by Isaac Hooke
He unleashed lightning bolts and laser fire into the waiting enemy, pausing only to allow each weapon to recharge. When the flames burned low, he unleashed the incendiaries anew, maintaining the fire shield. He was only able to reconstruct that shield three times before he had expended all of his jetpack fuel.
Rade glanced at the rooftop. No sign of Tahoe. He checked the overhead map. There: Tahoe had been swept into the adjacent street by the multitudes.
When his final fire shield subsided, the hammerheads attacked in full force. Neither his cobra nor zodiac could recharge fast enough, so he resorted to bashing and stomping once more. He enjoyed using the bodies of the creatures as weapons, and more often than not he had a severed hammerhead in hand to swing like a club.
A commotion to the south drew his attention, and he realized the platoon members from the nearby subterranean tunnel had fought their way to the surface; by then Rade was on the far side of the street.
“Stay inside!” Rade transmitted, knowing he wouldn’t physically reach them in time. “Use that tunnel as a choke point!”
“Roger that,” someone from the platoon returned. The group retreated, and the hammerheads charged the entrance, fighting amongst themselves to be the first to pursue.
The bodies piled up around Rade as he continued to fight. “That’s right, bitches. I can do this all day. Come on, is that all you got?”
A shadow blotted out the sun.
Rade glanced upward.
A giant variant of the hammerhead had appeared. Five times as tall as the others, it towered over him.
“Where the hell have you been hiding?” Rade said. And then he knew: the subterranean passageway. So much for those tunnels harboring nothing the division needed to worry about.
The gargantuan let out a terrible, stentorian roar, then swatted down with one of its forelimbs, sending Rade and the smaller hammerheads immediately around him hurtling into the air.
Rade smashed into the wall of a nearby building, forming a large crater in the travertine before he descended to the street.
He raised his arm, pointing it toward the giant’s last position, but the creature wasn’t there anymore.
Another shadow fell upon him.
He glanced skyward. Too late he realized the giant had leaped, and was fast bearing down on him.
Rade tried to roll aside, but those two feet caught him. His Zeus was crushed underneath like a rag doll. The world turned black.
“Warning, hull integrity weakening,” Sky said.
The world returned as the giant stepped off him.
Before he could react, huge fingers wrapped around him, squeezing his arms to his side, and he was hoisted into the air.
He fired his zodiac, but because of the position of his pinned arms the bolts plowed uselessly into the ground, the sonic boom thundering in frustration from the nearby buildings. The laser from his cobra likewise struck the asphalt in vain below. The giant was holding Rade far out to one side, treating him like some rodent: a deadly one, but a rodent none the same.
The large hammerhead turned away from the reinforcements that were coming, and moved ponderously between the buildings, retreating deeper into the city.
“It’s got one of mine up there, no bombs!” Facehopper’s voice came over the comm: one of the many voices speaking over the line. Confusion seemed to reign supreme.
Rade tried firing again. Once more his weapons drilled futilely into the ground.
In response to his latest attempt, the giant squeezed its fingers tighter around the mech. The metal cockpit moaned terribly as the hull yielded under the strain. Rade felt the actuators that formed the inner cocoon press into his suit, and he knew that even if he somehow escaped, his mech was likely done.
“Systems are failing across the board,” Sky said. “I’m afraid I won’t be of any use to you, going forward.”
Rade wasn’t all that happy to have his suspicions confirmed.
Sky spoke again. “I can perhaps provide a last service to you by self destructing. At some point.”
“It may come to that,” Rade said.
The giant swatted at the air with its free hand, apparently trying to stave off the laser attack of some nearby reinforcements. The hammerhead let out a ghastly howl so loud that the hull of the Zeus vibrated in unison, then the beast collapsed in mid-stride. Rade was thrown free.
When he landed, he couldn’t move. Or see. “Open her up, Sky. Looks like I’m going to have to switch to foot.”
The inner actuators released and the cockpit opened a crack. Rade grabbed the blaster from his belt. But before he could kick the hatch free, clawed fingers wrapped around the rim.
A voice came over the comm. “Rage, are you all right?” The chief. The digital-warping in his voice told Rade he was relatively far away, even with the repeaters that were supposed to be providing coverage overhead.
“Can’t talk now, Chief,” Rade replied.
He waited as those clawed fingers slowly opened the hatch; when the usual-sized hammerhead was completely visible outside, Rade fired at point blank range. The creature stumbled backward with a hole bored through its head.
The cockpit clattered shut.
Rade waited. No other creatures attempted to open it.
“Anything out there, Sky?” Rade asked.
“Unfortunately my external cameras are no longer functional.”
Carefully he raised the cockpit hatch and pulled himself out. He spun around to check his six, but in that moment an ordinary hammerhead struck from behind, where it had been perched atop the Zeus. It hoisted Rade into the air by the wrist—the same hand that held the blaster. He tried to fire, but his beam shot directly skyward, hitting nothing.
Two more of the small hammerheads joined the fray, and in moments the creatures had disarmed him. He struggled, trying to break free, expecting to be ripped apart at any second. He attempted to engage his jumpsuit jetpack, but realized he had already siphoned all the fuel into his mech to help keep the incendiaries firing.
