Inside the barn, Brett walked by the two officers, who stopped as soon as they got in, pulled a large bale of hay to the center of the barn and sat on it with a glass of ice tea and a biscuit in hand. The two army officers looked at each other but did not move.
“Captain Cooper, we want-” Powers began.
Brett cut him off mid-sentence with, “You want to know what happened in the tower.”
“Correct. But we have other issues that need to be addressed as well,” Powers continued without skipping a beat or displaying any annoyance at Brett’s attitude. “As you know, the New York tower isn’t the only one in the world, and right now, we are falling behind other countries in our ability to protect ourselves. Russia has a tower, Captain Cooper.”
Brett continued to eat and drink, but he didn’t say anything else. His attitude appeared to be dismissive, but he was actually listening with extreme attention. As a soldier, he knew that as soon as other countries viewed America as weak, they would strike. His wife and even his daughter could be in jeopardy.
“A week ago, when I assume you left the tower, another person suddenly appeared in the middle of our base in Time Square. However, he immediately proceeded to attack our soldiers and cause an incredible amount of damage before we could put him down. We lost good men in that attack. As far as the media is aware, we spun it as an act of terrorism, but that’s when we found out that there are people with abilities out there, and not all of them have our country’s best interest at heart. Not even our own people, it seems.”
“Do you have a name?” Brett asked.
“Justin Lynch,” Gutierrez responded.
“I met him. He was… volatile.”
“Right. How do we deal with more powerful Justin Lynches? Or worse, someone actually organized?”
“I want my family protected. At all times.”
“Captain, we haven’t told you our proposition yet.”
“I know what it is, and I agree with y’all. I watch the news. I know there are countries organizing the survivors from the towers, and some of them are not our allies. Y’all want a team.”
“You are right. We want the best patriots we can get, and captain, your history speaks for itself,” Powers said. “How many people survived the tower?”
“There was an announcement when we cleared it. It said 18 people survived. I know 16 of them, not counting me. One of them was not with us.”
“What exactly happened in there, captain?” Powers asked.
“Lieutenant Colonel, it’s a long story, so y’all might wanna pull up a bale.”
It was the first time Brett had addressed Powers by his title. Lieutenant Colonel Powers had gotten through to him, enough for Brett to open up about the tower. The two officers pulled up a bale of hay each and sat down. This would be the most important debrief in their lives so far.
“First, I showed up in an empty white room with a basin in the middle of it…”
Brett told them the entire story, and it took a good couple of hours. First Lieutenant Gutierrez made sure to give constant hails to their backup so that the other soldiers wouldn’t storm the ranch by mistake.
Brett had appeared in the white room just like Iris. He had drunk from the liquid when the red figure had told him to and been transported to the cave with the other hundred thousand people. He told the officers about the fight that had broken out, and of how the entity had eliminated the infractors of the scenario.
After a while, when things finally died down, many groups were formed. A lot of people had gone through the tunnel openings, leaving the large cavern where they had appeared. Brett, however, had stayed behind. To him, the goal had been to survive. That had been the mission given by the entity, so he had seen no purpose in exploring unknown and potentially extremely dangerous locations.
Thousands of people had also stayed in the cave with him. However, it didn’t take long for them to find out that even the cave was dangerous.
As soon as those who had wanted to leave had left, Brett had begun a search of the cave and found a subterranean lake. The lake was quite large, and it had fish, so they had both food and water supply.
Six days went by like that, and none of the people who had left the cave had ever come back. On the seventh day, they all had received a system notice. They still had around twenty-five thousand people in the cave, and the system had told them all that it would start triggering attack waves.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
On the first day of the wave, the beasts, who seemed more like human-sized scorpions, butchered two-thirds of the people there. It had been a massive blow to their morale, and after they had finally repelled the wave of giant arachnids, the system announced that a second wave would occur in three days.
People had panicked, and a lot of them had left the cave through the tunnels immediately after that.
Around two thousand people had been left in that cave, but after that first night, some of them had received system notice that they had leveled up. Those had been people that had contributed somehow in the fight against the scorpions.
The second wave was larger, and there were other creatures mixed in with the scorpions. However, because some of them had gained powers, they had been able to repel that wave as well. Still, half of the people had died in the attack.
