by G T Almasi
Tiger’s SoftArmor has been adapted with a complex web of leather straps and metal buckles to hold Medusa in place and to manage the ammo-channels coursing from his back, over his shoulders, and down to the hungry guns. In another context it might be a kinky sex outfit, but Tiger’s bearing is so cold it’s hard to imagine him even laughing, much less having an intimate encounter with anything warmer than a slab of aluminum.
As the five of us follow Tiger to the Reichstag’s front entrance, a deep, throaty cheer emanates from across the avenue. It’s the Loyalist troops. They shout and wave to show their appreciation for the spectacle we created while breaking this defensive position.
I blow them a kiss then turn to catch up to my squad. I run past the tall, smoke-stained Grecian columns and disappear into the dark, foreboding building.
Inside, Tiger divides us into three teams. He points left. “King, Jade, sweep the east side of the building.” Then he points right. “Scarlet, you and Darwin secure the west wing. Raj”—he waves toward himself—“you’re with me.”
We split up. Tiger leads Raj into the center of the structure. King and Jade spirit themselves off to the left, and Brando I hustle to the main entrance’s right side. The dominant feature in this wing is the building’s cafeteria, which occupies the entire front half of the floor.
“Scarlet, wait up,” Brando calls.
I look back. My partner is crouched by the exit from the front hall.
“Hey,” I say. “What’re you doing?”
“Being careful,” he comms. “This place is crammed with competitors and hostages.”
“Well, yeah. Let’s find ’em.” I stride into the lunch area. The big cafeteria is quiet. “Darwin, c’mon, there’s nobody—”
Bang! Bang-bang!
Muzzle flashes from the far end of the long, tall space herald an incoming swarm of bullets. I knock a table over to duck behind it. Bullets pop holes through the laminated surface. I roll away from the 9mm sewing machine then speed-scramble across the polished floor to a decorative stone column set in the marble wall. Sharp pings and pangs indicate the pillar’s suitability as cover.
“Scarlet!” Patrick comms from the cafeteria’s north entrance. “I told you to—”
“Not now, Darwin!” I stick Li’l Bertha around the corner to loose a short burst of Incendiaries at the dumbags defending the parliament’s in-house eatery. The sharp reports of their weapons stop as they duck under my reply. I zip from behind the column then dash past rows of tables and chairs. Some of the tables bear half-eaten meals. The soldiers recover from my fiery suppressive shots, but not quickly enough to catch me in the open.
I sprint at full speed into the café’s farthest corner. My feet slam on the brakes. The floor is so smooth, I slide the final ten feet smack into the wall. Everything goes dark for a second. When my optics recover, they register my surroundings only in shades of red and black.
Great.
My head is spinning, so I kneel down. One of the jellyheads leans into the café’s main hall to see where I went. I fire Punx and ram a slit into his forehead. The man flops on his face.
My vision Mod recovers, and the room snaps into full color just in time for me to see a grenade skitter across the hard floor tiles. My neuroinjector has been operating almost continuously for days, but it still has the gumption to plow a gusher of Madrenaline into my swirling circulatory system. I get the ExOps equivalent of an ice cream headache as my temporal perception practically stops.
I heave myself upright then charge straight at the motionless boomie. I knock a chair out of my way so I can swing my left arm in a wide arc. Li’l Bertha’s chunky frame whacks the bomb back where it came from. I roll past the front of the barricade then hunch into the corner across from where I started.
The cafeteria’s grand old ceilings are fifteen feet high, graced with tasteful carvings and little painted hoo-hahs. My hearing registers a low thrumming buzz like a giant, slow-rolling dynamo. A bright glow blooms from behind the makeshift wall, followed by an inverted rain that stains the antique ceilings bright red.
I peer around the corner. Two dead soldiers with Gestapo armbands lie jammed against a counter. To my left, the sole remaining competitor drags himself out of the room. Blood from his shattered foot smears the floor.
“Darwin,” I comm. “The room is safe.”
“On my way,” he answers.
