by Kyle Noe
“Never thought I’d say this, but Renner’s right. Your professional name should be Doctor Feelgood,” Quinn said.
Cody fought off a smirk. “At ease. It’s a cognitive enhancer that’s favored by certain elements within the Syndicate. The one you took was a cherry, an intro to the drug. And this one's a peach, good for sustained use. You'll get the bar, i.e., the strong stuff, when you've proven yourself.”
“What’s it called?” asked Quinn. “And for the record, I have no desire to prove anything to you.”
“Black Sunshine.”
“Catchy.”
“I could go into detail, but the quick and dirty is that it allows a user to operate in a heightened state for up to thirty-six hours, when you’re lucky. The lower-grade stuff, much less.”
“What’s the downside?”
“That is the downside.”
Cody winked and placed the container in Quinn’s hand.
“Use them wisely,” he said, before rising.
Quinn secreted the container in a pocket as Milo approached.
Cody rose and left the two of them to chat. He looked back over his shoulder, thinking about how in the world of the Syndicate, there were but two kinds of people: enemies and allies. He turned back, satisfied that Quinn wasn’t the sort to share the secret of Black Sunshine with one of her comrades.
If she did, he’d deny that he’d ever given it to her. If she didn’t, he’d sit back and monitor her, waiting for the drug to work its magic, waiting to see if she was someone he could trust, someone he could rely on.
Chapter Eighteen: Friendly Fire
General Aames appeared, flanked by a small contingent of Syndicate soldiers.
“Follow me,” Aames said without further elaboration.
The Marines and several of the other prisoners and aliens, including Larry, fell into line and marched in silence as General Aames led them along two corridors to a massive metallic door. There, the green light of a biometric scanner kissed his eyes and doors slid open to reveal a circular launch bay.
“Line up along the walls,” General Aames ordered. “Get locked and loaded.”
“What are we doing, sir?” asked Hayden.
“A little experiment,” General Aames replied.
The Marines assumed the position around the room, their backs to the wall.
“Shoulders back!” General Aames barked.
Quinn pressed her shoulders against the wall as ruggedized holsters that resembled the over-the-shoulder restraints she’d once seen on roller coasters emerged from panels behind her. The restraints latched onto their shoulders and upper bodies and the floor dropped several feet until they were being held aloft in the air by the holsters.
Syndicate soldiers proceeded to place biometric-synched Parallax assault rifles into the hands of each Marine. Quinn watched as gossamer-fine needles emerged from the sides of her rifle, sliding gently into her flesh.
Then the floor rose up and the holsters pulled back into the walls. The Marines were left standing, holding their rifles.
There was a Marine, four bodies down from Quinn, a wild-eyed man whose name she didn’t even know. The Marine stared at the tiny red dots where the needles had entered his arm. Then he looked at the rifle, and then from the rifle to General Aames.
“You fucker!” the Marine shouted.
The Marine raised his rifle and triggered the gun and—
BOOM!
The gun backfired, spattering the Marine’s head against the wall.
Quinn turned away, listening to the dead man’s body slip to the floor with a sickening, wet thud.
“Goddammit!” General Aames shouted, his voice booming off the walls. “Did you people not hear us before? Do not try or even think about using any of your weapons against us or you will wind up like this sorry sonofabitch!” he added, pointing to the dead man.
There were several seconds of awkward silence, and Quinn could hear the blood from the dead man lapping against the floor.
“Any questions?” General Aames asked.
More silence filled the chamber. General Aames strode down in front of the Marines, eying each of them.
“Our orders are in. The first operation is going to be an assault on a resistance site on Earth and the retrieval of an object wanted by the Syndicate. You sons of bitches will be the thrust of the assault, and once you’ve retrieved the object, you will link up with the B-team that is striking the target from the other direction.”
“That’s it?” Hayden asked.
“The rest of the details are beyond your pea-sized brain's comprehension, Sergeant,” General Aames said.
“Seeing that we’re going to be doing the fighting and the dying, sir, I’d like to know.”
General Aames moved over and stood before Hayden.
“You are going to confront the enemy and liquidate them. Do you understand that, Devil Dog?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Hayden said, in reply.
The other Marines answered as one. “Aye, Sir,” even as they eyed one another, questioning the order silently.
The Syndicate soldiers fanned out, handing the Marines their battle helmets, which shifted and contorted around the user’s skull. Milo cast a sideways glance at Quinn. His mask was moving and shifting, just like the Potentate’s helmet. Creepy as fuck.
Quinn turned and caught sight of herself in the reflection from a window. She looked like some kind of alien warfighter, in her helmet and armor. She could barely spot the difference between the Marines and the Syndicate soldiers lined up behind them.
“Are you ready, Marines?” General Aames shouted.
“Do or die!” Milo shouted, and then a collective, “Semper Fi!”
General Ames turned and stared at Quinn.
“Do not forget that you are expendable. Do not fail your Potentate.”
“Aye, sir!” Quinn shouted in response.
