Ex-Purgatory: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  “This isn’t Christian Nguyen!” shouted St. George. “It’s Agent Sm—”

  The punch hit him in the face, but the fist was so big the bottom knuckle banged against the top of his chest.

  He flew past the old paint building, bounced into the parking lot, and tumbled across the south end of the garden. He came to rest facedown in some dirt with a few blades of grass poking up through it. Dust and dry soil pattered around him.

  St. George pushed himself up onto his knees and caught a burst of .50-caliber rounds across the chest. It knocked him back another half-dozen feet. He could hear people screaming. He saw a few figures running through the garden and hoped they were running away.

  The hits hurt like all hell. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the rounds might have cracked a rib or two. He rolled to the side and back up onto his knees to avoid a second burst of gunfire. A third point on his rib cage flared with pain.

  The earth was trembling again. He counted to three, focused, and then shot forward. He crossed his arms and rammed the titan just below the chestplate.

  Cerberus bent over and staggered. He took a few steps after it and slammed the palm of his hand up into the armored helmet. The battlesuit tipped back and stumbled a few more feet before it fell over with the sound of a car crash.

  St. George turned and leaped at Christian. If he could get one punch—a careful punch—he could knock her out. He didn’t know if Smith’s powers worked when he—she—was unconscious, but it couldn’t hurt.

  She smiled as he lunged through the air. One hand came up and waggled a finger at him. “I’m not the one you’re fighting, am I?”

  St. George froze in the air with his arm back. He dropped to the ground and landed on the balls of his feet. “Bastard,” he spat out.

  “I think, technically, it’s bitch now.”

  Behind him, he heard the scrape of metal on concrete as Cerberus climbed back to its feet.

  “I helped get that suit built, George. I know how powerful it is. If there’s anything in this city that can kill you, that’s it.” She sighed. “Damn. It really should’ve been Danielle doing this. I guess I didn’t think of everything.”

  “Ma’am,” shouted Gibbs from inside the battlesuit, “are you all right?”

  “Just fine, Lieutenant,” called Christian. She winked at St. George. “At least he hasn’t stooped to hurting unarmed civilians. I don’t think he’d sink that low, do you?”

  He scowled and smoke curled out of his nostrils.

  The ground shook and he saw the huge shadow of the arm coming down. He turned and caught it with both hands. The servos whined and Gibbs tried to force the arm down. St. George pushed it back up a few inches and glared up at the huge eyes.

  The other arm swung around and caught him in the side. The world blurred and one of the square pillars in front of the Roddenberry doors hit him in the back. The corner caught him right on the shoulder blade. A few cinder blocks crumbled and spun him off into the base of a large palm tree. Dust and grit sifted down from the canopy above.

  “St. George,” called someone. “You all right?”

  A figure blotted out the sun. He shook his head clear and saw three people from the lobby standing over him. More dust drifted down onto their shoulders, but they didn’t look up until the first golf ball–sized chunks hit their shoulders.

  St. George shook his head clear, leaped up, and shoved them back. He caught the desk-sized slab of canopy on his fingertips, twisted, and pushed it away from the people. It crashed into the pavement and turned into so much rubble. A fist-sized piece of concrete bounced off his shoulder. He glanced at the trio. “Everyone okay?”

  He heard the heavy footsteps approaching before they could answer. He grabbed a chunk of cinder block and plaster the size of a basketball and hurled it at the battlesuit. Cerberus tried to block it but the piece of rubble struck the side of the armored skull. St. George leaped into the air and headed back across the parking lot, into the open and away from the buildings.

  Cerberus stomped after him. “Surrender now, sir,” shouted Gibbs. The cannons came up and traced lines through the sky.

  St. George looped around fast, swung down, and slammed his shoulder into the back of the battlesuit’s knee. It tipped back and waved its arms, fighting for balance. St. George planted his feet, grabbed it by the arm, and twisted. The armored titan slammed down to the ground again.

