by Ben Chaney
“Sir!” Sergeant Shima raised his hand. The Commander sighed. Nodded.
“Sir, are we to understand that we’ll be hitting Rasalla without live ammo?” Shima asked. A low muttering wave spread over the men. The lack of respect rubbed Vaughn the wrong way, but he wanted to hear this too.
“Calm down, Shims,” said the Commander, “No one goes into the Rasalla District without brass jackets, but they are last resort, End-of-Times only! This goes ugly if the metal starts flying. 0430 hours. Drill it into your skulls. Now, each target will require specific, dynamic tactics to neutralize, so pay close attention to your vets and squad leaders. God bless you all. Dismissed!”
Vaughn watched Kabbard approach the Commander and immediately start talking. It looked serious.
“Vaughn!” Shima yelled. Vaughn jumped and turned. Realized that the squad was filing out of the rows. He scrambled to pick up his helmet and follow. Shima fell in beside him on the way to the ships.
“There he is, huh? That’s what you’re thinking? There’s the all-wise, all-knowing John Kabbard...” Shima said. Vaughn thought it best to stay quiet. Shima continued. “Forget that fucking sell-out, son, he ain’t coming with us. You got your head on straight? Or am I gonna have to worry about you...”
“Sir, no, sir!” Vaughn said what the man wanted to hear. But he wasn’t truthfully sure.
“Good. I don’t need you rookies comin’ loose after your first RaDVert...it ain’t exactly like the Neural sims.” Shima quickened pace to the front of the squad, making himself the first to enter their IG-8 dropship. Its broad, curved belly shimmered with the light-bending camo that would reflect the sky above in any weather and any time of day. ‘Rapid Descent Vertical Insertion...’ It had been a screaming Hell even when it was just a projection into Vaughn’s brain. A long ramp led up to the officer compartment, above the ‘cargo hold.’ Vaughn felt another hand on his shoulder. He turned, expecting the rookie from before.Instead, he met John Kabbard face-to-face. Rumor had it that the scar on the former Sergeant’s cheek came from a bullet graze. A T99 punk had Kabbard dead to rights with a gun barrel under his chin...but the Sergeant knocked it aside, discharging it as he ripped the punk’s throat out. Without Aug gloves.
“You got a loose seal on your anterior delt plate,” Kabbard said. Vaughn flushed pale and reached for the clasp. Kabbard got it for him, bleeding air from the seal. Pushed it closed with a click. The shoulder moved much more freely. “You’ll be fine. Just Flip-the-Switch and watch the man next to you.” With that, the man left. Walking from squad to squad, sizing things up and talking with the men. Most of the vets didn’t seem to appreciate it. Vaughn slipped his helmet on, pressed the seal, and felt it tighten around him. He started up the ramp.
“All in! Lock it down!” First Sergeant Mason said into his throat mic.
“Roger, securing rear hatch and personnel harnesses.” The voice of the pilot hummed in Vaughn’s inner ear as the rear doors of the IG-8 hissed shut. Bolted. Red light filled the cabin. Carbon-fiber harnesses dropped down, securing each officer in his seat with a click.
“EXOs, check restraints! Visors down!” Shima barked. All nine officers slid their clear visors down and tested the fit of their harnesses. They sounded off down the line, each confirming ‘Secure!’ One of the rookies added a ‘Yeah!’
“Cabin secure! Go for launch!” said Mason. The elder vet saw Vaughn staring. Gave a smile and a nod. The engines picked up, sending vibration through every surface in the cabin as the craft lifted off the deck. Vaughn felt the landing gear retract under his feet and took a deep breath as the ship bobbed, turned and hovered forward.
“Yeah, baby, here we go!” a voice barely shouted above the hum of the engines. Mason pressed and held a finger to a button on his helmet temple. Neural screens materialized in front of Vaughn and each of the other officers. Video feeds from forward, aft, starboard, and port appeared, showing the entire EXO fleet in motion. The hangar doors yawned open, exposing a vast plane of orange lights under a pitch black sky. The cabin went quiet.
One hundred and seven ships flew out of the hangar in formation. Gunships formed an expanding octagonal perimeter around the IGs as the fleet flattened into a slow-moving wave. It crept to within a mile of the Border when the whole fleet went dark.
“Exterior lights off. Beginning my ascent to 7600 meters.” the voice said in Vaughn’s ear. The ship lurched and climbed straight up. The force pressed the officers down and back into their seats. Silhouettes of the other ships disappeared on the video feed, visible now only by dots on the radar. When the screens went totally black they switched to radar-only. Seconds later, the IG-8 slowed. Stopped.
