Animalis (13 page)

Jax stood straight and still. His finger began to tap against his palm behind his back.

Hernandez nodded. “It was the right thing. Hank is hard to deal with, but his ability to solve problems is remarkable. The two of you are both at the top of your class. He was your friend even before joining the army, is that correct?”

Jax nodded. “Yes, sir. We’re very close.”

He watched as the captain leaned to his right and reached to his desk beside him. When he pulled his hand back, he held a small marble figurine. It looked like a Greek maiden, raising her arms and face to the heavens, draped in a flowing, loose gown. The captain’s thick thumb passed over her face absentmindedly.

“Most people will never understand until they have killed an enemy before they had a chance to kill them—until you have had to watch friends die for your mistakes.” He turned the maiden over in his hand and gripped it tight. “When you have had to live for years with their faces appearing just when you think you have forgotten them. War can’t be won by idealistic boys that think war is a good, clean fight.” He loosened his grip and turned the maiden over and over in his hands. “This is not a playground game where you can say ‘Stop’ and run to a teacher if someone isn’t playing by the rules. These things are not people; they don’t have the moral conscience of people. They will kill and kill and kill until there are no more humans left to kill, and then they will kill each other.”

Hernandez glanced at Jax. “I was worried,” he said. “The way you left, made me think it had been too much. It is for some people. They reach the edge of their ability to serve, and they turn back on themselves.”

Jax stopped tapping his finger and changed the position of his hands.

“Isn’t that what happened to your father?” The captain looked up at Jax.

Jax swallowed and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice caught: “My … father? He—Yes, he came back home.”

“But he had lost his arm. Was that enough? You grew up with the other military families. If that was all he had left in him, that was enough, right?”

Jax shook his head, remembering the shame he had held for his father when he had come home. That was when he had started getting into fights at school, with the boys who thought Jax would run away like his father.

All the adults had said that it was alright, though. His mother’s friends were always coming over. They’d pat him on the head and tell him his father had done a good job. It was better to have him home, they said—that he should be so proud of him. But it had all just been polite reassurances.

Everyone that gave up and weaseled their way home early lost their honor. His dad had been given the option to continue serving with an artificial limb, but he chose to come home instead. He still got a new arm once he’d returned, and it didn’t hold him back.

“Don’t you want to be just like your daddy when you get older?” the ladies would ask Jax. “Oh, you look just like him.”

Jax had said “No!” once, but the ladies just laughed. “You’ve got your hands full, Kelly. He’s just like his daddy.”

So Jax had just ignored them and moved to another room to play.

“You’re a good soldier, Jax,” Hernandez said when Jax didn’t reply. “You’ve got instincts like your father. You can be proud of that. He deserved the honors he received.” He set the maiden back on his desk. “I want to hear that you aren’t going to run away again.”

Jax opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded.

“Say it with me,” Hernandez said. “I’m not going to run away again.”

Jax took a deep breath. It was what Jax had already committed to; he shouldn’t need to say it. The ache in Jax’s chest came back—the point of his mother’s finger against his sternum.

“I’m not going to run away,” he said, ignoring the ache.

“I’m not going to leave my unit,” the captain said.

“I’m not going to leave my unit.”

“I’m not going to quit.”

“I’m not going to quit.”

“I’m going to follow orders,” Hernandez said with finality.

Jax stopped. He didn’t want to say it. Now was the time to tell the captain he was wrong to order those killings.
I can’t … I can’t do that again. They didn’t deserve to die
—their faces, the bodies falling to the floor, because he had chosen to pull the trigger. He wouldn’t be able to ask Grimshaw to wash him clean again, even though he knew she would do it for him, as many times as he needed.

But he couldn’t back down from what he had committed to. He wouldn’t quit. To keep moving, he would shut out the protests in his mind.

“I’m going to follow orders,” he said.

The captain nodded. He stood from the chair. “Not everything in the army is as difficult as what you are facing right now, Jax. You’re doing a good job.”

Jax nodded and then saluted. Hernandez returned the salute, then the colors on the wall faded and the face of the captain flattened out and disappeared.

When Jax stepped out of the hall and into the second cabin, Hank apparently had finished telling Grimshaw about the pyramid. Now Hank stood there, turning the flight suit around in his hand, checking the five-point harness, while Grimshaw watched him, shaking her head. Four heavy cylinders weighted down the edges of the flight suit, and Jax noticed a large section of power cells on the back. Hank looked up and glanced at Jax, but his expression appeared stony.

