by Linda Nagata
“Make sure you’re not squeezing your balls,” he advises as I put mine on.
“Yeah, I have pretty clear memories from boot.”
I should be nervous, but I’m not, and it’s not because the skullnet is working overtime—the icon isn’t even showing—it’s more a state of disbelief. Deep down, I’m not convinced any of this is real. That’s especially easy to believe here, floating in a dimensionless interface between darkness and stars.
“Here we go,” Kendrick says. He’s focused on the controls; concentrating on holding us stationary.
I look around. We’re expecting to rendezvous with another helicopter, but I don’t see it.
“Grab the cable and latch it,” he tells me.
We’re hovering in the void, the rotors thrashing above us, and darkness below. Tentatively, I open the door. Cold air rushes in. I glance down, but beyond the skid there’s nothing to see, no sense of height. I push the door wider. The night is calm, so the only wind I have to contend with is the rotor wash. Leaning out, I look back. Even without switching my visor to nightvision I see it: a black line of cable like a snake’s head. It’s moving, questing, searching for the hookup point. With one gloved hand tight on a grip, I lean out and grab it, and then shove it at the faintly luminous hookup portal. A mechanism in the cable shifts and it locks on. I yank on it, just to be sure.
“Secure,” Kendrick confirms. “Go.”
My gaze follows the cable back. I can see only the first few feet. I focus on the term nightvision. My skullnet picks it up, translates it for my visor, and darkness washes away, revealing the stealth helicopter at the other end of the cable, and the side door standing open for me.
Grabbing the tether dangling from my harness, I reach out and hook it onto the cable.
The cushion of my seat dips. I glance over my shoulder to see Kendrick crouched behind me, ready to follow.
Nothing feels real.
I jump.
~~~
I fall only a few feet before I hit the end of the tether, and then I’m sliding along the cable. Fear kicks in, but at a distance. The air is thin and cold, but sweat dumps from every pore. There’s a lurch. That has to be Kendrick, coming behind me. If it was the cable coming undone I’d be falling straight down. Instead, I slide sideways into the bay of the stealth helicopter. My robot feet click against the floor, and I run a few steps, dumping momentum. One of the flight crew, anonymous in his visored helmet, is there to unhook my tether from the cable.
“You’re clear!”
I stumble out of the way as Kendrick shoots in behind me.
“Two onboard!” the same voice says. “Disengaging cable.”
I turn to look out the open bay. Our helicopter, brilliant with navigational lights, is flying itself. It drops away from us, descending toward the cloud deck and then disappearing through it. The cable is still winding back into the stealth helicopter when an explosion rips in orange fire beneath the clouds.
~~~
Kendrick sends me a document. I open it in my visor. It’s titled:
MISSION BRIEFING
CODENAME: FIRST LIGHT
“First Light?” I ask him.
We’re strapped into the helicopter’s passenger seats, our backs to the bulkhead. The crew is upfront.
“I’m told it’s a propaganda choice. This is the first overt action taken by the organization—though it is not, by any means, the first action planned by the individuals involved.”
I scan the mission briefing. I learn that while Thelma Sheridan is a Texan, she chose the rugged, ice-bound coast of the Gulf of Alaska for the site of her Apocalypse Fortress. I admire her for that. No self-respecting survivalist should ever opt to watch the world die from the cushy shore of a tropical island.
The Fortress sits on a low ridge. It has a curved face and a sweep of windows overlooking the sea. From a passing plane or a boat offshore it looks like a modest structure, remarkable only for its isolation—but most of its structure is underground.
The Fortress is only one part of Thelma Sheridan’s wilderness holding. A road switchbacks down the ridge, descending to a private airfield with a 3,000-foot runway scraped from the valley floor. Alongside the runway is a fuel tank, two large hangars, a garage with a fleet of snow plows, and a three-story cube built of concrete where a dozen employees are housed.
One of those employees is described in the mission briefing as Lucius Perez, a twenty-seven-year-old engineer who oversees security around the Apocalypse Fortress. Perez is part of our conspiracy. So far as I’m concerned he’s the most important part. He’s going to help us get in, and he’s going to help us get out again.
