by Jeremy Szal
I did. Horror slowly grew on her and Grim’s faces as I described the way I’d been tied down and tortured by an interrogation AI that enjoyed inflicting pain on people.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Kowalski asked finally. ‘Do you … do you need anything?’
‘I survived the Reaper War. I’ll pull through.’
I knew Kowalski wasn’t fooled, but I wasn’t prepared to share how badly I’d been rattled. We Reapers learn to wear our armour like a second skin, trusting it, depending on all its functions. Keeping us alive in battle, keeping us in a stimuli-managed environment that helps control our bodies. Being wrapped in our armour is one of the few places we feel safe. When that same space is reconfigured to hurt you with its full, brutal capacity, it turns your place of refuge into a nightmarish torture chamber. Stripping away your trust. I already felt my flesh itching with the unease of being subjected to the interior fabric sandpapering against me, the tendrils clawing hard at my skin as if trying to puncture through.
‘You still haven’t told me why you were there to begin with,’ she said. Grim was dealing with my traumatic revelations by helping himself to a generous serving of my cereal and perching on the end of my bedframe, waiting to hear how much I’d reveal.
‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
‘Nothing we didn’t know from the start.’
‘It’s a different kind of complicated.’
‘Work with me, Vakov. Don’t make me find out the hard way later on.’ She planted herself next to me on the bed. ‘Please.’
The memory of Artyom’s relaxed grin as he joined that man for drinks twisted in my guts like a katana blade. That same boy who would walk through the markets with me as a kid, looking for music tracks for us to listen to. Grinning sheepishly one night as he confessed he’d screwed up his first kiss with a girl.
Growing up to betray everything I stood for.
But that was his path. There were other people that needed protecting, other lives at stake.
Kowalski didn’t say a word as I spilled my guts. She let the information sink in. Making sure she hadn’t missed anything or jumped to any false conclusions. ‘You’re sure he was delivering our canisters?’
‘Without a doubt.’ Each word was razorwire on my tongue. The stormtech had climbed up to my throat again, as if my body didn’t want me to talk about my brother either. ‘It was a regular delivery. Artyom knew exactly what he was doing.’
Kowalski’s fingers turned white around her coffee mug until she carefully set it aside. ‘So. He’s not being blackmailed after all.’
I glanced up at her. ‘You knew from the start, didn’t you?’
‘I suspected. But I didn’t want to tip our hand without being sure. I’ve been wrong before. I wish I was wrong now. I’ll have to report all this to Kindosh.’
I felt a disagreeable expression pass over my face. Katherine shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Vakov. But if we get a Sub Zero shockteam to storm that compound, we can end this today.’
‘Sub Zero Division?’ My skin prickled with unexpected fear. ‘I thought those guys were just a myth. Standard SSC gossip.’
‘No more than Reapers are,’ Kowalski murmured, looking away as if she didn’t want to admit that one of the nastiest rumours about Harmony was true. ‘Nor are their methods.’
Grim looked perplexed, his curiosity overtaking the fact that he disliked Harmony more than I did.
‘They’re the worst in Harmony’s ranks,’ I explained to him. ‘Born out of necessity for the Reaper War. They do whatever Harmony needs done, but can’t be implicated in. Suicide missions, assassinations, political sabotage in far-flung corners of the galaxy. They’ll get the job done.’
Kowalski nodded and turned to Grim. ‘You know those rumours about going to underprivileged families, usually in isolated areas of the Common, with offers of training their kids to be Reapers? Kidnapping them if they didn’t agree? That was Sub Zero.’
It’s rare that Harmony admits its darker truths, let alone this one. But Kowalski had. Even though Kindosh could have her head for it. Had to respect that.
Kowalski’s face smoothed over into a tight smile as she patted my shoulder. ‘I know you’re worried about your brother, Vakov. You did the right thing.’
Except doing the right thing rarely ever feels that way. Not when family’s involved.
‘If Kindosh gives the go-ahead to storm the Warren there’ll be no time to waste.’ Kowalski scooped up her scarf and began knotting it around her neck with one foot already out the door. ‘If you decide you’re up for it, be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I’ll be in touch.’
