by Michael Todd
“The JLTVs just picked them up,” Bial answered, a little out of breath although he still matched him stride for stride. “They should be back in fifteen minutes, with a few variables.”
The colonel nodded. “But we lost contact with them inside the Zoo. How did we get it back?”
“We had suffered interference,” the man explained. “When their comms went down, we assumed that the squad members had too but, as it turns out, they merely had some technical difficulties.”
Anderson nodded. “I’m sorry for my tone earlier, Bial. I…I have bad memories of losing squad mates.”
“I’ve worked out here in the Zoo for fifteen months, Colonel,” his companion assured him, “so believe me when I say that I know that your heart was in the right place. You might want to share your feelings with some other members of my engineering team, though.”
“I’ll buy them all some top-shelf whiskey,” he responded with a chuckle. “Only one bottle, though, for them to share. I work in Washington, but I don’t make that much money.”
Bial laughed, and Anderson realized that he hadn’t made the best joke. The man was simply as relieved as he was himself.
They reached the compound’s gate, which was dragged open to reveal the blinding headlights of the JLTVs that waited outside. The vehicles rumbled in, and the gates were shut and locked quickly behind them. Guards and all other personnel who could peered out into the desert to make sure that nobody and nothing had followed the arrivals.
Thankfully, no one raised the alarm, and Anderson strode to where his men swung out of the vehicles. The team was no doubt relieved to be able to disembark. The JLTVs were still personnel carriers, and the suits that the men wore were too large to sit comfortably. They made it work, of course, but after their nightmare trip into the zoo, it must have felt like the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back.
There were four suits, but only three of them moved. The colonel’s initial relief was instantly tempered by regret when he saw that the fourth suit was missing the whole of the right leg. It was Blue Team Leader, he realized.
The scientists rapidly removed the armor from the weary survivors. They didn’t look too badly wounded—nothing life-threatening or that would require them to be rushed to the base hospital for emergency surgery. One had a broken leg, but the armor had hardened around it and kept it from further damage.
“Status report,” Anderson said and attempted to keep his tone professional as he squatted beside Blue Two.
“We were swarmed,” the man said as he examined his own body with a practiced eye. “Hundreds of the critters came from all sides. It was like they were protecting something. Blue Leader went down, but we managed to get him back. He…he was dead when we found him, and they’d torn the leg off, armor and all. I swear to God, they piled on us at one point, but they couldn’t get through the armor. We managed to push our way out and drag him…drag him out.”
“You did some good work out there, son,” his commanding officer said.
“What kind of mission report will you send back, sir?” he asked.
“Well, I’ll give commendations to all members involved,” Anderson said and patted the side of the young sergeant’s head. “Some serious medals will come your way. I’ll also give this armor some scathing reviews. Software issues aside, simple animals shouldn’t be able to make a crack in this stuff, much less detach a full leg.”
The man nodded. “Thank you, Colonel.”
He nodded and gazed at the rest of his men. The priority was to get them medical attention now that they were out of their suits. The man with the broken leg would probably be stabilized and shipped back to the Staging Area, where he could recover under proper medical care, while the rest would either be sent Stateside or back to their original deployments. This whole operation was an absolute disaster from the beginning. That was what you got when military men and women didn’t plan the missions. Priorities got skewed, and men’s lives were put in danger.
Anderson shook his head and made his way back to Mission Control. Bial fell quickly into formation behind him.
“You know what I’m going to say, right?” the man said, his voice terse. He sounded like he braced himself for another dress-down from the colonel.
But he’d taken his meds. Even with the relief of seeing at least most of the men back and alive when he was sure that they hadn’t made it, he didn’t have the energy to go through the paces of being argumentative.
“We need to head back in to get that leg,” he said with a nod. “Even only the leg has too much for us to allow it to fall into the wrong hands. For reasons of national security as well as for those who that made them, we need to send someone back in to get it.”
Bial nodded and narrowed his eyes. He was surprised that Anderson hadn’t yelled at him for suggesting that vital personnel be sent in to recover what was essentially a broken piece of equipment.
The colonel didn’t like it and it was an incredible waste for something that would, in all probability, be lost in the Zoo for the rest of time, but his experiences in Washington had taught him about how things were run there. He could refuse, but his higher-ups would be yelled at by some CEO in a thousand-dollar suit and Anderson, in turn, would receive firm orders to assemble a team to get that piece of shit back.
It was just the way things were done, and right now, he was too dazed to put up a fight. At least this way, he could stay on top of it and make sure that while the orders were corporate in nature, he could keep the planning and execution as military as possible.
“What kind of options do we have for tracking that leg?” he asked one of the younger men who sat in front of the screens.
The researcher turned in his office chair, and his expression suggested that he expected an outburst. “It doesn’t look good, sir. There aren’t any tracking devices in the legs of the suits. The arms have the comm units, and the headsets and torsos are tracked via GPS implants.”
