Spreading out in various directions from two areas: the places where I’d been shot, and the place where I’d injected myself with the Lazarus drug. I blinked and when I looked back, I could no longer see the veins.
I shrugged on the tux and admired its cut in the mirror. I had never worn a suit before, hell I’d only donned an old sports jacket to church once or twice in the past, so looking like a high roller was something new to me.
“You’re like a male Cinderella,” someone said.
Pivoting, I smiled at Jezzy, who, visible from the neck up, peeked through the partially open door. “I meant the clothes by the way,” she said. “You can really clean yourself up when you want to.”
Stepping back out into the main room, my jaw nearly hit the floor. I’d say Jezzy was clad in the black dress from Wendy Beckman, but that would be a disservice to her and the dress. She was poured into the friggin’ thing, wearing the inky black cloth like a second skin.
“Can you breathe in that thing?” I asked.
“I can do more than that, buster,” she replied with a wink.
She stood before me, hair slicked back, a bit of lipstick on, back arched because I could tell she felt like a million dollars. “You look good, Jezz.”
“Just good?”
“Real good. So good that I can’t even think of anything else to say.”
“Ha! I stumped the motor mouth. Advantage Jezmyn,” she said, licking a finger and placing it on my shoulder before making a sizzling sound.
Somebody cranked up some pop tunes outside, and Jezzy and I exited the bathroom to see the other operators dancing to some electronica and putting on what looked like a fashion show. Billy was busting some moves while Baila was doing makeup for Ren and Sato.
“And here I was thinking you were a badass mech operator,” I said.
Baila fluttered her false eyelashes. “Sure am. But I’ve got a side gig doing makeup and offering fashion advice.”
Ren and Sato stood, vamping while Baila took pictures of them. Even Simeon seemed to be having a good time, getting down to the music as Billy egged him on. You’re probably thinking, what a way for us to be acting after all we’d just been through, but you’ve got to remember how it was with people of our age. The aliens stole so much of our youth. We missed out on stuff like proms and homecoming, having to spend our days instead fighting to stay alive. We were in our twenties (and one or two staring down the barrel of thirty), but we were emotionally stunted I guess you’d say … children in the bodies of adults.
Jezzy grabbed my hand. “Beat your feet, Deus. Everybody Wang Chung tonight,” she whispered in my ear. I stood and twirled her and then we danced and I realized for the first time, not only how light Jezzy was on her feet, but also how unique she was. Most of us can only exist in one world, but Jezzy wasn’t like that at all. She was the kind of woman who would’ve been equally at home on a catwalk or in a mechanic’s bay. I’m not ashamed to admit that holding her tight at that moment, dancing cheek to cheek, I had the strongest desire to tell her how much she truly meant to me. But then my inner voice weighed in against that. Don’t do it, Danny, the still, small voice said. You’ll just be lowering those walls and opening yourself up to ridicule ‘cause you know she doesn’t feel the same way about you … not after what you did … not after what she went through. I’ve always thought that one of the worst things about being a man is the inability to express your emotions. Maybe we’re just hardwired that way, or maybe it’s because things changed after the occupation ended. When you’re on the run trying to scrape by and stay alive, there really isn’t much time to contemplate matters of the heart. To think about your feelings during the occupation meant you were losing focus, and when you lost focus it usually meant you lost your life. But ever since the occupation ended, I’d been thinking more and more about my past, about the people I cared about, about what the future might bring. Still, I didn’t say a damn thing to Jezzy that night, which, looking back, was a mistake. Instead, I just held her close, the two of us swaying to the music until it was time to leave.
* * *
It was a little before eight p.m., when we entered the hotel’s nearly fourteen-thousand foot ballroom. The space was without columns, long and wide, centered by an enormous Christmas tree sagging with ornaments.
Hundreds of well-dressed people were standing aside the tree, or milling about under dozens of chandeliers, or seated at tables that were being serviced by staff that zipped in and out of the kitchen like those old-timey bellhops at a drive-in.
As soon as we entered, someone spotted us and whistled. Those that were seated stood and everybody began clapping and cheering. I never liked being the center of attention and so I was immediately embarrassed. My cheeks flushed and I kept my head down as Ms. Beckman ushered us over to a large oval table that was situated just below a raised dais.
“Doesn’t everything look beautiful?” Ms. Beckman asked, wearing far too much makeup and displaying a smile that would be right at home on an old toothpaste ad.
I looked around for Dexter, Quinn, and several other people I thought might be there, but there were so many people I couldn’t make them out. I did see Vidmark, however. He was standing alongside several men with clippered hair in tuxes who had stern faces and the demeanor of military men. Ms. Beckman whispered that the men were indeed from what was once the Army and Marines, and would normally be wearing more formal military attire but for the fact that the different services had been destroyed during the occupation and the government had yet to decide on new uniforms. Moreover, given that there were still snipers in the city (scabs, other collaborators, sympathizers, and the like) the trio didn’t want to make inviting targets by sporting their nicest dress uniforms.
“The reason for the season!” Vidmark bellowed, holding his hands out. He approached us with three of the stern-faced men. “I just got through telling the Generals all about your expedition this morning.”
