by Mat Nastos
The dull gray barrels of the massive gun surgically grafted to his shoulder slid up in front of Chris’s face. The man’s eyes widened in a hypnotized horror as he ran his gaze up and down it’s length. Without thinking, Chris reached out to touch the metal of the weapon. It was then he caught sight of the inhuman steel claw that was all that remained of his other arm.
“I…I came to with my hand around the throat of a woman, Mal,” stuttered the shaken man, continuing to stare at the mixture of tattered flesh and twisted metal that now made up his hands. “Her throat had been crushed…I killed her and didn’t even know I was doing it.”
Chris collapsed onto the bed, sobbing. It was all too much for him to bear, too much for him to relive.
Reaching out, Mal placed his hand on his former friend’s arm, empathizing completely with what he was going through. Mal had woken up after a year under the control of Project Hardwired and found himself laying on the cold metal table of a surgical suite with wires emerging from every inch of his body and his arms replaced by two cybernetic weapons.
Mal knew exactly what the man was going through.
“It’s OK, Chris,” he said softly in the best impression of a comforting voice he could manage. “It wasn’t you. The government killed that woman…her blood is on their hands, not yours.”
Looking up with red-rimmed eyes, Chris slapped Mal’s hand away.
“No…you don’t understand. She was still alive when I came out of it. I felt her throat collapse beneath my fingers…I watched as she died, Mal. They didn’t kill her. I did.”
Empathy flooded Mal’s own eyes with tears. He understood completely what his friend was going through. During his own tumultuous reawakening, filled with confusion and inconsolable rage, Mal had killed someone in cold blood. Killed a woman with the new weapons forged onto his body. Killed a woman whose only real crime had been being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Chris, I…”started Mal before he was cut off.
“What are we, Mal? We’re not human anymore.”
“We’re rangers, Chris. And we’re going to find the men that did this to us…that did this to all of us…and we’re going to make them pay for it in blood.”
A metal fist capable of crushing stone to powder with ease slammed into the titanium shell that made up Chris’s temple. Again and again he pounded himself, only stopping when Mal reached out to restrain him.
Looking up at the man holding onto the servos over his wrist, Donlin wailed, “My mind is wrong! Why can’t I think straight anymore?”
“You’re fighting the programming they shoe-horned into your head, El Tee. The same as they did to me. We have to fight to stay in control or it takes over. It’s not easy, but you can do it.”
“I can feel myself slipping away with every breath I take,” groaned the ruined man. “I don’t know how long I can fight it.”
“If you trust me I can help you,” said Mal, trying to sound far more reassuring than he felt.
“Do I really have much choice, Mal?” asked Chris with a half strangled giggle tinged with a hint of returning madness.
“No, Chris…neither of us have all that many options left.” The structure of Mal’s hand warped and altered slowly, returning to the data-spike form he had used on the rogue cyborg earlier. He moved it slowly for Chris to see. For the sensors in Chris’s head to analyze.
“Go ahead,” nodded what little humanity remained of Chris Donlin from deep within the shell of Designate Caliber.
Mal’s mouth became a grim line as he considered the task before him. He’d already connected with the computerized brain that housed what was left of his friend once and seen the awful place it had become, and he wasn’t sure what he could do on his own. The only way to aid his friend was to go back inside the wrecked passages of his mind and try to bandage as much as he could. Realistically, they’d need the help of Zuz or his new ally, Carl Anderson. Until then, though, Mal would do the best he was able.
The rush of information nearly overwhelmed Mal’s own receptors. Everything Chris had experienced since his computerized brain had been brought back online flooded across the link between them. But it wasn’t the sheer amount of data streaming through the connection that threatened Mal’s systems, it was the awful state they were in. Every byte of information was fragmented, corrupted. No sequences of stored memory were in complete states. Every one was broken and even degrading as Mal processed them.