“Self destruct,” Rade told the AI over the comm.
“You’re too close,” Sky returned.
“Do it!” Rade said.
“It has been an honor serving with you, Rade Galaal.”
“And you as well. Now please—”
The mech detonated before he could finish.
The blast sent him and the hammerheads sprawling. The creatures had acted as a shield, sparing him from the brunt of the explosion, but even so the right side of his jumpsuit had turned completely black, the camouflage layer burned completely away. He was otherwise uninjured, and according to the status indicator the suit hadn’t been breached.
He scrambled to his feet.
“Rage, you all right?” the chief said over the comm, his voice warping slightly. “Rage?”
“Fine, I’m—”
Darkness filled his vision and he felt large arms wrap around his body. He realized a vision shield had been placed over his helmet. Some kind of blocking fabric, or sack. He attempted to move, but the arms gripping him were viselike.
Rade’s inner ear alerted him that he was being hoisted into the air and then carried forward.
He noticed it then: the background comm chatter had ceased. Its absence coincided with the darkness. He heard only the low, guttural grunts of the creatures that held him, and the crunch of debris underfoot, as transmitted by the external microphones on the helmet. His captors were probably hammerheads, judging from the occasional subdued squeals they released, and the answering calls nearby.
On his HUD the chief’s indicator had stopped flashing, and the associated ping time underneath slowly increased, denoting a loss of connection. All of the other dots on the map had frozen as well, and their ping times similarly rose.
“Chief, do you read? Chief? Anyone?”
No answer. He was cut off from the rest of the division.
That sack served the dual purpose of blindfold and jamming device.
Well
, at least now we know why we’re not able to track any of the prisoners. Or rather, I know.
He struggled for some time against his captors but eventually decided to save his strength.
It looked like Keelhaul was going to have a chance to return the favor after all.
Albeit a lot sooner than Rade had originally intended.
thirteen
Rade soon felt his body tilt downward, and then he leveled out again. His position wasn’t updating on the overhead map, of course, so he had no idea where he was. From the external sounds his helmet transmitted to him, he thought he was inside one of those subterranean passages beneath the city. After some time, his body tilted upward; the timbre of those taloned feet changed, the echoes becoming muted—he guessed he had entered a building’s stairwell.
Once more he leveled out; now it sounded like he was conveyed over a carpeted floor. Momentarily he heard a standard door opening and closing.
His body was abruptly forced backward, and downward. He hit something hard—a table of some kind, he thought. There seemed to be a depression in the center to handle the bulge of his jetpack.
He struggled as clamps were secured over his arm and leg assemblies. A wide strap was tightened over his waist. He fought for a few moments against the binds, but even with the enhanced strength of the jumpsuit he couldn’t break free.
The blocking fabric was lifted from his helmet, and he realized he resided in an operating room of some kind. He was strapped to a table. Two unconscious soldiers in Marine jumpsuits lay upon adjacent tables. Their helmets were off, and the tops of their heads were shaved. Black surgical robots behind them had embedded a spiderish array of needles into the exposed portions of their scalps, needles that were connected to the robots by telescoping limbs.
He caught a glimpse of a spiked tail passing beyond the entrance. A moment later he heard a door open and close in an adjacent room. If hammerheads had truly conveyed him there, they must have belonged to a smaller stock to fit the confines of the place. Either that, or they had somehow scrunched up their bodies to fit.
Though his helmet was no longer covered, Rade realized that his position hadn’t yet updated on the overhead map; the blue dots of friendlies remained frozen and unresponsive.
“Chief, do you read?” Rade tried.
Nothing.
A man stepped forward. He was dressed in civilian clothing, something a Franco-Italian might wear: a fashionable black dress shirt with red lining the inside collar and buttons, paired with the black pants known as ribbernackers because of the way the fabric formed corrugated ribs along the sides.
He regarded Rade with a bland, almost tasteless expression. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Whoever said I was afraid?” Rade said in the most casual tone he could manage.
The civilian smiled; the expression did not reach his eyes, which seemed completely lifeless. “You’ll be free soon.”
“What if I don’t want to be free?”
The smile became a smirk. “You have no choice.”
An all-black Weaver rolled up. Or at least, Rade thought it was a surgical robot—despite the color, and the dodecahedral shape of the top portion, it looked very much the same as a UC model, complete with disturbing, spiderish limbs. It was the spitting image of those robots that had jabbed needles into the heads of the nearby Marines.
The black Weaver maneuvered in behind Rade and vanished from view. He fought his binds, trying to see what it was doing, but he was strapped down tight.
The man approached, halting beside Rade’s head. He reached across to a worktable beside him and applied some instrument to the helmet. Rade heard a scraping sound all along the outer rim as the man ran his hands around the circumference; then the civilian set the instrument aside, grabbed the helmet and twisted. It came off.
Rade’s face felt suddenly cold, and he was assailed by two smells: the cloying odor of antiseptic, and the faint stench of sweat and urine.
