“She’s alive…”
“Thank God,” gasped Prospero.
Flint bent close to see if he could hear her respiration. Then he heard it. A wet hissing sound, very faint. He tore open her jacket and listened. It was there, louder. Wetter.
“Christ, I’ve got a sucking chest wound here.” He tore open the woman’s shirt and there was the wound. The bullet had gone in low on her torso, right at the bottom of the lung.
“Monster…is Doc stable?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then leave him. I need hands over here. Right now.”
But Monster was already there, opening a field trauma kit. They moved fast.
“Can you help her?” begged Prospero, his voice trembling at the edge of breaking.
“Shut up and let us work.”
The bullet had punched a hole in Miranda’s chest cavity effectively unsealing the normally airtight lung sack. With every breath Miranda’s lung took in blood and collapsed a bit more. Flint wasted no time cleaning the wound. That was far less important and could be done later. If there was a later.
“Patch,” Flint said, and instantly Monster tore the cover off of a pre-packaged chest seal. Flint took it and pressed it gently into place, making sure the seal was tight. The seal had a one-way flutter valve so that with each exhale, air in her chest would be pushed out from underneath the patch, while each inhalation would pull the patch firmly against the wound to seal it and keep air from coming in through the bullet hole. Once it was in place Flint could hear Miranda’s breathing begin to settle in a relatively normal rhythm. As normal as it could be until a real medic could be found.
“I think she’s stabilized,” Monster said.
Flint tapped his earbud. “Law…we need a medic down here.”
The only reply was silence.
“Law!”
Nothing.
“Jukebox…Schoolgirl. Report, damn it.”
Nothing but static.
“I got nothing either,” said Pet. “White noise.”
Flint rolled Miranda onto her wounded side so that gravity would help keep the seal in place. He checked her airway and leaned back.
“Damn,” Monster whispered. “What the hell are we into here?”
Flint got to his feet and walked over to Prospero. “She’s lost a lot of blood and we need to get her to medical.”
The old man shook his head slowly, his voice a faint mumble. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. No more blood…no more death…damn it…this wasn’t supposed to…”
Without knowing that he was going to do it, Flint grabbed a handful of Prospero’s undershirt and held him there. “Listen to me…I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but whatever it is it’s happening with your toys.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen…”
Flint drew his pistol and shoved the barrel hard up under Prospero’s chin. “What wasn’t supposed to happen? Start talking and I swear to God, if you lie to me I will kill you. Look into my eyes. Tell me if you believe me.”
“Y-Yes.”
“Then you tell me what the hell is going on.”
Prospero licked his lips. Flint pushed the barrel harder.
“Tick tock.”
Prospero spoke a single word. It answered everything and at the same time asked a thousand more questions.
He said, “Cobra.”
-14-
Dead Lake
The machine rolled through the night in near silence. The low-pressure tires barely chuffed the sand and the battery-driven motor was in a sound muffler. Bruiser never heard it coming.
His first warning was when the drone rolled past a perimeter sensor and a small red dot flashed to life on the computer screen on Bruiser’s forearm.
He whirled, bringing his M5 up, calling it in.
But there was only static on the team channel.
Through the green clarity of his night-vision, Bruiser saw the machine. Recognized it for what it was.
He opened fire immediately.
But he was a tenth of a second too late.
The silence and darkness was torn apart by the continuous roar of the minigun.
Bruiser―or the thing that had been Bruiser―was flung against the corner of the wall and the barrage of bullets was so intense and heavy that his body stood erect and at attention as thousands of rounds tore him to rags.
-15-
Observation Room
Flint bent close and snarled.
“Talk fast.”
“I needed the money and—”
“Really? You want to play that card with me. Do I look like a sympathetic man?”
Something changed in Prospero’s eyes. They lost some of their fear and it was replaced by a jaded coldness. “Very well. It doesn’t matter why I did it. I did it.”
“Did what?”
Prospero told him. He had been approached by a man he originally thought worked for the security division of the Department of Defense. That was both true and a lie―the man did work for the DOD, but he also worked for a black market weapons broker who had been hired to reach out to Prospero. Him, and men like him. At first Prospero turned it down. He turned it down a dozen times over a two year period, not so much out of patriotism but out of fear that it was a government sting of some kind.
Then he started believing in the man. Money was involved in that process. Money was always involved. But over time Prospero felt his heart change. The money became less important than the nature of the work, and its potential. His drones could effectively remove man from the combat field. No lives would ever have to be lost. Wars would become a contest of technology, and ultimately mankind might step away from the need for war.
The other man seemed to share this impassioned view, this Big Picture perspective that justified any covert or clandestine steps taken to achieve such a noble end.
Once they had struck a bargain, the man said that his boss wanted to acquire the Caliban combat system. Not the hardware. Just copies of all schematics and the complete Skyjack/Tempest software system. They haggled over the price for another seven months. During that time the broker himself emerged and introduced himself. He was a foreign national who had himself sold weapons systems and other technologies to the same client.
