Grayman Book One: Acts of War

by Michael Rizzo

17

  Matt Burke:

  “So… What do I call you? Commissioner Gordon…?”

  It takes me a minute to click: he’s talking in pop-culture references, trying to be chill despite the bloody mess he’s made of himself. Not that I look that much better.

  I hope I give him the right response:

  “Would that make you Batman?”

  He smiles. Coughs. Doesn’t look anything like his action videos. The basic features, yes: bone-gaunt, sharp lines, pale (worse probably with the blood-loss), still-raw wound down across his eye.

  “Grayman, apparently…” he comes back.

  “Yeah… You heard about that, huh?” Though I immediately wonder where.

  “…not bad… I kind of like it…” He’s fading on me.

  “Yeah. It’s catchy…”

  I really don’t know what the fuck to do but watch him bleed. Something large-bore has blown a fist-sized hole in his lower leg. He’s sitting in a visibly spreading puddle of blood.

  “Matthew,” I finally spit out. “My name…”

  He repeats it. Smiles again like we’re old friends. Tries to say something. Coughs. Hits the back of his head on the column he’s leaning against like he’s trying to keep from passing out.

  “Michael…” he gives me back.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  I realize I’ve totally lowered my weapon. My face is burning and my right arm feels like it’s been beaten to mush. Didn’t help that I had to shove myself through a cordon of local CT armor (and Richards yelling in my ear the whole time to “stand down” because I might be exposed or some shit) and run down a dark tunnel with the walls reverbing and crumbling from whatever the hell this thing is that Gray—Michael—just apparently blew the shit out of. But I owe Doc more beer because he came through without me even having to ask and his Hal tracked the epicenter and flashed it to me. Then it made magic and targeted two more Wabs waiting in the tunnel and somehow picked them out of the dark and made them easy shots even with my good hand perfed.

  “…so now what…?” he wants to know but I have no idea.

  Two seconds later, Richards takes it out of my hands.

  NATO armor—I can tell it by the specific urban-camo patterns—comes flooding into the tunnel behind their FNs. They swarm all over and check the dead Wabs and make a ring of a dozen guns around Gray—Michael—and everything gets hard and freezes and nobody makes a noise. Then the Lieutenant leading this little cluster-fuck starts shouting orders to

  “Drop the weapon!! Drop it!!!”

  And things go weirder. Michael’s face shifts back to Grayman and he’s looking like he’s just come up out of the grave and glares at the Lieutenant like the dumb grunt’s just taken his life into his own hands and it doesn’t matter how many guns are backing him up.

  “Don’t be an ass…” The voice that growls out through those curling lips sounds like he’s been possessed by something that should walk on four large clawed paws.

  “HOLD FIRE GODDAMN IT!!” I’m yelling and trying to be in the way and chill the armor down and then I see Richards coming in and waving them down all dub like he’s back in charge again.

  “Hold fire. Stand down.” Then he glares at me like I’ve been an idiot but doesn’t want to ream me for it so publicly. But then he almost softens a bit like he feels me on some old level of what he might have been and steps where he can risk a good look at Grayman. I can’t read his face.

  “I need you to set that weapon down, Mr. Palmeri,” he says after digesting the scene for a few. “Please.” Cool. Firm. Then he just stands and waits.

  Michael starts to melt back to human, at least a bit. The snarl-grin softens to something almost like a fuck-it half smile. And very gently, he sets the big-ass pistol he’s got down on the deck in front of him like he’s making a cautious peace-offering.

  Then Richards burns it by whipping up a pneumo and thunking a trank dart right into the side of his neck. I can see the ugly surge back for about half a second before he melts cold out.

  “Take him.”