by Kyle Noe
The HUD revealed that the wire was connected to a boobytrap.
“You seeing this?” she asked.
“Affirmative,” Hayden said.
“Someone went to some trouble to string that,” Renner replied.
“Gotta be something worth protecting,” Milo said over Quinn’s shoulder.
Quinn nodded and lifted her rifle. She distended the shortened bayonet fixed to the barrel’s end and sliced the wire in half.
Quinn stepped over the first wire and immediately wished she hadn’t. She could feel the pressure plate under her boot. The one that hadn’t been detected by her HUD because it was lying concealed, underwater in the muck.
“What is it, Quinn?” Hayden asked.
“Don’t move,” she replied. “I stepped on a plate.”
“Please tell me it’s the kind you serve food on,” Renner said.
Quinn glanced back and shook her head.
“You think it’s the kind that goes boom?” Renner asked.
“Don’t know yet,” she replied.
He sighed with a shake of his head. “By the time you do, it’ll be too late.”
Renner dropped to his knees and inched forward. He cued his helmet and a beam of light issued from it. He swept the helmet, surveying the area around Quinn’s foot. Barely visible under an inch or two of algae and sediment was a metal plate. Connected to the plate was another wire that was hidden under the water and ran off into the darkness.
“Remember that operation outside of Damascus, Quinn?” asked Renner.
“The one where the government lifers had the toe-poppers strung up in the palm trees?”
Renner nodded. “Remember what I told you then?”
“At least we saw it coming,” she answered.
He nodded and looked up from the wire. “Same deal now as then. There’s good and bad.”
“Good first,” Quinn said.
“No boomsticks under your boot. You ain’t gonna die. At least not yet.”
“The bad?” she asked.
“The plate in the water is connected to another wire.”
“Any way to avoid tripping it?”
“Negative,” Renner said, shaking his head.
“Okay, Marines. Get fierce,” Hayden said. “Time to deal with whatever comes our way.”
Quinn gripped her rifle and tensed. Then she let up off the pressure-plate, and the wire whipsawed back down the tunnel.
Several seconds of silence ensued. Quinn could see Renner’s teeth gleaming in the darkness.
“Looks like I was wrong. Looks like we worried about nothing,” Renner said.
A sound slowly built, barely audible at first. The stirrings of something in the distance.
Something large.
The sound grew louder, and the tunnel trembled. Quinn panned her HUD down to see the water near her feet rippling.
“Shit,” she said.
“What is it?” Milo asked.
Quinn pointed down. The water was rising.
“RUN!” Hayden screamed. “MOVE YOUR ASSES, MARINES!”
Quinn charged into the blackness as a thunderous note echoed behind her. She blitzed forward, the tunnel sloping down and the water rising with every step.
“The tunnel’s flooding!” Milo shouted, and Quinn knew he was right.
Quinn looked back and saw a wall of water surge forward and slam into the Marines, sending them pinwheeling down the tunnel and into a kind of octagonal lagoon, an area where the city’s other culverts and sewer lines met.
Quinn gasped for air as she went under, the water over her head. Her feet hit the ground, and she pushed up to see Milo and the others, struggling as the water continued to pour in.
Hayden pointed to the far side of the lagoon where there were several stone steps that led into an upper chute, a circular opening that appeared large enough to crawl through.
There was no other way out, so the big man churned through the water and clawed his way up the steps as Quinn, and the others followed.
The Marines, waterlogged and weary, wormed down the chute. Quinn checked her HUD and saw that they were only a few-thousand yards from the target, the weapons cache. It was concealed in another underground chamber that could only be accessed by moving through the interior of a large casino. Once inside, the Marines would slip down a stairwell and into the tunnel where, God willing, they would detonate explosives and incinerate the weaponry.
Hayden was the first to reach the end of the chute, dropping down into an electrical room filled with dozens of meter boxes and generators and a web of piping, steel, and PVC conduit. Quinn followed him down and searched around, the space eerily silent. The electricity to the city had been severed during the bombing.
