by Joel Dane
The squads open fire in sequence, and six mock CAVs deploy and we win.
“We nailed the baby menace,” Jag says.
Shakrabarti snorts. “This is easy when you’re playing make-believe.”
We run four more training exercises, with increased signal interference each time. We engage the lampreys, we support the CAVs. We secure the corpses. Our coordination gets smoother and our reaction time faster, which is great except these exercises are useless. Our trainers had been right to send us after an assortment of horrors instead of a fake lamprey. The fake ones undermine everything that’s terrifying about the real lampreys.
We trot back to barracks in silence. Even Ting is quiet, and Cali is lost in thought. Or in whatever she does instead of thinking.
“I’ll talk to command,” Li finally tells us, “about a new curriculum.”
“Instead of that watery shit,” Cali says.
“Nobody else got as close as we did,” Voorhivey says. “They don’t know better.”
Sergeant Manager Li cocks her head.
“What’s up, Sarge?” M’bari asks.
“Another delay,” she says. “A lamprey hit a switching hub. There were troops.”
Jag lenses a ping of alarm. “Are they okay?”
“There’s no casualty register yet,” Ting tells her. “Ojedonn and Gazi are listed as missing.”
“They’re okay,” Voorhivey says. “They’ve got to be.”
Shakrabarti gives a shaky laugh. “I miss Ridehorse. You know what she’d say?”
“‘Even if they’re okay now,’” Cali says, doing a remarkably bad impression, “‘we’re all dead once the lampreys kill us.’”
“That’s uncanny,” Jag tells her. “It’s like Elfano is standing right there.”
“What? No!” Cali scowls, honestly offended. “That was Ridehorse!”
The ripple of laughter echoes in my empty heart. I’m going to miss them.
CHAPTER 56
That night, an alarm wakes me from unsettled dreams. My lens flashes a Waihi-3 alert, which makes no sense. Ayko Base is under attack? Impossible. Javelin is a joint venture, supported by the entire Cherzo-5. The corpos are united against remorts and lampreys, so—
“Breach, breach, breach,” a voice calmly recites through the public address. “We are receiving fire within the perimeter. We are under attack by hostile—”
There’s a WHOOM and the scream of static. I’m opening my locker before I’m fully awake and slapping myself into a quickskin. I grab my unloaded Boaz and lens for updates, for orders, for help. There’s no response except a sluggish trickle of data reiterating the Waihi-3 and increasing the casualty rate: 61, 62, 65, 66 . . .
Cali is already strapping into her crossweave armor, like she’d been sleeping in the underlayer. “The fuck is going on?” she barks.
“We need cans,” I tell her, shouldering my empty weapon. “Ping the autocart.”
Jag shoves off naked from her room, followed by Shakrabarti and a red-faced Voorhivey. “Who’s hitting us?” she asks, popping her locker.
“Don’t know,” I say, then yell, “Ting? Ting! What’s the status?”
No answer from Ting’s room, but M’bari bursts into the common area wearing hospital gear from his latest treatment. “Gallium Quad is under fire. They need backup.”
“You have cans?” Cali asks.
“What? No.” M’bari looks down at himself. “No, Ting lensed me an alarm and said to warn you.”
“Where is she?” I ask.
“No idea.”
“This cart’s crashed.” Cali punches the wall. “It won’t dispense.”
I kick Ting’s door open and find her sitting on her bunk staring at the floor. Blood trickles from her nose and splatters her shirt. I shout her name but she doesn’t blink. She’s catatonic. What’s wrong with her? What did this? Stem or technopathy?
There’s no telling, so I throw her over my shoulder—and realize I don’t know what I’m doing. What’s my plan? To reach Gallium Quad and repel attackers without any ammunition?
Back in the common room, I take a breath. Slow down. We need ammo. We need a plan—
“What happened to Ting?” Voorhivey asks, his eyes shaky. “Is she okay?”
“Did she tell you Gallium Quad?” I ask M’bari.
M’bari slaps into a quickskin. “She didn’t say anything except to warn you. It’s what everyone’s yelling: ‘Gallium Quad.’”
