Discarded

by Mark A. Ciccone

  One of the Council leader’s eyebrows made the tiniest quirk at the last question. Greg felt his lips turn up an inch. ‘And I’m guessing you already have some idea how to do all that?’ he ventured.

  Hiroshi’s smirk was downright conspiratorial. ‘I might.’ As soon as he spoke, though, the smirk vanished. ‘There are still risks involved – and at least one part of it would prove more dangerous than anything else, it if tanks.’ He let out a little sigh. ‘But, when set against everything else, it’s still the one with the best likelihood of success.’

  ‘We’re already all at risk,’ Megan returned, looking less and less patient. ‘Just lay it out, and we’ll decide if it works – or if we need to add a certain smartass to the threat list.’ This last came out warningly, but with an undercurrent of exasperated amusement.

  Hiroshi’s smile returned, broader. ‘Very well, then.’ He laid out the details in a few curt sentences. Greg felt his astonishment grow as the pieces of the plan fell into place, buttressed by a slower-rising sense of amazement at its audacity. Judging by Leah’s stare, Megan’s calculated look, and Jorge’s sagging jaw, their impressions marched with his. A quick glance to Cayden showed the older Golem watching them all, face stolid, perfectly still but for the faint rise and fall of his chest.

  When the Council leader was finished, Leah spoke up first. ‘Well, when you said risks—’ She broke off. Rallying, she went on in a different tack, pointing in turn to the front doors, ‘You honestly think we can get those two to go along with this – even at gunpoint, if it comes to it?’

  ‘If there was a chance of that, I wouldn’t be proposing this,’ Hiroshi replied, now looking completely serious. ‘Too many things would potentially go wrong if we had to drag them to get this done, and everyone here would suffer for it. But after seeing that’—he pointed to the helmet—‘and learning everything he has from us, and his “partner”, I have the feeling Patrick isn’t much in the mood to play at spooks anymore. Whether or not he believes we weren’t responsible is moot; all he’ll want is the chance to make known that his men were thrown away, and over a threat that some of the spooks kept from the others, and his superiors.’

  He picked up the canister, palm flat as if weighing it. ‘As for Costa, personal attitudes aside, it all comes down to whether he wants everything – this, the Sanctuary, the Rangers, Hargrove – to come out. Any agent with sense – and he’d have to be, to have become part of the Special Activities Division – would want the chance to report in before an operation went completely out of control. Especially if he was attached to it as just a minder, and lost control from the start. In which case, his superiors would be next up for the axe – which gives him, and them, some room to manoeuvre. Assuming they’re informed quickly, ahead of whatever Hargrove and his team have planned. That happens, we have room ourselves.’

  He looked at each of the Council members. A fierce resolve burned in his eyes; more emotion than Greg had ever seen him show before. ‘However quickly the Agency gets word of us, it will still take time for them to organise the right response. Even more so, if they have to devise the right spin for the new government to excuse or authorise their move; doing otherwise only amplifies the risk to them.’ His fingers snapped closed around the canister. ‘By the time they have both in place, we’ll have already probed the source of the signal, and, possibly, dealt with Hargrove and his people. With both of those achieved, and the information and capabilities on this’ —he shook the canister once, for emphasis—‘finally revealed, we have leverage enough to hold off any retaliation.’

  He shook the canister again. ‘Possible rally points and hideouts of the other surviving Golems. Locations of hidden Project weapons caches, here and around the world – perhaps even nuclear. Specs of the ARC design process, and possible improvements. Info pointing to the methods for another Pulse; there’s still no consensus on how it happened, and everyone would fear the capability in hands not theirs.’ He paused. ‘At the top of it all: the truth of our origins. The families and people who gave us up: where they came from, if they knew what we were headed for, why they did it. How we were modified into what we are, and what we’ve done over the past twenty years and more. Any one of these would be enough to give D.C. and the world pause, for a time… but that would freeze them all in their tracks. And we would have the chance not merely to survive, but to live. To build a home for ourselves – and to make it last.’

