by Nick Thacker
The men nodded and furiously began swiping and clicking at their touchscreen monitors.
Canisius turned back to Garza. “Garza,” the man said. “That is your name?”
Garza nodded, then faced Canisius fully. He took a step forward. Victoria stayed silent, standing like a sentinel in the center of the room, staring at everything and nothing at the same time.
“Yes, that is my name. Garza. Vicente Garza. I was born in Arizona, but my parents were from Mexico. My men call me ‘The Hawk.’ Do you know why?” Garza’s head fell sideways a bit, as if examining Canisius. Sizing him up.
Like he was prey, and Garza was a hawk.
“I — I do not.”
“Throughout my career I have seen professionals like me fail because their men were not truly accepting of their leader’s ability to get a job done. They didn’t trust them. They didn’t truly believe in them.
“Over the course of my career, however, I have come to the conclusion that it is never, no matter what, acceptable to miss an opportunity to make a point. My men have come to trust me for that, and when I make those points they are further willing to trust me.
“A hawk is the same — they never miss an opportunity. They are opportunistic creatures, yet they are cunning as well. They plan, but they will sidestep that plan in order to take advantage of a situation. They take every opportunity to capture their prey.”
Canisius sucked in a breath. He may have been naive, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew his position here, even if he didn’t understand why.
I’m the prey. Garza is the Hawk.
But he didn’t know why.
“Who are you?” Canisius asked.
Garza smiled then returned to stand next to Victoria. He put his arm around her, and in that moment Canisius recognized the similarities.
Father and daughter, he thought. He could see it now — there was no doubt.
“This is my daughter, Victoria,” Garza said. “Victoria Reyes now, though she is no longer married. She is highly intelligent, and is a professor of ancient history and religion.
“And, you might have guessed, we have both met you before. In fact, we were all in the same room once.”
Canisius frowned. What is he talking about? His mind raced through the years, trying to uncover any hint of his interaction with this man and his daughter. He couldn’t recall how or why they would have met, or how Canisius could have angered him so much that he would have gone through all this trouble to lure him here.
What’s the connection? Canisius wondered. Vicente Garza. Victoria Garza Reyes. From the United States, but his parents were born in —
Canisius bit his lip. Oh, Lord, no. No, that cannot be — he stopped. It has to be.
“Mexico,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Garza nodded.
“You were in Mexico. Your whole family —” he stopped short.
“That’s right, Father. My whole family. Me, my daughter, and my wife.”
Canisius swallowed.
“And you were there, too. You were part of the deal. The doctor and the businessman, and the local church.”
“No, I —
“The local parish that sent a young priest to administer rites to a grieving family.”
“That’s not —”
“You accepted the position and the role, and you pocketed the money. My money.”
“Garza, I swear to you that —”
“Enough!” Garza yelled. “Enough. It’s lies — always lies. Everything you stand for — everything the church stands for. Lies.”
Canisius stepped forward. “Garza, it was a long time ago. I was young, and I swear to you — my hand on my heart, to the Lord God himself, I had nothing —”
“It was a long time ago, Canisius,” Garza said, slipping into a more informal style of berating. “But wounds take a long time to heal. Sometimes a lifetime. And I know you were involved. I did the digging. I did my research. As I said, I never refuse the opportunity when it arises.”
Canisius felt sick. More blasts from cannons and weapons from outside the glass reached his ears, but they were faint next to the pounding of his own heart.
I was young, he told himself. I was taking orders. I had no idea it would lead to this.
“How much money did they give you? How much of my money?”
“I — there was — “
“How much?”
Garza screamed and flung his coffee cup directly at Canisius’ head. There was no dodging the bullet of a throw, and at Canisius’ age the best he could hope for was to simply turn his head at the last moment.
Still, the liquid inside — still somehow blisteringly hot — splashed across Canisius’ eyes and he screamed in pain. His skin felt as if it were melting, and that was before the heat actually set in.
He groaned, collapsing, and whimpered as the searing-hot liquid spilled over his neck and chest. He smelled the nutty roasted beans as well as the singed flesh of his lips and cheeks. He gripped his face with his hands, rocking back and forth on the floor.
He noticed a shadow standing over him.
Garza. The Hawk.
“You betrayed your god, Canisius. All those years ago you established what sort of person you are. You have been lying to yourself — and everyone else — ever since.”
“No…” Canisius croaked.
“Yes,” Garza said. “I brought you here because I had the opportunity to. I saw the opening, and I took it. I needed the Church to finish the deal. When I discovered that you were in a top role there, I began working toward this moment.”
Canisius’ heart sank. Somehow the pain of realizing the great lengths Garza had gone to for Canisius to be here hurt worse than the coffee.
“I am called The Hawk because I take advantage of opportunities, but also because I am very good at planning out my attack.”
He turned and walked over to Victoria, and Canisius saw through blurry eyes as he handed her something.
“Victoria,” Garza began. “Please step closer to Father Canisius.”
