Mechanical (7 page)

            "Sergeant, when you realized you were failing the mission, what did you do?" the captain asked.

            "Sir, I tried to run harder, sir. But I couldn't move faster, Sir."

            "Soldiers, this is a tank. You don't try to run faster. You use your arm computer. Now, go to the 'Power' section and turn up the power core's output. You can select one of three settings, but remember, when running at higher output, your power core produces a stronger thermal image, making your armor's concealment weaker. In addition, running at higher settings increases the drainage on your power cell. Running at full power will drain your power cell in a matter of hours instead of weeks. Understood? Lieutenant Ramirez, commence."

            Ramirez's Serpent performed in one blurred motion that made Tom think of a long black cobra striking. Ramirez's Serpent crouched, arms spread to side, hands completely opened, and dagger-like fingers ready. Then, the Serpent pounced the thirty feet separating it from the Hummer. It landed right in front of the vehicle and actually hissed, making Tom recoil.

            Next, Tom felt nothing but admiration for the Hummer's driver, invisible inside the Hummer's reflective windows. Instead of ducking down, hands on head and whimpering, like Tom himself would have done had he found himself confronted with a black machine monster standing in front of his jeep and ready to tear it apart, the driver gunned the engine and the Hummer sprang straight at Ramirez.

            Tom thought he heard one surprised grunt coming from Ramirez before the Hummer crashed straight into the Serpent. With a deafening screeching of metal, the Serpent was thrown on its back, and the Hummer drove straight over it to the accompaniment of an incredible cacophony of tearing noises and a shower of sparks.

            An instant later, the Hummer drove on and Ramirez slowly rose, his Serpent smeared with black machine oil and dirt. Ramirez immediately took off after the Hummer but the truck had too big an advantage. It finished its circle and returned to its starting place before Ramirez's Serpent. It even greeted the Marine Corps lieutenant upon his return with three cheerful honks.

           
If I were the Hummer's driver, I'd watch my steps back inside the base,
thought Tom, seeing the look Ramirez threw the Hummer. But Tom also envied Ramirez a little. The Marine Corps lieutenant’s control and integration with his Serpent was much better, judging by his first pounce.

            "I'll give this another try, Sir," Ramirez whispered.

            "No, Lieutenant. Each of you gets one shot at a mission at a time," Captain Emerson said.

            Tom had been busy testing the black fingers of his Serpent's right hand. It had taken quite a beating in the tumble, and now Tom folded and opened the fingers one by one. The long black fingers, each tapering to a sharp point, worked flawlessly. The wrist joint seemed unharmed as well, turning and allowing the hand to revolve without a hitch. The elbow, too, seemed undamaged, allowing the arm its normal range of movement. Every motion was accompanied by the precise humming of the electric motors inside the Serpent, their subtle working noise perfectly synchronized.

            Tom focused his sensors on his right arm, making them traverse the surface inch by inch. Though covered by dirt and superficially scratched, the black armor was unharmed even though the right hand and arm had borne the brunt of Tom's tumble, taking on the weight of the one-thousand-five-hundred-pound personal battle tank and showing barely a scratch.
It’s impressive.

            "Lieutenant Riley, assume position."

            Tom touched the diagnostics icon on the diagnostic computer. A schematic drawing of the Serpent appeared. Tom flicked through several schematics showing structural integrity, power conduits, engines status, sensor operability, and life support status. Everything was green.

            Tom snapped his head up. The Hummer had just now returned to its place, honking one long mournful note.

            "Lieutenant, keep your mind on the mission and not on the Serpent's computers."

            "Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir, it won't happen again." Tom said, a little taken aback. It wasn't like him, to ignore a mission, even if it was just a training mission.

            "You failed the mission by default, Lieutenant Riley," Captain Emerson said without a trace of anger. "Sergeant Jebadiah, you're up."

            "But—" Tom guiltily watched Sergeant Jebadiah run. A little wonderingly, he noticed he could hear a high-pitched whine slowly increasing in volume. Sergeant Jebadiah's power core, Tom realized.

            This time, the sergeant rapidly reached the Hummer and maintained position alongside it, following it as it moved across the craggy terrain. The sergeant sent out one long arm, grabbed the jeep's back fender and pulled, but even the Serpent's strength and mass were not enough to stop the armored jeep, let alone slow it down.

            Next, Jebadiah tried to get at the Hummer’s tires. He stabbed at them repeatedly with the Serpent’s left arm but the truck kept swerving aside, making the black, sharp fingers miss their mark.

