Chapter 16
Cynthia threw up strings of acid and spit. She tried to pull away from the toilet, but her stomach collapsed onto itself and forced her forward as her body tried to expel from her mouth what she had heard with her ears.
A boy. It was a boy.
A moment ago, Evan had called an emergency meeting. He and Earl were heading to Chicago from D.C. on the fastest train they had. Cynthia had heard about the base in Virginia, but she didn’t understand the real crisis until Evan had confessed over the phone.
“I found the anomaly,” he had said quietly.
“What are you talking about?” In context to the attack on the base, she didn’t make the connection.
“The anomaly. The source that caused your Colossal Core to be shut down.”
“You said it was a re-route, DeKalb was a prank,” she had replied.
“It wasn’t.”
Cynthia was furious. “What have you kept from me?! I won’t lift a finger, do you understand? I will shut down everything right now if you don’t tell me.”
He told her. And she retched.
Now, finally, her stomach surrendered and she sat down next to the toilet and wiped her mouth with a towel. The cool tile felt good on her legs and she gathered herself.
The King Sleeper. Evan had found the anomaly and kept it from me. And it was a child. He had been using him for months for his own purposes.
Sabot walked into the bathroom with a glass of water. “They’ll be at the Derik Building in an hour. We should head out,” he said.
She loved that man. Never again would she let anything obscure that fact. Anyone else—she included—would have come in and said, “I told you so,” whether with words or a look. But not him. He handed her the glass and rubbed her back and didn’t say a thing.
= = =
Nikki was washing Raimey when someone pounded on the front door. She perched him up and went down to see what the ruckus was about. Raimey heard the murmur of a man and even though it was unintelligible, the tone was cold and firm.
“You can’t just come in! John! John! Men are coming up!” Nikki yelled.
He could hear the footsteps on the stairs and then the bathroom door opened and two men he had never seen before walked in. They turned away when they saw him in the tub. The water was clear.
“Sir, I’m Alan Kove and this is Edward Chao. We have been sent here by General Earl Boen, Dr. Evan Lindo, and at the request of the President of the United States.”
Nikki came in and pushed them aside to get to the tub. Alan looked at Raimey, saying with his eyes that she couldn’t be here for the discussion.
“Nikki, it’s fine,” Raimey said. She grabbed a towel.
“Nikki,” Raimey said firmly. She stopped. “Please leave us for a few minutes. I’m fine.” Nikki looked at him, then the other men. She folded the towel, put it back on the rack, and left.
“What’s going on?” Raimey asked.
“General Boen and Dr. Lindo are on their way from D.C. They are meeting with Cynthia Revo, the founder of MindCorp, at the Derik Building,” Kove said.
“Alan, you couldn’t be explaining this any slower. What the fuck is going on?” Raimey asked impatiently.
“We’re not one hundred percent sure, sir,” Chao chimed in. He looked like he would put his hand in fire to light a cigarette. “General Boen wants us to bring you to the Derik Building for debriefing.”
“What the fuck can I do?” Raimey asked. His crippled nakedness in the tub emphasized the point.
“We don’t know. But General Boen was very clear that he was ordering you to come with us,” Alan said.
Raimey was a soldier, broken or not. And while he was confused by the sudden urgency after all this time begging for the military to throw him a bone, an order was an order.
“Nikki! I need to get toweled off!” Raimey turned to the men. “Unless you’re gonna buy me dinner, can I get a little privacy?”
An hour later they pulled up to the Derik Building. They wheeled him directly into a large conference room. General Boen, Dr. Evan Lindo, and Cynthia Revo were present. Cynthia’s bodyguard stood in the corner. They looked grim.
“John,” General Boen said.
“What the hell am I doing here, Earl?” he asked.
Boen chuckled softly. Sadly. “You wanted back in. Remember how I told you to be careful what you wish for?”
Raimey nodded.
“This is it.”
On a large screen, Evan Lindo and General Boen briefed Raimey on what had happened. The test he and Janis had undergone was to become a super soldier. For some unknown reason, Janis had gone insane and destroyed a military base. Almost all persons on the base were assumed dead. There was no communication in or out, no way to surveil with satellites because of the smoke, and no way to know if the King Sleeper—something Raimey didn’t quite understand—was alive or dead. It had been six hours since the base had gone dark.
“You’re telling me that Eric was strong enough to destroy a military base?” Raimey said. “How is that possible?”
“He is unlike anything you can imagine. All the comics you read as a kid, he’s the real version,” Lindo said quietly. He was still in shock. “You’ll be better. We’ve improved the technology already. And the armor design of your battle chassis will be talked about in history . . .”
Raimey interrupted. “Stop. I haven’t agreed to anything. I don’t even know what you’re really asking!”
“John, I’m asking you to become a Tank Major, infiltrate the base, and kill your best friend,” General Boen said.
“That’s a lot to ask, Earl,” Raimey said. “So I’m a Tank Major, do I just come out of it after the mission?”
“It’s permanent. Your spine is fused to the battle chassis because of the g-loads that occur while in the suit. There’s no other way,” Evan said.
“So, what? I just buy a bigger house? Come on! Would my family have to live on base?” Raimey said. He was incredulous at what they were asking. The live satellite feed behind them showed thick tendrils of smoke and pockets of fire. The images flipped through different light spectrums and he saw neon green bodies scattered around like toy soldiers.
