She tried to look at Stealth out of the corner of her eye. “No,” said Danielle. “I changed a lot of them a year or so back.”
Shelly’s gaze shifted between the two women. “Why was that?”
Danielle shrugged. “I was bored. I was defragging the system one day and just switched the passwords for the heck of it.”
“For now,” said Stealth, “perhaps it is best if those passwords remain secret.”
Smith’s smile wrinkled and the colonel gave her a hard look. “Ma’am,” said Shelly, “I understand the past twenty-two months have not been easy for anyone, and they’ve forced us all into patterns of behavior we wouldn’t have in a peacetime situation. But I can’t help feeling like you’re one of those civilians who feels they’re a lot safer at home with their shotgun and pistols.”
“If that were the case, colonel,” said Stealth, “would I run the risk of being left behind?”
There was a brief silence. Then the door clanged open.
The space was large, as big as the scenery shop Danielle had turned into a workspace back at the Mount. The ceiling was dotted with half a dozen sunroofs, filling the area with natural light. A trio of large, rolling toolboxes stood in the center of the room near a few work platforms. Along the wall were some larger tools and tanks of gas for a welding set-up. “Very nice,” she said.
“If you need anything else, we can try to get it for you. Any special tables or racks for the armor can be constructed to your specifications.”
“Well, this is a good start,” she said. “I can use the foam molds in the crates for now.” She found a pry bar in one of the toolboxes and opened the smallest crate. It was the helmet. Her shoulders loosened at the sight of it.
Colonel Shelly looked down at the armored head and met its gaze. “Would you be up for a demonstration, Doctor Morris? Mr. Smith has been singing the praises of your armor for a few years now. I’ve seen some videos, but I’d love to see it in action.”
She looked at Stealth. The cloaked woman gave a slight nod from within her hood. “I’d need some help,” Danielle said. “Maybe half a dozen people with some electronics experience. Or at least some brute muscle that can follow orders.”
Shelly looked at Freedom and the huge officer gave a wry smile. “I believe specialists Wilson and Garfield fit that description,” he said. “I’ll put in a call. We should have a team for you in ten minutes, ma’am,” he told the redhead.
“Do you want a place to change into the undersuit?” asked Smith. “There’s an office and bathrooms over there.”
“No need,” said Danielle. Her fingers danced down the buttons of her shirt and pulled it open. Underneath was the skintight black Lycra mesh, studded with gleaming micro-contacts. She tossed the shirt aside.
Freedom smiled. “You wear your costume under your civilian clothes, ma’am?”
“It’s more convenient,” she said. “And it’s kind of a security blanket.”
They had half the crates open by the time the group of soldiers arrived. Four of them set up the legs while Danielle worked with Lieutenant Gibbs to assemble the codpiece. She found a ladder, lowered herself into the legs, and Freedom’s two super-soldiers got the torso locked together around her. The left arm went on without a problem, but there was some trouble with the right. By this point there was too much armor around Danielle for her to see the problem so she tried calling out instructions.
“Wow,” said Smith. He ran his fingers across the twisted metal on the battlesuit’s forearm. “What happened here?”
“A few months ago I got in a fight with another superhuman called Peasy,” said Danielle. “He ripped that M2 off and used it to club me in the head a couple of times. Wrecked the gun and the mounting, almost broke some of the optics, too.”
Stealth examined the damaged assembly. “What about this made it impossible to repair at the Mount?”
“Not much,” said Danielle. She tried to shrug, but buried in the inactive armor her tiny head just seemed to twitch. “Nothing. It just seemed like a waste of time to rebuild it after Peasy ripped off the old one. The barrel was bent, we didn’t have any more ammo for the guns, and…”
Smith looked up at her. “And…?”
She shrugged. “It felt like giving up,” she said. “If I was going to build things under half-assed conditions with iffy material, it meant I was accepting things were going to stay like this.”
The arm locked into place and they tightened down the bolts. One of the super-soldiers, Hancock, got the helmet balanced on a ladder while Gibbs made the final connections. He met Danielle’s eyes. “Is that all of it?”
She nodded. “Get the collar bolts done and stand back.”
The armored skull settled over her and the soldiers spun their allen wrenches. Hancock hopped off the ladder and pulled it away. The titan hummed with power and dozens of small hatches snapped shut across the armor, concealing the bolts. The collar slid together and the battlesuit’s eyes flared to life.
Cerberus flexed her fingers. “Much better,” she said. She made a point of looking down at Freedom. Then she stomped out into the sunlight. Colonel Shelly followed the battlesuit outside. All of the soldiers marched behind him except for Freedom. The oversized captain stood like a statue across from the cloaked woman.
“After you, ma’am,” he said.
Her cloak swirled around her as she strode out of the workshop.
Cerberus was holding a jeep in front of her at arm’s length. She set it down on the ground. “I’ve made a few adjustments, but at the last recorded test the suit could dead-lift nineteen-point-four tons. The armor can deflect sustained fifty caliber fire and can survive a direct RPG hit with minimal damage to the suit or the pilot.”
“Amazing,” said Colonel Shelly. He ran his eyes over the battlesuit’s armored plates. “Imagine if this suit had gone into production. Do you know what a company of these things could’ve done in Iraq or Afghanistan?”
“And this is still the Mark One system,” said the titan. “We’d planned out a few improvements for the Mark Two which we—”
“What is stored in that building?”
They all looked at Stealth. Her arm was pointing at the third structure in line after the workshop.
Smith’s smile appeared. “I’m not sure what you’re talking—”
“You have exchanged three glances with Colonel Shelly at times when Cerberus has turned toward that building. The first time you both looked at the building afterwards. At least one of you has looked at it each time since. What is stored there you are worried we will discover?”
“Ma’am, we’re less than an hour into this visit,” said Shelly. “You can’t expect us to be open—”
“Cerberus,” snapped Stealth.
Inside the suit Danielle shifted though her lenses. “It’s cooled to the point that I can’t make out any heat signatures inside,” said the titan. “I can hear some movement, though.”
“Open it,” ordered the cloaked woman.
The battlesuit took two steps forward and Freedom was in front of it. He set his huge hand against the armored chest. “Ma’am, I suggest you stand down.”
“Suggestion noted,” said Cerberus, brushing him away. Freedom tensed to fight but Shelly waved him down.
When the keypad didn’t respond to her codes the armored titan grabbed the edge of the door in her football-sized hands. The huge panels slid open with a groan of metal. Cold air washed out of the dark warehouse.
Over a hundred figures shuffled and turned towards the door. None of them blinked at the brilliant afternoon sun as it spilled over their dead eyes. They swayed for a brief moment and then the exes stumbled toward Cerberus.
Chapter 16 - Common Sense
THEN
Please consider this as an addendum to my original report, and I ask now for anyone reviewing this to excuse my informal language. I cite extenuating circumstances.