Hammer of Angels

by G T Almasi

  I start the car, drive up the street past the fancy little church, and park in front of a small shop. Grey stubs out his cigarette, opens his door, and leads us out of the Barge. When I stand up, my head spins like a weather vane. I hang on to the door and have my neuroinjector give me a swish of uppers. I sway after my team and pat down my toys. Stabby—check. Shooty—check. Boomy—check.

  Falcon holds his sniper’s rifle flat against his side. I say to him, “This is gonna be close quarters. Sure you need that cannon?”

  “Like the man says,” Falcon says with a smirk, “don’t leave home without it.”

  I smile and poke my elbow into his arm as the four of us stalk down the street. We approach the Cupcake’s foreboding unlit side entrance. I try the heavy wooden door. It’s locked. Brando pulls out his lock-breaker kit. Falcon and I keep watch while Grey shines a penlight on the lock for my partner. Except for the hospital’s hustle and bustle, the neighborhood is quiet.

  Brando’s efforts bring about a declarative clunk. “Got it,” he whispers.

  Grey shoves the door open and enters first. He comms to us, “All clear.”

  The rest of us slip inside. The church’s dark walls and stone floor seem to suck the warmth right out of me. I tighten my jacket around me and—

  Alix?

  It’s him! I hold Li’l Bertha beside my head.

  “Daddy? We’re here!”

  Alix, I…

  “What? Dad, what’s the matter?”

  No answer. A dancing crowd of spots appears before my eyes, and my dizziness returns.

  “Hang on, Daddy; we’ll get you out of here.” The floor shifts from left to right so dramatically that I feel motion-sick.

  Brando, still watching me, remains silent. Grey and Falcon have walked to the shadowy rear of the church. I hold my partner’s arm, and we follow them down a gloomy flight of stairs. A thick metal door yields to Brando’s lock-picking prowess, and we’re in. The atmosphere in the Cupcake’s cellar—or “undercroft,” as Grey calls it—is thick with the zesty smell of fresh mouse turds, damp earth, moldy stonework, and ancient corpses interred in the walls.

  “Not spooky,” whispers Falcon. “Nope. Not at all.”

  We follow Grey in the glow from his small flashlight. He leads us into a low hallway. Even I have to stoop to pass through. We quietly assemble at the end of the corridor and all hunker down on one knee. I’m grateful for the chance to steady myself.

  Grey comms, “Okay, this is the walled-over passage to the lab.” He reviews the next phase. Grey and Falcon will rush to secure the entrance. Brando and I will find the Originals. Then we’ll do the extraction.

  My partner reaches into his X-bag and takes out his millimeter-wave radar sensor. He begins to pass it across the wall, searching for the old doorway.

  As he works, a surge of nausea grips my stomach. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and my hands spasm like worms on a hook. The floor turns into a frozen lake and—

  I plunge through the ice, and my skates drag me down to the bottom. I push off the mud and punch the shimmering roof, but the thick water clutches my hands like a thornbush. I try to swim to the hole, but I’m all turned around and can’t find it. Bubbles rush past my nose. I’m not cold anymore. Something heavy crashes in on top of me and—

  —hands prop me against a decrepit, dusty crate. All three of my companions bend down to look at me.

  My mouth feels like the floor of a coal mine. I clutch my head to keep it from splitting apart. “Urgh,” I groan, “this hurts worse than a hangover.” Something drips off my sleeve.

  Brando fusses around me. “Hang on, hang on. Let me clean you up.”

  “Scarlet,” Grey hisses, “you need to stay quiet.”

  I pull in a slow breath. This helps clear my head, but now I’m aware of something else. “Ugh! What’s that smell?”

  Brando whispers, “Alix, you threw up, and then you fainted. Stick your arm out. I’ll clean off your jacket.”

  Sweet Jesus! I blacked out in the middle of a mission. Grey silently holds his penlight and watches my partner clean puke off my jacket sleeve. “Darwin,” he slowly asks, “what’s the matter with her?”