“No. The suit is highly radioactive. You wouldn’t be able to be with them. You’d be a weapon, John. The most powerful man in the history of the world. For your safety and theirs, they wouldn’t be able to be around you,” Dr. Lindo said.
“No way,” Raimey said. He turned to General Boen. “What were you thinking, Earl? Do you really think I’d leave my family for this? Bomb the fucking place.”
“WE CAN’T!” Boen said. “Not with the King Sleeper. I know what I’m asking, John.”
“I don’t think you do. After all of this, you get to go back to your ranch,” Raimey said.
“Your wife has cancer,” Evan said. The room went quiet. John’s face crumbled with emotions, blindsided by the non sequitur.
“What are you talking about?” Raimey said. He looked sick.
“She went to the doctor a week ago. They did blood work. Abnormal proteins were found that indicate pancreatic cancer cells,” Evan said.
“No, you’re not serious. You’re fucking with me. You motherfucker, how cruel are you?” Raimey said. He turned to General Boen, but Boen’s head was down.
“Earl? Earl?!” Raimey said.
“I spoke with the doctor to confirm, John,” the General said. He couldn’t look into his eyes. “It’s true. They have to do more tests to know the stage, but it’s true.”
“People beat it,” Dr. Lindo said. “But the military insurance doesn’t cover all treatment options.”
John was silent. His head hung like it was broken.
“John, we know you’re signing your life away. That’s why Evan used Eric. But we have it from the President that your wife will get the best treatment, regardless of cost. They will have a military pension for the rest of their lives. And your daughter can go to any school from now throu
gh college and it will be paid in full by the United States government out of respect for your sacrifice,” General Boen said.
“How much for the pension?” Raimey asked weakly.
“Triple what you are currently receiving,” Boen replied.
John let out a defeated laugh. “You really know how to put someone in a corner.” He looked up at all of them. “Lucky for you all the bad shit in my life, huh?”
No one replied. They all stared at their feet.
“How long do I have to decide?” Raimey asked.
“Now, John. We have to know the status of the King Sleeper,” General Boen said. “You have no idea how important this is. I’m so sorry it has to be this way. You know I love you, Tiffany, and Vanessa.”
“I know, Earl. I’m sorry for getting angry at you. You’re a good man.” Tears rolled down John’s face. “They’ll be taken care of for life?”
Dr. Lindo nodded.
“She’ll get the best care, regardless of the cost?”
General Boen looked him in the eye. “The best that money can buy.”
“Oh, God. God. Please. Fine. Fine. Take me away, do what you have to, but take care of my family.”
Doctors and technicians burst into the room and took Raimey out of his chair. He was put on a gurney and wheeled out.
Boen glared at Evan and pointed to the surveillance monitor. There were hundreds of bodies on the screen. “This is your fault, Evan. Keeping the boy a SECRET?! The blood’s on your hands.”
Boen didn’t wait for a response. He ran after Raimey.
A surgery that should take two weeks was going to be done overnight. A training period that normally would take one month would be done on the train. Raimey headed into the unknown with General Boen at his side. The General cursed God as they wheeled this broken, proud soldier away from his family, away from any semblance of a normal life.
After the doors closed, Cynthia stood up to leave.
“Where are you going? I need you to help,” Evan said. Cynthia spun around and slapped him. He reeled back and put a hand to his face. He glanced between her and Sabot, who had quietly moved away from the wall.
“Ok, I deserved that,” he said. He wiggled his jaw. “But these things still need to get done.”
“A boy,” Cynthia said.
“Yes,” Evan replied.
“A boy!” she screamed and went after him again. Sabot intervened.
“I didn’t make him!” Evan said. His upper lip trembled. “What would you do if you were me? Huh? You say to yourself you’d leave him be, but no way. Not you. Look at the way you protect your inventions. If you died, half the shit wouldn’t work because it’s gotta be yours.”
“You reverse engineered a Data Core,” she accused.
“Yes, I did! And I’d do it again! You want the common good all on your terms like you’re some pious judge and jury. Well guess what? God didn’t anoint you to divvy out crumbs how you see fit. You’re a part of the problem.”
They calmed down.
“What do you need?” she finally said.
“We need to know what happened to Janis and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen to Raimey,” Evan replied.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll have it by tomorrow.” She and Sabot left Evan alone in the room.
= = =
When Cynthia got back to MindCorp she immediately had a military Sleeper send her all implant maintenance records of Tank Major Janis. A Tank Major technician used a maintenance computer daily to analyze the interaction between the brain, the software implant, and the battle chassis. Its most fundamental purpose was to monitor the latency of physical commands and return sensory input. If the analysis came back within spec, the technician had done their job and as far as they were concerned, the Tank Major was functioning properly. It was no different than a patient going in for a routine medical exam. If everything checked out, the doctor would say the patient was healthy, not dive deeper to see if they had cancer.
