by Jake Bible
“Then we pick off as many as possible before we drop down,” Blaze says.
“No,” Collette says. “We go up.”
“What?” Paulo and Blaze say at the same time.
“I told you that the bug hounds will scatter before we can take out more than three,” Collette says, marching into the bedroom with the fire escape outside. “You need to trust me on that. So we go to the top and get to the next building.”
“How the fuck are we going to do that?” Paulo exclaims.
“I don’t know,” Collette says. “We’ll figure it out when we get up there.”
25
“Coffin Squad, stay tight,” Red whispers as he stops at the corner of a four story building, his eyes scanning the intersection beyond.
“We have our own squad name,” Wallace says.
“Doesn’t matter,” Red replies. “We’re one squad now. When we get to GenSOF then you can piss and moan more about your own squad name. Until then we’re Coffin Squad and you need to accept that.”
“I outrank you all,” Wallace insists. “If we’re going to—”
“Drop it,” Ton interrupts. “Rank doesn’t matter right now.”
“Never thought I’d here that come out of Alton Lane’s mouth,” Wallace smirks.
“There are a lot of things I never thought I’d never say,” Ton says.
“Nick?” Red says. “Care to draw them out?”
“No,” Nick says, turning his armor up to full power. “But I’m better at it than you lazy fucks.”
Nick takes off running, heading straight across the intersection, his legs pumping as fast as they can, his rifle tucked against his chest, head up, body focused.
The rest of the squad wait by the building, eyes on the shadows and hiding places the other buildings of the intersection provide. Nick isn’t even halfway across the intersection before men and women stream from the darkness, their eyes almost glowing with fever and sickness. They take up the chase, all their attention locked on the prey that exposed itself.
“Steady and slow,” Red says. “Careful shots. Make them count. Trip up the mob before it can turn its attention on us.”
Red and Ton move out first, followed by Lewis and Maloch, with Jersey in the middle and Buntu and Wallace taking up the rear. The squad breaks cover and opens fire, shooting static blasts into the mob, taking the outside attackers down one by none, sending the rest into momentary panic as they try to figure out where the assault is coming from.
Affected civvies mingle with Sickland’s cooties; the only way to tell them apart is by their distinctively different dress. While it is the Burn, the civvies still look a thousand times more civilized than the cooties. Matching outfits as opposed to the soiled rags that are standard attire for the Sicklands.
Not that what they wear matters as they turn their attention on Coffin Squad, murder in their eyes and rage bellowing up from their throats.
“Fan out!” Red yells. “Spread your fire!”
“That is not operating procedure!” Wallace yells. “We need to stay tight and present a smaller target!”
“Shut up and do it!” Ton yells as he sprints to the right while Ton sprints to the left. “Red knows how to fight these people better than we do!”
“What the hell do I do?” Jersey yells, trying to keep the panic at bay.
“Stick with us,” Buntu says. “Keep by my side. I’ll get you out of this.”
Jersey looks at the woman and nods, placing a considerable amount of faith in a person she just met and who probably would have killed her only hours earlier.
A piece of the mob splits off, heading straight for Red. He quickly sees he isn’t going to get to the cover of the closest building’s front stoop as he had hoped, so he drops to a knee, picks off two cooties and three civvies then jumps up and rushes right at the rest that come at him.
The first cootie reaches Red and is nothing but foaming spittle and clawing hands. Red sends an elbow into her face and moves on to the next cootie, grabbing the man by the hair and twisting him off balance so he falls and trips up the two civvies behind him. Red blasts one civvie, kicks another back, then blasts that one, ripping open the man’s chest, exposing his ribcage and lungs for all to see.
A cootie tackles Red around the waist, but the operator rolls with it, flipping the woman up over his legs, so her spine comes down onto the pavement at a harsh angle, snapping instantly. The woman’s legs stop moving, but her arms still work and she claws at Red’s armor, ignoring the constant flow of static shocks that course through her body.
“Fuck you,” Red says as he takes aims and blasts her head right off.
He kicks the body away and scrambles to his feet, just in time for a civvie to slam into his chest. This time Red doesn’t have the momentum as before and he ends up on his back, his rifle pinned between him and the snarling civvie. Red looks into the man’s eyes, sees the sickness there, the irrational rage, but also sees something else. Something looking out at him, something studying him.
Red sends a headbutt into the man’s face, giving him just enough time to wriggle his rifle into a position where the blast won’t catch him as well. The man’s sick eyes, the eyes that have more to them than just a single consciousness, go wide then roll up into his head as Red shoves him off.
Before he can get a knee under him, and away from the smoking corpse, two more civvies grab him by the shoulders, yanking him to his feet. The first grabs for Red’s rifle, but he gets a fist in the throat for his effort. As that civvie chokes and coughs, the other manages to get an arm around Red’s neck, lifting the GenWreck up off the ground.
Then Red is free and on his hands and knees, coughing hard next to the civvie who is struggling to breathe around a crushed windpipe. Red looks over and sees a headless corpse next to him then looks back at a smiling Ton.
“Get up, old man,” Ton says and reaches out a hand. “Still a lot of people to kill.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on it,” Red croaks, taking Ton’s hand. “And fuck you too, old man.”
