“Why?” I asked.
“Cause we like to stay sharp and every now and again we like to mess around. Take last week, for instance. Me and Dru took a nice little stroll back down to Washington, D.C., circa August 8, 1925.”
“What’s so special about that date?”
“That was the date thirty-thousand Ku Klux klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. You should’a seen the look on their faces when we popped out from behind a building. It had to be their worst nightmare: two brothers in a heavily-armed, battle machine!”
“What happened?”
Billy winked. “Let’s just say we ran out of ammo while making America great again.”
Baila approached, holding two plastic cups as Billy went back to dancing.
“We were wondering whether you’d come,” she said, handing me one of the cups. I sniffed it and smelled the scent of booze.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get the invite,” I replied.
“You check your neural glasses?”
I shook my head and she tapped her plastic cup against mine. “Always check your glasses, Danny. We invited you and Jezzy.”
She motioned for me to follow and I headed across the room. There were TVs hanging from the wall, some showing ancient music videos, or superhero movies (from a time, as I mentioned before, when it seemed like every other movie that came out featured a dude in tights or a cape), or sporting games from the days before the invasion. There was also a table laden with food nearby which I moved to, only to see—
A shotgun!
Held in the hands of Simeon.
“HANDS UP!” Simeon screamed.
I dropped my cup.
The music stopped.
I nearly pissed my pants.
Simeon racked the shotgun. “I’m gonna ask you the same thing we ask anybody who comes into our lair for the first time. What are they gonna put on your tombstone?”
I tried to swallow, but it felt like a sheet of sandpaper was in my throat. “Are y-you n-nuts?!” I croaked.
He just stared at me. “Are you deaf?”
I shook my head.
“Then answer the question. What are they gonna put on your tombstone?”
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in Heaven,” I blurted out. To this day I have no idea how I remembered those words (which I’d read in a sports magazine once upon a time), but they stopped Simeon and the other mech operators dead in their tracks. The shotgun came down.
“Whoa. Where the hell did you get that from?” Billy asked.
I remained silent. I’d read in the magazine that the quote was on the tombstone of the greatest boxer who ever lived, Muhammad Ali, but I figured it would have more impact if they thought it came from me.
“Did you make that up?” Baila asked.
I nodded and Billy grinned and threw his arms around me. “I love it. I love that shit. Best answer anyone has ever given to the question.” He held my hand up like a prizefighter. “Deus here is officially my boy. Where’d you say you were hanging before you came here?”
“Around Baltimore,” I replied.
Dru grinned. “How can you tell that Baltimore was hit by the aliens during the invasion and occupation?”
I didn’t answer and he smiled. “You can’t! Because it looks exactly the same before and after! Get it?”
Billy and the others roared with laughter as Sato handed me another plastic cup. I gulped down the booze which smelled like rubbing alcohol and tasted like acid. “What’s with the shotgun?” I asked Simeon.
“We’ve found that you get better answers to a question when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun,” he replied.
“Did I pass the test?”
“Part one.”
“How many parts are there?”
“As many as we think are appropriate.”
Baila grabbed my hand. “C’mon. I want to give you the tour.”
* * *
Baila led me through the various rooms in the building which was the designated home away from home for the mech operators. There were sleeping quarters, of course, and an exercise room with treadmills, machines, and free-weights, a kitchen, showers, and an entertainment room with games, gizmos, and movies.
“What do you think of the place?” Baila asked.
“Sure beats the cardboard box I was living in after the invasion.”
“What? Seriously?”
I smiled. “Actually, I was hanging out under a bridge for the first year or two after the invasion, dreaming about moving on up to a cardboard box. You?”
“I was in a corporate safehouse in Chicago.”
“Your mother’s place?”
She arched an eyebrow in curiosity. “How do you know about my mother?”
“Somebody mentioned her I think. Said she was a tech guru or something…”
“She was,” Baila replied.
“And now?” I asked.
“She – she’s gone … gone away.”
“Long gone?”
Baila nodded. “Pretty sure I won’t be seeing her again.”
“I’m thinking she went to the same place my mother and little brother went to.”
A moment passed between us. I figured now was the time to ask about Simeon. “So what’s the deal with the shotgun wielding maniac back there?”
“Simeon’s not a maniac,” she said.
“Well, he does a helluva impression of one.”
“He’s an acquired taste for some people. He grows on you though.”
“So does mold,” I said.
She smirked. “He doesn’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
“Right, because I didn’t literally fight the Roman army a few hours ago or anything ...”
“Well, he also thinks you’re a smartass, Danny.”
“Yeah, but that’s a medical thing.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
“Yep. I was diagnosed as a Type-1 smartass at a very early age. I took all kinds of medicine, but apparently there’s no cure for it.”
“Okay, so we’ve established that you’re a smartass,” she said, smirking, holding up a single finger as I nodded. “How about a liar?”
“Depends on the lie.”
“How about before, when you said you’d been in prison.”
