Iron Mike (15 page)

Regina glared, but she picked up the requisition. “Damn fool,” she muttered, as she began categorizing the requested munitions against her inventory.

“Me or the Old Bear?” Mike asked.

“Both of you!” Regina snapped. “You for volunteering, and him for letting a snot-nosed boy go that far out into the zone! Don’t he know we’re at war? Whole damned world’s going to hell in a hand-basket, letting children do the soldiering!”

Mike laughed good-naturedly as Regina glared at him. “Yes, ma’am, you’re absolutely right. On the other hand, your population goes poof, they lower the draft requirements real fast.” Mike’s eyes darkened in memory, and he spoke more soberly. “I know you care, Regina, and I promise I’ll be careful,” he vowed. “I leave at 1300, so I’ll be back here in –” he glanced at his watch. “An hour. That’s more notice than usual, right?”

Regina didn’t reply, just shook her head as the young man walked away. Seventeen years old and already a damned corporal. This war was being waged by babies.

Mike

Three months ago, in his father’s America, Mike Sanderlin
had
been a snot-nosed boy. All of the focus in his world was narrowed down to two life goals: getting a respectable set of wheels to replace the crappy Honda he’d inherited when Mom upgraded to the Suburban, and getting Kristie Williams to say yes.

Now … well, things were different for him now. Mom was dead; he’d seen that himself. He also knew firsthand that Gran and Poppa were gone. He wasn’t sure about his father. Dad was in his office when the first wave hit, and all the landlines and cells went down, either flooded or jammed, in the first few minutes of the attack. Downtown Louisville took several devastating Razer hits and fell within minutes, Mike learned after arriving on Fort Knox, so it was possible but highly unlikely his father made it out. The AEGON building was flattened – Mike saw the footage of that in a screaming, hysterical live report just before the cable went down. The television and radio stations went crazy when it first happened, and the images couldn’t come fast enough. By the next morning, everything was down to spitting static. There was no way to find out what the authorities wanted people to do other than, “Don’t panic. Stay where you are until shelters are opened. Stay calm!” So Mike did what he could for himself and his little sister, moving on automatic pilot.

Things went to hell, and they went fast. No one was prepared for the scope of the attacks, not that any degree of preparation would have mattered. They were overwhelmingly outgunned. The Razers came in hard and fast in tornado-like formations, slicing entire cities to pieces in seconds. Every major city fell, most within the first two hours of the war. The ugly black airships moved so silently most of the people killed in the first wave probably didn’t even have time to hear the “booms” of the sound barrier breaking when the EMP weapons were deployed.

People – literally billions of them – simply dropped where they stood, most dead before they hit the ground. And that was just the first wave – there were three in all. Weeks later, Mike learned that a pulsar weapon was used, but it was so advanced … so alien … no one in the military command knew how to defend against it. The technology to counter the weapons used by the aliens simply didn't exist. Rough statistics estimated that six out of ten people died immediately, and well more than nine of ten were dead within minutes. When the survivors started regrouping, many more people died due to civil unrest and violence. Since then, hypothermia, thirst, lack of medical care, starvation … all took their toll.

When Mike was “encouraged” to enlist, he’d undergone four weeks of modified basic training with a handful of other young men and women. The stakes were higher now, and every soldier was motivated by the new reality they lived in. Even though extraterrestrial invaders were the enemy, Mike saw more skirmishes with looters and desperate civilians than with the alien Feeders. Their victories against the Feeders were hard-fought and few, but morale improved significantly when the soldiers learned they could fight back. The drawback was that every single time they killed a Feeder, it came at the cost of one of their own. A mercy shot to the head was now SOP, standard operating procedure, for the person unlucky enough to be trapped. Afterward, the assigned soldier napalmed the shit out of the Feeder with a handheld flame thrower. They took out five of them; Mike was on patrol when one of them burned.

Three months later, Mike was a couple weeks shy of eighteen. He already had the eyes of a hardened combat veteran as he stood in the New Fort Knox compound, the U.S. Bullion Depository, more commonly known as the U.S. Mint, a distinctive shape behind him. The resistance had been slow to form; Americans had had it too easy for far too long. They truly believed this crazy kind of shit could never happen here – it happened over in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on
The Walking Dead,
for god’s sake! Not in Kentucky!

