Mechanical (18 page)

            Suddenly something caught his attention. A glow was coming from beneath him. The city of New York! It had been there all along, but only now did Tom notice it. Tom did not need to actually breathe while piloting the Serpent, but he still felt his breath stop in his throat.

            Far below him, getting steadily closer, was the Big Apple in all its glory, its buildings, lit by countless small lights, reaching up. A steady glow from the streets below was a luminous nursing ground for constructions of light and matter, dotted with windows, that rose into the air like dazzling mountains climbing up from a sea of light. At this distance, several miles away and several miles high, Tom saw the buildings—rectangular structures that were the epitome of the triumph of man and the creations of his dazzling brilliance. They were the biggest display of intimidating power that Tom had ever seen, power that literally shouted out with strength, vitality and utter disregard for anything that was not human.

            But it was a city controlled by the enemy. Tom could barely make out moving lights on the streets. Though the city was no doubt brimming with life and luminance, its arteries seemed to be mostly empty. The water around Manhattan was completely devoid of ships or boats of any kind. There were no moving spotlights in the city itself, and few lights died or were born on the buildings themselves.

            Tom could make out a few buildings that stood out in the distinctive New York City skyline: the Chrysler Building with its unique spire, and the Empire State Building. He even picked out the Citigroup Center with its angled top, though he did not know the name of this building. Tom could also see and recognize, if not name, the American International Building, as well the glass-covered tower of Bank of America. 

            Tom's parachute system was guiding him north of the large concentration of tall buildings in Midtown Manhattan, right towards Central Park.

            Tom kept gazing at the city unfolding beneath him. Although Tom had visited New York City once, ten or eleven years ago, he didn't remember much. As far as he could see, the city was all there. No craters in the ground. No burnt out building skeletons. No chaos in the streets.

But in some ways, the city seemed frozen. Alive and vital but frozen. There was very little movement that Tom could see as he scanned the streets and the buildings from above. Tom had no doubt that the enemy ruled New York City. The city, in some way Tom did not understand, screamed out that an enemy that ruled with an iron fist had taken it over.

            The lines of the parachutes moved and pulled, directed by the package on Tom’s back. Its GPS guidance system gave orders to the parachute system to direct the Serpent towards the drop zone.

            Tom was now approaching a darker rectangle inside Manhattan: Central Park. He could see the area the enemy was clearing out, southwest of the big reservoir. Even from the air, Tom could see that the area was not being used as a staging ground for enemy vehicles or weapons. As far as he could see, there were no signs of the wear and tear that heavy armored vehicles would create over terrain. That was the first thing Tom, or any intelligence officer, looked for. It was not used for growing crops either, though at night, with current vision conditions, Tom could not really make out what exactly was going on there.

            “Maintain radio silence. Converge on insertion waypoint one," Captain Emerson commanded through the short-range radio link. Tom settled down slowly. He had actually jumped in fright when the captain's voice exploded in his radio receiver.

            After several attempts to get his shaking fingers to obey him, Tom opened up his computer protection panel and started bringing up maps of the city.
Waypoint one. Waypoint one. Where was waypoint one?

            They had gone over this more than once in the briefings, and the computers had been loaded with mission information, but Tom had not paid much attention then. He had just trusted that he would bring up the map when the time came, but now he just couldn't find it. The computer's database contained several aerial images of the park: a few thermal images and others taken by visible-light cameras during daytime. He had a detailed map of New York City itself, but it contained only the waypoints of the city proper and not the park. Oh! There it was. A detailed map of Central Park with waypoints.

            A large elm tree loomed right in front of Tom, slamming into him before he could do anything but shout. The two-thousand-pound Serpent crashed into the tree, breaking branches and raising a huge cloud of yellow serrated leaves while a veritable rain of broken branches and twigs littered the ground.

            The elm could not completely arrest the fall of the Serpent and Tom continued on to another, slightly smaller elm tree dozens of feet away, crashing into it as well. This time, however, the Serpent came down lower, nearer the trunk of the tree, and though the tree suffered extensive damage, it was able to stop the Serpent cold.

            Tom settled in the tree. Amazingly, he had landed in one piece.

            Tom needed to breathe out a sigh of relief. And while he couldn't really breathe out, he nonetheless sighed through his speakers. It wasn't the same, but he felt so glad to be on the ground that it didn't matter.

            "Lieutenant Riley, report. We're picking up several loud noises."

            "It's me, Sir. I'm all right. Be with you in five."

            "Lieutenant, remember we're on hostile ground. Maintain stealth profile."

            "Yes, Sir."

           
Idiot. I'll tell the trees to keep silent.

