by Russ Linton
“They’ll investigate.” I try my best not to stammer. “The media will be all over this place!”
“Fine. No press is bad press, they say, hmm? Let me enlighten you. Nothing will connect the Black Beetle to me. Worst case, it will be a nightmare for my former client. They’ll have paid billions to a defense contractor who had no idea about what his technology was being used for.” He leans close as he whispers, becoming a black shadow backlit by the red glow from the alcove. “No clue that they pressed desperate terrorists into service to do their bidding.” His eyes flick toward Xamse, who is busy prepping the battle armor. “And they’ll deny it all.”
I’m frozen in that soul-crushing gaze.
“The right thing is what I say. When I say it. Yes?” He says loudly. I’m not even sure who he’s talking to and I don’t try to answer. “Your father followed the wrong orders. Look where it got him.”
“What, what do you mean?”
“Make your next move.”
It comes as a demand rather than a request and I glance at the board. He’s made his move for the center with his own knight. I ignore the wasp and threaten a mantis bishop instead with one of my own. He has to choose. More pieces fly, but fewer of mine are leaving the board.
His black widow queen strikes out. He’s one move away from check. He scowls as I pin his queen with my own.
“My clients were wasting time, chasing wayward Augments and hoping those under orders would suddenly become oblivious to the gifts they’d been given and voluntarily turn themselves in. I envisioned a better way, and knew I would have one obstacle—the Crimson Mask. It was my idea to let him believe the Black Beetle had gone rogue. Of course, our former employer supported this wholeheartedly. So while I used their intelligence to stay ahead of him, I rounded up any Augment not on his radar. He did ‘right’. I did ‘wrong’. We met in the middle.”
I stare at the board. I control that crucial center with a handful of pawns. Soon, however, I find open lines for the stag beetle rooks. Unlike him, I cover my pawn advance, maintaining that control with the weakest piece. His face pinches in exasperation.
“Your father may not have been like me, but you, you most assuredly are. You are the true giant among men. I created the Black Beetle for people like us. You could make a capable assistant.” His eyes are glued to the board as he speaks.
I catch the dark-skinned kid looking this way, only half-absorbed in his work at the Battle Armor.
He moves too late to stop me. We trade queens. My rooks advance, forcing his king out of hiding. No longer aggressive, my opponent’s face twists in rage as he backpedals. Soon, I’m on the verge. His pieces are leaving the board and his king is stuck trying to clear the center while my rooks circle. I can win this.
“Quite capable,” he muses. His offer from earlier rings in my ears.
“No,” I say, the refusal building up from a deep, cold place, hidden from the world for so long.
The beady eyes become dark slits. “I’d hoped for a better answer.”
“You get off on this, don’t you? Playing games with people.”
“My, you are dramatic.” His tiny mouth shrinks.
“This isn’t about me. You don’t want me to be your assistant, you want me to be your slave. The Crimson Mask’s son, your personal boot licker. One last twist of the knife. You torture everything close to you, for your own gratification, and hide behind a wall of unthinking, unquestioning hardware. Things, which you dominate solely because they can’t talk back. Can’t think for themselves.”
“You’re pushing your luck, boy.” His gaze turns murderous.
I leap to my feet tossing the chess board across the floor. Insects scurry in all directions, several coming to rest at Xamse’s feet as he watches.
“I am not a boy! AND I AM NOT YOUR PUPPET!”
Without hesitation, the Black Beetle launches over the fallen table. I try to punch him in the face but he bats my arm down with a crazed fury and we’re suddenly tumbling backward. My head strikes the tile, and little flares explode in the ensuing darkness. I try to struggle but his fingers dig into my sweatshirt and now the stars repeat, again, again, again. Vicious, incoherent hisses escape the Beetle’s stretched mouth and spittle strikes my cheek as he shouts, “Xamse! Bring me the collar in my desk!” He slams me to the tile with a burst of maniacal strength and the world grays out for an instant. “We’ll see whose puppet you are, boy!”
