by Michael Todd
“Goddamn it.” He collected all the dishes and carried them to the sink. He grinned. On the upside, she seemed to have moved beyond her need to call him boss. Maybe a few dishes weren’t so bad after all.
Chapter Eighteen
As it turned out, much of the UN base had been copied from the design of the Staging Area, which Sal now called the American base since that was effectively what it was. The original base was no longer the sole staging area from which missions into the Zoo could be carried out. There were three of them now, with plans already laid for a couple more.
If you build it, they will come, said that insanely sappy movie from the late eighties. The building part, of course, meant the Zoo—and the amount of money that came out of it. The people running the American base had, for a long time, been the only ones to profit from it, but no longer.
All kinds of logistical complications would arise from this. He absolutely knew it.
Even so, it seemed like the UN base had been built more as a landing point for the militaries and lab workers of all the represented countries, which had been slow to arrive of late. The French were already established, as well as the Israelis, and the Indians had brought in a token fighting force in advance of their more scientific support of the project.
Even so, a large number of empty and unclaimed housing buildings, as well as unused warehouses, were earmarked for future arrivals, although the details regarding the company names that would host the labs and weapons departments were still to be decided.
Bureaucracy was terrifying when it was only the one bogged-down government, Sal mused as they drove their vehicle through the fully built yet empty base that nuzzled right up against the wall.
There was a bright side to that, though. The fact that everyone was late to this particular party meant that those who were there were desperate for work. They were anxious to enter the Zoo as quickly as possible, which meant that many freelancers were already stationed in the area. Amanda was right, as it turned out. They had their pick of specialists and gunners. Now, all they needed were a couple of runs into the Zoo to make sure that the people they picked up were actually qualified for the job.
“I think we may have jumped the gun by coming here,” Kennedy commented as they found a quiet corner in the local bar to compare notes. “We should have brought our suits and weapons over if we planned to make runs into the Zoo from here.”
Sal nodded. “The bartender filled me in on a grab and dash mission which heads out tomorrow. It seems exactly what the doctor ordered if we want to test new recruits.”
“Did he ask you for your ID first?” Madigan asked with a grin.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I don’t know if I should feel flattered or offended.”
“You might want to grow some facial hair,” Gutierrez said with a low chuckle. “You know, age that baby face a little.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he grumbled and shook his head. “Anyway, the bartender said the mission will head out tomorrow, so if we want to be a part of it, we might want to grab our stuff and have it ready to go tonight.”
“And who will drive all the fucking way back to the compound for our stuff?” Amanda demanded, her chin lifted in a challenge.
“Not it,” Sal said quickly.
“Not it,” Kennedy said in quick succession.
“That’ll teach you to make fun of my baby face.” He grinned cheekily. “Y’all drive safe now, ya hear?”
“You two can go and fuck yourselves,” the woman said with a scowl on her face as she pushed out of her seat. “Not literally, of course. I feel it needs to be said since you’re both nasty like that. But since I am the only one of the three of us who hasn’t had a drink while here, it was probably the best choice anyway.”
She scowled at her companions who merely grinned in response. “Don’t forget to message me the details of where to meet up,” she added and pointed at Sal. “If you think I’ll drive over all the place looking for you, you’re wrong, Salinger.”
Sal nodded and leaned back in his seat, grinning broadly.
“Why does she keep calling you Salinger?” Kennedy asked once the woman had gone.
“I think that’s her way of middle-naming me,” he said, taking a sip from his drink.
“Middle-naming?” Kennedy asked in evident confusion.
“You know, when someone is so mad at you that only using your first name is not enough,” he explained, “so they use your middle name too?”
“Oh, right. I remember my mom doing that. Chills of terror every fucking time.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Wait—does that mean you actually have a middle name?”
“Of course.” She looked strangely at him. “Who the hell doesn’t have a middle name?”
“I don’t know,” Sal said with a shrug. “How about that one guy, what’s his name…oh right, Salinger Jacobs?”
Madigan laughed. “Oh, yeah. But Salinger counts as two names, doesn’t it?”
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But how come I’ve never heard this middle name of yours? Did you ever plan to tell me about it?”
“Let me think about that,” she said sarcastically and tapped at her chin for a moment. “Um, that’s a no, but thanks.”
“Ugh, fine,” he muttered with pretended irritation. “Keep your secrets. Now, we should probably get back to our search for specialists who are looking for a job. And we can also look around for a place to stay for the night, so we should maybe split up.”
Kennedy nodded. “I should probably stay here since I’m the one with the connections.”
“And since it’s the place that sells alcohol for about half the price that they have it back at our base?” Sal asked.
“One of the perks of having connections, I’m afraid,” she said with a sweet smile. “Have fun finding us a place to spend the night. Make sure that it has sturdy beds, hmm?”
He chuckled. “You’d better hope that I do.”
Sal and Kennedy were not the first to arrive at the assigned area next to the wall from which the teams would head out. A large number of people had already assembled and begun the preparations required to ready the entire operation for the mission.
