by G T Almasi
My dad’s transfer from the Gestapo to the Carbon Program showed up in one of the reports that Winter accessed. This report surprised the hell out of ol’ Winter-green, since he thought the Beast had been dead for eight years. He decided that his former partner in crime—Fredericks—should know about this, since taking down one Big Bertha was hard enough. If Gen-3 really worked, there would be multiple Big Berthas, all with vivid memories of what they had done to him. Winter had Kazim contact Fredericks through Hector, and the rest has been a nonstop jolt-o-matic thrill ride ever since.
The ride isn’t over yet, either. Snatching Winter may only be the beginning, because the Germans are threatening to leave the Pan-Atlantic Alliance. This would expose the United States to the predatory tendencies of Russia and China. Germany, too, unless Berlin decides to join the Asian Pact.
The Capitol Hill bigwigs are pulling all-nighters to deal with this emergency. The man at the head of the table is the president. At the president’s right side is his chief strategist, Jakob Fredericks. The slimy fuck is planning our response to this disaster, and until we’re out of it, he’s considered the most important man in the USA.
Director Chanez has been strongly advised by his friends at the Justice Department that Fredericks is untouchable right now. We can’t even let Winter out of the bag, because we’re worried that Fredericks will find a way to discredit or even kill his former accomplice. The Justice guys volunteered to stash our star witness until this situation with Germany gets sorted out.
It’s likely that ExOps will take an active role in that sorting, but Cyrus wants me to rest before he gives me another Job Number. I had to admit that sounded like a good idea even though I’m dying to find my father.
I finish my drink and stand up to use the bathroom. The tops of the seats try to squirm away from my hands as I stagger up the aisle. I lurch into the bathroom and catch my reflection in the mirror. I grip the sink, lean in close, and take a good look.
Lines. There are lines on my face! I look so much older! Have I been poisoned? Was it some chemical thing in Riyadh? Radiation in Zurich? I pull the skin on my face this way and that, trying to make me young again. It doesn’t work. Now I see that my red hair has a white streak on the right side of my head. Where the hell did that come from?
In the mirror, someone with big bug eyes appears behind me. I spin around. No one’s there. My hands shake, and I feel faint. I jack a dose of Madrenaline. It’s probably not a good idea to mix synthetic adrenaline with all the alcohol I’ve had today, but I don’t care. I cannot let myself pass out in an airplane lavatory. My mouth goes dry and the back of my neck tingles, but the drugs help my dizziness. I close my eyes and grit my teeth because at this point I know what happens next.
Alix
Even though I expect it, the voice almost knocks me out of my skin. My neuroinjector reacts to my stress by giving me a shot of Kalmers. I sit down on the toilet and do what I came for in the first place. I finish and flush. I’m washing my hands when I hear it again.
Alix
This time it sounds like it’s right next to me. No, not next to me. I look where it comes from, and I find myself eyeballing Li’l Bertha. Her status indicator reads “ready.”
Li’l Bertha is never switched on when I’m on a plane. The first and last part of my preflight routine is to confirm that my sidearm is powered down. I take her out of my holster and check that her mechanical safeties are engaged. Yes, they are, but somehow my gun has managed to activate herself again. While I try to figure out what’s wrong with her, it occurs to me that I hear that voice only when she’s on.
I feel like a doofus, but I hold her up to my mouth and whisper, “Daddy?” The gun’s sensors light up in succession, one after the other. Next I try, in order, “ExOps,” “Winter,” and “Darius,” with no results. Then I say, “Philip Nico.” The sensors all light up at once, and I hear a soft, distorted voice, like someone talking through a pillow. I can’t make out what the voice says. I try a couple more phrases, then repeat the words that worked before, but now nothing happens no matter what I say. I’ll have to take a long look at Li’l Bertha when I’m home. That’s another reason for me and Mom to buy a house. I need a shop.