“That’s something you’ll probably want to write up as a design flaw, then?” Anderson asked. What the hell did he know about these things? Only how to use them, apparently.
“Sure.” The youth nodded. “But we didn’t anticipate someone losing a leg during these test runs, sir.”
Anderson nodded. “Well, write it up anyway. To the task at hand…we can have teams scour the Zoo for pieces that might or might not be chewed up and shit out by the wildlife. Is there any way to track them?”
“Well, the software connections in the suits give off a unique low-frequency RFID signal.” He turned to the screen. “It’s not powerful enough to be detected with satellites, but if you had a scanner that was set to search for that exact signal, you could probably track it within a certain range and follow it back to the source.”
“What’s the range?” Anderson asked.
“About ten klicks.”
“Crap,” Anderson said. “How large an area does the Zoo cover at this point?”
“Most recent pictures mark it down as just over seven hundred square kilometers.”
“So we essentially need to get within ten klicks of something in an area the size of fucking Texas,” the colonel muttered, more to himself than anyone else in the room. “I don’t need to be a mathematician to know how sucky those odds are.”
“I could…run the numbers for you,” the younger man said and looked openly confused.
“That’s okay,” he replied and shook his head. “I think it’s well quantified as looking for a needle in a haystack. All it lacks is to throw some venomous snakes in the mix to liven things up.”
Bial looked oddly at him, and Anderson shook his head once more.
“I just took my anti-anxiety meds,” he admitted. “I’m not really myself right now.”
“We can start work on a tracker, Colonel,” Bial said and patted him lightly on the shoulder. “You should get some rest.”
He nodded. “I’ll probably not be any good to you guys if I wait around here, anyway. I’m mo
re likely to get in the way than not, right?”
An awkward exchange of glances between the men in lab coats told Anderson unequivocally that he was correct, but nobody wanted to tell him outright. He could understand that.
The colonel waved a hand vaguely and quickly exited the operation command. He could always yell at them for something in the morning simply to keep up appearances. For now, he would head to bed with the knowledge that things weren’t as bad as they could have been.
He reached his little corner of the complex and stripped to his civvies. After he hung his uniform over his desk chair, he dropped onto the cot and closed his eyes. It was cool in the evenings out there in the jungle, but he didn’t need a blanket. Between exhaustion and his meds, he dozed off without difficulty.
Chapter Sixteen
Sal growled as his alarm went off and he dragged himself out of bed. A trick that someone had taught him was to never leave his alarm within reach. That successfully avoided the temptation to wake only enough to turn it off and go back to sleep again.
His bare feet touched the cool floor and he was shocked awake before he reached the ringing and vibrating phone. He turned it off and snarled a wide barrage of curses at it as he stretched and yawned. He had acquired a little of Kennedy’s skill for foul language even while he yawned. He smirked. Still tired, he rubbed his eyes but registered the first smile of the day. At least he got that out of his system.
He shrugged into the clothes he’d left out for himself the night before—a tank-top and a pair of combat pants over boots. He’d originally started to wear gear like this because it helped him to fit in with the other folks around there. As he gained some muscle mass, he realized that clothes like this were actually comfortable. People around the world would be a lot nicer if they could go into work wearing stuff that breathed as much as these did.
By the time someone knocked at the door, he’d made coffee and finished a lightweight breakfast. The sun wasn’t even up yet. Who the hell could be visiting now?
He opened the door and narrowed his eyes at Kennedy who stood with her hand raised and obviously about to knock again.
“You’ll piss the neighbors off with that racket,” Sal said, and she grinned. “It’s not even five yet. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Courtney and I thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on the day,” she said cheerfully. He looked over her shoulder. The specialist already sat in the JLTV with a cup of coffee in her hands.
“So,” Madigan asked, “ready to go?”
“Yeah.” Sal shrugged and decided to go with the flow. “Let me get my bag.”
He left the door open and hurried to where he’d set his bag the night before. It was designed to be easily carried or latched like a backpack to his suit. He pulled it over his shoulder and locked the door behind him as Kennedy hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Since we’ll be a little early,” she said once they were on their way, “it means we’ll be able to try out some new equipment that I bought. Funny how that worked out, right?”
He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore a slight shiver. With the sun still absent from the sky, it was too fucking cold to be outside. He’d picked California as a place to do his dissertation for a reason, after all. He wasn’t made for the cold.
“I managed to rent one of the new E Mark-Twenties from storage,” Courtney said. “They should deliver it to the launching area right now, actually. I’ve never tried any of those.”
“I’m still rocking the fifteens,” Sal said with a laugh. “With decades-old software. I might as well be using Windows Vista.”
“Well, you were,” Kennedy said without moving her gaze from the road. “I took the liberty of getting you something a little more dedicated for combat but which also has the specialist software you might need out there. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“That…is a nice surprise. Thanks,” Sal said. “How did you afford it?”
