Then a latch being twisted, followed by creaking hinges as the door opened. I could hear every detail through the old floorboards. Perhaps amplified as my adrenalin levels rose.

  Loud footsteps clattered in the room above. Frantic voices, occasionally raised. It sounded like an argument, although a loud laugh kept punctuating the debate. Somebody mentioned our names.

  The trapdoor creaked open.

  “Get ready,” Jack whispered.

  Somebody climbed down a couple of steps and cleared his throat.

  The instantly recognizable voice of Jerry shouted, “Get out there and start looking for those two murdering assholes!”

  A man appeared from a dingy corner of the basement. He walked to the foot of the basement stairs, glancing at me as he passed. “We’ll be out in twenty minutes. Just getting some rest after working the last twenty-four hours.”

  “You’re going to need it,” Jerry shouted down. “They burnt Ron’s place to the ground. We’re all heading to Hart Island tomorrow to trigger the second activation.”

  The man shook his head. “We can’t get there and do it tomorrow.”

  “I know that, you big galoot. I just said we’re heading off. We need to get it done before they realize we’ve missed our cutoff. Wh
o’s down there with you?”

  Jerry descended another couple of stairs. My heart thumped against my chest. I prepared to fire.

  The man took a couple of paces forward, blocking the basement entrance. “Just me, Terry, and Jim. We’re all pretty beat.”

  “What have you got down here? A secret hideout? Did Ron know about this?”

  “It’s where we keep our supplies and test kit. Do you want me bring you one of the cases and show it to you?”

  Jerry snorted. “Just get your ass out and start looking. I want those two dead by the morning.”

  “We’ll be out soon. Give us a chance to get ready.”

  Jack edged back. His boot crunched against something. A dry leaf, empty snail shell, or a chip.

  Jerry dropped another couple of steps. “Did the rest of you hear what I said?”

  “I hear you,” a voice called from the kitchen area.

  “We can’t afford screw-ups on Hart Island. Just make sure you’ve got your shit together.”

  He clunked back upstairs. The trapdoor slammed shut.

  A conversation continued upstairs. I peered around the corner. The man turned to face me. “I didn’t do that for your benefit. That psycho would’ve killed us all.”

  “Thanks, we appreciate it,” I said and gave him a single firm nod.

  “Whatever. He might come back,” he said and shuffled back into the gloom. Mattress springs groaned. He clearly didn’t take Jerry’s orders too seriously.

  Footsteps left the room above. The front door closed, and a bolt scratched across.

  “I can’t believe he was here,” Jack said.

  I let out a deep breath and shook my head. “Let’s just hope he’s gone.”

  We waited in silence in case any of the recent arrivals had stayed. A minute later, the trapdoor opened again. Brett came running down the stairs with a grim look on his face.

  He rested his hands on the table and closed his eyes. “They killed Kate and they’re coming back to sweep the area. Anthony wants us to help form an extended line across the countryside.”