Ex-Isle

by Peter Clines

  “If they do this again,” said Cesar, “let me know.”

  She waved him away and turned back to the weeds.

  He caught up with Gibbs a few yards down the path. “You should leave that alone,” said the lieutenant.

  “Bro,” said Cesar. “If someone’s beating her, we gotta do somethin’ about it, y’know?”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “No,” said Gibbs. He glared up at the titan. “Our mission here is to keep Eden safe. Patrol the fences. Keep the exes out. Don’t let yourself get distracted by unimportant things. That’s how you get everyone killed.”

  He turned and stalked away.

  “Are you the one who did it?”

  The metal foot rang against the concrete. Gibbs turned around. “What?”

  Cesar closed the distance between them in two large strides. He knocked the suit’s volume down a few notches. “Did you hit her?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Did you?”

  Gibbs blew some air out of his nose. His shoulders relaxed. “No,” he said. “I didn’t hit him. Her. Whatever.”

  The exoskeleton stared at him, then dipped its head. “Okay.”

  “You think I would?”

  The battlesuit shrugged. “Before he died, my old man, he always said when something bad happened, you either got to move past it or do something about it. You’re pissed at Smith. She…he got you all messed up in the head. Risked people’s lives. Lost your foot. Got the suit wrecked. And you ain’t movin’ past it, bro.”

  “Yeah I have.”

  The titan shrugged again. “Doesn’t look like it, man. Or sound like it.”

  Gibbs turned around and headed down the path. Cesar followed him.

  Near the edge of the parking lot, a handful of people worked their way through the dense weeds. Lester walked from person to person, pointing out useful plants they should leave in the ground. He looked up at the exoskeleton and smiled as Cesar approached.

  The battlesuit systems zoomed in on different faces. Cesar recognized some of the former Seventeens among the workers. Javi had taken off his shirt to show off the array of tattoos spread over his lean arms and shoulders. Desi was wearing a tank top about two sizes too small for her. And in the back was Rafael, an old guy covered with tattoos that had blurred with age.

  Gibbs stepped around an oversized wheelbarrow filled with stalks and leaves. It and another one, mostly empty, blocked half the path. Cesar bumped a leg on the full one as he walked past.

  Desi tossed a double-handful of greenery into the mostly empty wheelbarrow and checked out the battlesuit. “That you in there, Cesar?”

  “Yeah,” he said. The skeletal titan turned back to look at her and seemed to push its chest out. “But, y’know, when I’m in the suit you’re supposed to call me Cerberus. Or the Driver.”

  Gibbs glanced back and shook his head.

  “Oh, yeah?” she said with a grin. She walked over and looked up at him. “What are you driving these days?”

  “I…well, the suit,” he said. “I mean, I’m walking, but I’m still driving it, y’know?”

  She gazed at him for a minute, then shook her head and cackled.

  “No, I am.”

  “No point tryin’ to get on his good side, Desi,” Javi called out. Across the garden plot, he stood up straight and pointed at the battlesuit. “He’s a fucking super-sellout. Either gonna work you to death or let the zombies eat you.”

  “Give it a rest, Javier,” said Lester.

  “You know it’s true. None of them care what happens to us. We’re all—”

  “Shut up, Javi,” Desi spat at him.

  Tattooed Rafael glared at her, at Lester, then up at the battlesuit.

  “Sorry,” she said to Cesar. “He’s kind of a paranoid jerk.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “Cesar,” shouted Gibbs. He was at the end of the path, by the old parking lot. “Come on.”

  Cesar looked down at Desi. She winked and walked back into the plot. Javi glared at the exoskeleton, then reached down and ripped a big handful of tall greens out of the ground.

  Gibbs shook his head as the battlesuit approached. “We’ve got to come up with some other name when it’s you in there, kid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It just doesn’t feel right, you calling yourself Cerberus,” the lieutenant said. “She’s Cerberus.”

  Cesar nodded. “Yeah, that’s what she says, too.”

  “She’s right.”

  “You can just call me the Driver.”