Quinn snapped a penlight on and led the way, nosing through the immense and crypt-quiet space.
At the end of the electrical room was a set of steel doors which were warped, rusted, and dangling from their hinges.
Quinn crouched and consulted her HUD, which showed that the area on the other side of the door was deserted.
The Marines hopped over the ruined door and ascended a short flight of stairs that led to a great room, a place that was once filled with hundreds of games of chance. They walked in silence over the once-plush carpets, now stained and torn, and beyond the clutter of slot machines and overturned craps tables. They appeared to have been looted in the days after the world turned over.
The procession stopped all at once. Quinn could see infrared images just up ahead on the other side of the far wall. She clutched her Fusion rifle and tiptoed forward, muscles tensed. She panned her HUD, looking into the darkness as the darkness peered back.
A figure unexpectedly swayed upright and stumbled toward her!
Quinn shouted and brought her gun up—
Into the face of a young girl!
The girl shrieked and threw up her hands. Quinn stared at her, finger ready to trigger.
The girl was no more than ten, clad in ragged clothing, her face splotched with grime and what might be dried blood.
Quinn motioned for the girl to remain silent, and she did. Quinn gestured back as the Marines poked around the wall to see a small band of survivors bent over a cylinder of canned heat, cooking something for dinner. The people, three women and two men, shot furtive looks at the Marines. They seemed entirely nonplussed by Quinn and the others, watching them in body armor, weapons at the ready.
“Are you… are you here to help us?” one of the women asked, a desperate stare in her eyes.
“No, ma’am,” Milo said, and the woman mumbled and turned back to her dinner.
“What should we do with them?” Quinn asked.
“They’re witnesses,” Renner replied.
Quinn peered at the young girl who was now clutching a bundled baby that was cooing softly.
“They’re human beings,” countered Milo. “Remember when you used to be one?” he chastised, icing Renner with a look.
Quinn looked to Hayden who nodded.
“We ain’t gonna do any dirt to the civvies,” Hayden said. “Besides, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
Quinn lowered her rifle and eased past the survivors. She was nearly out through a side door when she noticed it.
The sound of the baby, the bundled one the young girl had been holding. Something sounded off about the baby’s gentle cries. Something unnatural.
Quinn panned her HUD, and that’s when she saw it.
Saw that the young girl was actually clutching a baby doll. The baby doll was cooing repeatedly, something obviously broken inside the doll. Quinn’s fear meter ticked up and then the girl dropped the doll, hissing at Quinn like a cat. Quinn pulled her rifle around as the young girl ran over and pulled down on a hidden cord attached to the siren.
“Bitch!” Quinn bellowed, aiming her rifle at the girl who darted into a duckhole along with the rest of the survivors.
Footfalls echoed on the other side of the walls, and Quinn could see doze
ns of infrared images, likely fighters or someone else who’d crawled out of hiding spaces and were now looking to shed some Marine blood.
“Up!” Hayden shouted, pointing to a stairwell. “We need to go up!”
Quinn and the Marines vanished into the stairwell, Renner taking up the rear, firing at anything that seemed to be giving chase.
The stairwell led to a second-floor balcony that was open on one side to the building’s foyer.
Bullets pounded the walls as Quinn and the others ducked. Shrapnel filled the air, and jagged bits of marble and cement peppered her helmet. When the shooting paused, she risked a glance and saw muzzle-flashes down below before returning fire.
Her shots scattered a handful of shadowy figures who took cover behind small mounds of debris.
Gunfire ripped through the night, echoing from behind. Milo was hit in the side of his HUD helmet, a round gouging a divot in his helmet. Sparks flew and his helmet partially shorted out. Quinn grabbed him and angled around to see Hayden and Renner firing down into the stairwell.