No, Canisius thought. He started panting. Sweat and spittle combined collected on his lips and he tried to wipe it away. It didn’t work, and tears — his own — were added to the mix.
“Sir,” one of the men said. “We’ve got a problem.”
Garza ignored him.
“Sir.”
“Not now!” Garza snapped.
As Garza turned to address his soldier Canisius saw, finally, what it was he had handed his daughter. A massive pistol, the largest Canisius had ever seen. It looked heavy in Victoria’s hands, but she held it confidently.
“I wanted to prove to you how effective the drug could be. But it is also possible that it doesn’t work at all, and my daughter would like to avenge the death of her mother. The murder of her mother.
“Victoria, please execute this man.”
67
Garza
The clearness in Garza’s mind had returned. He was no longer conflicted, no longer out of control. He no longer had the unsteady feeling of being out of touch with his own inner demons.
He took in a deep, long breath, watching the flowing trail of blood behind Father Canisius’ head. Victoria stood over him, the gun in her hand smoking. She too was stoic, calm, but he knew it was for a completely different reason.
“Sir,” the soldier said again. He was standing now, looking down at his tablet. He shoved the tablet to Garza, who flinched and almost pushed it away.
But something onscreen caught his eye. The man tapped the play button on the screen and the video began. In the far corner of the screen, in what would be the southeast corner of the room, Garza saw a flash of color, a shadow. The shape of a human.
“Is that —”
“It’s one of the operators, sir,” the man said. “One of the CSO team members.”
Garza was completely caught off-guard. “But… how?”
The man shook his head, the other soldier, a young technician, answered. “We’re running it
back, trying to see if we’ve got cameras picking it up. But they’re in the dead zone, where there’s no —”
“Then get into the dead zone!” Garza snapped. “Why in the hell is someone out of their suit?”
“Sir, again, we aren’t able —
“Get inside, then. Where are the nearest units?”
“We’ve got two on-duty patrols on that level, and one —”
“Send them in.”
“Sir?”
“Send them in!” Garza did nothing to hide his rage. Somehow, one of the CSO team members had figured out how to disable the high-pitched signal they were sending through the speakers. Or they had somehow overcome the scopolamine compound. Or…
No, he thought. There’s simply no way they could have done it.
The two techs were scurrying around, and the Ravenshadow soldiers who had escorted Canisius into the room were standing by, waiting for their orders.
“You two,” Garza said, “get down there and call up another two units. Get them from the second level if you need to, but get them ready for engagement.”
The two soldiers nodded and hustled out of the room.
Garza continued watching the looped video, trying to make out exactly what it was he was seeing. He saw an arm and a leg, clearly, but the person’s head was indistinguishable. A first-gen Exo turned and fired at a point near the person, but the explosion only caused them to duck back behind a crate, out of sight.
“Can we reconfigure the Exos and their operators to fire at the human targets instead of at other suits?”
“We… tried, sir. We’re not sure what’s going on down there, but it’s like none of them are responding.”
“Get me another feed,” he barked. He walked over to the bank of computer monitors and watched as the tech manipulated one of the feeds until Garza saw a wide, single-camera shot of the entire demonstration floor, save for a space ten or fifteen feet deep along the side walls.
“There!” the tech said. Garza followed his finger and saw a man walking in sync behind a second-gen Exo.
“Is this live?”
“Yessir.”
“That’s Harvey Bennett,” Garza said. “And who’s in that second-gen?”
The tech paused, then flicked through something on his tablet. “I believe that’s the woman they were with.”
“Mrs. E,” Garza said.
“Is she…”
“She’s controlling it,” Garza said. “That Exo is no longer under my control.”
Testing his theory, he grabbed the microphone that had been mounted onto a gooseneck microphone stand and affixed to the desk. He flipped the broadcaster’s switch at its base.
“Mrs. E,” he said, hearing the reverberation of the sound of his voice as it was amplified just beyond the glass. “Please stop.”
The Exo continued moving.
“Mrs. E,” he said again. “You will stop, immediately. Turn your Exo around and face —”
He stopped as he saw the Exo comply with his command.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he whispered to himself.
Mrs. E’s Exo spun and faced the glass bubble Garza and his men were in. For a slight moment there was a delay as everything seemed to come to a halt. He frowned.
Is she really…
And then his world exploded.
The bulletproof glass had been installed in the booth after a mishap with an early version of the control drug, and Garza hadn’t bothered to have it tested. He knew it was sturdy enough to prevent the first-gen Exos’ turret weapons from piercing, but he didn’t know how the more advanced second-gen units would fare.
And they had never tested the glass against the newer arm-mounted cannons.
Both, unfortunately, had been fired directly into Garza’s face.
A section of the glass simply ceased to exist after the first twenty or thirty rounds hit, and one of the cannon blasts from her Exo’s arm flew through the open wound.
It took off the tech’s head and Garza fell backwards with the young man, both hitting the floor on their backs, both coming to rest next to one another, only Garza able to respond. He gasped at the headless corpse as the entire contents of the man’s bloodstream began draining onto the floor.