            Tom, who was still ten or fifteen feet up in the air, started climbing down, but he found out something was impeding his movements. The parachute lines were entangled all around him. Tom tried moving again, but the thick nylon cables held, even against the Serpent's motors. Every one of his limbs was entangled in the lines. In fact, he felt the lines tighten around him every time he tried forcing them to release him.

           
This is not happening. I got thrown of the airplane. I made enough noise to bring everyone in the city here.
In fact, though, Tom looked around him and could see no one. The dark park seemed totally deserted.

           
Okay Tom, think. How do you …
? And then he realized. He just opened two of his fingers and brought them together like huge black scissors. The lines had no chance. Within thirty seconds, Tom had freed himself, dropped lightly to the ground, consulted his map and his internal GPS and was starting to move.

            "Lieutenant Riley, remember to hide your parachute. We must clear our trail."

            Tom returned to the tree, and with a heavy sigh, climbed up to the parachute and pulled it away with all its lines.

            Tom started moving towards the waypoint, his parachute folded neatly and hidden in a shallow hole in the ground that he had dug and refilled.

He reached Captain Emerson within four minutes. The Captain was hidden, folded down, behind a thick oak. In fact, Tom only spotted him because the Captain spoke through his radio link, and Tom's sensors showed him glowing briefly with radio energy. Tom moved into cover.

"Lieutenant Riley."

"Sir."

"Did you have any contacts?"

"No, Sir, nothing."

"Did you pick up any thermal indications of recent targets track?"

"Ah—no Sir."

Damn. He had forgotten to turn on his thermal sensors, though earlier he had activated all his sensors. He resolved to leave them on the entirety of the mission.

"Roger. We have less than seventy hours to complete the mission. After that, the enemy's power will increase two- or three-fold. We cannot allow that, even if we have to search every building in New York City. We're moving out, spread formation, fifty yards. Objective is waypoint three. We'll assess our status then. Move!"

Tom jerked back in fright as a Serpent rose from the ground just in front of him, the black horned-and-spiked gaunt monster the embodiment of evil rising up from the bowels of the earth. The monster turned its head towards him.

It was Ramirez, of course.

Tom tried pretending he hadn’t just moved back in fright.

"I'll take front. Ramirez, you're our tail. Jebadiah, light recon behind me. Riley, in the middle. Move out."

The squad moved out slowly and carefully. The black Serpents kept to the dark shadows of grassy knolls and tall trees. Their precise steps, coupled with long legs engineered to carefully take the load of the heavy machines' two-thousand-pound weight on wide, talon-equipped feet, enabled them to move much more quietly than seemed possible.

Tom moved listlessly.
I've made enough noise to raise hell, forgot to pick up my parachute, and forgot to activate my thermal sensors. What a great way to start an insertion into the heart of enemy territory. What else can go wrong?

"Where are your Hellfires?" Ramirez's transmission perfectly echoed the deadly whisper the man talked in.

Oops. Tom had left them on the doomed airplane.

Day Four, New York City, Central Park

They had reached the edge of Central Park and were looking out towards East 96
th
Street. It was about half-an-hour past midnight, and the Serpents had crept through Central Park undetected, as far as they knew. At least, the park seemed completely deserted.

            The park itself seemed perfectly groomed, with squeaky clean preserved trails. Everything teemed with life, and even the trees seemed healthy and bursting with leaves. Flower beds were everywhere, and the night was filled with the soft noises of nocturnal animals. The Serpents moving so stealthily that, more than once, they had managed to surprise families of hedgehogs and squirrels. Without quite knowing why, this made Tom uneasy.  

            Anyway, Tom kept well to the back of the squad, clutching his Barrett anti-materiel rifle. It was a good thing his real body was well within the Serpent's pilot compartment, because Tom thought he could still feel his ears and face glowing red in embarrassment. It didn't matter that his body was hibernating at the moment. Tom was sure any thermal sensor could sense his red-hot mortification. It was not the captain's calm scolding, nor was it the short furious comment from Ramirez about noncombatants endangering the lives of others.

            What hurt most was Sergeant Jebadiah's silent disappointment.

            Tom kept to the back of the squad, keeping his Serpent fifty yards behind the others and as silent as possible. It wasn't exactly how the captain wanted it, but Riley kept hanging back. Now, as the squad stopped at the edge of Central Park, Tom waited for the order to continue. After three minutes of tense waiting, however, nothing had come.

            Tom hesitated, wanting to send a message to ask if everything was okay but daring not.
Let the soldiers handle this, whatever it is
, Tom thought sourly.

