Free The Sixth Level by James Harden

people. Even the woman had a constant scowl on her face, like she wanted to punch me in the nose just for looking in her general direction.

    They all nodded their heads in what I hoped was approval.

    Daniel motioned to the tall man. "This is Major Charles Ethan. He's our team leader."

    "Hello, Sir." I said and suddenly realized how childish and girlish my voice sounded. I coughed and cleared my throat. "Nice to meet you," I said in a deeper tone that was least an octave lower.

    "You've already sort of met Griffin and Rifleman Ben Smith or Smitty as we call him. And this is Josephine Ramirez. Our other 'full time' pilot."

    The woman picked up a pen and threw it at Daniel. "Don’t call me Josephine."

    "Sorry," Daniel apologized. "Jo Ramirez. Best and friendliest pilot in the world."

    Ethan moved over to the whiteboard so he was standing in front of everyone. He was a giant man. He stood taller than the white board. He looked like he should’ve been a professional basketball player or a football player. I’m not sure if it was his height or the steely look in his eyes but this guy commanded respect and it appeared that these soldiers gave it to him. One hundred percent.

    "All right. Now that we're all here and we're all best friends, let’s get on with the mission brief," Ethan said. "Apologies for the last minute change of plans. But as soon as we got word of the outbreak in New Zealand we couldn’t afford to stay there a second longer. It was too risky. We had to make a move."

    I wanted to ask him about the details of what he had heard and how bad it was or if the quarantine facility had been affected but I held my tongue. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to talk or even allowed to ask questions.

    "Sir?" Smitty asked as he raised his hand. "Who screwed up with the intel? Who gave us the all clear for this section?"

    "Came from the top," Ethan answered.

    "Typical." Smitty said. "Freakin suits are a bunch of goddamn idiots."

    Ramirez leant over and slapped him on the arm. "Watch your mouth. We got a girl here."

    "Freakin is not a swear word." Smitty pointed out.

    "No, but you took the Lord’s name in vain."

    Ethan ignored them and continued to explain our course of action. "Our primary objective is to locate civilian, Maria Marsh. Last reports indicate that she's hiding out in the middle of the Sydney Central Business District. To avoid being detected by the military we'll fly in over the western plains, through the snowy mountains and all the way to the eastern coastline about three hundred clicks south of Sydney. According to intelligence reports, there are US and Australian forces on the south western outskirts of Sydney. So we’ll need to circumnavigate that. Hence the reason for following the coastline. Intelligence is about a week old but it's all we've got."

    "What about the navy blockade off the east coast?" Griffin asked. "Won’t they see us?"

    "The blockade is situated about a hundred clicks off the coast. We stay low, they won’t see us."

    Griffin wasn’t convinced. "What about Sydney airport? What if they’ve set up operations there?"

    "Intelligence reports indicate the airport has been quiet for some time now."

    "Same intelligence report that said this area was clear?" Griffin asked.

    "Yeah," Ethan answered. "You don’t like it; you know where the door is."

    "No, I love it. I just need to know when to have the safety on my rifle switched off."

    "Shut up, Griffin," Smitty said. "So what's the op, Major? Is this gonna be a straight up rescue or shit fight?"

    Ramirez punched Smitty in the arm again. "Language."

    "Sorry."

    "All we know is that the military forces operating in the area have gone dark," Ethan answered. "Complete radio silence. And as you can see, the satellite imagery of the area is still ineffective."

    "Wonderful. So we don’t know if there are any military forces in the area at all?" Griffin asked.

    "No."

    "Do we know how bad the infection is in that