by Mat Nastos
Cestus’s systems announced the Templar would be in shock from blood loss from the wound in less than twenty seconds, so cruel eyes moved on to the cyborg’s next targets.
Without realizing the foolishness of his move, the second Templar pushed Kappa-One out of the way and opened up with his own gun. The mercenary knew his squadmates were in-bound from the other side of the flames and that he had additional support from the machine-gun nest up above. In his mind, it would be more than enough to take care of a man named ‘Malcolm,’ cyborg or not.
The thought died in his head even as it fell from his shoulders, decapitated by Cestus as the cyborg moved past him. Cestus ducked beneath the second gout of flame unleashed in his direction. He spun around Kappa-One and deprived the government agent of his fuel by slicing deep into the feed-lines to the tanks on the man’s back. The heat from the flamethrower’s spout was enough to ignite the living metal of the cyborg’s appendages. A leaping roundhouse kick crushed the throat of a third Templar who tried to catch Cestus by surprise.
Arms covered in flaming gasoline, Cestus drove the clawed hand of his right arm through the stomach of the fire-wielding Kappa-One, punching through the soft flesh of the man’s stomach and slicing his kidneys into a mass of ground meat. Gurgling incoherently, Cestus’s enemy died with eyes opened wide in terror.
“Tom!” screamed Kappa-One’s partner, Billy Mitchell, from his position on the hovercraft one hundred feet above the scene of the soldier’s death, pushing the vehicle’s control stick down with all the force he could muster, sending it into a dive straight at the blood-covered cyborg. The men on either side of the flying wing flipped their M134 miniguns to full auto mode and opened up at six-thousand rounds per minute.
*****
Watching the events unfold below him, Grail cursed to himself. The fools were doing exactly what Cestus wanted them to. They were as good as dead. The armored hunter turned and fired the thrusters on his jetpack. Direct confrontation against someone…something…as powerful as Malcolm Weir was a fool’s errand.
“Pull our remaining men back to the WarHorse, Mr. Roddick,” ordered Grail over the short range transmitter in his faceplate. “The situation has gotten out of hand and we need to bring it under our control once more.”
“Affirmative,” answered the big man’s voice in Grail’s ear.
Grail would have to exploit the cyborg’s weaknesses.
Compassion the politician’s woman had said. A failing possessed by many a once-proud warrior brought low by it. One that Grail was most familiar with manipulating to his advantage.
And he knew precisely how to do that.
Grail’s armored form rocketed away from drama playing out below, his mind set on the target, and the downfall, of Malcolm Weir.
A woman. It always came down to a woman.
*****
Cestus smiled grimly as the hovercraft’s momentum brought it to just above tree level. Powerful cybernetic arms ripped the fuel tank off of the dead soldier lying at his feet, and tossed the metallic cylinder into the area in front of the craft. With lightning precision, Cestus slashed out with his still flaming claws and ruptured the tank, causing its highly combustible contents to erupt into a block-wide ball of flame, igniting trees, melting stone, and vaporizing glass.
Dropping down to his knees and covering as much of his exposed still-human head as he could, Cestus braced himself as the inferno of scorching air from the explosion slammed into his body. A scream tore itself silently from the cyborg’s chest as the conflagration burned the oxygen out of his very lungs. His hair caught fire, and the broiling heat caused skin to blacken and blister across his broad back. Pain rocketed down to every nerve ending in the former ranger’s body.
Through the super-heated torture inflicted by the holocaust erupting around him, Cestus took cold pleasure in his computer-senses revealing the remaining trio of his attackers were no longer amongst the living. Malcolm Weir might regret the deaths of the government-sent mercenaries later but Cestus had no time for such sentiment. Not while Grail still remained alive and on the prowl.
