Phoenix Rising (Book Two of The Icarus Trilogy) (20 page)

“Unfortunately he forgot the biggest threat on the field,” Eric said as he sat up and nodded towards the screen.  Warner was standing there on the pathway as the mech turned it’s torso to face the Crow.  Warner was soon riddled with bullets and was only kept standing by the suit of armor holding him up.  It was almost anticlimactic as the mechanized suit sent a rocket flying towards the motionless Warner.  The man burst into pieces as the explosion ripped through him and a red mist flew outwards from the impact.

“At least you can say it was quick,” Patrick said quietly.  The other three anchors looked back towards the man and held their silence for half a moment.  The old soldier had reminded them that a real man had just died there on that video.  It was such mindless violence and Warner was up and ready the next day, but that didn’t stop the horror they had just witnessed.  Samantha was the first to break out of the spell as Jamie silently shouted at the four puppets on the stage.

“Well, as you can see Jenkins drops down behind cover again.  It would be a clear case of suicide if he tried to attack Kaspar from head-on like that,” she said as she referred to the mech’s pilot.  “The young soldier needed a miracle in order to take down the Lion.”

“And he sure as hell got one,” Franklyn said uneasily.  It was supposed to be Eric’s line, but the lead anchor was still in a daze from Patrick’s comment.  The black stereotype took over the reins as he continued to read the next blurb.  “Roberts had been busy trying to get into a different position for another flanking maneuver and you can see what happens here,” Franklyn said as Roberts painfully brought himself to his feet and advanced towards the monstrosity on the field.  He was wobbling from side to side, limping on both feet as he made his way to his enemy.  “He was probably a little delirious from his injury, but here you can see him making his stand.”

On the screens behind the anchors, Roberts stood ten meters from Kaspar in his war machine.  The boy soldier had left his helmet, grenades and ammunition with Jenkins.  It was just one of the details which were left out of the official story.  The Commission knew about the pain experiments; they knew what Hawkins had been up to.  But regardless of the fact that he knew nothing of Roberts’ predicament, Douglas could see why they wouldn’t have changed any of the footage for this special.

Roberts raised his empty rifle and Kaspar flicked a few switches in the mech’s cockpit.  The plasma cannon on the mech’s shoulder warmed up and let loose a torrent of super-heated energy in Roberts’ direction.  The stream of death burned right through Roberts’ upper arm and the lower section still holding the rifle fell to the ground.  The atmosphere and smoke continued to swirl around the two soldiers standing there on the field.  Douglas held his breath as he imagined the kind of torment the young soldier felt as his arm was burned off.  He probably would have stopped breathing entirely if he knew that Roberts was already experiencing something much worse.

“No one could blame a man for giving up after that,” Franklyn said in an uncharacteristically somber tone.  Douglas flicked his eyes back to the anchor and could see nothing of the artificial man that pranced about on stage every day.  Franklyn was himself for just a moment as Roberts stood on the screen behind him waiting to die.  As they kept their silence in respect for the dying Crow the scene seemed to play out for an eternity.  The audio was missing, but if the Commission had left in intact they could have heard Roberts’ pleading to Kaspar; they would have heard the soldier begging for the Lion’s help.

On the screens stretching across the back of the studio Kaspar initiated the motor for the mini-gun on the mechanized suit’s right arm.  Bullets flew out at impossible speeds and shredded Roberts’ body as it turned into a corpse.  The scene cut away before the dead body sank low enough and the high-velocity rounds started to mutilate Roberts’ face.  Some footage was too brutal for the program to show, after all.

“It was a bleak situation,” Eric said as he turned to face the cameras.  The other three anchors’ eyes were still moored to the screens before the statement, but Samantha and Franklyn turned soon enough.  Patrick’s gaze remained on the battered landscape on the screen.  “Three of his comrades were killed in terribly brutal displays.  Jenkins had the weight of a dead soldier on his conscience.  It was a situation where a normal man would have given up.  It was a situation where I, personally, would have run far, far away.  Jenkins was face-to-face with death.  No one would blame him for being a coward.  But instead he became a-”

“Hero.”  Eric looked over to see Patrick McEwen looking at the screen.  Eric could see tears streaming down the old man’s face as he watched Jenkins huddling behind cover.  The celebrity found it hard to breathe as he watched the veteran slowly turn his head to stare him in the eye.  The blue eyes were not glazed over as usual.  As he stared at Eric he nodded and gave a slight smile.  He didn’t bother wiping away the tear tracks from his face as he turned to face the cameras.  “I have this one, Eric.”  Jones had to force his lungs to take in new air.  He had no way to stop the veteran.

