by Nick Thacker
They were on the demonstration floor, and Julie had a feeling there was about to be another demonstration.
53
Ben
The door behind them slammed shut, and immediately the sounds of gunfire from the three Exos and the three soldiers ceased.
Ben’s eyes watered as he stood on the cold stone demonstration floor, likely a reaction to the sudden change in pressure from entering the massive warehouse-like space. His clothes were dry now, but he thought he could still feel the river, the dampness of the water dripping off his skin. It was a combination of sweat and humidity, the leftover clamminess of having been sopping wet only an hour before.
He shifted on his feet, looking around. It was the demonstration floor, the place he’d seen from the upstairs observation room. He knew this was where the Ranger force had been cut down, and he knew this was going to be the endgame for his team, as well.
They had been corralled in here, cows led to slaughter.
Ben felt the humidity rise in the room once again, as if someone were ratcheting up the level by blasting water vapor inside. It was a strange sensation — the rest of the mountain base had been bone-dry, save for the small connecting tunnel they’d been in after exiting the drainage water chute.
He sniffed, trying to place what it was that was different about this room.
“Ben,” Reggie whispered. “Over here.”
Ben flicked his eyes over to where his friend was standing behind a stack of wooden crates. The boxes stretched nearly halfway to the ceiling, which was far enough above their heads in the darkened space that Ben could hardly see it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We’re…” Reggie’s voice trailed off.
Ben walked over to where he was standing and noticed Julie and Mrs. E cowering behind another stack of crates near Reggie.
“We’re right where they were,” Julie said softly.
Ben suddenly refocused, as if his mind had been blocking out the reality of their situation. He looked down at the floor, near where he had been standing. A pair of legs stretched out from behind a crate, lifeless and set atop a pool of dark liquid.
About twenty feet away he saw the head and arms of another soldier, but couldn’t see his face enough to know who it was, as it was contorted and veiled behind a shiny black substance. Perhaps Lang. He leaned out a bit and saw that his head and arms connected to his torso, but that torso was connected to… nothing.
The man had been chewed in half by the gunfire from the Exo.
The single Exo that had been activated.
Ben wiped some sweat from his brow, then turned to the others. “Keep your voices down. We’re almost definitely being monitored. This is some sort of game to Garza.”
“Doesn’t seem that fun,” Reggie shot back.
“He wants to test these things. The Exos. They’re what Beale’s team came here for. What their boss, Sturdivant, wants to get his hands on.”
“Well I’m sure he’ll be happy to know that they work just fine, in that case,” Reggie said.
“Not yet,” Julie said, staring at the massacred bodies lying in disarray around them. “They’re too noisy. That high-pitched screeching sound we keep hearing before the Exos arrive.”
“Yeah, true,” Ben said. “Maybe that’s why Garza hasn’t sold them to the highest bidder yet. And why Sturdivant was getting antsy.”
“Well, that’s all nice to know,” Reggie said. “But how do we get out of this little ‘demonstration?’”
Ben looked around. “I have no idea. But they absolutely funneled us in here. Garza has been playing with us this whole time. Toying, guiding us here. You all saw those things. Any single one of them could have cut us in half.” He immediately regretted his choice of words as he took another look at Lang. Doesn’t make it untrue, he thought. “Why not kill us before? When we were holed up in that room?”
“Because he needs us for a demonstration.”
“But why?” Julie said. “We’ve already seen that they work. Garza knows that. Why bother with us, specifically? If we’re just food for his meat grinder, why waste all this time and energy getting us down here again?”
Ben heard a cough. All four of the team members crouched behind the nearest crate they could find. Ben stepped out slowly, moving in the direction of the cough with his gun drawn.
He considered whispering, asking the person to name themselves, but decided against it. Whoever they were, they already knew Ben and the others were there. They’d coughed, which wasn’t exactly the stealthiest sound to make.
He rounded a corner behind another crate and looked down just as the person coughed again. The man’s lung expunged a horrific gurgling sound, then a wheezing, then drew a nearly silent, sharp breath.
“Jeffers,” Ben whispered. He knelt down. “Are you —”
He stopped himself before finishing the question. This man was clearly dying, and it was a miracle he hadn’t already perished. There was a hole in his neck, toward the side but close enough to the center that Ben wondered how it hadn’t severed his carotid artery. Another hole, probably one that went completely through him, was in the center of Jeffers’ stomach. He had his huge hands covering the hole, but blood was easily seeping up around his fingers. The man’s black hands had been turned a darker shade, the liquid only showing maroon when it interacted with the dim, glinting light.
“Hey, hey,” Ben said, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Don’t move, don’t talk. It’s okay. We’re —”
What? Going to get you out of here? Save your life? Ben pondered how to end the question, then spoke again. “We’re stuck in here, too.”
More accurate.
Jeffers tried to force a grin, but instead coughed again. Blood splattered outward all the way across the space to another nearby crate. The others joined Ben, and they crouched around Jeffers on all sides. Mrs. E began checking the man’s legs for more wounds but stopped when Reggie placed a hand on her arm. He shook his head, ever so slightly.
