by John Conroe
I complied, in a daze, but not wanting to explore whatever the gas thing was. As soon as I had painfully lowered myself to a kneeling position and placed both hands behind my head, the inner door swung open. Four Zone Defense security types entered with M-43 electro mag assault rifles aimed square on yours truly.
With swift efficiency, they zip-tied my hands behind my back. Two grabbed my arms, hauling me to my feet and through the opened door, while the other two grabbed my weapons and pack. Within seconds, I was sandwiched between two burly soldiers in back of a Mobile Utility Vehicle, which was basically a fancy electric golf cart with multiple rows of seats.
The other two hopped in front and we took off, traveling past the Zone entrance, past the ready response team, and deeper into the admin part of the facility.
My guards stared straight ahead and didn’t say a single word. Myself, I just kept quiet, my normal wiseass wit having fled my head at this unexpected turn of events.
A few minutes later, after passing several armed checkpoints, we arrived in big brass country, as noted by the desks of clerical types manning AI workstations. My over-muscled escort hauled me out of the vehicle and passed the now staring administrators, down a hallway, and then hooked a right into a stark, utilitarian conference room.
I was unceremoniously placed in a chair sitting in the middle of the room while my weapons were unloaded and laid out on a table on one wall, followed by the contents of my pack.
Each guard then took up a corner of the room, all facing me. Ten long minutes later, the door opened and four new men walked in.
I recognized the first man as General Davis, current commander of Zone Defense. That was easy, as his picture was on the wall of every Zone entrance around Manhattan. That and his uniform, which was a pretty good giveaway. Two of the other men wore dark suits that screamed government agents. The fourth man, I recognized instantly. Well, not his identity, but I recognized that he was a special ops kind of guy. How? He had the same look as my father and the guys my father had worked with before he left the British military. Hard physique, hard face, hard eyes, all screaming unyielding soldier. He was smaller than the four guards who had dragged me in here, but my money was on him against any two of them in a fight, and maybe all four at once.
“Mr. Gurung,” General Davis said, his own eyes pretty granite-like themselves in the hard planes of his dark-skinned face.
“General Davis,” I said. My earlier shock had worn off and my father’s voice had risen up in my mind during the ten-minute wait.
He frowned, glancing at one of the two men in suits. The fourth man, the spec ops guy, was over at the table, inspecting my gear.
“We don’t normally meet with salvagers in this manner,” the general went on.
“We’ve never met at all, sir. I have met your two predecessors, just not you. Sir,” I said. Dad always said that officers liked to hear a lot of sirs. Seemed like a good idea in light of my current situation.
“I was referring to your bindings,” he said, one eyebrow now raised. He had two stars on his shoulders, so he was a major general, but other than that, I didn’t know anything about the man.
“Yes, sir. This seems new. Maybe a change in protocol that I missed in my emails?” I asked, unable to stop the wiseass now that I was calmer.
The spec ops soldier had my MSR in his hands and was inspecting the opened action, even sniffing it.
General Davis paused, face blank but eyes hardening—even harder. “Ajaya Edward Gurung. You hold the distinction of having the most solo excursions into the Zone, and being the only current certified solo salvager on record.”
“Mike Dumas is a solo…” I trailed off as the general shook his head.
“Missing for five days and presumed dead,” he said. “He lasted thirty months. You’re in, what? Your eighth year?”
I nodded, still processing the news.
“How is that, Ajaya? How is it that a young man of your short years has survived and even prospered entering the Zone on a regular basis, on foot and lightly armed?”
I’ve always wondered if the brass had wondered. My father had thought we’d be called upon to explain our techniques, maybe even teach them.
“Well sir, my dad taught me well. Plus a healthy dose of luck, sir,” I said.
The spec ops guy snorted, his back to me as he studied the condition of my kukri.
“Oh, yes. Where are my manners?” General Davis said, which was funny because my dad always said that high-ranking officers had fewer manners but always talked about them. “Ajaya, this is Mr. White and Mr. Black from the… federal government. And the curious fellow digging through your gear is Major Yoshida.”
White was dark skinned, Black was white, and Yoshida was mixed ethnicity, but likely mostly of Japanese ancestry.
Mr. Black leaned back against the table where my gear was and glanced sideways at Yoshida.
“Major, how many times have you been into the Zone?” he asked.
“Seven,” was the immediate answer. Yoshida had my multi-tool out and was opening it into pliers.
