The Last Hercules

by Ron Bender

  She’d probably be a lot of fun in the sack if she ever loosened up. Like Raven … but not. With David pushed out of the way, there’s no goalie. She’s only got a shaky defense, maybe I’ll score. It’s a nice thought, even if it would piss the boss off.

  I grin. “It was just a question. So, are you done?”

  “Yes,” she snaps. “Yes, I do believe I’m finished regurgitating my meal.”

  “Okay.” I snort and start walking. “That’s gross.”

  “What?” She looks at me as we head to a maglift. “You started it.”

  “Most animals that regurgitate food do it so they can eat it again or feed it to their young.”

  “Shut up, Picasso.” She looks like she might lose it all over again at the thought. “God, you are an infuriating smart ass.”

  “But I’m the best there is for the work I do.” I’m not bragging either. The leader board the White Mice secretly set up in wardroom shows my ratios. I have the highest hand-to-hand kill ratio and the lowest collateral damage numbers in the unit. “The vehicle we need is a few stories down. The team is there already.”

  ˜˜˜

  The air inside the slender craft is thick to breathe compared to the maintained air of the building. Every single aspect of the interior is utilitarian, functional, and uniformly colored a dark matte grey. Picasso crowds in behind me.

  “Okay. First rule of flying with AlphaTek Airways is to hold onto something every time you unbuckle.” Picasso pushes me into the second jump seat behind the cockpit and hauls the straps around me.

  I’ve been told that the body armor I’m wearing is the newest reactive skin available. I stare in fascination as it hardens and relaxes across my chest as he pulls on each part of my five-point harness.

  More men file in, each one towering and gear laden. Each one stows gear, sits, and buckles in with minimal conversation and a sparseness of action that I’ve come to view as purely military. Their behavior, to me, highlights again the fact that it’s more a military deployment, than a rescue.

  I can see the pilot in profile from where I’m sitting. It looks like the same woman who brought me to AlphaPlaza. I take a moment to watch her. She looks like a super model. She has a distant look in her eyes and a small grin on her cherry lips as she pushes plugs into ports behind her ear. I blush as she wriggles her hips backward into the pilot seat. The material molds itself around her as she straps herself in.

  I’m alone in watching her and the semi-erotic display.

  Picasso knows what I’m looking at and puts on a side-long smirk. He clears his throat. “This is a brand-new full-on military craft with a damn good pilot. She’s not going to jerk us around unless it’s needed. What’s the rule?”

  I pull my gaze back to him. “Hold on when you’re unbuckled.”

  “Good.” He drops into the seat next to mine.

  I could write a book using him as the subject. Picasso comes off as a high-functioning bundle of cyber and regular psychosis, or maybe he’s just a really good actor.

  He looks down the rows of seats and, seemingly satisfied, taps the pilot on the shoulder.

  There is no other warning. Suddenly the craft lifts, pitches nose down, and accelerate horizontally in the same motion. I feel my stomach lurch. There’s nothing left from breakfast. Maybe that’s a good thing.

  The pilot keeps us pitched forward at maximum thrust until the edge of TopSide drops away behind us. We power into a tight dive and then level off just above the ground. The western inlet and the heavy manufacturing facilities flash by, and we side-slip toward the Gulf.

  As the cockpit view shifts, I see flickers of firelight from tribal enclaves, camps like the one Maggie is used to living in. They’re clustered along the coast, stretching into the distance and separating the heavy grey of the Gulf water and the inky-black of the shoreline.

  Baylen told me that the summer weather brought distant tribes to the Gulf for trade, to hunt what small game they could, and to fish. Like primitives, they’d match make and entice one another’s people away from their tribes for a time.

  When Maggie is older would she find a boy out here in the wild? I push that idea away as fast as it forms.

  I’ve never been to a tribal camp, that’s Baylen’s world, not mine. Maggie tries to tell me about all the things she sees and friends she plays with, but I’m always too busy to really pay attention.

