Jordan Summers - [Dead World 01] (5 page)

"I sense foreign material on your boots,"
the ma-chine
piped up again.

"I
know.
Not now."

"Are you talking to that machine again?"
Bannon
asked,
drawing the attention of several team members. 
"No
one has talking navcoms anymore—except you. Why don't
you upgrade your equipment and come into
this
decade
like everyone else?" He laughed.
"Forgot
who I was talking to for a minute."

Red scowled.

Bannon pressed the button on his navcom.
"Listen,"
 
he said. Other than a bleep, there was no other sound.
"You know what that is?" he asked.

"No," Red said.

 "It's the sound of progress."

Murmurs started around her. Red heard them as clearly
as if they'd
shouted.

"How
many dead rookies does this make ... She's losing
i
t...
I don't want to be around when she ex
plodes
 . .. She acts like the navcom is a real person
...
How
did she ever pass the psych test?" Red bristled
un
der
the
onslaught and pressed another
button. For some
reason
she
couldn't bring up the mapping section. Lucky
for her, the rest of the files seemed to
be in
working order.

Scrolling through the menu, she found the UID report
she was looking for.

"Do you want me to send the report?" Rita
asked.

"Yes."

"Very well, it's done."

The proper document would be waiting for her in the
mini compunit on her desk when she returned to headquarters. From there it was
a matter of a couple of clicks to file the report.

Just once, Red would like to be able to fill out an
Unknown Individual Apprehended—UIA—report,
instead
of a UID, Unknown Individual Deceased. But
that wasn't going to happen
today. The criminals hadn't cooperated.

She inhaled deeply as a breeze shifted the stifling
air. The sickly sweet odor of perfume embraced her.
followed by something far more sinister. Her stomach
tightened
and she wrinkled her nose and sneezed.

"Do you need an antihistamine?" Rita asked,
running a diagnostic on Red.

"No, thank you." The
last thing she needed was an
antihistamine
shot directly into her bloodstream, now that she was finally coming down from
the adrenaline rush.

Red turned to Bannon and sniffed.
The scent wasn't
coming from him unless
he kept quite a secret. Her
lips canted at
the thought.
Fat chance.
He was wholly
male and not the good
parts. "This is the only crime scene, right?" she asked reluctantly.

Bannon raised his arm in order to view his navcom.
"Yeah, according to dispatch's satellite images, this is it."

"The firefight started the second we cut the
hydro-gen engine, so we didn't have time to look around when we arrived. Are
you sure?"

He glanced once more at his navcom before shut-ting it
off. "I'm telling you this is it."

"Gina, your heart rate is accelerating,"  
Rita chimed.

"I know."

"You need to calm yourself."

"Shh. I'm trying to concentrate. I can't do that
with you talking to me."

Bannon turned. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. I was talking to Rita."

He snorted. "Nice to know you have
a
friend."

Red cringed inwardly at how close to the truth that
statement hit. Rita was more friend than machine. She'd shared everything with
her. It was much easier to
do that than to face the constant rejection of the
team. Red stepped around the body and away from the
blood to clear her senses. The perfume
still
wafted on
the air and the taint of death strengthened. It might be
nothing, but...

She swiveled to face Bannon. "We have another
crime scene. One that's not been reported yet or maybe not even discovered."

He scowled. "I don't think so. The initial scan
of the area only showed five unknowns."

Red shot Bannon a look that she
hoped said
You can sh
ove that
navcom up your ass, because
I
know what I
'm
talking about,
before sprinting
across the field.

"Where in the hell are you going? Get back here!
That's an order, damn it!"

"Gina, you really shouldn't disobey a direct order,"
Rita chastised. "It could impair your spotless record."

Red hesitated at Rita's words,
then shook her head and kept going. Bannon continued to shout. She ig
nored him, following the flowery
scent of the perfume
as it zigzagged in
the air. She stopped when she lost
the
trail, waiting for the wind to shift so she could pick
up the scent
again. She could hear Bannon's heavy breathing coming from behind her, his
footfalls near silent, given his size.

Good.

At least he wasn't pigheaded enough not to follow her.
The rest of the team wouldn't be far behind. Procedure dictated they fan out
and search if a team member suspected a secondary crime scene.

The scent became oppressive as Red entered the edge of
the dead, leafless forest. What few animals' sounds remained quieted at the
team's presence. A ghostly shiver started between her shoulder blades and
traveled down her spine. This place was creepy and ..
.familiar.
The
urge to turn around and flee was
strong.
Her sense of duty was the only thing that kept
her rooted in place.

A shout came from the right, confirming Red's worst
suspicions. Damn! She'd been hoping to be wrong, even if it meant losing face.

Red made her way toward the team and immediately
spotted the corpse. "What in the hell happened to her?"

The body of a young woman who appeared to have been
mauled by animals lay sprawled on a barren patch of blood-stained ground. Her
curly auburn hair
matted against her head from where the blood and
brains had
dried. Her ears had been ripped off, leaving
two gaping holes behind. The tips of her
fingernails were scattered around a ten-foot radius, letting
the tactical
team know she'd fought hard for her life.