  Brando finishes his nursemaid duty. “She’ll be fine. It’s only a nervous reaction.” He helps me sit a little more upright. I nod that I’m okay, and my partner returns to examining the wall with his radar gadget.

  Grey squats down in front of me. “You all right, Red?”

  “Yeah.” I goose some Overkaine to suppress my headache. “I’m sorry, Grey. That won’t happen again.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened at all.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “Not like that, sir.”

  Grey sternly asks, “How has it happened before?”

  Oops.

  “Sir,” Brando interjects, “I’ve found the doorway.”

  Grey’s expression softens a little. “Scarlet, just stay cool, okay? We’ll get him out.”

  “Yes, sir.” I rub my sweaty palms on my pants. “Thank you.”

  Grey points at Brando’s X-bag. “Okay, Darwin, let’s try the Super Momma we got from Jacques.”

  * * *

  CORE

  TECH-SPRMAMA-003

  Sonically Powered Retrogressive-Method Anti-Material Array (SPRMAMA)

  This handheld device generates a pair of short-range, high-intensity, high-frequency self-balancing sonic waves that can be employed against a variety of surfaces to cause anything from mild damage to complete structural disintegration.

  Although SPRMAMA is nearly silent on its own, when this system is used against a wall, floor, or ceiling, the demolished elements are likely to create significant aural disturbance.

  Prototypes have been adapted into the casings of cordless drills. A few teams involved in Operation ANGEL have deployed with these preproduction units. Operatives will field test SPRMAMA at their first opportunity.

  44

  SAME DAY, 8:52 P.M. CET

  CARENTAN, PROVINCE OF FRANCE, GG

  Brando presses the Super Momma against the wall and activates the sonic wave. My headache resurrects itself like a howling harpy, and I clap my hands to my temples. “Agh, fuck!” I glance up and see Grey and Falcon are doing the same thing. “Darwin,” I grunt, “hurry up! That thing is turning my head into mush!”

  My partner presses the Super Momma against the wall and “draws” a door-sized rectangle. Severed pieces of wood, chunks of plaster, and piles of stone filler crumble to the floor. Dust-filtered fluorescent light spills through Brando’s sonic-boom doorway, and he finally shuts the frickin’ thing off.

  “Wow,” he exclaims over the settling debris. “Talk about instant hole!”

  My headache recedes almost as quickly as it started, but I still make sure to voice my low opinion of this new hoozie from the Technical Department.

  “Next time let’s just use a fucking chain saw.”

  Brando guesses that our vision Mods may have resonated with the frequency from the Super Momma, since my partner wasn’t affected and he’s the only one of us with plain old eyeballs.

  We pick our way through the carpet of rubble and enter the Carbon lab. A layer of plaster dust is settling over a neat grid of tables and chairs. A refrigerator hums in the corner next to a counter and kitchen sink.

  Falcon and Grey run to cover the lab’s front door. Brando and I scamper toward the center of the facility. My partner sticks close in case I have another lunch-spewing panic attack. We hustle into a white hallway of offices and cubicles.

  A pair of dull thuds echo down the linoleum-floored corridor.

  “You got ’im?” Grey’s comm-voice snaps.

  “Yes, sir. He’s down,” Falcon replies.

  The two of them have taken the entrance. Brando and I run past the offices and skid to a stop at a row of small laboratories. The doors are all secured with pass-code locks. At first we take the time to carefully disable them, but t
hat’s way too slow. I start kicking the doors in. This speeds things up significantly, but we haven’t found any Originals.

  We aren’t finding anyone, actually.

  “Hey,” I say. “Where the fuck is everybody?”

  Brando says, “I’ve been wondering the same thing. The scientists we pinched in London said these labs are staffed around the clock.”

  We enter an open foyer with a circle of long, low planter boxes arranged like Old West wagons defending themselves against an Indian attack. The plants are fake, but they still take the edge off the decor-by-Sparta feel of the place. It’s also the only area with any decent signage. We spin around and read the signs.