One of them was their partner Gutierrez who unloaded the heavy suits from their JLTV. She looked up with a scowl and patted the crates as Sal and Kennedy arrived.
“This shit needs to be more portable,” she complained as they approached.
“Hey, if work were easy, it wouldn’t be work, right?” Sal replied. He tried to dodge a smack Gutierrez aimed at the back of his head with only partial success.
“Smartass,” she snarked before she glanced at Kennedy. “So, did you two lovebirds have a nice beauty sleep?”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Madigan said with a chuckle. “Before that, though, we managed to get some possible names from the bartender. Apparently, he works part-time as a billboard for all the folks who want their names out there for hire. We narrowed it down to three. Unfortunately, only one of them will head out into the Zoo with us, so I talked with the operation leader and he’s assigned to our team. The downside is that they could spare only one for a new team, so if he ends up a bust, we’ll be stuck with him until the operation ends in about…what, two days from now?”
“Give or take,” Sal confirmed. “It’s a quick run to get people used to the operation as well as maybe get some money flowing through here. I imagine that we can help with that. But yeah, in and out, two days tops.”
Kennedy thought for a moment about making some kind of stamina joke about Sal lasting for two days tops. She doubted he could or would be able to no matter how much of the blue stuff he took, but it was still a good laugh. For her. Maybe less so for Sal and definitely even less so for Gutierrez.
She quickly decided against it. That would play fast and loose with their professionalism rule, and she would only make those jokes if there were guaranteed enjoyment for all parties involved.
“Okay, l
adies,” Amanda interjected and looked around pointedly. “It seems like folks here are almost ready to lock and load. Suit up!”
“Is that a reference to something?” Sal asked as he hefted the pieces to his suit out of the crates and put them on, starting with the boots. Always start with the boots, he’d learned after a few ill-fated attempts.
“Shut up and get moving,” Madigan responded.
It wasn’t long before the three of them were ready for action. Gutierrez knew about the mechanics of the suits better than anyone else, which meant that despite the fact that this was the first time she had actually used the suit she donned, she was the first one to finish. Kennedy came a close second and Sal lagged behind as his hybrid suit had far more moving parts to put together and prep for a trip into the jungle.
“So, where’s our new prospective member?” he asked when he had finally settled everything to his satisfaction.
Kennedy checked the list that had been passed out to the various teams to which the three dozen or so people involved in the mission were allocated. Most of the groups contained six or seven members each, which meant that theirs would be the smallest at only four.
It was probably better that way, Sal mused. This was a test run for a potential new member of their team, which meant that they didn’t need to keep an eye on more than one newbie in the Zoo. It increased the chances that they would make it out alive.
A man approached, dressed in an older model of a specialist’s suit.
“Je suis le Dr Adrien Couture. Êtes-vous…Heavy Metal?” he asked, his expression hopeful.
“That’s us, yes,” Sal replied and took point on this one. “I’m Salinger Jacobs, and these are my partners, Madigan Kennedy and Amanda Gutierrez. I take it you received our message last night?”
“Oui,” the man replied with a polite smile. “I was told that you looked for someone to work with your team full-time, yes?” He spoke with an accent, but his command of English was almost impeccable.
“That’s right,” Sal said with a nod. “We need someone who can operate as a full-time specialist. The person who handled that role before had to leave to attend to personal matters, so we’ll work with you to see if you’re a good fit for our team. Kennedy and Gutierrez will be our gunners. I will help them, but I’ll help you too. I’m something of a hybrid that way.”
“Pardon,” Couture said, raising his hand. “No offense, but if you needed help as a specialist, why would I need yours? Perhaps it is best if you help your friends to keep me alive while I work as I do best. Alone.”
“Hah, good point,” Sal replied and forced a smile. He’d heard that Frenchmen could be arrogant, and kudos to Dr. Couture for living up to the stereotypes. Either way, it was still too early to make snap decisions, so he decided to put the casual insult to his abilities aside until he had a realistic view of what the man was capable of.
The sirens wailed, the signal for everyone to move to their ATVs. Sal assumed that this was the kind of thing that resulted when comms systems could still not be automatically activated by the base’s database. Everything was so low-tech around there. The American base still operated the management side largely by paper, but that was for the pencil pushers back in the US. Everything else—which meant anything that anyone paid attention to, including such important things as work contracts and payment slips—was all done electronically.
He smirked, gripped his gun with his power arm, established the connection between that and his HUD, and activated the combat software. He would never get used to this, he thought. The cold pit in his stomach always came when he prepared to go into a place where he would put his life on the line. It was exciting and terrifying.
And it had started to grow on him, he realized with a smile.