“That’s true. Like I said, I was accused of stealing from the aliens and the resistance.”
“How could you steal from the good guys?”
“Because for the longest time it was tough to tell who they were. I don’t know about you, but after the scuds came, my family was gone and the world was over and I was alone, y’know? Survival became a day-to-day thing because the only one that was looking out for me, was me. The bottom line is, you can try and figure out who the good guys are or you can dodge bullets and bombs, but it’s almost impossible to do both at the same time.”
“I lost my entire family too, okay?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Well now I’ve got a new one,” she said, pointing back to where the others were.
“They’re a little nutty.”
“Most families are,” she said with a ghost of a smile. “If you want, you and Jezmyn can bunk here from now on. This is our place … our coop, but it’s yours now too.”
“Thanks. I’ll talk to her and we’ll get back to you.”
Baila leaned in close to me as if she was readying to impart some great secret. I caught a whiff of her hair and it was glorious. I mean, we’d been in combat only a few hours earlier and she smelled of beautiful things like honey and freshly cut flowers. Who smells like that?
“You’re one of us now, so start acting like it,” she whispered. “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder, but you’re not special. All of us have lost almost everything, okay? But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”
“What happens when life gives you aliens? You make … alien-ade?”
She tapped me on the nose. “Cute.”
She headed back out toward the main room and I lingered there, taking in her scent. Then I padded ahead after hearing the music suddenly go silent. I entered the other room, but it was dark and empty. I called out and looked around and then several dark forms grabbed and held me down.
“Is this how you treat a guest?” I asked, trying to make out the faces of what I assumed were Billy and Dru. And then I looked up and saw Simeon approaching with something in his hand. A small, metal object that was glowing. It resembled one of those retro cigarette lighters I’d seen in my dad’s piece of crap car back in the day.
“Hey, if you wanted me to leave, I’ll leave,” I said.
Simeon advanced on me, grinning like a madman. I shouted and fought as someone lifted the cuff on my right pants leg. I cried out, smelling the odor of burning flesh and feeling the searing pain of the metal object as it was pressed against my calf. And the object was pulled back and somebody laid something cool and wet against my calf. The people holding me down eased back and the lights came on. I looked up to see Simeon, Billy, Dru, and all the others.
“For good or bad, you’re an operator now,” Simeon said.
“You could’ve just asked me to join,” I said, wincing.
“You’re a Voodoo Ranger, Deus,” Dru said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re one of the very select few who can slip through time, you dig? It’s like you’ve got the power to chop down a mountain and pick up all the pieces and make an island, baby.”
“That makes absolutely no sense at all.”
A loopy grin splashed Dru’s face. “It does when you’re wasted.”
All of the other operators lifted their pants to show a symbol that had been branded on the same spot on their calf muscles: a three headed, black dog. “That’s Cerebrus,” Simeon said. “The Hound of Hades.”
“Why’d you choose that?” I asked.
“Because it symbolizes all that we represent,” Simeon answered. “The powers of many harnessed as one.”
“And we just thought it looked really cool,” Billy said with a shrug.
Dru lowered a fist that I bumped. “You’re officially one us now, Danny D.”
* * *
I limped back to my quarters later that night, standing a little taller after everything I’d been through. I’d competed and won a spot on the mech team while also helping to defeat a mini-alien invasion. Not bad for a guy who was paralyzed and left for dead in prison only a few weeks before. There were still a number of questions running through my mind, however, including exactly what the hell a “Voodoo Ranger” was (Dru’s drunken explanation notwithstanding), but for that night at least, I felt pretty damned good.
The last thing I did before trying to catch some shut-eye was check my neural glasses. There were several intranet messages in my inbox, including an official email from Vidmark requesting that the operators assemble back in the hangar at eight a.m. Seems that we had a meeting scheduled shortly thereafter and it was a pretty big deal. We were going into D.C., to what was left of the Green Zone and then…
We were going to meet the new President of the United States of America.
5
I grabbed some grub a little before eight the next morning and hustled over to the hangar. The sunlight allowed me to see the full impact of the night’s attack. A number of the buildings had sustained damage, including several outbuildings that were partially destroyed and already in the process of being repaired. Guards and cleanup crews were collecting debris and hauling off the bodies of a few of the dead aliens along with sections of the destroyed drones. The air was still tanged with the odor of smoke, and fuel, and burned scud flesh.
I edged around the side of the hangar and stared at the spot where the glider had crashed. The ground had been gouged and steam continued to rise from the wreckage that was surrounded by a pack of heavily armed soldiers who looked younger than me. I had no idea where the soldiers came from, but there they were.
Beyond the soldiers, several men and women in white biohazard suits were picking through what was left of the barely recognizable glider debris. What the hell had the aliens hoped to accomplish by attacking us? Vidmark had mentioned that they wanted the hafnium batteries stored in the hangar, but how did they find out about them? And how had they gotten past whatever defenses might be around? I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions, so I slipped through one of the hangar’s side doors to find Jezzy and the other operators, huddled around a computer tablet that they were passing around.
