Harvey Bennett Mysteries Box Set 3

by Nick Thacker

  Hopefully, she thought, that meant their suits were better soldiers and fighters. Each of the CSO members would be facing nearly seven-to-one odds.

  She felt her arms moving naturally over the controls. Her right wrists rotated a bit and the entire top half of the Exo’s torso shifted, rotating in kind. Her left wrist flicked back and the shoulder-mounted turret on her right side flew into position.

  The Exos staring her down had similar weaponry, but she could see that their turrets were a bit smaller, while the packs on their backs — the batteries, she figured — were larger. That meant they were heavier, and possibly less maneuverable, as well as less powerful.

  If only I could figure out how to use that to my advantage. Her hands and arms were reacting as if she still had control over them, but when she tried to remove them from the controls she felt the same prickling paralysis overtake them. It was as though the machine were a part of her, and she was allowed to control it, and only it.

  “You have been given a hefty dose of the scopolamine compound my scientists have been working on for over a year,” Garza’s voice said. It was now coming through only her speakers, and she assumed that meant Garza wanted to talk with only to her and her team, not the other Exos. “That chemical has been activated, but I’ve reduced the level of exposure to allow you basic motor functions within the suit.”

  Activated? Julie wondered. I thought the chemical was what caused the paralysis? How had it been dormant, and then —

  She realized what had happened. They had been dosed with Garza’s compound as soon as they’d entered the demonstration floor. The airborne chemical had been in the room the whole time, and they’d all been breathing it in, letting it percolate.

  Garza was watching us the whole time we were talking to Jeffers, she realized. Making sure we didn’t leave. Making sure we were in there long enough for the chemical to get into our systems.

  And then when he spoke…

  The high-pitched whine had been there the whole time, she remembered, but it had risen in volume just as Garza had finished talking.

  That sound must have somehow activated the chemical. It was a trigger, a sound-based switch that turned on the chemical. She’d heard of a new medical field called non-invasive neuromodulation, where doctors and scientists were working together to use sound waves to control — rather than damage — certain highly focused neurons so that they can’t fire. Controlling these brain waves would hypothetically help prevent the pain of migraines and potentially reverse some of the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s.

  Garza must have stumbled onto some sort of balance between the chemical compound they’d ingested and the sound waves — that perhaps instead of controlling her brain’s neurons, the sound was controlling that chemical instead.

  She’d been under the spell of Garza’s scopolamine-based treatment once before, but he had needed to inject it directly into her system through a syringe, and then she had been completely unable to move without his coercion. Now, she was moving a bit, able to use her hands and arms at her will, as long as she was still following his general instructions.

  It was fascinating — the man must have been able to block the certain area of their brains that connected her freely formed thoughts from acting out physically. Her body was no longer responsive to her thoughts, but those of Garza. Her body still required stimulus, voluntary direction, but it was unable to receive it from Julie.

  Garza’s voice broke through once again. “You’ll notice that the previous generation of Exos are maneuvering toward you. They are programmed with a basic, adolescent-level AI, so a direction like ‘engage’ means one thing: walk forward until they decide they are within striking distance.

  “Their operators are also on a much higher dosage of the drug, so their response time and reactionary procedures have been greatly diminished. The newer suits you are in not only come with a far more advanced AI, they allow you to guide your Exo through involuntary reactions — in other words, they let you react much more quickly to threats.”

  As if on cue, the Exo closest to Julie raised its arm and blasted a cannon round toward her.

  58

  Julie

  The heavy slug whizzed past the place where her Exo’s head would have been — mere inches above her own — and slammed into the stone wall behind her. Chips of rock and dust flew into the back of the Exo’s suit, the metallic pinging sound reverberating through the inside.

  But before she realized what was happening Julie was in motion. Something deep inside her, on an instinctual level, sprang into action. She — through the Exo suit’s heightened response time — jumped sideways and rolled toward a group of crates. She hardly felt as though she was upside-down during the roll, and the Exo recovered perfectly, coming to a rest in a crouched position.

  Then she lifted the left handle and the Exo fired a return blast from its own arm, striking the lesser Exo directly in the chest. The Exo fell backwards, but it didn’t appear to be damaged.

  This is absolutely ridiculous, Julie thought. I’m inside a mech suit fighting with other mechs.

  Fighting for my life.

  “Well done, Mrs. Bennett. I knew you would get the hang of it before everyone else. After all, this isn’t your first experience with the chemical compound.”

  Julie felt rage, but it was unable to manifest itself in any way. She simply stared blankly at the opposing Exo, which had now recovered and continued its march toward her.

  She saw the eyes of the person inside, deep and blank and staring back at her. She wondered, for a moment, what they were thinking. Garza said they were more affected by the chemical, but she had no idea if that meant their involuntary control and ability to think had been hampered.

  But it didn’t matter. She could think and wonder all she wanted, but she too was under a spell. She rose, the Exo moving smoothly and effortlessly, and she flicked her wrist up and heard the gentle whirring sound of the turret on her shoulder spinning up. Another flick of her wrist and hundreds of rounds seemed to leave the turret at once.

