Chapter 20
The surgery requirements for the Shin battle chassis were much less intrusive than the American version. It was arms and legs; everything else remained. Because of the size of the Shin battle chassis—it was fifteen feet tall—they had some latitude on the soldier compartment. This allowed them to quickly prepare soldiers for the program.
Just like the American version, Xan’s spine was fused with a connecting rod into the chassis. Unlike the American version, which assessed g-load and compensated with thousands of points of data, the suspension device for the Chinese version was mechanical. Xan was mounted into the chassis with gas shocks that allowed up to two feet of up-and-down movement and a foot side-to-side. It was crude, but they would evolve the platform over time.
Because Xan had a fully articulated spine, the doctors used a Botox derivative to paralyze the muscles in Xan’s back so that he wouldn’t fight against the spinally fused suspension bracket in the heat of battle. Xan was both numb and tender, depending on the section of his truncated form. His limbs haunted him, even with the implant.
“We’re troubleshooting the software, we’ll figure it out,” Xinting said.
“It works, Xinting,” Xan said. “We built a Tank Major in two months. It took the Americans years of physical development and all of the resources that MindCorp could offer.”
“But you’re in pain,” Xinting replied. “The American version doesn’t have this ghosting.”
“Ramp up production. It can be fixed later.”
The government’s trust in Xan had become so complete, that his orders were law. Once Xan had come to and they knew the software—however flawed—worked with the body, they had immediately culled four more soldiers. Two Chinese Tank Majors were now on base.
Amidst all of this, Xan had reluctantly agreed to meet Mohammed. At this point, he wasn’t sure the benefit, but Xan believe in managing his resources. He no longer laid down to link-in. He sat in a throne built into his new quarters at the base of the Colossal Core. His hearing was back. He heard the whirl of server fans and the chunk-chunk-chunk of the King Sleeper dismantling the U.S.’s digital infrastructure.
On Tank Major Xan’s back were two sheets of armor that connected to his metal spine like an insect’s wings. Underneath those were huge hydraulics that anchored to the three foot wide, depleted uranium spine. The black casement and nickel piston of the hydraulics looked like exposed ribs. They connected to jointed parts of his body that controlled his arms and legs and chest armor. Combined, they also allowed an intense constriction. A wedge, like a thick ax head, was built down the front of Tank Xan’s chest. If he grabbed another Tank Major and pulled it in, the compressing hydraulics would cleave it against the wedge, puncturing through it like the carapace of a crab. A grenade launcher was mounted on one shoulder, on the other was a cannon modified from their fighter jets.
Unlike the American version, all of Xan’s movement was powered with hydraulics. Decompression pumps were paired with each hydraulic piston to allow him to move quickly, but the faster he moved, the less powerful he became because of torque bleed.
Xan left his message in the Western Curse shareware and walked out to the floor. Two of the Tank Majors were based topside in false shops. The other two had been sent out for military demonstrations, not unlike what Xan had witnessed through Jan Hedgegard when he had probed his mind.
Xinting lay next to Justin in a Sleeper chair. She was semi-conscious. Justin had requested her presence when he was online, it soothed him and he could multi-task: re-route supply chains in the U.S. to increase the chance of famine. Play cards. Stop freight rail and shut off their cooling systems. Go-kart race. Bring down a credit union and its backup servers. Watch old action movies. Time was layered in cyberspace, just like thoughts. Especially for him.
“How is he holding up?” Xan asked Xinting.
“He’s fine. But we should take him offline soon,” Xinting replied distantly. “He’s been on for five hours.”
“Very good. Have him finish up. Thank you, Xinting,” Xan said.
The U.S. had used the King Sleeper for subterfuge. They were looking at long-term political influence and gain. Xan was using Justin as a hammer. He wanted to force the truce. Everything Xan destroyed could be re-built. The systems and files smashed and erased could be restored quickly by the King Sleeper. Xan had Justin push the U.S. back to the Dark Ages to reveal the world’s perilous balance between order and chaos. This was a warning, a call for level heads and competent leaders, and no more of the men three rows back, including Xan. Xan watched as Xinting began to power down the Data Crusher to pull the little boy out of his crucified shackles. The white flag wavering across the battlefield should have already happened. But nothing from the U.S. This bothered Xan greatly. The air force was on high alert, Xan had warned the interim President of a possible military incursion. Silence wasn’t a sign of submission. It was a sign of planning, plotting. It was a sign of war.
