Grunt Life (16 page)

Then one day Mr. Pink met with us. We expected bullshit. We expected to be lied to. The last thing we expected was the truth.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” he told us. “I understand your frustration. First let me say that we have a delivery being made right after my speech. This delivery will change our way of fighting the Cray. It will make all the difference in the world. It will give you a chance to kill them, and it’s better than anything we had before. It’s a prototype. More are being made, but this is what we have thus far.”

A rumble of conversation soon drowned him out. But then the RSM came on stage and ordered us all to silence. It took him several tries, but eventually, grudgingly, we stopped talking.

“So I’ve heard that you all think you were chosen because your brain chemistry is different from ‘normal’ people’s, that having suicidal thoughts rewires your brain.” Mr Pink said. “I’ve been told that this is the most ridiculous theory anyone has ever wasted the time to create. I’ve also been warned that I shouldn’t tell you the truth. Let me dispense with all of this advice and face you like a leader.

“You’re right.”

And there it was.

I momentarily forgot about the promised salvation and listened to him as he began to talk to the geography of my mind.

“We knew early on about the Cray’s ability to use the human brain as a transmitter. We have forty-four members of BCT OMBRA who we allowed to witness the vile subjugation of the human consciousness. These men and women, whom I shall refer to as the Forty-Four, will be made available to speak to each and every one of you, to carry the word, the truth, to the darkest corners of this cavern. It’s important that all of you know. That all of you see.”

He swallowed and sought me out from amongst the thousands, as if he knew exactly where I was standing. “Until then,” he said, “let me share with you the results of one afternoon in Dothan, Alabama.

“Lights!”

The lights went out and a scene I knew very well began to play out on the screen, from the POV of one of the assault team.

We saw the team break through the door and rush into the dining room.

A collective gasp seemed to shake the room.

The view shifted first to Mr. Pink, then to me, and I saw for the first time how terrified and sickened I was at the sight of that family. My fellow soldiers began to glance at me and I ignored them, my gaze riveted to the screen.

Then the stairs, then the basement, and then the—

Cries of shock and disgust filled the cavern as we saw the polymorphic mass. I clamped my hands over my ears as those baby heads began screaming. Even with the electronic filtering, I could see the effects of the alien siren song on those around me. Their eyes glazed over. Their hands became claws which opened and closed, finally resolving into fists. Their faces sagged as the weight of the universe and everything they’d ever done and left undone settled on their consciences.

M*A*S*H
had it all wrong. Suicide isn’t painless. It’s the end of pain, and there’s nothing worse than the pain one’s own mind can exert upon one’s soul.

The sound snapped off.

The lights switched on.

But the image of Mr. Pink and myself and our weapons remained frozen on the screen—Mr. Pink’s gun to his own head and my gun pointing at him.

Thank God the guns had been empty.

“We’re just now learning how the aliens manipulate the chemistry of the human brain to their advantage. For the most part, you all are immune to the Cray. They can’t use you like they can the rest of humanity. Your minds are shadowed to them. The only way they seem to be able to affect us is with this polymorphic mass we’re calling a Siren.

“Our scientists compare our immunity to our own serotonin deficiency. One of the metabolic products is a chemical called 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, abbreviated as 5-HIAA. Through autopsies and drawing spinal fluid from the living, our scientists have found decreased levels of 5-HIAA, as well as amino acid tryptophans. The bottom line is that what made you the way you are is what’s going to allow you to be able to get close enough to kill the Cray.

“The Forty-Four were there. They can testify. They’ve seen the power the Siren can exert on the mind. Listen to them when they speak to you. Ask them questions. Don’t let them leave with anything unasked or unsaid.

“We’ve also been able to ascertain that using the human brain, the Sirens pulse their information in bursts of layered code. So far we’ve been able to find three distinct layers. The top layer was a distress signal, intended to provide proximity data. The second layer was geological and meteorological information, to include the water and salt content in the atmosphere. The third, and perhaps the most interesting, was the schematics of all electrical infrastructure grids on the planet.”

He let that sink in.

Then he stepped forward.

“Now for my surprise.”

Modern American war is as easy to script as a B movie.

Colonel David Hackworth

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
HERE WILL ALWAYS
be those who think that science fiction authors copy the best ideas and discard the worst, pillaging effortlessly from the body of work that has come before. The fact is, modern realities and an author’s own insistence on following the physical laws of the universe limits possible choices, especially when trying to construct something that can protect the wearer while enabling him or her to cause as much damage as possible. So when the Faraday Suit was revealed, none of us were really surprised. We’d read Scalzi and Steakley and knew how they’d portrayed power armor and powered exoskeletons. Did they copy from Heinlein’s
Starship Troopers?
Had he copied from E. E. Doc Smith’s
Lensman
novels? Was Ridley Scott a big old cheat for letting Sigourney Weaver use one to defeat an alien? Or was it a simple reality that the limitations of our imaginations reflected the physical certainties of our universe, that there were only so many things we could actually do to stay alive in a hostile environment or against a hostile force with greater physical attributes?

