by G T Almasi
The tower’s interior is as featureless as its exterior. Except for the sharp corners, this building could be the tunnels I’ve been living in. There’s no natural light, sound echoes forever, noise from outside is barely detectable, and the odors of stale sweat and bad breath linger like cheap perfume in the oldest whorehouse in Texas.
While my lungs catch up to the rest of me, I comm, “Darwin, I’m in.”
“Give ’em hell, Hot Stuff. I’ll see you out front.”
I rise to my feet, then climb a long staircase from the fort’s foundations to the first floor. A dense mass of civilians jam themselves through the tower’s main entrance. Harried guards push them toward the stairs and herd the people up the steep cement steps. Babies cry, geezers wachoo, and everyone chatters like a piano full of pistachios.
I moosh into the big German amoeba and follow everyone to the higher floors. Our mission brief told us this structure has six stories, capped by the rooftop artillery stations. The bottom four stories are, for the most part, set aside as a bomb shelter for the common taxpayer. The top two floors are crammed with supplies, quarters for the garrison, and heaps of machine-gun bullets, rockets, and artillery shells.
On the fourth floor, the flowing tide of jabber-holes is drowned out by steady bangs and braps from the roof. The air’s smell changes from B.O. to gunsmoke. I casually ease out of the crowd. My boots trace a path to toward the stairway to the fifth floor. A pair of ugly SZ brawlers stand guard in front of a large VERBOTEN sign.
As I approach the uggos, my neuroinjector zaps me some Madrenaline. I maintain eye contact and unzip my jacket. The guards ogle my chest as I draw Li’l Bertha. Instead of knocking their blocks off with spectacular head shots, I carefully fire two small-caliber shots through each of their hearts. The sharp reports of my pistol are sucked into the steel thunder from above as the two slimeballs collapse to the floor.
I charge past the dead troopers and dash up the steps. The fifth floor is occupied by busy little dorks working desks covered in computer terminals and communication gear. The operators alternate between talking rapidly and typing rapidly. I rush past their harshly lit offices and continue upstairs.
The sixth floor is like a beehive. Sweaty floyds in black uniforms run ammo-laden hand trucks every which way. Practically every wall has a NO SMOKING sign screwed to it. The signs are illustrated with explosions for sluggards too stupid to understand that cigarettes and bombs are an express exit from the gene pool.
I’m still jacked on Madrenaline. A light buzz of electricity tickles my arms and legs. My hands have already grabbed my pistols. Li’l Bertha shakes like a toddler in a sugar factory. If this were a movie, I’d yell some kind of sporting, Marquess of Queensbury warning before I engage these competitors.
But I don’t.
I grit my teeth and pull my girls’ triggers. They expel a lethal swarm of exploding bullets and meat-chopping disks that consumes my line-of-sight competitors before they even know what’s hit ’em.
Li’l Bertha’s gunsmoke clings to my arms as I bring my plane of disexistence to another part of the floor. Fatigued schlemiels queue at long ammo racks. One after another, they load ordnance from the metal shelves onto their heavy-duty carts. Then they push the laden dolly up a wide concrete ramp to the gun deck.
Punx eradicates four of these mofos with only two shots.
I stalk toward the ramp. The frontmost bearer has already reached the top. One of his comrades steers an empty ammo truck onto the ramp, returning for more. He stops in his tracks, pushes his cart at me, then runs for the roof. I stop the rumbling wagon with my foot and shove it back where it came from.
The cart and I reach the top of the ramp together. I knock the dolly to its side then duck for cover just in time. A burst of automatic fire pangs into the cart’s deck. The shots dent but don’t penetrate the thick steel.
My vision Mods help me filter the area’s beefy targets from the concrete barriers, hardened steel guns, and stacks of ammunition. I hold Li’l Bertha above my shield and let her spray shots whenever one of my competitors shows himself.
