Harrison turned to Smith. The agent walked between him and Stealth. He didn’t seem scared of her at all. “Sir,” said Harrison, “may I have a word?”
Smith glanced at his watch. “You do know we’re running a tight schedule, don’t you, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. It’s just…” Static roared in his head and he had to blink it away. He rubbed his face with his hand and realized his nose was bleeding again. He saw the swath of red on his hand and it helped him focus. “It sounds like there was some truth to what she said, about the Nest units not working. Perhaps we should contact Captain Freedom and make sure…”
“Make sure of what?”
“That we’re doing…that we should be…”
Smith watched the blood flow out of sergeant’s nose and tried not to take too much pleasure in it. He twitched when the voice spoke next to his ear.
“He is resisting your attempt to control him,” said Stealth.
Polk grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back. Smith could still feel her eyes boring into him. The woman had incredible willpower. He’d asked her to be quiet twice now. He hoped her nose was gushing blood under her mask.
“The sergeant just needs a moment to process his orders,” said the agent. He looked at the other soldiers. “We don’t need to remember this moment of weakness, do we?”
They nodded with the serene faces of discreet gentlemen. “Of course not, sir,” said Polk.
“Excellent. Thank you both.” He turned to Harrison. “We’re going to follow Colonel Shelly’s last orders, remember? We’re going to get this prisoner to Groom Lake and establish a base there. It’s even more urgent now that this ‘Legion’ is attacking here.”
Stealth spun and brought her arms down over Polk’s head. Twin blows to the base of the collarbones stunned him and trapped his neck between the two sets of handcuff chains. She vaulted over him, swung her hips across his shoulders, and dropped to the ground behind the soldier. The cuffs on her wrists pulled tight across his throat. “Release me,” she said, “or I will kill him.”
Taylor had his Bravo inches from her head, brushing the fabric of her hood. Harrison and Hayes stayed a few feet back with their weapons raised. “Don’t be stupid,” said Harrison. “You know you can’t get out of here.”
She tugged on the handcuffs again and laced her fingers over Polk’s mouth and nose. “He will asphyxiate in two minutes if you do not place your weapons on the ground and give me the handcuff key.”
“Standard procedure for moving prisoners,” said Harrison. “The key’s never in transit, only at either end of the—”
“The key is in the left front pocket of your pants on a silver ring. Corporal Polk now has one minute forty-six seconds left to live.”
“You’re supposed to be one of the good guys,” said Hayes. “You’re not going to kill a soldier in the line of duty.”
“One minute thirty-three seconds.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Smith, shaking his head. “You’re not going to kill him, are you, Stealth?”
The cloaked woman lurched forward an inch, just enough to loosen the chain. Polk took a deep, wheezing breath. “No,” she said.
“Would you mind releasing him then?”
She unlaced her fingers and pulled her arms over his head. In the process she yanked out his earbud, mussed his hair, and knocked off his cap. He took another deep breath. “Fucking bitch,” he muttered.
Smith gave her an annoyed look. “Can we make it all the way onto the helicopter without any more outbursts?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Do not expect to bend me to your will,” she said. Her voice was loud and clear in the tunnel.
“Lady, you’re already bent,” he said. “Be thankful I just want to get out of here or you’d be putting on a donkey show for the soldiers.”
Taylor chuckled.
“You have demonstrated a small amount of control when I was unprepared. Your limited influence forces you to use more indirect means. If you could assert direct control, you would have done so.”
“I’ve got direct control of half the base already,” snapped Smith.
“But not us,” said Stealth. “St. George and I are too strong-willed for you to influence directly. I would imagine Captain Freedom is too strong for you as well.”
“Freedom will put a gun in his mouth the moment I ask him to,” said Smith. His own voice was rising to match hers. “They all would. Don’t you get it? This has been my base for almost two years now.”
Harrison cocked his head and looked back and forth between the soldiers.
“Is that why you killed Colonel Shelly? Did he become a threat to you?”
“Shelly was my sock puppet up until he died,” said Smith. “He had just enough willpower to turn his own brain into mush trying to resist me. He’s lucky I let him live as long as I—”
“Sir,” barked Harrison. He held up his hand. The soldiers were looking back and forth at each other. The staff sergeant snapped his fingers, then again, then once more. Taylor tapped his collar and Hayes rubbed his own between his fingers.
Polk pulled his duty cap back on his head and coughed. They all looked at him. He blinked. “What?”
“You’re keying,” said Harrison with a glance at Stealth. “She turned your mic on!”
* * *
Ummmmm…did everyone else just hear all of that?
They’d just made it back to the main gate. Freedom and Kennedy exchanged looks. All the super-soldiers gave each other uneasy glances. St. George looked up at the gleaming wraith.
I never liked that guy.
* * *
Sorensen sat in the workshop and watched figures stumble by outside. He’d stayed hidden in the back office for an hour, but at some point he’d wandered out without thinking of it. From here, hidden in the shadows of the shop, he could see groups of soldiers running by, or the far more frequent mobs of exes. Several of them wore his non-functioning Nest units, but many more did not.
He tapped the fingers of his left hand against his thumb. His right fingers traced lines back and forth on one of the worktables. He was aware he was doing it. It was one of those faint moments of clarity when he realized he looked like a madman. He also realized he needed to trim his beard. Eva hated it when his beard got long.
He heard the cries and the screams, the clicking of teeth, and various shouted calls and orders. Someone would probably come to collect him, soon.
It all seemed distant. The guilty thoughts about the Nest and the ex-soldiers that had weighed on his fragile mind were gone. For the first time in over a year, he felt peaceful.
A trio of exes stumbled in through the wrecked doors. They weren’t any of his. These had all been civilians. The woman was dressed in a pant suit, bleached from ages in the sun. The two men were in plaid shirts and jeans. One of them had a thick beard. The other tripped over the edge of the door and fell forward. Its skull hit the ground with a solid crack, but Sorensen could hear its limbs moving on the floor, trying to push it upright. Not enough damage to the cerebellum, but it may have broken its jaw from the muffled sounds its teeth now made.
The dead woman saw him and stumbled forward. Her skin was like leather, and there were a few twigs and tiny leaves in her dark hair. He could see an elaborate cobweb stretched from a ragged ear to her shoulder. Her brittle lips were pulled back in a smile.
“I knew you’d come,” he said. “I kept telling them you were out there somewhere. None of them believed me.”
He pulled her close. His wife wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.
Chapter 30
NOW
“HOW MUCH LONGER WE GONNA KEEP THIS UP?” Hundreds of dead faces split into hundreds of grins. “YOU ASK ME, YOU GONNA RUN OUTTA BULLETS LONG BEFORE I RUN OUTTA BODIES.”