Whatever the truth of it, the entirety of CBT OMBRA gasped, then cheered as a man in a powered exoskeleton walked noiselessly from the shadows to stand beside Mr. Pink, half again taller than the slim gentleman in the black fatigues. Like a used car salesman at the end of the world, Mr. Pink ran down the important elements of the suit for us, including the thirty anti-aircraft missiles resting in a left shoulder array which he called a Mini-Hydra. This was complemented by an XM214 rotating-barreled machine gun and what we’d come to learn was a harmonic blade. These, he said, were the
martial trinity of the Electromagnetic Faraday Xeno-combat Suit (EXO)
. The suit was designed specifically to keep the wearer alive against the mass attacks of the Cray drones. Inside, an intentionally rudimentary electronics package was protected by an electrified micromesh that completely covered the outside skin of the suit, itself creating a miniature Faraday cage which would protect it from the electromagnetic pulses generated by the Cray.

Half an hour of marching back and forth on the stage, and every one of us wanted to get into an EXO. Like an infantryman with a new rifle, a teenager with a new car, or a child with a new toy, each of us imagined the joy we’d feel once we strapped in, switched on and locked out. My entire body itched with the need to wear the suit.

Then came the news that they only had twenty ready.

We’d have to share.

We broke into our groups and waited for orders to filter down from the RSM. As it turned out, Recon was given six of them, probably because when we finally made it out of our underground lair and into the war, we’d be the first to wear them, the first to lay our asses on the line. All grunts might be equal, but some grunts were a little more equal than others. Recon was among them.

I’ll give you this. Olivares could have decided to take a turn in the suit first, but instead, he let us draw straws. MacKenzie got it first and we laughed our asses off as he struggled to wear it. There wasn’t even an instruction pamphlet. This was all trial and error.

“Hope I don’t set off these missiles trying to find out how to close this
focking
thing,” he cursed.

And then we watched as he trundled around the cavern like a storm giant come to Earth.

And then it was my turn.

And then it was everyone else’s.

And eventually, we figured out how to use them just in time to take a slow boat to East Africa, where we’d find a way to beat the Cray or let the world die as punishment for our mistake.

Another shooting. Another apparently perfect neighbor walked into a public school and blasted seventeen kids and five teachers. Now the experts are telling us that the person was disturbed, that he’d been under treatment. Do you own a weapon? Have you ever sought counseling from a mental health professional? You know, like a priest or a rabbi or a psychologist? What would they say about your past if you went into a school and began shooting people? What is that? You say you’d never do that? Maybe that’s the point of all of this. Maybe the guilty would never do this either. Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe they were made to do it. I’ve asked a lot of questions today. Answer the question if you dare. What do you believe?

Conspiracy Theory Talk Radio,

Night Stalker Monologue #466

Africa has no future.

V. S. Naipaul

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A
CCORDING TO
H
EMINGWAY
, Kilimanjaro means ‘House of God’—as fitting a place as any for humanity to make its last stand. Both the story
Snows of Kilimanjaro
and the movie with Gregory Peck were on our tablets in Phase I. I have to admit, I liked the story better. There was a sense of something impending and momentous in the story, whereas the movie was only concerned with death and regret. The battle between those ideas—of predetermination and redemption—had become the fuel for our trip across the Pacific to this remote African mountain in the heart of Tanzania. After all, we were going to save humanity, redeem ourselves from who we’d become, and transform ourselves from meager grunts to great heroes. We might die doing it, but if we did, we’d do so knowing it was in the service of mankind, with no regrets and no complaints.

Whatever the truth was, I think Jimmy MacKenzie called it right when he decreed it to be the
big focking mountain at the end of the world.

And as we stood there on the flat African plain, staring up at it, the only thing that seemed larger than the mass of Kilimanjaro was the Cray Mound.

The journey from Alaska to Africa had taken thirteen weeks. Wrapped in the putrid bowels of an old oil tanker, we cruised south through the Pacific, cutting between the Antarctic flow and the southern coast of Australia. We tried to stay away from land. Drones seemed to be unwilling to brave either the water or the cold.

Especially the cold.

Somewhere south of Fiji a drone found us and gave chase, only to run out of energy. With nowhere to land other than the tanker we’d named the
USS Liberator
, it crashed to the deck and pulled itself into a ball to protect itself.

MacKenzie and a member of 1st Recon engaged it with their EXOs and we managed to subdue it. We kept it chained to the deck and studied it. Then, when the temperature dipped below forty degrees, it died. We wondered if the alien invasion was limited to warmer climates, but Mr. Pink and the rest of the original TF OMBRA staff had left us.

We passed into the Indian Ocean, then were forced to wait for twelve days off the coast of Madagascar while a storm built around us. When the hurricane finally struck the east coast of Tanzania like a giant hammer, we landed with it, using the winds and rain to hide our entrance. Staying well north of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, we paralleled the Kenyan border, following old mining roads as we trudged in our EXOs past mudslides, through flooded areas, and around what had once been a refugee camp but had turned into a bloody harvest. We strode through the driving rain past a forest created by the broken and twisted limbs of those who’d only wanted to be somewhere free, whether it be from a warlord or from an alien visitor.

We’d seen destruction on the footage we’d been shown, but we’d never been face to face with the actual devastation brought by the Cray upon our species. I felt somber and angry, much like I had the day terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Centre. But these were terrorists of a different sort. The Cray were terrorists on a galactic scale. The combined murders of every man, woman and child who’d ever been unlucky enough to cross a terrorist in our history was nothing in the face of the desires of the Cray to own, not only our land, but the air we breathed.

Musing as I stomped through the mud and scrub, my servos making the trek no more effort than a walk across a field, I wondered if there was even now a planet where the Cray waited and relished our demise, celebrating our misery with frescoes and sculptures.