  His hands slid down the massive arm until he reached the ammo feed for the M2. He tore the belt apart and the rounds and links jingled on the pavement. He leaped over the fallen battlesuit and found the other ammo belt.

  Cerberus lunged up and grabbed him. The stunners came on. Electricity arced around the huge fingers as 200,000 volts raced through St. George. His muscles stiffened up and his skin tingled.

  It froze him long enough for another punch to slam into his chest. He sailed across the open space and slammed into the short wall that wrapped around the garden. Momentum flipped him over it and he tumbled into the parking area for the scavenger trucks. He bounced against Big Blue’s reinforced grille and fell to the pavement.

  If his ribs hadn’t been cracked before, they were now.

  “Holy shit,” muttered someone.

  “Is he alive?” asked another voice. Hands wrapped around his arms and pulled him up. He heard other murmurs in the background.

  St. George opened his eyes, blinked, and looked into a familiar face. Luke Reid, the head driver. He needed a shave. “You okay, boss?”

  “Get out of here,” St. George told them. “Everyone. Now.”

  He heard Cerberus stomping across the pavement. The battlesuit still had one M2 left, plus the stunners. And it was stronger than him. A lot stronger.

  “Go!” shouted St. George. They saw the battlesuit approaching and scattered. He knew they could see the menace in its movements, too.

  He looked around for anything that might give him an edge. There were some tools scattered around, but nothing too useful. He wasn’t strong enough to throw one of the trucks, and even if he could it would cause too much damage. There was a case of motor oil, a half-dozen block-like batteries, and two stacks of tires for the big trucks.

  He grabbed one of the tires and rolled it alongside him. It bounced against the wall and tipped back. He caught it with his thigh.

  “Gibbs,” he called out. He raised his hands. “This isn’t right,” he said. “You know me. I’m not a threat. I’m not your enemy.”

  “You’re a traitor leading a coup against the mayor,” growled the titan. “You’re trying to overthrow the government.”

  “No I’m not. What have I said that would make you think that? What have I done that would make you think I’m doing that?”

  “Liar!” The gun arm came up.

  St. George kicked the tire into the air and smacked it toward Cerberus. The M2 thundered and scraps of black rubber rained down on the parking lot. Big Blue’s windshield shattered.

  It had given St. George time to step back to the stack. He flung two more tires like thick Frisbees, then pulled another one out of the pile and hurled it, too. He remembered reading years ago about people being killed at racetracks when tires came off at high speed and flew into the stands. He was pretty sure he was throwing them at least that hard.

  Cerberus targeted the first two tires and annihilated them with bursts from the big gun. The third one slammed the battlesuit in the side of the chest hard enough to make it twist at the waist. The next one hit it in the shoulder. Then one struck the barrel of the M2 and knocked it down.

  St. George threw tire after tire. They slammed into the armored titan and bounced off into the garden or toward the Melrose gate. One or two shot straight back and hit the short wall in front of St. George. It was like a brutal game of dodgeball. They weren’t forcing the armored titan back, but they were stopping it from doing anything else.

  He was pulling his punches. He knew it wasn’t Danielle in the battlesuit, but he still knew it was hers. P
art of her, almost. He didn’t want to damage it.

  He threw his last tire. “Agent Smith,” he shouted.

  Across the parking lot he saw Christian perk up. The battlesuit did, too. He’d caught Gibbs’s attention.

  “You remember Agent John Smith,” St. George called out to Cerberus. “The one who tricked all of you. The one who killed Colonel Shelly.”

  The titan straightened up and lowered its arms. All the men and women from Project Krypton remembered Smith. He’d used them all, killed their commanding officer, and then bragged about it.

  “Smith is here, Gibbs,” said St. George. “He’s trying to take control here just like he did out at the base.”

  The gun arm came back up. “I’m sorry if you’re being influenced, sir,” said Cerberus, “but it’s my duty to protect the citizens and government, and right now you’re an immediate threat.”

  St. George shook his head. “I’m not the one being influenced, Lieutenant.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not the one he’s trying to control.”