= = =
“You’re lucky you’re made of metal,” Ratny said. “My body is stiff as hell.”
“I’ll massage it if you like.” Raimey offered his massive crushing hand.
“Funny.”
They all wore darting eyes and nervous smiles. Five minutes before, the small monitor inside their now-agreed-upon-prison lit up and General Boen wished them luck. There would be no comm. There would be no backup, just an evac point at the bay twenty miles east. A fishing vessel would take them to an Ohio-class submarine waiting quietly offshore. Capture the King Sleeper, get him to the sub, or neutralize him.
“God bless you, and get home safe,” Earl had said. The picture froze.
“Two minutes out, gentlemen,” the pilot said. Inside the drop container a red light blinked off and on and they heard the whine of the bomb bay doors opening beneath them. The three soldiers strapped themselves into harnesses connected to the sidewall. A minute later, they felt themselves tumble into space. Smart bomb technology guided them to their location.
Their only window to the outside world was an altimeter. Ratny was closest to it and he called out their altitude as they descended.
“Sixty-five thousand feet.”
“Fifty thousand feet.”
“Thirty-five thousand feet.”
“How won’t they see us?” Johnson said. They were tumbling directly into Beijing.
“They’ll get a visual, but no radar. It’s stealth,” Ratny said. “Twenty-five thousand feet.”
Hostettler puked and wiped with his sleeve. “Hope the parachute works.”
“It’s some NASA shit. It’s a late stage with boosters,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t open until three thousand feet.”
“Fifteen thousand feet.”
“I’ll bust us out of here. You guys have the GPS in your headpieces, right?” Raimey asked. They nodded. “Good. Tell me coordinates, I’ll launch the hover-rovers and send them ahead. Stay safe. I need eyes. Send me at’em, guide me like a missile.”
“We’ll get you there,” Hostettler said. “I’m sorry about Eric, he was a good guy. No mercy today. These were the guys that did it.”
“Oorah,” they said in unison.
“We’ll keep behind you or to the alleys. Call out if you’re going to unload a hydraulshock,” Johnson said. “We’ll support you the best we can, but we need to make it to the Core.”
“Five thousand feet.”
A moment later the parachute slammed them into their seats. They rechecked their weapons. Raimey’s body began to vibrate as his waist chains spun up.
= = =
Tank Major Li saw the object drop from the sky. He thought it was a meteor until the parachute deployed. He called it in and ran to greet it. He wanted to try his new body. The crowd scattered away from him as he burst out of the false store. A dozen soldiers followed him in a truck.
All market activity stopped. Customers and shopkeepers stepped out to watch the strange, wedge shaped object as, even with the parachute de
ployed, it came in too fast directly at the market. One hundred thousand people watched it descend. On its back were wings and they adjusted the descent, finally turning the wedge parallel to the ground. A thousand feet above the crowded, silenced market, rocket boosters erupted to slow it down and the crowd screamed in panic and ran in all directions. Li and the soldiers were less than a quarter mile away and the crowd felt trapped, a mechanized giant on one end and what could be a bomb or an alien spacecraft on the other. They were a school of fish avoiding predators, darting and surging to get out of the way.
The stealth ship landed and the parachute—as big as a hot air balloon—lazily followed.
“Do not approach the crate,” Xan said in Li’s ear. That order echoed to the soldier transport. “Reinforcements are behind you.”
Li ignored the order. He felt invincible. They had run parallel assessments of the Tank Major the Americans had built to their own and, in almost all cases, the Chinese one was superior.
The object looked too small to house a Tank Major. The truck drove to the opposite side and trained its .50 caliber machine gun on it. The soldiers got out and formed a wide perimeter. Against the orders barked over the truck’s megaphone, civilians filtered back into the alleys at what they perceived as a safe distance to see what was going on. They stared in awe at their mechanized soldier.
