by G T Almasi
“What should I tell my dad?”
“Well, normally this is done under anesthesia. It’ll feel like hell when he comes off the lab’s ventilator.”
I swallow a lump in my throat and prop my pistol against my head, “Dad, we’re going to unhook you from the lab. We need you to tell me what you feel so we get it in the right order.”
Understood.
“Then we’ll have to switch you onto our portable ventilator. My partner tells me that will be extremely unpleasant for you.”
Let’s get it over with, then.
I nod to Brando. He begins typing on the keyboard in front of him.
Hot-Shot?
“Yes?”
I love you very much, honey.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, even though I knew I would. Twin streams of tears spring down my cheeks. I close my eyes and gently cradle Li’l Bertha next to my face.
“I love you too, Daddy.”
I leave the tears on my face as I holster my pistol. Then I heave the sarcophagus’s lid open and flip open a row of buckles that latch the metal envelope shut. When I open the top of the envelope, I nearly faint again.
My father has wasted away to almost nothing. All of his ribs show through his thin white shirt. His white cotton pants droop around thighs and calves as thin as curtain rods. His powerful arms have withered to twigs with nearly skeletal hands sprouting from the ends like the claws of a monster.
Only my partner’s stern direction keeps me focused. He has me start with the monitor pads and sensors, the stuff that only reads data. I rip them all off my dad’s shrunken body as quickly as possible. My vision has lost all color and looks like our old black-and-white TV. Brando’s instructions come so fast I need to pop more Madrenaline to keep my hands moving quickly enough. Then we get to the helmet.
“Dad, you all right?”
Peachy.
“Darwin, he’s good so far.”
“Anybody got a free hand down there?” Falcon comms in. “It’s gettin’ a little radical up here.” His call is almost drowned out by the deep ripping sound of a heavy machine-gun.
“Negative, Falcon,” Brando comms back. “We need another minute or so.”
My vision has lost its midrange shades. Everything is either white or black, like a poster. I’m also sweating like crazy. Moisture sizzles down the sides of my body and soaks into my pants and underwear. My knees tremble, so I lean against the sarcophagus.
On close inspection, the helmet’s wire nodes all have little numbers next to them, like network addresses. I zoom in on them with my vision Mods. The numbers appear as thin black characters against a glare-white background. Brando starts at the low end.
“Try 192.1,” he comms.
I find the correct node and pull the wire out.
“Dad? How’s that?”
Nothing.
I plug the wire back in.
His depleted body spasms wildly. Li’l Bertha transmits white noise instead of his comm voice. While he writhes, my vision shifts to dark burgundy and white. Then he lies still.
Alix, that wasn’t … right.
“Oh, God, Daddy. I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
It hurt, but … keep trying.
I look at my partner. His snow-white face is wet with perspiration, and his red eyes are jammed wide open. “Christ,” he whispers. “Okay, let’s try the other direction. Pull 192.255.”
I find the node ending in 255 and pull the wire.
“Dad?”
Much better.
I spend the next minute ripping wires out in descending order until I’m back to the node ending with a 1.
“Scarlet, hang on,” comms Brando. “That’s the wire that’ll disconnect him from the ventilator.”
Grey comms to the two of us. “Let’s shake a leg down there, people. The competition has brought a lot of toys tonight.” To underscore his point, a piece of the ceiling shakes loose and smashes some glass equipment into skittering shards.
Brando runs across the room and takes a plastic gadget out of his X-bag. It’s the size of a hardbound book. The front is covered with knobs and switches, topped by a small screen that lights up as my partner turns it on. From the gadget’s side hangs a cluster of clear plastic tubes that converge at a round plastic something-or-other.
Brando leans over the sarcophagus and freezes when he sees my dad. “Oh, my God.”
Grey comms in, “Scarlet, Darwin, we’ve lost the entrance and are falling back. You need to get moving right now!”
The gunfire gets closer. A shot bangs down the hall and snaps a hole in the lab’s door, shattering the frosted glass. Brando recovers himself and reaches in to my father.