I go back to the beginning, and read the briefing over again. I like the plan that it details. I like it a lot better than the head-on assault we pulled off at Black Cross. Treachery isn’t exactly heroic, but it works.
~~~
The organization—Kendrick won’t refer to it as anything else—demonstrates a talent for logistics as we move north. At a private airfield in West Texas we change into civilian clothes and then transfer to a twin-engine turboprop, which Kendrick flies north to Albuquerque. There we’re met by a woman Kendrick introduces as Anne Shima. She’s slim, slight, and white-haired, with a military bearing.
She looks me over. The robot feet only warrant a brief glance; it’s my eyes that hold her gaze. It’s like she’s trying to see past them, to what’s inside my head. “You can’t see the Red,” I tell her. “Most of the time it isn’t there.”
She acknowledges this with a nod. “The Red is a factor we can’t control for. That irritates me, but I supported your inclusion in this mission. I’ve watched Dark Patrol and Bleeding Through. For whatever reason, there is a narrative around you that’s still playing out. There’s no way to know for sure, but I think your presence will benefit this mission. We’re living in strange times, Lieutenant Shelley. We need to adapt to them.” She extends her hand. “I wish you every success.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
We transfer to a tiny private jet with seats for five. Shima serves as pilot. Kendrick and I strap into the passenger seats and use the time to sleep. He pulls on his skullcap and is out before we reach the end of the runway. I wait until we’re in the air before I think, Sleep. Then I’m gone too. On the way to Juneau, we land twice to refuel. The biggest miracle of the journey: despite the scarcities and hardships of the Coma, a fuel truck is waiting for us both times.
~~~
The weather cooperates, and we’re able to fly north from Juneau, landing in a snow-covered field that Anne Shima optimistically terms a runway. We tramp through snow to the water’s edge, where we board a small boat moored beside a floating dock in the middle of a cold nowhere. Shima takes the helm, instructing us to cast off.
The sea is glassy and dark. This far north, this late in the year, the day retreats early. Night gathers around us as we parallel the coast. Through the torn veils of low-hanging clouds, a few faint stars gleam.
After an hour, the boat nudges up to another dock, this one slick with ice. A figure is waiting for us, a lantern gleaming at his feet. As he leans down to catch the mooring rope that I toss to him, I recognize Sergeant Aaron Nolan, dressed like us in civilian hiking gear, but still wearing his army skullcap.
“’Evening, Lieutenant Shelley, Colonel Kendrick.”
“Good to see you, Sergeant.”
We grasp tight to our titles, holding on to the structure of the past here in our tenuous present.
With the boat secured, we grab our gear. Nolan goes first with the lantern. I follow, with Kendrick behind me. Shima trails after us with a flashlight. A path has been trampled through fresh snow to a sportsmen’s lodge a dozen yards past the shingle. It’s a modern, one-story building with dark siding and wide windows. Only a faint gleam of golden light leaks past the blinds.
Nolan pushes the door open. We’re in a mud room lit by an LED. As I push open the second door, a blast of oppressively warm air hit
s me, along with an enthusiastic chorus, “Hoo-yah!”
This shouldn’t be fun, but when I look around, I can’t help grinning. Matt Ransom, Jaynie Vasquez, Mandy Flynn, Samuel Tuttle, Vanessa Harvey, and Jayden Moon—they’re all here. With Kendrick and me, we’ve got two-thirds of the surviving veterans of Black Cross. Nolan wasn’t with us on the assault—he stayed back, tasked with hiding the evidence of the checkpoint firefight—but he did his part. He’s one of us.
There’s only one person present whom I don’t know: a tall, broad-shouldered, white-haired man. My overlay logs his face, but I’m still locked down and can’t launch a search to identify him. Way out here, there’s probably no cell network anyway, but Kendrick introduces us. “Shelley, this is Colonel Trevor Rawlings, retired from the US Army after thirty-two years. The colonel is handling the mission’s initial staging operation and will be our first point of contact throughout the mission.”