Then she was gone.
‘She’s right, you know,’ Grim said.
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘Going in there alone. Not your finest hour, man.’
‘We’re all wiser in hindsight, aren’t we?’
‘Not talking about that.’ He pointed towards the blue streaking like comets in slow motion around my belly. ‘If it messed with your judgement once, it’ll do it again.’ His shoulders sagged, hands twisting together. ‘I don’t want you to go down that path, Vak. I really don’t.’
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
‘You mean it?’
‘I mean it.’
And I did. Because the risk of Bluing Out was the least of my problems. That brief thrill of combat, being in danger, pulling the trigger on Lyndon, all of it stirred up sensations I didn’t like. Even now, my body was tense on the bed, cycling through the memories like the departing shreds of a dream, looking for a leftover scrap of adrenaline.
I’d departed the Reaper battlefields a long time ago. But I’d never stopped being a Reaper. The training and trauma done to my body were written in bloody scars, my mind sharpened to an edge that couldn’t be blunted. I’d just learned to ignore it, live with it. I didn’t hate the stormtech, because it’d become part of me. Like my pounding heartbeat, the throbbing pulse in my fingertips, the drumbeat of my breathing. It was all a part of my biorhythms, the organic clockwork of my body. We don’t notice our own bodily status quo after a while, just like smokeheads don’t notice that their breathing is constricted or their chest is abnormally tight.
So I had no way of measuring what the stormtech was getting me to do, what microinfluences it was having as it went sniffing under my skin, slithering along my arteries, squirming between my organs, up my spinal column and crawling into my brain. How much of me had deliberately walked into that building? How much had been at the stormtech’s urging? Had I wanted to kill, or had the stormtech simply given me that little extra nudge?
After all this time, was there still any difference between me and the stormtech?
14
Dirt and Dust
My body knows something is wrong.
I don’t know when I started to read the signs. The tightness in my gut. The prickle of sweat across the nape of my neck. My slowly elevating blood pressure. I shouldn’t be feeling this yet. I haven’t had the stormtech long enough. But now, standing here on the valley slope, with the blue alien biotech squirming along the length of my arm, I understand what it means. It’s excited. Agitated. Pumping me up for danger. A warm glow stirring my body to life. It feels so good I almost forget what the sensations mean.
Warning me.
I’m about to tell the others, but if I’m feeling it, they must be, too. Got to remember that.
Alert, I follow the rest of my squad – Fireteam Ghost, of Tusk Battalion – down into the sloping valley. My bulky, olive-green armour chafes against my shoulders, heavy in the low gravity. I’ve been wearing it for about six weeks now. There’s padding where padding needs to be, and the flexible, interior material fits well enough. Still haven’t got used to the smell. Don’t think I ever will. There’re nozzles and pipes plugged in all the right places, with tubes
taking the necessary waste out and bringing the right amount of liquid-nutrition cubes in.
I carry a standard-issue designated marksman rifle. My rifle specs, ammo count, and the names and vitals of my squad beam in my HUD. The others are all similarly armed and armoured. Wind whips through a bleak wilderness that’s scattered with forlorn, twisted trees and dark grass. Stormclouds the colour of bruises churn over the mountain range. Tributaries wind through the sprawling fields and wet landscape. No Harvesters in sight. No enemy infantry. But the anticipation swirls in my guts all the same. We’re on the outskirts of a remote town in the highlands of Renchio, the latest in a long line of besieged planets. Intel’s scarce, but we’ve heard reports of SSC squads and Reapers going missing here, along with sightings of rogue Harvester squads, screwing up our comms facilities. We’re scouting the area to sort it out, restart the comms systems if need be.
‘Don’t like this,’ Cable grumbles, armour plates grinding as he rolls his massive shoulders. I’m a tall guy, but Cable’s got at least a head on me. Sheathed in his bulky armour the colour of a thundercloud, he looks like he was carved out of solid rock. He carries a heavy autocannon, supported by a sling around his shoulder with the power battery strapped to his back. A distant lightning flash reflects in his mirrored visor.
