Crysis: Escalation

by Gavin G. Smith

  She nodded, tears in her eyes. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  ‘I guess you’ve got other kids you’ve got to help, right?’ she asked through the tears, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  No. There’s the mission and only the mission, if your brother will let me.

  He nodded, mumbled platitudes at her and then turned away. He made himself walk away by promising that he would come back and check up on her. There would have been tears in his eyes as he lied to himself, if he hadn’t been a walking corpse.

  He all but staggered past the Green-Eyed Man from the alleyway, trying to ignore him. The man watched him pass. The expression in his eyes was unreadable.

  ‘Prophet?’

  More voices in my head?

  ‘Prophet. I know you can hear me,’ The voice was familiar and it sounded like it had been trying to speak to him for some time. Prophet looked around at his surroundings and sighed. He’d lost time again. He was sat on a detritus-strewn beach. He wondered why the other guy never took him anywhere nice when he was in control as he watched a flock of scavenging seagulls take to the air. On the other hand, in the nanosuit, he guessed he was a little conspicuous.

  ‘Prophet, this silence helps neither of us. I think you’re in trouble and I think we can help.’

  He recognised the voice now. Karl Rasch. The CEO of Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical. The company that had developed the living weapon that animated the distinctly unliving body he had stolen.

  Hargreave-Rasch were also the parent company of CryNet Systems and CryNet Enforcement and Local Logistics, the so-called “military contractors” who had spent a lot of time shooting at him in New York. He’d killed a lot of them, as well as a lot of Ceph.

  ‘I will find a way to break this comms link permanently,’ Prophet muttered. As he said it the HUD was already showing him options for the nanosuit’s comms as the suit’s heuristic systems went to work.

  The Green-Eyed Man was back, looking intently at Prophet and listening to one side of the conversation. He was sat on a pile of driftwood, the seagulls ignoring him.

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ Rasch’s voice was cultured, educated, with a thick German accent. ‘You don’t sound well. We have the facilities to help you.’

  ‘It’s not over. I know what the Ceph are planning. We have no future…’ Prophet cursed himself. The Green-Eyed Man continued staring at him.

  ‘We can help you, we want the same things.’

  ‘Bullshit, you want to skin me. Use me, like your company always has.’ He remembered the argument he’d had with Psycho on Lingshan. The Brit had been convinced they were little more than test beds for Hargreave-Rasch’s experiments.

  Rasch did not answer immediately.

  ‘You’re a soldier, Prophet. There has to be risks involved in that. There has to be somebody giving orders, and there have to be sacrifices. You — more than anyone — know what’s at stake,’ the old man said finally.

  ‘Yes, I do. I just don’t think that you’re the ones to deal with the problem.’

  ‘We want to deal with the Ceph as much as you do. And I need your help for that. There’s no future for any of us if the aliens take over.’

  ‘I want this planet to survive. You and your company just want to profit. Besides, are you sure there will be anything left of you after the Congressional Inquiry?’

  There was a dry chuckle over the comms link. ‘I think we both know that’s not how things like that work.’

  No, consequences are for poorer people, Prophet thought.

  ‘I’m not coming in. I don’t trust you, and I have a job to do. I know the Ceph are still active out there, and I know you’re looking for them as well.’

  It was hollow machismo and Prophet knew it. The comms link went quiet again.

  ‘The way you integrated with the Ceph tech in New York may make you our greatest hope. I think you’re having problems. We’re not sure what happened. We’re not sure how your personality survived but we do think that it’s affecting you. A conflict with the remnants of callsign Alcatraz’s personality.’

  You mean the mind that this body belongs to? Prophet looked over at the Green-Eyed Man. He was smiling at Prophet. The smile had little humour in it.

  ‘Being Hargreave’s puppet got people under my command killed. It got me killed. It got this poor bastard whose mind I’m riding around in killed, and as much as I enjoy your Victor Frankenstein impression, I’m not coming in. You know what I’m going after. If you say that we’re after the same thing, if you truly want the Ceph defeated, keep your people out of my way.’

