by Russ Linton
“He’ll find him.” Hound opens the paper. “That was his job—recovery and delivery. Idiot thinks he’s still doin’ it.”
“Are you going to turn us in?”
No answer.
“What about you? What was your job, sir?”
“Sniffer.” Between lazy turns of the pages, Hound rattles off his resume. “Findin’ unexploded ordinance, Jerrys in bunkers, Japs in tunnels, landmines.” Hound’s eyes travel to Hurricane’s empty bed before slipping back into the Local News section. “Keepin’ soldiers outta trouble.”
“Are you, uh, in charge, here? In charge of Hurricane?”
“You ever try to grab a rocket in flight?” Snowy eyebrows that remind me of caterpillars come together as Hound peeks over the paper. “I’ve been tellin’ him for months that we’re awaiting deployment at a captured German HQ. I think that’s why they put me with ‘im. They know I’m stupid enough to keep doin’ my job. But nobody gives him orders. They tried strappin’ him down for a bit, but he thought he’d been captured and caught his bed on fire wiggling at the restraints.”
“You haven’t been here since the War, have you, sir?”
“Hell, no. Not me. Stationed here a year or so. ‘For my own safety’. That Black Beetle menace was tearing up the world. Old tunnel rats like me were just gettin’ in the way. Was kinda hoping we’d be assigned to kick his bug ass.” Hound sighs and nods toward the empty door. “Hurricane’s been here longer. Ever since his mind started going. Might be ten years.”
I can’t stop myself from asking, “Who else was brought here?”
“As far as I can tell, all of us in the program got the same marching orders. Can’t say they all responded.”
“What about the Crimson Mask?”
Hound inhales again and his eyes go wide then quickly settle. “Guess he had his orders, too.”
“Such as?”
“You’d have to ask him,” Hound says matter-of-factly.
I really wish I could. Maybe he was supposed to do the same, turn himself in to the government. Maybe then the Black Beetle would have left us alone. Dad couldn’t stop him anyway. How was he even a threat to whatever bullshit plans that guy dreamed up?
“Why are you here? This place looks deserted.” I press for more under his piercing stare and when he finally answers, he’s no longer sizing me up.
“The few that showed up, they moved out in small groups to another facility. Me, Hurricane, Polybius were gonna be the last. All this happened while they were taking this place down around our ears. Probably a goddamn paperwork problem, why we got left behind. Always paperwork problems.”
“But why relocate everyone?”
Hound sees the confusion and twitches his nose. “I don’t ask questions, son. I just follow orders.” He reaches to the bedside table and picks up an older, faded newspaper. He tosses it in my lap. It’s folded to a page—the obituaries.
At first, I find I’m reading the entries and focused on the younger ones, to see what might have killed them. Twenties or thirties, with a normal life, a normal job. No traipsing through war zones or obvious signs of Augment parents that dragged them into a world of shit. How does someone like that die? Then, those same intense eyes currently studying the newspaper are staring back at me. Captain Arnold E. Raffens, born April 15th 1928, died January 23rd, 2011. World War Two veteran, awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in the European and Pacific theaters. Father, husband, grandfather.
I check his face to compare the details before asking, “Mister Raffens?”
“Sir is fine.”
“What about your kids? Do they know, sir?”
He’s speaking in a gruff whisper now. “Hell, I didn’t know until my superiors handed me the paper. I’d already come in as ordered. I suspect my family was given a cover story.”
“Then you got left here to rot?”
Hound squares up and glowers at me as he rumbles, “When you’re part of the program, you sign your life away. It’s right there in the fine print. They make sure you read it. They make sure you understand it. They get shrinks to poke around your head and really make sure you understand. Only after all that do they juice you up.”
“But they can’t own somebody!”
“They don’t own anyone, son.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Nobody nowadays really gets it. I signed up for it. I signed up to serve my country at any cost. I was ready to dry up to dust in the Sahara, be blown to shit in a snow-packed Alpine pass or lay down on a grenade on a Godforsaken hunk of rock in the Pacific. I asked to serve and will continue to do so.”
“But dragging you out here and locking you up until you die? How is that—”
“I’d die for this country a hundred times over, son.”
