World of Hurt

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Small fires erupted inside the glider as alien door gunners took up positions. I watched them “lase” us (track our movements with lasers before opening fire), but I was too fast for their return fire.

  I danced between their orange tracer rounds as Jezzy fired our last three rockets, following that up with cannon fire which cored the glider.

  The cannon fire chewed a hole through the glider’s center, and then struck something that triggered a series of impressive secondary explosions.

  Fire smeared across the hull of the glider which began to violently list.

  The ship dropped in nightmarish slow-motion, smothered in greasy flames and began careening down toward the ground … toward us.

  “Oh, crap!” I said.

  I pulled back on the mech’s controls as our battle machine crabbed back. Several wide-eyed campus workers, their mouths open in small O’s, were flushed out of a nearby outbuilding. They seemed too terror-stricken to move, which was not a good thing at all. I waved the Spence mech’s giant arms at them. “GET BACK! RUN!”

  They stumbled back and one of them, a young lady, tripped and fell. Realizing she’d die if we didn’t do something, I crouched over her, my eyes glued on the viewscreen.

  The alien glider crashed into the ground a hundred yards behind us, carving a trench in the ground, casting off a wave of fire that rolled over everything.

  The ocean of fire swept over us, but we were protected inside the mech as was the young woman who we’d been able to shield with our turret and frame. We maintained our position until the flames subsided and the young woman ran off to safety.

  “Score one for the good guys!” Jezzy said, pumping a fist.

  I thumbed the controls and the Spence mech slowly rose to its full height which gave me a chance to survey things.

  The attack was over, at least what I could see of it. Fires still dotted the ground and smoke clouded the air, but there was no movement in any direction aside from our mechs.

  We walked slowly through the aftermath of the battle, striding beyond the still-burning glider, the bent shells of the Reaper mechs, and the bodies of the alien soldiers who lay in all attitudes of death.

  Forms appeared from the other end of the campus, armed personnel, The Hermitage’s small security detail. They were coming to clean up our mess. Watching the security guards wave and then move past us, I felt something surge within me that I hadn’t felt in a very long time: pride.

  I’d … we’d ... done it.

  We’d been attacked by the aliens and kicked their slimy asses. I held up a hand and Jezzy smacked it as the other operators cheered.

  Score one for the good guys indeed.

  3

  We “parked” the Spence mech in the hangar next to the other operators and sat in stunned silence for what seemed like five or ten minutes. The feeling of serenity I’d initially experienced had worn off and my nerves were still a-tingle, my heart still revving like an engine.

  I’d been in dire situations before and been fired upon while running contraband for Buddha Blades, but that was my first, real experience in actual (non-simulated, non-time travel) combat. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I hadn’t pissed my pants and my testicles, which had been hiding out somewhere near the middle of my stomach during the fighting, had finally dropped down into their normal position.

  “You in one piece back there?” I said, glancing back at Jezzy.

  “Physically.”

  “You did good, Jezz. Real good.”

  “You did better.”

  “Teamwork—”

  “Makes the dream work,” Jezzy said, finishing my sentence.

  I held out my hand and she squeezed it just like she’d done on other jobs and it brought back bittersweet memories of how we’d all met. How Spence had been the one to befriend me while I was marooned in what passed for an underground refugee camp in Laurel, Maryland, working the lunch line, serving slop to emaciated people with sad, tired eyes. Even then, in the darkest of days, Spence always had that crooked smiled of his. He asked me if I’d like to make a little something extra on the side and after I said yes, he took me to Buddha Blades who introduced me to Jezzy. At that time, Jezzy was the only female mechanic in his shop, and Buddha put the three of us together, sending us out on missions to retrieve materials that could be resold to the resistance and the aliens. Spence had been the glue, the one that kept the trio together, but Jezzy was always the emotional core. She was the one who’d tell you you’d done a good job or call you out on your bullshit. I wouldn’t admit it publicly, but I never would’ve survived the occupation if it wasn’t for her.

  We dismounted the Spence mech and spent several moments moving around it, both us surprised to see just how much damage the old boy had sustained. There was a smattering of dents and scorch marks and several holes where energized rounds from alien weapons had passed through our exterior armor and fittings. In addition, the cockpit was scratched, several of the metallic “toes” on the mech’s feet were missing, and the joints between the legs and turret were caked with mud and grime and what looked like alien blood. It was a miracle frankly that Jezzy and I had been able to keep the thing operational.

  “Hey noob!” somebody shouted.

  I looked over to see Dru, Billy, and the other operators grinning. “You did a’right back there,” Dru said.

  “You didn’t wet the bed!” Billy added, laughing, man-hugging Jezzy and me.

  “You are like us now,” Ren said with a sly smile.

  “You’ve got, how do they say? Chalk on your spikes?” Sato said with a giggle.

  Baila smiled at me and I noticed that Simeon wasn’t scowling, which I thought was a huge step forward in our relationship.

  “You guys held your own,” Simeon said.

  “It’s a little easier when you’re not trying to kill us,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I make no apologies. I only know how to play the game at one speed, bro.”