“Is it as tough as they say?” Mr. Black asked in a friendly, conversational tone. He was watching me.
Yoshida snorted again. “The first time, we made it three blocks before one of my guys got wounded. Second time, four blocks. The third trip, we barely got one block in before our Chief Petty Officer’s head exploded. Never even saw the drone that did it. Fourth and fifth times, we made it to Central Park and back out. Sixth time, I went in to help pull out another team, or what was left of it. Two out of six.”
We waited for a second, then Black shifted his feet, impatient. “And the seventh?”
“We crossed the whole island, west to east. I made it all the way to the water and was picked up by boat,” the major said. “I was the only survivor—out of a six-man team.” He looked around at each of us, then walked behind me and snipped my cable ties with my own multi-tool.
I pulled my arms forward and massaged my wrists. Black was staring at me. “You went into the Zone when you were not quite a teenager. You’ve gone in so many times that I’m afraid we don’t have an accurate count. Something about the confusion of the early years,” he said.
His partner, White, moved around in front of me, his left eye glowing red as he read something on his iContact. “You’ve entered and exited from every access point we have. Thirty-eight recorded overnights in the Zone. The last eighteen months, you’ve gone in at least once a week, every week,” he said. “It’s like the damned drones give you permission.”
There it was. My father used to say that one of our greatest threats was falling victim to our own success. I had thought he meant complacency, but he had explained he was worried that others would notice our accomplishments, and not in a good way.
“Did you know we asked your father to train soldiers in his techniques? Four times, we asked. He declined. Said he didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths. Yet he brought you, his only son, into the most dangerous place on Earth. Why?”
I struggled with my thoughts. “He needed my help. Our family needed the money and no one would hire an Indian-looking ex-soldier after the Attack, at least for the first couple years. By then, we were a team and we did pretty well. He said I was a natural.”
All four just stared at me, dead silent, faces like granite. My father had told me to never offer information. Keep your mouth shut. Answer yes and no. Don’t embellish, and always, always wait out the pauses.
White waved his left hand at the wall and the whole white surface lit up with a projected image. Satellite—looking down on the Zone from above. It zoomed, moving up close, going from the edge of space to a single city street. The resolution was frighteningly sharp, clear enough to read a Pepsi bottle lying in the gutter. Something moved on the open street. A blurry spot—a set of wavy lines like heat distortion. Roundish shaped, at least from above—same color as the street. It moved in short, slow, random motions. Forward, then suddenly sideways, forward again but
half as far. Then at a diagonal, twice as far before freezing in place.
It was me. That’s how I move in the Zone. A shape flew past me, turned and came back, delta wings folding and twisting into a ball.
“That’s you. The drone—is a Russian Berkut. The soldier monitoring this feed thought you were dead. Imagine his surprise when it hovered in front of you, then moved out in front to scout. A fucking Berkut,” White said, his voice only rising at the last bit.
“You working for the drones, son?” General Davis asked.
Time for one of those short answers. “No, sir.”
“Then what the hell is that?” the general asked.
“It works for me. Sir.”
“A Russian Berkut works for you?” Black asked, incredulous. “The deadliest UAV in the Zone?”
“Yes,” I said.
Yoshida chuckled. Black looked at him sharply.
“You don’t get a sir… Agent Black. But the general does,” the major said. “Funny kid.”
“A funny kid who somehow suborned one of the deadliest killers in the Zone,” White said.
“Yeah, true,” Yoshida said, suddenly moving in front of me and squatting down to stare into my eyes.
“You know how many of my people might still be alive if you had shared this little secret?”
“You’re the first person to ask—me,” I said. “I didn’t know you had asked my dad. Nobody ever came to me.”
“We thought you’d get killed quick without your dad. Seems you upped the game but didn’t think to share it,” Black said.
“Right. Do you hear yourself? We thought you’d get killed quick. We’re just gonna sit back and watch you die. Oh? But you didn’t, you selfish bastard. How dare you? Now share everything! Nobody shares Zone secrets. The Zone War teams all have their secrets, the other salvage people all guard their little kingdoms, and Zone Defense never tells us anything. You people don’t offer us any help, either, Major. You just make us sign an acknowledgement that we’re going in at our own risk,” I said. The video was still up on the wall and the string of numbers across the bottom suddenly started to make sense. Part of the string was likely location—longitude and latitude. But that part right there… a date.
“You took this video six months ago. Why are you interrogating me only just now?” I asked. “What changed?”
