Chapter 57: Sound Cannon

Dean stared at the heat signatures with a furrowed brow for a long while. Clearly watching and estimating the movements of the animals within the halls of the hospital.

Zach however broke his focus when he shouted his thoughts out loud.

“What the fuck are a bunch of monkeys doing all the way out here?”

Dean glanced back toward the hospital on the drone feed.

“Those aren’t monkeys,” he said quietly. “Those are chimps.”

Zach frowned. “So?”

Dean looked at him like he had just asked the dumbest question imaginable.

“A full grown chimp can tear your dick off, and that’s if you’re lucky… Needless to say this complicates matters.”

Though the Peltasts didn’t fully grasp why Dean was so averse to storming the gates. They knew instinctively by the words he had chosen that it was unwise to risk a frontal assault.

Zach sat down next to Dean and also began to think, vocalizing his thought process as he did so.

“Well, we can’t just go in there guns blazing. That would alert anyone nearby to our operation….”

Dean gave a subtle but noticeable nod of approval toward Zach’s thinking. The fact that he was already thinking in terms of concealment and avoiding conflict where unnecessary was proof that his training had already begun to affect him on some subconscious level.

Dean sighed and stretched his shoulders. There were several ways that instantly came to mind.

“The way I see it is that we have a few options. We could try to lure them out by using our drones to cause a nearby commotion. But this has a low probability of success and depends on the animals being more curious or agitated than comfortable or cautious.”

Zach and the others nodded their heads with Dean’s assessment, while he continued with their options.

“We can smoke them out… but I’d prefer if we don’t waste our smoke grenades, so that means we would need a controlled and limited burn, one designed to produce smoke more than flame. That will send the animals scattering and give us enough time to loot the place.”

There were, of course risks with this plan, if they could not control the fire it threatened to cause significant damage to the location, and the smoke itself could be seen by bystanders and thus attract the unwanted attention they were avoiding.

Finally, Dean suggested the last option he could think of.

“Or… we could go raid the county sheriff’s department that is nearby. Maybe they have something left over that we could use. If not, we can always go back to option 1 or 2.”

The boys did not hesitate to choose the third option. To them it was a no brainer. It cost them nothing to raid the county sheriff’s department. Or, they should say cost them nothing that the other options already didn’t pose a risk of.

And if there was something over there that they could get their hands on that made the hospital raid easier, then why wouldn’t they at least attempt it?

Thus Dean and the Peltasts remounted their snowmobiles and drove off into the snow, their cargo sleds trailing just behind them, gliding across the snow.

—

The Peltasts quickly deployed the drones to scan the perimeter of the county sheriff’s department, as expected it was abandoned and showed signs of forced entry, but not any recent attempts.

This, however, did allow them to send the drones further into the building where they were effectively able to confirm there were zero thermal signatures inside.

Dean took point, leading the fireteam’s clearing of the building. The sheriff’s department looked like it had been looted weeks ago.

Desks were overturned. Filing cabinets ripped open. Someone had smashed the evidence locker with a crowbar.

They slowly but surely made their way through each room, making 100% sure that there was nobody inside the department but them. And then they hit the armory.

The armory had already been broken into, and most of anything of immediate and obvious use was looted long ago.

But there were still things a layman would overlook. Ignorance was bliss, as they said. However, it also meant missing tools that looked harmless, yet were anything but.

Not the least bit complacent simply because they had cleared the premises. Dean’s lips curved into an excited and devious smirk beneath his balaclava. His voice was low and hushed almost as if he was too afraid that the moment he spoke reality would shatter around him.

“Gentlemen… We have found the solution to our problems.”

What was this solution? It looked like a giant speaker mounted to a tripod that was resting in a corner of the armory. Easily glossed over by the looters who had once pilfered these halls.

But to Dean it was a beautiful, rare, and legendary find. Zach looked over at the device, and was equally confused as those who came before him.

“We’re going to scare them away with death metal?”

Dean shot the young man a gaze that, while hidden beneath his step-in ballistic visor contained all the contempt he could possess.

“No… Well, honestly, you’re not that far off…. Gentlemen, we’ve found ourselves a sound cannon.”

Sound Cannon… The very name filled the Peltasts with scenes from blockbuster action movies.

And Zach was quick to interject.

“I understand how this could be used to force the apes out of the hospital. But wouldn’t this just suffer from a similar problem as gunfire? If we use this, wouldn’t we attract too much attention?”

Dean however shook his head and simply smiled, looking back to the sound cannon with a bit too much excitement in his eyes.

“No. We run it on infrasound. We won’t hear a thing.”

He tapped the device with a gloved finger.

“But they will. To them it’ll feel like the world’s ending. Panic, nausea, disorientation. They’ll bolt right out of the building.”

He thought about it for a moment and then made a ponderous statement beneath his breath.

“Ironically enough… it is probably the most ethical solution to our problem….”

The Peltasts broke out into laughter the moment Dean brought up ethics. Causing him to join them.

Ethics… such a thing didn’t exist anymore.

Dean folded the tripod and slung the device over his shoulder.

“Alright, boys,” he said.

“Let’s go evict some tenants.”

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