Peter Clines - Ex-Patriots

St. George brought his fists down like hammers and shattered two skulls, then swung them out to break two more. The dead things pushed at the fence line. Close to fifty of them threw their weight at the innermost gate.

He looked back at the soldiers. “Come on,” he shouted. “Help me clear the damned gate! Line up and take your shots.”

“THEY’RE TOO SCARED,” said the exes. “I BEEN WATCHIN’ FOR MONTHS. THESE SOLDIER BOYS ARE GREEN AND YELLOW.” The dead things broke into another fit of laughter.

St. George sucked in air and sprayed flames out onto the exes. It burned hair and melted eyes. Some of the brittle clothes and skin caught fire. They flailed and stumbled back for a moment. Then their teeth started chattering again and the dead things shambled forward. He swept his arm in front of him and broke skulls, jaws, and necks.

It made enough of a gap for him to grab one side of the gate and push it two feet more closed. That got him close enough to grab the other section and yank at it. He heaved them together, crushing exes between them, and a smell reached his nose. Just beneath the scent of burnt hair and flesh was metallic smoke.

The soldier by the keypad freaked out. “The motors,” MacLeod yelled. “They burnt out the motors for the gate!”

“I can close it,” shouted St. George. “Just take down a few of them!”

Something heavy stomped up behind him, and two massive hands clanged against the pipes lining the gate. Servos hummed and Cerberus pushed the two halves of the gate together. Exes crumpled and burst between the chainlink panels.

“See?” crowed the battlesuit. “Told you I could do good stuff, St. George. You shoulda had more faith in me.”

“Cesar?” St. George looked at the huge eyes looming over him. “Is that you?”

“Damn straight,” said the titan. It turned and pressed itself against the gate, using its bulk to hold the two sections shut. The exes reached through the chainlink with pale fingers that scrabbled on the armor plates.

“How the hell did you get here?”

“Was easy, man,” said the battlesuit. “Knew you guys would need me, cause everyone knows you can’t trust the government, right?” He slurred the word into goverrment . “So I switched into the helicopter while we were loading the suit up back at the Mount. Then I snuck out of the helicopter into a jeep, and then she picked the jeep up with the suit and I was in. It was that easy. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

The titan shrugged and its shoulders scraped on the chainlink fence. “I was going to once we were all alone, see, but Stealth kept hanging around with Doctor Morris and then she shut the suit off and it made me, like, sedated, y’know?”

“Where the fuck are the Gatekeepers?” bellowed one of the soldiers. He looked at Barracks Eight a hundred yards away. “It’s been over ten minutes since the perimeter alarms went off.”

One man with sergeant’s stripes and the name STEWART separated himself from the others. “Yates, Benton,” he snapped, “go find out what the hell is taking them so long. The rest of you take up positions. You know the drill—single shot, pick your targets, now move.” He glared at St. George and whispered something into his radio.

“Hey,” said the battlesuit. There was a squawk from the speakers and Cesar’s next words were a metallic whisper. The armored skull nodded at the sergeant. “I can hear that guy talking in my head. They’re coming for us, man. We gotta split.”

* * *

Freedom and his squad burst from the old reactor complex and double-timed it across the base. Their pace would’ve made Olympic sprinters jealous. It didn’t feel fast enough.

“Unbreakable Twenty-two,” he snapped into his radio. “This is Unbreakable Six.”

“Unbreakable Six, this is Twenty-two,” came the reply.

“Twenty-two, this is Six,” said Freedom. “Main gate, double-time. Hostiles inside and out.”

“Six, this is Twenty-two. Understood. ETA five minutes.”

It was going to take him six minutes to get all the way back across the base. Smith had suggested checking on Zzzap, and sure enough the electrical man was out. Sorensen was missing, too. He was supposed to be helping the base medics take care of Shelly. According to the soldiers on guard duty at the old reactor, the doctor had sided with the heroes. He’d led St. George there and helped free the prisoner.

Freedom tried to think of himself as a rational man. It was one of his strengths as an officer. He knew hate was an irrational emotion. Nevertheless, there were things he hated. Cowardice was one. Betrayal was another. And he couldn’t think of a worse form of betrayal than treason.

It was one of the few things he had in common with Smith.

The agent had delivered the bad news. Shelly was not doing well. The colonel was hanging on, but his injuries were too great. “He may end up comatose,” Smith had said. “Can you believe that?”

Freedom’s grip tightened on his Bravo, and he felt the comfortable weight of Lady Liberty on his hip. The superbeings from Los Angeles—he couldn’t call them heroes anymore—were going to pay for what they’d done here.

* * *

St. George leaped thirty feet and landed next to a sign warning all visitors to declare weapons and electronics. He ripped the metal sign post out of the ground. His fingers crumbled the concrete mass at the end like a lump of dried mud. “Cesar, listen to me,” he said, soaring back to the fence. “You want to be part of the team, right?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Here’s what I need you to do.” He bent the post into a large U shape. The sign got in the way so he broke the rivets and tore it off the post. “I need you to find Danielle,” he said. “Doctor Morris. Head back to the workshop. If you find her, your job is to keep her safe. Got it?”

“Got it? What about everyone else?”

He pushed the U through one side of the gate. “If you find soldiers in trouble, help them out. If you find exes, just kill them.”

The titan’s head tilted. “Kill ‘em? All on my own?”

St. George looked up at the armored skull as he worked the sign post around and out the other side of the gate. “While you’re in that suit you’ve got as much armor as a tank and you can rip a Hummer apart with your bare hands. You can handle exes with no problem.”

“Right,” said the titan. “Okay. Still gettin’ used to this. What if I see Zzzap or Stealth?”

“Tell Zzzap to make sure your batteries are good. If he asks, tell him…” He tried to think of a good code phrase while he twisted the signpost like an oversized garbage tie. The posts of the gate squealed and bent in until they touched. “Tell him I said you’re five by five.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s from one of his favorite shows. He made me watch four seasons’ worth of it. He’ll know what it means.”

“Okay. And Stealth?”

For a moment he considered telling Cesar to stay at the gate, but he knew the kid would be more useful searching the base. “Stealth can take care of herself,” he said. “Don’t worry about her. Find Danielle, find Zzzap, keep as many people safe as you can.”

The gate was holding for now. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to open it soon. Close to a hundred exes lined the inner fence, with more pouring through the open outer gates. The soldiers had fallen into a good rhythm and bodies were piling up almost as fast as they trickled in.

Almost as fast.

He banged the titan on the shoulder. “Get going.”

The battlesuit gave him a thumbs up and charged away. St. George spotted Stewart. “Sergeant,” he yelled, “shouldn’t you have reinforcements by now?”