by Peter Clines
I was the first one to break seven-fifty. Me. I’m the strongest, you fuckers.
While I’m waiting my turn I grab a pair of free weights. I’m curling one-fifty with no problem these days. Never guess it looking at any of us, especially the chicks. Sorensen says it has to do with muscle density and fast-twitch fiber or something. I’ve gained fifty-eight pounds of muscle, but I’ve only gone up one shirt size.
I’m getting antsy just hanging around the base, too. Should be thankful, though. Signed up thinking I’d get to go kill towelheads in Iraq or Affuckistan or somewhere. Then they sent me out here to Arizona and I found out how much I hate the fucking desert. I’m sunburned half the time, sweating all the time. Iraq or Affuckistan or Ari-fucking-zona, they all suck. Maybe I’ll fake sick and see if I can get reassigned.
I do twenty reps while the bitch ties my record. She sits up for a moment, shoots me a wink, and gives Gus a look and a nod. “No way,” he grins.
“Do it,” she says. She’s sweating and grinning like a bitch in heat. “Two more.”
The squad hollers. Sergeant Kennedy’s going to do nine-forty. She’s going to beat me. Fucking bitch cunt whore.
Gus and Monroe are scrounging up two more seventy-five pound plates across the gym when Ryan Polk comes in. He’s working as one of Colonel Shelly’s staff when he’s not here with the rest of us. Let him make corporal. “News from the outside,” he says as he pulls off his jacket. “It’s getting worse.”
Nobody has to ask what. About four weeks ago, in mid-March, we started hearing news stories about an epidemic. First couple cases were in Los Angeles, but then we heard about outbreaks in Vegas and New York and Boston. There was a news story about someone getting sick in London and then Colonel Shelly clamped down on all of it. That told us how bad it was. One of the MPs told me they clamp down on big bad news so no one does anything stupid and runs home or something.
The other bitch, Britney, goes up to him. Yeah, we’ve got a fucking cunt soldier named Britney in our squad. “What’d you hear?”
Ryan grabs a set of free weights and starts doing curls, too. Our muscles get stiff fast if we don’t keep using them. “I heard Colonel Shelly say they’re deploying the National Guard in nineteen cities,” he says. “They’re talking about martial law.”
I can’t believe that. Not here in the U.S. of A. “No fucking way,” I say.
“That’s what they were saying. It hasn’t happened yet but they think they’re going to have to.”
“Does the Guard even have that many people left in country?” asks Eddie. “Most of them are in Iraq, aren’t they?”
Ryan shrugs in between curls.
Kennedy wipes some sweat off her forehead. “Is it getting that bad? Are people looting or something?”
Gus slaps his plate on the bar and shakes his head. “I heard it’s not like a regular flu, whatever it is. People get sick but they keep walking around and infecting people.”
Monroe taps his plate into place. “I heard it was turning people into zombies.”
“Fuck that,” I say. “That’s bullshit.”
“My brother’s in Queens. He says he’s seen people wandering around biting other people.”
Kennedy leans back on the bench. “Hate to agree with Taylor,” she says, “but that sounds like bullshit.” She grabs the bar and takes in a few deep breaths. Her arms tighten and the bar comes off the stands. Nine-forty. Fucking cunt.
“What I want to know,” says Eddie, “is why aren’t they sending us out?”
“Because we’re not in the National Guard,” I say.
“Yeah, fuck that. If they’re locking down the base it means things are bad. People need help out there and it sounds like they need everyone they can get.”
“You want to go haul that flu virus off to Guantanamo?” says Britney with a grin.
“I don’t like sitting here on my ass,” Eddie tells her.
“Yeah, your ass looks well sat-on,” grunts Kennedy between presses. Most of them chuckle. She’s telling jokes. The bitch is telling jokes while she breaks my record. I want to throw one of my dumbbells at her head and see what happens.
It gets the attention back on her, which is what she wanted. Seven reps. Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten reps of nine-hundred and forty pounds. The bar clangs onto the stand and almost bounces off before Gus grabs it.