If Janis had gone insane—and all signs pointed to yes—then Cynthia was betting dollars to donuts the software implant was the root. A part of her wondered if she was to blame, if she had omitted some crucial bit of code that allowed the brain and the implant to co-exist peacefully. She tossed that notion aside. If the code was corrupt, someone nefarious had found a way in and done a little tinkering. It was the only possibility. She lay back in her chair and closed her eyes. Code scrolled up in front of her filling her mind and senses. She started at day one. On day ninety-three she found a deviation. A line of instruction, miniscule in the sea of programming code, was sending a GPS ping in a timed interval. She checked the date. It was the day the Western Curse took over O’Hare.
Someone HAD gotten in. Lines upon millions of lines scrolled past her as she floated in front of it. It felt like her own thoughts, but bracketed and returned and terse in the programming language that was as native to her as English. One week after the GPS pinging code, she found a more complicated subset. It turned the battle chassis’s cameras on. She found pages of code that hacked into the base’s Wi-Fi network and its on-site servers. Another command uploaded information. She couldn’t tell what had been uploaded off-site, it wasn’t saved to memory, but she could tell that it had been sent. Espionage.
She rang up Evan.
“Yes?” His voice was shaky. She pictured him huddled in the corner of a dark room. Good.
“I’ve found a rogue, stepped series of code that was inserted into Janis’s implant,” she said. “He was compromised.”
“How?” Lindo asked. He was instantly more composed. “O’Hare!” he said with a flash of insight.
“Yep. The first deviation came the day of that mission,” she said.
“How long will it take for you to understand exactly what happened?” Evan asked.
“It came easier than I expected. Two hours,” she said.
“Boen and I will come to MindCorp.” He hung up.
Two hours later, Cynthia outlined to General Boen and Lindo the subtle progression to Eric Janis’s insanity.
“This was a complicated and very well executed act of war,” Cynthia said. “Janis was hacked and the code was uploaded during the battle at O’Hare.”
“It was the Western Curse?” Boen said in disbelief. Cynthia and Evan exchanged doubtful looks.
“I think that group is a pawn to some other interest,” Cynthia offered. “To hack into the Tank Major itself is a huge technological hurdle. To do so and then plant a program so sophisticated that it inserts itself into the firmware code of the Mindlink without causing any malfunction other than the ones they desired.” She shook her head. “There’s just no way. I don’t care how well funded the terrorist group is.” She continued. “They used a three stage code. The first stage was GPS tracking. Very simple and useful. Tank Major Janis was pinging GPS satellites, indicating his location.”
Code scrolled down a large screen. Evan read it like a child reads The Cat in the Hat. Boen’s eyes got tired and he focused on Cynthia.
“The second stage used the cameras built into Janis for surveillance. It uploaded the data to the Internet.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lindo said shaking his head.
“The third stage was what did Janis in. It caused the Tank Major to experience a deep sleep and then the program—Evan, do you see this?” She outlined some code on the screen. “When he was asleep, it uploaded and installed the rest of the program for the third stage.”
“To drive him insane,” Lindo said. The beauty of the Mindlink was used against Janis.
Cynthia nodded. “It’s hard to say exactly how it functioned, but there is an uncompressed audio file that activates whenever he detects movement.”
Cynthia cued the track. It sounded like monstrous teeth chattering in the cold. Everyone squirmed from the unpleasantness of the noise. Cynthia turned it off.
“There’s also specific code to cause vision to bloom, and certain color spectrums are altered,
especially white.”
Cynthia was done.
“This is good detective work, but how does this help us right now?” General Boen asked. It was a question, not an argument. Lindo snapped away from his thoughts and turned to Cynthia.
“Raimey needs to be a closed system,” he said.
“I’ve already begun modifying the implant program,” she replied. She had predicted the necessary changes. “I’ve eliminated all wireless functionality and I’m building a closed system maintenance program. Tank Major Raimey will be unhackable and completely autonomous.”
= = =
The anesthesia took Raimey into a deep, dark dream. He stood on a cliff, looking down into a valley. Small explosions rippled across it. The muzzle flash of ten thousand weapons cracked and popped like fireworks. Two masses converged on each other. A major battle was at its climax.
He looked down on them unconcerned. The war below held his interest, but he felt no fear. He knew they could do him no harm. Over the massive battlefield, an oily gray cloud spun like a cyclone. It stretched for the horizon, but a crescent slash of a red sun escaped its cover and cast the battlefield in long, deep shadows.
He was a metal titan down on the battlefield, charging the enemy. There were other giants running alongside him and he recognized them all: they were dead friends and soldiers, men and women he had seen get rippled with gunfire or blown to pieces by an IED. And they had not healed. They were encased in giant mechanized bodies, but their faces were red and raw, eyes out, jaws hanging and though they were running toward an unknown enemy ahead, they all looked to him with a hunger, like he had an answer they desperately needed to hear.
“How many are we going to kill today?” Janis said to his left. Raimey turned and Janis was there, wearing the battle chassis, just like the others. Raimey didn’t know the intricacies of the chassis and so his subconscious didn’t either. Instead the large frames of the Tank Majors consisted of an absence of light. A visualized form of void and nothingness.
“I’m coming for you,” Raimey said as they charged forward, unconcerned with the threat downfield, more interested in talking amongst each other, death dealers understanding that what lay at their feet at the end of the battle was meant to die. If not, wouldn’t God have intervened?
Janis smiled, but his jaw split in half right down the middle. Each side fell wide, like two limp flower petals. His tongue was an eel emerging from coral.