Rawlings offers his hand and I take it. “It’s a brave choice you’ve made being here, Lieutenant. I commend you for it.”
“It’s the same choice we’ve all made, sir.”
The lodge is decorated with a clean minimalism—white walls, blond woods, and steel accents—but the effect is overwhelmed by the quantity of gear and weapons laid out on the heated floors and the honey-colored tables. I make my way around the room, trading handshakes and greetings—it’s the first time I’ve seen the members of my LCS in civilian clothes, and of course they can say the same about me. We look each other over, and try not to laugh. Ransom catches me by surprise in a bear hug, so I slug him in the shoulder, which he seems to appreciate.
Then I turn to Jaynie, who greets me with a coy smile. “Episode three, sir?”
“That’s what I hear. Why the hell are you here, Jaynie?”
Of all the C-FHEIT veterans, Jaynie’s participation surprised me the most. She’d been on-track for officer candidate school, and in another world, in some happier alternate history, she would have become an exemplary officer. But in our world? Her career was probably dead before it started, fatally tainted by her association with us.
Her smile widens. “Colonel Kendrick promised me a big bonus.”
That takes me by surprise. “You’re doing this for bonus money?”
“Money, sir?” Beneath the rim of her army skullcap, her face is a picture of wide-eyed innocence. “I’m doing this for the bonus of slamming a gold-shitting DC.”
I shake my head. “Shit, Jaynie. I thought you were the sensible one.”
Her good humor switches off. She eyes me with that questioning look I saw all too often in the few days we spent together at Fort Dassari. “Is the Red still haunting you, sir?”
“It’s still out there, Jaynie, if that’s what you’re asking, but it hasn’t messed with me since Black Cross... not in a way I’ve noticed.”
“Kendrick said people are working on it. Not just here in Coma-land. Outside too, where there’s still good information flow. But you want to know what I think?”
“Yeah,” I say in surprise. “I do.” Jaynie doesn’t offer her opinion often, and she’s a hell of a smart person.
“I think most of the people who know anything about this stuff don’t want to get rid of the Red. They want to control it, because whoever figures out first how to do that gets to run things.”
I nod. This makes sense to me.
She goes on, “Even if you couldn’t control it... if you could analyze what it does and predict what it might do next, then you’d know when to launch your assault and when to hold it back.”
I flash on Lissa, submerged somewhere in a secure facility, trying to understand the Red. Kendrick advised me to learn to live with the Red... but Jaynie’s right. It would be a better trick to learn to use it.
~~~
We will be operating as an LCS, so the equipment gathered in the room includes everything necessary to rig an LCS soldier in the Alaskan winter—insulated camo, insulated footwear, self-heating gloves, armor, helmets, M-CL1a’s, ammo, explosives, and of course, exoskeletons. There’s even an angel, adrift above the lodge, waiting to accompany us on the mission. All of the equipment provided to us is new, and none of it is army. None of it is even marked as belonging to any particular outfit. We will be anonymous, just like the organization behind First Light.
The only army equipment the squad will be using are the skullcaps. Everyone brought their own. I have my skullnet of course, and the robot legs, but those are part of me now.
“Hey, Shelley,” Ransom says. “Take a look.”
He’s got a small plastic box, maybe eight by four inches in area and three inches high. He’s careful to keep it level. Perforations run around the sides. He holds it in front of a light while I peer inside. Something’s moving in there. I hear the skittering of feet.
“Robo-rats,” Kendrick says, taking the box. “Three of them—though whether they’ll survive the cold, we don’t know.”
The temperature is predicted to drop to zero before dawn.
Shima helps us organize the gear, making sure everyone gets the equipment sized for them. I dress in insulated fatigues printed in a white and gray camo pattern. My backpack is the same material. I load it carefully, every item precisely placed. We’ve been provided with abundant ammunition and explosives so I take as much as I can practically carry. Kendrick orders each of us to take three days’ worth of rations, just in case. We’re also provided with a summer-weight uniform, to change into sometime on the flight to Africa.