  Before I could respond, Baila pointed and I glanced back to see that the middle of the hangar was full of what looked like the entire population of The Hermitage. All of the workers from the various campus buildings were present, along with Vidmark (on his scooter) and Richter, who stood by himself at the back of the crowd. Dexter was there too, up near the front, grinning, holding up a small video camera like a movie director.

  Vidmark powered the scooter forward and faced us. He began clapping and soon everyone in the hangar followed suit until the sound was so loud it hurt my ears.

  “Hail the conquering heroes,” Vidmark said. Nervous laughter echoed around the hangar and then Vidmark held up his hands to silence everyone. Glancing at the faces of the workers and the other operators, I felt like I was part of something for the first time in a very long time. Sure I’d worked for Buddha’s outfit during the occupation, but the big man never really trusted anyone and was a loner at heart. I never felt I belonged to his gang, but things felt different at The Hermitage. I didn’t feel lonely and isolated anymore. I felt like I belonged and that’s a damned powerful thing, because it can cause you to lose sight of what really matters. Like, for instance, the reasons why we’d been attacked.

  “I’m going to state the obvious: we’ve got enemies,” Vidmark said, glancing at me as if he could read my mind. “Anytime you challenge the status quo or do something disruptive, there will be powerful forces aligned against you. We saw that tonight didn’t we? Those things that attacked us are what’s left of the invaders.”

  “They’re dead enders!” Simeon shouted.

  “That’s right,” Vidmark replied, nodding. “As you know, most of the aliens surrendered and were forced to choose the path to peace, but others are still fighting. There are pockets of them are all over the world.”

  “Why did they attack us?” somebody in the crowd mumbled.

  “Two reasons: they hate our freedoms and we have one of the largest surpluses of hafnium batteries left on the East Coast,” Vidmark replied. “
They wanted what we have to try and escape. To go home.”

  “They’re going home in boxes!” Dru shouted and everyone laughed and cheered.

  Vidmark raised his hands, smiling, quieting the crowd. “We’re growing stronger while they’re getting weaker, but that doesn’t mean they don’t pose a threat. We’ve experienced that first hand, haven’t we?”

  Murmurs and nods and snatches of muffled conversation followed from those in the crowd. Vidmark moved back and forth on his scooter. “But I’m not worried about that right now, because today we took another step on the long road to recovery. Today we showed our enemies that we have a viable, mechanized fighting force that not only can hold ground, but take it back. Today is the beginning of everything. Today is day one!”

  More applause echoed from the crowd and even from the mech operators. I looked to Jezzy who smiled and we both began cheering.

  * * *

  After the cheers had faded and the workers returned to their quarters, I moved with Jezzy back into the Mech Recovery Room.

  “After all the excitement, ain’t no way I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight,” I said.

  “Hello, adrenaline my old friend,” she replied in a sing-songy voice.

  “It was like old times back there, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “You nearly getting us killed and me saving your butt?”

  We shared a smile. “Yep, definitely like old times,” she said softly. “Only this time we were fighting for the good guys.”

  “I take offense at that, ma’am,” I said, playfully swatting at her.

  Her smiled slipped away. “Do you ever feel bad about any of it? About … what we did before?”

  “You mean … do I feel bad about doing what I needed to do to survive?”

  “You sound like Vidmark now. Answering questions with questions.”

  I smiled. “He’s rubbing off on me.”

  “So how ‘bout answering the question.”

  I considered what she said for several seconds. “No, okay? I don’t feel bad about any of what we did before except for Spence. That’s the only thing I regret. That I put us in a situation where we lost him.”

  “I guess the other stuff doesn’t matter anyway does it? All the things we did for Buddha and the rest of ‘em. I suppose … the past is past, right?”

  I nodded. “The only thing that means anything is this moment. Right now. We’re doing something important here.”

  “You believe that?”

  “You heard the man didn’t you?” I replied with another nod. “He said today’s just the beginning. Today’s day one.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Danny?”

  “Anything.”

  “Was it tasty?”

  “Was what tasty?”

  “Vidmark’s Kool Aid. When you were drinking it down, was it all sugary and yummy or was it a little salty?”

  I smirked. “Shut up.”

  She threw a mock jab at me and left her hand on my wrist for probably longer than she’d meant to. Our laughter faded we just stared at each other. Then Jezzy pointed toward the other end of the room. “I just realized I never showed you my place.”

  I shrugged. “It’s probably a lot like mine.”

  “How would you know unless you saw it, silly?”

  My gaze smoked into hers and I saw something in her eyes. There’d been a time or two in the past, okay maybe more than a few times, when we’d innocently flirted. But as I studied her features, creamy in the half-light, her hair still slicked back, a vein pulsing softly in her neck, I knew that she might be interested in something else entirely. It’s not that I didn’t feel a connection to her, because I did, it was just … it didn’t feel right at that moment, y’know? There’s a strange feeling that comes over you when you almost die, a kind of … euphoria that makes you think, once you survive, that you can do almost anything. At that point, I don’t think Jezzy had come down off the high, and I didn’t want her to do something she might regret once she came to her senses.