The decontamination folks aren’t going to be very happy.
The overhead map had vanished with the helmet HUD, so Rade reactivated the overlay with his Implant. There was no change in his position on that map. Not surprising, given that the signal strength of the Implant was even weaker.
The man handed the helmet to the out-of-sight robot; Rade heard a crunching racket come from the direction of the Weaver, and he realized the robot was destroying the helmet.
The civilian slid a vise over Rade’s forehead, further pinning him. He removed what looked like a sonic injector from the worktable and brought it toward the exposed flesh of Rade’s neck.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Rade struggled against his binds with renewed effort.
The injector touched his skin and he felt a sudden sharp prick in his neck. He flinched.
“Just taking a sample for our records,” the man said. As he removed the injector, Rade saw a previously unnoticed vial joined to the device was filled with fresh blood; the man had indeed withdrawn, rather than injected.
The civilian disconnected the vial from the device and placed it somewhere out of sight, then he grabbed another tool from the worktable and leaned in close to Rade’s head.
Rade heard a gentle buzzing and felt the pressure of a sonic razor against his scalp. His hair began to fall away. He had only just gotten used to the cooler temperature of his face—now it was the exposed sections of his scalp that felt cold.
“What are you doing to me?” Rade said above the noise.
“I already told you,” the man replied. “Setting you free.”
“My platoon will find me,” Rade said. “They can track me.”
“Can they?” the man said. “That’s interesting. Because you know, we recently developed localized jamming capabilities. We gleaned the knowledge from that grotesque mass of convoluted tissue you call a brain.”
The man finished with the sonic razor and set it aside. He stepped back.
The entire top of Rade’s head felt shaved. The civilian had left the sides and back untouched, as well as his beard.
Rade heard a loud click emanate from the Weaver behind him.
“What was that?” Rade said.
The man flashed that lifeless smile of his. “We’ve learned that we have to destroy any Implants first, before we can begin the main procedure.”
The time display his Implant always overlaid upon his eyesight had vanished. As had the overhead map.
Suppressing a rising panic, Rade tried to access the main interface of the Implant. It refused to appear. He tried a hard reset by blinking slowly three times in a row. Nothing.
“It’s amusing how you soldiers always blink your eyes like that,” the man said. “Trying to reset those devices in your heads. It reminds me of a frog, futilely pumping its legs as it struggles to escape the bottom of a boiling pot.” He leaned in close to Rade’s ear. “The curious thing about frogs, if the pot is brought to a boil slow enough, they won’t even notice the temperature difference. They’re biologically incapable. It’s only when it’s too late, and their muscles begin to grow limp as the involved tissues are irreparably cooked, that they realize their doom.”
“Sort of like what’s going to happen to you?” Rade said.
“No,” the man grinned evilly. “I was referring to you.”
“Well actually,” Rade said. “Scientists discredited that story centuries ago. No matter how slowly you increase the temperature, the frog is going to jump out.”
“Assuming the frog is actually capable of jumping out,” the man countered.
Rade heard the whirring of servomotors behind him as the limbs of the Weaver telescoped. He could imagine the needles emerging from the tips, preparing to penetrate his skull.
“Wait,” the man told the machine. The whirring stopped. “I haven’t rubbed the preparatory solution into his scalp.”
He retrieved a small bottle, placed a cotton swab over the tip, and upturned it. “Hmm.”
Rade swerved his eyes as fa
r to the right as he could, and realized the bottle the man held was empty.
“I’ll be right back,” the man said. He waltzed through the entrance, vanishing into the adjacent room, where he began to hum a happy tune.
Rade smiled malevolently.
Never leave a spec-ops soldier alone.
fourteen
Rade slid his right limb backward within the arm assembly; he managed to pull his hand out of the glove, so that the knuckles aligned with the external wrist area, where the clamps were secured. He rotated his arm to the right, so that the arm assembly revolved while the glove remained stationary—the clamp secured it in place. He completed a half circle, partially unscrewing the glove, but he could turn his arm no more.
He shoved his hand forward into the glove again and rotated his forearm back into place; the arm assembly retightened slightly, but not enough to negate the work he had done. He retracted his arm again and repeated the process. He became better at it each time, and managed to complete five complete revolutions in ten seconds.
He heard a soft click. The glove assembly had opened. He slid his arm further back, freeing that hand. He kept expecting the Weaver behind him to attack, or intervene in some way, but it did nothing.
He fumbled with the clamp that pinned his other hand, but there didn’t seem an obvious way to open it. So he repeated the process with the left arm, and managed to free that hand in another ten seconds.
Aware that he was likely under observation, he surreptitiously reached up and discovered that the vise securing his head to the table was held in place by a simple latch mechanism on one side. He opened that latch, and lifted the vise away only slightly, not wanting to make it obvious that he was no longer secured by it.
He slowly reached across his chest to the strap at his waist. It wasn’t a metal clamp, like those that had pinned his arms, and continued to bind his legs.
He felt along the surface until he found what he thought was a locking mechanism. Good. He played with it for a few seconds, but it wouldn’t budge. Not so good.