Ratchet, a weaselly runt with a wicked sense of humour and a fetish for collecting Harvest knives, sniffs the air, as if picking up a scent. ‘Smells sour, boys. Harvesters about, most likely.’
Drummer, our expert technician, shakes his head as he tweaks the scope of his autorifle. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. Creeps me right out.’
‘I’ve got a gift,’ Ratchet says, thumping the chestplate of his scarred armour. It’s dark red, not that you can tell with all the mud and grime caked to it. We hop over a small chasm, the rock rumbling under our boots as we land. ‘Not my fault it ain’t to your liking.’
‘Gift?’ Drummer snorts. ‘You mean freak.’
‘That’s not very nice,’ Cable says.
Ratchet sniggers. ‘Hear that, love?’ At first, I think he’s talking to us, but he’s whispering to the Harvest combat knife in his hand. It’s a vicious-looking thing, black steel, the serrated edge sharp enough to carve through bone. ‘They’re calling me names again. That ain’t right. My feelings are hurt.’
‘God. Now he’s talking to the damn thing,’ Drummer mutters.
‘None of that.’ Ratchet twists the blade to catch the light. ‘Her name’s Fero, and you’ll show her proper respect. She’s killed for the enemy. Now she kills for us. But above all: she’s mine.’
Myra scoffs, tightening her grip on her black-bodied sharpshooter rifle. ‘I guess it is about as close as you’re ever going to get to a woman.’
‘Always did want someone with an edge.’ Ratchet moves to tap the flat of the blade against Myra’s shoulder, but she’s ready, shoves him backwards just hard enough that he stumbles in the dirt, though it’s a playful gesture. He slides back up to us, shaking his head. I’m pretty sure he’s not totally sane. ‘As I was saying, my sense of smell is a gift.’
‘If you want to play this game, ask Fukasawa,’ Drummer says. I straighten at hearing my name. Reaper Fireteams are a tightknit bunch and I’ve not earned my place yet. Drummer’s the only one who’ll give me the time of day.
‘The new guy?’ Ratchet jostles next to me, his armour scraping against mine. ‘How about it, Fukasawa? Gifted? Or freak?’
It’s the first time he’s really spoken to me and I’m not sure what to say. ‘Not going to give you the satisfaction of answering that,’ I say.
Drummer snorts as Ratchet shakes his head. ‘Can’t understand a word. That New Vladi accent is a real cheese grater on the ears.’
‘Enough,’ Alcatraz says. He’s fireteam leader, so everyone snaps to. ‘We’re approaching the waypoint. Weapons up, eyes peeled.’
Myra’s perched up on a lip of mossy rock, peering down the scope. ‘Down there,’ she mutters. ‘Get ready, boys. It’s not pretty.’
My insides sour as we climb down the rocky slope and cross the bridge into the outskirts of the bombed-out town. Rows of bodies have been nailed to giant metal poles. There’re thirty, maybe forty of them, their armour dented and damaged. They’ve been savagely beaten, missing fingers, ears, teeth, and eyes. All Reapers. Some are still in their armour, their legs and feet burnt black where flametorches melted their boots away. Others have been twisted into tortured positions with razorwire and spikes, their crisscrossed arms pinned to their chests, heads propped up.
It’s a grotesque mockery of the Reaper salute.
‘They left them like this for us,’ Drummer says, a hoarseness in his voice. As nausea claws up my throat, I feel the stormtech tighten around me like a secondary suit of inner armour. I sink into it and the sickness seems to fade, my senses sharpening, as if numbing parts of me and diluting others.
Alcatraz steps forward. ‘It’s the work of the Canine King. See how they’ve had their helmets ripped off? He takes them as trophies.’
We stiffen. We’ve all heard the rumours of the insane Harvest warlord, prowling the battlefield like a mad wolf. Posting bounties for famous Reapers and Commanders, hunting down our best squads, baiting Reapers to chase him while setting traps for them. There’s a rumour he’s building an army of Dog Commandos, a killsquad, the beginnings of his own empire of killers.
Ratchet’s trembling with rage beside me. ‘Screw him. We cut our people down, now.’ He’s already pulled the same blade from his harness when Alcatraz puts a hand on his chest, stopping him.
