Crysis: Escalation (2 page)

‘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.

‘How do you fight a company? What? Do you want to go into the board room and start laying fire down?’ Prophet demanded.

‘If that’s what it takes,’ Psycho said firmly. Prophet checked the voice analysis again. Psycho was telling the truth. ‘Let’s go back to New York, finish what you
started. Let’s tear the heart out of CELL and shove it down their fucking throats.’

It was tempting. Not because Prophet believed like Psycho did. He really didn’t care who was in charge. It was tempting because it sounded like a life. As harsh, violent and short as it
might be, it sounded like something a human would do. But he knew that the images of what he had been shown, the future, would never stop playing through his head.

‘CELL aren’t the mission . . .’ Prophet started.

‘You were always a good little boy weren’t you, Prophet? Did what Hargreave told you after they got you out of that little jam. Has it occurred to you that they’ve done
something to you, in the suit, that makes you not want to go after CELL, to do as your told, behave?’

Prophet was across the room. He had Psycho by the neck and lifted the other man up. He started squeezing.

‘Do you know what they did to me!?’ he screamed, but as quickly as the rage had come it was gone. He dropped Psycho.

‘Nobody puts their fucking hands on me!’ Psycho raged, his suit flowing and preparing for battle. Prophet could see the Londoner was seconds away from going for him.

‘Psycho, I . . .’

Something changed. It took a moment for Prophet to work out what. There was something different in the rhythm of the town. It had just got quieter. He cycled through various comm frequencies.
Nothing. Even the company that handled the policing in Rovesky had gone quiet.

Dead lips smiled. A rictus grin. They were learning. Mainly about comms discipline, it would seem. He could hear engine noises now, the suit sorting, separating and analysing the sounds. Images
of the vehicles making the noise started to appear in his Heads-Up Display, effectively playing across his vision.

‘What?’

‘Here’s your chance,’ Prophet all but whispered.

Both of them heard the fire door battered open with a sound-dampened pneumatic ram several floors below. They heard boots on the stairs.

Psycho picked up his gauss rifle, quickly checking it.

Time to send the message
, Prophet thought. Every Macronet-connected comms device in Natasha’s House of Pleasure started chiming urgently as it received a priority text:
You
don’t know me, but I know you. Something very bad is about to happen. You all need to leave, now.

Even if they believed the message Prophet knew that there wasn’t going to be enough time for them to evac. It was going to go badly for the prostitutes, the regulars, the overseers and the
door staff he’d been living vicariously through for the last days. CELL wanted their toys back and in his case they wanted what was left of the corpse in it out, regardless of who was driving
the corpse’s head.

He stood up and started walking towards the skylight at the front of the building. It overlooked the junction of frozen muddy streets in front of the brothel. Cold blue light flooded the attic.
The suit’s visor darkened to compensate. Prophet could hear the roar of the VTOL keeping pace with him as he walked, its searchlight shining through the other skylights.

He should stealth now, he knew, Psycho already had, but before it started he just wanted them to see what they were dealing with. He wanted to know how frightened they were.

‘Here, Prophet, ever seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?’ Psycho asked over the suits’ comms.

He reached the skylight at the front of the building. He looked down onto the frozen streets. Perhaps he’d underestimated just how much CELL wanted the suit back, he thought. The street
outside was full. APCs, Bulldogs, Armoured Security Vehicles, at least four VTOLs in the air, slowly circling him, and a lot of soldiers. The HUD was showing a ridiculously target-rich environment
and all the weapons he could register, from SMGs to vehicle cannons to missiles, were pointed at the attic.

The glass broke as Prophet stepped through the skylight onto the ledge outside the attic. More searchlights stabbed up at him, fixing him in their glare as his visor darkened further. He could
hear amplified voices shouting at them. He found it absurd that for some reason their instructions were repeated in Russian.

Prophet took a long, slow look at the CELL forces. Then he started to move . . .

The Cult

Department of Antioquia, Northern Columbia, 2019, Operation Scarface (Joint Columbian, US and UK anti-Drugs Operation)

There’s a first time for everything. He remembered his first gunfight. He had been frightened but he had got through it; his training had overcome the fear. What was he
trying to prove here? The thought flew through his head. Along with:
I should have used the .45.

Cutting a throat isn’t a smooth slice, Barnes knew, you really had to do some sawing. As he’d emerged from the undergrowth the mercenary had started to turn. In the old days the
Medellin
and
Cali
cartels had used British, US and Israeli ex-military to train their people. This new breed of cartel used Eastern European mercenaries, many of them
ex-
Spetsnaz
, both to train their own gunmen and to augment their forces.

