Birth of Heavy Metal Boxed Set

by Michael Todd

  “True. A little morbid but true.”

  “So…” Madigan suddenly needed to change the subject. “I heard on the ride over here that you tinkered with my suit. I spent a lot of time getting it to work the way I want it to, and if you fucked that up in any way, I’ll tear into your baby and make you fix it yourself.”

  Her companion laughed out loud. “Yeah, you don’t want to do that. I may only be a mechanic and an armorer, but I know how to feud, Madigan, and believe you me, there haven’t been many where I’ve walked away the loser.”

  “What a coincidence.” She tilted her head. “My experience has been the same .”

  “Well, hopefully, it won’t be necessary,” Amanda said with a chuckle. “I didn’t mess with any of the settings. Whatever it was that the two of you ran into in the Zoo did a number on the outside protective layer, so I had to weld it all together. I had a sudden spurt of inspiration and decided to cut off a piece of that leg that you guys brought back to use as welding material. It’s very easy to use, and once cold, it’s incredibly strong too. I tinkered with the power armor stuff as well—added weight to the gyros in the midsection to help you keep your balance better and allow you to move faster. I also spent maybe five hours cleaning gunk and dirt from the joints, so I took the time to install flaps over the ankles and knees to keep the gunk to a minimum. You might want to give that thing a look for yourself, though. If those get clogged and you can’t move in the middle of a fight… Well, that’s not an enviable position to be in.”

  “Hear, hear,” Kennedy responded with a chuckle as they both raised their mugs to clink together softly. “You know, that’s the biggest problem I have with the full power armor. Sure, it works best and moves the easiest over tough terrain, but in a place like that, moving easily is a second thought, you know? When you fight something that can tear through the armor faster than a welder with a grudge, you may not want all the extra armor to weigh you down. What if the electronics fail? What happens if some bug squirts acid on the controls and suddenly, all you have is a big suit that weighs a ton and doesn’t help you move it anymore? We ran into a Russian in there who had that very problem, and it made me think.”

  Amanda smirked and took another sip of her coffee. “You know, I think I like you, Madigan. I may not feud with you after all.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gregor studied the group of men assembled in front of him. These weren’t new recruits, of course. Special forces troops like the Spetsnaz didn’t get where they were without dropping a truly spectacular number of bodies in a wide range of very exotic locations. These were hard men in a profession where most hard men died young.

  And they were all in their thirties.

  It didn’t mean that they were fully qualified for the Zoo, of course, but it meant that they had a higher chance to survive their first trip, and all subsequent trips too. Once you got a feel of what it was like, it was easier to predict and follow the moods of the jungle, which made survival a whole lot easier.

  Thankfully, he’d had some very experienced Americans to help him out there when his luck turned sour. That said, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to go back into the Zoo. Which was why he was now there, running the tape on what the new guys could expect in the jungle.

  He’d anticipated that they would be cold and stand-offish. Most men in special forces were, after all. Even so, they listened very closely and quietly and some even took notes, while a couple more recorded the lecture for later use. They were, above all, professionals and this was their job. They could joke around as much as they wanted in their off-hours, but when it was time to work, they were willing to do their thing without any fuss.

  It was oddly unsettling. Gregor had made his own living by rising in the ranks of soldiers who refused to take anything seriously, which made the men before him the oddest of oddities.

  “New images have been taken of these locusts, of course,” he advised them and played the video taken by his own team when they’d been swarmed. “They started out as basically little more than cannon fodder. They would rush any teams they encountered in huge swarms and try to overcome through sheer numbers or as a distraction to allow the deadlier animals to attack from the flanks or sides—and sometimes, from the trees above too. However, in later trips, these creatures have been seen with tails like scorpions, and the poison in these stingers can literally kill grown men in a few seconds if it can punch through armor.”

  “Is there video where these creatures use military tactics as you mentioned?” one of the men asked and looked firmly at him. There wasn’t a hint of mockery in his voice but there was some disbelief.

  “Fortunately, yes, and they’ve been included in your study packs,” Gregor replied. “However, I’ve been instructed by our new commandant that these images were provided to us by our American friends on the other side of the Zoo and should therefore be studied with caution.”

  The man nodded and turned back to his notes. He used a notebook and a pencil, Gregor realized. Did they really make these guys live in the Dark Ages?

  “That concludes this presentation,” he said with a small sigh and dropped into his seat as he watched the troops prepare to leave. “More information has been provided to you for study. Be safe out there, and there’s a bottle of surprisingly good vodka waiting for you when you get back—on me.”

  The men stood quickly and a couple came to shake his hand as they headed toward the doors.

  They were good men, he thought with a small smile. Too bad most of them wouldn’t find their way out of there. If they went together, maybe, but they would go in with a mixture of mercs and man-children, which lowered their chances of survival significantly. He was sure that their presence would improve the others’ chances by a massive margin, though.

  Gregor scowled at the desk in front of him, his head angled in thought. He didn’t want to go back in there but seeing the young men who would put their lives on the line to keep the rest of those assholes alive made him feel a little guilty.

