The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

“Sir, we lost them,” Easely informed his boss.

“How do we lose over 90 telepaths?” John exclaimed, the thought of that statement impossible for him to contemplate.

“They destroyed the party that was sent to capture them,” Easely explained.

“What? What do you mean, ‘destroyed’?”

“Two of the four helicopters were destroyed. One of those crashed in a fiery wreck, the other having the engine destroyed once it was on the ground. Apparently a telepath told them to get out before the helicopter was destroyed. They listened, which is how they survived. The other was destroyed in the air. As for our ground troops, 47 telepaths are out of commission for an indefinite time. The doctors, or scientists, can’t even determine what’s wrong with them. 17 telepaths are dead. There are 42 soldiers dead, with another 27 permanently disabled. We only recovered our injured because we infiltrated the emergency crews that were called to the scene. Not all of the emergency workers were ours, though,” Easely said, leaving unsaid the fact that word of this was definitely going to get out. John stared at his second, his mouth hanging open. He had no idea what to say. The attempt to capture the wayward telepaths had been a catastrophe.

“Sir, there were 93 telepaths our men went to capture, most of them too young for serious training yet, thus they were not deemed a threat. There were approximately 30 with moderate training and only 10 with advanced training, not including the Brager girl. As far as we can tell, not one of them was even injured. They took out over 50% of a well trained force, which included trained telepaths and air support,” Easely added, when his boss didn’t respond.

As John was still not responding, Easely continued, “Sir, our soldiers and telepaths never even got a shot off. No bullets, no telepathic connectors, nothing. Only two of the helicopters got anything off, and the result is both of them were destroyed,” Easely stated, clearly unhappy with what had happened.

“Sir, the survivors all mentioned seeing a young girl walk through the dead and wounded, as if she was some kind of demon, or avenging angel or something. They all noted the look on her face, sir. To a man, they said she looked insane. There was no emotion on her face, and she was a child. It was the Brager girl, sir, and that story has circulated amongst the men. They won’t attack her again, which means she effectively took out almost the entire group, even if many of them are still functional, including the telepaths,” Easely finished.

“Why the telepaths? They’re trained for this kind of crap,” John asked, finally finding his voice again.

“They only talk about how powerful she is, and they’re terrified of her, sir,” Easely said.

“She wasn’t the only telepath,” John said, beginning to get upset at everything being centered on that one girl. There were over 90 telepaths in that group.

“The telepaths have all said that she was the only one that attacked them, and she did things that telepaths can’t do. There’s talk about her shooting lasers with her mind, and other crazy things, sir,” he related.

“They’re in shock. She wasn’t the only one that attacked, but what I don’t understand is, we were always told telepaths could only attack telepaths. We were lied to,” John stated.

“Sir, none of our telepaths can attack anyone but another telepath. The Brager girl doesn’t seem to be restricted in that way, which lends some credibility to the stories, sir,” Easely said.

“It’s not possible. We’d have been informed if that kind of threat existed. Not only that, they’d have never let her have even the slightest chance of escape, if she could do things like that,” John said.

“Not if they didn’t know what she was capable of, sir. And as for it not being possible, there’s a great statement, from a fictional detective that might apply here. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made that statement through Sherlock Holmes. There were men that had limbs cut off, and the wounds had been cauterized. There were worse things than simple limb amputations, but in all of the injuries, the wounds had been cauterized, sir,” Easely said.

“That’s not possible,” John Wu persisted.

“Sir, there are soldiers describing something like a laser slicing through them. The scientists claim that the things she has done are mental projections, much more powerful than they’ve ever encountered before, but real injuries aren’t mental projections and these are real injuries, sir,” Easely continued.

“We need to mount a force to go neutralize this threat,” John said, beginning to sound like a leader again. The problem was, he didn’t have the manpower to mount much of a force, whether he knew it or not. His assistant did, however.

“Sir, we’re unable to mount any force right now. In the past few weeks, we’ve lost over 100 soldiers. We barely have enough to maintain security over the telepaths that’re with us,” he explained.

“We need to explain this to the Headmaster. Come with me,” John said. Although Easely didn’t like being put in that position, since it was his boss’s job, he would follow orders.

Less than five minutes later, they were both sitting in a small room, which had been turned into a conference room, in one of the many support buildings for the Oakmont facility. The place was much more than the main school and research facility. The partial collapse of the main building, though bad and definitely a problem, had not disabled the program.

“Easely, are these reports credible?” the Headmaster asked, once he was done repeating all of the numbers and eye witness accounts.

“If not for the evidence itself, I would doubt them, but the injuries prove that something happened that was not anticipated and not easily explained, sir. Add on to that, the report from the telepaths, and the only conclusion is that the Brager girl mounted the defense for them all, without any of the others participating, sir” Easely replied.

“What is our operational capability?” the Headmaster asked.

“Sir, we’re under minimum operational capability. We lost over 50% of the men sent in the operation, and of the ones that survived, unharmed, none of them will participate in another operation against her. In addition, she has disabled approximately 5% of our local field operational telepaths, sir,” Easely informed him.

“I’ll need to get approval, but I’ll recall some of our deployed telepaths to counter the threat she poses,” the Headmaster said, the mask he normally wore, betrayed by anger and irritation. She had become too much of a liability for him, and he knew it.

“That will be all,” he said, dismissing them.

John Wu was pleased that he had not been more thoroughly reprimanded, but he wasn’t one to argue good fortune. Easely had no concerns with that, as the decisions weren’t his to make anyway. His job was only to execute them, which he had done according to the guidelines he’d been given. Although he’d questioned the excessive force being brought to bear on a group of children, he had questioned because it was excessive. Since the results of the battle had been so excessively catastrophic, and not in their favor, he was now questioning having done it at all.

