by Peter Clines
“The immediate question,” said the cloaked woman, “is why?”
“Why?”
“Why have you developed a method of controlling the exes?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” countered the colonel. “If we can’t contain the ex-virus, we need a way to control it.”
“But why use them as soldiers?”
“We were short-staffed,” Shelly said. “At the start of the year we were down to nine hundred soldiers, and over six hundred of those were our barely-trained civilian recruits. They’ve come a long way since then, but it still left us with a lot less than a base like this needs. Doctor Sorensen’s work is going to be a huge benefit to the United States.”
“It would seem the risk of losing control would cancel any possible benefits.”
“There’s no risk,” he said. “Besides, at the moment we’re only using them for low-pressure jobs like sentry duty.”
“Of course,” said Stealth. “The large numbers at your perimeter.”
“That explains why Zzzap didn’t see anyone,” muttered the titan. She looked back at the rows of silent exes. “I’d love to get a better look at those control boxes.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” said Shelly. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to go over all the specs with Doctor Sorensen once you’re set up. We could even move your lab into the main building near his.”
“It’s better if I stay out here so the suit has easy access,” she said.
The colonel gave her a look. “Well, that won’t be your concern, though, will it?”
“Sir?”
“Dr. Morris, you were never intended to be the pilot of the Cerberus suit,” said Shelly. “We both know that. If it hadn’t been such a time-intensive, crisis situation you never would’ve worn it into battle.” He shook his head. “Now we can get you back in the lab and working on improvements to the system. That’s what you want, too, isn’t it?”
“But...” the armored giant looked at Shelly, then over at Stealth. “It will take months to get anyone up to my level of proficiency. It’s better to have Cerberus out on the front lines, isn’t it?”
“Of course, and Lieutenant Gibbs has been studying the suit’s specs for some time. We even got him a working copy of the simulator you designed.”
The Air Force lieutenant stepped forward. “I’ve logged over fifteen hundred hours, ma’am,” he said. “You’ve built an amazing weapons system.”
“I didn’t think the simulator was ever built.”
The colonel smiled. “Some of our tech boys have had a lot of time on their hands. I think you’ll find Gibbs is qualified and ready to take over as the Cerberus pilot.”
“If,” said Stealth, “we decide to leave the armor with you.”
Shelly took in a breath to respond and bit his tongue. “Yes,” he said. “If that’s what we all decide.”
Her head tilted inside her hood. “It strikes me as suspicious this point has not come up before, colonel.”
“Is it, ma’am?” He looked up at the armor. “If I recall, Doctor Morris, the only reason you agreed to put on the suit and fight during the outbreak was because you were worried someone else might damage Cerberus, correct?”
“Well, yes, but I wanted to help—”
“You weren’t expecting to be the one using it when you built it, were you?”
“No, but I was the only one who knew how to use it to its full potential.”
“Before you were deployed in Washington, had you ever been in a fight?”
“I’ve had several fights over the requirements for—”
“Not arguments, doctor,” he interrupted. “Fights. Had you ever come to blows with someone? Did you ever once throw a punch?”
“I’d fired over ten thousand rounds through the suit’s M2s on the firing range.”
“At wooden targets,” he said. “Did you receive any training at all as to how deal with combat situations? Basic tactics? Target priority? Anything?”
A rasping hiss came from the armor. A sigh. “No.”
“So,” said Shelly, turning back to Stealth, “the most sophisticated weapons platform on the planet has spent the past two years in the hands of an untrained civilian who didn’t want to be using it in the first place, and you think it’s suspicious I want to put an experienced soldier behind the controls?”
“I find it suspicious,” said Stealth, “the matter was not brought up until we were here and disarmed.”
The colonel looked up at the nine-foot battlesuit. “You call that disarmed? I think if Doctor Morris disagreed with me, there wouldn’t be much anyone could do to stop her, would there?”
* * *
“It’s very simple,” said Sorensen. He peered at the elbow joint of the Cerberus armor. It was at his eye level, and he’d pushed his glasses up onto his head to squint at it. “We couldn’t train them because they’d died.”
“No wonder you’re a doctor,” murmured Cerberus.
Sorensen stepped away from the battlesuit and moved to one of the exes standing at attention. It was a dead woman with a square jaw. “It takes three to four hours for a corpse to make the transition to ex-humanity,” he said. “Lack of oxygen destroys the mind and memories, leaving only core survival patterns like eating, basic motions, and reaction to raw stimuli like sound or movement.” He set his glasses back on his nose and rapped the dead woman on the forehead. “There’s nothing there to train. It’d be easier to teach a grasshopper how to type.”
Then he went silent, staring into space.
“Doctor,” said the colonel.
“Madelyn had a baby bib with a grasshopper on it,” said Sorensen. He looked at Shelly. “Eva and I saved it. I’m sure it’s still boxed up in the attic at our house.”
“The exes, doctor.”
“Yes,” the older man muttered. “The exes.” He glared at them for a moment, then poked the dead woman in the forehead again. The ex rocked back and forth. “The physical structure of the brain still exists,” he said. “Just like a computer processor without power. The Nest restores electrical activity to key areas, allowing simple memories to form and reflexes to be re-developed.”
