by Michael Todd
She stretched under her sheets and groaned softly. Both stretch and groan ended abruptly when her hand touched something cold and wet. Her eyes shot open, then narrowed quickly as she scrambled out of bed and pulled her sheets aside.
Her hands came up to stifle a scream that already tore through her penthouse like a burglar alarm as she took a couple of steps away from the bed. On it—and staining her expensive silk bedding—was the head of a cow, crudely and recently chopped judging by the amount of blood that poured over her bed.
On the neck rested a small note written on her company’s stationery in bright red letters.
No horses were killed to send this warning. Don’t send killers again.
Andressa struggled to hold back another scream, this one of anger. That bitch. That heiress fucking bitch!
“Señora?” came the voice of the maid, who had probably heard the shrieks. “Is everything all ri—oh, Dios Mio!” she wailed and hastily made the sign of the cross over herself.
“Don’t mind that,” her employer snapped, dropped the note, and headed for the door. “Get on the phone and call my lawyer. Now!”
The maid scowled but rushed off to do as she was told.
The young man frowned over his keyboard and squinted at his screen to assess the data it displayed one last time. He’d been at it for days now, trapped in this gloomy, semi-dark room that had been provided as a so-called home in the middle of Goddamned nowhere.
The least they could have had done was fitted an aircon, he thought gloomily, conscious of the sweat that now seeped through his shirt as the temperature climbed toward midday madness. Still, they paid well—extremely well—and if he played his cards right, he could head home one day with enough stashed for a small IT start-up of his own.
If he didn’t get his ass burned before then.
Which, he thought morosely, was entirely possible given the nature of this most recent off-the-books assignment. He needed to offload the information like the proverbial hot potato.
Satisfied that he’d included everything, he saved the data to a USB drive and slid the device into his pocket. That done, he worked rapidly and meticulously to scrub his entire system of every possible trace of his clandestine activity. It might already be too late, of course—there was no way to know exactly what the reverse-trace had uncovered—but he’d been at this long enough to shake them off if he played it right.
He disabled all connections and deleted them. Thankfully, this laptop was reserved only for things non-government, which made his task easier. With his own files stashed in various inaccessible cloud locations, it took only a few minutes for him to wipe the entire thing clean. A replacement laptop already lay beside it, ready to go once he’d put all the protective parameters and firewalls in place. This one would vanish as soon as he felt it was safe to dispose of it.
The hacker pushed back from the tiny desk and headed to the door, his expression grim. He’d had a bad feeling about this from the beginning, but the client was a man he respected—and one who seldom asked for help. They had sufficient history to make his agreement to assist him an easy one. He knew that if the man asked, there had to be a good reason.
The bar was fairly busy when he pushed through the door and headed directly toward a small table tucked in an alcove at the back. Good. The colonel was already there, which meant this shouldn’t take long at all.
He sat opposite the man and the two exchanged a quick handshake. The waitress arrived and he ordered a beer, not because he really wanted one but because he’d have looked suspicious if he hadn’t. His companion nursed his, and judging by the foam still on top, he’d ordered for the sake of appearances as well.
They made small talk until his drink arrived, simply two men meeting over a cold one to catch up. When they were alone once more, the hacker retrieved the USB and slid it casually across the table beneath the menu neither of them had looked at.
“That was all I could find on Project Bellerophon,” he said quietly. “And you were right to be concerned.”
The colonel nodded and pretended to look at the menu as he palmed the device.
“There’s more, though,” the hacker continued. “A lot more, but I couldn’t dig any deeper. They’re already onto me and damn near busted my ass.”
Anderson frowned. “Damn near? They didn’t identify you then?”
“I don’t think so, but it was a close call. Too close. Reverse-tracking is a bitch, but fortunately, I know the signs. I’ve covered my bases and will work on some redirection in the next day or so. I think I should be in the clear.”
“I Goddamn hope so,” Anderson muttered and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I should never have hauled you into this business.”
“Someone had to do it.” He shrugged. “But I’m done. I can’t risk it, even though I’d like to.”
“I know, and I appreciate what you’ve done. Those bastards need to be stopped, but I can’t do it with half the information.”
“Less than half, probably. This goes deeper than even you suspected. These people are scary powerful, Colonel, and they have contacts right up into the Pentagon. They don’t play games, and even from the little on that drive, it’s clear that they aren’t above ‘disappearing’ people who get in their way.”
Anderson thought of the way the test pilots had gunned down the unsuspecting team in the Zoo and scowled. “You’re right, kid. And it’s time you got the hell out of this. Let me know if you take heat down the line.”
“Sure.” The hacker slid from his seat. “And you take care, Colonel. I hope you find the help you need.”
