by Peter Clines
The two soldiers facing St. George tensed and he saw one of the gun barrels shift off to his left. “U.S. Army,” said Stealth. She was a few steps behind him. “Their weapons appear to be M240Bs with a modified ammunition case and larger heat shields.”
“Yeah,” said St. George. He cleared his throat. “I thought they looked different.”
“It is classified as an infantry medium machine gun,” she said. “It is unusual for an entire squad to be armed with it because of its weight. Each one weighs over thirty pounds with ammunition.”
“They don’t seem to be having any trouble with them.”
“Hello,” shouted the man in the suit. He stood on the pavement by the Black Hawk. The soldiers had moved forward, still sheltered by the helicopter’s armor but still flanking the man. “I’m John. It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” called back St. George.
“Mind if I come a little closer?”
“Not at all.”
“What if we meet halfway?”
St. George gave a nod. “That’d be fine.”
He could feel Stealth’s glare on him. “You do not need to agree to his every request,” she said.
“Take it easy,” he said, taking a few steps forward.
The gunshot rang out and echoed between the buildings.
One of the soldiers lunged at the man named John and carried him to the ground. The other one dropped to his knee and focused his oversized weapon at St. George. Two more soldiers had appeared, weapons aimed at the heroes. They shouted short, clipped orders back and forth through the helicopter’s open doors.
“What did you guys do out there?” Barry asked over the earpiece. “Is someone shooting?”
St. George looked back at Melrose. Makana and one of the other guards were wrestling a skinny man to the ground. The hero knew what had happened. “Screwup,” he said. “Big screwup.”
“How are they responding?” said Stealth. She swept her cloak back to expose her holsters but didn’t draw yet.
“They’re saying something about … they’re deploying Captain Freedom,” Barry told them. “That’s not military code for a big-ass bomb or something, is it?”
FUCKING BITCH. I cannot believe this. She’s going to do it again.
It’s supposed to be a man’s Army. That was what I got beaten into me growing up. Be a man, Kurt. Nine more years and you’re the Army’s problem. You better cry now because there’ll be no crying then. They’ll make a man out of you, yes they will.
And what’s up with the rest of the squad cheering her on? Stupid bitch’ll start to think she belongs here. She’s only doing six-forty. All of us can do six-forty at this point. We’re all fucking Olympic supermen.
She’s just like all those dumb cunts in school I had to put up with for years. They all thought they belonged. They thought they were special. Giggling at me in the back of class. Yelling for their friends. Crying to the teachers. Kurt Taylor’s staring at me again. Kurt, don’t do that. Kurt, stop it. They wouldn’t know a real man if one came up and punched them in their stupid Barbie faces.
Finally get out of high school and the U.S. Army’s waiting for me just like the old man said. I get in and what do I find? Tons of bitches who all think they’re as good as me. Better than me. My fucking platoon sergeant is some dyke bitch. Jesus, Mary, and fucking Joseph.
Wally Monroe slaps my arm. “Taylor, dude,” he says to me. He points at Sergeant Kennedy, on her back with her tits in the air, pumping away. Gus is spotting her. “I think the sarge’s going to beat your record.”
“Yeah, great,” I say. I think about adding “Who the fuck cares?” but he’s a smart guy for a grunt. He figures it out.
So I sign up for Project Krypton thinking this’ll take care of everything. No more questions who’s supposed to be top dog, A-number-one around here. It’ll separate the men from the boys and leave the girls in the dirt. They can wise up and go back to popping out more little soldiers for the U.S. of A. like God wanted.
And what the fuck do I find? A month after surgery three-quarters of the program’s washed out and there’re still three bitches here. And they’re doing better than me. They’ve got the fucking dyke balls to keep trying to make me look bad. Always faster. Always stronger.
My arm’s still sore. Got our last shots this morning. I hate needles. Hate ’em. There are air guns now that don’t use needles, but they’re still shots. Doc Sorensen says from here on in it’s up to us. No more shots, just a few tests every other day. Our bodies will keep up or not.