“Sounds more like a death camp than a retirement home.”
Hound grumbles but can’t manage a full response. I walk toward Polybius’s wheezing form. From a distance, his bulbous head was hairless, but closer I see thin wisps sprouting from the top and waving in an unseen breeze. Featureless pearl globes fill the socket of his eyes and split lips bubble with phlegm.
Hound crosses the room and swipes a rag off the table, gently wiping Polybius’s face. “Guess he was the reason you came here?”
My sinus cavities vibrate and the door slams shut with a rush of air. “Yeah, right where I thought he’d be,” Hurricane proclaims, now standing at his bedside smiling. Eyes closed, lying on the bed, is Eric. “Took me a bit longer, he ain’t no buck fifty.”
“What happened to him?” I rush to Eric’s side.
“He passed right out when I found him on the hill! He’ll be fine, won’t be the first person I scared the daylights out of.”
“’Cane, sit down. Get your weight off that leg of yours.”
A heaving cough can’t erase Hurricane’s smile as he slides onto the edge of the bed.
Hound eyes Eric then me, and his gaze lightly touches upon the paper in my lap. With a sigh, he asks, “So what’s it about this data you’ve got?”
I fish the laptop and the sealed bag from my backpack. “The data on this is my only lead.”
“And you’re relying on him?” Hound hooks a thumb toward Polybius’s inert form.
Hurricane hops across the room, prosthetic in hand and hovers over Polybius. Reaching into a pocket of his gown, he pulls out an inhaler and takes two long drags. Vapor curling out through his permanent grin, he sees me staring. “Gettin’ old is shit, kid. Avoid that as long as ya can!”
Hound slaps at the air and growls, “Go on and get outta here with your friend. Chuck found your car and told me to keep a look out earlier, but I see no reason you need to be hauled off.”
“No, sir. There’s got to be something here that can help!”
“You’re not hearin’ me. They stripped the place down. Evacuated all personnel and it’s just us.” Hound motions lifelessly to the room.
“Don’t listen to him, kid. Polybius there’s a genius when it comes to numbers and codes. Never met him ‘til I got here, but I’d swear he’s worth fifty of them damn vacuum-tube countin’ machines them Brits have!”
“’Cane, shut your mouth. Stop getting this kid’s hopes up.”
“You’re just too proud to admit he’s better at them Jap puzzles than you. I’ll never understand that, but they’re some crafty yellow bastards, I’ll give ‘em that.”
“Jap puzzles?” Sure, he sounds completely insane, but I have to ask.
“Yeah, the ones they started putting in the paper.”
“’Cane…” Hound’s glare is icy and a powerful jaw twitches beneath his cheeks.
“Soe-doo-kee. Sow-duck-oh. Whatever the hell you’ve been calling it. Solves them in a jiff when you done lost your wits.”
“Sudoku?” I exclaim and stare openmouthed at Hurricane, who’s absently itching at his leg.
“Yeah! That’s it! Crafty little guys.”
Chapter 34
“What’s this about Sudoku?” Eri
c sounds groggy as he rolls to one side and leans on his elbow in the hospital bed.
“He’s comin’ to!” Hurricane calls out from the bedside. At the sound of Hurricane’s voice, Eric flies out of the bed, causing a spine-tingling screech of the metal frame on concrete. In his bewildered state he staggers away from the door and traps himself in an empty corner. From the look on his face, he’d bolt if he had a clear path to the door.
“Relax, man!” I put my arms out front and make myself seen as quick as I can. Eric hones in on the movement of my approach.
“Spencer, they got you, too?”
“Uh, no. Nobody’s got us,” I say and glance at Hound. “Right?” Hound snaps the paper open and a low harrumph rises from the business section. “We’re safe.”
“Okay.” Eric nods slowly. His wandering gaze settles on Hurricane. “He, he came out of nowhere, Spencer.”
Hurricane smiles the same toothless grin. “You didn’t see me. Happens all the time.” Hurricane, at a volume the whole room can hear, adds, “He’s shell-shocked. He’ll get over it.”
