9TALES FROM ELSEWHERE#3
© Copyright 2015 Bride of Chaos/ All Rights Reserved to the Authors.
First electronic edition 2015
Edited by A.R. Jesse
Cover by Turtle&Noise
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9TALES FROM ELSEWHERE#3
Table of Contents
INTERCEPTOR #7 by Shawn P. Madison
THE DUPLICITY OF DWARVES by Christopher J. Piatti
THE PERFECT GIRL by John B. Rosenman
THEY by Ace Antonio Hall
THE TWO NATIONS ARROW by Henry Brasater
CHILDREN OF SACRIFICE by Jim Lee
RAVEN GROVE by Kurt Magnus
PRAIRIE GRASS by Joseph W. Patterson
WESTERN ENDING by Daniel J. Kirk
TALES
FROM
ELSEWHERE
#3
INTERCEPTOR #7 by Shawn P. Madison
Dane Ratcliffe was a small man, very small. Standing at only four-feet, nine-inches tall, he by no means measured up to the rigid standards of the VBPD. But as a part of the BioMech Program, Ratcliffe fit in perfectly.
“Listen up, everyone,” Captain Marling said, snapping Ratcliffe’s attention back to the front of the briefing room. There were eleven others seated in the room with him, all small men, men who looked more like children than police officers. “As you all know, this latest mission is of the utmost importance. The Governor of the Mid-Atlantic Province is heading this way toward the end of the month. He’s going to want to tour the oceanfront areas and he’s going to want to see them clean and crime-free. So, I want as many filthy lawbreakers and all the other slime to get swept away now, all that we can get our hands on, while we still have a few weeks. Then all we’ll have to do is play clean-up every once in awhile until he gets here. That shouldn’t be too hard.”
The other eleven men who made up the BioMech Program were silent, staring intently ahead at their commanding officer, waiting to be told exactly what to do. The edges of Ratcliffe’s mouth turned slightly upward into the beginnings of a smile, something that surprised him in a nervous sort of way. He didn’t have to be told what was expected of him, he knew what was being implied. Captain Marling continued anyway.
“If there are any questions about what is being asked of you, please raise them now,” Marling offered and scanned the twelve faces before him. The overwhelming silence of the room met his request, not a single officer made a sound.
Sergeant Jack McHenry also stood at the front of the room, his gaze passing briefly over Ratcliffe’s smiling face. His eyes seemed to linger for just a moment on Ratcliffe before moving on, perhaps wondering, why the smile?
What a waste of city money, Ratcliffe thought to himself as he forgot about McHenry and settled his eyes back on Marling. Get on with it, Captain, make it plain and clear...
“Very well, then, the sweeping starts this morning at 0700,” Marling stated. “And it does not end until this city is clean, understood?”
This time the room erupted into a single sound of confirmation, twelve men barking in unison, before the silence returned.
Marling flashed a concerned glance over at McHenry and seemed to sigh just barely before turning back to the men of the BioMech Program, a unit better known in the streets as the Interceptors.
“Dismissed,” he said and the dozen small men stood as one, turned and headed for the door in single file.
Just like fucking robots, Ratcliffe thought although he was powerless to do any different. Just like our fucking machines...
Ted Deverger noted the anomalous readings on the monitor of Operator #7. Looking over at his notes, he caught the name, Ratcliffe, and punched up a summary of the officer’s scans and downloads over the past week. Everything looked to be barely within normal parameters but he noticed that each of the readings were on the high end of the scale. He watched the monitor as the dozen men that made up the VBPD’s BioMech Program walked out of the briefing room and toward the Cold Zone where their vehicles were waiting for them. He didn’t notice the telltale amber indicator that showed a failure in the #28 implant within Ratcliffe’s head.
It was only 0645 and they were already on the job. The midnight shift would be checking into headquarters soon and the morning shift wouldn’t be in for another hour or so, a perfect time for the zombies of the Interceptor Squad to come and go. Deverger yawned, too early in the day to be sitting here watching these freaks enter their creepy machines. Shit, if they didn’t spook everyone in the whole damn department, he thought to himself as another indicator lit in the far corner of his screen.
“Screw it, everything falls within normal range,” he muttered and exited the Ratcliffe Summary Report although he knew the pattern of high readings documented throughout the week should be reported to his supervisor. Instead, he recorded a few notes in the officer’s file and went back to scanning the other eleven members of the squad.
Ratcliffe followed behind Operator #6 and stopped obediently while the man turned to the left and climbed down into his machine. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the wheel of that glorious Interceptor, damn it to hell. Although he despised what that thing did to him each and every time he got behind the wheel, he couldn’t make himself stop. He couldn’t make himself quit coming here every day, couldn’t keep from fidgeting until his idiot Captain stopped talking and allowed them to march into the Cold Zone. The truth was, he was addicted to it, addicted to the sheer joy and ecstasy of his machine.