  Besides, he’d been in there before. He knew what he would face, and in all fairness, what were the chances that he would run into another swarm like he had the last time anyway?

  Finally, he shrugged and pulled the phone from his pocket. If he died, he would come back to haunt the absolute shit out of these people.

  He’d have to send Madigan the message about when the hacker would reach the drop-off point when he left. There was no point in doing it when someone might track him.

  Gregor shifted in the armor and grimaced at the memories of when he’d been stuck in the damn thing that was too heavy to move without power. He’d been set up with one of the standard suits and paired up with a team that was heavily populated with the new special forces boys, all eager to get into the Zoo and do some damage. They still chuckled and discussed all the unbelievable stories they’d heard about the place.

  In fairness, a few of the stories were far-fetched, and yet not quite as unrealistic as they seemed to think. Gregor himself chuckled nervously when they talked about videos of a massive, four-eyed creature that spat venom and could crush suits of armor under the weight of only one of its six legs.

  “There is a saying out here—” he said as they began their march through the thick jungle. “Well, it’s not really a saying but more of common superstition. Try not to think of your own personal nightmares. They have a habit of coming to life around here.”

  One of the men raised an eyebrow while the rest shrugged. They didn’t feel comfortable enough around him to crack jokes, but it was clear that they weren’t convinced.

  “These plants are pretty odd,” one of them said and poked at the bark with his rifle. “But so far, there’s nothing really out of the ordinary. We were on a mission in the Amazon of Venezuela about three…four years ago? The monsters there were pretty damn fucked up. And I’m not even talking about the animals.”

  The rest of the special forces men chuckled, but those who didn’t have any part
in whatever it was that had happened laughed nervously. There were talks about black operations run all over the world, but there was very little proof, which was the point. Hearing about them actually happening was worrying, if only because people were killed all around the globe for knowing less.

  “Look out!” one of the men called as something big and black bounded from the trees above them. Gregor had his gun up, but the sound of gunfire already filled the jungle. A low roar from the massive panther was difficult to hear after the shots but then it whined pitifully for a few long seconds before it dropped its head.

  “Well,” one of the men said and moved closer, “that was interesting, but they sure do go down easy, don’t they?”

  Gregor shrugged in response. “In all fairness, for most of them, it becomes a matter of bulk. These smaller groups tend to leave us alone unless we get close to their young or something like that.”

  “These creatures have babies?” the man asked as he poked cautiously at the panther’s shoulder.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Gregor warned. “These creatures tend to travel in packs. Did none of you read the information that I gave you?”

  “Not really,” the man said with a shrug and straightened from his study of the body of the creature they’d just killed. “Then again, it doesn’t look like we needed them. As you can see, there is no second crea—”

  His boast was cut short as the second animal pounced from the shadows, almost as if it had waited for him to say something. This one was considerably larger than the first. Gregor knew that meant it was male…or was it female? If the truth be told, he had only skimmed those information packs himself, so he wasn’t entirely sure which was which. Or even, come to think of it, if they had that kind of gender distinction.

  Weapons were raised instinctively, but there was some hesitation from Gregor and the mercs as the massive panther was tangled with the special forces man. It bit and thrashed in an effort to get past his armor as he screamed for someone to do something.

  The other Spetsnaz fighters were quicker on the draw, however, and quickly aimed their shots high while their comrade was pinned beneath the enormous creature. Slugs blasted into the panther’s shoulder to draw blood and throw it off balance and away from the man. As one, they lowered their aim and released a smoking volley into the animal’s chest and head. This one dropped without a sound and only a heavy thud indicated that it too was dead.

  “Fuck!” the man who had been attacked roared and pushed to his feet. He scowled at some obvious damage to his suit, especially around the right leg where the creature had clawed in its attempt to reach him.

  “Are you all right, Vasili?” one of the Spetsnaz men asked and hurried toward him, while the others stepped forward to make sure that the creatures were really dead and that no others lurked nearby. Gregor and the other two mercs joined them, although with less of the military precision the special forces men displayed.

  “All good, Sergeant,” Vasili hissed and tried to hide the slight limp that had developed from the fight. Gregor wasn’t sure if that was only because of the damage done to his power suit or if the creature or the struggle had actually damaged the leg underneath. He supposed that the man was lucky the panther’s venomous fangs hadn’t pierced his suit. Otherwise, he would have to deal a with a much larger problem than an iffy power leg.

  The sergeant looked at the team and it seemed clear that he had taken command of the situation. Gregor didn’t mind. Let him deal with the problems that arose from the need for the six remaining combatants in his squad to take care of the one who’s suit had malfunctioned.

  “It seems you might have a point about these fucking animals,” the sergeant muttered to Gregor as one of the men crouched to try to make emergency repairs to Vasili’s legs. “We’ll be more careful from here on out.”

  “This was nothing,” he responded with a soft chuckle and checked his weapon. “You should see what happens when we pluck those fucking Pita plants.”

