Galati's voice speaking into his tactical headset interrupted Campion's thoughts.
"Do you copy? Major Gant, do you copy? What is your position?"
"Give it a rest, Sal," Wells told his friend. "You won’t get anything but static unless you’re in line of sight."
"Pipe down, you two," Campion ordered. "Speak only when necessary. We don’t want to draw any attention if we don’t have to."
Wells moved away from Campion and removed his helmet to run a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
The blast and fire had bought them cover for their retreat, which started out as a run down the hall followed by a shortcut through a large computer room housing an ancient HP mainframe that had not been in use for years before the initiation of quarantine. From there they stumbled about in the dark for a few minutes before finding the library.
A line of big, rectangular windows separated the room from one of the main corridors from which several battery-powered spotlights shined in, providing better light than in most sections of the underground facility. Never mind the question as to how battery-powered lights still worked after twenty years of total isolation.
The three soldiers stood behind a row of reference books. Wells glanced at some of the titles — all scientific journals and reference volumes — while Galati gave up on the radio and turned his attention to his weapons. He had expended quite a bit of ammunition and was running low.
Wells asked, "Hey, Cap, why aren’t we bugging out?"
Campion did not turn away from his study of the map as he answered, "I said stow it, soldier. I’ve got work to do."
"With all due respect, sir," Wells kept on, "we somehow managed to survive Little Big Horn out there yet we’re not heading back up. Why not?"
"We have a mission to complete."
"Mission? We just got overrun and routed by some of the nastiest shit I've ever seen. Isn't it time to get back to the exit? You know, live to fight another day."
Campion snapped the cover of his wrist computer shut and looked Wells directly in the eye.
"Listen to me, both of you. We have a mission to complete. That's why we were sent down here. You knew coming in that this was going to get crazy, so don’t start acting like a couple of school kids. Focus and let your training do the job."
"Hey," Galati strolled over to him. "I've been, you know, on missions more fucked up than this one but I got to admit, maybe we should—"
"Bullshit, Sal," Wells spat. "You have never been on anything as fucked up as this, just like you never banged a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and you didn't call that pool shot in the rec room the other night. Now isn't the time for one of your stupid stories."
Galati coked his head at his friend's shot across the bow and opened his mouth to launch a rebuttal, but Captain Campion interceded.
"Shut the fuck up, both of you."
His use of such strong language knocked them off balance, just as planned. Campion was not opposed to four-letter words, but he knew such words had their place. Dropping f-bombs in every sentence sort of reduced the effect, but when Richard Campion let one fly it grabbed attention.
"I am not routed. I plan to take back the initiative and I plan to complete the mission. This is who we are; this is what we do. We stick together, we work as a team, and we get the job done. I'll cover your backs, you cover mine and we'll make it through this."
Both men stared at him, either thinking him crazy and plotting a mutiny or buying in to his words. Campion did not know which way they would go. He was never good at reading personalities or emotions. He dealt with facts and he lived by a code he expected others to follow, no matter how often they disappointed him.
Of course, retreat always remained an option; a tool for use in war like any other weapon or tactic. But one did not retreat when the objective was only two floors below.
Sal sort of smirked and said, sheepishly, "I've heard better inspirational speeches, Cap," and he glanced at Wells.
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Wells gave in, too. "Whatever you say, I'm in," he said, then he punched Galati lightly in the shoulder. "But only because someone has to look after his sorry ass."
Sal puckered his lips and blew him a kiss. "You can kiss this sorry ass, sweetheart."
Campion popped open the computer again, now that things seemed under control.
He told the men, "We're going to find another way down. If we have to cut through the bioweapons sector, so be it, but I'd like to find a route around or an alternative means of descent."
"Bioweapons?" Wells asked. "Say, Cap, you think that's where those things came from? You know those things that hit us. They seemed like some kind of nasty bioweapons project gone bad."
"What?" Campion said, because he thought Wells's suggestion sounded absurd. "What would that have to do with anything? If it was an experiment that went bad, then maybe it had something to do with time travel. Those uniforms were from the 1940s."
"Uniforms? What uniforms?" Wells tilted his head and squinted his eyes in a manner that suggested he questioned the Captain's sanity. "How the hell would something like that wear a uniform?"
Campion shut his computer lid again and looked at Wells. "Those were German soldiers who attacked us, or people dressed up like World War Two Germans. You know I'm an expert on that kind of thing."
"Germans?" Wells gasped. "Those weren't Germans who attacked us. Those were spiders, Cap. Spiders the size of cats and dogs. How the hell could you mistake something like that for soldiers? You hit your head or something?"
Campion's mind raced. What had he seen during the battle? He clearly remembered the sound of the approaching soldiers, their gear, the way they lunged forward brandishing bayonets. That is what he had seen but … he had noticed Wells shooting at the floor, exactly where a big spider would be. And Franco, he had gone crazy.
"Wait a second," Campion said to Wells and then glanced at Galati, who, for his part, was surprisingly silent and stood with his head bowed. "You saw spiders? I saw German soldiers."
"How is that possible?"
"I'm guessing you don't like spiders?"
Wells broke eye contact, shuffled his feet, and admitted, "Nah, man, I hate the little bastards. They give me the creeps."
"And I've always got World War Two on my mind. I've always sort of, I guess, sort of thought of the Germans as an impressive military machine from back then."
Wells scratched the side of his head just under his tactical helmet and said, "So, I saw spiders and you saw Germans? We imagined it all?"
"I don’t know," Campion said. He tried to recall the sequence of events. "Did any of them touch you? Did you shoot any of the spiders you saw? I kept hitting Germans but not killing them, just sort of knocking them down and buying time."
Wells snapped his fingers. "Me too. They'd get up close and I'd shoot them. Sometimes they ran off, sometimes they just sort of disappeared. Never got me, though. Say, you saying they weren't really there? Just all in our heads?"
"I think so." Campion wondered if the Defense Department had worked on some kind of mind control weapon in this place. "Something sure as hell got in Biggy's head. He shot Moss and Pearson. Maybe he didn't mean to. Maybe he saw something else. I had to … well I told you, I had to put him down."
Why don't I feel bad about that?
Wells shook his head.
"I don't know about that, Cap. I don't think it's a coincidence that Franco shot two black guys. If you hadn't shot him, I bet he would have taken me out next. I hate spiders, so I saw spiders. Franco has his own list of things he hates, if you know what I mean. Christ, man, what if this thing can make us see whatever? We could end up shooting each other."