Xan saw his silhouette as he crossed the hallway three hundred yards ahead. He was big. Reading his size and specs was different than seeing him in motion. He hoped the scramblers worked or they would see heaven or hell quickly.
“Keep moving. Stay against the walls and out of his path,” Xan whispered. They continued toward the King Sleeper’s lair.
They were ten yards from where they had last seen the giant when he came out of the room. He looked directly at them. Through the face shield smeared with black tar—Xan’s night vision’s interpretation of blood—Xan could see the lost look of the insane. Janis looked tormented and confused, as logic and reason were raped by his senses.
He stared directly at Xan and his team. Thirty feet away, four steps for this giant, and he squinted at them like he saw a girl he recognized from grade school. Xan knew what he saw: a deeper black. Xan could hear his team breathing over their comm.
It’ll work. He’s too far gone. If he understood, we’d be in danger, but he blew past reason a long time ago.
The giant didn’t move. He just looked at them.
“You win. I can’t take it anymore,” the giant said.
Was he speaking to them?
“Someone kill me. Someone take me away from here,” he pleaded. He turned down the hall toward their destination. And then suddenly he howled in rage and ran toward the King Sleeper.
= = =
Glass heard Janis scream and then he felt him charge like a bull. He pulled Justin off the crucifix, the mounted interface of the Data Crusher. The boy groaned. The harnesses didn’t take long to remove from the boy’s body, but the face shield took delicate hands and time. It was the fiber optic mount into the boy’s brain. Glass pulled the boy down and into his arms. The room shook from Janis’s approaching doom.
Glass spotted a back section of the Data Crusher that would be difficult for Janis to get to. It had girders and cement, things Janis could hammer down, but even then, there was a maze of thick supports that would give Glass time. Maybe, if Janis tried to get to the back of the Core, Glass would have a chance to escape.
He bolted with the child, ducking underneath the supports that anchored the base of the Core. He weaved between them with the boy in his arms, carefully protecting his head. The boy could lose a leg, lose an arm, but his brain was priceless, irreplaceable. Glass treated it like an egg, sacrificing his own body as he dove onto his back and shimmied deeper behind the Data Core, away from the crazed giant.
Janis ran directly through the Data Core. Fifty tons of ten-inch thick hard treated, non-conductive glass shattered and crashed to the ground. For Janis, it broke around him, drenching him in a hail of razor sharp plates. He moved forward as if the sky wasn’t falling, as if the billion-dollar structure collapsing onto him was nothing more than rain. His eyes were wide as he watched Glass continue to worm away from him.
The shattered Data Core became a million falling knives. Even deep into the foxhole, Glass rolled over so his back protected Justin. The sheer tonnage crashed all around him. He felt both of his legs and lower back get pierced. He heard the crack of the ground beneath him and understood that at least one of the pieces had penetrated all the way through.
Glass breathed deeply and took the pain. Even now, he thought clearly. His heart rate was even, his adrenaline in check. He heard the equipment behind him get tossed aside and torn apart. He understood the giant wouldn’t relent until it absolutely couldn’t get closer. Glass rolled over onto his back and shoulder-walked deeper, holding the squirming boy to his chest. Glass’s right leg didn’t work. His left leg was fine. When he rolled over, he felt glass push deeper into his back, a fiery pain, and then the clear dagger broke off against the ground.
He could go no further. He was buried underneath the Data Crusher to a point that no one—had they not known Glass was there—would have been able to spot him. But the giant continued forward, pulling industrial equipment out like weeds. His murderous eyes never leaving theirs.
Glass pinned Justin between him and the wall and turned the boy’s head so he knew he could breathe. He pulled out his submachine gun. He might as well have pulled out a straw and spitballs.
So this is it. He thought he was going to live longer. He checked the thirty round magazine on the MP5 and pulled back the bolt to make sure it was loaded. He had another magazine in his vest pocket.