“Ryan Jenkins isn’t just a man.  He used to be,” Patrick said before folding his hands and placing them on the table in front of him.  The absent-minded soldier seemed to have disappeared and was replaced by a sage, old man.  Everyone was in shock at the display; if Douglas had bothered to look at Jamie Caswell he would have seen the undercover agent unable to react.

“Ryan Jenkins was a thief,” McEwen continued, not bothering to read off the teleprompter display.  He knew all the information by heart.  “It’s not a great beginning for a hero.  He ran in a gang.  He participated in a lot of illegal activity.  He was imprisoned for it and chose the games as his sentence.  These are not the actions of a hero.  These are the actions of a desperate and foolish man.  Ryan Jenkins didn’t know what he was getting into.”

“But that’s the thing about the games,” Patrick continued, staring hard at the camera filming him.  Jamie had recovered his composure by now but he had no intention of stopping the veteran.  Very rarely did the old man’s mind work like it was supposed to; even if they couldn’t use the footage it would still be somewhat inspiring.  Jamie would play the bad guy later; he wanted to see what the old man would say.  “The thing about the games is that it brings out the best and the worst of you.  Us soldiers, we’re forced to kill people,” Patrick said as his own statements triggered sore memories, forcing the soldier to look down at his hands.  “No one can say that’s a good thing.  We squeezed out the lives of our enemies and trampled them beneath us.  In some soldiers it brings out the true killers.  Men who were meant for it.  Men you wouldn’t want to know in person,” Patrick said, resuming his staring contest with the camera.

“I’m going to be honest.  For a long time, when I played the games I indulged in it.  I was a killer.  You wouldn’t have wanted to know me.  I started out as a convict, too.  I killed a man because he insulted me at a bar.  I did my time on Eris.  When I was playing for the Crows I used to feel a rush when I tore into a man and ended his life.  I didn’t even mind dying very much.  I was perfect for the games,” Patrick confessed.  Douglas couldn’t entirely comprehend what he was hearing.  He had never heard McEwen talk about his past like this.  He had always seen a gentle old man; the illusion was starting to slip.

“That changed when I met Carver.  That old Crow and I used to be at each other’s throats every day.  He looked at the games in a totally different way.  He never enjoyed it.  He never took pleasure when he beat a man in pure survival.  I didn’t understand him at first,” Patrick said before sighing and turning to Eric at his right.  The lead anchor was looking at the veteran with mild horror.  He had never suspected the brain-addled veteran to be a bloodthirsty killer.  “It took me a while, folks.”

“Carver had something in him right from the beginning.  That soldier that showed up in the Crows’ barracks was exactly the kind of man you want to know.  That man can show you what it is to be a soldier.  What it is to be a hero.  When I got past my own glories and my own ego I truly saw myself.  I was small.  I was petty.  When I looked at Carver I knew exactly what kind of man I was.”

“I was ashamed, folks,” Patrick said as he looked at his fellow anchors.  They were all less than half his age; he couldn’t expect them to entirely understand this life lesson.  “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore.  I couldn’t believe that I had lived like I had for so long.  Everything took on a different appearance.  I knew I had to be something better.”

“People have called me a hero.  I used to be one of those ‘better men’ that were advertised in the commercials and all the banners and magazines.  I used to be mentioned in all of the newsletters and the games.  I know; I’ve seen a number of them.  But that wasn’t my doing.  I became that ‘hero’ because a better man showed me what it was like to feel compelled to better actions.  I became a leader of the Crows because Carver showed me what a real man should be.”  Patrick sniffed as he remembered his past.  Douglas couldn’t help but let a tear fall from his own eye.  As Patrick struggled to word his next statement the announcer looked around the stage.  None of the staff were moving; they were all entranced by the veteran’s speech.  Patrick looked up at the camera once more and then to his co-anchors.  Franklyn and Samantha were lost, but Eric was staring at the man, begging without words for the old man to continue.  Patrick smiled at the lead anchor and patted the man’s shoulder before turning back to the camera.