Mike shook his head, hard. He was doing it again, he realized. He walked halfway across the compound and was standing outside the tent he’d been seeking, but was too wrapped up in his own thoughts of the past to complete his task. How long was he standing there, outside the flap, not knocking on the canvas or support frame to announce his presence?

“It’s open,” Kari called when he did slap the canvas a few times. He stepped into the tent, not sure if the shade compensated for the heat inside or just made it worse. He glanced around briefly – Kari and her tent-mate had made several changes and girlied the place up pretty well, for a sand drab tent. He moved a stuffed teddy bear off a canvas director’s chair near the main support pole and took its place, waiting for Kari to look up. She was lying on her belly on the cot, writing a report … or at least, chewing on the tip of an eraser. After a moment, she did look up, her chocolate brown eyes flicking back to the document once more before leaving it and settling her gaze on Mike.

“Nice buzz cut,” she commented, then held up a finger, thinking of one last thing to write and adding it to her document before giving Mike her full attention. “What’s up?” she asked, her bland expression showing she already knew, or at least suspected.

“I got the Norfolk assignment,” Mike said, his words measured and matter-of-fact. “It’s medium to high risk, and it means I’ll be gone about ten days, maybe longer.” He hesitated, choosing his words a bit more carefully. “I figured I should tell you, since … well. Yeah.”

“Since last time you left without so much as a kiss-my-ass and when you got back I ripped your head off and tore into you like Sunday chicken dinner?”

Mike grinned, his clear blue eyes twinkling even as his face pinked slightly at the memory. “Yeah, that,” he agreed. “So I’m telling you this time. So … other than making me really hungry for home-cooked food, we’re good, right?”

Kari smiled, and Mike felt his own lips turning up in response, until he noticed the predatory look in her eyes. “Oh, we’re good, Iron Mike,” she said, her voice a gentle purr. "We're good if you told the kids. You
did
tell the kids, didn’t you? Not planning on leaving that difficult little task up to me, were you?”

Mike winced, glancing meaningfully at his watch. “Well, see, I’m leaving in just under an hour, and they’re in school now ...”

Kari grabbed a small backpack and stood up from the cot so quickly that her papers went flying. Mike did the gentlemanly thing, since it also involved ducking, and began gathering them up.

“Ryan Michael Sanderlin, if you think for one second you’re going to sneak off this base without telling those children goodbye and leave me with all of their questions again, you have got another think coming to you! Leave the goddamned papers, I’ll get them later!”

Mike set the half-gathered stack of paperwork down on Kari’s cot and quickly assumed a posture of attention. He considered throwing off a salute, but that would get him punched, and he knew from experience Kari didn’t punch like a girl. With a sheepish grin, he followed her through the flap of the tent, toward the large mess building which also served as the temporary daycare/schoolroom for the refugee children who came in with the small groups of survivors each week. New Fort Knox accommodated over seven hundred people now and new housing construction went on behind the razor wire every day.

Mike and Kari stepped into the back of the mess hall together, both taking a moment to let their eyes adjust to the comparative darkness inside the wooden building. Linda Hairston and Rachel Posey were volunteer teachers for the growing number of children at NFK, and Hunter Kennedy came in each day to provide group therapy and private counseling, as needed. Mike was disappointed the pastoral counselor wasn’t there now; it would have made saying goodbye much easier, because Hunter would have smoothed the way.
Taken the load,
his inner voice accused. Yeah, whatever. Still would’ve been easier.

Linda noticed the two soldiers first, and touched Rachel on the arm to get her attention. Mike looked at the children, thirty-two, by a quick count. Nine of them were his; it should have been eleven. He stiffened, pushing that thought firmly back into its steel box and shoving it into the darkest corner of his mind. He found Jennifer’s face among the kids and smiled at her. She smiled back, her attention immediately returning to Sasha and the Barbie dolls they were dressing.