  The titan’s M2 drifted down from St. George’s face to his chest. The loose ammo belt waved back and forth on the battlesuit’s other arm like a banner.

  “Just tell me how Smith works,” said St. George. “Just think for a minute. You were out there. You remember how he did it.”

  “Lieutenant Gibbs,” shouted Christian. “You’re not listening to him, are you?”

  The armored skull turned to look at her, and St. George saw the titan’s stance shift. “No, ma’am,” said Cerberus. The battlesuit turned back and the M2 came back up.

  St. George flew into the air as the rounds chewed up the wall and smashed into Big Blue’s engine block. The front of the truck sagged. He was pretty sure it would never move again.

  He tried to swoop around the titan and the gun arm tracked him. Another burst fired off with the deafening sound of a bass drum. The rounds almost missed him. Two of them hit him in the thigh, one cracked into his kneecap. He wobbled in the sky just long enough for a second burst to knock him back. He hit a palm tree and dropped out of the air. A yellow parking pylon, one of a dozen or so that still studded the area, caught him in the hip as he fell and flipped him onto his back.

  He saw the steel fist plunging down at him and rolled out of the way. It cracked the pavement behind him. Cerberus shifted and tried to stomp, but St. George managed to focus enough to throw himself up to his feet.

  The gun arm came up and blasted away. He leaped out of the way and it traced a path after him. He heard the rounds hit concrete, glass, and wood. Screams echoed across the lot. St. George stopped dodging and blocked the last two bursts with his aching ribs. The rounds tore his shirt and leather jacket to shreds.

  “Jesus, Gibbs,” he coughed when the barrage stopped. “There’s people everywhere! Civilians!”

  The lieutenant growled and ignored him. Another punch came swinging around. St. George set his leg back to brace himself and managed to catch the fist with both hands. The impact made him slide back a foot.

  Sorry, Danielle, he thought.

  The gauntlet had three fingers and a thumb. Each one was as thick as a soda can. He grabbed the thumb and the farthest finger and twisted.

  There was a squeal of metal and a few sparks as the steel hand tore apart. Cerberus yanked away, but it was too late. St. George let the two digits hit the ground. One of the remaining fingers hung at a strange angle and twitched. The other one kept flexing as Gibbs held it up to check damage. “Son of a bitch,” muttered the lieutenant.

  The broken hand slammed into St. George’s face. The two remaining fingers grabbed his head in an awkward pinch. He reached up to grab them and the stunners fired up again.

  His muscles tensed. This time he felt it in his tongue and teeth and eyes. His eyelids twitched. The finger-claw tightened on his skull and lifted him off the ground. He reached up, tried to shake himself loose, but couldn’t grab hard enough.

  He felt the muzzle of the M2 settle against his stomach and a moment later he was punched in the gut a dozen times. At point-blank range the sound itself was a weapon. The barrel rose and the furious rounds battered their way up his chest. Then the impacts tore him free from the damaged fingers and he tumbled away.

  St. George staggered back but managed not to fall over. He took in a deep breath to blind the titan with a burst of fire and his chest screamed with pain. A hundred spikes stabbed between his ribs. He coughed out some smoke, a few flickers of flame, and then slumped to his knees.

  The battlesuit stepped forward and leveled the M2 against his head.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “STOP IT!”

  Danielle ran along the garden. Her hair and shoulders were soaking wet, and her shirt was plastered to the dark contact suit beneath it. She pushed past some terrified onlookers, took a few panting breaths as she swung her legs over the wall, and ran toward the battlesuit. “Gibbs, stand down now.”

  The armored skull turned to her. “Ma’am?”

  “That’s St. George,” said Danielle. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “He’s gone rogue, ma’am. He’s threatened civilians and tried to overthrow—”

  “He’s been asleep,” Danielle said. “We’ve all been asleep for two days. He hasn’t done anything. Now stand down.”

  “Lieutenant,” yelled Christian.

  The huge lenses turned her way.

  “They’re in this together,” shouted the mayor. “Don’t you realize that?”