They’re all pounding her back and congratulating her. She’s got wide eyes. Runner’s high. I drop the dumbbells back on the rack with a clang. It’s my turn. Time to get my record back and—
And she flops back onto the bench. She’s staring up at the bar, and I swear to fucking God if she says what I think she’s going to say I will kill this bitch.
“Do it,” she says. “Two more.”
Fucking cocksucker bitch cunt whore !
They all stop talking and stare at her. It already looks like a cartoon barbell, there’s so much weight on it. There’s about three inches clear at either end. Just enough to fit one more plate.
“Sarge,” says Monroe, “you sure? That’s—”
“One thousand ninety,” she says. She nods. “Sorensen says we should be able to break a thousand. So let’s break it.”
There’s another moment of quiet and then they’re all hollering and stomping. Kennedy the she-bitch is still staring at the bar. Gus and Monroe trek across the gym, grab the last seventy-five pound plates, and lug them back across the gym. One plate is nothing to any of us these days. They’re carrying them one-handed. She’s got seven on each side of the bar now.
I’ve gotta admit, I’m pissed but I want to see if she can do it.
She swings her legs up, crosses her ankles, and we can all see her abs tighten. Her arms spread a bit and her fingers wrap around the bar. Gus and Monroe are standing on either side. That’s a fuckload of weight for one guy to spot. Even for us.
She takes in a deep breath. Then another. Her arms tense up and the barbell comes off the stands. The bar’s wobbling, there’s so much fucking weight on it.
It goes down real slow. She’s sucking in air while it comes down on her tits. Just brushes her nipples. Fucking little cock tease.
She breathes out hard and the bar goes up. One thousand and ninety pounds. Over half a ton.
The first rep is a little slow, but then the bitch does a second. And a third. And a fourth. She almost gets the fifth one up but her arms start shaking. Gus and Monroe lean in and she barks at them to back off. Sweat’s pouring off of her. You can hear it hitting the floor. And she forces the bar up. Five reps of more than half a ton each.
She rolls up off the bench and the whole squad is hollering and pounding her back and hugging her. She’s the fucking bitch hero of the moment. She goes through and punches everyone in the shoulder one by one. Her knuckles land right where Monroe slapped me, right where I got my shot. Fucking cunt probably did it on purpose.
There’s a rattle down at the far end of the gym, and we all turn to look. A bald black guy is using the other bench down there. A big guy. Six-eight, maybe six-ten, easy, and built like a fucking linebacker. He’s just hoisted his own barbell off of the rests. We’ve got every big plate in the gym so he’s loaded up his bar with thirty-fives. After so much time in the gym, we can all tell the plates apart on sight. He’s got three-twenty on there and he starts doing these clean, precise reps, one after another.
Britney looks at him, already getting her panties wet. “Who’s that?”
“Our new CO,” says Ryan. “Just transferred in. He’s in the program now, too.”
“Kind of late in the game, isn’t he?” says Eddie. “Take him forever to catch up to Sergeant Kennedy.”
They chuckle and punch her in the shoulder. She bats their arms away, stuck up bitch. I take the fucking high road, cause I’m such a nice guy and this guy looks like a real man. “Wasn’t that long ago we were all proud doing three hundred,” I say. “I bet by the time he’s done with his shots he’ll be blowing her out of the fucking water. No offens
e, sarge.”
“None taken,” she says. “He’s welcome to try.” And you can see in her eyes the bitch is looking forward to the fight.
Ryan looks at her, then at me. “You guys don’t know?”
“Know what?”
Ryan grins. A big shit-eating grin. “He hasn’t started yet.”
Sergeant Kennedy looks over at the big officer, pumping out rep after rep like a machine. He’s done twenty-five now, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be slowing down anytime soon. “Hasn’t started what?”
“The process. Sorensen hasn’t done anything to him yet.”
We all watch him for a moment. He’s up to thirty reps, easy.
