Peter Clines - Ex-Communication

Especially when the one person was a teenage girl.

“Six, this is Seven,” echoed a voice over his earbud.

“Seven, this is Six,” he responded.

Even though she’d grudgingly accepted her new position at the Mount, First Sergeant Kennedy still insisted on using military protocol and call signs over the radio. It had caused chaos at first as every Wall guard, deputy, and scavenger with a radio took on a self-assigned number. She’d finally sat all of them down for a series of lessons and explained why they couldn’t refer to themselves as Sixty-Nine, Eight-Fifteen, Red Five, SG-1, or any of the others they’d picked.

And they all still just called for St. George by name.

“Six, this is Seven,” Kennedy said. “Update on that domestic dispute at Raleigh. Got a little out of hand. We’ve got three in the brig, two injured. One civilian, one of ours.”

“Seven, this is Six. Anything serious?”

“Six, this is Seven. All injuries are minor. I’ll let you talk to the deputy when you get back.”

Kennedy using the word deputy meant it was one of the civilian peacekeepers. If it had been one of her own soldiers, she would’ve called them out and used verbal shorthand to let Freedom know the exact infraction. It was a habit he noticed her using more and more, keeping civilians and soldiers separate.

When Freedom had taken command of the Mount’s police force, it had been a disorganized mess. Looking back over the past months, he could admit they hadn’t helped matters by expecting everyone to conform to military standards. The call signs had been the tip of the iceberg. After a few years of postapocalyptic life, his people were as unprepared to deal with civilians as the civilians were to deal with structured law enforcement.

It didn’t help that there was a fair amount of animosity toward the soldiers. The people of the Mount had lost family and friends, lives and homes, and the U.S. Army hadn’t been there to protect them. Freedom had overheard more than a few grumbles about the men and women of the Alpha 456th Unbreakables becoming part of the command structure in Los Angeles.

Which was the problem. Freedom and his soldiers were military trying to command civilians. It was a gray area they were still exploring. He was used to conditions of absolute authority, and the huge officer was very aware the only reason the civilian police listened to him or Kennedy was because Stealth had told them to.

He was close to the southwest corner of the Big Wall, on a street called Larchmont, when he heard a faint noise over the echo of teeth. He’d heard it before, in Afghanistan. A series of sharp pops echoing back and forth between the buildings. The sound of gunfire in a quiet city. There was nothing else quite like it.

He tapped his earbud. “This is Six,” he said. “Report. I hear shots fired?”

Another squelch of voices stepped over one another before a voice stood out. A man shouted into his microphone loud enough to make Freedom wince and grab for his ear. “It’s out,” the man yelled. “It got out!”

“This is Six,” Freedom said. “Calm down.”

“It got out,” repeated the man. “I think Katie’s dead. It was so fast, and the bullets didn’t stop it. They didn’t even slow it down!”

“Twenty-Four, this is Seven,” said Kennedy. “Stand by, units are coming to your position.” She’d identified the man’s voice and given Freedom the location. Twenty-Four was shorthand for second platoon, fourth squad. And squad four was inside the studio walls, broken into a few small teams to guard different positions.

Freedom started running. He was three blocks from the Mount. The long, north–south blocks of Hollywood. “Twenty-Four, this is Six,” he said. “Coming to you.”

“This is Danny—uhhhh, Twenty-One—on the Wall. It just went over the Wall right by the Melrose Gate.”

Too much chatter and not enough information. He still didn’t know who or what they were fighting. It didn’t sound like exes. It sounded fast.

As Freedom passed an intersection he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure dashed across the road parallel to him, two blocks over and heading south. He saw the pale skin and thought an ex was inside the walls, but no ex moved that fast, even the ones Legion controlled. The captain turned his head and got a quick glimpse of the figure—a blood-splattered old man wearing khakis and a white T-shirt.

Freedom made a snap call. He pivoted and went after the man. “Six to Seven,” he called out. “Target engaged.”

Whoever he was chasing was fast, even barefoot. Not as fast as Freedom or the other super-soldiers, but enough that for a moment he worried he was chasing one of his own. He closed the gap. The old man was a few yards ahead. And he was running out of road. Beverly was just a block ahead.

A new voice cut over the chatter. “Freedom, this is Stealth,” she said. “St. George is moving to join you. Stop the prisoner at all costs. Use lethal force, nothing less.”

The word prisoner stood out. So did lethal force . And so did the tone in Stealth’s voice. He’d never heard it in all the months he’d known the woman, but it almost sounded like she was worried. Maybe even scared.

Freedom had enough sense to know anything that scared Stealth was something he shouldn’t be second-guessing.

He stopped in a shooting stance, pulled out Lady Liberty, and fired off three quick bursts with the massive handgun.

A handful of red carnations blossomed across the old man’s back and thighs. One grew out of his shoulder. He stumbled and flew through the air, carried by his own momentum and the impact of several twelve-gauge slugs at short range. His body crashed onto the pavement, rolled a few yards, and came to rest. It twitched twice.

Freedom walked over to the crumpled figure. The man wasn’t as old as he’d thought. The hair was deceiving, and it was shockingly white against all the blood soaking the man’s clothes. His gray eyes stared up at the sky. One of his hands looked withered and bony, like a corpse. His shoulder was a tangle of red sinews.

He took a slow breath and tapped his earbud. “Seven, this is Six,” he said. “Be advised, target has been neutrali—”

The man rolled to his feet.

He locked eyes with Freedom and hurled something at the huge captain. It struck him in the shoulder, just past his body armor. It cut fabric and broke the skin, but even at the joints Freedom’s muscle was too dense for it to penetrate far. He brushed it away and it clattered on the ground with a sound like wood.

The chalk-haired man was on the move and half a block away, sprinting like he’d caught his second wind. Freedom raised his pistol and fired again. The prisoner staggered but kept moving.

He raced out onto Beverly, headed straight for the Big Wall. The guards had heard Lady Liberty and were waiting for him. None of them were Freedom’s soldiers. All five of them opened fire. Many of the shots sparked on the pavement—the guards weren’t used to a fast target—but a good number hit. Freedom saw the man’s limbs jerk and tremble, but he never broke stride.

Something uncoiled from the prisoner’s shoulder like a snake and he swung his arm up at the guards along the top of the Wall. A long cord lashed out and wrapped around the neck of one of the guards. The man let out a wet cough. His companions stopped firing and leaped to help him, grabbing at the line.

The prisoner jumped. He went hand over hand up the thick cord to the top of the Wall. A dozen feet in seconds. The guards didn’t even realize they were helping by pulling on the line until the white-haired man was on the platform with them.

Freedom was a dozen yards from the Wall. He flexed his legs and hurled himself into the air. The guards were too close to the prisoner for him to use Lady Liberty again.