  Each of the rounds was much smaller than the cannon blast she’d fired before, but there were so many more of them that the damage was incredible. A few dozen found the armor plating on the Exo’s chest that had been damaged before, and the impacts bore tiny holes through the suit.

  Something inside the suit malfunctioned, and Julie saw the operator’s eyes seemingly widen and contract again, as if the chemical had accidentally let out a brief moment of surprise. The suit sparked and smoked, and the Exo’s left leg collapsed in under itself. That brought its own turret, which had just started firing back at her, around and through the top of the stack of crates Julie’s was hiding behind.

  It may have been a smaller turret with less power, but the Exo’s weapon splintered the crate into a thousand pieces, and sawdust and debris rained down on Julie’s exposed head. The Exo continued falling, eventually coming to a stop on its side.

  …Just as another Exo pushed forward and its massive flat, diamond-shaped foot crunched down on the Exo and its occupant. The second Exo continued moving as the first lay dying, sparks and smoke billowing out from the compressed hole where the occupant’s intact head had previously been.

  Julie wanted to react, to wince or cry out in surprise, but instead she calmly rotated and bent her wrists so that her suit was now facing the second intruder. She fired three cannon rounds in as quick succession as the suit would allow, taking down the second Exo with ease.

  I’m killing people, she thought. Then, immediately after, I’m following orders that I can’t argue with. Even if I tried.

  “Very good, Julie. It appears as though you all are capable of piloting these machines. Reggie is onto his third Exo, and Mrs. E and Ben have also taken down one each.”

  Julie tried to move her Exo to see the others but she had inadvertently pinned herself down between two stacks of crates and the southern wall. She couldn’t see any of the rest of her team, bu
t she heard the destruction and chaos from each of the three other corners.

  She hoped they were faring well, but again she was unable to act on any other instinct than to protect herself and her Exo.

  She rotated her torso to face the next two attackers, coming from a bit off-center on her left and right side. She wanted to try neutralizing the threats simultaneously, to see if she could target one with her cannon and the other with her turret.

  A fast calculation and a flick of her wrists later, meanwhile stressing and applying pressure to the legs of the Exosuit from inside, and she had her answer.

  The two Exos fell into a heap, adding more carnage to the wreckage that lay in front of her.

  “Very impressive, Mrs. Bennett,” Garza’s voice said. “But you’ve been facing one and two Exos at once. Let’s make this a bit more fun, shall we?

  His voice came back over the main speakers in the demonstration floor. “All remaining Exos, please converge on your targets at once. Spare no ammunition.”

  59

  Garza

  The look of dismay, of utter failure, on the man’s face told Vicente Garza everything he needed to know. I’ve already won, he thought. And I haven’t even played my trump card.

  The man looked visibly sick. His face had paled upon entering the observation room, upon seeing beyond Garza into the massive, dimly lit demonstration floor. Upon seeing the Exos.

  The stunned Father Edmund Canisius, flanked by two Ravenshadow soldiers, stood in awed silence after entering the room. Garza had given the command for the Exos to engage in their bloody display, all while being video recorded and observed by the seven men in the observation room.

  Garza had allowed Canisius to simply watch on, to let him consider the repercussions of what he was seeing, to consider why Garza had invited him here.

  Forced him here was probably a more accurate statement.

  Garza sipped his coffee, watching in admiration as his creations battled each other. It was a shame to lose so many fully working prototypes, even if they were first- and second-generation. His first generation of Exos was nearly twice as advanced as the next closest thing that had been produced in the world defense community.

  His second generation suits, the one the CSO team was wearing, was close to ten times more advanced. Faster, lighter, more powerful, better equipped — just about every metric that would matter to the end user had been drastically improved. The sum total of the advancements made his second generation Exos the closest thing to a one-man army the world had ever seen.

  And his team was already drafting plans for the third generation. They had worked to reduce the battery load, using more air intake modules around the suit to cool it, and they had been working with graphite sections that would make the suit much stronger and lighter — and therefore faster.

  He wanted the third generation Exo to be able to run, duck, and crawl, just like a human soldier. The AI would be the same, but if the advancements he expected were on track, by the time he had a fourth- and fifth-generation model, the suit would be able to not only react to the operator’s instructions within a split-second, it would be able to anticipate their instructions.

  He wanted a suit that linked operator and machine as if it were one organism. He knew they were close already, but there were still problems with preventing the user from having access to their own voluntary functions. He wanted a true symbiotic relationship — an exoskeleton enclosure that not only worked with its operator, but thrived with it.

  Garza couldn’t help but smile. Everything was coming together. Everything was moving forward exactly as planned, with the exception of Beale’s Green Beret force’s intrusion.

  But they had been handled, and he hadn’t even wasted a single suit or operator on the job.

  The CSO team had snuck in with them, faring slightly better than the Green Berets, but as Garza could now see, their eventual fate would be no different than Beale’s.

  A fitting end for such a strong-willed team. Fighting as a team. Dying as a team. All in the name of scientific advancement.