“Eric, this is Hurricane.” I know Eric has heard of this guy. Everyone has. But his wide-eyed freak-out face doesn’t change. Shell-shocked, huh? “Augment Force Zero Hurricane,” I say, hoping to get some sort of reaction.
“A pleasure,” Hurricane says, hitching up his gown and digging a pair of fingers between his leg and the prosthesis.
“And the guy behind the paper is Hound.” Neither Eric nor Hound responds. Desperate, I lean in close to Eric, hopefully out of earshot and whisper, “They’re Augments, like us.”
That generates a blank nod. I steal another glance and Hound has lowered his newsprint barricade, glaring with narrowed eyes. Great. Super hearing, too? Does he piss with one leg in the air? I sigh and turn my attention back to Eric.
This was supposedly all part of his imaginary world, and now he can’t even speak. I wave Hurricane away from the bed and guide Eric there. He sits with all the sincerity of a coiled spring.
“So,” I say at a volume I hope is loud enough to pierce Eric’s mental breakdown, “that was a good question, Eric. What was that about Sudoku? Hurricane?”
Hurricane’s face lights up. “Oh, come on, Hound, the guy can solve ‘em in his sleep. Just show the kid. You won’t bother him none.”
When I’m sure Eric is sitting under his own power, I move to the stack of papers on the nightstand and start digging despite Hound’s sideways stare. Doesn’t matter if Hound won’t talk, I’m going to figure this out. Snatching the “Games and Puzzles” section, I spill the better part of the Sunday edition onto the floor.
Hound grabs my arm. “Kid, you leave him alone.” His voice is gruff, and his grip, while strong, couldn’t quite rip my arm off.
“Why?”
“He’s done his duty.”
“So you’re seriously going to tell me that seeing if he can help save my mom is a bad idea? But using him to solve Sudoku is a noble cause?”
“That isn’t how it happened,” Hound says and flashes a look at Hurricane. “I used to read the paper to him. One day he started spoutin’ out numbers. Thought it was gibberish until I noticed the puzzles were facin’ his way.”
“Maybe if I show him the data he can do the same?”
Hound stoops low, nose-to-nose, and his grip tightens. “I said no. They find out he’s got an ounce of juice in that scrambled brain of his, they’ll come back for him. They want him in service. Either that, or he’s got information locked in there they needed.” He releases me and starts peeling away the blankets, which are tightly wound around Polybius. As they unravel, Polybius’s form shrinks into an emaciated shape. He’s covered in bruises, broken by odd lumps and projections where bones shouldn’t be. Cables run the length of his left arm, burrowing somewhere into his chest through puckered patches of skin. Several panels with LEDs blink on his abdomen. A plate on his arm displays more lights and numbers.
The puzzle section that I held flutters to the floor. Another pop of pressure, and Hurricane is maneuvering a limp Eric onto the far bed. Hound takes in the impact crater that is my face and starts tucking the blankets around Polybius again. He growls, “He’s done his duty, son.”
I’m only vaguely aware of Hound as he finishes covering Polybius. The battered form shows through the careful tucks and folds. Hound grumbles, “If they coulda put his brain in a jar and made it talk, they would’ve.”
“Is this what they do to Augments? You?”
Hound’s eyes flit up from his work. “He’s the only one. A failed program. They sent him back from it this way. Die in peace.”
“But you don’t even know where that is! How can you not be sure this isn’t what they were going to do to you?” I ask.
Hound finishes smoothing out the blankets around Polybius and starts to pick the papers off the floor. “We talked about this. Whatever they do, I signed up a long time ago.”
Once again, Polybius is wrapped in comfort, or a death shroud; I can’t say which. I watch the blankets rise and fall with a perfect rhythm. Causing someone unnecessary pain isn’t what I’m after, but I’ve got to get Hound to let me at least try. “Nobody will ever know what happened here, Hound. I—”
A vicious stare shuts me down. “Wake up your friend and get the hell out of here!”
“No.”
The stare intensifies.
“No, sir.”
“Hurricane, carry these guys out of here. They aren’t cleared for any of this!”
“But, what about Blaise’s code?”