  I deliberately cut out all of those things from our conversation. I kick myself. She stopped talking about stuff like that at some point this year. I can’t recall exactly when….

  I feel tears running down my face. All of the other troops in the cabin stare at me. No one moves. No one speaks. They just watch. Their faces are unreadable masks.

  Maybe they so rarely saw genuine human emotion that it triggered deep memories from their own past. They were, after all, heavily cybered and some of them probably had no choice about it.

  I distance myself from their looks and imagine that they’re all CitFours.

  It works, and after a minute I’m projecting an outward calm. I let my satisfaction about my control wash over me and soon I actually feel more controlled.

  Our VTOL bucks oddly and I look out. Just ahead and above us there’s a cluster of large military VTOL. We pace them, but I feel as though our craft could easily outstrip their speed.

  The flight over the strip of the Panhandle toward the Lower Mississippi Inlet is fast. I try to imagine the Mississippi as a really big river like it used to be.

  The world must have been so different. I know it’s a lie, but I tell myself it must’ve been easier, simpler back then.

  The glittering, gaudy, mass of Neo-Orleans approaches on our right, and our pilot puts us into a slow climb toward to the underbelly of the VTOL above us. I can make out the blazoned hex and digital shield logo of AlphaTek Global Security PMC on their undersides.

  It hits me. We’re hiding, a stealth craft emitting minimal everything, mixed in with a larger legitimate movement of vehicles to the point of perfect cover.

  We slide gently side to side as though executing evasive maneuvers. Baylen and I watched a water snake swimming in a culvert. It dodged like this too, evading unseen foe’s in the sky.

  Less than a minute later, the glow of the city is gone from view. The rumble of the engines drops away to a murmur. The pilot turns her head to face the rear cabin. Her appearance full in the dim red lighting is erotic. I try not to stare at her lips as they move.

  “Full stealth mode engaged. Entering target airspace in five minutes,” she says. “ETA to infil DZ, one hour twenty-seven minutes current airspeed.”

  I look at the rest of the team. They all have their eyes closed. I can see by drooping chins and shifting postures that only two of them are actually awake. I heard from clients I treated that they often slept on the way to missions where they fought for their lives and their companions died.

  I always doubted those accounts. Who could sleep knowing that the moment you stepped off the craft you might die? I’d never seen the behavior and dismissed it as machismo and casual bragging for the sake of ego placation.

  Yet here it was.

  I feel sick.

  3.10

  Drop Zone

  Sunrise will be here in a few more hours. The display on the corner of my vision shows an unrecognized hacking program is beginning to break in. New tech has met old … and now is the time to unplug. I’ve waited long enough.

  I use the dead channels that Bransen’s men have stopped using. If anyone heard the signal I sent when I arrived, they’d have to be here now….

  I cycle a wide and low series of static and hum, a code in and of itself.

  A low hum on my scanner cycles slowly up and down with the background noise across different frequencies. Whoever is sending this signal is one of my own.

  My com-link clicks twice. I respond with one click. After a moment, cognitive radio algorithms start a rapid sequence of signal hops. Each hop gets a specific tonal
burst woven into the static.

  Instantly I get a hit.

  “White Lion. White Lion, this is Cerberus Niner. Confirmation code, Elpis. I say again, confirmation code, Elpis.” It’s Victor, one of my sergeants. I thought he was dead. My feelings threaten to overwhelm me. I do my best to clamp them down.

  Protocol, training, habits. I fall back on those to keep myself centered. The voice analysis matches his file. More importantly, so does his confirmation code.

  “How do you read?”

  “Lima Charlie,” I reply. Vic has always been solid business. It’s good to hear his voice. “Status?”

  “White Lion, a handful of the boys are with me. I’ve secured the rear of the building. Targets on roof and rear door are neutralized.”

  “Copy. I’m on the ground floor.” I have so many questions. Set them aside, do the job. “My daughter may be in the building. Expect nominal resistance. Will update. Over.”

