Ex-Patriots (21 page)

Again, training kicks in. Discussing tactics
right in front of the enemy in a loud voice. It feels wrong. It’s
hard to take it seriously.

“Section Twenty-one then Eleven,” I told
them. “You heard the captain. Hop, skip, and a jump. Line up and
make it snappy.”

Another burst of gunfire from the ground.
Section Thirty-one had a steady stream of exes coming at them from
two directions. Their support section of Real Men moved in and laid
down more fire. Some of the dead things shifted course for the
sound. Most of them kept heading for Twenty-two and the sections
falling back.

Hayes, Polk, and Taylor moved bang, bang,
bang. SUV, station wagon, minivan, minivan, SUV, Lexus. All three
were safe and some of the exes were still raising their arms. Too
slow to get them, too slow to shift targets. Sergeant Harrison gave
them a moment to make sure they were clear. Then he moved.

Franklin, Truman, and Jefferson from
Twenty-one were next. Truman’s foot slipped on the second SUV and
he stumbled for a moment. In that moment I pictured Jefferson
slamming into him from behind and both of them falling down into a
crowd of exes. I don’t think I was the only one picturing it.
Truman went with it, though. Threw himself forward again with the
stumble. He pretty much hit the Lexus on all fours and pushed
himself off as hard and fast as he could. Shoved himself back into
the air with his arms. Right there, super-strength paying for
itself with one life. He hit the ground by Twenty-two face first
and rolled away before Jefferson landed on him. Sergeant Monroe hit
the ground a few seconds later.

It left me, Captain Freedom, and Unbreakable
Seventeen—Platoon Sergeant Kennedy—on top of the truck. She’s
another damn fine soldier. “Ladies first,” I told her.

Her lips twisted from a scowl to a tight
grin. “With all due respect,” she said, “screw you, First
Sergeant.”

“Noted,” I said. “Get yourself down
there.”

“Nosebleed.” I gave her a blank look. She
mimed wiping her upper lip and pointed the finger at me. “You’re
leaking, Top.”

My glove came back red when I wiped it across
the bottom of my nose. I didn’t remember getting hit or bumping
anything. Damn air’s so dry out here. I wiped it again and pointed
Kennedy off the truck.

She jumped down to the first SUV. It was a
little tougher for her. The exes were already gathered around the
cars, already had their hands up. And there were a lot more of them
making their way through the pile-up. She was fast, though. Bang,
bang, bang. They reached for her. They grabbed air every time.

“After you, Paine,” said Freedom.

“After you, sir.”

“It’s getting tight. You should go next.”

“Sir,” I told him, “don’t make me push
you.”

He gave me a look and launched himself into
the air. The truck’s shocks squealed as it rocked. He hit the
pavement right next to Monroe.

Freedom turned to check on me. I saw his face
shift. I looked to see what he was seeing.

The exes had figured out the way around the
wall of cars. That’s too generous. Don’t want to over-estimate the
enemy. They’d figured out a way around the same way water figures
out how to get out of the sink when you leave the tap running. They
just started spilling off the road and into the fields on the south
side of the road. It had been a couple dozen when I first looked.
It was a hundred, easy, already. Just like a sink.

Section Thirty-one was closest to that flank.
They were laying down fire while Twelve moved back in to give them
some support. I could see a couple of them twitching and called out
a stand your ground to Sergeant Boyle of Thirty-one.

Then someone in the section flipped their
rifle to burst. I saw the chest of one dead man ripple just below
its neck. The next burst came a moment later. It was a little
higher and tore through the corpse’s neck. Its head hung by a flap
of skin and muscle for a few seconds and then tore loose. The
zombie fell over.

“Unbreakable Thirty-one,” I said, “this is
Seven. Controlled burst only.”

Another burst of fire from Thirty-one. And
another. Section Twelve was in position and now they were firing
big, long bursts from their Bravos.

“Unbreakables Thirty-one and Twelve, this is
Seven. Single shot only. Boyle, Washington, get your soldiers under
control.” I tried to map another path across the abandoned cars,
then saw Freedom was already heading that way with most of
Eleven.

