NEW WORLD DISORDER: MECH COMMAND BOOK 1

by George Mahaffey

  “There are … so many.”

  “Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a cemetery I’m surrounded by so many ghosts,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “The aliens were everywhere,” I muttered, staring at the sequences, remembering how the skies filled with the Syndicate gliders and attack craft before the bombing began.

  “We didn’t have enough ammo or fuel, and by the end, there was nowhere to go back to,” Richter said. “All of the bases were destroyed.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “The only thing I could. I looked around realized I was the last man standing. I said a quick prayer for a short death, and then I flew my hundred-million-dollar plane into the side of the biggest friggin’ alien ship I could find. I sliced that sucker in half and bailed out. I was two hundred feet over New Orleans when the bastards set my parachute on fire.”

  I pictured Richter’s disfigured back and shuddered.

  “How’d you end up here?” I asked.

  “Vidmark recruited me from the resistance’s southern command. He needed a face man. Someone with street cred to act as a go-between with the government and the military and train up some of the operators every now and again.”

  “I thought he was in charge of the Mech Command.”

  Richter smirked. “Vidmark’s a salesman, Danny. Don’t ever forget that. He was given a blank check and a short lease after he promised the honchos a new kind of mechanized fighting force.”

  “The Icarus Project?”

  Richter nodded. “Everything he has is riding on what happens here. He needs to show that he can build a unique kind of team, small, irregular, nimble, that can defend the Earth.”

  “From what?”

  Richter peered at me, his eyes eerily backlit by the overhead lights. “There’s always someone or something worse than the worst person or thing you know. And usually, there’s another person behind that thing egging it on.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Richter stared at the ceiling, deep in contemplation. “All I’m saying is wherever there’s conflict there are powerful forces fanning the flames, pitting peoples, even worlds against each other.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “By the time you figure out the real reasons for that, Danny, it’s too late.”

  “Is there something coming I should know about? Something that’s … worse than the invasion?”

  Richter peered down into his beer. “I guess you could say there’s blood in the water. Our planet’s weak right now, and there are galactic bullies out there that want to take advantage.”

  “What kind of bullies?”

  “The kind that even the Syndicate was scared of.”

  “When are they coming?”

  He nursed his beer. “That’s above my pay grade.”

  “Because I saw something, Mister Richter,” I continued. “I saw lights in the sky. Lots of them. Circling over the city.”

  His jaw locked. He glanced at me. “The only thing you need to do is focus on tomorrow, you hear me? Keep your eyes on the prize, because the country is likely gonna need people like you sooner rather than later.”

  I turned away. “I was a thief by the way,” I blurted out, embarrassed to be sitting in the presence of a guy like Richter who’d actually battled the invaders. “You asked me about the invasion and occupation, and that’s what I did. I wasn’t like you. I didn’t have the balls to fight back. I was ... a coward.”

  “Bullshit,” Richter said with a flick of the wrist. “All the cowards are dead, Deus.”

  “Then what am I?”

  He looked at me. “The kind of person that occupies the ground between a hero and a coward. You’re a legacy …. a survivor. And survivors are important because they’re the ones who are left behind to pick up the pieces and build again.”

  I took this in, squeezing my bottle of suds so hard I thought the glass might shatter. Then I looked up. “I’m not like the operators. I don’t have all the fancy equipment or training.”

  “Do you know who John Lennon and Paul McCartney were? And if you say no, I’m probably not going to be able to talk to you anymore.”

  “Sure, I remember those guys,” I lied.

  “Well, they pretty much altered the course of modern music. But both of them disliked formal education and training. Know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “They thought that technical knowledge zapped their spontaneity, that it took their edge off.”

  “So, you’re saying I’ve got a chance then.”

  “I’m saying sometimes being raw gives you an advantage. It helps you to mess with your opponent’s decision cycle.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Anytime you’re in combat, you’re faced with a decision-making cycle: observe, orient, decide, act. Doesn’t matter if you’re human or alien, you run through that every time you’re faced with a difficult situation. The way you defeat an enemy is by disrupting that cycle.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “By not being a professional soldier. Don’t tell anybody I told you this, but I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons Vidmark brought you here. You don’t know what you don’t know and that makes you strangely effective in combat. That’s particularly true when your enemy is anticipating that you’ll maneuver like they might, like a seasoned professional, and when you don’t it causes them to over or under-react and that’s often fatal.”

  “So what’s the takeaway?” I asked.

  “Your stupidity just might be your greatest asset.”

  I took this in, realizing Richter was right. Even though I’d flown a hoversurf under heavy fire before and risked my neck on multiple occasions, I was still green. I was a wild card. The operators wouldn’t have any idea what to expect from me when I faced off against them.

  “I’m gonna do this, Jack,” I said firmly. “I’m gonna beat them tomorrow.”

  Richter nodded. Then he rose one more time and reached into a cabinet above the wet bar and pulled out what looked like an old compact disc, the kind I’d seen my mother listening to back in the day. The kind used to store and play sound recordings.

  He moved over and handed me the CD. “I want you to have this,” Richter said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A soundtrack we used to use in the days before the invasion. Guaranteed to get your blood pumping. Put it on before you give Simeon a beat down.”