“All of us guinea pigs are already obsolete,” says Ryan. “You’re looking at the next generation of super soldier.”
He drops the barbell back on the stand at thirty-five reps. Thirty-five fucking reps of three-twenty. And he’s not enhanced yet. He sits up and looks at all of us, and that fucking look lets us know he could take any of us grunts right now, shots or no shots.
No fucking way.
Chapter 11
NOW
Barry’s words were still echoing in St. George’s ear when the second Black Hawk dropped a belay line. The rope hadn’t even uncoiled before a soldier slid down fast. He was halfway down when the end of the line swung free, a good hundred feet over the Plaza lot.
“It’s too short,” said St. George, stepping forward. He focused, started to rise, and the soldier kneeling by the first helicopter opened fire with his rifle. The rounds hit hard. He imagined it was a lot like getting blasted by a firehose would be for normal people. The hero dropped back to the ground. He glanced up and the man on the belay line shot past the end and fell.
The soldier ended his hundred foot drop and hit the ground like a falling tree. The pavement cracked out from the impact point and kicked up two years’ worth of dust the first helicopter had swept into small drifts. Bits of gravel and dirt pitter-pattered down across the area.
St. George was back on his feet, taking in a breath to shout for medical help. In those few instants the dust cleared and he froze. The man hadn’t fallen from the line.
He’d jumped.
The soldier straightened up from the crouch he’d landed in, a move that reminded St. George of Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling from the future in the Terminator movies. He was a black man, at least nine inches taller than the hero, and a good foot wider. He focused on St. George with shining green eyes in a face shadowed by his helmet. There were two black bars on his chest, and stitched across the left side of his digital-patterned camos was one word.
FREEDOM
He pulled the biggest pistol St. George had ever seen from a thigh holster. It had a drum like an old Tommy gun and venting on the barrel. The muzzle came to bear on him as the huge officer barked out a command.
“Stand down, sir,” said Freedom, stepping forward. “Get on your knees with your hands on your head.”
“Hey,” said St. George. “There’s no need for this. It’s just a simple misunderstanding.”
“On your knees!” The captain grabbed the hero by the shoulder with his left hand and shoved down. St. George brushed the hand aside.
“I think you need to take a few deep breaths and calm—”
There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting concrete as Freedom’s knuckles caught him under the chin. A shrub whipped St. George from behind and the wall of the gatehouse hit him in the back. He felt it crumble. The soldier marched forward, holstered his oversized pistol, and dragged the hero back to his feet by the lapels of his leather jacket. The man spun on his heel and threw St. George half a block down to 3rd Street.
The hero hit the pavement and skidded into one of the oversized planters. The concrete cracked and soil spilled out over him. He cleared his head with a quick shake and pushed himself back to his feet.
Freedom marched forward again. “Sir, stay on your knees and put your hands on your head,” said the huge soldier. “This is your last warn—”
St. George leaped up, grabbed the officer’s swollen biceps, and shot into the air.
When they were a hundred feet over the Mount he held the larger man up at eye level. “Unless you want to make that drop again,” he said, “I suggest you—”
Freedom slammed his helmet into the bridge of St. George’s nose. When the hero didn’t release him, he did it again.
Smoke curled up from St. George’s nostrils. He glared at the soldier for a moment and opened his hands.
The other man dropped six feet and grabbed hold of the hero’s boot with iron fingers.
“Oh, come on!” snapped St. George.
* * *
The soldier who’d taken the man named John to the ground dragged him back to the helicopter. The others shouted until the gate guards dropped their weapons, walked closer to the Black Hawk, and fell to their knees. Then they took up defensive positions around the chopper. Two of the soldiers kept the guards at gunpoint. Two others watched the nearby buildings for opposition.
One of the last two, a specialist with TRUMAN on his jacket, looked all around. “Where’d the woman go?”
“What woman?” The other soldier, labeled FRANKLIN, had been one of the last to disembark.
“With the black cape. Where’d she go? She was right here before the captain arrived.”
