Talon of Scorpio

by G T Almasi

  Helen clomps down the wooden stairs. A thirtysomething man in slacks and a sport coat follows her. He carries a large briefcase in one hand and a pudgy backpack over his shoulder.

  Krys and I slide our weapons under our bedcovers while Patrick stands to meet Helen’s friend. She introduces him as Herr Doktor Bols.

  The doctor sets his bags on one of the unoccupied cots and greets us warmly. Helen notices how many beds I’ve taken and winks at me. Dr. Bols first examines Brando’s mangled ear. The doctor tut-tuts over the partially infected wound and cleans the damaged tissue with antibiotics. He then administers a local anesthetic before sewing my partner’s wound shut with thirty-eight stitches. Patrick winces and hisses, but otherwise he’s admirably stoic. A fresh gauze pad and tape completes his overdue treatment.

  Then it’s my turn. The doctor gently disinfects the myriad cuts, gouges, and scrapes on my forehead, scalp, neck, shoulders, arms, and hands. Next comes half an hour of needle-and-thread work to hold it all together. The new bandage on my head is much smaller than the Blood Turban I’ve been wearing, but it needs help to stay in place. Helen produces a black knit cap, which I carefully pull over the doctor’s dressing.

  By this time Doska has finished his shower. Dr. Bols treats him and his partner for some minor injuries. During one of our autobahn adventures Dos slid off his seat and bent his left ring finger backward. The doc tapes a thin splint to the injured finger and the digit next to it.

  Clean and refitted, we turn in. We snooze through the whole next day and into the evening—twenty hours straight. When we finally tromp upstairs we’re treated to another mega-calorie meal from Hell On Wheels.

  When she fed us last night, Helen could tell we were too far gone for shoptalk, so it’s only now on our second night we find out she lost her comm-connection to ExOps the same day we did.

  Doska shovels stewed pork onto his plate. “Has that ever happened before?”

  “Never,” says Helen. “But I have to admit I was relieved to learn it wasn’t just my connection that dropped.”

  “When did you find that out?”

  “Two days ago, before you arrived.” Helen passes a dish of broiled carrots. “I was visited by an ExOps Level, female, like you, Scarlet. This young woman was alone, though. No Information partner. She was badly injured, poor thing.”

  I grit my teeth and scowl at my plate. Black hair, shot full of holes, and running solo. Of course this was Talon. It sounds like her commphone is also drawing a blank for anything beyond walkie-talkie range, which is why the girl is stopping in at every House she can reach. But T-Bitch is discovering the same thing we have—everybody connected to ExOps is offline, not just the field agents. It’s inconceivable that Patrick and I could cause a crash like this, so I suppose we can stop worrying about a Malefactor coming to kill us…but still, what the fuck happened?

  “Such times.” Helen indicates the world outside her house. “ExOps disappears. American agents run around covered in blood. The Luftwaffe attacks the SZ. The Gestapo gathers an army in Munich. Madness.” She refills Doska’s beer glass.

  “Army?” Dos asks. “How big of an army?”

  “Markus Wolf may have drawn as many as three divisions to southwestern Bavaria.”

  My synthetic right hand grasps my fork so hard I bend it in half.

  Three divisions is at least thirty thousand soldiers. Helen’s friends have seen convoys of trucks, field guns, armored vehicles, and columns of men, all flowing to Munich. Although we certainly caught glimpses of these troop movements, our bug’s-eye view meant the pattern wasn’t apparent to us. It just looked like everyone in Europe picked up and starting moving all at once.

  I hide my mangled fork in my lap and try to control my emotional state. My little spy team is not here to take on an army. We’re here to acquire Jakob Fredericks and bring him back to D.C. And the next step in Operation SCORPIO is to investigate the Carbon lab here in Dachau.

  Focus, focus, hocus-pocus.

  I quaff some more beer and try not to worry about continental regime change, missing covert-action agencies, parents, bosses, or how in the world I’m supposed to lead my undercover troupe.

