by Russ Linton
He doesn't need to say any more. I keep quiet in case he does. A rare indicator I'm ready to listen.
"People react differently to traumatic events," Xamse continues. "She took action. This is why I found so much promise in her. Why I find it in you."
"Action?"
"When she was released from the hospital, Ayana found the men. She also threw acid on them." He finishes the statement with a knowing nod and that fucking smile. Two extended fingers indicate his crotch then they wilt. He chuckles. "Come, we'll prepare you. The first mission should not be difficult, but I wish you to have the best of luck."
He draws me close, guiding me toward the armor.
"What is the first mission?"
"An old man," says Xamse, waving a hand dismissively. "You are young, virile!" He punctuates this with a closed fist. "And eager to avenge your father, yes?"
"Vulkan?" I ask, too eagerly.
"No, no, no," he says. "We search for him, my friend. He will be found, and he will pay. This one is known as Tomahawk."
The arm Xamse has around me is suddenly pushing against an immovable force. Everybody knows that name not just from FreedomNet's Most Wanted list but from the history books.
"Augment Force Zero?"
"I seem to recall this from the briefing." He feigns an air of ignorance.
"You do realize he helped level a city. Probably a star class on Eric's old Auge-mon scale."
"Do not worry, we will prepare you. The HUD has built-in simulation functions able to make renders of nearly any possible conflict. Even replay those experienced by Drake!" Xamse adds excitedly. "You will survive and become stronger. Ready to face your father's murderer!"
The surge of rage doesn't flare. When I climb into the armor, I search my gut while the systems warm up only to find my anger, even my desire to be here, muted. Drake caught this guy once. Maybe I can do the same. Maybe nobody has to die.
CHAPTER 12
ALL WEEK WE PREP THE old suit. The latest model stands beside it shiny and tempting. A foot shorter, the prototype is more science fiction than steampunk like the bulky old one. The tighter, humanoid form bristles with odd angles and a patterned skin for stealth and transfer of kinetic energy. Slim arms terminate in real hands, not chunky pincers.
Using the neural cage, we run simulations for both models so I can fly either one. While the original has plenty of kick and some nostalgia, the prototype seems limitless. There are fewer armaments, and due to the tighter profile, the boot rockets aren't quite as powerful either. Top speeds max out sub-sonic, but the maneuverability is phenomenal, assisted by an array of tiny jets embedded throughout the torso. It's the closest I'll ever get to Dad's innate ability to fly.
An outer shell designed to shed heat at temperatures nearing plasma, angles meant to absorb and or redirect any conventional weapon, along with providing multi-spectral camouflage—the new suit is a technical marvel. I want inside it yesterday.
Xamse won’t budge. My first mission will be in the old battle armor.
I've resigned myself to this fact. But he's also decided he needs one last modification, completed without my help, input, or knowledge. Had I not walked in on him and Ayana after another vending machine raid, I'd probably never have known. Her hand wandering near her sidearm has kept me at a respectable distance.
Xamse's atop the stepladder, shoulders deep in the battle armor's torso. The holographic interface, to which I still don’t have access, tattoos the air behind him. Ayana stands at his side, holding a tray bristling with parts and tools with one hand, the other daring me to come closer.
"Wasn't the firewall enough to convince you I'm a team player?" I say to the back of Xamse's head. "Go Nanomech!" I cheer with an exaggerated fist pump.
"This is not about trust," Xamse mutters into the battle armor's open cavity. His words echo and almost take on the tinny sound of the voice scrambler. He turns away from the splayed open suit, sleeves pushed up and a wire harness in one hand. With a beatific smile and the concerns of a multi-billion-dollar C.E.O. tossed aside, he looks child-like beside the mechanical juggernaut. "Proprietary information must stay that way. Knowledge is all I have to base this business upon."
"I've been helping prep the suit for weeks. I'm hours away from launch. So why do you give a shit now? If you don't trust me, then go ahead and give Mrs. Anger Issues here first crack at flying."