“Carver’s still there on that battlefield.  He’s still forging his own path by blood and sweat.  He’s still showing the world what a real man could be.  But Jenkins up there,” he said as the screens resumed automatically.  As Patrick continued to speak the soldier brought out two grenades and rushed the mechanized suit slowly turning and shooting bullets in a vicious arc.

“The games can do funny things to a man.  They can show him to be a killer.  They can show him to be a coward.  But we have the privilege,” Patrick said as the young man leapt at his enemy and landed up against the exposed cockpit, “to have recorded footage of a man becoming a hero.”  The explosions from the frag grenades in his hands blew Jenkins apart and battered Kaspar with a barrage of concussive blasts and shrapnel.  Both men were dead in seconds.

“Carver didn’t teach this man how to be a hero.  Carver might have been there, but Jenkins already had it in him.  Ryan Jenkins was a thief.  Ryan Jenkins was a man.  But the games can change all of that.  When I look at Ryan Jenkins I don’t see a killer; I don’t see a soldier.  I see a man who’s willing to risk it all, suffer death a thousand times and carry his friends just because it’s the right thing to do.  I see what I could never have been but what people always thought of me,” Patrick said before sniffing again.

“Ryan Jenkins is my hero.  I don’t even need to hope that he’ll stay the same.  He wouldn’t be content with anything else,” Patrick said before sitting back in his chair and turning to watch the screen behind him.  The wrecked machine was still standing there broken as the mist and smoke curled in around it.  Eric watched as the old man’s face seemed to droop and the glazed look started to set back over his eyes.  Eric felt a certain kind of torture as he saw the man turn back into the medicated mess that he worked with every day.  He then turned back to the camera to see Jamie nod towards the teleprompter.  The television anchor gathered his thoughts and folded his hands in front of him.

“Amazing.  Simply amazing.  Patrick McEwen, everyone.  I can’t begin to tell you how fortunate I feel to have heard that story.  We’re going to take a short commercial break but don’t bother changing the channel.  We’re going to have even more highlights of Ryan Jenkins’ career when we return,” Eric said while maintaining a serious look into the camera.  He couldn’t be bothered with bringing up his plastic smile.  Douglas took the lead anchor’s statement as his cue and looked at his own prompter display.  As he predicted, the words were already starting to crawl upwards.

“I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’ll be able to change the channel.  There are all kinds of surprises on today’s War World.  We’ll be right back, but stay tuned for messages from our corporate sponsors.  McCoy’s,
Feeding the Whole System
, Future Bionics,
The Future is You
, and Derrickson’s,
Why would you go anywhere else?”
  Douglas looked at the old soldier still staring at the now-black screen.  He would never have expected that from the veteran.  The announcer looked over to see Jamie Caswell resuming his callous persona as he yelled at his assistants.  The producer looked over at his overweight co-conspirator and Douglas could see the mask slip.  The resistance agent bit his lip and sighed before snapping back to bark at the editing assistant.  Douglas wondered how the man could do it.  He might have been a different kind, but Douglas knew what that man was to him.

Jamie Caswell was a hero in his own way.

-

Percival Roth watched the screen in the television room and raised an eyebrow.  He had known Jenkins personally but the way the four anchors spoke about the man was not what he remembered.  Ryan was a good guy and could handle himself, but he really didn’t talk much.  Jenkins didn’t inspire much confidence.

But as Percival watched the special on his old teammate he felt in awe of the man.  He didn’t know if he could trust his memory anymore.  Roth had never been paired with this new hero and he had only lasted a handful of games before being traded to the Hammerheads.  He had eaten meals with the man, certainly, but there was always a bench or two between them.  Roth had never been able to talk to him face-to-face.

His neck hurt from his most recent resurrection, but Percival couldn’t lower his gaze from the television in front of him.  Roth was enraptured.  He was taken in by the heroics and the actions of this man that he thought he had known.  Roth had lived in the same building as Jenkins, but that boy was taking on a four meter tall mechanized soldier on the television while Patrick McEwen talked about heroes.  Roth had seen Jenkins training and talking with their comrades.  He knew Jenkins to be just a man.