Mechanical (2 page)

The dark, eyeless head of the machine turned to regard every one of the three soldiers, making Tom retreat again from the menace emanated by the blank face of the machine's viper-like head.

"I am Captain Emerson. I will be your commanding officer during the mission."

Even the Marine Corps lieutenant recoiled from the cold and precise words that issued from the black machine.

Day One, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

"That's the third security checkpoint in fifteen minutes," said the army sergeant, holding tightly to the handle above the window and peering outside the Hummer jeep the three men were riding. Tom, sitting at the back along with the sergeant and the Marine Corps lieutenant, glanced at the soldiers riding in the front: a corporal driver and a sergeant. Both soldiers had said nothing since the ride started. They just kept checking their watches—too frequently, in Tom's opinion.

            "Did you see that? That's an MLRS launcher and … there's another! I thought the Bradleys they had back there were too much. But this? They've got an entire army battalion here!" The army sergeant kept looking outside, searching the area. They had driven from the building that contained the briefing room straight into the base without stopping for anything. Even at the security checkpoints, they had only slowed down.

            "Where's the general?" The sergeant said, looking behind them.

This time, Tom looked behind them as well. Their Hummer was part of a long convoy of vehicles, all driving straight ahead, going deeper and deeper into the huge base. One particular truck in the convoy caught Tom's eyes. It was escorted on all four sides by Hummers with manned heavy machine guns, ready to fire in an instant. The truck's cargo was hidden and secured.

"The captain's being transported in that truck," Tom said softly. "I wonder why." Tom winced as the Hummer rode over another bump in the road, making the springs squeal in protest. The convoy was going as fast as it could.

The army sergeant did not seem to hear Tom. "Hey! Get a load of that! They've got more than a battalion, maybe an entire brigade stationed here in full combat readiness. I can see Javelin missiles, machine guns and grenade launchers, all prepped and ready, the troopers in full combat gear." The sergeant leaned back in his seat and moved his hand through his cropped blond hair. "These are the just the road positions. They've got to have more, all around the base, three-hundred-sixty-degrees perimeter defense." The sergeant shook his head. "Maybe a full brigade. Maybe even more. Wow, that's some kind of defense this place's got."

"Why aren't all those soldiers at the front, guarding the quarantine zones around the captured cities? With the number of soldiers going AWOL, we can't close up the cities," Tom said softly. The sergeant, again, didn't seem to hear him, but the Marine Corps lieutenant threw Tom a short look before lowering his head and closing his eyes again. Tom winced. The Marine Corps lieutenant's eyes were almost as dark as the Serpent’s black armor. 

"And look at those trucks. Food shipments. That's refrigerated pork, that is! I can tell. Did you know my folks in Indiana haven’t been able to put meat on their tables since February, just corn bread and vegetables? And that’s quite a thing for a hog farm, let me tell you. Vigo County is being abandoned. They can't get enough grain for all the pigs. My folks are sending my brothers down to Evansville, but they can't move themselves, you know?" the sergeant asked.

Tom looked into the sergeant's open blue eyes. The Marine Corps lieutenant didn't even bother opening his eyes.

"Why can't they move?" Tom asked.

"They're old, Sir, too old. They wouldn't make it, not with the way the roads are these days and my father's bad leg." The clear blue eyes were now clouded with pain.

"Why can't they grow what they need where they are now?"

"It's the tools. They cannot get any that are any good. The darn merchants sell them for euros and yens only, but my folks only got dollars. No one takes those anymore. My pa broke two cast-iron plows already. Yes, he did!"

Tom scanned the convoy. He didn’t tell the sergeant, but behind the food truck the sergeant had seen, he could see at least two more bright yellow food trucks, all gunning their engines and driving as fast as they could.

Tom's thoughts now inevitably turned to his own family. All were dead, except his sister, somewhere in enemy-controlled Atlanta. This was something Tom did not like thinking about, because it raised up the old ache in his heart.

