by Ken Bebelle
Phillips distrusted him instantly. Nobody is that average. He knew he was looking at a graduate of The Farm.
Prick. Phillips leaned forward and lowered his normal booming octaves, “Be that as it may, beyond simple courtesy there are security protocols to observe, Agent Harding. I’m sure you know all about those.”
Harding gave a slight tip of his head, “Touché, Colonel.” He pushed open his crisp black blazer, revealing his badge clipped onto his belt. Phillips caught a glimpse of a compact shoulder holster, cleverly hidden by the cut of the jacket.
Abbé let out a loud harrumph and lifted his scanner pad. Harding obliged him and placed his palm onto the pad. Phillips lasered in on his hand. Calloused on the palm, small webbings of white scars on the back, a fighter’s knuckles. A soft ping sounded as Harding’s clearance was confirmed.
Phillips strode past them both to the rear of the lab, and pressed his palm to the scanner pad on the back wall. The wall slide up and a locker room of sorts was revealed. Phillips yanked one of the lab suits off the rack and stepped into it. Abbé walked over and zipped up the back of the suit and handed the headgear to Phillips.
Abbé stepped into his own encapsulated labsuit and Harding did the same. Shortly after zipping up, Abbé handed out radio buds and the men popped them in before sliding their head gear over. Then came their breathing apparatus hookups. Long tubes coiled from behind them, feeding them their clean oxygen and warming their bodies. Finally, they were all decked out as if ready to repair the outside of a space station.
“Synced. Please confirm.” Abbé’s voice sounded a bit muffled in the confines of the isolation suit.
Harding put out an arm and rapped on his own head gear twice. “Confirmed.”
Even through the confines of the gear, Harding’s voice managed to annoy Phillips. Phillips watched the lights inside his helmet go green across the board. “We’re a go, open it up.”
Phillips kept watch on Harding from the corner of his eye as the airlock cycled through purging the air and spraying them down. He had a feeling he was going to need a better read on him before the day was out.
From the decontamination unit they stepped into the viewing level. The temperature here was a balmy minus 60°C. Sensors flashed and a bright light flooded the interior of the Vault, illuminating the room which could be clearly seen through the floor to ceiling glass panel exteriors of the Vault.
Phillips couldn’t make out Harding’s face behind the voluminous head gear and the visor panel but he took a moment to imagine some satisfaction in seeing the Ringhead carcass secured to the gurney. Correction, two gurneys end to end in order to contain the monstrous thing.
Harding took a few steps closer to the glass panels but stopped short of actually bonking into them. “What about the weapon?”
Almost absently, Phillips toggled a chin switch to lower the gun rack down from the ceiling. The alien weapon had been retrieved by his second recruit, Keenan Flynn, during the first skirmish with the Ringheads in the Arctic Circle. That was more than two years ago. Much to Stan’s dismay, no one had ever been able to activate it.
Abbé slid his arm into one of the control sleeves for the robotic arms within the Vault. With barely perceptible gestures, the robotic arm grasped the weapon and lifted it from the brackets. Then the arm brought it directly in front of Harding and slowly rotated it to provide a 360 degree view of the weapon. The alien gun was about a meter long, made of the same dark blue-gray material as the Needle. Its dull surface seemed to absorb light, a strange matte vacuum.
On the glass panel before them, a laser began to render a three-dimensional image of the weapon as if etching the glass.
Harding tilted his head upward to study the image. “Strange, it seems more hollow than I would have expected.”
The robot hand stopped moving and Abbé began to speak in his rapid fire way, “Yes, exactly! We have this rendering after imaging all the points of this device but we do not know how it discharges that incredible energy blast.”
Harding traced his forefinger along the outline of the image and paused. “I’m going to need to commandeer this weapon.”
Before Phillips could respond, Abbé yelped. “No! That’s outrageous. It’s the only one we have.”
Harding shook his head. “Dr. Abbé, you don’t know this about me, but the Colonel’s probably read my file.”