“Head for the armory,” I say. “We’re useless without cans.”
“Speak for yourself,” Voorhivey says, reaching for nonchalance. “My mom took on a remort with a stunstick.”
An explosion shakes the building. The lights dim and a window shatters. Screams knife from the darkness. “What about Li?” Jag asks.
“Fuck Li,” I say. “She can take care of herself.”
“Fuck you,” Cali growls at me. “You don’t care about the squad. You don’t care about anything. Freehold scum.”
Jag elbows her. “Focus, orca.”
Cali quiets. There’s no time for fighting, not right now. Besides, the medics are still pissed at her for stabbing me with the chopstick, and at me for breaking her nose in return.
“Take point,” I tell Jag, and flip her my trenchknife.
She catches the handle, extrudes the blade, and leads us into the corridor.
Emergency lights flash in the gloom. Ting jounces on my shoulder, her limp arms dangling. She doesn’t weigh anything. Her breathing is steady. She’s not losing any blood. Looks to me like she ODed, but she’s not an addict, not really.
She’s a technopath, which is worse.
There’s a crash deeper in the building, then another. I hear a faint pit-pat-pat: the sound of Boaz slugs. Is that autonomous fire outside? Are the belly turrets of an Antarmadesha sweeping the rooftops from above?
My lens strobes with conflicting orders and urgent alerts, frantic and distracting: 102 dead. 103 dead, 109 dead . . . I filter the chatter as the gunshots sharpen and—
A Boaz stream slices into the hallway through the wall.
The liquammo opens a gash and an earsplitting thunder of rounds slams at us from the ruined mess hall beyond. A barrage of Boaz rounds chop through a refrigerant unit and rip apart tables and screens. That’s corporate gear, that’s our gear. Who the fuck is attacking us?
Through the gash, the far wall of the mess hall is gone. Just gone. The building opens to the outside, into a night that is alive with hellish screams and the whiny chop of Orit Gal fire. Rounds stitch through the wall, punch into a supply cabinet in the hallway, and Voorhivey jerks and sprawls on the wreckage.
When Shakrabarti rolls him onto his back, Voorhivey’s jaw is missing and blood flows from his neck.
“No,” Shakrabarti says. “Baby, no.”
Someone shrieks and M’bari moves with terrible slowness. He slaps shock-film across Voorhivey’s wound and a hailstorm of rounds shreds the wall behind us. Cold air wells around me and freezes the sweat on my face.
Cali helps Shakrabarti lift Voorhivey, and I hold Ting tighter as she jerks and starts to rouse. The world comes in terrified flashes. Jag leads the squad around a corner. She signals us to wait inside a trophy niche while she checks the next intersection.
Casualty rate: 228, 230, 241 . . .
“Who the fuck?” Cali snarls.
“Lampreys,” Ting murmurs, still slung over my back.
My stomach drops, and I set her on the floor. “They’re here?”
“Voorhivey,” Shakrabarti whimpers, looking down at his ruined face. “He just, he just . . .”
“He’s alive,” Cali says.
I crouch beside Ting. “Lampreys?”
“His grandpa sent churros,” Shakrabarti says, in a dull voice. “For the entire squad. They got stuck in
quarantine.”
“Signal interference,” Ting tells me, gesturing weakly. “Coms broke. Yes.”
Fear tightens my throat, and my voice sounds scratchy. “Lamprey attack!” I squawk. “It’s a—lamprey!”
“I caught a pulse,” Ting says aloud, while she lenses. “Tried to stop them with my mind and they broke me.”
“We need brane cans,” Cali barks, her eyes narrow. “Are there any in the armory?”
“The armory’s general issue,” M’bari tells her, and then his gaze jerks upward toward the ceiling, toward a crashing stampede on the higher floors. “We need L-tech.”
“No way,” Jag says, prowling closer and hearing the conversation. “No way. There’s a lamprey?”
“Where do they keep the new cans?” Cali asks M’bari.
“One of the research wings.”
“They won’t work,” Ting whispers. “The new cans won’t work . . .”
“We can’t scratch a lamprey,” Jagzenka says. “Nothing can.”