The popcorn sound of the charred crust of roasted epidermis cracking on the cyborg’s back echoed along the now emptied Manhattan street as Cestus finally clambered back to his feet. The pain was already beginning to dull thanks to the nanites swimming in his bloodstream, but it was quickly replaced by a burning rage centered in his belly. The former super-soldier’s gaze slid slowly from the ring of molten asphalt surrounding his feet, to what was left of the crashed hover platform and, finally, to the trail of oily gray exhaust smoke from the jetpack Grail had used to escape the explosion.
Cestus blinked at the rapidly vanishing contrail a few times before the berserker fury that had possessed him so completely began to subside. Cestus bowed his head, planting his chin firmly into the raw skin of his chest, and closed his eyes firmly.
Expelling a long, deep breath filled with anguish and exhaustion, Malcolm Weir finally opened his eyes. Watching as the tattered remains of his jeans began to disintegrate from around the densely-packed muscles of his legs, Mal decided he needed to find some new clothing—and the time to regrow his eyebrows—before he would meet up with Congressman McGuinness.
CHAPTER 18
The San Bernadino Mountains of California.
For the fourth time in as many seconds David Zuzelo stared down at the message blinking at him evilly from the the smartphone display he held clutched tightly into his hand. Initially he had glanced down at the device because it had nearly vibrated itself off of the table he’d set it upon while working with his new ‘house guest,’ the runaway computer tech Carl Anderson. The second time was part of a double-take reaction to the contents of the text that had come through from Malcolm Weir. It was one of those knee-jerk responses to shock and nearly uncontrollable.
The third time had been accompanied by a silent prayer; a hopeful entreaty to whatever gods happened to be listening, begging for the message to be anything other than what Zuz had seen.
No amount of prays or petitions to the greater powers of the universe would change the fact of what sat typed out in Helvetica on the brightly lit cellphone gripped in what had quickly become a very sweaty palm. The message from Mal was made up of three simple lines:
See chameleon
Lying there in the Sun
All things to everyone
“Fuck me,” said Zuz, shaking his head.
The lines were from one Mal’s favorite rock bands, Slade. The name of the song, which was also their preset code for ‘shit just got real,’ was ‘Run Runaway.’ It was the signal for Zuz to drop whatever he was doing and to disappear into the wind. If Mal was sending the message instead of calling, it meant they were both in a lot of trouble.
“What is it?” asked the high pitched voice of the younger man on the opposite side of the workbench from Zuz. Carl had been working on a script utilizing Shor’s algorithm to break the SHA-384 encryption used on the information Mal’s Cestus computer had downloaded upon his escape from Project Hardwired control. The two men had been working side-by-side to find the correct key to release the information for nearly twenty-four hours straight.
“Mal’s in trouble,” responded Zuz as he began packing up the eight laptop computers he had networked together to work on the problem. The bald engineer didn’t know how much time they had to get things together and get away, but he had worked up a number of escape contingency plans just in case of a need to drop everything and ‘run runaway.’
Tired eyes looked up from beneath coke bottle thick glasses in confusion. “Based on what I know of Mr. Weir, I have to ask: isn’t that common operation procedure for him?” Carl was befuddled by his new companion’s worry. With the nanobots flowing through his veins able to repair injuries at mind-boggling fast speeds, there was very little that could take the cyborg down permanently. Given enough time and protein to build from, anything short of loss of his head had the potential for being recovered. Hell, the man
walked away from a nuclear blast with no long term issues.
“It’s bad. We need to get out of here…see?” Zuz threw his phone to the pony-tailed computer programmer.
Reading the words on the cell’s screen didn’t help clarify things for Carl at all. If anything, it just made it worse.
“This is probably the worst haiku I’ve ever read,” commented Carl as he tossed the phone back. “The syllables for the lines are all way off.”
Hauling the rolling bag overloaded with thin black portable computers up the stairs to the cabin’s main floor, Zuz shook his head. “It’s not a haiku, it’s a coded message. Mal is tell us to get out of dodge because trouble is coming.”
“‘Coded message?’ You mean like a safe word,” Carl asked, following Zuz up to the first floor landing.