He turned and took a few steps closer to Abbé. “I have been dealing arms for Uncle Sam for the last decade. Mostly supply side. I’m retired from that now that I work R&D but I’ve got weapons contracts coming up to my ears.” Harding pointed at the weapon. “That there is the weapon we need to be reverse engineering.”
Abbé released the robotic controls and stood to his full height, which at about 5’7” put him a head shorter than Harding. “Ridiculous! You can’t manufacture that! We don’t know how it works or what it’s made of.”
Harding shook his head again. “Correction, Doctor. You don’t know how it works or what it’s made of.”
Phillips heard Abbé’s sharp inhalation of outrage and decided it was time to intervene. “Agent Harding, our security protocols here at the Vault have managed to keep this item safe for the last two years. Surely your commandeering can wait until after Dr. Beaufort’s findings?”
Both Abbé and Harding turned to look at him. Abbé bobbed a bit, as if in excitement, “Yes, yes. Honorée will want to do her examination of the carcass and the weapon together. We cannot separate those.”
Harding turned to scrutinize the pale blue alien carcass. “What exactly will Dr. Beaufort be needing the weapon for?”
Phillips spread his hands expansively. “Look, she’s a world renowned exo-biologist and the world’s foremost expert on Ringhead biology. She’s the most likely person to be able to figure out how to activate it.”
Harding clasped his hands together. “Normally I’d be concerned with her clearance but she has kept her lips sealed all these years since she killed the first Ringhead.”
Abbé gasped. Phillips ignored him and responded to Harding, “Yes, that’s right. I worked with Senator Jackson to procure an agreement with France for their cooperation. So our guy Eckmann took the credit for the kill and the blame for not recovering any alien tech at the time in exchange.”
Harding took a step back from the Vault. “I’ll give my boss a call. But when Beaufort’s done, that weapon is coming back with me.”
Thirteen
Jump
MACK
The directions he’d been given brought him to the lowest levels of Camp Glenn, crutching through endless gray hallways. A repeating pattern of yellow and red lights activated by his biosignature traced the walls before him, leading to his destination.
Now Mack sat in a hard plastic chair, off to one side of the enormous, open-plan lab. Rows and rows of blazing shop lights crowded the high ceiling, washing everything in the room to a relentless blinding white. Gleaming steel workbenches stood at the ready, each armed with an arsenal of tools, monitors, and projects at various states of completion.
On a bench to his right he saw an exoskeleton, splayed like a man being stretched on a rack. To his left a bench was covered in both physical and holographic monitors, each screen scrolling endless columns of numerical data. A little further off he could see the twisted and blackened remains of Sasha’s rail gun. Mack had listened to Sasha fret about her poor Betsy until Dr. Abbé had promised to have the Betsy 2 built within 48 hours.
In fact, Dr. Abbé was the only other person in the lab at this moment. His ebony skin shone in stark contrast to his crisp white labcoat and the sterile surroundings. Dr. Abbe bustled at the far end of the lab, bent over a workbench littered with mechanical odds and ends, the whirring sound of a drill echoing off the ceiling. He muttered to himself and bent closer to the bench now, faint spirals of smoke rising up.
Mack tapped his foot on the floor. He could feel his missing foot tapping as well, which was driving him a little crazy right now
. He shifted his weight in the chair, trying to get comfortable, feeling lopsided no matter how he sat. He lifted the stump of his left leg off the chair and massaged the end, tracing the jagged scar that ran from left to right. This set off a tickling sensation in his missing foot, but at least quieted the phantom foot tapping.
The Dubs’ commitment to returning soldiers to duty meant the base had more than its share of grunts on the rehab track. Mack never begrudged another soldier’s chance to return to active duty, but honestly he’d never given any of these guys a second thought.
Mack turned to the bench closest to him. A prosthetic arm similar to Sasha’s hung suspended from a frame bolted to the bench, the hand opening and closing in a steady mechanical rhythm. The monitors showed the arm was being endurance tested, and was now fifty percent finished with a half-million cycles. A spray of fine wiring emanated from the top of the device, the wires twitching just slightly as the hand clenched and opened. It looked like a metallic jellyfish struggling to free itself from a cave.
