He swallows and holds up his mangled hand, which is quivering as he tries to waggle a finger.
“I knew my only chance was to give ‘em some meat so I chopped three of these bad boys off with a piece of window glass and that bought me enough time, but I-”
“Did what you had to do.”
“—don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”
“Bullshit.”
“I won’t be able to grip or climb the same way, dude. And if I can’t do that, what good am I?”
“You were missing a few screws before, man, so how’s this any different?”
I try to get a smile or rise out of him and eventually he barks a nasty laugh.
“I’m about all used up.”
“The Del Frisco I used to know wouldn’t talk like that. He’d pick himself up and get back on the wire.”
“Maybe I left too much of me out there.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Maybe they’ll shun me early.”
I kneel before him. “That’s a lie and you know it. People like us, we’re too valuable. We provide a vital service. We’ve got… strategic importance and whatnot.”
“You sound like Odin now.”
I pat him on his knee and he grips my forearm and pumps it.
“You know the only thing that keeps me going is the ‘Marvin Gaye Corollary,’” he says.
I plumb my memory and then it comes to me.
“Long as you’re grooving, there’s always a chance?”
The light returns to his eyes, if only for a moment, and Del Frisco grins and nods and holds up a bandaged fist that I gently bump.
“Goddamn right,” he whispers.
8
After securing Del Frisco an ample supply of pain meds, I leave sixteen and move slowly through the upper floors.
I think about hitting my quarters and catching some shut-eye, but my thoughts have turned to Darcy.
It’s an off time so the sleeping quarters are largely silent as people cop winks between shifts. My eyes are peeled for Strummer, but he’s nowhere in sight as I head through the plastic cubicles.
Near a back window, at the edge of an HVAC outlet is, or was, Darcy’s pad. There’s a sleeping bag and a tiny music box hooked to earbuds and a board shingled with photos and flowery sketches and articles clipped from magazines and old newspapers. I stare at a photo of what I assume were her parents, mugging for the camera, arms draped around a much younger Darcy.
Somebody clears his throat and I glance back to see a balding man with a cannonball gut eying me. He’s holding a huge empty trash bag and gesturing at Darcy’s stuff.
“You kin?” the fat man asks.
“It hasn’t even been a full day.”
He shrugs. “I got orders.”
“It’s supposed to be eight days,” I say.
“Are you blood to her?”
“I was her friend.”
“Friends ain’t the same as blood,” he replies, wiping a line of snot from a runny nose.
“She’s dead.”
“Yeah, well, sorry for your loss, pal, but that don’t cut any ice.”
He opens the trash bag reaches for her stuff and I grab his wrist.
My fingers clamp down on his sweaty flesh with such force that he lets out a little puff of air.
He’s about to protest and I squeeze harder.
“Show a little goddamn respect. She gave everything. She fell in the line of duty.”
“Hey, man, I’m just doing my job.”
“Do your goddamn job later.”
He sees something in my eyes and breaks my grip and stalks off, grumbling under his breath.
I turn back to Darcy’s space and pocket the photo of her with her folks. I figure there needs to be something to show that she was here once, that she was one of us.
Fifteen minutes later, I enter my own sleeping quarters and crash to the ground. I’m too tired to shower or change the soiled clothes that stick to me like a second skin.
I roll over and pin the photo of Darcy next to the one of me and Mom on my space divider and then try to sleep, but I’m still wired. Dad’s steamer trunk catches my attention for some reason.
Somehow my fingers find the clasp on the trunk’s front which easily pops open.
Easing myself up, I stare into the trunk, not sure what to expect. There’s not much inside: some clothes, a few magazines and a foldable shovel along with a little book that contains a photo of Dad and stamps from countries that no longer exist.
And there at the very bottom of the trunk, tucked under a pair of still-shiny, black leather shoes, is a flip-style cellphone. I’m not especially tech-savvy, but the phone was probably even a few years old when the world unwound, so I assume it was Dad’s.
Holding the phone up, my fingers trace the phone’s brilliantly polished face. My thumb finds a slot on the clamshell and the phone segments and pops open to reveal the device’s screen and innards.
A short antenna distends and I push buttons.
To my utter amazement the screen glows and the tiny power source hidden inside the home hums to life.
Dad’s name and old number appears on the display screen along with calls and messages and a folder for the camera’s photos.
I tap on the photo folder and not surprisingly, there isn’t very much to see. Dad loathed posing for photos specifically and taking pictures in general and its shows. There’s a video file and a few ill-conceived shots of monuments and bodies of water and one or two of Mom and several of me as an infant and toddler.
I choose not to play the video, focusing instead on Dad’s shadowy figure in several of the photos. His arms and legs are visible in three or four shots and the back of his head in another, but never his face.
Not a once does he appear on camera.
I guess you could say he’s never fully present in any of the little vignettes captured by the camera, which is how it was in life. I power the phone down and slump on my mattress and pray for a restful sleep.
