by Michael Todd
“Do you think we have time?” Sal looked around. “I mean, I know we should probably move and explore, but I’ll be quick. Help me get out of my armor and—” He stopped talking since he couldn’t keep a straight face while she flipped him off. Even so, his words had the desired effect, and she had a hard time keeping a straight face as Carson and Ito laughed.
“I can help you get your armor off, but only if you give the whole team a show, Jacobs,” Ito said with a chuckle.
“As quick as you are, Jacobs, I really don’t think we have the time to watch you fumble with your armor like you’ve been dumped at the prom dance,” Kennedy muttered as they pushed deeper into the jungle. Without having to adjust to someone out of armor, they were able to maintain a much better pace than they had the day before.
“I never actually got to go to my prom,” Sal said and checked his weapon before he disengaged the rifle.
“Why, getting ready for a Mathletics competition?” Ito asked.
“Of course not,” Sal snapped. “It was a chess tournament. Mathletics is for losers.”
“Whereas we all know that chess captains are swimming in potang,” Carson said with a grin.
“First of all, nobody says that anymore,” Sal retorted. “Secondly, that’s not what I mean. Theoretical stuff never appealed to me as much as something where I could get my hands dirty and actually be in the middle of the whole thing. It’s why I picked biology as my major instead of theoretical physics. Those were the two most challenging fields I could think of that didn’t involve me in a hospital wearing scrubs.”
“So, if you had been more into not getting your hands dirty, you might be cooped up in some university-run lab watching reruns of Big Bang Theory?” Ito asked.
“The horrible knowledge that there’s a version of me in an alternate universe doing precisely that keeps me awake some nights,” he said with a nod. “Well, mornings, since that’s when I’m actually asleep.”
The conversation stopped abruptly when something hurtled out of the bushes and charged at them with a high-pitched hiss that made Sal’s ears hurt. It wasn’t particularly tall, but it was long and curled like a snake. The creature moved rapidly over the ground on dozens of small legs like a centipede. The head was definitely reptile-like, though, and as it attacked, the sides of its head flared, its jaw extended, and a foul-smelling liquid jetted out at Carson, who was the closest.
“Get down!” Sal yelled. He didn’t recognize the creature, but he’d seen enough of the Zoo creatures to know that Carson would not want that liquid to touch any part of him or his armor.
The man did get down as Kennedy and Ito fired simultaneously, but a heavy glob of the acid still struck him in the chest.
“Fuck!” Sal scrambled forward quickly. He realized that there was a downside to the hybridity of his armor—restoring it to combat mode wasn’t as instinctual as he had hoped. Either way, it didn’t matter. Even though the pieces of the animal that had been severed still moved as if they worked independently without the need for a head, Kennedy and Ito could handle it.
The liquid that had come in contact with Carson’s armor immediately smoked and released an acrid smell. Sal yanked his water canteen out—recently filled, thank goodness—and poured it over the armor. His plan was to wash the acid away quickly before it could reach the electronics and, more importantly, Carson himself.
He wondered if he was a bad person if his first thought was to save the armor instead of the man. The answer that came first was probably. He took an acid-resistant microfiber rag from his pouch and dabbed it over all the spots that still smoked, then continued until there were no more signs of the acid on the suit.
“What’s the prognosis?” Carson asked. Despite the fact that he obviously tried to keep his voice as steady as possible, Sal was close enough to hear the slightest tremble. He didn’t make any mention of it, though. Honestly, he couldn’t think of a worse way to go than by acid that seeped through armor you couldn’t get out of.
“It looks like the metal plate has warped a little,” Sal said quickly as he continued to wipe the rag over the cracks in the armor. “How do you feel? Any itching or burning? Anywhere? And before you answer that, please keep all STD humor off the table until we’re sure that you’re all right.”
Carson opened his mouth, probably with something along the lines of how it still burned when he peed on his mind since he shut it again quickly.
“No, no burn and no itch,” he said finally. “Not of the acid variety, anyway.”
“Kennedy, Ito, is that thing dead yet?” Sal asked as he examined the structure of the plate as rapidly as possible.
Kennedy dropped her boot down on the creature’s severed head and ground her heel down into it. “It’s a fucking pain to kill all the way, but I think the pieces that are left won’t attack us anytime soon.”
“Good,” Sal said softly. “Because I’ll need to pull the breastplate off to make sure that there isn’t anything still in there. The last thing we want is for it to cause trouble when we are mobile again.”
“Okay, what do I do?” Carson asked.
“Well, if you could run a quick diagnostic on your armor to make sure that there’s nothing still in there,” Sal said as he tugged and twisted at the levers that separated the chest plate from the rest of the suit.
“Already working,” Carson replied and grunted as Sal yanked and pried until the piece came off.
“Ito and Kennedy, if you guys could keep watch so that nothing tries to eat us while Carson is in a particularly vulnerable situation,” Sal said and didn’t look up from his work.
“Will do, sir,” Ito said. Sal didn’t pay enough attention or even want to find out if she was joking or not. He used a couple of smaller tools to pull the pieces of the breastplate apart.