  “There!” Brando says. He takes off past a placard that reads PRIMÄR ENTWICKLUNGSLABOR. Primary Laboratory. I catch up to him, and we push open a pair of frosted-glass doors.

  We’re in a wide, rounded room like the lab in the Tower of London, except there’s nobody home. The middle of the floor is dominated by a massive metal sarcophagus with thick cables and tubes coiled around it. Most of this techno-spaghetti runs across the floor to a series of shower-stall-size cylindrical tanks lined up against the walls. Each tank contains a person, a clone presumably, viewable through a glass window. The clones are all male, but they don’t look like each other. Their features remind me of some of the thugs I fought in Zurich last year.

  Brando moves toward a raised platform slathered in computer gear. I run to the Original container with my stomach in knots and peer into the window.

  It’s him! It’s really him! I hug Li’l Bertha to my cheek. “Daddy, can you hear me?”

  Yes!

  “I’m here, in the room with you! We’ve come to take you home.”

  I…knew you’d come for me, Hot-Shot.

  His skin is sallow and his lips are dry and colorless. His eyes are closed.

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  No, I can’t…move anything.

  Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen him in nine years, but I almost don’t recognize him. It’s weird how lifeless he is in there. He was always in motion, even when he slept. When I used to find him passed out on the couch down in his workshop, I’d curl up with him and study his face. The muscles in his jaw would twitch while he dreamed.

  He’s in a padded metal envelope, like the woman in the White Tower back in London. A breathing mask covers his mouth and nose, and a metal helmet hides his hair. The helmet sprouts a small galaxy of fine wires leading to a silver panel with blinking lights mounted to the inside wall of the chamber.

  “Darwin,” I comm, “do we take that helmet off his head?”

  “Only after we’ve disconnected the wires,” he comms. “But we need to detach them in the correct sequence.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Have your father tell you what he’s experiencing as I switch his IV from pancuronium to neostigmine and atropine.”

  “What?”

  “I need to activate his musculature. Then we can take him off the ventilator and move him much more easily. Disconnecting all the Carbon crap will take some guesswork, and it’ll help if I know what it feels like.”

  I look at my dad. One of his eyelids pulses irregularly, and his comm-voice strains with great effort.

  Oh, my God! Honey, they must have found our comm-connection.

  “Dad, don’t worry. In a few minutes you won’t need it anymore.”

  No, listen, they’ve set…it’s a…

  “Scarlet,” Brando says. “You ready?”

  “Shh! He’s trying to say something.”

  …trap.

  My pounding heart nearly stops. A loud bang ricochets down the hall, instantly followed by a rapid exchange of gunfire.

  “Falcon!” It’s Grey. “Back up; lemme get ’em!”

  Falcon comms, “Watch it! On your left!”

  The firefight out front goes from zero to bullet blizzard in nothing flat. The floor starts to vibrate. Pieces of electronic gear scattered on a stainless-steel workbench totter over the edge and crash to the floor.

  “Shit!” Brando yells. “Okay, change of plans. We’ll disconnect him from Carbon first, then run him out of here on our portable ventilator.”

  “What should I tell my dad?”

  “Well, normally this is done under anesthesia. It’ll feel like hell when he comes off the lab’s ventilator.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. “Dad, we’re going to unhook you from the lab. We’ll need to know what you feel so we do this in the right order.”

  Understood.

  “Then we’ll switch you to our portable ventilator. My Info Operator tells me that part will be extremely unpleasant for you.”

  Let’s get it over with, then.

  I nod to Brando. He begins typing on the keyboard in front of him.

  Hot-Shot?

  “Yes?”

  I love you very much, honey.

  I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but twin streams of tears course down my cheeks. I close my eyes and gently cradle Li’l Bertha to my face.

  “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  The teardrops run down my neck as I holster my pistol. Then I heave the sarcophagus’s lid open and disengage the row of latches that hold the metal envelope shut. When I open the envelope, I nearly faint again.

  My father has wasted away to almost nothing. All of his ribs show through his thin white shirt. His white cotton pants droop around thighs and calves as skinny as curtain rods. His powerful arms have withered to twigs with nearly skeletal hands sprouting from the ends like the claws of a monster.