"Gawd, another security checkpoint!" the sergeant said, pointing ahead with a finger that moved unsteadily in the wildly rocking Hummer. Tom glanced ahead. The approaching security checkpoint had at least two squads of soldiers stationed around it, most armed with Javelin anti-tank missiles whose oval targeting sights tracked the convoy. The steel gate swung aside, and the convoy actually sped up while it drove through the security checkpoint. Tom looked behind them, watching the convoy pull in, and then the steel gate started swinging shut.

"Why do they have so much security? We are inside the base!" Tom said.

"To guard the project, Sir," the sergeant said, gripping the seat in front of him to watch ahead. "It's really important. It could really help us win this darn war."

"You love questions, don’t you, Keyboard Warrior?"

For a moment Tom didn't understand where the whisper came from. Stupidly, he thought it came from the two soldiers sitting up front. But it really came from the Marine Corps lieutenant. Tom saw the man's eyes were still closed, though he now held his combat knife in one hand.

Tom tried to think of something to say, but all he did was instinctively grab his collar insignia—the United States Army Intelligence Officer insignia.

"Army intelligence," the Marine Corps lieutenant whispered, so softly Tom could barely hear him above the roar of the Hummer's engine. Coming from the lieutenant, that whisper was a deadly insult against all those who don't fight on the front lines.

"I—"

"We're almost there!" the sergeant said and Tom, tearing his eyes away from the Marine Corps lieutenant turned to the view outside. Even through the evening dusk, Tom could see a single hangar, slowly growing bigger and bigger as the convoy started approaching it, the road they drove taking them straight to that structure. Tom blinked. The evening light was making him lose perspective. He realized the hangar was huge, probably the biggest structure he had ever seen. Even at full speed, they still had some time to go before they reached it. Tom saw the driver check his watch again and wince. Tom could hear the convoy's engine noises even above the Hummer's engine. It seemed every vehicle was pushed to its limit, driven as fast as it would go.

The army sergeant sitting next to Tom kept looking ahead and then turned to Tom.

"Hey, don't want y'all to think I'm uppity. I'm Staff Sergeant Bubba Jebadiah from the 3
rd
Infantry Division hailing from Fort Stewart, Georgia. Pleased to meet you, Sir!"

"Lieutenant Tom Riley, 742
nd
Military Intelligence Battalion out of Fort Meade." Tom grasped the sergeant's beefy hand and shook it. His hand almost disappeared in the sergeant’s huge paw.

"I'm Staff Sergeant Bubba Jebadiah from the 3
rd
Infantry Division hailing from Fort Stewart , Georgia. Pleased to meet you, Sir." The sergeant extended his hand to the Marine Corps lieutenant, but the thin, swarthy lieutenant ignored him completely. The sergeant didn't seem offended by the lieutenant. He just peered outside again.

"What do you do in the intelligence wing, Sir?"

"I solve questions, sergeant."

"What questions would that be, Sir?"

"Operational questions, sergeant. I receive all data from available intelligence gathering resources, analyze the data and produce answers to operational questions. Where is the enemy? Where is he going? What's he after? What's his operational strength?"

"Good for you, Sir. Me, I'm just a soldier. Give me a weapon and show me the enemy. Hey, look! They've got themselves quite a few brigades on guard duty. They have real heavy hardware, too. Combat-seasoned troops. I've never seen anything like this, not even on my forward operating base before an incoming major raid. This thing here, the project, I reckon it must be real important." Sergeant Jebadiah talked without taking his eyes from the windows.

Giant spotlights lit up and started roving across the convoy, their inquisitive focus roaming everywhere, searching, probing.

Suddenly the sergeant turned towards the two officers sitting next to him.

"Y'all are going forward with the project, aren't you, Sirs?"

"Haven't you heard the general, sergeant? To pilot the Serpent they have to operate on you, put electrodes into your brain," Tom said, but the sergeant was undaunted.

"It's no big deal, Sir. We'll be inside the machines for only a few days. It's nothing. Look, I've been in a combat team and had my share of hurt. I had shrapnel tear right through my thigh fifteen months ago. I got a real nice scar out of that one, so doctors have nothing on me."

