Crimson Son

by Russ Linton

  “Command not recognized.”

  “Battle armor, shut. The. Fuck. Up.” I growl.

  “Spencer. Such language for a child,” Drake’s voice crawls across the void.

  “I’m not a child.”

  “I stand corrected. You’ve achieved that glorious milestone of having killed another man in cold blood. A rite of passage in Xamse’s savage world, no doubt.”

  “I didn’t do it, but I should have!” Not even I’m convinced. “You kidnapped my mother!”

  “You brought the gun. I tried to explain, my clients took your mother. I was simply following orders.”

  “Don’t try to weasel out of this. I’m glad that kid shot you.”

  “Do you think for a second you’ll find her alive?” There’s an almost vulnerable quality to his voice when he asks the question. Instead of making my blood boil, I feel a deep sense of regret. “Do you?” Drake’s lips move. The Drake in my arms. No-vital-signs Drake, his beady eyes blank. His suit whips furiously in the wind, the tie thrashing against the Battle Armor with rapid-fire snaps.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Is she the only reason you’re coming to Killcreek? What about your father?”

  “What about him? He can take care of himself.”

  “Can he?”

  “He’s strong, impervious to bullets, plasma, emotions. He’ll be fine.”

  “Isn’t that what you want to be?”

  “Maybe I did. At one time.”

  “What if he were all you had?” He sounds desperate now. “Do you want him back?”

  “Want him back? I don’t think I ever had him to begin with!”

  Anger burns past his desperation as he responds, “You don’t know what it is to truly be alone, Spencer.”

  Drake’s form shifts and blurs, the suit tearing off in the wind until only a white cloth remains entangled around a tiny form. A baby rests in my arms. I don’t know how I can even tell, but I know the bundled form is a girl. No name, no birthday, but all that is irrelevant to what’s about to happen.

  Images assault my mind, freefalling past memories, only they aren’t mine. I place the baby in the arms of a nurse. The same infant morphs into a young girl with a pretty round face set with delicately narrowed eyes. Stubble on her head peeks out beneath a thick layer of gauze hiding a nest of scars. She’s escorted by men in blue HAZMAT suits down a hallway and past doors that reel and shake violently amid agonizing screams. Without so much as a shudder or a misstep, she walks that hall to the very end.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  And then more images. Growing, living, day after day in the same stark rooms. Those memories merge with mine. I see the bleak halls of the bunker, the loneliness, the emptiness; but within the child, the feelings magnify to a soul-crushing weight. A weight I can’t even begin to understand. Tears trickle down my cheek.

  “Who are you?” I look up and find the wheel of light. I call out again, “Who are you? What are you?”

  The radiance quivers and the baby squirms. It grows, becoming slim and emaciated, all bones and knuckles. The young girl from the hallway is in my arms, naked, her flesh radiating a pink warmth. Beneath the fleshy glow, I can see the crooked form of veins and the straight lines of her bones. Silvery eyes regard me with curiosity. She opens her mouth.

  I start and lose hold as she unleashes an ear splitting cry of devastation.

  Awake, alert, I’m in the Battle Armor, forging into a cloud-pocked blue sky. But Drake’s tie no longer whips against the exoskeleton. His body is disappearing into a puffy cloud beneath me.

  “Shit! Battle Armor, uh, stop!”

  “Designate location.”

  “Screw this.”

  “Unable to comply.”

  I lean forward and the armor instantly mimics my movements. Footage of Dad plays nonstop in my imagination. All the hours spent watching the television, trying to keep up with him, becomes time well spent as his movements in flight inform my own. I’m piercing the clouds. Below runs a patchwork landscape of desert and canyons.

  The targeting reticle pulls my attention to the left. Drake’s body rushes to the earth. Jacket gone, the shirt ripped open, his pant legs flap wildly around his knees. A helpless ragdoll tossed in a wind tunnel. In my mind’s eye I can see his lips moving even beneath the congealed blood trailing from the bullet hole, and I shiver. I could let him become a pancake in the desert. Maybe that’s good enough.

