Peter Clines - Ex-Patriots

* * *

“Good to go, sir,” said the sergeant.

Captain Creed nodded. “All right, then,” he said. “This is dry run number one for the Cerberus Battle Armor System. The pilot is First Lieutenant Thomas Gibbs. What’s the time?”

“Thirteen-thirty hours, sir.”

“Note it. Let’s see what this thing can do.”

The eight-man build crew climbed down and pulled their step ladders away from the armored figure. The hum of power leveled out just as it started to echo in the workshop. The armored collar snapped tight around the base of the helmet and covered the bolts securing it in place. The titan’s eyes lit up.

Creed stepped in front of the battlesuit and looked into the twin lenses. “Any problems with start-up, lieutenant?”

Inside the Cerberus armor, Gibbs checked over the multiple screens and readouts. “Negative, sir,” he said. He saw the soldiers around him flinch from the suit’s volume and searched until he found the control. “Seems like everything’s up and running.”

Gibbs took a cautious step. The reactive sensors tingled through his sock, like walking on a foot that was numb with pins and needles. He wiggled his toes and heard the plates on the armor’s foot scrape on the tarmac. Another step, this one more confident.

“The simulator was good, sir,” he said, “but the real thing’s very different.”

“Only to be expected.”

“Yes, sir. I think I’m overcompensating a lot when I don’t need to be.”

“Let’s hold off on movement for now. Do all systems check out?”

“One moment, please, sir.” The lieutenant tried to scroll through menus using the optical system. The simulator had been neat and organized, but after two years of field use Doctor Morris had personalized the Cerberus system’s heads-up desktop to match her own style and needs. To him it was a mess, and he had to search for each icon and file. She’d also re-keyed it to respond to two blinks, not one, which kept throwing him off. He needed to find the system menu that would let him reset everything.

The arms stretched out to either side and the steel fingers flexed. The suit made a few quick fists and shifted its weight from one foot to the other. It looked left, then right, and then down at Creed.

“Good job, Gibbs,” said Creed. “Seems like you’re getting the hang of it.”

“That’s not me, sir,” said the battlesuit.

“What was that, lieutenant?”

“It’s not me sir. The armor just started moving on its own. I’m getting yanked around in here.”

There was a flash from outside that was a little too much like lightning in a horror movie. The suit took three big, confident steps. It loomed over the officer and stretched again. Creed was very aware of how big the titan was. “Can it do that?”

“I didn’t think so,” said Gibbs. “Might be some start-up, shake-down protocol Morris created over the past two years.”

“Did you see anything like that when she demonstrated it earlier?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

Gibbs tried to scroll through the menus again. The system wasn’t responding. The optical system was on but the cursor wasn’t registering his eye movements at all. It drifted and bounced across the heads-up desktop.

A laugh echoed over the speakers and tapered off into a low whistle.

“Sorry, sir?”

“What?”

“I thought I heard something, sir.”

“No one said anything, lieutenant.”

“Nobody just laughed? Kind of a…a happy laugh?”

Creed looked up at the lenses and shook his head. “No one out here.” He looked around at the build crew and saw several shaking heads and a few shrugs. “Does the suit have enhanced audio?”

“I don’t believe so, sir,” said Gibbs. “I might be getting some radio bleed over the speakers.”

“Not exactly,” said a voice. “Christ, man, this suit is so fucking awesome. Should’ve thought of this months ago.”

The lieutenant tried to find the radio in the heads-up display. “Who is that?”

Creed raised an eyebrow. “Lieutenant?”

“An incoming transmission, sir. Voice only. It’s making reference to the battlesuit.”

“Dude,” said the voice, “d’you have any idea what it’s been like waiting for someone to put this thing back together again? Like having my arms and legs asleep, just stuck in here since yesterday.” Another low whistle echoed over the speaker. “Got to be honest—almost lost it, bro.”

There was another flash from outside.

“This is a restricted government channel,” snapped Gibbs. He wasn’t sure if he’d activated the radio or not, but it seemed like the speaker could hear him. “You will identify yourself immediately.” His voice didn’t echo through the external speakers. They’d been shut off. He was trapped in the armor with no communication.

“Keep your panties on, G.I. Joe. Just gotta find St. George and Stealth and those guys.”

The battlesuit marched past Creed. The titan brought up its arms and tore through the doors like they were paper. It moved straight out into the sunshine and Creed followed behind with a handful of soldiers, shouting for the lieutenant to halt.

It broke into a run and Gibbs felt his arms and legs get pulled back and forth like a puppet. He had a creeping dread the battlesuit would move too far or too fast and leave him trapped inside with a bunch of broken bones. “How are you doing this?” he yelled. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m called the Driver,” said the voice, “and this, esse , is the coolest carjacking ever.”

It occurs to me , said Zzzap, that someone’s probably going to notice us up here.

The two heroes hovered a few hundred feet above the grid of Krypton, Sorensen tucked safely under St. George’s arm. They’d left the old reactor and leaped into the air. Now they were trying to find landmarks.

“No time for subtlety,” said St. George. “Who knows how long we’ve got before Peasy decides to start letting the exes loose on the base.”

We should’ve stuck to the rooftops. All good superheroes use the rooftops.

“There,” said Sorensen. “I believe that’s her workshop there.”

“You believe?” said the hero.

Sorensen tried to shrug. He wasn’t dealing well with hanging three hundred feet over the base. “That’s Dust Road there with the Tombs on either side,” he said, tracing the road with his finger, “and that should be Sand Street. Granted, I’ve never seen them from this angle before.”

They sank toward the ground. No one had shouted. St. George wasn’t sure how he was going to protect Sorensen if someone started shooting. “Looks clear,” he said. “This has almost been easy so far.”

Too easy?

“Maybe.” He looked back and forth over the empty streets. “Shouldn’t there be a couple hundred people out looking for us by now?”

“The soldiers are most likely doing training exercises,” said Sorensen. “They run laps each morning around the inside perimeter of the fence or spend time on the southern firing range.”

I don’t hear any gunshots, said Zzzap. And still, the alarm’s been raised. Why aren’t they manning the towers and using searchlights and all that?

“It’s broad daylight.”

I meant metaphorically. There’s been an alert for over half an hour now and I don’t see anyone anywhere.

“Here at the center of the base things are quite calm and peaceful. It’s why the labs are near the center. I can go whole days without seeing anyone else.”

St. George frowned. “Days?”

The doctor shrugged. “I keep to myself,” he said. He mopped his face with a handkerchief. “Are you sure Doctor Morris will be at her workshop?”