“Don’t blame it on the booze, Danny.”
“That’s still part of it, but maybe it’s because … I don’t know. She was kind of unreachable, if that makes any sense at all. I suppose you could say she was like … the head cheerleader.”
“Then what does that make me? The one-legged team manager?”
“Hey, managing a team is a very tough job, Jezzy.”
She scowled. “Not the response I was going for, jackass.”
Horns honked and we looked over to see a phalanx of black SUVs waiting. We entered the SUVs and drove off toward Dulles as I prayed that this would be the end of it all.
25
Be careful what you wish for.
That’s the thought that kept running through my brain as I boarded the C-130 later in the day, following the other operators into the heart of the plane.
I’d wanted this, hadn’t I? Hell, I’d gone to prison, nearly lost the use of my legs, and risked my neck in competition, all for a chance to pilot a mechanized fighting machine. Fighting the good fight and piloting the mech in battle were the very reasons I’d wanted to become an operator in the first place. If that was true, then why was I so full of doubt? Things nagged at me, dark, swirling thoughts that I was having difficulty articulating. It wasn’t just the things that Dexter had said, his concerns about what had happened back at The Hermitage, or even the immense, olive-colored mech we’d spied. Even before that, I’d begun to wonder about the real reasons Vidmark had chosen me for the program. The more I thought about it, the more I began to believe that few of the things that had happened to me since the hoversurf crash were random. All of it, everything since my time in prison, seemed somehow … orchestrated. I know that sounds insane, but that’s what I was feeling. And if things were somehow being arranged, the question was, by whom and for what purpose?
“Glad to see you got your game face on, Deus,” somebody said.
I looked up to see Richter. I took my seat and pulled the five-point harness down and secured myself. “I was zoning there for a sec,” I replied, not wanting to say anything that might piss him off.
“You know what the difference between a good orchestra conductor and a bad orchestra conductor is?”
I shook my head.
“Focus,” Richter said. “The good ones listen to the orchestra, they block out all other sounds and focus on the rhythm. The bad ones don’t.”
“And?”
“And dropping down into your zone like you were just doing ain’t necessarily a bad thing.” He winked at me. “Stay frosty, ace.”
I nodded and took my seat. Jezzy was on my left, Billy on my right, and Ren and Sato seated on the other side. Billy eased his head against my shoulder and smiled. “You ain’t gonna have to worry about staying frosty if we don’t reach that bomb before the scuds do.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m sorta familiar with the kind of explosives the scuds probably got planted up in that glacier. We studied all sorts of shit in school, at the Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center. Tsunami bombs, seismic explosives, you name it. There’s no telling what the aliens have, but it’s probably along the lines of a tectonic warhead on bath salts. Once they set that thing off, there’ll be a chain reaction around the planet. Huge explosions everywhere creating firestorms that build on themselves.”
“Like what happened in Dresden and Tokyo,” Ren added, overhearing our conversation. “My great-grandfather’s father lived through the firebombing of Tokyo. He says that the fires created their own … weather.” She moved her hands in a circular pattern. “The flames began sucking air up through the bottom which created a force that lifted people and things up into the sky, where everything was burned.”
“Everything, baby,” Billy said, smacking his palms together. “You’re talking temperatures that are hot enough to melt concrete, to turn even the biggest cities in the world into black carbon smoke.”
“If you’re goal was to make me feel worse than I did two minutes ago, mission accomplished,” I said.
Billy threw an arm around my head and rough-housed with me. “I didn’t want to bring you down, brother,” he said. “I just saw that you looked a little down and wanted to remind you what the stakes were.”
I nodded and thanked him and then closed my eyes, fighting to stay focused on the mission ahead. I could hear the sounds of our mechs being slotted in place before a metallic whine echoed, the note made by the auxiliary deck as it closed, securing the plane. The air was laced again with the smell of ozone and machine oil, and the same current I’d felt before passed through the plane. The C-130’s massive engines powered up as lights flashed on overhead and all around.
The roughly five-hour flight from Dulles to Greenland was bumpy, but uneventful. I slept for a few hours, then popped on my neural glasses and watched a tutorial of our planned order of battle several times. There were no new messages from Dexter which was a good thing; I’d be able to focus entirely on taking down Alpha Timbo.
26
Jezzy didn’t speak to me the entire time, of course. She gave me the cold shoulder even as we were climbing up into our mech. She went in first and I followed, taking my seat, securing my metal leash. I was surprised to find the little bit of exertion entailed with entering the mech gave my muscles a nice pump and caused pearls of sweat to form on my forehead.
“So what are the odds that we’re going to carry out this mission in complete silence?” I asked.
“Damn near a hundred percent,” she said.
“Ha! I already got you talking again.”
“Piss off, Danny.”
“Well, I’d kind of like to follow up on what I said earlier.”
“So follow up,” she huffed.
“I want you to know that she was the one who came onto me,” I said.
“That doesn’t make it any righter.”
“I’m pretty sure ‘righter’ isn’t actually a word.”