  “Pita plants?” The man looked intrigued.

  “Yes…the plants with the blue flowers?” Gregor asked and gesticulated with his hands. With the armor that he wore, there wasn’t adequate translation between what he tried to show with his hands and what ended up displayed so he gave up. “The ones that are what all the companies back home are pissing about? The one that’s actually funding all this?”

  “Oh, right,” the sergeant said with a nod. Gregor had a feeling that the man didn’t have a single clue of what he was talking about but didn’t want to seem ignorant. They would figure it out eventually, he thought with an internal shrug. Hopefully, they all survived to laugh about this later or he would feel really guilty about it. He intended to survive, even if all the rest died, but he didn’t want to feel bad about if they didn’t make it.

  He knew it was a little selfish, but he was in there in the first place to save all their lives if he could, so it was the least that they could do to allow him some survival ground rules. The first and foremost of these was that he wouldn’t stick his neck out to save anybody, especially not one of them. They might think that he held no grudge over being left behind that one time, but he did. Everyone was still on the hook for that particular brand of bullshit, whether they’d been there or not.

  “We need to keep moving!” the sergeant called and others finished up and began to head out. They ended up leaving Vasili behind with someone to help him with the repairs to his suit since they didn’t want to have to carry him around if his armor could give out at any time. It was clear that the man didn’t care for this arrangement, but he also obviously knew that it was the right choice. He would be able to catch up with them if they managed to fix his suit. If not, they would find him on the way back.

  Gregor assumed that one of the reasons included the small matter that the rest of the men had begun to take what he’d told them about this fucking place more to heart and were now far more wary. Their heads remained on what was essentially a constant swivel and each man always checked their corners to ensure that there were no blind spots on their peripherals. Gregor was actually rather impressed by how quickly they had adapted to their surroundings.

  It was almost like they knew how to work in combat situations while in a jungle, he thought to himself with a grin.

  As they delved in deeper and ran through a small group of the scorpion-tailed locusts, he could see the tensions rise within the group. The Spetsnaz professionals remained collected, although the casual conversations had quickly dried up. It was the mercs whom Gregor was concerned about. Well, himself too. Mostly himself, actually, but he had a feeling that they could rely on these new guys not to leave them behind when things went sour. Not if, when.

  They finally caught sight of one of the tell-tale clearings that indicated that they approached one of the collections of Pita plants. He had been around when there were clearings all over the place, so you had to go from one to the other in the hope that you would find one that had these expensive flowers. But as the jungle expanded faster, it grew thicker too, which meant that the clearings now only occurred when there was a Pita plant.

  That still seemed odd to him. Of course, there were a hundred thousand different things that were odd around there, but this was one that really stuck in his mind. It was like the jungle wanted the plants to have full access to sunlight, which he didn’t need to be a biologist to know was really, really weird, especially since everything else seemed to grow perfectly fine without it.

  As they moved into the clearing, he focused his eyes on their surroundings and tried to make sure that nothing headed their way. He caught sight of a few whispers of movement immediately outside the sensor range.

  The teams began to collect the flowers, and he continued to watch the movements which now drew closer and inside the sensor range. Most of the creatures were small or medium-sized, which indicated that they were the hyenas or locusts with a couple of panthers interspersed, but one shadow remained obscured toward the back. He rem
embered the videos passed on by the Americans that revealed the massive, dinosaur-like creatures that made all the other animals go crazy when they were killed, exactly like they would if someone plucked a full plant. One of the whitepapers had described a couple of sacs at the base of their skulls that contained a huge concentration of the same goop that was in the flowers, which meant there was considerably more money to be made beyond the clearing. All they had to do was survive and get it out of the jungle.

  The other three mercs glanced around. They had clearly noticed the opportunity too, although Gregor wasn’t surprised when they all seemed to decide not to mention the massive beast’s monetary value to their new Spetsnaz friends. It seemed they all intended to get out of there alive.

  It soon became obvious that the special forces men were nervous about the number of creatures that had assembled immediately outside their line of sight in the darkness under the cover of the trees.

  “We should probably leave now,” the sergeant said when they had finally picked the bushes clean of their expensive flowers. The animals were uncharacteristically friendly—or less hostile, anyway—and none of the men really wanted to test them.

  They pushed back into the jungle and the animals seemed to part directly ahead of them as if to show them a way out as they trudged back toward the vehicles. It had only been one day, but as things stood, none of the men involved really wanted to stick around when so many animals waited for an excuse to start a fight.

  “This feels odd,” the sergeant said softly to Gregor when he stepped up beside him. “Why do they watch us? It’s like they are here to protect those fucking plants.”

  “I’ve given up on trying to figure out what it is that drives these fuckers,” he replied and adjusted his grip on his weapon. The creatures remained out of sight but he could hear them as they shuffled through the underbrush. The motion sensors identified hundreds of them now, and the large one still lurked beyond real visibility. “Sometimes, they leave us alone. Or they seem curious about us and actually approach one by one for a closer look. At other times, though—”