Charger the Soldier

by Lea Tassie

  That year had been a time when the far more numerous peaceful Muslims were being attacked everywhere, by people who believed all Muslims had the same values. The media had had the chance to make something out of the Kenya bus story, to exhibit a rational response which could influence events. But they had ignored the opportunity. Well, they always had focused on the bad stuff. Good news apparently didn't sell.

  Pam took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and entered the president's office. She found him sitting in a large leather chair, staring out at the ruins across the city. He was a gluttonous waste of a man, the result of years of self-righteous decadence. When he walked, Pam thought it looked like his enormous belly was the main part of him and led his head and legs wherever it wanted to go.

  "Sir, it's been three days since the Germans landed. We need to air this story," Pam said.

  He just sat there, staring out at the destroyed city.

  "Please, sir, our soldiers need to know the Germans are here to help us. There have been reports of our boys shooting them in the back. Some are saying that the Germans are somehow responsible for the aliens advancing. We have the whole story here and our military needs to know."

  Still no response. Pam said emphatically, "You have a duty to inform the American people."

  "Duty... duty! Don't talk to me of duty, you prima donna!" he snarled. His gaze shifted from the window to a photograph hanging next to the many trophies awarded him for truth and integrity in broadcasting. The photo was of prisoners of war, gaunt and obviously starving.

  "Let those rat bastards die," the president spat. "Let our troops shoot them in the back, then kill all the aliens on their own, better that way." His voice sounded shrill and insane. "I don't need any advice from the likes of you, either. I know your family's history. Your grandmother was a Nazi sympathizer. Don't know why I ever agreed to bring you on board this company anyway." Words kept flowing from his mouth but they were garbled now. His voice became more frenzied as he screamed inanities.

  Then came the sound of a small pop and the voice stopped.

  Pam's eyes filled with tears and a lump formed deep in her throat. It was hard to breathe and her chest heaved as she stared down at the floor where the president now lay, blood bubbling out of his forehead.

  She thought of the small sign on her desk that said 'Pam A-OK,' a play on her married name of A'Ochay and an unintentional signal that she cared about people. It was true; she always tried to help if she could. New employees often quickly became her friends because of this and she had been known as Pam A-OK for a long time.

  Had she gone too far with this shooting? Maybe. Maybe not, if she could live with it.

  Her head began to clear and she calmly put the small revolver back in her purse. The ugly, ranting voice was silent now, as it should be. She headed down the hall to the elevator and, from there, to the second-floor studio where she told the staff to air the German story. She'd added her own comments and saved it on her pen drive, telling America that she was no longer alone in this fight.

  It was late that night when Pam pulled back into her driveway. She noticed, for the first time, that she always parked her car in exactly the same place, though chaos ruled everywhere else. But she had always lived in an orderly way. No matter how bad things were, she kept the house clean and her desk in order.

  Her hands shook as she hung up her car keys. She had destroyed that orderliness of mind today by taking a life. Her boss had been a jerk, a fool, but he didn't deserve to die. She resolved, as she changed from work clothes to pajamas and brushed out her long, dark hair, that after the war was over and life returned to some kind of normality, she would admit her crime to the police and accept whatever punishment they meted out.

  Pam sat down at her desk and gazed at the picture of her husband. He was a stern-looking man and the biggest influence in her life. A man of integrity, his honesty had been what Pam found most attractive when they first met. How long since they'd walked together? Their marriage had been very happy until the death of their child cast a shadow over it. He had deliberately broken into his father's locked gun safe and stolen a gun to take to school that day.

  Why did the kids of her son's generation find taking weapons to school so attractive? The sorrow surged back into her heart and she closed her eyes, wishing she could hold her husband's hand and get some comfort from his strength.

  After a few moments, she opened her eyes and noticed that her computer was blinking to tell her that she had new e-mail. Pam's e-mail account was always on, always connected to what was happening in the world.

  Shortly after yet another crisis in the Middle East had flared up and Europe's mounting debt and inflation threw that area into chaos, the international media agreed there was a need for a special news server that could never be silenced. Dedicated lines were placed, linking all points of the globe to one central news outlet, to ensure that no country could stop the world from finding out that atrocities were being committed in silence. Information flowed constantly, so that the planning necessary to keep the people of the world safe and organized into resistance against evil could easily be done. However, access to the server was limited, and so information was still sometimes difficult to get out.

  As Pam flipped through her e-mail, one message caught her eye. It was from Dean, an old friend, asking if she could meet him as soon as possible regarding the military's experimental soldiers. She replied that they could meet tomorrow and then went off to bed, wondering when Dieter could snatch some leave and come home for a little while.

  >>>

  Her sleep that night was fitful and Pam awoke grumpy and stiff. Her conscience weighed on her like a heavy rough stone. But, finding an e-mail response from Dean, she dressed and drove to meet her friend. Life had to go on.

