by Peter Clines
“Where would you sleep? You would be in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from shore.”
“I could…I could bring a raft or something.”
Her face shifted beneath her mask. St. George recognized the movements of her lips and cheekbones. “The more important issue,” she said, “is Eden. After last night’s fire, it must be our priority.”
“Agreed,” said Richard. He looked up at Freedom. “How secure is it at this point, Captain? Can we start sending people up there?”
The giant tipped his head once. “The main building is secure, sir, and the existing fence line there is intact. St. George has helped us expand and reinforce several key sections, but there’s still a few areas that aren’t as solid as I’d like. The watchtowers and gates still need some work, too. Overall, though, I think it could be occupied without compromising anyone inside.”
“There is another issue,” said Stealth. She turned to St. George. “You and Zzzap are the only two capable of rapid travel between the Mount and Eden. If both of you go to this island, we will have no emergency response team.”
“We could send extra guards up there,” St. George said.
The cloaked woman bowed her head beneath her hood. “Extra guards means less personnel working in Eden itself.”
“Only for a week or so,” said Barry.
Richard rubbed his temple. “I’m not sure we can spare a week of manpower with the current state of our food supply.” He looked at Stealth. “Without a summer harvest from the trees we only have enough left for, what, two months?”
“Forty-three days,” she said, “if we continue at our current level of rationing.”
“We could swap out the assigned guards for my soldiers,” said Freedom. “Each one of the Unbreakables is worth at least three regular guards. That effectively triples the manpower up there without using any extra resources.”
Stealth’s expression shifted beneath her mask, and St. George felt his own mouth tighten. The super-soldiers from Project Krypton had become a standard part of the Big Wall’s defense forces. They were a big part of why the Big Wall had never failed.
Freedom acknowledged the looks with a deliberate nod. “First Sergeant Kennedy’s been considering something along these lines anyway. She wanted to take a fire team up there and put them through their paces. Some of them have been getting a little…lax.”
St. George thought of Taylor gleefully punching exes with his brass knuckles and thought “lax” was a polite way of putting it.
“It’s still not much up there for defense, though,” said Richard, “especially if the fences aren’t one hundred percent yet.”
“What about Cerberus?” asked Freedom. “How much longer until Dr. Morris has it rebuilt?”
St. George shook his head. “I just talked to her about it this morning. She’s still at least six weeks away from having it finished. The basic framework’s done, but it doesn’t even have any armor or weapons yet.”
“So right now it’s a high-tech vulnerability suit,” Barry said.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Richard sighed. “Perhaps we should put off going out to this island. Just until we can get Eden established and Cerberus up and running.”
“We’ll lose it,” said Barry.
“But you’d be able to find it again eventually,” said Freedom.
Barry shrugged. “Yeah. I could track some of the currents and stuff but…well, we are talking about the Pacific Ocean. It took me the better part of the day to find Hawaii once, and I knew where to look for it. And it was glowing.”
Stealth crossed her arms beneath her cloak. “There may,” she said, “be another option open to us.”
“NO,” SAID DANIELLE. “No, absolutely not. No.”
Stealth crossed her arms. “It is the best solution to our problem.”
“No, it’s a crap solution.” The redhead gestured at the frame stretched out across three worktables in front of them. “There’s no armor at all, not even dust shields. No padding or supports, either. Assuming whoever was in it didn’t get bitten by the first thing they ran into, an hour in this would rip them up.”
“Danielle…” started St. George.
She pulled up her sleeve and pointed at a line of tight stitches in the contact suit, then at a thin scab along her thumb. “See that? I cut myself last week just doing a few test shots with the auto-crossbow. Cut my thumb putting my arm in and then sliced the suit while I was cocking it. There’s a hundred points like that all over the superstructure.” She reached out and tapped one of the support struts on the arm. It rang.
“We are not discussing someone wearing the battlesuit, though,” said Stealth. She gestured over at Cesar. “We are discussing someone being in it.”
Cesar bounced on his toes. He tried to keep his face blank. Everyone saw the smile creeping up across his tight lips.
St. George nodded. “It won’t matter that there’s rough edges or no armor because he’ll just be the battlesuit. Right?”
A barely restrained nod from Cesar.
Danielle shook her head again. “Nothing’s protected. If the suit’s walking around like this it’ll be getting dust and grit into everything. It’d be like driving a car without the air filter.”
St. George glanced at the bare struts of the torso, then back at Danielle. “We’re talking about a week, tops.”
“George, doing it for a day could ruin some of the components. Do you think I have Cesar sweep in here all the time to keep him busy?”
“Yeah,” said Cesar. His smile cracked. “Wait, you mean that was important?”
Her fingers tightened into fists. “And you want to send him up there in charge of the battlesuit?”
“Eden is our highest priority,” said Stealth, “and you have yet to offer an alternative solution.”
“Just let me finish the armor. Five weeks. Four if Barry sticks around. Then you can all go off to this boat-island place.”