The heavy 120mm guns are still firing, but the smaller pieces—the 20mm automatic cannon and the machine guns—have stopped lashing the sky. A gang of their SZ attendants rushes me from the other side of the ramp. I lean back against my overturned ammo truck and alternate my pistol fire: left, right, left, right. The first wave of bushwhackers fall in twisted heaps. The second wave slow to step over their fallen buddies. It’s the last step they take.
My sidearms change from the ammo-hogging Spray-n-Slay mode to the less hungry but still effective Point-n-Pop. Each oncoming mook falls on the pile of dead with at least one extra hole in their head.
Li’l Bertha detects a nearby threat and takes control of her settings. She switches to .50-caliber Incendiaries and spins her gyroscopes like dervishes to yank my arm up and to my left. I quickly cancel the incendiary effect—she doesn’t know about the explosives lying around. I sight through her targeting sensor and find myself staring into the barrels of a quad-mounted, 20mm anti-aircraft gun.
The three-man gun crew is barely ten yards away. They shelter behind their weapon’s heavy steel shield. I bend my knees then jump in the air to get a shot over the shield. Before Li’l Bertha can line these losers up, though, each of them sprouts a hole in their helmet. Mouths gape below spasming eyes, each iris spinning in a different direction.
It’s like I’ve traveled a few seconds into the future where I see the results of my actions before I do them. My weapons haven’t expended any ammo at these dying men, but…I’m on my own. It must have been me who shot these jamokes.
Maybe I’m running too much Madrenaline.
I haven’t even landed when my commphone activates.
“Hey, Scarlet! How’s that for radical sharpshooting?”
My feet thump to the deck amongst the dead gunners. “Who’s…”
It sounds like my father, but…
“Falcon?”
“Yeah!”
“Where the hell are you?”
“On the Humboldthain Flak Tower.”
That’s over two miles away.
“What the fuck kind of weapon are you using?”
“Ha! Dad made it. He calls it a ROKES rifle. It launches guided anti-personnel rockets. I can hit Moscow from here.”
I peer into the distance, toward his position. Way too far for me to spot him. “How could you possibly see—”
“I patched into your pistol’s targeting system through Dad’s WhackNet. Isn’t that cool?” The kid is in sniper heaven. I’m not even gonna ask about the hitting-Moscow thing.
I look around. All the troopers here are wearing black Staatszeiger uniforms. I move into the shadow of one of the massive, concrete blast barriers surrounding each big gun emplacement. I swing around the barrier’s perimeter until I can peek into the barrier’s access corridor. A crew of eight SZ clowns swarm around their 120mm piece like moths, oblivious to everything outside their raucous little world.
“F-Bird, have you secured your Tower?”
“Affirmative. King and I just captured it.”
“So you can keep covering me?”
“You bet! Just aim at whatever you want me to hit.”
“Okay, get ready. I’ll flush ’em out.”
I enter the narrow passage, exactly the same width as the hand trucks, and run into the emplacement’s interior. The many, many stacks of waiting shells make me glad I didn’t chuck a grenade in here.
Li’l Bertha unloads a withering hail of .30-caliber slugs into the SZ dopes. The cannons’ staggering clamor drowns out the relatively insignificant racket of my banging shots and screaming victims.
Six down. The last two members of the panicked crew climb the barrier to get away from me. I don’t have a good shot at them, but I keep Li’l Bertha
pointed their way.
The two stinkbutts hoist themselves to the top of the parapet. It’s as far as they ever get, because each one takes a round through the head and falls back into the circular emplacement like a bundle of black laundry.
“Nice work, Falcon.” I turn and leave the first emplacement. “Gun number one is neutralized. I’m moving to number two.”
“Yep, I gotcha.”
My booted feet storm around the second concrete circle to its entry passage. I barge into the gunners’ area and my blazing pistols chop the crew down like grain. One of the blackshirts hides behind the low concrete platform supporting the towering artillery piece. He avoids my Grim Reaper routine by bounding out of the emplacement’s circular confines like a rabbit running from a hound.
I jab Li’l Bertha his way, but he’s already rounded the corner.
“F-Bird, one of them got away. Can you see him?”
“Negative.”