She flipped me a middle finger. “Good Lord, Jezz, it was one little kiss—”
“It wasn’t the kiss, you ass! It was the way you did it, sucking face with superlocks all out in public and whatnot!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You embarrassed the hell out of me.”
“Why? Because I spurned your advances?”
Her face reddened. “You never spurned shit, Deus. Even if you qualified as one, I don’t need a man, okay? I can do just fine by myself.”
I pointed at the boombox. “Want me to put on ‘All the Single Ladies?’”
Her eyes nearly screwed shut and I realized I’d crossed a line. “You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that?”
“I’m sorry, Jezz. You know better than anyone that I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean to hurt or embarrass you and frankly that’s the last time I’m going to be smooching Baila. She’s just not my type.”
“She’s everyone’s type.”
I shook my head. “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there’s a reaction, both are transformed.”
She softened. “Okay, so that’s a touch on the profound side, Danny.”
“Should be. I read that inside a fortune cookie once.”
She rolled her eyes and I grabbed my teddy bear and held him up, manipulating his tiny little hands. “Don’t be a poopy head, Miss Jezmyn.”
She grabbed the bear and started to choke him. I lurched for the bear. “Hey! Give that back!”
We began fighting over the bear when somebody thumped the cockpit glass. I looked up to see Fincher glowering at us. “Hey! I want to see heads on swivels and shit squared asap!” he shouted.
I waved at him and grabbed the teddy bear back, propping it on my lap. Fincher and his men did a final check of the mechs and slapped the cockpit, letting us know that we were ready to roll. I looked up as the rear of the plane opened in full. The sky was as black as the bottom of the ocean.
Just as before, the other mechs were q
uickly shot out of the plane and then it was our turn. The last thing I heard was Billy shouting over the commlink, “GET READY FOR THE RUMBLE ON THE TUNDRA!” And then I braced myself as—
WHAM!
The Spence mech was jettisoned out of the C-130 and gravity wrapped its talons around and pulled us down through the sky where we began to fall like a meteor.
I kept my composure this time, grateful that there were no issues with the parachutes. I watched three of them deploy, billowing up over us, slowing our descent. My eyes skipped back to the viewscreen and the ground below us, the immense Petermann Glacier, seemed to be glowing.
Just as I’d done back in the desert, I lowered the Spence mech into a kind of crouch, controlling our trajectory by the placement of the machine’s arms. Swinging them out, I was able to guide the machine down toward the landing zone, which was illuminated once again by a neon X on our viewscreen—
WHUMP!
We hit the ground hard, but this time we didn’t fumble or fall into a somersault. We stuck the landing hard.
“We got a ten from all the judges on that dismount!” I shouted to Jezzy, holding up my right hand, waiting for her to high-five it. She didn’t and I turned to see her firing a look of pure contempt in my direction. I flipped off the commlink. “Can we ceasefire?” I asked.
“For the sake of the mission,” she replied.
I figured that was enough, a start, and so I flipped the commlink back on and immediately heard Simeon say, “Sound off.”
Everyone did. From what the others said and I could discern from glancing outside, everyone had made it down again all in one piece. I scanned our surroundings in the viewscreen which were eerily illuminated under the light cast from a skull-colored, half-moon. I asked to flip on the exterior lights, but Simeon said that would just give our position away.
Powering up the mech’s new and improved color night-vision, I scoped the land which appeared to be beautiful, if totally inhospitable to human life. Even though everything was cast in a glowing green light from the night-vision, I saw the outside world in three primary colors: white, blue, and brown. I saw the white in the immense sheet of ice and snow that spread out underfoot, the brown in the sediment-colored fjord walls that wreathed the ice sheet, and the blue in the dark pools caused by the glacier’s surface meltwater that were visible on either side of the path forward.
I grabbed the mech’s controls and flipped a switch that caused metal cleats to emerge from the bottom and sides of our machine’s feet. These would give us added traction as we trekked across the ice.
“Move out,” Simeon said. “We’ve got forty-seven minutes before we intercept the scuds and assault the outpost.”
“I kinda forgot to ask an important question,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Will they know we’re coming?”
“Unknown,” Simeon said.
“Kinda takes the fun out of things if they do,” Billy added.
“Agreed,” Ren said, chiming in. “I much prefer surprise parties.”
“That makes two of us, sister,” Dru added.
We fanned out, Simeon in the lead, followed by Baila, Billy and Dru, Ren and Sato, and Jezzy and me. Our five mechs plodded forward at a slow pace as we worked to get our bearings. I remained focused on maneuvering the mech while Jezzy kept her eyes on the 3-D mapping of the glacier and the path ahead. Richter had been right in that certain sections of the glacier were riddled with meltwater holes and appeared to be slowly crumbling down into bottomless fissures in the beautiful, blue-white ice.
We kept to the original path, stomping across the ice sheet, threading between the fjord walls.
“Getting warmer outside,” Jezzy said.
“Temperature is eight degrees Fahrenheit and rising,” Sato added.
“Balmy!” Drug shouted. “So who’s up for a little R&R in Miami on our off day?”“Miami was blown up during the invasion,” Baila said.