Looking at that arm, Mack wondered what his new leg would look like. Getting a robotic leg just seemed unreal but he was relieved it wouldn’t be pretending to be something it wasn’t. No eerie synthetic skin, no attempt to replicate a human leg. Just a sleek cylinder of nano-lattice ceramics and titanium, micro-weave muscle mesh, finished off with a tensile blade for his foot. Guess I won’t need to worry about losing socks in the laundry anymore.
His lips twisted in a grim parody of a smile. Well, half the socks.
Dr. Abbé shuffled across the lab, struggling with both arms to carry the new prosthetic leg. Mack nearly stood up to help him with it, before setting back into the chair, glowering at his missing leg. Some help you are.
The wiry doctor heaved the leg onto the nearest bench with a huff and looked Mack in the eye. “If not for the tissue damage from the Ringhead Frostbite you would be in Dr. Patel’s lab, having your leg regrown over the next two weeks. As it is, I have to make not only a leg for you, but also a custom build because you are too tall!”
“Um, sorry? Next time I’ll just ask the Ringheads to just off me, ok doc?”
Dr. Abbé ignored Mack, mumbling. “Yes, yes, just so.” The doctor continued fiddling with the leg, flexing the knee back and forth, examining the ankle joint.
Mack drummed his fingers on the top of the bench and looked at the wall clock. It was still too early for the day shift, so the lab would be empty for at least another hour. Most of the base personnel who were awake were probably at chow. His stomach grumbled in protest.
Dr. Abbé swung the leg off the table and placed it in front of Mack.
Mack grinned. “There are many like it, but this one is mine?”
Dr. Abbé gave him a puzzled look.
Mack sighed. No one appreciates the classics. “Show me how it works, doc.”
“The reference implant we placed in your femur during surgery will allow the prosthesis to auto-align to you. Once I key the circuitry to your DNA, nano-filaments will find your nerves and infiltrate. When I tell you, begin moving your knee, the programming will do the rest.”
He placed the end of the prosthesis near Mack’s stump of a leg. The ceramic shell covered his thigh and the filaments came to life, reacting to the reference implant. As the leg locked into place with an audible thump, Dr. Abbé nodded. “Begin flexing.”
Mack began squeezing his muscles. The nano-wires coiled around his leg, an army of pinpricks as they pierced his skin, sending sharp tingles across his skin and up his back.
Dr. Abbé followed the progress on his tablet. “Good, good. This next part may feel a little strange.”
Mack yelped, his cry echoing through the empty room. It felt like someone had grabbed his toes. And now it was his whole foot.
“Keep flexing! We need the processor to calibrate correctly!”
Mack grunted, and bore down. His stump was burning with electric sensations, and a light sweat sprang up across his neck. His hands gripped the cheap plastic chair as he clenched the muscles in his amputated leg, willing it back into existence.
The new leg twitched, ever so slightly.
Dr. Abbé tapped out a sequence on his tablet. “Yes, yes! That’s it!”
Mack dug deep, straining to lift the leg he had left on the battlefield. With halting jerks and stops, the leg slowly lifted from the floor, straightening at the knee. He whooped, “It’s alive!”
In his excitement, he stood up, placing most of his weight on his new left leg. The leg held, and for the first time in weeks, Mack stood again on two feet.
Dr. Abbé scurried closer, nearly dropping his tablet. “Not yet!” He knelt on the floor, his head alarmingly close to Mack’s groin. Mack hopped back half a step and again settled his weight onto his new leg. While Dr. Abbé made his mysterious adjustments, Mack revelled in feeling the solid feel of the floor under both feet. His left leg still felt oddly out of place, almost a little numb, but standing tall on both feet felt like warm sunshine after days of rain.
Mack took a deep breath, and looked down again at the unsettling view of the top of Dr. Abbé’s head. “We ready to take this out for a spin yet, doc?”
“Yes, yes, just a moment,” Dr. Abbé reached behind him for his tablet and keyed in a few more strokes. Several open panels on the thigh of the prosthesis closed and sealed. Dr. Abbé stood and backed away. “You are ready for walking.”