  He set the canister down. No one else in the room made a sound. Hiroshi sat straight, and pushed himself back a little from the table, the picture of self-control again. ‘Of course, given the dangers if I’m wrong, I can’t and won’t force anyone on this Council, or joining in’—he gave Cayden a polite nod—‘to approve my proposal. If we go with this, then it’s a unanimous decision – no holdouts. At the slightest sign that the Sanctuary is threatened, we pull the plug and evacuate. Were more time available, I’d put the matter to a vote from the whole population. This threat encompasses everyone, along with those who haven’t arrived, and we were chosen based on original rank, skills and the simpler fact that we arrived first, more than for any real skills.’ He let a deprecatory smirk cross his features. ‘Since there isn’t, I can only put the idea to the Council – and let you decide if I warrant a different kind of suit than a clinger.’ He folded his arms, resting elbows on the table’s edge in a style reminiscent of a straitjacket.

  None of them laughed. Greg looked at Leah, then at Megan, Jorge, and Cayden. Leah still appeared uncertain, but less so than before. Megan’s face was solemn, with a hint of awed respect beneath the surface as she studied Hiroshi; a sign she’d already made up her mind. Cayden still showed nothing, but there was a new set in his legs and frame, indicating he was ready to leave now. Jorge’s dumbfounded expression was gone, but the tech looked even less sure than Leah; no doubt he’d already run through all the variables, and didn’t like the odds. Greg already had himself, with barely the smallest portion of Jorge’s skills and knowledge, and hated them, too.

  How bad will they be if we do nothing? Or try to handle either threat, by itself, and fail? The answers were clear there – brutally so, after their tangles with the Boys in Brown. But those creatures were coming any way the Council voted. Then the question’s simple, like Hiroshi laid out. What’s the option with risks and ‘the best likelihood of success’?

  The answer to that was plain. Turning to look at Leah, he saw the same impression in her eyes, shot through with a greater apprehension than his – but also a growing resolve. He turned to Megan, and Jorge; they each had the same look, now. Bringing his gaze to meet Hiroshi’s, he lowered his head, in a slow nod. The Council leader made the same gesture, equally grave. One by one, the others on the Council did the same. They all looked to Cayden. The older Golem didn’t speak, or nod, or give any sign, yet the readiness was palpable in his frame. Greg’s sigh was almost soundless. So: Decided. Of their own will, his eyes slid to the far wall once again. Now we see what ‘success’ it leads us to.

  Chapter 18

  Approaching Bainbridge Island, eastern shore

  Choppy waves lashed the motorboat, throwing up cold spray. The sky was overcast, unlike that above the Evergreen campus. The darkest clouds loomed several miles to the northeast, over the downtown Seattle area. The Geiger counter at the boat’s dashboard was clicking faster and faster with every yard, until the sounds almost began to blur together.

  Staring ahead, Greg held the scanner to his ear again. The ping of the signal Hiroshi had pinpointed had increased again, in volume and frequency. They had left Gig Harbour behind them a few minutes before and were now squarely between Vashon Island and the Kitsap Peninsula. He watched the patchy acres of tumbled suburban beach homes and regrown forest go by on both sides with disinterest for a moment, before facing ahead again. Within ten minutes, twenty at the most, they would be past Blake Island, and approaching Seattle Harbour: the heart of the Bomb’s detonation, and the hottest zone anywhere on the planet outsid
e of Hong Kong, Karachi or Lake Balkash. Already, before entering the inlet, he had been able to make out the lines of the city’s half-ruined and decaying skyscrapers and waterfront, and the tiny, tilted pinnacle of the Space Needle, all poking through a shroud of distance and late-morning fog.

  The threat of rads wasn’t the only one on his mind, though. His eyes shifted right, to the east. He couldn’t see the Cascades from where he was, of course – but he didn’t need to, not to wonder about what might be coming. They should be getting close to the CZ perimeter, by now. Another hour, maybe two, they’ll be able to reach the base. Quicker, maybe, with Jorgerelayingperimeter security,route and fallout info through Overwatch– and looking into that ‘Pax’deal, if it’s real– Hiroshi coordinating the patrols, and Megan at the wheel.

