Battle was wearing Kevlar armor and full battle regalia, shadowed, as always, by his evil-smelling henchman. Cameo, also in Kevlar and with a backpack at her feet, was speaking very earnestly to him. He seemed to be impatiently ignoring her. A dejected-looking Jay Ackroyd was sitting with his gear piled around his feet, sipping vending-machine coffee from a plastic cup. Ray guessed that he had put the fear of God into the P.I. the day before. He didn’t know whether to be happy or sorry.
He started to go over to join the group, then stopped to stare at the final team member sitting by herself on the second concrete bench.
She had blond hair and blue eyes and skin that was tanned a deep, flawless bronze. Her black sleeveless T-shirt bared arms with muscles like bundled wires that bunched and coiled with her every move. Ray unconsciously licked his lips as he watched her buffing the stock of the gun she held in her lap.
“Nice rifle,” he said as he approached.
She looked up at him for the first time, regarded him closely with penetrating blue eyes. “You don’t know much about guns, do you?” she asked.
Ray shrugged, knowing that he’d fucked up again. “I know which end to point. I carry one,” he said, slapping the Ingram pistol holstered at his side, “but I never need it much.”
She nodded. “I know. You’re Billy Ray.” Ray grinned his crooked grin. She knew who he was. “I thought you were dead,” she added. “That Mackie Messer fellow sure messed you up in Atlanta. I saw it on TV.”
Ray’s smile froze in place, becoming more of a grimace. The girl didn’t seem to notice. She went back to polishing her gun, whatever the hell it was.
“Took a lot of guts, the way you kept coming after him, I mean, after he sliced off your fingers and the bottom part of your face and all.” She looked back up at him. “I see everything grew back.”
“Yeah,” Ray said.
She stood up gracefully, the muscles in her anus rippling as she moved. Her breasts were small, but their large nipples stood upright against the soft fabric of her black T-shirt.
“My name’s Danny. Danny Shepherd. This isn’t a rifle. It’s a shotgun.” She held it out for Ray to inspect. Ray took his eyes off her long enough to glance at it. Now that he looked closely at it, he could see it wasn’t an assault rifle. There were a few differences. It was longer than an M16, and its magazine box was also longer and wider. Overall it looked sleeker than an assault rifle.
“It’s a Smith & Wesson AS-3 automatic combat shotgun,” Danny explained. “It fires ammo cartridges with flechette, high explosive, and armor-piercing rounds. I didn’t have time for a lot of weapons training before this expedition. The armorer thought I’d be more likely to hit something with this than an automatic rifle. Pretty sexy, isn’t it?”
“Not as sexy as you,” Ray said.
She looked him over with a lazy smile. “Not many men like women with muscles.”
“I’m not like many men,” Ray said. “Maybe we could pump some iron together sometime.”
“Maybe.”
Slow down, Ray told himself. He nodded. “Sure. Anytime. When we get done with this little job.” He hesitated. She’d been in Battle’s book, but she’d looked different.
Not as lean or as hard-edged as she looked in person.
“What’s your role on the team?” he asked.
“Communications.”
Ray frowned, but before he could question her further a curtain of blackness suddenly descended over them. Ray panicked for a moment, imagining scything hands coming out of the blackness to cut him to shreds, but then he realized what was happening as Battle called out, “All right, Black Shadow, you can cut the cheap theatrics.”
“I’ll cut the theatrics, Battle, when I see my pardon.” The voice was that of a black man. It was deep, vibrant, and cultured.
“Cautious, aren’t we?” Battle said dryly.
“I’ve got reason to be.”
“I suppose you do. Well, turn on some kind of light so I can find the damn thing.”
The darkness shrank, contracting until it became an inky bloat that coalesced into a tall, well-built man in a tight-fitting suit, black cape, and domino mask.
“Here it is,” Battle said, holding out a sheaf of papers to the vigilante.
Black Shadow took the papers from Battle, unfolded them, and quickly read them.
“Satisfactory?” Battle asked.
Shadow nodded.