At first, the corruption began to over-write Mal’s own stored data. Like a virus it spread quickly and uncontrollably. If not for the advanced programming of the Cestus construct and the additional processing power of the trillions of nanodrones making up his bionics Mal would have been lost. As it was, the stress of combating the vicious computer virus knocked the cyborg for a loop. Worst of all for the cyborg was the realization that all of the damage was being done by design. The men who had performed the atrocities that brought Chris Donlin back to life had also placed a series of safeguards in place to guarantee his obedience.
Anger built up in Mal at the discovery. Rage pulsed through his veins and into his heart. Director Kiesling and his goons at Project Hardwired had made sure none of the Prime cyborgs could ever escape their slavery.
There was no way for Mal to sort through all of the corrupted code in a short time—it was an extensive job better suited to the safe environs of Zuz’s mountain cabin, somewhere away from distractions or prying eyes. For now, though, Mal could make things more comfortable for his friend. He could patch the man’s withered mind back to something more stable, and he could limit the enervating effects of the destructive code on Donlin’s systems. And, at the same time, he could revise and rework the bits of his own programming that was based on the same protocols installed into the older model machine-man.
Millions of lines of code were rewritten in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of hours of memory reconstructed. Along the way, Mal pulled what intelligence he could from Chris’s databanks—names, faces, missions…anything at all he and Zuz might be able to use to their advantage later on. The most interesting slice of knowledge was a series of vague references to Mal’s mission to Kabul tied intricately to a coded transmission.
Mal felt a bolt of lightning ignite every circuit in his body when he attempted to decode the message locked in the vaults of his friend’s computer-brain. All he managed to decipher was a queer set of words, cobbled together as if from a poem.
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the Hollow Men.
When Mal’s probing touched the words his entire system locked-down, alarms going off in every corner of his mind, screamed to the heavens by his computerized brain. The warnings not only broke off contact between Mal and Donlin, but were violent enough to send him careening across the room.
Unable to make sense of the experience, Mal turned his attention to his friend.
“His systems are degrading without regular communication with Abraxas,” thought Mal to himself as his dread began to build. The fail-safes hard-coded into the Caliber system were there to ensure renegade units didn’t continue to operate on their own for long before they would suffer a terminal breakdown.
Although Chris’s programming was much cruder and more rudimentary than those Mal had been given, the two shared a basic design. If Chris and the other Prime Units had all gone berserk, losing control of their minds, then how much longer did Mal have before the same happened to him? The headaches, the huge error logs being generated every hour by his internal systems, the increasing difficulty Mal had in containing the Cestus programming…it all added up to some very bleak news for the former army ranger.
“I did this to us,” stammered Mal finally. “I destroyed the Abraxas Array…this is my fault, Chris.”
The Designates were all slaved to the master computer. Without it they were all as good as dead.
Looking desperately into his friend’s eyes, Chris asked, “Is this t
he way the world ends?”
The words hammered into Mal’s mind, sending him reeling.
For some reason, the phrase set off every alarm in his head and he didn’t know why. The super-soldier reached out and gripped his friend roughly by the shoulder. “What did you say?!”
Confused by Mal’s reaction, Chris pushed the clawed hand away with a metallic fist of his own. “I don’t know…those words keep running through my head. Have been since I woke up. Do you know them?”
“I…I…”
Disjointed images of blood and death and fire began to flash through Mal’s mind, dropping him down to one knee, as the words began to pound bloodlessly in his ears.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
“‘Not with a bang but a whimper,’” finished Mal in an uncontrolled shout as he collapsed to the dingy motel carpet.
“Mal,” came Chris Donlin’s voice, breaking through the strange seizure Mal was experiencing. “Who are the Hollow Men?”
Before he could respond to his broken friend’s plea, Mal’s internal sensors began to scream a warning with an intensity so fierce the cyborg was convinced his ears were going to bleed. An instant later, the world around them shattered.