  I swoop towards him, gathering him in my arms.

  Flying up into the sky, that was a cake walk. Open space gave little to worry about. But now the ground races toward my face at amazing speeds, and I start to realize that I don’t have a clue how to land.

  “Battle Armor! Land!”

  A wire image of the suit overlays my view and the figure turns upright. “Landing accomplished by assuming a vertical position and pointing toes downward,” Drake patiently explains. Sparse vegetation comes into focus. The sky leaves my field of vision. “Shall I do this for you?”

  “Yes!”

  Blue replaces the sands. I’m upright hovering several feet off the ground with a mangled, half-dressed corpse getting crushed in my arms. I shudder and relax the grip.

  Scanning the area, I see sand and rock occasionally broken by a green tuft of vegetation which clings desperately to survival. I pick a spot near a canyon wall and start walking.

  Or, well, stomping. Thundering. It’s so strange to be in this suit and barely lift my leg only to feel the solid impact of hundreds of pounds crushing the desert floor. In the shadow of the canyon, I place the body on the sand, drop to a knee, and begin to dig.

  The enormous pincers claw through the ground with ease, leaving a steadily growing pile of earth in their wake. I stop and examine the hole they’ve left—I’ve left. Not far below is a layer of rock that I’ve mindlessly shattered. Am I actually digging a grave?

  I turn and look at Drake, face down where I dumped him. He appears even more helpless, more broken than before. Half-clothed, thin, and fragile, with the sand gathered in a clump on the blood and matted skin of his skull, I feel more connected to that insane bond he was talking about. Weak and fragile, the suit wasn’t a project but a necessity. It’s how he survived in a world of super-powered people.

  Hound said he was my age when he went to war for his country. Xamse, I don’t even understand his story, but he’s been someone else’s soldier for a while now and he can’t be much older than me. Dad, he had to make decisions about life and death every day. Maybe he’s invincible, but he can’t be unscarred.

  “Battle Armor, can you access cell towers?”

  “Affirmative. Available communications can be blocked or compromised.”

  “Any signals in the area?”

  A glowing line sweeps across my view, bending and arcing in the outline of each facet until a bright light pings on the horizon. Tower switch codes, distance, and a host of information scrolls underneath the blip. “Weak signal available.”

  I place a call. Static bathes the ringing. A breathless voice answers, “Hello?”

  “Eric, it’s me.”

  “Oh my god! Spencer, dude! Where are you?”

  “I’m, I don’t know where this is…”

  The Battle Armor responds instantly, “WGS84 Latitude 44.121360 Longitude – 108.468416.”

  “Who’s that?” Eric asks and the static fills with the rhythm of a keyboard in the background. Before I can think of how to answer, he interrupts, “Wyoming. You’re in like Nowhere, Wyoming. How the hell did you get there?”

  “Long story, but listen, don’t send that video to the press. Not yet.”

  The connection crackles. “Did you say send it?”

  “No, don’t send it.”

  “Your connection blows. Why not?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not gonna hurt the Black Beetle anyway.”

  “Beetle? You found him?”

  “Yeah, some business guy. Drake.”

 
; “Holy shit!”

  “What?”

  “I should have put it together. The nanotech. Guy’s been all over the techie blogs. William Drake?”

  “I wasn’t formally introduced, man.”

  “He’s about to go public with some revolution in nanotech. He’s looking for investors. That’s the Beetle?”

  “I guess. Sorta. Was.”

  “I can’t hear you. Man, we could wreck him with this stuff. Who in their right mind invests in a company even remotely associated with the Beetle? You sure we don’t send?”

  Drake was bluffing about the data not being important. Why else chase me around the country with drones? Effortlessly, he put me off guard, almost controlled me, except for his little friend going postal.

  “Spence? You there?” He can barely be heard over the increasing static.

  “Yeah. Look, don’t send it. Not yet. I need to give someone else a chance to respond first.”

  “If you say so. But now what do I do?”

  He’s willing to do whatever I ask. I just want him safe. “Man, I want to tell you you’ve been one hell of a friend. You’re like a brother.”

