by Mat Nastos
A lucky burst of fire from a frightened young beat cop tore into Mal’s abdomen. The bullets punched through the soft, meaty lining of his obliques. The wound wasn’t enough to stop the cyborg for long, but the influx of pain did drop him to one knee. Without conscious thought powering it, Mal’s right arm shot out, extending and elongating to more than six feet in length. His hot living metal hand snapped closed around the youth’s neck, sending the officer’s eyes bulging from the pressure build up.
Mal’s own eyes went wide as the Cestus protocol screamed for the man’s blood. In that instant of pain, Mal had to fight for control of his very mind once more while a man’s life dangled in the palm of his inhuman hand.
The flesh was beginning to tear beneath the unyielding grasp, the windpipe collapsing, by the time Mal was able to push back the encroaching presence of the Cestus protocol bubbling up into his mind.
Five officers popping out of the mustard fog with T-batons held high, coming to the rescue of their fallen comrade, nearly broke Mal’s concentration. Glaring at his attackers as they proceeded to pummel him across his torso, Mal gave one final shove and pushed Cestus back into his mental cage. He hoped the doors would hold for a while longer.
Mal had to fight for constant control over his weapons systems. With every blow he landed on an opponent, with each strike he made, his automated combat protocols wanted to lash out and kill his enemies. His hands were constantly shifting back and forth from their ‘at ease’ mode that appeared mostly human, to their more aggressive, ‘claws out’ profile. The police officers attacking Chris were only doing their jobs and trying to take down a heavily armed menace. The cyborg respected the fact the men were able to stand their ground when confronted by two cybernetic horrors well outside of their normal comfort range.
Going from your everyday crooks to a pair of billion dollar government-manufactured cyborg super-soldiers was a pretty big leap for anyone to take, even the most trained of law enforcement agents. Disabling a SWAT officer with an openhanded shuto strike to the neck, Mal swore he’d do whatever it took to avoid killing any of the cops in the process. Aiding and abetting Chris in his escape would put him in more than enough hot water as it was.
Well, in addition to the whole ‘wanted as a terrorist’ thing, that is.
Of course, being the only one in a war with a reluctance to kill made things infinitely more…interesting for the former high-tech assassin.
A voice wound its way to Mal’s super-sensitive ears through the ra-ta-tat drumbeat of the endless clamor of gunfire. The cyborg’s eyes went wide as he recognized the voice and its words.
“Forward base, Excalibur Squad under heavy fire. Need immediate evac,” came the voice of Lieutenant Chris Donlin out of the travesty wearing his face. “Our position is at thirty-eight point eight-six-six-seven degrees North by forty-three point zero-zero-zero-zero degrees East. Come in, Forward Base.”
Excalibur Squad? That was the call-sign for the Ranger unit Donlin had been in charge of overseas. The coordinates, Mal’s computer systems confirmed, were for a spot near the center of Dahuk. Under fire?
A light bulb went off on Malcolm Weir’s head.
“Fuck me…the El-Tee thinks he’s still in Iraq…he’s trying to radio for help,” thought Mal, his hope ratcheting up ten notches as he began to process what he was hearing. “Chris is still in there somewhere!”
The rekindling of hope spurred Mal to redouble his efforts to reach the crazed cyborg that was all that remained of his former comrade-in-arms. Dropping a SWAT office with a spinning heel kick to the temple, Mal yanked off the cop’s harness which held a set of five smoke and three tear gas grenades. If the cyborg was going to have any chance at all of bringing the psychotic Donlin under control he was going to need some privacy.
Yellow gas erupted in a fountain, spraying out and filling the large alley with its caustic chemical vapors. Two more tear gas canisters followed, spewing their own abrasive fumes, each cutting off a gang of the blue and black clad NYPD members from approaching the still firing Donlin. Mal hurled the remaining smoke grenades further out in order to slow any sort of coordinated approach law-enforcement might have planned.