Xamse doesn't bother to turn around. "We all have our talents. Ayana is a faithful ally, and for the current time I need her at my side, protecting my interests," he says, once more submerged in those titanium depths. Surfacing again, his feet clang on the metal steps of the ladder. "You, my friend, have experience and knowledge no others have. One must know the internal systems as well as their own fingers and eyes. Intuition, as they say." His feet clear the ladder, and he pivots, his expression playful. "Perhaps one day, you will teach Ayana this technical ability of yours, hmmm?"
Ayana's clearly not on board. We're past the "if looks could kill" stage and onto the "if looks could dismember the corpse and hide the evidence" portion of our relationship.
She regards Xamse, relinquishing the resting bitch face reserved for yours truly. "I'll fill whatever role you need and be ready for when the boy fails."
Ass kisser. No modest denial or brash acceptance crosses Xamse's lips. He tilts his head, and she returns the gesture. As if this were a common signal, she crosses the room and offloads the tray onto the empty operating table on her way to the door. A wave of her badge and she disappears into the vestibule.
Clearly, I'm meant to clean up her mess. I make my way toward the tray. "You've already done so much. Made billions, wrapped the U.S. government around your finger, why not leave it at that?" I ask, separating the tools out from stray components.
He raises his eyebrows. "You know what I dream most of?" he asks.
This is an odd question to answer while I hover over the empty operating table where Drake probably installed and tested his freaky control collars on Xamse. Putting a bullet in his old boss' head had to have been at the top of his wish list. But now?
"Piles of cash? A Scrooge McDuck diving board? Crushing corporate competition under your swank leather heel?"
"I have many greater desires than those," he says as he crosses to the table where he's left his bling. As if to accentuate my point, he clasps a chunky gold wristwatch with slow, deliberate movements. Diamond encrusted cufflinks come next with crisp tugs. "You know my people led a great empire? Ancient Rome, China, Persia, we were among the giants of those ages."
Sounds strictly B.C. and not too relevant, but I'll bite. "So, what happened?"
He smooths his shirt. "Time. That's all. Every empire fades in time." On his way out, he grabs his tailored jacket from a chair and slings it over his shoulder. "Do let me know if you need anything. Our clients are anxious to see MANTIS returned to active duty."
A few steady beeps and Xamse passes into the security vestibule. Bolts slide shut and the next beep, a faraway echo, follows the heavy collision of the outer door.
Moving shelf to shelf, I continue to clear the tray. But today, being alone in the lab, pretending to be at GMU when the world made sense, isn't working like it should. I pause beside the ant farm. A curiosity even after weeks spent working here, this is about the only suitable pet I could ever imagine for Drake. Another place for his soulless eyes to focus. To live his own fantasy of domination and superiority.
I've determined the ants are long gone. I know a quirky girl with glamour shots of blue-bottle fly maggots who'd be saddened by their loss. Emily. My fingers touch the crimson shroud in my back pocket. I still haven't told her, but she must have heard.
I saw her once while surfing FreedomNet. The bottom of the screen labeled her as CDC Supervisor, Emily Radke. From everything I could gather, most Universities suspended classes, and those which stay open do so by the grace of our Federal overlords. When her lab got mothballed, she probably had little choice but to return to her old job. Or got drafted.<
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On the news segment, she'd been in New York fending off a water crisis. All her study of waterborne bacteria and disease was paying off. Treatment plants had been down long enough to cause a serious health problem which, even after limited power had been restored, showed no signs of changing.
Her face had been drawn, pale. I listened to the sound of her voice more than her words. She gave a scripted, upbeat report, and I could tell she knew it was bullshit. She only perked up when she explained the science of why and how residents could best fend for themselves. Her interview had been too short.
I told myself seeing her had been enough. Talking to her about Dad would be too difficult. Telling her about my current employment wouldn't go over well either. Then again, maybe she'd understand given her own predicament.
Hey, Em, I'm headed off to fight an Augment on my own.