            Only a few hundred meters remained from the endpoint. Jebadiah glanced forward once, judging his location and the time he had left. Then, he moved ahead a little, closed his left fist and hammered down on the Hummer's engine compartment.
He's trying to kill the engine,
Tom thought. However, this Hummer was armored and, though dented and bent, the engine's hood held on. Jebadiah tried again. Cracks spread across the engine hood, but the engine itself remained intact.

            The Hummer completed the circle, reached the starting point with the Serpent running in tow. The jeep driver's actually honked once.
In respect,
Tom thought.

            "Sorry, Sir. It was too fast, Sir," Jebadiah said, standing at attention again.

            The driver hadn't waited. He or she gunned the engine and the Hummer surged forward, now followed by a hotly pursuing Ramirez. The Serpent and the Hummer moved in tandem, side by side, for a few hundred yards before the Hummer swerved wildly to the side, aiming for the Serpent. However, Ramirez was ready and lithely jumped away, jumping back as soon as the Hummer had returned to the makeshift road.

            Ramirez did not waste time. His Serpent's arm sliced through the Hummer, cutting part of the armored roof away, leaving a trail of debris behind. The Hummer seemed to increase its speed, its engine having reached its maximum RPM according to the roar from the engine.

            Then Ramirez hit the jeep again. His hand came away with the driver's side door imbedded on it. Ramirez flicked the door away and plunged his hand into the driver's cabin.

            Tom winced and made his sensors zoom in on the Serpent and the hammered Hummer. Ramirez's hand came away and Tom expected to see it dripping with blood. Instead, it held only the remains of box-like device trailing wires and sparks.

            The Hummer lost control, turned wildly and rolled over again and again before it came to rest on its back, its wheels still turning.

            "Oh God, it had no driver. Never thought of that," observed Sergeant Jebadiah.

Ramirez's Serpent looked at the remains of the device in its hand and contemptuously threw it away. The Hummer started honking, but a swift kick from Ramirez blew the driver's cabin completely and silenced the horn,

Ramirez casually returned to join the other three Serpents.

"Some dogs catch the car, Sir," Ramirez said.

Tom could have sworn that Ramirez's blank-faced Serpent grinned.

Day Two, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

"What about rest, Sir, and a little R&R?" asked Sergeant Jebadiah.

            They were now in the hall they used for lessons, inside the base. Their Serpents' exteriors were now just a bit more worn, scratched and dust covered, which only gave them a more ominous appearance.

            "Our bodies are already asleep, Sergeant Jebadiah. Only our brains are awake. The Serpents do not need recharging for now, so there is nothing to prevent you from continuing your training. As for rest and relaxation, we only have a few days before the mission, so no time for that either. Your next lesson will be about advanced Serpent control. Carry on." With that, Captain Emerson left the hall, and a man entered.

            In his mind, Tom gritted his teeth, and he tried to pay as much attention as he could to the lessons. He had never liked lessons in his life, and now, having to take one after the other wasn't making things easier.

            It was also funny in a way, seeing the awesome black mechanical monsters towering above the puny men who lectured them. It would have been so simple just to extend a claw and rip a man's head clear off his body. No doubt Ramirez had already considered it.

            Tom had to admit the subject matter was interesting, but sitting down, or actually standing still in the Serpent while various tech people droned on and on about infrared concealment, advanced encrypted radio protocols and frequency-hopping capabilities, power core management and power conservation, optical surveillance and target management, diagnostics display and self repair abilities, and mobility in various terrains was grueling. It just went on and on, hour after hour.

            One interesting thing concerned their computers' communications. The Serpents' computers had no radio link. Every kind of radio communication was voice only, no data. The only way to upload information to the internal computers was through connection cables. Apparently, computer security was paramount in the Serpents' designers' minds.

            Another thing that was interesting concerned their Serpents' thermal signature management. Apparently, the Serpent's power core generated heat: more heat as the Serpent exerted itself more. Now, the Serpent had built-in chemical heat sinks able to absorb a certain amount of energy, but their capacity was limited. This meant that the faster and the longer they ran, for instance, the more heat that was generated. When the heat sinks' capacity was overloaded, the entire Serpent began radiating excess heat away.