*****
When the back-up Sky-High had promised finally arrived Billy Mitchell was ecstatic. Everyone in the intelligence and black-ops community, such as it was, was aware of the rather unique group of individuals who were quickly disembarking from a pair of open-top hover platforms.
Getting the chance to see the members of the Templars alone was an experience that promised to be legendary. The men dressed in personalized variations of green and black military fatigues, filed quickly, quietly and efficiently onto the unoccupied side-alley position Mitchell and his partner had chosen for their rendezvous, unloading the sort of firepower one would have expected to see brought to bear against a fleet of tanks.
For a rookie operative like Mitchell, it was the same sort of feeling a college football player might get while sitting on the sidelines of a pro NFL game. Sure the mercenaries performed the same sorts of jobs he did, they just seemed to do it with a hell of a lot more style and finesse.
“Close your mouth, Kappa-Two,” hissed Hutchison into his younger partner’s ear, making the youth jump. As much as he hid it, Kappa-One was as in awe of the men as Mitchell was, but there was no way he was going to show it to the mercs. “Don’t embarrass me, kid.”
“I can’t believe we get to work with them!” the excitement in Mitchell’s whisper could have been seen from space.
“Stand up straight, here comes their boss.”
Snapping to attention, the two government agents’ eyes went wide as the tenth member of the newly arrived group dismounted from his position on the larger of the two hovering craft. Not as tall or as broad as his men, the armored Grail resonated with a level of confidence and self-assuredness that demanded the attention of all present. It wasn’t just the bizarre costume he wore—a combination of futuristic technology wrapped in a medieval package—but everything about him exuded the magnetism of a natural born leader. His granite gray orbs stared out from beneath thick brown brows like those of a hawk, with everything in his sight potential prey.
To the bear of a man who was his second-in-command Grail asked, “Situation Report, Mr. Roddick. How do we stand?”
Light flashed from a book-sized device in Roddick’s hand and revealed a holographic image detailing the area around them for a distance of ten city blocks in all directions.
“We have teams stationed here, here, here, and here, sir,” Four buildings surrounding the Friendly Garden Inn lit up in bright red with a gesture from Roddick. “They’ve got all major escape routes from the target’s den covered, each with hard-mounted M134s, plus the various small arms on each unit member. Grenades, MP5s…the squad on the northern point is loaded to bear with M41A pulse rifles. We’re set for a standard redirect scenario: you tell us where you want the rabbit to go and the men will lead him there. All pretty like with a bow and all.”
“And the locals? Have they been secured?” Grail asked, never looking up from the translucent display between them.
“Casamassa called in a gas leak for the area. Most of the citizens within a three block radius have been evacuated,” continued Roddick succinctly. “We were unable to pull out anyone from the target building without alerting the target. Still, Sage estimates civilian casualties as minimal.”
“Excellent, Mr. Roddick. Proceed.”
“What should we do, sir?” asked Mitchell, ready and eager to be a part of the upcoming action.
“Excuse me, Agent…?” Roddick squinted at the little man with the kind of look one might normally reserve for a misbehaving pet.
“Mitchell, sir. Kappa-Two,” Mitchell piped up. “I’ve got extensive training in heavy munitions as well as…”
Popping out of the hovercraft’s pilot seat, McGann, interrupted, “It doesn’t matter. You’re not getting anywhere close to the action, Fish. You’ll hang back and come in for clean-up once the big boys are done.”
Grail stepped forward, his magnetic presence pulled every eye in the alley to him as he pulled thick metal gauntlets up over his hands. “There’s no call for that, my Templars.” His voice was calm and even. If he was experiencing any of the emotion or excitement raging through the veins of the men collected around him it was completely hidden in his smooth exterior. “These two men were the ones who found our prey and tracked him back to his den. Without them, our search would have been a difficult one. They may join in the hunt.”
“But, boss…” McGann moaned, not at all pleased by the turn of events. He couldn’t stand the idea of having to babysit a couple of poorly trained government stooges. The Templars were a highly trained team of warriors, forged through years of serving under Grail and hundreds of combat drops together.