“Name me a major city that wasn’t,” Dru shot back.
“Detroit,” all of us said at once.
“So you’re saying Miami’s in ruins, but Detroit’s untouched?”
“That’s right,” Jezzy replied.
“Okay, well, I’m still going to Miami,” Dru said, which brought a smile to my lips.
We followed at the rear of the other mechs, moving haltingly over the glacier. Jezzy constantly kept track of the path, calling out the thickness of the ice and the location of the meltwater pools. Every now and then I scanned the viewscreen and could see that as the temperature rose, the ice was continuing to lose integrity because of the hundreds of tributaries branching off from the meltwater pools that were gouging trenches through the ice. It also didn’t help that the immense weight of our machines was cracking the ice and putting more of a burden on the glacier, which was why we were advancing so slowly.
Even with the mech’s night-vision visibility was shitty and the path forward was growing narrower. I was so focused on not stumbling into Ren’s and Sato’s mech, which was just ahead of us, that I stopped glancing at the viewscreen. I caught sight of Jezzy in a cockpit reflection. “How we looking?”
“The frozen lake and the outpost are two and half miles off,” she said. “Just on the other side of the rock walls at twelve o’clock.” I peered into the night-vision and spotted yet another section of fjord walls in the distance. Our path led right between them and over a ridgeline. Our destination lay on the other side of the ridgeline and down a steep decline.
“Any sign of the scuds?”
“Negative.”
The commlink crackled. “Anybody wanna take a stab at raising the other team?” Billy asked.
I listened to Simeon attempting to hail the other mech team, but there wasn’t anything in response aside from a low, electrical humming sound.
“What happens if they don’t show?” Dru asked.
“More targets for us,” Simeon answered.
“Everyone seeing this?” Dru asked.
I scanned the night-vision and then looked outside to see the remnants of what looked like discarded alien equipment and the rusted remains of some structure, or structures, that had once existed here. There were piles of building materials and the partially-melted remains of what looked like dozens of alien drones and gliders. This wasn’t all that unusual. During the occupation, the aliens had bases and outposts all over the world which were scuttled after the surrender.
“Somebody better call Fred Sanford, ‘cause he wants his junkyard back,” Dru said.
I had absolutely no idea that that meant, but there was a vast menagerie of material and crap littering the ice outside.
“Just pray that there ain’t a junkyard dog keeping an eye on everything,” Billy added.
“Remember what happened back in the desert?” Baila asked. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“What happens if there is more than one dog?” Sato asked.
“And why the hell do the scuds keep leaving things behind?” Dru asked.
“It’s their version of land mines,” Simeon answered. “Their way of making sure that if you step on their turf, you’re gonna pay a price.”
This was true. I remembered how Buddha Blades once told us that the aliens loved leaving booby-traps and biomechanical assassins in the places you’d be least likely to look for them, which usually meant under your feet. It kept you paranoid, guessing, and prone to making mistakes. “Guys, can I just say one thing here,” I croaked. “Before we take another step forward, shouldn’t we look down this time.”
The mechs slammed to a stop.
“Deus is getting a gold star this time,” Simeon said. “Check your screens.”
I peered into the viewscreen and studied the map of the surrounding area on the viewscreen. Dammit! There was something under the ice, or some … things. I could see them now. It was impossible to tell what the objects were, but they were scattered all over the glacier, buried six feet or more under the ice sheet.
/> “Jesus. What are they?” I asked.
“They might be nothing,” Baila said.
“Yeah, or they might be like those bastards back at that scud vault in the desert,” Billy replied. “PPEs, purple people eaters.”
“Whatever they are, they’re in deep freeze,” said Dru. “Hibernation and shit. They’re not moving.”
“So let’s not wake them up,” I said
Simeon was the first one to push his mech forward and when he took that first step, it happened. Wouldn’t you know it, he popped a flare hidden in the ice and—
WHOOOSH!
Our world turned a bright, shiny red.
27
Red flares spiraled up into the air, turning night to day. We waited and nothing happened. Not a thing stirred on the night-vision or viewscreen.
“See,” Billy said. “That was some straight-up bullshit. Ha! Nothing to worry about at all—”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Hidden objects detonated out to the left and right of us, sending ice and snow up into the air.
“Activate your holo app,” Richter said over the commlink.
I tapped the red button on the edge of the viewscreen and Richter’s face appeared.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Richter said.
“The good first,” I replied.
“You’ve tripped a booby-trap.”
“That’s the good news?!” I exclaimed.
He nodded.
“Jesus. What’s the bad news?!”
“You’ve got nine seconds to haul ass to safety!”
“THE TEMPERATURE IS GOING UP!” Jezzy shouted.
“That’s impossible!” I shouted back.
“Not outside!” she said, shaking her head. “The temperature down in the ice!”
I could see something, what looked like road flares glowing down in the ice. I surmised that the explosions had been linked to the flares. Once Simeon tripped the booby-trap, the flares were similarly activated. I could tell that because the images on the viewscreen were changing. The ice was rapidly falling away under us, the temperatures in the ice spiking.
World of Hurt Page 18