Vidmark gestured to the first stone-faced man, a white dude in his forties who was missing a good chunk of his chin. He summoned a smile. “This is Lieutenant General Wade Watson.”
General Watson nodded. “That was some good work in the big sand. Given the conditions and the resulting explosion, a full after action report was difficult, but intel has you down at eighty-three scud KIAs.”
Billy and Dru bumped fists as Vidmark pointed to the second stern-faced man, a bald, black guy in his late-thirties. “Major General Rod Beaumont.”
General Beaumont tipped his head and the light that reflected off his dome nearly blinded me. “You put flies on eyeballs, but what impressed us the most was your ability to operate bottom to top with very little formal training. I don’t recall witnessing a single brown star cluster from any of you during your assault.”
“We rule with an iron joystick, sir,” Simeon said.
“And besides, most of us are straight-up geeks, sir,” Billy added. “We’ve been training for this our whole lives.”
Vidmark laughed and pointed at the third stern-faced man, a thick-necked bruiser who was missing one of his hands. “Brigadier General Charles Serling. He’s the current military liaison to the Mech Command.”
“We’re very grateful to have you people aboard,” General Serling said. “We have the highest of hopes as you work to potentially scale your operations.”
I didn’t know what this meant and so I did what I always did when I felt clueless. I smiled and nodded and Vidmark pointed at a host of other men and women that he said were “advisors” from other countries.
“Why are they here?” I asked.
“They’ve come to learn from us,” Vidmark replied. “Didn’t I mention that The Icarus Project has gone global?”
Um, no you didn’t.
“There are mech teams either in operation or being developed in a number of other countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe,” Vidmark added.
I thought back on the image I’d seen with Dexter, the quick glimpse of another mech
in one of the operators’ training sessions. Before I could process everything, we sat down at our table and were served heaps of food, the sort of goodies I hadn’t eaten in years. Some nicely prepared meat, fish, vegetables, and even several types of fruit that would have been impossible to track down only a year before. I was so used to eating gruel, and the food was so rich, that my stomach was bloated after only a few bites. Another server dropped off champagne, but it tasted like kerosene and burned my mouth. I looked over at Jezzy who made a face and grabbed us two beers from a server, which was more our style anyway.
The lights dimmed and Vidmark strode to the dais, Dexter’s silver laser pointer in hand, and presented a condensed version of our attack on the alien vault. I turned away as images of the firefight flashed on a giant screen. I’d participated in the ordeal only hours earlier, so I didn’t have any desire to relive it. The images then changed to schematics of our mechs along with a slickly-produced video that asked the question, “Why Fight with a Sledgehammer, When You Can Use a Scalpel?” This was followed by a two-minute video that featured slow-motion training exercises involving mechs blasting away at targets on ranges, or engaging in simulated firefights in mock cities.
“This is smoke and mirrors,” Jezzy muttered under her breath.
“Straight up war porn,” Billy said.
“Yeah, the kind that opens up checkbooks,” Dru added.
I glanced about and watched the others, including the Generals and the “advisors” from other countries looking at the video as if it was a thing of unparalleled beauty. Not only had Vidmark baited the onlookers with the videos, he’d set the goddamn hook. The video ended and Vidmark appeared.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are honored that you’ve joined us tonight. And what a night it is! Not only is it Christmas Eve, but as most, if not all of you, know from the video we’ve just seen, our operators successfully assaulted an alien outpost today!” Cheers went up all around us and Vidmark pumped a fist. “What some of you may not know is that the members of our newly christened mech team, the ones who carried out the operation, are here with us tonight. I’d like the operators to stand so that we can give them a well-deserved hand.”
All of us were embarrassed and hesitated and then Vidmark motioned for us to stand. Reluctantly, I stood in the glare of the lights and manufactured a smile, holding one hand up. Everyone around us rose to their feet, clapping and cheering.
After a standing ovation, we sat down and Vidmark paused. The guy knew exactly how to play to a room, when to be silent, when to emphasize certain words. Baila was right, he was a chessmaster who knew all the moves, waiting until the instant before his silence turned awkward to state, “every culture, every country has a myth of decline from some better time, some golden age in its past. Well, I tell you my friends, we’ve been blessed because we no longer have to look in the rearview mirror. Our better days are not behind us!” A smattering of nervous laughter followed and Vidmark raised his hands. “You need to believe, as I do, that this time, this moment, this very instant is our time, our golden age. By gathering together today we are securing our future!”
I looked down, almost embarrassed by this. How the hell could Vidmark claim that the alien invasion and occupation was anything other than a disaster, an occurrence that set humanity back decades? Golden age my ass.
“The reason I say that is because we’ve been given a unique opportunity, a chance to start over again. Where some say the aliens destroyed us, I say they helped us to reboot!” There were nods and murmurs of agreement.
Vidmark waved his laser pointer at me and the other operators. “Our mech team has just demonstrated that our theories work. We can rebuild, defend ourselves, and compress the kill chain that the Generals love talking about so much, but only if we double down on technology, if we throw our collective weight behind the mech program and everything that comes with it. My friends, be not deceived, our numbers might be small, but we have the ability to punch above our weight. We have the opportunity to lay low the barbarians before they batter down our doors!”