Zuz ignored the man’s comment and proceeded to pull three pre-packed pieces of luggage from a closet near the front door. Ever since he had been forced to blow up his home at the scrapyard, the middle-aged engineer had been sure to keep emergency bags ready to go at a moment’s notice. Last time things had happened so quickly he had been left with only the clothes on his back. Hanging around with Malcolm Weir could be hazardous to one’s wardrobe.
And also one’s home.
And car.
“Grab your stuff, Mr. Anderson. Let’s go,” called Zuz as he started out the door without wasting any additional time.
The pair ignored the driveway Carl had used to reach Zuz’s cabin from the main road. Instead, they hiked away from the site of the log cabin, traveling through a lightly forested area. The mountainside’s angle was extreme enough the two had to pick their way slowly through the brush in order to avoid a rather nasty fall that would have dropped them a few hundred feet down onto a dilapidated roadside inn that was their destination.
Upon reaching the weathered and decrepit old building, Zuz pulled a key from his pocket and opened the front door with a creak loud enough to cause Carl to shudder. The pair pushed their way through cobwebs thick enough to be mistaken for lace curtains. Dominating the darkened interior was a large shape, thirteen feet long and five-and-a-half feet tall, draped in a dark cloth that hid it from view.
“Dude…please tell me this isn’t where you bring your victims,” commented Carl, hugging his brightly colored duffel bag tightly against his chest.
“Shut up and help me get the canvas off,” snapped Zuz. He dropped the large array of bags he had carted down the hill, moving over to the nearest corner of the object. “It’s our way out of here.”
Carl groaned out loud as the pair pulled away the sheet to reveal the mystery hidden beneath. “Oh, jeez…I think I’d rather take my chances with the men who tried to kill me.”
A brand new dull white Nissan Cube rested in the only space in the room not coated with a layer of coarse dust.
“Screw you,” replied Zuz, climbing into the driver’s side of the vehicle, savoring the new car smell that greeted him. Rubbing the dashboard gently, he smiled and whispered, “I told you I’d come back, baby.”
The car was quickly packed with the suitcases Zuz had brought with him and the random assortment of things Carl had grabbed on their dash from the cabin. Five minutes later they were cruising down Route 173 and turning onto the Rim of the World Highway at just under 40 miles per hour. The tiny former government employee bounced in his seat with anxiety, an anxiety only accentuated by Zuz’s impromptu, and off-key, whistling of the Vanilla Ice classic hit, ‘Ice, Ice, Baby.’ After a mile, Carl decided he couldn’t take any more of either the slow rate of travel or Zuz’s serenading.
“I think exceeding the federally posted speed limit might be an excellent plan right about now,” snarked Carl, amazed at how calm his new companion was in the face of being hunted by the government.
“No need to speed, we’ll be fine. The cabin will be compromised, but there was no way for them to track us through the woods to the garage. The tree cover is too thick for any sort of visual tracking by satellite,” responded Zuz. He reached forward to turn the Cube’s radio on with a flick of his thumb and began scrolling through stations on the hunt for a good traveling song.
“Even in the summer the landscape is cool enough for our body heat to stand out like flares, though,” said Carl, his panic escalating to higher levels as Zuz settled on a broadcast featuring the slow jazz stylings of Kenny G.
Zuz shook his head. Amateur, he thought. “I’ve got a web of infrared pulse-beacons transmitting all over the area. The only thing they’d be able to pick up is hot static surrounding the cabin for a good mile in every direction.”
“How long do you think it will take for the government to find it?”
Pointing to the strip of asphalt laid out in front of them with a bob of his chin, Zuz said, “Right about now.”
Carl’s jaw dropped into his lap.
Heading directly for them along the opposite side of the two-lane road hugging the edge of the mountain was the culmination of every fear and night terror Carl had experienced since he had fled Project Hardwired: the lights, sirens and thundering diesel engines of a fleet of government vehicles hightailing it with laser like precision for David Zuzelo’s cabin.
The basest of curses was all that the normally intelligent computer programmer could manage before he tried to jerk his head down below the level of the car’s window glass.