“Signed by George Bush and everything,” Battle said with something of a smirk. He turned and looked at the others. “I suppose that everyone has heard about the events of last night, the attack on the command post at Ebbets Field, the attempted assassination of Senator Hartmann, the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge?”
Ray, like the others, nodded. It had been an eventful evening.
“The peace initiative has failed,” Battle said. If it was possible to be grim and happy at the same time, Battle managed. “The mutant-coddlers have left the field. Its up to us to clean out that nest of vipers on Ellis Island.” Battle now unquestioningly looked very, very happy. “It’s time to go kick mutant ass.”
Ray took a deep breath to calm his racing nerves. He was ready. And so, as best they could be, were the others.
It was time to party.
Von Herzenhagen was pontificating. “This creature, this Bloat, is twisting the fabric of reality. No one knows the limits of this power. The danger he poses is immeasurable, unthinkable. If he can transform the Rox, what happens when he turns his attention to Manhattan… or even the world?”
There was a huge helicopter in center field. The soldiers were loading it with corpses as the briefing began. Last night’s assault had left twenty-six dead. The body bags were laid out in orderly rows across the outfield grass.
Zappa stood near the center of the miniature Rox. The castle was as tall as he was. “We’ve seen Bloat’s reply to our peace offer.” The general used his map pointer to gesture at the bodies in the outfield. “I have twenty-six families to phone. Twenty-six grieving mothers to talk to. I’d choose combat any day.”
Tom looked at the body bags. Maybe he should offer to swap assignments. Zappa hadn’t seen the hellhounds. Tom would take the grieving mothers every time. But he said nothing.
“We’re going to soften them up first,” Vidkunssen said. “Air strikes, missiles, artillery. It won’t be as surgical as we’d hoped, so long as this fog lasts. Our optical guidance systems are useless in that soup, and it even seems to be fucking up our radar. But we can still get their attention.”
“Then we hand off to you,” Zappa said.
“About time,” Cyclone said.
“Yes!” yelled the Reflector, punching the air.
“No one expects you to conquer the entire Rox,” Zappa said. “All you have to do is break through the Wall, brush aside any defenders that may confront you, and proceed to the castle to deal with Bloat. We’ll do the rest.”
“Terminate his rule,” said Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen. He took his pipe out of his mouth. “With extreme prejudice.”
There was a long silence.
“I’M NOT A KILLER.” Tom’s words echoed off the grandstands.
Zappa nodded as if he understood. “No,” he said gently. “But last night you proved you were a soldier.” Tom fell quiet, weighing Zappa’s words. Maybe he was right. Somehow the thought made him feel a little better. If this was war… f he was a soldier.
“What about the jumpers?” Corporal Danny asked.
Von Herzenhagen fielded that one. “Twenty-two jumpers surrendered last night at the Jersey Gate. According to our best intelligence, that should leave no more than a hundred on the island, possibly as few as eighty or ninety. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous their power makes them. However. .
He paused, flashed them a broad, chubby smile, and gestured happily with his pipe. “The jumpers can only switch bodies with those they can see. The Turtle in his shell and Detroit Steel in his armor ought to be proof against th
eir power.
“Intelligence tells us that one jumper died when he tried to take the Oddity, and become trapped inside that creature’s multiple mind. Another girl jumped a polar bear. The bear turned into a bar of soap and the jumper died. That should give them second thoughts about jumping Elephant Girl, wouldn’t you say? And if one of them should attempt to jump Legion…”
I’ve still got six bodies to spare,” said the punk Danny in red leathers.
Tom sat up. “WHAT IF THEY GET ALL SIX OF HER?”
“There’s no risk of that,” General Zappa said.
“I’ve been assigned here to headquarters,” the pregnant Danny explained.
“And I’m being flown out to the New Jersey,” the yuppie version added. She was dressed in a jumpsuit and bulletproof vest today, but she still wore her Rolex.
That wasn’t enough for Tom. “SO SHE ONLY LOSES THREE OR FOUR BODIES. WHAT EFFECT WILL THAT HAVE?”
“I’ll risk it,” Danny said. The one with the baseball cap and the ponytail.