The giant ripped apart metal beams that could hold up a skyscraper and then he was there. Glass had them against a cooling vent recessed five feet into the wall. The giant got on all fours, dominating Glass’s field of view, as if he was searching under a couch.
He raked his hands into the opening, but Glass tucked his legs under his body. And then his body jolted and he started to get dragged out. Glass realized his right leg was tucked and out of harm, but his lame left still hung out. He reached for it and tried to break it free, but it was pinned between the floor and the giant’s hydraulic fingers. The giant howled and scraped its fingers against the ground, dragging Glass out underneath them.
Glass had no choice. The giant’s fingers crushed into his pelvis and shattered it instantly. Glass pushed with his good leg and got a foot reprieve. The giant had his knee. Glass turned the MP5’s muzzle into his own thigh, careful to make sure that it was pointed through the thick. And then he fired.
Glass emptied the magazine, destroying his femur and shattering the leg, turning a two-inch swath into ground meat. The giant pulled and Glass—through all the pain—watched the leg tear away like it had been held to his body with string cheese. He felt the last of the skin stretch off like taffy. His leg vanished under the giant’s hand and both disappeared from view.
He took the shoulder strap off the gun and tied it around the remains of his thigh. He screamed—something he never did—when he pulled it tight. Already, he had lost a liter of blood. But the boy was alive. Maybe only a few more minutes, but he was still alive.
= = =
Xan couldn’t believe what unfolded in front of him. The giant had broken through the Data Core pursuing a man carrying an unconscious boy who must have been the King Sleeper. Xan had known the King Sleeper was young, but just like seeing the Tank Major, the abstract knowledge was vastly different than witnessing it first hand. The child, limp in the man’s arms, caused his heart to sink.
Xan and his team had spread across the perimeter of the room after a third of the Data Core crashed to the ground. It was everywhere. Xan could feel himself breathing in glass dust and he and the others covered their mouth and nose the best they could. Their mission was in jeopardy.
“Give me your C4 charges,” Xan said. The others moved to him quickly and handed over small bricks wrapped in a tan paper. “Get the boy at all costs. Meet at the rendezvous.”
Xan had to work quickly. He put a detonator into the first brick of C4 and after a deep breath ran through the shattered field of glass zigzagging toward the back of the titan.
= = =
Glass was weak and barely conscious. Janis continued to scream and howl at them. His hands shot in and snapped like alligator jaws, but he couldn’t get closer. Janis retreated for a moment, and through his night vision, Glass saw a small man approaching the Tank Major. He had a package in his hand. Bomb. The man placed it beneath the giant’s feet and sprinted toward the exit. Glass turned his face against the wall.
= = =
Xan hit the trigger. The C4 blast was just enough to knock Janis forward. He fell to one knee and rolled back to his feet, frantically looking around him. The field of shattered glass was now gone. The blast turned the enormous shards into razored bullets as they exploded outward against the wall. Two of Xan’s soldiers were mutilated and died instantly. The other ten were still alive, some with penetration wounds, but stable.
The giant forgot about the two howling demons burrowed into the crevice and he searched the perimeter of the room. He saw a demon staring at him from a corner. He ran at it.
Xan watched as the giant tucked his
shoulder down and ran at one of his soldiers. The soldier tried to get out of the way, but it was no use. Without slowing down, the giant slammed through the soldier into the wall. The soldier splashed to the sides in a bloody puddle.
His scrambler broke.
Xan stood at the mouth of the tunnel. He put another brick of C4 down. The giant walked back toward the two demons buried in the electronics. Xan turned off his scrambler.
“I am the one who brought you here!” he yelled.
The Tank Major turned and Xan ran, knowing full well that Janis saw him. That now his eyes were coals and his mouth was stretched and deformed, and every movement gave off a shivering bone chatter that drove the giant nuts. He felt him give chase.
When the giant gave chase and ran over the C4 Xan had dropped at the front of the room, Xan popped the trigger. The explosion sent the giant careening into the wall. Janis ground into it, but his legs kept pumping and he used the wall like a training wheel.