I holster the gun and wobble back to my seat. I lay off the hooch for the rest of the flight. What do I need booze for when I’ve got terrifying hallucinations built right in? I try to sleep, but for a while I can only think about my dad and about Trick. Eventually the combination of Kalmers and liquor makes me doze off and gives me another one of my weird dreams.
The monk’s head is normal again. He sits in his usual spot, but his robe is now black instead of orange. He looks at me for a minute, then recites:
The pestilent horde is consumed,
By you, furious Dragonflower,
Along with the lush, cheering grass.
I sleep through the landing and wake just as we pull up to the gate. I “buh-bye” off the plane and walk through the meat tube to the terminal. Then I mosey around the gate area, waiting for Darwin to spot me. I’ve only heard his voice, so I expect him to recognize and approach me. Instead, I find him in the airport café next to my gate.
He’s reading a newspaper.
He’s the last person I ever expected to see again.
He’s Patrick.
To my family
Acknowledgments
The fictional world of Shadowstorm is complex, and I needed the help of many intelligent and patient people. They answered my questions and advised me about everything from history and politics to genetics and emergency medicine. To mention them here only scratches the depth of my gratitude. I never would have finished this novel without these generous friends.
To my parents, Carol and George, thank you for enabling my creativity from a young age, for sending me to RISD, and for your support and confidence throughout this long process. Mom: My next series will have fewer curse words.
To my sister, Mary Rose, thank you for guiding me around rookie mistakes, no matter how determined I was to make them, and for all your help getting this going.
To my wife, Natalie, thank you for your years of support and enthusiastic help as I’ve pulled this together. I love you.
To my teachers and mentors:
• Anne Grolle: my brilliant editor at Random House. Anne has taught me more things in less time than any other person in my professional life. Her creativity, intelligence, and positive attitude made this one of my most creatively fulfilling experiences.
• Tristram C. Coburn: my bulldog literary agent. Tris had the persistence to shovel through a mountain of rejection letters and the wisdom not to tell me about them. And I couldn’t ask for a better Protector on the business end of things.
• Roberta Grimes: my shield-bearing entertainment lawyer. Roberta’s knowledge, experience, and easygoing nature were invaluable in helping me get a grip on the foreign language of intellectual property.
• Keith Smith: entertainment biz veteran and perhaps the coolest guy in the world. Keith generously shared his real-life knowledge and helped me navigate the confusing world of extra-literary rights.
• Jamie Costas: the editor who, even though we didn’t wind up working together, convinced me to make Alix the age she is now instead of the age I had her before, which helped the book a lot.
To my advisors and beta readers:
• George S. Almasi: world history, German language and culture, general science, technology, and all the other things fathers teach their sons.
• Paul C. Christesen: history, German language, macroeconomics, and general science.
• Andy MacInnis: military history, firearms and ballistics, European culture, and long-time sounding board.
• Steven Sharp: military history, general science, and sci-fi literature.
• Arthur V. Milano: military history, coma recovery, and the inspiration for Raj.
• Kirsten Schwaller-Sigrist: Genetics, cloning and sci-fi literature.
•
Diane O’Brien: Medical science and keeping Andy in line.
• Beth Kelley: Medical science, in particular the treatment of gunshot wounds, operating room procedures, and other disgusting hospital stuff.
• Scott D. Packard: Medical science and theoretical future sciences.
• David Hayes: History and literature.
• Len Freiberg III, Maureen Robinson & Krista Snyder: FBI terminology and procedures.
• Lori Freiberg-Rapp, Paul Muller: Military terminology and procedures.
• Jamin Naghmouchi: German slang.
• Paul Owen Powers: Eighty-one inches of Midwestern dynamite. Paul told Tris to read my first manuscript, but left the dire consequences of not reading it to Tris’s imagination.
• Megan Kiernan & Seth Coburn: my original models for Scarlet and Patrick.
• Claudia Wilcox-Powers, Laurel Christie, Jim Foley, Gretchen Schwaller-Sharp, Peter Sigrist, Cathy Davis-Hayes, Carol DuBois, Steve Coburn, Mark MacFarlane, Emily Clark, and anyone I can’t remember at 3:00 A.M.: Beta-readers, sounding boards, super-supportive cheerleaders.