Stealth interrupted him. “The Nest?”
Sorensen turned the dead woman’s head to the side before pointing at the green box. “Neural stimulator,” he explained. He looked annoyed by the question. “It took almost a year to find precisely the right regions of the brain, the correct amperage and voltage.”
“I would think decay within the brain would prevent such a device from functioning for long.”
The doctor shook his head. “No, no, no,” he said. “Yes, there’s initial decay. We have to give each subject several EEGs to make sure it’s still viable. But once the ex-virus takes hold the level of decay drops to almost nothing, so our largest worry is dehydration.”
Stealth tilted her head at Sorensen. “According to our research, the dead continue to decay, just at a decreased rate.”
He shook his head. “Your research is wrong. A lot of work was done before... before...” The doctor was lost in thought for a moment. “Before things went bad,” he said. “One of the last things they established about the ex-virus was that it’s lethal.”
Stealth shook her head. “It is harmless,” she said. “Individuals die from secondary infections, not from the virus itself.”
“Humans,” he said, nodding. “That’s not the problem. The ex-virus is a lethal bacteriophage. It attacks necrotic bacteria and uses them to reproduce. All necrotic bacteria. An ex’s decay rate drops by eighty-seven-point-eight percent.”
“They smell like they’re rotting,” said Cerberus.
“Material in their digestive tract or on their clothes,” the doctor said. “You notice none of these exes have the scent of decay on them. Once they’ve been cleaned, they tend to just smell like... well, clean skin. When you calculate in the resilience the virus creates in cellular membranes and the lower core temperatures in the afflicted—”
“Exes could remain active for years,” Stealth said.
“Almost eleven,” said Shelly, “by the last estimates we formulated here.”
“It’s a magnificent freak of evolution,” said Sorensen. “I’ve never heard of any organism in nature so perfectly suited to keeping its host alive. Or as close to life as possible, I suppose.” He shrugged and began to examine the velcro fuzz on the female ex’s shoulder.
Cerberus shot a glance at Stealth while moving a metal palm back and forth before one of the exes. “Do they remember anything? About, you know, who they were.”
Sorensen glanced up from the velcro and shook his head again. “That was my first hope, but no. They’re blank slates. Not a scrap of individuality or independent thought left in them. In fact, every time a battery pack dies, they lose any training we’ve given them and it’s back to square one.”
“You’re sure? What if they’re... comatose or something?”
“Positive. We’ve done numerous EEGs and MRIs. No activity at all in either the Broca’s or limbic regions, which means minimal language and emotion. I’d put their IQ below a lab rat at best.”
“A rat cannot be trained to follow complex commands,” said Stealth.
“Neither can the exes,” said Sorensen. “You can only issue one command at a time, and it must be an order they’ve been trained to follow. The most complex thing they grasp is a priority scale, that some commands can supersede others.”
“Priority?”
“On a few occasions we’ve gotten them to acknowledge soldiers over civilians, officers over enlisted men. There’s more work needed. Speaking of which,” he turned to Shelly, “if I may get back to my lab, colonel? I was in the middle of something.”
“Of course, doctor. Thank you for your time.”
“Shall I, sir?” said Smith. When the colonel nodded, the younger man guided Sorensen out of the Tomb.
“He’s a bit off,” said Colonel Shelly, “but believe me, he’s brilliant.”
Stealth was examining a Nest unit again. “Who is Madelyn?”
“His daughter,” said Shelly. “He lost his family at the start of the outbreak. We tried to evacuate them here to Krypton, but there was an accident. His wife and daughter were both killed.”
Stealth’s head tilted inside her hood. “Killed?”
“What would you rather hear, ma’am? Eaten alive? When he got the news it shattered him. He was in shock for months, and he’s still in denial. It’s not unusual to just find him sitting in a corner in his lab. He probably could’ve gotten the Nest done seven or eight months sooner but he has trouble focusing.”
The cloaked woman turned from the exes and walked out into the sun.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Doctor Morris, your companion isn’t very social.”
“No, she isn’t,” said Cerberus. The titan turned and followed Stealth outside.
The cloaked woman was a pillar of black in the sun-bleached road. “Are you going to give them the battlesuit?”
Another metallic sigh rasped from the armor’s speakers. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“They filmed the assembly procedure,” said Stealth. “There are four cameras in your work space. Two visible, two concealed. I would assume the office is monitored as well.”
“I’ll remember to be careful in the bathroom, too,” said the titan. “Look, they already know how to assemble the suit. That lieutenant said they’ve got all my records. They didn’t get anything from me they wouldn’t’ve figured out after doing it one or two times themselves.”
“Cerberus may have once been just a weapons platform,” said the cloaked woman, “and you were once just an engineer. But that is no longer the case. You have become a symbol to the people of Los Angeles. A hero. If you give the battlesuit away, that will go away as well. It will be just a weapons platform. You will be just an engineer.”