“Who was he?”
“I never knew his name,” said Prospero. “I never met him. He was a voice on the phone.”
“What do you know about him?”
Prospero hesitated. “He’s a Scotsman.”
Flint cursed.
“You know him?” asked Prospero, surprised.
“Unfortunately, and I plan to hang his head on my wall. Unless you want your head to be hung next to it, keep talking. If you’re working for this client, for Cobra…why are your systems going off the rails.”
“I don’t know! It has to be sabotage.”
Flint studied him, looking for the lie, but seeing only outrage and fury.
Prospero didn’t know.
“Tell me something I can use, damn it.”
“First…you have to understand two things.”
“I’m listening.”
“You saved Miranda’s life. You may think I’m a cold-hearted bastard, but I…I love her. We are in love. I know the age difference is—”
“Save it for Oprah.”
“My point, Chief Flint, is that you had to save her, which means they betrayed me. Betrayed us. They tried to kill the woman I love.”
“You looking for revenge?”
“Of course,” Prospero said coldly. “I’m a man, just like you.”
Flint almost slapped him with a sarcastic comeback, but he held his tongue.
Prospero nodded. “The other thing I need you to understand is that…while I admit that at first this was about the money, it became about the work. About the goals. The Caliban unit, the other technologies…they really will save lives. American lives at first, and then as combat becomes mechanized to the point that these systems cancel eac
h other out it will save lives on all sides.”
“Bull. If the machines stop working, then people will go back in the field.”
“No…the machines would deadlock each other, but they would make the actual field of combat too dangerous for men. It would end the game in a stalemate.”
“That’s it? Your newfound higher motives are about creating a new Cold War?”
“A Cold War is better than endless slaughter.” Prospero’s eyes glittered. “We are a warlike and savage race, and you know that every bit as well as I do. Just because our intellect has evolved to the point where we can appreciate and even defend ideals it doesn’t change the aggression built into our DNA. We’re a predator species. We take what we want. Look at America’s history. Eminent domain? That is a polite label for centuries of landgrabs, slaughter and ethnic genocide.”
Flint said nothing.
“Once I realized that the Caliban systems could bring us to a bloodless stand-off, I saw that, however dubious my initial motivations may have been, I had found my purpose.”
“Tell it to Congress and the U.S. Attorney. I’m not your lawyer, your confessor or your friend. I’m going to ask you one more time and then I’m going to show you just how savage a human being can be.” He bent close. “How can I stop these things?”
The old man stared at him for two long seconds, then he licked his lips. “Nothing I did could possibly be responsible for this. It has to be the AI chips. Kong only made a few of the chips. They were very difficult to make, and they’re too big to fit into the Sprites. Those are still drones and someone had to have launched them. There has to be somebody here, there has to be a handler.”
“On site? What’s the operational range?”
“A few miles, but the fences have jammers. Otherwise the prototypes might pick up all kinds of confusing signals. Nothing from outside the fence can get inside. And there’s one more thing, Chief.”
“What?”
“None of the drones have the articulation needed to enter the generator shack and blow out the fuses. And it can’t have been an EMP or the drones themselves would—”
“Yeah, I got it.” He stepped back and eyed Prospero in the dim glow of the flashlight’s beam. “I’m going to bury you for this,” he said.
The old scientist said nothing.
Suddenly gunfire erupted from the doorway.
Flint spun in time to see Teacher’s Pet go flying backward as another of the minigun Kobolds rolled into the room.
There was movement to Flint’s right and he cut a quick look just as Prospero vanished into the darkness.
Doc was helpless on the floor.
Scarlett pulled her sidearm and returned fire. Monster knelt in front of her and was firing his big shotgun. He was screaming Pet’s name like a war cry.
“Monster!” Flint bellowed over the din. “Frag it!”
Monster yanked a fragmentation grenade and rose up to throw it. He was strong and he had a good pitching arm. The grenade flew into the flash-lit shadows. But Monster never lived to see it hit the target. Bullets tore into the big man’s chest and he fell backward, landing at the same moment the minigun drone blew up.
Flint ran to where Monster had fallen, but the Joe was past all help.
Grief and rage were like a furnace in Flint’s chest. Even so, he couldn’t pause to mourn his friend’s death. Instead he took the remaining grenades―frags and flashbangs―and all remaining ammunition.
He turned to Scarlett and gave her half of the grenades.
“Look,” he began, but she gave a fierce shake of her head.
“Go!” she snarled. “Find them…stop this thing.”
-16-
Inside the Island
Flint ran through the darkness. He had looted Teacher’s Pet as well and wore the dead Joe’s helmet, and his pockets were heavy with grenades and magazines. The NVD allowed him to move fast.
Once he was out of the observation wing, he had to cut down a long access tunnel to get to the security vault. The comlink was still dead, but between bursts of gunfire he could hear voices. Screams.
It had to be the staff.
“Yo, Joe!”