***
The Launch Bay’s outer doors slid apart to reveal a translucent floor beneath the Marines. Directly below, the sight of Earth was overwhelming. Pristine, seemingly untouched, unharmed by invasion and devastation. But Quinn knew better.
It was still beautiful, but one thing was different. Quinn could see small transport ships, combat space fighters, and what looked like missiles launching.
She also saw other Syndicate launch bays, on the same Syndicate Command Ship and on other ships. Several of the bays held Marines positioned against the inner walls, while others contained numerous Arc Gliders that other fighters were boarding, including the aliens and other prisoners.
From a distance, Quinn could barely make out Cody moving down the middle aisle of a glider, inspecting equipment, weapons, and exo-armor, shining a light in everyone’s eyes.
Quinn followed Milo down over a ramp and into the belly of a glider illuminated by pulses of blue light.
A holographic image of Cody appeared in the air in the middle of the room, busily pointing to the left and right, assigning spots to each Marine.
Quinn took her place next to Milo, the pair standing under a metal housing of sorts that resembled a static-line waiting position inside a combat plane back on Earth. Lights flashed on the ground and Quinn noticed an outline for her boots. She stood on the outline, and a cage formed around her boots. She leaned back against the wall as a five-point harness descended and enveloped her like a cocoon. The harness snugged her tightly, and then the metal flooring rotated back so that Quinn was at an angle, looking down at the floor.
She gulped and looked over at Milo, and beyond him, Hayden and Renner. “Remind me again why we’re fighting?”
Milo mustered a smile. “We’re doing it for the only reason that matters, Quinn. For each other.”
The assault craft began trembling and Quinn could feel the machine’s thrusters powering to life.
Red lights flashed green and the doors on the glider closed with a pressurized hiss.
She looked up. Holographic Cody was mouthing the words “Good Luck,” a
nd Quinn felt the glider lifting off, easing out of the loading dock.
The trembling ceased and Quinn was pressed back as the glider rocketed forward.
She hazarded a look up and out of the only window in sight, and watched as the Earth grew larger as they approached.
Somewhere out there, her daughter was waiting for her to come home. Nothing could stop that from happening, Quinn decided at that moment. Not a damn thing.
Chapter Nineteen: Crossing Boundaries
The Resistance fighters started off on a day cooler than normal, making their way by foot until they were able to reach the designated point where other Resistance fighters waited with vehicles. Traveling on foot for the first part had been for security—if the Syndicate had a way of tracking vehicle movement, they didn’t want to give away their base location.
Now they had no choice, though. If they hoped to make it across the border and all the way to Vegas, they couldn’t very well do it by foot. Hell, by the time they reached their destination, the war would be over.
If this could even be called a war, Giovanni thought with a grunt as he covered his mouth and nose with his jacket to avoid the dust blowing up from the jeep ahead of them.
Every major city that he could think of had apparently been taken over by the Syndicate at this point, and what the Resistance hoped to accomplish was beyond him.
If he was being honest with himself, he was already convinced that this was all pointless. But he wasn’t the type to be honest with himself, so he said fuck that. If there was an ounce of blood still pumping through his veins, he would fight those invading alien fucks. And if he fell in combat, he’d come back from the dead and see that they were pushed back to whatever planet they came from.
“Everything all right back there?” Calee yelled from the driver's seat, and Luke glanced back with a hopeful smile. The two had largely ignored whatever it was that had happened that night between them. Or whatever Giovanni might have imagined happened—the look they shared.
“Just… thinking.” He leaned forward, hands resting on the seatbacks in front of him, and spoke up so he could be heard. “These invaders, the Syndicate. Anyone know a damn thing about them?”
“You know as much as we do,” Luke said.
“But I mean, someone has to know where they came from. Are they from our solar system, even?”
“That’s the strange part,” Calee said, weighing in. “Their equipment, their armor… all of it—they aren’t so different from us.”
“Exactly!” Giovanni smiled, getting into it now. “I mean, it’s like they are us, almost. Could an alien race just happen to get it so close?”
“But they’re more advanced,” Luke said. “Clearly. So maybe it’s like in those movies where the aliens copy what we have, or take on some form that we’d be familiar with, but then they took it to the next level.”
“Or an alternate dimension where everything is quite similar, but different,” Calee offered. She drove for a moment before realizing the other two were staring at her. “What? It’s an alien invasion, for Christ’s sake. Is it so hard to jump to the next level and consider that they could be from another dimension?”
“I guess not.” Giovanni leaned back, frowning. None of this really made sense. It hadn’t been long ago when they didn’t know aliens existed, outside of VR games and hologram movies.
The conversation moved into battle plans and strategies for fighting the Syndicate if they ever had the opportunity again, but it all seemed to go about in circles. Make the attack, then retreat to their tunnels, to bunkers set up in specific locations, and any other hideouts they could find. It wasn’t a war, it was an insurgency.
Only now, they were the insurgents, and Giovanni hated it. Resented it, even.
When they neared the border, they slowed and went off road, looking for the spot their Resistance collaborators across the border had marked for them. The idea was that there would be a place in the Grand Wall of the United States with an opening large enough for their vehicles. The wall had been built by millions of American debt laborers twenty years earlier, paid so cheaply that it could practically be considered slave labor.