“Seventy-six hundred meters. Moving over position for RaDVert.” the voice said. The blue dots on the radar fanned out over and past the Border, each eventually stopping over a different outlined sector.
Vaughn swallowed hard. He looked across from him and saw Mason’s head bowed in the dim, red light. Praying. Wish I could do that. He thought about trying, but nothing came to mind. Side effect of being an atheist. The dot in the center of each screen, their dot, glided over a section of Southwest Rasalla and froze. As Vaughn felt the ship come to a hovering stop, everyone’s Neural flipped to Tactical Mode. Visible squad IDs, GPS minimap, ammo counters, and a myriad of other combat apps. A chorus of other mechanical buzzes, clicks, and beeps sounded throughout the cabin.
“In position. Awaiting ‘Go’ at 0400 hours,” the pilot said. Everyone took hold of their harness handles and waited in the humming silence. The seconds felt like hours. Vaughn, at the last second, remembered his mouth-guard. He lifted his visor, put the guard in, bit down, and closed the visor again. Gripped the handles.
“We have a ‘Go.’ Beginning RaDVert in 10. 9. 8. 7,” Vaughn tried to breathe evenly past the jackhammer in his chest and think of the mission. All of that disappeared at “3. 2. 1. Drop!” The engines cut and the IG-8 went into free-fall. Vaughn’s forearms bulged as he strangled the safety handles. His shoulders dug into the harness padding, pressing harder and harder toward the ceiling. He thought his teeth would bite through the mouth-guard and break his jaw. Terminal velocity gave the officers a short-lived break to look around wide eyed at one another. The roar of rushing air filled the cabin.
“AAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAAA!” Shima screamed above the noise. Some of the rookies followed his example. Most were laughing when the engines kicked on again full blast, humming smooth and loud. The crushing force shoved them down into their seats and, in seconds, brought the IG-8 to a dead stop. The exterior camera screens appeared again and showed a 360 degree view of an empty Rasalla street in Zone Four. Vaughn shook his head. Collected himself in the moment. The harnesses clicked and lifted off the EXOs. Mason and Shima stood and secured their submachine guns. The rookies managed as the hatch doors hissed open.
“Legs off, weapons hot! On me!” said Mason.
Vaughn willed his shaky legs down the ramp with his squad. They made it about twenty paces from the ship when the sudden smell of sewage raised a lump in the back of his throat...enough to give his stomach the excuse it needed. He doubled over in the street, retracted his visor, and puked. The other officers looked at each other, then nervously at the concrete and scrap-metal buildings around them. Vaughn spat, wiped his mouth and stood. Mason came in close next to him, weapon ready.
“You good?” Mason asked.
“Yes, sir,” Vaughn answered. Mason stepped back and pressed his throat mic.
“We’re clear. Proceed to recon altitude,” said Mason. The IG-8’s four hover engines glowed a masked blue as it lifted off and up into the night sky. Mason pinch-zoomed the hovering mini-map of the area and tapped a group of buildings. It became highlighted in each officer’s display, and set a waypoint.
“Objective’s two blocks west then north through the alley. I’ll take point. Shima take the rear. The rest of you stay close and keep it tight,” Mason said. Shima dropped to the back, scowling at the stain on Vaughn�
�s flak vest. They stalked through the street. Vaughn felt the eyes on them, peeking down from ragged window holes cut from steel and cinder block. He swore he could see silhouettes darting away in the shadows, off to warn Rasalla.
Mason halted them at the edge of an alley and all pressed against the wall. Broadcast his view to the squad over the Neurals. The target building sat to the right, atop a long stairwell. Mason pressed his throat node three times. Vaughn heard a beep in his inner ear each time. Hold sign... They waited in silence.
“Recon altitude reached. Stand by for audio, depth, and thermal data.” The pilot’s voice buzzed in each officer’s inner ear, and a digital task bar appeared in their Neurals. 30%. 67%. 100%. Vaughn watched blobs of color focus into distinct, outlined figures all around him. People sleeping on the floor by the dozens in several shacks. A woman bathing her baby by candlelight. A couple making love under a lean-to. As if they all lived in houses of blue glass.