The cry came from his left and Flint skidded to a stop and wheeled around. Two figures emerged from behind a stack of crates. Law and Order.
The security tech was covered with blood and his left arm hung limp at his side. Order limped beside him and the dog’s eyes were wild with a predatory gleam that looked more like a wolf than a German shepherd.
“How bad are you hurt?”
“Shrapnel in the shoulder,” Law answered. “What the hell is happening?”
In a few terse sentences Flint gave him the basics.
“That doesn’t make sense. It was Doctor Prospero who just got me out of the vault. Him and that weird iron suit of his.”
“What?”
“Yeah, just now. He ripped the door right off the hinges. Wouldn’t have thought it was possible. He told me to get to the observation deck and help Professor Miranda. She said was hurt…”
There was another burst of gunfire, down the corridor and around the bend.
Law nodded. “Prospero went that way. One of those minigun drones attacked us. Prospero charged after it and tore it apart. Literally. By hand. It exploded, which is how I got nailed. He left me here and said he was going to Ops.”
“Okay. Get to the observation deck. Doc’s out, Miranda’s down, and Scarlett took one in the leg. Keep ’em safe.”
“Count on it. But…where are you going?”
“That way,” Flint said and ran off in the same direction Prospero had taken.
Order’s fierce barks seemed to chase him through the darkness.
An explosion shook the whole place and the shock wave nearly knocked Flint off his feet. When he rounded the corner he saw four more of the minigun drones. Two were smoking, their parts twisted from the blast. The others looked like they had been torn apart by an angry giant.
Along one wall was a row of doors and Flint realized that he was in the first chamber of the staff wing. Most of the doors were still locked shut, but a few had been torn open and there were bodies slumped inside and out. Two or three white-coated figures staggered dazedly through the smoke, their faces smudged with dirt, their clothes singed and streaked with blood.
Flint ran.
He was following a trail of destruction. Prospero had somehow managed to get into his Caliban exosuit and was hunting the drones in his own facility. The power of the Caliban unit was incredible. Steel doors had been ripped from their hinges, doorways smashed to allow the monstrosity to pass through. And everywhere there were dead bodies and drones.
With a sinking heart Flint realized that his team had not been able to get everyone into their chambers before the drones attacked. Men and women lay sprawled like broken dolls.
And in the mess hall, Flint saw a heartbreaking sight. Jukebox and Schoolgirl, two of the newest members of his team, had apparently tried to mount a defense in order to protect a dozen staff members. They had tossed heavy tables onto their sides and set up a firing position. The floor was littered with countless spent shell casings. Jukebox’s M4 and Schoolgirl’s M5 were still in their hands, the barrels still smoking. But both of the Joes were down. They had taken round after round and gone down fighting.
Behind them, nine of the staff still huddled―weeping and trembling―in a corner between the kitchen entrance and the juice bar. Flint read the scene as he rushed through it. His Joes had destroyed five of the miniguns. Five.
But there had been six.
The last one was smashed flat as if a gigantic fist had pounded it into debris.
Prospero.
Had he gotten here too late? Had he tried to save the Joes as well as the staff? It looked that way, but it didn’t make sense to Flint. Prospero had to know that if the drones were stopped then he was going to jail for the rest of his life.
Yet he was trying to save people.
W
hy?
Flint ran on. Eating his grief, clamping down on his pain.
Something hit him hard in the side and Flint felt himself tumbling, spinning. He struck the wall and slid to the floor, his whole left side ablaze.
I’ve been shot, he realized.
Darkness and nausea washed over him, but he fought it down, shoved it back.
The shock of the impact erased the immediate awareness of the shot. He had no idea where it had come from.
Then there was a second shot. It pinged off the wall near his head, missing him by inches.
Flint could use his right arm well enough and he sent six shots downrange with his Sig Sauer. There was a scream and then the sound of running. His NVD was askew and by the time he straightened it all he saw was a flash of white.
Not a soldier. Had to be one of the staff. The traitor.
He was sure of it.
The only one? Or part of a sleeper team?
He was inclined to think that there were more. Too much was happening too fast.
He got to his feet and probed his side. The bullet hadn’t penetrated, but had instead hit at an angle on his ribcage and slashed him as surely as if he’d been hacked with a sword. When he took a breath he almost screamed. At least two ribs were broken. He could feel the jagged end of one of them tenting the skin. He took a deep breath and pushed it back into place.
He did scream then.
The world danced a sickening jig around him, but he ground his teeth. If he fell, he knew he’d never get up.
He began limping forward, forcing his mind to think through the problem. That was how to defeat the pain. That was how he’d survive.
“Kong’s team,” he said between gritted teeth.
What about them?
Kong had built the AI chip. Was Prospero correct when he said that Kong’s team was all third rate? Or was arrogance clouding the man’s judgment. At that moment Flint would have bet a month’s pay that it was one of Kong’s team who had installed that chip. And that some or all of that team were finessing this situation.