Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Seventy-Two

After a short recon of the area, Tommy returned to where Sam sat watching the activity of a large cluster of buildings on the desert plain below—The Farm.

It had been almost two hours since they'd arrived.

His first impulse had been to go, guns blazing, into the facility, for fear the discovery of Meeker's absence might prompt an undesired increase in security, or some other unpleasant outcome. But he and Sam had discussed the issue. Meeker's description of The Farm had been patchy—the man simply hadn't been very familiar with the place—and Tommy's interrogation of him had revealed that there was a small barracks and training area somewhere on the plain below that housed some, or all, of Morse's Gifted mercenaries.

Both Tommy and Sam knew there would be resistance, and possibly quite a lot of it in the form of the augmented weapons that nearly had killed Sam in Montana, but fighters with Gifts were another matter. There was no way of divining their numbers or of reckoning in advance their abilities. It was that fact that had tipped them toward prudence and toward making a short surveillance of the facility before moving down to search for Amy and the others.

"How, exactly, did you get him to talk?" Sam enquired shortly after Tommy's return.

"Who? Meeker? ... I had him by the ankle and flew him up the coast at around 3,000 feet. Every once in a while, I'd toss him ahead a few hundred feet and fly up and catch him. You'd be amazed how quickly someone talks after such a trip."

Sam laughed with the faintest hint of anxiety. For an old paratrooper, he had an unusual discomfort with heights, and it was obvious he'd hated every minute of their flight to Utah, with Tommy's thick arms his only seatbelt. "No. I getcha."

They sat a little longer. The two hours they'd decided to devote to surveillance nearly had passed, and there seemed to be nothing unusual or out of sorts at The Farm. There were simple comings and goings, people arriving at the office, doing physical training, smoking, eating, taking out the garbage, and the thousand other things people stationed at such a large facility might undertake.

"What do you intend to do with the Widow Meeker?" Sam asked around a yawn. "If you put her in that spare room across the hall from where you and Rhonda sleep, let me know. I'll bring popcorn."

"She's not a widow, yet." Tommy knew he would never hear the end of this. "At least not that I know of. And you've met Rhonda. She'd take that woman into her home in a New York minute. Of course, I'd have to find a new place to live."

The two continued to chuckle as they watched. The vantagepoint from which they observed events was well within perimeter security of Gunway Proving Ground, an enormous site of many tens-of-thousands of acres. No one Tommy so far had seen had been required to produce any sort of security pass. He mentioned this to Sam.

"Maybe there's a secret handshake?"

"Nah. I don't think so." Tommy played straight man. "I do see people with various types of badges on lanyards around their necks, but not everyone has one of those. If there's security here, it's lax. I haven't even heard a public-address system."

"That doesn't sound right," Sam offered. "After that wee dustup at The Range, you'd think they'd be on high alert. It's barely been a week."

"The downside of strategic division of labor. Maybe they don't know?" It was a plausible explanation. "Besides, like you said, they aren't exactly the smartest bunch in the world."

After another few minutes, he bounded to his feet. "Let's go find out."

On the 20-minute walk down to The Farm, Tommy observed his friend carefully. Sam had recovered fully from what should have been a near fatal gunshot wound just five days before. Still, Tommy had considered asking Sam to go with Camille and Philly. In fact, he nearly had come straight to Gunway after interrogating Meeker. Alone, Tommy would be able to work his way past security more easily.