“We might not be able to find it in four or five weeks,” St. George said. Danielle put her hands on the table and lowered her head. Her ponytail slipped over her shoulder and hung against her cheek. She muttered something under her breath.
“What was that?”
She straightened up and threw her hair back over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “I’ll go with the suit. With Cesar. We’ll be together up in Eden.” His smile returned, and she shot it down with a look. “That way I can keep working on it and do maintenance.”
St. George wrinkled his brow. “How much can you really do in a week?”
“Depends on how much he damages it in a week,” she said, jerking her head at Cesar.
“I’m serious,” said the hero.
“So am I,” she said. “I can do some work. Enough. We’ll come out ahead.”
“No,” said Stealth, “we would not. Eden has been designed and balanced. Additional personnel will put a strain on space and resources.”
“What resources? I eat two meals a day. I sleep on the floor half the time.”
Stealth gestured at the skeletal framework. “Having Cerberus on site will strain the available power. A large part of your workshop would have to be relocated as well, which would mean reallocation of more vehicles and fuel.”
“I don’t need much,” said Danielle. “I wouldn’t be able to finish the work there, but I could take everything I’d need for the next week’s schedule in…” She glanced around the workshop. “I could fit most of my tools and the material I’d need in there,” she said, gesturing at a red tool cabinet. “Hell, I can fit two changes of clothes in there, too. I won’t take up any room at all.”
The hooded woman shook her head.
“What?”
Stealth looked at St. George. “We are wasting time. Cesar should assume the role of Cerberus at Eden while you and Zzz—”
“HE’S NOT CERBERUS! I’M CERBERUS!”
Cesar and St. George flinched. Danielle’s shout echoed in the big room. She glared at the hood
ed woman.
“Of course,” said Stealth. “I misspoke. Forgive me.”
A set of quick, whisking steps approached. Gibbs appeared in the workshop’s big door. His limping run lost momentum and became a staggering halt when he saw who was gathered there. “Is everything okay? It sounded like shouting?”
Cesar gave two quick shakes of his head.
Danielle reached over to grab St. George by the arm. She dragged him a few yards away from the table. “Don’t do this,” she whispered. “You can’t take it away from me.”
“We’re not taking it away from you. We’re just—”
“It’s my suit!”
“I know,” he said. “It’s just…”
“Just what?”
St. George glanced over at the hooded woman. “She’s trying to be nice,” he murmured.
“Nice?”
“She’s giving you an out. A reason not to go.”
“It’s my suit. I go where Cerberus goes.”
“I know that,” said St. George. “I remember. But Eden…” He looked back at the battlesuit. Twin threads of smoke trailed from his nose.
Danielle stared at him. “What?”
“Eden isn’t like the Mount. It’s like things were in the beginning. Nothing but chain-link and some plywood around the whole thing. It’s very open. It’s very exposed. Most people are living out of tents because there’s only one real building.”
Her shoulders hunched. She forced them back down, but he saw it. “I’ll be okay,” she said.
“Will you?”
“I just said—”
“You’ve gotten worse,” said St. George. He looked her in the eyes when he said it. “I’m sorry, but we both know it. You used to be able to force your way through it, but since Smith messed with our heads you’ve pretty much been trapped in here, haven’t you?”
She snorted and waved his words away. “No. No, it’s not that bad.”
“You don’t even go near the doors if you can avoid it,” said St. George. “Cesar and Gibbs bring you food and supplies. You wash your clothes in the sink.” He glanced back over at Stealth. “You know she keeps track of all this stuff.”
Danielle’s eyes widened a bit. “What’s she told you?”
“Enough.”
“Like what?”
He looked over at the open doorway. “Have you even seen an ex since we woke up?”
Her shoulders relaxed a bit. “Since this morning?”
“You know what I mean. Since I destroyed Cerberus.”
She bit her lip but didn’t look away.
“You’re going to be out in the open, you’re going to be surrounded, and you’re not going to have the armor,” said St. George. “There’s nowhere in Eden you can go and not hear them. There aren’t many places you can go and not see them.”
“I’ll be okay,” said Danielle.
“You’ll have to be,” he said. “Once you’re up there, that’s pretty much it. They can’t send the truck back just for you. I won’t be here to give you a lift. You’ll be stuck there for three or four days, at least.”
“I’ll be okay,” she repeated. She took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s go tell them you’re going.”
She took another breath. “Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for. It’s your suit, right?”
They walked back to the others. Stealth stared at them from inside her hood. Cesar tried to hide a hopeful smile.
“Danielle should go,” St. George said. “She’s right, it’s dumb to send Cesar out there without someone who can troubleshoot the suit. If something went wrong on day one, it’d make all this pointless.”
Stealth studied his face, then bowed her head. “Very well,” she said. “If you feel this is the correct course of action.”