  ‘You know that’s not going to be possible. I don’t have control over all of CELL’s people. Working with us will be the best way to accomplish your mission. I know there are some… wrong-headed elements in this company, but you can trust me. You need to come in. The Monster lived a lonely existence and came to a cruel end…’

  The suit showed him the way to sever the comms link. He did so and then audited the suit’s internal systems, looking for any other ways that Hargreave-Rasch or CELL could contact, or worse, track him against his will, but he found none.

  ‘What am I to you?’ the Green-Eyed Man asked him. ‘The zombie that carries you around? A drone, a weapons platform that you’re the operating system for? What?’

  Prophet put his head down and tried to ignore him. He heard the Green-Eyed Man laugh.

  ‘You think I’m going to go away?’ Suddenly the Green-Eyed Man was kneeling down next to him. ‘Know what I think? The suit becomes your skin. We’re superhuman, yeah, but the sensors still feed back everything directly to our nervous system once the suit fuses with flesh. We still feel every hit, every shot or knife wound, each fall or burn. Feels like we’ve died a thousand times, doesn’t it? That’s what I think I am to you. I’m armour. I’m here to soak that shit up. All the pain.’

  Prophet finally looked up.

  ‘I think you’re here because you’re trying to hold on.’

  He was just talking to the sky. The Green-Eyed Man was gone.

  ‘I know you’re in here.’ The voice had the surety of a fanatic. Prophet had heard its like before, in the Middle East, in Columbia.

  He was in a small institutional room. It was bare except for a bed with restraints. The window was small and made of thick, reinforced safety glass. It was some kind of psych ward. He’d visited men and women who’d once been under his command in places like this before.

  The woman strapped to the bed was gaunt to the point of cadaverous. Although washed-out, her features lacked the slackness of the long-term institutionalised. Instead she looked alert, intent, but there was more than a little madness in her eyes. She must have been in her late forties or early fifties, far too young for Alzheimer’s this severe.

  He’d come to as if waking, alert, from a deep but dreamless sleep. He was in the corner of the room. The nanosuit’s stealth mode was engaged. The lensing field bent light around him. In theory it make him invisible.

  ‘Show yourself,’ the woman hissed. Apparently he wasn’t invisible enough to hide from Alcatraz’s mother. ‘And there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. Because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces. Neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.’

  There was just something about quoting the Bible, Prophet thought, which meant you could always find relevance somewhere to your current situation.

  He had no idea what to do. If he showed himself to the woman then he would just be torturing her, further feeding into the religious aspects of her dementia. On the other hand, she already knew he was here. Alcatraz must have given himself away.

  Now you decide to visit your mother? He was more than a little pissed off. Maybe torturing her ha
d been the point. Maybe this was payback.

  C’mon Alcatraz, you’re better than this, Prophet thought. He wasn’t sure if the distant answering howls of rage were his imagination or not.

  ‘Son?’ she asked.

  Shit.

  ‘Mom?’ Prophet found himself whispering.

  Where the fuck had that come from?

  The madness was gone from her eyes. He saw only what you were supposed to see in a mother’s eyes — unconditional love.

  The lensing field collapsed as it ran out of energy. How long was I stood there for? How long was she raving at the invisible ghost in her room? He glanced down at her wrists and ankles, which had been rubbed raw and bloody by the restraints. This must be more than Alzheimer’s, he decided. There was an aspect of religious mania to whatever was wrong with her.

  She looked up at near-enough six and a half feet of armoured-carbon nanomyfibrils with recognition and love in her eyes.

  Then, with a sinking sensation, he watched her face harden.

  ‘You’re not my son,’ she said, her voice laced with venom and suspicion. Was he supposed to say something, Prophet wondered? ‘Who are you!? Where’s my son?’

  I’m the ghost possessing your son’s corpse. He died fighting aliens.