            The silence continued.

            Finally, Tom carefully started creeping forward, making sure that his ten-foot-tall Serpent kept behind evergreen trees with rich foliage.

            "Lieutenant Riley, advance. Search for targets and report."

            Tom jumped up when Captain Emerson's voice came through the short-range radio link. He released the bough of a tree he had been clutching, wincing when he saw the damage the Serpent's clawed hand had done to the bark.

            Tom advanced slowly and carefully till he reached the very edge of the park. There, he crept forward on all fours till he assumed position behind the low stone wall that marked the park's border.

            Tom looked around him. Captain Emerson was twenty yards away, and Sergeant Jebadiah was fifty yards further away. Both Serpents were prone and motionless, their matt black forms invisible in the night to anyone not using sophisticated vision enhancement. Their thermal signature was nonexistent, their bodies the same temperature as their surroundings.

            After reassuring himself, Tom looked straight ahead at the city. East 96
th
Street was ahead of them and Tom felt his claws dig deeper into the stone wall he held. There was no doubt that New York City was being controlled by something strange—something that had little to do with anything resembling humanity.

            The street was completely deserted. Seeing a New York City street silent and empty was unnatural. There were no pedestrians or no passing cars. Nothing. The street itself was sparkling clean, but it was empty. Tom moved his attention to the ten- and fifteen-story buildings lining the street. Though streetlights, and building lobby and entrance lights were on, there were no lights in any of the apartment windows. Even at night, it should have brimmed with life. There's weren't even any yellow cabs or bicycles. Heavy silence hung like a thick blanket over the street.

            Hundreds of apartment windows were out there, and every one of them was still, dark and empty. Tom used his thermal sensors, but they reported nothing. Then Tom used his thermal sensors to scan the street, but again, he could see no thermal footprint, such as would have been left by a vehicle passing during the last hour or so. There were no hot spots on the wide pavements nor on the concrete road itself.

            Tom tried using his audio sensors, gradually turning up the gain to maximum. He could hear only distant background noises: No radios were working nearby. No engines. No cars. No television. There were no people talking.

            Nothing. Just silence.

            "Sir, I cannot detect anyone. No one's here," Tom sent through the short-range radio link. He had tried to keep his bewilderment out of his words.

            "We're moving out. Maintain spread and cover. Maintain—"

            "Sir, if it's a trap I cannot detect it. They may be waiting for us," Tom could not help sending.

            "Roger that. Ramirez? Jebadiah? Any contacts?"

            "Negative, Sir. No targets."

            "Roger. Move out. Maintain cover and marching order. Captain Emerson, out."

            Tom wanted to say something but he could think of nothing else. The street was waiting for them, empty and inviting. It seemed that the enemy was drawing them in, making sure that they enter his trap before closing his jaws around them.

            Captain Emerson moved first, his Serpent running across the street in four bounds. The gaunt metal monster flattened itself against a building wall, a dark horned-and-spiked monster blending perfectly into the pool of darkness between the yellowish cast light of two street lamps.

            The squad froze, waiting, but nothing happened. No alarm rose. No weapon fired. No target was detected. Still, nothing.

            Lieutenant Ramirez moved next, and Sergeant Jebadiah followed, each moving expertly and each fading away completely into the cover of darkness.

            Finally, it was Tom's turn. He scanned the street and the buildings again, but he could see nothing that he hadn't seen before. The night was filled with silent pools of darkness: places Tom could not see into, places that could be hiding anything.

            Tom glanced at a timer clock display inside his field of vision. Sixty-nine and a half hours to go.

            Tom's body tensed, and he gripped his rifle tightly. He rose slightly from behind his stone wall cover and scanned the street yet again. Nothing.

            Tom jumped up and ran across the street as fast as he could. Every time his foot hit the concrete street, it seemed the impact was explosively loud. Even the whine of his electric motors seemed deafening.

            It took him what seemed like an eternity to cross the distance, but finally he reached his designated cover place and entered his own dark spot near the wall of one of the buildings. Tom scanned all around him, moving his head from side to side, expecting to see and hear the release of the safeties of weapons aiming at him, targeting and preparing to fire.

            Nothing.

            "Advance," Captain Emerson sent, and the squad continued down the street, every Serpent streaking from cover to cover.

            This was completely different to the urban combat exercise they had had at the base. Tom was much more confident in the abilities of the Serpent now and in his ability to pilot it and even survive after suffering damage, but this empty, silent New York City street was unnerving.

            While they moved down the street, Tom kept scanning, trying to find something, anything. It was an enemy-controlled city, but even so, this emptiness and silence was simply unnatural. It was giving Tom the creeps.