“ROKES can’t shoot around corners?”
Falcon laughs. “Not such tight ones.”
I sneak away from the now silent gun number two, looking for Herr Rabbit. The rhythmic pounding from gun number three ceases. Herr Rabbit charges from number three’s blast barrier and opens fire with an MP-50. He’s followed closely by the gun’s crew, who spread out to shoot at me with pistols and submachine guns.
I hurl my body to the side then cartwheel out of their line of fire. Bullets whiz past my spinning limbs and smack into the concrete walls. I roll into a low crouch then aim back where I came from, expecting the jerks to impulsively chase me around the barrier.
But they don’t. They throw grenades instead.
I should have thought of this. Shrapnel from even a single frag will shred everything caught in the alleys between the blast barriers, and none of the artillery shells are stored outside the emplacements. It’s just me out here.
I spring at the top edge of gun number three’s circular perimeter as the potato mashers start to go off. Explosive heat boosts my butt out of the corridor, my free hand pushes off the top’s rough surface, then I leapfrog into the number three emplacement. Steel fragments ping off the alley’s walls before spinning into the tortured night air.
Falcon comms, “That was you, right, Scarlet?”
“Yeah. Stay ready.” I hide behind the gun’s cement podium and aim Li’l Bertha at the emplacement’s entryway.
Three SZ from the gun crew return to the barrier’s interior. I dump a pair of slugs into each of their chests. The jugheads slide to the ground like pants in Mae West’s dressing room.
“Scarlet,” Falcon comms. “They’re climbing over the top.”
I swing LB’s sights around the top of the barrier. An officer mounts the upper surface. A bright flicker zaps him straight through his ears. The officer expires so suddenly he takes three steps before his body falls down.
The noise from the city below absorbs the sound of Falcon’s rocket-gun. Two more assholes try to come at me over the barrier, with the same result each time. I wait a few seconds, then I shift my position to the sharply cut entryway. Nobody here. With their commanding officer down, the grunts may simply be lurking outside the corridor, waiting to see what happens.
I slip one of Rachel’s stick grenades from under my jacket, twist the fuse, then heave the kaboomie through the entryway. Muted shouts bounce off the cement surfaces until the explosion drowns them out. I click Punx into my right palm, then I charge outside.
Five dweebs wait for me. Two more squirm on the ground with nasty head wounds. I spray all of them with bullets and super-heavy disks. Their insides splash onto the walls and drizzle to the deck.
“All enemies down,” I comm to Falcon. “One more gun.”
“Radical. Let me know how I can help.”
I approach the barrier protecting the fourth and final 120mm gun. A hefty, sweating ammo-bearer rolls his handcart out of the access corridor and stops in his tracks. The boggled bastard stares like I’m an unholy apparition. I drill a disk through his right hip and bounce over his dolly to catch him before he falls. I turn his chunky body around then waddle him inside the fourth emplacement.
We meet another ammunition carrier rushing out of the gun position. The yabbo plows his wagon into my shield’s knees before clumsily toppling forward over his cart’s push bar. Meatshield howls louder. The eight soldiers working the gun look over to see what the shouting is about.
I’ll never forget how all of their expressions simultaneously shift from Busy-Busy to Where-The-Fuck-Did-She-Come-From. It’s like the same scene playing on eight televisions at once. I shove Meatshield out of my way and let ’em have it.
Punx really shines in these confined settings. The men’s silhouettes overlap one another, so her disks slice and dice multiple targets. I step past Meatshield and kick Klumsy out of my path. One dipshit remains. He desperately scrambles up the barrier’s inner wall.
“Falcon,” I comm. “You got that twerp?”
My sort-of half brother’s answer arrives with his shot. “Got—” Splat! “—him.”
The soldier’s corpse tumbles back inside the emplacement.
“Okay,” I comm. “I think our work here is—”
Li’l Bertha vibrates like a joy-buzzer.
Behind me!
I spin. My pistol blasts the top of Meatshield’s head off, but he’s already thrown his grenade. It arcs over my head and rattles into the tall stack of 120mm shells beside the gun.
