Space: Above and Beyond 1 - Space: Above and Beyond

by Peter Telep

  Hawkes couldn't be sure if the operator was covering for him or telling the truth. In any event, he felt his breath begin to even. He considered apologizing to Otto, but that would mean admitting his guilt. Instead, he simply said, "No one was hurt. That's what counts."

  Shell reduced the gap between himself and Hawkes. "Keep it up and the next time someone will get hurt."

  The operator's voice boomed from above. "It's his first day. He's trying hard. And we got shitty equipment. So cut him some slack. I'm going to talk to Davis about this crane."

  As the operator's shadow passed over him, Hawkes turned away and started for the lift. He felt the heat of the laborers' gazes on his back.

  An hour later, Hawkes sat alone at a table for two in a restaurant dome about four blocks north of the site. The Borealis, once famous for serving chefs salads made with hydroponically grown Martian vegetables, had fallen on hard times. The salads were no longer imported, and Hawkes's drink was watered down. He wished he could share his dinner with someone, anyone. He hated eating alone.

  Then Davis emerged from the shadows of the dining area. Hawkes set his drink down and lifted his brow in recognition. "Hey."

  "Hey, Cooper." Davis said, pausing before the table. "Barring that little incident, you had a pretty good day. Can you leave?"

  Hawkes frowned. "I've already ordered. And it's not like I have the credits to pay for food that I'm not eating."

  "A few of the guys and I are going out. They're waiting for us outside." Davis withdrew his wallet and slid out a gold voucher. "I got this. We'll take you to a real restaurant."

  Mildly stunned, Hawkes rose. "All right."

  After Davis paid for Hawkes's uneaten meal, they left the restaurant. Outside, the night air was cold and smelled a lot more like the falls Hawkes had sampled from discs than its true semi-polluted self. Perhaps Mother Earth was, as the scientists had said, bandaging her own wounds. Davis led him into an alley that opened up into a cross street.

  But when they reached the end of the alley, the cross street was a dead-end at both sides. And from behind a wide row of trash tubes stepped a quartet of familiar men: Brown, Tatum, Shell, and Otto. Hawkes had met Brown and Tatum while riding the lift. Tatum was a good-natured redhead with a beard that was too sparse to be dignified. Brown was an ex-military man in his fifties with the body of a twenty-year-old.

  Hawkes smiled, but there was a slight rumble in the pit of his stomach, a rumble that meant more than hunger. "Hey, guys. You ready to eat?"

  No one returned Hawkes's smile. He took a step back, then shot a look to Davis, who was now no longer a construction supervisor, but a predator. "There was nothing wrong with that crane," Davis said.

  Though his boots were heavy, certainly not running shoes, Hawkes managed to get moving. He bolted away from the men and into the alley. There was no need to speculate if the others were following. The sound of their boots thundered in Hawkes's ears.

  All right, assholes. Now let's see what you've got.

  The bravado was necessary. It would, at least, keep him from collapsing in fear, at most, give him the false hope he needed to keep going. Hawkes already knew he wouldn't be able to outrun them forever, but what hurt worse was the fact that he had quite obviously lost the job.

  But at least he had lost the job because they blamed the girder incident on him. He hadn't lost it because of who he was....

  They trailed him for three and a half blocks, drawing the attention of nearly every pedestrian. Hawkes was amazed that even old Brown was still locked onto his target. He took another look back at his pursuers—and something got in the way of his boot and he went tumbling to the asphalt. He scraped his cheek, and his nose struck the ground hard enough to break a blood vessel. He pushed himself up and kept on moving, wiping his bloody face on his shirtsleeve and feeling a new fire in his left ankle.

  "Guy? You all right?" someone from across the street asked.

  "Fine!" Hawkes shot back without looking. "And what kind of night are you having?"

  Ahead was the construction site, as good a maze as any in which to hide. His breath ragged, he ran past the billboard and let himself wash into the cold sea of silhouettes and the deeper darkness. He heard one of his pursuers, he couldn't identify which, call his name.

  Out of the darkness grew a row of girders piled six high. Hawkes took a path between the girders, then found himself on the east side of the building. He weaved into the scaffolding to shadow-hug the wall, and there, grabbed a cold metal support pole. He paused to catch his breath.