Kennedy joined him where he squatted and worked the pieces apart. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain that she looked at him in that weird judge-y and yet unsure way as she had earlier. He didn’t have time to look up and confirm it, though.
“At the risk of repeating myself,” Sal said, his voice distracted, “what’s up, Kennedy? And before you say nothing again, if you do, I will make you fix this piece of armor while I keep watch.”
“Please don’t say nothing again, Kennedy,” Carson growled.
“Right,” she replied. “It’s just…I’ve noticed that you and Courtney have gotten closer than you were before.”
“What’s your point?” Sal asked. “She’s a part of the team—and, might I say, the only part of the team who I can bounce my ideas off without being insulted and called a geek and a nerd and…chess captain. Although I’m not sure how that last one can be anything but a compliment, the tone still hurts my feelings.”
“Come on,” she huffed. “I haven’t called you any of those things in at least a month.”
“No, but when I talked about the kind of tracheae through which the insect-arachnid hybrids breathe, I could hear your eyes glaze over from the other side of the camp,” he replied. His voice retained the faraway quality that indicated that while his mouth talked, his mind was elsewhere.
“Sure,” Kennedy admitted and nodded as she focused warily on the jungle with her weapon prepped in case any more of the creatures attacked. “But still, it seems like you two might be much closer than you were before.”
“You mean besides the fact that she has recently been added to our company and this is the first time that I’ve been out in the field with another specialist for an extended period?” Sal asked.
“Ugh, fine,” she muttered and shook her head. “I’ll make a sweep of the area.”
Sal nodded as she moved away, finished cleaning the breastplate, and connected it to Carson’s suit.
“That was some fantastic deflecting you did back there,” the man said with a grin.
“Thanks.”
“So, what was all that stuff about, anyway?” he asked when Sal showed no inclination to continue the conversation
. “Are you and Kennedy involved or something? You guys an item?”
The specialist didn’t look up from his work. “Do you want me to deflect with you too? We don’t know each other well enough for me to put some effort into not deflecting, you know.”
“Oh,” Carson said and nodded. “Ten-four, loud and clear.”
“Excellent.” Sal forced a grin as he looked up and patted the breastplate. “There should be some issues with the surface sensors there. It looks like they were caught by the acid before I could get to them. A simple repair job should fix that, though.”
“Thanks, Jacobs.” Carson stood again and ran a few mobility tests. “So you really won’t tell me what’s going on with you and Kennedy?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said and forced a smile. “But I’ll make sure to let her know about your interest.”
“No…no, no, that won’t be necessary,” Carson said quickly.
“We’ll see,” Sal replied with a wink. “I think we’re ready to move on again.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
She would never have believed that she would be less happy to get back to the Staging Area after a trip into the Zoo. It wasn’t only that she didn’t want to leave Sal and Madigan in there, but there were also a lot of things happening that she wanted to be on top of.
And she was actually quite happy that there was nobody around who could hear her thoughts right about now. She didn’t want to think about how embarrassing this sort of thing would be if she had said something like that out loud. Normally, she would have assumed that crude jokes would be made at her expense, but all things considered…
It was annoying how much she cared about what other people thought of her these days. She had been such a strong, independent woman before, and because she got drunk and kind of raped one man, she suddenly became all needy and possessive?
She rubbed her temples gently as their JLTV pulled into the Staging Area. There had been very little actual resistance to their advance, and most animals moved quickly out of their way. That meant there was very little need for a specialist on their team.
Even so, she’d caught some pictures and taken a few samples. She might be off her game, but she wasn’t the kind of person to let any personal shit interfere with her work. Usually, anyway. There were some truths about herself that she only now began to discover. Not all of them were good, but she was a scientist. Any learning experience was a worthwhile experience, in her book.
She merely hoped that these learning experiences didn’t end with awkward conversations in the future.
The vehicle drew to a halt, and she jumped out of her seat. Back on the ground, she quickly completed the uplink between her suit and the SA’s database and added all the information that they had gathered. It was automatic, but the connection logs gave her a decent view of what had been collected, and there wouldn’t be a problem with them getting their cut for that. Although she reminded herself, it was probable that nothing would actually appear in her bank account from the sponsors until the other teams came in with what they had gathered.
“Okay, Gregor,” Young said as he closed his comm. “I’ve relayed the mission statement to my superiors, and they’ll relay that in turn to your bosses. We should hear from them any minute now, and they’ll most likely send transport to pick you up. Soldier to soldier, it won’t be first-class accommodations, but until then, they’ve set you up in the infirmary. I’ll make sure to drop your suit off where your people can pick it up, and I promise that nobody will snoop into the mechanics of it.”
“I appreciate that very much, Sergeant Young,” the Russian said and offered his hand. “I will never forget that you and your team saved my life.”
Young cracked a smile, probably the only one for the whole day. He took Gregor’s hand and shook it firmly.
“I can only imagine that you’d do the same thing for any one of us out there,” he said with a smile. “An ambulance will be here soon to take you to the hospital. In the meantime, I’ll head to the commandant’s office and see how much of a profit we’ll actually make for this very short and yet very productive mission.”
