by Lee Isserow
'Residual energy still embedded in the structure.' she said. 'Feedback loop, just like we thought... Local jump by my reckoning.'
“Yeah.” Hayes said, kicking at a brick, that turned to dust as it bounced off his boot. “Vibrations fucked all this shit up. These guys know fuck all about containing energy from the meta.”
'Or maybe they do know, and they're damn good at using that knowledge to fuck things up.'
“Don't know which is worse...” Hayes said, looking up at Carmichael, who was holding back at what was once the mouth to the alley. His face etching an expression somewhere between bewilderment and frustration, both emotions of a man who would only hear half a conversation.
“So, what have we got?” he asked.
“Fuckers are local, in-world.” Hayes said, eyes drifting skywards. “Kali, you getting a trace.”
'I'm not in the clouds, idiot.'
“Yes or no?”
'Yes.' she said. 'Well, kinda. Your lens sucks for this, I need to jack in to something that isn't made of millions of computers swimming around a moron.'
“Carmike.” Hayes said, walking over to him. “Tell your boss we need access to his... network, or whatever.”
'Piped into your lens, assuming they can...' Kali added.
Hayes repeated her request, and then repeated the technical details of how such a thing could be accomplished, as Carmichael repeated it word-for-word to Campbell, who repeated it a third time to his techs.
“I never want to have to use any of those words ever again...” Hayes said, his tongue tired from have wrapped itself around too many four, five and six syllable words.
'You won't have to, I think we've got it... using their sat feeds to scan for the signal.'
“Great.” he said.
“We got something?” Carmichael asked.
“Patience, boy scout.” Hayes said, with the pretence of wisdom. “These things take time.
'Got it.'
“Not that much time, apparently.” he said. “What we got?”
'I don't get it... ' Kali said, confounded by the readings. 'There are seven signals... as if there were seven jump bays active at the same time, each jumping to the same point... or from the same point.'
“That doesn't make any sense.” Hayes said.
“What doesn't?” Carmichael asked.
“Let's just say, we're gonna need a bigger boat...”
'No idea what the fuck you mean, but there's a signal active right now... not one of the seven, a new one... it's intermittent, looks like it's cycling every twenty-three seconds.'
“That about enough time to do an in-world jump?”
“What is?!” Carmichael asked, feeling completely useless and out the loop.
'More than...'
“Carmike,” Hayes barked. “We need a jump, right fucking now.”
“Where to?” Carmichael whimpered. “Wait, into the hostile's base? I'm not equipped for combat!”
“Nobody's ever equipped for combat,” Hayes said, proudly, as if reciting rhetoric. “But combat is more than equipped for you.”
“I mean I literally don't have any weapons, no body armour, we need to get back to Division to suit up.”
“For fuck's sake, really?” Hayes sighed, following Carmichael as he strut off to hail a cab back to the EDC. “Who goes out into the field without armour and weapons?”
'Normal people. You're literally the only person I know who gets out of bed hoping they're going to get shot at.'
“I prefer it when I do the shooting...” Hayes said, as Carmichael held the taxi door open for him.
“We really need to do something about these one-sided conversations...” Carmichael muttered to himself as the cab took them back to South Kensington.
9
4 hours to the end of the world.
When they returned to the EDC, Carmichael was happy to be told that his wish was to come true, as he was given a modified comms device that allowed him to interact with Kali. Campbell briefed the two of them, and three additional agents, on the new parameters of their mission. It was to follow the source of the jump activity, and as Campbell stressed to Hayes, was for recon only. He continued to stare at Hayes intently, as he stressed that they were not, under any circumstances, to engage with the suspects. Hayes rolled his eyes whenever Campbell's gaze averted from him, which Campbell was seemingly well aware of, addressing him specifically and directly as he continued his briefing, reiterating the status of the mission as “Recon only.”
