— BOOM!!
The small apartment erupted in a giant fireball that simultaneously shot out into the hall on one side and the windows on the others. Shattering glass into the street.
The explosion appeared on the satellite feed in the box. Baldo was ecstatic. “He did it!! He pulled it off!”
McCreary wasn’t so thrilled. “Where is he now?”
Hal leaned up against the back of the apartment building in an enclosed grassy courtyard. Fire alarms sounded. He knew he had to evacuate the area. Quick. His helmet was off with the face shield pointing at his chest, blinding all those watching from the box. He knew they had a tracking device on the suit and deduced they were watching over a helmet cam. His first order of business was to find shelter and remove the tracking device. He put the helmet on, dashed across the courtyard to the darkest corner he could find and scaled the building.
“He’s back,” McCreary said as the helmet cam image popped on the screen.
“That was a deliberate breach of protocol,” Trest replied over the speakers. “He’s conscious and he knows. Initiate self-destruct.”
“What?” Baldo asked.
“Yes, sir,” McCreary replied. “Self-destruct initiating.” He looked to a reluctant Baldo. “Do it or I will!”
“Yes, sir.” Baldo quickly typed in the command to self destruct. Typing fast enough that his keystrokes were a blur to Douglas and McCreary. Allowing him to enable the self destruct countdown on the visor HMD. The only warning he could give Ghost One. Baldo didn’t know if he did it to spare Hal’s life or to prolong his own entertainment of vicariously living the adventures of Ghost One.
Hal froze on the roof when he saw the thirty second countdown appear in his HMD. They know. Hal never accounted for a self-destruct device. He scurried over the roof and descended the apartment building. Racing down headfirst like a lizard skipping across a boulder in the hot sun. Hal leapt from the wall, landing on the pavement of a quiet street the width of an alley. The numbers on his HMD raced down. 05… 04… 03… He ripped the helmet off and hurled it. It hit twenty feet away and rolled down the dark, vacant street like a bowling ball. Hal watched. And waited.
The helmet cam monitor looked like the view from inside a crashed race car, tumbling down the road. The helmet finally setting on a sideways image of a helmet-less Hal at the end of the street. The self destruct counter in the box reached zero. Hal stood there, frozen. Nothing happened.The monitor in the box flashed SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATED.
“Why isn’t it working?” McCreary asked.
“What the hell’s going on?” Trest’s yelled. So loud, the sound level clipped from the inferior speakers in the box.
Baldo feigned bewilderment. Rattling away at the keyboard, looking up the source code. “I don’t know, sir.” He found the error lines. “It appears the self destruct signal broke when the helmet detached.”
“How?”
“I could only guess, sir. The programmers might not have accounted for a helmet removal in the self destruct. They probably figured helmet removal meant decapitation, so self destruct would be ineffective at destroying the entire suit.
Hal stood motionless in the quiet street. Looking at his helmet fifty feet away. Wondering why there was no explosion. He remembered how they powered up his suit — the control pad on his arm. He ripped the Velcro flap back, reading the labels on the flexible membrane buttons — POWER — PRESSURE — STEALTH. He pressed the power button. Nothing. He pressed it again, holding it down. His suit shut down. The cooling system came to a stop. Reassured, Hal strode to his helmet and picked it up. Feeling around inside for a similar power switch. Pushing padding to and fro until finding a membrane button. He pushed and held it. The visor HMD power shut down.
The flashing dot representing Ghost One disappeared from the satellite feed. “He’s gone dark,” Douglas said. “We lost his tracker.”
“We lost everything,” Baldo said. Wildly typing on the computer to start it back up.
“You can’t override it?” McCreary asked.
“No, sir. Manual power control is the default setting.”
Trest barked and screamed over the comms, saying he was on his way there. When he finally arrived, McCreary and Baldo had no answers for him, other than saying a ghost waking up was so improbable that no contingencies existed for the suit computer. If they became conscious, they wouldn’t know how to use the suit. “Unless they were conscious and watching when you powered it up!” Trest yelled.
Hal heard the Parisian fire trucks arriving at the apartment on the other side of the block. He took off in the opposite direction. Heading toward an intersection of a busy street.
Hal stood under a building awning that stretched to the curb — mindful of spying eyes above. Helmet in hand, he tried flagging down a taxi on either side of the street. Car after car whizzed past. He realized the submachine gun stuck to his chest may be scaring them off. He removed the MP10, pressing it down into the thick grass at his feet. He waved his helmet at approaching taxis and one finally stopped. Hal opened the door. Thanking the driver for stopping. Keeping the drivers eyes on him while he reached down and slid his rifle to the floorboard in back. Hopping in.
“Où aller?” The French cabby with a face of whiskers asked.
Hal’s strained accent and attempt to French-ize English words made it clear he was an American. “Uh, Le Hotelle?”
“L’hotel?”
“Si—, eh, OUI!”
The taxi took off. The cabby stared in the rear view. Looking at Hal’s black suit. “Fête costumée?”
“Uh, no, non comprendevous?”
The cabby pulled on his own shirt at his shoulder. Motioning to Hal’s suit with his eyes. “Masquerade?”
“No. Uh—” Hal gave up on the accent and left it up to the cabby to decipher his English. “Motorcycle.”
“‘Moto!’“ The cabby smiled, humored by Hal’s surrender of butchering the language.
“Yes, moto! Oui moto!”
The cabby pulled to the curb in front of a l’hotel. It looked like the neighboring buildings that sandwiched it in, aside from the small sign protruding from the wall. “Un hotel, monsieur.” The cabby nodded to the meter. “Douze Euro.”
Hal read the number twelve on the digital display and reached down to his boot. Giving a good tug. The cabby looked at him oddly. The stealth boot came off and Hal pulled down his sock, revealing the Ace bandage wound around his ankle. Hal quickly unfurled it. A passport and credit cards flew out of the wrapping. Hal finished unwrapping it and a couple hundred-dollar bills fell out with one stuck to his sweaty leg. Hal scooped up the whole bundle of Ace bandage, passport, cash and cards, asking the driver… “Change?”
The driver shook his head no. Then nodded to the hotel. “L’hôtel peut.”