"This will be a little different. It's a surgical procedure. They will anesthetize your body, put it to sleep and insert you into the Serpent. Then, they'll hook up your brain directly into the Serpent’s systems. It doesn't sound like no big deal to me," Tom said, looking straight at Sergeant Jebadiah. The sergeant didn’t seem to hear. His eyes were glued to the approaching hangar, looming larger and larger above them.

"Hummer 423, report!" The general's voice suddenly blared from the Hummer's radio. The sergeant sitting up front picked up the radio's handset. Tom saw him hesitate for a moment.

"This is Hummer 423. Status green."

"Proceed to area C1. Don’t stop for anything!" The general's terse command made the sergeant flinch.

"Roger—," but they could hear that the general had already cut the connection.

"Look, Sir, I know it's not a simple operation. The general said so. Our bodies will be inside the machines for a week or maybe even more. But he did say that nothing will happen to us," Sergeant Jebadiah said, without quite looking at Tom.

"And you believe everything you hear?" The Marine Corps lieutenant's sentence made Sergeant Jebadiah turn to him. The lieutenant’s blue eyes were narrowed in anger, anger that made his whole body tense.

"He's a general!"

Tom raised his hand.

"Look, he didn't tell us his name. We don't even know what branch of the military forces he serves in. We don't know who has overall authority on this operation. There are still many unanswered questions," Tom said, glancing once at the Marine Corps lieutenant who seemed to have lost interest again and just sunk back into his seat.

Sergeant Jebadiah was a little deflated, and he turned to the view outside. Great doors on the front of the hangar started swinging open, a great, rectangular dark beast about to swallow little toy vehicles that were so foolishly moving right into its jaws.

"Sir, I'm not stupid," Sergeant Jebadiah said, pointedly ignoring the not-too-subtle snort from the Marine Corps lieutenant. "I know, it's not really simple, and they can't tell us everything. These are military secrets. I know they'll put us into the Serpents, and we'll have to stay inside till the operation is over. I know we're risking our lives. But, after three years, I will get to hurt those that killed a lot of soldiers in my unit, my buddies. I will help save my folks and my kin. If we'll free New York, things will be different. Many people will go free. We'll start freeing all the other occupied cities. Things will be better afterwards," the sergeant said softly, as if praying.

Tom said nothing. The hangar they approached was still getting bigger. Were the doors fifty feet high? Maybe even higher. He couldn't see well with all the spotlights roving across the convoy, blinding them occasionally.

"And you, Sir? Why are you in?" Tom saw Sergeant Jebadiah's big blue eyes directed at him.

"I—Look, I really think what we have here, this country, it's worth fighting for," Tom said. He stopped talking, but Sergeant Jebadiah was still looking at Tom expectantly, his great, big blue eyes radiating something Tom found uncomfortable. On the other hand, the Marine Corps lieutenant was still sitting with his eyes closed.

Shouts from the radio indicated that the other vehicles in the convoy were reporting their status and position with near-hysterical urgency.

Tom found the sergeant's clear gaze unsettling. He continued talking, a little hesitatingly. "Look, Sergeant. For three years, I've sat and read intelligence reports and looked at satellite images and battlefield pictures of the captured cities. For the last year, I was stationed in the Dallas quarantine zone. I've seen what the enemy did to people and to the city itself. The enemy has put to shame everything this country stands for. The enemy took freedom away from millions of United States citizens. I owe it to them, to all the captured people, to do my best to hurt the enemy. What kind of a United States military forces officer would I be if I turned away a chance to really hurt the enemy? I fight for freedom."

The Marine Corps lieutenant snorted and his eyes opened just a little bit.

Tom looked straight into the Marine Corps lieutenant's eyes. "My baby sister is in there somewhere, in Atlanta. She was there three years ago, when the enemy took the city, and I haven't been able to do anything about the enemy who took her, the enemy that's keeping her captive. This may be my first real chance to do something that actually counts against the enemy."

"So, you're ashamed. You want to join the frontline fight." The cold amusement in the Marine Corps lieutenant's voice burned Tom like acid. Tom felt his face going red with anger because of the lieutenant's words, and because of his cold, mocking tone.