  "Hawkes!"

  The voice belonged to Davis. And the supervisor sounded too close to pause any longer. Hawkes ducked out of the scaffolding and jogged north. As he neared the corner of the building, someone came out of the gloom, and there was the abrupt sensation of a fist connecting with his jaw, followed by the just-as-sudden notion that he was falling backward toward the merciless dirt. And then he was down, dazed and out of breath.

  "Don't ya hate when that happens, Hawkes?"

  Hawkes pushed himself up on his elbows to see Shell moving toward him. Hawkes guessed the man would attempt to leap onto him, effectively pinning him to the ground.

  Rolling onto his side, Hawkes drew back one leg as Shell advanced. He kicked Shell in the shin, and the man yelled and buckled to the ground.

  Shell's agony would bring the others, and knowing that, Hawkes rolled onto all fours, then shot to his feet. He began to feel the rage within him, but thankfully, it was still under his control. He just needed to get away. That's all. No more trouble.

  He looked to the north, to the chain-link fence around the construction site.

  Then he heard the shuffle of feet and was gang-tackled by Brown, Otto, and Tatum. They piled on top of him as if he were inches from the end zone, about to carry the ball in for the winning touchdown. Otto's chest pressed into Hawkes's face, and he felt someone else punch him once, twice, in the ribs.

  "Get off of him," Davis said from somewhere above.

  The three men complied, but as they did so, they seized Hawkes's arms and legs. Hawkes fought against their grips, but with a man on each arm and Brown holding his legs, he wasn't going anywhere.

  Davis's deep voice sounded again. "Check him."

  Otto stepped over Hawkes, still holding his wrist. The laborer dragged Hawkes around, onto his stomach. Brown released his legs, but before Hawkes could do anything, the man jammed his knee into the base of his spine.

  It had dawned on Hawkes when Otto had first forced him onto his stomach. But Hawkes hadn't wanted to believe it. They couldn't have known. Hawkes was sure no one had told them. And he was sure that his behavior hadn't betrayed anything. It took most people a long time to figure it out, and even when they did, sometimes it changed things, sometimes it didn't. But in the past few months it had only meant trouble. And here he was. And they were about to find out what he was.

  Hawkes felt Brown's palm sweep across his nape and lift his hair. What Brown and the others stared at was the navel-like indentation at the base of Hawkes's head, the one that often made people gasp.

  "I knew it," Davis said, now hovering over Hawkes. "A tank. I can smell 'em. Like an animal."

  Hawkes felt Davis kick him hard in the side, just below his ribs. He stifled a moan.

  Davis blew air in disgust. "I told the foreman I had a feeling about this guy. Get him up."

  Brown rose from Hawkes, and Otto and Tatum dragged him to his feet.

  "Hold him," Tatum told Brown. "Got my cutter on me. I'll get a couple meters of fiber optic and we'll bind him."

  Tatum turned over Hawkes's wrist to Brown, then crossed to a coil of cable lying on the ground below the scaffolding. Meanwhile, Hawkes tried to bring his arms together in an attempt to pull away from the men, but even though most of their lifting was assisted by powersuits, simply wearing the heavy suits had turned the laborers into heavily biceped bruisers. What they lacked in intelligence they easily made up for in brawn. Hawkes relaxe
d his muscles, then shot a look to Davis.

  The angular supervisor's gaze was fixed on something. Hawkes followed the man's line of sight until he came upon a girder that had yet to be cut. It extended some two meters beyond the scaffolding and hung about three and a half meters above the ground.

  "Cut off another two meters," Davis told Tatum.

  At that, Hawkes once again pitted his muscles against those of the laborers . There was no way that he would wind up like old Sam, or Johnson, or Browkel. Each of them had swung from a line because they were tanks. There was no way that would happen to him. No way. Not with his rage.

  Tatum was back with the fiber optic cable. He and Otto pulled Hawkes's wrists behind his back while Brown tied them. What little struggling Hawkes managed was answered by Otto's hard wrenches and Tatum's gouging fingernails. When Brown was finished with his wrists, the man moved to Hawkes's ankles. Otto and Tatum stepped on his boots to immobilize him.