You tough-skinned, horned son-of-a-bitch, I hate you so much, he thought and immediately laughed inside. Not true, he loved the machine, loved it to the point where he found it hard to walk away from it at the end of the day. He didn’t know if that’s how it was for all the others, but it sure as hell was that way for him.
“Operator #7, prepare for vehicular entry,” a monotone voice echoed throughout the Cold Zone just as it did every morning. Ratcliffe could feel his pulse quicken, his heart pounding in his chest. YES! He thought, another day together, Rhino, another glorious day!
Ratcliffe turned to the left, walked precisely four steps off the line, performed a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn on his heels and began climbing down the cold steel ladder into his machine. Interceptor #7 fairly gleamed in the deep darkness of the pit. He could see his breath frosting in the lights reflecting down from overhead. Everything in the Cold Zone was a dreary shade of gray, different shades of gray, but all so dreadfully gray. His hands stung right through the gloves as they gripped the cold metal rungs of the ladder. “How you doing, baby?” He whispered and smiled yet again. Two smiles this morning, just what in the hell is happening to me?
In anticipation of his arrival, the machine began to hum and vibrate with excitement. The BioMech Series 340ATK was the very latest in Biological Mechanics, a brute-force death machine that was powered by the combat-enhanced psyche of its Operator as well as the 4,000 horsepower German engineered power-plant that gave it an amazing speed for such a large vehicle. Through a series of cranial implants, t
he machines were driven to higher performance by the intense emotions experienced by their human Operators; anger, thrill, rage and fear. This interface transformed the 340ATK into the ultimate in combat police gear.
The BioMech Series had first earned its reputation as an awesome street killer immediately after the lawlessness and hysteria that followed the nuclear bombing by terrorists of the Norfolk Naval Base at Chambers Field near Willoughby Bay in 2053. With all of Norfolk left uninhabitable and most of the city burning for more than two weeks, the three million surviving residents had pushed east towards Virginia Beach, quickly transforming the former tourism hot-spot into a starving metropolis. The neighboring towns of Chesapeake and Portsmouth, on the opposite side of Norfolk, quickly erected barriers between their borders and the affected area after the devastating terrorist attack, thus sealing in the five million combined citizens who now dwelt in overwhelmingly crowded conditions. With the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay effectively cut off to all future shipping traffic by the residual radiation of the multi-megaton yield of the weapon and the military occupation of Portsmouth and Hampton across the bay, there was no easy way in or out of Virginia Beach except by sea and there hadn’t been for close to four years.
Four long and agonizing years. People by the thousands brutalized by gangs of drug-pushers and users each and every day, killings and beatings too numerous to count. Armed robbery had become a way of life for most of the Beachers, as they were now called. Virginia Beach was soon declared to be under a state of Martial Law by the Governor of the Mid-Atlantic Province, an area that contained Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Governor James Karsey had acted swiftly and with the full approval of the President once the true effects of the nuclear attack on Norfolk were made clear. Within weeks, the military had sealed off all access into North Carolina and had dismantled a two-hundred meter section of both directionals of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The VBPD had set up shop on the outskirts of Camp Pendleton, just off of General Booth Boulevard and very near the Atlantic Ocean, while the combined military forces that were still occupying the area’s military bases fought day and night to keep the hungry millions out of their territory. Little Creek Amphibious Base had it the hardest, since they were closest to Norfolk and to where the bomb had gone off. Far enough away from Fort Story at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and Oceana Naval Air Station toward the south end of Virginia Beach, Little Creek was constantly under siege by incredibly well-armed civilians looking for a decent meal, some better clothes for their families and any opportunity to loot either goods or weapons.
The worst attacks against the military bases were initially launched by the large gangs that had popped up once Virginia Beach had been sealed off. An overwhelmingly successful gun smuggling operation had been in effect throughout the beach nearly since the bomb had been detonated. Boats came in out of the Atlantic too numerous for the diminished Navy and Coast Guard patrols to count or possibly confront and usually with lethal cargo meant for only one thing--the killing of police officers and soldiers. Throughout the entire four-year ordeal, black marketeers flourished, selling everything they could to anyone with enough money to buy. People without money went out and took it from whoever they could, whenever they could. People with money paid huge sums of it to others for protection and security. Everyone in the middle did pretty much whatever the hell they wanted to and, as a result, anarchy and chaos ruled the day.
That’s where the BioMech Program entered the mix. Specifically designed for just such a scenario, the BioMech Interceptors could take a pounding and give it back twice as hard. Especially in domestic situations, where civilians were in rebellion, the BioMechs performed wondrously. But none of it would be possible without the Operators. The men of the BioMech Program were an integral part of their machines, machines which pulsed with a life all their own. Machines with an engine for a heart, oil and gasoline for blood and a human being for a brain. The Operators were mentally linked to their machines over time through a series of four surgical procedures so that they could interface directly with the computer systems that ran their Interceptors. Procedures that implanted hundreds of microscopic receivers and processors directly into various parts of their skulls. Once inside an Interceptor, the Operators became the eyes and ears for their vehicles, became one with their machines, merged into a single organism, a bio-machine that excelled at killing and warfare.