So do I, kid. So do I. He watched the young man amble through the crowded bar toward the door. The real question, though, was who? The colonel finally took a sip of his beer and grimaced. The damn thing was already warm. He pushed it aside as he considered the future.
He knew this obsession would likely be the end of him, one way or another. He was already stuck in this Goddamned desert and fully accepted that he might leave in a body bag—if he wasn’t simply dumped out in the Zoo, of course. Still, it was the right thing to do. And like the kid said, somebody had to do it.
Now, all he needed was somebody as crazy as he was—maybe a few somebodies. Some IT talent, of course, but also some badass, take no prisoners, do the right thing and fuck the consequences somebodies.
Anderson grinned. The Zoo was Crazy Central after all. The impossible happened there all the time.
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
January 23, 2019
THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes as well.
(I think I’ve been good with always opening with “thank you.” If not, I need to edit the other Author Notes!)
RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?
Right now, we have book 04 of this story in production and almost completed. We should (hopefully) be publishing the book sometime around March 1st, sooner if we can—but that depends on the publishing schedule.
If you haven’t read the Soldiers of Fame and Fortune series, the first four have been wrapped into a bundle and it is for sale now at Amazon, here:
Soldiers of Fame and Fortune Boxed Set One
What is the timeline?
Well, the timeline isn’t a timeline exactly, but it is a question of “which walls are built” so you know when the stuff happens. I suspect (if I can get my production editor on board) that we will take a stab at an honest to god calendar at some point.
I just think (to myself) “Wall 02 is built, Wall 03 is built and the ZOO has done XYZ…”
At some point in the future, the answer for what is happening with the stories will be, “The aliens are back…”
“Shit.”
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
One of the interesting (at least to me) aspects of my life is the ability to work from anywhere and at any time. In the future, I hope to re-read my own Author Notes and remember my life as a diary entry.
Phuket, Thailand
This is the last Author Notes I will be typing from Thailand (for the foreseeable future. I don’t suspect we will come back for a few years.)
I’d love to say the last few days have been relaxing and enjoyable, but that wouldn’t be true. Mind you, a sucky day in Phuket still beats an excellent day in the upper Northeast of the United States right now, with the winter weather up there.
Here, I am walking around in thin cotton shorts. There I imagine you need seven different layers of clothes.
Well, at least I would need that many clothes and preferably a portable heater along for the ride.
We leave tomorrow to fly to Bali, stay in a hotel near the airport for one night, then jump on at least two (2) if not three (3) planes heading back to Los Angeles, California.
During that time, I will be outlining multiple books and working on our efforts to…
As the Brain tells Pinky every show:
“Try to take over the WORLD!”
(Of publishing. Not so much the other parts. I can assure you I believe it would be a ginormous pain in the ass to control the world.)
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Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Blood of My Enemies
Birth of Heavy Metals Book 4
Chapter One
She looked around, her weapon at the ready, and checked her ammo reserves to immediately determine that she had run low. Not critically so, but it would turn dangerous should this shit go on for too much longer. The motion sensors went crazy as she looked around, but it seemed the animals were content to skirt the very edges of her vision as if to let her know they were there without actually coming close enough to be shot at.
Of course, it was unlikely that they were competent enough to take a crack at basic psychological manipulation, but at this point, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that this kind of behavior was in play and she would have to take it up with the designers. So far, there had been no indication that the animals actually toyed with the people in the Zoo like this so the simulation was incorrect.
At a soft roar from behind her, she spun to see a massive panther. The creature was larger than usual with a hint of pale gold in the fur—which made it a lighter hue—and the suggestion of a mane, too.
She raised her rifle, pulled the trigger once, and felt it kick back into her shoulder. The armor was meant to absorb a rifle’s kick but it was somehow reassuring to feel it in her arm. They’d toyed with the design and allowed her to add her input for this run.
The single hollow point round tore through the creature’s skull and opened a massive hole in the panther’s head as the animal fell.
“Heads up.”
Kennedy knew who it was. There was only one person who had her comm signal in there. The familiar voice was a bit of a giveaway too.
She turned as Sal dropped from the upper branches of the trees at high speed in the same instant that she saw another of the lion-panthers charge out of the jungle. He managed to twist sufficiently to slam his knee down on the creature’s neck and crushed it under the weight of his suit as he hammered it to the ground and executed a perfect three-point landing.
“And that, children, is how you do a superhero landing,” Sal said with a grin as he pushed to his feet. “Perfect dunk, home run, drop curtains, and Elvis has left the building. Uh…thank ya, thank ya very much.” His Elvis impersonation was on point, Kennedy had to admit.