“You’re going to end me,” Janis said. He shouldn’t have been able to talk, but tell that to the dream. His split jaw slapped down against the top of his metal chest. Droplets of drool gleamed on the dark frame, reflecting the bloody sun.
“I have no choice,” Raimey said. The dead around him, all giants, echoed his words. “They had no choice.” That’s what they wanted to hear. They had no choice.
Janis laughed. It was syrupy. He was choking on his own tongue. “You can’t say that now. When you were young and in the ghetto, that’d pass. But not now.”
“But what about Tiffany and Vanessa? You loved them, too. I’m doing this for them! They can go on to be something. They can go on to live again!” Raimey said.
Janis gave Raimey a look like he just didn’t get it.
“Who do you think we came here to kill, John?” he said.
Janis turned back toward their enemies and Raimey followed suit. In front of him were mothers and fathers, children and grandparents. They were huddled in groups. They were the families of the dead soldiers that Raimey ran with. Each giant was here to kill what was left of their legacy: their children’s hopes and dreams, who prayed for their safe return. A parent’s mortal wish for their children to live long, happy, healthy lives; to never see their gravestone. A wife or husband’s desire to get back their soul mate, who loved them at their worst and their best; a whole, halved, that could never grow back.
Raimey recognized Janis’s ex-wife, who only left after years of therapy. Janis hid behind humor. It was the callus that allowed him to go into battle never knowing if he would come out. She looked up at Janis and held out a flower. He greeted her by crushing her down, first with a scissor punch from his massive fist and then with his feet, jumping on her like she was a trampoline. His other family members did nothing. Each of them held out a flower, or a picture, or their arms for a hug.
Raimey turned to the rest of the Tank Majors as they rolled through their families in an orgy of death. The dark black shapes of the dead Tank Majors were covered in rivulets of blood, thick with tissue. Children were matted into the ground like tufts of grass. Grandparents were torn in half, their entrails stretched like an accordion. And all of the giants screamed in unison that they were doing what they had to do. That they did it for them. All the while, tearing the ones they loved to pieces.
Raimey knew what was ahead of him. He turned and saw Tiffany and Vanessa ten yards away, his long strides covering the distance in four steps. They knelt on the ground in each other’s arms. Tiffany had no hair. Vanessa looked older and tired.
“We just want you back,” they said.
Raimey raised his hand up in the air, eclipsing them from the dusk that would not die.
“I’m doing this for you,” he said.
And then his arm swung down.
= = =
Raimey’s eyes shot open. He tried to move. He heard a whirling and a deep vibration hurt his teeth.
“Whoa!” someone said. Raimey couldn’t see anyone above him. For the second time this year, he stared at the sickly white of fluorescent lights. He tried to move his hands and legs—he could feel them—but they felt nailed to the ground.
“Let me up,” Raimey said, still disoriented by his dream. The last image echoed in his head, the shadow of his fist about to kill all that he loved. “Let me up!” Again, something sounded like a chainsaw revving.
“Shut him down! Shut the diagnostics down!” It was Evan Lindo. The whirling sound spun down and suddenly he couldn’t feel anything. Evan came into view.
“John, you just woke up from surgery. We need to put you back under.” Evan looked at someone out of John’s view, clearly pissed off. “You’re not supposed to be up yet. We need to keep you anesthetized because of the pain. Do you understand?”
“Tiffany, Vanessa,” Raimey said.
“They’re in Florida. General Boen has sent soldiers to inform them of what has happened.”
“Alive?” Raimey asked. He felt the drugs hit and Evan began to float down a shrinking tunnel.
“Yes, John. They’re alive. Calm down. Go to sleep. You’ll be up soo—”
That was the last Raimey heard as he drifted into a state just north of coma, a place mercifully without dreams.
= = =
General Boen had observed the multiple procedures that turned his friend into a weapon. Throughout the process he had slept in the waiting room like a worried husband.
The last of the surgeries was done. Raimey’s vertebrae had been fused to rigid bars that ran the length of his shortened spine. He had been mounted into the gelatinous suspension chamber that was itself mounted on shock absorbing rails in the battle chassis.
General Boen sat on a locker room bench while Evan cleaned up after the final surgery.
“How the hell is he going to be operational tomorrow?” Boen asked. The procedure was identical to what had been done to Janis, only accelerated. “The spinal fusion won’t even be set then.”
“Do you have another option?” Evan said through the shower curtain. Boen could see his feet and the slight tinge of pink from Raimey’s blood.
“Don’t be a smartass,” Boen replied. At seventy he could still break this twerp. “I’ve only been cooperative, haven’t I? It’s a valid question.”
Evan came out with a towel around his waist.
“I’m on edge, sorry,” Evan said. He took another towel and dried his hair. “We’ll probably have to go in after the mission and repair the damage. He’ll be on a drug cocktail that will numb the pain, but
still keep him aware. It’s basically morphine and crank.”
“Hmm,” Boen grunted. He didn’t like this. He had known Raimey too long to treat him like a guinea pig.
“Janis could kill him,” Boen said. Evan laughed. He walked into a changing room.
“Not likely, even with John doped up. John’s battle chassis is light years ahead of Janis’s.”
“How can that be?” Boen said.