9
For the first time in a very long time, I don’t wake screaming or gasping. My muscles throb and the small of my back feels like little nails are being driven into it, but mentally I’m refreshed.
No sirens sound, but I’ve still got to report for roll-call so I down a handful of pain-killers and head to the mess hall where I catch an unusual number of stares from those waiting for chow.
Voices are low, but I can tell several people are whispering about me. A woman with beautiful hair and horrible skin turns and mutters something to the man behind her. Then she approaches me and conjures up a half smile. “Are – are you Wyatt?”
I nod.
“Is what they say true?” she asks.
“Depends on what it is.”
“I heard you brought a building down.”
“I had a little help,” I reply.
“So it’s true?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Her smile widens. “They say it’s only a matter of time.”
“Before what?”
“We start knocking down the other buildings. Y’know, stomping out their hives and really taking it to ‘em.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
She squeezes my hand and I realize she’s so young. She doesn’t remember the days when the older folks tried and failed to wage a war against the Dubs. I can’t blame her for that. Odin has some of his people print up fake stories that are scattered throughout the building. Concocted bullshit about battles and events that never happened. “Active Measures” is what Gus says this is called. The intentional eroding of everyone’s basic ability to distinguish the truth so that Odin can create his own reality.
“But you did it,” the woman continues. “You showed that there’s a way to take back the city.”
Before I can respond she trots back over to her friend who nods and laughs. One of the attendants hands me an extra serving of grub. Instead of babyfood I’m given a slic
e of bread and handful of dried vegetables and two green apples. Glancing up to be sure there’s no mistake, the attendant smiles and says: “On the house.”
Thinking back on an old saying that luck favors those who look the other way, I take my food and keep my head down and take a seat at the rear of the mess hall.
Out of the corner of one eye I see Strummer at the other side of the room.
He’s seated with one of the other Ledge Jumper teams.
My feelings about Strummer are mixed.
I’m certainly pissed at the guy for bolting when the chips were down (not to mention his failed attempt to call me out back in front of Odin), but I figure Darcy’s death is punishment enough. That said, the guy’s a snake and I’ll never go out on another op with him. He sees me and his eyes retreat and then he whispers something to the man seated next to him who nods.
After inhaling my extra allotment of food, I hit the armory to see Teddy and Big Sam on account of having lost my Onesie during the roll up. They’re waiting for me, grinning like a pair of dead hogs in the sunshine.
“Well, well, well,” Teddy says.
“It’s the man of the friggin’ hour,” adds Big Sam.
I blush as the two mime bowing before me.
“You’re gonna be pissed,” I say.
“Not today, sport,” Teddy says, “you can do no wrong around these parts, at least for this day. We heard what you done, heard that you brought the hammer down.”
“Out of necessity rather than choice.”
“All that matters is that you done it. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, is stoked that you were able to take a mess of those bastards out.”
“But we lost Darcy.”
Big Sam’s face falls. “We heard and said several righteous prayers for her. She was a tough chick and a helluva shit-kicker. She’s taking names in Valhalla as we speak.”
Nods are shared and then I grouse about my back and Teddy hands me a pain patch and two-hundred and forty bucks.
Before I can say anything about the extra cash, Teddy waves a hand and smiles warmly. “Consider it a bonus.”
Big Sam rifles around in a locker.
He pulls out four-foot long piece of shimmering metal that looks like a Onesie on steroids.
Unlike my old weapon, this one has two extended (serrated and retractable) cleaver-like blades on the business end and instead of brass knuckles there’s a ruggedized black trigger near the base of the handle.
Big Sam holds the Onesie up like a rifle and pulls back on the trigger. He fires a half-dozen two-inch metal darts into a target on a faraway wall.
“Sucker holds thirty of those. We got ‘em primed on a repurposed torsion spring one of your colleagues liberated from a commercial warehouse.”
I smile and he hands me the weapon.
“We been working on that for a while, but decided to give it to you, Wyatt.”
“God, guys, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say nothing. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.”
I lift the thing up and it feels solid and perfectly balanced. Like the wooden baseball bat Dad said he got from a professional player that he kept at our old apartment.
After reloading the Onesie with darts and sliding it into a customized leather sheath I can strap to my back, I thank Teddy and Big Sam and grab a new rucksack and head out for the morning debrief.
10
I stride into the debrief room which is packed with two-dozen men and women, some in tactical garb, others in civilian dress.
I notice Shooter and a few other familiar faces, including, to my surprise, Roger Parker, the shadow leader of the outer buildings. Parker gives me a conspiratorial wink and a surreptitious bob of the head.
“The man of the hour,” Shooter says as the others smile and offer kind words.
Shooter takes the dais as I plop down on a fold-out chair next to Roger Parker.
After some pleasantries and housekeeping issues one of Shooter’s aides wheels a television out on a stand and a crudely shot film flickers to life.