  * * *

  Thinking it might jinx me, I returned to my room that night but didn’t listen to Richter’s CD. Instead, I checked the intranet messages on my neural glasses and read several emails sent from Jennings about the next day’s competition. Strangely, the outside internet was down, and I wondered whether it had anything to do with the strange lights I’d seen in the sky. I remembered how there’d been an electrical storm or some kind of weird disturbance in the hours before the aliens attacked. I was worried that the same thing might be happening but knew there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

  I turned my attention back to Jennings’s emails. They said we were to report to the hangar’s central chamber at precisely eight a.m., at which time we would be given further instructions. My palms were sweaty, and my heart raced as I reread the emails from Jennings. Everything I’d gone through since the invasion seemed like some kind of sick endurance test designed to lead to that moment. I had a chance the next day to make up for everything I’d done before. I had a chance to set things right.

  30

  I woke at six in the morning and checked my neural glasses. There was a chirp and an icon of a ghost in a white sheet appeared in the right lens. Using the trackball, I clicked on the ghost which opened the instant message function Dexter had mentioned earlier. There was a message from Dexter, “THE PAIN YOU FEEL TODAY IS THE STRENGTH YOU FEEL TOMORROW! TAKE NAMES AND KICK ASS!” along with an image of a cartoon character with exaggerated teeth holding two thumbs up. I smiled and wa
tched the message dissolve like sand in an hourglass.

  I headed over to the Mech Recovery Room (with Richter’s CD in hand) to find that Jezzy was already awake and waiting for me. Her hair was slicked back, and she was clad in a black singlet that looked painted on. There was no need to say anything, we just went to work, inspecting the mech (like we’d always done with the hoversurf), making sure everything was in working order and ready to go. My hands were shaking as I climbed up into the mech. I helped Jezzy in and then took a seat behind the controls. Flipping switches, I powered up the mech, listening to the engine gurgle and growl. Jezzy and I sat in silence and then I looked back.

  “I’m gonna state the obvious here,” I said.

  “That you’re a jackass?”

  We shared a smile. “You didn’t have to do this, Jezz. You didn’t have to help me out, but you did.”

  She shrugged. “It’s in my DNA. Even when I was a kid I was constantly taking in stray animals.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been a long time since anybody did anything for me.”

  “Well, how about I do one more thing,” she said. Smiling, she reached behind her back. “I’ve got a surprise for you. Close your eyes.”

  “The last time I did that you punched me in the jaw.”

  “Close ‘em, Deus.”

  I did.

  “Okay, now you can open them.”

  I did and saw that Jezzy was holding a green bundle in her hands. I was shocked to see that it was my old teddy bear, Mr. Berenstain. He was frayed and singed around the edges, but otherwise in pretty good shape. I picked him up and smiled.

  “Holy – where’d you get it?” I asked.

  “Before I blacked out, I pulled him out of the crash.”

  I manipulated the bear’s tiny arms and mimed a bear voice. “Thank you, Ms. Jezmyn,” I said.

  Jezzy smiled hugely at this, and it warmed my heart. “You’re welcome, Mr. Berenstain,” she said.

  “Have I told you how happy I am that you agreed to do this with me?” I asked.

  She nodded and to my surprise, blushed. I placed a hand on her wrist at something unspoken passed between us.

  I turned back and thumbed the controls and began walking the Spence mech down through the corridor. We dropped into a crouch and waddled under a doorway and then we were moving toward the hangar’s central chamber. I spotted Richter off to my right. He was holding a balled fist up, and we waved back to him. I was feeling pretty pumped until we turned a corner and spotted them.

  The other operators.

  They were situated in a row in front of the pyramid-shaped structure, trying to look as intimidating as possible in their oversized mechs which were polished to a high sheen.

  “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” I said, remembering a line from an old movie I’d watched on my dad’s Scienta account.

  “What?” Jezzy asked.

  “Never mind. Check ‘em out.”

  Jezzy looked through the cockpit, seemingly nonplussed. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

  I nodded and we moved forward as our commlink hummed. Baila’s voice was audible over the link. “Welcome to the last stage of testing, Danny,” she said.

  “Glad to be here,” I said, my bravado betrayed by my quaking voice. I looked around at the other four mechs. “Very cool machines,” I said, because frankly I had no idea what else to say.

  “Our mech is called ‘Twinshock,’” Sato said over the commlink, referencing the mech she shared with Ren whose exterior was covered in various Anime-style images of girls and swords and mechs.

  “‘Boomstick,’” Simeon said of his mech which had a section of grating mounted below the turret to give the machine the appearance of having teeth.

  “‘Reason,” Baila said of her mech which had a peace symbol next to an image of a candle scrawled on the side of the turret, “because everyone listens to reason.”

  “‘Western Sizzla,’” Dru offered, manipulating his mech’s arms (which were extra long, sleeved with what looked like tattoos, and studded with spikes) to do some kind of karate move.

  “What’s yours called?” Baila asked.

  I paused, staring at our perfectly ordinary looking mech, then croaked, “Um … uh … Spencer … ‘Spence’ for short.”

