Semper Fi

by Evan Currie

  For the moment, however, he was going to focus on Hyde.

  The big guy was turtled up, using his massive arms to defend as Hale rained down blows one after the other. The force of each was actually causing him to slide back on the pavement a few inches with each strike. Hale continued, letting himself deliver the attacks in a rhythm that he’d normally never use, but for now he was waiting for the man to spot the pattern.

  They were almost in the plaza when Hyde struck back, timing his riposte to strike between the heavy blows Hale was delivering.

  The heavy uppercut caught Hale in the chest and would have caved in the ribs of anyone remotely close to normal, throwing Hale back and up from the force. Hale grinned, reversing course in mid air with a rapidity that stunned Hyde by the look on his face, hammering a single heavy right to his head.

  Hyde went to his knees, more from the surprise than the blow, Hale expected as he landed back in front of him.

  “Give it up,” He ordered in Arabic. “You’re tough, but you’re not that tough.”

  “He may not be, Infidel, but I believe that we are.”

  Hale turned, noting the speaker was centered in a group of eight that were approaching up the street.

  “Finally,” Hale said with a grin. “What took you idiots so long?”

  The eight shifted uneasily at the unexpected response, exchanging glances with one another.

  “Don’t you know the curtain’s already gone up?” Hale asked cheerily. “The show must go on, don’t you know.”

  He rubbed his right fist idly.

  “Let’s break a leg, shall we?”

  *****

  Chapter 7

  Blue Solar HQ, London

  “Riots have broken out across the UK in the last few hours…”

  Wesley turned off the TV, knowing there would be nothing of any value showing there.

  On the bright side, or he supposed it might be considered that, there were no reports of any superhumans behind any of it. Of course, that just made the situation all the worse in Wesley’s opinion.

  As if we don’t have enough real problems, these imbeciles have to go and do this?

  He was beginning to feel like humanity wasn’t worth saving. With a clear and present threat the likes of which none of them had ever seen in the past, those… fucking imbeciles were rioting over their own petty bullshit.

  Worse, it wasn’t just a few people in one place or even a few places. Oh, no, it had to be a damned worldwide riot epidemic.

  Honestly it was enough for Wesley to start pulling his hair out, if he weren’t so damn protective of his hair anyway.

  Damn male pattern baldness gene.

  Of course, if the new research would stop killing and crippling the volunteers, CRISPR might finally solve that problem. He still had a few years left before he had to decide between a toupee and the Mr Clean look, after all.

  That aside, however, Wesley didn’t have a clue what to do about the developing situation as it continued to roll on across the planet. A few days earlier the riots had been sporadic, and almost entirely confined to areas with reports that were consistent with superhuman influence.

  Now, however?

  We’re going to tear ourselves apart before the monsters do it for us.

  When he had begun the current project, Wesley had assumed that the superhuman beasts were the only enemy he needed to worry about… well, them and more pointedly, whatever it was that created them.

  Now, he wasn’t so certain.

  “Imbeciles.”

  *****

  USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia

  Pierson glowered at the screen, watching the news reports as the cameras once more located Hale and were focused on him across every network.

  They’d found an interesting correlation in that, which was rather off putting to her Army loyalty, in that whenever the Marine was on the networks there was a distinct and measurable drop in rioting worldwide.

  Oh, nothing really significant, just a few points about the margin of error really, but enough to make her seriously wonder for the sanity of humanity, as it were. When a marine was a rallying cry for calming the world, something had gone so very terribly wrong.

  That has to be a sign of the apocalypse.

  Analysts were indicating that it was simply due to Hale’s incredibly high popularity and profile at the moment, combined with the fact that he invariably put on a spectacle. All in all, it just culminated in people being glued to their seats when ‘the Marine’ was on the air.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to seriously alter the world wide impact the riots were beginning to have. Over the last several days at least seven major cities had been plunged into chaos, only four of those having had any sort of superhuman conflict no less. Of the remaining three, two had been shut down by protests over gas prices, women’s rights, various minority issues, and conflicting Nazi versus antifa protests that appeared to just start spontaneously. The remaining city, Detroit, was the site of a workers revolt in which fifteen thousand unemployed workers had utterly destroyed several automated factories.

  And that is only in the US.

  Worldwide the impact was much harder to tabulate, as many second and third world nations didn’t have the reporting infrastructure needed to properly keep track of events, and with as many riots and disruptions as there had been the private reporting services were less than reliable in those places while their attention was focused primarily on the more high profile locations.

  The sheer cost of all the disruption was already being counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and that was a low end estimate. Actual numbers wouldn’t be known for decades, if ever, but would almost certainly hit double digit trillions.

  Assuming they got a handle on it relatively quickly, at least.

  That was something Pierson didn’t see happening, unfortunately. The issue with the superhuman changed wasn’t something that was going to just go away, or at least it didn’t seem to be… and the other issues that were bubbling up had been festering for decades under the surface, patched over by one quick fix after another that were all aimed at solving the symptoms rather than the actual problems.