Grimshaw kept shaking her head and finally said, “Please, try not to kill anything. Human or Animalis. You just need to destroy the pyramid and get out.”

Hank turned to her. “What? Weren’t you listening? We’re not going to destroy the pyramid. We have to save it to understand it. It’s where the next battlefield is going to be, and we’ll be defenseless without it.”

Grimshaw snorted a laugh. “Seriously? You think that the military is going to just hand it over to science? They’ll use it, Hank! And not just to stop the war. They’ll use it on anyone that threatens them—human or Animalis.” Grimshaw eyes showed an intensity that Jax hadn’t seen in them before. Then her focus seemed to drift from the moment, and she stared through Hank at something in her own mind. “They tried before, to kill them, in the forties. There were great big colonies of Animalis across Russia. When the first militant attacks started happening, the military wiped them out, whole cities at a time.”

“We’re going in to get it, not destroy it,” Hank said, coming to stand beside Jax.

Hank looked at him while he spoke, and Jax felt the cold sting within his heart again.

Grimshaw looked at Jax with a solemn expression. Her eyes held his for a moment, until Jax looked away. “Alright. You’re right. It’s not my place to decide.” She turned back to Hank. “But, please, if it is what you think it is, it needs to be destroyed. Before anyone else finds out. It would be the worst weapon the world has ever seen.”

Hank stepped away from Grimshaw and held up the flight suit for Jax to see. “While the other units come in from the street, we’ll land on the roof and enter from there. Hernandez doesn’t want you put into any danger, Miss Grimshaw, so I’ll ask you to stay out of it.”

She nodded.

“Jax,” Hank said, “you and I are going to arrive first and try to disable any cargo transports before they can leave.” He picked up the laser rifle he had brought back and held it out for Jax to take. “Rounding up anyone who flees will be second priority. All that matters is getting that pyramid.” He pushed the gun closer to Jax. “Are you ready to go?”

Jax wanted to protest. Maybe long enough for the other units to finish the job without them. If he went out there again, he wouldn’t be able to escape again, run away like he did the last time. Could he do it? Kill again? If it meant it would stop the Animalis from using the pyramid? If it meant preventing a terrorist attack from the Animalis?

“I’m ready,” Jax said, and he took the weapon.

Chapter 9

Narasimha

The afternoon air should have felt like freedom. Jax’s short brown hair tossed and bounced, flattening against his scalp. The wind drowned out all other noise, creating a steady, powerful hiss in his ears. His stomach had reached an equilibrium between fright and exhilaration from the high altitude, sending a constant tingle through his body. With the four powerful superconducting fans propelling him from his back, he could imagine what it might feel like to be a bird. It would be wonderful.

Hank was holstered securely to Jax’s chest, grabbing onto the harness straps like his life depended on it.

The city curved and spread along the edge of the bay, where the red earth melted into the green-blue ocean. Hank had fed the location to Jax’s retina monitor, and the icon hovered above a building near the edge of the port city. Along the short flight, Jax had resisted talking about the shootout, or what the captain had said to him. He still wasn’t comfortable admitting all that had happened. But something still disturbed him about it.

Jax messaged Hank:

One thing that has been bothering me is why there was a human working with the Animalis in that factory. Did you see him?

Hank’s reply came quickly:

Yes, I saw him. It’s not too surprising. I think he was one of the people profiting from the Animalis conflict. Those were probably his shipments of weapons that the Animalis had. I’ve heard of humans being tried for crimes against humanity for helping them.

The building was almost underneath them. Jax pushed the thoughts of the Animalis out of his mind. Feelings that he had felt earlier that day started to come back to him. The painful, vulnerable dread that he could be shot at any moment. Overlooking a simple detail, moving when he should have been holding still, or not reacting fast enough … His body was starting to ache from the tension the fear created. It was nothing like the military’s training he had been through. A sergeant’s constant degrading screams were unnerving and infuriating, but having his fragile life exposed, naked, before his enemy was different. How could he have prepared for it?

The hiss of the wind diminished as they began to descend. Jax would have to execute the landing perfectly to not send sound waves through the warehouse that would give away their landing spot. Their legs would be useless after having a hot shaft of laser bore up through their heels.

The controls for the flight suit were linked to a small headband, which listened to signals from his brain. Jax pushed his mind up, an urge to resist falling, and the fans slowed their descent.