  ‘He was a good boy.’ She wasn’t looking at him now. ‘Oh, he did wild things. Some days I thought there was the devil in him, but I knew, deep down, he was a good boy. He serves his God and his country, you know?’ she said with pride, and then looked up at him, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  ‘Ma’am.’ What are you doing, Prophet? he demanded of himself. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’ Her eyes were shining with tears now. It was the start of the conversation that all family members of soldiers dreaded, and she knew it. Some part of her, the lucid part, would have been expecting it ever since her son had joined the Marine Corps. ‘Your son was killed in action. In New York.’ New York, Prophet thought, we weren’t supposed to die in New York. We were supposed to die in places like Iraq, Columbia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Lingshan. Foreign places, exotic places, not the Big Apple. ‘He fought hard, he died bravely. He was a credit to his fellow marines, the Corps itself and his country,’ he finished meekly. He could hear the hollowness of the platitudes in his own words.

  ‘It was the violence, wasn’t it? And the drugs they gave you. And fallen women. They follow soldiers like flies to excrement. And the drink, all your friends would want you to drink with them. You were always such a popular boy. Is that how it got in?’

  Now he was her son again, it seemed. Prophet told himself that he just needed to leave. This was accomplishing nothing. Suddenly she looked up at him again. The madness was back in her eyes again, stronger than ever. Righteous hatred was written across her severe features.

  ‘Was that how the demons entered your flesh? They try and put them in my body, with the needles and the pills, but my faith is strong. God and his angels watch over the righteous. They protect their own. I saw the devils on the net in the common room. They were walking the streets of Sodom-on-the-Hudson! Bold as brass! Hell has boiled up like a blister and burst in the streets of New York!’ She was thrashing around in the bed like a woman possessed. Her arms and her ankles were bleeding. Spittle flecked her mouth and chin. ‘I know what you are, demon! Get out of my son’s body!’

  She was praying. Screaming her exhortations to God, trying to cast the possessing demon out of her son’s body, when the orderlies arrived to sedate her. Prophet bent light around himself. It wasn’t difficult to sneak out of the room.

  The daughter had seen an angel. The mother had seen a demon. Prophet guessed that the daughter had more hope. He was worried that the mother was closer to the truth.

  What do you want from me? Prophet demanded. But the Green-Eyed Man was nowhere to be seen.

  The pain in his skull was so extreme that he was staggering. He had only just managed to get out of the hospital without being detected. He sank to his knees. This couldn’t go on. He had no idea where he was or what he was doing half the time. Sooner or later he was going to get seen and caught. By the local authorities if he was lucky, by CELL if he wasn’t.

  He was beginning to think that Rasch was right, that they were the only ones who could help him. He just didn’t think they would. The mission was nowhere. If this continued then all he was doing was trying to avoid the inevitable when he was lucid and in control and rushing toward it when he wasn’t.

  White light. Agony. The pavement was rushing up to meet him but he blacked out before it reached him.

  Somehow he knew he was moving. He was being just stealthy enough to avoid being seen by civilians and police. It wasn’t like he was trying to hide from military contractors or hostile aliens. If he was to remain fused to this suit, which was now synonymous with remaining alive, then this was just a stroll for him. This level of sneaking about would become his life until he got careless, got caught and got dead.

  Except Prophet knew he was just a passenger now.

  ‘I think we need to talk.’

  Prophet opened his eyes. The Green-Eyed Man was sat opposite him. They were both sat at a simple table in an otherwise empty room with bare walls. The day outside the window looked grey and bleak. The landscape beyond the glass was featureless.

  ‘Is this real?’ Prophet asked.

  The Green-Eyed Man pointed at him. ‘I want my body back.’

  ‘You’re dead.’

  ‘Which makes us equal. I watched you put a bullet in your own head, except the dead flesh you’re possessing came with my mind when I was born. Not yours.’

  Prophet wanted to smile. The kid was cocky but he thought he wouldn’t have minded having him under his command. The smile went away as he remembered just how many people had died under his command. That was a whole different set of ghosts.