Thrashing and hopeless, I aim a knee at his groin and he anticipates, jamming his own knee into my thigh. “Xamse! Now!”
I hear a noise at the desk as I writhe in pain. There’s no escaping his grip but I struggle and scream, “You took them both! You took them from me!”
“Xamse! Hurry, you indolent fool!” Hot breath and spit scatter as his twisted face rounds on me. “Quit your whining! One brat’s parents are a fair price for ‘peace’. A fair price for the birth of an engineering miracle which will soon change the entire world!”
I try again to break free, but he has the strength of utter insanity on his side. I keep fighting anyway, squirming, then his grip loosens.
“Xamse? What do you think you’re doing?”
I follow his gaze. The dark-skinned boy has Eric’s .38 leveled at the Black Beetle’s head. Beady eyes flick to the desk and then to Xamse’s other hand, which is holding a small black box.
“That’s exactly it, sir. I’m thinking.”
A flash. A sharp pop. And the Black Beetle’s blood mingles with the red light from the Battle Armor’s vault.
Chapter 43
“You… you shot him.”
I stare as Xamse turns to face the suit in the alcove. “I have killed men before. Children. Mr. Drake took me from that. Saved me,” he whispers. I glance up, trying to read him. He faces me and the gun hangs limp in his hand, tears clouding his eyes. I don’t know what to make of this so I train my eyes on the ground.
Mr. Drake. The bloody mess on the floor has a name. Not Black Beetle. Not the scourge of Augments everywhere. Just Mr. Drake.
Hunched over, bleeding, I wipe the corners of my mouth. I came here thinking I was ready to put a bullet in that man’s head. So easy, you just pull a trigger and end the pain. But I can’t erase the image from my mind. Chunks of his brain spraying out the back of his skull. My stomach turns.
Djinn’s mutilated face. Bloated bodies in the Thames. Arms dangling from crushed cars on a Mumbai highway. I only thought I was free when that pod launched. But the bunker has held me in its icy grip this entire time. Death. I’ve come so close so many damn times and only now is it all sinking in. Emily was right, I had a death wish. I hadn’t cared if I lived or died.
Xamse wanders toward the body and kneels, placing the gun on the ground. With purposeful motions, he straightens the Black Beetle’s limp form and crosses the arms on the chest. Gently, he turns Drake’s face, painted red by the pool of blood, toward the ceiling. Xamse stays focused, intent, kneeling next to the body and rocking gently on his knees.
The gun is within reach, but, then what? I slip into a crouch and shuffle backward on my palms, leaning first on my toes, then my heels, I raise up, backing away, searching for balance as I inch toward the door.
A strangled cry bursts from Xamse and I drop to the floor again. He’s beating his chest, screaming, crying in a weird language I’ve never even heard. He takes up the gun. I nearly trip over my own feet trying to get to the doors. They rattle in the frame as I yank on the handles.
I want to live. A card reader and electronic lock—no problem, with time, tools. But my backpack is by the corpse and the crazy, gun-wielding kid.
Xamse’s screaming stops. I spin, plastered against the door. Instead of shooting me, or maybe himself, he speaks. “My family died. Died at the hands of an evil man.” The words tumble out softly, in the wake of his anguish or grief. He sniffs and his eyes drop to the body. “Yours doesn’t have to.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“I know where
your mother was taken…”
“Where? Is she alive?” I move away from the door.
“I do not know if she lives. But she was taken to Killcreek. Your father, too.”
“And you know where this place is? You can show me?”
Xamse tucks the gun in his waistband and walks to the desk. The holographic screen springs to life and he taps at the illuminated keyboard. Despite the danger, I cross the room, cautiously slipping on my backpack and moving to stand in front of the screen.
“That’s amazing,” I say, in awe of the skin of light floating in the air.
He continues typing. Images shift and slide by until a satellite picture dominates the screen. “The base is here. Northern Montana. I monitor the drones that take prisoners there.”