The foreign object hummed with building energy. Li trudged forward to within ten yards. He aimed the grenade launcher and cannon on it. He mentally adjusted his hydraulic system for speed, sacrificing power. In this mode he was fast, and in training they would treat their arms like maces, carrying the energy, curving back, using the momentum as it built with rotation. He could adjust the power on the fly.
The panels of the crate shook violently. Static electricity danced across it and the curious crowd became less curious and retreated. Li walked forward just as the crate exploded outward and a giant unfurled from its cocoon. Its body was matte black, almost rubberized. It wasn’t as bulked down with armor. And unlike the Tank Major they had studied to emulate, it was nearly Li’s size and equally wide. It locked its eyes on him and charged. Li shelled it with his weapons.
“Hit the deck,” Raimey yelled to his team. They sprawled.
The Chinese Tank Major tried to veer out of the way. Raimey scissored his right fist down onto its shoulder and reared back his left to hydraulshock.
WHA-WHAM!
Li exploded across the marketplace, two hundred pound pieces blasting through shops and carts, clearing the area around them in rough swaths. Raimey didn’t wait; he felt the pecking of bullets against his back. He turned and charged the truck. He conserved the hydraulshocks and ran through it, collapsing its roof and tearing it in half.
Prone, Hostettler, Ratny, and Johnson fired on the Chinese soldiers who stood like mannequins while the giant demolished what they had thought was invincible. They collapsed from headshots and chest shots before they even raised a rifle.
PUNG! Two hover-rovers erupted off Raimey’s back and spun into the air. They arced forward, gaining elevation as they went. Raimey—and only Raimey—now had eyes. The Tank Major/hover-rover system was completely closed and unhackable. He had HD, UV, infrared, and night vision. They gave off no heat or radar signature. Already, they were dots in the air. They looked like a kid’s lost balloon.
“GO! GO! GO!” Ratny screamed. The three soldiers jumped up and sprinted through the crowd to a nearby alley. They would use Raimey as a distraction while they worked their way to the Core using the corrugated alleyways as cover.
The hover-rovers showed reinforcements vectoring in. Hundreds of troops and armored vehicles. Soldiers on roofs carrying long tubes. No more giants. A tornado siren erupted from his body, a courtesy to civilians, and equally, a warning of what was coming: a chance to retreat or surrender.
“I’m coming,” Raimey said. His momentum built quickly as he charged as the crow flies toward the Colossal Core.
“We’re a half mile away,” Ratny said, panting. They had two-way radios attached to their helmets. Raimey had a speaker version jury rigged to the inside of his. “Still no soldie—we’re taking fire! Fire ahead of you!”
Raimey heard the sharp echo of assault rifles ahead and to the right of the main road. He flew a hover-rover toward that location and found the hostile group. He had adjusted quickly to the multiple sight lines. It had become as natural as breathing and it gave him a monumental advantage.
“Hole up. I’m coming,” Raimey said and he veered toward the sound.
Twenty Chinese soldiers were stationed on top of a roof camouflaged to look residential. Potted plants decorated the ledge, old dresses and shirts fluttered on a clothesline. Training rote in Johnson’s mind saved him from a bullet. He sensed movement above him and immediately took cover. Where he had just stood freckled and twanged with lead. Ratny and Hostettler took cover and called it in.
They heard Raimey coming. It sounded like an industrial accident at a steel mill. Suddenly the bottom half of the building with the soldiers turned to smoke.
WHA-WHAM!
The hydraulshock report shot past the team and even with their earplugs, they cupped their ears in pain. Shacks around them toppled over and the five-story structure fell away like it was built with cards.
“Clear,” Raimey said. They heard the deep impact of his feet and the metallic frenzy of the drive chains fading as he continued toward the Core. The team altered their course around the new rubble, ignoring the screams of the few soldiers that somehow survived, and sprinted to catch up.
= = =
Xan watched the small team and the new Tank Major approach on a surveillance monitor. This Tank Major was much different than the first. It was larger and it looked less encumbered with armor. It was much quicker. It had dismantled Li in less than a second and Xan watched through violently shaking surveillance cameras as the perimeter outpost evaporated in demolition.