She’s wrong. One thing can scratch a lamprey. Except so far CAVs haven’t done more than scratch them. I straighten from my crouch and say, “So we run.”
“To fight another day,” M’bari tells Cali, before she explodes.
“Fuck another day with a disembodied dick,” she growls.
“Churros with real water,” Shakrabarti says, smiling at Voorhivey’s limp form in his arms. “White cricketflour and homemade—”
Screams echo from deeper in the corridor. The stomp of booted feet sounds closer, accompanied by frantic shouts. A mob is racing toward us. Jag gestures—and a pink lamprey cable drills through the ceiling into the hallway.
Time freezes.
My heart stops.
The cable branches downward, spreading wide. Pink ligaments brush Voorhivey’s helmet and Shakrabarti’s shoulder.
When Shakrabarti lifts his hand to his ear, the skin peels away from his arm. There’s a flash of red blood and white bone. He screams as his sleeve dissolves.
M’bari lunges for him while flesh sheds from Voorhivey’s body in sheets, exposing organs as his flayed corpse flops from Shakrabarti’s remaining arm and splats to the floor and I can’t take it, I can’t take it—
Ting unleashes a shriek that pierces the clamor. Her nosebleed starts again and the trophy niche shatters. She’s melting down the circuits around us. My lens turns gray and maintenance bots explode in their housings.
“Ting!” I shake her. “Ting!”
M’bari lunges at Shakrabarti and overrides his quickskin into shock mode. “You’re alive!” he shouts. “You’re alive.”
“Incoming unknowns,” Cali announces, through gritted teeth. “Brace for impact.”
Screams mix with the tromp of boots, and the mob boils into sight at the intersection.
The first three soldiers whip around the corner—one in PRATO fatigues, one in Shiyogrid, and the third naked. A panicked stampede howls at their heels and they race toward us, shouting, Run, run, it’s coming.
I yank Ting to her feet and a pink scythe slices through the rearmost soldiers. Blood sprays, screams die. Slimy strands strike through the ceiling: a woman in the middle ranks collapses without any marks on her; a man behind her is dismembered.
The ceiling bulges and the lamprey oozes into sight for a heartbeat before an avalanche of rubble billows down the corridor toward us.
We sprint away.
Jag starts in the lead but Cali outpaces her even though she’s carrying Shakrabarti, her long stride powered by the crossweave armor she’s wearing. M’bari grabs Ting’s other arm and we run with her between us, her feet dragging on the floor.
A dark pink blob splats the wall behind us and burns through.
A wet cable slices the floor and Ting sags in my hand. I think M’bari is hit but he leaps the gap and the strand flicks and vanishes. A swarm of moskito drones dies in flight and litters the floor. There is nothing but fear and screams and flesh and darkness.
I shove Ting at M’bari and shoulder-check a Unidroit gunner away from the lamprey’s strand, but I’m too late and a gout of blood splatters the wall.
Two steps past an open doorway, Cali slams into a vend machine to stop herself, her armored shoulder denting the alloy.
“In there!” She pushes Shakrabarti at Jag. “Inside, inside!”
Jag grunts and swerves into the room with a moaning Shakrabarti. His blood smears the floor. M’bari drags Ting after her and I’m still in the corridor, sprinting to the door.
“Through the window!” Cali bellows at them. “Jump—jump!”
I catch a stubborn, stupid look in her eyes as she stands there facing the slaughter: she’s going to make a stand. She’s going to herd everyone into the room, then wrestle the lamprey with her bare hands.
So I palm her broken nose and drive her backward through the doorway. She’s not dying today. No more of my squad is dying today.
Inside the room, Jag drags Shakrabarti backward toward a cracked window. She whips her wrist and an illicit paste grenade—no clue where she got that—splatters the glassine.
When M’bari glances at the door behind me and Cali, his eyes widen in horror.
I don’t see the lamprey churning closer, but every cell in my body flares with terror.
Without lensing a single message, M’bari and I act in perfect sync. He shoves Ting at me, grabs Cali’s outflung wrist, and yanks her hard toward the window. She’s unbalanced and reeling, so she staggers fast across the room.