            The lab-coat man who had been there when Tom awoke came to give them one lesson about Serpent development history. The man kept his eye on Ramirez's Serpent, standing near the door and looking ready to bolt at an instant's warning. He perspired continually, and even his round glasses were covered with fog. He actually ran out of the hall when he finished his short lesson, even though Ramirez had done nothing, and had just held his Serpent perfectly still, its black, blank faceplate directed at the man.

            "What have you got against that poor man?" Tom asked, but Ramirez just ignored him.

            Tom sighed, wondering again exactly why Ramirez was selected to pilot a Serpent.

            Sergeant Jebadiah, however, was completely another matter. Tom was really impressed with the man, his openness and his cheerful disposition.

            "I'm just worried about my folks, Sir," Jebadiah had openly admitted while they waited for another lecturer. "I haven't heard anything from them for more than a month. They won't let me make a phone call from here, Sir. They say everything we do here is top secret. It is a matter of national security, Sir. They did say I could make a few phone calls after the mission."

            This caused Tom a little pang of sorrow. He hadn't thought about his own sister for some time now. He had worried about her often before, but he supposed the mayhem during the last two days was just too much. Sergeant Jebadiah did have the time to worry about his parents, Tom thought guiltily, though his parents weren't in the occupied cities.

            "How about your sister, sir? Got news about her?"

            "No, Sergeant, nothing. She's been in Atlanta for three years now. I haven't heard anything from her since the Twelve Cities War began, and she was captured," Tom said. He was surprised that it hurt less than he remembered. "Funny, I haven't talked about her with almost anyone for three years, and now, everybody is suddenly interested in her." Tom looked at his new hand, the Serpent's hand, a mechanical parody of a human hand, a black, sharp armored creation that was only good for war and destruction.

            "Maybe it's because there's finally some chance for her, Sir. If the mission is successful, all the people in the occupied cities will go free. Then you'll find her, I'm sure of it. I reckon the hog farms will do better then, and a good thing it will be, Sir."

            Tom had said nothing while Jebadiah's Serpent patted Tom's Serpent gently on its armored shoulder, producing a flat noise. The gesture was both absurd and touching.

            "I've tried to talk with my old unit, Sir, but they wouldn't let me. Top secret, they said. I said I know how to keep a secret but they still won't let me make the phone calls."

            "I haven't even thought of calling my unit," Tom said. "Why haven't I thought about it?"

            Sergeant Jebadiah said nothing.

            "How do you find the Serpent, Sergeant? Exciting? Exhilarating?" Tom finally asked.

            "Well, Sir, I remember the first time I fired my squad machine gun, sir. That was really something. They'd given me a whole ammo belt to empty at a bunch of barrels on a firing range sitting on a hill three hundred yards downrange. Let me tell you sir, that was real fun. Seeing the barrels go up in the air and the hill top go up with the firing. That was fun. But since then, I fired anti-tank missiles, heavy machine guns, a tank gun once, and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Sir."

            The sergeant looked at his own enormous black hands, armored and unreflective. "This is just another weapon, Sir. I am real excited that we now have a chance to free our cities. Won't that be something, after three years? I sure hope we'll be able to pull if off! That will be something to tell the boys back in the unit." Sergeant Jebadiah walked around in a circle a few times, almost like Lieutenant Ramirez.

            "What do you think about our little team?” asked Tom. The sergeant stopped pacing.

            "Well, Sir. Lieutenant Ramirez is a real tough bastard, Sir," the sergeant said in a low voice. "If he's on my side, the enemy should piss in their boots. The captain is a solid commander. He is real tough, too, Sir. I'll follow those two, Sir, wherever they go."

            Tom considered the sergeant's response. Ramirez was indeed a tough bastard. An evil son of a bitch, Tom would have put it. And the captain was surely solid. He had a real computer instead of a heart.

            "He reminds me of my father, he does."

            "Who does?"

            "Captain Emerson. My dad's a real tough farmer, Sir. Since he was a little boy, he’s been getting up at four o'clock in the morning and not coming home before evening. He hasn't been ill for even one day. He never had time to be. Pigs, Sir. They are smart animals. Do you know they can open gates and locks with their noses? Smartest animals in the whole world, but they never gave my pa any trouble. They behave themselves as soon as he enters the farm. He never talked much, my dad. And when he did, he only talked about pigs. He's a real tough old man. As boys, we never dared giving him any lip. He only has to say things once. Captain Emerson reminds me of my father, he does."

            A tough old man, Tom thought. With a computer for a heart. Does that happen to everyone who pilots the Serpent for a time? Tom resolved to ask the captain when he got the chance. Jebadiah's talk of his father brought to mind Tom's old man but he didn't linger on that thought. Tom's sole surviving family member was his sister, and he didn't see any point in lingering on the past. 