“What should we do?!” a technician asked. They saw what was coming. Xan watched as the Tank Major ran ahead of the team and bulldozed through buildings like they were paper. They were moving fast to avoid reinforcements. They knew where the Core was.
A tank blocked the road and his other Tank Major flanked the American. Xan watched the tank recoil as it fired the 120mm cannon. He watched as the American sprinted away from Xan’s Tank Major through buildings. They crumbled behind him and his Tank Major followed.
He’s luring you. No.
The tank tried to maneuver, but the surrounding buildings crowded it in. Suddenly the giant was on top of it, hammering down with huge fists.
It moves too fast.
It jumped off and the cameras shook violently again. When they settled, the tank was engulfed in flame and twisted out. Hydraulshock. The Chinese Tank Major fled. Xan wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done the same.
“Leave,” Xan said. He turned to the entire team. “There’s nothing for you to do here now.”
On his order, the technicians scrambled away, afraid for their lives.
The boy was still in the crucifix. It took an hour for the Data Crusher to spin down and when it did, the boy could safely regain consciousness. For a moment, Xan thought Xinting had abandoned Justin, but then she appeared from the hallway that led to Justin’s room. She had two bags in her hand.
“Xinting,” he raised his voice to be heard over the thwap-thwap-thwap of the Core.
The base rattled from an explosion above them. The hydraulshock. They were already here.
She ran to Justin. The Data Crusher wound down. It would still be dangerous to unhook him. Xan looked at the bags. They had to have been pre-packed. One was for her, the other for the boy.
“You need to slow them down, Xan. I need at least ten more minutes.” She looked up at the noise. A distant chatter of gunfire found its way down.
“You knew,” he said, unaccusing.
“In my training, at one point Cynthia Revo had tried to recruit me,” she replied. Cynthia
had found her again, ten hours before and told her what was going to happen.
Xan stepped forward. “She can’t have him.” Xinting moved in front of Justin with her hands up. Gunfire rattled overhead.
“She doesn’t want anyone to have him. She said she never wants him to connect in again. She sent me money to take him away. It’s enough to live on forever. She doesn’t care where I go, her only condition was that he can never go online.”
“We can’t rebuild what we’ve taken away without him,” Xan said. Xan didn’t want to leave the world wounded. Without the King Sleeper, the seeds of economic collapse he had planted would continue to grow. The banks and credit unions would be castrated bulls unable to proliferate.
Another burst of gunfire came from above as the infiltration team pushed forward. Twenty stories up, Raimey was working his way to the Data Core with his team playing peek-a-boo behind him with firearms.
“It’ll have to sort out on its own,” Xinting said. “Cynthia told me that the U.S. mission is to either retrieve the King Sleeper or kill him.”
“You’re not defecting?” Xan asked.
Xinting shook her head violently. “No. I love China. I don’t want to leave, but I think I have no choice. No Xan, I just want this poor boy to live.”
Xan looked down at Justin. His little frame rustled around in the rack, beginning to awake.
“I want that too,” Xan said. The U.S. couldn’t have him and he wouldn’t let the boy die. It was settled. “Please tell Justin I said goodbye.”
“I will. Thank you, Xan.”
Xan and Xinting looked at each other for a moment. They could have been more.
“I’ll get you ten minutes,” he said and ascended up the walkway to meet his guests.
= = =
Raimey hydraulshocked the entrance and they quickly infiltrated, using Raimey as the battering ram. For a normal team, the resistance from the Chinese soldiers would have been overwhelming, but with John, they may as well have been firing blanks. Ratny and the others hid behind Raimey as he progressed through the base. The quarters were tight, the top three floors—only one of which was actually on the surface, just like a MindCorp Node—were office space.
They finally found a bank vault-like door with a hand scanner.
“Get back,” Raimey said.
WHA-WHAM!