“A lot of times, the biggest technological leaps happen at the beginning. After that it just becomes refinement.” Evan came out dressed in a clean set of scrubs. “I learn quickly, General Boen. John will be perfect, maybe too much so.”
= = =
Raimey’s eyes rolled open and the first thing he registered wasn’t sight or sound, but pain. It felt like metal stakes had been pulled out of a fire and skewered down the length of his back. Uncontrollable tears rolled down his face.
“Pain,” he groaned. He was groggy, uncertain of his surroundings. He was seated, perpendicular to the floor in a gigantic chair. Men and women in white coats moved around him.
“You have to ignore the pain, John. This is as much relief as we can give you. We need to keep you aware.” It was Evan. He came into view beneath Raimey and his giant chair. Evan looked off to his side, but this time Raimey could track what Dr. Lindo was checking. Four technicians monitored giant flat screens above a wall of workstations. On one monitor a wire-framed brain spun on its y-axis. A cursor chased small points that were blinking. Another showed hundreds of different waveforms—brain waves. It looked like a computerized lie detector. Another showed John’s vitals.
“Turn him on,” Evan said. “John, we don’t have time to get into great detail. The software implant—what the monitor with the brain on it shows—is booting up. When it does, I want you to think about stillness. Picture your hands and feet at rest. You are sitting on a chair, nothing more.”
John felt the implant. It was like someone was pulling on the back of his skull.
“I feel something,” Raimey said.
“Think stillness,” Evan said.
“It’s up,” someone said to their side.
“How do you feel John?” Evan asked.
“I feel . . . whole.” And he did. After the injuries, he felt phantom limb in all of his joints, like an itch that couldn’t be scratched. He would forget that he had no arms and reach for something, only to be quickly reminded that he was an invalid. But now he felt whole. No tingle, no vague extension of his body that was nothing but air. He wiggled his fingers. He heard metal-on-metal clacking.
“John, slow up. Wait for my instructions,” Evan said.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Raimey said. He studied the giant chair he was sitting in. It wasn’t a chair. It was him. He wiggled his left hand again and, to his left, a gigantic hand moved perfectly. He looked at his right hand and it did the same.
“I want to stand up,” Raimey said.
“John, we really need to get through the diagnostics,” Evan said firmly. Raimey suddenly felt a side-to-side sway of the room.
“We’re on our way,” Raimey said.
“Yes. We’ll be there in three hours. We need to upload software into the implant before we release you from the maintenance chair. We have a lot to go through.”
John calmed down. The sadness and longing to see his family was pushed back under the weight of what was ahead of him. He could feel his hands. He could feel his feet. And it wasn’t in his dreams or a memory or his severed nerves firing for no damn reason. It was real.
He listened to Evan and followed his every instruction. In his focus, the pain got pushed into the background. He felt alive. He felt purpose.
He hated this mission. He hated the primary objective. But he loved that he was on a mission and that, as silly and simplistic as it sounded, he was special. He would curse fate and God later. But not now. Wiggle the fingers. Lift the leg. Open the bolt of the hydraulshock.
I’m a soldier, he thought to himself. The voice behind it was strong.
He saw a bent reflection of himself in the stainless steel armory doors. He looked like a massive armored Viking sitting on his throne.
This was always my fate.
For now and ever more.
= = =
The train had stopped five miles from the base to avoid contact with Janis. Ten minutes before, two men loaded the hydraulshock artillery rounds into his shoulders. They spun the helmet down onto his head. The five-inch bulletproof glass was shaped like a skull.
His implant was stripped of all of Janis’s wireless functionality. He couldn’t upload or download data to Command. He couldn’t overlay maps to his position. He couldn’t laser guide smart missiles or send GPS coordinates for mortal fire. Various attachments that Evan planned for future Tank Majors wouldn’t work with him. His comm was a glorified walkie-talkie. The only access to his implant was through two feet of the depleted uranium/osmium armor. But he no longer needed the maintenance chair. He would never have to connect into a computer for the rest of his life. He was the deconstructed version of Lindo’s dream.
“Is the pain bearable? We’ve pulled back the dosage,” Evan said. He was climbing over Raimey, double-checking that everything was in place, properly oiled and functioning. This was too quick a turnaround. It made him uneasy.
“It’s fine,” Raimey said. It wasn’t. It was so horrible that his body shivered in sweat, but it was what it was.
“When you get out, run around and get a feel for the battle chassis. Hydraulshock a tree. We need you to understand what your body can do,” Lindo said.
“What are the limitations?” Raimey asked.
“Not many that matter for this. Just remember that the battle chassis can take a lot more abuse than you can. Stay out of heavy fires, you can suffocate. Stay out of water, you’ll sink like a rock and drown.”
“Can I jump?” Raimey asked.
“A little bit, but not really. Not of any usefulness.”
“Speed?”
“Twenty-five miles per hour. You will get there quickly. It’ll just feel like running.”
“What can Eric do that will hurt me?”
“The hydraulshock is the only thing. If he’s out, hit him and be done with it. We need to know the status of the King Sleeper. Your armor is three times as dense, you’re bigger all around, and you’re more powerful. Aside from the personal nature, this shouldn’t be difficult.”
John’s chair let out a hydraulic whoosh and Evan stepped out of the way.