Xan dropped another C4 brick—he had four more—and continued to sprint toward the exit up to earth.
= = =
Glass saw nine soldiers appear out of the dark. Their faces were covered, but he knew: Chinese. Brilliant execution. They moved in toward him and he didn’t fight. He sat in a pool of his own blood and his leg continued to contribute like a leaky pipe. One of the soldiers pointed a submachine gun at him. Two others worked their way in to the vent pocket.
They pushed Glass over and he was too weak to stop them. He felt the boy get pulled past him. He watched the boy, covered in his blood, get dragged out of the recess.
Then they were gone. Glass pulled on his tourniquet one more time to try and stop the flow and closed his eyes.
= = =
Xan couldn’t continue the pace. His lungs were on fire and his legs were rubber. He was out of C4. It had knocked the giant off course and confused him, but it also infuriated the Tank Major beyond belief.
“We have the boy,” one of the soldiers said in his comm. Good. Ahead, Xan saw the stairway that bordered the lift to the surface. He could feel the giant on his back. If he could just make it. He reached up and powered on the scrambler.
Janis was fifteen feet away from the demon when it flickered in and out of his vision. The demons couldn’t teleport. He had seen none of that in this battle. But this one was different; it had put up a fight. It vanished and in one final salvo Janis detonated toward its last location.
Xan was twenty feet ahead of the hydraulshock impact. While the explosion was contained in the Tank Major’s shoulder, the concussive blast still threw Xan forward. His eardrums ruptured and the blood vessels burst in his eyes. His head snapped back, cracking vertebrae, and the rubble from the wall pummeled him, spinning his body like a rag doll, breaking his bones like toothpicks. He crumbled to the ground, unable to function. He fought to stay conscious.
The giant looked his way, but not at him. It walked around him, searching through the mountain of debris it had created by punching the ten-foot thick reinforced concrete wall. The giant’s foot crunched down inches from his face. But by the grace of God, his scrambler had not broken. The giant walked past Xan to the other side of the bunker and chased another poor demon hiding in the dark.
Xan’s team approached him. They had the boy. Against his orders two of the men picked him up. He quieted down. He wanted to live. He wanted to see this boy take the U.S. down. The irony of it would be too much. The weapons they had so willfully used for their salvation would be their demise. Two weapons that should have never been created in the first place. In a rational world, in a good world, the demented mind that came up with these should have been rejected, cast out into the dark. The mind that created these gods of destruction should have been imprisoned with the key lost forever.
But the man was alive and well, with a nation behind him. And that couldn’t stand.
Chapter 16
Cynthia threw up strings of acid and spit. She tried to pull away from the toilet, but her stomach collapsed onto itself and forced her forward as her body tried to expel from her mouth what she had heard with her ears.
A boy. It was a boy.
A moment ago, Evan had called an emergency meeting. He and Earl were heading to Chicago from D.C. on the fastest train they had. Cynthia had heard about the base in Virginia, but she didn’t understand the real crisis until Evan had confessed over the phone.
“I found the anomaly,” he had said quietly.
“What are you talking about?” In context to the attack on the base, she didn’t make the connection.
“The anomaly. The source that caused your Colossal Core to be shut down.”
“You said it was a re-route, DeKalb was a prank,” she had replied.
“It wasn’t.”
Cynthia was furious. “What have you kept from me?! I won’t lift a finger, do you understand? I will shut down everything right now if you don’t tell me.”
He told her. And she retched.
Now, finally, her stomach surrendered and she sat down next to the toilet and wiped her mouth with a towel. The cool tile felt good on her legs and she gathered herself.
The King Sleeper. Evan had found the anomaly and kept it from me. And it was a child. He had been using him for months for his own purposes.
Sabot walked into the bathroom with a glass of water. “They’ll be at the Derik Building in an hour. We should head out,” he said.
She loved that man. Never again would she let anything obscure that fact. Anyone else—she included—would have come in and said, “I told you so,” whether with words or a look. But not him. He handed her the glass and rubbed her back and didn’t say a thing.