  He wished he could have faced Harvey Bennett and his new wife Juliette once more, but he wasn’t the type of man to take needless chances. He had needed to record a video for his buyer, a final documentation of proof that he had what he said he had.

  What better way to do that than to use the CSO crew as the operators in his latest generation of tech? What better way to prove to his buyer that their expectations would be met and exceeded?

  “Wh — what are we watching?”

  Garza turned and faced Canisius, taking another sip of coffee before responding. “This, Father, is what your organization is purchasing.”

  “There is no way the Catholic Church or the Vatican has any need for something… of… such —”

  “Such what?” Garza asked. “Destruction? Such overwhelming power?”

  Canisius swallowed, then looked side to side. There were two chairs nearby, but the soldiers standing just inches away from him tightened up. Good, Garza thought. If you sit down, you may miss something.

  “This is irresponsible. It’s sinful. So much unnecessary killing has already plagued this world, and —”

  “And how much of that killing has been done at the hands of the Church? How much of that killing has been perpetuated by the Church? By your church, Father Canisius.”

  There was a flash of rage on Canisius’ face, but the man swallowed it back, staring defiantly at Garza.

  “I urge you to look, to see what your organization has purchased, Father. This display is being recorded, of course, but —”

  “My organization has nothing to do with this.”

  “Ah, that is where you are wrong.”

  “They would never purchase something like this. No matter the potential benefits they may have been sold. These are death machines, and… what? You expect me to believe that they want machines? For what? To replace the guardsmen? To stand at the foot of the Basilica?”

  Garza smiled. Good. Get more worked up. Begin to feel it again, Father. Just like I’ve felt it.

  “No,” Garza said. “No, not at all.” He laughed. “I see the confusion. Of course. I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with you. I apologize.”

  He snapped his fingers, and one of the seated Ravenshadow men stood and nodded.

  “Get Victoria,” he said. The man immediately turned and left the room.

  60

  Ben

  Ben heard Garza’s voice as he maneuvered his own Exo around in the corner of the room. He was amazed at how easy his suit was to control, but he knew Garza was capable of such miraculous feats — there was nothing technologically possible that was out of reach to the man. He had unlimited funding, and it was clear why: he had been able to produce something no other government or corporation could. The Exos weren’t perfect, but they were as close as anything that had come to market. He knew that was why the buyer wanted them — they were close to perfect. Ravenshadow had figured out that it wasn’t just a well-trained soldier or a fancy, technologically advanced exoskeleton suit that would be the difference.

  It was both — or, rather, it was a suit and a soldier that didn’t need to be trained.

  The three suits in front of him advanced, their short, dark-skinned operators staring as blankly back at him as he knew he looked. They all raised their weapons — the arm-mounted cannons — and fired.

  He felt his Exosuit performing before he’d realized he’d issued the command. He ran sideways, his torso still facing them, and fired with his turret. The lighter rounds tore hundreds of tiny holes through the advancing Exos, dropping one of them and halting the forward motion of the other two.

  It took them a second longer to adapt and change their focus of fire, and Ben took full advantage of it. He stepped forward, moving out from the relative safety of the heavy crate and fired again, this time adding his cannon to the mix. The blasts hit the center Exo full-on, throwing it onto its back. Another one that had been
focusing its attention on Mrs. E tripped over it, stumbling, but then turned to face Ben.

  Crap, he thought. One down, one more takes its place.

  His actions never faltered. He accepted the addition of the newcomer, fired a cannon shot to prevent it from getting overzealous, and then once again turned to face the third Exo in the previous wave.

  But that Exo had maneuvered to Ben’s flank, and he felt the impact of its cannon round before he registered that it was still firing on him. His own instincts, or his Exo’s built-in artificial intelligence — he wasn’t sure — turned the turret gun and launched a barrage of tiny bullets toward it.

  The new advancing Exo fired at the same time. Rounds from both Exos’ cannons hit Ben’s side and chest, and he faltered. He grunted, then the Exo he was standing in fell to its knees. He struggled with the controls, suddenly feeling as though they were foreign. He was no longer in sync with the machine as he had been, and he wondered if there was a way to —

  There.

  He pressed his feet downward in the suit, trying to simulate the motion of standing up. The Exo reacted immediately, and he felt the hydraulic lifts in the legs pressing upward. The Exo stood, then fell again. Ben’s left leg screamed out in pain — the suit had been hit on its left leg, and when it fell back again Ben’s leg had been caught inside.

  He couldn’t tell if it had been crushed or badly bruised, but he had no time to worry about it. Nor did he have any way of reacting if it had been injured. His body simply moved on, as if it had marked down the loss and worked to readjust its strategy.

  The problem was that Ben had no idea what that strategy should be — he was nearly on his side on the ground, his Exo unable to stand. He was firing back at the advancing Exos, but now two more had joined the fray. They were working to spread out, to make Ben’s attack on more than one of them at once impossible. The Exos’ torsos could rotate quickly, but they had a limit.