Ex-Patriots (33 page)

Furber and Jake untangled themselves. She
grabbed Kenny by the back of the neck, yanked the nightstick from
his belt, and pushed him forward. The two MPs collided and the
nightstick spun through the air to knock the lieutenant’s pistol
from his hand. He threw himself at her, but she ducked both of his
punches and batted his grab away. Furber felt the palm of her hand
as it touched his jaw and knew the blow was going to knock him out
cold.

She spun from the unconscious lieutenant and
brought her heel up to Jake’s temple. He slammed into the wall, his
duty cap flew off, and he dropped. She brought the foot down and
snapped a kick to the back of Kenny’s head. The blow left him
senseless and his face hit the floor.

Stealth retrieved their weapons, standard 9mm
Beretta pistols. They would not fit well in her holsters, and she
paused to wonder why she had not been more insistent about getting
her own weapons back. She flipped one of the nightsticks into a
defensive position against her arm.

“Stealth,” shouted a muffled voice. “I know
that’s you out there. Open this damned door.”

The nightstick smashed the face of the keypad
and her fingers danced through the wires behind it. The door
unlocked with a thump. “Good to see you,” said Danielle.

“Where is St. George?”

“He’s getting Barry. We were going to meet at
my workshop.” She glanced at the MPs. “Did you kill any of
them?”

“Of course not,” said Stealth. “They are
still law enforcement officers.” She handed two of the pistols to
Danielle. “You will need these.”

“You have no idea. You’ll never guess what’s
going on.”

Stealth gestured her down the hall. “The Nest
units have never worked. Rodney Casares, also known as Peasy, is
alive and controlling the exes.”

“How do you always know this stuff?”

“You were very loud when they brought you in,
Danielle. Did it appear as if any of the officers would heed your
warnings?”

“Not a chance,” scoffed the redhead as they
rounded a corner. “Did you attack Shelly?”

Stealth guided them past the elevator toward
a stairwell. “Colonel Shelly was dead when I found him.”

“Dead? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Stealth. She reached around the
corner to grab an MP’s wrist. Danielle yelped as the cloaked woman
twisted the soldier’s arm, slammed the nightstick into his stomach,
and dumped him on the floor. She did something fast with her
fingers and he was unconscious. “Does St. George know of Peasy’s
presence?”

Danielle shrugged. “No idea. I don’t think
so.”

Stealth opened the stairwell door and peered
out at a hallway. There was no sign of guards or other personnel.
“You must keep your rendezvous at the workshop,” she told Danielle.
“I will try to convince Captain Freedom of the threat Krypton
faces.”

“I don’t think he’s going to listen. He’s
furious about Shelly.”

“That may be, but we must try.” She gestured
them out into the hallway and turned left. “There are over a
thousand people here who will be caught off guard and slaughtered
when Peasy decides to attack, and it is likely revealing himself to
you has forced his hand.”

“What if I try speaking to John instead? He’s
not part of the military. He might have a cooler head about all
this.”

“Do you think he will listen to reason?”

“I think so, yeah. He can be a stubborn jerk,
but he’s not stupid.”

Two soldiers stood guard in the lobby. Even
with their backs turned, Danielle could tell they were both
zombies. She turned to whisper a question, but Stealth was already
moving.

The cloaked woman drove the tip of her
nightstick into one ex’s spine, right at the base of the skull.
There was a sound like driftwood breaking and the dead man fell
forward. The stick whirled in her hand and smashed back and forth
across the other ex-soldier’s jaw. She kicked its rifle into the
air, dropped below its hands, and swept the legs out from under it.
It landed on its back and she drove the rifle barrel through its
eye, putting all her weight on it. There was a pop of breaking bone
and the M16 sank into the dead man’s skull. It went limp.

She turned to Danielle. “Return to your
workshop,” she said. “Meet with St. George and Zzzap. Apprise them
of the situation. I will contact Agent Smith.”

“He might be more receptive to me,” she
said.

“He might,” said Stealth, “but you will need
the time to get into the Cerberus armor.”

* * *

“Good to go, sir,” said the sergeant.