  Krysta saves me from fretting myself to pieces by uncorking a huge belch. We all dive into Krysta’s gastric shorthand to express our appreciation for Helen’s fine cooking. This devolves into a raucous burping contest, which yours truly wins by counting to twenty in rapid-fire German:

  Eins-zwei-drei-vier-fünf-sechs-sieben-acht-neun-zehn-elf-zwölf-dreizehn…

  25

  TWO DAYS LATER, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 3:00 A.M. CEST

  DACHAU WORK CAMP, DACHAU, GREATER GERMANY

  I kneel behind a long, dark hedge. An icy serpent slides up my spine and sinks its teeth between my clenched shoulder blades. The last time I felt this was in the Tower of London. I swear Li’l Bertha wiggles her gyros in sympathy.

  I hunch my shoulders. “This place creeps me out.”

  Patrick kneels beside me and peers through the thick shrubbery. “Me, too,” he mutters.

  A pair of guards patrol Camp Dachau’s eastern perimeter, which is primarily defined by a minor tributary of the River Würm. Brando and I crouch at the creek’s edge and hold our breath until the SZ scumbags pass by.

  Krysta and Doska lurk in the back of a truck parked inside the camp. Krys uses his infrared Mod to monitor the guards’ movements. When one of the dunderheads comes in range, Krysta lunges out and drags Privat Dummkopf to his doom.

  Across the stream, those same two guards retrace their steps past my position. This time they hold their weapons ready. A third numbskull approaches the pair. “Drei,” he says.

  “Hey, Dos,” I comm. “How many guards have you guys neutralized?”

  “Three,” Doska comms back.

  “I think their absence has been noticed. The Staatszeiger clowns over here are lookin’ antsy.”

  The recently arrived guard begins to put on a pair of goggles.

  Infrared or night vision, he’s gonna see us.

  “Heads up, Dos,” I rise from the ground. “We’re moving in.”

  “Okay, we’ll engage the competitors over here.”

  I dash forward, leap at a tree, hotfoot it up the trunk, jump onto a low branch, then tightrope along the branch until I’m near the fence. My three targets stand in the ten-foot-wide death strip that marks the camp’s perimeter. Goggles sweeps his gaze back and forth. He stops to look directly at Brando.

  I jump. Before Goggy can alert his SZ pals, I land on his head and ride his body straight into the dirt. My falling weight breaks his neck with a meaty snap. I reach into my knife’s holster, yank out Deathcalibur, and slash open the second guard’s throat.

  The last guard’s cognition is way behind my murderous reality. He’s still trying to understand the Goggy-shaped hole in the air. I spin away from Deathcalibur’s toppling victim to pile-drive my right fist into the third guard’s stomach and smash his internal organs to slurry. All of his breath shoots out his mouth as every joint in his body gives up at once. The creep crumples to the ground in a gasping, wheezing pile.

  “Darwin,” I comm. “I’m in. Coast is clear.”

  “On my way, Scarlet.”

  “Doska, how you guys doin’?”

  A dull clank carries across the camp’s central assembly area. “We’re good,” Doska comms back.

  Patrick heard it, too. “Was that somebody’s helmet?”

  “Yeah,” Doska comms. “Krys rammed a guard’s head into a truck wheel.”

  Nice.

  Camp Dachau consists of two main zones. One sector serves as guards’ quarters. The other area, where we are now, is filled with rough barracks for slaves. The slaves are supposedly gone, but there are still a lot of heat signatures in the thirty or so flimsy wooden shacks arranged in two precise rows. These d
ecrepit longhouses align with the only other significant structure on this side of the camp—a wide brick building with three broad, arched entryways. Two single-story wings extend from the peak-roofed, two-story central tower, which is topped off by a tall chimney. Carved into the stone-lined doorways are the words ARBEIT MACHT FREI, which means something along the lines of “Work Makes You Free.”

  The four of us prowl through the laborers’ camp to hunt down the remaining SZ guards. We drop six more black-clad bazunkas and rendezvous in front of the Macht Frei building. The guards’ sector across the way is quiet; nobody over there has heard us. I aim my infrared peepers across the creek at the SZ barracks, mess halls, and other buildings.

  “I make at least forty gorillas over there.”