The window shatters from the paste grenade and Jag pulls Shakrabarti through the jagged hole. M’bari and Cali trip over Shakrabarti’s legs and all four of them tumble from sight.
I’m out the window a fraction of a second later, holding Ting to my chest, in freefall.
We’re supposed to spin in the air, bellies toward the sky like in the drills, aiming the reinforced rear carapaces of our armor at the ground to take the impact—but we’re not wearing armor. We’re all in quickskin except Cali, and Ting isn’t even wearing that.
We’re dead.
Jump, Cali said. Through the window.
How did we let Cali plan our escape? She couldn’t plan an afternoon nap without two missile launchers and a dropship.
The base walls are splattered with pink goo and gunfire is everywhere. The sizzle of assault rifles mixes with the boom of heavy weapons and the pop-slurp of rampart guns.
I hug Ting to my chest and watch the sky burn.
CHAPTER 57
Time seems to slow. Ting’s amber hair streams upward and she watches me with bright, teary eyes. She smiles and speaks. I can’t hear, but the word looks like Timor.
Which means she knows my deep, dark secret. She knows my original name. Timor was one of Sayti’s surnames. I tell myself that I’m only Kaytu now, that my old name doesn’t mark me, except of course it marks me. Whatever else I’ve done, whatever else I’ve become, I’m still my sayti’s grandson.
She turned children into soldiers. She used me as a weapon. I never stopped thinking about one-armed Sergeant Najafi. I never stopped thinking about her son. And now I think about Ting, so fragile in my arms, so terrible and so sweet.
A little late in the day, but I finally have my epiphany as I’m falling to my death.
It’s not much, but I realize that there are some lessons I’ll never learn. After everything, I still love Sayti. I still miss her. And I’d light the world on fire for Rana, for Ting, for Jag and M’bari and Shakrabarti. Even for Cali. Hell, especially for Cali.
They are my people, and I don’t care about anything else.
That’s a dangerous, small-minded way to live. It’s the path of the insurgent, the nationalist; it’s the creed of patriots who only care about their own little tribe. That’s how the SICLE War started, with a loyal, loving urge that would’ve destroyed
the world if the rational stewardship of the corporations hadn’t saved us.
So I’m infantile and coarse, I follow the path of the selfish child. I know that. There’s no excuse. Yet my own little tribe is all I have. I’m scared of dying, but at least we’re dying together.
We hurtle toward the ground and—
A breakfall rampart expands below us, set to full porosity. I sink into its spongy cushion, too stunned to feel relief, tangled with Ting and M’bari.
Tracer rounds tear through the smoke above us. CAVs launch from the oversized barrels of Bumblebees as we roll off the rampart. More jumpers hit the cushion behind us, and I crawl to the side and help Jag lower Shakrabarti’s limp form to the ground.
Unidroit medics pull Shakrabarti into a medipod and my heart booms in time with the pop-slurp of rampart fire.
I find myself staring at the source of the sound: two soldiers in CrediMobil fatigues are kneeling beside a filter housing, firing at the ground. They’re laying down lifesaving cushions for all the soldiers blindly leaping to their deaths. The woman drops an empty launcher and the man gives her another to fire—pop-slurp, pop-slurp—and she fires without pause.
She drops the second launcher and the guy feeds her a third.
All around overhead, soldiers leap from windows and balconies, falling to safety if the woman shoots in time . . . and to their death if she doesn’t. The ground is littered with bodies. Screams tear the air, orders echo against the walls, and moans waver and fade. Rubbish pukes from shattered windows.
Cali and Jag lead the squad away as the CrediMobil rampart soldier fires again and again. Shards of glassine cascade behind us; some catch the air and slice around us like thrown blades. We duck, dodge, and slide into the cover of an obstacle course trench.
“They took Shakrabarti,” Jag says, looking back toward the medipods.
“He’s safer with them,” I tell her.
“We need rampart guns,” M’bari says.
Cali glowers. “We need lamprey cans.”
“Did you hear me?” Ting asks me.
“What? Uh. No.”