Calculating the amount of compressed compound contained in each projectile, and factoring in the air volume of the alley way and prevailing wind speed present, Mal’s computer informed him there would be less than ninety seconds of optimal coverage. Afterward, the remaining haze would result in a thirty-percent reduction in visibility only. Mal moved out of the thick blanket of billowing miasma, revealing himself to the deranged Donlin fully for the first time.
“El-Tee,” called Mal, raising his hands in as non-aggressive a position as someone with cybernetic weapons for arms could. “It’s me…it’s Malcolm Weir.”
Donlin’s response was not at all what Mal had been looking for.
A stream of fifty-caliber rounds tore up the gravel around Mal’s feet as his friend turned his arm cannon toward him. Only Mal’s inhumanly enhanced reflexes and speed saved the cyborg from taking a belly fully of copper jacketed bullets from Chris’s weapon.
A series of tactical suggestions played out over the inside of Mal’s head’s up display, offering a number of options his computer systems had calculated to have the most efficient outcomes for dealing with an entity it had classified as a ‘threat level two’ opponent. The problem for Mal was, while they all resulted in his own survival with minimal or no damage, each and every option ended in termination of his friend’s life. For the Cestus programming, the only good enemy was a dead enemy, regardless of Mal’s own feelings in the matter.
Shutting down the readouts, Mal dodged another barrage from Chris with a veritable ballet of acrobatic maneuvers. Thanks to the nanobots removing lactic acid build-up in his muscles the ranger could continue to evade attack from the slower, more-direct combat cyborg Caliber had been designed to operate at. To Mal, Chris’s offensive appeared to be almost in slow-motion. But dodging and fancy gymnastics weren’t going to be enough to solve the issue or to keep more members of the NYPD from getting killed. It didn’t help that more and more law-enforcement agents were arriving with each moment that passed, or that the national guard was probably already in route.
While Mal had complete confidence in his own abilities to withdraw from the situation with little to no effort, thanks to systems fashioned for stealth and hit-and-run tactics; he wasn’t sure his friend would be as lucky. Designate Caliber had been Project Hardwired’s first attempt at combining man with machine and the result had been a crude, simple and straight-forward design. If Cestus had been created to be a finely-tuned, high precision sports car, then Caliber was a station wagon.
An idea struck Mal. The Prime units had all been connected with the Abraxas Array wirelessly through a satellite feed directly to the system. At the same time, their internal computers had the ability to operate in conjunction with one another while on missions. This gave the Primes the benefit of silent, untraceable communication during operations. The capacity for integrating their minds and movements made the cyborgs unstoppable.
It also meant, with a bit of luck, Mal might still be able to do the high tech version of a Vulcan mind-meld on Chris and wake the man up enough to force a retreat.
“Computer,” said Mal silently, pretending to possess a Scottish brogue. “Initiate contact with Designate Caliber.”
A rush of images, thoughts, and emotions flooded Mal’s mind as his brain tapped into that of Chris Donlin. Confusion and pain reigned over Chris’s psychic landscape. Fractured memories bounced up against the hard-coded logic installed into the man’s cerebellum by Project Hardwired. Without the influence of the Abraxas Array to help filtered things, Chris was quickly being driven insane. It was remarkable the man had lasted a month on his own.
Locking eyes with Chris, Mal spoke out-loud even as the computerized systems of both men connected invisibly and without the need for words. “Give me a Sit Rep, solider.”
Donlin re
peated the coordinates he had been chanting earlier. “Just outside of Dahuk. Chopper down and under heavy fire from local insurgents. Request immediate evac.” The mad cyborg’s head spun around, targeting a group of SWAT team members who had worked up the nerve to approach behind a phalanx of bulletproof shields. “Threat detected,” Designate Caliber’s sharp, short speech patterns took over from the more human Chris’s. “Instituting counter-measures.”
Steam shot out from the rear of the cannon on Chris’s arm and the multi-barrel weapon begin to emit a shriek as it started to spin. A two foot chain of large belt-felt bullets were sucked into the device and loaded before Mal could react. Spurting out faster than the mind could process, forty powerful projectiles leapt from the churning muzzles of the Gattling gun and pounded into the tightly packed mob of black uniformed men, punching holes through the resistant armored plexi-glass of their shields like an ice pick through paper. Flesh was perforated and bone obliterated all while Mal looked on.
