Gavin Smith: Crysis: Escalation

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Psycho said from his corner of the loft. The other nanosuited soldier had been watching a feed from the Macronet on a portable screen. Something about CELL launching a satellite network to complement the work they had been doing to turn the ruins of New York into a vast facility for energy generation.

There was only Psycho left of his nanosuited team, Prophet mused. They’d all left him now. All gone their own way, died or been captured by CELL. Or just lost faith in the mission. Cupcake, Bandit, Fire Dragon and Lazy Dane, who had been getting weirder and weirder. Eighteen months of hitting Ceph incursion sites. Auckland, Wuhan, Tokyo, then, on his own, the last one beneath St. Petersburg. That was when even he had to admit he was forgetting what he was. What I once was , he corrected himself. And now only loyal Michael Sykes remained with him. Psycho, who’d rather nail his left bollock to the ground and crawl away from it than let a “mate” down. But Psycho didn’t understand, none of them had, it wasn’t a job, it wasn’t mercenary work, it wasn’t about loyalty to friends, and, sadly, it wasn’t about fucking over CELL. It’s about survival, pure and simple, us versus them, a very old equation , Prophet thought.

‘You’re listening in on your little whore-house soap opera, aren’t you?’ Psycho said. The tone in his voice said that he was out to needle Prophet. Prophet tried to ignore him.

‘What? You don’t want to talk to me? I’m pretty much the only other carbon-based life form you’ve got any contact with these days!’ Prophet continued trying to ignore him and Psycho lapsed into silence. And then let out a short, humourless laugh. ‘I’m sorry that you can’t nip downstairs for a quickie.’

‘I don’t want to be wasting time here either,’ Prophet all but growled. ‘Did you think this would be easy?’ He stood up and looked around the room. It was a large spacious attic, with exposed wooden beams. The building that contained the brothel had been built from locally quarried stone during one of Siberia’s gold rushes. It sat on the corner of a junction in the township. Nobody had ever quite got around to laying down a proper road and currently the streets were frozen mud. Prophet glanced out the window. He could see the glow of the garish neon sign reflected in the gently falling snow.

‘You’re not just wasting time, mate, you’ve lost the plot.’

This is where he brings up St. Petersburg , Prophet thought. He’d heard this song before.

‘You were out of control in St. Petersburg, you know you were. It was the last straw for Fire Dragon.’

Prophet knew that Psycho was right. The thing was, he had only realised it in retrospect. At the time it had all seemed to make sense. They were the bad guys. He had needed access to the Ceph tech. He needed information and he needed to upgrade the armour. He had to be strong enough for when they finally found what he was looking for.

‘And what’s with the Ceph tech? I know it won the day in New York but it’s changing you, mate. Turning you into…’

‘One of them?’

‘I was going to say something else.’

‘When did you get so soft?’

Psycho’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

‘Careful,’ the British soldier said quietly.

‘We’re fighting a war. I’m not human now. I am something else. You need to get used to that. If becoming one of them is what it takes…’ Psycho was just staring at him. ‘What do you want from me, Psycho?’ Prophet asked.

‘Something to say that we’re on the right track. Any evidence at all that it’s actually real.’

‘Tunguska was where Hargreave and Rasch originally encountered…’

‘I know.’

‘It has to be here.’

Psycho sighed and leant back against the wall, the top half of his nanosuited body disappearing into shadow.

‘We need to be thorough this time… take our time, search everything…’

‘There’s no intel, Prophet. We’re running missions based on wishful thinking now.’

Prophet whipped round to glare at the British soldier, the suit automatically running firing solutions and reflowing into a combat-ready configuration. All Psycho saw was the inhuman face of the nanosuit’s helmet. He knew his own suit was sending out identification signals. What worried him more than anything was that he was now sure that the face under the visor probably wasn’t much more human than the alien-looking suit.

‘After all this you don’t trust me? It’s there. It’s got to be there.’

‘You said that in Wuhan, Auckland, St. Petersburg. It doesn’t exist, Prophet. I think you know that. You need to wake up.’

Prophet was across the attic, forgetting that he had to be careful of people hearing his steps in the brothel below. He stood over Psycho.

‘No, there’s a threat… the Ceph.’

‘Are dead, understand?’ Psycho said evenly, looking up at Prophet. ‘There are no more aliens. We fought and won that war. The world has moved on but you’ve got stuck, mate.’

‘You don’t know what I’ve seen…’ Prophet was leaning down over Psycho now.

‘Where?’ Psycho demanded. ‘In your head?’

‘They were visions,’ but even Prophet realised this sounded weak.

‘What? Put there by an alien?’ Psycho said more softly now. ‘Reliable source, then. Prophet, we’re in uncharted territory. Fused with these suits, interfacing with alien technology, suffering from combat stress and we really have killed a lot of people. We’ve killed like gods…’

Prophet straightened up.

‘You think I’m mad.’

Psycho stood up to face his friend.

‘How could we not be struggling? Think of the things we’ve done, what you, especially, have been through.’

‘You don’t trust me anymore?’

‘Prophet, mate, you know I’d follow you to the ends of the Earth…’ Psycho laughed and held up his hands. ‘Because we’re here, now. I’ll push bullets at what you tell me to, but it’s been eighteen months and not a sign.’

Prophet leant in close to Psycho. Psycho didn’t shift. He just looked back at the helmeted face.

‘The thing is, I know. I know what’s coming. I can’t un-see it.’

‘Can you hear yourself?’ Psycho asked sadly. Prophet turned and walked away from the other nanosuited soldier.

‘So what do we do now? Become mercenaries? Go to work as guns for hire like you were when I found you in Mexico? Or do I just turn myself into a VA clinic for psych evaluation?’

‘I think you… we’ve been so obsessed with hunting for this thing that we’ve not been watching what’s going on. The world is being bought.’

‘CELL?’ Prophet asked, failing to keep the scorn out of his voice. Psycho nodded. ‘And you think I’m obsessed.’

‘At least they’re fucking real!’ Psycho snapped. ‘All I see is greedy corporate bastards taking over the world, killing anyone who gets in the way, and it scares the shit out of me.’

‘What difference does it make who’s in charge? That’s human politics.’ Psycho stared at him.

‘You cold bastard,’ Psycho said and turned to head back to his gear in the corner. Prophet grabbed him.

‘Psycho, wait…’

Psycho turned on him.

‘No, you fucking wait. Taking your call sign a bit seriously these days, aren’t you? We should be fighting the bastards who are actively fucking us and the rest of humanity. Not that you’re still one of us! We shouldn’t be chasing some mythical alpha-ceph! With these suits we have a chance.’ There was passion in what Psycho was saying that Prophet had not heard from the other man in a long time, if ever. The suit’s analysis of Psycho’s voice showed him that this was something that he truly believed in.