All six of them scanned the area around the helicopter. There was ten feet of open space in every direction. Where the woman had been standing, on the far side of Freedom’s impact crater, there was twice that distance to the nearest piece of cover. And most of that cover had been destroyed when the captain had punched the guy claiming to be the Mighty Dragon.
One of the civilian guards, a beefy man with dreadlocks, chuckled. He kept his hands on his head and raised his voice so they could hear him across the distance. “You guys might as well give up now,” he said.
“Keep it quiet,” snapped one of the soldiers watching him. “I’ll tape your mouth if I have to.”
He laughed again. “You guys are so seriously out of your league here.”
The five soldiers exchanged a quick set of looks. Then they looked at each other again. “Hey,” said Franklin, “where the hell did Mike go?”
* * *
At Four, Zzzap searched the air for information. Telemetry danced around him from all five helicopters, and here and there a terse command from the troops on the ground. He knew their call sign was Unbreakable and it sounded like another squad from the same platoon was getting ready to deploy. On the Mount’s frequencies the Melrose Gate had gone silent, but many of the spotters on the wall stepped on each other in their rush to report in. The soldiers had taken the Melrose guards prisoner. Three people reported gunfire but weren’t sure from what or at who. And they’d seen St. George carry someone into the air and start to wrestle with him.
He sent a pulse out to Stealth. He knew it reached her cowl radio, but she didn’t respond. Which meant she was fighting the other soldiers. It shouldn’t be too hard for her. If he’d gotten the numbers right, there were six or seven on the ground and maybe that many more getting ready to deploy. A ridiculously small amount, from his limited experience with the military. The sun was almost up but there were still a ton of shadows. With home-court advantage, Stealth would probably have the soldiers disarmed and hogtied before the—
Zzzap had an ugly thought. There was no reason for it, but a lot of things made sense if he was right. Maybe whoever gave this platoon of soldiers their call sign was as big a movie fan as he was. Which would explain why they didn’t need to put that many soldiers on the ground. And why one of them was trading punches with St. George.
Keep an eye on things here, he said to no one in particular. I think they might need some extra help out there.
* * *
St. George tried to shake the larger man loose, but Freedom’s grip couldn’t be broken. He kicked the huge soldier in the wrist again but it didn’t seem to have
any effect. The hero finally dove down towards 12th Street in the middle of the North-by-Northwest residential area. He pulled up at the last minute and slammed the other man against the ground, confident it wasn’t a lethal tactic. At this point he wondered if it would even slow the soldier down.
Freedom tumbled across the pavement and rolled to his feet next to the capsized truck that blocked the North Gower Gate. His helmet skittered loose across the street. He drew his oversized sidearm and squeezed off four thundering bursts at St. George. Over a dozen slugs hit like punches. They pattered off the hero’s chest and shoulder and chimed on the ground with the spent shells from the pistol.
St. George glanced over his shoulder, but it looked like most of the stray rounds had just taken chunks out of Thirty-One’s outer wall. “Look,” he said, “isn’t this a little cliché? I’m one of the good guys. I’m pretty sure you’re one of the good guys. Let’s pull our heads out of our asses before either side does something stu—”
The four guards from Gower Gate lunged forward with pikes and weapons drawn. One of them howled a battle-cry. A pike got close to Freedom and he grabbed it by the end and snapped the tip off. He blasted the ground by their feet. “Drop your weapons,” he bellowed.
The guards smiled. One pointed behind him.
He turned and St. George’s fist cracked across his jaw. The soldier shook it off and a second punch knocked him back against the truck. He swung a roundhouse with his free hand but the hero leaped away and up.
Freedom holstered his weapon and charged across the pavement. He leaped up and tackled St. George in mid-air. The hero’s concentration faltered and they slammed into the ground.
The huge soldier drove three quick punches into St. George’s face with the distinct sound of large stones being slammed together. Each one drove the smaller man’s skull down into the pavement until the surface cracked. “You will stand down, sir,” said Freedom. “I’m not going to tell you ag—”