  “Me, too,” comms Krysta.

  “Okay.” I huddle us all together. “Doska, do you have Helen’s Luftwaffe man on the line?”

  “Standing by,” Doska says.

  “Tell him ‘now.’ Krysta, help me mark the far side of the camp, wouldja?”

  Krysta and I approach the fence around Camp Dachau’s living quarters. We each pull out a pair of grenades, yank the pins, and airmail them into the four corners of the SZ neighborhood. Then we hustle into Macht Frei with our Info Operators.

  Four sharp bangs shatter the evening’s quiet. Loud voices waft from over the stream, followed by a low, whining klaxon. Officers bellow orders, and dozens of booted feet clomp out of the barracks.

  A guttural roar approaches from the north and quickly drowns out the clatter from next door. The roar reaches a crescendo just before a shattering explosion rocks the earth. For a split second, the blast lights Macht Frei’s interior. I briefly see what’s in here, but I can’t resolve it into anything sensible.

  Why the fuck would you have ovens in here?

  The Luftwaffe missiles have set the SZ barracks on fire. The blazes’ light illuminates our shelter. There are three huge ovens in here. Their large openings gape like iron maws.

  “Darwin,” I comm. “What are these?”

  Patrick doesn’t answer. He backs away from the dark cavities. Dos and Krys are also speechless.

  “What are these?” I repeat.

  Patrick comms, “They’re crematoria.”

  I look in the nearest aperture. Scattered on the sooty floor inside are piles of ash, scraps of paper, cigarette butts, and bits of broken glass. A long metal rack occupies the center of the stove. As the fire outside grows in intensity, the shadows inside the ovens recede. The rack looks like a stretcher. It rests on horizontal bars so it can be slid in and out.

  Behind the rack-stretcher, among the blackened bits of crap, gleams a white ball. I switch to millimeter-wave radar for a better look.

  When I realize what it is, my vision Mods lose their peripheral senses and shift to black-and-white. Everything seems to slide away from me, like I’m on a conveyor belt moving backward into a dark fog. A scalding headache arcs between my neck and my forehead and boils away both time and place.

  That isn’t a white ball.

  It’s a human skull.

  The skull rises into the air. Flames pour from its mouth. The flying skull chases me out of the building. It presses against my back and explodes, shredding my spine with sharp knives of bone.

  I wake on the ground in the assembly area, flat on my back. My legs are already propped up to keep me from going into shock. Patrick and I are really getting the hang of this whole fainting thing. Brando already has me patched into his Day Loop so I can see what happened.

  Patrick’s point of view shows me from slightly behind as I figure out what’s in the crematoria. Until now I’ve never heard myself really, really scream. I sound like the girls in slasher flicks. My partner stands next to me, but he’s so buggered by these infamous crematoria he doesn’t notice me fainting until Krysta catches me.

  The boys recover their wits and drag me outside to the assembly ground. Patrick holds me in his lap and comms into my vitals. They’re erratic, to be sure, but not bad enough to hit me with the Zapper again.

  “Dos,” Patrick’s voice says. “You two go find the Carbon lab. I’ll get Scarlet on her feet.”

  Brando’s viewpoint shows me the firelit figures of Krysta and Doska. The pair look at each other, then back at me. “This is…not too cool, Darwin.”

  “I know,” Patrick says.

  “Has this happened before?”

  An edge comes into Brando’s voice. “She’ll be fine!”

  Doska shrugs and pats his partner’s shoulder. “Let’s go.” They turn toward the burning SZ camp. “Keep in touch, Darwin.”

  “Will do,” Patrick comms. Then he mutters to himself, “Damn, Scarlet. I should have known you wouldn’t read the briefs about this place.”

  I did, though.

  By 1945, Greater Germany regarded her Jewish population as a valuable resource, like coal mines, or cattle. Dreadfully enough, this was a step up for Europe’s Jews.

