Chapter Three
Chloe
"SOONER, SEE ME in my office."
Chloe swung her head towards the crisp bark of her boss' voice, her ponytail trailing a brilliant red arc through the air. Sergeant Carson stood sharp and imposing in his office doorway, one eyebrow raised in an inscrutable expression.
"Yes, sir." Chloe steadied her surprise with a quick breath and carefully stood up. Though her boss had never been the slightest bit impolite to her, he was notorious for alternating between calm friendliness and stomach-freezing sternness with no warning. Always dressed in completely black suits that nearly matched the darkness of his skin, he was indecipherable and changing as a shadow.
Her officemates did not say anything as Chloe walked to Sergeant Carson's office, but she met several of their gazes. Some were wide in concern and others in mischief. They were just as puzzled as to why the sergeant would call her to such a prestigious place.
Chloe breathed in a faint hint of lemon and mysterious spice-sage?-as she passed by the sergeant. Closing the door behind her, he returned to his desk in the gloom lit only by his computer screen and the dusty halo of daylight around the closed blinds.
The atmosphere was so different from the bright bluish lighting of the cubicle spaces that Chloe did not notice the other man in the room until Sergeant Carson held out an open palm in his direction.
"Sooner, this is Agent Dirk Payton. Payton, Ms. Chloe Sooner."
Chloe and Agent Payton two could only exchange a brief handshake and nod before the sergeant continued. Chloe tried to study the agent from the corner of her eye as her boss talked, but he was almost as stoic as the sergeant himself.
Sitting moderately tall, Payton had a hard grizzle to his frame that made it difficult to tell his age. His jaw was peppered faintly with stubble.
"Sooner, a few months ago you took the test to become an Agent." Though it was not a question, Chloe nodded in response. A nervous flutter in her ears made it difficult for her to focus on Sergeant Carson's even voice. He continued, "This test is rigorous, and designed to strain the physical, mental, and emotional response of anyone who thinks they have the capability of working in the field." Even the sergeant's eyes were pitch-black as he paused to fix her in a steady stare. "That is because nothing that can be designed in a test will be nearly as strenuous, as terrifying, as dehumanizing as what you will encounter in real life. Keep that in mind, Agent Sooner."
Sergeant Carson stood up, prompting Agent Payton and Chloe to stand up automatically. The sergeant held a hand up to each of them, and Payton reached across to shake Chloe's hand again.
Stunned, Chloe gripped his hand loosely in a daze, her mind still focusing on his last words as Sergeant Carson said, "Agent Payton is your new partner. Listen to everything this man says, because he has seen shit your nightmares couldn't imagine."
"I'm- I passed?" Chloe finally stuttered, still absently shaking Payton's hand.
"Does that surprise you, Sooner?" Sergeant Carson raised another inscrutable eyebrow at her. "You were the only one who made it through this round, but if you'd rather stay at your cubicle sorting Taken reports all day, then-"
"No, sir. Sorry, sir." Chloe straightened her back and released Payton's hand. "I am honored to be included in the ranks of Agents. I won't let you down, sir."
Widening his eyes in a shockingly tender expression that bordered on pity, Sergeant Carson shook his head briefly. "I'm not the one you have to worry about out there, Agent."
"WELL, SOONER, READY for your first mission?" Agent Payton easily clicked his armor into place as Chloe fumbled with the labyrinth of straps and buttons.
"Um, I guess so. I mean, yes, sir."
Blowing out a stream of air between his teeth, Payton guided Chloe's stumbling hand by pointing to appropriate latches and switches. She felt like a child being helped into a snowsuit by her father. "None of that 'sir' crap out here," he said. "Just call me Payton."
Finally closing the bulky fluidity of the body armor around her torso, Chloe nodded. "Yes, si-Payton. I've been waiting for this day ever since I entered the department."
Payton only grumbled in his throat as he handed her a matte black helmet. "You're gonna have to do something about that ponytail, Agent. Can't have hair sticking out, able to be pulled."
"I know." Chloe twisted her bronzed bright hair into a bun and deftly pinned it to her scalp, then slid the helmet on.
Payton nodded in approval, though his eyes never seemed to change from their steady gray scowl. Chloe could not decide if the harsh creases between his eyebrows were permanent with age or sternness. His skin was pasty white but firm. Even away from the dim lighting of Sergeant Carson's office, she had trouble distinguishing Payton's age. Fit and muscular, his body and face had the tarnished veneer of copper left too long in the air-beautiful, but stained.
"I read through your file when they suggested you be my next partner. This may not be my place to bring this up, but I know all about your boyfriend. Ex. Or whatever. And I'm only asking you this now, because my life is gonna depend on you when we're out there, when a split second's decision will make the difference between being infected and being saved, and I need to know-are you gonna be able to keep a clear head when we're surrounded by those Taken?"