I shut off my Madrenaline flow then dose some Overkaine to suppress the pounding in my head. My boots carry me over the barricade into the café’s serving area. The walls are lined with shelves of smashed bottles and food-service counters topped by broken booger shields. The room’s center is obscured by the wreckage of the fragged cashier’s station.
Patrick climbs into the serving area to appraise the mess. I take a position at the café’s second entrance, which opens to a flight of stairs leading below. The streak of vital fluids from Herr Footsie leads down the steps.
I comm, “Think that’s where the hostages are?”
“It’s a good bet,” he comms back. “Protection from shelling, harder for captives to escape. Can you see anything down there?”
My Mods are getting pretty beaten up. It takes a couple of tries to activate my infrared vision. Footsie’s recent passage shows as a hot-orange stripe. I look down the stairway. Indistinct man-shapes move around behind a thick wall. They’re armed. Beyond them—barely—I can see a huddled group of warm blobs. Many of the blobs change shape as Herr Footsie rolls down the bottom-most row of stairs.
It’s a crowd of people. The shape-changing was them turning their heads to see what was sloughing into their ersatz holding pen.
I comm to Brando, “It’s them.”
Patrick comms, “Tiger, Raj, King, Jade, we’ve found a group of captives in the south-side basement, under the restaurant.”
“Copy that,” Tiger answers. “King, Jade, what have you found on the north side?”
King comms, “We’ve chased a few Gestapo soldiers to a flight of steps leading to a lower floor. Could be the mirror image of Scarlet’s stairway.”
“It sounds like you’ve found the main resistance,” Tiger comms. “Engage them, but only to hold their attention. Raj and I will approach from the rear to secure the hostages.”
“Understood.”
I jam Punx into her holster and slide my F-S fighting knife into my right hand.
“Jade,” I comm, “let’s share our targeting.”
“You got it,” she comms back.
My Eyes-Up display adjusts to display her WhackNet feed next to my own vision. Jade and I lead our partners down the silent stairs. Our competitors must have heard us fighting on the main floor, but they maintain their sound discipline and stay quiet.
Jade and I each hold one of the guns in front of us like lanterns on a dark night. Her view is indeed the mirror image of my descent. She turns right on her landing as I turn left on mine. The stretch of hall at the bottom of her stairs matches the bottom of mine. As in my point of view, the walls, ceilings, and floors she sees down here are much plainer than the baroque surfaces upstairs. Both of our halls contain an unoccupied folding chair, for a sentry presumably. The enemy-in-charge must have called all his men inside while he tries to figure out who’s hitting them.
I’m so absorbed keeping pace with Jade I don’t notice the trail of gloop Footsie bled all over the floor. My boot slips and accidentally kicks the sentry’s metal seat, sending it sliding into the wall. In this hot silence the gentle contact sounds like a brass monkey humping a church bell.
Clang!
One of the red blobs runs into the hall. It’s an officer. His tunic bears a Gestapo pin and he carries a Luger GC-1 pistol.
I jump forward and ram Deathcalibur into Luger-boy’s neck. Crimson mist schpritzes all over my face, arms, and chest. My target is dead before he hits t
he floor.
Voices, raised in alarm, bounce off the hall’s hard surfaces.
“Tiger!” I comm, “They know we’re—”
Rattling bursts of small-arms fire are accompanied by terrified shouts and agonized screams. I charge into the chamber. Li’l Bertha outlines every person with a weapon and gyros my arm around the compass, stopping only long enough to bang a .30-caliber two-fer into each enemy. I advance into the space and nearly trip across someone lying on the tiles. It’s Herr Footsie. I stomp his head with my boots while scanning the room for anyone else who wants a few extra assholes.
Injured people lie sprawled all over the floor. Some are the opponents I just shot, but most are unarmed men and women in business suits.
“Darwin,” I comm, “help these wounded civilians.”
My partner moves toward a group of gunshot victims. He pulls his first-aid kit from his X-bag. I follow to help with triage.
Loud crashes and yelling pour in from a hall to the left, followed by a quartet of armbanded soldiers and flying bits of smoking masonry.