  Gibbs looked up at the titan. “Look, we’ve all been meaning to tell you…that name sucks.”

  “What?”

  “The Driver. Seriously. What were you, twelve when you came up with that?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Gibbs shook his head.

  “It’s cool.”

  “Cesar, I know you don’t want to listen to me, but please believe me when I tell you that name is not cool.”

  He thought about it. “What about Cesarus? Y’know, it’s me, but it’s also—”

  “No. Even worse. Hang on.” Gibbs crouched near the exoskeleton. “It looks like you’ve got something stuck in the knee joint.”

  Cesar bent over to look. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Give me a minute. Straighten the leg out.”

  Cesar stood up tall and looked out across the parking lot. Diagonal slots for two dozen cars decorated the pavement. The large swinging gate had been chained shut and blocked with a pair of dumpsters on the inside and two minivans on the outside. Two small pillars marked the pedestrian entrance, a steel gate in the middle of the expanse of chain-link. According to the battlesuit, there were forty-two exes lined up against the length of fence, another sixteen within ten feet of it.

  Far across the pavement, Hector used his hand to sweep another wheelbarrow clean of weeds and dirt. Like most of the scavengers, he was working in the garden until everything was set for their first run into the nearby homes. He tossed a last handful of greenery on the compost pile, flicked some sweat off his forehead, and stretched his arms up high over his head. He had a collection of gang tattoos on his arms, too, much more impressive than Cesar’s or Javi’s.

  He grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and started pushing it across the parking lot. The exes along the fence followed him, shifting and bumping into each other as they moved. A dead man and woman both wore black-and-purple LA Kings jerseys. One had a ragged hole in the side of its neck, the other’s shoulder was a mess of sun-baked meat. Past them was a massive ex. It had been a huge woman when it was alive, in height and weight. Death and years in the sun hadn’t shrunk it much.

  A teenage girl with dark hair and dried blood around its mouth stood near the steel gate. At first glance, Cesar thought the dead girl looked a lot like Madelyn. But its eyes were the wrong shape, and its skin was a yellow ivory while Madelyn’s was chalk white. And the ex was flat-chested, but he’d learned that might just mean it had dried out a lot.

  Two of the super-soldiers kept an easy watch farther down the fence line, on the other side of the dumpsters. Wilson still wore his full uniform, while Franklin had stripped down to a sand-colored T-shirt. The latter grunted out push-ups while the former egged him on. The suit’s directional microphones heard Wilson chanting “Fifteen…Sixteen…Seventeen…”

  Hector was halfway across the lot with his wheelbarrow. The exes had stumbled and rolled and shifted along the fence. The huge dead woman staggered back, then lunged forward and slammed into the gate. Kind-of-Madelyn was crushed between the ex’s bulk and the steel bars.

  The microphones picked up a squeak of metal on metal that drowned out the constant clicking of teeth for a second. A sharp bang. A quick scrape.

  The gate swung open.

  The kind-of-Madelyn ex was pushed forward and fell beneath the massive dead woman. A withered, sexless figure dressed in rags lurched behind
them. The battlesuit’s targeting systems picked out seven more forcing their way through the gate. Two other zombies staggered in on either side of the obese one. The three of them stumbled forward and wedged themselves between the gate’s pillars for a moment.

  Hector looked up at the sound of metal on metal. He saw the exes as they fumbled through the gate. He dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow.

  Cesar lunged forward.

  Gibbs yelled something.

  Wilson and Franklin looked up from their exercises.

  Even without all of its armor, the exoskeleton weighed enough to take chunks out of the pavement as Cesar raced for the gate. He passed Hector, grabbed the withered ex reaching for the man, and hurled it over the fence. A second ex staggered past him, and he brought a steel-and-carbon fist down on its skull. He grabbed the limp form by the neck and flung it back the way it came.

  “The gate,” shouted someone. It sounded like Gibbs. “Close the gate!”

  In the distance, the warning bell rang.