“Stand down! Stand down!” screamed Mal, slamming into the rampaging half-machine man as he tried to redirect the gunfire away from the injured cops. The tangled mass of men and machines collapsed to the ground in the resulting struggle.
Seconds ticked off the clock with increasing speed as the pair of Project Hardwired gladiators flailed about on the shadowed asphalt between the massive dockside warehouses. Neither was able to gain the upper hand—Donlin was larger, heavier and more powerful, confined only by the limits of his long-range combat design. With his opponent in close, there was no way for Donlin to target him with his cannon.
Mal was faster and more agile, his offensive systems built for close-quarter fighting. But the former army ranger was handicapped by his compassion for Donlin’s plight. He wanted to cause the afflicted man as little damage as possible.
A flash of silver at the base of Donlin’s skull caught Mal’s eye and spurred him into action. Rearranging the shape of his hand into a six-inch data-spike, Mal shoved his appendage into the large system power in the back of his friend’s head—a feature all of the Prime units shared.
The direct connection was an order of magnitude more powerful than their shared wireless one had been. It gave Mal’s computer passenger complete access to every circuit, every wire, every bite of information contained within the damaged psyche of Chris Donlin and the digital devices used to rebuild the devastated gray matter of his brain.
With every iota of power he had, every bit of strength, every ounce of determination, Mal pushed his thoughts into Chris’s mind. He sent memories of the times the two had spent serving in the military together. Mal used his own computer to try to repair the extensive damage done by the loss of Chris’s connection to the Abraxas Array.
The extent of deterioration done to Chris’s internal data was almost beyond comprehension. It was no wonder the man had gone berserk the moment Abraxas had been destroyed in the explosion at the US Bank Tower the previous month. The Caliber programming was nowhere near as complete or self-contained as what Project Hardwired had installed into Mal’s own nanotech systems. Caliber needed constant updating and rewriting done to continue any sort of long term operation. Without help from the larger databanks of Abraxas, Caliber wouldn’t even be able to maintain the basic life-support systems needed to sustain Chris’s fragile hold on life.
If Mal couldn’t figure something out, and quick, then Chris’s systems would shut down completely. His friend would be dead again with no hope of resurrection.
A final push freed enough of Donlin’s neural pathways for Mal to decisively break through the programming overlaid onto the cyborg’s mind and reach the man supplanted beneath it for so long.
“Chris,” said Mal calmly, breaking the link between he and Donlin. “Stop struggling. It’s me, Mal.”
“Malcolm…Malcolm Weir? Is it really you?” For the first time since the terrible helicopter crash a year earlier, the man who had once been Lieutenant Christopher Donlin fought his way through the dim haze of the programming forced into his brain and looked at his friend with sad, confused eyes. “Wh-what’s going on, Mal?”
The two figures stumbled out of the darkness between buildings and into the first light Chris had truly seen in a year. The brightness was blinding, causing the man to falter and lose his footing. Mal reached out and took the damaged man’s arm, reassuring him and standing him back upright.
“It’s going to be alright, Chris,” smiled Mal, warmly.
“Thanks, Mal…”
*****
The government agent code-named Kappa-Two, better known as ‘little’ Billy Mitchell to friends and family back in Holyoake, Massachusetts, had been chomping at the bit to get into the dockside firefight since the second their target had entered into the conflict. It was only through sheer force of will, and a number of physical and job-based threats, that his superior had been able to restrain him from charging in with guns blazing.
It wasn’t that Tom Hutchison, bearer of the Kappa-One moniker, didn’t sympathize with the younger man’s desire to join the action. That wasn’t the case at all. Standing idly by as more than forty members of the New York City Police Department were cut down by the pair of rogue cyborgs rubbed the elder agent the wrong way. If it had been up to the six-foot-six former basketball player, Kappa-One and his partner would have gladly rushed to the aid of their brothers in law-enforcement.