Grail cut the man off with a glare from his slate-colored eyes and a tight line forming between his brows. Nothing more was needed and the matter was brought to an end without another word spoken. In the Templars, Grail’s word was law. Motioning for the two government representatives to follow him onto the larger hover platform, Grail boarded the vehicle, standing between the pair of wing-mounted M134 miniguns to dramatically don his full-face helm.
Hutchison and Mitchell braced themselves as best they could, trying their hardest not to fall as the vehicle quickly ascended to one hundred feet. They silently swung over the strangely empty lower Manhattan street and stopped in front of the eighth floor window behind which their mark had been tracked to. A drumbeat of weapons being readied bounced off of the building before them. Every man was on edge, ready for the fight about to come.
“Please, Mr. Roddick, announce our arrival,” commanded the electronic voice of Grail.
The big man gave the ‘thumb’s up’ sign once he saw everyone was in place and raised the drab green tube containing an unguided solid-rocket projectile up to his shoulder. Smiling inwardly, Roddick stared through the targeting reticle. He loved this part.
“They will know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them,” quoted Roddick as he pulled the triggering mechanism on the AT4 anti-tank rocket launcher and released hell upon the outer wall of Mal’s room in the Friendly Garden Inn motel.
CHAPTER 16
Red brick chunks, splinters of cheaply painted wood, and shards of glass rained down into room 8A of the Friendly Garden Inn. A thick dust of vaporized concrete and the sulfur remnants of explosives wafted through, diffusing the outside light and obscuring vision beyond a foot. Fragments of scorched shoddy curtains floated in the air and the comforters of the twin beds both blazed with tiny fires.
Trying to shake sense back into his head and clear the ringing from his ears, Mal thought the devastation was a slight improvement on the crappy room he’d been forced to spend most of a week locked up in. Electronic sensors igno
red the debris-filled cloud billowing out of the yawning breach that had been torn into the motel’s outer wall. They gave the cyborg a quick synopsis of what had happened.
Someone had fired a high-explosive anti-structure rocket into the side of the building, blasting out the wall, and with it significant portions of the ceiling and floor. Mal’s superhuman reflexes had allowed him to escape the shrapnel that accompanied the rocket’s attack, but a glance over to the opposite side of the room revealed his friend hadn’t been so lucky. Chris Donlin lay on his side, lungs expanding in a slow, strained fashion as he struggled for breath. What little of the man’s body Mal could make out was charred and covered in blood and hydraulic fluid.
Mal rushed to administer to Donlin’s wounds but sounds from just beyond the void leading outside caused him to halt. Squinting with his human eyes in an attempt to see through the clogging mist that surrounded him, and reaching out with enhanced hearing and infrared scans, Mal tried to discern the identity of the large shape that rose up to fill the gap and cut off the harsh sunlight that had streamed in.
The vortices of wind playing in the space between buildings rushed in and cleared the air enough for Mal to make out his assailants: seven heavily armed men astride a vehicle whose silver floor was open to the sky above. It was the general shape of a saucer approximately twenty feet in diameter, with short, stubby wings extending on opposite sides of one another. Mounted on each of the wings were heavy, belt-fed machine guns manned by the military garbed men. A pilot stood in the center of the vehicle, controlling the craft with a pair of flight sticks and set of pedals at his feet.
As the craft pulled up level with Mal’s floor, a caped figure moved from the middle of the group and addressed the cyborg in a synthetic voice that sounded out over speakers mounted somewhere on the vehicle itself.
“And so we meet again, Mr. Weir.” The leader, clad head-to-toe in a strange mixture of ancient armor and modern technology, leapt off of the hovering platform outside, easily clearing the eight-foot gap between its shiny diamond-plate floor and the smoldering hole in the side of the building, and landed with his cape fluttering in the thermals behind him.
