“Okay. Looks quiet.”
“Yeah,” Jack answered. In addition to a Safe Zone’s own protective fence, this building—like most apartment buildings—had its own security fence, complete with a guard and video monitoring.
Except most of the guards weren’t worth much.
Terrified rummies, cowering in the shatterproof glass booths, peeing into a bottle, waiting until dawn when some other hapless guard relieved them.
Rodriguez pulled the car up to the gate. He flashed his ID. The guard rubbed his grizzled cheek at the same time as his handheld scanner recognized the ID as genuine.
The man inside the booth communicated with them via a speaker.
In some apartment complexes, there had been cases of finding these guys dead inside their booths. Somehow a Can Head would get in and enjoy feasting on something from the bottom end of the evolutionary spectrum.
And every security guard knew those stories.
“Where’s the problem?” Rodriguez asked.
The guard coughed, a crackle over the speaker.
“A tenant—fourth floor. Said he saw a new hole outside. Another breakthrough. H-he thought they might have gotten into the building. Sounded scared.”
I bet, Jack thought.
Rodriguez: “Christ. In the fucking building? Motherfucker.”
Jack knew that it could simply be a case of someone who had too much home-brewed alcohol. The real stuff was hard to come by, and home brew could have weird side effects. A bottle or two and suddenly you start seeing Can Heads all over the fucking place.
“Where the hell is it?” Rodriguez asked.
“The opening? Ah… way in the back. And the… the… tenant’s name is Tomkins. Guy lives alone. Fourth floor. Four-G.”
Jack leaned forward.
“Can we get back there with the car?” Rodriguez said.
The guard looked as if he didn’t know the layout.
“Close. Over there. See those spaces over there? That’s about as close as you can get.”
Rodriguez turned to look at Jack, his expression saying, We’re fucked. We got to get out and fucking walk to the opening? And if there was indeed an opening, they’d have to go hunt for whatever made it.
Rodriguez’s eyes said it all.
Lucky us.
Back to the guard. “Okay. Thanks. You hear anything more while we’re in there, you let us know. You got that, chief?”
The guard nodded.
Rodriguez pulled the car forward as the guard threw a switch. The gate opened, the wall of wire rolling away as they entered the apartment grounds.
Jack looked at his watch.
3:45.
Only about three hours away from finishing his shift.
Shit, he thought.
For all the good that would do.
“What do you want?” he asked Rodriguez.
“The usual. Maybe a few incendiaries, in case there is a hole. We start by sealing that.”
Jack noticed that his partner had already discarded their new lower head/neck covering, an item that had given him the look of a medieval Asian warrior.
“You forgetting something?” Jack said.
“No. I prefer mobility, amigo.”
Out of the car.
Jack knelt down and scanned the opening in the fence while Rodriguez kept up a steady 360-degree scan of the surrounding area.
Jack pulled back on the opening.
“I dunno,” he said. “Barely enough room for someone to wiggle through. Motion sensors should have turned on the big floods. If they even work.”
He looked up at his partner, who kept looking all around, the M-16 held in ready position.
“What you thinking, Jacko? Anything come through here?”
“Someone cut a goddamn hole. I dunno, and—”
“Right. Shit. I hear you. All right, we go talk to the tenant. The eagle eyes who saw something.”