  Vic says, “Copy. I’ll forward your intel and continue exterior containment. Transmitting orbital map data to you.”

  “Copy.” A data bundle appears on my marquee. “Received.” I open the file. Someone somewhere still has their fingers in a pie. A full blueprint of the structure overlays onto my vision. I add it to an on-the-fly SMEAC analysis of my surroundings which I send back.

  The data bears out with what I’ve seen of the structure along with everything else I’ve developed: the guards’ schedule, behaviors, patterns, communication protocols, known armor, and weapons.

  The combined report lets me explore their potential responses to different attack points.

  I solidify my plan. “Cerberus Niner, I need you to secure the main floor on my signal.”

  “Wilco.”

  The posted guard has grown bored with staring at me and spends more time looking wistfully over at his buddies playing cards than watching me or the machine I’m hooked to.

  I recall the number-letter string I need and send the command code to my wrists. My limbs are designed to be quickly repaired, mission tailored, or replaced. With a muffled click, I detach my hands and lower my arms just enough to get them free of the welded metal crossbar. I ease my arms forward and send the reattach command. This operation is designed to work in zero gravity, which means electromagnets spin, align, and lock my hands back on.

  This second click is noticeably louder.

  I keep my hands up, praying that I haven’t moved or changed visually enough for the guard to notice. He looks at me and then away as one of his friends laughingly wins a hand.

  I take one step. He turns back at the sound. His eyes widen, mouth opening to yell.

  My stiff-fingered jab hits him in the throat. I take one more half step and sweep my arm around him to hold his rifle against his chest and keep him from dropping to the floor.

  If his friends notice, I can always use him a shield.

  They’re engrossed in their game.

  Backing up, I lift him along with me. His struggles to breathe are weakening as his larynx swells shut from the blow.

  I turn the hack unit off and pull the plug.

  In the silence, my legs sound loud as I move. No one in the Hercules Project was designed for silent incursions in-atmo, but until now, I never noticed how much noise I make.

  I back up into the shadows and feel the man I’m carrying die a feeble struggling death. I lower him to the concrete and take his rifle, spare clips, and the two poppers slung on his belt.

  Sliding the cover off the front of the welder, I slow down just enough to examine the output ratings. I have an internal adaptor that’s close.

  My options are either to run out of power or try to charge. I might cook my system, but it isn’t real a choice.

  Bransen said he and Maggie would be nearby. Bransen is a liar. It occurred to me that Maggie might be hundreds of miles away, and that he handed her off to his boss. I have to proceed as if she’s still here.

  The cable leads from the welder get a quick strip, and I connect the rig to toggles on my hip socket. The welder hums as I flip the switch. The air fills with ozone. I’m watching the direction the guards are in, eyeing the power and heat levels on my multi-cell.

  More heat than power.

  I leave it on as long as I dare while carrying the entire rig with me. I skirt along in the darkness at the edge of the building. Looking toward the guards, I hide among sections of dismantled hull.

  I shut down the welder when the heat bar is maxed and I’ve reached fifty-two percent juice. There isn’t time to run a cooling cycle and try it again.

  Even as I’m pulling out the cables, I hear one of the guards yell.

  Everything from this instant forward is on a timetable.

  My burst signal to Vic goes out, and I drop a ten second jam into everything across the com-link.

  The guards are split between those who want to run, those who want to look for me, and those who want to take a message to their boss.

  I step out from cover and single shot the man heading for the door. I rip through the rest of the clip at hip height, sawing through the men fanning out and running for cover.

  Hips are a bitch to armor. The pelvis makes up the skeletal integrity of the body. Rounds to the pelvis can drop anything but a Hercules.

  They drop.

  Muffled by distance and the bulk of the building, three detonations echo dully.

  Vic has started his assault.

  My jamming program shows three seconds left.

  I toss the mini grenades into the staggered line of wounded and ignore the results.