“John, can you hear me over the comm?” It was General Boen.
“Yes, sir,” Raimey said. It was good to hear his voice.
“We have a GPS transmitter attached to the battle chassis. From that, we can guide you to and out of the base. Clear?”
“Clear, sir,” Raimey replied.
“Alright, let’s get going. The five mile distance will hopefully give you time to acclimate a bit to this new . . . situation,” Boen said.
Raimey stood up. The train was tall, the internal room was larger than a semi truck trailer, but his head almost touched the top. For a second it made him dizzy, like he had stood up too quickly. Out of instinct he put his arms out to brace himself.
“Hold on, John,” Evan said. He held a two-way radio to his mouth. “Take it easy.”
John steadied.
“Trust the balance of the chassis. The gyroscopes are processing one million calculations per second. You’re not going to fall. Turn to face the door and look straight out as far as you can see.”
The door on the side of the train car slid open. Raimey was greeted by pine trees and a blanket of stars.
“Look ahead, not down at your feet, and step out,” Evan said.
John looked to the horizon and stepped out of the train, trying to not think about it. He felt his foot press into the soil and when half of his weight left the train, the car rose six inches. Suddenly Raimey started to tilt forward.
“Trust the balance
!” Lindo said. Raimey looked like the leaning tower of Pisa. “John!”
It was too late. Raimey overcompensated and fell forward down the embankment of the hill. When he hit the ground, he felt some pain, but the suspension that floated his body within the suit took the brunt. Without thinking he put his arms down and pushed himself up onto his knees. He turned and looked at the train fifty feet up the hill.
“Whoever parked this damn thing on a hill is fired,” Raimey said.
Both Evan and Boen laughed.
“Trust the—”
“I know, I know. Trust the battle chassis to balance,” Raimey said. He went to stand, this time not gingerly like he had brittle bones. His body stood up unconcerned with the steepness of the hill. Simple as that.
He climbed back up to the entrance of the train and looked in. Even though his feet were four feet below the train tracks, he still looked down on Evan. His shoulders were the width of the entrance.
“You good?” Evan said.
In the helmet, he saw Raimey nod.
“Find the King Sleeper,” Evan said.
“I’m going to try and save him,” Raimey said. He was talking about Janis.
Evan shook his head. “It’s too late, John.”
“I can’t just kill him. Not without trying.”
“General Boen,” Evan said.
Boen’s voice crackled over the comm. “I get it, John. But just from infrared, we have a body count over two thousand. The mission is to find the King Sleeper.”
“I can’t just kill him. If he was driven crazy, it isn’t right. He’s the best guy I know.”
He pushed off the train without asking permission.
“Alright, Earl. Where the hell am I going?” he asked.
= = =
The train was west of the base. Raimey walked around the front of the train to head toward it. When he passed the engine, he saw the conductors at the controls. They gave him a salute and he gave one back, dinging too hard against his helmet, still getting a feel for his new body.
It felt like he was in a giant baby bjorn. He rocked back and forth with each step, enough to slightly jar his vision. He felt lumbering. He was. Sensors built inside his feet fed him the feeling of pressure. He couldn’t feel heat or pain through his limbs, but he did recognize when his ankle bent inward or outward to compensate for a variant on the ground.
“I’m going to jog,” Raimey said into his comm. Interestingly, when he picked up speed the ride got smoother and he could feel his body floating. His vision was no longer jarred, but instead, it felt like he was riding a wave as he rose and fell by six inches or so, compensating for the increased forces of the battle chassis around him.
“It leveled out, didn’t it?” Lindo said.
“Yep,” Raimey replied.
“The suspension system doesn’t completely compensate for walking. But if you run or start moving aggressively, it monitors the movement and counteracts it. The harder you go, the smoother it will feel.”
“Cool,” Raimey said. He was breathing hard and it came over the comm.
“Calm down, John,” General Boen said.
Lindo cut in. “You’re breathing faster because you’re jogging and the old brain believes that you’re exerting effort. It’s a natural response, but obviously pointless. Try to regulate your breathing. Your body has gone through a tremendous amount of trauma in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Okay,” Raimey said and forced his breathing to slow down.
“Find a large tree and punch it. Hydraulshock when you get a feel for the range,” Evan said.
“What about Janis?” Raimey said. He was told the hydraulshock was extremely loud.
“I’d rather he’s aware of you and you know how to use it than otherwise. He’s probably in the bunker,” Lindo said.
Raimey saw a massive tree ahead of him. He covered distance so quickly, it was crazy. It felt like he was riding on the shoulders of a kangaroo. He shadowboxed to get a feel for the range and speed of the punches. He was fast. Not blindingly so, but as fast as a heavyweight boxer, with ten thousand times more power. He stood within range of the tree and threw a left hook. The pair of drive chains around his waist, each link as tall and thick as a man’s head, spun counter to the other and his upper body swung into the punch. His eight hundred pound fist hammered through the tree like a wrecking ball. The trunk was four feet in diameter and his hand exploded through it as if it were rotten. The tree collapsed down to the base and then with a groan, fell onto its side, taking two smaller trees with it.
“We heard that,” Lindo said.
“Holy shit,” Raimey said under his breath.
“An eye opener, huh?” Boen said.