            "Sir, the cars. There aren’t any cars parked on the street," Tom sent. He had just realized that the street had no cars parked anywhere. In fact, he hadn't seen one car since leaving Central Park.

            "Maintain radio silence," was Captain Emerson's only response.

            The four tall monsters continued down the street towards FDR Drive, four black spiked-and-horned ghosts flitting across what seemed to be the perfectly preserved corpse of the city.

            Tom started becoming more and more agitated. He kept scanning East 96
th
Street and the streets crisscrossing it, but what he saw made little sense.

            First, the streets were all spotless. Tom could remember little from his visit to New York City years ago, but none of the places in the city, not even the military bases Tom had seen, were spotless. There was always a soda can somewhere in a corner rolling slowly back and forth, or the odd candy wrapper flitting in the breeze. Trashcans sometimes overflowed, and some litter made its way to the street. But here, everything was spotless.

            Tom felt a chill in his Serpent pilot compartment. It wasn't natural, this level of spotless cleanliness. Especially in a city that satellite images confirmed still housed millions of people.

            They had now crossed Third Avenue, and the city still was empty of cars parked on the sides or moving vehicles. Tom started to see more odd things: All the traffic lights were missing. Since exiting Central Park and traversing the two miles across East 96
th
Street, they hadn’t seen one traffic light. Tom, forgetting for a moment the order to remain in stealth mode, walked over and checked a street corner, right where a traffic light should have been.

            There was no traffic light there. In fact, Tom couldn't even find the hole in the concrete where the street light should have been.

            "Lieutenant Riley, maintain cover," Captain Emerson commanded through the radio link, but Tom lingered a moment longer on the street corner, trying to figure it out. Finally, it dawned on him: Someone had simply pulled the traffic light out and replaced it with a young sapling. Tom turned, looking at all four street corners. All the traffic lights had been replaced with trees.

            Tom rejoined his squad, and they continued on their mission. Now that he knew what to look for, he noticed a lot more trees had been planted on the sidewalks, creating a very green street. All traffic and road signs had been pulled off and replaced with plants, mainly trees. There were no direction signs, and no signs on buildings either. There weren’t even any parking meters. Everything has been pulled out. It made the streets beautiful but Tom felt his skin crawling, even though it was an armored Serpent skin.

            The four Serpents had a lot of firepower, even without Tom's Hellfire missiles. Their stealth capabilities were the best, their sensors were first grade and their armor was something out of a science fiction movie. Their power in a fight could be unbelievable, as Tom himself had witnessed during their training exercises. But this new New York City gave him the creeps.

It just wasn't human any more. It was alien. There simply wasn't any other way too look at it. The city had become something alien.

Tom was not surprised to discover, a few moments later, something else new and disturbing. The street's stores were all gone. Tom had activated his computer and brought up a map on a small square in his field of vision showing him the location of every store and establishment on the street. They were all gone. The spaces where they had been remained, but the stores were gone. No signs, no glass windowpanes, no nothing. No advertisements or sale signs. They were simply not there.

Who would bother to make a florist shop go away?
Tom shivered. The hundreds of empty black windows seemed to stare right at Tom.

There were other signs of such alien changes to the street: A soccer playground had been turned into a carefully groomed flower garden; a branch of some bank had completely disappeared and its location had been turned into something Tom could not readily identify. Were they sleeping quarters? A high school was gone, as were all its facilities. The building had been completely transformed, though Tom could not make out what it was now. Accommodation? Sleeping quarters? Barracks?

Only a yellow-and-red Shell gas station still stood its ground. It seemed deserted, but it was apparently in good repair. The enemy seemed not to have touched it, and it did not seem abandoned.

Captain Emerson stopped in place, and all the Serpents froze where they were. The small squad was about to cross First Avenue onto FDR Drive, and the captain wisely made them stop before they entered the large, open ground before the highway.

A moment passed before the captain ordered Tom to join him, both Serpents taking cover beneath some scaffolding encircling a building.

"Scan the area," Captain Emerson whispered.

Tom used all his sensors, including his radio intercept sensors, but as far as he could tell, there was nothing out there: nothing moved or emitted energy or made any kind of thermal footprint.

"Incoming," Sergeant Jebadiah sent through the radio link, and for a moment, Tom could not understand what he meant. Then, he heard it: A soft whine, slowly increasing, growing in volume and timbre. Tom moved his head rapidly from side to side.

"It’s coming from the north!" Tom sent.

"Take cover, we must—"

"No, it's coming from behind us as well!" Tom sent. Tom's movements were quick and frightened.