Jeffers’ mouth cracked open a bit and a single word spilled out. “St — Sturdi…”
“Sturdivant,” Ben said. “Your boss, right?”
Jeffers nodded.
“He wants to know what Garza’s been working on? The Exos?”
Again, a nod.
“He’s going to buy them?”
Jeffers paused, then shook his head. “No.”
Ben and Julie frowned. Reggie stared down at the man who had been on their side, then on the team that had betrayed them. Ben wondered what he was thinking. Reggie had served in the same military as this man, had gone through the same Ranger training. He’d come out a much different soldier than Jeffers. Much different loyalties.
“Sturdivant doesn’t want to buy these things?”
“No,” Jeffers said again. He grunted. “Different buyer.”
“What does Sturdivant want? Why did he send you here?”
Jeffers shook his head again, just a bit. “Too… late.”
“Help us, Jeffers,” Ben said. He wanted to add, because you’re going to die here no matter what. He didn’t. “Help us figure out what your boss wants so we can end this.”
Again. “Too late.”
“What’s too late?” Reggie asked.
“Everything… all too late. He — he’ll bring it all down. On top of us.”
Ben’s blood ran cold. He’ll bring it all down on top of us? What the hell does that even mean? “Are you saying… Sturdivant doesn’t care anymore? That all this — all of these things — are not his concern?”
“Exactly,” Jeffers said. “Exactly. …no longer… concern.”
“Why? How?” Ben knew they were all struggling to understand. To make sense of it. To figure out why Sturdivant sent in an elite team of soldiers to check in on an investment, then —
“It’s a failsafe,” Reggie said.
“A what?”
Jeffers nodded, once, small enough that Ben nearly missed it.
/>
“A failsafe. A dead-man’s switch. When the mission failed, Beale signaled Strudivant somehow. RF that got out to a relay, maybe, then shot a ‘fail’ message up to a satellite.”
“So there was something connected to Beale’s pulse that was blocking that signal?” Julie asked. “And when he died, the pulse stopped, so the signal got through?”
“That’s how they do it in movies, sure,” Reggie said. But things are much simpler than that. This was a team, not just one guy. So…” Reggie reached forward and grabbed Jeffers’ wrist, pulling it sideways and then rotating it.
The man’s hand fell from his stomach, releasing a sticky river of blood. Reggie placed his hand back on the wound but rubbed his shirt against Jeffers’ watch. Ben leaned in.
Numbers flashed on the watch face.
Counting down.
Ben saw four sections of two numerals, each separated by a colon. Hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds. A typical clock display.
The numbers at the far left were zeroes.
47 minutes, thirty-nine seconds.
“It’s a countdown,” Reggie said. “That’s the failsafe. Jeffers — or any one of them, before they died — sent the ‘fail’ signal when they got cut down. If it got out, and Sturdivant received it, he’ll know his team is eliminated.”
“Can we send a message that says ‘never mind… false alarm?” Ben asked, already knowing the answer.
Reggie shook his head. “No. These guys weren’t Rangers. Or at least not just Rangers. Their plane, their whole MO, everything. They were an elite force, likely one that’s been working together since their Ranger days. Sturdivant probably bought them wholesale, reassigning them to a classified sector that he could shuffle away with enough paperwork.”
Ben shook his head. “So what does that mean?”
“Exactly what he said,” Reggie responded, looking Ben in the eyes. “Sturdivant’s team is gone. His mission failed. He’s got only one option left, and he’s absolutely going to use it.”
Ben looked up, then at Mrs. E, who was staring straight down at Jeffers. She was the first one to speak. “He is going to bring it all down on top of us.”
54
Julie
The countdown on Jeffers’ watch pulsed in Julie’s vision. It was all she could see. Her peripheral vision had died away, and she couldn’t avert her eyes.
Forty-seven minutes, she thought. Until everything literally comes crashing down.
She watched Reggie removed the watch from Jeffers’ wrist and place it on his own, just above Reggie’s diver’s watch.
“What now, boss?” Reggie asked. His voice was calm, steady, and hinted at humor, as if they weren’t just standing in the middle of a death-filled warehouse at the heart of an enemy base. “We’ve got just over 47 minutes to figure out what to do — I suggest we get started?”
“It’s not the Exos,” Ben said.
Julie looked at her husband. “What?”
“Jeffers said that. Sturdivant didn’t send them here to check in on the status of the exoskeleton suits, remember?”
Jeffers coughed gently, but didn’t respond. Julie knew he was fading away. She’d seen enough death to know that there was no coming back from an injury like this one. She was amazed at Jeffers’ ability to hang on. He was a massive man in perfect shape, but even he wasn’t going to live through this one. She felt a pang of regret as she looked down at him.
He was a good man, no matter what team he’d been on. Julie felt she had a decent comprehension of character, and she’d pegged Jeffers as one of the good ones.