He calls out over the din from the hallway, “Now, Scarlet! Pull that last one.”
I pull out 192.1 and stand back. My partner slides the sarcophagus’s breathing tube out of my father’s mouth and nose. My father begins to convulse again. Falcon and Grey bolt past the door as a stream of bullets explode into the floor behind them, scattering chipped linoleum in every direction. Brando inserts the portable ventilator kit’s breathing equipment into my dad’s throat and presses the clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose.
Five big black-shirted Staatszeiger men charge past the lab. They fire their weapons at Grey and Falcon down the hall. My vision has gone from burgundy on white to burgundy on black, like a negative print from a slasher movie. I’m sweating so heavily I can shake water droplets out of my hair like a dog at the beach.
Another group of SZ men tromp down the hall, but one of these jerkoffs sees me and Brando here in the lab. Their black figures are silhouetted against the dark red walls as they raise their white weapons.
Madrenaline pours into my system so fast I can watch pearls of white sweat fling off my black hand as I whip Li’l Bertha out of her holster and stab her into air between me and these goddamn motherfuckers.
It feels like Li’l Bertha ejaculates her entire ammo pack all at once. Her squadron of big black bullets blasts into the men and sets off a spectacular multicolor fireworks display that launches out of the riddled bodies and paints itself onto the wall.
That’s my girl!
“Fuckin’ radical!” It’s Falcon. “Scarlet, was that you?”
I stalk into the hall on hooves of blazing coals. Li’l Bertha begs for more ammo. My right hand jams a pack up inside her. She’s so ready for me she immediately screams to wake the dead and mercilessly blows the remaining SZ men into shredded dog food.
“Scarlet!”
Black sweat from my hair pours into my eyes, and I go blind. The bawling of the dying troopers and their gushing blood fade away until I can’t hear or feel anything.
“Scarlet?”
Mom, Dad, and I sit in a circle. We all wear flowing white robes and leather sandals. My robe smells like damp earth and ancient bones. Mom turns to Dad. “I told you this would happen to her.” Dad pours his drink on the floor in the middle of our circle. It burns a hole through the carpet and floorboards. A long tentacle snaps out from the hole, grabs my dad, and whips him down below. My mom cries out and plunges in after him. Wails of agony as the snaps of their bodies being chewed and crushed erupt from the hole. I scream and scream and scream until someone comes up behind me and drags me out of the room—
—through Brando’s instant door and back into the undercroft. My jacket has splats of blood all over it.
“Oh, hey, you’re awake!” Brando leans down and looks in my face. “You all right?”
My breath comes in shallow gasps, but I can see in full color again. My hearing has returned, too.
“Jesus, you look terrible,” Brando says.
As he helps me to my feet, I say, “Thanks.”
Falcon and Grey have already passed through the undercroft and are lugging something up the stairs to the church. It’s a blue plastic body bag.
“Patrick! Dad, is he—”
My partner holds one of my hands. “It’s all right, he’s o
kay. There’s an opening in the bag for the ventilator. It’s the best way to keep him wrapped and protected. It also stabilizes his IV feed.”
We race up the stairs. I ask, “How long will that thing keep my dad breathing?”
“An hour. But your dad’s very sick, Scarlet. I think he’s going into shock.”
“How long will he last without a Med-Tech?”
“ Fifteen minutes, maybe less.”
“Is he still awake?”
“No, I gave him a DOSE of the knock-out juice we’ve been using on everybody.”
We emerge into the dusky church interior. Falcon and Grey set my dad down behind the altar. Grey checks my dad and his bag to make sure everything is in place. Falcon runs to the windows on the church’s north side.
Brando says, “I’ve also induced the process that’ll get your dad breathing on his own, although in his weakened condition I’m not sure how long it’ll take.”
Grey walks toward us as he comms on our team channel, “Linebacker to Coach. We’re ready to get in the game.”
“Roger that, Linebacker. Stand by for Playbook.” Coach, our Navy mission coordinator, must be big football fan. All the codes he sent make us sound like fucking Howard Cosell.