Then I made my mistake. I jumped for the SUV,
then to the station wagon. At the second minivan, though, I
switched course. I cut across to a pickup. Then up onto a different
SUV. From there to a Volkswagen. I needed to get back to Freedom
before he did anything foolish. Officers are good at that
sometimes. No offense to any officers reading this.

I shouldn’t’ve changed the plan. I don’t know
what made me do it. Deciding to change objectives in the middle of
the plan is stupid. It gets people killed.

A hand grabbed my ankle on the Volkswagen. I
yanked out of instinct. Out of training. It threw me off. My next
leap landed me right in the middle of a good-sized group of exes.
They were so focused on Twelve they didn’t notice me. I was on my
feet and pushing through them in a second.

Then they grabbed me from behind.

I slogged forward, trying to get as far away
from those dead things as I could. Their skin’s like old paper.
Gives me the creeps. Two of them dropped off while I ran. One hung
on and ran straight into the butt of Sgt. Washington’s Bravo. The
front of its skull just caved in.

Exes were overwhelming our flank. Section
Thirty-one had gotten it under control with Freedom there, but
they’d let the corpses get too close. It was turning into a close
quarters fight, and that’s not where you want to be with these
things.

I charged in to get by the captain. He’d
pulled out Lady Liberty, that monster sidearm he’d made from an
AA-12, and was turning skulls into mush. Washington’s soldiers were
using their Bravos like clubs. I saw a few heads go flying.

Someone from Thirty-one screamed. Specialist
Richards. One of the last ones to wash out of the program. She’d
been bitten on the hand, right through her glove. A corporal
reached to pull her back. He got grabbed himself. Half a dozen
hands latched on and pulled him into the crowd of exes. I couldn’t
see him, but I could hear him screaming. Freedom fought his way
there. By the time he made it he was too late.

I shattered an ex’s knee with my boot and
broke its neck as it spun to the ground. Lady Liberty’s drum was
empty, so Freedom was using those big hams he called fists,
throwing punches that’d put any prizefighter to shame. He broke
necks and cracked skulls with every one.

A call came from Unbreakable Twenty-seven,
Sergeant Johnson. All other squads had embarked and they were
pulling up transport for us. Five minutes of fighting later and we
were all in or on a Humvee.

We’d barely made it a mile past the city
limits. We’d lost eleven soldiers. Eight Real Men, three supers.
Half our ammo was gone. Freedom called the retreat and it killed
him to say it. You could see it on his face.

Of course, we weren’t even halfway back and I
started feeling sick. Tried to ignore it but Freedom took a good
look at me and called up Franklin, the medic from Eleven. He gave
me a good once-over. He found the scrape on the back of my neck,
right between the collar and the back of my helmet. Teeth marks.
Shallow ones. Just deep enough to draw blood. I’d been so amped up
I hadn’t felt a thing.

It was my own fault. I must be clear on this
point, again, for the record. I was disobeying orders by deviating
from the path Captain Freedom had laid out for us. He is in no way
to blame for any of this.

Freedom gave me the news himself. They’d
counted over thirty different infections in my blood. Spread all
through me because of this awesome, over-muscled heart I’ve got. If
they treat all of them, the cures will kill me. If they pick and
choose, there’s a good chance I’ll end up crippled or useless. Or
dead anyway.

I’ve had tubes in me for nine days now. Got
caught up on all my paperwork. Three days ago my hands started
shaking too much to write with a pen. Sorensen’s man dug around and
found me a laptop no one was using. Wanted to make sure he couldn’t
get me anything else.

Yesterday, I had to start taking breaks while
I used the laptop. I’ve been working on this last report since
oh-six-hundred and it’s dinnertime now. I’m nauseous and tired all
the time, even though they switched out my bags. And my nose is
bleeding non-stop now. My ears, too. All this stuff they’ve done to
us, but no one here can stop a nosebleed.

This is a siege now. I saw the fences when we
drove in. Heck, they gave me a bed near a window. I can’t see out,
but I can hear them. I can hear their teeth.

I know I’m never getting out of this bed. I’m
going to lay here and use up resources until I croak. So the real
question is, how long am I going to be the weak link? How long will
I hold back the company and eat up supplies they’re going to
need?