“I threw a short left hook and my hand went right through the tree,” Raimey said. He brought his hand near his visor and looked for damage.
“My hand’s fine,” Raimey said.
“John, your hand can punch through tanks without any operational damage. The density of a tree is like punching packing foam.”
Raimey opened and closed his gigantic hand, turning it knuckle to palm in marvel. He raised it up and slammed it to the ground. He felt his body bounce from the counter movement of his suspension. He slammed the right fist down and the other again, like a gorilla displaying dominance.
Raimey began to understand.
He found a tree twice as thick as the one he so easily punched through. He cocked his left arm back and through a mental checklist, readied the hydraulshock to fire.
He started the movement.
WHA-WHAM!
His vision blurred from the acceleration as the jelly in his eyes pushed back, altering the light as it hit the lens. The sound leveled off in his helmet but his body shook like a space shuttle on re-entry. He felt heat and out of his left eye he saw a sharp crack of orange light.
He was disoriented. Shards of wood fell around him in splintered hail. He looked for the tree. Most of it had vaporized. Sixty feet of it had exploded and the rest of the tree had been thrown forty yards. The top of the tree was in front of John, like it had slipped feet first on ice. The earth was raw around him. The branches of the surrounding pines were broken and bent away from him.
“I fired the hydraulshock,” Raimey said.
“We know.”
The train had rocked back and forth from the concussive blast.
“Is everything fine?” Lindo asked.
“Yeah, I just can’t believe it,” Raimey said. He didn’t understand the power he had unleashed. For this tree it was complete overkill. Raimey could deliver five million foot-pounds of energy through his fist, one and a half million more than Janis. Evan learned quickly and he pumped all that knowledge into the body Raimey was now saddled with.
“Be amazed later, John. Get going,” Boen said.
“Yes, sir. I’m moving toward the base,” Raimey replied.
General Boen watched the GPS dot move toward the base at an even twenty-five miles per hour.
= = =
Janis woke in the corner of a bunker supply room. At first he didn’t remember when he had fallen asleep and then it came back. He had chosen that corner because there weren’t any flames and none of the demons chased him there. He was exhausted. Maybe it was over. He started to turn and he immediately sensed flickering orange in his peripheral vision. He retreated to the corner, sobbing.
He closed his eyes hard, hoping that when he opened them, what he had been a part of was a dream inside of a dream, a hallucination in the desert from a thirst deprived man.
It was no use. He could feel the heat build around him. He knew the flames were licking at the walls. He didn’t hear the bone on bone chatter of the demons but he knew it was just because he was in the corner, hiding, like a bruised boy waiting for his next beating.
He had run rampant for over three days. He had no food or drink in that time. On base, they didn’t keep his nutrient pump full. He felt the pain of hunger and his face was gaunt from dehydration.
His teeth felt like fur and he rubbed his tongue along them.
I’m insane, he thought to himself. He tried to turn from the corner again but he saw the heat and below, just in view, the glowing eyes of a demon he had killed. Even dead, their big grins chattered, ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca. Endless.
Do the insane know they are? another voice asked. Eric didn’t think so.
“Then I’m damned,” he said aloud.
I will live in this purgatory forever.
Early into the massacre the fleeing soldiers and staff opened the blast doors to escape Janis’s onslaught. He ascended out of the massive hollow and laid waste to the surrounding buildings and anything that got in his way. But the bunker was his sanctuary and after he silenced the chattering of bones, he slithered into its bowels like a snake full on prey. The few soldiers remaining ran up and activated the doors to close.
Halfway down, Janis heard the warning blat of the siren as the massive doors slowly came together. They’re trying to trap me! He flew up the stairs. The closing gap was too narrow for him to squeeze through. He hydraulshocked them from the inside. He hit them again and again and again until the hinge of one broke from the wall. They closed cockeyed. With all his hydraulshocks, save one, he hammered through. But the doors were designed for The Bomb. And while his hands were nearly indestructible, they had met their match and now they were a mangled wreck.
He heard the sound of a hydraulshock roll into the bunker. The lift tunnel acted like an ear canal, amplifying the blast.
It’ll be John, he somehow knew. No, impossible. John wasn’t dead. Maybe he’s come to save me? They had been in deep together, in battles where bullets whizzed by their faces like mosquitos. And they had made it out alive, watching each other’s six, not letting ANYTHING break their perimeter. But not this, no way. Raimey was an angel, but he didn’t know this place.
Then it’s the Devil.
Good. Better in fact. If it were Raimey, Eric wouldn’t know what to do. He didn’t know the way out and Raimey would be too stubborn to leave without him. They would protect each other while the demons surrounded them and take wave after wave until the ground was churned with dirt and blood and their feet slipped from the batter of it and the demons finally overtook them, finally tore in deep enough to still their heart and then they would be stuck in this world forever.
Better if it was the Devil.
Because I am strong.
The Devil has never faced anything like me.
And I have courage.
Others would look down in fear, but I will look down on HIM, so he knows that two angels had fallen, not just one.
And I have no fear.
I lost that long ago. If I kill the Devil, than all of this will be mine, and maybe, just maybe, it can be made into something better.
Eric Janis, the first Tank Major, turned from the corner, a weary look in his eyes. He stepped over and around the cake of murdered demons. Their mouths chattered in applause for him standing up to their master. Or they cheered for their master, who had finally come to avenge their brutal end.