He set down, with the subtlest tap, near the south wall of the building. Below them sat the garage bays and, if it was the same layout as the last building, a line of second-story offices they could drop down on top of.

Hank released himself from the harness and stumbled forward. Jax caught him before he fell, but it sent an uncomfortably loud squeak reverberating into the air from his shoes sliding against the surface of the roof. Jax motioned for Hank to move with a wave of his hand. The two of them lightly crept away from the spot the squeak had emanated from.

Jax messaged Hank:

Run your ICT scan.

Hank’s face was growing pale. He nodded and pulled the tool from his pocket. Holding it close to the rooftop, he swung the scanner from right to left.

While Hank did the scan, Jax removed the flight suit. He set it down lightly and pulled the laser rifle from around his chest.

Hank sent the scan and the image came into Jax’s monitor. The building was well shielded, blocking out the scanner’s gamma rays after three meters. It was just enough to see that there was a platform they could drop down to when they needed to enter the building.

First, Jax would cut a hole, and then disable any cargo transports. Once that was done, Gillian’s unit on the ground would send in gas grenades to knock out any Animalis that were too slow to escape in time. The ones that fled would be stopped by the three units surrounding the building.

Hank gave a thumbs-up, and Jax cut a large hole, then pulled it away to reveal the layer of insulation beneath it. After he’d cut through that, he removed the material. The last cut was small, just big enough for Jax to aim through.

Jax put away his laser tool and peeked in. The building looked similar to the fish warehouse. He saw rows of large refrigeration boxes, and conveyor belts with Animalis watching for product defects. Their heads turned from side to side, looking at each other, the fish on the belt, the front of the building, back to the fish. The offices were lined up beside the garage doors, and one cargo transport sat parked in front of the doors.

It wouldn’t take much damage to disable the transport, but getting through the protective outer layer would take several precise shots to the same location. Then, when the computer detected damage, it wouldn’t risk allowing it to travel on the roads.

Jax aimed the rifle at the edge of the transport and fired. The material glowed red, then the color spread out and diminished. Before the color disappeared, he fired again. Again and again, till the material stopped sending the heat away and grew black. He kept firing until the first power cell in the gun was drained. The last mark glowed with a bright ring, showing the laser had penetrated the armor. Before signaling Hank, Jax scanned the warehouse a second time. He saw no other transports.

Jax gave Hank the signal. A moment later, Jax heard the sound of glass breaking in the warehouse. Then came frightened cries from the workers. Jax looked through his peephole and saw that the gas grenades were doing their job, filling the room with smoke. Doors below them opened with a flurry of running and shouting. Out on the street, they could hear shouts of commands from their units. It sounded like some of the fleeing Animalis had made it past their barricade.

Jax cut a larger hole, preparing to drop in and search the building once the commotion stopped. When he pulled the section of roof away, the chemical fog in the warehouse was already beginning to dissipate. The machines were still going, humming and sending packaged fish along the conveyor belts, but the remaining workers had all fallen unconscious a few yards from their stations.

Hank held Jax’s arms and lowered him down. He could feel the office roof with the tip of his shoe. He messaged Hank:

Drop me.

Hank’s grip loosened and Jax slid down, crouching to cushion his impact. Before reaching up to help Hank down, he peered over the edge of the roof he had landed on, checking the warehouse floor below. The fog had cleared to a gentle haze. Jax’s eyes detected a swirl in the vapor, still curling from some recent movement.

Jax lifted his rifle, following the movement. It led behind a refrigerator. More movement—dashing across a section of floor and into the back of the cargo transport. It was white and ghost-like in the fog.

He messaged Hank:

Someone’s still moving in here.

“Jax.”

Hank’s voice sounded like a whispered hiss from the hole above—and there was a strange tone to his voice. Jax stepped back to listen.

“I can’t … I can’t come down,” Hank whispered. “You have instincts I just don’t have. If I go down there, I’ll … I’ll die, Jax. I know it.”

Jax shook his head.
Huh?
Hank actually sounded frightened.

“That … That badger didn’t even have a gun,” Hank said, “and I panicked when it found me. But you … oh man, you tore the place apart like it was nothing. I thought I could make it up by bringing that hyena back, and finding where they went. And I couldn’t … I couldn’t even think clearly doing that.”

Jax didn’t want to risk speaking aloud, so he messaged:

You got us here! We would have lost it without you. But there’s no time to argue. I’ll message you when I find where it’s going.