In the target area above and to the left, he saw the shapes of nine men. Two sat on buckets outside, dozing with submachine guns on their laps. Four inside sat around a table working on something. The remaining three stood around the room, pacing and talking to one another. A sound-wave readout in Vaughn’s Neural tracked and recorded the conversation.
“—need to tell Suomo we got all the tech we need, man! I’m knee-deep in switches and pipe, but I ain’t got much left to put in ‘em!”
“I hear you, I hear you! But I can’t keep tellin’ him that every time I go back to the Club, man, he’ll put a bullet in me just for gettin’ on his damn nerves!”
“Well tell him again! And explain if he wants to shoot somebody for bringin’ the truth that he’d best shoot me, cuz ain’t no way I can keep makin’ shit blow up if I ain’t got the main ingredient!”
Mason tapped his Neural screen, selecting the two targets outside the house. Marked one ‘Mason’ and the other ‘Vaughn.’ Vaughn gulped and pushed to the front. They each slung their SMGs back around their shoulders and un-holstered sleek, black pistols. Pressing the mag release, Vaughn double-checked the ammo. Stun spurs. He clicked the mag back into his pistol and chambered a round. A digital countdown started as Mason took aim. Vaughn gulped a bad taste in his mouth. Okay...just like the range at the Gate...
One. Two. Three. Vaughn and the First Sergeant leaned out of the alley and fired. The spurs found their marks in the flesh of the guards. Both convulsed, then slumped where they sat. Vaughn exhaled. Mason turned to the officers in the alley. Waved them forward as the scene inside the shack played over audio.
“What the fuck you lookin’ at? Go! Tell ‘em now!” A T99 with the face of a pitbull and build of a silver-back gorilla waved a giant chrome-plated pistol toward the door.
“Oki, come on, man...he’s either high, drunk, or sleepin’ right now...maybe all three,” a fat gangster said. His double-chin wagged as he shrugged. Oki thumbed back the hammer on the gun and waved it again. The fat guy rolled his eyes and turned to leave when his SMG strap caught on the chair of one of the techs. The tech’s skilled hands flew up and away from his work in an instant, a metal pipe full of gray putty on the table. Wires stuck out of it on all sides, one of which was connected to a gutted light switch. The tech turned to look at Oki, staring wild-eyed over a dust mask.
“Lopei, don’t move...you stupid, fat piece of shit.” Oki walked over and gently unhooked the strap from the chair. Lopei backed away, sweat pouring down his face from under his backward ballcap.
“Outside! Now!” Oki pushed him toward the door with the gun barrel. Lopei’s huge clumsy legs barely managed to back-pedal.
“Man, Oki, chill!” the lanky T99 in the back said, “You’ll push his ass over and he’ll—”
They all heard it. Footsteps outside coming up the stairs. Before they could react, two white discs slid under the door and exploded in a blinding flash. EXOs rushed in firing stun spurs. The first two hit Lopei and sent him to the floor in a massive heap. The others sprayed across the techs. Half-blind, Oki squeezed off four ear-shattering rounds at the shapes in the door, pushing them back. It gave him and the lanky T99 time enough to find the window and scramble through it.
“Shit!” Shima yelled, cranked up his Augmentors, and took off after them out the window. Mason reached for the crazy bastard and missed.
“Vaughn with me!” Mason shouted, “Dreivan, take the squad and—”
Vaughn switched on his legs, shoulder, and grip assists then stopped. Turned and looked. Dreivan, the dopey rookie from the briefing, had taken a bullet in the throat. No vital signs appeared in the Neural readout...just three letters. ‘KIA.’ It didn’t come close to sinking in.
“Officer Babb, take the squad, secure the prisoners, and prep Dreivan for dustoff!” Mason said. The First Sergeant grabbed Vaughn by the flak vest collar and yanked. “MOVE!”
After Mason disappeared through the window, Vaughn stepped back from it. He took a breath, hopped to the window frame, and pushed off. He sailed through the hot, damp Rasalla air. Came down silently on a concrete roof below, muffled by a dampener pulse. Mason was already way ahead, chasing after Shima. Vaughn put everything he had into the Augs to catch up, leaping, diving, and vaulting through the schizophrenic landscape.
A squad cam window popped into his Neural as they reached Shima. Officer Babb’s live feed streamed in.
“Uhh, sir, Dreivan’s twitching...his RFID may be on the fritz, should we call in the medivac?” asked Babb. In the feed, the other officers struggled to move the fat T99’s face-down body. Vaughn could hear them in the background.
“Je-sus! This shit-bird weighs a metric ton!”