Half-awed, half-shocked, I stare at the screen. Montana. That’s a long trip, and my bridges with plane-owning friends have been napalmed. It could take me days to drive. “How would I even get there?” I wonder aloud. Cuddles? Not sure I can cling to her back that long.
Xamse steps from behind the desk and crosses the room toward the alcove. He stares up at the Battle Armor. A calmness overtakes him and he says, “This.”
My pulse skyrockets. The armor stands empty, but those same eyes from countless dreams stare back. So many thoughts race through my mind. Thoughts and images I wrestled, night after night. But facing this monster again, with Drake gone for good, I can finally see that the fear hid a tiny spark I never wanted to acknowledge.
There was truth to what the Beetle said. I don’t have to be powerless anymore. A man was in that suit. An ordinary man. Flying. Busting down walls and ignoring the existence of doors. Keeping the world’s strongest Augment at bay for years.
Not until I feel the cool sensation of the outer shell under my palm do I realize I’ve crossed the room. Xamse moves next to me, casually flipping open the casing and running through a series of checks. His luminous eyes land on me between routine motions.
“I don’t know if I can.” I say this and know it’s a lie.
“Of course you can.” He doesn’t stop his preparations. “But you must be careful. We monitored all communications from the base and it appears the facility was compromised.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
He stops, one hand resting on the Battle Armor’s forearm. He sweeps his gaze in the direction of Drake’s body lying out of view on the far side of the desk. “He is no different. No different from the man that destroyed my village.”
“I thought you said Drake saved you?”
“He did. For himself. He never did it for me. The man who slaughtered my family and called himself a warrior stuck a gun in my hand, told me to fight. Drake asked the same, only we killed from this place. Not in the fields and jungles where there is blood, real blood.” He focuses on me. “I heard the things you said. I am no puppet, either. I checked his programs. If I got in the Battle Armor like he asked, I would not return.”
“Whoa, not return?” The surge of excitement I felt when he first mentioned test driving my nightmares ebbs.
“Do not worry. I changed the programs. The suit will not destroy itself, now,” he says, unconcerned.
“Why should I even trust you?”
He finishes putting a sequence of numbers into the wrist-mounted keypad and the Battle Armor releases a pressured exhale. The front half hinges outward on both sides exposing the central cavity. Wires and hoses form striated groupings along the casing, and booted hydraulics are visible at every joint. In between all of this exists an empty space, a puzzle piece in the rough shape of a human beneath the oversized insect head.
“Go ahead. Get in,” he says.
“What about that heir stuff? Don’t you need this?” My attention is on the suit. Most likely this is my only chance to save my mother. But this trigger-happy kid scares me.
“I am the only one who knows all of his secrets. I am his wäras. This is one secret of many, and one that no longer has use to me.”
“But aren’t people going to be looking for Drake? Asking questions?”
“Perhaps. That is why I wish you to take the remains.”
“The what?”
He disappears behind the desk. “Murder, suicide would cause many problems, and I do not wish to embarrass my new client,” Xamse grunts as he drags the body into view. Pausing, the corpse’s arms pulled taut between his hands and the floor, Xamse scans the office. “There is the teleconference system, the same one he used to disguise himself as Black Beetle when he broadcast. It can be reprogrammed. Mr. Drake can leave a message, admitting his involvement and that he plans to go into hiding. This will buy time until my new client calls again.” A faint red smear follows behind the boy and his burden. As he pulls he speaks in quiet tones, “See, I am thinking. You would be proud.”
Leaving the body at the battle armor’s feet, Xamse pats the side of the armor and watches expectantly. “You must hurry, our former client, the government, asked for our help. They wanted the Black Beetle to come and regain control of the base.”
I crawl inside, crouching and staring into the helmet. A metal claw waits above, the fingers terminating in electrodes. “What the hell is that?”
“The neural cage? It is used for transmitting commands through your skull.”
“Uh, no. Cage and skull don’t go together in the same space.”
“For movement, the helmet reads neural impulses. Go on. Nothing will happen to you.” He sighs as I stare. “If I wanted you to die, I would have shot you.”
He has a point.