‘Those bodies are rigged with smelter-grenades,’ Alcatraz says.
‘I don’t care.’
‘I do. You go near one of them, you’ll be nothing but smoke and meat. Stand down.’
Drummer pulls Ratchet away, still grumbling and glancing back at the bodies. Behind me, Myra’s calling in an ordnance disposal unit to deactivate the explosives and retrieve the bodies. If I draw on my stormtech, listening hard, I can hear the dull click of a primed grenade from the nearest pole. The stormtech enhanced that sense to keep me alive.
Just how powerful is this stuff inside me?
Alcatraz steps back, his head tilted up. ‘Nothing we can do here except stop it happening again. Move out.’
We tear ourselves from the horrific display. I realise I’m resisting the urge to glance at the forests and hillsides for incoming hostiles. The stormtech’s writhing inside my chest, spreading fire through my limbs. Alcatraz falls into lockstep with me. ‘Don’t let them get to you.’ He presses two armoured fingers to his mirrored visor, before pressing them to mine. ‘I’m looking out for you. That’s what we do for each other out here. I need you focused. You hear me, Reaper?’
I nod, swallow. It doesn’t stop the memory of those tortured and butchered Reapers flashing through my mind. But it helps me deal with it, makes me feel more connected to my fireteam as we move through the bombed-out town. Corrugated silos and agricultural domes sag against tumbledown housing, shattered into mountains of rubble by artillery fire and jamming the roads. Gravel and glass crunch underfoot as we pick our way around, the waypoint reconfiguring to match our new path.
‘Smell anything yet?’ Drummer asks Ratchet. I swap my marksman rifle for a close-range, black-barrelled scattershot as we leap down an escarpment and enter a waterlogged tunnel, our helmet lamps flickering on. Our tech crackles in the darkness. ‘Any berserker squads or warlords you’d like to tell us about?’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ Cable asks.
‘I’m with the big guy,’ says Myra. ‘Shut up, you’re doing my head in.’
Ratchet pretends not to have heard. ‘Don’t much care for your scepticism, Drummer,’ he says with a loud sniff as we emerge in an abandoned shipbreaking facility. Collapsed cranes and scaffolds shatter the geometry of space into a nightmare of concrete and metal
. ‘Actually, there might be something—’
I drop to the ground, pulling Ratchet down with me and yelling for the others to join me before I’ve fully realised I’ve moved. The rest of the fireteam’s barely down when a salvo of superheated gunfire shreds through the concrete wall, blasting through the metal walkway where we were standing. The bullets thunder-clapping inside my skull, clouds of dust spraying up around us.
My HUD lights up with warning icons as it tracks the bullets, noting the weapon make and model, velocities, trajectories. Our vitals have gone ballistic. The stormtech shudders like an engine inside my chest, every muscle tense, my breathing furious. Two seconds later and I’d have been blown into a shredded mess of twitching meat.
This alien tissue fused to my body saved my life. All our lives.
The fusillade ends. Curses. The click of weapons being reloaded. Alcatraz screams something down the comms and bursts into the fray. I sprint after him, staring down the barrel of my rifle. The world screams with clashing colours and furious lights, but my HUD picks out the Harvesters through the swirling smoke. Highlighting their wartech, displaying weapon specs in gold, analysing the threat. There’s two fireteam’s worth of them, positioned around the raised walkways. Their painted armour and angular helmets are smeared with Harvest slogans, the notches on their shoulders indicating rank.
I roar into action alongside my fireteam. Throttling the trigger of my marksman rifle, my armour’s motion stabilisers neutralise the kickback as I exchange fire with a Harvester in red armour. My shielding shudders with blue ripples as the Harvester’s rounds hit home, denting my armour in a dozen places. I throw all my focus into putting him down as I squeeze off a salvo of superheated, high-calibre rounds, punching through his armour and through his chest.
My pulse pounds in my fingers. I’m hyperaware of every detail. Bullets crackling and sparking around me, pinging off armour, shreds of screams, choked curses, the roar of dirt showering in the air. I’m the eye of this hurricane.
No. I am the hurricane. And the stormtech lets me control it.