  Cesar lashed out an arm and closed a fist on an ex’s shoulder. He swung it around and used it to knock a dead woman over backward. Both of them fell, and he slammed down two punches that struck bone and went through to connect with the pavement.

  Proximity warnings flashed in his eyes, and the huge dead woman slammed into him. The ex had to weigh three hundred pounds, easy. The impact forced one of the titan’s legs back. Broken teeth snapped shut again and again inside the sagging face. Cesar could see strands of hair and flakes of blood between the teeth.

  He set his hands on the ex’s shoulders—strong, mechanical hands—aimed, and heaved. The dead thing sailed back and knocked over five-six-seven other dead people as it flew through the open gate. The battlesuit’s targeting system highlighted each one.

  Cesar stomped forward and drove his fist into another ex. The dead man in the Kings jersey. The punch blasted through the corpse and left it impaled on the exoskeleton’s arm. The click-click-click of the zombie’s teeth didn’t falter. It flailed at the battlesuit’s head, its fingers filling the field of view. He grabbed it with his free hand and pried it off. It dropped to the ground and twisted back and forth.

  The exes forced their way through the gate, jamming themselves in the opening again and slowing down the flow of their numbers. Only a handful had made it through.

  Cesar reached out with both hands, fingers spread wide. He struck one ex in the chest, another in the shoulder, and caught a third between them. Servos spun, pistons thrust, and he shoved the undead back between the two pillars. Four or five more went back with them. One stumbled, tipped over, and landed on top of the obese woman.

  The exoskeleton reached out and grabbed the gate with gore-soaked fingers. Cesar swung it toward himself and then pushed it shut. Two or three exes pressed against it, but the suit overpowered them with minimal effort and power drain. One last dead person, a man with blood-streaked sideburns, tried to stumble through the shrinking opening. The battlesuit’s servos whined once and crushed the man’s arms between the gate and the latch.

  Cesar shifted his feet. He set two steel toes against the base of the gate and locked the joints. “I got it,” he called back.

  The targeting system lit up something in the rear cameras. The kind-of-Madelyn. It was inside the gate.

  The dead thing staggered after Hector, its arms raised and teeth chattering, but Franklin was between them. The soldier darted in, slapped the dead girl’s hands down, and then leaped back out. The ex’s head swung to follow him, and it turned away from Hector. Its arms came back up as Franklin jumped in to tease it again.

  Wilson lunged in from the side and grabbed the dead girl by one arm. The ex twisted around, and Franklin grabbed the other arm. They dragged it back to the fence line. The ex rolled its head from side to side, gnashing its teeth at them. They were yellowed, and the front two were cracked and splintered. Another way it didn’t look like Madelyn.

  The super-soldiers reached the fence next to Cesar, counted to three, and threw the ex over it. The kind-of-Madelyn sailed up over the chain-link, over the undead, and crashed down onto the pavement. It twitched a few times, then rolled over and struggled back to its feet. One side of its body sagged where it had struck the street.

  “We’re clear,” Wilson called out. Gibbs limped forward. A few people appeared on the path behind him. Smith. Desi. Javi.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” bellowed Hector. He glared at the two soldiers, at Gibbs, up at Cesar, at anyone he could blame for his close call.

  “You okay?” asked Franklin. “Did it get you?”

  “No, it didn’t get near me,” said Hector. “What the hell were you waiting for? Why didn’t you punch its head off?”

  “You’re fine,” said Wilson. “That’s all that matters.”

  “No it isn’t all that fucking matters,” said Hector. “I wanna know how the fuck it got in here!” His finger stabbed through the air toward the exoskeleton. Past it, to the gate. “What the fuck was that? All this time something just had to lean on the fucking thing to open it?”

  Steel scraped on pavement as Gibbs walked up to stand near the exoskeleton. “About four hundred pounds had to throw itself against the gate all at once. It was a cheap latch that just got overlooked in the rush to get things set up here.” The lieutenant tapped the gate, and the exes on the other side of the steel mesh flailed at his knuckles.