The two veterans don’t waste any time and dive back into the fight.
26
It’s a rough landing, and Blaze barely has time to tuck his shoulder into the roll, but he sticks it and comes up into a crouch, his rifle ready, with no broken bones.
“Clear!” Blaze calls as he sweeps his rifle aback and forth, making sure the building’s roof is free of cooties and sick civvies. “Your turn!”
Blaze gets up and moves quickly out of the way to give room for Paulo, and then Collette, to jump across onto the third building they’ve had to escape to. Both make it easily and are at Blaze’s side in seconds.
“Try the stairs?” Paulo asks.
“No point,” Collette says. “Listen.”
The sounds of angry cooties and civvies reach them from down on the street. Blaze walks to the edge of the roof and peers over. He quickly ducks back as a static blast rips into the ledge, sending shards of stone and metal flying against his visor. The world turns blue as the visor incinerates the smaller of the shards.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” Blaze says, quickly backing up to the other two.
“They’re armed now?” Collette asks.
“Hell, cooties can get a little shooty out in the Sicklands sometimes,” Paulo says. “Stands to reason Burn gangs will have weapons too.”
“Great,” Blaze says. He walks over to the far end of the roof and eyes the building next to them. “Bad trajectory. We aren’t high enough. We jump and we’ll hit the wall or crash through a window.” He turns and looks at the door that leads from the roof to the stairs. “We may need to get creative.”
“We don’t know how many are on the other side of that door,” Paulo says.
“They already know we’re up here,” Collette responds. “So we’ll find out how many pretty fucking quick.”
“Do we have the gear to get across?” Blaze asks, pulling off his pack and setting it on the roof. “I don
’t have shit for rope in here. Not even a compressed cartridge I can fire.”
“I don’t either,” Paulo says. “I didn’t think we’d need to scale anything. I assumed it was a ground game the whole way.”
“Spoiled GenSOF pussies,” Collette sighs. She opens her pack and yanks out two metal boxes, each the size of a fist. “Which way?”
“Same way we’ve been going,” Paulo says.
“Or not,” Blaze responds. He walks to the ledge one more time and takes another look. There’s no static blast this time and he smiles. “I think the gunslinger is coming up to see us. Same with the rest. Barely anyone down there.”
“They know we’re stuck here,” Collette says as she places one of the metal boxes on the end of her rifle and steps next to Blaze. “They don’t know we’re outfitted.”
“If we take this across the street then we can get up onto the roof over there,” Blaze says, pointing out at the Burn. “Stair steps for the next three buildings. Nothing but a long, flat warehouse after that, though. Not an ideal place to get caught.”
“Nothing is ideal,” Paulo says. “But we have to get to GenSOF tower.”
The sounds of angry voices come from behind the stairs door. The three operators glance towards the door then back out across the street at the building that looks dangerously far away.
“Your call,” Collette says to Blaze.
“My call? Why is it my call?” Blaze asks.
“Because you’re the one with the super bug in your guts,” Collette replies. “You’re the one that has to stay alive.”
“Fuck that,” Blaze says. “We all have to stay alive.”
The door shudders as cooties and civvies start slamming against it.
“We could stand and fight,” Paulo says, looking around at the roof. “We have space to spread out. We’d probably drop half of them before they get through the door.”
“What do you think, Chosen One?” Collette smirks.
“I think you need to fuck off,” Blaze says. The door shudders and bows outward. “We go across. The mob probably got a lot bigger when they came up through the building. Even if we drop half, that still means we have half to deal with.”
“Fine,” Collette says and takes aim at the building across the street. “We go.”
She fires and the box rockets away from her rifle. About halfway across it warps and changes, turning into a spider web of hooks and bolts. Collette quickly takes the second box and sets it on the ledge. She slams her fist against the top and it opens up, revealing a single metal hoop about two inches in diameter that slowly rises into the air. Blaze and Paulo frown at each other, neither having seen the device before.
Collette grins at the confused operators. “You have no idea how many ravines and crevices we have to deal with in the Sicklands. Necessity meets invention, and all that happy crap.”
There’s a loud clang and thunk as the spider web of hooks and bolts hit the side of the building. Then a flash of light and a bright blue line fires from the spider web back to the hoop in front of the operators. Another flash and an almost invisible monofilament fires back from the hoop to the spider web, following along the blue line.
Collette reaches out and snaps the monofilament, causing it to sing with a high-pitched hum.
“It’s set,” she says. “You two ever ziplined a mono before?”
“Sure,” Paulo nods.
“Never,” Blaze says.
“Me neither,” Paulo admits and shrugs.
Collette grins and hooks her legs over the ledge then tosses her rifle across the nearly invisible monofilament. “The key is to get the hell out of the way. This moves a lot faster than you think. I set the anchor just above that fire escape over there, so hang on until you stop then drop to the fire escape so the guy behind you doesn’t fuck your shit up.”
“You’re going first?” Blaze asks.
“Good observation skills, Sergeant,” Collette says then launches herself off the ledge.