Chloe paused, stared at her armored gloves, then slowly lifted her head and met Payton's gray eyes with her own hazel fire. "Agent Payton-Dirk-I have muscled my way through this boy's club to get into a place where I can help all of humanity at the very front lines of the most horrible epidemic the human race has ever seen. We've all lost people close to us. Do I still have to be treated like a little girl constantly on the verge of tears by my own partner?" She slid down the shield of her helmet with a furious click, hiding her face behind the mirrored sheen.
Softening his furrowed brow for the first time since their meeting, Payton blinked quickly, then grinned. "That's all I needed to know, partner." He slid down his own helmet shield. "Just follow my lead."
Without another word, Agent Payton and Chloe attached the various mandatory weapons to their persons-a stun gun, tranquilizer gun, flare gun, two pistols, and a long-range .45 rifle-then climbed into the transport truck with a few other teams of Agents. Except for their reflective face shields, their uniforms and armor were all a splotchy drab gray, designed to blend into shadow or sun, leaves or dirt, daytime or night.
Though Payton's mention of her past flared unwelcome memories in front of Chloe's eyes, she forced them down with ferocity. Focusing on the steel floor of the transport truck, she cleared her mind of all thoughts beyond the points of her training.
Silence.
Swiftness.
Ruthlessness.
After about twenty minutes, they reached the Sanctuary. All of the images that Chloe had held in her mind about this place, this haven and prison, were both confirmed and disappointed as she emerged from the back of the transport truck. Of course, other Sanctuaries had been set up across the country as the disease had spread, but this was the original, the heart of the outbreak.
Though desolate and characterized by huge monuments of old-growth pines, the Sanctuary was also surprisingly bland and peaceful. Except for the thin wires of deadly electric charge humming around an invisible perimeter, this was really just a forest.
No one was in sight, but it took Chloe several minutes to place the sense of unease that poked the back of her mind. There were also no sounds-no squirrels chittering, no distant crackle of deer or mice moving through the underbrush. Besides a few gritty calls from high-up crows, only the breeze through the cedars and tang of metal as the other Agents unloaded their cargo rang through the air.
"Sooner?" Agent Payton scolded her from her reverie. "You done daydreamin'?"
Turning away from the massive silence of the trees, Chloe helped lift and move the rusted crates from the second transport truck that had followed them. One crate emanated a reek of salty sourness, and another rocked and squealed from wi
thin.
"Sir-Payton, what exactly are we transporting here?"
"You read the protocols, right?" Payton responded from behind his shield.
"Um, yes, but..." Chloe trailed off.
After a few long seconds when he would not respond but only grunt faintly in the effort of lifting the heavy crates, Payton finally panted, "Just wait and see."
As swiftly as possible under the strain, the team carried the crates through a fortified steel gate in the electric fence. Setting them just inside the pruned line of trees, one of the other faceless Agents motioned them all back.
Chloe followed as they all scurried quickly back through the gate, then spun around and faced the forest with rifles drawn and aimed. Everything around them seemed still and calm, and after several moments of standing at attention, she glanced over at Payton.
He saw her movement and wordlessly pointed two fingers ahead of them, at the speckled shadows around the massive tree trunks. With sudden clarity, Chloe saw the sallow faces peering around what she had mistaken for peaceful ferns a moment before.
At that same moment, the other Agent who had directed them earlier pressed a button on his automatic remote, and the little doors to the crates swung open. A flurry of live rabbits burst from one of the crates, zigzagging and darting towards the trees with high-pitched screams of panic.
Nothing emerged from the other crate, but judging from the smell when she had helped carry it, Chloe guessed it was filled with partially rancid meat.
Suddenly, the edge of the forest erupted into a hive of insanity.
The faces Chloe had seen huddled in the underbrush wobbled forward with surprising ferocity, and the rabbits darted in confusion from one scraggly hand to another. Several Taken-twisted and warped figures that had once been sane and loving humans-scrabbled among each other for a handful of fur and tendon. Even from their distant standpoint, Chloe could hear the wails of tortured rabbits as their legs and ears and bellies were ripped apart in a mad wrestle among an ever growing crowd of gnarled hands.
The slower, more infected ones gradually slipped between the crowds that soon fell on their bellies to gnaw on the freshly killed rabbits. Those that could not compete with fresh meat stumbled their way to the second crate and its mound of near-rotting flesh. Though she tried to hold her rifle steady, aimed at the mindless crowd of monsters, Chloe could not help but focus on the smacking sound of withering gums rending loose muscle from bone, and the slathering breathing as ligaments were slurped down like spaghetti noodles.
Flipping up her face shield, she spun to the side and heaved loudly onto the ground, spewing up her lunch of fast-food burritos.
After waiting for her to finish vomiting, Agent Payton swung out an arm-still holding his rifle steady in his other hand-and slapped Chloe on the back with pointed but not unfriendly force.
She sputtered and choked, lifting one eye to him. He swung open his visor and grinned in a way that reminded her of her prankster grandfather.
"Welcome to the team, kiddo."