  “You found your mother!?”

  “Maybe.” Not that speaking loud and slowly will clear the connection, but I do it anyway. “Look, you’re like a brother.”

  “Don’t get all serious now. Your smart ass doesn’t do serious well. You okay?”

  “Well, no. I did something wrong.” Drake’s vacant eyes sear into my mind.

  “Apart from riding a blender with legs?” A fractured silence sets in, the buzz of line noise fills the gap. Eric’s fuzzy voice quietly interrupts again, “My gun was missing. Is he…?”

  “Yes.”

  Another static filled pause and he speaks, “Man, he deserved it. How many more people was that dude gonna kill?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “We should talk about this later. When I can hear you.”

  “Yeah, I need to go.”

  “Don’t stay lost. I need a roommate for college.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. Cutting the connection, the static disappears and the Battle Armor falls silent.

  I swipe a claw through the dirt and roll Drake’s body into the open grave. Dirt and rock cascade around him as I quickly fill the grave. Tears well up in my eyes. I don’t know exactly what to do, but I have to finish this. My way.

  Chapter 45

  Towns large and small have zipped past, and even a massive crater I never knew existed, scooped out between a line of mountains and a flat dirt plain. For the longest time, I’ve been flying over a vast expanse of wilderness. Ridges and scattered trees rise and fall.

  “Weapon systems engaged.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Incoming hostiles with acquired target lock, elevation five thousand feet.” A targeting reticle appears, and one of the hexagonal facets in the eyes expands. The zoomed-in shot shows the red outline of a pair of jets. Not the Martin kind of jet, but the military, ass-whooping kind of jet. “Initiating evasive maneuvers.”

  “Hold on!” I shout. A steep descent leaves my stomach a thousand feet up but immediately levels off. “Christ! All this tech and no barf bags.”

  “Properly suited, the Scarab internal housing can evacuate most incidental biological functions,” Drake announces with all the gusto of a used car salesman.

  “How far to Killcreek?”

  “Arrival in fifteen minutes, forty-three seconds.”

  In the corner of my eye the hexagonal inset blinks and the focus sharpens as the two jets close. Then, I’m lost in their shadow as they rumble past, the wake of their engines causing the Battle Armor to dip and then surge upward.

  I felt big in the suit for a bit. But the jets are massive, their bellies lined with slender missiles. Drake, or the suit, seemed confident it could take them. I’ve got no interest.

  “Monitoring military communications channels,” Drake’s voice announces.

  An unfamiliar, commanding reply comes over the speaker. “Negative. Allow him through.” The man’s tone becomes almost conversational, “Beetle, I see you got the invitation. You clean this up, there’ll be a hefty bonus. You don’t, we’ll have no choice but to reduce the place to rubble. A note of warning—automated defenses may be active.”

  I’m still staring after the planes, as they bank sharply into the sky and disappear behind the sun, when the HUD flashes a new warning. Past the trees ahead, I can see the ground drops into a deep gorge. The new target, a battery of missiles, sits on the ridge with a military truck nearby. As I look, the HUD adjusts and begins to magnify.

  Then three more targets. A dozen. Hundreds. They’re cluttering the view panel, filling all the little hexagonal sections and surrounding my head in a net of light. From tanks to waiting helicopters, more missile batteries, and even trucks with giant guns mounted on the back. Soldiers swarm the hillsides like ants.

  Alarms beep in the helmet. “Multiple hostiles. Awaiting command.”

  “Don’t shoot. Don’t blink. Don’t do anything,” I reply.

  “Affirmative.”

  Past the gauntlet, nestled on the valley floor is an installation surrounded by dead space. No brush or trees, only the smooth contoured dirt of what might have once been a creek or small river. Earthen barriers redirect runoff around the base on both sides, but the parched land shows no recent signs of water.

  “Arrived at destination.”

  A high fence topped with razor wire surrounds the perimeter. Buildings the same color of the dirt rise up, defined only by thin shadows. Along the runway, dust and brittle weeds stir. A corporate jet sits idle on the tarmac, completely out of place.