  Davis stepped up to Hawkes and seized his chin. "I had two uncles die in the A.I. War 'cause the tanks wouldn't fight."

  Hawkes jerked his chin out of Davis's grasp. "The In Vitro platoons were dissolved when I was a kid. I had nothing to do with it."

  "Then you're even more worthless."

  "I never asked to be born."

  "Great, then you can ask to die."

  Davis gestured with his head to Tatum, who dropped a fiber optic noose around Hawkes's neck. Brown and Otto each shoved a hand into Hawkes's armpits, lifted and then carried him to a position beneath the girder. It was a reflex action to be sure, but Hawkes looked up. Beyond the girder, the night sky shone with a brilliance that he hadn't seen until now. For a second, he imagined he could float away, float away from all of it, all of the pain. Away from the word and its meaning. Tank.

  "You listening to me?" Davis asked. "I said you can ask to die. Now, go on ... ask."

  Hawkes leveled his gaze on Davis, a gaze he let burn into the man.

  "ASK!"

  Defiance could take the form of a look, a word, an action. Thus far, Hawkes had used the first two against Davis. Yes, they had bound him, but they had not gagged him. Hawkes gathered spit in his mouth, then let it fly.

  Davis's nose sustained the damage. The big man spun away, wiping his face and swearing under his breath.

  Tatum threw the fiber optic cable over the girder, then pulled Hawkes's noose tight. Hawkes felt the noose begin to bury itself in his neck as his feet left the ground.

  No! This isn't it! I'm not going like the others. They don't know my rage. They haven't seen it. But they will. Have to... losing... can't... breathe...

  He looked down. Davis smiled sardonically. Then Hawkes glanced at Tatum, and the idea struck.

  Hawkes grimaced as he summoned from his body every minute particle of remaining strength. He pulled his knees up into his chest, then, with a jerk of his shoulders, he twisted his body toward the slack-jawed Tatum. As he swung within striking distance, he kicked out with his bound feet.

  Tatum finally understood what was happening, but it was too late. The laborer's horror registered on his face a moment before Hawkes's boot turned that look into a twisted knot of agony. The man released the fiber optic cable as the blow sent him backward toward the scaffolding.

  Hawkes hit the dirt, gasping, noose still around his neck, wrists and ankles still bound together. He rolled onto his back, tucked his knees into his chest, then pulled his bound hands apart, creating about a three-inch gap between them. That would be enough. Hawkes let out a roar as he pulled his bound hands down and around his feet, feeling his shoulders shudder on the brink of dislocation. He sat up, still bound but with his hands in front of him. He fumbled with the knot of the cable binding his legs. Brown was no seaman. It was a simple double knot and Hawkes untied it quickly. He didn't bother unspooling the cable but rather tore his legs apart—just in time to drive a foot into the attacking Otto's gut.

  As Otto went down, the laborer cleared a clean line of sight to Shell, whom Hawkes was surprised to see on his feet. The man came at Hawkes, then launched himself into the air.

  Utilizing a similar defense as he had when first encountering the man, Hawkes rolled onto his side, and this time kicked up, roaring again as he caught Shell's good shin while simultaneously deflecting the rest of him out of the way. Shell screamed and went down in a heap of spent energy and dust.

  Once on his feet, Hawkes turned in time to spot Brown, who'd drawn back a knockout punch that was now on an express delivery toward Hawkes's jaw. Hawkes ducked while balling both hands into fists. He straightened and sent a double-fisted uppercut into Brown's chin with such force that it lifted the man off of his feet, then propelled him backward.

  Though Shell, Tatum, Otto, and now Brown each filled the air with sounds that were not unlike those made by the survivors of an A.I. battlefield, and, in effect, Hawkes had created a battlefield, Hawkes heard only one sound:

  Thump-thump... thump-thump... thump-thump...

  That was how it was when the rage took hold. He shot a look at Davis, then snarled at the man. Davis frowned at the sound, then glanced to a graphite pipe lying amid a pile of scaffolding poles. The man darted toward the pipe and came up with it. He beat the pipe into his palm and grinned darkly.

  Hawkes waited until Davis got close enough, then he seized the dangling end of the noose around his neck, drew back with the cable, and whipped Davis in the face.