“DANNY, LISTEN TO ME,” Tom said urgently. “THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU GET JUMPED. YOU’VE ONLY GOT ONE MIND. YOU COULD WIND UP WITH SOME MANIAC IN YOUR HEAD FOREVER. YOU COULD WIND UP INSANE. EVER HEAR OF BRAIN TRUST?”
Danny looked annoyed. All six of her. They frowned in an eerie unison. “I didn’t ask for a history lesson.”
Tom appealed to von Herzenhagen and Zappa. “THIS IS NUTS. SHE’S A KID. YOU THINK SIX GIRLS WITH GUNS ARE GOING TO MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE? SHE’LL GET IN THE WAY, WE’LL HAVE TO PROTECT HER”
“You asshole!” three of the Dannys said in perfect chorus.
“Come on out of that iron cat-box and I’ll show you what six girls with guns can do,” Corporal Danny added in counterpoint.
Everybody started talking at once. Von Herzenhagen winced and raised his hand. “Please,” he said. “These factors have all been considered. Agreed, Legion adds little to the team’s offensive capability. Her primary function is communications.”
“I’LL GET YOU A GOOD DEAL ON SOME RADIOS,” Tom argued.
Radio transmissions can be intercepted. Legion is the perfect communicator. Every one of her is instantaneously aware of what all the others are seeing, hearing, and experiencing.”
“Bloat’s a telepath,” Mistral pointed out. “He’ll know —”
“Nothing,” said von Herzenhagen. “Legion has frustrated our best government peeps. This isn’t ordinary telepathy. Legion cannot be jammed, cannot be scrambled, cannot be intercepted”
“SHE CAN BE KILLED,” Tom insisted.
Von Herzenhagen’s plump round face went cold. “The decision had been made,” he said flatly. He turned to Zappa. “General.”
Zappa lifted his pointer. “We’ll hit them simultaneously at three gates.” He pointed. “Here, here, and there. One Legion with each squad…”
Out in center field, the last of the body bags was being loaded into the waiting chopper. Tom watched them sling it aboard, then looked back at Danny, surrounded by her sisters.
Ray didn’t care for the smell of oil and machinery compounded by garbage and must that permeated the subway tunnel. Puckett’s presence wasn’t helping. Danny hung back once the group was well into the tunnel and said to Ray, “What’s with that guy dressed in black? He smells funny and he never says anything.”
“He’s dead,” Ray said. He felt it best not to elaborate.
Danny looked at him as if she were trying to decide if he was making fun of her, then shook her head and moved up next to Cameo.
They marched through darkness lit only by their flashlights, hiking down a curved section of tunnel that opened up onto an area illuminated by portable spotlights. A dozen soldiers moved in and out of the light beams like gigantic khaki-colored moths.
A sentry called out a challenge and Battle responded. He must have gotten the password right because they were waved forward.
“This the place?” Battle asked.
A soldier with captain’s bars nodded. “Our instruments indicate a corridor parallel with the subway tunnel right beyond that wall.” He pointed to a section of wall on which shaped gelignite charges clung like gray leeches.
“Blow it,” Battle said.
“Yes, sir.”
One of the soldiers shepherded them back down the tunnel. The explosion wasn’t nearly as impressive as Ray had imagined it would be. There was a muffled thunk, and that was it. They went back around the bend and saw that the spotlights trained on the wall were now illuminating a nearly circular hole about two feet off the ground and six feet or so in diameter. Half a dozen soldiers surrounded the hole, automatic weapons pointed at it, ready for just about anything to come charging through. The dust stirred up by the explosion was still settling. Everything else was quiet and calm. "Kill those lights,” Battle snapped at the captain. “Do you want every damned mutant on Ellis Island to know we’re coming?”
“No, sir.” He gestured, and the spots were turned off. The corridor was now eerily illuminated only by the flashlights carried by a few of the soldiers.
Battle nodded. “All right. Shadow, you’ve been here before. What can we expect?”
“Right off,” the ace answered, “fear.”
Battle frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Bloat’s got some kind of spell”
“Spell!” Battle scoffed.
