Ex-Patriots (37 page)

The hero’s face hardened. “You’ve got
Stealth? Where?”

“Last chance to surrender, sir.” He held the
Bravo out at arm’s length.

“
You know that can’t hurt me,
right?”

“I do, sir,” said Freedom. “We’re going to do
this one the old-fashioned way.”

Kennedy slammed the steel stock of her rifle
between the hero’s shoulder blades. The shock staggered St. George
more than anything. He turned and she cracked him across the jaw
with the weapon. His head snapped around and Franklin’s fist
smacked into his face.

The super-soldiers closed in on the hero.

NOW

Zzzap had circled the base three times. Exes were
stumbling out of the hills and traipsing across miles of sand. The
wide open space made their numbers look like a lot less, but he
knew he was seeing hundreds and hundreds of them. In another hour
or two, at a guess, there’d be over five thousand of them
surrounding the base.

There were tons of them inside, too. He’d
incinerated a dozen exes (and the corner of a building) with one
blast and swung down to fly straight through a group of about
twenty by the base’s post exchange. Most of them were left with
cauterized stumps on top of their shoulders. The skull of one
exploded like a grenade when he hit its cochlear implant. He shook
for a minute afterwards.

He also couldn’t spot Danielle or Stealth
anywhere. Stealth didn’t surprise him, but not being able to find
Danielle was bothersome. It was so rare to see her out of the
armor, especially when he was Zzzap, he wasn’t sure he even knew
what she looked like.

And he was starving. He almost never got
hunger pangs in the energy form. It didn’t bode well for when he
became solid again.

Yeah, I know,
he said to no one in
particular. The wraith stopped in mid-air and glared off to the
east.
Look, why don’t you do something useful and figure out
where Danielle is?

After a moment he let out a buzzing sigh and
continued along the fence line. He rounded the north-east corner of
the base and saw the Cerberus armor. It was stomping down a back
alley between one of the lab buildings and the hospital. Going off
its body language, the titan looked lost and annoyed.

It wasn’t Danielle inside, that was for sure.
The suit might look the same in visible light, but Zzzap saw a
handful of things that were wrong. The heat signature was
different, the reactive sensors were shimmering in an odd way, and
there was a strange electromagnetic haze around every system.

He flitted down just as the battlesuit
stepped out into the street that ran alongside the eastern fence.
Hey,
he said,
did you ask anyone before you took that out
of your mom’s closet?

The helmet tilted up to look at him. “Bro,”
it cheered. “Man, am I glad to see you.”

I’m sure the feeling would be mutual if I
had any idea who you are. So who are you? You’re not Army or they
wouldn’t’ve been chasing you.

“It’s me, Cesar. From the Mount.”

Who?

“Cesar Mendoza. I work on the trucks. I used
to be one of the Seventeens.”

The wraith flew back a few feet and raised
his palm.
Not a great character reference to pull out.

“It’s okay, bro. Same team. St. George, he
vouches for me.”

Got anything to back that up with?

The titan nodded its huge skull. “Yep. He
said I was... damn, something from a television show.” It reached
up a hubcap-sized hand and scratched its head. “He said you guys
watched a bunch of seasons together. That’s how you’d know I was
okay.”

What show was it?

“Oh, come on, man. I don’t even think he told
me the name.” The battlesuit snapped its fingers, a noise like a
hammer hitting an anvil. “I’m five. He said to tell you I’m five.
That sound right?”

It sets the stage for some IQ jokes, but
that’s about it.

“About time you stopped, you bastard.”

Danielle half-jogged out of the alley to the
west. She gave the Cerberus armor a glare and looked like she might
take a swing at Zzzap. “I’ve been chasing you for fifteen minutes
now.”

Hey,
he said.
I’ve been looking for
you, too.

“So have I,” chimed the battlesuit.

“Here’s a tip,” she panted at the gleaming
wraith. “If you want someone to reach you, try moving at less than
three hundred miles an hour.”

Ahhh. Didn’t think of that. Sorry.

She rested her hands on her knees. “I think
I’m going to puke.” She glanced up at the titan. “What the hell are
you doing in my armor? Are you Army?”

“Nope,” said the suit. “I’m the Driver. Maybe
St. George told you about me?”