He and his commander had not given the commands though, as they hadn’t returned to the facility until the very end, as the remains of their force were limping back in. He knew how blame was dished out, though.

“I’ve received a report that some kind of battle happened in Whitefish, Montana,” Stone said, walking into Randy’s makeshift office, along with his wife, Rebecca Stone.

“We just got word of it, too. Sit down, and I’ll fill you in on what I know. Some of it is a little hard to believe,” Randy said, indicating a chair with his hand.

Stone and Rebecca sat down, somewhat apprehensive at the way Randy replied. But he knew better than to push ahead, when it was obvious that Randy was going to tell him anyway.

“Sometime last night, or maybe late afternoon to evening, Melanie and a very large group of kids from the Oakmont school showed up at the Gardner’s house. Melanie called me and asked for help to get away. Mr. Gardner and I arranged a couple of school buses to transport them here, but before Mr. Gardner returned with the first bus, a large contingent of soldiers and telepaths, along with air support, assaulted the Gardner place,” Randy said, then sighed, letting the obvious tension escape a little.

“How many telepaths and soldiers are we talking about, and do you know anything about the escaped kids?” Stone asked, unable to stop himself. He was a soldier and wanted to understand the supposed battlefield, and the makeup of the opposing forces.

“As I said, Melanie arrived with around 90 telepaths, many of them very young, and probably not very functional. The Oakmont group consisted of approximately 100 soldiers, 100 telepaths and four attack helicopters. Although the numbers seem impossible, I trust the sources. The Oakmont force finished with nearly 60 dead and another 70 or so injured, some with unknown injuries. In addition, two of the four helicopters were destroyed,” he told Stone, who was opening his mouth to speak. “Before you ask, there were no injuries to any of the kids,” Randy said, cutting him off before he could fully open his mouth.

“That’s what I was about to ask,” he admitted, letting out a huge breath that had obviously been building as the numbers were related.

“Now comes the parts that are hard to believe.”

“And that isn’t?” Stone asked.

“Not compared to this. There are numerous reports, including from the Gardner’s themselves, of the kids using some kind of laser like thing to slice through the troops. When the battle ended, the kids seemed to hold Melanie in some kind of awe, and they said it looked like fear, implying that she was responsible for it, at least maybe most of it.”

“That’s not possible. They’re only capable of telepathic abilities,” Rebecca said, repeating the old argument from long ago.

“Rebecca, you know she can do more than that. I reported to you what I witnessed before we left there,” Stone said.

“Raughlin and the scientists insist all of that is a mental projection, much more advanced than anything they’ve ever seen, and that’s all it is. I’ve experienced her projections, so I believe she’s capable of it,” she argued.

“That may be, but the wounds on those soldiers is irrefutable. The wounds were cauterized. Every one of them,” Randy said.

“How?” was her single word reply.

“You told me that she took some different serum that the program had no knowledge of. It is possible that it granted these abilities, as incredible as they are?” he replied.

He let her think about that for a few moments before continuing. “Rebecca, during your time with the Oakmont program, were you ever aware of the existence of another school and research facility?” he asked.

“Other than the lab in Arizona, no, and they didn’t keep kids there, except to experiment on them. And no kid that ever went there came back,” she replied, looking at him with curiosity.

“It appears, there’s another school in North Carolina. It’s not affiliated with the Oakmont program, and as a matter of fact, it’s funded by a different agency within the DOD,” he informed them.

“Hammond spent a lot of time away from the lab, especially toward the end of his life, but there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary,” she said.

“And yet, he’s the one that sabotaged the Oakmont program’s advancement,” he noted, earning a nod of agreement from Stone, but a look of concern and deep thought from her.

“You think he might have been moonlighting with another agency, to build a similar program in competition with the Oakmont program, and both of them parts of the US government?” she asked, incredulous.

“It’s not unheard of. In fact, it happens quite often,” he replied.

“Do you know what they’re doing there?” she asked.

“We haven’t managed to gain access to their program yet, but that is forthcoming, considering it’s funded by the NSA, which falls under my bosses umbrella of influence, even though it is technically also part of the DOD,” he said, with a smile.

“I want to go with you, when you go,” she said.

“I figured you would, and considering your experience, I was hoping you would,” he said. Turning his gaze to Stone, he said, “I want you along as my security attache.”

Returning his attention to both of them, he said, “In the meantime, I need you two to find the kids that fled Oakmont and bring them back here.”

“Why us?” Rebecca asked.

“Because I can’t go right now, and she has history with you. She trusts you, and I think she’s in a bad place right now. I know I was the first time I killed a lot of people,” he said, his gaze staring at a spot on the floor in front of him, his eyes clearly watery.

“We’ll bring her back, Randy,” she promised, standing up and squeezing his shoulder.

He patted her hand in thanks and smiled up at her. “Take care of my baby girl,” he said, then got up and left.

“Sir, Mrs. Stone, a car is waiting. We’ll brief you on the way,” a young man said, walking in only a moment after Randy had left.

As they were escorted to the waiting car, the young man gave them the little bit of extra information he knew hadn’t already been told to them. The last anyone knew, the kids had left Whitefish heading south, toward Kalispell. The buses that had been loaned were older and didn’t have surveillance equipment onboard, so no tracking was possible.

“Sir, ma’am, you have full police privilege, including lights in the front and rear, but obviously not on the top. Communications are also equipped, in case you need it,” he informed them. The car was actually a large SUV, complete with one of the metal brush guards in the front. It was a deep blue color, with black trim. The plates were US government plates. This was not an undercover type of vehicle.

“Thank you,” Stone said, as he and Rebecca climbed in. They were gone as soon as he had it started and in gear.