As Barnes wrapped himself around the man and took him to the ground to control his movement and started to saw at the throat he realised that the man really could fight. The mercenary knew what
to do in this situation, how to counter it, and knew that he desperately wanted to live. In short, Barnes’ silent takedown was not going nearly as well as he’d hoped.

Artery, artery, starve the brain of blood, windpipe, stop him crying out. Clamp down tight, stop fingers from getting in the way of the blade. He was all but riding the man around the small
clearing overlooking the Ferranto Valley and making enough noise to warn people in Bogotá that somebody was being murdered.

The cartel mercenary stopped moving. Lieutenant Laurence Barnes, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, did not stop sawing, not until he was positive that the mercenary was good and
dead. He sagged, covered in sweat, fighting for breath, his right arm coated in blood up to the elbow. It was his second mistake of the day.

The second mercenary moved quietly out of the jungle, assault rifle at the ready. The expression on his face didn’t even change as he took in the scene. The barrel of the mercenary’s
rifle swung towards Barnes as he frantically reached for his sidearm. Barnes knew he was not going to be quick enough. The cartel gunman had him cold. The mercenary’s face seemed to distort,
crumple in on itself. Then again, as the second near-silent round took him in the face. The hydrostatic shock popped the top of the mercenary’s head off. His ruined face became red and he hit
the ground.

Thank you Earl
, Barnes thought. He heard what sounded like two coughs from the nearby trees as at least one other cartel gunman died due to suppressed gunfire. He’d told himself
that he’d use the knife instead of the suppressed Heckler & Koch Mk 23 .45 automatic because of the chance of the muzzle flash warning other nearby elements of the Antioquia Cartel and
their FARC allies’ military forces. If he was honest, an element of using the knife had been because he wanted to bust his knife-kill cherry, and that came from a new lieutenant in Delta
Force wanting the respect of his people. Particularly as he’d come from 82nd Airborne and not Special Forces or the Rangers, as was more normal for Delta Force. It was a silly game to play at
this level, he admonished himself.

He rolled the mercenary off and got back in the game. He wiped his blade on the corpse and sheathed it. Kneeling down he brought the M4 CQB carbine up, accidentally smearing the blood of his
victim on the underslung 40mm M203 grenade launcher. He checked it quickly to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the struggle, but as far as he could tell it hadn’t.

Chavez appeared out of the treeline. She had her Mk 23 held steady in both hands, the suppressor attached to the barrel. Judging from where she had emerged it had been her shots Barnes had
heard. Chavez was probably average size for a woman but to Barnes she looked tiny. She looked too small for her load-out but she never seemed to have any problems keeping up. She was one of the few
women in the special forces community. Barnes knew that she would have had to work hard for acceptance, both as a woman and as a USAF combat air-controller. Combat Air Controllers were attached to
special forces units like Delta and the Navy’s SEALs to coordinate air support for their operations. In Afghanistan and Iraq there had been grouching from special forces units about whether
or not the Combat Air Controllers were trained to their standards and could keep up. Chavez, from what Barnes had seen, was completely accepted by D Squadron’s recce/sniper troop, certainly
more so than he was, judging by his current performance.

‘What’s up LT? I think you nearly cut his head off.’ T, short for Thomas, never Tom or Tommy, appeared next to Barnes. Barnes glanced at the sergeant, but there was no reproach
or judgement in the SAW gunner/medic’s eyes. Maybe some concern. He was the oldest of the four operators, in theory Barnes’s 2IC, but Barnes was happy to defer to the senior NCO on
operational matters whilst he played catch-up. Barnes had found the sergeant both friendly, which was sometimes unusual in the SF community, and a consummate professional. T had originally served
with 1st Special Forces before transferring to Delta. He never talked about his mother, but Barnes knew his father still worked for the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service in
Montana’s Oxbow Quadrangle near the Idaho/Canadian border.

‘Chavez and I took down another two in the trees. Earl got that one,’ T nodded at the second dead gunman in the clearing, ‘and he’s covering us on overwatch back
there,’ T nodded at some higher ground back in the treeline. Barnes just nodded. T was unscrewing his Mk 23’s suppressor and holstering the weapon. He readied his M249 Special Purpose
Weapon, the special forces variant of the army’s M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.