So much Madrenaline cascades into my system, it feels like lightning shoots out of my eyes. I run forward, hoist what’s left of Meatshield onto my shoulders, and race away from the impending cataclysm.
“Scarlet, how’re we—”
“Not now, Falcon!”
“No, it’s me. I’m at the entrance. What—”
“Not now!”
I heave Meatshield over the roof’s edge and jump after him. The gun deck bursts skyward like a Godzilla-in-the-box. My shadow is cast in every direction by flashes from dozens, then hundreds, of exploding shells. Their combined force rips the top of the fort off in less time than it takes me to fall to earth. Meatshield’s blubbery body hits the ground directly beneath me and I land on him with a—
—AFTER-ACTION REPORT—
30 SEP 1981
Greetings General Eisenberg,
The Zoo Tower has been demolished, along with its garrison and inventory of armaments. Be advised there were significant casualties among the civilians sheltering within the structure’s middle floors. Responsibility for this collateral damage should be entirely deniable as Scarlet was the sole agent on the tower and no one who witnessed her work survived the event.
Faithfully,
—Darwin
44
TEN MINUTES LATER, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1:28 P.M. CEST
ZOO FLAK TOWER, BERLIN
My head lies in Patrick’s lap. He sits on the ground, leaning against what little is left of the thickly built Zoo Tower. I think he’s composing his after-action report. The headache from my latest concussion is wearing off, partly from a big dose of Overkaine, and partly from the distraction of watching the end of the Zoo Tower on his Day Loop.
I’ve rewound his recording a few minutes, and so I follow his point of view as he runs along the subway tunnels. Momentarily, he emerges aboveground in the midst of a crowd of terrified citizens rushing toward the tower’s main entrance. The ambient racket swirling through the embattled city is absorbing most of the noise of my gun-platform battle.
Except the end. That probably registered in Chicago.
“Scarlet,” Patrick comms. “How’re we—”
My voice comms, “Not now, Falcon!”
“No, it’s me.” My partner extracts himself from the column of Berliners pressing themselves into the shelter and stands b
eside the front gate. He comms, “I’m at the entrance. What—”
“Not now!”
Patrick’s voice mutters, “Uh-oh.”
He steps away from the rough concrete wall and cranes his neck upward. Meatshield sails off the edge of the roof. His flopping, lifeless silhouette shows black against the deep-orange mantle that looms above the entire city. Immediately behind the dead man comes another flying figure.
Me, of course.
I still grasp my pistols at the end of my swiveling arms. Red Christmas bulbs shine from my shadowed face. The crimson glow of my infrared Mod is swept away by a dazzling flash from the tower’s gun deck. The sudden light temporarily whites out Brando’s vision as the blast wave races down the fort’s rigid walls to pummel the soil like a prizefighter.
Patrick shades his face with his hands. The localized earthquake knocks him to the turf. The big dead SZ soldier spluts into the heaving terrain in front of my partner. A waving shadow flickers across the dead man’s body, then I crash onto Meaty’s stomach.
I watch my body compress into itself like an overloaded shock absorber. My knees bang my shoulders and whiplash my head into Meatshield’s chest. I bounce off the soldier’s corpse, flip over, and land flat on my back.
Brando’s view swivels upward as he runs toward me. The top floor of the Zoo Tower disintegrates in a colossal explosion. I sit through the strange experience of watching Patrick throw himself across my motionless body.
He looks at the sky again. Hundred-ton boulders of reinforced concrete crease the air. Their impacts amplify the seismic vibration from the detonations until Patrick and I skitter around like little electric football figurines.
The initial flock of shell-flinging detonations produces a cloud of fire filled with second-generation explosions. These propel other shells even farther until everything within half a mile has been fully lit and lashed by rapid-fire bursts.
Only the ground near the foot of the headless gun tower is safe. Most of what lands on my partner and me is a typhoon of concrete dust. Brando hoists his jacket over our heads and tries not to inhale the vaporized stonework.