• Everyone on my Facebook author page. Thanks for following my demented late-night ravings!
I’ve found great inspiration in the books of Ken Follett, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, and Frank Miller, the films of Luc Besson, Quentin Tarantino, and Guy Ritchie, and the video games of Todd Howard, John Romero, and Jason Jones.
Can’t get enough of Scarlet?
Then be sure not to miss the next pulse-pounding novel of the Shadowstorm:
HAMMER OF ANGELS
by
G. T. ALMASI
Coming soon from Del Rey.
Turn the page for a special preview!
“Scarlet, ten left,” Brando’s comm-voice says, “and stay low.”
I dash ten yards up Main Street. My heavy breathing blows little puffs of dust off the floor. Some dirt sticks to my sweat-soaked forehead. I blink hard to get the salt drops out of my eyes.
A turret pops out of a stand of plastic bushes on my left and noisily sprays the air above me with rubber ordnance. I slide on my stomach and aim Li’l Bertha at the bullet-bot. My pistol locks on and comms “Target Acquired” to my Eyes-Up display. I pull the trigger and return fire. My lightweight practice slugs rattle off the turret’s metal shell, which signals the Training Control Center that ya got me, pardner.
Brando comms, “Next station, twenty right, fly-by.”
I jump to my feet and pump my legs for twenty yards. I look to my right. “Fly-by” is IO slang for “don’t stop moving,” so this next part will be something extra hairy. A bright light flashes from a little house on the right side of Main Street. As I turn to riddle this target, the floor drops out from under me. I’ve got just enough momentum to grab the far lip of the insta-pit with my free hand. Then my body slams into the pit’s wall, and I get the wind knocked out of me.
I hang there for a moment, gasping. My partner comms, “Scarlet, hurry, we’ve only got thirty seconds and one more station to get through.”
That’s easy for you to say, Darwin. I pull myself out of the pit and wheeze on up the road.
“Okay, last one. Fifty-five straight ahead, top speed.”
I mentally activate my sidearm’s safeties so she won’t accidentally fire as I swing my arms as fast as I can. My sneakers slap the floor and my hair blows behind me as I race up to twentysomething miles per hour. I can hit the high thirties with Madrenaline in my blood, but Brando and I are supposed to be able to complete this training sequence without using my Enhances. Each run-through is different, and I’ve screwed it up three times today. This is the closest we’ve gotten to finishing.
Brando comms, “Twenty seconds remaining!”
Ahead of me is a clear run to the finish line. All I need to do is jog fifty yards and—
Wrong.
Three bullet-bots drop from the ceiling in front of me. They bounce up and down on long rubber cables, and each bot emits a thin red laser beam. All three beams point at my chest, and the bots fire a volley of rubber bullets.
Brando comms, “It’s a bungie screen!”
I hold Li’l Bertha in front of me while I leap and dodge away from the bouncy-bots’ bullets and laser beams. Her target indicator is blank.
“Darwin, what’s happened? Why can’t my pistol get a lock?”
“They’ve got jammers. You’ll have to—”
I charge straight at the left-most bot.
“—find a way around them.”
The left-bot locks on to me as it drops to the bottom of its arc. I leap at it and grab the bungie cord above its body. The bot’s momentum hauls me off the ground, and I sail up toward the roof.
I swing like Tarzan across the training space and wrap my bot’s cord around the other two cables before dropping myself off at the bottom of the next bounce. The bots are still live, but now they can only point in a fixed direction. I dodge the static laser beams and hurl myself across the finish line with less than a second to go.
“Yes!” Brando shouts. “Made it!”
I flop onto my back to catch my breath. The view from Camp Gaspy shows that this facility has a very high, curved roof supported by metal trusses. It’s like a giant airplane hangar.
“Terrific,” Brando comms. “Now for the driving test.”