“Well, I put it on Heavy Metal’s tab,” she said quickly, her gaze still focused intently on the road. “I put all this in the inventory report that I emailed you.”
“The inventory report that I told myself I would get up a little earlier than usual to read since I spent most of the night working on the white paper that the squad wanted to have finished before we started off this morning?” Sal raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I…haven’t gotten to that yet.”
“No shit,” Kennedy said with a laugh. “I mean, I can totally eat the expense myself. I merely thought that you might want to have it on the company in case you didn’t like it and wanted to turn it in.”
He nodded. “That sounds reasonable. Leave it on the company’s account. We can afford it. But…which one did you pick up?”
“It’s a C-Class Hybrid,” she replied. “It has a power-armor arm fitted with one of those new assault rifles, but it also works with most of the specialist software. All top-of-the-line software too, courtesy of Boulos.”
“That old fox,” Sal said with a chuckle. “Remind me to write him a Christmas card.”
“He’s a Muslim,” Kennedy said.
“Kwanza, then?” Sal tilted his head. “Do they even have Kwanza cards?”
“I’m fairly certain he’d prefer a huge stack of porn,” she said as she pulled up where the teams had already started to assemble. “He complained to me about how the server’s restrictions pissed him off to no end.”
“I’ll…keep that in mind,” he said with a nod. He pulled himself out of the JLTV and walked to the section designated for them. Boulos had left their deliveries of weapons and suits already marked off with a drawing of an electric guitar. As usual, he’d extended the deadline for delivery although he had called her to let her know.
“Heavy Metal,” Sal said with a chuckle as he unpacked his new suit. “I like it.”
“Well, it’s an idea for a company logo,” Kennedy said and immediately slipped into the boots of her armor. “If we survive long enough to need a company logo, that is.”
“Hey now,” he protested and followed her example. “With three of us, that’s one-third of a higher chance that at least one of us will survive to make sure Heavy Metal goes the distance.”
“Hey, that’s nice,” Courtney said. She strolled up to them, already in her suit and with her helmet tucked under her arm. “You guys already think of me as a part of the group.”
He made a face as he adjusted his arm in the heavy grip for his assault rifle. “I’ll really miss how easy it is to get into the specialist-only suits.”
“You won’t miss it when you let the power armor do most of the heavy lifting of your equipment,” Kennedy retorted as she tugged the armor over her waist and wiggled it around to position it comfortably.
“Yep, you’re right on that,” Sal said. “I would appreciate some help to carry all the shit since you gunners always leave me to carry an equal portion anyways.”
“Well, we only give you what we know you can handle,” Madigan said with a sweet smile as she finished fitting her shoulder pads.
“Aw, I’m so flattered,” Sal said, and sarcasm dripped from his tone. “What do you know? Have power armor, still faster at putting it on than you are.”
Courtney looked away as Kennedy flipped him off. Even out there, something as ordinary as putting on armor and prepping for a Zoo run still seemed like she somehow intruded on a private moment between the two. It might simply have been a chemistry thing, but the funny banter between them might also be a way that they mentally prepared themselves to put their lives in danger. The interchange seemed like mutual reassurance that what they did was something that they could handle.
She’d never had someone to do that with and always had to process this stuff on her own. It would be nice if she could get in on the whole banter thing.
But not today. She could figure it out with Sal and Madigan later. Maybe it would come naturally the more they all worked together.
Courtney put her helmet
on and fitted her pack to her suit as she turned to see the sun arc its way over the horizon.
“It’s like you said when we got back from my first trip,” Sal said as he moved to stand beside her. “Something that beautiful has to come with a little bit of crazy to keep it balanced.”
He stared out at the Zoo with his helmet cradled in one arm.
She smiled as the particularly vivid memory of that trip resurfaced. The fact that it was the run on which she’d met and worked with Salinger Jacobs for the first time was only a part of it. It had been downright traumatic as well as profitable. They had shared a tough experience, and things had only become more and more difficult since then.
They might be looking up now, though, she reminded herself. It was only a day since her last trip in there, but she felt refreshed and ready for it. Which was odd, considering that she had never felt ready for it before. Maybe this new feeling was somehow related to her having gotten laid the day before? She shrugged mentally and filed that thought away for deeper study later.
“How’s that C-Class working out for you?” she asked.
Sal made a face. “I’ve tried out hybrids and worked with full specialist suits. I thought that there would be overlap in a hybrid, but some spots that I’m used to being powered aren’t, and ones that I’m used to being specialist aren’t. It will take time to adjust.”
“Well, at least you have a team you trust working with you,” she said with a small smile. “It’s safer that way. If you screw up, you have someone to fall back on.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What makes you think I’ll screw up?”
She shrugged and grinned. “I’m working with the odds. Your first time was lively, but there’s always room for improvement.”
He opened his mouth to ask what she was talking about and shut it again as she winked and turned away as the rest of the teams arrived. Kennedy kept an eye on Courtney as she walked away too.