By noticing small things about Vidmark’s mannerisms and cadence, I realized what the event actually was: a business pitch. More specifically, it was Vidmark’s chance to highlight his vision of what the Mech Command could or ought to be.
“Challenging the status quo,” Jezzy whispered, a frown on her face.
“What?”
“Oldest and most effective sales technique in the book,” she replied. “Same thing that was drummed into me when I was selling computer crap.”
She appeared to be right. The people around us stood and cheered, eating up everything Vidmark dished out as he continued his presentation. It was at that moment that I spotted him out of the corner of my eye.
Dexter.
There for an instant at the back of the ballroom and then gone.
He’d vanished through a door, headed toward our rendezvous spot.
There was another burst of applause and I excused myself to use the bathroom. Keeping my head down, I wended between the others gathered in the ballroom, slipping around the rear of the space, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. I glanced back, making sure that Vidmark wasn’t watching me, and then I pushed through the red door into a hallway that ended at another door and a balcony. Through a bank of windows I could see Dexter, pacing on the balcony.
I shouldered open the other door and was greeted by Dexter and a gust of frigid air. I shivered and Dexter mustered a grin. “It is December, Deus.”
“Global warming my ass,” I replied, breathing into my hands, looking over the edge of the balcony which provided an awesome view of what was left of downtown D.C.
“You can see all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue from here,” Dexter said. “Hell, I can almost see that storage locker joint up on Mass Ave at Union Station where I lived for the last two years of the occupation.”
“Thought you were riding out the invasion in your mom’s basement.”
“I was … until it got blown up.”
“Jesus, Dexter.”
“Old news, Deus. Besides, I got more pressing concerns.” He held up a hand-rolled cigarette.
“You bring me out here for a lung rocket?” I asked.
“I brought you here to tell you something that only a few people know about.” Dexter peered past me, as if checking to see if anyone was watching or coming out onto the balcony. “There was a black box,” he whispered, lighting his cigarette.
“Excuse me?”
“The glider that attacked The Hermitage. It had a kind of … flight recorder inside. A black box.”
“It’s really cold out here, Dex.”
“Somebody took it, and the wreckage, down into one of those underground rooms under the Capitol building. The one where the mechs are kept.”
“How do you know?”
He took a long drag from his smoke. “Because, roughly I got access to some emails about the whole thing.”
“Why roughly?”
“Because when you smooth it out, I hacked into a database and read a bunch of messages exchanged between Vidmark and his peeps.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Just curious.”
Red flags were going up all over the place. Vidmark had saved my life and given me the chance to do something great. I didn’t want to have anything to do with messing around with him or his operations. I spun toward the balcony door and Dexter called out: “You ever wonder why they targeted us?”
Slowly, I looked back at him. I didn’t respond and he pointed his cigarette at me. “You heard me, Danny,” he said, tapping ash from his smoke.
“The batteries, it was because they wanted the hafnium batteries,” I said.
“What if I told you there weren’t any hafnium batteries at The Hermitage?”
My breath steamed the cold air. “That would mean Vidmark was lying.”
“Why would he lie about that?”
I held Dexter’s gaze. “I … don’
t know.”
“Neither do I,” Dexter replied, “but I’d like to find out one way or another. If he was telling the truth, coolness, if not, maybe we’ve got a problem…”
“What do you want from me, Dexter?”
“I want you to get me access to the place where the flight recorder is. That underground facility.”
“Why would I do that?”
Dexter smirked. “Because if it wasn’t for me, you probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
21
Doubt crept into my mind as I left the rendezvous with Dexter. On the one hand, I was eternally grateful for all that Vidmark had done to rescue me from the prison and provide a new lease on life. On the other hand, I’d always had lingering questions about the whole thing. About how and why he’d selected me and the strange lights I’d seen in the sky over The Hermitage. I also realized that Dexter was right, that I did owe him a debt of gratitude for all that’d done, including helping me prepare to take on the other operators. If I could help him do a little bit of investigatory work without pissing off Vidmark and his people, what was the harm in that?
I hit the bathroom and did a circuit around the floor for fifteen minutes just to make sure nobody was following me. My tour of the hotel over, I moved back into the ballroom where I was immediately greeted by Wendy Beckman who was grinning like the Joker from one of those old Batman movies. “There you are, stranger,” she said.
“I got lost.”
“It’s like that old song, right? You were lost and now you’ve been found. He’s been waiting for you by the way.”
“Who?”
“Vidmark, silly.”
* * *
Ms. Beckman led me by the hand down into a circular lounge beyond the ballroom. The walls of the lounge were made of thick glass, the only lighting from a string of Christmas bulbs that hung from the ceiling. A group of musicians were playing what sounded like jazz off in one of the corners near Vidmark who was reclining on a section of an impossibly large white couch of some kind. He was tended to by a small harem of very attractive women. I approached and he clapped his hands and introduced me to the women all of whom were achingly beautiful and not at all dressed for the cold night. Before I could engage any of them in conversation, Vidmark shooed them away.
World of Hurt Page 14