Sure. Whatever. “Gimme a minute,” I comm. It takes a minute anyway since Brando has to bring the car around.
A vehicle pulls up next to me. I peel myself off the ground. Oh god, I wish I could use Madrenaline. Brando switches to the passenger seat, and I hop in behind the wheel. Something must have happened to our previous training vehicle, which was a fucked-up black-and-white Dodge sedan, like a former police cruiser. This new car, a white BMW two-seater convertible, is quite a hot little number. The relatively few dents and scrapes tell me this sexy momma hasn’t seen much track time here yet. While I coast to the start line, I take in the gorgeous tan interior.
My partner sees how impressed I am with our new wheels and says, “Drug bust.”
Ah, of course. Sometimes when ExOps helps local cops, we get to keep the bad guy’s ride. If the D.C. SWAT guys can’t take care of a situation, or if the FBI is in over their heads, Director Chanez will send one of his Levels out with them. It never takes long after that. Regular crooks can’t compete with a million-dollar murder machine designed to help topple whole governments.
I rev the engine and yell, “Think there’s any cocaine left in this baby?”
Brando turns up the heater, puts on his seat belt, and smiles. “I doubt it. The mechanics probably got it all.”
I pull the Cokemobile up to the start line. In front of us, a pair of giant hangar doors slide open. Brando riffles through his instructions and nods to me when he’s ready.
“TCC, Scarlet and Darwin ready for launch.”
The Training Control Center comms back. “Roger that, Scarlet. Arming the tree. Go on green.”
In front of us is a tall pole that supports two vertical series of lights. Right now the top lights are lit up bright red. I press the clutch down and shift into first. My right foot floors the gas and holds it there.
The light tree flashes down: reds, yellows, green!
I slip my left foot off the clutch pedal. A white cloud of tire smoke billows behind us as we screech off the line. The tachometer redlines and I shift into second. We burst out of the hangar at sixty miles per. The sun smacks my face, and my vision Mods adjust their gamma to compensate.
I shout, “Yeee-hahhhh!!!”
Brando responds with a wolf howl as we roar down the first long straightaway. The Cokemobile makes it to a buck-ten before I tap the brakes to set up a spectacular powerslide around Turn One’s broad expanse. I counter-steer and slam full on the gas before I’ve even passed the corner’s apex. Cokey leans into this scandalous driving like a drunk businessman doing the motorboat between a hooker’s tits.
Oh, I am totally
getting myself one of these honeys.
“Turn Two,” Brando navigates, “eighty in, descending circumference, sixty out.”
I downshift from fifth to third to transfer the car’s weight forward. My hands twist the wheel thirty yards from the turn. All that weight up front makes us plow into the corner. When we’re a foot from the pavement’s outer edge, I stomp the gas and pull the car’s weight back onto its rear wheels. The unloaded front tires suddenly grab the pavement tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet and whip us through Turn Two.
“Turn Three, seventy in, ascending circumference, seventy-five out. Sharp vertical rise at apex.”
I slither us into Turn Three with my right toes on the gas and my right heel on the brakes. My left foot peppers the clutch as needed to keep our revs up. I do great until the turn’s apex. The vertical rise bumps Cokey into the air and screws up my driving line. We fly three feet sideways before we land. I overcorrect and the Bimmer tilts onto her two left wheels. Brando and I both lean as hard to the right as we can. I jiggle the wheel left to get us back on all fours, but now we’re headed off the track.
I yank the emergency brake, crank the steering wheel right then left, and drop the e-brake down again. This throws us into a completely slideways skid. I look over my left shoulder to see where we’re going.
God almighty, we’ll be lucky if there’s any rubber at all on the tires after this one. My training has taught me to ignore the natural inclination to slow down when faced with an all-out mental-patient driving disaster like this. If I even breathe on the brakes right now, we’ll spin completely out of control. I shove the gas pedal to the floor, dimly aware of Brando as he hangs onto his door handle for dear life. He doesn’t say anything though, god bless ’im.