  "Ahhhhhh!"

  The graphite pipe fell from Davis's hand and rolled toward Hawkes. Scooping up the pipe, Hawkes started for Davis, letting out a cry that came from somewhere deep within.

  Davis headed for the street. Hawkes would not let him get away. At this point, it would be more reasonable to simply take off. Hawkes had nearly lost his life. Why push his luck any further?

  But the damned rage wouldn't permit that. The damned rage smothered reason.

  Hawkes was only about ten meters behind Davis by the time the supervisor was about to hit the street.

  Davis picked up the pace, but just as he was leaving dirt for asphalt, he was cut off by an armored, Philadelphia Police cruiser, its lights strobing, its siren screaming with multiple wails controlled by the button-happy cop inside. The car squealed to a stop.

  As two helmeted officers dressed in paramilitary black jumpsuits with heavy flak jackets exited the car, Davis ran past one of them, and—to the cops' and Hawkes's surprise—opened up the rear door of the cruiser, threw himself onto the back seat, then slammed the door behind him.

  Hawkes raced up to the car, drawing back his pipe. One of the officers seized his arm, but Hawkes managed to reach the cruiser and bring the pipe down onto the wire-protected rear window.

  "GET OUT! GET OUT OF THERE!"

  Pounding again on the window, Hawkes growled and fought back against the officers' attempted restraint.

  "Get back, Willy," Hawkes heard one of the officers say.

  Then, abruptly, Hawkes was free. He faced the cops, who now pointed their IM pistols at him.

  "Drop the pipe."

  "He's crazy, sir," Davis yelled from within the car. "He's a tank."

  Hawkes bashed the car window at the mention of the word, and the cops took a step back.

  "Go on. Get out," one of the officers told Davis. "You're settin' him off."

  Davis opened the rear door farthest from Hawkes, then nervously stepped out. He shot a furtive look at Hawkes before sprinting off back toward The Borealis.

  How could these bastards let Davis go?

  Feeling muscles tightening and his nerves fraying, Hawkes slammed the pipe against the patrol car side window, shattering it. "He tried to hang me!"

  There was no more reason, no more reality. There was nothing but rage, a fire that burned so hot and so bright that if anyone on the outside were able to look at Hawkes, really look at his soul, they would be blinded and incinerated. He stepped to the driver's side window of the auto and bashed it in. He moved toward the windshield and pounded, pounded, PO
UNDED!

  He barely felt it hit him. He looked down and saw a tiny, dart-like projectile lodged in his chest. A circular wave of energy pulsed through his body and blasted him to the ground.

  The cops charged around, and the cuffs they used on him felt strangely like the fiber optic coil, but that hadn't been real, had it? It all felt like a dream now, a numb, laughable memory. But when he swallowed he felt the pain of where the noose had been, then realized that it was still around his neck.

  three

  Shane Vansen stood near the curb, staring down into a puddle that rippled with light, rain and was cast in the harsh glow of a street lamp. Though her reflection kept changing, she continued to try to find herself in the pool of expanding and colliding ringlets of water, to try to find that pretty, twenty-one-year-old woman she should be.

  But that woman wasn't there, only a blurry image that suddenly felt appropriate. She mused that her reflection might be distinct if none of it had happened....

  Running a thumb under her duffel bag's strap, she adjusted its position on her shoulder. She tightened her grip on the mixed bouquet of flowers, then started for the dark, fenced-off house. Only three people remembered a time when the home was idyllic, a place of warmth where spirits soared and dreams were fostered. As she moved toward the gate, she noted, as she always did, the faded sign posted there:

  NO TRESPASSING. KEEP OUT.

  BY ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA.

  She shuddered.

  Following a crack in the driveway that ran all the way up to the front walkway, Shane turned and stepped to the front door. Then, as lightning flashed, revealing to her just how overgrown with weeds the place really was, she looked to the second floor. The windows had been boarded up, and then those boards had been torn off so that the gangs could take shots at the house and chuckle over the sound of shattering glass. In a way, she was glad the boards were gone; their absence made the house look slightly more lived-in, though it would still need a complete renovation. She averted her gaze and stepped onto the stoop.