There appeared to be a significant number of attackers charging up to overwhelm the Marines. Renner dropped his rifle and unspooled a detonation bundle from his rucksack.
He grabbed a wad of explosive and fitted a length of detonation cord into it and then he threw it like a baseball into the stairwell.
“BURNING!” Renner screamed.
The stairwell erupted in a ball of orange fire that shook the building and compromised the balcony’s substructure.
“Oh, shit!” Quinn shrieked.
The balcony began collapsing in sections, domino-style, folding up and dropping onto the floor below as the Marines scrabbled for purchase.
Quinn hurtled forward, searching for a handhold as her world turned over. By some miracle, she hooked a few fingers onto a section of exposed rebar as a section of the balcony remained intact.
Milo, Hayden, and the others had done likewise, the Marines dangling off the end of the remaining section of balcony that limply hung like a rope ladder.
There was so much debris and smoke from the collapse that the foyer below could barely be seen.
Figures toiled in the dust and shadows, dozens of armed men and women disoriented from the blast.
Quinn turned and grabbed the rebar, pulling herself up as the others followed.
Soon, they were at the other side of the balcony, crawling into the other end of a hallway. They juked down the hallway and clambered down a rear stairwell that led into an oval space that Quinn believed was once likely a ball room.
Quinn checked her HUD. The entrance to the other tunnel that led to the weapons cache was on the opposite side of the room
“Let’s go!” she shouted, waving her arm.
Quinn took a step and felt something, some movement underfoot.
She reared back, startled as several masked figures suddenly lurched up out of hiding spots in the sodden subflooring.
The figures were wearing masks and tactical garb. They instantly went on the offensive, attacking the Marines before anyone could fire a shot.
The lead figure threw a punch that Quinn caught, yanking the figure in close, allowing her to bring a knee up.
Quinn slammed her knee into the figure’s ribcage, realizing from the figure’s bulk that it had to be a man.
The figure let out a puff of air, but not before he brought both hands down in a chopping motion on either side of Quinn’s neck. Spikes of pain shot through her body, and she kicked the man to the ground. The man motioned for Quinn to attack, and her blood boiled. Now, she was fucking pissed.
She pounced, hoping to orchestrate an elbow strike, just as she’d been taught back in boot. Quinn vaulted forward, elbow out, ready to deliver a significant blow when the figure rolled left at the last second. Quinn missed him, her elbow slamming through the floor, mercifully protected by the Syndicate armor.
She rose and saw that the other Marines were similarly engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Renner was facing off against a woman who was brandishing a yellow baton, Milo was locked with a tall, thin figure, and Hayden had two other figures pinned down, exchanging blow for blow.
Quinn spun and caught sight of her attacker’s foot… seconds before it slammed into her ear. Even with the helmet, the impact jarred her.
She winced as she fell to one knee. The attacker tried to mount Quinn who grabbed the man’s arm and heaved him over her head. She dove forward and locked arms with him. The man was wiry and strong, and he fought with wild abandon. He gripped both hands on Quinn’s helmet and wrenched it free, flinging it across the room.
Quinn, helmetless, pulled back her fists, ready to batter the man who just stood and stared at her for several long heartbeats.
“You never did know when to quit, did you?” the man said.
Quinn froze. She knew the voice, but it couldn’t be, could it? The man pulled his mask down to reveal an old friend.
Quinn’s jaw dropped.
“Jesus … Giovanni?”
There he was, in the flesh, standing before her. But instead of a smile, his face was screwed up in anger. He pulled out a concealed pistol and aimed it at Quinn as the other fighting instantly stopped.
“You’ve got five seconds, Quinn. Five seconds to tell me why the hell you’re wearing the enemy’s armor.”
11
TOY SOLDIERS
The gun in Giovanni’s hand never wavered. Quinn could see the confusion and anger in Giovanni’s eyes. She scanned the faces of the other resistance fighters who, in the turmoil, had pulled guns on the Marines.