  That was a lethal combination like a loaded gun in the hands of a fool, and it looked to Pierson that they’d just managed to shoot themselves with it.

  If we’re lucky, it’ll only be in the foot.

  Pierson wasn’t feeling lucky.

  *****

  Berlin

  Hale was severely tempted to whistle the theme to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as he stared down the group that had interrupted his little scuffle with the unknown superhuman. After a moment’s thought, in fact, he grinned and did just that.

  Several of the German police laughed outright as they recognized the tune, and the opposing group tensed up.

  “So, eight on one,” Hale said into the silence that followed. “Hardly seems fair.”

  “It is not our problem if you came alone, American.”

  “I meant to you,” Hale chuckled, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Tell you what, you can have your boy here back before we gets started.”

  He dug his foot into the brutish figure of Hyde at his feet and kicked out easily, sending the downed man flying across the plaza toward the group who had to scatter to avoid being struck as he hit the ground in a tumble.

  “Nine on one. I’d spot you some more to even up the fight, but I’m all out. Sorry.”

  The apparent leader of the group, Hale mentally dubbed him Saladin due to his manner of dress and accent, though he was probably giving the other man way too much credit.

  Maybe I should wait until I see some of their powers before naming them?

  It was a thought, anyway. Hale pushed it aside as he focused on the group.

  “Normally, I’d be trying to talk you down here,” He said conversationally, “looking for a peaceful solution to this little standoff and all that.”

  “That would be a waste of time,” Saladin
smirked at him.

  Hale shrugged, “Maybe. I am rather good at it, but in any case I wasn’t going to this time. Mission priorities and all that. Pounding you morons into the pavement should keep it focused on us.”

  “It?”

  Hale pointed up, toward the darkening sky.

  “It.” He confirmed.

  “There is nothing up there,” Saladin scoffed. “You are both arrogant and insane.”

  “That’s one explanation,” Hale said, shifting his stance to something he learned in LINES training.

  “You believe there is another?” Saladin asked as he and his group spread out a little, all getting ready for the fight.

  “Sure. Maybe I just know something you don’t.”

  Hale didn’t give them time to think about that, he was already in motion as he spoke the last word.

  He kept himself below the speed of sound, but just barely, feet skimming just an inch or so off the ground as he charged the group. Hale could see Saladin and two of the others tracking him as he closed, their eyes giving them away. He picked a target on the right left who was still staring at the position he’d left as his target of choice, and went supersonic over the last hundred feet just in case he was being faked out.

  He abruptly decelerated at the last second, just in case his target couldn’t take being struck by the equivalent of a freight train, stopping just behind the man on the edge of the group and kicking his legs out from under him even as Saladin and two others were already turning in his direction. While the target was in mid air, Hale chopped a blow to his sternum, driving him into the ground in an explosion of air and dust, and then again accelerated to supersonic only to reappear back where he’d started.

  “Eight against One,” He said dryly as the figure on the ground rolled slowly in place, gasping for air.

  Saladin glowered.

  “We are not all that easy.”

  “I hope not. This is supposed to be a good show.”

  In truth, Hale was quite certain that the group was likely a greater threat than he could handle alone, or at least had the potential to be. However, they were also newly changed and that meant that they really had no clue as to what they were capable of.

  That would make him feel a lot better, if only he also had no clues.

  As it was, Hale was confident he could finish the mission as things stood, but bravado aside he was also quite certain that it was going to hurt.

  In the next moment that was all but confirmed as Saladin made the next move.

  *****

  GSG9 Officer Gregor Birkson dove for cover as the gang leader charged the American, not moving quite as blindingly fast as the American was clearly capable but still faster than any human had a right to be. The situation in Berlin was a nightmare, and there was no signs of waking from it as far as Gregor could see.

  The GSG9 had all been on high alert for more than a week, though no one was entirely certain of what had caused it until very recently. Large swaths of missing persons reports had flooded in, of course, but mostly they were the sorts of people no one actually cared if they went missing.

  Then those people started showing back up.

  “Is that Massad Balim?” Joseph Krieg asked as he too scrambled for cover.

  “I believe so,” Gregor responded, “however the last time I checked, Massaad was not capable of running a couple hundred kilometers per hour.”

  He winced as Masaad sent a powerful punch at the American, eliciting a crack that sounded like a bullet passage.

  “…”

  Gregor winced.

  “Or was capable of throwing punches that break the speed barrier,” He finished.

  Joseph cringed, “If there is a God, Gregor, I think he hates us.”

  “Germans?”

  “No, us in particular.”

  Gregor forced a chuckle, though he didn’t feel much like it, swinging his HK417 forward to bring the weapon to bear on the others who had been following Masaad’s lead.

  “You may be right, my friend, but perhaps he loves us and has enough faith to give us a test worthy of our greatness?” He asked, pushing fake cheer into his tone.