  "Now, Pam, you must understand, the military wants to be forthcoming about this experiment, but they're not sure of the public's reaction, or even how to tell the public," Dean said. He was a mousy little person, possibly gay, but Pam never asked about his personal life. She was satisfied with knowing he was a good friend and confidant, and that she could always trust him. "That's why I wanted you involved. I've seen what they're working on and, to be honest, this is even weirder then our planet being invaded by aliens." Dean's voice shook ever so slightly, as if he were nervous.

  "Not sure if anything could top aliens, Dean, but I'll take your word on that," Pam replied.

  They walked up the steps of the large military building and were greeted by a grizzled old general.

  "You will not take any recording devices beyond this front entrance," the general said. "You will not speak to anyone working here unless I give you permission. You will not enter into any areas not sanctioned by me, and you will not reveal to anyone what you see here, unless I give you authorization to do so. Is that clear?" Before Dean or Pam could reply, the general snapped, "I have little tolerance for your types. In fact, I have found most humans to be a complete waste of oxygen. If this was not important, I would just as soon run both of your asses out of here."

  From that point on, Pam welcomed General Harris's silence. After many corridors and doors, their escort of guards and the general finally entered a white room with a few chairs and a large mirror on one wall.

  "Sit!" the general said, then turned and left the room with the guards. Some time passed before the door opened again and a young woman with an armful of office files entered the room and sat down.

  "Do you know what stems cells do?" she asked.

  "Yes," Pam replied.

  "We used a biologically created type of sterile stem cell to introduce specialized DNA strands from certain individuals who retain remnant Neanderthal typologies. We cross those with aggressive strands from some animals and beneficial viruses to create a morphological genotype strand that when introduced into subjects through a manmade embryonic cell, can cause physical changes to their body plan."

  Pam opened her mouth to ask a question but the young woman continu
ed.

  "Once we understood the nature of the DNA strand, and the importance the junk DNA represented to the eventual output of the few bits of code that make up all the structure of a finished organism, we realized that by activating the controller strands, those in turn sent signals to the switching strands. We could reactivate those few bits of DNA code to again reanimate the organism to rebuild itself."

  Pam's eyes began to glaze over. She glanced at Dean. He was in the same condition.

  The young woman pressed on. "As with the development of an organism in a fetal stage, we needed to essentially kill the subject in order to induce a fetal reanimation of an organism suited to our own needs. Put more clearly, we reintroduced our test subjects to the fetal stage of their original development artificially, to reconstruct their body plan to fit our design of a Hyborg soldier, a cross between a hybrid and a cyborg."

  "These changes would normally happen over several generations, but in our present situation, of course, they needed to be accelerated. We used a rare genetic human condition that creates rapid aging in certain individuals in order to induce rapid physiological changes in our test subjects."

  Pam was getting more and more frustrated by the rapid delivery. She noticed Dean open his mouth, then close it again.

  "Only through intense radiation therapy and a hybrid steroid regimen, have we been successful in mutating our volunteers into an almost catatonic state, making them invulnerable to the mist the invaders produce, and yet they are larger and stronger than any normal human could ever be. They have slightly slower reflexes then a normal human, due in part to their almost death-like state, but be assured, we have found it almost impossible to terminate any of the successful candidates. This is because of their ability to continually repair damaged tissue through the continuously forming stem cells."

  The young woman took a breath. "Any questions so far?"

  "Holy shit," Pam said. "I think I liked the general better. I could at least understand him."

  There was a long uncomfortable pause. The young woman stood up and said, "Maybe it's better if you see this first." She motioned them to look at the wall mirror and, with the flick of a switch, the mirror became a window onto a lab room.

  "Oh, my God," Pam said softly. "Are those things alive?"

  "Technically yes, but the low functioning of their organs means we need to introduce certain body fluids to keep necrosis from setting in," the young woman said. "We used a virus as a container for specific DNA that we designed and that virus penetrates the cells where we want the changes to take place. This creates an almost catatonic state that we regulate with a regimen of advanced drugs grafted into their armor."

  "Okay. Look, if you can't speak normal English, can we speak to someone who does?" Pam said. Dean bent his head to hide a smile.

  "I'm sorry," the woman replied. "I am trying to be as clear and concise with you as possible, so you can explain this to the public, but perhaps this chance remark will help. One of our test subjects, a man named Dal, often refers to himself and his friend over there as vampires."

  On the other side of the window stood two large men, twice the size of the doctors around them. Their skulls, misshapen from biomechanical enhancements, gave them a jigsaw demonic appearance, and their dark, thick skin armor made their appearance even more repulsive.

  "What will happen to these men when the war is over?" Pam asked. The men must have volunteered for this experiment, but had they known what would happen to them? Did their families know? Would their families even recognize them now?

  The young woman did not reply.

  Pam sighed. "I don't think I can explain this at all."

  Later, Pam and Dean sat in a cafeteria with the young woman and the general. Pam, clutching her coffee cup tightly, said, "What happens if one of these Hyborgs gets in a fight with an ordinary soldier? The soldier wouldn't have a chance."

  The general snorted. "Don't be naive. We've programmed them for obedience."

  "Like robots," Dean muttered. "No free will. That sucks."