The danger, of course, was that the Syndicate had patrols in the air around these parts, and might have already spotted the location and either blocked the opening or set up an ambush.
Soon they pulled over, and the truck in the rear came up to distribute fuel canisters while the fighters took a breather at a nearby stream.
“We were supposed to have been across by now,” Luke said, sitting on a rock by the stream and wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
“And if we don’t find the crossing point?” Giovanni asked.
“True, it might not be there. But what do you do if life doesn’t leave you an opening?”
“Create one with a lot of bombs?”
“Exactly. C-4, in this case, but yeah.” He laughed, and took off his combat boots and socks to dip his feet in the cool water.
Giovanni did the same, and let out a long sigh.
“You know,” Luke started, but then looked away, lost in thought.
“Yeah?” Giovanni asked.
“The other night. Us …” Luke began.
“Is there an us?”
Luke looked up, tentatively. “Should there be?”
Giovanni closed his eyes, hands in his pockets and enjoying the water as it rushed past his ankles. He wished Luke wouldn’t answer a question with a question, but he finally opened his eyes to see the man staring at him.
“With everything going on …”
“Yeah, totally,” Luke said. “It only makes sense … not to complicate matters.”
Giovanni nodded, but bit his lip as he looked at Luke’s sad eyes. He wanted to take him in his arms and tell him screw it, all that mattered was them. But he had learned through experience that personal desire would only hinder them. Maybe when the invasion was over, when they won. Maybe.
But not like this.
“We’re going to win,” Luke said, now glaring as if daring him to say otherwise. “Just so you know. I see the doubt in your eyes sometimes, and I want you to be as certain as I am. We’re going to fucking destroy them.”
“Good.” Giovanni smiled as he stepped out of the water. He sat down next to Luke and spread out his legs, waiting for his feet to dry. “When that day comes, I’ll be celebrating at your side.”
Luke smiled and reached out a hand, which Giovanni took, gave a reassuring squeeze, and then let drop.
When their feet were dry and they’d replaced their socks and shoes, they made their way back.
***
Calee turned from checking tire pressure and met them with an eyebrow raised. “I trust you found the little boy’s room?”
Luke laughed and motioned to the tree. “Right over there, same spot as the little girl’s room.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said as she stood and wiped her hands on her cammies. “You two, no peeking now.”
Luke laughed, but Giovanni smiled sheepishly.
“Does she know?” he asked.
“What, that I’m not exactly on the ‘peeking at girls while they piss’ team?”
Giovanni laughed. “I hope nobody is on that team. No, you know what I meant.”
Luke blushed, but nodded. “No, I don’t know that she does. I mean, I hope she’d have figured it out by now.”
“It’s harder when you have the cammies and a large gun, I’d guess.”
“How would you know how large my gun is?”
Giovanni kicked dirt at him and laughed. “Give me a break, okay?”
Luke grinned and hopped into the jeep with a wink.
Calee returned and they resumed the search for their destination. After only about five minutes of driving, though, a small dust cloud rose up south of them.
“That might be trouble,” Luke said.
“We weren’t expecting anyone, I gather?” Giovanni said as he turned in his seat
to try and get a better look.
“That’s a big, fat negative.”
“Lock and load,” Calee said, turning hard on the steering wheel and heading for the wall.
“What’re you doing?” Luke turned frantically to the vehicles now visible behind them, and the wall, slowly rising up in front of them. “Don’t throw us into the fire to escape the wolves!”
She laughed. “Fuck that. They didn’t give us a way through, we’re going to make one. Here, keep the jeep going straight.”
“What, why would I need to—” He shouted and grabbed the wheel as she stood and motioned in the air to the jeep following behind and to their left. “You can’t be serious!”
“Just watch and learn, boys.” She slowed to let the other jeep move ahead, and that’s when Giovanni saw what Luke was yelling about.
One of the Resistance fighters on the jeep in the back had pulled out what looked like a rocket launcher, but with two green lines on its side. He was aiming at the wall.
“Holy shit, that’s one of the Syndicate’s!” Giovanni shouted. “How the hell did we get that?”
“Black ops,” Calee replied. “And a bit of luck.”
The weapon glowed green on the stripes, and then, with a sucking sound followed by a KA-BOOM, flames shot out as a series of rockets propelled outward and toward the wall, zooming around each other until they hit with successive explosions.
Calee floored it, driving closer and closer to the gate. As the smoke cleared, Giovanni realized that while the explosion had made holes in the wall, they weren’t large enough for the jeep.
And still the jeep shot toward the wall,
“AGAIN!” she ordered as she made the motion.
“There isn’t time!” Giovanni shouted, just as the automatic guns on the wall registered their arrival and started aiming in as sirens blared from above. A warning message sounded in Spanish, and lights on the guns turned red.
“FUCK ME!” Luke shouted, and Giovanni couldn’t help but think how under different circumstances he would love to hear those words.