  ‘What is this? Where are we?’

  The Green-Eyed Man frowned. ‘I think you’re changing the subject.’

  Prophet noticed that he wasn’t wearing the armour anymore. He was in dress fatigues that he hadn’t worn in years.

  ‘Just because you outrank me doesn’t give you the right to take my body.’

  ‘There is no right here. There’s just what happened, and there’s dealing with it.’

  ‘You could let go, old man.’

  ‘So could you.’

  ‘It’s my fucking body!’ The Green-Eyed Man lunged across the table and grabbed Prophet by the lapels of his dress uniform. Prophet didn’t move. Instead he took the time to stare deep into the other man’s eyes. Taking stock of him, measuring and, if he was honest, judging him.

  ‘I don’t know where we are, but do you think this will help?’ Prophet asked quietly. Alcatraz slumped back into his seat, calmer. He looked fatigued. I guess haunting someone really takes it out of you, Prophet thought. The Green-Eyed Man looked up at him.

  ‘I’m not haunting you. I’m haunting my body.’

  ‘Is that what you are? A ghost?’

  ‘Maybe. Or a partially erased program, or information given form by the suit’s systems. Or maybe I’m just you having a breakdown. Ever consider that? What about you? What do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m Proph…’ he started.

  ‘You used to be Laurence Barnes, didn’t you?’

  ‘I still…’

  ‘He’s dead. Maybe you died when you put the suit on, maybe when you put the gun to your head, but you’re dead now. You’re a ghoul inhabiting a stolen corpse, a demon possessing a body, a Frankenstein’s monster of animated dead flesh and alien technology.’

  ‘You sound like your mother.’ Prophet had meant it as a provocation.

  He watched Alcatraz’s face harden.

  ‘Fuck that bitch.’

  Yeah? Who are you trying to fool, kid? Prophet was pretty sure that wasn’t even how Alcatraz spoke. That was language learnt for the barracks. A front. Prophet shrugged.

  ‘So?’ he asked. ‘What do you want from me?’

&n
bsp; ‘For you to let go. To get out.’

  ‘What are you going to do with your life?’

  ‘What are you, my dad?’

  He’d have needed beating into shape first if he had been under my command, Prophet decided. The conversation was starting to sound like the arguments he’d overheard between his sister and her teenaged kids.

  ‘It’s a serious question.’

  ‘What life?’

  ‘Semantics? Really?’ Prophet was becoming more exasperated.

  ‘No, that’s the thing, see? I’m not being semantic. I’m going to lay myself to rest. We’re both dead. We need to let go. We’re just a grotesque joke now.’

  There’s more of your mother in you than you’d like to admit, isn’t there, son? Prophet thought but decided to keep it to himself.

  ‘Sorry. I need your body for something more important.’

  ‘Like what? We’re a corpse in a fucking suit.’

  ‘Did you just forget about New York? The fact that we’re being invaded by alien squid?’

  ‘That’s fucking over, man. I… we dealt with that shit.’

  ‘It’s not over.’ The Green-Eyed Man swallowed. Prophet looked at him hard. It was the sort of stare he’d given subordinates back when he’d been conventional army, 82nd Airborne, before Delta. Prophet tapped the side of his head. ‘Yeah, you’ve seen it, haven’t you, son?’ Alcatraz didn’t answer. ‘You fought hard. You did well. You were a good soldier… and I’m sorry — I really am — but your war’s over.’ The Green-Eyed Man opened his mouth to retort, but Prophet cut him off. ‘What do you think you’ve been doing? Visiting your sister? Your mother? Where are we now…?’

  ‘We’re here. You need to…’

  ‘Where are we in the real world? You’re saying goodbye, son. I’m sorry you died. I think you’ve more than earned your rest, but I need your flesh and you’re just going to have to take my word for it that it’s important. If you know what I know, if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, then you won’t even have to take my word for it.’