  Only my partner’s steady direction keeps me focused. Brando has me start with the monitor pads and sensors, the stuff that reads data. I rip them off my dad’s shrunken body. My eyesight has lost all color. Brando’s instructions come so fast that I need more Madrenaline to keep my hands moving quickly enough. Then it’s time for the helmet.

  “Dad, you all right?”

  Peachy.

  “Darwin, he’s good so far.”

  “Anybody have a free hand down there?” Falcon comms in. “It’s gettin’ a little radical up here.” His call is almost drowned out by the metallic bark of a machine gun.

  “Negative, Falcon,” Brando replies. “We need another minute or so.”

  My vision has lost its midrange shades. Things are either white or black. I’m also sweating like crazy. Moisture sizzles down the sides of my body and soaks into my pants and underwear. My knees falter. I lean against the sarcophagus.

  On close inspection, the helmet’s wire nodes all have little numbers next to them, like network addresses. The numbers appear as thin black characters against a glare-white background. Brando starts at the low end.

  “Try 192.1,” he comms.

  I find the correct node and pull the wire out.

  “Dad? How’s that?”

  Nothing, then he begins to violently batter against his restraints.

  I plug the wire back in.

  Li’l Bertha transmits white noise instead of his comm-voice. While his depleted body continues writhing, my sight shifts to dark burgundy and white. Then he lies still.

  Alix, that wasn’t…correct.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry! Are you all right?”

  It hurt, but…keep trying.

  I stare at my partner. His snow-white face is wet with perspiration, and his red eyes are jammed wide open. “Christ,” he whispers. “Okay, let’s try the other direction. Pull 192.255.”

  I find the node ending in 255 and yank out the wire.

  “Dad?”

  Much better.

  I spend the next minute ripping wires out in descending order until I’m back to the node ending with a 1.

  “Scarlet, hang on,” comms Brando. “That’s the wire that’ll disconnect him from the ventilator.”

  Grey comms the two of us. “Shake a leg down there, people. The competition brought a lot of goodies tonight.” To underscore his point, a piece of the ceiling cracks loose and smas
hes a rack of glass vials into skittering shards.

  Brando runs across the room and takes our portable ventilator out of his X-bag. It’s the size of a hardbound book. The front is covered with knobs and switches, topped by a small screen that lights up when my partner turns it on. From the device’s side hangs a cluster of clear plastic tubes that converge at a round plastic something or other.

  Brando leans over the sarcophagus and freezes when he sees my dad. “God almighty.”

  Grey comms, “Scarlet, Darwin, we’ve lost the entrance and are falling back. You need to get moving right now!”

  The gunfire marches closer. A shot bangs down the hall and puts a hole in the lab’s door, shattering the frosted glass. Brando reaches in to my father.

  He calls out over the din from the hallway, “Now, Scarlet! Pull that last one.”

  I pull out 192.1 and stand back. My partner extracts the sarcophagus’s breathing tube from my father. Dad begins to convulse again. Falcon and Grey bolt past the door as a stream of bullets explodes into the floor behind them, scattering chipped linoleum in every direction. Brando guides the ventilator’s business end down my father’s throat and presses the clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose.

  Five black-shirted Staatszeiger soldiers charge past the lab and continue down the hall. My vision has gone from burgundy on white to burgundy on black, like a negative print from a slasher movie. I’m sweating so heavily that I can shake water out of my hair like a wet dog.

  Another group of SZ men tromp down the hall, but these jerkoffs catch sight of me and Brando. Their black silhouettes raise their dark red weapons.

  So much Madrenaline pours into me that pearls of white sweat fling off my black hand as I whip out my sidearm and stab her into air between me and these malignorant shit-for-nothing motherfuckers.

  Li’l Bertha ejaculates her entire ammo pack all at once. Her squadron of black bullets slams into the meat bags and ignites a multicolor fireworks display that explodes out of the riddled bodies and sprays itself all over the wall.