  He walked back to Hector. “We stopped it, nobody got hurt. Like Wilson said, that’s the important thing.”

  Hector shook his head and stalked back to his wheelbarrow. “Fuck all you guys.” He pushed it across the pavement toward the crowd of gardeners at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Cesar,” called Gibbs, “is the gate secure?”

  “Yeah,” said the exoskeleton.

  The lieutenant looked at the two soldiers. “Go down to the scrap pile by the back fence and find something to brace this with. Some cinder blocks or long boards or something.”

  The two men glanced at each other, then nodded. “Yes, sir” echoed across the lot.

  “Man,” said Cesar after the soldiers jogged away, “so this thing’s just barely been held shut all this time?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “That’s crazy, man.” The battlesuit shook its head. “Lucky we were here. Lucky those guys were here, too.”

  “Yeah.” Gibbs stared after the soldiers. “I think we were lucky.”

  ST. GEORGE PACED in the small room. “How late do you think it is?”

  “It’s been about an hour since they brought us breakfast.” Barry sat on the edge of the couch. He’d asked again for a wheelchair, but hadn’t seen one yet.

  Breakfast had been a salty stew of fish, potatoes, and a few green bits he couldn’t identify. Madelyn had picked all the fish out of her bowl and eaten it plain. She’d given Barry the rest of it.

  It was a nice little suite. St. George guessed it wasn’t the best on the ship, but he was pretty sure it was better than average. It felt like a high-end room in a midrange hotel. There were two separate bedrooms, a couch, some chairs, and a small dining room table bolted to the floor. He’d slept on the couch and given Barry and Madelyn the beds. Barry got to sleep so rarely it seemed rude not to give him the best accommodations, and it only seemed right to give Madelyn some privacy.

  All things considered, it was one of the nicest rooms he’d spent time in over the past few years.

  St. George glanced over at her. The Corpse Girl sat in a large, comfy chair reading her journal entries from last night. The square-shouldered woman, Eliza, had brought the journals and clothes to their room, but nothing else from the red gym bag.

  Except for her chalk eyes flitting back and forth, she was motionless. No rise and fall of her chest, no flexing stiff limbs. She hadn’t looked happy when the three of them had been brought back together the night before. After assuring him they hadn’t hurt her, she’d brushed off his questions about her examination to write in her journa
ls. He wasn’t sure if she’d ever slept. She’d been awake and reading when he woke up. And still not in a mood to talk.

  “So,” said Barry, “how much longer you want to wait?”

  St. George paused and tapped his fingers against his thigh. “I don’t know,” he said. “I want to help. I don’t like giving up on anybody…but these people are wearing on my patience.”

  “They’re seriously paranoid,” agreed Barry, “but I think it goes with this deluded view of the world they’ve got.”

  “I know we’ve all probably thought about it,” said St. George, glancing at Madelyn, “but maybe…could this be a mind-control thing?”

  Her chalk eyes paused in their back-and-forth.

  “Agent Smith? The real Smith?” Barry shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s possible, I guess. He made all of us believe a bunch of stuff, but this doesn’t seem like his style.”

  “How so?”

  “First, let me point out I’ve always wanted to say that about a super-nemesis, so let’s remember today for that.” He paused for laughter, sighed, and continued. “Second, it just doesn’t feel like his kind of gig. Not to be harsh but…well, these people don’t have a lot to offer.”

  “Not that we know of,” said St. George.

  “Oh, sure, there’s always a chance the cargo ship had the Ark of the Covenant down in the hold or something. But, realistically, does it look like these people have anything Smith would want? That’d make it worth his time to come out here?”

  St. George shrugged, then shook his head.

  “And, seriously,” said Barry, “how lame does your theory have to be if I’m the one offering the realistic view?”

  Madelyn snorted out a laugh. She still didn’t look up from her journal, but the corners of her mouth twitched a bit.

  “It’s aliiiive,” moaned Barry. “Allliiiive!”

  “Shut up,” she said. She closed the journal. “He could just be doing it to mess with people. That is his style.”