“It is,” said Danielle. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
“If they’re both going,” said Gibbs from across the room, “I might as well go, too.” A few whisking steps carried him over to the table. “I won’t have anything to do here without Dr. Morris or the battlesuit, and if Cerberus is going to be a key part of Eden’s defenses you’ll want a full crew behind it.”
Danielle nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “And we’ll be able to get more done if we can split maintenance and actual work between us.”
St. George glanced at Stealth. She made no move to respond. “I can’t promise anything,” he said. “It’s kind of tight up there. It’s going to take some work to make extra people fit.”
“If it helps,” said Gibbs, “I could pull a few shifts on guard duty.” He waved his hand toward the prosthetic foot. “I can’t do the half marathon anymore, but I can still walk a patrol and pull a trigger.”
“We’ll see,” said St. George. “Let me talk to Captain Freedom and some of the Eden people. It might not be great, but I bet we can work something out.”
“This is going to be awesome,” said Cesar. He bounced on his heels again. His eyes went from Danielle to Gibbs and back. “Freakin’-A.”
“Freakin’?” St. George raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, I got a little niece, I gotta set a good example, right? That’s what superheroes do?” His eyes went wide. “Damn. I need to tell my sister I can’t babysit next week.”
ST. GEORGE PUSHED off the floor and sailed up to the next landing of the stairwell. The fire door there was propped open with a cinder block. At some point in the past, one of the other residents had spray-painted it grass green.
Like most of the living quarters in the Mount, his home had started out as something else—in this case, a large office for one of the sub-companies of the film studio. Their publicity department, judging from the packages of postcards and mini-posters he’d found in the closets.
When they’d first moved into the Mount, every room in every building had been converted and occupied. They’d needed all the living space they could get. With the closets emptied, the desks and filing cabinets cleaned out, and a few extra pipes run, most of the offices served as passable apartments.
Once the Big Wall went up, though, people moved back out into the city. After almost three years behind the studio walls, some folks couldn’t resist the idea of windows and trees and across-the-street neighbors. And with the depleted population, there were houses and luxury apartments for anyone who wanted them.
The Zombocalypse had really turned Los Angeles into a buyer’s market.
St. George hadn’t seen a point in moving. His office-apartment was more than twice the size of the little studio he’d had before the dead started to walk, and he still had more space than he needed. Now he had the floor to himself, and shared the building with two other singles and a couple.
Plus, he’d come to see the Mount as his home. He’d managed to rescue a few things from his old studio and added a few more since then. It was roomy, it was his, and he couldn’t picture himself living anywhere else.
He fished the lone key from his pocket and opened the door.
The light was on. The one by the couch in the living room. He’d found it in the back warehouse of a Big Lots store two years back or so. The tall torch could blast light against the ceiling, but it also had a small reading lamp that branched from its trunk. The light sent a wide shadow from the overstuffed chair to his feet.
He hadn’t left it on when he left this morning.
“I’m home,” he said to the air.
“Did they agree to your terms?”
The kitchen had looked empty when he stepped in, but Stealth stood there now. Her mask was gone, her black hair pulled back tight against her head. Her dark skin gleamed in the soft light. She’d traded her body armor and cloak for a pair of dark slacks and a red Henley.
For his red Henley, St. George noted with a small degree of pleasure. It was two sizes too large for her. She made it look fashionable and sexy and elegant.
; “God, you’re beautiful.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s still the truth.”
Her mouth made the ever-so-faint curve he’d come to recognize as her smile. “Did they agree?”
“Yes,” he said. He slipped out of the biker jacket and hung it near the door. “Les wasn’t happy, but he understands the situation. He’d rather have one less farmer for a week than have everyone up there feel like they’ve been left to fend for themselves.”
“I believe he is now asking people to refer to him as Lester.”
“Right. Force of habit.”
Les Briggs had managed a community garden on the edge of Koreatown before the ex-virus swept across the city. He’d been one of the guiding forces behind the garden at the Mount. Stealth had known what staples they needed, but Les had known what they could grow in their half acre of scavenged potting soil and how they needed to grow it. When Eden had been proposed, he was the first choice to lead it. He’d been up there a dozen times already and spent the night for half of them.
And he’d insisted people start calling him Lester if he was going to be in charge. It was an odd quirk, and it worried St. George a bit. It wouldn’t be the first time responsibility changed someone.
“Anyway, he’s going to bump one of his people and they’re going to give Danielle the big room in the main building for now. He says they can work around her for a week without too much trouble.” St. George set his heel on the floor and pried his boot off. “To be honest, I think he just wants to show off Eden to someone new.”
“Danielle will refuse such an offer.”
“Yeah, I know. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. I’m still not sure how many people know about her…issues.” He set his toes against the heel of the second boot and worked it off his foot.
“She kept it hidden because of her ability to move about as Cerberus. However, since the destruction of the battlesuit, I believe nineteen people have formed suspicions about her lack of visibility.”
He joined her in the kitchen. She’d been cutting vegetables for a salad. “Exactly nineteen?”