“Well, those were some terrible sports references, but it’s nice that you try,” she said with a grin.
“Ordering all those sports channels for the compound has been good for something after all.” Sal chuckled. “This is a pretty damn good simulation. They worked out all the physics kinks that we saw in our last run, and looking around…” He paused to take in a deep breath. “You can almost smell the decaying corpses all around us—”
He was cut off when she looked above him, raised her rifle and tilted it upward, and fired at something that had caught her eye. As it turned out, the somethings were a couple of locusts that dropped into the background.
“This hero of ours might want to watch his back,” Kennedy sniped. “He might want to protect his ass or he’ll have a tentacle enema.”
“I don’t know.” He turned to face the direction that the creatures had come from. “I can imagine that having an enema from the Zoo can only be good for your intestinal health.”
“Oh, God, that’s disgusting.” Kennedy shook her head as more creatures appeared and they both raised their weapons. “And it was my joke too.”
“Well, turning people’s jokes and making them cringe at their own humor is my superpower,” Sal said cheerfully as he fired at the first of the creatures that attacked. He’d loaded in armor-piercers, which sliced easily through the tough armor carapaces that protected the centipede. A piercing roar emanated from it as it buckled and curled into a ball that the other creatures vaulted easily.
“Will you fight crime with that?” Kennedy asked. She allowed the suit to reload her rifle before she opened fire again to drive the line of monsters back. “Take crime bosses down by cringing them to death?”
“Well, I thought that I could at least distract them to make things easier for when the heroes with real powers come along,” he responded. His voice lost some of its focus as he ducked to avoid a pair of tentacles that swung from the branches and tried to reach his head. They pulled back almost immediately and disappeared into the shadows where they wound around the trees.
“So, like…Captain Support, or something?” She moved closer to him to make sure that they weren’t separated and could at least count on one of their angles being covered by the other.
“That’s a terrible gaming reference, Kennedy,” he responded with a grin. “But it’s nice that you try.”
“Eat a dick.” She chuckled as they moved once more and he dropped a step behind her to cover her flanks and their rear as she pushed them forward. It was a good tactic, one that they had developed over the time that they’d worked together. It made sense. She was the one who usually wore the heavy-duty armor, while he wore something lighter. It was logical that she would do the bull-rushing while he made sure she wasn’t outflanked.
It worked in the simulation too. He tested a lighter suit design, similar to his hybrid set but composed entirely of power armor that was supposed to be more dexterous than even the most advanced hybrid suits on the market. Then again, these suits wouldn’t hit store shelves for a while, so there might be something similar out by then.
Kennedy, for her part, might as well have worn a tank at this point. Her gear relied almost completely on the power implementations to haul the two-and-a-half-ton suit, which moved with surprising ease through the tough terrain. It enabled her to sprint at up to thirty kilometers an hour and maintain that speed for almost ten minutes. The power came from a tiny nuclear reactor mounted into a backpack, which was supposed to—theoretically—last for years and years without needing to be replaced.
While that sounded all well and good in theory, Sal knew for a fact that there would be complications that came with mounting something that volatile into a suit that would be knocked around by creatures the size of buildings. Not for the person wearing the armor, he thought. They had been very adamant that by the time something managed to get through the ton of titanium-reinforced ceramic honeycomb weave to reach the reactor, the human inside would be long dead.
That said, the suit reputedly offered significant perks. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers
, jetpacks that facilitated movement by the back and the legs over rough terrain, and automated movement to avoid projectiles and hostile creatures. In addition, an advanced AI reduced the reaction time lag between movement intention and the action implemented by the power armor to five milliseconds and even less for the trigger finger.
It was like he worked with something straight out of a comic book—which explained why he thought so much about superheroes while conducting this run, he supposed.
He maintained his position behind her and slightly to her left—she was right-handed, after all—as they thrust forward continually and gunned down any of the creatures that decided to enter their path.
“How far away are we from the pick-up point?” Kennedy asked and looked around in a moment of reprieve.
Sal checked the map in his HUD. “About a klick and a half. Why?”
“I’m down to three mags for my rifle,” she responded irritably, “plus a couple more for my sidearm, five rockets in the shoulder…and my knife.”
“You have a knife?”
“Well, yeah.” She drew the weapon from the thigh scabbard she carried it in. “Well, it’s more like a sword-slash-machete really, I suppose, but in the power armor hand, it looks like a bowie knife.”
He rolled his eyes. Admittedly, a combat knife was included in his suit, but he doubted that it could cut trees down in a single stroke like hers undoubtedly could. As it turned out, size really did matter, he thought wryly. When it came to knives, anyway.