I’ve had a few visitors. Most of them are
polite and formal. One of them was good enough to get what I need
from my quarters. I haven’t checked, but I can tell by the weight
it doesn’t have a full magazine.

That’s okay.

NOW

The exes staggered forward. Cerberus swept aside the
first wave and the air crackled around her fists as the stun fields
ignited. She shouted over her shoulder, “Those of you with weapons,
forward! Everyone else get back!”

One of the first exes, a young man with a
gaping hole in his cheek, stumbled over the battlesuit’s toes and
fell headfirst against the armored shin. Cerberus grabbed a dead
man’s shoulder and threw the ex back through the mob. It knocked
over a dozen other shambling forms before slamming into the back
wall of the garage. Next to the titan, Stealth had already broken
two skulls with her batons.

“Hold position,” shouted Freedom. His voice
echoed between the buildings.

The exes stopped. A few of them were
off-balance in mid-stride and fell over. They lay still on the
ground.

A few seconds later they still weren’t
moving.

“What the hell just happened?” growled
Cerberus.

“They’re programmed to move out when the door
to their Tomb opens,” said Shelly. “They just needed a
counter-order.”

Stealth still had her batons up.
“Programmed?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

The armored titan took a step back. “These
are, what... domesticated exes?”

Freedom gave her a nod. “More or less, Doctor
Morris.”

“Cerberus.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” The huge officer stepped
forward, lifted a fallen ex by the scruff of it neck, and set it
down on its feet. It made no attempt to grab him. It didn’t do
anything.

“They are not moving their jaws,” said
Stealth.

Smith nodded. “It’s one of the first
behaviors Doctor Sorensen eliminated,” he said. “No more chattering
teeth. Also helps us tell ours from the feral ones.”

The exes were dressed in Army uniforms. A few
had tan t-shirts or tanks. On the ones with ACU jackets, the ranks
were stripped off, leaving fuzzy patches of exposed velcro. Now
that they weren’t moving, Cerberus could see they were standing in
loose rows and columns. There were a hundred and fifty of them
here, all standing immobile. They were shaved bald, no matter what
their gender had been. A few had bristle across their scalps, and
she remembered reading somewhere that hair and nails kept growing
for a few days after death. She’d never considered if it applied to
exes or not.

“You called this a Tomb,” she said.

Freedom nodded. “Where we keep all our
unknown soldiers.”

Above the left ear, each of them had a green
plastic housing the size of a box of cigarettes. There was dried
blood where the screws went into the skull. A bundle of thin wires
spread out from the housing to a handful of sockets across the bare
scalp.

The crackling stun fields deactivated. The
armored titan took a step forward and looked at the closest ex, the
one Freedom had placed back on its feet. Stealth was already there.
They could see its teeth through the gaping hole in its cheek.

The cloaked woman reached up and squeezed the
edges of the green box. The front panel popped off in her hand,
revealing an array of circuitry and LEDs.

“Careful,” said Shelly. “Damage that and
you’ll have a killer on your hands.”

“Perhaps these components should not be in an
unsealed housing,” said Stealth.

“Not much to it,” said Cerberus. The titan
had dropped to one knee and bent close to the dead man. “A few
flash memory cards, micro-transistors, batteries...” The thick
metal finger traced wires for a few moments before the armored
skull turned to Freedom. “This thing lets you control them?”

“Sir,” Smith said to the colonel, “perhaps I
should see if Doctor Sorensen can spare some time away from his
current work?”

“Please do, Mr. Smith. The captain and I will
answer as best we can in the meantime.”

Smith adjusted his tie, gave a quick smile up
at the Cerberus armor, and headed out the door. One of the
sergeants followed him.

“Company,” called Freedom. “About face.”

There was a pause, and the undead shifted
with a thump of boots.

“Five paces, march.”

The exes took five stumbling steps and
stopped again.

“About face.”

Stealth stiffened. Even with the armor,
Danielle’s reaction was apparent. The colonel glanced at them.
“Something wrong?”

“Last time we saw a bunch of exes moving in
sync,” said the titan, “it didn’t... it didn’t work out well for
one of our friends.”