Outside, an ominous mechanical rumble gets our attention. Falcon ducks away from the window and shouts, “GUYS! Watch out—”
A storm of gunfire hammers through the stained glass windows. Shattered glass and zinging bullets fill the air and chop into the walls, benches, tapestries, and statues. They also arrow through the negative spaces we each leave behind as we hit the floor like cats falling off a table.
Grey takes charge. “Scarlet, Falcon, return fire! Darwin, on me!” Grey propels himself across the glass-sparkled floor in a fast infantryman’s crawl. Brando follows close behind.
I dose Madrenaline until my toes tingle and then roll toward Falcon’s position. I clench my eyes shut against the flying debris until I bump into the wall. Falcon’s fists clutch his rifle, and his eyes are as big as baseballs.
“Get a spud ready,” I comm to him as I jerk the pin out of one of the pineapple grenades I got from Jacques. Falcon fishes around in his jacket pocket and produces a German potato masher. He primes it and chucks it through the nearest window as I toss my pineapple outside.
A man squeals something before his voice is drowned out by one of the grenades going off. A second later, the other one explodes. I spring to my feet and stick my pistol out the window.
My infrared vision shows me everyone in sight is packing, so I authorize Li’l Bertha to automatically shoot the shit out of anything even remotely warm. Her gyroscopes spin up and swing my hand from target to target. My gun knows she only gets full fire control when I’m in super-deep shit, so she loads up the craziest ammo she’s got without even asking.
The best part about .50-caliber Explosive bullets is every hit is a kill shot. Li’l Bertha’s ferocious outgoing fire reduces each gun-toting competitor to a screaming cloud of meat chunklets. Three SZ men drop like rocks. Then three more. Body parts sail across the pitiless sky like glow-in-the-dark slabs of beef. My vision is literally red, and not from my vision Mods.
Falcon is so stunned by what happens to these jokers that he ducks back below the window. My sidearm runs out of ammo and spins down. I crouch next to Falcon. He ogles Li’l Bertha and gasps, “Holy mother of Mary!”
“Well, maybe.” I stick a another ammo pack into my pistol. “Whoever it is, pass the Lord, praise the ammo, and let’s check the south side.”
Brando is behind the altar, huddled over my father. He’s comming with our Navy pals, but the gunfire is so loud I can’t hear what they’re saying. Grey joins me at the southern windows.
Falcon, Grey tells us, using field signals to communicate, I want you in the spire. Let’s see what your rifle can do from up there.
F-Bird nods and scrambles up the stairs of the central tower. Grey and I tuck ourselves in behind a heavy pillar between a pair of blown-out windows. Heavy incoming suppression fire keeps us tightly tucked into our cover.
A shadow looms behind Grey. Two black leather boots thump onto the floor. An SZ man has jumped in through the window to flush us out! I point and fire Li’l Bertha at the intruder as Grey jabs his pistol past my head and looses a short burst at another attacker behind me. We both wince as the reports from our pistols pummel each other’s eardrums. The two competitors crumble to the crap-strewn floor.
“I’m on station,” comms Falcon. “They seem to be hanging back—oh, wait. I see.”
“What?”
I can almost hear Falcon gulp before he comms, “They’ve got a fucking tank.”
Shit. That’s what the deep rumbling sound has been.
“Darwin,” I comm, “where’s that duster?”
Brando comms back, “Playbook can’t land until we take out that armor.”
“F-Bird,” I comm, “watch the tank and tell me if this does anything.” I stay low as I stick Li’l Bertha out the window. Her optics feed into my Eyes-Up display so I can aim at the looming metal menace outside. I bang a few Explosive 50s at the thing.
I zip my pistol back inside as the panzer’s machine-gunner responds with a rattling shower of bullets that pound into the windowsill above my head. Shattered bits of stonework rip hot slashes across my scalp.
“Did that do anything?” I comm.
“Not really,” Falcon replies. “You made some scrapes in the paint and shot out one of the lights.”