  Until Hitler was assassinated in 1942, the Jewish people trapped in Nazi Germany were being systematically exterminated. Dachau—close to Hitler’s political base in Munich—was chosen as the inaugural site for the Third Reich’s concentration camp system. The Nazis originally stocked the drafty barracks with political enemies, thousands of whom died here. Next to be “processed” were homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and immigrants. After Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, he crammed eleven thousand Austrian and German Jews in here. Two years later, the camp welcomed thirteen thousand prisoners from Poland. All of these people were killed and cremated.

  I’ve read about the Arbeitslager ovens, but I assumed the Nazis had some discretion. I mean—what the fuck—the town was already here! Instead, the stone and steel maws are proudly placed in the camp’s biggest building. They’re practically an exhibit.

  Now that I’ve witnessed the Dachau zoning board’s sociopathic disregard for public opinion, it makes perfect sense that they also played host to a lab full of mad scientists. The combined garrison has—well, had—sturdy, permanent living quarters with all the amenities of a German city in easy walking distance.

  Patrick holds my legs on his lap to keep them elevated. He’s watching my feet when I cough and open my eyes. His firelit features are the first thing I see. As I regain consciousness, the look of relief on my face is so full of affection I get all squoogly inside.

  I disconnect from Patrick’s Day Loop as he gently props me into a sitting position. He stands, grabs my outstretched hands, and hoists me to my feet. He lets go. I land hard on my butt.

  “Ouch!”

  My partner frowns over the thin line of his lips. “C’mon, Scarlet. Stop fooling around.”

  I go to fold my legs under me so I can regain my feet, but nothing happens. I scowl at my boots and try wiggling them. Again, nothing happens.

  Dear God, I can’t move my legs!

  I launch a suite of Mod-verification programs while I frantically pat down my thighs and calves, looking for physical damage. My legs can feel my palms pressing on them—they’re not asleep, they simply aren’t responding.

  Patrick crouches next to me. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

  My limbs are straight, no broken bones.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I don’t answer. My Mods return results ranging from “Satisfactory” to “Warning.”

  The word “Darwin” appears in my Eyes-Up display as my partner comms in and begins rooting around in my system to help me troubleshoot. My Mods seem—maybe not fine—but nothing’s listed as totally nonfunctional. Even though I’m sitting down, my head swims so badly I have to hang on to the ground to steady myself.

  I start a second scan, this time of my Enhances. The results scroll onto my display.

  Warning

  Ahh, crap.

  Depleted: Madrenaline
/>   “Darwin,” I comm.

  Depleted: Overkaine

  “Yeah?”

  Depleted: Kalmers

  “I think I found the problem…”

  Depleted: CoAgs

  “What is it?”

  “My Enhances are…um, depleted.”

  “How the—” Patrick stops himself. “Never mind.” He opens his X-bag. “Which do you need?”

  “All.”

  “Christ, Scarlet, have you been drinking them?” Brando gripes. He withdraws four transparent vials of pale liquid from his bag. Each vial has a different-colored cap.

  I unbuckle my belt and slide the top of my black pants off my hips. Brando holds the chems out to me. I take each pressurized vial in turn and press its dispensing valve to the Nerve Jet’s input on my hip. Each vial has a different crenellation on top to tell my neuroinjector where it should go. Momentarily, my Enhances report:

  All Enhancements replenished

  I return the empties to my partner. He distractedly takes them from me. The word “Darwin” still glows in my Eyes-Up. The controller for my Nerve Jet opens. All the sliders adjust from “high” to “low.”

  “Hey,” I comm. “What are you doing?”

  “Turning your flows down.”

  “What? Why? We need to catch up to—”

  “First we need to make sure you don’t have a fucking stroke. Your chems are for extreme situations, not for everyday things like standing up.”

  “No shit, butthead!” I yell. “Now let’s—”

  “Will you shut up a minute?”

  I cock my head to one side. I don’t think Patrick has ever told me to—

  “I was afraid of this.” He throws my empty vials into his bag.

  “Darwin, what’s gotten into you?”

  “Alix.” His forehead is creased with anxiety. “This means you’re physically addicted to your chems.”

  Several smart-alecky comebacks pass through my mind. All of them would make this fight much worse. I take a deep breath instead. My partner and I and grouchily watch my neuroinjector restart itself.