The vault door didn’t have time for its metal molecules to bend. It shattered inward like a sheet of ice. The team stacked up, went through, and was met with a torrent of gunfire from all sides. From behind John, the team heard the metallic thoomp of underbarrel grenades exploding against him. They felt the flecks of bullet fragments redirected off Raimey’s impenetrable shell.
“We got to get back!” Johnson yelled. Raimey walked backwards slowly, keeping them shielded. When they had retreated past the vault door, Raimey charged back in. They heard the effortless destruction as Raimey tore through the defenses, the gurgled screams cut short, the grenades detonated to no effect. Two minutes later, “clear.” They came in guns up, but they could have run in with toy windmills, there was nothing to shoot.
Bright blue radiated the area. A cyclical blat filled the room. The team stacked up behind Raimey and followed him to a walkway that surrounded the Colossal Core.
“Holy shit,” Johnson said. None of them had ever seen anything like this. The Core looked suspended in mid-air. Only when they squinted through the piercing blue light could they see the shadowed support lattice that connected it to the surrounding walls. Its base was two hundred feet below. The Core cast the cavernous space in deep shadow.
Gunfire hit Raimey. Ahead, four Chinese soldiers retreated to another alcove built along the path. Ratny and the others returned suppressive fire while they moved forward. The Chinese rolled a flash bang out. It bleached Raimey’s vision momentarily, but the open space and the intense blue light from the Core minimized its effect. Raimey caught the tail end of their retreat as they used the metal buttresses along the walls for cover.
“They retreated again,” Raimey said. The others grunted assent. The walkway curved around the Core, gently corkscrewing down. The thwap-thwap-thwap was deafening. The energy in the air, tangible. Little white electrical arcs jumped across Raimey’s armor.
They whittled away at the Chinese soldiers. Finally, almost halfway down, Ratny found the thigh of the last one and, as he limped away, followed up with headshot.
“That’s all of ‘em,” Hostettler said. They moved faster. Closer to the ground, they could now see a woman. She was reaching up for something above her. Their view was partially blocked by the massive blue tube and a metal structure that resembled a cross.
“Stop!” Johnson yelled. The woman worked faster. He fired a warning shot past her. She flinched and pinned herself closer to the thick cross. As the team rotated around the Core they saw what she was working on: the King Sleeper.
Johnson fired again, intentionally wide. She dropped to the ground and then quickly resumed.
“Go!” Raimey yelled. The three soldiers sprinted ahead of Raimey. The walkway was too narrow for him to move fast and the platform vibrated from his weight.
Twenty feet ahead was another large support buttress. Ratny, Hostettler, and Johnson reached it and suddenly they were thrown out toward the Core.
They screamed as they fell one hundred feet. They crashed into tall server bays and pin wheeled into the ground, instantly dead.
Raimey ran to see what had happened when a Tank Major stepped out from the shadow and tried to push him over the ledge.
It sounded like two cars colliding. On instinct, Raimey ducked low like he was avoiding a tackle as Xan wrapped his arms around him. He had no room to hydraulshock and he was positioned sideways to the massive Chinese Tank Major, unable to turn under its incredible grip. Raimey dug his legs in and pushed back, but Xan was too powerful. The hydraulics hissed while they extended, wearing down the resistance of Raimey’s hip mounted electric motors.
Raimey could hear the other man scream with rage. Raimey’s outside foot lost traction and suddenly he was at the ledge where the other soldiers had fallen to their deaths. He could see their sprawled bodies below.
Without warning, Raimey let himself drop to the platform. The Chinese Tank Major’s power suddenly met no resistance and, for a second, Xan teetered over Raimey, unbalanced. Raimey exploded upward, flipping the giant off his back and over the side. Xan grabbed Raimey’s leg and pulled him down with him.
They clawed at each other as they fell. At the bottom, they crashed into the sea of servers that exploded out in shards and sparks. The cooling system for the CPU’s ruptured and freezing air covered the floor in fog.
Xinting worked frantically, Justin was almost out. She fumbled at the locking clips that held him in place. Two tries for each and she pulled him down. She worked on the interface that attached to his head, that allowed the data of the world access to his mind, and he, to its secrets.