Courtney looked on as Young and Sousa headed off. It had been a long day, but mostly because nothing really interesting had happened to make it go by faster. She wasn’t complaining, but at the same time, boring meant longer-lasting.
“If you could send my thanks back to Kennedy and Dr. Jacobs too, I’d really appreciate it,” Gregor said to her.
“He’s not…he isn’t a doctor,” Courtney said before she paused and smiled.
“But he’s a specialist,” the Russian said, clearly confused. “And one of the brighter ones too, especially for someone so young. Make no mistake, I think that you’re quite intelligent too, but then you are a doctor.”
“He’s merely a very smart guy, is all,” Courtney said. She needed a drink. No…no, maybe not. But she would like to have a hot shower and a real meal.
“I need to head out too, Gregor,” she said with a chuckle when the ambulance rolled into view. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”
“I will do that, Dr. Monroe.”
Kennedy still gave him the silent treatment, although he had caught her glaring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Well, technically he hadn’t, but his new suit had a very interesting set of cameras that could provide decent footage from the side and the back that filled him in on the details.
Why did she look at him like that? And why had she interrogated him about Courtney? Did she actually think that something had happened?
Well, something had, of course, but it had been while he was unconscious and one hundred percent not his fault or doing. What, did she want him to have put up more of a fight or something?
As the day wore on, he found her silence more boorish than usual. They were friends, despite everything, and he associated their trips together into the Zoo with the banter they always exchanged to pass the time. They did have a good rapport, both in and out of work, and all this silence made him miss the whole relationship more.
He broke away from his study of a new set of insects—ones that actually were insects. He even collected a few live samples and added them to his bag before he headed to where Kennedy kept watch.
“Are you finished with your samples, Jacobs?” she asked but didn’t look at him.
“Oh, yeah, and we’re ready to move once more,” he said with a smile.
She merely nodded and keyed her mic to get the attention of Carson and Ito. “We’re moving again. There’s another Pita bush about five klicks away, and I want to get there before it gets dark. You all know the kind of pain that goes into collecting those fucking flowers after dark.”
“I don’t,” Ito said and raised her hand.
“Well, I’m sure you’re smart enough to infer how much of a pain it is,” Kennedy responded shortly. “Let’s keep it moving, people!”
She forged ahead, and Sal picked up his pace to catch up with her. With power function in his legs this time, it was actually easier than it had been before.
“Hey, Kennedy,” he called.
“Anything I can help you with, Jacobs?” She focused her eyes resolutely ahead.
“Yeah, you could tell me what bug crawled up your ass,” Sal snarked, his patience now worn thin. “Come on, you’ve been in a foul mood all day, and honestly, I’m sick of it. I don’t see why I should put up with it. I’m the one who didn’t get any sleep last night, so I’m the only one who’s allowed to be in a bad mood, okay?”
She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t put up with it, then,” she snapped and increased her pace.
“Except I have to, don’t I?” he pointed out although he now had difficulty keeping up with her. “You’re my partner in all this, Kennedy, and if something bothers you, the best way to get it fixed is to get it out in the open. So, tell me, or I’ll continue to nag you. I don’t want to do that because I don’t like to run when I don’t ha
ve to. Seriously, could you slow down?”
She finally slowed, took a deep breath, and met his gaze.
“It’s nothing,” she said finally.
“Yeah, because nothing says business as usual like cryptic interrogations and silent treatment,” Sal retorted and rolled his eyes.
“By nothing, I mean it’s something stupid,” she said with a shake of her head. “Something that you shouldn’t have to deal with. A personal problem, and something that I’ll work through. And I don’t need help.”
“Wait,” Sal said and raised a hand. “You asked me about Courtney. Do you have a problem with her? Did she say something about—” They immediately ended the conversation when the unmistakable sound of gunfire caught their attention.
“Did you guys hear that?” Sal asked. Ito and Carson both nodded, and the four of them prepped their suits and weapons for action.
“Where’s it coming from?” the specialist asked.
“My sensors tell me that it’s roughly in the same direction that we’ve moved in all day,” Ito said. “Which means that they’re probably between us and the Pita plants we’ve been headed toward.”
“Fuck,” Kennedy hissed. “Let’s move. With our luck, it’ll be the rest of Gregor’s team still fighting for their lives like they were when they abandoned him to our tender care.”
They hurried through the jungle with renewed purpose and rapidly closed the distance between them and the gunshots.
“You know, running toward gunshots and explosions isn’t the best survival instinct,” Sal said.
“It’s the instinct we’re taught,” Ito growled. “It’s not like we were born with the need to head toward the loud noises.”
“So, Jacobs,” Kennedy said, “you said something back there. You asked if my problem with Courtney was something specific, and honestly, it sounded like you had a particular something in mind.”
“This is really not the time, Kennedy,” Sal said. “Although it is good to know that you actually do have some sort of problem with Dr. Monroe. The first step to healing is admitting.”