Captain Creed nodded. “All right, then,” he
said. “This is dry run number one for the Cerberus Battle Armor
System. The pilot is First Lieutenant Thomas Gibbs. What’s the
time?”

“Thirteen-thirty hours, sir.”

“Note it. Let’s see what this thing can
do.”

The eight-man build crew climbed down and
pulled their step ladders away from the armored figure. The hum of
power leveled out just as it started to echo in the workshop. The
armored collar snapped tight around the base of the helmet and
covered the bolts securing it in place. The titan’s eyes lit
up.

Creed stepped in front of the battlesuit and
looked into the twin lenses. “Any problems with start-up,
lieutenant?”

Inside the Cerberus armor, Gibbs checked over
the multiple screens and readouts. “Negative, sir,” he said. He saw
the soldiers around him flinch from the suit’s volume and searched
until he found the control. “Seems like everything’s up and
running.”

Gibbs took a cautious step. The reactive
sensors tingled through his sock, like walking on a foot that was
numb with pins and needles. He wiggled his toes and heard the
plates on the armor’s foot scrape on the tarmac. Another step, this
one more confident.

“The simulator was good, sir,” he said, “but
the real thing’s very different.”

“Only to be expected.”

“Yes, sir. I think I’m overcompensating a lot
when I don’t need to be.”

“Let’s hold off on movement for now. Do all
systems check out?”

“One moment, please, sir.” The lieutenant
tried to scroll through menus using the optical system. The
simulator had been neat and organized, but after two years of field
use Doctor Morris had personalized the Cerberus system’s heads-up
desktop to match her own style and needs. To him it was a mess, and
he had to search for each icon and file. She’d also re-keyed it to
respond to two blinks, not one, which kept throwing him off. He
needed to find the system menu that would let him reset
everything.

The arms stretched out to either side and the
steel fingers flexed. The suit made a few quick fists and shifted
its weight from one foot to the other. It looked left, then right,
and then down at Creed.

“Good job, Gibbs,” said Creed. “Seems like
you’re getting the hang of it.”

“That’s not me, sir,” said the
battlesuit.

“What was that, lieutenant?”

“It’s not me sir. The armor just started
moving on its own. I’m getting yanked around in here.”

There was a flash from outside that was a
little too much like lightning in a horror movie. The suit took
three big, confident steps. It loomed over the officer and
stretched again. Creed was very aware of how big the titan was.
“Can it do that?”

“I didn’t think so,” said Gibbs. “Might be
some start-up, shake-down protocol Morris created over the past two
years.”

“Did you see anything like that when she
demonstrated it earlier?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

Gibbs tried to scroll through the menus
again. The system wasn’t responding. The optical system was on but
the cursor wasn’t registering his eye movements at all. It drifted
and bounced across the heads-up desktop.

A laugh echoed over the speakers and tapered
off into a low whistle.

“Sorry, sir?”

“What?”

“I thought I heard something, sir.”

“No one said anything, lieutenant.”

“Nobody just laughed? Kind of a... a happy
laugh?”

Creed looked up at the lenses and shook his
head. “No one out here.” He looked around at the build crew and saw
several shaking heads and a few shrugs. “Does the suit have
enhanced audio?”

“I don’t believe so, sir,” said Gibbs. “I
might be getting some radio bleed over the speakers.”

“Not exactly,” said a voice. “Christ, man,
this suit is so fucking awesome. Should’ve thought of this months
ago.”

The lieutenant tried to find the radio in the
heads-up display. “Who is that?”

Creed raised an eyebrow. “Lieutenant?”

“An incoming transmission, sir. Voice only.
It’s making reference to the battlesuit.”

“Dude,” said the voice, “d’you have any idea
what it’s been like waiting for someone to put this thing back
together again? Like having my arms and legs asleep, just stuck in
here since yesterday.” Another low whistle echoed over the speaker.
“Got to be honest—almost lost it, bro.”

There was another flash from outside.

“This is a restricted government channel,”
snapped Gibbs. He wasn’t sure if he’d activated the radio or not,
but it seemed like the speaker could hear him. “You will identify
yourself immediately.” His voice didn’t echo through the external
speakers. They’d been shut off. He was trapped in the armor with no
communication.