Raimey was punch drunk. He tasted blood. A warning in his head told him that a right leg suspension unit was broken. But he was alive. He heard a death rattle behind him. He was laying on the other giant. Suddenly, its arms came up and wrapped around his upper body in a hug. And then he heard what sounded like a trash compactor. The sound thickened and Raimey’s head cleared when he saw his chest armor buckle. He was being crushed.
Xan had him. The Chinese design didn’t have the suspension system like the American Tank Major, and the fall had ruptured his organs. But while the blood filled his lungs, he still had time. He wrapped his arms around the American and initiated the constriction.
Raimey’s arms were pinned to his sides. He tried to struggle free, but he couldn’t move. He watched as the ceramic coat of his chest armor shed under the increasing hydraulic vise. He heard a loud pop from his back. Again he tried to struggle, but the Chinese Tank Major was too big. Raimey’s momentum, kicking and rocking couldn’t overcome the eight-ton anchor that held him tight.
“No one sho
uld have the boy,” he heard the man behind him wheeze. He sounded terminal. Raimey didn’t know what he was talking about. “No one should have the boy,” the man killing him said again.
Like a submarine that hit crush depth, Raimey’s chest armor suddenly caved and he felt intense pain as if his lungs were too full of air. It was the opposite. His human body was being crushed.
Raimey quit struggling. He was glad he had gotten to see Tiffany and speak to his daughter. The goodbye was warranted; this was the end. And maybe that was a blessing. Every second without them, he felt pain. It was one thing to have lost a loved one, but Raimey had forced a false imprisonment. He had taken their combined life and pulled the thread. It was he and them now. When he died today, he would be remembered fondly, hopefully. If he lived, no matter the reason why he did what he did, there would always be an empty place at the table. He would always be the dad that didn’t come back home.
The hydraulshock slides.
Raimey didn’t understand, the suggestion came out of nowhere. The voice was distant, but familiar, echoed down a long hallway. He didn’t take investigate further. He leaned his head against the back of his helmet and started to close his eyes.
THE HYDRAULSHOCK SLIDES!
It was his daughter, Vanessa’s, voice screaming for him to fight. For him to think his way out.
John was aimed the wrong way. But the slides on each shoulder that reduced the felt recoil and reloaded the hydraulshock rounds, were not. Because of the Chinese Tank Major’s width they were aimed right at his shoulders.
John fired two rounds at once. His arms boomed and rattled, his legs kicked from the incredible force of the hydraulic fluid shooting through his body. The depleted uranium-osmium alloy slides, the strongest armor ever devised, crunched into Xan’s shoulder joints. Raimey fired again. And again. The slides bit through deeper and deeper until the shoulder joints cracked like clay. Raimey felt Xan’s bear hug give and he struggled up to his feet.
He faced his enemy. The man was going toward the light.
“We need to reset,” Xan gasped. “No one can have the boy. We have to save the new world. We have to be united.” He smiled. It was filled with blood. “We’ll kill ourselves. No more shadows. We’ll kill ourselves.”
The man died.
Raimey walked through the fog and found the woman kneeling over the King Sleeper. A strange mask covered his face. His body was gaunt and thin. She looked up at him, pleading. One of her ears bled from the hydraulshock blasts.
“Do not do this!” she said.
“Shut up,” Raimey said. “Give him to me.”
She unlatched the Mindlink interface and pulled it off the King Sleeper’s head. It was Vanessa. She was unconscious, almost completely naked. Quarter sized electrodes wrapped around her shaved head.
And then it was a boy. A young, skinny child. A past memory flickered in his head. He had seen this boy. He had met him. The attack on MindCorp. He had gotten his father and the boy a car ride home.
“What is this?” Raimey asked. “Where is the King Sleeper?”
“You don’t know?” she said, her eyes narrow. “You came all this way and they didn’t tell you?”
“He can’t be a boy,” Raimey said. Boen hadn’t said a word. Why? Was he afraid he wouldn’t go? Did the other soldiers know? Or did they think it didn’t matter, that he would do his duty regardless?
“His name is Justin McWilliams and he’s twelve years old. He was raised in DeKalb, Illinois by Frank and Charlene McWilliams, and they were murdered in cold blood by your military because of his gift.”
