Chapter 737: Falling defenses.
Meanwhile, in the command center, Lisha was leaning over a radar screen, humming a tune to keep her nerves steady, when the monitors suddenly went black.
"Uh, guys? My screen just died," a technician yelled.
"Me too." Another shouted.
And then, the emergency phones started ringing, loud and continuously.
"It’s not just you," Lisha said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. "The wall shields are dropping. The internal turrets are... they’re powering down? What is happening?"
She looked over at Spire, the woman in charge of the primary defense grid. Spire was standing perfectly still. Her hands were hovering over the buttons of the console.
"Spire? What is happening on your end," Lisha said, her voice dropping to a desperate cry.
Spire didn’t move. She tapped a final command, and the hum of the base’s massive energy generators died into a sickening silence, leaving only the solar power. The major defenses were down. A little red timer appeared on the main screen: DEFENSESYSTEM REBOOT: 29:59.
"Thirty minutes? Who added this security protocol?" Lisha shrieked. "In an apocalypse, thirty minutes is enough time to get eaten, digested, and turned into fertilizer! Spire, are you crazy? Why the reboot!"
Lisha grabbed Spire by the shoulders and spun her around, ready to give her a piece of her mind, but the words died in her throat. Spire’s eyes were that horrific, milky white which meant she was under control of something or someone else. "Oh, no," Lisha whispered, her heart dropping into her stomach. "I have seen this before."
She looked at the screen again. The shields around the wall were gone and that gates had been opened everywhere. The base was naked. And something was terribly wrong.
Back at the house, Sunshine and Nimo were still holding their champagne glasses, but the mood had flipped from ’wedding party’ to ’funeral’ in three seconds flat. The lights had flickered and died, leaving them in the eerie glow of the emergency red lights.
Sunshine was already being already being alerted, with her smartwatch screaming a beeping sound.
"Something is wrong," Nimo said, her voice trembling slightly. "we’re in big trouble."
"Everyone prepare for war, our defenses are down I repeat, our defenses are down!" Sunshine shouted into her radio, her voice cracking slightly under the strain of pure adrenaline.
She rushed outside, with Nimo on her heels. Her first worry was the children. Where were they? As she raced, she shouted into her mind. "System, override all the instructions that have been added manually and restore all security protocols."
Outside, the air was already beginning to bruise with smoke. There were screams, frantic and fearful ones, coming from different directions. Sunshine’s hands trembled slightly as she switched frequencies. "Hades! Hades, do you copy? Tell me you’ve got the kids."
The radio crackled, and Hades’ deep, gravelly voice came through, sounding surprising a bit calm_ though Sunshine knew him well enough to hear the underlying edge of ’Things are not so good.’ "I have Castiel," Hades reported. "The older boys are on kid squad duty. They’re moving people to the sub-basement bunker now."
"Are they focused?" Sunshine asked, a frantic edge to her tone. "Because if they’re arguing about who is the leader, I swear to_"
"Sunshine, breathe," Hades interrupted. "They’re using their brains. Just like you taught them. Mostly. I saw Leo trip over his own feet, but he’s up and running. Focus on the command center. I’ll handle things down here."
Sunshine sighed, a heavy, jagged breath. "Right. Don’t die. I’d hate to have to do the laundry by myself."
"Duly noted," Hades chuckled darkly before the line went dead.
She made it to the command center. Things were already beginning to go out of hand. On the screen the chaos was visceral. An invisible force was ripping through the residential sector of Westbrook. People were screaming, running for safety, only to be tossed aside like rag dolls by something they couldn’t even see. Worse was that it wasn’t showing up on anyone’s radar.
Sunshine guessed it was the boar they had met in the village. It had been biding its time to enter the base. But the boar wasn’t the only problem. The base was eating itself from the inside.
"Something is wrong with some of the residents," Sunshine whispered, her heart sinking.
Residents she had protected, people who had helped build these walls, were suddenly moving with jerky, mechanical precision. They weren’t themselves. Their eyes were vacant, milky white, fixed on some unseen horizon as they began to set fire to the food stores and sabotage the medical wing.
Even a few squad members had turned, their weapons now pointed at their brothers-in-arms.
Major Elio’s voice boomed over the tactical channel. "Hold your fire! Do not use lethal force on our own people! They’re in a trance! Use the dart rifles! Sleepy time for everyone who isn’t acting right!"
Near the park, the Kid Squad was proving their worth. In a rare, historic moment of desperation, Emmet and Ariel_ who usually spent their time trying to out-prank each other_ were working in perfect harmony.
"Ariel, left flank! Get those toddlers behind the fountain!" Emmet yelled, his voice sounding much older than his fifteen years.
"On it! And Emmet? Try not to play hero, if it gets dangerous_ hide!" Ariel shouted back, hauling a crying child into her arms.
"I’ll remember that!" Emmet replied with a grin that was eighty percent terror and twenty percent excitement.
Somewhere in Camp Pitbull, ten water tanks that had been sabotaged exploded like a dam, releasing a large volume of water that swept anyone in its path.
In Silverdale, the unruly, mutated beasts were released by a worker in the farms, and they started a killing spree through the normal farm animals.
Even the grain farms were not being spared. Three teenagers were starting fires.
High above on the bubble, the Watchers were lounging like they were in a theater, eating the equivalent of popcorn. For them, this was like the season finale of their favorite show. They were the ones pulling the strings, ensuring every sleeper cell woke up at exactly the right moment to maximize the damage.
Hunter, suddenly let out a sharp, digital bark. A holographic projection leaped from its eyes.
"Sunshine," the dog’s synthetic voice chirped. "I am detecting an infrared light. It is invisible to the human eye_ intergalactic black force signatures. It is being emitted from the Watchers’ lounge. It is the sleeper cell ’Wake Up’ signal."
"Hunter, scan for the source and find me every sleeper cell location," Sunshine commanded. "Activate all the reserve robots we have in the space and send them out after those people. This is a targeted operation, if they can’t be taken alive." She paused and clenched her jaw, "Do what must be done."