  What would happen then, Greg could only guess – and didn’t like any of the guesses that came to mind. The idea itself flew in the face of everything he’d trained for – but there was a big enough kernel of logic at the centre that still kept him from objecting, as it had at the Longhouse. Costa had come around to it first, when it was laid out to him; maybe he was enough of a newbie that he hadn’t considered the idea of betrayal – or he just saw it as a better chance of survival. Patrick had taken a bit more time, but in the end had agreed, and more emphatically than the Agency man. From his look, the Ranger colonel was set on revenge above anything else, and relished any chance that gave him close to the freedom he needed for it. After that, the nuts and bolts were easy: weapons, rad-hardened transport and radios, profile scramblers for any satellites passing over. The Cascades were the biggest obstacle, coming and going. Once Costa and Patrick were gone, there was no telling what would return.

  Hiroshi’s got to be crazy,or brilliant, Greg thought. With the other Golem’s record, either was possible; the proposal had certainly shown such. And the Urumqi mission was evidence enough already. No one else would’vethought to just walk up to that People’s Liberation Armypress office, in broad daylight, and just drop the flash drives and memory cardsoff, like any othermilitarycourier. Through his doing so, the Xinjiang-based terror group behind the Hong Kong and Shanghai attacks had been exposed and destroyed, and World War III averted. But Greg still shuddered at the thought, if they’d screwed up, of having to fight their way through four armoured divisions and several hundred miles of mountains and steppes – and then getting to the South China coast, through even more troops and cities.

  He spared a moment to look back at the other two in the group. Cayden sat to port, fully suited, an XM10 in his lap. Leah was opposite him, likewise equipped. The three of them had hardly spoken since departing Eld Inlet. Cayden’s silence was the most unnerving. He had gone through the packing and other prep for the mission without complaint, and without any sign of how he viewed Hiroshi’s idea from the start, or thought about what they might find or learn before all this ended. Not knowing what to say, nobody else had said a word to him the entire time. From his blank, stolid demeanour, though, Greg suspected he was more unsettled and anxious to have this done with than any of them. The best, whether Golem or human, always crawled inside themselves before an assignment. Of course, Cayden had worn such a mask since their meeting at the cabin – and all the more after what had been hinted there. Who could say what that would lead to – most of all with one of the ‘First Five’, unknown to virtually all the later generations?

  A new smudge appeared on the horizon: Blake Island. Instead of speeding up, Greg throttled back a bit. He cast his eyes to both sides, behind the clinger hood’s protective lenses. A light crackling sounded in his ears, resolving into Leah’s voice. ‘Problem?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He pointed to starboard, at the tip of Vashon Island, then to port towards the ruins of the Southworth ferry port. ‘Perfect spots for an ambush. Just making sure we don’t gun right into it.’

  They passed through the outlet less than a minute later. He squinted at both points. The clinger’s lenses magnified, bringing them into sharp relief. There was a rusting, half-collapsed ferry dock on side, and two lines of abandoned shorefront houses, many of them likewise decrepit or overgrown. He turned the wheel, bringing Blake Island to their starboard side. Soon they’d be inside Rich Passage, the inlet between Bainbridge and Kitsap. At that point, they’d be closing in on the likely cleanest spots to put ashore on the latter island; Keysport was an option, or further up in Liberty Bay. After that, it was a few short miles to the origin point of whatever Hiroshi had picked up.

  Greg let his attention drift a little, thinking back. He couldn’t clearly remember ever staging through Naval Base Kitsap, though it was possible. Golems had always travelled in blacked-out vehicles and aircraft when outside the Facility, as an added security measure, and did not speak to anyone until on-site for their mission. Before the Bomb, it had been the third-largest naval facility in the USA, and a major submarine and strategic nuclear weapon base. The subs and nukes had all gone to sea or been scattered to other bases at the time of the Turmoil, given the still-high tensions with China and fears of domestic terror attacks. This had left only a handful of smaller surface ships and Coast Guard patrols, but the Army and Guard presence in Seattle and the air wing at Lewis-McChord had probably seemed like enough protection.