The boy woke. His eyes fluttered open and he saw a bionic, like Xan, standing over him. It opened and closed its hands as if it wasn’t sure what to do.
“What happened?” The boy looked around. The Core had flickered black; the room was filled with a bone chilling fog. He didn’t see Xan sprawled out in the decimated server bay.
“There was an explosion. This man is helping us get out of here,” Xinting said. “We’re leaving so you’ll never have to do this again.”
“Really?!” Relief washed over the boy’s face. He hugged Xinting. “I’m so tired of doing bad things. I just want to rest.”
She looked to Raimey as she stood up, cradling the boy. “No country should have him,” Xinting said. The same as the Chinese Tank Major. “Why are we so cruel to one another?”
Raimey said nothing, but he knew why. Because without the weak, how would we know we’re strong?
The boy was buried in the woman’s arms, sobbing. Just a young, scared boy. How dare we.
“Go,” Raimey said. “Before I change my mind, go.”
Raimey walked toward one of the giant buttresses against the wall.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to tear this down,” he said. “He’s dead, you understand? He died here, today.”
“I understand.” Xinting hesitated and then bowed. She and Justin ran out of the room.
By his count, he had three hydraulshocks left. There were four support buttresses that surrounded the open Core. Evaporating three should do. To reinforce a lie worth telling, he reared back on the first, and while the world fell around him, he felt at peace for what he had done for that little boy. He fired again.
He pictured Vanessa, lying there in Justin’s place, and he shuddered at the thought of what he would do if his little girl had been taken from him.
I would go to the ends of the earth for you, my dear. I would hunt down everyone involved and everyone that knew, and I would tear them apart far after they confessed and pled for mercy. Because what mercy did they give you? I would never stop until you were avenged, because you are more important than my heart and my life. In you is my soul.
He reared back and fired. The earth trembled in the wake of his will.
Epilogue
John Raimey was exchanged back to the U.S. quietly. China apologized for the rogue actions of Xan Shin, a military advisor who, in the wake of the sequential deaths of their Presidents, had grossly abused the lack of oversight for his own personal vendetta against the United States. The U.S. graciously accepted their apology and in a separate conversation, agreed to share their data on the Tank Major, if China in turn would share theirs. Both countries would work together in the face of the true threat: Mohammed Jawal and the Western Curse. The two new Presidents even shook hands for a photo shoot.
In joint statements broadcast around the world, China and the U.S. outlined in fine detail how the Western Curse—the same organization that terrorized and killed over one hundred hostages in the O’Hare Hijacking—had executed advanced cyber terrorism on both the Chinese and U.S. government’s economic systems. Both countries would stop at nothing to apprehend these cyber terrorists. After a week of turmoil in the financial markets, things settled down. Especially when MindCorp jumped in. Some stocks even went up.
“She’s a cunt,” Evan said. General Boen was in his office. “She thinks she owns the world. She thinks that SHE’S the government. It’s getting out of control, Earl. Do you know that MindCorp bailed out the credit companies? They had enough cash on hand to provide five hundred billion dollars. Half of that, they gave away. The other half is for whenever they can get paid back, dollar for dollar. Said it was half her fault, she had gotten lax on security.” Evan shook his head, frustrated, unbelieving; don’t people see? “I feel like I’m the only sane person in the world.”
The King Sleeper is dead. Evan had been furious at General Boen when he had finally got news of the mission. Boen had explained that Cynthia Revo would have it no other way. Earl stressed that while he trusted him, Cynthia did not. She felt betrayed by Evan for keeping the anomaly—that had hurt her business and that she had sought him to find—a secret.
Earl kept silent and let Evan vent. He and Cynthia had come to an understanding. They had formed a common bond. Earl listened to the man, who was backed by the President, backed by the Senate, backed by the House, a
nd loved by the military, as he expunged on the way things ought to be. Finally Evan ran out of breath. The room was quiet.
“I don’t like where this is going,” Evan said, shaking his fat head. “I don’t like this one bit.”
You and me both, brother.