  “No way.”

  I descend toward the runway, taking in every last line of the jet. As I gawk at the numbers on the tail, the Battle Armor locks on and a new information window opens. “Registration current. Holder: Alexander Enterprises.”

  “Martin?”

  Rapid beeping interrupts my shock, and targeting reticles appear around the facility at varying distances. The closest reticle centers on a hatch in the ground by the runway and I watch, unsure what to do next. I’m entranced as a barrel sprouts from the ground and alarms blare in my helmet. This has to be the biggest cannon I’ve ever seen, maybe as big as a gun on the deck of a battleship. The massive gun wheels with a speed I wouldn’t have thought possible. Before I can move, it’s bouncing on the ground as the barrel recoils.

  Red lights flash on the HUD. A blur like a passing freight train. I skid across the runway on my back as the thwump of the big gun rolls past.

  “Systems damage, moderate. Status.”

  “Battle Armor, get me into the air!”

  “Airborne evasive maneuvers initiated,” Drake says. In one smooth motion, I’m off the ground and soaring.

  Above the base, I have a perfect view. More alarms erupt as I lean forward and get more distance, moving away from the cannon on a column of blue-white exhaust. “Incoming threat.” The world spins and a trail of smoke streaks across the HUD, trailing into the distance. A red arrow pinpoints the source—a battery sandwiched between two buildings.

  “Arming Gravitational Shockwave Cannon. Ready to fire at your command.”

  I point an arm. “Do it. Fire. Fire!”

  A ripple of invisible energy boils through the air, and a second cluster of missiles explodes in-flight or veers off on wild trajectories. The destructive energy wave reduces the launcher into tiny fragments borne away on an invisible current.

  I hover, staring at my armored hand through the HUD. So, this is what power is like.

  Glowing tracers ignite the air. A warning flashes, “Small Arms Impact”, as bullets ping on the outer hull. I follow the arrow again.

  Another turret, this one with smaller guns but spewing out a constant stream of lead. Sparks spatter across the armor, but the rounds ricochet harmlessly. The cannon near the runway has repositioned, too, and bounces violently as another plume of sm
oke erupts. No warning lights this time, but I curl to one side all the same. The shell goes wide and sends a heavy shudder through the suit with its passing.

  “You missed, bitches!”

  “Trajectory will correct in 5, 4, 3…” Drake’s voice calmly counts down as the cannon turret whips into a new position. “2…”

  I point my palm and shout, “Fire!”

  The same pulse of energy ripples toward the cannon. As the pulse extends, it builds and the air balloons outward, leaving a dark shadow rippling across the earth. The enormous cannon becomes an indistinguishable spray of parts with the bigger pieces skipping away into the compound. I unleash another blast to the side and the whine of the bullet-spewing turret is silenced.

  “Threat negated.”

  “Ho-lee shit! That’s the understatement of the year.” I stare down at the suit. I see the equivalent of a fairly serious door-ding and the front is spattered with hundreds of black streaks, probably from the bullets, but seriously, that’ll buff out. The base’s automated defenses are obliterated, and the Battle Armor looks as if it were hit by a runaway shopping cart.

  Alarms inside the visor finally shut up. I land next to the plane and peer through the cockpit window.

  “Hello?” I call out.

  “Awaiting command,” responds the armor.

  “No, bug-brain, I mean, ‘hello’. To the outside.”

  “Intercom engaged.”

  “Hello?” The tinny reverb vibrates my voice in the bug-like chatter. “Battle Armor, knock off the Sith Lord speech.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Speech cloaking disengaged.”

  “Hello? It’s me, Spencer.” I stand nose to nose with the plane, looking inside. Empty. But the controls, the same seat where I sat, this is definitely Martin’s plane. Is Emily here, too? How the hell did they know where this place was? How’d they not get shot out of the sky?

  I turn toward the complex. There isn’t much to this base. From the air, the most promising structure was maybe the smallest, central building. Despite the size, I noticed a massive reinforced door, similar to the one at Whispering Pines. Pointing my toes, I take off skimming across the ground.