The money’s on not for most of us. There’re only thirty-eight soldiers left. Orders came down and Shelly pulled us all together into one company. Sorensen said he expects the dropouts are done. There should be enough of us left to make a solid platoon or two.
One of the bitches is already looking sick. Or maybe she’s just on the rag. Stick a cork in it, sister, this is a man’s Army. If you can’t hack it go back to blowing jocks under the bleachers for a dollar.
They all applaud and Gus and Monroe each throw another plate on either side of the bar. Seven hundred ninety pounds. If the bitch does ten reps she’ll tie my record. Monroe shoots me a smile. They’re all cheering for her again.
I was the first one to break seven-fifty. Me. I’m the strongest, you fuckers.
While I’m waiting my turn I grab a pair of free weights. I’m curling one-fifty with no problem these days. Never guess it looking at any of us, especially the chicks. Sorensen says it has to do with muscle density and fast-twitch fiber or something. I’ve gained fifty-eight pounds of muscle, but I’ve only gone up one shirt size.
I’m getting antsy just hanging around the base, too. Should be thankful, though. Signed up thinking I’d get to go kill towelheads in Iraq or Affuckistan or somewhere. Then they sent me out here to Arizona and I found out how much I hate the fucking desert. I’m sunburned half the time, sweating all the time. Iraq or Affuckistan or Ari-fuckingzona, they all suck. Maybe I’ll fake sick and see if I can get reassigned.
I do twenty reps while the bitch ties my record. She sits up for a moment, shoots me a wink, and gives Gus a look and a nod. “No way,” he said, grinning.
“Do it,” she says. She’s sweating and grinning like a bitch in heat. “Two more.”
The squad hollers. Sergeant Kennedy’s going to do nine-forty. She’s going to beat me. Fucking bitch cunt whore.
Gus and Monroe are scrounging up two more seventy-five-pound plates across the gym when Ryan Polk comes in. He’s working as one of Colonel Shelly’s staff when he’s not here with the rest of us. Let him make corporal. “News from the outside,” he says as he pulls off his jacket. “It’s getting worse.”
Nobody has to ask what. About four weeks ago, in mid March, we started hearing news stories about an epidemic. First couple cases were in Los Angeles, but then we heard about outbreaks in Vegas and New York and Boston. There was a news story about someone getting sick in London and then Colonel Shelly clamped down on all of it. That told us how bad it was. One of the MPs told me they clamp down on big bad news so no one does anything stupid and runs home or something.
The other bitch, Britney, goes up to him. Yeah, we’ve got a fucking cunt soldier named Britney in our squad. “What’d you hear?”
Ryan grabs a set of free weights and starts doing curls, too. Our muscles get stiff fast if we don’t keep using them. “I heard Colonel Shelly say they’re deploying the National Guard in nineteen cities,” he says. “They’re talking about martial law.”
I can’t believe that. Not here in the U.S. of A. “No fucking way,” I say.
“That’s what they were saying. It hasn’t happened yet but they think they’re going to have to.”
“Does the Guard even have that many people left in country?” asks Eddie. “Most of them are in Iraq, aren’t they?”
Ryan shrugs in between curls.
Kennedy wipes some sweat off her forehead. “Is it getting that bad? Are people looting or s
omething?”
Gus slaps his plate on the bar and shakes his head. “I heard it’s not like a regular flu, whatever it is. People get sick but they keep walking around and infecting people.”
Monroe taps his plate into place. “I heard it was turning people into zombies.”
“Fuck that,” I say. “That’s bullshit.”
“My brother’s in Queens. He says he’s seen people wandering around biting other people.”
Kennedy leans back on the bench. “Hate to agree with Taylor,” she says, “but that sounds like bullshit.” She grabs the bar and takes in a few deep breaths. Her arms tighten and the bar comes off the stands. Nine-forty. Fucking cunt.
“What I want to know,” says Eddie, “is why aren’t they sending us out?”
“Because we’re not in the National Guard,” I say.
“Yeah, fuck that. If they’re locking down the base it means things are bad. People need help out there and it sounds like they need everyone they can get.”