“Don’t worry, the car is cloaked,” said Zuz, ignoring the convoy of military vehicles blowing past them at high speed. The drab green Hummers and troop transport vehicles were making a beeline for the log cabin they had just vacated and Carl was surprised not a single one gave the boxy white car a second glance.
“A visual cloak? How did you manage that? Our R and D department had been trying to develop one for years,” asked an intrigued Carl.
“Yup. It was a stock feature on the car,” chuckled Zuz. “No one ever pays attention to a middle-aged white guy driving a Nissan Cube.”
Carl laughed out loud. “We should have given these to the Primes…they’d have been unstoppable.”
Clicking on the radio to a preset country music station, Zuz said, “Mal got this one for me because he blew up my last one.”
“So you’re just going to leave everything there for the government to find and go through?” asked Carl, perplexed at the idea.
David Zuzelo grinned broadly and pulled the car over to a turnout overlooking a verdant valley that stretched out beneath the San Bernadino Mountain range. The visor in front of him flipped down with ease, revealing a small black box with a large red button on it, similar to a garage door opener.
“Not exactly,” replied Zuz. He reached out and punched the button firmly with his thumb, reclining back in his seat once he heard a satisfying ‘click’ from the device.
An explanation presented itself before Carl was able to ask what the man meant as a series of explosions rocked the mountain side, cracking the asphalt of the roads, tearing out trees, and sending a typhoon of rocks and dirt rocketing from above. The devastation caused by the one thousand pounds of C-4 demolition material David had packed around the foundation of his home and across the five acres surrounding it would be more than enough to keep government investigators busy for weeks before they were able to figure out that the fugitive wasn’t killed in the blast. The delay would give Zuz and Carl more than enough time to make it to a second safe house the bald man had in place.
“Fair enough,” accepted Carl. Although he had been part of the team monitoring the attack on Zuz’s junkyard and the violent aftermath, the little man was still shocked at his companion’s escape plan. Watching a half ton of explosives go up on video was a lot different than experiencing the effect in person. Carl’s ears would be ringing for days. “Where to now?”
Pulling slowly back onto California State Route 18, Zuz inclined his head towards the bottom of the mountain. “Time to head east, old boy.”
*****
Los Angeles.
Twin pills, each half
an inch long and as white as bone, flipped out of Michael Fountain’s palm and onto the tongue outstretched from his awaiting mouth. They were the sixth extra-strength Tylenol tablets he’d taken in the past hour and with the way the representative from California had been downing them lately, he was convinced buying stock in the company might be the way to go. The work of Gordon Kiesling and his Project Hardwired had been a headache for Fountain since he had been given the job as the government’s liaison to the project three months earlier, and it had grown to be even more of one in the weeks after he’d taken over the task of shutting it down.
If the former director of Hardwired hadn’t already been paying for his crimes as part of Fountain’s new pet project, Tiamat, the Congressman would have had him arrested. Or shot. Or both.
Making a mental note to himself to check on Kiesling’s progress in Project Tiamat, the out of shape politician turned his attention back to the stack of papers that had piled up on the desk in front of him. There were satellite images, spy photos, agent reports, news reports…there were reports on reports. All of them were focused on what should have been the simple job of apprehending the fugitive, Malcolm Weir.
“No,” grumbled Fountain, correcting himself. “Designate Cestus.”
Malcolm Weir was dead. He had given his life for his country. He was a man and a hero. But his life ended when he signed up to be a part of Project Hardwired…and, as much as Fountain wasn’t a fan of the work they had done, what was left belonged to the government. Designate Cestus was a very expensive rogue piece of United States equipment that needed to be brought home: either whole or in pieces. At this point Fountain didn’t care which.
Fountain had no idea why they had been having so much trouble accomplishing such a trivial task. Hell, they’d found Osama Bin Laden hiding in that cave in Pakistan and six SEALs had killed him. Why couldn’t someone just put a bullet in Weir’s…no…in Cestus’s head and be done with it?