Mike cleared his throat and moved forward into the room, close to his circle of nine but including the other children as well. He adjusted his gun belt, making certain the holster was snapped shut, and got down on one knee to be at their level. The NFK school didn’t have the luxury of child-sized tables or desks until their new facility was finished, so they worked on the floor. It was a laminate floor, though, not plain dirt like so many of the tents. Mike realized he was stalling again.

“So, um … I just need to let you guys know that you probably won’t be seeing me around the compound for a week or so,” he said softly. “And I just wanted to say goodbye for a while, and to … um, to answer any questions you might have.” Mike glanced up at Kari, relieved to see her pleased nod. She had ripped him on that point pretty hard the last time he’d gone on a mission, so he was pleased with himself for remembering the detail. He started to stand, figuring he had gotten off easy, and then he saw a small brown hand raise. Mike winced. The boy was seven or eight – one of the newer kids in camp, and Mike didn’t know his name.

“You have a question, umm …” Mike looked helplessly to the teachers and Linda quickly supplied the boy’s name.

“That’s Matthew, Mike. He came in with a group from Fort Campbell last week.”

Mike smiled. “Sure, Matthew. Glad you’re here with us now. Do you have a question?”

“Are you going to fight the Razers?” the little boy asked bluntly.

“Well …” Mike rubbed his face and the top of his head, still strangely short and fuzzy since his most recent buzz. He suddenly understood Kari’s vehemence that she not be left with this task and was sincerely wishing he’d left an hour ago. “Not really, no, Matthew. If I have to fight the Razers, then that means I’m doing it wrong. I need to get in someplace really sneaky, and then get back out again.”

“Are you going to bring more children, Iron Mike?” This question came from Sasha, the shy little girl with solemn dark eyes and neat pigtails who was one of the children Mike and Kari had brought to the base in January.

“I don’t know, Sasha,” Mike said gently. “I’m going to be riding a motorcycle, but if there are children out there, you know I won’t leave them.”

Sasha nodded, content with the answer.

“Any other questions?” Mike asked, keeping his voice calm and light.

“Will you bring us presents?”

Mike blinked.

“Whenever my daddy left on trips, he always brought home presents,” the little girl explained, as if Mike hadn’t understood the question. Several heads nodded in agreement.

“Um. Yes.” Mike said, having no idea how he would keep that promise. Every Wal-Mart had long since been looted and god only knew where a Toys R Us would be. “Yes, definitely. I can’t tell you what they are because … well, because I don’t know myself, yet, but yes, definitely, I will bring back presents.”

The children cheered, and all of them crowded in for hugs, which Mike handed out generously. Jennifer still sat with her Barbie doll, but when Mike looked for her, she met his eyes and smiled.

Ten minutes later, he and Kari were walking quickly toward Regina’s tent. “Oh, my god, that was brutal!” Mike exclaimed to Kari. “Some of those kids who were crying don’t even know me!”

“Most of them have lost their parents, Mike – they see you as another adult going off to war, and they know you might not come back.”

Mike stopped in his tracks, looking at Kari strangely. He didn’t know how to respond to that, how to tell her that neither “parent” nor “soldier” were ever roles he’d envisioned for himself. “I’m coming back,” he said quietly, his voice strong with conviction. “I am coming back, Kari.”

Kari grinned at him. “I know you are. You’re Iron Mike – you can do anything!”

Mike laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “That’s never gonna die, is it?”

Kari shook her head. “Not for years and years and years.”

Thanks to Regina, Mike’s ordnance was packed up and tightly sealed in waterproof, Army-ugly backpacks. He thanked the older woman, grabbing up four of the bags while Kari grabbed the other two, and they walked together to the vehicle depot. It was about half a mile from the living quarters, near the edge of the compound. Close to the first set of razor-wired fencing that surrounded the Mint, it was securely monitored by guards in two watchtowers. Mike nodded at the men and began packing the Harley’s saddlebags. He wasn’t thrilled about the sidecar, but it was that or a jeep. Kasoniak insisted he take both extra fuel and water with him. If nothing else, both served as currency, legal tender, anywhere in North America.