Once I’m in, Xamse enters a sequence into the keypad and a rush of air coated in the sweet smell of hydraulics fills the compartment as the suit seals around me. There’s way too much room in here; a booster seat would be a nice addition. Even as I struggle to reach into the spaces meant for arms and legs, and tiptoe to force my head into the helmet, the suit pressurizes. The empty space adjusts, cocooning me in a gearhead’s dream.
“Systems, online.” A voice within the helmet sends a shiver up my spine.
I’m now towering above Drake’s body. Targeting vectors and data streams flick around the inert form like flies. That corpse didn’t move or even flinch, but I’m hearing his voice. The voice of William Drake. The Black Beetle. The guy whose brains just exited the back of his head.
“Possible threat approaching. Thermal engaged.” Drake’s voice echoes in the suit.
The visuals change and Xamse becomes a reddish blob, the gun in his waistband blinking a virulent purple.
“He’s not a threat,” I say. When I speak, my voice comes out distorted and tinny; the signature buzz of the Black Beetle.
“Weapon systems offline.” I cringe at the suit’s statement and check Xamse’s face to see if he could hear.
He’s calm and collected in his reply. “See. You trust me, I trust you.”
“All-righty, then.”
Craning my neck, I see a hatch directly above the alcove. How I can get from here to there isn’t exactly clear. “How does this work? Can I pull up a wiki or something?”
“Of sorts. There is a list of commands, but the suit is adaptive and will learn to respond to what you say and do. Just move your arms and legs as you would outside the suit. It will do this.”
Before I realize I’m nodding, the head bobs up and down. I step out of the alcove and test the arms, moving them back and forth. Lifting legs, bending knees, finally kneeling, the suit responds instantly with each motion. My freakish bug eyes go to Drake and a targeting reticle appears followed by his voice reporting, “Target has no vital signs.”
As carefully as I can, I scoop up Drake’s broken form. Xamse turns to the desk, and moments later, light trickles into the alcove. I step backward, bathed in an early morning glow. Unnaturally pale in the light, the body hangs weightless in my arms.
I peer upward through a haze of blinking lines and crosshairs. They mimic my eye’s exact movements. Above, a cloudless sky, orange with the first s
igns of dawn, caps the long chute. The section of floor I’m standing on starts to rise. Xamse’s upturned eyes are the last thing I see before the platform disappears into the ceiling. Before long, I’m on the roof, not far from Cuddles.
“Battle Armor, what is the location of Crimson Mask?”
“Crimson Mask transferred to Killcreek Facility, Montana.” Drake’s oozing voice sounds almost pleasant.
“Can you take me there?”
No answer.
“Battle Armor, take me to Killcreek Facility.”
A freight train rumble shatters the early morning silence. The orange sky expands in brilliant stripes of purple and yellow. Below, buildings shrink away into a painstakingly detailed model, until only a nondescript patchwork of roofs and streets remains.
My undead copilot speaks, “Destination set. Weapons online.”
Chapter 44
Darkness. No dreams. Brain made of Jell-O. Probably orange, I hate orange. How does that make any sense? I’m swimming in a void, again, but no one else is here this time.
Alone. A different kind of isolated. That numb feeling of the bunker has ensnared my senses. I don’t care about Mom. Dad. Eric, Emily, Doc. My own messed-up life. I could stay here.
I was headed somewhere moments ago. Flying over the earth, watching the neat squares of green and brown bubble into rough hills, wooded slopes and finally bald peaks. My head couldn’t keep up with the surging battle armor’s rockets. The world went gray. I kept getting left behind, drifting in and out. I guess staying up all night flying on the back of a robot will do that to you.
A tiny speck of light forms. I fly closer to it. Teetering between reality and a dream, I don’t know how I can even move. Asleep but standing. Moving, but stuck in place. A hole pierces the circle of light.
“Estimated arrival in three hours, twenty-two minutes,” Drake’s voice echoes, shattering the solitude.
“Shut up.” I’m trying to make progress toward the speck of light and getting nowhere fast.