Jezzy moved over to me. “What’s this about you attending a party last night?”
“You heard?”
“I heard you took part in some kind of initiation thingie.”
“That’s right. The other operators said I’m officially a Voodoo Ranger now.”
“What the heck is a ‘Voodoo Ranger’”?
I shrugged and pulled up my pants to show her my mark.
“What is that that?”
“Cerebrus.”
“It’s ridiculous looking.”
“To you, maybe. But Billy and the boys swear it’s CDI to other young ladies.”
“What does ‘CDI’ mean?”
“Chicks dig it.”
She snorted. “Well, did you ever think of asking me to join you last night? I might’ve wanted to tag along,” she added.
“I’m sorry, Jezz. Next time I find myself in the middle of a branding, I’ll be sure to come and get you.”
Dru waved at me, holding up the tablet. “Check it out, Deus!”
“You’ve gone viral!” Billy added.
Dru passed me the tablet which showed shaky, handheld footage of the battle outside the night before. The images weren’t always entirely clear, but I could definitely make out the Spence mech in action, bringing down the glider while saving the young woman.
“Rokkusuta,” Ren said. I looked up and Sato snickered before miming a bow. “She means rock star.”
“We’re rock stars,” Jezzy said.
I smiled. “I could get used to that.”
“Don’t,” Simeon replied. “Once you get used to that, you lose your edge.”
“So what’s the takeaway?” I asked.
“Ignore the hype and always stay frosty.”
“You mind if I get that on a tattoo?” I asked.
Dru laughed. “Yeah, baby, let’s all get inked!”
Jezzy grabbed my arm and pointed back to the combat footage on the tablet.
“Checkity check that,” she said, pointing to a number that was spinning down at the bottom of the footage. The number was 109,123 and rising. “I’m pretty sure that’s our video view count.”
“How?” I asked.
“Somebody uploaded it to the web,” Baila said.
“Who’d do that?”
“I ordered it,” a voice said. I looked back to see Vidmark on his scooter. He was accompanied by Jennings and a number of other hangar personnel, most of whom I’d seen during the various training sessions.
“You might be wondering why I’d do that and the answer is a simple one. The people out there in the world, the ones who’ve been suffering ever since the scuds invaded, need this. They need to see progress. They need … sustenance.”
Vidmark wheeled in front of us and then stepped down on his prosthetic legs. He moved slowly, looking each of us in the eye. I know I keep saying it, but there was something unique about the man. He was totally unlike all the other people I’d encountered in my life up to that point, the paint-by-numbers ones who talked, but never listened, moved about, but never seemed to accomplish anything. From the first moment you met him, Vidmark had an undeniable energy, a charisma, the ability to make you feel like you were the most important person in the room. It was a talent that also made you want to believe everything he said. If he had told me I should buy a pink giraffe at that moment, I wear I would’ve bought the damn thing.
“Query,” Vidmark said. “What’s the one t
hing that’s connected human beings since the very beginning of our shared history?”
“Sex?” Billy said.
Everyone laughed, even Vidmark. “Sex is a close second,” he said, wagging a finger. “Hope was what I was looking for. Hope is the answer. Hope, the belief that tomorrow will be better than today, is the glue that binds us all together. Much of it might be supported by stories or even by myths, but they’re our shared myths. When the aliens came they took that away from us and now I want to give it back. And so, with the assistance of our marketing department, we decided to upload a patriotic video that’s already beginning to have the desired effect. It’s beginning to raise the spirits of the populace and rally public support around our little operation here.”
“There’s a marketing department?” I blurted out.
“Of course,” Vidmark replied, looking at me as if this was the dumbest question in the world. “Any time you’re selling a product you need someone to help push it.”
Well, alrighty then.
Of course I wanted to ask what we were selling, but before I could open my mouth, Jennings and the others started blabbing about the day’s events. Apparently, Vidmark had briefed the big dawgs in D.C. on the status of what we were doing at The Hermitage, and that, combined with the footage from the battle, made them eager to meet with us and discuss our progress, and something else that apparently was of the utmost importance.
Moments later, we were escorted down to one of the Darth Vader buildings and given changes of clothes by two of Vidmark’s flunkies to make us more presentable. Yours truly was given a black sports jacket, sensible loafers, and a set of sharp slacks. I asked how they knew my size and one of the flunkies just laughed and said they had all of our measurements. I didn’t remember ever being measured, but before I could pose another question, we were already trudging down to a rally point near the gates to The Hermitage. A fleet of dark SUVS were waiting for us along with a small delegation of other figures, including Dexter, Richter, Vidmark, and four or five people that I knew worked in several of the admin buildings on campus.
Dexter moved over before we entered the SUVs and nodded at my clothes. “Danny Deus, disco superfly. Nice threads.”
World of Hurt: Mech Command Book 2 Page 3