Ratcliffe entered through the top hatch of his Interceptor, sealed the small square of armor-plating above him and settled into the cramped driver’s seat. He was considered a police officer rather than a soldier only due to the views of politicians who thought that military operated Interceptors shooting up an entire city on a daily basis would send the wrong message to the people of the United States. Totally surrounded by instrumentation and operating mechanisms, only a very small person could ever hope to drive an Interceptor. Finding very small people who fit the physical and mental requirements had been difficult at the start of the BioMech Program but, after four years, there had been no need for replacements--all twelve men were a part of the original team of trainees. All twelve men had become inexplicably attached to their machines, driving the same vehicle each and every day, scoring kills proudly and performing their duties with enthusiasm and vigor. The attachment-psychosis had been a side-effect that had not been foreseen in the planning stages of the program, Ratcliffe now knew, but it didn’t matter to anyone as long as the job got done.
Ratcliffe had always felt that the task of cleaning up Virginia Beach could be accomplished completely with the addition of another twelve or fifteen Interceptors. Unfortunately, the U.S. Government didn’t find the extra expense, a formidable four-hundred-and-eighty trillion dollars, worthwhile and only the original twelve had been built. Rumor had it, however, that a bid by the U.S. Army for six of the next generation BioMechs had been accepted by Rouenour Scientific at an undisclosed cost, most likely far exceeding that of the original twelve Interceptors. There was talk of a sea-worthy version of the Interceptors as well. Ratcliffe found himself smiling again as he placed the helmet on his head, noticed the slight sucking motion as it form-fitted itself to his hairless skull and felt the sweet tingle of his machine as it mentally entered his brain.
Morning, Rhino, ready to get to work? Ratcliffe thought, amazed at the third smile of the morning to cross his face.
Morning, Dane, why are you perturbed? The machine thought to him.
It’s nothing, Rhino, nothing at all...Ratcliffe thought back but immediately knew that something was horribly wrong. He quickly forgot about it, though, as the ecstatic tingle of total communion with his machine swept over his body. The uniforms worn by all members of the BioMech Program were designed solely for use with the bio-machines. Serving as a waste removal unit, internal heating system and providing a source of nourishment through a sucking tube mounted just below the Operator’s exposed chin, the uniform also served as a connecting mechanism to several dozen control ports located within the seat and armrests. Once inside the machine, the operator had full thought-control as well as manual-control for backup. Once sealed, an Interceptor could only be unsealed by the Operator and twelve-inch thick armor plating prevented anyone from forcing their way inside. There were no windows on the Interceptors, no way for the Operator to get an external view of the outside world with their naked eye. Only through the interface with their machine and the sensors mounted outside on the armored skin did the Operator have any link with the outside environment. Once the act of communion was completed, the mission was officially underway and the killing began.
Ratcliffe sat back and checked his breathing, felt his pulse quicken again and felt Rhino getting tense and jumpy. Have to calm down, have to calm down, he thought and felt Rhino get even more nervous. He urged the machine forward and told it that he was just more excited than usual today, although they both knew that Ratcliffe just wasn’t himself. The fifty-ton vehicle began to race forward, leav
ing the confines of the Cold Zone behind and exploded on to the streets of Virginia Beach. At this time of the morning and this close to Camp Pendleton, the streets were deserted. Nobody wanted anything to do with a fresh and hungry Interceptor.
Ratcliffe maneuvered Rhino up General Booth Boulevard and on to Pacific Avenue. The oceanfront looked deserted through his monitors but multiple heat sensor readings proved otherwise. He didn’t have time to stop and mess with those who were hiding now, though, his mission was to get to Little Creek as soon as possible and hopefully ward off any further attacks. The gangs had hit the base hard last night, taking out many of the forward bunkers and killing nearly two dozen soldiers in the process. Although casualties had been high on the attacking side as well, there were millions of others to take those places and only a handful of soldiers left to defend the military base. He entered Atlantic Avenue at Cavalier Drive and began to gain speed.
Ratcliffe experienced a sudden moment of static, a white noise that clambered into his brain and made him wince. Just as suddenly as it had arrived it was gone but it left him somewhat shaken up. He felt Rhino stutter and slow down momentarily and willed it to continue as planned while he tried to make heads or tails of the event. That has never happened before, Dane, Rhino said within his head and Ratcliffe mentally agreed. Whatever the hell it was, it was over now and he had to concentrate, had to begin thinking clearly. Any more lapses in concentration could get he and Rhino both killed. Ratcliffe suddenly felt his heart begin to pound uncontrollably in his chest...
Deverger noticed the anomalous readings once again on Operator #7's monitor but this time they were off the charts. “What in the hell?” He shouted and hit the alarm button. A klaxon immediately began sounding throughout the Police Station. Within moments, Captain Marling burst into the tracking room with McHenry close behind.
9 Tales From Elsewhere 3 Page 1