It looks like she’s flying in thin air with her arms up and rifle over her head. She races across the open space and Blaze and Paulo look down at the road below. Three civvies stand in the middle of the street and begin yelling at the top of their lungs as they watch Collette hit the building across the street.
There’s a groan and a loud popping noise as one of the hinges from the stairs door comes loose.
“You next,” Paulo says. “Get moving.”
“You sure?” Blaze asks.
“Shut up and go,” Paulo says, slapping Blaze on the shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you, so get the hell out of my way, okay?”
Blaze nods and repeats the same movements as Collette. In seconds, he’s hanging over thin air, his arms straining to keep from letting go of his rifle as he rockets to the next building. It’s all over in less than a couple seconds and Blaze almost forgets to get out of the way when he hears Paulo shouting at him.
Blaze drops to the fire escape and sees Collette waiting for him on the other side of an open window.
“I was expecting you to scream,” Collette says. “Most first timers do.”
“I am GenSOF, you know,” Blaze says. “I’ve done worse than zipline in the Burn.”
“Good for you,” Collette winks. “You should use that as your epitaph. Want me to write it down?”
“Move, dickhead!” Paulo shouts from above as he dangles by his rifle.
“Sorry,” Blaze says and climbs inside the window, following Collette through a trashed apartment to the front door.
Paulo drops onto the fire escape and climbs in behind him. He gets about a meter in before he cries out and dives to the floor.
“Fuck!” he says, grabbing his shoulder. “Someone knows how to shoot!”
His armor sparks a few times then turns a dull black.
“Sniper,” Blaze growls and moves out of the line of sight of the open window, Collette at his side. “Paulo?”
“I’m cool,” Paulo says, crawling to them. “Took out the static charge in my armor, though. Fucker.”
“That was a pretty good shot for a civvie,” Blaze says. “This shit inside them makes them crazy, but not stupid. Not liking that.”
Collette aims at the wall by the front door and opens fire, burning a huge hole through to the hallway.
“Let’s not find out what else they can do,” Collette says. “We need to get to the roof and over to the next building.”
Blaze grabs her by the arm before she can take off. “Not with a shooter like that waiting for us. We get up in the open and he’ll take us down fast. Probably pick us off in mid-jump. I think we have to go back down.”
“We’ll be outnumbered fast,” Paulo says.
Blaze looks around the trashed apartment. With the constant threat of bacterial outbreak, he can’t comprehend how someone can live like this. Empty food cartons, stim packets, soiled clothing. Disgusting. He kicks some of the trash with his foot, sorting through it until he hooks a pair of pants with his toe.
“I bet we can find more in the bedroom,” Blaze says. “Wallace said we had already gone native. Time to prove her right.”
“You have got to be kidding?” Paulo frowns. “I know we have bugs in our gut that can fight off almost any infection, but shit, Blaze, I don’t think a nuclear bomb could kill the crap those pants are infested with. No fucking way.”
“He’s right,” Collette says, snapping her file into a baton and already hunting for something that will fit over her armor. “Time to blend in.”
“This is going to suck so bad,” Paulo says.
“I’m not going to deny that,” Blaze says as he takes the pants by his hand and grimaces. “It’ll take a month of sonics to get our skin clean, even with our suits on. But we do what we have to do. That’s the GenSOF way.”
“Sure, throw that in my face,” Paulo sighs as he snaps his rifle into a baton and sets his pack on the floor. “This is going to suck, this is going to suck, this is going to suck.”
27
It is strange for Jersey not to see the periodic sweeps of static energy clean the Caldicott City streets. They were something she had always been aware of, maybe more so than others because of her position with the loose resistance that Worm and the GenWrecks built, but the static sweeps hadn’t exactly been a news event.
Every few minutes, static energy would clean the city streets of possible microbial contamination. Jersey found it hard to believe anything could live after the constant sterilization, but one thing humanity learned over the years was that bacteria doesn’t quit. It never quits.
So Jersey keeps expecting the surge and flash of the sweeps; the ozone smell of the air, the crackling of the static. She expects the city systems to keep clean what has always been cleaned.
She expects the pools of blood to go away, the dozens of corpses to be removed by hover bots and Burn civvies sentenced to community service for breaking sanitation protocols. She expects something to happen, something other than the blatant indifference that the operators show for the scene of death that surrounds them all.
“Short range scans show another grouping of hostiles a block over,” Buntu says. “So stay close to me.”
Jersey doesn’t respond, her attention fixed on the corpses, her mind going back to the horrors she witnessed in Control. All the dogs, all the cooties, all the pain and suffering.
“Ms. Cale!” Buntu snaps. “Pay the fuck attention to me!”
Jersey yanks her eyes away from the dead and looks at Buntu. She almost doesn’t recognize the woman and panics then realizes that she is not just with the GenWrecks, but with GenSOF operators as well.
“Right. Right, sorry,” Jersey says. “It’s just a lot to take in.”
“Then don’t take it in,” Buntu says. “Ignore it and let it all fly by. You don’t have to feel anything for these people. They attacked us.”
“But they are under something else’s control,” Jersey says. “It’s not their fault.” She sighs and shakes her head. “And how do you just switch it off anyway. That’s not something I can do.”