            He did not have long to wait as the captain joined them for a lesson about power-core fluctuations.

            "Sir, how long have you been piloting the Serpent?" Tom asked.

            "More than four months, Lieutenant," the captain responded.

            "How was it walking on your own two legs, then?"

            "They are my own legs, Lieutenant!"

            "You know, when they let your real body out of the Serpent."

            "I haven't been out of my Serpent since I started piloting it."

            That statement was made so flatly and matter-of-factly that it made Tom pause in surprise.

            "You haven't been out?"

            "No, Lieutenant. There's too much work and too much at stake. They check my body regularly, in addition to the Serpent's monitoring. I'll leave the Serpent when I have the time, when the mission's over."

            Tom thought for a moment on how to phrase his next question.

            "Do you feel it changed you, Captain?" Tom finally asked.

            "Changed me, Lieutenant?"

            Tom squirmed a little under the captain's steady gaze. "You know, Sir. Do you feel different?"

            "Different, Lieutenant?"

            "Well, you know, Sir. You don't seem to get angry. Nor have I ever heard you tell a joke. Even Ramirez has cracked a joke or two. Not funny ones, mind you."

            Captain Emerson's returned his gaze to the lecturer.

            "Listen, Lieutenant. This is the greatest crisis the United States of America has ever known. Millions of American citizens are living under enemy rule, an enemy we don't know and don't understand. For the first time, we have a chance of striking back against this enemy using the Serpent project. I follow my orders, Lieutenant. I try to learn all I can and be the best soldier and Serpent pilot I can. I suggest you do the same."

            "Yes, sir," Tom said and shut up. He's got nothing but orders in his mind. No doubt that was why he was chosen to lead the Serpents, Tom thought sourly.

            He moved away from the captain as soon as he could, when they got a brief pause between lessons.

            "How are you doing, Lieutenant Ramirez?" Tom asked the lieutenant, who ignored him completely.

            "Do you find the Serpent effective, Lieutenant?" Tom asked again.

            The viper-shaped head of Ramirez's Serpent slowly turned towards Tom's Serpent and it seemed as if its black faceplate was even blacker now.

            "Fuck off, pencil pusher," Ramirez said and turned his head away.

             "Attention!" Captain Emerson called, and the Serpents stood at attention. The general entered the hall, marched briskly forward, and came to stand in front of the Serpents, a fearless child craning up his head to see monsters from the worst nightmares imaginable: black, spiked monsters with the heads of snakes, horned and spiny, clawed and slender—a terrible travesty of the human body.

            "At ease, soldiers. I've received reports about your progress from Captain Emerson. There's still a lot of work to be done. I hope you do better on the following exercises out on the training range. Keep in mind that you must survive the third and final exercise tomorrow night."

            The general stopped for a moment, giving Tom the chance to regard him closely. The general seemed tired, close to exhaustion, even though only a few hours had passed since they'd last seen him.

            "I'll now give you all the intelligence we have on the enemy. It's not nearly enough, so I suggest you pay close attention to what little we do know. At precisely four o'clock Eastern Time, three years and four months ago, the attack started. There was no warning, no demands for ransom and no threats. At four o'clock, the enemy started taking over the minds of everyone in the twelve targeted cities. You've no doubt seen this before, but it's worth seeing again."

            The general pressed a button on a remote he was holding, and the projector in the hall started running. It was a silent black and white video from a security camera on 47
th
Street in New York. There was a clock display running and at 04:02 a group of six young adults moving down the street stopped walking. They jerked a few times, shaking, their limbs moving wildly, one lying down, another crouching while a woman just stood on her toes, stretching to her full height for no reason at all.

            Behind them, a heavy trash truck crashed into the side of a building but none of the six people turned to see what happened. Two cars moved down the street. One stopped in the middle of the street, its wheels revolving wildly and fuming, probably the driver somehow pressing the gas and brake pedals at the same time with both feet. The other car just started going in circles, even driving over the sidewalk once.

            It took thirty or forty seconds for the young adults to relax, straighten up and just stand there. Both cars stopped and the drivers, a man and a woman, stepped out of the cars, accompanied in the case of the woman by the two passengers that rode in her car. All of the people just stood there, doing nothing, hands limp at their sides, heads lifted, vacant expressions on their faces and their backs slightly bent forward.