Jax sent the message, and a moment later, Hank’s head moved away from the hole, then Jax saw the missing piece of roof snug back into the hole he’d cut. Jax grimaced. This wasn’t going even close to plan—and now it was all on him?

Focus. Just focus!

He looked around. He had one more task before they could secure the premises. The exhaustion from more than a full day of intense stress, though, was taking its toll on him. Jax could feel his body tingling and his skin going numb. It felt almost like he was getting sick.

Jax climbed down from the office and landed on the floor, crumpling in a useless heap. He pulled himself up and took a deep breath.
You’ll make it,
he thought. He took another breath and held it. With a quick jerk, he shook his arms and head. The feeling of movement was refreshing. As he let the breath out, he felt his focus returning.

On the floor below, the gas had dissipated enough that it wouldn’t knock him out. He crept down the stairs and walked through the warehouse, following after the movement he had seen from above. He stepped past the bodies and came around to the back of the cargo transport truck.

The rear hatch of the transport truck was open, creating a wide ramp down to the floor. Jax continued to breath slowly, not letting his imagination take over with the deadly scenarios that lay waiting for him around the corner. Rifle raised, he crept forward to look in, but didn’t step onto the ramp yet.

His retina monitor showed the interior to be ten feet wide and forty feet deep, and it looked like the transport held an enormous load. In the cargo hold, Jax saw some of the same white crates, and others that bulged with strange angles. Near the back of the space, a smooth, metal, triangular point reached nearly to the ceiling.

The pyramid,
Jax guessed.

Something shifted inside, moving behind the first row of the crates. His ears picked up a sniffing sound. A second later, yellow eyes popped up and looked at Jax.

“Don’t move,” Jax ordered. He stepped onto the ramp, walking slowly toward the eyes.

“You found me.” It was a smooth, low, feminine voice. The individual sniffed the air. “You were at my warehouse, human.”

To Jax, the voice had a vibrational quality to it—a mix between a growl and a purr. As he came closer and his eyes adjusted to the low-light interior, he could see that it was the lioness—Narasimha.

“Stay where you are. Slowly show me your hands,” Jax said.

The face followed him as he moved closer. Jax started to make out the details he had seem from the arena video … and they were far more terrifying in person. What commanded Jax’s attention weren’t the muscles, which were thick, defined, and more powerful than any on Jax’s body—but the movements … They were small, and controlled, hinting at a tidal wave of strength being held back.

“I’ll show you my hands,” she said, “but what you should really be looking for is my claws.”

As her hands lifted, her appearance transformed, increasing in intimidation. She could have been a gladiator preparing to defend herself while her hands were at her sides, a queen encircling her dominion while her arms rose wide, and a goddess ready to cast down lightning as her hands towered above Jax.

He had wanted to see her hands to verify that she had no weapon. The hands were indeed empty—but he now realized that she still had a weapon.
She
was a weapon: powerful, intimidating, lethal. Standing in front of her, Jax could see himself as the disheveled human from the video, hopelessly doomed to be devoured in her arena. The distance between them, he knew, was inadequate in terms of a safe zone for him.

An alert began beeping and the hatch Jax stood on started to lift. They were closing the door. Jax had to move before he lost his footing on the rising angle of the door.

He figured he’d be safe on the outside, protected from an attack from the lioness. But then she would have the pyramid, protected by the armor of the cargo transport. Hank needed a situation report:

Narasimha is here. I’m holding her inside the transport. The pyramid is here.

He sent the message as he walked down the slope of the rising door—right into the lair of the lioness. He didn’t have time to wait for an answer from Hank; he had to trust his instincts.

Jax’s eyes stayed on the lioness as he moved, watching her head turn to the side and her arms lower back down. He had to stay focused on her to make sure she didn’t move. Even the slightest movement from her position—

She’s moving!
Jax felt his insides twist with the realization. He tightened his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. His mind, though, felt slow, crippled from the effects of adrenaline from the day.

Wait …
She wasn’t moving toward him. Her body turned away and she walked farther into the cargo hold.

“You’re slow, human. I could have killed you. Maybe I still will. I don’t think you will shoot me, like you did my people. You reek of fear.” She purred. “Hmm … Yes. It was your first time, I think? Ahh … Your heart is racing. But that gets me excited.”

Jax’s heart
was
racing. Could she have killed him? Deep down, he knew it was true. Now it made him freeze; he couldn’t risk giving the lioness another chance like that. And it had only been a moment, his focus shifting to his own footing instead of her.