Grey’s brow is furrowed as he considers how to get us out of this. A bug-eyed girl dressed in a petite-size SZ uniform appears next to him. She holds her chin in her hand like that statue of the thinking guy. She pretends to be nodding along with Grey’s thought process. Then she snaps her fingers and disappears. A shiver runs up my spine.
Grey gives me a hard look. “Stay with me, Scarlet!” He can tell I zoned out just now. “I’ve got an idea, but I need your help.”
I inhale a sharp breath through my nose. “Yes, sir.”
“You sure you’re operational?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
Grey switches to the team comm channel. “Falcon, cover us. We’re going after that armor. Darwin, stay with Big Bertha. Scarlet, follow me.” Grey hurdles out the window. Then he activates his cloaking Mods and damn near disappears.
“Grey, I can’t see you. Where are you going?”
“Meet me under the panzer!”
I freshen my Madrenaline and bounce outside. Despite our desperate situation, I can’t help laughing about the crazy shit we Levels say to each other.
45
Same evening, 9:13 P.M. CET
Carentan, Province of France, GG
I race outside after Grey. I rush at the tank and slide under it like I’m stealing second base. Grey is already there. He rubs his hands around the bottom of the vehicle until he finds what he’s searching for.
“Here! Scarlet, rip this panel off.”
Of course! It’s the escape hatch. Grey needs my help because part of what makes him so fast is he isn’t weighed down with the extra strength Mods I have. I feel around the lip of the metal door. The fingers on my synthetic right hand act as a wedge and pry one side open an inch. I stuff all my fingers into the gap and wrench the hatch door off its mount. Dim blue light glows from inside the armored menace.
“Nice!” Grey calls. “Back inside with you. I’ll be right there.”
I scramble out from under the panzer and emerge behind it. Screams and shouts burst from inside the vehicle. I wait for a moment to make sure my fellow Level is okay. Falcon’s rifle bullets zing around us and keep the SZ infantry under cover. The access hatch on top of the tank flips open, and Grey pops out.
He sees me, barks, “RUN!” and charges back toward the Cupcake.
It’s gonna blow! I sprint after him. Grey dives through a shattered window and lands inside on his feet. I’m in mid-leap through the same window when the SZ tank goes up like a steel geyser. The bla
st wave throws me off balance, and instead of landing next to Grey, I plow into him. We tumble down in a heap together.
“Grey, how about a little fucking warning next time?”
My superior barks, “How about you do what I fucking tell you to?”
We glower at each other until my partner’s comm interrupts us. “Sir, the helicopter?”
Grey burns his eyes into mine as he comms, “Falcon! How we looking, kid?”
Falcon comms back, “We’re rad for the moment. The tank is toast. The explosion killed or disabled most of the troopers, but there are three military trucks coming up the road. I think it’s now or never for the dust-off.”
“Got it.” He switches channels. “Linebacker to Playbook. LZ is clear and subject is ready for extraction.”
A man’s voice with a southern twang responds, “Roger that, Linebacker. Playbook on approach, following your comm signal.”
I dash over behind the altar to my father and Brando. My partner has sustained a nasty injury to his head. A streak of blood runs from the wound on his temple down to his neck and soaks into his collar. When I notice it, he shakes me off.
“Later,” he comms.
The two of us hoist Dad up on our shoulders and stumble toward the side exit. Brando is limping. Grey joins us and holds the door open. A loud bang resounds from the stairs down to the undercroft.
“Ha,” grunts Brando. “Got ‘em.”
“That was a mine?”
“Yeah. I set it in case anyone tried to get into the church from the lab.”
We lurch outside as a big unmarked black helicopter floats over the rooftops and quickly swoops toward the ground in front of us. Grey pitches in and helps us carry my father.
“Shit!” Falcon comms from above. “I see a trooper—no, two—with a rocket launcher!”
“Where?”
He doesn’t answer. The three of us all look up as Falcon takes a running jump and flings himself off the church spire. The kid has lost his fucking mind! He sails over the spinning helicopter blades toward the far side of the street. While Falcon flies over us, he keeps his sniper’s rifle pressed against his body and unloads six shots so fast it sounds like an automatic weapon.