As soon as the briefing concluded, Carmichael introduced the three agents to Hayes. Each had a name, but before they could be announced, he insisted on referring to them as 'Redshirt One', 'Redshirt Two' and 'Girl Redshirt', despite each asserting that they refused to be called as such.
“Enough chatter, time is ticking.” Campbell snarled, getting very bored of Hayes's attitude. “Get yourself to Jump Division to suit up. Spinning up in ten.”
The four agents headed for the door, leaving Hayes staring at Campbell with a furrow on his brow. “Did you say 'Jump Division'?”
“Is there a problem?” Campbell asked, with an exhausted huff.
“I work for a 'Jump Division'...” he said.
“I am well aware of that, Mister Hayes.”
“Pretty weird you'd call your jump unit the same thing, isn't it?”
“What name might you give a division that is responsible for jumping?” Campbell asked, rhetorically. “In your travels you must by now be aware that there is more than one of everything. We have a Jump Division, you have Jump Division, much like we have hats and you have hats, we listen to orders and fucking follow them and you...” he trailed off and began to stomp back to his office.
“I what?” Hayes asked, as he watched Campbell walk into his office and stare back at him angrily. “I what?!” he shouted. Campbell turned his back to Hayes, who looked over to a nearby analyst. “That was rude. He's very rude, isn't he?” the analyst glanced at him briefly and cocked an eyebrow, before staring straight back at their screen.
“Spit spot, Hayes!” Carmichael shouted from the door. “Haven't got all day!”
Hayes looked over to him “Fuck you, 'spit spot'...” he muttered, as he followed them out.
Girl Redshirt did not appreciate Hayes's stares as he watched her change in the Division's co-ed locker room, but she got her revenge with some help from Kali, who temporarily blinded him as the team finished getting their gear.
After walking into several walls and doors, his sight was returned, at which point he found himself heading down the familiar corridor towards the jump bay.
“Sure you don't want some body armour?” Redshirt One asked him.
“More than happy with what I got...” he said, pulling up his sweatshirt to reveal the nanomesh.
“Doesn't look like it can stop a ball bearing, let alone a bullet...” Redshirt Two said.
“Might surprise you... Hayes said, swiping his thumb against the sensor on his right holster and pulling a weapon. He threw it, and it stopped in mid-air, turning to face him.
'Don't be an idiot...' Kali said, as she watched him target his own chest and shoot himself.
Hayes coughed out a lungful of air with a beaming smile as the round punched at his chest, the four agents staring at him with wide eyes, faces frozen with alarm. He grunted, then walked over to the weapon, grabbing it from mid-air and returning it to the pocket dimension, glancing back at the four as he continued his strut towards the jump bay.
One by one, they thawed, and caught up with him. “How? What the fuck? How?” Redshirt One asked.
“Nanomesh.” Hayes said, boastfully. “Talks to my nanos, who see a bullet coming, concentrate themselves into the estimated impact zone, chew up the bullet on impact and distribute the pressure throughout my body.”
“How many times can you get shot?” the agent asked, voice quivering with schoolgirlish glee. “At the same time, I mean!”
“Eight, maybe twelve.” Hayes said
. “Depending on the round and concentration.”
“What if they shoot you in the head?” Girl Redshirt asked. “Or in the cock...”
Hayes took a moment to think about it, and upon absent-mindedly recalling images of the last time his penis had an encounter with a bullet, decided to ignore the question.
The jump bay took twenty-three seconds to cycle up to full power. Twenty-three seconds of Hayes standing behind Girl Redshirt, staring at her behind, whilst her hand rested on her weapon, and she considered introducing his face to the butt of her gun. Kali watched as light consumed Hayes's lens, the signal dropping out as the in-world jump took him through the meta to their destination.
When the lens cleared, he appeared to be in a warehouse, all five of them standing behind stacks of crates. His breath hung in the air in front of him, and he was already grumbling about the cold.
“Seriously, haven't you people heard of warming your fucking globe?” he said, in a hushed tone.