But the two members of the black-ops tracker unit were under explicit orders to avoid contact with Designate Cestus at all costs. They were on a ‘watch and wait’ mission. Getting involved in a pitched battle against the two killers would only have put their mission, and their own lives, in jeopardy.
The bitter pill the pair were forced to swallow had been made a bit easier to take with the realization that their aid would not have altered the outcome of the disastrous attack by the NYPD or the eventual escape by Cestus and Caliber. In all reality, it would have only resulted in two more bodies for the coroner to piece back together in an attempt to identify their remains.
As much as Hutchison appreciated the sacrifices made by police on the scene, he loved his own life even more.
In a silence broken only by the sounds of Manhattan in the background, and Mitchell’s grunts of irritation in the fore, the two members of Kappa-Squad tailed the traitorous half-men back to the rundown dive motel Cestus had been hiding in for the past few days.
Once they had confirmed the Designates had returned to the dirty room on the eighth floor, Hutchison nodded to Mitchell, giving him the green light to contact their handlers flying over the city.
“Kappa-Squad to Sky-High, over,” growled Mitchell into his headset.
The response from the C&C unit came back almost instantly.
“This is Sky-High. Go ahead, Kappa-Squad. Report.”
“Target has returned to home base, Sky-one,” responded Mitchell. “And, get this, he brought company with him.”
“Explain,” requested the radio operator’s voice through the ear-based receivers connecting both Kappa agents to their controllers. The man on the other end sounded annoyed by Mitchell’s response.
“Don’t play with them, Mitchell,” snapped Hutchison. The veteran knew from years in service that pissing off the men upstairs was the quickest way to a demotion or worse. ‘Never piss off Sky-High’ was his motto.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mitchel to his partner, rolling his eyes. Into his microphone, he added, “Designate Cestus returned with secondary target Caliber. Both Units are holed up inside the Friendly Garden Inn, room 812. Over.”
Mitchell was answered by the low hiss of silence in his ears. Shrugging to his companion, the shorter agent asked, “Awaiting orders, Sky-High. How shall we proceed?”
“Stay frosty, Kappa-Squad,” replied Sky-High. “Back-up is in route. ETA thirty-two minutes.”
Yanking the sidearm from the holster hidden on his waist beneath the cheap jacket making up most of his disguise, Mitchell checked the weapon’s sight with an enormous grin o
n his face. He took careful aim with the Beretta M9A1, targeting a window on the eighth floor of the building Malcolm Weir had just entered carrying the unconscious form of Chris Donlin over his shoulder.
“Bang, bang,” mimed Mitchell, pretendeding to shoot. “You’re dead.”
A few feet away, Agent Hutchison just shook his head and grinned. The younger man’s excitement had begun to infect the older soldier, who was glad their days of sitting around doing nothing would soon be at an end. Hutchison unzipped his own crappy windblazer and headed for the cache of equipment they had secreted in the space behind a dumpster close by.
Let Mitchell play pretend all he wants, Hutchison thought. There was no way he was going to be caught dead wearing a Member’s Only jacket when their reinforcements arrived. That was the sort of thing you’d never be able to live down back at HQ.
CHAPTER 15
Seated across from one another in the confines of the ratty motel room, the twenty-four inches that separated the two soul-weary men seemed as insurmountable as the silence between them.
They had been sitting in deathly quiet for more than ten minutes, analyzing one another with senses that extended far beyond those of normal men, each trying to confirm that the other was indeed who he claimed to be. Both split between the hope of that truth and the sheer horror of what it meant.
It was Mal who finally found the courage to disrupt the electrified air hanging solidly in the room. His voice little more than a harsh whisper.
“They told me you were dead, El Tee.”
“I think I was, Mal,” responded Donlin in a faraway voice, eyes glazed over.
Mal nodded. “Do you have any memory at all of what happened? Of what they did to you?”
“No,” answered Donlin.