The system had then announced a third wave would take place in fourteen days. The gap in time had been a nice boon, but it had also created an issue. None of them had known how to tell time in that cave because there was no sunlight, and all of their electronics hadn't been working, so as the days passed, the survivors had started to lose their grasp on reality. The ones with powers had seemed to be able to remain composed, but those who hadn’t acquired powers yet had started to unravel. Brett also said that the cave had some sort of ambient bioluminescence, so they weren’t in complete darkness. It was much lighter around the underground lake than anywhere else.
Paranoia started to settle as everyone thought the waves would start at any moment. People became unable to sleep, and soon, some of them started attacking each other. This time, however, the red entity did not intercede to stop the violence. To Brett, once the scenario had started in earnest, the entity had stopped caring about who lived or died.
During that chaotic time, Brett had chosen twenty people he had known had powers and formed a small squad. They had set up alternating watches so that no one person in the group was ever too tired to fight, and they had moved further away from the group of people who had lost themselves.
Justin Lynch had been someone in Brett’s group. The kid hadn’t been Brett’s first choice of partner, but Justin had gained the ability to blow things up at will, so Brett had used him to set up traps during the third wave.
The third wave killed everyone but Brett’s group.
“Jesus!” First Lieutenant Gutierrez let out in surprise.
Lieutenant Colonel Powers showed no response, so Brett continued, “There was a fourth wave. We didn’t clear it. We lost three people during the fight, but it went for so long that the stage’s time limit ended. That’s how we survived.”
“What happened when you got out?” Powers asked.
“I just wanted to see my family, so I came back home. I didn’t think Justin would do what he did, but I’m not surprised. The kid was going through withdrawals the whole time.”
“And the other survivor, the one you don’t know, you think they are someone who left the cave?”
“They have to be, but I don’t know what kind of hell they went through. More people left the cave than stayed, and only one survived.”
Lieutenant Colonel Powers went silent for a moment. Brett didn’t rush him or push him to speak. He simply waited as the officer in front of him digested the information he had been given.
Finally, Powers asked, “Captain, how would you like to put together a team?”
“I don’t see any other way,” Brett responded.
First Lieutenant Gutierrez, who had been shocked by Brett’s account, breathed a sigh of relief then. They were all on the same page, and having learned of the horrors inside the Crimson Tower, Gutierrez knew they needed the best of the best in their corner.
“Can you give me the names of those who survived the tower with you, Captain Cooper?”
“I can. I only ask that I’m present when y’all go talk to them. We should prevent another Justin at all costs, and I trained them in the tower. Justin was a junky, but the others are more formidable.”
“Of course. After we run background checks on all of them, our visits will be recruitment efforts, and since you’ll be leading the team, who better to convince them to join?”
Brett was satisfied with that answer. He had survived with those people for 30 days in the tower, but he knew that it was better to be safe. Background checks would yield a better picture of who those people really were, and his ultimate goal was to keep his family safe, so he didn’t want any unknown variables in the picture.
“Y’all should join us for dinner. Lisa already knows something is up, and she’s not happy about it, so while I compile profiles on the people I know, maybe y’all can help reassure her?”
It was a highly unusual request, but then again, the world had gone to hell in such a short time that such a harmless unusual request was a welcome change. The two officers nodded in agreement.
“Good,” Brett continued. “Also, we weren’t given any information on when and if we would be pulled back into the tower. So, the faster we get everything put together the better.”
“Very well. As soon as you give us the data, we'll start immediately. Gutierrez is our intelligence officer, so he’ll handle that.”
“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Gutierrez responded immediately. “With all due respect, we found you, captain. We can handle civilian data much faster.”
“That’s true,” Brett responded. “You’re a real wiz, Gutierrez. Now that that’s settled, let’s eat!”
Brett seemed to have a bottomless pit for a stomach, and Lieutenant Colonel Powers wondered if that was a characteristic of him having gained powers. To Powers, Brett should burn more energy than a regular human.
“One more thing, captain, what can you do?” Powers asked.
Brett smiled at the officers until his existence shimmered, and he disappeared.
The officers heard the barn door open behind them, and when they turned, they saw Brett pushing it. Powers and Gutierrez looked at each other, and both thought that whatever that ability was, it was perfect for covert operations.