  “Hey, I’m beat, Jezz.”

  Her face fell, but she played it off. “No worries. I get it. I’m super tired too.”

  She faked a yawn and I held up a hand and she weakly high-fived it. Then I gave her the kind of hug you’d give your sister and she shuffled off into the shadows.

  * * *

  My legs were like jelly as I ambled through the hangar. Some soft rock-n-roll music was purring up ahead as I turned a corner to see Richter seated on a chair next to an equipment cart, polishing a piece of what looked like alien alloy as music piped from a small electronic box at his feet.

  “Hey, more jazz,” I said, pointing to the box.

  “Close. That’s ‘Steely Dan.’ You know who that is?”

  I shook my head. “Never heard of him.”

  “It’s a two-member group from the days before. They named if after a sex toy in a book by William Burroughs,” Richter said.

  “I literally don’t understand a word you just said.”

  Richter cracked a smile and held up the piece of polished metal. He tossed it to me. It was light and smooth to the touch. “That’s your first war totem. It came off the glider you shot down.”

  “You were watching?”

  “I’m like God. Always watching. Had to make sure my pupils didn’t let me down.”

  “How’d we do?”

  “You wouldn’t be here talking to me if you hadn’t kicked some ass.”

  I smiled and held the piece of metal up. “We were really something, weren’t we? I mean, Jezzy and me went to town on those alien mechs.”

  “There’s a scene from an old movie about a warrior from the days before the invasion that my boy used to love,” Richter said.

  “I didn’t know you had a family.”

  “Why would you? That kind of thing ain’t nobody’s business but mine,” Richter said. “Anyway, in that scene the warrior’s reminded that in the old days, when kings defeated an enemy, they’d ride before their people on chariots and battle carts. And the head honcho, the king, the conqueror, would have a slave standing behind him, whispering in his ear.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To remind him that all glory is fleeting.”

  “I think I know what you’re saying.

  “I figured you would.”

  “Can I ask you something, Jack?”

  Richter sighed. “I imagine you want to know why we were attacked tonight and aside from what Vidmark said before, I don’t have a good answer for you, kid.”

  “I thought the war was over.”

  He looked up. “One of them is. But there’s always another one right around the corner.”

  “That sucks.”

  “‘The life of man upon Earth is a warfare,’” Richter replied softly.

  “That’s from the Book of Job, isn’t it?” I said.

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “My uncle was a pastor.”

  “You know what it means?” Richter asked.

  “Life’s a constant struggle.”

  Richter nodded wearily. “One of the truest things that has even been written down. Go get some rack time, Deus. You earned it.”

  4

  I trudged back to my room that night and even though heavily-armed guards had been positioned everywhere, I was still supremely on edge. My eyes were on the skies, the bushes, the pathway ahead, searching for any sign that the aliens might still be lurking around.

  A flash of lights caught my attention. It was coming from the oval windows on the small, stainless steel building that was attached to my sleeping quarters. The one with the heavy doors and biometric scanners that I’d never been in before. I moved toward the structure and pressed my ear to the door. Music thumped on the other side. Pulling back, I looked up and a laser from the biometric scanner swept over my eyes.

  WHUNK!

  The door hissed open to reveal a darkened room lit only by what appeared to be retro lava lamps and black lights
. I stepped into the room and the door closed behind me and then someone shouted: “HEY! SLIM SHADY SHOWED!”

  I looked back to see that the interior of the building had been retrofitted into what looked like an underground club, or mini-casino. Billy was visible, manning a turntable, spinning songs while Dru danced with Ren and Sato who were waving neon chemsticks.

  Billy threw an arm around me. “Hey, man, you come down off that high yet?”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “The temporal high, the time travel juice. First time you trip back, it like changes the composition of your body, y’know? I mean, like, every time I go back it seems like I get more and more adrenalized.”

  “I threw up a little,” I admitted.

  Billy laughed. “Everyone does the first time. But once you’ve gone back eight or ten times, it ain’t a thing.”

  “You’ve been back that many times?”

  Billy nodded vigorously. “The upside is that no matter what you do, you can’t impact the future.”

  “Which is the complete opposite of everything I ever heard about time travel,” I replied.

  “Cause it ain’t like they thought it was,” Dru said. “Y’know, if time is a river then it’s the goddamn mighty Mississippi, you feel me? Like, it’s got a million forks and tributaries.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said.

  “You don’t even know the half of it. I mean, it’ll blow your mind, but there are shadow worlds where the dinosaurs never died out and the Nazis won World War Two. Straight-up mind-bending shit. We’ve gone back more times than I can remember, trying to change things.”

  “Change the past?”

  “Past, present, future, you name it, but the machine won’t work that way. It only allows you to go through those other loops.”

  Billy grinned and leaned in close, all conspiratorial and whatnot. “Don’t tell the others, but sometimes our boys down in the lower level of the hangar hook us up. They let us train by ourselves.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Cause we like to stay sharp and every now and again we like to mess around. Take last week, for instance. Me and Dru took a nice little stroll back down to Washington, D.C., circa August 8, 1925.”