The two agents exchanged a look. “Nothing—nothing at all,” White said with a sigh.
“You familiar with the Zone drone specs, kid?” Black asked. “What am I saying? Baburam Gurung’s kid must know the manuals forward and backward. Riddle me this, hotshot. What single specification has turned out to be wrong on every drone in the Zone?”
That one came easy. “Unit lifespan,” I said. “They talk about it on that show all the time.”
“Bingo. Give the kid a treat,” Black said, looking at Yoshida. The major reached into my pile of stuff and pulled out a protein ration bar, tossing it my way.
Enlightenment hit me as I caught the bar. “Manhattan was supposed to be reclaimed by now,” I said. “The drones should have worn out by now.”
“Yes, and the powers that be want it back,” White said.
“Is that why Zone War was allowed to start? To speed up the end of the drones, or was it to distract the public from the fact the drones were still going?”
“Why not both?” White said, both palms up in a shrug.
“But you guys are DoD right? Like Defense Intelligence guys or something? You only care about national defense,” I said, testing some sudden insight.
“Whoa there, kid. Where’d you get all that?” Black asked, leaning forward.
“A hunch. Why else are you suddenly busting my balls? Because the drones all changed their behaviors and are functioning way longer than anyone predicted,” I guessed again.
“What do you mean changed behavior?” White asked, moving up next to his partner.
“You know… shortened patrol patterns to reduce wear and tear, decreased night activity because batteries and capacitors are beginning to short cycle, Wolf drones chewing up coat hangers to produce flechettes for themselves and other drones. Things like that. Power sharing, staying out of animal-rich areas like the Park or the subway tunnels.”
“You’ve seen that? The coat hanger thing?” Yoshida suddenly asked.
“Yeah, most drones are less prevalent inside buildings than they used to be, but the Wolves will scavenge for wire products, particularly coat hangers. I use them as bait.”
“Bait?” Black asked.
“For traps. I set traplines,” I said. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“No kid. No, they don’t,” White said, shaking his head.
“Where? Where do you set them?” Yoshida pressed.
“All over. Gyms are good ‘cause you can use the smith racks with heavy weights on the bars. Catch Wolves and even Tigers under two hundred kilos, they don’t usually get away. They can lift that easy, but if you get them at the neck, it’s like a mouse trap. Also, auto repair places are great ‘cause the Wolves go there looking for metal and there’s lots of machinery to rig up in different ways. You have to be creative and change things up because the ones that get trapped transmit the details to the rest.”
“What else have you seen, kid?” Black asked.
It hit like a ton of bricks. “Oh, the trap that the drones set for Johnson Recovery. The Spider and all that,” I said.
“Spider? What Spider?” General Davis asked, suddenly interested.
“The Spider on the Custom House roof,” I said. “You don’t think tank killers set up that ambush by themselves, do you?”
“You saw it?” the general asked.
“Saw it and shot it. Didn’t kill it, though,” I said.
“You shot four times, and all of those were aimed at the TKs,” Yoshida said. There was a question in there, I think.
White moved his hand and then waved it at the wall and new footage showed up. Taken directly from Zone War cameras, likely exterior hull cameras on the LAV. It showed the machine-gun on the northern TK suddenly lurch as the weapon sighting module on top burst into pieces. The image froze and a red circle appeared on a building in the background, specifically, a window on a mid-level floor—my window.
“I fired five times. The first shot was a sub-sonic round on the Spider. Suppressed. Angle was bad for armor so I shot its ocular band. The other four shots were all full power AP ‘cause the cat was outta the bag.”
“Wait. You deliberately fired a low-powered round at a Spider? Why, for God’s sake?” Black asked, incredulous.
“I needed to disrupt the Spider’s control of the situation, but I also needed the extra time to get off the other four shots. Full power would alert the aerial drones instantly,” I explained.
“Killing the Spider would have likely given the Johnsons the edge they needed. Instead, you gave up close to a million dollars!” Black said.
“But that didn’t happen, did it?” Yoshida interjected. “The TKs kept fighting even after he took out targeting and rockets. If he hadn’t shot the cable, they might have died.”
“You don’t even like the Johnsons?” White asked. “It says so in your file.”
I didn’t answer that one. I gotta file that says who I like? General Davis answered for me, a second later.
“He doesn’t like most of the Johnsons,” he said.
“Ah, the girl,” White said, nodding thoughtfully. “Kinda outta your league, kid. Doesn’t she date some professional athlete?”
