by Bruno Flexer
A thought entered Tom's mind and refused to leave. A little hesitatingly, he activated his speakers.
"General, did the enemy kill people in the cities?"
The general turned to look at Tom's Serpent. His expression was not one of sympathy, Tom thought. The general seemed to be judging, calculating.
"Lieutenant, we have no evidence of people being killed by the enemy except on the raids that the enemy put out from every one of the cities in its control. As far as we know, all the people are still there, living under the enemy's rule."
Should I feel happy? Should I feel relieved? I barely feel relieved, Tom thought. Is it because I'm afraid to hope my sister is still alive? But he barely felt anything for her at all. Tom thought back, remembering one time they had gone to a mall with their mom, about fifteen years ago. His sister was three years old or so and they had somehow lost her favorite stuffed toy, a dog with big fluffy ears.
She’d had many toys, but that dog was her favorite. She went to sleep with it and held it closely whenever she felt sad or alone. Whenever she met other children, she would show them that dog, as if sharing with them her greatest treasure. You knew she really liked you if she gave you her dog for a short time.
The memory of his sister when they tried to tell her that her dog was lost for good always made him feel so sad inside. She didn't want much out of life. She had no real use for the many toys she had. She just wanted her old stuffed dog with the fluffy ears, and they lost it. It had hurt him, the way she looked at their mom when she told her the dog was lost.
Tom looked back on that memory now, seeing it clearly. He knew he had always felt so bad for her, but now, he believed that the experience had taught her the meaning of possessions and letting go, and that it had been a valuable lesson. He had never thought so in the past. He had never been able to think beyond his own ache.
"We also tried monitoring the enemy's communications, but there were really none. The cellular phones in the city were all dead within a few days; coincidently, the Nokia phones held out the longest. All the cellular antennas in the city stopped transmitting within four to five weeks. After the enemy's conquest of the city, no one seemed to use a cellular phone, a land line phone, the internet, nor any other kind of communication we could monitor."
The general sighed.
"There were calls, but they were always incoming calls from outside the city, and all the callers ended up recording messages that were never heard. No one in the city has picked up a phone in more than three years. The enemy is no doubt controlling the people inside the city, but he's using neither land line phones, radio, nor cellular phones. We left the phone exchanges working even if we could have stopped them or just bombed them, because we wanted to eavesdrop on conversations, hoping to learn anything about the enemy and its plans. However, like I said, as far as we know, no one in the city picked up a phone or used the internet, or even used a simple walkie-talkie, in three years."
"What about water supply? Electricity? Sewage?"
"The army made sure all those continued working perfectly."
"What? Why?"
"Think, Lieutenant Riley. The enemy has millions of people held captive inside a major urban area in a small geographical zone. What would happen without water supply, working sewage and electricity?"
Tom said nothing.
"Disease, Lieutenant Riley. We need to keep the citizens as well as possible till we manage to defeat the enemy. We cannot let our citizens die."
"What about food?"
"The enemy takes care of that. Raids across the quarantine zone provide for some of the food, and we have some indications some of the buildings inside the city have been converted for growing food—some sort of urban farms. We don't know how well they supply themselves, but we have not seen any indications of mass death inside the city."
"Tell us where the enemy is," Ramirez whispered, making everyone including Captain Emerson look at him.
"I told you, Lieutenant, we don't really know."
"So, you're sending us to search through the entire city of New York?" Ramirez's tone was steady and level, but the claws on his feet contracted, gauging deep grooves in the concrete floor.
"Not really, lieutenant. We have been conducting a close survey of the city, and we managed to detect what we think the enemy is doing. It's gathering a large percentage of the population in the Financial District. We see people moving in, and we don't see people moving out. We see trucks with cargo and food going in, and we see empty trucks moving out. It's there, somewhere, hiding behind the people it brought in to protect itself."
"So bomb the place," Ramirez said, unsurprisingly.
"We cannot, Lieutenant. The President won't give the command. We estimate that a million to two million people are now crammed in there, in the skyscrapers. We can blow the whole place back to the Stone Age but the casualties will be horrendous. No political leader will take that risk. So this is where you come in," the general said and took a laser pointer.
"Probably parachute into Central Park," Ramirez sneered, not too quietly.
"We're going to drop you right into Central Park, near the lake. Or right into the lake, if we manage it. This will be a high altitude drop from a C-130 cargo plane using our standard cargo parachute system."
"Sir, I've never jumped out of an airplane before."
"Lieutenant, the cargo parachute system you'll use is completely computerized and automated. It's used to drop cargo crates and light armored combat vehicles. You just have to put it on and step out of the plane. Is this clear?"
"Yes, Sir," Tom's voice was low and weak.
"After the drop, we regroup, assess our situation and move out under cover of night," Captain Emerson said calmly.
"Every one of our recon images shows us that Central Park is barely used now, just greenery going wild."
"They will be expecting us," Ramirez said.