He said he’s from the Mount.

“The Mount? How’d he get here?”

“Well, y’see, I switched into the helicopter
while we were loading the suit up yesterday morning. Then I managed
to—”

He’s been babbling a lot.
The wraith
tilted his head at the armor then back to Danielle.
You want him
out?

“Hey, whoa,” said the titan. The metal
fingers came up, spread wide. “Same team, bro. Same team!”

“I wouldn’t complain about it,” she said.
“Then we need to figure out how to get me in—”

“Guys, seriously,” said the titan, “you don’t
want to do anything rash, because—”

Check this out,
said Zzzap. He pushed
his palm forward. There was a crackle of static, a flash of light,
and Cesar flew out of the back of the suit. He hit the wall of the
lab building and collapsed to the dirt. Cerberus froze up like a
statue.

“Whoa!” shouted Danielle. “How the hell did
you do that?”

Something I’d been playing with. Opposite
charges attract, like charges repel. So all I needed to do was
match his frequency and—

“No, I mean how did you throw him out of the
suit?”

Oh,
said Zzzap.
I thought we were
on the same page. He wasn’t wearing the suit, he was
in
it,
like a virus or static buildup or something.

She looked at the groggy youth. “So you’ve
been inside the suit all this time?” Her brow furrowed. “You were
in the suit while I was
wearing
it?”

“Look,” said Cesar, “this is a little weird
for all of us, yeah, but—”

“On your knees,” bellowed the armored titan.
It stomped into an offensive posture and raised its fists. Arcs of
electricity raced across its knuckles as the stunners fired up. “On
your knees now and put your hands behind your heads!”

“Yeah, tried to tell you,” Cesar muttered
from the ground. “There’s another guy in there.”

* * *

They’d halted the dead at the front gate. And
no one else had died. That was the best Sergeant Stewart could
say.

Once St. George tied the gate shut with the
signpost, they’d been able to get the exes under control.
Ammunition was too low to get the upper hand, though. All the
soldiers could do was break even, dropping the exes at about the
same rate they were reaching the fence line.

Plus the gate was coming apart. Little by
little. Under Legion’s command, the exes threw their massed weight
right at the gap of St. George’s knot and the simple gate hinges
were squeaking again and again. Once he even caught a few of the
dead men and women clawing at one of the lower hinges. They were
trying to pry apart the riveted metal.

When they noticed him staring, they’d all
winked at him and leered.

Then Staff Sergeant Pierce had shown up with
a squad of the Unbreakables to take control, and Stewart breathed a
faint sigh of relief. If nothing else, the twin mantles of
leadership and responsibility were lessened a bit.

The suppressive fire halted while the
super-soldiers reinforced the gate with the sandbags from the
machine gun pits. They tossed the fifty pound bags the way regular
men would throw a beer to one another, even Pierce with his forearm
in a splint. The bags piled up against the gate and held it steady.
Withered arms clawed at them.

Then the gunfire began again and Pierce’s men
added their own weapons to the noise. The Bravos cut exes apart
with short, vicious bursts. Bodies were falling faster than they
were arriving.

Stewart heard the roar of an engine behind
him, and his confidence swelled again. The truck from the armory
was here with fresh ammunition. In just a few minutes things were
going to be under control.

It wasn’t a truck. Not even a jeep. It was
one of the Guardians from the motor pool, building up speed fast.
One soldier was lugging a case of ammo and was sucked under the
vehicle’s wheels in a windmill of surprised, broken limbs.

The armored car roared past Stewart, aimed
straight at St. George’s knot. He caught a quick glimpse of the
driver. It was a grinning soldier with pale skin and a green box on
the side of its head.

* * *

In the lobby of Barracks Eight, Truman,
Franklin, and Monroe took turns pounding on St. George with their
rifle stocks. They started on his back, and when he tried to get
away Jefferson grabbed his leg and flipped him over. The metal
stocks were nicked and dented where they’d hit his bones. He rolled
to the side to dodge one of Truman’s blows. The rifle cracked the
tile floor and the concrete beneath it.