“Call it what you want,” Shadow said defensively. “It’s like a watchdog. After a while, it knows you’re there. It goes into your mind and finds what you fear the most. Then it shows it to you — but only as images, as phantoms that have no physical presence. They can’t hurt you, but if you don’t know what’s coming they can scare the Jesus out of you.”
All right, Ray said to himself. Phantoms. Images. Buzz-saw hands that can’t hurt… I can deal with it.
Battle nodded. “Right. Here’s the marching order. Black Shadow, you go first. Ray, you follow Shadow. I shall bring up the rear with Legion, Popinjay, and Cameo. Crypt Kicker will cover our backs. All right?” Everyone nodded. “Then let’s go!”
Black Shadow nodded again and, darkness draping him like a cloak, stepped through the hole in the Wall that led to Bloat’s domain.
Shooter or shootee? The android didn’t want to make the choice.
Using the Army’s lost plastic explosives, hoping to destroy equipment and not people, Modular, Man succeeded in mining the third tracked MLRS vehicle before a sentry spotted him. There was a shout and shots. Modular Man accelerated straight up.
Below him, below the arcing tracer rounds trying to find him in the night sky, the first vehicle blew up. An instant later one of the missiles ignited and blasted loose from the launcher. It hadn’t received any computer guidance and went straight up, its rocket flaming, before beginning to corkscrew wildly across the night sky.
Another rocket flamed upward, took a wild yaw, dropped into the Atlantic, and detonated. Seawater, carried by the brisk offshore wind, spattered over the sand spit.
The second vehicle exploded and all the rockets went off at once, not firing, just blowing up. A wave of pressure and heat swept through the android’s sensory scans. Sub-munitions lofted high, thousands of them, and fell to earth.
From above it looked like many strings of firecrackers going off at once. Firecrackers that killed.
Sand blew high, masking the target. Beneath the cloud, things kept blowing up, the cascade of concussion obliterating the sound of screams.
Modular Man headed for the second battery he’d been told to eliminate.
He didn’t want to think about what that was going to be like.
The second missile battery had moved by the time Modular Man got to its location. Probably just a random shift, unconnected to the Rox’s preemptive strike, but lucky for the crew in any case.
The horrid memory of Sandy Hook floated through the android’s mind. He couldn’t think of any way he could have kept the casualties down.
He’d become a shooter witho
ut ever meaning to.
He didn’t spend much time searching for the battery. Instead he returned to the Rox.
Once there he found out his tasks weren’t over. One of the strike groups was pinned down in Grand Army Plaza, after having attempted an attack on an ammo dump and instead having walked into a Special Forces ambush.
The battle was garish and weird, fought in an environment illuminated by searchlights, flares, and twisting spirals of tear gas, and filled with joker bodies sprawled beneath old, green statues of Civil War heroes. The android managed to ex tract the remnants of the team, he hoped without killing anyone himself.
It was, he suspected, just a matter of time.
There were other missions on Modular Man’s agenda, first an attack on a division of Apache helicopters parked at Teterboro Airport. He blew them up without being seen, and without (he thought) any casualties among the crews, who were sleeping under tents off at the far edge of the field.
He blew up more helicopters at the Coast Guard heliport in Jamaica Bay, then was ordered into an attack on the missile battery again, in what Kafka thought was its new location in Great Kills Harbor. Instead Modular Man found Great Kills Park filled with the ballooning plastic tents of a field hospital. He thought of sub-munitions cascading down on the hospital as they had on Ft. Hancock.
He couldn’t find the missile battery. He was happy to leave the hospital alone.
By that time it was dawn. An aerial view of the Greater New York Area showed, on all points around the vast foggy murk expanding from the Rox, towering plumes of smoke from fires still burning.
He thought of the massive U.S. war machine he’d witnessed in combat against the Swarm. He measured the damage done by Governor Bloat’s strikes against the military that he knew could be brought to bear.
Almost zero. A company or two of helicopters wrecked — there were battalions more. A few dozen missiles destroyed — there were thousands in inventory. A few ammo dumps blown up — millions of shells remaining. Maybe a few hundred Americans had been killed.