  Pam elbowed him. They were there to get information, not confront the military on questions of ethics. She said to the general, "You said you had to induce rapid aging. Does this mean that they will die sooner than a human?"

  General Harris shrugged. "If they die in combat, what's the difference? All I care about is that they take with them as many of those alien rat bastards as they can."

  The young woman spoke again. "We are not entirely sure how long they will live, but we do know that without replenishing their blood supply and having them ingest meat, death is a surety. The lack of blood and meat seems to stifle the body's ability to continually produce stem cells. The rapid aging was necessary for their bodies to evolve the desired changes we wanted. The power source to drive the mechanical parts is proprietary and can best be described as a type of star-in-the-jar technology. Once it is activated, the power source has an unspecified longevity."

  "This living armor you spoke of earlier; does that mean it's intelligent? Does the armor think, even at a basic level?" Pam inquired.

  "Try to regard their armor as much like a turtle's shell, or like your fingernails," the young woman replied. "If it is damaged, the wound self-heals, making the subjects almost impervious to destruction, but there is no sentient thought involved. We are presently working on a companion organism for our Hyborg hyper-hominids. We had some success with dogs being able to detect aliens at a distance, so an electronically linked, mentally compatible extension seemed obvious."

  "A what?" Dean asked.

  Apparently bothered by her inability to communicate with Pam and Dean, the woman scowled before responding. "We are working with convicts from Megiddo max, who are as yet an unused asset in this battle. We are attempting to alter them into a human/dog-like hybrid, capable of being linked to our new soldiers mentally, much like a bluetooth device for your phone."

  "Convicts from Megiddo, Armageddon, the place from the Bible? Like murderers, rapists, and psychopaths, those kinds of convicts?" Dean prodded. Pam thought he looked a little uncomfortable with this. He probably thought it was sacrilege to have a prison there; he'd want a church.

  General Harris snapped, "You and your organization have had no problem reporting on the alien scourge. I'm sure you can report to commanders across the globe on our efforts to help in the war effort. We don't need our own boys shooting at these Hyborg soldiers we send into battle!"

  "Wait, the idea of using convicts in battle, especially convicts from the Biblical town of Megiddo, or from Armageddon, as you call it, is just a bit too much to believe. Why convicts from Megiddo?" asked Dean, with a slight tremor in his voice. "You're picking the very worst of the worst."

  Pam knew that Dean was a deeply religious man. She was fairly sure that his father had suspected he was a closeted homosexual, for the man sent Dean away to a distant university right after high school. Dean had confided that he found this difficult at first, but soon discovered the university population seemed to accept any and all lifestyles.

  "What does it matter where we get the convicts from? These men were accessible for the war effort and easy to obtain from a landlocked area not fully engulfed in the invasion," replied the general with a disdainful look.

  "Dean is right," said Pam, realizing that the general was as suspicious as Dean's own father. "You're asking us to report on the things you're doing here. If people learn that these soldiers were once convicts, and convicts from Megiddo, no less, all hell will break loose on this story."

  "So don't report that!" snapped General Harris.

  The conversation grew stale and soon Dean and Pam were dismissed.

  As they walked down the steps, Dean said, "I'm heading for a bar. I'm going to have a few drinks and try to get my brain wrapped around all this technology I never heard of before. Speaking of which, where the hell has the government been hiding it, anyway? And why?"

  "Maybe it's not the government," Pam said. "Maybe it's the military."<
br />
  "Could be. That General Harris seems like the kind of guy that would go for the kind of thing they're doing to people. You coming for a drink?"

  "Not me," Pam said. "I'm going straight home."

  She spent the rest of the day with her mind reeling in disbelief at the military's unfettered actions. The idea that it had been given free rein to create monsters without the public's involvement seemed unconscionable. However, in times of war, Pam kept telling herself, horrendous things are done in the name of humanity's need to survive.

  After all, look at what she had done only yesterday.

  Chapter 11 Undead reds

  "God damn it, what the hell is it with these Germans?" Thad yelled to the guy next to him in the foxhole. Paratroopers had been dropping from the sky all day and all night, from the one country destined to make a difference. "We're not gonna let them invade us and take over America! Quick! Shoot that one over there too, before he lands." The impact to Thad's helmet from the back was so hard that he almost blacked out.

  "You stupid shit!" his corporal screamed. "What the hell are you doing? Stop shooting them! They're here to help us. Try to use your brain just this once, you idiot!"

  As Thad's head cleared and his ears stopped ringing, he looked behind the corporal, behind the front line that faced the alien menace. German troops were landing there too and, as soon as they landed, they were in motion. Now they were passing Thad and the front lines, moving at blitzkrieg speed toward the stunned and scattering aliens.

  It was this defining moment of fearlessness that caused the Americans to begin the surge forward, instead of backward. Abandoning the civilians they had tried to shield from the alien onslaught, American soldiers joined the German troops and began a tactic of hit-and-run fighting in wolf packs that seemed to work very well. The aliens fought like rabid dogs; they made no distinction between soldier and civilian. They did not seem to sleep, and they would attack anything, even cars and mailboxes. They didn't seem to care whether an opponent was human or not.