“It’s not what you think,” she said.
Giovanni’s eyes darted about the room. “What I think is a whole bunch of Marines—of my former friends—have turned their back, not only on the Corps, but their own planet.”
“They forced us to fight,” Milo said.
“Bullshit!” Giovanni thundered. “I never would’ve done it. You’re all fucking traitors!”
“If you just give me a chance, I can explain,” Quinn said, reaching for him.
“Get the fuck away from me!” He stumbled backward. “I never would’ve thought it about you, Quinn. Maybe some of the others, but not you.”
“Goddammit, you need to listen to me!” she said, her gut clenching as he turned his back on her, clutching his gun to his chest. “I know a way to beat them.”
All sounds instantly leeched from the room. The eyes of everyone, including every Marine, fell on Quinn.
“I’ve been working with someone, and I know what their weakness is, Giovanni. With your help, we might be able to beat the bastards.”
Giovanni arched an eyebrow. “If you’re lying, Quinn...”
“How long have you known me?”
“Too fucking long.”
A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “And in all those years, how many times did I lie to you?”
Giovanni slowly lowered his gun.
GIOVANNI LED Quinn and the other Marines through a hidden alcove at the edge of the ballroom. Soon, everyone was moving single-file down through a space that lay between the walls.
Quinn was directly in front of Milo who whispered to her. “Why the hell didn’t you tell the rest of us about your little secret?”
“I didn’t have time, and I was worried about who could be trusted.”
“Screw you, Quinn.”
“I had to be sure.”
Milo’s face flared with anger. “This has to do with what Cody discovered, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “He’s on our side, Milo.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“It’s like I told you before. I know because he’s killed for us.”
The group entered an inner chamber in the casino filled with computer equipment and men and women bathed in eerie green light. The entire area was covered in plastic, not unlike a greenhouse, that was lined with long sections of copper-colored electrical conduit. Quinn and the others were forced to step through a zippere
d opening and, once inside, they heard music. It was playing all around. An old song, coming from the conduit.
“What is that?” Quinn asked.
She caught sight of Renner snapping his fingers and moving his hips to the music. “I’m gonna forget that you said that, Quinn,” he said. Noting their confused glances, he added, “It’s Sinatra, baby. ‘Luck Be a Lady.’”
“White noise,” Giovanni said. “The chords in the music prevent eavesdropping.”
“The Syndicate?” Milo asked.
“We’ve found it effective in blocking their signals,” Giovanni replied with a nod.
Quinn held up the old-school Yoda Pez dispenser that Cody gave her. “I’ve got something that will let us know if they’re trying to listen in on us.”
The others did a double-take at the tiny object.
Milo cocked an eye. “Seriously, Quinn?”
She nodded. “It works.”
Milo squinted at the dispenser. “Wait, I remember – is that… what is that? Yoda?”
Another nod from her.
“Fucking … Yoda?” Milo asked again.
Hayden cleared his throat. “Either way, we need to mind our Ps and Qs and finish our mission in the next fifteen minutes, or we’re gonna be standing tall before the fellas upstairs if you know what I mean.”
Hayden gestured to the other Marines. “Turn off your HUDs. We’ll say we had issues once we went into the tunnels.”
They did, and Quinn moved toward the computer equipment. She saw disparate images and footage that appeared from a variety of locales. Some of the material showed what looked like real-time images of combat, resistance fighters attacking or being attacked by Syndicate soldiers, drones, and other mechanized units, while other material appeared to be static shots of various locations or surveillance footage shot from a distance.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Quinn said.
Giovanni looked over and nodded. “We’ve got resistance cells in every state.”
“And the enemy has got machines, brother,” Milo said. “Really big, angry machines.”
“I know. We’ve destroyed sixty or seventy of them.”
“Wow. Sixty or seventy?” Renner said, whistling. “Alright, well, that’s great to know, Gio. Sounds like the war’s over, boys and girls.”