“We're doing it every fucking day,” Girl Redshirt said. “And it's killing the planet.”
“Well, you're doing it wrong.” Hayes spat back, pulling a gun from the holster and peeking the muzzle out from behind the crates to take a look at the scene.
“What do you see?” Carmichael asked.
“Nothing, coast is clear...” Hayes said, loosening his grasp of the weapon. “Give me a second...”
Swiping ring finger against thumb, Hayes's gun levitated from his hand and floated skywards, shifting through corridors of crates and shelving units, in search of signs of life.
“Anything?” Carmichael asked.
“Do you think, for a fucking moment, that I wouldn't tell you if I saw something?” Hayes said, concentrating on guiding the weapon through the air. The warehouse was empty. “Looks like we were too late...” Hayes said.
'Unless they're as smart as Endays...' Kali said.
“Well, obviously.” Hayes said. “I was just about to say that.”
'Sure you were.'
“Shut up.”
Carmichael watched Hayes argue with Kali, and realised he was actually happier when he could only hear one side of the conversation.
As the team made their way through the warehouse, Redshirt Two found a rusted old elevator hidden behind a shelving unit, and alerted the others to its presence. Hayes used his mod-enhanced strength to wrench the rusted gate open, and cautiously, they entered.
The elevator whined and screamed louder than any of them would have liked, announcing their presence all too effectively. As it came to the basement, shots rang out from outside the gate, punching multiple inch-wide fists into its exhausted metal. Bullets whistled through the gaps above and below the gate. Several of them ploughed deep into Redshirt One and Two's shoulders and faces with elegance, minimal splashback, like professional high divers plunging into a pool. Their emergence from the agents was less refined, bursting out of the backs of their heads and bodies with the grace of a stripper emerging from a birthday cake, spattering fluids on the others.
Girl Redshirt dropped to the floor and fired off rounds at the shooters' feet, exploding one of their calves across the concrete, which was enough to encourage the remaining shooters to scatter and take cover. Hayes kicked the gate open, weapons materialising in his hands as he walked out into the fray, looking forward to making some fuckers good and dead.
Stepping over the crying, bleeding body of the man shot by Girl Redshirt, he saw muzzles peeking out from behind crates, popping and clapping with bursts of explosive light. He shook off the impacts to his chest.
“My turn...” he said, raising his guns and firing twelve hollow points into the crates in front of the shooters, blowing splinters of wood and liquidised entrails across the darkly lit room. “Any more?” he asked, looking around for another target, his lens catching sight of a shadow quivering behind another crate.
“Excuse me?” Hayes said, as he calmly walked over to the shadow. “Hello? Mister hiding man?”
The man hiding behind the crate stammered an incomprehensible response and peeked out, resulting in three rounds taking the back of his head off and redistributing its contents in aerosol form.
“Try not to kill everyone, Hayes!” Carmichael instructed, as he started cuffing the shooter Girl Redshirt hit in the leg, whilst she began applying a field dressing to stop him from bleeding out. “We need intel from these fucks.”
“Watch your language,” Hayes said, with faux-shock. “There are ladies present!” he added, motioning to Girl Redshirt, who strutted over to him, lifted her weapon close to the side of his head, and fired off a round directly next to his ear.
“I think she likes me!” Hayes shouted back to Carmichael, through the resounding ringing of tinnitus, as he watched Girl Redshirt return to dressing the wound.
“Hold up!” Carmichael shouted, but Hayes was already gone.
Half-deafened, Hayes sneaked into the adjoining room, not aware just how loudly he was 'sneaking'. The light of another jump burst out from the far side. And the few men that were left, were ready for him, firing at his centre mass as if he had a target painted on his chest that read 'no please, shoot right here'. He auto-targetted them in his lens and with a swipe of his arms, the rounds found themselves nice warm heads to burrow into.
'Need some of these fucks alive, idiot.' Kali shouted in his head.