“Scarlet,” Raj comms, “we’ve coaxed four enemies into your—”
“Got it,” I comm. One of the fleeing blockheads slips then falls on his butt. My pistol shreds his torso and head to ribbons. His friends take one look at their eviscerated comrade and scamper back the way they came. They hang a sharp left into the hallway, scrambling away from both me and Raj. Their escape route is parallel with the northernmost wall of this chamber.
I fire a flurry of .50-caliber Explosives at the wall, then run after them. Li’l Bertha’s economy-sized bullets blast a big-ass hole in the north side. I fall through my instant door and stumble into the dust-choked passageway. My knife hand stabs one of six running legs just as something howls up the hall and rips a trooper’s skull off.
“Shit!” Raj comms.
The headless bone bag tumbles to the ground and drapes all over me. Our remaining enemies disappear around a corner at the end of the hall.
“Scarlet,” It’s Raj again. “You okay?”
“Yeah, of course.” I roll to my feet. “Why? What happened?”
Raj approaches me. Smoke streams from the barrel of his Bitchgun. His face is pale. “Hell’s bells, Shortcake. You jumped right in front of my shot!”
“Fuck, Raj!” I yell. “You’re using that thing near the hostages?”
He scowls at me. “I wasn’t near the hostages when—”
Tiger’s comm interrupts. “Jade, King, hold your position. Scarlet, what’s your situation?”
“I’m with Raj. Our last two targets escaped, but they’re down here somewhere.”
“And the hostages?”
“We…” I hesitate. “Uh, we lost a few of them, sir. Darwin is tending to the wounded.”
Tiger doesn’t linger on my bad news. “Scarlet, eliminate those two competitors. Raj, cover the central courtyard in case they try to exit that way.”
Raj and I both comm, “Yes, sir.”
I avoid looking at Raj as I swing down the hall after the two soldiers. I turn right and pass into the first room north. It’s the kitchen for the cafeteria directly above me. Big aluminum sinks, huge air vents, and high-end cooking appliances dominate the space. Short windows to my left overlook the Reichstag’s front lawn. Opposite these are openings to workrooms and food storage areas. Light filters into these spaces from windows facing the inner courtyard.
I crouch behind a sink, reload Li’l Bertha, then draw Deathcalibur. Still hunched down, I carefully creep forward. My failing infrared Mod briefly shows me a lot of chilly culinary gear before finally crapping out. I don’t think I saw anything warm. Not much cooking today, I guess.
My legs waddle into the back workrooms. A long prep table has a faint smudge on it. Above it is a big storage rack. I look up just in time to see one of the Gestapo weasels leap off a high shelf and dive headfirst at me. I jab my knife into the air. Diver Dan impales his left shoulder onto Deathcalibur’s six-inch blade. The screaming dink slams into me as we fall to the floor.
My opponent jabs his fingers toward my eye sockets. Before he gouges my googlies, I yank Deathcalibur out of his shoulder and ram her into his temple with so much oomph the blade pokes out the other side of Diver’s head. Blood and worse leaks onto my face. I squint my eyes shut and shove the Todtpuppemann off me, trying to decide if Dead Puppet Man would be a good band name.
A shadow moves across the ceiling. Outside one of the windows, Raj hustles by, his Bitchgun pressed to his big shoulder. Suddenly he charges forward then leaps out of sight. Breaking glass heralds his flying entrance into the next workroom. A shattering explosion briefly brightens the dim space and silhouettes the smashed body of the fourth guard. Smoke rushes from the workroom into the air above my head.
I aim Li’l Bertha into the murky space, my finger on her trigger.
“Raj,” I comm. “How we doing?”
“We’re good, Shortcake,” he comms from the other room. “I spotted that last competitor behind a stack of crates. Thought I’d drop him for you.”
“Much appreciated.” I holster my weapon, then grab the edge of a table to pull myself to my feet. Raj emerges from the gun-fog and stops in his tracks when he gets a good look at me.
“What?” I say.