We’re all just trying to do what’s right, she told herself. We’re all just trying to survive.
“So what does he want?” Mrs. E asked. Her words were stilted, a slight hint of the Russian accent slipping back into her voice. Julie knew the woman was stressed, rattled. Mrs. E would keep her cool, but their nerves were all starting to falter.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “But it’s the missing piece. We figure that out, we —”
His voice was interrupted by the high-pitched whine, a gentle tone at first, then growing harsher in her ears as it rose in volume.
“Shit!” Reggie said. “They’re waking up!”
Julie spun around to face the machine monsters on the demonstration floor. She couldn’t help but notice the crate she was hiding behind at the moment had a few holes in it. All the way through it. Her hiding spot was no more than that — it wouldn’t offer her any protection whatsoever.
She swallowed a lump in her throat and felt her body beginning to melt into an automatic mode of adrenaline and dopamine. She reached for her weapon, pulled it up and around, and aimed at…
The suits in the first row were empty. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the people who she’d seen inside the Exos from upstairs were not in these suits. There was a whole row of them that stood on the floor, empty, waiting.
“They’re… empty,” she said.
“And they’re not moving,” Reggie added. “That means they’re coming from behind us! Everyone get your weapons up on the doors — get ready!”
A voice interrupted their preparations.
“Hello again, CSO team.”
The high-pitched whine rose to a higher volume level.
Julie felt her mind seized, her thoughts halted, her throat constricting. It was as if she had been bolted to place on the demonstration floor, suddenly shocked into a stunned inability to move.
She tried forcing her foot forward. It worked, but not well. Her foot came up a few inches, halted, then slammed itself back down. It landed only a few millimeters in front of where it had been before. The exertion needed to pull it off was incredible, and she felt herself involuntarily taking a deep breath.
The rest of her team stood stock-still as well, locked in place by the invisible force. It gripped them, had taken them all at precisely the same time. None were moving, and even Ben’s eyes — the only of them facing her — were staring straight back at her unflinchingly.
What the hell is happening?
Her ability to think came back. Her body was still affixed in place, but her brain began churning into overdrive, calculating where she was and what had happened and how it could help get her out and —
Memories.
Her brain had also drudged up memories, as if it were a supercomputer riffing through millions of files all at once to find the one that might serve as a reminder as to what was happening here.
Specifically it found one memory, one she hadn’t realized she still had. She knew exactly where she was, what she was doing.
Holding a pistol.
Aiming the pistol.
Her mind recalled the events leading up that from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. She couldn’t be entirely sure the events were correct, but there was one — right at the beginning of the memory — that she understood.
Her body was fixed in place, unmoving. Couldn’t move it, and she tried.
She remembered how she’d gotten to the point of holding the gun. Aiming it at her friend’s head.
The injection. The thing he stuck you with. The thing Garza stuck you with.
The chemical.
She was paralyzed, just as she’d been in Philadelphia, in Ravenshadow’s gym. Couldn’t move, couldn’t react, couldn’t do anything but stare straight ahead. Her mind was racing, but it was unable to come up with a solution.
The good news was that it was also unable to panic. She stared straight ahead, thinking quickly but moving slower than she ever had. She tried again, this time moving a hand, but a thousand pinpricks of paralysis stifled her. It felt like her arm had fallen asleep, but over her entire body. A painful situation when she tried to move, a more bearable one if she stayed as still as possible.
He did it again was her next thought. He somehow injected us with —
No.
Not an injection.
Julie thought hard, tried to understand what had happened. She would ha
ve known it if they’d been injected with something. It had to be enough of the chemical compound that it would render their entire bodies useless, but one of them would have noticed long before.
“If you’re wondering,” the voice said again, the voice of Garza, piped in from high above through invisible speakers. “It was in the air. It’s like a gas chamber. Easy enough to maintain, and we can focus the vapor toward the bottom of the room, preserving the strength of the chemical.”
Of course, she thought. As soon as they’d entered the demonstration room — been led into the demonstration room — she’d felt a slight change in the air. More humid, a little cooler, as if they were walking through a light cloud.
She hadn’t thought much about it, but the others had noticed it, too. Ben’s brow had been covered with droplets of moisture, and Mrs. E had been constantly rubbing her palms against her pant legs.
It was humidity, she realized. It wasn’t water vapor. Garza had injected her in Philadelphia with some chemical compound, one based on the drug scopolamine, and he’d figured out how to release it through an airborne vehicle.
A much cleaner, more efficient method, to be sure.
And a way to get the chemical into a lot of people at the same time.
Her mind wandered to the people inside the Exos. They weren’t Ravenshadow men.
The village.
There had been a mysterious disappearance of the inhabitants of a nearby village. Every man, woman, and child had simply vanished.
She knew what had happened. As if a lightbulb had flicked on, she had the answers they’d been wondering about.
Garza hadn’t needed to put his own soldiers in the suits. He hadn’t needed to train them to control the Exos at all.
He had found an entirely different workforce, and it was one he no longer had to train.