My primary weapon is still an M-CL1a HITR, but Rawlings has gifts for all of us: compact Berettas, just in case. I hold mine under a light and examine it. There’s no serial number; nothing to trace it back to our benefactor.
Only a few of us are putting our names on this action.
I have no idea how deep this conspiracy runs; how wide its reach might be. Kendrick said he’s at the core of the organization, but the only thing he would say about the money was that it came from private sources.
I look up, to find Rawlings watching me.
He nods at the gun. “You’re asking yourself who’s financing us. Who paid for all this equipment? Who could afford it?”
I would have sworn everyone in the room was focused on packing, but as he says these words, silence falls.
Better to clear up the issue now, than to go forward burdened with doubt. “It would make some sense if we were being outfitted by a rival defense contractor.”
“It would make sense,” Rawlings agrees. “But there is no corporate money in this room. We are funded by the donations of individuals who still believe we should have a government by the people, for the people—not one hijacked by the global elite. For three years we’ve done nothing but talk and plan and talk some more, but by God, the talking is done. When the mechanisms of justice fail, justice must be served by other means. That’s our mission, Lieutenant. That’s your mission.”
It’s easy to be cynical when pretty words are deployed, but my overlay’s facial analysis indicates Rawlings is sincere and besides, I’ve already made my choice, I’m all in, so his pretty words sound right to me. “Yes, sir. We are here to take Thelma Sheridan to trial.” I return the Beretta to its clip-on holster, stowing it in the top of my pack. “That’s all that matters now.”
Rawlings nods his approval. “Keep your goals clear and you’ll have a chance to achieve them.”
Kendrick calls me aside. Shima joins us, carrying a tablet. Kendrick says, “Shima’s got software for your overlay that will let you link it into gen-com. Treat it as a backup system. We’ve also authorized the drone to accept the standard feed from your overlay, and to relay links from you to Colonel Rawlings.”
“Yes, sir.”
Shima looks up from her tablet. “While the mission is underway, the angel will be the only point of contact for your overlay, and it will only link you to Colonel Rawlings. There’s no need to worry about the security of the connection. Just like with the helmets, all your communications
will be encrypted and anonymized, before they’re passed through a satellite link.”
She slides an icon on the tablet. A link wakes up in my overlay. “Connection to the angel confirmed,” she says.
“Gen-com?”
“Coming up.”
I see a new icon wink into existence. “Got it.”
Shima sends me a sound test; I send one to her. “Working,” she concludes.
“Good,” Kendrick says. “Now shut it off. We will be maintaining EM silence at the start.”
We strap into the dead sisters that have been provided for us, adjusting the length of the struts and testing all the mechanisms. Our helmets go on next. I link to my skullnet, to my HITR, to the angel waiting outside in the night, and to everyone else in the squad. Only Delphi is missing. We’ll be operating without Guidance—but then we had to do that inside Black Cross too.
We’re ready to go. We shake hands with Anne Shima and Colonel Rawlings, who says, “Godspeed.”
Then we file outside. We’re a rogue militia, nine in number. That’s more than I had at Dassari. I tell myself it’s enough.
It has to be.
~~~
We leave the lodge at 2107. The sky is cloudy, keeping the temperature above five degrees. We’re lucky there’s no wind. Twenty-seven kilometers lie between us and the Apocalypse Fortress. I put Jaynie out front. It’s a good decision; she sets a determined pace. We stay a couple hundred yards inland, paralleling the coast, going single file and keeping under the trees when we can, but snow is predicted for later tonight, so I’m not too worried about leaving a trail.
Despite the still air, it’s fucking cold. The cyborg legs aren’t affected, but they’re affecting me. They’re a heat dump. It doesn’t matter that I’m wearing snow boots and insulated fatigues. Without body heat, without blood circulating into the legs, they take on the temperature of the air from the foot up to the knee. Above the knee, I feel like I have rods of ice jammed into the stumps of my legs.