The shots pounded on, taking out a line of glass and shredding the desk and computer consoles. Somewhere, high above and beyond his ears, Garza faintly heard the sound of the ringing noise, the pitch that activated the chemical in the compound.
How the hell?
The noise was still active, but somehow the CSO team had been able to switch it off.
Still Mrs. E’s Exo threw slugs into the room. Many landed in the stone ceiling, doing no harm, yet raining down splinters of rock chips and clouds of dust. The entire room’s visibility dropped to a few inches, and Garza waved his arms wildly around as he tried to see.
He pulled himself up to the mangled remains of a chair, daring a look over and into the demonstration floor.
What he saw terrified him.
68
Ben
The CSO team had been seventy-five percent freed. Ben was approaching Reggie’s Exosuit now, getting ready to duck and jump behind him to peel back his panel and flip the polarity switch. He had discovered on Mrs. E’s suit that it was easier to open the back hatch of the Exos, jump onto the ladder, and do the work while the Exo was still active — the machine couldn’t do anything to flip Ben off of it, nor could the person inside while they were under the spell of the compound.
Julie had been doing the same thing on the opposite side of the room, freeing as many of the operators from their first-gen suits as possible. The operators in the suits were staying inside, likely opting for the relative safety of the machines than the dangerous demonstration floor. Even the woman they’d freed earlier had fled back to her machine.
Those first-gen Exos were still moving, now under the control of their operators instead of Garza, and from Ben’s view it seemed that there were only a handful of working Exos that still needed to be freed. Unfortunately, he also saw nearly fifteen downed machines, their operators in varying states of injury. Some, he knew, wouldn’t make it out of this room alive.
He freed Reggie and the tall man immediately spun around and faced Ben, a huge grin on his face.
“Ben! These things are amazing!”
Ben frowned.
“I mean, uh, thanks for flicking the switch off, or whatever you did.”
Ben told him.
“So, like, noise-cancelling headphones?”
“That’s exactly what Julie said. You’re both nerds,” Ben said.
“It’s not like it’s really crazy technology, Ben. You should read more.”
“Shut up and help us. We’re mounting an attack.”
Reggie looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, I can see that. Mrs. E’s tearing it up.”
“She is, but if Garza was in there he’s going to be trying to get out before the whole thing goes up. That means we’ve got to get out of here and find him.”
“Agreed. So, uh, how do we do that?”
“Julie’s guiding the other Exos to Mrs. E, where they’ll focus on knocking out that control booth up there. You and I are going to suit up and focus on the doors — they’re massive, but if we can make a dent in them we might be able to get them to open.”
“Or we’ll just lock them up and prevent them from ever opening again.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Or that.”
Reggie shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Good a plan as any, I guess. And at least I get to manually operate this beast finally.” He held up his artificial arm and hand. “This thing is even more incredible than I thought — the built-in tech is fast. I didn’t even have to really think, and my hand was moving. Aiming is second-nature, too.”
Ben smiled. He had always appreciated Reggie’s ability to stay calm — even nonchalant — in any situation, no matter what. He knew it was due to Reggie’s long-time practice of controlling his own emotions, his training to pu
sh back certain things in his past that he had no business allowing to roam free.
It helped Ben calm down, too, watching his friend. If he’s calm, I can be calm.
And he knew that calmness was going to be a major asset to him in the next few minutes.
“How much time do we have, by the way?” he asked.
“Oh, right — forgot about that.” Reggie checked the watch he’d taken from Jeffers. “Looks like just over ten minutes.”
Ben’s mouth fell open. “Shit, Reggie. That’s not enough time.”
Again, Reggie shrugged. “What are you doing trying to butter me up, then? Get off my ass and let’s get this show on the road.”
Ben did. He jumped to the floor and slammed the back hatch closed, then ran over to Mrs. E. He yelled up to her between blasts from her cannon. “Reggie’s good! That’s all of us.”
She nodded, never taking her eyes off the smoking booth on the opposite wall. She had continued sending rounds into the broken studio but had slowed considerably, allowing time for the dust and smoke to settle so she could see into the ruins.
“See him in there?”
She shook her head. “Negative,” she said. “He poked his head up earlier, but I either took him out then or he’s gone.”
Ben knew which option was more likely. “Stay vigilant, and keep your eyes on the booth. It’s the only other open access point we know about besides the two large doors on the sides and the small one in back, and we’ve got them all covered.”
She nodded. “Trust me, he — or anyone — pops their head up, I blast them.”
Ben was about to turn and run to a new Exosuit when the door at the side of the room began to open.
69
Ben
“Get to the doors!” Ben yelled. He had already started to run, well aware that he was not in any sort of protective suit. He was an easy target for anyone on the other side of the door, and there would be nothing standing between him and the end of a Ravenshadow rifle.
The door had opened halfway, but rounds already began bursting through the gap. Ben ducked and rolled sideways, landing in a heap amid the top half of a downed Exo. He dragged the torso portion slightly to the side, near a pile of crates that had been demolished, and created a makeshift shelter.