“You want to go haul that flu virus off to Guantanamo?” says Britney with a grin.
“I don’t like sitting here on my ass,” Eddie tells her.
“Yeah, your ass looks well sat-on,” grunts Kennedy between presses. Most of them chuckle. She’s telling jokes. The bitch is telling jokes while she breaks my record. I want to throw one of my dumbbells at her head and see what happens.
It gets the attention back on her, which is what she wanted. Seven reps. Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten reps of 940 pounds. The bar clangs onto the stand and almost bounces off before Gus grabs it.
They’re all pounding her back and congratulating her. She’s got wide eyes. Runner’s high. I drop the dumbbells back on the rack with a clang. It’s my turn. Time to get my record back and—
And she flops back onto the bench. She’s staring up at the bar, and I swear to fucking God if she says what I think she’s going to say I will kill this bitch.
“Do it,” she says. “Two more.”
Fucking cocksucker bitch cunt whore!
They all stop talking and stare at her. It already looks like a cartoon barbell, there’s so much weight on it. There’s about three inches clear at either end. Just enough to fit one more plate.
“Sarge,” says Monroe, “you sure? That’s—”
“One thousand ninety,” she says. She nods. “Sorensen says we should be able to break a thousand. So let’s break it.”
There’s another moment of quiet and then they’re all hollering and stomping. Kennedy the she-bitch is still staring at the bar. Gus and Monroe trek across the gym, grab the last seventy-five-pound plates, and lug them back. One plate is nothing to any of us these days. They’re carrying them one-handed. She’s got seven on each side of the bar now.
I’ve gotta admit, I’m pissed but I want to see if she can do it.
She swings her legs up, crosses her ankles, and we can all see her abs tighten. Her arms spread a bit and her fingers wrap around the bar. Gus and Monroe are standing on either side. That’s a fuckload of weight for one guy to spot. Even for us.
She takes in a deep breath. Then another. Her arms tense up and the barbell comes off the stands. The bar’s wobbling, there’s so much fucking weight on it.
It goes down real slow. She’s sucking in air while it comes down on her tits. Just brushes her nipples. Fucking little cocktease.
She breathes out hard and the bar goes up. One thousand and ninety pounds. Over half a ton.
The first rep is a little slow, but then the bitch does a second. And a third. And a fourth. She almost gets the fifth one up but her arms start shaking. Gus and Monroe lean in and she barks at them to back off. Sweat’s pouring off her. You can hear it hitting the floor. And she forces the bar up. Five reps of more than half a ton each.
She rolls up off the bench and the whole squad is hollering and pounding her back and hugging her. She’s the fucking bitch hero of the moment. She goes through and punches everyone in the shoulder one by one. Her knuckles land right where Monroe slapped me, right where I got my shot. Fucking cunt probably did it on purpose.
There’s a rattle down at the far end of the gym, and we all turn to look. A bald black guy is using the other bench down there. A big guy. Six-eight, maybe six-ten, easy, and built like a fucking linebacker. He’s just hoisted his own barbell off the rests. We’ve got every big plate in the gym, so he’s loaded up his bar with thirty-fives. After so much time in the gym, we can all tell the plates apart on sight. He’s got three-twenty on there and he starts doing these clean, precise reps, one after another.
Britney looks at him, already getting her panties wet.
“Who’s that?”
“Our new CO,” says Ryan. “Just transferred in. He’s in the program now, too.”
“Kind of late in the game, isn’t he?” says Eddie. “Take him forever to catch up to Sergeant Kennedy.”
They chuckle and punch her in the shoulder. She bats their arms away, stuck-up bitch. I take the fucking high road, ’cause I’m such a nice guy and this guy looks like a real man. “Wasn’t that long ago we were all proud doing three hundred,” I say. “I bet by the time he’s done with his shots he’ll be blowing her out of the fucking water. No offense, Sarge.”
“None taken,” she says. “He’s welcome to try.” And you can see in her eyes the bitch is looking forward to the fight. Ryan looks at her, then at me. “You guys don’t know?”
“Know what?”