“We’re about to watch some footage shot by a Sweeper unit last month,” Shooter says.
The lights come down and the film, which is shot POV style, reveals the interior of what appears to be a large office building.
The camera whips around to reveal a heavily-armed, five-person Sweeper unit, including the cameraman.
The sound is muffled, but snatches of conversation are audible.
Panning back, the cameraman creeps down a hallway with a ceiling and walls that have been stripped clean. All that’s left are metal studs and bundles of wires in spaghetti piles.
The team descends a staircase, the light ebbing. They drop down several floors until they enter another space which appears to be, due to the lack of windows, a garage or basement.
The camera stops and zooms in, but it’s impossible to make out anything in the gloom. A light atop the camera snaps on, stabbing the darkness for eight or nine feet. Beyond that, the space bows to the blackness.
Still nothing, the camera zooming in, pulling back and then…
Something.
Some things flutter in the lens.
Insects, moths?
No, fragments of something.
Motes of dust.
Riled up … but by what?
The ballsy cameraman takes a step forward and the maimed face of a Dub jolts into frame.
The monster stands, wobbling, hand canopying its eyes from the camera’s light.
And then forms rise up behind it.
Hundreds of Dubs.
Pushing and pulling and muscling themselves up from their resting places as the dust fills the camera lens like a flock of birds.
The camera jerks wildly as gunfire erupts and an explosive detonates. The sound of the Dubs squealing melds with the shrieks of the Sweeper team as the cameraman falls on his back.
Shooter pauses the film.
Freezing on the delirious face of a Dub as he stands over the cameraman, looking down directly into the lens.
“As you can see from the film, they’ve taken cover in the lower reaches of the buildings.”
I want to ask what the hell happened to the cameraman and his team, but before I can, Parker raises his hand. “Begging my pardon, Mister Shooter, but didn’t we already know that?”
“Partially,” Shooter replies, forcing a smile, “I suppose you could say that was a known unknown. We assumed it occurred when the cold weather came, but recent intel suggests it’s a year-long thing. They’re burrowing down and making cities in the darkness.”
“So what’s the significance?”
“If we can trap them down in their nests, their hives, we can bring the buildings down and cleanse the city once and for all. We can quite literally bury our problems.”
Snorts and snickers from most of those seated around me.
One man rises up and says we tried fighting a war of attrition before and it didn’t work. The bespectacled woman seated next to him nods and says something about war not being the answer and that we should learn to co-exist with the Dubs.
“This time it’s different,” Shooter says. “Mistakes were certainly made in the past, but now we have a new approach. We’ll employ targeted strikes and it will work. We have proof.”
The bespectacled woman rises. “I’m sorry, but how many times have you said that in the past?”
“Each time it was said it was meant.”
“And each time we’ve lost good people.”
“If we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backward,” Shooter responds.
“Well, I won’t go along with it this time,” the woman says. “We need another approach. We need new people at the top. A woman. We need diversity.”
Shooter’s eyes narrow and his voice sharpens as he squares up on the woman.
“With all due respect, everything that was ever made resulted from testosterone. Think of the buildings, the machines, the highways, the bea
utiful border walls, the-”
“Endless wars,” the woman blurts out.
This stifles Shooter.
His lips tug back and it looks like he might throw a punch.
Then, presumably mindful that we are all watching, he sucks in a mouthful of air and glances sideways at me. “Maybe it’s best if we hear a first-hand report. Wyatt, why don’t you tell them what happened after you successfully rolled a building up.”
I’m no great shakes when it comes to speaking in public, but I stand and run the conversation for a good ten minutes or so.
I detail as best I can how the op went down, how we wandered into a hive and had no choice but to bring it down.
Of course, I make sure to sanitize what Strummer did and take a few liberties concerning Darcy’s horrible demise, but everyone sits rapt, hanging on my every word.
After I’m done there’s a Q&A session and some discussion about the pros and cons of confronting the Dubs.
A few people ask me how many Dubs I think we crossed over and I answer as they take notes on tiny pads of paper and make calculations. Those who were against confrontation before, however, remain unconvinced. The man and woman who spoke up earlier reiterate the reasons why they think the costs of offensive operations are too high and the outcome too uncertain. I don’t feel it’s my place to debate them, so I just listen and nod.
Through it all, Roger Parker remains seated, inscrutable, a bemused look on his face. When the meeting breaks, Parker idles next to me, making sure that Shooter is busy elsewhere.
“Is what you said true?” he asks.
“Every word of it.”
He smirks. “Somebody famous before the world crossed over said ‘the man who goes in through the door is never quite the same as the one who comes back.’ I think that’s you, Wyatt.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means watch your ass, remember what we talked about before, and don’t drink too much of the Kool-Aid.”
I haven’t the faintest idea of what any of this means as Parker shuffles off.
Vertical City Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 20