The huge lenses looked down at her. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
Chapter 18
NOW
The sun hit the horizon just as St. George crossed the Krypton fence line. He’d circled the base once to make sure they knew he was there. A group of soldiers waited for him. They didn’t aim their weapons at him as he landed, but they didn’t make a point of aiming them away, either.
“Hey,” he said, pushing the biker goggles away from his eyes. “I think you were expecting me. I’m St. George.”
One soldier stepped forward. He was about the same age as the hero and wore a single chevron on his chest. “Sir,” he said, “we weren’t expecting you until later this evening.”
“I got done early in Los Angeles. Decided to see if I could race the sun.”
None of them relaxed. “Do you have any ID on you, sir?”
St. George blinked. “Seriously? Are there a lot of people trying to get onto the base who can fly?”
“Standard procedure, sir,” said the soldier. “If you don’t have ID someone here on base will have to vouch for you.”
Twin lines of smoke curled out of St. George’s nostrils. “Well,” he said, “I forgot my wallet about a year and a half ago, so I guess somebody’ll have to vouch for me. Is Freedom around?”
“Captain Freedom is in a meeting,” said another soldier. This one was pushing fifty and had a fair amount of gray in his hair. Again, the hero saw only one chevron. If memory served, it meant the man was a private.
“Look,” St. George said. “Can I be blunt?”
They shuffled on their feet.
“I just flew close to four hundred miles at top speed. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and none of you is carrying anything that would even slow me down if I decided to walk into that building over there.” He pointed at a random office. “So could somebody please find Captain Freedom or Agent Smith?”
They exchanged glances and mouthed a few silent words. The gray haired soldier stepped away and turned his attention to his radio. The first soldier gave St. George a polite bow of his head. “It’ll just be a moment, sir.”
“Thank you.”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his flight jacket and looked around. He’d never been on a military base before, but Krypton looked a lot like what he expected from watching movies. Most of the buildings looked like they were designed for function more than form, and they all felt just a few years out of date.
Of course, everything was starting to get a few years out of date.
St. George turned his head and noticed one of the soldiers, the youngest one, was staring at his forehead. He reached up and tapped the goggles. “For flying,” he said. “It can’t hurt me, but getting a bug in your eye at a hundred and fifty miles an hour is still pretty gross.”
All of them grinned. “It wasn’t that, sir,” said the private. He was nineteen, tops.
“What then?”
“I just... nothing.”
“What?”
The private shrugged. “Well... I always thought you were green. With a big fin on your head.”
St. George smiled. “That’s the Savage Dragon. I was the Mighty Dragon.”
“Was he your partner or something?”
“No, he’s a comic book character. I’m real.”
“St. George? That’s like, a knight, right?” One of the other soldiers gestured with his chin. “Is that why you’ve kinda got one of those page-boy haircuts?”
He sighed. “No, we just don’t have any good barbers left back in Los—”
“St. George,” called Freedom. The officer strode out of a building, towering over the woman who followed him. The hero recognized her from the Mount.
The soldiers around St. George stepped away and fell into a line. The officer crossed the gap in a few quick strides and grabbed the hero’s hand in a grip that would’ve cracked bones in a normal man. “It’s good to see you again, sir.”
“Good to see you, captain.” He tried to return the grip and realized Freedom had done that damned macho-leverage thing to lock St. George’s fingers.
“Your people are waiting for you at Doctor Morris’s new workshop,” said Freedom, releasing the hand. “It’s about a ten minute walk from here if you’re up for it.”
“Sure. Good to stretch the legs after all that flying.”
“As you were,” Freedom told the soldiers. They snapped off a set of salutes and he turned to the woman. “I’ll meet you back at the office, First Sergeant.”
She handed him the bundle she’d been carrying. Then she gave a salute of her own and a quick bow of her head to the hero.
“I’m never quite sure how things line up between officers and enlisted,” said St. George. “Is she your assistant or something like that?”
“First Sergeant Kennedy?” He shook his head and gestured in a direction to walk. “Easiest way to think of it is I’m the one in charge of the Unbreakables, but she’s the one who runs everything.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve got a small welcome gift for you,” said Freedom. He handed over the bundle. “I noticed your jacket was a little ragged. This is the newest Army Combat Uniform coat. Reinforced with a triple-layer Kevlar weave. A bit more durable than what you’ve been wearing.”
The hero shook out the coat. “Thanks.” It was a blur of tiny squares. Someone had stitched up a velcro nametag that said DRAGON in bold letters.
“Let me know if it doesn’t fit. Sergeant Johnson estimated your size.” They walked in silence for a few yards before Freedom spoke again. “I also hope you’ll accept my apology, sir, for our hasty actions back in Los Angeles. It wasn’t our intention—definitely not mine— to start our association by throwing punches.”
“Tense times,” said St. George. “I guess it wouldn’t’ve been that out of the question for someone to take a shot in a situation like that.”
“You have no idea,” the huge officer said. “Regardless, I am sorry, sir. We were all on edge, and it doesn’t help it was the first serious action any of my soldiers had seen in close to six months. It sets a bad first impression.”
“Not a lot going on out here?”