“Are you questioning my orders, soldier? These kids are a security risk, they gotta go.” Hound’s got to be almost eighty, ninety? But standing there, straight-backed, his chest puffed out by impeccable posture, his white sleeves cinched up tight around his biceps, he may as well have stepped off the battlefield yesterday. The mark on his arm is fully exposed—a tattoo of an eagle perched on a globe and anchor, with the words “Semper Fi”.
Hurricane wobbles over. I step back, even though trying to play keep-away from this guy would be pointless. I can at least glower at him defiantly while he runs me halfway across the state. Maybe I can struggle a bit, wiggle free somewhere close enough to walk my no-power-having ass back here and do this song and dance again.
Our eyes meet and I see a similar fire burning behind his. A little gleam that shimmers behind the craziness. Not defiance but anticipation. “You said you were nineteen, kid?” Hurricane asks.
“Yeah.” I can let the kid reference slide.
“Same age I was when I started my scenic tour of Europe and Southeast Asia. I had to protect my country, my family. Never regretted it. Right?” He squares up with Hound, who puffs up under his crossed arms. “But that was a long time ago. Right now, I’m not here ‘cause anyone asked me to be. I’m not even here ‘cause it was the right thing to do. I’m here ‘cause this is one of those things that once you’ve found it, you can’t let go. And it won’t let go of you. But at least I’m man enough to admit that.”
In this moment, Hurricane’s mind seems free from whatever prison the past has walled him into. Hound senses the change, too. His imperious posture relaxes and his jaw muscles form hardened wedges.
“Please,” I say. “This is for my mom. We never signed up for this.”
Hound stoops enough that his face is level with mine. Unblinking, he takes in every detail and his chest expands with a sharp inhale through his nostrils. “Make it quick. Hurricane, watch the hall in case Chuck does his rounds.”
“Yes, sir.” Hurricane salutes and hobbles to the doorway.
In seconds, I’m booting up the laptop, ripping open the bio-bag and slipping the thumb drive into an empty slot. Now what? I hold the screen up to Polybius’s face. I didn’t notice before, but his eyeballs are rolling back and forth beneath the lids. Without lashes, they’d seemed melded together in one smooth surface. The lids part, but only a white sliver ever peeks through.
I flip the laptop toward me
and pop open the server emulation program that loads the login screens. After digging down to the password prompt for the Black Beetle’s files, I turn the screen toward Polybius. There’s no response. I enter a bogus password. “Polybius, I need the password.” The empty eyes continue to scan, his mouth hangs open.
“He can’t answer you,” Hound says. He’s trying to sound uninterested even as he’s leaning over my shoulder.
“No shit, sir.”
Hurricane wheezes out a chuckle from the doorway, “Easy now, Blaise. You aren’t supposed to know his bark is worse than his bite.”
Without turning I mutter an apology and dive back into the laptop. I know the guy laying in front of me is little more than a pile of wires and a breathing machine, but I’m willing to try anything at this point. Putting a bunch of code in his face to decipher seems legit. Desperate, but legit.
I open the first hodgepodge of coded files. At first, Polybius stares blankly at the screen. Then, his eyes crawl open revealing empty, pale orbs. A blunt, hammering voice fills the room, echoing letters and numbers in bizarre sequences. Hound stares open-mouthed, and Hurricane leans on the door frame, watching us, not the hall.
My jaw is clenched shut and I swallow, trying to loosen my tongue enough to speak. “Yeah, I’d say we’ve outclassed the vacuum tubes.” The inert form of Polybius rattles off information in a continuous stream. Sometimes binary and sometimes hexadecimal, I begin to decipher that much, but it’s never plain English.
Right about now, Eric would be really useful. There’s no table space nearby, so I gently rest the laptop on Polybius’s bed and cross the room to stand by Eric. I shake him and call his name. No response. I try again, a bit harder this time. “C’mon! Wake up!”
He opens his eyes and they roll back in his head with a groan. “Nooooo! I’m still here? I was hoping someone laced my weed.”
“Get up! You don’t even smoke.”
“I will. As soon as we get home, I fucking-A will!”
“Come on!” Wedging a shoulder behind his back, I push and shove to get him on his feet. “You’re an Augment! Act like one! Get off your ass and help me out!”