  “Ah Gregor, the eternal optimist,” Joseph followed his lead, bringing his own battle rifle to bear.

  Gregor noted the other members of his squad doing the same, with a great deal of satisfaction. The American might be helping this evening, but they would not leave the entire defense of the city to him. This might not be exactly what GSG9 had been formed for, but it was close enough.

  He got a cheek weld on the butt of the weapon, picking his target through the optics.

  “I have the one on the far right,” Gregor announced softly, listening as the other team members quietly gave off their targets as well. “We will fire if they attempt to move on the American, but check fire until I give the signal.”

  *****

  Hale rocked with the blow, feeling the shock of it propagate through his body as he rolled enough to absorb some of the shock. His right hand tightened up as he began to roll back, and he leaned into the punch with both feet planted firmly on the ground, flexing his knees slightly until the last moment before he connected with Saladin upon which point he straightened them out and pushed with his body up from the ground and through his arm to the his fist as he aimed the punch through the target.

  Saladin’s strike had broken the sound barrier as it landed, unleashing terrific force that Hale had actually felt. It had been impressive, and against most it would have maimed or killed. Hale? Him it just hurt like a bitch.

  Hale’s response strike was silent, staying well under the speed of sound, but he put his entire body into it and threw the force up through his legs, the twist of his torso, and out through the muscular flex of his arm as he connected.

  Saldin was blown back, clean off his feet and over twenty feet high in an arc that landed him halfway back to his little gang in a painful looking tumble that ended with him facedown on the pavement, groaning.

  “Seven on one.” Hale said, stepping forward. “Next contestant.”

  In reality it was still six on one, since Hyde hadn’t quite gotten back to his feet yet, but Alex didn’t really care. The six still standing looked at each other before focusing back on him and charging at once.

  *****

  “Fire.”

  The bark of the combined MP7 and HK417 weapons in the hands of the GSG9 tore the air as the squad opened fire on the charging group. The team had learned the hard way that no weapons and ‘unarmed’ apparently meant different things and Gregor wasn’t taking any chances.

  Unfortunately, it seemed that no armor and unarmored didn’t have the same meaning either as only a couple of the charging group were even phased by the hail of gunfire, and those two seemed more irritated than actually bothered.

  It did cause them to split off from the main attack and come after the team, however, meaning fewer were engaging the American in close combat.

  So… yay team?

  Gregor didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but it was a thing.

  “Fall back!” He ordered without hesitating, knowing that anything that could absorb gunfire wasn’t something he wanted right in his face.

  The team began a fighting retreat in the face of the charging opponents, with Gregor and Joseph holding to the last moment before breaking and withdrawing under the cover of fire from their comrades.

  *****

  The probe examined the events in the city below, well satisfied with the general chaos and destruction that had taken place.

  It was above expectations, given that the new formulas hadn’t truly begun to make their presence felt as best the probe could determine. It began preparations for observing the next phase of the assigned mission, sending preliminary notes to the congruence along with an alert that new data was imminent.

  To this point, only the more immediate effects of the testing had had the necessary time to be shown. The probe ran the calculations again, satisf
ied that the increase in chaos would become exponential as more and more of the less obvious effects began to make their presence known.

  The experiment continued to be an astounding success.

  Chapter 8

  USSOCOM Bunker, Virgina

  The threat board had been expanded considerably over the last half hour, with large screens being wheeled in ever few minutes it seemed, all linked up to a new report of riots breaking out somewhere in the world. Most of which had nothing to do with the direct situation the task force was observing, but considering the timing almost had to be indirectly linked.

  For Pierson it was rapidly becoming a migraine in the making, compounded by a growing fatigue from a general lack of sleep that she doubted would be addressed anytime soon.

  Her primary responsibility, Hale, was still engaged in Berlin and that didn’t seem to be changing anytime soon as he’d drawn his battleground and now seemed intent on defending it against all comers.

  That was in keeping with the request she’d made at the behest of SOCOM, at least, though Pierson was more than a little concerned with just how much damage they would wind up doing to Berlin in the process. If not for the target now presumed to be settled in over the city, as evidenced by the detection of the unusual scrambling jammer signal it broadcast, it would have been far more efficient to have Hale go to full operation capacity and eliminate as many targets as possible in as short a time as possible.

  Needs must, however, she supposed.

  “Target remaining stable,” The NRO desk officer announced. “Best we can tell at least. Berlin is blacked out on the expected frequencies.”

  “We’re still getting network news out of the region,” Isaacs commented.

  “At this point, we’re presuming that is intentional, General,” Pierson offered. “Deliberate psyops, most likely. They want the world to see what happens.”

  Isaacs grunted, irritated but unsurprised.

  “We’re not certain how much of the jamming is actually intended as jamming anyway,” The NRO officer said from where he was at the desk. “We could be looking at the side effect of a massive scanner array.”