"You've seen what the Serpents can do. Even if they expect us, the chances of our being detected are negligible. Even if we're detected, we evade the enemy and continue our mission," the captain said.
I'm not so calm even when I talk about my grocery list. How can he be so calm about dropping into an enemy-held city? Tom thought, more than a little bit jealous.
"From there, you'll move through the Upper East Side or even Midtown Center, according to circumstances in the field. Your objective is the FDR. You'll use the FDR Drive to circle around the most inhabited areas, moving at night as fast as possible—or slowly—as circumstances dictate."
"Why the FDR Drive, General?" Tom asked.
"Lieutenant Riley, the FDR Drive is barely used by the enemy. It will allow you to move right into the area of the Financial District with minimum chance of detection. In case of detection, you will be able to enter the city and seek shelter there or even enter the waters of the bay. Remember, your Serpents can function underwater, but they were not designed for swimming. Use this as a last resort."
The general paused and watched his image for a moment before presenting another image, this time a close-up of the Financial District.
"We think the enemy is in one of the buildings in the triangle between the Lower East Side, the Financial District and Hudson Square. Find it and destroy it. Remember, each of you have a Hellfire bin with four missile, one of which carries a thermobaric warhead. Use it to kill the enemy or transmit the location, and we will use laser-guided bombs to surgically take him out."
The general turned towards the Serpents.
"But—but—General, this is a huge area to search. How are we—"
"Lieutenant Riley, you have the Serpents, the most advanced weapon system anywhere in the world, and you will have three nights to find the enemy. You are the Intelligence Officer. Your job is to use whatever intelligence you manage to gather on the ground. You'll find the enemy."
"So we trust a desk jockey. Fucking great," Ramirez whispered nearby. In fact, his voice was louder, closer to normal speech.
/> "You'll do great," Sergeant Jebadiah said.
Captain Emerson and the general said nothing; they just looked at Tom.
Tom looked at the general, then at the captain, and finally turned towards the map.
"How … how? You haven't told us anything! How am I to find it without any kind of information about the enemy?"
The general sighed deeply and seemed to fold in on himself, somehow shrinking while he thought deeply, apparently considered something.
What's so complicated? Tom thought. Why can't they tell us everything they know?
"Look, Lieutenant Riley. We don't really know much. We interviewed as many people as we could from Detroit, people who had lived months under the enemy’s rule before we killed it. They'd never seen or heard the enemy. They'd been programmed from afar."
"Or the enemy programmed them not to reveal anything about itself," Tom said.
"Lieutenant, I can give you several pointers. The first one is this: The enemy wants to protect itself. It's using our own people to do this. When the resistance grows fiercer, you'll know you're getting close. The second thing is this: In no image in the past three years and from the twelve occupied cities, including the debris from Detroit, have we seen anything that might be the enemy. No construction nor structure that could have been used by the enemy. No strange machine nor strange creature or being. Yes, Lieutenant Riley, some people even considered aliens. So, the enemy must be using or must be a normal-looking vehicle, structure or people. Take into consideration that it might be a man, a woman, a group of people, a car or a van. Anything."
Tom said nothing. He couldn't even think of anything to ask. What could he ask if the enemy could be anything? The whole mission seemed impossible.
"The last pointer, Lieutenant Riley, is electricity. In all twelve cities, even though we know people stopped watching TV, talking on the phone, and using microwave ovens and almost every other appliance, the total electrical consumption of the city stayed the same or even increased. We know that in New York City, they stopped lighting the huge billboards and the mainframe computers that were used for commerce, along with the communications networks. Even so, the average electrical consumption of the city increased slightly, from five thousand megawatts to five thousand three hundred megawatts."
Tom started pacing across the room, the slight humming of his engines and electrical conveyers reassuring him. He rubbed his chin with his hand, producing a faint squeaking noise from the black composite armor.
"So, we do have something after all. The enemy, whatever it is, needs electricity. We can follow the electrical grid, see which lines are being used most heavily." Tom stopped and turned to the general.
"General, why haven't you cut the power supply to the city or used an EMP blast to burn out all the city’s electrical circuits?"
"Lieutenant Riley, you've asked that question before. We looked at the electrical consumption of the city the night the war started and there was neither a spike nor anything out of the ordinary. In fact there was a steady decline for three or four weeks before the electrical consumption started rising again. Our conclusion was that the enemy has its own power supply and only tapped into the city's power supply much later. Cutting the power supply will not hamper the enemy for long and will only leave the city's people open for retaliation? Remember, the city's inhabitants are hostages. We considered EMP. We cannot know for sure that the enemy will be affected, but life in the city will become impossible. Think about the people using the elevators when we detonate the EMP blast. They could all die."
Tom looked at the general, straight into his unblinking eyes.
"Lieutenant Riley, the President refused to authorize any of these two options. We cannot put troops into the city because the enemy will take them over. Our only viable option is the Serpents. The only hope we have is that you will be able to find the enemy and take it out. That's why we selected a non-combatant intelligence officer for the mission. You are in fact the most important soldier taking part."