  There was silence over the commlink for several seconds. “Yeah, that’s uh … a super cute name,” Baila said.

  I could hear the other operators snickering as Jennings, several assistants, and Vidmark appeared. Vidmark was standing atop a small, two-wheel, self-balancing scooter that I’d occasionally seem him use around campus.

  I powered open a section of the cockpit and dropped our mech into a semi-crouch so that we could hear Vidmark, Jennings, and the others. Vidmark whirred forward in his scooter, stopping directly between the other operators and us.

  “And so, it’s come to this,” Vidmark said, raising his hands. “As you know, Mister Stoneburner is recovering from his injuries, but has nonetheless washed out of the program. That means another spot has opened, another opportunity to make the team,” he added. “We wish Mister Deus and all of you Godspeed and the best of luck as we move through the final stage of training.” He peered at us and nodded and then turned things over to Jennings who strode forward.

  “There’s been a mission evolution,” Jennings said, a crooked grin on his face.

  I looked back at Jezzy who shrugged. Neither of us had any idea what that meant.

  “The final training exercise will not be taking place outside the wire as is normally the case,” Jennings said, referencing the fence that surrounded The Hermitage. “We’re going in another direction this time. Literally.”

  He raised his hand, and the doors on the pyramidal structure slowly opened.

  “What’s going on, Danny?” Jezzy asked.

  I didn’t have an answer, but I had a sneaking suspicion that I was finally going to get a look at whatever the Distant Windows device was. I hoped like hell that Dexter had been wrong about all the time travel stuff he’d told me about, but I was beginning to realize that everything he’d told me was probably true.

  “Each of you will proceed through the doors and into the ‘Silent Circle’ one at a time,” Jennings said. “Once inside, you will be transported down to the operations center.”

  “There’s another level in the hangar,” I said to Jezzy. “Did you know that?”

  She shook her head, and my stomach knotted. This was definitely not going as planned. I looked up and spotted Simeon, grinning from inside the cockpit of his mech, drawing a finger across his throat.

  A klaxon sounded, and the first operator maneuvered his mech through the doors and into the darkness on the other side. The machine vanished from sight, and this mech was followed by another and then another, and finally, it was our turn.

  “Ready or not, here we come,” Jezzy whispered as we plodded forward.

  I pushed the mech through the doors and into a space on the other side that was so profoundly dark that I cued the machine’s two exterior lights. There was, fifteen feet in front of us, a kind of circular platform that was fitted onto a lift. There was nothing on the other side of the circle which I reckoned was going to transport us down to whatever awaited in the building’s lower level.

  “Last chance to back out,” I said.

  Jezzy pointed, and we moved forward until we were standing on the circular platform. Lights hissed to life on the outer edges of the platform that thrummed and began descending. We dropped for several minutes and then came to a rest in a semi-darkened area. My eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see shapes toiling out in the murk. What looked like the outlines of the operators and their mechs and then—

  WONK!

  Bonfire-bright lights flashed on.

  Simeon’s mech was only a few feet from us. I flinched, and he laughed inside his cockpit. Then he trudged off, and I looked to see the other operators standing on another triangular platform that faced what looked like a tunnel
carved into the ground.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jezzy asked.

  “I … I don’t know,” I answered.

  More lights flickered to life, rows of blue ones on the walls and the platform. I could see that the underground space was immense and that the walls were covered by giant screens that seemed fluid, as if they were constructed with some kind of liquid or gel.

  The screens were tethered to banks of computer equipment that was being monitored by a small delegation of workers in white smocks with headsets in isolation chambers. Beyond the workers were glass-enclosed alcoves that looked like the owners’ boxes at a sporting event. Vidmark and dozens of people I didn’t recognize were seated inside these glass cubes. Sweat roped the back of my neck as I drove our mech forward onto the edge of the platform. Jennings’s disembodied voice echoed all around.

  “We gather for ‘The Harrowing,’” Jennings said. “The end of the training protocol. The rules are simple and are downloadable. Kindly power up your viewscreens and processors.”

  Jezzy and I flipped on our viewscreens and could see that reams of data were being downloaded into our mech.

  “You have been provided maps and access to real-time battlefield conditions,” Jennings said.

  “Did he just say ‘battlefield conditions’?” Jezzy asked, and I nodded.

  I brought down the mech’s wraparound visor so I could get a better look at the maps of the area that the final stage of training was to take place on. The maps were three-dimensional and incredibly detailed. Just by focusing on certain sections, I could zoom down and pullback, able to explore every hill, valley, and the general contours of the land. That was all good. What wasn’t good was that the land was covered with people. Warriors would probably be a better description. From what I could see, there appeared to be two opposing armies. On the left side were tens of thousands of men and women who marched in ragged rows of twos and threes. Most of them were half-naked, and they carried clubs and swords, their faces smeared red and blue and yellow. On the right side were tens of thousands of men dressed in tunics and light armor. They carried swords and lances and strode behind wooden battle machines that were towed by teams of horses. They marched in an orderly fashion in rows of twos and carried banners on the end of golden rods. Both armies marched down over paths of dirt and flattened grass, a section of dark woods the only thing separating them.