"Good for you," Red murmured.

There was a wide aperture where her throat used to
be. Bits of
flesh were ripped from her body, exposing bone and sinew. There was no way to
determine her weight; too much of her was missing. Her clouded
blue eyes
remained open wide, capturing her frightened expression.

Red turned away as a wave of
grief swept over her. S
omeone was without
a sister, a daughter, or a mother today, their lives changed forever. Unfortunately,
she knew how that felt firsthand. Red pushed her thoughts aside. She couldn't
afford to lose her objectivity.

Bannon's gaze narrowed as he watched her survey
the scene. "How in the hell did you know
about this?"
he muttered between clenched teeth, pointing at the
woman's body.

She glowered. "Gut feeling." Red ran a
trembling
hand through her thick black
ponytail. What was she s
upposed to say—that she smelled her on the wind
when no one else had? Not a chance. She didn't know how
she knew certain things, only that she did. Doc
tors blamed it on possible
radiation poisoning in the
womb, but Red
wasn't so sure. A lot of kids had gone
through
exposure during gestation and turned out per
fectly normal.
Special,
her
grandfather had said.

Red didn't feel very special at the moment: more like
a freak of nature, which was exactly how her team viewed her. She looked at the
men gathering evidence. Wary eyes stared back.

The fact that she had special abilities should've
scared the shit out of her, but it didn't. Red accepted it, as much as she
could truly accept societal shunning. Her abilities were one of many reasons
the team kept their distance from her. She scared them and she knew it.

Being a woman didn't help.

Bannon turned to face Red. "The
only
reason
I'm not reporting this incident to the commander and naming you as prime
suspect is because your DNA isn't at the crime scene."

She slanted her head. "I'm sure your decision
wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the commander is my
grandfather, would it?"

Bannon's face flushed. "I always knew you were a
bitch, but this is ridiculous."

Red snorted. She'd been called worse throughout the
years.

"It's not natural to be
able to sniff out a body. You
aren't a
goddamned dog. So explain to me how in the hell you did it if you didn't have
prior knowledge of the crime."

"Who said I smelled her?"

"I'm not a fucking idiot," he snapped.
"I saw you sniffing the air."

Red wasn't about to touch that
one, no matter how
tempting. "Let me
get this straight—you think I killed this woman and then pretended to find the body?
Is this before or after I planned the shootout with the unknowns?"

"Fuck off." He raised his thick middle
finger for emphasis.

"You really
are
an asshole, Bannon."

Bannon opened his mouth to respond again, but Red cut
him off before he could utter a single word. "We're near the northern half
of the Republic of Arizona, correct?"

He nodded.

"In all likelihood, the unknowns crossed the
boundary to the south, given the trace recovered thus far."

"That's a fair assumption."

"So what's the name of the
nearest border town? I'd like to check it out and see if they've been having a
problem with feral animals, along with illegal bound
ary crossings." She shrugged. "You never
know. I might get lucky."

"Why don't you ask your
friend
Rita to
check for the town name? She seemed to have all the answers a minute ago."

"Rita's geographical locator file is currently
malfunctioning." She flushed.

"Fell on it again, huh? How many times does this
make?"

"Exactly forty-six," Rita chirped.

Red closed her eyes and counted
to ten before open
ing them again.

Bannon grunted out what may have
been a laugh,
then punched a button at
his wrist. He shaded the
screen with his
hand and squinted. "The nearest town
is Nuria. It's thirty klicks
south of here, not far from where Old Phoenix used to be. The local sheriff is
a man named Morgan Hunter." He chuckled. "Good luck getting help from
him. He's not exactly known
for being
cooperative with IPTT. In fact, if this report
is correct, he's a
territorial bastard like most republic sheriffs."

"Leave that to me."

Bannon snickered. "I suppose you could always
spread your legs for him ... if you remember how."

The team members around them laughed, then tried
covering the noise with coughs when she met their gazes.

"Your blood pressure is rising, Gina. You must
calm down," Rita warned.

Red turned back to Bannon. Her fists hurt from
clenching them. Was punching a senior officer in
the face worth a mark on her record? No, damn it. "Only
you would
come up with something so vulgar."

"What can I say? It's a gift." Bannon
grinned, flashing white teeth against his tan skin. "But hey, if you want
to go traipsing around in the backwoods of some boundary town, be my guest.
We're a tactical team, not pest control."

She lowered her voice. "You've heard the rumors
floating around about the existence of the
Others."

His brow rose. "You can't be serious."

Red mirrored his expression.

Bannon's face twisted. "You're talking about
myths. Faceless monsters that don't exist. The old government did
not
experiment
with people's DNA.
It was just a story
passed around by a bunch of para
noid conspiracy theorists. Next you're
going to tell me you believe in the bogeyman."

"That's uncalled for."

"You're the one who suggested it." He threw
his arms up in disgust. "Hell, I can't believe I'm surprised, since you
spend your time conversing with your navcom like it's a real person."

"I'm merely suggesting alternate possibilities.
Everyone
knows that radiation poisoning has caused minor mutations."