Freedom had punched him once, right at the
start. A big roundhouse punch in the jaw. If he’d been a regular
man it would’ve snapped his neck. Since he’d fallen to the ground,
Kennedy had kicked him once in the gut, and Monroe twice in the
small of his back.

“Stay down, sir,” said Freedom. “We do not
have direct orders to kill you but I do have that authorization if
you do not surrender.”

The hero threw a punch from the ground that
grazed Monroe’s jaw. The man staggered back, then charged in again
with an angry glare. He drove his boot into St. George’s kidneys
and the hero winced. “I’m not going to surrender to a bunch of
bullies in uniform.”

Truman’s rifle hit his shoulder blade and he
dropped to the floor again.

“For what it’s worth, sir,” said Freedom, “I
wish it hadn’t come to this. I had a lot of respect for you.”

“Yeah, you seem really heartbroken.” He got
the words out just before Kennedy’s knuckles connected with the
back of his skull.

“I’m just following orders.”

“Orders?” Another punch struck his head.

“You’re to be detained, and then you and your
companions will accompany us to a secure facility.”

“You’ve got something—” He whuffed out a
cloud of smoke as someone drove a kick into his stomach. “You’ve
got something else besides Yuma?”

“That we do, sir. The Air Force’s Groom Lake
facility in Nevada. Agent Smith has decided it would be a safer
location.”

St. George tried to raise his head and winced
again. “And, what,” he said, “you’re just going to load us on a
helicopter and fly us there?”

Freedom looked down at him. “That’s exactly
what’s going to happen, sir. Stealth is already in handcuffs and
there’s a Black Hawk prepping.”

“In that case, captain,” he said, “for what
it’s worth, I’ve been—” He coughed a stream of smoke and fire as
another kick connected with his gut.

“What was that, sir?”

He rolled onto his knees and brushed the
rifles away with a sweep of his hand. “I said I’ve been faking
it.”

They had a moment to look confused.

And then St. George’s backhand sent Truman
through the far wall of the lobby.

* * *

“Gibbs,” said Danielle, “that’s you in there,
isn’t it? We’re not the enemy.”

“Doctor Morris,” said the battlesuit, “please
keep your hands up. Until I get orders otherwise, I am treating the
three of you as hostiles.”

“On what grounds?”

“Hijacking,” said Gibbs. The titan turned its
head to Cesar. The young man stood up and dusted himself off. “I’m
sure Colonel Shelly and Captain Freedom will be interested to know
you brought another super-powered person with you.”

We didn’t bring him with us,
said
Zzzap, gliding forward.

“Keep your distance, sir,” said the
battlesuit. “This weaponry might not be able to hurt you, but I’m
sure you don’t want any harm to come to your friends.”

“Gibbs, come on,” snapped the redhead. “You
must have seen the exes overrunning the base. You need to be
dealing with that problem right now, not us.”

“Ummmm,” said Cesar, “you all hear that?”

The growl of an approaching engine came from
behind the battlesuit. About half a mile down, a Humvee swung out
onto Dirt Road. It took the corner so sharp the wide-bodied vehicle
almost lifted onto two wheels. It roared along the fence line at
close to seventy miles an hour.

In seconds it was close enough for them to
see the face behind the wheel. It was a buzz-cut woman with
leathery skin. There was a gash along her forehead down to the Nest
unit blinking on her temple. Legion grinned at them from behind her
chalky eyes.

It took Danielle another few seconds to put
it together, and Cesar dragged her out of the way, back against the
lab buildings.

Zzzap summoned his strength, focused, and
fired a blast that just missed the speeding vehicle. He was close
enough to ignite the gas tank and melt one of the rear tires, but
the Humvee kept moving. The tire made it veer off to the side, and
the hood ended up aimed right at the battlesuit.

If Danielle had been in the armor, it
would’ve been no contest. She knew the suit and what it could do.
She’d thrown cars, punched through engine blocks, and pulled apart
buildings. She could’ve side-stepped and grabbed the Humvee as it
sped by and either hurled it into the air or torn it apart.

Lieutenant Gibbs knew a simulator. He wasn’t
used to the armor’s smooth responses. He’d already forgotten there
was over a thousand pounds of battlesuit protecting him from the
outside world. He acted out of instinct. A big vehicle was rushing
at him. He tried to leap out of the way.