“Tell me that’s from someone else.”
“Huh?”
“Scarlet, I barely recognized you.” He patches me into his WhackNet. Since he’s looking at me, his view shows how I appear to him.
Dark syrup pours out of my nose, ears, and hair. The only part of me not smeared in cherry-colored goo are my eyeballs.
My head tilts forward and I droop into Raj’s arms.
52
I fall face-first into a pool of warm liquid in a pitch-dark space. I flip myself over and bob in the gentle, black waves. My sensory perception is limited to smell and touch. Something bumps the side of my head. I try to brush it away but I can’t make my arm move. I drift in lazy circles. More objects gently collide with my body before floating away again.
Light begins to shine from beneath the dark, viscous fluid. The light illuminates the undersides of the stuff in the water with me. They look like short pieces of wood wrapped in cloth. One piece of wood has a complicated…something protruding from the end of it. The growth slowly bobs into closer view.
It’s a human hand. Impressed into its palm is a WeaponSynch pad. Around the arm’s wrist is a man’s Bulova watch, just like the one Cleo gave me. Another length of wood floats into view. It’s a human leg. On the foot is tied a black urban combat boot. The thick heel has a chunk bitten out of it.
A decapitated head floats into view. It rolls over and opens its mouth.
Scarlet!
A FEW MINUTES LATER, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 3:05 P.M. CEST
THE REICHSTAG, BERLIN
“Hey, Scarlet!” Raj’s voice vibrates inside my pounding skull. He persists, “C’mon, Shortcake, on your feet.”
Raj’s big mitt pats my cheek.
“Hey!” he barks. “Not now, Scarlet.”
He shakes my shoulders. Finally, he slaps me across my face.
My eyelids flutter open. The room reels from side to side. Just being able to see straight takes a few seconds. Raj stares down at me and cradles my head in one of his giant paws.
I mutter, “Ah, shit.”
Footsteps approach from the main kitchen. Darwin comms, “Scarlet, Raj, where are you? There’s so much smoke I can’t—”
“We’re back here, Darwin,” Raj comms.
My partner enters the workroom, waving his bag in front of him to clear the air.
“Raj, what the hell is—ah, shit. Did she faint?” He kneels next to me. “Oh my God, what happened to her?”
“I don’t think she’s wounded.” Raj shifts me to Darwin’s ar
ms. “That’s all from competitors.”
Patrick says, under his breath, “Jesus, how many of them were there?”
I look down at myself. I’m drenched in glop. My limbs and torso drip with so many species of biomatter, I could be the leftovers in a slaughterhouse. My body begins to tremble and my teeth clack together. I’m hot and cold all over. The skin on my face and neck tries to crawl beneath my musculature to get away from its fresh coat of Homo splattus.
Darwin gathers my shuddering body into his arms. “Hey,” he whispers. “C’mon, baby. We’re almost done. Keep it together, just a little longer.”
Beyond my partner’s concerned face, Raj stands, reloads his Bitchgun, then slings it over his shoulder. He draws his sidearm, an LB504, and watches the entrances. If he hadn’t already figured it out, he now sees that my relationship with Darwin extends beyond being field partners.
But he’s still Raj.
“Darwin,” Mr. Romantic comms. “We don’t have time for this.”
My partner is unusually terse. “I know!” Brando reaches into his X-bag for a DOSE. “Check in with Tiger while I get Scarlet back on her feet.”
Despite my headache and nausea, I enjoy watching the gears turn in Raj’s head. Info Operators aren’t supposed to boss Vindicators around. I imagine Raj considers a reprimand, but technically my partner outranks him since I’m the senior Level in the room.
Darwin applies his DOSE injector. I immediately feel better.
“Patrick,” I croak.
Raj scowls again, presumably because I’m using my partner’s real name.
“C’mon, Alix,” Brando says. “On your feet.”
I swear Raj rolls his eyes. What terrible comm-protocol!
Darwin hauls me up by my armpits. The room wobbles from side to side until the rest of Brando’s DOSE hits me.