  Until the Bomb proved otherwise. From the Overwatch sweeps before their departure, Greg and the rest of the Council had gotten a general but still striking impression of where the blast had occurred, and how it had affected the entire Sound area. The radioactivity readings from the piggybacked satellite had hit their highest point in the waters between Shoreline and the uppermost part of the Kitsap peninsula, a little south of Indianola. This indicated the Bomb had most likely been set off aboard a ship: a trawler, or small commercial craft, given how closely watched freighter traffic was, then and now. Why the blast hadn’t happened dead-centre in the Seattle harbour was unclear. Maybe security had prevented the ship from getting so close, or the device had detonated early – or it had been set off in the intended spot. Probably no one would ever know.

  The explosion had sent out a shockwave of energy and radioactive water rippling across the Sound, striking every coast from Lakewood to Camano Island. In the downtown Seattle area, these had reached somewhere between fifty and a hundred feet, washing up more almost a mile inland, killing, injuring and irradiating who knew how many in addition to the untold number already affected by the initial burst; the Space Needle had taken the most starkly obvious damage in this. Bainbridge Island, Bremerton, and most of the other coastal urban spots were also wrecked, sowing more chaos and death.

  Within an hour, the mushroom cloud had dissipated – into a deadly shroud of hot mist, covering Seattle, the Kitsap region, all the islands in between, and as far inland to the west as Bellevue and Redmond. Olympia and other areas at the fringe had taken it on the chin as well, but days later, and in lesser amounts; prevailing winds had blown much of the post-blast drift to the east and southeast. The Army and Navy had tried to establish a cordon, while they salvaged what they could from Seattle and Kitsap, but the pressure of refugees and radiation had soon outweighed these plans, and they pulled back across the Cascades and the Columbia River, leaving the region to burn and decay.

  When Greg, Leah and the other first arrivals had come, there had been almost no sign of regular human presence, and nature had made serious inroads over the flooded and burned-out cities and stretches of suburbia. A few brave or stupid smugglers and looters had combed through the remains – some still did, further south – but the radcount was still too high for even the most daring to travel north of Olympia. The towns and villages west of the Olympic Mountains – Aberdeen, Westport, and others – still existed, but on life-support; kind estimates put their population decline at half, maybe more, with spotty power and food, and little to no real economy. Rads aside, no one seemed to want to live next to a giant mass grave.

  Except for those who’realready in it, for all intents and purposes. Greg shook his head, trying to ge
t free of the thought; difficult to do, with the sights around him. From a purely tactical sense, it was perfect: where better to hide than in the one place no humans could enter and live in? Golems weren’t immune to rads – the image of Taylor swam up, an instant before he slapped it down – but they could live in lesser-affected areas for months and years longer than any other being on the planet. Whatever the Doc put into us growing up, he made it to work, and last. A new glance to the northwest. If there is something to be found here, maybe it’ll shed light on that– and where we got it, and why.

  He was reaching for the throttle when the bullet snapped past his ear. He dropped flat to the deck before he fully realised what it was. More shots whipped overhead, shattering the speedboat’s windshield and punching into the dashboard. M281s– at least two, his mind calculated automatically. Gripping the wheel from the bottom handles, he twisted it first hard left, then right, throwing the boat into a ragged zigzag.

  Fresh automatic fire broke out behind him. He lifted his head to see Cayden and Leah squeezing off short bursts at a craft some 600 yards behind them. Zooming in with the hood, he saw three figures standing in the vessel, clad in dark green coveralls. The boat’s wake pointed to its hideout in the tiny inlet just past the ferry port.

  Their friends in brown; it couldn’t be anyone else. He pulled himself up to a crouch, still holding the wheel. Should’ve pulled closer to the rad zone; then they wouldn’t have risked it– maybe. Tossing the self-reproach overboard, he punched the throttle. The engine roared, and the craft launched forward, climbing to 120mph. He clung to the wheel with all his strength, nearly tearing it from the panel. A quick glance back: the other speedboat was falling back steadily. That wouldn’t last – the craft had to be less waterlogged, and the engine less taxed.