  Danielle heard the voice. She knew the tones and inflections from back when John Smith was the guy she worked with almost every day and woke up with on more than a few mornings. She recognized the sly smile. Seeing it all come from Christian threw her, but not by much. She’d come to accept pretty much anything where Smith was concerned.

  The titan swung back around and glared at Danielle. She’d never realized just how aggressive the armor’s face could look. The battlesuit took two stomping steps toward her.

  “You, too, ma’am?” the titan said. “I respected you.”

  “This isn’t going to work, Gibbs,” she said. “Just stop now. You can’t win this.”

  The M2 swung around. The barrel settled in front of her. “Not really sure how you see it that way, ma’am.”

  The cannon’s muzzle was huge. She looked up at the helmet’s round lenses. “Because you’re inside my armor,” she told the titan, “and you can hear my voice.”

  Gibbs’s snort echoed over the battlesuit’s speakers. “Are those your last words?”

  “Not quite,” she said. She wiped a wet strand of hair off her face and took a deep breath. “Patriotic! Crustacean! Houdini!”

  The bright lenses flickered. Just for a moment. Loud clacks came from the ammo hopper. Across the armor, two dozen small panels opened at the shoulders and hips and around the waist, each one the size of a matchbook. Four of them popped up around the thick collar the helmet sat on. A gleaming bolt sat under each one.

  The cannon pointed at her trembled but didn’t fire. She stepped back and Gibbs growled inside the armor. “What the hell have you done?” he yelled.

  “A subroutine I wrote a while ago to save time,” Danielle said. “Back when I had to do most of this myself.”

  The steel fingers flexed, and he snarled. It was a rasping sound through the speaker. She imagined him trying to activate the stunners again and again with the optical mouse.

  She took another step back. “Cerberus is preparing for disassembly. The weapons systems are offline,” she told him. “You can’t turn any of them back on without a hard reboot.”

  The battlesuit took a step forward. She took two more back. The eyes flickered again.

  “You might want to stand up straight,” said Danielle. “Once I shut it down, the gyros won’t keep the armor stabilized anymore.”

  Cerberus growled and lunged at her. The huge fingers spread, ready to snap shut on her skull. She flinched away and heard a clan
g of steel on stone.

  St. George grimaced as the fingers tried to crush his arm. “Thanks for the breather,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  “Well, that really sucks.”

  Christian Smith shook her head and pushed her sunglasses up. She’d recognized Danielle, even twenty yards away and soaking wet. And despite some quick improvisation, the unarmed, unarmored redhead had already disabled the battlesuit to some degree.

  She was always the clever one.

  Smith hadn’t expected this combo. She’d expected one or two heroes to fight the battlesuit—hopefully St. George and Captain Freedom. Best case, they’d be killed, worst case they’d all be beaten senseless and easy to control. It had never crossed her mind that Danielle could just shut the suit off from the outside.

  She adjusted her glasses and took a few steps along the garden. At least Gibbs would keep the heroes busy long enough to get Plan B up and run—

  Something sharp yanked Christian’s skull to the left, like she’d slammed the side of her head into a beam or pipe. Her sunglasses tumbled away and the side of her face sagged. Just as the sound of the gunshot reached her, the dark line along her temple burned into her skin and became a stream of hot blood. It soaked her ear and her jaw and rained down on her shoulder.

  In the corner of her eye, a shadow slid closer across the parking lot. Stealth had one of her Glock 19s aimed at Christian’s head. A faint wisp of smoke came from the barrel. “That was a warning,” she said. “Do not move and do not speak.” She walked forward and her cloak swirled around her.

  “Oh, God!” Christian screamed. She grabbed at her head and her fingers came back wet and red.

  “Turn around. Get on your knees.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” Smith begged with Christian’s voice. “Please. I never meant all those things I said about you and the others. I was just angry. I didn’t—”

  “Silence.”

  “I don’t want to die!” she wailed. “I don’t! I don’t think you can hold that gun, do you?”