Mack looked down at his feet, one size 16 monster in his beat up basketball kicks, and one gleaming, neural integrated, cybernetic prosthesis. By god, but he could feel the hard concrete beneath his feet, the slight bump in the floor at the slab seam, he could even feel the cool temperature of the floor. He flexed his calves, waving his arms to find his balance as he lifted up onto his toes. He barked out a laugh of pure joy and wonder and crouched down to his knees.
“Wait wait wai---”
Dr. Abbé’s warning went unheard as Mack launched from his crouch, and shot towards the ceiling. He yelped in surprise as he cleared eight feet and smashed into the hanging shop lights. He tangled in the cables and tore the fixture from the ceiling, crashing back to the ground. Flimsy aluminum twisted and shrieked when he landed, spraying splintered glass in all directions. Mack lay in the midst of the shattered light fixture, hands over his face, laughing like a loon.
He put a hand against his cheek and it came away bloody. Pushing to a seated position, he was confronted by the sight of Abbé keening in distress. “Sorry, doc.”
“Imbecile! I said walking! ” Abbé rushed to a control panel and with a press of his fingers, two floor utility bots zoomed out of the closet and began dusting and vacuuming. He spoke to the base AI, “Hestia, lab lights and ceiling tiles are damaged. Please page facilities personnel for repair.”
“Yes, Dr. Abbé. Paging, now.”
A new voice from behind him interrupted the cleanup. “Are you ready?”
Mack turned around. Sasha stood behind him. She was still dressed in dusty field armor, the chest plate marred with two long parallel gouges. Gleaming titanium sparkled from beneath the damaged ceramic. Her normally tidy hair was matted with dirt and sweat, but her eyes shined bright, pupils wide and dark. She was probably coming down off a stim. Damn, she can be sneaky when she wants to. She looked him up and down, eyes lingering on the new leg.
“I just had to bench my heavy gunner.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her eyes hard. “They're not sure he's going to make it. You ready to come back to the bigs?”
Mack stood slowly, dusting debris off his clothes. Dr. Abbé yelped again behind him. Standing this close to her, their height difference was almost comical. She barely came to his chin but she held his gaze without wavering.
He looked down at the new leg extending from his gym shorts. After a few steps in place he rocked up on his toes again, now bouncing lightly, with more control than before. He could feel the added power from the prosthesis, how he would have to rebalance his strength on the left side to not overpower
his right leg.
Running would be different. Heck, walking would be different. He would probably crash again if he tried jumping. But for the first time in weeks, he found he was looking forward to tomorrow with some sense of purpose. I can do this.
He turned and grabbed his crutches off the floor. Crouching down to get them was a little awkward, as was getting back up again. But it still felt damn good. He called out to Dr. Abbé. “Yo! Doc!” He walked towards him and waved the crutches. “Can you get these back to the med ward?” He placed the crutches on the nearest bench and flashed Dr. Abbé a high sign. The doctor sniffed and bent to this work again.
Mack walked back to Sasha, his speed increasing as he crossed the floor. As his pace increased, he began to skip-walk and he nearly crashed into the petite soldier. He grinned after the near collision. “Fuck yeah, let’s do this!”
Fourteen
Fighting Back
Cam cracked her eyes open and scanned the room. A quiet hum she felt through the gel bed hinted at machinery or engines nearby.
From her vantage point, she could see the high ceiling as it arced overhead. Judging by the way the aliens moved around when here, the room was small.
The biting cold that assaulted her when she first awoke felt better now, dulled to a chilly ache in her joints. She flexed her fingers, the only part of her body she could move. Even her head felt securely restrained. She gritted her teeth and tried to bring her arms up, failing at the attempt. Her joints felt strange and tight, like an overwound rubber band. Her mind, however, felt sharp, clear of drug-induced cobwebs.
She scanned the room, eyes fully open now, looking for anything that might be useful. A frightening array of instruments were suspended from the ceiling above her. Nothing within reach.