“Carmike and the Girl have one that's alive... What do you make of all this?” he said, as he started investigating the tech that the shooters had been using. There was a panel that Kali recognised as being a rough version of her own console, albeit much simpler, with a mess of open processor units and RAM sticks, rather than a quantum computer. She deemed it suitable for only in-world travel, and even then, wasn't sure how they were getting the power to run jumps. He ventured into another adjoining room, where he found a man waiting impatiently under a crudely constructed metal dome. At the sight of Hayes, the man put a bullet in his own head before Hayes had a chance to do it himself.
“Spoilsport...” he mumbled as he left the room, finding Carmichael and Girl Redshirt staring at him, their prisoner in hand, all three indignant at the bloodbath he had been responsible for.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“Somebody needs to teach you restraint...” Carmichael grunted, as he walked back out with the limping prisoner.
“Girl Redshirt, how do you feel teaching me all about restraints...?” Hayes asked, with a wink.
She smiled at him, and proceeded to shoot him in the foot. “The name's Shay, asshole.”
“I knew a Shay once... Hayes said, as he cradled his foot, encouraging the blood on the floor and pieces of his toes to rejoin the rest of their friends, in what was left of his shoe. “The two of you have a lot in common...”
'Apart from the other Shay being dead...' Kali said.
“Well, obviously apart from that.”
10
3 hours to the end of the world.
“When do I get a go?” Hayes asked, as he, Campbell and Shay watched a live feed of Carmichael's interrogation of the surviving shooter.
“You don't 'get a go', Mister Hayes. Carmichael is an excellent interrogator.” Campbell spat back.
“It's been, what, half an hour?” Hayes asked, eyeing the LED panel that was steadily ticking down past the three hour mark. “Shouldn't take half a fucking hour to get a shitbag to squeal. He's not even hitting the guy, this is a waste of time...”
“Mister Hayes, do please shut the fuck up whilst Carmichael does his fucking job.”
“Can I make you more comfortable?” Carmichael asked the prisoner, his voice calm and cool, tone warm and polite.
The prisoner was sat on a metal chair at a metal table, arms cuffed behind his back, as Hayes had been restrained earlier.
“I'll be comfortable when you and your fellow murderers have your atoms dissipated in the void between worlds.” the prisoner said, his face contorting into a cruel smile.
“I
don't think that's truly necessary.” Carmichael said. “As you might have noticed, we have treated you with nothing but kindness since your capture.”
“Real kind, killing all my friends.” the prisoner spat back verbally, before spitting literally in Carmichael's face.
The agent pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the phlegm from his cheek, containing his aggravation with practised restraint. “The death of your friends was... unfortunate.” Carmichael said, turning to a camera secreted in the corner of the room and shooting it a glare meant for Hayes. “An oversight, and accident, I assure you.”
“Well, maybe your entire reality coursing into the abyss, never to be seen or heard from again is my accident and oversight.” the prisoner said, his words coated with a bitter chuckle.
“Waste of fucking time...” Hayes said again, resulting in Campbell taking hold of his arm in a scolderly fashion, and physically pushing him out of the glass cube. He placed his palm against the door, resulting in a metallic clunk resounding out from the frame.
“That's very rude!” Hayes said, trying to open the door, discovering it was maglocked shut. Hayes turned to a nearby analyst. “Is he always this rude to new people?” he asked, the analyst ignoring him completely. “Kali, get me a feed on the interrogation.”
'Turn around, idiot.' she said, watching through his lens as he did so, the interrogation displayed on the large screens at the front of the room.
“Now come on, this doesn't have to be like this.” Carmichael said, maintaining eye contact with their captive.
“You can't stop us.” The man growled. “You can't stop any of this. We will go however far, do whatever it takes, to the Nth degree.”
“I've heard that before...” Carmichael said. “From one of your number the last time we encountered you, and the time before that, and the time before... this is, what, the fifteenth time in the last two years you've tried to destroy our world?”