No way. She'd go apeshit. Hell, why am I not going apeshit?
Leaving the tray of tools half-emptied, I surrender to the pull of the armor, an event horizon in this bleached underground lab which knows no boundaries of time and space. In less than one sleeping pill, I'll be headed out to face Tomahawk whose dossier includes such greatest hits as Nagasaki, Huế, and Baghdad. The guy needed entire cities to fight. And I've got to face him.
The holoscreen Xamse used is offline. From across the room though, I could see he'd accessed the software control module and run an update from the Nanomech servers. Encrypted, what appeared was garbled nonsense. Since it's my ass on the line, knowing what he did would be nice.
I slip the multitool out and return the shroud to my back pocket.
It isn't like I'm going to hide any of what I'm about to do. Standing atop the stepladder in plain view of the cameras, removing the blast shield from the control module will take time, so I'll need to buy some. I first disassemble the room's card reader and deactivate the security door, locking anyone out. The nearest camera receives a double thumbs up.
Safely locked away, I eject the entire control unit from the suit and carry it to a table. Manufacturing a patch cable between my terminal and the control unit is ghetto but easier than hacking the holoscreen interface. Each step is accompanied by exaggerated motions for my live studio audience.
I could've gone wireless, less obvious that way, but, you know, fuck this "friend" of mine. Once plugged in, I pick one of the cameras and give a good long stare, daring him, anyone to stop me.
"Proprietary knowledge," I say out loud, "is what hackers eat for breakfast."
Nothing. Silence. Then a quiet whine of power supplies, the steady rush of the climate control systems, a temperamental squeak as I settle onto the stool. Within minutes, I've got the control interface loaded.
Bolts clack, the outer door rumbles, and Ayana peers from inside the vestibule. She swipes her card and is met with an angry buzz. I wave. No love from my future partner in crime, she turns toward the security console. One of the ceiling mounted cameras repositions and puts me in its crosshairs.
Maybe she does have a thing for me. More of a stalker than a lurker. I blow her a kiss and start digging into the data.
The new routine Xamse's added doesn't take long to figure out. I can't decipher and decompile every line of code, but I can see the systems he altered.
Just like in all his drones, Drake had installed remote operation capabilities. But as the only guy ever allowed inside, he never activated them. Otherwise, guys like Eric and me could have pwned him from our basement hideouts.
Xamse has decided to circumvent this protection.
"You dick," I say.
"What have you found, my friend?" Xamse's on the intercom, calm and collected.
"Not about trust, huh?"
"A precaution."
"I've worked for you, given zero complaints. Shit, you gave me a promotion, whatever that means. I've told you, over and over, I'll play along. There are plenty of mistakes I need to correct, and this suit is my ticket. Our paths align. I've got no plans to steal it, and if I did, how would I resupply? Make repairs? This isn't a duct tape in the field sort of job."
"Until now, you have not completely earned my trust."
My mouth freezes half-open. My eyes trace the obvious cable I used to hack the control unit and the removed control unit. "Uh, how exactly have I earned your trust?"
"I once worked for the Black Beetle without question." Xamse's coolness falters and grates. "True, I learned much but not how to free myself. It was your defiance the fateful day inside his office which showed me the path."
Ayana is seething, a barely visible condensation building on the glass. This is why she can't best me. Why I've got a connection she'll never have with her boss. We bonded over a corpse.
Those few terrifying moments so long ago in Drake's office have altered both of our lives. Drake had saved him from a cruel fate, enslaved to another man only to do the same. He didn't know differently until petulant me almost had my skull smashed in telling his boss just where he could place his intricate chess set.
The creepy operating table kept in a darkened corner seems to jump out. "You didn't have much of a choice, Xamse."
"We always have a choice. You have a choice to wear the armor. I will not force it on you, though circumstances may deem this a wise decision for you." He's regained the self-assuredness and moved past his happy memory of us offing his boss. "However, the failsafe must remain. Such precautions are only practical."