  As my own ears compensate for the explosions, I’m sprinting to the gantry. “Cerberus Niner, I’m free and the hanger ground floor is cleared.”

  “Roger, White Lion. Moving in.”

  The rifle is nice, but it won’t blow through cinder block. The site is littered with salvage. It doesn’t take much to find something I can use: a stack of cut rebar, six pieces, all about the same length and weight. Whatever cut them did so on a tight diagonal. The ends are sharp, tapered, and shiny.

  Pulling myself up onto the gantry gets me access to a second-floor doorway leading to office space.

  “Cerberus Niner.” I update Vic. “I’m breaching the second-floor office space now.”

  “Roger. Encountering armed com-ops and some support people down here.” Vic sounds cautious. We’ve run into situations before where the support staff are used as a disposable human screens for harder resistance. I know he won’t go soft.

  “C9, you find this man…” I send Vic an image. “If you can get a clear shot, you take it.”

  “Copy,” Vic says. “Over. Out.”

  I cycle another ten second ECM and Jamming program and open the door.

  ˜˜˜

  “On approach to DZ. Prepare for insertion,” the pilot calls over her shoulder. Instantly everyone is moving.

  I thought I was a bundle of nerves over the last hour. I must have checked my chrono a hundred times….

  “Orders have changed,” Picasso says to me. “You’re coming along. Unbuckle.”

  His words clench up my insides. What came before has been nothing. I grab an airsick bag and use it.

  All the team unbuckles and grabs overhead straps, filing to the rear ramp.

  Picasso watches me as I struggle to undo the center stud. Just as it finally pops, the craft makes a dramatic dive. His arm shoots out to catch me. He pulls me against him, solid and unmoving. His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes light up with wild fire.

  I push myself off his chest and grab an overhead strap.

  I sneak a look at him; his eyes are the same banked coals they’ve been the whole flight. I’m struck with a flash of disappointment. Why was I attracted to this kind of person? One who subverted their humanity in favor of a machine-flesh hybrid? That kind of blending never made people more stable. In fact, most implants pandered to deep seated insecurities.

  Years ago I refused to examine what my likes were and what they
meant about me. I refuse to look at it now.

  “Take this,” Picasso says as he leans against me. I partially turn to face him. He holds up a large pistol. “You ever handled one this size before?” The innuendo is obvious, but no one around us comments.

  “Baylen’s was bigger.” I play innocent and answer his question. “He taught me to handle it. He said if I practiced I’d be pretty good.”

  The stress, maybe even the rapid shifts in altitude, has me feeling as though I’ve stepped outside myself.

  “And did you practice?” he asks. He may still be leering a little.

  I let go of the strap and take the gun from him. “Hold me.”

  His free hand goes around my waist.

  I check the safety, drop the magazine, glance at the rounds … decent sized caliber, regular gunpowder, brass casings … and complete a pinch check. I slide the clip in and chamber the first round, then check the safety again.

  My hands are shaking but not from fear.

  I remember the feeling of Baylen’s pistol in my hands. I was afraid of the power I felt as I squeezed the trigger. That fear twisted into a powerful aphrodisiac. We spent the day shooting and the night screwing. I scared myself in more ways than one. I never fired it again.

  “Turned out, I didn’t need to.”

  “Still, I want you in front of me.” He snorts. “I don’t want you shooting me in the back of the head thinking you’re being useful or something.”

  “Asshole.” I watched the others use the self-adhering holsters. I hold mine in place until it bonds to the armor.

  The sensation of distance from myself, the memories of joking with Baylen, of shooting, and the sex, make me act bolder than I feel. “Maybe a round to the head would improve your attitude.”

  He grins. His eyes leap with sudden flames. “Keep talk’n dirty and see what that’ll get ya.”

  The team member ahead of us turns and eyes me up and down like I’m dinner.

  I look down, embarrassed. A moment later he turns back and hands me a helmet with a full face visor.