= = =
Twenty years ago Raimey had trained at this base. But everything he remembered was gone. In its place were rubble, fire, thick toxic smoke, and the smell of the dead.
“The southwest corner of the base is destroyed,” Raimey said.
“Roger that. The bunker is at the center of the base,” General Boen said. “If you see anyone alive, let us know, but don’t divert from the mission.”
Raimey slowed to walking speed. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Visibility was fine, the black smoke hung above him in a ceiling. The buildings were trash heaps.
“Help,” he heard someone say. It was a stage whisper, the sound of a dying man.
“Got a survivor somewhere in the mess hall,” Raimey said.
“Got it, we have a team moving toward you. They will not go into the base until that area is clear of the threat,” Boen said. “Keep that in mind, John. I know Eric is a friend, but there are people there that need us.”
“I know,” Raimey said.
Raimey weaved through the wreckage toward the center of the base. Two Humvees were rolled onto their sides, the bodies of men crushed in and around them. A small subway train used as a feeder into the larger rails was toppled off the tracks. A fountain of electrical sparks crackled and arced against the cars.
More bodies. Bodies everywhere. Spent rifle casing around some, useless against giants. Raimey heard moans from another building and called it in. He saw the bunker. The massive doors, taller than a bus is long and wide enough for four, were torn outward.
Janis emerged from its darkness. Raimey began to cry.
“You’re on fire,” Janis said to Raimey. They were fifty yards from each other. Raimey didn’t recognize him. His face was thin and weak, like a cancer was winning.
“Have you come to kill me?” Janis asked. Raimey wasn’t sure what to do. The question seemed directed at him, but he was staring past Raimey.
“I don’t want to. Eric, it’s me. It’s John,” Raimey said.
Janis laughed, but it was the laugh found in asylums: a sad, hollow, cackle.
“Yeah. You’re John.” Janis walked completely out of the tunnel and circled Raimey. “You’d use him against me, wouldn’t you?” Janis hissed. The Devil had come in a suit like his. It was black and bigger. Flames rode its arms and shoulders. Inside the helmet, Eric saw the Devil stare back at him with hot coal eyes and the stretched, chattering grin. The Devil came prepared for war.
“Eric, you’re sick. You have to stop. You have to see what you’ve done,” Raimey said. Janis stepped on the dead as he circled, cracking their already broken bones without taking his eyes away from Raimey.
“They were demons, they had to die,” Janis said. “Don’t turn this on me. You brought me here.”
“Eric, they’ll make me kill you,” Raimey pleaded. “Get face down on the ground, trust me. We can figure this out. It’s not your fault.”
“Not my fault,” Janis said slowly. “Not my fault. I wake up here, all I’ve done is my duty. I know it’s not my fault! But it was a mistake to bring me here. You think you’re the only fallen angel!” Janis screamed. “I’ve fallen, too!”
Janis sprinted at Raimey and raised his fists.
Please forgive me, Raimey thought. He pulled back and waited for his old friend, long gone, to get in range. Raimey braced himself for the hydraulshock.
WHA-WHAM!
He felt the acceleration. Going through his friend was like going through a hologram. Suddenly, he stood fifteen feet past where he had last been. He heard pieces of metal hitting the ground around him. Janis’s battle chassis had exploded into thirty chunks and they were falling back to earth. Five million foot-pounds hit Janis in the chest, cracking through his two-foot armor like it was an eggshell and scrambling everything underneath.
John turned to his fallen friend. A section of the torso just beneath the helmet was still intact. Raimey ran to it and knelt down.
Janis stared at him with wide eyes. His mouth quivered. Somehow he was still alive. He looked at Raimey, his eyes suddenly sane. The Mindlink had shorted out.
“I’m better now,” he said. His face shook in death throes. “Thank you, John.”
Inside the metal head, the real one exhaled for the last time.
“I’m so sorry, Eric. I’m so sorry. We were supposed to do this together,” Raimey said. The tears hit the inside of his face shield and pooled into the center, bending his best friend’s open mouth into a joker smile.
Raimey sobbed and stayed by his friend while the teams came in to retrieve the dead. The King Sleeper was missing. Raimey heard it over the comm. He didn’t care. He sat by his friend and thought of nothing but Eric Janis’s life. They had grown up together, they had laughed together, they had shared family pains together, and now they had died together. One heart kept beating on, that’s all.
= = =
; After four hours, they finally got Raimey back to the train. He stood in front of his seat.
“I want to see my family,” Raimey said.
“John, we talked about this. It’s dangerous. You’re radioactive and the emotional trauma . . .” Lindo started.
“Save it. I just killed my best friend. And you need me more than I need you. I’m fine dying. I wish I would. I need to see them. I need them to know how much I love them. I’m not doing anything until I do,” Raimey said.
“I’ll set it up, John,” General Boen said over the comm.
“You promise, Earl?” Raimey said.
“With everything I have,” Boen said.
John stared at Evan in a way that made Evan step back. And then Raimey sat down and felt his body lock into the chair. He was so tired and he was in pain and he was mourning. All he wanted was to feel Vanessa’s hand against his skin.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.
John hated that saying. But he knew the answer.