"I get it," I say. "But why have me pilot at all? You, me, hell, a reasonably skilled Counterstrike player, could remotely round up Augments without getting off the couch."
His answer is quick, ruthless, and Xamse to the core. "Given current geopolitical realities, we have limited suits and limited resources to rebuild them. You'll appreciate the value more if you're inside." A pause as he waits for the normal quips, but I've got nothing. "Please, fix the security door and replace the control unit. We have a large day tomorrow."
Ayana storms out of the vestibule, slamming the outer door. I stare at the multitool in my hand, my father's mask, the open armor—once his greatest enemy. Meanwhile, the dude who took over the position of greatest villain in the world will be able to override the controls from his laptop.
As they say. Large days.
CHAPTER 13
"BATTLE ARMOR, ONLINE." Drake's recorded voice fills the helmet, a particularly hateful sniveling I'd hoped to never, ever hear again.
"Come on, say it with feeling," I reply.
A little joking around couldn't hurt. Might even be able to take my mind off the shiatsu head massage courtesy of the calibrating neural cage. Countless runs through the simulations, and I still can't get used to this part. Maybe because I once used the same tech to shunt my psyche into Charlotte's realm.
"Command not recognized," he, it, replies.
Tough crowd. But I've got one more person in the audience. As the indirect spawn of the same inferiority complex which built this miraculous machine, Xamse may not understand my humor, but maybe he'll provide a little back and forth beyond reciting mission parameters. We'll work together to improve his ability to laugh at my terrible jokes.
"What, Xamse? Not even a little chuckle?"
Nothing.
System power hums on, and the exterior view materializes, wrapping the inner helmet in the three hundred and sixty-degree view. With the launch alcove rotated, Xamse's office fills the space beyond instead of the lab. He's dressed in his corporate finery, the jacket slung over that baby-poo colored desk chair. Those diamond cufflinks dangle from pushed up sleeves.
And of course, Ayana is lurking nearby. I never expect or want to hear a laugh from her, so she doesn't count. If her assault rifle is any indication, right now she's in extra hardcore serious mode.
"Good morning," I say to her. I try to arm the weapons and Drake rattles off an immediate Request Denied. "You should've joined us last night for loading the live rounds. You could've actually helped instead of being all pouty and jealous."
"As head of security, I performed my own inspection," she replies coldly. "Your rudimentary knowledge of tactics requires it."
Rudimentary? I've been ace with this gear since my first tender moments eviscerating a drone inside an Arctic bunker. Always lurking, hovering over my shoulder, she hasn't bothered to lift a finger except when Xamse asked her to assist with the remote override install. Still, she did let a little knowledge slip while she was making fun of my...ummm...purity. I wonder if I can get more out of her.
"Next time, you can calibrate the tracking algorithms." Weapons still refuse to come online. Fucking Xamse. Trying to keep our little spat all civil.
"I prefer to watch you struggle."
"Please, my friends," Xamse says. Everybody, his friend. "We should not argue. We should celebrate! Spencer, I have explained once, your gift is natural instinct, quite extraordinary. Ayana has the proper training and degrees. Ph.D., is this right? Robotics, Mechatronics." He feints toward her, and she stays ramrod straight, the gun-toting revolutionary stance not fitting the picture of a degreed academic. "And a hard-fought education at that." He says the last with what even I can read as a smile inappropriate to the situation.
Finally, a little 411 on Lieutenant Worf. All it took was me about to launch to my untimely death. At first, I think Ayana is pissed the information slipped. Then I can see what's really got her pissed is that now I know—not only did I take her job, but she sounds more than qualified.
Fuck, this explains a lot. More than an escort, she's been observing, watching every move. From my firewall code and schematics to the armor prep work, I've always been a step ahead of where she'd gotten. Technological nuances her education might have missed have been provided to me by crazy run-ins with Drake's tech and front-line experience fighting beside Chroma.
But as head of security, she can load the tapes whenever she pleases. For her, this has been research on whatever advantages I might have. I'm unwittingly training a hostile replacement.