Ryan grins. A big shit-eating grin. “He hasn’t started yet.”
Sergeant Kennedy looks over at the big officer, pumping out rep after rep like a machine. He’s done twenty-five now, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be slowing down anytime soon. “Hasn’t started what?”
“The process. Sorensen hasn’t done anything to him yet.”
We all watch him for a moment. He’s up to thirty reps, easy.
“All of us guinea pigs are already obsolete,” says Ryan. “You’re looking at the next generation of super-soldier.”
He drops the barbell back on the stand at thirty-five reps. Thirty-five fucking reps of three-twenty. And he’s not enhanced yet. He sits up and looks at all of us, and that fucking look lets us know he could take any of us grunts right now, shots or no shots.
No fucking way.
BARRY’S WORDS WERE still echoing in St. George’s ear when the second Black Hawk dropped a belay line. The rope hadn’t even uncoiled before a soldier slid down fast. He was halfway down when the end of the line swung free, a good hundred feet over the Plaza lot.
“It’s too short,” said St. George, stepping forward. He focused, started to rise, and the soldier kneeling by the first helicopter opened fire with his rifle. The rounds hit hard. He imagined it was a lot like getting blasted by a fire hose would be for normal people. The hero dropped back to the ground. He glanced up and the man on the belay line shot past the end and fell.
The soldier ended his hundred-foot drop and hit the ground like a falling tree. The pavement cracked out from the impact point and kicked up the two years’ worth of dust the first helicopter had swept into small drifts. Bits of gravel and dirt pitter-pattered down across the area.
St. George was back on his feet, taking in a breath to shout for medical help. In those few instants the dust cleared and he froze. The man hadn’t fallen from the line.
He’d jumped.
The soldier straightened up from the crouch he’d landed in, a move that reminded St. George of Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling from the future in the Terminator movies. He was a black man, at least nine inches taller than the hero, and a good foot wider. He focused on St. George with shining green eyes in a face shadowed by his helmet There were two black bars on his chest, and stitched across the left side of his digital-patterned camos was one word.
FREEDOM
He pulled the biggest pistol St. George had ever seen from a thigh holster. It had a drum like an old tommy gun and venting on the barrel. The muzzle came to bear on him as the huge
officer barked out a command.
“Stand down, sir,” said Freedom, stepping forward. “Get on your knees with your hands on your head.”
“Hey,” said St. George. “There’s no need for this. It’s just a simple misunderstanding.”
“On your knees!” The captain grabbed the hero by the shoulder with his left hand and shoved down. St. George brushed the hand aside.
“I think you need to take a few deep breaths and calm—”
There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting concrete as Freedom’s knuckles caught him under the chin. A shrub whipped St. George from behind and the wall of the gatehouse hit him in the back. He felt it crumble. The soldier marched forward, holstered his oversized pistol, and dragged the hero back to his feet by the lapels of his leather jacket. The man spun on his heel and threw St. George half a block down to 3rd Street.
The hero hit the pavement and skidded into one of the oversized planters. The concrete cracked and soil spilled out over him. He cleared his head with a quick shake and pushed himself back to his feet.
Freedom marched forward again. “Sir, stay on your knees and put your hands on your head,” said the huge soldier. “This is your last warn—”
St. George leaped up, grabbed the officer’s swollen biceps, and shot into the air.
When they were a hundred feet over the Mount he held the larger man up at eye level. “Unless you want to make that drop again,” he said, “I suggest you—”
Freedom slammed his helmet into the bridge of St. George’s nose. When the hero didn’t release him, he did it again.
Smoke curled up from St. George’s nostrils. He glared at the soldier for a moment and opened his hands.
The other man dropped six feet and grabbed hold of the hero’s boot with iron fingers.
“Oh, come on!” snapped St. George.
The soldier who’d taken the man named John to the ground dragged him back to the helicopter. The others shouted until the gate guards dropped their weapons, walked closer to the Black Hawk, and fell to their knees. Then they took up defensive positions around the chopper. Two of the soldiers kept the guards at gunpoint. Two others watched the nearby buildings for opposition.