As it turned out, maybe he should have listened to his first gut impression of Dr. Couture, Sal thought with a grimace as he slapped another magazine manually into his rifle. The autoload feature was problematic after they’d had to drag the dumbass from a nest of the acid-spitting reptiles. Gutierrez had done her best to fix the damage done, and in all fairness, the mother hadn’t been around and the acid spat by the tiny creatures wasn’t half as destructive as that of one of the full-grown assholes. Yet there was still damage and he’d given up on the mechanism after it dropped the magazine it was supposed to bring to his rifle for the third time. They would have to make repairs when they returned.
The most infuriating part about it was that the man liked to flaunt his doctorate over them and insisted that they call him Dr. Couture—instead of say, Dumbass, which really was more appropriate—and had the attitude that he was the one who did them the favor. Not only that, but he seemed to think that being hired to work with Heavy Metal was already a foregone conclusion.
Sal realized then that he’d failed to mention that they were the founding members of the start-up and would therefore be the ones who decided whether he would be hired or not. Maybe the idiot thought there was some higher-up who would make the decision based solely on whatever the man’s qualifications were.
Either way, Sal counted down the minutes before they got rid of him forever. Considering that this was already day two of the short operation and they were already on their way back to where they’d been dropped off, there was a definite sense of relief. This was doubled by the fact that Couture had stopped talking for a moment to check on something with his HUD.
There had been talk between the three of them over a private comm about the option to prank the man by inserting faulty software into his next update, but Sal had overridden the idea. They might not like the dude, but that didn’t mean that he’d earned a death sentence out there in the Zoo. Realistically, that was what a malfunction to his suit could mean. Since they were supposed to be the veterans who knew better than to get people killed, Kennedy and Gutierrez finally agreed, albeit reluctantly.
It didn’t save him from their constant grouching about the man for the whole of the next day, but Sal stood by his decision—barely.
“We must stop,” Couture said with a grunt.
“We’re behind schedule thanks to our last stop,” Sal said and tapped the scars that the acid had left on his armor. “We need to keep moving or we’ll be left behind. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to walk all the way back to the base. If you think that moving through the jungle is difficult, wait until you have to get through the dunes out there.”
“Even so, we must inspect these…these plants here,” the specialist protested and dropped to one knee to study a couple of the smaller bushes—or pretended to, rather, as he obviously needed a break.
Sal took in a deep breath. It was hard not to remember his first time out there when he had run for his life in a suit very similar to the one that the man wore while carrying the packs and weapons of those who had fallen earlier. Sure, it hadn’t been pleasant, and if he’d had the option, he would have preferred to take it easy too. Maybe he was too demanding. They weren’t even that pressed for time. He simply lacked patience and wanted this to end, and while it was the man’s fault since he was the reason why Sal wanted it to end quickly, if the idiot broke or sprained something, that would mean they would have to spend much more time stuck out there with him.
Overall, it had been a decent run through the place. The team had found three Pita locations and stripped them bare, which would net them at least twenty grand each. They would take money out of Couture’s pay if the suits needed new parts due to acid damage, but the specialist would walk away with a good payout and, hopefully, no hard feelings.
The past thirty-six or so hours with the man told Sal that he would take it as a personal insult that they didn’t think he was the absolute best teammate ever, but at this point, he was beyond caring. He would make sure that Couture never worked with anyone they liked because he would never subject a friend to this kind of torture.
Sal looked up when Kennedy pinged him on his comms. Something moved outside his line of vision. The motion s
ensors picked it up, though—in the trees and approaching from the direction from which they had come. Following them, he thought and gritted his teeth. He didn’t like that. His mind didn’t want to think about something out there capable of tracking them.
It looked like he would have to, unfortunately.
“We need to keep moving,” he said forcefully, leveled his weapon, and aimed it at the faint movement.
Couture looked up from his rest with a scowl. “You have pushed us far too hard these past few hours. Do you think what I did was wrong? As I recall, there has only been one young creature brought back from the Zoo, and I tried to acquire the second. None of these reptiles have been studied up close before. All we have is blurry videos of them attacking. I tried to advance science, and what did you do? You pulled me out like I am some child and injured my back in the process. Now, you must let me rest.”
“Look, we’re moving out,” Sal told him bluntly. “If you don’t follow, we’ll leave you behind.”
“You cannot!” Couture snapped angrily. “You are gunners, my protectors in this horrible place. It is your only job as useless weapons of violence to keep me alive long enough to change the world, and if you don’t comprehend this—”
The man’s pontificating was cut short when Sal looked up sharply with a hissed intake of breath. A couple of vines snaked from the darkness of the trees above them and aimed toward what he assumed they had identified as the source of all the noise—the two men and their altercation.
Sal reached forward to grab the specialist, but the man backed away, apparently thinking that he meant to drag him out of there by force. He pushed Sal back and drew in a breath as if to give him a much louder piece of his mind. Before he could even begin, however, a pair of vine-like tentacles wound around his neck and waist to drag him into the jungle they’d come from. Sal reacted quickly and Gutierrez did the same. Both surged forward to take hold of him and, hopefully, to save him.