= = =
Nikki was washing Raimey when someone pounded on the front door. She perched him up and went down to see what the ruckus was about. Raimey heard the murmur of a man and even though it was unintelligible, the tone was cold and firm.
“You can’t just come in! John! John! Men are coming up!” Nikki yelled.
He could hear the footsteps on the stairs and then the bathroom door opened and two men he had never seen before walked in. They turned away when they saw him in the tub. The water was clear.
“Sir, I’m Alan Kove and this is Edward Chao. We have been sent here by General Earl Boen, Dr. Evan Lindo, and at the request of the President of the United States.”
Nikki came in and pushed them aside to get to the tub. Alan looked at Raimey, saying with his eyes that she couldn’t be here for the discussion.
“Nikki, it’s fine,” Raimey said. She grabbed a towel.
“Nikki,” Raimey said firmly. She stopped. “Please leave us for a few minutes. I’m fine.” Nikki looked at him, then the other men. She folded the towel, put it back on the rack, and left.
“What’s going on?” Raimey asked.
“General Boen and Dr. Lindo are on their way from D.C. They are meeting with Cynthia Revo, the founder of MindCorp, at the Derik Building,” Kove said.
“Alan, you couldn’t be explaining this any slower. What the fuck is going on?” Raimey asked impatiently.
“We’re not one hundred percent sure, sir,” Chao chimed in. He looked like he would put his hand in fire to light a cigarette. “General Boen wants us to bring you to the Derik Building for debriefing.”
“What the fuck can I do?” Raimey asked. His crippled nakedness in the tub emphasized the point.
“We don’t know. But General Boen was very clear that he was ordering you to come with us,” Alan said.
Raimey was a soldier, broken or not. And while he was confused by the sudden urgency after all this time begging for the military to throw him a bone, an order was an order.
“Nikki! I need to get toweled off!” Raimey turned to the men. “Unless you’re gonna buy me dinner, can I get a little privacy?”
An hour later they pulled up to the Derik Building. They wheeled him directly into a large conference room. General Boen, Dr. Evan Lindo, and Cynthia Revo were present. Cynthia’s
bodyguard stood in the corner. They looked grim.
“John,” General Boen said.
“What the hell am I doing here, Earl?” he asked.
Boen chuckled softly. Sadly. “You wanted back in. Remember how I told you to be careful what you wish for?”
Raimey nodded.
“This is it.”
On a large screen, Evan Lindo and General Boen briefed Raimey on what had happened. The test he and Janis had undergone was to become a super soldier. For some unknown reason, Janis had gone insane and destroyed a military base. Almost all persons on the base were assumed dead. There was no communication in or out, no way to surveil with satellites because of the smoke, and no way to know if the King Sleeper—something Raimey didn’t quite understand—was alive or dead. It had been six hours since the base had gone dark.
“You’re telling me that Eric was strong enough to destroy a military base?” Raimey said. “How is that possible?”
“He is unlike anything you can imagine. All the comics you read as a kid, he’s the real version,” Lindo said quietly. He was still in shock. “You’ll be better. We’ve improved the technology already. And the armor design of your battle chassis will be talked about in history . . .”
Raimey interrupted. “Stop. I haven’t agreed to anything. I don’t even know what you’re really asking!”
“John, I’m asking you to become a Tank Major, infiltrate the base, and kill your best friend,” General Boen said.
“That’s a lot to ask, Earl,” Raimey said. “So I’m a Tank Major, do I just come out of it after the mission?”
“It’s permanent. Your spine is fused to the battle chassis because of the g-loads that occur while in the suit. There’s no other way,” Evan said.
“So, what? I just buy a bigger house? Come on! Would my family have to live on base?” Raimey said. He was incredulous at what they were asking. The live satellite feed behind them showed thick tendrils of smoke and pockets of fire. The images flipped through different light spectrums and he saw neon green bodies scattered around like toy soldiers.
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