“Turn on an Aug boot and kick him over...”
Mason, mid stride, tried to keep his voice down in reply.
“Negative! That man is KIA, now get off the comms!” Mason said as the fat T99’s body flipped over in the feed...wide awake and clutching something to his chest.
“RASALLA!” the T99 yelled.
The feed cut out. The shockwave slapped Vaughn in the back before he heard the deafening blast. Searing heat filled the air behind him. Ears ringing and bleeding, Vaughn rolled on the dented tin roof where he’d landed. Saw the curling molten cloud rise into the sky.
“NO!” Shima yelled, sprinting past Vaughn and Mason toward the blast. Mason caught up in two strides and grabbed Shima’s camelback.
“No, Shims!”
“LET GO! They could be—” Shima protested.
“They’re all KIA, and we will be too if we stick around—DEBRIS!” shouted Mason. Flying chunks of cinder-block, scrap metal, and charred whatever fell from the sky, some of it stabbing into the rooftops like throwing knives. Vaughn pushed out of his dent on the roof and stood up.
The three of them ran for cover.
11
Spark
MATTEO AWOKE IN the dark, panting and sweating. The dream images still flickered through his mind, becoming fainter but no less real. Or terrifying. Blaring engines and fire. A dark space with a broad window of fiery light ahead. Everything shaking...screaming and crying. He recognized, and yet didn’t recognize, his voice among theirs.
As the vision slowly cleared, he remembered where he was. Utu’s recovery ward in the Temple of the Wheel...a long narrow ship hull, gutted to fit two rows of bedrolls. He could have gone back to the family apartment days ago. Back to work in the Pits. But Utu, upon studying Matteo’s lost expression, said the same thing every morning.
“Hmm...more rest. Yes. More rest and another day of hot food, and you’ll be free to go.” He would end with a squinting smile. Something hid behind it, Matteo could tell, but nothing to fear. A soft bed, three meals a day, and no Pits...hard to argue with. Even if he couldn’t sleep more than a few hours. The Choice wouldn’t let him. In the stagnant darkness, his mind throbbed with possibilities.
I could be Lifted and over the wall in less than a month with the Nines...nothin’ would happen...I might not even need the gun. But if I did...Jo... Shit.
Might still be able to do it if I hit triple salvage enough times. Yeah...that could work. Unless I die in the Pits trying. Okay. Hm.
He suddenly became aware of the exhausting thought stream. No way he was getting back to sleep. He rose carefully from the bedroll, crouched and lifted his bag. His belongings clinked inside and an elderly man a few beds over shifted in his sleep. Matteo winced and allowed the bag’s contents to settle. He tip-toed past the huddled bodies and out the embroidered door-flap.
The cool night air and the spiced smells of the Temple refreshed him. Much better than the faint reek of sickness in the ward. Torchlight licked up into the air from posts in the ground. The same time of night it had been whenever he stirred. After all of the most nocturnal dwellers and gangsters had turned in. So still. Peaceful. He’d never realized how loud the Slums were until the volume had been turned down. With a deep breath he walked along the wall and found the ladder to his new favorite spot.
Row upon row of green growing things bloomed out of burlap sacks in the rooftop Temple Garden. Utu gave him a tour two days past, giving names to the shapes and patterns. There was fresh kale, a messy clump of wrinkled leaves that felt weird on the tongue, but tasted good. Spinach with its round, softer leaves. And then the red, round tomatoes. The fruits of a fortune in seeds, and the source of still more. Utu could have lived in a dweller mansion, but instead chose a monastery, clinic, and free kitchen. Yesterday, he had given Matteo a small tomato to try. The sweet, juicy flavor had made Matteo’s eyes roll back in his head. He thought about taking another every night since, but never dared.
Instead, he walked among the plants, felt their textures and savored their smells. He sat between two kale bushels and dug through his bag, searching for the slick pages of the new magazine Utu had let him borrow. A curious picture on the cover teased his mind. A spiral shape with a big bright center made up of uncountable dots of light. Utu read the word “Galaxies” on the cover aloud, though he claimed he didn’t know what it meant. Something to do with the stars. People could travel to them now, further away from home than Matteo had ever imagined. Gotta fly at the speed of light for four years to get to the closest one... He had noticed the ships that flew straight up from the City and into the sky before...always wondered where they went. The City was more than a City. It was a key to the universe. Maybe even God...or whatever the force was that pulled him there.