Tom glanced at his fellow Serpents. Captain Emerson stood at the general's side, his huge, gaunt armored monster motionless. Sergeant Jebadiah stood in a perfect soldier's stance, hands behind his back, his Serpent radiating only eagerness and readiness. Ramirez was also motionless but his hands trembled slightly, the long talon like fingers occasionally quivering.
Tom could feel Ramirez's gaze on him. He could almost feel the phrase “Keyboard Warrior” being transmitted from the Marine Corps lieutenant's Serpent.
"You will deploy from Andrews Air Force Base on a C-130 Hercules. The flight crew does not have security clearance to know about the Serpents, so you will remain in the cargo hold. The flight crew has been given the flight path, including height and location planned to stay beyond the range of the enemy's control. You will use a modified version of our heavy cargo delivery parachuting system to drop right into Central Park. During the mission, you will use only your short-range radio to avoid detection by any radio surveillance systems the enemy might have. Use the night to reconnoiter the area and find a safe spot to hide during the day, even if it is in the bay's waters."
"What happens after two weeks when our power and nutrient supply run out?"
The general looked Ramirez up and down.
"Soldier, this is it. There is no next time or a second chance. This mission must be a success. You must succeed. You must kill the enemy. In five days, the enemy will have under his control more than twenty million people, even with our evacuation efforts. The New York refugee camps are full to capacity as it is. You four are the best chance the United States of America has to start turning the tables in this Twelve Cities War. You have no backup. You have no time for a second chance. You cannot retreat and try again. You are our only hope."
The general waited for any more questions.
Wisely, no one asked anything else.
"We have four infantry divisions and twenty thousand police officers ready to march on New York City the moment you dispatch the enemy. Captain, carry on."
The general left the hall and Captain Emerson turned to face the three Serpents.
"In four hours we will begin our final exercise. Live urban combat. Follow me."
Tom and Sergeant Jebadiah filed last out of the hall.
"What did he mean about live combat? In addition, they only let us out at night, even on the base. Did you notice that?" Tom asked Jebadiah.
Chapter 11
Day Three, Fort Belvoir, Virginia
The the three Serpents entered the urban combat training ground slowly, covering each other with their M82 Barrett heavy rifles.
The urban combat training ground was actually a whole neighborhood with three parallel streets, two-story brick-and-wood houses, three small playgrounds complete with large, plastic animal-shaped toys for children, working street lamps and cars scattered here and there. Faint music came from several of the houses, accompanied by cheerful human voices. The whole thing was about one mile long and half a mile wide. It looked real, as real as it gets, including traffic lights, trees and the small flowers at the sides of the roads.
"I sure hope there are no real people here," Sergeant Jebadiah whispered.
"Shut up!" Lieutenant's Ramirez's command was harsh and terse, even coming over their short-range radio link.
The three Serpents advanced slowly down the northern street, Tom moving on the right side of the street, Sergeant Jebadiah advancing near the left side, and Lieutenant Ramirez, the commander of the Serpents in this training exercise, moving a little back. The Serpents used the houses on both sides of the street for cover, checking carefully before they crossed every open space, trying to remain inconspicuous the whole time as their black, mechanical shadows moved into the lesser darkness of this fake neighborhood.
It was night, just a little before midnight.
"Riley?" Ramirez demanded.
Tom was holding his rifle with his left hand while he played with his computer's controls with the finge
rs of his right. He was scanning in the thermal range, looking for thermal footprints that might have been left by anything warm that had passed that way. Some of the houses, those with heating, glowed orange, as did a few of the cars that had been left with their engines running or that had had their engines running up to a short time ago.
Other than that, Tom could detect precious few heat signatures. The three Serpents themselves currently left almost no thermal footprints, their slow, economic movements insuring that their heat sinks absorbed all their excess heat. They were working with minimal power core output now, making sure no heat escaped their black composite armor. Their legs pressed down softly on pavements and concrete, their black claws opening and closing quietly to prevent any noise.
Tom touched his computer controls again, and now he scanned for any radio transmissions. Every radio communication device, cell phone or cordless home phone sends out radio waves, waves that the aerials on Tom's body could intercept and display. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing which might betray the presence of the enemy.
Tom raised his left hand and crouched in the shadow of a garage, hoping the other Serpents had taken cover as well. He touched his computer's touchscreen yet again and now he saw a display of various noises around him: another set of aerials on Tom's Serpent were sensitive directional microphones, and his arm computer analyzed their input.
Everything Tom's computer displayed appeared on a small area in his field of vision, allowing him to check his sensors' output while still being aware of what transpired around him.
Tom's Serpent detected two replays of old episodes of Friends, three washing machines buzzing away in the darkness, several recordings of people talking or laughing, and even the sound of a few nocturnal animals that had probably made the urban combat training range their home.