“Keep your panties on, G.I. Joe. Just gotta
find St. George and Stealth and those guys.”

The battlesuit marched past Creed. The titan
brought up its arms and tore through the doors like they were
paper. It moved straight out into the sunshine and Creed followed
behind with a handful of soldiers, shouting for the lieutenant to
halt.

It broke into a run and Gibbs felt his arms
and legs get pulled back and forth like a puppet. He had a creeping
dread the battlesuit would move too far or too fast and leave him
trapped inside with a bunch of broken bones. “How are you doing
this?” he yelled. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m called the Driver,” said the voice, “and
this,
esse
, is the coolest carjacking ever.”

NOW

It occurs to me
, said Zzzap,
that someone’s
probably going to notice us up here.

The two heroes hovered a few hundred feet
above the grid of Krypton, Sorensen tucked safely under St.
George’s arm. They’d left the old reactor and leaped into the air.
Now they were trying to find landmarks.

“No time for subtlety,” said St. George. “Who
knows how long we’ve got before Peasy decides to start letting the
exes loose on the base.”

We should’ve stuck to the rooftops. All good
superheroes use the rooftops.

“There,” said Sorensen. “I believe that’s her
workshop there.”

“You believe?” said the hero.

Sorensen tried to shrug. He wasn’t dealing
well with hanging three hundred feet over the base. “That’s Dust
Road there with the Tombs on either side,” he said, tracing the
road with his finger, “and that should be Sand Street. Granted,
I’ve never seen them from this angle before.”

They sank toward the ground. No one had
shouted. St. George wasn’t sure how he was going to protect
Sorensen if someone started shooting. “Looks clear,” he said. “This
has almost been easy so far.”

Too easy?

“Maybe.” He looked back and forth over the
empty streets. “Shouldn’t there be a couple hundred people out
looking for us by now?”

“The soldiers are most likely doing training
exercises,” said Sorensen. “They run laps each morning around the
inside perimeter of the fence or spend time on the southern firing
range.”

I don’t hear any gunshots,
said Zzzap.
And still, the alarm’s been raised. Why aren’t they manning the
towers and using searchlights and all that?

“It’s broad daylight.”

I meant metaphorically. There’s been an
alert for over half an hour now and I don’t see anyone
anywhere.

“Here at the center of the base things are
quite calm and peaceful. It’s why the labs are near the center. I
can go whole days without seeing anyone else.”

St. George frowned. “Days?”

The doctor shrugged. “I keep to myself,” he
said. He mopped his face with a handkerchief. “Are you sure Doctor
Morris will be at her workshop?”

“Unless they found her she should be there
with the armor prepped. Figure maybe another forty or forty-five to
get her into it. And then we’ll be ready to deal with Peasy or
whatever he’s calling himself now.”

I think it’s too late for that,
said
Zzzap. He pointed a gleaming arm at the ground below them.
You
see what I see?

At the far end of Dust, a stream of
ex-soldiers staggered out of the last Tomb on the left, a few dozen
of them so far. They shuffled and spread out like a stain on the
base. The sound of chattering teeth vibrated up through the
air.

“Crap,” said St. George. “Think you can
handle all of them?”

If you don’t mind this part of the base
being annihilated in the process, sure.

The hero sighed and swung over to the nearest
rooftop. “Doctor, do you mind if I leave you here for a few
minutes? You should be safe.”

Sorensen nodded. “I understand. I’ll be
fine.”

The two heroes zipped through the air and St.
George dropped into the midst of the zombies near the open door of
the Tomb. He grabbed a dead woman by the arm and swung her in a
wide circle, knocking down a dozen of them. Another swing cleared a
path to the door and left him holding an arm and most of a
shoulder.

He tossed the limb away and an ex came
through the opening at him. He shoved it back inside, knocking down
a handful of bodies behind it. With the other hand he grabbed the
huge door and dragged it shut. Inside, dead things clawed at his
knuckles and broke their teeth on his fingers.